"“We have lent a huge amount of money to the U.S. Of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I am definitely a little worried.” "


Chinese premier Wen Jiabao 12th March 2009


""We have a financial system that is run by private shareholders, managed by private institutions, and we'd like to do our best to preserve that system."


Timothy Geithner US Secretary of the Treasury, previously President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.1/3/2009

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Hekmatyar .. watch this space.

Islamabad, 10 January (Asiantribune.com): Afghan rebel leader and chief of Hizb-e-Islami Afghanistan Enginner Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has urged all Afghans to continue their fight until all "occupation forces" are "driven out" of the country.

In a message released in Pakistan on in advance of the Muslim festival of Eid-ul-Adha which falls on Jan 11, the fugitive rebel commander said the "real Eid" (happiness) would be celebrated when Afghanistan was "free of foreign agents" and would not need to seek foreign assistance or to "bow to others".

In order to achieve this, Hekmatyar said, it was incumbent upon "every Afghan and every Muslim" to engage in jihad (holy war).

"With the Grace of God, Afghans waged jihad against former Soviet Russia for the same sacred purpose. Once again, they have waged jihad against the current US and British-led crusade. God willing, this jihad will continue until all occupation forces are driven out of every corner of the country and an Islamic system is established in Afghanistan in accordance with the people's wishes. God willing, that Eid will also come, and it will come very soon."

In his message, the Afghan former Prime Minister also denounced last year's parliamentary elections in Afghanistan, saying they had been rigged by the US.

He said the aim of the polls had been to hide "colonialist occupation" under "the disguise of democracy". This was designed to establish "an obedient and weak parliament" which would sign "treaties of subjugation".

Nuclear Power Race under starters orders.

Westinghouse Pleased With Selection of AP1000 Nuclear Technology for Potential Expansion at Plant Vogtle
PITTSBURGH, /PRNewswire/ -- Westinghouse Electric Company
President and CEO Steve Tritch said today that he and Westinghouse employees
throughout the world are pleased with the selection of the AP1000 as the
technology of choice for potential new nuclear plants at the Alvin W. Vogtle
Electric Generating Plant near Waynesboro, Ga.
The selection of the AP1000 was announced earlier today by Georgia Power
and Southern Nuclear Operating Company, which operates the plant for a number
of co-owners, including Georgia Power. Southern Nuclear and Georgia Power are
subsidiaries of Southern Company.
"The decision to pursue an Early Site Permit (ESP) and a Combined
Construction and Operating License (COL) for the Plant Vogtle site is the most
recent in a series of positive steps toward a nuclear renaissance in the
United States," Mr. Tritch said. "Southern Company has always been a
progressive force in our industry, and we are both pleased and excited to be
able to now work with such a long-term and valued customer in the new plant
arena."
The AP1000 received Design Certification from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission on Dec. 31, 2005. It is the only Generation III+ nuclear power
plant to have received either Final Design Approval or Design Certification
from the NRC.
Earlier this week, Progress Energy announced that it had selected the
AP1000 as the technology for possible new plants at the Harris Nuclear Pant
site near New Hill, N.C.
Duke Power announced in October, 2005 that it would pursue a Combined
Construction and Operating License for two AP1000s at a still-to-be-determined
site. In September 2005, NuStart, the nation's largest consortium of nuclear
power companies, selected TVA's Bellefonte Nuclear Plant site for a COL
application for the AP1000.
Westinghouse believes the AP1000 is ideally suited for the worldwide
nuclear power marketplace. The AP1000 is:

- The safest, most advanced, yet proven nuclear power plant currently
available in the worldwide marketplace (conservative probabilistic risk
assessment (PRA): core damage frequency potential at negligible
2.5x10-(7))
- Based on standard Westinghouse pressurized water reactor (PWR)
technology that has achieved more than 2,500 reactor years of highly
successful operation
- An 1100MWe design that is ideal for providing baseload generating
capacity
- Modular in design, promoting ready standardization and high
construction quality
- Economical to construct and maintain (less concrete and steel and fewer
components and systems mean there is less to install, inspect and
maintain)
- Designed to promote ease of operation (features most advanced
instrumentation and control (I&C) in the industry)

For more information about the Westinghouse AP1000, visit its Web site at
http://www.ap1000.westinghousenuclear.com. For images of the AP1000, visit
http://www.westinghousenuclear.com/D6.asp.

Westinghouse Electric Company is the world's pioneering nuclear power
company and is a leading supplier of nuclear plant products and technologies
to utilities throughout the world. Westinghouse supplied the world's first
PWR in 1957 in Shippingport, Pa. Today, Westinghouse technology is the basis
for approximately one-half of the world's operating nuclear plants, including
60 percent of those in the United States.

SOURCE Westinghouse Electric Company

Interesting Fact. The Folks who make the Predator UAV that was so succesful inkilling mums and their kids on the Pakistani border have another side to their business... Mining Uranium. That is called covering all the bases, well the ones that matter.

Kharzai says job in Afghanistan is now 10 - 15 years.

Interviewed before the London summit of babblers, Kharzai welcomes even more aid and men with guns.

The henchmen of Hakmatyr ...see following... are waiting for the UK troops to undertake there as yet unstated mission in the South of Afghanistan. K says poppy plantingsd are down 21 % this year, a curiously accurate figure. 21% are you sure thats not 22% K ? Evidently his agrarian sleuths are far more effective than tyhe EU bureaucrats who manage to miss millions of hectares of Greek and Italian Olive Trees.

Here is a prophetic piece which is worth re-reading

http://www.williambowles.info/asia/hekmatyar.html


22/12/04 “Official” Terrorist lights fires of resistance in Afghanistan by Edward Teague

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar leads the Mujahideen faction, of fundamentalist Sunni Muslim Pashtuns, the Hezb-e-Islami, which was one of the groups that ended the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. His forces were a main beneficiary of the 7 mujahideen groups recognised by Pakistan and US intelligence agencies for the channelling of money and arms during the 1979-89 war. Among those arms were Stinger surface-to-air missiles. (The first Stinger was fired by a Hezb-e-Islami soldier near Jalalabad on September 25, 1986. The Stingers traced back to the Afghan Mujahedin have since been located in Chechyna, Tajikistan and the Philippines.)

Mullah Omar supported him during this period.Hezb-e-Islami clashed with other groups but refused to share power with Burhan-ud-Din Rabbani and Ahmed Shah Masood of the Northern Alliance for control of the capital, Kabul. As a result the The Hezb-e-Islami ( who with General Dostum) was blamed for the violence and destruction of that period, and Hekmatyr was called the butcher of the Muslims.

Many Afghan observers accuse Hekmatyar of killing more Mujahideen members than Communists. After losing support from the Pakistan ISI and the Saudis he was forced to flee Kabul when support shifted to the Taliban.Hekmatyr ended up being given refuge in Tehran where the Iranians saw him as a useful Pashtun bargain counter. However his very vocal opposition to the US and their man Kharzai , became an embarassment and he was expelled and his offices closed on Feb 26th 2002.Late in 2002 it was reported that Hekmatyar was giving full support to Karzai administration, although the warlord’s whereabouts were unknown. Soon after Afghan administration arrested 160 people in Kabul in a suspected anti-government plot who were said to be members of Hezb-e-Islami.Another report claimed the CIA reportedly spotted him in the Shegal Gorge, near Kabul, and tried (unsuccessfully) to kill him with a modified anti-tank missile from a Predator unmanned spy plane.

The US still had him in their sights and were said to be behind the arrest in Islamabad in October of his son, Ghairat Baheer.On February 19, 2003 American tolerance snapped and the US DOS designated Gulbuddin Hekmatyar as a Terrorist.All has been quiet so far this year, whilst the poppy harvest have been rolling in and the pipeline of drugs packed in bales of cotton shipped by Karimov’s daughter, to the West through Uzbekistan keeps rolling on. Now the warlords see an opportunity to remove the puppet US administration in Kabul, whilst an increasingly desperate Kharzai is asking his US protectors to set up bases in Kabul and elsewhere.

There are reports that five parties met last week near Mazar-e-Sharif (N Afghanistan) and agreed to support the mass mobilisation of people against the US presence.and to turn it into a political movement. Among those present was former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani, Ittahad-i-Islami Afghanistan, a representative of two local Tajik groups and a group from neighbouring Uzbekistan.Whilst Western Press reports have been anxious to suggest that the Afghan rioting last week was directly related to the Newsweek report of Koranic toilet douching ( a widely read weekly in Kabul ?) The Taliban radio and prayer leaders at local mosques, were asking Afghans to rise up against the American presence in the country. A prayer leader at a local mosque in Kabul, Maulvi Habibullah Shariati, was arrested when he told those who had gathered for the prayers to kick out the American forces from the country.The Hizb-i-islami Afghanistan, a Taliban movement led by Maulvi Younus Khalis, as well as Gulbadin Hikmatyar’s Hezb -e- Islami were the most active segments within the Pashtun-dominated cities of Kabul, Jalalabad, Khost, Asadabad and Kandahar, that were asking for a massive mobilisation against the US presence in Afghanistan.

Diplomatic sources in Kabul see a strong spring offensive (That is 2005 remeber and was on the button) that the Taliban fighters have launched, with a much wider and popular a wider political movement against the US.UK / NATO military observers were seen in the region last week considering a call from the White House (Condi / Rummy et. al. as the ordure hits the aircon) to plunge UK troops into this bloody cauldron.

Watch this space for an announcement about troop movements from the Scotsman John Reid AKA Minister of Defence – augmenting NATO forces (now approx 500) – beefing up the response – sharing the burden – spreading the load – part of a widening response in the War on Terror – blah blah … pulling US chestnuts out of the fire – re-run history reel .. Terrorist aided by US bites the hand that feeds … Osama ? Hekmatyar ?Get yer placards out.

Meanwhile reports about the Apache Longbow, talk of hefty maintenance, lack of spoares, unreliability...remember we opened a production line in the UK to make them.. thought the UK could teach the US to make engineering equipment ?

Probably the lost curious aspect of the Reid announcement on salisbury Plain was that nobody pointed out that the Plain , Norfolk and Otterburn are somewhat flatter than the borders of South Afghanistan... but hey he got to wear a natty Cammo jacket.

Project for the New American Century

It makes sense to re-visit the statement of principles (!) of the signatories (and who they were) to the PNAC. The website referenced is well worth visiting if you want to know what is motivating the "manifest destiny".

(C) PNAC no doubt.....

• we need to increase defense spending significantly if we are to carry out our global
responsibilities today and modernize our armed forces for the future;
• we need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values;
• we need to promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad;
• we need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.
Such a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable today. But it is necessary if the United States is to build on the successes of this past century and to ensure our security and our greatness in the next.
Elliott Abrams Gary Bauer William J. Bennett Jeb Bush

Dick Cheney Eliot A. Cohen Midge Decter Paula Dobriansky Steve Forbes

Aaron Friedberg Francis Fukuyama Frank Gaffney Fred C. Ikle

Donald Kagan Zalmay Khalilzad I. Lewis Libby Norman Podhoretz

Dan Quayle Peter W. Rodman Stephen P. Rosen Henry S. Rowen

Donald Rumsfeld Vin Weber George Weigel Paul Wolfowitz
http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm

Russians to get first bite at Iraqi oil fields ?

Readers will know how obsessed I get with Mr Alekperov. Even the London based Financial Times has today noticed that Leonid Fedun, Lukoil’s vice-president, said in an interview: “This year we will be able to start specific negotiations to develop fields.” He added: “2006 for us is the year that we are very optimistic. Finally we have a legitimate government in Iraq.”

Lukoil has the major stake in the $3.8bn (€3bn, £2bn) West Qurna oilfield, for which it signed a contract in 1997. But Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s former president, severed the contract in late 2002, shortly before the US invasion that toppled him.
Mr Fedun said Lukoil – which has set up an office in Baghdad, organised training programmes for hundreds of Iraqi engineers in Russia and had discussions between the Iraqi Oil Ministry and the company’s executives, expects the contract to be honoured.

Conoco Phillips have of course got an interest in Lukoil and Chevron share a Director.

Mr A is quietly stitching up major world wide deals in the old CIS states, Venezuela, Bolivia, China....

(C) Very Seriously Disorganised Criminals 2002/3/4/5/6/7/8/9 - copy anything you wish