CORRUPTION UPDATES 140
Posted: December 28, 2007, Draft edition
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Death of Bhutto
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Nation outraged at Benazir's assassination
The Nation, Pakistan
12-28-07
http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/dec-2007/28/index.php
ISLAMABAD/KARACHI/LAHORE/QUETTA /PESHAWAR - Former prime minister and Chairperson Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Benazir Bhutto was shot dead by a suicide bomber who exploded himself killing and injuring scores of other people here at Liaquat Bagh on Thursday evening.
Benazir Bhutto’s assassination triggered countrywide riots as angry activists of PPP took to the streets and started putting the buildings, offices of PML-Q on fire and burning tyres on the roads.
Tense Pakistan set to bury Bhutto
BBC, 12-28-07
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7162236.stm
The body of the assassinated former Pakistani PM Benazir Bhutto has been flown to her home village in Sindh for burial, amid ongoing violence.
President Pervez Musharraf appealed for calm after she was killed at an election rally on Thursday.
But angry Bhutto supporters took to the streets, notably in Punjab and Sindh. At least 11 deaths were reported.
The killing was condemned worldwide, with the UN Security Council describing it as a reprehensible act of terrorism.
Plans for parliamentary elections on 8 January still stand, caretaker Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro said on Friday, amid doubts that the vote would go ahead after the death of the leader of the largest opposition party.
Bhutto Assassination Ignites Disarray
By SALMAN MASOOD and CARLOTTA GALL
NYT, December 28, 2007
/12/28/world/asia/28pakistan.html?ref=todayspaper
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan — Benazir Bhutto, the Pakistani opposition leader and twice-serving prime minister, was assassinated Thursday evening as she left a political rally here, a scene of fiery carnage that plunged Pakistan deeper into political turmoil and ignited widespread violence by her enraged supporters.
A deeply polarizing figure, Ms. Bhutto spent 30 years navigating the turbulent and often violent world of Pakistani politics, becoming in 1988 the first woman to lead a modern Muslim country.
She had narrowly escaped an assassination attempt upon her return to Pakistan two months ago. Her death now presents President Pervez Musharraf with one of the most potent crises of his turbulent eight years in power, and Bush administration officials with a new challenge in their efforts to stabilize a front-line state — home to both Al Qaeda and nuclear arms — in their fight against terrorism.
Thousands Mourn Bhutto As Unrest Spreads
Interior Minister Blames Attack on al-Qaeda; Bhutto Supporters Blame Government
Griff Witte and William Branigin
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, December 28, 2007
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/28/AR2
007122800200.html?nav=rss_email/components
Assassinated opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was buried Friday at her family's marble mausoleum in southern Pakistan, as angry supporters rampaged through several cities and the government formally blamed her death on al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Pakistan's interior minister, Hamid Nawaz, blamed the attack on the al-Qaeda terrorist network and Afghanistan's Taliban movement -- radical Islamic groups that have found support in Pakistan's unruly tribal areas after being driven from power in neighboring Afghanistan in 2001. But Bhutto supporters assigned responsibility to the government of President Pervez Musharraf, charging that, at a minimum, it refused to take adequate steps to protect Bhutto following her return from exile in October, when she narrowly escaped an even deadlier assassination attempt.
The million-dollar question: Who is going to succeed Benazir Bhutto?
By Shahzad Shah Jillani
Daily Times, Pakistan
Saturday, December 29, 2007
KARACHI: Following Benazir Bhutto’s death, many are left pondering as to who would fill the vacuum created in her absence.
When Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was hanged in April 1979, his wife Begum Nusrat Bhutto, in principle, was supposed to take control of the affairs of the Pakistan People’s Party and the struggle for the restoration of democracy.
But Zulfikar Bhutto’s favourite daughter nicknamed ‘Pinky’ was handed over this responsibility, after which Pinky turned into Benazir Bhutto.
The question that arises is that why did Benazir not name someone as her successor who would carry on her work in her absence.
Did she fear that by doing this she could put her life in jeopardy or did she not trust the people around her, these are the questions in the people’s minds. Reviewing the series of tragic incidents that this family has faced, it can be noted that it has lost most of its members through some sort of conspiracy.
Now the only living offspring of Zulfikar Bhutto now is Sanam Bhutto, who has been away from the country most of the time and never indulged in politics.
Zardari is the second-in-command after Benazir as far as the influence of the family is concerned. Zardari’s children are too young to be playing any role in politics and Zardari’s health issue is a major impediment to him taking Benazir’s place.
The family members of Benazir’s brother Murtaza Bhutto, Ghinwa, Fatima and Zulfiqar junior would not be able to achieve the same playing field in politics, as Ghinwa and Fatima had opposed Benazir on many occasions, something that Benazir’s supporters would not forget.
When it comes to the loyalty aspect, Makhdoom Amin Fahim was a close, confidential and loyal supporter of Benazir Bhutto, who had refused to become the prime minister, when offered by President Musharraf.
Will he be able to carry the Pakistan People’s Party forward? Will the people accept him as the predecessor of Benazir Bhutto? Will Zardari allow this to happen? It remains to be seen.
Another important factor of the PPP politics is that it has to be a Bhutto each time to continue with the Bhutto mission.
The NY Times handicaps the leadership possibilities for Pakistan and the PPP after Bhutto's death:
Since returning to Pakistan from exile last month, Mr. Sharif has positioned himself as a more vocal opponent to Mr. Musharraf than Ms. Bhutto was. He has campaigned well, showing more discipline and political savvy than he did during his two tenures as prime minister in the 1990s, according to analysts. His clearer defiance of the unpopular president has attracted large crowds to his rallies.
“This steely determination he’s shown since November is a new thing,” said Teresita Schaffer, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “Part of it is his visceral dislike for Musharraf.”
The Pakistan Peoples Party, meanwhile, will struggle to chose a new leader, analysts predict.
Its senior vice chairman is Makhdoom Amin Fahim, who, like Ms. Bhutto, comes from a feudal family with roots in Sindh Province. Officially, Mr. Fahim should be the successor, party officials said.
Also being mentioned Thursday night as a possible new party chief was Aitzaz Ahsan, the prominent leader of the lawyers’ movement. Mr. Ahsan was jailed after the Nov. 3 state of emergency was imposed and remains under house arrest.
Mr. Ahsan is an articulate, Cambridge-educated lawyer and a forceful critic of the Musharraf government. But he had a rocky relationship with Ms. Bhutto. According to several members of the party, she resented his high profile as the leader of the campaign to reinstate the chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, after he was fired earlier this year.
In the end, the arbiter of power in Pakistan will be the country’s powerful army, according to analysts. Under pressure from the United States, Mr. Musharraf resigned last month from his post as army chief and became a civilian president. While the army is headed by generals appointed by Mr. Musharraf, he is not guaranteed their support.
“An awful lot depends on how the army reacts,” Ms. Schaffer said. “Do they clamp down? Are they reluctant to clamp down? Do they blame Musharraf?”
Note:
The PPP named Bhutto's 19 year old son Bilawal was the new party leader, despite his continuing enrollment at Oxford. Bhutto's husband, known as "10% Zardari," for the commissions he charged for selling government contracts during his wife's last administration, will be the defacto leader of the PPP.
Bhutto successors face tough challenge, bbc, 12-30-07
Zardari, Wikipedia Bio
Did Benazir Bhutto Kill her brother? CNN, 9-21-05
Swiss close probe of Bhutto corruption, continue probe of husband, ap, 12-28-07
News Analysis: Who killed Benazir Bhutto?
By Najam Sethi
Daily Times, 12-29-07
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?
page=2007%5C12%5C29%5Cstory_29-12-2007_pg1_6
The assassination of Benazir Bhutto has raised two important questions. Who killed her and why? And what happens next to the Pakistan People’s Party and by corollary to Pakistani politics?
Most Pakistanis are by instinct inclined to believe that the “agencies” did it. This is the easy explanation for anything that happens in this country which is either inexplicable or unpalatable. All political assassinations in Pakistan remain inexplicable since the truth about them has never been investigated or investigated but not made public. But the truth of Ms Bhutto’s assassination may also be subliminally unacceptable to many Pakistanis because a religious or “Islamist” element may be at its unpleasant core.
This response is also partly due to the ubiquitous role of the “agencies” in ordering Pakistan’s political contours since the 1980s, including making and unmaking governments and elections. So we can hardly be blamed for suspecting the “agencies” or clutching at half-baked theories. Certainly, the political opposition to President Pervez Musharraf would like everyone to think so. It suits the politicians’ purpose because it discredits the Musharraf regime and seeks to exploit the widespread anger and outrage at the killing of a popular leader to try and overthrow him.
Bhutto was targeted by all militant groups in Pakistan
Published Date:Kuwait Times, December 29, 2007
http://www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news.php?newsid=MjkzNjM0NDE0
ISLAMABAD: Benazir Bhutto was the target of threats from virtually all of the militant groups who make Pakistan their home - from Al-Qaeda to homegrown terrorists to tribal insurgents on the Afghan border. Her assassination after a rally in the garrison city of Rawalpindi - where the country's military and intelligence services are based - also focused anger and suspicion on the government of President Pervez Musharraf.
The former prime minister had blamed Al-Qaeda, the Taleban and homegrown militants for a suicide bombing that tore through a procession welcoming her back from exile in October. But she accused militant "sympathizers" in Musharraf's administration of backing the attempt on her life, and Bhutto's supporters chanted, "Killer, Killer, Musharraf!" outside the hospital where she was pronounced dead Thursday.
Al-Qaeda No. 2 Ayman Al-Zawahri decried Bhutto's return in a video message this month and called for attacks on all the candidates in Pakistan's Jan 8 parliamentary elections, in which Bhutto and her opposition party were campaigning. Bhutto once said that several Pakistanis arrested in an assassination attempt during her second term in mid-1990s had said they were following Osama bin Laden's orders.
Bhutto, a US-backed, British-educated woman who forcefully pledged to redouble Pakistan's fight against Islamic militancy, was also despised by Taleban-style radicals backed by tribes along the Afghan border. Baitullah Mehsud, a tribal warlord in the Waziristan region, was quoted in a Pakistani newspaper as saying that he would welcome Bhutto's return from exile with suicide bombers. He later denied that in statements to local television and newspaper reporters.
Bhutto also was labeled an infidel by other groups, such as Jaish-ul Mohammed, Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Hezb-ul Mujahedeen, which were spawned by Pakistan's military and intelligence services to take on neighboring India in the disputed Kashmir region. The groups later aligned themselves with Al-Qaeda and have vowed to battle foreign troops in Afghanistan and wage war against the Pakistani military for its support of the US-led anti-terror campaign. Some of their leaders have said Bhutto deserved to die for h
er threats to crush militants.
Bhutto death explanation 'pack of lies'
December 29, 2007 05:13am
News.com.au
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22983841-1702,00.html
A TOP aide to slain Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has rejected the government's explanation of her death as a "pack of lies".
The Pakistan interior ministry said Bhutto died when she hit her head on her vehicle's sunroof as she ducked after a gun and suicide attack on a campaign rally, and that no bullets or shrapnel were found in her.
"It is baseless. It is a pack of lies,'' said Farooq Naik, Bhutto's top lawyer and a senior official in her Pakistan People's Party.
"Two bullets hit her, one in the abdomen and one in the head.
"Bhutto's personal secretary Naheed Khan and party official Makhdoom Amin Fahim were in the car and they saw what happened.
"It is an irreparable loss and they are turning it into a joke with such claims. The country is heading towards civil war.''
More Bhutto Articles from around the world
Frontier Post Article, Pakistan
Dawn, Pakistan: (offline during assassination, online the following day)
The Telegraph, India, Bullets and blast fell Bhutto in army hub
BBC, Special Report: The Death of Bhutto
NYT, Salvaging U.S. Diplomacy Amid Division
AFP, Global fears for Pakistan after Bhutto killing
Time, Where Bhutto's Death Leaves the U.S.
Daily Mail, great bio on Bhutto, child of riches and privilidige: "Oxford party girl cursed by blood-soaked family dynasty"
Video of Bhutto's last Moments, Explosion, guardian, 12-28-07
Pakistan Sliding out of American Hands
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., December, 2007
Our vile plot to cover Musharraf's dictatorship with Bhutto's veil of civilian corruption came to a bloody halt in Ralipindi
Paki Article Link List,
Pakistan's old new year, Al-Ahram 18-24 Jan 07
American backed Dictator Attempting to Crush Pakistan's Judiciary, CNN, 3-26-07
American Dictator Removes Chief Justice in Pakistan, BBC, 3-12-07
As Pakistan’s Chief Looks Ahead, Army Holds the Cards, NYT, June 28, 2007
U.S.: Pakistan Will Fight Militants: American Dictator Save Pakistan from itself, AP, July 17, 2007
Even Musharraf’s Allies Question His Re-election Goal: Will US broker a Musharraf-Bhutto alignment between Army and Secular Corruption? NY Times, August 17, 2007
Musharraf strikes deal with Bhutto: Bhutto sells out to American Dictatorship, Financial Times, August 29, 2007
Fear and fearlessness in Pakistan, Al-Ahram Weekly, 4 - 10 October 2007
VIEW: Running from Musharraf, Daily Times, Pakistan, 9-29-07
Our Paki Dictator reveals his true source of power: Martial Law, Washington Post, November 4, 2007
Our Paki Dictator Releases Militants, Arrests Democratic Opposition to fight "Terror," Dawn, Pakistan, 11-5-07
US continues to back Paki dictator after arrest of supreme court, closing media, and arresting moderate opponents, Christian Science Monitor, Nov 6, 2007
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Citi May Write Down $18.7B, Analysts Say
By MADLEN READ, AP Business Writer
Thursday, December 27, 2007
(12-27) 13:39 PST NEW YORK, (AP) --
When Citigroup warned in early November that it was likely to write down its portfolio by $8 billion to $11 billion in the fourth quarter because of exposure to bad loans, investors recoiled at the size of the losses. Some now say those early estimates appear drastically understated.
Citigroup Inc. could write off as much as $18.7 billion in the fourth quarter, wrote Goldman analysts William F. Tanona, Betsy Miller and Neil C. Sanyal in a note to investors late Wednesday. If it does, they say, the bank may be forced to lower its dividend by 40 percent.
Citi has about $55 billion in exposure to subprime mortgages, about $43 billion of which are collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs, that have mortgages underlying them.
"We still believe it will be a couple of quarters before the current credit crisis is fully digested by the markets," the Goldman analysts wrote.
Already, Citi has been propped up by a $7.5 billion investment from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, a sovereign wealth fund that in late November bought a 4.9 percent stake in the bank.
But if Citi must write down the value of its portfolio by more than it estimated back in early November — a distinct possibility, given the lack of improvement in the tight credit markets — Goldman analysts said the bank may need to raise an extra $5 billion to $10 billion in cash.
A dividend cut is a possibility facing many banks wrangling with their losing investments in subprime mortgages. UBS recently replaced its 2007 cash dividend with a stock dividend, in a cash-raising effort that also included selling a $9.75 billion stake to a Singapore fund, borrowing about $11.5 billion from outside investors and selling treasury shares.
CIBC World Markets Corp. analyst Meredith Whitney has said for months that Citi's dividend should be on the chopping block. Earlier this month, she wrote that along with cutting the dividend, Citigroup should raise at least $30 billion in additional capital and sell at least $100 billion in assets.
Goldman increased its estimate for Citi's fourth-quarter loss to $1.33 per share, from 52 cents per share, based on the higher writedown prediction. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial, on average, predict a loss of 63 cents per share for the fourth quarter, which ends Monday.
The Goldman team also said they expect an additional $11.5 billion write-off from Merrill Lynch & Co., and increased their loss estimate for the broker to $7 per share for its fourth quarter from a loss of $1.50 per share. Wall Street, on average, expects Merrill to report a loss of $2.78 per share, according to Thomson Financial.
Goldman analysts also predict a $3.4 billion writedown at JPMorgan Chase & Co., and cut their profit estimate to 65 cents per share from $1.04. Analysts, on average, see JPMorgan posting a profit of $1.03 per share, according to Thomson Financial.
Home Sales Plunge, Feed Recession Fears
By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer
Friday, December 28, 2007
(12-28) 13:52 PST WASHINGTON, (AP) --
The housing market plunged deeper into despair last month, with sales of new homes plummeting to their lowest level in more than 12 years.
The slump worsened even more than most analysts expected, heightening fears that the country might be thrust into a recession.
New-home sales tumbled 9 percent in November from October to a seasonally adjusted annual sales pace of 647,000, the Commerce Department reported Friday. That was the worst sales pace since April 1995.
"It was ugly," declared Richard Yamarone, economist at Argus Research. "It is the one sector of the economy that doesn't show any signs of life. It doesn't look like there is any resuscitation in store for housing over the next year," he said.
The housing picture turned out to be more grim than most anticipated. Many economists were predicting sales to decline by 1.8 percent to a pace of 715,000.
By region, sales fell in all parts of the country, except for the West.
In the Midwest, new-home sales plunged 27.6 percent in November from October. Sales dropped 19.3 percent in the Northeast and fell 6.4 percent in the South. In the West, however, sales rose 4 percent.
Over the last 12 months, new-home sales nationwide have tumbled by 34.4 percent, the biggest annual slide since early 1991, and stark evidence of the painful collapse in the once high-flying housing market.
"I think you can classify what we are seeing in the housing market as a crash," said Mark Zandi,
chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. "Sales and home prices are in a free fall. The downturn is intensifying."
Defaults moving beyond sub-prime
Delinquencies among holders of risky option ARMs are increasing as their minimum payments climb.
By E. Scott Reckard, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 28, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-optionarm28dec28,0,4900304.story?coll=la-home-business
So-called pay-option adjustable-rate mortgages, or option ARMs, were the easiest and most profitable home loans for lenders and brokers to make for much of this decade. Last year, they accounted for about 9% of the volume of all mortgages made in the U.S. and were especially popular in California, Florida and Nevada -- states where home prices rose the most during the housing boom and are now falling most sharply.
An option ARM loan gives a borrower the option of paying less than the interest due, causing the loan balance to rise. If it rises too much -- say, by 10% or 15% -- the opportunity to make a low payment vanishes and the required payment skyrockets.
That scenario is becoming increasingly common. In fact, more than 75% of option ARM borrowers have been making only the minimum payments, analysts at Standard & Poor's Corp. said last week. As a result, the delinquency rate on option ARMs already is jumping and is likely to keep rising sharply, S&P said. Because option ARMS went only to "prime" borrowers, they aren't eligible for a much-publicized interest rate freeze that is part of a White House-backed plan to stem sub-prime foreclosures.
One upshot could be foreclosures growing more common in affluent neighborhoods.
Surge in Oil Prices Could Crimp Growth
By JOHN WILEN, AP Business Writer
Friday, December 28, 2007
(12-28) 14:58 PST NEW YORK, (AP) --
Oil's run to nearly $100 a barrel this year jacked up the cost of travel, clothing, beauty products and milk, and many analysts think fuel prices will remain at historically lofty levels throughout 2008.
Record energy prices could sow the seeds of their own destruction. Along with the housing crisis, they are contributing to an economic slowdown that is sapping the country's energy appetite just as oil producers ramp up production.
"The cure for high prices is more high prices," said Tim Evans, an analyst at Citigroup Inc., in New York.
That doesn't mean oil will plummet — unless there's a severe recession, said Evans, who expects prices to hover near $70 a barrel. In the face of such forecasts, OPEC could decide to cut production, as it did last year, to keep prices from falling too low.
US: China’s Bitch
AP, 12-21-07
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22362982
New Yortk: There’s a good reason schools across the country are scrambling to find people who can teach Chinese: It's quickly becoming business' second language as Wall Street seeks to tap China's $1.3 trillion in foreign reserves.
China has been making increasingly aggressive investments in some of the world's most prestigious financial companies in recent months — most of them American. Morgan Stanley, Bear Stearns, Blackstone Group, and Britain's Barclays have all negotiated major stakes by Chinese government-controlled investment funds.
Investment banks ailing from the subprime mortgage mess are looking for money to shore up their balance sheets. And China is leading a surge of strategic investments from Asia and the Middle East that so far have sunk about $25 billion into Wall Street banks.
US National welfare Secondary to Corporate Profits in China Trade
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., December 30, 2007
The blind pursuit of profits in the China Trade has distorted American foreign policy with China to the detriment of our international interests, as well as becoming a weapon of the american corporate class against the political, as well as economic, rights and welfare of america's working and middle-classes.
The China Trade damages american security across a wide range of our national interests. Economically, the China Trade has been instrumental in breding american economic dependence on China's, and the world's, reinvestment in amereica's ever-expanding debt to maintain global profitability, and our outragous level of consumption and rate of expansion.
The lowering of prices by moving manufacturing to China is yet another downward pressure on american wages and benefits, in addition to the already significant suppression of wages and benefits wrought by crimigration.
Besides exporting jobs, impoverishing the american middle-class, and flooding the country with cheap consumer crap, the China Trade has been bringing california and the world a rich harvest of nasty pollution, pollution which would have been mitigated by manufacturing in the US. (especially if manufactured in Europe.)
The dramatic change in the character and timing of seasons we are now experiencing is mainly a product of american pollution during the last fifty years. The ecological crisis is already upon the planet, born in the USA, by our own actions.
Despite this grim fact, the us has been the main reason that China has caught, and surpassed, the level of american pollution that has already brought chaos to the planet's seasons. The economic and environmental consequences of the China Trade are nastly complimented by the domestic political consequences of the China Trade in the us.
The China Trade has ampllified our already sickening maldistribution of wealth by eliminating ecological, safety, and social costs of making things here responsibily. This is instantly achieved by manufacturing in China.
This unjust, unethical, and immoral enrichment of our buisness class has splashed over into politics. This unchecked concentration of wealth has accentuated the concentration of political power in the hands of a small, incredibly wealthy, corporate elite.
The voice and power of the voter has been swept aside by the power and wealth of the corporate financed parties and politicians.
America's elite and working classes are no longer interdependent, nor do they counterbalance each other in our political processes, or in our political institutions.
Our political processes and institutions have been comprimised by massive corruption that has reached unprecented levels in the US during the last few decades. A main source of funding for our domestic corruption can be found in China.
The China trade, and all trade based on abusing foreign or domestic labor, damaging nature, or disenfranchising the working class, must be immediatly ended.
Context of 'April 8, 2001: US Refuses to Apologize for Collision of Spy Plane with Chinese Fighter,' Cooperative Research History Commons, Undated, Great quote from the report on the 2001 aircraft incident:
"Media pundit Eric Alterman characterizes the response of the US media as “extremely indulgent” towards Bush, with the notable exception of neoconservatives, who complain about “the national humilation [Bush] has brought upon the United States” and Bush’s “weakness…and fear.” Alterman says that while the incident itself is a foreign policy disaster, the manipulation of a compliant US media is brilliant. He notes that Bush was able to apologize twice to the Chinese without actually being reported in America as apologizing. Neither was the tremendous intelligence loss of the EP-3 focused upon as the potential disaster that many military and intelligence officials perceived it to be."
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China Finds American Allies for Security
By KEITH BRADSHER
NYT, December 28, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/28/business/worldbusiness/28security.html
BEIJING — In preparation for the Beijing Olympics and a series of other international events, some American companies are helping the Chinese government design and install one of the most comprehensive high-tech public surveillance systems in the world.
When told of the companies’ transactions, critics of China’s human rights record said the work violated the spirit of a sanctions law Congress passed after the Tiananmen Square killings.
The Commerce Department, however, says the sophisticated systems being installed, by companies like Honeywell, General Electric, United Technologies and I.B.M., do not run afoul of the ban on providing China with “crime control or detection instruments or equipment.” But the department has just opened a 45-day review of its policies on the sale of crime-control gear to China.
China’s regime, the most authoritarian to hold an Olympics since the Soviet Union’s in 1980, also presents particular challenges. Long after the visitors leave, security industry experts say, the surveillance equipment that Western companies leave behind will provide the authorities here with new tools to track not only criminals, but dissidents too.
Indeed, the autumn issue of the magazine of China’s public security ministry prominently listed places of religious worship and Internet cafes as locations to install new cameras.
Multinationals are reluctant to discuss their sales to China’s security forces, but they say they have done everything necessary to comply with relevant laws.
Honeywell has already started helping the police to set up an elaborate computer monitoring system to analyze feeds from indoor and outdoor cameras in one of Beijing’s most populated districts, where several Olympic sites are located.
The company is working on more expansive systems in Shanghai, in preparation for the 2010 World Expo there — in addition to government and business security systems in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Changsha, Tianjin, Kunming and Xi’an.
General Electric has sold to Chinese authorities its powerful VisioWave system, which allows security officers to control thousands of video cameras simultaneously and automatically alerts them to suspicious or fast-moving objects, like people running. The system will be deployed at Beijing’s national convention center, including the Olympics media center.
I.B.M. is installing a similar system in Beijing that should be ready before the Olympics and will analyze and catalog people and behavior.
Julie Donahue, I.B.M.’s vice president for security and privacy services, told a technology news service in early December that by next summer I.B.M. would install in Beijing its newly developed Smart Surveillance System, a powerful network that links large numbers of video cameras. Company officials declined repeated requests to answer questions about the system or discuss Ms. Donahue’s remarks.
United Technologies flew three engineers from its Lenel security subsidiary in Rochester to Guangzhou, the biggest metropolis in southeastern China, to customize a 2,000-camera network in a single large neighborhood, the first step toward a citywide network of 250,000 cameras to be installed before the Asian Games in 2010. The company is also seeking contracts to build that network.
Critics argue that all these programs violate the spirit, if not the letter, of the American law written in response to the military crackdown at Tiananmen Square in 1989.
The Commerce Department, charged with developing regulations that put the law in effect, stands by its rules. The department bars exports whose sole use is law enforcement, like equipment for detecting fingerprints at crime scenes. But video systems are allowed if they are “industrial or civilian intrusion alarm, traffic or industrial movement control or counting systems,” according to the regulations.
James Mulvenon is the director of the Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis, a government contractor in Washington that does classified analyses on overseas military and intelligence programs. He said the companies’ participation in Chinese surveillance “violates the spirit of the Tiananmen legislation.”
Olympics security spending increased rapidly this year, after China’s little-noticed decision last winter to create a nationwide “safe cities” program, establishing surveillance camera networks in more than 600 cities.
A table in the security ministry’s magazine suggested the number of surveillance cameras needed in each community, based on its size, international prominence and location — from 250,000 to 300,000 cameras in metropolises like Beijing and Shanghai to 1,000 to 5,000 cameras for small towns and rural counties.
China is likely to emerge from the Olympics with remarkable surveillance capabilities, said Mr. Vickers, the former Hong Kong police official.
“They are certainly getting the best stuff,” he added. “One, because money talks, and second, because whatever the diplomatic issues, the U.S. wants to supply the Olympics.”
What's Really Going on Here?
Our Chinese "Friends" are Autocratic Dictators who we are Empowering With Trillions of Dollars of Irresponsible Manufacturing and Trade Profits
Alex, May 24, 2007, CU 59_7
The Chinese are using the profits from our trade to build missiles, fleets, and armies. The Chinese are expanding their global reach, using the profits from our trade to finance development in Venezuela and Sudan.
And the Chinese are also using these profits to build a high-tech domestic police state.
Funding, equipping, generally empowering China's Evil Government is not a problem to the leaders of either party. Why?
Because profits are more important to our globalized corporate politicians than the welfare of our country. While the China trade has empowered China, and swelled the profits of our corporations, it has impoverished our middle class, and made America dependent on offshore sources for our most basic needs.
The China Trade, in combination with illegal immigration, has impoverished Workers Here, pushing all the money, and political power, to the American Corporate Aristocracy.
Couldn't have done it without the cooperation of the Chinese.
A similar phenomena has occurred in China. A big chunk of the Chinese Peasantry has moved to the big city, and is being screwed over worse than any illegal in Los Angeles. Moving American manufactures to China has concentrated a massive amount of Wealth into the hands of a very small group, giving birth to a nascent Chinese corporate aristocracy.
Our Corporate Aristocracy has no problem financing and arming dictators around the world. Providing the tools for authoritarian governments to impose police state powers on people around the world seems to offend none in our corporate press or our corporate government.
Until we stop the corporations from buying our elections and politicians, our Corporate Aristocracy and its government will continue to have more in common with the Chinese "Commie" leadership, and other petty dictators around the world, than with our own people. Well, what's left of them.
I am amazed that our capitalists are not freaked out by the Chinese government's power to seize anything they want. I'm doubly surprised that they are funding a serious threat to their own domination of the world's resources. An even greater problem is that China has no reliable rule of law to define or defend corporate property.
On the other hand, China does have one thing our corporations seem to be angling for here: a centralization of political and economic power in the hands of a small elite that controls the political, economic, and religious affairs of the whole country.
It is obvious that China's tyrannical government does not offend either our government or press's definitions of freedom or human rights. This is amazing considering their range of civil and human rights abuses.
I am really amazed that China's forced abortion policy has not attracted more attention from our President and his evangelical allies. I'm surprised that China's forced abortions are not a hot topic among the presidential candidates, considering what a political weapon abortion has been inside our country.
It seems the Dems and Repugs will both tolerate forced abortions for the profits of the China trade. The Dems tolerate the human rights abuse, while the Repugnants prove themselves hypocrites before both god and man.
To all you Christians dealing with China: China Forces Women to have Abortions. Get your mind around that one, then keep cheering for, and participating in, the China Trade.
This is a rare moment when Human Rights and the Christian Right could actually fit together: they could both demand that China back away from imposing abortions, among other abominations, on its people.
But apparently our Christian President, and all the zealots who want to deny Abortions to women who want one here, have no problem making money in a country that imposes Abortions on unwilling women.
Maybe the Christians and Chinese would agree that the power to compel people is more important than what you compel them to do. Or not to do.
To all you hippies, who see globalism as a way to hold hands with the world: China took Tibet, raped it, and calls it "China," and is flooding it with Chinese nationals. Yeah, let's all hold hands...
To the environmentalists: China is finishing off the destruction of the Climate that the United States started.
In brief, China is one of the most unfree, greedy, and dirty countries on the face of the planet. And our relationship with Chins is accelerating and empowering all of these characteristics.
In China, a High-Tech Plan to Track People: China Catches up with West: It's 1984 in China, NY Times, August 12, 2007
An Opportunity for Wall St. in China’s Surveillance Boom, China Catches up with West: It's 1984 in China, NY Times, September 11, 2007
US Provides Police State Technology to Mexican Police State, NY Times, August 14, 2007
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New charges for S Africa's Zuma
BBC, 12-28-07
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/7163332.stm
South African prosecutors have brought corruption charges against Jacob Zuma, who last week was elected leader of the governing African National Congress.
Mr Zuma was first tried for corruption in 2005, before charges were dropped. Recently prosecutors have said they were investigating new charges.
Reports say the new charges also include racketeering and tax evasion.
His position as party leader makes him a frontrunner to become South Africa's president after elections in 2009.
"The Directorate of Special Operations (Scorpions) served on Mr Jacob Zuma an indictment to stand trial in the High Court on various counts of racketeering, money laundering, corruption and fraud," Mr Zuma's attorney, Michael Hulley, said in an e-mail received by the AFP news agency.
"According to the indictment... the trial is to proceed on 14 August 2008," he said.
INTERNATIONAL CORPORATE BRIBERY THREATENS ANC LEGITIMACY IN SOUTH AFRICA
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., 1-12-07
The “web of influence” BAE systems created is a model of globalism. Global corporations identify buyers, or commodities, or cheap labor in a country. They then bribe all political parties and politicians who have authority over the purchase, the commodities, or the cheap labor.
This is exactly the same system of bribery that British and American special interests use to control politics in their own countries.
This “globalism” is an improvement in British foreign relations, which was previously based on marching redcoated armies into a region of the world, and taking what they wanted.
This change, from direct military intervention, to purchasing (bribing) local politicians, defines the transition from British colonial imperialism to American “globalism.”
The difference in treatment between S. Africa and Saudi Arabia, where Saudi threats killed the BAE bribery investigation, can be summed up by one word: OIL.
Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt, have special status. Their importance in maintaining stability in the heart of the world oil markets, which we control, means they can take the bribes, ignore the will of their people with impunity, impose tyrannical regimes, and demand more bribes, with our full support and cover.
The problem we are having is that these governments are seen by their own people as being representatives of American interests, rather than their own. This has delegitimized our allied Arab regimes in the eyes of their own people, and represents American democracy as a tool of tyrants, and a symbol of corruption. And now, those who resist our tyrants are “terrorists.”
We continue to support these illegitimate regimes, because they are creatures created by our own greed and manipulations. Although they are illegitimate and corrupt by American standards, we support their injustices to advance our corporate profits, and ensure our ability to fuel our growth.
The colonial era, even its latest evolution, “globalism,” is being rejected by the people of “developing” countries around the world.
The momentum of global decolonization has forced America to counterattack, forcefully rejecting local democratic movements around the world.
Our rejection of local democracy, and our support of tyrants around the world has revealed to the world that our true motivations are wealth and power, not democracy.
Our methods perfectly suit our motivations. Our method to spread globalism is not democracy, it is through violence and oppression by American dictators, if not by American forces.
Our attempt to reimpose a colonial model, under a new name, “globalism,” puts us in direct opposition to the historical momentum of our times, which is the transition from foreign dominated governments to independent, sovereign states. We live in the era of decolonization, not globalism.
The threats to our world empire come not from the outside, from people demanding their freedom from American domination. The real threats to America come from inside our country, from those who have betrayed our democracy, and have hijacked our national power to dominate the politics, lands, and resources of other countries.
The decolonization, anti-global, and independence movements that are sweeping across Asia, S. America, and the Arabic lands are rejecting domination by foreign powers and foreign supported dictators.
We have no chance to spread democracy, let alone save our own, if we continue down the path of globalism.
Durban buisnessman convicted of bribing Zuma, NYT, 11-7-06
BAE Bribery of Zuma, others, investigated by SFO, BBC World Service, 1-12-07
Zuma wins in SA, bbc, 12-19-07
Zuma Facts
Zuma Rape
Africa Links
Search the Corruption Database under
Africa
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Chertoff addresses immigration, drugs and terrorism
He gives Homeland Security kudos for its 2007 work and chides Congress' oversight panels for creating 'organizational churn' in the department.
By Johanna Neuman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 13, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced Wednesday that his agency would issue "retooled" regulations concerning national driver's license standards within a matter of weeks and warned states and businesses not to obstruct efforts to crack down on illegal immigration.
In a speech detailing the Department of Homeland Security's accomplishments during 2007, Chertoff urged nationwide compliance with the Real ID Act, which was passed in 2005 following the discovery that several of the Sept. 11 terrorists had used fake identification to board airplanes. That law set nationwide standards designed to make it more difficult for illegal immigrants to secure driver's licenses. Chertoff said he had no illusion about the reactions of California and other states that have fought it on grounds of privacy and security.
Chertoff said he was sympathetic to sectors of the economy that rely on illegal workers, acknowledging that employers "were afraid if we enforced the law, that would hurt their business." But, he added, "the wrong way to address that concern is to shut our eyes to lawbreaking and create what I call silent amnesty."
Paparelli, whose immigration-law practice is based in California and New York, also blamed Congress for failing to fund either the Real ID program or the repairs to government databases. "Without resources, Chertoff is essentially doing the only thing readily within his power," Paparelli said. "He's authorizing raids of work sites."
Chertoff said that by next year he hoped to have completed 670 miles of border fencing creating a barrier from the Pacific Ocean to the New Mexico-Texas line. Chertoff also boasted that the Border Patrol had increased by 21% this year, to 12,349 agents, its largest yearly increase.
When he is asked why the United States cannot better control its borders, Chertoff said, he notes opponents' intransigence. "When the television cameras turn off and the spotlight moves to something else, there are a host of interest groups and advocacy groups who work very, very hard to make it difficult to enforce these rules" against illegal immigration, he said.
Big Oil Recommends Full Tilt Production of All Fuels
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., July 30, 2007
Gee, we've run out of gas. What a big surprise. The way our politicians, corporate media, and corporations talk and act, I thought we had enough water, energy, oil, and food to expand our population forever.
In 1970 we had about as many domestic resources as we needed to support our population. In 2007 we have grown so large there are not enough resources in the country to support our basic needs.
Maybe we should just stop expanding our population. Or maybe we should reduce our population.
How much less fuel, energy, and food will we use with 12 million less people? A hell of a lot.
How much unfunded pressure will be taken off our educational and medical facilities with 12 million less people? A hell of a lot.
An even better approach to our water, energy, global warming-climate change crisis would be to stop future expansion of our population.
Imagine how much less of everything California would consume if we stopped accepting 750,000 Crimigrants every year.
During the last 30 years the United States consumed the natural domestic resources that would have lasted our country indefinitely into the future.
But we got greedy, and consumed them all.
Now our resources are gone, and the climate change will make many of them impossible to restore.
Good work, Asswipes.
CORPORATE-DEMOCRAT IMMIGRATION POLICY SUCCESSFUL:Poverty, bee, 3-1-07
CA. Schools Need Billions" California Schools in a Death Spiral, politicians laugh all the way to the bank, bee, 3-16-07
Income Gap Is Widening, Data Shows" (gee, wonder why?), NY Times, 3-29-07
LIAR PRESENTS LOSS OF WORKER DIGNITY AND PAY AS “PROMOTION,” bee, February 28, 2007
HONEST STATISTICAL ANALYSIS ONLY SHOWS MONETARY COST OF IMMIGRATION, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 11-03
Hispanic Groups Reconsider Their Support for Gonzales, Washington Post, 5-29-07
Heritage Foundation exposes lies of Crimigration, Bee, 6-18-07
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Crimigrants
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6) The Article linked below was published by the source cited.
Hoover Planned Mass Jailing in 1950
By TIM WEINER
NYT,
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/23/washington/23habeas.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&
A newly declassified document shows that J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had a plan to suspend habeas corpus and imprison some 12,000 Americans he suspected of disloyalty.
Hoover sent his plan to the White House on July 7, 1950, 12 days after the Korean War began. It envisioned putting suspect Americans in military prisons.
Hoover wanted President Harry S. Truman to proclaim the mass arrests necessary to “protect the country against treason, espionage and sabotage.” The F.B.I would “apprehend all individuals potentially dangerous” to national security, Hoover’s proposal said. The arrests would be carried out under “a master warrant attached to a list of names” provided by the bureau.
The names were part of an index that Hoover had been compiling for years. “The index now contains approximately twelve thousand individuals, of which approximately ninety-seven per cent are citizens of the United States,” he wrote.
“In order to make effective these apprehensions, the proclamation suspends the Writ of Habeas Corpus,” it said.
Habeas corpus, the right to seek relief from illegal detention, has been a fundamental principle of law for seven centuries. The Bush administration’s decision to hold suspects for years at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has made habeas corpus a contentious issue for Congress and the Supreme Court today.
The Constitution says habeas corpus shall not be suspended “unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it.” The plan proposed by Hoover, the head of the F.B.I. from 1924 to 1972, stretched that clause to include “threatened invasion” or “attack upon United States troops in legally occupied territory.”
After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush issued an order that effectively allowed the United States to hold suspects indefinitely without a hearing, a lawyer, or formal charges. In September 2006, Congress passed a law suspending habeas corpus for anyone deemed an “unlawful enemy combatant.”
But the Supreme Court has reaffirmed the right of American citizens to seek a writ of habeas corpus. This month the court heard arguments on whether about 300 foreigners held at Guantánamo Bay had the same rights. It is expected to rule by next summer.
Hoover’s plan was declassified Friday as part of a collection of cold-war documents concerning intelligence issues from 1950 to 1955. The collection makes up a new volume of “The Foreign Relations of the United States,” a series that by law has been published continuously by the State Department since the Civil War.
Hoover’s plan called for “the permanent detention” of the roughly 12,000 suspects at military bases as well as in federal prisons. The F.B.I., he said, had found that the arrests it proposed in New York and California would cause the prisons there to overflow.
So the bureau had arranged for “detention in military facilities of the individuals apprehended” in those states, he wrote.
The prisoners eventually would have had a right to a hearing under the Hoover plan. The hearing board would have been a panel made up of one judge and two citizens. But the hearings “will not be bound by the rules of evidence,” his letter noted.
The only modern precedent for Hoover’s plan was the Palmer Raids of 1920, named after the attorney general at the time. The raids, executed in large part by Hoover’s intelligence division, swept up thousands of people suspected of being communists and radicals.
Previously declassified documents show that the F.B.I.’s “security index” of suspect Americans predated the cold war. In March 1946, Hoover sought the authority to detain Americans “who might be dangerous” if the United States went to war. In August 1948, Attorney General Tom Clark gave the F.B.I. the power to make a master list of such people.
Hoover’s July 1950 letter was addressed to Sidney W. Souers, who had served as the first director of central intelligence and was then a special national-security assistant to Truman. The plan also was sent to the executive secretary of the National Security Council, whose members were the president, the secretary of defense, the secretary of state and the military chiefs.
In September 1950, Congress passed and the president signed a law authorizing the detention of “dangerous radicals” if the president declared a national emergency. Truman did declare such an emergency in December 1950, after China entered the Korean War. But no known evidence suggests he or any other president approved any part of Hoover’s proposal.
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., December, 2007
FBI Corruption Investigation in Boston uncovers Hoover Complicty in Muder Frame-Up, Hartford Courant, January 28, 2001, (12th paragraph down)
(original article not verified. I have not been able to find an original)
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Assurances over US biometric data
Strict safeguards will ensure that the world's biggest biometric database will not abuse liberties, a senior US security official has said.
BBC, 24 December 2007, 01:25 GMT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/americas/7158723.stm
The FBI is due to award a £1bn (£0.5bn) contract next month for the databank of peoples' physical characteristics.
FBI assistant director Thomas E Bush told the BBC the targets would be what he called the "bad guys" - terrorist and criminal suspects.
But civil liberties groups have warned the technology may be unreliable.
The FBI system is expected to contain a range of biometric information, including eventually iris images and face-shape data.
'Careful vetting'
Mr Bush told the BBC that innocent people would have nothing to fear from the database, called Next Generation Identification.
He added that there would be "very careful vetting" to ensure that the system is not abused.
However Barry Steinhardt of the American Civil Liberties Union told the Washington Post that it would enable an "always-on surveillance society".
The newspaper says the FBI, which already has 55m sets of digital fingerprints, has also been compiling images of faces and palm patterns.
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., December, 2007
FBI CHIEF DEFYS CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT: REFUSAL TO DISCLOSE ILLEGAL PROGRAM, ap, 12-6-06
PRESIDENT TRIES END RUN AROUND CONSTITUTION: CLAIMS illegal searches ARE SECRET, AND ABOVE THE LAW, lat, January 19, 2007
White House Confirms Americans Have No Constitutional Protections, March 5, 2007
Pentagon and NSA using “Nat Sec Lets” to illegally spy on Americans, NY Times, October 14, 2007
CIA rejects secret jails report, bbc, June 8,2007
Long history of CIA Crimes Revealed, ap, 6-21-07
more links to recent illegal searching crimes by the cia, fbi, and nsa.
Search the Corruption Database under
Illegal searches
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Wagons circled at CIA over tapes' demise
The clandestine branch has a fierce instinct for protecting the agency's interests and a reputation for undermining directors perceived as hostile.
By Greg Miller
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
5:13 PM PST, December 23, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cia24dec24,0,5558164.story?coll=la-home-center
WASHINGTON — Shortly after he arrived as CIA director in 2004, Porter J. Goss met with the agency's top spies and general counsel to discuss a range of issues, including what to do with videotapes showing harsh interrogations of Al Qaeda detainees, according to current and former officials familiar with the matter.
"Getting rid of tapes in Washington," Goss said, according to an official involved in the discussions, "is an extremely bad idea."
But at the agency's operational levels -- especially within the branch that ran the network of secret prisons -- the idea of holding on to the tapes and hoping their existence would never be leaked to the public seemed even worse.
Citing what CIA veterans regard as a long record of being stranded by politicians in times of scandal, current and former U.S. intelligence officials said the decision to destroy the tapes was driven by a determination among senior spies to guard against a repeat of that outcome.
The clandestine service "is almost tribal in nature," said a former senior CIA official familiar with the discussions on the tapes. "They believe that no one else will look out for them so they have to look out for themselves."
That culture, current and former intelligence officials said, helps to explain why Rodriguez ordered the tapes destroyed despite cautions against doing so from senior lawmakers, White House attorneys and the agency's director.
It may also account for why Rodriguez was not punished or fired after that decision was disclosed. Rodriguez is now in the CIA's retirement program and is expected to leave the agency in the coming months. His successor at the clandestine service remains undercover.
Current and former officials close to Rodriguez said he issued the order largely out of a sense of obligation to undercover officers whose identities would have been exposed if the tapes were to surface. Like others interviewed for this article, the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of ongoing investigations and the sensitivity of the subject.
The tapes were considered explosive because they included footage of CIA interrogators using rough interrogation tactics on Al Qaeda captives. One of the methods videotaped was waterboarding, which simulates the sensation of drowning and has been condemned by human rights organizations and critics in Congress as a form of torture.
In a memo to employees this month, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said the recordings were destroyed "only after it was determined they were no longer of intelligence value and not relevant to any internal, legislative or judicial inquiries."
However, the Sept. 11 commission, which examined U.S. intelligence lapses before the 2001 terrorist attacks, had asked the CIA for all relevant materials related to the plot as part of its inquiry. After news of the tapes became public, 9/11 panel members said they should have been given access to the tapes. Several attorneys representing terrorism suspects also have said they requested similar materials from the CIA.
Even so, the Justice Department and two congressional committees have launched investigations into the matter. The House Intelligence Committee issued a subpoena last week to compel Rodriguez to testify before the panel next month.
The tapes, which were made in 2002, were kept for three years in overseas vaults where secret CIA detention facilities were located.
There was widespread concern that "something as explosive as this would probably get out," said the former U.S. intelligence official who was involved in discussions on the tapes.
The issue of what to do with the tapes pitted lawmakers and political appointees concerned with potential legal and political fallout against career CIA officers concerned about protecting their subordinates.
Other officials said there was also concern that the tapes could put the officers in legal jeopardy.
The CIA's clandestine service is sometimes portrayed as a rogue element within the agency. But current and former officials said it is in many ways a cautious institution that is careful to secure White House authorization and legal cover before accepting potentially controversial assignments.
Former officials said Goss and other CIA leaders were stunned when Rodriguez informed them in November 2005 that the tapes had been destroyed. But Goss did not reprimand or fire Rodriguez, the former officials said, largely because the director, who had previously been bruised by battles with the clandestine service, did not feel he could afford another fight.
Goss had been sharply critical of the clandestine service while in Congress and came to the agency promising sweeping changes. But within months of his arrival, a series of CIA veterans -- including three top officers in the clandestine service -- resigned in protest of Goss' leadership.
By the time the tapes were destroyed, "they weren't in the business of listening to him," said a former senior U.S. intelligence official who observed the friction first-hand.
Directors who have cultivated close ties to the clandestine service have tended to hold their jobs longer. Perhaps the most revered director in agency history was Richard Helms, who was convicted of lying to Congress for refusing to disclose secrets about CIA operations in Chile in the 1970s.
As one of his first moves, Hayden brought back officials who had resigned under Goss to run the service. Hayden also launched an investigation of the CIA's inspector general after spies said they had been unfairly treated by the inspector during internal investigations. That probe has been completed, and, as a result, the agency plans to make changes in the way it conducts internal investigations, intelligence officials said.
Destruction of Evidence of War Crimes, and Crimes against Humanity
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., December, 2007
Long history of CIA Crimes Revealed, ap, 6-21-07
CIA Lawyer who Justifies Toture-Kidnapping-Endless Detention Appears NYT, 6-21-07
In Intelligence World, A Mute Watchdog: Bush Above the Law, Washington Post, 7-15-07
CIA dissenters aided secret prisons report, Reuters, 7-17-07
Bush signs new CIA interrogation: Rules He Can Torture Anyone, lat, July 21, 2007
ABA criticizes Bush, ABA Clear: Bush Policy allows Torture, ap, 8-10-07
Lawmakers Raise Concerns Over Call for Investigation of C.I.A. Watchdog’s Work, NY Times, October 13, 2007
Search the Corruption Database under
central intelligence agency
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Iraq: The trauma and the mistakes
Andrew North, the departing BBC Baghdad correspondent, looks back on his time reporting from Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion.
BBC, 12-21-07
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/middle_east/7153990.stm
See:
Shinseki fired as Chief for honest analysis of Iraq war plans, Wikipedia
McCaffrey Paints Gloomy Picture of Iraq, WP, March 28, 2007
Zinni on Meet the Press, MSNBC, 4-2-06
Batiste: Army Career Behind Him, General Speaks Out on Iraq, NYT, May 13, 2007
Rice: Don't take Iraq errors 'literally,' cnn, 4-1-06
Search the Database under: Generals, or Iraq War
Iraq government backs amnesty law
BBC, 26 December 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/middle_east/7160457.stm
Iraq's government has backed a draft law that enables the release of thousands of suspected insurgents held captive by US and Iraqi forces.
The amnesty law is thought to specify offences for which prisoners who have been held without charge can be freed.
See:
ENGLISH LORD COMPARES HITLER'S INVASION OF POLAND WITH IRAQ WAR, Arabic News, 12-30-06
IRAQI GOV FOLLOWS AMERICAN EXAMPLE: KIDNAPPING-TORTURE, NY Times, 3-5-07
U.S. Iraq Role Is Called Illegal by Saudi King, nyt, 3-29-07
Abu Ghraib: Taguba fired for Probing too Deeply, NY Times, New Yorker, 6-17-07
Bahrain rocked by days of clashes
Bahrain has been hit by rioting in majority Shia areas for a fifth consecutive day, according to local press reports.
BBC, 23 December 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/middle_east/7158429.stm
Security forces used teargas and rubber bullets to disperse demonstrators in Shia villages, leaving one protester dead on Monday.
Local media reports say 39 people have been arrested and around a dozen injured in the clashes.
The island has a Sunni ruling family but a Shia majority population.
See:
Don't Let Iraq's Sunni-Shia Conflict Spread Through the Mideast, Cato Institute from the Globe, April 14, 2006
U.S. Iraq Role Is Called Illegal by Saudi King, NYT March 29, 2007
Bush Wars Push Saudi Arabia out of American Axis, essay, July 07
Bush Arms Everybody, essay, August 4, 2007
Illegal Invasion, Crimes of Occupation, and the resulting Regional Instability
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., December, 2007
Our invasion of Iraq was not only based on lies, it was executed against the best advice of our best generals, making the failure of the war an exercise in political incompentence.
Compounding the illegality and incompentence of the invasion is the ongoing... (to be continued...)
Shinseki fired as Chief for honest analysis of Iraq war plans, Wikipedia
McCaffrey Paints Gloomy Picture of Iraq, WP, March 28, 2007
Zinni on Meet the Press, MSNBC, 4-2-06
3 Generals Spurn the Position of War 'Czar,' WP, 4-11-07
Batiste: Army Career Behind Him, General Speaks Out on Iraq, NYT, May 13, 2007
ENGLISH LORD COMPARES HITLER'S INVASION OF POLAND WITH IRAQ WAR, Arabic News, 12-30-06
IRAQI GOV FOLLOWS AMERICAN EXAMPLE: KIDNAPPING-TORTURE, NY Times, 3-5-07
U.S. Iraq Role Is Called Illegal by Saudi King, nyt, 3-29-07
Abu Ghraib: Taguba fired for Probing too Deeply, NY Times, New Yorker, 6-17-07
Don't Let Iraq's Sunni-Shia Conflict Spread Through the Mideast, Cato Institute from the Globe, April 14, 2006
Bush Wars Push Saudi Arabia out of American Axis, essay, July 07
Bush Arms Everybody, essay, August 4, 2007
Search the Corruption Database under
Generals
Iraq War
Middle East
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Plenty of handouts in Kenya as voting nears
Corruption allegations dog top candidates, yet presidential balloting expected to be fair
SF Chron, 12-15-07
10b)Fraud rumours precede Kenya polls
By Karen Allen
BBC News, Nairobi
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/africa/7160780.stm
Kenyans will go to the polls on Thursday morning in an atmosphere of suspicion, with rumour and counter-rumours of vote-rigging.
Three police officers were killed by a mob after opposition claims that they were planning to rig the elections to favour President Mwai Kibaki.
President Kibaki is fighting for a second term.
He faces his toughest challenge from two former cabinet colleagues, Raila Odinga and Kalonso Musyoka.
More than 14 million Kenyans are eligible to vote in what is expected to be the most tightly fought contest the country has ever seen.
10c) Mwai Kibaki's Kenya election 'win' brings riots
By Mike Pflanz, in Nairobi
Last Updated: 12:44am GMT 31/12/2007
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.
jhtml?xml=/news/2007/12/31/wkenya131.xml
Riots erupted across Kenya last night after the unpopular sitting president was swiftly sworn into power following an election widely seen as rigged.
Kenya could be facing its greatest crisis
Black smoke billowed from shacks across Nairobi's slums as thousands of protesters marched following the announcement that Mwai Kibaki, 76, had been returned to power.
Less than an hour after the result was declared, Mr Kibaki was sworn back in as president and called for "national healing".
Police shot dead seven demonstrators, bringing to 20 the number of people to have died in poll-related violence since Thursday's ballot. The president ordered a ban on all live television reports.
The election result came after days of delayed counts and widespread allegations that voting had been rigged in favour of the incumbent.
No fewer than 20 of Mr Kibaki's cabinet members - some of whom had faced corruption allegations - had lost their seats in parallel parliamentary elections.
The electoral commission declared that Mr Kibaki had won a second term with 4.6 million votes to Raila Odinga's 4.4 million, a day after partial results showed the challenger in the lead.
Mr Odinga, 62, immediately rejected the result, claiming that a quarter of constituencies had been "doctored" by the commission. He said he would today stage an alternative inauguration making him president, a move likely to provoke a heavy police reaction.
The European Union observer mission said that the commission had "not succeeded in establishing the credibility of the tallying process".
10d) U.S. gov't calls for post-election calmness in Kenya
www.chinaview.cn 2007-12-30
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-12/30/content_7340356.htm
WASHINGTON, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. government Saturday called for calmness in Kenya as the country awaits its presidential election outcome.
"We condemn the violence that occurred in Kenya as its citizens await these election results, and call on all Kenyans to remain calm while the vote tabulation process is concluded," State Department spokesman Tom Casey said in a statement.
Kenya's electoral board was expected to announce the winner of the presidential election Sunday.
Supporters of Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga accused incumbent Mwai Kibaki of rigging the presidential vote and protested continuing delays in ballot counting in Thursday's election.
"The people of Kenya and the Electoral Commission of Kenya are to be congratulated for Kenya's largely peaceful and orderly voting during the general elections," Casey said.
He also urged all candidates in the Kenyan presidential election to accept the final results and their supporters to respect the rule of law.
"Regardless of the eventual winners of this election, we call on Kenyans across the political spectrum to work together to advance democracy and national development," he added.
Riots Batter Kenya as Rivals Declare Victory, NYT, 12-30-07
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., December 30, 2007
I tried to comment on earlier about the first two articles above, (10 and 10b) reporting about the corrupt nature of the Kenyan election, before the election results came in, but the workload proved too great.
The key element distinguishing the first two articles, above, from each other consists in how the American press under-reports and de-emphisises the depth and scope of Kenyan election fraud, likely due to Kenya's doing our dirty work through kidnapping, illegally detaining, and setting up Somalis for American torture, if not doing it themselves.
As the third article above, by China's xinhuanet.com points out, Mwai Kibaki's election fraud is being strongly supported by the American govenment.
This should come as no surprize to anyone who has honestly studied American foreign policy during the last 100 years.
American Sponsored Invasion of Somalia sparks chaos
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., August 6, 2007
American sponsorship of the Criminal Ethiopian Invasion of Somalia has destabilized the whole Horn of Africa. Rather than deal with the Islamic Courts that had restored a semblance of order in Somalia, we sponsored the war lords who shot our black hawks down.
When that misguided adventure failed, we upped the ante, and bankrolled the Ethiopian invasion. The Ethiopians have succeeded in creating an insurgency they cannot handle, and inflamed Muslim-Christian relations across the whole horn of Africa.
In the meantime, we have exported our apparatus of kidnapping, illegal detention, and torture to bear on Somalias in both Kenya and Ethiopia.
I'm going to spoil the end of this story for you, and reveal it now. So if you want to be surprised at the outcome, skip to the next abstract.
The Islamic Courts are going to drive Ethiopia out. They will defeat the warlords and the puppet government proffered by the western powers. The Ethiopia tyranny will be destabilized, and an actual democratic revolution may have some small chance of success.
This would be a very short-lived success. The failure of Ethiopia in Somalia may trigger a major war between Ethiopia and Eritrea.
In either case Somalia will continue to be fucked, but they will be in control of the fuckers who fuck them, rather than being fucked by foreigners, as they have been for the last hundred and twenty years.
Uzbek president wins 88% of election vote
David L. Stern, New York Times
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
(12-25) 04:00 PST Osh, Kyrgyzstan --
President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan won 88.1 percent of votes in the presidential election Sunday, according to preliminary results released on Monday by the country's Central Election Commission.
BUSH LAWLESSNESS SPREADS TO KENYA: Kenya defends transfers, absolves U.S., McClatchy, 3-15-07
Somalia: 10,000 Flee Fighting in Capital, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, July 24, 2007
US backed invasion, war on terror, empowered kenyan election fraud, committee, 12-29-07
Kenyan Election Fraud covered by US, xinhuanet.com, 12-30-07
Kenyan Election Condemned, telegraph, 12-31-07
Riots Batter Kenya as Rivals Declare Victory, NYT, 12-30-07
Violence Grips Kenya, Sky, 12-31-07
Video: How to win in Kenya: Fraud, Violence, and US Support, Guardian, 12-31-07
Kenya election fraud rejected, economist, 1-2-08
Kenyan election chair announced result before finishing count, guardian, 1-3-08
Kibaki offers unity govt, telegraph, uk, 1-5-08
Kenyan ethnic cleansing, lat, 1-6-08
City-Country in Chaos, nyt, 1-6-08
Kenyan police have killed dozens, ap, 1-13-08
Kibaki rejects democracy, keeps power, bbc, 1-14-08
World bank claims kabiki victory valid, independent, 1-18-08
Kenya: us ignores election fraud, nation, 1-18-08
kenyan violence deepens, iht, 1-27-08
ethnic clashes intensify, aljazeera, 1-29-08
Kenya death toll hits 1,000, mirror, 2-5-08
power sharing deal keeps cheater Kibaki in office, bbc, 2-28-08
kibaki and odinga, angola press, 2-29-08
Kibaki deployed death squads? bbc, 3-5-08
globalism in africa: bribery, murder, kidnapping, and a war by proxy
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Death of Bhutto, Dec 28
1) Pakistan: Nation outraged at Benazir's assassination
1b) BBC: Tense Pakistan set to bury Bhutto
1c) NYT: Bhutto Assassination Ignites Disarray
1d) Thousands Mourn Bhutto As Unrest Spreads
1e) The million-dollar question: Who is going to succeed Benazir Bhutto?
1f) Who killed Benazir Bhutto?
1g) Bhutto was targeted by all militant groups in Pakistan
1H) Links to global news covering Bhutto's death
2) Citi and other banks underestimate sub-prime exposure by billions
2b) Home sales Plunged in November
2c) Housing defaults moving into prime loans
2d) Oil will stay high during downturn
2E) US: China's Bitch
The Empire at Home and Abroad
3) US supports Chinese Police State
4) Zuma Charged in South Africa: Corporate bribery threatens SA stability
5) Chertoff touts real id and crimigrant crackdown
6) Hoover's 1950 police state plan: it still lives in us govt
7) fbi assures legal-safe use of new bio database: BULLSHIT
8) CIA destroyed evidence of torute and war crimes to subvert justice: torture tapes
9) Iraq war defines American Poltical Incompentence and Corruption
b] "Amnesty" for thousands held in iraq without charges
c] Sunni Vs. Shia in Bahrain
10) Keyna "election" fraud minimized by US Corporate Press
b] Kenya election fraud recognized, acknowledged by bbc
c] Election "victory" of Kibaki in Kenya called fraud by UK's Telegraph
d] US calls for Kenyans to respect fraudlent election maintaining Terror President