http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_15863/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=gXM3tmzc
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Thursday, July 30, 2009
(BN) Holbrooke Says U.S. End to Afghan Drug-Eradication Effort `Well Received'
Bloomberg News, sent from my iPhone.
Holbrooke Says U.S. End to Afghan Drug Eradication Gets Results
July 30 (Bloomberg) -- The Obama administration's decision to stop eradicating drug crops in Afghanistan and increase funding for agricultural development is the "most well-received change of American policy" in the region, a U.S. special envoy said.
Richard Holbrooke, who returned July 28 from a weeklong trip to the region, told reporters yesterday the Bush administration wasted hundreds of millions of dollars on "counterproductive" efforts to wipe out opium poppy production.
"All we did was alienate" poor farmers who had no alternative cash crops or means of livelihood, "and we were driving people into the hands of the Taliban," said Holbrooke, U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. "The amount of hectares we were destroying was inconsequential and the amount of money we were denying the Taliban was zero."
The decision to stop eradicating opium poppy was part of a larger policy shift ordered by President Barack Obama, who announced four months ago that he would send more troops, diplomats and development workers to Afghanistan to spearhead an integrated civil-military approach to eliminating terrorist safe havens in the region, including in Pakistan.
The new U.S. approach to drugs in Afghanistan "flies in the face of a lot of conventional drug-enforcement doctrine," said Holbrooke, a former ambassador to the United Nations under President Bill Clinton.
In countries such as Mexico, Colombia and parts of Thailand, much of the focus of U.S. policy has been to eradicate drugs, he said. "Here, the purpose of our policy is to strengthen the government and help defeat the Taliban," Holbrooke said. "And we were not doing it."
Interdiction Efforts
Rather than spending an estimated $44,000 per hectare, or 2.47 acres, to eradicate poppy crops, the U.S. will focus on drug interdiction efforts that target traffickers and the development of alternative crops, Holbrooke said.
He said that on his latest trip to Helmand and Kandahar provinces, two strongholds of the Afghan Taliban that are also among the most heavily planted with poppy crops, he had seen "the first tangible evidence that one of the most important policy shifts" made by the U.S. for the region "is beginning to show results."
Holbrooke said farmers had begun to understand that the U.S. was plowing hundreds of millions of dollars into developing the cultivation of lucrative legal crops and roads to marketplaces, providing alternatives that would allow them to abandon poppy cultivation.
In a separate roundtable yesterday, Josette Sheeran, executive director of the Rome-based UN World Food Program, said improved distribution techniques in Afghanistan have helped spur demand for wheat to the point where it's becoming competitive with the price of poppies.
To contact the reporter on this story: Indira Lakshmanan in Washington at ilakshmanan@bloomberg.net
Find out more about Bloomberg for iPhone: http://bbiphone.bloomberg.com/iphone
Holbrooke Says U.S. End to Afghan Drug Eradication Gets Results
July 30 (Bloomberg) -- The Obama administration's decision to stop eradicating drug crops in Afghanistan and increase funding for agricultural development is the "most well-received change of American policy" in the region, a U.S. special envoy said.
Richard Holbrooke, who returned July 28 from a weeklong trip to the region, told reporters yesterday the Bush administration wasted hundreds of millions of dollars on "counterproductive" efforts to wipe out opium poppy production.
"All we did was alienate" poor farmers who had no alternative cash crops or means of livelihood, "and we were driving people into the hands of the Taliban," said Holbrooke, U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. "The amount of hectares we were destroying was inconsequential and the amount of money we were denying the Taliban was zero."
The decision to stop eradicating opium poppy was part of a larger policy shift ordered by President Barack Obama, who announced four months ago that he would send more troops, diplomats and development workers to Afghanistan to spearhead an integrated civil-military approach to eliminating terrorist safe havens in the region, including in Pakistan.
The new U.S. approach to drugs in Afghanistan "flies in the face of a lot of conventional drug-enforcement doctrine," said Holbrooke, a former ambassador to the United Nations under President Bill Clinton.
In countries such as Mexico, Colombia and parts of Thailand, much of the focus of U.S. policy has been to eradicate drugs, he said. "Here, the purpose of our policy is to strengthen the government and help defeat the Taliban," Holbrooke said. "And we were not doing it."
Interdiction Efforts
Rather than spending an estimated $44,000 per hectare, or 2.47 acres, to eradicate poppy crops, the U.S. will focus on drug interdiction efforts that target traffickers and the development of alternative crops, Holbrooke said.
He said that on his latest trip to Helmand and Kandahar provinces, two strongholds of the Afghan Taliban that are also among the most heavily planted with poppy crops, he had seen "the first tangible evidence that one of the most important policy shifts" made by the U.S. for the region "is beginning to show results."
Holbrooke said farmers had begun to understand that the U.S. was plowing hundreds of millions of dollars into developing the cultivation of lucrative legal crops and roads to marketplaces, providing alternatives that would allow them to abandon poppy cultivation.
In a separate roundtable yesterday, Josette Sheeran, executive director of the Rome-based UN World Food Program, said improved distribution techniques in Afghanistan have helped spur demand for wheat to the point where it's becoming competitive with the price of poppies.
To contact the reporter on this story: Indira Lakshmanan in Washington at ilakshmanan@bloomberg.net
Find out more about Bloomberg for iPhone: http://bbiphone.bloomberg.com/iphone
Sent from my iPhone
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Shadowland Replay from November 2003
Written about Iraq, relevant to Afghanistan:
Lessons of History
War can never be democratic. The danger of winning in Iraq could be losing in America
President Bush made one of his great speeches this week, calling for an end to despotism in the Arab world and preaching the values of democracy as the key to life, liberty and stability.
It's a vision that most Arabs would embrace. They're sick as hell of the repression, stagnation and tyranny the United States supported for so long just because certain rulers helped guarantee a reasonable price for oil, or fought communism in the 1980s, or fought Islamism in the 1990s or signed peace treaties with Israel. If the United States is truly making democracy its first priority, and putting all those other issues on the back burner, it could have the Arab masses firmly behind it.
But let's get real. The journey from despotism to democracy in the Middle East is going to take us down a bloody, thankless road and, the truth is, it's a trip that could put America's own democracy in danger.
Occupied Iraq is the critical test case. No need to recount once more all the delusions and illusions that led us into that mess. The position of the administration is now clear: we're not leaving until the country is up and running, with a constitution, elections and all the trappings of pluralism. No democracy, no exit.
But democracy doesn't beat an insurgency, which is what we're looking at right now. I've been covering guerrilla wars for almost 25 years, and in every case I've been convinced that the only way to defeat committed insurgents fighting on their home ground, in the short and medium term, is with ferocious, unrelenting repression. Afterward, compromise with the insurgents can help finish the job for good, and the democratic process can be part of that. But first: force.
This is one of the points the best-selling military historian John Keegan makes in his new book, "Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to Al Qaeda" (Knopf) His argument is that intelligence is helpful in any battle, but rarely decisive. "War ultimately is about doing, not thinking," he concludes. And what you do in war can never be called democratic.
The first insurgency I covered in detail was El Salvador in the early 1980s. Back then, it was conventional wisdom among liberals that the activities of right-wing death squads were not only morally repellent, they were counterproductive in the fight against communists. They supposedly drove people into the arms of the rebels. In fact, the death squads were morally repellent. The slaughter they carried out, murdering and torturing many more of the innocent than the guilty, was nauseating. But it was effective. The urban infrastructure of the Salvadoran rebels was virtually obliterated, preventing them from launching any effective uprising for years to come. Salvadoran democracy, such as it is, was built on the corpses of those killed by the death squads. The party that has held the presidency ever since that war ended was founded by the leader of the death squads.
Much is made of guerrilla ideologies--communist, or Islamist, or Baathist. But the driving force in most guerrilla movements is simply dignity. Throughout history, long before any "-isms" were known, men fought against conquerors and occupiers because they found the presence of the foreigners humiliating. They used any means at their disposal to strike back, and as often as not they were denounced by the occupiers as bandits, savages and, yes, terrorists for doing so.
You discover the same pattern repeated over and over again, literally for thousands of years, in Robert Asprey's "War in the Shadows," a two-volume history of guerrilla warfare that came out in 1975 and really ought to be reissued now.
You read about a general in an occupation force saying, "There is but one way of inducing the violent rebels to become our friends, and that is by convincing them it is in their best interest to do so"--a none-too-veiled threat. Another complains that "the violence and passions of these people are beyond every curb of religion, and Humanity, they are unbounded and every hour exhibit dreadful wanton mischiefs, murders and violence of every kind, unheard of before."
The sentiments are familiar enough in Iraq right now even if the syntax is not. But the officers quoted by Asprey were British--Lord Cornwallis and Brig. Gen. Charles O'Hara--writing about Francis Marion, "The Swamp Fox," and other guerrillas in the Carolinas during the American Revolution. Cornwallis shattered the conventional American Army in the South in less than an hour at the Battle of Camden, but he couldn't get rid of those guys in the South Carolina Low Country, who just wouldn't play by the rules. The political leadership back in London was balking at the cost. The local allies Cornwallis picked up started to desert him. He couldn't get the boots on the ground to do the job. And he just couldn't understand why he couldn't win.
Some readers will call this moral relativism (and they're welcome to expound on the subject at Shadowland@newsweek.com). But it's really just a matter of learning from the past experience of guerrilla fighting, and of terrorism. There are few mysteries here, unless we refuse to read the history at all....(more)
Lessons of History
War can never be democratic. The danger of winning in Iraq could be losing in America
President Bush made one of his great speeches this week, calling for an end to despotism in the Arab world and preaching the values of democracy as the key to life, liberty and stability.
It's a vision that most Arabs would embrace. They're sick as hell of the repression, stagnation and tyranny the United States supported for so long just because certain rulers helped guarantee a reasonable price for oil, or fought communism in the 1980s, or fought Islamism in the 1990s or signed peace treaties with Israel. If the United States is truly making democracy its first priority, and putting all those other issues on the back burner, it could have the Arab masses firmly behind it.
But let's get real. The journey from despotism to democracy in the Middle East is going to take us down a bloody, thankless road and, the truth is, it's a trip that could put America's own democracy in danger.
Occupied Iraq is the critical test case. No need to recount once more all the delusions and illusions that led us into that mess. The position of the administration is now clear: we're not leaving until the country is up and running, with a constitution, elections and all the trappings of pluralism. No democracy, no exit.
But democracy doesn't beat an insurgency, which is what we're looking at right now. I've been covering guerrilla wars for almost 25 years, and in every case I've been convinced that the only way to defeat committed insurgents fighting on their home ground, in the short and medium term, is with ferocious, unrelenting repression. Afterward, compromise with the insurgents can help finish the job for good, and the democratic process can be part of that. But first: force.
This is one of the points the best-selling military historian John Keegan makes in his new book, "Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to Al Qaeda" (Knopf) His argument is that intelligence is helpful in any battle, but rarely decisive. "War ultimately is about doing, not thinking," he concludes. And what you do in war can never be called democratic.
The first insurgency I covered in detail was El Salvador in the early 1980s. Back then, it was conventional wisdom among liberals that the activities of right-wing death squads were not only morally repellent, they were counterproductive in the fight against communists. They supposedly drove people into the arms of the rebels. In fact, the death squads were morally repellent. The slaughter they carried out, murdering and torturing many more of the innocent than the guilty, was nauseating. But it was effective. The urban infrastructure of the Salvadoran rebels was virtually obliterated, preventing them from launching any effective uprising for years to come. Salvadoran democracy, such as it is, was built on the corpses of those killed by the death squads. The party that has held the presidency ever since that war ended was founded by the leader of the death squads.
Much is made of guerrilla ideologies--communist, or Islamist, or Baathist. But the driving force in most guerrilla movements is simply dignity. Throughout history, long before any "-isms" were known, men fought against conquerors and occupiers because they found the presence of the foreigners humiliating. They used any means at their disposal to strike back, and as often as not they were denounced by the occupiers as bandits, savages and, yes, terrorists for doing so.
You discover the same pattern repeated over and over again, literally for thousands of years, in Robert Asprey's "War in the Shadows," a two-volume history of guerrilla warfare that came out in 1975 and really ought to be reissued now.
You read about a general in an occupation force saying, "There is but one way of inducing the violent rebels to become our friends, and that is by convincing them it is in their best interest to do so"--a none-too-veiled threat. Another complains that "the violence and passions of these people are beyond every curb of religion, and Humanity, they are unbounded and every hour exhibit dreadful wanton mischiefs, murders and violence of every kind, unheard of before."
The sentiments are familiar enough in Iraq right now even if the syntax is not. But the officers quoted by Asprey were British--Lord Cornwallis and Brig. Gen. Charles O'Hara--writing about Francis Marion, "The Swamp Fox," and other guerrillas in the Carolinas during the American Revolution. Cornwallis shattered the conventional American Army in the South in less than an hour at the Battle of Camden, but he couldn't get rid of those guys in the South Carolina Low Country, who just wouldn't play by the rules. The political leadership back in London was balking at the cost. The local allies Cornwallis picked up started to desert him. He couldn't get the boots on the ground to do the job. And he just couldn't understand why he couldn't win.
Some readers will call this moral relativism (and they're welcome to expound on the subject at Shadowland@newsweek.com). But it's really just a matter of learning from the past experience of guerrilla fighting, and of terrorism. There are few mysteries here, unless we refuse to read the history at all....(more)
Monday, July 27, 2009
Friday, July 24, 2009
CNN: From Queens to Al-Qaeda
http://cnnmobile.com/primary/_2Nr9lG-iVqG01zYv
| New Yorker says he would have been suicide bomber Jul 23, 2009 231 GMT |
A New York man who pleaded guilty in January to charges of aiding al Qaeda was ready to be a suicide bomber for the organization, but was told he needed more religious instruction, according to a document obtained by CNN on Thursday.
Bryant Neal Vinas gave an interview in March to Belgian prosecutors as part of a terrorism case there involving a cell he was associated with. CNN obtained the prosecution-prepared interview summary document from a Belgian defense attorney, and it was authenticated by both a federal prosecutor in New York and Vinas' defense attorney.
The French-language document gives a detailed picture of how Vinas traveled from New York to Pakistan and what he did while he was there....
Sent from my iPhone
Thursday, July 23, 2009
(BN) Bashir Says Indonesian Policies to Blame for Terror Attacks That Killed 9
For the record....
Bloomberg News, sent from my iPhone.
Bashir Blames Indonesian Policies for Jakarta Attacks
July 23 (Bloomberg) -- Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir blamed the Indonesian government's policies for the suicide attacks on two luxury hotels in Jakarta and said terrorism won't end until authorities respect the supremacy of Islamic law.
"The main cause of this disaster is the Indonesian government," the Australian newspaper cited Bashir as saying yesterday. "This will not end until the government follows the right path."
Bashir, who is the alleged spiritual leader of Southeast Asian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah and lives in the grounds of an Islamic school in Java, refused to condemn the attacks and said violence was justified in the fight against non-Muslims, the newspaper said.
Authorities are struggling to identify the two bombers, who killed themselves and seven other people in the July 17 attacks on the JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels. Indonesian police yesterday released sketches of the suspects and appealed to the public for help.
The Marriot bombing suspect was described as a male aged 16 or 17, while the man who attacked the Ritz was said to be between 20 and 40 years old.
Police say the attacks may be linked to Jemaah Islamiyah, which is blamed for killing more than 280 people in a six-year bombing campaign in Indonesia.
Bashir endorsed the work of Noordin Mohammad Top, a wanted terrorist allegedly linked to the bombings, saying he "fights to defend Islam," according to the Australian.
Holy War
Bashir denies being JI's spiritual head and his conviction for involvement in the 2002 Bali bombings that left 202 people dead was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2006. He continues to call for jihad, or holy war, against the West.
Some terrorism analysts say the government must crack down on Bashir and other clerics in order to uproot Islamic extremism in the nation of 248 million people, the world's most populous Muslim country.
"If Indonesia is serious about fighting JI they must arrest and retry" Bashir for "preaching hatred," Rohan Gunaratna, head of the Singapore-based International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research, said this week.
Police carried out DNA tests on the remains of the hotel bombers in an effort to identify them, police spokesman Nanan Soekarna said yesterday. The results showed they didn't belong to men called Nur Hasbi and Ibrahim, who were identified in local media reports as the suspected bombers.
Soekarna declined to comment on media reports that Noordin's wife was arrested by counterterrorism police in Central Java.
Suspected Mastermind
Noordin is the suspected mastermind of the 2002 Bali attacks and was allegedly involved in the 2003 bombing at the same Marriott hotel in Jakarta that killed 12 people, a 2004 blast outside the Australian Embassy in Jakarta that killed at least nine, and another attack in Bali in 2005 when three suicide bombers killed themselves and 20 other people.
He leads a JI splinter organization, and after the Bali attack in 2005 identified himself as the head of a group called al-Qaeda for Southeast Asia, according to the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.
The U.S. State Department's Rewards for Justice Program refers to Noordin as one of the most dangerous members of JI, saying he is "believed to be a top recruiter, strategist and fundraiser."
Foreigners Killed
The near-simultaneous bombings on the hotels were the first terrorist attacks in Indonesia in almost four years. The attackers killed themselves and wounded about 50. Three Australians, one New Zealander and one Indonesian were among the dead and police are carrying out tests to confirm a Dutch couple was killed.
The attacks came nine days after elections in which President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono won a second five-year term, partly on his perceived ability to contain extremism.
"Terrorism is the enemy of all of us," Yudhoyono told members of his Democrat Party at a post-election meeting in Jakarta late yesterday. "They destroy everything and their victims are plenty. Let us save this country through prevention and by not giving space to these terrorists."
To contact the reporters on this story: Achmad Sukarsono in Jakarta at asukarsono@bloomberg.net Ed Johnson in Sydney at ejohnson28@bloomberg.net .
Find out more about Bloomberg for iPhone: http://bbiphone.bloomberg.com/iphone
Bashir Blames Indonesian Policies for Jakarta Attacks
July 23 (Bloomberg) -- Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir blamed the Indonesian government's policies for the suicide attacks on two luxury hotels in Jakarta and said terrorism won't end until authorities respect the supremacy of Islamic law.
"The main cause of this disaster is the Indonesian government," the Australian newspaper cited Bashir as saying yesterday. "This will not end until the government follows the right path."
Bashir, who is the alleged spiritual leader of Southeast Asian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah and lives in the grounds of an Islamic school in Java, refused to condemn the attacks and said violence was justified in the fight against non-Muslims, the newspaper said.
Authorities are struggling to identify the two bombers, who killed themselves and seven other people in the July 17 attacks on the JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels. Indonesian police yesterday released sketches of the suspects and appealed to the public for help.
The Marriot bombing suspect was described as a male aged 16 or 17, while the man who attacked the Ritz was said to be between 20 and 40 years old.
Police say the attacks may be linked to Jemaah Islamiyah, which is blamed for killing more than 280 people in a six-year bombing campaign in Indonesia.
Bashir endorsed the work of Noordin Mohammad Top, a wanted terrorist allegedly linked to the bombings, saying he "fights to defend Islam," according to the Australian.
Holy War
Bashir denies being JI's spiritual head and his conviction for involvement in the 2002 Bali bombings that left 202 people dead was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2006. He continues to call for jihad, or holy war, against the West.
Some terrorism analysts say the government must crack down on Bashir and other clerics in order to uproot Islamic extremism in the nation of 248 million people, the world's most populous Muslim country.
"If Indonesia is serious about fighting JI they must arrest and retry" Bashir for "preaching hatred," Rohan Gunaratna, head of the Singapore-based International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research, said this week.
Police carried out DNA tests on the remains of the hotel bombers in an effort to identify them, police spokesman Nanan Soekarna said yesterday. The results showed they didn't belong to men called Nur Hasbi and Ibrahim, who were identified in local media reports as the suspected bombers.
Soekarna declined to comment on media reports that Noordin's wife was arrested by counterterrorism police in Central Java.
Suspected Mastermind
Noordin is the suspected mastermind of the 2002 Bali attacks and was allegedly involved in the 2003 bombing at the same Marriott hotel in Jakarta that killed 12 people, a 2004 blast outside the Australian Embassy in Jakarta that killed at least nine, and another attack in Bali in 2005 when three suicide bombers killed themselves and 20 other people.
He leads a JI splinter organization, and after the Bali attack in 2005 identified himself as the head of a group called al-Qaeda for Southeast Asia, according to the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.
The U.S. State Department's Rewards for Justice Program refers to Noordin as one of the most dangerous members of JI, saying he is "believed to be a top recruiter, strategist and fundraiser."
Foreigners Killed
The near-simultaneous bombings on the hotels were the first terrorist attacks in Indonesia in almost four years. The attackers killed themselves and wounded about 50. Three Australians, one New Zealander and one Indonesian were among the dead and police are carrying out tests to confirm a Dutch couple was killed.
The attacks came nine days after elections in which President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono won a second five-year term, partly on his perceived ability to contain extremism.
"Terrorism is the enemy of all of us," Yudhoyono told members of his Democrat Party at a post-election meeting in Jakarta late yesterday. "They destroy everything and their victims are plenty. Let us save this country through prevention and by not giving space to these terrorists."
To contact the reporters on this story: Achmad Sukarsono in Jakarta at asukarsono@bloomberg.net Ed Johnson in Sydney at ejohnson28@bloomberg.net .
Find out more about Bloomberg for iPhone: http://bbiphone.bloomberg.com/iphone
NYTimes: Iraqi Leader’s Visit With Obama Dwells on the Positive
From The New York Times:
Iraqi Leader's Visit With Obama Dwells on the Positive
President Obama told Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki the U.S. was on track to withdraw combat forces by next August....
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/23/world/middleeast/23prexy.html
Get The New York Times on your iPhone for free by visiting http://nytimes.com/iphoneinstaller
Iraqi Leader's Visit With Obama Dwells on the Positive
By JEFF ZELENY
President Obama told Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki the U.S. was on track to withdraw combat forces by next August....
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/23/world/middleeast/23prexy.html
Get The New York Times on your iPhone for free by visiting http://nytimes.com/iphoneinstaller
Sent from my iPhone
The Leader: Not so supreme?
Iran president defies supreme leader over deputy
http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_15884/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=dflHuWeg
(BN) Obama Gets 87% Favorable Rating Among Investors Outside U.S.; 49% at Home
Bloomberg News, sent from my iPhone.
Obama Approval at 87% Outside U.S.; 49% at Home Among Investors
July 23 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama has rock-star appeal among the investing class -- except in his own country.
The Quarterly Bloomberg Global Poll of financial investors and analysts finds attitudes about the new president in Asia and Europe are overwhelmingly positive. In the U.S., by contrast, they are slightly negative.
In Europe and Asia, 87 percent of respondents say they view Obama positively, compared with just 49 percent in the U.S. His standing among American investors is even lower on economic matters: only a quarter of U.S. poll respondents rate his economic policies as "good" or "excellent," compared with more than half in Europe and Asia.
Obama's "stratospheric favorability ratings" outside the U.S. after five months in office are related to attitudes about his predecessor, former President George W. Bush, says J. Ann Selzer, the president of Selzer & Co., a Des Moines, Iowa-based polling firm that conducted the survey.
"It speaks as much to the visceral distaste for George Bush outside of the U.S," she says. In Europe and Asia, more than four of five poll respondents choose Obama over Bush as the president offering better economic leadership. In the U.S., investors pick Bush, 43 percent to 41 percent.
Brown, Putin, Lula
Worldwide, Obama has a 73 percent favorability rating, far higher marks than those of a sampling of other leaders, including U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who has a 34 percent favorable rating, President Vladimir Putin of Russia, with 23 percent, and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, with 49 percent.
Equity investors around the world have done well since Obama's Jan. 20 inauguration. The gains were most pronounced in Asia, where the MSCI Asia Pacific Index has risen 28 percent. In the U.S., the S&P 500 Index has risen 19 percent. The benchmark index for U.S. equities has rallied 41 percent over the past four months, led by a 95 percent rise in financial firms. European investors, though they are more bullish on Obama than their U.S. counterparts, have fared less well: The Eurostoxx 50 Index has risen 14 percent.
The poll of investors and analysts on six continents was conducted July 14-17. It's based on interviews with a random sample of 1,076 Bloomberg subscribers, representing decision makers in markets, finance and economics. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Fixed-Income, Equity
There isn't much difference in favorability ratings for Obama across professions. Among respondents in the fixed-income sector, he gets 70 percent, while his rating with equity investors, it is 71 percent.
A plurality of all investors, 43 percent, rate Obama's economic policies as good or excellent. Twenty-eight percent say they are average and the same number say they are below average or poor.
Obama's policies for handling of the crises in the financial and auto markets, is praised by Italian poll respondent Mario Di Marcantonio, a 32-year-old portfolio manager for Eurizon Capital SGR in Milan.
"Companies like Goldman and Morgan Stanley have been able to survive this crisis and do business as usual, and people working at GM will continue to have their jobs," he says. "I don't think they can solve the problems of the world overnight, but at least they're starting to fix it."
Government Bailouts
The views of Chris Gurkovic, a 36-year-old strategist for First Brokers Securities LLC in Jersey City, are typical of many U.S. respondents. He says bailouts of the auto and financial industries and Obama's health-care proposals are making Americans like him nervous about the government's role in the economy, and rates the president "very unfavorably" in the survey.
"I feel that we're becoming a socialist nation," Gurkovic says. "It's not a step in the right direction; the big- government policies kind of scare me."
Brown, the U.K. prime minister, gets low grades across the board. This is particularly true in Europe, where only one- quarter of respondents gave him a favorable rating.
Putin also gets bad marks from these investors, including those in Asia, where half of the respondents give him an unfavorable rating.
Brazil's Lula does better, though about one-third of the poll participants say they have "no idea" how they feel about him.
The political profile of the majority of global investors in the poll is similar to Obama's coalition. Half say they consider themselves either left of center or centrist; 42 percent say they are right of center. In the U.S., 43 percent of respondents describe themselves this way.
Obama does best with those who describe themselves as on the left: 94 percent of respondents in that group rate him favorably, compared with 80 percent of those in the center and 60 percent of those on the political right.
To contact the reporter on this story: Heidi Przybyla at hprzybyla@bloomberg.net
Find out more about Bloomberg for iPhone: http://bbiphone.bloomberg.com/iphone
Obama Approval at 87% Outside U.S.; 49% at Home Among Investors
July 23 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama has rock-star appeal among the investing class -- except in his own country.
The Quarterly Bloomberg Global Poll of financial investors and analysts finds attitudes about the new president in Asia and Europe are overwhelmingly positive. In the U.S., by contrast, they are slightly negative.
In Europe and Asia, 87 percent of respondents say they view Obama positively, compared with just 49 percent in the U.S. His standing among American investors is even lower on economic matters: only a quarter of U.S. poll respondents rate his economic policies as "good" or "excellent," compared with more than half in Europe and Asia.
Obama's "stratospheric favorability ratings" outside the U.S. after five months in office are related to attitudes about his predecessor, former President George W. Bush, says J. Ann Selzer, the president of Selzer & Co., a Des Moines, Iowa-based polling firm that conducted the survey.
"It speaks as much to the visceral distaste for George Bush outside of the U.S," she says. In Europe and Asia, more than four of five poll respondents choose Obama over Bush as the president offering better economic leadership. In the U.S., investors pick Bush, 43 percent to 41 percent.
Brown, Putin, Lula
Worldwide, Obama has a 73 percent favorability rating, far higher marks than those of a sampling of other leaders, including U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who has a 34 percent favorable rating, President Vladimir Putin of Russia, with 23 percent, and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, with 49 percent.
Equity investors around the world have done well since Obama's Jan. 20 inauguration. The gains were most pronounced in Asia, where the MSCI Asia Pacific Index has risen 28 percent. In the U.S., the S&P 500 Index has risen 19 percent. The benchmark index for U.S. equities has rallied 41 percent over the past four months, led by a 95 percent rise in financial firms. European investors, though they are more bullish on Obama than their U.S. counterparts, have fared less well: The Eurostoxx 50 Index has risen 14 percent.
The poll of investors and analysts on six continents was conducted July 14-17. It's based on interviews with a random sample of 1,076 Bloomberg subscribers, representing decision makers in markets, finance and economics. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Fixed-Income, Equity
There isn't much difference in favorability ratings for Obama across professions. Among respondents in the fixed-income sector, he gets 70 percent, while his rating with equity investors, it is 71 percent.
A plurality of all investors, 43 percent, rate Obama's economic policies as good or excellent. Twenty-eight percent say they are average and the same number say they are below average or poor.
Obama's policies for handling of the crises in the financial and auto markets, is praised by Italian poll respondent Mario Di Marcantonio, a 32-year-old portfolio manager for Eurizon Capital SGR in Milan.
"Companies like Goldman and Morgan Stanley have been able to survive this crisis and do business as usual, and people working at GM will continue to have their jobs," he says. "I don't think they can solve the problems of the world overnight, but at least they're starting to fix it."
Government Bailouts
The views of Chris Gurkovic, a 36-year-old strategist for First Brokers Securities LLC in Jersey City, are typical of many U.S. respondents. He says bailouts of the auto and financial industries and Obama's health-care proposals are making Americans like him nervous about the government's role in the economy, and rates the president "very unfavorably" in the survey.
"I feel that we're becoming a socialist nation," Gurkovic says. "It's not a step in the right direction; the big- government policies kind of scare me."
Brown, the U.K. prime minister, gets low grades across the board. This is particularly true in Europe, where only one- quarter of respondents gave him a favorable rating.
Putin also gets bad marks from these investors, including those in Asia, where half of the respondents give him an unfavorable rating.
Brazil's Lula does better, though about one-third of the poll participants say they have "no idea" how they feel about him.
The political profile of the majority of global investors in the poll is similar to Obama's coalition. Half say they consider themselves either left of center or centrist; 42 percent say they are right of center. In the U.S., 43 percent of respondents describe themselves this way.
Obama does best with those who describe themselves as on the left: 94 percent of respondents in that group rate him favorably, compared with 80 percent of those in the center and 60 percent of those on the political right.
To contact the reporter on this story: Heidi Przybyla at hprzybyla@bloomberg.net
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Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Christopherdickey@gmail.com sent you a link to content of interest
Christopherdickey@gmail.com sent you a link to the following content:
Man charged with giving al Qaeda NY transit data
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE56L5S620090722?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews
The sender also included this note:
A case to watch
--
Sent via a FeedFlare link from a FeedBurner feed.
http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/publishers/feedflare
Monday, July 20, 2009
Rafsanjani, now Khatami ...
Iran's Khatami wants
referendum on
government's legitimacy
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian reformist former president, Mohammad Khatami, called for a referendum on the legitimacy of the government, challenging the supreme leader who has backed the result of the disputed June presidential poll.
Clashes erupted in central Tehran between police and reformist protesters for the first time in weeks on Friday after another former president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, declared the Islamic Republic in crisis after the disputed June 12 poll.
"The only way out of the current situation is to hold a referendum," websites on Monday quoted Khatami as saying. "People should be asked whether they are happy with the current situation ... If the vast majority of people are happy with the current situation, we will accept it as well."...(more)
NYTimes: Netanyahu’s Talk of Peace Finds Few True Believers
From The New York Times:
MEMO FROM JERUSALEM: Netanyahu's Talk of Peace Finds Few True
Believers
By ISABEL KERSHNER
In the weeks since Benjamin Netanyahu accepted the principle of a
Palestinian state, officials are questioning his commitment to a final
peace accord....
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/world/middleeast/20israel.html
Progress on the West Bank?
West Bank plan bears fruit, but much more needed
http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_15884/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=enlqF1UY
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Sunday, July 19, 2009
NYTimes: Iranian Cleric Is Seeking the Mantle of Khomeini
From The New York Times:
NEWS ANALYSIS: Iranian Cleric Is Seeking the Mantle of Khomeini
Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president, has cast himself in a new light: as a player with the authority to interpret Iran's ideals....
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/world/middleeast/19assess.html
Get The New York Times on your iPhone for free by visiting http://nytimes.com/iphoneinstaller
NEWS ANALYSIS: Iranian Cleric Is Seeking the Mantle of Khomeini
Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president, has cast himself in a new light: as a player with the authority to interpret Iran's ideals....
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/world/middleeast/19assess.html
Get The New York Times on your iPhone for free by visiting http://nytimes.com/iphoneinstaller
Sent from my iPhone
Captured in Afghanistan
Video: Captive soldier fears he won't get home
http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_15895/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=n03BRPc1
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Saturday, July 18, 2009
Press TV: Iran's Intelligence Minister on the Alleged Election Conspiracy
Inte'l Minister details Iran election dossier
Sat, 18 Jul 2009 10:13:16 GMT
 |
Iran's Intelligence Minister Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje'i |
Iran's Intelligence Minister provides his views on the post-election events, and seeks to explain the role of both domestic and foreign elements in creating the unrest.
In Friday comments, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje'i claimed that close aides to the defeated candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi knew that he would lose the presidential race so they tampered with the election polls prior to the June 12 vote.
“The balance tilted heavily in favor of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from June 3 onwards in such a way that some key members of Mir-Hossein [Mousavi]'s campaign were sure of his defeat,” he said.
“But, they would, by no means, allow Mir-Hossein to know the situation. To keep up his morale, they even tampered with the opinion polls,” he added.
According to the minister, the president's provincial visits had compelled Mousavi's supporters to relinquish the idea that the former premier would win the elections - an idea that they had formed after some of the candidate's provincial campaign tours.
“Three days prior to the elections, when they were sure of Mousavi's defeat, they started a series of activities such as creating doubt about vote rigging,” said Mohseni-Eje'i.
“On the Wednesday and Thursday leading up to the elections, they reached the conclusion that they must disrupt the atmosphere by presenting the idea of vote rigging. And they kick-started the plan straight after the elections,” he added.... (more)
In Friday comments, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje'i claimed that close aides to the defeated candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi knew that he would lose the presidential race so they tampered with the election polls prior to the June 12 vote.
“The balance tilted heavily in favor of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from June 3 onwards in such a way that some key members of Mir-Hossein [Mousavi]'s campaign were sure of his defeat,” he said.
“But, they would, by no means, allow Mir-Hossein to know the situation. To keep up his morale, they even tampered with the opinion polls,” he added.
According to the minister, the president's provincial visits had compelled Mousavi's supporters to relinquish the idea that the former premier would win the elections - an idea that they had formed after some of the candidate's provincial campaign tours.
“Three days prior to the elections, when they were sure of Mousavi's defeat, they started a series of activities such as creating doubt about vote rigging,” said Mohseni-Eje'i.
“On the Wednesday and Thursday leading up to the elections, they reached the conclusion that they must disrupt the atmosphere by presenting the idea of vote rigging. And they kick-started the plan straight after the elections,” he added.... (more)
Crisis? What Crisis?
Rafsanjani backs "law-breakers": Iran hardliner
By Fredrik Dahl and Hashem Kalantari
TEHRAN (Reuters) - A hardline editor seen as close to Iran's top authority accused former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on Saturday of backing "law-breakers," highlighting deepening establishment divisions after a disputed election.
Hossein Shariatmadari, editor-in-chief of the Kayhan daily, also criticized Rafsanjani, a powerful cleric and rival of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for saying in a sermon on Friday that the Islamic Republic was in crisis.
In apparent defiance of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Rafsanjani said many Iranians had doubts about the official result of the June 12 vote. He also took issue with the way the authorities had handled the poll and its aftermath.
As he led Friday prayers at Tehran University for the first time since the election, tens of thousands of protesters used the event to stage a huge show of dissent.
Clashes erupted near the university between police and followers of opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi, who came second and still contests results that showed Ahmedinejad was re-elected by a wide margin.
The government has portrayed post-election mass protests last month as the work of local subversives, or "rioters," and Western powers seeking to topple the Islamic establishment.
"Most certainly Mr Rafsanjani is familiar with the definition of a crisis ... The most meaningful word to describe the current conditions is a conspiracy," Shariatmadari said in an editorial. He is seen as a close ally of Khamenei.
He said Rafsanjani, a moderate who backed Mousavi's election campaign, had done nothing to prevent the gathering of Mousavi supporters inside and outside Tehran University, where prayers are held each Friday and broadcast live on state radio....(more)
Well-known figures from more than 60 countries, from Noam Chomsky to Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, ask Tehran to free the Canadian-Iranian journalist.
Nearly 300 of the world's most respected authors, filmmakers, and journalists have put their names to petitions this week calling on the Iranian government to release NEWSWEEK correspondent and documentary film director Maziar Bahari from prison. He has been held since June 21 in Tehran without access to a lawyer or the ability to see his family, even though no formal charges have been brought against him.
Among more than 100 authors who signed a letter sent to authorities in Tehran by PEN American Center and PEN Canada on Thursday were Nobel laureates Orhan Pamuk of Turkey, Wole Soyinka of Nigeria, and Nadine Gordimer of South Africa. Booker Prize winner Aravind Adiga is on the list, as is Italy's Umberto Eco. Martin Amis and Paul Auster, Mario Vargas Llosa, Don DeLillo, E. L. Doctorow, Ha Jin, Ian McEwan, Michael Ondaatje, Zadie Smith, and Saadi Youssef all call on the Iranian government "to release Mr. Bahari, and all others detained in connection with their post-election reporting in Iran, immediately and without condition."
While careful to avoid confrontational language and any comment on the internal Iranian dispute over the June 12 election results, the PEN petition and others underscore how closely the world is following the cases of individual detainees in Iran. The range of signatories also speaks to the diversity of Bahari's work not only as a journalist, but also as a filmmaker and playwright... (more)
Useful links:
Petition: The PEN American Center
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Recent Appearances on France24
Video debates and discussions talking about everything from Omar Bongo and the Iranian elections to Sarkozy and the failure of the Mediterranean Union.
http://www.france24.com/en/20090714-wbenfaceoff12h12m090714flv-dickey-daguzan-sarko-mediterreanean-union-one-year
http://www.france24.com/en/20090703-the-week-in-the-world-1
http://www.france24.com/en/20090703-the-week-in-the-world-2
http://www.france24.com/en/20090619-iran-elections-jose-manuel-barroso-karachi
http://www.france24.com/en/20090619-iran-omar-bongo-gabon-jose-manuel-barroso-france-pakistan
http://www.france24.com/en/20090714-wbenfaceoff12h12m090714flv-dickey-daguzan-sarko-mediterreanean-union-one-year
http://www.france24.com/en/20090703-the-week-in-the-world-1
http://www.france24.com/en/20090703-the-week-in-the-world-2
http://www.france24.com/en/20090619-iran-elections-jose-manuel-barroso-karachi
http://www.france24.com/en/20090619-iran-omar-bongo-gabon-jose-manuel-barroso-france-pakistan
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