Al-Darb Diya is Arabic, meaning "The Shining Avenue". DDMA is my news blog on blogspot. It started on the second of January 2009. This blog contains certain news articles that I chose to put on here. Some of my own individual news articles might appear here. Hostile, negative and spam comments would be rejected. Most of the posts are NOT written by me, and some have the link to where I got them from originally. I welcome people to ask me to post any other news they don't find on DDMA.
Beijing - China plans to move another 300,000 people to create an ecological protection belt around the Three Gorges Dam and reservoir, after relocating 1.3 million residents over the past 17 years, state media said Thursday. At least 300,000 people would need to move from areas close to the reservoir, the China Daily newspaper quoted Hu Jiahai, an official responsible for relocations in Chongqing city's Wanzhou district which administers most of the Three Gorges area, as saying.
"An eco-screen, or buffer belt, is waiting for approval to be built alongside the reservoir to improve the water quality of the Yangtze River streams and reduce the contamination from residents living nearby," Hu said.
"Additionally, more people will have to move out of the area to avoid geographic hazards, like landslides, caused by the dam that tames water levels rising or falling between 145 meters to 175 meters every year to produce electricity," he was quoted as saying.
The final number to be relocated would depends on geological assessments of the area, Hu said.
Officials responsible for the relocations would also need to address "problems from the early migration period," including employment training and the creation of new jobs, he said.
The new relocations would be part of a 10-year plan expected to be approved by the State Council, or cabinet, this year, Hu said.
The newspaper said the additional relocations were likely to cause "even more overcrowding" in the recipient areas.
The population density around the Three Gorges reservoir had already reached 338 per square kilometer, more than double the national average, it quoted a local government report as saying.
The newspaper quoted Huang Qifan, acting mayor of Chongqing, as saying his city had allocated 54 billion yuan (7.9 billion dollars) to relocate 1.1 million people, with others resettled in the neighboring province of Hubei.
A survey in 2007 found 9,324 sites were at risk of landslides and other geological hazards, forcing the relocation of an extra 53,000 people since 2001.
Work began on the Three Gorges Dam and hydroelectric power plant in 1993, with filling of the reservoir and electricity generation started in 2008.
Last year, the government said it had spent 180 billion yuan (26.5 billion dollars) on building the 185-meter dam and the reservoir, which stretches more than 600 kilometers, but critics claim the cost could be more than twice that amount.
The Three Gorges power plant will eventually have 26 generators with a combined generating capacity of 84.7 billion kilowatts of electricity annually.
Sana'a, Yemen - Yemen has stopped issuing entry visas to foreigners at airports and border crossings in a move designed to keep out "terrorist elements," a government publication said Thursday. The new measures aim to prevent suspected terrorists from entering the country, the Defense Ministry newspaper 26 September said, citing a security official source.
"All entry visas for foreigners who visit Yemen will no longer be issued at airports," the source was quoted as saying.
Instead, the visas will only be issued through Yemeni embassies abroad, following a check by security authorities "to prevent the infiltration of any terrorist elements," the source told the paper.
Yemen came under intensive pressure from the United States to crack down on al-Qaeda after a Nigerian man tried to blow up a Detroit-bound plane on December 25.
The Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, stayed in Yemen for three months, studying Arabic, before he left the country early in December.
In order to encourage more tourists to visit the country, Yemeni authorities have in the past few years been granting visas on arrival.
Geneva - Some 150 planes were landing daily at Port-au- Prince airport, the United Nations said Thursday, but warned the situation remains a "challenge."The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) noted "heavy congestion at the Port-au-Prince airport" and "finding free slots for large aircraft is still a challenge."
The planes were bringing in relief in various forms, including and food aid and medicine for survivors of the January 12 earthquake.
Because of price hikes and reported food shortages, the government of Haiti has asked the UN to conduct food distributions across the poor nation, even in areas not directly hit by the quake, which official now estimate left at least 75,000 people dead.
Half of all structures in Port-au-Prince are believed to have collapsed and a million people are estimated to be homeless.
Haiti's rainy season will start in April, and the government was pushing the UN and other aid agencies to find solutions to the lack of shelter before then, OCHA said.
Meanwhile, funding needs for the UN's humanitarian relief effort were almost a third met, after it requested some 575 million dollars for Haiti's emergency relief efforts and longer term recovery.
Beirut - A plane from Lebanon's national carrier, Middle East Airlines (MEA), arrived Thursday in Beirut from quake-stricken Haiti with 16 survivals on board, airport officials said. The plane, which delivered medical supplies to the Caribbean nation, brought back four Lebanese, 10 Syrians and two Palestinians.
According to the Lebanese foreign ministry, some 1,000 Lebanese nationals live in Haiti.
On Wednesday, the Lebanese foreign ministry was informed by its ambassador in Caracas, Charbel Wehbe, that an elderly Lebanese woman who was injured in the quake, later died.
The envoy said many shops and businesses owned by Lebanese were destroyed and looted.
Lebanon sent a delegation earlier this week with tents and medical supplies for the victims of the January 12 earthquake.
Rome - A United Nations agency warned on Thursday that urgent assistance must be given to food production on Haiti, given high the number of refugees from last week's earthquake. Haitian farmers must be given immediate support before the spring planting season begins in March, according to the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Haiti's consumption of cereals is estimated at around one million tons, of which about 63 per cent are imported, FAO said.
"The priority is to supply them (Haiti's farmers) with seeds, fertilizers, livestock feed and animal vaccines as well as agricultural tools," FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf said.
"It is urgent that we do this in the light of thousands of people fleeing the devastated capital Port-au-Prince for the rural areas and food prices rising," he added.
The refugees will need to be provided with the necessary means to survive and be provided with an income generating activity, stemming from agriculture, Diouf said.
An estimated 53 per cent of Haiti's population live in rural areas and 47 per cent are urban.
The spring planting season, that lasts until May, accounts for 60 per cent of Haiti's national agricultural production. With vital agricultural infrastructure such as storage facilities and irrigation canals damaged, Haitian farmers will need all the help they can get for the upcoming season, FAO said.
FAO currently has 49 million dollars worth of programs to increase food production in Haiti made possible by a variety of donors including the European Union, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the World Bank, France, Canada, Spain, Austria, Brazil and Belgium.
The programs include the multiplication and distribution of suitable high quality seeds and seedlings that poor farmers can rely on as well as the distribution of fertilizers and tools.
Government and FAO programs in Haiti last year helped boost national agricultural production by 15 percent and brought down the number of malnourished Haitians.
However, last week's devastating earthquake in which tens of thousands of people are feared to have been killed threatens to reverse these achievements, according to FAO.
The UN agency noted how food prices are rising in Port-au-Prince and elsewhere because of food and fuel shortages, damage to the supply chain, warehouses and the city's port.
FAO said it is deploying experts for an assessment of the impact on the agricultural sector and damage to infrastructure in the earthquake zone.
Manila - A Malaysia-led team of international ceasefire monitors are to return to the troubled southern Philippines within a few months, a Philippine official said Thursday. The 60-strong International Monitoring Team pulled out of the southern region of Mindanao in 2008 because of lack of progress in peace talks between the Philippine government and the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
Philippine Foreign Undersecretary Rafael Seguis, who is also the government's chief peace negotiator with the MILF, said Malaysia has agreed to resume its role as head of the team.
Malaysia is also brokering the peace talks between the Philippines and the MILF.
Seguis said the monitoring team - which also includes Japan, Brunei and Libya - would have a one-year renewable mandate.
Diplomatic sources said the full team was expected to be on the ground by April.
Seguis said the European Union, Norway, Indonesia and Qatar have been invited to become new members of the team but have not yet responded to the invitation.
On December 9, the Philippine government and the MILF resumed formal peace talks in Kuala Lumpur and agreed to reconstitute the monitoring team, which has been credited with reducing fighting between government forces and the MILF since it was first deployed in 2004.
Peace talks between the Philippines and the MILF were suspended in August 2008 when guerrillas seized villages and attacked towns to protest the quashing of a key territorial agreement.
More than 300 people were killed in the attacks and subsequent clashes between the two sides while more than 500,000 fled their homes.
The 12,000-strong MILF is the largest Muslim rebel group fighting for an independent Islamic state in the southern Philippines. It entered into peace talks with the government in 1997.
Valladolid, Spain - Rescuers in Haiti have retrieved a body which has been provisionally identified as that of a Spanish EU diplomat, her family said Thursday. There was no official confirmation yet that the body was that of Pilar Juarez, who belonged to the EU delegation in Haiti.
Juarez, 53, was at a meeting in a United Nations building when it collapsed in Port-au-Prince.
Another body was earlier erroneously identified as being hers.
Juarez would be the fourth Spanish fatality in the earthquake. The others included a married couple and a police officer who worked for the United Nations mission in Haiti.
New York - The New York Times is to start charging readers of its online site once they read a certain number of free articles, the newspaper announced Wednesday. The statement did not detail how much it would charge or how many articles readers would be able to access for free, but said that the new pricing plan would be introduced in early 2011.
Widely regarded as the leading US newspaper, The New York Times had been grappling for years with how to maintain profitability as readers moved from its print version to the web, where advertising rates are much lower and people are accustomed to accessing content for free.
The paper said that readers will be asked to pay a flat fee for unlimited access after reading a certain number of articles for free. Subscribers to the newspaper's print edition will receive full access to the site.
"This announcement allows us to begin the thought process that's going to answer so many of the questions that we all care about," Arthur Sulzberger Jr, the company chairman and publisher of the newspaper, said. "We can't get this halfway right or three-quarters of the way right. We have to get this really, really right."
Currently The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times are the only major newspapers to charge for web access. Changes introduced by the Times are certain to be closely watched by other media companies, which have been scared of charging for access for fear of driving away readers.
"This is a bet, to a certain degree, on where we think the Web is going," Sulzberger said. "This is not going to be something that is going to change the financial dynamics overnight."
Bogota - Colombian and French aid workers rescued a 22-day- old baby-girl, after she spent a week in the rubble of the devastating quake in Haiti, the Bogota Fire Department said Wednesday. Fire Department spokesman William Tovar told Colombian radio that the baby was rescued Tuesday in the city of Jacmel, on Haiti's southern coast, in a neighborhood where at least 600 homes were destroyed.
Tovar, who leads Colombian rescue efforts in Haiti, said the girl's mother directed them to her home after she had managed to escape without her child.
A beam prevented the crib from being crushed by the collapsed roof.
"It's a miracle of good fortune," Tovar said. "The girl was in a broad space, though very dehydrated."
The Colombian government announced Sunday the return of their rescue workers in Haiti, on the grounds that there was not much they could do in the Caribbean country. However, they later decided to keep the teams in Haiti a bit longer.
Jeruslem - Israel granted university status to a college in its northern West Bank settlement of Ariel, Israeli television reported Wednesday. Defense Minister Ehud Barak, of the left-to-center coalition Labor Party, authorized the move, which had been held up for the past five years, Channel 10 reported.
Ariel is the largest settlement in the northern West Bank, located in the heart of the occupied territory.
Various Israeli governments have said they regard it as one of the large settlement blocks Israel should keep as part of a final peace deal with the Palestinians. If Ariel were to be incorporated within Israel's final borders, however, this would mean cutting deep into the northern West Bank.
The college in the settlement city had already unofficially been calling itself a university, by naming itself the Ariel University Center of Samaria. Founded in 1982 and with nearly 11,000 students, it is the largest Israeli academic institution beyond the "green line" separating Israel from the West Bank.
Samaria is the Jewish Biblical name Israel uses for the northern West Bank.
Dovish Israeli lawmakers slammed the Defense Ministry's decision to grant official university status to the institution, with Haim Oron of the left-liberal Meretz party saying it amounted to "moral and ideological bankruptcy" which would step up calls in the international community for boycotting Israeli academics.
New York (Earth Times) - A Canadian-led study released Wednesday sharply contested claims by a relief organization that conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo since 1998 have killed an estimated 5.4 million people. The study argued that conflict-related deaths, from violent acts to diseases, have dramatically declined in the past decade due to the advance in effective healthcare services and quick humanitarian intervention to people affected by the fighting.
The Shrinking Costs of War took issue with the International Rescue Committee (IRC) estimates that conflict-related deaths in Congo from 1998 to 2007 stood at 5.4 million.
Although the Canadian researchers did not give its own estimated total number of deaths, it cited two cases in which they corrected IRC death estimates downward: In one case, the death figure dropped from 1.6 million to 680,000 - or a 60-per-cent decline; in the second case, the death figure dropped from 2.8 million to less than 900,000.
The Shrinking Costs of War study also challenged high death figures in the conflicts in Iraq and Sudan's Darfur region, but the study did not give details of those figures.
"The decline in peacetime mortality has been dramatic," the study said. "Under five mortality - for which we have the best data - has fallen worldwide by some 60 per cent since 1960."
The study said the IRC estimate of child mortality during the period was double that of the Demographic and Health Survey. The study said IRC's two initial surveys on war casualties used samples of population that did not represent a larger population of war-affected areas.
IRC, which carried out a total of five surveys on war fatalities in Congo, had made methodological errors that led to a "large and unwarranted increases of the excess death estimates" and had relied on low pre-war mortality rates, which distorted the results "very substantially," the Canadian study said.
It attributed the decline in deaths to the worldwide campaign of low-cost, but highly effective lifesaving health intervention like immunization against deadly diseases that once killed tens of millions of children in developing countries.
"As immunization coverage goes up, child mortality rates in war zones go down," the study said.
The study was a project of the School for International Studies at Frazer University, British Columbia, and funded by Britain, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. It is part of the Canadian government's annual Human Security Report that will be issued at a later date.
In the case of Congo, the study said immunization against measles was given to 80 per cent of the population in need in 2007, up from 20 per cent in 1998, the year the war started.
The Shrinking Costs of War study said the most important factor in the decline of wartime mortality is the changing nature of warfare - from the involvement of huge, heavy conventional weapons during the Cold War era to the "low intensity insurgencies" in recent decades.
"The average war in the new millennium generates 90 per cent fewer battle deaths than did the average war in the 1950s," the study said.
Jerusalem - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that even after the establishment of a Palestinian state, Israel should keep a military presence in the eastern West Bank, along the border with Jordan. The was necessary to prevent weapons smuggling into the prospective, demilitarized Palestinian state, he told foreign reporters at an annual reception in Jerusalem.
Netanyahu spoke as US President Barack Obama's envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, was due to start a new round of talks in Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah Thursday and Friday, part of the ongoing US bid to revive long-stalled peace negotiations.
Israel, said the premier, could not afford a "replica" in the West Bank of the Gaza Strip, from where Palestinian militants have fired missiles into Israeli territory following its 2005 unilateral pullout from the coastal enclave.
Israel has to ensure a way to stop rockets from entering the territory bordering it and "this will require an Israeli presence on the eastern side of a prospective Palestinian state," said the premier of the mainstream hardline Likud party.
Netanyahu blamed the Palestinians for the current impasse in the peace process. Israeli-Palestinian negotiations were broken off ahead of Israel's February 2009 elections, which saw the nationalist Likud party grab power from the centrist Kadima party.
"We want to move forward," Netanyahu said, "but the Palestinians have placed preconditions which did not exist in the 16 years since Oslo."
"They have climbed higher in the tree. They like it up there. They are piling demand upon demand," he charged, adding: "They should be told: 'get serious and negotiate'."
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has demanded a freeze of all Israeli construction in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem before he would sit down at the negotiating table with the Netanyahu government.
Netanyahu in late November announced a 10-month construction moratorium in West Bank settlements, but refused to halt building in Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem built on occupied land, beyond the "green line" separating Israel from the West Bank.
"Israel draws a clear between Jerusalem and settlements," he reiterated Wednesday.
New York - The logistical nightmare encountered by relief groups and the United Nations after the earthquake struck a week ago has begun to ease off in Haiti, the top UN humanitarian coordinator said Wednesday. John Holmes said the Port-au-Prince international airport, which is under US control, is working "increasingly well" with relief flights given landing rights at designated slots on the tarmac.
The government of Haiti has released more fuel, and the much needed commodity was coming through the Dominican Republic, which has become a staging area for unloading humanitarian supplies and equipment provided by the international community before they are being trucked to Haiti.
The UN said the main road from Santo Domingo and Port-au-Prince serves as the corridor for transporting humanitarian assistance to the Haitians. But the traffic is slow and congested by the number of vehicles, which also transport Haitians and other people wanting to leave Haiti.
The Dominican Republic has agreed to provide 800 military troops to patrol the road to Port-au-Prince, but apparently their presence was objected to by Haitian authorities.
Holmes admitted there was some "sensitivity" in the issue of Dominican military in Haiti.
Food rations are being distributed to up to half a million Haitians by the World Food Program, Holmes said.
The cooperation between the UN and the United States, both at headquarters and in the field, is "going well" while the troops from the UN Stabilization Mission Haiti (MINUSTAH) have begun escorting food convoys in quake-affected areas, he said.
Some 3 million Haitians are affected by the magnitude-7 earthquake that struck a week ago, 2 million of them will be relying on food aid for the next six months.
"It's a long way to go, but that effort (of feeding people) is being ramped up with increasing speed and scale," Holmes said.
He said with the cooperation and coordination among organizations and countries providing assistance to Haiti, the logistical problems have begun to turn the corner.
Holmes was seeking 550 million dollars last week to meet humanitarian demands in Haiti and he said up to 30 per cent of the requests have been met. In addition, both official and private sector's donations were also pouring into the Caribbean nation, the poorest in the western hemisphere.
UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said Wednesday the death toll of UN personnel in Haiti stood at 49 killed and more than 300 of them are still unaccounted for, down from 500 on Monday.
Nesirky said the number of unaccounted is expected to drop as the telephone network improves on a daily basis, which would permit the UN to check the whereabouts of its employees, particularly Haitians.
The UN said international search and rescue teams have been able to pull a total of 121 people from the rubble in the past week, a feat described by Holmes as "extraordinary."
Holmes said the 121 survivors were helped by foreign teams, but there have been more people saved by the Haitians themselves.
The UN Development Program (UNDP) said about 1,100 Haitians will be on UN payroll by week's end as part of the cash-for-work program launched to jump start Haiti's local economy.
Those Haitians will be paid 5 dollars a day for work that includes the delivery of urgently needed humanitarian aid, digging for survivors, doing street repairs and electrical work.
"Time is of the essence in getting early recovery after a major disaster," said UNDP administrator Helen Clark in New York, who just returned from Haiti.
"We need donor support to help get people back to work without delay," she said. "This will accelerate early recovery and prepare for the longer term rebuilding when it takes place."
UNDP has appealed for 35.6 million dollars for its initiatives to help Haitians recover from the earthquake, which is a part of the overall 550 million dollars being sought by the UN for Haiti.
Managua - Nicaraguan aid workers rescued two young students under the rubble of Port-au-Prince University, the head of the team, General Mario Perez-Cassar, told Nicaraguan television Wednesday. General Perez-Cassar, who is also the head of Nicaragua's Civil Defense body, said the two women, aged 19 and 21, were rescued on Tuesday from the basement of a university building that collapsed in last week's devastating quake.
"For us it was a huge satisfaction, because we thought we could no longer find anyone else alive," he said.
The Nicaraguan brigade, a team of 41 people including 16 doctors, has rescued a total of six survivors in Haiti, he noted.
Of the quake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale that shook Haiti Wednesday, General Perez-Cassar said "it was extremely strong and caused reactions of collective hysteria" among thousands of Haitians left homeless by last week's quake.
He said the authorities have asked people to sleep outdoors or in tents, because there may be further aftershocks.
New York - Filippo Grandi was appointed head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees in the Middle East on Wednesday and Margot Ellis his deputy. Grandi of Italy replaced Karen AbuZayd, a US citizen, as commissioner of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Grandi was promoted to the top position after serving as AbyZayd's deputy in past years.
Ellis worked for USAID for 21 years in Africa and the Middle East before her appointment to join UNRWA, which is responsible for the tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees.
At least 10 Afghan civilians, most of them schoolchildren, have been killed by US Special Forces operations on Saturday 26th December 2009. Eight schoolchildren and two elders were shot in their faces while laying in their beds inside their guestroom in Nawrang District of Kunar Province, Afghanistan. Afghanistan’s presidential palace condemned the incident by a few pity words and as ever has announced to dispatch an inquiry team to the area.
Since the invasion of Afghanistan by the Kafir colonialist America and its crusader allies, Muslims of Afghanistan have lost thousands of its innocent civilians including children, women and elders, under the guise of the so called war on terror. The puppet regime of Karzai failed to stop the series of these brutalities and mass murder of the Muslims of Afghanistan, rather it has always supported these murderers by sending investigative teams, setting up futile committees or sending a few words of condemnation.
The assigning of investigative teams is just to calm down the emotions of the Muslims and to avoid any awakening of the Muslims against these ruthless crusaders and enemy of Muslims and Islam. Besides, we have seen countless such investigative teams but no report has ever been brought forth and are just a meaningless practice.
Indeed Khilafah is the sole defender of Muslims. Therefore, let’s not put hope in these traitors and puppets of the Kuffar to defend us, rather work for Khilafah’s revival which will mobilize the Muslims army to protect the blood, honor, dignity, wealth and land of Muslims.
Recently, the U.S. think tank, International Assessment and Strategy Center, published an article about the Chinese J-10 fighter. The article claimed that the J-10 fighter is about to enter the international market after 2010, while its price tag of 40 million U.S. dollars is half of its U.S. counterpart, the F-16 fighter.
According to the article, the J-10 fighter is going to sell on the international weapons market around 2010 after extensive R&D and equipping of the Chinese Air Force is complete. It is understood that the Chinese Air Force started developing J-10 back in the 1960s, and it has been fully equipped for the last five years.
The progress that China has made in developing the engine makes the fighter very competitive on international markets; while with its good quality electronics and weapon systems, the price is just half of an American F-16. Pakistan is sure to be the first buyer, and many countries including Iran and the Philippines are also planning to introduce the fighter.
According to Pakistani sources, Pakistan has already reached an agreement with China to buy 36 J-10 fighters at a total value of 1.4 billion U.S. dollars (40 million U.S. dollars for each fighter). While the single price for an F-16, which U.S. sold to the UAE affiliated with AN/APG-80 radar, was 80 million U.S dollars. At the moment it is unclear whether spare parts, maintenance support, training and other services are included into the J-10's price. It is estimated that Pakistan might buy 70 to 150 J-10 fighters in all.
Besides price, what makes the J-10 attractive is its competitive electronics and weapon systems. The latest version, sometimes called the J-10B (or FC-20 when slated for Pakistan) emerged in Internet photos in January 2009. It features a driverless supersonic inlet similar in principle to that of the Joint Strike Fighter. The nose is redesigned, with an infrared search-and-track system in front of the windscreen and what appears to be a canted radar bulkhead consisting of a fixed, electronically scanned array radar. If true, this would be a major advance for China's radar technology, and may make the J-10 competitive with upgraded Western and Russian fourth-generation-plus fighters. The cockpit is dominated by three multifunction displays and a heads-up display.
The J-10 has 11 hardpoints, including five on the fuselage. Its principal counter-air weapon is the Luoyang PL 12 active radar-guided air-to-air missile (AAM) with 70-km. range. With a twin-AAM pylon on the inner wing mount, plus two on forward fuselage mounts, the J-10 can carry eight PL-12s. Short-range AAMs include the PL-8, a copy of the Israeli Python-3, and an improved version of this missile, the PL-9, both helmet-sighted. The J-10 may soon feature a more capable helmet-mounted display and a new fifth-generation AAM from Luoyang.
The fighter's market success will depend on China's ability to produce reliable advanced turbofan engines. Rival fighter maker Shenyang has been developing its WS-10A Taihang turbofan since the mid-1980s, which could offer 13.2 tons of thrust. Russian sources believe it is beset by developmental difficulties.
Chengdu may have a competing Huashan advanced turbofan engine program, which some Chinese sources note is based on its late-1990s acquisition of the engineering data and sales rights to the Tumansky R-79 turbofan developed for the defunct Yakovlev Yak-141 supersonic vertical/short-takeoff-and-landing fighter. Nevertheless, Russian sources say China remains interested in more powerful versions of the Salyut AL-31FN, which could come in 13.5- and, eventually, 15-ton-thrust versions.
Chengdu remains ready to develop a carrier-based version of the J-10. During the PLAAF anniversary, a test pilot was reported noting that ground-test simulations prove the J-10 can operate from a carrier.
A senior Chinese film official denied rumors the government is forcing the movie Avatar off theater screens.
Zhang Hongsen, vice-director of the film bureau of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, told reporters on Tuesday that the decision to pull Avatar from 2-D screens in China was a commercial one, not a government order.
"The 2-D version has not performed very well at the box office, while the 3-D version's tickets are very hard to purchase," he said at a seminar on the James Cameron sci-fi blockbuster. "So to take the 2-D version off the screen is quite normal."
He emphasized that the 3-D and IMAX versions will continue to be screened.
Zhang revealed that the box office revenue of Avatar's 2-D version only makes up one third of the movie's total gross in China.
Many Chinese media have speculated that Avatar was being pulled to make way for domestic films, including a biopic on the respected ancient Chinese thinker Confucius, which will premiere on Jan 22.
Zhang denies the speculation and called it rumor.
"It may seem so because Confucius happens to be screening around that date," he said. "Confucius has no 3-D version, so there is no conflict."
Studio Twentieth Century Fox said they hoped audiences would still be able to see the film in theaters in China.
"As of today, Jan 19, Avatar is still playing in cinemas nationwide in China. Twentieth Century Fox hopes that cinema-goers in China will continue to have the opportunity to see this film, which has been enthusiastically embraced by audiences there and throughout the world," it said in a statement.
Since its premiere on Jan 4, Avatar has grossed 550 million yuan ($80 million) in the country and has broken 2012's record of 460 million yuan to become the highest grossing film ever in China.
China imports only 20 foreign films for theatrical release each year. Most of them are Hollywood blockbusters.
The World Trade Organization turned down a Chinese appeal and upheld on Dec 21, 2009 its earlier ruling against Chinese regulations on the import and distribution of books and audio-visual products. According to the ruling, China may have to open more channels to import and distribute those products in the country.
Zhang responded to the issue by saying that talks are ongoing and he does not know the details.
In 2009, China saw a booming box office, which reached a record 6.2 billion yuan ($911 million), rising 42 percent over 2008. It is still small compared to the $10-billion box office in the US.
January 18, 2010 -- Response of former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when asked on September 11, 2001 what the attacks meant for U.S.-Israeli relations
Game theory war-planners rely on mathematical models to anticipate and shape outcomes with staged provocations. For the agent provocateur, the reactions to a provocation—as well as the reactions to those reactions—thereby become predictable within an acceptable range of probabilities.
With ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan poised to expand to Iran and Pakistan, it is time to take a closer look at how conflicts are catalyzed—by way of deception.
When Israeli game theorist Robert J. Aumann received the 2005 Nobel Prize in economic science, he conceded from Jerusalem, “the entire school of thought that we have developed here in Israel” has turned “Israel into the leading authority in this field.” A professor at the Center for the Study of Rationality at Hebrew University, Aumann’s Nobel lecture, titled “War and Peace,” expounded on the rationality of war.
With a well-modeled provocation, a target’s anticipated reaction can even become a weapon in the aggressor’s arsenal. In response to the provocation of 9-11, how difficult was it to foresee that the U.S. would deploy its military to avenge that attack? With U.S. intelligence “fixed” by well-placed insiders around a predetermined goal, how difficult was it to anticipate that the reaction to 9-11 could be redirected to wage war in Iraq?
The emotional component of a provocation plays a key role in game theory warfare. With the nationally televised mass murder of 3,000 people, a state of shock, grief and outrage made it easier for Americans to believe that a known Evil Doer in Iraq was responsible—regardless of the facts.
For false beliefs to displace real facts requires mental preconditioning so that a targeted population can be persuaded to put their faith in fictions. That conditioning enhances the probability of a successful deception. Those who deceived the U.S. to invade Iraq in March 2003 began a decade beforehand to lay the “mental threads” and make the requisite mental associations to advance that agenda.
Notable among those threads was the 1993 publication in Foreign Affairs of a theme-setting article by Harvard University professor Samuel Huntington. By the time his analysis appeared in book-length form in 1996 as The Clash of Civilizations, more than 100 think tanks were prepared to promote it. The result created a widely touted narrative—a thematic storyline—supporting a “clash consensus” five years before 9-11 provided a plausible rationale for war.
Also published in 1996 under the guidance of Richard Perle was A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm (i.e., Israel). A member since 1987 of the U.S. Defense Policy Board, this self-professed Zionist became its chairman in 2001.
As an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Perle’s Pentagon advisory post provided a powerful insider position to shape the national security mindset around the removal of Saddam Hussein, a key theme of A Clean Break—released five years before 9-11. That same year Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress at the invitation of Newt Gingrich, the Christian Zionist Speaker of the House.
Murders, books, articles, think tanks and well-placed insiders are common components in a “probabilistic” model deployed by war-planning game theorists. Lawmakers are also a customary ingredient. They provide credibility and a facade of legitimacy—a critical element when inducing a nation to war with phony intelligence fixed around a preset agenda.
That role was eagerly filled by Senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman, a Jewish Zionist from Connecticut, and Jon Kyl, a Christian Zionist from Arizona, when they co-sponsored the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. By promoting Israel’s 1996 agenda for Securing the Realm, their legislation laid yet another mental thread in the public mindset by calling for the ouster of Saddam Hussein—three years before 9-11.
The legislation also appropriated $97 million to promote their agenda. Distracted by mid-term Congressional elections and impeachment proceedings catalyzed by a well-timed presidential affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, Bill Clinton signed that Zionist agenda into law in October 1998—4-1/2 years before a U.S.-led invasion removed the Iraqi leader.
After 9-11, McCain and Lieberman became inseparable travel companions and irrepressible advocates for the invasion of Iraq. Striking a presidential pose aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt in January 2002, McCain—a son and grandson of admirals—laid another mental thread when he waved an admiral’s cap and proclaimed, alongside Lieberman, “On to Baghdad.”
By Way of Deception
The confidence with which this game theory strategy progressed in plain sight could be seen in the behavior of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, another Zionist insider. Four days after 9-11 while in a principals’ meeting at Camp David, he proposed that the U.S. invade Iraq. At that time, the intelligence did not point to Iraqi involvement and Osama bin Laden was thought to be hiding in a remote region of Afghanistan.
On that same day, San Diego FBI Special Agent Stephen Butler interrogated Iraqi Munther Ghazal at his home near San Diego to determine if he was funding Mel Rockefeller, an American with whom Ghazal traveled to Baghdad in early 1997. After meeting for several days with a top nuclear physicist with oversight of Iraq’s mothballed nuclear weapons program, Rockefeller returned to the U.S. with a practical proposal for removing Saddam Hussein without this war and without triggering an insurgency.
When regional specialists at the U.S. Department of State would not meet with him, he traveled to Ottawa in April 1997 where he met with Middle East specialists in the Canadian government to ensure a written record was made to confirm there was an alternative to war in Iraq—six years before the invasion. Instead of debriefing him, FBI agents sought to discredit him. Though FBI agents interviewed Ghazal many times, they have yet to meet with Mel Rockefeller.
Agent Butler cashed checks and paid rent for the two San Diego-based hijackers who piloted planes into the World Trade Center towers. The same Iman counseling Major Nidal Hasan (with FBI knowledge) before he was transferred to Fort Hood also counseled the San Diego-based hijackers—with FBI knowledge. As of December 1, 2009, no one from the FBI or national security had debriefed Mel Rockefeller—eight years after 9-11.
See: Ft. Hood: “Death By Political Correctness”?
and Ft. Hood Tragedy: The Real Story of the Terrorist “Mad Doctor Hasan”
When President George H.W. Bush declined to invade Baghdad and remove Saddam Hussein during the 1991 Gulf War, Pentagon Under Secretary for Policy Paul Wolfowitz imposed a No-Fly Zone in northern Iraq. By the invasion of March 2003, the Israeli Mossad had agents deployed for a decade in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.
Intelligence reports of Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda were also traced to Mosul—reports that proved false. Mosul again emerged in November 2004 as a center of the insurgency that destabilized Iraq. That reaction precluded the speedy exit of coalition forces promised in Congressional testimony by senior war-planner Wolfowitz in the lead-up to the invasion.
An Inside Job?
The common pro-Israeli source of the phony intelligence that induced war in Iraq has yet to be acknowledged even though intelligence experts agree that deception on such a scale required a decade to plan, staff, pre-stage, orchestrate and—until now—cover up. The leaders of the 9-11 Commission conceded they were thwarted by Commission members adamantly opposed to hearing testimony on the hijackers’ motivation for 9-11: the U.S.-Israeli relationship.
The fictions reported as facts by mainstream media included Iraqi WMD, Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda, Iraqi meetings with Al Qaeda in Prague, Iraqi mobile biological weapons laboratories and Iraqi purchases of “yellowcake” uranium from Niger. Only the last claim was conceded as bogus prior to the invasion.
Only after the war began were the balance of the claims disclosed as false, flawed or outright fabricated. An attempt to punish former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Joe Wilson for his exposure of the phony yellowcake account led to a federal conviction of vice-presidential chief of staff Lewis Libby, another well-placed Zionist insider.
The multi-decade consistency of agent-provocateur fact patterns suggests that this game theory-modeled warfare includes the Israeli provocation that catalyzed the Second Intifada. An intifada is an uprising or, literally, a “shaking off” of an oppressor. The Second Intifada dates from September 2000 when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon led an armed march to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount—one year before 9-11.
After a year of calm during which Palestinians believed that Israel was sincere about peace, suicide bombings recommenced. As Sharon conceded, his march was meant to demonstrate Israeli control over a site considered holy by Muslims worldwide. In response to this second failed attempt at “shaking off” Israeli domination, Sharon and Netanyahu observed that only when Americans “feel our pain” would they understand the plight of the victimized Israelis.
These Likud Party leaders commented that the requisite empathy (“feel our pain”) would require a weighted body count of 4,500 to 5,000 Americans lost to terrorism—the initial estimate of those who died in the twin towers of the World Trade Center—one year later.
In other words, only with pain could we identify with the Israelis. Does that mean that only with a mass murder could we be induced to respond with our military to advance their agenda? Was the U.S. response mathematically modeled at the Center for the Study of Rationality? Seven months after 9-11, Benjamin Netanyahu gave a speech in a U.S. Senate office building where he was introduced by Senators Jon Kyl and Joe Liebermn
American Valkyrie?
When successful, game theory warfare strengthens the agent provocateur while leaving the target discredited and depleted by the anticipated reaction. By game theory standards, 9-11 was a strategic success because the U.S.—by its response—was widely criticized for waging war on false pretenses. Only in hindsight did a deceived public realize that Iraq had nothing to do with that mass murder. However, that invasion had everything to do with “securing the realm.”
Our response (predictably) triggered a deadly insurgency with devastating consequences for Iraqis, the U.S. and a “coalition of the willing” led to war by a successfully duped U.S. From a game theory perspective, that insurgency was a predictable reaction in a nation populated by three long-feuding sects: Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. A violent invasion led by a nation closely allied with Jewish nationalists only further fueled the flames of violence and extremism—another foreseeable outcome.
Until the U.S.-led invasion, peace was maintained by an unsavory dictator and former U.S. ally who was rebranded an Evil Doer in the lead-up to war. As the cost in blood and treasure from our “liberation” of Iraq expanded, the U.S. became overextended militarily, financially and diplomatically.
The sectarian violence unleashed in Iraq is precisely what Messrs. Rockefeller and Ghazal were cautioned against in early 1997 should Saddam Hussein be removed suddenly and violently. The 1.3 million Iraqi deaths from war-related causes exceeds the worst of Saddam Hussein’s atrocities. As any competent game theory war-planner knew, the strategic winner in this war was certain to be Iran as the U.S. neutralized its key foe—and is now urged by Israel to wage war on Iran.
As the U.S.—the primary target of this deception—emerged in the foreground, the agent provocateur faded into the background. But only after catalyzing dynamics that steadily drained the U.S. of credibility, resources and resolve. This “probabilistic” Israeli victory also ensured widespread cynicism, insecurity, distrust and disillusionment along with a steadily declining capacity to defend our real interests.
Meanwhile the American public came under a system of oversight and surveillance packaged and sold as “homeland security.” This ominously titled operation includes rhetorical echoes of a WWII-era “fatherland” featuring a domestic security force completely alien to U.S. traditions. It is not yet clear whether this new agency was established to protect Americans. Or whether it is meant to shield from Americans those responsible for deceiving us to wage their wars.
In January 2003, Secret Service Agent Richard Sierze interrogated Mel Rockefeller at his home in Fresno, California after he sent an email to Florida Governor Jeb Bush. The email said, in effect, that if the governor’s brother (President George Bush) did not interview him on a public record prior to invading Iraq, he would do his best to ensure that lawful means were deployed to see the president executed for treason by a firing squad.
When questioned by Sierze, Rockefeller offered to have the agent speak with Dr. Glenn Olds, an adviser to four presidents, his senior adviser since 1994 and a former U.N. Ambassador who assisted him in entering Iraq through Jordon at a time when Americans were prohibited from traveling there. Sierze declined.
He also repeated his intent to see the president executed for treason and insisted that he be charged and taken before a federal magistrate to present evidence that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and that an alternative to war had been available since early 1997. Agent Sierze declined his demand to be arraigned in a U.S. Federal District Court—seven weeks before the invasion.
Agent Sierze should be interviewed to see if, in retrospect, he agrees that—had this advice been followed—the war in Iraq may well have been prevented. To date, no one with line responsibility has interviewed Mel Rockefeller on a public record. Why? The answer to that question would reveal those responsible for this ongoing deception.
The victims of these serial deceptions, including the families of those murdered in November at Fort Hood, may have a wrongful death cause of action against those with line responsibility who aided these operations by failing to engage the Rockefeller record in a timely fashion.
Foreseeable Futures
By manipulating the shared mindset, skilled game theory war-planners can wage wars on multiple fronts with minimal resources. One proven strategy: Pose as an ally of a well-armed nation predisposed to deploy its military in response to a mass murder.
In this case, the result destabilized Iraq while creating (predictable) crises that could be exploited to greater strategic advantage by expanding the conflict to Iran, another Israeli goal announced in A Clean Break—seven years before the invasion of Iraq.
Today’s mathematically model-able outcomes undermined U.S. national security by discrediting our leadership, degrading our financial condition and disabling our political will. In game theory terms, this devastation was perfectly predictable—within an acceptable range of probabilities.
Pakistan is primed to emerge as the next battleground for game theory war-planners. When India, an ally of Israel, became the nation honored by the Obama administration’s first state dinner, that occasion gave reason for concern due to the dynamics already at work in the background.
See “What Is Israel’s Role in the Destabilization of Pakistan?”
In the asymmetry that typifies modern warfare, those who are few in number have no alternative when pursuing an expansionist agenda but to wage their wars by way of deception. To maintain its perceived status as a perennial victim, Israeli aggression must proceed non-transparently. Its only option is to operate with duplicitous means, including leveraging the power of its insider influence to advance an agenda from the shadows.
Thus the strategic necessity that this extremist enclave befriend the U.S.—with the intent to betray that friendship to advance its geopolitical goals. Thus the strategic need to create a relationship of trust with a post-WWII super power—in order to defraud us. How else could Colonial Zionists wage their wars except with our military? How else could Jewish nationalists induce our aggression absent the widely shared belief that Israel is not an aggressor but a victim?
Winning Wars from the Inside Out
Game theory war-planners manipulate the shared mental environment by shaping the perceptions and impressions that become consensus opinions. With a combination of well-timed crises, fixed intelligence and a complicit media, policy-makers can be induced to support a predetermined agenda—not because lawmakers are Evil Doers but because the public mindset has been pre-conditioned to respond to manipulated thoughts, emotions and beliefs.
Without the mass murder of 9-11, would America’s credibility be in tatters and its creditworthiness in jeopardy? By steadily displacing facts with false beliefs, those duplicitous few-within-the-few amplify the impact of their deceit. By their steady focus on the mental environment, game theory war-planners can defeat an opponent with vastly superior resources.
Today’s intelligence wars are waged in plain sight and under the cover of shared beliefs. By manipulating consensus opinion, psy-ops wars can be won from the inside out by inducing a targeted populace to freely choose the very forces that imperil their freedom.
Thus in the Information Age the disproportionate power wielded by those with outsized influence in media, popular culture, think tanks, academia and politics—domains where Zionist influence is pervasive not only in the U.S. but also in other nations induced to war on false pretenses.
Germany offers a case study in manipulation of the public mindset in plain sight and under the banner of a free press. In 2003, Zionist media mogul Haim Saban acquired the second largest media conglomerate in Germany. Why? As Saban investment banker Steve Rattner explained his client’s motivation: “Because Germany is important to Israel.” Or, as Saban concedes: “I have only one issue and that issue is Israel.”
By 2005, Saban had succeeded in electing Angela Merkel as German Chancellor. She quickly became the European Union’s most reliable and forceful advocate for Israel. By November 2009, she was prepared to sponsor in Berlin an unprecedented joint session of the German and Israeli governments. Following his political success in Germany, Saban acquired in 2007 a controlling interest in Univision, a Latino-focused network serving the fastest-growing voting bloc in the U.S.
Media manipulation serves as an essential force-multiplier to wage intelligence wars from the periphery or, as with Haim Saban, in plain sight. At the operational core of such psy-ops are game theory war-planners skilled at personality profiling and masterful at anticipating responses to staged provocations and then incorporating those responses into their arsenal.
In the case of Iraq, our (mathematically) foreseeable response to 9-11 led, in practical effect, to Israel’s deployment of our military to invade Iraq. For aggressors adept at psy-ops warfare, facts are only an inconvenience to be overcome when waging war by way of deception. Thus the key role played by consensus-shapers featured in mainstream media outlets who focus not on informing the public but on mental conditioning.
For targeted populations dependent on facts and informed consent to protect their freedom and preserve the rule of law, such treachery poses the greatest possible threat. Yet even now many Americans believe that Israel is not an aggressor but a victim and even an ally despite facts confirming a multi-decade pattern of expansionist nationalism and geopolitical deception.
Adhering to an Enemy
The U.S. is far less secure than before 9-11. Tel Aviv clearly intends to continue its serial provocations as evidenced by its ongoing expansion of settlements and its continuing blockade of Gaza. Israel has shown no willingness to negotiate in good faith. With few exceptions, Barack Obama has named as senior advisers either Zionists are those known to be strongly pro-Israeli.
The greatest threat to world peace is not Islam. The most fundamental threat that underlies all others is our “special relationship” with a skilled agent provocateur. Without U.S. support for an enclave of nuclear-armed religious extremists, the common source of this threat could long ago have been identified and steps taken to ensure its containment.
In the same way that lengthy pre-staging was required to induce the U.S. to invade Iraq, a similar strategy is now underway to persuade the U.S. to invade Iran or support an attack by Israel. Pakistan is also now on the agenda of those marketing The Clash narrative with its vision of a perpetual war against “militant Islam.” Similar mental conditioning is again at work, including the high profile branding of the requisite Evil Doer: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinajad.
From its outset, the Zionist enterprise sought supremacy in the Middle East. To date, its alliance with the U.S. has enabled the deployment of American military might in pursuit of goals set by Jewish nationalists more than a half-century before a Christian Zionist U.S. president was induced to extend nation-state recognition. Harry Truman made that fateful decision despite his fears that Israel would become what Zionist lobbyists assured him it would not become—and what it immediately became: a racist and theocratic state.
Only one nation had the means, motive, opportunity and stable nation state intelligence required to take the U.S. to war in the Middle East while making it appear that Islam—not Israel—is the problem. When a long-deceived American public—especially the U.S. military—grasps the common source of this devastating duplicity, the response will shift the geopolitical landscape. The facts suggest that “sympathy for Israel” is not among the probable reactions.
If Barack Obama continues to cater to these extremists, this Nobel peace laureate can rightly be blamed when the next attack features the usual orgy of evidence pointing to a pre-staged Evil Doer. Should another mass murder occur, that incident may well be traceable to the U.S.-Israeli relationship and to the failure of our policy-makers to protect America—and world peace—from this enemy within.
Kuala Lumpur - Malaysian police have arrested eight people suspected to be responsible for bombing a Christian church, officials said Wednesday. The incident was one of 10 attacks on churches that followed a December 31 High Court ruling that allowed non-Muslims to use the word Allah to refer to God.
Authorities have detained eight suspects since Tuesday in connection with the January 8 attack in suburban Kuala Lumpur on the Metro Tabernacle church, whose ground floor was razed in the fire, federal police chief of criminal investigations Mohamad Bakri Zinin said.
The suspects, ages 21 to 26, were tracked down after one of them sought hospital treatment for burns to the hand, Bakri was quoted as saying by the Star daily.
He said the suspects would be remanded for seven days, adding that they could be charged with "mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to destroy" a place of worship, which is punishable by a maximum 20-year prison sentence and a fine.
The High Court verdict on the use of Allah came after a yearlong legal battle between the Herald, a Roman Catholic newsletter, and the government of the predominantly Muslim nation. The row began when the Herald was ordered to stop publishing its Malay-language articles with the word Allah.
The government had banned the use of the word by non-Muslims, saying it could confuse some Muslims into converting to Christianity, a stand that was criticized by non-Muslims and liberal Muslims alike.
The spate of church attacks highlighted rising religious tensions in multiracial Malaysia, which has always struggled to balance its ethnic and religious sensitivities.
While Islam is its official religion, the country's population of 28 million includes large minorities of Christians, Buddhists and Hindus.
Sofia - The Bulgarian government has accepted the resignation of Rumiana Jeleva as foreign minister, the country's deputy prime minister announced on state television Wednesday. The under-fire Jeleva withdrew from the running to be an EU commissioner on Tuesday, after allegations of lying over business interests. But initially her simultaneous resignation as foreign minister of Bulgaria was turned down.
However on Wednesday Deputy Prime Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov said that Prime Minister Boyko Borisov had changed his position so that Jeleva would also be allowed to step down as foreign minister.
"The government does not feel it necessary to prolong such scandals," Tsvetanov said.
Paris (Earth Times) - Relations between France and its former colony Algeria took a turn for the worse after the Algiers government canceled a planned visit by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, the online edition of the daily Le Figaro reported Wednesday. The reason was France's acceptance of the US government's terrorist blacklist that lists Algeria as "a country of interest" alongside 10 other countries, including Iran, Yemen and Somalia.
As a result, Algerians traveling abroad are now subject to specific controls at international airports.
Washington recently increased its airport security checks on international travelers after the failed Christmas Day attack on a flight over Detroit.
Kouchner was to have traveled to Algiers this week for talks with his Algerian counterpart, Mourad Medelci. One of the aims of the meeting had been to resolve a rift caused by Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's abrupt cancellation of a visit to France last year.
Hong Kong - Hong Kong has held on to its title as the world's freest economy for the 16th year running, according to an annual index published Wednesday. The city emerged at the top of the Index of Economic Freedoms released by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington-based think tank, and The Wall Street Journal financial newspaper.
Second place went to Singapore, which has also held on to the runner-up title for 16 consecutive years.
Australia was ranked third, followed by New Zealand, Ireland, Switzerland and Canada, all of which were categorized as "free" in the index.
The United States and Britain were ranked among the "mostly free" economies, taking eighth and 11th place, respectively.
China ranked 140th with a score that put it in the "mostly unfree" category while at the bottom was North Korea, one of 25 countries ranked as "repressed."
Also ranked as "repressed" were Vietnam, Myanmar and Zimbabwe.
The index measures economic freedom within 10 categories of freedoms, including labour, business, trade, property rights and freedom from corruption.
Each country is awarded a score with the maximum of 100 points, representing the ideal. The higher the score, the lower the level of government interference in the marketplace.
Hong Kong scored 89.7, down 0.3 points from last year, while North Korea managed 1 point, a fall of 1 point from 2009.
Overall, the average economic freedom score was 59.4, down 0.1 points compared with the year before.
Heritage Foundation president Edwin Feulner said confidence in economic freedoms has been tested in many countries as a result of increased government intervention aimed at promoting growth and employment.
Asia emerged at the world's most economically mixed region, being home to some of the freest and the most repressed economies.
Jakarta - A landslide triggered by heavy downpours buried five people Wednesday in Indonesia's densely populated Central Java province, officials and local media reports said. A torrent of mud slammed into a residential area in Wonoaji village in Wonosobo district, flattening nine homes and damaging five others, the state-run Antara news agency reported.
One body was retrieved and local rescue workers were searching for four other people reported missing and feared dead. Five other residents were injured.
Landslides are frequent in Indonesia, where years of deforestation have left hillsides vulnerable to collapse. Environmentalists blame logging and a failure to plant new trees.
Amsterdam - The trial of Dutch member of parliament and Islam critic Geert Wilders for discrimination and incitement to hatred opened in an Amsterdam court on Wednesday. The court is to decide whether the leader of the liberal-rightist Freedom Party PVV violated Dutch law by calling the Koran a "fascist book" and Islam a "backward culture."
At the start of proceedings, the presiding judge said it had been "suggested" that the court had already convicted Wilders before its first hearings. He would therefore "like to emphasize that only after the last word in these hearings has been said, the court will deliberate about its decision."
In his opening statement, Wilders' lawyer Bram Moskowicz questioned why the trial was taking place in Amsterdam rather than in The Hague, where his client works.
Most of the complaints filed against Wilders since 2006 were related to remarks he made as a lawmaker in the Hague-based parliament, he said.
Moskowicz also argued that Wilders' remarks about Islam were made only in the context of his work as a lawmaker, and that he never spoke "a titre personnel," or in his personal capacity.
Prosecutors claim Wilders' 16-minute internet video Fitna, released in March 2008, incites people to hatred against Muslims. The film warns against the spread of radical Islam and the alleged "Islamization" of the Netherlands.
Wilders faces a maximum of 16 months imprisonment or a fine of 10,000 euros (14,000 dollars) if convicted on all the charges.
Almost 6 per cent of the Netherlands' 16.5 million inhabitants are Muslim.
Manila - A Belgian environmentalist and his four Filipino companions were rescued Wednesday after seven days of being stranded in a northern Philippine forest, an air force spokesman said. Bert Peeters suffered bruises when rescuers plucked him out of the thickly forested slopes of the Sierra Madre mountain range in Isabela province, 300 kilometers north of Manila, Lieutenant Colonel Gerardo Zamudio said.
Zamudio said Peeters' four Filipino companions were also safely recovered.
Peeters' group left the town of Ilagan on January 13 to hike to the seaside town of Divilacan by cutting through the thickly forested Sierra Madre mountain range, but they were trapped in the forest because of heavy rains and a raging river, Zamudio said.
A tribesman who served as the group's guide was able to return to Ilagan to seek help, the officer said.
Taipei - Taiwan's export orders jumped for a third consecutive month in December, rising 52.63 per cent year-on-year on a gradual recovery of the global economy, the Economics Ministry said Wednesday. The island received foreign orders worth 31.73 billion US dollars in December, up 10.94 billion US dollars from the same period last year, and 470 million US dollars from November, the ministry said.
Orders from China, including from Hong Kong, increased 92.59 per cent year-on-year to 8.39 billion US dollars. The United States followed with 7.13 billion US dollars, up 26 per cent from a year earlier, and European Union came in third with 5.43 billion US dollars, up 34.4 per cent.
For the full year, export orders totaled 322.44 billion US dollars, down 8.33 per cent from 2008, as the global economy has picked up since the financial crisis hit in September 2008, the ministry said.
Global demand had reduced sharply resulting in a record 41.67-per-cent plunge in export orders in January 2009.
Export orders indicate deliveries three months in advance and are a key economic indicator.
Taiwan's economy depends on exports. About 40 per cent of its exports go to China, and analysts were predicting that improving Taipei-Beijing ties would result in China buying more of Taiwan's goods and sending more tourists to the island.
New Delhi — The Indian government has told the country's Supreme Court that it planned to de-recognize and close 44 “deemed” universities across the country which were no more than a money-making enterprises without dishing out quality education and in the process putting the future of nearly 200,000 students enrolled in these institutions at stake.
Of the about to be closed “universities” include one promoted by a junior federal minister and three government-sponsored ones.
Among the derecognized varsities include those that taught medicine, science and technology, information technology, engineering and education.
Most of these “varsities” were found to be deficient on many counts including lack of infrastructure to not having evidence of expertise in disciplines they claim to specialize in, undesirable management architecture of families that ran them instead of professionals and engaged in “thoughtless introduction of unrelated programs and proliferation of degrees”..
There are 130 “deemed” universities in the country and most of them were set up after 2004.
An expert review panel under the aegis of Professor P.N. Tandon was set by the federal Human Resource and Development Ministry to go into the working of these “varsities”.
The government called a meeting of these organizations last August-September for an “face-to-face discussions”. Of the 130 invited, 126 attended.
The committee report divided the 126 institutions into three categories. Of these, the top category of 38 institutions were found to justify their status as deemed universities based on their achievements, performance and potential.
Another 44 were found to be deficient in some aspects which needed to be rectified over a three-year period.
The panel said the last category of 44 institutions was “neither on past performance nor on their promise for the future” can retain their status as deemed to be universities.
Among the institutions recommended for derecognition have 119,363 students at the under-graduate and post-graduate levels in addition to 2,124 pursuing research in M.Phil and PhD programs. An estimated 74,808 pursue distance education programs.
The southern Tamil Nadu state tops the list with 16 derecognition, including one sponsored by the government. Karnataka state follows with six, northern Uttar Pradesh state with four.
The government has said that the affected students would be taken care of. The ministry's task force has recommended that institutions not found fit for deemed university status "revert to status quo ante as an affiliated college of the state university of jurisdiction so that students would be able to complete their ongoing courses and obtain degree from the affiliating university."
Similarly, medical and dental colleges not found suitable can affiliate to state university or state medical university.
In case, the institution is unable to obtain affiliation, efforts would be made to facilitate the migration/re-enrollment of the affected students in other institutions. Doctoral students will have to re-register in affiliating universities and those in distance education should either go to New Delhi-based Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) or state open universities.
While these safeguards have been recommended, the students are nonetheless likely to go through a phase of uncertainty as they move from one university to another.
Harare (Earth Times) - The US embassy in Zimbabwe on Wednesday confirmed a report in the state-run Herald newspaper that the US would not oppose the restoration of Zimbabwe's voting rights in the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The US has since 2001 blocked funding from the IMF and World Bank to censure the regime of President Robert Mugabe for violent suppression of political opponents and reckless economic policies that turned the once prosperous nation into a failed state.
The Herald quoted US Ambassador Charles Ray saying: "We would want to assure Zimbabwe that once the issue of restoring Zimbabwe's voting rights is put forward for debate at the next IMF sitting, America will fully support the motion."
Those comments signal a major shift in Washington's tough stance towards Harare, according to diplomats.
US embassy spokesman Tim Gerhardson said that Ray, who took up his post late last year, had added in his brief interview with the Herald that the US would not, however, table or initiate a motion for the restoration of Harare's voting rights in the IMF.
Diplomats said it was clear that the concession announced by Ray did not stretch to targeted sanctions against Mugabe's inner circle, which forbids them from entering the United States and from investing there. Most Western governments have similar bans against top officials from Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party.
The move follows repeated appeals from pro-democracy Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, partner in a unity government with Mugabe since February 2009.
Zimbabwe's economy has showed significant improvement since Mugabe's policies were ditched but economists say Zimbabweans will remain mired in poverty without major international assistance.
Zimbabwe lost its rights to borrow money from the IMF and the World Bank in the late 1990s when the government fell seriously into arrears on loan repayments.
Diplomats say, however, that the US has never had to exercise its veto against Zimbabwe borrowing, because the regime was already disqualified by its combined arrears of 1.1 billion US dollars to the IMF, the World Bank and subsidiary the African Development Bank.
By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Jan 18, 2010
(WMR) -- WMR’s intelligence sources in Asia and Europe are reporting that the CIA contractor firm XE Services, formerly Blackwater, has been carrying out “false flag” terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, Somalia, the Sinkiang region of China, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq, in some cases with the assistance of Israeli Mossad and Indian Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) personnel.
Fingers are being pointed at Blackwater/XE and Mossad operatives for the motorbike bomb in Tehran that killed Tehran University nuclear physicist Dr. Moussad Ali-Mohammadi.
On January 12, a bomb attached to a motorbike outside of Ali-Mohammadi’s house went off while the professor was leaving for work. The bomb, which instantly killed pro-reform Ali-Mohammadi, was remotely triggered by a team that was later linked to a U.S.-base group called the Iran Monarchy Association, which favors restoring the son of the late Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi II, to Iran’s “Peacock Throne.” The Iran Monarchy Association is believed to be a CIA front organization.
There are also reports that Blackwater/XE personnel are in Somalia and have carried out terrorist bombings in Mogadishu that have been blamed by the United States and the puppet transitional government of Somalia on the Al-Shabab Islamic irregular forces as a pretext for a wider Blackwater role in the country.
Blackwater is also believed to be transiting between Somalia, the breakaway republic of Somaliland, and Yemen. WMR has learned of Blackwater counter-insurgency personnel working alongside Yemeni security forces in joint operations against Huthi rebels in the predominantly-Shi’a region of northern Yemen. U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen recently stated that there were no plans to station U.S. troops in Yemen but he studiously avoided mentioning a counter-insurgency role for U.S. private military contractors.
Blackwater maritime security personnel have also been active in the Gulf of Aden region against so-called Somali “pirates,” who are, in reality, Somali fishermen who are exacting tribute because of over-fishing of Somali waters by foreign fishing fleets and the dumping of toxic waste in Somali waters.
A number of terrorist bombings in Pakistan have been blamed by Pakistani Islamic leaders on Blackwater, Mossad, and RAW. Blackwater has been accused of hiring young Pakistanis in Peshawar to carry out false flag bombings that are later blamed on the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan. One such bombing took place during the Ashura procession in Karachi last month.
The terrorist attacks allegedly are carried out by a secret Blackwater-XE/CIA/Joint Special Operations Command forward operating base in Karachi. The XE Services component was formerly known as Blackwater Select, yet another subsidiary in a byzantine network of shell and linked companies run by Blackwater/Xe on behalf of the CIA and the Pentagon.
On December 3, 2009, the Pakistani newspaper Nawa-i-Waqt reported: “Vast land near the Tarbela dam has also been given to the Americans where they have established bases for their army and air forces. There, the Indian RAW [Research and Analysis Wing] and Israeli Mossad are working in collaboration with the CIA to carry out extremist activities in Pakistan.”
Blackwater/XE is also thought to be carrying out terrorist roadside bombings in Algeria, once the exclusive domain of the mercenary French Foreign Legion, to justify a greater American security presence in Algeria, ostensibly to protect natural gas pipelines in the country.
Blackwater/XE and agents of the Mossad and RAW are also reportedly active in sponsoring Islamist terrorist groups active in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and the Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) of China for a variety of reasons. For the United States, the operations are to ensure those nation’s support for the U.S. “counter-terrorism” operations in central Asia. For India, there is a desire to pin blame for support for Uighur and other central Asian Islamist guerrilla movements on Pakistan in order to drive a wedge between Beijing and Islamabad. For Israel, the support helps in continuing close security relationships between Tel Aviv and Beijing and the Muslim Central Asian “stans.”
RAW has also been smuggling radical Islamic literature to Uighurs in Xinjiang. All of the literature has the imprimatur of Pakistan. RAW uses Indian consulates in Jalalabad and Kandahar in Afghanistan to help U.S. covert teams to carry out bombings that are blamed on the Taliban and Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) interlocutors. Blackwater/XE personnel based in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan’s Baluchistan province, have also been active in supporting cross-border raids by an Iranian Baluchi terrorist group called Jundullah. Nawa-i Waqt also reported that two Baluchi separatist groups, the Baluch Liberation Front and the Baluch Liberation Army, “have their headquarters in London and Israel respectively.”
Abu Dhabi - Only freshly fallen snow can reflect the light with more intensity. Like a mirage the building soars above the shimmering Abu Dhabi heat. The 82 domes and 1,096 rooms are not an optical illusion, but belong to a mesmerizing mosque of superlatives on the edge of this city in the Gulf, a house of worship that seems to beckon visitors from afar.
To the faithful, this glorious building is known as the Sheikh Zayed Mosque, although its full title is Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, since it was named after the founder of the United Arab Emirates. He was the man who initiated this masterpiece in marble, the very whiteness of which is a symbol of peace to Muslims.
The blindingly white façade reminds onlookers of the Taj Mahal in India and the ethereal magnificence of the mosque is emphasized by the use of translucent stone from the finest quarries in Italy, Greece, India and China.
A total of 115,119 square metres of the stone was used for the four minarets and the outer facade alone. The Emirates' founding father ordered the same material for his burial place close by, a modest mausoleum where he was buried aged 86 on November 2, 2004, three years before the vast house of prayer was officially inaugurated.
When he laid the foundation stone in 1996, Sheikh Zayed marked the start of the construction of the largest mosque in the UAE and the third most sizeable in the Islamic world. The muezzin summons worshippers to a complex spread over 22,412 square metres. It can accommodate a total of 30,000 people, 23,000 of them within the cavernous main prayer hall which is also made of marble.
Only the best is good enough for a mosque of such enormous proportions. The building contains the world's largest hand-woven Persian carpet. A small army of 1,200 weavers toiled for 18 months to complete this floor covering, using up 38 tonnes of wool in the process. They used 2.2 billion knots in its creation and the carpet covers an area of 5,625 square metres.
Another record-breaking fitting is the huge chandelier which hangs under the main 70-metre-high dome. Fifteen metres tall, it features thousands of Swarovski crystals which glint in hues of green, red, yellow and white. The construction weighs 10 tons.
The mosque cost a staggering 715 million dollars to build, with much of this sum being spent on elaborate, handcrafted tiles with floral intricacies and inlays of precious stones.
The tiles which adorn the floor and walls are the creation of Italian artists who have given soft, rounded forms to verses from the Koran, with designs which hark back to the art nouveau era. Craftsmen here used no less than 24 different kinds of marble.
The only typical Arab feature of the mosque are the four minarets. Otherwise, the grand mosque is a blend of Moorish style, as illustrated by the columned prayer halls, Moroccan ornamentation and Indian Mogul layout. A team of 52 architects teamed up to create this elegant house of worship which also attracts many non-Muslims along with many locals and tourists.
Manila - At least two Filipinos were killed in the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti last week, the government said Tuesday. The bodies of the two Filipinos - a female peacekeeper and a UN staff member - were retrieved late Monday in the rubble of Christopher Hotel in Port-au-Prince.
Four Filipinos were still missing and feared trapped in the hotel and a nearby supermarket.
The Department of Foreign Affairs identified one of the victims as Jerome Yap, a staff member of the United Nations.
Yap was executive assistant to a top UN official who was also killed in the magnitude-7 earthquake on January 12, the department said.
Philippine Navy petty officer Pearly Panangui also died in the quake, according to Lieutenant Colonel Romeo Brawner, a military spokesman.
Panangui was a member of the Philippines' contingent to the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti.
Two other Filipino peacekeepers were still missing and trapped in the Christopher Hotel, while two female migrant workers were trapped in the Caribbean Supermarket.
The Philippine government announced Monday it would donate 50,000 dollars to help in relief and recovery efforts in Haiti. It is also sending a medical team to the Caribbean nation.
Washington - Anguish played out this week among US couples in the process of adopting Haitian orphans when the earthquake struck, raising worries about their welfare and health. On Monday, the US government moved to give special permission for such children to leapfrog rules for entering the US on a temporary basis to make sure they receive the care they need from their soon-to-be parents.
The move was announced by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who said the US was "committed to doing everything we can to help reunite families in Haiti during this very difficult time."
"While we remain focused on family reunification in Haiti, authorizing the use of humanitarian parole for orphans who are eligible for adoption in the United States will allow them to receive the care they need here," she said in a statement.
Thirty-one orphans have already been reunited with their adoptive parents in the US, Raymond Joseph, the Haitian ambassador to the US, told CNN.
Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell also flew Monday to Haiti to fetch another group of 28 orphans who have been in the care of two Pennsylvania residents in Haiti since 2006, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper and broadcast reports.
The plane carried a medical team and was expected to return late Monday with the children, who have lacked clean water and food for much of the week since the magnitude-7 earthquake struck the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince.
The Haitian orphanage, run by sisters Jamie and Ali McMutrie, was home to 130 orphans.
Napolitano said decisions would be made on a case-by-case basis as to whether children would be admitted to the US.
Michele Bond, a diplomat who looks after services for overseas citizens, noted that all efforts were being made to make sure the Haitian children did not have family who wanted to look after them in Haiti.
She said the new policy would only apply to children who have been certified as orphans by the Haitian government and parents who have been approved by US government agencies for adoption.
On CNN Monday, one orphanage director in Haiti said all the documentation - which can take years to collect before the adoption goes through - had been destroyed in the quake.
Bond said parents should not expect the adoption process to be accelerated because of the earthquake.
Last week, Napolitano extended the visas of Haitian nationals so they do not have to return to the earthquake-damaged country.
Hanoi - Vietnamese police arrested a man Monday suspected of blackmailing the country's largest dairy company by threatening to poison its milk. Police arrested Luong Van Thai, 25, on Monday in Ho Chi Minh City as he was withdrawing money from his bank account, where the state-owned company Vinamilk had transferred part of the demanded ransom.
Vietnamese police had told the company not to speak to the media for two weeks while they hunted a blackmailer who had injected weed killer into milk cartons, the company said Tuesday.
Bui Thi Huong, Vinamilk's director of external relations, said the blackmailer had used a syringe to contaminate the contents of two milk cartons which he then mailed to the company.
He threatened to poison the company's milk sold in stores if Vinamilk did not send him 100 million dong (5,500 dollars).
Vinamilk immediately reported the threat to police who advised a media blackout "because if we informed the media, the blackmailer would escape," Huong said.
Asked why Vinamilk had not recalled milk from stores or informed consumers of any potential risk, Huong said the decision had been made by security forces.
Vinamilk transferred 35 million dong to Thai's account on Sunday, one day before police picked him up when he was using an ATM.
It was not known why Thai had used his personal bank account rather than demanding a less easily traceable form of payment.
Blackmail threats involving poisoned food or drink often lead companies to recall their products to protect consumers. But in such cases the blackmailers typically claim to have contaminated products already available on store shelves.
Jakarta - Indonesian prosecutors sought the death penalty Tuesday for a former chief of Indonesia's anti-graft commission and two alleged accomplices, accused of the murder of a businessman in a politically charged case. Prosecutors said Antasari Azhar, former chairman of the Corruption Eradication Commission, commissioned the shooting of businessman Nasruddin Zulkarnaen to cover up his affair with the victim's wife.
The case has triggered speculations of a conspiracy to weaken the anti-corruption commission following a series of successful prosecutions against legislators, a prosecutor, businessmen and senior government officials.
The commission was created in 2003 to tackle Indonesia's endemic corruption with the power to arrest and prosecute suspects.
Azhar, who has been detained since May, was officially dismissed from his job in August.
Prosecutors in separate hearings at a South Jakarta district court also demanded death sentences for Azhar's alleged main accomplices, police Commissioner Williardi Wizar and newspaper publisher Sigit Haryo Wibisono.
The three defendants have denied any wrongdoing, with Azhar insisting that he was framed.
"It's a public deception," Azhar told reporters after the hearing. "God has a plan, the best plan. I leave the judgment to the public."
Prosecutors charged that Azhar killed Zulkarnaen after the businessman allegedly threatened to make public his affair with Zulkarnaen's wife, a golf caddy.
Verdicts for the three defendants are expected next month.
The court has already sentenced the man who pulled the trigger to 18 years in jail.
