Firms Seek Access to Myanmar Oil Fields

By THOMAS HOGUE

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP..link) — Just last Sunday — when marches led by Buddhist monks drew thousands in Myanmar's biggest cities — Indian Oil Minister Murli Deora was in the country's capital for the signing of oil and gas exploration contracts between state-controlled ONGC Videsh Ltd. and Myanmar's military rulers.

The signing ceremony was an example of how important Myanmar's oil and gas resources have become in an energy-hungry world. Even as Myanmar's military junta intensifies its crackdown on pro-democracy protests, oil companies are jostling for access to the country's largely untapped natural gas and oil fields that activists say are funding a repressive regime.

China — Myanmar's staunchest diplomatic protector and largest trading partner — is particularly keen on investing in the country because of its strategic location for pipelines to feed the Chinese economy's growing thirst for oil and gas.

Companies from South Korea, Thailand and elsewhere also are looking to exploit the energy resources of the desperately poor Southeast Asian country.

France's Total SA and Malaysia's Petroliam Nasional Bhd., or Petronas, currently pump gas from fields off Myanmar's coast through a pipeline to Thailand, which takes 90 percent of Myanmar's gas output, according to Thailand's PTT Exploration & Production PLC.

But investing in Myanmar has brought accusations that petroleum corporations offer economic support to the country's repressive junta, and in some cases are complicit in human rights abuses. This week's bloody clampdowns on protests have escalated the activists' calls for energy companies to pull out of the country.

"They are funding the dictatorship," said Marco Simons, U.S. legal director at EarthRights International, an environmental and human rights group with offices in Thailand and Washington. "The oil and gas companies have been one of the major industries keeping the regime in power."

Demonstrations that started a month ago over a spike in fuel prices have become a broader protest against the military rulers. Ten people were killed in two days of violence this week. Soldiers fired automatic weapons into a crowd of demonstrators in Yangon on Thursday and occupied Buddhist monasteries and cut public Internet access Friday. The moves raised concerns the crackdown on civilians was set to intensify.

Myanmar's proven gas reserves were 19 trillion cubic feet at the end of 2006, according to BP PLC's World Review of Statistics. While that's only about 0.3 percent of the world's total reserves, at current production rates and Thailand's contract price for gas, the deposits are worth almost $2 billion a year in sales over the next 40 years.

"It points to the potential that Myanmar has," said Kang Wu, a fellow at the University of Hawaii's East-West Center in Honolulu.

Altogether, nine foreign oil companies are involved in 16 onshore blocks exploring for oil, enhancing recovery from older fields, or trying to reactivate fields where production has been suspended, according to Total's Web site. A block is an area onshore or offshore in which an oil company is granted exploratory and discovery rights.

Offshore, nine companies, including Total, Petronas, PTTEP, South Korea's Daewoo International Corp., Chinese state-run companies China National Offshore Oil Corp., or CNOOC, and China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., or Sinopec, are exploring or developing 29 blocks, Total said.

Despite economic sanctions against Myanmar by the United States and the European Union, Total continues to operate the Yadana gas field, and Chevron Corp. has a 28 percent stake through its takeover of Unocal. Existing investments were exempt from the investment ban.

Both Total and Chevron broadly defended their business in the nation.

"Far from solving Myanmar's problems, a forced withdrawal would only lead to our replacement by other operators probably less committed to the ethical principles guiding all our initiatives," Jean-Francois Lassalle, vice president of public affairs for Total Exploration & Production, said this week in a statement.

French President Nicholas Sarkozy urged Total this week to refrain from new investment in Myanmar; the French concern said it had not made any capital expenditure there since 1998.

Chevron's interest in the Yadana project is "a long-term commitment that helps meet the critical energy needs of millions in people in the region," said Nicole Hodgson, corporate media adviser for Asia.

Total and former partner Unocal Corp. were accused of cooperating with the military in human rights violations while a pipeline was being built across Myanmar to Thailand in the 1990s. Both companies have denied the accusations but Unocal settled a related lawsuit in the U.S. in 2005, prior to being acquired by Chevron.

Always worried that instability on its border could affect the juggernaut Chinese economy, Beijing has been gently urging Myanmar's leaders to ease the recent strife. On Thursday, it issued a plea for calm, asking the government to "properly deal" with the conflict.

"The Chinese prefer to separate business and politics," said Kuen-Wook Paik, an energy analyst at Chatham House, a think tank in London. "They want to take a neutral stance. They don't want to risk the relationship with the Myanmar authorities."

But China's chief interest, analysts say, may lie in its strategic location as a site for pipelines to move oil and gas shipped from the Middle East to southern China, avoiding the Malacca Straits, which Beijing worries could be closed off by the U.S. Navy in a conflict.

By building a pipeline, "you start stitching together a crisis management capability," said William Overholt, director of the Center for Asia Pacific Policy at RAND Corp., an American think tank.

Beyond interests in exploration blocks in the Bay of Bengal off Myanmar, India also plans to build a pipeline to eastern India, but disagreements with Bangladesh have delayed the plans.

India is not facing any diplomatic pressure to reduce investment in the country, said R.S. Sharma, chairman of the state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp.

"There is a trade-off between the two: That is a moralistic position and these strategic interests," said Muchkund Dubey, president of the Council for Social Development, a New Delhi think tank, and the former top bureaucrat at India's Foreign Ministry.

Thailand's PTTEP, a partner in Total's Yadana and Petronas' Yetagun gas projects, said in a statement that production of natural gas is at the normal rate, and should not be affected by the unrest.

"It is business as usual," said Sidhichai Jayamt, the company's manager for external relations. "When we have a contract with the government, it doesn't really matter who the government is."

AP Business Writers Rajesh Mahapatra in New Delhi, Elaine Kurtenbach in Shanghai and Malcolm Foster in Bangkok contributed to this report.

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Anti war campaigners banned from protesting outside UK parliament

Thousands of British demonstrators planning to march on parliament next month to call for the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and Iraq are being told that their protest has been banned.

Stop the War Coalition (STWC) said that police would not allow protesters "within one mile of Parliament" when MPs return from their summer recess on October 8.

The ban on the planned march was said to relate to parliament's "sessional orders," which are intended to provide "free and easy access" for MPs.

STWC, which has organized national demonstration against the Iraq and Afghanistan wars for the past six years, criticized the ban as making a "totally different" interpretation of the regulations.

"One moment the Prime Minister is supporting the right of Burmese monks to demonstrate in Rangoon, and yet here in London we're being stopped from marching on Parliament. It's hypocrisy," said SWTC convener Lindsey German.

"The rules covering Parliament have never been interpreted in this way before. In fact, the police have always tried to be as flexible as possible. This is a new development and threatens our democratic rights," she said.

Sessional orders historically date back to parliament from 1680 but these are said to have now been replaced by the Serious Crime and Police Act in 2005, and decisions on demonstrations in the area are now taken by police.

German described the ban as a "new, worrying development from what has been custom and practice for years" but insisted that the march on October 8 would go ahead with thousands of demonstrators. --IRNA Full story/Permalink

Magnetic Levitation, how it works.

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Saddam Offered Exile, But Neo-Cons Unleashed Carnage Anyway

What could have been saved? A trillion dollars, a million lives, the global reputation of the U.S. - but that wasn't the plan

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Thursday, September 27, 2007

Neo-Cons could have saved a trillion dollars, spared over a million lives and prevented tens of thousands of dead and injured U.S. soldiers but decided to unleash carnage anyway, after it was revealed last night that Saddam Hussein offered to step down and go into exile one month before the invasion of Iraq.

"Fearing defeat, Saddam was prepared to go peacefully in return for £500million ($1billion)," reports the Daily Mail.

"The extraordinary offer was revealed yesterday in a transcript of talks in February 2003 between George Bush and the then Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar at the President's Texas ranch."

"The White House refused to comment on the report last night. But, if verified, it is certain to raise questions in Washington and London over whether the costly four-year war could have been averted."

According to the tapes, Bush told Aznar that whether Saddam was still in Iraq or not, "We'll be in Baghdad by the end of March."

Why didn't the Neo-Cons take Saddam's offer? After all, the invasion was about "weapons of mass destruction" and "spreading freedom", we were told. With the dictator gone, the U.N. and American forces were free to roam the country in search of the non-existent weapons while setting up the "utopian democracy" that Iraqis now live under.

The Neo-Cons didn't take the offer because the invasion of Iraq was not about Saddam Hussein, it was about making fat profits for the military-industrial complex by bombing the country back into the stone age, slaughtering countless innocents in the process, seizing control of oil factories, and setting up military bases as a means of launching the Empire's next jaunt into Iran.

The invasion of Iraq was about having a justification to stay there indefinitely and break the country up into different pieces as was the plan all along.

Here's what $1 billion could have saved us.

- At least $200 million every single day that could have been spent on fighting poverty, building schools, taking men to Mars, ad infinitum.

- At least $1 trillion that the Iraq war will eventually cost if we ever leave. A trillion is a million millions.

- At least 1 million dead Iraqis according to the latest numbers, along with millions more that will die in the years to come as a result of depleted uranium poisoning, malnutrition, cholera and all manner of other horrors brought about by the invasion.

- Over 1.1 million displaced Iraqis who have been forced to leave their new "utopian democracy" and another million who have been forced to leave their homes due to sectarian violence and persecution.

- Over 3800 dead U.S. soldiers since the invasion began.

- 300 dead coalition soldiers since the invasion began.

- Anything from 23,000 to 100,000 injured U.S. soldiers since the invasion began.

- The reputation of the U.S. around the world as the most hated nation on earth.

- The ballooning deficit and the probable eventual collapse of the U.S. dollar and the economy.

Thanks Neo-Cons - I hope it was worth it. Full story/Permalink

MI5 and MI6 to be sued for first time over torture

Vikram Dodd
The Guardian

A British man who was held in Guantánamo Bay has begun a civil action against MI5 and MI6 over the tactics that they use to gather intelligence.

The suit has been brought by Tarek Dergoul, 29, who claims he was repeatedly tortured while he was held by the US, and that British agents who had also questioned him were aware of the mistreatment.

He wants a high court ruling that will ban the security services from "benefiting" from the abuse of prisoners being held in detention outside the UK.

If Mr Dergoul wins, it would mean that MI5 and MI6 could not interrogate British nationals while they are being held and tortured abroad.

A British citizen, he has been awarded legal aid for the case, and papers will be lodged at the high court today. They were drafted by the Rabinder Singh, QC, a leading human rights barrister from the Matrix Chambers.

According to court documents seen by the Guardian, Mr Dergoul alleges that agents from MI5 and MI6 repeatedly interrogated him while he was held and tortured in Afghanistan and then Guantánamo, and were thus complicit in his treatment. In the 13-page document to be lodged at court, he says he suffered beatings, sexual humiliation, insults to his religion, and was subjected to extremes of cold. He was released back to Britain in 2004 without charge.

Britain says it does not carry out or condone torture, but it stands accused of benefiting from inhumane treatment meted out by other countries.

Mr Dergoul is seeking damages for "misfeasance in public office" by the security services and the Foreign Office.

The court papers state: "The British government and its officials knew that the claimant was being subjected to mistreatment amounting to torture and inhumane and degrading treatment because he told them so...Accordingly the British government and its officials unlawfully sought to benefit from mistreatment of the claimant. It is averred that either the British officials knowingly unlawfully interrogated the claimant or they acted with reckless indifference to its illegality."

Mr Dergoul said he was picked up in Afghanistan in 2001 by local warlords who "sold" him to the US for $5,000.

He denies involvement in fighting or terrorism and says he went to the region to study Arabic. He was held for a month at the prison in Bagram then spent three months in Kandahar before being sent to Guantánamo Bay.

He says one week after his arrival at Bagram, British agents first questioned him, identifying themselves only by their first names, "Andrew" and "Matt" and was questioned in front of an armed US soldier. He says he was kept in a cage with 20 others and saw horrific acts of torture inflicted on prisoners.

"They would be severely beaten, often with baseball bats, when they collapsed from exhaustion. The claimant also observed two or three men being hung by their hands with bags over their heads. The claimant also heard gunshots and screams," the papers say.

Mr Dergoul says he was moved to Kandahar, suffering more torture and denial of medical treatment that led to a toe being amputated. Again he says he was visited and interrogated by the British. One of the officials was 'Matt' whom he had previously seen at Bagram and the other man was in his early 40s and short."

In 2002, hooded, drugged and shackled Mr Dergoul was taken to Guantánamo, where he says UK agents questioned him five times, at intervals of every four to five months. In Guantánamo the Briton says he suffered more abuse and torture, which he says he told UK officials about.

"The claimant complained that he was being beaten and was being sexually assaulted by having his genitals touched during searches. The claimant also complained that he had been repeatedly attacked..., that he had been placed in freezing conditions in isolation without access to a toilet, water or soap, that he had had his facial hair forcibly shaved."

The government is expected to fight the court action.

Last night Mr Dergoul said: "This action comes at a time when people all over the world need protection from torture and abuse by governments which say they represent and uphold human rights."

The government confirmed last night that security service agents had interviewed Mr Dergoul and other Britons held in Guantánamo "about the UK's national security" adding "it was important that we got as much information as possible. They were arrested in unusual circumstances. British officials who visited them acted with the highest degree of professionalism."

The Foreign Office said: "The UK unreservedly condemns the use of torture. The British government, including its intelligence and security agencies, never use torture for any purpose, including obtaining information, nor would we instigate actions by others to do so." It said it could not comment on ongoing legal proceedings.

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24 years on - The man who saved millions of lives

In September 1983 the world was closer to doomsday than it ever was..

The date is 1 September 1983 and the Cold War between the Soviet Union and USA is in full gear, when from the New York skies Korean Air Lines Flight 007 flies from JFK, destination Seoul, South Korea. In the middle of the flight, while accidently passing through Soviet air space, Soviet fighter jets appear getting close the aircraft. The Soviets, who didn't know the plane contained civilians, warned the pilot that they will shoot down the aircraft if it doesn't identify itself, and the pilot, for some unknown reason, doesn't respond. Reports say the pilot never actually received the information, although theories about this are still unclear. An hour passes as the fighter jets still accompany the aircraft, and the orders from Soviet military is to shoot down the aircraft just as the plane was leaving Soviet airspace. The Soviet fighter jets shot down the plane, with the aircraft plunging 35,000 feet in less than 90 seconds, killing 269 civilians, including a US congressman. Hell broke loose. As the Soviets tried to defend their 'mistake', US President Ronald Raegan described the Soviets actions as "barbaric" and "a crime against humanity that must never be forgotten". The tension between the two mega-powers hit an all-time high, and on 15 September 1983 the US administration banned Soviet aircrafts from operating in US airspace. With the political climate in dangerous territory, both US and Soviet government were on high-alert believing an attack was imminent. It was a cold night at the Serpukhov-15 bunker in Moscow on 26 September 1983 as Strategic Rocket Forces lieutenant colonel Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov resumed his duty, monitoring the skies of the Soviet Union, after taking a shift of someone else who couldn't go to work. Just past midnight, Petrov received a computer report he'd dreaded all his military career to see, the computer captured a nuclear military missile being launched from the US, destination Moscow. In the event of such an attack, the Soviet Union’s strategy protocol was to to launch an immediate all-out nuclear weapons counterattack against the United States with nuclear power, and immediately afterwards inform top political and military figures. From there, it would be taken a decision to further the military offensive on America. Stanislav Petrov The bunker was in full-alarm, with red lights all over the place as the missile was captured by the Soviet satellites via computers. Petrov wasn't convinced though. He believed that if the US attacked, they would have attacked all-out, not just sending one missile and giving a chance for them (the Soviets) to attack back. Petrov figured something didn't make sense, as strategically, just one missile from the US would be a strategic disaster. He took some time to think and decided not to give the order a nuclear attack against America, since in his opinion, one missile didn't make sense strategically and it could easily have been a computer error. But then, seconds later, the situation turned extremely serious. A second missile was spotted by the satellite. The pressure by the officers in the bunker to commence responsive actions against America started growing. A third missile was spotted, followed by a fourth. A couple of seconds later, a fifth one was spotted... everyone in the bunker was agitated as the USSR was under missile attack. He had two options. Go with his instinct and dismiss the missiles as computer errors, breaking military protocol in the process or take responsive action and commence full-blown nuclear actions against America, potentially killing millions. He decided it was a computer error, knowing deep down that if he was wrong, missiles would be raining down in Moscow in minutes. Seconds turned to minutes, and as time passed it was clear Petrov was right, it was a computer error after all. Stanislav Petrov had prevented a worldwide nuclear war, a doomsday scenario that would have annihilated entire cities. He was a hero. Those around him congratulated him for his superb judgment. Upon further investigation it resulted that the error came from a very rare sunlight alignment, which the computer read as missile. Of course, top brass in the Kremlin didn't find it so heroic, as he broke military protocol and if he would have been wrong, risked millions of Russian lives. He was sent into early retirement, with a measly $200 a month pension, suffering a nervous breakdown in the process. Due to military secrecy, nobody knew Petrov's heroic judgment until 1998, when a book written by a Russian officer present at the bunker revealed that World War 3 was closer than people thought, and a nuclear holocaust was avoided by a close shave. Petrov reminisces what could have been if he didn't get that extra shift that night Even though the Russian have little sympathy to the man who saved millions of American lives, the United Nations and a number of US agencies honoured the man who could have started a nuclear war, but didn't. In 2008, a documentary film entitled 'The Man who saved the World' is set to be released, perhaps giving Petrov some financial help, thanking him for the incredible part he had in keeping the US and the USSR out of a full-blown war. Without knowing on the cold Moscow night back in 1983, a badly paid 44 year old military officer saved the world, and made himself one of the most influential persons of the century in the process, saving more lives than anyone ever did. Most of today's people don't know it, but today's world as we know it, is like it is because of Stanislav Petrov.

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Britain said to lay claim to south Atlantic seabed

From: here

A marked minefield near Stanley on the Malvinas/Falkland islands
©AFP/File - Daniel Garcia

LONDON (AFP) - Britain is seeking to legally annex stretches of the south Atlantic seabed in a bid to tap gas, mineral and oil wealth, in a move that could raise tension with Argentina, a newspaper reported Saturday.

It plans to file with the United Nations authorities a claim to tens of thousands of square miles of the Atlantic Ocean floor around the Falklands, Ascension Island and Rockall, The Guardian said.

In a bloody war 25 years ago, British forces expelled Argentine invasion forces from the Falkland Islands, which is 8,000 miles (13,000 kilometres) from Britain. Argentina claims the Falklands, or Malvinas, as their own.

The British government is trying to speed up the application process with the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (UNCLCS) ahead of an international deadline in May 2009, the newspaper said.

In a novel legal approach, any state can use detailed geological and geophysical surveys to demarcate a new "continental shelf outer limit" that can extend up to the 350 miles from its shoreline, The Guardian said.

The British government has collected data for most of what it is submitting, it added.

Chris Carleton, head of the law of the sea division at the UK Hydrographic Office, said preliminary talks on Rockall are due to be held next week in Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, according to the newspaper.

The Falklands claim has the greatest potential for diplomatic tension, Carleton said.

Britain has been granted licences for exploratory drilling around the islands within the normal 200-mile exploration limit and any new claim to UNCLCS would extend territorial rights further into the Atlantic.

"It would be beyond the 200-mile limit but less than 350 miles," said Carleton, who is involved in preparing the submission.

"It effectively joins up the area around South Georgia to the Falklands. It's a claim but how it's handled has not been decided yet. The Argentinians will say it's not ours to claim. It's all a bit tricky," he was quoted as saying.

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Kissinger Admits Iran Attack Is About Oil

"So what?, we need the oil," sneer deluded Neo-Cons as oil prices explode due to orchestrated artificial scarcity

Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet Friday, September 21, 2007 Deriving link

In a new op-ed, Bilderberg luminary Henry Kissinger admits that U.S. hostility against Iran is not about the threat of nuclear proliferation, but as part of a larger agenda to seize Iranian oil supplies. But the true meaning behind this is lost on Neo-Cons, who are still deluded into thinking that Americans benefit from the imperial looting of natural resources in the middle east.

In a Washington Post op-ed, Former US Secretary of State Kissinger comes clean on the true motives behind the planned military assault on Iran.

"An Iran that practices subversion and seeks regional hegemony - which appears to be the current trend - must be faced with lines it will not be permitted to cross. The industrial nations cannot accept radical forces dominating a region on which their economies depend," writes Kissinger.

As blogger Robert Weissman points out, the "legitimate aspirations" that Kissinger affords Iran later in the piece "do not include control over the oil that the United States and other industrial countries need."

According to the CIA's world factbook, Iran has the world's second largest reserves of conventional crude oil at 133 gigabarrels. Adding non-conventional oil, Iran holds 10% of the global oil supply.

Kissinger's admission that U.S. control of Iranian oil supplies is the real agenda behind hostility towards Iran would raise eyebrows and bring condemnation from many, but there are a hard core of Neo-Con cheerleaders who would support such an agenda even if it is openly accepted that nuclear proliferation is just a smokescreen for looting more middle east oil.

That is because they are still deluded into thinking that foreign wars of aggression to monopolize natural resources make America, and as a consequence make them, richer and more prosperous - when nothing could be further from the truth.

The fact that the Iraq invasion was about oil is a familiar cliche that was even acknowledged by Alan Greenspan last week.

"So what? We need that oil," the Neo-Cons sneer.

Americans don't benefit from the Globalists' control of Iraqi oil because the agenda is to artificially restrict global oil supplies in order to jack up prices and reduce the living standards of industrial countries.

The oil flowing out of Iraq has never recovered to pre-invasion levels and still stands at a measly 0.5 gigabarrels a year, a huge chunk of which is piped directly to Israel.

This artificial scarcity is the stated goal of Bilderberg luminaries like Kissinger and José Manuel Barroso, who have sworn to inflate prices up to $200 dollars a barrel and spark the onset of a "post-industrial revolution", which translates as another economic depression and a wholesale "correction" of living standards that will all but obliterate the middle class.

Neo-Cons who trumpet the ethnic cleansing of the middle east using the twisted logic that it benefits Americans as their dollar sinks to peso level and gas prices explode while the cost of living becomes unaffordable are living in a complete fantasy world, but when the wake up call arrives the consequences of their ignorance are going to reap a hellish revenge.

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Crisis? What crisis?

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A rat about to be stomped on for deserting the sinking ship...

is terrorised by CIA asset with the cover of revenge at the killing of a Pakistani 911 truther. The irony of bin Laden tape. Now that bin laden has come out against Musharraf for killing, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, at the same time as Musharraf has started refusing to do the bidding of the US by not allowing them to invade Iran through them. The poor tin-pot dictator is seemingly being attacked from all sides in the WOT. Now I would like to draw your attention to this article from the Telegraph, an obituary of the deceased:

The Abdul Rashid Ghazi I knew

By David Blair

Original:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/10/wpak510.xml

Chief siege cleric killed as rebel mosque falls Video: Bloody end to Red Mosque siege Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the radical preacher who died today when Pakistani forces stormed the Red Mosque, did not fit the popular image of a fundamentalist ideologue. Former mosque leader: Abdul Rashid Ghazi When I was based in Pakistan for the Daily Telegraph in 2002, I met Ghazi several times and spoke to him on the phone quite frequently. As radical Islamists go, he was affable, pleasant and engaging. Ghazi spoke good English and enjoyed showing off this fact. On two or three occasions, he invited me to visit him in the Red Mosque in Islamabad, where he was the leading preacher along with his elder brother, Abdul Aziz. I remember sitting cross legged on a thick carpet beneath the dome of the mosque, drinking endless cups of tea as Ghazi regaled me with his views. He was scornful about Gen Pervez Musharraf, who he considered no better than an American puppet, a view shared by plenty of Pakistanis. Ghazi was also quite open about his admiration for Osama bin Laden, who he claimed to have met in Afghanistan before the overthrow of the Taliban regime in 2001. “He is a very good Muslim”, Ghazi would say of the al-Qa'eda leader. Terrorism, he would swiftly add, was contrary to the peaceful nature of Islam. Warming to his theme, Ghazi would say that any good Muslim who took up arms should not only refrain from harming civilians but also avoid “blowing the leaves from the trees”. I would occasionally point out to Ghazi the obvious contradictions in his view of the world. How could a man of peace support bin Laden? How could he call for the violent overthrow of Musharraf while claiming to be in favour of democracy? "But bin Laden is not a terrorist," he would reply. Ghazi was convinced that bin Laden was innocent of responsibility for 9/11. I never managed to pin him down on who he thought was responsible for the attacks. He would drop dark hints about the powerful people who really ran the world. Many Pakistanis blame 9/11 on Mossad or the CIA or, occasionally, both. I strongly suspect that Ghazi shared this view. When he took me round his Madrassa in Islamabad, his teenage pupils brought me up to date with their favourite conspiracy theories, which held that 9/11 had been organised by the mysterious circle of Jews who run the entire world. Given that they lived in Ghazi's Madrassa, it is hard to see who else these boys could have got their odd ideas from. In the end, I never knew what to make of Ghazi. On occasion, he gave every impression of being an intelligent and likeable human being. Then the conversation would turn to bin Laden and 9/11 and I would idly wonder whether he might actually be insane.

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Bank of England plans surprise £10bn money market injection

Ashley Seager
Wednesday September 19, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

Under pressure: Bank of England governor Mervyn King. Photograph: Toby Melville/Getty

The Bank of England today said it would inject £10bn next week into money markets in a bid to defuse tension that has risen in the wake of the Northern Rock crisis.

While the move was criticised in some parts of the media as a humiliating U-turn, the Bank stressed that the funds were being made available at penal rates of interest, restricted to small amounts per bank and only on presentation by commercial banks of very sound collateral.

Thus, it said, the move did not represent a bailout of banks who have run into difficulties, often of their own making.

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U.S. Fueling Sectarian Civil War in Anbar by Funding Former Insurgents to Fight Al Qaeda

U.S. Fueling Sectarian Civil War in Anbar by Funding Former Insurgents to Fight Al Qaeda

Watch 256k stream

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When Gen. David Petraeus spoke of success stories in Iraq, he largely focused on the situation in Anbar province where former Sunni insurgents are now fighting Al Qaeda alongside U.S. troops. In a U.S. broadcast exclusive, we air a report from Anbar by independent filmmaker Rick Rowley that exposes how the U.S. is fueling sectarian civil war in Iraq by funding the former Sunni insurgents. [includes rush transcript]

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When General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker spoke of success stories in Iraq during their congressional testimony, they largely focused on the situation in Anbar province where former Sunni insurgents are now fighting Al Qaeda alongside U.S. troops. Critics of the military's policy in Anbar have accused the U.S. of fueling the sectarian civil war in Iraq by funding former Sunni insurgents. It is widely known the U.S. is paying the former insurgent forces but General Petreaus denied the U.S. was directly arming them.

In a U.S. broadcast exclusive, we air a report from Anbar by independent filmmaker Rick Rowley of Big Noise films. This piece is excerpted from an expose that aired on Al Jazeera English [ Watch full report: Part I || Part II ] It was produced by Rick Rowley, David Enders and Hiba Dawood, with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

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RFID implants linked to cancer: the lowdown

RFID implants linked to cancer: the lowdown

By John Timmer

The Associated Press has produced an extensive report on the potential risks of RFID devices, which have been approved for use in humans. The report cites a range of animal studies that have linked similar devices to cancers in experimental animals, such as mice and rats. The report is generally well prepared and raises both scientific and ethical issues.

The ethical questions focus on the initial approval of these devices, which occurred while Tommy Thompson was in charge of Health and Human Services, a parent department of the FDA. The AP reports that five months after Thompson left government service, he joined the board of the company that produces the RFID devices. That position came with a substantial number of shares in the company. Attempts to obtain the safety information on the device that went into the approval process produced no documents.

Does relevant information exist? Absolutely; in fact, a company that produces similar devices intended to track research animals provides a list of references (scroll to the bottom) that includes a number of studies that link the use of implants to the development of cancers at the site of the implant. Although the development and progression of cancer in mice has some differences compared to humans, mice still remain the primary model system for understanding cancer. The rates seen in these studies (typically only a percent or two) should certainly have been relevant to the approval of human RFID implants.

It's important to emphasize that those studies are not necessarily sufficient to view these implants as known hazards. The data suggest that the devices foster cancer by causing inflammation of the tissues that encapsulate them. There is a large amount of scientific literature linking cancer and inflammation (the National Cancer Institute has some information on the matter). RFID tags turn out not to be the only form of animal tagging that causes cancer through inflammation; standard metallic ear tags can do so as well. That paper also notes that there have been a number of case reports where human prosthetic implants have induced cancers in the surrounding tissues.

Given that there's a known mechanism for these implants to foster cancer by irritating their surrounding tissues and that humans appear to suffer from these sorts of cases, there is clearly reason for concern. Still, it is possible that different RFID designs may have a greater or lesser tendency to induce irritation; more detailed studies are clearly needed. These should include more animals beyond mice and rats (RFID tags are used for pet identification purposes) and a detailed examination of whether those people who have received tags so far have signs of inflammation.

Should the FDA have approved the devices, given the animal data? Probably not without some basic studies of their potential to cause inflammation in humans. Although the animal reports are relatively obscure—the AP report quotes a variety of cancer researchers as being completely unaware of them—it's the FDA's job to find relevant research. Clearly, they dropped the ball here.

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As Cancers Rise, Western Diet Becomes an Unpopular US Export

As Cancers Rise, Western Diet Becomes an Unpopular US Export

by Martha Rosenberg

Like cigarettes and alcohol, no one thinks red meat is good for you. Except maybe its producers.

This month Quality Meat Scotland, a red meat promotional agency, is hosting a seminar at the Moredun Institute in Edinburgh about the health properties (sic) of the fatty acids found in red meat. Keynote speaker is the University of Wisconsin's Mike Pariza who has demonstrated anti-cancer properties in conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) which, along with Omega 3, is said to be found in grass fed beef and lamb.

Research indicates that CLA can "enhance the immune system" and "help to reduce body fat in healthy, exercising humans," says the online meat trade journal, MeatInfo.co.uk.

Eggs can also help people lose weight says the egg industry. A study cited in the August 17 issue of Feedstuffs, the agribusiness weekly, found that women who ate two eggs with toast every morning lost 65% more weight and 83% more abdomen fat than women who ate bagels and low fat yogurt--though the breakfasts had the same number of calories and the rest of the women's meals didn't differ.

Still, casting meat as a health food is a tough row to hoe.

The "Western diet"--the high fat, excess protein and low fiber way of eating favored in the US--is being vilified all over the planet and not just for contributing to global warming.

A study in the July 16, 2007 issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention of 3,002 women in Shanghai, China found that postmenopausal women who ate shrimp, chicken, beef, pork and sweets were 30% more likely to develop breast cancer and especially estrogen receptor-positive cancer. Women who ate tofu, cauliflower, beans and bean sprouts had no increased risk.

Poor countries like Nigeria, are saying thanks but no thanks to the Western diet, rejecting conventional food paternalism which says industrialized nations eat better. The nerve!

"In the 50's, 60s, and 70's, most of our diet in sub-Saharan Africa was not refined or high fat as we are having today," says Dr. Adekunle Adesina, an oncologist/pathologist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston in the Nigerian Tribune, Lagos' oldest newspaper.

"There was a lot of fibre in our meal at that time, which kept cancers and other diseases at bay. But the Western diets that we are now eating in Africa are highly refined with little fibre."

J. Olufemi Ogunbiyi, a professor of Anatomic Pathology at the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan agrees. "It is crucial that we cut down the amount of fat in our diets," he told the Tribune. "Meats, especially red meat, cheeses, eggs and whole milk should also be eaten with utmost caution to prevent some diseases."

Nor is the world view of the Western diet likely to improve soon.

The follow-up to the 1999 landmark American Institute for Cancer Prevention/World Cancer Research Fund study, Food Nutrition and the Prevention of Cancer: a global perspective is due out November 1.

Already Feedstuffs has devoted two spreads preparing its readers for the 7,000-study compendium whose first edition position on their product was: "If eaten at all, red meat to provide less than 10% total energy." Hello?

Still, the Australian meat industry--a big exporter to the US--has some good things to say about meat.

"Red meat has played a significant role in human evolution" it says (see tall ships; leeches) and "trimmed of fat it is generally lean and contains low levels of saturated fats and cholesterol."

Red meat can also "be included in the diet of people with or at risk of heart disease" and, "Strategies for the prevention and treatment of obesity can include lean red meat." (How? Very carefully.)

And cancer concerns?

"The balance of evidence indicates that lean red meat, cooked without charring or heavy browning is not consistently linked to the development of colorectal cancer."

Sounds kind of like smoking.

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Short sighted environmentalists

In my mind the obsession of the New Environmentalists with air travel is nothing short of a diversion from more important issues like the 9/11 cover-up, the disastrous war in Iraq, and forthcoming war in Iran.


By Dr. Sahib Mustaqim Bleher

To some it is astonishing when protesters join the establishment, like George Monbiot, gamekeeper turned poacher, whose conservative upbringing caught up with him and makes the erstwhile vociferous critic of the establishment now spout the official mantra on 9-11 as well as climate change or global warming. Due to his former credentials as a campaigner he is now a high value asset to those in power.

Yet, there should be nothing surprising about such apparent U-turns. From the days of the early Christians in the Roman Empire to, more recently, the post-war labour movement, opposition has been bought up and re-branded by the ruling elite. These processes are often justified with the need for efficiency in organising the alternative view, and because a lot of the old rhetoric remains in place, genuine believers in the cause only realise what has been happening after the takeover is complete. "Middle England's" "New Labour" is a recent example.

That the hitherto anti-establishment, anti-capitalist environmental movement is becoming an establishment hobby horse is clearly evident in the protest camp recently set up at London Heathrow airport. When environment editor of The Guardian complained about media management at the camp he received a vociferous rebuttal by Media Lens lambasting The Guardian as an establishment paper in bed with Big Oil. Conveniently forgotten in this row was that George Monbiot is a regular columnist in The Guardian, the establishment paper aimed at what remains of "The Left".

In my mind the obsession of the New Environmentalists with air travel is nothing short of a diversion from more important issues like the 9-11 cover-up, the disastrous war in Iraq, and forthcoming war in Iran. Numerous websites offer the unwary traveller an air travel calculator to figure out how badly his journey impacts the environment, so he can set out on his well deserved holiday laden with guilt. I have been unable to find a similar calculator for cruise missiles which are regular fired in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A cruise missile uses only about one tenth of the fuel in its rocket propellant than the fuel burnt by an Airbus, but an Airbus carries almost 150 peaceful people to a place of relaxation, whereas a cruise missile will at most send 15 people into a place of no return. On that score the carbon footprint per person going on holiday and per person killed in these wasteful wars is about the same, but the comparison is slanted, because missile propellant, unlike aircraft fuel, is converted almost completely into CO2, many missiles miss their targets and the equation omits the environmental impact of the carrier aircraft and of other ammunition such as laser-guided bombs. I leave the detail to the statisticians, but let's say for argument's sake that for the negative environmental (never mind social) impact of every human being killed during war you can send at least three people on holiday. These macabre statistics alone should drive home the futility of obsessing with individual air travel.

The casualty figures for these two senseless wars range from 100,000 to half a million; if the latter figure presented by The Lancet was true, then all the 2.5 million passengers passing through all of the UK airports during the course of a whole year could have flown for free as far as the carbon footprint is concerned, and considering the costs of missiles and bombs our government could also have issued them with free complimentary tickets.

Civilian air travel is a peace-time offshoot of military developments. In spite of being heavily subsidised, turnover and profit figures are only in the millions, whereas the military hardware produced by the same companies making civilian aeroplanes nets them billions. War is immensely more profitable than peace, and George Monbiot and his Heathrow protesters help blinding the general public about this unpalatable fact. When will we start hearing about the effects those military adventures have on climate change and calls for the return of our troops not only to save innocent lives in the regions concerned but also to save the planet? Go, camp outside the Pentagon! Full story/Permalink