The Internet as You Know It Will Cease to Exist

Arthur Silber
November 4, 2009

Hey, relax. It's not going to be the end of the world -- but as my headline says, in time it may be the end of the internet as you know it.

Cory Doctorow:

The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama's administration refused to disclose due to "national security" concerns, has leaked. It's bad. It says:

* That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn't infringing will exceed any hope of profitability.

* That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that your entire family could be denied to the internet -- and hence to civic participation, health information, education, communications, and their means of earning a living -- if one member is accused of copyright infringement, without access to a trial or counsel.

Doctorow has pulled out two additional provisions, which are similarly bad. (On the first point above, I'm not at all sure that Doctorow's argument regarding Flickr, YouTube and Blogger necessarily follows from the preceding sentence, although I certainly understand his reasoning. In any case, the provision is still remarkably bad. It's also extremely vague: what precisely does "proactively police" mean and require? Perhaps it's spelled out in the full document. But unquestionably very bad.)

Over the last several years, we've all heard claims like the following very often. I state it in general terms, to try to capture its various iterations. But you're all familiar with how it goes in essence: "The truly great thing about the internet is that it means tyranny will never succeed the way it could in the past. Almost everyone will have access to information about everything! The people are empowered as never before. Despotic, authoritarian government is therefore consigned to the dust bin of history." Et cetera, and so on, and you can even put whipped cream and a dozen cherries on top of that.

Only a cursory review of history would indicate that claims of this kind are offered with deadening regularity. Every new invention will change things forever! Each significant development means that life will never again be the same! In the area of recent technology alone (recent in historic terms, if not in the spans of time most people seem capable of retaining, which reach approximately three months max), Life and The Whole Universe were permanently altered, like, forever, man, 'cuz of the radio, then teevee, then cable teevee, then VCRs, then digital, then blahblahblabbityblah ... and then ... TA DA! THE INTERNETZ!

Get a grip. Psychology, human nature and, more particularly, the dynamics of power and social organization alter only over very, very long periods of time. In certain respects, they don't change at all. A few of us might hope they would change and that entirely new ways of interrelating and organization would be found (see, "Contemplating a Different World"), but that's a very long-term project. I mean, long-term.

And to circle back to this particular example, if you understood the possibilities that might be realized by the internet, do you seriously think those people and interests possessing the most power and wealth did not? Yes, we're all special and unique and all that keen stuff, but the ruling class is people, too (revolting thought, I understand, but also true). And the ruling class is not stupid. It is certainly not stupid about this kind of thing. So our betters will do everything in their power to harness and redirect every advance to their own purposes. Again, consult history. This is always the pattern.

Some of the comments to Doctorow's post are intriguing. Here's one that I thought cleverly captured part of the forces operating here:

Look folks, if this copyright treaty means protecting Mickey Mouse from unauthorized reproductions, then it's a small price to pay to forever risk losing access to civic participation, health information, education, registration and renewal of government documents, global communication, access to government, weather and traffic, emergency service information, freedom of speech and assembly....

Obeisance to the Mickster is an eternal value. I mean, dude, eternal.

But here's the good news. Just as claims that the invention of the globbekgortz will catapult us all into the gabillionth dimension are overblown, so too predictions that this trade agreement, as abominable as it appears to be, will cause all the universes to self-destruct within the next few seconds go just a tad too far. Just a tad, you know? Here's a comment that speaks to that point:

OH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD PEOPLE!!!

Just open your wireless port, call it parasite.net, and then set yourself up as an 'ISP' with an FTP, web server, torrent tracker, etc. If you can convince enough people in your area to create access points and mirrors of the content we'll eventually cut out the telecoms and have a truly distributed data and communications network. Isn't that right Cory?

This might be rephrased, using what I view as a critical guideline for future action in many areas of our lives: Go local.

If you want to resist the oppressive power of the criminal large banks that are now sustained and even further enlarged in large part with your tax money, as they increasingly impoverish our own lives: Go local. Avoid the large banks, and find a good, much smaller one. (Of course, part of what's going on is that the large financial companies in conjunction with the immense power of the federal government -- thanks, Obama! -- are trying to wipe the smaller banks out of existence altogether. But they haven't fully succeeded in that effort, not yet.)

Buy your food from farms or co-ops in your area, to the extent you can. Go local. In part, this was the possibility I indicated in "Contemplating a Different World," and in the earlier, "The Tale that Might Be Told."

So even if the worst realities suggested by these treaty provisions come to pass, other possibilities will be identified and explored. In time, some of those possibilities will be realized. And then the whole process will be repeated again.

The tune changes, but the dance goes on. As any number of posts here indicate, I'm obviously not in the least denying that the ruling class is largely, if not exclusively, populated by vicious bastards, and I'm certainly not minimizing the profoundly horrifying level of devastation and suffering they cause. But the dance goes on.

We'll have to learn some new steps. That's always the way it works. That is, as we say, life. And that's a very good thing.

Hamas want Britain to make amends for crimes against Palestine

November 4, 2009

Hamas marked the 92nd anniversary of the infamous Balfour Declaration by recalling the misery of the 1948 Nakba (Catastrophe) and insisting that European states in general and Britain in particular make amends for the crimes committed against Palestine.

It is worth reminding ourselves from time to time what started the trouble all those years ago. Arabs know the details only too well, but you would be surprised how the British people are kept in ignorance. The history of the Arab-Israeli struggle is seldom taught in schools and our politicians are afraid to talk freely about it.

To all intents and purposes the fuse to the present powder-keg was lit by the British foreign secretary, Lord Balfour, on 2 November 1917 in a letter to the most senior Jew in England, Lord Rothschild, pledging assistance for the Zionist cause. It was a moment of madness that showed utter disregard for the likely impact on Islamic sensibilities and the day-to-day lives of those (Muslim and Christian) already living in the Holy Land, and for peace in the region.

This lethal scrap of paper, which called itself a declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations, actually said… "His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing and non-Jewish communities..."

Was Balfour completely off his head? The Allied Powers, in correspondence between Sir Henry McMahon and Sharif Hussein Ibn Ali of Mecca, had already promised independence to Arab leaders in return for their help in defeating Germany's ally, Turkey.

But Balfour was a Zionist convert, as were many others in the corridors of power in London at that time. Among them were Lloyd George and, to my dismay, Winston Churchill.

In an article in the Illustrated Sunday Herald of 8 February 1920 Churchill is credited with writing: "It has fallen to the British Government, as the result of the conquest of Palestine, to have the opportunity and the responsibility of securing for the Jewish race all over the world a home and centre of national life. The statesmanship and historic sense of Mr. Balfour were prompt to seize this opportunity. Declarations have now been made which have irrevocably decided the policy of Great Britain. The fiery energies of Dr. Weissmann, the leader, for practical purposes, of the Zionist project. backed by many of the most prominent British Jews, and supported by the full authority of Lord Allenby, are all directed to achieving the success of this inspiring movement… If, as may well happen, there should be created in our own lifetime by the banks of the Jordan a Jewish State under the protection of the British Crown, which might comprise three or four millions of Jews, an event would have occurred in the history of the world which would, from every point of view, be beneficial, and would be especially in harmony with the truest interests of the British Empire."

Poor Winston’s crystal ball was seriously malfunctioning that day.

Balfour, with eye-watering arrogance, said in justification of his lunatic action: "In Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country. The four powers are committed to Zionism and Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long tradition, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now occupy that land."

Not everyone was fooled by the Zionists. Lord Sydenham warned: "The harm done by dumping down an alien population upon an Arab country may never be remedied. What we have done, by concessions not to the Jewish people but to a Zionist extreme section, is to start a running sore in the East, and no-one can tell how far that sore will extend."

If only more people had listened.

In 1922 Palestine was placed under British mandate. Jewish immigration would be facilitated "under suitable conditions" and a nationality law would allow Jews taking up permanent residence to acquire Palestinian citizenship.

That same year the British government issued a White Paper clarifying the position. The intention was not to turn Palestine as a whole into a Jewish National Home but enable such a Home to be founded within Palestine. The White Paper recorded with satisfaction that, at a meeting of the Zionist Congress at Carlsbad in September 1921, "a resolution was passed expressing as the official statement of Zionist aims the determination of the Jewish people to live with the Arab people on terms of unity and mutual respect, and together with them to make the common home into a flourishing community…"

The White Paper also noted that the Zionist Commission in Palestine, renamed the Palestine Zionist Executive, had no wish to take part in running the country and would not be allowed to share in the government. "Further, it is contemplated that the status of all citizens of Palestine in the eyes of the law shall be Palestinian, and it has never been intended that they, or any section of them, should possess any other juridical status."

Fine words, but nobody was taking them on board. From that moment onwards the bully-boys of the Western world behaved increasingly badly and so did the Zionists. It all culminated in the messy 1947 Partition Plan, a corrupt and poorly managed piece of work by the fledgling United Nations, with the bullies twisting the arms of smaller nations in order to steamroller their rotten scheme through.

Zionist Jews had legitimately purchased only 6 percent of Palestinian land and by 1947 accounted for about one-third of the population, yet the UN allocated them 57 percent of the territory with access to two seas. They seized the offer with both hands while the Arabs, who hadn’t been consulted, quite rightly rejected it as unfair. As we all know now – and should have known then, since the extent of the Greater Israel project was widely advertised - this exceedingly generous 57 percent gift just wasn't enough for the greedy Zionists. They wanted the lot, and still do. So for 61 years they have kept the fires of the conflict well stoked while ethnically cleansing each territorial gain at gunpoint.

It is only right that Hamas are making such an appeal to those who have so miserably failed the Holy Land. It does no harm to remind the bloated and corrupted West of its Christian duty even though it long ago abandoned any pretence of honor and principle.

Israel’s evil progress could be halted by simply breaking the siege, if necessary landing humanitarian supplies on Gaza’s beach or providing armed escorts for other ships that wish to do so. That, it seems to me, is the very least we could do. The increasingly effective action by ordinary citizens boycotting Israeli goods should then be matched by government measures, and the screw turned until the economic pain persuades Israel to withdraw behind recognized borders and leave the Palestinians alone.

And if our politicians and leaders cannot free themselves from Israeli influence and act with the necessary decency, they should be helped to pack their bags and clear their desks.

The last European hadrosaurs lived in the Iberian Peninsula

Spanish researchers have studied the fossil record of hadrosaurs, the so-called 'duck-billed' dinosaurs, in the Iberian Peninsula for the purpose of determining that they were the last of their kind to inhabit the European continent before disappearing during the K/T extinction event that occurred 65.5 million years ago. Most notable among these fossils is the discovery of a new hadrosaur, the Arenysaurus ardevoli, found in Huesca, Spain.

A few million years before the catastrophic event that led to the extinction of dinosaurs (with the exception of birds), several species of hadrosaurs coexisted in the Iberian Peninsula. This is what a Spanish team of paleontologists have demonstrated in a research article published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

"The Iberian archeological record is important from an European context due to the quantity and quality of the fossil material discovered," explains Xavier Pereda-Suberbiola, one of the study's authors and a researcher at the University of the Basque Country (UPV / EHU), in an interview with SINC.

The researcher, collaborating with paleontologists from the University of Zaragoza, Valencia, Complutense of Madrid, Autonoma de Barcelona and the Jurassic Museum of Asturias, specifies that the presence of evolved hadrosaurs in Europe could be due to migration from Asia and North America.

"In Europe, primitive hadrosaurs coexist with evolved hadrosaurs, and the persistence of basal members could be due to the insular palaeobiogeography of Europe during the Upper Cretaceous," states the scientist. In addition to the fossils found in the Iberian Peninsula, hadrosaur fossils have been found in the Netherlands, which date back to Late Cretaceous, "although the material is more fragmented than those found in Huesca and Lleida," adds Pereda-Suberbiola.

During that time period, Europe was isolated from other continents and this may have led to the survival of certain lineages. "The European hadrosaur faunas are different from those seen in North America and Asia, which are both dominated by evolved species," explains Pereda-Suberbiola.

Next to the hadrosaurs, identifiable by the fossilized mandibles found in the arechological sites of La Solana (Valencia) and Fontllonga (Lleida), were a lambeosaurine hadrosaurs yet to be defined, and a newly discovered lambeosaurine, the Arenysaurus ardevoli.

An articulated cranium of great value

The study of the last hadrosaurs that lived in the Iberian Peninsula has been possible thanks to the discovery by the Aragosaurus-IUCA Group of the University of Zaragoza, led by Jose Ignacio Canudo, of the first articulated hadrosaur skull found in southern Europe, from the archeological sites of Arén, in Huesca, Spain.

The skull belongs to an Arenysaurus ardevoli, a lambeosaurine (hadrosaur with a hollow cranial crest), whose description was recently published in the French journal Comptes Rendus Palevol, and was part of the Spanish fossil record.

According to paleontologists, the new lambeosaurine lived between 65.5 and 68 million years ago, had a very prominent frontal dome, and its biogeographical relationships suggest a paleobiogeographical connection between Asia and Europe during the Late Cretaceous.

Researchers have found, in addition to the partially articulated skull, the mandibular remains and postcranial elements such as vertebrae, girdle and limb bones.

The Spanish archaeological record of hadrosaurs is the largest in Europe. Out of the 50 locations where dinosaur remains were discovered since 1984, nearly half have been found in Lleida and Huesca. These archeological sites stand out for containing fossils pertaining to several species of duck-billed dinosaurs.

Jordan Islamists urge Arab world to drop hopes about Obama

Amman - Jordan's largest political party, the Islamic Action Front (IAF), Thursday urged Arab countries to stop "betting" on the administration of the US President Barack Obama. The party said its call was prompted by US Secretary of State Hillary Rodhman Clinton having "adopted" the attitude of the right- wing Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"The US administration's adoption of the attitudes of the extremist, Zionist government makes it imperative for Arab countries to review their positions and depend on their own capabilities instead of betting on the will of others to bring about changes," IAF spokesman Mohammad Bozour said in a statement.

"Clinton's statements revealed the false promises of the US administration which tried to sell Arabs mere illusions that failed to stand the first test," he added.

Bozour alluded to Clinton's statement after meeting Netanyahu earlier this week during her regional tour that the Israeli premier was making "unprecedented" concessions regarding the controversial issue of settlement building in East Jerusalem and other occupied Palestinian territories.

Clinton went further to urge Palestinians to return to the negotiating table with Israel even before freezing the construction of settlements which emerged over the past few months as a key Arab and Palestinian demand.

"The humiliating backdown by the US administration versus Netanyahu's stubbornness and going further to praise his attitudes will not help improve the US image vis-à-vis Arab and Islamic peoples, one of the key objectives which Obama sought to accomplish," Bozour said.

Chinese workers struggle in Algeria

November 06, 2009
Abdellah Cheballah

Agence France Presse

ALGIERS: More than 25,000 Chinese work on huge housing projects and cross-country highways in Algeria, but few have any deep contacts with the local population. For more than a decade tens of thousands of Chinese workers have flowed into Algeria, one of the many African nations that have embraced trade and closer political links with China that will be strengthened at a China-Africa summit in Egypt from Sunday.

China became Algeria’s second largest foreign supplier in 2008. Chinese exports reached $2.7 billion, coming from almost nothing in the 1990s. But the language barrier keeps the migrants apart from Algerians.

“The ‘yellow peril’ does not threaten Algeria, the Chinese are well-regarded, despite language and cultural barriers,” said political scientist Rachid Tlemcani.

The government has spent a lot of Algeria’s oil wealth on new homes and infrastructure. Chinese companies have won more than $15 billion worth of those contracts.

“Chinese workers live and work in difficult conditions that many Algerians would not accept, so there is no competition between the two populations. They are part of separate worlds that accept each other,” Tlemcani said.

“These workers are virtually cut off from the Algerian population. They live in basic accommodation set up near the building sites and move around in groups, even when they go shopping,” an Algerian chauffeur for a Chinese construction company said. But there have been tensions.

Since 2002 a number of Chinese have settled in the country, buying clothes shops, jewelers and bazaars, like the Algiers suburb of Bab Ezzouar.

The mini-Chinatown has grown but the harmony was broken in August when a parking dispute escalated into clashes between members of the two communities.

“It was predictable” said one Algerian wholesaler, who complained that his business is surrounded by Chinese shops who have “invaded the area.”

After the clashes the Chinese ambassador called on the Asian migrants to “respect the local laws and customs.”

Leila, who works in a Chinese leather shop, said the tensions were not linked to religion. “Everything is about business.”

Source: The Daily Star.
Link: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/Nov/06/Chinese-workers-struggle-in-Algeria.ashx.

Algeria pilgrims arrive

JEDDAH: About 36,000 Algerian pilgrims will be performing Haj this year.

Part of an 800-member official Algerian mission came to the Kingdom on Monday to facilitate their arrival, with the rest following soon.

“A large contingent of medical team, will also follow,” Algerian Consul-General Salah Attia told Arab News at his country’s National Day celebration.

The mission would be led by the director-general of the Algerian National Office for Haj and Umrah, Cheikh Barbara, he said.

Speaking at a reception in Jeddah to celebrate the event, the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Director General for Makkah Region, Muhammad A. Tayeb, highlighted existing strong relations between the Kingdom and Algeria and said there have been a consistent strengthening of bilateral relations through the Saudi-Algerian economic commission, as well as joint venture projects and programs at all levels.

According to the consul-general, trade between the two countries has also been steadily expanding. “There has been a regular flow of investments into Algeria from the Kingdom,” he said, adding that Saudis have shown great interest in hospitality and industrial projects, in particular agro-industries.

Frigid Antarctica Loaded with Viruses By Rachael Rettner, Staff Writer

Antarctica's icy lakes are home to a surprisingly diverse community of viruses, including some that were previously unidentified.

At first glance, Antarctica's freshwater lakes don't seem very hospitable to life. They remain frozen for a good nine months out of the year, and they contain very few nutrients. Some of these lakes have little animal life and are dominated by microorganisms, including algae, bacteria, protozoans and viruses.

With few animal and microbial predators around, viruses likely play an important role in controlling the abundance of other microorganisms, the researcher say. However, these viruses have been historically hard to study since many cannot be grown in a laboratory. But thanks to new genome sequencing technology, scientists can identify viruses without needing to grow them.

"We are just starting to uncover the world of viruses, and this is changing the way we think about viruses and the role they play in microbial ecosystems," said Antonio Alcami, a researcher from the Spanish Research Council.

A virus is little more than a package of DNA surrounded by a capsule structure. To survive, viruses must hijack, or infect, living cells and use the host's equipment to replicate.

Alcami and his colleagues analyzed DNA from viruses found in water samples collected from Antarctica's Lake Limnopolar, a surface lake on Livingston Island. They found nearly 10,000 species, including some small DNA viruses that had never before been identified. In total, the viruses were from 12 different families, some of which may be completely new to science, the researchers suggest.

The results reveal this Antarctic lake supports a virus community that's more diverse than most aquatic environments studied in the world so far — a surprising find considering that the polar region is generally thought to have low biological diversity due to the extreme environmental conditions. The scientists speculate the newly discovered viruses may have adapted specifically to thrive in such harsh conditions.

The team also found the community of viruses changed dramatically depending on the season. When the lake was ice-covered in the spring, the liquid water under the ice was inhabited by mostly small viruses, but in the summer months when the ice melted, the lake was home to mostly larger viruses.

"It looks like a completely different lake in summer," Alcami said. The scientists think the shift might be due to an increase in algae in the summertime, which the larger viruses infect.

The researchers hope to figure out whether any of the viruses are unique to Antarctica. If so, that would shed light on whether microbial life evolved independently in Antarctica, which has been isolated for millions of years, or they were introduced there more recently.

Unique supernova found in constellation

BERKELEY, Calif., Nov. 6 (UPI) -- An exploding star known as SN2002bj could be a new class of supernova that resulted in a true thermonuclear explosion, a California researcher said.

The star at first seem liked any other that flashes into existence all the time. A closer look, however, revealed unusual spectral details, Dovi Poznanski, a University of California, Berkeley, postdoctoral researcher told The San Francisco Chronicle.

SN2002bj, in a first known to researchers, apparently came into existence when helium gas flowed from a massive white dwarf star to another orbiting nearby. The resulting explosion faded away in days rather than months, its formation differing greatly from other supernovas, Poznanski said.

SN2002bj flared in a galaxy 135 million light-years away, its unique characteristics spotted six months ago when Poznanski was reviewing supernova records. The unique supernova is located in the constellation Lepus the hare, Poznanski wrote in Thursday's edition of the journal Science.

Saber-toothed cats practiced equality

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 6 (UPI) -- Despite their long fangs, male saber-toothed tigers may have been less aggressive than other big cats of their time, researchers in California said.

The saber-toothed tiger, Smilodon fatalis, inhabited North and South America from about 1.6 million to 10,000 years ago, sharing its roaming grounds with a prehistoric cat called the American lion.

Remains of 19 saber-toothed cats and 13 American lions from the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles were studied by Wendy Binder, a biologist at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and Julie Meachen-Samuels, a biologist at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, Durham, N.C.

The male American lions were found to be significantly larger than the females, while male and female saber-toothed cats were indistinguishable in size, Meachen-Samuels said in a release Friday.

Size differences between the sexes tend to be most significant in species where male aggression is more intense, the researchers said.

The size differences found in the La Brea cats suggests a male American lion may have monopolized a harem of females while saber-toothed cats might have been more equal, with multiple males and females living together.

Why the UN is so disturbed at the Murder of the Western Nationals?

Afghan Resistance Statement
Why the UN is so disturbed at the Murder of the Western Nationals?
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan

November 5, 2009

A few days ago, a strong reaction came from the United Nations Security Council following the killings of Western nationals whom the United Nations calls its staff members but Mujahideen say, they were organizers of the runoff election. The UN Secretary General said that he would join efforts with other members of the Security Council to find those behind this incident and give them punishment. On the other hand, we have hundreds of examples in which we find the United Nations behaving with the Islamic Ummah unfairly, improperly and pitilessly as far as global and regional issues are concerned.

When it comes to the protection of the rights of the Ummah, this World Body, particularly, the Security Council becomes silent at once. They have chosen the way of suppressing and oppressing the Ummah and supporting the arrogant, the invaders and the brutals.

If we have a glimpse at events in Palestine, Iraq and other issues and the bloodbath now going on at the level of the Ummah, we will readily know that how callously and brutally the invading colonialists kill common Muslims collectively and invade Islamic lands flagrantly. If we look at the horrendous events in our country , Afghanistan during the past eight years, we will see clearly that the Security Council with its full strength is siding with America and the coalition forces. They have their share in the mass murders of the Afghan people and are the cause of the tragedies and sufferings of the Afghans. During the past eight years, never a day has passed without the Americans and Western brutal forces not committing crimes, murder, or torture against our people or not encroaching on our national and religious values. The blind bombardment on civilian targets, night raids on people houses, murders, tortures, bombardments on funeral and wedding ceremonies are some of the crimes, the invaders have perpetrated during the past eight years. But the United Nations has turned a blind eye to these crimes and not acted as per its responsibilities and caliber as a universal body. Throughout this period, they only ratified and approved resolutions allowing prolongation of occupation of Afghanistan and reinforcement there.

Ironically, they have called for more brutality under the leadership of USA. We have not seen any resolution by the Security Council, which speaks of grace, tolerance and altruism. Contrarily, when American and Western targets are attacked, or their interests are targeted or Western nationals are assassinated and similarly, when the interests of the Christian world come under danger, then the Security Council holds emergency meetings and issues serious response and reaction.

The strong reaction shown by the Security Council following the murder of a few Western staff members, portray that this organization has taken upon itself as its only duty to exclusively protect Western nationals and their interests. If hundreds of people other than the Western nationals are killed in the world in a single day, they do not take any notice because in their eyes they are less than human beings and the United Nations does not feel to be morally bound to protect their rights.

Source: Uruknet.
Link: http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=59757&s2=06.

Nearly third of Egyptian children malnourished

2009-11-06

Global economic crisis, government bird-flu measures added to suffering of poor Egyptians.

CAIRO- Despite a number of positive economic indicators, Egypt has a hunger problem: Nearly a third of all children are malnourished, according to a new report compiled by the Ministry of Health and the UN Development Program (UNDP).

The Egyptian Demographic Health Survey (EDHS) 2008, published in March 2009, recorded a 6 percent increase in undernourishment severe enough to stunt growth in children under five, pushing the percentage of stunted Egyptian toddlers to 29 percent from 23 percent in 2000.

The survey collected data in 2007/2008, when gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 7.2 percent, indicating that strong economic growth had not benefited ordinary Egyptians. A slower GDP growth of 4.7 percent is forecast for 2008/2009.

“Within the recent context of economic crises and economic slowdown, in addition to the growing epidemics of avian and H1N1 influenza, nutrition is not treated as a priority,” said Hala Abu Khatwa, head of communications in Egypt for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Government-run food programs are in place: In partnership with the World Food Program (WFP), fortified date bars have been distributed in high-risk schools since 1963; and government-subsidized flour and cooking oil - used to make ‘baladi’ bread - are fortified with iron/folic acid and Vitamins A and D.

Chicken cull

Yet some government policies have adversely affected the nutrition of the poorest.

UNICEF and WFP said the EDHS report of a spike in malnourished children was partly attributable to the government’s decision to cull millions of chickens in 2007.

“The culling had a significant and substantial impact on household consumption of poultry and eggs, especially [on] young children, and also put considerable strain on household resources since poultry sales accounted for nearly half of the incomes of many Egyptian households,” said UNICEF’s Abu-Khatwa citing a 2007 study by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) entitled Livelihood Impact Assessment in Egypt.

Gianpietro Bordignon, the director of WFP in Egypt, attributed growing malnutrition among children to “the successive series of shocks that affected people, especially the poorest. This started with the outbreak of avian flu and the subsequent killing of poultry that lowered the intake of protein, and then the financial and food crises that followed.”

No data has yet been collected on the nutritional status of the estimated 70,000 unofficial garbage collectors and pig farmers in the Cairo area who relied on pigs for meat, income and organic waste.

Economic reforms

Since 1991 Egypt has embarked on economic reform programs which have not necessarily helped the poorest in society.

A July report by Egypt’s General Authority for Investment and Free Zones, seen by IRIN and entitled Towards Fair Distribution of the Fruits of Growth, found that 66 percent of the wealth generated in Egypt is sector specific, benefiting only those directly employed by the sector rather than the economy as a whole.

“Between 2005 and 2008, the risk of extreme poverty increased by almost 20 percent. Poverty levels are highest in Upper [southern] Egypt where 70 percent of the country's poor live,” Abu Khatwa said. Upper Egypt is home to about 17 percent of the country’s 82 million people.

WFP’s Bordignon also pointed out that since Egypt is not a “least developed country”, it misses out on international food aid.

According to the 2009 UNDP Human Development Report, 23 percent of the population are below the poverty line. Food riots in 2008 were symptomatic of widespread poverty.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=35538.

2014 or Bust

2009-11-06

A little publicized US-taxpayer-funded infrastructure boom has been underway in Afghanistan -- the construction boom is military in nature. The US military is digging in for an even longer haul, notes Nick Turse.

The Pentagon's Building Boom in Afghanistan Indicates a Long War Ahead

In recent weeks, President Obama has been contemplating the future of US military operations in Afghanistan. He has also been touting the effects of his policies at home, reporting that this year's Recovery Act not only saved jobs, but also was "the largest investment in infrastructure since [President Dwight] Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s." At the same time, another much less publicized US-taxpayer-funded infrastructure boom has been underway. This one in Afghanistan.

While Washington has put modest funding into civilian projects in Afghanistan this year -- ranging from small-scale power plants to "public latrines" to a meat market -- the real construction boom is military in nature. The Pentagon has been funneling stimulus-sized sums of money to defense contractors to markedly boost its military infrastructure in that country.

In fiscal year 2009, for example, the civilian US Agency for International Development awarded $20 million in contracts for work in Afghanistan, while the US Army alone awarded $2.2 billion -- $834 million of it for construction projects. In fact, according to Walter Pincus of the Washington Post, the Pentagon has spent "roughly $2.7 billion on construction over the past three fiscal years" in that country and, "if its request is approved as part of the fiscal 2010 defense appropriations bill, it would spend another $1.3 billion on more than 100 projects at 40 sites across the country, according to a Senate report on the legislation."

Bogged Down at Bagram

Nowhere has the building boom been more apparent than Bagram Air Base, a key military site used by the Soviet Union during its occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. In its American incarnation, the base has significantly expanded from its old Soviet days and, in just the last two years, the population of the more than 5,000 acre compound has doubled to 20,000 troops, in addition to thousands of coalition forces and civilian contractors. To keep up with its exponential growth rate, more than $200 million in construction projects are planned or in-progress at this moment on just the Air Force section of the base. "Seven days a week, concrete trucks rumble along the dusty perimeter road of this air base as bulldozers and backhoes reshape the rocky earth," Chuck Crumbo of The State reported recently. "Hundreds of laborers slap mortar onto bricks as they build barracks and offices. Four concrete plants on the base have operated around the clock for 18 months to keep up with the construction needs."

The base already boasts fast food favorites Burger King, a combination Pizza Hut/Bojangles, and Popeyes as well as a day spa and shops selling jewelry, cell phones and, of course, Afghan rugs. In the near future, notes Pincus, "the military is planning to build a $30 million passenger terminal and adjacent cargo facility to handle the flow of troops, many of whom arrive at the base north of Kabul before moving on to other sites." In addition, according to the Associated Press, the base command is "acquiring more land next year on the east side to expand" even further.

To handle the influx of troops already being dispatched by the Obama administration (with more expected once the president decides on his long-term war plans) "new dormitories" are going up at Bagram, according to David Axe of the Washington Times. The base's population will also increase in the near future, thanks to a project-in-progress recently profiled in The Freedom Builder, an Army Corps of Engineers publication: the MILCON Bagram Theatre Internment Facility (TIF) currently being built at a cost of $60 million by a team of more than 1,000 Filipinos, Indians, Sri Lankans, and Afghans. When completed, it will consist of 19 buildings and 16 guard towers designed to hold more than 1,000 detainees on the sprawling base which has long been notorious for the torture and even murder of prisoners within its confines.

While the United States officially insists that it is not setting up permanent bases in Afghanistan, the scale and permanency of the construction underway at Bagram seems to suggest, at the least, a very long stay. According to published reports, in fact, the new terminal facilities for the complex aren't even slated to be operational until 2011.

One of the private companies involved in hardening and building up Bagram's facilities is Contrack International, an international engineering and construction firm which, according to US government records, received more than $120 million in contracts in 2009 for work in Afghanistan. According to Contrack's website, it is, among other things, currently designing and constructing a new "entry control point" -- a fortified entrance -- as well as a new "ammunition supply point" facility at the base. It is also responsible for "the design and construction of taxiways and aprons; airfield lighting and navigation aid improvements; and new apron construction" for the base's massive and expanding air operations infrastructure. The building boom at Bagram (which has received at least a modest amount of attention in the American mainstream press) is, however, just a fraction of the story of the way the US military -- and Contrack International -- are digging in throughout Afghanistan.

Rave Reviews for Kandahar

In March, according to Pentagon documents, Contrack was awarded a $23 million contract for "the design and construction of [an] Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance ramp, Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan." Last year, in the Washington Post, Pincus reported that a planned expansion at the airfield, also once used by the Soviets and now a major US and NATO base, was to accommodate aircraft working for a Task Force ODIN -- an Afghanistan-based version of the Army unit which used drones and helicopters to target insurgents planting IEDs in Iraq. Today, Task Force ODIN-Afghanistan -- the acronym stands for "observe, detect, identify and neutralize," with a nod to the chief Norse god -- is up and running, and still reportedly piloted out of "Bagram in one of two small, nondescript ground control stations." Whether ODIN aircraft are also operating out of Kandahar Airfield is -- like so much information about the US military in Afghanistan -- unclear. Certainly, though, many more NATO and US aircraft will be flying out of the base once Contrack, as it notes on its website, completes its "[d]esign and construction of replacement runways with asphalt and touch down areas with concrete pavement" and "rehabilitation of 6 existing taxiways," among other projects.

Contrack's Kandahar contract is set to be fulfilled by late December, but like Bagram, the base already gives every appearance of permanence. "It's one of the busiest single runways in the world," Captain Max Hanlin from the 2nd US Army Division's 5th Stryker Brigade told Agence France-Presse recently. Originally built to house 12,000 troops, Kandahar Air Base now supports 30,000 or more NATO and US personnel. Some do battle in the inhospitable terrain of the surrounding region, while others have never been outside the wire and wile away their time in the base's cafes and small shops (where troops reportedly can buy, among other items, belly dancer costumes), party in the "Dutch corner," play roller hockey in the base's central square, or dance the night away at a Saturday rave. "They are shaking glowsticks as if they have no concept of the mines and the war outside," said one US officer, watching troops on the dance floor.

In recent days, US forces announced a decrease in recreational perks and an imposition of more austere circumstances -- salsa and karaoke nights have already been cut at Kandahar -- prompting worries by NATO allies that their recreational facilities will be overrun by entertainment-starved US troops.

A Mob of FOBs

It seems that no one outside the Pentagon knows just exactly how many US camps, forward operating bases, combat outposts, patrol bases and other fortified sites the US military is currently using or constructing in Afghanistan. And while the Americans have recently abandoned a few of their installations, effectively ceding the northeastern province of Nuristan to Taliban forces, elsewhere a base-building boom has been underway.

In April, Contrack was awarded another $28 million contract for work on airfields -- to be performed at unspecified sites in Afghanistan. In June, Florida-based IAP Worldwide Services was awarded a $21 million contract to enhance electrical power distribution at the US Marines' still-growing Forward Operating Base (FOB) Leatherneck in Helmand Province, a Taliban stronghold. Scheduled for completion in June 2010, that project is only part of IAP's work, which has involved "almost two dozen power plants at US Army bases in Afghanistan and Iraq" that, according to the company's promotional literature, its teams have "delivered, installed, operated and maintained."

FOB Dwyer, also in Helmand Province, is fast becoming a "hub" for air support in southern Afghanistan, according to Captain Vincent Rea of the Air Force's 809th Expeditionary Red Horse Squadron. To that end, Marine Corps and Air Force personnel are building runways and helipads to accommodate ever more fixed-wing and rotary aircraft on the base. The two services collaborated on the construction of a 4,300-foot airstrip capable of accommodating giant C-130 Hercules transport aircraft that increase the US capability to support more troops on more bases in more remote areas.

"With the C-130s coming in more frequently, more Marines can travel at a given time and will definitely help Camp Dwyer and other FOBs and COPs (Combat Outposts) to build up," says Capt. Alexander Lugo-Velazquez of Marine Light/Attack Helicopter Squadron 169. In September, the Air Force reported the completion of the first phase of a six-phase construction project at FOB Dwyer which will eventually include additional fuel pits and taxiways, increased tarmac space, and the lengthening of the runway to 6,000 feet. In October, according to government documents, the Army also began soliciting bids -- in the $10-$25 million range -- for construction of fuel storage and distribution facilities at FOB Dwyer. These, like the infrastructure upgrades at Bagram, are not scheduled to be completed until sometime in 2011.

In Helmand, as well as Farah, Kandahar, and Nimruz provinces, between June and September the Marine Expeditionary Brigade-Afghanistan alone established four new forward operating bases, "10 combat outposts, six patrol bases, and four ancillary operating positions, helicopter landing zones and an expeditionary airfield." In October, defense contractor AECOM Technology signed a $78 million, 6-month extension contract with the Army to "provide general-support maintenance as well as the operation of maintenance facilities, living quarters and offices at two US military bases as well as forward operating bases and satellite locations" in Afghanistan.

Defense contracting giant Fluor has also been hard at work landing lucrative deals in Afghanistan. In March, the Army reported that, in accordance with President Obama's spring surge of troops, Regional Command East in Afghanistan had tasked Fluor to expand four existing forward operating bases and, if need be, build another eight new ones.

In Regional Command South, it was reported that "[e]mergency work to expand eight FOBs [wa]s underway after being competitively awarded to Fluor under LOGCAP IV." This is the current version of a military program first instituted by the Pentagon in 1985. It has been the key means by which military logistics and supply functions have been turned over to private contractors. (The previous version of the program, LOGCAP III, was awarded solely to Kellogg, Brown and Root Services or KBR, then a division of the oil services giant Halliburton, primarily in support of US operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait and was plagued by scandals.)

In Afghanistan, companies like Fluor are clearly digging in. Fluor, in fact, describes itself as "co-located with the US Army in Afghanistan, where the team coordinates, provides oversight, and implements Fluor's execution plan to provide the necessary resources and labor to accomplish this mission" of "providing multi-functional base life support and combat services support (CSS) to the US and Coalition Forces in Afghanistan."

The company is "simultaneously constructing and managing the expansion of eight Forward Operating Bases[...] in Southern Afghanistan. This includes the construction of an FOB to accommodate 17,000 to 20,000 US Military personnel." Fluor, no doubt, expects to be "co-located with the US Army in Afghanistan" for a long time. In July 2009, the defense giant was awarded a $1.5 billion contract for LOGCAP IV services in Afghanistan; in October, the Army reported that the LOGCAP program was responsible for erecting 6,020 units of containerized housing known as relocatable buildings or RLBs in Regional Command South.

In July, under an existing LOGCAP IV contract, scandal-tainted defense contractor DynCorp International, along with partners CH2M Hill and Taos Industries, received a one year $643.5 million order to "provide existing bases within the Afghanistan South AOR [area of responsibility] with operations and maintenance support, including but not limited to: facilities management, electrical power, water, sewage and waste management, laundry operations, food services and transportation motor pool operations," as well as "construction services for additional sites." With an eye to the future, the Pentagon has included four one-year options in the contract which, if taken up, would be worth an estimated $5.8 billion.

Just recently, the Australian military indicated it was also digging in for a long stay, announcing a $37 million upgrade of its main base near Tarin Kowt in Oruzgan province, to be completed by mid-2011. As at other NATO facilities, increasing numbers of US troops have been operating out of Tarin Kowt recently and, in late September, the US-based company Kandahar Constructors signed a $25 million deal with the Pentagon for runway upgrades there, also to be completed in 2011.

Speaking the Language of Occupation

In 2009 alone, after many billions of dollars had already gone into the construction, expansion, and maintenance of US bases in Afghanistan, American taxpayers were called upon to pay for more than $1 billion in construction contracts -- and based on the evidence at hand, including those future options, this may prove just a drop in the proverbial bucket.

All of this has been happening without a clear plan laid out in Washington for the future of US military operations in that country, without a legitimate national government in Kabul, and of course with no shortage of infrastructural repairs needed at home. Americans curious to know much of anything about the Pentagon's Afghan building boom beyond Bagram would have found little on the nightly news or in major newspapers. It has essentially been carried out in the dark, far away, and with only the most modest reportorial interest.

Forget for a moment the "debates" in Washington over Afghan War policy and, if you just focus on the construction activity and the flow of money into Afghanistan, what you see is a war that, from the point of view of the Pentagon, isn't going to end any time soon. In fact, the US military's building boom in that country suggests that, in the ninth year of the Afghan War, the Pentagon has plans for a far longer-term, if not near-permanent, garrisoning of the country, no matter what course Washington may decide upon. Alternatively, it suggests that the Pentagon is willing to waste taxpayer money (which might have shored up sagging infrastructure in the US and created a plethora of jobs) on what will sooner or later be abandoned runways, landing zones and forward operating bases.

The building and fortifying of bases in Afghanistan isn't the only sign that the US military is digging in for an even longer haul. Another key indicator can be found in a Pentagon contract awarded in late September to SOS International, Ltd., a privately owned "operations support company" that provides everything from "cultural advisory services" to "intelligence and counterintelligence analysis and training" to numerous federal agencies. That contract, primarily for linguistic services in support of military operations in Afghanistan, has an estimated completion date of September 2014.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=35546.

Israel’s Left Has No Future

From the start, the Jewish nationalist movement’s objective was to open Palestine to unlimited immigration, colonize it and rob it of its independence. Labor did not review the old doctrine of territorial conquest when it was in power in 1967-77 or in the 1990s, notes Zeev Sternhell.

The Israeli left is impotent, without an ideology to offer a way out of the mire of neocolonialism and neoliberalism. This was as clear in this February’s electoral debacle as it was in the historic defeat of 1977, when the right took power for the first time. Many Israelis realize they are witnessing the steady decline, if not the death, of the left.

It is not that the left is worn out after many years in power; nor is it the result of the evolution of Israeli society. It is due to the left’s inability to manage the military victory of June 1967 over Egypt, Syria and Jordan or the historic breakthrough of the Oslo accords in 1993; on both these occasions it demonstrated its conformist and conservative nature, and intellectual and moral weaknesses.

From the start, the Jewish nationalist movement’s objective was to open Palestine to unlimited immigration, colonize it and rob it of its independence. “The Zionist project is one of conquest,” said Berl Katznelson, the Labor Zionist ideologue, in 1929. “Please understand that it is not by chance that I describe it in military terms.” The nationalist movement justified this by invoking the historic right of Jews to reclaim the land of their ancestors. From the end of the 19th century, all Zionist thought held that the Jews in Europe were on the edge of catastrophe: The second world war proved them right. The 1948-9 victory was the culmination of hard work, led by Labour parties in power since the early 1930s.

When war broke out in June 1967, the left wondered how to react. Should it exploit Egypt’s miscalculation and use the newly conquered territories as bargaining chips for peace? Should it see victory as the logical conclusion of the war of independence, a chance to complete what was left unfinished in 1949? Or use the opportunity to announce to the Arab world that Zionism had attained its objectives with the creation of Israel in 1949, and the conquest and settlement of more land was no longer necessary?

That would have required the left to have been informed by universal values, not just the culture and politics of nationalism. With rare exceptions, none of the left’s political leaders were so equipped. The few leftwing intellectuals in politics after 1977 who attempted to rebuild the Labor Party on a new basis were forced to resign, or gave up after the 1982 Lebanon war. The big names in the party had no new ideas, and were content to follow the path of the left’s ideologues of the early 19th century, Aharon David Gordon and Katznelson.

Labor did not review the old doctrine of territorial conquest when it was in power in 1967-77 or in the 1990s. The party never debated whether the country’s future could be based, not on the historic right of the Jews to the land of Israel, but on the rights of all its inhabitants. Discussion centered then, as now, on how to exploit Palestinian weakness.

The principle of never giving up land unless compelled to do so by a superior force still applies. In fact, the settlement of occupied land began under the Labor governments of 1967-77, using methods still seen today: land confiscated under any pretext, laws bent, with inequality between Jews and Arabs the norm. Despite the Oslo accords, things did not significantly improve when Labor returned to power in 1992-96 and 1999-2001. Labor did its utmost to appease the settlers and the right wing, which saw its recognition of the right of Palestinians to a portion of land west of Jordan as a betrayal. The only way to block the revolt was to facilitate settlement.

But though Labor was morally and intellectually incapable of preventing settlement building, it was responsible for the turning point of the Oslo accords. Prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, hero of the Six Day war, assassinated in 1995 by a religious nationalist, remains the only political leader to have looked beyond the received ideas of his time. But it took him 20 years, and the 1982 Lebanon war, to understand that the Israeli-Palestinian war would not end unless both sides recognized a dual right to nationhood. Rabin paid for this realization with his life. The Oslo accords were badly thought out and badly executed. But Rabin could perhaps have saved them: He was too intelligent and pragmatic to stick to an argument based on a 3,000-year-old property claim from scripture.

“Turn to the Bible, Obama,” urges the veteran Israeli journalist Yoel Markus, who has been close to the right wing of the Labor Party for 50 years. The current US administration is less tolerant of Israel’s settlement policy, but the minister of defense, Ehud Barak, and his colleagues still have no argument against the settlers, even if they have managed to dismantle some small “illegal outposts.” They retreat each time the settlers threaten civil war. All they can fall back on is international or US pressure.

Israel’s Labor Party valued President George W. Bush and his neocon ideologues as much as the evangelists of Alabama or the settlers of the West Bank. That is why Labor’s 2009 rout is more a moral and intellectual defeat than political. Labor voters realized that the party had lost its way. If all it could offer was a copied appeal to history and the use of force, better to go for the original, Binyamin Netanyahu. Ehud Barak, who had hoped to reap the rewards of last winter’s “victory” in Gaza, lost out in the choice.

Labor’s ideological vacuum extends to economic and social policy. It has never been a socialist party like its European counterparts. From its foundation as Mapai in 1930 (3), its emphasis on nationalism has distanced it not only from the parties of Leon Blum, Rudolf Hilferding and the Austro-Marxists, but even from the British Labour Party, which in 1931 turned towards socialism.

Mapai rejected even the most watered down Marxism, believing capitalism and private property necessary for nation-building. Barak shares a role model with his predecessor Shimon Peres in Tony Blair, a politician the US neocons consider one of their own. Labor’s leaders easily lean towards neo-liberalism, believing that individual freedom is guaranteed by the free market and that capital should be liberated from the constraints of the state.

Not everyone in Labor accepts this theory, but most approve of its practice. With a few exceptions, they do not count social justice among the fundamental components of freedom. The primacy of national values is embedded in Israeli political culture and the left has benefited from this: For three generations, Israelis have been taught that national and cultural identity take precedence over material well being.

Israel is not the first society to experience this phenomenon of contemporary history: diverse social groups voting against their economic and class interests in favor of national, cultural or religious loyalties. This was the norm set down by the conquerors of the land of Israel who, irrespective of their social status, had in common history, religion and the overriding objective to create a Jewish nation state.

Once class interests have been abandoned in favor of national unity, it is easy to convince those at the bottom of the social ladder that their lives can only improve through the free market, privatization, deregulation, and lower taxes. Most Israelis have been persuaded that their labor is a commodity and that flexibility is the key to success.

Labor has been incapable of providing a critique of global market capitalism. Its old and demoralized supporters continue to vote for it more out of habit than conviction. But support is shrinking: in February it went down to 10%, just 13 seats in the Knesset. The young have deserted the party and there is little Labor activism in the universities. Palestinian, Chinese and Thai manual workers have long since replaced the Israelis who were members of the trade union federation, Histadrut, and Mapai.

Peres left Labor to join Kadima (which was set up by Ariel Sharon) after he was defeated as party leader in 2005 by the trade union leader Amir Peretz. Many Labor supporters concluded that if a former prime minister could leave the party and join the opposition after 50 years, then it must have run out of ideas and no longer be worth fighting for. In March 2006, 15% of votes went to Labor, giving it 19 seats and allowing Peretz to become minister of defense in the government of Ehud Olmert (a Likud renegade, who replaced Sharon after his brain hemorrhage). Peretz comes from Sderot close to Gaza, and a marginal social background Labor had never been able to penetrate. He speaks for the working and middle classes, was a member of Peace Now (the pacifist organization), and embodied hope in social-democratic renewal. Immigrants from North Africa and their children, long fascinated by the great figures of the nationalist right from Menahem Begin to Sharon, could relate to him.

After prime minister Olmert refused to give him the post of finance minister, key to developing a more left wing economic policy, Peretz accepted the defense portfolio. A few weeks later the war in Lebanon swept him from office. He was replaced by Barak, who had become a wealthy businessman and was more at home attending receptions in the suburbs of Tel Aviv than being in the poor quarters of the south of the city, or in the provinces.

There are some positive indications from Labor 2009 defeat. Whether it be the defeat of Barak -- a soldier made wealthy after a “victory” in Gaza many Israelis are ashamed of -- or the success of Kadima, a political grouping led by a woman, Tzipi Livni (who defeated her bitter rival, the former general Shaul Mofaz), there are signs of maturity in the electorate. It is no longer always alpha males who emerge triumphant from political battle.

A problem remains that affects social-democratic parties across Europe: the lack of a leadership with vision. The absence of ideas and statesmen on the left does not suggest a bright future. The problem may not only affect Israelis, but their case is more urgent.

In Xinjiang, Chinese are bulldozing away a culture

After outbreaks of ethnic violence between Han Chinese and minority Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang, China, in July, globetrotting East Village conflict photographer Q. Sakamaki visited the province — China’s westernmost — in August. Uighurs are a Turkic Muslim ethnic group. Xinjiang means “new frontier” in Mandarin, and the government has encouraged mass migration into the area. China is “modernizing” Xinjiang, demolishing mud-brick structures in ancient Silk Road cities, like Kashgar and Khotan, and rebuilding with high-rises, in the name of security and earthquake protection. But Sakamaki fears a culture is being obliterated.

Abu Dhabi to spend $1000000000000

Written by Adam Gonn

Just days after hosting its first Formula 1 race, Abu Dhabi announced plans to spend $1 trillion on infrastructure projects in the Emirate.

Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, is set to invest $1 trillion on various infrastructure projects in the city.

The emirate, the world’s forth largest oil producer with some 10 percent of the worlds proven oil reserves, announced plans Monday to boost its infrastructure by building new power plants, a light rail network, new roads and housing.

The $1 trillion sum represents approximately 17 percent of the national budget and, as a small comparison, could buy 833 of the newly commissioned USS New York warships or run the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority for 90 years.

“Its huge,” Yadullah Ijtehadi, Managing Editor of ABQ Zawya business news site, told The Media Line. “Abu Dhabi is now one of the few oasis’s of opportunity in a world where opportunities are hard to come by at the moment.”

“I think they have been lacking behind in their infrastructure,” Ijtehadi said. “If you look at Abu Dhabi’s real estate market, there is a desperate shortage of housing, which is not the case in Dubai.”

“Obviously they [Abu Dhabi] want to show that they are a powerhouse,” Ijtehadi added, “which is why they have gotten into such high profile assets such as buying [English soccer club] Manchester City and hosting Formula 1.”

Over the weekend Abu Dhabi hosted the final race in this year’s Formula 1 season in the newly built Yas Marina circuit, built over three years at an estimated cost of $40 billion.

“Its part of a package announcing to the world yes we are here, we are far more sound than Dubai and we are ready to spend some money,” Ijtehadi said.

The two Emirates, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, are often seen as competitors for a place in the global spotlight. Both regions started out as nothing more than villages. Since oil was discovered by the British in the 1960, the path that each emirate has taken has been very different.

While Dubai, with its smaller oil reserve, was the first emirate in the region to diversify its economy away from oil by investing in tourism, finance and real estate, Abu Dhabi, with its much larger oil reserves and a more religious population, did not set off until more recently.

One example was the establishment of an airline. Emirates Airlines, based in Dubai, was founded in 1985 while Ethiad Airways, based in Abu Dhabi, only was setup in 2004.

Source: The Media Line.
Link: http://www.themedialine.org/news/news_detail.asp?NewsID=26982.

Palestinian rivals cooperate for Gaza hajj trip

GAZA (Reuters)

Hundreds of Gaza Palestinians set off for Mecca on Friday for the annual hajj pilgrimage, after bitter rivals Fatah and Hamas set aside their dispute to agree on a list of 4,500 participants from the strip.

Israel also cooperated by allowing the transfer of vaccine to Gaza for the H1N1 flu virus, to protect the pilgrims from the disease, and inoculations were administered as pilgrims entered Egypt via the Rafah crossing at the southern tip of the strip.

Palestinians from Gaza were unable to perform the pilgrimage last year because of the rift between the two main Palestinian political movements. The Islamist group Hamas seized control of the impoverished coastal strip in 2007 and drove members of the secular Fatah movement out.

Despite a year of Egyptian mediation, the two groups have not managed to reconcile their differences or even agree on a schedule of steps towards that end.

But the Fatah-led administration in the West Bank and the Hamas government in Gaza have managed to agree on a list of names for submission to the Saudi authorities who run the hajj.

Sami Abdallah, 34, said he hoped Fatah-Hamas cooperation could serve as a model for healing a political split that has splintered the Palestinian national movement.

"I urge them to either end the division or leave us alone," said Abdallah, who was accompanying his mother on the pilgrimage.

Saudi TV presenters covered from head to toe

JEDDAH (Al Arabiya)

A new TV show that discusses issues concerning teenage girls and female university students was recently broadcast with Saudi presenters dressed in black from head to toe, the Saudi English-language Arab News reported on Thursday.

The show entitled Asrar al-Banat (Secrets of girls) is broadcast on Awtan TV, a Saudi religious channel that was first aired in August 2008 and has women broadcasters who are covered in the all-enveloping abaya and niqab.

There are over 60 religious satellite channels that are broadcast across the Middle East. The channels represent different extremes when it comes to women presenters.

Channels such as Iqraa and al-Resalah have women presenters who do not cover their faces and dress in different colors, not necessarily black. On the other hand, channels such as al-Majd have no women presenters. Awtan is perhaps one that toes the middle line by allowing women to appear but only when covered from head to toe, the Saudi daily said.

Sawsan Salah Eddin, a 26-year-old Saudi BA graduate in Media and Guidance, is the presenter of Asrar al-Banat.

Sawsan presents the show with her sister, Sarah, a specialist in blood diseases, and psychologist Nawal Dawood.

The newspaper quoted Sawsan, who is from Riyadh, as saying she has long been looking to work as a journalist and has previously tried writing for the print media. She, however, said that she found TV shows effective in conveying her message.

She said that Saad al-Obaid, the program's director, "presented the idea to me and I liked it. He gave me the main points and I’ve been preparing the discussions ever since,” she said.

“Basically, this is my hijab and I don’t wear it because of the channel. The channel is an Islamic one and has a rule that I appear in full hijab,” Sawsan said.

Sawsan, who is appearing on TV for the first time, said she was initially anxious. Her family has, however, been supportive, particularly since “people will not see me” and the program reaches out to young women.

Speaking about a woman who criticized her appearance on TV Sawsan questioned why would people criticize her while she is in full hijab and leave other women who appear in improper dresses on various channels.

Asrar Al-Banat, which discusses different issues relating to teenage girls, is aired weekly and receives live phone calls from viewers.

Source: al-Arabiya.
Link: http://www.alarabiya.net//articles/2009/11/05/90364.html.

Muslim cleric slams US envoy for anti-Islam plot

Wednesday, 04 November 2009

SARAJEVO (AFP)

Bosnia's Islamic leader on Wednesday accused a senior U.S. diplomat in the country of being behind a report carried in the local media that alleged Bosnia's top Muslim officials were linked in a criminal network.

"Now we know who is behind a project to satanize everything Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim)," the Dnevni Avaz daily quoted Mustafa Ceric as saying. Bosnia's top Islamic cleric was referring to Raffi Gregorian, the U.S. deputy to the top international envoy to Bosnia, Valentin Inzko.

Earlier this week, the Dnevni Avaz and the weekly magazine Global published excerpts of the report and a criminal network diagram, allegedly prepared under Gregorian's supervision that featured a number of top Bosnian Muslim political, religious and business leaders.

Ceric and Fahrudin Radoncic, the owner of the country's largest newspaper publisher Avaz, were shown at the center of the criminal network, which also included the Muslim member of Bosnia's tripartite presidency Haris Silajdzic and the leader of the Muslim main Party of Democratic Action (SDA), Sulejman Tihic.

Both the Dnevni Avaz and the Global are published by Radoncic's company.

According to the newspapers, the report said that the officials shown in the diagram drew "their influence and motivation from their political power, accumulation of wealth, support to criminals and also by strengthening and extending the influence of Islam in the region and globally."

Ceric said the published documents resembled the "(Nazi Germany's) final solution for Jews in Europe."

Source: Al-Arabiya.
Link: http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2009/11/04/90224.html.

Embattled UN rethinking Afghan-Pakistan role

By DEB RIECHMANN and SEBASTIAN ABBOT, Associated Press Writers

KABUL – The United Nations is sending about 600 foreign staff out of the country or into secure compounds because of the deadly Taliban attack on U.N. workers, warning the Afghan government Thursday that international support will wane unless it cracks down on corruption fueling the insurgency.

The decision follows a drawdown of U.N. operations in Pakistan, casting doubt on whether the world body can operate effectively in this region with war raging on both sides of the border. The moves come as the Obama administration nears a decision on whether to send tens of thousands more U.S. troops to Afghanistan to try to curb the growth of the Taliban.

The U.N. insists the staff relocations — which affect more than half the organization's foreign staff in Afghanistan and a modest number in Pakistan — are temporary.

Norwegian diplomat Kai Eide, the top U.N. official in Afghanistan, told reporters that "we are not talking about evacuation" — language similar to that used by U.N. spokesmen in 2003 when the world body announced a "temporary relocation" from Iraq after bombings against U.N. facilities. The drawdown lasted for years.

Nevertheless, insurgents can claim a psychological victory. Hampering the international community's ability to carry out aid and development work makes it much harder to win the hearts and minds of the people, a key ingredient for success on the battlefield.

Reviving local economies and improving the effectiveness of local administrations are integral parts of U.S. counterinsurgency strategy.

Earlier this week, the U.N. announced it was pulling some expatriate staff from Pakistan after a deadly attack in the capital, Islamabad. It also suspended long-term development work in such fields as health, education, agriculture and the environment in key areas of the lawless border area with Afghanistan.

The Phase IV threat level the U.N. assigned to Pakistan's semiautonomous tribal region and North West Frontier Province is only one level below full evacuation. The U.N. said the distribution of food would continue through non-governmental organizations.

In Afghanistan, the U.N. mission is still reeling from the pre-dawn assault Oct. 28 on a guest house in Kabul where dozens of U.N. staffers lived. Gunmen wearing suicide vests stormed inside, killing five U.N. workers and three Afghans. The three assailants also died.

The Taliban said they attacked the guest house because the U.N. was working on the Afghan election, which they viewed as a Western plot.

"It's been a few very difficult, dramatic days for us as U.N. family," said Eide, who visited the charred remains of the house where a blue U.N. flak jacket lay covered in ashes. "We have to get over it. We will, of course, continue our work here as we have promised."

About 600 of the 1,100 international staff will be moved for three to four weeks to more secure locations both within and outside of Afghanistan while the world body works to find safer permanent housing, U.N. spokesman Aleem Siddique said.

Only a minority of those 600 will be temporarily relocated outside Afghanistan, U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said in New York.

Eide said a number of options were being considered for those who leave Afghanistan, including Dubai — a frequent destination for U.N. staff on rest breaks.

Although Eide insisted the U.N. was not abandoning Afghanistan, he made clear that the U.N. is concerned about the deteriorating situation in the country and the failure of President Hamid Karzai's government to stamp out corruption.

"There is a belief among some that the international commitment to Afghanistan will continue whatever happens because of the strategic importance of Afghanistan," Eide told reporters. "I would like to emphasize that that is not correct. It is the public opinion in donor countries and in troop-contributing countries that decides on the strength of that commitment."

In Britain, public calls for a pullout of troops have intensified since an Afghan policeman shot and killed five British soldiers Tuesday. Britain is the largest contributor to NATO forces in Afghanistan after the United States, and its continued presence here is vital to Obama's strategy.

Security in Pakistan is another key part of U.S. strategy in the region, partly because Taliban militants and their al-Qaida allies use the Pakistani side of the porous border as a base from which to plan attacks in both countries.

A surge of violence across Pakistan over the past month has killed more than 300 people, including 11 U.N. workers, and threatened to destabilize the nuclear-armed nation. In one particularly jarring attack, a suicide bomber struck the World Food Program's headquarters in the heart of the capital.

The rise in attacks is believed to be partly a retaliation for an ongoing Pakistani ground offensive launched last month against the Taliban in South Waziristan, part of the tribal area.

"We have revved up security all over the world, but the risks are increasing because right now the United Nations is increasingly a target," Montas said.

About 80 percent of the U.N. staff in Afghanistan are Afghans and will continue to work as usual, U.N. officials said.

The relocation order was the latest blow to the troubled U.N. mission, which had been overseeing the fraud-marred Afghan presidential election, which ended this week when the lone remaining challenger to Karzai dropped out and a runoff planned for Saturday was called off. The challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, said he could not be assured that the vote would be fair.

The top-ranking American in the U.N. mission here, Peter Galbraith, was fired in September after claiming Eide was not bullish enough in preventing fraud in the first-round presidential vote the month before.

Nevertheless, Eide lectured Karzai on Thursday on corruption and fraud.

"We can't afford any longer a situation where warlords and power brokers play their own games," Eide said. "We have to have a political landscape here that draws the country in the same direction, which is in the direction of significant reform."

Defending Karzai, presidential spokesman Humayun Hamidzada called the Afghan leader a "unifying figure" who has brought together Afghans from all walks of life. He said the government and the international community must cooperate "to fight corruption in all its forms whether it's in the Afghan bureaucracy or in the award of international contracts."

Bar Funds for China-Backed Wind Farm, Senator Says

Kim Chipman and John Duce

Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) -- The Obama administration should bar a $1.5 billion wind-farm project in Texas from receiving U.S. government stimulus funds because most of the power turbines would be made in China, Senator Charles Schumer said.

“The idea that stimulus funds would be used to create jobs overseas is quite troubling,” Schumer, a New York Democrat, wrote in a draft of a letter he said yesterday he would send to U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu. “I urge you to reject any request for stimulus money unless the high-value components, including the wind turbines, are manufactured in the United States.”

U.S. Renewable Energy Group, a private-equity firm based in Washington, and Cielo Wind Power LP, a closely held company in Austin, Texas, said last week they formed a joint venture with China’s Shenyang Power Group to build the 600-megawatt wind farm. The 36,000 acre-project marks the largest Chinese-American investment in U.S. renewable energy, the companies said.

A-Power Energy Generation Systems Ltd. of China, Shenyang’s largest shareholder, is set to supply turbines for the farm, the companies said. Calls made to A-Power’s offices in Beijing and Shenyang went unanswered today.

“The complaints about Chinese renewable energy equipment being used in the United States are a little odd,” said Dennis Lam, an analyst at DBS Vickers Hong Kong Ltd. “Many of the solar panels used in the States are already made by Chinese companies like Suntech Power.”

Chinese companies are also supplying parts for wind turbines to companies like General Electric Co, Lam said. “These kinds of distinctions about the origin of equipment are increasingly irrelevant.”

‘Furious’ About Aid

Democratic senator Schumer said he was “furious” when he learned that $450 million in U.S. economic recovery aid may be used to help build the wind farm and create as many as 3,000 jobs, mostly in China.

“I don’t care if the Chinese invest here and create jobs here: It’s where the jobs are that I care about,” Schumer told reporters yesterday in Washington. “I think if you told the other 99 senators about this the vast majority would agree with me.”

“China and the U.S. enhancing cooperation on clean energy serves the common interests of the two countries and welfare of their peoples, which is also significant for commonly tackling the challenges posed by climate change,” said Wang Baodong, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington. “We hope that people in question will do more to help facilitate the joint effort instead of complicating the situation.”

Renewable Energy

Cielo President Walt Hornaday said the project will boost hiring in the energy industry and benefit people in Texas. He also said international joint ventures are “essential to the development of low-cost renewable energy” in the U.S. and that the project can’t happen without help from the U.S. economic stimulus package.

“Without this incentive, wind projects will wait in the sidelines for energy prices to come back to the levels we saw a few years ago,” Hornaday said in a statement. “This could be next year or this could be next decade.”

The Texas venture will be funded by Chinese banks as well as take advantage of financing through the U.S.’s $787 billion economic stimulus law, Cappy McGarr, managing partner of U.S. Renewable Energy Group, said at a news conference in Washington last week.

Spokesmen for U.S. Renewable Energy Group weren’t available to comment.

Tax Credit

An Energy Department spokeswoman, Stephanie Mueller, said any application for the Texas project to benefit from a tax credit program under the stimulus would have to be “evaluated by the Energy and Treasury departments to determine eligibility.”

“But no application has been received to date,” she said in a statement.

President Barack Obama is preparing to meet later this month with Chinese President Hu Jintao. Energy will be a top issue as both countries say they want to bolster cooperation on clean-energy technology and help clear the way for a new global treaty to fight climate change.

The countries remain at odds over how far developed and developing nations should go in attempts to curb greenhouse-gas emissions blamed for global warming. Legislation to curb carbon emissions has passed the U.S. House and is being debated in the Senate.

Climate Bill

Democratic senators including Sherrod Brown of Ohio sent a letter to Obama in August saying it would be “extremely difficult” to support a climate bill that doesn’t include a tariff on products from countries such as China that don’t impose limits on global warming pollution.

Schumer said he would pursue legislation if necessary to prevent stimulus funds from being used for the Texas project, though he said he’s “hopeful” the Obama administration will “change the policy.”

He said it was “counterproductive” for the U.S. to invest federal funds in Chinese companies. Energy Secretary Chu and other administration officials have said the U.S. is in danger of falling behind China in a competition to dominate the global market for clean-energy technology.

China’s Head Start

“China is fast emerging as one of our main rivals in the race to build the technology that can help us achieve energy independence,” Schumer said yesterday in a statement. “We should not be giving China a head start in this race at our own country’s expense.”

The Obama administration has not been tough enough in negotiations with China on a wide range of issues, including trade, according to Schumer. “They don’t play fair,” he said yesterday, referring to China.

“One of the many reasons we had the financial collapse that we had is because China manipulated its currency,” Schumer said. He said the U.S. should be “a lot tougher” on China.

The Alliance for American Manufacturing, a Washington-based coalition of steel companies and the United Steelworkers union, also have criticized the wind energy project.

“Why aren’t American firms building this clean-energy project?” the group asked in a Nov. 2 statement.

PDP protests pre-paid mobile phone ban in Jammu and Kashmir

Srinagar, Nov 6 : The main Opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) today took to streets to protest the ban on pre-paid mobile phone services in Jammu and Kashmir, saying the decision cast a shadow of doubt on the entire population of the state.

PDP leaders and supporters, led by President Mehbooba Mufti, took to streets after failing to get any positive response from the Center.

Raising slogans against the decision, the processionists marched through different streets from PDP headquarters to the historic Lal Chowk.

The march remained peaceful and the processionists dispersed later.

Ruling National Conference (NC) patron and Union Minister Farooq Abdullah and other mainstream parties have also criticized the ban on the services in the state.

Talking to newspersons, the PDP chief termed the decision ''anti-people''.

Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, who announced the ban on the pre-paid mobile services in the state, said there were reports that it was being misused by the militants.

He had directed all mobile service providers to withdraw the pre-paid facilities and not to extend any validity of any prepaid mobile connection after October 31.

Interestingly, all the mobile service providers extended the validity of all their products till January last week, irrespective their actual date of expiry.

Dr Abdullah had time and again announced that the ban was temporary.

PDP patron and former Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed said the decision to ban pre-paid mobile phone facility had not only serious socio economic implications but was an assault on the dignity and self respect of the people of the state.

He said shutting off pre-paid mobile facility to the state reflected a mindset that his party was struggling to change.

Source: New Kerala.
Link: http://www.newkerala.com/nkfullnews-1-145566.html.

Armenia increases number of peacekeepers in Kosovo

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Strengthening cooperation with NATO, Armenia will consolidate positions in the region, said Eduard Sharmazanov, spokesman for the ruling Republican Party of Armenia.

He refuted the hearsay that Armenian peacekeepers are under Turkish command in Afghanistan. “We are collaborating with NATO but not with Turkey. Armenian peacekeepers are located in northern Afghanistan within a German unit,” he said.

Sharmazanov also informed that Armenia increased number of peacekeepers in Kosovo.

Syria warns UN credibility at stake

Syria said here Wednesday that with Israel's continued refusal to comply with United Nations resolutions, as well as recommendations from the report by UN fact-finding missions on Gaza conflict, puts the "credibility of the UN at stake."

Syrian UN Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari, on the behalf of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), made these remarks in a plenary General Assembly session here to consider a Goldstone report, which accused both Israel and Hamas militants of war crimes during the 22-day Gaza conflict which broke out on Dec. 27,2008.

"The UN disability to bring Israel under the umbrella of the international law has, unfortunately harmed the image of the UN in our Islamic world," Ja'afari said. "The humanitarian and human rights situation is turning worse for the Palestinian people living under illegitimate occupation."

Strongly condemning Israeli violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, Ja'afari expressed the OIC's concerns about the "grave situation in the Occupied Palestinian territory" in the midst of the "continuing inhumane Israeli blockade," which has caused a humanitarian crisis along the Gaza Strip.

Ja'afari called on the UN Security Council to fulfill its responsibilities and "take all necessary actions to bring the Israeli perpetrators of these war crimes to justice and put an end to the Israeli mindset in humanity."

"The Goldstone Report has authenticated and confirmed these violations with evidence," he said. "Most importantly, the report confirmed international community's worst fears of committing war crime and crimes against humanity."

Ja'afari reiterated Syria's call for the international community, specifically the Security Council, in addressing the crisis and to "lend crucial support towards the resumption and early conclusion of a credible, sustained and result-oriented peace process to the satisfaction of the Palestinian people."

After the debate, the GA will put to vote a draft resolution, which would call upon both Israel and Palestine to conduct "independent and credible" probes into the alleged war crimes.

Israel has rejected the Goldstone report on the ground that it is "biased" and "one-sided."

A four-member investigative team, led by Richard Goldstone from South Africa, found evidence that both Israeli forces and Palestinian militants committed serious war crimes and breaches of humanitarian law, which may amount to crimes against humanity, during the conflict.

The Geneva-based Human Rights Council, when it took up the report two weeks ago, had strongly condemned a host of Israeli measures in the occupied Palestinian territory and called on both sides to implement the mission's recommendations.

Russia's Chechnya to pay for pilgrims haj trip

MOSCOW, Nov 5 (Reuters) - Russia's mostly Muslim, volatile Chechnya region will pay for hundreds of pilgrims to go to Mecca for this year's haj, its leader's spokesman said on Thursday.

The free haj trip, ordered by regional president Ramzan Kadyrov, follows prizes for newborns named after the Prophet Mohammad, periodic alcohol bans and requiring women wear headscarves in government offices.

Some analysts say that Kadyrov is using religion to provide an outlet for people as desperation mounts in the face of Islamist violence in the North Caucasus.

A series of armed attacks and suicide bombs on law enforcement in Chechnya, where Moscow has fought two separatist wars, and neighboring Ingushetia and Dagestan has shattered a few years of relative calm across Russia's southern fringe.

"It's for those who do not have the means to go otherwise, and for the single and the young," Kadyrov's spokesman Alvi Karimov said by telephone.

Last week the president, an ex-rebel turned Kremlin loyalist, opened a competition for architects to build "the world's most beautiful mosque" in Chechnya, he said on his official website.

Four hundred Chechen pilgrims will fly from the regional capital Grozny direct to Saudi Arabia and will be flown back after they have performed the haj over several days, Karimov said.

Their journeys will be financed out of a fund Kadyrov has created in honor of his father and predecessor, Akhmad, who was assassinated in a bomb blast in 2004.

Around 3 million Muslims make the pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia most years, a journey all Muslims must carry out at least once in their lifetime.

Critic of Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov abducted in Moscow

Fears for safety of Russian human rights campaigner Arbi Khachukayev after he is flown to Chechnya

Luke Harding in Moscow

A Russian human rights group today said that gunmen loyal to Chechnya's pro-Kremlin president had abducted a human rights activist in Moscow and flown him to Chechnya.

Chechen security officials grabbed Arbi Khachukayev this afternoon and then bundled him on to a flight to Chechnya's capital, Grozny, Memorial said. Its staff were deeply concerned for his safety, it added.

Khachukayev runs a Chechen human rights organization, Law. It has exposed human rights abuses allegedly committed by forces loyal to Chechnya's Kremlin-appointed president, Ramzan Kadyrov. Last night Chechnya's interior ministry claimed that Khachukayev had been seized for taking part in an "armed assault".

"He's now back in Chechnya," a human rights worker, Svetlana Gannushinka, told the Guardian. "It's not clear whether he's a hostage or a defendant. As soon as I found out about his kidnapping I faxed the office of the interior ministry at Vnukovo airport. They didn't answer."

She added that Khachukayev had been allowed to phone his relatives.

The activist was based in Grozny but had recently fled Chechnya amid concerns for his security in the wake of the killings of other rights workers, she suggested.

A string of political rivals and human rights activists critical of Kadyrov have been murdered in recent years – including Anna Politkovskaya, the journalist, writer and campaigner who was murdered outside her Moscow flat in October 2006. Kadyrov has denied involvement in her killing, remarking: "I don't kill women."

In July, gunmen abducted Natasha Estimerova – the head of Memorial's Chechnya office – from outside her flat in Grozny. They drove her to the neighboring republic of Ingushetia and then killed her by the side of the road. Kadyrov had previously summoned Estimerova to a meeting and expressed his intense displeasure at her work.

Earlier this year a Chechen exile, Umar Israilov, who had made detailed allegations that Kadyrov had tortured him in a secret jail near Grozny was gunned down while leaving a supermarket in Vienna. Israilov had complained about Kadyrov to the European court of human rights. Another critic, Sulim Yamadayev, was killed in his Dubai garage.

Rights groups claim that Kadyrov's forces are responsible for abductions, torture, punitive house burnings and extra-judicial killings of people suspected of ties to Islamists.

Kadyrov's critics say that by backing him Moscow has encouraged a climate of impunity that encourages unchecked brutality. The Kremlin has shrugged off the criticism. It praises Kadyrov for pacifying the southern Russian region, despite overwhelming evidence that the insurgency there continues.

Libya leans towards resource nationalism

Wednesday, Nov 04, 2009

Libya has never been an easy environment for international oil companies. With its opaque political system and its own brand of socialism devised by Muammar Gaddafi, the leader for the past forty years, the country has always been something of a challenge to foreign investors lured by its huge oil reserves - the largest in Africa.

Oil companies from around the world rushed into Libya after 2004 when international sanctions were lifted and the country was finally able to open up its vast under-explored terrain. But so far new finds have been modest, and dealing with the authorities has become increasingly complicated.

In the last two years companies have been unsettled by a pronounced trend towards resource nationalism. This has included the imposition of tough conditions including the renegotiation of contracts with the likes of Eni, Petro-Canada, Repsol and Total to halve the foreign partner's share of produced oil.

The feeling of uncertainty for investors deepened even further in the last two months because of a series of dramatic developments pointing to a power struggle within ruling circles over control of the crucial oil and gas sector - the country's main source of revenue.

One such development was the announcement in October of the establishment of a new supreme energy council which is being seen as an attempt to wrest the hydrocarbons sector out of the orbit of Saif Al Islam, the reform-minded son of Colonel Gaddafi, and bring it under the influence of more conservative elements in the regime.

The council, which has been given considerable executive and regulatory powers, is to be chaired by Al-Mahmoudi al-Baghdadi, the prime minister, who is regarded as a conservative.

A seat on it has been reserved for the security agency headed by Mutassim, another of Mr Gaddafi's sons and a perceived rival to Saif who has often been mentioned as a successor to his father. Mutassim is said to be close to conservative circles and some observers believe he is a more likely future ruler than Saif.

Another worrying sign for the companies has been the resignation in September of Shokri Ghanem, the reformist head of the country's National Oil Corporation. His surprise reinstatement six weeks later has been welcomed by investors, but many question marks continue to hang over who will control the industry and how the new council will operate.

As head of NOC, Mr Ghanem was Libya's most senior oil official. A former prime minister and a close collaborator of Saif, he is widely credited with having improved the atmosphere for international companies.

Mr Ghanem never announced the reasons for his resignation though that is understood to have been linked to his frustration with aggressive resource nationalism being pushed by sections of the regime. He has also refused to comment on the circumstances surrounding his return, so it is not clear yet if that is a result of a compromise between the two sides within the power elite.

"I suppose his return is some kind of rebalancing done at a very high level in the regime," says Samuel Ciszuk, Middle East and North Africa energy analyst for HIS Global Insight. "Of course the oil companies have been very unhappy and quite vocally expressing their fears. But then again if this is a rebalancing of the powers, then we are just back to square one with the very slow-moving problematic Libyan oil industry being hampered by two factions trying to work off their differences."

Mr Ghanem is also reported to have been angered by the way Libya handled Verenex, a small Canadian exploration company which had found oil and wanted to sell itself to CNPC the Chinese state oil company.

In February Libya said it would exercise its right to pre-empt the sale, but it did not make a formal offer for six months in what was seen as a clear attempt to pressure the company to drop the price. The deal finally went through in September with the country's sovereign wealth fund, the Libyan Investment Authority, agreeing to pay $316m for Verenex - a price that is around 30 per cent less than CNPC had offered.

"I think Verenex has had a very detrimental impact [on Libya's reputation] because when it was in their interest to break a contractual agreement they did it." says Mr Ciszuk. "They misused their sovereign position. They had the right to pre-empt the sale but with that comes the commitment to match the offer."

Susan Mance, North Africa analyst at Wood Mackenzie says the Verenex affair will be seen as a warning by smaller exploration-driven companies not to go into Libya.

"Larger companies will still consider Libya an attractive destination," she says. "But it may well act as a deterrent to smaller companies. For exploration-driven companies which have no intention of going into the development phase, the Verenex experience highlights the above ground risks in business in the country."

Companies are also waiting to see if the authorities are serious about implementing a recent directive signed by the prime minister and requiring all joint ventures with foreign participation to appoint Libyan heads. Oil companies in Libya operate as a joint venture when they go into the production phase.

Much will depend on the nature of the deal which has allowed the return of Mr Ghanem and on the role the new council will play. Recent reports that Saif Al Islam is to be given his first official position suggest he is gaining ground. The exact powers of the new post have yet to be made clear, but it seems likely that conservatives and modernizers in Libya will continue to vie for influence for a long while yet.

By Heba Saleh, North Africa correspondent