Good morning/evening, here is my
World Roundup for
December 09, 2003
Legend:
fr = French language
it = Italian language
ro = Romanian/Moldovan language
es = Spanish language
de = German language
pt = Portuguese language
is = Icelandic language
su = Suomi language (Finnish)
nl = Dutch language
Everything else in English language
Note: That which you can see on your evening news will not be covered here.
No flag for this article, because it looks like the United States is going to make major shifts in its armed forces in Europe. Currently, 80,000 of a total of 161,000 in the European Command are stationed in Germany. It looks like the shift is going to be eastward, to the new NATO countries of Poland and Romania (home to one base already near Constanta), as well as more bases in the Balkans (already in Albania, Bosnia, Macedonia and Serbia) as well as Central Asia (already in Kazakhstan, Tajikstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan).
My guess is that the Caspian sea will become heavily fortified, especially the countries of Georgia and Azerbaijan, to protect the oil from Tajik and Russian companies who already are in disputed waters. It looks like troops will be reduced in Germany, Iceland and Spain.
There is a story all over the internet's news sites that "dirty bomb" missiles are missing from Moldova. First of all, the "missing" rockets are from Tiraspol in the Russian-controlled enclave of TransDniestr. I personally think this story is a load of shit and is propaganda put out by the US (note: the only source for this allegation is the Washington Post) as a method of putting the heat on Russia. Romania has been America's loyal lapdog and the US is pushing for Moldova to rejoin Romania (the two were separated in WW2) which would at the same time push Russian troops farther east. Of course I could be wrong, but watch and see if this story doesn't mysteriously disappear.
It looks like the "capture" of the Abu-Sayyaf leader in The Phillipines is named "Commander Robot". If it is confirmed that Commander Robot is in custody, the US will pay the soldiers who captured him 5 million of your tax dollars.
In Greece, 15 people have been convicted for various terrorist activites and for being members of the group "November 17".
It's worth a look at the group N17: from 1967 to 1975 Greece was ruled by a US-financed dictator and N17 arose in response to the November 17, 1973 massacre at an Athens university when the government sent tanks to crush a protest. Now, who was the first victim of N17? Richard Welch, the CIA station chief in Athens. Folks, whether it's the 1979 Iranian revolution or N17 in Greece, supporting dictators is a bad move and eventually comes back to haunt us all. The group N17 has killed just 21 people since 1975 when it was founded, and 4 of those were US diplomats. Besides, from reading through reports of the trial, it looks like most of the members were essentially framed on scanty evidence and many of them were drugged into confessing. Oddly enough, the leader of the group believes he will be sent to Guantanamo Bay to serve out his sentence.
The people of the tiny South American country of Uruguay wisely voted against a new law that would have privatized the country's oil. The President, Jorge Batlle, had stumped in favor of the law and now looks to hurt him in the Presidential elections in October 2004.
China, a country of 1.3 billion people, is a little overcrowded in its cities. Now it seems that young people are having sex in their cars in an attempt to get a little privacy and its shocking the authorities. Some interesting quotes from citizens in the article.
The President of Brazil, Lula da Silva, is in Egypt and is meeting with President Hosni Mubarak. The Brazilians, as you learned in yesterday's World Update, are stumping for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Hosni Mubarak has been the US-financed dictator of Egypt since 1981.
It seems that three South Koreans are missing in the Antarctic. South Korea has staffed a permanent base on the icy continent since 1988.
Things may be slightly better in the former Belgian colony now called Democratic Republic of the Congo. In a reprise of the old colonial days, Belgian troops are now training an army composed of government and two groups of rebel troops in an effort to end the fighting in the eastern half of the country.
The war mongering Prime Minister of Spain, Jose Maria Aznar, is in Morocco and will meet with its dictator king, Muhammed the Sixth. The two countries fought a brief skirmish earlier this year over an uninhabited island, have competing oil rights off the coast, have immigration issues as Moroccans swim ashore to Spain, have land disputes over the towns of Ceuta and Melilla (belong to Spain but are on Moroccan soil) and fought a bitter war back in the 1970's over the Western Sahara. But this trip is expected to go "smoothly".
About the only thing Morocco and Spain agree on is that receiving US cash to "fight terrorism" is mighty nice.
Yesterday's World Update reported that things were going well in the UN disarmament of Liberia but now some of the disarmed groups are upset because payments are late. Each disarmed soldier wants 300 dollars and a sack of flour. Is peace worth this price? 300 bucks a soldier?? Come on, Britain is spending over 300 million bucks a month on the Iraqi war. These people want to quit fighting and return to peace. Our priorities make me sick sometimes.
Even a little good news from the hellhole known as Uganda as approximately 90 children were rescued from the Lord's Resistance Army by government troops. The children had been doped up and given guns as the LRA consists almost entirely of child soldiers. The LRA has conscripted more than 20,000 children into its wacko army.
Don't worry about where the gasoline for your car is going to come from, because the EBRD has just announced in the Rep. of Georgia that the famous oil pipeline from Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey will be built on time despite all the political upheaval of late. Whew! Collective sigh of relief.
Meanwhile Azerbaijan is hedging its bets by holding talks with Iran about restoring gas distribution systems between the two countries. It's a brisk business in Caspian goodies!
In eastern Iran it seems that at least three German citizens have been kidnapped while bicycling near the Afghanistan border. The tribes who captured the tourists are demanding a ransom for their release.
The dictator for life of oil rich Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, is on his way to Pakistan for a state visit.
The Democratic party in Australia is banding together to offer help to one of its members, Andrew Bartlett, after he got drunk and acted like an ass during official senate business and while on camera. Was he the only one drinking while Australia passed laws?
Mr McMullan said he did not believe this highlighted any wider problem of alcohol consumption in the national Parliament.
"If it's a big shock to anyone that people drink at Parliament House, then they haven't been in any other house in Australia," he said.
"The problem is people are 24 hours on the job on this last day but no one should go into the chamber drunk. They should not. That is not unique to one side of politics. It's been going on for 100 years.
"It doesn't happen much. It's actually a very disciplined place these days .. compared to some, much more than when I first went there.
"There is much less drink. It is a much more austere place than it was."
Big trial for two former ministers in France on charges of embezzling 762,000 euros(es). Will let you know when I find a good article on this in English.
If you were interested by yesterday's World Report on the situation in the Central African Republic, then click on the link for a good in-depth background and analysis.
I hope I'm wrong but it looks like the 1980's will be repeated in Ethiopia as government ministers are warning of a massive water shortage in the region.
The US-financed dictator Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan is coming under increasing heat for his atrocious human rights abuses.
In recognition of Uzbekistan's importance, Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld was scheduled to visit Karimov in Tashkent to address growing concern over the recent deployment of Russian fighter-bombers at a base in neighboring Kyrgyzstan last week when he traveled to Georgia, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
The visit, cancelled at the last moment due to bad weather over Tashkent.
Not gross human rights violations, just a little bad weather. I'm about to be sick.
Karimov also hosted Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman just last month. Veneman praised the country's leadership, describing Uzbekistan as a "strategic ally of the United States" and offering both food aid and assistance in developing Uzbekistan's agricultural sector. She did not speak publicly about the human rights situation in the country.
Just another day in the merry old land of US-supported dictators.
President Paksas of Lithuania is in the bottom of the ninth with two outs of his political career. His controversial financial backer for the January elections, Yuri Borisov, testified that Paksas had granted him Lithuanian citizenship (he is a Russian national) for his aid and promised him a cabinet post. Adios Mr. Paksas!
Looks like Venezuela and Ecuador have been making a killing lately as oil prices rose because of the weakened dollar and other factors. Yippee for oil!
In case you were wondering what's going on in Venezuela with the referendum movement, the opposition will turn in its signatures for the petition to hold a recall election next year sometime this week. If they have the necessary 2.8 million signatures, prepare for a US-financed coup!
The voting is over in Russia, but international observers from the OSCE are claiming the election had been fundamentally distorted in favor of Vladimir Putin's "United Russia" party. Well, of course! Putin and United Russia own most of the media outlets in Russia and they've been trumpeting the UR campaign line for weeks. I don't remember Russia's official response to the trainwreck that was the American 2000 presidential elections, but the United States cannot refrain from wagging a finger in Russia's face. From the official transcript:
QUESTION: Richard, turning to Russia, do you have any reaction to the vote in Russia and the concerns raised by some of the international organizations and the OSCE about the fairness of the elections?
MR. BOUCHER: At this point, I think our comment has to be preliminary because the results themselves are preliminary. The early indications certainly are the pro-Kremlin parties won a large majority in the new Duma. We would certainly hope that the newly elected Duma will press ahead on democratic and economic reform and continue to support the U.S.-Russia partnership.
As far as the concerns that have been raised by the OSCE, we certainly share those concerns that the election process may have failed to meet many OSCE standards. It's clear to us that the administrative -- that administrative resources were widely used to assist pro-Kremlin parties. I think they talked about and we share their concerns about things like state media systematically reporting favorably on pro-Kremlin parties and reporting negatively on opponents.
As far as specific practices on election days, I'd leave that to the OSCE's Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. There were U.S. personnel who participated as observers at this election, but they participated as part of those teams that were fielded by the OSCE.
QUESTION: Has the U.S. conveyed its concerns directly to the Putin government?
MR. BOUCHER: I think the answer is we -- many of these things were concerns before the election. Certainly, we've been in touch with the Russian Government about the conduct of the elections. But I repeat once again, I don't really have an overall assessment for you at this point. There are some concerns that have been raised over time, particularly with regard to how the state media acted in the run-up to the election.
I guess Fox News campaigning for Bush doesn't count, eh guys?
Well, things have gotten a little out of hand recently in the oil rich country of Nigeria as 19 people were killed and dozens wounded in inter-ethnic fighting in the village of Yukugbene.
Not too far down the road, a Nigerian Navy vessel was hijacked by more Ijaw youths, who managed to subdue the entire crew. The Navy has sent two more warships to the area to try to recover the ship and the abducted crew.
And in a story I haven't heard elsewhere, Exxon Mobil will be forced to pay 10.1 million dollars to three Nigerian communities for the damage it caused in a 1998 oil spill.
Relations between oil transnationals producing over two million barrels of crude daily in Nigeria and the inhabitants of the oil-rich Niger Delta, where most of the oil is produced, are at best difficult.
Impoverished communities in the region accuse the joint ventures of government and oil transnationals of cheating them out of the wealth produced in their land and causing massive environmental damage.
Violent disruption of oil operations, including kidnapping of oil workers for ransom, violent protests and fighting among the communities for benefits from oil companies are common.
Black gold! Texas tea! Poverty, strife and dictatorships!
The judge got a little angry as well.
The court also agreed that the spill was as a result of Mobil's negligence, as the company failed to provide contingency measures to check the incident. It also failed to alert the plaintiffs of the danger, by the use of high toxic substance in the treatment of the spill.
This omission, the court said, made the crude oil to settle down in the rivers and killed fish in the water.
The Judge again observed that Mobil did not take urgent steps to clean up the spilled oil, even as it was quickly alerted. It added that the company did not install boom, which would have checked the spread of the spill.
In the final news story, I was reading the official transcript of the State Dept briefing on Dec 8, 2003 when I came across this:
QUESTION: Mr. Boucher, the yesterday's British newspaper, Sunday Herald, of London reported that five Israelis were seen filming the attack into the twin towers September 11th, 2001, and have been arrested by the U.S. authority. Could you please confirm this arrest, and may we have your comment on this unusual story?
MR. BOUCHER: I've never seen that story. I don't have any comment. I've never seen it in any --
QUESTION: Could you take the question, because the British --
MR. BOUCHER: No, it's not a matter for me. If you want to find out if somebody's been arrested in the United States, you'll have to ask the law enforcement people.
QUESTION: (Inaudible) December 13, 19 -- was 2001, he said I am aware that some Israeli citizens have been detained and they have been in touch with Israeli Government as to the fact that they have been detained and making sure that they have rights to (inaudible) here to the United States. So that's why I ask you.
MR. BOUCHER: The status of any people who may or may not be in a detention is a matter for American judicial and law enforcement officials, and I'll leave it to them. I'll leave it to our law enforcement people to talk about it if they wish, if there's anything to talk about at all.
Here is the article that the unnamed reporter was referring to. I had heard of this story long before but I wasn't sure if it fell into what some people call "tinfoil hat" territory, but the Sunday Herald is a major mainstream paper in Britain. For a LOT more information on this frightening story, with lots of newspaper links, click here. It's enough to make you cry if even half of it is true.
James Brown, who grew up near where I currently live, has officially been named the Secretary of Soul and Foreign Minister of Funk as apparently the State Department has been smoking those left-handed cigarettes:
QUESTION: Yeah, Richard, I wanted to ask you about this very unusual personnel change the Secretary made over the weekend, appointing James Brown to be the Secretary of Soul and the Foreign Minister of Funk.
(Laughter.)
What is the -- what's the job -- what's the job description for that? Is it a paid position and does he get office space in this building?
MR. BOUCHER: I think that -- I don't know that that has all been decided. If we do assign any office space or write out the position description, you'll be the first to get it.
QUESTION: So does he report directly to the Secretary?
MR. BOUCHER: Absolutely.
Peace!