Twelfth Bough

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Archive for category Nuclear Weapons

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


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

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



the flames burning all around

Jan 23

Posted by A. Peasant in Africa, CIA, Central America, Corruption & Crime, Drug Trafficking, France, Identities, India, Iran, Israel, Nigeria, Nuclear Weapons, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Southeast Asia, Terrorism, UK | No Comments

Current interlinked narratives — apologies for the length:

1. UK raises the terror alert to “severe.” AS A RESULT of underpants bomber, the security services have tightened their vigilance.

Thus we shall be grateful for the crisis narrowly averted, hmm? It has borne the fruits of hyper-vigilance, a symptom, by the way, of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. But who’s counting…

“We still face a real and serious threat to the U.K. from international terrorism, so I would urge the public to remain vigilant and carry on reporting suspicious events to the appropriate authorities and to support the police and security services in their continuing efforts to discover, track and disrupt terrorist activity,” he said, adding that U.K. residents and travelers need to be “more aware.” — Home Secretary Alan Johnson, as reported in USA Today

This brings UK policies in line with US DHS policies. We are all on the same page now, hallelujah. A terrorist attack is “highly likely,” but there’s no “intelligence to suggest that an attack is imminent.”

What is the “intelligence” “suggesting?”

1. The increased concern followed intelligence analysis. Communications and activities of terror suspects were being monitored. The new “severe” threat is the second highest possible.

2. ‘We have a very adept and very focused counter-terrorism facility, people should be reassured by that.’ He said that moving to the different threat level meant people had to be more alert.

3. The danger assessment was made by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, which constantly reviews the situation. It looks at the intent and capabilities of terror groups. Although it means an attack is now believed to be almost certain, Mr Johnson stressed it was not expected in the very near future.

So the attack is “almost certain,” but not in the “very near future.” The “intelligence” “suggests” people need to be more “alert,” and more “concerned,” and to “carry on reporting suspicious events” to the “appropriate authorities” and “to support the police and security services” in their efforts to “discover, track and disrupt terrorist activity.” Roger that.

Note that all such vigilant efforts can be tied back to patsy underpants, who, by almost taking down that commercial airliner over Detroit, alerted us once again to the ever-present menace of international terrorism. SO he did us a favor in a way. See? He justified the increased vigilance, which now pays off. We Hope. Because, of course, we know the terrorists are so very wily, and they seem magically able to outwit even our best, most vigilant efforts. Let’s hope we don’t have any more of that unfortunate bugaboo: Human Error.

2. The tie to Africa and the Caribbean.

The UK terror alert measures followed a Tuesday meeting between Brown and President Obama. Brown said Britain and other countries face a “sharply growing threat” from al qaeda linked terrorists in Yemen, Somalia, Nigeria, Sudan and Ethiopia.

On Thursday Newtime Africa reported that the Jamaican cleric Abdullah al-Faisal had finally been deported, on the second attempt, from Kenya back to Jamaica. He was due in court. He left Kenya on a private chartered Gulfstream jet, last week.

Nairobi - Kenya has sent controversial Jamaican-born Muslim cleric Abdullah al-Faisal back to his homeland, a state prosecutor said Thursday, days after protests demanding his release turned deadly. Edward Okello told a Nairobi court where al-Faisal was due to appear that the cleric had been put on a private jet to Jamaica. Al-Faisal, who has served time in the UK for inciting racial hatred and is on international terrorist watch list, arrived in Kenya from Tanzania in late December, and was arrested around a week later. Kenya tried to deport him to The Gambia earlier this month, but he was sent back. Police on Friday broke up a demonstration in support of al-Faisal, firing bullets and tear gas into the crowd. Five protesters died from bullet wounds. The 45-year-old cleric was sentenced to four years imprisonment in Britain in 2003 after he called on his followers to kill Jews and Hindus. He was deported upon his release in 2007. Born Trevor William Forrest in St James, Jamaica, he went to Saudi Arabia aged 16 and converted to Islam.

Yes, he seems to get around, that notorious terrorist hater. He must have connections. But now, and I tell you this with a straight face, his whereabouts are not exactly known. Because, evidently, of the many righteous people in positions of authority, who have declined to issue him a transit visa, lest he pollute their pristine airspace with his terrorist fumes…or something….I guess it’s not exactly Human Error, or maybe it is but it is Well Intentioned. In any event it seems EXCEEDINGLY OBTUSE AND LEGALISTIC CAN’T SEE THE FOREST FOR THE TREES for people who claim to be serious about fighting terrorism twenty four seven.

Their first effort stalled after several countries denied him an intransit visa and airlines that fly to friendly countries refused to transport him….Al Faisal’s exact location was not immediately clear. Officials say he had already left Kenya on a privately-chartered Gulfstream jet. But leader of the Kenya Muslim Rights Forum Al-Amin Kimathi, told the media the preacher was still at Nairobi airport. However sources at the airport later confirmed the plane had left, but not until several hours after he had been due in court.

Another source: First Tanzania refused him entry, and then on his way to the Gambia, an airline refused to take him beyond Nigeria because he is on several international terror watchlists.…“We wanted to be furnished with documents to show which anti-terrorism police unit officers followed him, who is the pilot, which plane, and such other documents,’ Harun Ndubi said.

Another source: In Nairobi, Immigration minister Otieno Kajwang’ appealed to Britain and the United States governments to allow a-Faisal to transit through their countries. He said the government was stuck with the preacher because all routes to Jamaica must connect through either Britain or America.

The minister said if al-Faisal was to be flown out of the country by the national carrier, Kenya Airways, the connection would be at Gatwick in Britain then to Kingston, Jamaica. However Britain has been adamantly opposed to allow al-Faisal to transit through London. The preacher once served a four-year jail term in that country for hate speech.

The other option available to Kenya, according to Mr Kajwang’ said, was an offer by the Qatar government allowing al-Faisal to transit through its capital Doha. However, the flight must connect through Miami in Florida, USA.

South Africa had also accepted to allow the preacher to pass through its airport en route to Brazil who have no problem either. But the flight has to go through Havana, Cuba, where authorities have declined the arrangement.

As such, Mr Kajwang’ said, Kenya was left “with the last option of hiring a plane but it must connect through somewhere to fuel and again we do not have the money.” Al-Faisal was expected in Kingston on Wednesday, the Jamaican newspaper reported.

Another source: Radical Muslim cleric Sheikh Abdullah El-Faisal is expected to arrive in Jamaica today. A Senior Officer in the Jamaica Constabulary Force told the Gleaner that El Faisal is to arrive at the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston sometime this morning. The source also said the controversial cleric is to be placed under extra scrutiny by the police. However, the source declined to elaborate on the matter.

Despite international reports of the deportation, the Police High Command and the Minister of Foreign Affairs have both claimed ignorance of the exact date of arrival of El Faisal. They have also said that no extra security measures are to be implemented against the cleric despite the fact that he is on an international watch list of terrorists.

What a pain in the ass. Finally, it appears that he did indeed arrive safely in Jamaica! Phew! Traveling in style like a Rock Star.

JAMAICAN-BORN Muslim cleric, Sheikh Abdullah al-Faisal, was quizzed by Special Branch investigators for nearly an hour [hoo boy that sounds like a brutal interrogation! - ed.] when he returned to the island last night.

One investigator made it clear that al-Faisal had not broken any laws here, but said the police wanted to make sure they knew where and how to find him “because of the international attention he has received”.

“He is a very smart man. He can tell us he is going to be here or there, but we want to make sure,” said one investigator, who recorded the licence plate of the minibus that whisked al-Faisal from the Norman Manley International Airport. [GOOD IDEA! - ed.]

Confronted by reporters as he exited the airport, the controversial Muslim cleric said he was too tired to answer any questions after two days of flying.

He would not disclose the route his plane took, but said the flight had been paid for by a South African company.

Informed sources told The Gleaner that after leaving Kenya, al-Faisal’s plane made fuel stops in the West African country of Burkina Faso, the Republic of Cape Verde and Antigua.

One source said al-Faisal told investigators the trip cost US$500,000.

The controversial cleric was ordered deported by Kenyan officials who labelled him a security threat. However, since the deportation order, several countries, including the United States, have refused to allow planes carrying al-Faisal to fly over their air space or provide him with an in-transit visa.

(I can’t believe they made him carry his own bags!)

This is as good a time as any to point out that some people in Nigeria and some people in Jamaica find it grossly unfair to be associated in the public mind with patsy underpants and notorious criminal al-Faisal, seeing as both men were raised and educated elsewhere.

“This is just one instance of a Nigerian who, it is clearly established, has no link with any fundamentalist group or any interest group within Nigeria, not even with his parents….America should look inward and search their souls, there is something wrong with their system and they should not punish Nigerians who are very law-abiding and good international citizens for the failure and irresponsibility of American operatives, Nigeria will not take that.” - Nigerian Senate President David Mark

“Indeed, he is a citizen of Jamaica by birth and no one can deny him access. However, he was taught and trained in a foreign territory and not in Jamaica. For example, he was converted to Islam and completed eight years of studies at a university in Saudi Arabia. He resided in the United Kingdom for 26 years and was deported from that country on May 25, 2007 after spending time in prison for criminal offences…His only connection to Jamaica is by birth, and he did not relinquish his citizenship or ties with Jamaica. Therefore, Jamaica has to accommodate such an individual in a country that already has a tarnished image. Abdullah al-Faisal has created a bad image for himself and has cast a bad shadow on everybody living in Jamaica, especially the Muslim group whose members are law-abiding citizens. Upon his arrival, authorities will have their work cut out for them in order to monitor his whereabouts.” — letter to the editor, Jamaica Observer

Except that the authorities appear to be treating al-Faisal like a ROCK STAR after his half mil private chartered Gulfstream flight paid for by some South African company after the US and UK were prevented — by a fit of moral compunction — to facilitate the criminal’s extradition to a court of law.

Weird, huh? After all that talk about vigilance.

3. Meanwhile, Gates had barely left India for Pakistan when the terrorist threats began in earnest there.

http://cbs2.com/national/Britian.terror.threat.2.1443420.html

This move by British officials comes as Indian authorities issued a terrorism alert over chatter that al Qaeda operatives planned to hijack a plane. India has largely been free of terror attacks since 10 heavily armed militants affiliated with a Pakistan-based militant group rampaged through the commercial capital Mumbai for three days in November 2008, killing 166 people.

India issued a terror alert at all its airports Thursday after the government received warnings about a possible attack, aviation spokeswoman Moushumi Chakravarty said.

A report in The Indian Express newspaper, which Chakravarty confirmed, said intelligence officials had uncovered a plot by militants linked to al Qaeda and the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group to hijack an Air India or Indian Airlines flight destined for an unspecified South Asian country. There were no indications that the United Kingdom was in any way related to the uncovered hijack plot.

I collected about twenty or so stories this week here and here to flesh this out. The overall arc is the US will give cover to India while Pakistan-linked terrorists attack India or another Southeast Asian country, involving India. The key point being, evidently, to justify a response from India.

Just like the patsy underpants attack justified a response from the US and the UK.

This post deals with the connections between India, Pakistan, Southeast Asia and terrorism.

4. Meanwhile, the Clash of Civilization fires burn brightly, and Nicholas Sarkozy has the gasoline ready just in case.

But the UK is in Europe. In order for terrorism to be an international menace, problems must be seeded all over the world. *YOU* may experience difficulty traveling, but unlike you, terrorists use their mysterious international connections to travel, so that they show up halfway around the world, dammit, to commit mayhem in The West, and nobody can understand anything except that they came from a Muslim country.

Nicholas Sarkozy seems to have a special skill for mind-fucking. Notice that he parrots, almost religiously, whatever position Tel Aviv favors. Notice at the same time, he plays kiss kiss hug hug with Lebanon. Israel wants to bomb Lebanon again, just as they did in 2006. Make no mistake about it. Whether it’s Ghajar, or the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, or an attack on UNIFIL — something will take place to justify attacking Lebanon. And Lebanon is connected to Hizbollah, and Hizbollah is connected to Iran, and so whatever happens it will progress like a lit fuse with Wile E. Coyote until it reaches Iran.

To that end, Sarkozy makes various inflammatory statements. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3838323,00.html

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Saturday that he is “convinced that Iran is pursuing a nuclear program and the Israel will not abide that,” the London-based Arabic-language newspaper al-Hayat reported.

According to the report, Sarkozy, who met with Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri in Paris, said France has proof that Tehran is developing a nuclear bomb and that Israel may choose to take action to neutralize the threat.

Oh, well, PLEASE DO SHARE THE “PROOF!”

The paper also quoted Sarkozy as saying that if given a choice between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he would choose the latter.

The French president also spoke of the recent international sanctioned proposed against the Islamic Republic by the UN Security Council, saying such sanctions may soon become a reality.

Meanwhile, Sarkozy also announced that Paris was willing to supply Beirut with whatever military equipment it needed.

Talk about running both sides of the conflict. Even though France worries, they just worry half to death, that the weapons will end up in Hizbullah’s hands.But, at the same time, they don’t want to leave the Lebanese unprotected.

Sources close to the French president told al-Hayat that Sarkozy said his country “cannot support and protect Lebanon’s independence without giving its military the necessary means of defense.” France, he reportedly added, needs neither the US nor Israel’s permission to support Lebanon’s independence. Should Israel views the issue as problematic, he added, “We will reach an understanding with it on the matter.”

In any case, there’s nothing to worry about because France and Israel are friends, and the only danger to Lebanon comes from Hizbullah and Iran. !!

Kouchner said Lebanese’ mounting concerns amid Israeli threats of another war were “not justified.” “Israel is our friend, and if there was a threat to Lebanon, it will only come from a military adventure carried out by Hizbullah in the best interest of Iran,” Kouchner warned.

Un-flipping-believable. So while all that is going on, Sarkozy — big world leader — keeps Muslim women in his cross-hairs in France, making sure that the French people have an annoying distraction caused by Muslims, while spinning it all as a morality play, and being a big tease about the whole thing just to keep the tension simmering.

Mr Sarkozy last week reiterated his view that the full veil was not welcome in France “because it is contrary to our values and contrary to the ideals we have of a woman’s dignity”. But he stopped short of calling for a legal ban in all public places, as proposed by some members of his party.

Another source: In a country whose national emblem is Marianne, a bare-chested woman, there is deepening concern over the all-encompassing garb, often black or brown and worn with gloves, attire typical in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. Here, it is widely viewed as a gateway to radical Islam, an attack on gender equality and other French values, and a gnawing away at the nation’s secular foundation.

And of course he faithfully channels whatever Bibi would say regarding Iran.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday called for “strong measures” by the United Nations Security Council against Iran, to exert pressure on Tehran to return to negotiations on its nuclear program. Speaking in Paris, Sarkozy said that the European Union should also “assume its responsibilities” in putting pressure on Iran to enter into talks.
Sarkozy warned that hesitation by the international community on the issue would carry “a great weight of responsibility”, reports Reuters. “Despite all our efforts, and a new engagement by the United States, and despite our ambitious proposals for cooperation, the Iranian authorities are blocked in a one-way street of proliferation and radicalism,” he said in an address to diplomats based in France.
“Today, they have added to that the brutal repression of their own people,” he added.

On Thursday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton vowed that world powers would “not back down” in the face of Iran’s continued refusal to prove its nuclear intentions are peaceful. Iran has shunned a United Nations-brokered nuclear fuel deal, aimed at easing the standoff over its nuclear program. Tehran, which insists that its nuclear program is for civilian purposes, has vowed to press forward with its uranium enrichment program, despite UN demands to halt such work.

They demand Iran prove a negative, and they offer NO PROOF of Iran’s supposed nuclear program. They have none. If France has some proof, show it to the world. There’s probably nothing there but another forged document.

Why does this next war need to happen? The nuclear program narrative justifies what they want to do — which is bomb various targets in Iran. Iran’s alleged nuclear program, for which no evidence has ever been provided, makes a good excuse to bomb Iran’s oil fields — to control Iran’s resources. Which must happen because the failing fiat currency, the US dollar, needs to be replaced, and they don’t want any Islamic non-usurious banking system luring their wage slaves away. Who controls the currency? The Rothschilds and the Rockefellers and the other banking families.

All the rest is psyops and profiteering and human sacrifice.

India - so important

Jan 22

Posted by A. Peasant in CIA, Corruption & Crime, Flu psyop, India, Iran, Media, Military, Mind-fucking, Nuclear Weapons, Pakistan, Terrorism, Vaccines | No Comments

1. no sooner does gates leave — they probably didn’t even clear his lunch dishes yet — than we find out that The Terrorists Are Ready to ATTACK! like — immediately.

NEW DELHI: Army chief Deepak Kapoor on Tuesday warned that 26/11 type Mumbai terror attacks were a possibility and that India has to take all steps to counter such strikes. “We have to take all steps to prevent any Mumbai type attacks. We cannot rule out apprehensions of such possibilities,” Kapoor told reporters on the sidelines of an Army function.  To a question if there were any terror alerts in the recent times, he said the South Asian region is infested with terror groups. Be it India, Afghanistan or Pakistan, “we have to collectively battle such threats.”

…On the Naxal menace, Kapoor said the Army would continue to train paramilitary forces to fight against the Naxals and it would be an ongoing process.  “The battle against Naxals will not be over in one day. To eradicate Naxalism, it is going to take time. It is going to be a long drawn battle,” he said, giving examples of counter-insurgency operations in Jammu and Kashmir and the Northeast which had gone on for decades. He said providing strategy and equipment to paramilitary forces in the fight against Naxals would be a futuristic option.

more @ times of india

2. Air India planes — on high alert

NEW DELHI: Government has put all Air India planes operating in the country’s neighbourhood on high security alert and directed the airlines to deploy sky marshalls following intelligence inputs that Pakistan-based LET and other terror groups were planning to hijack a flight….According to intelligence inputs, terrorist groups having allegiance with al-Qaida, Lashker-e-Taiba and Jamat-ul-Dawa were planning to hijack an Air India plane especially operating in or from SAARC countries — Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Maldives, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India as well.

more @ times of india

3. OR, they  might use hang gliders or toy airplanes. ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE WITH THE WILY TERRORISTS! it’s very important to keep looking up in the sky in the most paranoid manner possible. thank you for your cooperation. this will make for excellent teevee footage…

NEW DELHI: Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba has acquired more than 50 para-gliding equipment from Europe, setting off alarm bells that these could be used to carry out air-borne suicide attacks in the country….The input about movement of overground workers, owing allegiance to LeT, in Europe led the sleuths to find out that they were on a shopping spree for para-gliding equipment, the sources said….Radars located at strategic locations have been tuned to intercept all low flying objects and authorities are not taking any chances, sources said. …Ahead of the Republic Day, elaborate air defence measures, including deployment of anti-aircraft guns, have also been taken to check possible intrusion of air space.  Besides, helicopters of the Indian Air Force will hover over the areas around Rajpath and all along the route of the Republic Day parade. Earlier, intelligence reports suggested that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence had directed the militants operating in Jammu and Kashmir to use explosive-laden ‘Toy Planes’ to hit VIPs in the state and the national capital.

more @ times of india

4. get your FRESH terror alerts right here !!!

NEW DELHI: Intelligence agencies on Friday sounded a terror alert in Kolkata, Mumbai and Delhi following reports that terrorists had sneaked into these cities to target vital installations. Home ministry sources said that Taliban-trained ‘fidayeen’ (suicide squads) had reportedly entered the country to carry out attacks at specific iconic structures. Barely a fortnight back, there was a similar alert saying that ‘Pashtun-looking’ suicide bombers, trained by Taliban, had entered India to launch a fresh wave of attacks. Security has been beefed up at key installations and patrolling has been intensified in market places, railway stations, airports and hotels, sources said.

source: times of india

and: Officials said the government regularly issues advisory to states, especially before Republic Day, Independence Day and major religious festivals, to remain on alert and take measures to thwart attempts of militant organisations and Maoists.

5. India not alarmed at US supplying drones to Pak. pfft. why would they be? these are only used to kill terrorists. not to worry.

BANGALORE: India is not perturbed over the US supplying drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), to Pakistan as long as they are used against the Taliban militants, Chief of Air Staff PV Naik said on Friday….The Indian Air Force (IAF) chief said he was not unduly concerned over such a development as it had no bearing on India. US defence secretary Robert Gates said in Islamabad late on Thursday that the US planned to provide Pakistan with a dozen Shadow aerial drones to help its military to take on the Taliban militants. …The US has been employing armed drones for missile strikes against al-Qaida and Taliban operatives in Pakistan, fuelling anti-American sentiment there and attracting public condemnation from Islamabad.

more @ times of india

6. Holbrooke: India is so, so, so important. so really, i hope you understand that a little duty-free legislation would do WONDERS for resolving the intractable problems in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

“I want to be sure that everyone here recognises how centrally important Indian will be to this (the US success in Afghanistan and Pakistan),” he told US lawmakers at a Congressional hearing on Afghanistan and Pakistan convened by the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee chaired by Senator John Kerry, a key aid of President Barack Obama…. “India is not formally part of my mandate, but with the support of the Indians, I try to go to New Delhi as often as I can to keep them informed and to discuss the situation with them,” Holbrooke told US lawmakers.

…“I don’t think it would be valuable to go into details in the public forum, but I do want to stress that the Indians are very, very anxious that we succeed in Afghanistan. They’re supporting us,” he said. …”I know that all of you feel that they ought to do more, and I understand that. We all hope that they will be able to find ways to deal with all of the militants in the frontier areas. But there are two full Pakistani divisions right now just in Swat, and they have pulled over a hundred thousand troops off their eastern border in order to deal with this,” he said.

Noting that Pakistan is facing capacity issues, he said: “That’s why, in addition to asking for the Kerry-Lugar-Berman legislation, we have asked for increases in FMF and other forms of military assistance.” …”That is why we’re so hopeful that the ROZ legislation will pass the Senate - it passed the House in the last session - because it is both symbolically and substantively important,” he said in reference to a pending legislation in the Congress which if passed would allow duty free export of US products from certain parts of Pakistan to the US.

more @zeenews.com

7. India to reassert authority in Maoist areas

“(Our aim is) to reassert the civil administration to be followed immediately by development in areas dominated by Naxalites (Maoists) for quite some years,” Chidambaram said after a meeting with top officials of Orissa, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh here. “The meeting was successful. We identified progress we made… We identified steps to be taken,” the minister told reporters. “The (anti-Maoist) operations will continue. Our goal is not to kill anyone but to reassert the civil administration to be followed immediately by development in areas dominated by Naxalites for quite some years,” he said.

…When asked to comment on reports saying the Shibu Soren government in Jharkhand has decided to go slow on anti-Maoist drives, he said: “There is a new government in Jharkhand, the chief minister and other senior officials are coming to Delhi Jan 28 to meet me on the Naxal issue.” Chidambaram said the Indian government had no evidence of Naxals getting external monetary help. “(There is) no evidence of Naxals getting external monetary help though they are getting smuggled arms,” the minister commented when asked about foreign help to Maoists.

more @ sify.com

8. Pak interior minister Malik tells it straight

Islamabad: Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said India has not provided credible evidence in connection with Mumbai terror attacks despite repeated demands by Islamabad. He made the remarks during a discussion at the Pakistani Senate Thursday, an online news agency reported.

He said terror attacks such as in Mumbai and on Samjhota Express were plotted by India to discredit Pakistan. Malik said Indian citizens were involved in the attack on Samjhota Express and warned that India would be responsible if more such attacks take place in the future.

Meanwhile, a Pakistani academician has urged the government to bar US Defence Secretary Roberts Gates from visiting the country in the future unless he apologizes for his remarks that it was unreasonable to think India would continue to be patient in the face of another terrorist attack. Gates, who made the statement during his recent visit to India, is currently in Pakistan along with a 150-member US delegation. Professor Khurshid Ahmad said the statement was alarming.

source: zeenews.com

9. gates: (convenient) “mistakes” were made by well-intentioned but misguided people. — accidental theory of history.

‘I was in government in the early 1990s, when Russia left the region and the United States largely abandoned Afghanistan and cut off defence ties with Pakistan - a grave strategic mistake driven by some well-intentioned but short-sighted US legislative and policy decisions,’ said Mr Gates. Many Pakistanis feel bitterness over what they saw as US abandonment of the region once the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989. Mr Gates, a former CIA director who served under several presidents, said the move ‘tainted the perception of the United States in Pakistan,’ creating fertile ground for ‘propaganda’ from extremist militants. The US has no plans for military bases and ‘we have no desire to control Pakistan’s nuclear weapons,’ Mr Gates added. — AFP

more @ straits times

10. India poses very helpful question to the WHO. thank you for that question. it gives the WHO a chance to respond fully and “quell the doubts”!

Secretary Health, K.Sujatha Rao urged World Health Organization (WHO) to effectively explain reports appearing in the media that the Swine Flu was a false pandemic. Making an intervention in the Executive Board meeting of WHO currently going on in Geneva, Secretary Health pointed out that such news reports were adversely impacting upon the public health measures being undertaken by countries- She also called for greater transparency about terms and conditions on which international vaccine manufacturers were supplying vaccines to countries, In response to this intervention by India, it was agreed that WHO would formally write to National Focal Points in all countries clarifying the factual position about the H1N1 pandemic to quell all doubts that had been created.

Commenting upon the report of the WHO on the progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals Secretary Health urged WHO to clearly promote generic drugs as a strategy for rational drug use. India emphasised that it is only the WHO that has the credibility to withstand the persuasive power of branded and patent drugs. India urged all countries to promote access to medicines and not to confuse the issue of counterfeits which is an IPR issue with safe and efficacious generic drugs.

http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=57124

11. after all, the WHO was a little surprised how badly this flu thing went

Jan 19, 2010 (CIDRAP News) – The H1N1 influenza pandemic brought no “devastating surprises,” but what has surprised public health agencies is the public’s lack of interest in getting vaccinated, Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), said yesterday. Chan, speaking at the opening of the WHO Executive Board’s meeting in Geneva, made the comment in the wake of moves by a number of European countries to reduce their vaccine orders in response to falling public demand for the vaccine.

“Although the virus has not delivered any devastating surprises, we have seen some surprises on other fronts,” Chan said in her prepared remarks. “We anticipated problems in producing enough vaccine fast enough, and this did indeed happen. But we did not anticipate that people would decide not be vaccinated.”…Chan did not refer explicitly to those allegations in her speech. But, given the vast range of health information now available to the public, she said, public health leaders may not have the authority and credibility they once did….

“When the history of this pandemic is written, I believe that the speed of actions taken by governments to protect their populations will earn the highest marks,” she said. Despite heavy burdens on emergency rooms and intensive care units, “nearly all health systems have coped well. Let me pay tribute to all the health care workers who have worked tirelessly to care for patients.”

The close observation of the pandemic will yield “a wealth of new knowledge,” Chan said.

more @ CIDRAP

12. speaking of Switzerland and India, S. Korean president to stress new ties with India. also, to sign a pact on nuclear technology for peaceful purposes! yes. exactly like the stuff Iran wants to do except in this case it will be allowed.

President Lee Myung-bak will take advantage of his seven-day visit to India and Switzerland from Jan. 24 to 30 to seek broader support for his “New Asia Initiative,” which calls for a closer partnership between Korea and its neighbors, officials here said Friday. Lee will deliver an address at the Davos economic forum Thursday to show Korea’s commitment to playing a bridging role between developed and developing countries at the G-20 Seoul Summit in November.In particular, he will stress Korea’s efforts to be a voice for Asian countries on the global stage in charting a roadmap for sustainable economic growth, and addressing pressing issues such as climate change.

..During his visit to India from Sunday to Wednesday, he will focus on strengthening his New Asia Initiative by laying the groundwork for closer economic ties with the rapidly developing economy. At a planned summit between Lee and India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi on Monday, they may sign a pact on nuclear technology exchange for peaceful purposes, opening the way for Korean firms to participate in India’s project to build nuclear reactors.

more @ korea times


pakistan is being totally screwed

Jan 21

Posted by A. Peasant in Afghanistan, Corruption & Crime, India, Iran, Israel, Mind-fucking, Minerals, Nuclear Weapons, Oil, Pakistan, Psychopaths, Saudi Arabia, Terrorism | No Comments

1. CHABAD vows not to bow to terror, wants to open 3 more houses in Mumbai, queen’s cousin Michael of Kent visits Nariman House, pledges his support

Three more Chabad Houses to come up in city, says director of Chabad relief fund

To prove that their morale is not defeated yet, the Chabad Lubavitch community, owners of the 26/11-hit Nariman House, have decided to construct more Chabads in the city. “We have decided to build three more Chabads in different parts of the city, and that will be our message to terrorists — that we won’t bow to them,” said Rabbi Avraham Berkowitz, director of Chabad relief fund, the society led by the community members determined to reconstruct Nariman House.

However, Avraham didn’t disclose any locations,”We are in the process of restructuring the existing Chabad House, and have decided to raise $1.5 million (approx Rs 7 crore) for the same.”

Since the massacre at Nariman House, no new Rabbi has taken over the charge. “We are expecting the new Rabbi to come in February with his wife. They will live in a rented accommodation till the Chabad gets its new look,” added Avraham.

UK royal’s visit

Queen Elizabeth II’s first cousin, Prince Michael of Kent visited the Chabad last afternoon and pledged his support. “I pledge to support the community in every manner,” said the Prince.

source: mid-day

2. Gates knows where the militants are: Pakistan and Afghanistan. puts pressure on Pakistan to straighten this out before something bad happens and it will be all Pakistan’s fault. oh and don’t bother “making distinctions” either - - just get them all. ok? yes of course we support you kiss kiss hug hug. good luck run along now we’re having lunch with india. tata!

ISLAMABAD - US DEFENSE Secretary Robert Gates warned on Thursday that Taleban safe havens along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border must be tackled or both nations would suffer ‘more lethal and more brazen’ attacks. Writing in Pakistan’s The News at the start of a two-day visit to Islamabad, Gates stressed Washington’s commitment to Pakistan and praised military offensives launched against the Pakistani Taleban in recent months. But US officials have made clear that Washington is anxious to see Islamabad also target the Afghan Taleban within its borders and Al-Qaeda-linked militants using the northwest tribal region to plot and launch attacks into Afghanistan.

‘It is important to remember that the Pakistani Taliban operates in collusion with both the Taleban in Afghanistan and Al-Qaeda, so it is impossible to separate those groups,’ Mr Gates wrote. ‘If history is any indication, safe havens for either Taleban, on either side of the border, will in the long run lead to more lethal and more brazen attacks in both nations,’ he added in the editorial. Mr Gates wrote that making distinctions between the different extremist groups was ‘counterproductive’. ‘Only by pressuring all of these groups on both sides of the border will Afghanistan and Pakistan be able to rid themselves of this scourge for good - to destroy those who promote the use of terror here and abroad,’ he said. — AFP

source: straits times

3. Pak army tells Gates where to stick the pressure. it can’t launch any new offenses for 6 months at least to stabilize gains already made. Gates totally understands. totally supportive. of course this will make it much easier to blame Pak when something goes wrong.

The Pakistani army said Thursday during a visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates that it can’t launch any new offensives against militants for six months to a year to give it time to stabilize existing gains. The announcement probably comes as a disappointment to the U.S., which has pushed Pakistan to expand its military operations to target militants staging cross-border attacks against coalition troops in Afghanistan. Washington believes such action is critical to success in Afghanistan as it prepares to send an additional 30,000 troops to the country this year.

But the comments by army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas clearly indicate Pakistan will not be pressured in the near term to expand its fight beyond militants waging war against the Pakistani state. Whether it can be convinced in the long term is still an open question. “We are not talking years,” Abbas told reporters traveling with Gates. “Six months to a year” would be needed before Pakistan could stabilize existing gains and expand any operations, he said.

…Referring to intense political pressure in Washington to lean harder on Pakistan, Gates sounded sanguine. “As I try to remind Congress from time to time, and frankly some of the folks in the administration, it’s the Pakistanis who have their foot on the accelerator, not us,” Gates told reporters at the start of his two-day visit to Pakistan. The political pressure goes two ways. Suspicion of U.S. motives runs high in Pakistan, and many Pakistanis bristle as the notion that Washington could dictate the country’s priorities even with a recent promise of an unprecedented $1.5 billion in annual aid. “We have to do this in a way that is comfortable for them, and at a pace that they can accommodate and is tolerable for them,” Gates said. “Frankly, I’m comfortable doing that. I think having them set that pace as to what they think the political situation will bear is almost certainly the right thing to do.”

He also said his talks with Pakistan’s leaders were intended to explain the U.S. war strategy in Afghanistan and reassure Pakistan that the United States is “in this for the long haul.”

more @ naharnet

4. oh by the way, Tehran, Islamabad finalize gas pipeline deal, against the advice of Richard Holbrooke, and something that India wanted to do but dropped out of after 13 years. that should all blow over like a lead balloon.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran and Pakistan finalized an agreement to build a gas pipeline which is due to take Iran’s rich gas reserves to his energy hungry nation, a Pakistani official announced.

The two countries will sign an accord on the pipeline next week, Pakistani Federal Minister for Petroleum Naveed Qamar said.  Qamar also said the federal government is taking serious measures to combat the current energy crisis in the country, Pakistani daily Dawn reported.  The Pakistani minister’s remarks came as the US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke had earlier urged Islamabad to avoid the deal with Iran.

Holbrooke said the US would help Pakistan secure liquefied natural gas supplies, should it abandon the planned gas deal with Iran.

The 2,775 km Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline, nicknamed Peace Pipeline, was initially planned to take natural gas from Iran to India. However, due to rising tensions between India and Pakistan, New Delhi stepped back from the later stages of negotiations, although it has never formally withdrawn from the scheme. The IPI pipeline was proposed in 1995, and, after almost 13 years of negotiations, India decided to step back last year. Indian officials have many times cited security issues and the viability of the pipeline that would pass through the territory of rival Pakistan, where a near-civil war is raging between government forces and pro-Taliban militants.

In a major breakthrough on March 20, the Pakistani government approved Iran’s proposed pricing formula for gas supplies to the South Asian nation and the two sides eventually signed a bilateral agreement just a few months ago.

source: fars

5. Gates directing the narrative in India: opens the umbrella for LeT, al qaeda syndicate present, tells India that it must be running out of patience (wink wink wink!)

Warning that India may not show restraint in the event of another Mumbai-style attack, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates today said a “syndicate” of terror groups, including the Lashkar-e-Toiba, were “operating under the umbrella of al-Qaeda” and trying to destabilise the region, even attempting to provoke a war between India and Pakistan.

Gates, who met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Defence Minister A K Antony, called for a “high level of cooperation” from all countries to defeat the “syndicate” of terror which had “home and safe haven” in the border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“While al-Qaeda is operating in Afghanistan along with the Taliban, the Tehreek-e-Taliban is focusing on Pakistan. The LeT is focusing on Pakistan as also India,” Gates told reporters. “The success of any one of them is success for all… Victory for one is victory for all. These groups operate under the umbrella of al-Qaeda from NWFP and Waziristan.”

“Under the umbrella, they intend to destabilise not only Pakistan, but the entire region by provoking confrontation between India and Pakistan through terror attacks. This is very dangerous for the entire region as a whole,” he said.

source: indian express

6. so India decides to crackdown on….. Maoists! watch out poor people.

Thousands of paramilitary personnel have launched a crackdown to target some 50 Maoist leaders across the country in a bid to crush what is described as India’s biggest internal security challenge.

“We would be breaking the neck (of the Maoist movement) by arresting all their senior leaders like Kishenji,” a highly placed official in the security establishment said in an interview. “We believe there could be around 50 such leaders scattered all over. We are targeting them to make the entire movement headless and make a serious dent,” the official told IANS. “With this it would be relatively easy to take on the rest of Maoist guerrillas,” the official added, providing for the first time operational details of the coordinated and sweeping security drive.

As of now, operations are under way in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal and Maharashtra — five states where the outlawed Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) is most active, mainly among tribals living in remote interiors who are among the poorest of the poor. The operational methods would, however, differ from the way Sri Lanka’s military crushed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) last year, it was pointed out.

…According to rough estimates, over 60,000 paramilitary forces would be in action against 6,000-7,000 Maoists armed with heavy weapons as well as light machine guns, AK-47s, AK-56s and Insas rifles….Another official said the security forces, especially the CRPF, have got six trained dogs each for the “special sector” (Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra), “eastern sector” (Orissa and West Bengal) and the “Bihar sector” (Bihar and Jharkhand) to help take on the Maoists.

more @ mid-day

7. Soren govt calls off -anti-Naxal ops, has cops livid

At a time when states are teaming up to crack down on Naxalites, the Shibu Soren-led government in Jharkhand, one of the states worst affected by Naxal violence, has quietly halted operations, including long range patrols and raids directed at the extremists. And in one of the first fallouts, eight policemen were killed in a landmine blast triggered by Naxals in Gumla last Friday.

Central paramilitary forces, including 28 CRPF companies, are being made to wait by the state government while the Special Task Force, comprising personnel of the Jharkhand Armed Police who have been trained in jungle warfare and anti-landmine techniques, are back in the barracks. The securitymen were deployed in the districts of Ranchi, Palamau, Lohardaga and Gumla.

…The Soren government’s move to put the brakes on anti-Naxal operations, within days of taking charge of the state, has set off alarm bells in the security establishment. An Intelligence official told The Indian Express that “Jharkhand is set to become a safe haven” for Naxalites who are beginning to feel the heat in the other states that make up the Red Corridor.

more @ indian express

8. November 2009: exploring connections between Naxalism, Chabad, India, Israel, mining

9. Hyderabad STF catch was in-charge of terror recruitments, including one who was planning something against Western tourists in Goa

Mohammed Abdul Khwaja (30), a commander of the militant group Huji for South India who was caught by the Hyderabad Special Task Force recently, was in-charge of recruiting youth from the region and training them to be terrorists, say the police. It is believed he was  responsible for making Raziuddin Nasir, who was planning serial blasts in Goa, a suicide bomber. Nasir, son of Hyderabad-based cleric Moulana Naseeruddin, has been arrested by the state police on charges of plotting a series of bomb attacks on western tourists in Goa.

…Khwaja, who was working in Saudi Arabia, invited Nasir to Riyadh, from there he was sent to Pakistan with a duplicate passport for training.
Nasir returned to India after the training and was in regular touch with Khwaja while taking shelter in North Karnataka.  He was acting as handler to Nasir giving instructions to Nasir and passing out information to his bosses in Pakistan and Bangladesh, said police officials.

more @ mid-day

10. Holbrooke — we won’t broker talks, you  kids work it out amongst yourselves

The United States has once again clarified that it would not broker talks between India and Pakistan, and said pending issues should be resolved by them amicably. Interacting with editors and columnists here, US Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke said Washington would support any initiative taken by both countries to improve their ties. “It is for Pakistan and India to engage in a process of dialogue, and we support it,” The Daily Times quoted Holbrooke, as saying.

Responding to Indian Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor’s recent statement that the Indian Armed forces were capable enough of taking on both Pakistan and China simultaneously, Holbrooke said it was his (General Kapoor’s) personal opinion and that it did not reflect New Delhi’s policy. “What General Kapoor said does not reflect the Indian national policy,” Holbrooke said.

source: indian express

11. India’s “massive” arms build up will jeopardize regional balance: Pak

Expressing concern over the alleged ‘massive’ arms build up by India, Pakistan’s National Command Authority (NCA) has said that New Delhi could jeopardise the regional balance by such moves. The NCA blamed India for rejecting Pakistan’s proposal for maintaining a strategic restraint regime in South Asia.

A press release issued after the meeting said that India’s massive inductions of advanced weapon systems, build up of nuclear arsenal and delivery systems could to destabilise regional balance. “This relentless pursuit of military preponderance will have severe consequences for peace and security in South Asia, as well as for the Indian Ocean region. Pakistan cannot be oblivious to these developments,” The News quoted the statement, as saying. The NCA also took note of remarks made in India that it was cable of conducting conventional military operations under a nuclear umbrella terming it as an ‘irresponsible’ statement.

“Such irresponsible statements reflected a hegemonic mindset, oblivious of dangerous implications of adventurism in a nuclearised context,” the statement said.

source: indian express

foreshadowing

Jan 20

Posted by A. Peasant in 9-11, Afghanistan, CIA, Clinton, Corruption & Crime, Diplomats, India, Military, Nuclear Weapons, Pakistan, Philippines, Southeast Asia, Terrorism | No Comments

Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense, warns that South Asian militant groups threaten to destabilize the entire region and could trigger a war between “nuclear armed Pakistan and India.”

(Just for the record, India is also “nuclear armed.“)

Watch Mr. Gates reflect anxiety, set expectations, and proactively absolve India for whatever it might do in response to “some provocative act:”

Reflecting anxiety in the region about New Delhi’s reaction if it were attacked by a militant group with roots in Pakistan, Mr Gates said restraint by India could not be counted on. He added that militants under Al-Qaeda’s ’syndicate’ - which includes the Taleban in Pakistan and Afghanistan, as well as Pakistan-based Islamist group Lashkar-e-Taiba - posed a danger to the region as a whole.

They are trying ‘to destabilise not just Afghanistan, not just Pakistan, but potentially the whole region by provoking a conflict perhaps between India and Pakistan through some provocative act,’ Mr Gates said during a visit to New Delhi. ‘It’s important to recognise the magnitude of the threat that the entire region faces,’ he said following talks with his Indian counterpart, A.K. Antony.

…’I think it’s not unreasonable to assume India’s patience would be limited were there to be further attacks,’ Mr Gates warned.

New Delhi suspects the Pakistani intelligence service of supporting terror groups that target India and has consistently called on Islamabad to crack down on militants operating on its soil. Mr Gates described India as a vital partner in the struggle against extremist threats, expressed appreciation for its economic aid to Afghanistan and said that he had discussed how to bolster US-India military cooperation.

It appears that whatever happens, Pakistan will be blamed. If India retaliates — even out of proportion — it sounds like that will be overlooked by the US, given that it’s not “unreasonable to assume India’s patience would be limited were there to be further attacks.”

Interesting. Which country has suffered more from terrorism in recent memory? India, or Pakistan?

India had the Mumbai attack in 2008 (173 deaths). India blames Pakistan for Mumbai.

Meanwhile, in 2009 alone, over 3,500 people have died from terrorist attacks in Pakistan.

And who is responsible for all the terrorism in Pakistan? Good question.

The Pakistan government has been provided a variety of proofs of involvement of Indian government and especially the Indian intelligence agency behind the continuous chaos in various parts of Pakistan, particularly NWFP province’s Malakand division and tribal agencies of North and South Waziristan where Pakistan army is fighting a war against terrorists.

…These investigations indicate that the Pakistani law enforcing agencies found highly credible evidence proving that the Indians were not only giving comprehensive financial support to terrorists in Balochistan but were also providing them with huge caches of all sorts of weapons and other military equipment.

…The Daily Mail’s [of Pakistan -- ed.] findings indicate that not only this but the Pakistani security forces also seized a large amount of Indian currency and Indian medicines from the deserted or conquered hideouts of militants in different operations in Swat and Waziristan.

… In addition, the security forces also seized huge amount of currency bills of Indian currency either from the arrested militants or from the captured hideouts. The investigations reveal that trade in Indian currency in all parts of Afghanistan is quite open and normal and one can buy anything at anywhere with Indian currency in any part of Afghanistan. According to some reports, the Indian currency is more acceptable than the US Dollar in Afghani business markets.

^^^^^^^

Over the last several weeks the contrived Clash of Civilizations has flared up in Malaysia over the use of the word Allah in Christian churches. After a week or two of that, the US Embassy in Malaysia warned that tourists to the Sabah state were at risk of attack by criminal and terrorist groups.

This warning precipitated a prompt response. The Malaysian government tightened security and quickly dismissed the warning. The Malaysian government then summoned the US envoy for an explanation of the misleading advisory.

This is the explanation:

The US advisory did not give details of the possible threat, but noted that Al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf militants based in the southern Philippines - a short boat ride from Sabah - have kidnapped foreigners from Sabah’s secluded resort areas in the past.

^^^^^^^

Abu Sayyaf has an outstanding terrorist pedigree. It can be linked back to Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, 911, the CIA, ISI, etc.

In particular, for the purposes of this thread, the Abu Sayyaf can be linked back to Pakistan.

[Privilege speech of Sen. Aquilino Pimentel at the Senate, July 31, 2000]

In the early 1980s, the CIA actively recruited, “armed and supported” moujahideens or volunteer Muslim warriors to fight the CIA sponsored-US proxy war in Afghanistan against the Russians who had invaded the country in 1979 and had put up a puppet regime there. Chalmers Johnson, Blowback, p. 13 et

Thousands of Muslim fighters from many parts of the world, including many young men from the Muslim-dominated areas in Mindanao, enlisted to fight in Afghanistan. After all, the dollar-denominated monthly pay plus incentives of $100 to $300 a month was certainly attractive enough for the jobless and impoverished Muslim youths. John K. Cooley, Unholy Wars, p. 107

These young warriors were, then, trained to – and many did - fight in Afghanistan supported with funds and equipment by the CIA and its network of friendly foreign funders which at that time included Osama bin Ladin, a highly successful Arab business man in the construction industry. Bin Ladin subsequently fell out of grace with the CIA which has since been trying to get him either literally or extradited to the US for his complicity in the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York in 1993.

…In the case of the Filipino Muslim Moujahideens, most came back to various parts of Mindanao from their base in Peshawar, Pakistan.

In the words of John K. Cooley in his book, Unholy Wars, “This group (of Filipino Muslim Moujahideens) was the core of an armed guerilla band of several hundred men who xxx moved from its Peshawar, Pakistan base to the southern Philippine Islands after the end of the Afghan war. Under the name of the Abu Sayyaf group, it operated on the fringe of the Moros Muslim insurgency.”

Thus was the Abu Sayyaf born.

The Abu Sayyaf took its name from Professor Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, an Afghan intellectual, who had preached an ultra-conservative Islamic ideology called Wahabi.

Cooley calls the Abu Sayyaf in the 1990s as “the most violent and radical Islamist group in the Far East, using its CIA and ISI (Pakistan’s intra-military directorate for intelligence services) training to harass, attack and murder Christian priests, wealthy non-Muslim plantation-owners and merchants and local government in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao.” [p. 63]

Thus we can see that the CIA and ISI created this problem, the Abu Sayyaf, with an assist from Saudi Arabia, which spawned Wahhabism.

According to Senator Aquilino Pimentel, military and police personnel then cultivated informers within the Abu Sayyaf, and some members received military intelligence services IDs, safe-houses, safe-conduct passes, firearms, cell phones and financial support. In his speech, he demanded that these traitors to the Philippines be held accountable for their corruption.

Since that speech in 2000, the Abu Sayyaf has certainly not been contained. They operate from the island of Jolo. It appears they stepped up their attacks in 2009.

In 2000, Abu Sayyaf took about 20 people – most of them Western tourists – captive from an island resort across the Malaysian border. They were all released within three months after the Libyan government paid a ransom of around $10 million, media reports said at the time.

…Last year [2008], Muslim rebels generated more than 22 million pesos (SFr528,000) in ransom payments from at least six kidnappings, including the high-profile abduction of three members of a local television network, according to the Philippines military.

…About two dozen people have been kidnapped in 12 incidents on two restive southern islands since January [2009], authorities say.

In September 2009, two US Navy men and one Filipino Marine were killed in a roadside bomb.

Abu Sayyaf is believed to have about 400 fighters, to have received funds from al-Qaida and is suspected of sheltering militants from the larger Southeast Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiyah. An estimated 600 U.S. troops are currently stationed in the Philippines, mostly in the southern front lines of the Philippine military’s operations against the Abu Sayyaf group and Jemaah Islamiyah.

In November 2009, the group beheaded a teacher.

In December 2009, they burst through a jail wall and freed 31 inmates.

^^^^^^^

In July of 2009, the Philippine government deployed hundreds of troops on Jolo and Basilan islands to finish off the 400 member Abu Sayyaf.

Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro ordered the military last week to launch new assaults against the militants on Jolo and Basilan islands after the militants freed Italian hostage Eugenio Vagni — the last of three Red Cross aid workers who were kidnapped on Jolo in January. Without any hostages to worry about, government forces can now carry out more offensives, regional military commander Maj. Gen. Benjamin Dolorfino said.

…The government has opened peace talks with a bigger Muslim separatist group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), but the Abu Sayyaf is not covered by the talks. A report by the US Pacific Command describes the Abu Sayyaf as “a cross between a chilling gang of bandits and a franchise operation of al-Qaida.” “Since the early 1990s, it has terrorized the southern Philippines with kidnappings, bombs and outright massacres; it has also been linked to several international terrorist plots and militants,” the report noted. More recent reports said the Abu Sayyaf, under new leadership, has been able to link up with the Indonesian Jemaah Islamiyah, said to be behind a regional Islamist terror campaign, including two recent bombings in Jakarta.

By November, after the beheaded school-teacher incident, hopes faded. The Abu Sayyaf would (miraculously) defy the sustained US-backed campaign to finish them off.

The beheading of a kidnap victim is the latest proof that a small number of Islamic militants in the Philippines are defying a sustained US-backed military campaign to extinguish them, observers said. The grisly development this week came just ahead of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to the Southeast Asian nation, throwing the spotlight on joint efforts by Filipino and American forces to crush the Abu Sayyaf.

It’s always very helpful when they “throw the spotlight on.” In any case, regrettable.

And then Hillary Clinton arrived, and the kidnapped priest from Ireland, Michael Sinnot, was released by the MILF. MILF is another long-standing and much larger terrorist group in the Philippines, originally accused of abducting the priest, but later cleared and thanked for securing his release.

The release of the 79-year-old missionary coincided with the arrival in Manila of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, prompting speculation that it was timed to coincide with her visit, the way the release of a kidnapped Red Cross worker was made on the day US Central Intelligence Agency head Leon Edward Panetta flew to Manila.

Although the Asia Times reported that the US Embassy held clandestine meetings with MILF a month earlier, at their camp. Evidently the US Embassy personnel do not fear the MILF. In fact, they have warm and friendly relations. Everyone wants peace, evidently.

Despite the row over Sinnot’s kidnapping, senior US Embassy officials in Manila have held clandestine meetings with MILF leaders in their Maguindanao camp. The US Embassy has kept mum on the meetings, but on its website, the MILF confirmed in a statement that it had held talks with a visiting group of American diplomats led by the US Embassy charge d’affaires, Leslie Basset, on October 16.

Lasting for two hours, the meeting “was warm and forthright”, the MILF said and quoted Basset as saying that the US was willing to play a role in the peace talks. “Helping attain and sustain peace, security and development in Mindanao is a priority concern of our government,” the MILF quoted Bassett as saying.

^^^^^^^

In August 2009, GMANews.TV reported the statements of Lt. Senior Grade Nancy Gadian at a press conference held before an inquiry by the Senate oversight committee on the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) into the activities of US troops in the Philippines.

Gadian, a whistleblower, was invited to the hearing.

Gadian earlier this year exposed the alleged misuse of the P42-million fund allotted for the joint military exercises between the Philippines and the US by high ranking military officials.

Gadian made the following statements:

  • US soldiers have joined Philippine troops in actual combat against Muslim rebels.
  • The American soldiers were embedded in local units.
  • About 500 US soldiers were assigned in Mindanao as “the first line of defense against the enemy.”
  • US troops usually engaged in operations in Mindanao without informing heads of the Philippine military in the area.
  • Philippine forces are fighting the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf terrorist group and other armed groups in Sulu.
  • American troops are stationed in Mindanao even without any Balikatan exercises going on.
  • The Philippine government does not monitor the deployment and movement of these troops in the country’s southern region.
  • Americans in Mindanao usually have programs or projects which they do not tell the leadership of the Southern Command. They just go to areas where they want to go.

Gadian’s affadavit also states:

  • The US military of building permanent structures in different military camps in the country. She said US forces have established “permanent” and “continuous” presence in Zamboanga, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi in the south.
  • The Philippine military has no access to the camps built by the US soldiers in these areas since they are “fenced off by barbed wires and guarded by US Marines.”
  • These structures are indications the US troops had no intention of leaving the country, which is a violation of the Philippine Constitution.
  • The “arrogant” behavior of many US military officers toward Filipinos.
  • Some US military men bringing Filipino women prostitutes to different areas in the camp.
  • “On the whole, their assertions of power and authority appear like they rule over us and the country.”

^^^^^^^

Given that the CIA helped create Abu Sayyaf; and given the US military’s unrestrained access to the very areas of the Philippines where Abu Sayyaf allegedly operates from; and given the history of connections between Abu Sayyaf militants and their military handlers; and given the warm and friendly relations between US Embassy personnel and MILF leaders…

Can we not imagine that Robert Gates’ foreshadowing remarks about provocative actions might, perhaps, have something to do with Abu Sayyaf?

destabilizing north korea

Jan 14

Posted by A. Peasant in China, Mind-fucking, North Korea, Nuclear Weapons, Russia | No Comments

1. North Korea to allow more visitors from the US — NK needs tourism income, under the squeeze — Financial Times

North Korea will allow more tourists from its arch-foe the US to visit this year, seeking alternative sources of hard currency as sanctions bite deeper. …Tourism is a key foreign currency earner for Pyongyang, which is calling for sanctions imposed over its nuclear weapons programme to be lifted.

…Further denting Pyongyang’s dollar income, Thai authorities last month detained an aircraft packed with arms being smuggled from Pyongyang. Diplomats saw this as a severe threat to the cash flow of Kim Jong-il, the country’s leader. Reports from defectors also suggest a recent currency redenomination has caused economic chaos during a bitter winter.

In a very rare admission that the country needed to improve its economic record, Mr Kim this month confessed that the nation had failed to deliver “rice and meat soup” to the people. He vowed to improve people’s lives.

more @ financial times

2. NK moves to counter the market it fears and needs — Voice of America

On November 30, North Korea’s government suddenly re-valued its currency, ordering citizens to exchange old won notes for new bills, at an exchange rate of 100 to one. It allowed each person to exchange just 100,000 won - the equivalent of around $30. Pyongyang has since banned the use of foreign currency such as U.S. dollars, or Chinese yuan.

The changes effectively destroyed the wealth of those who had piled up won by trading in makeshift markets. Many North Koreans keep their money at home because they either cannot access or do not trust the country’s banks. Ha Tae-kyoung is the president of Open Radio for North Korea, which, like VOA, broadcasts news into the North. He says sources inside North Korea report frustration at the revaluation.

…He says those who made huge profits in the market are the losers in the reforms. However, salaried workers closely connected to the government can see the reforms as a positive development. That is because some government workers are receiving the same nominal salaries as before the 100-to-1 devaluation, effectively raising their pay by a factor of 100.

Kim says he thinks North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and his apparatus remain strong enough to keep the market in check. He says the North Korean leader would not have implemented the reforms if he thought there would be serious resistance. However, Noland warns that could change if Pyongyang tries to enforce the ban on owning foreign currency. “It’s the elites that deal in foreign currency, indeed, parts of the military and security services,” he said.  “And if the government literally tried to take their dollars or yuan away, that’s the sort of thing that could actually lead to political instability.”

read more @ VOA

3. why doesn’t everyone agree that Robert Parks is a HERO for being the hegelian dialectical opposite of patsy underpants bomber? (cue the violins…)

The other martyr, in stark contrast, was a 28-year-old Christian missionary, Robert Park. An American of Korean descent, Park offered himself up peacefully, on Christmas Day, for the cause of life and liberty for others. He went to northeast China, and from there walked across the frozen Tumen River into North Korea. Witnesses told reporters that as he went, he called out, in Korean, messages of God’s love, as well as “I am an American citizen.” He took with him a letter to North Korean tyrant Kim Jong-il, asking Kim to open his country and shut down his prison camps.

et cetera. more @ forbes

4. daredevil activist deserves more attention. well hey, i’ll bet he gets it too.

Park’s action seemed futile, but it has already begun to create ripple effects. Susan Scholte, a winner of the Seoul Peace Prize, and U.S. Special Envoy for North Korea Human Rights Issues Robert King publicly voiced their concern for Park’s safety. U.S. media, including the Christian Science Monitor, have shown interest in Park’s action, and prayer meetings are taking place in South Korea for his safety.

more @ chosun ilbo

5. see? US human rights envoy urges NK to follow in footsteps of Russia, China

Robert King, in a live conversation with South Korean Internet users held on a U.S. Embassy-run Web site, said he wants North Korea to achieve significant political and economic changes like Russia and China have gone through over the past 20 years. “I hope North Korea follows their example and makes economic and political changes,” King said, according to a transcript posted on the Web site.

more @ canadian press



6. as if to underscore the point…new suspect in 10 year old NK kidnapping case. what are the chances??!!??

It was 10 years ago this Saturday that a South Korean pastor helping North Korean refugees in China was kidnapped. And as the anniversary nears, a new suspect in the abduction of Reverend Kim Dong-shik is under South Korean investigation. Do Hee-yun, head of the Seoul-based Citizen’s Coalition for Human Rights of Abductees and North Korean Refugees, told the JoongAng Ilbo that a former North Korean spy who “played a principal role” in the kidnapping of Reverend Kim is being interrogated by South Korean authorities. According to Do, the ex-agent, named Kim, wasn’t staying at the official North Korean refugee shelter Hanawon, but instead was at another facility for investigation.

more @ joongang daily

7. NK ask for punishing sender of fliers

North Korea has called on South Korea to punish members of conservative organizations who sent anti-Kim Jong-il fliers across the border, the North’s state media said Wednesday. …Since late 2008, the fliers criticizing Kim Jong-il’s dictatorship and sometimes, containing U.S. dollars and Chinese currency, have troubled the isolated state, which controls the press and offers only limited information.

more @ korea times

8. and all this pressure for what ends? the nuclear weapons. Russia (good cop?) willing to build railways if NK give up nukes

Russia is willing to construct gas pipes, electrical power networks and railways that could bridge the two Koreas and Russia if North Korea gives up its nuclear weapons. This is according to Russian Ambassador to South Korea Konstantin Vnukov, who told Yonhap News that the proposal could be included in the idea of the “grand bargain,” which was proposed by President Lee Myung-bak as a comprehensive rewards package for North Korea if it abandons its nuclear program. The South Korean government responded positively to Russia’s overture, saying the deal can be reviewed when the six-party talks resume.

source: chosun ilbo

9. US (bad cop) : another setback on nukes

In a Foreign Ministry statement issued Monday, North Korea proposed talks to reach a peace treaty before denuclearization. The North also said it could return to the six-party talks if United Nations sanctions were lifted. But the U.S. government dismissed the idea less than 24 hours later. It stressed that a peace regime and other issues could only be discussed once the North returns to the six-party process and makes progress in denuclearization.

Our government maintains the same stance. The nuclear standoff, which had been in a lull for about a month following the Pyongyang trip by Stephen Bosworth, the U.S. special envoy on North Korea, once again has become the sticking point among North Korea, South Korea and the United States….The chances of denuclearization of the peninsula in the near future have diminished. It may have become that much more difficult to see permanent peace here. But we can’t give up on seeing the North abandon nuclear weapons. We have to be patient and mix strong and soft responses until North Korea is persuaded. One hopeful aspect is that time is not on the North Korean side. With its pending leadership change, North Korea will find it difficult to maintain its hedgehog tactics.

The problem is that there remains a possibility that the North Korean regime, which may not opt for a bold shift in foreign policy, could act provocatively toward South Korea. Furthermore, we can also predict that the antsy North will continue to raise tension on the peninsula. Meticulous and thorough countermeasures to control the North’s provocations are necessary. On top of robust military strength, we need to apply the carrot and the stick flexibly.

more @ joongang daily

10. also, US ‘unlikely to let SK reprocess nuclear fuel’ until this is all ironed out with NK. so, like, never?

The U.S. is unlikely to allow South Korea to reprocess spent nuclear fuel that is piling up in secure storage facilities until a satisfactory solution to the North Korean nuclear problem is found, a report said this week. The matter is a key issue in negotiations between Seoul and Washington on the revision of the Korea-U.S. Atomic Energy Agreement, which expires in 2014. …However, “if the North Korean problem were to be satisfactorily resolved, the U.S. might be prepared to agree to some form of pyroprocessing under strict nonproliferation conditions,” he added.  Pyroprocessing is a new technology of eletrolyzing spent nuclear fuel rods and extracting uranium and plutonium that can be reused as fuel. It is being developed under South Korea’s initiative.

more @ chosun ilbo


spam: exhibit A - reposted from last week

Jan 5

Posted by A. Peasant in Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Nuclear Weapons | No Comments

1. Netanyahu trying to eat Kadima, Livni’s opposition party

A year after a turbulent government transition period, it looks as though Israel’s political realm is in for another big upheaval.

Kadima, the largest party in the Israeli parliament, could be about to lose several of its lawmakers, with serving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu likely to be the big winner.

Netanyahu’s Likud party has been trying to lure Kadima members of the parliament, or the Knesset, more or less since Netanyahu formed his government some nine months ago. That effort has culminated this week, but only after Netanyahu also made a very public attempt to persuade the entire Kadima party to quit the opposition and join his coalition.

Many analysts believe that this is an obvious attempt by Netanyahu to destroy his main political rival, Kadima leader Tzipi Livni. However, some do think that there could be more serious issues at stake here.

…There are two possible scenarios, according to Shlomo Tzadok, apolitical scientist at the University of Haifa. Either Netanyahu simply wants to kill off Kadima, or the prime minister is seeking broad parliamentary support for an upcoming and “dramatic” move with regard to captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

…He added that the Shalit case could be the motive behind Netanyahu’s offer to Livni because there is nothing else currently happening that would warrant such a healthy parliamentary majority.

nope. nothing at all. has to be Shalit. mm hmm. – ed.

read more @ chinaview

2. qaida reportedly mobilizing militants in Lebanon and plotting attacks against UNIFIL

Al-Qaida militants are plotting terrorist attacks against state institutions and foreign missions in coordination with Fatah al-Islam and wanted Palestinian fighter Abdel Rahman Awad, a well-informed security source told An Nahar daily. The source said that Lebanese security agencies have also received information about the infiltration of al-Qaida militants into the country from Pakistan via Turkey, Greece and the Lebanese-Syrian border. The militants are seeking refuge in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, the source told An Nahar.

The militants are residing in apartments in the north and Mount Lebanon pending their infiltration into the refugee camps, according to the security source.

Al-Qaida members are also training other militants in the refugee camp of Ain el-Hilweh to carry out attacks against U.N. peacekeepers stationed in southern Lebanon, the source said.

He added that two weeks ago Jund al-Sham received financial assistance from a top al-Qaida official for the purpose of activating sleeper cells in the camp.

source: naharnet

3. Lebanon opens fire on Israeli jet fighters, who were probably just looking for the evil al qaeda terrorists that are about to kill UN peacekeepers, yah.

BEIRUT, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) — Lebanese army on Tuesday fired intensively at four Israeli Phantom jet fighters flying at a low altitude over south Lebanon, the country’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported.

The report said that Lebanese army opened anti-aircraft fire at the jet fighters which were flying over Hasbaya in south Lebanon on Tuesday morning, forcing these planes to leave Lebanese airspace.

The Israeli warplanes entered Lebanese airspace over Arkoub, Hasbaya and western Bekaa amid extensive Israeli ground military activities in Shebaa Farms, the report said.

Lebanon accuses Israel of intruding its airspace on a daily basis, saying it is a violation of UN security council resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Lebanese Shiite armed group Hezbollah, and mandates peacekeepers to monitor the armistice along the border.

Last month, Lebanon opened fire at an unmanned Israeli reconnaissance plane flying over its territory, forcing it to leave the Lebanese airspace.

source: chinaview

4. Israel recalls all of its ambassadors worldwide for meeting

Israel’s ambassadors and consuls generals from all over the world have been summoned to attend a conference to be held over global challenges facing Israel.

The meeting to be attended in Jerusalem Al-Quds on December 27-31 is hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, headed by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, the ministry reported on its website.

“The idea is to facilitate direct dialogue with the country’s leaders, mutual updates on major diplomatic issues, and a discussion of action plans to deal with the challenges awaiting Israel in the international arena in the coming year, including the Iranian threat,” it said.

This is while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called a report by the UN Human Rights Council’s Gaza commission a real threat to Israel.

The UN Special Rappoteur for the occupied Palestinian Territories has also urged western powers to push Israel to end its blockade of the Gaza Strip immediately. Richard Falk also called for economic sanctions against Israel.

This is the first time a conference for all of Israel’s heads of missions has been held.

Benyamin Netanyahu will also attend the conference along with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Minister of Intelligence and Atomic Energy Dan Meridor, and other senior officials.

source: EU times

5. Vanunu arrested on suspicion of meeting with foreigners

Nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu was ordered to be put under house arrest Tuesday after being charged with violating a condition of his 2004 release from prison.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said Vanunu met with “a number of foreigners,” something he was ordered not to do for fear he might divulge classified information.

Vanunu, who has been charged with violating this order before, flashed a “V” sign and unleashed a rambling tirade against the “impotent” Jewish state as he entered a Jerusalem court.

His lawyer, Avigdor Feldman, said Vanunu was arrested because he has a Norwegian girlfriend whom police have already interrogated.

more @ jpost
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1261364534932

6. IOF chief: Iran can build bomb by 2011

JERUSALEM (Map, News) – Iran will possess the technology to build a nuclear bomb by early 2010 and be able to produce one the following year, Israeli media quoted Israel’s defense minister as saying Monday.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak delivered his assessment before the Israeli parliament’s defense and foreign affairs committee. It broadly matches assessments from other nations including the U.S., which estimates that Tehran could produce a nuclear weapon between 2010 and 2015.

The Defense Ministry said it could not confirm the reports and a Barak spokesman wasn’t immediately available for comment. The radio and newspaper Web site reports did not identify the source of their information, but participants in the committee meetings routinely brief reporters on the proceedings.

Earlier this month, Israel’s military intelligence chief said Iran was close to an unspecified “technological breakthrough” that would enable it to build nuclear weapons. He did not elaborate on the breakthrough or say when exactly he expected Iran to have weapons-making capability.

read more @ examiner

7. actually, NO.

US intelligence sources have confirmed Iran’s assertions that a document published by a British daily about Tehran’s nuclear program is a fabrication.

According to a former CIA official, US intelligence agents have found that the document, which was published by the Times of London on December 14, was fabricated by Israel or Britain, the Inter Press Service (IPS) reported on Monday.

The IPS report was penned by renowned investigative journalist Gareth Porter.

Philip Giraldi, who was a CIA counterterrorism official from 1976 to 1992, told IPS that intelligence sources say the US had nothing to do with forging the document.

He added, however, that US intelligence sources mainly suspect Israel of carrying out the forgery, although, they do not rule out the possibility of the British having played a part in it.

read more @ press tv

fantasy island

Dec 23

Posted by A. Peasant in CIA, Iran, Israel, Kazakhstan, Media, Mind-fucking, North Korea, Nuclear Weapons, Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka, Thailand | No Comments

Boss…the plane, the plane…

Wayne Madsen reports that it was a CIA sting operation to embarrass North Korea. Maybe.

WMR’s Asian intelligence sources strongly suspect that an Ilyushin-76 cargo plane seized in Bangkok on December 12 transporting 40 tons of North Korean weapons was a CIA sting operation designed to obtain, using a “front” airline and regular arms smuggling route, the latest North Korean weaponry available for purchase on the black market.

Salient points:

1. The plane was registered in Georgia, close ally of the US and Israel.
2. Before that the plane was registered to two separate Kazakhstan private airlines, where it had allegedly been involved in arms smuggling to places like Eritrea, Somalia, India and possibly Hanoi.
3. A New Zealand company which also does business in Ukraine chartered the flight.
4. The New Zealand company’s parent company is registered in Vanuatu.
5. The owner of these businesses is a Mr. Geoffrey Taylor, of New Zealand, who has brokered Azerbaijani oil sales.
6. The four men on board carried Kazakhstan passports and the pilot carried a Belarus passport.

When Thai authorities seized the weapons, reportedly after a “tip” from U.S intelligence sources, the plane was discovered to have a false cargo declaration stating the plane was carrying oil drilling equipment, a rather strange export from North Korea, a non-oil producing or exploration nation. Instead, the plane was found to be transporting rocket-propelled grenades and launchers, missile tubes, surface-to-air missile launchers, military spare parts and other weapons. Thai authorities stated that the U.S. intelligence sources that tipped them off stated that the final destination for the cargo was “sensitive information.” Thai authorities claimed the military cargo would be “destroyed” but the crates and boxes were trucked to a secure warehouse at a Thai air force base in Nakhon Sawan province outside of Bangkok.

The IL-76 landed at Hostomel Airport, near Kiev on October 13, reportedly without any cargo, and flew to Baku, Azerbaijan on December, 8 and onward to the United Arab Emirates (reportedly Sharjah), landing in Bangkok on the morning of December 12 for refueling.

The plane took off for Pyongyang and after picking up the weapons landed back in on Mueang, Bangkok at 4 pm on December 12.

The plane’s onward destinations from Bangkok were reportedly Colombo, Sri Lanka and Ukraine.

WMR’s Asian intelligence sources believe that the CIA knew the plane was planning to pick up weapons in North Korea and may have even chartered the aircraft and arranged a deal to purchase the North Korean weapons through shadowy front companies to both embarrass the North Koreans and discover what was being sold on the global weapons black market.

So how do they know the plane was empty when it refueled in Bangkok on the morning of the 12th? It had already made two stops. It sounds like they know a lot more about this flight than they let on, considering that the cargo destination is “sensitive information.” Could the weapons have been loaded in Azerbaijan or the UAE?

Was it heading to Sri Lanka, as reported here?

A plane heading from North Korea to Sri Lanka with weapons onboard was detained together with its crew in Thailand today, the Thai media reported. The Thai authorities found massive numbers of the shoulder-launched missile weapon including rocket-propelled grenades (RPG), anti-aircraft SAM (surface to air missiles) and ammunition.

…More than 100 Thai security personnel searched a Russian-built IL-76 military air transport bearing the designation AWG 732 when aircraft, which flew from North Korea asked permission to land at Bangkok`s domestic Don Mueang airport to refill fuel.

…The Thai authorities said the airplane was believed to be carrying the weapons to Sri Lanka, where a long civil war recently ended.

According to the authorities, the plane earlier arrived at Don Mueang airport once in the morning for refueling before departing for North Korea after it had loaded with the heavy weaponry and asked to refuel again at the airport at 4pm.

If true, why would that be “sensitive information?”

Well, there are reasons.

Compare the international outcry over the Gaza massacre to the relative silence toward Sri Lanka’s war against the Tamil people in 2008 and 2009. Conservative estimates place the death roll at over 20,000 people, perhaps as high as 50,000. The Colombo regime dismissed all attempts to cease its military operations, negotiate with the Tamil Tigers or allow the transfer of hundreds of thousands of civilians to safety. Today, close to 300,000 Tamils are trapped in government-imposed camps, surrounded by barbed wire and unable to leave.

…Sri Lanka was fighting its own war on terror? with the Israeli playbook. Ban all independent media from the war zone, demonize human rights groups as sympathetic to terrorists, dismiss all questioning of tactics as giving in to terrorism and support the doctrine of overwhelming fire-power. Like Israel, Sri Lanka won the battle, but will inevitably lose the war.

…Sri Lanka doesn’t enjoy favored nation status like Israel but it should face a thorough examination of its conduct during the war. Many states, such as Israel and China, have no desire to discover the truth behind the conflict because they provided arms to the Sri Lankan government. Israel is reportedly protecting Sri Lanka from any American pressure against its actions. But obstacles to international justice should not preclude their commencement. Crimes in Congo, Sierra Leone, Cambodia and the former Yugoslavia were thoroughly investigated by legal bodies, even if the final outcomes were not perfect.

So now the weapons, wherever they came from and wouldn’t we like to know, are in Thailand. At first, on the 15th, Thailand was definitely going to destroy the weapons, they just needed some money from the UN to help with that not sure how much.

Now the story is they have to investigate some more, and then they will decide whether to destroy the weapons or keep them for the Thai military. Finders keepers.

And according to the New York Times (hahaha), you can read an entirely different story! The destination and buyer remain mysteries, but the weapons appeared to be destined for Iran according to a Belgium research organization. Meh, there’s so much smoke and mirrors who can say for sure, but yeah it looks like Iran.

A research organization based in Belgium that specializes in the analysis of arms trafficking posted documents this week on its Web site that appear to show Iran as the drop-off point.

…The report by the International Peace Information Service, the Belgian organization, said the flight plan of the Ilyushin-76 is consistent with the range and cruise speed of the aircraft. A copy of the documents are posted on their Web site. The report also includes copies of what the authors say are the aircraft’s charter agreement, the air waybill and the aircraft’s certificate of registration.

The report was written in collaboration with TransArms, a U.S.-based group based that researches arms shipments.

The documents appear to show that the flight was chartered early this month by Union Top Management Ltd., a company registered in Hong Kong that was set up in November.

The document is signed by Dario Cabreros, who is described as the company’s representative.

Somsak Saithong, the lawyer for the crew, said he had seen the documents but that his copy of the flight plan shows that the cargo was bound for Ukraine. “I can certify that Iran was not the final destination,” Mr. Somsak said in an interview.

The crew members are being held at a detention center here while the police conduct their investigation. They said in an interview last week that they had traveled the world on similar missions and that they rarely asked about the nature of the cargo they were carrying.

The Thai authorities have not offered more detail on the exact nature of the weapons seized and say they will destroy the arms after they take an inventory and report it to the United Nations Security Council.

But the Thai government also appears wary to investigate too deeply into to the arms shipment.

The deputy prime minister, Suthep Thaugsuban, said last week that the inquiry would not focus on where the weapons were headed. “Thai authorities will not pinpoint where the weapons were destined for delivery in order not to displease a certain country,” he was quoted as saying in the Thai media. He did not elaborate.

Interesting.

And now Bloomberg with the “paper trail” dragging Hong Kong and Spain into the loop, making the whole thing completely confusing. Notice that nobody questions that the weapons are from North Korea, but has that actually been proven anywhere? I missed that part. It *appears* to be assumed as fact in every source.

Dario Cabreros Garmendia, the director of Union Top whose signature is on the charter agreement, owns 99.99 percent of the company’s shares and is based in Barcelona, according to Hong Kong registry records. The Hong Kong company’s link to the North Korean weapons was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

…“If you wanted to make a clandestine flight from Pyongyang to Tehran you would go over Chinese and Mongolian airspace and then drop down through the Stans,” he said, referring to countries in central Asia. “To fly it through Bangkok, which is so well known for drugs smuggling, seems so damn stupid. For some reason Union Top Management insisted the flight had to go where it went.”

Another mystery man, like David Headley, coming and going like the wind.

Among difficulties facing investigators is a fly-by-night infrastructure seemingly rigged up for the flight, including a Hong Kong-based company reportedly involved which was only incorporated Nov. 2 and whose director could not be traced there or at his address in Spain….But according to a flight plan seen by arms trafficking researchers, the aircraft was chartered by Hong Kong-based Union Top Management Ltd. to fly oil industry spare parts from Pyongyang to Tehran, Iran, with several other stops, including Bangkok, Colombo in Sri Lanka, Azerbaijan and Ukraine.Union Top was set up by a company called R & G Management Consultancy, according to a woman who answered the door at Union Top’s registered office. She said she didn’t know a man called Dario Cabreros Garmendia _ who signed Union Top’s incorporation in Hong Kong on Nov. 2 _ and did not know how to reach anyone at the company….Garmendia listed Barcelona, Spain, as his address on another document related to the set up of the company. But AP reporters asked four people living next to the location and none had heard of him or the company.

Obviously some of the information circulating in the NYT, Bloomberg, and the AP contradicts the Wayne Madsen report, up top, which concludes like this:

After the plane was seized in Bangkok, dubious sources reported that the plane was en route to Pakistan, Afghanistan, or an unnamed “Middle Eastern” country, such as Iran, to deliver its weapons.

The IL-76’s most recent owner, Air West Georgia, has close links with the same ownership, to Sun Air, a privately-owned airline headquartered in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, which runs service to Nyala, the largest city in war-torn Darfur.

The “arms-napping” operation against North Korea came just days after the US Special Envoy to North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, announced, after a three-day trip to Pyongyang, an agreement to restart six-party talks with North Korea. The covert operation to seize the North Korean weapons put the planned talks at risk.

And if you’re still with me, back to the AP article which is surprisingly good, in that it points out a few things that MAKE NO SENSE.

Kim Tae-woon, a security expert at the Korea Institute of Defense Analyses, said the weapons known to be aboard the plane _ rocket-propeled grenades, explosives and components for surface-to-air missiles _ were those used by insurgents, not regular armies.

[SUCH AS:] “There are no insurgents in Iran, and in that sense, Iran may not be the destination,” Kim said.

[SUCH AS:] Another puzzle is why the aircraft chose to risk landing in relatively well-policed Bangkok rather than taking a “safer” route. Given the aircraft’s maximum range of more than 4,000 miles (6,440 kilometers), it had a number of landing options.

The complex web of companies set up to facilitate shipments adds further stumbling blocks for investigators. Brian Johnson-Thomas of IPIS said that “this is normal it tends to be a pattern. It is normal (for traffickers) to put in as much obfuscation as possible so that they can’t be traced backward.”

[SUCH AS:] But he said that it was “somewhat strange” that the company contracted for only just one flight rather than a series of flights after going through all the trouble.

And the AP story also introduces other people who reportedly owned and chartered the plane, not Geoffrey Taylor, and questions the stop in Sharjah.

The report says the plane was registered to Air West, a cargo transport company in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Asked to comment on whether the plane was bound for Tehran, company owner Levan Kakabadze told AP he was unaware of the plane’s final destination.

…The plane, according to the researchers, was owned by Overseas Cargo FZE, based in Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates where the plane also made a landing. Officials at the company did not respond to repeated requests for comment and the extent of its physical operations in Sharjah was also unclear.

In recent years, Sharjah’s international airport has become a hub of many small charter and cargo carriers serving Asia, Africa and the former Soviet republics.

Lastly, a few more holes in the story:

Somsak said the five men complained that they had been forced by police investigators into signing documents written in Thai. They asked to be provided with a translator.

The report on the flight plan from the nonprofit groups TransArms in the United States and IPIS of Belgium was funded by the Belgian government and Amnesty International. It could not be independently verified.

…Speaking by telephone from Batumi, Georgia, Kakabadze said he leased the plane to the SP Trading company and could bear no responsibility for what happened next.

Researchers say the plane’s previous registration documents link it to Air Cess and Centrafrican Airlines, which are allegedly connected to Bout, who has been in prison in Thailand since he was arrested March 6.

Pretty confusing. I think that must be on purpose.

So, shorter is:

NORTH KOREA Weapons Thailand Georgia Ukraine Kazakhstan US Israel Belgium Sri Lanka Azerbaijan Belarus Eritrea Somalia India Vanuatu Hanoi Hong Kong Spain New Zealand Sharjah UAE Russia RPG CIA SAM IL AWG GT SP IPIS FZE Bout IRAN.