Infinite Unknown

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. Continue reading »

Tags: Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaida, Barack Obama, Children, Congo, Dictatorship, Fascism, Global News, Government, Libya, Military, Myanmar, New World Order, Obama administration, Politics, Society, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen. Burma, Sudan, Terrorism, U.S., War, Yemen

‘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.

Continue reading »

Tags: AFRICOM, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaida, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Economy, Global News, Government, Libya, Military, Muammar Gaddafi, Politics, Society, Special Forces, Sudan, Terrorism, Terrorists, U.S.

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

Tags: CIA, Congo, Crime, Drugs, Gold, Government, Obama administration, Politics, Society, U.S.

- 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.

Tags: Bahrain, Chile, China, Congo, Global News, Government, Oman, Politics, Protesters, Society

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.

Continue reading »

Tags: Barack Obama, Congo, Crime, Global News, Gold, Government, Obama administration, Politics, U.S.

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.

Continue reading »

Tags: Africa, Congo, David Disiere, Global News, Gold

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

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. Continue reading »

Tags: Abu Dhabi, Africa, biofuel, China, Congo, Corporations, Economy, Environment, Ethiopia, Farmers, farmland, Food, Food shortages, Ghana, Government, India, Kenya, Kuwait, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Politics, Quatar, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Society, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Water, Water shortages, Zambia, Zimbabwe