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South Africa may be hit with US sanctions over Iran oil imports

Press TV – May 12, 2012

South Africa would likely face sanctions from the United States if the largest economy in the African continent fails to meet the deadline to cut its crude oil imports from Iran.

The South African Petroleum Industry Association (PIA) said on Friday that it would have to expedite requests to the United States for a postponement and temporary exemption from the economic sanctions if South Africa fails to slash its imports of Iranian petroleum.

“This is not a business decision for us. It involves a political decision about political pressure,” PIA Executive Director Avhapfani Tshifularo said.

“We expect a Cabinet decision by the end of the month, and we will allow ourselves to be guided by that,” Tshifularo said.

The report comes as South African crude oil imports from the Islamic Republic of Iran have increased to $434.8 million in March from $364 million in February.

South Africa’s Revenue Service said on April 30 that Africa’s biggest economy imported 505,908 tons of Iranian crude in March, up from 417,188 tons the previous month.

South Africa has come under pressure from Washington to cut its crude imports from Iran in line with the sanctions designed to halt Tehran’s nuclear energy program.

According to the March data, South Africa’s crude imports totaled 1.6 million tons, with Nigeria supplying 38 percent, Iran 32 percent, Saudi Arabia 22 percent, and Angola the rest.

The US sanctions require foreign financial institutions to make a choice between transactions with the Central Bank of Iran and Iran’s oil and financial sectors or being banned from the US economy.

On January 23, the EU agreed to ban oil imports as well as petroleum products from Iran and freeze the assets of the Central Bank of Iran across the EU.

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May 12, 2012 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

New Postal Service Plan a Bait and Switch, Equivalent of Closing 5,567 Post Offices

New “POSt Plan” Is Not Good News for Rural Post Offices or Their Customers

Ralph Nader | May 11, 2012

Consumer watchdog, Ralph Nader, today said, “The Postmaster General’s Post Office Structure Plan (“POSt Plan”) is a bait and switch tactic, and is not good news for rural Post Offices.”

The Postmaster General claims that his new strategy, released on Wednesday, is designed to benefit rural Americans and keep open the 3,652 postal facilities it was considering for closure. Though it is unclear how many of these offices are included in the “POSt Plan”, it seems that many of them have been incorporated in the new plan as well. The new direction that the Postmaster General proposed is to cut hours at nearly 13,000 Post Offices and offer early retirement incentives for more than 21,000 non-executive postmasters.

“As more details about the plan emerge, the picture grows increasingly dire for rural customers of the U.S. Postal Service,” Nader observed. “I expressed deep concern about the preliminary details of the Postmaster General’s plan on Wednesday. Unfortunately, those fears were confirmed as we have analyzed the details of the Postmaster General’s new strategy.”

After examining 260 pages of the U.S. Postal Service’s proposal for Post Office hour reductions nationwide, we found that the new strategy eliminates 42,699 hours per day from retail window hours of nearly 13,000 Post Offices.

“This proposal is calling for a gargantuan cut in retail window hours nationwide – 42,699 total hours each day. To put this in perspective, 42,699 hours equates to nearly 5 years,” Nader explained.

The current average retail window hours of the nearly 13,000 Post Offices proposed for reduced hours are 7.67 hours per day. “The enormous cut in hours that the U.S. Postal Service has proposed is the equivalent of closing 5,567 of these Post Offices. The Postmaster General started with a list of 3,652 offices being considered for closure. Now we see that by reducing window hours he has proposed the equivalent of closing 2,000 more offices than he started with,” Nader continued.

Nader concluded by saying, “This is, plain and simple, a bait and switch. As I said on Wednesday, by further restricting Post Office hours the Postmaster General makes the corporate “alternatives” to the U.S. Postal Service more likely and sets the stage for future Post Office closings when the revenues and workload of reduced-hours offices inevitably suffer. The Postmaster General has effectively taken a list of 3,652 offices that were on the chopping block and added nearly 10,000 more offices to that list.”

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May 11, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Economics | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Nationalization, Bolivian Style: Morales Seizes Electric Grid, Boosts Oil Incentives

By Emily Achtenberg | Rebel Currents | May 10, 2012

On May 1, President Evo Morales seized control of Bolivia’s electric grid from a subsidiary of the Spanish-owned Red Eléctrica de España. In a dramatic ritual now familiar to Bolivians as a hallmark of the Morales government on International Workers’ Day, Bolivian soldiers peacefully occupied the company’s Cochabamba offices and draped the Bolivian flag across its entrance.

Coming on the heels of Argentina’s recent move to expropriate Spanish energy company Repsol’s majority stake in its national gas and oil company, the event has generated more than the usual volume of outrage and dire predictions of capital flight from U.S. business interests.

“It’s crazy to invest in Bolivia, and this is a perfect example why,” says Eric Farnsworth, vice-president of the DC-based Council of the Americas. “He’s taking actions that guarantee that investment will dry up further.”

“The left-wing populist strategy of demonizing the investor class has one big drawback: the law of diminishing (investor) returns,” warns Mary Anastasia O’Grady in the Wall Street Journal. In reality, far from abandoning Bolivia, foreign companies have remained actively engaged in its post- nationalization energy sector. This is due in no small part to Morales’s increasingly investor-friendly policies, including his willingness to boost private incentives to meet domestic energy needs.

The takeover of the electric grid, which was privatized in 1997, is part of Bolivia’s overall strategy to re-nationalize companies that were divested by past neoliberal governments, increasing state control over strategic sectors such as natural resources and basic services. Since 2006, Morales has nationalized the country’s gas fields, oil refineries, pension funds, telecommunications, and main hydroelectric power plants.

According to Morales, Red Eléctrica has invested only $81 million in Bolivia’s electric grid since acquiring it in 2002, while drawing around $100 million in cumulative profits. Three of Bolivia’s nine departments remain isolated from the national network. “The government invested $220 million in electricity generation while others profited, so we’re recovering what was ours,” Morales said.

Apart from these ideological and economic considerations, domestic politics also played a role in the May 1 event. Nationalizations have been highly popular in Bolivia, and this one may help Morales shore up support from disaffected constituencies at a time of heightened civic unrest. Still, the increase in power blackouts since the government took over electricity generation in 2010 serves as a reminder that the move could also backfire politically if the level of service does not meet public expectations.

In any case, despite the theatrics of the May 1 announcement, Bolivia’s most recent nationalization has been relatively non-confrontational, especially when compared to Argentina’s move with Repsol. For one thing, the targeted electric company subsidiary generated just 3% of its parent company’s profits, while Argentina’s YPF accounted for 21% of Repsol’s. In an effort to minimize negative fallout, Morales gave Spain 3 days notice of the takeover, whereas Argentina’s President Cristina Fernández refused to meet with Repsol in advance.

After its initial criticism, Spain has acknowledged the legitimacy of Bolivia’s nationalization decision, which includes a promise of fair compensation. Red Eléctrica expects to reach a friendly agreement with Bolivia on the value of its investment, and the parties have agreed to retain a joint appraiser.

On the same day as the electricity grid takeover, Morales inaugurated a $600 million natural gas processing plant in eastern Bolivia with Repsol that represents the single biggest foreign investment under his government. The plant will triple the amount of gas sold to Argentina. Repsol is one of ten gas and oil multinationals that were forced to renegotiate their contracts with Bolivia in 2006, giving the state majority ownership and vastly increasing taxes and royalties under a relatively modest form of nationalization.

“We have a relation of great trust with Repsol,” said Morales, contrasting Bolivia’s situation with Argentina’s. “Repsol respects all Bolivian rules, and its promised investments are going ahead in a good manner.” At the same time, Morales noted, Bolivia’s experience with Repsol shows that nationalization (Bolivian style)  can be a success, providing an instructive example for Argentina.

As Carlos Arze of Bolivia’s Center for Research on Labor and Agrarian Development (CEDLA) points out, six years after Bolivia nationalized its hydrocarbons reserves, not a single foreign oil and gas company has pulled out of Bolivia. Despite the major shift in revenue splits, the firms’ annual profits have remained about the same in dollar terms ($824 million), due to the vast increase in revenues generated by high commodity prices and natural gas exports. Annual hydrocarbons revenues collected by the state have increased from an average of $332 million prior to nationalization to more than $2 billion today.

Still, there have been major setbacks with oil and gas nationalization. While natural gas production has increased, crude oil production has fallen by more than 20% since 2005. With crude oil prices that the state can pay frozen at $27 per barrel (less than a quarter of today’s world price), companies are unwilling to invest in exploration of new reserves. As a result, Bolivia has become increasingly dependent on fuel imports for domestic consumption, with an escalating annual price tag estimated at $755 million in 2012, to subsidize the cost of imported gasoline and diesel to consumers.

In an effort to reduce this dependency and stimulate energy sovereignty, the government instituted a new policy on April 19, boosting incentives for crude oil production from $10 to $40 per barrel (through a $30 tax credit).

The new policy effectively repositions the ill-fated December 2010 Gasolinazo, when the government tried to accomplish the same goals on the backs of consumers by abruptly cancelling the fuel subsidy and dramatically increasing gasoline prices. That policy was revoked after massive protests, sending shock waves through Bolivia’s social and political sectors that continue to reverberate to this day.

Critics of the new incentive, including Arze, believe that it’s just another form of giveaway to the oil companies which far exceeds their production costs, and will still be paid by the public through taxes foregone from the national treasury. They question where the funds will come from, since the government claims it can’t afford higher salaries for striking health care workers and other disaffected sectors. According to the government, savings from reduced gasoline and diesel imports will more than offset the tax incentive cost (estimated at $358 million over five years).

In any case, it’s clear that Bolivian-style nationalization is far from incompatible with continued private investment, and that the Morales government is willing to underwrite the incentives it believes are necessary to accommodate foreign capital. Whether this investor-friendly approach is the best policy for Bolivia remains to be seen, but it’s a far cry from “demonizing” the private sector.

May 11, 2012 Posted by | Economics | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Clinton urges India to cut Iranian oil

Al Akhbar – May 7, 2012

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a plea to energy-starved India on Monday to reduce its Iranian oil imports, as Washington struggles to get Asia’s economic powerhouses on board with its sanctions.

A US ban on Iranian oil is due to come into force at the end of June, with countries potentially facing sanctions if they continue to trade with the Islamic republic.

New Delhi has been hesitant to back the ban and is planning to trade in currencies other than dollars, therefore avoiding US sanctions.

Clinton told a town hall meeting in the eastern city of Kolkata that there’s an adequate supply in the market for India to find alternative sources of oil.

She noted India has taken some steps to reduce its imports from Iran, but said the US wants to see more.

“If there weren’t an adequate supply… we would understand, but we believe that there is adequate supply,” she said.

India, with an economic growth rate of about 7 percent, has an insatiable need for oil. About 9 percent of its oil imports are from Iran, though officials say it has reduced its dependency on Iranian oil in recent months.

“We appreciate what has been done and, of course, we want to keep the pressure on Iran,” Clinton said.

India remains dependent on the imports, and Iran is its second largest oil supplier after Saudi Arabia.

India and Iran reached an agreement earlier this year that would allow India to pay for about 45 percent of the purchases in rupees.

Tehran would then use the Indian currency to buy goods from Delhi.

Clinton said the US remained focused on putting global pressure on Iran.

“We believe, at this moment in time, the principle threat is a nuclear-armed Iran,” she said. “We need India to be part of the international effort.”

Clinton will head to Delhi later Monday, where she is expected to press India to push ahead with an economic program that would open the way to US conglomerates such as Walmart entering the fragile market.

The prime minister’s chief economic adviser said last month that no new reforms were likely before the next election in 2014.

(Al-Akhbar, AFP)

May 7, 2012 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran welcomes Tajik proposal for railroad link to China

Press TV – May 6, 2012

Iran’s Minister of Road and Urban Development Ali Nikzad says Tehran welcomes a proposal by the Tajik government to connect the Iranian rail network to the city of Kashgar in China via Tajikistan and Afghanistan.

In a meeting with the visiting Tajik Minister of Transportation and Communications Nizam Hakim Oaf on Sunday, Nikzad said the 392 kilometers (km) long rail corridor will connect Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and China.

“It will increase trade exchange and export volume, reduce transit costs among these countries and facilitate the transport of cargo and passengers in the region,” he added.

The Iranian minister also pointed to the 15,000 km railroad tracks in Iran, saying the country’s railroads are currently connected to Turkmenistan through Gorgan city, to Iraq via Shalamcheh border crossing, to Azerbaijan through Astara port city, and also to Afghanistan through Khaf-Herat railroad.

The Tajik minister, for his part, said the most complicated part of the project is a 270 km-long section that includes 16 km of tunnels and 47 bridges, and needs about USD 8-10 million for every kilometer of the line.

He added that the first phase of the project is 335.4 km and will cost USD 169.5 million while the second phase needs USD 96.4 million in investment. The final stage, Hakim Oaf said, which includes building anti-avalanche structures, will cost USD 30 million.

The Tajik minister of transportation and communications is currently in Iran to take part in a two-day international conference dubbed “South Khorasan, Transit and Development of East Axis.” The event will open in Iran’s eastern city of Birjand on Monday, April 7, attended by participants from 18 countries.

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May 6, 2012 Posted by | Economics | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Colombia’s Patriotic March

By CHRIS GILBERT | CounterPunch | May 4, 2012

Colombia’s highly restricted democracy got a good slap in the face two weeks ago when 100,000 protesters entered the capital city and filled to overflowing the giant plaza that spreads out before the Congress and the Palace of Justice. In fact, just looking at the hurried reactions of president Juan Manuel Santos – new cabinet appointments, launching a populist housing project, and buying more arms from the US – one would know something serious is afoot.

But what, precisely, is it? The protesters call themselves the Patriotic March and were born with a more or less spontaneous celebration of the Colombian bicentennial two years ago. At that moment, in 2010, there was an earlier and likewise massive march to Bogotá plus the formation of cabildos (open councils) to treat questions of urgency in Colombian politics and life (such as human rights).

Today the marchers’ two principal slogans are innocuous enough: one the one hand, the effort to bring about a second and definitive independence and on the other hand peace; that is, a political and negotiated solution to the country’s 50-year conflict, a peace with of social justice. So what is all the fuss?

In fact, only in Colombia are the search for peace and sovereignty themes to which the state generally responds with massive repression, even approaching genocide. Some twenty-five years ago Colombia’s longest lasting guerrilla, the FARC-EP, opted for a peaceful rather than armed expression of its non-conformity. This led to the systematic assassination of something like 4,000 of the unfortunate cadres of the Patriotic Union who thought there might be a space for a strictly political opposition in Colombia’s much touted democracy, which seems to have durability rather than authenticity as its principal characteristic.

Though strictly speaking it may not be a world that has lived 100 years of solitude, Colombia’s politics has its very specific and even archaic qualities. For example, one of the principal struggles still seems to be that which takes place between city and country. Superficially at least, most of the patriotic marchers are people of rural origin: small or displaced farmers. Likewise there is an obvious racial or color element; the marchers tend toward brown and black while Power in Colombia tends to be white – except of course for the sepoy police and armed forces.

The marchers are clearly that group or class which Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano called “the nobodies… who don’t speak language but dialects… who don’t have culture but folklore” (and “cost less than the bullet that kills them”). But that doesn’t keep them from being very clear about what they want and need. “We’re being displaced by transnationals and the national government,” said one small-scale miner from the Bolivar department, “and participating in the march is the only way we will be heard”. Almost to a man, they are clear that their government is a puppet, militarist regimen in which the White House, if it doesn’t call all the shots, is at least consulted on most of them.

The march, patriotic and gutsy given the conditions in which it must operate, is one of those events that show that class struggle cannot be eliminated from any context, even by the most aggressive and totalitarian state tactics. There comes a point in which – as Martin Luther King said – one cannot not go on. The marchers have reached that point. They cannot be willed or dispelled away by even the most powerful mediatic wands (the mass media seems to insist contradictorily both that they don’t really exist and that they are very dangerous).

One of their repeated claims – that passes from the mouth of the inimitable ex-senator Piedad Córdoba to almost every spokesperson – is that the March, come what may, will go forward. That means that it will and has taken the form of a political movement and that it will try to take state power, as every responsible political movement tries to do. That claim, when it comes from the mouth of someone with Córdoba’s mettle, and when backed up by such conscious and committed social bases, is enough to make even the most ruthless politician of the establishment tremble. And some of us, one must say, tremble with delight.

Chris Gilbert, professor of Political Science in the Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela, formed part of the international delegation that accompanied the Patriotic March, between April 21 and 23, in the formation of the National Patriotic Council.

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May 4, 2012 Posted by | Economics, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

South American Fiber Optic Ring

By Raúl Zibechi | Americas Program | May 2, 2012

On March 9th, the Ministers of Communication from 12 countries that make up the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR, for its acronym in Spanish) made the decision to build a fiber-optic ring that created a direct connection between countries in the region without relying on the United States. The network will be completed in 18 months and they will begin laying ocean cables between South America, Europe, the United States and Africa.

The initiative originated from Brazil’s government, which took the proposal to the South American Council on Infrastructure and Planning (Cosiplan, for its acronym in Spanish). This body, which began operations in 2010, is one of the 8 sectoral councils at the departmental level in Unasur for political and strategic debate of programs and projects that promote the regional integration of infrastructure. During the first meeting, it put forth a Plan of Action that sought to “substitute the logic of exportation with one of regional development,” according to Joao Mendes Pereira, Coordinator of Latin American Economic Affairs in Brazil’s State Department.

This fiber optic ring is beginning to loosen one of the many knots that tie the region to the influence of the Global North, and in particular, the United States. It may not be a great work or a radical step forward, but Unasur’s decision illustrates two points: first, the way in which relations with the central powers weaken and fragment marginalized regions; and second, the existence of the political will to make concrete advances towards building autonomy.

South-South Connection

In South America, communication via internet takes a strange and irrational journey. Emails sent between two neighboring cities in Brazil and Peru, such as the capital of Acre, Rio Branco, and Puerto Maldonado, travel all the way to Brasilia, leave Fortaleza via submarine cable, enter the United States through Miami, pass by California descending down the Pacific to Lima, and continue on their way to Puerto Maldonado: a 8,000-kilometer trip between two points only 300 kilometers apart. On a basis like this, it is impossible to speak of sovereignty and integration.

There is also a dependence on European countries. In order to connect some sites between Brazil or Argentina and Ecuador or Colombia, the connection must cross the Atlantic to Europe and return to the continent. A country like Brazil, which is already an emerging global power and will become the world’s 5th-largest economy this year, lives in a situation of dependence on communication: 46% of its international internet traffic comes from outside of the country, and of that 90% makes a pit stop in the United States.

With respect to the region as a whole, 80% of international data traffic from Latin America passes through the United States, double that of Asia and four times the percentage from Europe. This excessive dependence makes communication more expensive. After the meeting at Asunción, the Minister of Industry and Energy in Uruguay, Roberto Kreimerman, stated that between 30% and 50% of connection costs correspond to payments to companies offering connection services to developed countries.

The first step approved by Cosiplan is to survey and chart all the existing networks in each country. After that, three steps of development have been established: first, the connection of physical points located on every border, some of which will be finalized this year, such as in Argentina, Paraguay, Venezuela, Bolivia and Uruguay. Second, state-owned telecom companies, like Telebras of Brazil and Arsat of Argentina, as well as private companies, will lay the foundational framework for the networks. In the third stage, they will extend the cables to neighboring borders.

At each border, internet exchange points will be created to support the companies. The fiber-optic ring will extend 10,000 kilometers and be managed by state-owned companies from each country to keep communications safe and cheap. According to Paulo Bernardo, Minister of Communication in Brazil (and head the agency that came up with the project), the ring “reduces our vulnerability to an attack and the safety of state or military secrets.”

The direct link will increase the connection speed between South American nations 20% to 30% and will decrease costs. Investments at this stage will be very low, around $100 million, which begs the question why it wasn’t done before.

Autonomy and Sovereignty

The project will be complete after the installation of various submarine cables. One will lie between Brazil (the country most interested in the project) and the U.S., entering Miami, Jacksonville or Virginia and passing through the Caribbean, which allows Colombia and Venezuela to be connected. Another will unite the continent with Europe directly passing through Cabo Verde and preferably entering via Amsterdam. A third will connect Fortaleza (northern Brazil) with Angola (Africa) branching off to Argentina and Uruguay.

This part of the project will be realized by Eletrobras, the Brazilian state company in charge of the National Broadband Plan, the federal government’s initiative to broaden access to the entire population before the 2014 World Cup. The objective is to provide 40 million citizens with broadband access and 60 million with broadband mobile access.

Until now Brazil has had only four submarine cable links in Fortaleza, Salvador, Rio de Janeiro and Santos that connect South America with the U.S. Each is operated by private companies, which, from a strategic perspective, causes the country to lose part of its sovereignty. The rest of the countries in the region have access to these cables, but some either lack international fiber optic networks or have overloaded existing ones. That explains why the international “link” represents 45% of the cost of broadband.

At the same time, Brazil is negotiating with the United Nations to democratize internet management which is currently in the hands of American companies who control the IP addresses, URLs and domain names. The spokesperson for the Minister of Foreign Relations, Tovar da Silva Nunes, explained that “the management of the flow of information is very concentrated” because “the internet domain is under the auspices of the U.S. government …it is not safe, fair or desirable.”

For this reason, Brazil and other emerging nations, in addition to some European countries, support the creation of a global convention for access to information at Rio+20 that allows the democratization of the control of communication. Such a framework must include the construction of a fiber optic ring as a physical infrastructure for collaborative communication.

New Risks

The region is living a new reality that shows it is possible to advance in a type of collaboration that goes beyond free commerce to promote equal development in the region. Nonetheless, there remain many doubts and uncertainties. Many processes progress quickly, like the fiber optic ring, highways and hydroelectric dams, while others sink, like the southern gas pipeline that would have created an energy interconnection. Meanwhile, others creep along at a slow pace, like Banco del Sur which promotes a new financial framework in the region.

Brazil is interested in releasing itself from the grip of the Global North and promoting these policies in the region. However, it does not have as much interest in promoting other initiatives like Banco del Sur since it already possesses a powerful development bank, the BNDES, which is handling finances for a good part of infrastructure works in the region.

Given this sentiment, it was Unasur who laid out the objective of providing continuity to the “successes and advances” of the Initiative for the Integration of Regional South American Infrastructure (IIRSA), to the project it considers “a consensus response to the challenges of effective integration and growing necessities for infrastructure in South America initiated in 2000.”

Accordingly, Unasur picks up where IIRSA left off, which has been seriously criticized by social movements. In its 10 years of existence it has picked up 524 projects with investments totaling 100 billion dollars. In January, 2011, there were 53 completed projects, almost 200 in the execution phase and 150 in the preparation phrase. 85% of the projects are transport-related while 12% are in energy.

In 2010, Cosiplan laid out a Plan of Action that urges “building a strategic and integral South American perspective of regional infrastructure favorable to balance and territorial cohesion as well as human development in harmony with nature.”

This new “strategic vision” is a positive one in that it responds to the interests of the South American people. On the other hand, it may reproduce old forms of suppression since it was born from the interests of one country and multinational corporations. The works of IIRSA-Unasur are being challenged by those citizens who feel affected, as happened with the highway that was proposed to cross the TIPNIS in Bolivia and the energy agreement that Peru and Brazil signed in 2010, which foresaw the construction of five dams in the Inambari River.

Apart from the dams to be built in Brazil’s rivers in the Amazon, the state company Eletrobras plans on constructing 11 dams in Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, Colombia and Uruguay with an installed power of 26,000 MW, almost double that of Itaipu which supplies 17% of energy consumption to Brazil. The energy and highway projects that are currently being postulated by Unasur tend to replicate the same structures that until now had been the cause of Latin America’s dependence.

It may be that the Fiber Optic Ring presents these same characteristics since it was proposed and designed by Brazil and it tends to serve Brazil’s interests. The exit route of the most important submarine cables will stay on Brazil’s coasts. The connection with Africa foments the multiple commercial and corporate interests that Brazil has on that continent. Eletrobras is the company in charge of a good part of the optic ring and its financing is controlled by BNDES.

That is why we can say that initiatives, like the fiber optic interconnection, are a step towards regional autonomy although it may be laying the foundation for new inequalities. It will be up to the governments and people of the region to debate the benefits of these projects.

Raul Zibechi is an international political analyst from the weekly Brecha de Montevideo, a professor and researcher on grassroots movements at the Multiversidad Franciscana de América Latina, and adviser to many grassroots groups He writes the monthly “Zibechi Report” for the Americas Program.

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May 3, 2012 Posted by | Economics, Environmentalism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Waldorf Astoria conspiracy

By Kian Mokhtari | Press TV | May 3, 2012

Some of the largest hedge funds, private equity groups, university endowment managers, and other high rollers have met at New York’s up market Waldorf Astoria Hotel to facilitate “the next big thing in finance.”

The event, organized by HighQuest Partners, a heavy hitter in the hedge fund market of big agro, bio-tech and bio-fuel companies charged entrance fees of $3,000. But the sinister undercurrents of the meeting have not been lost on some people.

The money managers attended because they had been promised to make between 25-40 percent returns on short-term investments in areas of the world weighed down by incredible food insecurity or weak or subservient political systems. Corrupt dictators with no moral qualms about displacing millions of souls from their ancestral lands have become the new Bourgeoisie for the Western elite.

In 2009 alone, nearly 60 million hectares of arable land – an area the size of France – was purchased or leased, 70 percent of it in Africa. It’s impossible to acquire that much of land without the continued taking of land previously held by small indigenous farmers. That number has only been increasing as more and more land has been leased off to Western companies in Africa by corrupt governments. In a 2011 post on their website, HighQuest partners bragged about representing $3.5 trillion in aggregated institutional assets and 25 million acres under cultivation alone: the figure is expected to double by the end of 2012.

However the above is only the farming angle on the issue. There is an even more sordid action plan in operation as we speak.

The real estate market has taken a beating courtesy of the toxic assets and mortgages debacle in the US and the West. So the focus of the murky business has shifted abroad. Shady deals with real estate owners in the developing and the Third World countries have ensured a minimum of 40 percent rise in property prices in places where the average annual income is well below $5000 per year. This means a Western land grabber can, vis-à-vis local landowning gangs, invest in real estate futures in countries that even on the face of it are politically opposed to the West. The insider gangs fix prices on the population and ensure 25-40 percent returns every other year for themselves and their Western patrons.

Talk about making a killing!

Colonialism is making a return via a backdoor to blight lives and relieve the world population of what small chances of leading healthy and productive lives they have left. The new techniques of the 1% combined with the human tendency for corruption is the next big danger for humanity.

Think about it: An investor at a luncheon in Waldorf Astoria Hotel could double his or her money every four years via dodgy land investments while not a blade of grass is cultivated or a room for living is built in the developing and Third World countries.

This policy will make a desert out of the world bar where the elite choose to take up residence, which for the moment is in the Western Hemisphere.

~

A former editor for the Jane’s Information Group in the UK, Nader (Kian) Mokhtari is a foreign policy specialist, columnist and political commentator with 15 years of experience in the field. He’s also worked as a lecturer at the Tehran School of Media Studies. Mokhtari is a frequent contributor to Press TV.


Kian Mokhtari

May 3, 2012 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Economics, Environmentalism, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | | Leave a comment

South African telecom to face US sanctions over Iran, Syria operations

Press TV – May 2, 2012

Africa’s largest mobile telecommunications company, the MTN Group, is reportedly in danger of being subjected to sanctions by the United States over its telecom activities in Iran and Syria.

According to a report published by the South Africa-based Mail and Guardian newspaper on April 30, US President Barack Obama issued an executive order last week that allowed American authorities for the first time to impose sanctions on individuals or entities providing technological services to Iran and Syria.

Under the order, the new sanctions would include a US visa ban and financial restrictions against agencies and individuals.

The South Africa-based MTN Group had announced in early March that it had no plans to abandon its operations in Iran despite facing difficulties over the US-led sanctions against Tehran.

“We are guided by [the] South African government policies internationally, in the same way US companies are prohibited from doing business in Iran. Unless the government says (otherwise), we will just have to manage,” the company’s boss Sifiso Dabengwa said.

The United States has already subjected to sanctions foreign entities that are in various forms of business with Iran.

On March 30, US President Barack Obama gave the green light for the previously-announced sanctions against foreign banks and other financial institutions by or through which Iran’s oil is purchased.

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May 2, 2012 Posted by | Economics, Progressive Hypocrite, Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

IMF rejects call to cut ties with Iran

Press TV – May 1, 2012

The International Monetary Fund has rejected a call by a US-based anti-Iranian group to cut its ties with the Central Bank of Iran.

The IMF said on Tuesday that its relationship with the Central Bank of Iran is based on its constitution, noting that Iran’s membership does not contravene US or EU sanctions on Tehran, AFP reported.

The anti-Iranian group also criticized IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde over her meeting with Central Bank of Iran Governor Mahmoud Bahmani on the sidelines of the semiannual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Washington in late April.

The US-based anti-Iranian group consists of former US diplomats and government officials.

IMF spokesman William Murray said, “According to our constitution… the IMF’s holdings of each member’s currency are maintained with the central bank of the relevant member, including Iran… There is nothing in the EU or US sanctions regimes that is inconsistent with these arrangements.”

Headquartered in Washington, the IMF is an organization of 188 countries working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world.

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May 1, 2012 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Costs of War

By Ron Paul | April 30, 2012

This month Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki announced the addition of some 1,900 mental health nurses, psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers to its existing workforce of 20,590 mental health staff in attempt to get a handle on the epidemic of suicides among combat veterans. Unfortunately, when presidents misuse our military on an unprecedented scale – and Congress lets them get away with it – the resulting stress causes military suicides to increase dramatically, both among active duty and retired service members. In fact, military deaths from suicide far outnumber combat deaths. According to an article in the Air Force Times this month, suicides among airmen are up 40 percent over last year.

Considering the multiple deployments service members are forced to endure as the war in Afghanistan stretches into its second decade, these figures are sadly unsurprising.

Ironically, the same VA Secretary Eric Shinseki was forced to retire from the Army by President Bush for daring to suggest that an invasion and occupation of Iraq would not be the cakewalk that neoconservatives promised. Then Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, who is not a military veteran, claimed that General Shinseki was “wildly off the mark” for suggesting that several hundred thousand soldiers would be required to secure post-invasion Iraq. Now we see who was right on the costs of war.

In addition to the hidden human costs of our seemingly endless wars are the economic costs. In 2008, Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz wrote “The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict.” Stiglitz illustrates that taking into account the total costs of the war, including replacing military equipment and caring for thousands of wounded veterans for the rest of their lives, the Iraq war will cost us orders of magnitude greater than the 50 billion dollars promised by the White House before the invasion. Add all the costs of Afghanistan into the mix, wrote Stiglitz, and the bill tops $7 trillion.

Is it any wonder why our infrastructure at home crumbles, healthcare is more expensive and harder to come by, and unemployment together with inflation continue their steady rise? Imagine the productive power of that seven trillion dollars in our private sector. What could it have done were it in private hands; what may have been discovered, what diseases might have been cured, what might have been built, how many productive jobs created?

With the bills coming due for our decade of reckless military action, the cuts rarely come from the well-connected military industrial complex with their lobbyists and powerful political allies. In President Obama’s 2013 budget, troop strength is to be cut significantly while enormously expensive and largely superfluous weapons systems emerge essentially unscathed. As defense analyst Winslow Wheeler wrote this month, costs of the “next generation” fighter, the F-35, will increase by another $289 million. This despite the fact that the fighter is badly designed and already outdated, a “virtual flying piano” writes Wheeler.

The military contractors building monstrosities like the F-35 are politically connected and thus protected. Unfortunately, returning military veterans are less so. In the same 2013 budget, the White House proposes to increase medical and pharmaceutical costs paid by veterans while reducing their cost of living increases. And how many years of increasingly alarming mental illness and suicide statistics has it taken for the modest increase in resources to be made available?

Those who predicted the real costs of our decade of global military conquest were ridiculed, scoffed at, and fired. History has now shown us that much of what they warned was correct. America is clearly less secure after a decade of unnecessary wars. It is more vulnerable and closer to economic collapse. Its military is nearly broken from years of abuse. Will we come back to our senses?

May 1, 2012 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

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