TBR News March 3, 2016
The Voice of the White House
Washington, D.C., March 3. 2016: “Floating around on the Deep Internet is a thick file of purloined official documents concerning the US military, and political, projected activities in the Arctic. These are part of a plan to thwart Vladimir Putin and grab Arctic oil reserves and secure trade routes. The change of government in Canada, which was going to allow US military installations on the northern Canadian shores, has caused much unhappiness inside the Beltway and now there are new plans being formulated. The policy is not to buy oil from the Russians but to steal it. The notorious neo-cons are the instigators of this policy but the advent of Donald Trump on the political scene and his surging support numbers are driving the neo-cons, the religious nuts and the left-wingers into a mixture of hate and fear. These creeps have had control of the levers of power in the United States for far too long. Times change, dudes, and we must change with them.”
Donald Trump marches on as Hillary Clinton sweeps south on Super Tuesday
Trump and Clinton win seven states and start to look toward general election even as Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders each claim victory in multiple states
March 2, 2016
by Dan Roberts in Burlington, Vermont, David Smith in Palm Beach, Florida, Lauren Gambino and Sabrina Siddiqui in Miami and Ben Jacobs in Houston
The Guardian
A pitched battle for the White House between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton moved closer to becoming reality as both leapt further ahead in the battleground states of a marathon Super Tuesday.
On the most important night of the presidential race so far, Clinton ground down the challenge from Vermont senator Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary. She beat him in seven of the 11 states contested by the Democrats, including the delegate-rich prizes of Texas, Georgia, Massachusetts and Virginia.
Sanders, who won in his home state of Vermont, finished the night strongly, with victories in Colorado, Minnesota and Oklahoma. He has made clear he has a big war chest and insists he will fight all the way to the July Democratic convention.
In the Republican race, Trump won seven of the 11 states, taking a commanding lead in the bitterly fought race for the Republican nomination.
Maverick Texas senator Ted Cruz won his home state as well as Oklahoma and Alaska, while the establishment’s last, fading hope, Florida senator Marco Rubio, was left substantially adrift, although he did belatedly record his first win of 2016 in Minnesota.
By midnight EST, the Associated Press had declared that Clinton and Trump had each won seven states, cementing their status as frontrunners on what could prove to be a defining night in the 2016 contest.
Clinton swept the south, winning in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia, then narrowly won in Massachusetts, her first New England victory.
Trump won the first five Republican results of the night – Alabama, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee and Virginia. He later added Arkansas and narrowly held off Ohio governor John Kasich in Vermont.
A hoarse-sounding Clinton appeared shortly before 9pm EST, at a noisy victory rally in Miami, and shouted: “What a super Tuesday!”
Looking ahead to New Orleans, Detroit and the looming contests in Louisiana and Michigan, she said: “Now this campaign goes forward to the Crescent City, the Motor City and beyond.”
And looking farther down the road to a potential head-to-head with Trump, she said: “I’m going to keep saying it: I believe what we need in America today is more love and kindness.“The stakes have never been higher,” she said, “the rhetoric we are hearing on the other side has never been lower.”
Sanders won resoundingly in his home state of Vermont. However, his campaign team and his wife, Jane, had conceded earlier that the day ahead looked difficult. “It’s a rough map for us,” said the senator’s wife, as the campaign team returned to their home in Burlington after clocking up a 6,200-mile trip to eight states in three days.
Clinton swept convincingly through the southern states of Virginia and Georgia – called by the AP the moment the polls closed at 7pm EST – and an hour later in Alabama and Tennessee. It appeared that black voters had once again rallied for her, leaving her 74-year-old rival facing the uncomfortable truth that his political revolution had failed to catch fire away from predominantly whiter states and college campuses.
Virginia went to Clinton 64%-35%. In Georgia the margin was 71-28 with 99.9% of the votes counted.
“It’s good to be home,” said a tired-sounding Sanders as he celebrated his thumping win in Vermont, by a margin of 86-13 with 97.5% of votes counted.
“I am so proud to bring Vermont values all across this country. Tonight you are going to see a lot of election results come in … but remember this is not a general election, this is not winner takes all. By the end of tonight we are going to win many hundreds of delegates,” he added.
“Let me assure you, we are going to take our fight … to every one of the states.”
As the night went on, the Sanders campaign’s hopes of causing an upset in Colorado came to pass, although he lost Massachusetts by a 50-48 margin.
Sanders has already indicated that he intends to fight on until the Democratic convention in July. However, while he has the funds to do so, he is slipping behind Clinton in the battle for delegates, leaving his campaign to function mostly as a vehicle for keeping the spotlight on his core issues of inequality, corporate greed, free healthcare and college education.
Clinton was assured of gaining more than 457 delegates from Super Tuesday, with Sanders getting more than 286. When superdelegates, the Democratic insiders who are free to choose any candidate, are taken into account, Clinton now has more than 1,005 delegates, with more than 373 for Sanders. It takes 2,383 to win the Democratic nomination.
In the Republican race, the AP declared Trump the winner in Georgia at 7.39pm EST, followed quickly by Alabama, Massachusetts and Tennessee. He was pushed hard by Rubio in Virginia, but prevailed. Shortly after 9pm EST, Cruz won two states: Oklahoma and his home state of Texas. Alaska, the last state to declare at 3.45am EST, also went to Cruz.In Vermont, Trump eventually won in a much closer contest with Kasich, mirroring last month’ s result in New Hampshire.
With final votes still being tallied, Trump had won at least 203 Super Tuesday delegates, while Cruz picked up at least 144. Overall, Trump leads the Republican field with 285 delegates. It takes 1,237 delegates to win the nomination.
Trump’s successful run of results has owed as much to the fractured nature of the Republican field as to his own brutish determination to tap into the mood of anger at large in the US.
But speaking at his victory party in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump claimed: “I am a unifier.”
He said: “This has been an amazing evening … We’ve already won five, it looks like we can win six or seven or eight or nine.”
Insisting he would make the Republicans “a finer, unified party”, Trump said: “We’re gonna make America great again, folks … We’re gonna make America great.”
Clinton and Trump start sizing up one another
Like Clinton, Trump ended the night with a rally in Florida, the clearest indication they were both pushing past Super Tuesday to the next contests – and already sizing up one another. Florida is in play on 15 March in the primaries and will be key to the hopes of both parties in the presidential run-off in November.
Trump derided Clinton’s desire to make America whole again and citing the controversy over her use of personal email, he said: “I’m going to be going after Hillary Clinton – if she is allowed to run.”
He claimed: “What she did was a criminal act. If she is allowed to run, honestly, it will be a sad day for this country.”
Within the Republican hierarchy, however, there was little enthusiasm for a Trump candidacy. Earlier in the day, House speaker Paul Ryan expressed grave concern that Trump had still not unequivocally disavowed the support of Ku Klux Klan chied David Duke. Ryan warned: “If a person wants to be the nominee of the Republican party … they must reject any group or cause that is built on bigotry.”
Ted Cruz, last of the main candidates to speak on the night, was in bullish form after his victories. Trump, he said, would be “a disaster for Republicans, for conservatives and for the nation … Our campaign is the only campaign that has beaten, can beat and will beat Donald Trump.”
In the Republican field, down to a final five, Rubio still only has a solitary win, but clings on. He struck a defiant tone despite a dismal showing in which the senator failed to rack up a single win – and appeared short of the 20% threshold in certain states to secure any delegates.
Speaking in his hometown of Miami, Rubio said it would be up to Florida to shift the direction of the race. “Two weeks from tonight, right here in Florida, we are going to send a message loud and clear,” Rubio said. “We are going to send a message that the party of Lincoln and Reagan, and the presidency of the United States, will never be held by a con artist.”
Rubio could theoretically start to close the gap in states such as Ohio and Florida, which operate a “winner takes all” approach to allocating the delegates who need to be amassed before the Republican convention in July. But he has so little momentum, his chances appear almost nonexistent.
Meanwhile Kasich has indicated he will stick around until his home state votes on 15 March, while soft-spoken outsider Ben Carson has also shown no appetite for removing himself from the race.
While still leaving a mathematical chance that Trump and Clinton can be caught, the Super Tuesday results suggest that voters in November’s general election will be presented with one of the starkest electoral choices in a generation: the first female president or a brash billionaire whose remarkable success has been forged by rejecting all the rules of modern politics.
Exclusive: Koch brothers will not use funds to try to block Trump nomination
March 3, 2016
by Michelle Conlin
Reuters
Newe York-The Koch brothers, the most powerful conservative mega donors in the United States, will not use their $400 million political arsenal to try to block Republican front-runner Donald Trump’s path to the presidential nomination, a spokesman told Reuters on Wednesday.
The decision by the billionaire industrialists is another setback to Republican establishment efforts to derail the New York real estate mogul’s bid for the White House, and follows speculation the Kochs would soon launch a “Trump Intervention.”
“We have no plans to get involved in the primary,” said James Davis, spokesman for Freedom Partners, the Koch brothers’ political umbrella group. He would not elaborate on what the brothers’ strategy would be for the Nov. 8 election to succeed Democratic President Barack Obama.
Three sources close to the Kochs said the brothers made the decision because they were concerned that spending millions of dollars attacking Trump would be money wasted, since they had not yet seen any attack on Trump stick.
The Koch brothers are also smarting from the millions of dollars they pumped into the failed 2012 Republican presidential bids of Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, the sources said.
Donors and media reports have speculated since January, when the Kochs gathered 500 of America’s wealthiest political donors at a California resort, that they would deploy their vast political network to target Trump.
The Kochs oppose his protectionist trade rhetoric and hardline views on immigration – which include building a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico and deporting millions of illegal immigrants.
Many Republican figures and business backers are eager to see Trump, a political outsider who has tapped into rising anti-establishment sentiment, fail in his bid for the nomination. They prefer instead a more traditional candidate like U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.
But with Trump racking up a series of wins in the early nominating contests against opponents including Rubio and U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, there is a growing sense of inevitability that he will win the party’s mantle.
(Editing by Richard Valdmanis, Chris Reese and Peter Cooney)
Larry Fink and His BlackRock Team Poised to Take Over Hillary Clinton’s Treasury Department
March 2, 2016
by David Dayen
The Intercept
Goldman Sachs paid Hillary Clinton $675,000 for three speeches, but an even bigger Wall Street player stands ready to mold and enact her economic and financial policy if she becomes president.
BlackRock is far from a household name, but it is the largest asset management firm in the world, controlling $4.6 trillion in investor funds — about a trillion dollars more than the annual federal budget, and five times the assets of Goldman Sachs. And Larry Fink, BlackRock’s CEO, has assembled a veritable shadow government full of former Treasury Department officials at his company.
Fink has made clear his desire to become Treasury Secretary someday. The Obama administration had him on the short list to replace Timothy Geithner. When that didn’t materialize, he pulled several members of prior Treasury Departments into high-level positions at the firm, which may improve the prospects of realizing his dream in a future Clinton administration.
And his priorities appear to be so in sync with Clinton’s that it’s not entirely clear who shares whose agenda.
Clinton, for her part, has refused to rule out a Treasury Secretary drawn from Wall Street.
Fink’s ready-made team available for a move from Wall Street to Washington includes:
•Christopher Meade, former general counsel at the Treasury Department, who now serves in a similar capacity at BlackRock. Meade spent 2010 to 2015 at Treasury, with the last three years as general counsel.
•Katheryn Rosen, a managing director at BlackRock, who cut her teeth in government as a senior policy adviser to Barney Frank on the House Financial Services Committee, helping to write Dodd-Frank. Frank is an adviser to the Clinton campaign. Rosen went from Frank’s office to a deputy assistant secretary position at Treasury in February 2011, working to build the Financial Stability Oversight Council, the Treasury-led super-regulator monitoring systemic risk. Prior to government work, Rosen spent 14 years as a managing director with JPMorgan Chase.
•Kendrick Wilson, a vice chairman at BlackRock since 2010 who has ties to Goldman Sachs, Lazard, and the Treasury Department. He advised Treasury while it managed the financial crisis and its fallout in 2008 and 2009, before coming to BlackRock. At Treasury, Wilson brought his experience advising financial institutions to carry out hastily arranged crisis-era deals, like the merger of Bank of America and failed subprime lender Countrywide.
•Michael Pyle, who was a senior adviser to Lael Brainard when she served as undersecretary to the Treasury for international affairs; he also worked at the White House for the National Economic Council and the Office of Management and Budget. He worked as a director at BlackRock until at least October 2015, though he apparently is now an economic policy adviser to the Clinton campaign.
Fink’s most telling hire, however, is Cheryl Mills, arguably Clinton’s most trusted confidante. Mills was Clinton’s chief of staff at the State Department, was deputy White House counsel in the Bill Clinton administration, and is on the board of directors of the Clinton Foundation. Fink hired Mills for the BlackRock board of directors in October 2013, in what observers mused was a ploy to insinuate himself into the Clinton inner circle.
Among other BlackRock officials with ties to Clinton: Senior Managing Director Matthew Mallow is a “Hillblazer” who has helped raise $100,000 or more in donations. Clinton held a fundraiser earlier this month at Mallow’s New York City home. There is no indication of Fink himself contributing financially to the Clinton campaign.
It’s worth considering how Fink’s recent experiences might inform his approach at Treasury. Asset management firms invest pools of money into securities on behalf of their clients, which in BlackRock’s case include 94 of the Fortune 100. They don’t issue securities themselves; they just buy stuff.
Asset managers don’t package and sell dodgy financial products like investment banks, and don’t trade with borrowed money like hedge funds, so they are typically viewed as more restrained and less averse to regulation than their colleagues in those related industries.
But they are embedded in the broader financial system as voracious buyers of securities. For example, BlackRock holds major share amounts in nearly every mega-bank, takes funds from scores of Wall Street investors, and manages a majority of the federal government’s bailout programs. They may not create the risk, but they own a lot of it. Fink, who co-created the mortgage-backed security while a trader at First Boston in the 1980s, is a longtime respected figure on Wall Street; Geithner reportedly used him as a conduit between Treasury and the financial industry.
He also knows how to work the levers of power to achieve his ends.
Whether buy-side firms like BlackRock represent a systemic risk to the financial system is the subject of some debate. Some believe asset managers could trigger problems by failing to pay off counter-parties, or being forced into a fire sale of their assets.
But Fink and BlackRock pushed hard to successfully resist the designation of asset managers as systemically important financial institutions (or SIFIs), which would be subject to additional regulation like larger capital requirements.
Fink also opposes efforts to reinstitute the Glass-Steagall firewall between investment and commercial banks, as does Clinton.
In fact, Fink’s views on Wall Street are so similar to Clinton’s that it’s hard to see that as a coincidence. Most notably, Clinton’s financial reform plan is mute when it comes to regulating asset management firms as SIFIs.
Fink has in recent months stressed an end to “short-termism” in the financial markets. For example, he wants to limit share buybacks that pump up stock prices, and encourage investors to hold stock longer, to focus on long-term corporate performance. Clinton has mirrored this language to such a degree that the New York Times’ Andrew Ross Sorkin suggested that Clinton “could have been channeling Laurence D. Fink.”
While the call to end short-termism is in some ways laudable, in Fink’s case it certainly reflects his self-interest. Clinton’s tax plan, for example, would keep capital gains rates higher for short-term holdings and decrease the rate for investors who hold assets over five years. Because BlackRock buys and holds most of its investments, any policy favoring long-term strategies in the markets would improve the firm’s bottom line.
Victor Fleischer, a leading tax lawyer and professor at the University of San Diego, questioned Clinton’s embrace of the short-termism argument in the New York Times earlier this month, saying it would “do little to address top-end income inequality,” since plenty of wealthy people buy and hold. And Fleischer explicitly worries that the short-termism idea originated from Fink. “I find it hard to shake the feeling that at the end of the day, in a Clinton administration, it would be Larry Fink, not the technocrats, calling the shots,” Fleischer wrote.
Fink has also promoted the privatization of Social Security, while mocking the idea of retiring at 65, which is easy for a business executive who sits at a desk all day to say, rather than working on an assembly line or as a waiter. Fink owes his initial backing at BlackRock to Pete Peterson, the former commerce secretary who has been at the forefront of the campaign to cut or privatize Social Security. He sat on the steering committee of the Campaign to Fix the Debt, a stalking horse for Peterson’s ideas.
While Clinton has adamantly pledged not to cut or privatize Social Security benefits, Fink’s track record would cause concern among advocates, were he to obtain a cabinet post. And having a ready-made team of trusted advisers who know their way around the Treasury building and the players in a potential Clinton West Wing can only help Fink in that campaign.
Conversations with the Crow
On October 8th, 2000, Robert Trumbull Crowley, once a leader of the CIA’s Clandestine Operations Division, died in a Washington hospital of heart failure and the end effects of Alzheimer’s Disease. Before the late Assistant Director Crowley was cold, Joseph Trento, a writer of light-weight books on the CIA, descended on Crowley’s widow at her town house on Cathedral Hill Drive in Washington and hauled away over fifty boxes of Crowley’s CIA files.
Once Trento had his new find secure in his house in Front Royal , Virginia, he called a well-known Washington fix lawyer with the news of his success in securing what the CIA had always considered to be a potential major embarrassment. Three months before, July 20th of that year, retired Marine Corps colonel William R. Corson, and an associate of Crowley, died of emphysema and lung cancer at a hospital in Bethesda, Md. After Corson’s death, Trento and his Washington lawyer went to Corson’s bank, got into his safe deposit box and removed a manuscript entitled ‘Zipper.’ This manuscript, which dealt with Crowley’s involvement in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, vanished into a CIA burn-bag and the matter was considered to be closed forever
After Crowley’s death and Trento’s raid on the Crowley files, huge gaps were subsequently discovered by horrified CIA officials and when Crowley’s friends mentioned Gregory Douglas, it was discovered that Crowley’s son had shipped two large boxes to Douglas. No one knew their contents but because Douglas was viewed as an uncontrollable loose cannon who had done considerable damage to the CIA’s reputation by his on-going publication of the history of Gestapo-Mueller, they bent every effort both to identify the missing files and make some effort to retrieve them before Douglas made any use of them.
Douglas had been in close contact with Crowley and had long phone conversatins with him. He found this so interesting and informative that he taped and later transcribed them.
These conversations have been published in a book: ‘Conversations with the Crow” and this is an excerpt.
Conversation No. 15
Date: Wednesday, May 22, 1996
Commenced: 12:15 PM CST
Concluded: 12:45 PM CST
GD: Am I interrupting anything?
RTC: No, nothing important. Mostly I do paperwork in the morning, lunch, nap a little and not much else. Gregory, a question here. Have you ever heard of Richard Condon?
GD: Yes, I have read two of his books. He just died, I think last month I read about it.
RTC: The Manchurian Candidate?
GD: That’s one of his first books. Interesting concept. I saw the movie with Frank Sinatra in the early ‘60s. Very complex man with his plots and the brainwashing business was too much. They get ahold of an idea and run off with it.
RTC: The Company was deeply into brainwashing. It was an utter fiasco and we can talk about it in some detail later but I am glad you know about the book and the concept.
GD: Right. Brainwashed a POW and then got him to shoot at a politician. I smelt the Kennedy business in there. He hated Nixon.
RTC: He hated everybody.
GD: Depressing, Robert. Authors pour out their sublimated hatred for their wives, their parents, their teachers and God alone knows who else. What was it about the Condon book?
RTC: Just some report I came across last night while I was putting some of my papers into new files. “The Manchurian Candidate” was the title of the study. Actually, we were watching someone who had been a POW during the Vietnam business.
GD: You think he was brainwashed and is going to shoot the mayor of Buffalo Breath, Montana?
RTC: No, not brainwashed, Gregory, turned.
GD: The North Koreans turned one of our prisoners?
RTC: No, the Russian KGB did.
GD: Well, that makes more sense. I know a number of Russians, met a really sharp one in Bern when I was living there. That I could believe, but I can’t see them using brainwashing. I’ve heard about the CIA’s giving people drugs and using microwaves and so on. The Russians are not that idiotic.
RTC: Now, now, Gregory, not everything we did was lunatic. No, the Russians had access to some of the prisoners and we think they turned at least one of them. Not brainwashing, money.
GD: Yes, yes, now you make sense. Using secret radio waves…I knew a nut one time who wore a beret lined with aluminum foil to prevent Martian radio waves from getting through. Now don’t laugh, he actually did. I ran a group therapy class once and he was a patient. Oh, nuttier than usual, but I prevailed on the head doctor to let him wear his beret and he calmed right down after punching two nurses and a food attendant. A sort of metallic pacifier but it did work and it kept the place calm. Money, of course, is more immediate and more effective than brainwashing. So they got to a prisoner of war, did they? He must have been someone they could use. Some stupid grunt from Alabama would be useless unless they wanted him to let the family hogs run out onto an interstate when an unwanted politician’s motorcade was passing.
RTC: Gregory, there are time when I can see why poor Kimmel can’t put up with you. Do try to be serious, won’t you? Yes, a person who was perhaps important but more likely someone who could become important later.
GD: Makes sense. I don’t think the Cong ever captured a Senator on a goodwill tour of Saigon whorehouses. And I don’t think they captured any really high ranking officers, did they? Is that what you’re talking about?
RTC: Now you’re coming down to reality from the clouds. No, they did not have any Generals or Admirals in the Hanoi Hilton but they did have someone almost as important but it was a potential, not an actual.
GD: And?
RTC: And if there was such a captive, the Russians, who worked with the North Vietnamese…had liaison people there and we knew it…so they looked over the captive list and perhaps found someone that could be useful, if they could turn him. Suppose they found one?
GD: I suppose they did, didn’t they?
RTC: Well, we were not…are not…certain but we believe this happened. You know, we and the Russians were supposed to be deadly enemies then but in our game, there really are no enemies, just different shades of gray.
GD: That I am aware of. A Russian friend of mine told me that there was a regular connection with the Americans and that information went back and forth. Luxembourg as he told me…
RTC: Yes, indeed.
GD: So what? Professionals helping each other to make each other look good. I’d do it. I mean if you had an agent at some altitude who was fanatically anti-Soviet, he would be blind to the subtleties of reality, wouldn’t he? Narrow-minded fanatics are of very limited use, I have found out.
RTC: Exactly so, Gregory, exactly so. I was a specialist on the KGB and I knew a few people from the other side. That’s where I got my indication that their people had turned one of ours. A hint, but a strong one. And then we went through lists of people, vetted the ones that were likely candidates…
GD: But not Manchurian ones?
RTC: No, Moscow candidates.
GD: You know, I had a Russian friend tell me one time that he was constantly amazed at how easy it was to turn Americans. He used the phrase, the three Bs…
RTC: ‘Booze, bucks and broads?’
GD: Precisely. He said that money or pussy got them far more than threats or blackmail. He had a rather low opinion of Americans, I hate to say.
RTC: They aren’t perfect either, but he has a point.
GD: What did they turn your suspect with? Not booze in a prison. Money? Cunt? If he has potential, probably money, right?
RTC: Yes, just that, money. Oh, and little special treatments like more baths, a little better food and things like that.
GD: Well, if he was in with others, they couldn’t have been too lavish. Others would have noticed. One has to be careful. No television sets, visiting whores or lobster dinners for him. I can see a few extra cigarettes here and there, a glass of booze while having a medical exam. I suppose small things like that are possible and very useful tools. You know, Robert, Mueller was a master interrogator. He was a very intelligent man and instead of beating people he talked to them. He said if you were proper with them and even extended small courtesies during the interrogation, you could work wonders.
RTC: He’s right. But in this case, greed and envy….
GD: Envy? Now that’s interesting. Competition? Now there’s a piano to play on. A military prisoner of war. Potentially important somewhere down the road. Competition? With whom? Another officer? A former golf partner? Not strong enough. With whom? A relative perhaps? A more successful relative? Striving, Robert, striving. I did read…
RTC: Now, Gregory, let’s not drive down that road. Enough is enough.
GD: Now, Robert, it was you who asked me about Condon, don’t forget. You want to stop me while on a roll? That’s like your girl friend letting you touch her just a little bit right down there but not too much or too long. That’s called prick teasing. Competition with a relative? Someone living under the shadow of a famous relative? Did we have any prisoners with famous parents or siblings? Perhaps an exalted father…mothers don’t count except in the Oedipal way. Now I was recently reading about someone who was a prisoner of war. Injured badly, came from a distinguished military family. I’m sure you know the name, Robert. That one. That fits. Position to be helpful. If he gets unhappy, there are little reminders of past favors that it would be wise not to talk about. They help your career and you help them. Money. Senior military officers have a decent pension, but it ceases when they die, I believe.
RTC: Gregory, you are hopeless, but I love the way your mind works. A wealthy marriage is possible.
GD: Have a glass of beer, Bob.
RTC: Do be quiet about this, Gregory. This person has serious ambitions and there is no concrete proof of anything.
GD: If a stupid person like myself could put a scenario together so quickly, given your valuable hints, couldn’t others?
RTC: I doubt it, Gregory. Now we won’t be talking about this episode, will we?
GD: I suppose that depends, Robert. I wouldn’t want a Soviet…pardon, Russian…agent in too high a level, would I? And neither would you.
RTC: It’s a waiting game.
GD: Do we have something concrete besides a neat guessing game?
RTC: Yes, a copy of an interrogation file complete with future plans.
GD: My, my. And I suppose with that, your people could turn this individual, turn him to feed the Russians false information. I mean not obvious fake material but with just enough real bits in the dinner to make it pleasant to eat. You would turn him back to the paths of righteousness and fuck the enemy. That’s what I would do, Robert. A fool would expose him or shoot him when he’s taking a hike in the desert.
RTC: You got all this from Mueller?
GD: No, but he and I got on very well because we thought the same way. I suspect the reason why I get on with you is that we think the same way. Robert, I am only a shopworn observer of the human condition. Who would want to hire me? Don’t forget, Kimmel has called me a loose cannon, so that must be true and no one wants to hire a loose cannon. What he means by that is that clever as I know I am, I am not a whore and they could never get me to do something I thought was wrong. Never. And they know that very well. Mueller said my psyche was rooted in the Middle Ages and Heini was dead on. Simplistic as it is, there was a code of behavior and social interaction that they don’t have now. Why? Humanity has been reduced to a common denominator, Robert. This makes inferior people feel secure and happy in their knowledge that it is good to be mediocre. Or worse. So and So went to Harvard. Or Yale. Or Princeton. So and So thinks he is a walking god. He might be a useless twit but he went to Harvard.
RTC: We had legions of those in the Company, Gregory. I was a lace-curtain mick from Chicago and I didn’t fit in with the sailing and horsey crowd.
GD: And neither did Mueller and he was a better man than any of those effete twits. Bring back the old days, Robert, when merit and merit alone got you to the top. And do make sure I can get that file on the Candidate if anything happens to you.
RTC: What would you do with it?
GD: Wait and see.
RTC: We will see indeed.
(Concluded at 12:45 PM CST)
Moody’s cuts China’s credit rating outlook to negative
March 2, 2016
RT
The Moody’s international rating agency has lowered its outlook on China’s credit rating from stable to negative amid growing concerns over the country’s slowing economy, weakening currency and dwindling foreign reserves.
The agency noted the rising government debt and expressed doubts about the capacity of authorities to carry out necessary economic reforms.
Ratings of both long-term and short-term Chinese government debt remain at Aa3, meaning a very low credit risk, said Moody’s in a note.
The rating agency said China’s government debt had increased from 32.5 percent of the country’s GDP in 2012 to 40.6 percent at the end of last year, and is expecting a further rise to 43 percent by 2017.
China’s foreign reserves fell sharply to $3.2 trillion over the last 18 months, due to the central bank’s active measures to support the national currency. Beijing’s reserves, the world’s largest, remained ample, especially in relation to China’s external debt, acknowledged the agency.
Rival Standard & Poor’s rated China at the same level as Moody’s, while Fitch put the world’s second-largest economy a notch lower. Both S&P and Fitch predict stable outlooks on the country.
The Chinese economy is currently growing at its lowest rate in 25 years due to the slowing manufacturing sector and reduced demand for commodities.
Moody’s said it might lift China’s rating outlook back to stable if Beijing succeeds in prioritizing economic reforms and prevent the deterioration of fiscal conditions.
MH370 search: debris found in Mozambique ‘belongs to a Boeing 777’
Malaysian minister says there is ‘high possibility’ that piece comes from same type of aircraft as missing plane
March 2,2016
by Mark Tran
The Guardiahn
US and Malaysian officials say debris washed up in Mozambique belongs to a Boeing 777, the same type of aircraft as the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which disappeared two years ago.
“Based on early reports, high possibility debris found in Mozambique belongs to a B777,” tweeted Liow Tiong Lai, Malaysia’s transport minister. But he went on to caution against “undue speculation as we are not able to conclude that the debris belongs to #mh370 at this time”.
Photographs of the debris appear to show the fixed leading edge of the right-hand horizontal stabiliser of a Boeing 777, an unidentified US official told the Associated Press. People who have handled the part, which is being transported to Malaysia, say it appears to be made of fibreglass composite on the outside, with aluminium honeycombing on the inside, the official said.
However, Mozambique’s national director of civil aviation, João Abreu, said authorities had found no part of the missing plane.
MH370 went missing on 8 March 2014 while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, with 12 crew members and 227 passengers on board.
Despite extensive searches of the southern Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, the only trace of the plane has been a wing part known as a flaperon that washed ashore last July on the French island of Réunion. The island, off the east coast of Africa, is about 2,300 miles (3,700km) from the current search area in the Indian Ocean west of Australia.
Radar tracking of MH370 showed that the plane turned around as it approached Vietnamese airspace, flew back towards Malaysia and then on over the Indian Ocean, where radar contact was lost. Authorities who analysed data exchanged between the plane’s engine and a satellite determined that MH370 took a straight path across the ocean, leading them to believe that it flew on autopilot for hours before running out of fuel and crashing into the water.
NBC said the debris was found on a sandbank in the Mozambique channel by an American man who had been tracking the investigation into the missing flight. Engineers who had looked at the debris believed there was a good chance it belonged to MH370, NBC said, citing sources close to the search. Boeing engineers were examining the photos, NBC added.
Strange but True: The Oddballs on Parade
from The Encyclopedia of American Loons
#957: David Miscavige
Fish in a barrel. David Miscavige is the leader of the Church of Scientology, succeeding L. Ron Hubbard upon Hubbard’s death in 1986. Miscavige has a reputation for being an asshole, and has had numerous allegations made against him in court documents and media reports regarding his treatment of staff, including physical assault, coerced abortions, human trafficking and child labor (some recent allegations here). Not that any of those factors, correct or not, would make any difference to whether he counts as a loon – the Narconon alone would suffice aplenty. Miscavige had in fact already assumed much of the control before Hubbard’s demise, instigating a thorough reorganization of the church, starting a large-scale publication program of new versions of Scientology’s books and courses, relaunching The Sea Org, scoring an epic win in 1993 when they reached a settlement with the IRS over the taxes Scientology had been withholding ever since their tax exempt status was revoked in 1967, and beginning its legendary war on all criticism on the Internet (with the usual Streisand effects hot on the heals) and famous defeats).
Miscavige has also compared Tom Cruise to Jesus Christ, and believes that Cruise will spread the gospel of L. Ron Hubbard all over the world, so even a commitment to dianetics is strictly superfluous to merit inclusion in this Encyclopedia. The latest antics of his church include the building of a “space cathedral” in New Mexico, not far from Roswell, apparently to help future devotees find L. Ron Hubbard’s original works after a nuclear war.
#942: Tom Metzger
Thomas Metzger was the American founder of the White Aryan Resistance, and previously a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan for California – where he started Klan Border Watch – and a minister in the Christian Identity Movement (though he has later held a variety of religious positions). He has advocated murdering innocent blacks, for which he has been sued and lost. As a result he seems to be partially neutralized at the moment.
During his Ku Klux Klan days Metzger held strictly extreme-right views. When switching from the Klan to White Aryan Resistance, however, he shifted toward the extreme revolutionary left, and has praised the former Soviet Union as a “white workers state,” published cartoons attacking American conservatives for cheering for black U.S. athletes over white Soviet Bloc athletes in the Olympics, and proclaimed support for unions and for the hard green group Earth First! (Though in the two last cases it seems to have been because they were fighting against companies who happened to be owned by Jews.) Any political position Metzger has advocated has, however, been strictly racist, however, and his support for political positions or organizations seems to be strictly contingent on racism. He did, however, win a 1980 Democratic primary for U.S. Congress, though he lost 87% to 13% in the general election, after which he started advocating a “lone wolf” strategy, advising white racists against joining established groups. He tried to run again as an independent in 2010 in Indiana, but made little headway.
In his TV show “Race and Reason” from the 1980s he managed to bring together an otherwise ideologically diverse group over the common cause of racism, including the Klan, Aryan Nation, the racist wing of Asatru, Posse Comitatus members, and even Nation of Islam members.
#946: Betty Miller
Betty Miller is behind the website Bibleresources.org (a front for Christ Unlimited Ministries), where she offers daily devotionals based on the Proverbs. One can perhaps guess where she stands on some current issues, and as so many people of her kind she is positively obsessed with sex. In Miller’s opinion pornography should for instance not be protected by the First Amendment because it is Satan’s speak, and Satan is not protected by the Constitution – pornography is a “perversion of free speech,” and speech Miller doesn’t fancy should of course not be protected by the First Amendment.
But Miller’s diagnosis of her perceived moral downfall of society goes deeper: it’s the fault of women not dressing properly. By failing to cover themselves properly, they are tempting men to commit immoral acts. So clearly the women are to blame. The answer to these woes? Pray, and read the material published by Focus on the Family. Tattoos are a sin as well, since tattoos have witchcraft roots (“Witchcraft involvement can,” for instance, “cause UFO manifestations”). And her views on masturbation are based on, well, not facts, at least.
Such views are staple fare for elderly religious fundamentalists, of course. Real lunacy is revealed e.g. when Miller starts talking about child psychology: “Some children are born under a curse and have demons that cause their erratic behavior,” says Miller, and she chastises parents for failing to recognize the true source of the child’s erratic behavior. Damned be those evil psychologists who says otherwise. Her solution is, as usual, prayer. Demons are behind school shootings as well – demons, and “evil rock music”. And computer games. And comic books. And, of course, the obvious one: teaching evolution.
In short, everything that is different from when Miller grew up. Today people are for instance practicing the black witchcraft of yoga, and “[y]oga is not a trifling jest if we consider that any misunderstanding in the practice of yoga can mean death or insanity,” and that if the breath is “prematurely exhausted, there is immediate danger of death for the yogi […] Blackouts, strange trance states, or insanity are listed from even ‘the slightest mistake …’ of practicing yoga.” Indeed.
But the main cause of the downfall of the Western World, and for school shootings, is of course the fact that schools can no longer force children to participate in prayer. It is always prayer. Prayer solves everything. And when it doesn’t, it just means that the person behind the prayer is still under the attack or influence of demons and consequently didn’t pray hard enough.
#975: Sheri Nakken
Sheri Nakken describes herself as a “Hahnemann homeopath”, and even her own self-description rather brilliantly expresses the shortcomings of the woo she peddles. Whereas science-minded inquiries attempt to align the hypotheses with reality, and therefore evolve and change with incoming evidence, homeopathy has staid the same since its pseudo-scientific emergence some 150 years ago, which illustrates its core character pretty well – it’s a dogma for which aligment to reality and evidence was never a virtue or a goal. Nakken also promotes faith healing, and has herself been heavily promoted by many of the central pushers of quackery and fraud, such as the Mothering magazine.
Nakken is furthermore a signatory to the International Medical Council of Vaccination’s list of people (mostly quacks) who believe that vaccines pose a significant risk of harm to the health of children and that there is no real science backing the “vaccine mythology” which claims that vaccines are somehow good for children. The list is about as impressive as the Discovery Institute’s A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism list.
Nakken’s online courses in homeopathy have apparently contributed to the spawning of a range of crackpots; Rolando Arafiles was for instance a one-time student of Nakken’s.
#968: Steven W. Mosher
Steven W. Mosher is head of the Virginia-based Population Research Institute, which is not to be confused with the seriously scienfitic Population Research Institutes at e.g. Penn State or Duke, but a pro-life organization funded by the rightwing Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation that argues that overpopulation is a myth because that suits their fundamentalist religious convictions better. Mosher, who has no research-relevant or academic credentials, has written several books on the issue. The books are, needless to say, more popular among certain segments of the religious right than among social scientists. (His Wikipedia article appears to be written by his fans but there is decent coverage here). In more detail, the PRI’s mission is to:
– debunk the myth of overpopulation, which cheapens human life and paves the way for abusive population control programs.
– expose the relentless promotion of abortion, abortifacient contraception, and chemical and surgical sterilization in misleadingly labeled “population stabilization,” “family planning,” and “reproductive health” programs. (Yeah, you probably saw right away what agenda their “research” claims were supposed to serve, didn’t you.)
– defund these programs by exposing the coercion, deception, and racism inherent in them (i.e. at bottom there is, of course, a conspiracy).
Much of their material is accordingly concerned with accusing the UN for engaging in Ethnic Cleansing (e.g. of Albanians).
To bolster their case, Mosher and his associates publish “studies” (though for the most part they try to swamp youtube with videos) painstakingly distorting and shoehorning data to support the hypothesis they have already decided must be true. They have for instance tried to “prove” that the use of oral contraceptives – the “pill” – result in an increased risk of acquiring HIV or of progressing to AIDS if HIV-positive. And of course, physicians and health workers are, according to PRI, not just wrong, but trying “to continue to contracept as many women as possible with your tax dollars and mine.” I.e. they are evil, and in a conspiracy. “The sad truth is,” Mosher thinks “USAID’s family planning programs in Africa have caused AIDS. The integration of AIDS relief and family planning is a recipe for further disaster.” Well, denialism hardly comes much more delusional than this. He has also said that “The massive distribution of condoms in Africa has not only not stopped the spread of AIDS, it has put millions of more at risk of infection in the name of prevention.” The level of delusion could almost have been hilarious if it weren’t so sad.
Mosher rose to fame in the 80s after conducting “studies” in China and being expelled from Stanford University for “illegal and unethical conduct” (though according to Mosher’s fans he was expelled after China put pressure on Stanford because they didn’t like Mosher’s results attempting to show that China had no overpopulation problem and had implemented their measures to combat overpopulation, including forced abortions, for other, more nebulous reasons). He claims that it was his observations and studies in China that made him strongly religious, but some suspect that the causal direction was the exact opposite.
The truly astonishing thing is that Mosher successfully lobbied the George W. Bush administration to withhold $34 to $40 million per year for seven years from the U.N. Population Fund, the largest international donor to family planning programs, claiming that U.S. foreign health aid should be spent saving lives, “not preventing them coming into being.” He and his institute have also later been central in undermining various humanitarian efforts to promote family planning in various areas of the world – Mosher, for instance, considers many forms of contraception “chemical abortion” because they prevent embryos from implanting in the womb.
Steven Mosher of the PRI does, however, not appear to be the same as global warming denialist Steve Mosher.
Cable, Dutch Gov’t Official: Saudi Arabia’s War On Yemen Motivated By US-Backed Pipeline Fantasy
Secret cable and Dutch government official recently confirmed that Saudi Arabia’s war on Yemen is partly motivated by an ambitious US-backed pipeline fantasy. Despite an economic and resource motivator, the Saudi war for the Yemen oil pipeline is empowering al-Qaeda and ISIS .
March 1, 2016
by Nafeez Ahmed
mintpressnews
Nearly 3,000 civilians have been slaughtered and a million displaced in Saudi Arabia’s noble aerial bombardment of Yemen, which is backed by the United States and Britain.
Over 14 million Yemenis face food insecurity – a jump of 12 percent since June 2015. Out of these, three million children are malnourished. And across the country, an estimated 20 million people cannot safely access clean water.
The Saudi air force has systematically bombed Yemen’s civilian infrastructure in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law. An official UN report to the Security Council leaked last month found that the Saudis have “conducted airstrikes targeting civilians and civilian objects … including camps for internally displaced persons and refugees; civilian gatherings, including weddings; civilian vehicles, including buses; civilian residential areas; medical facilities; schools; mosques; markets, factories and food storage warehouses; and other essential civilian infrastructure, such as the airport in Sanaa, the port in Hudaida and domestic transit routes.”
US-made cluster bombs have been dropped on residential areas – an act that even the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon tepidly concedes “may amount to a war crime”.
In other words, Saudi Arabia is a rogue state. But make no mistake. This kingdom is our rogue state.
The US and British governments supplying Saudi Arabia with weapons to be unleashed on Yemeni civilians pretend they are not involved in the war, not responsible for the war crimes of our rogue state ally.
A UK Ministry of Defence spokesperson insisted that British forces were merely advising “on best practice targeting techniques … UK military personnel are not directly involved in Saudi-led coalition operations.”
But these are weasel words, given the recent revelation from the Saudi foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, that British and American military officials are working “in the command and control centre for Saudi airstrikes on Yemen.”
Presumably taxpayers are not paying them to stand around drinking tea all day.
No – we’re paying them to supervise the air war. According to the Saudi foreign minister: “We have British officials and American officials and officials from other countries in our command and control centre. They know what the target list is and they have a sense of what it is that we are doing and what we are not doing.”
US and UK officials have “been able to scrutinise its air campaign, and were satisfied by its safeguards”.
Back in April 2015, US officials were far more candid about this arrangement. US Deputy Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken told a press conference in Riyadh that the US had increased its intelligence sharing with the Saudis via a “joint coordination planning cell,” involving target selection.
Whatever the case, the civilised leaders of the free world have an insiders’ birds-eye view of the Saudi military’s systemic war crimes in Yemen – and it appears they approve.
Sectarian war?
The goals of the Saudi-led coalition are obscure.
It’s widely recognised that the war has broad geopolitical, sectarian dynamics. The Saudis fear that the rise of the Houthis signals the growing influence of Iran in Yemen.
With Iran active in Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon, Saudi Arabia sees the Houthi rebellion as yet another component in its strategic encirclement by Iranian proxy forces. This is compounded by the US-backed Iran nuclear deal, which paves the way for Iran’s integration into global markets, the opening up of its underdeveloped oil and gas sectors, and its consolidation as a regional power.
But this narrative is not the whole story. While Iran’s contacts with the Houthis are beyond question, before Saudi’s air campaign, the Houthis had acquired most of their weapons from two sources: the black market and ex-President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
US intelligence officials confirm that Iran had explicitly warned the Houthis not to attack Yemen’s capital last year. “It remains our assessment that Iran does not exert command and control over the Houthis in Yemen,” said Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council.
According to former UN special envoy to Yemen, Jamal Benomar, the Saudi airstrikes scuppered an imminent peace deal that would have led to a power-sharing arrangement between 12 rival political and tribal groups.
“When this campaign started, one thing that was significant but went unnoticed is that the Yemenis were close to a deal that would institute power-sharing with all sides, including the Houthis,” Benomar told the Wall Street Journal.
This was not, then, about Iran. The Saudis, and apparently the US and UK, did not want to see a genuine transition to the semblance of a democratic Yemen.
In fact, the US is explicitly opposed to the democratisation of the entire Gulf region, hell-bent on ‘stabilising’ the flow of Gulf oil to global markets.
In March 2015, US military and NATO consultant Anthony Cordesman of the Washington, DC-based Center for Strategic and International Studies explained that: “Yemen is of major strategic importance to the United States, as is the broader stability of Saudi Arabia all of the Arab Gulf states. For all of the talk of US energy ‘independence,’ the reality remains very different. The increase in petroleum and alternative fuels outside the Gulf has not changed its vital strategic importance to the global and US economy … Yemen does not match the strategic importance of the Gulf, but it is still of great strategic importance to the stability of Saudi Arabia and the Arabian Peninsula.”
In other words, the war on Yemen is about protecting the West’s principal Gulf rogue state, to keep the oil flowing. Cordesman goes on to note: “Yemen’s territory and islands play a critical role in the security of another global chokepoint at the southeastern end of the Red Sea called the Bab el-Mandab or ‘gate of tears’.”
The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is “a chokepoint between the Horn of Africa and the Middle East, and it is a strategic link between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean,” carrying most exports from the Persian Gulf that transit the Suez Canal and Suez-Mediterranean (SUMED) pipeline.
“Any hostile air or sea presence in Yemen could threaten the entire traffic through the Suez Canal,” adds Cordesman, “as well as a daily flow of oil and petroleum products that the EIA [US Energy Information Administration] estimates increased from 2.9 mmb/d [million barrels per day] in 2009 to 3.8 mmb/d in 2013″.
The Yemen pipeline dreamBut there’s a parallel sub-goal here, acknowledged in private by Western officials, but not discussed in public: Yemen has as yet untapped potential to provide an alternative set of oil and gas trans-shipment routes for the export of Saudi oil, bypassing Iran and the Strait of Hormuz.
The reality of the kingdom’s ambitions in this regard are laid bare in a secret 2008 State Department cable obtained by Wikileaks, from the US embassy in Yemen to the Secretary of State:
“A British diplomat based in Yemen told PolOff [US embassy political officer] that Saudi Arabia had an interest to build a pipeline, wholly owned, operated and protected by Saudi Arabia, through Hadramawt to a port on the Gulf of Aden, thereby bypassing the Arabian Gulf/Persian Gulf and the straits of Hormuz.
“Saleh has always opposed this. The diplomat contended that Saudi Arabia, through supporting Yemeni military leadership, paying for the loyalty of sheikhs and other means, was positioning itself to ensure it would, for the right price, obtain the rights for this pipeline from Saleh’s successor.”
Indeed, Yemen’s eastern governorate of Hadramaut has remained curiously free from Saudi bombardment. The province, Yemen’s largest, contains the bulk of Yemen’s remaining oil and gas resources.
“The kingdom’s primary interest in the governorate is the possible construction of an oil pipeline. Such a pipeline has long been a dream of the government of Saudi Arabia,” observes Michael Horton, a senior analyst on Yemen at the Jamestown Foundation. “A pipeline through the Hadramawt would give Saudi Arabia and its Gulf State allies direct access to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean; it would allow them to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic chokepoint that could be, at least temporarily, blocked by Iran in a future conflict. The prospect of securing a route for a future pipeline through the Hadramawt likely figures in Saudi Arabia’s broader long-term strategy in Yemen.”
Hiding the pipeline connection
Western officials are keen to avoid public consciousness of the energy geopolitics behind the escalating conflict.
Last year, a cutting analysis of these issues was posted on a personal blog on 2 June 2015 by Joke Buringa, a senior advisor on security and rule of law in Yemen at the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“Fear of an Iranian blockade of the Hormuz Strait, and the possibly disastrous results for the global economy, has existed for years,” she wrote in the article, titled “Divide and Rule: Saudi Arabia, Oil and Yemen.” “The US therefore pressured the Gulf States to develop alternatives. In 2007 Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, Oman and Yemen jointly launched the Trans-Arabia Oil Pipeline project. New pipelines were to be constructed from the Saudi Ras Tannurah on the Persian Gulf and the UAE to the Gulf of Oman (one to the Emirate of Fujairah and two lines to Oman) and the Gulf of Aden (two lines to Yemen).”
In 2012, the connection between Abu Dhabi and Fujairah, within the UAE, became operational. Meanwhile, Iran and Oman moved to sign their own pipeline deal. “Distrust about the intentions of Oman increased the attractiveness of the Hadramawt option in Yemen, a longstanding wish of Saudi Arabia,” wrote Buringa.
President Saleh, however, was a major obstacle to Saudi ambitions. According to Buringa, he “opposed the construction of a pipeline under Saudi control over Yemeni territory. For many years the Saudis invested in tribal leaders in the hope to execute this project under Saleh’s successor. The 2011 popular uprisings by demonstrators calling for democracy upset these plans.”
Buringa is the only senior Western government official to have acknowledged this matter publicly. But when I contacted her to request an interview on 1 February, four days later I received a response from Roel van der Meij, a spokesperson for corporate affairs at the Dutch government’s foreign ministry: “Mrs. Joke Buringa asked me to inform you that she is not available for the interview.”
Buringa’s entire blog – previously available at www.jokeburinga.com – had in the meantime been completely removed.
An archived version of her article on the energy geopolitics of the Saudi war in Yemen is available at the Wayback Machine.
I asked both Buringa and van der Meij why Buringa’s blog had been completely deleted so quickly after I had sent my request for an interview, and whether she had been forced to do so under government pressure to protect Dutch ties with Saudi Arabia.
In an email, Buringa denied that she was pressured by the Dutch foreign ministry to delete the blog: “Sorry to disappoint you, but I was not pressured by the ministry. The layout of the blog had bothered me from the beginning and I had been meaning to change it for months … Your question reminded me that I wanted to change my site and rethink what I want to do with it. Don’t read more into it.”
However, the Dutch government corporate affairs spokesperson, van der Meij, did not respond to multiple email and telephone requests for comment regarding the removal of the blog.
Many Dutch firms are active in the kingdom running joint investments, including the Anglo-Dutch oil major Shell. Due to the Netherlands’ position as a gateway to Europe, two Saudi Arabian multinationals – the national oil firm Aramco and the petrochemicals giant SABIC – have their European headquarters in The Hague and Sittard, both in the Netherlands. Dutch exports to Saudi Arabia have also increased dramatically in recent years, rising 25 percent between 2006 and 2010.
In 2013, Saudi Arabia exported just under 34 billion euros ($38.5bn) of mineral fuels to the Netherlands, and imported from the Dutch just over 8 billion euros ($9bn) of machines and transport material, 4.8 billion euros ($5.4bn) of chemical products, and 3.7 billion euros ($4.2bn) of foodstuffs and animals.
The Saudi alliance with al-Qaeda
Among the prime beneficiaries of the Saudi strategy in Yemen is al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the same group that took responsibility for the Charlie Hebdo slaughter in Paris.
“The governorate of Hadramawt is one of the few areas where the Saudi-led coalition did not conduct any air strikes,” noted Buringa. “The port and the international airport of al-Mukalla are in optimal shape and under the control of al-Qaeda. Moreover, Saudi Arabia has been delivering arms to al-Qaeda, (which) is expanding its sphere of influence.”
The Saudi alliance with al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists in Yemen was brought to light last June when the Saudi-backed “transitional” government of Abd Rubbuh Mansour Hadi dispatched a representative to Geneva as an official delegate for UN talks.
It turned out that the representative was none other than Abdulwahab Humayqani, identified as a “specifically designated global terrorist” in 2013 by the US Treasury for recruiting and financing for AQAP. Humayqani was also allegedly behind an al-Qaeda car bombing that killed seven at a Yemeni Republican Guard base in 2012.
Other analysts concur. As Michael Horton comments in the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor: “AQAP may also benefit from the fact that it could well be regarded as a useful proxy by Saudi Arabia in its war against the Houthis. Saudi Arabia and its allies are arming a host of disparate militias across southern Yemen. It is almost certain that some, if not much, of the funding and materiel will make its way to AQAP and quite possibly the Islamic State.”
While trumpeting the war on IS in Iraq and Syria, the West is paving the way for the resurgence of both al-Qaeda and IS in Yemen.
“Saudi Arabia does not want a strong, democratic country on the other side of the more than 1,500 kilometre-long border that separates both countries [Saudi Arabia and Yemen],” Dutch foreign ministry official Joke Buringa had remarked in her now-censored article. Neither, it seems, do the US and UK. She added: “Those pipelines to Mukalla will probably get there eventually.”
They probably won’t – but there’ll still be blowback.
Public support for Putin to serve another term hits highest level in four years: poll
March 3, 2016
by Alexander Winning
Reuters
Moscow-Public support for Vladimir Putin to serve another term as president has hit its highest level in four years, a survey by a state-run pollster showed on Thursday.
Seventy-four percent of Russians would vote to re-elect Putin as president, according to a poll by VTsIOM.
Putin dominates state media in Russia and is widely expected to contest the next presidential election in 2018. If he won, it would be his fourth term as president.
He has capitalized on conflicts in Ukraine and Syria to boost his popularity and his message that Russia is again a force to be reckoned with on the world stage has gone down well with voters.
VTsIOM said Putin’s approval ratings had risen among many social groups, including young people. It also showed his support levels had risen sharply in recent years; in 2012 in the same polling series only 40 percent of Russians said they would vote for the Russian leader.
“Even among those who think the president has not yet fulfilled many of his pre-election promises, 70 percent are willing to support Putin,” VTsIOM said in a statement published on its website.
An independent Russian pollster, the Levada Center, gives Putin similar ratings. Liberal opposition politicians say the figures are unfairly boosted by the fact that state TV, where most Russians get their news, affords Putin blanket and favorable coverage while largely ignoring them.
Should Putin win the 2018 election, he would have the right to serve until 2024. By that stage he would be over 70 years old and come up against a constitutional limit barring him from serving more than two consecutive terms.
After his first two terms as president, Putin in 2008 made way for his protege Dmitry Medvedev to serve as president before returning to the Kremlin himself in 2012.
(Reporting by Alexander Winning; Editing by Andrew Osborn)