Archive for category Iran

vultures in africa

Feb 22

Posted by A. Peasant in Africa, Angola, Bush/Cheney, China, Corruption & Crime, India, Iran, Media, Minerals, Nigeria, Oil, Psychopaths, Terrorism, UK | No Comments

1. China warns Zimbabwe: we are not ‘friends’ — pay back the money you owe us

Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara says the Chinese want all loans to be repaid before loosening its purse. According to the Mutambara the Chinese President Hu Jintao revealed to him during a brief meeting at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland that he considers Beijing relationship with Harare as ’business partners’ and not ’friends’.

The Chinese are quoted telling the Mr. Mutambara that: “We’ll not condemn you publicly but we’ll not give you cash”. And according to the Deputy Prime Minister, “unless we do the right thing the Chinese will not work with us.”

…The two countries have signed a series of agreements in infrastructure, tourism, energy and mining but the cooperation has largely not translated into an improved standard of living for ordinary Zimbabweans.

Zimbabwe has literally handed over control of most sectors of the economy to the Chinese during the past few years in return for short-term financial assistance to enable Mugabe’s government to ride one crisis after another.

more @ afrik.com

2. nice. about Mugabe…

Are the people of Zimbabwe really celebrating Robert Mugabe’s 86th Birthday? What is there to celebrate about this aberrant human form? Thirty years in power and nothing good to show for it. He is determined to cling on to power for the rest of his life despite embarrassingly losing an election to a more dignified and respectable opposition leader and refusing to hand over the reins of government. Mugabe is not only ruthless, he is incapable of showing remorse and lacks all human form of compassion. On close examination, it is possible that he has an inherent mental condition. Why? Because of all the abnormalities contained in his dispositions and behaviour. When the lust for power deprives anyone of a second thought faculty, you become your own victim. Because you lose control of your sanity as a result of your desperation to satisfy your ego-driven tendencies.

more @ newstime africa

3. Angola awards $340m deal to Daewoo Shipbuilding, S. Korea, to deliver 5 oil carriers to state-owned Sonangol (link)

mm hmm. Sonangol, Lev Leviev… see here: excitement always follows Lev Leviev, posted on January 28, 2010

1. Lev Leviev tied to Chinese intelligence, business interests in Angola — Sonagol

The suspicions were spelled out in a report recently compiled by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which was established by Congress in 2000 in order to “monitor, investigate and submit to Congress an annual report on the national security implications of the bilateral trade and economic relationship between the United States and the People’s Republic of China, and to provide recommendations, where appropriate, to Congress for legislative and administrative action.” The report noted, among other things, that the group of Chinese corporations has business ties with Israeli businessman and diamond magnate Lev Leviev.

2. India, Angola agree to cooperation for hydrocarbon sector — there’s Sonagol again

Luanda (Angola), Jan 27: India and Angola on Wednesday said that the two countries will enter into Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to provide an overarching framework for cooperation in the hydrocarbon sector.

…During the meeting a MoU was signed between ONGC Videsh Ltd. (OVL) and the National Oil Company of Angola namely, Sonangol, for cooperation in the exploration sector.

4. Nigeria: Obasanjo, corrupt ex-Nigerian president, pays tribute to Tony Blair, war criminal and alleged pedophile, for helping Nigeria, Blair also meets Goodluck Jonathan kiss kiss hug hug

Abuja — Former President Olusegun Obasanjo and former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who is in Nigeria for the THISDAY’s Nigeria at 50, 2010 Awards, yesterday relived the diplomatic interactions that contributed to the success of their administrations.

Speaking at an Inter-faith Malaria Initiative organised by the Nigeria Inter-faith Action Association with funding support from Federal Government, World Bank, Centre for Inter-faith Action on Global Poverty and the Tony Blair Faith Foundation held at the Kuje Town Hall in Abuja, Obasanjo said the former British premier made a significant contribution to Nigeria’s exit from the Paris Club and other creditor nations.

Obasanjo, whose entry into the venue of the event elicited wild, nostalgic cheers from the audience, said while he travelled round the globe to get Nigeria off the Paris Club debt yoke, he received promises from world leaders which were not fruitful thus prompting his government to search for a facilitator and a member of the Group of Seven industrialised nations (G7) which they found in Mr. Blair.

He said the debt relief allowed the country to channel resources into the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) projects notably funds needed to fight infant mortality and morbidity occasioned by such diseases as malaria.

…Also yesterday, Blair visited Acting President Goodluck Jonathan at his Akinola Aguda residence, Presidential Villa, Abuja and commended him for holding the country together in the face of the daunting political leadership facing the country.

Blair also expressed concern about recent political developments in the country and thanked Jonathan for the skilful way he has handled the country.

more @ allafrica

5. George W Bush and Dear Condi also wish Goodluck Jonathan Good Luck i think he’s gonna need it

Nigeria’s Acting President, Goodluck Jonathan, yesterday evening in Abuja secured the support of the former President of the United States, George Bush who assured him of the world’s support in making his job a success. Mr. Bush and his entourage were in Nigeria for the ThisDay Nigeria at 50 awards….

“Terrorism is alien to Nigeria,” Mr Jonathan said. “Nigeria and US are strategic partners for global peace and development.” He also thanked the US government for its concern over the health of President Umaru Yar’Adua who is currently undergoing treatment in a Saudi hospital.

Mr Bush was accompanied on the trip by former US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice and US Ambassador to Nigeria, Robin Sanders. On the Nigerian side were the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ojo Maduekwe and his solid minerals counterpart, Diezeani Allison Maduekwe.

their arrogance knows no bounds

Feb 19

Posted by A. Peasant in Banks, CIA, Corruption & Crime, Identities, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Mind-fucking, Mr. Bibi N. & Friends, NWO, Obama/Biden, Psychopaths, Terrorism, UK | No Comments

1. the UK knew in advance that Israel would use stolen UK passports for a hit. israel knew in advance that this little kabuki of the UK slapping israel’s wrist would have to take place and look believable.

The British MI6 intelligence agency was tipped off by Mossad that Israeli agents were going to carry out an ‘overseas operation’ using fake UK passports, the Daily Mail reported Friday morning.

According to the UK newspaper, a British security source quoted a Mossad agent as saying that “the British Government was told very, very briefly before the operation what was going to happen.” The source explained that the tip-off was not a request for permission to use British passports but more a ‘courtesy call’ to inform British security services that ‘a situation’ might blow up. “There was no British involvement and they didn’t know the name of the target. But they were told these people were traveling on UK passports,” he was quoted as telling the Daily Mail.

…The Daily Mail report came several hours after a 20-minute meeting in London between Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor and a senior British diplomat on Thursday, over the fake British passports apparently used in the assassination of Hamas military commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai. The report hinted that Israeli intelligence chiefs understood British authorities would have to ’slap them on the wrist’ and reportedly added: “The British government has to be seen to be going through the motions.”

jpost: http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=169139

2. daily mail story:

The Israeli agent rejected suggestions that intelligence-sharing between the two nations might be damaged.

He said Mossad was handling several sources within the UK Muslim community and added: ‘There is no question of jeopardising that information flow.’

The revelation of a ‘tip-off’ came after Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor was ‘invited’ to the Foreign Office and asked to co-operate fully with the inquiry into the forged passports by the Serious Organised Crime Agency.

…Foreign Secretary David Miliband branded the abuse of ID documents ‘outrageous’ and demanded that Tel Aviv co-operate fully.

hollywood here we come….

also see aangirfan: MI6 and the Dubai Assassination for context:

Some people think that Mossad, MI6 and the CIA are trying to destabilise Dubai.Dubai’s aim is to make money from helping Iran to beat sanctions.

“Now the Americans (or the Israelis – you can take your pick) want to turn Dubai into the Beirut of the Gulf. That was actually a headline last week – in The Jerusalem Post, of course – which painted Dubai as dangerous as it was economically calamitous.” (Robert Fisk: Passport to the truth in Dubai remains secret )

3. meanwhile, in the most brazen display of greed and hubris i think i’ve ever seen, 85 victims of Hizbullah sue Iran’s top banks

In the first such case, 85 American, Israeli and Canadian victims of Hizbullah rocket attacks have filed a lawsuit against Iran’s leading banks.
The suit, Kaplan v. Central Bank of Iran, was filed in federal court in Washington, D.C. and seeks $1 billion in compensatory damages and an unspecified sum of punitive damages.

The plaintiffs, whose family members were killed or who were themselves injured by rockets fired at Israel by Hizbullah between July 12 and August 14, 2006, allege that Iran’s Central Bank and Bank Saderat provided the Shiite group with “over $50 million in financial support in the years prior to the attacks with the specific intent of facilitating Hizbullah terrorist attacks against American and Israeli targets,” the Israel Law Center, which helped bring the suit, said.

The plaintiffs rest their claims in part on an explicit October 25, 2007 finding by the U.S. Treasury that between 2001 and 2006 Bank Saderat transferred funds from the CBI via Bank Saderat, PLC in London to Hizbullah “to support acts of terrorism.”

naharnet

THIS IS STRAIGHT OUT OF THE JAMES WOOLSEY INTERVIEW AT HERZLIYA, AND HILLARY CLINTON’S SUBSEQUENT BABBLING ABOUT THE REVOLUTIONARY GUARD IN IRAN. IT ALL QUICKLY BECAME US POLICY IN ABOUT A WEEK’S TIME.

4. meanwhile, in a brazen insult to the world’s intelligence, the Ethiopian plane crash is officially caused by HUMAN ERROR. they give us the pilot’s last words. no mention of anything else he might have said up to that point. oh and the pilot ‘made a move’ that made him gradually lose control of the plane, and it remained intact until it hit the water.

A preliminary report said “human error” was the cause of the deadly Ethiopian Airlines plane crash into the Mediterranean Sea last month and that the last words the pilot said to his co-pilot: “We’re finished … God have mercy on us.”
Flight 409 bound for Addis Ababa crashed into sea off the coast of Naameh minutes after takeoff from Beirut airport early in the morning of Jan. 25, killing all 90 people on board.

Pending the outcome of the official report, which is to be announced by the Lebanese government sometime next week, the daily As-Safir on Friday uncovered outlines of the preliminary report.

As-Safir said the investigation team probing the plane crash incident retuned to Beirut from Paris on Thursday and handed over the report to Prime Minister Saad Hariri.

The plane’s two black boxes — data flight recorder and cockpit voice recorder – were separately retrieved among the wreckage and flown to France for analysis by BEA, a French agency that specializes in assisting with technical investigations of air crashes.

As-Safir quoted a reliable source at France’s Aviation Accidents Investigation bureau as saying that the cockpit voice recorder has revealed that the last words the pilot said were: “We’re finished … God have mercy on us.”

The pilot was speaking in Amharic, a Semitic language spoken in North Central Ethiopia.

Audio recordings revealed that the pilot asked the co-pilot to follow instructions by Beirut airport control tower, only to find out that his assistance either did not heed to the orders or did the opposite.

This prompted the pilot to take a move which made him gradually lose control of the plane, the voice recorder showed.

The report said the jet remained intact until it hit water.

Cabinet, furthermore, did not take any decision to close the file on the plane crash incident pending an official report from the Lebanese Army about the search for remains of the remaining victims.

naharnet

the 11th commandment: thou shalt not make controversial comments about Israel

Feb 15

Posted by A. Peasant in Censorship, Clinton, Iran, Israel, Military, Mr. Bibi N. & Friends, Nuclear Weapons, Organ Trafficking, Russia, The West, UK | No Comments

1. UK lawmaker sacked for suggesting that Israel conduct an investigation to clear the names of their medical teams in Haiti. so to clarify: calling for an investigation to CLEAR NAMES is outrageous. she loses her job and has to apologize profusely. there will be NO INVESTIGATIONS! the very act of calling for an investigation LEGITIMIZES THE CLAIMS, see? which are scandalous. and nevermind that the Israelis have been caught with their hands in the organ jar before. that makes no difference. it is always scandalous to suggest such things even when there’s a criminal track record.

Party leader Nick Clegg removed Lady Tonge as a Lib Dem health spokeswoman in the Lords on Friday, describing her remarks as ”wrong, distasteful and provocative”.

It is the second time she has been fired for making controversial comments about Israel.

The latest row followed accusations in the online Palestine Telegraph - of which Lady Tonge is a patron - that members of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) had been harvesting body parts in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake.

She subsequently told the Jewish Chronicle: ”To prevent allegations such as these - which have already been posted on You Tube - going any further, the IDF and the Israeli Medical Association should establish an independent inquiry immediately to clear the names of the team in Haiti.”

Fellow Lib Dems were said to have complained to Mr Clegg about her comments.

In a statement issued this evening, the leader said the peer ”apologises unreservedly”.

more @ telegraph

2. Ehud Barak to Mike Mullen: friends overcome differences kiss kiss hug hug

Defense Minister Ehud Barak met with the chairman of the US Army’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, at his office at the IDF Headquarters in Tel Aviv.

…Mullen met earlier with IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi and Military Intelligence chief Major-General Amos Yadlin. Before meeting Barak he said the relations between the US and Israel had always been good, and that they would forever be so. The admiral also met members of the Israeli delegation to Haiti during a ceremony held at the Tel Aviv headquarters. He said they “symbolized hope” and the possibility of saving lives whenever possible.

… He also stressed that the Israeli mission to Haiti was extraordinary, and that the quake-stricken country would not soon forget everything that had been done to for them. Ashkenazi said that the delegation showed Israel and the IDF’s true faces. “I am proud to be your commander,” he told the delegation members.

more hagiography @ ynet

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3849390,00.html

3. bibi to visit moscow today-wed.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit Moscow next week, the Kremlin said Thursday, after Russia toughened its stance on Iran’s nuclear program. Netanyahu will hold talks with President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday, the Kremlin said in a statement, providing no further detail on the Israeli leader’s program for the Monday-Wednesday visit.

Announcement of the visit came after Russia officially questioned the “sincerity” of Iran’s pledges not to develop nuclear weapons and, in a policy shift, said fresh UN sanctions on Tehran were a “realistic” option. It also followed an official visit to Moscow by Khaled Meshaal, leader of the radical Palestinian independence group Hamas that is classified by Israel, the European Union and the United States as a terrorist organization.(AFP)

naharnet

4. Clinton “fears” that Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship. where did this come from? Woolsey suggested it at Herzliya, and so basically after that they just start talking about it, and that makes it “true.” voila. the power of experts - no evidence required, just an echo chamber.

DOHA - US SECRETARY of State Hillary Clinton said on Monday that she feared Iran is moving ‘toward a military dictatorship,’ with enterprises controlled by the Revolutionary Guard ’supplanting’ the government.

The US chief diplomat told students in Qatar that the United States was not seeking to use military action against Iran to curb its nuclear ambitions but rather seeking to use international pressure through the UN Security Council. Such pressure ‘will be particularly aimed at the those enterprises controlled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which we believe is in effect supplanting the government of Iran,’ Mrs Clinton said.

more @ straits times

5. the real reason for sanctions against Iran

The U.S.-sponsored drive to impose new economic sanctions on Iran has nothing to do with the noble cause of limiting proliferation of nuclear weapons on the planet. It is directly linked to the U.S. military doctrine of establishing ‘full spectrum dominance’ - i.e., military dominance on land, sea, air, and outer space over all other countries in the world. The logical extension of this doctrine is that only countries firmly allied to the U.S. government should be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons or to even develop the capacity to do so.

Israel , for example, is widely-believed to hold secret Nuclear weapons. Yet there is no call for sanctions or investigations of them. The reason is simple: They are a U.S. ally. India and Pakistan have declined to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and have developed nuclear weapons. Yet there is no call for sanctions or investigations of them. The reason is simple: They are U.S. allies.

…As a signatory of the U.N. Nuclear non-proliferation treaty, Iran must not develop nuclear weapons.

However - and this is a crucial point - the non-proliferation treaty gives every signatory the sovereign right to voluntarily withdraw from the treaty on three months notice. After doing so, that country has the absolute right under international law to develop nuclear weapons on its own territory.

North Korea , which originally signed the treaty and later withdrew, has now the legal right to develop nuclear weapons. India, Pakistan, and Israel never signed the treaty and therefore also have had the legal right to develop nuclear weapons.

Instead of acknowledging these realities, western politicians and media have systematically concealed them from the public. In place of the truth they have repeated vague mantras like ‘defying the international community’ (i.e., not bending to the will of the U.S.).

In a typical example of this deceptive rhetoric, U.S. President Obama said a few days ago: “Despite the posturing that its nuclear power is only for civilian use … they in fact continue to pursue a course that would lead to weaponization, and that is not acceptable to the international community.”

The absence of any legal argument in this statement reflects the fact that there is no legal argument against Iran’s nuclear energy program, and that even development of weapons would be legal if Iraq withdraws from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty. Of course, Obama invoking the ‘non-acceptance by the ‘international community’ does not mean the nations of the world; it’s code for ‘the U.S. and its allies’.

more @ pravda

6. attack on Iran ‘worries’ Mullen

JERUSALEM - THE chairman of the US military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, said on Sunday he was concerned about the consequences of any attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

‘The outbreak of a conflict will be a big, big, big problem for all of us, and I worry a great deal about the unintended consequences of a strike,’ Admiral Mullen said.

Apart from saying that ‘it’s pretty hard to be specific about’ the issue, the top-ranking US military official did not expand on his comments.

more @ straits times

Woolsey offers advice for Bibi, a week later it becomes US policy

Feb 11

Posted by A. Peasant in Banks, CIA, Corruption & Crime, Iran, Israel, Mr. Bibi N. & Friends, Obama/Biden | No Comments

1. huh, look at that. ex CIA director James Woolsey gives some recommendations about how to handle Iran at the Herzliya conference…February 3. he suggests that no banks anywhere in the world can do any business with the Revolutionary Guard, which control about a third of the Iranian economy. that’s the idea… of course, big pharma can do business — that’s grandfathered.

2. lo and behold, a week later - February 11 - they happen! turns out the US is going after the Revolutionary Guard using their weapon of choice: BANKS. so the advice that Woolsey had for Bibi becomes the policy of Obama.

WASHINGTON - THE Obama administration narrowed in on Iran’s all-powerful Revolutionary Guard by imposing new sanctions on Wednesday on the force behind suspect nuclear work and urging the world to do the same.

It ordered a freeze on assets of an individual and four firms linked to the Revolutionary Guard - a unilateral US step toward what President Barack Obama has warned will be a ’significant regime of sanctions’ backed internationally.

The Treasury Department designated a Revolutionary Guard commander and four subsidiaries of a construction firm owned or controlled by the elite unit as ‘proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and their supporters.’

State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said the US is targeting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for its role in Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, alleged links to terrorism and crackdown on anti-government protests. The Revolutionary Guard, which has been hit by repeated sanctions in the past, is also a major business force in Iran.

Mr Crowley said US diplomats put ‘particular emphasis’ on the elite military branch when they consult with other powers about sanctions, but they were not yet ready to put a draft resolution on the table at the UN Security Council. ‘Our objective here is to try to put pressure on the government and those who are supporting its policies, without having undue impact on the Iranian people,’ Mr Crowley told AFP.

The United States has been consulting with Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany on Iran, but Beijing now appears to be the lone hold-out against sanctions and is calling for further negotiations. The six powers have been leading a multi-year effort to curb Iran’s uranium enrichment program, which the West fears masks a drive to build a nuclear bomb. Iran denies the charge, saying it is for peaceful use of energy. — AFP

Canada to use its G-8 presidency to press for Iran sanctions

OTTAWA - CANADA will use its G-8 presidency to press the club of world’s richest nations for more sanctions against Iran to try to curb its nuclear ambitions, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Wednesday.

‘Canada will use its G-8 presidency to continue to focus international attention and action on the Iranian regime’ and ‘work with its allies to find strong and viable solutions, including sanctions, to hold Iran to account,’ Mr Harper said in a statement.

‘It is time for Iran to end its defiance of the international community, suspend its enrichment activity and take immediate steps toward transparency and compliance by halting the construction of new enrichment sites, and fully cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency,’ he said.

Mr Harper’s announcement came as the US Treasury Department ordered a freeze on assets of an individual and four companies linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. US President Barack Obama on Tuesday called for a ’significant regime of sanctions’ against Iran for seeking to further enrich nuclear materials in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions actions.

In Moscow, the powerful head of Russia’s national security council, Nikolai Patrushev, said Teheran’s announcement that it had started work to produce 20 per cent enriched uranium cast doubt on its claims not to be pursuing weapons. Mr Patrushev indicated the Kremlin’s patience in trying to seek dialogue with Teheran was wearing thin. — AFP

source: straits times

not for nothing

Feb 10

Posted by A. Peasant in Afghanistan, Angola, Greece, Iran, Israel, Military, Mr. Bibi N. & Friends, NATO, NWO, Nuclear Weapons, Oil, Oligarchs, Russia, Saudi Arabia, UK | No Comments

1. heeeyy, good news….Russia’s top ten billionaires — TEH OLIGARCHS — doubled their wealth! turns out this crisis wasn’t so bad after all… PHEW! i dunno about you but i was really worried about those guys.

Russia’s top ten billionaires have almost doubled their aggregate wealth in 12 months to $139.3 billion, the Finans business magazine reported on Wednesday. The global economic crisis saw the combined fortunes of the top ten richest Russians fall from 221 billion to 75.9 billion in 2008, the magazine reported. Since then, however, massive state injections of funds into global financial markets and government support for companies owned by Russian oligarchs has seen the trend bucked.

The 2010 rating of Russian billionaires to be released by Finans next Monday includes 500 people with an estimated fortune of 3.3 billion rubles ($110 million) As many as 77 Russians have a wealth of over $1 billion each.

As before, tycoon and Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich is among Russia’s three richest people. His fortune will enable him to keep the club afloat for another 100 years, Finans reported.

The identities of the top two richest Russians will be revealed by the magazine on Monday.

MOSCOW, February 10 (RIA Novosti)

2. Saudi Arabia, Angola, Iran remain top 3 oil suppliers for China

Saudi Arabia, Angola and Iran remained the three largest oil sources for China in 2009, with the three supplying 47.7 percent of China’s total imports, according data released Wednesday by the General Administration of Customs (GAC).

GAC figures showed that China’s oil imports from the three nations last year stood at 41.86 million tonnes, 32.17 million tonnes and 23.15 million tonnes, respectively. They represented a year-on-year increase of 15.1 percent, 7.6 percent and 8.6 percent, respectively.

…Saudi Arabia, the largest oil supplier to China, accounted for 20.5 percent of China’s total imports in 2009. Angola supplied 15.8 percent while Iran contributed 11.3 percent, according to GAC data.

Other main oil suppliers to China included Russia, Oman and Sudan.

more @ people’s daily online

3. Greeks protest as government slashes public spending

Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England was asked about Greece at a press conference on the BoE’s latest inflation report. His second statement could be translated as - their problem, not mine. “I don’t think you can compare UK with Greece. We have different policies. We have very good track record and most importantly, the maturity of UK debt is much longer.” “This is an issue they’ll deal with within the euro area. It should be for my colleagues in the euro area to decide.”

…For a “I told you so” piece, here is Andrew Alexander of the Daily Mail, no friend of anything to do with the EU. His argument will be familiar to eurosceptics.

A particular flaw in having a ‘one-size-fits-all’ currency covering the rich and the poor, the cautious and the feckless, is that no member nation has its own currency which it can devalue or revalue in an attempt to extricate themselves from this crisis.

more @ guardian, many links

EU fear Greek ’spillover’ - “serious and persistent internal and external imbalance ‘threatens stability’ in the country. This in turn presents a ’serious risk of spillover into other parts of the euro area,’”

Berlin eyes ‘firewall’ to contain Greece debt crisis — “We are thinking about what we should do if the crisis spills from Greece into other euro countries,” said the official. “So it’s more about finding firewalls, containing the problem, than principally about helping the Greeks.”

nice. the EU: one big happy family.

4. Danny Ayalon faces hostile crowd in UK

(VIDEO) LONDON – Despite securing a promise by the UK’s Foreign Office that he would not be arrested upon arrival there, Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon was not exempt from the rage of pro-Palestinian demonstrators waiting for him both outside and inside a lecture hall in London. One protestor at the Oxford University hall, where Ayalon spoke Tuesday, waved the Palestinian flag and interrupted Ayalon’s lecture for several long minutes, during which he did not stop yelling at the Israeli minister and called him a “racist” and “a war criminal.”

more @ ynet

http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3846746,00.html

5. Marines gear up for assault - “hailed by officers as the biggest offensive in the eight-year-old war.” great. what could possibly go wrong?

Thousands of Afghan, US and Nato forces are expected to launch Operation Mushtarak (Together) in a bid to clear the Taleban out of Marjah, home to some 80,000 people, and expand the control of the Western-backed Afghan government. A US Marines officer said late on Tuesday that the operation, to be led jointly by Marines and the Afghan army had not yet begun. ‘The Marines have not started the operation in Marjah,’ he said, adding: ‘The operation will be led by the Marines and their Afghan partners.’ Officials and witnesses say families have fled, loading goats, furniture and clothes on to vehicles and heading to safety in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province around 20 kilometres to the north.

more @ straits times

6. bases in Afghanistan indicate permanent presence

Today, according to official sources, approximately 700 bases of every size dot the Afghan countryside, and more, like the one in Shinwar, are under construction or soon will be as part of a base-building boom that began last year.

Existing in the shadows, rarely reported on and little talked about, this base-building program is nonetheless staggering in size and scope, and heavily dependent on supplies imported from abroad, which means that it is also extraordinarily expensive. It has added significantly to the already long secret list of Pentagon property overseas and raises questions about just how long, after the planned beginning of a drawdown of American forces in 2011, the US will still be garrisoning Afghanistan.

…The Pentagon’s most recent inventory of bases lists a total of 716 overseas sites. These include facilities owned and leased all across the Middle East as well as a significant presence in Europe and Asia, especially Japan and South Korea. Perhaps even more notable than the Pentagon’s impressive public foreign property portfolio are the many sites left off the official inventory. While bases in the Persian Gulf countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates are all listed, one conspicuously absent site is al-Udeid air base, a billion-dollar facility in nearby Qatar, where the US Air Force secretly oversees its ongoing unmanned drone wars.

The count also does not include any sites in Iraq where, as of August 2009, there were still nearly 300 American bases and outposts. Similarly, US bases in Afghanistan - a significant percentage of the 400 foreign sites scattered across the country - are noticeably absent from the Pentagon inventory.

more @ asia times

7. Russia: large-scale war less possible, but threats remain

MOSCOW, February 10 (RIA Novosti) - Russia’s military policies are aimed at avoiding an arms race and military conflicts, but they should also correspond to real threats which the country faces, Russia’s security chief Nikolai Patrushev said in an interview with the Russian government daily.

On February 5, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced that he has approved the country’s new military doctrine, which allows preventive nuclear strikes against potential aggressors.

The Rossiyskaya Gazeta published on Wednesday the full text of the doctrine.

“The unleashing of a large-scale war is becoming less possible… At the same time, regions, where conflicts are possible, remain,” Patrushev told the paper, adding “these conflicts could lead to a war with the use of both ordinary and nuclear weapons.”

Among the threats which could destabilize the situation in the world, the Russian security chief named the expansion of NATO, the Iranian nuclear program, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

more @ ria novosti

hasbara: FAIL

Feb 9

Posted by A. Peasant in Censorship, Diplomats, Hasbara, Iran, Israel, Mossad, Mr. Bibi N. & Friends, Palestinians, Psychopaths, Resistance, Turkey | 2 Comments

1. Michael Oren heckled. professor appears to be practically in tears at the outrage, verbally attacks students and threatens to fail them all for disrupting the important speech of busy man Michael Oren.

2. Elie Wiesel repeats a bunch of lies and misquotes attributed to Ahmadinejad, then suggests it wouldn’t be so bad if he were assassinated. jpost puts headlines thusly, with quote marks: ‘i wouldn’t cry if he was killed’ EXCEPT that’s not what Elie Wiesel said. Elie Wiesel used the assassination word.

“I wouldn’t cry if I heard that Ahmadinejad was assassinated,” he quipped, calling the Iranian president “a pathological danger to world peace.”

http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=168217

3. Lieberman whines about Turkey

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Tuesday leveled criticism at Turkey for what he called “weekly” condemnations of Israel.

Speaking during a visit to Azerbaijan’s capital Baku, Lieberman said that Israel had been “supporting close relations with Turkey for 10 years.” He said that the recent change in Ankara’s stance, since Operation Cast Lead against Hamas terrorists in Gaza, was “unexpected.”

Turkey can’t keep repeating this “sharp anti-Israel line” every week, the foreign minister told an Azerbaijani television station.

Nonetheless, he said, Israel is doing everything in its power to maintain ties and coordinate closely with Turkey.

“We hope Turkey will make certain amendments to its foreign policy,” he added.

Lieberman’s comments came some two weeks after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an said Israel “should give some thought to what it would be like to lose a friend like Turkey in the future,” in an interview with the Euronews channel.

“We have important ongoing agreements between us. How can these agreements be kept going in this climate of mistrust? I think Israel had better take another look at its relations with its neighbors if it believes it is a world power,” Erdo?an said in the interview.The Turkish premier said that the humiliation of Turkish Ambassador to Israel Oguz Celikkol by Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon had “no place in international politics.”

Earlier in January, Aylaon called Celikkol in for a public dressing down over a Turkish television show that depicted Mossad agents as baby snatchers. At that meeting, Ayalon instructed the camera crews, in Hebrew and in the ambassador’s presence, not to film them shaking hands, to show that the Turkish envoy was sitting on a lower sofa, to show that there was only an Israeli flag on the table and not to film them smiling.

When asked by Euronews if Turkey could have handled relations with Israel more diplomatically, Ergodan answered that “I am telling the truth…And I will keep telling the truth.”

http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=168212

a resurrected post from december

Feb 7

Posted by A. Peasant in Afghanistan, Censorship, China, Iran, Israel, Kazakhstan, Minerals, Mr. Bibi N. & Friends, Oil, Putin, Russia, Terrorism, The West | No Comments

here are some links i had gathered together on 12/13/09, and posted at my news blog, which has since been quarantined as a spam blog by google. somebody in india reviews it about once a week and puts it back in quarantine. this particular page has also been erased from the google cache, for some unknown reason.

1. Kazakh uranium boss trial to proceed - 12/10/09

Prosecutor’s office spokesman Nurdaulet Suindikov commented, “The investigation charges former Kazatomprom president Mukhtar Dzhakishev with theft by way of embezzling a state company’s property.” Suindikov added that Dzhakishev would be charged with embezzling 100 million tenge ($600,000) from Kazatomprom.

Dzhakishev, who was earlier credited with making Kazakhstan a top global uranium producer while overseeing Kazatomprom, has denied all charges against him.

Kazakhstan contains the world’s second-largest uranium reserves, estimated at 1.5 million tons. The country in 2006 produced 5,279 tons of uranium, but as part of its plans to increase output boosted uranium output in January-September to 9,535 tons.

upi asia

2. Chinese president to visit Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan - 12/9/09

BEIJING, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) — Chinese President Hu Jintao will pay a working visit to Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan from Dec. 12 to14 at the invitation of President Nursultan Nazarbayev and President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu said here Wednesday.

chinaview

3. Kazakhstan urged to lift visa requirement for Iranian traders - 12/8/09

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran called on Kazakhstan to lift visa requirements for those Iranian businessmen willing to run trade activities in the Central Asian country.

“…if lifting visa requirements comes on both countries’ agenda, then visits by traders and businessmen will be facilitated and the ground will be prepared for the expansion of cooperation,” Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehman Parast said at a round table dubbed as ‘Trade Opportunities of Iran and Kazakhstan’ here in Tehran on Tuesday.

Mehman Parast reiterated that the Iranian foreign ministry is striving to prepare the necessary grounds and conditions for those traders interested in making investments in target markets.

Noting that the trade volume between Iran and Kazakhstan has increased in recent years, he stressed that in case existing problems are resolved, the two countries can boost the volume of annual trade to $10 bln.

Mehman Parast also referred to the strategic situation of Iran and Kazakhstan in the region, and said today the world supplies its needs through importing either the goods and products manufactured by Iran and Kazakhstan or the other countries’ products which should again pass through Iran or Kazakhstan.

fars

4. International Space Station astronauts land safely on Kazakhstan steppes - 12/1/09

BEIJING, Dec. 1 (Xinhuanet) — Three astronauts landed safely on the Kazakhstan steppes Tuesday after spending six months on the International Space Station.

The Russian Soyuz TMA-15 capsule landed as planned at 10:17 a.m. Moscow time (07:17 GMT) about 85 km north of the town of Arkalyk in Kazakhstan.

chinaview

5. Yunnan Copper mulls buy in Kazakhstan - 12/1/09

BEIJING, Dec. 1 (Xinhua) — Yunnan Copper Co., China’s third-largest copper producer, is thinking of acquiring a copper mine in Kazakhstan next year, China Daily reported Tuesday.

The company is also considering investing in Southeast and South Asian countries including Laos and Indonesia, the newspaper said, quoting the company’s general manager Yang Chao.

Besides investment in the overseas market, the copper producer is also scouting for more copper reserves in the Inner Mongolia and Tibet autonomous regions. The company’s copper reserves would touch 9 million tonnes by 2012, according to Yang.

He predicted that copper prices might even surpass 70,000 yuan (10,294 U.S. dollars) per tonne in 2010, although prices are likely to remain volatile over the next year, and copper demand will increase next year

Copper is widely used in home appliances, wires and cables; it can also be used in water pipes, largely increasing the need for copper in the future, Yang said.

chinaview

6. Kazakhstan: Israel’s Partner in Eurasia by Ariel Cohen in Jerusalem Viewpoints Sept-Oct 2009

http://tinyurl.com/yfw6d8h

The June 2009 visit by Israeli President Shimon Peres to Kazakhstan once again focused Israel’s attention on energy-rich, secular Muslim states of the Caspian and Central Asia: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. This was not Peres’ first visit to the steppe country in the heart of Eurasia: he visited Kazakhstan several times before as foreign minister and deputy prime minister. This was a good long-term investment:

Kazakhstan is as large as the entirety of Western Europe, but with a population only 1.5 times larger than the population of the city of Moscow. It is one of the most sparsely populated countries on Earth.

7. 11/16/09 - Germans ID convert, 27, as terrorist suspect

BERLIN — Authorities have identified a 27-year-old German convert to Islam as an al-Qaida associate suspected of traveling to Afghanistan and planning to attack German targets. The report could fuel concerns about European converts being recruited by Islamist terrorist groups for attacks. The Federal Criminal Police Office confirmed a Spiegel Online report Sunday that it had posted notices across Afghanistan warning that Jan Schneider, a Kazakhstan-born ethnic German, may plan attacks on German military or civilian institutions in Afghanistan.

…Schneider, who is also known as Hamza, has recently traveled to the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan, Spiegel reported. He left Germany in 2004 to study Arabic in Saudi Arabia. He was seen in his hometown of Saarbruecken several times after his departure from Germany.

…Spiegel also wrote that the criminal office has warned of several other German extremists who supposedly have traveled to Afghanistan in recent months. More than five million ethnic Germans have immigrated to the country from the former Soviet Union, Poland, Romania and other Eastern European countries since the 1950s under a special migration law for persons who can prove German ancestry.

DEFUNCT LINK: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gRbmVOhddpRWJo-KpO06aa6sHQRwD9C03L2O1

alternate link (cache): http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:hJxPAOZqPHsJ:www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33949307/ns/world_news-europe/+BERLIN+%E2%80%94+Authorities+have+identified+a+27-year-old+German+convert+to+Islam+as+an+al-Qaida+associate&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

8. 10/12/09 - Avigdor Lieberman visits Kazakhstan among other countries to discuss Iran

By Roni SoferY Net NewsOctober 12, 2009

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is set to leave for a round of visits abroad this week, after recently returning from Africa, South America, and the Balkans. This time Lieberman will visit Austria, Kazakhstan, Holland, and Denmark, mainly in order to discuss the topic of Iran.

Lieberman says he wants to “invest effort in nations that have not received attention from Israel until now”….The foreign minister is also scheduled to meet with his French counterpart, Bernard Kouchner, following the latter’s request. Lieberman has clarified that the object of this meeting, as well as those in Holland and Denmark, is “to bolster Israel’s status by widening the wingspan of its foreign policy”.

Lieberman will also meet with Israeli ambassadors to Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, as well as the ambassador to the EU.

via aletho news - LINK DEFUNCT

9. 9/10/09 - Caspian sea states shut Iran out of summit

Iran is peeved at its northern neighbors over a decision to exclude the Islamic Republic from a meeting ofCaspian Sea states on Thursday.
Iran’s top diplomat, Manouchehr Mottaki, said today he was outraged that Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan plan to meet in the Kazakh city of Aktau without Iran, according to the website of Iran’s state-owned English-language Press TV satellite news channel.
“In our view the meeting runs contrary to Iran’s national interests,” Mottaki said.
Iran has stewed for years as Russia and its former Soviet satellite states gobble up more and more of the Caspian Sea’s resources.
The four countries attending the Aktau meeting, described as an “informal” summit to discuss “subregional cooperation,” say they don’t plan to make any decisions on the status of the sea or the division of the seabed, an official representative of the Kazakh Foreign Ministry told Azerbaijan’s Trend news agency.

there are no sunglasses

10. 12/2008: Michael Parenti

“While claiming to be fighting terrorism, US leaders have found other compelling but less advertised reasons for plunging deeper into Afghanistan. The Central Asian region is rich in oil and gas reserves. A decade before 9/11, Time magazine (18 March 1991) reported that US policy elites were contemplating a military presence in Central Asia. The discovery of vast oil and gas reserves in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan provided the lure, while the dissolution of the USSR removed the one major barrier against pursuing an aggressive interventionist policy in that part of the world. US oil companies acquired the rights to some 75 percent of these new reserves. A major problem was how to transport the oil and gas from the landlocked region. US officials opposed using the Russian pipeline or the most direct route across Iran to the Persian Gulf. Instead, they and the corporate oil contractors explored a number of alternative pipeline routes, across Azerbaijan and Turkey to the Mediterranean or across China to the Pacific.”

11. 11/3/08 - Putin: we must end monopoly in world finance

The Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, has called for a complete overhaul of the world’s financial system in order to guarantee stability and ensure progress. He was speaking in Astana in Kazakhstan, where the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is meeting to in discuss the global financial crisis.
The organisation, which comprises Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, is widely seen as a counter-weight to NATO’s influence in Eurasia. It is primarily concerned with security issues. This time, however, the sides are discussing how to develop social and economic cooperation.
At the beginning of his speech at the SCO Council of Prime Ministers, Vladimir Putin stressed the role the SCO countries should play in the changing world political and economic landscape.
“We now clearly see the defectiveness of the monopoly in world finance and the policy of economic selfishness. To solve the current problem Russia will to take part in changing the global financial structure so that it will be able to guarantee stability and prosperity in the world and to ensure progress,” he said.
He also named projects in transportation, telecommunications and modern technology as priorities of the SCO and spoke in favour of mutual space programmes.
While in Kasakhstan, the Russian prime minister is also expected to discuss the formation of a customs union between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan with Kazakh leader Nursultan Nazarbayev.

russia today

12. 11/13/08 - Kazakhstan and the financial crisis

The financial crisis that began in the United States has made its presence felt around the globe and Central Asia is no exception. How is Central Asia’s greatest economic power, Kazakhstan, handling this economic crisis and how is the economic downturn effecting the stability, security, and development of the region. These were the main topics of a conference between many regional experts in Astana last month called “New Challenges and Kazakhstan’s Contribution to Stability and Security.” [link defunct]
Muriel Mirak-Weissbach, a scholar of the region’s economic and strategic outlook attended the conference and not only summarizes the major issues and policies discussed, but also provides a historical perspective of past economic crisis’s in Kazakhstan. Here is an excerpt of what Nurbakh Rustemov, the keynotespeaker and Chairman of the hosting parliamentary committee, had to say of the economic downturn and its consequences:

“He bluntly stated that the world financial crisis was leading to a “misunderstanding” among geopolitical forces, and carried the danger of a direct threat to humanity, through hunger and poverty.(1) He called for uniting forces internationally, to overcome the financial-economic crisis, which he dubbed the “number one priority.” Rustemov mentioned the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, of which Kazakhstan is a founding member, as well as the OSCE, which Kazakhstan will chair beginning 2010, as bodies his government would like to utilize to find solutions to the crisis. Two concrete means that his country could use to impact the crisis, would be in securing energy resources, and providing grain and meat exports to alleviate food shortages.”
Rustemov is correct in stating that this economic crisis may lead to following and connected geopolitical disruptions and he’s also right in arguing that regional and multilateral groups, such as the SCO and OSCE, will be crucial in helping the world get through this mess in one stable piece. Another important aspect of his comments is the positive role Kazakhstan can play in impacting the crisis in a productive way and that is in securing energy resources and in providing food stuffs to alleviate shortages in other countries, specifically in harder hit CA states, such as Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan.
Kazakhstan’s abundance of energy supplies, combined with President Nazarbayev’s prudent planning, have left the nation in good condition despite the tough times. Nazarbayev announced last month that the government would spend $2 billion to stimulate the economy, mainly targeting banks and the construction industry, funds drawn from the nation’s oil fund. Unfortunately, not all CA or world states have an oil fund to fall back on.
What the whole of Central Asia can hope for is sturdy economic stewardship by its regional leader,Kazakhstan, and help from regional bodies, both from the East and West to weather what will most likely be a lengthy recession. During this time, it will be vital to keep the region from falling into disrepair as poverty and extremism would both be on the rise and this may lead to conflict. The US, Russia, China, and the EU all have roles to play in mitigating negative ramifications of this crisis in the region, but a strong and active Kazakhstan is crucial. As Muriel Mirak-Weissbach concludes:
“Kazakhstan has become the foremost interlocutor in Central Asia, not only for Eurasian giants Russia and China, but also for the two major economies of western Europe, Germany and France. If the current world crisis can be overcome through participation of major Eurasian nations, Kazakhstan can become the linchpin in the region for stability and security.”
In addition, the US State Department announced a nuclear safety cooperation with Kazakhstan. Read Below. [link defunct]
The United States and the Republic of Kazakhstan reached a new milestone in a multiyear joint project to irreversibly decommission the Soviet-era BN-350 fast breeder reactor located at the Kazakhstani port of Aktau on the Caspian Sea. The participating governments completed a sodium processing facility that will be used to dispose of coolant from the reactor core. This action demonstrates and reinforces the strength of the U.S.-Kazakhstani strategic relationship, and our joint commitment to preventing the proliferation of nuclear materials.

source: foreign policy blogs

http://centralasia.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2008/11/13/kazakhstan-and-the-financial-crisis/

corruption news

Feb 5

Posted by A. Peasant in Africa, Angola, Big Pharma, Corruption & Crime, Diplomats, Flu psyop, Human Trafficking, Iran, Limited Hangouts, Media, Military, Minerals, Taiwan, Thailand | No Comments

1. military staff in Malaysia linked info to unnamed foreign embassy

KUALA LUMPUR - MALAYSIA’S defence minister reportedly said on Thursday that military personnel had been paid to leak security information to a foreign embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

The alleged leak was unveiled in a probe conducted by the ministry’s intelligence corps together with police, Defence Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said according to state media and The Star newspaper.

‘I don’t want anyone at any position to sell information to external parties,’ he was quoted as saying by The Star on its website. ‘I will make an announcement after meeting the prime minister (Najib Razak) regarding the information that was leaked to a foreign embassy, which allegedly used internal sources,’ he added.

Mr Ahmad Zahid did not name the embassy involved but urged diplomats to carry out their duties properly and warned that action can be taken against perpetrators under the country’s official secrets laws.

‘I hope no one will take advantage of their positions in this country to carry out unethical activities,’ he reportedly said. ‘I believe they have been paid,’ he added, referring to the military personnel allegedly involved in the act.

An aide to the minister said he could not immediately confirm the minister’s remarks when contacted by AFP. Mr Ahmad Zahid told national news agency Bernama that his ministry has been monitoring its staff over any possible information leakage especially since the theft of two US-made fighter jet engines worth US$29 million (S$41 million). — AFP

source: straits times

2. Lancet slammed: vaccine science poisoned by special interests in pharmamedia — The Lancet threw that MMR guy under the bus by discrediting him (but please don’t notice their conflicts of interest!) they can try to conflate all people who question vaccines. this has been covered widely in corporate media, natch.

The editors of Medical Veritas journal have condemned The Lancet’s retraction of the controversial study by Dr. Andrew Wakefield, charging editor Richard Horton with pandering to special interests in a conspiracy to defraud the public about the risks of vaccinations.

In 1998, The Lancet published the contested study linking autism and intestinal problems to the risky MMR triple virus vaccine. Yesterday, following the British General Medical Council’s decision that Dr. Wakefield had been “dishonest,” The Lancet’s editor retracted the article saying the Council’s report made it “utterly clear, without any ambiguity at all, that the statements in the paper were utterly false.”…

The Winter, 2010 issue of Medical Veritas, evidenced gross conflicting interests undermining the The Lancet’s integrity. Following the publication of Dr. Wakefield’s controversial study, Reed-Elsevier-ChoicePoint mergers occurred. The mega-company formed has nearly monopolized the medical scientific publishing industry. Previous to this, The Lancet editors protested the “damaging” of medicine and health science by pharmaceutical companies.

“Now it is obvious Dr. Horton’s company has been grossly contaminated by special interests as biased as Dr. Ross’s ‘PharmaCouncil’,” Dr. Horowitz said.

Reed-Elsevier-ChoicePoint, it turns out, is directed by Chief Executive Officer, Sir Crispin Davis, according to a Reuter’s News Service promotion for GlaxoSmithKline recently published. According to Forbes, Sir Davis was knighted by the Queen of England for his “service to the information industry.” He has served as a Non-Executive Independent Director of GlaxoSmithKline, PLC since 2003. Sir Davis spent his early career with Procter & Gamble.

more @ prevent disease

3. Taiwanese held in smuggling US made military components to Iran – looks like a little sting to fluff the case against Iran. lots of “could be’s”….

MIAMI - US AUTHORITIES said on Thursday they arrested a Taiwanese man for allegedly smuggling US-made military components to Iran that could help the Islamic republic develop missiles and unmanned drones.

Yi-Lan Chen, 40, who also goes by Kevin Chen, was arrested on Wednesday on the US Pacific territory to Guam and is being sent to Miami, where prosecutors had sought his arrest.

If convicted, Chen faces up to 20 years in prison and up to US$1 million (S$1.4 million) in fines. Prosecutors said that Chen had exported ‘dual-use’ technology - which ostensibly has civilian purposes but can be applied for the military - to Taiwan or Hong Kong where it would be reloaded and shipped to Iran.

‘The dual-use items allegedly exported in this case could easily be used in missile development and other military components,’ US Attorney Jeffrey Sloman said in Miami.

‘Such conduct poses a serious threat to our national security, and will not be tolerated,’ he said. The goods Chen is accused of exporting to Iran include P200 turbine engines and spare parts, which can be used for model airplanes but also for unmanned military drones, prosecutors said.

‘This case will send a message to those individuals who attempt to profit by illegally supplying improper dual-use technology to other countries,’ said Anthony Mangione, an US immigration agent investigating the case. Iran is under a raft of sanctions imposed by the United States, United Nations and European Union over its nuclear program and its support for hardline Islamist movements overseas. — AFP

source: straits times

4. Victor Bout ordered to appear in Thai court

Russian businessman and alleged arms dealer Viktor Bout has been summoned to appear in a Thai court on February 16, one of his lawyers said on Friday. Former Russian army officer Bout, 42, remains in custody in a Thai jail after the Bangkok Criminal Court refused in August to extradite him to the United States, where he is facing four terrorism-related charges and a possible life sentence. “I was informed that my client had been asked to appear in court on February 16. However, I was not told why he had been summoned,” Thai lawyer Chamroen Panompakakom told RIA Novosti. He suggested that Bout could face an additional questioning or the announcement of an appeals court verdict on his extradition case.

more @ ria novosti

5. um, Frank Timis hearts Sierra Leone. you see what admitting to a few little mistakes can do? a little ball-fluffing never hurt anyone.

It is quite easy for anyone to be suspicious of a large investment initiative from an international company in a small African country with huge mineral wealth and potential. A lot has been written about African Minerals and Frank Timis in the past. But most of what has been written focused mainly on the mistakes of the past – which have been fully acknowledged by the company’s management. Surely everyone deserves a second chance. Especially when that chance is given to someone whose determination to prove everyone wrong can only be matched with his vision to end the poverty-stricken environment structure of a country he has come to fall in love with. Timis has lent his support to Sparks, a UK based children’s medical charity whose remit is to fund research across the whole spectrum of paediatric medicine, and has invested in a company developing a more effective method of treating malaria. And he can even do more for Sierra Leone!

…Frank Timis once said “the best lie is the truth, because you never get caught.” Reputable international renowned companies like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan to Macquarie, have backed his business projects for the past 15 years. This goes to show the faith big companies have in Timis. He may be a colorful personality, but he surely has the brains to turn things around.

…The United Nations recently declared the company’s Tonkolili development to be the Most Effective Corporate Social Responsibility Project ever embarked on. But he surely does not get the credit he deserves for such amazing feats of accomplishments. With all this backdrop, Frank Timis says he is not looking for recognition for his philanthropy. He is always looking forward to the next deal.

more @ newstime africa

6. Angola man accused of teen sex plot

An Angola man faces federal charges in New York, accusing him of transporting a 15-year-old girl across state lines for the purposes of having sex with her last fall. In late January, Foster Creager, 40, was arrested in Steuben County. He is scheduled to appear before a federal judge in the southern district of New York on Monday. According to the criminal complaint, a 15-year-old girl went missing from Hyde Park, N.Y., on Sept. 10. FBI agents discovered she had been communicating via e-mail with someone named “Kenneth Bone.”

Telephone records linked the phone number used by “Kenneth Bone” to Creager, of the 4300 block of West U.S. 20 in Angola.

On Sept. 11, Steuben County sheriff’s officers went to a mobile home and recreational vehicle park in Angola and saw Creager standing next to an RV. He told police the teen was inside. During an interview with detectives, Creager said he met the girl two or three months earlier on the Internet. He said he picked up the girl in New York and drove with her and another person to Indiana. In court documents filed in federal court in Fort Wayne, the other person is identified as Judy DeLong. Both DeLong and Creager have been indicted on a single count of transporting a minor across state lines with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.

Creager told police he and the 15-year-old were “boyfriend and girlfriend” but said he suspected she was not 18 when he brought her to Indiana.

The teen told investigators that Creager told her she would need to be “in hiding” for three years until she turned 18, according to court documents.

DNA collected during a forensic examination of the teen matched Creager’s, according to court documents.

source: journalgazette.net

trafficking news

Feb 1

Posted by A. Peasant in Children, Corruption & Crime, Drug Trafficking, Human Trafficking, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Philippines, Southeast Asia, Terrorism, UK | No Comments

1. Haiti holds 10 Americans suspected of trafficking children, as you’ve no doubt heard, since this one has made it to teevee. this might go one of two ways. it might be an attempt at damage control / limited hangout, to draw attention away from the larger problem and hold some people accountable while managing the narrative that it is merely an “adoption” ring, ie: not *that* bad. OR, if they are cleared and it turns out to all be a “misunderstanding” over “paperwork”, it might serve to debunk the concerns over child trafficking, and discredit the people who are claiming it’s a very huge problem, making them out to be hysterics. we’ll have to see if they expand the conversation to illegal organ trafficking, child sex trafficking, etc. i doubt it. instead i think we will see (continued) major gate keeping around this topic, as it vectors directly into The Pedophocracy.

Haitian police were holding 10 US citizens Saturday evening on suspicion they tried to slip out of the country with 31 Haitian children in a trafficking scheme, a government minister said.

Haitian Social Affairs Minister Yves Christallin said the police arrested five men and five women with US passports, and two Haitians, as they tried to cross into the Dominican Republic with the children Friday night. He said two pastors were also involved, one in Haiti and one in Atlanta, Georgia.

more @ inquirer

2. children in question very fearful of adults, most have families, people express shock. the picture shows clean, well kept children. why would people take these children when there were 300,000+ restavek (ie: slave) children in Haiti BEFORE the earthquake to choose from? if people want to traffic children, they have an ample supply of uncared for children to pick from. so looks like this might be building up for a combo misunderstanding /wrist-slapping resolution, and everyone will breathe a sigh of relief. Be More Careful Next Time! sure.

“The majority of these children have families. Some of the older ones said their parents are alive, and some gave an address and phone numbers,” said Vargas, a Costa Rican who is in charge of SOS Children’s operations in Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean.

…Inside the SOS Village scores of volunteers from countries including Chile, Guatemala and Costa Rica do not hide the shock of the news.

“Even if we had … [suspected] that this was happening in Haiti after the earthquake, it is a shock,” said SOS spokesman Georg Willeit, an Austrian.

more @ telegraph

3. teacher to plead not guilty to abuse charges

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A Colorado man is expected to plead not guilty to new charges that he sexually abused boys at a school he founded in Haiti.

A Colorado man is expected to plead not guilty to new charges that he sexually abused boys at a school he founded in Haiti. Douglas Perlitz is scheduled to appear Tuesday in federal court in New Haven. Perlitz was charged last year with sexually abusing nine boys. Prosecutors doubled the number of alleged victims to 18 with a new indictment announced Thursday. Perlitz pleaded not guilty last year to the original charges. His lawyer, William Dow III, said Thursday that he would also plead not guilty to the new counts.

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local&id=7249350

4. 9.5 MILLION people trafficked in Asia-Pacific since 2005.

MANILA, Philippines—An estimated 9.49 million people were in forced labor in the Asia-Pacific region as of 2005, with a significant number believed to be in the Mekong region, according to United Nations International Labour Organization (ILO).

Thus, officials from the six countries of South-East Asia’s Mekong region and observers from the United Nations and other stakeholders opened a two-day meeting in Myanmar Thursday to step up the war on human trafficking, including sexual slavery and labor exploitation.

The meeting brings together ministers from China, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam, along with observers from the UN, including the UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking of Persons Joy Ngozi Ezeilo, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and donors.

more @ global nation

5. in other trafficking news, Israel says that Hamas guy who got whacked? yeah, he was smuggling weapons to Hezbollah. other than that, we don’t know anything about it.

Hamas military commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who was slain in a Dubai hotel room, played a key role in smuggling weapons into the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, an Israeli army official said. “This guy was a middleman for smuggling weapons from Iran, not only to Gaza but to Hizbullah” in Lebanon, the official told The Los Angeles Times.Among other things, Mabhouh, believed to be about 50, was suspected of helping to route smuggled arms through Sudan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. One of the arms convoys was bombed in Sudan last year, reportedly by Israeli aircraft.

“Of course, the moment a guy like this is dead, there is always someone to replace him,” the military official said. “But information (about arms-smuggling routes) is usually kept very secret. You have to renew the connections, rebuild the trust. It takes some time to grow into his shoes. It shakes the whole system.”

Though Israel has not acknowledged any role in the killing of al-Mabhouh on Jan. 20, it was one of several mysterious deaths of Arab militants attributed to Israel’s Mossad spy agency over the years.

Relatives and Hamas officials said al-Mabhouh was electrocuted and poisoned, perhaps by having his face smothered with a poison-soaked cloth. Despite surviving what his family says were several earlier attempts on his life, he had traveled without bodyguards to avoid drawing attention.

source: naharnet

6. aq, jumping the shark: watch out for the latest new thing in the war on terror, terrorists who have their bombs surgically inserted in their bodies. so they inject themselves when they want to explode. yeah. that’s pretty normal. do you think they’d have to be under mind control? but nevermind that. do you see that you can NEVER EVER in a million years EVER be safe from these diabolical people, these al qaeda terrorists? that’s the point. you are powerless.

Britain is facing a new Al Qaeda terror threat from suicide ‘body bombers’ with explosives surgically inserted inside them.

Until now, terrorists have attacked airlines, Underground trains and buses by secreting bombs in bags, shoes or underwear to avoid detection. But an operation by MI5 has uncovered evidence that Al Qaeda is planning a new stage in its terror campaign by inserting ‘surgical bombs’ inside people for the first time. Security services believe the move has been prompted by the recent introduction at airports of body scanners, which are designed to catch terrorists before they board flights. It is understood MI5 became aware of the threat after observing increasingly vocal internet ‘chatter’ on Arab websites this year. [i love that... "it is understood"]

more @ daily mail

7. more terrorist creativity: Philippine senate to probe rice shipment from Vietnam

Senator Richard Gordon said Saturday the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee will look into the discovery of sacks of a white substance which can be turned into either shabu or explosives that were found in a shipment of rice imported by the National Food Authority from Vietnam.

Gordon, who chairs the committee, said there was something highly suspicious in the discovery of N-methylephedrine, which was later said to be ammonium sulfate, in a shipment of 77,000 bags of NFA rice from Vietnam to Bacolod City as it could be a move to raise funds for the elections.

…The following day, the Bureau of Customs in Bacolod City issued a hold order on a Vietnam-registered vessel, MW Trai Thien 66, its crew and its cargo of 77,000 bags of rice consigned to the NFA in the wake of the discovery of the bags of white crystalline substance.

…Negros media were baffled by the fact that while PDEA officials on Thursday evening and Friday morning confirmed the seized substance to be N-methylephedrine, later in the day they were saying it was ammonium sulfate.

Paul Ledesma, head of the PDEA in Western Visayas, said the earlier findings of N-methylephedrine were based on a Philippine National Police laboratory test in Negros Occidental but a later test done by the PDEA in Manila showed it to be ammonium sulfate.

N-methylepehedrine can be processed into an ingredient in manufacturing shabu (methamphetamine hydrochloride). Ammonium sulphate, on the other hand, is a fertilizer component but can also be used in producing explosives.

The rice from Vietnamese was part of the rice importation that the Department of Agriculture announced in December last year.

An announcement on Dec. 14, 2009 on the DA website said the NFA had given the notice of awards to four winning bidders to supply a total of 509,950 metric tons of well-milled long grain white rice to the Philippines .

The NFA awarded the rice importation to Vietnam Southern Food Corp., Louis Dreyfus Commodities Asia Pte. Ltd., Chairyaporn Rice Co., Ltd and Asia Golden Rice, it said.

A total of 300,000 metric tons of rice will be sourced from Vietnam. The balance of 209,950 tons will come from Thailand, the United States, China and Pakistan.

The whole shipment is scheduled to arrive within the first half of the year starting January until May, it added.

8. cocaine bricks wash up on Philippines shores

February 1, 2010

January 8, 2010

December 29, 2009

North Korea, multi-purpose tool, links into all the hotspots

Jan 27

Posted by A. Peasant in Africa, Clinton, Iran, Kazakhstan, Military, North Korea, Nuclear Weapons, Palestinians, Sri Lanka, Syria, Thailand, Ukraine | No Comments

1. firms in 5 countries linked to N. Korean arms smuggling: Kazakhstan, Ukraine, New Zealand, UAE, Sri Lanka, Iran (natch)

Five companies in five countries were involved in a complex process of cargo laundering for a shipment of North Korean arms that was confiscated at Bangkok’s Don Mueang Airport last month, according to media reports.

Efforts to track the cargo were complicated by the involvement of a Kazakh arms dealer and his wife who handled the arms through a ghost company, AP said Tuesday. Thai police discovered 40 tons of North Korean arms including multiple rocket launchers, 40 surface-to-air missiles, and hundreds of rocket-propelled grenades worth an estimated US$18 million on an Ilyushin cargo plane operated by Air West of Georgia, which landed in Bangkok on Dec. 12.

All five crew were arrested, but it was not easy to trace the route the arms had taken. Alexander Zykov, a Kazakh dealer in illegal arms, is allegedly behind the transport. He hired five crew for an air freight company he owned named East Wing in Kiev, Ukraine, in July last year. Three days later, a friend of Zykov’s established a ghost company named SP Trading in New Zealand.

SP Trading then leased the cargo plane from Air West, which is also effectively run by Zykov and had earlier leased it to Overseas Trading FZE, a company in the United Arab Emirates owned by Zykov’s wife. Once SP Trading had leased the plane, it received an order from a Hong Kong-registered firm, Union Top Management, to transport “petroleum industry components” from the [North] Korean General Trading Corporation.

The plane took off from Kiev and flew via Azerbaijan and the UAE to North Korea. Once the freight had been loaded, it was scheduled to stop for refueling in Thailand and fly west to Ukraine by way of Sri Lanka and the UAE. From there, some reports say it was leapfrogged via Iran to Montenegro, but the tiny peaceful principality seems an unlikely final destination for the cargo.

source: chosun ilbo

2. North Korea also supplying ‘Congolese insurgents’

North Korea smuggled about 3,400 tons of weapons into the Democratic Republic of Congo in the midst of a civil war there in January, with some of them going to Congolese insurgents or nearby countries, VOA quoted a UN official as saying Wednesday.

Christian Dietrich, a member of the UN Security Council committee investigating Congo, told VOA that the North Korean ship Birobong arrived in the port of Boma, Congo on Jan. 21, where it unloaded some 3,400 tons of weapons, 100 times the amount seized in Thailand earlier this month.

more @ chosun ilbo

3. US congressional report says NK also passing WMD tech to Syria, through Iran of course — sorry no details classified into, you understand

A new U.S. congressional report claims North Korea is transferring weapons technology to Syria through Iran. In the report, the Congressional Research Service, an entity that works exclusively for the U.S. Congress, revealed that Iran was assisting in the procurement of weapons of mass destruction-related technology by providing North Korea with a platform for such trade with Syria. The report however does not offer further details on the alleged interaction.

source: chosun ilbo

4. Hillary Clinton — very worried about NK and Burma

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says military cooperation between North Korea and Burma would be very destabilizing for the region, and would pose a direct threat to Burma’s neighbors. She says Washington is taking regional concerns about this connection “very seriously.” Clinton addressed the concerns on Tuesday in Bangkok after meeting Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. She will join a regional security conference in Phuket on Wednesday.North Korea’s possible cooperation with Burma made headlines in June, when the U.S. Navy began tracking a North Korean ship believed to be traveling to Burma with suspicious cargo. The ship returned to North Korea without ever docking in Burma.

more @ chosun ilbo

5. Iran buys masses of arms from North Korea, ships them all over the world, including to Hamas and Hezbollah, according to WaPo, citing US and UN officials. yup they know all about it.

Iran has imported piles of North Korean-made conventional weapons, the Washington Post reported Thursday, even though both countries are under UN sanctions over their nuclear programs. Weapons also went to two Palestinian militant organizations, the Iran-backed Hezbollah and the Islamist Hamas, the paper said.

To avoid international pursuit, the North Korean weapons were “shipped halfway around the globe in sealed containers, labeled as oil-drilling supplies, that passed through a succession of freighters and ports,” including China, Southeast Asia and the Dubai free trade zone, before reaching Iran, it said.

One example was a shipment of North Korean weapons aboard the ANL Australia which was confiscated by United Arab Emirates authorities on July 22. According to U.S. and UN officials, the ship carried 2,030 detonators for 122 mm multiple rocket launchers, as well as electric circuitry and solid-fuel propellant for rockets, which Hamas and Hezbollah use when attacking Israel.

The UAE made no official announcement, but the paper said the shipment of North Korean weapons consisted of 10 cargo containers. They left the North Korean port of Nampo on May 30, five days after the North’s second nuclear test on May 25 and before the UN Security Council adopted a fresh resolution sanctioning the North.

The UNSC adopted Resolution 1874 on June 12, extending the arms embargo on North Korea and authorizing member states to inspect its cargo on land, sea, and air. By that time, the vessel carrying the arms had already arrived in China. The containers were transferred to a Chinese ship in the northern port of Dalian on June 13.

From there, they were ferried to Shanghai, where they were moved to a third ship, the ANL Australia, a 47,326 ton freighter. They were finally discovered at the port of Khor Fakkan in the UAE. The officials claimed that there were as many as five such smuggling attempts since early this year.

source: chosun ilbo

6. on top of all that, the North Koreans are firing away past an imaginary line in the ocean

North Korea vowed to continue artillery drills Wednesday along the West Sea border after firing dozens of shells on two separate occasions there, reiterating that the de-facto inter-Korean border should be redrawn. After the first batch of about 30 artillery shells in the morning, South Korea responded by firing warning shots, but no casualties or damage occurred.

The North began firing again at 3:25 p.m., with a dozen more shells landing north of the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the de facto western sea border. But the South did not respond. This is the first time that the North has fired artillery into the NLL in the West Sea, though the navies from both Koreas have exchanged gunfire near the border before. No casualties or injuries were reported as both sides fired in the air and no fishing boats were present, a spokesman for the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.

more @ korea times

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