STRATFOR: Afghanistan Weekly War Update: NATO Convoy Attacked Near Kabul

The only thing being accomplished by continued NATO and American presence is more dead American servicemen; Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell, Perino & Co. and Obama are solely responsible for deaths

STRATFOR
11/01/2001

Attack Outside of Kabul

At approximately 11:20 a.m. on Oct. 29, a suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) detonated in the Darulaman area, west of the Afghan capital of Kabul. The attack targeted an armored bus believed to be transporting soldiers and civilians from Camp Julien, a counterinsurgency school, to Camp Phoenix, a U.S. base that trains Afghan soldiers and policemen. Five foreign servicemen and eight civilians were killed in the blast, including two British contractors employed by U.S. construction and engineering firm Fluor. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack and vowed to continue targeting foreign forces until they completely withdraw from the country. 

    According to a U.S. official, the attack specifically targeted the bus, known as a Rhino, which was escorted by two armored vehicles. Given route limitations and their role as shuttles, Rhinos are prone to predictable patterns of behavior, and they are readily recognizable and distinct from any other vehicle on the road. That the Taliban had conducted pre-operational surveillance on the vehicles’ route is notable.

    On July 24, Darulaman, located in Kabul province, became one of the first areas where coalition troops officially handed over security duties to Afghan forces. This transfer has not meant that NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) personnel have ceased operating in the area. It is reasonable to deduce that any reaction to an incident involving ISAF troops will include ISAF forces. In the aftermath of the Oct. 29 attack, two NATO helicopters were used to airlift victims as coalition soldiers on loudspeakers told onlookers to leave the area. 

Taliban winning, have history on their side

Whatever the status of districts in and around Kabul, the magnitude of the ISAF presence there will make quick-reaction forces comparatively near at hand. However, as ISAF forces begin reducing their presence across the country (10,000 U.S. troops are scheduled to leave by year’s end and according to the Pentagon, 3,000 U.S. troops have already left), a balance is needed between keeping forces less dispersed and covering as much ground as possible. For the Taliban, keeping the threat of attack high restricts the ability of foreign forces to cover ground efficiently.

    Nevertheless, the Afghan campaign has peaked already, and drawdown efforts will only intensify. Afghan President Hamid Karzai is scheduled to announce the second phase of the transfer of security duties to Afghan forces Nov. 2. Because the transfer will occur near the end of the militant fighting season — assuming there is a reduction in Taliban attacks in these areas — it will be difficult to immediately assess whether Afghan forces or the weather should be credited.

 The Drawdown’s Affect on Foreign Organizations

     Around 5:45 a.m. on Oct. 31, a militant detonated an explosives-laden pickup truck at a checkpoint in Shahr-e Naw, a Kandahar neighborhood where U.N. and other foreign organizations’ offices are located. Three armed assailants then ran into the area and occupied at least one building. A prolonged two-hour firefight ensued between the insurgents and NATO and Afghan forces. All of the militants were shot dead, three employees for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) were killed and two other staff members were injured. A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack, which he said targeted the UNHCR office.

    Kandahar is an area of intense Taliban activity and many attacks are routine. It is not on the list of areas scheduled to undergo a transfer of security responsibilities in the second phase of transfers. 

    Nevertheless, as Western forces withdraw from other areas throughout the country and remaining troops are concentrated in fewer areas, more of these types of low-level attacks can be expected.

    Whether ISAF or Afghan forces are officially in charge of security, these attacks pose an important challenge for the overall strategy in Afghanistan. Kandahar is hardly the safest place in the country, but development is an important part of the overall strategy to undermine the Taliban movement. The whole point of winning security in key areas in the country is to stabilize the situation to the point that Afghan forces can maintain day-to-day security and carve out room for the establishment of basic governance and civil authority as well as economic development. These non-military processes take time and entail active engagement of other government agencies and nongovernmental organizations like the UNHCR.

    As the threat environment increases, it becomes more expensive (and potentially even prohibitive) to maintain foreigners with applicable expertise in the country. Often times, local nationals are employed in place of foreigners, but they are even more vulnerable to intimidation efforts and pose the additional problem of infiltration. Even without prompting the complete termination of these efforts, attacks like these can make security requirements so onerous as to effectively prevent those employees, foreign or local, from the engagement that their jobs require, thereby undermining the very reason they are there.

This STRATFOR intelligence article is republished with permission and thanks from The 5th Estate.

Read more »

Financial Crisis : Eurocrats are Terrified of Real Democracy; Greece’s Papandreou in Doghouse Because he Dared Offer Voters a Choice

Over-reaching elites watch in horror as cracks appear in their plan to pauperize, enslave world population beginning with EU

The Telegraph
By Daniel Hannan
11/01/2011

Shall I tell you the truly terrifying thing about the EU? It’s not the absence of democracy in Brussels, or the ease with which Eurocrats swat aside referendum results. It’s the way in which the internal democracy of the member states is subverted in order to sustain the requirements of membership.

    George Papandreou, the luckless Greek leader, is the latest politician to find himself being chewed up because he stands in the way of the Brussels machine. On Monday afternoon, Papandreou announced a referendum on whether to accept the EU’s bail-out terms. He had evidently had enough of the antics of the opposition party, New Democracy, which kept insisting that Greece remain in the euro, while opposing all the austerity measures necessary to that end – an outrageous stance given that New Democracy ran up the deficit in the first place. Papandreou hoped to force his opponents off the fence: in favour of the spending cuts or against euro membership. Perhaps he also hoped to put pressure on the EU to offer more generous terms. 

Unlikely friend of democracy:  Greek leader Papandreou

I wish I could convey the sheer horror that his proposal provoked in Brussels. The first rule of the Eurocracy is “no referendums”. Brussels functionaries believe that their work is too important to be subject to the prejudices of hoi polloi (for once, the Greek phrase seems apposite). Referendums are always seen as irresponsible; but, at a time when the euro is teetering on the brink, Papandreou’s proposal was seen as an act of ingratitude bordering on treason.

     Across the palaces and chanceries of the continent, Euro-elites closed ranks. Nicolas Sarkozy’s spokesman described Papandreou’s announcement as “irrational and dangerous”, Angela Merkel’s called it “irritating”, Silvio Berlusconi’s “negative”. Such phrases, in the mouths of government officials, suggest purple, choking rage.

    The Athens establishment lined up with them. Antonis Samaras, the leader of New Democracy, vowed – with splendid disregard for his party’s name – to prevent a referendum “at all costs”. Constantine Michalos, the president of the Athens Chamber of Commerce, called the proposal “an act of political blackmail”. All these insults were provoked by the suggestion that people be allowed to determine their future through the ballot box. 

Related Articles

• Referendum call follows Greek riots
  31 Oct 2011
• Greek PM calls referendum on EU debt deal
  31 Oct 2011
• Greece referendum call hits markets
  01 Nov 2011
• Fitch statement on the Greek referendum: full text
  01 Nov 2011
• Greek blackmail ends euro truce
  01 Nov 2011
• Shock as Greeks get a say in their future
  01 Nov 2011

     

    Euro-enthusiasts in Brussels and in Athens are ready to bring down an elected government rather than allow a referendum. Yet the funny thing is that Papandreou is a Euro-enthusiast. He fervently wants to remain in the euro, and had been planning to campaign for a Yes vote. His sin, in the eyes of Brussels, was not to hold the wrong opinions, but to be too keen on democracy. Leninists had a term for people who, while they might be committed Bolsheviks, none the less behaved in a way which endangered the movement. They were called “objectively counter-revolutionary”. Poor Papandreou finds himself in this category. 

Greek protesters fight fire with fire

Nor is he the first. When it became clear that Ireland was to have a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, Bertie Ahern was required to fall on his sword lest the corruption allegations seeping about him tainted the Europhile cause. He was replaced by Brian Cowen, the former Europe minister, who went on to lose the referendum anyway. Cowen then refused to accept the verdict, siding openly with Brussels against his own countrymen. Result? Fianna Fáil, the party which had won the most votes at every election since 1932, was extirpated.

    Borrowing a phrase from C S Lewis, I think of this phenomenon as the EU’s “hideous strength”. Brussels has a bizarre power to make politicians break their words, split their parties and betray their voters so as to keep the project going. Again and again, it makes good men do bad things.

    Think of the way all three British party leaders whipped their MPs against an EU referendum proposal last week – despite the fact that two thirds of the country wanted such a vote, and despite the fact that all three parties were promising referendums on Europe in the last Parliament. Think of the way Margaret Thatcher was ousted, by a combination of Tory Europhiles and Continental leaders, when she made clear her opposition to Jacques Delors’s plans for Euro-federalism. 

Greek protesters taking no shit from cops, military

One of Papandreou’s supporters, a socialist MEP called Anni Podimata, argued that a referendum would bring catharsis. It’s a good metaphor. Catharsis is the purification and emotional renewal that comes at the end of a Greek tragedy. Greece has been through the hubris – the boom years, when the markets pretended that Greek and German debt were interchangeable – and is now suffering the nemesis, but the catharsis has been artificially stayed. Greece won’t begin to grow again until it leaves the euro, writes off its debts and prices itself into the markets.

    Eurocrats are prepared to pay any price rather than admit that the single currency was a mistake – or, more precisely, to expect their peoples to pay, since EU officials are exempt from national taxation. The peripheral countries are to suffer poverty, unemployment and emigration, the core countries perpetual tax rises, so that supporters of the euro can save face.

    It’s chilling to write these words, but EU leaders are evidently prepared to vitiate Greek democracy and wreck the Greek economy rather than allow the euro to break apart. Yet even if they succeed in Greece, they may find that their efforts are for nothing. Italian bond spreads yesterday were back at the level that usually triggers bail-outs. We are about to see quite how far the Brussels apparat will go in defence of its 

privileges. 

Daniel Hannan is a Conservative MEP for South East England.

  

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.  We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

Read more »

Occupy Seattle Protest

Seattle draws line with government, corporate criminals, banks

About Occupy Seattle

Where:

Daytime and General Assembly:

Westlake Park
401 Pine Street
Seattle, Washington 98101
Overnight Base Camp:
Seattle Central Community College South Plaza
Corner of Pine St and Broadway

When:
NOW and indefinitely

What:
A diverse group of Seattleites is beginning a non-violent, extended public occupation of downtown Seattle. The occupation is part of a national movement that started with the Occupy Wall Street resistance movement in New York City.

Why:
By joining the nationwide Occupy movement, we want to focus elected officials and the voting public on the majority's desire to take our government and country back from the big money interests that currently hold undue sway over decisions affecting us all. We are coming together in large numbers to effect this change.

Join:
Join us at our occupation site at Westlake Park, at City Hall, or at Seattle Central Community College for as much time as you have - an hour, a day, overnight. It all has an impact!
Also, please donate supplies!

Inquiries: occupyseattle@gmail.com

Read more »

Max Keiser: Debt Slash – A Debt Hike, Collapse Guaranteed

Fearless Max Keiser always tells it like it is; on Obama's hit list along with Wayne Madsen

Max Keiser Report
Max Keiser
11/29/2011

WANTED:  Max Keiser

With the euphoria over the deals reached at Brussels dying down, the numbers are now being pored over by economists and experts to see if they add up. One of them is RT’s Max Keiser who believes nothing’s changed – the EU’s still fighting debt with debt.

Read more »

Occupy Oakland: City braces for general strike

This one will probably bring down Quan and police chief Howard Jordan; expect heavy Marine presence

San Francisco Chronicle
By Kevin Fagan, Demian Bulwa,Matthai Kuruvila
10/01/2011

OAKLAND --

From schools and downtown stores to the nation's fifth busiest port, Oakland is bracing for Wednesday's citywide general strike, a hastily planned and ambitious action called by Occupy protesters a day after police forcibly removed their City Hall encampment last week.

    Occupy Oakland has since returned to Frank Ogawa Plaza, but the leaderless group is still asking workers and students in the city to take the day off to come downtown and protest economic inequality and corporate greed.

Shot by Oalkand cops:  Marine Scott Olsen to make full recovery

Major goals will be protesting at banks or corporations that refuse to shut down for the day, then marching in the evening to the Port of Oakland to try to shut down the night shift.

Some employees and businesses downtown, where the core activities are scheduled, intend to participate, while others plan to carry on as normal - hoping there won't be a resumption of last week's violent clashes between protesters and police.

    "The entire world is tired of the greedy corporations controlling everything, and now is the time that people are doing something about it," rapper Boots Riley, an organizer of the strike day, said Monday. "All over the world, people are looking to Oakland."

Unions supportive

    While major labor unions in the city have voiced support, most workers cannot legally strike while under contract. But some said they plan to take the day off, participate during off hours or walk off the job spontaneously.

    Rebecca Band, spokeswoman for the California Labor Federation, said union members will be participating in several ways, including a march to a Wells Fargo branch. They'll also be cooking from 4:30 to 8 p.m. for protesters.

High on steroids, speed pigs rampage through camp last week

Wells Fargo plans to "run our business on Wednesday the same way we run it any other day," said spokeswoman Holly Rockwell.

Occupy representatives said in a statement that they will hit the port to show "solidarity with longshore workers in their struggle against EGT in Longview, Wash." EGT is a grain exporter.

    The International Longshore and Warehouse Union local units, which do most of the work at the port, expressed support for the Occupy protest while noting they haven't authorized a strike. But if enough protesters gather outside the port, union workers could deem it a community picket line and refuse to cross it for their 7 p.m. shift, one spokesman said.

    "There have been seven community picket lines honored by our workers since 1985, the most recent one being last year," said Stan Woods, spokesman for the ILWU. "But it has to be a serious picket line with a serious number of people with goals that don't conflict with labor.

Port to remain open

    Marilyn Sandifur, a spokeswoman for the Port of Oakland, said there were no plans to alter operations. Port security is handled by a variety of local, state and federal agencies.

    The Port of Oakland was the site of an infamous 2003 clash that saw police injure antiwar activists and port workers with wood and rubber bullets. 

Oakland pigs looting Occupy encampment on orders from Quan

City offices will stay open, although City Administrator Deanna Santana said in a memo that employees can use vacation or other paid time off if they want to participate in the walkout.

Mayor Jean Quan's office said the city will provide alerts to merchants and was "not urging businesses to close on Wednesday. Instead, we advise that they use common-sense precautions."

Mixed views on council

    Although City Council members all say they support the cause, they have mixed views about Wednesday's strike.

   Councilwoman Jane Brunner said she will join in the demonstration. Councilwoman Nancy Nadel said she will support it.

    "This is aimed at big corporations," Brunner said. "We're not taking care of the 99 percent, but the 1 percent."

    Others aren't as enthusiastic.

    Council President Larry Reid said the encampment and Wednesday's strike were having a "devastating" effect on the city's image with business.

    "We've worked hard to get this city on sound footing, to get the kinds of retailers that other cities have in their urban core," Reid said. "This sends the message to those that may have had an interest that we as a city of Oakland will allow these kinds of activities to take place. Nobody is going to open up businesses in downtown Oakland."

Quan and Jordan's jobs riding on how they handle this protest

Great Oakland, a nonprofit at Jack London Square that advocates for parents on school issues, will close in support of the protesters, said Sara Nuno, community organizer there.

"A day like this calls attention, and that's what it takes to build a movement," Nuno said.

    At a deli near City Hall on Monday, manager Elaine Hong said she wasn't sure whether to close and will make a decision today.

    "I support the message, but do you really want to walk off your job?" Hong asked. "It's hard enough to get a job as it is."

Teachers union won't picket

    

    Steve Neat, secretary of the Oakland Education Association, which represents 2,700 school district teachers, nurses, counselors and psychologists, said the union has voted to support Wednesday's action but will not stage picket lines.

    "We want teachers to take whatever action at their sites they feel comfortable with," Neat said.

   Many teachers are putting in for a day of unpaid leave, but a district spokesman said there were no plans to shut down any schools.

Chronicle staff writer Carolyn Said contributed to this report.

E-mail the writers at kfagan@sfchronicle.com, dbulwa@sfchronicle.com and mkuruvila@sfchronicle.com.

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.  We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

Read more »

Reporter trapped on plane: ‘We were all slowly losing it’

Uneducated, goofy sleazeball Richard Branson could care less about "peasants" who fly his ridiculously-named, sub-standard in every way airline; "When you get fucked by Virgin Air, you know it"


Boston Herald
By Andrew Carter
10/01/2011

HARTFORD, Conn. —  

JetBlue [JBLU] Flight 504 had been a perfectly normal flight right up until it wasn’t. And then it stayed that way — a strange, surreal experience that trapped passengers and the flight crew on board for nearly seven and a half hours amid one of the worst October snowstorms on record.

    I boarded at in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., at around 9:30 a.m. Saturday with about 150 others bound for Newark, N.J. I was headed to cover the Miami Dolphins [team stats]-New York Giants football game for the Sun Sentinel.

Branson:  retarded eugenisist wants all poor people dead

Others were headed to a funeral or home after a vacation. One couple, married for 30 years, was on an anniversary trip — she had surprised him with tickets to the game.

I didn’t know any of this then, of course. But I would learn it during the next 11 ½ hours.

The flight departed from normalcy — and from its intended path into Newark’s Liberty International Airport — after about two hours and 20 minutes. We were making our descent. The wheels were down.

    Outside, a sheet of gray lined the windows.

    No visibility. No matter. We were close. Less than 1,000 feet up, according to the JetBlue’s live map.

    And then the engines roared. We accelerated. And just when it seemed we’d be on the ground, it was like we were taking off again. Landing aborted.

   One of the pilots came on. The instrument landing system at Liberty had failed.

   We circled a few times. He came back on again. New York’s Kennedy or LaGuardia airports were not an option. We were off to "Bradley," he said. A murmur rose through the cabin, the same question being repeated over and over.

    Finally, an answer: "It’s in Hartford!" someone shouted. We landed there about 1:30 p.m. and it looked like a snow globe. When the wheels touched, people cheered and clapped.

   We taxied off the runway and came to a place on the tarmac a couple of hundred yards from the terminal. We didn’t know it then, but it was our final resting spot. We didn’t move for the next seven and a half hours. There was chaos at first, though it paled to what came later.

    In the moments after we’d landed the people had questions: What was the plan? How long would we have to wait here? Can we get off the plane?

Ludicrously named airline reflects Branson's sexual status

I was especially interested in the latter. I don’t like to fly on bright, sunny days, when you can still just about make out every baseball diamond from 30,000 feet. I certainly didn’t like flying into an endless mass of gray. The captain came on. He said we were going back to Newark. We needed to be refueled. We needed to be de-iced.

    An hour passed.

    Captain again. He said we were still headed back to Newark. We still needed to be refueled. We still needed to be de-iced.

    Another hour passed.

    Captain again. He said we had been refueled. We still needed to be de-iced.

    In the cabin, tensions rose. Each time the captain came through the speakers, there was silence. And each time he went off, there was a cacophony of frustration.

    Babies cried. People yelled.

    I learned the friendly woman in 8B was headed back from an island vacation with her friend. I learned that the couple across the aisle were Dolphins fans. As if this hadn’t been a long enough season.

    Another hour passed.

    Captain again. This time what he said jarred everyone.

    "We’re not going anywhere ... we’re not getting de-iced ... we’re not going to Newark."

    This was met with the expected reaction. "Come on!" ”Let me off this plane!" ”I’m tired of this!" ”This isn’t right!"

    And on it went. Babies cried.

    At about 4:45, after more than three hours the captain greeted us with good news: We were getting towed to a gate. Just 45 more minutes.

    I checked the clock on my phone and the numbers didn’t seem to move. Time crawled. Three minutes here. Two there.

   While we waited a woman broke down in tears. A little girl cried. Flight attendants tried to comfort the angry, the tired. We sang "Happy Birthday," the whole plane, to another little girl. She’d turned 10.

    The 45 minutes came and went. It turned into an hour. An hour and a half.

    I sent out updates on Twitter. Some of them serious, others attempts at humor. The scene reminded me of a Will Ferrell "Saturday Night Live" skit — the one where he’s a morning show anchor and he and his partner lose their minds when their teleprompter breaks. That’s how we all felt on this plane — that we were all slowly losing it.

    The captain came on again. He said: "Are you tired of hearing the voices inside your head?"

    Yes. Yes, we were. That’s all he said.

    It was 6 o’clock now. Maybe 7. Time had long ago began to run together. We were out of water. Out of snacks. No chocolate-chip cookies. None of those blue chips that I only ever see on JetBlue [JBLU] flights.

    Snow piled up around us and kept coming down. Other planes sat stranded on the tarmac, too.

   Another plane had been towed in before ours — there had been a medical emergency, the captain said. Someone on board said, "Quick! Someone get sick!" We laughed.

    Passengers began to threaten to call 911: "JetBlue is holding us hostage!" one woman yelled. "Call 911!" said another.

    Near the front, a man nearby became annoyed and used profanity while he loudly asked a boy’s father to make him stop playing with a plastic bottle. The two men exchanged words and glares.

    After a while the flight attendants were alerted that a disabled man near the front needed medical attention. 

    "He needs help!" passengers screamed.

    Soon after, a police vehicle and fire truck arrived. Then, a set of mobile staircases rolled up beside the plane. When the door opened and rescue workers came in, people cheered and yelled at the same time.

    "What’s the plan!?"

    "Update! Update! Update!"

    "We’ve been here since 2!"

    "We’ve got no food! No water! No bathrooms!"

    The two men tried to calm the crowd. They led the disabled man off the plane first. One of the men, either the firefighter or the policeman, asked a passenger to put away a camera he’d been using to film the scene.

    "No," yelled another passenger. "Keep the camera on!"

    The policeman came on the loudspeaker and asked people to line up. Soon we were off. After more than seven hours we were outside looking back at a snow-covered plane instead of on the inside looking at a snow-covered airport.

    Small buses took us inside the terminal. Our checked luggage would be on board until after 6 a.m. on Sunday.

    There weren’t many answers inside. No explanation as to why we had just sat in one place for almost an entire work day. No information about how we’d reach our final destination. But at least we were off.

    We ate McDonald’s, the only restaurant open in the airport, and argued with airline staff. We waited for cots and blankets. We slept in chairs, or on the floor, and woke up without much rest yet ready to continue our journeys.

    I drove.

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.  We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

Read more »

AFRICA: At risk of "war for food, space"

The IMF, EU, IMF slowly coming to realization that they cannot kill off all "useless eaters,"  now paying for overreaching; assisting governments in looting resources for pittance bribes

IRIN
10/01/2011

High population density, low government support for agriculture, and poor infrastructure and farming methods have resulted in chronic food insecurity in Africa's Great Lakes region, experts say, despite a climate conducive to growing various crops.

    "We have a very big challenge within the Central Africa region: can the small land support the population we have?” posited Nteranya Sanginga, director-general designate of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA).

This little chap on his way out, thanks to IMF, governments

At a recent conference organized by the Consortium for Improving Agriculture–based Livelihoods in Central Africa (CIALCA) in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, Sanginga said intensive and relevant agricultural research could help to feed the steadily growing population.

     “If we don’t do that, we could be going into a situation of war - war for food, war for space,” he said.

     Predominantly small farms, about less than half a hectare, make agricultural intensification - increasing productivity per unit area of land - necessary to help meet increasing food demands.

     Two countries in the region, Rwanda and Burundi, have high population densities estimated at about 400 inhabitants per square kilometre.

     Outside sub-Saharan Africa, agricultural intensification has largely been driven by combining inorganic fertilizer and agrichemical inputs with intensive tillage and improved varieties. But experts are recommending more sustainable intensification, involving food systems in harmony with the environment.

NGO's assist looting, work mostly for CIA, U.S. govt.

“Given the food demand pressures and the environmental constraints (carbon, water), there seems no alternative to an intensification pathway for agriculture – but it needs to be a sustainable one,” notes a , Sustainable intensification and the food security challenge, presented at the conference.

Cash and Will

     In sub-Saharan Africa, where high fertilizer costs mean low usage, rising agricultural productivity has often followed the provision of more land, but this too has its limitations.

     “The clearing of forests and woodland and cultivation of grasslands is going to generate a significant load of greenhouses gases on an already overloaded atmosphere – with consequences of climate change and potential for negative feedback on agricultural productivity,” according to the study.

     Besides on-farm approaches, experts at the conference emphasized the need for improved agricultural financing and political will towards achieving regional food security.

     “The fact that the green revolution bypassed most of Africa has a reason in finance; the lack of political will is also a reason,” Henk Breman, principal scientist at IFDC a food security NGO, said.

     With little government support and weak rural infrastructure, as well as high transportation and fertilizer costs, farmers struggle to switch to high input, high output farming.

Most African governments non-functioning from corruption

According to an International Food Policy Research Institute report titled, , “simply adding to the pile of food will not be enough”.

"Typically, governments must make a concerted effort to ensure that small farmers have fair access to land, knowledge, and modern inputs," it states, adding that there is a need for agricultural technologies that can profitably be adopted on all farm sizes.

Boosting Production

     Shem Michael Ndabikunze, director of the Rwanda Agriculture Board, said increased agricultural investment was already paying off in Rwanda where food production has increased in the past few years.

     He said an emphasis on the value chain, all activities from the field to the market, had helped to boost production. At present, 53 percent of agricultural land in Rwanda is consolidated, meaning that farmers have access to improved seed and subsidized fertilizer, Ndabikunze added.

     Rwanda’s food security outlook through to December remains satisfactory, with most markets in the country adequately supplied, according to .

Insane racist:  Mugabe destroyed Rhodesia by driving whites out

Ndabikunze said Rwanda had also increased its public investment in agriculture to 10.1 percent of GDP in 2010, expected to reach 12 percent in 2011. by the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) recommends members allocate at least 10 percent of their GDP to agriculture.

     Success stories such as Rwanda and Malawi offer hope, says IITA’s Sanginga. A Farm Input Subsidy Programme introduced in Malawi in 2005 has helped to improve national food security and the productivity of smallholder farmers.

    But the situation is different in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where insecurity often limits access to fields. Poor agricultural extension services have also limited farmers’ access to new farming methods.

     “Extension is important not just for access to food but also in reducing rural poverty,” said Ann Degrande of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research.

Supporting Farmers

     Serah Kimaru-Muchai of Kenyatta University in Kenya said it was important to use the right communication channels to deliver research products to the farmers, including workshops and training by demonstration.

Africa's legacy if African "leaders" (looters) left in power

“There is a saying... once I see I will not forget; farmers prefer to see these technologies being demonstrated to them,” said Kimaru-Muchai, adding that it was important to train individual farmers in these new technologies as “farmers are the most accessible to other farmers”.

     Tools to help farmers choose the best types of crops, amount and type of soil inputs, are often not available, according to a study, Exploring the scope of fertilizer use in East Africa, co-authored by Lydia Wairegi of the Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International.

     The examined the expected benefits of fertilizer use by relating the value of yield farm gate prices to the value of fertilizer equivalent of nutrients removed for selected crops.

     “There is a need to enable farmers to tell if I invest in maize, I may make more profit than in other crops... Even as we do research, we should have it in our minds that farmers face difficulties making decisions...,” she said.

     According to Hans Henner, a World Food Prize Laureate, it is clear there is a need to need to produce more food “but the question is how?”

     “If we put life back into the soil we will get water back into the soil," Henner said. "The soil is a living organism. Agriculture needs to be redesigned. It’s at a crossroads, which is why we need to take it into the future.”

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.  We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

Read more »

Greece relights fuse for eurozone, markets; Papandreou retaliates, nailing stock market

Papandreou realizes he has been had by Merkel, EU; tries to save own skin from mobs; retaliates by taking stock market down


Agence France-Presse
By John Hadoulis
11/02/2011

Greece has thrown the eurozone back into deep crisis and financial markets into panic with a shock call for a referendum on a debt rescue reached with huge difficulty only five days ago.

    Prime Minister George Papandreou's announcements of confidence and referendum votes hit global stocks, angered EU leaders and relit warnings about the future of the eurozone - all just as G20 leaders head for a summit in France.

Pissed-off protester shoots for family jewels

Italy was thrown back into the danger zone, and its borrowing rates rose sharply.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel rushed to confer by telephone and announced talks with top officials from the European Union, International Monetary Fund and Greece on Wednesday.

In a brief phone call to Merkel, Papandreou told the chancellor that the referendum would "strengthen the country in the eurozone and globally".

    But Belgium's Yves Leterme voiced the frustrations of many leaders when he said Papandreou "carries a very heavy responsibility", noting that the landmark decisions reached on Thursday "were destined to restore confidence".

    He said: "Papandreou never mentioned it (the referendum) before, during or after the summit."

   At Commerzbank, analyst Christoph Weil reflected the general view on markets, saying: "What will happen if people say 'No'? The risk is that the international community will turn off the supply of financing for Greece and the country will quit the euro."

Greeks taking no more shit from riot pigs

Comments in EU capitals betrayed consternation and a hint of betrayal, and a senior member of the governing Greek Socialist party said Greece needed a unity government and early election.

    

    A defection reduced the already wafer thin majority of Papandreou's Socialist administration for the confidence vote on Friday, the second day of the summit of leaders from the top G20 nations

   France and Germany said they were "determined" to apply the rescue for Greece, which in any case urgently needs funds from a previous deal to avert default.

    But Alexander Stubb, the Europe minister for eurozone member Finland, said: "This is a referendum, in which they're effectively voting on Greece's euro membership."

    Uncertainty over the outcome of the two votes and what would happen if the government falls or the people reject the rescue and conditional austerity cuts drove shares in some heavily exposed eurozone banks down by 10.0 per cent or more, and the euro fell.

Papandreou now knows he has been fucked by IMF, EU

The main German stock index fell by 6.2 per cent and the French index by 5.12 per cent. The Greek market closed with a plunge of 6.92 per cent.

Wall Street opened with a fall of 2.22 per cent on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and Asian markets had closed with sharp falls, owing to the eurozone crisis and also weak data from China.

    If Greeks were to vote "No", it would scupper a deal designed to cut Greece's debt load of more than 350 billion euros by about 100 billion euros.

    Last week's plan also agreed to recapitalise banks to withstand the impact of a 50 per cent loss on their Greek bonds, and efforts are being made to draw China into helping finance safety funding.

    Financial analysts warned that the shock votes, given Papandreou's wafer thin parliamentary majority and public hostility to budget cuts and tax rises, amounted to a vote on membership of the eurozone, raised the risk of default and also put Italy in imminent danger.

    From Portugal to the Nordic region, stocks fell heavily. Italian shares fell by 7.07 per cent, and the main Italian sovereign borrowing rate rose to sharply despite reported buying by the European Central Bank.

  Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said: "This is an unexpected decision that generates uncertainties after the recent European Council and on the eve of the important G20 meeting in Cannes."

    Opposition senator Nicola Rossi said: "We all know that when our borrowing rate is close to seven per cent our debt risks becoming unsustainable ... The problem is that Italy is the weak link in the euro chain."

Riot pigs can expect this and worse from pissed-off Greeks

In a joint statement, EU president Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said they had full trust in Greece to "honour the commitments undertaken".

World Bank President Robert Zoellick warned of a "mess" for the eurozone if Greek votes against the rescue in the referendum, set for early next year.

    Papandreou, who now has 152 deputies in the 300-seat Greek parliament, said in his bombshell late on Monday: "The command of the Greek people will bind us ... If the Greek people do not want it (the rescue package), it will not be adopted."

    In a survey in the To Vima news weekly on Sunday, 58 per cent of Greeks termed the deal 'negative' or 'probably negative', although more than 72 per cent of those polled said Greece should remain in the euro.

In an online commentary, the Moneycorp currency brokerage said that Greeks had a choice of having "their financial eyes ripped out by austerity measures or by the chaos that would follow the total bankruptcy of Greece".

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.  We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

Read more »

Condoleezza Rice on the Moment She Thought President Bush Could Have Been Poisoned

Rice finally loses mind from guilt; LUDICROUS story duel purpose for Rice:  "hide in plain sight" to draw attention away from economic catastrophe, War Crimes prosecutions; make Cheney appear insane, unfit for trial

ABC
George Stephanopoulous
11/02/2011

It was just a few weeks after September 11, 2001 when Condoleezza Rice accompanied the president on a trip to China for the APEC summit. In Shanghai Vice President Cheney appeared on a secure video conference line and delivered President George W. Bush this message:

    “The Vice President came on the screen and said that the White House detectors have detected botulinum toxin, and we were all– those of who exposed were going to die,” Rice told me.

Rice:  "We were this close to dying"

He said that?

“Yes, he said that.  And I remember everybody just sort of freezing, and the President saying, ‘What was that? What was that, Dick?’” Rice, who was the National Security Advisor at the time, said.

Botulinum toxin is, according to the Center for Biosecurity, the “most poisonous substance known” and “extremely potent and lethal.”

    The exposure time meant that she and those on the trip — Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Chief of Staff Andy Card — were all at risk, Rice told me.

    “We were just a little unnerved,” she said.

    Former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson sent the samples to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to be tested on laboratory mice, she said. Rice writes in her new memoir, “No Higher Honor”, that after that call Bush directed her to “find out what the hell is going on” from her deputy, Steven Hadley.

Cheney:  "I was testing their loyalty (White House Staff) goddamnit"

“[Hadley] has this very dry sense of humor.  And he said, ‘Let me put it this way.  If the mice are feet up, we’re toast.  If the mice are feet down, we’re fine,’” Rice told me.

    

   

    “Wait a second. For 24 hours we didn’t know if the President had been poisoned?” I asked.

 

    Around noon the next day Hadley called Rice to give her the results – it was a false alarm.

    “He said, ‘The mice are feet down.’  I went back to the President, and he was sitting next to the Chinese, and I said ‘The mice are feet down.’  And the President said, ‘That’s a good thing,’ and I’m sure the Chinese who probably got a translation thought it was some sort of code,” Rice told me.

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.  We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

Read more »

Pregnant mom says sandwich arrest was 'horrifying'

American the beautiful; while Obama's government steals TRILLIONS of dollars from taxpayers and corporations like Safeway get rich on selling poison food, pregnant woman arrested for forgetting to pay for two $5.00 sandwiches, causing child to spend night in juvenile can

Associated Press
By Jennifer Sinco Kelleher
11/02/2011

HONOLULU  — 

Nicole Leszczynski couldn't imagine that two chicken salad sandwiches would land her and her husband in jail and her 2-year-old daughter in state custody. But it happened five days ago, when the 30-weeks-pregnant woman forgot to pay for her snack while grocery shopping.

    "It was the most ridiculous chain of events that happened," she said while sobbing Monday. "It's still hard to believe what happened."

Leszczynski and daughter

Leszczynski, 28, and her husband Marcin, 33, were handcuffed, searched then released on $50 bail each. Their ordeal at the police station lasted a few hours, but their daughter Zofia spent the night away from her parents in a case that has sparked nationwide outrage and forced the Safeway supermarket chain to review the incident.

   The family had moved to an apartment near downtown Honolulu from California two weeks ago. Still settling in, they ventured out Wednesday to stock up on groceries, took the bus, got lost, and ended up at a Safeway supermarket.

    Famished, the former Air Force staff sergeant picked up the two sandwiches that together cost $5. She openly munched on one while they shopped, saving the wrapper to be scanned at the register later.

    But they forgot to pay for the sandwiches as they checked out with about $50 worth of groceries.

BOYCOTT SAFEWAY; make all Safeway parking look like this

"When the security guard questioned us, I was really embarrassed, I was horrified," she said. They were led upstairs, where the couple expected to get a lecture, pay for the sandwiches, and be allowed on their way.

But store managers wouldn't allow them to pay for the sandwiches, she said.

    "I asked to talk to a manager and he said it was against their policy to pay for items that left the store," she said. "The security guard said we were being charged with shoplifting."

    Four hours later, a police officer arrived and read them their rights. A woman from the state Child Welfare Services arrived to take Zofia away.

    The pregnant mother said she tried to keep her composure until Zofia, who turns 3 in December, left the store. "I didn't want Zofia to be scared because she's never spent a night away from us. She didn't have her stuffed animal. She didn't have her toothbrush."

    But as soon as her daughter left, "I got completely hysterical. I went to the bathroom and I threw up," she recalled.

    A Honolulu police spokeswoman said it was procedure to call Child Welfare Services if a child is present when both parents are arrested. The store's management did not know the girl would be taken away, said Susan Houghton, a spokeswoman for California-based Safeway Inc.

    The national supermarket chain said it was looking into the incident. "It was never our intent to separate a mother from her child. That was a very unfortunate consequence to this situation," Houghton said. "We understand the outrage. We are concerned about how this was handled."

    Leszczynski called the incident "so horrifying, it seemed to escalate and no one could say, 'this is too much.'"

    The couple was handcuffed and driven separately to police headquarters a few blocks away, where they were searched, had their mug shots taken and then released after paying bail. A police officer escorted them back to the store — which banned them for a year, Leszczynski said — where they picked up their groceries and walked home just before midnight.

    "We basically stared at each other all night. We woke up at the crack of dawn and called (the state child welfare office)," Leszczynski said. While they waited, Leszczynski vented about the experience on babycenter.com and contacted a lawyer for help with being reunited with Zofia. At the lawyer's suggestion, they took their story to the media.

    Zofia was returned after an 18-hour separation from her parents.

    The couple is charged with fourth-degree theft, a petty misdemeanor, and has a court date on Nov. 28, according to the city prosecutor's office. The family hasn't decided whether it will pursue legal action against Safeway.

    Houghton said the company will review the police report and store security footage before deciding whether to press charges.

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.  We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

Read more »