Hedge funds lift the lid on African deception
Taken from The Sunday Times, June 15, 2008
By Tony Allen-Mills
ON a spring morning in Paris three years ago, a young African oil executive went on a shopping spree. He spent £1,600 at Escada on the Avenue Montaigne, and £3,700 a few doors down at Christian Lacroix. A couple of weeks later he spent £4,000 at Ermenegildo Zegna and £3,200 at Louis Vuitton.
By the end of 2005, Denis Christel Sassou-Nguesso had charged more than £112,000 to his personal Hong Kong-issued credit card, up from £64,000 the previous year.
Last August Mr Justice Stanley Burnton dismissed an attempt by Sassou-Nguesso in the High Court to suppress publication of his credit card bills. Last month he lost a related action in Hong Kong.
So why is Sassou-Nguesso such an embarrassment for several prominent British and French companies – not to mention the celebrities and politicians, among them Gordon Brown, who have argued so vociferously for poor African countries to be forgiven their international debts?
The answer has all the elements of a detective novel, complete with straw men, false noses, hidden bank accounts, and American bankers who have been derided as “vultures”, but who have managed to find out more about corruption in Africa than Scotland Yard and the FBI.
It is a story that leads from the oil-rich coast of western Africa to the gas-guzzling consumers of America and Europe, via a trail of government fraud and corporate deceit that successive UK judges have publicly condemned.
It starts with Sassou-Nguesso, the son of Denis Sassou-Nguesso, president of the Republic of the
Congo, one of the world’s poorest countries. Two-thirds of Congolese people subsist on less than 50p a day.
The Sassou-Nguessos are no strangers to allegations of profligate spending. Their country, also known as Congo-Brazzaville to distinguish it from the bigger adjacent Democratic Republic of Congo, controls Africa’s fourth-largest proven oil reserves. It pumps crude at about 235,000 barrels a day, worth £5.8 billion a year at today’s record prices.
When Sassou-Nguesso senior visited New York for a recent United Nations summit, bottles of Kristal champagne popped as his entourage ran up a hotel bill of £169,000 – of which £100,000 was paid in cash. Yet he repeatedly claims his country is too poor to pay off its debts.
In May last year, when he was still chancellor, Gordon Brown said he was shocked that poor African countries were being pursued by international hedge-fund creditors seeking to turn a profit on old debt they had bought at a discount.
Brown demanded international action to protect Africans from so-called “vulture funds” whose pursuit of highly indebted countries was, he said, “nothing short of scandalous”.
It was a theme close to the heart of Bono, Bob Geldof and other anti-poverty campaigners who have turned African debt relief into a popular cause.
When Danny Glover, the Hollywood actor and activist, testified before Congress last year, he urged the American government to “follow the example of Gordon Brown . . . to stop vulture funds from devouring African economic progress”.
Yet the case of Congo-Brazzaville and its free-spending rulers offers a radically different perspective on debt relief, and who, exactly, is responsible for obstructing economic progress.
Earlier this year, in a little-noticed, out-of-court settlement, the Brazzaville government paid off its “vulture” creditors, thereby ending almost a decade of legal wrangling that stretched from Bermuda and the Virgin Islands via Paris, New York and Hong Kong to London’s High Court.
It was a startling surrender for a country that has spent much of the past 10 years dodging its creditors, ignoring court orders and pleading to join the debt-relief programme run by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Why give in to the vultures just as world opinion had clearly turned against the hedge funds?
My search for an answer started on the 35th floor of a Fifth Avenue skyscraper in mid-town Manhattan. This is the headquarters of Elliott Associates, a $10 billion (£5 billion) hedge fund that specialises in so-called “distressed” debt – the packages of national and corporate loans turned bad that are routinely sold by banks trying to tidy up their balance sheets.
“Our approach has always been to look for countries with a good prospect of re-negotiating debt,” Jay Newman, a senior Elliott portfolio manager, told me in the company boardroom overlooking Central Park. “We do not acquire the debt of countries that have no means to pay.”
In the late 1990s, an Elliott subsidiary named Kensington International purchased several packages of overdue Congo debt with a collective value of about $100m. It was a perfectly legal transaction and Kensington swiftly won a series of judgments in British and other courts ordering Brazzaville to pay up. The hedge fund’s attempts to initiate negotiations were ignored.
Thus began a game of cat-and-mouse across the world as Elliott’s team of private detectives and forensic accountants attempted to identify shipments of Congolese oil that might be seized and sold to repay the outstanding debts.
Armed with court-approved powers to subpoena witnesses and with search warrants, the Elliott team began a journey into the murky depths of the international oil trade. It would subsequently emerge in court that the Brazzaville government had established a network of sham companies (known in French as faux nez, or “false noses”) and bogus executives (“straw men”) in the hope of concealing their oil transactions.
The breakthrough came in 2005, when Elliott detectives discovered two consignments of Congo oil had been loaded on a vessel called the Nordic Hawk for sale to Glencore, a British company set up by Marc Rich, the Swiss-based trader. Glencore intended to sell the oil on to BP in what should have appeared as a standard and un-noteworthy industry transaction.
Kensington promptly applied to the High Court in London for injunctions to seize the proceeds of the Nordic Hawk consignments on the grounds they were fraudulently concealed sales by the Brazzaville government.
The transcript of Mr Justice Cook’s ruling, among hundreds of court documents reviewed by The Sunday Times, found that Denis Gokana, the head of the national Congo oil company SNPC, had set up a series of front companies and was in effect selling Congo’s oil to himself to disguise its true origins.
Somewhere along the way millions of dollars went missing, and the judge noted that an examination of the bank statements of one of Gokana’s companies “reveals that there was virtually no connection between the cash passing through its bank accounts and the sums it should have received for the oil it sold”.
Where the money went remains a mystery.
Critics of vulture funds say the pursuit of African debtors forces them to resort to unconventional measures to protect sovereign assets. Oxfam is among the charities to denounce vulture funds for “profiting from poverty”.
Undeterred by the “vulture” slurs, Elliott identified a new target. It decided to go after the middlemen. In 2005, Kensington filed a civil suit against BNP Paribas, the French bank, accusing it of conspiring with the SNPC “to divert oil revenues from the Republic of Congo into the pockets of powerful Congolese public officials, while at the same time protecting both the oil and oil revenues from seizure by legitimate creditors”.
BNP denied that its banking arrangements with the Congo were anything other than routine, but a New York judge rejected the company’s motion to have charges dismissed. The case was ultimately dropped as part of the settlement between Elliott and Brazzaville.
Kensington also went back to court in London, where it was attempting to obtain information and documents concerning a related pair of British companies, Vitol Services and Vitol Broking, and their dealings with Congo.
Elliott’s investigators had established that the Vitol companies had made substantial payments to Hong Kong accounts controlled by prominent Congo oil executives. Among them was Denis Christel, the president’s son, who was also head of Cotrade, SNPC’s trading arm.
Kensington argued before Mr Justice Gross of the UK commercial court in January 2007 that “the only credible explanations for these payments are that either they were made to assist Congo in hiding its assets, or they were made as corrupt kickbacks in return for valuable business”.
Vitol promptly startled the oil world by pleading the British equivalent of the Fifth Amendment – it did not want to testify for fear of incriminating itself.
The judge ultimately rejected the Vitol claim, and the case went to appeal. Despite extensive allegations of bribery and corruption detailed in court, no British police investigation has been launched. The Vitol case has also been dropped as a result of the Elliott settlement.
At first, Sassou-Nguesso shrugged off Elliott’s attempts to seize Congo’s assets. “If this is not robbery, what is?” the president once complained to Fortune magazine.
“Who is stealing from the poor?” He dismissed the hedge funds as “snakes in the ocean” and “thug gangsters” who hid in Caribbean tax havens.
Then Elliott’s trail led to Hong Kong, and to Denis Christel’s credit-card receipts.
These first surfaced publicly on the website of Global Witness, a London-based anti-corruption pressure group that has long been monitoring Congo. The group claimed in a 2005 report that the country’s main economic asset “has for too long been managed for the private profit of the elite rather than for the benefit of its entire population”.
The documents produced by Global Witness purported to show that at least part of Denis Christel’s personal expenditure had been paid for by an offshore company he controlled, Long Beach. The same company had received payments from sham oil companies set up by Gokana.
When Sassou-Nguesso went to court in London in August to make Global Witness remove the documents from its site, Mr Justice Burnton noted “it is an obvious possible inference that his expenditure has been financed by secret personal profits made out of dealings in oil sold by Cotrade. The profits of Cotrade’s oil sales should go to the people of the Congo, not to those who rule it or their families”.
The judge declined to suppress the documents. He concluded: “Once there is a good reason to doubt the propriety of the financial affairs of a public official, there is a public interest in those affairs being open to public scrutiny.”
Attempts to obtain a comment from the Brazzaville government were unsuccessful last week, but the president must have realised the spotlight on his family’s private affairs wasn’t going away.
The publication of the Hong Kong credit-card bills “made them get serious” about negotiating a settlement, a source familiar with the case said.
The terms of the settlement prevent Newman from providing details, but the question arises: Did the hedge fund really make a profit after all those years of expensive sleuthing around the globe?
In a newspaper article describing the Nordic Hawk affair, Newman likened the pursuit of Congo’s oil revenues to “a magical mystery tour”.
He said: “Far from being under control, as Bono and [others] would have us believe, corruption in Africa is out of control.
“Seasoned Third World bosses like President Sassou-Nguesso know all too well how to manipulate soft-hearted campus sensibilities and dysfunctional international financial institutions like the IMF.”
Last week Newman declined to address the profit issue, but had no regrets about his company’s approach. “It’s about the rule of law,” he said.
In the course of its near-decade-long pursuit of Congo, Elliott has probably done more than any other national or corporate entity to expose corruption in Africa. It has identified the middlemen who facilitate corrupt payments; it has traced the money trail from British oil traders to luxury boutiques in Paris.
And where was Scotland Yard while all this mischief was being exposed? Brown’s response, a month before he became prime minister last year, was to “deplore the activities of so-called vulture funds”.
Compare that to the remarks of Brice Mackosso, a Congolese citizen who campaigns for transparency in the handling of the country’s oil wealth. “If it were not for these vulture funds we would not know any facts about the way our country’s wealth is being taken away,” he said.
In June last year, a consortium of three French anti-corruption groups filed a civil complaint in Paris alleging the ruling families of Angola, Burkina Faso, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Congo-Brazzaville had acquired millions of euros worth of French assets that they could not have afforded on their official salaries.
The case was dismissed in November but not before a resulting police investigation accumulated hundreds of documents, including property titles, cheques, bank orders and invoices. Among them was evidence that earlier this year, the wife and son of Sassou-Nguesso bought separate flats on the same street near the Boulevard Saint-Germain for a total of £3.6m.
----------------------------------------------------------
I'd just like to say well done to the Hedge Fund teams and all those organisation that exposed these evil people - they had done a great job in exposing corruption of some of the richest people from one of the poorest countries in the world. When things like this happen you do wonder why international governments don't use powers to flush out these people. Maybe oil is the key word?
As for the UK government and international celebrates promoting Africa to be debt free so that it could have a fresh start - this is a good idea but we really do need to control those that exploit the countries from within.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
‘Vultures’ expose corruption
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Ethiopia committing war crimes - says HRW
Taken from Yahoo News, 12 June 2008
By ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY, Associated Press
NAIROBI, Kenya - Ethiopia's government is committing war crimes in its military campaign against rebels in the Ogaden region, a rights group charged Thursday in a report that complained the U.S. and other Western governments have remained silent about abuses.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said Ethiopian troops are beating and strangling civilians, staging public executions and burning villages in Ogaden. It said the allegations were based on more than 100 eyewitness accounts.
An Ethiopian official denied the charges.
A State Department spokesman, Gonzalo Gallegos, said officials had not seen the report. He declined to comment generally about the insurgency in the Ogaden.
Washington looks to Ethiopia for help in the fight against Islamic extremists in East Africa, where al-Qaida has claimed responsibility for several attacks, including the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 225 people. Ethiopia is helping the U.N.-backed government in neighboring Somalia against Muslim insurgents.
"The silence of the U.S. government is not a silence based on ignorance," said Peter Bouckaert, the emergencies director at Human Rights Watch. "They are ignoring the information available to them."
Ethnic Somalis have been fighting for more than a decade seeking greater autonomy in the desolate Ogaden, which is being explored for oil and gas. Ethiopian forces stepped up operations after rebels attacked a Chinese-run oil exploration field in April 2007, killing 74 people.
"The Ethiopian army's answer to the rebels has been to viciously attack civilians in the Ogaden," said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director for Human Rights Watch.
The group also said the rebel Ogaden National Liberation Front has violated humanitarian law by conducting the oil attack and by setting land mines along roads. Ethiopia accuses the rebels of being financed by its archenemy, Eritrea.
Bereket Simon, special adviser to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, denied all allegations in the report.
"It's not true," he said. "It's the same old fabrication."
Asked whether an internal investigation was planned, he said: "How can we investigate lies and innuendoes? How can we try to disprove lies by investigating?"
Gagnon chided Ethiopia's leading donors, including the United States, Britain and the European Union, accusing them of ignoring what is happening in Ogaden.
"These widespread and systematic atrocities amount to crimes against humanity," she said. "Yet Ethiopia's major donors, Washington, London and Brussels, seem to be maintaining a conspiracy of silence around the crimes."
Gagnon said Western governments and institutions give at least $2 billion in aid to Ethiopia every year.
"Influential states use many excuses, such as lack of information and strategic priorities, to downplay the grave human rights concerns in Somali Region," she said. "But crimes against humanity can't be swept under the carpet."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is sad that the Ethopian regime does not get regular mention of their war crimes in the news (let alone from our politicians) - it seems that certain news pieces have a higher agenda than others. Another case where Oil is more important than people? or maybe a case like Israel where human rights crimes are ignored as Ethopia (like Israel) is a friend of the west. Looks like more double standards by the United States, Britain and the European Union.
Saturday, June 07, 2008
US issues threat to Iraq's $50bn foreign reserves in military deal
Taken from Independent, UK
By Patrick Cockburn, 06 June 2008
The US is holding hostage some $50bn (£25bn) of Iraq's money in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to pressure the Iraqi government into signing an agreement seen by many Iraqis as prolonging the US occupation indefinitely, according to information leaked to The Independent.
US negotiators are using the existence of $20bn in outstanding court judgments against Iraq in the US, to pressure their Iraqi counterparts into accepting the terms of the military deal, details of which were reported for the first time in this newspaper yesterday.
Iraq's foreign reserves are currently protected by a presidential order giving them immunity from judicial attachment but the US side in the talks has suggested that if the UN mandate, under which the money is held, lapses and is not replaced by the new agreement, then Iraq's funds would lose this immunity. The cost to Iraq of this happening would be the immediate loss of $20bn. The US is able to threaten Iraq with the loss of 40 per cent of its foreign exchange reserves because Iraq's independence is still limited by the legacy of UN sanctions and restrictions imposed on Iraq since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in the 1990s. This means that Iraq is still considered a threat to international security and stability under Chapter Seven of the UN charter. The US negotiators say the price of Iraq escaping Chapter Seven is to sign up to a new "strategic alliance" with the United States.
The threat by the American side underlines the personal commitment of President George Bush to pushing the new pact through by 31 July. Although it is in reality a treaty between Iraq and the US, Mr Bush is describing it as an alliance so he does not have to submit it for approval to the US Senate.
Iraqi critics of the agreement say that it means Iraq will be a client state in which the US will keep more than 50 military bases. American forces will be able to carry out arrests of Iraqi citizens and conduct military campaigns without consultation with the Iraqi government.
American soldiers and contractors will enjoy legal immunity.
The US had previously denied it wanted permanent bases in Iraq, but American negotiators argue that so long as there is an Iraqi perimeter fence, even if it is manned by only one Iraqi soldier, around a US installation, then Iraq and not the US is in charge.
The US has security agreements with many countries, but none are occupied by 151,000 US soldiers as is Iraq. The US is not even willing to tell the government in Baghdad what American forces are entering or leaving Iraq, apparently because it fears the government will inform the Iranians, said an Iraqi source.
The fact that Iraq's financial reserves, increasing rapidly because of the high price of oil, continue to be held in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is another legacy of international sanctions against Saddam Hussein. Under the UN mandate, oil revenues must be placed in the Development Fund for Iraq which is in the bank.
The funds are under the control of the Iraqi government, though the US Treasury has strong influence on the form in which the reserves are held.
Iraqi officials say that, last year, they wanted to diversify their holdings out of the dollar, as it depreciated, into other assets, such as the euro, more likely to hold their value. This was vetoed by the US Treasury because American officials feared it would show lack of confidence in the dollar.
Iraqi officials say the consequence of the American action was to lose Iraq the equivalent of $5bn. Given intense American pressure on a weak Iraqi government very dependent on US support, it is still probable that the agreement will go through with only cosmetic changes. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the immensely influential Shia cleric, could prevent the pact by issuing a fatwa against it but has so far failed to do so.
The Grand Ayatollah met Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), which is the main supporter of the Iraqi government, earlier this week and did not condemn the agreement or call for a referendum. He said, according to Mr Hakim, that it must guarantee Iraqi national sovereignty, be transparent, command a national consensus and be approved by the Iraqi parliament. Critics of the deal fear that the government will sign the agreement, and parliament approve it, in return for marginal concessions.
Revealed: Secret plan to keep Iraq under US control
Bush wants 50 military bases, control of Iraqi airspace and legal immunity for all American soldiers and contractors
Taken from The Independent, UK
By Patrick Cockburn, 05 June 2008
A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.
The terms of the impending deal, details of which have been leaked to The Independent, are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq. Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilise Iraq's position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country.
But the accord also threatens to provoke a political crisis in the US. President Bush wants to push it through by the end of next month so he can declare a military victory and claim his 2003 invasion has been vindicated. But by perpetuating the US presence in Iraq, the long-term settlement would undercut pledges by the Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, to withdraw US troops if he is elected president in November.
The timing of the agreement would also boost the Republican candidate, John McCain, who has claimed the United States is on the verge of victory in Iraq – a victory that he says Mr Obama would throw away by a premature military withdrawal.
America currently has 151,000 troops in Iraq and, even after projected withdrawals next month, troop levels will stand at more than 142,000 – 10 000 more than when the military "surge" began in January 2007. Under the terms of the new treaty, the Americans would retain the long-term use of more than 50 bases in Iraq. American negotiators are also demanding immunity from Iraqi law for US troops and contractors, and a free hand to carry out arrests and conduct military activities in Iraq without consulting the Baghdad government.
The precise nature of the American demands has been kept secret until now. The leaks are certain to generate an angry backlash in Iraq. "It is a terrible breach of our sovereignty," said one Iraqi politician, adding that if the security deal was signed it would delegitimise the government in Baghdad which will be seen as an American pawn.
The US has repeatedly denied it wants permanent bases in Iraq but one Iraqi source said: "This is just a tactical subterfuge." Washington also wants control of Iraqi airspace below 29,000ft and the right to pursue its "war on terror" in Iraq, giving it the authority to arrest anybody it wants and to launch military campaigns without consultation.
Mr Bush is determined to force the Iraqi government to sign the so-called "strategic alliance" without modifications, by the end of next month. But it is already being condemned by the Iranians and many Arabs as a continuing American attempt to dominate the region. Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the powerful and usually moderate Iranian leader, said yesterday that such a deal would create "a permanent occupation". He added: "The essence of this agreement is to turn the Iraqis into slaves of the Americans."
Iraq's Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is believed to be personally opposed to the terms of the new pact but feels his coalition government cannot stay in power without US backing.
The deal also risks exacerbating the proxy war being fought between Iran and the United States over who should be more influential in Iraq.
Although Iraqi ministers have said they will reject any agreement limiting Iraqi sovereignty, political observers in Baghdad suspect they will sign in the end and simply want to establish their credentials as defenders of Iraqi independence by a show of defiance now. The one Iraqi with the authority to stop deal is the majority Shia spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. In 2003, he forced the US to agree to a referendum on the new Iraqi constitution and the election of a parliament. But he is said to believe that loss of US support would drastically weaken the Iraqi Shia, who won a majority in parliament in elections in 2005.
The US is adamantly against the new security agreement being put to a referendum in Iraq, suspecting that it would be voted down. The influential Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has called on his followers to demonstrate every Friday against the impending agreement on the grounds that it compromises Iraqi independence.
The Iraqi government wants to delay the actual signing of the agreement but the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney has been trying to force it through. The US ambassador in Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, has spent weeks trying to secure the accord.
The signature of a security agreement, and a parallel deal providing a legal basis for keeping US troops in Iraq, is unlikely to be accepted by most Iraqis. But the Kurds, who make up a fifth of the population, will probably favour a continuing American presence, as will Sunni Arab political leaders who want US forces to dilute the power of the Shia. The Sunni Arab community, which has broadly supported a guerrilla war against US occupation, is likely to be split.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
US accused of holding terror suspects on prison ships
Taken from The Guardian, Monday June 2 2008
Duncan Campbell and Richard Norton-Taylor
The United States is operating "floating prisons" to house those arrested in its war on terror, according to human rights lawyers, who claim there has been an attempt to conceal the numbers and whereabouts of detainees.
An amphibious assault vehicle leaves the USS Peleliu, which was used to detain prisoners, according to the human rights group Reprieve. Photograph: Zack Baddor/AP
Details of ships where detainees have been held and sites allegedly being used in countries across the world have been compiled as the debate over detention without trial intensifies on both sides of the Atlantic. The US government was yesterday urged to list the names and whereabouts of all those detained.
Information about the operation of prison ships has emerged through a number of sources, including statements from the US military, the Council of Europe and related parliamentary bodies, and the testimonies of prisoners.
The analysis, due to be published this year by the human rights organisation Reprieve, also claims there have been more than 200 new cases of rendition since 2006, when President George Bush declared that the practice had stopped.
It is the use of ships to detain prisoners, however, that is raising fresh concern and demands for inquiries in Britain and the US.
According to research carried out by Reprieve, the US may have used as many as 17 ships as "floating prisons" since 2001. Detainees are interrogated aboard the vessels and then rendered to other, often undisclosed, locations, it is claimed.
Ships that are understood to have held prisoners include the USS Bataan and USS Peleliu. A further 15 ships are suspected of having operated around the British territory of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, which has been used as a military base by the UK and the Americans.
Reprieve will raise particular concerns over the activities of the USS Ashland and the time it spent off Somalia in early 2007 conducting maritime security operations in an effort to capture al-Qaida terrorists.
At this time many people were abducted by Somali, Kenyan and Ethiopian forces in a systematic operation involving regular interrogations by individuals believed to be members of the FBI and CIA. Ultimately more than 100 individuals were "disappeared" to prisons in locations including Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Guantánamo Bay.
Reprieve believes prisoners may have also been held for interrogation on the USS Ashland and other ships in the Gulf of Aden during this time.
The Reprieve study includes the account of a prisoner released from Guantánamo Bay, who described a fellow inmate's story of detention on an amphibious assault ship. "One of my fellow prisoners in Guantánamo was at sea on an American ship with about 50 others before coming to Guantánamo ... he was in the cage next to me. He told me that there were about 50 other people on the ship. They were all closed off in the bottom of the ship. The prisoner commented to me that it was like something you see on TV. The people held on the ship were beaten even more severely than in Guantánamo."
Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve's legal director, said: "They choose ships to try to keep their misconduct as far as possible from the prying eyes of the media and lawyers. We will eventually reunite these ghost prisoners with their legal rights.
"By its own admission, the US government is currently detaining at least 26,000 people without trial in secret prisons, and information suggests up to 80,000 have been 'through the system' since 2001. The US government must show a commitment to rights and basic humanity by immediately revealing who these people are, where they are, and what has been done to them."
Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative MP who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on extraordinary rendition, called for the US and UK governments to come clean over the holding of detainees.
"Little by little, the truth is coming out on extraordinary rendition. The rest will come, in time.
Better for governments to be candid now, rather than later. Greater transparency will provide increased confidence that President Bush's departure from justice and the rule of law in the aftermath of September 11 is being reversed, and can help to win back the confidence of moderate Muslim communities, whose support is crucial in tackling dangerous extremism."
The Liberal Democrat's foreign affairs spokesman, Edward Davey, said: "If the Bush administration is using British territories to aid and abet illegal state abduction, it would amount to a huge breach of trust with the British government. Ministers must make absolutely clear that they would not support such illegal activity, either directly or indirectly."
A US navy spokesman, Commander Jeffrey Gordon, told the Guardian: "There are no detention facilities on US navy ships." However, he added that it was a matter of public record that some individuals had been put on ships "for a few days" during what he called the initial days of detention. He declined to comment on reports that US naval vessels stationed in or near Diego Garcia had been used as "prison ships".
The Foreign Office referred to David Miliband's statement last February admitting to MPs that, despite previous assurances to the contrary, US rendition flights had twice landed on Diego Garcia. He said he had asked his officials to compile a list of all flights on which rendition had been alleged.
CIA "black sites" are also believed to have operated in Thailand, Afghanistan, Poland and Romania.
In addition, numerous prisoners have been "extraordinarily rendered" to US allies and are alleged to have been tortured in secret prisons in countries such as Syria, Jordan, Morocco and Egypt.
Monday, June 02, 2008
Cyclone Nargis: one month on, US accuses Burma of criminal neglect
By Matthew Weaver and agencies
The US has accused the Burmese military government of "criminal neglect" in its response to Cyclone Nargis, after it was claimed that aid had still failed to reach 200,000 people, a month after the disaster struck.
The US defence secretary, Robert Gates, said he would make a decision within "a matter of days" whether or not to withdraw US navy ships from the Burmese coast. They had been mobilised to coordinate aid deliveries.
"It's becoming pretty clear the regime is not going to let us help," Gates told reporters in Singapore.
Asked if the military junta was guilty of genocide in its response to the disaster, Gates said: "This is more akin, in my view, to criminal neglect."
The Burmese junta responded by insisting its response to the disaster had been "prompt".
-------------------------------------------------------------
Burma United States
Sunday, June 01, 2008
Mother turns in sons to police for blinding man in drunken assault
This is a beautiful story that I came across from the UK...
Taken from Telegraph, UK, 30/05/2008
By Laura Clout
A mother turned in her own sons to police after they boasted of carrying out an unprovoked assault which left a father blind in one eye.
Carol Saldinack said she felt compelled to make the "agonising" decision after learning of the role her sons Luke Newman, 27, and Oliver Clark, 24, played in the violent attack on 36-year-old Marc Parkinson after a night out drinking.
The 51-year-old, who lives in Norfolk, said she has no regrets despite being ostracised from her family and subjected to threats, and she urged others to follow her example.
The pair, along with 25-year-old Benjamin Hammond, were jailed for two years at Chichester Crown Court last week for grievous bodily harm.
The group had been drinking in Chichester, West Sussex, in June last year when they launched the unprovoked attack on Mr Parkinson outside a takeaway restaurant.
The company director, who has two children, was left with a detached retina, extensive cuts and bruising, a perforated eardrum and bruised ribs. He is now blind in one eye, his business has folded and he has been forced to sell his home to pay off debts.
Mrs Saldinack, who has six children, told the Daily Mirror she was trembling with nerves as she picked up the telephone to call police, after hearing that her sons had bragged about the attack.
She said: “Luke was apparently walking around with a newspaper report of the attack as if it was a trophy. I felt angry, appalled, shocked and sickened.
“All I could think was 'this man might die, my sons could be killers’. In minutes I rang police and said: 'About the fight in Chichester, I know who's responsible’.”
The pair’s homes were raided by police the following day and the they two were later identified by witnesses in line-ups.
Despite now living in fear from threats, Mrs Saldinack insisted she has no regrets and said others in her situation should do the same.
“I’d urge anyone who finds themselves in this situation to search their own heart and do the right thing”, she said.
“Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends - someone always knows who’s responsible for things like this. They need to come forward.
“Think of the victim’s family and their hell. If you feel you can cope with the consequences, speak up and tell the truth.”
Mr Parkinson thanked Mrs Saldinack, telling the newspaper it was a “brave thing” to do.
Detective Inspector Jim McKnight of Sussex Police said: “The call we received in this case obviously helped in the investigation. However, there was strong evidence, including forensics, which led to the convictions.
“We would always seek to support and protect individuals who provide us with information in difficult circumstances.”
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Aid workers 'abuse kids as young as six'
Taken from Yahoo News, May 27, 2008
By By David Clarke, Reuters
LONDON (Reuters) - Sexual abuse of children by aid workers and peacekeepers is rife and efforts to protect young people are inadequate, said a report published on Tuesday.
The study by Save the Children UK said there were significant levels of abuse in emergencies, much of it unreported and unless the silence ended, attempts to stamp out exploitation would "remain fundamentally flawed".
Accusations of sexual abuse by U.N. peacekeepers and aid workers around the world have increased in recent years and the United Nations is investigating claims against its soldiers in hot spots such as Haiti, Liberia, Ivory Coast and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The report said while the U.N. and some non-governmental organizations were stepping up efforts to address the problem, a global watchdog should be established this year to monitor attempts to tackle abuse and champion effective responses.
Save the Children based its findings on visits last year to Haiti, Southern Sudan and Ivory Coast.
The study found a huge range of exploitation and abuse: children trading sex for food, forced sex, verbal sexual abuse, child prostitution, child pornography, sexual slavery, sexual assault and child trafficking.
The focus groups identified children as young as 6 as having been abused, although most were aged 14 to 15.
U.N. peacekeepers were identified as the most likely perpetrators by 20 of the 38 groups, although a total of 23 humanitarian, peacekeeping and security organizations were associated with sexual abuse in the three countries.
"All humanitarian and peacekeeping agencies working in emergency situations, including Save the Children UK, must own up to the fact that they are vulnerable to this problem and tackle it head on," said Jasmine Whitbread, chief executive of Save the Children UK.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is "deeply concerned by the Save the Children UK report", U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas told reporters in New York later on Tuesday.
"The abuse of children by those sent to help is a significant and painful issue and one that U.N. peacekeeping has and will continue to address candidly, comprehensively and robustly," Ban said in the statement read by Montas. "Even one incident is too many."
YOUNG GIRLS
More than half of the participants in the study identified incidents of sexual touching and forced sex. Of these, 18 and 23 percent respectively recalled 10 or more such incidents.
"They especially ask us for girls of our age. Often it will be between eight and 10 men who will share two or three girls. When I suggest an older girl, they say that they want a young girl," a 14-year-old boy who works at a peacekeeping camp in Ivory Coast told the Save the Children research team.
And the report said official U.N. statistics appeared to underestimate the scale of abuse, probably because so much of the exploitation was not reported by victims.
"Clearly there is a significant disparity between the low levels of abuse cited in these statistics and the high levels suggested in field investigations and other evidence," it said.
Save the Children said there were many reasons why abuse was not reported: fear of losing material assistance, threat of retribution, stigmatization, negative economic impact, lack of legal services, resignation to abuse, lack of information about how to report abuse and, crucially, lack of faith in a response.
Anecdotal evidence from all 38 focus groups suggested there was an endemic failure to respond to reports of abuse.
"Many U.N. agencies and NGOs working here feel they cannot be touched by anyone," said an aid worker in Ivory Coast.
(Additional reporting by Louis Charbonneau and Megan Davies at the United Nations; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
Maybe it’s time that aid workers and peacekeepers are vetted properly before they are allowed to work with people, particularly children. Soldiers who act as peacekeepers need to be trained and vetted. This sort of abuse has been happening all over the world, not just in Africa – countries like Bosnia, Iraq, where the UN and allied forces have been patrolling, soldiers, aid workers, NGO’s and mercenaries have been reported caught with raping civilians, some soldiers have been infected with Sexual transmitted diseases. These abusers seem to think they are immune from prosecution but hopefully they will all be captured and punished.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
For sale: 13-year-old virgin
Tonight, one girl in particular is attracting attention as she sits on a stool by a fire so that she can be seen by passing vehicles. Her heavily made-up, striking face and beautiful pink sari make her look as if she were on her way to a party. But the truth is different. Suli, 14, is a virgin and a bidding war is being held for the right to be the first to sleep with her.
The collection of shelters where she lives houses 59 families, all members of the Bedia tribe, which has a long tradition of caste-based prostitution. Girls born here become prostitutes in a rite of passage into "adulthood" as routine as marriage is to the rest of Indian society.
Once a girl has lost her virginity she cannot marry. The choice has been made and the community celebrates it - this is her non-wedding night.
She claimed it did not matter what the man looked like. "I will go with whoever pays the highest price," she said, before running off as her mother called her for supper.
Nita is only 13 but has opted to follow her sisters into the trade. It is her own "choice", because, she giggled, "I won't have to do any housework."
But in avoiding making chapatis, Nita has signed up to a life in which she will deal with 20 to 30 clients per day, until she reaches her forties. After that, when she is no longer considered desirable, she will depend on any children she may have for support.
Two of her sisters, Ritu, 35, and Manju, 25, have built one of the few stone houses in their village, for which they paid the equivalent of £14,600, and are proud of their success. "There was a lot of poverty, we had nothing to eat," said Manju. "What you see now has come with hard work." They support 50 family members - 35 children and 15 adults.
Elsewhere in India, the birth of a boy is celebrated with dowries paid by the bride's family, one of the reasons given for the high abortion rate for female foetuses. But in the villages around Bharatpur there is a shortage of girls to marry, and the custom is for the boy's family to pay the girl's family a large lump sum before the wedding can take place.
Possibly because the money comes from prostitution, and because any granddaughters will be destined for the trade, the sums are high.
Ritu and Manju paid for four of their five brothers to marry, and now support their sisters-in-law, nieces and nephews.
They earn between 1,000 and 1,500 rupees a day. It was more before the government knocked down their shelters to make room for the highway.
"We need a shelter by the road," they said. "Tell the government to build us somewhere we can work. We used to have 25 or 30 clients a day, now the average is 10 or 15." They said they were able to keep their rates up because they could provide a nice room and running water for their clients, who are mostly married businessmen from Agra.
The prevalence of caste-based prostitution in certain tribes in the region - the Bawaria, Nuts, Bedias, Kanjars and Sansis - came to light after a raid on a brothel in Delhi. Now an attempt is being made to break the cycle by which the girls of each generation enter the trade.
Dr KK Mukerjee, a social work professor at the University of Delhi, who was commissioned by the government to research the scope of prostitution, has founded a group, known as GNK. Supported by Plan International, a child-centred community development agency, the organisation has set up a hostel to look after prostitutes' children.
Many of the women said they did not wish their daughters to follow them into the trade. Ritu and Manju each have a daughter, whose fathers were clients. "My daughter will get educated, and not enter this profession," said Ritu. "I have seen what it is like. I don't want it for her."
A young boy at the hostel told proudly how he had persuaded his grandmother not to push his aunt into prostitution. "My grandmother said that she would kill herself if my aunt did not go into the trade and earn money," he said. "But I persuaded her, and my aunt got married."
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Orthodox Jewish youths burn New Testaments in Or Yehuda
Taken from Haaretz, Israel
By The Associated Press, 20/05/2008
Orthodox Jews set fire to hundreds of copies of the New Testament in the latest act of violence against Christian missionaries in the Holy Land. Or Yehuda Deputy Mayor Uzi Aharon said missionaries recently entered a neighborhood in the predominantly religious town of 34,000 in central Israel, distributing hundreds of New Testaments and missionary material.
After receiving complaints, Aharon said, he got into a loudspeaker car last Thursday and drove through the neighborhood, urging people to turn over the material to Jewish religious students who went door to door to collect it. "The books were dumped into a pile and set afire in a lot near a synagogue," he said.
The newspaper Maariv reported Tuesday that hundreds of yeshiva students took part in the book-burning. But Aharon told The Associated Press that only a few students were present, and that he was not there when the books were torched.
"Not all of the New Testaments that were collected were burned, but hundreds were," he said.
He said he regretted the burning of the books, but called it a commandment to burn materials that urge Jews to convert.
"I certainly don't denounce the burning of the booklets, he said. I denounce those who distributed the booklets."
Jews worship from the Old Testament, including the Five Books of Moses and the writings of the ancient prophets. Christians revere the Old Testament as well as the New Testament, which contains the ministry of Jesus.
Calev Myers, an attorney who represents Messianic Jews, or Jews who accept Jesus as their savior, demanded in an interview with Army Radio that all those involved be put on trial. He estimated there were 10,000 Messianic Jews, who are also known as Jews for Jesus, in Israel.
Police had no immediate comment.
Israeli authorities and Orthodox Jews frown on missionary activity aimed at Jews, though in most cases it is not illegal. Still, the concept of a Jew burning books is abhorrent to many in Israel because of the association with Nazis torching piles of Jewish books during the Holocaust of World War II.
Earlier this year, the teenage son of a prominent Christian missionary was seriously wounded when a package bomb delivered to the family's West Bank home went off in his hands.
Last year, arsonists burst into a Jerusalem church used by Messianic Jews and set the building on fire, raising suspicions that Jewish extremists were behind the attack. No one claimed responsibility, but the same church was burned down 25 years ago by ultra-Orthodox Jewish extremists.
Some examples of Jewish Hate against Christians & Muslims Caught on tape
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Ethiopian child brides give themselves to tradition
Taken from the Times, UK, May 17, 2008
By Ross Appleyard
Wube-Enat cowers under a brightly embroidered blanket, peering out at the festivities going on around her. Bemused and bewildered, she has little understanding of why she is suddenly the focus of so much attention.
It is her wedding day; Wube-Enat is 10 years old. Her husband, Abebe, is 14.
For the first time in her life she has discarded her grubby smock and is dressed in traditional robes. “I like my new husband,” she says shyly. “But I don't really know him. In fact, I've never met him.”
The ceremony, in the remote Amhara region of Ethiopia, is conducted by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Child weddings are common in this region, although it is illegal to marry below the age of 18. The priest justified conducting the wedding by saying: “We marry the girls so young to ensure they are virgins. If she was older we wouldn't marry her - someone might have raped her.”
Tradition is paramount in this part of Ethiopia but practices such as child marriage can have terrible repercussions for the girls. In Amhara half of all girls are married before they are 15.
Most get pregnant as soon as it is physically possible. Simegne, 12, is eight months pregnant. “I am looking forward to giving my mother a grandchild,” she said. “But I would rather be back at school.”
Almost all the girls give birth at home without proper healthcare and with no way of reaching a hospital if anything goes wrong - which is often.
Achawache was 15 when she got pregnant. She spent 12 days in labour before eventually giving birth to a stillborn baby. She was left incontinent. The condition is caused during a prolonged labour leading to a hole forming between the bladder and the vagina. It was six years before she heard of a hospital that would treat her. Because she was incontinent, bus drivers refused to let her on board to get to the medical treatment she needed. In many cases the condition leads to the girl being ostracised and deserted by her husband. The Government is determined to stamp out child marriages and has increased the penalties for anyone arranging such a ceremony. Getting the message to areas such as Amhara is difficult.
“Part of the problem is that it happens in areas that are so remote communication is difficult,” Tedros Ghebreyesus, the Health Minister, said. “We are also battling against deep-rooted traditions.”
More than 90 per cent of the 77 million people in Ethiopia live in rural areas. The Orthodox Church has a massive influence over the communities. While the Christian hierarchy claims to want an end to child marriages, its priests - there are half a million in the country - still carry them out. “Most of these priests are also carpenters and farmers,” the Church's head, His Holiness Abune Paulos said. “It will take time for the message to filter down that they must not be a part of this tradition.”
The British-based charity Safe Hands for Mothers has been working with the UN Population Fund to increase awareness. “It is not for us to interfere with cultural traditions that go back hundreds of years but we must alert people to the dangers of early marriage,” Nancy Durrell McKenna, its executive director, said. “We are working alongside our partners to make films that show the physical and psychological effects of child marriage on these vulnerable young girls. Some of the stories we have come across are heartbreaking.”
For more information visit safehands.org
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Saudis reject Bush's appeal to ease oil prices
Taken from The Guardian, UK, May 16 2008
It was the second time this year that the pleas of the US president, who is visiting King Abdullah, have fallen on deaf ears.
Bush's latest request came as the price of crude oil hit a new high of more than $127 (£65) a barrel.
"What they're saying to us is ... Saudi Arabia does not have customers that are making requests for oil that they are not able to satisfy," the US national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, told reporters.
However, the oil minister, Ali Naimi, said later that Saudi Arabia had raised production by 300,000 barrels per day on May 10 in response to requests from its customers. He said the increase would push the kingdom's output to 9.45m barrels a day by June.
High petrol prices are a potential issue in November's US presidential election. When Bush made his first appeal in January the Saudi oil minister said that oil production was at normal levels and the kingdom would raise production only when the market justified it.
Bush has conceded that raising output is difficult because the demand for oil — particularly from China and India — is stretching supplies.
The price of crude oil has consistently traded at new highs this year since hitting $100 a barrel at the beginning of January.
UBS yesterday became the latest bank to predict the price of crude oil could hit $200, with its analysts saying that the figure could be reached by 2015.
The US Congress yesterday voted to halt daily shipments of 70,000 barrels of oil to the US's emergency reserve in a bid to push down prices.
Bush had argued that halting the shipments would have little or no impact on petrol or crude oil prices.
The US Energy Department said later it had cancelled shipments into the reserve, beginning in July. But the White House has indicated that he will sign the reserve measure.
Senate Democrats have introduced a resolution that would block $1.4bn in arms sales to Saudi Arabia — the world's biggest oil supplier — unless it agrees to increase its production by 1m barrels a day.
The Democrats said they proposed the measure to coincide with Bush's visit to send a message to Saudi Arabia that it should produce more oil to reduce the cost of petrol for Americans.
While demand has surged because of booming economies in developing countries, political tensions in Nigeria, Venezuela and Iran have threatened supplies.
Before Bush arrived in Saudi Arabia, the US said it had agreed to cooperate to protect Saudi Arabia's oil and to help it develop peaceful nuclear energy. Saudi Arabia accounts for more than a tenth of global oil output and severe damage to its infrastructure would have far-reaching effects.
Al-Qaida has threatened more strikes on Saudi oil facilities after a failed attack on the world's largest oil processing plant at Abqaiq in February 2006.
"The United States and Saudi Arabia have agreed to cooperate in safeguarding the kingdom's energy resources by protecting key infrastructure, enhancing Saudi border security, and meeting Saudi Arabia's expanding energy needs in an environmentally responsible manner," a White House statement said.
The two countries will also sign a memorandum of understanding to cooperate on a peaceful nuclear programme
In short the demand from India and China have meant that there is greater demand for oil but the supply of oil should not be attributed to Saudi Arabia. What is the oil production of illegally occupied Iraq, or friends of the United States Iran and Venezuela? How come Bush is not requesting more output from these countries? Saudi Arabia have stated numerous times that they do not fix price or output for political gain, if the roles were reversed and Capitalist America had all the oil no doubt they would cream off as much money as possible from any would be customers - why is there so much hatred of the Saudis in the media?
One thing is for certain if the price is too high, the United States will drop it's capitalist philosophy and show it's facist face and invade Saudi Arabia like it planned in the early 1970's -(when Israel instigated and won the the 1973 Arab-Israeli war). So would the United States really invade? Thanks to the release of British records - we find that a British intelligence committee report from December 1973 said America was so angry over Arab nations' earlier decision to cut oil production and impose an embargo on the United States that seizing oil-producing areas in the region (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi ) was "the possibility uppermost in American thinking." Click here for more info: usatoday.com - 01-01-2004 and SundayTimes 09-02-1975.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Washington's Battle Over Israel's Birth
Taken from Washington Post, Wednesday, May 7, 2008; Page A21
By Richard Holbrooke
The British planned to leave Palestine at midnight on May 14. At that moment, the Jewish Agency, led by David Ben-Gurion, would proclaim the new (and still unnamed) Jewish state. The neighboring Arab states warned that fighting, which had already begun, would erupt into full-scale war at that moment.
The Jewish Agency proposed partitioning Palestine into two parts -- one Jewish, one Arab. But the State and Defense departments backed the British plan to turn Palestine over to the United Nations. In March, Truman privately promised Chaim Weizmann, the future president of Israel, that he would support partition -- only to learn the next day that the American ambassador to the United Nations had voted for U.N. trusteeship. Enraged, Truman wrote a private note on his calendar: "The State Dept. pulled the rug from under me today. The first I know about it is what I read in the newspapers! Isn't that hell? I'm now in the position of a liar and double-crosser. I've never felt so low in my life. . . ."
Truman blamed "third and fourth level" State Department officials -- especially the director of U.N. affairs, Dean Rusk, and the agency's counselor, Charles Bohlen. But opposition really came from an even more formidable group: the "wise men" who were simultaneously creating the great Truman foreign policy of the late 1940s -- among them Marshall, James V. Forrestal, George F. Kennan, Robert Lovett, John J. McCloy, Paul Nitze and Dean Acheson. To overrule State would mean Truman taking on Marshall, whom he regarded as "the greatest living American," a daunting task for a very unpopular president.
Beneath the surface lay unspoken but real anti-Semitism on the part of some (but not all) policymakers. The position of those opposing recognition was simple -- oil, numbers and history.
On May 12, Truman held a meeting in the Oval Office to decide the issue. Marshall and his universally respected deputy, Robert Lovett, made the case for delaying recognition -- and "delay" really meant "deny." Truman asked his young aide, Clark Clifford, to present the case for immediate recognition. When Clifford finished, Marshall, uncharacteristically, exploded. "I don't even know why Clifford is here. He is a domestic adviser, and this is a foreign policy matter. The only reason Clifford is here is that he is pressing a political consideration."
Marshall then uttered what Clifford would later call "the most remarkable threat I ever heard anyone make directly to a President." In an unusual top-secret memorandum Marshall wrote for the historical files after the meeting, the great general recorded his own words: "I said bluntly that if the President were to follow Mr. Clifford's advice and if in the elections I were to vote, I would vote against the President."
After this stunning moment, the meeting adjourned in disarray. In the next two days, Clifford looked for ways to get Marshall to accept recognition. Lovett, although still opposed to recognition, finally talked a reluctant Marshall into remaining silent if Truman acted. With only a few hours left until midnight in Tel Aviv, Clifford told the Jewish Agency to request immediate recognition of the new state, which still lacked a name. Truman announced recognition at 6:11 p.m. on May 14 -- 11 minutes after Ben-Gurion's declaration of independence in Tel Aviv. So rapidly was this done that in the official announcement, the typed words "Jewish State" are crossed out, replaced in Clifford's handwriting with "State of Israel." Thus the United States became the first nation to recognize Israel, as Truman and Clifford wanted. The secret of the Oval Office confrontation held for years, and a crisis in both domestic politics and foreign policy was narrowly averted.
Clifford insisted to me and others in countless discussions over the next 40 years that politics was not at the root of his position -- moral conviction was. Noting sharp divisions within the American Jewish community -- the substantial anti-Zionist faction among leading Jews included the publishers of both The Post and the New York Times -- Clifford had told Truman in his famous 1947 blueprint for Truman's presidential campaign that "a continued commitment to liberal political and economic policies" was the key to Jewish support.
But to this day, many think that Marshall and Lovett were right on the merits and that domestic politics was the real reason for Truman's decision. Israel, they argue, has been nothing but trouble for the United States.
I think this misses the point. Israel was going to come into existence whether or not Washington recognized it. But without American support from the very beginning, Israel's survival would have been at even greater risk. Even if European Jewry had not just emerged from the horrors of World War II, it would have been an unthinkable act of abandonment by the United States. Truman's decision, although opposed by almost the entire foreign policy establishment, was the right one -- and despite complicated consequences that continue to this day, it is a decision all Americans should recognize and admire.
Richard Holbrooke writes a monthly column for The Post. He co-authored Clark Clifford's "Counsel to the President: A Memoir."
http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/3962
(3) Current state of Affairs in Israel (as supporte dby the united States)
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Wanted: The last Nazis
They are accused of some of the worst war crimes of the 20th century. Now a final bid has been launched to bring them to justice before they die
Taken from The Independent, UK
By Claire Soares, 1 May 2008
At first glance, the mugshots appear to be a gallery of roguish grandfathers, but the octo- and nonagenarians are the 10 most-wanted fugitives of one of the most heinous regimes the world has ever seen. They are the last remaining Nazis, and the codename of the hunt to find them – Operation Last Chance – says it all
More than 60 years after the Nuremberg trials put the first of Hitler's henchmen in the dock, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre yesterday released its most wanted list of the remaining Nazi war criminals. The battle to bring them to justice is complicated by a mix of political apathy, legal wrangling, legendary powers of evasion and what Nazi-hunters term "misplaced sympathy" for the craggy-faced men in their twilight years.
"They are old, and the natural tendency is to be sympathetic toward people when they reach a certain age, but the passage of time in no way diminishes the guilt of the perpetrators," said Efraim Zuroff, the Jerusalem-based director of the Wiesenthal Centre. "If we were to put a chronological limit on prosecution, we would basically be saying you can get away with genocide."
The top target is Aribert Heim, now 93. Jewish prisoners at Mauthausen concentration camp probably knew better him as "Doctor Death". The Austrian medic would inject petrol and an array of different poisons straight into the hearts of his so-called patients to see which killed them fastest. He once removed the tattooed flesh of a prisoner and turned it into soft furnishings for his commandant's flat.
An 18-year-old Jewish footballer and swimmer who was sent to Heim with an inflammation of the foot was knocked out, castrated and then decapitated. His head was boiled to remove the flesh and his skull was put on display. "[Heim] needed the head because of its perfect teeth," testified one hospital worker at the camp, according to an arrest warrant uncovered by the Associated Press news agency.
Although the hunt for the fugitives continues, the race is on to bring them to justice before they die. Conscious of the ticking clock, Mr Zuroff will launch a media blitz in South America this summer, airing adverts there for the first time which publicise the $485,000 (£245,000) reward offered for Heim's arrest.
Heim has been on the run since 1962 when, happily married and working as a gynaecologist in the West German town of Baden-Baden, he was tipped off that his arrest was imminent. Proof that he is still alive after all these years may be the €1m (£785,000) sitting in a Berlin bank account, which would probably have been claimed by his family if he were dead. The best guess now is that the doctor is in either in Chile, where his daughter lives, or Argentina – a favoured destination for fleeing Nazis, including the architect of the Holocaust, Adolf Eichmann, and another lover of ghoulish medical experiments, Josef Mengele.
It is only Heim whose whereabouts are unknown. For the other nine suspects, Mr Zuroff rattles off a string of house numbers and street names in cities around the world Рfrom Klagenfurt in Austria to Perth, Australia. In these cases, the biggest problem is a lack of political will. John Demjanjuk, a Ukrainian emigr̩, was extradited from the US to Israel in 1986 and sentenced to death for allegedly being the Treblinka camp guard "Ivan the Terrible". But Israel's Supreme Court overturned the ruling and released him. He is now fighting deportation from America.
"Some countries don't have the guts or the courage to prosecute and punish," sighs Mr Zuroff. "Nazi war criminals are not serial killers. They are not likely to murder again and the governments basically know that in a few years they will pass away."
Take Sandor Kepiro, who is No 3 on the list. Now aged 93, he was among Hungarian officers alleged to have carried out a three-day massacre of more than 1,000 mostly Jewish people on the banks of the Danube in Serbia. He was convicted in 1944 but was pardoned and moved to Austria. In 1946, he was convicted again – in absentia – and decided to flee further afield, this time to Argentina.
Half a century later, he slipped secretly back into his homeland after being assured he would not face punishment. But when he was discovered living in Budapest in 2006, there was a public outcry. No decision has been made on whether he will stand trial.
Hungary is one of nine countries to be given a "failing" grade in the Wiesenthal Centre's annual scorecard. Sweden is another; lambasted for its blanket refusal to investigate Nazi-era crimes, because of a statute of limitations which kicks in at 25 years for all acts of murder, including genocide.
Another is Australia; accused of being too slow in processing the extradition of most-wanted Nazi No 7, Charles Zentai.
"For three years, they let this guy play games in court," says Mr Zuroff. "When you are talking about three years for someone who is in his 80s, that is a long time and could, effectively, help him elude justice."
Mr Zentai, now 86 and living in a Perth suburb, is accused of beating an 18-year-old called Peter Balazs to death when he caught him riding a Budapest tram without wearing a yellow star to identify himself as a Jew. Mr Zentai denies the charges and has been fighting extradition since 2005. Last week, he lost a constitutional challenge against state magistrates ruling on his case. His family claims the incriminating witness testimony came from confessions beaten out of soldiers. They say that he stands little chance of a fair trial in Hungary, should extradition go ahead.
Mr Zentai's son, Ernie Steiner, said yesterday: "I know my father was never a Nazi, so why is a Nazi-hunter hunting my father? He was never involved in the Holocaust or the mistreatment of Jews. So this is a complete fabrication."
He dismissed the Most Wanted List as the theatrics of a bounty hunter, saying: "Of course there's a principle of justice but, when you've got the wrong bloke, you are persecuting an innocent man."
One who didn't get away
The case of the "Executioner of Bolzano" has been a triumph for Nazi hunters. Michael Seifert tortured his victims in the north Italian concentration camp using fire, broken bottles, clubs and ice-cold water.
After the war he moved to Canada, working in a Vancouver mill and raising his family. In 2000, he was convicted in absentia and sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering at least 18 people but it was two years before he was arrested by the Canadian police at Italy's request. He began a long fight against extradition, which ended in failure this February when, at the age of 83, he was finally deported to Rome to serve his sentence.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Father held daughter in cellar for 24 years
Taken from the Independent, UK
Sunday, 27 April 2008
A woman has told police that she was held prisoner in a cellar for almost 24 years by her father, who repeatedly raped her and fathered her seven children.
Lower Austria police said in a statement that the 42-year-old woman had been missing since August 29, 1984 and was found by police in the town of Amstetten last night following a tip-off.
Franz Polzer, head of the Lower Austrian Bureau of Criminal Affairs, said the 73-year-old father had been taken into custody.
In a chronology of events outlined in a statement, police said the woman had apparently sent a letter a month after her disappearance asking her parents not to search for her.
During police questioning, she told police her father began sexually abusing her when she was 11 and locked her in a room in the cellar on August 28, 1984.
During the 24 years that followed, she said she was continually abused by her father and gave birth to six children, the statement said. In 1996, she gave birth to twins but one died several days later because it was not appropriately cared for. Her father had then apparently removed the corpse from the cellar and burned it, the statement said.
Police said the woman appeared "greatly disturbed" psychologically during questioning. She agreed to talk only after authorities assured her that she would no longer have to have contact with her father and that her children would be taken care of.
One of her children, a 19-year-old girl, is now in hospital the Lower Austrian town of Amstetten in very serious condition. Police said the father has been arrested but had not confessed.
Gerhard Sedlacek, spokesman for the public prosecutor's office in St Poelten, said the surviving children - three boys and three girls - are aged between five and 20.
DNA tests are expected to determine whether paternity of the children.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Woman, 38, charged with having sex with her young sons
Another incest incident. This sickening act seems to be happening in most part of the world these days...
Taken from Harretz, Israel, 13 April 2008
By Haaretz Service
The Be'er Sheva District Court on Sunday indicted a 38-year-old woman from the southern town of Netivot who allegedly had sexual relations with her two sons, 9 and 11.
The defendant is a religious woman and a divorcee. Her children were taken from her home last year by court order and put into boarding schools and foster care, upon recommendation of a social worker involved in their case.
One of the children, 11, was transferred to a boarding school in B'nei Barak, where he exhibited sexual behavior inappropriate for his age. When confronted, the boy told school counselors that his mother had forced him to have sex with her on one of the occasions he had come to visit her last year.
When arrested by police, the woman said she had committed the act as revenge against her former husband.
The charges state that the woman lay on her bed naked, with only her head covered and forced her children to undress and have sex with her. She then did the same thing with her other son, according to the indictment.
The woman is also suspected of watching pornographic films with her children. The Southern District Prosecution has requested that the woman remain in policy custody until the end of proceedings on the grounds that she could be a danger to her children.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Children removed from sect in Texas tell of girls forced into sex with older men
Taken from the Guardian, UK
Ed Pilkington, April 10 2008
Interviews with hundreds of children removed from a polygamist sect in Texas have revealed that several underage girls were forced into "spiritual marriage" with much older men as soon as they reached puberty and were then made pregnant, according to investigators.
A total of 416 children, mainly girls, have now been taken into state custody after five days of raids on the Yearn for Zion ranch in Eldorado, west Texas. Court documents reveal the children were removed for fear they were at risk of "emotional, physical and/or sexual abuse".
A further 139 women left the ranch voluntarily to accompany the girls, and are being held with them. A local court has granted state custody of all the children until a hearing later this month.
The 1,700-acre ranch is the retreat of a group from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a 10,000-strong splinter sect that broke with the main Mormon church when it denounced polygamy in the 1890s. The compound was built in 2004 in a remote location in the prairies by Warren Jeffs, the then "prophet" of the sect who is currently in jail in Arizona awaiting trial over charges relating to the arranged marriages of three teenage girls. He has already been sentenced to 10 years to life imprisonment in the state of Utah.
The raids were sparked by a telephone call from a 16-year-old girl inside the Yearn for Zion compound to a local family violence shelter on March 29. She said she had been forced to become the seventh "spiritual wife" of a man aged 50, who made her pregnant with a child, now aged eight months, and then made her pregnant for a second time. The girl said other girls, some as young as 13, had been forced to have sex with older men for procreation. She said she had been beaten by her "husband" so badly that on one occasion several of her ribs were broken. The beatings included hitting her on the chest and choking her, the affidavit says, while another woman held her baby.
The police are searching for the man, Dale Barlow. They are also continuing to search for the girl, whose identity has not been released and who has yet to be found among the 416 children taken into care.
The court papers give new details about the isolated life of the sect.
The compound is self-sufficient, in order to avoid contact with the "outsiders' world". In addition to a temple, the ranch includes a cement factory, a school, a cheese factory and medical centre.
Women wear home-sewn dresses and are not allowed to wear red, which Jeffs decreed was reserved for Jesus, or cut their hair. They live on a diet of dairy produce, vegetables, berries, nuts and honey.
Sect members were only allowed out of the compound for emergencies. The 16-year-old who sounded the alarm told the shelter that she had been warned that if she left the ranch, "outsiders will hurt her, force her to cut her hair, to wear makeup and to have sex with lots of men", the documents say.
Several of the teenage girls were found to have children or are pregnant. Many could not spell their last names or state their birth date.
The sect believes that polygamy for men is an essential religious practice. Underage girls were married to older men of the church's choosing, the affidavit says.
The leader of the ranch, Merrill Jessop, has called for a public outcry over the raids, saying the "hauling off of women and children matches anything in Russia or Germany".
Lawyers for the church have filed a court petition to quash the searches on the grounds they are unconstitutional as the authorities lack sufficient evidence to justify the intrusion.
--------------------------------------------------------
Latest Update - 25th May 08: Members of a polygamist sect in Texas were overjoyed after an appeal court ordered the state authorities to return 440 children taken from a church compound during a raid. The Third Court of Appeals in Austin said on Thursday that the state had failed to show that the children were in any immediate danger – the only justification under Texas law for taking children from their parents without a court order. Child-protection officials argued that five of the girls had become pregnant under the age of 16 and that the sect was essentially a paedophile ring. Warren Jeffs, the “prophet” of the church, is serving a ten-year sentence in Utah for rape. The decision to return the children was seen as an embarrassment for the child welfare authority and as vindication for members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), who claim that they are being subjected to religious persecution.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Storm in a shot glass as advert redraws map of Americas
Taken from The Independent, UK
By David Usborne, 8 April 2008
A whimsical ad by the makers of Absolut vodka aimed solely at consumers in Mexico has drawn the ire of some sovereignty-sensitive Americans, forcing the company to issue an unusual apology.
The storm in a shot glass was provoked by advertisements that depict an antique map of North America dating back to before the 1848 Mexican-American War, when large swaths of what is now the United States, including all of California and other south-western states, belonged to Mexico. One of a series of ads that run under the tag-line "In an Absolut World", the spot was a cheeky attempt to tap into simmering nationalistic sentiments in Mexico, which chafes at its status as the "poor neighbour" of a country that it once partly owned.
If in Mexico they smiled at the notional re-conquering of their lost lands, the reaction in El Norte has been more mixed than a dirty martini. The company has been assailed by American vodka fans, mostly writing in blogs on the internet, accusing it of inflaming passions about an already touchy political subject: illegal immigration and plans to erect a fence along the existing border.
The Swedish beverage giant, which was bought last week by the French group Pernod Ricard, has even been charged with encouraging Mexicans to enter the US without proper papers.
"We are sorry if we offended anyone," the company said in its own blog on the Absolut website. "This was not our intention. In no way was this meant to offend or disparage, nor does it advocate an altering of borders, nor does it lend support to any anti-American sentiment, nor does it reflect immigration issues. Instead, it hearkens to a time which the population of Mexico may feel was more ideal." Also on the defensive was the company's spokesman in New York, Jeffrey Moran. "This ad certainly has nothing to do with immigration issues or anti-Mexican sentiments," he insisted. "It's based on a historical perspective on what Mexico was once. That's all."
The blogospheric bashing of Absolut was set off by the conservative commentator Michelle Malkin, who posted the Mexican ad on michellemalkin.com, her blog site. From there it quickly migrated to other US sites, including the influential drudgereport.com, further kindling criticism.
"I find this ad deeply offensive and needlessly divisive," one blogger simply named "New Yorker" said on MexicoReporter.com: "I will now make a point of drinking other brands."
Another Outraged of the US added: "Absolut is pandering to ignorance, historical illiteracy and Mexican national chauvinism. I'll never drink Absolut again."
That Absolut may have touched a sweet and a sour nerve simultaneously on each side of the border may now seem obvious. While history classes in America teach that the territories were legally purchased from Mexico after the conclusion of the war, many Mexicans still feel they were stolen.
"This advertising basically taps into a very painful episode of Mexico's history, so the cultural code for understanding that is, 'We were robbed,'" commented Eduardo Caccia, an executive at Mindcode, a Mexico City advertising consultancy. "For the US it's different. The understanding for that episode is 'We bought some land. We made a deal.' The same event, but with different meanings."
The loss of what was once Alta California and the other states to the US, including Texas (although it had broken away in 1836 after its own war of independence with Mexico), Arizona and New Mexico, was sealed with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo at the end of the war.
--------------------------------------------------------
The land grab by the United States will eventually be offset by the demographic change that is taking place in America - where it's estimated that within 10 years, hispanics will become the majority in these parts of the United States - Hola!
Father and daughter have child
Taken from Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
APP - April 7, 2008
A South Australian woman has given birth to her father's daughter after the couple had sex.
John and Jenny Deaves reunited 30 years after Mr Deaves separated from Jenny's mother.
Jenny was 31 and, just two weeks after meeting, father and daughter had sex.
"John and I are in this relationship as consenting adults," Mrs Deaves told the Nine Network last night.
"We are just asking for a little bit of respect and understanding."
Their 11-month-old daughter Celeste, shown on TV, appears fit and healthy.
Ms Deaves said soon after reuniting with her father she began to see him as a man first and her father second.
"I was looking at him, sort of going, 'Oh, he's not too bad.'
"Like you might look at a man across the bar at a nightclub."
Ms Deaves brought two children, Samantha and Alex, into the relationship after splitting from her former partner.
Mr Deaves admitted that he "initially" thought having sex with his daughter was wrong.
"Emotions take over. As people no doubt realise, there are times during your life where emotions do rule the heart, it rules the head," he said.
"I knew it was illegal. Of course I knew it was illegal but you know, so what."
Ms Deaves said the physical relationship with her father was like "a sexual relationship with any other man".
For Mr Deaves the sexual relationship was "absolutely fantastic".
A South Australian police media spokesman said: "The couple is being monitored."
---------------------------------------------------------
LATEST UPDATE 08.04.08: latest court transcripts have revealed that the father and daughter had another baby seven years ago, who died from a congenital heart defect.
I just hope that the new baby does not have the same defects. This is why it is very wrong to marry family members - firstly it is morally wrong but also there is a big chance that the genes of the two parenst will be too close and the ofspring will have defects/ suffer from mutations.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
UK children rescued from worldwide sex abuse ring
Taken from The Guardian, UK, 6 March 2008
Detectives in three continents believe they have broken one of the most sophisticated paedophile rings ever. Eight British children between six and 14 years old have been rescued and arrests made in the UK, Australia and the US.
The ring used advanced techniques to avoid detection and one member boasted of belonging to the "greatest group of paedos ever to gather in one place".
Police traced the victims to addresses in the UK, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (Ceop) Centre said. Some had been abused by their parents. The arrests followed a two-year inquiry which began in Australia, spread to Europe and was coordinated by the FBI in the US.
The US was chosen as the base for police operations as most of the sex ring's members were American residents, police said.
A total of 22 people were arrested last week, including two men in the UK, in the final strike against the ring. Six further British men have already been jailed for their roles in trading and receiving pictures and videos on the network.
The newsgroup members gained access to the ring by providing pictures of child sexual abuse.
According to US court documents, one member in Florida labelled one folder of images "mild" and another "wild". James Freeman, who used the nickname "Mystikal", bragged: "All I can say is they are worth the download." According to the US indictment against Freeman, seen by the Guardian, he wrote: "My thanks to you and all the others that together make this the greatest group of paedos ever to gather in one place."
Paul Griffiths, who heads the victim identification team at Ceop, based in the UK, said the children were subjected to horrendous abuse. "In every image there is a child. These images are crime scene photos where children are being subjected to sexual abuse. This is not 'child pornography'.
"It's important to remember too, though, that these children were not missing. They were located in the place where they were supposed to be safe - their own home - where their abuse was recorded and made available over the internet to satisfy sickening sexual desires of a deviant group of individuals."
Australian police said the international covert operation had uncovered 2,500 "customers" in 19 countries. As a result of the two-year operation, 400,000 images of child abuse were seized.
Police also closed four commercial child sex web sites and arrested more than 100 people for allegedly purchasing child sex material. Officers in the UK used facial recognition software and a database called Childbase as they raced to identify victims from clues in each image.
The FBI's executive assistant director, Stephen Tidwell, said the online gang was run like a business, with indecent images used as a substitute for cash. He said: "This is beyond a quantum exponential leap for us to see folks that have gone to this much trouble to produce this kind of volume of horrific exploitation of children. But with 400,000 [images] we're going to be at this for years, trying to find the victims."
Peter Crawford from Queensland police's state sexual crimes squad, said: "It has been the most significant infiltration of an international child exploitation network by a law enforcement agency anywhere in the world. The major challenge for this investigation was to unravel the intricate web that networked offenders had weaved to protect themselves, incorporating strict guidelines, rules and encryption."
Members of the ring all used aliases, such as Box of Rocks, Crazy Horse, Lizzard, Methusaleh and Pickleman. In one example cited in the indictment, Raymond Roy, known as Nimo, posted videos of Thai children "to give everyone something to do for an afternoon".
"This one may offend here, so a word of caution, these girls are heavily drugged," Roy wrote on July 10 2007, according to the court documents. "Not much action to speak of, the girls are [sic] to [expletive deleted] up to move or resist. Three girls, the first one being the youngest, around eight or nine yo [years old]."
Noting the sophisticated process the porn ring used to outwit police, Tidwell compared the growing number of child pornography crimes to those of cocaine dealers, terrorists and the mafia. "If they had good operational security, that's a bad thing for us," he said. "When you've got that, you've got a real challenge for law enforcement."
