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Archive for category Oil

latin america news

Feb 11

Posted by A. Peasant in Big Pharma, Brazil, CIA, Central America, Children, Colombia, Corruption & Crime, Diplomats, Drug Trafficking, Haiti, Human Trafficking, Identities, Military, NWO, Oil, Psychopaths | No Comments

1. charity vaccine clinic chief bagged in trafficking Haitian children — not many degrees of separation between “legitimate” and “criminal”

Admin boss Yis Jean Guerson is responsible for providing medical aid to victims of the January 12 disaster with respected local aid group AST (Association de la Santé Pour Tous - “health for all”).

But, unknown to dedicated colleagues, Guerson secretly heads a child trafficking ring and exploits his position of trust scouring camps for a stock of orphaned, lost and homeless youngsters.

Shockingly Guerson, 31, is also a TEACHER at a local school responsible for guiding and protecting children from the age of three.

But last week - as he gave our undercover reporters a tour of the devastated captal Port-au-Prince with the stench of decaying bodies still hanging in the air - Guerson told us: “Just tell me how many kids you need and what ages you want, boys or girls, and I’ll get them for you no problem.

…

On Wednesday he lined up eight youngsters ranging from a three-month-old baby to a 13-year old girl for our reporters to choose from. Not once in all our dealings did Guerson ask WHO we were or WHERE the children would end up. In fact he was eager to boost the price to £5,000 EACH by offering his gang’s services in SMUGGLING the kids out of the country. Warning of the danger of trying to do it without his help, Guerson said: “The big problem is you need papers.

…

We were given Guerson’s name by a guard at a legitimate orphanage called Foundation Blessing Hands in the village of Cotart, 11 miles outside Port-au-Prince. The security man told us: “This place has strict rules for adoption, but there is a man locally who has children that you can take.

…

After being told we were interested in getting five children and taking them abroad, grasping Guerson quickly abandoned the £65-a-head price tag and demanded $40,000 (£26,000) all in.

When we said that was too much he immediately replied: “I can give you a discount, make it $30,000.” Balding Guerson explained that would include the cost of smuggling them across the border and paperwork appearing to show we had legitimately adopted the children.

...Guerson apologised that he had only managed to find three children to inspect because the rest were at a clinic being immunised. It was then he revealed his job with the AST charity which runs a vaccination programme for youngsters.

more @ news of the world

2. Spain, US want Latin America to assume ‘global role’

MADRID – Spain and the United States agreed Monday on the need for Latin America to assume a role of “global interlocutor” to participate in overcoming problems like the economic crisis and confronting challenges like climate change.

The Spanish secretary of state for Ibero-America, Juan Pablo de Laiglesia and Assistant U.S. Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Arturo Valenzuela met in Madrid.

The two officials particularly discussed issues like the humanitarian situation in earthquake-stricken Haiti and the political crisis in Honduras, as well as cooperation between the United States and the European Union on Latin America.

more @ latin american herald tribune

3. four human heads found in Mexico

MEXICO CITY – The heads of four people were found in Mexico, but the bodies have not been recovered yet, state officials said.

Three of the heads were found in the northwestern state of Sinaloa and the fourth turned up in the southern state of Guerrero.

Three of the heads were discovered Tuesday at 7:00 a.m. in front of a restaurant and a school in Palmillas, a town in Sinaloa, a spokesman for the state Attorney General’s Office told Efe.

Initial indications are that the victims were three unidentified young men, the AG’s office spokesman said.

The killers only left behind the heads, shocking the town, a Palmillas police department spokesman told Efe.

…The head belonged to “a person of the masculine gender, with a dark complexion, whose hair was shaved off and his facial skin removed, and a piece of cardboard with a message was left,” the Guerrero Public Safety Secretariat said. The body has not yet been recovered and authorities have not released the contents of the message.

…Mexico has been plagued in recent years by drug-related violence blamed on powerful cartels that are battling for turf and control of the smuggling routes into the United States. Mexico’s most powerful drug trafficking organizations, according to experts, are the Sinaloa, Tijuana, Gulf, Juarez and Beltran Leyva cartels, and La Familia Michoacana. Los Zetas, a group of army special forces veterans and deserters who initially worked as hitmen for the Gulf cartel, may now be operating as a cartel, some experts say.

…
The state is currently the scene of a bloody turf war between Joaquin “El Chapo” (Shorty) Guzman and the Beltran Leyva cartel, whose leaders broke off from his Sinaloa cartel.

The Sinaloa organization, sometimes referred to by officials as the Pacific cartel, is the oldest drug cartel in Mexico and Guzman, considered extremely violent, is one of the most-wanted criminals in Mexico and the United States, where the Drug Enforcement Administration has offered a reward of $5 million for him. President Felipe Calderon, who took office in December 2006, has deployed 50,000 soldiers and 20,000 federal police nationwide to combat drug cartels and other criminal organizations. The anti-drug operation, however, has failed to put a dent in the violence due, according to experts, to drug cartels’ ability to buy off the police and even high-ranking officials. EFE

source: latin american herald tribune

Mumbai terrorists: unrecognizable faces

also see my post: unclaimed property for additional context

also see this long post by C. Story, which contains information allegedly given to Bob Chapman by a former, high-ranking member of the CIA, retired, which describes, among many other things, that peeling faces off of people is a calling card of certain intelligence operatives. scroll down to: THE CATASTROPHE, COURTESY OF THE CORRUPTION OF TENET, CHENEY AND BUSH

4. Colombian authorities nab 10 FARC rebels near Venezuelan border

BOGOTA – Colombian authorities captured 10 FARC guerrillas in several operations in Norte de Santander province, which borders on Venezuela, the Colombian government said Tuesday….All the people captured are accused of belonging to the financial and military network of the FARC and they will be turned over to the appropriate authorities to define their legal situation with an eye toward future prosecution or adjudication.

more @ latin american herald tribune

5. date unknown, maybe 2007: the mystery of Eugene Island 330  and self-renewing oil supplies

Look what i found on the Net about Self Renewing Oil Supplies Field. Quite an interesting articles and please share your thought.

Eugene Island is an oil field in the gulf of Mexico, 80 miles off the coast of Louisiana. It was discovered in 1973 and began producing 15,000 barrels of oil a day which then slowed to about 4,000 barrels in 1989.

But then for no logical reason whatsoever, production spiked back up to 13,000 barrels a day.

What the researchers found when they analyzed the oil field with time lapse 3-D seismic imaging is that there was an unexplained deep fault in the bottom corner of the computer scan, which showed oil gushing in from a previously unknown deep source and migrating up through the rock to replenish the existing supply.

Furthermore, the analysis of the oil now being produced at Eugene Island shows that its age is geologically different from the oil produced there after the refinery first opened. Suggesting strongly that it is now emerging from a different, unexplained source.

The last estimates of probable reserves shot up from 60 million barrels to 400 million barrels.

Both the scientists and geologists from the big oil companies have seen the evidence and admitted that the Eugene Island oil field is refilling itself.

Odd Reservoir Off Louisiana Prods Oil Experts to Seek a Deeper Meaning
By CHRISTOPHER COOPER
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

This completely contradicts peak oil theory and with technology improving at an accelerating pace it seems obvious that there are more Eugene Islands out there waiting to be discovered. So the scientific community needs to embrace these possibilities and lobby for funding into finding more of these deep source replenishing oilfields.

The existence of self-renewing oil fields shatters the peak oil myth. If oil is a naturally replenishing inorganic substance then how can it possibly run out?

source: offshoreman


depends who you know

Feb 10

Posted by A. Peasant in Africa, CIA, Corruption & Crime, Egypt, Media, Minerals, Nigeria, Oil, Terrorism, The West | No Comments

1. Sahara becomes desert of terrorism. CIA supported terrorism. also notice however, the illusion that  France and the EU are presented as “opposite” to the US by the expert. the “good” West vs the “bad” West. haha! sorry the same people own all of The West.

Senegal’s president Abdoulaye Wade urged African leaders and the West to join forces in the fight against al-Qaeda’s North African branch, saying it has to be done to prevent the Sahara from becoming a “terrorism desert.” Abdoulaye Wade’s appeal came as African Union heads of state gathered to tackle the continent’s crises and conflicts at the bloc’s summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.Wade was supported by his colleagues from other African countries. They were united in their opinion that African counties could not fight al-Qaeda on their own. Wade said it was an “international issue.”

…Americans spent over 0.5 billion dollars for the anti-terrorism struggle. Yet, the situation has only worsened with the increased number of terrorist attacks.

The situation has particularly worsened in the past two years. These years were marked both with the increased frequency of attacks as well as their impudence, i.e., police station attacks and embassy shootings. The leaders of the Maghreb Muslims appeal for jihad against ruling governments of North African countries. All this attests to the fact that the officials cannot properly control the situation even in their own capitals.

Last year, media released alarming information stating that the Islamist group was developing biological weapons, and in particular, was experimenting with plague agents. The war on terror affects the well-being of local residents increasingly more each year. According to experts, the struggle with al-Qaeda caused rise in basic consumer goods prices in Algeria, including potatoes prices.

…In other words, the participants of the Pan African summit had good reasons to be alarmed. On the other hand, as mentioned above, so far the US military aid has not yielded positive results in the struggle against several hundred militants. Under the circumstances, the opinion of an Algerian expert Jamal Gessel shared with Pravda.ru was quite surprising.

He said that there was very reliable information suggesting that the Islamist group was supported by CIA. Analysts of the French and Algerian Special forces (e.g., DGSE, France) are convinced that this is done to destabilized the situation in North African countries rich in natural resources (both oil and uranium). The other goal is to force French and Spanish oil-extracting competitors out of the area. The expert believes this is precisely why the Islamist group’s attacks are aimed against the French and Spanish, and why the American presence in the region is not effective.

Additionally, the expert does not rule out the situation when the US declares the region its strategic zone, like it happened in the Persian Gulf, and instills its hegemony in the area. The conclusion is the following: the hopes of North African countries to receive aid from the West greatly depend on what they mean by “West”, the USA or EU.

more @ pravda

2. despite problems with al qaeda, not to worry! Algeria is connected: looking to cooperate with South Africa on nuclear technology. oh hey Algeria signed the NPT, so no problem. um, didn’t Iran sign that thing too? yes. but that’s different.

Algeria has shown a keen interest in South Africa’s pebble bed technology, South Africa’s Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) company said on Monday.

CEO Jaco Kriek said in a statement that Algeria’s interest in PBMR technology “opens a real opportunity for two African countries to co-operate on nuclear.” The statement said a high-level delegation under the leadership of Mohamed Derdour, chairman of the Algerian Atomic Energy Commission (Comena), was in South Africa. “Algeria is, amongst others, exploring the possibility of building nuclear reactors the size of PBMR near inland villages to provide electricity and desalination,” Kriek said.

…According to Comena, Algeria was seriously pursuing nuclear technology as a means to diversify its energy sources and as a vehicle to reduce its dependency on a hydrocarbons economy….Derdour pointed out that Algeria, like South Africa, had signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. “Algeria has atomic energy agreements with Argentina, China, France and the United States. “We also have two research reactors, which were built by Argentina and China respectively”. Kriek said South Africa had a long relationship with Algeria, including the signing in 2003 of a memorandum of understanding on co-operation in the field of nuclear and radiation sciences between Comena and South Africa’s department of science and technology.

more @ iafrica

3. Egypt recalls ambassador from Algeria for “consultations” after some sports fans get rowdy

CAIRO (AFP) – Egypt recalled its ambassador in Algeria for consultations on Thursday after attacks against Egyptian football fans in Sudan and businesses in Algiers, the foreign ministry said on Thursday. An Egyptian foreign ministry official confirmed to AFP that the ambassador was recalled for “consultations”. Earlier in the day, Egypt summoned the Algerian ambassador in Cairo to protest against the disturbances.

The foreign ministry said that it informed the ambassador of “Egypt’s extreme displeasure with the assaults on Egyptian citizens who went to Khartoum to support the Egyptian team.”

It was the second summons in a week for ambassador Abdel Qader Haggar, who was called to the foreign ministry last week after Algerian fans attacked Egyptian businesses and homes in Algiers.

more @ yahoo news


4. Nigeria finally transfers power to Goodluck Jonathan

NIGERIA’S parliament empowered vice- president Goodluck Jonathan to run Africa’s most populous nation in place of an ill and absent president. It is hoped the move will provide a political end to a crisis that has ground the government to a virtual halt and triggered the resumption of an insurgency in the vital oil sector. But the move is not contemplated in the constitution, legal experts say, and could cause more friction between the Christian south, which gains the presidency at least temporarily, and Muslim north, which finds itself out of the seat of power.

more @ scotsman

5. NEXT: we told you so

This newspaper took the bold step of publishing a daring story on January 10 that President Umaru Yar’Adua is brain damaged and will not return to office. Titled,”Yar’Adua is brain-damaged”, the story detailed how some people that surround Mr. Yar’Adua were preventing others including the vice president from having access to the president.

“President Umaru Yar’Adua is seriously brain damaged, is not able to recognise anyone… and can no longer perform the functions of the office of the president, according to multiple sources who have spoken to NEXT on Sunday,” the story declares.

While we double checked and confirmed our sources over and over, some newspapers went to town that our story was not true. Indeed there were stories that we spun a tale that cannot be substantiated. Amazingly, while these media houses buried their heads in the sand, NEXT stood up to be counted among the worthy elements of our society, and despite the furious denial even from some people in government, the story could not be counteracted.

Curiously, some folks in government were asking NEXT editors for what was going on with Mr. Yar’Adua showing the level of secrecy concerning his health.

Subsequently, a man claiming to be Mr. Yar’Adua granted an interview to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on January 13 on the eve of a planned protest by eminent Nigerians like Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka and Tunde Bakare, the pastor of Latter Rain Assembly under the aegis of Save Nigeria Group.

Thereafter, seeing that the game was up, others now shifted gear, and joined the train of those asking that the Constitution be upheld. We are happy we started this.

source: next

6. MEND rebels watching the ‘drama’ unfold..will they continue to warn the oil company personnel to get out of the way so they can “attack?” do they still need to attack? maybe not. we’ll have to wait and see what this Goodluck Jonathan fellow has in mind for divvying up Nigeria’s oil resources.

LAGOS, Feb 10 (Reuters) - The main militant group in Nigeria’s oil-producing Niger Delta said on Wednesday it was monitoring developments after Vice President Goodluck Jonathan assumed presidential powers, but declined to comment further.

“We are monitoring the unfolding drama and will react at the appropriate time,” the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said in an email to Reuters. The group last month said it was ending a unilateral ceasefire and threatened renewed attacks on Africa’s biggest oil and gas industry amid delays to an amnesty programme caused partly by the absence of President Umaru Yar’Adua.

reuters

7. polluted water in Niger Delta — home of OIL COMPANIES — the cause of estimated 60% of deaths and 90% of disease in local communities. yes they can get oil out of a swamp but they can’t deliver clean water to poor people who insist on being IN THE WAY of their amazing oil production feats of engineering

Lack of access to safe water is a major source of poor health for millions of residents of Nigeria’s Niger Delta region, a NEXT investigation has shown. Majority of the citizens of the area affirm one of their most critical needs is safe drinking water.

Public health officials say water accounts for an estimated 80 per cent of all diseases and one-third of all deaths in the developing world. In the Niger Delta area, where the natural water sources have been polluted by oil production activities, they estimate that water could account for over 60 per cent of all deaths in the oil communities, and some 90 per cent of all diseases there.

Although the oil region is largely riverine, oil production activities appeared to have polluted the region’s natural water sources, making them increasingly unsafe for human consumption.

more @ next

8. Al Jazeera floats video of police killing unarmed civilians, from seven months ago. picked up widely. kind of confusing — if you don’t pay close attention you might think this is happening now.

google results show major coverage

Aster Van Kregten, a Nigeria expert with rights group Amnesty International, told Al Jazeera that the group’s research suggested extra-judicial killings were widespread in Nigeria.


“Our research shows that the Nigerian police are getting away with murder, they killed hundreds of people a year without any investigation - any investigation on whether the use of force was lawful or not,” she said. “What we saw on the footage happened seven month ago and we haven’t heard anything from the government whether they have arrested anyone and how far the investigation is going.”

Among those killed in the aftermath of the clashes between Boko Haram and the police, was Boko Haram leader Mohammed Yusuf.

more @ al jazeera

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

a resurrected post from december

Feb 7

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

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

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

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

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

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

upi asia

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

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

chinaview

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

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

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

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

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

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

fars

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

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

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

chinaview

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

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

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

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

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

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

chinaview

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

http://tinyurl.com/yfw6d8h

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Roni SoferY Net NewsOctober 12, 2009

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

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

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

via aletho news - LINK DEFUNCT


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

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

there are no sunglasses

10. 12/2008: Michael Parenti

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

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

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

russia today

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

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

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

source: foreign policy blogs

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

back rooms of the NWO

Feb 5

Posted by A. Peasant in Bloodlines, Censorship, Central Asia, Corruption & Crime, Israel, Kazakhstan, NWO, Oil | No Comments

In previously covered news:

Kazakhstan is a big place, far away, private, strategically located, full of natural resources, and not so full of people. If you’ve been following along, you will immediately see the attraction. Generally speaking, from the perspective of those who value power and natural resources over people, Kazakhstan is a turn-key operation.

This may explain why Kazakhstan is “Israel’s partner in Eurasia,” as well as why the capital city, Astana, has been built in New World Order Fantasy style.

^^^^^^^

Timur Kulibayev married President Nazarbayev’s daughter, Dinara.

An intelligent and ambitious President and CEO of the KMG group since June 2006, Kulibayev is married to President Nazarbayev’s second daughter Dinara. Until his promotion, he used to be KMG’s first vice president of KMG. In his 30s, he began his career in the finance ministry’s division which was once in charge of the petroleum sector. In March 1997, as Nazarbayev made Balgimbayev president of KazakhOil, the latter made Kulibayev the financial boss and vice president of the company. The oil and gas firms then were transferred from the finance ministry to KazakhOil.

In September 2009, for instance, Kulibayev entered into discussions with Azerbaijan about possible oil transport routes through Azerbaijan and Georgia to the Black Sea.

Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan are discussing the possibility of opening new routes to transport Kazakh oil. “Yesterday we held talks with Azerbaijan’s national oil and gas company, and agreed to carry out research on transporting Kazakh oil through Azerbaijan and Georgia to the Black Sea,” the chairman of the Kazenergy association, Timur Kulibayev, told a news conference held within the Kazakh energy week in Astana today. Kulibayev said that the matter concerned possible construction of a new pipeline within the existing Baku-Supsa corridor.

This week Kulibayev sued several Kazakh papers for libel after the published a letter from an exiled Kazakh banker accusing him of corruption.

In the letter, former banker Mukhtar Ablyazov accused Kulibayev of pocketing a portion of proceeds from the sale of a government stake in a Kazakh oil company to a state Chinese major. The government sold the stake for $150 million in 2003….Kulibayev, 43, is deputy chief executive of Kazakhstan’s powerful state welfare fund Samruk-Kazyna which controls key state companies such as energy firm KazMunaiGas [KMG.UL]. Kulibayev and his wife indirectly own a 41.8 percent stake in Kazakhstan’s second-largest bank, London-listed Halyk (HSBKq.L) HSBK.KZ.

The exiled politician who made the allegation, Mukhar Ablyazov, once Kazakhstan’s energy minister, used to run another Kazakh bank, BTA BTAS.KZ, until early 2009. The state accused Ablyazov of fraud last year, blaming him for part of BTA’s losses which exceeded $8 billion. Ablyazov, who has since left Kazakhstan, has denied any wrongdoing. BTA has since been nationalised.

Kazakh officials seized copies of the offending newspapers.

ALMATY — Kazakh officials have seized editions of at least five opposition and independent newspapers that contain an article alleging corruption by President Nursultan Nazarbaev’s son-in-law, Timur Kulibaev, who is suing the newspapers, RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service reports.

An Almaty district court ordered the seizure of the newspapers after Kulibaev filed a libel lawsuit against the publications “Respublika,” “Golos Respubliki” (Voice of the Republic), “Vzglyad” (Glance), “Kursiv,” and “Kursiv-News.”

The court also banned any reports “damaging the dignity and honor of Timur Kulibaev.” Kulibaev is an executive in many of Kazakhstan’s energy-sector businesses.

All of the impounded newspapers had printed a statement by former Kazakh businessman Mukhtar Ablyazov, who accused Kulibaev of corruption on several websites last week.

Ablyazov, who left Kazakhstan for London in 2009 after his BTA Bank was taken over by the government, stated that he had sent open letters to Chinese President Hu Jintao, China’s prosecutor-general, and the state security minister urging them to look into the companies involved in an allegedly corrupt deal with Kazakhstan.

Ablyazov claimed in the letter that when the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) agreed several years ago to buy shares of Kazakhstan’s AqtobeMunayGaz oil and gas company, Kulibaev made CNPC create an offshore company.

Ablyazov said that 49 percent of the off-shore company’s shares were sold to Darley Investment Services — which is controlled by Kulibaev — for $49. Ablyazov claims that CNPC and some of its branches then bought the shares back from Darley Investment Services for $165.9 million.

^^^^^^^

Could Kulibayev be corrupt?

According to News of the World in March 2008, Timur Kulibayev fathered a “love child” with a woman named Goga Ashkenazi (also known as Gaukhar Berkalieva). Ms. Ashkenazi has also dated Prince Andrew. (candid photos)

PRINCE Andrew had an intimate date with a society beauty just 72 HOURS after she gave birth to Timur Kulibayev’s lovechild, the News of the World can reveal. The Duke of York and sultry Goga Ashkenazi enjoyed a three-hour dinner at his favourite Chinese restaurant. It is not known if Andrew was aware that his Kazakhstan-born companion, the secret mistress of married Russian oil tycoon Timur Kulibayev, had just given birth.

And after the meal, 28-year-old Goga told pals: “I have every girl’s dream—a prince on one arm and a billionaire on the other.”

Kulibayev, 41, has a £1.2billion fortune and is married to the daughter of Kazakhstan’s President. Goga gave birth to his son, Adam Berkaliev, at London’s Great Portland Street hospital on December 27. Three days later, she arrived for dinner with Andrew in Ascot, Berks, in a chauffeur-driven £137,000 Bentley Continental Flying Spur.

…”We all knew that Andrew gave her unbeatable social status and was a valuable business contact too. “But in the romance stakes he is neither as powerful nor anywhere near as rich as Mr Kulibayev. I don’t think he comes close.” Andrew, 48—who gets a £250,000 a year allowance from the Queen— counts Goga as a “dear friend” and even introduced her to his mother at Ascot races last summer.

…The dusky brunette—whose real name is Gaukhar Berkalieva—was born in Kazakhstan in 1980 and educated in England from the age of 13. Her mother Saule Aralbayeva lives with her in Surrey. Goga has mixed with the wealthiest men in society since she was a teenager. Formula One supremo Flavio Briatore fell for her in 2002 and introduced her to the international playboy jet-set.

…Briatore, 57, is reported to have dumped Goga her discovering she was not, as he thought, the daughter of Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev. After that Goga fell for Kulibayev, who controls access to Kazakhstan’s vast untapped reserves of crude oil. It was hoped her friendship with Prince Andrew would please the tycoon and help generate investment in his oilfields. The prince travelled to Kazakhstan in October last year looking to promote links with the UK’s North Sea oil industry.

…In contrast to her flirty style with Prince Andrew, Goga is said to be very respectful of Kulibayev. He was widely tipped, until recently, to be the hand-picked successor of President Nazarbayev. Despite his high profile and politically significant marriage to the president’s daughter, he and Goga registered the birth of their son together in London last month. They went to Westminster Council’s register office on February 5, taking Goga’s maiden name as their boy’s surname. The father is named on the birth certificate as Timur Askarovich Kulibayev and his profession is listed as “entrepreneur”.

Goga has one failed marriage behind her. She wed Aidar Akayev, son of the President of Kyrgyzstan, in 1998. He later fled the country accused of money laundering and the relationshipe broke down.

…Kulibayev’s marriage to President Nazarbayev’s middle daughter Dinara cemented his position at the heart of the country’s powerbase and he was put in control of the country’s oil and his family’s finances. The tycoon is said to have kept Goga on a luxury yacht off the coast of Turkey during a holiday with Dinara in 2007.  His daily visits to his mistress, almost within sight of his wife, were an open secret among his staff. Goga’s loyalty to Kulibayev has been lavishly rewarded. She is currently Chief Executive Officer of MunaiGaz Engineering, a Kazakh oil firm with offices in London’s Grosvenor Cresent, that is building a pipeline across Kazakhstan.

A few months later, Prince Andrew’s marital home was sold to an offshore company for £15m.

In May The Sunday Times revealed that the foreign buyer had paid £3m more than the guide price on the property, even though there were no other bidders and it had been languishing unsold on the market for five years. Now it has emerged that the Kazakh who negotiated to buy Sunninghill Park may not be the real owner of the property, which in less than a year has become neglected and semi-derelict with doors left unlocked. Close family members of the man who negotiated the sale were also under investigation for suspected money laundering at the time of the sale, which took place last year.

…What is not in doubt is that the true buyer of Sunninghill Park is personally known to Andrew, who has a number of links to Kazakhstan, both professional and personal. He has visited the country many times on official business in his capacity as a roving amabassador for British trade and also on discreet private trips.
On one of his most recent visits, in May, he is understood to have spent a weekend on a goose-shooting excursion with Nursultan Nazarbayev, the president of Kazakhstan.

A spokesmen for the prince said that the sale of Sunninghill Park was a private matter, as no public money had been involved. But the Duke of York’s public role, for which he last year received £436,000 to cover his expenses, makes it essential that all his dealings are seen to be above board.

The Sunday Times has established that Kenes Rakishev, a wealthy 29-year-old Kazakh businessman, negotiated the purchase. He was said by a source close to the deal to have orchestrated it with the help of Imangali Tasmagambetov, his father-in-law, who is the mayor of Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan.

Andrew, who knows both Rakishev and Tasmagambetov, has refused to comment on the identity of the owner of his former home, which was a gift from the Queen at the time of his marriage to Ferguson.

Gaukhar “Goga” Ashkenazi, a 28-year-old Kazakh business-woman who is often seen with Andrew, is said to have told friends that she is the owner of Sunninghill Park and intends to knock it down and build something new. No planning applications have been lodged, and this weekend a spokeswoman for Ashkenazi, who last year bought a house in Holland Park, west London, for £27.5m, denied that she is connected to Sunninghill Park.

The other person who is thought to be the owner of Sunninghill Park is one of the most powerful men in Kazakhstan. Outstanding water bills for the property have been sent to a woman who works for him.

Timur Kulibayev, 41, is a billionaire oil and gas tycoon who is known to Andrew, not least through their attendance at hunting parties thrown by Nazarbayev. Sometimes, according to sources, the president has been known to shoot bears.

…Kulibayev’s connection to Sunninghill Park is well hidden. But the Crown Estate, which runs Windsor Great Park in which Sunninghill Park is sited, has been attempting to send invoices for outstanding water bills at the property to a woman called Olga Aristova, who works for Kulibayev in Kazakhstan. Rakishev said that Aristova worked for the billionaire as a manager. She refused to comment when contacted. At the same time, a debt collection agency working for the power company E.ON has been pursuing Rakishev for electricity bills of more than £4,000 for Sunninghill Park.

…One Kazakh politician described Rakishev as Kulibayev’s “bell boy”.

…Kulibayev, who is a former vice-president of KazMunaiGas (KMG), the state oil and gas company, and now chairman of KazEnergy, the industry’s umbrella organisation, repeatedly failed to respond to questions put to him. Although on paper Kulibayev is no longer connected to KMG, his tentacles in the oil industry are still far-reaching. They will undoubtedly have brought him into contact with the prince whose official task for the government is to help to broker deals between British firms and foreign interests.

According to one politician in Kazakhstan, the prince met representatives of KMG in May at the time of one of his most recent private trips. Witnesses also report seeing the prince in the country on a private visit in November, shortly after an official visit. On that occasion Andrew was seen at a bar called Soho in the city of Almaty. Again, he was said to be in the company of senior executives from KMG while also enjoying the attentions of a brunette.

…Kulibayev has also been busy inviting VIPs, reportedly including the prince, to regular hunting meets hosted by the Kazakh president. The events involve hospitality of every conceivable kind.


That’s a worrying statement right there. One might pause to extrapolate here.

You know, I think it’s possible they might be corrupt.

Nazarbayev’s financial dealings are being exposed to unfavourable scrutiny. He is facing embarrassment in the United States over a pending court case involving James Giffen, an American businessman who is accused of paying Nazarbayev $78m in bribes from oil companies in return for contracts.

Nazarbayev and other Kazakhs who are linked to people involved in the purchase of Sunninghill Park were, at the same time, being investigated by prosecutors in Liechtenstein over suspicions of money laundering via a company called the Walisa Foundation.

Among the 10 people involved in the “preliminary investigation” were Tasmagambetov, who has denied any connection to the prince’s house sale, his daughter Asel, who is married to Rakishev, and Dinara Kulibayeva.

According to Interpol transmissions between Liechtenstein and the United States, Tasmagambetov, Nazarbayev and Dinara were being investigated over a suspicion of money laundering, while Asel was described as also “involved in this case”. Rakishev was not involved.

And as for Prince Andrew, it all worked out swell. He’s on a small allowance and it’s not easy, you know.

…The extra money from the sale will have come in handy. After leaving Sunninghill Park, Andrew, whose only known personal income is a £249,000 annuity from his mother, moved into Royal Lodge, the Queen Mother’s former Windsor residence. He borrowed money from the Queen to fund a £7m refur-bishment on the understanding that he would pay her back from the sale of Sunninghill. Thanks to the Kazakhs he can easily afford to pay his debts.

^^^^^^^

Moneyed people and royals in Britian have become enamored with all things Kazakhstan.

Britain is the third largest foreign investor nation in Kazakhstan. More than 100 UK-based companies are operating there, primarily in the field of energy, although the St Helens-based Pilkington glass company is currently developing a plant near Kyzylorda, which was said at its inception in 2007 to be the largest industrial project in the country.

Undoubtedly the British kingpin in this economic love-in is Sir Richard Evans, the former chairman of BAE Systems and the man who brokered the largest arms deal in British history during the 1980s in Saudi Arabia. Sir Dick is a world-renowned tough cookie. Since 2006 he has been in charge of Samruk, the Kazakh oil-to-railwaysto-airline state holding company, now Samruk-Kazyna, which controls one third of the nation’s developing economy and in effect employs some 250,000 of the 16 million population. Not bad for a lad from Lancashire.

Furthermore, two years ago Lord Rothschild established an investment fund, Tau Capital, to ‘give investors the opportunity to participate in the wealth of investment opportunities in Kazakhstan,’ says its website. Interestingly, this is a return to the region for the Rothschilds who, at the start of the 1900s, were the second most important family in the Caspian Sea area.

But what has attracted headlines beyond the business pages is the number of members of our own Royal Family who have taken an interest in all matters Kazakh. Earlier this month Prince Michael of Kent confided that he was heading to Almaty on a ‘private visit’ business trip later this year. ‘There are a number of ventures I am looking into,’ he said. These are belttightening times for the Prince, who has announced that from next year he will be paying an annual rent of [pounds sterling]120,000 to remain at the apartment in Kensington Palace that he has long shared with his wife for a nominal amount. One can only imagine that Prince Michael has taken advice from Prince Andrew who has had serious property problems of his own, only to have them solved by doing business with the man who has run Kazakhstan with an iron grip for almost two decades.

Tight. One big happy family.

UPDATE: Goga Ashkenazi turns 30, has a big party with her friends.

Who said we live in austerity Britain? Last night saw the 30th birthday party of glamorous socialite Goga Ashkenazi, who has shot from being a complete unknown to boasting that she has “a prince on one arm and a billionaire on the other”. That refers to her close friendships with Prince Andrew and the son-in-law of the Kazakh premier, Nursultan Nazarbayev, oil magnate Timur Kulibayev, with whom she is believed to have had a child.
The guest list for the Tyringham Hall, Buckinghamshire, soirée included the Duke of York, Colonel Gaddafi’s socialite sons, Moutassim and Saif, Sir Philip Green, Lord Mandelson and Lakshmi Mittal. Meanwhile, the dress code stated “black tie and truly fabulous” as tycoons were told that they could drop off their private jets at, er, Luton Airport. Camparis all round!

And:

And partygoers — who included Russian model Natalia Vodianova, Indian-born steel billionaire Lakshmi Mittal, glamourpuss Nancy Dell’Olio, and Lord Mandelson — were asked to adhere to a ‘black tie and truly fabulous’ dress code. But not even the spectacle of Kazakhstan beauty Goga’s image being beamed on to the walls of the 18th-century mansion could match the highlight of the evening — special guest Prince Andrew (whose house Goga sold) being  entertained by a live performance from louche American rapper Akon, famous for his hit song Smack That.

scarcity: the devil’s game

Feb 4

Posted by A. Peasant in Banks, Experts, Haiti, Iran, Mind-fucking, Oil, Palestinians, Russia, Ukraine | No Comments

The Haitians have hydrocarbons:

Behind the smoke, rubble and unending drama of human tragedy in the hapless Caribbean country, a drama is in full play for control of what geophysicists believe may be one of the world’s richest zones for hydrocarbons-oil and gas outside the Middle East, possibly orders of magnitude greater than that of nearby Venezuela.

And the Palestinians have hydrocarbons:

The military invasion of the Gaza Strip by Israeli Forces bears a direct relation to the control and ownership of strategic offshore gas reserves. This is a war of conquest. Discovered in 2000, there are extensive gas reserves off the Gaza coastline.

Russian and Ukrainian scientists discovered something very important more than half a century ago.

It is critical to note that, more than half a century ago, a group of Russian and Ukrainian geophysicists, working in state secrecy, confirmed that hydrocarbons originated deep in the earth’s mantle under conditions similar to a giant burning cauldron at extreme temperature and pressure. They demonstrated that, contrary to US and accepted Western ‘mainstream’ geology, hydrocarbons were not the result of dead dinosaur detritus concentrated and compressed and somehow transformed into oil and gas millions of years ago, nor of algae or other biological material.[6]
The Russian and Ukrainian geophysicists then proved that the oil or gas produced in the earth’s mantle was pushed upwards along faults or cracks in the earth as close to the surface as pressures permitted. The process was analogous to the production of molten lava in volcanoes. It means that the ability to find oil is limited, relatively speaking, only by the ability to identify deep fissures and complex geological activity conducive to bringing the oil out from deep in the earth. It seems that the waters of the Caribbean, especially those off Cuba and its neighbor Haiti, are just such a region of concentrated hydrocarbons (oil and gas) that have found their way upwards close to the surface, perhaps in a magnitude comparable to a new Saudi Arabia.[7]
Geopolitics revolves around extracting, moving and controlling natural resources like hydrocarbons, minerals, and precious metals.
The peak oil psyop — SCARCITY, FEAR — has been used to JUSTIFY military intervention to control oil assets…..because otherwise our economy will collapse and we’ll all die. I used to believe it myself.
How many people have died over that one lie, in a half a century?
This comes down to the banking system, again, and the people who control the banking system, and their murderous desire to remain in control at all costs. Because, at present, all oil must be purchased with US dollars. (Correction: Iran sells oil in Euros and other currencies. See how troublesome they are?! -ed.) And the US dollar fiat currency has reached it’s mathematical limits and needs to be replaced with a new fiat currency, falling under the same people’s control.

In the early seventies, OPEC was formed and then massively increased the price of oil over the following years. The major oil companies (and their client governments) rolled over without much fuss at all and accepted the new staus quo. There were no invasions. I remember being surprised at the time and the answer to the riddle came along in due course. The oil majors (who, remember, are owned by the major banking families) made a deal with the Saudis (and the other OPEC nations followed) to only sell their oil through the oil “bourses” in London and New York and the sales to be denominated in US dollars. This neat trick meant that the major banks could issue huge amounts of dollars (out of thin air) as loans to the value of the world’s oil sales because everyone now needed to get the US$ before they could get the oil. This is how the US dollar was cemented in place as the reserve currency of the world. And this is how, too, they have been able to deliberately dismantle the US domestic economy over the last thirty years through globalisation (thank you Milton Freidman!) and not see the value of the US dollar plummet. This is how the US has financed its huge military buildup. It would have not been possible otherwise. It has been able to spend, spend, spend all this new found wealth from the interest gained from the vast loans as well as spending the money outright. It may take a while to get your head round this but, believe me, it really is as simple as its sounds.

Perhaps now you will see new meaning in Saddam Hussein’s selling of oil in currencies other than the US$ which he started shortly before he (and all Iraqis) came to grief. This accounted for the timing of the war as well as its raison d’etre. Perhaps you will extend that new meaning to encompass Iran’s decision to do likewise. Not only has this threatened the viability of the US’s continued military dominance (it buys from all over the world with its currency backed by others oil), but just as importantly, it threatens the introduction and viability of their projected New World Order currency. This makes Iran target number one. If the US and these bankers can’t control or own Iran’s oil, they must, at least, stop them from selling it in anything other than $US for the moment and the OWC in the future. Bombing their oil fields and have the Iranians block the Straits of Hormuz in retaliation would achieve that just fine.

But that would be a temporary solution. What is needed really is complete control of Iran. This same scenario applies to Russia as well. [and Haiti, Palestine... - ed.] The oil fields need to be under the international bankers control before the OWC can be introduced. Time is running out. This juggernaut has been put in motion and they cannot afford to stop it in mid stride for fear the whole plot, hatched over decades (if not longer), will collapse.

So they have to maintain and enhance their control over oil before they can effect this switch to a new fiat currency. Large oil supplies like Haiti’s must come under their control, but they didn’t have a good excuse for invading Haiti, and they don’t necessarily want people knowing about the oil there. That wouldn’t look good. Conveniently, the “earthquake” JUSTIFIED descending upon and reorganizing Haiti. Similarly, something will have to JUSTIFY the continued abuse of the Palestinians in Gaza. And something will have to JUSTIFY an attack on Iran. The options narrow by the day. I think they will be forced to do a false flag, and I hope that their evil plans blow up in their faces before another innocent person has to die for all this greed.

scarcity: the devil’s game

Feb 4

Posted by A. Peasant in Banks, Haiti, Iran, NWO, Oil, Palestinians, Russia, Sustainability, Terrorism, Ukraine | No Comments

The Haitians have hydrocarbons:

Behind the smoke, rubble and unending drama of human tragedy in the hapless Caribbean country, a drama is in full play for control of what geophysicists believe may be one of the world’s richest zones for hydrocarbons-oil and gas outside the Middle East, possibly orders of magnitude greater than that of nearby Venezuela.

And the Palestinians have hydrocarbons:

The military invasion of the Gaza Strip by Israeli Forces bears a direct relation to the control and ownership of strategic offshore gas reserves. This is a war of conquest. Discovered in 2000, there are extensive gas reserves off the Gaza coastline.

Russian and Ukrainian scientists discovered something very important more than half a century ago.

It is critical to note that, more than half a century ago, a group of Russian and Ukrainian geophysicists, working in state secrecy, confirmed that hydrocarbons originated deep in the earth’s mantle under conditions similar to a giant burning cauldron at extreme temperature and pressure. They demonstrated that, contrary to US and accepted Western ‘mainstream’ geology, hydrocarbons were not the result of dead dinosaur detritus concentrated and compressed and somehow transformed into oil and gas millions of years ago, nor of algae or other biological material.[6]
The Russian and Ukrainian geophysicists then proved that the oil or gas produced in the earth’s mantle was pushed upwards along faults or cracks in the earth as close to the surface as pressures permitted. The process was analogous to the production of molten lava in volcanoes. It means that the ability to find oil is limited, relatively speaking, only by the ability to identify deep fissures and complex geological activity conducive to bringing the oil out from deep in the earth. It seems that the waters of the Caribbean, especially those off Cuba and its neighbor Haiti, are just such a region of concentrated hydrocarbons (oil and gas) that have found their way upwards close to the surface, perhaps in a magnitude comparable to a new Saudi Arabia.[7]
Geopolitics revolves around extracting, moving and controlling natural resources like hydrocarbons, minerals, and precious metals.
The peak oil psyop — SCARCITY, FEAR — has been used to JUSTIFY military intervention to control oil assets…..because otherwise our economy will collapse and we’ll all die. I used to believe it myself.
How many people have died over that one lie, in a half a century?
This comes down to the banking system, again, and the people who control the banking system, and their murderous desire to remain in control at all costs. Because, at present, all oil must be purchased with US dollars. (Correction: Iran sells oil in Euros and other currencies. See how troublesome they are?! -ed.) And the US dollar fiat currency has reached it’s mathematical limits and needs to be replaced with a new fiat currency, falling under the same people’s control.

In the early seventies, OPEC was formed and then massively increased the price of oil over the following years. The major oil companies (and their client governments) rolled over without much fuss at all and accepted the new staus quo. There were no invasions. I remember being surprised at the time and the answer to the riddle came along in due course. The oil majors (who, remember, are owned by the major banking families) made a deal with the Saudis (and the other OPEC nations followed) to only sell their oil through the oil “bourses” in London and New York and the sales to be denominated in US dollars. This neat trick meant that the major banks could issue huge amounts of dollars (out of thin air) as loans to the value of the world’s oil sales because everyone now needed to get the US$ before they could get the oil. This is how the US dollar was cemented in place as the reserve currency of the world. And this is how, too, they have been able to deliberately dismantle the US domestic economy over the last thirty years through globalisation (thank you Milton Freidman!) and not see the value of the US dollar plummet. This is how the US has financed its huge military buildup. It would have not been possible otherwise. It has been able to spend, spend, spend all this new found wealth from the interest gained from the vast loans as well as spending the money outright. It may take a while to get your head round this but, believe me, it really is as simple as its sounds.

Perhaps now you will see new meaning in Saddam Hussein’s selling of oil in currencies other than the US$ which he started shortly before he (and all Iraqis) came to grief. This accounted for the timing of the war as well as its raison d’etre. Perhaps you will extend that new meaning to encompass Iran’s decision to do likewise. Not only has this threatened the viability of the US’s continued military dominance (it buys from all over the world with its currency backed by others oil), but just as importantly, it threatens the introduction and viability of their projected New World Order currency. This makes Iran target number one. If the US and these bankers can’t control or own Iran’s oil, they must, at least, stop them from selling it in anything other than $US for the moment and the OWC in the future. Bombing their oil fields and have the Iranians block the Straits of Hormuz in retaliation would achieve that just fine.

But that would be a temporary solution. What is needed really is complete control of Iran. This same scenario applies to Russia as well. [and Haiti, Palestine... - ed.] The oil fields need to be under the international bankers control before the OWC can be introduced. Time is running out. This juggernaut has been put in motion and they cannot afford to stop it in mid stride for fear the whole plot, hatched over decades (if not longer), will collapse.

So they have to maintain and enhance their control over oil before they can effect this switch to a new fiat currency. Large oil supplies like Haiti’s must come under their control, but they didn’t have a good excuse for invading Haiti, and they don’t necessarily want people knowing about the oil there. That wouldn’t look good. Conveniently, the “earthquake” JUSTIFIED descending upon and reorganizing Haiti. Similarly, something will have to JUSTIFY the continued abuse of the Palestinians in Gaza. And something will have to JUSTIFY an attack on Iran. The options narrow by the day. I think they will be forced to do a false flag, and I hope that their evil plans blow up in their faces before another innocent person has to die for all this greed.

continuing chaos in West Africa

Feb 1

Posted by A. Peasant in Africa, Corruption & Crime, Guinea, Nigeria, Oil, Terrorism | No Comments

1. North Africa al qaeda offers to help Nigerian Muslims fight the Nigerian Christians in Jos

An al Qaeda group in North Africa has offered to give Nigerian Muslims training and weapons to fight Christians in the West African country, where more than 460 people were killed in sectarian clashes last month.

Vice President Goodluck Jonathan sent in the military to halt the violence after four days of clashes between Christian and Muslim mobs armed with guns, knives and machetes in the area round the city of Jos in central Nigeria. “We are ready to train your people in weapons, and give you whatever support we can in men, arms and munitions to enable you to defend our people in Nigeria,” the statement by al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) said.

more @ next

2. Niger Delta: MEND claims it is “not directly” responsible for the sabotage of Royal Dutch Shell oil pipeline

The sabotage on Saturday came hours after the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) ended a three-month old cease-fire and threatened to unleash “an all-out assault” on Africa’s biggest oil and gas industry. While MEND said the attack was the work of a militant group it backed, one security source, who declined to be identified, said the sabotage on Shell’s pipeline, in Bayelsa state in the Niger Delta, might have been carried out by oil thieves trying to tap into it. “MEND was not directly responsible,” the group said in an email to Reuters.  “It was certainly a response to our order to resume hostilities by one of the various freelance groups we endorse.”

more @ yahoo news

3. Nigerian senate totally in the weeds over Yar’Adua’s absence, debating the wording of the Nigerian constitution and how to resolve the crisis

4. expressions of outrage in Sierra Leone — EU, AU called out for supporting corrupt former president

It has come to the attention of this press, that civil servants appointed to key positions of authority and influence by the previous SLPP government in Sierra Leone, are alleged to have gone on the rampage to sabotage, destroy and ruin the economic framework that the President and government of Sierra Leone are instituting to return the country to a sound economic footing. If the allegations are true, then this is an economic crime against humanity. It is reported that these civil servants may have been directed by the opposition party’s machinery to unleash an agenda of sabotage to bring the economy of the country to a halt by failing to institute fiscal policies that will stimulate growth in the economy. And by diverting necessary funds meant for infrastructural development to their pocket, these civil servants are ill-bent on causing chaos and  tarnish the important work the present government led by Dr Ernest Bai Koroma is doing to salvage the opposition-battered economy presided over by former President Ahmed Tejan-Kabbah.

…Some of Sierra Leone’s finest military officers were executed in cold blood by President Ahmed Tejan-Kabbah in the previous SLPP government. Their only crime? They did not accompany him to Guinea when soldiers overthrew his government in a coup d’état. On returning from Guinea after ECOMOG helped restore his government, Tejan-Kabbah ordered the arrest and detention of all whom he thought were not loyal to him and without a single evidence of complicity in the coup, he ordered the execution and continued detention of some of the most gallant men and women of the country’s military. In fact for him to be restored back into power, he ordered ECOMOG fighter jets to bomb Freetown, the capital, at random, without any regard for human life, in his quest to get the rid of rebels in the city and regain power. Thousands of innocent civilians were killed and homes destroyed. This is indeed a crime against humanity. And for this reason alone, I detest any attempt by international organisations like the U.N. or A.U.  to employ the services of this brutal dictator in any mediation efforts across the continent. Tejan Kabbah is not worthy of holding any public office anywhere in the world. Even prior to his election victory there were reports of him being convicted of corruption when he worked as a civil servant in the Siaka Stevens administration.

more @ newstime africa

5. threat of another military intervention in Guinea as top junta official is arrested

Dadis Camara’s closest confidante in Guinea’s military junta, Colonel Moussa Keita,  has been arrested and taken into custody. There is clear indication from reports coming out of Guinea, that officers loyal to exiled Junta leader Dadis Camara, are determined to sabotage the peace agreement signed in Burkina Faso as long as their leader is kept in isolation….The acceptance of Guinea’s Interim Leader Sekouba Konate, to sign up to the Ouagadougou agreement had raised suspicion of a sell-out in Dadis Camara’s mind as reports late last year from Morocco, indicated that Western Diplomats made a lucrative offer to Konate to sign up to a plan hatched by the U.S. to remove Dadis Camara from Guinea’s political life.

more @ newstime africa

while you were out

Jan 30

Posted by A. Peasant in Africa, Angola, Clinton, Corruption & Crime, France, Identities, Minerals, Money Laundering, Nigeria, Oil, Oligarchs, Terrorism | No Comments

Joint Statement on Nigeria by the US and the EU, January 30, 2010

We express our deep regret at the recent violence and tragic loss of lives in Jos, and extend our sympathies to the bereaved and injured.

We urge all parties to exercise restraint and seek peaceful means to resolve differences between religious and ethnic groups in Nigeria.

We call on the federal government to ensure that the perpetrators of acts of violence are brought to justice and to support interethnic and interfaith dialogue.
Nigeria is one of the most important countries in sub-Saharan Africa, a member of the UN Security Council, a global oil producer, a leader in ECOWAS, a major peacekeeping contributing country, and a stabilizing force in West Africa. Nigeria’s stability and democracy carry great significance beyond its immediate borders.We therefore extend our support to the people of Nigeria during the current period of uncertainty, caused by President Yar’Adua’s illness. We extend our best wishes to the president and his family, and join the Nigerian people in wishing him a full recovery.
Nigeria has expressed its resolve to adhere to constitutional processes during this difficult time. We commend that determination to address the current situation through appropriate democratic institutions. Nigeria’s continued commitment and adherence to its democratic norms and values are key to addressing the many challenges it faces, including electoral reform, post-amnesty programs in the Niger Delta, economic development, inter-faith discord and transparency. The gubernatorial elections in Anambra on 6 February will be a milestone in the journey towards electoral reform and a signal of Nigeria’s commitment to the principles of democracy.
We are committed to continue working with Nigeria on the internal issues it faces while working together as partners on the global stage.

Signed: US Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton; British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband; French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner; EU High Representative Catherine Ashton, London, United Kingdom

Translation: You are going down. Make it look believable. Kiss kiss hug hug, your friends at the NWO. Our motto: One big happy family!

^^^^^^^

First let’s review what our esteemed leaders cite as the CAUSE of Nigeria’s problems: Yar’Adua’s illness.

As reported in The Guardian on January 8, 2010, Nigeria’s president has literally been missing for 45 days (now 68 days). Allegedly he went to Saudi Arabia for treatment of a health problem, without telling anyone, and he hasn’t been heard from since. Just up and left, he did. His absence has paralyzed the Nigerian government at a time of severe crisis. A constitutional crisis at the worst possible time, dragging on interminably. Nobody seems to have any power to unstick the problem.

How convenient is that? I suggest that it is exceedingly convenient for some people — who you might guess would be the sorts of people who like chaos and instability — while being impossibly inconvenient for Nigerians.

After all, Nigeria is a critically important country in West Africa, and West Africa is a critically important component in various contrived narratives driving our world to the brink of destruction. One need only look at the joint US and UN statement to realize that if Nigeria falls apart politically, it becomes a blow-up doll for the NWO mind-fuckers. That is why Hillary and friends very properly encourage the Nigerians to cross every democratic t and dot every democratic i, and color within the lines at all times please (rule of law rule of law), while they hope and pray for Yar’Adua’s “full recovery.” Surely they have also heard that:

President Umaru Yar’Adua is seriously brain damaged, is not able to recognise anyone, including his wife Turai, and can no longer perform the functions of the office of the president, according to multiple sources who have spoken to NEXT on Sunday.

That was two weeks ago. For all we know he may not even be alive.

But nobody wants to talk about that. They might loosen the log-jam. And the log-jam happens to be useful because it breeds chaos.

^^^^^^^

Yesterday in Nigeria, a militant group called MEND called off a truce with the paralyzed Nigerian government. I guess that was to be expected, given the log-jam.

The main militant group in the oil-rich Niger Delta called off its cease-fire with the government Saturday morning, dealing a potential death blow to a presidential amnesty program aimed at ending violence that has crippled production in the West African nation.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta issued a statement saying it would no longer abide by the unconditional Oct. 25 cease-fire President Umaru Yar’Adua had negotiated with the group. The militants warned oil producers with pipelines and personnel working in the creeks and swamps of the Delta that it would wage an “an all-out onslaught” against them.

The MEND “warns all oil companies to halt operations as any operational installation attacked will be burnt to the ground,” the statement read. “Oil companies are responsible for the safety and welfare of their workers and will bear the guilt should any harm come upon their staff in the event of an attack.”

The group added: “Nothing will be spared.”

Militants in the Niger Delta have attacked pipelines, kidnapped petroleum company employees and fought government troops since January 2006. They demand that the federal government send more oil-industry funds to Nigeria’s southern region, which remains poor despite five decades of oil production.

In response, Shell has decided to sell off some assets in the Niger Delta. Chevron announced that 20,000 barrels of oil per day had been shut in due to sabotage threats.

According to Reuters:

The rebel group [MEND] was severely weakened after its senior leaders and thousands of others accepted clemency and disarmed under a presidential amnesty which ended last October. It is unclear who is now running the group.

Candidates include:

Ateke Tom: A former gang leader in Rivers State in the eastern Niger Delta for around a decade, Ateke Tom set up the Niger Delta Vigilante (NDV), one of several groups to enjoy strong backing from politicians who used them to help rig elections….Security sources say he was also heavily involved in oil bunkering, a lucrative trade in industrial quantities of stolen crude smuggled onto the international market.

Farah Dagogo: Also based in Rivers state, Dagogo started out as a top commander loyal to former militant leader Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, whose Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force turned over thousands of weapons in return for amnesty in 2004.

Government Tompolo: He was responsible in particular for attacks on Chevron and thought to be a major oil bunkerer. Security forces used helicopters and gunboats to attack his camps around Warri, capital of Delta state, last May.

Well, it was awfully good of those chaps to give such clear and menacing warnings so that the oil company people can get out of the way. Let’s give credit where credit is due. I mean, *some* terrorists would just go right in there and start firing away, bombing wedding parties and marketplaces, and killing a bunch of innocent people. You know what I’m saying?

All the same, Something Must Be Done.

^^^^^^^

Actually, there was a peculiar incident last week in the Niger Delta. (map from wikipedia, click to enlarge)

A helicopter flying from Bonny to Port Harcourt crashed on Tuesday afternoon at Isiokpo, near Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, killing all four persons aboard….The zonal coordinator of the Nigerian Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Emenike Umesi, said the four occupants comprised two pilots and two engineers, said to be of Lieutenant Commander Rank.

The NEMA chief, in charge of the south-south zone, said the aircraft took off from Bonny, which is home to the Liquefied Natural Gas plant….Security agents at the accident scene however said naval personnel recovered “some vital documents” at the scene.

Vital documents?

Addressing journalists on the incident, Naval spokesperson, Commodore David Nabaida, said the names and identities of four dead naval officers were the Pilot of the Helicopter, Lt Commodore Ahmed Tijani Yusuf with official number NNL/2071; Co-Pilot, Lt Commodore Ahmadu Yahaya; Lt Commodore Mailafia Ibrahim, who is the Base Intelligence Officer, Delta and Seaman Illiya Uyuhili, the aircraft’s technician.

…He said the aircraft was on a routine patrol, to investigate a case of illegal bunkering around Akasa and had left from its Warri base and after carrying out its surveillance, was to go to Port Harcourt Airport to refuel before returning to its base but crashed a few kilometers to the airport.

Asked whether there was any connection of the crash with the remnant of militants still operating in the creeks, Nabaida said: “Absolutely not; as I told you, we were at the site of the aircraft accident, the President’s amnesty programme has been working, beside, there is nothing that shows that the crash is connected with anything militancy”.

Riiight. So even though two of the three possible suspected candidates who might be running MEND have been involved in oil bunkering in the past, there’s absolutely no reason to suspect that a naval helicopter investigating oil bunkering would be shot down by said militants, a couple of days before they called off their truce no less.

^^^^^^^

In February 2007, National Geographic published a piece about the Niger Delta.

Nigeria had all the makings of an uplifting tale: poor African nation blessed with enormous sudden wealth. Visions of prosperity rose with the same force as the oil that first gushed from the Niger Delta’s marshy ground in 1956….
Everything looked possible—but everything went wrong.

Dense, garbage-heaped slums stretch for miles. Choking black smoke from an open-air slaughterhouse rolls over housetops. Streets are cratered with potholes and ruts. Vicious gangs roam school grounds. Peddlers and beggars rush up to vehicles stalled in gas lines. This is Port Harcourt, Nigeria’s oil hub, capital of Rivers state, smack-dab in the middle of oil reserves bigger than the United States’ and Mexico’s combined. Port Harcourt should gleam; instead, it rots.

Beyond the city, within the labyrinth of creeks, rivers, and pipeline channels that vein the delta—one of the world’s largest wetlands—exists a netherworld. Villages and towns cling to the banks, little more than heaps of mud-walled huts and rusty shacks. Groups of hungry, half-naked children and sullen, idle adults wander dirt paths. There is no electricity, no clean water, no medicine, no schools. Fishing nets hang dry; dugout canoes sit unused on muddy banks. Decades of oil spills, acid rain from gas flares, and the stripping away of mangroves for pipelines have killed off fish.

Nigeria has been subverted by the very thing that gave it promise—oil, which accounts for 95 percent of the country’s export earnings and 80 percent of its revenue.

…The sense of relentless crisis has deepened since last year, when a secretive group of armed, hooded rebels operating under the name of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, or MEND, intensified attacks on oil platforms and pumping stations, most operated by Shell Nigeria.

…With each disruption, the daily price of oil on the world market climbed. According to the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, escalating violence in a region teeming with angry, frustrated people is creating a “militant time bomb.”
…Isaac Asume Osuoka, director of Social Action, Nigeria, believes that callousness toward the people of the delta stems from their economic irrelevance. “With all the oil money coming in, the state doesn’t need taxes from people. Rather than being a resource for the state, the people are impediments. There is no incentive anymore for the government to build schools or hospitals.”I can say this,” Osuoka said firmly. “Nigeria was a much better place without oil.”

Well, that’s just it. The poor people happen to be in the way, from the perspective of the very important people who would like to go about extracting Nigeria’s natural resources in peace and quiet, thank you very much.

No one can deny the sheer technological achievement of building an infrastructure to extract oil from a waterlogged equatorial forest. Intense swampy heat, nearly impenetrable mangrove thickets, swarming insects, and torrential downpours bedevil operations to this day. But mastering the physical environment has proved almost simple compared with dealing with the social and cultural landscape. The oil firms entered a region splintered by ethnic rivalries.

Ahh, yes, the impossible to please poor people and their interminable “ethnic rivalries.” That’s always a good justification. That way when the oil companies go in there to take over the natural resources and make life next to impossible for people who lived off the land, without providing any consolation prizes like electricity or clean water or schools or medicine, those damn poor people are bound to get all uppity and start causing trouble. Happens every time.

Who could have predicted??

“After 50 years, the oil companies are still searching for a way to operate successfully with communities,” says Antony Goldman, a London-based risk consultant. The delta is littered with failed projects started by oil companies and government agencies—water tanks without operating pumps, clinics with no medicine, schools with no teachers or books, fishponds with no fish. “The companies didn’t consult with villagers,” says Michael Watts, director of the African Studies Program at the University of California, Berkeley. “They basically handed out cash to chiefs. It wasn’t effective at all.”

A fifty fucking years learning curve? How about they know exactly what they’re doing. How about they do this on purpose. It’s a critical part of the business model to make the land inhospitable so that the people die or leave. The People Are In The Way. OK? That’s what’s going on. And everybody involved knows it. That’s why Hillary Clinton had to complain about all the corruption in Nigeria just this last week. It’s UNBELIEVABLE she says, making sure to mention patsy underpants. Yes, those corrupt Africans. Where do they get off?

^^^^^^^

Well, it’s like this. Those corrupt African leaders hook up with corrupt leaders from The West. One big happy family. Even Lev Leviev.

1. Former Nigerian leader Olusegun Obasanjo came under fire for selecting Yar’Adua, knowing him to be sickly. He vehemently denied this. Perish the thought.

2. But, last May US investigators asserted that Obasanjo and others took millions of dollars in bribes from American and European contractors, including Halliburton, to allow the companies to build a liquid natural gas plant in Bonny. This scandal goes back years and ensnares various countries and Important People of The West.

3. Another of the accused in that very scandal, Sani Abacha, has been fighting Swiss authorities for ten years over an estimated three billion dollars misappropriated from Nigeria and stashed in Swiss bank accounts. The money laundering case has dragged on for so long with the help of people in London and elsewhere (see time line here). The Swiss authorities ordered $350 million to be returned to Nigeria last week. An unnamed person in Monaco has been charged.

4. France would like to invest in Imo state (look at the map), to help Nigeria branch out from their dependence on oil and gas. More like a twig than a branch…

5. Nigeria and Angola vie for top petroleum producer spot, and Angola has been able to pull ahead in 2009 due to the violence in Nigeria. Lucky break for the Angola investors.

6. Angola hydrocarbon sector investors: Lev Leviev, China, India…

7. To insure that all these deals will go along smoothly, Angola’s parliament prepares to expand the powers of the president, making him head of state, head of government, and head of the armed forces. The new constitution eliminates the position of prime minister and adds a vice president. VPs are always very useful. And the president may serve two five year terms. All of which contrasts markedly from the situation in Nigeria.

So it looks like Nigeria will be violently dismantled and reassembled somewhere down the road, after the “militants” take over the place and wreck havoc, and tie into some drug smuggling or terrorist operations against The People of The West, justifying some military intervention or something.

And Angola will go on to a brighter future, perhaps marred by the occasional terrorist incident but otherwise firmly in the grip of a sponsored dictatorship.

That’s how it goes in the big happy family.

excitement always follows lev leviev

Jan 28

Posted by A. Peasant in Africa, Banks, China, India, Israel, Minerals, Oil, Oligarchs | No Comments

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

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

Us ing the group, Chinese intelligence acquires oil and energy companies and other important assets in countries in Africa, Latin American, Southeast Asia, as well as in the United States. In this way it promotes Chinese national interests, increases its influence and guarantees the supply of raw materials - first and foremost oil - necessary for its economy.

…The Chinese companies are assisted in some of their international activities by the Angolan government, a rising economic power in Africa, and particularly its national oil company Sonangol. The report mentions three international businessmen connected to the Angolan-Chinese cooperation, with the help of a company called China-Sonangol, which is registered in Hong Kong. China-Sonangol is part of the 88 Queensway Group.

…One is Helder Battaglia, a Portuguese businessman with close ties to Angolan President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos, as well as Chavez and Kirchner. Battaglia has varied investments in Angola, Congo and Latin America. The second is Pierre Falcone, a French businessman who was Arcadi Gaydamak’s partner, and together with Gaydamak was involved in supplying arms to the tune of about $800 million to Angola in the 1990s. Falcone, Gaydamak and others were recently convicted in a French court for illegal arms trade conducted in the ’90s. In recent years, Falcone moved the main center of his business to Beijing, and has become the person who opens Angola’s doors to China (for huge fees). Gaydamak is not mentioned at all in the report; it is known that he is at odds with Falcone and the two are embroiled in legal proceedings over the profits of the arms deal.

The third businessman mentioned in the American report is Lev Leviev, who was Gaydamak’s partner and who according to the report continues to have a strong standing in Angola, where he has mines, diamond polishing plants and a diamond trade company.

more @ haaretz

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1145688.html

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

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

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

OVL, which is partnering Sonangol in their South Pars acreage in Iran, offered to enter joint venture operations in the existing deep-water blocks of Sonangol.

more @ newkerala.com

3. China-based Singapore firms rapidly collapsing amidst debt and fraud — time to buy some cheap assets?

Since late 2007, a spate of so-called S-chips - mainland companies listed on the Singapore exchange - have borrowed money then failed to repay the debts, with some becoming mired in fraud scandals….Not surprisingly, global investment banks have been involved in pushing the S-chips’ debt onto investors.

banks involved include Deutsche, Morgan Stanley.  - ed.

read more @ businessinsider