Taliban threatens to attack Shell Pakistan, Pakistan State Oil

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani Taliban have threatened to attack installations of Shell Pakistan and the state-run Pakistan State Oil if the two firms do not pay a total of Rs 400 million within 20 days as extortion money, a media report said on Sunday.

“I had personally spoken to the managing directors of the Pakistan State Oil and Shell Pakistan and demanded that they arrange to pay us Rs 200 million each. Otherwise, I had warned them that we would start attacking their installations anywhere in the country,” a senior Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan commander told The News on phone.

The unnamed commander claimed officials of the two oil companies had sought time to consider the Taliban’s demand. The commander further claimed the Taliban had never warned the companies to halt supplying fuel to NATO forces in Afghanistan.

He said officials of the companies “wrongly linked” the Taliban’s threat to ending oil supplies to the foreign forces.

The commander claimed the PSO had issued a statement to the media that said the the Taliban wanted the company to halt oil supplies to foreign forces in Afghanistan.

“It isn’t true. We never asked them to stop fuel supply to the US or NATO forces in Afghanistan. We had nothing to do with whatever they are doing. I just asked them to pay us Rs 200 million within 20 days, otherwise we would target their installations,” the commander was quoted as saying.

The Degenerate Parasites of Washington

[How many times have Washington and NATO leaders insisted that they were not in Libya to kill Qaddafi, yet victory was declared within 24 hrs. of his murder?  He was never to be collateral damage, always the primary objective from the start of the aggression.  It seems that Washington believes that it cannot survive unless all Muslim civilization is destroyed.]

The End of History

by Paul Craig Roberts

From the Foreign Policy Journal

Now that the CIA’s proxy army has murdered Gadhafi, what next for Libya?

If Washington’s plans succeed, Libya will become another American puppet state. Most of the cities, towns, and infrastructure have been destroyed by air strikes by the air forces of the US and Washington’s NATO puppets. US and European firms will now get juicy contracts, financed by US taxpayers, to rebuild Libya. The new real estate will be carefully allocated to lubricate a new ruling class picked by Washington. This will put Libya firmly under Washington’s thumb.

With Libya conquered, AFRICOM will start on the other African countries where China has energy and mineral investments. Obama has already sent US troops to Central Africa under the guise of defeating the Lord’s Resistance Army, a small insurgency against the ruling dictator-for-life. The Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner, welcomed the prospect of yet another war by declaring that sending US troops into Central Africa “furthers US national security interests and foreign policy.” Republican Senator James Inhofe added a gallon of moral verbiage about saving “Ugandan children,” a concern the senator did not have for Libya’s children or Palestine’s, Iraq’s, Afghanistan’s and Pakistan’s.

Washington has revived the Great Power Game and is vying with China. Whereas China brings Africa investment and gifts of infrastructure, Washington sends troops, bombs and military bases. Sooner or later Washington’s aggressiveness toward China and Russia is going to explode in our faces.

Where is the money going to come from to finance Washington’s African Empire? Not from Libya’s oil. Big chunks of that have been promised to the French and British for providing cover for Washington’s latest war of naked aggression. Not from tax revenues from a collapsing US economy where unemployment, if measured correctly, is 23 percent.

With Washington’s annual budget deficit as huge as it is, the money can only come from the printing press.

Washington has already run the printing press enough to raise the consumer price index for all urban consumers (CPI-U) to 3.9% for the year (as of the end of September), the consumer price index for urban wage earners and clerical workers (CPI-W) to 4.4% for the year, and the producer price index (PPI) to 6.9% for the year.

As statistician John Williams (shadowstats.com) has shown, the official inflation measures are rigged in order to hold down cost of living adjustments to Social Security recipients, thus saving money for Washington’s wars. When measured correctly, the current rate of inflation in the US is 11.5%.

What interest rate can savers get without taking massive risks on Greek bonds? US banks pay less than one-half of one percent on FDIC insured savings deposits. Short-term US government bond funds pay essentially zero.

Thus, according to official US government statistics, American savers are losing between 3.9% and 4.4% of their capital yearly. According to John Williams’ estimate of the real rate of inflation, US savers are losing 11.5% of their accumulated savings.

As retired Americans receive no interest on their savings, they are having to spend down their capital. The ability of even the most prudent retirees to survive the negative rate of interest they are receiving and the erosion by inflation of any pensions that they receive will come to an end once their accumulated assets are exhausted.

Except for Washington’s favored mega-rich, the one percent that has captured all of the income gains of recent years, the rest of America has been assigned to the trash can. Nothing whatsoever has been done for them since the financial crisis hit in December 2007. Bush and Obama, Republican and Democrat, have focused on saving the 1 percent while giving the finger to the 99 percent.

Finally, some Americans, though not enough, have caught on to the flag-waving rah-rah “patriotism” that has consigned them to the trash bin of history. They are not going down without a fight and are in the streets. Occupy Wall Street has spread. What will be the fate of this movement?

Will the snow and ice of cold weather end the protests, or send them into public buildings? How long will the local authorities, subservient to Washington as they are, tolerate the obvious signal that the population lacks any confidence whatsoever in the government?

If the protests last, especially if they grow and don’t decline, the authorities will infiltrate the protestors with police provocateurs who will fire on the police. This will be the excuse to shoot down the protestors and to arrest the survivors as “terrorists” or “domestic extremists” and to send them to the $385 million dollar camps built under US government contract by Cheney’s Halliburton.

The Amerikan Police State will have taken its next step into the Amerikan Concentration Camp State.

Meanwhile, lost in their oblivion, conservatives will continue to bemoan the ruination of the country by homosexual marriage, abortion, and “the liberal media.” Liberal organizations committed to civil liberty, such as the ACLU, will continue to rank a woman’s right to an abortion with defense of the US Constitution. Amnesty International will assist Washington in demonizing its next target for military attack while turning a blind eye to the war crimes of President Obama.

When we consider what Israel has got away with, being as it is under Washington’s bought protection—the war crimes, the murders of children, the eviction in total disregard of international law of Palestinians from their ancestral homes, the bulldozing of their houses and uprooting of their olive groves in order to move in fanatical “settlers,” the murderous invasions of Lebanon and Gaza, the wholesale slaughter of civilians—we can only conclude that Washington, Israel’s enabler, can get away with far more.

In the few opening years of the 21st century, Washington has destroyed the US Constitution, the separation of powers, international law, the accountability of government, and has sacrificed every moral principle to achieving hegemony over the world. This ambitious agenda is being attempted while simultaneously Washington removed all regulation over Wall Street, the home of massive greed, permitting Wall Street’s short-term horizon to wreck the US economy, thus destroying the economic basis for Washington’s assault on the world.

(Dr. Paul Craig Roberts served as President Reagan’s Asst. Secretary of the U.S. Treasury)

Clinton Warns Against Resisting America’s Islamist Shock-Troops

[SEE:  America’s “Islamists” Go Where Oilmen Fear to Tread]

Clinton warns Central Asian leaders on radical Islam

By Andrew Quinn

TASHKENT

(Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Tajikistan and Uzbekistan on Saturday that efforts to crack down on religious freedom might backfire.

She said this could lead to increased sympathy for radical views in Central Asia, a region the United States sees as key to the future stability of Afghanistan.

Clinton met Tajik President Imomali Rakhmon and Uzbek President Islam Karimov to thank the two Central Asian states for their cooperation in the U.S.-led war in neighboring Afghanistan.

She stressed to both that freedom of religious expression was tied to the region’s future security, U.S. officials said.

“I disagree with restrictions on religious freedom and shared those concerns,” Clinton told a news conference after meeting Rakhmon in Dushanbe on the last full day of her latest overseas trip.

She said efforts to regulate religion “could push legitimate religious expression underground, and that could build up a lot of unrest and discontent.”

Clinton’s visit to the two former Soviet republics came after a trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan that was focused on U.S. efforts to find a political solution to the decade-long Afghan conflict.

She also promoted greater regional economic integration under a plan U.S. officials have dubbed “the New Silk Road.”

Karimov and Rakhmon have moved to limit religious freedom in their countries which remain under authoritarian rule two decades after the break-up of the Soviet Union.

Tajikistan, a mainly Muslim country of 7.5 million people, introduced laws in August to ban youths from praying in mosques, churches and other religious sites, a move that was criticized by religious leaders.

Rakhmon, in power since 1992, has said tough measures are needed to stop the spread of religious fundamentalism in an impoverished country that shares a porous 1,340-km (840-mile) border with Afghanistan.

“You have to look at the consequences,” Clinton said in Tajikistan.

“We would hope there would be a rethinking of any restrictions going forward, because we think it will increase sympathy for extremist views which would in turn threaten the stability and security of the country.”

Rakhmon’s Moscow-backed secular government clashed with the Islamist opposition during a 1992-97 civil war, in which tens of thousands were killed.

The president has ignored previous requests from the West to respect freedom of conscience. He has ordered students home from religious schools abroad and clamped down on a growing trend for Islamic dress.

U.S. officials said Clinton also raised the issue with Uzbekistan’s Karimov — widely seen as one of the most repressive leaders in the region — as one of a number of human rights concerns that also include press freedom, human trafficking and political reforms.

Karimov, who has said he intends to make reforms, repeated these pledges to Clinton, one U.S. official said.

“He said that he wants to leave a legacy for both his kids and his grandchildren,” the official said. “The secretary welcomed that, and said that would help to build a long-term foundation for Uzbekistan but also for our cooperation.”

AFGHAN SUPPLIES

U.S. officials said Clinton’s Central Asian trip, her second to the region in less than 12 months, was aimed in a large part at thanking Tajikistan and Uzbekistan for their assistance with the Afghan conflict.

They said she also wanted to broaden a relationship giving the United States a important “back door” into Afghanistan and an alternative supply route that could prove vital if U.S. ties with its main ally in the region, Pakistan, unravel.

Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are part of what Washington calls the Northern Distribution Network (NDN), a supply line for U.S.-led forces fighting the Taliban that also stretches through Russia, Latvia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.

The NDN is increasingly important as U.S. ties with Pakistan come under strain over Washington’s charges that elements of the Pakistani government have links to Islamist militants blamed for attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

The United States is aiming to reduce the proportion of its surface cargo that it brings through Pakistan to only a quarter by increasing its supplies through the northern route; in July it was still well over half.

(Writing by Andrew Quinn and Robin Paxton; Editing by Michael Roddy)

Zbig’s Take On Obama’s World

[SEE:  Brzezinski: Tymoshenko's case isolating Ukraine from West]

Zbigniew Brzezinski Receives Jury du Prix Tocqueville Prize

• 
  By Zbigniew K. Brzezinski
  OCT 14, 2011

  Below is a speech by Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski delivered Friday, October 14, 2011 in Normandy, France upon receipt of the de Tocqueville Prize prize bestowed upon him by M. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, President of du Jury du Prix Tocqueville. Previous prize winners include Raymond Aron (1979); David Riesman (1980); Sir Karl Popper (1984); Octavo Paz (1989); Francois Furet (1991); and Daniel Bell (1999).

  ---

  I feel truly honored to be here in Normandy to receive the prize named after the pioneering thinker from this beautiful region of France.  Alexis de Tocqueville understood earlier and interpreted better than anyone the uniqueness of the American experiment – in its social, political and cultural dimensions.  In 1831,  his voyage to America was to a captivating but remote world – an undertaking more risky and less predictable than today’s explorations of outer-space – and his judgments are to this day remarkably prescient and incisive.  To understand America, one still has to read and absorb de Tocqueville.

  I am also deeply gratified by the presence here of President Giscard d’Estaing, who nominated me for the de Tocqueville Prize.  President Giscard is a remarkable leader with a long-range vision for Europe no less ambitious in its scope than de Tocqueville’s evocative predictions for America.  Europe today badly needs a compelling concept for tomorrow if it is to avoid a dangerous repetition of its recent past.  Mr. President, I admire you especially for daring to provide it.

  Finally, as an American of Polish origin, I have a special fondness for France – and especially for its enduring romance with historical grandeur, for its transcending political ideas, and for its alluring appreciation of the manifold dimensions of the truly good life.

  I was struck on rereading recently de Tocqueville’s work how well he understood – 175 years ago – the essence and the distinctiveness of America’s emerging power, both as a novel social experiment and as a sovereign state.  And also, alas, how well he anticipated the potential vulnerabilities of that historically unique country, which was taking shape as de Tocqueville journeyed throughout America’s vast and open spaces and pondered about its future.

  Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize winning economist, recently drew attention to the fact that Alexis de Tocqueville correctly perceived the major source of the peculiar genius of American society: its respect for what the French observer called “self-interest properly understood.” Stiglitz noted that everyone is motivated by self-interest in its narrow sense, but that  de Tocqueville’s emphasis on self-interest “properly understood” was his recognition that early Americans uniquely also cared for everyone else’s self-interest. In other words,  they instinctively understood that respect for the common welfare is in fact the precondition for one’s own ultimate well-being.

  The foregoing observation is especially relevant to our understanding of the challenge facing contemporary America.  Though a democracy, it is becoming a country of socially ominous extremes between the few super rich and the increasingly many who are deprived.  In America today the top 1% of the richest families own around 35% of the entire nation’s wealth, while the bottom 90% own around 25%.   It should be a source of perhaps even greater concern that the majority of all currently serving Congressmen and Senators, and similarly most of the top officials in the executive branch, fall in the category of the very rich, the so-called top 1%.

  At the same time, though still a unique super-power, America finds it difficult to cope with the consequences of the increasingly accelerating global changes that are spinning out of control, both on the socio-economic and on the geopolitical levels. Socio-economically, the world is becoming a single playing-field in which 3 dynamic realities increasingly prevail:  globalization, “internetization”, and deregulation.

  Today instant financial transactions involving billions of dollars occur literally in seconds; often essentially speculative in character and unrelated to either technological innovation or new forms of employment,  they create instant wealth on an unprecedented scale for only a few.  Investments and employment opportunities abroad, guided largely by opportunistic self-interest,  now transcend national interests.

  Politically, that very same world – despite the seeming concentration of global power in the hands of the very few states with enormous economic and military capacity — is witnessing the dispersal of power.  The West is declining because it lacks the will to unite, while the East is rising but also facing the danger of selfish rivalry and potential conflicts among its principal states. Neither existing national governments nor rudimentary regional arrangements are capable of providing effective discipline, not to mention asserting control, over the autonomous financial-economic universe so recently shaped by globalization, “internetization”, and deregulation.

  The foregoing crisis of global power is further complicated by the appearance of the sudden phenomenon of mass political awakening.  Most recently in the Arab world, the now universal reality of political awakening is the cumulative product of an interactive and interdependent world connected by instant visual communications and of a demographic youth bulge composed of the easy to mobilize and politically restless university students and the socially deprived unemployed present in the less advanced societies.  Both groups resent the richer portions of humanity and the privileged corruption of their rulers.  That resentment of authority and privilege is unleashing populist passions with explosive potential for unleashing large-scale international turmoil.

  America’s ability to respond to this volatile world is complicated by another socio-political feature of the America that de Tocqueville presciently noted and of which he warned: public ignorance.  When discussing the influence of the majority in America he wrote, “I know of no country where there is generally less independence of thought and real freedom of debate than in America.” That despotism of ignorance, which de Tocqueville said “leaves the body alone and goes straight to the spirit”, has the unfortunate effect of quite often diminishing the quality of political leadership in America.  Again he wrote, “Some vexing effects are evident in the American national character.  I think that the presence of the small number of remarkable men upon the political scene has to be due to the ever-increasing despotism of the American majority.” 

  Today, such “despotism” is manifested in the public’s ignorance of the world around it and in that public’s reluctance to demand and accept short-term and fairly distributed social sacrifice in exchange for long-term renewal.  That same ignorance – or, more accurately, indifference – handicaps America’s capacity to deal with the external world, and specifically with the dilemmas to which I have referred.

  The political remedies that are necessary for America to overcome its current domestic troubles are obstructed by yet another shortcoming that in 1835 de Tocqueville could describe only in general terms: namely, political gridlock and hyper-partisanship. Our political parties of today seem deserving of the criticism leveled by de Tocqueville against what he then called “small parties.”  He wrote, “their character is imbued with a selfishness which obviously colors each of their actions…their language is violent, but their progress is timid and over-cautious.  The means they employ are despicable …..” This current political stalemate must be overcome in order for America again to look outward with its customary historical confidence.

  But such national confidence requires a broader strategic vision and a sense of historical purpose pointed towards an eventually global acceptance of the principle of “self-interest properly understood”. I do feel strongly that unchecked financial speculation has both economic and social consequences that urgently require wider and stricter national and international  political supervision. Effective global political cooperation can only emerge out of a broader consensus – one that must be promoted both on a regional, and eventually, on a global basis.

  For America, which is both an Atlantic and a Pacific power, that means – in my view – nothing less than a renewed and ambitious effort to give meaning to the notion of an Atlantic community – involving in the short-run both America and the EU – and in the long-run gradually also both Russia and Turkey.  That America and Europe need each other is obvious – and that they share the same political values is especially important at a time when the world is suddenly politically awakened and seeking its own self-definition.  Alas, only too often that search is focused on self-interest selfishly understood.

  Hence  a more ambitious strategic vision should not be limited only to America and Europe.  In my soon forthcoming book, I argue that in the longer-run – in the course of the next 2 or 3 decades – it should be possible to engage Russia as well.  Note what de Tocqueville wrote in 1835, when concluding Part I of his “Democracy in America”: “Today, two great nations of the earth seem to be advancing toward the same destination from different starting points: the Russians and the Anglo-Americans…All other nations appear to have reached almost the upper limits of their natural development and have nothing left to do except preserve what they have, whereas these two nations are growing.”

  To be sure, he did note correctly the dramatic contrasts between America and Russia: Americans, with “freedom as their main mode of action”, would use their belief in the principle of self-interest and their common sense to occupy and civilize their vast continent, overcoming natural obstacles to build a strong American democracy.  The Russians, with “slavish obedience” as their main mode of action, would employ the “soldier’s sword” at the command of “a single man” to conquer civilization.   And he warned that while “the point of departure is different, their paths are diverse but each of them seems destined by some secret providential design to hold in their hands the fate of half the world at some date in the future.”         

  It is now clear that Russia’s destiny is no longer the exercise of control over “half of the world.” Rather it is how its can survive its internal stagnation and depopulation within the context of a rising East and a richer (even if perplexed) West.   And that is why a western policy that encourages Ukraine’s closer ties with the EU is the essential precursor to as well as stimulus for Russia’s eventual closer engagement with the West.  That may not happen under a President Putin, but the internal preconditions for democratic evolution in Russia are growing and, in my view, will eventually preponderate.  Russians are more open to the world now than ever before.

  The same strategic goal of a revitalized and larger West should also apply to Turkey.  It is most desirable for three key reasons that Turkey should see its future as part of the West.  First, Turkey’s internal democratization and spreading modernization is evidence that neither democratization nor modernization are incompatible with Islam.  Second, Turkey’s commitment to peaceful cooperation with its Middle Eastern neighbors is consistent with the security interests of the West in that region.  Third, a Turkey that is increasingly western, secular, and yet also Islamic could undermine the appeal of Islamic extremism and enhance regional stability in Central Asia not only to its own benefit but also to that of Europe and Russia.  Additionally, a democratic, secular yet Islamic Turkey can be most influential in encouraging the Arab states towards stable democracy.

  While of less immediate consequence for Europe, America’s longer-term role in the rising new East can be equally important – both in avoiding conflict and in engaging China and Japan in more active global roles.  US policy in the new East must not be confined solely to a China-centric concentration on the otherwise mutually beneficial special partnership with Beijing; it must also encourage a genuine reconciliation between Japan – a democracy and America’s principal Pacific Ocean ally – and China, as well as seek to mitigate the growing rivalry between China and India.  Only through a balanced approach and abstinence from mainland Asian conflicts can the US promote lasting stability in Asia and assist Asia’s own quest for social and political modernity.

  Let me conclude by noting that the global role that I feel America should play ultimately depends on the capacity of its society to live up to the expectations that de Tocqueville so brilliantly and insightfully expressed 175 years ago. Like him, I too believe in the powerfully redeeming potential of America’s democracy.  And I have especially in mind  the universal relevance to the now politically awakened world of America’s early embrace of the revolutionary concept of “self-interest properly understood”.

Arab Marshall Plan Or Buying-Off the Underclass?

Mideast power brokers call for “Marshall Plan” after unrest

Leaders attend the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum (WEF) on the Middle East at the King Hussein Convention Centre at the Dead Sea October 22, 2011. Pictured are Iraq’s Kurdistan region Prime Minister Barham Salih (2nd L); Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad (3rd L); Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari (4th L); Hilde Schwab (5th R), the wife of WEF founder Klaus Schwab; Jordan’s Queen Rania (4th R), Spanish King Juan Carlos (3rd R), Qatar’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani (2nd R) and Jordan’s Prince Faisal bin al-Hussein (R).

Credit: Reuters/Majed Jaber

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

DEAD SEA, Jordan

(Reuters) – Arab politicians and financiers at the World Economic Forum in Jordan called on Saturday for a huge injection of cash to narrow the inequalities that led to the Arab Spring revolts against authoritarian regimes across the region.

Days after the killing of former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, senior figures said a home-grown version of the Marshall Plan was needed in the wake of the revolts, which have raised people’s hopes for swift economic improvements after decades of corruption and mismanagement.

The proposal was the most specific put forward by senior figures meeting at a luxurious Dead Sea convention center to try and chart a new economic course for the region after its most sweeping upheaval since colonial powers divided most of the Middle East following the downfall of the Ottoman Empire.

Under the Marshall Plan, large sums flowed into Western Europe to rebuild the continent, restore productivity and prevent U.S. allies from falling under the Soviet sphere of influence.

“I am afraid that Arab Spring could turn into an autumn if the issue of social justice is not achieved. A Marshall Plan is needed,” said Hassan al-Boraei, Egypt’s labor minister.

“The old model of relying on state employment and big projects is no longer viable,” Boraei said, adding that Egypt needed to find jobs for 950,000 people entering the workforce annually, with unemployment running at 12-17 percent.

Outrage against autocratic rule and associated nepotism and corruption sparked a democratic revolution in Tunisia in December that cascaded into what has become known as the Arab Spring.

So far, the revolts have toppled the leaders of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, with mass protests continuing in Syria and Yemen, threatening their autocratic presidents.

ANTIQUATED POLICES

“If the Arab Spring hopes to achieve anything it is to attain good governance. This does not necessitate only democracy and freedom but social justice, meaning economic policies that meet popular aspirations,” said Arab League Secretary General Nabil Elaraby.

Prominent banker Ibrahim Dabdoub said the proposed “Arab Marshall Plan” could be funded by Gulf petrodollars and regional development banks, as there is little hope for major funding from Western nations dealing with their own economic trouble.

“This region needs 85 million jobs … and a Marshall Plan with the help of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund has become a pre-requisite of development,” said Dabdoub, a Palestinian who heads the National Bank of Kuwait, the country’s biggest lender.

Libya’s Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril was more skeptical about whether money alone would improve the region’s lot, saying “the problem of the Arab world is not a question of money but the management of money.”

Jibril also said on Saturday that Libyans should be allowed to vote within eight months to elect a national council to draft a new constitution and form an interim government.

Making a keynote speech at the conference, Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad al-Thani said economic models had only benefited ruling classes and their cohorts, sparking the Arab Spring.

Qatar, an absolute monarchy with one of the world’s highest per capita incomes, has played an international role beyond its tiny size by virtue of its natural gas wealth and ownership of the satellite al-Jazeera channel.

Al-Thani did not address the issue of funding but said Arab economic policies that rely on attracting investment in tourism and real estate while ignoring corruption and the need to raise productivity and education standards have largely failed.

In recent years Arab states have tried to emulate the ‘Dubai model’, encouraging the setting up of big holding companies tied with the ruling hierarchy that were awarded privatization deals and embarked on large property ventures while public corruption deepened and unemployment remained stubbornly high.

Asked about his advice for Arab rulers, al-Thani said: “Don’t fight to stay in your position. What sort of power (will) you have after killing your own people?”

(Additional reporting by Tom Pfeiffer and Suleiman al-Khalidi; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Chávez’s party reports October destabilizing plan

[SEE:  Otto Reich: Mastermind of the April 2002 coup d'etat against President Hugo Chavez ]

Chávez’s party reports destabilizing plan

Leader of ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) Aristóbulo Istúriz said that unions have prepared street protests

  EL UNIVERSAL

Ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) reported that the Venezuelan opposition sectors, supported by the foreign oligarchy, have prepared a destabilizing plan to be implemented in October, including street blockades and protests.

Leader of ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) Aristóbulo Istúriz said mainly trade unions and workers in the country will stage this type of action.

“Foreign actors are trying to ignite destabilization in the country. In October, they have prepared a wave of actions such as street blockades that will be staged by workers and trade unions. This shows that there is a foreign plan aimed at isolating and destabilizing Venezuela,” he said at a press conference held at the headquarters of the PSUV.

Istúriz called on the opposition not to continue talking about the health of President Hugo Chavez: “I believe that Chávez is driving them (the opposition) crazy and that they have no life electorally speaking. The president has demonstrated his strength amidst the situation he has faced.”

England Experiences “Mother-Frackin” Earthquakes from Halliburton’s Multi-Trillion Dollar Brainchild

[SEE:  The Halliburton Loophole ]

GASLAND Trailer 2010, posted with vodpod

Expert Says Quakes in England May Be Tied to Gas Extraction

By HENRY FOUNTAIN

A British seismologist said Friday that two minor earthquakes in northwestern England “appeared to correlate closely” with the use of hydraulic fracturing, a method of extracting natural gas from wells that has raised concerns about environmental and seismological risks in the United States.

The scientist, Brian Baptie, seismic project team leader with the British Geological Survey, said data from the two quakes near Blackpool — one of magnitude 2.3 on April 1, the other of magnitude 1.5 on May 27 — suggested the temblors arose from the same source. Cuadrilla Resources, a British energy company, was conducting hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, operations at a well nearby when the quakes occurred.

In fracking, water, sand and chemicals are injected into a well at high pressure to split shale rock and release trapped gas.

The company suspended its fracking operations shortly after the second earthquake, which, like the first, was barely felt and caused no damage. Paul Kelly, a Cuadrilla spokesman, said a report by several academic scientists on the quakes, commissioned by the company, should be released in a few weeks.

“We’re waiting for the independent report,” he said.

One possibility is that the British government, through the Department of Energy and Climate Change, might require modification to the fracking process.

Mr. Kelly said Cuadrilla Resources had drilled three wells — the only shale-gas wells so far in Britain — and had conducted fracking operations at only one.

Fracking is now widespread in the United States, and has been blamed by some landowners, environmentalists and public officials for contaminating waterways and drinking water supplies. Some critics have also said that the technology could cause significant earthquakes.

But Stephen Horton, a seismologist at the University of Memphis, said, “Generally speaking, fracking doesn’t create earthquakes that are large enough to be felt.” Even so, Mr. Horton said that after looking at the British Geological Survey’s analysis of the Blackpool earthquakes, “the conclusions are reasonable.”

Mr. Horton and others investigated a swarm of earthquakes in 2010 and 2011, including one of magnitude 4.7, in an area of central Arkansas where fracking was being conducted. The scientists found that the earthquakes were probably caused not by fracking but by the disposal of waste liquids from the process into other wells. Those wells have since been shut down.

Mr. Baptie said that in the Blackpool quakes, the high-pressure injection of water during fracking may have reduced the stresses on a nearby fault, causing it to slip.

He said one question was whether even larger earthquakes could occur if the fracking continued. While he said that it might be possible to go from a magnitude 2.3 to about a 3.0, “the chances of getting a very large earthquake are negligible.”

US To Pull-Out of Decimated Iraq, Leaving State Dept. Army of Private Killers Behind

U.S. Troop Pullout May Leave Iraq Struggling as Iran Benefits

By Nicole Gaouette

(Bloomberg) — The end of the long American war in Iraq will begin the test of what that effort has produced.

After almost nine years, $800 billion and almost 5,000 U.S. dead, President Barack Obama announced yesterday that the 39,000 remaining troops will be home for the holidays, “heads held high, proud of their success.”

They will leave behind a U.S. presence in the form of the world’s largest embassy, without a large military force’s protection, intelligence, supply chain and transportation. Diplomats will encourage peace and development in a largely Shiite Muslim Iraq that is divided by ethnic and religious tensions and sits on the fault line between Persian Shiite Iran and the Sunni Arab world.

“This has profound implications,” said Mohsen Milani, chairman of the government and international relations department at the University of South Florida in Tampa, in a telephone interview. “It will intensify the competition for power inside Iraq, leave the Iraqi Shiites more dependent on Iran and the Sunnis on Saudi Arabia and leave the Kurds as orphans who probably will continue to align themselves with the Shiites.”

The U.S. pullout is “an unprecedented strategic gift to the Islamic Republic of Iran,” said Milani.

Anthony Cordesman, an analyst at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Iraqi forces may not be ready to provide security and violence will likely rise. U.S. diplomats in Iraq face unprecedented demands. Iran, as a result, stands to gain.

‘Not Success’

“The reality is that this is not success,” Cordesman said in a telephone interview. “It certainly isn’t a drastic failure, but we are now facing a major power vacuum in Iraq and dealing with a power vacuum of this magnitude is a very serious matter.”

Republican critics such as California Representative Buck McKeon said that leaving now will make it harder for the Iraqis to stabilize their country.

U.S. troop levels in Iraq hit 90,000 in March 2003 with the invasion and increased to 148,000 that year, according to U.S. Central Command figures. The U.S. deployment peaked at 166,300 in October 2007, during the surge to curb the outbreak of violence in largely Sunni Muslim Anbar Province. The level is about 39,000 today, according to the Pentagon.

The administration proposed leaving a residual force of 3,000 troops in Iraq, if the Iraqi government were willing to extend them immunity from prosecution.

‘Ferocious’ Opposition

Kenneth Pollack, a director of the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy, said that number would have been too small to accomplish anything.

Iraqi hostility to the U.S. presence and “ferocious Iranian opposition” to it were all factors in the decision to pull all troops out, Pollack wrote in an analysis of the president’s announcement.

Obama said that talks on training and equipping Iraqi forces will continue, and his announcement doesn’t preclude the possibility that some American troops in Iraq might still be kept or return, especially if ethnic violence increases or Iran makes aggressive moves.

The U.S. withdrawal offers Iran an opportunity to form “a link to Iraq, Syria and Lebanon,” Cordesman said, increasing the possibility of a regional clash “at a time when we lack the budget to deal with a serious regional crisis.”

Iranian Weapons

The U.S. blames Iran’s elite Quds Force for training and equipping Shiite militia groups in Iraq, said David Newton, a former U.S. ambassador to Iraq from 1984 to 1988. It also has introduced anti-tank weapons into the country, Newton said in a telephone interview.

Administration officials said that reviews over the last seven to eight months have found that Iraqi security forces are ready to take on that challenge.

“One assessment after another about the Iraqi security forces came back saying these guys are ready, these guys are capable, these guys are proven,” Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough said yesterday.

Newton said that, when the U.S. troops leave, they will take with them tools and resources that had been helpful to the Iraqi forces, including intelligence collection capabilities and equipment such as helicopter gunships.

“The Iraqis do have some special forces, but they’ve got a way to go,” Newton said, “Without the U.S. backup, in terms of intel collection, coordination, I think this will be pretty challenging for them.”

Those special forces will be overseen by a divided government without a functioning legislature or officials manning high-level posts, including that of defense minister.

History of War

Robin Wright, at the U.S. Institute of Peace, cautioned against the idea that withdrawal from Iraq will allow Iran to extend its influence. While both are both predominantly Shiite Muslim nations, they fought the Middle East’s deadliest war from 1980 to 1988, leaving 123,000 dead. They are rivals over religious leadership, identity, politics and territory, said.

“Yes, the Shiites have a natural link,” Wright said in a telephone interview. “But the nationalism and history also will be important in defining what happens to Iraq after the United States leaves.”

Newton concurred. “The Shias of Iraq, having waited so long to come to power, don’t want to hand it over to Iran,” he said.

Still, the withdrawal may intensify the rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia, said Milani. The Saudis blame Iran for fomenting unrest in majority-Shiite Bahrain and in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province.

Diplomatic Danger

The U.S. withdrawal will leave American diplomats in Iraq with new responsibilities and dangers. “The State Department is being asked to do things it’s never done before,” Newton said, including managing a huge contracted workforce.

With the troops gone, security for diplomats and facilities will be the responsibility of some 5,000 contract employees who probably will face increased violence and incidents of terrorism, Cordesman said.

U.S. intelligence officers who remain in Iraq and those contractors will no longer have the stream of information on potential threats that now comes from American military outposts around the country, said a U.S. intelligence official who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly.

Cities such as Kirkuk, with four linguistic groups, and Mosul, where there is long-standing friction between Sunni Kurds and Sunni Arabs, are most likely to erupt, Newton said.

Expanded Embassy

In all, about 16,000 personnel will be assigned to the embassy in Iraq, about 1,700 of them diplomats, experts in fields such as business and agriculture and law enforcement officers, while around 5,000 will be security contractors to guard personnel and facilities including consulates, according to State Department figures.

The newly established Office of Security Cooperation in the Embassy will have a core staff of 160 civilians and uniformed military alongside 750 civilian contractors overseeing Pentagon assistance programs, including military training. They will be guarded, fed and housed by 3,500 additional contract personnel.

The security cooperation office will also operate out of 10 offices around the country, half of them shared with other embassy personnel. The embassy will have consulates in Basra, Irbil and Kirkuk. The State Department will provide Iraqi police training with its own personnel.

“What’s unusual is the scale and the militarization of the foreign service” as it oversees the thousands of security personnel, Newton said. The agency will even run its own airline to shuttle staff around the country. “This is not the kind of thing that diplomats do,” he said.

–With assistance from Tony Capaccio, Viola Gienger and David Lerman in Washington. Editors: John Walcott, Steven Komarow.

To contact the reporter on this story: Nicole Gaouette in Washington at ngaouette@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net

Central Asia: Clinton Should Set Record Straight on Rights

Source:  Human Rights Watch

United States Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton should make clear to the leaders of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan during her upcoming visits that improving their poor human rights records is a key component of their engagement with the US.

(Washington, DC) – United States Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton should make clear to the leaders of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan during her upcoming visits that improving their poor human rights records is a key component of their engagement with the US, Human Rights Watch said today.

Clinton is to visit Tashkent, the Uzbek capital, on October 23, 2011, and is expected to meet with President Islam Karimov and separately with Uzbek civil society activists. Her trip to the region will also include a stop in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, for similar high-level meetings.

“Washington should not allow Uzbekistan’s standing as a strategic partner to distort reality about the government’s deplorable record,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director for Human Rights Watch. “Secretary Clinton’s trip is a crucial opportunity to set the record straight and underscore Tashkent’s urgent need to end abuses.”

The visit to Tashkent is the first since the administration’s controversial movein September to lift longstanding restrictions on financial assistance, including military assistance, to Uzbekistan. The restrictions were imposed in 2004 because of Tashkent’s appalling rights record. News media reports following the move quoted Clinton as saying that Uzbekistan was “showing signs of improving its human rights record and expanding political freedoms.”

Clinton should press Uzbekistan to release wrongfully imprisoned rights activists, allow civil society to operate freely, end torture in its detention facilities, and stop the use of forced child labor, Human Rights Watch said.

Uzbek authorities freed a critically ill human rights defender, Norboi Kholjigitov, on October 14, in what was widely considered an advance gesture ahead of Clinton’s visit. The veteran activist was imprisoned in June 2005 following a conviction on politically motivated charges and was subjected to abuse in prison.

“Kholjigitov’s release is an encouraging development that could not have come a moment too soon for someone so critically ill,” Williamson said. “It shows that it’s possible for the US to get results if it presses for change and underscores the urgent need for Secretary Clinton to call for further improvements.”

The Uzbek government continues to hold at least 12 human rights defenderson wrongful charges. They are: Solijon Abdurakhmanov, Azam Formonov, Nosim Isakov, Gaibullo Jalilov, Alisher Karamatov, Jamshid Karimov, Abdurasul Khudainasarov, Ganihon Mamatkhanov, Habibulla Okpulatov, Yuldash Rasulov, Dilmurod Saidov, and Akzam Turgunov. Many other journalists and political activists remain behind bars for no other reason than their legitimate civil society activism.

Human Rights Watch called on Clinton to make clear, both in private meetings with Uzbek officials and civil society activists and in public statements, that aid concessions will be made only if there is measurable progress in human rights.

“Secretary Clinton should leave no doubt that the US government is seriously concerned about Tashkent’s lack of meaningful progress on human rights,” Williamson said.

Tajikistan’s record, too, is marred by serious abuses, which Clinton should raise with top officials during her visit, Human Rights Watch said.

The recent convictions of two independent journalists on what appear to be politically motivated charges related to their legitimate journalism work tops the list of concerns, Human Rights Watch said. On October 14, Urunboy Usmonov, a longtime BBC journalist, was found guilty of complicity in the activities of a banned religious extremist organization, Hizb ut Tahrir, apparently for failing to report on their activities. He was sentenced to three years in prison, but subsequently amnestied so will not be serving prison time. During his trial Usmonov alleged he was subjected to ill-treatment in custody, including being beaten and burned on his arms with cigarettes.

Makhmadyusuf Ismoilov is a reporter with the independent weekly Zuri Zindagi, who has been in prison since November 2010 facing multiple charges including insult and defamation, and was similarly convicted on October 14 and released under an amnesty. He has to pay a large fine and is banned from journalism for three years.

The government also has cracked down more broadly on media freedoms and restricted religious freedoms. A new “Parental Responsibility Law” requires parents to prevent their children from participating in religious activity until they reach age 18, except if they are enrolled in official, state-sanctioned religious education.

Torture is an enduring problem in the country’s detention facilities and is believed to have resulted in at least two deaths so far in 2011.

Will Seif al Islam Gadhafi Avoid NATO Assassins, To Have His Day In Court?

Targeted for assassination by NATO?  Will Seif al Islam Gadhafi survive to have his day in court?

 

Franklin Lamb

 

During the late evening of 10/20/11 the White House, the Office of the Secretary of State, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Libyan Embassy in Washington, DC received a faxed communication from an American organized international legal team currently preparing their departure to Libya.

 

The international lawyers, whose assistance has been arranged through Gadhafi family members and friends, has accepted the obligation to represent Seif al Islam against charges filed by the International Criminal Court on June 26, 2011 and to represent him in any and all legal proceedings that the NTC government may bring against him in Libya. They have been advised by Gadhafi supporters in Libya and neighboring countries that the NTC at the direction of NATO, fully intends to see Seif al Islam killed before he can address the international media and his supporters, following the transfer of his father’s leadership authority to Seif on August 29, 2011. Seif has been planning to announce his candidacy in the planned coming election. Informal polls throughout Libya have shown him garnering close to 70% of the vote if he is allowed to stand for office under the now NATO controlled country.

 

This observer is a member of the group of international lawyers who seek justice for their client, Seif al Islam.

An excerpt of the communication served in Washington reads:

 

“We demand that our client, Seif al Islam al Gadhafi be immediately protected should he be arrested and that if injured that he be kept under the continual watch and care by the International Committee of the Red Cross until we are granted personal contact with him and have the opportunity to complete current efforts at arranging interim measures of protection to guarantee his safety.

 

We insist that our client not be questioned or interrogated by anyone including representatives of the current government of Libyan or by investigators from the ICC until he has had the opportunity for legal consultation and until he recovers from any wounds.

The rights of Seif al Islam must be protected in full compliance with international norms and we call on the United Nations Security Council and International Human Rights Organizations to act immediately to protect our client.

We respectfully request that the International Criminal Court take custody of the remains of Moammar and Mutassim Gadhafi, and conduct forensic examinations preparatory to filing criminal charges against those responsible for these extra-judicial killings.

 

Information arriving from family members and friends of our client Seif al Islam leaves no doubt that NATO has ordered his killing. His planned, and we believe  White House approved assassination is meant to spare NATO the international accountably that awaits them as the World learns from eyewitness accounts and reliable, competent and probative physical and demonstrative evidence compiled over the past six months, exactly what NATO has wrought on Libya and its civilian population.

 

Shortly we will file with the ICC our formal demand for our clients protection and his transfer, if captured, to a sanctuary outside of Libya lest he be assassinated as was the fate today of his father, Colonel Moammar al Gadhafi.

 

We intend to hold the current governments of Libya and the United States as well as NATO fully responsible for the brutal assassination of our client’s father and brother Mutassim and for any abuse or harm that is directed at our client, Seif al Islam.

 

We intend to prove in Court that since the passage of UN Security Resolution by the United Nations Security Council on March 17, 2011, NATO has repeatedly targeted civilian targets with more than 9,000 bombing sorties in Libya as part of its campaign to assassinate the Libyan leader Colonel Gadhafi and his close aides and advisers.

 

We intend to prove in Court that NATO did repeatedly sanction others to carry out Moammar Gadhafi’s assassination and that his killers on October 20, 2011 knew that a large cash award awaited them if they killed Colonel Gadhafi thus silencing him from testifying against NATO officials and current Western leaders who led the eight month destruction of Libya.”

The next few days will be a major test for the international community and whether the application of international law will be applied to Libya.  The outcome will also likely signal whether Libya descends more deeply into civil war involving as many as six African countries who are reportedly organizing troop units to be sent into Libya to help protect civilians from NATO forces who are arriving to help re-build the country that NATO  needlessly and criminally substantially destroyed.

 

Franklin Lamb is a member of the American led legal team that intends to defend Seif al Islam against current charges filed against him at the International Criminal Court. He is reachable c/ofplamb@gmail.com

Iran Blames CIA’s Favorite Pets, Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK), for Saudi Ambassador Plot

[Zionist America’s favorite communist terrorists]

Iran links dissident group to Saudi ambassador assassination plot

Suspect is reported to be a member of a dissident group in an apparent attempt by Tehran to distance itself from allegations

• Saeed Kamali Dehghan
• guardian.co.uk

The Iranian leaders Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has refused to investigate US claims of an assassination plot. Photograph: AP

Tehran has pointed the finger at a dissident group it considers a “sworn enemy” in an attempt to distance itself from US accusations that the Islamic regime in Iran conspired to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington.

Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency reported that one of the two suspects the US said were involved in a plot to hire a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate Adel al-Jubeir is a “key member” of an Iranian dissident group, the People’s Mujahideen of Iran (MEK).

“The person in question has been travelling to different countries under the names of Ali Shakuri/Gholam Shakuri/Gholam-Hossein Shakuri by using fake passports, including forged Iranian passports,” according to Mehr.

Last week, the US brought charges against an American-Iranian, Mansour Arabsiar, 56, who was arrested at New York’s JFK airport on 29 September, and Gholam Shakuri, an Iranian who remains at large in Iran, according to US officials.

The pair, who the US says were the main culprits behind the alleged Iranian murder-for-hire plot, were identified in a sting operation involving the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Shakuri was described by the US as a member of Iran’s Quds Force, a special unit of the country’s elite Revolutionary Guards, tasked with overseas operations. But Mehr said Interpol “has found new evidence” that suggests Shakuri is associated with the MEK and “was last seen in Washington and Camp Ashraf in Iraq where [MEK] members are based”.

The MEK, which is based in Paris, remains unpopular inside Iran because of its support for the former Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, during the Iran-Iraq war but is also designated as terrorist organisation by the US and Canada, though not by the European Union.

In recent years, Iran has been quick to blame the MEK for many of its internal problems, including the protests that followed its disputed presidential elections in 2009. Many political and human rights activists imprisoned in Iran have been falsely accused of having links to the organisation. The MEK has denied the Iranian claims and neither Interpol nor the US have so far reacted to Mehr’s report.

If the MEK alleged link turns out to be true, it would be a big embarrassment for Washington, which has already met widespread scepticism over its version of events of Iran’s involvement in the assassination plot.

Both Tehran’s sympathisers and its critics have questioned the US claims that Iran was directly linked to the alleged plot to kill Jubeir, a close confidant of the Saudi king.

Little evidence has been provided by the US in support of its claim and the amateurish and sloppy nature of it have led to many analysts speculating that the alleged plot might have been the work of rogue elements, with the aim of pleasing the authorities in Tehran or, in contrast, smearing a regime which is already isolated by the international community.

Since last week, Iran has mounted a firm rebuttal of US accusations, with many of its senior officials claiming Washington is struggling to divert attention from its economic and social problems, especially the Occupy Wall Street protests in recent weeks.

Despite the unity in rejecting the claims, Iranian officials have made contradictory remarks over the handling of the events, which has highlighted the extent of the chaos in Iranian politics at a time when a power struggle is developing between the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iran’s foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, said on Monday that Tehran was ready to investigate assassination charges, but within hours, Ahmadinejad contradicted his own minister by telling al-Jazeera television that the country would not investigate the US claims.

In his interview with al-Jazeera on Monday, Ahmadinejad likened the plot accusations to the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, saying the US “fabricated a bunch of papers” for its claims at the time. “Is that a difficult thing to do?” asked the president.

The State of Turkmen Education

The State of Turkmen Education, posted with vodpod

Saudi Arabia Detains Makers of YouTube Poverty Film, Group Says

Bloomberg

By Glen Carey

Oct. 19 (Bloomberg) — Saudi Arabia detained three men after they produced a short film on poverty in the kingdom, according to the Riyadh-based Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association.

Feras Baqna, Hussam al-Drewesh and Khaled al-Rasheed were detained on Oct. 16 in Riyadh for questioning regarding the short film, the rights group said an e-mailed statement today, calling for the immediate release of the men.

The three Saudis produced short films under the title “We are Being Cheated” and posted them on YouTube. Their latest posting was on poverty in al-Jaradeya, a neighborhood of the kingdom’s capital, Riyadh. The film’s scenes, interviews and comments “are all considered familiar to the majority of Saudi society,” the rights group said.

Saudi Arabia, holder of 20 percent of the world’s oil reserves, issued new media regulations in April that enable the government to close or fine publications that hurt the kingdom’s stability or insult Islam. The regulations banned media from publishing anything that violates Islamic law, incites division and threatens internal security, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

King Abdullah countered domestic political unrest, inspired by the toppling of leaders in Tunisia and Egypt, with sweeping increases in government spending announced in March, including $67 billion on housing and funds for the military and religious groups.

“The Saudi government itself has acknowledged the poverty issue we’re facing,” the rights association said. “It is hard to understand how a film on poverty in Saudi Arabia poses a national threat to the safety of the country and its citizens.”

The Ministry of Interior’s public relations office didn’t answer calls seeking comment.

Saudi Arabia is the least democratic country in the Middle East and ranks 160th out of 167 countries worldwide, according to the Democracy Index for 2010 published by the Economist Intelligence Unit.

–Editors: Ben Holland, Karl Maier.

To contact the reporter on this story: Glen Carey in Dubai at gcarey8@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net

Secret CIA/FBI files of NUMEC nuclear diversions to Israel could aid $170 million toxic cleanup

[SEE: Nuclear Diversion In the U.S..pdf]

WASHINGTON, Oct 20, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Recently declassified wiretap transcripts of conversations between Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) founder Zalman Shapiro and venture capitalist David Lowenthal reveal that illegal storage practices led to a dangerous nuclear spill. Obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by IRmep’s Center for Policy and Law Enforcement, the files were heavily censored by the Central Intelligence Agency which blocked release of 225 pages.

The transcript, http://www.irmep.org/ila/numec/08292011lowenthal.pdf , details that Shapiro and Lowenthal’s interest in completing NUMEC’s sale to Atlantic Richfield Company outweighed public safety concerns. The FBI and CIA investigated Shapiro and Lowenthal in the 1960s under suspicion of diverting highly enriched uranium (HEU) from NUMEC into the clandestine Israeli nuclear weapons program. For decades the CIA has blocked release of its files and equity content in other government agency reports about NUMEC.

This week the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) $170 million cleanup of NUMEC’s toxic waste dump had to be halted after contractors experienced unanticipated difficulties handling 55-gallon radioactive waste drums. The declassified 1969 transcript identifies 200 stainless steel drums illegally stored by NUMEC were improperly treated with fluoride which accelerated corrosion. Full public release of remaining secret CIA and FBI files could help determine the precise location of the barrels and allow USACE to forecast likely migration of toxic waste through groundwater and abandoned underground coal mine shafts.

The Center for Policy and Law Enforcement multi-year grant-funded research project on NUMEC forwarded files to USACE and will identify other classified files which could maximize safety and minimize taxpayer-funded cleanup costs. USACE is now considering "possible action." CIA files could also reveal exactly how much NUMEC HEU entered the Israeli nuclear weapons program.

Files could also reveal why CIA officials unofficially insisted that NUMEC diverted materials. Carl Duckett, former deputy of the CIA’s Directorate of Science and Technology, claimed the agency came to the conclusion by 1968 that "NUMEC material had been diverted by the Israelis and used in fabricating weapons." CIA Tel Aviv station chief John Hadden claimed that NUMEC was "an Israeli operation from the beginning." NUMEC hosted Israeli spy Rafael Eitan (who later directed Jonathan Pollard’s espionage against the US) and was also frequently visited by Israelis now known to be involved in nuclear weapons development.

SOURCE: IRmep

Documenting the Capitalist Network That Runs the World

Revealed – the capitalist network that runs the world

• by Andy Coghlan and Debora MacKenzie
• New Scientist,  issue 2835

AS PROTESTS against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters’ worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.

The study’s assumptions have attracted some criticism, but complex systems analysts contacted by New Scientist say it is a unique effort to untangle control in the global economy. Pushing the analysis further, they say, could help to identify ways of making global capitalism more stable.

The idea that a few bankers control a large chunk of the global economy might not seem like news to New York’s Occupy Wall Street movement and protesters elsewhere (see photo). But the study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to empirically identify such a network of power. It combines the mathematics long used to model natural systems with comprehensive corporate data to map ownership among the world’s transnational corporations (TNCs).

“Reality is so complex, we must move away from dogma, whether it’s conspiracy theories or free-market,” says James Glattfelder. “Our analysis is reality-based.”

The top 50 of the 147 superconnected companies

1. Barclays plc
2. Capital Group Companies Inc
3. FMR Corporation
4. AXA
5. State Street Corporation
6. JP Morgan Chase & Co
7. Legal & General Group plc
8. Vanguard Group Inc
9. UBS AG
10. Merrill Lynch & Co Inc
11. Wellington Management Co LLP
12. Deutsche Bank AG
13. Franklin Resources Inc
14. Credit Suisse Group
15. Walton Enterprises LLC
16. Bank of New York Mellon Corp
17. Natixis
18. Goldman Sachs Group Inc
19. T Rowe Price Group Inc
20. Legg Mason Inc
21. Morgan Stanley
22. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc
23. Northern Trust Corporation
24. Société Générale
25. Bank of America Corporation
26. Lloyds TSB Group plc
27. Invesco plc
28. Allianz SE 29. TIAA
30. Old Mutual Public Limited Company
31. Aviva plc
32. Schroders plc
33. Dodge & Cox
34. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc*
35. Sun Life Financial Inc
36. Standard Life plc
37. CNCE
38. Nomura Holdings Inc
39. The Depository Trust Company
40. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance
41. ING Groep NV
42. Brandes Investment Partners LP
43. Unicredito Italiano SPA
44. Deposit Insurance Corporation of Japan
45. Vereniging Aegon
46. BNP Paribas
47. Affiliated Managers Group Inc
48. Resona Holdings Inc
49. Capital Group International Inc
50. China Petrochemical Group Company

* Lehman still existed in the 2007 dataset used

Graphic: The 1318 transnational corporations that form the core of the economy

(Data: PLoS One

(read HERE)

Reuters Claims Qaddafi Killed In NATO Airstrike

‘Muammar Gaddafi killed trying to escape Sirte’

By REUTERS

Photo by: REUTERS

Ex-Libyan leader was fleeing his hometown when NATO warplanes attacked his convoy; he was wounded in the strike,captured by NTC forces, died of his wounds, announces National Transitional Council official Abdel Majid.

Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi died of wounds suffered on Thursday as fighters battling to complete an eight-month-old uprising against his rule overran his hometown Sirte, Libya’s interim rulers said.

His killing, which came swiftly after his capture near Sirte, is the most dramatic single development in the Arab Spring revolts that have unseated rulers in Egypt and Tunisia and threatened the grip on power of the leaders of Syria and Yemen.

“He (Gaddafi) was also hit in his head,” National Transitional Council official Abdel Majid Mlegta told Reuters. “There was a lot of firing against his group and he died.”

Mlegta told Reuters earlier that Gaddafi, who was in his late 60s, was captured and wounded in both legs at dawn on Thursday as he tried to flee in a convoy which NATO warplanes attacked. He said he had been taken away by an ambulance.

There was no independent confirmation of his remarks.

An anti-Gaddafi fighter saidGaddafi had been found hiding in a hole in the ground and had said “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot” to the men who grabbed him.

His capture followed within minutes of the fall of Sirte, a development that extinguished the last significant resistance by forces loyal to the deposed leader.

The capture of Sirte and the death of Gaddafi means Libya’s ruling NTC should now begin the task of forging a new democratic system which it had said it would get under way after the city, built as a showpiece for Gaddafi’s rule, had fallen.

Gaddafi, wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of ordering the killing of civilians, was toppled by rebel forces on Aug. 23 after 42 years of one-man rule over the oil-producing North African state.

NTC fighters hoisted the red, black and green national flag above a large utilities building in the center of a newly-captured Sirte neighborhood and celebratory gunfire broke out among their ecstatic and relieved comrades.

Hundreds of NTC troops had surrounded the Mediterranean coastal town for weeks in a chaotic struggle that killed and wounded scores of the besieging forces and an unknown number of defenders.

NTC fighters said there were a large number of corpses inside the last redoubts of theGaddafi troops. It was not immediately possible to verify that information

Israel Plays Its Hamas Trump Card

[This is Israel playing its Hamas card, trying to revive the moribund "peace process."  We must never lose sight of the fact that Hamas was and is a Mossad creation (SEE:  Hamas is a Creation of Mossad).  It is only a matter of time before Abbas loses his UN bid for statehood and signs away the West Bank.  Like the rest of the Middle East, there is nothing that can be done for Palestinians that they cannot do for themselves.  The American-controlled UN is a worthless, hopeless institution.  The Palestinians must organize to survive.]

Hamas plays trump card to free prisoners from Israel

By Jon Donnison, BBC News, Rafah

Relatives gathered to welcome home prisoners released by Israel.

There were scenes of joy and celebration at the hot and frenetic Rafah crossing today, as Palestinian prisoners scrambled off buses into the arms of their tearful relatives.

As the chaotic scenes unfolded, an elderly gentleman dressed all in black and who did not want to give me his name pulled me aside.

“Just remember one thing,” he said. “Palestinians have mothers too. Our mothers feel the same as Gilad Shalit’s mother today. Their sadness is over.”

“I can’t describe my feelings at the moment,” smiled Abdul Haleem Salama after he embraced his brother Akram, who was tasting freedom after 16 years in an Israeli jail.

Akram, a member of Hamas’s military wing, the al-Qassam Brigade, had been serving a 30-year sentence for killing two Israelis. When he was jailed he had been married for just six months.

For Israelis, many of the 477 Palestinian prisoners who have been released are regarded as murderers and terrorists.

For Palestinians, they are freedom fighters who deserve a hero’s welcome.

A new Shalit?

Hamas will make political capital from this deal – a total of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for just one Israeli, Sgt Gilad Shalit, will be portrayed as a triumph.

 

Palestinians convicted for killing Israelis were among those released

At Rafah, gun-toting masked Hamas militants, clad in black and green, paraded on the back of pick-up trucks, wielding rocket-propelled grenades.

Hamas wanted a show of force.

“This is the day when we step over the head of Zionism,” declared Akram Abdullah Kassem, shortly after crossing into Gaza from Egypt.

He told me he was involved in the killing of six Israelis as a Hamas militant. He had been served 11 years of a 30-year sentence.

In reality, Hamas compromised to make this deal. They backed down over the release of the most high-profile prisoners.

Faced with dwindling popularity, uncertain about their base in Syria and recently overshadowed by their rival from the Fatah party, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas figured this would give them a boost.

It will. But many believe Hamas has also played its trump card. What will their strategy be now?

At one point Hamas supporters here in Rafah chanted: “We want a new Gilad Shalit.”

That would be ominous for Israeli-Hamas relations which, despite this prisoner deal, remain nothing less than hostile.

The Terrorists Who Rule North Waziristan

The Terrorists Who Rule North Waziristan, posted with vodpod

The Toxic Fergana Valley

[There are things that have been left half-buried in the Fergana Valley that are far more dangerous than either "Islamists" or ethnic tensions.]

Transboundary effects in FERGANA VALLEY
	In the Ferghana Valley are three areas of Kyrgyzstan (Osh, Jalalabad, Batken), a region of Tajikistan (Sogdian) and three regions of Uzbekistan (Andijan, Namangan, Ferghana). All emissions and discharges of pollutants into the environment remain in the valley. We look at some of its trans-boundary environmental issues and, in particular, cross-border impact Sughd Tajikistan on the environment Ferghana Valley. How does the Valley Fergana Valley – a deep and complex structurally intermountain trough ellipsoid. It is almost surrounded with high mountains (Kurama, Chatkal, Fergana, Alai and Turkestan ranges), and only in the west is a narrow passage in the Hungry Steppe. The peculiar position of the Fergana depression and its surrounding slopes of the highest ridges of Western Tien-Shan causes a pronounced vertical zoning, reflected in the hypsometry of relief. From south to north, from the crest of the Turkestan-Alai mountain system to the sandy massifs of Central Fergana, can be traced all the main types of terrain typical of mountainous areas bordering the lowland deserts. In this direction, a change of major soil types – from mountain-meadow alpine desert to the typical gray soils. On the surface of the device to clearly distinguish two zones – a flat (center), and Piedmont. The flat consists of a combination of gently rolling plains with well-defined alluvial fans, and closer to the middle – from the flat plains and foothills terraced alluvial plain, the valley of the Syr Darya presented and its components – the Naryn valley and Karadarya. Plains bordered strip of foothills consisting of piedmont rises and the small size and zaadyrnyh mezhadyrnyh basins. tailings from innocuous main problem of waste in Sughd Tajikistan is the presence of large tailings dumps radioactive waste and radioactive low-grade ores. By the volume of the accumulation of radioactive waste Sughd significantly ahead of other regions of the Fergana Valley. In the area also has a Anzob plant for the extraction and enrichment of mercury-antimony ores, two gold-mining factory. The danger lies in the fact that most of the tailings ponds are located near populated areas and near rivers. Many of the tailings have fencing and warning signs, so people in the immediate vicinity of the cattle graze, uses their building materials. Digmayskoy on hills (close to the Region and the city of Khujand Chkalovsk), 9 km from the Syr Darya have active tailings pond PA “Vostokredmet” radioactive waste and recovery of rare earth elements (vanadium), area of 70 hectares. The orange color of its surface from a height is clearly visible against the background of green irrigated fields and orchards in the Ferghana Valley. Digmayskoe tailing is the largest in the country and contains 20 million tons of waste processing uraniferous ore and about 5.7 million tons of waste processing of vanadium ore. On the surface radiation level reaches 150-250 mc / hr. Due to stoppage of production for processing of ore tailings surface has dried, and exposed waste, due to which the increased potential for wind transport of dust from radioactive elements in the surrounding area. To reduce the impact of wind-tailing was planted with reeds. Located near the town of Chkalovsk tailing “Cards 1-9″, the total area of 267 thousand square meters, covered with a neutral soil thickness of 0.5-1.0 m, which is insufficient to reduce the radiation risk, which are major sources of radon and the products of decay. Near the village is located Adrasman tailing former uranium ore production of 25 thousand sq.m. and the amount of 176 thousand cubic meters Digmayskoe uranium tailing dumps radioactive waste backfilled Adrasman GOK, but remediation has not been done. Because of the infiltration of storm water runoff are radioactive substances, as well as erosion of the sides of the tail under the influence of mud floods that occurred in 2004. The quantity of radiation in the diffuse field is 160 mR / hr. The difficult situation has developed in Taboshar. After the cessation of production of uraniferous ore in 1991 around a mining company and the city remained the tailings area 573 thousand square meters and a capacity of 7 million cubic meters In the field of waste exposure due to erosion and run-off background radiation exceeds 300 mR / hr. Volume dump low-grade ores is 33 million cubic meters Dump and open pit is not reclaimed. These materials are washed away by the wind and rain. Given this condition, the local population and authorities are deeply concerned, therefore, in Taboshar RESCA project in 2005-2006. conducted a survey of radio-ecological areas and identified the risks to public health. tailings radioactive waste in the city Gafurov (a suburb of Khujand) is the most well equipped. There is a protective layer of 2.5 meters, fencing and warning signs. Tailings are held regularly on measurements of background radiation. The tense situation in Anzob mining and processing plant on the river Yagnob, upper tributary of the river Zarafshan. Because of natural disasters in 1998 was put out of action 5-km slurry pipeline to the tailings line. In 1998-2002, the production of mercury-antimony concentrate at the plant has dropped significantly. In connection with the industrial growth in the years 2003-2006 was sharply question the safe storage of waste, since the time cards are overcrowded and unsafe. Another major mining venture on the river Zarafshan – gold mill in the village of Sogdiana. The basis used here is the technology of heap leaching application cyanides, which are highly toxic substances. However, their solution is neutralized with time. Other hazardous product in gold mining are the impurities of arsenic. Waste is stored in a specially designed tailings. Conservation authorities annually survey its safety. On the other gold mining companies in the region – SP “Aprelevka” – established the reuse of waste production. Dialogue is necessary not solved is the problem of cross-border industrial waste near the town of Bekabad (Uzbekistan). Waste dumps and 5-20 meters in height on at least 15 hectares of Bekabad steel plant located in the territory of Tajikistan. In the immediate vicinity is a large waste dump Bekabad. Conditions of storage of waste does not meet the environmental requirements of both countries, but the dialogue to solve the problem does not develop. Perhaps the greatest immediate threat to public health and the environment is Sughd Konibodom toxic waste landfill. Chemicals, biological agents (overdue or prohibited for use) are located near the district center, near the Great Fergana Canal and Kayrakkum reservoirs. Kanibodom on landfill from 1973 to 1990 were placed and mixed about 4 thousand tons of toxic waste. At the bottom of the landfill no waterproof layer and drainage, aquifers are not protected against the penetration of toxic chemicals, no fences, no comprehensive data on the amounts and types of hazardous substances. Also there are no observation wells down to the terrain, where the city Kanibadam key reservoirs. Not monitored environment. REHRA project were evaluated risks to human health and the environment and provides recommendations to address the problem. Household waste in Sughd are produced mainly in urban areas and stored at 17 sites. Every day in the city of Khujand produced 400-500 tons of waste to take out 26 garbage trucks (mainly tractors) on the already overcrowded landfills, located 17 kilometers from the city. Other significant sources of waste are the city of Isfara, Kanibadam, Istravshan with the volume of education 15 thousand tons of waste per year. Currently, an increasing number of containers of garbage collection. DOMULADZHANOV I., I. HODZHAMBERDIEV, M. Abdullaev, A. Teshabaev, N. Abdugani (Fergana Polytechnic Institute) Source: ECO-HR.4081 (Lev A. Fedorov) Bulletin “For chemical safety “, as well as http://www.ekois.net/wp/ illustrate the material on SREDA.UZ drawings of children of bidders Gorkomprirody Tashkent.

Ashgabat Mad at Moscow Again Over “Information War”

by Catherine A. Fitzpatrick

Turkmenistan Golden Age

Turkmen Caspian

The Turkmen government is furious again this week at Russian media attacks questioning Ashgabat’s ability to extract and deliver its considerable gas reserves and ship them through pipelines yet to be constructed to Europe. The tensions with the Kremlin have been brewing for awhile, but this week’s denunciations from the Turkmen Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other agencies lets us know the situation is becoming a crisis for Ashgabat. While expressing “bewilderment” at Russia’s “counterproductive” claims and delivering resounding rebuttals, the Turkmen leadership still doesn’t quite make it clear what its commitments will in fact be to the long-stalled Nabucco pipeline to skirt Russian energy corridors, or to the more immediately-relevant Trans Caspian pipeline to deliver Turkmen gas to Azerbaijan.

The hold-ups on these projects aren’t new — Turkmenistan still hasn’t demarcated disputed Caspian Sea borders with Azerbaijan and is only at the discussion level with the EU about a tri-partite agreement to build the Trans Caspian pipeline and ship its gas.

Yet by stating these obvious obstacles aloud, Russian experts are perceived by the Turkmen government as trying to throw a wrench in the works out of petulance and spite, now that yes, indeed, Ashgabat seems to be moving to end any lingering dependency on Russia.

In a major editorial in the semi-official turkmenistan.ru, Daria Popova, likely a pseudonym for the Turkmen Foreign Ministry, noted that the British firm Gaffney, Cline & Associates had competed the second phase of their independent audit of Turkmenistan’s gas deposits and announced that they were even larger than previously estimated — 26.2 trillion cubic meters of gas, or, as Jim Gillett, the business development manager for Gaffney, Cline put it, “actually a guarantee of Turkmenistan’s natural gas supplies in any amount to current and prospective gas pipelines.”

Some observers have questioned whether the study, inevitably relying on state-controlled Turkmen engineers in a closed society at certain points, regardless of British expertise, could be valid; Russian commentators in particular have doubted the bona fides.

Now a Russian expert Sergei Pravosudov, director of the Institute for National Energy, writing for the daily Russian online news site Nezavisimaya gazeta, raises a different issue rather than questioning Gaffney, Cline head on. He compares the deposits at the largest reserves in the Southern Yolotan field to the Astrakhan reserves in Russia, and says that the gas in Turkmenistan is very far below ground — more than four kilometers — and very much contaminated with sulfur and other elements. Turkmenistan would have to first drill to reach the gas, then invest in a powerful refinery to remove the sulfhur, and sites a McKinsey study saying the extraction cost for Southern Yolotan would be one of the highest in the world. He makes another comparison with Russia’s Shtokman field in the Barents Sea, and cites the great costs for extraction there.

Popova discounts the implication that foreigners won’t be able to afford the development costs, citing companies in South Korea, China and the United Arab Emirates which signed contracts worth US $ 9.7 billion to develop Southern Yoloten.

Ashgabat also wheels out its own Russian engineering expert, Igor Prikhodko, working for the Oil and Gas Institute of the state company Turkmengaz. Prikhodko produced an article titled “In the Distorting Mirror of A Dull-Witted and Distant Press” refuting Pravosudov’s claims:

The content of hydrogen sulfide in the Astrakhan field is several times higher than in the Turkmen field. If the development of the Astrakhan field was originally designed to extract sulfur (i.e. gas is produced as a secondary product), the Turkmen field by its nature is a repository of such high quality hydrocarbons that specialists regard the associated contaminants as secondary.

Prikhodko says the small amounts of hydrogen sulfide aren’t an obstacle, and that 30 billion cubic meters of gas are planned for production — but doesn’t get into specifics about what investment might be expected from the EU, or whether the existing developers are enough.

Popova also takes some swipes at other Russian objections to the Trans Caspian. She rightly calls out Russia’s sudden seizure of ecological concern about the Trans Caspian pipeline as insincere, given lack of such worries about similar Russian pipelines in the Baltic and Black Seas. Are they any less salty, she asks — and invokves the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico for good measure.

As for the demarcation issue, she rejects the Russian claim that only the five Caspian littoral states can collectively make decisions about borders, and notes that Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan already made their own divisions in the central and norther sectors of the Caspian Sea — and Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan should have the same rights to solve their division bilaterally.

Popova then notes that the “gas pipeline war” coincided with an “anti-Turkmen information campaign” in the Russia media, citing accounts of pressure put on dual passport holders anddismissals of Turkmen government officials with Russian passports, and even a chrono-tm.org article that described how fair-haired people (likely Russians) were being removed from large parades of people rehearsing now for the 20th anniversary as they supposedly “stuck out” too much.

With only the biased Russian press to provide an alternative take on Turkmenistan at times, it’s hard to know what information to trust. Yet the campaign against dual passport holders has been documented by human rights groups, and the Turkmen government doesn’t hide it. Popova justifies Ashgabat’s action by countering that Moscow would hardly admit to its own civil service persons with a foreign citizenship.