Hunt for Karadzic ends as fugitive is found

Taken from the Independent, UK, 22/07/2008

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic in Belgrade

After a 13-year hunt Radovan Karadzic, the man accused of masterminding the Srebrenica massacre, has finally been arrested in Serbia.

It was a momentous arrest that brought to mind the capture of Saddam Hussein. "Ladies and Gentlemen, we got him." They were the words of Paul Bremer, the American pro-consul in Iraq, on the capture of the former Iraqi leader. But they could equally apply to last night's triumphant announcement that the former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic had finally been run to ground by Serbian security forces.

Karadzic, wanted by the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal for genocide, has eluded the world's best-equipped armies since the end of the Bosnian war in 1995 and topped the list of the UN war crimes court for former Yugoslavia. His co-indictee, the Bosnian Serb military commander General Ratko Mladic, remains at large, however.

The pair are accused of masterminding the massacre of more than 7,500 Muslim men and boys in the "safe haven" of Srebrenica in July 1995. It was the worst atrocity in Europe since the end of the Second World War. They are also indicted for the siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, that lasted for three-and-half years and left 10,000 people dead.

Karadzic, 64, has been handed over to the war crimes section of Belgrade County Court, pending his extradition to The Hague, in The Netherlands. No details were released last night on the circumstances of the arrest which was announced by the Serbian president's office.

The arrest, a milestone for Serbia, which had been accused of shielding the pair for more than a decade, sets the Balkans country firmly on the road to European Union membership under the new pro-European government there. The arrest of Karadzic and other indicted war criminals is a key condition posed by the EU for membership.

The news was greeted with euphoria across Europe, and welcomed by the UN War Crimes Prosecutor for the Former Yugoslavia and by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which had launched a number of unsuccessful raids on Karadzic's presumed hideouts in recent years.

The EU said the arrest "illustrates the commitment of the new Belgrade government to contributing to peace and stability in the Balkans region".

A statement from the EU presidency, currently held by France, said the arrest was "an important step on the path to the rapprochement of Serbia with the European Union". The issue of Serbian membership is expected to be discussed by EU foreign ministers in Brussels today.

Richard Holbrooke, a former US assistant secretary of state for Europe who negotiated the 1995 Dayton accords that ended the Bosnian war, welcomed his capture, describing him as the Osama bin Laden of Europe, "a real, true architect of mass murder".

In Britain, the shadow Foreign Secretary, William Hague, also welcomed the arrest but pointed out that the fractured country of Bosnia would only obtain closure once Mladic, too, had been sent to The Hague. The leader accused of being the architect of the Balkan wars, Slobodan Milosevic, died in The Hague in 2006 while fighting war crimes charges.

Many in Serbia, however, will be more circumspect about Mr Karadzic's arrest, which took place only weeks after the new government took power under President Boris Tadic, suspecting a deal had been brokered. For many Serbs, Karadzic is still a hero of the Bosnian conflict, which left more than 100,000 dead, mostly non-Serbs. More than 1.8 million people were forced to leave their homes and many remain displaced.

Karadzic, a psychiatrist by training, went into hiding only a year after the war in Bosnia had ended with the Dayton accords.

It is widely believed that he used the sanctuaries of Orthodox monasteries in the border region of eastern Bosnia and Montenegro for years. He is also said to have resorted to elaborate disguises, such as posing as a priest by shaving off his trademark silver mane and donning a brown cassock, to elude authorities.


Karadzic in disguise that eluded everyobe for many years

While in hiding, he published five books – poetry and novels – widely publicised by his supporters. The former UN prosecutor for the former Yugoslavia, Carla del Ponte, openly accused successive Serbian governments of shielding Karadzic. She also said that Mladic could be arrested if the "political will" were present. Attempts to reach Karadzic through his family, through regular searches at their homes in Pale, once the stronghold of Bosnian Serbs, were in vain. He did not react to an appeal by his wife, Ljiljana, in 2005, who begged him to surrender saying the family could no longer "live under pressure." Karadzic has a daughter, Sonja, and son, Sasa with Ljiljana,

Additional reporting by Anne Penketh

13-year search
*Radovan Karadzic has been one of the world's most wanted men since 1995. Before last night's arrest, sightings of Karadzic were rare, but in 2004 he published a book, Miraculous Chronicles Of The Night. Pressure to capture him mounted in 2005 after several of his ex-generals gave themselves up, and a video showing Bosnian-Serb soldiers shooting captives from Srebrenica was shown at the trial of Slobodan Milosevic. In 2007, the homes of Karadzic's two children were raided by Nato troops, who suspected they were supporting him.





Ratko Mladic Bosnian Serb military commander whispers to Karadzic. Both are accused of masterminding the massacre of more than 7,500 Muslim men and boys in the 'Safe Haven' of Srebrenica in July 1995


Muslim refugees ride a United Nations truck as they flee the Serb-besieged Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica for Tuzla in March 1993


Forensic experts examine remains of the bodies after removing layers of soil from a massgrave near eastern Bosnian town of Zvornik, 28 July 2003. The massgrave is thought to contain several hundred bodies of Bosnian Muslims, killed in 1995 Srebrenica massacre and others killed in Zvornik at the beginning of war


Stacks of unidentified corpses line the walls of an underground shelter at a Bosnian morgue in Tuzla. The bags contain victims found in mass graves after the 1995 Srebrenica massacre


A Bosnian woman weeps next to the coffins of Muslim men and boys before their burial in Potocari, near Srebrenica, 11 July 2004. The identified remains of 338 Muslim men, aged from 15 to 70, were buried in a common funeral, marking the ninth anniversary of the massacre of Srebrenica

Report: Israeli jets flying over Iraqi territory in preparation for strike on Iran

Taken from YnetNews, Israel, 11.07.2008

Sources in Iraq's Defense Ministry say for past month Israel using American bases to conduct overflights as part of rehearsal for possible bombing or Iranian nuclear facilities




Israeli fighter jets have been flying over Iraqi territory for over a month in preparation for potential strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, sources in the Iraqi Defense Ministry told a local news network Friday, adding that the aircraft have been landing in American bases following the overflights.

Word of Israel's alleged Air Force maneuvers in Iraq has reached Iran. The sources said the US has boosted security in and around the bases used by Israel during the exercises.

According to the Defense Ministry officials, retired Iraqi army officers in the Al Anbar district reported that fighter jets have been regularly entering Iraqi airspace from Jordan and landing at the airport near Haditha.

The sources estimated that should the Israeli jets take off from the American bases it would take them no more than five minutes to reach Iran's nuclear reactor in Bushehr.American officials said recently that more than 100 Israeli F-16 and F-15 fighters took part in maneuvers over the eastern Mediterranean and Greece in the first week of June, apparently a rehearsal for a potential bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities.

Oil giants return to Iraq

Shell, BP, Exxon Mobil and Total set to sign deal with Baghdad

Taken from The Independent, UK, Friday 20 June 2008
By Patrick Cockburn

Nearly four decades after the four biggest Western oil companies were expelled from Iraq by Saddam Hussein, they are negotiating their return. By the end of the month, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Exxon Mobil and Total will sign agreements with the Baghdad government, Iraq's first with big Western oil firms since the US-led invasion in 2003.

The deals are for repair and technical support in some of the country's largest oilfields, the Oil Ministry in Baghdad said yesterday. The return of "Big Oil" will add to the suspicions of those in the Middle East who claimed that the overthrow of Saddam was secretly driven by the West's desire to gain control of Iraq's oil. It will also be greeted with dismay by many Iraqis who fear losing control of their vast oil reserves.

Iraq's reserves are believed to be second only to Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, but their exploitation has long been hampered by UN sanctions, imposed on Iraq after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990.

The major oil companies have been eager to go back to Iraq, but are concerned about their own security and the long-term stability of the country. The two-year no-bid agreements are service agreements that should add another 500,000 barrels of crude a day of output to Iraq's present production of 2.5 million barrels a day (b/d).

The companies have the option of being paid in cash or crude oil for the deals, each of which will reportedly be worth $500m (£250m). For Iraq, the agreements are a way of accessing foreign expertise immediately, before the Iraqi parliament passes a controversial new hydrocarbons law.

But they mean that the four oil companies, which originally formed the Iraq Petroleum Company to exploit Iraqi oil from the 1920s until the industry's nationalisation in 1972, will be well-placed to bid for contracts for the long-term development of these fields. The oilfields affected are some of the largest in Iraq, from Kirkuk in the north to Rumaila, on the border with Kuwait. Although there is oil in northern Iraq, most of the reserves are close to Basra, in the far south.

Since the US invasion, Iraqis have been wary of foreign involvement in their oil industry. Many are convinced that the hidden purpose of the US invasion was to take over Iraqi oil, but the Iraqi Oil Minister, Hussein Shahristani, has said that Iraq will hold on to its natural resources. "If Iraq needs help from international oil companies, they will be invited to co-operate with the Iraqi National Oil Company [Inoc], on terms and conditions acceptable to Iraq, to generate the highest revenue for Iraq".

Inoc's technical expertise has deteriorated sharply during the long years of sanctions. Iraq is currently exporting 2.1 million b/d and is expecting to have oil revenues of $70bn this year, but its government administration is too dysfunctional and corrupt to rebuild the electricity or water supply systems. The government has $50bn in the Federal Bank of New York.

Mr Shahristani has been highly critical of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) for auctioning off oil concessions in Iraqi Kurdistan without reference to the oil ministry in Baghdad.

In an interview with The Independent last year, he said Inoc would never do business with any oil company that signed up with the KRG, and he also doubted if the oil could be exported without pipelines. "Are they going to carry it out in buckets?" he asked.

Several of the small oil companies who have signed contracts in Kurdistan are hoping that in the long term there will be an agreement between the Kurds and the central government and they will then sell out to the majors at a large profit.

The technical support agreements, as the service agreements are known, may open the door to Iraq for the majors. Mr Shahristani has said that Iraq will open up the same fields for bidding for long-term development projects soon. "We're going to announce the first licensing round by the end of this month or early next month," he said.

The high price of oil means that Iraq is not under immediate pressure to maximise its oil revenues. The Iraqi parliament has suspected anything which looks like giving foreign companies ownership of Iraq's oil through a production sharing agreement.

The nationalisation of Iraq's oil is one the few acts of Saddam Hussein's long years in power which is still highly popular, and Iraqi members of parliament are fearful of anything that looks like back-door privatisation in the interests of foreigners.

Big four have history of control
For the four oil giants, the new agreements will bring them back to a country where they have a long history. BP, Exxon Mobil, Total and Shell were co-owners of a British, American and French consortium that kept Iraq's oil reserves in foreign control for more than 40 years.

The Iraq Petroleum Company (once the Turkish Petroleum Company) was formed in 1912 by oil companies eager to grab the resources in parts of the Ottoman Empire.

The company was formalised in 1928 and each of the four shareholders had a 23.75 per cent share of all the oil produced. The final 5 per cent went to Calouste Gulbenkian, an Armenian businessman.

In 1931, an agreement was signed with Iraq, giving the company complete control over the oi fields of Mosul in return for annual royalties. After Saddam's coup in 1958, nationalisation came in 1972.

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It's sad to see a country that was only a decade ago was one of the most advanced economies in the Arab world with women entitled freedoms like being able to work, go to school, being destroyed for the sake of oil and oil supply. Most people knew from the begining that the war in Iraq was about Oil and gaining control of the Middle East - in September 2007, Alan Greenspan a Republican whose 18-year tenure as head of the US Federal Reserve was widely admired, said in his view on the motive for the 2003 Iraq invasion “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil,” a few months earlier the Australian Defence Minister admitted his country's troops are in Iraq to secure oil interests. Brendan Nelson is believed to be the first government minister from any country with forces in Iraq to publicly admit oil was a key factor in their presence. 'Obviously the Middle itself, not only Iraq but the entire reason, is an important supplier of energy, oil in particulary, to the rest of the world,' he told a radio programme. He said Australian forces were there for 'resource security'. Yes, we depend on the oil from the Middle East, yet we spend billions of developing weapons or sending people to the moon when this money could be used to investigate alternative fuels. You have to ask why this has not happened.

'Shopped' son faces jail over gun

Taken from ITN, UK
20/06/2008

A teenager whose father called the police after finding a gun and bullets in his bedroom faces jail when he is sentenced later.

Paul Metcalfe, 19, from Nelson, Lancashire, pleaded guilty to possession of 11 cartridges and a blank firing handgun, converted to fire real bullets.

Despite being shopped by his 45-year-old father Neil, Metcalfe has forgiven him, believing it was the right thing to do.

He said: "Although I'm scared of going to prison, I feel dad saved me. I was angry with him at the time. Now I know why he did it and respect him for it."

Mr Metcalfe said: "How would you feel if you hadn't done that and then you came back home and found your son with a bullet hole in his head?

"You just have to realise that these are weapons - they are dangerous."

Metcalfe was "minding" the bullets and gun for another, unidentified individual, who has not been named, Burnley Crown Court was told.

He showed the ammunition to his sister's boyfriend and a neighbour - who told his father, who was living at another house after splitting from Metcalfe's mother.

When Mr Metcalfe went round to investigate, he found the bullets wrapped in a plastic bag on top of an airing cupboard.

"Sick with worry", Mr Metcalfe called police who then also found the gun hidden in a sofa bed and Metcalfe was arrested.

He told officers he was "looking after it" - after being put under pressure to do so, the court heard.

Metcalfe has not told police who it belongs to.

Possession of a handgun carries a mandatory five year jail term - but Metcalfe's lawyer, Hugh Barton, pleaded with Judge Christopher Cornwall to make an exception.

He said the five-year minimum term was "purely deterrent" but in this case it would not be a deterrent because Metcalfe has learnt his lesson.

Metcalfe has no previous convictions and was put under pressure and intimidated into minding the weapon, Mr Barton said.

In such a case five years would be "arbitrary and disproportionate", he added.

And he said a five-year term for Metcalfe could actually deter other people from informing police on their loved ones if they found a firearm belonging to their son or father.

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This is brilliant news that parents are taking the correct steps to not only protect their children but society. Only a few days earlier twin girls shopped their drunk mum after she nearly drove into their house. A breath test revealed she was about two and a half times the drinkdrive limit - 35 micrograms of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath. Cox at first denied drink driving but changed her plea when she realised her girls would testify against her at Barnsley magistrates' court in South Yorks. So all round great news,we need more people to speak out and stop the disese that is ruining our society.

‘Vultures’ expose corruption

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.

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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.

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."

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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.

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.

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.

Cyclone Nargis: one month on, US accuses Burma of criminal neglect

Extracted from Guardian, UK, Monday June 2 2008
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".

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Mr Gates and many politicians around the world have been very critical about the response to aid by the Burmese regime. The Burmese government have not been perfect but understandably been taking their time and only trusting countries that they know will not occupy them. Having American warships hovering close to their country wouldn't make any country feel secure. This brings me to my main point about Gates's comments.

Wasn't there a regime in North America (a couple of years ago) who refused any help from Cuba (who wanted to give them 1000 doctors to treat victims of the hurricane) - instead they let the people starve and rot. Help did not arrive for a long time, the President hid in his luxury home whilst people started looting and killing people for food and resources - yes, welcome to the richest country in the world. Maybe George Bush doesn't like black people? Hurricane Katrina was a very bad experience but shows that even the wealthiest countries in the world can be on their knees against mother nature. I pray that we don't have any more of these natural disasters.

Burma United States

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.”

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.

It held 38 focus group discussions with 250 children and 90 adults, followed up by in-depth interviews with some and desk-based research.

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)

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It is very depressing to read that those in charge of looking after some of the most vulnerable people in the world have been abusing their position. These children are going through enough as it is...poverty, hunger, illness, loss of loved ones...and now this - the people who committed these crimes should be sent to prison for life.

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.

For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Whilst America is waiting on the outcome of the "R Kelly videotape" trial - where the R&B artist is charged with 14 counts of videotaping, producing and soliciting child pornography - there is a disturbing story from India where girls as young as 13 are being sold into prostitution.

Taken from The Telegraph, UK, 18/04/2008

By Sue Ryan

Thirty miles west of the Taj Mahal, on the road to the pink city of Jaipur, tourists on buses pass a sight that the guide books rarely mention.

A mile beyond the town of Bharatpur in Rajasthan, where the highway is being widened to four lanes, traffic slows down for roadworks. But the workmen who lounge by their bulldozers have their eyes on something else - a cluster of makeshift shelters where girls, several under 18 and at least two younger than 15, can be seen strolling or sitting, in view of the dusty carriageway.

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.

The "first time" is a valued commodity for which the middle-class businessmen who pass this way are prepared to pay a premium.

The normal rate is 100 rupees (£1.30) but a virgin is sold to the highest bidder for anything over 20,000 rupees. If she is very pretty, the community would hope to get up to 40,000 rupees. For this, the man can have access to the girl for as long as he likes - several hours, days, or even weeks. When he tires of her, there is a celebration. Because it is considered unlucky for a girl to keep the money from her first time, it is spent instead on an extravagant party. Jewellery is bought for her and for her relatives, goats are slaughtered and alcohol runs freely. There is dancing, and offerings are made to the gods.

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.

Suli said she was happy to enter the trade. "I chose it," she said, though she admitted being "a little" frightened. "I do not know how it is going to be. I know other girls who are in the trade but I have not asked them how it is."

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, a virgin in the hut next door, has four sisters, all prostitutes. She wears jeans and a skimpy top, and giggles a lot. One sister boasts that as Nita is particularly pretty, they hope to get 40,000 rupees (£600). "We have been offered 25,000, but it is not enough."

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."

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

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

Saudis reject Bush's appeal to ease oil prices

Taken from The Guardian, UK, May 16 2008

By Haroon Siddique and agencies

Saudi Arabia today rebuffed George Bush's appeal to increase production and help cut record oil prices, the White House said.

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

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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.

Washington's Battle Over Israel's Birth

Taken from Washington Post, Wednesday, May 7, 2008; Page A21
By Richard Holbrooke

In the celebrations next week surrounding Israel's 60th anniversary, it should not be forgotten that there was an epic struggle in Washington over how to respond to Israel's declaration of independence on May 14, 1948. It led to the most serious disagreement President Harry Truman ever had with his revered secretary of state, George C. Marshall -- and with most of the foreign policy establishment. Twenty years ago, when I was helping Clark Clifford write his memoirs, I reviewed the historical record and interviewed all the living participants in that drama. The battle lines drawn then resonate still.

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.

"There are thirty million Arabs on one side and about 600,000 Jews on the other," Defense Secretary Forrestal told Clifford. "Why don't you face up to the realities?"

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."

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What a big mistake the recognition of the State of Israel turned up to be. Not just because of the creation of the State of Israel which was forced on the Arab population by anti Semitic Europeans but the United States had a chance to stop all the hatred from the very beginning from happening. If the US felt so compelled to the Jewish cause then it would have been better to move all prosecuted Jews (from Europe) to the United States. Truman was a Zionist and didn’t care of the consequences of his actions otherwise as President of the most powerful nation on earth he had the power to stop the evils from happening.

Furthe reading:

(1) Harry Truman’s Corruption By Zionists - http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=217

(2) Zionists pressured Truman to support the creation of Israel
http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/3962

(3) Current state of Affairs in Israel (as supporte dby the united States)

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/index.html