Archive for category Russia

trafficking news — the international dimension

Mar 22

Posted by A. Peasant in Children, Corruption & Crime, Drug Trafficking, France, Kazakhstan, Money Laundering, Russia, Sweden | No Comments

1. France: drug money laundering linked to sports teams

A vast drug and money-laundering operation run by British gangsters which may have links to Premier League football transfers has been smashed by police in France’s Dordogne region.

Officers from both sides of the Channel raided a number of upmarket homes in two isolated villages favoured by British expatriates.

There they found drugs and thousands of pounds worth of used notes, along with luxury cars including Aston Martin DB9s and Mercedes SLKs.

There have been at least four arrests in connection with the enquiry, all of British nationals who claimed to have moved to France ‘for the good life’, said an investigating officer.

…
‘Those arrested say they had links with big names in the world of Premiership football.’

Stephen C was placed in custody under suspicion of laundering money associated with Britain’s cocaine trade.

During many months of questioning he led detectives to the pretty villages of Augignac and Champniers-et-Reilhac, close to Perigueux, in the Dordogne.

All of those involved were blending in with the thousands of Britons who have set up homes in one of the most unspoiled regions of Europe - one which is frequently referred to as ‘Dordogneshire’ because of its popularity with what the French call ‘Anglo Saxons’.

more @ daily mail

2. Moscow: develop company accused of helping to steal almost $3b

Evgeniya Chaykovskaya

A crime ring of fraudulent development bosses has been smashed by police - but the alleged leader of the group remains at large and living in London.

Senior managers of Evrasia Logistic, CEO Alexander Volkov, finance director Artyom Bondarenko, legal head Denis Vorotyntsev and economics director Alexei Belov were all arrested in Russia, Kommersant reported.

They are suspected of helping Kazakh businessman Mukhtar Ablyazov steal up to $2.8 billion.

Investigators believe Ablyazov abused his position within Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank to ensure that various loans made to his other businesses - including Evrasia Logistic - did not have to be repaid.

Then he cashed in the proceeds and fled to London.

The authorities claim that the businessman appropriated $2-2.8 billion in collateral property, but Ablyazov told Vedomosti he knew nothing of any criminal case against him in Russia.

He believes the charges are politically motivated following his conflict with the Astana government over plans to nationalise BTA last year.

“I did not agree with this decision and filed lawsuits in the international courts against the government of Kazakhstan, says Ablyazov. What is happening in Russia now is a reaction to my latest actions. I assume that Russia’s law-enforcement agencies were misled by the Kazakh authorities,” he told Vedomosti.

The court in Kazakhstan has already found 12 former employees of the bank guilty in creation of an organized crime group with the aim of conducting financial machinations, large theft, and abuse of official position and concealment of crime. They received between 2 and 8 years in prison.

Ablyazov previously accused Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev’s son-in-law Timur Kulebaev of receiving bribes while selling large oil assets. However, the financial police of the country checked the matter and refused in the opening of the criminal case, it was announced on Friday.

The BTA Bank’s offices in Moscow were reportedly searched in connection with the investigation. The bank’s representatives deny this information.

moscow news

3. Sweden: human trafficking pair imprisoned on appeal

In the first case of its kind in Sweden, a Stockholm court has found two men guilty of human trafficking after they lured two teenage boys from their home in Romania to a life of crime….Evidence was heard that the pair of 16-year old boys left their home country on a promise of work. Instead the minors were forced to carry out crimes.

In order to travel out of Romania with the boys, the older men had persuaded both sets of parents to sign a power of attorney.

The document outlined a visiting address that they were led to believe would be their new home in Sweden but instead turned out to be the address of a Finnish prison.

Chief prosecutor Maria Sterup said she was happy that the court “finally understood that there is something called human trafficking.”

more @ the local

4. Moscow: kindergarten drug bust

Alyona Topolyanskaya

A convicted criminal working as a school electrician near Yekaterinburg was caught making drugs in the basement of the nursery school building.

The lab, set up by Lyosha Belov, 36, was exposed by private drug-busting group Gorod bez Narkotikov (City without Drugs), who reported Belov to the police.

Yevgeny Roizman, president of the group and a former Duma representative, described the operation in his blog: “I won’t tell you how we found out about it, but we learned that the children are sick all the time and that there is a horrible smell coming out of the ventilation.”

…
Belov has an extensive criminal record, including convictions for drug possession and selling stolen goods. It is not clear how he came to work at the school.

Meanwhile the principle of the daycare centre seems to have been unaware of the building’s second use.

Yevgeny Malenkin, vice-president of Gorod bez Narkotikov, said: “When I asked her, she said she had no idea, but another women emerged and quickly started saying that the basement did not belong to them, and that it was none of their business what was in it.”

Toxic fumes

Youngsters may have inhaled toxic fumes while at school and the group has asked that all parents whose children had to seek medical attention for upper respiratory problems to collect documentation to present to the Prosecutor’s Office.

According to Malenkin, the daycare providers attributed the foul fumes to a nearby gas station and a road.

Belov is yet to face charges. He was released pending an investigaton, and according to Malenkin was not even held the usual 48 hours. “It was election day, all the police were at the polls. Too busy to process this guy,” he explains.

sure. more @ moscow times

5. sewage exposes Stockholm cocaine use. did you know they have this method? i guess this is how they figure out how well they’re doing destroying the various populations of the world with their illegal drugs.

Clubbers and partygoers in Stockholm consume around 3,000 doses of cocaine per weekend night, according to tests on the city’s sewage water conducted on the request of the TV4 programme Kalla Fakta.

The tests were taken during a Saturday night in January as part of a television series on cocaine use among Swedes, of whom around 200,000 are reported to have tried the drug.

Sewage water from the inner city and the southern suburbs was tested for traces of cocaine and benzoylecgonine (ecgonine benzoate), which is a bi-product left after the body breaks down the drug.

The samples were sent to Karolinska University Hospital in Solna for analysis.

“The tests show that the equivalent of 10-20 (100mg) doses flows into the water system per hour,” Olof Beck at the hospital told the programme.

Cocaine available in Stockholm is known to have been diluted fivefold and so the programme was able to calculate that 3,000 doses were consumed during the evening - 2,000 in the inner-city and 1,000 in the southern suburbs.

The method is one which has been applied in the USA, the UK and Italy, among other countries, but is the first time that it has been used in Sweden.

“The method is totally reliable,” Olof Beck told the Kalla Fakta.

A test conducted in the Norwegian capital Oslo in 2007 showed that 8,000 doses are consumed daily. A previous test on the water of the Po river in northern Italy showed that around 40,000 doses of cocaine were consumed in a catchment area of five million people.

the local

just scratching the surface

Mar 18

Posted by A. Peasant in 9-11, Bush/Cheney, CIA, Corruption & Crime, Military, NWO, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Surveillance, Terrorism | No Comments

Spirit of Iridium

squarecompass1

1. Russia to buy into Iridium communications system

Evgeniya Chaykovskaya

US satellites could help far-flung Russians talk to each other - but some fear national security could be compromised.

Phoning family in far-flung regions could be going global, amid reports that an advisory panel is set to recommend Russia signs up to an American satellite system to improve communications in the far north.

An analytical note seen by RBC Daily says of the four available services - including Russia’s own Gonets - Iridium is the only system with full coverage of the country, including the Arctic and the northern seaways.

Iridium’s network of 66 satellites makes it the largest of its type - but its rumoured connections with the Pentagon have alarmed some in Russia.

Yury Zaitsev, acting academic advisor to the Academy of Engineering Science, warned RBC Daily that all info on Iridium goes through a control centre in the USA - potentially giving them access to strategically important data from some of Russia’s most remote and unprotected border regions.

These distant settlements rely on satellites for phone and internet services because the population is too small and landline or mobile links are too expensive to set up.

The most likely clients are oil and energy companies and ship owners, and Iridium is apparently ready to open a gateway to Russia. But they would have to pass 51 per cent of its local subsidiary into Russian control.

One year ago there were also discussions about using Iridium in Russia, but no deal was reached. At the moment thousands of subscribers are using the service even though it is illegal.

source: moscow times

2. one year ago: cryptogon report on Iridium, a network apparently used for intelligence ops:

So, an Iridium satellite just happened to collide with a defunct Russian military satellite…

You’re about to learn how the sausage gets made, and, before we begin, you should know that it’s not pretty.

I don’t know the whole story about Iridium, but it has got to be one of the spookiest tales of them all.

In November 1998, Motorola activated the Iridium communications network, a constellation of low-earth orbit satellites that provides wireless telecom and data services to any location on the planet. The cost to build the system? About $5 billion. By August 1999, unable to sign up enough customers—because of extremely high handset costs and per minute usage fees—Iridium was facing bankruptcy.

(If you know of a more complete account of what happened next, please let me know about it.)

Iridium executive Dan Colussy put together a group of “private investors” to buy the Iridium system.

According to Iridium:

In December 2000, a group of private investors led by Dan Colussy organized Iridium Satellite LLC. Iridium Satellite LLC acquired the operating assets of the bankrupt Iridium LLC including the satellite constellation, the terrestrial network, Iridium real property and intellectual capital.

How much did this group of private investors pay for the system that cost about $5 billion to build?

$25 million. That’s a discount of about 99.5% off the build cost.

Who were those private investors who just happened to be at the right place at the right time? I’ll be buggered if I know, but someone, somewhere probably knows.

But guess what happened next.

…..snip….to DOD press release from 2000:

Since the Navy has a requirement more than twice as large as the current capability, the Department of Defense needs the capacity Iridium uniquely offers small unit operations in areas without satellite constellation coverage or during periods when various assets are being used in other contingencies. Special Forces operations, combat search and rescue activities and polar communications will also be enhanced. Iridium will provide a unique resource to enhance DoD mobile satellite communications requirements.

keep going….it gets much worse…..:

In an odd twist, the new Iridium is 24% owned by an investment firm controlled by Prince Khalid bin Abdullah bin Abdulrahman of Saudi Arabia.

The prince used to own a minority chunk of the old Iridium in partnership with the Saudi Binladen Group, the company run by Osama bin Laden’s family.

Rome: “the promised land for foreign mafias”

Mar 16

Posted by A. Peasant in Drug Trafficking, Human Trafficking, Israel, Italy, Oligarchs, Romania, Russia, Sabbateans, Spain, UK | No Comments

The UK has a very serious crime problem. Where do all these criminals come from?

The crime hotspot map where Britian’s most hardened criminals live. (click to enlarge)

In Farnworth, near Bolton, Greater Manchester (the upper red zone on the map):

A wealthy businesswoman was forced to watch her nine-year-old son being threatened at knifepoint by travellers during a vicious raid. Clare Topcu, 46, was tied up and her young son Demir beaten when the two yobs burst into their luxury farmhouse in the dead of night whilst stealing roof slates….At Bolton Crown Court, one of the attackers Romanian traveller Visinel Andrei who claimed to be 16, was allowed to be named and given six years youth custody after he admitted robbery and false imprisonment….He told officers he had been pressured into taking part in the robbery by older Romanian men and that he had gone into the house with another man who has not been caught. (Mail on Sunday)

“Romanian traveller?” There must be someone at every newspaper whose job is to make up euphemisms.

^^^^^^^

In December 2009, the Telegraph UK reported on organized mafias in Rome. The organized crime syndicates have decided to cooperate with each other, as it’s better for business if they don’t go stepping on each others’ toes.

The impoverished south of Italy has been the traditional power base for the country’s four mafia groups – Sicily’s Cosa Nostra, the Camorra from Campania, the ‘Ndragheta of Calabria and the lesser known Sacra Corona Unita in Puglia….In moving north, mafia gangsters have developed a new, less overt modus operandi. Rather than collecting protection money from restaurants, shops and businesses, as they do in southern cities like Naples and Palermo, they are laundering the proceeds of crime by buying into legitimate enterprises [restaurants, etc. - ed.]. …The city’s international airport at Fiumicino, and the sea port of Civitavecchia just to the north, have become key points for drug trafficking. Criminal activity in Rome was now on a par with southern Italy, Libera Informazione claimed.

And to make matters worse, the organized crime families in Italy have joined forces with organized crime rings from other countries.

Mafiosi had become much more powerful and sophisticated in recent years, expanding into prostitution, drug trafficking, the counterfeiting of consumer goods and illegal building. In a disturbing trend, godfathers have struck up alliances with Chinese, Russian, Albanian and Romanian organised criminals operating in Rome, with the capital now “the promised land for foreign mafias”.

In July last year, police arrested seven alleged mafia members suspected of attempting to buy into the Lazio soccer team [to launder money - ed.]. … After the offer was turned down, the Casalesi allegedly tried purchasing shares in the club through front companies based in Switzerland or Hungary. Police said the attempt to acquire a soccer club was “a new phenomenon”.

The mafia has no shortage of cash to invest. An Italian think tank, Eurispes, estimated earlier this year that criminal syndicates earned 130 billion euros, or nine per cent of Italy’s GDP, in 2008. Drugs made up nearly half the revenue, followed by the illegal dumping of environmental waste.

Rome

I believe it. And you know who else keeps popping up? Spain. You know when you don’t see someone for months on end and then all of a sudden you bump into them five times in one week? It’s like that. Ever since I started looking into the Sabbateans, I see Spain every time I turn around.

But look how they work together. If you focus on Russians or Romanians or Spanish or British, you lose the picture. They work together.

Traces of drugs found on 99% of British bank notes… Cocaine hidden in frozen fruit, requiring labs to separate and prepare for sale… Seven tons of cocaine seized in multinational operation, some dissolved in tubs of molasses, requiring labs to separate and prepare for sale…I guess the drug traffickers know people with nice big laboratories to reconstitute their drugs. How convenient is that?

In 2002, Spanish police decided that a guy committed suicide by slitting his own throat, presumably in fear of the Romanian mafia which controls business on the Canary island of Tenerife.

Investigators in Tenerife have decided that Scott Miller took his own life by ramming a dagger into his throat - despite continuing claims that he was murdered by gangsters. ….A Tenerife journalist, who has investigated the case, believes Miller’s business interests may have been a front for laundering money raised through drugs and arms dealing.

The Romanian Mafia are suspected of controlling much of the south of the island and have previously demonstrated their ruthlessness in dealing with anyone who threatens their operation.

The journalist, who asked not to be named for reasons of personal safety, said: “It is possible Miller failed to cover up his tracks properly and that meant the police started asking awkward questions. “I believe a contract killing was arranged to stop their inquiries getting any further.” The journalist alleges Spanish police recorded Miller’s death as suicide because they are running scared of the mafia, and to close down damaging publicity about the presence of criminal gangs in the holiday island.

^^^^^^^

In December 2009, aangirfan wrote about the Romanian election, revealing longstanding ties to the CIA and the KGB.

“According to CIA officials, cited by the New York Times, ‘one jail (secret CIA prison) was a renovated building on a busy street in Bucharest, Romania’. (European Commission Demands Investigations Regarding CIA Secret … / Report details CIA prisons in Europe)

Romania, which is in NATO, has troops in Iraq and in Afghanistan. The 1989 revolt in Romania led to the fall of Ceausescu.

An article apparently written by former Securitate officers (’Was This Your Revolution? This is How It Was!’ Democratia, No. 36, 24-30 Sept. 1990) describes how the CIA and KGB organised the fall of Ceausescu.

Reportedly, key figures in the revolt were working for the CIA and KGB, including Militaru (allegedly a KGB-CIA double agent) and the former Securitate officer and adviser to Ceausescu, Dumitru Mazilu (allegedly a CIA agent), and Silviu Brucan (allegedly both a CIA and KGB agent).

Reportedly, just before the revolt, there were ‘massive arrivals of so-called Hungarian tourists in Timisoara and Soviet tourists in Cluj’.

Aha, like “Hungarian travelers?” The foreign travelers arrive and all hell breaks loose? That sort of thing?

aangirfan: Do Jews run the security services?

In 2006, The Sun reported on the expected UK crime surge when Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU.

In a Sun exclusive yesterday we told how a leaked Cabinet memo shows Britain faces a leap in crime when Romania and Bulgaria join the EU on New Year’s Day. …There are fears that, from next January 1, along with the legitimate workers and holiday-makers coming to our shores there will be many people from the criminal underbelly of the two nations. Immigration Minister Liam Byrne and EU minister Geoff Hoon compiled the leaked report that has been forwarded to Tony Blair and the heads of MI5 and Scotland Yard.

…The mafia gained their toehold in the two Balkan nations at the end of the Eighties as the Berlin Wall fell and they cut loose from the Soviet Bloc. As soon as the communists moved out, the gangsters took control of much of the free enterprise that seemed likely to succeed. Soon they were dealing in drugs, people trafficking and fraud.

That’s funny. You know, the oligarchs — Russian Jews — made a bloody fortune at the same time.

The oligarchs’ rise to prominence dates back to the late 1980s and the first meetings of a group of egghead economists known as the “young reformers”. When communism was toppled in 1991, these ambitious young men persuaded Yeltsin to let them kickstart Russia by smashing the centralised economy, liberalising prices and selling off state assets.

Gee Wally, do you really think there’s a connection?

^^^^^^^

The Romanian mafia seems to specialize in human trafficking, human slaves.

2005: Sex trade’s reliance on forced labor… and 2010: Czech Mafia Ruthlessly Exploits Bulgarians, Romanians…

A report published by local Czech non-governmental organizations and specialist Czech police departments has revealed mafia exploitation of Bulgarians and Romanians. The documents, announced on Thursday, claims that a significant increase in human trafficking from Bulgaria and Romania for cheap labor has been observed, with the citizens of both countries being turned into true slaves. After the accession of both countries to the European Union in 2007, “the importation of a work force from Romania and Bulgaria” increased dramatically due to the lack of a required work permit in the Czech Republic for the those citizens. “This criminal business turned out to be very profitable for the local mafia, which makes millions of Euros a year”, said the report.

Many of the trafficked women end up in Spain.

“Police say that around one third of the women they have rescued from prostitution rackets over the last two years are Romanian. They also believe that Romanian mafias have virtually complete control over prostitution networks in Catalonia, Valencia and Murcia, as well as a significant share of the sex industry in Andalusia and the Balearic Islands.”

And now, March 2010, the so-called Russian Mafia abroad includes up to 300,000 people and dominates organized crime throughout the world (this article is well worth reading in full):

In today’s “Versia,” Ruslan Gorevoy says that law enforcement personnel in many countries — including Spain, Greece, Hungary, Italy, France, Mexico, “and even the US” — have been surprised by how “confidently” criminal groups consisting of people from the former USSR now dominate their national criminal worlds (versia.ru/articles/2010/mar/01/russkaja_mafija).

Indeed, the “Versiya” reporter continues, the Russian groups, which include “up to 300,000 of our compatriots,” have succeeded in pushing aside local groups and establishing their own “spheres of influence” to the point that they no longer need to “clarify relations with the help of arms.”

Of course, the “Russian mafia” is another euphemism, since the top people carry Israeli passports.

The state of Israel is a major factor in the rise in power of the Jewish Mafia, Jewish drug dealers, child porn pushers and slave traders. The CIA has commented that there is no major “Russian” Mob figure that does not carry an Israeli passport but the Israeli state refuses to take any action against the gangsters. The power of the Jewish gangs is wielded more ruthlessly than any other criminal gang. All of whom are free from prosecution in Israel. Israel does not consider these to be crimes so long as the victims are non-Jews and the Israeli state will not extradite its citizens to non-Jewish countries.

So why are they all meeting in ROME? Well for one thing, because it’s convenient, and for another thing, because the Sabbateans are also in Rome. So we’re good, see?

Church of the Gesu (Jesuit headquarters), Rome

^^^^^^^

In closing, here’s a 2004 story from The Sun, found on this message board.

This is organized crime, trafficking poor little girls into sex slavery in the UK and elsewhere, and please note, dumping them into the ocean if that seems more convenient.

From OLIVER HARVEY in Vlora, Albania
THE Sun today exposes a sex slave scandal in which 1,400 innocent young girls a year are smuggled to Britain to work as prostitutes. The racket is run by the Albanian Mafia and I tracked down one of its key figures in an undercover operation. I posed as a pimp from London and within minutes of us meeting he offered to ship children to the UK for me - for only £527 each. And - with sickening callousness - he boasted he would transport ten for the price of nine. We reveal the sordid trade only 48 hours after police smashed an African child-slavery gang importing kids to London.

I travelled to Albania to infiltrate the sex-slave trafficking mobs. The investigation led me to hear accounts from a string of girls who had been raped, beaten and forced to work in brothels abroad. Some were sold like animals by their families for £1,000. The underworld - in Albania and Britain - is reaping huge profits from the booming business.

Our rendezvous with the Albanian mobster was at the isolated Kalaja restaurant on cliffs towering above the Ionian Sea. A contact in the Albanian criminal fraternity in London had put us in touch with a middleman in the smuggler’s paradise of Vlora, southern Albania. After a flurry of mobile phone calls we were told to meet the hoodlum at 3pm. I arrived ten minutes early with a bodyguard and an interpreter. Meanwhile, Sun photographer Dan Charity hid in a room 100 metres from our table.

Call … Gyjmi and minder A beige saloon car pulled up at the restaurant soon after and two thick-set men in their 40s got out. One, wearing slacks, Italian loafers and sporting a chunky signet ring, was introduced to us as Nasi Gyjmi. The other, clad more casually, was his henchman. I told cigar-puffing Gyjmi through the interpreter I needed girls smuggled to the UK. He replied: “No problem. We can take them by boat to Italy.” Then he added: “If you pay for nine you get number ten free.”

I asked how much it would cost and he replied: “One thousand euros (£700) for an adult.” “I can take children across but they must be with an adult. “They’re cheaper. I’ll do it for 750 euros (£527).” He explained: “We have to wait for good weather and dodge the patrols.” I tried to haggle but he said through gritted teeth: “This is my last price.” I said I would would have to check with my boss in London then we shook hands and parted. The ease with which I could have struck a deal then and there shocked me. It proved the people smugglers were undeterred by an Albanian government clampdown ordered in the wake of international pressure.

There was evidence of that blitz by the authorities on the outskirts of Vlora where several rubber speedboats had been confiscated. Such craft are used to carry men, women and children the 100 miles to Italy. The treacherous night crossings last around three hours. Sometimes they end in tragedy, with the human cargo hurled overboard to their deaths to make it easier to evade intercepting Italian vessels.

Clifftop … restaurant where meeting was held But, for the smugglers, the risks are worth it. Some of the speedboats can carry 40 people - raking in up to £28,000 a trip. Albania’s poverty and ancient clan system have allowed organised crime to flourish since its Communist regime fell in 1991. Even the manhole covers on the streets of capital Tirana have been stolen and sold for scrap. Gang bosses can be seen in top- of-the-range Mercedes - stolen to order in Germany - weaving past horse-drawn carts

Some mobsters have made fortunes from drug empires stretching to New York. But, increasingly, they are turning to the lucrative sex industry. In Rome and Milan they have eased out the Italian Mafia to take over prostitution and vice rackets. And in Britain they are operating in London, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Hull. They are also believed to have made inroads in Telford, Shropshire. As many as 33,000 Albanian women are believed to be working as call girls in the West. Many girls are snared by pimps who pose as caring lovers. A third of those trafficked are simply abducted.

Seized … cops on a confiscated smugglers’ boat One aid worker told The Sun how a 14-year-old was snatched from the streets of Tirana recently as she went to school. She was beaten and forced to work as a prostitute in the city’s top hotels before fleeing to a safe house. She is now too terrified to return to her classes.

Britain’s National Criminal Intelligence Service has said: “The use of kidnap by traffickers appears to be on the increase in the ex-Soviet and Balkan region, in particular with organised criminals in Kosovo and Albania.” Albania, with a population of 3,544,841, has also become the clearing house for the illegal movement of people from eastern Europe, thanks to its location. Thousands of girls from countries including Moldova, Russia, Romania and the Ukraine are wooed by promises of a new life in the West. They arrive via Albania’s neighbours Montenegro and Macedonia. Pimps take them either by boat to Italy or walk them over the mountains into Greece, to the south. They are then given false documents and travel on to work in brothels and saunas in Britain.

The United Nations Children’s’ Fund- UNICEF - confirmed yesterday that child trafficking to Britain was soaring. Spokeswoman Soraya Bermejo said: “We welcome efforts by The Sun to highlight this awful practice. The life of a child has become cheap.”

active narratives round-up

Feb 18

Posted by A. Peasant in Africa, Banks, Corruption & Crime, Drug Trafficking, Economy, Greece, India, Lebanon, Minerals, Nigeria, Palestinians, Russia, Terrorism | No Comments

1. world government: our masters in Brussels will use the Greek crisis to try to impose a single government across Europe

Now the Greeks cannot afford to stay in the euro and the Germans and French (and indeed to a lesser extent we British) cannot afford to see the Greek economy collapse.

For our masters in Brussels, this is a moment of great danger and of great opportunity. Their solution is simple. Not just a single currency and a single central bank, but a single finance minister administering a single tax and spending system, and a single government across the EU. Without that, either the Eurozone will shrink to a hard core of states around Germany and the Deutschmark will be reborn under the name of the euro, or the euro will cease to be.

more @ telegraph

2. justifying the need to control the internet: malicious software infects corporate computers

A malicious software program has infected the computers of more than 2,500 corporations around the world, according to NetWitness, a computer network security firm.

The malicious program, or botnet, can commandeer the operating systems of both residential and corporate computing systems via the Internet. Such botnets are used by computer criminals for a range of illicit activities, including sending e-mail spam, and stealing digital documents and passwords from infected computers. In many cases they install so-called “keystroke loggers” to capture personal information.

…“These large-scale compromises of enterprise networks have reached epidemic levels,” said Amit Yoran, chief executive of NetWitness and former director of the National Cyber Security Division of the Department of Homeland Security. “Cyber criminal elements, like the Kneber crew, quietly and diligently target and compromise thousands of government and commercial organizations across the globe.”

The company, which is based in Herndon, Va., noted that the new botnet makes sophisticated use of a well-known Trojan Horse - a backdoor entryway to attack - that the computer security community had previously identified as ZeuS.

more @ nyt

3. al qaeda in the palestinian camps in lebanon: 11 aq suspects charged with spying

A Lebanese military judge charged 11 suspected members of an al-Qaida inspired group with forming an armed gang and spying on the army and U.N. peacekeepers, a judicial source said. “Judge Samih al-Hajj charged 11 suspected members of Fatah al-Islam with forming an armed gang, spying on the army and UNIFIL troops (in southern Lebanon), and forging ID papers,” the source said, requesting anonymity.

If convicted, they could face the death penalty. Among those charged — several of them in absentia — are Abdul Rahman Awad and Abdul Ghani Jawhar, two Fatah al-Islam members accused of a deadly 2008 bus bombing in the northern city of Tripoli.

Fatah al-Islam, an obscure al-Qaida inspired group, fought deadly battles against the Lebanese army in the summer of 2007 in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared near Tripoli. …There have been widespread fears since the Nahr al-Bared battle that the group has switched its base to the highly volatile Palestinian camp of Ain el-Hilweh in southern Lebanon.

Lebanese officials suspect that Awad, who is dubbed the “prince of Fatah al-Islam,” is holed up in Ain el-Hilweh, the largest of Lebanon’s 12 Palestinian camps. By longstanding convention, the Lebanese army does not enter the camps, leaving security inside to Palestinian factions.(AFP)

more @ naharnet

4. escalating drug lords in Mexico: Russia ready to sell weapons to Mexico

MEXICO CITY – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Mexico is interested in buying equipment and weapons from his country to combat drug trafficking and organized crime. At a joint press conference with Mexican counterpart Patricia Espinosa, Lavrov said that his country is expanding its weapons sales abroad and has increased the number of supply contracts it has in all regions of the world, a move that is “a purely economic question, not political.”

Regarding the volume of its arms sales, Russia is still “behind the United States, but we’re seeing certain rather serious progress,” Lavrov said. The Mexican government is interested in acquiring different types of weapons, “including helicopters for coastal monitoring,” and other equipment “to fight drug trafficking and organized crime, that I hope will help our Mexican friends to combat this scourge,” the Russian official said.

The United States is already supplying Mexico with arms and equipment for the drug war.

more @ la herald tribune

5. get the minerals in Africa, especially West Africa: African Minerals on track in Sierra Leone as 9.7 billion tonnes of iron ore discovered — largest deposit in the world. shorter: how lucky is Frank Timis?

Somewhere in London, deliberating on his success and probably a glass of ice-rock vodka in his hands, Frank Timis must be filled with excitement and accomplishment as his venture in Sierra Leone has started to yield results. Timis has invested faith and trust in his sense of discernment and has allowed his instinct which has proven time and again to be right, to take on a venture in a small West African country rich in minerals, that has become a second home for him. Timis has employed right judgement and his confidence in the mineral wealth of Sierra Leone may have finally paid off. It is also a vindication for the country’s President Ernest Bai Koroma whose unwavering belief in African Minerals’ potential has not been disappointing. I wonder what is going through Frank Timis’ mind as he reflects back on how risk can sometimes become your best financial asset. But it all comes down to how risk is managed through effective implementation of business acumen that has been tried and trusted. Frank Timis must be a master in risk management that ensures successful outcome. The success of African Minerals in Sierra Leone can only go to open new frontiers for the company in other mineral resource potential areas across Africa. And his success in Sierra Leone will also provide a model for other African Governments to use in order to open their doors to a man whose name has become synonymous with prosperity and mineral wealth.

more @ newstime africa

6. Niger & Nigeria, falling apart or being dismantled: gunfire erupts in Niger capital

NIAMEY (Niger) - MACHINE gun and heavy weapons fire erupted in Niger’s capital, Niamey, on Thursday and smoke was seen rising from the presidential palace, witnesses said, in what appeared to be an attempted coup.

There was no indication of who was involved, the witnesses said, though political tensions have risen in the uranium exporting nation in recent months over President Mamadou Tandja’s extension of his rule. An intelligence officer, who asked not to be named, said the violence was a coup attempt that the presidential guard was trying to put down. A member of Tandja’s entourage in the palace said that ‘for now everything is alright.’

The shooting started around 1200 GMT, witnesses said. A Reuters witness said soldiers were blocking the road near the Prime Minister’s office. Tandja drew widespread criticism and international sanctions after dissolving parliament and orchestrating a constitutional reform that gave him added powers and extended his term beyond his second five-year mandate, which expired in December.

Despite political turmoil and occasional Tuareg rebellions, Niger has attracted billions of dollars in investment from major international firms seeking to tap its vast mineral wealth, including France’s Areva and Canada’s Cameco. — REUTERS

straits times

7. terrorism and sports: police confirm terror threat to India-SA Jaipur stadium match

JAIPUR: Police have confirmed a terror threat to the first ODI match between India and South Africa to be played at the Sawai Mansingh stadium in Jaipur on February 21, following which security has been tightened. B.L. Soni, inspector general of Rajasthan police, said his force had intelligence inputs of the threat. “We have terror inputs of the threat and beefed up security at Sawai Mansingh Stadium (the match venue),” he said.

Intelligence agencies had earlier warned about terror strikes during various sporting events to be held in the country this year including the Hockey World Cup and the Commonwealth Games. However, Home Minister P Chidambaram has assured all the visiting countries of foolproof security for the upcoming sporting events.

source

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

Feb 15

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

more @ telegraph

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

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

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

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

more hagiography @ ynet

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

3. bibi to visit moscow today-wed.

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

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

naharnet

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

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

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

more @ straits times

5. the real reason for sanctions against Iran

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

more @ pravda

6. attack on Iran ‘worries’ Mullen

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

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

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

more @ straits times

dibs on resources in the Western hemisphere

Feb 12

Posted by A. Peasant in Brazil, India, Minerals, Oil, Russia, Southeast Asia, The West, Venezuela | No Comments

1. Venezuela awards 2 blocks in massive oil region: India, Malaysia, Chevron (US), Japan, Spain

Venezuela assigned the rights to exploit the Carabobo 1 block to a consortium that included Repsol, India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corp., Oil India Ltd. and Indian Oil Corp. and Malaysia’s Petronas, while another block, Carabobo 3, was awarded to a consortium led by Chevron and that also included Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp. and Inpex Corp. and Venezuela’s Suelopetrol

…In both blocks, the winning consortium will have a 40 percent stake and the remaining 60 percent stake will be held by Venezuelan state oil giant Petroleos de Venezuela. According to official Venezuelan figures, the blocks have the potential to produce a combined total of at least 800,000 barrels of crude per day by 2016 and will require $30 billion in investment.

“This is something historic,” President Hugo Chavez said of the auction. “It is extremely important” and is the product of “a transparent bidding process” that began on Oct. 30, 2008, with the participation of 19 foreign companies….He also stressed the importance of foreign investment in developing the potential of that region, which the U.S. Geological Survey recently said is the world’s largest petroleum reserve with more than 500 billion barels of recoverable crude.

more @ tribune

2. India moving faster to tie up mineral supplies

Thus the Indian government is reportedly moving to fast track deals to secure future supplies for its ever-growing industrial base. According to a report in today’s Hindustan Times The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has decided that the country’s state-owned corporations need to be supported in aggressively pursuing the acquisition of strategic mineral resources through a dedicated fund - and it has set a 30-day deadline for such plans to be in place. According to Hindustan Times, an unnamed senior government official told it “The PMO has asked the Finance Ministry and the Planning Commission to work out the size and structure of the dedicated fund in 30 days.”

…The significance of the Indian move should not be underestimated. Indian growth is currently matching that of China and with the two Asian potential megapowers with enormous populations taking ever increasing volumes of raw materials from the global supply, the pressure on resources can only increase dramatically.

According to the report, India is also beginning to try and use diplomatic pressures to help secure supplies with the External Affairs Ministry tasked with a strategy to help acquire them, particularly in Africa which is seen as key area of potential supply with resources frequently directly controlled by government.

more @ mineweb

3. Brazil finds more oil, shallow water, low hanging fruit

RIO DE JANEIRO – Brazilian state-controlled energy giant Petrobras said Thursday that it has found oil at a well located in shallow waters of the Campos Basin. The find was made in waters just 200 meters (655 feet) deep and is near massive deposits in deeper areas of Campos, which is located off the coast of Rio de Janeiro state and is the basin where 80 percent of Brazil’s oil is extracted. Petrobras said the 4-PM-53 well contains an estimated 25 million barrels of recoverable heavy oil and is just 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) from the Pampo field, which is currently being developed.

…Petrobras, Brazil’s largest corporation and one of the world’s fastest-growing oil companies, produces an average of 2.5 million barrels of oil and natural gas equivalent in Brazil and abroad. An integrated energy company and a global leader in deepwater oil exploration and production, Petrobras operates in 27 countries in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Europe. Shares of the company trade on the Sao Paulo, New York, Madrid and Buenos Aires stock exchanges, but the Brazilian government retains control through a golden share. EFE

more @ tribune

4. Cuba, Russia confirm “strategic” nature of their relationship

HAVANA – The Russian and Cuban foreign minister emphasized on Thursday the “enormous potential” and the “strategic” nature of relations between their two countries. Sergei Lavrov arrived in Cuba for a three-day visit and presided at a meeting with Bruno Rodriguez, after which they signed three accords.

…Lavrov said that the relationship had transformed itself into a “truly strategic association” and confirmed to the Cuban government Moscow’s “unchanging” stance against the economic embargo the United States has maintained against the communist-ruled island since 1962.

…Besides the foreign minister, the Russian delegation to the fair includes Culture Minister Alexandr Avdeev and more than 200 publishers, writers, artists, officials, translators and journalists. Lavrov’s trip to Havana continues the frequent visits made by top Russian government officials to Cuba in the last two years, including those by Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, who has traveled to the island on at least five occasions. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev traveled to Cuba in 2008 and Cuba’s president, Gen. Raul Castro, returned the visit in 2009. EFE

more @ tribune

news from Russia and the stans

Feb 12

Posted by A. Peasant in Censorship, Central Asia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Oligarchs, Russia, Thailand | No Comments

1. Bagapsh inaugurated as president of Abkhazia

Sergei Bagapsh was sworn in on Friday for his second term as president of Abkhazia, thanking Russia in his inaugural address for helping the republic achieve independence from Georgia. …Bagapsh was re-elected as Abkhazia’s president on December 12, 2009, winning with over 60% of the vote in the republic’s first presidential election since Russia recognized its independence in August 2008 after a brief war with Georgia..

Bagapsh, 60, has been president of the former Georgian republic since January 2005.

The U.S. Department of State said the elections were illegitimate, while Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili condemned the vote as an illegal Kremlin-backed gesture in an “occupied territory.”

Russia is the guarantor of Abkhazia’s security with several thousand troops in the region under bilateral security and cooperation agreements signed since August 2008. Abkhazia’s independence has been recognized by Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Nauru.

SUKHUMI, February 12 (RIA Novosti)

2. runaway journalist gathered shocking videos about South Ossetia

Vakhtang Komakhidze, a well-known Georgian journalist, who requested political asylum in Switzerland, has shocking materials about South Ossetia, received in the course of his journey to the region in December 2009.

He managed to record “scandalous interviews, videos that can shake”, and the government of Georgia doesn’t want these to be published, said Nana Kakabadze, the human rights activist, in her interview to the Alia newspaper.

She added Komakhidze made his decision to request a political asylum in the airport of Tbilisi, when realized he was watched by Interior Ministry representatives - the VZGLYAD.

The human rights activist explained that in Switzerland he must have interviewed one of the judges of the Hague Tribunal. Now he plans to complete his film in that country. Komakhidze stated he made this decision as he couldn’t perform his professional duties in Georgia. He also mentioned threat to health and lives of himself and his family. Komakhidze explains his decision by menaces from the authorities.

source: georgia times

3. photographer on trial for showing real life in Uzbekistan

TASHKENT (Uzbekistan) - AN AWARD-WINNING Uzbek photographer went on trial for slander Tuesday after her work documenting the daily struggles of ordinary people in the Central Asian state landed her in hot water.

Umida Akhmedova, 54, stands accused of portraying people in the ex-Soviet nation as backward and impoverished in a collection of her photographs and a documentary film, both financed by the Swiss embassy in Tashkent….Akhmedova put the blame for the trial not on the government, but on an expert panel it had convened to analyze her work. The panel concluded in its report that the ‘photo album does not conform to aesthetic demands,’ a throwback to Soviet jargon, and that it would damage the country’s ’spiritual values’. The trial sets a chilling precedent for artists, said Surat Ikramov, head of the Initiative Group of Independent Human Rights Defenders of Uzbekistan. — AFP

source: straits times

see photos here and here

4. Russian court extends pretrial detention of oligarchs

A Moscow court ordered on Friday that Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev spend another three months in harsh pretrial detention rather than return to regular jail.

Khodorkovsky, 45, and Lebedev, 42, are already serving eight-year prison terms for tax evasion and fraud issued by a Moscow court in 2005 after a highly politicized trial seen by many in the West as part of a Kremlin drive to subdue politically ambitious business tycoons.

Both were moved in 2009 from prison in Siberia to Moscow’s notorious Matrosskaya Tishina jail to face new charges of embezzling 350 million tons of oil. Since then, their stay in the pretrial detention center has been repeatedly prolonged despite complaints from their lawyers.

Moscow’s Khamovniki District Court on Friday authorized keeping Khodorkovsky and Lebedev in pretrial detention until May 17.

“The court took into account the severity of the charges Khodorkovsky and Lebedev face when considering extending their detention,” presiding judge Viktor Danilkin said.

Russian officials have consistently denied any political motivation behind their convictions, but the fate of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev is still viewed by Russia-watchers abroad as an indicator of the state of Russia’s judicial system.

MOSCOW, February 12 (RIA Novosti)

5. Thailand drops arms case and releases Kazakhs — no decision on what to do with the seized weapons

BANGKOK - THAILAND said on Thursday it had decided to drop a case against the five member crew of a plane carrying sanctions-busting weapons from North Korea.

‘The trial here will not benefit Thailand so we have decided to drop the charges,’ said Thanapich Mulapruk, spokesman for the Office of the Attorney General, in a statement. ‘Their countries of origin want to try the men in their home countries,’ he said.

Another official from the attorney general’s office said the Belarussian pilot and four Kazakh crew would not be formally extradited. ‘(We) are sending an official to file a petition with the court to release all five men,’ Kayasit Pissawanprkan told reporters. ‘This is not an extradition but we consider them as having entered (Thailand) illegally.’

more @ straits times

not for nothing

Feb 10

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

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

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

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

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

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

MOSCOW, February 10 (RIA Novosti)

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

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

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

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

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

more @ people’s daily online

3. Greeks protest as government slashes public spending

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

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

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

more @ guardian, many links

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

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

nice. the EU: one big happy family.

4. Danny Ayalon faces hostile crowd in UK

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

more @ ynet

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

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

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

more @ straits times

6. bases in Afghanistan indicate permanent presence

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

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

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

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

more @ asia times

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

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

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

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

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

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

more @ ria novosti

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/

diplomacy: a poke in the eye, a wink across the room…

Feb 5

Posted by A. Peasant in Diplomats, Georgia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, Unreality, Venezuela | No Comments

1. Moscow wants answers from US on Romania missile shield plan as US does what looks like a work-around

Moscow is waiting for clarification from the United States over its plans to deploy missile defense elements in Romania, the Russian foreign minister said Friday. Romanian President Traian Basescu said on Thursday his country had approved a U.S. plan to deploy interceptor missiles as part of a missile shield to protect Europe.

“We expect the United States to provide an exhaustive explanation, taking into account the fact that the Black Sea regime is regulated by the Montreux Convention,” Sergei Lavrov said. He said Russia acted on the assumption that “there is an agreement between the two presidents on the joint study of common threats, with the participation of the European Union.” “When we understand that we have a common understanding of possible threats, it will be possible to say what measures could be taken in response,” the minister said.

A U.S. State Department official said the facilities were due to become operational by 2015 and were aimed at defending against “current and emerging ballistic missile threats from Iran.” U.S. President Barack Obama scrapped plans last year for Poland and the Czech Republic to host missile shield elements to counter possible strikes from Iran. The plans had infuriated Russia.

Washington then announced a new scheme for a more flexible system, with a combination of land- and sea-based interceptors, to be deployed in Central Europe by 2015. U.S. Vice-President Joseph Biden visited Romania, Poland, and the Czech Republic last October to promote the new missile shield plan. Warsaw and Prague have already expressed their support for the revamped U.S. strategy.

BERLIN, February 5 (RIA Novosti)

2. US determined to park missiles as close to Russia as possible

Russia is very close. There are about 500 kilometers between Romania and Russia’s major naval base in Sevastopol. Russia’s southern areas are close too. Even if the missile base is not going to be a threat to Russia, as the Romanian president said, Russia is not thrilled about such a neighborhood.

Romania was prepared to provide its territory for the missile defense system several years ago. In 2005, Romania was mentioned as a location for CIA’s secret prisons. President Basescu did not feel shy to call the United States Romania’s main strategic partner.

One has to give Basescu credit for his determination as a politician. Romania became a member of the European Union in 2007 despite such deviations from the rules as an extremely low living standard.

The deployment of US military objects in Romania will not improve security in the region, but US and Romanian officials do not seem to care much about it.

more @ pravda

3. Saakashvili attacked on all fronts

The authorities’ opponents say that Saakashvili is losing not only Europe’s support but the support of the blessed West as well. First, there appeared information about the Georgian president being abandoned by his American advisor Daniel Kunin. The press service, however, denied the fact. As was stated by Press Speaker Manana Mandzhgaladze, the information does not quadrate to facts. For instance, one of these days, the All News Georgian edition has published an article titled: “Saakashvili may be seriously concerned about his political future”.

The newspaper pays attention to the fact that the general attitude of the most foreign media towards the Georgian president who had been treated as a golden boy in Washington has switched to negative. “There are many articles saying that Georgia has got an image of an unstable country because of Saakashvili’s policy, which prevents the inflow of considerable investments to Georgia”, - the periodical reports.

The foreign friends seemed to forget to invite the Caucasian democrat to the Munich conference on safety policy that will be held on February 5-7. The oppositional Georgian media noticed mockingly that this fact confirmed Mikhail Nikolaevitch being in disfavor of his friends and partners. The press service asserts that he does not come to Munich because of being too busy. The official authorities did not make any comments as to the fact that leader of the oppositional Alliance for Georgia Irakliy Alasania has been officially invited to Munich to represent Georgia this year.

more @ georgia times

3. Daniel Kunin interview from August 2008 w/ telegraph uk

Meanwhile, Mr Kunin has been working hard to keep himself below the radar. This is his first interview. One of the reasons for this secrecy may be that until March this year he was being paid by USAID (the US government’s development arm). Mr Kunin insists that he was a consultant paid by the US, not an employee - and therefore not beholden in any way - but as the calls on his mobile phone suggest, clearly this is the man that provides the link with America.

If Mr Saakashivili is winning the propaganda war against the Kremlin, Daniel Kunin is his general, tutoring him on his press appearances, advising on strategy and trying to spin the criticism that the Georgian administration is receiving of both breath-taking naivety and recklessness in baiting the bear of Russia. But did the confidence in his pro-West PR campaign create so much confidence that it caused Mr Saakashvili to over-reach himself, over-estimating the support he would get from the West, and thus causing his downfall?

“It wasn’t a case of over-estimating ourselves, but a case of under-estimating Russia,” he says. “There is a tendency to blame victim. Saying that it was Saakashvili’s gamble is a convenient way of ducking the issues, and not accepting responsibility for what they have to do.”

So is there any advice he regrets having given? “None at all,” says Mr. Kunin unrepentantly.

more @ telegraph

4. India breaks the ice, calls Pak for talks. the game seems to have changed a bit.

New Delhi In an incremental step aimed at restoring some official-level conversation on terrorism and a range of issues affecting bilateral ties, India has invited the Pakistan Foreign Secretary for talks to New Delhi.

While modalities will be worked out after a response from Islamabad, sources said the Indian side was hoping for a meeting this month.

In Islamabad, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said there were signals emanating from India that it was willing to hold bilateral talks….Sources said the government is moving cautiously this time given the political backlash after the Sharm-el-Sheikh joint statement which sought to delink the dialogue process from terrorism directed at India from Pakistan soil. This time the government is keen to make the point that the core focus at the talks will be on cross-border terrorism. At the same time, the discussions will look at other “peace and stability” issues….This dialogue also has a bearing on larger issues related to developments in the broader AfPak region. With its overtures drawing no answer from New Delhi, Islamabad had begun to take a more combative approach against involving India in any regional discussion on the future of Afghanistan. It was at Pakistan’s instance that India was not involved in the Turkey-sponsored regional meeting. The US too has been indicating to India that starting a conversation was better than having no interaction at all.

more @ express india

5. more regime change efforts

CARACAS (Venezuela) - VENEZUELA accused the United States on Thursday of portraying President Hugo Chavez’s government as thuggish in an effort to entice the opposition to try to topple the socialist leader.

Venezuela’s ambassador in Washington, Bernardo Alvarez, took issue with an intelligence report presented to US senators earlier this week that described Mr Chavez as an autocratic leader who uses repression to stifle dissent.

In a letter sent to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s chairman, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Mr Alvarez rebuked the findings of the report, saying it ‘is full of politically motivated and cynical accusations’. Mr Alvarez called it part of a US campaign ‘to criminalise our government and encourage groups within Venezuela’s opposition to seek anti-democratic paths to take power’.

US officials have repeatedly denied they would support any attempt to unseat Mr Chavez through anti-democratic means, and Venezuela’s opposition leaders insist they want to remove the former paratrooper at the polls.

Mr Chavez vehemently rejects allegations that his government has sought to silence criticism, including using trumped up criminal charges to imprison or intimidate outspoken political adversaries. — AP

source: straits times

6. Dora Akunyili, Nigerian Information Minister, tells fellow ministers to stop lying about Yar’Adua

The cabinet must stop lying to Nigerians about President Yar’Adua’s illness and face up to the reality that he is no longer able to perform his duties; information minister Dora Akunyili bluntly admonished fellow ministers yesterday.

At the regular weekly meeting of the Executive Council of the Federation, Mrs Akunyili stunned her colleagues by presenting a memo in which she challenged them to tell Nigerians the truth about the president’s health and stop deceiving the people.

…

According to our sources, Mrs Akunyili had wanted to submit the memo through the cabinet office but was worried that the office might sit on the memo so she took it to the Council meeting to distribute.

NEXT however learnt that as soon as she began to do that, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation stood up to challenge her. He said what she was doing was irregular and she should have passed it through the cabinet office. Both the Minister of Water Resources, Ruma Sayyadi and his colleague in charge of transportation Diezani Allison-Madueke also supported Mr. Aondoakaa that she should follow procedures.

At this point, a perplexed Akunyili looked up to the Vice President for support but Mr. Jonathan told her to withdraw the memo and pass it through the requisite channels. With no support from her colleagues, Mrs Akunyili left the meeting and Mr. Yayale went around collecting all copies of the memo. Inevitably, the meeting which ended in less than two hours, discussed only one memo before it dispersed, without considering even the customary approval of contracts.

In a surprising twist, many of the ministers went to meet her and praised her candour after the meeting.

more @ next

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