http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/08/cnn-iran-drones-gulf

Barbara Starr, CNN's Pentagon reporter (more accurately known as: the Pentagon's reporter at CNN), has an exciting exclusive today. Exclusively relying upon "three senior officials" in the Obama administration (all anonymous, needless to say), she claims that "two Iranian Su-25 fighter jets fired on an unarmed US Air Force Predator drone in the Persian Gulf last week," while "the drone was in international airspace east of Kuwait . . . engaged in routine maritime surveillance." The drone was not hit, but, says CNN, "the incident raises fresh concerns within the Obama administration about Iranian military aggression in crucial Gulf oil shipping lanes."

First things first: let us pause for a moment to extend our thoughts and prayers to this US drone. Although it was not physically injured, being shot at by the Iranians - while it was doing nothing other than peacefully minding its own business - must have been a very traumatic experience. I think I speak on behalf of everyone, regardless of political views, when I say that we all wish this brave hero a speedy recovery and hope it is back in full health soon, protecting our freedom.

The CNN report on this incident is revealing indeed. Every paragraph - literally - contains nothing but mindless summaries of the claims of US government officials. There is not an iota of skepticism about any of the assertions, including how this incident happened, what the drone was doing at the time, or where it took place. It is pure US government press release - literally; I defy anyone to identify any differences if the US government had issued its own press release directly rather than issuing it masquerading as a leaked CNN report.

Most notably, CNN does not even bother with the pretense of trying to include the claims of the Iranian government about what happened. There is no indication that the self-described news outlet even made an effort to contact Tehran to obtain their rendition of these events or even confirmation that it occurred. It simply regurgitates the accusations of anonymous US officials that Iran, with no provocation, out of the blue decided to shoot at a US drone in international airspace. (Although CNN does not mention it, last December Iran shot down a US drone which, it claims (and the US does not deny) was in Iranian air space).

That CNN's prime mission is to serve the US government is hardly news. But given the magnitude of these kinds of accusations - their obvious ability, if not intent, to bolster animosity on the part of the US public toward Iran and heighten tensions between the two nations - shouldn't CNN at least pretend to be a bit more skeptical and even-handed about how it is reporting these claims? Anonymous Bush officials claim Saddam is reconstituting his nuclear program; anonymous Obama officials claim Iran illegally shot at a US drone for no reason.

But nothing can top this sentence from CNN, intended to explain the significance of this alleged event: "Iran has, at times, been confrontational in the region." Yes, indeed they have - in stark contrast to the peaceful United States, which never is. Or, as Jeremy Scahill today, anticipating how Starr might present her report on-air on CNN later today: "Iran, which has launched airstrikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and [holding earpiece] -- wait, what's that, Wolf? Oh, right. The US, which has..." Scahill was being a bit generous to Wolf Blitzer there, who would be far more likely to add; "yes, that's right, Barbara: and we should also remind our viewers how Iran, just a few short years ago, attacked its neighbor Iraq, destroyed the country, and then occupied it for almost a decade, showing how aggressive the mullahs are willing to be in this region."

In case any of you thought the US media would change its future behavior in light of the debacle during the run-up to the Iraq War - and, really, were any of you thinking they would? - this is your answer. The pre-Iraq-War behavior wasn't an abandonment of their purpose but the supreme affirmation of it: to drape the claims of the US government with independent credibility, dutifully serve its interests, and contrive an appearance of a free press. This is our adversarial, watchdog media in action.

Iranian evil

This all reminds me of a debate I did a couple years ago on MSNBC with Arianna Huffington and the Washington Post's Jonathan Caephart over Iran and whether it should be viewed as an aggressor and enemy of the US. For most of the debate, MSNBC kept showing scary video footage of a test of a mid-range missile which Iran had just conducted, and then Capehart picked up on that to tell me, in essence: how can you say Iran isn't aggressive when they're testing these missiles? Yes, because, clearly, countries of peace (such as the US and Israel) would never do something as belligerent as testing missiles, much like no real Country of Peace would ever want to acquire a nuclear weapon.


UPDATE

The Washington Post's report describes the incident as having taken place "near Iranian airspace", and then posts a map to illustrate just how close. Like CNN, though, the Post bases all of its "reporting" on what the US government claims, and does not indicate that it even attempted to obtain comment from the Iranians, simply noting instead that "Iranian media had not reported on the Nov. 1 incident as of Thursday afternoon."

Moreover, if it turns out that the claim of the US government is accurate and the drone was just outside of Iran's airspace: does anyone have any thoughts on what the fate would be of an Iranian drone that was found just outside the airspace of the US on the Eastern seaboard, or right near Israeli airspace? I suspect that a lot more than an Iranian drone would be shot at. I'm also quite certain that, in reporting on such an incident, CNN and the Washington Post would be certain to include the views of the US or Israeli governments.

Connoisseur: Heard that too. Can't confirm

Ok .Please let me know if you hear anything .

Can anyone confirm if Madonna University operating license has been suspended?

ROSSIKE:

With all pleasure logic101



The Destruction of Black Civilization

By Dr Chancellor Williams

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Destruction-Black-Civilization-Issues-4500BC/dp/0883780305/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336656017&sr=8-1


The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality?

By Cheikh Anta Diop

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-African-Origin-Civilization-Reality/dp/1556520727/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b


The Mis-education of the Negro

By Carter G. Woodson

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Mis-education-Negro-Carter-Woodson/dp/0913543705/ref=pd_sim_b_3


(I would especially recommend the last book for people like alienyouth and nduchuks)

Bro Thanks for your booklist but i have read all books above.I want something more.

Ross ike I admire your.Would you recommend some books for me to read

Dede1: The example of wicked colonial influence is the country called Nigeria. There is no basis for unity in Nigeria. Even one of the British Governor-General, Sir Arthur Richard, said that “it is only the accident of British suzerainty which has made Nigeria a country”.

Yet many dingbats out of Nigeria will shout tribal bigot when a person suggests disintegration of cesspit called Nigeria into nation states.

Dude whether nigeria was amalagamated or not does not change the fact that there are factors from outside the continent which contribute to our sorry state now.

[quote author=babaowo][/quote]
Telling an average nigerian this is like trying to get blood out of stone.

Modern-day versions of the Gospel of Luke have a staggering 10,000 more words than the same Gospel in the Sinai Bible. Six of those words say of Jesus "and was carried up into heaven", but this narrative does not appear in any of the oldest Gospels of Luke available today ("Three Early Doctrinal Modifications of the Text of the Gospels", F. C. Conybeare, The Hibbert Journal, London, vol. 1, no. 1, Oct 1902, pp. 96-113). Ancient versions do not verify modern-day accounts of an ascension of Jesus Christ, and this falsification clearly indicates an intention to deceive.


Today, the Gospel of Luke is the longest of the canonical Gospels because it now includes "The Great Insertion", an extraordinary 15th-century addition totaling around 8,500 words (Luke 9:51-18:14). The insertion of these forgeries into that Gospel bewilders modern Christian analysts, and of them the Church said:

"The character of these passages makes it dangerous to draw inferences"

(Catholic Encyclopedia, Pecci ed., vol. ii, p. 407).

Just as remarkable, the oldest Gospels of Luke omit all verses from 6:45 to 8:26, known in priesthood circles as "The Great Omission", a total of 1,547 words. In today's versions, that hole has been "plugged up" with passages plagiarized from other Gospels. Dr Tischendorf found that three paragraphs in newer versions of the Gospel of Luke's version of the Last Supper appeared in the 15th century, but the Church still passes its Gospels off as the unadulterated "word of God" ("Are Our Gospels Genuine or Not?", op. cit.)

When the New Testament in the Sinai Bible is compared with a modern-day New Testament, a staggering 14,800 editorial alterations can be identified. These amendments can be recognized by a simple comparative exercise that anybody can and should do. Serious study of Christian origins must emanate from the Sinai Bible's version of the New Testament, not modern editions.


Of importance is the fact that the Sinaiticus carries three Gospels since rejected:

the Shepherd of Hermas (written by two resurrected ghosts, Charinus and Lenthius)

the Missive of Barnabas

the Odes of Solomon

Space excludes elaboration on these bizarre writings and also discussion on dilemmas associated with translation variations.


Modern Bibles are five removes in translation from early editions, and disputes rage between translators over variant interpretations of more than 5,000 ancient words. However, it is what is not written in that old Bible that embarrasses the Church, and this article discusses only a few of those omissions.



One glaring example is subtly revealed in the Encyclopaedia Biblica (Adam & Charles Black, London, 1899, vol. iii, p. 3344), where the Church divulges its knowledge about exclusions in old Bibles, saying:

"The remark has long ago and often been made that, like Paul, even the earliest Gospels knew nothing of the miraculous birth of our Saviour".

That is because there never was a virgin birth.


It is apparent that when Eusebius assembled scribes to write the New Testimonies, he first produced a single document that provided an exemplar or master version. Today it is called the Gospel of Mark, and the Church admits that it was "the first Gospel written" (Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. vi, p. 657), even though it appears second in the New Testament today. The scribes of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were dependent upon the Mark writing as the source and framework for the compilation of their works. The Gospel of John is independent of those writings, and the late-15th-century theory that it was written later to support the earlier writings is the truth (The Crucifixion of Truth, Tony Bushby, Joshua Books, 2004, pp. 33-40).

Thus, the Gospel of Mark in the Sinai Bible carries the "first" story of Jesus Christ in history, one completely different to what is in modern Bibles. It starts with Jesus "at about the age of thirty" (Mark 1:9), and doesn't know of Mary, a virgin birth or mass murders of baby boys by Herod. Words describing Jesus Christ as "the son of God" do not appear in the opening narrative as they do in today's editions (Mark 1:1), and the modern-day family tree tracing a "messianic bloodline" back to King David is non-existent in all ancient Bibles, as are the now-called "messianic prophecies" (51 in total).



The Sinai Bible carries a conflicting version of events surrounding the "raising of Lazarus", and reveals an extraordinary omission that later became the central doctrine of the Christian faith: the resurrection appearances of Jesus Christ and his ascension into Heaven. No supernatural appearance of a resurrected Jesus Christ is recorded in any ancient Gospels of Mark, but a description of over 500 words now appears in modern Bibles (Mark 16:9-20).


Despite a multitude of long-drawn-out self-justifications by Church apologists, there is no unanimity of Christian opinion regarding the non-existence of "resurrection" appearances in ancient Gospel accounts of the story. Not only are those narratives missing in the Sinai Bible, but they are absent in the Alexandrian Bible, the Vatican Bible, the Bezae Bible and an ancient Latin manuscript of Mark, code-named "K" by analysts. They are also lacking in the oldest Armenian version of the New Testament, in sixth-century manuscripts of the Ethiopic version and ninth-century Anglo-Saxon Bibles. However, some 12th-century Gospels have the now-known resurrection verses written within asterisks-marks used by scribes to indicate spurious passages in a literary document.

The Church claims that "the resurrection is the fundamental argument for our Christian belief" (Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. xii, p. 792), yet no supernatural appearance of a resurrected Jesus Christ is recorded in any of the earliest Gospels of Mark available. A resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ is the sine qua non ("without which, nothing" of Christianity (Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. xii, p. 792), confirmed by words attributed to Paul:

"If Christ has not been raised, your faith is in vain"

(1 Cor. 5:17).

The resurrection verses in today's Gospels of Mark are universally acknowledged as forgeries and the Church agrees, saying,

"the conclusion of Mark is admittedly not genuine ... almost the entire section is a later compilation"

(Encyclopaedia Biblica, vol. ii, p. 1880, vol. iii, pp. 1767, 1781; also, Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. iii, under the heading "The Evidence of its Spuriousness"; Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. iii, pp. 274-9 under heading "Canons".

Undaunted, however, the Church accepted the forgery into its dogma and made it the basis of Christianity.


The trend of fictitious resurrection narratives continues. The final chapter of the Gospel of John (21) is a sixth-century forgery, one entirely devoted to describing Jesus' resurrection to his disciples.



The Church admits:

"The sole conclusion that can be deduced from this is that the 21st chapter was afterwards added and is therefore to be regarded as an appendix to the Gospel"

(Catholic Encyclopedia, Farley ed., vol. viii, pp. 441-442; New Catholic Encyclopedia (NCE), "Gospel of John", p. 1080; also NCE, vol. xii, p. 407).

Nayah:
Do you know France as I know them? do you know their will, let me tell you that if you knew what's going on behind the scene you wouldn't tell this please Liability has to be shared, and France has to take his own, sorry

Nayah Please tell us more about france

Great thread.I would love to learn more

You can use multicasting in java to write one but think of what fayimora said.

This thread is being derailed from the original topic .

Pennywise:

This author can write till thy kingdom come. The truth is we went to the IMF. The IMF didnt come to us.

when did the nigerian government go to the imf

Earlier today I was video interviewed over Skype by New York Times journalist Robert Mackey about my coverage of events in Libya and Syria and my criticisms of the mainstream western and GCC media in relation to events in those countries.

This was my first interview by a mainstream western media organisation and I have been told that the video will be published in full tomorrow.

Prior to the interview I was sent three questions outlining the general topics that would be covered in the interview. In some ways the interview veered away from these topics and so here I will publish the questions that were outlined prior to the interview and publish my full answers to them, just because I feel like it is important that full responses are given to these questions in particular, and while I made most of these points in the interview, there are some points that I omitted.

Robert Mackey : Since your impressions of what is happening in Syria seem to be strikingly different from those of many foreign reporters who have worked there recently, I wanted to ask you about how you found your sources and what you think accounts for the different picture painted of the conflict by other journalists.

Lizzie Phelan : First of all I hope that you will give me the opportunity to answer all of your questions in full, so that the context which is always lacking can be provided. I also hope that you will ask all the questions that you proposed when I agreed to do this interview. If not I will myself publish the full questions and my full answers.

This question is flawed, because what you really mean is that my impressions of what is happening in Syria seem to be strikingly different from those reporters from the NATO and GCC countries which have a vested interest in destabilising Syria. Of course my impressions are actually shared by the majority people of this world, from those countries outside of NATO and the GCC and particularly those which are victims of these powers. But because they do not own a powerful media their voices are drowned out by the impressions of the minority reflected in the mainstream media of the NATO and GCC countries.

So in relation to my sources, I find my sources through a number of different means, but my main means is I talk to ordinary people every where I go and in Syria this is not difficult because people are really keen to speak about the crisis in their country, especially to foreigners who they feel strongly have a false impression about their country and current events. This was overwhelmingly, but of course not exclusively, the point of view that I encountered. And this is reflected in my reporting.

In fact, like in Libya, I was so overwhelmed by the volume of people that wanted to talk about their anger at the fabrications in the media of the NATO and GCC countries that my colleague Mostafa Afzalzadeh and I decided to make a documentary so that we could reflect what ordinary Syrian people are really saying. This documentary will actually expose how if it was not for such media the crisis in Syria would have been over before it started and the people of Syria would be living in peace now.

The difference with journalists from mainstream media in NATO and GCC countries is that they come with an agenda, and that agenda is to cover what they call is a “revolution” happening inside Syria and to give substance to the false claims that the Syrian government is a threat to the Syrian people. So if for example they walk down the street and they have 10 people telling them there is no revolution happening in Syria and actually the people want the army to protect them from the terrorists that are flooding the country, and then they have one person who tells them that there is no democracy in Syria, they will discard the 10 as government spies and run with the one person who said something different, I witnessed this myself.

If they were to do the reverse and reflect the majority view on the street, then this would undermine the coverage of their media organisations over the previous 10 months that have painted a picture of a government hated by its people, and in turn it would undermine their own credibility as journalists working for those organisations.

But in time they will not be able to supress the truth. However, like in Libya the danger is that the truth only comes out when it is too late, when a country has been successfully destroyed by the NATO and GCC countries, with the vital help of their media. Then the western media can afford to be more honest, although never entirely, because the aims, for example of regime change, of their paymasters have been achieved.

I on the other hand am not concerned about towing a line in order to “make it” as a journalist working for one of the world’s most respected media organisations, I became a journalist in order to reflect the truth at whatever cost that may come. The only thing I am loyal to is my conscience.

RM : Since you have appeared on Press TV and Russia Today, as well as Syria state television, do you have any concern that you might seem to be endorsing the governments that finance those channels, or do you see your role more as that of an activist, opposing the policies of the US and UK, than as a neutral reporter?

LP : This question in itself is a very deceitful and loaded question, and it is taken out of all context. It implies that BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera etc and the journalists who work for those organisations are independent from their financiers. If I worked for BBC does that mean that I am endorsing the British government which funds it and that government’s centuries long and present abuses across the world?

Why is the NYT concerned about my work for Russia Today and Press TV? I challenge you to find me specific examples of journalists that work for these organisations that have engaged in bad journalistic practise. Why are you not concerned about journalists who work for Al Jazeera that is funded by and reflects the foreign policy of the Qatari emir and royal family. Al Jazeera has been proven many times over in the past few months to have published false reports about events in the region, not least Libya.

How can their journalists be neutral when their employer hosts the largest US military base in the region, and has been responsible for sending thousands of fighters, weapons and a lot of money to kill and destroy in Libya and is now doing the same in Syria in addition to having called for Arab troops to invade the country. Likewise, I have yet to hear the NYT question the “neutrality” of journalists who work with the British state funded BBC, or journalists who work for the Murdoch Press which is well documented to have strong connections with all the major western powers which are responsible for the greatest violations of international law.

So the question should start from the premise that no news organisations are neutral, and each represent a certain ideology. So if you ask me if I feel more at peace working for news channels which reflect the ideology of states that are defending themselves from constant attack by the west, that is an ideology that opposes foreign interference in their affairs and promotes their own independence, or would I feel more comfortable working for media organisations that reflect the arrogant ideology that western civilisation is superior and should be imposed across the world by any means necessary, then I think any person with the slightest understanding of global politics and at least recent history would say the former.

An additional deception in this question is that there is such a thing as neutrality and that journalists are able to separate their own beliefs in what they choose to cover and how they cover it, or indeed the pretence that journalists do not hold an opinion.

As I said, I am not concerned about others perceptions of these things, because anyone who perceives that because I have worked for Russia Today or Press TV it means that I am in someone’s pocket, whereas if I was working for a western organisation I would be “neutral,” is deceiving themselves and choosing to look at a tiny portion of a whole picture.

Incidentally, when I was stuck in the Rixos Hotel in Tripoli with those 35 other journalists, one of the days, two American journalists rushed into the hotel and swiftly exited when they realised that the hotel was being defended by Gaddafi supporters. Actually one of the two in particular was worried about the Gaddafi supporters harming him, but they requested that they just leave. Why was he so worried? Because he said he was related to somebody senior in the NTC no less. I have never seen his neutrality being called into question by the mainstream media.

Finally, what is an activist? If it means that the role you play has the effect of agitating events, then I would say that we are all in some shape or form activists. For anyone to think that their actions are benign and have no repercussions, is at best naïve. This is particularly true for all journalists, whose actions as reporters have greater repercussions than other ordinary citizens of this world. And this is of course because their voice is afforded a special platform, and when you study journalism you are taught that a reporter should act as the eyes and ears of the general public, and thus you have greater influence than the ordinary citizen.

So you either use that platform to promote justice and the principles of international law which are fundamental for everyone’s well being, or you bury your head in the sand about the responsibility that comes with that platform and you use it to promote your own personal career or interests.

RM : I also wanted to find out more about your reporting from Libya, and ask how you respond to allegations that you supported the government of Col. Qaddafi? All in all, I’m trying to get a better understanding of what drives you to speak out against Western governments but apparently lend your support to governments, like those in Iran, Russia and Syria now, that have been accused of serious human rights abuses.

LP : Again this is another deceitful question and epitomises the manipulative approach of the world’s powerful media, such as newspapers like the NYT.

Here you are asking me this question because the west’s major powers and media criminalised Muammar Gaddafi, Iran etc by accusing them of abusing human rights.

So you are trying to put me into this trap by saying that if I support Muammar Gaddafi, and Iran I also support abuses against human rights.

But first of all this question of human rights is an absolute fallacy and is at present the number one stick used to bash leaders of independent developing countries in order to provide a moral justification for the imposition of the western system upon those countries.

My colleague Dan Glazebrook did an interview on Russia Today last week following the decision by Doctors Without Borders to stop their work in Libya in despair at the appalling torture against tens of thousands of pro-Gaddafi Libyans by those rebels who have been cheered on for the past year by the western media. He reminded the public that according to HRW reports from the past 5 years, there were three possible cases of deaths in custody in Libya over 5 years, which is really exemplary, but in Britain there were 4 cases last month alone. So I would be far more concerned about being associated with the British government and thus its appalling human rights record. And that is just Britain - the rest of the NATO countries, particularly the US and also Israel and the GCC countries fare no better.

Factually speaking Libya was a paradise for human rights and Muammar Gaddafi was due to receive a human rights award prior to the NATO onslaught. And of course Libya had the highest standard of living in Africa and much of the region, including a much higher standard of living than Saudi Arabia which hardly ever is in the spotlight in the mainstream western press.

Nonetheless, you wouldn’t dream of implying that a journalist who works for the Sun or the Guardian in Britain, both of which take a position of supporting one way or another the Conservative party or the Labour Party, of supporting abuses on human rights because they work for papers which support parties that have committed some of the greatest injustices known to man throughout history all across the world and up until this present day. Injustices which far outstrip any injustices that have occurred at the hands of any leader of a developing country.

So why the two-faces? This is all part of the prejudice in western media that western civilisation is superior to anything else and therefore those responsible for the injustices committed by the west need not be held accountable, and anyone who speaks out against that should have their name dragged through the mud.

Malcolm X famously said “if you are not careful, the media will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the oppressor”, and that quote rings true more than ever today most recently in the way that the western and GCC media has covered events in Libya and Syria.

But to respond to your question directly, as I have stated, what I support is respect for international law, and the most important principle in international law, and one of the main stated aims for the body that was set up to uphold international law, the now redundant UN, is respect for the sovereignty of nations and non-interference in the internal affairs of states. Recent history shows that the root of the greatest injustices known to man is the violation of these principles and so anyone who violates these principles is a criminal and should be treated as such, and anyone who is a victim of such violations should be defended.

Now not only these principles, but all relevant international laws and norms were violated in the case of Libya and the west’s treatment of Muammar Gaddafi, and this has been well documented. The same violations are playing out against the Syrian government.

How is it that one can moralise about human rights, but not give a second’s thought to the fact that a senior member of the US government, Hilary Clinton called for the death of another head of state, Muammar Gaddafi, just two days before he was assassinated. I hope I don’t need to tell you that that was entirely illegal and abhorrent.

I am wholly against such violations, just as anybody who believes in international law and justice would be, and therefore I will support the right of anyone to defend themselves against this violation by any means necessary.

I have been accused by some of being a mouthpiece for the Libyan government but now the truth is coming out, we know that the essence of the former Libyan government’s analysis has been proved correct, whilst almost everything reported by the mainstream Western media has been proved wrong:

The rebellion WAS indeed armed from the very first day of the uprising (this was confirmed in Amnesty’s in-depth report from late last year) - not a peaceful movement

The rebels WERE working hand in glove with Western intelligence agencies to facilitate a NATO blitzkrieg

The NTC ARE disunited and incapable of governing the country.

The rebels DO have a racist, even genocidal, policy towards sub-Saharan African migrants and the third of the Libyan population is dark skinned

Gaddafi’s government WERE NOT conducting aerial attacks against protesters or mass rape (or indeed ANY rape, according to Amnesty)

There HAD NOT been 10,000 people killed in Benghazi by Gaddafi’s government during the uprising (as the NTC claimed), but 110 (Amnesty figures again) killed on both sides prior to NATO’s attack

etc,

On every major issue, the Gaddafi government’s analysis and figures have been proven far far closer to the truth than the NTC’s and the western media’s initial and unequivocal position. So ANY journalist telling the truth about these issues would have "sounded like a mouthpiece of the regime", because the government’s analysis was essentially correct, and has now been proven correct.

Lizzie Phelan

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation and its largest oil producer, is from all evidence being systematically thrown into chaos and a state of civil war. The recent surprise decision by the government of Goodluck Jonathan to abruptly lift subsidies on imported gasoline and other fuel has a far more sinister background than mere corruption and the Washington-based International Monetary Fund (IMF) is playing a key role. China appears to be the likely loser along with Nigeria’s population.

The recent strikes protesting the government’s abrupt elimination of gasoline and other fuel subsidies, that brought Nigeria briefly to a standstill, came as a surprise to most in the country. Months earlier President Jonathan had promised the major trade union organizations that he would conduct a gradual four-stage lifting of the subsidy to ease the economic burden. Instead, without warning he announced an immediate full removal of subsidies effective January 1, 2012. It was “shock therapy” to put it mildly.

Nigeria today is one of the world’s most important producers of light, sweet crude oil—the same high quality crude oil that Libya and the British North Sea produce. The country is showing every indication of spiraling downward into deep disorder. Nigeria is the fifth largest supplier of oil to the United States and twelfth largest oil producer in the world on a par with Kuwait and just behind Venezuela with production exceeding two million barrels a day. [1]

The curious timing of IMF subsidy demand

Despite its oil riches, Nigeria remains one of Africa’s poorest countries. The known oilfields are concentrated around the vast Niger Delta roughly between Port Harcourt and extending in the direction of the capital Lagos, with large new finds being developed all along the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea. Nigeria’s oil is exploited and largely exported by the Anglo-American giants—Shell, Mobil, Chevron, Texaco. Italy’s Agip also has a presence and most recently, to no one’s surprise, the Chinese state oil companies began seeking major exploration and oil infrastructure agreements with the Lagos government.

Ironically, despite the fact that Nigeria has abundant oil to earn dollar export revenue to build its domestic infrastructure, government policy has deliberately let its domestic oil refining capacity fall into ruin. The consequence has been that most of the gasoline and other refined petroleum products used to drive transportation and industry, has to be imported, despite the country’s abundant oil. In order to shield the population from the high import costs of gasoline and other refined fuels, the central government has subsidized prices.

Until January 1, 2012, that is. That was the day when, without advance warning President Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan announced immediate removal of all fuel subsidies. Prices for gasoline shot up almost threefold in hours from 65 naira (35 cents of a dollar) a liter to 150 naira (93 cents). The impact rippled across the economy to everything including prices of grains and vegetables. [2]

In justifying the move, Central Bank Governor Lamido Sanusi insisted that “The monies will be used in provision of social amenities and infrastructural development that will benefit Nigerians more and save the country from economic rift.” [3] President Goodluck Jonathan says he is phasing out the subsidy as a part of a move to “clean up the Nigerian government.” If so how he plans to proceed is anything but apparent.

The huge unexpected price hike for domestic fuel triggered nationwide protests that threatened to bring the economy to a halt by mid-January. The president deftly took the wind out of protester sails by announcing a partial rollback in prices, still leaving prices effectively double that of December. The trade union federation immediately called off the protests. Then, revealingly, Goodluck Jonathan’s government ordered the military to take to the streets to “keep order” and de facto prevent new protests. All that took place during one of the bloodiest waves of bombings and murder rampages by the terrorist Boko Haram sect creating a climate of extreme chaos. [4]

The smoking gun of the IMF

What has been buried from international accounts of the unrest is the explicit role the US-dominated International Monetary Fund (IMF) played in the situation. With suspicious timing IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde was in Nigeria days before the abrupt subsidy decision of President Jonathan. [5] By all accounts, the IMF and the Nigerian government have been careful this time not to be blatant about openly announcing demands to ends subsidies as they were in Tunisia before food protests became the trigger for that country’s Twitter putsch in 2011.

During her visit to Nigeria Lagarde said President Jonathan’s ’Transformation Agenda’ for deregulation "is an agenda for Nigeria, driven by Nigerians. The IMF is here to support you and be a better partner for you." [6] Few Nigerians were convinced. On December 29 Reuters wrote, "The IMF has urged countries across West and Central Africa to cut fuel subsidies, which they say are not effective in directly aiding the poor, but do promote corruption and smuggling. The past months have seen governments in Nigeria, Guinea, Cameroon and Chad moving to cut state subsidies on fuel." [7]

Further confirming the role US and IMF pressure on the Nigerian government played, Jeffery Sachs, Special Adviser to the United Nations (UN) Secretary General, during a meeting with President Jonathan in Nigeria in early January days after the subsidy decision, Sachs declared Jonathan’s decision to withdraw petroleum subsidy “a bold and correct policy.” [8]

Sachs, a former Harvard economics professor became notorious during the early 1990’s for prescribing IMF “shock therapy” for Poland, Russia, Ukraine and other former communist states which opened invaluable state assets for de facto plundering by dollar-rich western multinationals. [9]

Making the sudden decision to end the domestic fuel subsidy even more suspicious is the manner in which Washington and the IMF are putting pressure on only select countries to end subsidies. Nigeria, whose oil today sells for the equivalent of $1 a liter or roughly $3.78 a US gallon, is far from cheap. Brunei, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia all offer their petrol very cheap to their people. The Saudis sell their oil at 17 cents, Kuwait at 22 cents. [10] In the US gasoline averages 89 cents a liter. [11]

That means the IMF and Washington have forced one of the poorest economies in Africa to impose a huge tax on its citizens on the implausible argument it will help eliminate corruption in the state petroleum sector. The IMF knows well that the elimination of subsidies will do nothing about corruption in high places.

Were the IMF and World Bank genuinely concerned with the health of the domestic Nigerian economy, they would have provided support for rebuilding and expanding a domestic oil refinery industry that has been let to rot so that the country need no longer import refined fuels using precious state budget resources to do so. The easiest way to do that would be to expedite a two-year-old deal between China and the Nigerian government to invest some $28 billion in massive expansion of the oil refinery sector to eliminate need for importing foreign gasoline and other refined products.

Quite the opposite—the criminal cabal inside NNPC and the Government making huge profits on the old subsidy system are suddenly making double and potentially triple more to maintain the old corrupt import system, and, of course, to sabotage Chinese refinery construction that could put an end to their gravy train.

Cutting their nose to spite the face…

Rather than benefit ordinary Nigerians as the IMF proclaims to want, the elimination of the subsidies has further pauperized the 90 per cent living on less than $2 a day, according to Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the Nigerian Central Bank governor. [12] An estimated 40 million Nigerians are unemployed in the country of 148 million.

Because transport costs are a significant factor in delivery of food to the cities, food price inflation has soared along with costs of public transportation for the majority of poorer Nigerians. According to the Nigerian Leadership Sunday, “prices of commodities which shot up as a fallout of the fuel pump price increase have refused to come down.” Everything from street vegetable sellers to carwashes to roadside photographers are feeling the shock of the rise in fuel prices. Unemployment is rising as small businesses fold. [13]

The argument of the IMF and the Jonathan Administration is that by freeing fuel prices, funds would be available to more social services and rebuild Nigeria’s “infrastructure.” Both the IMF and the Government know it would have been far more economically viable to replace the current corrupt system of importing refined gasoline and fuels with investing in rebuilding Nigeria’s domestic refining capacity.

Son Gyoh of the Nigerian Awareness for Development organization stated, “Would it not be more expedient to pressure government to service the refineries to full production capacity given the implications on overhead and competitiveness for local industries?” [14]

Gyoh pointed to the source of the problem: “Why have successive governments left the refineries in a state of disrepair while spending huge on subsidy? Is there any chance that the savings from subsidy withdrawal will go directly into rehabilitating the refineries? Does deregulation imply NNPC will no longer operate a monopoly in importation of refined petroleum product or is this lobby a self-serving lifeline to continue its monopoly? ” He concludes, “In any case, there is good reason to doubt subsidy removal will solve the fuel scarcity problem as the cabal will only regroup to change tactics, a fact Nigerians are only too aware of.” [15]

After Nigeria partly nationalized its oil sector in the late 1970’s, they also took control of Shell Oil’s Port Harcourt I refinery. In 1989 Port Harcourt II refinery was built. Both refineries fell into serious disrepair after 1994 when the Abacha military dictatorship cut the “take” of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) from domestic sale of refined oil products such as gasoline from 84% to 22%. That caused a cash crisis for NNPC and a halt to refinery maintenance. Today only one of four refineries operates at all. [16]

What developed since was a system of NNPC importing foreign gasoline and other refined products for Nigeria’s domestic needs, naturally at a far more expensive cost. The price subsidies were to relieve that higher import cost, hardly a sensible solution but a very lucrative one for those corrupt elements in the state and private sector making a killing, literally, off the import process.

NNPC criminal enterprise

The IMF is well aware of the real cause of Nigeria’s fuel industry problems. A Nigerian legislative committee examining the sources of the industry’s problems recently released a report documenting that at least $4 billion annually is taken from taxpayers in fuel industry corruption with the state Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) at the center. According to the commission, “every day, fuel importers drop off 59 million liters of fuel. The country consumes 35 million liters daily. That leaves 24 million liters of oil available for smugglers to export, paid for by government fuel subsidies. This costs the Nigerian people roughly $4 billion yearly, according to Reuters.” [17]

The Nigerian government has said that the 7.5 billion dollars spent yearly on fuel subsidies could be used to provide desperately needed infrastructure. But they omit any mention of the rampant siphoning off of $4 billion of oil by black market smugglers, reportedly with connivance of high NNPC government officials, to sell to neighboring countries at a hefty profit. The refined imported fuel is reportedly smuggled into neighboring countries like Cameroon, Chad and Niger where petrol prices are far higher, according to Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, Deputy Governor of Kano State. [18]


Cinching China-Nigeria deal for three refineries, May 2010.
China as IMF target?

One major geopolitical factor that is generally ignored in recent discussion of Nigerian oil politics is the growing role of China in the country. In May 2010 only days after President Jonathan was sworn in, China signed an impressive $28.5 billion deal with his government to build three new refineries, something that in no way fit into the plans of either the IMF or of Washington or of the Anglo-American oil majors. [19]

China State Construction Engineering Corporation Limited (CSCEC) signed the deal to build three oil refineries with Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), in the biggest deal China has made with Africa. Shehu Ladan, head of NNPC, said at the signing ceremony that the added refineries would reduce the $10 billion spent annually on imported refined products. As of January 2012 the three Chinese refinery projects were still in the planning stage, reportedly blocked by the powerful vested interests gaining from the existing corrupt import system. [20]

A report in China Daily last November quoted Nigeria’s Olusegun Olutoyin Aganga, the minister of trade and investment that Nigeria was seeking added Chinese investors for its energy, mining and agribusiness industries. Last September on a visit to Beijing, Nigeria central bank governor Lamido Sanusi announced his country planned to invest 5 percent to 10 percent of its foreign exchange reserves in China’s currency, the renminbi (RMB) or yuan, noting that he sees the yuan becoming reserve currency. In 2010 China’s loans and exports to Nigeria exceeded $7 billion, while Nigeria exported $1 billion of crude oil, Sanusi stated. [21]

Until now Nigeria has held some 79% of her foreign currency reserves in dollars, the rest in Euro or Sterling, all of which look dicey given their financial and debt problems. The move of a major oil producer away from dollars, added to similar moves recently by India, Japan, Russia, Iran and others, augurs bad news for the continued role of the dollar as dominant world reserve currency. [22] Clearly some in Washington would not be happy with that.

The Chinese are also bidding to get a direct stake in Nigeria’s rich oil reserves, until now an Anglo-American domain. In July 2010, China’s CNPC (China National Petroleum Corporation) won four prospective oil blocks - two in the Niger Delta and two in the frontier Chad Basin - with plans to become core investor in the Kaduna refinery, and construction of a double track Lagos-Kano railway. [23] As well China’s oil company, CNOOC Ltd has a major offshore production area in Nigeria.

The IMF and Washington pressure to lift subsidies on imported fuels is at this point in question as is the future of China in Nigeria’s energy industry. Clear is that lifting subsidies in no way will benefit Nigerians. More alarming in this context is the orchestration of a major new wave of terror killings and bombings by the mysterious and suspiciously well-armed Boko Haram. This we will look at next in the context of Nigeria’s recent transformation into a major narcotics hub.

F. William Engdahl

mr kunle download eclipse or netbeans.Create a java project and a java class and run your hello world in the java class.You do not need to import anything to run it.

omo_to_dun:

^
I am working on my grammar. By the end of this year, I should be a master pro-GRAMMAR. As per coding, I'll leave that to the gurus.

Bros happy new year.How may hours do you spend a day coding apart from college?

vanunu:

why is it that western capitalist countries don't subsidies the consumption of fuel by it's citizens, but rather tax them, for using same.

It seems quite clear that Goodluck is right.

Your statement is naive.The Eu subsidizes agricultural products in europe ,The same as america thats why african products cant compete with wester ones.Countries subsidize alot of things but they don't tell you.Black man think for yourself.

Fayimora:


Recursion requires intuitive thinking. Its not a concept you can learn with some resource. Yeah they can get you started but they can't get you to think recursively. The way I learnt it was by reading books and then solving A LOT of problems with recursion. When I say problems I mean problems like  [log(n) or n log(n) sorting algorithms], [Tree, Graph and Disjoint set algorithms] and any other stuff I can get my hands on.

Just make sure you remember that if you still find yourself confused after practicing for 1 month, you are not dull.lol Seriously, recursion takes time and soon enough, you would just get the whole thing.

Resources to get you started ? Errm use anything at all,  lol but since you said Java, am guessing you want to see some code first.
- Any book with recursion in it.

Start with a normal book, then move to one that concentrates on Algorithms and Data Structures.

Tip: You might find yourself asking this, "How does it work?". My answer is YOU DO NOT NEED TO KNOW.

If you want an example of what I mean by my above tip, am happy to lay one or two down.

Goodluck!

Thanks bro ,I would keep trying to understand .

Negro_Ntns:

I understand.  In your mind the North is bokoharam, to the international parties you depend on for support, the North is separate from boko.  How do you prove membership in boko and how do you assess the crimes and the perpetrators involvement.  Where do you go to exact penalty against a faceless non-sovereign entity?  This is not a state, this is a grassroot movement fighting a domestic war.  The Federal Government of Nigeria has not given it international status, so why believe UN in this foolish statement for trying to intrnationalize it?   

You all take UN serious.  UN only made this statement to console spirits. . . . to remind of its own legitimacy as the protector of humanity.  Dont expect anything serious from this people.  Did you not see Sudan?  Bashir told UN to go to h_ll after they declared him wanted for war crimes against humanity.  Well, during the independence of South Sudan, Bashir was in the meeting with UN delegates to sign the accord and treaty.  Why didnt they arrest him. . . .heck, why did they even recognize his presence and signature at all?

You are well informed .

Some negros must always wait for The so called international opinion.Why cant these negroes solve their own problems and maybe realise that no one gives a rat toss on what goes on in africa.

cap is the poster of the year

omoto dun , fayimora ,and the rest,Please whats the best resource to learn and understand recursion in java

This is because their governance structure severely biases them towards the interests of the rich countries. Their decisions are made basically according to the share capital that a country has (in other words, they have a one-dollar-one-vote system). This means that the rich countries, which collectively control 60% of the voting shares, have an absolute control over their policies, while the US has a de facto veto in relation to decisions in the 18 most important areas.
One result of this governance structure is that the World Bank and the I M F have imposed on developing countries standard policy packages that are con- sidered to be universally valid by the rich countries, rather than policies that are carefully designed for each particular developing country—predictably pro- ducing poor results as a consequence. Another result is that, even when their policies may be appropriate, they have often failed because they are resisted by the locals as impositions from outside.
In response to mounting criticisms, the World Bank and the I M F have re- cently reacted in a number of ways. On the one hand, there have been some window-dressing moves. Thus the I M F now calls the Structural Adjustment Pro- gramme the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility Programme, in order to show that it cares about poverty issues, though the contents of the programme have hardly changed from before. On the other hand, there have been some genuine efforts to open dialogues with a wider constituency, especially the World Bank’s engagement with N G O s (non-governmental organizations). But the impacts of such consultation are at best marginal. Moreover, when increasing numbers of N G O s in developing countries are indirectly funded by the World Bank, the value of such an exercise is becoming more doubtful.
The I M F and the World Bank have also tried to increase the ‘local ownership’ of their programmes by involving local people in their design. However, this has borne few fruits. Many developing countries lack the intellectual resources to argue against powerful international organizations with an army of highly trained economists and a lot of financial clout behind them. Moreover, the World Bank and (he I M F have taken what I call the ‘Henry Ford approach to diversity’ (he once said that a customer could have a car painted ‘any colour . . . so long as it’s black’). The range of local variation in policies that they find acceptable is very narrow. Also, with the increasing tendency for developing countries to elect or appoint ex-World Bank or ex-I M F officials to key economic posts, ‘local’ solutions are increasingly resembling the solutions provided by the Bretton Woods Institutions.

In 1997, in Korea, for example, the I M F laid down conditions on the amount of debt that private sector companies could have, on the grounds that over-borrowing by these companies was the main reason for Korea’s financial crisis.
To add insult to injury, the Bad Samaritan rich nations often demand, as a condition for their financial contribution to I M F packages, that the borrowing country be made to adopt policies that have little to do with fixing its econ- omy but that serve the interests of the rich countries lending the money. For example, on seeing Korea’s 1997 agreement with the I M F , one outraged observer commented: ‘Several features of the I M F plan are replays of the policies that Japan and the United States have long been trying to get Korea to adopt. These included accelerating the . . . reductions of trade barriers to specific Japanese products and opening capital markets so that foreign investors can have ma- jority ownership of Korean firms, engage in hostile takeovers . , , and expand direct participation in banking and other financial services. Although greater competition from manufactured imports and more foreign ownership could . . . help the Korean economy, Koreans and others saw this . . . as an abuse of I M F power to force Korea at a time of weakness to accept trade and investment policies it had previously rejected’.
This was said not by some anti-capitalist anarchist but by Martin Feldstein, the conservative Harvard economist who was the key economic advisor to Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.

The I M F and the World Bank were originally set up in 1944 at a conference between the Allied forces (essentially the US and Britain), which worked out the shape of postwar international economic governance. This conference was held in the New Hampshire resort of Bretton Woods, so these agencies are sometimes collectively called the Bretton Woods Institutions (BWIs). The I M F was set up to lend money to countries in balance of payments crises so that they can reduce their balance of payments deficits without having to resort to deflation. The World Bank was set up to help the reconstruction of war-torn countries in Europe and the economic development of the post-colonial societies that were about to emerge—which is why it is officially called the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. This was supposed to be done by financing projects in infrastructure development (e.g., roads, bridges, dams).
Following the Third World debt crisis of 1982, the roles of both the I M F and the World Bank changed dramatically. They started to exert a much stronger pol- icy influence on developing countries through their joint operation of so-called structural adjustment programmes (SAPs). These programmes covered a much wider range of policies than what the Bretton Woods Institutions had originally been mandated to do. The BWIs now got deeply involved in virtually all areas of economic policy in the developing world. They branched out into areas like government budgets, industrial regulation, agricultural pricing, labour market regulation, privatization and so on. In the 1990s, there was a further advance in this ‘mission creep’ as they started attaching so-called governance conditionali- ties to their loans. These involved intervention in hitherto unthinkable areas, like democracy, government decentralization, central bank independence and corporate governance.
This mission creep raises a serious issue. The World Bank and the I M F initially started with rather limited mandates. Subsequently, they argued that they have to intervene in new areas outside their original mandates, as they, too, affect economic performance, a failure in which has driven countries to borrow money from them. However, on this reasoning, there is no area of our life in which the BWIs cannot intervene. Everything that goes on in a country has implications for its economic performance. By this logic, the I M F and the World Bank should be able to impose conditionalities on everything from fertility decisions, ethnic integration and gender equality, to cultural values.
In the beginning, the I M F only imposed conditions closely related to the borrower country’s management of its balance of payments, such as currency devaluation. But then it started putting conditions on government budgets on the grounds that budget deficits are a key cause of balance of payments problems. This led to the imposition of conditions like the privatization of state-owned enterprises, because it was argued that the losses made by those enterprises were an important source of budget deficits in many developing countries. Once such an extension of logic began, there was no stopping. Since everything is related to everything else, anything could be a condition

Where are our nigerian engineering companies.Why are there europeans leading the project.Its a big shame that we africans haven't learnt to do things by ourselves for ourselves.

igbo2011:

Surprised no ivan Sertima books there. These books are good. I am trying to get How Europe Underdveloped Africa. Very interesting. Theat black athena book is good too. It is like the book Stolen Legacy from George James is about the same thing. Greeks stole from Egptians.

There needs to be more African archaeologists so we can get credit for what we did in the past. Many white ones lie and hide the truth.

The walter rodney book is a masterpiece.It has a good take on how son many baks in the uk started on the blood of africans and the real truth behind leventis,unilever and the rest of them.It breaks the myth that africans were better of under colonial rule.