DRIVING THE SAUDIS Writer: Jayne Amelia Larson Director: Charlie Stratton Where does your GAS money really go? Larson’s grueling adventures as a chauffeur for Saudi Royals on a mega shopping/plastic surgery vacation in Beverly Hills explores cultural divides and common hypocrisies plus everything you wanted to know about ass implants. 1h 30m   National   Los Angeles, CA Solo Show   Multi-Media Staycation: Through Heaven & Hell In Someone Else’s Shoes www.drivingthesaudis.info VENUE #16: The SoHo Playhouse Sun 15 @ 9:30 Thu 19 @ 3 Sat 21 @ NOON Sun 22 @ 9:15 Fri 27 @ 3:45 VENUE #16: The SoHo Playhouse 15 Vandam Street (6th Avenue & Varick / 7th Avenue) SUBWAY: 1 to Houston Street A, C, E to Spring Street

written and performed by Jayne Amelia Larson
directed by Charlie Stratton

Where does all your GAS money go?
They came with 20 million in cash and 7 weeks to spend it on …as implants, Jimmy Choos, and mocha lattes in Beverly Hills!

The one-woman show has played in Boston, Memphis, and is now part of FringeNYC.

As the son of a Hamas co-founder who became a Christian, a spy for Israel and a consultant to the Holy Land Foundation terror-finance trial, Mosab Hassan Yousef offers a rare perspective on the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood – at once the spawn of nearly every major Islamic terrorist group and of “mainstream” operatives in the U.S. such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Yousef, who recently was granted asylum in the U.S. after the Department of Homeland Security tried to deport him, told WND in a telephone interview Americans must understand that the ultimate goal of the highly influential Brotherhood is not terrorism but to establish a global Islamic state over the entire world.

“If they can establish this in a peaceful manner, that’s fine,” he said. “But they are required by the Quran to establish this global Islamic state on the rubble of every civilization, every constitution, every government.”

The Holy Land Foundation trial in Dallas in 2008 – the largest terror-finance case in U.S. history – presented evidence of the Muslim Brotherhood’s “100-year plan” to gradually destroy the U.S. and Western civilization from within “so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

“This is not a doctrine of some freak Muslim,” Yousef observed. “It’s the doctrine, the requirement, of the god of Islam himself and his prophet, whom they praise every day.”

One of the Brotherhood’s prime strategies to help achieve its ultimate aim is to spin off groups such as the Washington, D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, that attempt to give Islam a positive face, he pointed out.

CAIR, casting itself as a human rights organization, has often been called on by government and media to represent Muslims in the U.S. But it’s origin as a front group for the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas is now widely documented, including in the WND Books best-selling expose “Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America”

CAIR and some of its leaders were confirmed by the Justice Department as unindicted co-conspirators in the trial of the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation, which was convicted of helping fund Hamas. An FBI letter to lawmakers in April 2009 explained the bureau suspended all formal contacts with CAIR because of evidence the group was founded as a front in the U.S. for Hamas. Among numerous government relationships, CAIR leaders had regular meetings with top FBI brass on security issues and helped lead FBI Muslim “sensitivity training” sessions.

At the Holy Land Foundation trial, the FBI presented a transcript from a wiretap of a 1993 meeting in Philadelphia in which Hamas supporters sought to establish Muslim organizations in the U.S. “whose Islamic hue is not very conspicuous.” CAIR was soon founded by two Palestinian participants in the Philadelphia meeting, Omar Ahmad and Nihad Awad.

The Fox News Channel’s Martha MacCallum with CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad

Wiretaps revealed Ahmad argued for using Muslims as an “entry point” to “pressure Congress and the decision makers in America” to change U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. One FBI official quoted in “Muslim Mafia” says CAIR and the other Muslim Brotherhood front groups differ from al-Qaida only in their methods.

“The only difference between the guys in the suits and the guys with the AK-47s is timing and tactics,” the official explained.

CAIR, meanwhile – which has more than a dozen former and current leaders with known associations with violent jihad – is trying to keep alive a lawsuit against WND and two investigators behind “Muslim Mafia.”

While CAIR repeatedly has denied it receives foreign support, the covert operation that produced “Muslim Mafia” obtained video footage that captured CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper boasting of his ability to bring in a half million dollars of “overseas money,” including from Saudi Arabia.

Money continues to flow in the other direction, as well, Yousef said.

He noted the FBI documented that the Holy Land Foundation sent $12.4 million from the U.S. to Hamas committees. But based on his 10 years of experience as a spy for the Israeli internal security service Shin Bet, he believes many times that amount has been smuggled to Hamas in cash.

As an example, Yousef cited the case of a Palestinian terror operative he met in prison who was arrested transporting $100,000 after Shin Bet provided information to law enforcement authorities.

“I guarantee you that there still people who collect money in mosques that go directly to Hamas in cash,” Yousef said. “And this is a problem that the government doesn’t have control over. Obama doesn’t have control over this money.”

‘Hamas is the Muslim Brotherhood’

Hamas itself was formed in 1987 as part of the Muslim Brotherhood’s strategy to advance the movement by spinning off new organizations, Yousef said.

“If they have a confrontation with Israel as the Muslim Brotherhood, they are going to pay a very high price,” he explained. “So they choose people like my father, from the Muslim Brotherhood originally, and they ask them to establish an independent movement that shares the same exact doctrine.”

As WND reported, Yousef worked alongside his father, Sheik Hassan Yousef, in the West Bank city of al-Ghaniya near Ramallah while secretly embracing Christian faith and serving as a Shin Bet spy. Since publicly declaring his faith in August 2008, he has been condemned by an al-Qaida-affiliated group and disowned by his family.

The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in the 1920s in the wake of the collapse of the Ottoman Turkish empire, considers itself an instrument of the charge Muslims have been given since Islam’s founding 1,400 years ago – to make the Quran and Allah’s authority supreme over the entire world.

Along with CAIR, prominent U.S. organizations launched by Muslim Brotherhood leaders include the Muslim Students Association, North American Islamic Trust, the Islamic Society of North America, the American Muslim Council, the Muslim American Society and the International Institute of Islamic Thought.

Yousef said, “we have to ask ourselves all the time, what is the goal of the Muslim Brotherhood? Ask them, ‘What do you want?’”

He said the Muslim Brotherhood “will keep the hope and the ultimate goal very clear in the eyes of every Muslim who belongs to the organization that one day [we will] establish an Islamic state and establish Shariah law.”

In unusually candid moments, CAIR leaders have expressed that aim.

CAIR founder Ahmad was reported telling a Muslim group in the San Francisco Bay area that Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant and that the Quran should become the highest authority in America and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth. CAIR spokesman Hooper indicated in a 1993 interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune he wants to see the U.S. become a Muslim country “through education.”

The West, Yousef said, has fallen for the “lie” that there are two types of Islam, radical and moderate. While there may be individual Muslims who are radical or moderate, Islam itself is not moderate, he contends.

“Let’s learn what Islam says about itself,” Yousef said. “Forget about what the Muslim Brotherhood, what al-Qaida, what Hezbollah – what even Americans or Westerners say about Islam. Let’s study and see what Islam says about itself, then we will understand why we have this problem.”

‘Buying the lie’

American foreign policy, especially under President Obama, he said, has “bought the lie of Muslim groups who are trying to make Islam look good in the eyes of Westerners.”

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf

Because of that approach, he said, Muslim leaders such as Feisal Abdul Rauf have developed “the courage to come forward with a very aggressive symbol” of Islamic authority, the proposed Islamic center and mosque near the site of the 2001 World Trade Center attacks.

“If it was any other American president, we wouldn’t have this aggressive step,” Yousef contended.

He noted the State Department has designated Rauf an ambassador to the Muslim world despite the imam’s unwillingness to condemn Hamas as a terrorist group.

“Of course, he cannot condemn Hamas, because he knows that Hamas is an organization that is doing the will of Allah,” Yousef said. “How can he condemn an organization that serves the same god that he worships every day five times?”

Yousef pointed out Rauf  has claimed Obama based his highly publicized Cairo speech to the Muslim world last year on a chapter from the Arabic version of Rauf’s book, “A Call to Prayer From the World Trade Center: Islamic Dawah in the Heart of America Post-9/11.” Obama asserted in the speech that violent extremists have exploited tensions between Muslims and the West, insisting Islam was not part of the problem but part of promoting peace.

‘This is the red line’

Mosab Hassan Yousef

Defenders of the proposed Ground Zero mosque cite American Muslims’ First Amendment freedoms to practice their religion.

But Yousef makes a distinction between Islam and other religions, arguing Islam is a subversive system that threatens America’s very existence.

“Even if it’s a religion, and 1.5 billion people around the world believe in it, this doesn’t mean that they are right; and this doesn’t mean that we compromise with them,” he said. “We tell them, ‘You’re accepted, but guess what? This is the red line: We don’t compromise with your god. We don’t compromise with your belief system.’”

Yousef reasoned that he certainly would not be allowed to create a religion in which he demanded that his followers kill everyone who doesn’t embrace his beliefs.

“Will I be able to register this religion here and build my symbols for this religion in this country?” he asked. “I will go to jail for that – and all my followers as well.”

‘A matter of life and death’

No one in the Middle East has the courage or the power to confront Islam, he said, but transformation can start in the most powerful country in the world.

“Instead of giving Islam credit, this is the country where we can start to fight – not against Muslims, against the bad teachings of Islam.”

Americans can begin, he said, by “understanding the real nature of Islam.”

“I am telling you, this is not a matter of politics,” he said. “It’s a matter of life and death. It’s a matter of hundreds of millions who have been killed because of this deadly ideology of Islam that has been here 1,400 years.”

Mosab Hassan Yousef in 2008 interview with Al-Hayat TV (Middle East Media Research Institute)

“This is the time” to speak out, he said, “especially here in America. This is the time to stand firm and strong against this crazy, big system.”

Yousef said that while some may want to “scare people about Islam” for some kind of financial or personal profit, he is speaking out because of his concern for America and as “a person who loves my people.”

“I cannot wait for them to be liberated,” he said of his fellow Palestinians and Muslims worldwide. “And when I see the example of liberty and freedom in this country, I want this to go to my people.”

If America leads the way in confronting Islam, change can come, he said.

“But if the country of liberty and freedom welcomes a radical and violent belief that wants to destroy everything, we won’t be able to defeat them,” he said.

“This is why we need to work all together. This is not for America only. This is for the world. This is for the future of humanity.”

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To the above, please add the news in the press that the opposition in Egypt is uniting with Mohammad El Baradei making now common front with The Muslim Brotherhood. Then see the arming by France and Russia of the weak Lebanese army and the Syrian army with the high chance that some of the arms will end up with the Syrian directly sponsored pro-Brotherhood groups. What is by now forgotten is that once, under President Nasser of Egypt – Syria, Egypt, and Iraq (one star, two stars, three stars on their flags) were supposed to unite and form the kernel of the new Arab Islamic Nation. In this context what do you think of the arming of Saudi Arabia by the US? How will fault line develop? Is this doable?

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Israel, U.S. Seek to Block French Anti-Tank Missile Sale to Lebanon (Jerusalem Post)
Israel and the U.S. are attempting to prevent a French-Lebanese arms deal, the Arabic daily Asharq al-Awsat reported Friday.
French Defense Minister Herve Moran offered to sell Lebanon 100 HOT anti-tank missiles for the Gazelle helicopters already in use by the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF).
Washington has grown increasingly skittish over arming the Lebanese military amid concerns that the LAF may become engaged in a fight with Israel, an American ally, or be co-opted by the terrorist group Hizbullah.
See also European Anti-Tank Missiles Effective Against Explosive Reactive Armor (army-technology.com)
HOT is a long-range anti-tank mi ssile that can be operated from a vehicle or helicopter.
The HOT 3 has a 6.5 kg. tandem charge warhead which is effective against Explosive Reactive Armor (ERA), penetrating up to 1,300 mm.
When the missile reaches the target, the forward charge is ejected, which explodes, detonating the ERA. After a delay, the main charge then explodes.

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Israel Working to Thwart Russian Arms Deal with Syria – Barak Ravid (Ha’aretz)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to stop the sale to Syria of advanced anti-ship missiles.
Israel considers the sale of P-800 Yakhont supersonic cruise missiles to Syria a significant danger to its navy vessels in the Mediterranean Sea.
Netanyahu told Putin that missiles Russia had delivered to Syria in the past were then transferred to Hizbullah and used against IDF troops during the Second Lebanon War.
The highly accurate P-800 has a maximum range of 300 km., carries a 200-kg. warhead, and can cruise several meters above the surface, making it difficult to identify on radar.

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Israeli-Palestinian Direct Talks and the Art of Low Expectations – Shmuel Rosner
The time may be right for the Obama administration, but it is hardly right for the parties involved. Israel and its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, think Iran is a more urgent priority. They believe the Palestinian problem can wait a little longer, and they see no Palestinian leaders they can make deals with. The Palestinian Authority and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, were dragged to these talks kicking and screaming, they don’t seem to intend to give an inch, and they have a hard time dealing with criticism from Hamas, Syria, and other regional belligerents. “There’s clearly a trust deficit that we’re going to have to find a way to overcome,” longtime special envoy Dennis Ross explained. When direct talks were finally announced, not all the Israeli newspapers bothered to carry the news on their front pages. Been there, done that. ( Slate)

{please read that article and see the ending}
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There used to be a reason for setting low expectations. We were once told that low expectations lead to happiness. You lower your expectation in the hope that humility will help you achieve your goals. You lower your expectations hoping that you will be pleasantly surprised by a more positive outcome. But the Israeli-Palestinian peace process seems to be the outlier, the case in which low expectations have no role to play, no goal to serve, no hope to provide. In this case, low expectations seem to be just, well, a sober description of reality. In this case, the strategy of low expectations is just another casualty of this neverending conflict. And that is one good reason to want these talks to begin.

Last updated on: August 20, 2010

India suddenly remembered United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon when an uncharacteristically bold statement about the failed India-Pakistan talks attributed to him was e-mailed by his spokesman.

What surprised India [ Images ]n officials was the reference to the ‘composite dialogue,’ which is favoured by Pakistan, while India insists that the priority is dismantling of the terrorist outfits on Pakistan territory.

When India took up the matter with Ban’s office, it turned out that Ban had not issued any such statement. The right hand did not know what the left was doing.

This was within weeks of a devastating attack on the secretary general by the outgoing chief of the UN’s Oversight (audit and investigation) Division (OIOS), Inga-Britt Ahlenius for undermining her efforts to combat corruption and for leading the global institution into an era of decline.

Her 50-page, confidential, end of assignment report, which leaked to the press and published on several Web sites, characterises some of the secretary general’s as ‘not only deplorable, but seriously reprehensible.’

Ban Ki-moon is not credited with either charisma or global vision even by those who are responsible for projecting him in a favourable light. The best they say about him is that he is a man who attends to details and carries out instructions from the Security Council and the General Assembly, ‘a carpenter rather than an architect.’

But the truth of the matter is that his term as the secretary general has been colourless to the extent that member States do not criticise him for any acts of omission or commission. With the major powers resorting to other fora for resolving global issues, the UN itself has become less relevant to the world today.

Even before the Ahlenius report came out, it was no secret in New York that Ban depends more on a coterie of Korean advisers than on the established structure of the secretariat for advice and implementation of instructions.

Transparency, accountability and reform that Ban had promised on his assumption of office have been absent and a culture of secrecy has been cultivated in his office.

The Ahlenius report not only confirms these impressions, but also reveals a bewildering array of actions by Ban’s advisers to weaken institutions, particularly, the OIOS, which was created with an independent mandate to investigate corruption in the UN system.

Ahlenius catalogs a number of actions by Ban and his Korean advisers to stifle the OIOS and to deprive it of its integrity and independence. These may perhaps be seen as turf battles, to which departing officials refer in passing when they retire.

But the significance of her report is that it points out the larger issues of Ban’s role and the rot that has set in, which she considers difficult to rectify. She believes that the moral authority of the UN is being eroded in the process.

The thrust of the report is that Ban has tried relentlessly to take over the OIOS’s investigative functions for fear that an independent unit would bring out embarrassing truths.

The secretary general’s office, on the other hand, can resort to selective investigations and take selective action without being accountable to the General Assembly.

She expresses frustration over her efforts to appoint a certain individual as the Director of Investigations which met with either objection or silence several times.

Ahlenius, a Swedish national and undoubtedly an admirer of Dag Hammarskjold, finds Ban a weak secretary general compared to Hammarskjold and Boutros-Boutros Ghali and points out that a weak SG weakens the system and strengthens the influence of the permanent members. This was to be expected as the P-5 (five permanent members) did not opt for any of the other candidates, who were likely to be strong, independent or innovative.

The only SG, who was offered a third term by some of the P-5 was Kurt Waldheim, who was reputed to have had a ‘head waiter’ image. Hammarskjold and Boutros Ghali, on the other hand, did not survive for long at the helm of affairs.

Hammarskjold died in suspicious circumstances and Ghali was denied a second term. By not performing the political role of the SG, Ban is playing into the hands of the P-5 and weakening the role of the rest of the membership.

Another allegation is that the most senior advisers to the SG, the Under Secretaries General (USGs), have been reduced to a group to take instructions and to implement them rather than to advise the SG before decisions are taken.

Their performance is monitored by people junior to them in the SG’s office. No individual meetings are held by the SG with the USGs to discuss and follow up their spheres of activity.

This is indeed a sad state of affairs, particularly as most of them are people of his choice, many of whom he had known personally. She also alleges that, despite the air of secrecy, the SG’s office is ‘consumed by leaks’, which must be a matter of satisfaction for those who need to know the facts.

Reform of the UN, ranging from administration to the expansion of the Security Council, is something that every SG is committed to. Ban’s government is allergic to the expansion of the permanent membership of the Security Council, but he has stated that he will not be influenced by his national position.

But no one expects him to push for expansion. Even on administrative reform, he is said to have a narrow view. ‘We do not do management here and reform, that is done’, according to Won Soo Kim, a confidant of the SG.

Ahlenius has more to say about Ban’s management style. Having changed everyone except one from Kofi Annan’s executive office, he seeks comfort in the company of a small group around him.

‘Being surrounded by these staff members, some of whom you knew well even before joining the UN may certainly give you comfort and confidence, but rather of an illusory character’, she tells Ban.

Moreover, he lashes out openly against dissenting voices and dares those who do not like his style to leave. He has been giving only one year contracts to most senior colleagues to keep them on tenterhooks and, consequently, loyal.

Ahlenius is no ordinary official, who may be motivated by bureaucratic frustrations at the end of her tenure, but a highly respected individual, who is known for fairness and honesty. And that makes her criticism sharp and relevant.

She has also had sufficient experience of the UN system to qualify her to comment on the ills of the organisation.

The decline to irrelevance of the UN she refers to is not without a sense of its limitations and constraints as a world body.

Concern about the SG’s lack of charisma, declining moral authority and ineffective leadership is widely shared in the diplomatic corps and the journalists within the United Nations.

Inter Press Service has characterised Ban having been beleaguered by the torrential criticism against him, particularly after the revelations in the Ahlenius report. Now there is documentary evidence of what was merely speculation and rumours.

At least one commentator has suggested that Ban should be denied a second term because of the allegations raised against him. But as long as the P-5 are satisfied with his functioning, Ban will continue as the secretary general.

South Korea, a country with a sense of determination and pride, will find any suggestion of denial of a second term to Ban extremely offensive. Honour is more valuable than life itself there.

The cloud, therefore is likely to clear sooner or later. It suits the P-5 to have a SG who rocks no boats, moves no mountains and confines his domination to his hapless victims in the secretariat.

Ban has already defended himself with vigour. ‘If anybody or any member States within the UN system, or if any colleague of mine within the UN Secretariat, accuses me on the issue of accountability or ethics, then that’s something I regard as unfair,’ he said.

He added that he had personally ensured both accountability and ‘the highest standards of ethics by the UN’ and made ‘unprecedented progress’ on both fronts.’

India will get to know Ban closely when it enters the Security Council early next year. He has already shown that he does not want confrontation with India and we should be pleased.

As we grow stronger, we too will like a weak and inactive UN secretary general.

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T P Sreenivasan is a former ambassador of India to the United Nations, Vienna, and a former Governor for India at the International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna. He is currently the Director General, Kerala [ Images ] International Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, and a Member of the National Security Advisory Board.

SUKKUR, Pakistan — Men waded waist deep all week wedging stones with their bare hands into an embankment to hold back Pakistan’s surging floodwaters. It was a rudimentary and ultimately vain effort to save their town. On Thursday, the waters breached the levee, a demoralizing show of how fragile Pakistan’s infrastructure remains, and how overwhelming the task is to save it.

Even as Pakistani and international relief officials scrambled to save people and property, they despaired that the nation’s worst natural calamity had ruined just about every physical strand that knit this country together — roads, bridges, schools, health clinics, electricity and communications.

The destruction could set Pakistan back many years, if not decades, further weaken its feeble civilian administration and add to the burdens on its military. It seems certain to distract from American requests for Pakistan to battle Taliban insurgents, who threatened foreign aid workers delivering flood relief on Thursday. It is already disrupting vital supply lines to American forces in Afghanistan.

The flooding, which began with the arrival of the annual monsoons late last month, has by now affected about one-fifth of the country — nearly 62,000 square miles — or an area larger than England, according to the United Nations.

At the worst points, the inundation extends for scores of miles beyond the banks of the overflowing Indus River and its tributaries, said Cmdr. Iqbal Zahid, a Pakistani Navy battalion commander in charge of rescue operations in Sindh Province.

“You have to highlight that the infrastructure all the way from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa to Sindh is ruined,” Commander Zahid said, referring to Pakistan’s northernmost and southernmost provinces. “It will take years to rebuild.”

Nearly 20 million people have been significantly affected, about the population of New York State, the United Nations said. The number in urgent need is now about eight million and expected to rise. More than half of them are without shelter.

The government’s estimates of the damage are equally grim. More than 5,000 miles of roads and railways have been washed away, along with some 7,000 schools and more than 400 health facilities.

Just to build about 500 miles of road in war-ravaged Afghanistan, the United States spent $500 million and several years, according to the Web site of the United States Agency for International Development.

And the agency has spent $200 million to rebuild just 56 schools, 19 health facilities and other services since the momentous earthquake in the Pakistani-controlled portion of Kashmir in 2005.

One estimate, in a joint study from Ball State University and the University of Tennessee, put the total cost of the flood damage at $7.1 billion. That is nearly a fifth of Pakistan’s budget, and it exceeds the total cost of last year’s five-year aid package to Pakistan passed by Congress.

Standing on the edges of the floods, the scale of the damage is evident. The water has torn mile-long breaches atop two of the main canals in Sindh Province, where tens of thousands of people were evacuated Thursday. Until the gaps can be repaired, water will continue flooding districts along the right bank of the Indus, officials said.

Floodwaters have ripped up the road from here to Jacobabad, cutting off the main highway that reaches both Baluchistan Province, Pakistan’s poorest, and into Afghanistan, one of the main supply routes used by United States forces.

What the waters have not destroyed, rescue workers have been forced to, in some cases. In the southern provinces, Pakistani government workers pointed out places where they had to blow up roads, embankments and even the railway line to steer the flow of water away from the larger towns.

The velocity of the floods was greatest in northern Pakistan, home to steep mountain valleys, and the infrastructure damage there was the worst.

The mountainous Swat Valley, which was still struggling to rebuild from the army’s campaign against Taliban insurgents, has lost every bridge and whole sections of its roads. An entire neighborhood of the town of Madyan, along with the hospital compound and an electricity station, were swept away, leaving sand and stones in their place.

Great chunks of the famed Karakoram Highway — a celebrated feat of high-altitude engineering built by the Chinese over two decades — have disappeared as cliffs fell away in the torrent. The route, which winds hundreds of miles from the Chinese border in the Himalayas to the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, may now be impassable for years, officials said.

A number of hydroelectric dams in the north, which are being built by China, have also been damaged. Five workers, including two Chinese engineers and three Pakistanis, drowned when floods swept through one construction camp earlier this month, the government reported.

The United States has agreed to help the World Bank and the Asia Development Bank conduct a damage and needs assessment for the Pakistani government. The figure is bound to be big.

The recovery cost will have to be met by a mixture of domestic money, international donations and loans from development banks, the administrator of A.I.D., Dr. Rajiv Shah, said after a tour of flooded regions on Wednesday.

Water and energy were a prime focus of the five-year $7.5 billion American aid package for Pakistan passed by Congress last year. The Obama administration had hoped to use the legislation as the centerpiece of a lasting strategic partnership with Pakistan and to help buttress the economy and Pakistan’s weak government institutions.

Now, American officials fear that money will end up being spent just to get Pakistan back to where it was before the “super flood.” The United States has already redirected $50 million of the aid package to help with the flood recovery, and the disaster will force a review of all projects that had been planned, Dr. Shah said.

“Priorities will necessarily have to shift and shift so that there is more of a recovery and reconstruction approach than people were thinking just a few months ago,” he told reporters during a trip to Sukkur.

He and other American officials are insisting that the disaster be treated as an opportunity for Pakistan to “leapfrog” ahead and help it build water and energy systems better than what was destroyed.

They point to successes that grew out of the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan, namely the creation of the National Disaster Management Administration, which is now spearheading the government response to the floods. But diplomats said government accountability and reforms in the rule of law would have to accompany the effort and the aid money.

“This is going to be very, very difficult, this is a huge scale disaster,” Dr. Shah said. “But we have to continue to be optimistic and look for those opportunities to help Pakistan to use this to build back better.”

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The Romanian population has received the news of the beginning of the
expulsion from France of hundreds – possibly thousands – of Romanian
Gypsies with almost total indifference, bordering sometimes on outright
hostility to the return of the marginalised social group. See more at WAZ.EUobserver.

http://euobserver.com/9/30680/?rk=1

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Barroso and Fillon to hold Roma ‘workshop’ – 27.08.2010 -

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Euro Zone Dialogue – Does the euro have a future?

September 23rd 2010, Berlin

Can the euro survive? The next few years may well be the toughest the euro
has ever faced. Chaired by John O’Sullivan, The Economist’s European
economics correspondent, Euro Zone Dialogue boasts an unrivalled agenda
featuring senior policymakers, leading executives and economists.

For further information visit http://www.economistconferences.com/eurozone

Chirac’s Saudi scandal.

Richard W. Rahn, Open Democracy,  August, 25 2010.

Inflated commissions from arms sales to Saudi Arabia probably made their way into personal and party coffers. If the allegations are proved, the USA has some power – including pursuing parties through its courts.

Former French President Jacques Chirac is almost certain to be accused in a major court proceeding in Paris of being part of a scheme to overcharge the kingdom of Saudi Arabia for French military equipment during his presidential term. The allegation will be that he was doing this for the benefit of himself and his political party. A complaint has been filed in the French courts over commissions due from arms sales, which is likely to lead to a trial that will be highly embarrassing for the French and Saudi governments.

Mr. Chirac is already under indictment and is preparing to stand trial on embezzlement and corruption charges for actions while he was mayor of Paris before being elected president.

The new charges are the first concrete allegations of continued corrupt practices by Mr. Chirac and his cronies during his presidency (1995-2007).

Hundreds of thousands of Americans are directly or indirectly employed in the production of military arms, aircraft, ships and defense systems. A significant portion of this production is sold to foreign countries, including Saudi Arabia. If the Saudis and their French collaborators did, indeed, exclude the opportunity for American (and other) firms to bid on the military aircraft, training and systems in question, as the complaint charges, the Americans, who have very competitive products (primarily helicopters and tanker aircraft), have a legitimate grievance. The contacts in question amount to more than 13 billion euros, or approximately $17 billion – which is not chicken feed – and which possibly could have provided jobs for many thousands of American workers.

The French have a government-controlled organization – Sofresa – that is responsible for the sales of major weapons systems and operates under the supervision of the French president. Saudi Arabia, through its defense ministry, contracted with a private intermediary – the Bugshan Group, led by Khalid Bugshan – to arrange the sale of more than 100 helicopters and other military aircraft to Sofresa, which was acting on behalf of the French government. According to the plaintiff’s counsel, Washington international lawyer Bart S. Fisher, “We will show that the procurement process corrupted the French government, from Jacques Chirac to officials in Sofresa and the Ministry of Defense.” It will be alleged that Bugshan’s activities allowed the French government to obtain significant price premiums – as much as 65 percent over and above the French suppliers’ prices and Sofresa’s standard markup for services. This allegedly was done though invoices for fictitious services and other practices, which purportedly enriched Jacques Chirac as well as his and other political parties. For example, if an airplane for Saudi Arabia should have cost X, it would be purchased for as much as three times X by the Saudis, and then Bugshan would see to it that much of the differential was distributed liberally to French politicians.

The losers in this scheme were, of course, the Saudi Arabian people, who were stuck with a bill to pay three times as much for aircraft as they should have, and the non-French and particularly U.S. aviation firms and their workers, who did not get a fair chance to build the aircraft for the Saudis. The U.S. has a law, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, that prohibits U.S. companies from paying bribes to foreign government officials. For more than a decade, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has had a Convention on Combating the Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business. Most major countries have signed the convention, including both the United States and France. Unfortunately, many countries do not enforce the anti-bribery requirements despite having signed on to the convention – which puts U.S. companies at a competitive disadvantage.

The trial is likely to provide at least a partial open window to some of the corrupt practices in international arms dealings. Khalid Bugshan and his group had their agreement with the French, and their contacts included French government officials and some in the inner circle of the Saudi ruling family. One of the interesting questions is: “How much did the Saudi ruling family know about the overpricing – or was Bugshan primarily running a rogue operation?” If the Saudi royal family knew, were they doing it to purchase political influence and/or tilt French foreign policy?

For many years, the French have argued for taking action against countries that engage in what the French consider “unfair tax competition” – i.e., having lower tax rates than the French. Lower tax rates, particularly on labor and capital, often are very beneficial for almost everyone, particularly those who receive the direct benefit of the tax-rate reduction. Bribery usually only benefits the corrupt and hurts everyone else.

U.S. law allows the government to take actions against countries that engage in unreasonable, unjustifiable and discriminatory actions against U.S. companies. If the allegations are proved, both the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative in the White House and the Justice Department have at their disposal a number of measures – some constructive, some destructive – they can take against the French and the Saudis. President Obama said he wants the United States to increase exports and create more jobs, which French dealings appear to have impeded. It is time for the Obama administration and Congress to show more guts and stand up for American workers and investors against French hypocrisy.

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Richard W. Rahn is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and chairman of the Institute for Global Economic Growth.

24 August 2010 the BBC

Yemen ‘abandoning human rights’ in battle for security.

Yemen has been accused by Amnesty International of abandoning human rights in the name of security.

The human rights group has documented what it says is a series of violations, including unlawful killings of those suspected of having links to al-Qaeda.

It also says the Yemeni government has ignored human rights as it tackles a breakaway movement in the south and Shia rebels in the north.

Authorities in Sanaa say they are doing all they can to protect civilians.

Yemen, the poorest Arab country, is struggling to deal with multiple threats.

As well as fighting al-Qaeda, the central government is trying to quell armed Shia rebels, known as the Huthis, in the north, and a southern separatist movement.

‘Sacrificing human rights’But according to an Amnesty report released on Tuesday, Yemen has carried out torture and arbitrary detentions.

The report says Yemen has also held unfair trials, using security concerns as a justification.

And it says there have been forced disappearances of people including journalists, dissenters and human rights campaigners.

The pressure group said: “The Yemeni authorities must stop sacrificing human rights in the name of security as they confront threats from al-Qaeda, Zaidi Shiite [Huthi] rebels in the north and address growing demands for secession in the south.”

In a statement, Malcolm Smart, Amnesty’s director for the Middle East and North Africa, said: “All measures taken in the name of countering terrorism or other security challenges in Yemen must have at (their) heart the protection of human rights.”

Amnesty further alleges that a worrying trend has emerged, where security is cited as a pretext to deal with opposition and stifle criticism.

And the rights group says not enough effort is made by security forces to detain suspects before killing them.

It alleges that when missiles were used against a southern village last December, more than 40 people were killed – mostly women and children.

Yemen has recently come under added international pressure to act decisively. The United States and Saudi Arabia are providing the government with aid and support.

The authorities in Sanaa say they are doing what they can to protect innocent civilians, vital state institutions and foreign interests.

Yemen has become the new centre of gravity for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, following the January 2009 merger of al-Qaeda in Yemen and al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia.

Related stories

• Yemen – Timeline 17 AUGUST 2010, COUNTRY PROFILES
• Yemen ‘al-Qaeda man’ surrenders 07 JUNE 2010, MIDDLE EAST
• Yemen al-Qaeda mediator killed 25 MAY 2010, MIDDLE EAST
• Attack stokes Yemen terror fears 29 DECEMBER 2009, MIDDLE EAST

(With the help of Wikipedia,)

Date: 25-Aug-10
Country: AUSTRALIA/SINGAPORE
Author: Michael Perry and David Fogarty

Elected Federal Australian Greens party members (L-R) Richard Di Natale, Sarah Hanson, leader Bob Brown and Adam Brandt leave a news conference in Melbourne August 22, 2010.
Photo: Reuters/Mick Tsikas

Australia could accelerate action on climate change, possibly resurrecting an emissions trading scheme, after independent and Greens MPs won the balance of power in elections that left a hung parliament.

Businesses like power retailer AGL and leading electricity provider Origin Energy have repeatedly said they need regulatory clarity on carbon pricing as they look to invest billions of dollars in energy infrastructure.

Now a deadlock that saw emissions trading laws stall in parliament in April could be broken.

“The election outcome could help pull Australia’s pollution politics out of the quagmire of scare campaigns, paranoia and deception from the major parties and big polluters,” John Connor, CEO, The Climate Institute, said on Tuesday.

Saturday’s election resulted in neither incumbent Labor nor the Liberal/National coalition with the 76 seats needed in the lower house of parliament to claim victory, with experts predicting the final count to be 73 each.

Australia’s Greens party saw its national vote double to 12 percent, electing seven Green senators who will control the balance of power in the Senate, and a Green MP in the lower house who will help decide the next minority government.

“The election provides the Greens with a clear legitimacy… and we would expect the Greens to immediately push for stronger action on climate change,” said Martijn Wilder, global head of Baker & McKenzie’s climate change practice.

Climate change is set to be a major focus of talks between Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard, opposition leader Tony Abbott and the three independents and Green MP who will determine which of the two forms a minority government, say analysts.

“The independents, on balance, seem to support action on climate change,” said Deutsche Bank in a research note.

“Combined with the pressure from Greens holding the balance of power in the Senate from July next year, there is a possibility that an emissions trading scheme could be accelerated under a minority Labor government,” the note said.

“GREENING AUSTRALIA”

Both parties in coal-reliant Australia, one of the developed world’s worst carbon polluters on a per-capita basis, back at least a 5 percent emissions cut from 2000 levels by 2020 but differ on how to achieve it.

Labor twice tried to push through carbon trading laws during its last term, but shelved them in April until at least 2012 because of fierce opposition.

The delay angered voters who had elected Labor in 2007 on a platform of climate change action, and Gillard has since said she believes a markets-based carbon price is inevitable.

In contrast, the opposition sees a carbon price as a tax which will hinder business and has a A$3.2 billion plan to raise a “Green Army” to foster energy saving and plant 20 million trees by 2020 to reduce planet-warming CO2 emissions.

Three of the four political “kingmakers” support a carbon price, while the fourth is opposed but backs investment in renewable energy such as ethanol and sugar cane.

“At some stage we will probably see some global price on carbon. Whether that be an actual market mechanism or it gets built into incentives like renewable energy,” independent Tony Windsor told Reuters on the eve of the election.

“There will be a price on pollution,” said Windsor, who in 2008 sponsored a climate protection bill that called for an emissions cut of at least 30 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.

The Greens also hold another climate card. In July 2011, a new Senate line-up will mean the Greens hold the balance of power in that chamber with nine seats, from 5 now.

The Greens want deeper cuts to emissions than either major party is offering and have proposed a two-year A$23 per tonne carbon price and a long-term 100 percent renewable energy target.

Greens Leader Senator Bob Brown said the election showed the “greening of this nation” and that the next government must take action.

“The minimum for climate change is to take action, to get something under way,” said Brown.

Analysts, though, say a carbon price is the only way to bring about substantial emissions reductions across industries.

“We think there are grounds to fast track the CPRS discussion and in fact that is what we want to see,” said Nathan Fabian, Chief Executive of the Investor Group on Climate Change, which represents institutional investors with total funds under management of approximately $600 billion.

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