The Jig is Up. Get Back to Work!

From the BBC.

French trains 'hit by sabotage'

France's high-speed TGV rail network has been damaged by a "concerted campaign of sabotage", the SNCF state-owned rail operator has said.

It said acts of sabotage overnight, including fires, caused huge delays to TGV services already hit by a long transport union strike over reforms.

The SNCF blamed militants for the attacks, saying they wanted to harm negotiations to end the strike.

The talks between rail unions and the government opened on Wednesday.

*************

Oh my God, they've offended the militants! The Beeb also reported:

On Tuesday, hundreds of thousands of civil servants joined striking transport and energy workers over what they say is an erosion in their earnings and proposals to slim France's large public sector.

We are witnessing the end of the Golden Era for Socialism in Europe. What a rude awakening these poor Frenchmen are in for. With their 35 hour workweeks, five weeks of annual vacation and retirement at age 50 (at least for the transport workers) they have been living in a socialist dreamworld. It has become demographically untenable there as it will soon be in Canada. And lest we engage in too much schadenfreude, we're in the same boat. Most of us bought into the various scares regarding the overcrowding of PlanetEarth. Based on the advice of our generation's chicken little scaremongers, we quit breeding enough offspring to support us in our golden years. It's a sad commentary on our intelligentsia (and the system that educated them) that even now, many of them haven't figured out that the jig is up.

Can you say Allu Akbar?

Remember the British documentary we linked to some months back? It went undercover to show the hatred and bigotry being preached in British mosques. Who did the British police turn their attention to? The documentary's producers. Is there any hope for a people when their police are so politically correct? Can you say Allu Akbar?

Channel 4 vindicated over Undercover Mosque

By Duncan Hooper and agencies
Last Updated: 12:57pm GMT 19/11/2007

Channel 4 has been vindicated by the media watchdog Ofcom after police complained about an investigative programme that exposed extremism in British mosques.

West Midland's police had faced criticism for targeting the producers of the show rather than the controversial preachers depicted in it.

Ofcom added fuel to that debate by praising Undercover Mosque as a "legitimate investigation, uncovering matters of important public interest."

The watchdog added: "Ofcom found no evidence that the broadcaster had misled the audience or that the programme was likely to encourage or incite criminal activity.

"On the evidence (including untransmitted footage and scripts), Ofcom found that the broadcaster had accurately represented the material it had gathered and dealt with the subject matter responsibly and in context."

Police claimed that the Dispatches programme had misrepresented the views of Muslim preachers and clerics with misleading editing.

Following today's ruling, the Channel 4 called the police's actions "perverse" and said they had, in some people's eyes, given "legitimacy to people preaching a message of hate".

The programme featured undercover recordings from speakers alleged to be homophobic, anti-Semitic, sexist and condemnatory of non-Muslims.

Excerpts from preachers and teachers included "Allah created the woman deficient" and "by the age of ten, it becomes an obligation on us to force her (young girls) to wear hijab and if she doesn't wear hijab, we hit her".

Other statements included "take that homosexual and throw him off the mountain" and "whoever changes his religion from Al Islam to anything else - kill him in the Islamic state".

Police initially launched an investigation into whether criminal offences had been committed at the mosques and other organisations featured in the programme.

They then said that it considered offences may have been committed by those involved in the production and broadcast of the programme, specifically in stirring up racial hatred.

After the Crown Prosecution Service advised that the prospect of conviction was unlikely, police referred Undercover Mosque to Ofcom, complaining that intense editing had misrepresented those featured in the programme.

Ofcom also rejected the 364 viewers' complaints it received after the programme was broadcast, which it said appeared to be part of a campaign.

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"Europe has all but succumbed to the opiate of multiculturalism. In its drowsy numbness, it stirs but has no idea what to do and so does nothing. One day, years from now, as archaeologists sift through the ruins of an ancient civilization for clues to its downfall, they'll marvel at how easy it all was. You don't need to fly jets into skyscrapers and kill thousands of people. As a matter of fact, that's a bad strategy, because even the wimpiest state will feel obligated to respond. But if you frame the issue in terms of multicultural "sensitivity," the wimp state will bend over backward to give you everything you want - including, eventually, the keys to those skyscrapers." Mark Steyn, America Alone.

Imported Oil and Imperial Overreach Has a Price.

The Pain begins. I do not see how the Republicans can talk their way out of this mess which has been building and accelerating under a Republican President and a Republican Congress. This will be a much larger concern than what is happening in Iraq.

A prescient article written June 2005

The Deal Story of 2008:
Will the U.S. Get LBOed?
November 20, 2007 WSJ

China and the Gulf states are hungry, and they've just sat down for an American buffet. In the last few months alone, state-affiliated funds and companies have taken bites of American icons, picking up small stakes in Advanced Micro Devices, MGM Mirage, Nasdaq Stock Market, Blackstone Group and Bear Stearns.

The deals were designed to be small enough to avoid scrutiny from the U.S. government. This conveniently played into the hands of sellers, who were able to offload pricey positions while giving virtually nothing in return, such as board seats or veto rights.

But the mergers-and-acquisitions story of 2008 will be how these foreign sovereign funds -- sitting on an estimated $2 trillion to $3 trillion of reserves -- direct their appetites. Fattened by the U.S.'s own trade imbalances and encouraged by favorable currency rates, they aren't likely to stay so compliant for long. Further down the buffet line sit entire U.S. companies.


Seven sovereign funds, including those of Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, China, Singapore and Russia, now sit on piles greater than $100 billion. Outside the U.S., these funds have proven more adventuresome, with a Dubai company recently moving to take ownership of the airport in Auckland, New Zealand.

This foreshadows some uncomfortable economic and cultural reckonings for the U.S. The modern gamesmanship of corporate interests is beginning to look more like "The Great Game" of national interests, where capital, as much as armies, can be deployed for strategic effect. And on this field of play, the U.S. looks caught off guard -- not unlike the cocksure Olympic basketball squad, run out of the gym by ostensibly weaker teams.

"When governments act in this field, the motives are different," says Deszo J. Horvath, Dean of the Schulich School of Business at Canada's York University. "The motives are longer-term security issues, which can have nothing to do with current economics."

Sen. Evan Bayh captured the new concerns at a congressional hearing last Wednesday. "The definition of national security interest is broader than it used to be," he said. "[Y]ou'll see the Chinese going around the world acquiring what they view as strategic energy interests, and it is not impossible that financial positions might be used in a similar vein."

That's why this incoming wave of foreign money will reveal more about the U.S. than about countries initiating the deals. Laws overseeing foreign investments were just given a much-needed overhaul. But at its core, the issue is as much about emotion and pride as it is about process, says Ivan Schlager, a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Skadden Arps, who handles cross-border transactions.

Foreign investments touch a nerve, especially when so much American economic power appears at the mercy of China, which holds U.S. Treasury bills, or the Gulf states, which have such a big say over U.S. energy costs. For 2007, foreign buyers have accounted for 20% of M&A in the U.S., according to Dealogic, the second-highest level since 1995.

"We have not fully grasped what is happening here, and we have no counterstrategy," said Patrick Mulloy, Washington representative of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, a group studying technology, business, and economics.

Can the U.S. accept the foreign investments as an essential element for lubricating a dynamic economy? Tighter economic ties create less incentive for war and terrorism. And below the radar, a recent series of foreign investments have closed without incident. "No one raised serious objections when Sabic [a state-owned Saudi Arabian company] bought GE Plastics in a competitive auction. Are we culturally ready? We're a very welcoming and open society," adds Mr. Schlager.

Until it's not. Already the country has proven touchy, famously fretting when a Japanese businessman overpaid for the Pebble Beach golf resort back in 1990, or when a Dubai-backed company looked to take over a series of U.S. ports in 2006, setting off a talk-radio furor that squelched the deal.

It's easy to find conspiracies in these governmental funds, in part because they have such little transparency. The Group of Seven leading nations recently called upon the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to study ways to improve disclosure and accountability.

With a weak dollar and the ever-enriched positions of petro-based economies, it's inevitable that the worries will continue to stew. And it's inevitable that they will one day interfere with a big sovereign-fund investment plan.

The irony is the U.S. is, in essence, funding its own potential takeover. In Wall Street parlance, they call it getting LBOed. "We're moving to a sharecropper economy," said Mr. Mulloy in an interview. "The other guys are going to be owning, and we're going to be working for them."

Email dennis.berman@wsj.com. For a daily comprehensive look at the world of deals visit wsj.com/deals.

Does a Bloomberg Candidacy Hurt Democrats or Republicans?

...and he has a good eye for the ladies. Jennifer Stockman with Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

There seems to be a bottlenecking of the current crop of presidential candidates indicating a growing sense of, "None of the Above." That applies to both parties, more so with the Republicans, but it exists with the Democrats as well.

Iraq appears to be declining as a predominate concern being overtaken by worry about the economy. There is a general unease about everything, the dollar, the banks, Iran, China, Russia; it is a growing list. All of this is fertile ground for a third party candidate.

None of the potential interlopers to the Republocrats party have the wherewithal, money and ego of Michael Bloomberg. The question is simple but I am uncertain if the answer is. Where would Bloomberg get his votes? The question is complicated by the electoral college.

My opinion is that he hurts the Democrats most of all in the general vote but the Republicans, especially Giuliani, in some key states like Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania, but I am uncertain. That is after all what this is all about, uncertainty.


November 20, 2007
Can Bloomberg Fill JFK-Sized Hole in American Politics?
By Mort Kondracke Real Clear Politics

Michael Bloomberg is back in the 2008 presidential picture, and one thing is for sure: There is a statesman-sized hole to fill in the center of American politics. It would fit a figure who is strong on national security, unlike all the Democratic candidates, yet fiscally responsible and socially moderate to liberal, unlike the Republicans.

It's a Franklin Roosevelt-, Harry Truman-, Dwight Eisenhower-, John F. Kennedy-sized hole that's currently occupied by no one except perhaps Sen. Joe Lieberman (ID-Conn.), a man without a party.

The problem with American politics now is that Democrats have driven themselves, once again, to the left end of the political spectrum on foreign policy - as was demonstrated once again last week on the floors of Congress and in the Las Vegas presidential debate.


Not one candidate in the debate, nor any Democratic leader in Congress, would acknowledge that important progress has been made in Iraq since Gen. David Petraeus launched his counterinsurgency strategy.

To the contrary, Democrats are playing a dangerous game of "chicken" with the country's armed services, threatening to cut off funding for the military to force President Bush to accept a goal of full withdrawal from Iraq in 2008 - despite the chance Petraeus has created for a successful outcome.

It's hard to disagree with what Lieberman has said in the past two weeks - that Democrats are "emotionally invested in a narrative of defeat and retreat in Iraq" and that "it is deeply irresponsible for anti-war forces in Congress to hold hostage the funds our men and women in uniform need to continue their successful efforts."

Democrats are following the same pattern in requiring a court order for electronic intercepts of terrorists overseas because they might contact someone in the United States. Democrats act as though Bush presents a greater danger to this country than Osama bin Laden.

Meantime, Republicans have driven themselves to the right edge of the economic and social spectrum, as demonstrated by Bush's vetoes of spending and children's health bills, by Republicans' penchant for borrowing to pay for their outsized tax cuts and by the presidential candidates' hard-line positions on abortion and immigration.

Republicans in Congress sustained Bush's vetoes despite their own record of piling up $1.9 trillion in accumulated deficits since he took office and the fact that Democratic spending proposals represent just a $5 billion increase over current levels, designed to pay for student aid, medical research and energy assistance for the poor.

As demonstrated on the House floor last week, Republicans oppose paying for a needed "fix" in the alternative minimum tax with higher taxes elsewhere, preferring to borrow the money from their children and grandchildren.

On the campaign trail, no candidate dares talk about higher taxes to pay America's bills and there's next to no attention among GOP candidates to the fact that America's middle class feels economically stressed.

And the feeling is legitimate, given a new report showing that upward mobility in the United States lags behind that in other industrialized countries and that only people in the best-educated third of the U.S. population can expect to be better off than their parents.

Except Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the leading Republican candidates are pandering to a loud anti-immigrant claque in the party and, except for Rudy Giuliani, all are vying to appeal to the right-to-life movement as ardently as Democrats appeal to the abortion-rights movement.

There's a huge gap in the middle that could be filled by a candidate who called for perseverance in Iraq and tough diplomacy toward Iran, yet also favored adequate funding for education and health care and was moderate on abortion and immigration.

Candidates pay lip service to the public's evident desire for its politicians to stop partisan squabbling and start solving their real problems, but the gap remains wide in view of anyone's offering nonideological solutions to those problems.

New York Mayor Bloomberg arguably could fit well into the space, although he has to begin speaking out on national and international issues if he hopes to be successful as an independent candidate.

He is privately telling visitors that the chances of his running are 50-50. Clearly he wants to keep a buzz going about his candidacy, having cooperated with Newsweek in a cover profile two weeks ago. The article exhaustively covered Bloomberg's life, mayoral record and political prospects but was short of details on his views.

He is clearly pro-choice on abortion, pro-gun-control, pro-gay-rights and favors merit pay for teachers and controls on climate change. His view on Iraq, as expressed in Newsweek, is that "the current situation is intolerable" because "the public doesn't understand why we are there, and part of leadership is explaining, bringing people along."

That could mean explaining why America has to see the task through to success, if it can be attained, but Bloomberg didn't say. It is encouraging that in 2006, he campaigned for Lieberman's re-election.

On the other hand, he sounds like a Democrat on Iran, virtually ruling out military action and promising negotiations. That doesn't necessarily make him a hopeless dove, but he didn't mention the word "sanctions," either. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) did.

Bloomberg aides say he won't run unless he thinks he can win. A Newsweek poll indicated that, right now, he garners only 11 percent of the vote, to Clinton's 44 percent and Giuliani's 38 percent, and pulls more support from Giuliani than Clinton.

But that's all theoretical because Bloomberg is hardly known outside New York and its environs. He has to stop teasing and start talking in order for the public to determine whether he is what America desperately needs - a centrist choice dedicated to keeping America safe, solving its problems and building consensus.

Mort Kondracke is the Executive Editor of Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill since 1955. © 2007 Roll Call, Inc.

The US Will Regret the Bush Legacy on Latin America

This article by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs does a reasonable job of presenting a synopsis on the results of the US-Latin un-policy.

Pluralism Bursts into the Western Hemisphere

• While Russia, Europe and China are wooing Latin America and the Caribbean, the Monroe Doctrine now becomes the “Putin, Zapatero and Chinese – Corollary”

• Iran’s increased presence in the region may lead to bad press, but for now only shows increased investments

• The “Great Game” of political and economic influence is set to be played in the southern hemisphere

No one is arguing that Latin America and the Caribbean have become a priority matter for international diplomacy, save for the U.S., which has witnessed a massive retreat of Washington's vigilance for what it once insisted were its longtime national interests and influence in the hemisphere. Concentrating on its "War on Terror" has resulted in a detour of the U.S. military and diplomatic corps to a series of sorties, like Afghanistan, Iraq, and now, likely enough, to Iran. The 1823 Monroe Doctrine is no longer relevant as nations like Russia, the People's Republic of China as well as the European Union (and its individual members) increase their influence in the Western Hemisphere. This penetration is due to the fact that numerous hemispheric countries are themselves looking to diversify their pool of allies and trading partners by contracting ties to other nations besides the U.S., with Venezuela being at the core of this movement.

From Brussels to Moscow and Beijing, not to mention other emerging middle powers like India, it seems as though everyone wants a piece of Latin America these days. With Washington's grip on the region loosening, there is an increase in opportunity for potentially valuable non-traditional relationships – Iran's aggressive courting of Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua is one example– demonstrating that the Western Hemisphere has become a multipolar continent, with Washington no longer being the exclusive choice, and with diplomatic initiatives originating from around the globe.

Enter the Dragon
China has diverse interests in the Western Hemisphere, and although most of them are primarily economic, there are pressing political factors at play as well. Of key importance to Beijing is its quest for new product markets, in combination with creating multiple portals through which it can import the mineral resources and produce what it needs to maintain a booming economy. The most recent example is the $10 billion contract signed between Beijing and Caracas to search for crude oil reserves in Venezuela's oil-rich Orinoco belt. This arrangement occurred shortly after Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez expelled a number of Western oil companies from the country, including Exxon and Conoco, for failing to take a minority stake in their Orinoco oil holdings.

Another reason for China's interest in the Western Hemisphere has to do with the status of neighboring Taiwan. Beijing and Taipei's hostile attitude toward each other and quest for diplomatic recognition has been transferred to the Americas, as both governments attempt to gain new allies in order to bolster support for their positions on the issue of Beijing's claim to the island of Taiwan. Inevitably, Beijing is winning its diplomatic and public relations showdown with Taipei, due to its geopolitical weight. While Taiwan has gained the formal recognition of a number of countries in this hemisphere, it subsequently lost some of this support. This is being achieved as a result of an "open checkbook" policy for economic aid, access to the Chinese market, and the availability of loans for the disadvantaged economies of the Americas. The critical factor here is that China has been able to decisively beat out its adversary, with Taipei having diplomatic ties with only a handful of countries in the Western Hemisphere, most of which have only marginal importance other than their ability to cast a vote in international forums.

An example of this "financially mercenary" is the Caribbean island of Dominica, which cut ties with Taiwan in 2004. According to a report by the BBC, after the decision of Dominican Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit to cut off Taipei, Beijing was prepared to hand over more than $100 million in aid over the next five years to the now blessed Caribbean island.

The Russian Bear
Russia has just begun to regain a privileged position of influence in the Western Hemisphere, a status once enjoyed during the days of the Cold War when, as a result of its close ties with Havana, it was able to maintain close relations with Nicaragua, Grenada, and Allende's Chile. Moscow also had the sympathy of military governments like Peru during the Juan Velasco Alvarado rule (1968-1975). Today, Russia is attempting to come up with a new strategy to recover a resource-drilling position of influence in the hemisphere, and has focused on the military export industry as its line of attack. During the Cold War several Latin American governments purchased Soviet weaponry, and today are familiar with utilizing this type of equipment and prefer its use (not to mention Russian weapons are currently very inexpensive) over having to purchase them from other manufacturers (i.e. France, Israel). For example, Peru is in the process of upgrading its Soviet-era Mi-8 helicopters, having placed its order with Moscow.

Moscow has also capitalized on non-U.S. friendly countries like Venezuela to increase its client base. Last year Venezuela purchased $3 billion of military equipment from the Vladimir Putin regime. This summer, during a trip to Moscow, Chávez ordered five submarines, with the option of buying four more in the near future. In addition, Russia's Izhevsk Manufacturing Plant has reported that it will build two factories in Venezuela to manufacture Kalashnikov rifle-type AK-103 as well as ammunition for it. The objective is to have both plants completed by 2010.

However, it is doubtful that military sales alone will be enough for Russia to once again cement anything like the position of influence in the Western hemisphere that it episodically had in the post-World War II period. Trade is still somewhat lagging between the two sides of the Pacific, and there have been instances of rapprochement between Kremlin officials and a number of hemispheric leaders. Cuba has yet to receive anything approaching a major volume of Russian investment and economic aid, as it once did, although there is always the possibility that this situation may change in the near future. There have been some important visits by high level Kremlin officials, like President Vladimir Putin's trip to Cuba in 2000, as well as several meetings between Putin and Chávez in Moscow, however, these ties have to be amplified in order to make Russia into a bigger player in Latin America. Meanwhile, the region increasingly looks to Moscow for both friendship and, more importantly, trade and investment.

European Unity for All
Understanding Europe's presence in Latin America and the Caribbean may require two separate streams of analysis. On the one hand, the Europe Union has a common policy towards the Americas, and, at the same time, individual European countries have their own foreign policies and interests in the region. When it comes to the EU, Brussels has focused on greater economic and political interaction with the region's major blocs, namely MERCOSUR, the Andean Community of Nations (CAN), and the Rio Group. In fact, the EU has already been discussing a free-trade agreement with CAN for a number of months. In recent weeks, Venezuela has been placed in the spotlight as President Chávez is looking to possibly return to CAN after leaving the bloc in 2006. Chávez is not in favor of an FTA between CAN and the EU, so it is yet to be seen how these feints will transpire. In the meantime, CAN has scheduled its second round of negotiations with the EU in Brussels this coming December. Additionally, the EU has pursued free trade talks with countries like Mexico and Chile.

Individual European governments are pursuing their own foreign policy initiatives vis-à-vis the Western Hemisphere in line with their own national interests. France has increased its cooperation in recent years with Brazil. Likewise, Britain continues to make use of its historical influence on the English-speaking Caribbean, for example, maintaining a military base in Belize (the British Army Training Support Unit Belize – BATSUB). The goal of the base is to provide jungle training to British troops, with the additional objective of protecting the sovereignty of the country, which has had a historical territorial dispute with neighboring Guatemala. In addition, British naval ships regularly patrol the Caribbean and aid with drug-enforcement operations. In 2005, the frigate HMS Cumberland stopped a vessel off Nicaragua's Caribbean coast, which was carrying two tons of cocaine.

In addition, Spain and Portugal, in an attempt to project their presence in Latin America, encouraged the creation of the Ibero-American Secretaria (SEGIB) in 2006. The organization is based in Madrid and scored something of a coup after the distinguished Uruguayan official Enrique Iglesias was selected as its first secretary-general in 2005. Iglesias brought a significant amount of prestige to the organization as he is a former president of the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, Uruguay's foreign minister from 1985-1988 and also served as the head of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. Nevertheless, it is yet to be seen if SEGIB can make much progress in bringing both sides of the Atlantic effectively together.

In early November, the XVII Ibero-American Summit took place in Santiago, Chile. The meeting was not without controversy as at one point King Juan Carlos of Spain told President Chavez "por qué no te callas?" (why don't you shut up?). Ironically, SEGIB's secretary Iglesias declared in a press conference that the summit had been a success. The next meeting will take place in October 2008 in San Salvador, El Salvador.

Holland's presence in the region is mainly a result of its connection to its former colonies of Suriname and the islands of Aruba (Curacao and Saba off the coast of South America in the Caribbean), as well as St. Maarten, which it shares with France. Finally there are some European nations that particularly are at odds with one or more Latin American countries, especially with Fidel Castro's Cuba. The Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia are famous for their rejection of any effort to be made to moderate the current hostility that these former Soviet satellites currently have towards Cuba, which has rendered them a gaggle of Castro bashers serving on European bodies.

The Growing Persian Shadow
Iran is another country that has a mixed diplomatic-trade and security relationship with a number of regional countries, with Venezuela immediately coming to mind. Recently, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad caused an uproar in New York when he visited the UN and gave a fiery speech after being booed during a presentation he made at Columbia University. After his stopover in Caracas, Ahmadinejad traveled to Bolivia, prompting rumors of a possible Caracas-Tehran-Sucre/La Paz alliance. In order to explain his meeting with the Iranian leader, Bolivian President Evo Morales declared "we are from the culture of dialogue and life, without marginalization and discrimination. We are about unity [and] solidarity."

Visits by Ahmadinejad and other Iranian officials to the Western Hemisphere are examples of Tehran's growing presence in the continent. In early November, Iranian Minister of Commerce Masood Mirkazemi traveled to Havana and signed an agreement to form a joint shipping company between the two governments.

During his trip to Bolivia, the first made by an Iranian president, Ahmadinejad pledged to invest $1 billion over the next five years to improve the Bolivian economy. According to September 27 Associated Press file, "Bolivia-Iran trade can hardly go anywhere but up. Bolivia exported nothing to Iran between 2000 and 2006, and Iranian exports to Bolivia totaled just $10 million last year, according to government statistics, down from $24 million a year earlier." Closer relations between La Paz and Tehran have more than raised eyebrows among Bolivia's opposition parties. There are rumors that there may be a deal between both countries for the mining of Bolivia's uranium, which opposition senators would try to block, if true. "No one has assured us that Bolivian uranium will be used for benign purposes, so we cannot take risks," said Senator Arturo Murillo of Unidad Nacional.

In Ahmadinejad's September trip to Caracas, he met with Chávez and the two leaders signed three cooperation accords regarding the petrochemical, agricultural and automobile sectors. In addition, as reported by Latin America News Digest, Venezuela's state-run oil giant Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) and Iranian state-run energy firm Petropars have agreed to set up a 50/50 joint venture named Venirogc. The article explains that the goal is to challenge the supremacy of oil and gas giants Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell and Eni by creating international oil and gas enterprises along the entire value chain, from production to retail merchandizing through gasoline stations.

Additional Players
Brazil's increasing links to South Africa and India have aided both emerging middle-rank powers to gain a foothold in the Western Hemisphere. India also has a growing research-based presence in Guyana, which it gained by deploying historical ethnic ties, and has also used a diplomatic offensive to permit it to step up investments in mineral-rich Peru.

Pluralism in the Americas
Washington's semi-divorce from Latin America and the Caribbean has been the catalyst that has allowed other nations and international organizations to move rapidly into the regions. What can be seen now is the possibility of the creation of a new system in the Western Hemisphere, with the U.S. becoming no longer the omnipotent and omnipresent player. Washington may have to adjust to being one of many actors in the hemisphere along with Beijing, Moscow, Brussels and, oddly enough, Tehran.

In effect, a dramatically pluralistic hemisphere is in the making, which cannot help but profoundly affect the inter-American system, with the Organization of American States—which has always been regarded as Washington's protégé—losing ground to one or more of a variety of other possible regional blocks, like CARICOM, the Rio Group, the Andean Community of Nations, as well as Chávez' Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA).

Caribbean Security
While important from a geo-strategic point of view, the Caribbean does not usually attract the international media coverage it deserves. In spite of this fact, security forces from major powers like the U.S. and Britain continue to maintain security a presence in the area, especially as the Caribbean has become a major point for the shipment of illegal drugs coming from South America on their way to Europe.

London's BATSUB provides specialist training for over 4,000 British troops per year and offers back-up support to the Belize Defense Force (BDF). The British base also regularly receives visits by British vessels, like the Cumberland, that take part in anti-narcotics operations in the Caribbean Sea, often in conjunction with the U.S.

Washington aggressively has pressed the relatively unknown but very important "Shiprider Agreement" with a number of Caribbean countries. The objective of this pact is to combat illegal drug trafficking, arms smuggling and transnational crime by increasing cooperation between U.S. security forces (particularly the Coast Guard) and Caribbean governments. From the onset, the "Shiprider Agreement" has been surrounded by controversy; for example, there have been confrontations between the U.S., Jamaica.
According to a February 2004 article in the Jamaica Gleaner, “in 1996, then U.S. President Bill Clinton’s administration was on the verge of imposing financial sanctions against Jamaica because it was dissatisfied with Jamaica’s co-operation on narcotics. Sanctions were eventually averted after the crisis prompted a Caribbean summit in Barbados with Clinton in 1997.” Jamaica and Washington signed a new “Shiprider” accord in 2004.

On January 26, 2006 an article was published in Caribbean Net News, which included comments by the U.S. ambassador to Suriname, Marsha Barnes. In the article the American diplomat said that so far, there are no tangible results from the proposed cooperation since Suriname doesn't have a Coast Guard. The diplomat noted that agreements with other Caribbean nations were exercised differently. Some Caribbean nations' vessels patrolling off-shore Puerto Rico have U.S. law enforcement officers on board, while in other instances Caribbean law enforcement personnel are on board U.S. Coast Guard vessels.

Additionally, the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), in coordination with the U.S. Coast Guard, sponsors a series of military exercises held with Caribbean nations, known as TRADEWINDS. The May 2007 TRADEWINDS exercises were held in Belize with the participation of the British Royal Marines. It is noteworthy to mention that the Caribbean has strived to achieve independence when it comes to security issues. In the late 1970s and 1980s, the need for a collective response to security threats led to the creation of the Regional Security System. This concept first appeared in concrete terms through a Memorandum of Understanding which was signed in October 1982 between Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia and Barbados, in order to provide for "mutual assistance on request." The RSS' first deployment was a part of the U.S. invasion of Grenada in 1983. Grenada itself joined the RSS in 1985.

Who Supports Who?
In spite of the growing presence of extra-hemispheric nations in the Western Hemisphere, it might be an exaggeration to assume that exclusive alliances have been cemented between any Latin American or Caribbean nations with particular European or Asian powers. Brazil has developed close relations with India and South Africa (through the tri-national organization known as IBSA), which is perhaps the closest there is to an inter-hemispheric alliance at the moment. In addition, Britain has a strong relation with its former colonies, but at the same time, the Caribbean states have had success in forming their own identity through regional organizations like CARICOM.

Mexico's growing closeness with the EU, China and India on trade issues will continue to be dwarfed by its relationship with the U.S., its major trading partner by far. The same can be said about Central America and the Dominican Republic, after the ratification by all members of CAFTA-DR. President Chávez has turned to Russia as a weapons supplier, but he had no problems granting China, Russia's competitor in the quest for overseas resources, a multi-billion dollar deal for oil exploration.

An issue that needs to be addressed is that of shifts and movements in inter-state relations on the continent and the search for external alliances. Brazil, with is global ambitions, has teamed up with other regional powers in other parts of the world that share similar interests. Venezuela turned to Russia for military equipment because when requested, the U.S. would not sell the Chávez administration spare parts to repair the country's squadron of aging F-16 fighter planes. Adjoining countries like Peru, Uruguay and Paraguay, have yet to feel any need to seek stable extra-hemispheric alliances.

Another condition that deserves to be considered is the fear that allowing too many foreign companies or foreign influence in a country will be detrimental to local economies or create neo-colonial scenarios. For example, some Caribbean analysts still bitterly recall CARICOM's distrust which was directed against France's then-Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, with some officials of the Caribbean organization alleging that he was one of the main plotters of the Haitian 2004 coup that overthrew President Jean Bertrand Aristide.

It is unrealistic to believe that a Russian or Asian military base may be located in the Western Hemisphere anytime soon. However, it is necessary to keep in mind that non-American military bases in Latin America and the Caribbean do exist. One example is the aforementioned British military training facility in Belize. France has also deployed members of its Foreign Legion to French Guyana, an overseas department, for training exercises and to protect the European Space Agency spacecrafts which are launched from there. Furthermore, the status of U.S. facilities in the region is no longer secure or, for that matter, sacred. Ecuador's President Rafael Correa adamantly insists that once the lease to the U.S. facility in Manta expires in 2009, Quito will refuse to renew it. Meanwhile Mexican authorities have stressed that no U.S. military forces will be allowed in the country as part of the newly signed Merida initiative.

El Gran Juego
Like the struggle for influence in Central Asia in the 19th century between the Russian and British empires, which was referred to at the time as the Great Game, Latin America and the Caribbean have entered into their own version of this quest, with non-hemispheric players like Russia, China and the European Union all attempting to win influence in the region. This translates into investment, access to resources and local markets; however it is not a winner-takes-all type of game. One thing is clear: for the rest of the world, efforts at associating with Latin America and the Caribbean signifies the region's emergence as an important political and economic force with potential for further growth, which is even far beyond what Washington is now able to conceptualize.

This analysis was prepared by COHA Research Fellow Alex Sánchez

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A super model, Coke user and hooker. If you like it, you have to pony up the $20K. The dollar just does not go as far as it used to.

NY Times Discloses Classified US Program to Secure Pakistani Nuclear Weapons

The NY Times has decided that it will depart from reporting on foreign policy to changing it and according to the Times, it has the blessing of the Bush Administation in doing so. It justifies the release and approval by the Bush Administraion in this language:

...The New York Times has known details of the secret program for more than three years, based on interviews with a range of American officials and nuclear experts, some of whom were concerned that Pakistan’s arsenal remained vulnerable. The newspaper agreed to delay publication of the article after considering a request from the Bush administration, which argued that premature disclosure could hurt the effort to secure the weapons.

Since then, some elements of the program have been discussed in the Pakistani news media and in a presentation late last year by the leader of Pakistan’s nuclear safety effort, Lt. Gen. Khalid Kidwai, who acknowledged receiving “international” help as he sought to assure Washington that all of the holes in Pakistan’s nuclear security infrastructure had been sealed.

The Times told the administration last week that it was reopening its examination of the program in light of those disclosures and the current instability in Pakistan. Early this week, the White House withdrew its request that publication be withheld, though it was unwilling to discuss details of the program.

In recent days, American officials have expressed confidence that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is well secured. “I don’t see any indication right now that security of those weapons is in jeopardy, but clearly we are very watchful, as we should be,” Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon news conference on Thursday..."

November 18, 2007 NY Times
U.S. Secretly Aids Pakistan in Guarding Nuclear Arms

By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD
WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 — Over the past six years, the Bush administration has spent almost $100 million on a highly classified program to help Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s president, secure his country’s nuclear weapons, according to current and former senior administration officials.

But with the future of that country’s leadership in doubt, debate is intensifying about whether Washington has done enough to help protect the warheads and laboratories, and whether Pakistan’s reluctance to reveal critical details about its arsenal has undercut the effectiveness of the continuing security effort.

The aid, buried in secret portions of the federal budget, paid for the training of Pakistani personnel in the United States and the construction of a nuclear security training center in Pakistan, a facility that American officials say is nowhere near completion, even though it was supposed to be in operation this year.

A raft of equipment — from helicopters to night-vision goggles to nuclear detection equipment — was given to Pakistan to help secure its nuclear material, its warheads, and the laboratories that were the site of the worst known case of nuclear proliferation in the atomic age.

While American officials say that they believe the arsenal is safe at the moment, and that they take at face value Pakistani assurances that security is vastly improved, in many cases the Pakistani government has been reluctant to show American officials how or where the gear is actually used.

That is because the Pakistanis do not want to reveal the locations of their weapons or the amount or type of new bomb-grade fuel the country is now producing.

The American program was created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when the Bush administration debated whether to share with Pakistan one of the crown jewels of American nuclear protection technology, known as “permissive action links,” or PALS, a system used to keep a weapon from detonating without proper codes and authorizations.

In the end, despite past federal aid to France and Russia on delicate points of nuclear security, the administration decided that it could not share the system with the Pakistanis because of legal restrictions.

In addition, the Pakistanis were suspicious that any American-made technology in their warheads could include a secret “kill switch,” enabling the Americans to turn off their weapons.

While many nuclear experts in the federal government favored offering the PALS system because they considered Pakistan’s arsenal among the world’s most vulnerable to terrorist groups, some administration officials feared that sharing the technology would teach Pakistan too much about American weaponry. The same concern kept the Clinton administration from sharing the technology with China in the early 1990s.

The New York Times has known details of the secret program for more than three years, based on interviews with a range of American officials and nuclear experts, some of whom were concerned that Pakistan’s arsenal remained vulnerable. The newspaper agreed to delay publication of the article after considering a request from the Bush administration, which argued that premature disclosure could hurt the effort to secure the weapons.

Since then, some elements of the program have been discussed in the Pakistani news media and in a presentation late last year by the leader of Pakistan’s nuclear safety effort, Lt. Gen. Khalid Kidwai, who acknowledged receiving “international” help as he sought to assure Washington that all of the holes in Pakistan’s nuclear security infrastructure had been sealed.

The Times told the administration last week that it was reopening its examination of the program in light of those disclosures and the current instability in Pakistan. Early this week, the White House withdrew its request that publication be withheld, though it was unwilling to discuss details of the program.

In recent days, American officials have expressed confidence that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is well secured. “I don’t see any indication right now that security of those weapons is in jeopardy, but clearly we are very watchful, as we should be,” Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon news conference on Thursday.

Admiral Mullen’s carefully chosen words, a senior administration official said, were based on two separate intelligence assessments issued this month that had been summarized in briefings to Mr. Bush. Both concluded that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal was safe under current conditions, and one also looked at laboratories and came to the same conclusion.

Still, the Pakistani government’s reluctance to provide access has limited efforts to assess the situation. In particular, some American experts say they have less ability to look into the nuclear laboratories where highly enriched uranium is produced — including the laboratory named for Abdul Qadeer Khan, the man who sold Pakistan’s nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya.

The secret program was designed by the Energy Department and the State Department, and it drew heavily from the effort over the past decade to secure nuclear weapons, stockpiles and materials in Russia and other former Soviet states. Much of the money for Pakistan was spent on physical security, like fencing and surveillance systems, and equipment for tracking nuclear material if it left secure areas.

But while Pakistan is formally considered a “major non-NATO ally,” the program has been hindered by a deep suspicion among Pakistan’s military that the secret goal of the United States was to gather intelligence about how to locate and, if necessary, disable Pakistan’s arsenal, which is the pride of the country.

“Everything has taken far longer than it should,” a former official involved in the program said in a recent interview, “and you are never sure what you really accomplished.”

So far, the amount the United States has spent on the classified nuclear security program, less than $100 million, amounts to slightly less than one percent of the roughly $10 billion in known American aid to Pakistan since the Sept. 11 attacks. Most of that money has gone for assistance in counterterrorism activities against the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

The debate over sharing nuclear security technology began just before then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was sent to Islamabad after the Sept. 11 attacks, as the United States was preparing to invade Afghanistan.

“There were a lot of people who feared that once we headed into Afghanistan, the Taliban would be looking for these weapons,” said a senior official who was involved. But a legal analysis found that aiding Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program — even if it was just with protective gear — would violate both international and American law.

General Musharraf, in his memoir, “In the Line of Fire,” published last year, did not discuss any equipment, training or technology offered then, but wrote: “We were put under immense pressure by the United States regarding our nuclear and missile arsenal. The Americans’ concerns were based on two grounds. First, at this time they were not very sure of my job security, and they dreaded the possibility that an extremist successor government might get its hands on our strategic nuclear arsenal. Second, they doubted our ability to safeguard our assets.”

General Musharraf was more specific in an interview two years ago for a Times documentary, “Nuclear Jihad: Can Terrorists Get the Bomb?” Asked about the equipment and training provided by Washington, he said, “Frankly, I really don’t know the details.” But he added: “This is an extremely sensitive matter in Pakistan. We don’t allow any foreign intrusion in our facilities. But, at the same time, we guarantee that the custodial arrangements that we brought about and implemented are already the best in the world.”

Now that concern about General Musharraf’s ability to remain in power has been rekindled, so has the debate inside and outside the Bush administration about how much the program accomplished, and what it left unaccomplished. A second phase of the program, which would provide more equipment, helicopters and safety devices, is already being discussed in the administration, but its dimensions have not been determined.

Harold M. Agnew, a former director of the Los Alamos weapons laboratory, which designed most of the United States’ nuclear arms, argued that recent federal reluctance to share warhead security technology was making the world more dangerous.

“Lawyers say it’s classified,” Dr. Agnew said in an interview. “That’s nonsense. We should share this technology. Anybody who joins the club should be helped to get this.”

“Whether it’s India or Pakistan or China or Iran,” he added, “the most important thing is that you want to make sure there is no unauthorized use. You want to make sure that the guys who have their hands on the weapons can’t use them without proper authorization.”

In the past, officials say, the United States has shared ideas — but not technologies — about how to make the safeguards that lie at the heart of American weapons security. The system hinges on what is essentially a switch in the firing circuit that requires the would-be user to enter a numeric code that starts a timer for the weapon’s arming and detonation.

Most switches disable themselves if the sequence of numbers entered turns out to be incorrect in a fixed number of tries, much like a bank ATM does. In some cases, the disabled link sets off a small explosion in the warhead to render it useless. Delicate design details involve how to bury the link deep inside a weapon to keep terrorists or enemies from disabling the safeguard.

The most famous case of nuclear idea sharing involves France. Starting in the early 1970s, the United States government began a series of highly secretive discussions with French scientists to help them improve the country’s warheads.

A potential impediment to such sharing was the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which bars cooperation between nations on weapons technology.

To get around such legal prohibitions, Washington came up with a system of “negative guidance,” sometimes called “20 questions,” as detailed in a 1989 article in Foreign Policy. The system let United States scientists listen to French descriptions of warhead approaches and give guidance about whether the French were on the right track.

Nuclear experts say sharing also took place after the cold war when the United States worried about the security of Russian nuclear arms and facilities. In that case, both countries declassified warhead information to expedite the transfer of safety and security information, according to federal nuclear scientists.

But in the case of China, which has possessed nuclear weapons since the 1960s and is a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the Clinton administration decided that sharing PALS would be too risky. Experts inside the administration feared the technology would improve the Chinese warheads, and could give the Chinese insights into how American systems worked.

Officials said Washington debated sharing security techniques with Pakistan on at least two occasions — right after it detonated its first nuclear arms in 1998, and after the terrorist attack on the United States in 2001.

The debates pitted atomic scientists who favored technical sharing against federal officials at such places as the State Department who ruled that the transfers were illegal under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and under United States law.

In the 1998 case, the Clinton administration still hoped it could roll back Pakistan’s nuclear program, forcing it to give up the weapons it had developed. That hope, never seen as very realistic, has been entirely given up by the Bush administration.

The nuclear proliferation conducted by Mr. Khan, the Pakistani metallurgist who built a huge network to spread Pakistani technology, convinced the Pakistanis that they needed better protections.

“Among the places in the world that we have to make sure we have done the maximum we can do, Pakistan is at the top of the list,” said John E. McLaughlin, who served as deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency at the time, and played a crucial role in the intelligence collection that led to Mr. Khan’s downfall.

“I am confident of two things,” he added. “That the Pakistanis are very serious about securing this material, but also that someone in Pakistan is very intent on getting their hands on it.”

Are the Iranians Changing Tactics?

Is a decrease in Iraqi IED attacks an indication of Iranian progress in developing a nuclear weapon? The last thing that I would do if I were an Iranian leader intent on procuring nuclear weapons is to portray a bellicose profile to the West. The most obvious first step would be to rein in those that were trafficking in EFP's in Iraq.

There is little benefit to Iran in supplying weapons to Iraq. The war in Iraq is obviously unpopular and will end through political changes in the US. If Iran can succeed in appearing "responsible and helpful", there will be a lessening of diplomatic and economic pressure put upon her. After all, there are other nuclear powers who are acceptable to the World.

A sane and reasonable appearing Iran has a better chance of getting and keeping nuclear weapons than a bunch of crazed mullahs. A declining Iranian support for Iraqi violence may not be as benign as it seems.


Drop in Iran-related attacks in Iraq a puzzle
(AFP)

17 November 2007

WASHINGTON - Even as President George W. Bush pressed Iran on its nuclear program on Friday, US officials said the US military was puzzling over the meaning of a sharp drop in Iranian-related attacks in Iraq.


Defence Secretary Robert Gates and other senior Defence officials have said it is too soon to judge the significance of the three-month decline in the use of explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) and other Iranian made weapons.

But a deputy corps commander in Iraq, Major General James Simmons, said Thursday that Iran appears to be living up to a commitment to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki to stop the flow of the weapons into the country.

Senior Defence officials in Washington suggested that Simmons’ conclusion was overstated, but said there was little doubt that the flow of weapons from Iran to Iraq has slowed or stopped.

Armor-piercing EFPs have turned up in recently captured weapons caches in Iraq, but those are believed to pre-date a pledge Iranian leaders made to Maliki during a visit to Tehran in August, officials have said.

Attacks involving EFP’s dropped from 99 in July to 53 in October.

What remains unclear is whether the Iranians decided to stop the flow of weapons, and if so why, and whether it points to a broader change in direction by Tehran or just a temporary respite.

“We’re not there yet,” a senior US Defence official said, explaining that more time was needed to assess the development and its implications.

“We certainly hope that the Iranians have decided to fulfill their commitments to the Maliki government,” the official added.

The developments in Iraq come as the Bush administration is trying to ratchet up international pressure on Iran on the nuclear front.

At a White House meeting Friday with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, Bush said international pressure “must, and will, grow” on Iran to halt its uranium enrichment program.

“The prime minister and I agree that a nuclear-armed Iran would threaten the security of the Middle East and beyond. Our two nations are united in our efforts to change the regime’s behaviour through diplomacy,” Bush said.

Senior Defence officials said the nuclear issue is the administration’s primary concern.

But a turnaround on Iraq by Tehran would be a major break for the US military, which is banking on a sustained reduction of violence in Iraq to undertake a phased drawdown of US forces.

Wary that it might be too good to be true, US officials point to what they say is Iran’s record of arming and training “special groups” of Shiite extremists that have killed US forces.

“That they have had a negative influence in the past, that they have assisted in the killing of coalition, Iraqi and American soldiers is a matter of fact,” said a senior US military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.