IR and Political Science links threads

[Cain]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/13/AR2010091305920.html

IN MOGADISHU, SOMALIA During the day, Mohamed Mahmoud counts the African Union peacekeepers in his neighborhood and notes their locations. At night, he gives the information to his handlers in the radical al-Shabab militia, undermining the U.S.-backed government that the peacekeepers support.

"We are everywhere," he said.

In the deadly contest for the capital, spies like Mahmoud work in the shadows of this failed state's civil war. The militants they assist have weakened the government and limited its ability to protect the population, tactics used by insurgents in Baghdad, Karachi and Kabul.

"We're fighting one war in the open, and another war below the surface," said Abdiraheem Addo, a military commander and close associate of Somalia's President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed.

Conversations with spies and former spies in Mogadishu provide a rare look into how al-Shabab, designated a terrorist organization by the United States, operates in government-controlled areas. Its increasing role here helps explain how the government and 6,000 peacekeepers, supported by hundreds of millions of dollars from Washington and its allies, have been unable to quell a ragtag guerrilla force with little public support.

Quite interesting, actually.  They're moving very much to the "targeted assassination" end of things, rather than the indiscriminate bombings etc you'd expect from a group that has members coming in from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/29/roma-france

The European Union has decided to launch legal action against France over its expulsions of Roma to poorer EU nations.

A European commission spokeswoman, Pia Ahrenkilde, said the commission believed France had not applied EU rules allowing free movement of EU citizens. She said the commission decided today to send an official notification letter to France asking it to apply the EU rules. The commission is also asking France for more details about the expulsions of hundreds of Roma.

These steps could eventually lead to a court case against France.

The commission stopped short of saying that France was discriminating against a specific ethnic group. France has come under wide criticism for the expulsions, from the EU as well as the United Nations and the Vatican.

About time.  I must say though, if this leads to a European Civil War, I want dibs on invading Bordeaux, there's some mighty fine looting there....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/29/terror-attack-plot-europe-foiled

A plot to launch "commando-style" attacks on Britain, France, and Germany has been intercepted and foiled by drone attacks on militants based in Pakistan, security and intelligence sources said last night.

The plan for suicidal onslaughts similar to the 2008 atrocity in Mumbai – where 166 people were killed in a series of gun and grenade assaults – was disrupted after a combined operation involving US, UK, French and German intelligence agencies, officials said.

British security and intelligence sources, who have been concerned for some time about the possibility of a Mumbai-style attack in Europe, confirmed that they believed a plot was being hatched from Pakistan.

The increased rate of coordinated US drone raids along the border with Afghanistan is believed to be a response to intelligence gathered about the plot. Security sources insisted that attacks in Europe were not imminent.

Poor, poor Al-Qaeda.  They're never going to top 9/11 unless they get a dirty bomb and explode it in a city the American President is visiting.  Yes, OK, this would've been bigger than Mumbai, but it still basically amounts to cribbing ideas from Lashkar-e-Taiba.  And that's just sad.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/29/silvio-berlusconi-mps-confidence-vote

Silvio Berlusconi appears certain to survive a confidence vote in parliament tonight after rebel MPs loyal to his former lieutenant, Gianfranco Fini, opted grudgingly to keep alive Italy's right-wing government.

After hearing the prime minister appeal for unity in a speech to the lower house, their spokesman, Italo Bocchino, said: "We shall give a confidence vote to the government because today's address to the chamber [of deputies] follows closely the programme on the basis of which the governing majority was elected."

Their climbdown handed a victory to Berlusconi that should ensure his government survives into next year. But the split on the Italian right has poisoned the atmosphere surrounding his administration.

The rebels pointedly omitted to applaud the prime minister's speech. And Fini reportedly called a meeting next week to discuss a new party, separate from Berlusconi's Freedom People movement.

Speaking of sad, my hopes that Berlusconi would be forced from power have been dashed again.  But this looks a more serious threat than previous ones, even with the climbdown, and may be the future foundation of further challenges to his leadership.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/8031761/North-and-South-Korea-to-hold-first-military-talks-for-two-years.html

A meeting involving three officers from each side will take place at the border village of Panmunjom, which lies on the northern side of the demarcation line that splits the two countries.

The meeting comes as Kim Jong-un, the 28-year-old third son of Kim Jong-il, was promoted to be a four-star general and also to be one of the two vice-chairmen of North Korea's Central Military Commission, a key role that places him squarely in line to succeed his father.

And if you don't believe those two facts are connected, I have a bridge for sale that may interest you...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/brazil/8031623/Clown-close-to-winning-a-seat-in-Brazil-parliament.html

A humorist known for dressing as a clown and poking fun at politics is running as a candidate in the Brazilian election, and has a good chance of being successful.

Detractors have filed a dozen lawsuits against Tiririca - whose real name is Francisco Everardo Oliveira.

While most attack him for ridiculing Brazil's legislative institutions, the most serious suit seeks to invalidate his bid for a federal seat by claiming that he is, like 20 per cent of the population, illiterate.

The commotion around Tiririca would be minor in other circumstances. But it has taken on bigger proportions because, according to polls, the comic is within reach of actually winning his seat to represent Sao Paulo state.

He has gained popularity with his advertisements, which contrast with the run-of-the-mill "vote-for-me" pleas seen on television.

While most candidates smile determinedly at the camera and pledge standard vows to cut corruption or improve health services, Tiririca - who graduated from being a circus performer to a television personality - serves as comic relief.

"It can't get any worse if you vote for me," is another of his slogans, delivered with a wide smile and both hands held up in a V-for-victory sign.

While many of Brazil's 135 million voters now easily recognise him, and say they will vote for him either because they are amused or because they are tired of the usual politicians, some cast down their heads at Tiririca actually becoming elected.

"I feel ashamed to be Brazilian... This is getting out of hand," said one voter on a Brazilian news website.

Well at least your politicians aren't as embarrassing as American, Israeli, Italian or Iranian politicians...yet.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/sep/29/wind-fossil-fuel-denmark-2050

The falling cost of renewable energy and rising cost of oil and gas will allow Denmark to develop an energy network entirely free of fossil fuels by 2050, according to a report published by the government's climate commission.

The committee predicted that wind and biomass energy could meet the bulk of the country's energy requirements.

It also argued that switching to renewables would be cheaper than continuing to use fossil fuels, particularly if predictions of soaring oil and gas prices are borne out.

Good news...for those who will live to see 2050.  I intend to die in the clone wars before that.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/sep/27/new-zealand-foreign-farmland-purchases

New Zealand plans to tighten controls on foreign land purchases amid fears that the Chinese acquisition of local farms may not be in the country's strategic interests.

The new rules were announced today after a fierce public backlash against a Hong Kong-listed firm that attempted to buy New Zealand's biggest private dairy farm.

Natural Dairy – previously known as the China Jin Hui Mining Corporation – offered to pay NZ$1.5bn for farmland, cattle and milk powder production plants, according to the domestic media.

This bid for the Crafer family's farms – now under review – has stirred up considerable concern in a country that depends on the dairy industry for almost a quarter of its export earnings.

New Zealand's farmers warn that state-backed Chinese investors are taking advantage of the economic downturn to buy land cheaply, so that they are in a strong position for a sharp rise in global population and demand for food. China already feeds a fifth of the world's population on less than a tenth of the planet's arable land.

The Federated Farmers of New Zealand say planned Chinese purchases of arable land are unfair because foreign firms are forbidden from acquiring similarly large swathes of farmland in China.

Under the new rules, the government will introduce extra tests on overseas investment applications for "sensitive land". The buy-ups will have to be judged in relation to the nation's economic interests before approval.

Interesting.  Wonder how China will punish New Zealand?  It's far way to go to kick someone's teeth out, financially or otherwise, even for them.

[Telarus]

Damn, I get better IR news from this one thread than the whole of the US Media.


Thanks again, Cain.

[LMNO]

I concur.

[Cain]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/17/angela-merkel-german-multiculturalism-failed

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has courted growing anti-immigrant opinion in Germany by claiming the country's attempts to create a multicultural society have "utterly failed".

Speaking to a meeting of young members of her Christian Democratic Union party, Merkel said the idea of people from different cultural backgrounds living happily "side by side" did not work.

She said the onus was on immigrants to do more to integrate into German society.

"This [multicultural] approach has failed, utterly failed," Merkel told the meeting in Potsdam, south of Berlin, yesterday.

Her remarks will stir a debate about immigration in a country which is home to around 4 million Muslims.

Last week, Horst Seehofer, the premier of Bavaria and a member of the Christian Social Union – part of Merkel's ruling coalition – called for a halt to Turkish and Arabic immigration.

In the past, Merkel has tried to straddle both sides of the argument by talking tough on integration but also calling for an acceptance of mosques.

But she faces pressure from within the CDU to take a harder line on immigrants who show resistance to being integrated into German society.

Too many easy jokes about this one.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/17/hamas-israel-prisoner-swap-gilad-shalit

Israel said today it had resumed talks with the Hamas rulers of Gaza on swapping about 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for a captive soldier held for more than four years.

Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said the German mediator who has been working to broker a deal for a year has returned to the region.

Hamas-linked militants captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in June 2006 in a raid across the Gaza-Israel border. Secret negotiations over a swap, mediated by Egypt and more recently by Germany, have been deadlocked for several months. Hamas is not part of US-sponsored peace talks that restarted last month in Washington.

Deals proposed in the past have entailed Israel swapping about 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for Shalit.

The most recent talks broke down over Israel's refusal to release a number of prisoners who carried out deadly attacks on civilians because of fears they would return to violence. Hamas insists these prisoners be part of any deal.

Hamas are, of course, playing directly into Israel's hands by setting ridiculous demands for the return of Shalit, who isn't exactly a high use hostage in terms of propaganda or advancing the Palestinian cause.  Of course, Israel don't want to strike a deal with Hamas, so they're not exactly going to point this out.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/18/china-xi-jinping-military-commission

Chinese politicians have appointed the vice-president, Xi Jinping, to a key military position, state media reported today, reinforcing expectations that he will become the country's next leader.

Xi has long been expected to take over when Hu Jintao steps down as party general secretary in 2012 and as president the following year.

The state news agency Xinhua announced that Xi had become a vice-chairman of the central military commission, which oversees the People's Liberation Army, after a four-day meeting of the party's central committee.

Xi, 57, is a "princeling", the son of a party veteran, Xi Zhongxun, who was an ally of Deng Xiaoping and helped to oversee the economic opening process in southern China. Xi Jinping was sent to the countryside as an educated youth during the cultural revolution and later studied chemical engineering at the prestigious Tsinghua University, going on to gain a law doctorate.

He was party secretary of Fujian and Zhejiang provinces before taking the top job in Shanghai when Chen Liangyu was brought down by a corruption case. Months later Xi joined the party's standing committee and took responsibility for the Olympics. It was around that time that Henry Paulson, the then US treasury secretary, described him as "the kind of guy who knows how to get things over the goal line".

Xi's wife, Peng Liyuan, is a popular folk singer. In an official magazine she described him as frugal, hard-working and down-to-earth.

Overseas, Xi may be best known for remarks that were never reported by China's state media. On a foreign trip last spring, he told his audience: "There are some well-fed foreigners who have nothing better to do than point fingers at our affairs. China does not, first, export revolution; second, export poverty and hunger; third, cause troubles for you. What else is there to say?"

Interesting, for sure.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/18/iran-iraq-maliki-ahmadinejad-sadr

Iran has for the first time publicly backed Nouri al-Maliki to lead Iraq for a second term, hours after Maliki arrived in Tehran today for a rare meeting with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Maliki is due to travel to Qom later to meet his former foe turned ally Moqtada al-Sadr, who has aligned his powerful political bloc with Maliki's coalition.

The Guardian revealed yesterday that Iran had brokered a deal between Sadr and Maliki and had recently used its sway with Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon in an attempt to shut out US input into a new government.

The revelations of increased Iranian involvement in Iraq at a time when the departing US military is scaling back its influence have caused ripples inside Iraq, where Maliki's visit is being cast by the Iraqi media as a job application.

So, how's that "invading Iraq to turn it into a vassal state" thing working out?

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/smuggler-forger-writer-spy/8267/

Anas Aremeyaw Anas is a Ghanaian investigative journalist with many disguises—from addict to imam—and one overriding mission: to force Ghana's government to act against the lawbreakers he exposes.

Most awesome reporter EVER.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/10/an-ugly-answer-to-israels-arab-problem/64554/

Last Sunday, the Israeli cabinet approved a controversial new draft law that would require non-Jews hoping to become Israeli citizens to swear a loyalty oath to the nation as a democratic and--here's the ugly bit--Jewish state.

The measure, which is aimed at foreign Arabs who come to Israeli in order to marry local Muslims or Christians, was originally proposed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ultra-nationalist coalition partner, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman: a settler who ran for office on the ominous slogan of "Only Lieberman Understands Arabic." Since the cabinet vote, the new bill has been denounced around the world--but the loudest criticism has come from within Israel itself.

Aluf Benn, writing in the left-leaning Ha'aretz, has argued that the move represents an attempt by Netanyahu to so alienate Israel's Arab citizens that they abandon the political process, thereby strengthening the Israeli right (since Arabs tend to vote Labor). Benn's colleague, Carlo Strenger, has gone even further, claiming that the bill betrays a fundamental hatred of liberal values on the part of the government.

Urgh.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/10/how-we-lost-afghanistans-once-peaceful-north/64257/

On Friday, a bomb blast at a crowded mosque in Afghanistan's Takhar province killed 20 people, among them Governor Mohammed Omar of neighboring Kunduz province. Far more alarming than the senior official's death is where it happened: both Takhar and Kunduz are in Afghanistan's north, which until very recently had been a haven from the violence marring the rest of the country. Once a place where Westerners could wander the countryside relatively unmolested by terrorism, the Taliban, or homemade bombs, the north of Afghanistan has become very dangerous in just the last two years. With the U.S.- and NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) focusing nearly all of its efforts on the south and east of Afghanistan, that inattention has allowed the insurgency to creep into the north and fill the vacuum left by poor security and weak governance. As if this were not enough, the deterioration of the ethnically diverse north reveals that one of the assumptions most central to the effort in Afghanistan is fundamentally and disastrously wrong.

Foust is one of the few people in the media actually worth listening to about Afghanistan, as he's been there, speaks the languages and knows the history.  Unlike 99% of self-proclaimed "Afghanistan experts", whose skill extends to reading about the British Occupation on Wikipedia, at best.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/10/sats-spot-3-miles-of-nato-supply-trucks-bottlenecked-in-pakistan/

Pakistan's 10-day blockade against NATO convoys has ended, but a new video released by a commercial satellite company shows just how massive the consequences were: a sprawling, three-mile bottleneck of oil tankers and supply trucks, some parked in a dry riverbed, waiting to cross the Torkham border pass into Afghanistan.

The Soviets had plenty of fuckups when it came to their war in Afghanistan, but I'm pretty sure even they didn't screw up quite this badly.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-18/philippines-may-lose-600-000-tons-of-rice-from-typhoon-megi-official-says.html

The Philippines, the world's biggest rice buyer, may lose 600,000 metric tons of the crop as Supertyphoon Megi, the strongest to hit the nation this year, strikes some of the nation's biggest producing areas, a government official said. Rice futures advanced.

"Once the typhoon hits those areas, the crop will be affected," Agriculture Undersecretary Antonio Fleta said in a phone interview from Manila. "Even if farmers harvest the damaged rice, they'd have a hard time drying the grain. There may not be much left to sell."

About 157,000 hectares of land planted to rice in Cagayan and Isabela provinces may be in the path of the typhoon, Fleta said. Megi has sustained winds of 270 kilometers (168 miles) per hour, the U.S. Navy Joint Typhoon Warning Center said, making it a Category 5 storm capable of catastrophic damage.

Half of the planted areas in the two provinces are ready for harvest and the rest are in the reproductive stage, leaving them susceptible to damage, Fleta said.

Ofuk.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/19/world/africa/19somalia.html?_r=1&ref=world

The struggling transitional government and its allies have undertaken a limited offensive against radical Islamist insurgents, attacking their positions in several places over the past few days, Somali officials and witnesses said on Monday.

The fighting started on Saturday near the Kenyan border, and by Sunday night at least one town, Belet Hawo, had switched hands, with government-allied militias pushing out the insurgents. The development appeared to be an unexpected setback for an insurgent movement that has been emboldened in recent months by the dysfunction of the government in this chronically unstable country.

Much of Somalia is ruled by the Shabab, a group of radical Islamist rebels who have sworn allegiance to Al Qaeda. Somalia's government barely controls just a few blocks of the capital.

This is going to be a curb-stomp battle.  Again.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/18/world/asia/18kabul.html?ref=world

KABUL, Afghanistan — Although the preliminary results of the Sept. 18 parliamentary elections, expected to be announced Sunday, were postponed, interviews with Afghan and Western officials indicate that fraud was pervasive and that nearly 25 percent of the votes are likely to be thrown out.

The fraud, which included ballot-box stuffing, citizens forced to cast their votes at gunpoint, corrupt election officials and security forces complicit with corrupt candidates, is expected to mean that 800,000 to a million votes will be nullified, according to two Western officials who are following the election closely.

DEMOCRACY!

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/10/18/world/asia/AP-AS-Myanmar-Election.html?ref=world

Foreign journalists will not be allowed into Myanmar to cover the military-ruled country's first election in 20 years, election officials said Monday, issuing the latest restriction for an election widely criticized as a sham.

The Election Commission said there was no need to grant visas for foreign reporters because there are local reporters in the country who work for foreign media. The commission also reiterated that it was "not necessary" for foreign observers to monitor the elections.

The ruling military junta has billed the election as a key step toward democracy after five decades of military rule. Critics say that oppressive rules governing campaigning, the repression of the main opposition party and other elements ensure that the army will continue its commanding influence after the polls.

DEMOCRACY!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/18/world/europe/18iht-germany.html?ref=world

BERLIN — Ahead of a summit meeting Monday in Deauville, France, between the leaders of Germany, Russia and France, Moscow is asking for regular participation in the European Union committee that is responsible for setting the bloc's foreign policy.

"We would like Russia and the E.U. to be able to take joint decisions," Vladimir Chizhov, Moscow's ambassador to the European Union, said in a telephone interview with the International Herald Tribune over the weekend from Brussels. "I don't expect to be sitting at every session of the political and security committee, but there should be some mechanism that would enable us to take joint steps."

Such arrangements would mark a major change in E.U.-Russia relations, which have been held back because of divisions inside the 27-member bloc over how to deal with Russia. They might also go some way to meet Russia's calls for a new security architecture, a move aimed at gaining a greater say in strategic issues in Europe.

DEMOCRA-Uh, sorry.  Not entirely surprising, this suggests continuity between Putin and Medvedev, at least in foreign policy towards the EU.  America wont like this, though.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,723695,00.html

The world is gathered in Japan this week in an effort to put an end to the extinction of plant and animal species across the globe. But while everyone agrees that biodiversity is important, the conference may fail anyway -- partially because the Americans don't seem interested.

The group dressed in blue had arranged themselves in a row before Berlin's Brandenburg Gate. In front of each of the activists was a large photo of an animal species now extinct: an aurochs, a Chinese river dolphin, an ivory-billed woodpecker. In the background fluttered a banner reading "stop extinction," a couple of candles had been set up, some flowers and a few stuffed animals. A photogenic protest that was accompanied by mournful trumpet music.

The small demonstration was put on last Thursday by Germany's Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union, just one of the myriad environmentalist groups around the world warming up for the summit on the Convention on Biological Diversity which begins in Nagoya, Japan on Monday. They say that pressure from the public is badly needed -- because even as the 11-day conference gets underway, its chances for success appear to be slim.

As with the international climate negotiations which ended in fiasco last year in Copenhagen, the biodiversity talks in Nagoya could well end in political stalemate -- as the situation in numerous ecosystems around the world gets worse and worse. Already, 20 percent of the planet's 380,000 plant species are in danger of becoming extinct, primarily due to habitat destruction caused by the world's growing population. Of 5,490 species of mammals, 1,130 are threatened and 70 percent of the world's fish population is in danger from over-fishing.

Pffft, biodiversity is for sissies.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,721582,00.html

Kazakhstan has oil, coal and uranium -- and a capital full of stunning architecture. President Nursultan Nazarbayev hopes his country can become the region's leading economy, but his heavy-handed cult of personality is not universally welcomed. Others worry about China's growing influence.

One of Dick Cheney's favourite country's, is Kazakhstan.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,722880,00.html

Budapest survived fascism and communism and blossomed after the fall of the Iron Curtain. But the Hungarian capital is experiencing a rebirth of anti-Semitism. The far-right Jobbik is now the country's third largest party and Jews are being openly intimidated.

The city was always good for drama -- for intrigues about life and death, for eternal love and murderous betrayal, for torture, political heroism and sexual escapades. Founded by the Romans, destroyed by the Mongols and oppressed by the Ottoman Turks, Budapest has reinvented itself time and again, flexible in the flux of time. It has also served as a laboratory of sorts for varying political ideologies, from National Socialism to fascism to communism.

The United Nations has named four spots in the city UNESCO world heritage sites: the panorama on the Danube River embankment, the Buda castle district, the Millennium underground railway and Andrássy Avenue. The Hungarians wanted to use the magnificent boulevard, which was designed and built as part of preparations for the nation's mythical millennium celebration in 1896, to demonstrate that they had assumed their rightful place in the center of the continent. The country fell to the Nazis 40 years later. The Arrow Cross Party, a Hungarian national socialist party briefly in power from October 1944 to March 1945, was still driving Jews into extermination camps after Adolf Eichmann, the "architect of the Holocaust," had already fled.

Jobbik and the British BNP are best buddies, incidentally.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/tax-investigation-could-land-pope-with-83648bn-bill-2106113.html

Eight billion euros worth of tax breaks pocketed by the Catholic Church in Italy could be in breach of European law and may have to be repaid, it has emerged.

The development is the latest blow to an institution that has been rocked by an annus horribilis following the global clerical paedophilia scandal that broke earlier this year, and investigations into money laundering.

The European Commission has said that tax relief on 100,000 Italian properties enjoyed by the Holy See since 2005 was under the spotlight, after announcing an "in-depth" investigation.

lol pwnd

[Triple Zero]

Re previous page: everything's coming apart at the seams, isn't it?

This page: information overload after the first few paragraphs and I didn't even click the links. may read them later.

Cain, the best part about this links thread is that most of them come from pretty reputable sources like BBC, WSJ and NYT. Well, reputable in the sense that when I talk to people about how fucked everything is, they can't ignore it cause it's some kind of left wing indymedia paranoia zine.

[Cain]

Yeah.  Of course, if they knew how the BBC, NYT etc put out stories directly written by Reuters, Associated Press and the Press Association without factchecking, by those news agencies or by the journalists, or how media directives demand a story be factchecked, put on a ticker, put on the web and written in preparation for putting on air in five minutes(!), how only 12% of reporters actually write their own stories and how 90%~ of political reporting in some parts of the UK is taken directly from government PR offices....well then, they'd realize the BBC is only vaguely more trustworthy than some twit on Indymedia with a naff haircut and a trust fund (which is in no way praise of Indymedia).

Anyone who actually wants to talk about the news should be forced to read Nick Davies Flat Earth News first, and then pass a written and verbal test on it.  It's horrifying how badly run, understaffed and easily duped some of the world's most powerful news services really are.

[Cain]

Which, interestingly, has some amusing connotations for "open source intelligence" that I hadn't considered before.  We've basically created a free market Cold War, with disinformation being fed to every side which is then used as the basis for policy which then must be protected via disinformation which is then used as the basis for policy which....you get the idea.

[Triple Zero]

Yeah.  Of course, if they knew how the BBC, NYT etc put out stories directly written by Reuters, Associated Press and the Press Association without factchecking, by those news agencies or by the journalists, or how media directives demand a story be factchecked, put on a ticker, put on the web and written in preparation for putting on air in five minutes(!), how only 12% of reporters actually write their own stories and how 90%~ of political reporting in some parts of the UK is taken directly from government PR offices....well then, they'd realize the BBC is only vaguely more trustworthy than some twit on Indymedia with a naff haircut and a trust fund (which is in no way praise of Indymedia).

Yes, I sort of figured that. Still people are more prone to believe the link if it comes from those domains

Which, interestingly, has some amusing connotations for "open source intelligence" that I hadn't considered before.  We've basically created a free market Cold War, with disinformation being fed to every side which is then used as the basis for policy which then must be protected via disinformation which is then used as the basis for policy which....you get the idea.

No. I'm stupid (and my head's filled with snot) but "open source intelligence" = bloggers? What's "free market Cold War" mean? And policy based on disinfo must be protected by more disinfo? It's probably really obvious, but this is not one of my strong points (news+politics).

Does it mean we gotta resurrect AWS:OM?

[Cain]

Open Source Intelligence means getting intelligence from newspapers, bloggers...basically anything available in the public domain.  Even given the stupidity of the news services, a surprising number of vitally important facts are easily and freely available.

During the Cold War, each side was producing so much disinformation about their intentions it was almost impossible to tell what was truly going on.  Policy would then get based on that (dis)information, which of course, would not align with what was really going on, but because other disinformation would be created to hide the real policies, which would then create a reaction on the other side, causing ever more muddled and confused pictures of enemy intentions to appear, it quickly became impossible to distinguish between fact and fiction.  We've now replicated that scenario by allowing PR companies and departments to write the news, since one of the main responsibilities of any competent PR agency is, in fact, news suppression.  Since intelligence agencies are gathering that "news" and using it to make analysis which then feeds into policy...well, you can see the implications, I am sure.

[Triple Zero]

Yes, feedback loops of chaos confusion and disorder. The twenty-first century ...

[Cain]

Fukishima is off the news, but that doesn't mean things aren't still bad

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303678704576441682767970202.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Japan grappled with a fresh radiation scare Tuesday, as authorities found that beef contaminated with radioactive cesium had been shipped to shops and restaurants throughout the country.

The beef, from six cattle raised on a farm near the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, registered radioactive-cesium levels up to seven times that permitted by Japanese food-safety standards. Some of the meat had already likely been eaten, government officials said.

Speaking of which...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jul/13/fukushima-nuclear-gypsies-engineers-labourers

Four months on from the start of the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl, this hot-spring resort in north-east Japan has been transformed into a dormitory for 2,000 men who have travelled from across the country to take part in the clean-up effort 30 miles away at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.

Iwaki-Yumoto has come to resemble corporate Japan in microcosm. Among its newest residents are technicians and engineers with years of experience and, underpinning them all, hundreds of labourers lured from across Japan by the prospect of higher wages.

They include Ariyoshi Rune, a tall, wiry 47-year-old truck driver whose slicked-back hair and sideburns are inspired by his idol, Joe Strummer.

For five days a week, Rune is in thrall to the drudgery of life as a "nuclear gypsy", the name writer Kunio Horie gave to contract workers who have traditionally performed the dirtiest, most dangerous jobs for Japan's power utilities.

The industry has relied on temporary workers for maintenance and repair work since the nuclear plant construction boom in the 1970s. Now, as then, those from the lowest rungs of Japanese society work for meagre wages, with little training or experience of hazardous environments.

Warning shot for the USA

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2011/07/moodys-puts-bond-rating-on-review-for-possible-downgrade/1?csp=34news

As President Obama and congressional leaders haggled over the nation's $14.3 trillion debt ceiling this afternoon, they got a stark reminder of the financial stakes.

Moody's Investors Service has placed the nation's Aaa bond rating on review for possible downgrade, citing "the rising possibility that the statutory debt limit will not be raised on a timely basis, leading to a default on Treasury debt obligations."

Common sense may be present in EU decision-making yet

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Europe-considers-Greek-rb-233272100.html

European Union leaders are poised to hold an emergency summit after finance ministers acknowledged for the first time that some form of Greek default may be needed to cut Athens' debts and stop contagion to Italy and Spain.

"There will be an extra summit this Friday," a senior euro zone diplomat told Reuters, suggesting policymakers have been seized with a new sense of urgency after markets started targeting Italian assets.

BOOM! HEADSHOT!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/karzais-brother-killed-by-guard-in-kandahar-home/2011/07/12/gIQAgI3FAI_story.html?hpid=z1

The half-brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai was assassinated by a trusted local security official Tuesday, a political killing that was immediately claimed by the Taliban and makes grimly clear the vulnerability of Afghan officials as the United States prepares to reduce its military presence.

Ahmed Wali Karzai — head of Kandahar's provincial council and widely considered the most powerful man in southern Afghanistan — was meeting with tribal elders and politicians in his heavily fortified home in downtown Kandahar city Tuesday morning, according to two people at the house at the time.

Sardar Mohammad, a longtime confidant and commander of the police post near Karzai's ancestral home, arrived and requested a private discussion, officials said. Karzai and Mohammad left for another room, and soon three gunshots rang out.

Agha Lalai Destegeri, the deputy provincial council chief, said he rushed in to find Karzai shot in the head, chest and hand.

Karzai's other guards entered the room and shot and killed Mohammad, officials said. A bleeding Karzai was driven by his entourage a short distance across town to Mirwais Hospital, but he did not survive, Destegeri and other Afghan officials said.

The Taliban have a few words on this story, incidentally...

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/MG16Df02.html

The Taliban have issued a statement offering an explanation for the assassination in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar of Ahmad Wali Karzai, the younger half-brother of President Hamid Karzai.

This statement was released on Thursday - the same day a suicide bomber disrupted the memorial service in Kandahar for Ahmad Wali, killing three people, including Maulawi Ekmatullah, the head of the local ulema shura (provincial religious council).

Earlier, the burial of Ahmad Wali on Tuesday, attended by President Karzai, passed off without incident. But the Taliban targeted the memorial service, which was held for those who were had traveled from remote places and couldn't attend the funeral.

Direct references in the Taliban statement to the Afghan president were conspicuous in their absence. The focus was almost entirely on Ahmad Wali, since the Taliban wanted the Afghan elites to draw the necessary conclusions as to why the 49-year-old head of Kandahar's elected provincial council had to be eliminated.

The Taliban squarely and unambiguously blamed the assassination on the fact that Ahmad Wali worked for the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Interestingly, the whole world is focusing on Ahmad Wali as an archetypal Afghan "warlord" and fascinating yarns are being churned out by the hour on the amorphous phenomenon of Afghan "warlordism"; but the Taliban zero in on the kernel of the truth. Nothing else about Ahmad Wali matters to them.

Indeed, the Taliban expose that Ahmad Wali was a "kingpin of the regime in south Afghanistan" in his capacity as the leader of the provincial council. He was the "most trusted person" of the US-led coalition forces occupying Afghanistan.

The Taliban point out that Ahmad Wali cooperated with the "Americans, Canadians and Britons" in the latters' campaign to gain control of the southwestern region of Afghanistan - not only Kandahar. (The governor of Helmand province, Gulab Mangal, was targeted in Maiwand district with an improvised explosive device as he was travelling to Kandahar on Tuesday to attend Ahmad Wali's funeral.)

Ahmad Wali obviously crossed the "red line" in helping US commander General David Petraeus' troop surge. The Taliban said he "played a key role in spreading the net of intelligence of the Western invaders and boosting their sway in southwest Afghanistan".

But the clincher was that this wasn't retribution for past sins. "Even now, he [Ahmad Wali] received a high salary from the CIA." This is as close as the Taliban get to suggesting that they apprehended that with Petraeus' elevation as the head of the CIA, Ahmad Wali would have an even greater potential to inflict damage on their interests. What emerges is that Ahmad Wali has paid with his life the political cost of the measure of success that Petraeus can claim for his "surge" policy in southwestern Afghanistan.

Hmmm....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/11/cia-fake-vaccinations-osama-bin-ladens-dna

The CIA organised a fake vaccination programme in the town where it believed Osama bin Laden was hiding in an elaborate attempt to obtain DNA from the fugitive al-Qaida leader's family, a Guardian investigation has found.

As part of extensive preparations for the raid that killed Bin Laden in May, CIA agents recruited a senior Pakistani doctor to organise the vaccine drive in Abbottabad, even starting the "project" in a poorer part of town to make it look more authentic, according to Pakistani and US officials and local residents.

The doctor, Shakil Afridi, has since been arrested by the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) for co-operating with American intelligence agents.

Oh ho HO!  Blackwater just went all bi-partisan and shit

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/07/new-hire-for-blackwater-bill-clintons-lawyer/

Blackwater's rebranding continues at a torrid pace. Danger Room has learned the latest Washington greybeard hired to spruce up the image of the world's most infamous private security firm is Jack Quinn, a top Washington lobbyist and former White House counsel to President Bill Clinton.

Now renamed Xe and owned by an investor consortium called USTC Holdings, the company is bringing Quinn — pictured left, with Rep. Joe Crowley — onto its board as an "independent director." He'll focus on "governance and oversight," keeping the company out of trouble, especially with the government. USTC Holdings' Jason DeYonker says that Quinn's reputation for "commitment to the highest ethical standards of conduct in both the public and private sectors" makes him a great fit.

To be cynical about it, a man who gave legal advice to Clinton knows a whole lot about crisis management. Which is important, since Xe intends to keep providing security to U.S. diplomats in dangerous places – activities that, under its old leadership, led its guards into a shooting debacle that killed 17 Iraqi civilians in 2007.

This is going to hurt.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/10/us-eurozone-idUSTRE7691HM20110710

European Council President Herman Van Rompuy has called an emergency meeting of top officials dealing with the euro zone debt crisis for Monday morning, reflecting concern that the crisis could spread to Italy, the region's third largest economy.

European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet will attend the meeting along with Jean-Claude Juncker, chairman of the region's finance ministers, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Olli Rehn, the economic and monetary affairs commissioner, three official sources told Reuters.

Van Rompuy's spokesman Dirk De Backer said: "It's a coordination, not a crisis meeting." He added that Italy would not be on the agenda and declined to say what would be discussed.

However, two official sources told Reuters that the situation in Italy would be discussed. The talks were organized after a sharp sell-off in Italian assets on Friday, which has increased fears that Italy, with the highest sovereign debt ratio relative to its economy in the euro zone after Greece, could be next to suffer in the crisis. A second international bailout of Greece will also be discussed, the sources said.

Uh huh.  And I'm sure this "new internet" wouldn't be abused at all.

http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20110706_1137.php?oref=topnews

The United States may seriously want to consider creating a new Internet infrastructure to reduce the threat of cyberattacks, said Michael Hayden, President George W. Bush's CIA director.

Several current federal officials, including U.S. Cyber Command chief Gen. Keith Alexander, also have floated the concept of a ".secure" network for critical services such as banking that would be walled off from the public Web. Unlike .com, .xxx and other new domains now proliferating the Internet, .secure would require visitors to use certified credentials for entry and would do away with users' Fourth Amendment rights to privacy. Network operators in the financial sector, for example, would be authorized to scan account holders' traffic content for signs of trouble. The current Internet setup would remain intact for people who prefer to stay anonymous on the Web.

This sounds like a really dumb idea

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/07/vietnam-era-weapon-being-used-to-clear-the-amazon.php

Agent Orange is one of the most devastating weapons of modern warfare, a chemical which killed or injured an estimated 400,000 people during the Vietnam War — and now it's being used against the Amazon rainforest. According to officials, ranchers in Brazil have begun spraying the highly toxic herbicide over patches of forest as a covert method to illegally clear foliage, more difficult to detect that chainsaws and tractors. In recent weeks, an aerial survey detected some 440 acres of rainforest that had been sprayed with the compound — poisoning thousands of trees and an untold number of animals, potentially for generations.

Officials from Brazil's environmental agency IBAMA were first tipped to the illegal clearing by satellite images of the forest in Amazonia; a helicopter flyover in the region later revealed thousands of trees left ash-colored and defoliated by toxic chemicals. IBAMA says that Agent Orange was likely dispersed by aircraft by a yet unidentified rancher to clear the land for pasture because it is more difficult to detect than traditional operations that require chainsaws and tractors.

Well, it's probably better than getting shot in the head by Israeli commandos

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/04/greek-coastguard-gaza-freedom-flotilla

An attempt by one of the Gaza-bound "freedom flotilla" ships to defy the Greek government and escape from port was thwarted on Monday when armed coastguard officials caught up with the vessel and forced it back to shore.

On a day that activists had dubbed "make or break" for the international coalition of boats seeking to break Israel's blockade of Gaza, the Canadian ship Tahrir burst out of Agios Nikolaos port in Crete at 6pm local time after supporters blocked the coastguard with manned kayaks.

"We have left port [and] are full steam ahead – coastguard boat about 5-10 [minutes] behind us," announced passengers on the ship's official Twitter feed as they raced towards international waters. But the faster coastguard boat caught up with the Tahrir and prevented it from going any further.

"Our boat has just been illegally boarded by armed members of the Greek coastguard and commandeered against our will," Dylan Penner, a member of Tahrir steering committee, told the Guardian by phone from the ship's deck. "This is conclusive evidence that Israel's unlawful siege on Gaza has now been extended to Greece."

The captain of a US ship, The Audacity of Hope, was arrested after a similar failed attempt to flee the port in Athens last week.

The Greek government caused controversy on Friday when it banned all flotilla ships from leaving its ports, without explaining its reasons. Critics accused the beleaguered government of bowing to Israeli and US pressure and surrendering Greek sovereignty over its sea borders. The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, thanked his Greek counterpart for helping to stamp out "anti-Israeli provocation".

[Cain]

Invest in rice, or, most shameless act of vote-buying in history.  You decide.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-04/rice-may-rally-56-as-pro-thaksin-party-sweeps-to-power-in-thai-elections.html

Rice prices in Thailand, the biggest exporter, may rally 56 percent by yearend as the party that won parliamentary elections implements a policy to buy the crop from farmers above current rates, according to a survey.

The export price may climb to $810 per metric ton by Dec. 31, according to a median forecast of six millers, exporters and traders today and yesterday, who commented after Pheu Thai won a majority in yesterday's contest. "We are ready to implement all policies we have announced," Yingluck Shinawatra, who will become Thailand's first female prime minister, said yesterday.

Costlier rice from Thailand, which accounts for about 30 percent of worldwide shipments, may increase global food costs while making supplies from rival Vietnam more competitive. A Bloomberg survey last month, conducted during the campaign, suggested a gain to $750 per ton if Pheu Thai were to win.

"It isn't only Thai prices that will go up, the rest of the world will have to follow," Mamadou Ciss, chief executive officer of Hermes Investments Pte, said from Geneva. The price may jump $100 within two months and peak at $700, said Ciss, who correctly predicted in 2006 that prices would double.

Thai export prices are a benchmark for the industry. The price of the 100 percent grade-B variety, which is set weekly, was at $519 per ton on June 29, and has risen as much as 7.3 percent since outgoing Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva called the election. Abhisit's Democrat Party won 160 seats in the 500- member parliament while Pheu Thai took 264, with 98 percent of the vote counted.

Ah yes, our democratic and peace-loving allies Sudan...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8611199/Sudanese-army-seizes-southern-Libyan-town.html

The Sudanese army has seized a town in southern Libya that is the gateway to oilfields crucial to rebel hopes of establishing financial independence.

Officials overseeing the no-fly zone enforced by Nato over Libya said the Sudanese move north of border had not encountered resistance from troops loyal to Col Muammar Gaddafi.

Since the February uprising against his regime, the Libyan leader's forces have been concentrated around Tripoli, the capital; Sirte, the eastern town that is Col Gaddafi's birthplace and Sebha, the desert outpost where the dictator grew up.

Officials said control of the town of Kufra and nearby military base granted the Sudanese a key strategic foothold between the regime and the opposition Transitional National Council (TNC) which holds the eastern seaboard and a series of rebel enclaves.

Breaking news: world economy fucked

http://www.smh.com.au/business/global-train-wreck-coming-20110630-1gszi.html

THE global economy is facing "a slow-motion train wreck" with Greece only the first nation to be hit, Reserve Bank director Warwick McKibbin has told a Melbourne conference.

Referring to the most recent global economic crisis as a mere "blip", he said the coming crisis could undo the mining boom and bring on inflation of the kind not seen since the 1970s.

This probably wasn't Ilyas Kashmiri.  But if you're wondering why Mumbai gets attacked so often, it should be mentioned that the ISI has a strong presence in the organized crime underworld there

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/MG15Df01.html

Like a deadly unwanted relative refusing to sever connections, terrorism revisited Mumbai after nearly three years, with three bomb blasts on the evening of July 13. Twenty-one people have died in the explosions and over 140 injured. The death toll is rising.

The bombs exploded at around 6.45 pm: outside a school bus stop in suburban Dadar, the busy jewelry market zone of Zaveri Bazar and the diamond trading district at the Opera House area in south Mumbai. The timing and location of the explosives showed intent to target heavily crowded areas during rush hour.

Mumbai police commissioner Arup Patnaik told media personnel at the blast sites that the bombs at Zaveri Bazaar and Opera House seemed to have been high-intensity improvised explosive devices (IEDs), judging by the damage in the two areas. The Dadar bus stop bomb was of relatively lower intensity. The bombs exploded within 10 minutes of each other, Patnaik confirmed.

No terrorist group has yet claimed responsibility for the blasts, and no suspects have been officially named. From the familiar pattern of the attacks, security agencies unofficially mentioned the involvement of the so-called Indian Mujahideen. But this group of killers, said to be supported by, or a front for, the Pakistani terrorist outfit Lakshar-e-Taiba, has not sent its trademark e-mail to media outlets claiming credit for this latest exhibition of terror.

Well, some good news, at least

http://stress-test.eba.europa.eu/pdf/EBA_ST_2011_Summary_Report_v6.pdf

The data from the sample of 90 banks (Dec. 2010) shows the aggregate exposure-at-default (EAD) Greek sovereign debt outstanding at EUR98.2 bn. Sixty-seven percent of Greek sovereign debt (and 69% of the much smaller Greek interbank position) is in fact held by domestic banks (about 20% refers to loans which are mostly guaranteed by sovereign). The aggregate EAD exposure is EUR52.7 bn for Ireland (61% held domestically) and EUR43.2 bn (63% held domestically) for Portugal. Importantly, EAD exposures are different from similar exposures reported on a gross basis in the disclosure templates ...

Given the distribution of the exposures described above, the direct first-order impact, even under harsh scenarios, would primarily be on the home-banks of countries experiencing the most severe widening of credit spreads. In such cases the capital shortfall should be easily covered with credible back stop mechanisms such as the support packages already issued or being defined for Ireland, Portugal and Greece. In this context these countries have announced capital enhancement measures requiring banks to hold capital to a higher level than that used for the EBA's EU wide stress test. Additional capital strengthening measures have been, and will be, announced to ensure this.

Someone's hilariously overconfident

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/07/the-panetta-doctrine-declare-victory-dont-go-home/

Leon Panetta is setting the mother of all goals for himself at the Pentagon. He began his first tour of Iraq and Afghanistan as defense secretary with an earthquake of a declaration: the U.S. is thisclose from finally destroying al-Qaida.

It sounds almost hysterically optimistic. But to understand why Panetta might make such a sweeping statement, and to figure out what it means for an endgame for the war on terrorism, follow the money.

The terrorists are behind the eight ball, Panetta told reporters on his way to Afghanistan. "We're within reach of strategically defeating al-Qaida," he said on Saturday, "and I'm hoping to be able to focus on that, working, obviously, with my prior agency as well."

So fuel up the drones and prepare the CIA-Joint Special Operations Command task forces. Delivering the final blow to the U.S.' main adversary of the last decade is a matter of taking down "somewhere around 10 to 20 key leaders," Panetta said, lurking in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and North Africa.

Notice that's much further than White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan would go during a similar boast. Brennan said two weeks ago that killing Osama bin Laden makes it possible to envision an end to al-Qaida, but never that the terror network was fewer than two dozen operatives from extinction.

Panetta has to know he's flirting with an epic fail. The U.S. doesn't have a great track record at judging progress against al-Qaida by pointing to terror leaders taken off the board. Somehow al-Qaida soldiers on even after the U.S. repeatedly kills whomever becomes its number-three leader. If Navy SEALs do another 20 double-taps and there's another al-Qaida strike afterward, Panetta's getting his face Photoshopped onto George W. Bush aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln in front of a "Mission Accomplished" banner.

Speaking of Iraq...

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/07/its-friday-and-iraq-still-isnt-asking-the-military-to-stay/

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has tried everything, including using very mild quasi-profanity. But Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki still isn't requesting U.S. troops to stay past their scheduled December 2011 withdrawal. And a new, sneakier gambit by the Iraqis to extend their stay isn't going to work.

The big message Panetta wanted to send to the Iraqis during his first trip to Baghdad was "Damn it, make a decision" on asking the U.S. to prolongue its Iraqi adventure. (It's the quote that launched a million tiresome articles about Panetta's "saltiness.") That was last weekend. The snarled, fraught anti-American Iraqi politics that make it dangerous for Maliki to issue such a request have mysteriously yet to smooth out.

But here's how Maliki seeks to circumvent them. Now he's saying that he doesn't need parliamentary approval for the U.S. to leave behind some unknown number of troops to train their Iraqi counterparts in using all the F-16s and air defense systems the U.S. will sell Iraq. Clever!

Alas, the U.S. says that's not going to cut it. "We have not gotten a formal request from the Government of Iraq," Pentagon spokesman Col. David Lapan tells Danger Room.


The dynamics of the U.S.-Iraqi inability to break up are approaching peak dysfunction. A host of U.S. military officials all but beg the Iraqis to let them stay. They claim that in private discussions, the Iraqis assure them that they want a residual U.S. force, but they can't say it in public.

Worse, the U.S. claims Iran is flooding Iraq with weapons so it'll looks like their Shiite allies are chasing the Americans into a long-schedule departure. Which just increases the U.S.' resolve to stay, even as Iraq gets more dangerous for U.S. troops — as if staying longer would somehow reduce the Iranian desire to attack.

Basic lesson in relationships: when the other person doesn't want to be seen with you in public, that tells you all you need to know. Maliki's effort is a clever attempt at having it both ways, but the U.S. is holding out for a formal declaration of love. So far, the Iraqis are sending the message that they really can live without U.S. troops.

The stirrings of a new ideology in Germany...

http://www.dialoginternational.com/dialog_international/2011/07/ordo-liberalism-vs-marxism.html

Sahra Wagenknecht, a leader of Germany's Left Party (die LINKE) andone of the hottest members of the Bundestag, has written a provocative book in which she seems to turn away from Marx and instead embrace Ludwig Erhard.  The book,Freiheit statt Kapitalismus("Freedom instead of Capitalism") embraces the teachings of Walter Eucken and Alfred Müller-Armack, the theorists of so-called ordo-liberalism. The theories of ordo-liberalism were developed in the 1930s as a reaction against state socialism and Nazism, but were put into practice in the early postwar period by West Germany's economics minister and chancellor Ludwig Erhard, the architect of Germany's Economic Miracle (Wirtschaftswunder).  Ordo-liberalism distinguishes itself from classical  neo-liberalism in that it promotes a social market economy where the state plays a decisive role in guaranteeing market competition. Now the market economy was no longer hostile to the common good. In her book, Sahra Wagenknecht praises competition, meritocracy and individual responsibility as defined by the ordo-liberals, whose teachings, consistently applied, supposedly lead directly to a new "creative socialism".  The problem with Germany today is that the economy is stalled in moribund capitalism, controlled by the "Ackermänner" and finance capital, which stifles competition and creativity.

Fun and games in the Levant

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/07/14/the_other_israel_lebanon_border_conflict

Off shore, and generally off the radar, a fight is heating up between Israel and Lebanon over who controls a valuable piece of the Mediterranean that is known to have two major gas fields possibly worth billions of dollars. As always, when it comes to border issues between these two nations, the rhetoric has become heated -- and there's the fear that this could signal the next big clash between Israel and Hezbollah. Hezbollah's deputy secretary general Sheikh Naim Qassem minced no words, saying today the group "will remain vigilant in order to regain its full rights, whatever it takes."

Israel's rhetoric has been equally heated. Last year, Deputy Prime Minister Uzi Landau said Israel "would not hesitate to use our force and strength to protect...international maritime law."

Qassem's comments today were in response to Israel, which on Sunday issued a map that it plans on submitting to the United Nations. Lebanon says, though, that the Israeli map encroaches on their territory by more than 1,500 square kilometers. Last year, Lebanon submitted a map of their own to the world body -- hoping for mediation.

Israeli officials say Hezbollah, boosted by its new political clout, is trying to pick a fight with Israel as a pretext for continuing their conflict.

But Hezbollah says that Israel is trying to snatch valuable territory and that it won't be "frightened by" Israeli threats.

A resolution is tricky. There is a lot of money at stake for the two resource-poor countries -- maybe up to $90 billion worth of gas. Hezbollah's position is not dissimilar from the previous Western-backed government led by Saad Hariri, which also accused Israel of taking part of its offshore territory.

I haven't read this, don't intend to.  Pentagon cyber strategies are always embarrassing

http://www.acus.org/new_atlanticist/pentagons-new-cyber-strategy

The Department of Defense's new cyber strategy is being released this afternoon and many cyber security professionals who read it may be disappointed that it does not say more. While there is some validity to that concern the strategy does cover important new ground on the most pressing needs such as partnering with the private sector and other nations, improving the workforce, and making a stand on defense.

The DoD has been working on far more than is in this document —which is not so much a strategy as a focus on five interrelated strategic initiatives. These are discussed below along with some of the key strengths and weaknesses in the latest of this administration's growing cyber canon.

The five strategic initiatives, or what DoD is calling the Five Pillars, should be no surprise to DoD watchers. This has been a long windup to an underarm throw, as the Pillars are essentially unchanged from what Deputy Secretary of Defense Lynn published last year in Foreign Affairs

Uh-oh...

http://www.neweurasia.net/politics-and-society/uk-embassy-employer-charged-with-illegal-gatherings-and-extremists-training-activity/

Today, July 15, Criminal Court of Mirzo Ulugbek district of Tashkent criminal court found Leonid Kudryavtsev, UK Embassy in Tashkent's Press and Public Relations department staffer, in violation of article 201 of the Uzbek Administrative Code for "violating the order of holding meetings, rallies, marches or demonstrations," and fined 80 times the minimum wage (UZS 3,978,800 or USD 2,300).

Judge S.N. Ashermatov, known for his participation in the case against VOA journalist Abdumalik Boboyev, decided that an appeal from the two so-called human rights activists, who are in fact true posers — Olga Krasnova and Konstantin Stepanov, is enough.

These two are well known for picketing in front of the UK Embassy in Tashkent against Craig Murray and his diplomatic activity, as well as sueing Freedom House, Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan (Общество Прав Человека Узбекистана — ОПЧУ), and other independent human rights activists of Uzbekistan; in the human rights society known as whistlers.

Krasnova and Stepanov claimed that trainings, meetings and other kinds of events at the UK Embassy with participation of human rights activists were intended to train future extremists and God-knows-whom.

Still not enough talk about Vietnam-China tensions

http://oilandglory.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/06/13/the_brinksmanship_in_the_south_china_sea

About three years ago, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili acted rashly and triggered a war with Russia. But Saakashvili didn't think he was rash -- the United States, he was sure, had his back. He was wrong -- the U.S. had supported Georgia as a strategic bulwark for a big oil pipeline, but that differed from going to battle with a nuclear-armed former superpower. As a result, Russia seized two regions comprising a fifth of Georgian territory, and recognized them as private nations. Since then, Saakashvili has labored with mixed results to rebuild his economy, Thomas De Waal of the Carnegie Endowment writes in a comprehensive look at Saakashvili's Georgia.

Today, Vietnam is conducting live-fire drills in the South China Sea in a show that it won't be intimidated in a push-and-shove dispute with China over waters suspected of containing significant oil reserves. Over the weekend, Hanoi urged its former enemy -- the United States -- to help pull the row back from the flashpoint, reports the Financial Times' Ben Bland. In this case, the U.S. will oblige -- to a degree.

Last Friday, the U.S. State Department said it is "troubled" by the rise in tensions. Though for the last year the U.S. has met a request by southeast Asian nations to resist its instincts to defend them, as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last summer suggested the nation was prepared to do, one can imagine a sturdy U.S. response in the Vietnam situation. Not to say that President Barack Obama would dispatch an aircraft carrier square into the disputed zone -- the U.S. will stay well back from rattling its war sword. But there could be stern new warnings from Clinton among other steps, under the presumption that Beijing will temper its behavior accordingly.

Ultimately both regions are vulnerable -- the Caucasus to Moscow, and the southeast Asian nations of the South China Sea to Beijing -- and must more or less fend for themselves. That is just one factor separating the 1990s from now. The South China Sea events demonstrate that, in a fight, China cannot rely on perceptions of its ostensible place in the new age to smooth its way out of potential confrontation. In the Caucasus, the U.S. is pragmatically prepared for all the world to observe its limits. Not so much in the South China Sea, where far more is at stake. Yet at some point, China will do more than just hang back.

[Xooxe]

Awesome. Thanks!

There is a lot brewing.

[Drunken Monkey Cabal]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/17/hamas-israel-prisoner-swap-gilad-shalit

Israel said today it had resumed talks with the Hamas rulers of Gaza on swapping about 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for a captive soldier held for more than four years.

Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said the German mediator who has been working to broker a deal for a year has returned to the region.

Hamas-linked militants captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in June 2006 in a raid across the Gaza-Israel border. Secret negotiations over a swap, mediated by Egypt and more recently by Germany, have been deadlocked for several months. Hamas is not part of US-sponsored peace talks that restarted last month in Washington.

Deals proposed in the past have entailed Israel swapping about 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for Shalit.

The most recent talks broke down over Israel's refusal to release a number of prisoners who carried out deadly attacks on civilians because of fears they would return to violence. Hamas insists these prisoners be part of any deal.

Hamas are, of course, playing directly into Israel's hands by setting ridiculous demands for the return of Shalit, who isn't exactly a high use hostage in terms of propaganda or advancing the Palestinian cause.  Of course, Israel don't want to strike a deal with Hamas, so they're not exactly going to point this out.

Turns out Israel are willing to trade 1000 Hamas prisoners in exchange for one captured solider. Do you think this may set a dangerous precedent Cain, or do you think Israel may prove a point with a couple of explosions/assassinations/arrests of some key targets?

[Cain]

Any more dangerous than Israel's repeated shooting of itself in the foot with its actions in the occupied territories?  No.