₦airaland Forum

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recolonization?




Liberia sells almost quarter of country to logging companies
Liberia's internationally acclaimed president has surrendered almost a quarter of her country to foreign logging companies, endangering the biggest surviving rainforest in West Africa.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/liberia/9518238/Liberia-sells-almost-quarter-of-country-to-logging-companies.html

IDF blocked food transfer to African immigrants


[img]http://attendingtheworld.files./2008/09/ethiopiajews.jpg?w=416&h=300[/img]

Physicians for Human Rights claims soldiers prevented its members from reaching group of African asylum seekers trapped between fences along Israel-Egypt border. ‘Israel shirking legal, moral obligations,’ activist says; Interior Ministry: Israel not obligated to let group in

ynet

A number of social activists and members of human rights groups claimed that the IDF prevented them from transferring food to African asylum seekers trapped between fences on the Israel-Egypt border overnight Wednesday.

The activists said the army explained that the area was a closed military zone and denied them access to the infiltrators.

It was reported that the group of 20 Eritrean migrants have been trapped between the fences for five days after attempting to cross into Israel. They were caught by obstacles that line the border area, within Israeli territory.

The IDF said soldiers have been ordered to give them water.

“We left Tel Aviv with bags filled with food and canned goods with the aim of reaching the trapped asylum seekers,” said Physicians for Human Rights-Israel activist Yaniv Fenig.

The 30-year-old med student told Ynet the activists arrived at the border region at around midnight and began heading towards the infiltrators on foot. “When we were about half a kilometer away an IDF vehicle arrived and soldiers asked us to clear out, claiming it was a closed military zone,” he said.

Fenig said the activists left the area, but were later told by an IDF officer at the scene that the infiltrators were not being provided with any food. He said that when the activists asked what the army expects the infiltrators to do, the battalion commander replied: ‘They should walk back a few meters into Egypt, where they will get all the assistance they need.’

“The soldiers accompanied us out of what they said was a closed military zone. We left the food with them and asked that they give it to the asylum seekers,” the activist said.

Fenig said the trip was organized after they learned that “people were starving in the scorching heat and their lives are in danger.

“The goal was to help ease their suffering, which, absurdly, is being caused by the State of Israel. Israel is shirking all of its legal and moral obligations,” the activist said.

“It’s absurd that people who, according to recent accounts, suffered torture and rape are now trapped between two fences and Israel is trying to starve them in hopes that they will walk back towards Egyptian positions,” Fenig argued.

Early Wednesday morning saw another group of activists head to the border area to try and transfer food to the trapped Africans.

‘Israel not obligated to allow entry’
In a legal opinion issued on Wednesday, the Interior Ministry asserted that Israel does not have “any legal duty to allow entrance to refugees located beyond the border.”

“As per the international practices and the relevant precedents, the fence marks the actual border. Anyone who is located beyond the border is not located within Israel’s territory, and is ineligible for entry,” the legal opinion read.

“There has been no ruling made by an international agency to determine that the Sudanese or the Eritreans are prosecuted in Egypt or are found in mortal danger there.”

Interior Minister Eli Yishai addressed the issue as well, saying that while he is not indifferent to the fate of the asylum seekers, his primary duty is to tend to the state and its residents.

“The State of Israel has become a destination for infiltrators and migrant workers, so much so that it sometimes appears as though many parts within it are no longer part of the Jewish Zionist state,” he said.

“I am saddened by the situation of the infiltrators on Israel’s border,” he added. “I am not indifferent to their circumstances, as well as the circumstances of millions of others in the world. I wish I had the power to help and heal.”

Some two weeks ago, Israel allowed a group of African migrants into the country on humanitarian grounds, after they camped out at a border-adjacent reservoir.

Once in Israel, they received medical attention and were then transferred to a holding facility.

Attorney Oded Feller of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel said, “Israel has every right to build a border fence, but this fence does not exempt it from its duties.

“If people are begging for their lives at the foot of that fence, we must make sure that their lives are not in danger, and if one awaits them – we must let them in. They cannot be allowed to starve. This is a disgrace,” he said.


http://www.unhcr.org/4ce531e09.pdf


US foreign aid to Israel

http://www.peacenowar.net/Palestine/News/US%20aids.htm

A1. Constitutes 30% of the total US foreign aid budget, which renders Israel to be the largest recipient of US aid in the world

recent online article


Christians disrespected in Christ's Motherland

Monday, 03 September 2012 12:11 Written by mar





09.2012- After the "Arab Spring" the life in a number of countries in the Middle East became dramatically more extreme. In Iraq, Egypt and is7Syria, life for Christians became very difficult. But there is a Middle Eastern country whose main religion is not Islam.

How do Christians live in Israel? Was Prime Minister Netanyahu right when he said that Christians freely profess their faith there?

Speaking recently in Jerusalem, Benjamin Netanyahu said, "If in many countries, such as Syria, Christians live in a state of siege, here, in Israel, they are free to practice their faith." The Israeli prime minister urged Christians to rally around Israel and protect the Christian civilization from total Islamization posed by the "Arab Spring."

Netanyahu's words were heard at the congress of the movement "Christians for Israel" whose members call themselves Christian Zionists. Long before the Christian Zionist Congress, Russian experts voiced the same opinion that Netanyahu expressed. In their view, in the near future, Israel will be the last refuge of Christianity in the Middle East, as other Christian areas of the region will be swept away by the bloody "Arab Spring" and the growth of Islamic fundamentalist tendencies. In a raging ocean of armed jihad and war "a la Somalia," which threatens the Middle East in the near future, Israel actually looks like Noah's ark for Christians. But is this true?

Israeli experts interviewed by a reporter of GTimessaid that Netanyahu's words of the free exercise of Christianity in Israel were, to say the least, wishful thinking. "Netanyahu is a pathological liar. There is discrimination against Christians in all areas. Recently one man, accused of baptizing his children, was deported from Israel. "Especially hard is the life of Jewish Christians," said an Israeli human rights activist Maria Pesikova. "According to the Israeli law, a converted Jew has no right to repatriation, so Christians have to deny their faith when entering the country, in other words, to renounce Christ. Children of Jewish Christians are bullied in schools. Moreover, Christian parents of Jews are not allowed to teach their children faith. If Social Services find out that a Jewish child is a Christian who fasts, prays and goes to the temple with her parents, the authorities have the right to take away custody of the child from the parents, as it is considered child abuse."

Israeli writer Israel Shamir, who came from the Soviet Union, is a Jew who converted to Orthodoxy. "Israel does not carefully and persistently chase Palestinian Christians to replace them with Christians from Iraq or Syria," he said in an interview with GTimes. "In the homeland of Jesus Christianity is persecuted: churches are set on fire, there are laws against missionaries. In Knesset the Gospel was publicly destroyed."

The last reference is to the notorious case on July 17, when a deputy Michael Ben-Ari publicly tore the New Testament and threw it in the trash. The journalists who were in the audience remember the words of Ben-Ari: "This book served and continues to serve as the basis for the persecution and murder of Jews. Its place is in the trash."
[img]http://2.bp..com/--zcbzxIs3qM/UAcqy4cxvdI/AAAAAAAAh-I/D4Lra3pAf5Y/s1600/isreali_law_maker%2B%2528500x375%2529.jpg[/img]

Desecration and destruction of Christian churches began in the early days of Israel. From 1947 to 1967, most of the local Christian churches and monasteries have been taken from the faithful and turned into military camps, depots, and artillery batteries. It got to the point that some Israeli soldiers would relieve themselves at a Christian cemetery.

In 1948, during the Nakba, military blew up a Christian church in the Arab village of Ikret and destroyed nearly all of its residents. Ikret was fully populated by Christian Arabs. They did not want to leave their homes and the graves of their ancestors, and met the Israelis with arms.

During the Six-Day War IDF soldiers again desecrated the Holy Sepulcher and fired guns at a famous Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. In Ramallah, the current capital of the Palestinian Authority (PA), the Israeli shelled a women's Episcopal School, where many Arab girls studied. Many of them drew their last breath in the rubble of the destroyed school.

After the Six Day War, the existence of Christians in Israel became reminiscent of a life on a volcano. Brief periods of peace were alternated by the harassment by radical Zionists. Thugs Molested nuns, beat priests, threw stones at Christian procession and hand grenades through the windows of churches.

During the exacerbation of Israeli relations with the Soviet Union, the Russian Orthodox Mission in Jerusalem was subject to attacks. It was considered the KGB residency in Israel. Head of the Mission, Archimandrite Tikhon (Zaitsev) in 2008, recalled that seeing a priest, rabbis would spit at his feet. "Spitting was not that bad, it happened that stones were thrown at us," he said. By law, rabbis were required to pay fines for these misdemeanors, but all attempts to bring them to justice would end in failure. Bullies and tyrants were either helped by the police, or bailed by the Knesset members.

However, bullying and Molestation were nothing compared to the tragedy of Palestinian Christianity in the late 1990's - early 2000s. After 1997, Israel gave the PA a number of controversial areas, and the number of Christians there showed a sharp decline. Muslim fanatics of Fatah and the "Islamic Jihad" considered Christians the "fifth column" of Israel, organized real genocide for their brothers in faith. The PA appealed to Tel Aviv during the persecution of Christians, but Tel Aviv was not touched. Benjamin Netanyahu was Israeli Prime Minister at the time.

For the current Israeli leader, the issue of the Christian denomination is directly linked to his personal situation as a politician. Christians for him are chess pieces in a series of multi-series combinations. Netanyahu admitted that his family never had anything against Christians. Moreover, speaking last Sunday in Jerusalem, Netanyahu vowed to defend the Christian civilization.

Meanwhile, the situation of Christians in Israel is still very controversial. According to a Catholic priest at a parish of Haifa, "for the Israeli, a Christian is a person who should be avoided." A Christian is pariah and a permanent "irritant" for the orthodox Jews, who, seeing a cross on his neck, can easily spit at him or his feet, expressing their disgust with the "impure." This applies to all individuals in Israel, Christians, Arabs, Armenians, the Greeks, and the Russian. The most difficult situation, of course, is for the baptized Jews who are strangers in the land of their ancestors."

Orhan Iskanderzoda

Pravda.Ru

http://www.trinityafer.com/en/index.php/news/10889-christians-disrespected-in-christs-motherland

just got the news

Pirates seize oil tanker, kidnap crew off Nigeria

By JON GAMBRELL
Associated Press
Pirates attacked and seized an oil tanker off the coast of Nigeria's largest city, the country's navy said Wednesday, kidnapping an unknown number of sailors who were trying to hide from their assailants.

The pirates targeted the MT Abu Dhabi Star, which was anchored 80 kilometers (50 miles) off the coast of Lagos, the country's biggest port, said Commodore Kabir Aliyu, a spokesman for Nigeria's navy. The sailors onboard sent distress signals as the pirates boarded the ship Tuesday night, with their last message indicating they had locked themselves inside a panic room on the vessel, Aliyu said.

The oil tanker, flagged out of Singapore, is operated by Pioneer Ship Management Services LLC, a company with offices in Dubai. The company said in a statement that it lost radio contact with the tanker on Wednesday.

"Pioneer have since received contact from the crew onboard the vessel and can confirm that all crew members are currently reported to be safe and uninjured, but that the vessel has been boarded by suspected pirates," the statement read.

Pioneer said it had not received any ransom demands for its crew. The company did not say how many sailors were onboard the vessel nor did it give their nationalities.

The attack mirrored two others carried out in recent days in waters off the coast of Togo. In both of those cases, the crew were released unharmed after pirates ransacked the vessels and stole the gasoline or oil onboard the ship, according to the International Maritime Bureau, which tracks piracy across the world.

Pirate attacks are on the rise in West Africa's Gulf of Guinea, which follows the continent's southward curve from Liberia to Gabon. Over the last year and a half, piracy there has escalated from low-level armed robberies to hijackings and cargo thefts. Last year, London-based Lloyd's Market Association - an umbrella group of insurers - listed Nigeria, neighboring Benin and nearby waters in the same risk category as Somalia, where two decades of war and anarchy have allowed piracy to flourish.

Pirates in West Africa have been more willing to use violence in their robberies, as they target the cargo, not the crew for ransom as is the case off Somalia. Experts say many of the pirates come from Nigeria, where corrupt law enforcement allows criminality to thrive.

Analysts believe the recent hijackings of tanker ships may well be the work of a single, sophisticated criminal gang with knowledge of the oil industry and oil tankers. Those involved in the hijackings may have gotten that experience in Nigeria's southern Niger Delta, where thieves tap pipelines running through the swamps to steal hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil a day.

Save Nubia, or 5,000 years of African history will be lost

by Professor Manu Ampim

Flooding of Ancient Kush and Nubia

The Sudanese government has recently secured construction contracts for several dams, and the work on these hydroelectric projects will start soon without any announcement. Once these projects are completed, they will immediately flood all nearby archaeological sites.

http://beforeitsnews.com/african-american-news/2012/09/save-nubia-or-5000-years-of-african-history-will-be-lost-2443690.html

https://sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Soleb_Temple_2_near_3rd_cataract_Sudan_will_be_flooded_if_Kajbar_Dam_built.jpg
Soleb Temple 2 is near the third cataract in Sudan and will likely be flooded if the Kajbar Dam is built.

The construction will begin without notification or announcement because of the major protests from local Nubians, who are disputing the benefits of the construction of the Dal Dam (second cataract) and Kajbar Dam (third cataract). The Sudanese government has indicated that the dams will create additional electricity for the benefit of the local citizens, and electricity is indeed an uncontested necessity for a country to develop, but the means to acquire this electricity is often contested and controversial.

The goal of these projects is to create electricity, but the Sudanese government has not demonstrated concern about the social, environmental and archaeological impact of these projects. Also, the Sudanese government has not considered cleaner, less devastating, alternative energy sources such as solar panels and wind turbines.

mr moderator, please transfer over to the Foreign Affairs: International Politics section. my error.

thanks

NL Kenyans, does she have a chance?




Ngilu launches bid for top seat



https://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/files/2012/09/NGILU-PRESIDENCY-LAUNCH1.jpg
This will be Ngilu’s second attempt at the presidency


[img]http://1.bp..com/-mzQ4WR_CagE/TlPb8jvb5hI/AAAAAAAAAHA/mRHVxuV0LyI/s320/278212_131195066971060_113296872094213_207438_6550959_o.jpg[/img]



NAIROBI, Kenya Sept 2 – Water and Irrigation Minister Charity Ngilu launched her presidential bid on Sunday and pledged to focus on women and the youth empowerment if elected Kenya’s fourth President in next year’s General Elections.

Launching her bid on the Narc party at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre, the Kitui Central MP said she was confident of succeeding President Kibaki in her second attempt for the country’s top job.

Ngilu said that the youth and women have adversely been affected by the economic policies that do not favour them.

“The potential of the two groups in nation building has been overlooked in the last 49 years of independence due to poor leadership. Dear Kenyans we really must go back to the basics, our women will no longer be hustlers and sufferers,” she promised.

Ngilu also unveiled her manifesto, detailing five priority areas she aims to address should she be elected president.

“The key issues I intend to address are illiteracy; poverty; healthcare; food and water and the empowerment of women – issues that have lagged behind since independence,” she said.

The Water Minister claimed that the current regime had failed Kenyans.

“A leadership that fails our youths by not creating opportunities for them to exploits their potential but is quick to condemn them, a leadership that when poor women dance for them and give them handouts instead of giving the business contracts. Women of Kenya must now refuse to dance for leaders,” she said.

Ngilu also promised to boost the health sector in Kenya to ensure Kenyans do not seek medical care abroad.

“On education, my government will set aside money to support the employment of at least 5,000 teachers each year to deal with the teacher shortfall in our schools. I will re-engineer our education system by ensuring that all primary schools are ICT compliant through a program called one child-one laptop,” the Kitui Central MP pledged.

Ngilu said Kenya’s economic policies have in many years been in favour of trading partners which has left the country with an import bill of close to Sh140 billion, hence, making the country more poorer.

“This is the leadership we had for the last 50 years! A leadership has not been people centred. A leadership that has not been visionary and transformative. Kenyan we have been short changed,” she said.

Ngilu who joined the government in 2003 under President Mwai Kibaki’s first term said the NARC government came to power with much promise but only delivered free primary education, though with problems in implementation.

The minister who previously served in the health docket says that it’s possible for the government to offer quality and accessible healthcare to the people at Sh8 per Kenyan per day.

She attributed insecurity to high rates of unemployment among the youth and warned that the country would continue to spend more on security if the government failed to create jobs.

“We cannot continue condemning the youth for insecurity and yet we as the leadership have not invested in job creation. We are buying guns to protect who from whom?” she asked.

She gave commitment that her government would enhance the Women Enterprise Fund and build capacity for women to allow them take up 30 percent of government contracts.

Also among her top priorities is the reduction in the level of balance of trade and empowerment of local industries.

This will be Ngilu’s second attempt at the presidency after she unsuccessfully contested in 1997 then in the Social Democratic Party finished fifth in the election won by former President Moi.

https://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/files/2012/09/NGILU-PRESIDENCY-2-IMG_8417.jpg

fact or fiction?




Christians disrespected in Christ's Motherland

Monday, 03 September 2012 12:11 Written by mar

https://www.trinityafer.com/en/images/stories/folders/9.3.2012/is7.jpeg



09.2012- After the "Arab Spring" the life in a number of countries in the Middle East became dramatically more extreme. In Iraq, Egypt and is7Syria, life for Christians became very difficult. But there is a Middle Eastern country whose main religion is not Islam.

How do Christians live in Israel? Was Prime Minister Netanyahu right when he said that Christians freely profess their faith there?

Speaking recently in Jerusalem, Benjamin Netanyahu said, "If in many countries, such as Syria, Christians live in a state of siege, here, in Israel, they are free to practice their faith." The Israeli prime minister urged Christians to rally around Israel and protect the Christian civilization from total Islamization posed by the "Arab Spring."

Netanyahu's words were heard at the congress of the movement "Christians for Israel" whose members call themselves Christian Zionists. Long before the Christian Zionist Congress, Russian experts voiced the same opinion that Netanyahu expressed. In their view, in the near future, Israel will be the last refuge of Christianity in the Middle East, as other Christian areas of the region will be swept away by the bloody "Arab Spring" and the growth of Islamic fundamentalist tendencies. In a raging ocean of armed jihad and war "a la Somalia," which threatens the Middle East in the near future, Israel actually looks like Noah's ark for Christians. But is this true?

Israeli experts interviewed by a reporter of GTimessaid that Netanyahu's words of the free exercise of Christianity in Israel were, to say the least, wishful thinking. "Netanyahu is a pathological liar. There is discrimination against Christians in all areas. Recently one man, accused of baptizing his children, was deported from Israel. "Especially hard is the life of Jewish Christians," said an Israeli human rights activist Maria Pesikova. "According to the Israeli law, a converted Jew has no right to repatriation, so Christians have to deny their faith when entering the country, in other words, to renounce Christ. Children of Jewish Christians are bullied in schools. Moreover, Christian parents of Jews are not allowed to teach their children faith. If Social Services find out that a Jewish child is a Christian who fasts, prays and goes to the temple with her parents, the authorities have the right to take away custody of the child from the parents, as it is considered child abuse."

Israeli writer Israel Shamir, who came from the Soviet Union, is a Jew who converted to Orthodoxy. "Israel does not carefully and persistently chase Palestinian Christians to replace them with Christians from Iraq or Syria," he said in an interview with GTimes. "In the homeland of Jesus Christianity is persecuted: churches are set on fire, there are laws against missionaries. In Knesset the Gospel was publicly destroyed."

The last reference is to the notorious case on July 17, when a deputy Michael Ben-Ari publicly tore the New Testament and threw it in the trash. The journalists who were in the audience remember the words of Ben-Ari: "This book served and continues to serve as the basis for the persecution and murder of Jews. Its place is in the trash."

Desecration and destruction of Christian churches began in the early days of Israel. From 1947 to 1967, most of the local Christian churches and monasteries have been taken from the faithful and turned into military camps, depots, and artillery batteries. It got to the point that some Israeli soldiers would relieve themselves at a Christian cemetery.

In 1948, during the Nakba, military blew up a Christian church in the Arab village of Ikret and destroyed nearly all of its residents. Ikret was fully populated by Christian Arabs. They did not want to leave their homes and the graves of their ancestors, and met the Israelis with arms.

During the Six-Day War IDF soldiers again desecrated the Holy Sepulcher and fired guns at a famous Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. In Ramallah, the current capital of the Palestinian Authority (PA), the Israeli shelled a women's Episcopal School, where many Arab girls studied. Many of them drew their last breath in the rubble of the destroyed school.

After the Six Day War, the existence of Christians in Israel became reminiscent of a life on a volcano. Brief periods of peace were alternated by the harassment by radical Zionists. Thugs raped nuns, beat priests, threw stones at Christian procession and hand grenades through the windows of churches.

During the exacerbation of Israeli relations with the Soviet Union, the Russian Orthodox Mission in Jerusalem was subject to attacks. It was considered the KGB residency in Israel. Head of the Mission, Archimandrite Tikhon (Zaitsev) in 2008, recalled that seeing a priest, rabbis would spit at his feet. "Spitting was not that bad, it happened that stones were thrown at us," he said. By law, rabbis were required to pay fines for these misdemeanors, but all attempts to bring them to justice would end in failure. Bullies and tyrants were either helped by the police, or bailed by the Knesset members.

However, bullying and rape were nothing compared to the tragedy of Palestinian Christianity in the late 1990's - early 2000s. After 1997, Israel gave the PA a number of controversial areas, and the number of Christians there showed a sharp decline. Muslim fanatics of Fatah and the "Islamic Jihad" considered Christians the "fifth column" of Israel, organized real genocide for their brothers in faith. The PA appealed to Tel Aviv during the persecution of Christians, but Tel Aviv was not touched. Benjamin Netanyahu was Israeli Prime Minister at the time.

For the current Israeli leader, the issue of the Christian denomination is directly linked to his personal situation as a politician. Christians for him are chess pieces in a series of multi-series combinations. Netanyahu admitted that his family never had anything against Christians. Moreover, speaking last Sunday in Jerusalem, Netanyahu vowed to defend the Christian civilization.

Meanwhile, the situation of Christians in Israel is still very controversial. According to a Catholic priest at a parish of Haifa, "for the Israeli, a Christian is a person who should be avoided." A Christian is pariah and a permanent "irritant" for the orthodox Jews, who, seeing a cross on his neck, can easily spit at him or his feet, expressing their disgust with the "impure." This applies to all individuals in Israel, Christians, Arabs, Armenians, the Greeks, and the Russian. The most difficult situation, of course, is for the baptized Jews who are strangers in the land of their ancestors."

Orhan Iskanderzoda

Pravda.Ru

http://www.trinityafer.com/en/index.php/news/10889-christians-disrespected-in-christs-motherland

i just read this, global food price manipulation by the london bankers


September 01, 2012
Barclays makes £500m betting on food crisis

Barclays has made as much as half a billion pounds in two years from speculating on food staples such as wheat and soya, prompting allegations that banks are profiting handsomely from the global food crisis.

Barclays is the UK bank with the greatest involvement in food commodity trading and is one of the three biggest global players, along with the US banking giants Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, research from the World Development Movement points out.

Last week the trading giant Glencore was attacked for describing the global food crisis and price rises as a "good" business opportunity.

The extent of Barclays' involvement in food speculation comes to light as new figures from the World Bank show that global food prices hit an all-time high in July, with poor harvests in the US and Russia pushing up the average worldwide cost of staples by an unprecedented 10 per cent in a month.

The extent of just one bank's involvement in agricultural markets will add to concerns that food speculation could help push basic prices so high that they trigger a wave of riots in the world's poorest countries, as staples drift out of their populations' reach.

Nor has the UK escaped rising food costs. Shop food prices have risen, on average, by 37.9 per cent in the past seven years, according to the Office for National Statistics, as the demands of an increasingly affluent and growing world population strain supply. Oils and fats have soared by 63 per cent in the UK during that period, fish prices by 50.9 per cent, bread and cereals by 36.7 per cent, meat 34.5 per cent and vegetables 41.3 per cent. In April, average UK food prices were 4.2 per cent higher than a year earlier.

Oxfam's private sector adviser, Rob Nash, said: "The food market is becoming a playground for investors rather than a market place for farmers. The trend of big investors betting on food prices is transforming food into a financial asset while exacerbating the risk of price spikes that hit the poor hardest."

The World Development Movement report estimates that Barclays made as much as £529m from its "food speculative activities" in 2010 and 2011. Barclays made up to £340m from food speculation in 2010, as the prices of agricultural commodities such as corn, wheat and soya were rising. The following year, the bank made a smaller sum – of up to £189m – as prices fell, WDM said.

The revenues that Barclays and other banks make from trading in everything from wheat and corn to coffee and cocoa, are expected to increase this year, with prices once again on the rise. Corn prices have risen by 45 per cent since the start of June, with wheat jumping by 30 per cent.

Barclays makes most of its "food-speculation" revenues by setting up and managing commodity funds that invest money from pension funds, insurance companies and wealthy individuals in a variety of agricultural products in return for fees and commissions. The bank claims not to invest its own money in such commodities.

Since deregulation allowed the creation of such funds in 2000, institutions such as Barclays have collectively channelled an astonishing $200bn (£126bn) of investment cash into agricultural commodities, according to the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Barclays' dominance in commodities trading is thanks to its former chief executive Bob Diamond, who was Britain's best-paid banking boss until he was forced to resign last month following a £290m fine for attempting to manipulate the Liborinterest rate. As boss of Barclays Capital he boosted trading in agricultural products.

Dealing with the reputation headache associated with high levels of food speculation will be yet another item in the already-bulging in-tray of Antony Jenkins, who was promoted to become Mr Diamond's replacement on Thursday.

Christine Haigh, policy and campaigns officer at the World Development Movement and one of the analysts behind the research, said: "No doubt the UK's biggest player in the commodities markets is hoping it will do better this year by cashing in on rising food prices. "Its behaviour risks fuelling a speculative bubble and contributing to hunger and poverty for millions of the world's poorest people."

Banks and hedge funds typically argue that speculation makes little or no difference to food prices and volatility and argue, correctly, that no definitive link has been proved. Barclays declined to comment on the amount of money it makes from trading in agricultural commodities yesterday.

The bank defended its actions, pointing out that trading in so-called futures contracts – an agreement to buy or sell a certain quantity of a product, at a given price on an agreed date – helped parties such as farmers and bakers to hedge against the risk of rising or falling prices. "Our clients include investment companies, food producers and consumers who, among other things, seek our help to manage risks."

Barclays also declined to comment on whether it thought large amounts of speculation pushed up prices and volatility. A spokesman said: "We recognise there is a perception held by some stakeholders that participation in agricultural futures markets by some participants can unduly influence the prices of commodities. As a result, we continue to carefully monitor market trends and any research produced on this subject," a spokesman said."

Barclays Capital analysts admitted in a note to clients in February that speculation did push up prices. Barclays said: "The second key driver is that commodity investors have begun allocating to commodities again after beginning 2012 heavily underexposed to the sector." The other drivers were the "health of the global economy" and "weather and geopolitics".

http://refreshingnews99..in/2012/09/barclays-makes-500m-betting-on-food.html

L.K. at her peak


the next generation


BABS BUNNY & VAGUE presents "QUEEN OF THE RING" 40 B.A.R.R.S vs NORMA BAYTS


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNajdSyOczY


http://www.youtube.com/user/queenoftheringartist?feature=watch

Cessna delivered ahead of schedule.





https://dailytimes.com.ng/sites/default/files/imagecache/400xY/aircraft.jpg

Nigeria procuring Cessna Citation for Customs Service

Written by defenceWeb Thursday, 17 May 2012 13:21

Nigeria’s government has approved the purchase of a Cessna Citation CJ4 aircraft, which will be used for surveillance by the Nigeria Customs Service as it combats smuggling and other problems.

The Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved N1.7 billion (US$11 million) for the aircraft, according to Information Minister Labaran Maku. He was reporting on the outcome of the Council meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan. Maku said that the aircraft would be used for surveillance missions along Nigeria’s borders and would help combat economic sabotage and cross-border crimes.

The minister added that the aircraft would be fitted with surveillance and communications equipment, including cameras, reports the Nigerian Tribune. The aircraft is being procured through Africair Incorporated and will be delivered within four months’ time.

The FEC’s approval of the purchase comes after the Council considered a memo presented by the Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Minister of Finance Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. Minister of State for Finance, Yerima Ngama, said the aircraft would go a long way in containing smuggling.

“The efforts of our men on ground can only be successful if they have air coverage and that is why we brought this memo to acquire this aircraft, which is equipped with satellite communication equipment that can actually survey the border unseen from the ground. It can also communicate with the men on ground to tell them that in this area or that area we can see illegal movements of vehicles.

“We have defined points, where the Customs men can actually monitor movement across our borders, but Nigeria is very big, you cannot have our Customs men at each point of the border. Therefore, the air coverage is actually a strategic move to ensure their effectiveness.”

On May 9 the FEC approved N3 billion for the procurement of two patrol boats for the Customs Service marine operations. They will be used to combat piracy and smuggling and will be delivered in approximately nine months’ time.

Last month it was reported that the Nigerian Customs Service had taken delivery of two helicopters and would soon receive 400 Toyota Hilux vehicles and 5 000 AK-47 assault rifles in an effort to secure the country’s borders.

Alhaji Mohammed Dikko, the Comptroller-General of the Customs Service, said that his agency had already acquired the helicopters for surveillance of Nigeria’s borders and added that President Goodluck Jonathan had approved the purchase of 400 Toyota Hilux vehicles for border patrol.

Dikko went on to say that his agency had imported approximately 5 000 AK-47 assault rifles to arm its personnel against smugglers and gun runners.

Border control is an increasingly important issue in Nigeria. Militant groups in the oil-producing Niger Delta have been illegally supplying weapons for years and Boko Haram is also believed to have received illegal arms, raising questions about border surveillance, especially after reports that weapons looted from Libya have turned up in Nigeria.

sound plausible to you?



training presidential guards in almost every African State?

https://adonis49./2012/08/13/zionists-in-africa-training-presidential-guards-in-almost-every-african-state/


Nigeria as of late has been rocked by an unrelenting campaign of violent car bombings, including a horrific attack on Christmas Day, which the Zionist media blames on an Islamic group known throughout the capital of Abuja and other cities for its social services, Boko Haram.

Nigerian Muslims view the attacks as a means of instigating a religious war to divide the country on ethno-sectarian lines, as per one of the directives of “Yinon Africa,” and Nigerian Muslims also reject the idea that Boko Haram is behind the sophisticated attacks, saying it is far beyond their scope and antithetical to their agenda. They say that Boko Haram has become a “boogeyman” used by the Goodluck Jonathan regime to obtain Western grants.

It is not by luck of any sort that the bombings in Nigeria began right around the same time that the Jonathan regime brought in a team of Mossad and CIA operatives, overseen by “Israeli” Ambassador to Nigeria Moshe Ram, to probe (read: run) its security services. The Zionist entity is attempting to break up Nigeria using the same successful methods it used in Sudan and it couldn’t be any clearer.

Supplement

Story of black racism

Anyone in NL know her tribe?




Andrew Quade, 23, of Savannah, Ga., says he was beaten up while walking to a party with his girlfriend because he is white and she is black.


Quade's girlfriend, Olufisayo Bakre, told WTOC that the attackers 'left him for dead.'




The couple said they have been hassled before, but not attacked.







Interracial Georgia couple says they were targeted by thugs in Savannah hate-crime attack
A Savannah, Ga., couple reports that they were jumped by a trio of racists thugs while out on a twilight stroll because he is white and she is black.



A young Georgia man and his girlfriend were jumped by a trio of racists thugs while out on a twilight stroll because, they say, he is white and she is black, according to a report.

Andrew Quade, 23, of Savannah, is still nursing a battered face nearly a week after the assault, which he says came after three black men yelled racial slurs at him and his girlfriend, Olufisayo Bakre, local station WTOC reported.

The lovebirds were walking through Savannah’s Ellis Square on their way to a birthday party Aug. 24 when the men started hissing at them, they said.

"One of them was making racial comments at us and one of them was blowing kisses. It was very aggravating," Bakre told WTOC.

Quade said he tried to make peace, but "before I could, I was knocked out."

"He was basically left for dead," Bakre said. "I don't want to go into all the gory details, but they could have stopped, but they kept going."
INTERRACIAL1N_1_WEB
WTOC
Quade's girlfriend, Olufisayo Bakre, told WTOC that the attackers 'left him for dead.'

Quade was taken to a local hospital and treated for bruises and scrapes to his face.

Cops told the station they were reviewing a surveillance video of the attack. The couple said they didn't get a good look at the men.

They asked anyone who was around Ellis Square on Friday night who may have seen the men to call police at 912-234-2020.
INTERRACIAL1N_2_WEB
WTOC
The couple said they have been hassled before, but not attacked.

The couple said they have been hassled before but never physically attacked.

"I think of this as a hate crime. It's that simple," Bakre told WTOC. "The worst we've had is people staring or talking about us. But it has never gotten to the level of physical contact until now."

Georgia doesn't have hate-crime laws, but, depending on the evidence, the case could be referred to the FBI, the station said.




http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/interracial-georgia-couple-targeted-thugs-savannah-hate-crime-attack-article-1.1148770#ixzz259BlukQ7

the struggle continues....





South Africa Charges Miners in Deaths


https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/WO-AK940_SAFMIN_G_20120830212221.jpg


Associated Press

A mine worker sang Wednesday during a gathering at the Lonmin mine. Management and union leaders are negotiating to resolve the strike.


By DEVON MAYLIE

JOHANNESBURG—Two weeks after police shot into a crowd of protesting miners here, killing 34, in one of the worst instances of labor violence since the end of apartheid, authorities filed murder charges against fellow miners for those deaths, opposition officials said.

The National Prosecuting Authority on Thursday charged the 270 miners arrested following the Aug. 16 police shooting at Lonmin PLC's Marikana operation, using an obscure Roman-Dutch common purpose law often used under apartheid.

Calls to the National Prosecuting Authority weren't answered. A spokesman for the prosecuting authority told the Associated Press that while it was police who killed the protesters, the police had been under attack.

Thursday's decision led to an outcry from members of South Africa's legal and opposition community, amid tensions that were already simmering over how the government responded to the wildcat strike.

In a blog post, Pierre de Vos, a University of Cape Town constitutional law scholar, called the development "bizarre and shocking and represents a flagrant abuse of the criminal justice system in an effort to protect the police and/or politicians like Jacob Zuma," the country's president.

Mr. de Vos said even if miners attacked police that didn't make them responsible for the killing of fellow protesters.

Expelled-African National Congress Youth leader Julius Malema, who visited the site of the shooting before Mr. Zuma and has called for the president's resignation, was at the court where the charges were made.

"The decisions of the NPA to charge mine workers reveals that the South African government and all its state apparatuses do not regret the murders and massacre of the mine workers," said Floyd Shivambu, a spokesman for Mr. Malema, in a statement.

"How on earth can the South African police, with the approval of its most senior leaders, kill workers and then turn to lay charges of murder on those who could not be killed, and survived death in the hands of the state?"

The strike began Aug. 10 when 3,000 rock drillers refused to go underground without a wage increase. Fighting among workers left 10 people dead, including two police officers in the days that followed.

As protesters camped out on a small rock hill near the mine, police and union management called for them to put down their weapons with many holding sticks and machetes. Police claim some held pistols as well.

On Aug. 16, police say they gave their final warning and then started to cordon their camp off with barbed wire. Police say a group of protesters charged at them and the use of rubber bullets and water canons failed to deter the protesters so they fired live ammunition into the crowd.

Many miners say they were cornered on the hill and prevented from escaping and that several of those killed were shot in the back. Police say the investigation is continuing.

Meanwhile, those arrested have been held in court and so far denied bail.

President Zuma has come under criticism for not reacting quicker to the shootings at Marikana. Last week he named a judicial committee of inquiry to look into the causes of the violence and deaths and mistakes made at Marikana, placing much of the emphasis on how Lonmin managed the strike and let it spiral out of control.

South Africa's National Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega previously defended the police actions and said they used "maximum force" to protect themselves.

Critics say the National Union of Mineworkers, an ally of the ANC, fell out of touch as its leaders traded shantytowns for management posts and proximity to power. The upstart Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union moved to fill that vacuum.

It targeted platinum mines because of a labor-law loophole that allows platinum companies to negotiate wages outside collective bargaining.

When the strike degenerated into violence, Lonmin executives threatened to dismiss workers who didn't return to work, further enraging miners. The company then relied on the police to impose order.

The strike continues at Marikana, but since the Aug. 16 shooting there haven't been further reports of violence.

The company management and union leaders have been locked in two days of meetings to find a way to resolve the strike, which has resulted in the total of 44 deaths.

For the top scholars.

How England and the Jesuits in Rome recolonized the United States in 1913.



SECRETS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE

http://www.whale.to/b/mullins5.html




The Money Masters - How International Bankers Gained Control of America

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-515319560256183936

Annual big time meeting of the global movers and $haker$ in the states!


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a1/Sanusi_Lamido_Sanusi_2011_Shankbone.JPG/220px-Sanusi_Lamido_Sanusi_2011_Shankbone.JPG


August 30, 2012, 14:56 PM

Who’s In and Who’s Not at Fed Jackson Hole Meeting


By Jon Hilsenrath

One of the more notable dignitaries scheduled to attend the Federal Reserve’s annual meeting in Jackson Hole this year is Hu Xiaolian, vice governor of the People’s Bank of China. The Jackson Hole meeting always attracts central bankers from around the world, but top Chinese officials have tended not to attend.

The attendance of Ms. Hu — who is also the administrator of China’s massive foreign exchange holdings — is a sign of China’s continuing efforts to work more closely with global financial policy makers. It is also a reminder that the Fed’s monetary policy decisions have important consequences for Chinese policy makers, who tie their currency to the dollar. Because of that link, the Fed’s easy money policies have in the past caused inflation problems in China.

Fed officials include Chairman Ben Bernanke, vice chair Janet Yellen and the heads of ten of the Fed’s 12 regional Fed banks also are here. The two regional bank presidents not attending are the New York Fed’s William Dudley and Richard Fisher of the Dallas Fed, who is at a family wedding.

The big no-show on the Jackson Hole guest list is Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, who pulled out earlier this week. Mr. Draghi is wrestling with tough decisions back home ahead of a Sept. 6 policy meeting and likely figured he could live without the attention heaped on central bankers in Jackson Hole. Bank of Israel governor Stanley Fischer will take the place of Mr. Draghi on a panel on which Mr. Draghi was scheduled to participate Saturday. Sorry, currency traders — no weekend headlines from Mr. Draghi to trade on when Asia opens.

Many other top foreign central bankers are scheduled to be here, including Charles Bean, deputy governor of the Bank of England, Bundesbank president Jens Weidmann and Masaaki Shirakawa from the Bank of Japan. Officials will also be here from a long list of monetary authorities in Sweden, Iraq, Malaysia, Turkey, Poland, Malta, Denmark, Mexico, Hong Kong, Portugal, Albania, Ireland, Korea, France, Finland, Luxembourg, South Africa, Norway, Italy, Spain, Nigeria, Iceland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, New Zealand, Brazil, Jordan, Colombia, Peru and Austria.

Also in attendance are research directors from the Fed’s 12 regional banks. They weren’t invited last year to make space for others. The Wall Street presence is pretty small, and includes Jan Hatzius, chief U.S. economist from Goldman Sachs, Joseph LaVorgna, economist from Deutsche Bank, Dean Maki, economist from Barclays, Julia Coronado, chief U.S. economist of BNP Paribas, and Diane Swonk, economist from Mesirow Financial.

A few Fed critics are on hand — including John Taylor, the Stanford professor. Mitt Romney economic adviser Glenn Hubbard is also here. Some observers think he could be on Mr. Romney’s short list for future Fed chairman if elected. Another possible Republican successor to Fed Chairman Bernanke is here — Martin Feldstein, the Harvard professor and former adviser to Ronald Reagan. President Barack Obama has a contingent including Alan Krueger, chairman of Mr. Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Is that the making for an economic smackdown over cocktails? Probably not. But it sure would be interesting.

9ja Brothas, beware of Akátá women if you get your visa to study, work, or play in the States!
By the many threads I read on nland, things are not that much different.


The black man's #1 enemy-PT 1

Mike uncovers who hates the black man



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MKNP1NpSqM




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYNfOImgemE






*

9 1/2 Weeks reunion! Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger spotted on set of their new film (but look who's aged better...)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2195021/Mickey-Rourke-Kim-Basinger-reunite-set-new-film-Black-November.html#ixzz24uUPUBSl


https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/08/29/article-2195021-14BA7471000005DC-10_468x352.jpg

Tunnel tweet: Mickey tweeted this picture with rappers Akon and Wyclef Jean, as well as his 'Nigerian brothers' on the set last week


Is Jeta Amata Nollywood's gift to Hollywood?

The director is challenging Nigeria's film industry to raise its game by hiring American stars and taking on topical, political themes

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/feb/01/jeta-amata-nollywood-s-gift-to-hollywood

But Amata decided his film was already out of date. "It had to be more current. It had to adhere strictly to what was going on right now – the Arab spring and all that," he tells me. "It was a huge challenge that the Arabs posed to the rest of the world, especially the people in the Niger delta. If they can look at their dictators and say, 'No, we want a change', there's no reason why people in west Africa can't stand up. And it's beginning to happen."

Over six months later, Nigeria is boiling over with protests and extremism, and Amata has a new film. Now retitled Black November (a reference to the month of activist Ken Saro-Wiwa's execution in 1995, and presumably to avoid confusion with Jean-Jacques Annaud's forthcoming oil epic, Amata says he has reshot close to 60% of his film. Sewn on to its original storyline about the effects of a pipeline explosion in the southern city of Warri is another plot strand in which enraged militants take hostages on US soil. Mickey Rourke, Kim Basinger and Anne Heche have joined a bulging cast-list that makes New Year's Eve look like an exercise in Beckettian restraint.

https://nollywoodmindspace.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Black-November-600-x-405.jpg

Humor!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTosQerWBzU

enough was enough



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owJFelAZBDc


Rush Bastille Day Lyrics

Ooh, there's no bread, let 'em eat cake
There's no end to what they'll take
Flaunt the fruits of noble birth
Wash the salt into the earth

But they're marching to Bastille Day.
La guillotine will claim her bloody prize.
Free the dungeons of the innocent
The king will kneel
And let his kingdom rise.
Ooh, there's stained velvet, dirty lace,
Naked fear on every face
See them bow their heads to die
As we would bow as they rode by
And we're marching to Bastille Day
La guillotine will claim her bloody prize
Sing, oh choirs of cacophony
The king has knelled
To let his kingdom rise.

Lessons taught but never learned
All around us anger burns
Guide the future by the past
Long ago the mold was cast
For they marched up to Bastille Day
La guillotine claimed her bloody prize
Hear the echoes of the centuries
Power isn't all that money buys.

LIBYA NOT SAFE FOR BUSINESS


http://aangirfan..com/2012/08/libya-not-safe-for-business.html

"Nobody is coming back here: it's not safe," says a German engineer living in an almost empty gated compound designed for foreign business executives.




*

SECRETS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE

http://www.whale.to/b/mullins5.html

CHAPTER FIVE The House of Rothschild [SECRETS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE By Eustace Mullins]

Although these firms are ostensibly American firms, which merely maintain branches in London, the fact is that these banking houses actually take their direction from London. Their history is a fascinating one, and unknown to the American public, originating as it did in the international traffic in gold, slaves, diamonds, and other contraband. There are no moral considerations in any business decision made by these firms. They are interested solely in money and power.

Tourists today gape at the magnificent mansions of the very rich in Newport, Rhode Island, without realizing that not only do these "cottages" stand as a memorial to the baronial desires of our Victorian millionaires, but that their erection in Newport represented a nostalgic memorialization of the great American fortunes, which had their beginnings in Newport when it was the capital of the slave trade.

The slave trade for centuries had its headquarters in Venice, until Seventeenth Century Britain, the new master of the seas, used its control of the oceans to gain a monopoly. As the American colonies were settled, its fiercely independent people, most of whom did not want slaves, found to their surprise that slaves were being sent to our ports in great numbers.

For many years, Newport was the capital of this unsavory trade. William Ellery, the Collector of the Port of Newport, said in 1791:

"...an Ethiopian cld as soon change his skin as a Newport merchant cld be induced to change so lucrative a trade.... for the slow profits of any manufactory."

John Quincy Adams remarked in his Diary, page 459, "Newport’s former prosperity was chiefly owing to its extensive employment in the African slave trade."

The pre-eminence of J.P. Morgan and the Brown firm in American finance can be dated to the development of Baltimore as the nineteenth century capital of the slave trade. Both of these firms originated in Baltimore, opened branches in London, came under the aegis of the House of Rothschild, and returned to the United States to open branches in New York and to become the dominant power, not only in finance, but also in government. In recent years, key posts such as Secretary of Defense have been held by Robert Lovett, partner of Brown Brothers Harriman, and Thomas S. Gates, partner of Drexel and Company, a J.P. Morgan subsidiary firm. The present Vice President, George Bush, is the son of Prescott Bush, a partner of Brown Brothers Harriman, for many years the senator from Connecticut, and the financial organizer of Columbia Broadcasting System of which he also was a director for many years.

supplement .....


Who Brought the Slaves to America?

By Walter White Jr., 1968

https://iamthewitness.com/books/Walter.White/Who.Brought.the.Slaves.to.America.jpg

The story of the slaves in America begins with Christopher Columbus. His voyage to America was not financed by Queen Isabella, but by Luis de Santangelo, who advanced the sum of 17,000 ducats (about 5,000 pounds-today equal to 50,000 pounds) to finance the voyage, which began on August 3, 1492.

http://iamthewitness.com/books/Walter.White/Who.Brought.the.Slaves.to.America.htm





*

@Op

Huge growing global market. Haitians in my neighborhood purchase Yoruba and Igbo language films and they tell me they comprehend most of the dialect.

And you never know who will be the first 9ja artist to bag a multi-million dollar Hollywood contract. It's coming soon!



African Americans Tune Into Nollywood


[img]http://ionenewsone.files./2009/07/tawanalowe221.jpg[/img]

Harlem resident Tawana Lowe, 54, who has a collection of more than 350 Nollywood movies, says she no longer buys American films.

Nigerian movies saved cancer survivor Tawana Lowe’s life after doctors cut off her tumor-filled left breast.

Bedridden from aggressive radiation treatments in the summer of 2008, the Harlem, NY resident spent her days watching movies like “Hope Alive” about an innocent man who’s jailed for a crime he didn’t commit.

For the former city hospital clerk, who fought to get disability benefits even while battling cancer, the films were an oracle.

“My life is in those movies,” said Lowe of the low budget, independent films shot on location in West Africa and known for vivid storylines that range from the comical to the supernatural. “That’s my therapy session right there,” she said.

In the last 17 years the Nigerian movie industry, known as Nollywood, has exploded, surpassing Hollywood as the world’s second largest film producer.

In 2006, Nollywood churned out 872 movies, compared to 485 major films the U.S. produced, according to a study by UNESCO. Bollywood, the India-based industry that’s currently the world’s top moviemaker produced 1,091 the same period.

With U.S. inspired titles like “Beyonce and Rihanna,” a recent release about two rival singers both vying for a rapper’s affection, Nollywood is steadily courting a new audience these days — African Americans–like Tawana Lowe. And even Black Hollywood’s taking note.

Before his tax troubles, Wesley Snipes visited Abuja and met with filmmakers about collaborating on future film projects. In 2007, Danny Glover was the keynote speaker at the Nollywood Foundation’s annual convention.

Dr. Sylvester Ogbechie, vice-president of the California-based foundation aimed at promoting the Nigerian film industry in the U.S., isn’t surprised by the interest African Americans are showing in Nigerian movies.

“It’s the only film industry in the world that’s entirely controlled by black people,” Ogbechie said of Nollywood which generates around $200 million in revenue per year.

The industry is ripe for deep-pocketed Hollywood investors Ogbechie said, adding it’s only a matter of time before a “Slumdog Millionaire” emerges from Nigeria, referencing the hit that stole this year’s Oscars and squarely put Bollywood on Tinseltown’s radar.

But not everybody’s gung-ho about Nollywood.

Director Spike Lee criticized the industry when asked by a Nigerian reporter how his country’s filmmakers could improve their craft.

“You are from Nigeria, Lagos? Those people are bootlegging my films a lot,” Lee told the reporter at last month’s Cannes International Advertising Film Festival, according to the blog naijarules.com

Speaking of Nollywood directors, Lee said, “Let them attend international film festival[s] like the ones held in Cannes and other places to learn how to make great films that would be of international standard.”

When News One attempted to contact Lee, his assistant said the director was traveling abroad and could not be reached for comment as of press time.

http://newsone.com/253117/african-americans-tune-into-nollywood/

August 24, 2012

Israel Making Inroads in Halting African Migration


JERUSALEM (AP) — Just a few months ago, Israel was in the midst of a nationwide uproar over the tens of thousands of African migrants who have poured into the Jewish state. Today, that influx has slowed dramatically, following a series of measures meant to halt the new arrivals.

The quick results are testament to a get-tough approach that has included the rapid construction of a soon-to-be-completed fence along the border with Egypt's Sinai peninsula, and a new policy of detaining Africans upon arrival.

But the strategy has come with a price: Advocacy groups accuse Israel of violating international refugee law by cooperating with Egyptian security personnel to round up migrants on the border. They also say more than a thousand Africans are now languishing in mass detention centers set up to hold them.

Israeli military spokeswoman Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich said she had no immediate information on whether Israeli and Egyptian forces were cooperating in rounding up migrants. Government spokesman Mark Regev had no comment when asked if Israel was carrying out this practice.

Israel, which contends that most of the Africans are not bona fide refugees and are merely looking for work, still has no answer for what to do with the roughly 60,000 Africans living in limbo in city slums.

Danny Danon, who heads a group of lawmakers pushing to expel all unauthorized migrants, credits the border fence and a new policy of long-term detention that makes it impossible for migrants to work and send money back home.

"I think Israeli society woke up, albeit too late," said Danon, a member of the governing Likud Party. "But (now) there is an understanding that while we're a Jewish state sensitive to refugees, we cannot become a safe haven for hundreds of thousands of Africans who want to improve their quality of life."

The influx of Africans over the past seven years has ignited a debate over whether Israel's role as a sanctuary for Jews after the Holocaust obligates it to open its doors to others escaping misery and persecution. But as the number of Africans has grown, some Israelis have said the country's Jewish character could be threatened by the migrants. That, and a series of crimes blamed on the Africans, has led to a harsh, sometimes violent backlash.

Migrants have been attacked in several cases and politicians have called them criminals, a "national scourge" and "a cancer in our body."

Israel is far from alone in its dilemma: European countries have sought to prevent tens of thousands of people from reaching the continent by boat from Africa and have started implementing a range of border control measures on land and on the high seas. Italy generally puts them into holding centers, then they are sent home if there is no case for political asylum. In Greece, detention camps have been established similar to those built in Israel. In 2011, at least 1,500 people, including women and children, drowned in the Mediterranean Sea trying to reach Europe, according to a recent report by Amnesty International.

Legally, Israel cannot deport most of the migrants because the overwhelming majority — some 85 percent — come from Sudan, an enemy state, and Eritrea, repressive regimes with miserable human rights records. As a signatory to an international treaty on refugees, Israel cannot forcibly return people to countries where they face persecution.

Still, the migrants' swelling numbers and public sentiment against them propelled the government to start clamping down. In June, it began forcing out citizens of South Sudan, a state that has friendly relations with Israel, offering them cash to leave and threatening to detain them if they didn't depart. Most of the original total of 2,000 left, the Interior Ministry says.

The government's main effort, however, has been focused on keeping more unsanctioned migrants from entering. In June, it began enforcing a recently amended law that lets authorities detain migrants for three years and in some cases, indefinitely.

At the same time, the government is expanding its detention facilities and rushing to complete within months a 240-kilometer (150-mile) fence along the border with Egypt meant to keep out both Africans and Islamic militants.

It may be premature to declare a trend, but the Interior Ministry, which oversees traffic in and out of Israel, says after a long stretch when 1,000 and more migrants would enter monthly, the number fell to 268 in July and 191 for the first three weeks of August.

The expansion of the main detention center in southern Israel allows authorities to detain migrants longer because in the past, they generally had to release them after a matter of days because of a lack of space, ministry spokeswoman Sabine Haddad said. The facility's capacity has nearly tripled to accommodate 5,400 people, and expansion is planned to hold an additional 20,000. Some 1,700 migrants are currently in detention, the prisons service said. It rejected a request by The Associated Press to visit the facility.

Advocates for migrants say they have been denied access to the Africans in custody and have petitioned Israel's Supreme Court to lift the restrictions.

The envoy for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, William Tall, says the conditions are acceptable for a short-term stay but deplored the legal amendment allowing long-term detention without access to formal asylum-seeking procedures.

"The law is meant to detain people and send a deterrent message: Israel is no longer a welcoming country," he said.

Tall said he said he had no indication yet from colleagues in Eritrea and Sudan whether the clampdown was having an impact. But he said word of recent attacks by Israelis on migrants and migrant homes and businesses "has clearly filtered out to African states."

Instability in Egypt's Sinai desert, where the Egyptian government has launched an offensive against Islamist militants, might also be a factor in the declining number of arrivals, he added.

Sigal Rozen of the Hotline for Migrant Workers, an advocacy group that helps the Africans, says the government is misleading the public into thinking the fence and detention are the main reasons the flow has slowed.

According to testimony gathered by her group from three soldiers, Israeli troops are not letting migrants in and are telephoning Egyptian security personnel to pick them up, she said.

"Israeli soldiers threaten them with weapons and call the Egyptians to take them," Rozen said. "The (Israeli) politicians say it's not being done. But on the ground, soldiers are doing it."

The soldiers' testimony could not be confirmed.

But Egypt reported it apprehended more than 500 migrants in July, a sharp uptick of several hundred from the monthly average.

Denying the migrants entry to Israel and turning them over to Egyptian security violates international refugee law and Israeli law because the Egyptians are liable to return them to their countries of origin, where their lives would be in danger, Rozen said.

True talk?


Nigeria: Shell - Security Spending or Dirty Work?


By Saskia Houttuin, 23 August 2012


Leaked documents show that Dutch-British oil and gas company Shell financed Nigeria's security forces, which are often seen as corrupt and involved in human rights violations. A Dutch political party raised questions, calling Shell's financing 'irresponsible and unacceptable'.

The data, which was leaked by a former Shell employee, has been analysed by the British organisation Platform, in a document entitled "Dirty Work: Shell's security spending in Nigeria and beyond". The report writes that Shell spent over a billion U.S. dollars on global security between 2007 and 2009. It says that, out of that amount, 383 million went to Nigeria, including the notorious 'kill and go' police, a nickname for the Nigerian Mobile police, says the report.

Responsibility

"We know there are close ties between Shell and the Nigerian government, while there is a consistent pattern of human rights violations in the Niger Delta area," says Nicole Sprokel, spokesperson for Amnesty International. The NGO has done research on Shell's activities in Nigeria and the role of the Joint Task Forces (JTF's), a Nigerian army unit fighting against militant groups operating in the oil-rich Niger Delta region. Corporate accountability is highly valued by the NGO. "You would think Shell did some due diligence investigation" adds Sprokel. "Making sure their partners are not a potential threat for human rights. But either they don't know or they don't want to know."

Amnesty's latest annual report states that "the security forces, including the military, continued to commit human rights violations in the Niger Delta, including extrajudicial executions, torture and other ill-treatment, and destruction of homes."

Adetokunbo Mumuni of Nigerian NGO SERAP tells RNW that they "condemns any action or complicity of non-state actors like Shell that leads or contributes to human rights abuses. There must be full accountability for such human rights abuses. [...]We are hoping that at least the Nigerian government can be held accountable for failure to exercise due diligence which has allowed multinationals such as Shell to continue perpetrate human rights abuses against millions of Nigerians. While Shell and others continue to make money out of Nigerian natural wealth and resources millions of our people remain very poor without any opportunity to pursue personal development and growth".

Not directly responsible

Shell has not confirmed nor denied Platform's allegations. "In the period between 2007 and 2009 there was a lot of violence," a Shell spokesman told RNW. "But Nigeria is not the same as the Netherlands. People look at the situation from a Western point of view. In any way, we try our best." He went on saying that the fact that the Nigerian army and police are associated with violence should give more reason for Shell to keep its distance. "We are not directly responsible," he said.

Dutch response

Calling Shell's financing of the Nigerian army 'irresponsible and unacceptable,' Dutch labour party MPs have submitted their questions to two ministries: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and that of Economic, Agriculture and Innovation.

In their letter to the government, Labour MPs Frans Timmermans and Sjoera Dikkers call on the government to discuss the matter with the oil giant. They remind the government of the Netherlands' responsibility as a participant of the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights. According to them, the government should adhere to these principles and ensure that the Nigerian government does the same. The Netherlands, they write, should insist that the Nigerian security forces funded by Shell protect rather than violate human rights.

Shell says it is waiting for the government's response but seems undaunted. "It's not the first time this happens to Shell," the spokesperson told RNW.


http://allafrica.com/stories/201208231056.html

Planned war on Iran and the General who said No!

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US General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Today, General Dempsey, Chairman of America’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, the man who flew to Tel Aviv and informed Netanyahu that America wanted no part of his scheming against Iran was the subject of an assassination attempt in Afghanistan.


This wasn’t an act of terrorism or Taliban militants. It was a “mob hit” against someone who failed to kiss the feet of Netanyahu. His response was to unleash killers, not a fact for the public but a fact just the same, one the American military knows very well. Netanyahu has a problem with “hubris.”

The culprits, “militants,” managed to escape undetected from the most sophisticatedly defended real estate on earth, the perimeter of Bagam Air Force Base. Lucky for them they attacked at night, a time when America’s 5th generation night vision, ground radar and other detection systems were mysteriously disabled.

The rocket detection systems, early warning blimps with ground penetrating synthetic aperture radar and the continual coverage by UAV drones using infrared detection, $2 billion in technology on this one perimeter alone, cost the plane of America’s top military commander and wounds were sustained by two crew members.

Dempsey had just left Tel Aviv where he told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the following:

“I may not know about all of [Israel's] capabilities, but I think that it’s a fair characterization to say that they could delay but not destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities.”


Dempsey then told waiting reporters:

“We compare intelligence, we discuss regional implications, and we’ve admitted to each other that our clocks are turning at different rates, we have to understand the Israelis; they live with a constant suspicion with which we do not have to deal.”

There are those close to President Obama who don’t accept the attack on Dempsey at face value, with a public admission by the Taliban of complicity. Such statements, which would certainly cost dearly in reprisals by the US, are most often found on Internet sites lacking a credible connection to any Islamic source.

To some Americans, the attack appears to be a reprisal against Dempsey who, out of coincidence, cited the motive in his own appraisal of Israel’s judgment, their “constant suspicion.”

News agencies buried the failed attack, knowing Dempsey is hated by Netanyahu and respected by the Taliban as both “truthful and fair.”

Netanyahu longs for the days when General Myers held Dempsey’s job, under Bush (43), both flawed and narcissistic, predictable puppets, the perfect fodder for Netanyahu’s machinations.

Only two weeks ago, Presidential hopeful, Mitt Romney, returned from a trip overseas, coming back to America with $60 million dollars collected in Israel and Britain while accompanied by Casino boss Sheldon Adelson who’s Las Vegas and China organizations have long been reputed to be the center of worldwide organized crime.

The business, gambling, drugs, prostitution, money laundering and now war, is seeking its own president and war on Iran is the only issue driving the American campaign.

Romney, as a state governor, was, if anything, to the “left” of President Obama. Romney’s support of government health care and widespread gun controls run totally opposite to the core constituency of the Republican Party, the weapons lobby and the medical racketeers.

Romney has found, however, that, though it is illegal for any American candidate to accept money overseas, while overseas, from overseas, at home from those who are citizens of other countries, he feels himself above the law, in the sweet and motherly arms of the Israeli controlled American media.

Now drowning in illegal cash, much from London bankers, his most interesting catch was the private dinner he shared with the Tel Aviv “blood diamond” smugglers who donated up to $25 million dollars in one night.

Key to his financial successes is his lifelong history of working closely with organized crime. His investment company, Bain, was funded initially by cash infusion from El Salvador death squads many years ago. These investors are still at his side despite charges of mass murder and corruption.

Bain Capital is Romney’s money laundering and tax avoidance company with thousands of secret bank accounts in “safe havens” around the world, invisible billions, hidden transactions, unseen profits and unseen “clients.”

Now Romney has found the “mother of all causes,” selling the promise of an American war, fought by Americans, financed by Americans, American dead, American blood, American collapse, a war demanded by, not Jews of the world but by organized crime groups operating through Israel’s Likudist party, dominated by the Koch Brothers, American gasoline speculators, Sheldon Adelson, whose reputation would fill volumes and Rupert Murdoch, whose spy organization is now proven to have blackmailed three consecutive British government, well proven, and likely to have been even more successful in the United States, Germany, Canada, Australia and a dozen other nations.


Most embarrassing to both Russia and the United States has been the ability of criminal organizations to secure sanctions against Iran when both nations are burdened by official reports stating with comprehensive clarity that Iran has no nuclear program.

Even more embarrassing for Russia, who refused to veto sanctions as they did with Iran’s ally Syria, is the fact that Iran’s peaceful nuclear program is built, in near entirety on Russian technology, a Russian nuclear reactor and 3000 Russian technicians.

Statements by Obama directly contradict America’s National Intelligence Estimate. The estimate stated that Iran has no nuclear program. Russia’s Putin has similarly ignored, not just his own intelligence agencies but the fact that Russia is actually building Iran’s reactor and has 3000 technicians in Iran, all of whom probably are not entirely deaf and blind.

Obama has no rational claim to ignorance. His behavior is like that of the playground, all the other children are eating dirt, he feels he has to do the same. In this case, however, when known falsehoods likely to end in a destructive war are agreed to out of fear of retaliation by a former furniture salesman (Netanyahu) or gambling boss, the real importance of the presidency comes into doubt.

A problem no one will mention, is the behavior of Putin in Tel Aviv, backing Netanyahu’s claims of Iran’s violation of voluntary agreements based on no facts other than the statements of one of the world best known pathological liars. What does the failed furniture salesman from Philadelphia have on Uncle Vladimir?

Neither leader has dealt with the simple fact, Iran has the right to build anything it wants for any reason it wishes.

Similarly, the United States, under Bush, both withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 and withdrew from participation in the International Criminal Court at The Hague.
The latter, the withdrawal from the court, is a veritable admission of complicity in war crimes with key U.S. officials facing indictment and arrest across the globe.

Were one to be honest, the entire Bush administration is under a privileged form of “house arrest” as is Britain’s Tony Blair. All face criminal proceedings and continually make plans to travel but end up cancelling, sometimes out of public outcry for justice or to actually avoid arrest.

Despite his pronouncements, even with an election upcoming and the need to parrot childish threats in order to please the Israeli press a prerequisite, Obama has made it clear he will not attack Iran. It is time the public realizes that by opposing war and running against Romney, an agent of a hostile foreign power and longtime organized crime affiliate, the president and those around him are at great risk.

The carefully choreographed and very public attempt on the life of General Dempsey is a greeting card from the Adelson/Romney/Netanyahu camp.

Several appropriate responses, RSVPs as it were, come to mind, some partially fatal. Is an American president really the leader of the free world, as we so often say, if any “two bit thug” can dictate policy?

Despite that position, Obama controls well over 80% of the Jewish vote in the United States where, as pointed out in an earlier article, studies have shown only 4% of Jewish voters in America feel Iran is any threat to Israel.

A critical part of understanding organized crime requires the study of its origins, particularly in America, during the 19th century.

While London, from the earliest days of what America had believed to be freedom from British rule, in actuality ran America’s economy, and was, itself, subjected to rule by continental bankers.

Britain, the colonizer of the world was, itself, no more than a client of the Bauer/Rothschild group who underwrote the British pound.

The real criminal groups running American politics developed from among the immigrant gangs that settled America’s cities. There were German, Irish, Italian and Jewish gangs. All that survive now are the remnants of the Mafia, the Jewish gangs who now run Washington and Wall Street and the new threats from Kosovo and Albania, the latest round of criminal immigration into America.

With the full cooperation of FBI Director Hoover, tasked with protecting America from criminal organizations, the government stood aside while every aspect of American life, every necessity from water to electricity to medicine, leaving nothing out, came under assault by criminal groups grown fat on profiteering from war, narcotics and, during the Prohibition years, the sale of illegal alcohol.

For decades, America’s media has been tasked with blaming all ills on Italian Americans and corrupt trade unions while America has been little but a colony of key European banking families who created wars, suppressed technologies, manipulated currencies, raised and crushed stock markets and national economies and, in the end, became as a hydra, the multi-headed beast of Greek mythology, ruling all.

What drew Adelson, Romney and even Putin to Israel at this critical time as the world sits on the brink of nuclear war over Syria is simple. We are again reminded of Putin’s visit to Israel.

No Israeli citizen was spoken to, no public concerns were addressed, no, a visit to Israel is a visit to the “safe haven” for worldwide organized crime that controls and manages the vast and endless wealth of the Russian continent as easily as it runs Britain or dances its Washingtonian puppets into discarding laws and traditions and becoming a surrogate bully, not for a nation but for an international criminal conspiracy.

The language of politics must be replaced with the language of crime as the solutions to what are misconstrued as political problems are and have long been responses to the depredations of criminal organizations.

It isn’t as though Iran were the only target, simply the public target where control of the United Nations Security Council can be exercised, a demonstration of the raw power of evil.

The mistake made by so many is to use principles of geopolitics to describe the world condition, the continual entropy, the centralization of wealth and the rapid deterioration of human rights as wars rage without end.

Even the educated classes, searching for patterns and rationales to explain how 2000 trillion dollars represented by “derivative debt” could encumber all the world’s currencies, a staggering amount created by an unseen hand through a process none have yet been able to describe.

Debt, or as it is known in criminal circles as “loan sharking,” is the business of the world. Controlling currencies was not enough, thus controlled governments, bribed, threatened, blackmailed and bought looked away while the wealth and hope of a hundred generations was stolen overnight, a few lines of text, a few entries on computers and generations of our progeny are changed, in that moment, from citizens of the world to “useless eaters,” as Henry Kissinger would describe them.

Armies may march, air forces may bomb, drones may attack but none of this is war or politics, nor has it been for centuries. This is where we went awry. We chose to play chess while our opponents simply put a pistol on the table and emptied our pockets.

America is living this today, as it looks on an upcoming election. The very few can escape the packaged news, scripted in Hollywood or Washington or Tel Aviv, our political life is a theatrical production, a comic tragedy without the Shakespearean irony.


This is a government that Sheldon Adelson, the man who believes he will be America’s real next president, believes he can take to war, a systematic conquest of the Middle East and Central Asia, done for the criminal elements some call Israel, done, quite simply, to prove the power of evil over good.

GF/JR

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