Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Europe left behind as shale shock drives America’s industrial resurgence

Royal Dutch Shell is planning an ethane plant in the once-decaying steel valley of Beaver County, near Pittsburg. Dow Chemical is shutting operations in Belgium, Holland, Spain, the UK, and Japan, but pouring money into a propylene venture in Texas where natural gas prices are a fraction of world levels and likely to remain so for the life-cycle of Dow's investments.

Some fifty new projects have been unveiled in the US petrochemical industry. A $30bn investment blitz in underway in ethelyne and fetilizer plants alone.

A study by the American Chemistry Council said the shale gas bonanza has reversed the fortunes of the chemical, plastics, aluminium, iron and steel, rubber, coated metals, and glass industries. "This was virtually unthinkable five years ago," said the body’s president, Cal Dooley.

This is happening just as other clusters of manufacturing - machinery, electrical products, transport equipment, furniture, etc - are "re-shoring" back from from China to the US. A 16pc annual rise in Chinese wages over the last decade has changed the game. PricewaterhouseCoopers calls it the "Homecoming".

The revival of the chemical industry is a spin-off from the greater drama of America’s energy rebound, though a very big one. As many readers will have seen, the US energy department said last week that the country will produce 11.4m barrels a day (b/d) of oil, biofuels, and liquid hydrocarbons next year, almost as much as Saudi Arabia.

America looks poised to become the world’s biggest producer in 2014. It will approach the Holy Grail of "energy independence" before the end of the decade.
This is largely due to hydraulic fracturing - blasting rock with water jets - to extract shale gas and oil, though solar power and onshore wind are playing their part.
Europe is going in the opposite direction, drifting towards energy suicide. So is Japan as it shuts down its nuclear industry after the Fukushima disaster. China is more hard-headed, as it needs to be. The country is adding 20m cars a year. Chinese oil imports are rising by an extra 0.5m b/d annually.
As of last week, US natural gas prices were roughly one third of European levels. The German chemicals group BASF said it had become impossible to match the US on production costs.
Asia is facing an even greater handicap as Japan soaks up supply of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to offset the closure of its nuclear power stations. Prices on the Pacific rim are near $15 per million British thermal units (BTU), compared to $3 in the US.
The US cost of ethane - the raw material for polymers and much of what we use - has collapsed by 70pc since 2008. It is why Exxon and Westlake Chemical are building new ethane plants in America, while loss-making Mitsubishi is closing its unit in Japan, and Mitsui may follow soon. Credit Suisse said ethane production is barely viable in Japan, Korea or Taiwan.
The gas differential with Europe and Asia will narrow gradually over time but there is no genuine global market for gas. Prices are local, dictated by pipelines. In Europe’s case they are dictated by Vladimir Putin’s Gazprom. Germany imports 36pc of its gas from Russia. Dependency rises to 48pc for Poland, 60pc for Hungary, 98pc for Slovakia, and 100pc for the Baltics.
While LNG helps plug shortages, it requires shipping at minus 116 degrees and at great expense in molybdenum alloy hulls. It then needs an elaborate infrastructure at the docking port.
Shale has made the US self-sufficient in gas almost overnight. The new twist of course is shale oil. Output has jumped to 2m b/d from almost nothing eight years ago. The Bakken field in North Dakota is twice as big as the conventional Prudhoe Bay field in Alaska.
America produced 81pc of its total energy needs in the first six months of this year, the highest since 1991. Citigroup thinks US ouput of crude and eqivalents will top 15.6m b/d by 2020, adding up to 3.6m jobs through multiplier effects. North America as a whole will reach 27m b/d - with Canada’s oil sands and Mexico’s deepwater fields - making the region a "new Middle East".
The implications are momentous. America will no longer need a single drop of oil from the Islamic world. The strategic burden will fall on Europe, which is meekly disarming itself to meet Wolfgang Schauble's austerity targets. Russia and China will be pleased to help.
What is staggering is the near total failure of Europe’s leaders to face up to this new world order, or to prepare for their energy crunch ahead. They have spent the last decade wrangling over treaties that nobody wants, endlessly tinkering with institutional structures, and ultimately holding 22 summits to "save" EMU, largely oblivious to the bigger danger ahead.
Germany is to shut down its nuclear plants by 2022, reluctant to admit that this can be replaced only by coal - and even then with great difficulty. It is opting instead for the romantic quest of a politically-correct grid. The goal is to raise the share of renewables from 20pc to 35pc by 2020 at a cost of €200bn, and then to green supremacy by mid-decade for another €600bn.
Germany seems to think it can power Europe’s foremost industrial machine from off-shore wind in the Baltic, without the high-voltage wires running from North to South yet built or on track to be built. "It is a religion, not a policy," said one German official privately, warning that his country is already "very near blackouts". He fears an almighty national disaster.
"There is huge fear about the energy switch," said Volker Treier from the German Chambers of Industry. "We have no realistic plan to replace nuclear power. Electricity costs are already very high. Everybody is complaining about this."
The risk is that Germany will hit its aging crunch later this decade with no viable power system in place, having discovered that the contingent liabilities of EMU rescues are real liabilities - and bigger than German citizens were led to believe. You could scarcely devise a more certain way to ruin a nation. My sympathies to German friends watching this unfold with horror.
France has shale but has imposed a drilling moratorium It will shut down a nuclear plant for good measure to appease the Greens. Italy has banned nuclear power, yet has little else.
Britain has been sauntering slowly towards a debacle for nearly fifteen years. Eight coal plants are to close by 2015 as they burn up their EU carbon allowances. Much of the UK’s nuclear industry is on its last legs. No new plant has yet been commissioned.
What we have is a very big gamble on off-shore wind, a very long way from where most people live. It will supposedly supply 17pc of UK electricity by 2020, equal to all other off-shore wind projects in the world combined. Let us pray that it works.
As the years recede from the credit crash of 2008, it is becoming clearer that America suffered less damage than supposed. The Great Recession was certainly a shock. The debt-load is frightening, but the US can at least hope to outgrow that debt.
What is remarkable is that Euroland is not cutting its combined public and private sector debt any faster than the US - as a share of GDP - by asphyxiating its economy. It is doing so more slowly. That is the difference between growth and recession.
They look only at public debt in Euroland, fixated myopically on one variable, ignoring the lessons of balance sheet recessions. Such is policy architecture of Europe.
Four years on we can seen that the epicentre of destruction has in reality been right here in the Old World. We may look back and realize that the last decade - the Merkel decade, the EMU distraction decade, and in its way the Brown decade - was the turning point when Europe finally lost its global footing.
Telegraph

Monday, October 29, 2012

The Innocence of Obama

Ten years ago most left-thinking liberals were constantly worried about the erosion of civil liberties under the War on Terror though they could rarely name an instance where an American citizen had actually experienced such an erosion.


This was after all before the days when naked scanners and drone strikes had entered the vocabulary and the best they could do was to haul out Jose Padilla, aka Abdullah al-Muhajir, ACLU’s choirboy of the month, a Brooklyn-born convert to Islam who was being held in jail for no reason at all except aiding terrorists and plotting to build a dirty bomb.

Ten years later the lefty civil liberties types were proven right. The War on Terror did erode our civil liberties and America’s first political prisoner in generations has spent a month in jail for making an inconvenient movie at an inconvenient time.

When Charles Woods, the father of Tyrone Woods, one of the Navy SEALS who died fighting in Benghazi, met with Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State assured him that, “We’re going to have that person arrested and prosecuted that did the video.” And they got him, officially on charges of violating parole, unofficially on charges of violently offending violent Muslims.


The woman whose policy had overthrown the Libyan government and then placed a barely defended consulate in the middle of a city of Jihadists, did not promise the grieving father that his son’s killers would pay. She promised him that the man who offended his son’s killers would pay. Not only would his son be the first casualty of that appeasement policy, but the Constitution that his son had sworn to support and defend would be the second casualty.

Mark Basseley Youssef is not the first filmmaker sent to prison by a Democrat in the White House for making the wrong kind of movie and interfering with his foreign policy. That would be Robert Goldstein who made the The Spirit of ‘76, a movie about the American Revolution, at a time when Woodrow Wilson was trying to get Americans deeper into World War I.

Wilson’s Justice Department directed Chicago Police Deputy Superintendent Metellus Lucullus Cicero Funkhouser to confiscate The Spirit of ‘76 and Goldstein spent three years in prison and eventually died in a Nazi concentration camp. Both Youssef and Goldstein made two bad movies that were politically inconvenient. The Spirit of ‘76 was not welcome in 1917 and the origin of Muslim violence is not an appropriate topic for 2012. “History is history and fact is fact”, Judge Bledsoe conceded and went ahead with his ruling anyway.

Goldstein’s Federal trial took place in the Southern District of California. Mark Basseley Youssef’s trial will take place in the Central District of California. Goldstein was convicted of creating a movie was calculated to arouse antagonism and enmity. That is the unofficial charge that has been brought against Youssef. Goldstein was convicted of reminding Americans of the origin of their country and Youssef is guilty of reminding them of the origin of Islam.

The strange confluence of using Chicago politics and California Federal courtrooms to cover up the nakedness of a progressive president’s policies has a certain resonance less than one hundred years later. Youssef and his video trailer made a convenient scapegoat so that progressive politicians could avoid talking about the collapse of Libya into roving bands of Islamist militias and the triumph of Al Qaeda in North Africa.

After Obama had denounced Youssef in every forum from 60 Minutes to the United Nations to Pakistani TV, he was arrested, not to protect the Innocence of Muslims, but to protect the Innocence of Obama.

Blaming the Innocence of Muslims briefly silenced the more dangerous questions about what had gone wrong in Benghazi and the even more dangerous questions about what had gone wrong with the Arab Spring. Youssef, like Goldstein, was a foreigner, and an excellent choice as a scapegoat. And for weeks people focused on Youssef and his many aliases, and not on the question of why Americans died in Benghazi.

Americans died in Benghazi for the same reason that American hostages had been taken in Iran and for the same reason that Leon Klinghoffer had been murdered on the Achille Lauro and US Marines had died in Beirut. They died because their government had appeased Muslims, had given their terrorist groups hope that they could achieve their aims if they killed enough people, had saved them at the moment of their greatest weakness and had elevated them to power.

The innocence of Obama is intertwined with the innocence of Muslims


The innocence of Obama is intertwined with the innocence of Muslims. If Muslims are innocent of terror, then so is the foreign policy that has empowered them. But if Muslims are guilty of terror then the politicians who have pandered to them are guilty of enabling it at the least. If Muslims are innocent of terror, then Obama is innocent of complicity in their terror. But if Muslim terror is a true thing, then the man who helped them unleash it by toppling stable governments and replacing them with Islamist movements and militias shares in their guilt.

Censorship is only truly necessary when censoring the guilt of governments and protecting their policies. And the censorship of the War on Terror is not the censorship of dissent from the policy of fighting terrorists. Such dissent can be found in every newspaper editorial office and in the offices of every third Northeastern Congressman. It is the dissent from the policy of fighting the symptoms of terror, rather than the roots of terror, from the policy of not fighting Islamic terrorism, that is censored and punished, that is a firing offense and a locking away offense.

In the age of terror, the dangerous ones are not those who denounce the war, but those who denounce the lack of a war, who upset the balance of an inept policy that seeks a small controllable conflict by closing our eyes to the larger threat. It is these dangerous ones who must be censored so that we may go on safely losing our nation building wars, bringing home coffins, Korans and refugees without ever questioning whether this should be so.

The War on Terror has not impeded the civil liberties of those who oppose the war, but of those who oppose the terror


The War on Terror has not impeded the civil liberties of those who oppose the war, but of those who oppose the terror.

In 1919, the same year that Goldstein’s appeal was being heard, the Supreme Court ruled on Schenck v. United States. The case is obscure, but it has given us a famous phrase from the legal mouth of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater.”

This timeless phrase, long since legally discredited, came to life when Muslims began burning embassies while the White House claimed that the fault lay not in its foreign policy, which had overturned allies and replaced them with murderous Islamists, but with a movie. Pundits dug up Schenck and began penning essays suggesting that offending a Muslim should be as illegal as shouting fire in a crowded mosque.

Under the new civil liberties, the right of a Muslim to praise terrorists, upload videos promoting terrorism and even funding terrorist charities would be sacrosanct under the Bill of Rights. But make a movie mocking Mohammed and suddenly the Bill of Rights won’t be returning your phone calls as you are being frog-marched to your new cell.

In civil liberties circles it is claimed that the war against terrorism has deprived Muslims of their civil rights, but in reality Muslims have gained rights, while we have lost them. The balance between the civil rights of Americans and the need to avoid offending Muslims has been shifting their way and we all pay the price when we fly and soon enough we will begin paying it when we talk.

America’s first political prisoner in generations is under arrest for offending Muslims


America’s first political prisoner in generations is under arrest for offending Muslims and as a cover for the failed policy of appeasing Muslims. If history is any guide, then he will not be the last. The more bombs go off, the more buildings burn and the more questions are asked, the more Youssefs will be needed to deflect those questions and protect the innocence of Muslims and of their political panderers.

“The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater,” Holmes said, and modern day Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has suggested that burning a Koran may be considered a modern day version of the same thing. But what if a man isn’t falsely shouting fire, what if there really is a fire? And what if the theater management has him dragged away for causing a panic even while the smell of charred flesh rises into the air and the red curtains around the screen begin to burn?

And what if after all the bodies are carried out on stretchers, the man is still brought to trial for shouting fire in a crowded theater, and in his defense he points to the burnt ruins of the theater as proof that there really was a fire, only to be told that if he hadn’t shouted, then there would have been no fire. “There was only a fire because people panicked,” he is told, “and there was only a panic because you shouted. The thing to do was to remain in your seat and wait until the proper authorities had told you there was a fire. And if the authorities had determined that there was no fire, then it was your duty to remain in your seat and burn.”

Shout that Islam is violent and Muslims carry out violence and the fire marshal in charge of the tiny minority of fires arrives to inform you that if you had not shouted, they would not have turned violent. Whatever example of Muslim self-starting violence you may dig up, the fire marshal will find some first cause for it that began the violence, some offense committed by non-Muslims against Muslims, even if it was a shoving match a thousand years ago in Spain that started the whole thing.

The more fires break out, the more the fire marshal insists that fires do not begin unless someone notices them beginning and warns other people. The more people die, the more the moral authority of the fire marshal depends on perpetuating this lie that fires are fueled by the human voice. And instead of a fire department, there is a department of silencing people who warn that a fire has broken out.


This is the sad situation of our War on Terror, a war which is waged to convince Americans that there is no such thing as Muslim terrorism and to convince Muslims that they should stop being terrorists.

The more people die of Muslim violence, the more the principle of the innocence of Muslims must be upheld, because it is no longer just the innocence of Muslims that is at stake, but the innocence of the political establishment that has looked away while the fires burned. And a political establishment determined to protect its innocence will go to any length, and political prisoners are the least of it.

After the Arab Spring and the Libyan War, it has become impossible to untangle the guilt of Obama from the guilt of Islamists. That is the dirty secret that the fire marshals of the establishment are determined to protect. The cover-up of Islam’s conduct has become their cover-up of their own conduct as well. So long as Islam can claim innocence, they can claim innocence as well, and those who challenge the innocence of Muslims and by extension the innocence of the political establishment will become the first political prisoners.
Canada Free Press

This might qualify as a Human Rights violation in Canada

GAFFNEY: The real reason behind Benghazigate

President Obama’s once seemingly unstoppable march toward re-election hit what he might call “bumps in the road” in Benghazi, Libya, late on Sept. 11, 2012. It might be more accurate to describe the effect of the well-planned and -executed, military-style attack on a diplomatic facility there as the political equivalent of a devastating improvised explosive device on the myth of the unassailability of the Obama record as commander in chief.

Thanks to intrepid investigative reporting — notably by Bret Baier and Catherine Herridge at Fox News, Aaron Klein at WND.com and Clare Lopez at RadicalIslam.org — and information developed by congressional investigators, the mystery is beginning to unravel with regard to what happened that night and the reason for the subsequent, clumsy official cover-up now known as Benghazigate.

The evidence suggests that the Obama administration has not simply been engaging, legitimating, enriching and emboldening Islamists who have taken over or are ascendant in much of the Middle East. Starting in March 2011, when American diplomat J. Christopher Stevens was designated the liaison to the “opposition” in Libya, the Obama administration has been arming them, including jihadists like Abdelhakim Belhadj, leader of the al Qaeda franchise known as the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.

Once Moammar Gadhafi was overthrown, Stevens was appointed ambassador to the new Libya run by Mr. Belhadj and his friends. Not surprisingly, one of the most important priorities for someone in that position would be to try to find and secure the immense amount of armaments that had been cached by the dictator around the country and systematically looted during and after the revolution.

One of the places in Libya most awash with such weapons in the most dangerous of hands is Benghazi. It now appears that Stevens was there — on a particularly risky day, with no security to speak of and despite now copiously documented concerns about his own safety and that of his subordinates — for another priority mission: sending arms recovered from the former regime’s stocks to the “opposition” in Syria. As in Libya, the insurgents are known to include al Qaeda and other Shariah-supremacist groups, including none other than Abdelhakim Belhadj.

Fox News has chronicled how the Al Entisar, a Libyan-flagged vessel carrying 400 tons of cargo, docked on Sept. 6 in the Turkish port of Iskenderun. It reportedly supplied both humanitarian assistance and arms — including deadly SA-7 man-portable surface-to-air missiles — apparently destined for Islamists, again including al Qaeda elements, in Syria.

What cries out for further investigation — and debate in the remaining days of this presidential election — is whether this shipment was part of a larger covert Obama effort to transfer weapons to our enemies that could make the Iran-Contra scandal, to say nothing of Operation Fast and Furious, pale by comparison.

Investigative journalist Aaron Klein has reported that the “consulate in Benghazi” actually was no such thing. He observes that although administration officials have done nothing to correct that oft-repeated characterization of the facility where the murderous attack on Stevens and his colleagues was launched, they call it a “mission.” What Mr. Klein describes as a “shabby, nondescript building” that lacked any “major public security presence” was, according to an unnamed Middle Eastern security official, “routinely used by Stevens and others to coordinate with the Turkish, Saudi and Qatari governments on supporting the insurgencies in the Middle East, most prominently the rebels opposing Assad’s regime in Syria.”

We know that Stevens‘ last official act was to hold such a meeting with an unidentified “Turkish diplomat.” Presumably, the conversation involved additional arms shipments to al Qaeda and its allies in Syria. It also may have involved getting more jihadi fighters there. After all, Mr. Klein reported last month that, according to sources in Egyptian security, our ambassador was playing a “central role in recruiting jihadists to fight Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria.”

It gets worse. Last week, Center for Security Policy senior fellow and former career CIA officer Clare Lopez observed that there were two large warehouse-type buildings associated with the so-called “consulate” whose purpose has yet to be disclosed. As their contents were raided in the course of the attack, we may never know for sure whether they housed — and were known by the local jihadis to house — arms, perhaps administered by the two former Navy SEALs killed along with Stevens.

What we do know is that the New York Times — one of the most slavishly pro-Obama publications in the country — reported in an Oct. 14 article, “Most of the arms shipped at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to supply Syrian rebel groups fighting the government of Bashar Assad are going to hard-line Islamic jihadists, and not the more secular opposition groups that the West wants to bolster.”

In short, it seems President Obama has been engaged in gun-walking on a massive scale. The effect has been to equip America’s enemies to wage jihad not only against regimes it once claimed were our friends, but inevitably against us and our allies as well. That would explain his administration’s desperate and now failing bid to mislead the voters through the serial deflections of Benghazigate.
Washington Times

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Earn your Trident every day…

"About the two Navy SEAL’s killed in Libya:

Quite an astounding tribute to the courage and bravery of the two former Navy SEAL’s that went to the aid of Ambassador Stevens and Embassy staff. Courageous!

Recently I was teaching a class in my church on the biblical character, Joshua. You remember him – he’s the one who took over for Moses to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land. God made several promises to Joshua in the opening verses of this book of the Bible named after him. Three times God instructs Joshua to “be strong and courageous.” In fact, one of those times God instructed him to be “very courageous.” The road ahead was a tough one and Joshua would need to be up to the task."
ScottOnCapeCod

Friday, October 26, 2012

Ballistic Missile Defense System Engages Five Targets Simultaneously During Largest Missile Defense Flight Test in History

The Missile Defense Agency (MDA), U.S. Army soldiers from the 94th and 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command (AAMDC); U.S. Navy sailors aboard the USS FITZGERALD (DDG 62); and airmen from the 613th Air and Space Operations Center successfully conducted the largest, most complex missile defense flight test ever attempted resulting in the simultaneous engagement of five ballistic missile and cruise missile targets. An integrated air and ballistic missile defense architecture used multiple sensors and missile defense systems to engage multiple targets at the same time. All targets were successfully launched and initial indications are that the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system successfully intercepted its first Medium Range Ballistic target in history, and PATRIOT Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) near simultaneously destroyed a Short Range Ballistic Missile and a low flying cruise missile target over water.



The live-fire demonstration, conducted at U.S. Army Kwajalein Atoll/Reagan Test Site, Hickam AFB, and surrounding areas in the western Pacific, stressed the performance of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD), THAAD, and PATRIOT weapon systems.



An Extended Long Range Air Launch Target (E-LRALT) missile was airdropped over the broad ocean area north of Wake Island from a U.S. Air Force C-17 aircraft, staged from Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii. The AN/TPY-2 X-band radar, located with the THAAD system on Meck Island, tracked the E-LRALT and a THAAD interceptor successfully intercepted the Medium-Range Ballistic Missile. THAAD was operated by Soldiers from the 32nd AAMDC.



Another short-range ballistic missile was launched from a mobile launch platform located in the broad ocean area northeast of Kwajalein Atoll. The PATRIOT system, manned by soldiers of the 94th AAMDC, detected, tracked and successfully intercepted the target with a PAC-3 interceptor.



The USS FITZGERALD successfully engaged a low flying cruise missile over water. The Aegis system also tracked and launched an SM-3 Block 1A interceptor against a Short-Range Ballistic Missile. However, despite indication of a nominal flight of the SM-3 Block 1A interceptor, there was no indication of an intercept of the SRBM.



FTI-01 was a combined developmental and operational test. Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen from multiple Combatant Commands operated the systems and were provided a unique opportunity to refine operational doctrine and tactics. Program officials continue to assess and evaluate system performance based upon telemetry and other data obtained during the test.



Ballistic Missile Defense System programs have completed 56 successful hit-to-kill intercepts in 71 flight test attempts since 2001.



Media Gallery:

THAAD Launch Photo & Video

PAC-3 Launch Photo & Video

FTI-01 Fact Sheet
MDA.mil

Spain Joblessness Breaches 25%, Adding to Rescue Pressure

Spanish unemployment climbed to a record in the third quarter as a deepening recession left one in four workers jobless, adding pressure on Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to seek a second European bailout.

Unemployment, the second highest in the European Union after Greece, rose to 25.02 percent from 24.6 percent in the previous quarter, the National Statistics Institute said in Madrid today. That is the highest since at least 1976, the year after dictator Francisco Franco’s death led Spain to democracy.


“The situation is serious,” Ricardo Santos, an economist at BNP Paribas SA in London, said by telephone. “There is still room for a deterioration in unemployment. Activity is weak and the government will reduce jobs as there are strict targets to adjust the number of public-sector temporary workers, especially in health and education.”

Nearly three months after the European Central Bank offered bond buys to lower its borrowing costs, Spain is still playing for time. Economy Minister Luis de Guindos said on Oct. 23 that the recent improvement in funding conditions shows they depend on investors’ perception of the euro’s future rather than domestic issues.

Yield Declines


Since the ECB’s offer, the yield on Spain’s 10-year benchmark bond has dropped more than 200 basis points from a July 25 euro-era high of 7.75 percent. It was at 5.67 percent at 8:41 a.m. in Madrid while the spread with similar German maturities was 411 basis points, compared with a 650 basis-point record in July.

In line with a 25 percent median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of 7 economists, joblessness has nearly tripled since 2007, before a real estate-fueled boom ended. The euro-area average is 11.4 percent, according to Eurostat.

De Guindos on Oct. 23 expressed confidence that foreign investors are returning to the Spanish debt market, hours after the Bank of Spain forecast the euro region’s fourth-largest economy will continue to slump following a fifth quarter ofcontraction in the three months through September.

“That is because the government is doing what it has to do and because we are all acting to dissipate doubts on the euro’s future,” de Guindos told lawmakers in Madrid.

‘Multifaceted Problem’


“Unemployment is one part of a multifaceted problem in Spain,” said Justin Knight, a European rate strategist at UBS AG in London. “The recession is looking very bad and it looks like it will be worse than forecast. This is a Spanish problem as much as it is a problem of the euro; Spain’s public and private sector net external debt is the same size as Greece’s.”

While Rajoy this week praised the ECB’s proposal as “an important step forward,” he stopped short from applying for aid. After a summit with European leaders in Brussels, Rajoy said on Oct. 19 that he feels no pressure to make a decision and that aid for Spain wasn’t discussed.

“It’s unlikely that the government’s forecasts will be met next year as fiscal consolidation accelerates,” said Sara Balina, an analyst with Madrid-based consultant firm Analistas Financieros Internacionales, or AFI, that counts public administrations among its clients.

“Third-quarter data were better than expected because they were distorted by a temporary increase in demand before a value-added tax increase and by exports that may suffer from weakening growth in the euro zone,” she said.

Economists surveyed by Bloomberg forecast the economy will shrink 1.4 percent next year, compared with the government’s 0.5 percent prediction. Unemployment is seen rising above 27 percent by 2014, while Rajoy expects joblessness to start falling next year.
Bloomberg

EXCLUSIVE: CIA operators were denied request for help during Benghazi attack, sources say

Fox News has learned from sources who were on the ground in Benghazi that an urgent request from the CIA annex for military back-up during the attack on the U.S. consulate and subsequent attack several hours later on the annex itself was denied by the CIA chain of command -- who also told the CIA operators twice to "stand down" rather than help the ambassador's team when shots were heard at approximately 9:40 p.m. in Benghazi on Sept. 11.

Former Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods was part of a small team who was at the CIA annex about a mile from the U.S. consulate where Ambassador Chris Stevens and his team came under attack. When he and others heard the shots fired, they informed their higher-ups at the annex to tell them what they were hearing and requested permission to go to the consulate and help out. They were told to "stand down," according to sources familiar with the exchange. Soon after, they were again told to "stand down."

Woods and at least two others ignored those orders and made their way to the consulate which at that point was on fire. Shots were exchanged. The rescue team from the CIA annex evacuated those who remained at the consulate and Sean Smith, who had been killed in the initial attack. They could not find the ambassador and returned to the CIA annex at about midnight.

At that point, they called again for military support and help because they were taking fire at the CIA safe house, or annex. The request was denied. There were no communications problems at the annex, according those present at the compound. The team was in constant radio contact with their headquarters. In fact, at least one member of the team was on the roof of the annex manning a heavy machine gun when mortars were fired at the CIA compound. The security officer had a laser on the target that was firing and repeatedly requested back-up support from a Spectre gunship, which is commonly used by U.S. Special Operations forces to provide support to Special Operations teams on the ground involved in intense firefights.

CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood, though, denied the claims that requests for support were turned down.

"We can say with confidence that the Agency reacted quickly to aid our colleagues during that terrible evening in Benghazi," she said. "Moreover, no one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate. In fact, it is important to remember how many lives were saved by courageous Americans who put their own safety at risk that night-and that some of those selfless Americans gave their lives in the effort to rescue their comrades."

The fighting at the CIA annex went on for more than four hours -- enough time for any planes based in Sigonella Air base, just 480 miles away, to arrive. Fox News has also learned that two separate Tier One Special operations forces were told to wait, among them Delta Force operators.


A


Special Operations team, or CIF which stands for Commanders in Extremis Force, operating in Central Europe had been moved to Sigonella, Italy, but they were never told to deploy. In fact, a Pentagon official says there were never any requests to deploy assets from outside the country. A second force that specializes in counterterrorism rescues was on hand at Sigonella, according to senior military and intelligence sources. According to those sources, they could have flown to Benghazi in less than two hours. They were the same distance to Benghazi as those that were sent from Tripoli. Spectre gunships are commonly used by the Special Operations community to provide close air support.

According to sources on the ground during the attack, the special operator on the roof of the CIA annex had visual contact and a laser pointing at the Libyan mortar team that was targeting the CIA annex. The operators were calling in coordinates of where the Libyan forces were firing from.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters at the Pentagon on Thursday that there was not a clear enough picture of what was occurring on the ground in Benghazi to send help.

"There's a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking going on here," Panetta said Thursday. "But the basic principle here ... is that you don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on."

U.S. officials argue that there was a period of several hours when the fighting stopped before the mortars were fired at the annex, leading officials to believe the attack was over.

Fox News has learned that there were two military surveillance drones redirected to Benghazi shortly after the attack on the consulate began. They were already in the vicinity. The second surveillance craft was sent to relieve the first drone, perhaps due to fuel issues. Both were capable of sending real time visuals back to U.S. officials in Washington, D.C. Any U.S. official or agency with the proper clearance, including the White House Situation Room, State Department, CIA, Pentagon and others, could call up that video in real time on their computers.

Tyrone Woods was later joined at the scene by fellow former Navy SEAL Glen Doherty, who was sent in from Tripoli as part of a Global Response Staff or GRS that provides security to CIA case officers and provides countersurveillance and surveillance protection. They were killed by a mortar shell at 4 a.m. Libyan time, nearly seven hours after the attack on the consulate began -- a window that represented more than enough time for the U.S. military to send back-up from nearby bases in Europe, according to sources familiar with Special Operations. Four mortars were fired at the annex. The first one struck outside the annex. Three more hit the annex.

A motorcade of dozens of Libyan vehicles, some mounted with 50 caliber machine guns, belonging to the February 17th Brigades, a Libyan militia which is friendly to the U.S., finally showed up at the CIA annex at approximately 3 a.m. An American Quick Reaction Force sent from Tripoli had arrived at the Benghazi airport at 2 a.m. (four hours after the initial attack on the consulate) and was delayed for 45 minutes at the airport because they could not at first get transportation, allegedly due to confusion among Libyan militias who were supposed to escort them to the annex, according to Benghazi sources.

The American special operators, Woods, Doherty and at least two others were part of the Global Response Staff, a CIA element, based at the CIA annex and were protecting CIA operators who were part of a mission to track and repurchase arms in Benghazi that had proliferated in the wake of Muammar Qaddafi's fall. Part of their mission was to find the more than 20,000 missing MANPADS, or shoulder-held missiles capable of bringing down a commercial aircraft. According to a source on the ground at the time of the attack, the team inside the CIA annex had captured three Libyan attackers and was forced to hand them over to the Libyans. U.S. officials do not know what happened to those three attackers and whether they were released by the Libyan forces.

Fox News has also learned that Stevens was in Benghazi that day to be present at the opening of an English-language school being started by the Libyan farmer who helped save an American pilot who had been shot down by pro-Qaddafi forces during the initial war to overthrow the regime. That farmer saved the life of the American pilot and the ambassador wanted to be present to launch the Libyan rescuer's new school.
FoxNewa

and the poor guy is still sitting in jail for having made some stupid movie

Thursday, October 25, 2012

HILL AIR FORCE BASE, Utah (CBS St. Louis) — Boeing successfully tests a new missile that can take out electronic targets with little collateral damage. The aerospace company tested the microwave missile last week on a two-story building on the Utah Test and Training Range where computers and electronic systems were turned on to gauge the effects of the missile’s radio waves, according to a Boeing press release. The missile, known as CHAMP (Counter-electronics High-powered Advanced Missile Project), fired a burst of High Powered Microwaves at the building, successfully knocking out the electronic systems and computers, and even taking out the television cameras recording the test.

“This technology marks a new era in modern-day warfare,” Keith Coleman, CHAMP program manager for Boeing Phantom Works, said in the press release. “In the near future, this technology may be used to render an enemy’s electronic and data systems useless even before the first troops or aircraft arrive.”

Seven targets were taken out in total during the one-hour test which left no collateral damage.

Coleman believes this can be a huge advancement forward in non-lethal warfare.

“Today we turned science fiction into science fact,” Coleman said in the press release.

James Dodd, vice president of Advanced Boeing Military Aircraft, is hoping to get these microwave missiles in the field sooner rather than later.

Members of the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory Directed Energy Directorate and Raytheon Ktech also took part in the test.

Boeing Defense, Space & Security division is headquartered in St. Louis.
CBS

The candidate of hope has become the candidate of fear: How Obama has transformed himself in ugly election campaign

Four years after he was elected as a self-described 'hopemonger' promising a new post-partisan era, President Barack Obama is trying to claw his way to re-election with an ugly, divisive campaign in which he is playing the role of fearmonger-in-chief.

On a chilling Wednesday evening in a Las Vegas park, Obama spoke to a raucous gathering of some 13,000 – more than twice the number his opponent Mitt Romney had attracted a few days earlier but a far cry from the crowds of 2008 when he was swept into office with a seven-point victory over Senator John McCain.

With his own star power fading somewhat, Obama had enlisted the help of teen heartthrob Katy Perry to sing before he appeared. Resplendent in a black-and-white latex dress emblazoned with a ballot paper, she delivered five of her pop hits to screams and squeals from the younger attendees.

When Obama finally took to the stage, he began with light-hearted quips about Perry’s 91-year-old grandmother getting lipstick on his cheek and nearly getting him in hot water with his wife Michele. ‘I’m just telling you - you might get me in trouble!’

Right on cue, and just like 2008, a woman shouted out: ‘We love you, Obama!’ He responded, just as he always has: ‘I love you back!’

But the mood quickly darkened and it was at this point that any comparisons with 2008 evaporated. Obama – who was reading his remarks from two teleprompters flanking the stage – launched into a exhaustive and exhausting diatribe about Romney.

There was all the standard stump stuff about ‘Romnesia’ – a term dreamt up in the bowels of the Left-wing blogosphere and adopted by the Obama campaign this month as part of its closing argument in this election.

The word is a cute enough campaign term, though perhaps not quite something you would expect from a President of the United States who has been hailed for the world historical significance and beauty of his rhetoric.

Certainly, Romney is rightly vulnerable on the issue of shifting policy positions. But ‘Romnesia’ , as Obama aides have made clear, is about saying that Romney cannot be trusted. It’s about calling the former Massachusetts governor a liar.

That's standard-fare political hardball. But then Obama went a step further. After describing himself as ‘steady and strong’ – words used by his apparatchiks in the post-debate spin room in Florida on Monday - he told the crowd that a vote for Romney would plunge Americans back to the early 1960s.

‘You can choose to turn the clock back 50 years for women and immigrants and gays,’ he said.

‘Or in this election you can stand up for the principle that America includes everybody. We're all created equal - black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, abled, disabled - no matter who you are, no matter what you look like, no matter where you come from or who you love, in America you can make it if you try.’

Leave aside for a moment that 50 years ago was 1962, when President John F. Kennedy was in office and it seemed like America was entering a new dawn.

What Obama meant was that Romney wanted to take away the rights of women and every minority group in the country. He did not say it explicitly – Obama is too clever a politician for that, and the remarks has been carefully prepared before being loaded onto the teleprompters – but he was suggesting that Romney is a dangerous extremist and very possibly a racist

Exactly four years ago today in Las Vegas, Obama that ‘things can get ugly sometimes’ in election campaigns and that ‘say anything, do nothing, do anything’ politics can take over.

Obama continued: ‘The ugly phone calls, the misleading mail and TV ads, the careless, outrageous comments, all aimed at keeping us from working together, all aimed at stopping change.

‘Well, you know what? This is not what we need right now. The American people don’t want to hear politicians attack each other. You want to hear about how we’re going to attack the challenges facing the middle class all over the country.’

After resisting for months calls to draw up a plan for a second term, this week Obama tore down a small rainforest by printing 3.5 million copies of a 20-page booklet entitled ‘A Plan for Jobs and Middle-Class Security.

But there was nothing new in the booklet and was rushed out just two weeks before election day and the morning after the final debate – too late for Romney to challenge him on it.

More to the point, Obama’s focus is not on his own record but on tearing Romney down personally in exactly the way he decried four years ago.

This week, we’ve seen Obama use the softball setting of the Jay Leno Show to denounce Romney by association based on the clumsy comments of Richard Mourdock, the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Indiana.

Mourdock, asked in a debate about whether a foetus conceived during rape should be aborted, responded that life was a ‘gift from God’ and that ‘even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen’.

Obama knew that Mourdock was essentially outlining the position of any observant Roman Catholic – that an unborn child’s life was precious no matter how it was created. But Obama told the Leno audience: ‘Rape is rape. It is a crime. And so these various distinctions about rape don't make too much sense to me.’

Mourdock – never mind Romney – made no distinction about different types of rapes or characterised rape as anything other than a crime.

What Obama was doing was what he was doing in his Las Vegas speech – playing on the fears of voters that Romney is a crazed bigot.

As the laundry list of minority voting groups indicated, Obama was engaging in what one politician described in 2008 as ‘the kind of slice and dice politics that's about race and about gender and about this and that, and that's what Americans are tired of because they recognise that when we divide ourselves in that way we can't solve problems’.

That politician, of course, was Obama, then running for president.

Obama has signally failed to woo Republicans in Washington and there is precious little evidence he has even tried. Today, we learned that when asked by a ‘Rolling Stone’ editor whether he had a message for the editor’s six-year-old daughter took the opportunity to describe Romney as ‘a bulls***tter’.

Almost all politicians – though not Romney – swear in private. But for a President of the United States to describe his opponent publicly in such a way was beneath the dignity of his office.

Obama’s tactics in the final days of this campaign might well pay off. Politically speaking, he may not have any other way of scraping a narrow victory – though the risk is that he will turn-off moderate voters.

But if Obama is re-elected the way he has run his campaign may make it almost impossible for him to govern effectively - let alone in the spirit of the ‘better angels of our nature’ that Abraham Lincoln cited in his first inaugural speech and that Obama used to love quoting.

It was John McCain who said in 2008 that he would not ‘take the low road to the highest office in the land’.

Obama seems to believe that the load road is his only route back to the White House in 2012. It is the kind of strategy that Candidate Obama in 2008 would have viewed as beneath contempt.
Mail online

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Russia: Syria rebels have US-made weapons

A senior Russian general has said Syrian rebels now have anti-aircraft weapons, including US-made Stingers.

Gen Nikolai Makarov was quoted by the Interfax news service as saying the origin of the surface-to-air missiles should be "cleared up".

Russia is the biggest supplier of arms to its Syrian government ally.

Aerial bombardment of rebel-held towns continued on Wednesday, as the UN's Syria envoy prepared to brief the Security Council on ceasefire efforts.

Lakhdar Brahimi has been trying to arrange a ceasefire between rebels and government forces over the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, which begins on Friday.
Weapon supplies
"We have reliable information that Syrian militants have foreign portable anti-aircraft missile systems, including those made in the USA... it should be cleared up who delivered them," Gen Makarov told journalists in Russia.

There have been earlier unconfirmed reports of the Syrian opposition having shoulder-mounted missiles, but the West has been reluctant to openly arm the rebels.

In August, Syrian rebels said they had shot down a fighter jet near the border with Iraq.

Syrian warplanes have stepped up their bombardments of rebel-dominated areas in recent months, particularly in the north of the country. Deadly air raids are now daily events in towns around the city of Aleppo.

Recent footage has emerged of Syrian opposition fighters using old Soviet SA-7 heat-seeking missiles, which can destroy a plane flying at up to 14,000ft.

US-made Stinger missiles are shoulder-mounted anti-aircraft weapons designed to target low-flying planes and helicopters.

A US decision to supply them to the mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s to fight the Russians proved to be a turning point in the war.

The UN says that more than 18,000 people have died so far in the uprising against Bashar al-Assad's government, which began in March 2011, but activists and opposition groups put the figure closer to 30,000.
BBC

White House told of militant claim two hours after Libya attack: emails


(Reuters) - Officials at the White House and State Department were advised two hours after attackers assaulted the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11 that an Islamic militant group had claimed credit for the attack, official emails show.

The emails, obtained by Reuters from government sources not connected with U.S. spy agencies or the State Department and who requested anonymity, specifically mention that the Libyan group called Ansar al-Sharia had asserted responsibility for the attacks.

The brief emails also show how U.S. diplomats described the attack, even as it was still under way, to Washington.

U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the Benghazi assault, which President Barack Obama and other U.S. officials ultimately acknowledged was a "terrorist" attack carried out by militants with suspected links to al Qaeda affiliates or sympathizers.

Administration spokesmen, including White House spokesman Jay Carney, citing an unclassified assessment prepared by the CIA, maintained for days that the attacks likely were a spontaneous protest against an anti-Muslim film.

While officials did mention the possible involvement of "extremists," they did not lay blame on any specific militant groups or possible links to al Qaeda or its affiliates until intelligence officials publicly alleged that on September 28.

There were indications that extremists with possible al Qaeda connections were involved, but also evidence that the attacks could have erupted spontaneously, they said, adding that government experts wanted to be cautious about pointing fingers prematurely.

U.S. intelligence officials have emphasized since shortly after the attack that early intelligence reporting about the attack was mixed.

Spokesmen for the White House and State Department had no immediate response to requests for comments on the emails.

MISSIVES FROM LIBYA

The records obtained by Reuters consist of three emails dispatched by the State Department's Operations Center to multiple government offices, including addresses at the White House, Pentagon, intelligence community and FBI, on the afternoon of September 11.

The first email, timed at 4:05 p.m. Washington time - or 10:05 p.m. Benghazi time, 20-30 minutes after the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission allegedly began - carried the subject line "U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi Under Attack" and the notation "SBU", meaning "Sensitive But Unclassified."

The text said the State Department's regional security office had reported that the diplomatic mission in Benghazi was "under attack. Embassy in Tripoli reports approximately 20 armed people fired shots; explosions have been heard as well."

The message continued: "Ambassador Stevens, who is currently in Benghazi, and four ... personnel are in the compound safe haven. The 17th of February militia is providing security support."

A second email, headed "Update 1: U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi" and timed 4:54 p.m. Washington time, said that the Embassy in Tripoli had reported that "the firing at the U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi had stopped and the compound had been cleared." It said a "response team" was at the site attempting to locate missing personnel.

A third email, also marked SBU and sent at 6:07 p.m. Washington time, carried the subject line: "Update 2: Ansar al-Sharia Claims Responsibility for Benghazi Attack."

The message reported: "Embassy Tripoli reports the group claimed responsibility on Facebook and Twitter and has called for an attack on Embassy Tripoli."

While some information identifying recipients of this message was redacted from copies of the messages obtained by Reuters, a government source said that one of the addresses to which the message was sent was the White House Situation Room, the president's secure command post.

Other addressees included intelligence and military units as well as one used by the FBI command center, the source said.

It was not known what other messages were received by agencies in Washington from Libya that day about who might have been behind the attacks.

Intelligence experts caution that initial reports from the scene of any attack or disaster are often inaccurate.

By the morning of September 12, the day after the Benghazi attack, Reuters reported that there were indications that members of both Ansar al-Sharia, a militia based in the Benghazi area, and al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the North African affiliate of al Qaeda's faltering central command, may have been involved in organizing the attacks.

One U.S. intelligence official said that during the first classified briefing about Benghazi given to members of Congress, officials "carefully laid out the full range of sparsely available information, relying on the best analysis available at the time."

The official added, however, that the initial analysis of the attack that was presented to legislators was mixed.

"Briefers said extremists were involved in attacks that appeared spontaneous, there may have been a variety of motivating factors, and possible links to groups such as (al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Ansar al-Sharia) were being looked at closely," the official said.
Reuters

Mom Found ‘Guilty’ By Court After Refusing TSA Pat Down On Daughter

A woman who stood up to TSA screeners and refused to allow them to grope her or her 14 year old daughter has been found guilty of “disorderly conduct” and sentenced to one year of probation by a court in Tennessee.


Back in July 2011, Andrea Fornella Abbott of Clarksville, was arrested by Nashville airport authorities for expressing outrage at the TSA procedures.

A police report stated that Abbott would not allow her daughter to be “touched inappropriately” or have her “crotch grabbed”. Abbott also refused to submit to a full body scan, saying that she did not want her or her daughters’ naked bodies revealed by the scanner.

The report noted that she attempted to take cell phone video of the incident but was prevented from doing so by the TSA screeners.

When police were called to the scene, Abbott reportedly cursed at them and referred to the TSA screeners as pedophiles, leading to her arrest.

The Associated Press reports that the prosecution argued that Abbott’s behavior “prevented others from carrying out their lawful activities,” and held up two security lines for thirty minutes.

“You can speak your mind, but you can’t do it in an illegal manner,’ said Assistant District Attorney Megan King, adding “What the defendant did was a crime.”

The defense argued that Abbot was exercising her right to free speech. “Telling a police officer your opinion, even in strong language, to me that’s a First Amendment right,” Abbot’s attorney Brent Horst told reporters.

Abbott herself admitted that she may have cursed at police officers, but considered the exchange to be a “normal conversation” regarding the inappropriate nature of pat-downs on children.

Horst presented surveillance video of the incident, and claimed that Abbot was the one being yelled at by police. Although the video had no audio, it showed that other passengers were walking around Abbot and the police officers, and that security lines were still moving.


“It’s clear from the video … she wasn’t preventing anything,” Horst said. In closing arguments the attorney stated “Since 9/11, we’re losing a lot of freedom, and we have to draw the line somewhere,” before praising Abbot for standing on principle.

As we have documented, people who opt out of body scanners or those who simply fail to display the proper level of obedience to TSA screeners are routinely subjected to punishment by means of invasive grope downs or other forms of retaliation.

Journalists who are critical of the TSA have also been singled out for retribution.

The TSA is also operating bizarre obedience training programs, including the ridiculous “all stop” policy where travelers are ordered to freeze on the spot for no reason whatsoever. Again, the TSA has admitted that travelers are not mandated to comply with these bizarre displays of security theater.

The TSA has characterized people who do not fully comply with airport screening procedures, no matter how bizarre or invasive, as “domestic extremists.”

The verdict in Andrea Fornella Abbott’s case sets a dangerous precedent along the lines of First amendment rights not being applicable at security checkpoints. The verdict essentially paves the way for criminally punishing anyone who questions TSA procedures, no matter how bizarre they are.
Infowars


Monday, October 22, 2012

Even the aliens know

Pussy Riot band members sent to remote prison camps

Two members of the anti-Kremlin punk band Pussy Riot have been sent to remote prison camps to serve their sentences, the group has said.

Maria Alyokhina, 24, will serve the rest of her two-year term at a women's prison camp in Perm, a Siberian region notorious for hosting some of the Soviet Union's harshest camps. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, has been sent to Mordovia, a region that also hosts a high number of prisons.

"These are the harshest camps of all the possible choices," the band said via its Twitter account on Monday.

Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova were convicted of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred for performing an anti-Putin "punk anthem" in a Moscow cathedral in February. They argued that their conviction was part of a growing crackdown on free speech and political activism in Russia.

They are expected to serve the rest of their sentences, which end in March 2014, in the camps, where conditions are reportedly dire.

A third member, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was released earlier this month after being given a suspended sentence. Pussy Riot's supporters have argued that her release was designed to give the appearance of mercy from the authorities.

Confusion reigned on Monday as relatives and lawyers tried to assess exactly where the women were sent. Both Perm and Mordovia host several prison camps, some of which comprised the Soviet-era gulag system. Prison authorities declined to comment on the women's whereabouts.

Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova had petitioned to serve their sentences in Moscow, arguing that they wanted to be close to their children. Alyokhina has a five-year-old son named Filipp, while Tolokonnikova has a four-year-old daughter named Gera.
Guardian

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Merkel to warn UK on Europe budget veto

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Germany is planning to warn Britain that it will seek to cancel next month’s European budget summit if David Cameron, the prime minister, insists that he will veto any deal other than a total freeze on spending.

Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, does not believe there is any point in holding the budget summit to agree on a seven-year framework for EU spending if Britain intends to veto any deal, say people close to the negotiations.


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Ms Merkel is trying hard to persuade Mr Cameron to back a German compromise that would cap EU spending at 1 per cent of European gross domestic product. The European Commission has proposed a figure of more than €1tn for the years 2014 to 2020, or nearly 1.1 per cent of European GDP.

After last week’s summit, Mr Cameron bluntly stated his willingness to veto any deal involving increases in EU spending. “If there isn’t a deal that’s good for Britain, there won’t be a deal,” he said. “We can’t have European spending go up and up and up when we are having to make difficult decisions in so many different areas.”

His most senior officials are delivering a similarly uncompromising message behind the scenes, much to the dismay of other EU diplomats. One said at a recent gathering to discuss the budget that Britain’s ambassador to Brussels was by far the most pessimistic about a November deal, saying it would be an achievement to “open discussions” genuinely, and that even this modest outcome was far from assured.

Although EU officials realise Mr Cameron will be treated as a hero at home for blocking the budget, they are strongly warning Britain that the diplomatic fallout from any veto could be seriously damaging, not least because it will come less than a month before a December summit on building a banking union.

Ms Merkel raised the subject last Monday in a telephone call with Mr Cameron, and it was discussed in Berlin during the week by Michael Link and David Lidington, the European affairs ministers from the two countries.

“We are trying to show the UK that they have in us an honest partner,” one official said.

In particular, Ms Merkel has sought to persuade Mr Cameron that she will stick to the letter of the German compromise, and not use it as a starting point for negotiations to raise the budget ceiling further. But the officials say that she is not very optimistic about the chance of success.

She is planning to meet Mr Cameron in London in early November, when the budget negotiations will be the top item on the agenda. That is when she is expected to tell him there is no point in holding a summit if he insists on a veto.

Ms Merkel is keen to get agreement at the summit, scheduled for November 22 and 23, to clear the way for the next big round of eurozone crisis negotiations in December. She sees confrontation over the budget as a dangerous distraction from the main EU priority.

The German compromise proposal has the backing of at least six other EU member states – the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Finland and the Czech Republic, according to Berlin officials. France and Italy are also officially members of the group, although their support is less certain.

Some 15 other countries, known as the “cohesion group”, back the European Commission’s proposals for a bigger budget to provide more money for spending to boost competitiveness and economic development in the poorer member states.
FT

W.H. Tries to Write Al Qaeda Out of Libya Story

The Obama administration appears to be mounting yet another version of its campaign to push back on claims that it misled on the intelligence related to the attacks in Benghazi on 9/11/12. But the new offensive by the administration, which contradicts many of its earlier claims and simply disregards intelligence that complicates its case, is raising fresh questions in the intelligence community and on Capitol Hill about the manipulation of intelligence for political purposes.


The administration's new line takes shape in two articles out Saturday, one in the Los Angeles Times and the other by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius. The Times piece reports that there is no evidence of an al Qaeda role in the attack. The Ignatius column makes a directly political argument, claiming that "the Romney campaign may have misfired with its suggestion that statements by President Obama and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice about the Benghazi attacks weren't supported by intelligence, according to documents provided by a senior intelligence official."

If this is the best the Obama administration can offer in its defense, they're in trouble. The Times story is almost certainly wrong and the central part of the Ignatius "scoop" isn't a scoop at all. We'll start there.

David Ignatius, a reporter's columnist with excellent sources in the Obama administration and the intelligence community, reports: "Talking points" prepared by the CIA on Sept. 15, the same day that Rice taped three television appearances, support her description of the Sept 11 attack on the U.S. consulate as a reaction to the Arab anger about an anti-Muslim video prepared in the United States. According to the CIA account, "The currently available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the US Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the US consulate and subsequently into its annex. There are indications that extremists participated in the violent demonstrations."

There are two problems with this. The CIA "talking points" don't say that what Ignatius claims and the supposedly exculpatory documents were first reported three weeks ago.

On October 1, Newsweek's Eli Lake reported: "For eight days after the attacks on the US consulate in Benghazi, government officials said the attacks were a spontaneous reaction to an anti-Islam film. Now that officials have acknowledged they were a premeditated act of terrorism, the question some members of Congress are trying to answer is why it took so long for the truth to come out. Unclassified documents from the Central Intelligence Agency suggest the answer may have to do with so-called talking points written by the CIA and distributed to members of Congress and other government officials, including Susan Rice, the US Ambassador to the United Nations. The documents, distributed three days after the attacks that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens, said the events were spontaneous."

Lake continued, quoting directly from the CIA talking points, in language that may sound familiar to anyone who read the third paragraph above: "The currently available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the US Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the US diplomatic post in Benghazi and subsequently its annex. There are indications that extremists participated in the demonstrations." Both the Ignatius and Lake versions of the talking points note that the "assessment may change as additional information is collected" and that the "investigation is on-going."

Note that the "talking points" do not claim that the attackers in Benghazi were directly motivated by the film, something the Obama administration claimed for nearly two weeks after 9/11. The talking points only say that the "demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired" by Cairo.

We now know, of course, that there were no demonstrations in Benghazi. Those inside the compound heard gunfire at 9:40 p.m. local time and within minutes the compound was under siege. Surveillance photos and videos taken in the hours before the attack give no indication of a protest. And one CIA official tells Ignatius that it would have been better to substitute "opportunistic" for "spontaneous" since there was "some pre-coordination but minimal planning."

The "spontaneous" talking point came from an intercepted telephone call between jihadists, in which one of the attackers notes that his group had attacked after seeing the demonstrations in Cairo. U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence on Benghazi tell THE WEEKLY STANDARD there are two schools of thought on what that means. The first view is reflected in the administration's "spontaneous" line. It holds that jihadists in Benghazi saw the demonstration in Egypt and decided, almost on a whim, to assault the compound. But the nature of the attack—the weapons, the sequencing, the coordination—suggests more planning. The attackers flushed Americans from the compound toward an "annex" two kilometers away. As the Americans fled, they encountered (and avoided) an attempted ambush on the route.

The second view is that the demonstrations in Cairo, which followed the release of a video from al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri on September 10, were seen as something of a "go signal." As we first reported on September 12, the film, in this view, was merely the pretext for an al Qaeda "information operation," and the Zawahiri video, which called directly for renewed jihad and for al Qaeda sympathizers to avenge the death of Abu Yaya al Libi, was intended to trigger protests and assaults throughout the region. Many of those with prominent roles in the protests and assaults—in Egypt, Tunisia, and perhaps Libya—had strong ties to al Qaeda leadership in Pakistan.

Not surprisingly, this view is not popular with an administration that has built its case for reelection in part on the notion that "bin Laden is dead" and "al Qaeda is on its heels." Which leads us to the claims in the Los Angeles Times article that ran under the heading: "No evidence found of al Qaeda role in Libya attack." That story begins: "The assault on the US diplomatic mission in Benghazi last month appears to have been an opportunistic attack rather than a long-planned operation and intelligence agencies have found no evidence that it was ordered by al Qaeda, according to US officials and witnesses interviewed in Libya."

The claim in the headline is not the same as the claim in the article, of course. It's possible for there to have been "an Qaeda role" in the attack without it having been directly ordered by al Qaeda central. And there is, in fact, evidence of some al Qaeda role in the attack.

The same phone call that the administration had used to pin its argument that the attack was "spontaneous" also provides evidence of such al Qaeda involvement. Indeed, as Eli Lake reported three weeks ago: "In the hours following the 9/11 anniversary attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, US intelligence agencies monitored communications from jihadists affiliated with the group that led the attack and members of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the group's north African affiliate."

Several of the local jihadists were affiliated Ansar al Sharia, which has its own ties to al Qaeda. An August report from the Pentagon's "Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office," reported that Ansar al Sharia "has increasingly embodied al Qaeda's presence in Libya, as indicated by its active propaganda, extremist discourse, and hatred of the West, especially the United States." One of the leaders of AAS, a former Guantanamo detainee named Sufyan ben Qumu, has ties to senior al Qaeda leaders. As Tom Joscelyn first reported, Qumu's alias was found on the laptop of Mustafa al Hawsawi, an al Qaeda financier who helped fund the original 9/11 attacks. Qumu is described "as an al Qaeda member receiving family support."

The other group, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, has a more direct relationship with al Qaeda central. As Joscelyn reported last month, AQIM entered into a "formal alliance" with al Qaeda in 2006, according to a United Nations report on the group. The Pentagon's Combating Terrorism study reported: "Al Qaeda affiliates such as AQIM are also benefiting from the situation in Libya. AQIM will likely join hands with the al Qaeda clandestine network in Libya to secure a supply of arms for its areas of operations in northern Mali and Algeria." The report also notes: "Although no information in open sources was found regarding the whereabouts of al Qaeda's leadership in Libya, it is likely that at this point al Qaeda's clandestine network is run directly by al Qaeda senior leadership in Pakistan."

One thing that has troubled both intelligence officials and those on Capitol Hill as they have evaluated the administration's early response to the attacks is what appears to be an effort to write al Qaeda out of the story. For example, the talking points first reported by Lake, include this sentence: "There are indications that extremists participated in the violent demonstrations." But according to several officials familiar with the original assessment from which the talking points were derived, the U.S. intelligence community had reported the fact that these were extremists with ties to al Qaeda. That key part was omitted.

Why was that language dropped from the talking points distributed to Congress and Obama administration officials? Did anyone at the White House or on the National Security Council have any role in drafting them?

In addition to the intercepts between Ansar al Sharia jihadists and AQIM, the Associated Press reported Friday that "the CIA station chief in Libya reported to Washington within hours of last month's deadly attack on the US consulate that there was evidence it was carried out by militants, not a spontaneous mob upset about an American-made video ridiculing Islam's Prophet Muhammad."

As further evidence of the ever-shifting Obama administration narrative, the AP article, which ran some 24 hours before this latest public relations push, also reported: "The White House now says the attack was probably carried out by an al Qaeda-linked group, with no public demonstration beforehand."
Weekly Standard

PICKET: Anti-Muslim filmmaker detained for almost a month...next court date three days after election

Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the 55-year-old filmmaker responsible for the anti-Muslim video that President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice initially and wrongly blamed for inciting the deadly terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, is still being held at the Los Angeles Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) without bond.

It has been almost one month since Mr. Nakoula was arrested for allegedly violating the terms of his probation for a 2010 bank-fraud conviction. According to reports, under his probation, Mr. Nakoula was prohibited from using computers and the internet without supervision. According to ABC News:

Nakoula had met with federal probation officers on Sept. 14 about whether his involvement in the film violated the terms of his probation, which barred him from accessing the internet without prior approval and from using any name other than his legal name.

Nakoula told authorities he was involved in the film and asked law enforcement for help in regards to death threats he received since the film surfaced online.

“Nakoula was ordered detained -- held without bond -- by a federal judge, who determined he posed a flight risk,” said Thom Mrozek of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California.

Mr. Nakoula’s next court date is on November 9, three days after the presidential election. In the meantime, while the Obama administration passes blame around over who dropped the ball with the attack in Benghazi, Mr. Nakoula remains locked up and muzzled in a Los Angeles detention center until after the ballots for president are counted on November 6.
Washington Times

Putin flexes muscle in big test of Russia's nuclear arsenal


(Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin took a leading role in the latest tests of Russia's strategic nuclear arsenal, the most comprehensive since the 1991 Soviet collapse, the Kremlin said on Saturday.

The exercises, held mostly on Friday, featured prominently in news reports on state television which seemed aimed to show Russians and the world that Putin is the hands-on chief of a resurgent power.

Tests involving command systems and all three components of the nuclear "triad" - land and sea-launched long-range nuclear missiles and strategic bombers - were conducted "under the personal leadership of Vladimir Putin", the Kremlin said.

An RS-12M Topol Intercontinental Ballistic Missile was launched from the Plesetsk site in northern Russia, and a submarine test-launched another ICBM from the Sea of Okhotsk, the Defence Ministry said.

Long-range Tu-95 and Tu-160 bombers fired four guided missiles that hit their targets on a testing range in the northwestern Komi region, it said.

"Exercises of the strategic nuclear forces were conducted on such a scale for the first time in the modern history of Russia," the Kremlin statement said.

"Vladimir Putin gave a high evaluation to the combat units and crews and the work of the Armed Forces General Staff, which fulfilled the tasks before them and affirmed the reliability and effectiveness of Russia's nuclear forces."

The exercises included tests of communications systems and "new algorithms" for command and control, it said.

Russia says it is modernizing a nuclear arsenal that was largely created during the Cold War and will continue to use nuclear weapons as a key deterrent.

In the 2010 New START treaty, Russia and the United States set lower numerical ceilings on the weapons tested in the exercise.

But Putin has made clear further cuts depend, among other things, on Washington assuaging his concerns about anti-missile defenses it is deploying, including a European shield Russia says will make it more vulnerable.

Russian and American leaders say nuclear war between the Cold War rivals is now unthinkable.

But critics say Putin - in power since 2000 and back as military commander-in-chief since his return to the Kremlin in May after four years as prime minister - is exaggerating potential threats from the West to bolster support at home.
Reuters

Saturday, October 20, 2012

New poll: Egyptians turning toward Iran, want nuclear weapons

A poll of Egyptians conducted last month shows that they have increasingly positive views of Iran, believe that both Iran and Egypt should obtain nuclear weapons, and still trust their own military more than any other institution in Egypt.


The poll of 812 Egyptians, half of them women, was conducted in a series of in-person interviews by the firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner and sponsored by the Israel Project, a pro-Israel advocacy organization with offices in Washington and Jerusalem. According to the poll, Iran is viewed favorably in Egypt, with 65 percent of those surveyed expressing support of the decision to renew Egypt-Iran relations and 61 percent expressing support of the Iranian nuclear project, versus 41 percent in August 2009.

Sixty-two percent of those polled agreed that "Iran and its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, are friends of Egypt," though 68 percent held unfavorable views of Shiite Muslims.

Iran's deputy defense minister said recently that the Iranian regime is seeking more military cooperation with Egypt. "We are ready to help Egypt to build nuclear reactors and satellites," he said on the occasion or Egyptian President Mohammed Morsy's meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last month. Morsy's office has said the two didn't discuss military cooperation.

Eighty-seven percent of respondents want Egypt to have its own nuclear bomb.

Israel Project CEO Josh Block told The Cablethat the statistics show the effect of Morsy's outreach to Iran and the danger of regional proliferation of nuclear weapons if Iran is successful in obtaining a nuclear bomb.

"Very scary to people opposed to proliferation of nuclear weapons, let alone to unstable countries in the world's most turbulent part of the world, is the 87 percent who want Egypt to build nuclear weapons," he said. "Morsy's dangerous embrace of Iran is leading a surprising shift in favor support for Tehran, which has for decades been seen by Egyptians as their top threat, as well as for their work on nuclear weapons."

Egyptians are overwhelmingly focused on the dire state of their domestic economy. Only 2 percent of those polled said that "strengthening relations with other Muslim countries" should be one of Morsy's top two priorities, and 45 percent agreed with the statement that "Egypt needs to focus on things at home and should be less involved in regional politics."

Nevertheless, 74 percent of those polled said that disapprove of Egypt having diplomatic relations with Israel -- an increase from 26 percent in August 2009 -- and support for a two-state solution to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at only 30 percent. Seventy-seven percent agreed that "The peace treaty with Israel is no longer useful and should be dissolved."

Block blamed that result at least partially on the stance of leading Egyptian politicians like President Morsy, who has indicated recently he does not plan to abrogate the Israel-Egypt peace treaty but whose Muslim Brotherhood party identifies Israel as a racist and expansionist state.

"The fact that Morsy and other leading politicians in Egypt regularly express disdain for the peace treaty leads to such decay in public attitudes," Block said. "Then again, nearly half the public voted for a presidential candidate who openly declared his intent to travel to Israel and support for the Camp David accords."

Block was referring to retired Air Force general Ahmed Shafiq, who served as prime minister under Hosni Mubarak and was defeated narrowly in a runoff election earlier this year.

The poll found that 64 percent of Egyptians still feel warmly about the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which ran Egypt in the interim period before Morsy was elected, and 81 percent approve of the job they are doing. Forty-nine percent of Egyptians polled felt warmly about Morsi, and 43 percent felt warmly about the Muslim Brotherhood.

Forty percent felt warmly about the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, but only 11 percent felt warmly about the Salafist Nour Party, a hard-line Islamist party that fared well in the parliamentary elections.

American politicians fared poorly in the poll, but among them Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was the most popular at 25 percent favorability. President Barack Obama scored 16 percent and Republican nominee Mitt Romney only 8 percent, although only half of Egyptians polled knew who Romney was. (Ahmadinejad's favorability rating? Forty-three percent.)

Most Egyptians don't seem to buy Romney's line that Obama has "thrown Israel under the bus," but they're not too happy about his handling of the region, either.

Asked, "Do you think that President Barack Obama is more on the side of Arabs or more on the side of Israel?," 68 percent of Egyptians said Israel, and 60 percent said that Obama's presidency had been "a negative thing" for the Arab world.

39% of the Egyptians polled expressed interest in learning more about Israel, especially it's political system. The Israel Project runs an outreach program to the Arab world, focusing on social media. Its Facebook page is called "Israel Uncensored."
FP The Cable