Origins of HIV pandemic found in ‘perfect storm’ of 1920s Congo

Flashback:

World’s Leading Vaccine Pioneer Dr. Maurice Hilleman Admits: HIV And Cancer Come From Vaccines (Video)


Origins of HIV pandemic found in ‘perfect storm’ of 1920s Congo (Al Jazeera/Reuters, Oct 3, 2014):

Scientists say rail network, migrant workers and flourishing sex trade in early 20th century Kinshasa bolstered spread

Scientists have traced the origins of the HIV pandemic to early 20th-century Congo, where bustling transport networks, migrant labor and changes to the sex trade created a “perfect storm” that gave rise to the virus that would eventually infect 75 million people worldwide, researchers have said.

In an analysis of the genetic history of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS, scientists said the global pandemic almost certainly began its global spread in the 1920s in the city of Kinshasa in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), then known as Zaire.

Read moreOrigins of HIV pandemic found in ‘perfect storm’ of 1920s Congo

New hotbed of Ebola found in Congo as serum-treated doctor dies

ebola

New hotbed of Ebola found in Congo as serum-treated doctor dies (RT, Aug 25, 2014):

Officials from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) say that a second, separate outbreak of the deadly virus has occurred in the country. Meanwhile, a Liberian doctor treated with an experimental serum against the illness has passed away.

Read moreNew hotbed of Ebola found in Congo as serum-treated doctor dies

Destroying The Jungles Of Ecuador & The Refuge Of The Last Mountain Gorilla In Congo, A World Heritage Site

H/t Reader squodgy:

“As I recall the UN is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, as is the CFR.

David Rockefeller presides with others at the annual gathering of elite at the Bilderburg coven.

David Rockefeller’s Texaco/Chevron destroyed the jungles of Ecuador…”

Donny Rico & Chevron make it a crime to defend the environment.

Jan 20, 2014 Amazon Watch teams up with Pulitzer Prize winner Mark Fiore once again!

Predominantly zionists,

Here is another zionist about to rape another pristine part of the home of the Mountain Gorilla.”

Israeli billionaire finds 3 bln barrels of oil in Congo (Reuters, Aug 7, 2014):

* Find on similar scale to UK, South Sudan oil reserves

* Oil of DRCongo says oil can boost GDP by 25 pct

* Campaigners say Gertler has made huge profits in Congo (Adds industry comment, further explanation in paragraph 3)

KINSHASA – An oil company owned by Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler said on Thursday it had discovered around 3 billion barrels of oil in the Democratic Republic of Congo, an amount similar to the proven reserves of oil producers Britain and South Sudan.

Read moreDestroying The Jungles Of Ecuador & The Refuge Of The Last Mountain Gorilla In Congo, A World Heritage Site

Provoking World War III – Antagonizing The Dragon And Bear

Provoking World War III - Antagonizing the Dragon and Bear

Provoking World War III (Dissident Voice, June 6, 2014):

Antagonizing the Dragon and Bear

It is not prudent and it is not safe to stick an iron rod into a dragon’s mouth. Whatever they say in the West about dragons… but here in Asia, the dragon is revered as the greatest fabled creature on Earth and in the sky. The dragon is wise and patient, and it hardly ever uses force first. But if treated with disrespect and aggression, it is capable of retaliating in a deadly, determined and powerful way.

It is also thoroughly idiotic to go and start terrorizing a sleeping bear. It is obvious what would follow if one descended into a bear’s hole and then started poking a hibernating creature in the head. Nothing good would follow, nothing good at all.

But it appears that those who are ruling the Empire are not obsessed with prudence. They seem to be tired of tiny conflicts, which they are continuously stirring all over the globe. Libya is not enough and Congo is not enough. They need something big, really big; even much bigger than what they had already ‘achieved’ a few decades ago – like the destruction of the entire Indochina or Indonesia.

The Empire needs a mortal fight with mighty opponents.

Instead of helping to build a decent and peaceful world, it needs to cover our planet with innumerable corpses.

This time, if it will be allowed to do it, like it was some 70 years ago, tens of millions, and maybe many more, will vanish.

Once again, it would have to be a dragon and a bear, this time in unison, facing fascism and fighting for the survival of the world.

*****
The anti-Chinese and anti-Russian propaganda howl is reaching a deafening crescendo, especially in Asia. Western media outlets are in the highest gear, spreading propaganda through both their own outlets and through their local media affiliates in the client states, mostly owned by big business.

China and Russia are now vilified, openly insulted, and blamed for the escalation of tensions in the Asia-Pacific region, and for the military build up. The entire mighty Western propaganda machine is now at work, demonizing China, Russia and other independent countries.

It is because the West is obviously pushing this planet towards the war. Not to see it would require truly great discipline.

Politicians are parading, one after another, in front of television cameras, pledging allegiance to capitalism, the Western-style regime or simply put, to the Empire. All those derogatory and inflammatory speeches against their ‘enemies’ are embarrassing, see-through, but nobody in North America and Europe is laughing, as they are becoming the norm.

Many are warning that this can lead to a world war, that the West has lost all restraint and is ready to bathe the planet in blood, once again. A quarter of century ago it appeared that with the destruction of the Eastern block and with China then increasingly on a capitalist course, the West had finally got what it had fought for centuries for – the total and absolute control of the planet.

But recently, something went ‘wrong’ for the West. Latin America rose and most of it gained freedom, then spat on the Monroe Doctrine. China began pushing for socialist reforms in medical care, education, culture and many other spheres. And Russia refused to get bullied and humiliated, reminding both Europe and North America that it is as always powerful and will not be stepped on as happened in the era of Gorbachev and Yeltsin.

North Korea and Iran (countries that have never attacked anyone in modern history) realized that the only way to survive and not to be reduced to dust is by having their own nuclear capacity.

And all these nations: several in Latin America, China, Russia, Iran, joined forces and decided: “Never again!” Never again will they allow the world to descend to the horrors of Western colonialism.

The wet Western dream of unopposed rule over the world is beginning to disappear into thin air. Is the West going to risk the destruction of our planet simply because it cannot own it?

*****
“Stephen Harper attacks Vladimir Putin and ‘evil’ communism”, reported the Canadian news outlet, CBC News on 31 May 2014, in reference to the “lengthy keynote speech” at a fundraising event that the right-wing Canadian PM gave in Toronto. The speech was spiced with “language reminiscent of the height of the Cold War”.

Grotesquely, the President of the most aggressive country on Earth, the United States, Barrack Obama, was promising to ‘curb the aggression’ of Russia and China, two countries that have not invaded anywhere in the last few decades.

In a speech clearly aimed at provoking China, the US Defense secretary Chuck Hagel, spoke more like a thug than a politician: “The United States will not look the other way when fundamental principles of the international order are being challenged.”

‘Which order?’ Some would ask. Was he talking about the order that is being imposed on the world from Washington and European capitals and has been for centuries, at the cost of hundreds of millions of human lives? Quite an order!

Christopher Black, a leading international criminal lawyer based in Toronto, provided an analysis for this report:

The speech made by President Obama at West Point, the American military academy, that the fulcrum of American policy will be to curb the “aggression” of Russia and China immediately followed by his Defense Secretary Hagel in Singapore accusing China of destabilization in the South China Sea, rightly characterized by Lt. General Wang GuanZhong as “threats and intimidation”, express the clear intent of the United States to wage war in all its aspects against the two most powerful nations that dare to develop independently of American domination.

The United States has attacked China several times since World War II, first in the Korean War, followed by decades of attempted sabotage and isolation and then by the NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999. It now has continued that pressure by trying to destabilize China internally through various mechanisms of infiltration of “human rights” groups into Chinese society and within China’s military and administrative mechanisms and a constant propaganda campaign to defame China and its people around the world. The momentum of this strategy has been stepped up with the recent attacks by fanatical Muslim groups from western China against Chinese civilians in key cities and transportation hubs and use of provocateurs to attacks Chinese interests in Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines and Africa and the recent absurd charges against Chinese military officers for cyber attacks.

The recent events in Ukraine show that the pace of this aggression is accelerating as America attempts to complete the encirclement of Russia and China by advancing NATO to Russia’s borders and by repositioning of 60 per cent of US military assets to the Pacific.

But now the true aggressors are blaming the victims for ‘aggression’. And it is nothing new under the sun. Nazi Germany and its propagandists employed the same ‘logic’ and arguments, before and during WWII. And the French used it in Algiers and their other colonies, as did the Brits all over their ‘dependencies’.

*****
In Asia, on a local level, the servile press in countries like the Philippines is taking orders and often surpasses its handlers in the West by its zeal.

On May 25 2014, The Philippine Star began with lashing out at China, continued by quoting the words of Admiral William Locklear III, the commander of US Pacific forces, that “Russia has its own ‘pivot’ in Asia”. Then the newspaper finally produced a few pieces of ‘brilliant’ analyses: “Official sources said Russia’s incursion into Ukraine has raised concern in Washington that China may try something similar in staking its territorial claims, in the guise of protecting its citizens overseas.”

‘Russian incursion into Ukraine?’ That sounds more like propaganda shouting from the pages of the North American or European daily press. In some 15 years of work in the region, after interacting with hundreds of media people from all over Southeast Asia, I have to testify that such a thought as quoted above, could never have come from a local journalist. Here, knowledge about Eastern Europe is very near absolute zero. And after being brainwashed in London, New York and elsewhere, local journalists do not compare. Someone else wrote it. Who did it? We all know it. It is the same source, which sends trolls biting at all my reports written for RT.

Most of the local Philippine press generally concluded that the US has basically no choice but to expand militarily, because of ‘China’s aggressive moves.’ Almost all the newspapers mentioned the high cost of the permanent US military bases in the region, also arguing that ‘spokes’, bases belonging to local countries but wide open for use by US forces, are the real way forward. Such bases would also be located on Australian and Japanese territories, and possibly in Singapore and Thailand, as well as Malaysia.

Now Thailand is certainly ‘secured’, after the army that has been killing millions in the region on behalf of the West, overthrew the progressive and elected government, and took control of the country. The coup is truly timely, isn’t it?

As if it would not already be enough to have countless bases in Africa, the Middle East, Japan, Oceania and those few client states that are still left in Latin America. But of course, those are too far from the main targets – China and Russia.

The mainstream Philippine media is not even bothering to question the integrity of such a military agreement, which is in direct violation of the nation’s Constitution. It is because the journalists in Southeast Asia are not paid and flown for training abroad, to moralize. They are paid to write what suits the elites and their foreign handlers.

Eduardo Tadem, Professor of Asian Studies at the University of Philippines, explained, during our recent conversation in Manila:

The recently signed agreement between the Philippines and the United States is called EDCA (Economic Defense Cooperation Agreement). In this agreement the Philippine government offered virtually all the military bases in the Philippines for total access to American soldiers, for a ten-year period. But who knows for how long, really… This is very dangerous, because all military installations of the country are now open for ‘entry’ of the US forces. And this certainly goes against the Philippine Constitution, which bars the establishment of foreign bases on our territory.

Then what really happened? Why the sudden change?

It has to do with certain factors. One, of course, is the factor of the so-called ‘US pivot’ to Asia. Under Obama there is this strategy of ‘pivoting to Asia’. Second has to do with the so-called Trans-Pacific partnership proposal of the United States; to build some sort of integrated market in the Asia Pacific region. Except that the Philippines is not part of it for now… The third one has to do with the territorial disputes that are taking place in this region, both in the South China Sea and the North China Sea.

China.

It is mainly an issue of nationalism. And it is also because here they were always asking for more assistance, including military assistance. And this is the way to get that assistance. Also remember that Philippine Presidents were consistently supportive of the US. You probably saw the survey that shows that the Philippine people love the United States more than Americans love themselves. So for the Americans it is easy to get support for their China policy here.

I asked both Teresa Tadem, Professor of Political Science at the University of Philippines, and Professor Eduard Tadem, how was it possible that a country, the Philippines, that suffered so severely during its occupation by the United States, during the colonial era, when there were human rights violations, massacres… How come it feels so positive towards its former brutal colonizer?

It has to do with the extremely intensive American propaganda machine, which depicted the colonial era as a benevolent type of colonialism. Atrocities during the Philippine-American War at 1898–1901, which saw 1 million Philippine people killed, which was then almost one tenth of the population, were made to disappear from the consciousness of the people… the genocide, torture… The Philippines was known as the ‘first Vietnam’… all of this has been conveniently forgotten, hidden in the history books. And then of course the image of Hollywood that we are bombarded with…

How dangerous is it to antagonize China and even Russia? For centuries, China had been a very peaceful country, and it still is to this day. Many Filipinos come from China; it is a natural, historical ally… While the West is liquidating, and bombing entire countries into the ground, overthrowing governments, China pulls one oil-rig into disputed waters, sprays a few boats with water cannon, and it is immediately defined as the aggressor.

“It is again all about propaganda. They depicted China as Communist and here they always attach a negative connotation to that word”, said Professor Teresa Tadem.

For me the most dangerous country on Earth now is the United States”, continues Eduardo Tadem. “It has been the most aggressive… intervening in many countries all over the world, thousands of miles from its shores, trying to impose on the planet its vision of a global capitalist system. So, if you compare what China is doing in the vicinity of its territory, and compare it to what the US is doing in all parts of the world, on every continent… then you clearly see the disparity in the image that has been created, depicting China as a danger to peace in the world.

Both professors then expressed deep concern over the fact that the Western propaganda is igniting Sino-phobia in the Filipinos and in other Asians. They pointed out that what the US is doing is actually fanning ultra-nationalism, which can easily mutate into fascism. This is, according to them, an extremely dangerous situation – planting seeds of Sino-phobia all over the continent.

“This can lead to a point of no return”, explains Eduardo Tadem. “I am afraid that this is what is happening now in the Philippines, as well as in other parts of Asia where territorial disputes are taking place.”

And it is clearly not only Sino-phobia that can lead to the destruction of the world, although Sino-phobia is partially, definitely is. Stirring hatred against Russia is also clearly on the menu of the Western masters of propaganda. Stephen Harper of Canada, Polish and Baltic politicians and their irrational anti-Russian speeches, is all leading to a frightening outcome: manufacturing racism against those nations that are standing in the way of US and European domination of the world.

Dehumanizing a potential enemy, unleashing racist and derogatory sentiments against him or her, is the first step in the Western ‘art’ of war, the first step towards a confrontation.

One should seriously question what is being planned? One should demand to know, because what is being planned is most likely really awful.

*****
People are beginning to speak up. Geoffrey Gunn, a prominent Australian historian and Professor Emeritus at Nagasaki University in Japan, wrote to me, for this report:

The international media big notes the “China threat,” yet who is the provocateur? We observe the Japanese Prime Minister in Singapore (May 30) offering to lead an international coalition to check Chinese aggression offering ‘quality’ Japanese naval vessels to obliging clients as with the Philippines and Vietnam. This is madness coming from a nation without official contrition seeking as well to unpick its god-save, the “peace constitution.” Meantime, the neo-con government in Australia overreaches with matching rhetoric, together snaring the US Defense Secretary to offer his own “pivot” to the South China Sea. My spin is to let Asian nationalisms (China, Vietnam, Japan, Korea) resolve their own problems diplomatically – after all the central kingdom has been in place for several millennium – outsiders keep out, militarists watch your step, and China rise peacefully.

From Vietnam, saddened by the new wave of hostilities between two Communist neighbors, Vietnam and China, a renowned Western artist who did not want to be identified, explained the situation:

I have no doubt the West is delighted at the turn of events and will do all it can to further exacerbate the China-Vietnam etc. rift. Of course it serves the pivot to Asia and other nasty US-NATO agendas. But the Vietnamese are just angry at bully China and one can’t argue with them about it. The Vietnam’s PM has been sending text messages to the entire mobile network warning people not to listen to “bad guys” and to only protest within local and international law…

It is striking how emboldened and self-assured Vietnam is becoming, lately, considering that it is actually doing an identical thing as China is – drilling in the disputed area.

Many see tensions between Vietnam and China as dating back to the Chinese punitive expedition to Vietnam (after Vietnam entered Cambodia and deposed the Khmer Rouge), known as the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979. And it is almost bizarre to observe how unforgiving Vietnam is towards China, but how reconciliatory it has become towards the United States.

During the Sino-Vietnamese War some 10,000 Vietnamese civilians lost their lives – definitely not an insignificant number. But how could it even be compared to the millions of Vietnamese civilians who died in the “American War” (or the “Vietnam War” as it is known in the West). During the American War, entire cities were leveled into the ground, fields poisoned, women raped and people burned by napalm and other chemicals.

But, as in case of the Philippines, the creeping Western propaganda erased many of the horrors from people’s minds.

I spent 3 years in Hanoi. Holding US citizenship, I was treated with respect and never insulted. In a stark contrast, now Chinese businesses are being attacked and going up in flames, while Chinese people (from Mainland China, but also from Taiwan and elsewhere), are being chased, beaten, and even killed.

In the meantime, RT reported:

Visiting Washington, General Fang Fenghui also blamed the Obama administration’s “pivot” to Asia as a reason for heightened tensions in the region. He said some Asian nations have used the strategic shift to create mischief in the South and East China Seas.

*****
Are we being dragged into the final global confrontation, to a possible WWIII? Observed from Asia Pacific or from Ukraine, it clearly appears so.

Christopher Black has no doubts that provoking, antagonizing and insulting powerful independent countries like Russia and China may be the next step towards the destruction of our human race:

All these actions are preparations for war. In fact, the positioning of American anti-ballistic missile batteries in Eastern Europe is in preparation for a nuclear first strike on Russia. Those batteries are deployed solely for the purpose of trying to intercept a retaliatory strike by Russian nuclear forces after a US first strike. They have no other purpose. These preparations for a war of aggression, in fact nuclear war, are a clear violation of the UN Charter and all international laws and can rightly be characterized as war crimes. But since the United States has contempt for all international laws and civilized standards of behavior we can expect these preparations to continue.

Mankind rests on the brink of annihilation for no other reason than the American pursuit of unlimited profit. They are the extremists of the capitalist system. We must hope that the skillful diplomacy we have seen employed by both Russia and China, the increased pace of their bilateral cooperation with each other and their increased steps to achieve multilateral cooperation throughout the world from Latin American to Africa and Europe and Asia will change the power dynamics of the world sufficiently to prevent the Americans and their allies from achieving their aims so that the peoples of the world can live in peace and devote their energies to solving mankind’s pressing problems.

The UN Prepares To Go To War For The First Time, Sends 3,000-Strong Task Force To Fight Rebels In Congo

The UN prepares to go to war for the first time, with a 3,000-strong task force sent to fight rebels in the Congo (Daily Mail, June 14, 2013)

  • 3,000 UN troops are being deployed to the central African nation
  • It is the first time that the UN will be in direct control of a fighting force
  • Even normally-reluctant Russia and China voted in favour of the action
  • Mineral-rich Congo has been wracked by years of civil war
  • Conflict was originally sparked by the genocide in neighbouring Rwanda

The UN is about to go to war for the first time in its history after the Security Council voted unanimously to intervene to fight rebels in the Congo.

Around 3,000 UN troops wearing the blue insignia, are being deployed to the central African nation which has been wracked by years of civil war and lawlessness.

The UN has led a 14-year-long peacekeeping in a bid to end the ethic conflict which was sparked by the genocide in neighbouring Rwanda when thousands of Hutus fled into the Congo to evade justice.

Much of the fighting is now over the country’s natural resources which include large quantities of gold, copper, diamonds, and coltan (a mineral used in cell phones).

Read moreThe UN Prepares To Go To War For The First Time, Sends 3,000-Strong Task Force To Fight Rebels In Congo

Obama Regime Gives Military Aid To Nations With Child Soldiers


In early 2010, a boy led the hard-line Islamist al-Shabab fighters as they conducted military exercise in Somalia. The country’s continuous violence appears to have increased recruiting efforts of young fighters, who are easily indoctrinated. (Associated Press)

U.S. gives military aid to nations with child soldiers (Washington Times, Aug 8, 2012):

Obama issues waivers of law

Mr. Obama will decide by early October whether to withhold aid or give waivers to seven countries named in the State Department’s 2012 Trafficking in Persons list as using children as armed combatants. The countries are Congo, Libya, Myanmar (also known as Burma), Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan and Yemen. Burma, Congo, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen are repeat offenders, named on the 2011 list.

In October, responding to the State Department’s 2011 report, Mr. Obama said it was in the “national interest of the United States” that Yemen be granted a full waiver, meaning it was entitled to receive $20 million in military financing aid and $1.2 million in training funds for fiscal 2012. He called Yemen “a key partner in counterterrorism operations against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula” and said that cutting military aid would harm the U.S. relationship with the country and “have a negative impact on U.S. national security.”

The president granted a partial waiver to Congo, saying that government had “taken some steps to reduce child soldiers,” but acknowledged that the progress made by Congo “does not yet represent the kind of institutional change required to make real progress toward eliminating child soldiers.”

Chad received a waiver for efforts to come into compliance with the law. Burma, Somalia and Sudan did not receive U.S. aid subject to the act, although the Transitional Federal Government in Somalia, which has child soldiers, is scheduled to receive $50 million in separate peacekeeping aid not subject to the Child Soldier Prevention Act.

In 2010, the first year the law was in effect, Mr. Obama gave full national-interest waivers to Chad, Congo, Sudan and Yemen.

Read moreObama Regime Gives Military Aid To Nations With Child Soldiers

John Pilger: ‘Obama, The Son of Africa, Claims a Continent’s Crown Jewels’

‘DIRECTLY RELATED’ News:

Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Dr. Steve Pieczenik Absolut Sure MUAMMAR GADDAFI Is ALIVE – ‘Obama Is An Obsessional Pathological Liar!’ (Video):

“There’s no way they killed Muammar Gaddafi, that’s not our operating mode and I’ve been involved in 30 years with the takeouts and change the regimes.”


Obama, The Son of Africa, Claims a Continent’s Crown Jewels (Global Research, by John Pilger, Oct. 20, 2011):

On 14 October, President Barack Obama announced he was sending United States special forces troops to Uganda to join the civil war there. In the next few months, US combat troops will be sent to South Sudan, Congo and Central African Republic. They will only “engage” for “self-defence”, says Obama, satirically. With Libya secured, an American invasion of the African continent is under way.

Obama’s decision is described in the press as “highly unusual” and “surprising”, even “weird”. It is none of these things. It is the logic of American foreign policy since 1945. Take Vietnam. The priority was to halt the influence of China, an imperial rival, and “protect” Indonesia, which President Nixon called “the region’s richest hoard of natural resources …the greatest prize”. Vietnam merely got in the way; and the slaughter of more than three million Vietnamese and the devastation and poisoning of their land was the price of America achieving its goal. Like all America’s subsequent invasions, a trail of blood from Latin America to Afghanistan and Iraq, the rationale was usually “self defence” or “humanitarian”, words long emptied of their dictionary meaning.

In Africa, says Obama, the “humanitarian mission” is to assist the government of Uganda defeat the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), which “has murdered, raped and kidnapped tens of thousands of men, women and children in central Africa”. This is an accurate description of the LRA, evoking multiple atrocities administered by the United States, such as the bloodbath in the 1960s following the CIA-arranged murder of Patrice Lumumba, the Congolese independence leader and first legally elected prime minister, and the CIA coup that installed Mobutu Sese Seko, regarded as Africa’s most venal tyrant.

Read moreJohn Pilger: ‘Obama, The Son of Africa, Claims a Continent’s Crown Jewels’

Congo Gold Smuggling Ring’s Big Texas Ties

See also:

Bizarre Link Between The Obama Administration And The Jet Loaded With Millions in Gold and Cash Seized by Congolese Authorities

Jet Loaded With Millions in Gold and Cash Seized by Congolese Authorities Linked to Philanthropist David Disiere


A Dallas-based Gulfstream V luxury jet seized for gold smuggling last month by authorities in the war-torn eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is also under investigation for drug running by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

The Gulfstream implicated in gold trafficking in Goma was on the DEA’s watch list, according to reporter Melanie Gouby from the Radio Netherlands Worldwide (RNW) news service. The BBC World Service was reporting the same thing.

Contacted over the weekend, Gouby identified the source of the drug trafficking allegation as Lambert Mendé, a Minister in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the government’s chief spokesman.

“Mendé told me the plane was wanted by the DEA for drug trafficking,” she told us.

Desiere’s Gulfstreams (he has three) are based at Fort Worth Alliance Airport near Dallas, the same airport where the Drug Enforcement Administration keeps its fleet of planes.

March 2, 2011
by Daniel Hopsicker

Full (recommended) article here: Madcow Morning News

Bahraini protesters move to parliament building – Oman protests spread, road to port blocked – Congo coup attempt leaves six dead, say authorities – China’s jasmine revolution: police but no protesters line streets of Beijing – China’s working poor not yet ready to revolt – Chile President faces protests a year after quake

Bahraini protesters move to parliament building (Reuters):

MANAMA (Reuters) – Bahrainis campaigning for democratic reforms in the Gulf Arab state staged a protest outside the U.S. ally’s parliament building on Monday, demanding that all its members resign over protester deaths.

Seven people were killed and hundreds wounded in protests earlier this month by Bahrainis mainly from the majority Shi’ite Muslim community who complain of repression by the Sunni monarchy and Sunni ruling elite.

“We came to this parliament to say that you represent the people and you represent us — take an honourable position over the killings by the army,” said Mirza al-Shihabi, one of around 500 protesters outside the building in central Manama.

Oman protests spread, road to port blocked (Reuters):

(Reuters) – Demonstrators blocked roads to a main port in northern Oman and looted a nearby supermarket on Monday, part of protests to demand more jobs and political reform that have spread to the sultanate’s capital.

A doctor said six people had been killed in clashes between stone-throwing protesters and police on Sunday in the northern industrial town of Sohar. Oman’s health minister said one person had been killed and 20 wounded.

Hundreds of protesters blocked access to an industrial area that includes the port, a refinery and aluminium factory. A port spokeswoman said exports of refined oil products of about 160,000 barrels per day (bpd) from the port were unaffected.

“We want to see the benefit of our oil wealth distributed evenly,” one protester yelled over a loudhailer near the port. “We want to see a scale-down of expatriates in Oman so more jobs can be created for Omanis.”

Congo coup attempt leaves six dead, say authorities (Guardian):

Six people were killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo in what authorities said was a coup attempt on the presidential palace in the capital Kinshasa.

“We have witnessed a coup attempt,” the information minister, Lambert Mende, said.

“A group of heavily armed people attacked the presidential palace. They were stopped at the first roadblock. Our soldiers fought with them, arrested some of them and six people were killed.”

China’s jasmine revolution: police but no protesters line streets of Beijing (Guardian):

Police in Beijing and other cities mounted a major show of force following an anonymous call for protests inspired by the Middle East uprisings.

A US journalist was punched and kicked in the face and more than a dozen other journalists manhandled, detained or delayed as they covered the events which revealed official anxiety over similar protests against authoritarian rule in China.

Bloomberg Journalist Assaulted as China Heightens Security (Blommberg):

A Bloomberg News journalist was assaulted yesterday in Beijing while covering the deployment of police in response to online calls for protests in the Chinese capital.

At least five men in plain clothes, who appeared to be security personnel, punched and kicked the reporter at Beijing’s Wangfujing shopping street at 2:45 p.m. local time yesterday. They also took the video camera he was carrying and detained him in a roadside store.

Uniformed police arrived after the attack and escorted the journalist to a nearby station where he filed a report of the attack before seeking treatment for his injuries at a local hospital. Police returned the video camera while the reporter was at the station, saying a passerby had found it.

China’s working poor not yet ready to revolt (Guardian):

Like the Tunisian whose self-immolation sparked a revolt, Xu Mingao is a young street vendor. Fourteen-hour days selling flatbread in Zhongguancun – the capital’s Silicon Valley – earn him about 7,500 yuan (£709) a year.

Home is a tiny cubicle in a dusty, hastily constructed neighbourhood where adverts pasted to lampposts seek workers who can “eat bitterness” – endure the grind.

But the 30-year-old is “pretty happy” with his life: “The difference [from the old days] is huge. When I was small my family had to borrow money for my schooling and we wore hand-me-downs,” he said.

He and his wife have built a house back in their home town in Anhui with their earnings and hope for an office career for their boy.

Chile President faces protests a year after quake (Guardian):

Associated Press= SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — President Sebastian Pinera marked Sunday’s anniversary of one of the largest earthquakes in recorded history by praising his government’s progress on reconstruction and calling for national unity.

Instead, his political opponents staged protests and questioned his numbers.

Bizarre Link Between The Obama Administration And The Jet Loaded With Millions in Gold and Cash Seized by Congolese Authorities

See also:

Jet Loaded With Millions in Gold and Cash Seized by Congolese Authorities Linked to Philanthropist David Disiere:

A Gulfstream jet seized by Congolese authorities suspected of being used to smuggle gold from rebel-controlled strongholds is apparently owned by a North Texas aviation firm owned by Southlake philanthropist David Disiere, records show.

EXPOSED: Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago Political Syndicate – Total Corruption


Private plane seized in gold-smuggling case is leased by oil-trading firm CAMAC


Kase and Eileen Lawal at the CAMAC 25th anniversary party at Hobby Center.

A private jet that flew four international businessmen to the Democratic Republic of the Congo where they are being held on gold-smuggling allegations was provided by CAMAC International, a Houston oil-trading company owned by one of the city’s richest men and a brother of one of the passengers.

Kase Lawal, a Nigerian-born immigrant who has overseen CAMAC’s rise to a $2.4 billion private company — said to be the second-largest black-owned business in the U.S. — and who was recently appointed to an advisory post in the Obama administration, is the half-brother of Mukaila Aderemi “Mickey” Lawal, who was detained along with fellow Houstonian Carlos St. Mary and two other businessmen as their plane was preparing to depart from Goma, a city in the mineral-laden eastern half of Congo.

The country recently banned the export of gold and other key minerals in an attempt to decriminalize its mining industries.

Read moreBizarre Link Between The Obama Administration And The Jet Loaded With Millions in Gold and Cash Seized by Congolese Authorities

Jet Loaded With Millions in Gold and Cash Seized by Congolese Authorities Linked to Philanthropist David Disiere

A Gulfstream jet seized by Congolese authorities suspected of being used to smuggle gold from rebel-controlled strongholds is apparently owned by a North Texas aviation firm owned by Southlake philanthropist David Disiere, records show.

Dow Jones reported today that the tail number on the jet is N886DT, which FAA records shows to be owned by Southlake Aviation LLC. Disiere is that company’s director and president.

Disiere did not return phone calls to his house in Southlake today. It’s unclear whether he was leasing the plane to someone else or had any knowledge of the African incident.

Read moreJet Loaded With Millions in Gold and Cash Seized by Congolese Authorities Linked to Philanthropist David Disiere

The 21st-century African land grab by rich countries facing global food and water shortages

Highly recommended article.


An Observer investigation reveals how rich countries faced by a global food shortage now farm an area double the size of the UK to guarantee supplies for their citizens

the-21st-century-african-land-grab-by-rich-countries-faced-by-global-food-and-water-shortages
A woman tends vegetables at a giant Saudi-financed farm in Ethiopia.

We turned off the main road to Awassa, talked our way past security guards and drove a mile across empty land before we found what will soon be Ethiopia’s largest greenhouse. Nestling below an escarpment of the Rift Valley, the development is far from finished, but the plastic and steel structure already stretches over 20 hectares – the size of 20 football pitches.

The farm manager shows us millions of tomatoes, peppers and other vegetables being grown in 500m rows in computer controlled conditions. Spanish engineers are building the steel structure, Dutch technology minimises water use from two bore-holes and 1,000 women pick and pack 50 tonnes of food a day. Within 24 hours, it has been driven 200 miles to Addis Ababa and flown 1,000 miles to the shops and restaurants of Dubai, Jeddah and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Ethiopia is one of the hungriest countries in the world with more than 13 million people needing food aid, but paradoxically the government is offering at least 3m hectares of its most fertile land to rich countries and some of the world’s most wealthy individuals to export food for their own populations.

The 1,000 hectares of land which contain the Awassa greenhouses are leased for 99 years to a Saudi billionaire businessman, Ethiopian-born Sheikh Mohammed al-Amoudi, one of the 50 richest men in the world. His Saudi Star company plans to spend up to $2bn acquiring and developing 500,000 hectares of land in Ethiopia in the next few years. So far, it has bought four farms and is already growing wheat, rice, vegetables and flowers for the Saudi market. It expects eventually to employ more than 10,000 people.

But Ethiopia is only one of 20 or more African countries where land is being bought or leased for intensive agriculture on an immense scale in what may be the greatest change of ownership since the colonial era.

An Observer investigation estimates that up to 50m hectares of land – an area more than double the size of the UK – has been acquired in the last few years or is in the process of being negotiated by governments and wealthy investors working with state subsidies. The data used was collected by Grain, the International Institute for Environment and Development, the International Land Coalition, ActionAid and other non-governmental groups.

The land rush, which is still accelerating, has been triggered by the worldwide food shortages which followed the sharp oil price rises in 2008, growing water shortages and the European Union’s insistence that 10% of all transport fuel must come from plant-based biofuels by 2015.

Read moreThe 21st-century African land grab by rich countries facing global food and water shortages