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[All of these stories broke on the same day, all around the world. What they say clearly is that most of the rest of the world has decided that in order to survive the first obstacle to be removed is the US. One story even suggests - as FTW has also suggested - that Japan must fold into a greater Asian / Eurasian alliance and become an enemy of the US. Indeed. FTW agrees that this is inevitable although not likely in the next 3-5 years.
It appears as though what many on the far right saw as the monolithic New World Order is possibly being hijacked, the tables turned. But as far as the world is concerned, the United States appears to have become Public Enemy Number One and the Neocons and Neolibs are doing nothing to make anyone feel otherwise. - MCR]
Russia and China sign strategic bilateral agreements - decide to trade Chechnya for Taiwan
Media Release
India Daily
Jul. 2, 2005
http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/3407.asp
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
The Sino-Russian summit ended July 1 with the signing of multiple bilateral agreements. Russian and Chinese officials signed a joint declaration on the international order in the 21st century, cooperative agreements between specified Russian and Chinese financial institutions, and long-term cooperation agreements between Russia's Unified Energy Systems power monopoly and the China State Grid Corp., as well as between Russian state oil firm Rosneft and the China National Petroleum Corp. Chinese President Hu Jintao also said the two countries intend to strengthen support for one another with respect to Chechnya and Taiwan.
Russia, China Set Tone for 21st Century World Order
July 1, 2005
MosNews
http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/07/01/hujintaoupdate.shtml
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
Chinese President Hu Jintao Friday called for greater efforts to strengthen the strategic partnership and economic and trade ties between China and Russia. Hu Jintao met Russia's top lawmakers, Boris Gryzlov, and Sergei Mironov. Later he and Putin signed a joint declaration on the new world order in the 21st century.
In a meeting with Boris Gryzlov, chairman of Russia's State Duma, Hu said that, faced with the complicated and changing international situation, China and Russia should work together to deepen mutual political trust, boost mutually beneficial cooperation and strengthen coordination in international and regional affairs, China's official Xinhua News Agency said.
Hu arrived in Russia Thursday for a four-day visit.
Gryzlov, who met Hu last month when visiting China as head of a State Duma delegation, said bilateral and multilateral cooperation between Russia and China have been fruitful. The State Duma has been actively advocating stronger Russia-China ties and greater exchanges and cooperation between the two countries' legislatures to fulfill the goals set by the two governments in boosting trade and investment ties, Gryzlov said.
The two countries' legislatures can do a lot more in promoting cooperation between China and Russia, which has been developing in a wide range of areas, Hu said. The two legislatures have a greater role to play in ratifying bilateral legal documents and overseeing their implementation, he said.
The Chinese president also met Sergei Mironov, the head of the Federation Council, the upper house of Russian parliament.
Hu Jintao met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow a day earlier and called for more cooperation between the world's seventh and 15th biggest economies, Xinhua reported.
At the beginning of a four-day visit Hu called on Russia to join it in "strategic coordination" to help each other face up to "new threats" and to "safeguard" common interests, such as the two country's territorial integrity in disputes with others, Xinhua said.
Hu and Putin were expected to sign a declaration on the world order in the 21st century. Spokesman for Russian Foreign Ministry, Alexander Yakovenko, described the declaration as "an important document, which shows the common, fundamental Russian and Chinese views on key issues of the modern world order and reflects their common vision of the development of humanity."
Hu and Putin also are also expected to sign a series of trade agreements to deepen trade ties, which reached $21.2 billion in 2004 and is expected to reach $80 billion by 2010, China's Foreign Ministry said on June 28.
Russia to help China oust the USA from Eurasia
07/02/2005 21:11
Pravda
http://english.pravda.ru/main/18/88/354/15745_China.html
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
Russia de facto loses the status of the world's center of force, which jeopardizes the global stability
The rapidly developing economy of China pushes the country to search for sources of raw materials and sales markets abroad. The USA is China's major obstacle in this respect. China and the USA have been sharing their spheres of influence since 1979, when a semi-secret US-Chinese agreement about the strategic coordination was brought to light after Dang Xiaoping's visit in Washington (the USA prefers to keep the document a secret). The significance of the agreement could be compared to protocols to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty. Bill Clinton prolonged the agreement in 1999. China has been consistently asking the USA to withdraw its presence from Eurasia. The USA, however, believes that it can refer to Russia and the entire post-Soviet space as its catch.
It was China, which preserved Russia's integrity during the US triumph in 1991-1993: the dismembered Russia would deprive China of the strategic back area. In its struggle for Russia, China will inevitably try to put an end to USA's expansion attempts towards the Far East of Russia. One may expect Chinese politicians making statements about the USA's threat to Russia: China and the USA will most likely commence negotiations about the division of the spheres of influence in the Far Eastern region.
When the USSR collapsed in 1991, China was left alone face to face with the USA. The conflict potential of relations between the USA and China has been growing nonstop since then. One may say that the USA has been involved in the conflict with China from 2003, although it is a financial and economic struggle so far. The war of the American and Chinese economies may be toughened by 2009 with US-placed embargoes. China might exercise its military potential in return with a view to demoralize the West. China has been trying to restrain and oust the USA from Eurasia with a threat to destroy the US dollar as the global measure of value.
The nuclear field as the field of political maneuvers for Russia.
A maneuver as an aspect of war is always possible, even when there are no efforts to strike a blow. The year 2005 is the year, which marks the final revision of WWII results and the removal of the world order, which the winning powers set in Yalta and Potsdam in 1945. The period of 60 years is the basic cycle of changes of a certain historic field. The new world order can be characterized as the globalization, North American style.
Establishing the control over Russian nuclear objects is a rather important issue for the USA. This problem is currently being successively solved under the disguise of mutual security and cooperation in the anti-terrorist struggle. Russia de facto loses the status of the world's center of force, which jeopardizes the global stability.
According to the laws of changes, the three-polar world order with any type of centralization is harmonious and safe: a nation, which does not wage a war, wins. The world of the second half of the 20th century was exactly like that: the USA and the USSR were the active poles of the forces, whereas China was like an absorber between them.
According to the law of the struggle of the opposites, any bi-polar world order is dangerous. Those, who will not be making preparations for a war will inevitably lose. This is the description of the world in the beginning of the 21st century: the USA found itself in the bi-polar world, not in the unipolar world, as it may seem at first sight. China will become a visible center of force in 2007, when it declares its ambitions for influence to the USA.
Russia may make a political maneuver to return to the stable form of the triangular world structure. The USA's dual control over Russian nuclear objects changes the pattern of mutual obligations for members of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In other words, Russia's agreement for control over its nuclear objects should be linked with addenda to the Treaty in the part of the dual control in other countries too. Furthermore, the globalization in the North-American style requires Russia's membership in the World Trade Organization. The coercive membership implies that participating states should not have any territorial claims to each other. Japan is the state, which sets most serious territorial claims to Russia. Japan's refusal to give up its claims would be a worthy way out of the situation. The refusal could be linked with Japan's obligation to become a nuclear state. Japan could receive nukes from Russia, along with the technical help for their servicing and the dual control over the nuclear force of Japan.
Japan as a nuclear power would balance the nuclear problem of North Korea (Japan's former colony): the China-Japan-Korea triangle would be created. North Korea's nuclear status, which was declared in the spring of 2005, deprived Japan of its face, which could be compared to Russia's dual-control-diminished sovereignty. On the other hand, North Korea's nuclear status poses a problem for the USA, which loses control over the affairs in North-Eastern Asia, the control over the spirit of South Korea and Japan, first and foremost.
Japan's nuclear status will relieve the nation of the American guardianship, which may open a perspective for building new groups with Japan as a full member of world politics. Special terms for Japan's connection to the Russian base of natural resources would also save Japan from the USA's devastating oil and gas price pressure. A possible blockade against Japan could be aimed against the USA: Japan could require the return of Micronesia islands, which were given away to the USA as a trophy after the end of WWII. It is noteworthy that the islands received the status of the US free association in 1986, in defiance of the UN Charter.
Strategy of retreat as a way to the Russian victory
As a WTO member, which Russia obliged to become before 2006, Russia will not have a right to "defend itself" from the movement of Chinese and Japanese capitals: only the Western capital has preferences until Russia joins the WTO.
The attraction of Chinese and Japanese capitals on the territory of the Russian Far East (within the framework of the WTO) will make for the financial and economic expulsion of the USA from Eurasia. China and Japan will thus obtain the strategic back areas in Russia's Siberia and the Far East. Being China's and Japan's back area, Russia avoids being a front. Otherwise, Russia will inevitably become a battlefield between the USA and China.
The strategy of retirement is not a light-minded strategy to abandon the front. It is a way to victory with the help of a political and economic maneuver to avoid the direct opposition with the dominating adversary.
P.Gvaskov, scientist of China
Russia and China call for an end to world 'domination'
David Holley, Los Angeles Times
Saturday, July 2, 2005
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/07/02/MNG3FDI5OA1.DTL
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
Moscow -- Russia and China, teaming up in a thinly veiled attack on perceived U.S. efforts to dominate the world, issued a declaration Friday demanding respect for the right of all countries to develop free of outside interference.
Signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Hu Jintao on the second day of a summit here, the declaration denounced "the aspiration for monopoly and domination in international affairs" and called for an end to "attempts to divide nations into leaders and those being led."
While not mentioning the United States directly, the "Declaration on World Order in the 21st Century" left no doubt that Washington was its main target.
Russian-Chinese ties have been steadily warming, boosted by the signing last year and ratification this spring of a final settlement of a long border dispute. The two countries are planning to hold their first joint military maneuvers later this year in China.
Putin and Hu offered each other support in Moscow's war against separatist rebels in Chechnya and Beijing's effort to assert control of Taiwan, which it considers a renegade province.
"Any actions aimed at splitting sovereign states and kindling ethnic discord are inadmissible," the declaration said.
"The declaration reflects similar approaches by Russia and China to fundamental world policy issues," Putin told reporters after the signing ceremony. "We understand well the importance of good neighborly relations based on partnership between Russia and China, both for our own peoples and for the entire world."
Hu told reporters that the two sides had discussed cooperation concerning Taiwan and Chechnya, promotion of stability in Central Asia, reform of the United Nations and "the nuclear problem of the Korean Peninsula."
The declaration shows that Russia and China "don't quite believe the sincerity of the second Bush administration's attempts to break its image of being a proponent of unilateral actions and decisions," said Andrei Kortunov, president of the New Eurasia Foundation in Moscow.
"It is confirmation that Washington's attempts to somehow draw various countries into cooperation on a whole number of issues doesn't seem very convincing to China and Russia," Kortunov said. "This may be connected with the unilateral actions of Washington in the Middle East, its latest decisions on increasing its defense budget and some others."
The declaration endorsed a stronger U.N. role in global affairs and rejected attempts "to impose models of social and political development from outside." Both China and Russia hold permanent seats on the U.N. Security Council.
The accord also prominently recycled language that China has pushed in international agreements for decades: "All countries of the world should strictly observe the principles of mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual nonaggression, noninterference in each other's internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence."
Vasily Mikheyev, deputy director of the Institute of Far Eastern Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences, said the declaration was "to some extent counterproductive because it is composed in an old diplomatic style, in the spirit of the Cold War -- that is, the declaration is full of cliches from Cold War times."
"The language of this declaration has very little to do with the diplomacy of globalization," Mikheyev said. "It is neither in Russian nor in Chinese interests to spoil relations with the United States. That is why no country is named by name in the declaration, which makes it sound even more like a bureaucratic Cold War document."
[It appears that Ted Koppel has read Crossing the Rubicon. -MCR]
Take My Privacy, Please!
By Ted Koppel
The New York Times
June 13, 2005
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0F1EF6355C0C708DDDAF0
894DD404482
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
THE Patriot Act - brilliant! Its critics would have preferred a less stirring title, perhaps something along the lines of the Enhanced Snooping, Library and Hospital Database Seizure Act. But then who, even right after 9/11, would have voted for that?
Precisely. He who names it and frames it, claims it. The Patriot Act, however, may turn out to be among the lesser threats to our individual and collective privacy.
There is no end to what we will endure, support, pay for and promote if only it makes our lives easier, promises to save us money, appears to enhance our security and comes to us in a warm, cuddly and altogether nonthreatening package. To wit: OnStar, the subscription vehicle tracking and assistance system. Part of its mission statement, as found on the OnStar Web site, is the creation of "safety, security and peace of mind for drivers and passengers with thoughtful wireless services that are always there, always ready." You've surely seen or heard their commercials, one of which goes like this:
Announcer The following is an OnStar conversation. (Ring)
OnStar OnStar emergency, this is Dwight.
Driver (crying) Yes, yes??!
OnStar Are there any injuries, ma'am?
Driver My leg hurts, my arm hurts.
OnStar O.K. I do understand. I will be contacting emergency services.
Announcer If your airbags deploy, OnStar receives a signal and calls to check on you.
(Ring)
Emergency Services Police.
OnStar This is Dwight with OnStar. I'd like to report a vehicle crash with airbag deployment on West 106th Street.
Emergency Services We'll send police and E.M.S. out there.
Driver (crying) I'm so scared!
OnStar O.K., I'm here with you, ma'am; you needn't be scared.
Well, maybe just a little scared. Tell us again how Dwight knows just where the accident took place. Oh, right! It's those thoughtful wireless services that are always there. Always, as in any time a driver gets into an OnStar-equipped vehicle. OnStar insists that it would disclose the whereabouts of a subscriber's vehicle only after being presented with a criminal court order or after the vehicle has been reported stolen. That's certainly a relief. I wouldn't want to think that anyone but Dwight knows where I am whenever I'm traveling in my car.
Of course, E-ZPass and most other toll-collecting systems already know whenever a customer passes through one of their scanners. That's because of radio frequency identification technology. In return for the convenience of zipping through toll booths, you need to have in your car a wireless device. This tag contains information about your account, permitting E-ZPass to deduct the necessary toll - and to note when your car whisked through that particular toll booth. They wouldn't share that information with anyone, either; that is, unless they had to.
The State Department plans to use radio frequency identification technology in all new American passports by the end of 2005. The department wants to be sure that we all move through immigration quickly and efficiently when we return from overseas. Privacy advocates have suggested that hackers could tap into the information stored on these tags, or that terrorists might be able to use them to pinpoint American tourists in a crowd. The State Department assures us that both concerns are unfounded, and that it will allow privacy advocates to review test results this summer.
Radio frequency identification technology has been used for about 15 years now to reunite lost pets with their owners. Applied Digital Solutions, for example, manufactures the VeriChip, a tiny, implantable device that holds a small amount of data. Animal shelters can scan the chip for the name and phone number of the lost pet's owner. The product is now referred to as the HomeAgain Microchip Identification System.
Useful? Sure. Indeed, it's not much of a leap to suggest that one day, the VeriChip might be routinely implanted under the skin of, let's say, an Alzheimer's patient. The Food and Drug Administration approved the VeriChip for use in people last October. An Applied Digital Solutions spokesman estimates that about 1,000 people have already had a VeriChip implanted, usually in the right triceps. At the moment, it doesn't carry much information, just an identification number that health care providers can use to tap into a patient's medical history. A Barcelona nightclub also uses it to admit customers with a qualifying code to enter a V.I.P. room where drinks are automatically put on their bill. Possible variations on the theme are staggering.
And how about all the information collected by popular devices like TiVo, the digital video recorder that enables you to watch and store an entire season's worth of favorite programs at your own convenience? It also lets you electronically mark the programs you favor, allowing TiVo to suggest similar programs for your viewing pleasure. In February, TiVo announced the most frequently played and replayed commercial moment during the Super Bowl (it involves a wardrobe malfunction, but believe me, you don't want to know), drawing on aggregated data from a sample of 10,000 anonymous TiVo households. No one is suggesting that TiVo tracks what each subscriber records and replays. But could they, if they needed to? That's unclear, although TiVo does have a privacy policy. "Your privacy," it says in part, "is very important to us. Due to factors beyond our control, however, we cannot fully ensure that your user information will not be disclosed to third parties."
Unexpected and unfortunate things happen, of course, even to the most reputable and best-run organizations. Only last February, the Bank of America Corporation notified federal investigators that it had lost computer backup tapes containing personal information about 1.2 million federal government employees, including some senators. In April, LexisNexis unintentionally gave outsiders access to the personal files (addresses, Social Security numbers, drivers license information) of as many as 310,000 people. In May, Time Warner revealed that an outside storage company had misplaced data stored on computer backup tapes on 600,000 current and former employees. That same month, United Parcel Service picked up a box of computer tapes in New Jersey from CitiFinancial, the consumer finance subsidiary of Citigroup, that contained the names, addresses, Social Security numbers, account numbers, payment histories and other details on small personal loans made to an estimated 3.9 million customers. The box is still missing.
Whoops!
CitiFinancial correctly informed its own customers and, inevitably, the rest of the world about the security breach. Would they have done so entirely on their own? That is less clear. In July 2003, California started requiring companies to inform customers living in the state of any breach in security that compromises personally identifiable information. Six other states have passed similar legislation.
No such legislation exists on the federal stage, however - only discretionary guidelines for financial institutions about whether and how they should inform their customers with respect to breaches in the security of their personal information.
Both the House and Senate are now considering federal legislation similar to the California law. It's a start but not nearly enough. We need mandatory clarity and transparency; not just with regard to the services that these miracles of microchip and satellite technology offer but also the degree to which companies share and exchange their harvest of private data.
We cannot even begin to control the growing army of businesses and industries that monitor what we buy, what we watch on television, where we drive, the debts we pay or fail to pay, our marriages and divorces, our litigations, our health and tax records and all else that may or may not yet exist on some computer tape, if we don't fully understand everything we're signing up for when we avail ourselves of one of these services.
Ted Koppel is the anchor and managing editor of the ABC program "Nightline."
[Here we have an interesting feature on micro-power and renewable energy from the Guardian Unlimited. While reading this article, we must keep in mind that it is based on a report produced by the radical British thinktank, The New Economics Foundation. The report appears to tout micro-power and renewable energy as the answer to everything. The report seems to be overoptimistic about the amount of energy available through these sources.
That being said, I fully agree with the authors of this report that many of our energy woes would be solved through the promotion of renewables and microgeneration on a household scale. While it is very doubtful that this sort of energy setup could support our current gluttonous economy (as advocated by the Apollo Alliance, for instance), it could provide the necessary energy for low-consumption, sustainable ecovillages. And it is certainly preferable to nuclear and coal power. While painting renewables in perhaps too rosy a hue, the report is correct about the costs of nuclear power-which are either subsidized by the taxpayers, or are ignored (as in the case of nuclear waste, mine tailings, and potential for terrorism).
It seems that there is a strong movement afoot in Britain and elsewhere in Europe to support renewables. Unfortunately, in the U.S. major corporations maintain a stranglehold on energy generation, and will do everything in their power to prevent energy generation from diversifying and decentralizing. They would rather turn to nuclear and coal, no matter how unsustainable these sources might be. To maintain their monopolies, they are willing to sacrifice our future. The question is, are we willing to subsidize them with our tax dollars? -- DAP (FTW Science Editor)]
Micro-power hailed as cheap, safe energy of future
Thinktank sees nuclear subsidy as bar to full use of renewables
Paul Brown, environment correspondent
Wednesday June 29, 2005
Guardian
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/green/story/0,9061,1516939,00.html
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
Renewable power, particularly schemes where thousands of homes have their own microgenerators for heat and electricity, are a far cheaper way of meeting the UK's energy needs and combating climate change than nuclear stations, says a report out today.
The New Economics Foundation, a radical thinktank, compares the costs of nuclear energy and renewables, their contribution to the economy, and security of electricity supply for Britain.
It says renewable energy is quick to build and is abundant and cheap to harvest. It is also flexible, safe, secure and climate friendly.
"The opposite conclusion is only possible if renewable energy technologies are negatively misrepresented and if the numerous weaknesses, high costs and unsolved problems of nuclear power are glossed over."
The report is published in a week that the government has decided to encourage microgeneration in homes, offices and for whole streets of houses.
The foundation report says such a new industry would create more jobs, with cheaper and faster results than nuclear energy.
"Renewables also do not leave a legacy of radioactive waste that endures in the environment for tens of thousands of years," the report adds.
One great plus of micro-power is that it produces electricity at the point of use so there is no need for large-scale grid connections and the 10% losses in transmission associated with big power plants.
The report says 1m new gas-fired boilers are installed every year in the UK. If half these boilers micro-combined heat and power they would produce the equivalent electricity of a new power station each year, removing the need for new large-scale power plants.
The other advantage of micro-power, which uses solar, wind, hydropower and tides, depending on location, is that it provides security of supply, since it uses such a variety of sources, the report says. Surplus electricity generated can be put into the local grid.
The report estimates that the probable net benefit to the UK of micro-generation would be £35m a year, mainly because the generators use little or no fuel.
The report calls on the government to withdraw the subsidies to nuclear power which "feather-bed" its prospects. So that renewables can reach their full potential, public support for renewables should rise to match the levels historically enjoyed by nuclear power.
The government should have supported a recent private member's bill which would have set targets for renewables by area and removed planning restraints for rooftop wind turbines and other household micro-power.
The report says an unacknowledged benefit of microgeneration is that it puts people back in touch with where energy comes from, and the need to live in balance with the ecosystems on which we all depend.
"It is possible that nuclear power has only survived for as long as it has because its true costs have been hidden from us, and because its radioactive emissions are invisible," the report says.
The costs of renewable energy vary enormously, with onshore wind and landfill gas being the cheapest, though many still in the earlier stages of development are far more expensive than fossil fuels.
The nuclear industry's estimates of the cost of building new reactors, at 3p a kilowatt hour, are wild underestimates, according to the report. It calculates the price, based on past performance, delays and cost overruns, as up to 8p/kw hour, excluding insurance, pollution and the risk of terrorism.
Guardian Unlimited / Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
Supreme Court justice faces boot from home?
Developer wants 'Lost Liberty Hotel' built upon property of David Souter
June 28, 2005
By Ron Strom
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=45029
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
A private developer contacted the local government in Supreme Court Justice David Souter's hometown in New Hampshire yesterday asking that the property of the judge - who voted in favor of a controversial decision allowing a city to take residents' homes for private development - be seized to make room for a new hotel.
Logan Darrow Clements faxed a request to Chip Meany, the code enforcement officer of the town of Weare, N.H., seeking to start the application process to build a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road, the present location of Souter's home.
Wrote Clements: "Although this property is owned by an individual, David H. Souter, a recent Supreme Court decision, Kelo v. City of New London, clears the way for this land to be taken by the government of Weare through eminent domain and given to my LLC for the purposes of building a hotel. The justification for such an eminent domain action is that our hotel will better serve the public interest as it will bring in economic development and higher tax revenue to Weare."
The Kelo v. City of New London decision, handed down Thursday, allows the New London, Conn., government to seize the homes and businesses of residents to facilitate the building of an office complex that would provide economic benefits to the area and more tax revenue to the city. Though the practice of eminent domain is provided for in the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, this case is significant because the seizure is for private development and not for "public use," such as a highway or bridge. The decision has been roundly criticized by property-rights activists and limited-government commentators.
According to a statement from Clements, the proposed development, called "The Lost Liberty Hotel" will feature the "Just Desserts Café" and include a museum, open to the public, "featuring a permanent exhibit on the loss of freedom in America." Instead of a Gideon's Bible in each room, guests will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged," the statement said.
Clements says the hotel must be built on this particular piece of land because it is a unique site - "being the home of someone largely responsible for destroying property rights for all Americans."
Souter has claimed Weare as his home since he moved there as an 11-year-old boy with his family.
"This is not a prank" said Clements. "The town of Weare has five people on the Board of Selectmen. If three of them vote to use the power of eminent domain to take this land from Mr. Souter we can begin our hotel development."
Clements says his plan is to raise investment capital from wealthy pro-liberty investors and draw up architectural plans. These plans would then be used to raise additional capital for the project.
While Clements currently makes a living in marketing and video production, he tells WND he has had involvement in real estate development and is fully committed to the project.
"We will build a hotel there if investors come forward, definitely," he said.
Clements is the CEO of Freestar Media, LLC, which is dedicated to fighting "the most deadly and destructive force on the planet: abusive governments," the website states.
The activist says he is aware of the apparent conflict of someone who is strongly opposed to the Kelo decision using it to purposely oust an American from his property.
"I realize there is a contradiction, but we're only going to use it against people who advocated" the Kelo decision, Clements told WND. "Therefore, it's a case of retaliation, not initiation."
Clements says some people have already offered to put money into the project.
COLOMBIA: Washington's other oil war
Duroyan Fertl
June 22, 2005
GreenLeft
http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/630/630p15.htm
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
After almost five years, and countless thousands of people dead and disappeared, the US$7.5 billion initiative known as "Plan Colombia" has failed - politically and militarily - to bring an end to the crisis that characterises the violence-ridden South American country of Colombia.
Begun in 2000, Plan Colombia was ostensibly designed to take the "war on drugs" to the drug producers. The US argued these were primarily "narco-terrorists" - the Marxist guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the smaller Army of National Liberation (ELN), as well as the right-wing paramilitaries, the so-called United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC).
However, the US has other motives. While most of the country has not been explored for oil, Colombia is already the third-largest exporter in Latin America, after Venezuela and Mexico. The industry accounts for one third of Colombia's exports, and most of Colombia's oil exports are to the US.
Colombia sits on the Venezuela-Orinoco belt, the planet's largest accumulation of hydro-carbons, which it shares with Venezuela and Ecuador. However, the latter two countries, like most of South America, are part of a left-wing revolt against Washington's neoliberal policies.
In Ecuador, a popular uprising just overthrew one president seen as too close to Washington. In Venezuela, the Bolivarian revolution, led by Hugo Chavez, has reasserted popular control over the country's oil reserves, and used the revenue to the benefit of the poor majority. Washington has responded to such anti-capitalist behaviour with support for an unsuccessful coup, an attempted shutdown of the oil industry, and a relentless propaganda campaign against Chavez, all with little effect.
This situation makes securing Colombian oil a priority for the US. US military expenditure and training is in fact concentrated in the oil rich areas of Colombia, particularly Arauca and Putumayo, which are in the guerrilla heartland.
A key part of the International Monetary fund (IMF) "restructures" connected to Plan Colombia has been changes to the oil industry. The government oil company ECOPETROL has been essentially privatised to "encourage" foreign investment in the oil industry. Royalties have been cut to 8%, leases extended indefinitely, and the Colombian government now buys its own oil from foreign companies such as California-based Occidental Petroleum at market rates.
Colombia also remains important to the US as a counterweight to the growth of left-wing, anti-imperialist governments and movements throughout South America, which are threatening Washington's interests.
Plan Colombia
Plan Colombia, due to expire this year, has made Colombia the third-largest recipient of US military assistance after Israel and Egypt, receiving US$3 million per day in military aid. Eighty per cent of Plan Colombia has come in the form of military funding.
The initial draft of Plan Colombia called for $1.3 billion from the US and $4 billion from the Colombian government, then in recession. Much of the final $7.5 billion funding was therefore supplied by loans from the IMF, which has demanded a series of structural reforms to the Colombian economy. European countries, while initially supportive, pulled out because of the excessive military focus, with the exceptions of Spain and Britain.
In April 2001, when US President George Bush established the Andean Regional Initiative (ARI), a $1.1 billion regional expansion of Plan Colombia into Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela, Brazil and Panama, 54% of the funds were spent on military aid. Since 2003, US military expenditure in Colombia has been more than $500 million annually, and has totalled more than $3 billion since 2000. A bill is currently before US Congress requesting another $741.7 million for 2006.
With US training, two-thirds of the Colombian army are now involved in protecting the oil-rich sectors of the country. Under US supervision, the Colombian military recently launched "Operation Shield", a new attempt to secure oil pipelines, to which the US has donated 10 Huey and Blackhawk helicopters. A new counter-guerrilla unit has been created especially to police the Cano-Limon oil field, in Arauca, near the Venezuelan border, which some fear could become a base for aggression against Venezuela.
Fumigation
Despite the supposed anti-drug focus of the plan, most of the military effort has been expended in the departments of Putumayo and Caqueta, in southern Colombia, an area largely controlled by the FARC. This is despite a 2001 Colombian government report estimating that the guerrillas received only 2.5% of total cocaine revenues - mostly as taxes levied on crop producers. In contrast, around 40% of the drug profits make their way into the hands of the right-wing paramilitaries and their allies. It is not surprising, then, that the supply and price of cocaine has remained relatively stable over the period of Plan Colombia.
While Plan Colombia is meant to target "large-scale" coca plantations, most plantations in the Putumayo region are on small plots owned by peasants. Sixty per cent of Colombians live in poverty, while nearly half are barely employed, and for many peasants, growing coca is the only viable alternative to starvation.
A central part of this "anti-drug" strategy has been the spraying of herbicides over the region, particularly a strengthened version of Roundup, or glyphosate, produced by US mega-corporation Monsanto. Over 600,000 hectares of Colombian jungle, the second-largest portion of the Amazon Rainforest after Brazil, has been sprayed in the past five years. The spraying has had a devastating impact on the region, poisoning animals, the water table, crops and the jungle, and causing illness, birth-defects and death amongst the local population.
'Counterinsurgency'
The main reason for this focus on the south is the insurgency of the leftist FARC and ELN guerrillas, based in disenfranchised peasant communities of the region.
The guerrilla war in Colombia dates back more than five decades, to "La Violencia" (The Violence), the 10-year civil war between the Conservative and Liberal parties of the Colombian oligarchy that caused at least 200,000 deaths. Many workers and peasants fled the violence, creating independent "peace communities" in the south of the country.
When the government and ruling-class persecuted these communities, the guerrilla organisations were formed as instruments of self-defence. They now control almost half of the country.
Washington justified its Cold War spending on the Colombian military as preventing the spread of "communism". One of the main effects was the growth of the right-wing paramilitaries, currently responsible for more than 80% of human-rights violations in Colombia, including the assassinations and massacres of union leaders, human rights activists and student leaders.
Narco-president
The current president of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe Velez, has ties to these groups stretching back decades. Uribe was mayor of Medellin in 1982, a city at the heart of the drug trade, and was an associate of the notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar. From 1995 to 1997, Uribe was governor of the state of Antioquia, of which Medellin is the capital.
Escobar poured millions into Uribe's civil projects, and in 1991 the US Defense Intelligence Agency concluded that Uribe himself was one of the top 100 drug traffickers. Throughout this time, the paramilitaries, "Convivirs", were the loyal supporters of both Uribe and the drug barons.
In 1997, the Colombian government stripped the Convivirs of their legitimacy, but most simply took their weapons and joined the ranks of AUC. Despite being added to Washington's list of terrorist organisations, the AUC remains Uribe's most loyal support base.
Uribe recently initiated an amnesty, yet to be passed as law, encouraging the paramilitaries to disarm and face charges for human rights abuses, a development welcomed by many observers of strife-torn Colombia.
This amnesty, however, enables most paramilitaries to escape justice, as charges must be laid within 24 hours, investigations concluded in 30 days, there is no mechanism for confiscating illegal wealth and sentences are capped at eight years.
On June 14, the 400 followers of paramilitary leader Diego Murillo "laid down" their weapons, but many of them will likely soon end up in the Peasant Soldier Program, a government initiative to arm rural "civilians" in support of the security forces. In effect, the process means nothing more than the re-legalisation of the paramilitaries. The bill is likely to be passed soon, not least because it is believed that the AUC has influence over 35% of the Colombian Congress.
The development has been accompanied by a fairly sudden turn by Washington to condemning the paramilitaries' role in the drug trade. In an August 2 article on Colombia Online, Gary Leech argued, however, that the US is trying to derail the amnesty, by pressuring the Colombian government not to appear to be dealing with drug runners. In reality, Leech argues, the US is worried that without the armed paramilitaries, the FARC will make rapid military ground.
'Plan Patriota'
Over the past year, the Colombian government has launched a new component of Plan Colombia, the Patriot Plan, a military offensive of 18,000 soldiers and about $100 million in US military aid to drive the guerrillas from the oil regions. Despite the huge increase in US military personnel, contractors and equipment, the guerrillas have not been defeated. On the contrary, they have intensified the guerrilla war on all fronts.
The rebels recently destroyed nine energy towers in Antioquia state, temporarily cutting electricity to thousands of residents on Colombia's northern coast, and have successfully attacked the Colombian special forces in several regions, including destroying an elite battalion in Arauca.
The FARC and ELN have repeatedly made clear their preference for a negotiated solution to the violence, but this appears unlikely under present circumstances, as both the Colombian and US governments are bent on military solutions. When Plan Colombia began, the Colombian government under president Pastrana pulled out of ongoing peace negotiations with the FARC and ELN and went on a military offensive.
Now, in the lead-up to next year's elections, where Uribe hopes the Supreme Court will change the constitution to allow him to run again, he wants to show the success of his "national security" policy by inflicting as many defeats on the armed groups as possible. However, the fraudulent "disarmament" of the AUC and the failed offensive against the FARC show the bankruptcy of this solution.
From Green Left Weekly, June 22, 2005.
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The Saudi Facade
Even with a major oil field showing strain, the promises are flowing
by James Ridgeway
The Village Voice
July 5th, 2005 12:05 PM
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0527,mondo1,65566,6.html
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
WASHINGTON, D.C. Three months ago, when gas prices hit $2 and oil was at more than $50 a barrel, the administration said relief would come because Saudi Arabia had agreed to increase short-term production, and would spend $50 billion to increase output over the next decade. Last week gas prices were climbing higher and oil hit $60 a barrel. Some predict it can go over $100, maybe as high as $200.
As for Saudi production, Matthew R. Simmons-one of the world's experts on the oil business and chair of Simmons & Co., a Houston investment bank specializing in petroleum-is the author of a new book, Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, which suggests in the politest of terms that the Saudis are a bunch of liars: They either don't know their own reserves or, more likely, have phonied the books to make it appear as if they have more oil than they do. His assessment adds weight to the alarms set off by oil experts who warn that the world is running out of oil.
The response of Congress to these warnings lies in an energy bill that rewards the oil and gas companies, already enjoying windfall profits, with additional revenues in the form of billions of dollars in subsidies-$8 billion in the Senate version, $16 billion in the House-and forces liquefied natural gas terminals down the throats of coastal cities, which fear conflagrations if an LNG ship blows up on its own or becomes a terrorist target. Congress and federal agencies, meanwhile, push ahead with alternative energy in the form of nuclear power. There is the usual pittance for such things as solar, wind, and conservation, as there has been since the mid 1970s.
The symbol of international oil and the base of the Saudi oil industry is the Ghawar oil field, which runs for 174 miles under Saudi Arabia. Ghawar is the biggest oil field in the world, providing between 6 and 8 percent of total global production. Since it was first tapped, Ghawar has yielded an astounding 55 billion barrels of oil, at the current rate of 5 million barrels per day. Its output represents about two-thirds of total Saudi production.
Up to now politicians and oil publicists have regarded Ghawar as some kind of eternal bubbling spring. In fact, as Simmons points out, details of its workings are pretty much a state secret. In February 2004, Saudi Aramco officials for the first time publicly discussed data on the field at a workshop on oil at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. It was at this workshop that Simmons aired his own suspicions about the field. But Saudi officials reassured the group that Ghawar could keep on producing 5 million barrels a day, and if need be, yield 10 or 12 or even 15 million barrels a day. This increased production is probably what the Bush administration is referring to when it talks about Saudi Arabia increasing production to ease the worldwide oil shortage and bring prices down.
But as technical reports show, Ghawar is in trouble. The field is rent with fractures and faults, letting in unexpected amounts of water, which complicates production. Masses of tar were discovered, and that makes extraction more difficult. The authorities claim that problems will straighten out as they drill wells north to south along the long reservoir. But Saudi experts admit that as production moves south, the permeability and porosity of the rocks decrease. Taken together, these technical reports portray the oil field in real trouble, with production inevitably decreasing, in the end making the 5 million barrel a day figure unrealistically high. It is unlikely that Saudi Arabia's other oil fields could take up the slack; their output has declined over the years. Possible new production in areas such as the depths of the Red Sea and land along the Iraqi border is considered dubious. "Unless some great series of exploration miracles occurs soon," writes Simmons, "the only certainty about Saudi Arabia's oil future is that once its five or six great oil fields go into steep decline, there is nothing remotely resembling them to take their place."
It was former CIA boss George Tenet who over saw the agency's 2003 secret paramilitary raid on a Muslim cleric in Italy. The raid resulted in an Italian magistrate issuing arrest warrants for 13 CIA agents and caused yet another anti-American storm in that country. In this case, the Agency shared knowledge of the project with a "tiny number of people" in Italy-not including the magistrate or the local cops in Milan. Ignoring the Italians, the CIA raiders swooped down, grabbed Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, a/k/a Abu Omar, and rendered him off to Egypt, where, he later told his wife, he was tortured. He was let out of jail and has now disappeared.
The CIA sleuths left a paper trail making it easy for cops to trace not only them but also the Agency's head of station. The raid interfered with the Italians' own secret investigations of Abu Omar. The rationale for the raid was Bush's obsession with counterterrorism. "Everyone wanted in on the game," a CIA officer told The Washington Post. "The CIA chief in Italy wanted to have a notch in his belt."
You can begin to get an idea of why the Italians are so angry when you realize that it was Italian intelligence that successfully wiretapped an Al Qaeda cell in Milan from 1999 to 2001. On three separate occasions before 9-11, the Italians taped messages that have a Yemeni terrorist telling an Egyptian terrorist about a massive strike against enemies of Islam involving aircraft and the sky. On one tape, the Yemeni is heard to say, "This will be one of those strikes that will never be forgotten. . . . This is a terrifying thing. . . . " In another conversation, the Yemeni tells the Egyptian: "I'm studying airplanes. I hope, God willing, that I can bring you a window or a piece of an airplane the next time we see each other."
From 2000 on, the FBI and the Italians analyzed the tapes but couldn't figure out what they meant. But in March 2001 the Italians gave the U.S. a warning of a coming attack. Five days before 9-11, a priest named Jean-Marie Benjamin was told by a Muslim at an Italian wedding of a plot to attack the U.S. and Britain, using hijacked airplanes as weapons. Benjamin passed the information to a judge and political officials. American intelligence ignored those warnings. And only hours after the attack, Donald Rumsfeld launched his campaign in the White House against not Al Qaeda, but Iraq.
No one was held accountable. George Tenet resigned and was rewarded with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
And God created morons
"It's not logical. . . . It doesn't go with any scientific evidence," explained Forrest Montgomery, 20, a student at Murrieta Calvary Chapel Bible College in California. "It's a theory, and it's been disproven many times. . . . They have to keep on changing the theory of evolution . . . and it's terrible because they teach it in schools as fact, and they say you can't teach the Bible. . . . The Bible hasn't been proven wrong, and it's impossible to prove it wrong. Like, the Bible-it's flawless. It's the word of God."
Montgomery was one of hundreds of evangelicals who came to New York last week for the Billy Graham Crusade. Another was his classmate Kenny Kagawa, 23. "I used to believe in evolution," said Kagawa, "but after I started thinking, I'm like, why am I believing something that there's no proof to? You know? And then when I heard the story of Christ and just the creation and everything, I researched it, and there's so much more evidence that goes along with the story of the Bible, like, accounts of the beginning. . . .
"So, Christianity's not a bunch of people who are brainwashed and don't know anything, you know what I mean? It's a life-changing experience. . . . God created us with a brain to think on our own, and that's what I did. I went to school. I went to college. I did good. . . . I'm not one just to believe in anything."
Creationism could change our understanding of the world. In Grand Canyon: A Different View, for example, author Tom Vail argues that the canyon was created 4,500 years ago by Noah's flood, not 6 million years ago, as geologists say. A Gallup poll last November indicated that Americans can't agree on how life began. A plurality of Americans, 45 percent, say God created humans in their current form, and 38 percent say that they developed over time but that God guided the process. Just 13 percent said God had no role in the process.
Additional reporting: Halley Bondy and Natalie Wittlin
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Russia and China sign strategic bilateral agreements - decide to trade Chechnya for Taiwan