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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 12th, 2008 The Washington Post gives us indication of the very active, though private, work of the Obama transition team of 450. The headquarters are in Chicago, and the President elect is busy also returning phone calls from World leaders. Among the Tuesday calls were calls to: President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil Previously it was also noted that Obama returned calls from leaders of most US allies - those in Europe and also among others, China, Japan and Israel. Obama will not go to the G-20 meeting in Washington, but we do not think that he will be out of reach by phone. Obama Also Lays Out Ethics Rules. The ethics rules — no federal lobbyist can raise or contribute money for the transition efforts, no one who has lobbied in the last 12 months can advise the transition on the policy area on which they lobbied, no one involved in the policy work of the transition can lobby on that issue for a calendar year — were announced by transition co-chair John Podesta during a press briefing for reporters this afternoon. (Full details of the Obama ethics plan for the transition are after the jump.) Podesta cast the new ethics rules as a leading indicator of what he termed “the most open and transparent transition in history.” Podesta added that members of the transition team will sign an ethics code laying out the specific principles announced today. Asked about reports of tension between President George W. Bush and Obama in their meeting Monday, Podesta demurred, saying only that it was a “private meeting” in which the auto industry as well as plans for an economic recovery package were raised. Podesta rejected reports that the passage of economic stimulus plan or a package to help the auto industry was part of a proposed legislative exchange for the elimination of Democratic opposition to the Colombia free trade agreement. “While the topic of Colombia came up, there was no quid pro quo,” Podesta asserted. He added that the relations between the current White House and the Obama transition teams have been “collegial” and “cooperative”. Podesta said that Obama had no plans to meet with any of the world leaders coming to town for the G20 gathering this weekend and aimed at addressing the global economic crisis. The President-elect will send an emissary to the meetings but Podesta would not offer any names as to the identity of that liaison. As for the nuts and bolts of the transition itself, Podesta said that the budget was approximately $12 million with $5.2 million of that coming in appropriations from Congress. The remaining $6.8 million will be raised by the transition operation, according to Podesta. The total transition staff will reach approximately 450 individuals, said Podesta, adding that beginning Monday a top to bottom review of every government agency would begin in an effort to insure “we hit the ground running on Jan. 20 because we don’t have a moment to lose.” Podesta offered few specifics about the naming of Cabinet officials other than to indicate that the announcements would likely be made by Obama in Chicago. As for White House senior staff, those announcements “will come out as they are ready to be announced.” Obama Ethics Rules * Federal Lobbyists cannot contribute financially to the transition. * Federal lobbyists are prohibited from any lobbying during their work with the transition. * If someone has lobbied in the last 12 months, they are prohibited from working in the fields of policy on which they lobbied. * If someone becomes a lobbyist after working on the Transition, they are prohibited from lobbying the Administration for 12 months on matters on which they worked. * A gift ban that is aggressive in reducing the influence of special interests. By Chris Cillizza | November 11, 2008; 3:00 PM ET Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 11th, 2008 Diplomats Say Uranium Traces Found at Bombed Syrian Site. See also Formal Report Drafted on Syria Atom Probe - Mark Heinrich Moreover, Syria has been made an official agenda item at the year-end November 27-28 meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors, unlike previously when IAEA officials said initial inquiries were inconclusive. (Reuters) —————- AP - updated 6:46 p.m. CT, Mon., Nov. 10, 2008 VIENNA, Austria - Samples taken from a Syrian site bombed by Israel on suspicion it was a covert nuclear reactor contained traces of uranium combined with other elements that merit further investigation, diplomats said Monday. The diplomats — who demanded anonymity because their information was confidential — said the uranium was processed and not in raw form, suggesting some kind of nuclear link. But one of the diplomats said the uranium finding itself was significant only in the context of other traces found in the oil or air samples taken by International Atomic Energy Agency experts during their visit to the site in June. Syria has a rudimentary declared nuclear program revolving around research and the production of isotopes for medical and agricultural uses, using a small, 27-kilowatt reactor, and the uranium traces might have originated from there and inadvertently been carried to the bombed site. But taken together, the uranium and the other components found on the environmental swipes “tell a story” worth investigating, said the diplomat. The second diplomat said the findings would figure in a report on Syria that will be presented to the IAEA’s 35-nation board next week ahead of a scheduled two-day board meeting starting Nov. 24. Attempts to reach IAEA spokespeople after office hours for comment were unsuccessful. Diplomats already told The Associated Press late last month that air and soil samples taken at the site bombed last year by Israeli warplanes had turned up traces of elements that the agency felt needed to be followed up. The findings are important after months of uncertainty about the status of the investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The U.S. says the facility hit by Israeli warplanes more than a year ago was a nearly completed reactor that — when on line — could produce plutonium, a pathway to nuclear arms. *** Covert program denied: But Damascus denies running a covert program. Ibrahim Othman, Syria’s nuclear chief, has said his country would wait for final environmental results before deciding how to respond to repeated IAEA requests for follow-up visits to the one in June, when the samples were collected. But a diplomat attending a closed IAEA meeting in September told the AP that Syrian Ambassador Mohammed Badi Khattab suggested his country would not allow further visits under any circumstances because it was still technically at war with Israel and was concerned any additional IAEA probe would expose some of its non-nuclear military secrets. Beyond wanting to revisit the site bombed by Israel, IAEA experts also want to follow up on U.S. Israeli and other intelligence that North Korea was involved in building the alleged Syrian program. Also, IAEA officials have been seeking permission to visit three other sites purportedly linked to the alleged reactor destroyed by the Israelis — although Syria already has said that those locations are off limits because they are in restricted military areas. *** Images raise suspicions of Syria facility. Syria fears the IAEA probe could lead to a massive investigation similar to the probe Iran has been subjected to for more than five years — and to related fallout. Iran is under U.N. sanctions because of its refusal to heed Security Council demands to curb its nuclear activities. IAEA experts came back June 25 from a four-day visit carrying air and soil samples from the Al Kibar site hit by Israel. But intelligence suggests that radioactive material had not yet been introduced into the alleged reactor before it was destroyed. That left the inspectors looking for other components, including minute quantities of graphite, a cooling element in the type of North Korean prototype that allegedly was being built with help from Pyongyang. Such a reactor contains hundreds of tons of graphite, and any major explosion would have sent dust over the immediate area. *** Mark Heinrich - Formal report drafted on Syria atom probe. VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog is drafting an investigative report on Syria for the first time, suggesting to Western diplomats the agency has found some sign of undeclared activity at a site bombed by Israel last year. Moreover, Syria has been made an official agenda item at the year-end November 27-28 meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors, unlike previously when IAEA officials said initial inquiries were inconclusive. The IAEA has been probing Syria since May over U.S. intelligence allegations that it was close to completing a plutonium-producing nuclear reactor with North Korean help before Israel flattened the site in an air strike. Syria denies pursuing nuclear energy for atomic bomb purposes in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It says the unverified U.S. intelligence was fabricated. A restricted copy of the 35-nation meeting’s agenda said Syria was added to address a pending report by IAEA Director Mohamed ElBaradei, similar in format to those issued quarterly on an agency probe into Iran’s secretive nuclear programme. “The agency clearly thinks it has something significant enough to report to put Syria on the (nuclear safeguards) agenda right after North Korea and Iran,” said a senior diplomat with ties to the Vienna-based U.N. watchdog. “We do not have firm word on what the inspectors found (at the site), only that the findings suggest there are more questions to pursue,” said another senior diplomat accredited to the agency. The diplomats asked for anonymity in exchange for discussing politically sensitive and confidential information. Syria — an ally of Iran, which is subject of a much longer-running, and now stalled, IAEA investigation — has one declared nuclear site — an old research reactor. ElBaradei told an IAEA board meeting in September that preliminary findings from test samples taken by inspectors granted a visit in June to the desert location hit by Israel bore no traces of atomic activity. Diplomats said the IAEA apparently had now evaluated all the environmental swipe samples but exactly what the sleuths found remained unclear and would be laid out in the report. Syria says all that was there was a disused military building, not a clandestine nuclear complex of North Korean design that could have yielded plutonium for atomic bomb fuel as Washington has maintained. It told the IAEA in September it was cooperating fully with the IAEA inquiry but would not go as far as opening up military sites because this would undermine its security. ElBaradei said then that Syrian cooperation had been “good” but Damascus needed to show “maximum cooperation” for the agency to draw conclusions. Diplomats close to the IAEA say Syria has ignored agency requests to check three military installations that may have harboured materials connected to the alleged reactor site. Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 3rd, 2008 Top Muslims to meet pope: Groundbreaking Vatican talks to promote interfaith dialogue. (ANSA) - Rome, November 3 - Leading Muslim scholars arrived in Rome on Monday ahead of groundbreaking talks with top Catholic officials. Nearly 60 delegates will gather in the Vatican on Tuesday morning for two days of meetings aimed at forging closer ties between the two faiths. On Thursday, the two delegations will discuss their ideas during an audience with Pope Benedict XVI and a final declaration will be released in the afternoon. Led respectively by the Grand Mufti of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Mustafa Ceric, and the head of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, the delegations will discuss ways to improve relations between the world’s two largest religions. The meeting is the fruit of an interfaith initiative by a broad coalition of influential Muslim clerics and scholars, the Common Word group. ***
Originally signed by 138 figures, the number of high-profile Sunni and Shiite Muslims adhering to the letter’s principles has since doubled and includes the religious heads of 43 countries, among which Saudi Arabia and Iran. *** The Vatican meeting comes just two weeks after a similar round of talks in the UK with the Archbishop of Canterbury. ***
”If Muslims have places of worship in Europe then it is normal that the reverse should be true in societies where Muslims are the majority,” he said in an interview with French Catholic daily La Croix. However, he said reciprocity was not a precondition for the talks, which he said offered ”real glimmers of hope”.
The Secretary of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Religious Dialogue, Pier Luigi Celata, said the talks should try to identify the real reason for continuing tension between Christianity and Islam. ”It would be interesting to see whether these tensions are shaped by social, economic, ideological, political and exploitative factors on both sides, rather than by actual religious differences,” he said. The pontiff sparked anger after citing a medieval emperor who said Islam was a ‘violent’ religion at a lecture in Regensburg, Germany. In an effort to demonstrate his commitment to fostering goodwill among religions he re-established the Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue in 2007 after having merged it with the Council for Culture at the start of his pontificate. ________________________________________________________________ Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 2nd, 2008 from: http://www.arabianbusiness.com an astonishing question: This project is yet another example of what’s wrong in this country. Who will benefit from living / working in such a building? Other than the owner w… Mayola Dsouza from Dubai, 01 November 2008,
Capital Gate leans westward an astonishing 18 degrees; by comparison the Leaning Tower of Pisa leans less than 4 degrees. Because of its posture, the tower is being constructed on top of an incredibly dense mesh of reinforced steel. The dense mesh sits above an intensive distribution of 490 piles which have been drilled 30 metres underground to accommodate the gravitational, wind and seismic pressures caused by the lean of the building. The tower forms a major part of the Capital Centre development, a $2.2 billion business and residential micro city being constructed around the thriving Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre. Abu Dhabi National Exhibitions Company (ADNEC), which is developing the iconic building, and RMJM, project architects, have made the application for the world record. Simon Horgan, CEO of ADNEC Group, said: “Capital Gate will be a building that the world will talk about, not because it has surpassed another building as the world’s tallest, but because of its aesthetic splendour and technical achievement.” Besides being believed to be the ‘world’s most inclined’ building, Capital Gate also features 728 unique custom-made diamond-shaped glazing panels. Due to the structure’s curving shape, each pane of glass is different and each will be fitted at a slightly different angle. Capital Gate will accommodate the five-star Hyatt at Capital Centre hotel and office space. Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 1st, 2008 This WEEK in the European Union Still dated 31.10.2008 an EUOBSERVER / EU WEEKLY AGENDA (3-9 November) - Europe’s attention will be focused on the US elections this Wednesday, when senator Barack Obama is set to become America’s first black president if recent polls prove to be accurate. Two days after the election of the new US president, EU leaders will hold an extraordinary meeting on Friday. Summoned by the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who chairs the bloc’s rotating presidency, the heads of state and government are to formulate a common position ahead of the G20 summit scheduled a week later in Washington to address the financial crisis and its effects on the world economy. Europeans will be watching the US presidential elections closely on Wednesday, with a clear preference for senator Barack Obama. The consequences of the financial crisis will also be reflected in the European Commission’s autumn economic forecast for 2008-2010 to be published on Monday (3 November). The forecast will cover economic growth, inflation, employment and the government deficits. A day later, Eurogroup chair Jean-Claude Juncker will give the European parliament’s economic affairs committee his assessment of the way the crisis is having an impact on the bloc’s economies. Also on Tuesday, the European Parliament begins its “Arab week”, which will see a number of Iraqi MPs and the secretary-general of the League of Arab States meeting European legislators. On Wednesday, enlargement is high on the agenda, with commissioner Olli Rehn presenting in the European Parliament an updated overview of the EU’s enlargement policy and a summary of the progress made over the past twelve months by each of the countries that want to join the EU. According to a draft version seen by EUobserver, Croatia could conclude accession negotiations with the EU by the end of next year, if it fulfills the remaining conditions, while Serbia could become an official EU candidate. Macedonia will still not be offered a date to open membership talks with the bloc, while Bosnia-Herzegovina is to be criticised for its “inflammatory rhetoric” that “adversely affected the functioning of institutions and slowed down reform”. Turkey still has a long way to go before concluding accession talks, the draft report reads, but the EU hails Ankara’s role as promoter of regional stability after the Georgian crisis. Lobby for Nabucco after the Georgian crisis: The August war between Russia and Georgia also highlighted Turkey’s “strategic significance for the EU energy security, particularly by diversifying supply routes”, the draft report reads, mentioning the importance to go ahead with the planned Nabucco gas pipeline, which will connect Austria, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria through Turkey to the gas-rich Caspian countries. Promoting Nabucco will be also the aim of energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs next week, when he starts a five-day tour on Wednesday to the Caspian countries, Georgia and Turkey. He is scheduled to hold high-level talks on the issue for the first time since Georgian crisis, a development that made Caspian countries weary about their relationship with the West. An EU-China energy conference will take place Thursday and Friday in Brussels, gathering industry and administration officials from the two sides, with discussions focusing on renewable energy, nuclear power and carbon capture and storage. Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on October 31st, 2008 Following the incident at the Syrian - Iraqi border, and the Iraqi position rejecting that incident, with seeming backing from other Arab Governments and the Iranian Government also, now Syria feels encouraged to clamp further down on whatever flowers of wisdom appear in that country. From the press - it seems that Canadian and Dutch diplomats follow closely these developments. What will all of this bode for the Middle East? Remember please that the UN will have to extend or not to extend - the US involvement in Iraq by the end of December. Syria Sentences 12 for Political Crimes Syria Comes Down on Dissidents - Stephen Starr Several Internet cafes dotted around Damascus have recently seen new regulations posted whereby every computer user must provide an identity card before being assigned a computer. The computer number and time spent on the Internet is then recorded. (Asia Times-Hong Kong) Will Syria Dump Its Old Friends? - David Blair ———————– Reaction to the US Raid into Syria: Only Muted Outrage. By ANDREW LEE BUTTERS/BAGHDAD Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2008, www.time.com
On the face of it, last weekend’s raid by U.S. Special Forces on Iraqi insurgents sheltering just over the border in Syria was a risky roll of the dice. After all, the political and diplomatic balances in the region are in a state of flux, anticipating possible changes resulting from forthcoming elections in America, Israel, Iran and Iraq, and also peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians and possibly Syria. And then there are the troubled negotiations over a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that would allow U.S. forces to continue operating in Iraq next year, in which the Iraqis are particularly concerned to avoid their country being used as a platform from which the U.S. can attack their neighbors. More Related Still, the attack on al-Qaeda weapons smuggler Abu Ghadiya may not have been quite as risky as it may appear. Sure it embarrassed the Iraqi government, which loudly condemned the action. And it was grist to the mill for Iran, which has strongly opposed the SOFA deal because of its own fears about the presence of U.S. troops on its doorstep, and which remains influential within the Iraqi ruling coalition. Syria, obviously, felt compelled to ritually denounce what it called “terrorist aggression.” But unable to either prevent the Americans entering its territory or to retaliate directly, the Assad regime was left to demand that the U.N. ban such cross-border raids, and to shut down the American Community school and an American cultural center in the Syrian capital. But the Syria attack is unlikely to have any real impact on the prospects for reaching agreement on SOFA — those were looking grim even before the raid, largely because Iraq’s leaders, who face regional and national elections over the next year, are mindful of the fact that most Iraqis want foreign troops out of Iraq as soon as possible, and that in the ballot booth, they might not look favorably on politicians who had invited the American forces to stay. At the same time, Iraqi public opinion is hardly opposed to the U.S. killing jihadis and smugglers who have wrought terrible carnage in this country. Iraqis have been more inclined to ask why Syria seems to still be harboring the kind of terrorists who have killed so many innocent civilians here. And even Syria may not be as angry with the American actions as the vitriol out of Damascus would suggest. Although reading the goings-on in the opaque authoritarian regime is never easy, it’s certainly clear that Syria faces its own jihadi problem, which may have festered as a result of its own policies: After the U.S. invaded Iraq and began talking about regime-change in Damascus as well, the Syrian government began turning a blind eye toward — even possibly supporting — Ba’athist Iraq insurgents and foreign jihadis who used the Euphrates River valley (where last weekend’s attack occurred) as a kind of a Ho Chi Minh trail into Iraq. But in the last year or so, the Syrians had begun clamping down on the jihadis, in part because they feared the danger of being dragged into a chaotic conflict if Iraq falls apart. And the secular regime in Damascus has long been a target of a homegrown Sunni insugency. But Syria may be having more trouble reining in the jihadis than it expected. Earlier this month, a car bomb exploded in Damascus, an attack that many interpreted as a retaliation from jihadi groups. If so, the Syrians may not be all that sad to see the last of Abu Ghadiya and his ilk. Damascus has much to fear from allowing a robust jihadi insurgent underground to grow roots on Syrian soil, and much to gain from U.S.-sponsored peace talks with Israel, which Syria says its wants so badly. Allowing American incursions now to pass without response may give the Syrians more leverage when they finally get to the bargaining table. But that’s not to say that these cross-border incursions wont have consequences. The Bush administration is claiming the right to go after terrorist groups even if that means violating the sovereignty of other countries. But others may be inclined to make use of the precedent in a manner less welcome to Washington. Already, Turkey has been launching strikes against the PKK, a militant group of Turkish Kurds hiding in the mountains of northern Iraq. The Turks say this is self-defense, but Iraq’s Kurds worry this is just the beginning of a move to crush Kurdish aspirations for autonomy. And one day Iran could decide that it, too, has a right to attack militant groups — some of them allegedly receiving covert U.S. backing — that are launching attacks on Iran from the mountains of northern Iraq. And to the extent that Iran fears cross-border raids from U.S. forces in Iraq, it has plenty of incentive to do whatever it can to dissuade its Iraqi allies, who include key players in the current government, from agreeing to extend the American presence. —————–
The Associated Press DAMASCUS, Syria — A Syrian television station is reporting that the country is reducing the number of troops on its border with Iraq in response to a deadly U.S. cross-border raid. Syrian and Iraqi officials did not immediately confirm the report. The private station, Dunia, showed footage Thursday of Syrian troops dismantling positions on the border and leaving the area. The report says the act was a Syrian response to the “American aggression.” On Sunday, the U.S. military launched a deadly raid into Syria. Washington hasn’t formally acknowledged the raid. But U.S. officials say the target was a top al-Qaida in Iraq figure who operated a network that smuggled fighters into Iraq. Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on October 30th, 2008 Friday, Oct. 31, 2008 EDITORIAL Syria insists that it is doing all that it can. In fact, Western military leaders have recently praised Syrian efforts to halt the flow of insurgents, which has been cut to about 20 a month. Given that the government in Damascus is run by a minority Alawite sect, it has little reason to make common cause with the Sunnis who dominate al-Qaida; it blames al-Qaida for a summer bombing in the capital. Saddam Hussein also had reason to keep al-Qaida from operating in Iraq when he was in power. But the Syrian government is also reluctant to alienate local tribes that are sympathetic to smugglers, and who rely on the payoffs from them to supplement their meager earnings. Syrian public outrage against U.S. policy and various incidents, such as whenever U.S. forces launch offensives against Sunnis within Iraq, also weaken Damascus’ will to police its borders. U.S. officials say their message is clear: Governments must respond to the threat on their territory or the U.S. will do it for them. This message has also been sent to Pakistan, where the U.S. has launched missile strikes against suspected Taliban and al-Qaida redoubts near the border with Afghanistan. Iran is also paying attention to the U.S. strikes, as it is alleged to host camps that train foreign insurgents before they enter Iraq. But Washington should worry whether such unilateral actions will whip up domestic sentiment in Arab countries against it to a level that makes it difficult if not impossible for those governments to cooperate with the U.S. These may not be democracies, but they are not impervious to public opinion. *** Worrisome though it may be, this notion does have precedents in international law. In particular, supporters point to Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, which gives all nations the right to individual or collective self-defense. This theory has justified similar state action in the past: Israel used it in 1976 during the Entebbe raid and Turkey has used it to justify pursuit of Kurdish rebels into Iraq’s territory. Of course, such reasoning depends on genuine and accurate intelligence proving the existence of such a threat and it requires that the government “hosting” the terrorists be unable or unwilling to act on its own. History has also demonstrated that such evidence is rarely as clear as it seems and judgments about who is or is not taking appropriate actions are invariably subjective. The U.S. may intend to spur its adversaries into action that reduces threats against it, but the more likely consequence is yet greater resistance to U.S. policy, making it even more difficult for Washington to rally support to its cause. American frustration is understandable, but that must not justify actions that only make it harder for Washington to realize its ultimate objectives. Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on October 29th, 2008
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