THE YUGOSLAVABILITY IN INDIA

clipped from: www.bharat-rakshak.com

FAILED STATES

India is ringed by failed / failing states.

• Pakistan

• Nepal

• Bangladesh

• Myanmar

Failed /failing states export instability, terrorism, religious fundamentalism, arms and drugs

CHINA

On our North, in addition, we face China, the guru that influences / or uses as proxy other countries mentioned earlier in every possible way to weigh India down.

capabilities are more important than perceived intentions, as China has demonstrated not only to India but also to the world. It has intelligently diverted international focus away from itself to North Korea, Pakistan and countries like Iran. For example, in the six country nuclear talks with North Korea , it is Beijing that calls the shots. It can switch on or off the negotiations at its will

PAKISTAN

since its creation, Pakistan has perpetually been resorting to war and export of terrorism to appropriate more Indian territory. Pakistan faces a negative profile of indoctrinated and unemployed youth trained in Islamic Jehad Factory against us. The obsession to harm us ultimately allured Pakistan to become rent-a–state country. It lives on others money. Despite being broke, Islamabad continues to fuel anti-India activities through Nepal and Bangladesh with impunity. India remains the target and operating ground for Islamic fundamentalists and terrorist groups orchestrated by ISI

New Delhi needs to evolve an alternative strategy to comprehensively defeat the adversary’s nefarious activities that poses military, nuclear and demographic inversion threats. This is a do-able proposition provided our elders can think beyond the overwhelming burden created by the inherited fault line.

New Delhi needs to move on three axes simultaneously

• New Delhi –West Asia ,

• New Delhi–Southeast Asia and

• New Delhi–Central Asia .

Out of the three, the most critical is the New Delhi-Kabul-Tehran-Moscow axis, on two counts. First, for centuries this is the route of invasions and will remain so.
Second, as the second largest consumer of oil and gas in Asia , and as one of the engines that will power the world economy, energy security is the most critical factor in India ’s national security calculus.

This resource rich territory will fall prey to Pak sponsored Talibanisation if India and other countries do not preempt it.'

it may be prudent for American capital to join hands with the Indians in a JV
This will in turn check the destructive influence of Islamabad and balance the Chinese strategic thrust

NEPAL/MAOIST

Nepal continues to slip into the Chinese sphere of influence due to counter-productive policy by New Delhi

In Nepal , the Maoists have a sizeable influence in 45 of the 75 districts, their most formidable presence being in mid-western Nepal . The Maoists have linked up with the Peoples War Group (PWG) in India . The latter in a bid to expand its influence has carved a corridor encompassing the states of Andhra Pradesh–Madhya Pradesh–Chhatisgarh–Orissa–West Bengal–Jharkhand–Bihar as shown in the map. This corridor that has been formed with ease depicts the Indian Fault Line with stark clarity on ground.

· Combine the bleak picture above with Bangladesh and Myanmar borders and the Indian Fault Line engulfs most of the eastern half of the Union

. Insurgency in varying degrees impacts on the Northeast with the exception of Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh and has trans-border dimensions with Myanmar and Bangladesh .



The 21 to 65 km wide and 200 km long narrow Siliguri corridor between Nepal and Bangladesh is delicately poised when also considering China in the north. This corridor threatened by Kamtapuri insurgency and demographic inversion by Bangladesh can cut off the only land link to the Indian Northeast and in such an eventuality supplies will have to be maintained by air.

Consequently, Bhutan may also slip into the Chinese sphere of influence.

There is already a nexus between Maoists in Nepal and ULFA in Assam and is being enlarged to include PWG in India and Islamic terrorist groups in Bangladesh . With Dacca ’s geographical interface with five Indian states i.e. West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram; Indian security stands threatened by: demographic assault, arms and drug smuggling, and safe havens for Indian insurgent groups.

Islamic groups in Bangladesh under ISI tutelage, Saudi finance, and China ’s patronage, have become more vicious, thus adding another dimension to India ’s security headache.

if a vertical line from Central Uttar Pradesh southwards to Eastern Andhra Pradesh were drawn, it would lead to an ineluctale observation that India ’s Eastern Half is in turmoil. The Western Half is not only relatively progressive and peaceful but also generates most of the wealth along with the South

Just imagine the result if the Eastern Half along with Kashmir can be put in order through development and bold counter-measures, to ensure the requisite peace and stability, conducive to generation of wealth.

HINDUS VERSUS MUSLIMS

CHINA GETS MYANMAR GAS AND TAKES IT DOWN THE OLD BURMA ROAD

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clipped from: www.economist.com

Shunned by the West, Myanmar is developing ever closer commercial links with its neighbours, especially China

South-East Asia's biggest proven gas reserve lies in the Shwe field, just off the coast of Ramree Island.

This year work will begin on a pipeline to carry these riches to China. From perhaps as early as late 2009, a parallel pipe will carry Middle Eastern and African oil from a new deep-water harbour at Kyaukphyu, bypassing the Strait of Malacca and fuelling the economy of China's south-west.

India also hoped to buy the Shwe (“golden”) gas, offering the government soft loans and other inducements.

In August India signed a $150m contract for gas exploration further south iN the Gulf of Martaban.

One day India hopes to build its own pipeline into its poor, remote, insurgency-ridden north-eastern states.
In the meantime, Myanmar's biggest export market will remain Thailand. In purchases worth $2 billion a year,

Thailand's electricity authority imports gas from the Yadana and Yetagun fields

Myanmar may soon start conducting all its Chinese trade in the Chinese currency, The rationale would be to avoid Western banking sanctions. American measures introduced after the crushing of monk-led protests last September hurt Burmese financial interests in Singapore.

The new pipelines will follow the route of the old British-built Burma Road, which still carries timber, gold, gemstones and other Burmese raw materials north to China and brings in cheap manufactures. Around 20 Chinese companies are working in Myanmar on scores of projects including hydropower, mining and road-building as well as oil and gas. Ruili, the main border-crossing between northern Myanmar and China's province of Yunnan, has become a seedy boomtown.



Also, the new “Southern Silk Road”, linking India to China across northern Myanmar. Parts of the long-derelict route were first opened by the Allies during the second world war to supply Chiang Kai-shek's Chinese army in its war with the Japanese.

India's determination to develop the north-east
Yunnan needs energy supplies and markets,

THE PORT OF HAMBANTOTA, SRI LANKA, AND CHINA

clipped from: www.marinebuzz.com

A new sea port, Hambantota at the southern end of Sri Lanka is being developed at a cost of one billion US$ by China. The Exim Bank of China is funding this project.

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The project includes

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• A gas-fired power plant project
• A ship repair unit
• A container repair unit
• An oil refinery
• A bunkering terminal.

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Work on the bunkering terminal is expected to start before December 2007, and is expected to be completed in 39 months. The plan caters for the terminal to handle up to 500,000 metric tonnes (mt) of oil products a year.

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China is increasingly depending on oil import from middle east countries. The sea route for oil imports as shown in the map below is of great importance to China and China wants to have a control over this sea route

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“China has given massive aid to Indian Ocean nations, signing friendship pacts, building ports in Pakistan and Bangladesh as well as Sri Lanka, and reportedly setting up a listening post on one of Myanmar’s islands near the strategic Strait of Malacca.” Read more from indianexpress.

WHO'S GOING TO WRITE THE NARRATIVE

The information war, fought through images and language, is over narrative. The Tamil Tigers want to be seen as liberators; the government wants to paint them as terrorists. In this struggle, over the past few years, the government has gained the upper hand.

Not surprisingly, the information war that has emerged from Sri Lanka's 20-year insurgency teaches us as much about the importance of narrative in counterinsurgency as it does about the conflict itself.

"We need a little data, but can't get enough of stories," said BJ Fogg, a Stanford researcher and author of "Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do."

"Stories are a technology, not a high technology, but a biological technology, for remembering cause-and-effect relationships. Our brains are sponges for stories, and it's very hard to undo a well-told story."

WHO DOES THE PIRACY IN THE GULF OF ADEN BENEFIT

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clipped from: weekly.ahram.org.eg

SEAS OF STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE:

The piracy off the coast of Somalia is certain to be seized upon as legal and moral grounds for the internationalization of those waterways.

Somalia perches on the most important maritime channels in the world. Through this passageway passes Arab oil on its way to European and American markets.
The maritime channel has special strategic significance for Washington and Israel.

For the former, it serves as the vital link between the US's Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean and its Fifth Fleet stationed off the coast of Bahrain and its Seventh Fleet in the Indian Ocean.

Tel Aviv, meanwhile, has not forgotten that Egypt together with Yemen closed the Bab Al-Mandeb upon the outbreak of the 1973 October War, which came as an additional blow to Israeli and international shipping with the closure of the Suez Canal following the Israeli occupation of Sinai in 1967. Israel has been pressing for the internationalisation of the Red Sea.

The newspaper cautioned that the dramatic increase in acts of piracy in that area may cause maritime traffic to divert away from the Suez Canal to the Cape of Good Hope
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RED SEA CHANGE IMMANENT:

Conspiracy theorists would further suggest that the acts of piracy in the area are masterminded in the West, and in Washington in particular.

It is important to bear in mind that, with the rise of piracy in the region, the West has trained its focus more intensely on security of the seas while leaving the domestic crisis in Somalia to play itself out.

Because the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden are integrally connected with the Bab Al-Mandeb, the Red Sea and, some would add, the Suez Canal and the Gulf of Aqaba, those powers are keen to see immediate results in these vitally strategic waters.

Conspiracy theorists would further suggest that the acts of piracy in the area are masterminded in the West, and in Washington in particular. They point, for example, to the hijacking of a Ukrainian ship carrying 33 state-of-the-art Russian tanks and argue that there must, at the very least, be some collusion at work

...of rallying support behind the idea of forming an international naval force to keep those waters safe.

the Western drive to form an international naval force in the Red Sea is, perhaps, the most salient proof that the internationalization of the Red Sea is coming



In late November, Paris submitted a draft resolution to the UN Security Council calling for the creation of an international naval force to protect shipping off the Somali coast. In approving the resolution this week, the Security Council effectively mandates that the Red Sea will come under an international mandate

in June, the UN Security Council approved Resolution 1816, which had been jointly sponsored by France and the US and which had authorised countries cooperating with the interim Somali government to enter Somali regional waters for the purpose of combating hijacking and piracy.

ISRAELI AMBITIONS:

David Ben-Gurion, In 1949 he said, "We are surrounded on land... The sea is our only route of contact with the rest of the world. Developing Eilat will be a major goal towards which we will direct our steps."

In 1950 Saudi Arabia and Egypt struck an agreement granting the latter military access...which are Tiran and Sanafir

One of the motives behind the tripartite aggression of 1956. Later, in 1967, Egypt's closure of the Gulf of Aqaba became the direct cause of the Six Day War

between 1970 and 1973, Yemen alerted the Arab League to Zionist activities on the Eritrean coast near Bab Al-Mandeb. Israel in cooperation with the US had rented several islands from Ethiopia. It further discovered an espionage network based on Barim Island

In 6 October 1973, Egypt and Syria launched a simultaneous attack on Israel
closing the Bab Al-Mandeb to Israeli ships. On 14 October of that year, Yemen deployed forces on several islands in the Red Sea in order to prevent Israel from occupying them.

In October 1977, Sanaa sent a secret memorandum to the Arab League warning of the growth of an Israeli and Ethiopian military presence on the Eritrean coast and near Bab Al-Mandeb. It also reported that Ethiopia had sold a strip of the Eritrean coastline to Zionist intelligence agents,

It is embodied in the Camp David Accords of 16 March 1979 in the form of the recognition of Israel's right to freedom of navigation in the Gulf of Aqaba, the Straits of Tiran and the Suez Canal.



CONTROLLING EAST AFRICA:

The commander of the Israeli navy said, "Control over the Suez Canal only gives Egypt one key to the Red Sea. The second and more important key from the strategic point of view is the Bab Al-Mandeb. This could fall into Israeli hands if it could develop its naval force in the Red Sea zone."

Several Arab studies have concluded that Eritrea's occupation of the Hanish Islands in December 1995 was supported and engineered by Israel with the aim of gaining a stronger foothold in the southern Red Sea.
Israeli strategists then drew up an urgent plan for a more vigorous foreign policy towards east Africa.

To normalise relations with such African countries as Ethiopia, Nigeria, Zambia, Togo, Mozambique and Kenya, and to counter Arab influence in Africa; to strengthen Israeli military presence in the Red Sea and in Eritrea and Ethiopia; and to strengthen economic ties between Eritrea and Israel.

On 13 February 1993 Israeli delegation paid a secret five-day visit to Eritrea. It provided that Israel permission to maintain a permanent and full Israeli presence in Eritrea and for freedom of movement for Mossad agents in the country.

3,000 troops who took up station in military bases in areas near Sudan and Yemen.
he bases on Sorkin Mountain, overlooking Miyun Island near Bab Al-Mandeb. On this island, located at the entrance to the Red Sea, Israel installed radars that monitor the more than 17,000 ships that pass through the straits,

In mid November 1995, Eritrean forces (without Israeli assistance) undertook a failed bid to occupy the Hanish Islands.

AN ISRAELI HAND?

According to the International Maritime Bureau, there have been 61 assaults recorded by Somali pirates since the beginning of this year.

naval organisation based in Kenya has estimated the number of pirates along the Somali coast at around 1,100, operating in four large bands.

Somali pirates have raked in between $25-30 million so far. pirates are no longer a haphazard collection of opportunists or individuals with no other sources of income
There must be a prime mover seeking to further its own agenda through operations that have grown increasingly sophisticated.

n Somalia, the Islamic Courts Movement almost succeeded in putting an end to the reign of terror and violence of rival militias after it had brought most of the country under control and isolated the remnants of a weak and decaying government. Then Ethiopia intervened, on the grounds of having been invited in by that government, n order to drive out the ICM. he result was to open the way to the return of piracy
"piracy" has become the catchword for the next round in the game of international intervention, international powers are in the process of turning piracy at sea into the avenue for preventing the ICM's rise to power on land

LOGICAL OBSERVATIONS

o imagine that the US air force, which can sniff out hideouts and target alleged Al-Qaeda suspects in residential neighbourhoods and craggy mountains, does not have the means to monitor what is taking place along Somalia's maritime borders.

In addition to the communications and military technology, it has forces on the ground in a permanent base in Djibouti not far from a French military base.

It is difficult to believe that those forces with their advanced weaponry and trained in the arts of rapid intervention can not take on a few hundred poorly equipped and trained pirate militias. Surely even some commando operations targeting the hijacked ships would do the trick?

how it could happen that a couple of hundred pirates could operate only a stone's throw away from the place where the warship USS Cole was bombed?

if the US military that is by some accounts prepared to make war on Iran cannot handle pirates then could squads of Iranian boatmen detain US freighters or oil tankers with impunity?

Numerous senior military officials in the West have spoken about the training and tactical expertise these pirates possess.

• Is the purpose to caution ships away from the area?

• Or is it to excuse the inability of Western forces to deal with the threat?

• Or is it to rally support for another international interventionist drive?

Suddenly, gangs of pirates have evolved into a standing army with tactics, strategies and plans of offence. From isolated reports of the capture of some small ships of varying ownership, we suddenly have the hijacking of a Ukrainian vessel bearing heavy arms and, more recently, the hijacking of a gargantuan oil tanker! What is happening? Are we to believe that those pirates have suddenly developed all that organisation and combat skill?

with a tangential plan to end opposition to the presence of foreign military forces in the Gulf of Aden by twisting the economic screws? Is this not a likely interpretation of the sounding of the alarm that "piracy" will force commercial naval traffic to make the detour around the tip of Africa?

The key to ending the real dangers and to halting death and destruction is to stop foreign intervention in the domestic affairs of nations and to let the people of nations enjoy the freedom of choosing their preferred form of rule.

TALE OF TWO UKRAINES

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clipped from: strangemaps.wordpress.com


The 2004 ‘Orange Revolution’, in which pro-western candidate Viktor Yushchenko successfully contested the rigged results of the presidential election that was ‘won’ by his pro-Russian opponent Viktor Yanukovich, seemed to place the Ukraine firmly in the western camp.

Ukrainian politics has however seen several reversals of fortune since that time, proving that Ukraine is unique among the former Soviet republics: pro-western and pro-Russian sentiments are almost completely in balance.

This map shows which of both Viktors was the victor in each of Ukraine’s regions in the (contested) November 2004 presidential elections. Each candidate has won in a remarkably contiguous area - Yushchenko winning the northwestern half of the country, Yanukovich the southeastern part.

In the years immediately following the Soviet Union’s collapse, Russia was too weak to prevent what it qualifies as EU and NATO ‘encirclement’ (an old Russian geopolitical worry). But now, a resurgent Russia flush with oil money insists on checking what it sees as further encroachment by the EU and(especially) the US.

The Ukraine however, with 45 million inhabitants and about the size of France, is firmly within Russia’s Near Abroad. Its east is ethnically mainly Russian (Ukrainian nationalism tends to be a western thing), and Russia has strategic interests in the Crimea (Russian until 1954, when it was transferred to the Ukraine, but still home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet). The country itself seems divided on whether it is an eastern outpost of the west, or a western outpost of the east.





Both Moscow and the West are eager to have the populous, and potentially prosperous Ukraine in their camp. Will the fault line running through the Ukraine become the front line of a Second Cold War?

WHAT BRZEZINSKI THINKS ABOUT RUSSIA AND PUTIN

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clipped from: www.guardian.co.uk August 2008

The former US national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, has called on the world community to isolate Russia in protest over its campaign in the Caucasus, likening its tactics to those of "Hitler or Stalin".
said the Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, was "following a course that is horrifyingly similar to that taken by Stalin and Hitler in the 1930s".

He said that Putin's "justification" for splitting up Georgia - because of the Russian citizens living in South Ossetia - could be compared to when Hitler used the alleged suffering of ethnic Germans in the Sudetenland as a pretext for annexing Czechoslovakia in 1938.



There are also parallels between Putin's strategy against Georgia and Stalin's invasion of Finland in 1939. He added: "Georgia is to an extent the Finland of today, both morally and strategically."

The world was now being confronted with the question as to how it should react to Russia and what he saw as its efforts to "reincorporate old Soviet areas into the Kremlin's sphere of control". He said at the heart of the issue was access to oil and specifically who controlled the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline which runs through Georgia.



"If Georgia no longer has its sovereignty it means not only that the west is cut off from the Caspian Sea and Central Asia, but we can also assume that Putin will exercise a similar strategy against Ukraine

"If Russia continues on this path it has to be isolated by the international community," he said, including economic sanctions on which all alliances from the European Union to NATO would have to take a joint stand.

The failure of the White House during George Bush's eight year tenure, to recognize the "Putin regime" for what it really was.

"He [Medvedev] has about as much influence over the current situation as the official head of state in the Soviet Union of the 1950s

BRZEZINSKI IN ANOTHER TIME

clipped from: www.foreignpolicy.com October 2007

Vladimir Putin’s Russia is growing more authoritarian at home and increasingly aggressive abroad.
China’s global clout seems to expand by the day.
And in the Middle East, a possible conflict with Iran looms on the horizon.

RUSSIA

Should the West fear Putin, and how should the United States deal with him going forward?

He’s basically a Russian autocrat at a time of considerable transition in Russia’s position geopolitically and in Russia’s national self-identity. The West should be clear regarding its own interests and promote them firmly. It should oppose any attempts at Russian imperial restoration, and whenever possible, it should cooperate with the Russians regarding issues of joint interest.

EUROPEAN UNION

There have been many dire warnings about EU member states’ reliance on Russian energy. Do you believe this is a threat

It’s a potential long-range threat. It’s important to the West to see access to the Caspian Sea energy resources and beyond the Caspian to Central Asia.
the West should promote such projects at the Nabucco pipeline through southeastern Europe to central Europe.

MID EAST POLICY

If the United States manages to get out of Iraq soon, should it take a hands-off approach to dealing with the Middle East

one has to look at the Middle East in terms of a very diversified geopolitical terrain and fashion a policy accordingly.

MIDDLE EAST PEACE

Do you think any progress can be made?

if the United States forthcomingly leads
no right of return,
the genuine sharing of Jerusalem,
lines with reciprocal accommodations, and a
demilitarized Palestinian state.

CREATION OF THE MUJAHIDEEN

Was it worth it to support a movement that led to the rise of the Taliban and al Qaeda?

Afghanistan was destroyed by the Soviets, and that is what has bred the Taliban years after. We would be in a terrible mess if we hadn’t supported the Afghans.

IRAN

You and many other critics of the Bush administration’s policy toward Iran argue that the United States needs to engage Iran.

simply calling them names or threatening to change the regime certainly is not going to be very productive. And a war with Iran would be a historical disaster

CHINA

do the United States and its allies need to find ways to counter the Chinese?

I don’t think all Asians want to be subject to Chinese hegemony, but the United States has an obvious interest in accommodating China and not seeking to exclude it from a prominent place in the global hierarchy. China has to be integrated into the system. That means it also has the right to enjoy a proper place in it.

NABUCCO: HOW TO SAVE EUROPE TEN YEARS FROM NOW... OR... AN EMPTY PIPELINE GOES THROUGH IRAN

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clipped from: www.robertamsterdam.com


both the upcoming potential supply cut to the West from Russia and the growing monopolization of the oil and gas market place an increased emphasis on the region's most highly prized resource trophy: Central Asia (for example, the central dispute in the Ukraine revolves around the non-transparency of the Russo-Turkmen gas trade).



Western governments and energy companies have one last, grandiose project up their sleeve to secure Turkmen natural gas -- the 2,050-mile, multi-entity project known as Nabucco. Its multiple transit phases and various manifestations would, if constructed, transport energy from the Caspian region, Middle East and Egypt via Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary to terminus destinations in Austria and the Central and Western European gas markets. With a current projected price tag of $10.1 billion

Nabucco would be nearly twice the length and triple the cost of BTC.

where the gas to fill it will come from.
initially Nabucco could utilize gas from the second phase development of Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz field beginning in 2013, he acknowledged that this meant a maximum of 13-14 bcm per year. But Nabucco's throughput capacity is projected to be more than double that, at 27-31 bcm, which explains the ardent courting of Berdymukhammedov (Turkmenistan) .



Russia currently supplies one-quarter of Europe's oil and 30 percent of its natural gas, and the Russo-Georgian conflict only heightened concerns in Brussels about the EU's growing dependence on Russian energy imports.

According to Barroso, the plan's "top priority" is developing the Southern Gas Corridor to deliver natural gas to Europe from Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Iraq, and Egypt via Turkey. Both the TCP and Nabucco pipelines are an integral part of the scheme.

Aliyev stated bluntly that Azerbaijan alone cannot provide sufficient resources for Nabucco, and that the project depends on the availability of Central Asian gas.

If true, reality trumps the EU's optimism.

Turkmenistan (Berdymukhammedov) has already signed an agreement with China to provide 30 bcm of gas annually, beginning in 2009, in addition to agreements with Russia for 50 bcm and Iran for 8 bcm. Since its annual production stands at about 60 bcm, it has in effect already agreed to provide 28 bcm more than the country produces.

Nevertheless, the planning sessions and discussions for both Nabucco and the Trans Caspian Pipeline continue.

US MISSILES, RUSSIAN GAS AND EUROPE

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clipped from: www.stratfor.com

Europe gets roughly a quarter of its natural gas supplies from Russia,

Gazprom announced that it would eventually increase prices from the already uncomfortable $420 per thousand cubic meters (tcm) to $720 per tcm.

a decrease in consumption led to the first drop in Russian exports to Europe in a decade — and forced Russia to reconsider its plan.

prices would remain low only for certain customers, meaning that Russia will trade better energy deals for what it wants politically.

Belarus, Ukraine, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary reportedly have told Gazprom that they could default on payments if they get charged higher prices.
Russia has responded to such defaults by cutting supplies.



January 2006 when Ukraine and Russia were embroiled in a natural gas dispute. Russia cut Ukraine’s portion of the supplies out of its deliveries, which traveled across Ukraine to much of Europe. Ukraine then began siphoning off the supplies heading to Europe, leaving quite a few countries on the tail end of the supplies out in the cold.

Kiev is looking to fill the gap by raising natural gas prices to domestic consumers by 35 percent could trigger a massive response

But Ukraine, Belarus, continually defaults has allowed Moscow to use energy as a major lever in negotiations on every front with Kiev and Minsk

Contracts between EU countries and Russia are supposed to be decided by the European Union as a whole, not by individual states. However, most of these countries are already financially strapped and are considering individually negotiating with Russia.

70 percent of Russia’s exports to Europe go through Slovakia’s system. For Slovakia to be able to handle higher payments to Russia, it can simply charge more for that energy transport.



Czech Republic began feeling Russia’s wrath in the form of decreased oil supplies on the day Prague finalized missile defense plan with the United States. Russia has one thing on its mind when it comes to the Czech Republic: preventing the American missile defense deal.

Hungary is in the most extreme position because it is flat broke. Hungary will most likely turn back to its European allies for either more aid or a solution to the crisis.

This could bring the European Union together in a common stance over its long-debated Russian energy dependence. But even a united front will not create supplies or alternatives, this coupled with Russia’s attempts to deal with each EU country individually, the new energy crisis could skewer the European Union





clipped from: blog.kievukraine.info

Gazprom had warned Monday that its European customers could face a disruption of gas supply due if its dispute with Ukraine led the Kremlin to stop the supply of gas to the former Soviet satellite. Russia provides about a quarter of Europe's gas, and 80.0% of its exports transit through Ukraine.



The companies have until Jan. 1 to sign a new contract, and Russia is pushing for higher prices. Russia has warned that gas prices for Ukraine could rise to $400.00 per 1,000 cubic meters, from the current $179.50.

The Kremlin spent up to $2.5 billion supporting the ruble on Monday, according to TradeTheNews.com, marking the sixth time it has had to do so in December alone.

Capital flight from Russia has meanwhile compelled the country's billionaire oligarchs to ask for loans from the government in exchange for portions of their assets (often companies).

PUBLIC OPINION

All in the same day, I saw a list of all the war games, exercises, etc. on 9/11. It seems like it was something like 81, of every conceivable type, even down to a local fire dept gaming a fire at the pentagon. I think there was a point made about the rare concurrence of this many exercises. Somehow these hijackers picked this day.

Then, I happen to flip by a new digitized version of the Zapruder film after I had just read an account of the Mike Connell plane crash, and then strangely enough I found myself on a site with the Spencer Tunick mass nude exhibit in the zocalo at Mexico City and for the first time Tunick made perfect sense. Masses shorn, lined up and ready for the slaughter.

A record 18,000 people took off their clothes to pose for US photographic artist Spencer Tunick in Mexico... [Read Post]

BATTLE OF THE PORTS: CHABAHAR VS GWADAR: INDIA VERSUS CHINA: US VERSUS?

clipped from: acorn.nationalinterest.in

The 218-km road connecting Delaram (on the Kandahar-Herat highway) to Zaranj, on the border with Iran has been completed.
It will provide landlocked Afghanistan an alternative access to the sea, the Iranian port of Chahbahar, allowing it to break free from Pakistan’s traditional stranglehold.

it remains to be seen if Iran will prove to be a better neighbour than Pakistan.
For Afghanistan, this is an opportunity to regain better access to the Indian market that it lost in 1947. For India, it is an opportunity to regain better access to Central Asia that it too lost in 1947.

US MILITARY SUPPLY ROUTE TO AFGHANISTAN

The Taliban has all but shut down the Pakistan supply route to Afghanistan. Russian routes are an option. The other option is to use the Iranian port of Chahbahar. The Indian government has spent over $1 billion to construct a multi-lane highway from the western Afghan city of Heart to the Iranian border to meet up with the road from Chahbahar. Some form of political deal with the regime in Tehran would enable the US and NATO to redirect most, if not all, the traffic that currently goes to Karachi—providing they retain control over Herat.



CHINA ALSO HAS A PLAN

clipped from: http://gawadarinnltd.com/page_1161468194468.html

In fact, Gwadar enjoys the status of a third Deep Sea Port of Pakistan which has a special significance with reference to trade links with Central Asian Countries, Persian Gulf, East Africa, United Arab Emirates and North Western India.

The Gwadar project came about as a result of a Sino-Pakistan agreement in March 2002, under which China Harbor Construction Corporation will build the port.

Beijing has provided $198 million for the first phase of the project and Islamabad's contribution has been $ 50 million. The scope of phase-1 includes construction of three multi-purpose berths each 200 meters long and capable of handling vessels up to 30,000 DWT.

By virtue of its excellent location, Gwadar port is also visualized to become a regional hub serving incoming and outgoing commercial traffic of the Middle Eastern and Gulf countries, the Xinjiang province of China, Iran in the west and Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in the south and east.



According to some sources, Beijing also intends to take advantage of Gwadar's accessible international trade routes to Central Asian republics and Xinjiang. The plan envisages extending China's east-west railway from the border city of Kashi to Peshawar.

The incoming and outgoing cargo from Gwadar can then be delivered to China through the shortest route from Karachi to Peshawar. The same road and rail network can also be used for the supply of oil from the Gulf to the western provinces of China.

Additionally, China could also gain rail and road access to Iran through Pakistan's internal road and rail network. Use of Gwadar port by China should accelerate the growth and development of the port and the hinterland and enhance its overall commercial and strategic value.

India is helping develop the Chabahar port and that would give it access to the oil and gas resources in Iran and the Central Asian states, in this it is competing with the Chinese which is building the Gwadar port, in Pakistani Baluchistan.

Iran plans to use Chabahar for transhipment to Afghanistan and Central Asia while reserving the port of Bandar Abbas as a major hub mainly for trade with Russia and Europe.



India, Iran and Afghanistan have signed an agreement to give Indian goods, heading for Central Asia and Afghanistan, preferential treatment and tariff reductions at Chabahar

Work on the Chabahar-Melak-Zaranj-Dilaram route from Iran to Afghanistan is in progress. Iran is with Indian aid upgrading the Chabahar-Melak road and constructing a bridge on the route to Zaranj. India's BRO is laying the 213-kilometer Zaranj-Dilaram road. It is a part of its USD 750 million aid package to Afghanistan.

The advantages that Chabahar has compared to Gwadar are the greater political stability and security of the Iranian hinterland and the hositlity and mistrust that the Pakistani Baluchis hold against the Punjabi dominated Pakistani Federal government. The Baluchis consider Sino-Pak initiative at Gwadar as a strategy from Islamabad to deny the province its deserved share of development pie. They also look with suspicion on the settlement of more and more non-Baluchis in the port area.

The Chabahar port project is Iran's chance to end its US sponsored economic isolation and benefit form the resurgent Indian economy. Along with Bandar Abbas, Chabahar is the Iranian entrepot on the North - South corridor. A strategic partnership between India, Iran and Russia to establish a multi-modal transport link connecting Mumbai with St. Petersburg. Providing Europe and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia access to Asia and vice-versa.

PROGRESSIVE POLICY INSTITUTE = AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE

clipped from: www.antiwar.com

rising on the left-end of the political spectrum is a new brand of neoconservatism, a "liberal" and even "enlightened" variety

The Progressive Policy Institute was set up by the Democratic Leadership Council, a "centrist" Scoop Jacksonish group that aims to keep the Democrats on the pro-war straight-and-narrow: it is the War Party's intellectual outpost in the Democratic Party. These "national security Democrats" are just as unabashedly militaristic as their right-wing counterparts over at AEI, the only difference being rhetorical. Thus, PPI's chief theoretician Will Marshall avers, in a 2005 screed hailing "national service and shared sacrifice":

"True patriotism is at odds with the selfish individualism that shapes the Republicans' anti-government ideology. It means accepting obligations to the community to which we all belong and must contribute if we are to enjoy the fruits of membership. In wartime, not everyone can fight, but everyone can find ways to sacrifice for the common cause. Bush has sent U.S. troops into battle, but he hasn't challenged the rest of us to do our part."

the Bush crowd wasn't warlike enough on the home front.
it wasn't interventionist enough, and certainly not in a "smart" way.

Now PPI is pushing for NATO expansion
"the alliance is stumbling badly," and informs President Obama that he "will face no more important task than defining a coherent mission for NATO in the 21st century – a mission that transcends the alliance's origins as a strictly regional pact and reinvents it as a force for global stability,"

By opening its doors to Japan, Australia, India, Chile, and a handful of other stable democracies, NATO would augment both its human and financial resources. What is more, NATO would enhance its political legitimacy to operate on a global stage."
we would be pledged to go to war in order to defend Chile. Against whom would we be defending it? Hugo Chavez?

While Russia merits a "watchful eye," China is seen as the new rising threat: they dare to tout their "market Maoism" as an ideological competitor with Western-style social democracy

With the new crew in the White House committed to "fair trade," otherwise known as trade protectionism, it looks like we'll be confronting a new set of enemies: our economic competitors in the world marketplace.

Neoconservative internationalists, such as Robert Kagan, are reaching out to liberal internationalists, such as Ivo Daalder of the Brookings Institution:
PPI calls for at least 100,000 more troops to beef up our ability to intervene anywhere and everywhere, and it demands more money for the "defense" budget.



With the mad Keynesian professors at the helm in Washington, looking eagerly about for "projects"
some newly-declared "rogue dictator" (Putin?), will no doubt be factored into their "stimulus package."

When people are poor and getting poorer, it's fairly easy to convince them that the evil "foreigners" are to blame
Look for the return of the "Yellow Peril" and the revival of a half-forgotten "progressive" tradition of left-wing anti-Chinese
Call it bread-and-butter imperialism – the War Party's appeal to the common working man. Full employment through global interventionism – yeah, that's the ticket!

THE SCOFIELD BIBLE AND THE BOOK OF MORMON: ONE SILLY, ONE INSIDIOUS

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ONE BRINGS US JOSEPH SMITH, SECRET UNDERWEAR, AND WARREN JEFFS

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AND THE OTHER BRINGS US JOHN HAGEE, THE LIKUD, NETANYAHU, WAR, PESTILENCE, AND FLYING BODIES

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DEMOCRAT IMPERIALISM

clipped from Voltaire
He may be a muslim. In the US they want to hide it, in the rest of the world they want to promote it.

Policy of Obama is more aggressive, more militaristic and more catastrophic

He is a puppet of the Trilateral Commission and of Zbigniew Brzezinski.

A clique of bankers. They ran the Carter administration. This same group has groomed another puppet

This time with more preparation, more preparation. A left wing demogue, who promises hope and change, but represents policies that are qualitatively worse and he can deliver Europe. As expendable assets.

Not wars in the middle east, but wars on a greater scale. The center of power is not Iran its Moscow and Beijing. Smash Russia and china, to let the Anglo American hegemony go on for another hundred years.

A puppet of finance capital of David Rockefeller, George Soros and this group. Extreme austerity, savage reductions in the standard of living, emmiseration and impoverishment of the US

Global showdown with Russia and China. They need left cover. Right wingers dont know how to attack this. Communist or Muslim. He may have been a Muslim. His fathers were more devoted to whiskey than Islam.

Is he bi sexual, did he smoke crack cocaine. It is imperative that our leaders have a unknown, blackmailable criminal history.

A puppet of the worse circles of imperialism. More effective, more clever, but more insane.

Bomb Iran. Youre too weak, too isoloated, too bankrupt, too hated. Iran at war with Russia. Example, Afghan vs Russia.

Bomb Syria. Make a deal with Syria. There is an important Russian naval base in Tartus. Get the Russians out of Tartus

Instead of having Muslims the targets, have them as cannon fodder. For the project against Russia.

Take Chinese Turkestan. There is a muslim minority there. The Uigyrs. Have them fight and die in some kind of insurrection. There is an insurrection in Tibet.



Forget the target list that you have known, the target list is getting bigger.

Take Sudan. Arab country, arab league. Why is Sudan being targeted? What is the story with Darfur. Why are they doing that. Are they really concerned about a humanitarian emergency. No. They are concerned because 7% of China's oil comes from sudan. They are looking for a pretext to go into Sudan, overthrow Bashir and cut off that oil going to Sudan. Gulf of Aden and pirates. Who is going after the pirates. China and India. Us with the best Navy in the world, we can do nothing. There is a double game here. Not only to control the Indian Ocean sea route and the oil going to China and India, but also to shut off the tanker trade out of the Persian Gulf and ship that oil by pipeline to the Mediterrranean Sea.

Will the US attack Iran. No. The US and Brittish will not. You cant exclude some Israeli crazy.

There is an attack that is going right now. Muslim with 160 million people with nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them.

During the campaign. Obama said that he wanted to have the unilateral bombing of Northwest Pakistan. All of the candidates said no. And now the US is doing what Obama demanded.

The US, NAto and the Afghans troops are planning to invade Pakistan across the Afghan border. why. They want to destroy the Pakistan government. The goal is to destroy Pakistan. Iraq in threee parts. Pakistan into at least four parts: Sindh, Punjab, Boluchistan, Pushunistan, even Waziristan.

Thats the goal. Why. It is a potential ally of China. It's a potential ally of China. It's traditionally friendly to China and under conditions of world crisis, Pakistan would gravitate back to China. It's Plus oil routes. Gwadar shipping LNG from Turkestan and the pipeline that goes through the pass.



New hit list: Sudan and Pakistan. Iran is now to be an ally to be used against Russia.

To the neocons. You are fools, you are bunglers, you are so obsessed with Israel and the Persian Gulf, Iraq and Iran that you have lost the big picture, Russia, China.

India is an asset in that regard. The Mumbai attacks is the roll out of this new policy. It has several goals, but one is to put the Hindu fundamentalists in power. As long as the Congress Party is in power, India will be non aligned at best and with Russia at worst. The Hindu fundamentalist are truly madmen, much like the Zionists. In fact, there is a good deal of collaboration between the two.

There has been a summit of China and Japan. Japan, would it become a staging area for the kinds of destabilization of China that Brezezinski is planning. Japan just said no. The defense minister said chaos in China would be the worst possible outcome for Japan.

Taiwan is saying no. They voted for the more reasonable party. The old KMT is back in power. They want good relations with the mainland. Everyone in the world is now choosing sides.

The point of having Obama is that you have the same old imperialism but with a facelift. Cosmetic surgery. A black face named Hussein. That's how you know how bad it is. They are willing to toss out 400 years of racism. Racism is very useful, but they have to give it up.

One goal is to have that face for Africa. The goal is to kick China out and to deprive it of the oil. DRC, Laurent Nkunda, Sudan. Deprive it of Oil, raw material, minerals. Ultimately, isolate and encircle China and then reach a point where China would have no where to turn for oil except the Russian oil wells in eastern Siberia.

The end product is to play China against Russia, get rid of both of them and then the US and Brittish can settle in for another hundred years of domination.

There is also an angle for Europe. With Bush, McCain, the policy is discredited, no one like the US. We cannot get any traction. We cant get any help in Iraq or even in Afghanistan.

With this new face you can get throngs and throngs of Europeans, young dupes. His big trip to Germany was no accident. It had a very definate purpose. Europe as a tool against Russia. Russia and Germany over oil

NATO expansion. Reagan had an agreement not to even go into East German. This is a bilateral policy. Clinton started it.

Headed for a polish missile crisis. Going to be worse. Elements in Poland, czech Republic, even elements in Lithuania. There is a forward technical of that right in Lithuania, right on Russia's border.

What is the purpose of that. The ability to have a first strike, surprise attack to destroy the Russia nuclear deterent, on the ground, and then the second strike launch by the Russians can somehow be supressed by these missiles these missiles in Poland. It is a step toward WWW III

Another angle that goes with it, the independance of Kosovo under what amounts to a criminal organization. Designed as an affront to Russia.

why the capture of Karadik, Why now. To inflame relations with Russia.

Why attack Russia through our proxy, Georgia? This is a full strategic envelopment. A world wide strategy. Already being implemented in the US.

Bush and Cheney are gone. They are gone, They are not even lame ducks they are gone. They are the grounds keepers, the janitors. Power has passed to the principals committee, the leading government ministers. Rice, Gates, Paulsen, Admiral Mullen. These people are bureacrats. They dont have policies. They are now carrying out policies of Brzinsky.

No attack on Iran, make a deal with North Korea. Cheney almost had a heart attack. This was a Rice project.

Attack Pakistan, get ready to attack Sudan, zimbabwe, Burma. It's done under Humanitarian considerations. It's not bin Laden, Al-Qaeda. Pakistan is the exception. In most of these places its human rights, go back to Carter and Clinton. Imperialism with left wing slogans.

The neocons picked on weak states. Russia and China can and will defend themselves. The neocon game is over but they had limits to their insanity, but under Obama the insanity is unlimited.

ROBERT NEWMAN

"For there is, in our own time, an absolute taboo among the corporate news media and the political class against mentioning anything to do with the strategic and economic reasons for war."
-- Robert Newman

Newman largely disappeared from public life, reappearing with solo work marked by a clear social conscience and anti-establishment views.^[4] He covered the anti-globalisation Seattle protests of 1999 for the UK's Channel 4 News.^[5] He has been politically active with Reclaim the Streets, the Liverpool Dockers, Indymedia and Peoples' Global Action.^{[6], [7], [8]}

His later work is characterised by a very strong political element, and parallels the work of contemporaries such as Mark Thomas.^[9] In 2003 Newman toured with From Caliban to the Taliban, which was released on CD and DVD. In 2005 the show Apocalypso Now or, from P45 to AK47, how to Grow the Economy with the Use of War debuted at the Bongo Club during the 2005 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.^[10] Apocalypso Now toured nationally, sometimes as part of a double-bill where Newman was joined by Mark Thomas. The show was filmed at the Hoxton Hall in Hoxton, east London and shown on More4 under the title A History of Oil, with a later release on CD and DVD. A mixture of stand-up comedy and introductory lecture on geopolitics and peak oil in Apocalypso Now Newman argues that twentieth-century Western foreign policy, including World War I, should be seen as a continuous struggle by the West to control Middle Eastern oil.^{[11], [12]} Newman draws from Richard Heinberg's book The Party's Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies as source material for portions of the show dealing with peak oil.^[13]

Dwight Garner, an editor of The New York Times Book Review, reviewed The Fountain at the Centre of the World favorably, saying it was "the talismanic Catch-22 of the anti-globalisation protest movement, the fictional complement to Naomi Klein's influential exposé No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies.^[18]

BUDDHIST FUNDAMENTALISTS OR NED OPERATIVES?

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clipped from: www.dailykos.com

Currently, The US regards Tibet as part of China and has officially stated so as early as July 1942

We needed China's help against the Japanese and agreed with Chiang Kai-shek that Tibet was part of China.

Mao's victory in China

After the "liberation" of Tibet by the CCP, the Dalai Lama moved from Lhasa to a town near the Indian border

He appealed to America
none was forthcoming and he sent a letter to Beijing to negotiate

In May 1951, the 2 groups agreed on what is known as "The Seventeen Point Agreement".
The Dalai Lama was approximately 16 years old at the time.
the young boy returned to Lhasa to try to live under the 17 Point Agreement.

In September 1951, Ameria again reached out to the Dalai Lama promising that if he ignored the 17 Point Agreement, renounced Communism and fled to India the US would officially adopt the position that the DL was the "head of autonomous Tibet" and would support his " return to Tibet at the earliest practical moment

Again he refused and stayed in Lhasa until 1959. The events that led to his fleeing to India began in 1956 following a series of revolts in Kham,
The CIA supplied weapons and training to the Tibetan resistance in Khan in 1957.

An uprising in Lhasa in 1959 finally sent the Dalai Lama into exile.

The CIA continued to support the rebels and set up a training camp in neighboring Nepal to infiltrate into Tibet as well as funds and non-military support for the Dalai Lama. A training site in Colorado was also funded in 1964.

Rejecting autonomy, the DL asked America in return to support his desire for total independence and was rebuked repeatedly by the Eisenhower Administration. (links on page 4 of PDF)

An then along comes Tricky Dicky
he Unites States halted all support for the Tibetans and ceased to use the term "Autonomous Country"

Deng Xiaoping opened China and invited the DL to secret face-to-face meetings in Beijing in 1982 and 1984. Deng reversed the policies of the Cultural revolution and allowed the TAR (Tibet Autonomous Region) to restore Tibetan culture to a degree.
H. H. Dalai Lama would not accept autonomy and Deng would not allow independence.
in 1984. The Dalai Lama demanded in 1984 that China should grant Tibetans in "all parts of China" political autonomy
He wanted self-rule for all Tibetans everywhere in China.

The Chinese began to develop Tibet

he Dalai Lama began a world crusade to draw attention to human rights issues,
In September 1987
5 point plan.

The first point was that the whole of Tibet be turned into a "zone of peace". This would also include ethnographic Tibet, including the provinces of Qinghai, Gansu Sichuan and Yunnan.. This would require the removal of all Chinese military bases and troops from these provinces.
The other 4 points were irrelevant , this was the deal breaker.

The ethnographic DMZ will never be recognized by China.
notice the neighboring countries that are near or share borders with the yellow ethnographic Tibet area.
Pakistan, Afghanistan, Burma, Vietnam, Laos and India. All are either historical enemies with invasion routes into China, current trade partners or routes for oil pipelines.



The map shows six of the worlds largest rivers draining from the Plateau: the Indus (Gar) drains the southwest, the Bramaputra (Yarlung Tsangpo) drains the southern and southeastern area, the Salween (Nu), Mekong (Lancang) and Yangtze (Jinsha) drain the central and eastern areas, and Yellow (Huang) drains the northeastern area. The northern and northwestern areas have no external drainage and are characterized by many large lakes. The plateau is occupied by about four million Tibetans who raise yaks and sheep on tundra above the timberline, but over half of the worlds population lives in the drainage basins of these six rivers.

The Dalai Lama is the spiritual and political leader of Tibetan Buddhist worldwide
recent events show us that a certain element of his followers are not following his wishes (nor the teachings of Buddha). When asked to tell the rioters to stop the killing of Chinese citizens, he said he had no control of the situation.

There appears to be a schism between Tibetan activists and H.H. The Dalai Lama.
In its meeting in August 1998, the TYC (Tibetan Youth Congress) pointed out the total lack of results of the non-violent path.

In recent years the TYC has adopted an increasingly aggressive stanc
pointing out that violent resistance movements have often succeeded in gaining independence.

He points out that it would be suicidal for five million Tibetans to adopt violent methods in confronting China, a nation of 1.2 billion people with an army of five million.
The rogue element seems to have a different agenda than their King.

The world is already bent over the barrel by fundamentalist religious extremists with political power that fortuitously sit on most of the planet's oil. Some were our friends in the past. Now they are not. The only positive is that they don't also have control of 1/2 of the world's water as well.

who would select the next Dalai Lama, and that was that it may not be left an open question to be decided after the death of this Dalai Lama, but that there was some other route to selection open - that of choosing a successor while the current Dalai Lama was still alive

planning to put in place a transition to a split political and religious leadership in the near future, with the Dalai Lama holding the religious side, of course, and a figure more like a prime minister being appointed somehow

more to do with the dicey situation with China, and the age of the current Dalai Lama, and wanting to avoid having all the power in one set of hands,

And from the young generation of Tibetan activists
I'd say that your sense that they are not likely to take instruction on political matters such as independence is correct