Simon Reeve investigates the real reasons for the war in Iraq. Starting with oil and the contracts set up between Saddam and non-American/British companies. The latter part of the film looks at the petro-dollar cycle and how OPEC members can threaten US power by using the euro to trade oil - could Iran be next?
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July 07, 2007
Railway jobs to descedants of Tatya Tope
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
By Partho Burman, Headlinesindia
New Delhi: The fourth generation of martyr in the first war of independence -- Tatya Tope's – Pragati Tope (25) and Tripti Tope (21) have received the appointment letters from the Union Minister for Railways, Lalu Prasad Yadav for the post of Commercial Assistant at Kanpur Terminal of Container Corporation of India Ltd., a Public Sector Undertaking of Ministry of Railways on Wednesday. The duo are daughters of underprivileged Vinayak Rao Tope, the heir of Tatya Tope.
The descendants of Tatya Tope's live at Lava-Kusha Nagar of Bithoor, about 30 kilometre from Kanpur. Tope’s heirs were rescued by Neena and Shivnath Jha. Tope's heors were camping in the national capital for the past one week. They met Lalu Prasad and Union Minister for Corporate Affairs Prem Chand Gupta on Wednesday and requested the ministers to provide them jobs. Vinayak Rao Tope earns his livelihood from a small kirana shop opened near their house.
Meanwhile, Lalu Prasad declared to connect Bithore with the broad gauge network as its tribute to Martyr Tatya Tope at an estimated cost of Rs 15 crore. The gauge conversion work would be completed very soon and the section would be opened for passenger service during the current financial year. Prem Chand Gupta, Minister for Corporate Affairs has also announced that all possible efforts would be made to build the statue of Martyr Tatya Tope in Kanpur.
Among the two sisters, Pragati is an arts graduate with a diploma in Nursing and Teacher's Training and Tripti has finished her first year in Master's of Arts.
Speaking to Headlinesindia, Tripti said, “I do not know how to thank Laluji and I have never dreamed to get a railway job in my life. I am delighted and my sincere thanks to the Jha couple too.”
BAE: The World's Biggest Loose End
Source: Executive Intelligence Review
Lyndon LaRouche delivered an international webcast on June 21 in Washington, D.C.,
As the BAE scandal mounts, even in the U.S. press now, the time has come, as the Walrus said, "to speak of many things"—not of cabbages, but of kings.
What I'm going to do today, corresponds to the reality of the occasion: that things which I have said in other locations earlier, as in classes and various programs, will be reflected here, but they have not been presented in this way, before an audience of this type, an international audience of this type. So, this is going to strain some of you a bit, because we're dealing with areas in which the problems that confront mankind are mankind's acceptance of certain things as being assumably true, almost self-evident; and confining what they think is possible, to what they consider to be self-evidently true. And suddenly, what they consider to be self-evidently true, is no longer true! And really never was. But its truth has caught up with them.
We have come to the end of a period of history. The BAE crisis expresses that, reflects that—does not embody it, but expresses it symptomatically.
Now, we've come to the point, therefore, that where people have ordinarily operated, especially in the present generations, on the assumption that some things were self-evident, that you would start from agreement to self-evident things that almost everybody, considered educated or influential, believed. And that these things would persist and go on forever, more or less. And therefore, we need not worry about the need to make sudden deep-going changes in current policy, we merely had to adapt to variations in terms of the current trend. It's like the people who believe in the principles of Euclidean geometry. Now, Euclidean geometry was, from the beginning, a farce—in fact, it was a fraud, which many people have believed ever since. It's like modern Cartesian thinking. Most thinking about economics today, among professional economists, involves a more or less insane version of Cartesian thinking. That is, a mechanistic, statistical thinking where you start from certain statistical assumptions and project these out and say, "What date is the crash coming?" or "What date is this going to happen?" or "What date is that going to happen?" And society doesn't function like. But people believe that.
A Financial System Based on Gambling
As a matter of fact, the great danger of a financial crash today, is that most people, in what they call economics, believe actually not in economics: They believe in gambling. It's called a financial system. It's a gambling system. And people understanding that, ever since Galileo came up with this idea about gambling as the basis of discovering how markets would work, everyone has tried to get a better statistical system for gambling. Like breaking the bank at Monte Carlo, making a killing at Las Vegas, probably one's own. And therefore, these guys who are running the financial world today, depend on the assumption that they've got a "better system"—as they used to have at the race tracks, a "better system" for handicapping the horses. And it would really handicap the bettor, in the end, as he found himself on the street without cash—and being pursued by his lenders.
But what you've got today, as was typified in the calamity that occurred in August through October of 1998, was that the bettors now rely upon mathematics. And computers have helped them to do this: They can now bet faster, they can do mathematics faster than ever before, statistics faster than ever before. But they're all trying to find the best system of gambling. And they're all competing to get in on what they believe is the best system of gambling. The result is that, when all the gamblers come close to the same system of gambling against each other, but they're all gambling according to the same formula, what happens? They all go down together, in one big flop!
And that is what we saw a forecast of, in the events of the LTCM collapse in 1998: a general collapse of the system based on confidence, and competition, using the same system, as a world system which doesn't work at all. And they all went bankrupt.
And President Clinton and his Secretary of the Treasury [Robert Rubin] collaborated with others to organize a bailout, to postpone the inevitable collapse of the entire world system, which was implicit in what happened in September-October of 1998. We have never paid the bill for that bailout. We have been bailing things out more and more ever since. And we now have reached the point, that the system is about to collapse.
And the BAE collapse is not the cause of the problem, it is a symptom of the problem: Is that more and more, under a system which was established, a change in the system established with the election of a non-person as a President, George W. Bush, Jr., under his chimpanzee keeper, the Vice President, that the world was being run, more and more by what is behind the BAE. The BAE is actually better known as the British Empire. Some people call it the "Brutish Empire."
Now, not all the people in England are guilty of this. Many of them, even who are Brits or who believe in the imperial system, or the British Empire, or whatever, think that what is being done now by BAE is insane. They think that other things are insane: They know that the idea of global warming is a hoax—they know that. They know it's totally unscientific, and could not be sold to a society in which science was still known as a subject for most people of that generation. And therefore, not because they are anti-British, but because they know that the system which is being run by the Blair government and its associates in the British system, being run by Blair's friend Cheney, and others, that this system is clinically insane. And therefore, they object to it. And they raised objections to it, which are registered in places like the London Guardian, called Guardian Unlimited these days, and the British BBC, and other locations.
There was virtual silence on the subject of this, at least to its substance, inside the United States itself. It was only in the past three days, that there has been any appearance in the major English-speaking American press, of anything—even hinting at what has been the ongoing reality of this Bush Administration, since before the President was sworn in, in 2001. The world has been living under a system, which is the 9/11 system, which already existed, as I warned at the beginning of 2001, before President George W. Bush was inaugurated for the first time in January of 2001. Where I said: The world system has reached the point, that an onrushing collapse of the system is now in process. We can not determine exactly when or how this will occur, but we know the following two things: Number 1, we know that this President and this Presidency can not deal with this crisis. Therefore, we must expect that the entire world will be subjected to the kind of thing we experienced in February of 1933, when Hermann Göring, the man behind the throne, the sort of Dick Cheney of the Hitler Administration, orchestrated the burning of the Reichstag as a terrorist event. And this terrorist event was used on that night, or the following day, to install Hitler with dictatorial powers, which Hitler never lost, until the day he died!
And I said then, the danger is that something like this will occur, under present trends in the United States, and it did occur: And it was called 9/11.
Now, without going into the details of what we know and what we don't know about how 9/11 was orchestrated, we know that the only means by which this kind of thing is orchestrated, is found in one location: in a financial complex which is centered in the identity of the BAE. Now, that's the mystery of 9/11. How it was done, the mechanics—that's irrelevant. We'll find out. And everybody in and around government, who understands these matters, knows that! And that's where the heat is here.
We've come to the point, that an entire system, is collapsing. That system, at this point, because of the complicity of the present U.S. government, and the complicity of the leadership of the Democratic Party, as well as the Republican Party, because of this, we are living under a one-world system, called generically "globalization." It's a preparation for the new Tower of Babel, under which there are no nations, and in which languages begin to become babble.
Under this system, what controls it? It's called "globalization"; it's called the "global warming crisis"; it's called these various kinds of things, referring to these things. It's a one-world system! It is not consolidated, but every obstacle to this one-world system is crumbling. Every government of Europe—and you will see soon in France, that this is also true, there—every government in Central and Western Europe is today ungovernable. They may or may not be called, at the present time, "failed states." But they are at the brink of being failed states, which can no longer govern themselves. They are in the process, in Europe, of surrendering, from the Russian and Belarus border westward, they're surrendering their powers of government, to international agencies and supranational agencies. Germany, since the passing of the Schröder Administration, no longer really governs itself. Italy is struggling to maintain an appearance of government, under conditions in which government is not possible as long as the euro continues to exist. France: We saw the newly elected President of France, Sarkozy, had a meeting with the President of Russia, and came back giggling like a silly girl on a drunk.
You're in this kind of world!
We Live Under a Dictatorship
Now, there are other characteristics of this world. We have entered into a period of generalized warfare. Now, this did not start now. What we're seeing now is the culmination of a process which has been going on, actually since the time that Kennedy was shot. Since the time that Kennedy was shot, there's been a change in world politics, a change in direction in world politics, which was signaled soon by the launching by the U.S. war in Indo-China. And that led into what became 1968, which was the general breakup of the Democratic Party, and you had a new kind of government under parties since then.
The lower 80% of the U.S. population, the adult population, which had had a dominant influence under Roosevelt, and continued to have a strong influence in the United States until that point, began to lose its power. The upper 20% of family-income brackets are the ones who control politics today. And the upper 20% that control politics today, are controlled by an upper 3% that control the greatest concentration of money we've ever seen percentile-wise in world history.
We live under a dictatorship, in which the lower 80%, the conditions of life, in our own country, are that nature. And the Democratic Party reflects that. It no longer responds to its own political base. The Republican Party is, in a sense, breaking up. Because they can not accept the Bush Administration and what it represents. And it's looking for a new destiny, either in one of several directions, and there may be an upheaval. You have candidates, including Presidential candidates in the Democratic Party for whom I have personal respect as individuals, intellectually. But their performance as candidates, so far, is no less than disgusting! Especially given the real conditions.
You have a majority of the Democratic Party base, is calling for the impeachment of Cheney—suddenly. They want a sudden impeachment, not a long process. And that could be arranged for them. You could walk to Cheney with the right message, and you say, "Dear Dick..." And he would go out with a sour face the next morning and say, "I've decided my potato patch is being neglected. I've got resign and get back there and take care of those potatoes!" That's the way a corporate president usually goes out suddenly, you know. He's suddenly got an urge to get back to the potato patch. And they let him do that, and everybody knew he'd been fired. So, a message that he could not refuse would be given to Cheney. He would not be impeached; he wouldn't have to be impeached, he'd resign. And that could be orchestrated, if you wished to do that.
If the Democratic Party had the guts!
But the Democratic Party can't function. Why? Look at all the money that is being spent on the Democratic candidates? Whose money is it? It's your money, they don't have. It's fake money! It's hedge fund money. It's borrowing against banks and other institutions now, to create a mass of credit, which is fake credit—it's a promissory note—to go out in the world, and say, "We're going to buy this, we're going to buy that, and we're going to buy that. We're taking over your corporation!" Why? "We're going to buy your stockholders. And therefore you can't prevent us from taking over your stockholders. We have a mass of money that says, we can buy your stockholders. Therefore, we own your corporation: Turn it over, buddy! Turn it over, buddy!" They don't have real assets there! These are fake, inflated assets—largely artificial. And they move in, as these hedge funds, and they take over.
Well, what's the center of this thing? The center of this is the Cayman Islands, the British monarchy's Cayman Islands and similar locations run by the same organization, the British Empire, in its modern form, which is expressed by BAE. And a few hundred billion dollars, which are associated with BAE-related operations, now become multiplied by these kinds of markets into a gigantic fund, which controls, in financing, many of the operations which are controlled. And look at the contributions to the Democratic Party candidates, and Republican candidates, for President! Look at the composition of the funding for these candidacies! Look at the funding of the Democratic National Committee, the campaign committee: Who's doing it? George Soros? Well, he's one thing. Nazi Felix Rohatyn, that's another thing. He's nominally a Democrat. He's a Pinochet Democrat! He's the guy who headed up a financial institution which was the backing of Pinochet's taking over and setting up a dictatorship in Chile. And Pinochet was an integral part of BAE, and the operation. He was also part of a death squad operation which ran across the Southern Cone of South America, and these kinds of things.
So, we're in this kind of period. Now, this didn't start recently. But we're seeing now, this culmination of a concentration of power under the Bush-Cheney Administration, a concentration of power under the leadership and control of the powers that control the British Empire. That's the situation. This empire, this gambling system, is now in a process of collapsing. It's at the verge of collapse. It is therefore moving, to take total world power. Because if you take total world power, then nobody can say otherwise. And your problems are solved: You decide what money is and what isn't, because you have a world dictatorship.
They don't yet have a world dictatorship. And therefore, we, as citizens of the United States and other nations, have to act and say, "We're not going to let you have that power! We're going to stop you, now!"
And history intervenes at times, to present us with the opportunity to do this, the occasion to do this. That time is now. And that's what my subject is today.
And therefore, because of that, what I shall say to you today, is rather different than what I have said, in terms of quality of subject matter in public occasions of this type, earlier. Because what I said earlier, which I've said to smaller audiences, in print, and so forth, internationally, repeatedly, and I've said it plainly enough, I've not said in this form, in this kind of audience. Because it would not have been appropriate earlier. Why? Because the public was not scared enough, and not shocked enough, to realize that changes had to be made.
The Difference Between Man and Monkey
You know, people are not as smart as they think they are. Human beings have great powers of intelligence that no other living creature has. They create science, they create the mastery of the universe, they create the changes in culture, which raise the conditions of life of mankind. But sometimes, they behave like silly children. And the more adults, and the more adulterated they become... [video clip of chimpanzees] the more "perfect" their childishness becomes!
Now, what form does this take? We have a basement operation out there, nearby, and people have been going through in groups of five, six, or seven, at a crack, in reliving the experience of making the fundamental discoveries, a linked series of fundamental discoveries which embrace the entirety of scientific progress of European civilization, from the time of the ancient Pythagoreans, about the time of the 7th Century B.C., up to the present time; or up to a recent time, when we still practiced science. And so, we have young people going through, step by step, working through, experiencing—not being taught, to pass an examination on this subject or that subject—but going through the process of making discoveries themselves, which are a replication of the experience of earlier scientists, and making the discoveries on which the scientific achievements of European civilization, globally, have depended. From the time of the Pythagoreans, from the time of Solon of Athens, the time of Thales, up to recent times. The achievements of progress of European civilization, with fits and starts all along the way, especially those of modern civilization.
Now, therefore, in dealing with the difference between man and the monkey, as the core of what I'm talking about today: That we have to get beyond the assumption that what we have experienced, and what has become generally accepted opinion, so-called "self-evident rules of behavior," of the recent generation, or the recent one or two generations, the idea that this "self-evident knowledge," which is taken as self-evident, as common sense among most people in society—this is nonsense. But people believe in it. And they believe that there's no possibility of a course of action, which could occur, which would be accepted, would be allowed to occur, outside the framework of so-called "self-evident truths." Which generally broke down to "generally accepted current popular opinion."
So therefore, when you present them with evidence, that the present system itself, the system to which they are accustomed, is in a process of self-destruction and collapse, they say, "Ah! You're silly! You must be some kind of a nut—what's this?" They will say, "Everybody knows you're wrong!"
But it's the system that's wrong! And what everybody knows, is what's stupid!
But! As long as long as people believe that popular opinion, or what passes for popular opinion, among the most recent couple of generations, what they get from the textbooks, what they get from the so-called authorities, what they hear from, you know, "people in the know"—that this is the boundary condition which determines what is "acceptable behavior," by the individual or by the group in society, and therefore, people limit their choices of action to what they believe are acceptable premises of action. They don't question the premises themselves, just the same way that foolish people in school accept Euclidean geometry as being science, or Cartesian mechanistic forecasting as science.
So, until this kind of assumption is called into question, you do not say publicly, in the manner I'm speaking now, that "the system is coming down!" Because now the time has come, you have to accept the fact—if you're sane—that the system is coming down. And one by one, like tenpins in a bowling alley, Senators and others, who two weeks ago would have rejected what I was saying now, will shudder, and say, "I'm afraid he might be right!"
The time has come: The system must change. It is not within the framework of these so-called current traditions, or current public opinion, that mankind has a future. We're on the verge of a global dark age.
The 'Military-Industrial Complex'
Now, the signs of this, have been coming at us for a long time. Look at the area of Southwest Asia, and some other places, and look at what we call "prolonged warfare."
All right: Kennedy was killed. He was killed for a reason. It was not by a lone assassin—it may have been a loan shark, but not a lone assassin. He was killed to get him out of the way. Because, what Eisenhower had identified as the "military-industrial complex," in his outgoing address as President of the United States, is the process, which is the same process which we identify in the press today as the BAE phenomenon. It's a process that actually came into being under Hitler, and Mussolini, which was stopped by the intervention of Roosevelt.
On the day Roosevelt died, or a few days later, when Truman discovered that we had nuclear weapons, and decided to drop these nuclear weapons on the civilian populations of two cities, of a defeated Japan, before allowing the surrender to occur, we had entered a new age, to which Dwight Eisenhower, as outgoing President, referred to as the "military-industrial complex."
The military-industrial complex came out of a division in Anglo-American policy during and after the war. Remember, that Hitler was put into power, like Mussolini, largely from Britain and the United States. For example, Averell Harriman, from Brown Brothers Harriman, together with the head of the Bank of England at that time, was responsible for the sponsorship of making Hitler a dictator of Germany. When Roosevelt became President, over a period of time, Roosevelt induced the British to finally give up this idea of backing a Mussolini and Hitler. The financial establishment of Wall Street in that period, was behind Hitler, as they had been behind Mussolini, and their intentions were exactly in that direction.
Their intentions were the same thing as global warming today: It was called then, "eugenics." Get rid of the excessive people, particularly the ones whose skin color you didn't like. They weren't bleached enough. Eugenics: It was a program of murder. This was the program on which the Nazi party was founded, was eugenics—which is the same thing as global warming, today, exactly the same ideology, rewarmed with a new name, but with the same intention.
So, these guys put Mussolini into power; they put Hitler into power. They intended to establish a world dictatorship, in which the United States would destroy itself as a power—because we were a power, then—and in which they could run the world, as a one-world power. Which has always been the intention, since 1763, since the British Empire actually was created by the Treaty of Paris, in February 1763, by the British East India Company.
And what you're seeing today, with BAE, you're seeing a corporate structure in the heritage of the British East India Company—the Anglo-Dutch Liberal East India Company—which created the British Empire, and for many years, when the monarchy was simply a fixture attached to it, the Anglo-Dutch East India Company, the Liberals, through banking, controlled the entire British Empire. The occupation of India by the British Empire, was done by a private company!—the British East India Company. China was destroyed: By what? By the British East India Company, with the opium trade and similar kinds of things. The world was controlled by this financial octopus, this new Venetian empire. And that has run things.
The United States has emerged as the only significant challenger to this issue of empire, since 1763. That was the division. In 1763, the word came down about the Treaty of Paris. And the ranks of the leading circles in North America were divided: One group, the patriotic group, gathered around Benjamin Franklin, this group created the American Revolution, and the American System, whose roots had already been developed inside the Americas before then. And we had a character, an anti-oligarchical character, which was different than that of Europe.
And the other faction, which is still the so-called Wall Street faction and similar types today, were the people who joined with the British East India Company against Franklin and company. And their goal has always been to re-absorb North America into the British System as a part of the English-speaking system. That's been their purpose. And they've worked from inside the United States to destroy those aspects of our system, which are embedded in our Constitution and Declaration of Independence.
Other parts of the world have had importance, and do have importance. But it's the challenge between two English-speaking societies, that of the United States, as the model republic, and that of the British Empire, as the opposition, the Anglo-Dutch Liberal opposition: That has been the dominant feature of all the major wars on this planet, since that time.
So, we now come to a point, that the British Empire in that form, has consolidated itself to the point, that it will either fall, now, in this form, or in its attempt to impose an empire, or the whole planet will go into a dark age: That's where we stand.
So, now the time for change is obvious.
Now, remember how this thing [the breaking of the BAE scandal] happened: For weeks, there was no whisper of this issue, inside the press of the United States, the leading press; among the politicians, members of the Senate had no idea that such a thing was going on—but it had been going on! It was going on! It was the secret behind the Vietnam War. It was the secret behind the great war in Southwest Asia, between Iraq and Iran, during the 1980s. It was the first U.S. Iraq War. It was the Afghanistan occupation, continuing. It is the new Iraq War. It is the spread of war throughout all Southwest Asia. It's all a struggle for the British Empire! And the struggle to corrupt the United States, and destroy it.
Now, what happened? In the history of the United States, when Abraham Lincoln led a fight to defeat the British Confederacy—and the Confederacy was nothing but a tool of the British East India Company interests—when we won that war, we established in the United States, a scheme which had been defined by John Quincy Adams when he had been Secretary of State: to define the United States as a continental nation, from Atlantic to Pacific, with northern borders, Canada, and southern borders, Mexico. That had been our intention. When Lincoln led the victory over the British and French, in the freeing of the United States, and of Mexico, from this oppression, the United States emerged with a wave of immigration from Europe, with a transcontinental railway system and other developments. We emerged as a power which could no longer be destroyed by invasion of foreign forces.
We also emerged over the period 1865-1877, as a leading influence for reform throughout Eurasia. We had, 1877, Japan: an economic reform, organized from the United States. Russia, same period, organized from the United States, under Mendeleyev's leadership. Germany, under Bismarck, 1877-1879, the Bismarck reforms, under the influence of the United States, directly, and Henry C. Carey in particular. And similar things in other parts of the world. We became a challenge, not as a threat to establish an American empire. We became a challenge, because we were promoting, in Asia and other parts of the world, the development of sovereign nation-state republics, which would use the advantages of our experience, for their own, independent development, and cooperation, and mutual defense.
To defeat this, the British Empire organized two World Wars, starting with the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95. And the continuous war of the British Empire through its toady, Japan, between 1895 and 1945, was a continuous part of this process. The destruction of China, which threatened to become a great power, was one of the purposes of this operation.
So there had been a global struggle: We had one world war; we had a Second World War, for this purpose! We went through a so-called Cold War, which involved the same issue.
We now have come to the final stage, of a threatened destruction of the world order, in order to create a new Tower of Babel, called "globalization," or "global warming," under the leadership of these financier interests, which are imperial in origin.
'No Old Men Among You'
Now, this issue, is one that the politicians, the poor foolish politicians who run our country, refuse to understand. They have no long memories! If you read Plato's Republic and his Timaeus, you recall his report of a visit with the Egyptian priesthood, who said to the Greeks, "You Greeks are intelligent, you're fine. But you have no old men among you." By which the Egyptians meant, "you had lost your identity in the processes of history which gave birth to you." We, in the United States represent the outcome of the birth of European civilization, a birth which was accomplished largely through the influence of Egypt, or certain forces in Egypt. This is where our science came from, which was called among the Pythagoreans, Sphaerics, which relates to physical astronomy. This is where our culture began, as typified by the case of Solon of Athens, with the first conception of a true nation-state, a nation-state of the people. And our power has been, largely, that we have been, in the United States, in that conscious tradition.
The founders of the United States, the authors of our Declaration of Independence, the authors of our Federal Constitution, the leaders of the veterans of the Revolutionary War, the Cincinnatus Society, all understood, that the root of our republic, lay in the precedence and lessons of Solon of Athens' reforms. Those are the terms in which they spoke of it. We were an attempt to free mankind as a whole, not by conquering it, but from the inside, from a division of mankind into two classes, of rulers and animals, human animals, human cattle. Most people in most parts of the world, in most societies have lived, not as human beings, but as human cattle. Under the ban from knowledge, as knowledge, as specified by the case of Zeus, Olympian Zeus, of the Prometheus Bound story.
Now, the birth of European civilization, with Athens, was a threat to the imperial forces of Eurasia. And therefore, an operation was run, quite similar to an operation run against the people of the United States, at the end of World War II, which produced the Baby-Boomer generation—a brainwashing operation, mass brainwashing operation, called sophistry; or called, in the case of the post-war generations of Europe and the United States, existentialism. This corruption denied the existence of universal physical principles, which were knowable to the mind of the human individual. And said, "You don't know anything. You only know what is generally accepted, or will be generally accepted. You know the consensus! You don't know whether it's true or not. You know you have to obey it, because it's on top. And if you want to get ahead in this world, you have to submit to the consensus." There is no question of certainty of knowledge, there's no scientific certainty in it.
So therefore, what happened? We had, in our country, at the time that Roosevelt died, we had children who were what came to be called "the white-collar class," from 1946 through about 1958. And these young children, who generally would orient toward the military-industrial complex types of people and that sort of thing, became the "Golden Generation" of the 1960s. They no longer believed in science. They no longer believed in truth. They believed in being accepted. They believed in a consensus:, a white-collar consensus. They didn't like working people. They didn't like farmers. They didn't like science. They liked mathematics, but not science, hmm? They liked to calculate... you know. They didn't like to earn money, they liked to grab it.
So, they became a generation which exploded under the influence, from Europe, of the existentialist conditioning. And they exploded in the middle of the 1960s, following the assassination of Kennedy, which was a blow of demoralization to the American people at that time; and the following of the assassination of Kennedy with the launching of the Indo-China War. This demoralized the American people. You saw the balls of rage rolling in the streets in 1968, in Europe and the Americas, and elsewhere.
So this generation, the white-collar generation, which hated working people; they hated trade unionists, they hated blue-collar people; they hated farmers; they hated science. Now, that doesn't mean all of them were against science, or all of them were against agriculture and industry. But! They understood one thing: They had no principle. They had a principle of "going along to get along," a principle of accepting the consensus of their generation, their particular stratum.
And this became the Golden Generation, which more and more, reshaped the country. For example: 1968. Nineteen sixty-eight, the revolt of the 68ers destroyed the Democratic Party on the white-collar versus blue-collar issue! So, the Democratic Party was smashed, by its own complicity in the Vietnam War. And by this. Therefore, we got a virtual dictatorship, under Nixon. It wasn't Nixon's dictatorship, it was a group of people: It was the military-industrial complex. They took us over.
And bit by bit, they destroyed everything. They destroyed agriculture, they destroyed our monetary system, on which our strength had depended. They destroyed the farmers, they destroyed the industries, they destroyed science. And they got more and more power, and more and more fantasy.
And my generation began to die out. We don't have a generation of scientists and engineers of the type we had, still, back in the 1970s: We don't have that any more! We have a fraction of that! We don't have a scientific-industrial capability any more. We have a little bit of it, surviving in the military sector, of military production, predominantly. We've lost it. We've shipped our industries, our agriculture overseas. We're destroying our farmers! We're growing crops to make fuel!—not to feed people, in a world shortage of food.
The Face of the Enemy Is Exposed
So, we've come to the point, the system doesn't work! And the breakdown is now obvious. And the face of the enemy has exposed itself, in the BAE. And the exposure of the BAE, has come not from the Americans, it has come, largely, from the ranks of the British. The same faction in Britain, which opposed the global warming swindle. It's a complete fraud: There's no scientific basis for global warming. It's all a fraud, a hoax. But Baby-Boomers don't know any better! They keep suckin' on the bottle!
But, a group in England, in Britain, which recognizes that the British Empire is sending itself to Hell, objected to global warming, just as they objected to this operation, this Iraq War, and similar kinds of wars; just as they objected to this kind of financial operation, the BAE swindle.
So, a section in Britain, itself, through the BBC, through the Guardian, and through others, made this issue clear! And gradually, this thing spread here.
We were on top of it, of course, from the beginning, because we knew it; we understood it. But up until about three days ago, you could not find any large constituency for what I'm saying now about BAE, in the Congress of the United States or in any other part of the United States—you couldn't find it. You had a pall of stupidity and ignorance, control the minds of the Senate, the House of Representatives, and more. That doesn't mean they're not intelligent people, but they believe in consensus. They believe in adapting to what they consider popular opinion. They believe in "going along to get along." They believe that so-called "traditions," confine what is allowed and what is not allowed in society: that you have to work within the bounds of those limitations.
And I say today, we're now going to have to proceed; it having been shown that the whole culture we have stinks and is doomed. It's a sinking ship, and don't try to get a better stateroom on the Titanic simply because some people are leaving it.
Therefore, the question is, what is human nature? Why should we believe that mankind, which has allowed this swindle to dominate humanity for so many centuries, that there's something in mankind today, that would enable people who have made the biggest fools of themselves imaginable, would suddenly become brilliant and make the right decision about the future of mankind? I have to tell you: On this question, I'm an optimist. I believe in mankind. Just because he cleverly made himself appear to be so stupid, doesn't mean he's quite that stupid. Time for the stupidity act to end.
All right, now therefore, what I've said so far, is a preface for what I'm about to say. And the question is, human nature: Is man an ape? [video clip of chimps] Now, is that man? It could be Frederick Engels, but not man! George Bush would give you a good imitation of that.
All right. Now, we want to get to this question. The question, is this first question which we put on the board. You had a book which was written a long time ago, it's called the Book of Genesis; it's called the First Chapter of Genesis. Now, in it, there are three sentences, three verses, which I want to call your attention to, and present these, not as some kind of arbitrary religious belief, of some Hebrews off there in the Sinai Desert (where they're not allowed to function, today, or something). Anyway, but, actually, as an observation by knowledgeable people, presumably Moses of Egypt, who, looking at reality, are describing what they see as the reality of the circumstance in which they're living. And they state: There are certain things we can see, and they sum up in these three verses. That mankind, as Vernadsky would agree, from a scientific standpoint, mankind is not an ape, nor is mankind a form of animal life. We have a bodily form of animal life, but we also have powers, as thinking powers and creative powers, which no animal has.
These creative powers endow us with a certain quality of potential immortality. In what sense? That, we are capable, as mankind, of discovering the lawful composition of our universe. We call these "universal physical principles" for example: such as Kepler's discovery of the principle of universal gravitation, which he uniquely discovered.
And therefore, mankind, as having these powers, the power to discover universal physical principles, uses these powers to increase mankind's power to exist in and over the universe, as no species of animal can. Every animal species has a potential relative population density, which is characteristic of that species, which varies with the environment in which the species operates, but can not be willfully changed by a member of the species. Mankind is capable, through the discovery and realization of universal physical principles, of changing the universe. And in these three verses from the closing portion of the chapter of Genesis, you have—just think, not of someone preaching a doctrine, or an arbitrary belief—but someone simply saying, "Here is what the truth is, about ourselves. Man and woman are distinct from all forms of animal life, in that they have these powers and responsibilities, in the universe, the power to change the universe for the better. We have a stewardship in the universe, that of mankind."
And therefore, human life is immortal, in that sense.
The Birth of European Civilization
For example, go back to the history of this issue of creativity. Go back to the history itself: What we have as European civilization was born about 700 B.C. Europe had been in a prolonged dark age for some period of time, and under the initiative of a revival of civilization, in Egypt after a dark age, Egypt reached out to places such as Ionia, where there was a maritime culture [Figure 1]. But this region—you have an area there which is Magna Graecia, Greece as such, including the part into Ionia, which is the Greek culture. It allied itself with the Etruscans, who dominated an area from about the Tiber northward, to about the island of Elba and inward, which was the leading maritime culture of that time. They probably were a branch of the Hittite culture, which had been the only iron-processing culture in the whole Mediterranean region of that period. And then you had, in the north of Africa, you had this one area of Cyrenaica, is the area of Egypt's maritime culture. This is called Cyrenaica to the present day. It's this area, which is a rich area, potentially, and was rich at that time. And it was known for such people as, later Eratosthenes, who was actually of Cyrenaican extraction, and who was a representative of the Platonic Academy at Athens, and was the leading scientist of Egypt. He died just before 200 B.C., which was about the time the Roman Empire was coming up, and civilization was being destroyed.
So, our birth of civilization is located essentially in a struggle centered in this area, from about 700 B.C. to about 200 B.C., from the time of the Pythagoreans and the emergence of Solon and so forth, into those times.
But in this, there was a struggle, and the struggle was typified by the Cult at Delphi, the the Apollo-Dionysos Cult of Delphi. Which was tied to the surrounding region of that area, which was dominated by imperial powers, such as Babylon, such as the Persian Empire, the Achaemenid Empire, and other kinds of empires.
So, at this point, the significance of the birth of European culture, is a revolt typified by the role of Solon in Athens, the image of Solon, on which the idea of the United States was premised: an image of what man could be, an image of a republic, a true republic. Against a system, under which 80% or more of the human population of any area, were essentially treated as human cattle. This is the distinction, the good distinction, of European civilization: Its greatest heritage comes from this emergence, at least in known history, the emergence of this idea, of this conception.
Now, the struggle inside Greece itself, has been the principal font of our understanding of history, that is, European history begins approximately about 700 B.C. That is, a conscious history that we are dealing with a society organized around ideas and a consciousness of these ideas. So, the struggle, the difference between the form of society, in which mankind, all mankind, is treated as being human, as having these powers of creativity, in which there was development of the totality of the society as human.
Now, what is this difference between man and the beast? The difference between man and the beast, is essentially that of the discovery of a universal physical principle, that's the exemplification of this. The work of the Pythagoreans was typical of this. The work of Plato and his circles was typical of this.
But on the other side, the order was, as is presented dramatically in the middle section of the Prometheus Trilogy of Aeschylus, that the god, the evil god, the Zeus of Olympus, decrees that mankind shall not know the secret of the use of fire. Including such things as nuclear fission. And that man must therefore be maintained as human cattle. And the tradition of most cultures has been to condemn most of humanity to the condition of human cattle. In modern society, this takes a special form, it's called empiricism: in which you deny the knowledge of the existence of a principle—I'll come to this—and in place of this idea of principle, in modern society, we have the idea of liberalism, which is what the Anglo-Dutch Liberal system is based upon.
Therefore, the key thing here, to understand, is what do we mean, by the discovery of a universal physical principle? This is the simplest modern example of what we mean by a universal physical principle. [Animated figure of Earth orbiting around the Sun (see wlym.com/@slanimations).] Which some people in this room understand, because they're well educated. They educated themselves.
What we're looking at here is an image, and this is an image based on actual data, an image of the Earth's orbiting of the Sun. Now, this orbit, even though it may appear to be circular, is not really, truly circular. It's actually elliptical. Now, you get the closeup, and let's describe this orbit. Because the discovery of this orbit by Kepler, is actually the foundation of all competent modern, physical science. This is not the complete discovery. Now, as you get to the smaller area, you're in an elliptical area. This planet's moving along an elliptical course: What does that mean? But it's not just an elliptical course. There's a principle involved. The rate of motion is changing. What is governing the change of the rate of motion? Well, Kepler called it "equal areas/equal times": That is, the sector, or the sector defined by the position of the Sun with respect to the planet, sweeps out a sector of the ellipse; and the rate of movement within the ellipse corresponds to the relative area which is being generated: equal area/equal time.
Now, what this means is, is that there is a principle operating here, for which this is only the shadow. The actual movement of the planet, according to equal area/equal time, is only the shadow of something, of a principle. What is that principle? The principle is what we call an "infinitesimal." Now, contrary to idiots, the infinitesimal is not a dot. The infinitesimal is a rate of change in the smallest degree—a rate of change of velocity, of angular velocity. So, it's a rate of change of the velocity, not a rate of change of a size of a dot.
Now, this discovery by Kepler, was attributable to a discovery made earlier by a predecessor whom he much admired, the fount of modern physical science: Nicholas of Cusa. And Nicholas of Cusa, in an exhaustive study of what the Italians had brought back from Greece, from certain libraries in Greece, demonstrated that Archimedes had made a great mistake. Archimedes' notion of the construction of the circle by quadrature was false. You could not, by successive approximation of getting smaller and smaller intervals, smaller and smaller polygons, you could not approach the truth of the existence of the circle. The existence of the circle involves the same principle as the principle of the sphere: It's a rate of change in the dynamic, in the motive of action.
Modern Science Begins with Kepler
So, this discovery is the foundation of all modern physical science. Or the implications of this discovery are the basis for modern science. As Einstein said back in the 1950s, if you take the development of physical science, which begins with the discoveries by Kepler, it extends as a continuing process through the work of Bernhard Riemann, which is the extent of all modern physical science.
Now, this science—Kepler's discoveries are not only the beginning point of all competent modern physical science. They contain, continuously, the foundations of the process of discovery, of all modern physical science. If you don't know Kepler, you don't know physical science. You may know how to report about it, you may know how to describe the experience of seeing it happen. You may know how to make a picture of it. But you don't know what it is.
And you have to go back to Kepler, because no one, ever in the history of successful modern science, ever went a step forward by excluding Kepler. Kepler is embedded in the foundation of science, just as those who preceded Kepler among the ancient Pythagoreans and the followers of Plato, they are embedded in the work of Cusa; they are embedded in the work of Kepler. They remain an integral part of the human knowledge of science. It's not something you left behind, and went on to something else. It's something which is in there at all times, and never departs! It is truly universal. And that's the difference.
So therefore, as Einstein said, you start with Kepler, and there's a continuity of development, unbroken development, from Kepler through the work of Riemann, in terms of physical geometry. And all competent physical geometry, all competent modern science—including modern economic science!—can only be obtained from Riemann, by that method.
So you have Kepler's work, starts it. Kepler poses a problem—now go to Fermat. Now, Fermat—I give the dates here to give you some sense of lapsed time. Fermat made a discovery which was called a principle of least action. And this principle of least action became crucial in shaping the thinking of 17th-Century physical science. In the end of the 17th Century, Leibniz, who was the discoverer of the calculus—Leibniz's calculus is based on Kepler. It's based on Kepler's principle I just indicated to you, the principle of gravitation—the same principle as gravitation. The infinitesimal is the constant rate of change of the action, as you see in the case of the Earth's orbit.
So, the question came up—in Fermat's work: What is the actual pathway of least action, in physical space-time? And therefore, through the work of Fermat, applied to the challenge posed by Leibniz, we had the development of what was called the universal physical principle of least action. Which, again, is an integral part of science, and the Leibniz principle of universal physical least action is an integral part of all competent science, today. It never went away; it's there; it's expanded; it's improved upon: But it remains there, vibrating. Pushing. Always motivating. Every student who comes along, who learns science, has that in their mind; it's in their mind, vibrating, constantly.
Then you get from Fermat, you get this development around Leibniz, and there are many people involved in this. So, again, Leibniz sets this into motion, together with a fellow called Jean Bernouilli, which defines this as a field of science, the modern sciences, based on this conception. And it's based on the catenary. I'll give you an example of this—we didn't put this on the screen, but... Back, shortly before Nicholas of Cusa, who was the founder of modern science, you had a fellow called Brunelleschi, Filippo Brunelleschi, in Italy, in Florence. Now, Florence Cathedral was not completed at that point, it has a hole at the top, where there was supposed to be this dome, called a cupola. And the problem was, that if you were going to build this dome, to complete the cathedral, you wouldn't have enough wood in Italy available to build the supporting structure around which to erect this dome. But then, if you look as I did, some years ago, on this Brunelleschi thing, and you look carefully at the structure of that cupola, and you find the hanging-chain formation in there, the shape is in there: that Brunelleschi used a hanging chain as the guide for constructing the cupola, without using all that wood that wasn't available.
So, this hanging-chain phenomenon is called the catenary. And the significance of the catenary was actually discovered fully, by Leibniz and Bernouilli. And it's the underlying principle of the principle of universal least action, which is embedded in all science. It's sitting there vibrating to the present day! You can't get rid of it. You can't go any further without it.
And this led, then, to the later developments, beyond Bernouilli. Now you get Kästner and Gauss. Now, who's Kästner? Well, Kästner's a very important appearance in American history. Kästner was born in 1719, in Leipzig, which is about three years after the death of Leibniz, who had also been born in Leipzig. And he became a leading teacher of science. He became the leading teacher of mathematics, and the history of mathematics in Germany, and he still is a foundation of a competent education in mathematics to the present day. But Kästner, among his other students, was a prominent influence on a number of important historical people, historical in the sense of the American Revolution. Because in the 1750s and 1760s, there arose a revolt against some disgusting things by two fellows, one, Moses Mendelssohn, and his friend, Gotthold Lessing, who was also a great artist, and so forth. And their intervention against corruption in science in the Berlin Academy, was the foundation for the development of the Classical culture in Germany, and spreading into other countries, in the late 18th Century.
And Kästner was the guy who inspired this. Shakespeare was revived, actually in German, from ruin, by Kästner, who got his young friends to proceed in organizing around this. And we have Shakespeare today because of Kästner.
Kästner was the first proponent in modern science of an explicit anti-Euclidean geometry for example. He died in 1800. And he was the inspirer, one of the key inspirers of Gauss. And you don't understand Gauss's work, unless you understand the work of Kästner, for various reasons that some people working in the basement now are beginning to understand.
Beyond Gauss, to Riemann
Then you have the next case: You go beyond Gauss, the basis for the conception of modern science. And the question that Gauss posed in this issue of dealing with asteroid problem, was, the idiot in science will write a formula and tell you this formula is responsible for this particular trajectory phenomenon in physical science. But that's not true! In no science is that true. In so-called mathematical science, or based on mathematics, it's assumed that the form that you can describe mathematically, is the cause of its existence. Whereas, in point of fact, as in the case of Gauss, who posed the same question which had been posed in a different way earlier by others, the question was: You have a trajectory, a planetary trajectory. What moves it?
Don't assume the description of the pathway it takes when moved is the cause of that motion. What moves it? And the secret for how the trajectory is determined is determined by that which moves it. And this leads to some wonderful things, which I won't go into here, but which we're doing down in the basement. If you ever get lucky, and get promoted into the basement, you will find out about such things. I won't tell you! I don't tell people secrets in the basement—maybe a few, here and there. But they find out for themselves. But it's a magic basement. If you get in that basement, and you work hard, the discovery will overwhelm you.
All right. Now, this leads to, again, the completion of what Einstein described as the first phase of all modern science. This is the 1950s, Einstein. What is it? Riemann.
What Riemann did was to free you from the Democratic Party leadership! In 1854, he wrote his famous Habilitationschriften. This is the paper which was used to qualify him as a professor at Göttingen University. And in this paper, he opens up, and he eliminated all assumptions, axioms, and postulates from geometry. And he says that only physical, experimental evidence can define the way that the physical universe is organized. Which is what I do, is my work in this.
Now, what's the point here? The point is, the same thing as Gauss: Motive!
Don't tell me that a mathematical pattern has determined a mathematical pattern. I don't promote masturbation.
What has motivated that? That particular form of existence, that expression of existence?
Therefore, what it comes down to this: That science, instead of being a conception of a predetermined set of principles, so-called self-evident principles which define the universe as a Cartesian model does, or most economists do, you have to say, "What is the principle that motivates a pattern of action?" What's the principle? And therefore, you define the universe as Einstein does, and as Riemann does implicitly, as composed of principles: universal principles.
What does that mean? That means, for example: It amuses some people to be told, there's nothing outside the universe. Nor does the universe have a boundary which defines its limit. The universe is the expression of the motivations which generate the forms of existence we experience in the universe. And therefore, knowledge of principles, is the derivative.
Now, what does this mean, again, in turn? What does it say about man? Only mankind, among living creatures, can discover a universal physical principle. And by discovering that principle as a motive, governing the way something can act, and using that motive, that principle, you can change the universe in which you're operating. Only man can do that. The monkey, the chimpanzee can not do it. The typical professor at a university can not do it. No matter how much he monkeys around with science—he can't do it.
Therefore, instead of seeing the universe as being a Cartesian manifold, or a Euclidean manifold, stretched out in all directions, you see the universe as bounded by the principles, not by an area, but by the principles which control all that happens within it, all the motives, the principles. Mankind can discover these principles, but by discovering a principle which has been previously unused by mankind, mankind is able to increase man's power to exist in the universe, and is capable of changing the geometry of the universe in which we live. The ability to get beyond the population level of several millions of individuals at any one time, of a monkey, of an ape—a gorilla, or chimpanzee: What's the difference between man and the chimpanzee? The essential difference, is man's ability with the human mind, to discover experimentally, by these kinds of standards, to discover the meaning of principle. And to apply that principle to previously existing practice, in a way to change that practice qualitatively.
This, in science, is called "machine-tool design." What they used to do in the auto industry, when they were allowed to make automobiles in the United States. Machine-tool design. You discover a principle you didn't know before, or you didn't know how to apply before. You apply this principle to something you were already doing. You transform the quality of that operation, by introducing that principle: And you change the universe. You increase man's power to exist. You increase the density of population you can sustain. You increase the life expectancy of mankind. And you build in the individual a sense of an immortal personality, who is participating in the process of increasing the knowledge of mankind, from generation to generation, in a practical way, for the benefit of mankind.
So therefore, you have this problem: A monkey dies. An ape dies. A current President dies. What's left behind? Nothing. It's gone. It's a sad case, a human being who acts like a monkey, lives like a monkey, doesn't make any discoveries. Doesn't even repeat discoveries made by people before him. Just keeps on going, scratching. Like Bush.
This person has no sense of immortality! We all die. We all have human bodies, we die. The human body fails us, it quits on us. The car quits. Breaks down on the highway—you know, like a typical LPAC car. But the immortal occupant of the car, lives on! Hopefully.
No, so the point is, is that humanity is, essentially, potentially immortal: Because, that which is part of us, as human beings, is not merely this physical animal part that we inhabit. It's what we represent through such means as learning to re-experience discoveries of principle, and carrying them on and on to future generations. To building a better world, to building a better universe. To changing the universe, simply in the same way, that the writer of Genesis 1 depicts man's function in the universe. Not simply saying he's got some magical secret here: He's describing the situation of man in the universe! Man and woman in the universe, exist to do what? They have a mission, they have a responsibility. This is our mission! We have to make the universe better: We are the servants of the Creator, in making the universe better.
And how do we do that? By making discoveries which are called principles of discovery, the principles themselves. And by mastering these principles, we increase man's power to solve problems, and we live in those future generations, which take what we contribute. And it's alive in them. The work of Plato, the work of Plato in particular, is alive in Cusa. Cusa is alive in Kepler. Similarly, Leibniz is alive in Cusa, and in Kepler. Riemann is alive, in all of these people.
Those who have done the great works of mankind, who have passed on what their lives have contributed to human knowledge and human knowledge for practice, live on.
The Book of Genesis
In former times, we had an approximation of this: People would just go by the Book of Genesis, for example, or something like that, and say: "What are we living for? We're going to die. Well, we're living for"—like immigrants coming into the United States—"we're living for our children. We're living for our grandchildren. We're making a society for our children, our grandchildren. We're making a better life for our children and grandchildren."
And this goes on, not merely for two or three generations, which is typical in our experience. This goes on for thousands of years! Look at the Great Pyramid at Giza. It was built, when? Somewhere about 2550 B.C. Well, that's a pretty long time ago, isn't it? 4,700 years ago. How many generations is that? What about the discoveries that preceded the possibility of the building of the Pyramid of Giza, in terms of the knowledge expressed? What about the generations before? Aren't they alive? Isn't the effect of their living, alive in us, today?
So therefore, we had a sense of immortality, in the sense that we were making the universe better, for generations to come, and that we express our immortality in living on, in the benefits which we pass on to those who follow. This was our sense of identity, our sense of citizenship.
What happened is, the Baby-Boomer generation has lost that. They don't believe in their children. They don't believe in principles. They believe in what they call common sense, or generally accepted ideas. They believe in "go along to get along." They aren't motivated by a sense of immortality. The idea of a soldier who dies in battle, for the sake of his nation: It's real! As opposed to a stone killer, who just goes out and kills for no purpose whatsoever, but just because he's told to do so.
This sense of immortality, this sense of the individual mind as a creative mind, different than the beast, different than the chimpanzee, the sense of an obligation to do something with your life which is of benefit and realized in future generations; to maintain that which has been accomplished, to keep it alive, and to build upon it: That's what's been missing in our society.
And the contrary is, implicitly the principle of slavery. The enemy of mankind has been a sense of slavery, the sense of slavery which you can read in the Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus. Mankind is forbidden to know how to discover, or use, nuclear fission power: fire. That turns man into a beast! The discovery of universal physical principles which improve man's power in the universe, to solve problems in the universe, medical discoveries, other kinds of discoveries—these are expressions of immortality. These are expressions of citizenship. A citizen is not simply a member of a club! A citizen is a person who participates in society, who's an integral part of the society, who's contributing to that society. And who anticipates benefits for future generations.
People struggled against slavery in this country! What's the meaning of their lives? The meaning of the slave, is the struggle against slavery! And the realization of the success in defeating that oppression. And continuing that process, for a quality of education in life, which that corresponds to: That is citizenship! That's the meaning of the Preamble of the Constitution. That's the meaning of the Declaration of Independence, taking it from Leibniz: the concept of the happiness of humanity, the future generations.
And so, we have lost that motive! We live on a planet—it's not a question of how to make a better society—we live on a planet of over 6.5 billion people. Many of these people are living in absolute misery. This is not acceptable to us. This may not be our country, but it's not acceptable to us that they live in misery. We have to change the planet, we have to change the organization of the planet, so that they no longer live in misery—they're no longer compelled to live in misery.
More important: We don't want to merely help them, like do-gooders. We must empower them to have a sense of their own immortality, their own importance in their own society. Do you know how many people live and die, with no real sense of human worth? Or a sense of human worth denied to them as a form of expression? Does it not bother you, that a human being is not able to be a human being? To sense what it is to be a human being? Can you sleep easily at night, if someone in some other part of Asia or Africa, does not have the right to a sense of a human life? Is that not a mission? Are there not many kinds of missions of that type, which inspire people to adopt these missions as professions?
And that's what we've lost.
We lost it in the United States with the Baby-Boomer generation, because the poor fellows were brainwashed. Brainwashed into this utopian, existentialist kind of culture.
Now, that brings us to some concluding points: The key thing, of course, is, to recognize this is the problem. We've come to the point, we've been a society of fools. We are travelers on a ship of fools, called Convention; called Conventional Belief; called Our Way of Life. A ship of fools. Guys struggling to get a better stateroom on the Titanic, while it's sinking.
And therefore, the key thing we have done, we have allowed our people to become degenerate, as you can see on almost any television. Or you can see it on the Internet, if you want to. We've allowed that to happen. We've lost a sense of life. We've lost a sense of a purpose in life, which is not mortal, but a sense of that which is transcendental. That that good we do, if it's well conceived, lives on after us. And the purpose of life, is to ensure that that happens. And to ensure that others have the right to live that kind of life! And that's what's denied. It's denied by an existentialist form of corruption, which has destroyed the United States from the inside.
Now! Since we are at the point that everything that people thought they had, in this society, is about to be taken away from them, by the circumstances typified by the BAE, you have an existential question: You want to die as a pig? Or live as a man?
And that's what politics must be, today.
Lyndon LaRouche delivered an international webcast on June 21 in Washington, D.C.,
As the BAE scandal mounts, even in the U.S. press now, the time has come, as the Walrus said, "to speak of many things"—not of cabbages, but of kings.
What I'm going to do today, corresponds to the reality of the occasion: that things which I have said in other locations earlier, as in classes and various programs, will be reflected here, but they have not been presented in this way, before an audience of this type, an international audience of this type. So, this is going to strain some of you a bit, because we're dealing with areas in which the problems that confront mankind are mankind's acceptance of certain things as being assumably true, almost self-evident; and confining what they think is possible, to what they consider to be self-evidently true. And suddenly, what they consider to be self-evidently true, is no longer true! And really never was. But its truth has caught up with them.
We have come to the end of a period of history. The BAE crisis expresses that, reflects that—does not embody it, but expresses it symptomatically.
Now, we've come to the point, therefore, that where people have ordinarily operated, especially in the present generations, on the assumption that some things were self-evident, that you would start from agreement to self-evident things that almost everybody, considered educated or influential, believed. And that these things would persist and go on forever, more or less. And therefore, we need not worry about the need to make sudden deep-going changes in current policy, we merely had to adapt to variations in terms of the current trend. It's like the people who believe in the principles of Euclidean geometry. Now, Euclidean geometry was, from the beginning, a farce—in fact, it was a fraud, which many people have believed ever since. It's like modern Cartesian thinking. Most thinking about economics today, among professional economists, involves a more or less insane version of Cartesian thinking. That is, a mechanistic, statistical thinking where you start from certain statistical assumptions and project these out and say, "What date is the crash coming?" or "What date is this going to happen?" or "What date is that going to happen?" And society doesn't function like. But people believe that.
A Financial System Based on Gambling
As a matter of fact, the great danger of a financial crash today, is that most people, in what they call economics, believe actually not in economics: They believe in gambling. It's called a financial system. It's a gambling system. And people understanding that, ever since Galileo came up with this idea about gambling as the basis of discovering how markets would work, everyone has tried to get a better statistical system for gambling. Like breaking the bank at Monte Carlo, making a killing at Las Vegas, probably one's own. And therefore, these guys who are running the financial world today, depend on the assumption that they've got a "better system"—as they used to have at the race tracks, a "better system" for handicapping the horses. And it would really handicap the bettor, in the end, as he found himself on the street without cash—and being pursued by his lenders.
But what you've got today, as was typified in the calamity that occurred in August through October of 1998, was that the bettors now rely upon mathematics. And computers have helped them to do this: They can now bet faster, they can do mathematics faster than ever before, statistics faster than ever before. But they're all trying to find the best system of gambling. And they're all competing to get in on what they believe is the best system of gambling. The result is that, when all the gamblers come close to the same system of gambling against each other, but they're all gambling according to the same formula, what happens? They all go down together, in one big flop!
And that is what we saw a forecast of, in the events of the LTCM collapse in 1998: a general collapse of the system based on confidence, and competition, using the same system, as a world system which doesn't work at all. And they all went bankrupt.
And President Clinton and his Secretary of the Treasury [Robert Rubin] collaborated with others to organize a bailout, to postpone the inevitable collapse of the entire world system, which was implicit in what happened in September-October of 1998. We have never paid the bill for that bailout. We have been bailing things out more and more ever since. And we now have reached the point, that the system is about to collapse.
And the BAE collapse is not the cause of the problem, it is a symptom of the problem: Is that more and more, under a system which was established, a change in the system established with the election of a non-person as a President, George W. Bush, Jr., under his chimpanzee keeper, the Vice President, that the world was being run, more and more by what is behind the BAE. The BAE is actually better known as the British Empire. Some people call it the "Brutish Empire."
Now, not all the people in England are guilty of this. Many of them, even who are Brits or who believe in the imperial system, or the British Empire, or whatever, think that what is being done now by BAE is insane. They think that other things are insane: They know that the idea of global warming is a hoax—they know that. They know it's totally unscientific, and could not be sold to a society in which science was still known as a subject for most people of that generation. And therefore, not because they are anti-British, but because they know that the system which is being run by the Blair government and its associates in the British system, being run by Blair's friend Cheney, and others, that this system is clinically insane. And therefore, they object to it. And they raised objections to it, which are registered in places like the London Guardian, called Guardian Unlimited these days, and the British BBC, and other locations.
There was virtual silence on the subject of this, at least to its substance, inside the United States itself. It was only in the past three days, that there has been any appearance in the major English-speaking American press, of anything—even hinting at what has been the ongoing reality of this Bush Administration, since before the President was sworn in, in 2001. The world has been living under a system, which is the 9/11 system, which already existed, as I warned at the beginning of 2001, before President George W. Bush was inaugurated for the first time in January of 2001. Where I said: The world system has reached the point, that an onrushing collapse of the system is now in process. We can not determine exactly when or how this will occur, but we know the following two things: Number 1, we know that this President and this Presidency can not deal with this crisis. Therefore, we must expect that the entire world will be subjected to the kind of thing we experienced in February of 1933, when Hermann Göring, the man behind the throne, the sort of Dick Cheney of the Hitler Administration, orchestrated the burning of the Reichstag as a terrorist event. And this terrorist event was used on that night, or the following day, to install Hitler with dictatorial powers, which Hitler never lost, until the day he died!
And I said then, the danger is that something like this will occur, under present trends in the United States, and it did occur: And it was called 9/11.
Now, without going into the details of what we know and what we don't know about how 9/11 was orchestrated, we know that the only means by which this kind of thing is orchestrated, is found in one location: in a financial complex which is centered in the identity of the BAE. Now, that's the mystery of 9/11. How it was done, the mechanics—that's irrelevant. We'll find out. And everybody in and around government, who understands these matters, knows that! And that's where the heat is here.
We've come to the point, that an entire system, is collapsing. That system, at this point, because of the complicity of the present U.S. government, and the complicity of the leadership of the Democratic Party, as well as the Republican Party, because of this, we are living under a one-world system, called generically "globalization." It's a preparation for the new Tower of Babel, under which there are no nations, and in which languages begin to become babble.
Under this system, what controls it? It's called "globalization"; it's called the "global warming crisis"; it's called these various kinds of things, referring to these things. It's a one-world system! It is not consolidated, but every obstacle to this one-world system is crumbling. Every government of Europe—and you will see soon in France, that this is also true, there—every government in Central and Western Europe is today ungovernable. They may or may not be called, at the present time, "failed states." But they are at the brink of being failed states, which can no longer govern themselves. They are in the process, in Europe, of surrendering, from the Russian and Belarus border westward, they're surrendering their powers of government, to international agencies and supranational agencies. Germany, since the passing of the Schröder Administration, no longer really governs itself. Italy is struggling to maintain an appearance of government, under conditions in which government is not possible as long as the euro continues to exist. France: We saw the newly elected President of France, Sarkozy, had a meeting with the President of Russia, and came back giggling like a silly girl on a drunk.
You're in this kind of world!
We Live Under a Dictatorship
Now, there are other characteristics of this world. We have entered into a period of generalized warfare. Now, this did not start now. What we're seeing now is the culmination of a process which has been going on, actually since the time that Kennedy was shot. Since the time that Kennedy was shot, there's been a change in world politics, a change in direction in world politics, which was signaled soon by the launching by the U.S. war in Indo-China. And that led into what became 1968, which was the general breakup of the Democratic Party, and you had a new kind of government under parties since then.
The lower 80% of the U.S. population, the adult population, which had had a dominant influence under Roosevelt, and continued to have a strong influence in the United States until that point, began to lose its power. The upper 20% of family-income brackets are the ones who control politics today. And the upper 20% that control politics today, are controlled by an upper 3% that control the greatest concentration of money we've ever seen percentile-wise in world history.
We live under a dictatorship, in which the lower 80%, the conditions of life, in our own country, are that nature. And the Democratic Party reflects that. It no longer responds to its own political base. The Republican Party is, in a sense, breaking up. Because they can not accept the Bush Administration and what it represents. And it's looking for a new destiny, either in one of several directions, and there may be an upheaval. You have candidates, including Presidential candidates in the Democratic Party for whom I have personal respect as individuals, intellectually. But their performance as candidates, so far, is no less than disgusting! Especially given the real conditions.
You have a majority of the Democratic Party base, is calling for the impeachment of Cheney—suddenly. They want a sudden impeachment, not a long process. And that could be arranged for them. You could walk to Cheney with the right message, and you say, "Dear Dick..." And he would go out with a sour face the next morning and say, "I've decided my potato patch is being neglected. I've got resign and get back there and take care of those potatoes!" That's the way a corporate president usually goes out suddenly, you know. He's suddenly got an urge to get back to the potato patch. And they let him do that, and everybody knew he'd been fired. So, a message that he could not refuse would be given to Cheney. He would not be impeached; he wouldn't have to be impeached, he'd resign. And that could be orchestrated, if you wished to do that.
If the Democratic Party had the guts!
But the Democratic Party can't function. Why? Look at all the money that is being spent on the Democratic candidates? Whose money is it? It's your money, they don't have. It's fake money! It's hedge fund money. It's borrowing against banks and other institutions now, to create a mass of credit, which is fake credit—it's a promissory note—to go out in the world, and say, "We're going to buy this, we're going to buy that, and we're going to buy that. We're taking over your corporation!" Why? "We're going to buy your stockholders. And therefore you can't prevent us from taking over your stockholders. We have a mass of money that says, we can buy your stockholders. Therefore, we own your corporation: Turn it over, buddy! Turn it over, buddy!" They don't have real assets there! These are fake, inflated assets—largely artificial. And they move in, as these hedge funds, and they take over.
Well, what's the center of this thing? The center of this is the Cayman Islands, the British monarchy's Cayman Islands and similar locations run by the same organization, the British Empire, in its modern form, which is expressed by BAE. And a few hundred billion dollars, which are associated with BAE-related operations, now become multiplied by these kinds of markets into a gigantic fund, which controls, in financing, many of the operations which are controlled. And look at the contributions to the Democratic Party candidates, and Republican candidates, for President! Look at the composition of the funding for these candidacies! Look at the funding of the Democratic National Committee, the campaign committee: Who's doing it? George Soros? Well, he's one thing. Nazi Felix Rohatyn, that's another thing. He's nominally a Democrat. He's a Pinochet Democrat! He's the guy who headed up a financial institution which was the backing of Pinochet's taking over and setting up a dictatorship in Chile. And Pinochet was an integral part of BAE, and the operation. He was also part of a death squad operation which ran across the Southern Cone of South America, and these kinds of things.
So, we're in this kind of period. Now, this didn't start recently. But we're seeing now, this culmination of a concentration of power under the Bush-Cheney Administration, a concentration of power under the leadership and control of the powers that control the British Empire. That's the situation. This empire, this gambling system, is now in a process of collapsing. It's at the verge of collapse. It is therefore moving, to take total world power. Because if you take total world power, then nobody can say otherwise. And your problems are solved: You decide what money is and what isn't, because you have a world dictatorship.
They don't yet have a world dictatorship. And therefore, we, as citizens of the United States and other nations, have to act and say, "We're not going to let you have that power! We're going to stop you, now!"
And history intervenes at times, to present us with the opportunity to do this, the occasion to do this. That time is now. And that's what my subject is today.
And therefore, because of that, what I shall say to you today, is rather different than what I have said, in terms of quality of subject matter in public occasions of this type, earlier. Because what I said earlier, which I've said to smaller audiences, in print, and so forth, internationally, repeatedly, and I've said it plainly enough, I've not said in this form, in this kind of audience. Because it would not have been appropriate earlier. Why? Because the public was not scared enough, and not shocked enough, to realize that changes had to be made.
The Difference Between Man and Monkey
You know, people are not as smart as they think they are. Human beings have great powers of intelligence that no other living creature has. They create science, they create the mastery of the universe, they create the changes in culture, which raise the conditions of life of mankind. But sometimes, they behave like silly children. And the more adults, and the more adulterated they become... [video clip of chimpanzees] the more "perfect" their childishness becomes!
Now, what form does this take? We have a basement operation out there, nearby, and people have been going through in groups of five, six, or seven, at a crack, in reliving the experience of making the fundamental discoveries, a linked series of fundamental discoveries which embrace the entirety of scientific progress of European civilization, from the time of the ancient Pythagoreans, about the time of the 7th Century B.C., up to the present time; or up to a recent time, when we still practiced science. And so, we have young people going through, step by step, working through, experiencing—not being taught, to pass an examination on this subject or that subject—but going through the process of making discoveries themselves, which are a replication of the experience of earlier scientists, and making the discoveries on which the scientific achievements of European civilization, globally, have depended. From the time of the Pythagoreans, from the time of Solon of Athens, the time of Thales, up to recent times. The achievements of progress of European civilization, with fits and starts all along the way, especially those of modern civilization.
Now, therefore, in dealing with the difference between man and the monkey, as the core of what I'm talking about today: That we have to get beyond the assumption that what we have experienced, and what has become generally accepted opinion, so-called "self-evident rules of behavior," of the recent generation, or the recent one or two generations, the idea that this "self-evident knowledge," which is taken as self-evident, as common sense among most people in society—this is nonsense. But people believe in it. And they believe that there's no possibility of a course of action, which could occur, which would be accepted, would be allowed to occur, outside the framework of so-called "self-evident truths." Which generally broke down to "generally accepted current popular opinion."
So therefore, when you present them with evidence, that the present system itself, the system to which they are accustomed, is in a process of self-destruction and collapse, they say, "Ah! You're silly! You must be some kind of a nut—what's this?" They will say, "Everybody knows you're wrong!"
But it's the system that's wrong! And what everybody knows, is what's stupid!
But! As long as long as people believe that popular opinion, or what passes for popular opinion, among the most recent couple of generations, what they get from the textbooks, what they get from the so-called authorities, what they hear from, you know, "people in the know"—that this is the boundary condition which determines what is "acceptable behavior," by the individual or by the group in society, and therefore, people limit their choices of action to what they believe are acceptable premises of action. They don't question the premises themselves, just the same way that foolish people in school accept Euclidean geometry as being science, or Cartesian mechanistic forecasting as science.
So, until this kind of assumption is called into question, you do not say publicly, in the manner I'm speaking now, that "the system is coming down!" Because now the time has come, you have to accept the fact—if you're sane—that the system is coming down. And one by one, like tenpins in a bowling alley, Senators and others, who two weeks ago would have rejected what I was saying now, will shudder, and say, "I'm afraid he might be right!"
The time has come: The system must change. It is not within the framework of these so-called current traditions, or current public opinion, that mankind has a future. We're on the verge of a global dark age.
The 'Military-Industrial Complex'
Now, the signs of this, have been coming at us for a long time. Look at the area of Southwest Asia, and some other places, and look at what we call "prolonged warfare."
All right: Kennedy was killed. He was killed for a reason. It was not by a lone assassin—it may have been a loan shark, but not a lone assassin. He was killed to get him out of the way. Because, what Eisenhower had identified as the "military-industrial complex," in his outgoing address as President of the United States, is the process, which is the same process which we identify in the press today as the BAE phenomenon. It's a process that actually came into being under Hitler, and Mussolini, which was stopped by the intervention of Roosevelt.
On the day Roosevelt died, or a few days later, when Truman discovered that we had nuclear weapons, and decided to drop these nuclear weapons on the civilian populations of two cities, of a defeated Japan, before allowing the surrender to occur, we had entered a new age, to which Dwight Eisenhower, as outgoing President, referred to as the "military-industrial complex."
The military-industrial complex came out of a division in Anglo-American policy during and after the war. Remember, that Hitler was put into power, like Mussolini, largely from Britain and the United States. For example, Averell Harriman, from Brown Brothers Harriman, together with the head of the Bank of England at that time, was responsible for the sponsorship of making Hitler a dictator of Germany. When Roosevelt became President, over a period of time, Roosevelt induced the British to finally give up this idea of backing a Mussolini and Hitler. The financial establishment of Wall Street in that period, was behind Hitler, as they had been behind Mussolini, and their intentions were exactly in that direction.
Their intentions were the same thing as global warming today: It was called then, "eugenics." Get rid of the excessive people, particularly the ones whose skin color you didn't like. They weren't bleached enough. Eugenics: It was a program of murder. This was the program on which the Nazi party was founded, was eugenics—which is the same thing as global warming, today, exactly the same ideology, rewarmed with a new name, but with the same intention.
So, these guys put Mussolini into power; they put Hitler into power. They intended to establish a world dictatorship, in which the United States would destroy itself as a power—because we were a power, then—and in which they could run the world, as a one-world power. Which has always been the intention, since 1763, since the British Empire actually was created by the Treaty of Paris, in February 1763, by the British East India Company.
And what you're seeing today, with BAE, you're seeing a corporate structure in the heritage of the British East India Company—the Anglo-Dutch Liberal East India Company—which created the British Empire, and for many years, when the monarchy was simply a fixture attached to it, the Anglo-Dutch East India Company, the Liberals, through banking, controlled the entire British Empire. The occupation of India by the British Empire, was done by a private company!—the British East India Company. China was destroyed: By what? By the British East India Company, with the opium trade and similar kinds of things. The world was controlled by this financial octopus, this new Venetian empire. And that has run things.
The United States has emerged as the only significant challenger to this issue of empire, since 1763. That was the division. In 1763, the word came down about the Treaty of Paris. And the ranks of the leading circles in North America were divided: One group, the patriotic group, gathered around Benjamin Franklin, this group created the American Revolution, and the American System, whose roots had already been developed inside the Americas before then. And we had a character, an anti-oligarchical character, which was different than that of Europe.
And the other faction, which is still the so-called Wall Street faction and similar types today, were the people who joined with the British East India Company against Franklin and company. And their goal has always been to re-absorb North America into the British System as a part of the English-speaking system. That's been their purpose. And they've worked from inside the United States to destroy those aspects of our system, which are embedded in our Constitution and Declaration of Independence.
Other parts of the world have had importance, and do have importance. But it's the challenge between two English-speaking societies, that of the United States, as the model republic, and that of the British Empire, as the opposition, the Anglo-Dutch Liberal opposition: That has been the dominant feature of all the major wars on this planet, since that time.
So, we now come to a point, that the British Empire in that form, has consolidated itself to the point, that it will either fall, now, in this form, or in its attempt to impose an empire, or the whole planet will go into a dark age: That's where we stand.
So, now the time for change is obvious.
Now, remember how this thing [the breaking of the BAE scandal] happened: For weeks, there was no whisper of this issue, inside the press of the United States, the leading press; among the politicians, members of the Senate had no idea that such a thing was going on—but it had been going on! It was going on! It was the secret behind the Vietnam War. It was the secret behind the great war in Southwest Asia, between Iraq and Iran, during the 1980s. It was the first U.S. Iraq War. It was the Afghanistan occupation, continuing. It is the new Iraq War. It is the spread of war throughout all Southwest Asia. It's all a struggle for the British Empire! And the struggle to corrupt the United States, and destroy it.
Now, what happened? In the history of the United States, when Abraham Lincoln led a fight to defeat the British Confederacy—and the Confederacy was nothing but a tool of the British East India Company interests—when we won that war, we established in the United States, a scheme which had been defined by John Quincy Adams when he had been Secretary of State: to define the United States as a continental nation, from Atlantic to Pacific, with northern borders, Canada, and southern borders, Mexico. That had been our intention. When Lincoln led the victory over the British and French, in the freeing of the United States, and of Mexico, from this oppression, the United States emerged with a wave of immigration from Europe, with a transcontinental railway system and other developments. We emerged as a power which could no longer be destroyed by invasion of foreign forces.
We also emerged over the period 1865-1877, as a leading influence for reform throughout Eurasia. We had, 1877, Japan: an economic reform, organized from the United States. Russia, same period, organized from the United States, under Mendeleyev's leadership. Germany, under Bismarck, 1877-1879, the Bismarck reforms, under the influence of the United States, directly, and Henry C. Carey in particular. And similar things in other parts of the world. We became a challenge, not as a threat to establish an American empire. We became a challenge, because we were promoting, in Asia and other parts of the world, the development of sovereign nation-state republics, which would use the advantages of our experience, for their own, independent development, and cooperation, and mutual defense.
To defeat this, the British Empire organized two World Wars, starting with the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95. And the continuous war of the British Empire through its toady, Japan, between 1895 and 1945, was a continuous part of this process. The destruction of China, which threatened to become a great power, was one of the purposes of this operation.
So there had been a global struggle: We had one world war; we had a Second World War, for this purpose! We went through a so-called Cold War, which involved the same issue.
We now have come to the final stage, of a threatened destruction of the world order, in order to create a new Tower of Babel, called "globalization," or "global warming," under the leadership of these financier interests, which are imperial in origin.
'No Old Men Among You'
Now, this issue, is one that the politicians, the poor foolish politicians who run our country, refuse to understand. They have no long memories! If you read Plato's Republic and his Timaeus, you recall his report of a visit with the Egyptian priesthood, who said to the Greeks, "You Greeks are intelligent, you're fine. But you have no old men among you." By which the Egyptians meant, "you had lost your identity in the processes of history which gave birth to you." We, in the United States represent the outcome of the birth of European civilization, a birth which was accomplished largely through the influence of Egypt, or certain forces in Egypt. This is where our science came from, which was called among the Pythagoreans, Sphaerics, which relates to physical astronomy. This is where our culture began, as typified by the case of Solon of Athens, with the first conception of a true nation-state, a nation-state of the people. And our power has been, largely, that we have been, in the United States, in that conscious tradition.
The founders of the United States, the authors of our Declaration of Independence, the authors of our Federal Constitution, the leaders of the veterans of the Revolutionary War, the Cincinnatus Society, all understood, that the root of our republic, lay in the precedence and lessons of Solon of Athens' reforms. Those are the terms in which they spoke of it. We were an attempt to free mankind as a whole, not by conquering it, but from the inside, from a division of mankind into two classes, of rulers and animals, human animals, human cattle. Most people in most parts of the world, in most societies have lived, not as human beings, but as human cattle. Under the ban from knowledge, as knowledge, as specified by the case of Zeus, Olympian Zeus, of the Prometheus Bound story.
Now, the birth of European civilization, with Athens, was a threat to the imperial forces of Eurasia. And therefore, an operation was run, quite similar to an operation run against the people of the United States, at the end of World War II, which produced the Baby-Boomer generation—a brainwashing operation, mass brainwashing operation, called sophistry; or called, in the case of the post-war generations of Europe and the United States, existentialism. This corruption denied the existence of universal physical principles, which were knowable to the mind of the human individual. And said, "You don't know anything. You only know what is generally accepted, or will be generally accepted. You know the consensus! You don't know whether it's true or not. You know you have to obey it, because it's on top. And if you want to get ahead in this world, you have to submit to the consensus." There is no question of certainty of knowledge, there's no scientific certainty in it.
So therefore, what happened? We had, in our country, at the time that Roosevelt died, we had children who were what came to be called "the white-collar class," from 1946 through about 1958. And these young children, who generally would orient toward the military-industrial complex types of people and that sort of thing, became the "Golden Generation" of the 1960s. They no longer believed in science. They no longer believed in truth. They believed in being accepted. They believed in a consensus:, a white-collar consensus. They didn't like working people. They didn't like farmers. They didn't like science. They liked mathematics, but not science, hmm? They liked to calculate... you know. They didn't like to earn money, they liked to grab it.
So, they became a generation which exploded under the influence, from Europe, of the existentialist conditioning. And they exploded in the middle of the 1960s, following the assassination of Kennedy, which was a blow of demoralization to the American people at that time; and the following of the assassination of Kennedy with the launching of the Indo-China War. This demoralized the American people. You saw the balls of rage rolling in the streets in 1968, in Europe and the Americas, and elsewhere.
So this generation, the white-collar generation, which hated working people; they hated trade unionists, they hated blue-collar people; they hated farmers; they hated science. Now, that doesn't mean all of them were against science, or all of them were against agriculture and industry. But! They understood one thing: They had no principle. They had a principle of "going along to get along," a principle of accepting the consensus of their generation, their particular stratum.
And this became the Golden Generation, which more and more, reshaped the country. For example: 1968. Nineteen sixty-eight, the revolt of the 68ers destroyed the Democratic Party on the white-collar versus blue-collar issue! So, the Democratic Party was smashed, by its own complicity in the Vietnam War. And by this. Therefore, we got a virtual dictatorship, under Nixon. It wasn't Nixon's dictatorship, it was a group of people: It was the military-industrial complex. They took us over.
And bit by bit, they destroyed everything. They destroyed agriculture, they destroyed our monetary system, on which our strength had depended. They destroyed the farmers, they destroyed the industries, they destroyed science. And they got more and more power, and more and more fantasy.
And my generation began to die out. We don't have a generation of scientists and engineers of the type we had, still, back in the 1970s: We don't have that any more! We have a fraction of that! We don't have a scientific-industrial capability any more. We have a little bit of it, surviving in the military sector, of military production, predominantly. We've lost it. We've shipped our industries, our agriculture overseas. We're destroying our farmers! We're growing crops to make fuel!—not to feed people, in a world shortage of food.
The Face of the Enemy Is Exposed
So, we've come to the point, the system doesn't work! And the breakdown is now obvious. And the face of the enemy has exposed itself, in the BAE. And the exposure of the BAE, has come not from the Americans, it has come, largely, from the ranks of the British. The same faction in Britain, which opposed the global warming swindle. It's a complete fraud: There's no scientific basis for global warming. It's all a fraud, a hoax. But Baby-Boomers don't know any better! They keep suckin' on the bottle!
But, a group in England, in Britain, which recognizes that the British Empire is sending itself to Hell, objected to global warming, just as they objected to this operation, this Iraq War, and similar kinds of wars; just as they objected to this kind of financial operation, the BAE swindle.
So, a section in Britain, itself, through the BBC, through the Guardian, and through others, made this issue clear! And gradually, this thing spread here.
We were on top of it, of course, from the beginning, because we knew it; we understood it. But up until about three days ago, you could not find any large constituency for what I'm saying now about BAE, in the Congress of the United States or in any other part of the United States—you couldn't find it. You had a pall of stupidity and ignorance, control the minds of the Senate, the House of Representatives, and more. That doesn't mean they're not intelligent people, but they believe in consensus. They believe in adapting to what they consider popular opinion. They believe in "going along to get along." They believe that so-called "traditions," confine what is allowed and what is not allowed in society: that you have to work within the bounds of those limitations.
And I say today, we're now going to have to proceed; it having been shown that the whole culture we have stinks and is doomed. It's a sinking ship, and don't try to get a better stateroom on the Titanic simply because some people are leaving it.
Therefore, the question is, what is human nature? Why should we believe that mankind, which has allowed this swindle to dominate humanity for so many centuries, that there's something in mankind today, that would enable people who have made the biggest fools of themselves imaginable, would suddenly become brilliant and make the right decision about the future of mankind? I have to tell you: On this question, I'm an optimist. I believe in mankind. Just because he cleverly made himself appear to be so stupid, doesn't mean he's quite that stupid. Time for the stupidity act to end.
All right, now therefore, what I've said so far, is a preface for what I'm about to say. And the question is, human nature: Is man an ape? [video clip of chimps] Now, is that man? It could be Frederick Engels, but not man! George Bush would give you a good imitation of that.
All right. Now, we want to get to this question. The question, is this first question which we put on the board. You had a book which was written a long time ago, it's called the Book of Genesis; it's called the First Chapter of Genesis. Now, in it, there are three sentences, three verses, which I want to call your attention to, and present these, not as some kind of arbitrary religious belief, of some Hebrews off there in the Sinai Desert (where they're not allowed to function, today, or something). Anyway, but, actually, as an observation by knowledgeable people, presumably Moses of Egypt, who, looking at reality, are describing what they see as the reality of the circumstance in which they're living. And they state: There are certain things we can see, and they sum up in these three verses. That mankind, as Vernadsky would agree, from a scientific standpoint, mankind is not an ape, nor is mankind a form of animal life. We have a bodily form of animal life, but we also have powers, as thinking powers and creative powers, which no animal has.
These creative powers endow us with a certain quality of potential immortality. In what sense? That, we are capable, as mankind, of discovering the lawful composition of our universe. We call these "universal physical principles" for example: such as Kepler's discovery of the principle of universal gravitation, which he uniquely discovered.
And therefore, mankind, as having these powers, the power to discover universal physical principles, uses these powers to increase mankind's power to exist in and over the universe, as no species of animal can. Every animal species has a potential relative population density, which is characteristic of that species, which varies with the environment in which the species operates, but can not be willfully changed by a member of the species. Mankind is capable, through the discovery and realization of universal physical principles, of changing the universe. And in these three verses from the closing portion of the chapter of Genesis, you have—just think, not of someone preaching a doctrine, or an arbitrary belief—but someone simply saying, "Here is what the truth is, about ourselves. Man and woman are distinct from all forms of animal life, in that they have these powers and responsibilities, in the universe, the power to change the universe for the better. We have a stewardship in the universe, that of mankind."
And therefore, human life is immortal, in that sense.
The Birth of European Civilization
For example, go back to the history of this issue of creativity. Go back to the history itself: What we have as European civilization was born about 700 B.C. Europe had been in a prolonged dark age for some period of time, and under the initiative of a revival of civilization, in Egypt after a dark age, Egypt reached out to places such as Ionia, where there was a maritime culture [Figure 1]. But this region—you have an area there which is Magna Graecia, Greece as such, including the part into Ionia, which is the Greek culture. It allied itself with the Etruscans, who dominated an area from about the Tiber northward, to about the island of Elba and inward, which was the leading maritime culture of that time. They probably were a branch of the Hittite culture, which had been the only iron-processing culture in the whole Mediterranean region of that period. And then you had, in the north of Africa, you had this one area of Cyrenaica, is the area of Egypt's maritime culture. This is called Cyrenaica to the present day. It's this area, which is a rich area, potentially, and was rich at that time. And it was known for such people as, later Eratosthenes, who was actually of Cyrenaican extraction, and who was a representative of the Platonic Academy at Athens, and was the leading scientist of Egypt. He died just before 200 B.C., which was about the time the Roman Empire was coming up, and civilization was being destroyed.
So, our birth of civilization is located essentially in a struggle centered in this area, from about 700 B.C. to about 200 B.C., from the time of the Pythagoreans and the emergence of Solon and so forth, into those times.
But in this, there was a struggle, and the struggle was typified by the Cult at Delphi, the the Apollo-Dionysos Cult of Delphi. Which was tied to the surrounding region of that area, which was dominated by imperial powers, such as Babylon, such as the Persian Empire, the Achaemenid Empire, and other kinds of empires.
So, at this point, the significance of the birth of European culture, is a revolt typified by the role of Solon in Athens, the image of Solon, on which the idea of the United States was premised: an image of what man could be, an image of a republic, a true republic. Against a system, under which 80% or more of the human population of any area, were essentially treated as human cattle. This is the distinction, the good distinction, of European civilization: Its greatest heritage comes from this emergence, at least in known history, the emergence of this idea, of this conception.
Now, the struggle inside Greece itself, has been the principal font of our understanding of history, that is, European history begins approximately about 700 B.C. That is, a conscious history that we are dealing with a society organized around ideas and a consciousness of these ideas. So, the struggle, the difference between the form of society, in which mankind, all mankind, is treated as being human, as having these powers of creativity, in which there was development of the totality of the society as human.
Now, what is this difference between man and the beast? The difference between man and the beast, is essentially that of the discovery of a universal physical principle, that's the exemplification of this. The work of the Pythagoreans was typical of this. The work of Plato and his circles was typical of this.
But on the other side, the order was, as is presented dramatically in the middle section of the Prometheus Trilogy of Aeschylus, that the god, the evil god, the Zeus of Olympus, decrees that mankind shall not know the secret of the use of fire. Including such things as nuclear fission. And that man must therefore be maintained as human cattle. And the tradition of most cultures has been to condemn most of humanity to the condition of human cattle. In modern society, this takes a special form, it's called empiricism: in which you deny the knowledge of the existence of a principle—I'll come to this—and in place of this idea of principle, in modern society, we have the idea of liberalism, which is what the Anglo-Dutch Liberal system is based upon.
Therefore, the key thing here, to understand, is what do we mean, by the discovery of a universal physical principle? This is the simplest modern example of what we mean by a universal physical principle. [Animated figure of Earth orbiting around the Sun (see wlym.com/@slanimations).] Which some people in this room understand, because they're well educated. They educated themselves.
What we're looking at here is an image, and this is an image based on actual data, an image of the Earth's orbiting of the Sun. Now, this orbit, even though it may appear to be circular, is not really, truly circular. It's actually elliptical. Now, you get the closeup, and let's describe this orbit. Because the discovery of this orbit by Kepler, is actually the foundation of all competent modern, physical science. This is not the complete discovery. Now, as you get to the smaller area, you're in an elliptical area. This planet's moving along an elliptical course: What does that mean? But it's not just an elliptical course. There's a principle involved. The rate of motion is changing. What is governing the change of the rate of motion? Well, Kepler called it "equal areas/equal times": That is, the sector, or the sector defined by the position of the Sun with respect to the planet, sweeps out a sector of the ellipse; and the rate of movement within the ellipse corresponds to the relative area which is being generated: equal area/equal time.
Now, what this means is, is that there is a principle operating here, for which this is only the shadow. The actual movement of the planet, according to equal area/equal time, is only the shadow of something, of a principle. What is that principle? The principle is what we call an "infinitesimal." Now, contrary to idiots, the infinitesimal is not a dot. The infinitesimal is a rate of change in the smallest degree—a rate of change of velocity, of angular velocity. So, it's a rate of change of the velocity, not a rate of change of a size of a dot.
Now, this discovery by Kepler, was attributable to a discovery made earlier by a predecessor whom he much admired, the fount of modern physical science: Nicholas of Cusa. And Nicholas of Cusa, in an exhaustive study of what the Italians had brought back from Greece, from certain libraries in Greece, demonstrated that Archimedes had made a great mistake. Archimedes' notion of the construction of the circle by quadrature was false. You could not, by successive approximation of getting smaller and smaller intervals, smaller and smaller polygons, you could not approach the truth of the existence of the circle. The existence of the circle involves the same principle as the principle of the sphere: It's a rate of change in the dynamic, in the motive of action.
Modern Science Begins with Kepler
So, this discovery is the foundation of all modern physical science. Or the implications of this discovery are the basis for modern science. As Einstein said back in the 1950s, if you take the development of physical science, which begins with the discoveries by Kepler, it extends as a continuing process through the work of Bernhard Riemann, which is the extent of all modern physical science.
Now, this science—Kepler's discoveries are not only the beginning point of all competent modern physical science. They contain, continuously, the foundations of the process of discovery, of all modern physical science. If you don't know Kepler, you don't know physical science. You may know how to report about it, you may know how to describe the experience of seeing it happen. You may know how to make a picture of it. But you don't know what it is.
And you have to go back to Kepler, because no one, ever in the history of successful modern science, ever went a step forward by excluding Kepler. Kepler is embedded in the foundation of science, just as those who preceded Kepler among the ancient Pythagoreans and the followers of Plato, they are embedded in the work of Cusa; they are embedded in the work of Kepler. They remain an integral part of the human knowledge of science. It's not something you left behind, and went on to something else. It's something which is in there at all times, and never departs! It is truly universal. And that's the difference.
So therefore, as Einstein said, you start with Kepler, and there's a continuity of development, unbroken development, from Kepler through the work of Riemann, in terms of physical geometry. And all competent physical geometry, all competent modern science—including modern economic science!—can only be obtained from Riemann, by that method.
So you have Kepler's work, starts it. Kepler poses a problem—now go to Fermat. Now, Fermat—I give the dates here to give you some sense of lapsed time. Fermat made a discovery which was called a principle of least action. And this principle of least action became crucial in shaping the thinking of 17th-Century physical science. In the end of the 17th Century, Leibniz, who was the discoverer of the calculus—Leibniz's calculus is based on Kepler. It's based on Kepler's principle I just indicated to you, the principle of gravitation—the same principle as gravitation. The infinitesimal is the constant rate of change of the action, as you see in the case of the Earth's orbit.
So, the question came up—in Fermat's work: What is the actual pathway of least action, in physical space-time? And therefore, through the work of Fermat, applied to the challenge posed by Leibniz, we had the development of what was called the universal physical principle of least action. Which, again, is an integral part of science, and the Leibniz principle of universal physical least action is an integral part of all competent science, today. It never went away; it's there; it's expanded; it's improved upon: But it remains there, vibrating. Pushing. Always motivating. Every student who comes along, who learns science, has that in their mind; it's in their mind, vibrating, constantly.
Then you get from Fermat, you get this development around Leibniz, and there are many people involved in this. So, again, Leibniz sets this into motion, together with a fellow called Jean Bernouilli, which defines this as a field of science, the modern sciences, based on this conception. And it's based on the catenary. I'll give you an example of this—we didn't put this on the screen, but... Back, shortly before Nicholas of Cusa, who was the founder of modern science, you had a fellow called Brunelleschi, Filippo Brunelleschi, in Italy, in Florence. Now, Florence Cathedral was not completed at that point, it has a hole at the top, where there was supposed to be this dome, called a cupola. And the problem was, that if you were going to build this dome, to complete the cathedral, you wouldn't have enough wood in Italy available to build the supporting structure around which to erect this dome. But then, if you look as I did, some years ago, on this Brunelleschi thing, and you look carefully at the structure of that cupola, and you find the hanging-chain formation in there, the shape is in there: that Brunelleschi used a hanging chain as the guide for constructing the cupola, without using all that wood that wasn't available.
So, this hanging-chain phenomenon is called the catenary. And the significance of the catenary was actually discovered fully, by Leibniz and Bernouilli. And it's the underlying principle of the principle of universal least action, which is embedded in all science. It's sitting there vibrating to the present day! You can't get rid of it. You can't go any further without it.
And this led, then, to the later developments, beyond Bernouilli. Now you get Kästner and Gauss. Now, who's Kästner? Well, Kästner's a very important appearance in American history. Kästner was born in 1719, in Leipzig, which is about three years after the death of Leibniz, who had also been born in Leipzig. And he became a leading teacher of science. He became the leading teacher of mathematics, and the history of mathematics in Germany, and he still is a foundation of a competent education in mathematics to the present day. But Kästner, among his other students, was a prominent influence on a number of important historical people, historical in the sense of the American Revolution. Because in the 1750s and 1760s, there arose a revolt against some disgusting things by two fellows, one, Moses Mendelssohn, and his friend, Gotthold Lessing, who was also a great artist, and so forth. And their intervention against corruption in science in the Berlin Academy, was the foundation for the development of the Classical culture in Germany, and spreading into other countries, in the late 18th Century.
And Kästner was the guy who inspired this. Shakespeare was revived, actually in German, from ruin, by Kästner, who got his young friends to proceed in organizing around this. And we have Shakespeare today because of Kästner.
Kästner was the first proponent in modern science of an explicit anti-Euclidean geometry for example. He died in 1800. And he was the inspirer, one of the key inspirers of Gauss. And you don't understand Gauss's work, unless you understand the work of Kästner, for various reasons that some people working in the basement now are beginning to understand.
Beyond Gauss, to Riemann
Then you have the next case: You go beyond Gauss, the basis for the conception of modern science. And the question that Gauss posed in this issue of dealing with asteroid problem, was, the idiot in science will write a formula and tell you this formula is responsible for this particular trajectory phenomenon in physical science. But that's not true! In no science is that true. In so-called mathematical science, or based on mathematics, it's assumed that the form that you can describe mathematically, is the cause of its existence. Whereas, in point of fact, as in the case of Gauss, who posed the same question which had been posed in a different way earlier by others, the question was: You have a trajectory, a planetary trajectory. What moves it?
Don't assume the description of the pathway it takes when moved is the cause of that motion. What moves it? And the secret for how the trajectory is determined is determined by that which moves it. And this leads to some wonderful things, which I won't go into here, but which we're doing down in the basement. If you ever get lucky, and get promoted into the basement, you will find out about such things. I won't tell you! I don't tell people secrets in the basement—maybe a few, here and there. But they find out for themselves. But it's a magic basement. If you get in that basement, and you work hard, the discovery will overwhelm you.
All right. Now, this leads to, again, the completion of what Einstein described as the first phase of all modern science. This is the 1950s, Einstein. What is it? Riemann.
What Riemann did was to free you from the Democratic Party leadership! In 1854, he wrote his famous Habilitationschriften. This is the paper which was used to qualify him as a professor at Göttingen University. And in this paper, he opens up, and he eliminated all assumptions, axioms, and postulates from geometry. And he says that only physical, experimental evidence can define the way that the physical universe is organized. Which is what I do, is my work in this.
Now, what's the point here? The point is, the same thing as Gauss: Motive!
Don't tell me that a mathematical pattern has determined a mathematical pattern. I don't promote masturbation.
What has motivated that? That particular form of existence, that expression of existence?
Therefore, what it comes down to this: That science, instead of being a conception of a predetermined set of principles, so-called self-evident principles which define the universe as a Cartesian model does, or most economists do, you have to say, "What is the principle that motivates a pattern of action?" What's the principle? And therefore, you define the universe as Einstein does, and as Riemann does implicitly, as composed of principles: universal principles.
What does that mean? That means, for example: It amuses some people to be told, there's nothing outside the universe. Nor does the universe have a boundary which defines its limit. The universe is the expression of the motivations which generate the forms of existence we experience in the universe. And therefore, knowledge of principles, is the derivative.
Now, what does this mean, again, in turn? What does it say about man? Only mankind, among living creatures, can discover a universal physical principle. And by discovering that principle as a motive, governing the way something can act, and using that motive, that principle, you can change the universe in which you're operating. Only man can do that. The monkey, the chimpanzee can not do it. The typical professor at a university can not do it. No matter how much he monkeys around with science—he can't do it.
Therefore, instead of seeing the universe as being a Cartesian manifold, or a Euclidean manifold, stretched out in all directions, you see the universe as bounded by the principles, not by an area, but by the principles which control all that happens within it, all the motives, the principles. Mankind can discover these principles, but by discovering a principle which has been previously unused by mankind, mankind is able to increase man's power to exist in the universe, and is capable of changing the geometry of the universe in which we live. The ability to get beyond the population level of several millions of individuals at any one time, of a monkey, of an ape—a gorilla, or chimpanzee: What's the difference between man and the chimpanzee? The essential difference, is man's ability with the human mind, to discover experimentally, by these kinds of standards, to discover the meaning of principle. And to apply that principle to previously existing practice, in a way to change that practice qualitatively.
This, in science, is called "machine-tool design." What they used to do in the auto industry, when they were allowed to make automobiles in the United States. Machine-tool design. You discover a principle you didn't know before, or you didn't know how to apply before. You apply this principle to something you were already doing. You transform the quality of that operation, by introducing that principle: And you change the universe. You increase man's power to exist. You increase the density of population you can sustain. You increase the life expectancy of mankind. And you build in the individual a sense of an immortal personality, who is participating in the process of increasing the knowledge of mankind, from generation to generation, in a practical way, for the benefit of mankind.
So therefore, you have this problem: A monkey dies. An ape dies. A current President dies. What's left behind? Nothing. It's gone. It's a sad case, a human being who acts like a monkey, lives like a monkey, doesn't make any discoveries. Doesn't even repeat discoveries made by people before him. Just keeps on going, scratching. Like Bush.
This person has no sense of immortality! We all die. We all have human bodies, we die. The human body fails us, it quits on us. The car quits. Breaks down on the highway—you know, like a typical LPAC car. But the immortal occupant of the car, lives on! Hopefully.
No, so the point is, is that humanity is, essentially, potentially immortal: Because, that which is part of us, as human beings, is not merely this physical animal part that we inhabit. It's what we represent through such means as learning to re-experience discoveries of principle, and carrying them on and on to future generations. To building a better world, to building a better universe. To changing the universe, simply in the same way, that the writer of Genesis 1 depicts man's function in the universe. Not simply saying he's got some magical secret here: He's describing the situation of man in the universe! Man and woman in the universe, exist to do what? They have a mission, they have a responsibility. This is our mission! We have to make the universe better: We are the servants of the Creator, in making the universe better.
And how do we do that? By making discoveries which are called principles of discovery, the principles themselves. And by mastering these principles, we increase man's power to solve problems, and we live in those future generations, which take what we contribute. And it's alive in them. The work of Plato, the work of Plato in particular, is alive in Cusa. Cusa is alive in Kepler. Similarly, Leibniz is alive in Cusa, and in Kepler. Riemann is alive, in all of these people.
Those who have done the great works of mankind, who have passed on what their lives have contributed to human knowledge and human knowledge for practice, live on.
The Book of Genesis
In former times, we had an approximation of this: People would just go by the Book of Genesis, for example, or something like that, and say: "What are we living for? We're going to die. Well, we're living for"—like immigrants coming into the United States—"we're living for our children. We're living for our grandchildren. We're making a society for our children, our grandchildren. We're making a better life for our children and grandchildren."
And this goes on, not merely for two or three generations, which is typical in our experience. This goes on for thousands of years! Look at the Great Pyramid at Giza. It was built, when? Somewhere about 2550 B.C. Well, that's a pretty long time ago, isn't it? 4,700 years ago. How many generations is that? What about the discoveries that preceded the possibility of the building of the Pyramid of Giza, in terms of the knowledge expressed? What about the generations before? Aren't they alive? Isn't the effect of their living, alive in us, today?
So therefore, we had a sense of immortality, in the sense that we were making the universe better, for generations to come, and that we express our immortality in living on, in the benefits which we pass on to those who follow. This was our sense of identity, our sense of citizenship.
What happened is, the Baby-Boomer generation has lost that. They don't believe in their children. They don't believe in principles. They believe in what they call common sense, or generally accepted ideas. They believe in "go along to get along." They aren't motivated by a sense of immortality. The idea of a soldier who dies in battle, for the sake of his nation: It's real! As opposed to a stone killer, who just goes out and kills for no purpose whatsoever, but just because he's told to do so.
This sense of immortality, this sense of the individual mind as a creative mind, different than the beast, different than the chimpanzee, the sense of an obligation to do something with your life which is of benefit and realized in future generations; to maintain that which has been accomplished, to keep it alive, and to build upon it: That's what's been missing in our society.
And the contrary is, implicitly the principle of slavery. The enemy of mankind has been a sense of slavery, the sense of slavery which you can read in the Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus. Mankind is forbidden to know how to discover, or use, nuclear fission power: fire. That turns man into a beast! The discovery of universal physical principles which improve man's power in the universe, to solve problems in the universe, medical discoveries, other kinds of discoveries—these are expressions of immortality. These are expressions of citizenship. A citizen is not simply a member of a club! A citizen is a person who participates in society, who's an integral part of the society, who's contributing to that society. And who anticipates benefits for future generations.
People struggled against slavery in this country! What's the meaning of their lives? The meaning of the slave, is the struggle against slavery! And the realization of the success in defeating that oppression. And continuing that process, for a quality of education in life, which that corresponds to: That is citizenship! That's the meaning of the Preamble of the Constitution. That's the meaning of the Declaration of Independence, taking it from Leibniz: the concept of the happiness of humanity, the future generations.
And so, we have lost that motive! We live on a planet—it's not a question of how to make a better society—we live on a planet of over 6.5 billion people. Many of these people are living in absolute misery. This is not acceptable to us. This may not be our country, but it's not acceptable to us that they live in misery. We have to change the planet, we have to change the organization of the planet, so that they no longer live in misery—they're no longer compelled to live in misery.
More important: We don't want to merely help them, like do-gooders. We must empower them to have a sense of their own immortality, their own importance in their own society. Do you know how many people live and die, with no real sense of human worth? Or a sense of human worth denied to them as a form of expression? Does it not bother you, that a human being is not able to be a human being? To sense what it is to be a human being? Can you sleep easily at night, if someone in some other part of Asia or Africa, does not have the right to a sense of a human life? Is that not a mission? Are there not many kinds of missions of that type, which inspire people to adopt these missions as professions?
And that's what we've lost.
We lost it in the United States with the Baby-Boomer generation, because the poor fellows were brainwashed. Brainwashed into this utopian, existentialist kind of culture.
Now, that brings us to some concluding points: The key thing, of course, is, to recognize this is the problem. We've come to the point, we've been a society of fools. We are travelers on a ship of fools, called Convention; called Conventional Belief; called Our Way of Life. A ship of fools. Guys struggling to get a better stateroom on the Titanic, while it's sinking.
And therefore, the key thing we have done, we have allowed our people to become degenerate, as you can see on almost any television. Or you can see it on the Internet, if you want to. We've allowed that to happen. We've lost a sense of life. We've lost a sense of a purpose in life, which is not mortal, but a sense of that which is transcendental. That that good we do, if it's well conceived, lives on after us. And the purpose of life, is to ensure that that happens. And to ensure that others have the right to live that kind of life! And that's what's denied. It's denied by an existentialist form of corruption, which has destroyed the United States from the inside.
Now! Since we are at the point that everything that people thought they had, in this society, is about to be taken away from them, by the circumstances typified by the BAE, you have an existential question: You want to die as a pig? Or live as a man?
And that's what politics must be, today.
BAE Bribery Operations : Senator Kerry Demands Department of Justice Probe
Senator Kerry Demands Department of Justice Probe BAE Bribery Operations
June 28 (EIRNS)—On June 21, 2007, the following letter was sent to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales by Sen. John Kerry.
June 21, 2007
The Honorable Alberto R. Gonzales
Attorney General Office of the Attorney General United States
Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20530
Dear Mr. Attorney General:
I am writing you concerning recent reports that the British defense company BAE Systems (BAE) may have violated U.S. anti-bribery laws in relation to its international arms deals. As you are undoubtedly aware, BAE is currently seeking approval for the acquisition of Armor Holdings, Inc., the U.S. maker of armor for Humvees. BAE also currently supplies Bradley Fighting Vehicles to the U.S. military.
According to published reports, Britain's Serious Fraud Office was investigating an $80 billion transaction, known as the Al-Yamamah deal, involving a series of illegal payments by BAE through the now defunct Riggs bank in Washington, DC to former Saudi Ambassador to the U.S., Prince Bandar bin Sultan. That investigation was halted last December by the British Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, on the grounds that it was not in the national interest to pursue the inquiry.
It appears that U.S. officials have also been concerned about BAE's business practices for some years. In July 2002, a State Department memorandum noted "persistent allegations that BAE Systems pays bribes to obtain business." The memorandum concluded that "this volume of allegations about one company would have triggered a Department of Justice criminal division investigation long ago." More recently, in October 2006, a high ranking official at the Department of Justice indicated that foreign-owned companies, such as BAE, could be targeted by U.S. investigators: "The Department will not hesitate to enforce the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, just as it does against American companies."
Recently published reports indicate that the Department of Justice's Fraud section, in cooperation with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has begun a preliminary investigation to review allegations that BAE may have illegally paid key officials to win contracts to sell fighter jets and other major weapons systems. However, representatives of both BAE and Saudi Arabia have told media sources that they have not been notified of any investigation by the Department of Justice.
Given BAE's prominent role within the U.S. defense industry, their pending application before the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States for approval of the Armor Holdings sale, and the serious nature of the allegations against this company, full disclosure of the facts is essential. Accordingly, I would appreciate receiving from you a formal clarification on the following points:
Have there ever been any investigations, preliminary or otherwise, of BAE by the Department of Justice?
Is there an ongoing investigation of BAE by the Department of Justice?
If any investigation of BAE was ever initiated by the Department of Justice and subsequently dropped, what were the specific reasons for this decision?
Was the Attorney General's office, or any other office or official in the Department of Justice, ever contacted by any other officials, agencies or departments of the U.S. government, including the White House, concerning this matter? If so, please list any and all such contacts.
Is the Attorney General's office aware of any past or present investigation of BAE by any other agency or department of the United States government? If so, has the Justice Department requested access to any information relevant to this investigation? Has the Justice Department requested any information related to BAE from Britain's Serious Fraud Office?
What contact, if any, has the Attorney General's office had with the Committee on Foreign Investment regarding the sale of Armor Holdings to BAE?
I look forward to a reply no later than June 30, 2007. I would also encourage you to share any information you may have related to this issue with the Committee on Foreign Investment.
Sincerely,
Senator John F. Kerry
Cc: Senator Joseph Biden, Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Senator Patrick Leahy, Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee
June 28 (EIRNS)—On June 21, 2007, the following letter was sent to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales by Sen. John Kerry.
June 21, 2007
The Honorable Alberto R. Gonzales
Attorney General Office of the Attorney General United States
Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20530
Dear Mr. Attorney General:
I am writing you concerning recent reports that the British defense company BAE Systems (BAE) may have violated U.S. anti-bribery laws in relation to its international arms deals. As you are undoubtedly aware, BAE is currently seeking approval for the acquisition of Armor Holdings, Inc., the U.S. maker of armor for Humvees. BAE also currently supplies Bradley Fighting Vehicles to the U.S. military.
According to published reports, Britain's Serious Fraud Office was investigating an $80 billion transaction, known as the Al-Yamamah deal, involving a series of illegal payments by BAE through the now defunct Riggs bank in Washington, DC to former Saudi Ambassador to the U.S., Prince Bandar bin Sultan. That investigation was halted last December by the British Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, on the grounds that it was not in the national interest to pursue the inquiry.
It appears that U.S. officials have also been concerned about BAE's business practices for some years. In July 2002, a State Department memorandum noted "persistent allegations that BAE Systems pays bribes to obtain business." The memorandum concluded that "this volume of allegations about one company would have triggered a Department of Justice criminal division investigation long ago." More recently, in October 2006, a high ranking official at the Department of Justice indicated that foreign-owned companies, such as BAE, could be targeted by U.S. investigators: "The Department will not hesitate to enforce the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, just as it does against American companies."
Recently published reports indicate that the Department of Justice's Fraud section, in cooperation with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has begun a preliminary investigation to review allegations that BAE may have illegally paid key officials to win contracts to sell fighter jets and other major weapons systems. However, representatives of both BAE and Saudi Arabia have told media sources that they have not been notified of any investigation by the Department of Justice.
Given BAE's prominent role within the U.S. defense industry, their pending application before the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States for approval of the Armor Holdings sale, and the serious nature of the allegations against this company, full disclosure of the facts is essential. Accordingly, I would appreciate receiving from you a formal clarification on the following points:
Have there ever been any investigations, preliminary or otherwise, of BAE by the Department of Justice?
Is there an ongoing investigation of BAE by the Department of Justice?
If any investigation of BAE was ever initiated by the Department of Justice and subsequently dropped, what were the specific reasons for this decision?
Was the Attorney General's office, or any other office or official in the Department of Justice, ever contacted by any other officials, agencies or departments of the U.S. government, including the White House, concerning this matter? If so, please list any and all such contacts.
Is the Attorney General's office aware of any past or present investigation of BAE by any other agency or department of the United States government? If so, has the Justice Department requested access to any information relevant to this investigation? Has the Justice Department requested any information related to BAE from Britain's Serious Fraud Office?
What contact, if any, has the Attorney General's office had with the Committee on Foreign Investment regarding the sale of Armor Holdings to BAE?
I look forward to a reply no later than June 30, 2007. I would also encourage you to share any information you may have related to this issue with the Committee on Foreign Investment.
Sincerely,
Senator John F. Kerry
Cc: Senator Joseph Biden, Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Senator Patrick Leahy, Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee
`Bank of the South' Delay Is the Work Of the South American Friends of the Scandal-Ridden BAE
`Bank of the South' Delay Is the Work Of the South American Friends of the Scandal-Ridden BAE
July 5, 2007 (EIRNS)--This release was issued by the Lyndon LaRouche Political Action Committee (LPAC).
The intended late June signing of the founding document of the new Bank of the South by the Presidents of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay and Venezuela, has been postponed to an unspecified date later this year. Although the announced reason for the delay are disagreements over issues such as capital contributions and voting rights of the members, and the location of the new bank's headquarters, U.S. statesman Lyndon LaRouche today pointed to the fundamental issue at stake:
"The Bank of the South is a matter of life and death for the nations of South America, as the international financial and monetary system plunges rapidly into disintegration. As I noted in a June 29 interview on Ecuadorean radio: 'It is my hope that the Bank of the South, would function as a vehicle commonly used by sovereign nation-states of South America, to maintain sovereignty, number one; but as a necessary vehicle of the type I specified back in August of 1982. It is the exchange of long-term credit among nations, for projects in common interest. You need a system of fixed-exchange-rate agreements among nations, in order to do that.'
"The founding of the Bank of the South poses a problem in South America for financial interests typified by the Spanish Santander and BBVA banks, which are extensions of the British Empire's scandal-ridden BAE company," LaRouche said.
As LaRouche and his associates have extensively documented, the BAE is at the center of "The Scandal of the Century," having generated a slush fund in the range of $100 billion through its "Al Yamamah" deal with Dick Cheney's friend, Saudi Prince Bandar, which has been used for black operations, destabilizations and coups around the world. Chilean fascist dictator Augusto Pinochet, for example, was an integral part of the BAE's weapons-and-murder apparatus in South America. The BAE has functioned for decades as an instrument of the British Empire, as such.
Santander Bank is intimately associated with the Royal Bank of Scotland, one of the Queen's leading personal financial institutions, and has developed widespread financial and political influence across South America. For example, high-level "former" Santander officials have managed to insinuate themselves into prominent positions, including cabinet posts, within Brazil's Lula government, and are known to be violently hostile to the idea of the Bank of the South, and President Lula's stated commitment to the new financial institution.
July 5, 2007 (EIRNS)--This release was issued by the Lyndon LaRouche Political Action Committee (LPAC).
The intended late June signing of the founding document of the new Bank of the South by the Presidents of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay and Venezuela, has been postponed to an unspecified date later this year. Although the announced reason for the delay are disagreements over issues such as capital contributions and voting rights of the members, and the location of the new bank's headquarters, U.S. statesman Lyndon LaRouche today pointed to the fundamental issue at stake:
"The Bank of the South is a matter of life and death for the nations of South America, as the international financial and monetary system plunges rapidly into disintegration. As I noted in a June 29 interview on Ecuadorean radio: 'It is my hope that the Bank of the South, would function as a vehicle commonly used by sovereign nation-states of South America, to maintain sovereignty, number one; but as a necessary vehicle of the type I specified back in August of 1982. It is the exchange of long-term credit among nations, for projects in common interest. You need a system of fixed-exchange-rate agreements among nations, in order to do that.'
"The founding of the Bank of the South poses a problem in South America for financial interests typified by the Spanish Santander and BBVA banks, which are extensions of the British Empire's scandal-ridden BAE company," LaRouche said.
As LaRouche and his associates have extensively documented, the BAE is at the center of "The Scandal of the Century," having generated a slush fund in the range of $100 billion through its "Al Yamamah" deal with Dick Cheney's friend, Saudi Prince Bandar, which has been used for black operations, destabilizations and coups around the world. Chilean fascist dictator Augusto Pinochet, for example, was an integral part of the BAE's weapons-and-murder apparatus in South America. The BAE has functioned for decades as an instrument of the British Empire, as such.
Santander Bank is intimately associated with the Royal Bank of Scotland, one of the Queen's leading personal financial institutions, and has developed widespread financial and political influence across South America. For example, high-level "former" Santander officials have managed to insinuate themselves into prominent positions, including cabinet posts, within Brazil's Lula government, and are known to be violently hostile to the idea of the Bank of the South, and President Lula's stated commitment to the new financial institution.
INTERVIEW: PIERS CORBYN
Piers Corbyn is a London-based meteorologist who claims that he has a system enabling him to predict the weather with accuracy months in advance. He claims that his "solar weather technique" uses "predictable aspects of solar activity—particle and magnetic effects from the Sun to make weather forecasts MANY MONTHS ahead." [1]
He keeps the details of his methodology for making predictions a secret, and has been criticized for making unfounded claims about the power of his predictions, even after they turned out to be inaccurate.
Source: Executive Intelligence Review
`Don't Bet on Man-Made Origins of Global Warming'
Piers Corbyn, an astrophysicist, is the originator of the revolutionary solar weather technique of long-range forecasting and a founder of Weather Action Long Range Forecasters. His first scientific publications were on aspects of meteorology and astronomy. He also carried out astrophysics research at Queen Mary College London and published work on galaxy formation and the mean matter density of the universe.
From his research into the causes of weather change, he totally rejects the carbon dioxide-based theory of global warming and climate change. Corbyn is one of the scientists featured in the wagTV film-produced "The Great Global Warming Swindle," shown on Channel 4 in Britain in March.
Corbyn was interviewed by Gregory Murphy on May 2.
EIR: Could you please tell us a little of your background?
Corbyn: I've got a first-class degree in physics from Imperial College, and a high degree in astrophysics at Queen Mary College, which are both part of the University of London. Prior to that, I was always very interested in weather, and I built myself an observing weather station and did experiments in science and the weather.
While studying astrophysics, I knew of various supposed connections between solar activity (that is, sunspots) and the weather, although at the time, I was more interested in sunspots. Subsequently, I thought that the idea of trying to predict sunspots, which is all I wanted to do, was a bit silly, because, who cares? It might be more interesting if one could predict the weather using solar activity, and I set about doing that.
Now, it was too difficult, and I gave up—until the miners' strike came along in 1984. And friends involved in these things in Britain, asked me, "Piers, you were trying to do long-range weather forecasting. Is it going to be a cold Winter?"
And I said, "I haven't a clue. I've given up."
And they said, "Well, have another go, see if you can tell us."
So, I did go back into trying to do this, and I said that the Winter of 1984-85 in the United Kingdom would be very cold. And it was. It wasn't quite cold enough for the miners—you know, they wanted to win—but it was very cold.
After that, I went back into doing [weather prediction]. And to cut a long story short, I found a certain connection, a certain predictability. I tested this by doing gambling with William Hill, the bookmaker here, in the Summer of 1988. Then, for 12 years, I carried on doing gambling every month [on weather prediction], and made a lot of money, until they stopped me from doing it.
This was things like, will April in London be warmer than normal, or will there be thunderstorms in a certain time period....
EIR: I noticed that on your website, that you got banned. Now the going thing is risk management services, one Bob Ward (who wants to stop the DVD of "The Great Global Warming Swindle" from being released) is running a weather derivatives operation. So, while you were doing it on a small scale, now they want to make a whole financial services industry out of it.
Corbyn: That's right. They want our financial services industry run on fear. They want to carry on trading carbon and energy and so on, running on fear. The last thing they want, actually, is working long-range weather forecasts.
Now, in 1995, I set up a limited company called Weatheraction Ltd, and we've been through various phases since then, on and off the stock exchange (we're now off).... And we're now making long-range forecasts up to 12 months ahead, more accurate than anything we did before. We sell to farmers and the energy industry. The rail network buys them, for example, to get warning of heavy rainstorm and potential landslides.
EIR: It seems like you're producing your forecasts from actual physical observations, not like NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in the United States, which uses more computer modelling, and which tends to have high inaccuracy.
Corbyn: As I said in a presentation I gave in January, at the Science Museum in Imperial College: Computer modelling for weather forecasting, and indeed for climate forecasting, has reached its limits.
No amount of improved computer power will get past the really basic climate inputs. The activity from the Sun, which affects the upper atmosphere—these things are also modulated by lunar effects for example. We do take those into account in our forecasts. We have eight weather periods every month and six or seven out of the eight will be correct, in any one month.
EIR: It seems that the computer models hold the Sun's output as constant. They can't model water vapor. And what other researchers have told me, is that once you start putting up the energy input in the computer model, and the carbon cycle, the model is invalid.
Corbyn: That's right. The model is invalid, and it's "rubbish in equals rubbish out."
On the very fundamental, basic level, I think we can see it's invalid just by looking at the Ice Ages.
It's not the case that carbon dioxide drives temperatures. When you leave Ice Ages, it's the other way around: The temperatures go up first, and then carbon dioxide levels go up. And if you look at the fluctuations during the Ice Ages, you can see that, actually, temperature goes up and down, about twice as fast, and twice as often, as carbon dioxide levels go up and down.
So that means that at least about half the time, they're going to be moving in opposite directions, and half the time, they'll be moving in the same direction. I mean, essentially, that they are unconnected. They probably are connected in some complex way, but there's no evidence anywhere that carbon dioxide systematically drives temperature. Where there is evidence of some sort of driving, it's the other way around.
So, that being the case, that whole theory is fundamentally a failure. Actually, since 1998, world temperatures have been falling.
EIR: Lately, the BBC and the U.S. press have picked up on how this is the warmest April in Great Britain, but yet, they don't talk about the 4- to 5-year running cold snap in the Southern Hemisphere, because it pokes a hole in their line that "the whole Earth is warming up, and Antarctica is going to melt and flood whole islands in the Pacific."
Corbyn: There are fundamental things wrong with that "warm April" view. First of all, of course, America's just had a cold Winter. But the Central England data set occupies 1/5,000th of the global area. So, to say this warm April is evidence of global warming, is insane.
This is a description. It can't be a cause of global warming, in the world or anywhere. It's just complete nonsense.
EIR: The latest now, in the New York Times, is that a new study shows that the ice cap will melt 30 years ahead of time. So they must have found a satellite that looks 30 years into the future.
Corbyn: Well, of course, there's nothing new happening in the world now, that hasn't happened before: In terms of the post-glacial period, the last 700 or so years have been the coldest part of the last 10,000 years, and 4,000 years ago, it was much warmer than now. That was the Bronze Age. It was called the "climate optimum" by historians, and since then, temperatures have actually generally declined, while carbon dioxide levels have gone up.
And until about 1900, or 1910—about 100 years ago, carbon dioxide levels had gone up, for various reasons, at the same time as temperatures. But the general trend in the last 4,000 years is that carbon dioxide and temperature have been moving against each other.
Now, in the world, the fundamental periodicity of temperature changes is the 22-year magnetic cycle of the Sun. And we understand quite a lot about why that is. The peak of the current 22-year cycle was in 2002-2003, and we're now in a declining phase of that. And if you take [as the global warmers did] the world average temperatures, averaged over a two-year moving average, the recent peak was in 1998, because there were cold years before and after that.
But in 2002-2003, the world temperature moving average peaked at the same time as the phase of the natural 22-year cycle. So, what we think is happening is that world temperatures may be not rising on average, but in the last 10 years, up until 2002, we have seen the rising course of a natural cycle [related to the 22-year magnetic cycle of the Sun].
This happened to coincide with CO2 levels going up, but so what? It may be, that really we're in a period overall, where temperature and carbon dioxide are actually moving in opposite directions, in terms of deviations from a norm. But for some reason, there is also a general increase in solar activity. That was definitely the case since 1900 or so, and that is also causing a general slow warming, which may also be coming to an end now.
What carbon dioxide does, appears to be irrelevant.
EIR: What about the recent book of Henrik Svensmark and Nigel Calder, The Chilling Stars, about the cosmic ray connection to some formation of clouds and cooling? How does the 22-year magnetic cycle of the Sun affect that?
Corbyn: I think their experimental work to show that charged particles cause cloud nucleation and could therefore affect the development of weather fronts is of tremendously important significance, and groundbreaking. And that is their contribution, although I think their work has got a fundamental problem....
EIR: There's another meeting of the IPCC in Bangkok this week to produce another summary for policymakers. To be more honest, it's a summary written by policymakers.... And you wrote a letter requesting that certain graphs that question the IPCC science conclusions be included with their policy summary.
Corbyn: Correct.
EIR: Did you have an answer yet?
Corbyn: No, there are two things: One is, that I've written the letter to the leaders of the British activity on the IPCC, Sir David King, Chief Scientific Advisor and David Miliband, the minister responsible for environment—who, I would like to add, is the most callous liar in British politics, I've ever come across.
And I also sent a copy to Prof. Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, who, in previous times, I worked with on the question of neutrino energies in cosmology. So, I do know him. He is a very, very good scientist, but I think he's sold his soul for something or other, in the Royal Society. We'll see.
Anyway, there's been no reply to the letter I wrote saying, "Please, by Bangkok, get the graph that you left out put into that summary for policymakers."
What they've done in their summary for policymakers, is put in a graph showing that carbon dioxide levels have been rising, since about 5,000 years ago. So, I wrote them saying: If you're putting this in, please also put the graph, measured from my source, which show what temperatures have been doing. We must have these comparisons; policymakers should have these comparisons.
What also happened is that one Member of Parliament—Martin Jones—has now asked questions to Parliament on the lines I suggested, because he got hold of my letter. Jones is a scientist himself, and he's very distressed about what's going on.
EIR: Is he a member of the Conservative Party?
Corbyn: No, he's Labour....
EIR: There's a very interesting paper that's been published in Energy and Environment by Ernst Beck on the 180 years of measurements of atmospheric CO2 that were carried out by Nobel Prize laureates and other scientists from the 1800s into the 1950s. Contrary to what is shown in ice cores, there have been periods where you had 400 parts per million [ppm], almost up to 500 ppm, for example, and a period in the 1850s, where there is a peak. But, as I remember, there were not many power plants, and other assorted man-made industries at that time to account for this CO2.
Corbyn: Absolutely: There's a lot of modulation of carbon dioxide and temperatures, which has nothing to do with mankind—plant growth being one of them, and volcanoes being another.
Now, it is also very important to notice that ice cores do not measure annual amounts of carbon dioxide, but the values are spread out over centuries, because carbon dioxide is a gas, and it diffuses into the ice. So, although the annual layers of ice will give you measures of temperatures then, or temperatures within a year or so of any place, any date, carbon dioxide levels can not be measured like this.
This comes to another lie of the global warmers: They say, "Well, carbon dioxide levels are rising now faster than they've ever risen before."
Now, there's no evidence of CO2 levels having risen, or not risen, faster than before, because you couldn't see such things in the ice cores. It's like saying a blind man can't see, therefore there's nothing to see. What they put out about that is a total lie.
The papers you refer to, are very interesting and important, but carbon dioxide is not a driver of temperature. And there have been many periods when carbon dioxide levels must have been—or when you can measure them, it's clear they would have been, or were rather—reaching quite interesting peaks or troughs, but which have no bearing on temperatures.
EIR: Yes, I asked this question in an e-mail to Phil Jones [a leading British global warming scientist] at the Climate Research Unit, in which he said, he had not read the paper, but on face value, he could tell me that the paper was "totally wrong," and ice cores were the only way to determine CO2. Period.
Then I asked about the paper on global mean temperature that a Danish professor put out, which, you know, has created a big problem for the global warmers. Phil Jones, again, told me that there was something wrong with the paper, that it would not have been published in a "reasonable" climate journal, and that I had to use "Google Scholar" to see how many citations the paper had. So, in essence, he said, "check on the internet to see what's true!"
Corbyn: Check the internet to see if something's true—well that's interesting, isn't it!
EIR: These guys are having trouble, now.
Corbyn: Eee-yi-yi-yi. Well, I like the lie about sea level rising. Now, there have been actual measurements of the Maldive Islands that show that if you stick to actual data, they show that sea levels have gone down in the Maldives (or the Islands have risen up) in the last 70 years. But the general problem is that the [global warmers'] sea level measurements in the Pacific are insane, because the Pacific is in constant motion. You know, there's a ring of volcanoes in the Pacific, and indeed, it shows that the whole area is moving. So, these islands are going to go up and down, and it has nothing to do with sea level.
The overall point is, that since the last Ice Age, sea level has been constantly rising, because heat energy has been slowly getting into the sea. The sea as a whole used to be much colder, and now it has expanded. And that expansion has nothing to do with carbon dioxide, or what's happening this year, or last year, or the last decade in temperatures. And that is why, when the Romans came to England, the sea level was lower, and there are ports which they built, which are now well under the sea.
EIR: Yes, it seems that the warmers forget about underwater volcano activity, and they also forget about, the underwater volcano activity in the Arctic Sea, too! This is what creates the melt ponds, which they cry about.
Corbyn: Absolutely. Of course, they also don't admit the early Medieval Warm Period, which was much warmer than now. Greenland was much warmer: It was called Greenland when discovered by the Vikings, because it was habitable, and a lot of people emigrated there.
And polar bears did very well in the warmer times. They didn't die out at all; they didn't die out in the last 10,000 years, nor during the previous interglacial, nor the one before that. So, they're just used as a deceitful heartthrob; you know, to pluck your heartstrings because the polar bears might die out.
EIR: Yes, we should find a picture of a polar bear chasing one of these people trying to take its picture, and publish that, instead of all of these cute little pictures of polar bears.
Corbyn: Anyway, my view is that climate changes have happened in the last 80 years, that is, the world has got a little bit warmer, although not as warm as it has been in Medieval times, or the Bronze Age.
That warming is a good thing. It leads to more prosperity. If it goes on, it could lead to the reopening of what's called the Northwest Passages, a sea route to the North Pacific going through parts of Canada and Greenland. And our own ideas—and we do have some planet forecasts based on the ideas about changing solar activity—is that actually, this world warming has probably reached its peak, and it will stay constant, or it will go down a bit, until 2013. Beyond that, we're not sure what will happen, but the warming will probably carry on declining.
EIR: The global warming crowd talks about increased CO2 as some kind of negative thing, but if you think about all the changes in plants, with photosynthesis being produced better, you will have more food output—
Corbyn: Yes, that's right, more food. And it's good for trees, good for grasses; it's great! More CO2 equals good, and global warming equals good—although they're not calling it good. The CO2 causes the plants to grow, but the CO2 is not causing the temperatures. The temperatures encourage the plants to grow, as well. A warmer world, more CO2: That's the best.
EIR: Yes. Just ask anybody who moves from South Dakota in the United States, to Florida. That's what Fred Singer always says, when you ask him about "Is the warmer climate better?" "Well, just ask someone who just moved from South Dakota, where it's frozen a lot of the time, to Miami, where it's nice and warm. Ask them."
The one thing the warmers don't have, is a sense of humor. And the faked data, which are probably more faked than the intelligence we were told about the Iraq War—
Corbyn: Oh, absolutely! The so-called hockey stick [graph] is a lie. They've known it's a lie, yet they carry on repeating it.
EIR: Yes, the IPCC has backed off the hockey stick in its last report, but it's still there. It's just not pointed to as if it's their Holy Grail.
Corbyn: The Al Gore film, as far as I could see, has got the hockey stick in it.... I counted 20 deliberate lies in his film—well, I say "deliberate" because Gore ought to know better. And I wrote them all down. I daresay, you would've gotten a few of them anyway, but I think—
EIR: Yes, there's been a lot of people who've gone through it and found all the misrepresentations. And the global warmers are crying about "The Great Global Warming Swindle" over a small error in one little chart, while Al Gore's film is like Soviet propaganda. That's what some people have told me, that the film was just put together like Soviet propaganda.
Corbyn: He could change his name to Al Gorebbels.
He keeps the details of his methodology for making predictions a secret, and has been criticized for making unfounded claims about the power of his predictions, even after they turned out to be inaccurate.
Source: Executive Intelligence Review
`Don't Bet on Man-Made Origins of Global Warming'
Piers Corbyn, an astrophysicist, is the originator of the revolutionary solar weather technique of long-range forecasting and a founder of Weather Action Long Range Forecasters. His first scientific publications were on aspects of meteorology and astronomy. He also carried out astrophysics research at Queen Mary College London and published work on galaxy formation and the mean matter density of the universe.
From his research into the causes of weather change, he totally rejects the carbon dioxide-based theory of global warming and climate change. Corbyn is one of the scientists featured in the wagTV film-produced "The Great Global Warming Swindle," shown on Channel 4 in Britain in March.
Corbyn was interviewed by Gregory Murphy on May 2.
EIR: Could you please tell us a little of your background?
Corbyn: I've got a first-class degree in physics from Imperial College, and a high degree in astrophysics at Queen Mary College, which are both part of the University of London. Prior to that, I was always very interested in weather, and I built myself an observing weather station and did experiments in science and the weather.
While studying astrophysics, I knew of various supposed connections between solar activity (that is, sunspots) and the weather, although at the time, I was more interested in sunspots. Subsequently, I thought that the idea of trying to predict sunspots, which is all I wanted to do, was a bit silly, because, who cares? It might be more interesting if one could predict the weather using solar activity, and I set about doing that.
Now, it was too difficult, and I gave up—until the miners' strike came along in 1984. And friends involved in these things in Britain, asked me, "Piers, you were trying to do long-range weather forecasting. Is it going to be a cold Winter?"
And I said, "I haven't a clue. I've given up."
And they said, "Well, have another go, see if you can tell us."
So, I did go back into trying to do this, and I said that the Winter of 1984-85 in the United Kingdom would be very cold. And it was. It wasn't quite cold enough for the miners—you know, they wanted to win—but it was very cold.
After that, I went back into doing [weather prediction]. And to cut a long story short, I found a certain connection, a certain predictability. I tested this by doing gambling with William Hill, the bookmaker here, in the Summer of 1988. Then, for 12 years, I carried on doing gambling every month [on weather prediction], and made a lot of money, until they stopped me from doing it.
This was things like, will April in London be warmer than normal, or will there be thunderstorms in a certain time period....
EIR: I noticed that on your website, that you got banned. Now the going thing is risk management services, one Bob Ward (who wants to stop the DVD of "The Great Global Warming Swindle" from being released) is running a weather derivatives operation. So, while you were doing it on a small scale, now they want to make a whole financial services industry out of it.
Corbyn: That's right. They want our financial services industry run on fear. They want to carry on trading carbon and energy and so on, running on fear. The last thing they want, actually, is working long-range weather forecasts.
Now, in 1995, I set up a limited company called Weatheraction Ltd, and we've been through various phases since then, on and off the stock exchange (we're now off).... And we're now making long-range forecasts up to 12 months ahead, more accurate than anything we did before. We sell to farmers and the energy industry. The rail network buys them, for example, to get warning of heavy rainstorm and potential landslides.
EIR: It seems like you're producing your forecasts from actual physical observations, not like NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in the United States, which uses more computer modelling, and which tends to have high inaccuracy.
Corbyn: As I said in a presentation I gave in January, at the Science Museum in Imperial College: Computer modelling for weather forecasting, and indeed for climate forecasting, has reached its limits.
No amount of improved computer power will get past the really basic climate inputs. The activity from the Sun, which affects the upper atmosphere—these things are also modulated by lunar effects for example. We do take those into account in our forecasts. We have eight weather periods every month and six or seven out of the eight will be correct, in any one month.
EIR: It seems that the computer models hold the Sun's output as constant. They can't model water vapor. And what other researchers have told me, is that once you start putting up the energy input in the computer model, and the carbon cycle, the model is invalid.
Corbyn: That's right. The model is invalid, and it's "rubbish in equals rubbish out."
On the very fundamental, basic level, I think we can see it's invalid just by looking at the Ice Ages.
It's not the case that carbon dioxide drives temperatures. When you leave Ice Ages, it's the other way around: The temperatures go up first, and then carbon dioxide levels go up. And if you look at the fluctuations during the Ice Ages, you can see that, actually, temperature goes up and down, about twice as fast, and twice as often, as carbon dioxide levels go up and down.
So that means that at least about half the time, they're going to be moving in opposite directions, and half the time, they'll be moving in the same direction. I mean, essentially, that they are unconnected. They probably are connected in some complex way, but there's no evidence anywhere that carbon dioxide systematically drives temperature. Where there is evidence of some sort of driving, it's the other way around.
So, that being the case, that whole theory is fundamentally a failure. Actually, since 1998, world temperatures have been falling.
EIR: Lately, the BBC and the U.S. press have picked up on how this is the warmest April in Great Britain, but yet, they don't talk about the 4- to 5-year running cold snap in the Southern Hemisphere, because it pokes a hole in their line that "the whole Earth is warming up, and Antarctica is going to melt and flood whole islands in the Pacific."
Corbyn: There are fundamental things wrong with that "warm April" view. First of all, of course, America's just had a cold Winter. But the Central England data set occupies 1/5,000th of the global area. So, to say this warm April is evidence of global warming, is insane.
This is a description. It can't be a cause of global warming, in the world or anywhere. It's just complete nonsense.
EIR: The latest now, in the New York Times, is that a new study shows that the ice cap will melt 30 years ahead of time. So they must have found a satellite that looks 30 years into the future.
Corbyn: Well, of course, there's nothing new happening in the world now, that hasn't happened before: In terms of the post-glacial period, the last 700 or so years have been the coldest part of the last 10,000 years, and 4,000 years ago, it was much warmer than now. That was the Bronze Age. It was called the "climate optimum" by historians, and since then, temperatures have actually generally declined, while carbon dioxide levels have gone up.
And until about 1900, or 1910—about 100 years ago, carbon dioxide levels had gone up, for various reasons, at the same time as temperatures. But the general trend in the last 4,000 years is that carbon dioxide and temperature have been moving against each other.
Now, in the world, the fundamental periodicity of temperature changes is the 22-year magnetic cycle of the Sun. And we understand quite a lot about why that is. The peak of the current 22-year cycle was in 2002-2003, and we're now in a declining phase of that. And if you take [as the global warmers did] the world average temperatures, averaged over a two-year moving average, the recent peak was in 1998, because there were cold years before and after that.
But in 2002-2003, the world temperature moving average peaked at the same time as the phase of the natural 22-year cycle. So, what we think is happening is that world temperatures may be not rising on average, but in the last 10 years, up until 2002, we have seen the rising course of a natural cycle [related to the 22-year magnetic cycle of the Sun].
This happened to coincide with CO2 levels going up, but so what? It may be, that really we're in a period overall, where temperature and carbon dioxide are actually moving in opposite directions, in terms of deviations from a norm. But for some reason, there is also a general increase in solar activity. That was definitely the case since 1900 or so, and that is also causing a general slow warming, which may also be coming to an end now.
What carbon dioxide does, appears to be irrelevant.
EIR: What about the recent book of Henrik Svensmark and Nigel Calder, The Chilling Stars, about the cosmic ray connection to some formation of clouds and cooling? How does the 22-year magnetic cycle of the Sun affect that?
Corbyn: I think their experimental work to show that charged particles cause cloud nucleation and could therefore affect the development of weather fronts is of tremendously important significance, and groundbreaking. And that is their contribution, although I think their work has got a fundamental problem....
EIR: There's another meeting of the IPCC in Bangkok this week to produce another summary for policymakers. To be more honest, it's a summary written by policymakers.... And you wrote a letter requesting that certain graphs that question the IPCC science conclusions be included with their policy summary.
Corbyn: Correct.
EIR: Did you have an answer yet?
Corbyn: No, there are two things: One is, that I've written the letter to the leaders of the British activity on the IPCC, Sir David King, Chief Scientific Advisor and David Miliband, the minister responsible for environment—who, I would like to add, is the most callous liar in British politics, I've ever come across.
And I also sent a copy to Prof. Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, who, in previous times, I worked with on the question of neutrino energies in cosmology. So, I do know him. He is a very, very good scientist, but I think he's sold his soul for something or other, in the Royal Society. We'll see.
Anyway, there's been no reply to the letter I wrote saying, "Please, by Bangkok, get the graph that you left out put into that summary for policymakers."
What they've done in their summary for policymakers, is put in a graph showing that carbon dioxide levels have been rising, since about 5,000 years ago. So, I wrote them saying: If you're putting this in, please also put the graph, measured from my source, which show what temperatures have been doing. We must have these comparisons; policymakers should have these comparisons.
What also happened is that one Member of Parliament—Martin Jones—has now asked questions to Parliament on the lines I suggested, because he got hold of my letter. Jones is a scientist himself, and he's very distressed about what's going on.
EIR: Is he a member of the Conservative Party?
Corbyn: No, he's Labour....
EIR: There's a very interesting paper that's been published in Energy and Environment by Ernst Beck on the 180 years of measurements of atmospheric CO2 that were carried out by Nobel Prize laureates and other scientists from the 1800s into the 1950s. Contrary to what is shown in ice cores, there have been periods where you had 400 parts per million [ppm], almost up to 500 ppm, for example, and a period in the 1850s, where there is a peak. But, as I remember, there were not many power plants, and other assorted man-made industries at that time to account for this CO2.
Corbyn: Absolutely: There's a lot of modulation of carbon dioxide and temperatures, which has nothing to do with mankind—plant growth being one of them, and volcanoes being another.
Now, it is also very important to notice that ice cores do not measure annual amounts of carbon dioxide, but the values are spread out over centuries, because carbon dioxide is a gas, and it diffuses into the ice. So, although the annual layers of ice will give you measures of temperatures then, or temperatures within a year or so of any place, any date, carbon dioxide levels can not be measured like this.
This comes to another lie of the global warmers: They say, "Well, carbon dioxide levels are rising now faster than they've ever risen before."
Now, there's no evidence of CO2 levels having risen, or not risen, faster than before, because you couldn't see such things in the ice cores. It's like saying a blind man can't see, therefore there's nothing to see. What they put out about that is a total lie.
The papers you refer to, are very interesting and important, but carbon dioxide is not a driver of temperature. And there have been many periods when carbon dioxide levels must have been—or when you can measure them, it's clear they would have been, or were rather—reaching quite interesting peaks or troughs, but which have no bearing on temperatures.
EIR: Yes, I asked this question in an e-mail to Phil Jones [a leading British global warming scientist] at the Climate Research Unit, in which he said, he had not read the paper, but on face value, he could tell me that the paper was "totally wrong," and ice cores were the only way to determine CO2. Period.
Then I asked about the paper on global mean temperature that a Danish professor put out, which, you know, has created a big problem for the global warmers. Phil Jones, again, told me that there was something wrong with the paper, that it would not have been published in a "reasonable" climate journal, and that I had to use "Google Scholar" to see how many citations the paper had. So, in essence, he said, "check on the internet to see what's true!"
Corbyn: Check the internet to see if something's true—well that's interesting, isn't it!
EIR: These guys are having trouble, now.
Corbyn: Eee-yi-yi-yi. Well, I like the lie about sea level rising. Now, there have been actual measurements of the Maldive Islands that show that if you stick to actual data, they show that sea levels have gone down in the Maldives (or the Islands have risen up) in the last 70 years. But the general problem is that the [global warmers'] sea level measurements in the Pacific are insane, because the Pacific is in constant motion. You know, there's a ring of volcanoes in the Pacific, and indeed, it shows that the whole area is moving. So, these islands are going to go up and down, and it has nothing to do with sea level.
The overall point is, that since the last Ice Age, sea level has been constantly rising, because heat energy has been slowly getting into the sea. The sea as a whole used to be much colder, and now it has expanded. And that expansion has nothing to do with carbon dioxide, or what's happening this year, or last year, or the last decade in temperatures. And that is why, when the Romans came to England, the sea level was lower, and there are ports which they built, which are now well under the sea.
EIR: Yes, it seems that the warmers forget about underwater volcano activity, and they also forget about, the underwater volcano activity in the Arctic Sea, too! This is what creates the melt ponds, which they cry about.
Corbyn: Absolutely. Of course, they also don't admit the early Medieval Warm Period, which was much warmer than now. Greenland was much warmer: It was called Greenland when discovered by the Vikings, because it was habitable, and a lot of people emigrated there.
And polar bears did very well in the warmer times. They didn't die out at all; they didn't die out in the last 10,000 years, nor during the previous interglacial, nor the one before that. So, they're just used as a deceitful heartthrob; you know, to pluck your heartstrings because the polar bears might die out.
EIR: Yes, we should find a picture of a polar bear chasing one of these people trying to take its picture, and publish that, instead of all of these cute little pictures of polar bears.
Corbyn: Anyway, my view is that climate changes have happened in the last 80 years, that is, the world has got a little bit warmer, although not as warm as it has been in Medieval times, or the Bronze Age.
That warming is a good thing. It leads to more prosperity. If it goes on, it could lead to the reopening of what's called the Northwest Passages, a sea route to the North Pacific going through parts of Canada and Greenland. And our own ideas—and we do have some planet forecasts based on the ideas about changing solar activity—is that actually, this world warming has probably reached its peak, and it will stay constant, or it will go down a bit, until 2013. Beyond that, we're not sure what will happen, but the warming will probably carry on declining.
EIR: The global warming crowd talks about increased CO2 as some kind of negative thing, but if you think about all the changes in plants, with photosynthesis being produced better, you will have more food output—
Corbyn: Yes, that's right, more food. And it's good for trees, good for grasses; it's great! More CO2 equals good, and global warming equals good—although they're not calling it good. The CO2 causes the plants to grow, but the CO2 is not causing the temperatures. The temperatures encourage the plants to grow, as well. A warmer world, more CO2: That's the best.
EIR: Yes. Just ask anybody who moves from South Dakota in the United States, to Florida. That's what Fred Singer always says, when you ask him about "Is the warmer climate better?" "Well, just ask someone who just moved from South Dakota, where it's frozen a lot of the time, to Miami, where it's nice and warm. Ask them."
The one thing the warmers don't have, is a sense of humor. And the faked data, which are probably more faked than the intelligence we were told about the Iraq War—
Corbyn: Oh, absolutely! The so-called hockey stick [graph] is a lie. They've known it's a lie, yet they carry on repeating it.
EIR: Yes, the IPCC has backed off the hockey stick in its last report, but it's still there. It's just not pointed to as if it's their Holy Grail.
Corbyn: The Al Gore film, as far as I could see, has got the hockey stick in it.... I counted 20 deliberate lies in his film—well, I say "deliberate" because Gore ought to know better. And I wrote them all down. I daresay, you would've gotten a few of them anyway, but I think—
EIR: Yes, there's been a lot of people who've gone through it and found all the misrepresentations. And the global warmers are crying about "The Great Global Warming Swindle" over a small error in one little chart, while Al Gore's film is like Soviet propaganda. That's what some people have told me, that the film was just put together like Soviet propaganda.
Corbyn: He could change his name to Al Gorebbels.
Nigeria: Criminals Behind the Margaret Hill Kidnapping
Source : Stratfor
July 06, 2007 16 28 GMT
Gunmen kidnapped 3-year-old Margaret Hill on July 5 from a car stuck in a traffic jam in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, on the busy Ada George highway. Her father, Mike Hill, is an expatriate from the United Kingdom who has lived and worked in Nigeria for a decade and is reportedly employed by Lone Star Drilling Co., an oil-supply company contracted by Royal Dutch/Shell to operate a number of its offshore rigs. He also runs a bar in Port Harcourt with his Nigerian wife.
Margaret was being driven to school when the kidnappers smashed a car window, stabbed her Nigerian driver in the arm and took her. They later contacted the girl's parents and demanded that Mike exchange himself for Margaret at a remote spot near Yenagoa in neighboring Bayelsa state within three hours or they would kill Margaret. Even though the exchange was never made -- neither the police nor Margaret's parents could locate the spot and the police refused to allow Mike to make the swap anyway -- the kidnappers called back, saying the girl was alive, and withdrew their demand for the exchange.
Kidnappings are common in southern Nigeria, but usually target foreign oil workers rather than children. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) militant group, which often kidnaps foreign oil workers in the region, condemned Margaret's abduction and said it will help find the girl. MEND is not involved with the girl's kidnapping; the group carries out kidnappings to pressure oil companies and, by extension, the government. Though Mike is a subcontractor for Shell, MEND would not abduct his daughter because it would not affect oil operations, and the chances of getting a multimillion dollar payout from an oil company's insurance company would be less than if actual workers were abducted.
This is the third child kidnapping for ransom in Port Harcourt in recent weeks. A state legislator's 3-year-old son was kidnapped June 26 from his nursery school and released three days later, and a local businessman's daughter was abducted before that. In both cases, the children were returned after a ransom was paid. This indicates one or more criminal gangs specializing in the abduction of high-profile parents' children are operating in Port Harcourt. With the latest kidnapping, they appear to have expanded their scope to expatriates' children.
The offer to exchange Margaret for her father is unusual. Initially, the kidnappers could have made the offer because they thought Mike would be insured by Shell because of his work with Lone Star. However, they changed their minds after the swap failed to take place. This indicates the kidnappers do not have a sound plan -- or, if they do, it is falling apart, which could lead them to panic. Kidnappers who are inexperienced or panicking are more dangerous to their victims.
The mixed signals from the kidnappers also could be a reaction to the attention this case is getting. Because her father is British, Margaret is a British subject, and the British Foreign Office and local and international media have taken an interest in her abduction. Despite their often brazen tactics and relative lack of concern about getting caught, Nigerian kidnappers -- like most criminals -- will shy away from too much media attention.
At this point, the kidnappers probably just want to get rid of Margaret and collect some money for their efforts. Catching the kidnappers is not the top priority for her parents, local officials and the British -- they all just want her back safely. Though the criminals who have been kidnapping the children of high-profile parents might continue operating in Port Harcourt for a while, they probably will think twice before abducting the child of an expatriate again
About Stratfor
Stratfor is the world’s leading private intelligence company delivering in-depth analysis, assessments and forecasts on global geopolitical, economic, security and public policy issues. A variety of subscription-based access, free intelligence reports and confidential consulting are available for individuals and corporations.
07/07/2007 20:59 LAGOS, July 7 (AFP)
Kidnapped British girl could be freed soon: Nigerian police
The Nigerian kidnappers of three year-old British girl Margaret Hill may release her within 24 hours, the chief of police in Rivers State said on Saturday.
"We have the rumour that she will be released between now and tomorrow," Commissioner Felix Ogbaudu told AFP by telephone.
Ogbaudu also said that the police "had information" on the whereabouts of the girl, who was seized at gunpoint on Thursday morning in Port Harcourt as she was being dropped off at school.
Earlier on Saturday the girl's mother Oluchi Hill said that the captors had demanded a ransom, a day after threatening to kill the little girl if her father, Michael Hill, did not take her place.
"They have asked for money. Who will help me to pay them?" Oluchi Hill, the child's Nigerian-born mother, told AFP by telephone.
She declined to say how high the ransom demand was and said she would issue the information through the British embassy in Nigeria.
An industry source said the girl's parents had moved from their home to an undisclosed location.
Nigerian police meanwhile intensified efforts to secure the girl's release.
"We are not resting on our oars. We are making efforts to see that the girl is released without harm," Rivers state police spokeswoman Barasua Ireju told AFP.
No group has claimed responsibility for the abduction, the latest to hit the restive Niger Delta in recent months, but the main separatist group in the region, MEND, has condemned the act.
The British Foreign Office has called for Margaret's immediate safe release.
Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua on Friday issued a personal appeal for Margaret to be freed.
Yar'Adua was deeply concerned that in spite of firm commitments to develop the impoverished region, kidnappings had continued, spokesman Olusegun Adeniyi said.
"President Yar'Adua therefore appeals once again for a total cessation of all acts of violence in the region, the release of little Miss Margaret Hill and all other hostages," he said in a statement here.
MEND is just one of many groups that have carried out kidnappings and attacks in the Niger Delta. Some claim to be fighting for a larger share of oil resources for locals, but many are armed gangs only seeking ransom money.
More than 200 foreigners have been seized since the start of 2006 in the Niger Delta, Nigeria's main oil producing region, in unrest that has reduced the country's 2.6 million barrels per day output by around a quarter.
Most have been freed again after a few days or weeks, often with a ransom paid. Nearly all multinational oil companies have moved expatriate families away from the region, and Britain has urged all its citizens to leave.
In May, a foreign child was kidnapped and released four days later.
The kidnapping and associated unrest helped push international oil prices near to record highs on Friday, with Brent North Sea crude climbing past 76 dollars per barrel, not far off its 78 dollar record.
July 06, 2007 16 28 GMT
Gunmen kidnapped 3-year-old Margaret Hill on July 5 from a car stuck in a traffic jam in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, on the busy Ada George highway. Her father, Mike Hill, is an expatriate from the United Kingdom who has lived and worked in Nigeria for a decade and is reportedly employed by Lone Star Drilling Co., an oil-supply company contracted by Royal Dutch/Shell to operate a number of its offshore rigs. He also runs a bar in Port Harcourt with his Nigerian wife.
Margaret was being driven to school when the kidnappers smashed a car window, stabbed her Nigerian driver in the arm and took her. They later contacted the girl's parents and demanded that Mike exchange himself for Margaret at a remote spot near Yenagoa in neighboring Bayelsa state within three hours or they would kill Margaret. Even though the exchange was never made -- neither the police nor Margaret's parents could locate the spot and the police refused to allow Mike to make the swap anyway -- the kidnappers called back, saying the girl was alive, and withdrew their demand for the exchange.
Kidnappings are common in southern Nigeria, but usually target foreign oil workers rather than children. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) militant group, which often kidnaps foreign oil workers in the region, condemned Margaret's abduction and said it will help find the girl. MEND is not involved with the girl's kidnapping; the group carries out kidnappings to pressure oil companies and, by extension, the government. Though Mike is a subcontractor for Shell, MEND would not abduct his daughter because it would not affect oil operations, and the chances of getting a multimillion dollar payout from an oil company's insurance company would be less than if actual workers were abducted.
This is the third child kidnapping for ransom in Port Harcourt in recent weeks. A state legislator's 3-year-old son was kidnapped June 26 from his nursery school and released three days later, and a local businessman's daughter was abducted before that. In both cases, the children were returned after a ransom was paid. This indicates one or more criminal gangs specializing in the abduction of high-profile parents' children are operating in Port Harcourt. With the latest kidnapping, they appear to have expanded their scope to expatriates' children.
The offer to exchange Margaret for her father is unusual. Initially, the kidnappers could have made the offer because they thought Mike would be insured by Shell because of his work with Lone Star. However, they changed their minds after the swap failed to take place. This indicates the kidnappers do not have a sound plan -- or, if they do, it is falling apart, which could lead them to panic. Kidnappers who are inexperienced or panicking are more dangerous to their victims.
The mixed signals from the kidnappers also could be a reaction to the attention this case is getting. Because her father is British, Margaret is a British subject, and the British Foreign Office and local and international media have taken an interest in her abduction. Despite their often brazen tactics and relative lack of concern about getting caught, Nigerian kidnappers -- like most criminals -- will shy away from too much media attention.
At this point, the kidnappers probably just want to get rid of Margaret and collect some money for their efforts. Catching the kidnappers is not the top priority for her parents, local officials and the British -- they all just want her back safely. Though the criminals who have been kidnapping the children of high-profile parents might continue operating in Port Harcourt for a while, they probably will think twice before abducting the child of an expatriate again
About Stratfor
Stratfor is the world’s leading private intelligence company delivering in-depth analysis, assessments and forecasts on global geopolitical, economic, security and public policy issues. A variety of subscription-based access, free intelligence reports and confidential consulting are available for individuals and corporations.
07/07/2007 20:59 LAGOS, July 7 (AFP)
Kidnapped British girl could be freed soon: Nigerian police
The Nigerian kidnappers of three year-old British girl Margaret Hill may release her within 24 hours, the chief of police in Rivers State said on Saturday.
"We have the rumour that she will be released between now and tomorrow," Commissioner Felix Ogbaudu told AFP by telephone.
Ogbaudu also said that the police "had information" on the whereabouts of the girl, who was seized at gunpoint on Thursday morning in Port Harcourt as she was being dropped off at school.
Earlier on Saturday the girl's mother Oluchi Hill said that the captors had demanded a ransom, a day after threatening to kill the little girl if her father, Michael Hill, did not take her place.
"They have asked for money. Who will help me to pay them?" Oluchi Hill, the child's Nigerian-born mother, told AFP by telephone.
She declined to say how high the ransom demand was and said she would issue the information through the British embassy in Nigeria.
An industry source said the girl's parents had moved from their home to an undisclosed location.
Nigerian police meanwhile intensified efforts to secure the girl's release.
"We are not resting on our oars. We are making efforts to see that the girl is released without harm," Rivers state police spokeswoman Barasua Ireju told AFP.
No group has claimed responsibility for the abduction, the latest to hit the restive Niger Delta in recent months, but the main separatist group in the region, MEND, has condemned the act.
The British Foreign Office has called for Margaret's immediate safe release.
Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua on Friday issued a personal appeal for Margaret to be freed.
Yar'Adua was deeply concerned that in spite of firm commitments to develop the impoverished region, kidnappings had continued, spokesman Olusegun Adeniyi said.
"President Yar'Adua therefore appeals once again for a total cessation of all acts of violence in the region, the release of little Miss Margaret Hill and all other hostages," he said in a statement here.
MEND is just one of many groups that have carried out kidnappings and attacks in the Niger Delta. Some claim to be fighting for a larger share of oil resources for locals, but many are armed gangs only seeking ransom money.
More than 200 foreigners have been seized since the start of 2006 in the Niger Delta, Nigeria's main oil producing region, in unrest that has reduced the country's 2.6 million barrels per day output by around a quarter.
Most have been freed again after a few days or weeks, often with a ransom paid. Nearly all multinational oil companies have moved expatriate families away from the region, and Britain has urged all its citizens to leave.
In May, a foreign child was kidnapped and released four days later.
The kidnapping and associated unrest helped push international oil prices near to record highs on Friday, with Brent North Sea crude climbing past 76 dollars per barrel, not far off its 78 dollar record.
Me, Obasanjo and Nigeria
By JACOB EDI, Abuja
Saturday, July 07, 2007
•Dangote
Photo By: Sun Publishing
More Stories on This Section
“The price Nigerians are paying for fuel and diesel is high because they are paying the price of inefficiency and corruption within NNPC,” Dangote says.
“They (NNPC) are not efficient. If they are efficient, then they should produce like India. We are paying for the inefficiency and corruption. There is corruption in the industry. It is a known thing.”
The Dangote story, which starts today, is part of the new focus of The Sun, the Voice of the Nation, a newspaper group that is moving to a higher plane as the centre of national discourse on business, political and social issues.
And, if there is one person whose meteoric forays into the commanding heights of the nation’s business and at times, political sectors, are stirring a national controversy, it is the shrewd corporate mogul, Aliko Dangote.
To some, he is the voice of business, the leader of the business community and the epitome of the Nigerian Dream. But to others and especially his ardent army of rivals and critics, he is profiting from an unconscionable political cronyism and simply buying up the nation’s economic legacies at give-away prices.
His case is made worse by the fact that he is an unapologetic friend of one of Nigeria’s most disliked political leaders, former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
In this interview, Dangote opened up not only on the secrets of his dizzying multi-billion dollar business successes, he also gave insight into what binds him to the former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Being No.1
My story is the story of a man and a brand Nigerians have come to know, to love and to accept. Nigerians are investing in us because they believe in us, they believe in the name Dangote. Apart from believing in us, we have a track record which we have actually shown. If you look at all our factories, they have grown steady and gradually to where we are today. In all modesty, we can say we have done very well. There is no business that we are in and we are not No.1. The worse one that we have, maybe we have a second position. That in itself is our business strategy. We aim to dominate our market, to lead in every market segment. They have all been run efficiently and professionally by people who really know the business very well. We have a very good brand name and that is part of what many people are actually investing in. They are not really investing in Aliko Dangote only. They are investing in the Dangote brand. They believe in my own business acumen but it is not the only thing that people are investing in. They are investing in the Dangote brand. Right from the beginning of our business, we have always been very conscious about what we give to the consumers. Because once you start on a wrong footing, that’s it. You’ve missed it. It’s almost impossible to go back and convince people.
It hasn’t been easy attaining No.1. We haven’t always started as No.1. Often, we start as a challenger, taking on a dominant player. Take the case where in year 2000 we started to enter a market where some people have been there 40 years before us. And we still went into the market and we fought our way in to become No.2. And we are on the verge of getting to No.1. The product is flour. We fought our way up into that market using the power of the Dangote brand and offering quality. Quality customer service and also the capacity. Because if you don’t have capacity, even when your market is good, you can’t do much. To meet capacity, we invested heavily. Apart from investing heavily, we made sure that our quality is good and consistent with the former quality when we used to import flour.
We used to be basically just importers. We were just importing and then we would market the goods and sell. In the beginning, we sold cement. Today, we manufacture cement. Today the best cement in Nigeria—you can go and take the samples and check—is coming from our one billion dollar factory at Obajana. And what we have there is 97 percent local raw materials. The only thing we lack is the gypsum. Even this, we buy some of it from Gombe area which we mix with the foreign ones. But everything is there in one location. And it is the best cement compared to the one we are importing from Taiwan, Europe and China.
The real cost in cement is the mining and the power. Power is a major cost. That is why the profit of a plant up North and the one down here is not the same. Because you need a lot of power up North in places like Ashaka. Ashaka and our own in Obajana is not the same cost. Even by economies of scale, when you look at staff strength of Ashaka, the staff strength of Ashaka is about two-and-half to three times more than the one we have in Obajana. Even though they produce 750,000 tons and we produce 5million tons. So you can see the big difference there. Because we have a very highly automated and most modern factory anywhere. If you look at our chimney, you would not see anything. No smoke belching out and polluting the environment. Nothing. You can eat under the machine. That is how environmentally friendly we practise. You don’t even hear the noise. You would think that the factory is off, but we are producing. You only see the cement out.
There is nothing extraordinary or mysterious about me. It’s just that we are very, very shrewd business-oriented company. Even though I am the CEO, it’s a collective business. I am not the only one that really runs the company. There are other good brains, there are other good brains. Because if I don’t have the good support, I can be the most entrepreneurial and talented person but I won’t be able to get to where we are today. Going forward, we have achieved so much and I believe in the next three years, by the time most of the projects stand on ground, we would be the biggest company in Africa.
Government and I
There is no one in the world who would have investments and be fighting government. It doesn’t matter where you are, whether you are in Russia, whether you are in UK, whether you are in America. You would not have investments and say, fine, my No.1 enemy is government. Do people who accuse me of being close to the government of Obasanjo expect me to say my No.1 enemy is government? It is not possible. There is no business that has no link with politics. None. And I challenge anybody to contradict me. Because you either say to a government in power, “ok, fine I am for you.” Or “I am against you.” And obviously, a right thinking business person would say, I am for you. If you need both the government and the people of the country, that is what you would do. That is where the issue of corporate governance and social responsibility comes in. You are not going to fold your arms, because you are operating within the environment. If you are operating within the environment, why do you want to make the government your enemy?
As an entrepreneur, you have to always try to advise the government. You have to tell them that yes, this is right, this is wrong.
In the modern world, the government does not really run the economy. It is the private sector that runs the economy. But there must be a good partnership between the government and the private sector. If the private sector and the government are at variance, then the economy would not move forward. But they need this cordial relationship to be able to move the economy forward. And that’s just where we are as a bridge. If I have this business and I now take a ministerial appointment, then it is totally a different ball game. It is not a question of boasting, our business is real. Real in the sense that yes, we have cement business for example. The cement business that we have, every single government that comes in, we would be friendly with them, because we are government-friendly. That is No.1. And I believe each and every company is government-friendly. Let Jim Ovia go and be the enemy of government and you would see where Zenith Bank would go. Or UBA. Or First Bank. Even as conservative as First Bank, let them say they don’t have anything to do with government and that they are on their own. Let them be coming out to say things against the government. And they would reap the consequence.
Obasanjo and I
Former President Obasanjo and I became closer because his government is purely for people who would add value to the economy. If I wasn’t adding value to the economy, I can assure you that I wouldn’t be as friendly as I am with Obasanjo. Eighty-five percent of my relationship with Obasanjo has to do with the economy of the country. Even when we sit down, eight-five percent of the time is spent discussing the economy. How do we move the economy forward? And I think I have to be really grateful. Let me share my experience on cement, for example. But for Obasanjo’s encouragement and push, there is no way Obajana would have been possible at all. It was his push that made the difference. I would have made more money importing cement, because I know my cost, I would pass my cost on to the consumers. And today, freight rates from Asia are so high that it is unbelievable. People would have been paying more than N2,000 per bag for cement, if we were importing.
Right now, I am at the point of going to have a meeting with the governor of Ogun State, because we are going to do twice what we have done in Obajana in Ogun State, in Sagamu and Igbese. We are actually going to sign the contract this month, and the contractor would move to the sites and mobilise the sites within a period of 90 days. We have had this project for a while, but now we are doing even four times what we intended to do before.
Still on Obasanjo, let me tell you something. We have never, ever done business with anybody in the government. I don’t like to boast, but let me tell you something. I was born into money. Both my fathers—from my mother’s side and also from my father’s side—they have always had money. So, it’s not that I just came and picked up something from this thing. But it does not mean also in the family that everybody would be rich. I don’t know any of my family member—both from my mother’s side and my father’s side—that has ever had a deal with anybody in the government. It is not only Obasanjo. Even in the society, we don’t have partners.
For the new cement projects in Ogun State, we are targeting 10 million tons there. Now the cost of everything has gone up, even abroad. Cost of construction has gone up, equipment has gone up by 40 percent, but we think with our experience now from Obajana, we would do it at about the same cost. So in Ogun State, we would be investing about $2 billion and then we would have another $850million also to invest in Obajana. Because there are some areas like power where we have excess, like housing, we would just put a little bit more, the gas pipeline, we are not doing anymore. So we would spend about $850million to get 10million tons. And our target is to get to 23million tons as Dangote Group alone, and other people would have the remaining 5million tons or so. We are going to put down about 30 to 35 percent of the money. We would now borrow the remaining 70 percent. We would borrow mainly from International Finance Corporation (IFC) which is part of World Bank, we would borrow also from European Investment Bank (EIB) and we are also approaching some foreign banks and also the local banks. So collectively, we would spend that much amount of money between now and 2010. And mind you, we have businesses we are running and these businesses are not small businesses. They are big businesses. And part of it, we would be able to pay on our own. In the cement sector, out of the $2.85billion that we have, I think our own contribution is about $840million which is about 30 percent. Within our operations we have that much money to put down for the construction. And you know it’s over a period of three years. And over period of three years, our business is generating good profit and good dividend also. We believe we have the money and we are going to go ahead with it.
Why I am into giant projects
The challenges of this gigantic projects and its huge cost running to billions of dollars don’t scare me. The reason is, if we don’t do it, nobody would come and do it for us here in Nigeria. Let me explain why we are investing heavily like this, especially in one sector, which is cement. As a Nigerian, I want to make sure that people, wherever you live, unless it is an awkward and obscure area of the country, I want to see people buying cement not more than N1,000 per bag. If I say N1,000 per bag, it means the transportation, the profitability and whatever people have to make out of, I shouldn’t sell my cement at not more than N800. I also want to break that jinx of people saying once something is up, it would never come down. I think, with the programme that we have, by 2010, people should be paying for cement the price they paid in the year 2000. Some people say, all we do is to re-bag cement and not manufacture. I laugh.
What I want people to do is to take a trip to Obajana where daily 300 trucks come out of the factory loaded with cement. Let the critics come and they would see that we don’t have the cement coming in, but cement come out daily. It doesn’t make any commercial sense for somebody to carry cement dusts and go and pack them in Obajana. Our quarry is there for people to see the things we are bringing from the ground. Once you see that, then you know we are adding value. Obajana alone is going to save the nation today half a billion dollars. Maybe today, it doesn’t mean much but tomorrow if oil drops to $40, then factories like Obajana are the things that would save Nigeria. Because, whether we have the oil or we don’t have it, we must import cement to provide shelter. And cement is a key product that government must actually give.
Number two: If they say we are bagging sugar, then the person should pay a visit to our factory in Apapa and see what kind of sugar we bring in. What we bring in is raw sugar which is not fit for human consumption. And we are not the only one that have refineries all over the world. There are refineries all over the world and there are two different markets. When you look at the screen of sugar, there is London No.5, which is for white sugar and there is New York No.11 which is raw sugar. So raw sugar is different and white sugar is different. And that is what people don’t really understand. We get raw sugar, we refine, and not just refine, we separate sugar and molasses. If today, you come to our sugar company, you will discover the business is not just about selling sugar, it is also about selling molasses. We also have a byproduct which is also good for the farm. That is the only product we don’t have much market for.
Sugar story getting sweeter
Today, if we are only bringing sugar to re-bag, why can’t I go and re-bag in Ghana? Today, I am doubling my sugar factory to be able to export. Why? Because European Union has lost the case with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) that they are taking sugar and dumping in most of these other countries. And the case was taken by Brazil and Thailand, and they won the case. The EU went on appeal and they lost the appeal. After they lost the appeal, now they were given a time. That is fine, you cannot export anymore, you are exporting today, 7.23million tons, henceforth, which is from the end of 2006, they can only export 1.23million. Which means there is a gap of 6million tons. This gap of 6million tons is what has now made us to double our refinery here and capture at least the African market. This gap is all over the world, but it is mainly Africa and some Asian countries. The EU have their main market in Africa, north Africa and here in Nigeria. We are importing a lot of sugar. The gap we have within sub-Saharan Africa alone is going to be about 2million tons. So that is why we are expanding. We are not fools. It is the main reason why we are investing heavily to now take our factory to the biggest in the history of the world, which is 2.5billion tons capacity in one single location.
The West can’t sabotage me because they have been asked to close down and they are closing their refineries. Since they are closing down their refineries, who is going to do the export? We would not be in that competitive market with them. There is no competition between us anymore. If we are going to compete, then it is different. They have converted most of their farms to something else. But that is also on another issue all together. Going forward, there is a shortage of refining capacity. It is like oil. It is the shortage of that refining capacity that has been pushing also the price, because of demand. Demand is there. But for the last 20, 30 years, people have not been investing in refineries. It’s the same identical thing we have with sugar. Raw sugar, when you look at it, it’s cheaper, but the refining capacity is not there.
People think we are local
People think we only operate in Nigeria. People think we are just a local, small company. The problem with Nigerians is that, No.1 we are not noisemakers. Because of the nature of Nigeria, we try to be as quiet as possible. We are not loud. And where I come from, we are not taught to be loud. We are taught to be just as simple as possible. We shouldn’t blow our own trumpet. We should allow other people to blow our trumpet. A footballer doesn’t come out and say I am good. You go into the field and prove yourself. When people see what you are doing, then they hail you. Then they say: “This guy is good.” We don’t go about shouting on rooftops that we are good. You don’t market yourself to some extent. You let others do the marketing. And that’s how we are. People really don’t understand us, they don’t know where we are heading, but we are adding a lot of value. We can see the agitation sometimes of people who wonder over Dangote this, Dangote that, but people forget that we have been working for 28 years. Continuously. We have not relented in the things that we started. Right from the beginning when we started, we have been working hard. We know our target, we know where we want to get to. And if we don’t do it, Nigerians would not participate in our own economy.
Right now, we are having a discussion with a family in India to buy over their cement plant. This cement plant is more than twice that of Obajana. And hopefully we would succeed in doing that. People really don’t understand. Once you get to a certain level, raising money is not going to be difficult for you. And that is the stage that we are in now. If you hear we are doing a $4billion project, somebody would say: Where are you going to get the money from being a Nigerian? Yes, we would get the money. It is not hundred percent my own money. The banks believe in my brain, they believe in my capacity and ability of doing things and they would come along. When they see the plan, they would ask: Do you have your 20 or 30 percent? I said yes, I have it. And they give it to you. And it’s done. They need me also, because without a good entrepreneur all the money that the banks would have would become stale. They won’t need the money. They just don’t give you their money. They have to see that it’s going to have very good returns. The guy who is presenting this project knows exactly what he is talking about. When we presented Obajana cement project, some of the banks asked: Will this be possible? Will this concept work? For an entrepreneur, everything starts from a dream which we turn into reality.
Lending to the poor
Banks have a critical role to play in any economy. They serve as mediators in any business transaction. They assist entrepreneurs with capital. Nigerian banks have been helping entrepreneurs. I can testify to that. But one area I am not happy with is the area of micro-credit—which is borrowing to the poor. The level we now need to change which is not part of their job is this micro-credit. Because they don’t have the expertise and the capacity to manage micro-credit. We need totally a new, different team to manage micro-credit which can help the economy a great deal. Somebody who is in the village, if you give him N50,000, it would transform his life. And micro-credit is never really a cheap thing. But it would give you an opportunity of life to have a capital. If you give somebody in your village N50,000, he would create something with it. Nigerians are not lazy naturally. They are very, very creative, but they don’t have access to that money. Today, I am talking of big money. If you had visited me four years ago, I won’t be talking about this kind of big projects that I am talking about. Unless you participate, you can’t grow the economy. And the big difference is that we as Dangote Group, we have not hidden our money abroad and just come home and ‘sit down and look.’ We are properly participating. We don’t expect to carry everybody along as friends. Definitely you would have good friends as well as good army of enemies. They would keep shouting, but their shouting would not really stop of us from what we are doing.
People have asked why I don’t own a bank like some wealthy Nigerians who own banks as an extension of their business, and my answer is that I am not a professional banker. It is not my core business. My core business is actually to run industries. I am an entrepreneur, not a banker. As an entrepreneur you are better off running your own business than running a bank. Banking should be for professional bankers. I am an entrepreneur searching for business opportunities. What I look for in a business is the viability of the project and also the population. And then I do my numbers. I won’t reveal the full secrets but these are a few of the things that I look for.
Even your enemy can buy
From the start, I have always believed in minding my own business and not involving myself in business partnership. Why don’t I like partnership, particularly in Nigeria? I can tell you authoritatively that the easiest way to fight is to have a joint business. Nigerians don’t really understand partnership. I don’t want somebody now, when I have partnership with you, your wife would start telling you: “Aliko has bought a brand new jet. Are you sure he is not cheating you in your business?” Because it has happened. You can go privately and ask some of these bankers. They have put money together and have created a bank. Ask them: Have you ever had issues with your partners? They would tell you yes, if they are sincere. We have overcome this phobia, by doing our own form of partnership—which is going public. That is why we have started sharing with people by going public. And when you go public, even your own enemy can come and buy shares in your own company. Nothing stops him from buying shares from your company. For me, the only exception is the Blue Star Consortium we formed with friends. In the Blue Star Consortium, yes we are the majority owners, so we lead the rest of the team that have trust in us. That’s what it is. And we are going to create value. We have created value today in a cement company like Benue. We have created value in NASCON. We have created a lot of millionaires in Dangote Sugar. We have now over 120,000 shareholders. We decided to go public so that we can actually share the goodies with the rest of the population. The idea of going public is also to allow the company to grow. If it is a question of looking for cheap funds, we would have approached the banks. Capital market is ultimately more expensive than loan. When a shareholder puts down his money, it is more expensive. It is better for you to go and borrow than for you to raise money through the capital market. Because, people would be on your neck. If it is a question of money, then it is better for me to borrow. All the profits and the dividends that I am giving away, I would have taken hundred percent of it without me going to Tinubu Square to wash my underwear and hang it. Because today, being a public company, you have to be as open as possible. Whatever it is, you have to show people that this is it. Nevertheless, we are going to continue to bring in the public, we are going to make sure that Nigerians share from my vision and from the money that we are making. At the current level, we have not actually started anything. I can assure you that we have other companies that would be more profitable by far than our sugar. As at today, by the grace of God, when you look at the end of the year, when we have our full results in sugar, I can guarantee you that our sugar would be the most profitable company in the country.
Managing the Dangote companies
My companies all operate as separate entities. They are all on their own. Each company has a board and their own management. They are all linked to this head office. What we do here at the head office is to monitor what they are doing. We have the responsibility of making sure they perform. Each company has its own budget and we hold them on to their budget. There are some things that we have shared services. Things like legal, human resources, corporate branding. These are what we have in common. For example, a company like Obajana which is a billion dollar investment, since the day we went for the opening, I have not been there. I haven’t gone back there. But it is operating, it is giving people their cement, they are selling and we are counting our money every day. So I don’t need to be there. But we are looking at what they are doing. And in areas where they are going off course, we are pushing them back to make sure they operate according to the rules and the regulations. As we grow and move forward, I am putting up things outside Nigeria. We plan to have a CEO who would look after the worldwide business, so that Nigeria would become a branch of the Dangote multinational company. Right now, we are in the market looking for a global CEO who would look after Nigeria, look after Ghana, look after Tanzania, look after Morocco. And those CEOs of the different countries will be at par with the CEO of Obajana while they have a boss. They report to their boss. And the boss has a board and I would be the chairman of the board.
The global CEO I am looking for need not come from a cement industry background—though that would be an advantage. You might come from oil industry, depending on what you have done. Then we would look at it and how many years of experience that you have. But then, we are not doing it on our own. We have an agency assisting us. And we are also doing headhunting. We are still talking to some people from the three big cement companies in the world. So that they would bring their experience and expertise into our own system. I do sometimes involve myself in recruitment. It depends on the position. On the position like the CEO, after they have made their final list of about three to four people, then I would get involved to talk to the person. Because he would also ask me: what is my vision? What do I want to achieve? He would have questions for me just as I would have questions for him. He would interview me and I would interview him. That is what I expect.
Motivation is critical to the success of every business. We give performance bonus. And since we are going public, the staff members would also become shareholders. And the good thing about making members of your staff shareholders is that if there is any connivance or fraud, once the workers realize that they are also stakeholders, they would blow the whistle faster, than keeping quiet. Corruption is something that you keep fighting on a continuous basis. I am not saying that we don’t have that problem in the company. We do. All the time you have people who are always trying to be smart in the company, but I think going forward, it is the processes that would help you. Once you have good processes within your own system, processes of doing the business—computerization and how things are done and stages of process—it would minimize those things. But whether you can eliminate it is almost impossible. It is true, there is a high degree of fraud in Nigeria, but one of the things that bothers me more is that some Nigerians—I am not talking about my company now—when you invite them to run your business, their intention is totally different. Even when you ask someone to write down his own salary and he says $10million, even when you give him the $10million, he would use the left hand to collect it and be busy with the right hand stealing money somewhere. We are very lucky really. Our top management is extremely good. We are expanding also at the same time, so that is why we are very careful of how we employ people. I think, going forward also, it would reduce these things, because they too would become stakeholders. I could give you shares worth N5million which in the next five years would translate into N100million. Once you look at the value of these shares of yours, it would not push you to do things that are not according to the rules of the game. Because, if I find out and I sack you, you are going to lose the salary that is worth more than five, six years of the value. I think, having the managers to own part of the company is key to stopping most of these things.
Our company is mixed with foreigners and Nigerians. We are playing in a bigger field where we don’t have the expertise to run these mega companies. You obviously need some help from abroad in terms of expertise. It is not a black box that has been locked somewhere. You can really pay and get these top brains to come and train the Nigerians. And when we train the Nigerians, I think the way we are going, it would be difficult for any good manager to leave our company, because he also has a lot to lose. It’s like some of our staff that now bought sugar shares. They have made a lot of money. When we are going to do our cement in future, we would have now a different scenario. We would have share options. If I am selling my flour for ten naira, as my staff member, I would give you at ten naira but you would pay me in five years. But if you exit within the five years, you lose the shares. These are the kind of things that can actually hold somebody—as a co-owner and co-partner. And not just an employee without a stake.
As a company we have a management and marketing style. Our style is very, very simple. It is low profile but aggressive. We are very aggressive.
Separating men from boys
Managing a company in Nigeria is challenging. Nigeria is the place to separate the men from the boys. It is where you separate a good manager from a bad one. People that are claiming that Nigeria is difficult, there is no place that is not difficult. Every single place is difficult. It depends to what degree. Nigeria, yes, is difficult, but it is also a good place to invest. You don’t really expect to just come and play or wake up at 10 o’clock from your house, come to the office and then close at 2. That’s not the way to run a business. If the place is not difficult, then we would have too many people trying to do the same things. It is a place that I believe has the best opportunities in the world. It might sound crazy, but yes, the opportunities in Nigeria, they are extremely good. They are there. And people can make good money here in Nigeria. I know there are challenges, but if you are not a good manager, then you would look for areas where there are no challenges. Like now, you would say there is power in Switzerland, everything is there for you. No armed robbers. Nothing. But how much profit can you make in Switzerland? How much profit can you make in Switzerland?
Vision
I am envisioning a company that I think is going to be the largest manufacturing company in Africa. And we thought we were going to achieve this in the next ten years. But now, I think we would achieve that by 2010. We would be a company that I think would have at least something like $15billion of turnover. And that is the minimum acceptable to us. And that is what we would achieve by the grace of God. It is the minimum we would get by 2010. I know that people would think that we are crazy but we would get there. When we started shouting that we are going to be a very, very big company soon, peop
How Beijing spreads its influence
TOD HOFFMAN
Freelance
http://www.canada.com/
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Charm Offensive: How China's Soft Power Is Transforming the World
By Joshua Kurlantzick
Yale University Press, 320 pages, $30.50
Soft power refers to diplomacy, trade incentives, cultural and educational exchanges, and other such tactics that a state uses to project its economic and political will and extend its influence. It is a strategy of charm over confrontation, one that eschews resort to hard - or military - power.
And China is using it very effectively to challenge the position of the United States as the predominant global actor, argues Joshua Kurlantzick, a journalist with extensive experience in Asia, most recently as a correspondent for the New Republic.
"Beijing will be able to wield its soft power to push back against American power and, potentially, to threaten American interests," Kurlantzick declares in Charm Offensive, a pithy catchphrase he uses to describe China's foreign policy.
Some may take this as prophetic. I see it as premature. It is the kind of grand overstatement often used by Western analysts to predict an impending confrontation with the Chinese. However, the book doesn't demonstrate that "transforming the world" is China's ultimate objective, let alone that it is an achievable one.
It is true that, since emerging from the Cold War as the world's sole hegemonic power, the United States's image has deteriorated rapidly, most dramatically after it launched the war on terror and the offensive against Iraq. Its cultural reach and enormous wealth cause resentment, and its military might intimidates. The advent of globalization is interpreted by many as encroaching Americanization. Much of the world perceives the United States as a frightened bully, predisposed to applying overwhelming force to coerce others to succumb to its will.
China, by comparison, escapes a comparable level of scrutiny. Its brutal crackdown against pro-democracy protesters at Tiananmen Square back in 1989 is a distant memory for many; its routine abuses of human rights only periodically cause a stir.
Chinese diplomats are no longer comically awkward automatons spouting Maoist aphorisms. Today, they are well-educated, sophisticated, and generally fluent in the languages of the countries to which they are posted. Unlike their American counterparts, who have increasingly isolated themselves within their fortified embassies for fear of terrorism, the Chinese circulate, promoting China. Chinese language studies have become very popular across Asia, in Africa and Latin America. The government offers scholarships to attract foreign students to Chinese universities. Not only does this bolster China's image, but it builds affinities and encourages the life-long networks between elites from which Western countries have benefited greatly.
China, Kurlantzick demonstrates, has curried favour with some of the world's most despotic regimes by making a virtue of unqualified respect for sovereignty. It imposes no conditions regarding democratic elections, respect for human rights or fair labour practices, while the U.S. tries to leverage relations in order to manipulate domestic affairs. Thus, China is content to support the Sudanese regime that is committing atrocities in Darfur, Iran despite its determination to acquire nuclear weapons, Robert Mugabe's decrepit and destitute dictatorship in Zimbabwe, as well as repressive governments in Burma and Nigeria.
Dictators who have no intention of loosening their hold on power find in China an exceedingly attractive model of how economic growth can be combined with authoritarian rule. China has done a very effective job advertising its newly emergent class of wealthy entrepreneurs, while somehow diverting attention from the majority who "will work for the monetary equivalent of a Starbucks latte per day," such being their desperation.
China does have enough soft power - backed up, let us not forget, by significant hard power - to exert considerable influence. However, the examples Kurlantzick cites fail to demonstrate that its reach will extend as far as he implies, or that China represents a threat to the United States.
For one thing, China's domestic needs - for resources, a more equitable distribution of wealth - are simply too great for its diplomatic efforts to transform the world, as he projects. For another, China appears poised to repeat many of the mistakes the United States has made. As a market for the developing world, it is predominantly interested in access to raw materials, which means it could become associated with neo-colonial exploitation. Its insistence on non-interference in internal affairs has made it complicit with some reprehensible rulers. If and when they are deposed, ascendant opposition figures in those countries will not look kindly upon the friends of their tormentors.
Charm Offensive tries to sound a warning. It just isn't one that rings especially true.
Tod Hoffman is at work on a book about Chinese espionage.
Freelance
http://www.canada.com/
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Charm Offensive: How China's Soft Power Is Transforming the World
By Joshua Kurlantzick
Yale University Press, 320 pages, $30.50
Soft power refers to diplomacy, trade incentives, cultural and educational exchanges, and other such tactics that a state uses to project its economic and political will and extend its influence. It is a strategy of charm over confrontation, one that eschews resort to hard - or military - power.
And China is using it very effectively to challenge the position of the United States as the predominant global actor, argues Joshua Kurlantzick, a journalist with extensive experience in Asia, most recently as a correspondent for the New Republic.
"Beijing will be able to wield its soft power to push back against American power and, potentially, to threaten American interests," Kurlantzick declares in Charm Offensive, a pithy catchphrase he uses to describe China's foreign policy.
Some may take this as prophetic. I see it as premature. It is the kind of grand overstatement often used by Western analysts to predict an impending confrontation with the Chinese. However, the book doesn't demonstrate that "transforming the world" is China's ultimate objective, let alone that it is an achievable one.
It is true that, since emerging from the Cold War as the world's sole hegemonic power, the United States's image has deteriorated rapidly, most dramatically after it launched the war on terror and the offensive against Iraq. Its cultural reach and enormous wealth cause resentment, and its military might intimidates. The advent of globalization is interpreted by many as encroaching Americanization. Much of the world perceives the United States as a frightened bully, predisposed to applying overwhelming force to coerce others to succumb to its will.
China, by comparison, escapes a comparable level of scrutiny. Its brutal crackdown against pro-democracy protesters at Tiananmen Square back in 1989 is a distant memory for many; its routine abuses of human rights only periodically cause a stir.
Chinese diplomats are no longer comically awkward automatons spouting Maoist aphorisms. Today, they are well-educated, sophisticated, and generally fluent in the languages of the countries to which they are posted. Unlike their American counterparts, who have increasingly isolated themselves within their fortified embassies for fear of terrorism, the Chinese circulate, promoting China. Chinese language studies have become very popular across Asia, in Africa and Latin America. The government offers scholarships to attract foreign students to Chinese universities. Not only does this bolster China's image, but it builds affinities and encourages the life-long networks between elites from which Western countries have benefited greatly.
China, Kurlantzick demonstrates, has curried favour with some of the world's most despotic regimes by making a virtue of unqualified respect for sovereignty. It imposes no conditions regarding democratic elections, respect for human rights or fair labour practices, while the U.S. tries to leverage relations in order to manipulate domestic affairs. Thus, China is content to support the Sudanese regime that is committing atrocities in Darfur, Iran despite its determination to acquire nuclear weapons, Robert Mugabe's decrepit and destitute dictatorship in Zimbabwe, as well as repressive governments in Burma and Nigeria.
Dictators who have no intention of loosening their hold on power find in China an exceedingly attractive model of how economic growth can be combined with authoritarian rule. China has done a very effective job advertising its newly emergent class of wealthy entrepreneurs, while somehow diverting attention from the majority who "will work for the monetary equivalent of a Starbucks latte per day," such being their desperation.
China does have enough soft power - backed up, let us not forget, by significant hard power - to exert considerable influence. However, the examples Kurlantzick cites fail to demonstrate that its reach will extend as far as he implies, or that China represents a threat to the United States.
For one thing, China's domestic needs - for resources, a more equitable distribution of wealth - are simply too great for its diplomatic efforts to transform the world, as he projects. For another, China appears poised to repeat many of the mistakes the United States has made. As a market for the developing world, it is predominantly interested in access to raw materials, which means it could become associated with neo-colonial exploitation. Its insistence on non-interference in internal affairs has made it complicit with some reprehensible rulers. If and when they are deposed, ascendant opposition figures in those countries will not look kindly upon the friends of their tormentors.
Charm Offensive tries to sound a warning. It just isn't one that rings especially true.
Tod Hoffman is at work on a book about Chinese espionage.
The United States of Africa
http://www.yobserver.com/opinions/10012537.html
Posted in: Opinions
Written By: Gwynne Dyer
Article Date: Jul 7, 2007 - 9:05:44 AM
“Before you put a roof on a house, you need to build the foundations,” South African President Thabo Mbeki reportedly told diplomats at the summit meeting of the African Union in Ghana last weekend. Others were just as quick to ridicule the summit’s declared goal of creating a unified African government by 2015, and it certainly isn’t going to happen fast. It may never happen at all – but it might, and it would be a very good idea.
“The emergence of such a mighty stabilizing force in this strife-torn world should be regarded...not as a shadowy dream of a visionary,” declared Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of independent Ghana, almost half a century ago, “but as a practical proposition which the peoples of Africa can and should translate into reality.... We must act now. Tomorrow may be too late.” Nkrumah was pleading for a pan-African government instead of the jigsaw puzzle of former colonies that came into existence as the European imperial powers left Africa. He was asking for the Moon: the independence struggle was waged within the borders of each colony, and the leaders who emerged had their power bases within those borders.
Wider unity would have dethroned most of those leaders, so it did not happen. But now the unity project is back. The African Union was created five years ago out of the wreckage of the discredited Organization of African Unity with the goal of making Africa’s rulers accountable. Now it is trying to revive the project for real African unity, and there is no shortage of Africans who argue that it is merely a distraction from urgent and concrete problems like Darfur and Zimbabwe. Maybe they are right, but what if those crises are just symptoms of a deeper African problem? At the time most African countries gained their independence in the 1960s, they had higher average incomes and better public services than most Asian countries. Kenyans lived better than Malaysians; people in the Ivory Coast were richer than South Koreans; Zimbabweans were healthier, longer-lived and better educated than Chinese.
And there were more and worse wars in Asia than in Africa. Now it’s all dramatically the other way round, but why? Individual Africans are no less intelligent, hard working or ambitious than individual Asians, so the answer must lie in the system. And the most striking characteristic of that system is the sheer number of independent states within Africa: fifty-three of them, in a continent that has fewer people than either India or China. This is where the discussion usually veers off into a condemnation of the arbitrary borders drawn by the old colonial powers, which paid little heed to the ethnic ties of the people within them, but that is not the point at all. The point is that at least half of the fifty-three African countries have greater ethnic diversity within their borders than all of China.
A few, like Nigeria, approach India in the sheer range and diversity of their languages, religions and ethnic identities. You CANNOT draw rational borders for Africa that give each ethnic group its own homeland. Even if you refused that privilege to groups of less than half a million people, you’d end up with over 200 countries. So the old Organization of African Unity decreed that the colonial borders must remain untouchable, because the only alternative seemed to be several generations of separatist ethnic wars. The problem is that quite a few of the separatist ethnic wars happened anyway, and many other African countries, to avoid that fate, became tyrannies where a “big man” from one of the dominant ethnic groups ruled over the rest by a combination of patronage and violence.
Time was wasted, lives were lost, and things went backwards. It was nobody’s fault, but Africa needs to change this system. There are over two hundred ethnic groups in Africa that have over half a million people, and NONE (except the Arabs of North Africa) that amount to even five percent of the continent’s population. Only three languages—Mandarin Chinese, Hindi and Japanese—account for half the population of Asia. Even in Europe, eight languages account for 75 percent of the continent’s population.
Africa is different, and maybe the national state (or, rather, the pseudo-national state) is not the answer there. The African federalists imagine a solution that jumps right over that problem: a single African Union modeled on the European Union, but where no ethnic group is even five percent of the population. Then politics stops being a zero-sum ethnic competition (at least in theory) and starts being about the general welfare. And also, in theory, the continent starts to fulfill its potential. We will all be a good deal older before the African Union, or whatever it will eventually be called, becomes more than a dream, but in the end it may.
As Alpha Oumar Konare, former president of Mali and head of the African Union, said at the start of the summit: “The battle for the United States of Africa is the only one worth fighting for this generation—the only one that can provide the answers to the thousand-and-one problems faced by the populations of Africa.”
* Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.
Posted in: Opinions
Written By: Gwynne Dyer
Article Date: Jul 7, 2007 - 9:05:44 AM
“Before you put a roof on a house, you need to build the foundations,” South African President Thabo Mbeki reportedly told diplomats at the summit meeting of the African Union in Ghana last weekend. Others were just as quick to ridicule the summit’s declared goal of creating a unified African government by 2015, and it certainly isn’t going to happen fast. It may never happen at all – but it might, and it would be a very good idea.
“The emergence of such a mighty stabilizing force in this strife-torn world should be regarded...not as a shadowy dream of a visionary,” declared Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of independent Ghana, almost half a century ago, “but as a practical proposition which the peoples of Africa can and should translate into reality.... We must act now. Tomorrow may be too late.” Nkrumah was pleading for a pan-African government instead of the jigsaw puzzle of former colonies that came into existence as the European imperial powers left Africa. He was asking for the Moon: the independence struggle was waged within the borders of each colony, and the leaders who emerged had their power bases within those borders.
Wider unity would have dethroned most of those leaders, so it did not happen. But now the unity project is back. The African Union was created five years ago out of the wreckage of the discredited Organization of African Unity with the goal of making Africa’s rulers accountable. Now it is trying to revive the project for real African unity, and there is no shortage of Africans who argue that it is merely a distraction from urgent and concrete problems like Darfur and Zimbabwe. Maybe they are right, but what if those crises are just symptoms of a deeper African problem? At the time most African countries gained their independence in the 1960s, they had higher average incomes and better public services than most Asian countries. Kenyans lived better than Malaysians; people in the Ivory Coast were richer than South Koreans; Zimbabweans were healthier, longer-lived and better educated than Chinese.
And there were more and worse wars in Asia than in Africa. Now it’s all dramatically the other way round, but why? Individual Africans are no less intelligent, hard working or ambitious than individual Asians, so the answer must lie in the system. And the most striking characteristic of that system is the sheer number of independent states within Africa: fifty-three of them, in a continent that has fewer people than either India or China. This is where the discussion usually veers off into a condemnation of the arbitrary borders drawn by the old colonial powers, which paid little heed to the ethnic ties of the people within them, but that is not the point at all. The point is that at least half of the fifty-three African countries have greater ethnic diversity within their borders than all of China.
A few, like Nigeria, approach India in the sheer range and diversity of their languages, religions and ethnic identities. You CANNOT draw rational borders for Africa that give each ethnic group its own homeland. Even if you refused that privilege to groups of less than half a million people, you’d end up with over 200 countries. So the old Organization of African Unity decreed that the colonial borders must remain untouchable, because the only alternative seemed to be several generations of separatist ethnic wars. The problem is that quite a few of the separatist ethnic wars happened anyway, and many other African countries, to avoid that fate, became tyrannies where a “big man” from one of the dominant ethnic groups ruled over the rest by a combination of patronage and violence.
Time was wasted, lives were lost, and things went backwards. It was nobody’s fault, but Africa needs to change this system. There are over two hundred ethnic groups in Africa that have over half a million people, and NONE (except the Arabs of North Africa) that amount to even five percent of the continent’s population. Only three languages—Mandarin Chinese, Hindi and Japanese—account for half the population of Asia. Even in Europe, eight languages account for 75 percent of the continent’s population.
Africa is different, and maybe the national state (or, rather, the pseudo-national state) is not the answer there. The African federalists imagine a solution that jumps right over that problem: a single African Union modeled on the European Union, but where no ethnic group is even five percent of the population. Then politics stops being a zero-sum ethnic competition (at least in theory) and starts being about the general welfare. And also, in theory, the continent starts to fulfill its potential. We will all be a good deal older before the African Union, or whatever it will eventually be called, becomes more than a dream, but in the end it may.
As Alpha Oumar Konare, former president of Mali and head of the African Union, said at the start of the summit: “The battle for the United States of Africa is the only one worth fighting for this generation—the only one that can provide the answers to the thousand-and-one problems faced by the populations of Africa.”
* Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.
AUSTRALIA : Global Forces 2007 International Conference
ASPI held its conference in Canberra 5-6 July 2007. The conference focused on the bigger geopolitical issues shaping Australia’s strategic landscape. Sessions covered the global context and major influences, security instruments and arrangements, Asia-Pacific regional security issues and Australian policy responses. The Prime Minister delivered the keynote address.
Address to the ASPI 'Global Forces 2007' Conference
Hyatt Hotel, Canberra
E&OE...
Thank you very much Mr Stianos, Dr Nelson, Minister for Defence, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, the Chief of the Defence Force, Chief of the Navy, Chief of the Army, Mr Abigail General Clunies-Ross, ladies and gentlemen. I thank ASPI for the opportunity of presenting an overview of the Government's take on our strategic look and also congratulate the organisation on the contribution it has made to a better informed debate on strategic policy since its formation three years ago. My main message today at the outset is a simple one, although the challenges I talk about are anything but. Well that message is that we do face a complex and challenging strategic environment but one that we believe we can face with confidence as the result of the Government's national security policies.
The recent Budget provided $22 billion for defence - an increase of 10.6 per cent on the previous year and a 47 per cent increase in real terms over the levels of more than ten years ago. As a result we will have a larger, better-protected, more mobile and harder-hitting army which can be deployed more readily. A navy capable of establishing sea control in key areas and operating confidently within our region and an air combat capability, second to none, in our region.
The task is, however, a continuing one. We have committed to a 3 per cent real increase in annual defence spending out to the year 2016. These are very large sums of money and represent serious, long-term decisions about capability. But based on the latest strategic assessment of our intelligence agencies and the advice of our military experts, they are necessary.
I recently remarked to the Defence leadership group that the ADF's current operational tempo is greater than at any time since the Vietnam war, but also that the complexity and global character of the security challenges we face, make them even more serious. No-one would claim to know precisely what our strategic future holds. But based on what we know now and on the analytical work of our intelligence community we can perhaps sketch some of its outlines.
Nation states will be challenged by terrorist organisations and other non-state entities. Most conflicts now involve non-state groups, which are becoming more and more adept at using and you foresaw it Tom, ‘asymmetric' methods of attack - exploiting the openness of our societies, our technologies and our values to attack us where we are most vulnerable. There will be no holiday from the long struggle against terrorism, a different type of war against a different type of enemy. There is nothing in the assessments I have seen or in the declared strategic intent of the terrorists to encourage the belief that this is not a major political and military struggle that will go on for many years. Islamist terrorism will remain a threat to Australia, to Australian interests, and to our allies, globally, and in Southeast Asia.
The recent thwarted attacks in London and the attack in Glasgow - with a possible connection to Australia - show that societies like ours also face this danger at home. While terrorism represents an attack on our values and our way of life, others are not immune. Bombings throughout the Islamic world - whether in Indonesia, Afghanistan, Iraq or this week's deadly bombing in Yemen - remind us that all communities that stand for moderation and tolerance are at risk. It is equally clear that appeasing terrorists - and allowing them to dictate the policy choices our nations make - does not offer protection. These realities underline the importance of countries that represent these values standing together. Australia and other Western nations need to support not only each other but moderate Islamic governments, leaders and communities throughout the world. Leaders such as Indonesia's President Yudhoyono are key to ultimately denying the terrorists their strategic objectives.
While terrorist networks will remain a major threat, nation states will remain the most important international actors; and the global balance of power will remain the most important determinant of Australia's security. Power relativities, as always, will go on changing with the continuing emergence of China and India as major powers reshaping our regional landscape, and tilting the global centre of gravity away from the Atlantic towards Asia. China's rise is good for China and good for the world. However, US-China relations, China-Japan tensions and longstanding flashpoints in Taiwan and the Korean peninsula will require continuing careful management. Australia has an enormous stake in the maintenance of stability in Northeast Asia.
But we are unlikely to see the emergence of a serious rival to liberal, market-based democracy as an organising principle. Nor will the United States lose its predominant position globally or in our region. There is no doubt that the United States is under strain, at home and abroad, as a result of its current commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan. But both history and demography suggest it would be a major mistake to underestimate America's resilience, regenerative capacity and moral authority.
Over the period in question and possibly well beyond, the United States will maintain its clear conventional military advantage over all potential adversaries. US interests as well as values and strategic culture will ensure that the United States continues to take an active global leadership role. It is unlikely to wind back the vital stabilising role it plays in East Asia. Australia's security will continue to be shaped by global trends, as it always has been. Australians have always understood intuitively that our security can be deeply affected by distant events.
As a result of globalisation, however, the range and number of events affecting Australia's strategic circumstances and potentially requiring military responses will continue to grow; the lead-times available to us in which to respond will continue to shrink. Globalisation will continue to facilitate not only terrorism and other forms of transnational crime, but the proliferation of the technology and materials necessary to acquire weapons of mass destruction. It could also spur a resurgence of protectionism and increasing rivalry over globally traded resources, particularly oil. Combined with globalisation, profound technological and demographic changes will magnify the strategic impact of some future events, including distant ones. It will remain the case that, because of our size and location, Australia cannot afford to wait until security threats reach our shores before we do anything about them.
Events in the Middle East have long been important to Australia's security and broader interests, and this will remain the case. Many of the key strategic trends I have mentioned - including terrorism and extremism, challenging demographics, WMD aspirations, energy demand and great-power competition - converge in the Middle East. Our major ally and our most important economic partners have crucial interests there. The region will see further turbulence, and Iran's nuclear and wider regional ambitions remain a point of particular concern. In these circumstances it is all the more critical that the coalition succeed in establishing a stable, democratic Iraq that is capable of defending itself against Al Qaeda and the internal enemies that wish to tear it apart, and against potential external adversaries.
There will be further adjustments to coalition strategy and force profiles as progress is made and the enemy adapts. The US ‘surge' in and around Baghdad has only recently reached full strength; General Petraeus will make an interim report on progress to the Congress in September. But despite the dreadful continuing violence and our frustration and that of our coalition partners at the rate of political progress, the Government remains committed to staying in Iraq with coalition partners until the Iraqi security forces no longer require our support. We all tend to be sickened and perhaps over time numbed by the horrific TV images of the latest car bombing. But the consequences of Western failure and defeat in Iraq are too serious to allow our policy to be dictated by weariness, frustration or political convenience.
Steadfast support for an ally under pressure is not blind loyalty. Rather it shows that genuine friendship is for the difficult times, as well as the good. Moreover, Australia's national interest will demonstrably not be served by an American disengagement from Iraq in circumstances of perceived defeat. Similarly in Afghanistan we must be prepared for the reality of a long-term commitment. As in Iraq, the choice is simple - between supporting those forces that represent modernity, tolerance and hope, or abandoning them to the dark, calculating nihilism of the extremists. Because of the openness of our society, our opponents understand us much better than we understand them. They know that we sanctify human life, and in particular the life of innocents. They know we accept and value dissent. And they know we have elections. They exploit their base insights - on the battlefields of Baghdad and Uruzgan province and in the battlefield of international opinion. Whether in Afghanistan or Iraq, it would not only run counter to our national interests but also to our national character to let them prevail.
Closer to home, terrorism remains a threat, but one against which good progress is being made - as demonstrated by recent arrests in Indonesia of senior JI figures. Australian agencies have very good counter-terrorism links with their counterparts in Indonesia and other regional countries, and we will continue to build on this cooperation. We will also continue to work with our partners to strengthen governance in our immediate region. Many states in our region are vulnerable because for a combination of social, political and economic reasons they cannot provide adequate services and opportunities for their peoples. Weak institutions, corruption and transnational crime can, if left unchecked, lead to state failure.
Instability in the South Pacific is harmful to the societies affected. It also undermines our interests. It reduces our ability to protect the approaches to Australia; it undermines our development assistance efforts; and it feeds people smuggling, illegal immigration, drug trafficking and money laundering that can jeopardise all Australians. In addition to our national interests, our relative size and prosperity give us a moral responsibility to help our neighbours. And our international allies and partners rightly expect it of us. For all these reasons my government decided in early 2003 on a major shift to a more active, robust and where necessary interventionist policy approach in our region. In doing so we consciously put aside the rather disinterested - and failed - policy of earlier years.
We had helped to bring peace on Bougainville; Australian troops remain in East Timor to provide stability as that country continues the transition to sustainable independence and democracy; the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) is producing results welcomed by the local community, including assistance following the recent earthquake and tsunami; we dispatched personnel to restore order after violence broke out in Tonga; and in Papua New Guinea the Enhanced Cooperation Programme continues. Together these commitments represent a very serious investment. The work is often difficult and dangerous; it requires skill, perseverance and tact - and close cooperation between a range of government agencies and with our regional partners.
We recognise that long-term stability in our immediate region will ultimately depend on the establishment of effective governance frameworks. But we also recognise that many countries will not get there on their own, and that this must be a very long-term commitment on Australia's part. Let me emphasise that unless governance is strengthened, corruption reduced and basic security provided, increased economic aid risks being a wasted investment - and indeed feeding the underlying problem. The current picture of our overseas deployments and commitments tells us something about what we can reasonably anticipate over the next two decades. Our intelligence community assesses that Australia is most likely to be called on to take the lead in a range of possible missions in our immediate region. These include humanitarian relief and stabilisation tasks, and potentially evacuations and support for counter-terrorist operations. Reflecting the complexity of such challenges, these activities will require a combination of advanced military capability and ‘soft power'. They will therefore involve the ADF, but increasingly also other agencies such as the AFP, DFAT, AusAID and the Treasury.
Operations in East Timor, Bougainville and the Solomon Islands have seen these agencies work together in unprecedented and unanticipated ways. Defence has had to adapt to working closely alongside civilian agencies, which for their part have had to develop the training and systems to support previously uncustomary overseas operations, often for protracted periods. We will see more of this over the coming decades. There will probably be times in the decades ahead - as now - when the ADF will face concurrent contingencies far apart geographically and very different in nature. And the experience of the last 10 years and the considered view of our experts both underline one key reality: strategic surprises are certain.
Whether wars, pandemics or natural disasters, we can be certain there will be events that cause major dislocation. We have to be ready for them. This requires two key things - a flexible, responsive, highly capable and more expeditionary Australian Defence Force; and a set of robust international security partnerships. The sort of ADF we will need over the next 20 years and beyond is very different from the one the government inherited when it came to office in 1996. The facts speak for themselves. When the Leader of the Opposition gave his Budget reply speech, he didn't mention defence once. But this shouldn't come as a surprise. Labor has a long record of neglect on defence. According to ASPI's Australian Defence Almanac, over Labor's last 11 Budgets defence outlays decreased by 2 per cent in real terms, measured in 2004-05 dollars.
In 1991 the Labor government decided to cut two battalions from the Army. The Australian Defence Association said at the time that as a result Australia would be seen by foreign neighbours as weak and irrelevant. The costs could have been even more serious, however. In 1999 the current government decided it had no option but to lead a military coalition to intervene to stop the violence in East Timor. The ADF responded magnificently. But the operation exposed significant deficiencies - particularly in strategic lift capability, logistics, mobility and the ability to sustain a sizeable ground force even close to Australia.
The government took these lessons seriously to heart. We had already resolved that Defence should be quarantined from the substantial Budget cuts we had to make in 1996. We have increased defence outlays by 48 per cent in real terms. We have restored one infantry battalion and will have added a further two battalions by 2010, bringing the total to eight. And we have abandoned the narrow, misguided and ultimately self-defeating nostrum that our force structure should be determined only or even mostly for the defence of Australia narrowly defined - our coastline and its near approaches.
Instead we are building the balanced, versatile ADF that we will need to confront the challenges that we can foresee now but also the unexpected. The ADF will need the flexibility to adapt not only to a growing range of non-military tasks and increasingly sophisticated and lethal asymmetric attacks but also changes on the conventional battlefield. It needs to be able to defend our mainland and approaches in the unlikely event that these ever come under direct military threat. But it must also be capable of conducting substantial operations in our immediate region - whether alone or as the leader of a coalition - and of making meaningful military contributions as a member of coalitions further abroad.
Our technology edge - particularly in precision strike, stealth, speed and information networks - will be critical. The current Defence Capability Plan outlines $51 billion of new acquisitions over the next 10 years to ensure we continue building this force. We will have a larger, stronger Army, with better equipment, mobility, combat weight and networked capabilities, including new M1 Abrams tanks, Tiger armed reconnaissance helicopters and MTH90 troop helicopters.
Our Navy, built around two new amphibious ships and three air warfare destroyers, our upgraded Anzac frigates and the now world-class Collins-class submarines will be capable of operating throughout our region and beyond - and of deploying and supporting ground forces offshore. We will maintain regional air superiority with an air force based around the new generation Joint Strike Fighter, airborne early warning aircraft and new air-to-air refuelling aircraft. Our acquisition of 24 Super Hornets will ensure there is no capability gap during the transition to the JSF. The acquisition of C-17 heavy lift aircraft and our planned investment in unmanned aerial vehicles will give the RAAF unprecedented capabilities, reach and operational flexibility. Overall our military will be more deployable, more versatile, more networked and more highly skilled.
Attracting sufficient skilled personnel will remain a major challenge for Defence - particularly in an era of high employment and when our military will increasingly need not only more specialised personnel, but also individuals with impressive skills across the board. No one country can prevail on its own in the face of the complex challenges of the 21st Century. Strong bilateral strategic relationships can be a force for stability in a fluid environment - and a potent force multiplier for our own efforts. As the world becomes more interconnected, security becomes more and more indivisible. Our security rests on the security of our partners, and vice versa.
Our alliance with the United States has never been stronger, broader or deeper. It will remain our most important strategic relationship for the indefinite future. The benefits to Australia, both tangible and intangible, are extensive - whether in terms of strategic reassurance, intelligence, defence technology or training. Moreover, Australia pulls its weight in the alliance. Our forces are highly capable and operate seamlessly with their US counterparts. We bring a different regional perspective and our own insights to the table.
Many of our critics said a closer relationship with the United States would come at a cost to our relationships in Asia. Nothing could be further from the case. Relationships are not a zero sum game. Our relationship with China has flourished at the same time as we have strengthened the US alliance. We have also strengthened our relationships with Indonesia, Japan, India, Singapore, the Philippines and Malaysia - to name but a few.
Contrary to what some might claim, this is not just a fortunate coincidence. The strength of our alliance adds value that is our alliance with the United States, to our dealings in the region and represents an asset rather than a liability. The alliance is complemented by a growing web of other ties. In 2006 the government signed the Lombok Treaty with Indonesia, the world's largest Islamic nation, our nearest neighbour and third-largest democracy - a key country in our region and in the broader global fight against extremism.
In March, The Japanese Prime Minister and I signed an historic Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation. Our Trilateral Security Dialogue with Japan and the United States is developing into new areas of cooperation, to the benefit of the region as a whole. At the same time we are pursuing a Free Trade Agreement with China and working together in a number of areas to promote regional prosperity and stability. Defence links with India are growing and will become closer, reflecting India's growing strategic weight and engagement with East Asia. In May during President Arroyo's visit Australia and the Philippines signed a Status of Visiting Forces Agreement that will facilitate joint training and exercising. We also value our very close defence relationships of a long standing character with both Singapore and Malaysia. Our intelligence community assesses that there is currently no foreseeable conventional military threat to Australian territory, and we are likely to maintain a capability edge in our own immediate region.
Tensions between the major powers of our region are likely to be managed short of military conflict, and we can expect a fair measure of cooperation among major and smaller powers. The emergence of a global middle class, increasingly in Asia, could strengthen forces of cooperation and convergence. US paramountcy and engagement, in Asia and globally, will remain a major force for stability. US relationships with Japan, India, China and the countries of Southeast Asia are in good order. That is good for Australia and good for our region.
These factors, along with the decisions the Government has made over the last decade on defence and the strength of our own regional relationships, gives me every expectation that Australians can face our strategic future with great confidence.
But above all else, my confidence rests on the inherent strengths of Australia - a talented people; a strong economy; a robust democracy underpinned by tested national institutions; and a greater sense of national self-confidence about who we are and what we stand for.
Thank you.
[ends]
Address to the ASPI 'Global Forces 2007' Conference
Hyatt Hotel, Canberra
E&OE...
Thank you very much Mr Stianos, Dr Nelson, Minister for Defence, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, the Chief of the Defence Force, Chief of the Navy, Chief of the Army, Mr Abigail General Clunies-Ross, ladies and gentlemen. I thank ASPI for the opportunity of presenting an overview of the Government's take on our strategic look and also congratulate the organisation on the contribution it has made to a better informed debate on strategic policy since its formation three years ago. My main message today at the outset is a simple one, although the challenges I talk about are anything but. Well that message is that we do face a complex and challenging strategic environment but one that we believe we can face with confidence as the result of the Government's national security policies.
The recent Budget provided $22 billion for defence - an increase of 10.6 per cent on the previous year and a 47 per cent increase in real terms over the levels of more than ten years ago. As a result we will have a larger, better-protected, more mobile and harder-hitting army which can be deployed more readily. A navy capable of establishing sea control in key areas and operating confidently within our region and an air combat capability, second to none, in our region.
The task is, however, a continuing one. We have committed to a 3 per cent real increase in annual defence spending out to the year 2016. These are very large sums of money and represent serious, long-term decisions about capability. But based on the latest strategic assessment of our intelligence agencies and the advice of our military experts, they are necessary.
I recently remarked to the Defence leadership group that the ADF's current operational tempo is greater than at any time since the Vietnam war, but also that the complexity and global character of the security challenges we face, make them even more serious. No-one would claim to know precisely what our strategic future holds. But based on what we know now and on the analytical work of our intelligence community we can perhaps sketch some of its outlines.
Nation states will be challenged by terrorist organisations and other non-state entities. Most conflicts now involve non-state groups, which are becoming more and more adept at using and you foresaw it Tom, ‘asymmetric' methods of attack - exploiting the openness of our societies, our technologies and our values to attack us where we are most vulnerable. There will be no holiday from the long struggle against terrorism, a different type of war against a different type of enemy. There is nothing in the assessments I have seen or in the declared strategic intent of the terrorists to encourage the belief that this is not a major political and military struggle that will go on for many years. Islamist terrorism will remain a threat to Australia, to Australian interests, and to our allies, globally, and in Southeast Asia.
The recent thwarted attacks in London and the attack in Glasgow - with a possible connection to Australia - show that societies like ours also face this danger at home. While terrorism represents an attack on our values and our way of life, others are not immune. Bombings throughout the Islamic world - whether in Indonesia, Afghanistan, Iraq or this week's deadly bombing in Yemen - remind us that all communities that stand for moderation and tolerance are at risk. It is equally clear that appeasing terrorists - and allowing them to dictate the policy choices our nations make - does not offer protection. These realities underline the importance of countries that represent these values standing together. Australia and other Western nations need to support not only each other but moderate Islamic governments, leaders and communities throughout the world. Leaders such as Indonesia's President Yudhoyono are key to ultimately denying the terrorists their strategic objectives.
While terrorist networks will remain a major threat, nation states will remain the most important international actors; and the global balance of power will remain the most important determinant of Australia's security. Power relativities, as always, will go on changing with the continuing emergence of China and India as major powers reshaping our regional landscape, and tilting the global centre of gravity away from the Atlantic towards Asia. China's rise is good for China and good for the world. However, US-China relations, China-Japan tensions and longstanding flashpoints in Taiwan and the Korean peninsula will require continuing careful management. Australia has an enormous stake in the maintenance of stability in Northeast Asia.
But we are unlikely to see the emergence of a serious rival to liberal, market-based democracy as an organising principle. Nor will the United States lose its predominant position globally or in our region. There is no doubt that the United States is under strain, at home and abroad, as a result of its current commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan. But both history and demography suggest it would be a major mistake to underestimate America's resilience, regenerative capacity and moral authority.
Over the period in question and possibly well beyond, the United States will maintain its clear conventional military advantage over all potential adversaries. US interests as well as values and strategic culture will ensure that the United States continues to take an active global leadership role. It is unlikely to wind back the vital stabilising role it plays in East Asia. Australia's security will continue to be shaped by global trends, as it always has been. Australians have always understood intuitively that our security can be deeply affected by distant events.
As a result of globalisation, however, the range and number of events affecting Australia's strategic circumstances and potentially requiring military responses will continue to grow; the lead-times available to us in which to respond will continue to shrink. Globalisation will continue to facilitate not only terrorism and other forms of transnational crime, but the proliferation of the technology and materials necessary to acquire weapons of mass destruction. It could also spur a resurgence of protectionism and increasing rivalry over globally traded resources, particularly oil. Combined with globalisation, profound technological and demographic changes will magnify the strategic impact of some future events, including distant ones. It will remain the case that, because of our size and location, Australia cannot afford to wait until security threats reach our shores before we do anything about them.
Events in the Middle East have long been important to Australia's security and broader interests, and this will remain the case. Many of the key strategic trends I have mentioned - including terrorism and extremism, challenging demographics, WMD aspirations, energy demand and great-power competition - converge in the Middle East. Our major ally and our most important economic partners have crucial interests there. The region will see further turbulence, and Iran's nuclear and wider regional ambitions remain a point of particular concern. In these circumstances it is all the more critical that the coalition succeed in establishing a stable, democratic Iraq that is capable of defending itself against Al Qaeda and the internal enemies that wish to tear it apart, and against potential external adversaries.
There will be further adjustments to coalition strategy and force profiles as progress is made and the enemy adapts. The US ‘surge' in and around Baghdad has only recently reached full strength; General Petraeus will make an interim report on progress to the Congress in September. But despite the dreadful continuing violence and our frustration and that of our coalition partners at the rate of political progress, the Government remains committed to staying in Iraq with coalition partners until the Iraqi security forces no longer require our support. We all tend to be sickened and perhaps over time numbed by the horrific TV images of the latest car bombing. But the consequences of Western failure and defeat in Iraq are too serious to allow our policy to be dictated by weariness, frustration or political convenience.
Steadfast support for an ally under pressure is not blind loyalty. Rather it shows that genuine friendship is for the difficult times, as well as the good. Moreover, Australia's national interest will demonstrably not be served by an American disengagement from Iraq in circumstances of perceived defeat. Similarly in Afghanistan we must be prepared for the reality of a long-term commitment. As in Iraq, the choice is simple - between supporting those forces that represent modernity, tolerance and hope, or abandoning them to the dark, calculating nihilism of the extremists. Because of the openness of our society, our opponents understand us much better than we understand them. They know that we sanctify human life, and in particular the life of innocents. They know we accept and value dissent. And they know we have elections. They exploit their base insights - on the battlefields of Baghdad and Uruzgan province and in the battlefield of international opinion. Whether in Afghanistan or Iraq, it would not only run counter to our national interests but also to our national character to let them prevail.
Closer to home, terrorism remains a threat, but one against which good progress is being made - as demonstrated by recent arrests in Indonesia of senior JI figures. Australian agencies have very good counter-terrorism links with their counterparts in Indonesia and other regional countries, and we will continue to build on this cooperation. We will also continue to work with our partners to strengthen governance in our immediate region. Many states in our region are vulnerable because for a combination of social, political and economic reasons they cannot provide adequate services and opportunities for their peoples. Weak institutions, corruption and transnational crime can, if left unchecked, lead to state failure.
Instability in the South Pacific is harmful to the societies affected. It also undermines our interests. It reduces our ability to protect the approaches to Australia; it undermines our development assistance efforts; and it feeds people smuggling, illegal immigration, drug trafficking and money laundering that can jeopardise all Australians. In addition to our national interests, our relative size and prosperity give us a moral responsibility to help our neighbours. And our international allies and partners rightly expect it of us. For all these reasons my government decided in early 2003 on a major shift to a more active, robust and where necessary interventionist policy approach in our region. In doing so we consciously put aside the rather disinterested - and failed - policy of earlier years.
We had helped to bring peace on Bougainville; Australian troops remain in East Timor to provide stability as that country continues the transition to sustainable independence and democracy; the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) is producing results welcomed by the local community, including assistance following the recent earthquake and tsunami; we dispatched personnel to restore order after violence broke out in Tonga; and in Papua New Guinea the Enhanced Cooperation Programme continues. Together these commitments represent a very serious investment. The work is often difficult and dangerous; it requires skill, perseverance and tact - and close cooperation between a range of government agencies and with our regional partners.
We recognise that long-term stability in our immediate region will ultimately depend on the establishment of effective governance frameworks. But we also recognise that many countries will not get there on their own, and that this must be a very long-term commitment on Australia's part. Let me emphasise that unless governance is strengthened, corruption reduced and basic security provided, increased economic aid risks being a wasted investment - and indeed feeding the underlying problem. The current picture of our overseas deployments and commitments tells us something about what we can reasonably anticipate over the next two decades. Our intelligence community assesses that Australia is most likely to be called on to take the lead in a range of possible missions in our immediate region. These include humanitarian relief and stabilisation tasks, and potentially evacuations and support for counter-terrorist operations. Reflecting the complexity of such challenges, these activities will require a combination of advanced military capability and ‘soft power'. They will therefore involve the ADF, but increasingly also other agencies such as the AFP, DFAT, AusAID and the Treasury.
Operations in East Timor, Bougainville and the Solomon Islands have seen these agencies work together in unprecedented and unanticipated ways. Defence has had to adapt to working closely alongside civilian agencies, which for their part have had to develop the training and systems to support previously uncustomary overseas operations, often for protracted periods. We will see more of this over the coming decades. There will probably be times in the decades ahead - as now - when the ADF will face concurrent contingencies far apart geographically and very different in nature. And the experience of the last 10 years and the considered view of our experts both underline one key reality: strategic surprises are certain.
Whether wars, pandemics or natural disasters, we can be certain there will be events that cause major dislocation. We have to be ready for them. This requires two key things - a flexible, responsive, highly capable and more expeditionary Australian Defence Force; and a set of robust international security partnerships. The sort of ADF we will need over the next 20 years and beyond is very different from the one the government inherited when it came to office in 1996. The facts speak for themselves. When the Leader of the Opposition gave his Budget reply speech, he didn't mention defence once. But this shouldn't come as a surprise. Labor has a long record of neglect on defence. According to ASPI's Australian Defence Almanac, over Labor's last 11 Budgets defence outlays decreased by 2 per cent in real terms, measured in 2004-05 dollars.
In 1991 the Labor government decided to cut two battalions from the Army. The Australian Defence Association said at the time that as a result Australia would be seen by foreign neighbours as weak and irrelevant. The costs could have been even more serious, however. In 1999 the current government decided it had no option but to lead a military coalition to intervene to stop the violence in East Timor. The ADF responded magnificently. But the operation exposed significant deficiencies - particularly in strategic lift capability, logistics, mobility and the ability to sustain a sizeable ground force even close to Australia.
The government took these lessons seriously to heart. We had already resolved that Defence should be quarantined from the substantial Budget cuts we had to make in 1996. We have increased defence outlays by 48 per cent in real terms. We have restored one infantry battalion and will have added a further two battalions by 2010, bringing the total to eight. And we have abandoned the narrow, misguided and ultimately self-defeating nostrum that our force structure should be determined only or even mostly for the defence of Australia narrowly defined - our coastline and its near approaches.
Instead we are building the balanced, versatile ADF that we will need to confront the challenges that we can foresee now but also the unexpected. The ADF will need the flexibility to adapt not only to a growing range of non-military tasks and increasingly sophisticated and lethal asymmetric attacks but also changes on the conventional battlefield. It needs to be able to defend our mainland and approaches in the unlikely event that these ever come under direct military threat. But it must also be capable of conducting substantial operations in our immediate region - whether alone or as the leader of a coalition - and of making meaningful military contributions as a member of coalitions further abroad.
Our technology edge - particularly in precision strike, stealth, speed and information networks - will be critical. The current Defence Capability Plan outlines $51 billion of new acquisitions over the next 10 years to ensure we continue building this force. We will have a larger, stronger Army, with better equipment, mobility, combat weight and networked capabilities, including new M1 Abrams tanks, Tiger armed reconnaissance helicopters and MTH90 troop helicopters.
Our Navy, built around two new amphibious ships and three air warfare destroyers, our upgraded Anzac frigates and the now world-class Collins-class submarines will be capable of operating throughout our region and beyond - and of deploying and supporting ground forces offshore. We will maintain regional air superiority with an air force based around the new generation Joint Strike Fighter, airborne early warning aircraft and new air-to-air refuelling aircraft. Our acquisition of 24 Super Hornets will ensure there is no capability gap during the transition to the JSF. The acquisition of C-17 heavy lift aircraft and our planned investment in unmanned aerial vehicles will give the RAAF unprecedented capabilities, reach and operational flexibility. Overall our military will be more deployable, more versatile, more networked and more highly skilled.
Attracting sufficient skilled personnel will remain a major challenge for Defence - particularly in an era of high employment and when our military will increasingly need not only more specialised personnel, but also individuals with impressive skills across the board. No one country can prevail on its own in the face of the complex challenges of the 21st Century. Strong bilateral strategic relationships can be a force for stability in a fluid environment - and a potent force multiplier for our own efforts. As the world becomes more interconnected, security becomes more and more indivisible. Our security rests on the security of our partners, and vice versa.
Our alliance with the United States has never been stronger, broader or deeper. It will remain our most important strategic relationship for the indefinite future. The benefits to Australia, both tangible and intangible, are extensive - whether in terms of strategic reassurance, intelligence, defence technology or training. Moreover, Australia pulls its weight in the alliance. Our forces are highly capable and operate seamlessly with their US counterparts. We bring a different regional perspective and our own insights to the table.
Many of our critics said a closer relationship with the United States would come at a cost to our relationships in Asia. Nothing could be further from the case. Relationships are not a zero sum game. Our relationship with China has flourished at the same time as we have strengthened the US alliance. We have also strengthened our relationships with Indonesia, Japan, India, Singapore, the Philippines and Malaysia - to name but a few.
Contrary to what some might claim, this is not just a fortunate coincidence. The strength of our alliance adds value that is our alliance with the United States, to our dealings in the region and represents an asset rather than a liability. The alliance is complemented by a growing web of other ties. In 2006 the government signed the Lombok Treaty with Indonesia, the world's largest Islamic nation, our nearest neighbour and third-largest democracy - a key country in our region and in the broader global fight against extremism.
In March, The Japanese Prime Minister and I signed an historic Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation. Our Trilateral Security Dialogue with Japan and the United States is developing into new areas of cooperation, to the benefit of the region as a whole. At the same time we are pursuing a Free Trade Agreement with China and working together in a number of areas to promote regional prosperity and stability. Defence links with India are growing and will become closer, reflecting India's growing strategic weight and engagement with East Asia. In May during President Arroyo's visit Australia and the Philippines signed a Status of Visiting Forces Agreement that will facilitate joint training and exercising. We also value our very close defence relationships of a long standing character with both Singapore and Malaysia. Our intelligence community assesses that there is currently no foreseeable conventional military threat to Australian territory, and we are likely to maintain a capability edge in our own immediate region.
Tensions between the major powers of our region are likely to be managed short of military conflict, and we can expect a fair measure of cooperation among major and smaller powers. The emergence of a global middle class, increasingly in Asia, could strengthen forces of cooperation and convergence. US paramountcy and engagement, in Asia and globally, will remain a major force for stability. US relationships with Japan, India, China and the countries of Southeast Asia are in good order. That is good for Australia and good for our region.
These factors, along with the decisions the Government has made over the last decade on defence and the strength of our own regional relationships, gives me every expectation that Australians can face our strategic future with great confidence.
But above all else, my confidence rests on the inherent strengths of Australia - a talented people; a strong economy; a robust democracy underpinned by tested national institutions; and a greater sense of national self-confidence about who we are and what we stand for.
Thank you.
[ends]
Salary for an MP in India
Salary & Govt. Concessions for a Member of Parliament (MP)
Monthly Salary : Rs. 12,000
Expense for Constitution per month : Rs.10,000
Office expenditure per month : Rs.14,000
Traveling concession (Rs. 8 per km) : Rs.48,000 (For a visit to Delhi & return: 6000 km)
Daily BETA during parliament meets : Rs.500
Charge for 1 class (A/C) in train : Free (For any number of times)
(All over India )
Charge for Business Class in flights : Fr ee for 40 trips / year
(With wife or P.A.)
Rent for MP hostel at Delhi : Free
Electricity costs at home : Free up to 50,000 units
Local phone call charge : Free up to 1,70,000 calls.
TOTAL expense for a MP per year : Rs. 32,00,000
TOTAL expense for 5 years : Rs. 1,60,00,000
For 534 MPs, the expense for 5 years : Rs. 8,54,40,00,000 (nearly 855 cores)
And they are elected by THE PEOPLE OF INDIA , by the largest democratic process
in the world, not intruded into the parliament on their own or by any qualification.
This is how all our tax money is been swallowed and price hike on our regular commodities. ...... Think of the great democracy we have........ ..... so always keep all this in your mind when you will go for voting next time..
Monthly Salary : Rs. 12,000
Expense for Constitution per month : Rs.10,000
Office expenditure per month : Rs.14,000
Traveling concession (Rs. 8 per km) : Rs.48,000 (For a visit to Delhi & return: 6000 km)
Daily BETA during parliament meets : Rs.500
Charge for 1 class (A/C) in train : Free (For any number of times)
(All over India )
Charge for Business Class in flights : Fr ee for 40 trips / year
(With wife or P.A.)
Rent for MP hostel at Delhi : Free
Electricity costs at home : Free up to 50,000 units
Local phone call charge : Free up to 1,70,000 calls.
TOTAL expense for a MP per year : Rs. 32,00,000
TOTAL expense for 5 years : Rs. 1,60,00,000
For 534 MPs, the expense for 5 years : Rs. 8,54,40,00,000 (nearly 855 cores)
And they are elected by THE PEOPLE OF INDIA , by the largest democratic process
in the world, not intruded into the parliament on their own or by any qualification.
This is how all our tax money is been swallowed and price hike on our regular commodities. ...... Think of the great democracy we have........ ..... so always keep all this in your mind when you will go for voting next time..
Kurdistan : Oil companies exploring the region
" Oil pro-ducers such as Canada’s Western Oil Sands Inc. and Heritage Oil Corp.; Switzerland-based Addax Petroleum Corp.; Genel Enerji, a unit of Turkey’s Cukurova Holding AS; and the U.K.’s Febru Sterling Energy Plc are all exploring the region, which the Kurds have controlled since 1991. "
"Iraq, awash in oil, hasn’t lived up to its potential output for almost three decades. The country reached peak production of 3.7 million barrels a day in 1979, behind only Iran and Saudi Arabia. "
"Today, Iraq pumps 1.95 million barrels a day, according to the U.S. Special Inspector General, which is monitoring the country’s reconstruction. That’s about half of its 1979 level and 27 percent less than its 2.6 million barrel–a-day production before the U.S. invasion. It’s using just 27 of its 78 known oil fields. Only 10 percent of Iraq has been explored for oil, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration "
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/marketsmag/kurdistan.pdf
SSSI – Daily Situation Report
SSSI – Daily Situation Report
06 July 2007
Situation in Brief
Movement Status, Kabul – “Normal Movement”
Suicide/VBIED in Kabul Province
Beware of illegal checkpoints especially Nangarhar
Stout riposte to attack by Paktika family
Security Incidents
Central Region
Kabul, Ghazni, Uruzgan
Suicide/VBIED: 06 July, Kabul Province, Deh Sabz District – during the course of the morning an ISAF convoy was targeted by a suicide bomber with a VBIED; bomber killed and two ISAF soldiers sustained minor injuries; no further details.
Arrest: 03 July, Ghazni Province, Andar District (Bakhtiar Village) – during the hours of darkness a security force (CF) patrol was engaged in a cordon and search exercise; as a result they apprehended an important Taliban commander.
Comment: The capture is believed to have held a senior post in the former Taliban government.
IED: 03 July, Ghazni Province, Rashidan District (Ghura Area) - in the early afternoon a civilian vehicle traveling on the main road to the district centre (from Ghazni) was subjected to an IED strike; three civilians killed and three others injured.
Attack: 06 July, Uruzgan Province, District ??, - a police checkpoint was attacked and two police vehicles were damaged (small arms and RPG); reinforcements (ISAF +air support) responded; thirty-three insurgents killed and others injured; nil security force/police casualties.
South Eastern Region
Paktika, Khost
Attack: 04 July, Paktika Province, Sar Hawza District (Marzak Area) – during the course of the afternoon the home of pro-government leader was attacked; the man and his family retaliated and killed six insurgents.
Attack: 04 July, Khost Province, Alisher District (Babrak Tana Area) – under cover of darkness four projectiles impacted near the Afghan immigration post (at the border); nil casualties or damage reported.
Comment: It is believed that the projectiles were fired from the Pakistan side of the border.
.
Eastern Region
Laghman, Nangarhar, Kunar
Arrest: 03 July, Laghman Province, Alingar District – it is reported that national security officials have apprehended two known insurgents one of whom is thought to be a commander.
Insurgent Presence: 03 July, Nangarhar Province, Achin District (Shadal Area) – it is reported that a new group (numbers ??) has entered the area.
Comment: Reliability of information not known.
Insurgent Intentions: 04 July, Nangarhar Province, Shinwar District – information suggests that insurgents in this area are preparing to attack the district HQ.
Comment: Reliability of information unknown.
Insurgent Presence: 04 July, Nangarhar Province, Khogyani District (Wazir Tatang Area) - during the course of the afternoon a senior insurgent commander was seen in the area with two lieutenants; intention not known.
Comment: Possibly true.
Insurgent Movements: 04 July, Nangarhar Province, Pachir Wa Agam District – information received suggests that a number of the insurgents who were congregating in the Tora Bora area have dispersed to other locations in the Eastern Region where, amongst other hostile activities, some may establish temporary checkpoints on main roads.
Comment: Possibly true.
Robbery: 05 July, Nangarhar Province, Jalalabad City (District 2, Currency Exchange Bazaar) – during the course of the morning a foreign national (Chinese ??) was robbed of a large amount of cash.
Attack: 05 July, Nangarhar Province, Khogyani District – in the early hours of the morning three projectiles impacted in open ground near a security force base (CF/ISAF); nil casualties or damage reported.
IED: 05 July, Nangarhar Province, Khogyani District (Chamtala Dag Area) – during the morning an IED attached to a timing mechanism exploded on the main road to Jalalabad.
Comment: Appears to have been a premature detonation.
Insurgent Presence/Intentions: 04 July, Kunar Province, Chawkay District (Dewagal Valley) – information suggests that a group (15/20) with the usual assortment of weapons has arrived in the area; intend mining the Jalalabad/Asadabad road (anti-tank mines, IEDs, RCIEDs); also intend targeting security force observation posts.
Comment: Quite possibly true.
Attack: 04 July Kunar Province, Sirkanay District – shortly after midnight four projectiles impacted on residential properties around the district HQ; several civilians were injured.
Attack: 04 July, Kunar Province, Sirkanay District – in the early evening a security force base was attacked (small arms and RPG); engagement lasted about half an hour; nil casualties or damage reported.
Attack: 04 July, Kunar Province, Chawkay District (Dewagal Valley) – during the course of the evening a security force (ISAF/CF) observation post was attacked; engagement lasted for about an hour; nil casualties or damage reported.
Ambush: 04 July, Kunar Province, Pech District (Dag Village) – during the course of the evening a combined security force convoy was ambushed (small arms, machine guns and RPG); CF air support called upon; engagement lasted about an hour; two soldiers were injured.
Arrests: 04 July, Kunar Province, Nari District – police arrested three suspected insurgents; no further details available.
IED: 05 July, Kunar Province, Pech District (Tantil Village) – shortly after midday a civilian motor vehicle was subjected to an IED strike; three civilians killed with two others seriously injured.
Ambush: 05 July, Kunar Province, Pech District (Kandagal Village) – during the course of the morning a security force (CF/ISAF) convoy was ambushed (RPG, machine guns, small arms); engagement lasted about an hour; nil casualties or damage reported.
News/Information/Comments
News: There are contradictory reports coming out of Pakistan today concerning whether or not a plane carrying President Musharraf was fired upon or not. Some reports say that a plane taking off from Rawalpindi this morning in which the president was traveling was fired upon. Other reports say that an anti-aircraft gun was discovered on the roof of a two-storey house on the aircraft’s flight path. The area has been cordoned off and the owner of the property has been detained. The aircraft was taking the president to meet flood-victims in the south west of the country. Meanwhile, the Pakistani military say the plane was not fired at.
News: Nineteen people have so far died since police and security forces clashed with militant students who barricaded themselves inside the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque as it is known. Media reports that President Musharraf has given orders to his forces to be patient and allow the maximum amount of time for those remaining inside the Mosque complex to surrender. However, the cleric who is now in charge at the complex has demanded that he and the students be allowed to leave with dignity and not face any court proceedings. Government ministers say that is unacceptable. It is believed that several hundred women and girls are amongst those still on site.
SSSI – Daily Situation Report
05 July 2007
Situation in Brief
Movement Status, Kabul – “Normal Movement”
Successful COIN Operation in Badghis
Suicide/BBIED at Spin Boldak kills 10 policemen
Missing German national released unharmed
Security Incidents
Central Region
Kabul, Wardak, Day Kundi
Attempted Murder: 04 July, Kabul City (District 6) – a local person was attacked by three unidentified assailants; motive unknown.
Arrest: 04 July, Kabul City (District 8, Masjidi Itefaq Area) - police arrested a local person who was found to be in possession of a pistol and a radio transmitter for which he had no permit.
Attempted Murder: 04 July, Kabul City (District 16, Deh Khodaydad Area) – during the course of the evening a gunmen opened fire on two worshipers in a Mosque; motive not known; both persons injured.
Attack/Abduction: 03 July, Wardak Province, Chak District – during the course of the evening unidentified gunmen attacked the residence of a member of staff of the National Solidarity Program (NSP); one person was abducted.
Insurgent Presence: 04 July, Day Kundi Province, Nili Center (Tamazan Area) – a Taliban deputation from the Gizab area is reported to have addressed the Pashtun and
Hazara residents in this area; they demanded a financial contribution and also warned against collaboration with government or the security forces.
Northern Region
Samangan
Arms Cache Located: 04 July, Samangan Province, Hazrati Sultan District – police and security officials located an arms cache hidden in a remote area; included two anti-aircraft weapons, a large mortar barrel, as well as a sizeable quantity of ammunition.
Comment: It is not clear whether this cache is a leftover from the Soviet era or more recent.
Western Region
Hirat, Badghis, Farah
Arrest: 03 July, Hirat Province, Pashtun Zarghun District – police have arrested a wanted criminal; some personal weapons seized also.
Arrest: 03 July, Hirat Province, Kohsan District (Islam Qala Area) - Border police intercepted an Iranian woman who was found to have a quantity of processed opium hidden in her headgear.
COIN Ops: 04 July, Badghis Province, Murghab District (Tange Jowkar Area) – during the course of the day local security forces conducted a counter-insurgency operation in the area; an insurgent hideout was attacked; one Afghan officer was killed and two policemen were injured; ten insurgents were killed and others injured; three police vehicles were damaged; insurgent weapons recovered.
Comment: Unconfirmed information suggests that a further 80 insurgents have moved into the area.
Munitions Cache Located: 04 July, Farah Province, Bala Buluk District – an Afghan army unit located an insurgent ammunition cache which is thought to be fairly recent; contents destroyed in situ.
Southern Region
Kandahar
Murder: 04 July, Kandahar Province, Panjwaye District – the bodies of two persons who had been accused of being spies by the Taliban were found decapitated.
Attack: 04 July, Kandahar Province, Zhari District – shortly after midday a police checkpoint was attacked; engagement lasted for about half an hour; nil casualties reported.
Contact: 04 July, Kandahar Province, Zhari District (Pashmol Village) – a police contingent was in contact with insurgents in this area; police reinforcements were deployed to the scene; attackers withdrew; nil casualties.
IED/Ambush: 05 July, Kandahar Province, Zhari District (Ashogha Village) - during the morning a private security vehicle was subjected to an IED strike; that was followed immediately by an ambush; attackers withdrew after a protracted fire-fight; four security personnel injured; one vehicle destroyed.
Suicide/BBIED: 05 July, Kandahar Province, Spin Boldak District – around about lunchtime today a suicide bomber dressed in a police uniform detonated an explosive device at a Border Police checkpoint; latest reports say that ten policemen were killed and several others were injured including the district chief of police; Taliban have claimed responsibility for the atrocity.
South Eastern Region
Paktya
IED: 04 July, Paktya Province, Shwak District – during the course of the afternoon an Afghan army vehicle was subjected to an IED strike on the main Gardez/Khost road; one soldier was injured; vehicle damaged.
IED: 05 July, Paktya Province, District ?? – this morning a vehicle in a CF convoy was subjected to an IED strike; one CF soldier was killed and two others were injured; no further details available.
Insurgent Presence: 05 July, Paktya Province, Gardez District/District Centre – information of unknown reliability suggests that there is, or has been a presence of insurgents in the following areas:
Ashkari
Khataba
Chowni
Tera Bagh
Sayed Karam district
Comment: We are unable to comment on the reliability of this information.
Attack: 05 July, Paktya Province, Gardez District (Showni Area) – in the early hours of the morning a recently established police checkpoint was attacked; two policemen were injured.
IED: 05 July, Paktya Province, Ahmad Khel District (Showat Village) – in the early afternoon an explosive device detonated inside a stationary civilian vehicle; nil casualties.
Comment: Local assessment is that the device was placed there in connection with a long-standing feud.
News/Information/Comments
News: With reference to yesterday’s report about a missing German national in Afghanistan, the media today reports that the man and an Iranian colleague had in fact been abducted but have now been released. Report indicates that the two were en route from Kandahar to Hirat by road last Thursday when they were abducted by unidentified gunmen in Farah Province. The Taliban have denied involvement in this incident.
News: Pakistani police and security forces have sealed off the area around the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad following clashes with radical students. The violence has left sixteen people dead and scores injured in the last three days. According to media reports twelve hundred students, who had barricaded themselves in the Mosque, have accepted the government's amnesty offer and given themselves up. Negotiations are continuing to persuade those remaining inside the Mosque to do likewise. The chief cleric of the Mosque was caught on Wednesday as he tried to escape disguised as a woman in a burqa. The Mosque’s clerics and students, who come mainly from the North West Frontier Province, are advocating the introduction of a form of Sharia Law in Pakistan. However, they are said to be none too popular with the majority of Islamabad’s more progressive residents. Elsewhere in Pakistan a suicide bomber rammed his vehicle into a Pakistani army convoy in the North Waziristan tribal area on Wednesday. The same day four civilians also died in another part of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in a roadside bombing. Possibility exists that these attacks may be connected to the Red Mosque affair.
06 July 2007
Situation in Brief
Movement Status, Kabul – “Normal Movement”
Suicide/VBIED in Kabul Province
Beware of illegal checkpoints especially Nangarhar
Stout riposte to attack by Paktika family
Security Incidents
Central Region
Kabul, Ghazni, Uruzgan
Suicide/VBIED: 06 July, Kabul Province, Deh Sabz District – during the course of the morning an ISAF convoy was targeted by a suicide bomber with a VBIED; bomber killed and two ISAF soldiers sustained minor injuries; no further details.
Arrest: 03 July, Ghazni Province, Andar District (Bakhtiar Village) – during the hours of darkness a security force (CF) patrol was engaged in a cordon and search exercise; as a result they apprehended an important Taliban commander.
Comment: The capture is believed to have held a senior post in the former Taliban government.
IED: 03 July, Ghazni Province, Rashidan District (Ghura Area) - in the early afternoon a civilian vehicle traveling on the main road to the district centre (from Ghazni) was subjected to an IED strike; three civilians killed and three others injured.
Attack: 06 July, Uruzgan Province, District ??, - a police checkpoint was attacked and two police vehicles were damaged (small arms and RPG); reinforcements (ISAF +air support) responded; thirty-three insurgents killed and others injured; nil security force/police casualties.
South Eastern Region
Paktika, Khost
Attack: 04 July, Paktika Province, Sar Hawza District (Marzak Area) – during the course of the afternoon the home of pro-government leader was attacked; the man and his family retaliated and killed six insurgents.
Attack: 04 July, Khost Province, Alisher District (Babrak Tana Area) – under cover of darkness four projectiles impacted near the Afghan immigration post (at the border); nil casualties or damage reported.
Comment: It is believed that the projectiles were fired from the Pakistan side of the border.
.
Eastern Region
Laghman, Nangarhar, Kunar
Arrest: 03 July, Laghman Province, Alingar District – it is reported that national security officials have apprehended two known insurgents one of whom is thought to be a commander.
Insurgent Presence: 03 July, Nangarhar Province, Achin District (Shadal Area) – it is reported that a new group (numbers ??) has entered the area.
Comment: Reliability of information not known.
Insurgent Intentions: 04 July, Nangarhar Province, Shinwar District – information suggests that insurgents in this area are preparing to attack the district HQ.
Comment: Reliability of information unknown.
Insurgent Presence: 04 July, Nangarhar Province, Khogyani District (Wazir Tatang Area) - during the course of the afternoon a senior insurgent commander was seen in the area with two lieutenants; intention not known.
Comment: Possibly true.
Insurgent Movements: 04 July, Nangarhar Province, Pachir Wa Agam District – information received suggests that a number of the insurgents who were congregating in the Tora Bora area have dispersed to other locations in the Eastern Region where, amongst other hostile activities, some may establish temporary checkpoints on main roads.
Comment: Possibly true.
Robbery: 05 July, Nangarhar Province, Jalalabad City (District 2, Currency Exchange Bazaar) – during the course of the morning a foreign national (Chinese ??) was robbed of a large amount of cash.
Attack: 05 July, Nangarhar Province, Khogyani District – in the early hours of the morning three projectiles impacted in open ground near a security force base (CF/ISAF); nil casualties or damage reported.
IED: 05 July, Nangarhar Province, Khogyani District (Chamtala Dag Area) – during the morning an IED attached to a timing mechanism exploded on the main road to Jalalabad.
Comment: Appears to have been a premature detonation.
Insurgent Presence/Intentions: 04 July, Kunar Province, Chawkay District (Dewagal Valley) – information suggests that a group (15/20) with the usual assortment of weapons has arrived in the area; intend mining the Jalalabad/Asadabad road (anti-tank mines, IEDs, RCIEDs); also intend targeting security force observation posts.
Comment: Quite possibly true.
Attack: 04 July Kunar Province, Sirkanay District – shortly after midnight four projectiles impacted on residential properties around the district HQ; several civilians were injured.
Attack: 04 July, Kunar Province, Sirkanay District – in the early evening a security force base was attacked (small arms and RPG); engagement lasted about half an hour; nil casualties or damage reported.
Attack: 04 July, Kunar Province, Chawkay District (Dewagal Valley) – during the course of the evening a security force (ISAF/CF) observation post was attacked; engagement lasted for about an hour; nil casualties or damage reported.
Ambush: 04 July, Kunar Province, Pech District (Dag Village) – during the course of the evening a combined security force convoy was ambushed (small arms, machine guns and RPG); CF air support called upon; engagement lasted about an hour; two soldiers were injured.
Arrests: 04 July, Kunar Province, Nari District – police arrested three suspected insurgents; no further details available.
IED: 05 July, Kunar Province, Pech District (Tantil Village) – shortly after midday a civilian motor vehicle was subjected to an IED strike; three civilians killed with two others seriously injured.
Ambush: 05 July, Kunar Province, Pech District (Kandagal Village) – during the course of the morning a security force (CF/ISAF) convoy was ambushed (RPG, machine guns, small arms); engagement lasted about an hour; nil casualties or damage reported.
News/Information/Comments
News: There are contradictory reports coming out of Pakistan today concerning whether or not a plane carrying President Musharraf was fired upon or not. Some reports say that a plane taking off from Rawalpindi this morning in which the president was traveling was fired upon. Other reports say that an anti-aircraft gun was discovered on the roof of a two-storey house on the aircraft’s flight path. The area has been cordoned off and the owner of the property has been detained. The aircraft was taking the president to meet flood-victims in the south west of the country. Meanwhile, the Pakistani military say the plane was not fired at.
News: Nineteen people have so far died since police and security forces clashed with militant students who barricaded themselves inside the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque as it is known. Media reports that President Musharraf has given orders to his forces to be patient and allow the maximum amount of time for those remaining inside the Mosque complex to surrender. However, the cleric who is now in charge at the complex has demanded that he and the students be allowed to leave with dignity and not face any court proceedings. Government ministers say that is unacceptable. It is believed that several hundred women and girls are amongst those still on site.
SSSI – Daily Situation Report
05 July 2007
Situation in Brief
Movement Status, Kabul – “Normal Movement”
Successful COIN Operation in Badghis
Suicide/BBIED at Spin Boldak kills 10 policemen
Missing German national released unharmed
Security Incidents
Central Region
Kabul, Wardak, Day Kundi
Attempted Murder: 04 July, Kabul City (District 6) – a local person was attacked by three unidentified assailants; motive unknown.
Arrest: 04 July, Kabul City (District 8, Masjidi Itefaq Area) - police arrested a local person who was found to be in possession of a pistol and a radio transmitter for which he had no permit.
Attempted Murder: 04 July, Kabul City (District 16, Deh Khodaydad Area) – during the course of the evening a gunmen opened fire on two worshipers in a Mosque; motive not known; both persons injured.
Attack/Abduction: 03 July, Wardak Province, Chak District – during the course of the evening unidentified gunmen attacked the residence of a member of staff of the National Solidarity Program (NSP); one person was abducted.
Insurgent Presence: 04 July, Day Kundi Province, Nili Center (Tamazan Area) – a Taliban deputation from the Gizab area is reported to have addressed the Pashtun and
Hazara residents in this area; they demanded a financial contribution and also warned against collaboration with government or the security forces.
Northern Region
Samangan
Arms Cache Located: 04 July, Samangan Province, Hazrati Sultan District – police and security officials located an arms cache hidden in a remote area; included two anti-aircraft weapons, a large mortar barrel, as well as a sizeable quantity of ammunition.
Comment: It is not clear whether this cache is a leftover from the Soviet era or more recent.
Western Region
Hirat, Badghis, Farah
Arrest: 03 July, Hirat Province, Pashtun Zarghun District – police have arrested a wanted criminal; some personal weapons seized also.
Arrest: 03 July, Hirat Province, Kohsan District (Islam Qala Area) - Border police intercepted an Iranian woman who was found to have a quantity of processed opium hidden in her headgear.
COIN Ops: 04 July, Badghis Province, Murghab District (Tange Jowkar Area) – during the course of the day local security forces conducted a counter-insurgency operation in the area; an insurgent hideout was attacked; one Afghan officer was killed and two policemen were injured; ten insurgents were killed and others injured; three police vehicles were damaged; insurgent weapons recovered.
Comment: Unconfirmed information suggests that a further 80 insurgents have moved into the area.
Munitions Cache Located: 04 July, Farah Province, Bala Buluk District – an Afghan army unit located an insurgent ammunition cache which is thought to be fairly recent; contents destroyed in situ.
Southern Region
Kandahar
Murder: 04 July, Kandahar Province, Panjwaye District – the bodies of two persons who had been accused of being spies by the Taliban were found decapitated.
Attack: 04 July, Kandahar Province, Zhari District – shortly after midday a police checkpoint was attacked; engagement lasted for about half an hour; nil casualties reported.
Contact: 04 July, Kandahar Province, Zhari District (Pashmol Village) – a police contingent was in contact with insurgents in this area; police reinforcements were deployed to the scene; attackers withdrew; nil casualties.
IED/Ambush: 05 July, Kandahar Province, Zhari District (Ashogha Village) - during the morning a private security vehicle was subjected to an IED strike; that was followed immediately by an ambush; attackers withdrew after a protracted fire-fight; four security personnel injured; one vehicle destroyed.
Suicide/BBIED: 05 July, Kandahar Province, Spin Boldak District – around about lunchtime today a suicide bomber dressed in a police uniform detonated an explosive device at a Border Police checkpoint; latest reports say that ten policemen were killed and several others were injured including the district chief of police; Taliban have claimed responsibility for the atrocity.
South Eastern Region
Paktya
IED: 04 July, Paktya Province, Shwak District – during the course of the afternoon an Afghan army vehicle was subjected to an IED strike on the main Gardez/Khost road; one soldier was injured; vehicle damaged.
IED: 05 July, Paktya Province, District ?? – this morning a vehicle in a CF convoy was subjected to an IED strike; one CF soldier was killed and two others were injured; no further details available.
Insurgent Presence: 05 July, Paktya Province, Gardez District/District Centre – information of unknown reliability suggests that there is, or has been a presence of insurgents in the following areas:
Ashkari
Khataba
Chowni
Tera Bagh
Sayed Karam district
Comment: We are unable to comment on the reliability of this information.
Attack: 05 July, Paktya Province, Gardez District (Showni Area) – in the early hours of the morning a recently established police checkpoint was attacked; two policemen were injured.
IED: 05 July, Paktya Province, Ahmad Khel District (Showat Village) – in the early afternoon an explosive device detonated inside a stationary civilian vehicle; nil casualties.
Comment: Local assessment is that the device was placed there in connection with a long-standing feud.
News/Information/Comments
News: With reference to yesterday’s report about a missing German national in Afghanistan, the media today reports that the man and an Iranian colleague had in fact been abducted but have now been released. Report indicates that the two were en route from Kandahar to Hirat by road last Thursday when they were abducted by unidentified gunmen in Farah Province. The Taliban have denied involvement in this incident.
News: Pakistani police and security forces have sealed off the area around the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad following clashes with radical students. The violence has left sixteen people dead and scores injured in the last three days. According to media reports twelve hundred students, who had barricaded themselves in the Mosque, have accepted the government's amnesty offer and given themselves up. Negotiations are continuing to persuade those remaining inside the Mosque to do likewise. The chief cleric of the Mosque was caught on Wednesday as he tried to escape disguised as a woman in a burqa. The Mosque’s clerics and students, who come mainly from the North West Frontier Province, are advocating the introduction of a form of Sharia Law in Pakistan. However, they are said to be none too popular with the majority of Islamabad’s more progressive residents. Elsewhere in Pakistan a suicide bomber rammed his vehicle into a Pakistani army convoy in the North Waziristan tribal area on Wednesday. The same day four civilians also died in another part of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in a roadside bombing. Possibility exists that these attacks may be connected to the Red Mosque affair.
India launches Pan-African e-network project in Ethiopia
Addis Ababa, July. 6 (PTI): Amid its keen interest to rediscover ties with Africa, India today launched here the pilot project of an ambitious e-network initiative which will connect 53 nations of the continent via satellite. A brainchild of President A P J Abdul Kalam, the pilot project for tele-education and tele-medicine under the Rs 542.9 crore pan-African programme was inaugurated by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
The programme aims at bridging the digital divide in Africa and develop the continent's information and communication technologies by eventually connecting all the 53 countries by a satellite through a fibre-optic network. The tele-medicine project will connect hospitals in Ethiopia with top-notch healthcare institutes in India.
The tele-education programme would provide an opportunity to Ethiopian students to get higher education at low costs from top quality Indian institutions. The e-network project "continues the tradition of India's close partnership with the countries of Africa in their developmental efforts aimed at the well being of their people," Mukherjee said at the function for launch of the pilot project.
The minister had said yesterday that India was keen to rediscover its "age-old" and "civilisational" relationship with Africa.
Statement by External Affairs Minister, Shri Pranab Mukherjee on his departure from Ethiopia
06/07/2007
My delegation and I were extremely happy to be in Ethiopia. We spent three days on Ethiopian soil and have been touched by the warmth of the welcome and the generous hospitality extended to us by the government and people of Ethiopia. Our historical ties go back in history and we have civilisational links.
My visit was at the invitation of H.E. Mr. Seyoum Mesfin, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. The main purpose was to deepen and widen our traditionally warm relations. We look forward to regular exchange of such visits. I have invited His Excellency the Foreign Minister of Ethiopia to visit India in 2008.
An important result of my meeting with the Foreign Minister was to formalize regular bilateral dialogue focussing on bilateral, regional and global issues among the Foreign Offices and to establish a Joint Commission. I also had productive meetings with Their Excellencies the President, Prime Minister, and the Hon'ble Speaker of Ethiopia, apart from discussions with senior cabinet ministers.
In our bilateral discussions, we have drawn up a forward looking agenda of engagement in the political, trade, economic, science and technology, agriculture, culture, education and other sectors. We have agreed to expand the scope of our cooperation in capacity building, cooperation in education, health care etc. The Agreement on Science and Technology and the Education Exchange Programme which we signed will help accelerate the ongoing capacity building efforts including in agriculture and human resource development.
Our bilateral relationship is to be further diversified and expanded. It was decided to enhance economic and business linkages in both public and private sectors with a greater participation by Indian entities in the infrastructural development of Ethiopia. We signed the bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement and decided to speed up the finalisation of the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement to provide the necessary incentives and institutional framework.
We have also discussed regional issues including those pertaining to African integration, Darfur and Somalia and other international issues engaging the attention of the international community such as the fight against terrorism, climate change, trade issues and UN reforms.
Today, I inaugurated the pilot projects of tele-education and tele-medicine, which India will be implementing on an Africa wide basis. This is a positive example of South South cooperation which uses IT and space technology and generates a multiplier developmental effect.
This morning, I had the privilege of addressing the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Security Committee and the Ethiopia-India Parliamentary Friendship Group of the Ethiopian Parliament. I spoke about our commitment to work towards a substantive enhancement of the broad-based bilateral relationship between the two democracies which also share developmental goals.
In my meeting with the Hon'ble Speaker of the House of Representatives, we discussed ways and means of developing closer association between the Ethiopian and Indian Parliaments. I reiterated India's support for the development of democratic institutions in Ethiopia. We agreed to enhance parliamentary exchanges and agreed to have an Indian parliamentary delegation visit Ethiopia in the near future.
Some of the other highlights of our discussions include:
Invitation to Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Ethiopia to visit India. PM Meles Zenawi has already accepted our Prime Minister's invitation to visit India in November this year for the Federalism Conference.
Participation by India in Ethiopian millennium celebrations to revive our ancient civilisational links.
Agreement to continue to
(a) cooperate against international terrorism including cross border terrorism
(b) sustain common positions on climate change, UN Reforms including the need for Africa to be represented as a permanent member on an expanded UNSC
and
An understanding of how the process of integration is going to work in Africa including the move towards greater consolidation of regional economic groupings.
I took the opportunity of my presence in Addis Ababa, the diplomatic capital of Africa, to chair the Conference of Indian Heads of Missions in Sub-Sahara Africa. The purpose was to take stock of our overall relations and see how best we can move these forward to further mutual benefit.
I also met with the AU Chairperson H.E. Prof Alpha Oumar Konare to carry forward the dialogue we began when he visited India in December last year. We discussed ways and means of further strengthening the India-Africa partnership.
All in all, I have had an extremely satisfying visit. It will be our endeavour to build on the understandings reached during this visit.
New Delhi
July 6, 2007
India hails AU's effort to evolve common polity on intl issues
Addis Ababa, July 7: Seeking the backing of the African Union in its bid for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council, India has welcomed the efforts of the 53 countries of the continent to evolve a common polity on major international issues.
New Delhi, which has been working closely with the African Union and is looking forward for securing the 53-member bloc's support for its bid for a permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council, is keeping a close watch on the developments that are unfolding in the continent.
"It is one of the major developments in international relations in the current millenium.... one of the major developments of the integration of sovereign nation states of the African continent to evolve a common polity. We welcome it," External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said here.
African leaders met in Ghana earlier this week to debate a grand plan mooted by Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi for establishing United States of Africa, a continental government, but failed to arrive at any decision after moderate countries managed to put on hold the proposal.
The summit, however, agreed to set up a committee of African Union ministers to study how the establishment of a federated African state stretching from the Cape to Cairo, under a single union government, would affect national sovereignties and existing regional economic blocs.
Mukherjee, who is on a four-day visit to Ethiopia, said India welcomed the "resurgence of Africa" as New Delhi has very close relations and linkages with the continent and is cooperating with each other.
"It is interesting how the things are unfolding. What African Union is going to have and what is the concept of United States of Africa and what I understand is that the process is still unfolding, discussions are still taking place and we are working with interest," he said during an interaction with Indian community members here on Thursday night.
India is also making its own contribution in the consultations and integration of countries in the African continent by participating in every regional economic fora in Africa, said Mukherjee, who became the first Indian foreign minister to visit the landlocked African country.
Mukherjee said the impression he got from the Ethiopian leadership during his talks with them was that "there are certain issues in which they (African countries) are likely to take a common approach" like environment, approach towards reforms of the UN, global trade negotiations.
"Some of these issues where the countries concerned are not taking their independent or individual views but they are trying to evolve a collective view which will represent the view of the continent as a whole," he said.
The minister, however, said there was a need for the countries in the continent to put their houses in order and also to harmonise their policies
The programme aims at bridging the digital divide in Africa and develop the continent's information and communication technologies by eventually connecting all the 53 countries by a satellite through a fibre-optic network. The tele-medicine project will connect hospitals in Ethiopia with top-notch healthcare institutes in India.
The tele-education programme would provide an opportunity to Ethiopian students to get higher education at low costs from top quality Indian institutions. The e-network project "continues the tradition of India's close partnership with the countries of Africa in their developmental efforts aimed at the well being of their people," Mukherjee said at the function for launch of the pilot project.
The minister had said yesterday that India was keen to rediscover its "age-old" and "civilisational" relationship with Africa.
Statement by External Affairs Minister, Shri Pranab Mukherjee on his departure from Ethiopia
06/07/2007
My delegation and I were extremely happy to be in Ethiopia. We spent three days on Ethiopian soil and have been touched by the warmth of the welcome and the generous hospitality extended to us by the government and people of Ethiopia. Our historical ties go back in history and we have civilisational links.
My visit was at the invitation of H.E. Mr. Seyoum Mesfin, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. The main purpose was to deepen and widen our traditionally warm relations. We look forward to regular exchange of such visits. I have invited His Excellency the Foreign Minister of Ethiopia to visit India in 2008.
An important result of my meeting with the Foreign Minister was to formalize regular bilateral dialogue focussing on bilateral, regional and global issues among the Foreign Offices and to establish a Joint Commission. I also had productive meetings with Their Excellencies the President, Prime Minister, and the Hon'ble Speaker of Ethiopia, apart from discussions with senior cabinet ministers.
In our bilateral discussions, we have drawn up a forward looking agenda of engagement in the political, trade, economic, science and technology, agriculture, culture, education and other sectors. We have agreed to expand the scope of our cooperation in capacity building, cooperation in education, health care etc. The Agreement on Science and Technology and the Education Exchange Programme which we signed will help accelerate the ongoing capacity building efforts including in agriculture and human resource development.
Our bilateral relationship is to be further diversified and expanded. It was decided to enhance economic and business linkages in both public and private sectors with a greater participation by Indian entities in the infrastructural development of Ethiopia. We signed the bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement and decided to speed up the finalisation of the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement to provide the necessary incentives and institutional framework.
We have also discussed regional issues including those pertaining to African integration, Darfur and Somalia and other international issues engaging the attention of the international community such as the fight against terrorism, climate change, trade issues and UN reforms.
Today, I inaugurated the pilot projects of tele-education and tele-medicine, which India will be implementing on an Africa wide basis. This is a positive example of South South cooperation which uses IT and space technology and generates a multiplier developmental effect.
This morning, I had the privilege of addressing the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Security Committee and the Ethiopia-India Parliamentary Friendship Group of the Ethiopian Parliament. I spoke about our commitment to work towards a substantive enhancement of the broad-based bilateral relationship between the two democracies which also share developmental goals.
In my meeting with the Hon'ble Speaker of the House of Representatives, we discussed ways and means of developing closer association between the Ethiopian and Indian Parliaments. I reiterated India's support for the development of democratic institutions in Ethiopia. We agreed to enhance parliamentary exchanges and agreed to have an Indian parliamentary delegation visit Ethiopia in the near future.
Some of the other highlights of our discussions include:
Invitation to Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Ethiopia to visit India. PM Meles Zenawi has already accepted our Prime Minister's invitation to visit India in November this year for the Federalism Conference.
Participation by India in Ethiopian millennium celebrations to revive our ancient civilisational links.
Agreement to continue to
(a) cooperate against international terrorism including cross border terrorism
(b) sustain common positions on climate change, UN Reforms including the need for Africa to be represented as a permanent member on an expanded UNSC
and
An understanding of how the process of integration is going to work in Africa including the move towards greater consolidation of regional economic groupings.
I took the opportunity of my presence in Addis Ababa, the diplomatic capital of Africa, to chair the Conference of Indian Heads of Missions in Sub-Sahara Africa. The purpose was to take stock of our overall relations and see how best we can move these forward to further mutual benefit.
I also met with the AU Chairperson H.E. Prof Alpha Oumar Konare to carry forward the dialogue we began when he visited India in December last year. We discussed ways and means of further strengthening the India-Africa partnership.
All in all, I have had an extremely satisfying visit. It will be our endeavour to build on the understandings reached during this visit.
New Delhi
July 6, 2007
India hails AU's effort to evolve common polity on intl issues
Addis Ababa, July 7: Seeking the backing of the African Union in its bid for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council, India has welcomed the efforts of the 53 countries of the continent to evolve a common polity on major international issues.
New Delhi, which has been working closely with the African Union and is looking forward for securing the 53-member bloc's support for its bid for a permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council, is keeping a close watch on the developments that are unfolding in the continent.
"It is one of the major developments in international relations in the current millenium.... one of the major developments of the integration of sovereign nation states of the African continent to evolve a common polity. We welcome it," External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said here.
African leaders met in Ghana earlier this week to debate a grand plan mooted by Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi for establishing United States of Africa, a continental government, but failed to arrive at any decision after moderate countries managed to put on hold the proposal.
The summit, however, agreed to set up a committee of African Union ministers to study how the establishment of a federated African state stretching from the Cape to Cairo, under a single union government, would affect national sovereignties and existing regional economic blocs.
Mukherjee, who is on a four-day visit to Ethiopia, said India welcomed the "resurgence of Africa" as New Delhi has very close relations and linkages with the continent and is cooperating with each other.
"It is interesting how the things are unfolding. What African Union is going to have and what is the concept of United States of Africa and what I understand is that the process is still unfolding, discussions are still taking place and we are working with interest," he said during an interaction with Indian community members here on Thursday night.
India is also making its own contribution in the consultations and integration of countries in the African continent by participating in every regional economic fora in Africa, said Mukherjee, who became the first Indian foreign minister to visit the landlocked African country.
Mukherjee said the impression he got from the Ethiopian leadership during his talks with them was that "there are certain issues in which they (African countries) are likely to take a common approach" like environment, approach towards reforms of the UN, global trade negotiations.
"Some of these issues where the countries concerned are not taking their independent or individual views but they are trying to evolve a collective view which will represent the view of the continent as a whole," he said.
The minister, however, said there was a need for the countries in the continent to put their houses in order and also to harmonise their policies
NIGERIA : Kidnappers threaten to kill 3-yr-old Briton
http://www.champion-newspapers.com/
Kidnappers who seized a three-year-old UK girl in Nigeria have threatened to kill her unless her father agrees to take her place, her mother said.
Margaret Hill, daughter of an expatriate worker, was seized from a car on her way to school in Port Harcourt.
Her mother, Oluchi, told the BBC that the kidnappers had called her demanding a meeting in a town in the Niger Delta. She said they then allowed her to speak to her daughter who was crying.
Margaret was snatched by gunmen at about 7.30 on Thursday morning after they smashed a window of her car as it stood in traffic. Her father, Mike Hill, who has lived in Nigeria for 10 years, runs a bar in Port Harcourt.
The region’s main militant group Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend), has offered to help find the girl, according to an Associated Press (AP) news report.
"We will join in the hunt for the monsters who carried out this abduction and mete out adequate punishment for this crime. We abhor all forms of violence against women and children," the group said in an e-mail sent to AP.
Mrs. Hill, a Nigerian national, said the kidnappers told her to meet them in a town in Bayelsa state but that neither she nor the police had been able to locate it.
"They say I can bring my husband to swap (places) with the baby," she said. "He wanted to go down for his baby but the police commander told him not to."
The kidnappers then threatened to kill Margaret if Hill did not come within three hours, she said.
After the deadline had expired, Hill said Margaret was being fed just "bread and water."
"The people who are holding her just called again and they were threatening to kill the baby," Oluchi Hill was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.
"They accused me of trying to play games with them."
The UK Foreign Office has called for the "immediate safe release", of the girl.
The BBC’s Alex Last in Lagos said Mr. Hill is ill and had been due to fly to the UK for medical treatment.
He said that no hostages had ever been killed by Nigeria’s oil militants and that most situations are resolved after a ransom is paid.
The kidnapping follows that of five oil workers on Wednesday, the first since Mend called off a month-long ceasefire.
Mend has said it had nothing to do with that attack.
Our correspondent says there are a plethora of armed gangs operating in the Niger Delta and kidnapping for ransom has become big business.
More than 100 foreign oil workers have been taken hostage in the region this year. Mend called off its ceasefire on Tuesday, saying it has been kept on the sidelines of government-led talks about the future of the Niger Delta.
Although the Delta accounts for more than 90 per cent of Nigeria’s income, the region remains highly impoverished, a situation the militants say they want to change with their campaign.
Kidnappers who seized a three-year-old UK girl in Nigeria have threatened to kill her unless her father agrees to take her place, her mother said.
Margaret Hill, daughter of an expatriate worker, was seized from a car on her way to school in Port Harcourt.
Her mother, Oluchi, told the BBC that the kidnappers had called her demanding a meeting in a town in the Niger Delta. She said they then allowed her to speak to her daughter who was crying.
Margaret was snatched by gunmen at about 7.30 on Thursday morning after they smashed a window of her car as it stood in traffic. Her father, Mike Hill, who has lived in Nigeria for 10 years, runs a bar in Port Harcourt.
The region’s main militant group Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend), has offered to help find the girl, according to an Associated Press (AP) news report.
"We will join in the hunt for the monsters who carried out this abduction and mete out adequate punishment for this crime. We abhor all forms of violence against women and children," the group said in an e-mail sent to AP.
Mrs. Hill, a Nigerian national, said the kidnappers told her to meet them in a town in Bayelsa state but that neither she nor the police had been able to locate it.
"They say I can bring my husband to swap (places) with the baby," she said. "He wanted to go down for his baby but the police commander told him not to."
The kidnappers then threatened to kill Margaret if Hill did not come within three hours, she said.
After the deadline had expired, Hill said Margaret was being fed just "bread and water."
"The people who are holding her just called again and they were threatening to kill the baby," Oluchi Hill was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.
"They accused me of trying to play games with them."
The UK Foreign Office has called for the "immediate safe release", of the girl.
The BBC’s Alex Last in Lagos said Mr. Hill is ill and had been due to fly to the UK for medical treatment.
He said that no hostages had ever been killed by Nigeria’s oil militants and that most situations are resolved after a ransom is paid.
The kidnapping follows that of five oil workers on Wednesday, the first since Mend called off a month-long ceasefire.
Mend has said it had nothing to do with that attack.
Our correspondent says there are a plethora of armed gangs operating in the Niger Delta and kidnapping for ransom has become big business.
More than 100 foreign oil workers have been taken hostage in the region this year. Mend called off its ceasefire on Tuesday, saying it has been kept on the sidelines of government-led talks about the future of the Niger Delta.
Although the Delta accounts for more than 90 per cent of Nigeria’s income, the region remains highly impoverished, a situation the militants say they want to change with their campaign.
China: Bejing's Plan to Impose Internet Restrictions
Source: Stratfor
July 06, 2007 20 31 GMT
Summary
Local authorities in Xiamen, China, have said the city is planning to ban anonymous online postings, Beijing Youth Daily reported July 6. The ban follows a June 1-2 protest in Xiamen over the construction of a chemical plant, for which organizers used the Internet and text messaging to draw approximately 10,000 people. Similar bans issued by other local governments throughout the country likely will follow as Beijing seeks to assert greater control while minimizing social unrest.
Analysis
Local authorities in Xiamen, China -- a special economic zone on the southeastern coast of Fujian province -- are planning to ban anonymous online postings, Beijing Youth Daily reported July 6. The move follows a June 1-2 rally in Xiamen, for which organizers used Internet and text message campaigns to attract close to 10,000 people to protest the construction of a chemical plant. To crack down on future campaigns, the central government likely will attempt to impose similar bans across China -- citing "public security" as its justification.
The ban in Xiamen indicates a slight shift in Beijing's Internet censorship strategy. The central government likely will use China's regional governments to impose such controversial censorship directives in the future in order to avoid the widespread national criticism that has resulted from previous efforts to restrict digital communication.
The Xiamen ban -- officially called the Measures for Management and Disposition of Harmful and Unhealthy Information -- will apply to more than 100,000 Web sites registered with the city and will require users who want to chat online or post to message boards to register using their official name cards.
The government has so far managed to contain mass displays of social unrest like the Xiamen protest, primarily because such outbursts remain scattered and disjointed. However, the Internet and other communication technologies threaten Bejing's control. They also have the potential to unify protesters in a nationwide uprising.
Previous attempts to introduce online registration requirements at the national level were overturned due to widespread public criticism. In May, Beijing withdrew a proposed blog registration system -- under which all bloggers would have been required to post under their real names -- after it sparked a public outcry. The government has thus far been unable to successfully re-introduce online registration for fear of sparking further unrest.
The move in Xiamen, which city officials have said is necessary in the wake of the protest, reveals how Beijing plans to use local governments to impose Internet restrictions throughout the country while minimizing public anger. By localizing these regulations, Beijing will seek to shrink the opposition down to a more manageable size as it continues to push for more control over communication technologies
About Stratfor
Stratfor is the world’s leading private intelligence company delivering in-depth analysis, assessments and forecasts on global geopolitical, economic, security and public policy issues. A variety of subscription-based access, free intelligence reports and confidential consulting are available for individuals and corporations.
July 06, 2007 20 31 GMT
Summary
Local authorities in Xiamen, China, have said the city is planning to ban anonymous online postings, Beijing Youth Daily reported July 6. The ban follows a June 1-2 protest in Xiamen over the construction of a chemical plant, for which organizers used the Internet and text messaging to draw approximately 10,000 people. Similar bans issued by other local governments throughout the country likely will follow as Beijing seeks to assert greater control while minimizing social unrest.
Analysis
Local authorities in Xiamen, China -- a special economic zone on the southeastern coast of Fujian province -- are planning to ban anonymous online postings, Beijing Youth Daily reported July 6. The move follows a June 1-2 rally in Xiamen, for which organizers used Internet and text message campaigns to attract close to 10,000 people to protest the construction of a chemical plant. To crack down on future campaigns, the central government likely will attempt to impose similar bans across China -- citing "public security" as its justification.
The ban in Xiamen indicates a slight shift in Beijing's Internet censorship strategy. The central government likely will use China's regional governments to impose such controversial censorship directives in the future in order to avoid the widespread national criticism that has resulted from previous efforts to restrict digital communication.
The Xiamen ban -- officially called the Measures for Management and Disposition of Harmful and Unhealthy Information -- will apply to more than 100,000 Web sites registered with the city and will require users who want to chat online or post to message boards to register using their official name cards.
The government has so far managed to contain mass displays of social unrest like the Xiamen protest, primarily because such outbursts remain scattered and disjointed. However, the Internet and other communication technologies threaten Bejing's control. They also have the potential to unify protesters in a nationwide uprising.
Previous attempts to introduce online registration requirements at the national level were overturned due to widespread public criticism. In May, Beijing withdrew a proposed blog registration system -- under which all bloggers would have been required to post under their real names -- after it sparked a public outcry. The government has thus far been unable to successfully re-introduce online registration for fear of sparking further unrest.
The move in Xiamen, which city officials have said is necessary in the wake of the protest, reveals how Beijing plans to use local governments to impose Internet restrictions throughout the country while minimizing public anger. By localizing these regulations, Beijing will seek to shrink the opposition down to a more manageable size as it continues to push for more control over communication technologies
About Stratfor
Stratfor is the world’s leading private intelligence company delivering in-depth analysis, assessments and forecasts on global geopolitical, economic, security and public policy issues. A variety of subscription-based access, free intelligence reports and confidential consulting are available for individuals and corporations.
Nigeria: A Kidnapping and MEND's Golden Opportunity
Source: Stratfor
July 06, 2007 21 04 GMT
Summary
The Nigerian militant group Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has said it will help rescue 3-year-old British national Margaret Hill, who was kidnapped by unknown individuals July 6. The offer, which comes at the end of a monthlong cease-fire agreed to by MEND, represents a golden opportunity for the militant group to improve its relationship with the government.
Analysis
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) will assist in the search and rescue of 3-year-old British national Margaret Hill, who was kidnapped July 6 from a car in the Delta city of Port Harcourt by unknown assailants, a MEND spokesman said. The offer of help comes during a monthlong detente between the federal government and MEND that began with the release from prison of Ijaw militant and Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force founder Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, who upon his release called for an end to kidnapping and hostage-taking.
Although the monthlong cease-fire recently expired, MEND probably will not renew large-scale attacks, since this would threaten the improvement in relations between the two sides. And the Hill kidnapping could be a golden opportunity for MEND to consolidate this incipient improvement in relations.
Offering to assist the federal government in finding the kidnapped child offers MEND the opportunity to achieve a number of objectives. MEND's willingness to cooperate with the government opens the door for future collaboration. By participating in a situation that allows it to display its unparalleled ability to penetrate the Delta's swamps and thus recover the child, MEND also can show the extent of its reach to the government. Finally, it offers MEND the opportunity to take the moral high ground by fighting crimes it deems beyond the pale.
The offer means that MEND will have to work to retain its legitimacy in the Niger Delta, however. It will need to prove to both the government and its own base that MEND is making the choice to reconcile with the government if it is to prevent the appearance that the government has whipped it into shape. MEND also will need to rein in the violence caused by criminal gangs and disaffected former factions while continuing to portray itself as the only true advocate for the Delta's downtrodden people.
Dokubo-Asari's release, one of MEND's prime demands since it began its armed uprising, was the first gesture by either side aimed at taming the ongoing violence in the Delta. But its results have proven controversial, as other Delta militant groups and various MEND factions denounced MEND's subsequent suspension of attacks, accusing the group's core leadership of selling out to the government. By offering to search for and help rescue the kidnapped girl, the activist ethnic Ijaw core of MEND is further splitting with its various criminal factions, which see kidnapping as a way to obtain some quick cash. This reveals a deeper split within MEND as its assorted subgroups struggle to define their roles in the newly emerging political environment.
MEND will have to walk a fine line in the next few weeks as it struggles to maintain both its role and its image in the Niger Delta. Should it stray too far from its militant roots, or should it be perceived as having become a government puppet, it could lose its legitimacy among people in the Delta and might even face attacks from former MEND factions striving to become the new face of the Niger Delta struggle. But should MEND revert to its former belligerence, it will lose all progress on improved ties with the government, making concessions from the government that much less attainable.
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July 06, 2007 21 04 GMT
Summary
The Nigerian militant group Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has said it will help rescue 3-year-old British national Margaret Hill, who was kidnapped by unknown individuals July 6. The offer, which comes at the end of a monthlong cease-fire agreed to by MEND, represents a golden opportunity for the militant group to improve its relationship with the government.
Analysis
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) will assist in the search and rescue of 3-year-old British national Margaret Hill, who was kidnapped July 6 from a car in the Delta city of Port Harcourt by unknown assailants, a MEND spokesman said. The offer of help comes during a monthlong detente between the federal government and MEND that began with the release from prison of Ijaw militant and Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force founder Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, who upon his release called for an end to kidnapping and hostage-taking.
Although the monthlong cease-fire recently expired, MEND probably will not renew large-scale attacks, since this would threaten the improvement in relations between the two sides. And the Hill kidnapping could be a golden opportunity for MEND to consolidate this incipient improvement in relations.
Offering to assist the federal government in finding the kidnapped child offers MEND the opportunity to achieve a number of objectives. MEND's willingness to cooperate with the government opens the door for future collaboration. By participating in a situation that allows it to display its unparalleled ability to penetrate the Delta's swamps and thus recover the child, MEND also can show the extent of its reach to the government. Finally, it offers MEND the opportunity to take the moral high ground by fighting crimes it deems beyond the pale.
The offer means that MEND will have to work to retain its legitimacy in the Niger Delta, however. It will need to prove to both the government and its own base that MEND is making the choice to reconcile with the government if it is to prevent the appearance that the government has whipped it into shape. MEND also will need to rein in the violence caused by criminal gangs and disaffected former factions while continuing to portray itself as the only true advocate for the Delta's downtrodden people.
Dokubo-Asari's release, one of MEND's prime demands since it began its armed uprising, was the first gesture by either side aimed at taming the ongoing violence in the Delta. But its results have proven controversial, as other Delta militant groups and various MEND factions denounced MEND's subsequent suspension of attacks, accusing the group's core leadership of selling out to the government. By offering to search for and help rescue the kidnapped girl, the activist ethnic Ijaw core of MEND is further splitting with its various criminal factions, which see kidnapping as a way to obtain some quick cash. This reveals a deeper split within MEND as its assorted subgroups struggle to define their roles in the newly emerging political environment.
MEND will have to walk a fine line in the next few weeks as it struggles to maintain both its role and its image in the Niger Delta. Should it stray too far from its militant roots, or should it be perceived as having become a government puppet, it could lose its legitimacy among people in the Delta and might even face attacks from former MEND factions striving to become the new face of the Niger Delta struggle. But should MEND revert to its former belligerence, it will lose all progress on improved ties with the government, making concessions from the government that much less attainable.
About Stratfor
Stratfor is the world’s leading private intelligence company delivering in-depth analysis, assessments and forecasts on global geopolitical, economic, security and public policy issues. A variety of subscription-based access, free intelligence reports and confidential consulting are available for individuals and corporations.
Venezuela: Blows and Counterblows
Wednesday, Jul 04, 2007
By: Marta Harnecker - Abiven
1. The failure of the military coup in April 2002 (more than 80% of the generals in operational positions remained faithful to Chavez and the constitution) constituted the first great defeat of the opposition and a real gift to Chavez. These new circumstances allowed for the different actors to become unmasked and the people to acquire a much higher level of political understanding (both within the military ranks and within the civilian cadres, it was now known who could be counted on and who could not be counted on). It created a favorable playing field in which to move forward with cleaning out the military institution. It divided the opposition. It reminded an ever increasing number of the middle classes, who were previously against the process, of the anarchy which would result from the marginalization of Chavez.
2. The frustrated attempt to bring the country to a halt on December 2, 2002, was the second great defeat of the opposition. They could not stop the country. Chavez did not bow to their pressure. But most importantly, the petroleum industry came to be truly under the control of the Venezuelan state. This was the second great gift from the opposition. Due to their subversive and saboteur attitudes, around 18,000 upper and middle-level managers who opposed the government – and who actually exercised control of the company – created the conditions in which they could be legally dismissed.
3. The ratification of President Chávez’s mandate in the recall referendum of August 15, 2004 – a never-before seen process in world history – was the third great defeat that the Venezuelan opposition suffered in attempting to end the government of President Chávez. The triumph, by an enormous amount of votes[1], and under the attentive gaze of hundreds of international observers, who unanimously ratified the results, was the third gift from the opposition.
4. It constituted, as one of the observers, well-known Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, put it, “an injection of optimism in this world where democracy has lost so much prestige” due to the fact that it has been unable to resolve the problem of poverty.
5. This was not the victory of a single man, but rather of a humanist and solidarity-based project for the country, as much in the national as in the international arena; of a project for the country which had emerged as an alternative to the voracious and predatory neoliberal model: a model of endogenous development and social economy.
6. It was a triumph of the current Venezuelan constitution, the only constitution in the world that contemplates the idea of a recall referendum for the presidency.
7. But, above all else, it was a victory of the people, of popular organization, of the people from the barrios [poor neighborhoods], but also of the people from the middle class, who responded to the call of the president to organize themselves in their local voting area, taking the initiative without waiting for the organizations that were heading the electoral campaign to be constituted.
New post-referendum stage
8. With this triumph, a new stage in the Bolivarian revolutionary process began. The media warmongers were left without ammunition. The opposition revealed itself; it lost a lot of credibility. The internal struggles between different factions intensified.
9. The opposition had been defeated in this battle, but it was clear that the forces supporting Chavez had not yet won the war. We cannot forget that in a country of 26 million inhabitants, close to 4 million people voted in favor of revoking his mandate. Nor can we forget the expectations that were created by this triumph amongst those 6 million people who voted NO.
10. The challenges to confront in this new stage were extremely varied: political, economic, institutional and communicational.
11. The Bolivarian revolutionary process had to make a qualitative leap forward in regards to the protagonistic participation of the people. The most important idea of President Chavez – “poverty cannot be eliminated if power is not given to the people” – needed to materialize into organizational forms and concrete participation. And that is what occurred. The concept of the communal councils emerged. Carrying out an approximate calculation, it was estimated that Venezuela had around 52 thousand communities. And in each of these communities, an entity needed to be elected, which would play the role of a communitarian government. This entity was called the communal council, and a majority of them have already received government resources to begin carrying out small projects that the community has prioritized.
12. It was also crucial to advance in the development of a new productive model, as an alternative to capitalism. And that is what is occurring. Venezuela is being transformed from a country which survived of oil rent and the exportation of primary materials, into a country with a solid agricultural and industrial base, which produces goods and services that are needed for popular consumption. A model based on new social relations of production that liberate waged labor from exploitation by capital, by promoting companies of social production inspired by principals of solidarity, cooperation, complimentarily, reciprocity and economic and financial sustainability. A model that aspires to territorial balance, and harmonic and proportional development of the regions, in order to overcome the housing problem and the collapse of the five large cities in which 75% of the population is concentrated. A model based on a new generation of basic companies orientated towards deepening endogenous development. I am referring to the creation of Compañía Nacional de Industrias Básicas (Coniba, National Company of Basic Industries) and its eleven affiliates, and the Corporación Petroquímica de Venezuela (Pequiven, Venezuelan Petrochemical Corporation) that aims to strengthen innovative technological capacities, in order to transform primary materials into value-added products which would allow for import substitution and the diversification of exportable products. A model that promotes state investment in strategic industries like telecommunications (CVG Telecom) and those that have to do with food security and sovereignty, such as Corporación Venezolana Agraria (CVA, Venezuelan Agrarian Corporation), the parent company of the new enterprises in the agricultural sector.
13. On the other hand, the process of co-management has made notable advances in the electricity industry in the state of Merida, and in the aluminum company, ALCASA, in the state of Bolívar. And the number of recuperated factories in the hands of workers has increased.
14. At the same time, one of the priority tasks is the need to resolve the problem of employment. With this objective in mind, the state has being pushing forward with the reactivation of the private industrial sector which is willing to collaborate with the project of endogenous development and social economy proposed by the government. The framework for an agreement with this sector has been established, through which the government grants low interest rate loans, as long as these companies take onboard their social responsibility, committing themselves to dedicating at least 10% of their earnings to covering the most pressing demands of the nearby communities.
15. Following the referendum, there was a notable improvement in the correlation of forces in the institutional sphere. The results in the elections for governors and mayors were very positive for the government. The opposition only governs in two out of twenty-four states. All the deputies in the National Assembly are Bolivarian. The opposition candidates, seeing that they were going to lose, opted to not participate in the elections, hoping to discredit this legislative entity in doing so.
The weaknesses of the process
16. This quantitative accumulation of forces should have translated into a qualitative accumulation. An emphasis should have been placed on efficiency, in better performances regarding the responsibilities that each person must assume in order to put into practice all the projects and initiatives announced by the government; but this is far from having been achieved. The old state model continues in force, and despite the attempts by Chavez to change things, is very strong. The same has occurred with the issue of corruption.
17. Prior to the December 3, 2006 presidential elections there had been very little, or no advances made in the formation of a political instrument better adapted to the great challenges that the Bolivarian revolutionary process has set for itself. There continued to be - perhaps becoming even more accentuated - disputes over positions at the different levels of leadership of the process. The Miranda Electoral Command, formed to lead the presidential electoral process, was hegemonized by the Movimiento V República (MVR, Movement for a Fifth Republic), provoking discontent amongst the rest of the political parties that support the process, as well as amongst the population.
18. On the other hand, rather than advancing in the construction of a united instrument of the workers, this process took backward steps. Today, there continues to be too much dispersion. Old methods continue to be employed.
19. The opposition media outlets, which clearly make up the majority, exponentially enlarging the errors and weaknesses of the government, and distorting its project, thereby being able to recreate a climate of opposition to Chavez, influencing a significant number of Venezuelans.
20. Of course, the United States government - for whom, Chavez has become a true obsession - has continuously been behind these campaigns.
21. Lastly, added to this daily and hourly media bombardment, was an opposition that began to finally unite around the figure of Manuel Rosales, as the opposition presidential candidate for the December 2006 elections. The, until then governor of Zulia - one of the largest and most strategic states in the country due to the fact that it shares a border with Colombia - carried out a well orchestrated electoral campaign, promising to conserve all the good things that the Chavez government had done for the people, and demagogically announcing that he would also directly deposit into the bank accounts of every poor Venezuelan household a significant sum of money, product of the earnings coming from petroleum, so that instead of taking money out of the country to help other people, he would be handed it over to the people.
22. Able to sense all these limitations and obstacles, only weeks out from the electoral event, the president began to personally assume the direction of the campaign, appearing everywhere, in a tireless tour throughout all the country, where the people from the popular barrios applauded him with delirium. In the final two weeks of the campaign, he began to involve the youth as the central motor of his campaign, and to point to this social sector as the moral force which would allow the process to overcome the vices that infected previous generations.
23. Although no one doubted that Chavez would win, given the notable advancements that the Venezuelan people have obtained thanks to the Bolivarian government, due to the reasons previously mentioned, it seemed a difficult proposition that the Bolivarian leader could obtain a better electoral result than that in the referendum. This appraisal of the situation was confirmed by a majority of opinion polls which gave him as the winner by a difference of some 20%, the same 20% of more than two years ago.
24. Nevertheless, a clean election, with the lowest abstention rate in the political history of the country (less than 25%), carried out under the attentive gaze of hundreds of international observers[2], ratified the mandate of the Venezuelan president by an overwhelming majority of votes. Hugo Chavez got 7 million votes, 1 million more than in the 2004 referendum, and the opposition, represented by Rosales, maintaining its 4 million votes.
25. It was such a convincing victory that the current US government had no other option but to recognize the triumph, publicly accepting that a democratic regime exists in Venezuela, and expressing its interest in establishing a positive and constructive relationship with the new government. [3]
26. This was the fourth great triumph of Chavez, although this time it cannot be said that it was the fourth great defeat of the opposition, because, although they lost, they came out strengthened from the battle. We need to accept that its most recognizable leaders demonstrated maturity in acknowledging their defeat with nobility, and stating their disposition to wage future battles within the rules of the game laid out by the Bolivarian constitution.
27. For his part, President Chavez responded positively in front of these declarations, stating his disposition for dialogue, but “without conditions or blackmail”, and always so long as the opposition did not intend for him to abandon his principles. “Socialism of the 21st century is, and will continue to be, the objective we are aiming for” he affirmed at the time.
Announcement of the decision to promote the creation of a new party of the revolution
28. In one of his first speeches after the election, Chavez put forward “as a strategic fundamental line, the deepening, widening and expansion of the Bolivarian Revolution… on the Venezuelan road to socialism” and made three fundamental announcements, which reflect the clear consciousness that the Venezuelan head of state has of the weaknesses that plague the political process in his country: the struggle against corruption and bureaucracy as two new strategic objectives of his government for the next period, and a call to construct the united party of the revolution.[4]
29. The first two announcements were not surprising, given that the president had insistently stated over the previous months his preoccupation with these issues, but the third announcement regarding his decision to create a new political party - which he provisionally called the United Socialist Party of Venezuela - was surprising. Not because he had not referred to the issue before or had not conversed about it with the leaders of all the political parties that supported him, but rather because the news was not preceded by a profound debate over the issue and because everyone was led to believe that what they would be dealing with, at least initially, would be more akin to the construction of a front of parties and not a political instrument that would imply the rapid dissolution of the existing parties, some with a long trajectory in the country, such as the Communist Party.
30. Chavez was very precise in his speech: he rejected the idea of what he called “a sum of acronyms”, at the same time as he put forward the necessity to construct a new party with new figures elected from the grassroots.
31. What we are dealing with is a political entity that would unite at its core “all those Venezuelans willing to fight to construct socialism [in Venezuela]: whether they be militants from the political groups of the left, or members of the social movements, or those compatriots who up until this moment were either not members or, disappointed by the deviations and errors committed, had stopped being members of some of the existing organizations.”[5]
32. Tens of thousands of activists[6], as part of this new political project, went out to travel the country preparing a massive inscription of all those who aspired to become members of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, the largest in the history of the country. More than 5 million people had enrolled up until June 3, one week before the closure of inscriptions.
33. Unfortunately, everything seems to point in the direction that in order to obtain such a high figure, acts of “stacking” or pressure were used on more than a few occasions, blurring the results obtained and causing discomfort amongst many people. The president has called on everyone to denounce these types of acts, and has given the directive that it is necessary to “look after the process…. and denounce in time any deviation” which could cause a lot of damage in the future.
34. On the other hand, Chavez left it very clear – during his Aló Presidente show on Sunday, June 10 - that one thing is inscription, and another the selection process afterwards of those who will go on to conform the new political instrument. His hope is that the new party will be made up of tested militants, although it will only be made up of a handful of people. What has not been spoken about until now is how, or who, will carry out this selection.
35. At the moment, a revision of all the inscriptions by the CNE (National Electoral Council) is in process. Afterwards, the inscribed aspirants will meet in groups of 200 - the denominated “socialist battalions” - to allow real, democratic participation by everyone, and to facilitate the selection from below, of the best men and women from these battalions as spokespeople to the Founding Congress, When it was previously calculated that some 4 million people would be part of the inscription process, it was estimated that around 22,000 socialist battalions would have to be constituted and each battalion would elect a spokesperson to the regional assemblies, who in turn would send spokespeople to the aforementioned congress. This congress would therefore be made up of around 2,200 congress delegates. Today, given that inscriptions have risen to over 5 million, new calculations will have to be made. What this formula does not resolve is what will happen when, by chance, various recognized leaders are concentrated in the same community.
36. The founding congress is expected to last three months, debating all the issues related to the new party: the program, organizational forms, type of membership and other issues, beginning with the debate over what type of country are they trying to build. After each session, these national spokespeople will go back to their respective grassroots assemblies to keep them informed and to deepen the debate at this level. It will be from these grassroots assemblies that those aspiring to fill positions at the different levels of leadership in the party will have to be nominated. Someone who does not count on support in their local base cannot be nominated to a position within this new political instance.
37. It is expected that through this mechanism there will be of flowering of thousands of new faces, until now unknown, originating from the new leaderships emerging out of communitarian work, and workplaces and study centers.
The five motors
38. On January 10, 2007, after being sworn in for his second presidential term, Chavez made another significant announcement: he proposed the formation of the “five constituent motors” to advance towards the socialism of the 21st century.
39. The first refers to the Enabling Law, which allows the executive to legislative on areas where it is necessary to speed up the changes towards socialism.
40. The second relates to the reform of the Bolivarian Constitution of Venezuela, which would allow, amongst other things, the modification of articles that in the economic and political sphere are not in accordance with the project of the socialist society which they are attempting to construct. There is nothing strange about the fact that the Bolivarian Constitution of 1999 has become too small for the revolutionary process, just like a child’s clothes become too small as they grow up.
41. The third envisages a campaign of moral, economic, political and social education called “Moral and Enlightenment,” which has to be as present in territorial organization (communal councils and other organizations) as in the workplace.
42. The fourth, which the president has called “Geometry of Power”, attempts to revise the political-territorial distribution of the country, and generate the construction of city systems and federal territories with the objective of redistributing political, economic, social and military power more equitably across the national arena.
43. The fifth, and most important, refers to “The Revolutionary Explosion of Communal Power” and aims to promote communal councils and everything that has to do with popular power
44. According to the Venezuelan head of state, these five motors will be the ones that launch the “Bolivarian socialist project”.
Advances in nationalizations
45. In the last few months, there have been more advances made in regards to the nationalization of companies than have been made in the last 9 years of government, moving forward enormously in the recuperation of the economic sovereignty of the country.
46. “Electricidad de Caracas”, the largest company in this sector, valued at $900 million, was nationalized. The US multinational AES signed an agreement with the Venezuelan government, handing over 82.14% of its shares.[7]
47. On the first of May, the Venezuelan government recuperated its energy sovereignty by proceeding to nationalize the petroleum in the Orinoco Oil Belt, where the most important reserves in the world are located. There was a reduction of the power of the petroleum consortiums that operate in this region of the Orinoco river, where close to 400,000 barrels of petroleum are extracted daily, a figure which could rise to 600,000 barrels. This measure will affect various foreign companies. The most affected will be, from the US: Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Texaco and ConocoPhilips; the French company Total, the Norwegian Statoil; and the UK-based British Petroleum. For the Venezuelan company PDVSA, until now a minority partner in this consortium, the situation has become inverted: its quota will be 60%.[8]
48. On June 8, Compañía Anónima Nacional Teléfonos de Venezuela (Cantv, National Anonymous Telephone Company of Venezuela), the biggest private telephone company in the country, which was publicly owned up until 1991, was renationalized. At the time of renationalization Cantv controlled 83% of the internet market, 70% of the national telephone communications market and 42% of international calls. It owned close to 3 million telephone lines and 100,000 public telephones.[9]
49. With this measure the Venezuelan state has advances in the control of the strategic telecommunications sector.
50. The recuperated company is attempting to increase telephone access to all areas of the country. In two years there will be a tripling of areas with fiber optic coverage. Its services will reach the most remote rural areas. As well as expanding the service, the aim is to make it accessible to the lowest income sectors, lowering the cost to make calls.
Non-renewal of RCTV’s concession
51. During the night of May 27, the broadcasting concession granted to Radio Caracas Television, the most powerful opposition television station in the country, expired. I agree with the Venezuelan political analyst, Vladimir Acosta, that this was the second great revolutionary moment of the process, following the recuperation of petroleum in 2003.[10]
52. To convert a private channel into a public service channel is not only a strong blow to the media hegemony of the Venezuelan opposition, it is also an act “that goes to the heart of global power”, because today this fundamentally depends on the mass media. Without the monopoly over media to fabricate consensus, the supremacy of this global power is enormously weakened.[11] It is because of this that there has been such a virulent conservative reaction at the global scale.
53. The measure was announced by Chavez months before. The opposition immediately prepared its counter response. It tried to make citizens believe that, with this act, freedom of expression would be mortally wounded, and that the government was advancing in an accelerated manner towards a dictatorial regime. After attempting various mobilizations of the adult sector, none of which achieved the scale hoped for, a new political subject appeared on the streets of Caracas: the students.
54. Thousands of them, the majority coming from the private universities, came out onto the streets protesting against what they called the “closure” of Radio Caracas Television. Although their intentions were peaceful, a group of students provoked disturbances, setting alight bonfires in the streets, impeding traffic and forcing police bodies to intervene to maintain order. The images of confrontations between students and police traveled the globe, as more proof of the authoritarian character of the government. What was not reported however, was the fact that the majority of those injured belonged to the police force, who had assumed a dignified attitude, not allowing themselves to be provoked.
55. But what do these students represent? Are we dealing with a mere apolitical movement, like they themselves and the opposition media like to make people believe?
56. The strategy of the opposition has been to, on one hand, “present the students as a unified mass” and, on the other, to maintain their separation from the student movement, in order to underscore its independent and spontaneous character.[12]
57. The first element of this strategy was rapidly pulled apart by an important sector of the students who supported the measure adopted by the government. They came out on the streets on a mass scale.
58. In regards to the second element, everyday, new evidence is emerging which reveals the behind the scenes intervention of the opposition. There are not only recorded telephone conversations and intercepted electronic messages which reveal their plans to use the students for political aims, but also, on top of all this, there is the irrefutable proof that one of the student leaders provided themselves.
59. The small group of student leaders who protested the “closure” of RCTV, convinced by the propaganda spread by the media amongst those that are assiduous, that chavistas are against freedom of expression in Venezuela, decided to demand an audience in the National Assembly, believing that this initiative would be rejected. To their surprise, the opposite occurred, only that Cilia Flores, the president of the Parliament, broadened out the proposal and decided that this event would be used to open up a debate between students from the opposition and those supporting the measure adopted by the government. In a gesture, never before seen in the history of the country, the National Assembly opened its doors to the students so that they could come and debate.
60. It was decided that each current would be granted ten minutes speaking rights. The opposition students entered the assembly wearing red shirts, which was strange given that red is the color with has identified chavistas. Afterwards it was discovered why: “far more than a safety strategy: they were an integral part of a professionally-designed media strategy”. [13]
61. Speaking rights were granted first to Douglas Barrios, a student at the Universidad Metropolitana, a university known for harboring only the elite of society. After a speech lacking in any substance, where he called for a process of national reconciliation, he ended by saying that he “dreams of a country where people are taken into consideration without having to wear a uniform”, and having finished this phrase, he and the groups of opposition students removed their red shirts, allowing everyone to see the white shirts they had on underneath, covered in different slogans defending RCTV.
62. All this could have been interpreted to be an original, theatrical act of repudiation, if it had not been for the fact that the last sheet of his speech was left behind on the podium. On it, very precise instructions were given as to how they should conduct themselves in the National Assembly. The text was signed by ARS Publicity, a company which is owned by the Globovision group, which was implicated in the April 2002 coup.
63. Taking off their red shirts, only speaking once, and to leave immediately - all these were actions that were outlined in the instructions. This last action was halted, at least for the duration of the following speaker, due to the pressure exerted on them to stay by the chavista students and the deputies of the National Assembly.
64. The self-proclaimed defenders of democracy were not capable of democratically debating; they made only one intervention and then retired from the scene. The self-proclaimed independents arrived as pawns of Globovision. This is the hypocrisy of the opposition leaders.
65. It should remain clear that we are far from thinking that all the students that marched against the decision to not renew the concession are of this sort. We are convinced that the majority of them will reconsider their position, when through healthy debate, they know what the project for society, headed by President Chavez, really is.
66. The events in Parliament only put into relief the strategy of the opposition, but also, more importantly, revealed the extraordinary student leadership that has emerging in the country.
67. One after the other, the ten speakers in support of the measure adopted by the government began to dismantle, one by one, the arguments of the opposition, with freshness, intelligence, creativity and, above all, forcefulness. Who can argue, for example, with what the next speaker, Andreína Tarazón, from the Universidad Central de Venezuela said, when she criticized the behavior of the opposition students, comparing their conduct in not facing up to the debate, with that of Condoleezza Rice during the meeting of the OAS, where she spoke and then left?
68. Those viewing television, who saw this transmission, live and direct via a national broadcast on all frequencies, must have felt a strong impact due to the quality of the interventions. They were so good that it was not long before they began to be distributed via the internet. There were thousands of people in all parts of the world who were able to be astounded and amazed with the words of Andreína and her comrades. She transformed herself into one of the best ambassadors for Venezuela.
69. But the alternative media blow dealt by the left could not be left unpunished. A few days later YouTube suspended the account of the user named “Lbracci”, through which this experience had been distributed in video format. [14]
70. On the other hand, new spaces for debate are opening up in all corners of the country. And the youth sectors are proving in practice that democracy exists in Venezuela.
71. Once again, an attack by the opposition has resulted in a very positive event for the Bolivarian process: a new social actor, full of force, of ideals, has entered into the political sphere. There is no doubt that those students who support the government have everything to win. A project for a more humanistic and solidarity-based country, that puts its efforts into eliminating inequalities; that calls for the exercising of a growing social control over all activities, in order to struggle against the scourge of corruption; that recuperates the sovereignty of the homeland. It is a project that the Venezuelan youth cannot afford to be indifferent towards.
Note: This article was prepared for the ABIVEN 2007 yearbook.
Translated from Rebelión by Federico Fuentes
[1] Chavez obtained the support of around 6 million people, around 4 million voted in favour of revoking his mandate
[2]. Amongst the most important groups present were: the European Union, the Carter Centre, the Organisation of American States (OEA).
[3]. The United States expressed via Sean McCormack, spokesperson for the State Department, its desire to a have a “positive” and “constructive” relationship with the Bolivarian government. “We congratulate the Venezuelan people for its conduct during this election”, he declared, also expressing his desire to “work with the government of President Chavez”. This seems to be a radical change given that not long ago, Washington classified Chavez as a “destabilising force for the region”.
[4]. Speech given at Act of Recognition for the Miranda Command, December 15, 2006.
[5]. Hugo Chávez, Nota introductoria al libro El discurso de la unidad (December 15, 2006) Ediciones “Socialismo del Siglo XXI”, No 1, Caracas, 2007
[6]. Chavez decided to call them “promoters”.
[7]. Salim Lamrani, Se abre una nueva era en Venezuela, February 26 2007.
[8]. See Salim Lamrani, Soberanía petrolera, reformas sociales e independencia económica en Venezuela, www.rebelión.org, May 15, 2007.
[9]. Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias, «Queremos que Cantv sea una empresa tan eficiente como Pdvsa», January 11, 2007; Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias, «; gobierno nacional dio primer paso hacia nacionalización de la Cantv», February 12, 2007.
[10]. Vladimir Acosta, La no renovación de RCTV es un hecho revolucionario porque toca al corazón del poder mundial , interview by Marcelo Colussi, Argenpress, June 2007.
[11]. The term “fabricating consensus is used by Walter Lippmann in Public Opinion, Allen and Unwin, London, 1932 and cited by Noam Chomsky in Cómo nos venden la moto, Ed. Icaria, Barcelona, 1996, p.14. This author also has a book titled Manufacturing Consent.
[12]. Georges Ciccariello-Maher, Who´s pulling the strings behind Venezuela´s “student rebellion, Caracas, June 10, 2007.
[13]. .Op.cit.
[14]. Carlos Martínez , Antena 3 y YouTube censuran un debate sobre la no renovación de la concesión a RCTV ,June 12, 2007.
By: Marta Harnecker - Abiven
1. The failure of the military coup in April 2002 (more than 80% of the generals in operational positions remained faithful to Chavez and the constitution) constituted the first great defeat of the opposition and a real gift to Chavez. These new circumstances allowed for the different actors to become unmasked and the people to acquire a much higher level of political understanding (both within the military ranks and within the civilian cadres, it was now known who could be counted on and who could not be counted on). It created a favorable playing field in which to move forward with cleaning out the military institution. It divided the opposition. It reminded an ever increasing number of the middle classes, who were previously against the process, of the anarchy which would result from the marginalization of Chavez.
2. The frustrated attempt to bring the country to a halt on December 2, 2002, was the second great defeat of the opposition. They could not stop the country. Chavez did not bow to their pressure. But most importantly, the petroleum industry came to be truly under the control of the Venezuelan state. This was the second great gift from the opposition. Due to their subversive and saboteur attitudes, around 18,000 upper and middle-level managers who opposed the government – and who actually exercised control of the company – created the conditions in which they could be legally dismissed.
3. The ratification of President Chávez’s mandate in the recall referendum of August 15, 2004 – a never-before seen process in world history – was the third great defeat that the Venezuelan opposition suffered in attempting to end the government of President Chávez. The triumph, by an enormous amount of votes[1], and under the attentive gaze of hundreds of international observers, who unanimously ratified the results, was the third gift from the opposition.
4. It constituted, as one of the observers, well-known Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, put it, “an injection of optimism in this world where democracy has lost so much prestige” due to the fact that it has been unable to resolve the problem of poverty.
5. This was not the victory of a single man, but rather of a humanist and solidarity-based project for the country, as much in the national as in the international arena; of a project for the country which had emerged as an alternative to the voracious and predatory neoliberal model: a model of endogenous development and social economy.
6. It was a triumph of the current Venezuelan constitution, the only constitution in the world that contemplates the idea of a recall referendum for the presidency.
7. But, above all else, it was a victory of the people, of popular organization, of the people from the barrios [poor neighborhoods], but also of the people from the middle class, who responded to the call of the president to organize themselves in their local voting area, taking the initiative without waiting for the organizations that were heading the electoral campaign to be constituted.
New post-referendum stage
8. With this triumph, a new stage in the Bolivarian revolutionary process began. The media warmongers were left without ammunition. The opposition revealed itself; it lost a lot of credibility. The internal struggles between different factions intensified.
9. The opposition had been defeated in this battle, but it was clear that the forces supporting Chavez had not yet won the war. We cannot forget that in a country of 26 million inhabitants, close to 4 million people voted in favor of revoking his mandate. Nor can we forget the expectations that were created by this triumph amongst those 6 million people who voted NO.
10. The challenges to confront in this new stage were extremely varied: political, economic, institutional and communicational.
11. The Bolivarian revolutionary process had to make a qualitative leap forward in regards to the protagonistic participation of the people. The most important idea of President Chavez – “poverty cannot be eliminated if power is not given to the people” – needed to materialize into organizational forms and concrete participation. And that is what occurred. The concept of the communal councils emerged. Carrying out an approximate calculation, it was estimated that Venezuela had around 52 thousand communities. And in each of these communities, an entity needed to be elected, which would play the role of a communitarian government. This entity was called the communal council, and a majority of them have already received government resources to begin carrying out small projects that the community has prioritized.
12. It was also crucial to advance in the development of a new productive model, as an alternative to capitalism. And that is what is occurring. Venezuela is being transformed from a country which survived of oil rent and the exportation of primary materials, into a country with a solid agricultural and industrial base, which produces goods and services that are needed for popular consumption. A model based on new social relations of production that liberate waged labor from exploitation by capital, by promoting companies of social production inspired by principals of solidarity, cooperation, complimentarily, reciprocity and economic and financial sustainability. A model that aspires to territorial balance, and harmonic and proportional development of the regions, in order to overcome the housing problem and the collapse of the five large cities in which 75% of the population is concentrated. A model based on a new generation of basic companies orientated towards deepening endogenous development. I am referring to the creation of Compañía Nacional de Industrias Básicas (Coniba, National Company of Basic Industries) and its eleven affiliates, and the Corporación Petroquímica de Venezuela (Pequiven, Venezuelan Petrochemical Corporation) that aims to strengthen innovative technological capacities, in order to transform primary materials into value-added products which would allow for import substitution and the diversification of exportable products. A model that promotes state investment in strategic industries like telecommunications (CVG Telecom) and those that have to do with food security and sovereignty, such as Corporación Venezolana Agraria (CVA, Venezuelan Agrarian Corporation), the parent company of the new enterprises in the agricultural sector.
13. On the other hand, the process of co-management has made notable advances in the electricity industry in the state of Merida, and in the aluminum company, ALCASA, in the state of Bolívar. And the number of recuperated factories in the hands of workers has increased.
14. At the same time, one of the priority tasks is the need to resolve the problem of employment. With this objective in mind, the state has being pushing forward with the reactivation of the private industrial sector which is willing to collaborate with the project of endogenous development and social economy proposed by the government. The framework for an agreement with this sector has been established, through which the government grants low interest rate loans, as long as these companies take onboard their social responsibility, committing themselves to dedicating at least 10% of their earnings to covering the most pressing demands of the nearby communities.
15. Following the referendum, there was a notable improvement in the correlation of forces in the institutional sphere. The results in the elections for governors and mayors were very positive for the government. The opposition only governs in two out of twenty-four states. All the deputies in the National Assembly are Bolivarian. The opposition candidates, seeing that they were going to lose, opted to not participate in the elections, hoping to discredit this legislative entity in doing so.
The weaknesses of the process
16. This quantitative accumulation of forces should have translated into a qualitative accumulation. An emphasis should have been placed on efficiency, in better performances regarding the responsibilities that each person must assume in order to put into practice all the projects and initiatives announced by the government; but this is far from having been achieved. The old state model continues in force, and despite the attempts by Chavez to change things, is very strong. The same has occurred with the issue of corruption.
17. Prior to the December 3, 2006 presidential elections there had been very little, or no advances made in the formation of a political instrument better adapted to the great challenges that the Bolivarian revolutionary process has set for itself. There continued to be - perhaps becoming even more accentuated - disputes over positions at the different levels of leadership of the process. The Miranda Electoral Command, formed to lead the presidential electoral process, was hegemonized by the Movimiento V República (MVR, Movement for a Fifth Republic), provoking discontent amongst the rest of the political parties that support the process, as well as amongst the population.
18. On the other hand, rather than advancing in the construction of a united instrument of the workers, this process took backward steps. Today, there continues to be too much dispersion. Old methods continue to be employed.
19. The opposition media outlets, which clearly make up the majority, exponentially enlarging the errors and weaknesses of the government, and distorting its project, thereby being able to recreate a climate of opposition to Chavez, influencing a significant number of Venezuelans.
20. Of course, the United States government - for whom, Chavez has become a true obsession - has continuously been behind these campaigns.
21. Lastly, added to this daily and hourly media bombardment, was an opposition that began to finally unite around the figure of Manuel Rosales, as the opposition presidential candidate for the December 2006 elections. The, until then governor of Zulia - one of the largest and most strategic states in the country due to the fact that it shares a border with Colombia - carried out a well orchestrated electoral campaign, promising to conserve all the good things that the Chavez government had done for the people, and demagogically announcing that he would also directly deposit into the bank accounts of every poor Venezuelan household a significant sum of money, product of the earnings coming from petroleum, so that instead of taking money out of the country to help other people, he would be handed it over to the people.
22. Able to sense all these limitations and obstacles, only weeks out from the electoral event, the president began to personally assume the direction of the campaign, appearing everywhere, in a tireless tour throughout all the country, where the people from the popular barrios applauded him with delirium. In the final two weeks of the campaign, he began to involve the youth as the central motor of his campaign, and to point to this social sector as the moral force which would allow the process to overcome the vices that infected previous generations.
23. Although no one doubted that Chavez would win, given the notable advancements that the Venezuelan people have obtained thanks to the Bolivarian government, due to the reasons previously mentioned, it seemed a difficult proposition that the Bolivarian leader could obtain a better electoral result than that in the referendum. This appraisal of the situation was confirmed by a majority of opinion polls which gave him as the winner by a difference of some 20%, the same 20% of more than two years ago.
24. Nevertheless, a clean election, with the lowest abstention rate in the political history of the country (less than 25%), carried out under the attentive gaze of hundreds of international observers[2], ratified the mandate of the Venezuelan president by an overwhelming majority of votes. Hugo Chavez got 7 million votes, 1 million more than in the 2004 referendum, and the opposition, represented by Rosales, maintaining its 4 million votes.
25. It was such a convincing victory that the current US government had no other option but to recognize the triumph, publicly accepting that a democratic regime exists in Venezuela, and expressing its interest in establishing a positive and constructive relationship with the new government. [3]
26. This was the fourth great triumph of Chavez, although this time it cannot be said that it was the fourth great defeat of the opposition, because, although they lost, they came out strengthened from the battle. We need to accept that its most recognizable leaders demonstrated maturity in acknowledging their defeat with nobility, and stating their disposition to wage future battles within the rules of the game laid out by the Bolivarian constitution.
27. For his part, President Chavez responded positively in front of these declarations, stating his disposition for dialogue, but “without conditions or blackmail”, and always so long as the opposition did not intend for him to abandon his principles. “Socialism of the 21st century is, and will continue to be, the objective we are aiming for” he affirmed at the time.
Announcement of the decision to promote the creation of a new party of the revolution
28. In one of his first speeches after the election, Chavez put forward “as a strategic fundamental line, the deepening, widening and expansion of the Bolivarian Revolution… on the Venezuelan road to socialism” and made three fundamental announcements, which reflect the clear consciousness that the Venezuelan head of state has of the weaknesses that plague the political process in his country: the struggle against corruption and bureaucracy as two new strategic objectives of his government for the next period, and a call to construct the united party of the revolution.[4]
29. The first two announcements were not surprising, given that the president had insistently stated over the previous months his preoccupation with these issues, but the third announcement regarding his decision to create a new political party - which he provisionally called the United Socialist Party of Venezuela - was surprising. Not because he had not referred to the issue before or had not conversed about it with the leaders of all the political parties that supported him, but rather because the news was not preceded by a profound debate over the issue and because everyone was led to believe that what they would be dealing with, at least initially, would be more akin to the construction of a front of parties and not a political instrument that would imply the rapid dissolution of the existing parties, some with a long trajectory in the country, such as the Communist Party.
30. Chavez was very precise in his speech: he rejected the idea of what he called “a sum of acronyms”, at the same time as he put forward the necessity to construct a new party with new figures elected from the grassroots.
31. What we are dealing with is a political entity that would unite at its core “all those Venezuelans willing to fight to construct socialism [in Venezuela]: whether they be militants from the political groups of the left, or members of the social movements, or those compatriots who up until this moment were either not members or, disappointed by the deviations and errors committed, had stopped being members of some of the existing organizations.”[5]
32. Tens of thousands of activists[6], as part of this new political project, went out to travel the country preparing a massive inscription of all those who aspired to become members of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, the largest in the history of the country. More than 5 million people had enrolled up until June 3, one week before the closure of inscriptions.
33. Unfortunately, everything seems to point in the direction that in order to obtain such a high figure, acts of “stacking” or pressure were used on more than a few occasions, blurring the results obtained and causing discomfort amongst many people. The president has called on everyone to denounce these types of acts, and has given the directive that it is necessary to “look after the process…. and denounce in time any deviation” which could cause a lot of damage in the future.
34. On the other hand, Chavez left it very clear – during his Aló Presidente show on Sunday, June 10 - that one thing is inscription, and another the selection process afterwards of those who will go on to conform the new political instrument. His hope is that the new party will be made up of tested militants, although it will only be made up of a handful of people. What has not been spoken about until now is how, or who, will carry out this selection.
35. At the moment, a revision of all the inscriptions by the CNE (National Electoral Council) is in process. Afterwards, the inscribed aspirants will meet in groups of 200 - the denominated “socialist battalions” - to allow real, democratic participation by everyone, and to facilitate the selection from below, of the best men and women from these battalions as spokespeople to the Founding Congress, When it was previously calculated that some 4 million people would be part of the inscription process, it was estimated that around 22,000 socialist battalions would have to be constituted and each battalion would elect a spokesperson to the regional assemblies, who in turn would send spokespeople to the aforementioned congress. This congress would therefore be made up of around 2,200 congress delegates. Today, given that inscriptions have risen to over 5 million, new calculations will have to be made. What this formula does not resolve is what will happen when, by chance, various recognized leaders are concentrated in the same community.
36. The founding congress is expected to last three months, debating all the issues related to the new party: the program, organizational forms, type of membership and other issues, beginning with the debate over what type of country are they trying to build. After each session, these national spokespeople will go back to their respective grassroots assemblies to keep them informed and to deepen the debate at this level. It will be from these grassroots assemblies that those aspiring to fill positions at the different levels of leadership in the party will have to be nominated. Someone who does not count on support in their local base cannot be nominated to a position within this new political instance.
37. It is expected that through this mechanism there will be of flowering of thousands of new faces, until now unknown, originating from the new leaderships emerging out of communitarian work, and workplaces and study centers.
The five motors
38. On January 10, 2007, after being sworn in for his second presidential term, Chavez made another significant announcement: he proposed the formation of the “five constituent motors” to advance towards the socialism of the 21st century.
39. The first refers to the Enabling Law, which allows the executive to legislative on areas where it is necessary to speed up the changes towards socialism.
40. The second relates to the reform of the Bolivarian Constitution of Venezuela, which would allow, amongst other things, the modification of articles that in the economic and political sphere are not in accordance with the project of the socialist society which they are attempting to construct. There is nothing strange about the fact that the Bolivarian Constitution of 1999 has become too small for the revolutionary process, just like a child’s clothes become too small as they grow up.
41. The third envisages a campaign of moral, economic, political and social education called “Moral and Enlightenment,” which has to be as present in territorial organization (communal councils and other organizations) as in the workplace.
42. The fourth, which the president has called “Geometry of Power”, attempts to revise the political-territorial distribution of the country, and generate the construction of city systems and federal territories with the objective of redistributing political, economic, social and military power more equitably across the national arena.
43. The fifth, and most important, refers to “The Revolutionary Explosion of Communal Power” and aims to promote communal councils and everything that has to do with popular power
44. According to the Venezuelan head of state, these five motors will be the ones that launch the “Bolivarian socialist project”.
Advances in nationalizations
45. In the last few months, there have been more advances made in regards to the nationalization of companies than have been made in the last 9 years of government, moving forward enormously in the recuperation of the economic sovereignty of the country.
46. “Electricidad de Caracas”, the largest company in this sector, valued at $900 million, was nationalized. The US multinational AES signed an agreement with the Venezuelan government, handing over 82.14% of its shares.[7]
47. On the first of May, the Venezuelan government recuperated its energy sovereignty by proceeding to nationalize the petroleum in the Orinoco Oil Belt, where the most important reserves in the world are located. There was a reduction of the power of the petroleum consortiums that operate in this region of the Orinoco river, where close to 400,000 barrels of petroleum are extracted daily, a figure which could rise to 600,000 barrels. This measure will affect various foreign companies. The most affected will be, from the US: Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Texaco and ConocoPhilips; the French company Total, the Norwegian Statoil; and the UK-based British Petroleum. For the Venezuelan company PDVSA, until now a minority partner in this consortium, the situation has become inverted: its quota will be 60%.[8]
48. On June 8, Compañía Anónima Nacional Teléfonos de Venezuela (Cantv, National Anonymous Telephone Company of Venezuela), the biggest private telephone company in the country, which was publicly owned up until 1991, was renationalized. At the time of renationalization Cantv controlled 83% of the internet market, 70% of the national telephone communications market and 42% of international calls. It owned close to 3 million telephone lines and 100,000 public telephones.[9]
49. With this measure the Venezuelan state has advances in the control of the strategic telecommunications sector.
50. The recuperated company is attempting to increase telephone access to all areas of the country. In two years there will be a tripling of areas with fiber optic coverage. Its services will reach the most remote rural areas. As well as expanding the service, the aim is to make it accessible to the lowest income sectors, lowering the cost to make calls.
Non-renewal of RCTV’s concession
51. During the night of May 27, the broadcasting concession granted to Radio Caracas Television, the most powerful opposition television station in the country, expired. I agree with the Venezuelan political analyst, Vladimir Acosta, that this was the second great revolutionary moment of the process, following the recuperation of petroleum in 2003.[10]
52. To convert a private channel into a public service channel is not only a strong blow to the media hegemony of the Venezuelan opposition, it is also an act “that goes to the heart of global power”, because today this fundamentally depends on the mass media. Without the monopoly over media to fabricate consensus, the supremacy of this global power is enormously weakened.[11] It is because of this that there has been such a virulent conservative reaction at the global scale.
53. The measure was announced by Chavez months before. The opposition immediately prepared its counter response. It tried to make citizens believe that, with this act, freedom of expression would be mortally wounded, and that the government was advancing in an accelerated manner towards a dictatorial regime. After attempting various mobilizations of the adult sector, none of which achieved the scale hoped for, a new political subject appeared on the streets of Caracas: the students.
54. Thousands of them, the majority coming from the private universities, came out onto the streets protesting against what they called the “closure” of Radio Caracas Television. Although their intentions were peaceful, a group of students provoked disturbances, setting alight bonfires in the streets, impeding traffic and forcing police bodies to intervene to maintain order. The images of confrontations between students and police traveled the globe, as more proof of the authoritarian character of the government. What was not reported however, was the fact that the majority of those injured belonged to the police force, who had assumed a dignified attitude, not allowing themselves to be provoked.
55. But what do these students represent? Are we dealing with a mere apolitical movement, like they themselves and the opposition media like to make people believe?
56. The strategy of the opposition has been to, on one hand, “present the students as a unified mass” and, on the other, to maintain their separation from the student movement, in order to underscore its independent and spontaneous character.[12]
57. The first element of this strategy was rapidly pulled apart by an important sector of the students who supported the measure adopted by the government. They came out on the streets on a mass scale.
58. In regards to the second element, everyday, new evidence is emerging which reveals the behind the scenes intervention of the opposition. There are not only recorded telephone conversations and intercepted electronic messages which reveal their plans to use the students for political aims, but also, on top of all this, there is the irrefutable proof that one of the student leaders provided themselves.
59. The small group of student leaders who protested the “closure” of RCTV, convinced by the propaganda spread by the media amongst those that are assiduous, that chavistas are against freedom of expression in Venezuela, decided to demand an audience in the National Assembly, believing that this initiative would be rejected. To their surprise, the opposite occurred, only that Cilia Flores, the president of the Parliament, broadened out the proposal and decided that this event would be used to open up a debate between students from the opposition and those supporting the measure adopted by the government. In a gesture, never before seen in the history of the country, the National Assembly opened its doors to the students so that they could come and debate.
60. It was decided that each current would be granted ten minutes speaking rights. The opposition students entered the assembly wearing red shirts, which was strange given that red is the color with has identified chavistas. Afterwards it was discovered why: “far more than a safety strategy: they were an integral part of a professionally-designed media strategy”. [13]
61. Speaking rights were granted first to Douglas Barrios, a student at the Universidad Metropolitana, a university known for harboring only the elite of society. After a speech lacking in any substance, where he called for a process of national reconciliation, he ended by saying that he “dreams of a country where people are taken into consideration without having to wear a uniform”, and having finished this phrase, he and the groups of opposition students removed their red shirts, allowing everyone to see the white shirts they had on underneath, covered in different slogans defending RCTV.
62. All this could have been interpreted to be an original, theatrical act of repudiation, if it had not been for the fact that the last sheet of his speech was left behind on the podium. On it, very precise instructions were given as to how they should conduct themselves in the National Assembly. The text was signed by ARS Publicity, a company which is owned by the Globovision group, which was implicated in the April 2002 coup.
63. Taking off their red shirts, only speaking once, and to leave immediately - all these were actions that were outlined in the instructions. This last action was halted, at least for the duration of the following speaker, due to the pressure exerted on them to stay by the chavista students and the deputies of the National Assembly.
64. The self-proclaimed defenders of democracy were not capable of democratically debating; they made only one intervention and then retired from the scene. The self-proclaimed independents arrived as pawns of Globovision. This is the hypocrisy of the opposition leaders.
65. It should remain clear that we are far from thinking that all the students that marched against the decision to not renew the concession are of this sort. We are convinced that the majority of them will reconsider their position, when through healthy debate, they know what the project for society, headed by President Chavez, really is.
66. The events in Parliament only put into relief the strategy of the opposition, but also, more importantly, revealed the extraordinary student leadership that has emerging in the country.
67. One after the other, the ten speakers in support of the measure adopted by the government began to dismantle, one by one, the arguments of the opposition, with freshness, intelligence, creativity and, above all, forcefulness. Who can argue, for example, with what the next speaker, Andreína Tarazón, from the Universidad Central de Venezuela said, when she criticized the behavior of the opposition students, comparing their conduct in not facing up to the debate, with that of Condoleezza Rice during the meeting of the OAS, where she spoke and then left?
68. Those viewing television, who saw this transmission, live and direct via a national broadcast on all frequencies, must have felt a strong impact due to the quality of the interventions. They were so good that it was not long before they began to be distributed via the internet. There were thousands of people in all parts of the world who were able to be astounded and amazed with the words of Andreína and her comrades. She transformed herself into one of the best ambassadors for Venezuela.
69. But the alternative media blow dealt by the left could not be left unpunished. A few days later YouTube suspended the account of the user named “Lbracci”, through which this experience had been distributed in video format. [14]
70. On the other hand, new spaces for debate are opening up in all corners of the country. And the youth sectors are proving in practice that democracy exists in Venezuela.
71. Once again, an attack by the opposition has resulted in a very positive event for the Bolivarian process: a new social actor, full of force, of ideals, has entered into the political sphere. There is no doubt that those students who support the government have everything to win. A project for a more humanistic and solidarity-based country, that puts its efforts into eliminating inequalities; that calls for the exercising of a growing social control over all activities, in order to struggle against the scourge of corruption; that recuperates the sovereignty of the homeland. It is a project that the Venezuelan youth cannot afford to be indifferent towards.
Note: This article was prepared for the ABIVEN 2007 yearbook.
Translated from Rebelión by Federico Fuentes
[1] Chavez obtained the support of around 6 million people, around 4 million voted in favour of revoking his mandate
[2]. Amongst the most important groups present were: the European Union, the Carter Centre, the Organisation of American States (OEA).
[3]. The United States expressed via Sean McCormack, spokesperson for the State Department, its desire to a have a “positive” and “constructive” relationship with the Bolivarian government. “We congratulate the Venezuelan people for its conduct during this election”, he declared, also expressing his desire to “work with the government of President Chavez”. This seems to be a radical change given that not long ago, Washington classified Chavez as a “destabilising force for the region”.
[4]. Speech given at Act of Recognition for the Miranda Command, December 15, 2006.
[5]. Hugo Chávez, Nota introductoria al libro El discurso de la unidad (December 15, 2006) Ediciones “Socialismo del Siglo XXI”, No 1, Caracas, 2007
[6]. Chavez decided to call them “promoters”.
[7]. Salim Lamrani, Se abre una nueva era en Venezuela, February 26 2007.
[8]. See Salim Lamrani, Soberanía petrolera, reformas sociales e independencia económica en Venezuela, www.rebelión.org, May 15, 2007.
[9]. Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias, «Queremos que Cantv sea una empresa tan eficiente como Pdvsa», January 11, 2007; Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias, «; gobierno nacional dio primer paso hacia nacionalización de la Cantv», February 12, 2007.
[10]. Vladimir Acosta, La no renovación de RCTV es un hecho revolucionario porque toca al corazón del poder mundial , interview by Marcelo Colussi, Argenpress, June 2007.
[11]. The term “fabricating consensus is used by Walter Lippmann in Public Opinion, Allen and Unwin, London, 1932 and cited by Noam Chomsky in Cómo nos venden la moto, Ed. Icaria, Barcelona, 1996, p.14. This author also has a book titled Manufacturing Consent.
[12]. Georges Ciccariello-Maher, Who´s pulling the strings behind Venezuela´s “student rebellion, Caracas, June 10, 2007.
[13]. .Op.cit.
[14]. Carlos Martínez , Antena 3 y YouTube censuran un debate sobre la no renovación de la concesión a RCTV ,June 12, 2007.
President Chavez Announces "Petrochemical Revolution"
Thursday, Jul 05, 2007
By: Chris Carlson - Venezuelanalysis.com
Mérida, July 5, 2007 (venezuelanalysis.com)— Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced the launch of a "Petrochemical Revolution" for Venezuela yesterday, emphasizing that it is vital for the diversification of the economy and for national development. Focusing on developing industry to work with oil derivatives, the Chavez government announced plans to build several large petrochemical plants and to expand other existing plants to supply national industry with raw materials.
Returning from his recent trip to Russia, Belarus and Iran, President Chavez held a press conference in the presidential palace yesterday to discuss the results of his visits to these countries and to announce future plans for economic development. Chavez invited private business to get involved in the government's economic program offering them financial backing and requesting that they form part of a delegation to elaborate projects for the development of the national economy and, above all, to increase national exports.
"We are going to be a power in this continent and in the world," said Chavez after detailing plans to develop national industry. "In petroleum, in gas, in petrochemicals, in industry, there is no doubt," he assured.
Chavez detailed plans for a new stage in the development of petrochemical industry with the intention of creating national industry to produce products from oil derivatives. Plans include the expansion and improvement of existing plants in Zulia, Carabobo and, Anzoátegui and the construction of two new petrochemical plants, one on the Paria Peninsula in Sucre and the other on the Paraguaná peninsula in Falcon.
Chavez explained how the Iranians had purposely built factories in poorer or economically inactive parts of the country to stimulate them and help those areas progress. With the "Petrochemical Revolution" the Chavez government has the same thing in mind. Chavez explained yesterday that the plan would originate in the north with the large petrochemical plants along the coast, and would later supply future industry in different parts of the interior. The large petrochemical plants in Paraguaná and Sucre, which will be fed by the already existing refineries there, will then "rain" raw materials into the center of the country, explained Chavez pointing to a map.
"Let it rain over the county, through gas and oil pipelines and intermediate, medium and large plants, a whole industrial revolution, the Petrochemical Revolution," he said.
Chavez considered the possibility of building several projects in the nearby regions around the Sucre and Anzoátegui petrochemical plants to provide development and employment to those regions. Likewise, the future plants in Paraguaná, Zulia, and Carabobo could supply new industries in the center and western parts of the country.
Also discussed was the greater use of the massive Orinoco River that runs through the center of the country to promote development in areas such as Apure and Puerto Ayacucho where sources of employment are extremely limited. Chavez criticized the concept of Ciudad Guayana, one of Venezuela's industrial centers, where all of the development and industry is centered in one city. One of the central concepts of the "Petrochemical Revolution" will be to spread out the industrial development to different parts of the country.
After summarizing the new economic agreements with Russia, Belarus, and Iran, and detailing plans to construct joint companies to manufacture a number of products including bicycles, heavy machinery, construction tools, and plastics, Chavez invited the private sector to strengthen investment in these projects and encouraged them to incorporate themselves in the construction of the new economy and to participate in strategic alliances with the governments of Iran, Russia, Belarus, Argentina, and others.
"I want to motivate Venezuelan entrepreneurs, you have a place in socialism, and we need you," stated Chavez. "Make a socialist committee and elect a group for every event that we are going to do, with Russia, with Iran, with Belarus, with Brazil, Argentina, with the whole world," he explained.
Chavez emphasized that private enterprise can play a role in Venezuelan socialism, but he rejected any private enterprise that works against the country, that doesn't recognize his government or that violates the laws. He urged the private sector to close ranks on sectors that keep trying to "deceive" the population about the political, economic, and social reality of the country.
"I am sure that regardless of any more campaigns, conspiracies or attacks that they do against us, we will continue advancing towards a new integration of the people, and of the economies," he concluded.
By: Chris Carlson - Venezuelanalysis.com
Mérida, July 5, 2007 (venezuelanalysis.com)— Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced the launch of a "Petrochemical Revolution" for Venezuela yesterday, emphasizing that it is vital for the diversification of the economy and for national development. Focusing on developing industry to work with oil derivatives, the Chavez government announced plans to build several large petrochemical plants and to expand other existing plants to supply national industry with raw materials.
Returning from his recent trip to Russia, Belarus and Iran, President Chavez held a press conference in the presidential palace yesterday to discuss the results of his visits to these countries and to announce future plans for economic development. Chavez invited private business to get involved in the government's economic program offering them financial backing and requesting that they form part of a delegation to elaborate projects for the development of the national economy and, above all, to increase national exports.
"We are going to be a power in this continent and in the world," said Chavez after detailing plans to develop national industry. "In petroleum, in gas, in petrochemicals, in industry, there is no doubt," he assured.
Chavez detailed plans for a new stage in the development of petrochemical industry with the intention of creating national industry to produce products from oil derivatives. Plans include the expansion and improvement of existing plants in Zulia, Carabobo and, Anzoátegui and the construction of two new petrochemical plants, one on the Paria Peninsula in Sucre and the other on the Paraguaná peninsula in Falcon.
Chavez explained how the Iranians had purposely built factories in poorer or economically inactive parts of the country to stimulate them and help those areas progress. With the "Petrochemical Revolution" the Chavez government has the same thing in mind. Chavez explained yesterday that the plan would originate in the north with the large petrochemical plants along the coast, and would later supply future industry in different parts of the interior. The large petrochemical plants in Paraguaná and Sucre, which will be fed by the already existing refineries there, will then "rain" raw materials into the center of the country, explained Chavez pointing to a map.
"Let it rain over the county, through gas and oil pipelines and intermediate, medium and large plants, a whole industrial revolution, the Petrochemical Revolution," he said.
Chavez considered the possibility of building several projects in the nearby regions around the Sucre and Anzoátegui petrochemical plants to provide development and employment to those regions. Likewise, the future plants in Paraguaná, Zulia, and Carabobo could supply new industries in the center and western parts of the country.
Also discussed was the greater use of the massive Orinoco River that runs through the center of the country to promote development in areas such as Apure and Puerto Ayacucho where sources of employment are extremely limited. Chavez criticized the concept of Ciudad Guayana, one of Venezuela's industrial centers, where all of the development and industry is centered in one city. One of the central concepts of the "Petrochemical Revolution" will be to spread out the industrial development to different parts of the country.
After summarizing the new economic agreements with Russia, Belarus, and Iran, and detailing plans to construct joint companies to manufacture a number of products including bicycles, heavy machinery, construction tools, and plastics, Chavez invited the private sector to strengthen investment in these projects and encouraged them to incorporate themselves in the construction of the new economy and to participate in strategic alliances with the governments of Iran, Russia, Belarus, Argentina, and others.
"I want to motivate Venezuelan entrepreneurs, you have a place in socialism, and we need you," stated Chavez. "Make a socialist committee and elect a group for every event that we are going to do, with Russia, with Iran, with Belarus, with Brazil, Argentina, with the whole world," he explained.
Chavez emphasized that private enterprise can play a role in Venezuelan socialism, but he rejected any private enterprise that works against the country, that doesn't recognize his government or that violates the laws. He urged the private sector to close ranks on sectors that keep trying to "deceive" the population about the political, economic, and social reality of the country.
"I am sure that regardless of any more campaigns, conspiracies or attacks that they do against us, we will continue advancing towards a new integration of the people, and of the economies," he concluded.
The trouble with private equity
Jul 5th 2007
From The Economist
Private equity has come in for much political criticism, but its more serious problems are financial
FOR the past few years the wild men of private equity have rampaged through the public markets. They have ventured into the drowsy glades of badly managed companies and they have stormed the citadels of multinationals. The wind has been at their backs for so long that it has been hard to imagine how anything could stop them (see article).
This week witnessed the biggest private-equity offer in history, a buy-out of BCE, a Canadian telecoms operator, that would be worth a total of $48.5 billion. Virgin Media, a British cable company, faces a $22 billion bid. The value of takeover deals—plenty of them involving private-equity firms—soared to $2.7 trillion in the first half of the year, almost half as much again as in the last six months of 2006. Optimists will take all that as further evidence of private equity's bright hopes. But it is also possible that the weather is turning and the debt that powers private equity's siege engines is starting—just starting, mind you—to become harder to scrape together. It may not happen this month, perhaps not even this year, but sooner or later the private-equity boom will come to an end.
This possibility will delight private equity's many critics. Private equity is routinely charged with all sorts of iniquity. It strips companies of assets and flips them for a fast buck. It loads them up with dangerous amounts of debt, to suck out capital for its investors. It pays scant attention to employees and suppliers. Its greedy partners avoid the tax that others have to pay. If the markets turn, the volume of condemnation will only increase. Imagine the derision when funds stop making money even as their partners take home large salaries on the basis of past achievements; when private-equity-owned companies default on debts, leaving insurers and pension funds saddled with the losses; when workers are put on to the street because of desperate cost-cutting or bankruptcies.
Public vices, private virtues
There's some justification for complaints against the tax regime that private equity enjoys. Partners in private-equity firms benefit from a tax break on their earnings. It should be withdrawn. And, because of tax breaks on interest payments (from which all companies, private or public, benefit), the growth of debt finance erodes the tax base. Other charges are mostly groundless. Takeovers, whether by private or public companies, tend to lead to redundancies and cost cuts. In the longer run, private equity makes money from investing in a business, because a thriving company is worth more than an ailing one. Studies in Britain suggest that over time buy-outs add jobs rather than cutting them, and, in America, that buy-outs that rejoin the stockmarket perform better than other new issues.
That would not be surprising, because of the weakness of public markets that private equity has pointed up. Since managers and boards of public companies are spending other people's cash, they sometimes do so wastefully. That is why public-company shareholders put a lot of effort into monitoring managers and boards, who, even then, can be hard to control without resorting to boardroom coups and confrontation.
Sometimes shareholders cause trouble. They often make conflicting demands that managers must struggle to reconcile. Institutional investors tend to insist on instant performance, because their funds are judged on that quarter's returns—which undermines criticism of private equity's short-termism. The threat of shareholder lawsuits and the regulation of the public markets have added to the distracting burden of compliance and to enterprise-sapping bureaucracy. Because private-equity managers answer to a single shareholder, they have clear instructions and can spend more time creating a business with a healthy future.
At the same time as providing a critique of the equity markets, private equity has helped turn illiquid bank-dominated debt markets into highways for delivering cheap credit. It has shown that debt can finance takeovers on an unimagined scale and in industries, including finance and technology, once thought beyond its scope.
A storm is coming
The power of this debt-market transformation looks as if it is about to be tested. Rising long-term interest rates have pushed up the cost of borrowing. Sensing a shift in the economics of the industry, creditors around the world have started questioning the easy money offered to private-equity firms, which feed off risky types of debt. Last week US Foodservice, an American wholesaler being bought by private-equity groups, cancelled a $3.6 billion bond-and-loan deal when lenders balked at the lack of protection they were being offered. In Australia, private-equity firms pulled out at the last minute from the country's biggest takeover, complaining of the high cost of debt. This week the sale of a British retailer fell into confusion, after two private-equity bidders withdrew. The prospect of dwindling returns makes buy-out firms reluctant to club together to buy the big companies they covet; banks, meanwhile, are growing wary of offering their own capital as “bridge” finance. Shares in Blackstone, a private-equity chieftain that listed on the stockmarket last month, have fallen below their offer price—though it is still worth a tidy $32 billion.
That's not to say their bull run is over yet. Following Blackstone's lead, big buy-out firms continue to tap the public markets for fresh capital. There may well be a few more record-breaking takeovers. But if these squalls continue, it is not just private-equity investors who will shiver. Banks have raked in profit from the buy-out industry's appetite for loans and deal-making advice. Stockmarkets have climbed on takeover fever; more than a third of all deals in America so far this year were done by private-equity firms (in 2000, the last such takeover boom, it was a meagre 4%). High share prices make targets more expensive, and private equity is still raising record amounts of money, meaning more competition—and higher prices—for acquisitions, lowering potential returns. Private equity has scaled amazing heights; but its headiest days are probably over.
From The Economist
Private equity has come in for much political criticism, but its more serious problems are financial
FOR the past few years the wild men of private equity have rampaged through the public markets. They have ventured into the drowsy glades of badly managed companies and they have stormed the citadels of multinationals. The wind has been at their backs for so long that it has been hard to imagine how anything could stop them (see article).
This week witnessed the biggest private-equity offer in history, a buy-out of BCE, a Canadian telecoms operator, that would be worth a total of $48.5 billion. Virgin Media, a British cable company, faces a $22 billion bid. The value of takeover deals—plenty of them involving private-equity firms—soared to $2.7 trillion in the first half of the year, almost half as much again as in the last six months of 2006. Optimists will take all that as further evidence of private equity's bright hopes. But it is also possible that the weather is turning and the debt that powers private equity's siege engines is starting—just starting, mind you—to become harder to scrape together. It may not happen this month, perhaps not even this year, but sooner or later the private-equity boom will come to an end.
This possibility will delight private equity's many critics. Private equity is routinely charged with all sorts of iniquity. It strips companies of assets and flips them for a fast buck. It loads them up with dangerous amounts of debt, to suck out capital for its investors. It pays scant attention to employees and suppliers. Its greedy partners avoid the tax that others have to pay. If the markets turn, the volume of condemnation will only increase. Imagine the derision when funds stop making money even as their partners take home large salaries on the basis of past achievements; when private-equity-owned companies default on debts, leaving insurers and pension funds saddled with the losses; when workers are put on to the street because of desperate cost-cutting or bankruptcies.
Public vices, private virtues
There's some justification for complaints against the tax regime that private equity enjoys. Partners in private-equity firms benefit from a tax break on their earnings. It should be withdrawn. And, because of tax breaks on interest payments (from which all companies, private or public, benefit), the growth of debt finance erodes the tax base. Other charges are mostly groundless. Takeovers, whether by private or public companies, tend to lead to redundancies and cost cuts. In the longer run, private equity makes money from investing in a business, because a thriving company is worth more than an ailing one. Studies in Britain suggest that over time buy-outs add jobs rather than cutting them, and, in America, that buy-outs that rejoin the stockmarket perform better than other new issues.
That would not be surprising, because of the weakness of public markets that private equity has pointed up. Since managers and boards of public companies are spending other people's cash, they sometimes do so wastefully. That is why public-company shareholders put a lot of effort into monitoring managers and boards, who, even then, can be hard to control without resorting to boardroom coups and confrontation.
Sometimes shareholders cause trouble. They often make conflicting demands that managers must struggle to reconcile. Institutional investors tend to insist on instant performance, because their funds are judged on that quarter's returns—which undermines criticism of private equity's short-termism. The threat of shareholder lawsuits and the regulation of the public markets have added to the distracting burden of compliance and to enterprise-sapping bureaucracy. Because private-equity managers answer to a single shareholder, they have clear instructions and can spend more time creating a business with a healthy future.
At the same time as providing a critique of the equity markets, private equity has helped turn illiquid bank-dominated debt markets into highways for delivering cheap credit. It has shown that debt can finance takeovers on an unimagined scale and in industries, including finance and technology, once thought beyond its scope.
A storm is coming
The power of this debt-market transformation looks as if it is about to be tested. Rising long-term interest rates have pushed up the cost of borrowing. Sensing a shift in the economics of the industry, creditors around the world have started questioning the easy money offered to private-equity firms, which feed off risky types of debt. Last week US Foodservice, an American wholesaler being bought by private-equity groups, cancelled a $3.6 billion bond-and-loan deal when lenders balked at the lack of protection they were being offered. In Australia, private-equity firms pulled out at the last minute from the country's biggest takeover, complaining of the high cost of debt. This week the sale of a British retailer fell into confusion, after two private-equity bidders withdrew. The prospect of dwindling returns makes buy-out firms reluctant to club together to buy the big companies they covet; banks, meanwhile, are growing wary of offering their own capital as “bridge” finance. Shares in Blackstone, a private-equity chieftain that listed on the stockmarket last month, have fallen below their offer price—though it is still worth a tidy $32 billion.
That's not to say their bull run is over yet. Following Blackstone's lead, big buy-out firms continue to tap the public markets for fresh capital. There may well be a few more record-breaking takeovers. But if these squalls continue, it is not just private-equity investors who will shiver. Banks have raked in profit from the buy-out industry's appetite for loans and deal-making advice. Stockmarkets have climbed on takeover fever; more than a third of all deals in America so far this year were done by private-equity firms (in 2000, the last such takeover boom, it was a meagre 4%). High share prices make targets more expensive, and private equity is still raising record amounts of money, meaning more competition—and higher prices—for acquisitions, lowering potential returns. Private equity has scaled amazing heights; but its headiest days are probably over.
China: Fragile Superpower: How China's Internal Politics Could Derail Its Peaceful Rise
Enduring on
Jul 5th 2007
Source The Economist
VISITING China as a student in 1971, Susan Shirk was told by the premier, Zhou Enlai, that he “wished she was president of the United States”. She was struck, she writes, by the country's “drab poverty”. China has come a long way since then, and so has Ms Shirk. Formerly at the State Department, and now a professor at the University of California, she has had plenty of more mature encounters with China's top leaders. In her book she says what she thought of them, observing, for instance, that President Jiang Zemin had an unfortunate tendency to show off.
China is indeed the fragile superpower of her book's subtitle. It is, she writes, big, ambitious and usually a good neighbour. But its rulers are frightened of disorder, and rightly so; on average, the country has 200 protests a day. Not all these protests are what they seem to be. As a Chinese general explained to Ms Shirk, urban demonstrations, such as the one against the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999, were often also “the result of an accumulation of people's grievances against the Chinese government. Demonstrations on foreign policy actually reflect domestic politics.”
Ms Shirk is concerned that China's leaders, though generally relaxed about foreign affairs, could tip the country into war because of a crisis over Taiwan. But, as befits anything to do with China, her advice to her own country's leaders is slightly contradictory. The United States must maintain a powerful presence in the Pacific to guard against Chinese rashness, but avoid sabre-rattling or too obviously strengthening Taiwan. Similarly, she urges America to press China's leaders to loosen their control of the media, include local officials and businessmen in policymaking and open talks with Taiwan. But at the same time she points out that those leaders dislike what they consider interference in their domestic affairs.
Ms Shirk's magisterial book gazes down on China from above. Rob Gifford, now National Public Radio's bureau chief in London, has studied, lived and reported there for years, can natter away in Chinese with anyone on any subject and admits that he both loves and hates the place. In “China Road” he describes two tough 3,000-mile (4,800km) trips from Shanghai to the Russian border. These give him the opportunity to provide quantities of easy-to-swallow but not simple-minded Chinese history, ethnology and politics. Those who know China well, and those who don't, will find Mr Gifford an amiable companion.
He meets an angry café owner who rails at the widespread corruption. Still angry, he goes on to say that there is a word for what the Chinese must do. Mr Gifford expects him to say “revolution”. Instead, he spits out “endure”. He has, Mr Gifford observes, “summed up thousands of years of Chinese history.
Book Description
Once a sleeping giant, China today is the world's fastest growing economy--the leading manufacturer of cell phones, laptop computers, and digital cameras--a dramatic turn-around that alarms many Westerners. But in China: The Fragile Superpower, Susan L. Shirk opens up the black box of Chinese politics and finds that the real danger lies elsewhere--not in China's astonishing growth, but in the deep insecurity of its leaders. China's leaders face a troubling paradox: the more developed and prosperous the country becomes, the more insecure and threatened they feel. Shirk, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State responsible for China, knows many of today's Chinese rulers personally and has studied them for three decades. She offers invaluable insight into how they think--and what they fear. In this revealing book, readers see the world through the eyes of men like President Hu Jintao and former President Jiang Zemin. We discover a fragile communist regime desperate to survive in a society turned upside down by miraculous economic growth and a stunning new openness to the greater world. Indeed, ever since the 1989 pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square and the fall of communism in the Soviet Union, Chinese leaders have been haunted by the fear that their days in power are numbered. Theirs is a regime afraid of its own citizens, and this fear motivates many of their decisions when dealing with the U.S. and other foreign nations. In particular, the fervent nationalism of the Chinese people, combined with their passionate resentment of Japan and attachment to Taiwan, have made relations with these two regions a minefield. It is here, Shirk concludes, in the tangled interactions between Japan, Taiwan, China, and the United States, that the greatest danger lies. Shirk argues that rising powers such as China tend to provoke wars in large part because other countries mishandle them. Unless we understand China's brittle internal politics and the fears that motivate its leaders, we face the very real possibility of avoidable conflict with China. This book provides that understanding.
Susan L. Shirk, Joanne J. Myers
CLICK TO LISTEN
April 5, 2007
China: Fragile Superpower
Introduction
Remarks
Questions and Answers
Introduction
JOANNE MYERS: Good morning. I'm Joanne Myers, Director of Public Affairs Programs, and on behalf of the Carnegie Council I'd like to thank you all for joining us this morning.
Today we are delighted to have as our speaker Susan Shirk. She will be discussing her book, China: Fragile Superpower: How China's Internal Politics Could Derail its Peaceful Rise.
Two hundred years ago, Napoleon ostensibly warned that people should "let China sleep, for when she wakes she will shake the world." There is no record of the context of this admonition, and the quotation itself may be inaccurate or even apocryphal. But if these words were in fact spoken, Napoleon was prescient indeed, for the energies released by this one-time sleeping giant have started to shake the world and the tremors are being felt far and wide.
For a thousand years, China's position as the preeminent world power was beyond doubt. While the Western world was in the Dark Ages, China was inventing paper, gunpowder, and printing. Two thousand years before Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin, the Chinese were using soybean mold as an antibiotic. But then, in the 1500s, China withdrew, pulled up the drawbridge, and turned her back on the world. But since the 1970s, when China started opening up its economy, their long process of catch-up has accelerated.
Today, with its fast-growing economy, its technological and industrial wealth, many economists and political scientists tout China as the world's next great superpower. Yet, many in the West see China's miraculous economic strength as a huge threat to the traditional world order.
While it is true that this global giant is fueled by economic success, according to our speaker the real danger lies not with China's astonishing economic growth, but more so from the internal fragility brought about by domestic threats caused by its rapid economic rise, social inequality, environmental damage, and government corruption.
Professor Shirk argues that it is imperative for Western states to understand the concern that Chinese leaders have about their inability to sustain control and hold on to their power. Not surprisingly, it is this insecurity which often leads Party officials to play on the fierce nationalism of its citizens, which manifests into aggressive behavior directed towards Japan and Taiwan.
Accordingly, our guest writes that, "if we were to misread their motives and mishandle China, it would be catastrophic because, if not dealt with properly, these problems could potentially derail China's peaceful rise into an international superpower."
First traveling to China in 1971, Professor Shirk has been an astute observer of the Chinese political scene ever since. Her insight will soon be apparent, as she illuminates this Chinese paradox which falls somewhere between balancing domestic dilemmas and foreign security challenges. Viewed from the inside, perhaps China is not the formidable power that some see on the outside.
So should we be worrying about China? After reading China: Fragile Superpower, I must confess the answer is most definitely yes. Yet, it is for very different reasons than the ones we hear about from Washington.
Please join me in welcoming our guest this morning, who I am confident will not shirk from her duty of giving us the full inside story about China today. We thank you, Susan, for joining us this morning.
Remarks
SUSAN SHIRK: Thank you very much for that splendid introduction. I feel understood. It's a great feeling.
It is a great privilege for me to be here this morning at this venerable institution. This is my first opportunity to speak at the Carnegie Council, and I am very pleased to see such a large audience, because I know how knowledgeable the people who come to the Carnegie Council are. So I am looking forward to the second half of the program when we have a good conversation.
I am a China scholar who has been visiting China since 1971, and then in the Clinton Administration I had the opportunity to serve as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State responsible for relations with China, which of course for me was a very exciting opportunity to participate in history rather than just studying it.
When I went to government in 1997, what was very much on my mind was an anxiety about the real possibility of war between the United States and China, because the year before the United States and China had clashed in an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation over Taiwan, the island that Beijing claims as part of China but which has governed itself independently since 1949.
The Chinese launched massive military exercises, tested missiles into the waters outside Taiwan's harbors, because they wanted to demonstrate their fury at the United States for inviting then-Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui to visit his alma mater, Cornell, where he made a speech. In Chinese eyes, that implied that the United States was recognizing the island as a sovereign state, that we would invite their president. The United States sent two aircraft battle groups to the vicinity to demonstrate our resolve. China backed down; China de-escalated.
But what would happen the next time? Crisis escalation has a life of its own. War can result even if no one wants it to happen.
As I worked in government to try to improve and lay a good foundation for U.S.-China relations, I kept noticing how focused China's decision makers were on their own domestic politics and how insecure they seemed. Now, of course, this was the Clinton Administration, so remember I was experiencing plenty of American-style domestic politics around China issues as well. This was the time, remember, that the Administration was accused of receiving campaign contributions from China and selling China our satellite and our nuclear secrets.
But in China there is so much more at stake—not just winning the next election, but about the survival of Communist Party rule. If the Communist Party falls, then all of China's leaders and their families would lose everything.
You know, as I have been writing this book, I have been telling my American friends about it and my Chinese friends about it. When I tell my American friends that I am writing a book about domestic politics and foreign policy called China: Fragile Superpower, they say, "What do you mean 'fragile?'" But when I tell my Chinese friends I am writing a book called China: Fragile Superpower, every single one, I swear, comes back and says, "What do you mean 'superpower?'"—no one questions "fragile."
This domestic fragility came through particularly clearly in my most traumatic experience while in government. One May evening, I was on my way home from work, May 1999, and I received a telephone call from the Ops Center at the State Department telling me that the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade had been struck by a bomb from a U.S. bomber flying as part of the NATO mission in Yugoslavia.
Of course, I assumed that it was collateral damage, a stray fragment. But I soon learned that in fact the United States had actually targeted the embassy, mistaking it for a Yugoslav military facility, striking it with three precision bombs, and killing three journalists and injuring twenty others.
My instinct immediately was to have us apologize profusely, from the President on down, because I knew that if we didn't show very visibly how sorry we were, the Chinese would never let us forget it, just as they have never let the Japanese forget that they did not apologize adequately for the atrocities they committed during the occupation of China during World War II.
So we had President Clinton immediately call; President Jiang Zemin would not take the call. Secretary Albright went to the Chinese Embassy that first night to apologize. President Clinton apologized on television. We had him sign the condolence book from the Chinese Embassy. We tried to send an envoy immediately to China to apologize; they wouldn't accept it. We wanted to send our Ambassador to the airport to be there when the plane brought the victims' remains; the Chinese said, "Don't come." Finally, Jiang Zemin a few days later took President Clinton's call, so President Clinton apologized again. By my count, I think he apologized four times in the first few days. And we paid victims' compensation for the victims' losses and for the loss of the building.
But all our efforts were in vain. Soon, protesters were swarming into the streets in Chinese cities and attacking the U.S. Embassy and our consulates in Beijing and those other cities. The Communist Party had announced after the accident, right away in the People's Daily and the other media, that it was a flagrant intentional bombing, not an accident.
The Communist Party arranged buses for the outraged students to go to the U.S. Embassy and the consulates to protest. The police allowed the students to throw bricks, Molotov cocktails, rocks at our missions, but they did not allow them to enter the buildings.
So what was going on here? Put yourself in Jiang Zemin's shoes. Actually that's what my book tries to do, is make that leap of empathy, so that we think the way Chinese leaders think.
The timing of this accident was particularly unfortunate. It occurred in early May of 1999. Less than a month before, Jiang Zemin had woken up one morning to look outside his window and see 10,000 adherents of the Falun Gong, a spiritual sect, surrounding Zhong Nan Hai, the leadership compound where the leaders live and work, demanding that the Falun Gong be recognized as a legitimate group. Without any warning, this organization, using cell phones and Internet, had managed to organize this protest right on Jiang Zemin's doorstep.
Not surprisingly, this greatly alarmed Jiang Zemin in particular, the other leaders as well. In fact, several insiders have told me that the night of the Belgrade bombing Jiang Zemin stayed up late writing a memo, not on that incident, but on how to deal with the Falun Gung. It seems that in his mind these threats blurred together.
And then, less than a month after the May bombing, the Chinese leaders knew very well, was going to be June 4, 1999. I am sure many of you already are thinking what that date would be, the tenth anniversary of the Tiananmen protests. By the way, those pro-democracy protests that we saw on CNN in Beijing were also occurring in more than 130 other cities in China before the military violently suppressed them. So Jiang Zemin and the Chinese leaders were very worried that on the tenth anniversary there could be a repeat of that.
When the Belgrade bombing occurred, they believed that it was quite likely that the students would be enraged at the Chinese government itself for being so weak as to allow in some sense the Americans to attack the embassy. So they were worried that the students would march to Tiananmen or to Zhong Nan Hai, and that explains the buses. They wanted to deflect the anger of the students onto the Americans, away from themselves. In other words, they risked a confrontation with America to protect themselves from domestic opposition.
Based on this traumatic experience back in 1999 and a number of other similar ones when I was in government, I started to see a pattern of political insecurity on the part of China's leaders. Although they look like giants to us in the outside world because of China's great success at reviving its economic, military, and political power since the introduction of market reforms in 1978, in their own minds I believe they feel like scared children struggling desperately to stay on top of a society roiled by economic change. This insecurity drives all their policy choices, international as well as domestic.
Now, why are China's leaders so insecure if the country has been so successful?
First of all, as I just discussed, in 1989 the Communist Party regime was shaken to its roots by the nationwide student protests and the divisions within the Party leadership about how to deal with them that occurred at the same time. If the military had refused to impose order and obey Deng Xiaoping's orders, then the Chinese regime would have been history, just like the Soviet Union was history. So ever since 1989, that close call, and the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe that occurred at just about the same time, they have been haunted by the fear that their own days are numbered as well.
China's leaders also know that they lack the prestige of the iconic figures Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, the leaders of the Long March generation who founded the People's Republic. People like current President Hu Jintao or his predecessor Jiang Zemin are pretty much colorless technocrats, organization men, without much charisma, even though they try very hard to figure out how to have more charisma.
They also recognize that two-and-a-half decades of economic reform and opening to the world have turned Chinese society upside down and created latent political challenges to communist rule.
We all know very well—we read it in the paper every day—that the Chinese economy has been growing at about 10 percent per year for 25 years. It is well on its way, as Joanne said, to once again being the largest economy in the world. It was the largest economy in the world actually for 2,000 years, up until the late nineteenth century, when it was surpassed by the United States.
People's incomes have increased dramatically too at about 8 percent annually. Actually, that is the fact that is unprecedented in human history, for over two decades to have per capita income improve at that rate. But still China remains a poor country. Its average income is only $1,500 a year, compared to about $40,000 in the United States.
The economic reforms have really changed society dramatically. The Party can no longer keep track of the population, much less control it. Over 100 million farmers have moved from countryside to the cities. There-quarters of the workforce now work outside the state sector, where political supervision is minimal. Thirty million people traveled abroad in 2005.
People also have much more access to information than they did when all they had to read was the People's Daily and see the 7 o'clock news on CCTV. First of all, 132 million people access the Internet to get information, including 90 percent of those with college education. And now—people don't pay as much attention to this as they do to the Internet— the commercialization of the mass media is very important. There are all these evening tabloid newspapers in China's cities and Internet news sites, and they are competing for audiences. So, although they are still censored, they are always trying to push the limits of that censorship. So Party leaders can no longer keep people ignorant of news from inside China or outside China.
Of course, inequality is a major political anxiety on the part of the leaders. The gap between rich and poor has widened. Today in America we worry a lot that our own wealth gap is larger than it has been in a century. But China's is worse. According to the Gini coefficient, which is the internationally accepted measure of inequality, with zero being perfect equality, the United States' measure is 4.1, and China's is 4.6-4.9 by different estimates. China's leaders worry incessantly very much in their speeches and in articles in the newspaper that this polarization, as they call it, could cause massive social unrest.
One reason that inequality is potentially politically explosive is that people in China believe that those really wealthy folks, the conspicuously consuming rich, got their money not through ingenuity and hard work but through corruption and official connections. China also, of course, still has millions of people living in poverty as well.
Now, President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao are trying to stave off unrest by showing how much they care about the poor. They are pursuing what you might call a kind of compassionate communism. Their slogan is "the harmonious society."
I was in China all summer and really was interested to see Premier Wen Jiabao on television almost every night, at least once or twice a week, in the countryside, tearing up, kind of like a Chinese Bill Clinton, while he puts his arm around some poor peasant who has suffered some natural or manmade disaster. He is very effective at it.
Yet, despite all their efforts at compassionate communism, protests by unemployed workers and dissatisfied farmers occur every day. And, increasingly, China's severe environmental problems, such as chemical spills in rivers, have also triggered protests. You know, they really have to worry about protests when large numbers of people are affected by the same issue at the same time. One of these chemical spills, just like some health disaster, can do that.
But protests aren't the only thing that the leaders worry about. If the Party elite stays unified, then they can suppress the protests, the public security people can put them down without much difficulty, and the regime will survive.
During the Tiananmen crisis in 1989, they learned some very important lessons. That is, that they really have to worry about three things: first, preventing massive nationwide unrest; second, keeping the leadership united, because if the leadership splits, then people will feel that it is safe to come out and participate in an opposition movement; and then, third, the last line of defense for Communist Party rule is the People's Liberation Army, so you have to keep the military loyal. What happened during Tiananmen is you had the unrest in over 130 cities, the military split, and the regime survived when all those other communist regimes were falling, really only because the military followed Deng Xiaoping's orders and put down the demonstrations.
Now, I think the risks of leadership split remain very alive, especially during periods of leadership succession. By the way, right now China is in the middle of a presidential campaign, as well as we are. President Hu Jintao will be asked to serve another five-year term, but they should choose a successor at the Party Congress that will occur this fall. So right now there are a lot of up-and-coming leaders who are competing with one another to be China's next generation of leaders. It is during that kind of period that there is definitely a risk of leadership split.
Now, what about the military? President Hu Jintao knows that they have to keep the military loyal. In fact, Hu Jintao, I think, wants to make sure the military stays loyal to him personally. That is an important reason why the military has been receiving double-digit annual increases in its budget ever since Tiananmen.
Another major concern on the part of the leaders is Chinese nationalism, which has intensified over the past several decades as China has risen and revived its power and as, especially in the 1990s, Jiang Zemin pumped up nationalism in order to gain more popular support for himself and the Communist Party.
What is very much in their minds is history. Here is how they think about it. The previous two dynasties—the Qing [Ch'ing] Dynasty that fell in 1911 and the Republic of China that was defeated by the Communists in the civil war in 1949—both of those dynasties fell to national movements in which rural and urban groups, dissatisfied for domestic reasons, were melded together by the powerful force of nationalism. Those dynasties fell because people said that they were too weak in the face of outside pressure. So that historical lesson is very much in the minds of China's leaders. They want to make sure the same thing doesn't happen to them, and therefore they feel that they need to stay out in front of Chinese nationalism.
Nationalist emotions are most intense on three hot-button international issues, which China's leaders treat very differently from most of the rest of its foreign policy: Japan, Taiwan, and to a somewhat lesser degree the United States.
Japan is the main focus. Surveys show that young people are more anti-Japanese than their elders who actually experienced the Japanese occupation. Issues related to history, like Japanese prime ministers visiting the Yasukuni Shrine, where 14 convicted war criminals are enshrined, stir up strong feelings that are expressed on the Internet, and those feelings sometimes spill over into the streets as well. I don't know if you recall, but in April 2005 there were large demonstrations in about 25 Chinese cities, mainly by young people, against the Japanese.
So the fears of China's Communist leaders about their own survival motivate everything they do, in foreign policy as well as domestic policy. My book describes how China's internal fragility shapes the way it behaves in the world.
I am confident that China's leaders really want to rise peacefully; they want the country to rise peacefully. They try very hard and very effectively to convince the world that they are a responsible power with peaceful intentions.
But the question I have is: Will they be able to maintain it domestically in the face of increasing mass protests, intensifying nationalism, and the fact that all the news about what is happening in Japan, Taiwan, and the United States is able to reach the Chinese public?
We need to be aware of China's fragility when we make our own policies towards China. Everything Americans say and do regarding China reverberates through Chinese politics. By keeping in mind how our words and actions resonate inside China, Americans can help enable China's leaders to act like the responsible power they claim China to be instead of being driven into aggressive actions because of their domestic predicaments.
My book concludes with some suggestions for Chinese and American policymakers about how to prevent China's fragile internal situation from provoking a conflict between our two countries. We can talk about that or any other aspects of China you'd like to talk about now.
Thank you very much.
Questions and Answers
QUESTION: Thank you very much, first of all. I thought that was wonderful.
I wonder if you could say a little bit about American policy, what it ought to be. As you were speaking, I was remembering when Gorbachev was on the ropes and President Bush Sr. supported him and then he disappeared. Do you think it is in the United States' interest to keep the Communist Party in power, should there be more of this unrest; or would the United States be better advised just to step aside? I mean how fragile is all of this and what should the United States do? If you were advising the next candidate, for example, what would you say?
SUSAN SHIRK: When I say that China is fragile, I don't mean it is on the verge of collapse. But someday we may face that dilemma, and when we do it's a very difficult situation. I think we would best step aside and let domestic politics take their course.
However, I would not recommend that America work to bring about regime change in China. Think about that. Even the most ambitious U.S. foreign policy does not envision that.
I think that with a great power like China you have to deal with the government you have. And the government in many respects has been a good partner for the United States in such efforts as helping solve the North Korea problem and other things as well.
So the danger is that we just don't overreact. I have a number of other thoughts about that. We can maybe talk later.
QUESTION: I have two different aspects here.
One is regarding the collapse of China. Gordon Chang about four or five years ago wrote The Coming Collapse of China. But his was not the kind of collapse that we are talking about. His really focused on the international economic arrangements that would destabilize China, that it would not be able to have a command economy as much as it has, or a command central control over its economy. That's one.
The other is toward the end of your remarks you mentioned about China's leadership wanting a peaceful country. But to what extent do you kind of excuse political repression as a search for stability?
SUSAN SHIRK: I certainly don't excuse political repression anywhere, and I worked very hard when I was in government to improve human rights in China, without much success, because ultimately it is just very difficult.
In fact, I am struck by my whole experience in government that we really pressured and induced China to make a lot of tough changes as it came out into the world. We had great success with nonproliferation, great success with trade, and almost no success with human rights. I think that is because it is wrapped up with the perpetuation of Communist Party rule and they are just not going to give in any ways that they feel are politically threatening.
JOANNE MYERS: Then the second question was about?
QUESTIONER: Regarding the economic growth.
SUSAN SHIRK: Hello, it is has happened. I mean China is now a market economy. Even the U.S. government now says China is a market economy.
So certainly the economic reforms introduced in 1978 by Deng Xiaoping and his courage in opening up China to foreign trade and investment at the same time—not following the Korean-Japanese model of relying more on domestic investment, because they didn't have the resources to do it—was a brave and bold move, and it has been remarkably successful.
The world economy certainly has changed China. I think China has become a great supporter of the global open trading system now. So that has been a great success.
QUESTION: You started your presentation by quoting Napoleon. But Stalin also made a very insightful anecdote when there was an alliance between China and the Soviet Union in the late 1940s. His advisors were delighted to dream of a communist world, but Stalin warned them by saying, "Never believe communism is China. It is like a red radish: only the skin is red; the meat is white, eternal China."
Having that in mind, I would like to hear your comments about the role of communism in China. You just said its market is a market economy, which is incompatible with communist ideology. Many expert people say that in the end communism will be sinicised by that. I mean communism will be influenced by Chinese civilization rather than China will be influenced by communism.
So if that is correct, what is the point for practitioners of foreign policy to treat China as a communist country? As you said, we may face down the road a dilemma to choose sometime whether to make a partnership with a communist China. But if you think Communism will be sinicised, if you think along the lines of Stalin that China will be China even under communist ideology, then there will be no contradiction in making a partnership with China.
SUSAN SHIRK: I have two thoughts about that every interesting question.
One is that I believe it is in the United States' own security interest to work cooperatively with China as much as we can and to pursue an engagement approach. I mean I helped come up with the label in a negotiation with the Chinese that we had a "constructive strategic partnership" with China. We took a lot of flak in the United States for that, for cozying up to China too closely. But our thinking was it didn't mean an alliance; it meant that we would be working together on all the important problems in the world, like two major powers should. But we weren't giving anything away. We were lavishing a little respect on China, which always works well with China.
The second point, about China isn't really communist, of course China's society is completely transformed, as I mentioned. But what is striking is that the Communist Party's role remains very strong, including in the economy.
The Communist Party a year or so ago rotated the CEOs of all the major state telecom corporations. The power of appointment, the nomenclature power, still resides with the Communist Party. The Party is able to recruit the best and the brightest into the Party. Forty percent of the graduate students at Tsinghua University become Party members.
So this, of course, is not a communist party like the Stalin era or the Mao era, but it is still a communist country, and it is something that we have to recognize.
QUESTION: Transfer of U.S. technology is being made available to China in at least three categories, probably more—military, ITT, outsourcing of night vision goggles. Aviation, Boeing's construction of an aircraft plant in China. Automotive, auto companies building plants in China. Isn't this rather risky, giving away all our technology?
SUSAN SHIRK: You know, we live in a globalized economy, and export controls are very, very difficult to enforce in a globalized economy. We have export controls in place for the most advanced technologies. But dual-use technologies do flow to China. We worked hard to get end-use checks for those dual-use technologies, and we have; the Chinese permit us to do that. So we do the best we can.
But I think trying to stem the flow of technical know-how between one country and another in today's global economy I'd say is pretty impossible. Instead, we should just be working very, very hard to continue to develop American technological know-how.
QUESTION: I appreciate your study on China.
First, a few comments. I think we heard over the last few years, or more than 20 years, many Westerners predict China will collapse. But the reality today is a contradiction. I think now the Chinese government pays more attention to resolving their problems, as you indicated, like narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor, and also beefing up social harmony in society.
I also read an article written by Mr. Fareed Zakaria in last month's Newsweek saying some Americans don't understand very well about China because China is so different and unique, saying that some theories from Westerners are not applying to the Chinese reality because China is so complicated and complex, with its history, with culture, and with reality.
The Pew Research Center had a survey asking people in America and in China "Do you support your government?" Thirty percent of Americans said that they supported their government. But in China it is 81 percent. So I think the number could not be very perfect, but that means a large amount of China's people support their government.
Those are my comments.
My question is that you pointed to some problems in political, economic, and social issues, as well as foreign policy. So what is your solution? You just said some recommendations for American leaders, but what is your specific solution and the way out for China's leaders?
SUSAN SHIRK: I'll just mention a couple.
One, I think that, having heated up nationalist views through the patriotic education campaign in the 1990s which are focused on the history of Japanese occupation of China, it is time to start trying to cool off that sentiment. I think Hu Jintao actually to a certain extent is trying to do that by having this gentlemen's agreement with Prime Minister Abe about Yasukuni Shrine and trying to improve relations with Japan, which it is very much in China's own interest to do that.
But what this means is they should stop celebrating all of the anniversaries of these Days of Humiliation during the Japanese occupation. There is a lot of official sponsorship of keeping those memories alive. The Chinese textbooks continue to do that and have almost nothing in those textbooks about Japan after World War II. So I think that it would be in China's own interest to try to dampen that anti-Japanese sentiment somewhat. That is one suggestion.
The second one is to actually initiate dialogue on Taiwan and to try to stabilize the situation. You know, in China it is widely believed that if Taiwan declared independence and Beijing did not react forcibly, that the Communist Party would fall. I don't know if that's true or not. My own sense is it is probably a myth. There is probably a silent majority. But the fact is the leaders believe that. People believe that. That would be, of course, the worst catastrophe for China, to be forced into having to fight. Therefore, I believe that Beijing should do absolutely everything it can do, including unconditional dialogue with no preconditions, in order to stabilize the situation.
QUESTION: This is, I hope, a very timely question following up on your thoughtful and stimulating remarks.
I had the enormous good fortune of arriving in Shanghai as a supply officer in September 1945. A few months later, I had the unique opportunity to go to Taiwan. I was introduced to some very kind people in Taipei, a gathering of some of the leading intellectuals of the time. One of them, after the end of a lovely dinner, made a quip to me that reverberates 60 years later. They looked at me and said, "You [meaning America] dropped the atomic bomb on Japan and you dropped the Japanese on us, on Taiwan."
I didn't understand then, and I still don't understand, the extraordinary sense of urgency about China considering Taiwan a part of the Japanese province. It's a myth. It was a myth then and surely is a myth now. How do you think that will play out, and why can't they back off a little?
SUSAN SHIRK: Well, you're right that the Japan issue and the Taiwan issue were intertwined in the views of Chinese. That is because Japan did make Taiwan a colony in 1895, during this period that the Chinese call their "century of humiliation," when China was weak and couldn't resist. Therefore, that's one of the most important reasons why reunification is important to China, because they believe that, now that their power is reviving, they want to end this century of humiliation. It's a classic irredenta situation.
QUESTION: So far a lot of debate has been given to whether China can peacefully rise. The Chinese government itself has so far embraced this term. But some—not a lot, but some—have suggested that they use the term "renaissance," in reference to the time period between the 1600s up to early 1900s, when China accounted for almost one-third of the world's GDP output. At that time, China didn't pose any potential threat to its neighbors or to any other country in the world.
My question for Dr. Shirk is: What do you feel about this analogy? Can you draw this parallel based on your study and your experience and your involvement? Thank you.
SUSAN SHIRK: That's a fascinating question about a strong China was not an aggressive China. I'd say say that to Central Asia, to Tibet, to Xinjiang. The Qing was an empire.
Now, the empire was not achieved just by military force. It was also the attraction of trading with China and other things. But I think historians now—actually, there is a lot of good revisionist work going on showing that there was more of an element of military force in imperial China. It was an empire. So I basically reject the historical comparison. I don't think that is terribly useful.
However, I think the premise is still very valid. I do believe that China's leaders want to rise peacefully, that they don't have imperial ambitions to take over South East Asia or bring Mongolia back or anything like that.
So I think their intentions are entirely peaceful. They want to be an important country—they might want to be even the most important country—in Asia. But what I worry about is not that intention. I believe the intention is peaceful.
As I concluded my talk, I worry about the domestic pressures that might cause China to react to things that Japan does or Taiwan does or the United States does that it feels are provocative and are domestically threatening.
QUESTION: I'd like to go back to the question of Taiwan. Unlike the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, about which I am pessimistic, it seems that the trend in Taiwan, with now, I gather, a million Taiwanese living on the mainland doing business, studying, retiring, marrying; and with Taiwan industry setting up shop, having done so now for a decade-plus, the economies becoming more and more entwined; exchanges of different sorts going on at the sub-government level—academic, artistic, et cetera—that that is a trend that is both optimistic and balances, or maybe even over-balances, the stress that you made in your talk on the flashpoint possibilities that we saw in the late 1990s, when the United States allowed Lee Teng-hui to come.
I want to ask you about, first of all, whether you agree that the trend is a good one overall; and second, the role of the United States, because that crisis from the Chinese point of view was prompted by the United States, just as in a previous period the first Bush president selling fighters to Taiwan, as possibly an election ploy in a tight election, further incensed and made tense our relations. So the trend and the U.S. role in enhancing it or breaking it or derailing it.
SUSAN SHIRK: I think you're right to note the increasing economic ties between Taiwan and the mainland, which are very encouraging. However, there is a contradictory trend, and both of these things are happening simultaneously.
The contradictory trend is a growth of what you might call Taiwan nationalism. Taiwan's politicians mobilized an appeal to the sentiment of the distinctive identity of Taiwan. Chen Shui-bian, the present president, was reelected after four years of moving Taiwan step by step toward the direction of independence.
So you have both of these things, this political nationalism and this economic integration, occurring at the same time.
As to the U.S. role, I think that President Bush has, especially in light of American commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq, been very intent on not having a crisis in the Taiwan Strait. He has, therefore, vocally criticized Chen Shui-bian for some of the statements that he has made. So he has gotten much more active at trying to maintain the status quo. I think that is a very good thing. I think that the United States cannot be passive here and just repeat its mantra about the three communiqués, the Taiwan Relations Act, et cetera, et cetera, which was our usual approach, at the same time as we provide military equipment to Taiwan.
I am in favor of us continuing to provide military equipment to Taiwan, but I think that we also need to maybe get our hands dirty a little bit in trying to bring the two sides together to talk.
QUESTION: China is holding trillions in U.S. reserves. Can you tell us what the impact is going to be on foreign policy, domestic policy, and economic policy? And also, what would be the impact on China of a U.S. deep recession?
SUSAN SHIRK: When you say what the impact would be on policy, do you mean American or Chinese?
QUESTIONER: Chinese.
SUSAN SHIRK: You are right to say that our countries are mutually dependent. Some people would say, using that psychological term, codependent, meaning there is something a little unhealthy about the fact that the United States runs these kinds of deficits and has to look internationally for folks to buy our debt, and that this puts us somewhat dependent on China. China is our banker.
I think for war and peace, for foreign policy, this kind of economic interdependence is a positive thing. It breeds caution on both sides. So I think that is something we should welcome.
Now, the second part of your question was what if the United States did what?
QUESTIONER: Went into a recession.
SUSAN SHIRK: Oh, recession. I'll tell you a story about that, which I heard from some friends at Tsinghua University. Premier Zhu Rongji was the honorary dean of the Tsinghua management school. Every year he would go give a speech at Tsinghua University. He did this in, I think it was, 2000. He got a question from one of the students who said, "What is the greatest security threat to China?" He said, "A crash in the U.S. economy."
So China wants America to have a vibrant economy. That is because we are buying so much of China's exports. I would argue at the same time that it is in the U.S. interests also for China to have a vibrant economy, not just because our economies are linked together in the way you describe, but also this reduces the political risk in China, which I do think is what we really have to be the most worried about.
QUESTIONER: The other aspect I was thinking about is that with all these reserves China could actually control all the natural resources, like oil and other minerals, required for investment and development. Could you discuss that aspect?
SUSAN SHIRK: No, I don't think it is going to control anything. There are a lot of countries, India included, who are going out to try to acquire the energy and mineral resources they need to fuel their rapid growth. There is no sign at all—our Western oil companies are doing quite well as well. So I don't see any threat.
The problem is that when China goes out to make these investments we start seeing it like it's a new U.S.-Soviet competition in the world, and your question kind of comes out of that kind of controlling. Well, it comes out of that perspective it seems to me. So I think that is a major danger.
But not that the Chinese could actually control the energy in the world. For one thing, the U.S. Navy still controls the sea lanes of communication.
JOANNE MYERS: Thank you very much and thank you all for coming.
"Susan Shirk has written the definitive book at the right time. For those seeking an objective look at the new China, your search is over. The bonus is that Fragile Superpower is as fascinating as it is informative. A great accomplishment."--Madeleine K. Albright, former U.S. Secretary of State
"Now more than ever we need a realistic approach for dealing with China's rising power. Susan Shirk has an insider's grasp of China's politics and a firm understanding of what makes its leaders tick. China: Fragile Superpower is an important and necessary book."--Brent Scowcroft, former U.S. National Security Advisor
"In this eye-opening work, Susan Shirk details China's incredible economic progress while lifting the rug on its severe internal problems. She has injected a dose of realism into a distorted vision of China which has been promoted by gushing China watchers who focus on Shanghai's skyline."--James Lilley, Former American Ambassador to South Korea and China
"Although other problems dominate the news today, a rising China presents America's greatest long-term challenge. Susan Shirk's excellent book argues compellingly that it also poses the greatest challenge to China's leaders. How they meet this challenge affects not only China, but also the U.S. and, indeed, the world."--William J. Perry, former U.S. Secretary of Defense
"Susan Shirk's lively and perceptive book examines the constraints on Chinese foreign policy in an era of rapid socio-economic change. Shirk brings a wealth of experience as an astute observer of Chinese politics and as a practitioner of track I and II diplomacy toward China to illuminate the relationship between domestic legitimacy dilemmas and foreign security dilemmas."--Alastair Iain Johnston, The Laine Professor of China in World Affairs, Harvard University
"A major statement about the present condition of China's political system and the hidden hazards on the road ahead."--Andrew Walder Professor of Sociology, Stanford University
"In this eye-opening work, Susan Shirk details China's incredible economic progress while lifting the rug on its severe internal problems. She has injected a dose of realism into a distorted vision of China which has been promoted by gushing China watchers who focus on Shanghais skyline."-- James Lilley, Former American Ambassador to South Korea and China
"Although other problems dominate the news today, a rising China presents America's greatest long-term challenge. Susan Shirk's excellent book argues compellingly that it also poses the greatest challenge to China's leaders. How they meet this challenge affects not only China, but also the U.S. and, indeed, the world."-- William J. Perry, former U.S. Secretary of Defense
"Susan Shirk's lively and perceptive book examines the constraints on Chinese foreign policy in an era of rapid socio-economic change.... Shirk brings a wealth of experience as an astute observer of Chinese politics and as a practitioner of track I and II diplomacy toward China to illuminate the relationship between domestic legitimacy dilemmas and foreign security dilemmas."-- Alastair Iain Johnston, The Laine Professor of China in World Affairs, Harvard
"Shirk's depth of knowledge about China - including personal acquaintance with many of its leaders - makes this book a valuable read."--Christian Science Monitor
PROFILE : Rajaa Al Sanie , author "Girls of Riyad"
Rajaa Alsanea
Second Year Postgraduate Student
Dr. Rajaa Alsanea comes from Saudi Arabia and attended King Saud University earning a Bachelor of Dental Surgery. In 2005, Dr. Alsanea graduated from the College of Dentistry, King Saud University, with her DDS.From 2005-2006, Dr. Alsanea did residencies at the National Guard Hospital, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and the King Khalid University Hospital.Rajaa's interests lie in reading and writing novels and her current novel, "Girls of Riyad," is due to publish in June 2007 by the Penguin Group. Dr. Alsanea plans to go into private practice in Saudi Arabia upon completion of the program and also aspires to win the Noble Prize for literature by 2015!
Summary of the Novel "Girls of Riyadh"
Author: Rajaa Al Sanie
An unknown girl in her early twenties decides to narrate the story of her friends. She is like a modern Scheherazade that narrates these stories every weekend. Her motivation is to revenge the tyranny of life and the society against her friends. Each chapter in the novel starts with a piece of poetry, a verse from the Quran, or lyrics from a famous song that captured the idea of the chapter.
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The narrator sends e-mails from her internet group to the subscribers. Those e-mails as the narrator forecasts in the novel stir the media especially popular newspapers in Saudi like Al-Riyadh, Al-Watan and Al-Jazeerah which happened in real life after the novel was published. This kind of forecasting added reality and intrigue to the novel. In one segment, the narrator says that she will probably be interviewed on Al-Arabiya TV by one of the most important interviewers in the Arab World: Turki Al-Dakheel (his style is similar to Tim Sebastian in Hard Talk on BBC or Ted Koppel on ABC news) which also took place.
The novel speaks of 4 Saudi girls who are studying at the university in Riyadh, the Capital of Saudi Arabia: Sadeem, Qamrah, Lamees and Mashael (her name is similar to Michelle in pronunciation. She is half Saudi and half American. Her American mother and friends prefer to call her Michelle).
The four girls were bound by a strong friendship despite their differences. Each one of them went into her own failures except Lamees who succeeded in both her professional career and her love life. She got married to a man of her choosing and went with her husband to Canada to get her Boards in Medicine. Lamees was the fortune teller of the group. She was consulted by her friends about their future matches and emotional relationships. At one point in the novel she had to sever her friendship with a girl called Fatima due to religious differences. Fatima was from the Shiites minority while Lamees belonged to the Sunnites majority. Lamees liked Fatima’s brother who was studying Medicine at the same University, but the relation had to end abruptly after they were both caught in a café by the Police of Morals and Virtue (dating is not allowed in Saudi and is an offense punishable by Men of Religion). Her father was more like her friend and was very understanding. He insisted that she never meet anyone outside the university in the future. Fatima’s brother, on the other hand, suffered at the hands of the Moral Police and his suffering was compounded since he was a Shiites.
Lamees had a kind heart. She helped her friends solve their problems and supported them in times of need. For example, she taught her ill-treated friend, Qamrah, how to use the internet, send e-mails and chat online to break through the isolation that was imposed upon her after she was divorced and was left with a baby.
The story of Qamrah who married Rashid after an arranged citing where the two families allowed the prospective husband to see the girl only once to decide whether he liked her or not and then if he did, he would marry her. There was no dating, no exchange of ideas or thoughts. “See the girl once and make up your mind!” The girl also used the same chance to see the man and give her opinion. Since they both agreed, their families proceeded with the marriage. The story unfolded with this beginning as the narrator continued to describe the wedding of Qamrah and how the tape for the walk-down the aisle music got stuck which symbolically signaled the failure of that marriage. The newly wed went to Chicago so Rashid could finish his postgraduate studies in electronic commerce. Seven nights passed and he did not care about his wife’s feelings and stayed away from her without touching her. The quarrels started in the end and reached a climax when Rashid declared his hate to his new wife. He eventually forced her to give up her hijab and she did in the hope she could win his heart (Moslem women are supposed to wear lose garments that did not reveal the silhouette of their bodies and they should not reveal any body parts except their face and hands). When he saw her without hijab, he thought she looked very ugly and asked her to wear the Hijab again to hide the ugliness. Qamrah loved Rashid despite his cruelty. When she learned of his betrayal with an American-Japanese woman called Carry, she lost her mind. She insisted on meeting the mistress and Carry mocked her by calling Rashid in front of her. Qamrah in return revenged or may be she thought it was revenge when she stopped taking her contraceptive pill. She became pregnant. In the back of her mind, she thought she could change the behavior of her husband through pregnancy as her mother advised her. When Rashid found out she was pregnant, he slapped her and sent her back to Riyadh followed up with her divorce paper. Her second tragedy unfolded when Qamrah used the first name of Rashid’s father to name her new baby in a last attempt to win the sympathy of her husband (it is a tradition in Saudi that babies are first-named after the first name of their grandparents as a gesture of love and respect). The husband did not care and his family showed callous reactions as they were not concerned with that new baby. Qamrah became a single parent and she lived at her father’s house isolated. Her family prevented her from going out since she was divorced and such actions from a divorced woman may bring her ill-reputation. Divorced women in their opinion only brought problems. But her friends managed to get her out of that unbearable jail every now and then.
Sadeem’s story was not less tragic than that of Qamrah. This girl, who was raised by her father as her mother died soon after her birth, would lose her first love and the second one. She revenged both through her marriage to her cousin Tarik whom she never thought would marry despite his strong feelings towards her (Consanguineous marriages are discouraged by Islam but are not prohibited. In a society that separates men from women in all social gatherings, there is no chance to see a woman except those who are relatives which is another reason why consanguineous marriages make a big share of all marriages in Saudi). Her first emotional tragedy was caused by her fiancé Walid who deserted her after they were officially wed for a few months and before their wedding party. She gave him herself during one night considering that he was her husband officially despite that the wedding did not take place yet. He suddenly disappeared after that night and never showed up again. He eventually sent her the divorce paper. It was a shock which she blamed on herself as she did not wait till after the wedding party. Sadeem never told her family about that night and she collapsed emotionally onto herself. She believed the reason that Walid divorced her was that he thought she had previous sexual experiences (In Saudi, engagement is different from the West. The man and woman are considered officially engaged when their marital vows are exchanged and documents are signed. The period from the time of signing the documents till the night of the wedding when they practice sex together for the first time is the engagement period. The virginity of the woman is flowered at that night. There is nothing in Islam to prevent them from practicing sex before that night as they are officially wed, but that is considered a big mistake by the society and men usually get the impression that the girl is too easy or she had extra-marital relations with others if she did such a thing. The second shock was caused by Firas whom she met in London while she was recuperating from her first tragedy. She fell in love with him as he did. But his elite position in Saudi and the fact that he never married before prevented him from getting married to a divorced woman as it would have brought him bad gossip which he did not need (divorced women in the Saudi society are associated with ill-reputation especially if they traveled outside the country and met men like what Sadeem did). Firas married one of his relatives. He later called Sadeem and offered to continue the relationship without leaving his wife. Sadeem refused the offer and became more desperate. Her suffering increased as Firas continued to call her. She finally decided to forget all about him and established her own bridal arrangement company which was on its own an irony. Her friends helped her establish the company. In the end, Sadeem found herself in front of her cousin Tarik who adored her and revered her. She found no choice, but to marry him and revenge both men in her past who nearly destroyed her.
Mashael as her real Arabic name or Michelle as her mother and friends used to call her was more realistic and more liberal. On the contrary to her friends, she relatively enjoyed more freedom. Michelle was born to a Saudi father and an American mother. One day, she stumbled into Faisal by coincidence when he asked her along with her girlfriends to allow him to enter the shopping mall with them as a brother (In Saudi, single young men are not allowed to enter certain famous shopping malls to avoid the harassment and flirting they initiate towards women). This brief encounter was the start of mutual love and a happy Valentine’s Day for the first time in her life. After Valentine’s memorabilia spread every where, the university officially decides based on the request of the Police of Morals and Virtue to ban all forms of festivity of Valentine’s Day since it was a Christian event that ignited unvirtuous feelings between boys and girls. The love lasted a year and when Michelle asked Faisal to marry her, he backed off since his mother refused to allow him to marry a girl not of the family choosing and on top of that born to an American mother. She lost her faith in men. After such a shock, she traveled to San Francisco to study in the company of her American cousin. They developed mutual admiration, but things never progressed to frank love. Faced with this confusing relationship, she traveled back to her father who decided to move the whole family to Dubai to avoid the gossip and ill-reputation that haunted his daughter. He was a liberal and adored his American wife who lost her uterus to cancer. They decided to adopt a baby boy whom they called Mish-´al and they nicknamed him Misho. Being forthcoming and simple characterized Michelle’s personality. She hated hypocrisy and lies. When she moved to Dubai, she worked at one of the satellite TV channels owned by the father of her Emirati girlfriend, Jumanah (Emirati belonging to United Arab Emirates where Dubai is located). She succeeded in her work and lived freely. Michelle admired a TV director that worked with her, but remained confused whether she loved him or not. She asked her father if he would allow her to appear on TV as there was an opening for a TV hostess, but he refused and convinced her that her appearance on TV would lead to reverberations that might reach Saudi and his family. He also pointed out to her that he did not want that kind of headache. Michelle did not speak Arabic fluently and always used English words when her Arabic failed her. She revenged from Faisal when she attended his wedding uninvited and left him a message on his cell phone telling him that she was in the ball room. Michelle bewildered him. After some delay, he entered and found Michelle dancing among the girls. He started to worry: “what next?”, but Michelle left before others recognized her. She felt so happy after what she did.
There was one more character that was connected to the four girls: Um Nowayer. In the Arab World, the mother and the father are nicknamed after their offspring as a sign of respect. The offspring name appears preceded by a prefix Abu for the father and Um for the mother. Um Nowayer was a Kuwaiti lady that was married to a Saudi who left her and her son after 15 years of marriage. She opened her house to the girls to meet when they could not find a place to meet. She became a friend to all of them, helped them in times of need and worked sometimes with them. Um Nowayer was in her 39th year, a bald woman who was able to face her only son’s problem with courage. Her son’s name was Nouri, but he was gayish and that made people call him Nowayer which is a feminine name close to Nouri. Consequently, everyone called her Um Nowayer instead of Um Nouri. At first, she did not bear ridicule, but she defied her neighbors and insisted later on being called Um Nowayer. She sought medical treatment of her son’s condition. One doctor told her it is a psychological problem and not a physical one which may be related to the loss of the parental figure in the family. The son eventually grew out of it after two years of psychological treatment.
The title of the novel is full of irony. It was taken from a song by a very famous Saudi singer and the internet address of the group was called “Memoirs Exposed” which is a twist on the name of a famous TV show called “Memoirs Disclosed”. The novel was also full with humor and laughs as the narrator commented on the events with her witty style. For example, she described how the girls danced in the wedding in a hilarious way and the way women looked at each other with jealousy. She also described how men walked in their ugly underwear in the house after marriage and made fun of that.
The novel ended with one success which was the marriage of Lamees to her colleague in Medical School. As it seemed Lamees learnt from the mistakes of her friends and never repeated them. In fact, she planned a strategy to win her colleague’s heart after she saw him and fell in love with him from first sight. She used everything at her disposal to lure him into her net. Her successful strategy culminated with a lovely marriage and a trip to Canada to obtain her boards in Medicine.
Author Rajaa Alsanea explores tradition and the Muslim woman's search for love
The Associated Press
Thursday, July 5, 2007
CHICAGO: Finding love in Saudi Arabia is practically impossible, especially for young Muslim women.
That's the premise 25-year-old author Rajaa Alsanea tackles in her novel, "Girls of Riyadh," which has already created a stir throughout the Arab world.
"In Saudi, there are a lot of restrictions," she said during an interview at the University of Illinois at Chicago's College of Dentistry. Alsanea is pursuing a masters degree in oral sciences before returning to Riyadh to live with her family, practice dentistry and continue writing fiction.
"We're living in the 21st century and there are still traditions from the 19th century and that's just insane," she said. "You have the Internet ... and freedom of speech. You have modern schools and modern hospitals. And everything around you is digital. And yet you have to go through all this pain when you want to get married."
Alsanea, dressed in black scrubs with a pink long-sleeved undershirt and matching hijab — a Muslim woman's head scarf that signifies a strict code of behavior — said she wrote the book as a criticism of her homeland.
"It's my obligation to try to fix things in Saudi. I'm not trying to fix the government or Islam. What I'm trying to fix is mentality, how people think. It's the traditions," she said. "These traditions, either (need to) loosen up or we should get rid of them."
The novel, her first published work, examines the love lives of four twentysomething Muslim women in upper-class Saudi Arabia. In the book, an anonymous writer sends a weekly e-mail to thousands of Saudis. The e-mails tell the stories of the writer's friends — Gamrah, Michelle, Lamees and Sadeem — and chronicles their courtships, which are tied in to family approval, social class and religion.
Gamrah, from an ultraconservative family, marries a man her parents choose and follows him to the United States. She soon discovers he's already in love with someone else and only married Gamrah to obey his parents. Gamrah returns home heartbroken, pregnant and unsure of her future.
Despite the buzz surrounding her book, which comes out July 5, Alsanea has no desire to pursue writing as a full-time career.
"I always say that writing is for my soul. Dentistry is a job, a skill, something that introduces you to people," she said. "I don't want to do writing as a job."
She has not been writing while in dentistry school, something her family greatly values. Three of her five siblings are doctors, the other two are dentists. Even so, her family has been immensely supportive of her novel.
Alsanea, who learned to read and write by age 6, said her late father was her biggest inspiration to write. He would ask her to read the newspaper aloud in Arabic and he would correct her pronunciation and grammar. "All his gifts were books," she said. Alsanea soon began to express her feelings in writing as "little love letters" to family members.
Through school, she developed her creativity by writing plays and short stories, including one she wrote when she was 11 that was told through the perspective of a water droplet. When none of her teachers believed that she wrote it herself, she vowed to someday write a book.
She won an overwhelming response from well-known Arab writers in 2005 after the original Arabic publication of "Girls of Riyadh" in Lebanon. Then 23, Alsanea also got death threats from critics who were outraged.
The novel's content is far from salacious by Western standards; there are no explicit references to sex. But for some in Saudi Arabia, where Saudi women are forbidden to drive and Islamic law limits the consumption of alcohol and discourages premarital sex, it has been considered scandalous.
In one part of the book, Michelle dresses as a man so she can drive her three friends to the mall for an all-girls outing. In another story, Sadeem sleeps with her fiancee after their marriage contract is signed but before they live together. Another character drinks alcohol.
Alsanea said these ideas caused the continued threats, and for several weeks, she was afraid to leave the house. "They said I gave a bad impression of Saudi girls and I'd have to pay for it."
Some harassment came through anonymous e-mails, which criticized Alsanea for growing up in a single-parent household. Alsanea's father, who worked for the Kuwait's Ministry of Information, died when she was a child.
The novel is based on true stories from women Alsanea met at King Saud University in Riyadh, where she completed a degree in dentistry in 2005. During each summer vacation, she would pen versions of what she had heard at school and at social gatherings. Her goal was to write something local to which the young women could relate.
Alsanea rose quickly to the national spotlight, giving dozens of TV interviews and drawing praise from well-known Saudi writers such as poet Ghazi al-Gosaibi, who is one of Alsanea's favorite writers.
Once the manuscript was finished, she wrote letters and passed on manuscript copies to anyone who had even remote connections to al-Gosaibi. It worked. He called her at home and told her he was impressed by her work. He even wrote a letter of recommendation to his publisher.
Experts of Arab literature say the style of the book and its content fueled the frenzy around Alsanea.
Moneera Alghadeer, a professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, published an article this year in the Journal of Arabic Literature that analyzed Alsanea's novel.
She said that although Alsanea's book, which she calls "chick lit," is the not the first modern literature to plunge into the world of young Arab women, the style is unique. The book makes references to contemporary TV shows and uses e-mails to tell the stories of the women.
"The fact that everyone can read the book and will not have difficulties in understanding it, that made it appealing," she said. "It's like pop fiction. This one became more appealing to wider range of people." Alghadeer said the text was celebrated in Saudi Arabia and that it was marketed aggressively.
Alsanea took the strong reaction to her book as a sign of how much her novel struck a chord with people. "People who are not prepared to read something about daily life that is so true — it's like you told one of their secrets," she said.
She relied on her family and faith when the book was released in Saudi Arabia, and now her mother is a little relieved that she is spending two years studying here while things "cool off" at home.
A devout Muslim, Alsanea plans to live with her family until she gets married. But she also plans to keep writing. Her next book will again examine life in Saudi Arabia, but through a different lens.
"Some people say, 'Just settle and get married somewhere else in another country.' That's not an option for me. I'm Saudi and people have to accept that," she said. "It's my duty to shed the light on the things that I don't approve of. I want to create a better future for my kids in Saudi."
The Kosovo Dead-End
July 4, 2007
Comment by Georgy Bovt
Special to Russia Profile
Steering Clear of the Balkan Conflict
There have been cases in Russian history when events in a faraway country or the fate of a foreign people became a convenient subject for domestic propaganda. Russian diplomats would often make their contribution by engaging their international counterparts in debates which occasionally escalated into full-scale diplomatic and political crises.
The question of Kosovo’s independence from Serbia has become one such issue for contemporary Russian politics, with Russian officials standing up for their Slavic allies. The history of the relations between the Albanians inhabiting Kosovo and the Serbs (both in Kosovo and in Serbia itself) is so dramatic and violent that it’s not entirely clear how these two peoples managed until relatively recently to co-exist within the confines of a single state.
On the one hand, Serbian historians employ a series of arguments to demonstrate that “Kosovo historically belongs to Serbia.” It was from there that Serbian statehood evolved. In the 13th and 14th centuries, Kosovo was also the spiritual center of Serbia, with numerous Orthodox churches and monasteries built around the area. On the Kosovo Field in 1389, the Serb army led by Prince Lazar was decisively routed by the Turks, depriving the Serbs of independence for 500 years. Nevertheless, the battle became a symbolic keystone of Serb national identity, and they believe to this day that they did not in fact lose the battle. On the other hand, Albanian historians maintain that the Albanians are the descendants of the Thracian and Illyrian tribes that had inhabited this area long before the arrival of the Slavs and that their historical claim to the land is just as strong.
The experiment of Serbs and Albanians living together within one independent state has lasted just a century in the modern period. That century was marked by countless conflicts, international rifts and ethnic cleansing committed by both sides. Matters are made worse by the fact that the Serbs are Christians while the Albanians are Muslims. In fact, in the world today, there are few states where a Muslim majority lives in full peace, harmony and, more importantly, in civic and political equality with a Christian minority.
In 1918, King Alexander Karadjordjevic, Yugoslavia’s royal dictator, initiated a policy of mass repatriation to Kosovo of thousands of Serb families who had earlier been forced out by the Albanians. Nevertheless, the process of reviving the ethnic balance of the population was cut short during the Second World War. “Greater Albania,” created with the aid of Germany and Italy, seized much of the area, driving out almost 100,000 Serbs and killing 10,000. In 1943, at a meeting in Prizren, Kosovo, the Second Albanian League was created for the purpose of cleansing the Serb population. The newly-formed SS divisions became the main force in the implementation of these genocidal campaigns. To be fair, it should be noted that there were many Albanians who fought alongside the Serbs against Hitler’s forces.
Following the end of the Second World War, Josip Broz Tito, a Croat, headed the regime that came to power in Yugoslavia, and banned the Serbs deported during the war from returning to their lands in Kosovo in the name of good relations with the Albanians (and fearing the nationalist rise of the Serbs). Tito in fact had plans to form a Balkan federation under his leadership, infuriating Stalin who couldn’t stand competition in the export of communism.
Interestingly, having fallen out with Tito at the end of the 1940s, Stalin zealously backed an independent Albanian Kosovo with the intent to merge it eventually with Albania, a state with which he was on good terms at that time. Thus, Stalin intended to go even further than today’s “Ahtisaari plan” which envisages only “partial independence” for Kosovo.
After Stalin, the Yugoslav politicians themselves did much to ruin relations between the Serbs and the Albanians. By the beginning of the 1990s they had, in effect, rendered the future prospects of these relations hopeless. In a constitution of 1974, Tito essentially granted Kosovo broad autonomy and then pumped money and aid into the province. All to no avail: Kosovo remained the most backward part of Yugoslavia. And then Slobodan Milosevic began to cut away at Kosovo’s autonomy and later undertook mass ethnic cleansing operations in Kosovo, along with similar campaigns in other Yugoslav territories. The war that broke out drew a decisive line under any hopes of restoring Kosovo’s ethnic balance in the favor of the Serbs: at present, they are a tiny minority living under the armed guard of an international peacekeeping force.
Nevertheless, Russia has said that it is categorically against independence of Kosovo, making it a question of principle in a diplomatic standoff with the West. However, if we try to anticipate the developments several steps in advance, we are left with the following question – does Moscow have a way out of the Kosovo dead-end if the region is given independence? In the worst possible scenario for Russia, Belgrade could make a deal with the European Union which, in return for assistance on the Kosovo issue, could ease up the visa regime or hasten Serbia’s entry into the EU.
Centuries of history in the Balkans have shown that no self-interested outside player attempting to take advantage of the area’s conflicts has ever been able to come out a winner. Maybe it’s best just to steer clear?
Georgy Bovt is a Moscow-based political analyst.
Comment by Georgy Bovt
Special to Russia Profile
Steering Clear of the Balkan Conflict
There have been cases in Russian history when events in a faraway country or the fate of a foreign people became a convenient subject for domestic propaganda. Russian diplomats would often make their contribution by engaging their international counterparts in debates which occasionally escalated into full-scale diplomatic and political crises.
The question of Kosovo’s independence from Serbia has become one such issue for contemporary Russian politics, with Russian officials standing up for their Slavic allies. The history of the relations between the Albanians inhabiting Kosovo and the Serbs (both in Kosovo and in Serbia itself) is so dramatic and violent that it’s not entirely clear how these two peoples managed until relatively recently to co-exist within the confines of a single state.
On the one hand, Serbian historians employ a series of arguments to demonstrate that “Kosovo historically belongs to Serbia.” It was from there that Serbian statehood evolved. In the 13th and 14th centuries, Kosovo was also the spiritual center of Serbia, with numerous Orthodox churches and monasteries built around the area. On the Kosovo Field in 1389, the Serb army led by Prince Lazar was decisively routed by the Turks, depriving the Serbs of independence for 500 years. Nevertheless, the battle became a symbolic keystone of Serb national identity, and they believe to this day that they did not in fact lose the battle. On the other hand, Albanian historians maintain that the Albanians are the descendants of the Thracian and Illyrian tribes that had inhabited this area long before the arrival of the Slavs and that their historical claim to the land is just as strong.
The experiment of Serbs and Albanians living together within one independent state has lasted just a century in the modern period. That century was marked by countless conflicts, international rifts and ethnic cleansing committed by both sides. Matters are made worse by the fact that the Serbs are Christians while the Albanians are Muslims. In fact, in the world today, there are few states where a Muslim majority lives in full peace, harmony and, more importantly, in civic and political equality with a Christian minority.
In 1918, King Alexander Karadjordjevic, Yugoslavia’s royal dictator, initiated a policy of mass repatriation to Kosovo of thousands of Serb families who had earlier been forced out by the Albanians. Nevertheless, the process of reviving the ethnic balance of the population was cut short during the Second World War. “Greater Albania,” created with the aid of Germany and Italy, seized much of the area, driving out almost 100,000 Serbs and killing 10,000. In 1943, at a meeting in Prizren, Kosovo, the Second Albanian League was created for the purpose of cleansing the Serb population. The newly-formed SS divisions became the main force in the implementation of these genocidal campaigns. To be fair, it should be noted that there were many Albanians who fought alongside the Serbs against Hitler’s forces.
Following the end of the Second World War, Josip Broz Tito, a Croat, headed the regime that came to power in Yugoslavia, and banned the Serbs deported during the war from returning to their lands in Kosovo in the name of good relations with the Albanians (and fearing the nationalist rise of the Serbs). Tito in fact had plans to form a Balkan federation under his leadership, infuriating Stalin who couldn’t stand competition in the export of communism.
Interestingly, having fallen out with Tito at the end of the 1940s, Stalin zealously backed an independent Albanian Kosovo with the intent to merge it eventually with Albania, a state with which he was on good terms at that time. Thus, Stalin intended to go even further than today’s “Ahtisaari plan” which envisages only “partial independence” for Kosovo.
After Stalin, the Yugoslav politicians themselves did much to ruin relations between the Serbs and the Albanians. By the beginning of the 1990s they had, in effect, rendered the future prospects of these relations hopeless. In a constitution of 1974, Tito essentially granted Kosovo broad autonomy and then pumped money and aid into the province. All to no avail: Kosovo remained the most backward part of Yugoslavia. And then Slobodan Milosevic began to cut away at Kosovo’s autonomy and later undertook mass ethnic cleansing operations in Kosovo, along with similar campaigns in other Yugoslav territories. The war that broke out drew a decisive line under any hopes of restoring Kosovo’s ethnic balance in the favor of the Serbs: at present, they are a tiny minority living under the armed guard of an international peacekeeping force.
Nevertheless, Russia has said that it is categorically against independence of Kosovo, making it a question of principle in a diplomatic standoff with the West. However, if we try to anticipate the developments several steps in advance, we are left with the following question – does Moscow have a way out of the Kosovo dead-end if the region is given independence? In the worst possible scenario for Russia, Belgrade could make a deal with the European Union which, in return for assistance on the Kosovo issue, could ease up the visa regime or hasten Serbia’s entry into the EU.
Centuries of history in the Balkans have shown that no self-interested outside player attempting to take advantage of the area’s conflicts has ever been able to come out a winner. Maybe it’s best just to steer clear?
Georgy Bovt is a Moscow-based political analyst.
Russia Warns Of Missile Forward-Deployment In Kaliningrad Region
Jamestown Foundation Eurasia Daily Monitor
www.jamestown.org
By Vladimir Socor
On July 4, First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov warned that Russia could deploy medium-range missiles in the Kaliningrad oblast - opposite Lithuania and Poland - if the United States turns down Russia’s proposals on anti-missile defense in Europe. The implicit threat to these staunch U.S. allies comes only two days after Russian President Vladimir Putin earned yet another credit of trust - “Do I trust him? Yes, I trust him” - from U.S. President George W. Bush during their informal meeting at Kennebunkport in the Bush family compound.
Ivanov, until recently defense minister and now presumed to be President Vladimir Putin’s favorite successor to the presidency, warned: “If our proposals are accepted, Russia would no longer need to deploy new missile systems in our European territory, including Kaliningrad.” According to Ivanov, such a deployment would constitute an “asymmetrical and effective response” by Russia against U.S.-proposed anti-missile defense elements in Central Europe (Itar-Tass, RIA-Novosti, July 4).
Moscow denounces U.S. plans to install elements of anti-missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic as unacceptable to Russia. Instead, the Kremlin proposes joint use of Azerbaijan’s Russian-operated Gabala radar and a new radar to be completed in southern Russia, as well as joint NATO-Russia centers in Brussels and Moscow to manage a common anti-missile system. However, U.S. and NATO experts deem such a solution inadequate on many technical and strategic policy counts.
Putin himself warned several times in recent weeks that Russia would respond by targeting European countries with its missiles, “turning Europe into a powder keg.” However, Ivanov’s is the first warning of a possible forward deployment of medium-range missiles in the Kaliningrad oblast. Such a move would put a substantial swath of NATO territory within range of those Russian missiles, without overtly breaching the INF Treaty-mandated limitations on missile ranges.
The most conspicuous asymmetry is not the geographical one to which Ivanov mainly alludes.
Rather, the asymmetry resides in the offensive purpose and mission of the Russian missiles that would be deployed, versus the purely defensive anti-missile elements proposed to be sited in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Ivanov’s warning almost certainly refers to the new-generation Iskander missile, presumably its cruise version Iskander-K, which Russia tested successfully on May 29. Its actual range is not known with certainty, but it is limited in principle to 500 kilometers in accordance with the INF Treaty, which bans land-based cruise as well as ballistic missiles with ranges of more than 500 kilometers. At present, Russia is believed to station obsolete Tochka battlefield missiles, with less than half the range of Iskander, in the Kaliningrad oblast.
At the moment, Moscow justifies the testing and possible deployment of Iskander and a new intercontinental ballistic missile as responses to the U.S.-proposed anti-missile defense elements in Central Europe. This rationalization is mainly designed for European consumption and wedge driving within NATO. However, Moscow has in recent weeks challenged NATO on a wide range of European security issues, which in addition to anti-missile defense include also U.S. military installations in Romania and Bulgaria, the CFE Treaty, and the INF Treaty, brandishing possible Russian “asymmetric responses” on all those counts.
Thus, Putin’s warnings to target Russian missiles on Europe - and Ivanov’s hint at forward-deploying missiles in Kaliningrad - are to be regarded as an all-purpose threat, repeatable against any Western security interests, not just missile defense in Central Europe. If the ploy proves effective on this issue, the Kremlin will almost certainly feel emboldened to re-use the same ploy to obtain satisfaction on other Euro-Atlantic security issues. By citing imaginary threats to itself and brandishing ostensible countermeasures, Moscow hopes to obtain a voice and a veto on U.S. and NATO decisions as well as on security arrangements involving new member countries of the Alliance.
Lithuania is responding calmly to Ivanov’s warning about possible missile deployment in Kaliningrad oblast. In the initial reactions from Vilnius, Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas, Minister of Foreign Affairs Petras Vaitiekunas, and the parliamentary foreign affairs committee chairman Justinas Karosas are making the following points:
1) the warning is hypothetical at this stage;
2) Russia considers deploying an offensive system against a Western defensive system;
3) Lithuania would definitely protest if the deployment intention turns out to be real;
4) the issue is of concern to all member countries of NATO and the European Union; and
5) Moscow’s hypothetical warning underscores the need for demilitarization of the Kaliningrad oblast (BNS, July 5).
The initial response at NATO on the political level tends to downplay Putin’s and Ivanov’s warnings by connecting them with the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections in Russia. Such a response has the merit of lowering the international political stakes and reassuring those easily unnerved sections among European publics and governments. However, Russia’s elections are not contested elections and the Kremlin hardly needs to fan external tensions for internal political gains. In fact, Moscow is reactivating Cold-War tactics in attempting to overturn, step-by-step and issue-by-issue, the post-Cold-War status quo
www.jamestown.org
By Vladimir Socor
On July 4, First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov warned that Russia could deploy medium-range missiles in the Kaliningrad oblast - opposite Lithuania and Poland - if the United States turns down Russia’s proposals on anti-missile defense in Europe. The implicit threat to these staunch U.S. allies comes only two days after Russian President Vladimir Putin earned yet another credit of trust - “Do I trust him? Yes, I trust him” - from U.S. President George W. Bush during their informal meeting at Kennebunkport in the Bush family compound.
Ivanov, until recently defense minister and now presumed to be President Vladimir Putin’s favorite successor to the presidency, warned: “If our proposals are accepted, Russia would no longer need to deploy new missile systems in our European territory, including Kaliningrad.” According to Ivanov, such a deployment would constitute an “asymmetrical and effective response” by Russia against U.S.-proposed anti-missile defense elements in Central Europe (Itar-Tass, RIA-Novosti, July 4).
Moscow denounces U.S. plans to install elements of anti-missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic as unacceptable to Russia. Instead, the Kremlin proposes joint use of Azerbaijan’s Russian-operated Gabala radar and a new radar to be completed in southern Russia, as well as joint NATO-Russia centers in Brussels and Moscow to manage a common anti-missile system. However, U.S. and NATO experts deem such a solution inadequate on many technical and strategic policy counts.
Putin himself warned several times in recent weeks that Russia would respond by targeting European countries with its missiles, “turning Europe into a powder keg.” However, Ivanov’s is the first warning of a possible forward deployment of medium-range missiles in the Kaliningrad oblast. Such a move would put a substantial swath of NATO territory within range of those Russian missiles, without overtly breaching the INF Treaty-mandated limitations on missile ranges.
The most conspicuous asymmetry is not the geographical one to which Ivanov mainly alludes.
Rather, the asymmetry resides in the offensive purpose and mission of the Russian missiles that would be deployed, versus the purely defensive anti-missile elements proposed to be sited in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Ivanov’s warning almost certainly refers to the new-generation Iskander missile, presumably its cruise version Iskander-K, which Russia tested successfully on May 29. Its actual range is not known with certainty, but it is limited in principle to 500 kilometers in accordance with the INF Treaty, which bans land-based cruise as well as ballistic missiles with ranges of more than 500 kilometers. At present, Russia is believed to station obsolete Tochka battlefield missiles, with less than half the range of Iskander, in the Kaliningrad oblast.
At the moment, Moscow justifies the testing and possible deployment of Iskander and a new intercontinental ballistic missile as responses to the U.S.-proposed anti-missile defense elements in Central Europe. This rationalization is mainly designed for European consumption and wedge driving within NATO. However, Moscow has in recent weeks challenged NATO on a wide range of European security issues, which in addition to anti-missile defense include also U.S. military installations in Romania and Bulgaria, the CFE Treaty, and the INF Treaty, brandishing possible Russian “asymmetric responses” on all those counts.
Thus, Putin’s warnings to target Russian missiles on Europe - and Ivanov’s hint at forward-deploying missiles in Kaliningrad - are to be regarded as an all-purpose threat, repeatable against any Western security interests, not just missile defense in Central Europe. If the ploy proves effective on this issue, the Kremlin will almost certainly feel emboldened to re-use the same ploy to obtain satisfaction on other Euro-Atlantic security issues. By citing imaginary threats to itself and brandishing ostensible countermeasures, Moscow hopes to obtain a voice and a veto on U.S. and NATO decisions as well as on security arrangements involving new member countries of the Alliance.
Lithuania is responding calmly to Ivanov’s warning about possible missile deployment in Kaliningrad oblast. In the initial reactions from Vilnius, Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas, Minister of Foreign Affairs Petras Vaitiekunas, and the parliamentary foreign affairs committee chairman Justinas Karosas are making the following points:
1) the warning is hypothetical at this stage;
2) Russia considers deploying an offensive system against a Western defensive system;
3) Lithuania would definitely protest if the deployment intention turns out to be real;
4) the issue is of concern to all member countries of NATO and the European Union; and
5) Moscow’s hypothetical warning underscores the need for demilitarization of the Kaliningrad oblast (BNS, July 5).
The initial response at NATO on the political level tends to downplay Putin’s and Ivanov’s warnings by connecting them with the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections in Russia. Such a response has the merit of lowering the international political stakes and reassuring those easily unnerved sections among European publics and governments. However, Russia’s elections are not contested elections and the Kremlin hardly needs to fan external tensions for internal political gains. In fact, Moscow is reactivating Cold-War tactics in attempting to overturn, step-by-step and issue-by-issue, the post-Cold-War status quo
Sochi Reaches the Peak
By Paul Abelsky
Russia Profile
“This is one of the most important days in Russia’s history” – that was the reaction of Dmitry Chernyshenko, Sochi 2014 chief executive officer, after Sochi was awarded the 2014 Winter Olympics on Wednesday evening. In the second round of voting by the International Olympic Committee in Guatemala City, Russia’s summer capital on the Black Sea bested Pyeongchang of South Korea by four votes. The Austrian city of Salzburg, the third shortlisted finalist, was eliminated in the first round.
Despite misgivings at home and experts’ questions about the viability of Sochi’s Olympic ambitions, the Russian bid combined a vision of a far-reaching regional overhaul with an ardent political commitment at the highest government level. The 80-strong Russian delegation to Guatemala, which included key government officials in addition to President Vladimir Putin’s own appearance before the vote, seems to have been at least partly inspired by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s performance two years ago in support of London’s 2012 bid.
“Although the IOC usually refuses to acknowledge this, there are certainly political issues involved in these decisions,” said Anthony Th. Bijkerk, secretary general of the Netherlands-based International Society of Olympic Historians. “Because of the support by the Russian government, as shown by Putin's availability in Guatemala, the certainty of making everything possible and ready in time for the Games is rated much higher.”
Bijkerk also notes that the Russian proposal was probably helped by the bitter memories of the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics, held soon after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and boycotted by many Western nations. “There might also be something of a 'sentimental reasoning' behind this choice,” Bijkerk said. “The 1980 Games were hampered by the boycott of quite a few nations, including one of the most important – the United States. This might also have been a reason why IOC members did make the choice to vote for Sochi.”
And if the country woke up today in a particularly exuberant mood, it may be because of the special role sport plays in post-Soviet Russia. “With the country lacking any unifying ideology or symbolism, sports and athletic achievements are one of the chief remaining factors of nationwide consolidation,” said Valery Tishkov, director of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology in Moscow.
Considering President Putin’s well-publicized involvement with Sochi’s plans, and his fondness for the nearby skiing resort of Krasnaya Polyana, the centerpiece of future Olympic infrastructure, the president was credited with tipping the scales in Russia’s favor. His impassioned speech in Guatemala City on the eve of the vote, conducted in English and some French, was particularly effective in swaying the audience. A consensus opinion among Russian public figures in the immediate aftermath of the announcement was that Sochi’s victory represented a political triumph for Putin and a watershed for Russia’s global image.
“This conveys, in fact, a high estimate of Russian sports and for the country’s role and place in today’s developing world,” said Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov at the start of a government meeting on Thursday. St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko, in a statement distributed by her press service, singled out Putin’s personal role and his compelling presentation in Guatemala, praising Sochi’s achievement even though it means St. Petersburg’s own 2016 Olympics bid will not go forward. “I think that holding the Olympic Games in Russia will serve as a strong factor in raising the national spirit and national pride,” she said. “Sochi’s victory in the competition to host the 22nd Winter Olympics is a victory for all of Russia. For the first time in many years, Russia attained such a success. It has great significance not only from the point of view of the victory itself, but also as recognition of our country as a new democratic state.”
President Putin learned of the decision when flying back to Moscow from Guatemala. Speaking to journalists at Vnukovo-2 airport upon landing, he concurred with the political importance of the decision and its likely effect of boosting infrastructure renewal in the area. According to Putin, the IOC decision is a “recognition of Russia’s growing capabilities, most importantly in the economic sphere and in managing social challenges. This is a statement of clear support on the part of an authoritative and independent international organization.”
Despite Sochi’s pristine location on the Black Sea coastline and its long-held status as a favored domestic retreat for the country’s political elite, the city is also one of Russia’s outposts in a volatile region, located close to Georgia’s breakaway republic of Abkhazia. For now, officials and experts sounded an optimistic note on the likely consequences for the surrounding region. Dmitry Kozak, presidential envoy to the Southern Federal District, said the Olympics would become a “strong impulse in the development of the south of Russia.” Abkhaz officials seemed equally enthused. De-facto President Sergei Bagapsh sent a congratulatory telegram to Krasnodar Governor Alexander Tkachev and Sochi municipal administration offering support and cooperation in organizing the Olympics.
In the opinion of Sergei Markedonov, head of the department of international relations at the Institute of Political and Military Studies in Moscow, Sochi’s selection may not necessarily lead to any breakthroughs in Russian-Georgian relations, but it is likely to bolster today’s relative stability in the region and discourage both sides from any political and rhetorical excesses. The restoration of a railroad between the two countries through Abkhazia may finally go forward as part of the regional infrastructure facelift.
In addition to the ongoing construction of resorts and sporting venues on the slopes of Krasnaya Polyana, backed by such Russian corporate giants as Gazprom and Interros, a federal target program plans to allocate $12 billion in financing Sochi’s development as a year-round destination. The Russian government has committed $1.5 billion for the Olympics, the same amount as Salzburg and ahead of $1.2 billion earmarked for Pyeongchang. Besides the political and financial guarantees marshaled by Russian authorities, what may have swayed the opinion of IOC members is Russia’s status as a major power in the Winter Olympics. “Russia is counted to be among the most important winter sport nations, like Germany and the Scandinavian countries,” said Bijkerk. “Austria in this respect is also important but more for alpine skiing only, while Russia has a much broader basis.”
Time will show if the promised facilities are delivered and ready to welcome the athletes seven years from now. Other, more immediate concerns remain to be fully addressed, however. Greenpeace and the WWF have warned that the wide-ranging construction plans threaten the protected ecology of Sochi National Park and the Caucasus Nature Reserve. Greenpeace has filed a suit against the Russian government, petitioning to overturn the federal program of financial assistance for Sochi, but Russia’s Supreme Court ruled in early June that construction was legal.
Photo: Courtesy of Sochi 2014
Russia Profile
“This is one of the most important days in Russia’s history” – that was the reaction of Dmitry Chernyshenko, Sochi 2014 chief executive officer, after Sochi was awarded the 2014 Winter Olympics on Wednesday evening. In the second round of voting by the International Olympic Committee in Guatemala City, Russia’s summer capital on the Black Sea bested Pyeongchang of South Korea by four votes. The Austrian city of Salzburg, the third shortlisted finalist, was eliminated in the first round.
Despite misgivings at home and experts’ questions about the viability of Sochi’s Olympic ambitions, the Russian bid combined a vision of a far-reaching regional overhaul with an ardent political commitment at the highest government level. The 80-strong Russian delegation to Guatemala, which included key government officials in addition to President Vladimir Putin’s own appearance before the vote, seems to have been at least partly inspired by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s performance two years ago in support of London’s 2012 bid.
“Although the IOC usually refuses to acknowledge this, there are certainly political issues involved in these decisions,” said Anthony Th. Bijkerk, secretary general of the Netherlands-based International Society of Olympic Historians. “Because of the support by the Russian government, as shown by Putin's availability in Guatemala, the certainty of making everything possible and ready in time for the Games is rated much higher.”
Bijkerk also notes that the Russian proposal was probably helped by the bitter memories of the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics, held soon after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and boycotted by many Western nations. “There might also be something of a 'sentimental reasoning' behind this choice,” Bijkerk said. “The 1980 Games were hampered by the boycott of quite a few nations, including one of the most important – the United States. This might also have been a reason why IOC members did make the choice to vote for Sochi.”
And if the country woke up today in a particularly exuberant mood, it may be because of the special role sport plays in post-Soviet Russia. “With the country lacking any unifying ideology or symbolism, sports and athletic achievements are one of the chief remaining factors of nationwide consolidation,” said Valery Tishkov, director of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology in Moscow.
Considering President Putin’s well-publicized involvement with Sochi’s plans, and his fondness for the nearby skiing resort of Krasnaya Polyana, the centerpiece of future Olympic infrastructure, the president was credited with tipping the scales in Russia’s favor. His impassioned speech in Guatemala City on the eve of the vote, conducted in English and some French, was particularly effective in swaying the audience. A consensus opinion among Russian public figures in the immediate aftermath of the announcement was that Sochi’s victory represented a political triumph for Putin and a watershed for Russia’s global image.
“This conveys, in fact, a high estimate of Russian sports and for the country’s role and place in today’s developing world,” said Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov at the start of a government meeting on Thursday. St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko, in a statement distributed by her press service, singled out Putin’s personal role and his compelling presentation in Guatemala, praising Sochi’s achievement even though it means St. Petersburg’s own 2016 Olympics bid will not go forward. “I think that holding the Olympic Games in Russia will serve as a strong factor in raising the national spirit and national pride,” she said. “Sochi’s victory in the competition to host the 22nd Winter Olympics is a victory for all of Russia. For the first time in many years, Russia attained such a success. It has great significance not only from the point of view of the victory itself, but also as recognition of our country as a new democratic state.”
President Putin learned of the decision when flying back to Moscow from Guatemala. Speaking to journalists at Vnukovo-2 airport upon landing, he concurred with the political importance of the decision and its likely effect of boosting infrastructure renewal in the area. According to Putin, the IOC decision is a “recognition of Russia’s growing capabilities, most importantly in the economic sphere and in managing social challenges. This is a statement of clear support on the part of an authoritative and independent international organization.”
Despite Sochi’s pristine location on the Black Sea coastline and its long-held status as a favored domestic retreat for the country’s political elite, the city is also one of Russia’s outposts in a volatile region, located close to Georgia’s breakaway republic of Abkhazia. For now, officials and experts sounded an optimistic note on the likely consequences for the surrounding region. Dmitry Kozak, presidential envoy to the Southern Federal District, said the Olympics would become a “strong impulse in the development of the south of Russia.” Abkhaz officials seemed equally enthused. De-facto President Sergei Bagapsh sent a congratulatory telegram to Krasnodar Governor Alexander Tkachev and Sochi municipal administration offering support and cooperation in organizing the Olympics.
In the opinion of Sergei Markedonov, head of the department of international relations at the Institute of Political and Military Studies in Moscow, Sochi’s selection may not necessarily lead to any breakthroughs in Russian-Georgian relations, but it is likely to bolster today’s relative stability in the region and discourage both sides from any political and rhetorical excesses. The restoration of a railroad between the two countries through Abkhazia may finally go forward as part of the regional infrastructure facelift.
In addition to the ongoing construction of resorts and sporting venues on the slopes of Krasnaya Polyana, backed by such Russian corporate giants as Gazprom and Interros, a federal target program plans to allocate $12 billion in financing Sochi’s development as a year-round destination. The Russian government has committed $1.5 billion for the Olympics, the same amount as Salzburg and ahead of $1.2 billion earmarked for Pyeongchang. Besides the political and financial guarantees marshaled by Russian authorities, what may have swayed the opinion of IOC members is Russia’s status as a major power in the Winter Olympics. “Russia is counted to be among the most important winter sport nations, like Germany and the Scandinavian countries,” said Bijkerk. “Austria in this respect is also important but more for alpine skiing only, while Russia has a much broader basis.”
Time will show if the promised facilities are delivered and ready to welcome the athletes seven years from now. Other, more immediate concerns remain to be fully addressed, however. Greenpeace and the WWF have warned that the wide-ranging construction plans threaten the protected ecology of Sochi National Park and the Caucasus Nature Reserve. Greenpeace has filed a suit against the Russian government, petitioning to overturn the federal program of financial assistance for Sochi, but Russia’s Supreme Court ruled in early June that construction was legal.
Photo: Courtesy of Sochi 2014
Eastern Mediterranean Oil Politics: the Emerging Role of Cyprus
7/5/2007 (Balkanalysis.com)
By Ioannis Michaletos
The issue of oil drilling rights in the eastern Mediterranean Sea has emerged over the past few months, after the initiative enacted by the Cypriot government to proceed in handing out research and drilling rights for expected oil reserves deep under the sea, estimated to be worth some 450 billion USD at current prices (1).
Cyprus proceeded in cooperating with the other interested parties – due to geographical proximity- Egypt and Lebanon, whose exclusive economic zones might also be rich in oil. Furthermore, Israel and Cyprus are also cooperating, and it seems likely that they will also form a consensus on how to share the undersea wealth still to be found.
Naturally, longtime rival Turkey has viewed the developments that unfolded between January and March 2007 with increased attention and alarm, and has made threatening demands against the Cypriot Republic. On the 27th of January, the President of the non-recognized Turkish state of Northern Cyprus, Mehmet Ali-Talat, stated that there is a chance of unexpected and violent developments due to Cypriot actions in relation to the oil issue (2). Then, on the 30th of January, the Turkish daily Hurriyet reported the demand by Ankara towards the Lebanese and Egyptian governments to withdraw their intention to research for oil in an area where Turkey has interests as well (3).
Moreover, the newspaper noted the willingness of the Turkish administration to react dynamically should its interests not taken into account. The accusations by Turkey that Cyprus does not represent the whole of the Island and the defense by Nicosia that it will continue with its project resulted in the circumnavigation of Cyprus by the Turkish Navy in a “tour de force” in early February (4). By that time the overall situation resulted in a multitude of press releases and op-eds in Turkey, Cyprus and Greece commenting on the possibility of a conflict with oil as the cause. Even though the international media did not give analytical coverage to the above, it came to the attention of the industry’s decision-makers interested in exploiting the vast amounts of hydrocarbon that rests beneath the Cypriot Sea.
On the 6th of March, Ronald Schilcher, the USA Ambassador in Cyprus, addressed the public via the CNNTurk TV sation and expressed the opinion that it is Cyprus’ sovereign right to decide whether it wishes to exploit oil that is found in its territorial or exclusive economic zone (5). This was a clear indication that the USA is very much interested in securing a strong percentage of influence in order to gain contracts for the extraction of oil in an era where energy security has become the catch phrase, and a political nightmare for many concerned power-brokers and corporations across the world.
Now, despite Turkish opposition, Cyprus has already begun the process of initiating a bidding procedure for the aforementioned oil fields. 11 areas off of southern Cyprus will be the first where the tests for oil will begin. The total surface area is around 70,000 sq. km, and there are also good indications of discovering natural gas as well. French consultants employed by the Cypriot government have already stated that at depths in excess of 3,000 meters there is also a high probability of discovering gas fields as well.
Cyprus has already stated that it will issue three types of permit in relation to the oil fields. The first will be for tests covering a one-year time-frame, the second for three years and lastly a 25-year development license according to which the companies will be able to produce and process oil and gas. As part of its marketing endeavors, from now until mid-July (when the first permits are set to be issued), the Cypriot government plans to organize trips across the major oil capitals of the world in order to market the new riches of the island to prospective investors.
The recent developments around the Cypriot oil treasure are also related with previous Turkish-Israeli initiatives that started back in 2001, when the Geophysical Institute of Israel, an Israeli research team and the TRAO Company (Turkish Petroleum) conducted explorations in the Alexandretta Gulf close to the Turkish–Syrian border. The head of the Israeli group, Ephraim Levi, stated in the Turkish press that there are large amounts of gas as well in the wider area and the results from the initial research were positive and satisfactory. However, over the past few years the cooling of Turkish-Israeli relations has put a hold on their joint exploration project, though it has not been abandoned.
The most recent development in energy relations between the two states was the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Ehoud Olmert to Ankara in late February, when the plan for constructing an underwater oil pipeline from the Ceyhan Turkish port to the Israeli one of Aschalon. It is important to note that the first port mentioned is the major oil terminal for the Eastern Mediterranean region and the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline transferring Caspian oil ends there (6). Therefore, the oil politics in this periphery are related with the wider geoeconomic structure created since the end of the Cold War, and of course it has attracted the interest of all global powers and energy related entities.
Another notable development is the agreement reached between Libya and Turkey in late 2004, concerning the exploitation of probable oil reservoir basins off the coast of the former. The investment by the Turkish companies was estimated at 2 billion USD. However, there is no current information regarding whether the research findings were satisfactory to proceed in commercial exploitation (7).
For the time being, the issue of Cypriot oil is gathering importance and all interested parties are trying to place themselves in a position of advantage. Large oil companies from the USA, Russia, the UK, China, Norway, France and Germany seem to be interested in investing for the assumed hydrocarbon reservoirs off the coast of Cyprus. For their part the government and business officials in Nicosia are touring the world’s oil capitals like London, Houston, New York and Moscow in order to muster support for the plans and advertise their deep sea wealth.
As can be easily understood, the importance of energy has as an effect the culmination of various diplomatic and geopolitical schemes. The US administration, which has traditionally gravitated towards a pro-Turkish stance on the perennial Cypriot issue, has moved a bit towards healing the sensitivities of the Greek Cypriots and the relations between the two states can be considered as excellent for the time being. The US Ambassador to Cyprus said in April that his country continues to value Cyprus as a close partner in the joint effort to combat terrorism, proliferation of WMD and organized crime (8). Addressing a ceremony for the donation of an underwater camera by the US Embassy and the US Customs to Cyprus’ Marine Police, Mr. Schlicher also said that he is pleased ”the US and Cyprus continue to work closely together in many areas and that our co-operation with Cypriot law enforcement agencies continues to be excellent.”
Another parallel development is the enhanced French involvement in Cyprus and the wider Mediterranean region. Cyprus and France have signed an agreement for defense cooperation between the two countries in a bid to strengthen bilateral relations - a decision taken during Cyprus President Tassos Papadopoulos’ visit to France in November 2006. The agreement was signed at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Nicosia by Cypriot Minister of Foreign Affairs Yiorgos Lillikas and French Minister of Defense Michele Alliot-Marie.
In statements after the signing ceremony, Mr. Lillikas expressed his satisfaction and noted that it is a natural development of everything that was agreed during President Papadopoulos’ meeting with President Jacques Chirac. “France and Cyprus have always had excellent political relations, they have and share a common vision on international issues and now as EU partners have shown that with their approach they can contribute to peace in the Middle East,” Mr. Lillikas added.
“The crisis in Lebanon gave both countries the chance to cooperate in the military field with benefits not only for both countries but mainly for Middle East countries. I wish and hope that just as Cyprus proved to be a factor of stability in the Middle East region, the solution to the Cyprus problem and Cyprus’ reunification will prove that Cyprus can, reunited, with the cooperation of all partners such as France, help in peace and stability in the region,” he also said.
Ms. Alliot-Marie said that it was an agreement which allows relations to strengthen between the two ministries, and added: “It provides for greater exchange in training issues, on the level of joint maneuvers, when analyzing the geostrategic situation. It is a continuation of the existing relations.” Already, both states train jointly regularly and French Special Operations Forces are backing up the Lebanon UN forces through the use of Cypriot bases, assorted with an aeronautical French team (9). Recent information that surfaced in a Greek defense journal reveals that during the military parade on the 14th of July in Paris, a Cypriot unit will participate- the first time an EU Army corps has been invited for the French national day, a sure indication of the warming in relations between these countries (10).
Overall, the island of Cyprus has upgraded its political, economic and military value and apart from the three guarantee forces of the 1959 Zurich treaty (Greece, Turkey and the UK), the USA and France, as well as Russia and the surrounding Middle Eastern states, are entangled in the regional political developments that amongst other include energy security. Cyprus is already a well-developed state and a recent report that was published by the European Commission last month describes future economic prospects as “excellent.” The production of hydrocarbon will further empower this island of 800,000 citizens to become the regional hub of Southeastern Europe, the East Mediterranean, the Black Sea and the Middle East, thus reaching a market of around 1 billion people. On the other hand, the delicate geopolitical balances should be taken into account since the turbulent recent history of the region has produced conflicts and quagmires mostly related to the control of energy routes and supplies. The aspirations of some of the strongest global interest groups will once dominate the fate of the Eastern Mediterranean centered on Cyprus and based on the “black gold” underneath.
References:
(1) jamestown.org/publications_details.php?volume_id=420&&issue_id=4024
A paper by the Jamestown Foundation discussing the Cyprus oil issue
(2) www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=64926
Article by the Turkish Daily News newspaper concerning Ali-Talat’s statements
(3) www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/30/news/union.php
Article by the International Herald Tribune on the Turkish threats to Lebanon-Egypt
www.strategypage.com/qnd/balkans/articles/20070208.aspx
Report by the Strategy Page service on the Turkish Navy movements
(4) https://turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=67677
Article by the Turkish Daily News on the statements by the US Ambassador in Cyprus
(6)
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=2824
Paper by the Global Research organization on Turkish-Israeli joint energy projects
(7)Hellenic Defense Journal, Vol. 14, April 2007, P. 111
(8) www.mfa.gov.cy/mfa/Embassies/HagueEmbassy.nsf/All/1D63CB4871188EAFC12572BB003957FA?OpenDocument&print
Press release by the Cypriot Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the US Ambassador’s statements
(9) www.mfa.gov.cy/mfa/mfa2006.nsf/All/6AD36B7AD6606DFFC225729100367E73
Press release by the Cypriot Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the signing of the Cyprus-France defense agreement
(10) Strategy Defense Journal, Vol. 152, June 2007, P. 25
By Ioannis Michaletos
The issue of oil drilling rights in the eastern Mediterranean Sea has emerged over the past few months, after the initiative enacted by the Cypriot government to proceed in handing out research and drilling rights for expected oil reserves deep under the sea, estimated to be worth some 450 billion USD at current prices (1).
Cyprus proceeded in cooperating with the other interested parties – due to geographical proximity- Egypt and Lebanon, whose exclusive economic zones might also be rich in oil. Furthermore, Israel and Cyprus are also cooperating, and it seems likely that they will also form a consensus on how to share the undersea wealth still to be found.
Naturally, longtime rival Turkey has viewed the developments that unfolded between January and March 2007 with increased attention and alarm, and has made threatening demands against the Cypriot Republic. On the 27th of January, the President of the non-recognized Turkish state of Northern Cyprus, Mehmet Ali-Talat, stated that there is a chance of unexpected and violent developments due to Cypriot actions in relation to the oil issue (2). Then, on the 30th of January, the Turkish daily Hurriyet reported the demand by Ankara towards the Lebanese and Egyptian governments to withdraw their intention to research for oil in an area where Turkey has interests as well (3).
Moreover, the newspaper noted the willingness of the Turkish administration to react dynamically should its interests not taken into account. The accusations by Turkey that Cyprus does not represent the whole of the Island and the defense by Nicosia that it will continue with its project resulted in the circumnavigation of Cyprus by the Turkish Navy in a “tour de force” in early February (4). By that time the overall situation resulted in a multitude of press releases and op-eds in Turkey, Cyprus and Greece commenting on the possibility of a conflict with oil as the cause. Even though the international media did not give analytical coverage to the above, it came to the attention of the industry’s decision-makers interested in exploiting the vast amounts of hydrocarbon that rests beneath the Cypriot Sea.
On the 6th of March, Ronald Schilcher, the USA Ambassador in Cyprus, addressed the public via the CNNTurk TV sation and expressed the opinion that it is Cyprus’ sovereign right to decide whether it wishes to exploit oil that is found in its territorial or exclusive economic zone (5). This was a clear indication that the USA is very much interested in securing a strong percentage of influence in order to gain contracts for the extraction of oil in an era where energy security has become the catch phrase, and a political nightmare for many concerned power-brokers and corporations across the world.
Now, despite Turkish opposition, Cyprus has already begun the process of initiating a bidding procedure for the aforementioned oil fields. 11 areas off of southern Cyprus will be the first where the tests for oil will begin. The total surface area is around 70,000 sq. km, and there are also good indications of discovering natural gas as well. French consultants employed by the Cypriot government have already stated that at depths in excess of 3,000 meters there is also a high probability of discovering gas fields as well.
Cyprus has already stated that it will issue three types of permit in relation to the oil fields. The first will be for tests covering a one-year time-frame, the second for three years and lastly a 25-year development license according to which the companies will be able to produce and process oil and gas. As part of its marketing endeavors, from now until mid-July (when the first permits are set to be issued), the Cypriot government plans to organize trips across the major oil capitals of the world in order to market the new riches of the island to prospective investors.
The recent developments around the Cypriot oil treasure are also related with previous Turkish-Israeli initiatives that started back in 2001, when the Geophysical Institute of Israel, an Israeli research team and the TRAO Company (Turkish Petroleum) conducted explorations in the Alexandretta Gulf close to the Turkish–Syrian border. The head of the Israeli group, Ephraim Levi, stated in the Turkish press that there are large amounts of gas as well in the wider area and the results from the initial research were positive and satisfactory. However, over the past few years the cooling of Turkish-Israeli relations has put a hold on their joint exploration project, though it has not been abandoned.
The most recent development in energy relations between the two states was the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Ehoud Olmert to Ankara in late February, when the plan for constructing an underwater oil pipeline from the Ceyhan Turkish port to the Israeli one of Aschalon. It is important to note that the first port mentioned is the major oil terminal for the Eastern Mediterranean region and the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline transferring Caspian oil ends there (6). Therefore, the oil politics in this periphery are related with the wider geoeconomic structure created since the end of the Cold War, and of course it has attracted the interest of all global powers and energy related entities.
Another notable development is the agreement reached between Libya and Turkey in late 2004, concerning the exploitation of probable oil reservoir basins off the coast of the former. The investment by the Turkish companies was estimated at 2 billion USD. However, there is no current information regarding whether the research findings were satisfactory to proceed in commercial exploitation (7).
For the time being, the issue of Cypriot oil is gathering importance and all interested parties are trying to place themselves in a position of advantage. Large oil companies from the USA, Russia, the UK, China, Norway, France and Germany seem to be interested in investing for the assumed hydrocarbon reservoirs off the coast of Cyprus. For their part the government and business officials in Nicosia are touring the world’s oil capitals like London, Houston, New York and Moscow in order to muster support for the plans and advertise their deep sea wealth.
As can be easily understood, the importance of energy has as an effect the culmination of various diplomatic and geopolitical schemes. The US administration, which has traditionally gravitated towards a pro-Turkish stance on the perennial Cypriot issue, has moved a bit towards healing the sensitivities of the Greek Cypriots and the relations between the two states can be considered as excellent for the time being. The US Ambassador to Cyprus said in April that his country continues to value Cyprus as a close partner in the joint effort to combat terrorism, proliferation of WMD and organized crime (8). Addressing a ceremony for the donation of an underwater camera by the US Embassy and the US Customs to Cyprus’ Marine Police, Mr. Schlicher also said that he is pleased ”the US and Cyprus continue to work closely together in many areas and that our co-operation with Cypriot law enforcement agencies continues to be excellent.”
Another parallel development is the enhanced French involvement in Cyprus and the wider Mediterranean region. Cyprus and France have signed an agreement for defense cooperation between the two countries in a bid to strengthen bilateral relations - a decision taken during Cyprus President Tassos Papadopoulos’ visit to France in November 2006. The agreement was signed at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Nicosia by Cypriot Minister of Foreign Affairs Yiorgos Lillikas and French Minister of Defense Michele Alliot-Marie.
In statements after the signing ceremony, Mr. Lillikas expressed his satisfaction and noted that it is a natural development of everything that was agreed during President Papadopoulos’ meeting with President Jacques Chirac. “France and Cyprus have always had excellent political relations, they have and share a common vision on international issues and now as EU partners have shown that with their approach they can contribute to peace in the Middle East,” Mr. Lillikas added.
“The crisis in Lebanon gave both countries the chance to cooperate in the military field with benefits not only for both countries but mainly for Middle East countries. I wish and hope that just as Cyprus proved to be a factor of stability in the Middle East region, the solution to the Cyprus problem and Cyprus’ reunification will prove that Cyprus can, reunited, with the cooperation of all partners such as France, help in peace and stability in the region,” he also said.
Ms. Alliot-Marie said that it was an agreement which allows relations to strengthen between the two ministries, and added: “It provides for greater exchange in training issues, on the level of joint maneuvers, when analyzing the geostrategic situation. It is a continuation of the existing relations.” Already, both states train jointly regularly and French Special Operations Forces are backing up the Lebanon UN forces through the use of Cypriot bases, assorted with an aeronautical French team (9). Recent information that surfaced in a Greek defense journal reveals that during the military parade on the 14th of July in Paris, a Cypriot unit will participate- the first time an EU Army corps has been invited for the French national day, a sure indication of the warming in relations between these countries (10).
Overall, the island of Cyprus has upgraded its political, economic and military value and apart from the three guarantee forces of the 1959 Zurich treaty (Greece, Turkey and the UK), the USA and France, as well as Russia and the surrounding Middle Eastern states, are entangled in the regional political developments that amongst other include energy security. Cyprus is already a well-developed state and a recent report that was published by the European Commission last month describes future economic prospects as “excellent.” The production of hydrocarbon will further empower this island of 800,000 citizens to become the regional hub of Southeastern Europe, the East Mediterranean, the Black Sea and the Middle East, thus reaching a market of around 1 billion people. On the other hand, the delicate geopolitical balances should be taken into account since the turbulent recent history of the region has produced conflicts and quagmires mostly related to the control of energy routes and supplies. The aspirations of some of the strongest global interest groups will once dominate the fate of the Eastern Mediterranean centered on Cyprus and based on the “black gold” underneath.
References:
(1) jamestown.org/publications_details.php?volume_id=420&&issue_id=4024
A paper by the Jamestown Foundation discussing the Cyprus oil issue
(2) www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=64926
Article by the Turkish Daily News newspaper concerning Ali-Talat’s statements
(3) www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/30/news/union.php
Article by the International Herald Tribune on the Turkish threats to Lebanon-Egypt
www.strategypage.com/qnd/balkans/articles/20070208.aspx
Report by the Strategy Page service on the Turkish Navy movements
(4) https://turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=67677
Article by the Turkish Daily News on the statements by the US Ambassador in Cyprus
(6)
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=2824
Paper by the Global Research organization on Turkish-Israeli joint energy projects
(7)Hellenic Defense Journal, Vol. 14, April 2007, P. 111
(8) www.mfa.gov.cy/mfa/Embassies/HagueEmbassy.nsf/All/1D63CB4871188EAFC12572BB003957FA?OpenDocument&print
Press release by the Cypriot Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the US Ambassador’s statements
(9) www.mfa.gov.cy/mfa/mfa2006.nsf/All/6AD36B7AD6606DFFC225729100367E73
Press release by the Cypriot Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the signing of the Cyprus-France defense agreement
(10) Strategy Defense Journal, Vol. 152, June 2007, P. 25
U.S. intelligence chief concerned over Russia's spying
20:16 | 28/ 06/ 2007
NEW YORK, June 28 (RIA Novosti) - The U.S. intelligence chief said Thursday he was concerned about increased levels of Russian intelligence operations against the United States.
Speaking during a meeting at an independent political think tank in New York, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said he was worried about a growing number of attempts to break into U.S. restricted computer networks, reportedly performed by Russian intelligence organizations.
He said Russia's spying had been "extremely aggressive" when it came to attempts to hack into computers at defense companies and financial institutions.
McConnell, who succeeded John Negroponte as U.S. Director of National Intelligence in February, circulated in April proposed amendments to the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to respond to its perceived inflexibility and inability to counter the threat of terrorism.
According to media reports, McConnell proposed:
- monitoring foreign nationals without approval from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC);
- revising the standards of proof required for intelligence organizations to obtain phone call and e-mail information through FISC court orders;
- extending the validity of FISA surveillance warrants from 120 days to one year;
- granting phone companies civil immunity from privacy invasion lawsuits related to their cooperation with governmental terrorist surveillance programs;
- extending from 72 hours to one week the timeframe in which intelligence officers may conduct surveillance without a FISC court order in emergency situations.
McConnell, who took over the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies and their 100,000 employees less than three months ago, assured the participants of the meeting that all legislative initiatives would affect foreign nationals rather than U.S. citizens.
He said the U.S. intelligence community would take a more aggressive posture toward contacts with Pakistan, Iran, Iraq and some other countries that had been involved in spying or conducting terrorist acts against the United States.
The U.S. national counterintelligence chief, Joel Brenner, said in June that the number of Russian agents operating in the country had reached "Cold War levels."
He said in a radio interview: "They are sending over an increasing and troubling number of intelligence officers into the United States," adding that Russia, China, Iran and Cuba were the most persistent and aggressive intelligence threats to the U.S.
NEW YORK, June 28 (RIA Novosti) - The U.S. intelligence chief said Thursday he was concerned about increased levels of Russian intelligence operations against the United States.
Speaking during a meeting at an independent political think tank in New York, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said he was worried about a growing number of attempts to break into U.S. restricted computer networks, reportedly performed by Russian intelligence organizations.
He said Russia's spying had been "extremely aggressive" when it came to attempts to hack into computers at defense companies and financial institutions.
McConnell, who succeeded John Negroponte as U.S. Director of National Intelligence in February, circulated in April proposed amendments to the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to respond to its perceived inflexibility and inability to counter the threat of terrorism.
According to media reports, McConnell proposed:
- monitoring foreign nationals without approval from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC);
- revising the standards of proof required for intelligence organizations to obtain phone call and e-mail information through FISC court orders;
- extending the validity of FISA surveillance warrants from 120 days to one year;
- granting phone companies civil immunity from privacy invasion lawsuits related to their cooperation with governmental terrorist surveillance programs;
- extending from 72 hours to one week the timeframe in which intelligence officers may conduct surveillance without a FISC court order in emergency situations.
McConnell, who took over the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies and their 100,000 employees less than three months ago, assured the participants of the meeting that all legislative initiatives would affect foreign nationals rather than U.S. citizens.
He said the U.S. intelligence community would take a more aggressive posture toward contacts with Pakistan, Iran, Iraq and some other countries that had been involved in spying or conducting terrorist acts against the United States.
The U.S. national counterintelligence chief, Joel Brenner, said in June that the number of Russian agents operating in the country had reached "Cold War levels."
He said in a radio interview: "They are sending over an increasing and troubling number of intelligence officers into the United States," adding that Russia, China, Iran and Cuba were the most persistent and aggressive intelligence threats to the U.S.
Alleged spy says Berezovsky, Litvinenko involved him in MI6
14:09 | 07/ 07/ 2007
MOSCOW, July 7 (RIA Novosti) - Vyacheslav Zharko, a Russian ex-security service officer who admitted earlier working for British intelligence, said Saturday murdered Alexander Litvinenko and fugitive Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky introduced him to MI6.
Last week FSB said the alleged spy, Zharko, had disclosed the names of four British intelligence officers, and given locations in Europe where meetings had taken place, including information regarding the assignments he had been given.
"This is a long story [of recruitment] and Berezovsky along with the late Litvinenko played the lead roles in it," Zharko said in an interview with popular tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda. "They introduced me to British Secret Intelligence Service agents."
Earlier Saturday the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said it had completed an inquiry into the ex-security officer's claim on spying for the British intelligence and launched a criminal case on espionage charges, saying in particular that it had "enough information, which indicates that between 2003 and 2007 British SIS officers recruited him and later used as an agent for spying to the detriment of the Russian Federation's security."
Zharko said Berezovsky, who was granted political asylum in U.K. in 2003, introduced him to Litvinenko in London in 2002.
"Alexander [Litvinenko] introduced me in turn to a certain Martin Flint, who said he was representing business circles," Zharko said. "Then, I got acquainted with two more people, who offered me to render them consulting services. They were interested in political and economic situation in Russia."
The British, he said, paid him 200 euros per month for the information, which, according to him, he gathered from various Internet sources and therefore was not doing anything illegal.
When asked who may be behind the murder of secret service defector Litvinenko, who died of radioactive poisoning November 23, 2006 in London, Zharko said that in his opinion it could be a result Litvinenko's "personal experiments."
"On the whole there was an absolutely negative attitude toward Litvinenko within Berezovsky's circle. Eventually, Boris Abramovich [Berezovsky] moved him away from himself and considerably cut his allowance," Zharko said. "The British at the same time declined his services. He [Litvinenko] kept telling me that he needed money badly. Possibly, that with the help of [Akhmed] Zakayev and his other Chechen 'friends' he could have got involved in smuggling of radioactive materials, and then - by accident or not - received a lethal dose. This is my personal opinion."
Berezovsky and Chechen emissary Zakayev were both granted political asylum in the U.K. after fleeing Russia, where they are wanted on charges of fraud and complicity in terrorism, respectively. The Russian Prosecutor's Office has repeatedly approached British authorities with a request that the two men be extradited to their country of origin, but each request has been denied.
Zharko said he spoke last time with Berezovsky after the May 31 news conference given by another former security officer Andrei Lugovoi. He said Berezovsky asked him to meet immediately, but, according to Zharko, he already made up his mind to quit "playing games with him and MI6."
"I realized that my reviews and consulting works were just a stage of drawing me into something more serious," he said. "At one of the meetings I was asked to gather information on agents of Russian special services, which could be later used for their recruitment by Britain. They even wanted to give me a special portable computer for sending information. But I realized that it all leads to a pure espionage."
Andrei Lugovoi was accused by the Crown Prosecution Service on May 22 of murdering Litvinenko. Though Litvinenko is thought to have been poisoned with radioactive Polonium-210, no official autopsy report has so far been made available. Lugovoi has vehemently denied the accusations against him claiming they are politically motivated, and in turn accused Litvinenko and Berezovsky of spying for MI6.
MOSCOW, July 7 (RIA Novosti) - Vyacheslav Zharko, a Russian ex-security service officer who admitted earlier working for British intelligence, said Saturday murdered Alexander Litvinenko and fugitive Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky introduced him to MI6.
Last week FSB said the alleged spy, Zharko, had disclosed the names of four British intelligence officers, and given locations in Europe where meetings had taken place, including information regarding the assignments he had been given.
"This is a long story [of recruitment] and Berezovsky along with the late Litvinenko played the lead roles in it," Zharko said in an interview with popular tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda. "They introduced me to British Secret Intelligence Service agents."
Earlier Saturday the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said it had completed an inquiry into the ex-security officer's claim on spying for the British intelligence and launched a criminal case on espionage charges, saying in particular that it had "enough information, which indicates that between 2003 and 2007 British SIS officers recruited him and later used as an agent for spying to the detriment of the Russian Federation's security."
Zharko said Berezovsky, who was granted political asylum in U.K. in 2003, introduced him to Litvinenko in London in 2002.
"Alexander [Litvinenko] introduced me in turn to a certain Martin Flint, who said he was representing business circles," Zharko said. "Then, I got acquainted with two more people, who offered me to render them consulting services. They were interested in political and economic situation in Russia."
The British, he said, paid him 200 euros per month for the information, which, according to him, he gathered from various Internet sources and therefore was not doing anything illegal.
When asked who may be behind the murder of secret service defector Litvinenko, who died of radioactive poisoning November 23, 2006 in London, Zharko said that in his opinion it could be a result Litvinenko's "personal experiments."
"On the whole there was an absolutely negative attitude toward Litvinenko within Berezovsky's circle. Eventually, Boris Abramovich [Berezovsky] moved him away from himself and considerably cut his allowance," Zharko said. "The British at the same time declined his services. He [Litvinenko] kept telling me that he needed money badly. Possibly, that with the help of [Akhmed] Zakayev and his other Chechen 'friends' he could have got involved in smuggling of radioactive materials, and then - by accident or not - received a lethal dose. This is my personal opinion."
Berezovsky and Chechen emissary Zakayev were both granted political asylum in the U.K. after fleeing Russia, where they are wanted on charges of fraud and complicity in terrorism, respectively. The Russian Prosecutor's Office has repeatedly approached British authorities with a request that the two men be extradited to their country of origin, but each request has been denied.
Zharko said he spoke last time with Berezovsky after the May 31 news conference given by another former security officer Andrei Lugovoi. He said Berezovsky asked him to meet immediately, but, according to Zharko, he already made up his mind to quit "playing games with him and MI6."
"I realized that my reviews and consulting works were just a stage of drawing me into something more serious," he said. "At one of the meetings I was asked to gather information on agents of Russian special services, which could be later used for their recruitment by Britain. They even wanted to give me a special portable computer for sending information. But I realized that it all leads to a pure espionage."
Andrei Lugovoi was accused by the Crown Prosecution Service on May 22 of murdering Litvinenko. Though Litvinenko is thought to have been poisoned with radioactive Polonium-210, no official autopsy report has so far been made available. Lugovoi has vehemently denied the accusations against him claiming they are politically motivated, and in turn accused Litvinenko and Berezovsky of spying for MI6.
SAP Admits To Corporate Espionage Charges
http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/07/sap-admits-to-c.html
By Scott Gilbertson July 03, 2007 | 12:17:08 PMCategories: Current Affairs
SAP, one of the largest business application and enterprise software providers in the world, has admitted to corporate espionage.
Oracle Systems, a competitor in the burgeoning corporate database market, filed suit against SAP earlier this year claiming the company obtained secret Oracle product information which SAP used to entice new customers.
Today SAP admitted that it obtained Oracle documents through TomorrowNow — a Texas-based customer support unit SAP purchased in 2005 — but SAP maintains that it did not have access to Oracle’s intellectual property.
Oracle claims that TomorrowNow accessed Oracle’s information by using the login info from defecting customers and then the company went on to concealed its real identity by using fake phone numbers and bogus e-mail addresses such as the ever popular, test@testyomamma.com.
Oracle also alleges that SAP violated its intellectual property rights by copying code and claiming it as its own.
While SAP has admitted the wrongdoing, the lawsuit and feud between the two shows no signs of abating
By Scott Gilbertson July 03, 2007 | 12:17:08 PMCategories: Current Affairs
SAP, one of the largest business application and enterprise software providers in the world, has admitted to corporate espionage.
Oracle Systems, a competitor in the burgeoning corporate database market, filed suit against SAP earlier this year claiming the company obtained secret Oracle product information which SAP used to entice new customers.
Today SAP admitted that it obtained Oracle documents through TomorrowNow — a Texas-based customer support unit SAP purchased in 2005 — but SAP maintains that it did not have access to Oracle’s intellectual property.
Oracle claims that TomorrowNow accessed Oracle’s information by using the login info from defecting customers and then the company went on to concealed its real identity by using fake phone numbers and bogus e-mail addresses such as the ever popular, test@testyomamma.com.
Oracle also alleges that SAP violated its intellectual property rights by copying code and claiming it as its own.
While SAP has admitted the wrongdoing, the lawsuit and feud between the two shows no signs of abating
Latest edition Released : "The Hoover's Index" of the Top 1,000 Most Searched Companies
Business Intelligence Provider Hoover's Releases Latest Edition of "The Hoover's Index" of the Top 1,000 Most Searched Companies
Hoover's today announced the latest edition of "The Hoover's Index," a free, proprietary monthly index of the leading public and private companies, non-profits, and associations which represent the brand leaders, up-and-comers and "buzz" creators driving the U.S. and international economies. Based on a proprietary algorithm that takes into account the search trends of business professionals, including both organic and internal searches on Hoover's site, as well as business searches conducted via major search engines, The Hoover's Index company list is a valuable resource for business executives, financial analysts, mutual fund managers and investment advisors in gauging which companies are capturing the interest of the global business community.
Austin, TX (PRWEB) July 7, 2007 - Hoover's, Inc. today announced the latest edition of "The Hoover's Index," a free, proprietary monthly index of the leading public and private companies, non-profits, and associations which represent the brand leaders, up-and-comers and "buzz" creators driving the U.S. and international economies.
With both buyout offers and initial public offerings in the multi-billion dollar range, the almighty dollar is truly the common denominator in this latest batch of big movers on The Hoover's Index.
The Hoover's Index, which reveals monthly spikes in business search activity, is based on a proprietary algorithm that takes into account the search trends of business professionals, including both organic and internal searches on Hoover's site, as well as business searches conducted via major search engines. Movement above and below index determines ranking, instead of gross search volume.
"The high rankers in this latest edition of The Hoover's Index include two repeat performers from the Top 10 on the previous list," said Tim Walker, Hoover's industry analyst. "With both buyout offers and initial public offerings in the multi-billion dollar range, the almighty dollar is truly the common denominator in this latest batch of big movers on The Hoover's Index."
The Blackstone Group L.P. (Index #842)
Blackstone's dominant performance on The Hoover's Index month after month reveals a fundamental shift in how the business world regards the private equity firm. A company that keeps showing up near the top of the Index month after month doesn't get there solely because of heavy search activity. Because of the way the Index is calculated, the company has to keep beating its average search activity by a mile, even as that average continues to rise. Blackstone was making noise in the second half of 2006 with a variety of leveraged buyouts. Then came its bidding war against Vornado for the right to buy Equity Office Properties. And then . . . Blackstone's IPO, which dominated the financial news in late June. The short version: Blackstone has gone from being prominent in its own niche industry to being one of the business world's rock stars.
VMware, Inc. (Index #398)
Though it lacked the marquee appeal of the Blackstone IPO, VMware rode high throughout May (when it ranked 15th on the Index) and June thanks to its own announcement that it would make a $100 million public offering -- equivalent to 10% of the company. Since then, the software company has punched above its weight in commanding the attention of Hoover's users. Credit where it's due, though: VMware, which was founded in 1998, is a heavyweight in the field of virtualization software, and it brought in more than $700 million in revenue in 2006. VMware's wares allow network administrators to spread computer functions across multiple systems or servers so that the various machines act as one. This allows big users of computing power to lower operating costs, since they need less hardware to carry out the same computing tasks. Storage powerhouse EMC has owned VMware since 2004.
Facebook, Inc. (Index #364)
In the world of Internet business, networking hub Facebook is the "It Company" of the moment. It seems like you can't turn around without stumbling across the smiling mug of its young CEO/founder, Mark Zuckerberg, on the cover of a business magazine. Why? The 23-year-old Zuckerberg has garnered lots of attention for turning down a rumored $1 billion buyout offer from Yahoo!. Mind you, he didn't turn it down for the publicity -- it's apparent that he believes he has bigger fish to fry with Facebook, which is growing like gangbusters. (It's adding more than 100,000 users on an average day.) These days there's also huge overall interest in social media sites/companies, including MySpace and LinkedIn, because as a group they've gone beyond being interesting: now they're actually important in business terms. Finally, Facebook has recently launched an innovative platform strategy, which allows the company to act as a Web portal and provide online services, for example, to let people see where their friends have traveled, or what they're shopping for. The company started by connecting college students, but now it has gone far beyond the campus.
Washington Group International, Inc. (Index #364)
This Washington does not usually go for a job as small as cutting down a single cherry tree; it would, however, be happy to build you a nuclear power plant. Even after two stints in bankruptcy, Washington Group International remains one of the world's largest construction and engineering firms. The company, once known as Morrison Knudsen, tackles big jobs: think bridges, highways, factories, pipelines, railroads . . . and nuclear plants. Washington Group also makes a specialty of remediation and decommissioning nuclear facilities, and it rates as one of the top international environmental engineering firms. Now engineering giant URS Corporation is set to buy the company for $2.6 billion; Washington Group should win URS an important position in the nuclear business, which has been surging in the face of sustained high prices for fossil fuels.
A.G. Edwards, Inc. (Index #327)
Why build a brokerage when you can buy one? That seems to be what's driving Wachovia in its $6.8 billion acquisition of A.G. Edwards, one of the oldest and largest retail brokerages around. Wachovia has been on a tear lately, snapping up a string of banks and other financial services companies. The biggest deal of the bunch was its 2006 purchase of Golden West Financial, which cost more than $25 billion. The A.G. Edwards purchase will help Wachovia compete with Merrill Lynch and Citigroup as one of the top brokerage businesses in the U.S.
(As an example, a Hoover's Index of 406 means that search volume was 4.06 times higher than the average search volume.)
To see the entire list of The Hoover's Index, click "here." Additionally, for those who would like direct delivery of news about the latest developments with The Hoover's Index, the "Hoover's Hottest Companies" newsletter is available "here."
The Hoover's Index, which utilizes more than a billion data points, is compiled from a universe which includes all worldwide companies that trade on a major stock exchange, as well as private companies identified as leaders by Hoover's business intelligence experts. Hoover's subscribers can click through from The Hoover's Index to in-depth coverage of the history, operations, and executives leading each company on the list.
Hoover's combines insightful editorial expertise, proprietary data collection technologies and a smart, engaging presentation to give its customers easy access to the most enlightening business information available.
About Hoover's, Inc.
Hoover's, a D&B company, gives its customers a competitive edge with insightful information about industries, companies, and key decision makers. Hoover's provides this up-to-date business information for sales, marketing, business development, and other professionals who need intelligence on U.S. and global companies, industries, and the people who lead them. This information, along with powerful tools to search, sort, download and integrate the content, is available through Hoover's, the company's premier online service. Hoover's business intelligence is also available through corporate intranets and distribution agreements with licensees, as well as via Hoover's books. The company is headquartered in Austin, Texas.
Hoover's today announced the latest edition of "The Hoover's Index," a free, proprietary monthly index of the leading public and private companies, non-profits, and associations which represent the brand leaders, up-and-comers and "buzz" creators driving the U.S. and international economies. Based on a proprietary algorithm that takes into account the search trends of business professionals, including both organic and internal searches on Hoover's site, as well as business searches conducted via major search engines, The Hoover's Index company list is a valuable resource for business executives, financial analysts, mutual fund managers and investment advisors in gauging which companies are capturing the interest of the global business community.
Austin, TX (PRWEB) July 7, 2007 - Hoover's, Inc. today announced the latest edition of "The Hoover's Index," a free, proprietary monthly index of the leading public and private companies, non-profits, and associations which represent the brand leaders, up-and-comers and "buzz" creators driving the U.S. and international economies.
With both buyout offers and initial public offerings in the multi-billion dollar range, the almighty dollar is truly the common denominator in this latest batch of big movers on The Hoover's Index.
The Hoover's Index, which reveals monthly spikes in business search activity, is based on a proprietary algorithm that takes into account the search trends of business professionals, including both organic and internal searches on Hoover's site, as well as business searches conducted via major search engines. Movement above and below index determines ranking, instead of gross search volume.
"The high rankers in this latest edition of The Hoover's Index include two repeat performers from the Top 10 on the previous list," said Tim Walker, Hoover's industry analyst. "With both buyout offers and initial public offerings in the multi-billion dollar range, the almighty dollar is truly the common denominator in this latest batch of big movers on The Hoover's Index."
The Blackstone Group L.P. (Index #842)
Blackstone's dominant performance on The Hoover's Index month after month reveals a fundamental shift in how the business world regards the private equity firm. A company that keeps showing up near the top of the Index month after month doesn't get there solely because of heavy search activity. Because of the way the Index is calculated, the company has to keep beating its average search activity by a mile, even as that average continues to rise. Blackstone was making noise in the second half of 2006 with a variety of leveraged buyouts. Then came its bidding war against Vornado for the right to buy Equity Office Properties. And then . . . Blackstone's IPO, which dominated the financial news in late June. The short version: Blackstone has gone from being prominent in its own niche industry to being one of the business world's rock stars.
VMware, Inc. (Index #398)
Though it lacked the marquee appeal of the Blackstone IPO, VMware rode high throughout May (when it ranked 15th on the Index) and June thanks to its own announcement that it would make a $100 million public offering -- equivalent to 10% of the company. Since then, the software company has punched above its weight in commanding the attention of Hoover's users. Credit where it's due, though: VMware, which was founded in 1998, is a heavyweight in the field of virtualization software, and it brought in more than $700 million in revenue in 2006. VMware's wares allow network administrators to spread computer functions across multiple systems or servers so that the various machines act as one. This allows big users of computing power to lower operating costs, since they need less hardware to carry out the same computing tasks. Storage powerhouse EMC has owned VMware since 2004.
Facebook, Inc. (Index #364)
In the world of Internet business, networking hub Facebook is the "It Company" of the moment. It seems like you can't turn around without stumbling across the smiling mug of its young CEO/founder, Mark Zuckerberg, on the cover of a business magazine. Why? The 23-year-old Zuckerberg has garnered lots of attention for turning down a rumored $1 billion buyout offer from Yahoo!. Mind you, he didn't turn it down for the publicity -- it's apparent that he believes he has bigger fish to fry with Facebook, which is growing like gangbusters. (It's adding more than 100,000 users on an average day.) These days there's also huge overall interest in social media sites/companies, including MySpace and LinkedIn, because as a group they've gone beyond being interesting: now they're actually important in business terms. Finally, Facebook has recently launched an innovative platform strategy, which allows the company to act as a Web portal and provide online services, for example, to let people see where their friends have traveled, or what they're shopping for. The company started by connecting college students, but now it has gone far beyond the campus.
Washington Group International, Inc. (Index #364)
This Washington does not usually go for a job as small as cutting down a single cherry tree; it would, however, be happy to build you a nuclear power plant. Even after two stints in bankruptcy, Washington Group International remains one of the world's largest construction and engineering firms. The company, once known as Morrison Knudsen, tackles big jobs: think bridges, highways, factories, pipelines, railroads . . . and nuclear plants. Washington Group also makes a specialty of remediation and decommissioning nuclear facilities, and it rates as one of the top international environmental engineering firms. Now engineering giant URS Corporation is set to buy the company for $2.6 billion; Washington Group should win URS an important position in the nuclear business, which has been surging in the face of sustained high prices for fossil fuels.
A.G. Edwards, Inc. (Index #327)
Why build a brokerage when you can buy one? That seems to be what's driving Wachovia in its $6.8 billion acquisition of A.G. Edwards, one of the oldest and largest retail brokerages around. Wachovia has been on a tear lately, snapping up a string of banks and other financial services companies. The biggest deal of the bunch was its 2006 purchase of Golden West Financial, which cost more than $25 billion. The A.G. Edwards purchase will help Wachovia compete with Merrill Lynch and Citigroup as one of the top brokerage businesses in the U.S.
(As an example, a Hoover's Index of 406 means that search volume was 4.06 times higher than the average search volume.)
To see the entire list of The Hoover's Index, click "here." Additionally, for those who would like direct delivery of news about the latest developments with The Hoover's Index, the "Hoover's Hottest Companies" newsletter is available "here."
The Hoover's Index, which utilizes more than a billion data points, is compiled from a universe which includes all worldwide companies that trade on a major stock exchange, as well as private companies identified as leaders by Hoover's business intelligence experts. Hoover's subscribers can click through from The Hoover's Index to in-depth coverage of the history, operations, and executives leading each company on the list.
Hoover's combines insightful editorial expertise, proprietary data collection technologies and a smart, engaging presentation to give its customers easy access to the most enlightening business information available.
About Hoover's, Inc.
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Bangalore: A vital link in global terror chain
Blore: A vital link in global terror chain
DH News Service,New Delhi:
A shocked countrys intelligence establishment is about to undertake a review of hitherto Pakistan-centric framework for unraveling the spread of terrorist tentacles in Bangalore and rest of Southern India in the wake of the suspected Bangalore link with the failed terror attack in the UK.
A “shocked” country’s intelligence establishment is about to undertake a review of hitherto Pakistan-centric framework for unraveling the spread of terrorist tentacles in Bangalore and rest of Southern India in the wake of the suspected Bangalore link with the failed terror attack in the UK.
With whatever little information the British investigators have shared with India in the last four days about the suspected involvement of three Bangaloreans in the terror plot, Indian intelligence agencies are inclined to assume that there might be a much larger “global” connection to the rise of terror network in Southern India, in particular in Bangalore over the last three years, said sources.
Until Thursday, UK investigators have not really shared much information about their interrogation and investigations into the failed terror attacks or the Glasgow attack, said sources, while indicating that they had nevertheless shared such information as was necessary to get further details about them from the Indian intelligence agencies.
Failed terror plot
An official British anti-terror team was incidentally here earlier this week for regular consultations with their Indian counterparts when the incidents happened in the UK. Apparently, the consultations ended up focusing on the failed terror plot’s Indian links.
Upon queries from their British counterparts, police and intelligence officials had knocked at the doors of Dr Maqbool Ahmed and Dr Zakia, the parents of Kafeel Ahmed and Dr Sabeel Ahmed, both suspected to be involved in the terror plot. Kafeel allegedly drove the burning car that rammed into Glasgow airport and presently undergoing treatment with 90 per cent burns.
The elderly parents were not only quizzed about their sons but also about their own past as they had travelled to many countries before settling down in Bangalore, said the sources.
Their relative, Dr Mohammed Haneef, presently detained in Melbourne for questioning, is suspected to be involved with banned SIMI and this is being currently investigated by intelligence agencies, according to the sources.
Intelligence agencies suggest the association of Kafeel and Shabeel with the Tablighi Jammat, an organisation that was set up in Delhi in 1926 which
has in recent decades spread its reach all over the world.
http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Jul72007/national2007070611389.asp
Daily News & Analysis
Saturday, July 07, 2007 8:48:00 AM
B’lore link exposes intelligence chinks
Arati R. Jerath & Josy Joseph
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1108646
NEW DELHI: Perturbed by the possibility of a Bangalore connection to the Glasgow attack, intelligence agencies are conducting their own probe to establish whether international terror modules have tentacles in south India.
This is a possibility the agencies did not consider till date in the firm belief that terrorist activities in India are driven by outfits based in Pakistan and Bangladesh, like Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and Harkat-ul-Ansar.
Investigators are now looking to see whether India, particularly south India, has become part of a wider international terror network through non-resident Indian (NRI) recruits like the three Bangaloreans who have emerged as suspects in the Glasgow attack.
The three Indians who have been linked to the terror attacks are Kafeel Ahmed, 27, the alleged driver of the blazing car at Glasgow airport, who is currently fighting for his life in hospital with 90% burns. His brother Sabeel Ahmed, 26, was arrested in Liverpool, north-west England, on June 30. Sabeel worked as a doctor at Halton Hospital in Runcorn, Cheshire.
The third Indian under suspicion is Mohammed Haneef, 27, who was arrested at Brisbane airport in eastern Australia on July 2 as he was about to fly to India. A cousin of the Ahmed brothers, Haneef also worked as a doctor at Halton Hospital till 2005.
A senior intelligence officer in Delhi said they are probing the activities and local connections of the two Ahmed brothers and Haneef through extensive questioning of their family members. They are also looking for money trails that would reveal a larger international involvement.
Significantly, the flurry of investigations by intelligence agencies seems to be part of a damage control exercise by the government, which is deeply concerned by the emergence of an Indian connection in an international terrorist incident.
So far, the UK government has not officially requested India for assistance or information about the detained doctors. This has created the impression here that the UK police do not have substantial evidence as yet to implicate the doctors. It explains why Prime Minister Manmohan Singh warned on Thursday against jumping to ``hasty conclusions’’.
A senior official said that the ongoing investigations in Bangalore are precautionary in nature, partly to put Indian intelligence on a firm footing with the authorities in UK and partly to shore up its own flanks for better understanding and penetration of terrorist networks here.
What is interesting is that the Bangalore police are not directly involved in the investigations. They are being handled by the intelligence agencies, which makes it an unofficial probe. It will be come official only if they unearth something solid or if the UK government makes a demarche for assistance.
The Bangalore connection is particularly worrying because since 2005, there has been a spurt in terrorist activities in south India, with one of the most sensational attacks taking place at the Bangalore-based campus of the Indian Institute of Science on December 28 that year.
In addition, Bangalore being India’s IT capital, the city has been consistently high on intelligence radar as a possible target.
Intelligence agencies have found two alarming trends in south India. Over the past couple of years, they have rounded up more than two dozen suspects who went to Pakistan for training in camps in Baluchistan. And they have picked up sympathisers recently returned from the Gulf where they had gone to work.
In the case of the Ahmed brothers, intelligence officers are probing for a link to the Gulf. In this connection, they are extensively questioning their parents who worked for a long time in hospitals in Iran and other countries in the Middle East.
Ahmed family under the microscope
Saturday, July 07, 2007 01:24:22 pm
http://www.timesnow.tv/Sections/World/
Ahmed_family_under_the_microscope/
articleshow/2184237.cms
FAILED UK TERROR PLOT: Bangalore Police and Intelligence officials are leaving no stone unturned to unearth the case and are interrogating the family of key suspects
As the Bangalore link to the UK terror plot thickens, the Bangalore Police and Intelligence officials are leaving no stone unturned to unearth the case and are interrogating the family of key suspects -- Sabeel Ahmed and Kafeel Ahmed – as a part of fact-finding exercise. The move by the Bangalore police comes after details were unearthed about conversations between Kafeel, the elder brother of Sabeel, and his parents, which clearly indicate their role in the UK terror plot.
On July 6, the Bangalore Police's crime branch interrogated the parents of Sabeel and Kafeel in their house in Banashankaree in Bangalore. Both Kafeel and Sabeel, who are currently under arrest in the UK, are sons of a doctor couple, who allegedly are key suspects in the plot.
The 27-year old Kafeel is alleged to have driven the explosive jeep into the Glasgow airport. The UK Police claims that the man, who was found with 90% burns and is currently undergoing treatment in a hospital in UK, is Kafeel.
While, Sabeel, has also been detained by the UK police on charges of the explosive jeep being parked at his house.
When TIMES NOW contacted the parents of both the suspects, Dr Zakia Ahmed (mother) on July 4 professed Sabeel's innocence. However, after the matters came to the fore about her second son's involvement, Dr Zakia remained tightlipped on the issue and refrained from answering any question.
While, on Saturday, both Dr Zakia and her husband, evaded camera even as the Crime Branch interrogated the family.
Commenting on the interrogation, Bangalore police official, Achuta Rao, said:"From our side, we are conducting enquiries." When asked about the findings of the case, he said:"Nothing more than what media has already covered about thier connection, their relations and their parentage. Most of it is already covered in media."
During the interrogation, the details of a conversation between Kafeel and his mother were revealed. Intelligence sources have tried to interpret that conversation.
Kafeel allegedly told his parents -- "I am involved in a large scale confidential project. It is about global warming. I cannot reveal the details." The statement has been interpreted as an involvement in a secret terror plan.
Kafeel also said:"The first presentation failed. Pray that the second goes off well. The time has come now. I will go to that place, finish that work and go to London." In this statement, the intelligence agencies have interpreted the word 'presentation' as a code word for terror attack
The link of Kafeel to Iraqi Doctor Billal Abdullah is another key thread in the terror investigation. Dr Bilal Abdullah is a member of a radical Islamist group and is believed to have been indoctrinated by the Al-Qaeda. Billal was also a co-driver of the explosive jeep driven into the Galsgow Airport. Intelligence sources say Billal's terror plan had the blessings of Osama-Bin Laden.
It was Billal, who possibly indoctrinated Kafeel and Sabeel into his set-up.
As intelligence officials pieced the threads together, five more Indian doctors were called for questioning in Australia. They were later released but police are checking thousands of computer files for clues even as another Indian doctor -- Haneef Mohammad -- continues to remain in detention.
The investigation has reached a crucial stage and the Bangalore link is likely to be vital to that investigation. The parents of the two key suspects continue to remain tightlipped on the issue.
DH News Service,New Delhi:
A shocked countrys intelligence establishment is about to undertake a review of hitherto Pakistan-centric framework for unraveling the spread of terrorist tentacles in Bangalore and rest of Southern India in the wake of the suspected Bangalore link with the failed terror attack in the UK.
A “shocked” country’s intelligence establishment is about to undertake a review of hitherto Pakistan-centric framework for unraveling the spread of terrorist tentacles in Bangalore and rest of Southern India in the wake of the suspected Bangalore link with the failed terror attack in the UK.
With whatever little information the British investigators have shared with India in the last four days about the suspected involvement of three Bangaloreans in the terror plot, Indian intelligence agencies are inclined to assume that there might be a much larger “global” connection to the rise of terror network in Southern India, in particular in Bangalore over the last three years, said sources.
Until Thursday, UK investigators have not really shared much information about their interrogation and investigations into the failed terror attacks or the Glasgow attack, said sources, while indicating that they had nevertheless shared such information as was necessary to get further details about them from the Indian intelligence agencies.
Failed terror plot
An official British anti-terror team was incidentally here earlier this week for regular consultations with their Indian counterparts when the incidents happened in the UK. Apparently, the consultations ended up focusing on the failed terror plot’s Indian links.
Upon queries from their British counterparts, police and intelligence officials had knocked at the doors of Dr Maqbool Ahmed and Dr Zakia, the parents of Kafeel Ahmed and Dr Sabeel Ahmed, both suspected to be involved in the terror plot. Kafeel allegedly drove the burning car that rammed into Glasgow airport and presently undergoing treatment with 90 per cent burns.
The elderly parents were not only quizzed about their sons but also about their own past as they had travelled to many countries before settling down in Bangalore, said the sources.
Their relative, Dr Mohammed Haneef, presently detained in Melbourne for questioning, is suspected to be involved with banned SIMI and this is being currently investigated by intelligence agencies, according to the sources.
Intelligence agencies suggest the association of Kafeel and Shabeel with the Tablighi Jammat, an organisation that was set up in Delhi in 1926 which
has in recent decades spread its reach all over the world.
http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Jul72007/national2007070611389.asp
Daily News & Analysis
Saturday, July 07, 2007 8:48:00 AM
B’lore link exposes intelligence chinks
Arati R. Jerath & Josy Joseph
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1108646
NEW DELHI: Perturbed by the possibility of a Bangalore connection to the Glasgow attack, intelligence agencies are conducting their own probe to establish whether international terror modules have tentacles in south India.
This is a possibility the agencies did not consider till date in the firm belief that terrorist activities in India are driven by outfits based in Pakistan and Bangladesh, like Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and Harkat-ul-Ansar.
Investigators are now looking to see whether India, particularly south India, has become part of a wider international terror network through non-resident Indian (NRI) recruits like the three Bangaloreans who have emerged as suspects in the Glasgow attack.
The three Indians who have been linked to the terror attacks are Kafeel Ahmed, 27, the alleged driver of the blazing car at Glasgow airport, who is currently fighting for his life in hospital with 90% burns. His brother Sabeel Ahmed, 26, was arrested in Liverpool, north-west England, on June 30. Sabeel worked as a doctor at Halton Hospital in Runcorn, Cheshire.
The third Indian under suspicion is Mohammed Haneef, 27, who was arrested at Brisbane airport in eastern Australia on July 2 as he was about to fly to India. A cousin of the Ahmed brothers, Haneef also worked as a doctor at Halton Hospital till 2005.
A senior intelligence officer in Delhi said they are probing the activities and local connections of the two Ahmed brothers and Haneef through extensive questioning of their family members. They are also looking for money trails that would reveal a larger international involvement.
Significantly, the flurry of investigations by intelligence agencies seems to be part of a damage control exercise by the government, which is deeply concerned by the emergence of an Indian connection in an international terrorist incident.
So far, the UK government has not officially requested India for assistance or information about the detained doctors. This has created the impression here that the UK police do not have substantial evidence as yet to implicate the doctors. It explains why Prime Minister Manmohan Singh warned on Thursday against jumping to ``hasty conclusions’’.
A senior official said that the ongoing investigations in Bangalore are precautionary in nature, partly to put Indian intelligence on a firm footing with the authorities in UK and partly to shore up its own flanks for better understanding and penetration of terrorist networks here.
What is interesting is that the Bangalore police are not directly involved in the investigations. They are being handled by the intelligence agencies, which makes it an unofficial probe. It will be come official only if they unearth something solid or if the UK government makes a demarche for assistance.
The Bangalore connection is particularly worrying because since 2005, there has been a spurt in terrorist activities in south India, with one of the most sensational attacks taking place at the Bangalore-based campus of the Indian Institute of Science on December 28 that year.
In addition, Bangalore being India’s IT capital, the city has been consistently high on intelligence radar as a possible target.
Intelligence agencies have found two alarming trends in south India. Over the past couple of years, they have rounded up more than two dozen suspects who went to Pakistan for training in camps in Baluchistan. And they have picked up sympathisers recently returned from the Gulf where they had gone to work.
In the case of the Ahmed brothers, intelligence officers are probing for a link to the Gulf. In this connection, they are extensively questioning their parents who worked for a long time in hospitals in Iran and other countries in the Middle East.
Ahmed family under the microscope
Saturday, July 07, 2007 01:24:22 pm
http://www.timesnow.tv/Sections/World/
Ahmed_family_under_the_microscope/
articleshow/2184237.cms
FAILED UK TERROR PLOT: Bangalore Police and Intelligence officials are leaving no stone unturned to unearth the case and are interrogating the family of key suspects
As the Bangalore link to the UK terror plot thickens, the Bangalore Police and Intelligence officials are leaving no stone unturned to unearth the case and are interrogating the family of key suspects -- Sabeel Ahmed and Kafeel Ahmed – as a part of fact-finding exercise. The move by the Bangalore police comes after details were unearthed about conversations between Kafeel, the elder brother of Sabeel, and his parents, which clearly indicate their role in the UK terror plot.
On July 6, the Bangalore Police's crime branch interrogated the parents of Sabeel and Kafeel in their house in Banashankaree in Bangalore. Both Kafeel and Sabeel, who are currently under arrest in the UK, are sons of a doctor couple, who allegedly are key suspects in the plot.
The 27-year old Kafeel is alleged to have driven the explosive jeep into the Glasgow airport. The UK Police claims that the man, who was found with 90% burns and is currently undergoing treatment in a hospital in UK, is Kafeel.
While, Sabeel, has also been detained by the UK police on charges of the explosive jeep being parked at his house.
When TIMES NOW contacted the parents of both the suspects, Dr Zakia Ahmed (mother) on July 4 professed Sabeel's innocence. However, after the matters came to the fore about her second son's involvement, Dr Zakia remained tightlipped on the issue and refrained from answering any question.
While, on Saturday, both Dr Zakia and her husband, evaded camera even as the Crime Branch interrogated the family.
Commenting on the interrogation, Bangalore police official, Achuta Rao, said:"From our side, we are conducting enquiries." When asked about the findings of the case, he said:"Nothing more than what media has already covered about thier connection, their relations and their parentage. Most of it is already covered in media."
During the interrogation, the details of a conversation between Kafeel and his mother were revealed. Intelligence sources have tried to interpret that conversation.
Kafeel allegedly told his parents -- "I am involved in a large scale confidential project. It is about global warming. I cannot reveal the details." The statement has been interpreted as an involvement in a secret terror plan.
Kafeel also said:"The first presentation failed. Pray that the second goes off well. The time has come now. I will go to that place, finish that work and go to London." In this statement, the intelligence agencies have interpreted the word 'presentation' as a code word for terror attack
The link of Kafeel to Iraqi Doctor Billal Abdullah is another key thread in the terror investigation. Dr Bilal Abdullah is a member of a radical Islamist group and is believed to have been indoctrinated by the Al-Qaeda. Billal was also a co-driver of the explosive jeep driven into the Galsgow Airport. Intelligence sources say Billal's terror plan had the blessings of Osama-Bin Laden.
It was Billal, who possibly indoctrinated Kafeel and Sabeel into his set-up.
As intelligence officials pieced the threads together, five more Indian doctors were called for questioning in Australia. They were later released but police are checking thousands of computer files for clues even as another Indian doctor -- Haneef Mohammad -- continues to remain in detention.
The investigation has reached a crucial stage and the Bangalore link is likely to be vital to that investigation. The parents of the two key suspects continue to remain tightlipped on the issue.
Who Runs the CIA? Outsiders for Hire.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/06/AR2007070601993_pf.html
By R.J. Hillhouse
Sunday, July 8, 2007; B05
Red alert: Our national security is being outsourced.
The most intriguing secrets of the "war on terror" have nothing to do with al-Qaeda and its fellow travelers. They're about the mammoth private spying industry that all but runs U.S. intelligence operations today.
Surprised? No wonder. In April, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell was poised to publicize a year-long examination of outsourcing by U.S. intelligence agencies. But the report was inexplicably delayed -- and suddenly classified a national secret. What McConnell doesn't want you to know is that the private spy industry has succeeded where no foreign government has: It has penetrated the CIA and is running the show.
Over the past five years (some say almost a decade), there has been a revolution in the intelligence community toward wide-scale outsourcing. Private companies now perform key intelligence-agency functions, to the tune, I'm told, of more than $42 billion a year. Intelligence professionals tell me that more than 50 percent of the National Clandestine Service (NCS) -- the heart, brains and soul of the CIA -- has been outsourced to private firms such as Abraxas, Booz Allen Hamilton, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.
These firms recruit spies, create non-official cover identities and control the movements of CIA case officers. They also provide case officers and watch officers at crisis centers and regional desk officers who control clandestine operations worldwide. As the Los Angeles Times first reported last October, more than half the workforce in two key CIA stations in the fight against terrorism -- Baghdad and Islamabad, Pakistan -- is made up of industrial contractors, or "green badgers," in CIA parlance.
Intelligence insiders say that entire branches of the NCS have been outsourced to private industry. These branches are still managed by U.S. government employees ("blue badgers") who are accountable to the agency's chain of command. But beneath them, insiders say, is a supervisory structure that's controlled entirely by contractors; in some cases, green badgers are managing green badgers from other corporations.
Sensing problems -- and possibly fearing congressional action -- the CIA recently conducted a hasty review of all of its job classifications to determine which perform "essential government functions" that should not be outsourced. But it's highly doubtful that such a short-term exercise can comprehensively identify the proper "blue/green" mix, especially because contractors' work statements have long been carefully formulated to blur the distinction between approvable and debatable functions.
Although the contracting system is Byzantine, there's no question that the private sector delivers high-quality professional intelligence services. Outsourcing has provided solutions to personnel-management problems that have always plagued the CIA's operations side. Rather than tying agents up in the kind of office politics that government employees have to engage in to advance their careers, outsourcing permits them to focus on what they do best, which boosts morale and performance. Privatization also immediately increased the number of trained, experienced agents in the field after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Even though wide-scale outsourcing may not immediately endanger national security, it's worrisome. The contractors in charge of espionage are still chiefly CIA alumni who have absorbed its public service values. But as the center of gravity shifts from the public sector to the private, more than one independent intelligence firm has developed plans to "raise" succeeding generations of officers within its own training systems. These corporate-grown agents will be inculcated with corporate values and ethics, not those of public service.
And the current piecemeal system has introduced some vulnerabilities. Historically, the system offered members of the intelligence community the kind of stability that ensured that they would keep its secrets. That dynamic is now being eroded. Contracts come and go. So do workforces. The spies of the past came of age professionally in a strong extended family, but the spies of the future will be more like children raised in multiple foster homes -- at risk.
Today, when Booz Allen Hamilton loses a contract to SAIC, people rush from one to the other in a game of musical chairs, with not enough chairs for all the workers who possess both the highest security clearances and expertise in the art of espionage. Some inevitably lose out. Any good counterintelligence officer knows what can happen next. Down-on-their-luck spies begin to do what spies do best: spy. Other companies offer them jobs in exchange for industry secrets. Foreign governments approach them. And some day, terrorists will clue in to this potential workforce.
The director of national intelligence has put our security at risk by classifying the study on outsourcing and keeping the truth about this inadequately planned and managed system out of the light. Much of what has been outsourced makes sense, but much of the structure doesn't, not for the longer term. It's time for the public and Congress to demand the study's release. More important, it's past time for the industry -- an industry conceived of and run by some of the best and brightest the CIA has ever produced -- to come up with the kind of innovative solutions it's legendary for, before the damage goes too deep.
rjh@thespywhobilledme.com
R.J. Hillhouse writes the national security blog the Spy Who Billed Me and is the author of the espionage thriller "Outsourced."
By R.J. Hillhouse
Sunday, July 8, 2007; B05
Red alert: Our national security is being outsourced.
The most intriguing secrets of the "war on terror" have nothing to do with al-Qaeda and its fellow travelers. They're about the mammoth private spying industry that all but runs U.S. intelligence operations today.
Surprised? No wonder. In April, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell was poised to publicize a year-long examination of outsourcing by U.S. intelligence agencies. But the report was inexplicably delayed -- and suddenly classified a national secret. What McConnell doesn't want you to know is that the private spy industry has succeeded where no foreign government has: It has penetrated the CIA and is running the show.
Over the past five years (some say almost a decade), there has been a revolution in the intelligence community toward wide-scale outsourcing. Private companies now perform key intelligence-agency functions, to the tune, I'm told, of more than $42 billion a year. Intelligence professionals tell me that more than 50 percent of the National Clandestine Service (NCS) -- the heart, brains and soul of the CIA -- has been outsourced to private firms such as Abraxas, Booz Allen Hamilton, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.
These firms recruit spies, create non-official cover identities and control the movements of CIA case officers. They also provide case officers and watch officers at crisis centers and regional desk officers who control clandestine operations worldwide. As the Los Angeles Times first reported last October, more than half the workforce in two key CIA stations in the fight against terrorism -- Baghdad and Islamabad, Pakistan -- is made up of industrial contractors, or "green badgers," in CIA parlance.
Intelligence insiders say that entire branches of the NCS have been outsourced to private industry. These branches are still managed by U.S. government employees ("blue badgers") who are accountable to the agency's chain of command. But beneath them, insiders say, is a supervisory structure that's controlled entirely by contractors; in some cases, green badgers are managing green badgers from other corporations.
Sensing problems -- and possibly fearing congressional action -- the CIA recently conducted a hasty review of all of its job classifications to determine which perform "essential government functions" that should not be outsourced. But it's highly doubtful that such a short-term exercise can comprehensively identify the proper "blue/green" mix, especially because contractors' work statements have long been carefully formulated to blur the distinction between approvable and debatable functions.
Although the contracting system is Byzantine, there's no question that the private sector delivers high-quality professional intelligence services. Outsourcing has provided solutions to personnel-management problems that have always plagued the CIA's operations side. Rather than tying agents up in the kind of office politics that government employees have to engage in to advance their careers, outsourcing permits them to focus on what they do best, which boosts morale and performance. Privatization also immediately increased the number of trained, experienced agents in the field after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Even though wide-scale outsourcing may not immediately endanger national security, it's worrisome. The contractors in charge of espionage are still chiefly CIA alumni who have absorbed its public service values. But as the center of gravity shifts from the public sector to the private, more than one independent intelligence firm has developed plans to "raise" succeeding generations of officers within its own training systems. These corporate-grown agents will be inculcated with corporate values and ethics, not those of public service.
And the current piecemeal system has introduced some vulnerabilities. Historically, the system offered members of the intelligence community the kind of stability that ensured that they would keep its secrets. That dynamic is now being eroded. Contracts come and go. So do workforces. The spies of the past came of age professionally in a strong extended family, but the spies of the future will be more like children raised in multiple foster homes -- at risk.
Today, when Booz Allen Hamilton loses a contract to SAIC, people rush from one to the other in a game of musical chairs, with not enough chairs for all the workers who possess both the highest security clearances and expertise in the art of espionage. Some inevitably lose out. Any good counterintelligence officer knows what can happen next. Down-on-their-luck spies begin to do what spies do best: spy. Other companies offer them jobs in exchange for industry secrets. Foreign governments approach them. And some day, terrorists will clue in to this potential workforce.
The director of national intelligence has put our security at risk by classifying the study on outsourcing and keeping the truth about this inadequately planned and managed system out of the light. Much of what has been outsourced makes sense, but much of the structure doesn't, not for the longer term. It's time for the public and Congress to demand the study's release. More important, it's past time for the industry -- an industry conceived of and run by some of the best and brightest the CIA has ever produced -- to come up with the kind of innovative solutions it's legendary for, before the damage goes too deep.
rjh@thespywhobilledme.com
R.J. Hillhouse writes the national security blog the Spy Who Billed Me and is the author of the espionage thriller "Outsourced."
How the east was won
http://www.newstatesman.com/200707050046
William Dalrymple
The British empire was built not simply on greed, cruelty and oppression - but on surprising exchanges and encounters.
The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: a Woman in World History
Linda Colley Harper Press, 400pp, £25
On 8 August 1756, a British merchantman was lost at sea. The Seven Years War had recently begun and the Ann was escaping from the French siege of Minorca. Slipping through the French blockade via Gibraltar, which was expected to be attacked any day by the full force of the French Mediterranean fleet, the Ann lost the other ships in its convoy as well as its armed escort, the 44-gun Gosport, in bad seas and thick fog.
At 2pm the sailors saw "a sail to windward giving chase and half past seven came within pistol shot of us". It was not, as the crew initially thought, a French warship, but a Moroccan cruiser, from the Barbary Coast. The Ann was quickly boarded and the crew led off to captivity, first on the corsair ship, then at the port Sla (or Salé) and finally to the sultan's palace at Marrakesh.
Initially the captives were optimistic and believed that they would soon be released after the misunderstanding was sorted out. But relations between the Moroccans and the British were undergoing a period of tension and it was the Danish consul who was the first to realise what was actually going on: "The passengers (some merchants and a woman)," he wrote in his diary, have been "detained as slaves".
The woman was a remarkable figure named Elizabeth Marsh. Marsh's adventures in Morocco, and her ultimate release, appeared briefly in Linda Colley's last book, Captives. This was a stunningly revisionist study of Britain's imperial vulnerability, seen through the lens of the many surviving British captivity narratives of the time, such as that written by Marsh herself, The Female Captive.
Colley's thesis was that the unprecedented military success and world political and economic domination achieved by the Victorians have blinded historians to the smallness of the British empire in the preceding two and a half centuries: after all, she pointed out, as late as 1715 the British army was no larger than that commanded by the king of Sardinia, while at the same time there were at least 20,000 British civilians "detained", like Elizabeth Marsh, and enslaved in the Barbary sultanates of north Africa.
Using rich and revealing sources as a way of unlocking some of the forgotten truths about British weakness, Colley showed how Britain's rise to world domination was neither smooth nor inevitable. She also dramatically highlighted the human cost of that expansion - the lives of ordinary British men and women that were completely disrupted in the process of imperial adventures overseas: men such as John Rutherford, who was captured in North America and for a while became a Chippewa warrior; or women such as Sarah Shade, an East India Company camp follower who became one of Tipu's captives at Seringapatam.
Now Colley has taken her thesis forward. With some brilliant detective work, she has uncovered much more of Marsh's life. In California, Colley came across a handwritten journal recording her travels in India - all in the company of a dashing and unmarried officer, while her husband lingered with his failing business in the heat of Bengal. It all reads a little like the adventures of a non-fiction Becky Sharp. Other fragments of her life - family scrapbooks, journals and so forth - turned up in manuscript collections as widely scattered as Jamaica, Barcelona, Washington, London and Sydney.
The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh pieces the various accounts together to reveal an amazingly wide-ranging life, which demonstrates the surprisingly complex and globalised world of the 18th century: Marsh's life, writes Colley, is both "startlingly atypical and widely revealing . . . a world in a life and a life in the world". At times, Marsh mixed in the same circles as well-known figures in imperial politics such as Eyre Coote or Edmund Burke. At other times, her wanderings brought her into contact with Bengali weavers and astronomers, Sephardic Jewish traders and Indian salt farmers, smugglers from the Isle of Man, cabin boys from Portsmouth and slave traders from Jamaica.
For Marsh, it turns out, was conceived in Jamaica. Her father was a humble ship's carpenter, while her mother was quite probably mixed race, herself descended from slaves. On being released from Morocco, where the sultan used Marsh as a bargaining chip to attract a British consul and British trade, the former slave married a fellow captive, the merchant James Crisp, in Gibraltar, under pressure from her family, who believed that the nature of her captivity placed a question mark over her virtue. After settling in London, she was briefly "becalmed by marriage and childbirth", while her husband traded with Italy, South America and Asia, even dabbling in the salted cod trade centred on the Shetland Islands.
Soon tiring of northern climes, the couple planned to move to Florida, where they were involved in land speculation. In the event, however, bankruptcy sent them spinning off in the opposite direction, not west, but eastwards to India. While Crisp tried to set himself up as a merchant in Dhaka, Marsh travelled the country in a palanquin with her officer and presumed lover, making the most of the easygoing and mildly decadent social life of the East India Company, as well as its relatively fluid class categories. In the Calcutta novel Hartly House (1789), an Englishwoman of relatively humble origins remarks: "I am a sovereign princess here." In the same way, Marsh proudly records in her journal how, on her Indian travels, she "saw much company", and how the high society of the East India Company "parted with me in the most friendly manner possible".
Meanwhile, her family dispersed: Crisp died alone in Bengal, while one of her sons was sent off for "a considerable time" to live with "a Persian merchant", where he became fluent in Farsi by the age of 12. Marsh's daughter, meanwhile, was well educated in London, through the largesse of a successful uncle. There Elizabeth paid her a brief visit, calmly dodging French and Spanish warships and privateers that were again attacking British shipping, this time fighting in support of the newly independent United States.
It is an extraordinary story and, like its predecessor, Captives, The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh is a remarkable book, mixing brilliant archival sleuthing, an intriguing narrative, perceptive analysis and fine descriptive prose. In the academic study of the history of empire, where super-specialisation is the norm and postcolonial theory is usually preferred to elegant prose, Colley is not quite unique, but she is certainly an unusual figure - and, like her subject, an enthusiastic boundary-crosser, ranging across continents every bit as promiscuously as did Marsh.
Throughout, Colley takes as much trouble with her writing as she does with her research: few other academic historians could even begin to pull off the wonderfully evocative pen- portraits she gives of Port Royal in Jamaica at the chilling climax of the slave trade, of Portsmouth at the height of British maritime power, or of the resurgent Morocco of the sultan Sidi Muhammad. Avoiding abstractions and theory, Colley emphasises the centrality of the human; and in the person of Elizabeth Marsh, the full human complexity of the early British empire comes alive, not as an impersonal and faceless historical force, but through the decisions made by a single ambitious and adventurous woman.
To understand how atypical Colley's work is, it is worth comparing The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh with another recent book on the globalised 18th century - The Scandal of Empire by the Columbia anthropologist Nicholas Dirks. Dirks's book concentrates on the impeachment of the first governor general of British India, Warren Hastings, for oppression, corruption and gross abuse of power. It, too, ranges between Britain and India; and although Dirks cannot write prose like Colley's and tends to avoid primary sources, it is a passionately engaged and engaging book.
But for Dirks, the moral issues are simple: the British empire is a terrible blot on world history, comparable to slavery and fascism; to be neutral or even balanced on the issue is to tolerate the intolerable, and even to become complicit in oppressive violence and tyranny. Colley takes a different and more nuanced approach. Her work is certainly no Niall Ferguson-like neo-imperial polemic, and yet she emphasises that categories such as race and domination and imperialism are not stable categories; instead they are malleable, changeable, porous. After all, Elizabeth Marsh was a descendant of slaves and a female captive, as well as a slave owner. The British were conquerors, but also at times the conquered. Empire and slaving were by no means British or even European monopolies.
Moreover, figures such as Elizabeth Marsh, who crossed both the globe and racial categories, were far from uncommon. While researching my book White Mughals, I came across many similar stories. There was, for example, William Palmer, whose first wife was a creole beauty he met in St Kitts, and whose second wife was a Mughal begum from Delhi. His children, of all religions and colours, lived with him at the British residency in Pune, where his beloved second wife befriended the Shia Muslim bride of the neighbouring British resident (or ambassador) at the court of Hyderabad, and where the two families discussed how to overcome the growing colour prejudice of the British, which began to worsen as the late 18th century gave way to the early 19th.
Then there was William Linnaeus Gardner, born on the banks of the Hudson to a prominent American loyalist family, who died on the banks of the Ganges, a retired soldier of fortune, happily married to a Shia begum of Cambay in Gujerat. Here is Gardner at the end of his life talking proudly of his multiracial family: "The begum and I, from 22 years constant contact, have smoothed off each other's asperities," he wrote to his cousin, "and now roll on peaceably and contentedly . . . My house is filled with brats, and the very thinking of them, from blue eyes and fair hair to ebony and wool makes me quite anxious to get back again . . . There's no accounting for taste but I have more relish in playing with the little brats than for the First Society in the World . . . New books, a garden, a spade, nobody to obey, pyjamas, grandchildren, tranquillity: this is the summit of happiness, not only in the east but the west too."
It is significant that all this surprises us as much as it does: it is as if the Victorians colonised not just one-quarter of the globe, but also, more permanently, our imaginations. For 30 years, the followers of Edward Said in postcolonial studies have tended to see imperial relations in terms of simple binaries: Orient and Occident, colonised and coloniser, oppressor and oppressed. In some ways, they stand in the same camp as Victorians such as Kipling in imagining that "east" and "west" are incompatible, discrete compartments.
Now, however, there is an increasing awareness that things were always more complex. The subaltern historian Gyan Prakash recently summarised the position taken by Colley and her fellow revisionists (one he strongly resists): "Forcibly or willingly, many Europeans crossed cultural borders. They shed European trousers for native pajamas, grew Hindu mustaches and Muslim beards, married local women and kept concubines and collected indigenous texts and artifacts. A human story of interest and immersion in other cultures, languages and artifacts - not mastery - underpinned British imperial expansion."
Colley is certainly not the only one blurring the edges in this manner. The American scholar Michael Fisher last year produced an extraordinary book, Counterflows to Colonialism, which showed, for example, how common it was before 1857 for the many Indian men who came to England in the 18th century to find themselves British wives, some from the top tier of British society. Shortly after his arrival in Ireland, for example, the Patna nobleman Sake Dean Mahomet eloped with - and later married - Jane Daly, from a prominent Anglo-Irish gentry family; in 1794 he confirmed his surprisingly prominent place in Cork society by publishing his Travels, the first book written in English by an Indian author, to which half of Ireland's gentry became subscribers.
Likewise, one of the most remarkable records of the Shia traditions of India was a two- volume work, Observations on the Mussulmauns of India, published in 1832 by Mrs Meer Hassan Ali, formerly Biddy Timms of Addiscombe in Surrey. After marrying Hassan Ali, the professor of Persian and Hindustani at the East India Company's Surrey military academy, Mrs Ali spent 12 years with her husband in Avadh. When she finally returned to England, she took up a post at the court of Princess Augusta, the sister of George III, convincingly demonstrating that marriage to a Muslim had not done any harm to her social position - on the contrary, it might even have enhanced it.
The 18th century was clearly an age of far greater interracial contact than the 19th, and political collaboration and friendships, financial and business partnerships, as well as marriages and love affairs, easily crossed the porous frontiers of religious difference: according to the evidence of the East India Company wills in the British Library, in the 1780s one in three British men in India left all his goods to an Indian woman, and it was almost as common for westerners to take on the customs and even the religions of India as the reverse.
Fisher shows that the proportion of Indian men in England marrying or cohabiting with British women was, if anything, even higher. Important work on boundary crossing has also been emerging from a new generation of south Asia scholars such as Durba Ghosh and Maya Jasanoff, whose new books (Sex and the Family in Colonial India: the Making of Empire and Edge of Empire: Conquest and Collecting on the Eastern Frontiers of the British Empire respectively) break original ground in the study of relationships between colonised and coloniser.
There are some flaws in Colley's work. In trying to resurrect a forgotten life like that of Elizabeth Marsh, Colley is swimming against the tide of the surviving documentation. Though she has Marsh's captivity narrative and Indian journal to work from, not one of Marsh's private letters has survived, and Colley has to struggle to recreate her resourceful and individualistic heroine's inner life. As a result, in places, Marsh is in danger of being overwhelmed by Colley's magnificent descriptions of the imperial setting in which Marsh lived.
Nevertheless, The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh succeeds in recreating and presenting a life that is in some ways markedly modern - a woman wandering the globe between worlds and crossing categories as nonchalantly as she crossed continents. It is a remarkable story and the imaginative and original mode of telling it shows again that Colley is not only one of the most remarkable historians at work today, but also one of our most interesting writers of non-fiction in any category.
William Dalrymple's "The Last Mughal: the Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857" is published by Bloomsbury
William Dalrymple
The British empire was built not simply on greed, cruelty and oppression - but on surprising exchanges and encounters.
The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: a Woman in World History
Linda Colley Harper Press, 400pp, £25
On 8 August 1756, a British merchantman was lost at sea. The Seven Years War had recently begun and the Ann was escaping from the French siege of Minorca. Slipping through the French blockade via Gibraltar, which was expected to be attacked any day by the full force of the French Mediterranean fleet, the Ann lost the other ships in its convoy as well as its armed escort, the 44-gun Gosport, in bad seas and thick fog.
At 2pm the sailors saw "a sail to windward giving chase and half past seven came within pistol shot of us". It was not, as the crew initially thought, a French warship, but a Moroccan cruiser, from the Barbary Coast. The Ann was quickly boarded and the crew led off to captivity, first on the corsair ship, then at the port Sla (or Salé) and finally to the sultan's palace at Marrakesh.
Initially the captives were optimistic and believed that they would soon be released after the misunderstanding was sorted out. But relations between the Moroccans and the British were undergoing a period of tension and it was the Danish consul who was the first to realise what was actually going on: "The passengers (some merchants and a woman)," he wrote in his diary, have been "detained as slaves".
The woman was a remarkable figure named Elizabeth Marsh. Marsh's adventures in Morocco, and her ultimate release, appeared briefly in Linda Colley's last book, Captives. This was a stunningly revisionist study of Britain's imperial vulnerability, seen through the lens of the many surviving British captivity narratives of the time, such as that written by Marsh herself, The Female Captive.
Colley's thesis was that the unprecedented military success and world political and economic domination achieved by the Victorians have blinded historians to the smallness of the British empire in the preceding two and a half centuries: after all, she pointed out, as late as 1715 the British army was no larger than that commanded by the king of Sardinia, while at the same time there were at least 20,000 British civilians "detained", like Elizabeth Marsh, and enslaved in the Barbary sultanates of north Africa.
Using rich and revealing sources as a way of unlocking some of the forgotten truths about British weakness, Colley showed how Britain's rise to world domination was neither smooth nor inevitable. She also dramatically highlighted the human cost of that expansion - the lives of ordinary British men and women that were completely disrupted in the process of imperial adventures overseas: men such as John Rutherford, who was captured in North America and for a while became a Chippewa warrior; or women such as Sarah Shade, an East India Company camp follower who became one of Tipu's captives at Seringapatam.
Now Colley has taken her thesis forward. With some brilliant detective work, she has uncovered much more of Marsh's life. In California, Colley came across a handwritten journal recording her travels in India - all in the company of a dashing and unmarried officer, while her husband lingered with his failing business in the heat of Bengal. It all reads a little like the adventures of a non-fiction Becky Sharp. Other fragments of her life - family scrapbooks, journals and so forth - turned up in manuscript collections as widely scattered as Jamaica, Barcelona, Washington, London and Sydney.
The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh pieces the various accounts together to reveal an amazingly wide-ranging life, which demonstrates the surprisingly complex and globalised world of the 18th century: Marsh's life, writes Colley, is both "startlingly atypical and widely revealing . . . a world in a life and a life in the world". At times, Marsh mixed in the same circles as well-known figures in imperial politics such as Eyre Coote or Edmund Burke. At other times, her wanderings brought her into contact with Bengali weavers and astronomers, Sephardic Jewish traders and Indian salt farmers, smugglers from the Isle of Man, cabin boys from Portsmouth and slave traders from Jamaica.
For Marsh, it turns out, was conceived in Jamaica. Her father was a humble ship's carpenter, while her mother was quite probably mixed race, herself descended from slaves. On being released from Morocco, where the sultan used Marsh as a bargaining chip to attract a British consul and British trade, the former slave married a fellow captive, the merchant James Crisp, in Gibraltar, under pressure from her family, who believed that the nature of her captivity placed a question mark over her virtue. After settling in London, she was briefly "becalmed by marriage and childbirth", while her husband traded with Italy, South America and Asia, even dabbling in the salted cod trade centred on the Shetland Islands.
Soon tiring of northern climes, the couple planned to move to Florida, where they were involved in land speculation. In the event, however, bankruptcy sent them spinning off in the opposite direction, not west, but eastwards to India. While Crisp tried to set himself up as a merchant in Dhaka, Marsh travelled the country in a palanquin with her officer and presumed lover, making the most of the easygoing and mildly decadent social life of the East India Company, as well as its relatively fluid class categories. In the Calcutta novel Hartly House (1789), an Englishwoman of relatively humble origins remarks: "I am a sovereign princess here." In the same way, Marsh proudly records in her journal how, on her Indian travels, she "saw much company", and how the high society of the East India Company "parted with me in the most friendly manner possible".
Meanwhile, her family dispersed: Crisp died alone in Bengal, while one of her sons was sent off for "a considerable time" to live with "a Persian merchant", where he became fluent in Farsi by the age of 12. Marsh's daughter, meanwhile, was well educated in London, through the largesse of a successful uncle. There Elizabeth paid her a brief visit, calmly dodging French and Spanish warships and privateers that were again attacking British shipping, this time fighting in support of the newly independent United States.
It is an extraordinary story and, like its predecessor, Captives, The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh is a remarkable book, mixing brilliant archival sleuthing, an intriguing narrative, perceptive analysis and fine descriptive prose. In the academic study of the history of empire, where super-specialisation is the norm and postcolonial theory is usually preferred to elegant prose, Colley is not quite unique, but she is certainly an unusual figure - and, like her subject, an enthusiastic boundary-crosser, ranging across continents every bit as promiscuously as did Marsh.
Throughout, Colley takes as much trouble with her writing as she does with her research: few other academic historians could even begin to pull off the wonderfully evocative pen- portraits she gives of Port Royal in Jamaica at the chilling climax of the slave trade, of Portsmouth at the height of British maritime power, or of the resurgent Morocco of the sultan Sidi Muhammad. Avoiding abstractions and theory, Colley emphasises the centrality of the human; and in the person of Elizabeth Marsh, the full human complexity of the early British empire comes alive, not as an impersonal and faceless historical force, but through the decisions made by a single ambitious and adventurous woman.
To understand how atypical Colley's work is, it is worth comparing The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh with another recent book on the globalised 18th century - The Scandal of Empire by the Columbia anthropologist Nicholas Dirks. Dirks's book concentrates on the impeachment of the first governor general of British India, Warren Hastings, for oppression, corruption and gross abuse of power. It, too, ranges between Britain and India; and although Dirks cannot write prose like Colley's and tends to avoid primary sources, it is a passionately engaged and engaging book.
But for Dirks, the moral issues are simple: the British empire is a terrible blot on world history, comparable to slavery and fascism; to be neutral or even balanced on the issue is to tolerate the intolerable, and even to become complicit in oppressive violence and tyranny. Colley takes a different and more nuanced approach. Her work is certainly no Niall Ferguson-like neo-imperial polemic, and yet she emphasises that categories such as race and domination and imperialism are not stable categories; instead they are malleable, changeable, porous. After all, Elizabeth Marsh was a descendant of slaves and a female captive, as well as a slave owner. The British were conquerors, but also at times the conquered. Empire and slaving were by no means British or even European monopolies.
Moreover, figures such as Elizabeth Marsh, who crossed both the globe and racial categories, were far from uncommon. While researching my book White Mughals, I came across many similar stories. There was, for example, William Palmer, whose first wife was a creole beauty he met in St Kitts, and whose second wife was a Mughal begum from Delhi. His children, of all religions and colours, lived with him at the British residency in Pune, where his beloved second wife befriended the Shia Muslim bride of the neighbouring British resident (or ambassador) at the court of Hyderabad, and where the two families discussed how to overcome the growing colour prejudice of the British, which began to worsen as the late 18th century gave way to the early 19th.
Then there was William Linnaeus Gardner, born on the banks of the Hudson to a prominent American loyalist family, who died on the banks of the Ganges, a retired soldier of fortune, happily married to a Shia begum of Cambay in Gujerat. Here is Gardner at the end of his life talking proudly of his multiracial family: "The begum and I, from 22 years constant contact, have smoothed off each other's asperities," he wrote to his cousin, "and now roll on peaceably and contentedly . . . My house is filled with brats, and the very thinking of them, from blue eyes and fair hair to ebony and wool makes me quite anxious to get back again . . . There's no accounting for taste but I have more relish in playing with the little brats than for the First Society in the World . . . New books, a garden, a spade, nobody to obey, pyjamas, grandchildren, tranquillity: this is the summit of happiness, not only in the east but the west too."
It is significant that all this surprises us as much as it does: it is as if the Victorians colonised not just one-quarter of the globe, but also, more permanently, our imaginations. For 30 years, the followers of Edward Said in postcolonial studies have tended to see imperial relations in terms of simple binaries: Orient and Occident, colonised and coloniser, oppressor and oppressed. In some ways, they stand in the same camp as Victorians such as Kipling in imagining that "east" and "west" are incompatible, discrete compartments.
Now, however, there is an increasing awareness that things were always more complex. The subaltern historian Gyan Prakash recently summarised the position taken by Colley and her fellow revisionists (one he strongly resists): "Forcibly or willingly, many Europeans crossed cultural borders. They shed European trousers for native pajamas, grew Hindu mustaches and Muslim beards, married local women and kept concubines and collected indigenous texts and artifacts. A human story of interest and immersion in other cultures, languages and artifacts - not mastery - underpinned British imperial expansion."
Colley is certainly not the only one blurring the edges in this manner. The American scholar Michael Fisher last year produced an extraordinary book, Counterflows to Colonialism, which showed, for example, how common it was before 1857 for the many Indian men who came to England in the 18th century to find themselves British wives, some from the top tier of British society. Shortly after his arrival in Ireland, for example, the Patna nobleman Sake Dean Mahomet eloped with - and later married - Jane Daly, from a prominent Anglo-Irish gentry family; in 1794 he confirmed his surprisingly prominent place in Cork society by publishing his Travels, the first book written in English by an Indian author, to which half of Ireland's gentry became subscribers.
Likewise, one of the most remarkable records of the Shia traditions of India was a two- volume work, Observations on the Mussulmauns of India, published in 1832 by Mrs Meer Hassan Ali, formerly Biddy Timms of Addiscombe in Surrey. After marrying Hassan Ali, the professor of Persian and Hindustani at the East India Company's Surrey military academy, Mrs Ali spent 12 years with her husband in Avadh. When she finally returned to England, she took up a post at the court of Princess Augusta, the sister of George III, convincingly demonstrating that marriage to a Muslim had not done any harm to her social position - on the contrary, it might even have enhanced it.
The 18th century was clearly an age of far greater interracial contact than the 19th, and political collaboration and friendships, financial and business partnerships, as well as marriages and love affairs, easily crossed the porous frontiers of religious difference: according to the evidence of the East India Company wills in the British Library, in the 1780s one in three British men in India left all his goods to an Indian woman, and it was almost as common for westerners to take on the customs and even the religions of India as the reverse.
Fisher shows that the proportion of Indian men in England marrying or cohabiting with British women was, if anything, even higher. Important work on boundary crossing has also been emerging from a new generation of south Asia scholars such as Durba Ghosh and Maya Jasanoff, whose new books (Sex and the Family in Colonial India: the Making of Empire and Edge of Empire: Conquest and Collecting on the Eastern Frontiers of the British Empire respectively) break original ground in the study of relationships between colonised and coloniser.
There are some flaws in Colley's work. In trying to resurrect a forgotten life like that of Elizabeth Marsh, Colley is swimming against the tide of the surviving documentation. Though she has Marsh's captivity narrative and Indian journal to work from, not one of Marsh's private letters has survived, and Colley has to struggle to recreate her resourceful and individualistic heroine's inner life. As a result, in places, Marsh is in danger of being overwhelmed by Colley's magnificent descriptions of the imperial setting in which Marsh lived.
Nevertheless, The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh succeeds in recreating and presenting a life that is in some ways markedly modern - a woman wandering the globe between worlds and crossing categories as nonchalantly as she crossed continents. It is a remarkable story and the imaginative and original mode of telling it shows again that Colley is not only one of the most remarkable historians at work today, but also one of our most interesting writers of non-fiction in any category.
William Dalrymple's "The Last Mughal: the Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857" is published by Bloomsbury
July 06, 2007
FRANCE : The 10 commandments of Competitive Intelligence
1. Define information needs. An competitive intelligence process should start with a precise analysis of the information needs of the decision-makers, coworkers and employees within a company. On the basis of this work, it is up to the management to decide what the priorities are and consequently to set orientations for information research.
2. Gather open information. It is estimated that approximately 90% of information useful to a company is openly published ; which is what is called “formal” information. With the development of new information technologies, the mass of data available has become enormous ; identifying relevant information in this ever growing flow requires having suitable computer tools.
3. Don’t forget “informal” information. And yet, the small share of useful information that is not available in open literature is often that which provides the greatest added value to the company. It is possible to gather it legally and ethically through work in networks (interviews with contacts) and in the field (for example, during conferences, trade shows and professional events), and through constant monitoring of new, potentially useful sources of information.
4. Rank and process the information gathered. For it to be able to truly support a decision, the information must be evaluated, grouped, analyzed and synthesized. This process can also use tools for advanced information processing. It should also lead, if necessary, to consultations with experts in the fields in question.
5. Diffuse the information in a timely manner. An effective competitive intelligence process diffuses relevant information to the right people at the right time and in the most suitable form. Mastering the logic of circulating data ensures successful, targeted distribution, making it possible to extend it to new decision-makers. For this, an information circulation scheme must be set up and a culture of exchange is needed within the company.
6. Measure the satisfaction of the recipients. The only way to ensure that the information delivered corresponds to the needs of the recipients is to ask ! This feedback is the way to evaluate the usefulness of the information provided so as to meet the needs of the decision-makers and operational agents.
7. Protect sensitive data and know-how. Some information and know-how constitutes precious assets that the company must know how to protect through suitable computer, organizational, human and legal measures.
8. Influence the environment. Information can also be used as a lever for action to promote one’s interests within a legal context (lobbying, influence communication, Internet use, etc.). On the other hand, the company must be vigilant as to the use of these methods against it or even of illegal processes such as disinformation.
9. Definitively banish naiveté while avoiding paranoia. A pragmatic, realistic, operational attitude should be adopted : a state of mind combining vigilance and openness.
10. Get everyone’s support. The success of an competitive intelligence process requires not only the mastery of competitive intelligence by one or more professionals, but also the active participation of all employees. Awareness of information sharing and the network culture is therefore essential. This presupposes a strong commitment from the management and the company where everyone should gather useful information to be able to transmit it to the concerned actors.
Source: http://www.intelligence-economique.gouv.fr/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=47
2. Gather open information. It is estimated that approximately 90% of information useful to a company is openly published ; which is what is called “formal” information. With the development of new information technologies, the mass of data available has become enormous ; identifying relevant information in this ever growing flow requires having suitable computer tools.
3. Don’t forget “informal” information. And yet, the small share of useful information that is not available in open literature is often that which provides the greatest added value to the company. It is possible to gather it legally and ethically through work in networks (interviews with contacts) and in the field (for example, during conferences, trade shows and professional events), and through constant monitoring of new, potentially useful sources of information.
4. Rank and process the information gathered. For it to be able to truly support a decision, the information must be evaluated, grouped, analyzed and synthesized. This process can also use tools for advanced information processing. It should also lead, if necessary, to consultations with experts in the fields in question.
5. Diffuse the information in a timely manner. An effective competitive intelligence process diffuses relevant information to the right people at the right time and in the most suitable form. Mastering the logic of circulating data ensures successful, targeted distribution, making it possible to extend it to new decision-makers. For this, an information circulation scheme must be set up and a culture of exchange is needed within the company.
6. Measure the satisfaction of the recipients. The only way to ensure that the information delivered corresponds to the needs of the recipients is to ask ! This feedback is the way to evaluate the usefulness of the information provided so as to meet the needs of the decision-makers and operational agents.
7. Protect sensitive data and know-how. Some information and know-how constitutes precious assets that the company must know how to protect through suitable computer, organizational, human and legal measures.
8. Influence the environment. Information can also be used as a lever for action to promote one’s interests within a legal context (lobbying, influence communication, Internet use, etc.). On the other hand, the company must be vigilant as to the use of these methods against it or even of illegal processes such as disinformation.
9. Definitively banish naiveté while avoiding paranoia. A pragmatic, realistic, operational attitude should be adopted : a state of mind combining vigilance and openness.
10. Get everyone’s support. The success of an competitive intelligence process requires not only the mastery of competitive intelligence by one or more professionals, but also the active participation of all employees. Awareness of information sharing and the network culture is therefore essential. This presupposes a strong commitment from the management and the company where everyone should gather useful information to be able to transmit it to the concerned actors.
Source: http://www.intelligence-economique.gouv.fr/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=47
Lal Masjid Maulana defends wearing niqabi woman
The news (GEO News) is now reporting a peaceful arrest of Maulana Abdul-Aziz, the main preacher and figure head of Lal Masjid but there is one very interesting detail you will have to see to believe. Maulana Abdul-Aziz was trying to escape from Lal Masjid dressed as a niqabi woman with a black robe and niqab covering himself!
Utubers making fun of this episode
Utubers making fun of this episode
Indian Air Force is keen to build partnership with Indian Industry
:Air Chief Marshal FH Major / 2nd International Conference on Energising Indian Aerospace Industry to be organised by CII and CAPS
Indian Air Force is looking at new partnerships with Indian Industry and opportunities to explore the growth in defence aviation, said Air Chief Marshal FH Major, PVSM, AVSM, SC, VM, ADC, Chief of the Air Staff at a meeting organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here on Tuesday. He said that aerospace sect
Indian Air Force is looking at new partnerships with Indian Industry and opportunities to explore the growth in defence aviation, said Air Chief Marshal FH Major, PVSM, AVSM, SC, VM, ADC, Chief of the Air Staff at a meeting organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here on Tuesday. He said that aerospace sect