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No Sunglasses News--May 8, 2010
Kyrgyz interim gov’t approves Turkey’s military aid
8 05 2010[Here we have Turkey opening the door to the new Kyrgyz government, but in these days, we still don't really know where the Turkish government actually stands, as it straddles the fence between east and west. Turkey and Russia are doing a strange and dangerous dance in Kyrgyzstan and throughout central Asia, opposing America's Nabucco plans in Nagorno-Karabakh, infuriating the United States with counter-ideas on Georgia and Iran. We face a future marked by either momentous calamity, such as mankind has never witnessed, or else limitless opportunity for real meaningful change. The choice is for all mankind to make, not just for the twisted minds of the world's elected leaders.]
Kyrgyz interim gov’t approves Turkey’s military aid
BISHKEK – Daily News with wires
 Kyrgyz interim leader Roza Otunbayeva (L) meets hands with EU Special Representative for Central Asia Pierre Morel (R) in Bishkek. AFP photo. |
Kyrgyzstan’s interim government approved on Friday a 2009 deal signed with Turkey to get military aid from Turkish Armed Forces, Anatolia News Agency reported.
Kyrgyz Defense Minister Ismail Isakov said that Kyrgyz government unanimously approved the agreement signed in December 2009. Turkey’s military aid is worth $800,000. Turkey’s military aid will go to Kyrgyz national guards and border units.
Meanwhile, a senior adviser to U.S. President Barack Obama said Friday that Washington will ensure greater transparency in the supply of aviation fuel to a key U.S. air base in Kyrgyzstan, where the previous government often was accused of corruption.
Perceived improprieties over a fuel supply deal with the Manas base, which Kyrgyz prosecutors believe financially benefited members of the recently ousted government, have severely dented the standing of the United States in the impoverished Central Asian nation.
Kyrgyz prosecutors say that companies owned by a son of deposed President Kurmanbek Bakiyev avoided almost $80 million in taxes on aviation fuel sold to Manas base, which acts as a key refueling point for warplanes flying over Afghanistan and a major hub for combat troop movement.
Clarifying the procedure of how fuel is purchased would help eliminate speculation about activities at the base, White House official Michael McFaul told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from the Kazakh capital, Astana.
The U.S. hold on the base came under threat again last month after Bakiyev was ousted in a violent uprising and a provisional government took charge. The interim government has the right to ratify intergovernmental agreements until the parliamentary elections in the country.
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Turkish army strikes PKK targets in Iraq
8 05 2010ANKARA – Agence France-Presse
The Turkish air force has struck the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, hideouts in neighbouring northern Iraq after an attack inside Turkey left two soldiers dead, the military said late Friday.
“After detecting that anti-aircraft fire was opened on (Turkish) helicopters from various positions across the border, the air force fired on those positions” for an hour Friday afternoon, the army said in an online statement. “It has been observed that those positions were destroyed,” it said.
The operation against the PKK, which has rear bases in Iraq, began after a group of about 25 PKK members attacked a military unit near the border village of Daglica Friday morning, killing two soldiers.
The statement confirmed that at least five PKK members were killed in the ensuing clashes. “Operations in the region are continuing and it is believed that the losses of the terrorists are higher,” it said.
The Turkish army has staged a series of air raids against PKK targets in northern Iraq since December 2007, often with the help of U.S. intelligence, and in February 2008 carried out a week-long ground incursion.
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Top analysts say Greek crisis going global
8 05 2010[European countries, like every nation which has been conned into playing along with the neo-liberal policies of alleged "conservative" Ronald Reagan, cannot avoid economic collapse. The inner contradictions built into Reagan's ticking time-bomb, known as "neoliberalism," will eventually cause the economic system itself to self-implode. In addition to its hallmark of "interventionism," you have policies of unwarranted massive tax cuts (which favor the rich), privatization programs (which gives efficient working government programs over into the hands of wealthy investors to cannabalize and bankrupt), draconian social cuts (which always add to societal agitation) amid massive military increases.
This is a formula for failure of the system. The anticipated result of following this formula for failure, is a massive redistribution of wealth from the poor and middle class into the bank accounts of the already super-wealthy and creation of an American military dictatorship
The only solution is to let the system fail as quickly as possible, without wasting valuable resources in a vain attempt to avoid failure.]
Top analysts say Greek crisis going global
BOSTON – Bloomberg
Pacific Investment Management Co.’s Mohamed El-Erian and Loomis Sayles & Co.’s Dan Fuss said the European debt crisis may spread across the globe because of investor concern that governments have borrowed too much to revive their economies.
“After morphing into a regional dislocation, the Greek crisis is now going global,” El-Erian, the chief executive of Pimco, said on Thursday in an e-mail. El-Erian shares the title of co-chief investment officer of Pimco with Bill Gross, who runs the world’s biggest bond fund.
Fuss said the euro crisis had reached a “critical” point. “It’s a liquidity issue, so it’s not just over there, it’s over here,” he said in an interview.
“The transmission mechanisms for this latest round include disruptions in European inter-bank lines, a flight to quality, and market illiquidity,” El-Erian said.
Amid protests, Greece’s parliament approved on Thursday austerity measures demanded by the European Union and International Monetary Fund as a condition of its 110 billion euro ($139 billion) bailout.
Europe’s debt-ridden nations have to raise almost 2 trillion euros within the next three years to refinance maturing bonds and fund deficits, according to Bank of America-Merrill Lynch data.
“The issues in Greece are a global issue,” Axel Merk, president and chief investment officer of Merk Investments, said in an interview. “The recovery priced in that access to credit is available, and cheaply.”
Nations facing huge bills:
Italy faces the biggest bill, followed by Spain. Greece needs 152.6 billion euros, while Portugal and Ireland each have to raise about 80 billion euros, the data show.
“There may well be some defaults. If not Greece then some other nation,” Merk said. That’s “hitting the banking sector particularly hard.”
“If Merkel and Trichet don’t solve this, if they don’t work together, this could potentially mean the dissolution of the euro,” Ron Sloan, chief investment officer at Atlanta-based Invesco Ltd.’s U.S. core equity team, said in a telephone interview, referring to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Sloan added that there is a danger the debt crisis could spread to municipal debt issued by U.S. states that are struggling to balance their budgets.
“It’s the whole issue of risk appetite again,” he said. “If the euro sinks individual U.S. states will be the next step.”
The U.S. federal deficit is forecast to reach $1.6 trillion this year, or 10.6 percent of the economy, making it the biggest by that measure since World War II.
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Tags: economic collapse, LIFE AFTER CAPITALISM, THE AMERICAN GARRISON STATE -military dictatorship
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Welcome To the Machine
8 05 2010A masterful video collage, with absolutely the correct message.
more about “Eugenics mind manipulation and birth …“, posted with vodpod
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Tags: scientific dictatorship, useless eaters
Categories : How Do We Build the Resistance?, crimes against humanity, idiot nation, image of the beast
Deepwater horizon(close up)
8 05 2010 more about "Deepwater horizon(close up)", posted with vodpod
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Tajikistan requested the OSCE to resolve the problem of delay Tajik goods in Uzbekistan
8 05 2010[The impeding of rail traffic into Tajikistan threatens the viability of the American-planed NDN (Northern Distribution Network). Is this action really the work of the Uzbek government or is it another chess move by Putin? It seems that the enigmatic Russian leader has given us another piece to the puzzle. US plans for the former CIS countries are being countered by rising threat levels or violent actions, even while reciprocal acts of counter-violence are occurring almost daily in Russian regions. This may turn-out to be the most dangerous game that the Americans and Russians have ever played. Yet, on the other hand, within the game itself we see the seeds of a possible solution to the whole mess, coming from the Russian side--SEE:Ending the “End Game” In Georgia . In my opinion, the entire global "great game" would be ended, if everyone involved simply stopped playing. Much like the outcome of the movie "Wargames," "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."This is the bizarre place we find ourselves in today.] Tajikistan requested the OSCE to resolve the problem of delay Tajik goods in Uzbekistan |
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| May 8, 2010, 12:38 |
| CA-NEWS (TJ) - Tajikistan, appealed to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Kazakhstan, the presiding officer in this institution, to take “active and effective measures” against Uzbekistan, in which delayed railcars with shipments for Tajikistan. “Representative of Tajikistan once again appeals to the OSCE and Kazakhstan take the chair as part of its mandate, active and effective steps to meet the exercise of the OSCE principles and commitments in the field of transport security and the free border crossing,” – said the Permanent Representative of the Republic, Ambassador Nuriddin Shamsov permanent meeting Council of the Organization in Vienna. The statement published on the website of the Embassy of Tajikistan in Austria. According to the diplomat, “despite the unilateral efforts of the Government of the Republic of Tajikistan to carry out friendly consultation to discuss a wide range of issues of bilateral relations, the situation remains unchanged. “The Uzbek authorities continued to impede the transit of goods into Tajikistan through the railway station Amuzang”, – he said. According to him, now in Uzbekistan are delayed more than 2 thousand railway wagons with goods (fuel, wheat, fertilizer, pharmaceuticals, machinery, equipment, etc.) for Tajikistan. Shamsov noted that due to delays cargo Tajikistan continues to face huge economic losses, which exceeded 100 million U.S. dollars. He recalled that the Tajik businessmen have already appealed to the international community to resolve the situation, which “will have negative consequences for the republic’s economy, social welfare and health, investment climate”. |
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The Curious Timing of the Terrorist Attacks: It’s Almost Like They’re On Our Side
8 05 2010The Curious Timing of the Terrorist Attacks: It’s Almost Like They’re On Our Side
by Scott Creighton
“Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you couldn’t do before.” White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, Nov. 2008
As has always been the case since 2001, the bungling blasters who end up attacking our freedom rarely do so when it isn’t of the utmost convenience for the White House. This latest example, connected to the Waziristan area of Pakistan, holds true to that formula. One might start wondering if all these “terrorists” are actually on our side.
Now, I say “since 2001″ not because what they did wasn’t convenient for the previous White House. In fact, the Patriot Act was sitting waiting to go, the plans for invading Afghanistan were dropped on Bush’s desk on Sept. 9th 2001, Donald Rumsfeld had just announced 2.3 trillion dollars was “missing” from the Pentagon, and old ‘Lucky” Larry Silverstein had just secured his billion dollar insurance policy on the Twin Towers right before the event. Not to mention the fact that the Bush administration was already at a terribly low approval rating or the fact that Cheney and the other neocons had called for “a Pearl Harbor type event” to set in motion all of their foreign and domestic policies which they spelled out in a paper called “Rebuilding America’s Defences” in 2000.
The distinction I am making is that compared to the most recent Keystone Cops type terrorist acts (Umar Fizzlepants and the Times Square parker), the terrorist of the old Bush administration were actually able to carry out their attacks and at the same time, defy laws of physics and scientific research while doing it. The 9/11 terrorists were able to knock down 7 buildings with 2 planes and at the same time bring Building 7 down at free-fall acceleration after having been hit by no plane, from office fires alone (first time in history that happened. talk about your overachiever terrorists)…. and after doing all of that, they were able to hit the most heavily guarded building in history with a plane being flown by a terrorist who couldn’t fly a Cesna. Then the anthrax terrorist was able to create a weaponized anthrax strain in 3 hours or so when experts in the field say it would take a thousand hours to do it in their highly specialized lab. Amazing accomplishments for our terrorists back then…
Back in the old days, they defied the laws of physics… now they can’t even make a simple bomb.
Let me get back to the point… just before Umar Fizzlepants (also somehow allowed to get on a plane while the Feds knew he was dangerous, just like Faisal Shahzad) put on his “one show only Sparkler of Doom” production, President Obama had given authorization to attack targets in Yemen, a nation we had not been at war with. Varying reports surfaced about whether or not we aided the dictator in Yemen with intel or if we had actually used our weapons. The truth of this matter is still kind of hazy. But just as those stories were coming out, lo-and-behold, Umar Fizzlepants steps up to the plate and sparkles a validation of President Obama’s attack on Yemen. By the way, that U.S. attack in Yemen killed many civilians and children as well. But suddenly it was ok because Umar Fizzlepants showed up.
Now we have Faisal Shahzad’s attempted vending cart massacre… the story here is (I mean, AFTER the story that it wasn’t terrorism and AFTER the story it was just a car fire and AFTER the story that Pakistan had nothing to do with it) that Shahzad is a naturalized U.S. citizen from Pakistan. Specifically that he was trained in Waziristan. Well, that couldn’t be convenient for the Obama administration could it? Let’s take a look.
When the latest apparent U.S. drone strike was conducted this week against militants in Pakistan, the obvious question appeared to be: Did the United States get a “big fish” in the Taliban or al Qaeda organizations?
But a U.S. counterterrorism official says that’s now the wrong question to ask, and chances are those hit were not major players. He wouldn’t discuss the specifics of the latest strike, but with the official backing of his bosses, he sought to explain how U.S. strategy has changed in the crucial effort to attack targets inside Pakistan with missiles fired from drones.
The plan now is to attack a broader set of terrorist targets far beyond the original effort to strike and kill top al Qaeda leaders, the official said. CNN
You see, we are asking the wrong question. We have to stop thinking in terms of targeting known Taliban or al Qaeda fighters. Instead, we have to look at the bigger picture. Faisal Shahzad wasn’t a known terrorist or even a fighter in Pakistan. In fact, his family is known in the community as being “apolitical”… but see, you never know. Someone who LOOKS innocent, may in fact be the most dangerous terrorist since Umar Fizzlepants. And therefore we must rethink all those “innocent civilians” the drones have killed in the past. Are they REALLY innocent?
The vast majority of the deaths (from the 44 drone strikes of 2009), around 700 according to one estimate, have been innocent civilians. With such a massive civilian toll and so little to show for it, it is no wonder that Pakistani people have been up in arms over the continued strikes.
But US officials have rarely commented on the drone strikes, except on those rare occasions when they actually kill someone meaningful, and seem completely ambivalent to the hundreds of innocent people killed in the meantime. The ultimate example of this was June 22-23.
On June 22, the US struck at a house officials called a “suspected militant hideout,” burying a few locals inside. When others rushed to the scene to rescue them, they launched another missile, killing 13 apparently innocent Pakistanis. When they held a funeral procession on June 23, the US hit that too, ostensibly on the belief that Baitullah Mehsud might be among the mourners. He wasn’t, but the attack killed at least 80 more people. AntiWar
There were two separate drone attacks in Pakistan on April 23rd and April 25th. The combined death toll was over 13 with others wounded. No al Qaeda leaders were reportedly killed in the strike. These kinds of attacks are not being well received by the people of Pakistan nor the government.
The United States, struggling to stabilize Afghanistan, stepped up its missile strikes in Pakistan’s northwest after a Jordanian suicide bomber killed seven CIA employees at a U.S. base across the border in the eastern Afghan province of Khost in December.
Most of the attacks this year have been in North Waziristan.
U.S. ally Pakistan officially objects to the drone strikes, saying they are a violation of its sovereignty and fuel anti-U.S. feeling, which complicates Pakistan’s efforts against militancy. Reuters
Now consider this; a great number of dead civilians in Waziristan, in a country we are not at war with, starts to ferment and anger within the Pakistani people as well as the government, and along comes the SUV parker to confess that he in fact got his training…. in Waziristan…
U.S. officials quickly cast doubt on the claim, but the arrest of a Pakistani-American in New York who allegedly has admitted to being trained in the group’s heartland in Waziristan has given it new credence. AP
(Now remember… the only source we have as to what he “confessed” to is an Obama administration official)
I mean, you just don’t get better timing than that. Well, unless of course you just happen to have invasion plans drawn up for Afghanistan, you want to help UNICAL with their Trans Afghan Pipeline, you just happen to announce 2.3 trillion missing dollars the day before Sept. 11th (the biggest news story in history), you just killed some 23 kids in a different nation we aren’t at war with, or of course if you want to pass the Patriot Act and a few congressmen and reporters aren’t towing the line ….
But aside from THOSE examples, you just don’t get better timing than that, do you?
You know, sometimes I just wonder if all those “terrorists” aren’t doing the best they can to support the imperial agenda of whatever administration we get in the White House. It’s mighty nice of them to help us with the Global War on Terror ain’t it? I mean, without all those “terrorists” stepping up to the plate just when the White House needed them the most, where would the Global Free Market Wars be now?
Makes you think, don’t it?
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A ruse to pressurise Pakistan?
8 05 2010A ruse to pressurise Pakistan?
—Mohammad Jamil
In the event of any act of
terrorism in the US, it has become a norm with the US government and western media that the suspect or criminal is identified as Pakistani-American, Yemeni-American or any other origin. They have to realise that the US has a very stringent set of procedures to be complied with before granting American citizenship. And it would not be wrong to say that this is a foolproof system. But once he or she is naturalised, they are American for all intents and purposes. By referring to nativity or ethnicity of a suspect or culprit, they conveniently shirk their own responsibility by blaming others. If their national, whether by birth or residence, is involved in a terrorist act, none else but they themselves are responsible for his heinous act. The question is how American citizens that are either born or bred and educated in the US can fall prey to terrorists so easily. On Monday, a car loaded with fireworks, petrol, propane and fertiliser was discovered in Times Square. The car had been bought by Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistan-born US citizen.
If one glances through the reports by Reuters and other news agencies, it is not difficult to conclude that this is a gimmick to keep Pakistan under pressure and push it to go after the Haqqani network in North Waziristan. The Reuters report said, “Any links between Pakistan’s Taliban and a failed bombing in New York’s Times Square could put the country under renewed US pressure to open risky new fronts against Islamic militants.” US agencies and investigators are trying to find a link between him and Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), who reportedly accepted responsibility. Many security experts are sceptical about the ability of the TTP to stage terrorist attacks outside Pakistan. In April 2009, Baitullah Mehsud had claimed responsibility for being behind the attack by a US immigrant of Vietnamese origin who went on a murderous rampage killing 13 people. However, his claim was dismissed by Pakistani security officials and US investigators as rubbish. From his statement to the police, it appears that he is not at all a trained terrorist. His statement about changing of cars, forgetting the keys and use of firecrackers sounds intriguing.
The US has repeatedly called on Pakistan to do more to fight not just homegrown militancy, but also al Qaeda-backed Afghan Taliban based in North Waziristan, as they cross over the border to attack Western forces in Afghanistan. In fact, the release of a video in which Hakeemullah Mehsud, a Pakistani Taliban leader previously reported to have been killed in a CIA drone strike, threatened suicide strikes in the US and simultaneously discovering the car laden with explosives raises doubts about the veracity of the whole story. Referring to the Times Square attempt, Robert Gibbs, White House spokesman, said on Monday: “Whoever did that would be categorised as a terrorist.” It should be borne in mind that an act by a Pakistani does not mean that Pakistan as a state is involved. There is a perception that it could be part of a conspiracy to neutralise the goodwill Pakistan has earned by decimating the terrorists’ infrastructure and strongholds. And it seems to be an artifice to de-track the US government, which has decided to help Pakistan to overcome its economic difficulties and also to equip the Pakistan Army to effectively take on the militants.
Having said that, the US government should strive every nerve to ensure protection for Americans of Pakistani origin, who have to face the brunt after every botched attempt or real terrorist act. There are many questions: how was the suspect able to drive the car all the way to Times Square, and why had agencies failed to check the car on the way? And if, at all, the suspect had been able to reach the ‘destination’, what stopped him from carrying out the blast? Whosoever planned the attack he or they have been able to bring Pakistan into focus once again. Last year, a Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was charged with carrying explosives on board and attempting to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight, as it approached Detroit from Amsterdam on December 25. On December 28, a wing of al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the failed attack. According to a statement posted on its website, the attempt was to avenge US attacks on its members in Yemen. In the recent past, Nidal Hasan and David Headley, both born and educated in the US, were charged for terrorist attacks.
The moot question is, what is wrong with the US system? Five Americans — two of Pakistani-origin, one Eritrean, one Ethiopian and one of Egyptian origin — are in a Pakistani lockup in Sargodha since December 2009. On interrogation they stated that they were trying to find an al Qaeda link to go to Afghanistan. This means that they were sufficiently motivated to go to Afghanistan to fight the occupiers before they arrived in Pakistan. In fact, the US has made many enemies by bombing other countries. It also has the reputation of hatching conspiracies that were responsible for the assassination of Lumumba, overthrowing Dr Mossadaq and the removal of President Soekarno. And the US had reportedly played its role in stoking the Iran-Iraq war, Arab-Israel conflict and support for the Contra saboteurs against the revolutionary government of Nicaragua. The list of its interferences, subversions, control and overthrowing of Third World governments is too long to be elaborated.
In the new millennium, the US, with a view towards achieving its avowed objectives, had attacked and occupied Afghanistan and Iraq, but all their pretexts were proven wrong. Before attacking Iraq, a case was built up against Saddam Hussein citing that he had weapons of mass destruction, he procured uranium from Nigeria and he had links with al Qaeda. All these allegations were proved wrong. The reason for invading Afghanistan was ascribed to al Qaeda, which reportedly had planned the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But it was proved beyond doubt that all those involved had been living in western countries. They all had studied in western universities and planning was carried out in the German city of Hamburg. And they had gotten training in American aviation academies. In fact, the German and American authorities should have been questioned, and not Afghanistan and Pakistan — a convenient ploy for their opinion-makers, movers and shakers. It has to be remembered that none of the perpetrators of 9/11 was a Pakistani or an Afghan.
The writer is a freelance columnist. He can be reached at mjamil1938@hotmail.com
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Categories : image of the beast
These Days, It Is Hell To Be a Pakistani-American
8 05 2010Hell is… to be a Pakistani American
Chidanand Rajghatta, TOI Crest
Couple of weeks back, US state department spokesman P J Crowley dropped a clanger that should have been a strict no-no in the Foggy Bottom rulebook. He compared, obliquely though, Pakistani-Americans with Indian-Americans . Pakistani-Americans , he suggested at a briefing, should strive to follow Indian-Americans when it comes to improving ties with the United States. Just as the Indian diaspora in the US played an affirmative role in terms of strengthening bonds between the two countries , Pakistan-Americans should take the same route to build ties between Islamabad andWashington.
There was nothing provocative or incendiary in what Crowley said; he clearly meant it in a constructive , positive way. But as any South Asian expert worth his or her salt will tell you, it’s bad form to imply Indians are somehow better at something, much less ask or suggest that Pakistan follow India in any respect — although the Pakistanis do it all the time. This is especially true in the US, where each Indian organisational effort is followed by a Pakistani imitation (such as associations for physicians , political action committees, aid foundations etc — each Indian-American effort has a Pakistani clone). Crowley was preaching to the converted, but as far as Pakistanis are concerned, it was offensive to be told to do as Indians do.
Despite some talk of common heritage by the liberal “South Asian” lot, many Pakistanis dislike being clubbed with Indians in the US. Some of them don’t like being subsumed under the SouthAsia rubric (this is also true of many Indians, who are even more resentful of having their distinct Indian identity swallowed by the recent “South Asian” entity.) Over the years, Pakistani-Americans have made strenuous efforts to carve a distinct identity, including campaigning to be counted separately in the US census like Indian-Americans are (Pakistani-Americans were earlier counted under the broader other ethnicities category). So to have Crowley appear to undermine this effort must have been a bummer.
In any case, Faisal Shahzad was probably past caring by then, if he was listening at all. Around the time Crowley was making his point, the young engineer was rigging up his crude bomb and casing Midtown Manhattan looking for right place to park the Nissan Pathfinder (Incidentally, the best gag to come out of the whole episode: How did Faisal Shahzad find parking in Times Square on a Saturday night?) As it turned out, the bomb fizzled, but for now, it has torpedoed the US administration’s carefully designed route to walk Pakistan back into the international mainstream and heal the post 9/11 trauma of Pakistani-Americans .
Because, make no mistake, for all the talk of common heritage, language, food etc, Americans see Indians very differently from Pakistanis in the US (as Crowley indicated). Indians are a stunning success, the best-educated , highest-earning , frequently-overachieving ethnic group in the country. Whenever they see Indians, Americans see IT — information technology — or similar high-funda stuff that they fear will take away jobs (although much of it is lowgrade work). And when they see Pakistanis? Also IT — except, it stands for international terrorism. “These days when I hear of a terrorist plot, I can count back from 10, and before I get to zero, someone will bring up the P word.”
It’s not that there are no Pakistani-American success stories or Indian-Americans taking to crime. But over the course of the past two decade, starting with the first world trade center bombing, Pakistanis have gradually earned a reputation for herapheri — what began as a small time terrorist capers in India now has international dimensions. In more than a dozen incidents of terrorism across the world in the last couple of decades, the principals have either been Pakistanis or the trail has led to Pakistan.
Meantime, Indians have serenely chosen to build on their economic success. Last week’s incident provided a stark contrast between Indian and Pakistani achievement in the US. While young Faisal Shahzad joined the ranks of the Ajmal Kasab and others in the world’s rogues gallery, a young Indian-American attorney , Preet Bharara, was readying to put the MBA grad+suburban dad on the mat. And even as that story picked up pace, Harvard Business School announced that IIT-ian Nitin Nohria would head the Harvard Business School. As much as it is a good time to be an Indian abroad, it is hell to be a Pakistani.
chidanand.rajghatta@timesgroup .com
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Arrest in Kosovo points to secret camps
8 05 2010Arrest in Kosovo points to secret camps
International police in Kosovo have arrested a former guerrilla commander suspected of war crimes in a widening investigation that was spurred by our exposé of secret detention camps run by the Kosovo Liberation Army during and after the 1999 war.
Local media reported European Union police detained Sabit Geci on Thursday following a raid on his home in Pristina.
Witnesses have linked Geci and other KLA commanders to the torture and murder of prisoners at an operations base in the Albanian border town of Kukes.
A series of joint reports last year by CIR, the BBC and the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network detailed evidence of the abuses and killings following a multi-year investigation.
A wide range of sources—from survivors to former KLA soldiers—spoke of a network of secret camps scattered throughout Kosovo and Albania where civilians and POWs were held, tortured and sometimes killed.
In some cases the abuses allegedly occurred under the noses of UN officials and NATO troops, who arrived in Kosovo in June 1999.
We reviewed internal documents that showed United Nations officials knew about the allegations as early as 2002 but failed to launch a serious investigation. What’s more, officials at the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague destroyed physical evidence that related to some of the allegations.
This is the first case of possible war crimes on Albanian soil and it could lift the lid on Albania’s covert support of the KLA and links to wartime abuses.
Sources close to the investigation say the government of Albania refused to cooperate with EU prosecutors despite an earlier pledge to help international investigators looking into the allegations.
There’s been no reaction from Kosovo’s current leadership, which is dominated by former KLA commanders. But here’s what Kosovo’s prime minister and former KLA political director Hashim Thaci told us last year when pressed about the Kukes allegations.
“It just didn’t happen,” Thaci said. “At any time, in any case, in any place, any space —this has nothing to do with the Kosovo Liberation Army.”
I spoke about these developments today with Marco Werman on PRI’s The World.
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Tags: state terrorism
Categories : crimes against humanity, image of the beast
Looking for Times Square Clues In Peshawar and Karachi
8 05 2010
more about “America is Fully Responsible for Terr…“, posted with vodpod
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IAEA to discuss Israel’s nuclear activities for first time
8 05 2010Report: IAEA to discuss Israel’s nuclear activities for first time
08.05.2010 12:27
Israel‘s secretive nuclear activities may undergo unprecedented scrutiny next month, with a key meeting of theInternational Atomic Energy Agencytentatively set to focus on the topic for the first time, according to documents shared Friday with The Associated Press.
A copy of the restricted provisional agenda of the IAEA‘s June 7 board meeting lists Israeli nuclear capabilities as the eighth item – the first time that that the agency’s decision-making body is being asked to deal with the issue in its 52 years of existence, Haaretzreported.
The agenda can still undergo changes in the month before the start of the meeting and a senior diplomat from a board member nation said the item, included on Arab request, could be struck if the U.S. and other Israeli allies mount strong opposition. He asked for anonymity for discussing a confidential matter.
Even if dropped from the final agenda, however, its inclusion in the May 7 draft made available to The AP is significant, reflecting the success of Islamic nations in giving concerns about Israel’s unacknowledged nuclear arsenal increased prominence.
The 35-nation IAEA board is the agency’s decision making body and can refer proliferation concerns to the UN Security Council – as it did with Iran in 2006 after Tehran resumed uranium enrichment, a potential pathway to nuclear weapons.
A decision to keep the item would be a slap in the face not only for Israel but also for Washington and its Western allies, which support the Jewish state and view Iran as the greatest nuclear threat to the Middle East.
Iran – and more recently Syria – have been the focus of past board meetings; Tehran for its refusal to freeze enrichment and for stonewalling IAEA efforts to probe alleged nuclear weapons experiments, and Damascus for blocking agency experts from revisiting a site struck by Israeli jets on suspicion it was a nearly finished plutonium producing reactor.
Iran and Syria are regular agenda items at board meetings. Elevating Israel to that status would detract from Western attempts to keep the heat on Tehran and Damascus and split the board even further – developing nations at board meetings are generally supportive of Iran and Syria and hostile to Israel.
That in turn could stifle recent resolve by the world’s five recognized nuclear-weapons powers – the U.S., Russia, Britain, France and China – to take a more active role in reaching the goal of a nuclear-free Middle East.
Inclusion of the item appeared to be the result of a push by the 18-nation Arab group of IAEA member nations, which last year successfully lobbied another agency meeting – its annual conference – to pass a resolution directly criticizing Israel and its atomic program.
Unlike the board, the conference cannot make policy. Still, the result was a setback not only for Israel but also for Washington and other backers of the Jewish state, which had lobbied for 18 years of past practice – debate on the issue without a vote.
A letter to IAEA chief Yukiya Amano by the Arab group that was also shared with the AP urged Amano to report to the board what was known about Israel’s nuclear program by including a list of the information available to the Agency and the information which it can gather from open sources.
The April 23 Arab letter urged Amano to enforce the conference resolution calling on Israel to allow IAEA inspections of its nuclear facilities.
Israel has never said it has nuclear weapons but is universally believed to possess them.
The latest pressure is putting the Jewish state in an uncomfortable position. It wants the international community to take stern action to prevent Iran from getting atomic weapons but at the same time brushes off calls to come clean about its own nuclear capabilities.
Additionally, Amano, in a letter obtained Wednesday by the AP, has asked foreign ministers of the agency’s 151 member states for proposals on how to persuade Israel to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Egypt has proposed that a Nonproliferation Treaty conference now meeting at UN headquarters in New York back a plan calling for the start of negotiations next year on a Mideast free of nuclear arms.
The U.S. has cautiously supported the idea while saying that implementing it must wait for progress in the Middle East peace process. Israel also says a comprehensive Middle East peace settlement must come first.
Still, Washington and the four other nuclear weapons countries recognized as such under the Nonproliferation Treaty appear to be ready to move from passive support to a more active role.
In her speech to the UN nuclear conference on Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Washington would support practical measures for moving toward that objective.
Washington also has been discussing it with the Israelis, said a Western diplomatic source, who asked for anonymity since he was discussing other countries’ contacts.
Russian arms negotiator Anatoly I. Antonov, speaking on behalf of the five Nonproliferation Treaty nuclear powers, said these nations were committed to full implementation of a Middle East nuclear free zone.
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Ending the “End Game” In Georgia
8 05 2010[Georgian opposition leader pushes plan to solve the Abkhazia and S. Ossetia stand-off, reportedly, the plan has quiet Russian backing. The big sticking point for this agreement is the obvious fact that it is counter to current Imperial plans for the region. Stabilizing the situation that American/Israeli agents have so carefully destabilized over the past fifteen years or so seems like a very good idea to the rest of the world, but not to those whose geopolitical plans have one goal--
permanent, total world domination.
ending the planned "end game" is the only solution to the world's problems.]
Russia May Revoke Recognition of Rebel Regions, Noghaideli Says
By Helena Bedwell
Хелена Бедуэлл (Helena Bedwell)
May 4 (Bloomberg) — Georgian opposition leader Zurab Noghaideli, a former prime minister, said he has “a clear plan” to make Russia reverse its recognition of two separatist Georgian regions as sovereign states.
“The plan is to secure the return of thousands of Georgian refugees” to the two regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, “and to restore economic and political ties,” Noghaideli told reporters in Tbilisi today.
“If Georgia can resolve its conflict with the Abkhaz and Ossetian peoples, Russia has told me they would support this initiative” and the “miracle” of restoring the two regions to Georgia “could happen,” Noghaideli said.
Russia routed Georgia’s U.S.-trained army in an August 2008 war over South Ossetia. In the wake of the conflict, Russia recognized the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as sovereign countries. More than 100,000 people were displaced during the conflict, according to the Georgian government. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said the decision is irrevocable.
More than 20,000 people fled the Akhalgori region in South Ossetia following Russia’s occupation of the region, Noghaideli said, while more than 2,000 were displaced from the Kodori Gorge in Abkhazia.
Without the Georgian government’s participation, it will be “difficult” to improve relations with Russia or the separatists, Noghaideli said.
‘Occupied Regions’
Temur Iakobashvili, Georgia’s reintegration minister, declined to comment on Noghaideli’s statement.
“The government has a strategy for the occupied regions and it’s working,” Iakobashvili said by telephone. “The first stage is under way, and even under the occupation we feel that we have to help the two regions and their people.”
Noghaideli began the Georgian opposition’s effort to cultivate ties with Moscow when he signed a deal to cooperate with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party. He plans to travel to Russia for talks on May 7.
Noghaideli became Georgia’s prime minister in 2005 and was removed from office in November 2007 as President Mikheil Saakashvili lifted a state of emergency declared after violent clashes between police and opposition protesters. Noghaideli moved into opposition a year later.
–Editor: Patrick G. Henry
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Categories : image of the beast
Clinton Warns of “Severe Consequences” If Pakistan Origin Attack Succeeds
8 05 2010[It's only a matter of time before this happens. The only way that Pakistan could possibly conform to US demands would be to ignite total civil war in the country from NWFP/Khyber/"Paktunia" to Punjab. The "strategic depth" policies of the Pak Army will very likely lead to the not so strategic death and dismemberment of the Nation in the near future.]
Sec. Clinton on Pakistan and The War on Terror
Says Pakistan More Helpful in War on Terror; Warns of “Severe Consequences” If Successful Terror Attack Originated There
CBS) Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the Pakistani government has been warned that if a terror operation like the failed Times Square bombing were to be successful and found to be originated in their country, “there would be very severe consequences.”
Clinton also acknowledged Pakistan’s increased cooperation in the war on terror, but said the U.S. wants and expects even more from the Muslim nation.
The interview was conducted in Washington Friday by “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley for a report to be broadcast this Sunday, May 9, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
“We’ve made it very clear that if, heaven-forbid, an attack like this that we can trace back to Pakistan were to have been successful, there would be very severe consequences,” Clinton tells Pelley. The car bomb that fizzled out in Time Square last week was planted by Faisal Shahzad, a naturalized American citizen who was born in Pakistan and says he had terrorist training there.
Clinton says Pakistan’s attitude toward fighting Islamic terrorists has changed remarkably. “We’ve gotten more cooperation and it’s been a real sea change in the commitment we’ve seen from the Pakistan Government. [But] We want more. We expect more,” says Clinton.
Since the relationship with Pakistan turned around, the results are encouraging she says. “We also have a much better relationship, military to military, intelligence to intelligence, government to government than we had before,” Clinton tells Pelley. “I think that there was a double game going on in the previous years, where we got a lot of lip service but very little produced. We’ve got a lot produced. We have seen the killing or capturing of a great number of the leadership of significant terrorist groups and we’re going continue that.”
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Tags: state terrorism
Categories : Pakistani surrender, image of the beast
Number of wounded in Russia’ North Caucasus blast rises to 8
8 05 2010Number of wounded in Russia’ North Caucasus blast rises to 8
At least eight people were wounded and one was killed after an explosion ripped through a railway station in the town of Derbent in the Russian North Caucasus republic of Dagestan on Friday night, a police source said.
It was reported earlier that seven people were wounded in the blast.
The police source said the persons injured in the blast included three police officers and five civilians while a woman died of wounds in the hospital.
The explosive device was placed in a garbage dumpster near the platform where passengers were gathering to catch an intercity train.
Russia’s mainly Muslim North Caucasus republics, especially Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia, have seen an upsurge of militant violence lately, with frequent attacks on police and officials.
The Kremlin has pledged to wage “a ruthless fight” against militant groups but also acknowledged a need to tackle unemployment, organized crime, clan rivalry and corruption as causes of the ongoing violence in the region.
MAKHACHKALA, May 8 (RIA Novosti)
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Maoist Rebellion in India
8 05 2010Maoist Rebellion in India
By Gautaman Bhaskaran
South Asia Correspondent
 |
| Maoist Rebellion in India |
The recent massacre of 80-odd para-military soldiers by the Indian ultra-rebel group, Maoists, is terrorism in its bloodiest form. The mayhem occurred in the central Indian State of Chhattisgarh. It is here that the Maoist rebellion is most intense, and India’s Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, was bang on when he equated this revolt with terror some months ago.
Maoists are also known as Naxalites after the district of Naxalbari in the eastern Indian State of West Bengal, where they first staged an armed uprising in 1967. The two most important Naxalite leaders, Charu Mazumdar and Kanu Sanyal, were brilliantly intellectual, but extremely frustrated with the corrupt state machinery that ignored and humiliated poverty-stricken villagers, especially landless laborers. Mazumdar and Sanyal also attracted young students, disillusioned with the system. Many of them fancied themselves as budding scholars and thinkers, and were inspired by Mao’s teachings. In fact, the Naxalite movement was applauded by China’s “People’s Daily” at the height of the Cultural Revolution as “as a peal of spring thunder”.
However, the Naxalites were wiped out in the mid-1970s, when the Indian Government threw hundreds of them, mostly students and young men, into jails, where they were reportedly tortured and even killed. Mazumdar himself was a prison casualty. He was brutally tortured for 12 days before he succumbed to his injuries. Sanyal, who later claimed to have broken away from the path of violence, committed suicide the other day.
Naxalism went out of fashion for some years before it re-emerged as several armed factions.The biggest were the People’s War Group and the Maoist Communist Centre, and they merged and formed the Communist Party of India (Maoist) in September 2004. Today, the party has thousands of armed fighters and an equal number of firearms, which are supposedly being supplied by China. The training in arms was allegedly given by Sri Lanka’s Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
The Maoists never had a problem finding grassroots support. Whether it was West Bengal in the 1960s and the 1970s or now in the States of Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, the rebellion has been attracting the downtrodden men. They have no clue about Mao’s ideology. They do not care, but they have readily picked up the gun to kill in order to try and better their own lives in a society run by inefficient and corrupt bureaucracy and government.
The Maoists admittedly use force and terror, even to recruit cadres, but they are highly disciplined and organized, choosing their areas of operation with great diligence and after a detailed study. They identify the pressing grievances of the poor and exploit them.
Let us take the case of Dantewada in Chhattisgarh where the para-military forces were ambushed and killed by several hundred Maoists. Thickly forested, Dantewada is the home to tribals, who have been exploited for decades and pushed to the bottom rungs of the community. There are hardly any schools there or medical facilities. Most of the tribals are illiterate, and they live by selling forest produce. But the markets are far away, and the roads, if at all any, are bad.
The government accuses the Maoists of blocking development, and they retaliate by saying that the roads, in this case, will merely make it easier for the administration to plunder forest wealth and take it out. Ajay Sahni, who works for a Delhi think-tank, says that “it is all question of “asymmetric expectations People expect the state to provide for them, and it is failing; any good coming from the Maoists—social work, land redistribution, a price rise for local produce—brings disproportionate gratitude”.
The only way out of this web of misery and conflict is for the administration to assert effective control through a well-streamlined police force. But in independent India’s six-odd decades, there has hardly been any police reform. Policemen continue to be poorly paid and hence tend to be corrupt. The profession has also lost its appeal: so, there are just 55 policemen for every 100 sq km in India. In Chhattisgarh, the number is a paltry 17, and nobody wants to police places like Dantewada, where the job is singularly dangerous.
Added to this, is the Federal-State discord over security. This is a State subject, and each State chooses to deal with Maoist terrorism in its own way, with the Federal government not yet able to formulate a national policy on this. Days after the Federal Home Minister, Palaniappa Chidambaram, held the West Bengal Chief Minister responsible for the Maoist atrocities there by saying that the “buck stops at the Chief Minister’s table”, the rebels struck at Dantewada, where Federal forces have been in command.
The Maoists have sent their message loud and clear. While they may not yet have the power to demolish the government in New Delhi, they can create havoc in the countryside and throttle development in some of the most backward areas in India. So, the Maoist rebellion can worsen social inequality and thus strengthen its own cause by attracting the have-nots.Edit : Edit
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Tags: useless eaters
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Georgia Next Kyrgyzstan? Ten Injured In Clashes With Special Forces
8 05 2010Over 10 people injured in clash between opposition and special forces in Georgia
 As a result of collisions between opposition members and special forces, 10 people were injured. Protesters and the police were also injured. All of them are in different city hospitals, but their condition is not critical. Today at 10:00 a.m. in Tbilisi, some part of the opposition began a protest against the parade, conducted by the Interior Ministry. It was reported that the protesters and law enforcement officials clashed a few hundred meters from the ministerial building. Police tried to push back the protesters. In response the opposition started to throw stones at police. Special forces used the shields and batons. |
| URL: http://www.today.az/news/regions/67412.html |
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No Sunglasses News--May 7, 2010
Why Did CBS Scrub A Story About Army Spy Planes Capturing the Times Square Bomber? (Updated)
7 05 2010Why Did CBS Scrub A Story About Army Spy Planes Capturing
the Times Square Bomber? (Updated)
Yesterday, we reported on the curious disappearance of a WCBS report that military spy planes had been used to capture the Times Square bomber. Why was this story scrubbed? We have the answer. Sort of.The original WCBStv.com article, “Army Intelligence Planes Led to Suspect’s Arrest,” by Marcia Kramer, read:
In the end, it was secret Army intelligence planes that did him in. Armed with his cell phone number, they circled the skies over the New York area, intercepting a call to Emirates Airlines reservations, before scrambling to catch him at John F. Kennedy International Airport.Then, a few minutes after we wrote about it, the article was rewritten with no mention of spy planes, and no indication it had been updated. Spooky! We asked WCBS what happened, and a spokesman responded:
The story that was broadcast by WCBS-TV did not include any mention of a military plane, although the station did have unconfirmed information about the use of a plane that we looked into but were unable to confirm. A line about the use of military aircraft was inadvertently included in the story that appeared on the station’s Web site but was removed.According to WCBS, they simply got caught up in the frenzy of breaking news and “inadvertently” put in an unconfirmed detail. There is a problem with this account: The detail about the Army intelligence planes was featured prominently in the title of the originally article. Clearly, the line wasn’t “inadvertently included”—it was put in and deliberately promoted. After all, it was the most eye-catching detail of the story.
Since then, no other news organizations have reported that Army spy planes helped capture Faisal Shahzad. (Though few blogs speculated on the WCBS report, and its disappearance.) The New York Times reports that what ultimately led to Shahzad’s capture was the crew of the Emirates flight he was on sending a passenger list to customs officials before takeoff. They discovered Shahzad had been put on a no-fly list as a result of the FBI’s investigation. Authorities were then able to keep the plane from taking off and dragged Shahzad off it.
But that doesn’t necessarily rule out the possibility that Army Special Ops—or their planes—were involved. The Nation points out the two guys running the investigation have deep backgrounds in secret Pentagon “Special Access Programs.” (In certain cases dealing with terrorism and WMDs, military Special Ops forces are allowed to act on U.S. soil. See: PowerGeyser) At some point in their investigation, the FBI began following Shahzad, then lost him until he turned up on the Emirates passenger list. It’s possible that the planes were used during this time to try to find him. Although the original WCBS account, that planes “intercepted a call to Emirates” doesn’t fit with the New York Times’ report that authorities didn’t know Shahzad was on the flight until that last-minute customs cross-check.
So, why did WCBS scrub the intelligence planes detail?
Two possibilities: 1) They made the bad call to promote flimsy reporting, and when their story started getting picked up by blogs (Drudge also picked up their story) they realized it wouldn’t be able to stand up to widespread scrutiny. So they quietly backed away. 2) They were very confident about the spy planes detail—which is why the put it in the headline—but someone made them remove it because it was super secret information. When the WCBS spokesperson emailed us, there was some sort of Jason Bourne-like character standing behind him with a silenced pistol softly telling him to, “Do what’s best for your country…” Again, they quietly backed away.
Honestly, the first possibility is probably the likeliest. But the second possibility is way cooler. So, let’s just say Jason Bourne caught Faisal Shahzad.
Update: Maybe it was actually a drone? Over at Pajamas Media, Annie Jacobs spoke with a retired NSA source, who told her this:
A retired National Security Agency (NSA) source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, says signals intelligence was a key factor in catching Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad.Jacobs notes that a spy plane would violate the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, which limits military operations on American soil. But a drone might not be covered; apparently, DHS and coastguard have in the past expressed interest in using drones in civilian operations.
Working with the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, NSA agents apparently tracked Shahzad’s movements by locating signals from his cell phone, possibly via a drone.
Send an email to Adrian Chen, the author of this post, at adrian@gawker.com.
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Were US Special Forces Involved in the Arrest of Faisal Shahzad?
7 05 2010Shahzad? By Jeremy Scahill
May 05, 2010 “The Nation” May 04, 2010 – -Reports are emerging suggesting that secret US military intelligence aircraft were used to find and locate Faisal Shahzad, the man accused of attempting to set off a crude car bomb in Times Square. The CBS affiliate in New York reported [1] today: “In the end, it was secret Army intelligence planes that did him in. Armed with his cell phone number, they circled the skies over the New York area, intercepting a call to Emirates Airlines reservations, before scrambling to catch him at John F. Kennedy International Airport.” The post at 5:34 PM was titled “Army Intelligence Planes Led To Suspect’s Arrest.” But then at 6:21 PM, the article’s title was changed [2] to “Total Time Of Investigation: 53 Hours, 20 Minutes: Faisal Shahzad In Custody After Nearly Fleeing United States.” As Rayne observed [3] on FireDogLake, the paragraph about the Army planes was deleted from the CBS story. Screenshot of the original post here [4].
May 05, 2010 “The Nation” May 04, 2010 – -Reports are emerging suggesting that secret US military intelligence aircraft were used to find and locate Faisal Shahzad, the man accused of attempting to set off a crude car bomb in Times Square. The CBS affiliate in New York reported [1] today: “In the end, it was secret Army intelligence planes that did him in. Armed with his cell phone number, they circled the skies over the New York area, intercepting a call to Emirates Airlines reservations, before scrambling to catch him at John F. Kennedy International Airport.” The post at 5:34 PM was titled “Army Intelligence Planes Led To Suspect’s Arrest.” But then at 6:21 PM, the article’s title was changed [2] to “Total Time Of Investigation: 53 Hours, 20 Minutes: Faisal Shahzad In Custody After Nearly Fleeing United States.” As Rayne observed [3] on FireDogLake, the paragraph about the Army planes was deleted from the CBS story. Screenshot of the original post here [4].
A US Special Operations Force source told me that the planes were likely RC-12s equipped with a Guardrail Signals Intelligence [5] (SIGINT) system [6] that, as the plane flies overland “sucks up” digital and electronic communications. “Think of them as manned drones. They’re drones, but they have men sitting in them piloting them and they can be networked together,” said the source. “You have many of them–four, five, six of them–and they all act as a node and they scrape up everything, anything that’s electronic and feed it back.” The source added: “It sucks up everything. We’ve got these things in Jalalabad [Afghanistan]. We routinely fly these things over Khandahar. When I say everything, I mean BlueTooth would be effected, even the wave length that PlayStation controllers are on. They suck up everything. That’s the point.”
Guardrail has been used for years by the US military. In recent years, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, the military has also used the “Constant Hawk” and “Highlighter” aerial sensor platforms. All of these programs have recently undergone a series of upgrades.
So were US special forces involved with Shahzad’s arrest?
“My conjecture at the moment is that immediately after this went down and they knew that he was on the loose, parts of the domestic counter-terrorism operations that they had set up during the Bush administration were reactivated,” says the Special Forces source. “They’re compartmentalized. So they kicked into high gear and were supporting law enforcement. In some cases, law enforcement may not have even known that some of the signals intelligence was coming from covert military units.”
If true, that could mean that secretive programs such as “Power Geyser [7]” or “Granite Shadow,” remain in effect. These were the unclassified names for reportedly classified, compartmentalized programs under the Bush administration that allegedly gave US military special forces sweeping authority to operate on US soil in cases involving WMD incidents or terror attacks.
“They sidestep Posse Comitatus,” said the source.
The Joint Special Operations Command, which was run by Gen. Stanley McChrystal from 2003-2008, is reportedly allowed to operate on US soil. That’s a result of Presidential Decision Directive 25 (PDD-25), an executive order drafted by President Clinton on May 3, 1994. The complete text remains classified, however, “The full text of PDD-25 is reported to exempt the Joint Special Operations Command from the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 18USC Sec.1385, PL86-70, Sec. 17[d]. which makes it illegal for military and law enforcement to exercise jointly,” according to GlobalSecurity.org [8].
Among the questions raised by the apparently central role of US special forces in the arrest of Faisal Shahzad is this: To what extent are US Special Forces permitted to operate on US soil under President Obama?
Also, Why did CBS scrub the initial mention of the involvement of Army Intelligence aircraft from its story?
UPDATE: The big story today is how the FBI team tracking Faisal Shahzad in Connecticut allegedly lost track of him. According to reports, Shahzad actually made it onto the Emirates aircraft scheduled to fly to Dubai. As The New York Times [9] reported:
**
“Though Mr. Shahzad was stopped before he could fly away, there were at least two significant lapses in the security response of the government and the airline that allowed him to come close to making his escape, officials of the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies said on Tuesday.
First, an F.B.I. surveillance team that had found Mr. Shahzad in Connecticut lost track of him — it is not clear for how long — before he drove to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, the officials said.”
**
This is all entirely plausible. But what if that is not the entire story? At this point, this is just a thought, a possibility to ponder: It could be that the Feds lost track of Shahzad, but that other US forces, namely US military special operations forces (perhaps JSOC), were tracking him and waiting to see if he made any calls, met with any contacts, took any action while he was still a free man.
Consider the confidence of Attorney General Eric Holder, who said [10] bluntly: “I was never in any fear that we were in danger of losing him.” Those could be the words of a man trying to downplay what could have been a major FBI failure that, in part, would have played badly for Holder. Or they could be the honest words of a man who knew it was all being taken care of and how.
The official timeline [11] of events released by the White House contains some interesting details [12] that suggest US military special forces involvement. On Sunday at 3pm, according to the timeline, “Nicholas Rasmussen, Senior Director for Combating Terrorism Strategy, convenes an interagency meeting on this incident in the White House Situation Room.” Rasmussen is a shadow figure. He cut his teeth [13] in the Bush administration after 9/11 where he worked on the “dark side” as a director of the National Security Council’s office of combating terrorism, putting him in regular proximity to Special Access Programs [14] and other activites of which we dare not speak. To give context to Rasmussen’s current job, one of his predecessors was Vice Admiral William McRaven [15], the current head of JSOC. “McRaven has managed to bridge both the civilian and military worlds,” reported [16] Newsweek. “While working at the National Security Council after 9/11, he was principal author of the White House strategy for combating terrorism.”
If the hunt for Shahzad was being run through the National Security Council, which it was, the commander of the Joint Task Force would report to the NSC, which would in turn report to either John Brennan, the Deputy National Security Adviser for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism or National Security Advisor Jim Jones, and then they would report to the President. From the White House timeline, Brennan seemed to be serving that function. And remember, Brennan also comes from the dark side.
The point of all of this being that the story may not be as simple as the FBI losing Shahzad. One cog in the wheel may not have necessarily known what another was doing at any given time. It could be that there were forces at play in this operation whose involvement may not be a part of the story the White House wants divulged. Just a thought.
Guardrail has been used for years by the US military. In recent years, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, the military has also used the “Constant Hawk” and “Highlighter” aerial sensor platforms. All of these programs have recently undergone a series of upgrades.
So were US special forces involved with Shahzad’s arrest?
“My conjecture at the moment is that immediately after this went down and they knew that he was on the loose, parts of the domestic counter-terrorism operations that they had set up during the Bush administration were reactivated,” says the Special Forces source. “They’re compartmentalized. So they kicked into high gear and were supporting law enforcement. In some cases, law enforcement may not have even known that some of the signals intelligence was coming from covert military units.”
If true, that could mean that secretive programs such as “Power Geyser [7]” or “Granite Shadow,” remain in effect. These were the unclassified names for reportedly classified, compartmentalized programs under the Bush administration that allegedly gave US military special forces sweeping authority to operate on US soil in cases involving WMD incidents or terror attacks.
“They sidestep Posse Comitatus,” said the source.
The Joint Special Operations Command, which was run by Gen. Stanley McChrystal from 2003-2008, is reportedly allowed to operate on US soil. That’s a result of Presidential Decision Directive 25 (PDD-25), an executive order drafted by President Clinton on May 3, 1994. The complete text remains classified, however, “The full text of PDD-25 is reported to exempt the Joint Special Operations Command from the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 18USC Sec.1385, PL86-70, Sec. 17[d]. which makes it illegal for military and law enforcement to exercise jointly,” according to GlobalSecurity.org [8].
Among the questions raised by the apparently central role of US special forces in the arrest of Faisal Shahzad is this: To what extent are US Special Forces permitted to operate on US soil under President Obama?
Also, Why did CBS scrub the initial mention of the involvement of Army Intelligence aircraft from its story?
UPDATE: The big story today is how the FBI team tracking Faisal Shahzad in Connecticut allegedly lost track of him. According to reports, Shahzad actually made it onto the Emirates aircraft scheduled to fly to Dubai. As The New York Times [9] reported:
**
“Though Mr. Shahzad was stopped before he could fly away, there were at least two significant lapses in the security response of the government and the airline that allowed him to come close to making his escape, officials of the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies said on Tuesday.
First, an F.B.I. surveillance team that had found Mr. Shahzad in Connecticut lost track of him — it is not clear for how long — before he drove to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, the officials said.”
**
This is all entirely plausible. But what if that is not the entire story? At this point, this is just a thought, a possibility to ponder: It could be that the Feds lost track of Shahzad, but that other US forces, namely US military special operations forces (perhaps JSOC), were tracking him and waiting to see if he made any calls, met with any contacts, took any action while he was still a free man.
Consider the confidence of Attorney General Eric Holder, who said [10] bluntly: “I was never in any fear that we were in danger of losing him.” Those could be the words of a man trying to downplay what could have been a major FBI failure that, in part, would have played badly for Holder. Or they could be the honest words of a man who knew it was all being taken care of and how.
The official timeline [11] of events released by the White House contains some interesting details [12] that suggest US military special forces involvement. On Sunday at 3pm, according to the timeline, “Nicholas Rasmussen, Senior Director for Combating Terrorism Strategy, convenes an interagency meeting on this incident in the White House Situation Room.” Rasmussen is a shadow figure. He cut his teeth [13] in the Bush administration after 9/11 where he worked on the “dark side” as a director of the National Security Council’s office of combating terrorism, putting him in regular proximity to Special Access Programs [14] and other activites of which we dare not speak. To give context to Rasmussen’s current job, one of his predecessors was Vice Admiral William McRaven [15], the current head of JSOC. “McRaven has managed to bridge both the civilian and military worlds,” reported [16] Newsweek. “While working at the National Security Council after 9/11, he was principal author of the White House strategy for combating terrorism.”
If the hunt for Shahzad was being run through the National Security Council, which it was, the commander of the Joint Task Force would report to the NSC, which would in turn report to either John Brennan, the Deputy National Security Adviser for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism or National Security Advisor Jim Jones, and then they would report to the President. From the White House timeline, Brennan seemed to be serving that function. And remember, Brennan also comes from the dark side.
The point of all of this being that the story may not be as simple as the FBI losing Shahzad. One cog in the wheel may not have necessarily known what another was doing at any given time. It could be that there were forces at play in this operation whose involvement may not be a part of the story the White House wants divulged. Just a thought.
Links:
[1] http://www.google.com/search?q=Army Intelligence Planes Led To Suspect’s Arrest&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
[2] http://wcbstv.com/local/times.square.car.2.1674692.html
[3] http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/45253
[4] http://static1.firedoglake.com/32/files/2010/05/Screenshot_WCBS-TV2-NYC_04MAY10_1825hEDT.jpg
[5] http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/systems/guardrail.htm
[6] http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/man/uswpns/air/special/rc12.html
[7] http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/23/national/nationalspecial3/23code.html?_r=1
[8] http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/dod/jsoc.htm
[9] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/nyregion/05plane.html?hp
[10] http://www.upi.com/Daily-Briefing/2010/05/05/Times-Square-bomb/UPI-84411273063865/
[11] http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/05/04/timeline-of-white-house-actions-following-botched-times-square-b/
[12] http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/05/the-night-beat-tick-tock/56136/
[13] http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/23/nyregion/thriving-world-crisis-life-woodrow-wilson-school-training-ground-for-policy.html?pagewanted=all
[14] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_access_program
[15] http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Q-saDn-25VEJ:www.navy.mil/navydata/bios/navybio.asp?bioid=401 Vice Adm. McRaven’s diverse staff and interagency experience includes assignments as the director for Strategic Planning in the Office of Combating Terrorism on the National Security Council Staff,&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a
[16] http://www.newsweek.com/id/53370
[1] http://www.google.com/search?q=Army Intelligence Planes Led To Suspect’s Arrest&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
[2] http://wcbstv.com/local/times.square.car.2.1674692.html
[3] http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/45253
[4] http://static1.firedoglake.com/32/files/2010/05/Screenshot_WCBS-TV2-NYC_04MAY10_1825hEDT.jpg
[5] http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/systems/guardrail.htm
[6] http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/man/uswpns/air/special/rc12.html
[7] http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/23/national/nationalspecial3/23code.html?_r=1
[8] http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/dod/jsoc.htm
[9] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/nyregion/05plane.html?hp
[10] http://www.upi.com/Daily-Briefing/2010/05/05/Times-Square-bomb/UPI-84411273063865/
[11] http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/05/04/timeline-of-white-house-actions-following-botched-times-square-b/
[12] http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/05/the-night-beat-tick-tock/56136/
[13] http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/23/nyregion/thriving-world-crisis-life-woodrow-wilson-school-training-ground-for-policy.html?pagewanted=all
[14] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_access_program
[15] http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Q-saDn-25VEJ:www.navy.mil/navydata/bios/navybio.asp?bioid=401 Vice Adm. McRaven’s diverse staff and interagency experience includes assignments as the director for Strategic Planning in the Office of Combating Terrorism on the National Security Council Staff,&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a
[16] http://www.newsweek.com/id/53370
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US to expand Pakistan drone strikes
7 05 2010 US to expand Pakistan drone strikesAljazeera.net
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www.uruknet.info?p=65731
Link: english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/05/201056104348785170.html
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Tags: state terrorism
Categories : crimes against humanity, image of the beast
Firecracker Bomber Must Be Pals With Every Known “Islamist,” According to Mainstream Media
7 05 2010[By the time these idiots get through, this kid will be credited with knowing where to find the dead bin Laden, Zawahiri, even Al Capone's grave. It makes me sick to see this sort of cow dung masquerading as real journalism. Gen. Kayani, are you ready to defend your country from what comes next?]
IST
New York Times Square terror bombing plot suspect Faisal Shahzad was a childhood friend of one of the alleged masterminds of the 2008 Mumbai massacre, a media report said, as US investigators traced his links to another Pakistani militant outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad.
Quoting sources, ABC news said Shahzad was a close childhood friend of one of the alleged masterminds of the Mumbai carnage, in which more than 166 people were killed.
However, the television network did not identify the Pakistani mastermind. While the lone surviving terror gunman involved in the massacre, Ajmal Amir Kasab, has been sentenced to death by an Indian court, seven other suspects including LeT commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, are facing trial in a Pakistani court.
The Pakistani Taliban are denying any role in the botched car bombing, but have praised Shahzad for a “brave job done”, ABC said, adding that the suspected bomber was also in contact with former Tehreek-e-Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in a US missile strike in 2009.
“The Mehsuds had been family friends of Shahzad, who is a son of a former high ranking Pakistani military officer,” the American television network said quoting Pakistani sources.
The US authorities are pressing Shahzad on his claims of terrorist training and a high level FBI team is in Karachi to question four apprehended members of Jaish-e-Mohammad militant group.
Shahzad was in touch with a man named Mohammad Rehan who helped him to travel to Peshawar and then to Waziristan and introduced him to Taliban.
Rehan is one of the four suspected Jaish militants picked up by Pakistani intelligence for questioning as a search for Shahzad’s terror links has led US and Pakistani investigators to Karachi’s Bathha mosque and religious school.
Rehan, ABC reported was detained as he left the mosque after early morning prayers on Tuesday. The mosque is run by Islamist militant group Jaish and Masood Azhar, the founder of the outfit who was released from an Indian jail in 1999 in exchange for a hijacked Indian Airlines plane, is a frequent visitor.
Azhar was freed along with two other dreaded militants Sheikh Omar, who is on death row in a Pakistani prison convicted of beheading Wall Street reporter Daniel Pearl and Kashmiri militant Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar. The three met Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden before leaving Kandahar for Pakistan, US media reports said.
ABC said Jaish-e-Mohammad operated terrorist training camps in Afghanistan during Taliban regime.
The American television network said an official briefed on FBI interrogation had said that Shahzad had told federal agents that he was angry at CIA missile strikes in Pakistan and suffered a personal crisis.
He also reportedly said that he carried out the attempted bombing because he was under duress and that he feared for his family’s safety if he didn’t fulfil the mission.
ABC also said that Shahzad was also in contact with notorious Yemeni cleric Anwar Awlaki. The New York Times reported that Shahzad was “inspired” by the words of the radical cleric who is a US citizen.”
So far, seven men have been arrested in connection with the foiled bomb plot in Times Square. Shahzad continues to cooperate with the FBI in giving information about the foiled bomb plot.
Based on the several round of interrogation of Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square bomb suspect, and initial investigations both in the US and Pakistan, authorities now say that the Pakistani American had ties with the Pakistani Taliban.
However, media reports said, the federal investigating authorities have so far not been able to determine the nature of those ties.
“A US official said earlier in the day that connections to TTP were “plausible,” but noted that numerous connections among insurgent groups in Pakistan made it difficult to zero in on a single responsible group” CNN reported.
The advance came shortly after a senior US official said that new leads developed from the Pakistani end of the investigation show Shahzad likely had training in Pakistan from extremists.
“A senior US Official now says there are new leads that show that the Times Square bomb suspect, Faisal Shahzad, did likely get training in Pakistan. US investigators there have questioned men suspected of ties to a Pakistani militant group and they’re continuing to connect the dots here in the United States.
Shahzad close friend of 26/11 mastermind: Report
New York Times Square terror bombing plot suspect Faisal Shahzad was a childhood friend of one of the alleged masterminds of the 2008 Mumbai massacre, a media report said, as US investigators traced his links to another Pakistani militant outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad.
Quoting sources, ABC news said Shahzad was a close childhood friend of one of the alleged masterminds of the Mumbai carnage, in which more than 166 people were killed.
However, the television network did not identify the Pakistani mastermind. While the lone surviving terror gunman involved in the massacre, Ajmal Amir Kasab, has been sentenced to death by an Indian court, seven other suspects including LeT commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, are facing trial in a Pakistani court.
The Pakistani Taliban are denying any role in the botched car bombing, but have praised Shahzad for a “brave job done”, ABC said, adding that the suspected bomber was also in contact with former Tehreek-e-Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in a US missile strike in 2009.
“The Mehsuds had been family friends of Shahzad, who is a son of a former high ranking Pakistani military officer,” the American television network said quoting Pakistani sources.
The US authorities are pressing Shahzad on his claims of terrorist training and a high level FBI team is in Karachi to question four apprehended members of Jaish-e-Mohammad militant group.
Shahzad was in touch with a man named Mohammad Rehan who helped him to travel to Peshawar and then to Waziristan and introduced him to Taliban.
Rehan is one of the four suspected Jaish militants picked up by Pakistani intelligence for questioning as a search for Shahzad’s terror links has led US and Pakistani investigators to Karachi’s Bathha mosque and religious school.
Rehan, ABC reported was detained as he left the mosque after early morning prayers on Tuesday. The mosque is run by Islamist militant group Jaish and Masood Azhar, the founder of the outfit who was released from an Indian jail in 1999 in exchange for a hijacked Indian Airlines plane, is a frequent visitor.
Azhar was freed along with two other dreaded militants Sheikh Omar, who is on death row in a Pakistani prison convicted of beheading Wall Street reporter Daniel Pearl and Kashmiri militant Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar. The three met Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden before leaving Kandahar for Pakistan, US media reports said.
ABC said Jaish-e-Mohammad operated terrorist training camps in Afghanistan during Taliban regime.
The American television network said an official briefed on FBI interrogation had said that Shahzad had told federal agents that he was angry at CIA missile strikes in Pakistan and suffered a personal crisis.
He also reportedly said that he carried out the attempted bombing because he was under duress and that he feared for his family’s safety if he didn’t fulfil the mission.
ABC also said that Shahzad was also in contact with notorious Yemeni cleric Anwar Awlaki. The New York Times reported that Shahzad was “inspired” by the words of the radical cleric who is a US citizen.”
So far, seven men have been arrested in connection with the foiled bomb plot in Times Square. Shahzad continues to cooperate with the FBI in giving information about the foiled bomb plot.
Based on the several round of interrogation of Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square bomb suspect, and initial investigations both in the US and Pakistan, authorities now say that the Pakistani American had ties with the Pakistani Taliban.
However, media reports said, the federal investigating authorities have so far not been able to determine the nature of those ties.
“A US official said earlier in the day that connections to TTP were “plausible,” but noted that numerous connections among insurgent groups in Pakistan made it difficult to zero in on a single responsible group” CNN reported.
The advance came shortly after a senior US official said that new leads developed from the Pakistani end of the investigation show Shahzad likely had training in Pakistan from extremists.
“A senior US Official now says there are new leads that show that the Times Square bomb suspect, Faisal Shahzad, did likely get training in Pakistan. US investigators there have questioned men suspected of ties to a Pakistani militant group and they’re continuing to connect the dots here in the United States.
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Tags: state terrorism
Categories : image of the beast
Indian Parliament Disrupted By Walkout Protest of America’s Nuclear Liability Bill
7 05 2010[American-pushed liability bill only values Indian lives at 1/23rd value of American lives.] Nuclear liability bill in Lok Sabha, Opposition protests | |
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The controversial bill that provides for payment of compensation in the event of a nuclear accident was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Friday amid protests and walkout by opposition NDA and Left parties which termed it as “illegal” and “unconstitutional”.
The Civil Nuclear Liability Bill, was moved by Minister of State Prithviraj Chavan after a clash between ruling and Opposition members. Its passage is key to operationalisation of the Indo-US nuclear deal.
The bill provides for the maximum liability of Rs 500 crore on the part of the operator in the case of a nuclear accident, a provision that is the main cause of opposition by the NDA and Left parties.
As Chavan sought permission to introduce the bill, CPI(M) members Basudeb Acharia and Ramchandra Dome, BJP leaders M M Joshi and Yashwant Sinha and CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta said the proposed legislation would violate Article 21 of the Constitution, a fundamental right that guarantees right to life.
They said the bill also compromises the right of victims to approach courts for enhanced compensation.
Amid cries of “shame, shame” from BJP members, Sinha alleged that the proposed legislation was being introduced under the US pressure.
Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj said her party had conveyed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that the bill should be amended but the government was “adamant” on introducing it in the present form.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, along with Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal, argued that the members could not speak on the merits of the bill at the introduction stage and could only talk about legislative competence of the House on taking up the proposed legislation.
Significantly, Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and RJD leader Lalu Prasad, who had opposed the bill in March when the first attempt was made to introduce it, this time appeared to be siding with the government.
Yadav, who along with Prasad met Mukherjee on Thursday evening, was even seen apparently trying to convince Acharia about the bill.
Mukherjee, while objecting to the opposition members’ attempt to discuss merits of the bill, said their behaviour was “obnoxious” and amounts to “Parliamentary obstruction”.
To express their opposition to the bill, members of NDA and Left parties walked out of the House.
Afterwards, the bill was introduced.
This is “illegal”, “unconstitutional” and “anti-people”, said Acharia earlier while opposing introduction of the bill during which members of Congress repeatedly clashed with those from Left and NDA.
He said the bill violates the right to life of Indians and ignores a Supreme Court judgement which holds that the polluter will have to pay the principal amount of compensation.
The proposed legislation will also compromise the right of a victim to approach the courts for “adequate compensation” because the compensation has been “capped”.
Joshi also said the bill would violate Article 21 and go against the SC ruling on liability on the polluter besides violating the environmental laws.
He said till now, a victim had a right to “unlimited liability” but the proposed law would put a cap on compensation.
“It is a crime that someone else commits an offence and we pay for it,” the BJP leader said.
Dasgupta also said the proposed legislation contradicts the SC judgement.
Sinha said the bill was not in tune with similar legislations across the world. In this context, he said that in the US, there is a provision for compensation to the tune of Rs 60,000 crore, 23 times higher than Rs 2,600 crore as proposed in the new bill.
Amid chants of “shame, shame” by his party colleagues, the BJP leader suggested that the bill was being brought under the US pressure and asked, “Is the life of Indians so cheap that an Indian will get 1/23rd of the amount as compensation as compared to an American?”
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Greek protesters encircle parliament as new austerity measures approved
7 05 2010| |
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| Protestors gather in front of the parliament building while austerity measures bill has been passed in Athens, capital of Greece, on May 6, 2010. The Greek parliament on Thursday approved the bill on measures relating to the support mechanism by the euro zone and International Monetary Fund. (Xinhua/Phasma) |
They died of asphyxiation in the fire that broke out when a group of hooded anarchists threw petrol bombs against the bank’s building, situated near the parliament.
Still in shock, members of families, friends and thousands of citizens stopped by the place of the tragedy to place flowers, light candles and hold three minutes of silence, as the new rally started, honoring the victims.
In the meantime, police reviewed traffic camera footage and all related evidence in order to find the perpetrators.
So far the demonstration which is still underway is peaceful, but police expressed fears for new attacks by anarchists that could endanger more lives and cause more damages. Athens police units have been reinforced with policemen from nearby towns.
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Terrorism Born in the West
7 05 2010Terrorism Born in the West
Konstantin Novikov (Russia) Research indicates that 70% of Al-Qaeda’s members come from Western Europe and America.It is generally thought that Islamic terrorism and the terrorists who have declared war on America, Israel and Europe are somehow alien to Western civilization, attacking it from outside. Research by Professor Mark Sageman testifies to the reverse—that terrorism is a product of the West. And it is not just a reaction by traditional Muslim society, which does not want to be absorbed by the liberal cosmopolitan melting pot, but a geographic and cultural phenomenon, as a product of Western globalization.
Mark Sageman, a professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, a former CIA officer and a U.S. government advisor on combating terrorism, presented a report at an international conference held in Washington. His paper was based on an analysis of 382 profiles of terrorists having a direct relationship with the Al-Qaeda network and close ties with Osama bin Laden, al-Zawahiri, al-Rashid, the Egyptian group Islamic Jihad, Jemaah Islamiah and the Philippine group Abu Sayef.
Sageman’s analysis was focused on those who operate globally and are not associated with any specific territory, and it excluded Chechens, Palestinians, and Kashmiri militants, i.e., those whose acts of terror are directed against their own governments. Sageman calls the terrorists he studied members of the so-called “Global Salafist Jihad” social movement. Salafists (they are more often referred to as Wahhabists) advocate the most literal and rigid interpretation of the Koran and are hostile toward later doctrinal concepts, which they view as heretical deviations from the original prophetic message.
Sageman believes that it makes sense to identify the Global Salafist Jihad as one of the main strategies of Islamic Jihad. It was first publicly announced by Osama bin Laden in his 1996 fatwa, in which he proclaimed the fight against the “far enemy” to be the priority, that is, the fight against the West and, in particular, the United States and Israel. After defeating the “far enemy,” jihad must spread to the “near enemy,” to their own corrupt governments, which only exist because of Western support.
Bin Laden called for inflicting the maximum possible damage on the enemy, that is, he called for speaking to the West in the language of violence, the only language that the West, in bin Laden’s opinion, understands. And he chose “martyrdom operations” by suicide bombers as the main instrument of jihad.
Professor Sageman believes that it is not appropriate to label bin Laden’s followers as evil religious fanatics. They are well-educated, affluent, cosmopolitan, married, working professionals, who do not suffer from mental illnesses. Referring to popular opinion about terrorists that portrays them as totally alien to Western culture, Sageman said that “unfortunately, they are no different from us.”
The notion that poverty is the main motivation for recruitment of new members to the terrorist network, in Sageman’s opinion, oversimplifies the picture. The majority of Al-Qaeda’s members belongs to the middle and upper classes: 17.6% are from the upper class; 54% from the middle class; 27.5% from the lower class. Only 16.7% have not completed a secondary education; 12.1% completed their secondary education; 28.8% attended college and 33% finished; 9% have an advanced degree. Contrary to the popular belief that the members of terrorist groups are recruited in fundamentalist Islamic schools, only 9.4% of terrorists have a religious education; the remainder are exclusively secular.
No members of the network were found to be either unemployed or vagrants who came to terror looking for money or glory. They can better be described as qualified professionals with good jobs: 42.5% are doctors, lawyers, teachers, etc.; 32.8% are semi-skilled professionals; and only 32.8% have no special skills. And the latter category is primarily made up of Arabs, immigrants from the Maghreb (Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia).
At the same time, those involved in terrorist organizations are primarily young people; the average age of militants is 25.7, and even in the Central Headquarters the average age is 27.9. From available information about the family status of members of terrorist groups, it can be said that 73% of them are married, and many have children. Few terrorists were ever involved in criminal activities or prosecuted for criminal offenses, and the few exceptions occurring among Maghreb Arabs—for petty crimes such as credit card fraud and money laundering—only prove the rule.
According to Sageman, there is a widespread cliché in the West to the effect that people from non-Western cultures and underdeveloped regions are able to take great pleasure from atrocities. However, Sageman’s research testifies that the majority of modern terrorists are quite westernized and affluent. Sageman reports that most of these young men belong to the elite in their countries and bear a strong resemblance to Westerners, and that is why it is so hard for a Westerner to see them as “alien” or as “outsiders.” But why do these young people who resemble us, who are educated and affluent, mentally well balanced and well socialized, choose the path of absolute nihilism and mass murder of civilians?—asks Professor Sageman.
Trying to avoid speculation and rely only on factual evidence, he calls attention to the one detail that most distinguishes “global Al-Qaeda terrorists” from the Pakistani fundamentalists, the Taliban or the Chechen militants: these people are internationalists, “citizens of the global village,” who have left their homes and set off on a journey, some of them traveling to the West. It turns out that 70% of them became radical Islamists and joined the jihad in Western countries. Typically, there were recruited, or rather “recruited themselves,” after being sent to study as representatives of the elite of their own countries in the United States, Germany, England or France.
Another typical destiny for an Al-Qaeda member is a trip to wealthy Western countries in search of material success. As a rule, Maghreb Arabs have emigrated to Spain, France, Italy or Great Britain in search of well-paying jobs. Many of them have become citizens of those countries, and according to Sageman’s calculations, 10% grew up in their “new homeland.”
Maghreb Arabs and emigrants from the central Arab countries (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Kuwait) are socially and geographically mobile. Some of them speak three or four languages. Their cosmopolitanism differs sharply from the local culture of members of fundamentalist movements like the Taliban. Moreover, Al-Qaeda militants look down on the Taliban as a bunch of uneducated bumpkins who are unable to read or write. Sageman notes that there is not one emigrant from Afghanistan among the “global terrorists.” And this is no random observation. In light of these facts, remarks the analyst, it is very difficult to say that terrorism came into the West from somewhere outside. Therefore, the war on terror conducted outside the Western world—in Afghanistan or Iraq—misses its target.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who in all likelihood was one of the leading organizers of the September 11 attack, was a student at the University of North Carolina. One of the alleged ringleaders of the attack, Mohamed Atta, was a student who emigrated from Egypt to Hamburg to study architecture. Ahmed Omar Sheikh, who was convicted for the murder of journalist David Pearl, studied at the prestigious Forest School in London and attended the London School of Economics—these are typical representatives of the so-called “Al-Qaeda.”
As a rule, “global terrorists” are people separated from their traditional relationships and cultures. Many of them were homesick and felt deeply isolated, marginalized and rejected by the society in their host countries. They attended mosques not so much out of religious convictions as in search of comrades and friends. There they found kindred spirits. In the mosques they heard radical sermons about the decadence and crisis of Western values, and about the greed and selfishness of the natives. This became a plausible explanation for the alienation and loneliness they felt in the Western world. Nostalgic Arabs and Asians began creating their own subculture.
The inability of Western culture to integrate immigrants attests to the unhealthy crisis of that society. Sageman believes that terrorism is nurtured not in Kabul or Cairo, but in London, Paris and New York—it is not a result of the penetration of Muslim fanatics into the West, but a consequence of the inability of the institutions of Western society to give individuals a strong sense of identity. Arabs and other immigrants may feel it much more acutely than native Europeans or Americans, but atomization and alienation affect virtually every citizen of the “prosperous” democracies. Therefore, any kind of fundamentalism, not just that minted in Islam, may in the future become the ideological basis for a new phenomenon like “global terrorism,” concludes Professor Sageman.
For our part, we would add that the reason for the emergence of terrorism in the West is not fundamentalism of various kinds, as the author of the study fears, but those root causes which he himself pointed out—the alienation of people in Western society; the atomization and disintegration of society itself; the decline of traditional values; and the cosmopolitanism, greed and egotism that serve as the foundations of the consciousness and lifestyle that have been cultivated in the West.
Konstantin Novikov is a frequent contributor to the ‘Russian Line‘ web-site.
Translation: Vebber
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Drilling Process Attracts Scrutiny in Rig Explosion
7 05 2010
Drilling Process Attracts Scrutiny in Rig Explosion
By RUSSELL GOLD And BEN CASSELMAN
An oil-drilling procedure called cementing is coming under scrutiny as a possible cause of the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico that has led to one of the biggest oil spills in U.S. history, drilling experts said Thursday.The process is supposed to prevent oil and natural gas from escaping by filling gaps between the outside of the well pipe and the inside of the hole bored into the ocean floor. Cement, pumped down the well from the drilling rig, is also used to plug wells after they have been abandoned or when drilling has finished but production hasn’t begun.
In the case of the Deepwater Horizon, workers had finished pumping cement to fill the space between the pipe and the sides of the hole and had begun temporarily plugging the well with cement; it isn’t known whether they had completed the plugging process before the blast.
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Concerns about the cementing process—and about whether rigs have enough safeguards to prevent blowouts—raise questions about whether the industry can safely drill in deep water and whether regulators are up to the task of monitoring them.
The scrutiny on cementing will focus attention on Halliburton Co., the oilfield-services firm that was handling the cementing process on the rig, which burned and sank last week. The disaster, which killed 11, has left a gusher of oil streaming into the Gulf from a mile under the surface.
Federal officials declined to comment on their investigation, and Halliburton didn’t respond to questions from The Wall Street Journal.
According to Transocean Ltd., the operator of the drilling rig, Halliburton had finished cementing the 18,000-foot well shortly before the explosion. Houston-based Halliburton is the largest company in the global cementing business, which accounted for $1.7 billion, or about 11%, of the company’s revenue in 2009, according to consultant Spears & Associates.
Growing worries about potential lawsuits and other costs of the oil spill in the wake of its rapid spread led investors to clobber stocks of companies involved in the Deepwater Horizon well Thursday.
Halliburton fell 5.3% to $31.60 and Cameron International Corp., which built the blowout-prevention equipment that didn’t stop the explosion, dropped 13% to $38.70, both at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.
The timing of the cementing in relation to the blast—and the procedure’s history of causing problems—point to it as a possible culprit in the Deepwater Horizon disaster, experts said.
“The initial likely cause of gas coming to the surface had something to do with the cement,” said Robert MacKenzie, managing director of energy and natural resources at FBR Capital Markets and a former cementing engineer in the oil industry.
Several other drilling experts agreed, though they cautioned that the investigation into what went wrong at the Deepwater Horizon site is still in its preliminary stages.
The problem could have been a faulty cement plug at the bottom of the well, he said. Another possibility would be that cement between the pipe and well walls didn’t harden properly and allowed gas to pass through it.
A 2007 study by three U.S. Minerals Management Service officials found that cementing was a factor in 18 of 39 well blowouts in the Gulf of Mexico over a 14-year period. That was the single largest factor, ahead of equipment failure and pipe failure.
The Halliburton cementers would have sought approval for their plans—the type of cement and how much would be used—from a BP official on board the rig before carrying out their job. Scott Dean, a BP spokesman, said it was premature to speculate on the role cement might have played in the disaster.
Halliburton also was the cementer on a well that suffered a big blowout last August in the Timor Sea, off Australia. The rig there caught fire and a well leaked tens of thousands of barrels of oil over 10 weeks before it was shut down. The investigation is continuing; Halliburton declined to comment on it.
Elmer P. Danenberger, who had recently retired as head of regulatory affairs for the U.S. Minerals Management Service, told the Australian commission looking into the blowout that a poor cement job was probably the reason oil and natural gas gushed out of control.
Write to Russell Gold at russell.gold@wsj.com and Ben Casselman atben.casselman@wsj.com
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The “Evil Guys List”? “Free Journalism” in the Service of US Foreign Policy
7 05 2010The “Evil Guys List”? “Free Journalism” in the Service of US Foreign Policy
The Role of Reporters without Borders
by F. William Engdahl
Global Research
An organization calling itself Reporters Without Borders (RWB; French: Reporters sans frontières, or RSF) has just named Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, China’s President Hu Jintao, Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Kazakhstan’s Nursultan Nazarbayev and Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko to their list of Forty Worst Predators of Press Freedom for 2010. Most significant about their list of ‘bad guys’ is the geopolitical relation of those leaders and those countries to the current ‘enemies list’ of the US State Department. That is no accident, as becomes clear when we look more closely at who funds RWB.
In their declaration RWB states, “Since these predators have faces, we must know them to better denounce them. Reporters without Borders has decided to draw their portraits.” Their colourful language is no accident. The term predator conjures up images of horror in most people.
In their latest ‘Evil Guys’ list just released they remark about Russia’s Putin: “As well as manipulating groups and institutions, Putin has promoted a climate of pumped-up national pride that encourages the persecution of dissidents and freethinkers and fosters a level of impunity that is steadily undermining the rule of law.” RWB said that Putin, “the former KGB officer,” has exerted so much control over all aspects of life in Russia that “the national TV stations now speak with a single voice.” Interestingly enough, the citation and a report of the naming of Putin appeared in an article in the Russian state-owned media, RIA Novosti.[1]
With respect to China, RWB states: “In honour of the Shanghai World Expo, the biggest display of Chinese might (sic) since the 2008 Olympic Games, Reporters Without Borders has for the past week been inviting Internet users to visit a specially created page on its website dedicated to the freedoms that are flouted in China.”[2]
Perhaps just as important as the list of bad guys from RWB are the names that are not on it. One might ask why names of such world-class enemies of free speech and press freedom as Georgia’s dictator, President Mikhail Saakashvili, or the former Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko, or the recently deposed dictator of Kyrgyzstan, Bakiyev are absent. All three came to power in Washington-backed coups, also termed Color Revolutions. Notably, all the persons just named by RWB as “predators” have been targets of Washington-financed destabilization attempts in recent years.
Who stands behind RWB?
The slick media image that RWB presents to the world, such as using the term “predators,” is no accident. It is the product of RWB’s ad agency. Announcing the list of forty on May 3 on their website, RWB states, “The list of Predators of Press Freedom is released today, backed by a campaign ad produced by the Saatchi & Saatchi agency… There are 40 names on this year’s list of predators… that cannot stand the press, treat it as an enemy and directly attack journalists. They are powerful, dangerous, violent and above the law.”[3]
Saatchi & Saatchi is one of the world’s most influential “hidden persuaders” or PR firms. They are credited with the campaign that brought Margaret Thatcher to power and are the ad firm for Gordon Brown’s Labour Party. Clients have included Citigroup, Hewlett-Packard, DuPont, Proctor & Gamble. One might ask where RWB gets the finances to hire such elite advisors?
NED hiding behind RWB
The most interesting question is not the deeds of Hu Jintao or Putin or Ahmadinejad in the last year in relation to their national press, but rather who is judging these leaders. We might well ask, “Who judges the judges?” The answer is, Washington.
Reporters Without Borders is an international Non-Governmental Organization (NGO). According to its website it is headquartered in Paris, France. Paris is a curious home base for an organization that, as it turns out, is financed by the US Congress and by agencies tied to the US government.
If we go to the RWB website to find who stands behind these self-anointed judges of world press freedom, we find nothing. Not even their board of directors are named, let alone their financial backers. Their annual published Income and Expenditure statements give no clue who stands behind them financially.
Millions of dollars of their annual income are disclosed as being from “sale of publications.” It does not name the publications or to whom they were sold. As one researcher noted, “Even taking into account that the books are published for free, it would have had to sell 170 200 books in 2004 and 188 400 books in 2005 to earn the more than $2 million the organization claims to make each year 516 books per day in 2005. The money clearly had to come from other sources, as it turns out it did.”[4] An attempt to go on the RWB website to order any of their publications found no link to any purchasing information nor any price listings or book summary. Very curious indeed.
In their official financial statements and income accounts published in September 2009, they state: “The organisation’s finances in 2008 were marked by the end of the campaign (begun in 2001) over the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games which significantly affected income and expenditure.” [5] That means RWB spent eight years and undisclosed amounts of money campaigning against the Government of China in the run-up to the Beijing 2008 Olympics. For what purpose? Notably, the RWB names China’s President Hu Jintao as this year’s ‘predator’ for his actions in cracking down on unrest in Tibet in March 2010 and Xinjiang in July 2009, both of which were the covert work of a US-financed NGO called National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Hmmm.
After years of trying to hide it, Robert Menard, Paris-based Secretary-General of Reporters Sans Frontieres or RWB, confessed that the RWB budget was primarily funded by “US organizations strictly linked to US foreign policy.”[6] Those US based organizations which support RWB include the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the US Congress’ National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Also included is the Center for Free Cuba, whose trustee, Otto Reich, was forced to resign from the George W. Bush Administration after exposure of his role in a CIA-backed coup attempt against Venezuela’s democratically elected President Hugo Chavez.[7]
As one researcher found after months of trying to get a reply from NED about their funding of Reporters Without Borders, which included a flat denial from RSF executive director Lucie Morillon, the NED revealed that Reporters Without Borders received grants over at least three years from the International Republican Institute. The IRI is one of four subsidiaries of NED.[8]
The NED, as I detail in my book, Full Spectrum Dominance:Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order, was created by the US Congress during the Reagan administration on the initiative of then-CIA Director Bill Casey to replace the CIA’s civil society covert action programs, which had been exposed by the Church committee in the mid-1970s. As Allen Weinstein, the man who drafted the legislation creating the NED admitted years later, “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.” [9]
Perhaps an organization sitting as judge of world press freedom ought itself to practice a little more openness and transparency about where its backing originates. Otherwise we might think they have something to hide.
F. William Engdahl is also author of the book, Gods of Money: Wall Street and the Death of the American Century, available at end of May 2010. He may be reached via his website at www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net
Notes
[1] RIA Novosti, RSF names Putin, Kadyrov freedom “predators,” RIA Novisti, Moscow, May 4, 2010, accessed in http://en.rian.ru/world/20100504/158862330.html
[2] Reporters Without Borders website, Reporters without Borders works on all fronts, May 3, 2010, accessed in http://en.rsf.org/reporters-sans-frontieres-sur-tous-03-05-2010,37337.html
[3] Ibid.
[4] Diana Barahona, Reporters Without Borders and Washington’s Coups, ZNet, August 2, 2006, accessed in http://www.zcommunications.org/reporters-without-borders-and-washingtons-coups-by-diana-barahona
[5] Reporters Without Borders, Income and Expenditures to end December 2008, published September 7, 2009, accessed in http://en.rsf.org/income-and-expenditure-07-09-2009,34401
[6] Source Watch, Reporters Without Borders, accessed in http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Reporters_Without_Borders
[7] Ibid.
[8] Diana Barahona, op.cit.
[9] Allen Weinstein, quoted in David Ignatius, Openness is the Secret to Democracy, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 30 September 1991, pp. 24-25.
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Market Concerns Over Greek Social Unrest Drive Stocks Down
7 05 2010Stocks extend plunge on concerns about Greece
By TIM PARADIS AP Business Writer
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, May 6, 2010, in New York. It was a painful flashback to the darkest days of 2008: Stocks plunged and the Dow Jones industrials skidded by hundreds of points as traders succumbed to fears that Greece’s debt problems would halt the global economic recovery. ((AP Photo/Henny Ray Abrams))
NEW YORK—It was a painful flashback to the darkest days of 2008: Stocks plunged and the Dow Jones industrials skidded by hundreds of points as traders succumbed to fears that Greece’s debt problems would halt the global economic recovery. The Dow lost almost 1,000 points before recovering to a loss of 505 as traders watched protests in the streets of Athens on TV. Protestors raged against austerity measures passed by the Greek parliament. But traders were not comforted by the fact that Greece seemed to be working towards a resolution of its debt problems. Instead, they focused on the possibility that other European countries would also run into trouble, and that the damage to their economies could spread to the U.S.
Computer trading intensified the losses as programs designed to sell stocks at a specified level kicked in. Traders use those programs to try to limit their losses when the market is falling. And the selling only led to more selling as prices fell.
“I think the machines just took over. There’s not a lot of human interaction,” said Charlie Smith, chief investment officer at Fort Pitt Capital Group. “We’ve known that automated trading can run away from you, and I think that’s what we saw happen today.”
There were reports that a technical glitch hastened the selling. Stock in the consulting firm Accenture fell to 4 cents after closing at $42.17 on Wednesday. It was priced at about $41 in the last half-hour of trading.
New York Stock Exchange spokesman Raymond Pellecchia said he was unaware of any problems with the exchange’s trading systems but was looking into whether an error occurred.
Even if there were technical issues, emotions about the world economy were running high. Down 998.50 points in its largest point drop ever, the Dow recovered to a loss of 505. Meanwhile, interest rates on Treasurys soared as traders sought the safety of U.S. government debt. The yield on the benchmark 10-year note, which moves oppoosite its price, fell to 3.39 percent from late Wednesday’s 3.54 percent.
“The market is now realizing that Greece is going to go through a depression over the next couple of years,” said Peter Boockvar, equity strategist at Miller Tabak. “Europe is a major trading partner of ours, and this threatens the entire global growth story.”
The stock market has had periodic bouts of anxiety about the European economies during the past few months. They have intensified over the past week even as Greece appeared to be moving closer to getting a bailout package from some of its neighbors.
The losses in stocks were so widespread that just 139 stocks rose on the New York Stock Exchange, compared to 3,029 that fell. The major indexes were all down more than 4 percent.
Computer trading intensified the losses as programs designed to sell stocks at a specified level kicked in. Traders use those programs to try to limit their losses when the market is falling. And the selling only led to more selling as prices fell.
“I think the machines just took over. There’s not a lot of human interaction,” said Charlie Smith, chief investment officer at Fort Pitt Capital Group. “We’ve known that automated trading can run away from you, and I think that’s what we saw happen today.”
There were reports that a technical glitch hastened the selling. Stock in the consulting firm Accenture fell to 4 cents after closing at $42.17 on Wednesday. It was priced at about $41 in the last half-hour of trading.
New York Stock Exchange spokesman Raymond Pellecchia said he was unaware of any problems with the exchange’s trading systems but was looking into whether an error occurred.
Even if there were technical issues, emotions about the world economy were running high. Down 998.50 points in its largest point drop ever, the Dow recovered to a loss of 505. Meanwhile, interest rates on Treasurys soared as traders sought the safety of U.S. government debt. The yield on the benchmark 10-year note, which moves oppoosite its price, fell to 3.39 percent from late Wednesday’s 3.54 percent.
“The market is now realizing that Greece is going to go through a depression over the next couple of years,” said Peter Boockvar, equity strategist at Miller Tabak. “Europe is a major trading partner of ours, and this threatens the entire global growth story.”
The stock market has had periodic bouts of anxiety about the European economies during the past few months. They have intensified over the past week even as Greece appeared to be moving closer to getting a bailout package from some of its neighbors.
The losses in stocks were so widespread that just 139 stocks rose on the New York Stock Exchange, compared to 3,029 that fell. The major indexes were all down more than 4 percent.
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Tags: economic collapse, LIFE AFTER CAPITALISM
Categories : Organizing resistance, survival
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