German Container Ship Evades Pirate Attack in the Indian Ocean

 (EU NAVFOR Atalanta PR)  The MV  Lübeck, previously of the China Shipping Container Lines, and now under German ownership, evaded pirate attack in the Somali Basin some  450 nautical miles NE of the Seychelles in the late hours of 11th, stretching into the early hours of 12 March.  
The ship is a container vessel of 33694 deadweight tonnes and is Liberia flagged. 
The Lübeck was en route to Salalah when it was attacked from the rear of the ship, with pirates opening fire with automatic weapons. The ship sustained some minor small arms fire damage to the funnel and crane forward of the ship’s bridge. All personnel are reported to be safe and well. EU NAVFOR is monitoring the situation and searching for pirate action groups operating in the area.
[N.B.: The attack came only a day after German warship Emden destroyed alleged pirate boats, though the group had not attacked any vessel. Prior to 2008 never a German vessel had been attacked by Somalis but with the engagement of the German navy several vessels with links to Germany were sea-jacked.]

Somali pirates tell their side
Shashank Bengali talks about his interviews with Somali pirates
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Box ship crew foils pirates  (Fairplay)
PIRATES shot bullet holes into a German-owned box ship’s funnel and a crane in the Indian Ocean, but failed to hijack the vessel, EU NAVFOR said today. 
MV Lübeck, previously owned by China Shipping Container Lines was attacked the morning of 11 March about 450 n-miles northeast of the Seychelle, the EU’s anti-piracy force said. [N.B.: The attack is reported by the Kuala Lumpur anti-piracy centre for 11.03.2010: 2340 UTC: Posn: 03:30S - 062:10E, i.e.a around 1100nm East of Mogadishu, Somalia]
The Liberia-flagged Lübeck was en route to Salalah when was attacked from the rear, with pirates opening fire with automatic weapons, the force added. No injuries were reported.
[N.B.: With more aggressive action by the international naval forces the level violence applied by both sides is escalating.]

Ship with Russian and Lithuanian crew eludes Somali pirates (RT-TV-Novosti) 
The German vessel “Lubeck”, with an international crew aboard, managed to escape from Somali pirates on Thursday, reports information agency Itar Tass, referring to an organization supporting sailors in Eastern Africa.
The cargo ship was on its way to a port in Oman when Somali pirates started chasing the vessel on speed boats, not far from the Seychelles Islands. The vessel was going at the rather high speed of approximately 40 km per hour, so the pirates failed to capture her, despite they opening gunfire on the ship. 
The waters off the Horn of Africa are notorious for numerous acts of piracy. Currently there are at least 9 ships and about 150 sailors being held by Somali pirates, Itar Tass reports. 
NATO has recently prolonged its anti-piracy operation in the area until 2012. Apart from NATO, other countries, including Russia, support international anti-piracy efforts. In February, several vessels of the Pacific Ocean Fleet left Russia and are currently heading for the Gulf of Aden to patrol the waters. 

Hijacked Ship Owner says Insurance Company Negotiating with Pirates by Ali Sharaya
Jeddah, Asharq Al-Awsat- Informed sources have stated to Asharq Al-Awsat that Somali pirates have asked for a ransom of $20 million for the release of the Saudi Arabian ship “Al-Nisr Al-Saudi” and its crew which were hijacked last week in the Gulf of Aden. 
Kamal Orry, the owner and chairman of the Jeddah-based International Bunkering Company which owns the hijacked ship told Asharq Al-Awsat in a telephone interview that “the hijackers – who are Somali pirates – have demanded a ransom of $20 million in return for the release of the ship and its crew.” Orry also confirmed that he was not involved in the negotiations and that the insurance company that covers Al-Nisr Al-Saudi’s insurance was conducting the negotiations with the pirates; however he refused to disclose the name of this insurance company or the details of the insurance agreement to Asharq Al-Awsat.
Orry also told Asharq Al-Awsat that “the negotiations are being conducted by a representative of the pirates who contacted them [the insurance company] via a satellite telephone where he was informed that the ship is insured and negotiations are being carried out with the insurance company.”
Orry also informed Asharq Al-Awsat that “the ship has a 14-man crew; 13 Sri Lankans and the ship’s captain who is Greek.” He added “they contacted their families yesterday and they are in good health.” 
He also revealed that this ship is brand new and was heading to Jeddah from Japan when it was hijacked. Orry said “the ship is new and modern and was not carrying any oil at the time of the hijack.” The ship was destined to operate as part of the International Bunkering Company operations in the Gulf of Jeddah where it would refuel other ships at sea. 
News agencies quoted Andrew Mwangura of the East African Seafarers’ Assistance Programme as confirming that said that the Saudi-owned 5,136 tonne al-Nisr al-Saudi ship which was seized on Monday is currently moored off the Somali coast.
In 2008, the Saudi Arabian oil tanker the Sirius Star was hijacked by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean, and it was also later moored off the Somali coast, near the port of Harardhere, a Somali pirate stronghold.

The owner of the hijacked Saudi ship for which Somali pirates are demanding a ransom of $20 million has said that it was the vessel’s insurance company that received the ransom demand and that he himself had engaged in no direct contact with the pirates.
“All contact has gone through the Saudi insurance company via its head office in Jeddah, and the negotiation process is continuing for want of any other solution,” said Kamal Muhammed Al-Urri, owner of the Al-Nisr Al-Saudi vessel.
“The priority at the moment is the safety of the crew of 13 Sri Lankans and their Greek captain. The hijackers have allowed them to speak to their families by satellite phone, and they assured them that they were in good health despite the distressing situation,” Al-Urri said. 
Al-Urri said he hoped to see international action to confront piracy on the high seas which, he said, was raising insurance premiums.
Al-Nisr Al-Saudi is a relatively small fuel oil carrier and was empty of cargo when it was hijacked in the Gulf of Aden in the first days of March. Officials said it was not registered with maritime authorities and was outside the designated route patrolled by naval warships at the time.
In 2008, Somali pirates had hijacked the Saudi-owned Sirius Star supertanker, the largest ship known to have been seized by pirates, with a full two million barrels of oil. 
The pirates held the tanker off the coast of Somalia for two months and released it in January 2009 for a ransom of $3million. 

Lankan crew safe by Rafik Jalaldeen
The captain of the merchant vessel, held by Somali pirates Al-Nisr Al-Saudi has been allowed to talk with the shipping company. He has affirmed that the 13-member Sri Lankan crew on board are safe and in good health. 
Al-Nisr Al-Saudi was hijacked in the Gulf of Aden with a 14-member crew on board, which include 13 Sri Lankans and the ship’s Greek captain, Georgios Skalimis. 
The hijackers have demanded a $20 million ransom. The ship is presently anchored off the coast of Somalia. 
A spokesperson for the Foreign Affairs Ministry said the Sri Lankan Consul General in Jeddah had contacted the General Manager of the shipping company. 
The IBCO ensured to negotiate with the Somalian pirates and expedite release of all 14 hostages. 
A group of experts to negotiate their release is due to arrive from the UK next week. 
These experts will carry out the negotiation with the shipping company and the pirates. 
However, it was expected that the negotiations can last 6-8 weeks. 
“The shipping company has credited funds for the satellite phone for talk-time.

Somali Pirates Hijack 21 Myanmar Sailors by  Dr. Khin Myint Oo (groundreport) 21 Myanmar sailors on UBT Ocean, carrying chemicals owned by Norway, were hijacked by Somali pirates, on the way from UAE to Tanzania on March 5, 2010.  There has been no information since their abduction about their ship. 
The UBT Ocean ship was flying the Marshall Islands flag. All crews on this ship are Myanmar. There was a message from the captain just after they were hijacked.
This ship is not registered at SECD, Myanmar, Seamen Employment Control Division, said U Aung Kyaw Hsan, secretary of MOSA, Myanmar Ovberseas Shipping Association.
There has been similar events that May 28,2008 M.V.Lehnann Timber and M.V. Bright  Ruby of South Korea ,including 14 Myanmar crews been hijacked by Somali pirates in September,2008.
In 2009 October, MV Alkhalia including 2 Myanmar crews and MV Kota Waja with 1 Myanmar crew had been hijacked at  the Gulf of Aden, Somalia.

Chinese fishing Vessel, 7 crew Seized off Cameroon by Venatrix Fulmen
A Chinese fishing vessel with seven fishermen aboard was seized off the coast of Cameroon in the latest attack in the waters of West Africa’s Gulf of Guinea, the Chinese embassy in Cameroon confirmed on Saturday to Reuters. 
“We are working together with the Cameroon authorities on ways and means of seeking their release,” an embassy official said of Friday’s hijack in international waters off the Bakassi peninsula. 
The official said responsibility had been claimed by the “Africa Marine Commando,” a group not known to have been involved any recent attacks on local shipping. 
Chinese crews are a common sight in the rich fishing waters of West Africa, but many do not have any licence. 
While West African pirates have not attracted the same amount of international attention as their Somali counterparts, maritime analysts say they pose an increasing risk in a region with weak surveillance and a growing number of oil finds. 
The last major attack in the Gulf of Guinea was in November, when pirates attacked an oil tanker off Benin, killing a Ukrainian sailor and stealing the contents of the ship’s safe. 
Unlike Somali pirates, seaborne gangs in West Africa aim to seize cargoes rather than take hostages for ransom.
Illegal fishing in West Africa has been as rampant as in East Africa, involving mainly vessels with European or Asian links. 
Since in many African countries corrupt government officials are involved in the criminal activities to empty the seas, local fishing communities are taking the law into their hands – a situation, which especially in Somalia has then been misused by internationally organized crime as well as to foster interests of the military-industrial complex.

With the latest captures and releases now still at least 9 seized foreign vessels (11 sea-related hostage cases since yacht SY LYNN RIVAL was abandoned and taken by the British Navy) with a total of not less than 148 crew members (incl. the British sailing couple) plus at least 9 crew of the lorries held for an exchange with imprisoned pirates, are accounted for. The cases are monitored on our actual case-list, while several other cases of ships, which were observed off the coast of Somalia and have been reported or had reportedly disappeared without trace or information, are still being followed too. Over 134 incidences (including attempted attacks, averted attacks and successful sea-jackings) had been recorded for 2008 with 49 fully documented, factual sea-jacking cases for Somalia and the mistaken sinking of one sea-jacked fishing vessel and killing of her crew by the Indian naval force. For 2009 the account closed with 228 incidences (incl. averted or abandoned attacks) with 68 vessels seized for different reasons on the Somali/Yemeni captor side as well as at least TWELVE wrongful attacks (incl. one friendly fire incident) on the side of the naval forces. 
For 2010 the recorded account stands at 25 attacks resulting in 7 sea-jackings. 
The naval alliances had since August 2008 and until January 2010 apprehended 666 suspected pirates, detained and kept or transferred for prosecution 367,  killed 47 and wounded 22 Somalis. (New independent update see: http://bruxelles2.over-blog.com/pages/_Bilan_antipiraterie_Atalanta_CTF_Otan_Russie_Exclusif-1169128.html). 
Not fully documented cases of absconded vessels are not listed in the sea-jack count until clarification. Several other vessels with unclear fate (although not in the actual count), who were reported missing over the last ten years in this area, are still kept on our watch-list, though in some cases it is presumed that they sunk due to bad weather or being unfit to sail – like the S/Y Serenity, MV Indian Ocean Explorer.Present multi-factorial risk assessment code: GoA: ORANGE / IO: RED  (Red = Very much likely, high season; Orange = Reduced risk, but very likely, Yellow = significantly reduced risk, but still likely, Blue = possible, Green = unlikely). Piracy incidents usually degrade during the monsoon season and rise gradually by the end of the monsoon. Starting from mid February until early April every year an increase in piracy cases can be expected. 
For further details and regional information see the Somali Marine and Coastal Monitor at www.australia.to and the map of the PIRACY COASTS OF SOMALIA.

—————- directly piracy, abduction, mariner or naval upsurge related reports ——————–

GOVERNMENTAL GANGLAND RULES: NEUTRALITY NO MORE !
Used as standard tool by any NewYork streetgang and elsewhere the coercing talk: Either you are with us or you are with the “xyz-enemy” – likewise used by U.S.Bush in his “war on terror” – is now used by the military-industrial complex of the Anglo-American axis of war to even force the smallest countries into their ranks. The move appears to also be a direct attack against and attempt to dissolve the Movement of Non-aligned States (NAM), which until today had been often a guarantor for a more unbiased view of many political problems.
AFM team being readied for Somalia operation by Ivan Camilleri (MaltaTimes)
A team of Maltese soldiers will soon be dispatched to Somalia to take part in an EU mission against sea piracy. 
Malta was engaged in talks with the Dutch government to establish the role of its army in the mission, dubbed Operation Atalanta, a government spokesman said. [N.B.: Malta was a former member of NAM]
EU Council sources were more specific, however, saying Malta will be sending 12 highly-trained soldiers to be stationed on a Dutch warship. 
“The Maltese soldiers will be engaged in patrolling the Somali coast together with their counterparts from other member states and to intervene whenever necessary,” the sources said. 
The platoon will join the almost 1,500 troops from various member states already present in the area for the mission. 
The sources also said that Malta, through three infantry trainers from the Armed Forces of Malta, would be taking part in another EU mission in Uganda to train Somali security forces. They would be in Uganda in the spring. 
The aim is to train 2000 Somali recruits up to platoon level, including specialised training for officers. 
The government spokesman said Malta’s participation in Operation Atalanta was in the island’s interest as it had one of the largest shipping registers in the EU. 
“It is in our direct interest to protect these Malta-registered ships, which are having enormous difficulties navigating close to Somali waters. The success of this EU operation will also affect shipping routes. If the Somali coast remains dangerous, ships might tend to start bypassing the Suez Canal and take a different route. That would affect our maritime trade directly as we will have fewer ships passing close to Malta, directly affecting many maritime services we supply such as bunkering and transhipment.” 
Piracy off the Somali coast has been a threat to international shipping since the beginning of the Somali civil war a few years ago. Since 2005, many international organisations, including the International Maritime Organisation and the World Food Programme, have expressed concern over the rise in acts of piracy, which has also contributed to an increase in shipping costs and impeded the delivery of food aid shipments. Tens of ships, including Maltese registered vessels, have been hijacked by Somali pirates who then negotiate their release for a massive ransom. 
The participation of AFM personnel in EU military missions is not new although this is the first time that Malta will be contributing significantly since joining the bloc in 2004. 
Two Maltese soldiers are taking part in an EU mission in Georgia together with 380 soldiers dispatched to the region after the brief war with Russia in 2008. Another Maltese officer has been working for the past few months in London where Operation Atalanta’s coordination office is based.
[N.B.: Somalia is a member of NAM and its government and parliament have not even been asked if Somalia would wish that Maltese soldiers train Somali nationals. 
Like the UN-SG's Special Representative to Somalia - the Mauretanian Oud Abdallah - plays president and government of Somalia unisono, the EU plays the role of Somalia's Armed Forces Commander as well as with EUN NAVFOR Atlalanta the role of Somalia's Admirality, while the U.S. rule, man and pay the Somali Spook Services and play the Somali Airforce. What a world! ]

Al Qaeda Groups Reportedly Renewing Interests In Maritime Attacks (EurasiaReview)
Information suggests that Al-Qaeda affiliated groups remain interested in maritime attacks in the Bab-al-Mandeb Strait, Red Sea, and the Gulf of Aden along the coast of Yemen, the East African Seafarers Assistance Programme (SAP) said Thursday from Mombasa.
“Although it is unclear how they would proceed, it may be similar in nature to the attacks against the USS Cole in October 2000 and the M/V Limburg in October 2002 where a small to mid-size boat laden with explosives was detonated. Other more sophisticated methods of attack could include missiles or projectiles,” Andrew Mwangura, the head of the organization was quoted as saying by Ecoterra International, a human rights and nature protection organization monitoring the maritime activities around the Horn of Africa.
According to the Ecoterra report, although the time and location of such an attack is unknown, ships in the Red Sea, Bab-al-Mandeb Strait , and the Gulf of Aden along the coast of Yemen are at the greatest risk of becoming targets of such an attack.
All vessels transiting the waters in the vicinity of Yemen are urged to operate at a heightened state of readiness and should maintain strict 24-hour visual and radar watches, and regularly report their position, course, and speed to the UKMTO Transit corridor.
Vessels are at greatest risk in areas of restricted maneuverability and while in/near port or at anchor, SAP aid, according to the report, which added that merchant vessels are requested to report any suspicious activity to the UKMTO.
For its part, Ecoterra said there is an increased level of violence preparedness and violence on all sides.
The organization said it “has received reports from Somalia, which say that powerful weapons like missiles have been transported to the coastal areas, where recently European naval commandoes, obviously believing to have spotted potential piracy skiffs beached along the coast, destroyed fishing boats of ordinary fishermen, which caused the anger of local people to increase significantly after the Norwegian navy already had killed innocent fishermen from Yemen and Somalia in a botched mid-nightly attempt to control fishing vessels in a natural harbour at the Gulf of Aden coast of Somalia.”
Anti-Piracy Measures – Scuttle Mother Ships
Additionally, Ecoterra said the international anti-piracy patrol has admitted that it is now pursuing a policy of hunting down and destroying pirate mother ships.
“Several recent incidents, that resulted in the destruction of mother ships, indicated that this was the case. But now this has been confirmed, along with the warning that even if there is not enough evidence to prosecute the pirates, the mother ship will be destroyed, and the crew dumped on a Somali beach,” according to Ecoterra.
Late February NATO confirmed that it had prevented a pirate attack off the coast of Somalia.
“On Sunday 28 February 2010 the NATO flagship HDMS Absalon undertook direct action to disrupt the piracy in the Somali Basin by scuttling a pirate mother skiff, one of the large, open boats that pirates use to transport and support their attack teams to offshore hunting areas,” NATO said in press release.
The Absalon is the flagship of NATO’s counter-piracy operation Ocean Shield off the Horn of Africa.
According to NATO, the pirate’s mother skiff was scuttled by use of specialist teams from Absalon after it was intercepted by a boarding team. 
“If there is enough evidence to prosecute, arrangements have been made for Kenya or Seychelles to do it. Western nations are providing these two nations with cash and other assistance to make these prosecutions possible,” Ecoterra said.
According to Ecoterra, the international anti-pirate patrol is targetting pirate mother ships because these vessels are necessary if the pirates are to attack ships far (up to 1,500 kilometers) off the coast.
Mother ships (usually stolen sea-going fishing ships) are spotted leaving known pirate bases, and, when they get far enough out to indicate they are going after distant targets, they are intercepted by a warship. If weapons and boarding equipment is found, the pirates are arrested and prosecuted, and the mother ships and speedboats destroyed. If the pirates managed to dump their weapons and boarding gear overboard, the mother ship is sunk anyway, according to Ecoterra.
Meanwhile, more merchant ships are carrying armed guards, and there have been at least four incidents this year where these guards fired their weapons to drive off pirates.
Most merchant ships have noted that all the ships taken of late are those that did not heed the advice of the anti-piracy patrol, said Ecoterra, adding that “this advice includes travelling through the Gulf of Aden in the two patrolled corridors, or, better yet, waiting for the regular convoys the patrol escorts through the corridors daily. Even ships travelling the corridor, or with a convoy, are advised to post additional lookouts, and radio the patrol immediately if they spot a pirate speed boat. Any small boat near the corridors, equipped with a powerful outboard engine (something a fisherman could not afford, but necessary to overtake a merchant ship), should be considered suspicious, and reported.”
Interestingly, Ecoterra said that ship captains are also advised of measures they can take to repel boarders, “as it’s been observed that the pirates will give up if crew resistance keeps them off the ship for more than a half hour. But the crew must have water hoses at the ready, and crewmen practiced in the use of high pressure water against boarders.”
“The Gulf of Aden has become, for the moment, a place where a guarded (in the corridor or a convoy) ship is impossible to take. If the campaign against the mother ships succeeds, the pirates may get discouraged, and look for other work (like the lucrative Yemeni smuggling run). But first, the pirates will try to find chinks in the new, improved, anti-piracy tactics,” Ecoterra said.

Dozens of demonstrations, performances, presentations and appearances are planned across the region, and all the events can be found at www.navyweek.org. 
As we celebrate Tampa Bay Navy Week, your Navy is engaged around the globe. More than 140 ships and submarines and more than 40,000 sailors are deployed, executing the entire spectrum of naval operations, from war fighting to deterrence, from maritime security to disaster relief. This worldwide engagement is what makes the Navy relevant to American security. 
Our engagement communicates our nation’s will and commitment. And our engagement forges and sustains relationships and supports shared goals. 
Here are some examples: 
•America’s Navy is projecting power. During the month of February, operating in the North Arabian Sea, the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower launched more than 640 combat sorties and flew more than 5,100 flight hours in support of troops on the ground in Afghanistan. Ashore, more than 7,000 Navy personnel are on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, performing critical jobs that continue to enhance both countries’ security, stability and infrastructure. 
•America’s Navy is providing a visible and powerful forward presence. On patrol in the Western Pacific are amphibious ships with U.S. Marines aboard, surface combatants and submarines, deterring aggression and participating in exercises with our allies in the region. 
•America’s Navy is protecting the global maritime environment, enhancing security and securing freedom of navigation for all nations. Operating with the U.S. Coast Guard, Navy ships and sailors are monitoring and deterring illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in the Central and Western Pacific and intercepting narcotics shipments in the Caribbean. Together with the international community, they are engaged in counter-piracy operations. 
•And America’s Navy is providing humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. Sailors and Marines have provided critical support to the United Nations and the government of Haiti as part of Operation Unified Response. 
During Tampa Bay Navy Week, area residents will have the opportunity to swim with Navy divers, listen to one of our fine Navy bands, and watch the Blue Angels perform their precision aerobatics. But the real show is happening over the horizon, in the Western Pacific, off the coast of Somalia, in Middle East waters and on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq. And it’s happening around the clock, every day. 
(*) Vice Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III is director of the Navy Staff.

——— ecology , ecosystems, marine environment, IUU fishing and dumping, UNCLOS ———— 

Offering migrants an alternative to death by water (IRIN)
In an attempt to deal with a growing influx of migrants, authorities in Somalia’s autonomous region of Puntland are adopting new measures to stop people from undertaking the hazardous journey to Yemen, officials said. 
“The problem of migrants is not going away and the Puntland authorities, particularly in the Bari region [Bosasso area], had to come up with a new strategy to deal with this problem,” said Mohamud Jama Muse, director of the Migration Response Centre (MRC) in the regional capital, Bosasso. 
MRC was created in April 2009, under the office of the Bari governor, to “register and provide counselling and assist” the migrants. Between April and December 2009, it registered 7,223 persons. 
“This number is smaller than the actual number,” Muse told IRIN on 1 March. “You have to understand, a lot of these people are not very trusting of authorities, so they never bother registering.” 
According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), 78,487 Ethiopians and Somalis crossed into Yemen from Somalia and Djibouti in 2009, of whom 685 died. 
So far in 2010, 5,032 have crossed and four have died, said Roberta Russo, spokeswoman for UNHCR Somalia. 
Learning to fish 
Muse said the government had adopted a two-track approach. Apart from the MRC, security forces had cracked down on smugglers and closed the ports from which they operate. 
“With the help of IOM [International Organization for Migration] we started a pilot project with a local NGO, Red Sea Fishing Organization [RESFO], in skills training and income generation, for 100 migrants and locals to teach them skills to make a living,” he explained. 
The group is taught how to fish, process the catch, repair nets and keep books. 
“We are even teaching some of them to swim,” said Mohamed Said of RESFO. “The aim is to provide an alternative to boarding those boats [to Yemen].” 
The project aims to integrate the migrants into the community, said Ahmed Muse Mohamed, IOM officer-in-charge in Bosasso. “We want to create opportunities here for them so they don’t have to go on these dangerous journeys,” he added. 
Too weak to walk 
“By the time they reach us they have walked over 1,000km and are dehydrated and almost starving,” said Muse, and reports indicated some died on the way to Bosasso. 
Abdi, not his real name, came from Ethiopia four months ago. He walked 760km to reach Bosasso, with the aim of going to Yemen. 
He and six others had to avoid being stopped by security forces or attacked by bandits. “It is not a trip I would want to make again,” he said. “It was too difficult and dangerous. By the time I arrived I was so weak I could barely walk.” 
He has registered with MRC but has not started the training yet. 
Addis Tolosa, 30, an Ethiopian migrant who has been in Bosasso for a couple of years, went to Yemen but was intercepted by the Yemeni coastguard and returned to Bosasso. 
He is now being trained by RESFO. “I don’t have the means to go back [to Yemen] so I am now in this training to learn how to earn a living,” said. “As soon we finish the training I will get fishing gear and go to work.” 
Some locals, however, insisted they would still like to go to Yemen. 
Mohamed Hassan Shire, 23, from the coastal town of Kismayo, 2,000km south, arrived in Bosasso six months ago. He said he left out of fear he would be forcibly recruited into a militia. 
“I came here because I was not safe in Kismayo,” he said. “People I knew died trying to get there [Yemen]. I know also that what I am doing is like flipping a coin, but I will try it. I have no other option.” 
More help needed 
The former Puntland Bari Governor Muse Ghelle (replaced on 6 March) told IRIN he was determined to help the potential migrants. “With the very little resources we have we are trying but we need help,” he added. 
He called on the international community to increase its support to Puntland to help it deal with the growing influx of migrants. 
Puntland would not be able to cope on its own. “We need more meaningful help from the donor community,” he said. 
Muse of MRC said the migrants needed emergency food upon arrival, temporary shelter, a health centre and a reception centre to receive them. 
“Most of these people are economic migrants and when they come here they have exhausted what little they had, so it is important to at least have somewhere where they can get some help immediately.”

UN’s CITES AS INSTRUMENT IS AS USELESS AND CORRUPT AS THE REST OF THE UN SYSTEM. 

Sales of ivory and a possible ban on trading bluefin tuna top the agenda for the two-week CITES meeting that opens this weekend in Doha, Qatar.
CITES – the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species – will set a precedent if it votes to ban trading in a lucrative fish such as bluefin. 
The US and EU back the proposal, but Japan is set against. 
Conservation groups are also hoping for increased protection on sharks, coral, polar bears, lizards and amphibians. 
African disunity
The ivory and tuna issues are both potentially controversial. 
International ivory trading was banned in 1989 [N.B.: Based on the "SOMALIA-PROPOSAL"]. 
But countries considered to have well-managed stocks of elephants and reliable systems for tracking tusks have three times been allowed to sell consignments from government stockpiles. [N.B.: ... which kept the criminal networks alive.]
Zambia and Tanzania are now seeking permission for a further sale. 
But other African nations led by Kenya and Mali want a 20-year ban on all ivory exports. They argue that the legal trade stimulates poaching, which has been on the rise in recent years. 
“To permit any step towards further trade in ivory makes no sense whatsoever – it flies in the face of every basic conservation principle and is contrary to the agreement made at the last meeting,” said Jason Bell-Leask from the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw). 
However, the organisation Traffic – which is charged with collecting data on illegal elephant killings and ivory smuggling – maintains there is no proof of a link. 
Data from its Elephant Trade Information System (Etis) shows that the rate of seizures of illegal ivory began rising well in 2004, well before the last one-off legal ivory sale was authorised in 2007. 
And the previous one-off sale, in 1999, co-incided with a fall in seizures. 
Etis manager Tom Milliken argues that African governments wanting to stem the rising ivory tide would be better advised to step up enforcement efforts against poachers and traders. 
And China, the principal market for illegal ivory, should live up to its promises to act against smuggling gangs, he says. 
Otherwise, he says: “Arguments over the impacts of one-off sales will continue to divert attention away from the real problem: finding ways to stop the flow of illicit ivory at source.” 
Tuna battles
The chances of CITES voting to ban the international trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna increased markedly during the week when – after months of wrangling – the EU decided to give its support. 
The bloc includes several nations with tuna fleets in the Mediterranean, the main fishing ground. 
Conservation groups argue that the ban is needed because governments involved in the industry have allowed overfishing to such an extent that the species’ survival is in some doubt. 
They also argue that a pause in fishing will eventually lead to higher catches. 
“The goal is not to ban trade indefinitely, but to suspend international trade until the species recovers sufficiently to enable international trade to resume,” said Sue Lieberman, director of international policy with the Pew Environment Group. 
“This is a key conservation moment – whether the governments here will vote for the conservation of bluefin tuna, or will allow commercial fishery interests to prevail, further causing over-fishing and continued decline of this iconic species,” she told BBC News from Doha. 
Japan has indicated that it would opt out of a trade ban, as it is entitled to do under CITES rules. [N.B.: This shows the "Diplomatic Nonsense" CITES as instrument has been suffering from since its beginning. The organization is more intersted not to loose any  (paying) member than to perform and excel in pro-active nature protection.]
But if all other tuna fishing countries went along with it, there would be no supply of tuna to import. 
Conservation groups are urging the EU and US to make sure that other tuna fishing countries, particularly North African states bordering the Mediterranean, do not opt out. 
Skin and teeth
The CITES meeting will also consider a US proposal to ban international trade in items originating from polar bears. 
Rapid melting of Arctic sea ice in recent decades has placed the polar bear on the Red List of Threatened Species. 
About 2,000 items are traded internationally each year, including skin, skulls, teeth and claws. 
Although this is not considered to be the major threat to the species’ survival, the US feels that the trade ban would be a help, and would not intrude on the rights of Arctic indigenous peoples with a history of hunting polar bears for meat and skin. 
Other proposals would see trade banned in a number of reptiles and amphibians, including three iguanas from Mexico and the critically endangered Luristan newt of Iran. 
Four species of shark are also up for consideration, as are the red and pink Corallium corals from the Mediterranean that are used in the jewellery trade.

————————— anti-piracy measures ——————————–

French navy hands over suspected pirates to Somalia by Abdiqani Hassan (Reuters)

Foreign navies have been deployed off the Gulf of Aden since the start of 2009, operating convoys, establishing safer corridors through the most dangerous waters and arresting pirates and seizing their vessels.
“The French navy handed over these pirates, two skiff boats and video evidence showing the kind of weapons they were carrying,” Mohamed Sicid Jaqanaf, Puntland’s deputy police commissioner, told a news conference at the Bosaaso port while receiving the suspects.
“This video shows their intention was not fishing…or other civilian work. They (the French) threw the confiscated weapons and ammunition into the ocean. The pirates will be taken to court soon.”
Jaqanaf did not specify what weapons the pirates had.
The French frigate spotted and seized the suspected pirates 85 miles off the Mogadishu coast last week.
“There are two underage boys, whom the French said they were not sure what activities they were engaged in. They were arrested on a separate boat, and we will investigate further,” Jaqanaf said.
International navies trying to stamp out piracy off Somalia often are reluctant to take suspects to their own countries because they either lack the jurisdiction to put them on trial there, or they fear the pirates may seek asylum.
Emboldened by higher ransom payments, Somali sea gangs have increased attacks in recent months, making tens of millions of dollars by capturing vessels plying the Indian Ocean and the busy Gulf of Aden shipping lanes connecting Europe and Asia.
The pirates said they were innocent and were arrested while casting their fishing nets into the ocean.
“We are fishermen, and have no idea why we have been arrested,” one suspect, Abdulahi Ahmed, told Reuters.
Ahmed said the French were holding 11 of their colleagues aboard their frigate. Some of the 22 suspects were seen being frogmarched onto land.
The Puntland government says that to date it has convicted 154 people for involvement in piracy and they were serving long prison terms. Those taken into custody on Saturday brings the number awaiting trial to 72.
Pirates have widened the range within which they operate from the Somali coastline, and have been known to seize vessels as far away as the Seychelles.
Andrew Mwangura of the East African Seafarers Assistance Program said that on Thursday pirates unsuccessfully tried to hijack a German cargo ship, MV Luebeck, 450 miles northeast of Seychelles while it was on its way to Salalah in Oman.
There were no injuries, Mwangura said.
[N.B.: As reported two Somalis went "missing" when the French Navy attacked a Somali group of skiffs after they had allegedly attacked a research vessel inside the Somali waters. So far the French government has not come clear why the research vessel was present in Somali waters. They might still hold the 11 onboard of their warship, because according to the policy to bring alleged pirates who attack French-flagged vessels in front of a court in France. Such obviously would bring questions by the French judiciary and by proper defence lawyers in this specific case, which is why no order has been received yet what to do with them. However, to deliver alleged pirates from Central Somalia into a kangaroo court of neighbouring Puntland certainly does not secure a fair trial and also must be seen as rendition - thereby clearly violating EU laws.  French President Nicolas Sarkozy, unpopular at home as well as abroad, will at least get  the result delivered by the French regional elections this weekend, while the Somalis seem to have no choice and no chance to stand up against his policies, which look for greater influence at the Horn of Africa and in Puntland specifically as well as in Somaliland, where his private banker Bolloré has an eye on the harbour.]

EU NAVFOR destroys more suspect pirate skiffs (Atalanta PR)

EU Forces Sink Suspected Somali Pirate Vessel (VOA) 
The European Union’s anti-piracy naval force operating off the coast of Somalia says it has sunk a suspected pirate vessel and seized another.   
The operation was carried out by a German warship in the waters between Somalia and the Seychelles.
The suspect vessels had first been spotted by a Luxembourg patrol plane.
Suspected pirates rounded up during the operation were later released.
The EU force has intensified its efforts to disrupt pirate activity. The force says that in the past week it has taken more than 40 suspected pirates into custody and put two pirate “motherships” out of action. But the force acknowledges pirate attacks and hijackings are likely to continue. 
On Tuesday, maritime sources reported that Somali pirates had hijacked the Spanish-owned, Kenyan-flagged fishing vessel FV Sakoba in the western Indian Ocean.

————– no real peace in sight yet ————–

Civilians flee as death toll hits 100 (XINHUA)
The fighting of the past days in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, has claimed the lives of more than 100 and wounded 150 others with thousands of civilians uprooted from their homes, analysts say.

Mogadishu’s mayor has told residents to leave the Somali capital’s war zones, amid fierce battles with insurgents.
At least 50 people have been killed in three days of Islamist insurgent attacks, witnesses and officials say. 
Mayor Abdurisaq Mohamed Nor said the long-anticipated government offensive may start soon, so residents should withdraw at least 2km (1.25 miles). 
About half of Mogadishu’s residents have already fled the city after two decades of conflict. 
The BBC’s Mohamed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu says this is the heaviest fighting since May 2009, when insurgents tried to topple the weak UN-backed government. 
He says those still in the city have not yet responded to the mayor’s call. 
“We urge the civilians to flee from the battle zones and go at least 2km away to avoid being hit,” Mr Nor said. 
The United Nations Refugee Agency estimates that some 33,000 people have been driven from their homes in Mogadishu over the past six weeks. 
‘Trapped’
Our reporter says government forces are shelling insurgent front lines, to stop them advancing towards the few areas under control of government forces, who are backed by African Union peacekeepers. 
“Some 200 insurgents aboard 12 vehicles mounted with machine guns came to our district and started to move towards the presidential palace,” said Mohamed Abdi Haji, a resident of Mogadishu’s northern Wardhigley area. 
“Government soldiers and AU peacekeepers bombed them with heavy artillery and forced them to retreat,” he said. 
Some of those fleeing the city told the BBC that many of their relatives and neighbours are trapped in the war zone. 
“My husband and six of my relatives and some of my neighbours are trapped inside their homes in north Mogadishu’s Abdulasiz district by landing mortars and bullets flying everywhere,” said Dahabo Duhulow, a mother of six. 
With his two-year-old son clasped to his chest, Adow Yusuf Da’ud said he had walked three hours through dangerous streets and alleyways to escape the fighting. 
“During the day and during the night, the shells were raining down into our residences,” Mr Da’ud said. 
“My oldest son is still there to take care of the house and the property.” 
The UNHCR said it was especially worried about the thousands of people who are unable to flee the capital. 
There are almost 1.5 million people now displaced within the country. 
For months now government leaders and its military commanders have been talking about an impending operation to seize control of the whole of Mogadishu. 
Our reporter says there are few civilians left in areas which often see battles but large numbers remain in some districts controlled by the insurgents.

2nd day of fighting in Mogadishu leaves 60 dead (garoweonline)
Fierce clashes between Somali rebels and government forces resumed early Thursday in different parts of restive Mogadishu  as death toll from previous fighting rises to 30. 
Witnesses said rebel fighters and government forces backed by African Union troops engaged in heavy gun fire accompanied by shelling in northern districts of Karan, Yaqshid, Shibbis and Abdiasis. 
“I have seen the dead bodies of four people from the same family. Most of the residents have fled and the situation is still tense,” said a resident of Yaqshid. 
He added that several mortar rounds rained on the area overnight and in the morning, leaving them terrified. 
Bakara market, an insurgent stronghold has also came under attack from AU troops. The casualty figure is still scanty but reports say the market, which is usually bustling with people, was not jammed at the time of the shelling. 
Ali Muse, the head of Mogadishu’s ambulance service said most of the dead and injured are civilians. 
Sheikh Ali Mohammud Raghe, an Al-Shabaab spokesman told reporters in Mogadishu that his group has thwarted the government’s plans to capture the areas under their control. 
However, his claims were refuted by state minister for defense Yussuf Mohammed Said Inda’ade who said government forces are in control of many parts in the districts, promising to present dead bodies and war prisoners of Al-Shabaab. 
The clashes enter its second day running as death from previous day fighting rise to at least 60 people with more than 150 others nursing wounds in different Mogadishu hospitals. 
The UN-backed government has been vowing to launch full scale offensive against the powerful rebels in a bid to retain the control of the capital.

Ahlu Sunnah and government sign agreement in Addis Ababa (garoweonline)
Somalia’s UN-backed government and pro-government Islamist group Ahlu Sunnah Wal-Jamaa have on Saturday signed agreement in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa.
According to the sources, the pro-government group has backed down from its early demands of premiership position and now is settling for five cabinet slots in the bloated government. 
Government delegation is led by Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Shama’arke while Ahlu sunnah is headed by Ma’alin Mahamm’ud Sheikh Hassan.
The ceremony commemorate the signing of the accord, was attended by Mr. Jean Ping, the Chairperson of the African Union Commission (AUC) and Ramtane Lamamra, AU’s Commissioner for Peace and Security. 
Other substantial bargaining for the group are also the merging of government and its forces under one leadership and slot in the diplomatic missions.
The accorded was signed under the blessings of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who recently held talks with Somalia’s embattled president Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed on the sidelines of the African Union summit held in Addis
The agreement would once again swell the already bloated government, which was formed last year in neighbouring Djibouti after months of reconciliation.
Officials from Ahlu Sunnah is said to be included in both the cabinet and the parliament.
However, the group’s spokesman Sheikh Abdullahi Abdirahman Abu-Yussuf said the signing of the agreement would not mean that the group will change its identity.
The name Ahlu Sunnah is a God given one, even if we join the government, we will not disown it because it is a name that holds the integrity of our group,” he said.
Political analysts say Sheikh Sharif’s government has a keen interest in the pro-government Ahul-Sunnah, which allegedly has the backing of Addis Ababa , but fears its domination once the other Islamist groups are eliminated from the country’s political scene.
Ahlu-Sunnah Waljama – TFG talks on in Addis
Somali Premier lands at Bole Airport in Addis Abba by Mohammed Omar Hussein (Somaliweyn)
Top Somali delegation spearheaded by the Somali Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke had reached Addis Abba the Ethiopian capital city on late Friday afternoon. This Somali delegation had received an official invitation from the regime of Ethiopia.
The trip of this top government official’s visit to Addis Abba is believed to be part of efforts which the Ethiopian government is pulling together the moderate Islamist faction of Ahlu-Sunnah Waljama and the Somali transnational federal government to overcome Al-Shabab which some countries in the world such as America, Great Britain and Canada have listed in the black book.
The bilateral talk between the Somali government and Ahlu-Sunnah Waljama has opened on Saturday.
Honorable Said Yussuf the Somali ambassador to Ethiopia has verified that the first segment of the talk between the two sides was effective.
On the other hand there have been two additional delegations which have left Mogadishu and Dhusamareb in central Somalia to attend the talk between the two sides. 

The Concealed Realities in Somalia by Yusuf O. Al-Azhari 
It is no exaggeration that as long as vast commercial and diverse political interests reign supreme in Somalia, peace and reconciliation will remain far off dreams. Some Foreign merchants of death would rather prefer more fugitives extremist influx pour into Somalia than to witness a viable solution to the mess in the country. One cannot imagine the tremendous flow of clandestine wealth traded in millions that passes hands daily elicited by rogue merchants of many Nationalities in this seemingly no mans land called Somalia. 
Coupled with internecine factional wars and persistent clan rivalries, these interests threaten regional security that ironically benefits the emerging death merchants in the horn of Africa. Internationally brokered peace pacts have been breached with unparalleled impunity by extremist’s parties in the conflict that has suddenly become the supporters of illicit trade for selfish personal gains. 
Somalia and Mogadishu city in particular resemble market places for amongst other commodities, residual arms and other stockpiles imported by outlaws from outlawed Companies from around the world. Unfortunately, each rival Somali faction is a government unto itself, fully equipped and armed to defend itself and its share of the lucrative trade, against attacks and challenges of any established authority to protect its daily income. The beleaguered TFG feeble Authority seemingly starving to death with its demoralized force, finds itself cornered from all sides with in a radius of less than two kilometers with no soon salvage eminent to come from any where.   
Like its predecessors, survival of the Federal Transitional Government (TFG) is a priority promised and not the welfare and security of Somalis that have been grappling with numerous problems for 20 years to be achieved. Since the overthrow of General Siad Barre in 1991, one government after another have come and gone, alliances have been short lived and peace pacts remains un utensil-able due to mistrust and lack of a strong trusty leadership. 
International outlaws have taken advantage of the fragility of the government and support illegal undertakings of factional groups in the military hardware trade and other illicit business. Amongst active factions are Al-Shabab, Hizbul Islam and Ahlu Sunna who are astonishingly from the same main area in Somalia, whose mission is to hamstring, kill, terrorize and lucratively benefit wrongly in the name of Religion and even extorting favours in exchange for freedom and life. 
The consequences of the existence of terror gangs in Somalia are too grave to comprehend and more so the reluctance of the International Community to take serious action and genuinely assist those Somalis who are ready to scarify for their country is hard to fathom. Few lucky victims escape the hamstring and slashing atrocities committed by the extremists to safety and reside abroad. Refugees in neighbouring countries in large numbers are loosing hope of any future home-land let alone Nationhood. 
The ensuing confusion is celebrated by amongst others, war mongers, trigger happy militia, trawler pirate fishermen and toxic waste dumpers. Of all these undertakings, piracy and foreign trawler fishing pirates are unmatched in earnings. Concealed Ransom of unaccountable million dollars paid for ships captured in the past is too tempting to resist. In one month alone, pirates received five million dollar ransom from one owner of captured ship as recently as last month, apart from the pirate trawler regular fee payments. 
All this paid premiums strengthen and entrench ground for outlawed merchants of hardware and ammunition dealers that fuel the conflict continuously encouraging insurgents to continue fighting in Somalia.  Nearly two third of such laundry money is used for illegal arm purchase to exterminate the innocent. Some of this hardware gets its way into the neighbouring countries thus creating dangerous apprehension that pave a fertile ground for similar insurgency. 
The  Tuna and other Fish species rich Somali coast, currently out of bound  for the  FTG  law enforcement  is  home to international trawlers pirates from Italy, Spain, Greece, Russia, Ukraine, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, India, Yemen and Egypt among others. Local fishermen are either killed or expelled forcefully from the Somali sea shores by war ships protecting Foreign Trawlers. The survivors inadvertently turned pirates in the quest to earn a livelihood by arming themselves and to evince belonging to the Territory. 
It is highly speculated that some European companies reportedly signed toxic waste dumping contracts with get rich quick brazen Somali personnel whose harmful effects are yet to be felt within the country and beyond very soon. Business people without borders are an impediment to any significant peace process, peace keeping initiatives and meaningful National negotiations. For instance, peace initiatives cannot be addressed and bear required results without clearing the Somali coast of Foreign trawler pirate, ready with laundry money and other undesirable elements from the country. 
The more delay in finding in tackling the Somali problem seriously, will not only be a threat to the region but would set a practical example that could be implemented soon in other feeble countries around the world.  It is in the regional interest and the world at large that international outlaws and unscrupulous terrorist traders are quickly checked and kicked out of the country in a collective joint effort if we still preserve the aspiration to live in peace and prosperity in a harmonious world. 
(*) Dr. Yusuf O. Al-Azhari is a veteran civil servant and career diplomat

Puntland: Tensions high in Bosaaso as president shakes up intelligence agency (Somalilandpress)
Tensions are said to be high in Bossaso, the commercial hub of Puntland, after a sudden shake up at the top echelon of Somalia’s semi-autonomous region’s security establishment. 
Puntland President Abdirahman Mohamed “Farole” issued a presidential decree, dated March 12th, ordering the replacement of the former chairman of Puntland Intelligence Service (PIS), Osman Diana, and appointing Qardho based, Col. Ali Mohamed Yusuf “Binge”.
The regional president also added that the agency has been renamed Puntland Intelligence Agency and Puntland Security Force ( PIA/PSF). 
According to local reports, Mr Osman refused to step-down and has since seized full control of PIS’s second office in Lanta Hawada neighbourhood in the port city of Bosaaso. 
The reports added that forces loyal to Osman Diana have imposed a curfew in parts of the city over night while shutting off electricity. 
The reports added that Mr Farole is concerned about PIS’s independent role and wants the agency directly under the government. Mr Farole also accuses the agency of abusing it’s powers because of foreign influences, including illegal arrests. 
It is not clear how the issue will be resolved or if Mr Osman Diana will step down. 
The PIS, which functions independently was established almost a decade ago and is considered the most powerful institution in Puntland. The PIS is said to receive at least 50 per cent of Puntland’s annual income as well as funds from Western intelligence services. 
Mr Osman Diana was appointed as the head of the agency by the former Puntland leader, Gen. Muse Adde and was the chairman since 2004.
[N.B.: The "PIS" is allegedly U.S. financed]

The United States’ military is working closely with its Somali counterparts in planning a major offensive against Islamist militias who control the bulk of the country, including almost all of the capital, Mogadishu.  
The New York Times reports that Washington is using drone surveillance planes over Somalia and is providing surveillance information on insurgent positions to the military commanders of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG). The Obama administration has also supervised the training of Somali forces and provided covert training to Somali intelligence officers. Such training, which has also been undertaken by Washington’s European Union allies, has taken place in US client states—Djibouti, Ethiopia, Uganda and in Kenya and Sudan. It has been condemned by Amnesty International, since it is not subject to “adequate vetting and oversight procedures”, and “some of the training is planned without proper notification to the UN Sanctions Committee, therefore undermining the UN arms embargo on Somalia”.  
Following the lessons learnt in Somalia in 1993, the US military has been wary of committing its own troops into areas considered unstable or hostile. It has relied instead on local forces, while guiding events from a safe distance.  
“This is not an American offensive,” US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Johnnie Carson claimed. “The US military is not on the ground in Somalia. Full stop.” He added, “There are limits to outside engagement, and there has to be an enormous amount of local buy-in for this work.”  
However, the Times cites an unnamed Washington official, who predicted that US covert forces would get involved if the offensive that could begin in a few weeks dislodged Al-Qaeda terrorists. “What you’re likely to see is airstrikes and Special Ops moving in, hitting and getting out,” the official said.  
The US press has clearly been thoroughly briefed about the offensive. TheWashington Post explained how the US administration’s tactics have changed under President Barack Obama, as the US has escalated its attacks against perceived Al Qaeda suspects and their allies. 
The Post sets out the three options that the US military considers with regard to “terrorist” suspects. Firstly, an airstrike on the suspect’s home or vehicle; secondly, an attempt to take him alive; or, thirdly, an attack from helicopters that land at the scene to confirm the kill. The latter was the option the White House authorized last September, when helicopters launched from a US ship off the Somali coast blew up a car carrying Saleh Ali Nabhan, who was nominally the head of Al Qaeda in East Africa.  
The Post believes that the decision to kill Nabhan was one of a number of similar operations the Obama administration has conducted globally over the past year, resulting in dozens of targeted killings and no reports of high-value detentions. Such attacks are authorized even more frequently under Obama than under the Bush administration.  
The US government is directly responsible for the chaos and insecurity that pervade Somalia, after decades of US support for warlords and illegitimate governments. Somalia and Yemen—a country on the Arabian Peninsula directly across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia—are seen by the US as key areas in its efforts to control the strategic Horn of Africa as it confronts its rivals, such as China, and makes preparations for a possible war with Iran.  
In preparation for the imminent offensive, the TFG has gathered its forces in Mogadishu and massed new and refurbished military trucks, tanks, armoured personnel carriers, ambulances and dozens of “technicals”—pickup trucks with cannons riveted on the back.  
Militants from the opposing al Shabaab militia, backed by a faction of Hizbul Islam, have also poured into the capital and its outskirts to reinforce the numerous organised groups already there.  
This influx of forces has deepened the humanitarian crisis, leading to a mass exodus of civilians from Mogadishu. Thousands of residents have fled to cramped makeshift camps on the outskirts of the city, where little aid is reaching them. In the past month, some 100,000 others have been displaced across the country, according to the UN High Commission for Refugees. Amnesty International estimates that some 1.5 million people have been displaced by fighting in Somalia since 2007.  
In a pattern that reflects its past practice in Somalia and Afghanistan, the US is setting tribal, religious and ethnic factions against one another. This can only lead to further conflict and produce a ruling clique that reflects the interests of a small group that rules by suppressing all opposition.  
The TFG recently struck a political deal with Somalia’s main Sufi Islamist group, Ahlus Sunnah wal Jamaah. This arose in late 2008, as the withdrawal of US-backed Ethiopian troops from Somalia led the Ethiopian government to seek a means of containing the Islamist threat on its border.  
The strategy is to use Ahlus Sunnah militia to push towards Mogadishu from the central region, as part of a three-pronged offensive. The other two prongs are a militia made up of Somali refugees living in Kenya advancing from the Kenyan side, and TFG and African Union troops (AMISOM) attempting to retake the capital. AMISOM has about 5,000 Ugandan and Burundian troops in Somalia, with another 1,700 on the way. The offensive will be backed up by US drones, airstrikes and special forces operations.  
The other weapon that the US has at its disposal in Somalia is humanitarian aid. Mark Bowden, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Somalia, believes that the West, in particular Washington, is using the issue of humanitarian aid as a political tool: “Our concern is that what we’re seeing is a politicisation of humanitarian issues,” he explained. This follows the halving of aid by the US and British governments, the largest donors of food assistance to Somalia, despite the growing humanitarian crisis.  
Aid has been cut in order to stop it reaching areas controlled by the insurgents, primarily al Shabaab. The Times article appears to bear out this claim, with reports that Washington is using its influence to encourage private aid agencies to move quickly into “newly liberated areas,” in an effort to make the TFG more popular. Food is being prevented from reaching civilians in areas held by the insurgents and only provided in return for support for the TFG. 

AFRICOM’s First War: 
U.S. Directs Large-Scale Offensive In Somalia by Rick Rozoff (StopNato)
Over 43 people have been killed in the Somali capital of Mogadishu in the past two days in fighting between Shabab (al-Shabaab) insurgent forces, who on March 10 advanced to within one mile of the nation’s presidential palace, and troops of the U.S.-backed Transitional Federal Government. The fighting has just begun.
The last ambassador of the United States to Somalia (1994-1995), Daniel H. Simpson, penned a column for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on March 10 in which which he posed the question “why, apart from the only lightly documented charge of Islamic extremism among the Shabab, is the United States reengaging in Somalia at this time?”
He answered it in stating “Part of the reason is because the United States has its only base in Africa up the coast from Mogadishu, in Djibouti, the former French Somaliland. The U.S. Africa Command was established there in 2008, and, absent the willingness of other African countries to host it, the base in Djibouti became the headquarters for U.S. troops and fighter bombers in Africa.
“Flush with money, in spite of the expensive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Department of Defense obviously feels itself in a position to undertake military action in Africa, in Somalia.” [1] 
Fulfilling its appointed role, the New York Times leaked U.S. military plans for the current offensive in Somalia on March 5 in a report titled “U.S. Aiding Somalia in Its Plan to Retake Its Capital.” (Note that the Transitional Federal Government is presented as Somalia itself and Mogadishu as its capital.)
The tone of the feature was of course one of approval and endorsement of the Pentagon’s rationale for directly intervening in Somalia at a level not seen since 1993 and support for proxy actions last witnessed with the invasion by Ethiopia in 2006. The report began with a description of a military surveillance plane circling over the Somali capital and a quote from the new chief of staff of the nation’s armed forces, General Mohamed Gelle Kahiye: “It’s the Americans. They’re helping us.” 
Afterward “An American official in Washington, who said he was not authorized to speak publicly” – a hallmark of the American free press – was, if not identified, quoted as maintaining that U.S. covert operations were planned if not already underway and “What you’re likely to see is airstrikes and Special Ops moving in, hitting and getting out.” [2] 
The New York Times also provided background information regarding the current offensive:
“Over the past several months, American advisers have helped supervise the training of the Somali forces to be deployed in the offensive….The Americans have provided covert training to Somali intelligence officers, logistical support to the peacekeepers, fuel for the maneuvers, surveillance information about insurgent positions and money for bullets and guns.” [3] 
Four days later General William (“Kip”) Ward, commander of United States Africa Command (AFRICOM), testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
In his introductory remarks the chairman of the committee, Senator Carl Levin, reinforced recent American attempts to expand the scope of the deepening Afghanistan-Pakistan war, the deadliest and lengthiest in the world, to the west and south in stating that “al Qaeda and violent extremists who share their ideology are not just located in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region but in places like Somalia, Mali, Nigeria and Niger.” [4]
In his formal report Ward pursued a similar tact and expanded the Pentagon’s “counter-terrorism” (CT) area of responsibility yet further from South Asia: “U.S. Africa Command has focused the majority of its CT capacity building activities in East Africa on Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Uganda, which – aside from Somalia – are the countries directly threatened by terrorists.” [5] 
He also spoke of the current offensive by “the transition government to reclaim parts of Mogadishu,” stating “I think it’s something that we would look to do and support.” [6]
Senator Levin and General Ward included eight African nations in the broader Afghan war category of Operation Enduring Freedom, countries from the far northeast of the continent (the Horn of Africa) to the far west (the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea). The U.S. military has already been involved in counterinsurgency operations in Mali and Niger against ethnic Tuareg rebels, who have no conceivable ties to al-Qaeda, not that one would know that from Levin’s comments.
In between South Asia and Africa lies Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula. The New York Times report cited earlier reminded readers that “The United States is increasingly concerned about the link between Somalia and Yemen.” Indeed as Levin’s comments quoted above establish, Washington (along with its NATO allies) is forging an expanded war front from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Yemen and into Africa. [7]
That extension of the South Asia war has not gone unobserved in world capitals, and earlier this year Russian political analyst Andrei Fedyashin commented: “Adding up all four fronts – if the United States ventured an attack on Yemen and Somalia – America would have to invade a territory equal to three-fourths of Western Europe; and it is hardly strong enough for that.” [8]
Strong enough or not, that is just what the White House and the Pentagon are doing. The only other objection that can be raised to the above author’s description is that it too severely narrows the intended battlefront.
In the past six months Somali troops have been sent to Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda for combat training and “most are now back in the capital, waiting to fight.” 
In addition, “There are also about 5,000 Ugandan and Burundian peacekeepers, with 1,700 more on their way, and they are expected to play a vital role in backing up advancing Somali forces.” [9] 
Last October the U.S. led ten days of military exercises in Uganda – Natural Fire 10 – with 450 American troops and over 550 from Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. The U.S. soldiers were deployed from Camp Lemonier (Lemonnier) in Djibouti, home to the Pentagon’s Joint Task Force/Horn of Africa and over 2,000 U.S. forces. The de facto headquarters of AFRICOM.
At the time of the maneuvers a major Ugandan newspaper wrote that they were “geared towards the formation of the first Joint East African Military Force.” [10]
In addition to using such a multinational regional force in Somalia, the U.S. can also deploy it against Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels in Uganda, Congo and Sudan, and could even employ it against Eritrea, Zimbabwe and Sudan, along with Somalia the only nations on the African continent not to some degree enmeshed in military partnerships with Washington and NATO. (Libya has participated in NATO naval exercises and South Africa has hosted the bloc’s warships.) [11] 
Earlier this month the Kenyan newspaper The East African divulged that “American legislators are pushing for a law that will see another phase of military action to apprehend Lord’s Resistance Army rebels.”
The news source added that the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Bill adopted by the U.S. Congress last year “requires the US government to develop a new multifaceted strategy” and as such the new bill under consideration “will not be the first time the US government is providing support to the Uganda army in fighting the LRA.
“The US has been backing the UPDF [Uganda People's Defence Force] with logistics and training to fight the rebel group.” [12] 
Last month it was announced that the U.S. Africa Command has dispatched special forces to train 1,000 Congolese troops in the north and east of their nation, where Congo borders Uganda.
Former U.S. diplomat Daniel Simpson was quoted above as to what in part is Washington’s motive in pursuing a new war in and around Somalia: To test out AFRICOM ground and air forces in Djibouti for direct military action on the continent.
A United Press International report of March 10, placed under energy news, offered another explanation. In a feature titled “East Africa is next hot oil zone,” the news agency disclosed that “East Africa is emerging as the next oil boom following a big strike in Uganda’s Lake Albert Basin. Other oil and natural gas reserves have been found in Tanzania and Mozambique and exploration is under way in Ethiopia and even war-torn Somalia.”
The region is, in the words of the Western chief executive officer of an oil prospecting firm, “the last real high-potential area in the world that hasn’t been fully explored.” [13]
The article added: “The discovery at Lake Albert, in the center of Africa between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, is estimated to contain the equivalent of several billion barrels of oil. It is likely to be the biggest onshore field found south of the Sahara Desert in two decades.”
It also spoke of “a vast 135,000-square-mile territory in landlocked Ethiopia that is believed to contain sizable reserves of oil. It is estimated to hold 4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas as well.”
And, more pertinent to the Horn of Africa: 
“A 1993 study by Petroconsultants of Geneva concluded that Somalia has two of the most potentially interesting hydrocarbon-yielding basins in the entire region – one in the central Mudugh region, the other in the Gulf of Aden. More recent analyses indicate that Somalia could have reserves of up to 10 billion barrels.” [14]
Washington’s North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies are also deeply involved in the militarization of East Africa.
On March 10 NATO extended its naval operation in the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Somalia, Ocean Shield, to the end of 2012, an unprecedentedly long 33-month extension. On March 12 “Standing NATO Maritime Group 2 will take over missions from Standing NATO Maritime Group 1 for the four-month assignment. The change will increase NATO’s contribution from four ships to five ships….” [15]
At the same hearings of the Senate Armed Services Committee that AFRICOM commander William Ward addressed, NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, America’s Admiral James Stavridis, “noted that 100,000 NATO troops are involved in expeditionary operations on three continents, including operations in Afghanistan, off the coast of Africa, and in Bosnia.” (Evidently Kosovo was meant for Bosnia.) 
Stavridis, who is concurrently top military chief of U.S. European Command, said “The nature of threats in this 21st century [is] going to demand more than just sitting behind our borders.” [16]
He also said he finds “Iran alarming in any number of dimensions,” specifically mentioning alleged “state-sponsored terrorism, nuclear proliferation and political outreach into Latin America.” [17]
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen recently returned from Jordan and the Persian Gulf state of Bahrain where he pressured both nations to support the war in Afghanistan and Alliance naval operations.
“NATO’s top official said [on March 9] that he has asked Jordan and Bahrain to contribute to alliance naval operations fighting terrorism and piracy in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Gulf of Aden, as he ended a visit to the two countries. NATO is keen to improve cooperation with Arab and Muslim states, seeing them as important allies for a number of missions, including the all-important deployment in Afghanistan.” [18] 
Regarding the Western military bloc’s almost nine-year Operation Active Endeavor in the entire Mediterranean Sea and its Operation Ocean Shield in the Gulf of Aden, Rasmussen said, “We would very much like to strengthen cooperation (with Bahrain and Jordan) within these operations.” [19]
While in Jordan he was strengthening military ties with NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue partnership – Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia – and in Bahrain firming up the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative aimed at the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates have military personnel serving under NATO in Afghanistan.
In late February a delegation of the 53-nation African Union (AU) visited NATO’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe in Mons, Belgium. 
“NATO continues to support the AU mission in Somalia (AMISOM) through the provision of strategic sea- and air-lift for AMISOM Troop Contributing Nations on request. The last airlift support occurred in June 2008 when NATO transported a battalion of Burundian peacekeepers to Mogadishu.” [20]
On March 10 AMISON deployed tanks to prevent the capture of the Somali presidential palace by rebels.
The North Atlantic military bloc, which in recent years has conducted large-scale exercises in West Africa and inaugurated its international Response Force in Cape Verde in 2006, also supports “the operationalisation of the African Standby Force – the African Union’s vision for a continental, on-call security apparatus similar to the NATO Response Force.” [21]
In May the European Union, whose membership largely overlaps with that of NATO and which is engaged in intense integration with the military bloc on a global scale [22], will begin training 2,000 Somali troops in Uganda.
Brigadier General Thierry Caspar-Fille-Lambie, commanding officer of French armed forces in Djibouti, said “the Somali troops will be trained with the necessary military skills to help pacify and stabilize the volatile country.”
He issued that statement “at the closing ceremony of four-week French operational training of 1,700 Ugandan troops to be deployed” to Somalia in May. The French ambassador to Uganda said “The EU troops shall work in close collaboration with UPDF to train Somali troops.” [23]
The 2,000 soldiers to be trained by the EU will represent a full third of a projected 6,000-troop Somali army.
The U.S.-NATO-EU global triad plans an even larger collective military role in the new scramble for Africa. On March 4 and 5 a delegation from AFRICOM met with European Union officials in Brussels “seeking EU cooperation in Africa,” specifically in “areas where cooperation could be possible, notably with the soon-to-be-launched EU mission to train Somali troops.” [24]
Tony Holmes, AFRICOM’s deputy to the commander for civil-military activities, said “Somalia, that’s an area where we’re going to be doing a lot more, the European Union is already doing a lot and will be doing more….
“Somalia is very important for us. The European Union is involved in training Somalis in Uganda and that’s something we might be able to work closely with to support.”
The AFRICOM delegation, including Major-General Richard Sherlock, director of strategy, plans and programs, also discussed “counter-terrorism cooperation with the EU in the Sahel region, notably in Mauritania, Mali and Niger….” [25] 
In late January the chairman of NATO’s Military Committee, Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola, said “that the Alliance is in discussion with a Gulf state to deploy AWACS planes for a reconnaissance mission over Afghanistan in support of its ISAF mission and also for anti-piracy off Somalia.” [24]
To demonstrate that NATO’s anti-piracy operation off the coast of Somalia has other designs than the one acknowledged, early this year a NATO spokesman announced that the bloc’s naval contingent in the Gulf of Aden “now has an additional task” to intervene against a fictional deployment of Somali fighters across the Gulf to Yemen.
The spokesman, Jacqui Sheriff, said “NATO warships will be on the lookout for anything suspicious.” [25]
As though Somali al-Shabaab fighters have nothing else to do as the U.S. is engineering an all-out assault on them in their homeland.
Five days after the New York Times feature detailed American war plans in Somalia, the Washington Times followed up on and added to that report.
U.S. operations are “likely to be the most overt demonstration of U.S. military backing since the ill-fated Operation Restore Hope of 1992….”
“Unmanned U.S. surveillance aircraft have been seen circling over Mogadishu in recent days, apparently pinpointing insurgent positions as the TFG [Transitional Federal Government] marshals its forces. U.S. Army advisers have been helping train the TFG’s forces, which have been largely equipped with millions of dollars’ worth of U.S. arms airlifted into Mogadishu over the last few weeks.”
The newspaper report further stated: “It’s not clear when the offensive will start. The word on the street is sometime in the next few weeks….”
The campaign has already begun.
“After securing Mogadishu, the offensive, supported by militias allied with the government, for now, at least, is likely to continue against al-Shebab in the countryside west and south toward the border with Kenya.” [26]
After the capital, the entire country. After Somalia, the region.
The war has just begun. 
NATO:
1) Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 10, 2010
2) New York Times, March 5, 2010
3) Ibid
4) Senate Armed Forces Committee, March 9, 2010
5) United States Africa Command, March 9, 2010
6) Senate Armed Forces Committee, March 9, 2010
7) U.S., NATO Expand Afghan War To Horn Of Africa And Indian Ocean
Stop NATO, January 8, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/u-s-nato-expand-afghan-war-to-horn-of-africa-and-indian-ocean-2
Yemen: Pentagon’s War On The Arabian Peninsula
Stop NATO, December 15, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/12/15/yemen-pentagons-war-on-the-arabian-peninsula 
8) Russian Information Agency Novosti, January 11, 2010
9) New York Times, March 5, 2010
10) The Monitor, October 14, 2009
11) AFRICOM Year Two: Seizing The Helm Of The Entire World
Stop NATO, October 22, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/10/22/africom-year-two-taking-the-helm-of-the-entire-world
12) The East African, March 1, 2010
13) United Press International, March 10, 2010
14) Ibid
15) Stars and Stripes, March 11, 2010
16) United States Department of Defense, March 9, 2010
17) Ibid
18) Deutsche Presse-Agentur, March 9, 2010
19) Ibid
20) North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe
February 24, 2010
21) Ibid
22) EU, NATO, US: 21st Century Alliance For Global Domination
Stop NATO, February 19, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/eu-nato-us-21st-century-alliance-for-global-domination
23) Xinhua News Agency, February 13, 2010
24) Europolitics, March 5, 2010
25) Ibid
26) Kuwait News Agency, January 28, 2010
27) Canwest News Service, January 1, 2010
28) Washington Times, March 10, 2010
[N.B.: After Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan now Somaaliya - after years of already having been a U.S.-American puppet - shall now obviously become another U.S.-American fully fledged colony again.]

U.S. denies military intervention in Somalia (Xinhua)

U.S. provides limited military support to Somalia (vancouverite)
The United States says it has provided limited military support to the transitional government in Somalia but does not intend to play a direct role in the conflict. 
“We have provided limited military support to the Transitional Federal Government. We do so in the firm belief that the TFG seeks to end the violence in Somalia that is caused by al-Shabaab and other extremist organizations,” said assistant secretary of state Johnnie Carson. 
“The United States does not plan, does not direct, and does not coordinate the military operations of the TFG, and we have not and will not be providing direct support for any potential military offensives,” Carson said on Friday. 
“U.S. policy in Somalia is guided by our support for the Djibouti peace process. The Djibouti peace process is an African-led initiative which enjoys the support of IGAD, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development,” he said. 
“It also enjoys the support of the African Union and the key states in the region. The Djibouti peace process has also been supported by the United Nations, the European Community, the Arab League, and the Organization of Islamic Conference,” said Carson. 
“The Transitional Federal Government, led by President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, builds on the progress made during the establishment of the Djibouti peace process,” he said. “However, extremist elements such as al-Shabaab have been – have chosen to reject the peace process and have waged a violent campaign against the TFG and the people of Somalia in order to impose their own vision for the future in that country.”

U.S. Policy in Somalia (U.S. StateDepartment) (*)
AMBASSADOR CARSON: Gordon, thank you very, very much. Thank you all for coming today. I want to take this opportunity to address a number of press reports over the past week characterizing our policy in Somalia, specifically regarding our assistance to the Transitional Federal Government. These reports have not accurately reflected or portrayed our policy position and what we are doing in that country. Today, I will take a few moments to set the record straight and to place our policy in proper context.
U.S. policy in Somalia is guided by our support for the Djibouti peace process. The Djibouti peace process is an African-led initiative which enjoys the support of IGAD, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development. It also enjoys the support of the African Union and the key states in the region. The Djibouti peace process has also been supported by the United Nations, the European Community, the Arab League, and the Organization of Islamic Conference. The Djibouti peace process recognizes the importance of trying to put together an inclusive Somali government and takes into account the importance of the history, culture, clan, and sub-clan relations that have driven the conflict in Somalia for the past 20 years.
The Transitional Federal Government, led by President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, builds on the progress made during the establishment of the Djibouti peace process. However, extremist elements such as al-Shabaab have been – have chosen to reject the peace process and have waged a violent campaign against the TFG and the people of Somalia in order to impose their own vision for the future in that country.
The United States and the international community, the UN, the AU, and our European allies, among others, have chosen to stand with those seeking an inclusive, peaceful Somalia. We have provided limited military support to the Transitional Federal Government. We do so in the firm belief that the TFG seeks to end the violence in Somalia that is caused by al-Shabaab and other extremist organizations.
However, the United States does not plan, does not direct, and does not coordinate the military operations of the TFG, and we have not and will not be providing direct support for any potential military offensives. Further, we are not providing nor paying for military advisors for the TFG. There is no desire to Americanize the conflict in Somalia.
We are also aware of the reporting on the Somali – of the Somalia Monitoring Group’s concerns about the diversion of food and assistance in Somalia. The State Department has received the draft report and we are reviewing it carefully. I will not comment on that report because we have a representative from our Bureau of International Organizations who can answer those questions. But we are concerned about the troubling allegations that are contained in that document.
The Somali people have suffered tremendously throughout more than 20 years of conflict, and Somalia’s turmoil destabilizes not only that country, but the region and also some aspects of the international community. The U.S. recognizes that any long-term solution to the crisis in Somalia must be an inclusive political solution. We continue to call upon all those who seek peace in Somalia to reject terrorism and violence, and to participate in the hard work of stabilizing the country for the benefit of Somalia’s population.
I’d now like to recognize and ask Ambassador Cousin, who is in Rome, whether she would like to add her comments. Thank you.
Ambassador Cousin.
AMBASSADOR COUSIN: Thank you very much, Ambassador Carson. I’d also like to thank the members of the press for your presence and interest in covering these important issues related to Somalia. As Johnnie Carson stated, the Somali people have suffered tremendously during the more than 20 years of conflict in their country.
The Somalia Monitoring Group, more commonly known as the SMG, submitted their report to the UN Security Council Sanctions Committee this past week. This SMG report – the SMG reports directly to the Security Council on implementation of the Somalia and Eritrea sanctions regimes. We take the work of the Somalia Monitoring Group very seriously and we are studying its recommendations.
Next week, the Security Council will meet and receive the regular 120-day report from the Chair of the Somalia Sanctions Committee that will include a briefing on the committee’s discussion of the SMG’s final report. The Somalia Monitoring Group report contains a number of recommendations, including those regarding the work of the World Food Program in Somalia. We at the U.S. Mission to the UN agencies in Rome are active members of the executive board of the World Food Program. This board regularly examines the work of the World Food Program and the perils its dedicated staff face around the world, particularly in places like Somalia.
In December of 2009, the World Food Program presented a briefing on the – its Somalia program to the World Food Program executive board. After the December board meeting, WFP did take internal measures to address the concerns raised in this internal report. Some of the same types of allegations were raised in the Somalia Monitoring Group’s report. So this morning, the executive board recognized that regardless of the process mandated by the SMG, the board has a responsibility for oversight and governance of the WFP operations. Consensus was reached by the board to ensure that all practices of the WFP in – WFP team in Somalia are in line with the organization’s policies and procedures.
We will continue to work to ensure that the generous contributions of the American people to support the work of the World Food Program are managed in an accountable and transparent manner. We express our gratitude to the WFP staff for their commitment to meet humanitarian needs in the most difficult of circumstances. The United States remains strongly committed to meeting the humanitarian needs of the people of Somalia. We continue to seek ways to ensure that the Somalian people receive the assistance they require.
I’ll end here, Assistant Secretary, and look forward to any questions from the media. Thank you.
MR. DUGUID: Before we get to the questions, I would like to make a correction for the record. I described Ambassador Cousin’s – one of her official duties rather than her official title, which is – Ambassador to U.S. Mission to the UN Agencies in Rome is her official working title.
As we call on you, please identify yourself and which ambassador you would like to speak to.
Matt.
QUESTION: Matt Lee with AP. Ambassador Carson, you mentioned at the very top – you were talking about a number of recent press reports. Can you be specific about what these reports said? I’m not asking you to identify whatever organization they were responsible. But what did they say? And what is wrong – what was wrong with them?
Secondly, you said that the Djibouti process was supported by IGAD, the AU, and all the countries of the region. But that’s not entirely true, is it? I mean, there is one country that doesn’t support it. Or has Eritrea changed their position? And then –those two very briefly – but then on the military aid that you talked about the several tons of weapons that have been provided to the TFG. Are there any concerns that those weapons may be leaking out in the same way that the food aid was described as leaking out to insurgents?
AMBASSADOR CARSON: Let me say, the most prominent article was one that appeared approximately a week ago in The New York Times, written by Jeff Gettleman, and I think co-authored by one of his colleagues, which asserted or carried the assertion that the U.S. Government had military advisors assisting and aiding the TFG, that the U.S. Government was, in fact, helping to coordinate the strategic offensive that is apparently underway now, or may be underway now, in Mogadishu, and that we were, in effect, guiding the hand and the operations of the TFG military. All of those are incorrect. All of those do not reflect the accuracy of our policy, and all of those need to be refuted very strongly. I think my statement clearly outlined what we are doing and why we are doing it.
You indicated that one state in the region has not joined in, and that is absolutely true; that is Eritrea. But Eritrea, in fact, stands alone. What my statement said was that all key states in the region, all the important states in the region – and I would include among them Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, and other members of IGAD –
QUESTION: You’re not planning to meet up with President Isaias anytime soon, are you?
AMBASSADOR CARSON: Whenever an opportunity presents itself to engage President Isaias in a conversation that will lead to peace and a cessation of Eritrean support for spoilers in the region, I will do so.
With respect to military weapons, we try as best we possibly can to ensure through a number of mechanisms that any assistance, any assistance that we give to the TFG, directly or indirectly, is accounted for and audited through mechanisms that we believe are very good.
QUESTION: Are you aware of any concerns that weapons have – may have gone to insurgents?
AMBASSADOR CARSON: There are allegations out there. But let me say that because of two decades of conflict and instability in Somalia, the country is awash with arms and, in fact, is an international arms bazaar. Weapons can be acquired very easily on the black market and they can be sold very easily on the black market. We undertake, through a number of mechanisms, including one that we have intentionally put in place to monitor any support that we give, to ensure that every possible effort is maintained over the handling of any assistance we provide.
QUESTION: Andrew Quinn from Reuters. I have one question for Ambassador Cousin. I was hoping you could talk a little bit more about what the practical results will be of this consensus you spoke of with regards to the WFP activity in Somalia and the U.S. role in providing some of the food aid there. Is that going to – if it’s stopped, is it going to resume? What happens now?
And for Ambassador Carson, I was wondering – and you’re talking about the inclusive – hoping for an inclusive resolution of the situation. Do you – does the U.S. foresee or encourage a sort of Afghanistan-style reintegration effort, reaching out to members of al-Shabaab and so on to bring them perhaps back on board with the TFG or other sort of more centrist elements?
And secondly, what does – does the U.S. have a position on the AU’s calls for UN peacekeepers in Somalia? Where do we stand on that one?
MR. DUGUID: Ambassador Cousin first. Ambassador Cousin, please.
AMBASSADOR COUSIN: Thank you. The board will continue to work with WFP to ensure that all the policies and procedures of WFP are followed in Somalia, just as they are in other countries where WFP partners with the U.S. and other countries in the delivery of food assistance. We, the United States, as well as the board continue to be committed to supporting the food security needs of the people of Somalia.
MR. DUGUID: Ambassador.
AMBASSADOR CARSON: On the issue of inclusiveness, we believe that the long-term solution for Somalia’s conflict is to be found in a political reconciliation. We believe that it is important for the TFG to reach out to broaden its base as much as possible, to bring in as many clan and sub-clan groups as possible, to include among its rank other moderate Islamist groups and Somalis who were not a part of that group. I would think that any moderate Islamists who are seeking peace, who are denouncing al-Shabaab, and who want to be a part of a peace process should, in fact, be considered for inclusion in a TFG government.
With respect to the call by the AU for a UN peacekeeping force in Somalia, I think that it is important at this point that AMISOM do the job that it has committed itself to do, that more African countries step up to participate in the AMISOM force, along with the Ugandan, Burundian, and Djiboutian troops who are already on the ground.[1] The force was – for AMISOM was originally supposed to be 8,000 men. It is only slightly over 5,000. We hope other African nations will come forward to make contributions to the effort in Somalia.
The Africans, as I’ve indicated, have recognized the importance of stabilizing that country. This has been recognized in IGAD, in AU resolutions, and the commitment by African countries themselves to put troops on the ground. This is essentially an African effort, an African-led effort that does deserve the support of the international community. But it is important that AMISOM do the primary work of trying to establish peace in that country.
MR. DUGUID: Thank you. We’ll go back to the third row, then we’ll come back to the second row. Yes, please, sir.
QUESTION: I have three small questions. The first one is: I know you stated very clearly that United States is not coordinating or involving any impending military offensive by the TFG. But has the TFG requested any military assistance, specifically aerials and military strikes, from the United States Government? And if so, what was your response or your reply to them?
And the other question is: Have there been any military advisors from the United States Government or any sort of covert military presence in Somalia, in Mogadishu during the past few months? Because in Mogadishu, the talk is that there is a very strong feeling that there are some sorts of military advisors from the United States Government in Mogadishu. So can you confirm whether there has been any visit, any sort of visit from the United States Government, military advisors to Somalia?
And the third and final question: As you said, you do not want to Americanize the Somali TFG military operations. But in September 2009, we know that an operation by the United States Government killed one of the al-Qaida leaders in East Africa in Somalia. So how does these two arguments go along?
AMBASSADOR CARSON: Let me respond to all three questions. I have not, in my office, received any formal or informal request from the TFG for airstrikes or operations in support of the offensive that may be underway right now. I have seen newspaper comments of TFG leaders responding to questions that have been posed to them about whether they would be willing to accept outside support. But we have not received any, I have not received any, my office has not received any requests for airstrikes or air support or people on the ground to assist the TFG in its operations. The TFG military operations are the responsibilities of the TFG government.
I will reiterate what I said in my statement: We do not have any American U.S. military advisors on the ground assisting the TFG in its operations. It should be very clear: We do not have any American U.S. military advisors on the ground. We are not planning, coordinating any of the TFG’s military operations. It is for the TFG leadership to determine how its military operates on the ground.
Finally, the issue of Americanization of this. This is not an American conflict. This is a conflict among Somalis that Africans and members of the international community recognize as being extremely important for Somalia, for the region, and for the international community. It will be up to the Somalis to ultimately resolve this conflict. The U.S., along with others in the international community, can contribute in a supporting role, which we do and acknowledge, but not to become directly engaged in any of the conflict on the ground there.
QUESTION: Just to follow up on that, the Somali Government itself is saying that the conflict is not a Somali conflict anymore; there is the clear affiliation by al-Shabaab with al-Qaida on the other and U.S. military operation last year in the south of Somalia. And in 2000, there were at least three other airstrikes. So it’s not a Somali conflict anymore. Your take on that?
AMBASSADOR CARSON: That is a misreading of Somalia’s history, its culture, and its long period of internecine conflict inside the country, as well as in the region itself. Somalia has been torn apart by internal strife for more than two decades. That two decades supersedes many of the terrorist activities and events that you would like to associate with Somalia.
Somalia’s problems are the result and absence of a central government, constant tensions between various regions among the five major clans and many sub-clans that exist. There are indeed individuals who have more recently come in from outside of the country to take advantage of some of the chaos and disorganization that exists there, but Somalia’s problems are to be resolved by Somalis by recognizing the reasons and causes of the conflict in their own country. Somalia’s people have to work together to bring peace to their country.
MR. DUGUID: Thank you. As our time is limited, let’s try and limit the follow-ons, please. Yes.
QUESTION: Catherine Herridge of Fox News. How would – Ambassador, how would you characterize the relationship between al-Shabaab, which appears to be growing bolder every day, and al-Qaida in Yemen, and what that will mean for the United States?
AMBASSADOR CARSON: There is no question that some individuals, mostly in the senior leadership of al-Shabaab, are affiliated either directly or indirectly with international terrorist groups. Some would like to be even more affiliated. But it is important to recognize that al-Shabaab, which no doubt is carrying out many terrorist activities in that country, is not a homogeneous, monolithic, or – group that is comprised of individuals who completely share the same political philosophy from top to bottom.
QUESTION: But just to follow up on that, because certainly, what the – it’s not an American problem. I understand what you’re saying there. But certainly, there are very significant American interests involved, given that al-Shabaab is actively recruiting Americans of Somali descent in this country to train in the camps there. And just this week, al-Shabaab has said that it’s not afraid of any American intervention in that country.
AMBASSADOR CARSON: The young Somalis who were recruited in this country to go back to Somalia to fight went back to fight against the Ethiopian incursion that occurred in that country. They did not go back to protest or to fight against the – any kind of a U.S. policy in that country. And it’s very clear that they went back for Somali nationalistic reasons. They went back to fight Ethiopians who –
QUESTION: But we were backing the Ethiopians. Was the U.S. not backing the –
AMBASSADOR CARSON: They went back to fight against Ethiopians. The United States was not in Somalia.
MR. DUGUID: Charlie.
QUESTION: Ambassador Carson, Charlie Wolfson from CBS. Can you just give us a dollar figure here of how much aid? And maybe to the ambassador in Rome, Cousin – Ambassador Cousin, how much money is the U.S. giving for this effort either on the food side or totally?
AMBASSADOR CARSON: I’ll let Ambassador Cousin speak to the food issue. But with respect to U.S. support for AMISOM, the United States, as a member of the Contact Group and as a member of the international community, has provided something in the neighborhood of $185 million over the last 18 or 19 months.[2] And that is in support of the AMISOM peacekeeping effort – Uganda, primarily, but Burundi and Djibouti as well. Funding going to the TFG from the United States has been substantially smaller, and that number is approximately $12 million over the last fiscal year.[3] So the amounts of money that we are talking about are really relatively small.
I’ll let Ambassador Cousin speak to the food issue.
AMBASSADOR COUSIN: Thank you. Our food aid, our food assistance budget for Somalia is approximately $150 million. But at this time, the WFP is not operating in the southern region of Somalia, and our operational and food aid support to Somalia is limited to the northern region of Somalia only.
MR. DUGUID: Charley, then David. And I think that’s about all we’ll have time for. Charley.
QUESTION: Please, sir. Charley Keyes of CNN. You’ve spoken several times about what U.S. military assistance is not, but can you be any more specific about what U.S. military assistance to Somalia is?
AMBASSADOR CARSON: Well, let me just say the United States Government in support of AMISOM, largely through programs run by the Department of State, has, in fact, provided assistance to AMISOM. We have supported the acquisition of non-lethal equipment to the Governments of Burundi and to Uganda, in particular. We have provided them with military equipment, and this ranges every – from everything from communications gear to uniforms.
We have supported the training of TFG forces outside of Somalia, mostly in Uganda but also in Djibouti. We have paid for the transportation of the troops back from their training places abroad into the country. We have also paid for specialized training given by Ugandans to the Djiboutians to deal with such things as improvised explosive devices, training for the protection of ports and airports. But this has been done by the Ugandans, not by any U.S. Government military officials.
So those are some of the things. And everything that we have done, we have reported, as required, to the UN Sanctions Committee.
MR. DUGUID: Thank you. David, final question.
QUESTION: Dave Gollust from Voice of America. You keep reading that the transitional government, like, controls a matter of blocks in Mogadishu, that it’s very weak, it’s very threatened. What is your take on its survivability?
AMBASSADOR CARSON: I think the TFG has demonstrated in an enormous capacity to survive. When Sheikh Sharif took office as the head of the TFG approximately 16 months ago, there were individuals who predicted that his government would fall within a matter of months
and that he would not be able to reside and govern from Mogadishu. That has not been true. Almost a year ago, in May of last year, al-Shabaab mounted an enormously large offensive designed to break the back of the TFG and the will of AMISOM. They failed to do so. The fact that the TFG remains standing is a reflection of its resolve and the commitment of its leaders to stand up against al-Shabaab. And they are demonstrating their capacity to do so on a daily basis.
There is no doubt that the TFG is still fighting very hard to regain control over most of Mogadishu. Reports that it controls only three, four, or five city blocks are erroneous. What the TFG does control is the main port of Mogadishu, the two main airports, and all of the central government buildings. It has clear control over a third of the city. And probably two-thirds of the city, some of which is controlled by al-Shabaab, remains largely contested territory. We hope that as the TFG builds up its military forces, that it will be able to provide more security, exert more control over the city, and demonstrate its capacity to protect the citizens of the country. We also hope that it will also be more inclusive, reach out to other clans and sub-clans, and to expand its political influence, and also to be able deliver services.
But again, I want to emphasize, these are the responsibilities of the TFG. This is a Somali problem primarily that has affected the region and, to a certain extent, the international community. The United States believes that the Somalis and Africans should not – should, in fact, remain in the lead. This is not an American problem and we do not seek to Americanize the conflict there.
MR. DUGUID: Assistant Secretary Carson, thank you. Ambassador Cousin, thank you very much for appearing with us today.
Notes:
[1] Djiboutian troops are not on the ground in Mogadishu as of yet. They have not deployed, and may not until January 2011. AMISOM still consists entirely of Ugandan and Burundian troops.
[2] $185M is our cumulative support since 2007.
[3] $12M in in-kind support and $2M in direct cash support to the TFG.
(*) Special briefing by Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson and Ambassador Ertharin Cousin, who is the U.S. ambassador to the World Food Program in Rome. 

UK – MFA – Joint UK-Somalia press statement on the visit of the President of Somalia to London (UKgovPR)
President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed of Somalia visited the UK from 8-11 March 2010, meeting Prime Minister Gordon Brown and other government ministers to discuss a range of issues.
President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed of Somalia visited the UK as a guest of the British government 8 – 11 March 2010. The visit provided an opportunity to hear about the TFG’s efforts to enhance peace and stability in Somalia and for open and frank discussions on issues of mutual concern. The UK confirmed its support to the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and commitment to the Djibouti peace process. The UK’s ongoing support to the TFG and the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) demonstrates this commitment and the bond between our two countries.
A peaceful and stable Somalia is vital to alleviate the suffering of the Somali people, who face an ever worsening humanitarian crisis. And it is important to regional stability and prosperity in East Africa, the security of the United Kingdom and other countries across the world. Unrest and lawlessness in Somalia have created the conditions for terrorism to flourish, seen most recently in the declaration by Al Shabaab of links with Al-Qaeda. 
During the visit the President met Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Foreign Secretary David Miliband, Home Secretary Alan Johnson, International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander, Foreign Office Minister for Africa, Baroness Kinnock and Communities Minister Shahid Malik.
The Prime Minister and the President discussed recent progress on governance and encouraged the need to continue with their outreach and reconciliation efforts to all groups supporting peace in Somalia. The Prime Minister confirmed the UK’s commitment to continue support to the TFG. He also thanked the President for his government’s assistance in trying to secure the safe release of Paul and Rachel Chandler, held by pirates in Somalia. Their detention remains of major concern to the British Government.
In his meetings with the Foreign Secretary and Minister for Africa, they agreed that continued support to the TFG and the Djibouti process should be at the core of the international community’s strategy to achieving long term stability in Somalia. The Foreign Secretary acknowledged the dangerous, challenging conditions that the President, Ministers and Parliamentarians and the Somali people face every day in Somalia, as seen in the deadly 3 December terrorist attack that killed 4 Government Ministers, medical students and journalists. The UK would continue to work closely with the TFG, United Nations and other international partners to deliver a cohesive and focussed programme of support. During the meeting with the Foreign Secretary there was agreement in principle that the TFG would work towards opening an Embassy in London.
The Department for International Development’s (DFID) Secretary of State, Douglas Alexander, reaffirmed the UK’s commitment to providing support to Somalia during his meeting with the President. Both agreed that the humanitarian situation was of great concern, with over 40% of the population requiring assistance and humanitarian agencies working in extremely difficult conditions. The Secretary of State informed the President that the UK would be providing an additional £7.5 million to support humanitarian activities in Somalia, bringing DFID’s humanitarian spending for 2009/10 to £19m, and DFID’s total spending in Somalia to £30.5m. The Development Secretary also announced a £5.8m programme to help promote peace and stability in the region by supporting reconciliation and local peace building initiatives between clans and communities.
The President welcomed DFID’s continued support, in particular their new governance programme that aims to promote stability and political progress in Somalia. They discussed how the new programme will work not only with Transitional Federal Institutions to help them deliver a political transition by August 2011, but also with civil society organisations to promote their role in policy making and in reconciliation and local peace building initiatives between clans and communities.
During his meeting with the Home Secretary he discussed the security challenges facing Somalia, particularly with violent extremism. The Home Secretary outlined his decision to proscribe Al Shabaab, and that it was a tough but necessary process to tackle terrorism. The President welcomed this decision and both agreed that it helps sends a clear message to the organisation that both countries condemn its terrorists’ activities, and urge it to end the indiscriminate violence against the interests of Somalia and Somalis around the world.
With the Communities Minister there was agreement on the shared benefits for both countries in advancing political and economic stability and law and order in Somalia. The President emphasised the importance of the UK Somali community playing a full and active role in contributing to British Society.
There was also discussion with a number of interlocutors about the TFG’s determination to extend its area of control in Mogadishu. There was shared understanding of the need to ensure the civilian population saw greater security, prosperity and governance as a result of the TFG’s actions.
An important element of the President’s visit was the meetings he had with the Somali communities in the UK. The President welcomed the opportunity to meet them in London and Birmingham, informing them personally of the efforts and progress his government was making towards peace and prosperity for the Somali people. The meetings provided an invaluable opportunity for the President to answer concerns and dispel some of the negative propaganda propagated by Al Shabaab about the TFG, AMISOM and the International community.

A top US official on Friday denied reports of a boost in US military aid to Somalia’s transitional federal government (TFG), and said there was no intention to “Americanize” the conflict in the horn of Africa.
“We have provided limited military support to the TFG… (but) the US does not plan, does not direct, and does not coordinate the military operations of the TFG,” said Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson.
He insisted that The New York Times inaccurately reported last week that US special operations forces could help the Somali government dislodge Al-Qaeda-linked insurgents Shebab from Mogadishu.
“We are not providing nor paying for military advisors for the TFG. There is no desire to Americanize the conflict in Somalia,” Carson said.
Asked to comment on the Somali government’s reconciliation strategy, he said the TFG should “broaden its base as much as possible, to bring in as much clan as possible.”
In Washington’s view, he added, “any moderate Islamists who are seeking peace, are denouncing el Shebab and want to be part of a peace process should in fact be considered for inclusion in the TFG government.”
Mogadishu and other parts of central and southern Somalia under insurgent control have been bracing for a major offensive by the government and the African Union peacekeeping mission, known as AMISOM.
The head of the US Africa Command, General William Ward, told a Senate hearing Tuesday that he supported the TFG’s effort to retake Mogadishu and bring stability to their nation.
US President Barack Obama’s administration has stepped up support for the TFG, sending it weapons since last year to help fend off the Shebab.
Many Americans remain haunted by the last US intervention in Somalia which began as a relief operation to avert famine in the early 1990s.
In October 1993, forces loyal to warlord Mohamed Farah Aidid killed 18 US soldiers, dragging some of their bodies through the streets.
More than 100,000 people have been forced to flee their homes across Somalia since the start of the year amid “relentless and indiscriminate” fighting, the UN refugee agency said Friday.

Somaliland Vs. Somalia: A reassessment of the fundamentals by Isahak Ahmed
What is to come of the next Somaliland elections? If our good friend, the Somali version of Mr. Ten Percent Man, is to rig the next election and claim presidency through corrupted tactics (similar to Hamid Karzai’s illegitimate victory dance) – what will occur to Somaliland’s stability? As the North struggles to receive acknowledgment via hopeless attempts to render Western recognition, one can conclude countless failed attempts are repetitive expectations amidst Somaliland’s society. Understandably, the current government ascertains to thoughts of attracting Western diplomacy but bowing to Ethiopia’s enmity evokes a sense of national degradation. Ethiopian military officials purchase Ogaden Somali’s residing in Hargeisa through back-door channels; the Northern government is too mentally challenged to sell their souls to the rich devils (West) and instead, we’ve been bought and enslaved by Ethiopia. Thus, what is to occur to our ‘slow’ government if the people’s voice is unheard again? 
Fast-forward to the deteriorating situation in Southern Somalia, although a strong sense of hope emerges from hopeless debris -Hope emerges without assistance from the Northern government. While Northern Somalia has become a pit stop for travelling Somali’s and society welcomes Southern brethren; after a few security breaches in the North- Mr. Dahir Riyale threatened to evict all Southern Somali’s from Somaliland. For him and his puppet government, these threats were merely another attempt at being loved by Mr. West. Oh Mr. Western Powers why don’t you love us? Is it because we don’t love ourselves? Could it be because we are currently a puppet of Ms. Ethiopia? Oh Mr. West! 
Comical, but seriously true! Seemingly, nonsensical is Somaliland’s current Public Policy Strategy. Hence, let’s return to the electoral situation. In May 2004, we all remember the tragedy that took place in Somaliland. However, Mr. Silaanyo responded with an urgency to avoid all violence due to the example set by our Southern counterparts. So, Mr. Dahir continued with his mission of being without a mission! Therefore, if Mr. Dahir repeats the same strategy of ‘Karzai Politics’, shall we submit to another dictator? Isn’t that what the SNM fought against? Unfortunately, an African in power would rather lose sanity than peacefully lose power. Welcome to African Politics 101. 
Mr. Silanyo was recently asked at a Washington D.C gathering the same question that lingers on everyone’s mind: whether or not a probable leader change will be peaceful or not. And he responded with a calm and subtle, ‘we will avoid violence and promote peace’. If the promotion of peace comes at the price of a warring ideology and an illegitimate ruling party, does that not validate the notion that the tenants of peace shall forfeit its priority of being upheld? I’m not promoting war, but merely provoking thought and indulging in an attempt to save our nation. And thus, I’d like to co-relate an aspect of public perspective in regards to the Southern Somalia and Northern Somalia relationship. 
Northerners forget that Southern Somalia is still SOMALIA! Different dialects, food preferences and clan jokes but we are all SOMALIAS. However, the deteriorating situation in the South has somehow placed a subconscious mindset amongst Northerners that we are not like THOSE PEOPLE IN THE SOUTH. Similarly, African Americans were told that they couldn’t be like those SAVAGE Africans. In the story of Moses and Pharoah, Pharaoh made it his objective to separate and conquer the Israelites. Somalia is merely a country whose countrymen are too blind to view the ‘separate and conquer’ mechanism fueling separatist’s movements, governments and social ideology.
Consequently, the disassociation between Northern and Southern Somalis has played-to-the-tune of neighboring state actors who wish nothing less than Somalia’s demise. As Ethiopian troops were entering Somalia via known Northern routes, Somaliland resumed economical ties and business relations with Ethiopia. The concept that we, in the North, can witness the struggle, conflict and ultimate torture of our Southern brethren and still have a devilish sense of non-obligatory duties satisfies ‘Iblis’ and his followers. Mr. Dahirs regime has given innocent Ogedenians, peaceful residents of Hargeisa, over to Ethiopian military troops in addition to threatening to expel Southern Somali’s for Northern security breaches. If this isn’t selling one’s soul to the devil, I don’t know what is. 
Regrettably, Mr. Riyales devil has not given his country anything but conflict in returns. One mustn’t expect Somaliland to preserver whilst such a regime is in power. One mustn’t expect society to gradually change for the positive whilst we ignore our fundamental obligation to our brothers in the South. One mustn’t expect social progression through economical successes whilst we trade our own people for dividends. One mustn’t expect a change, unless we first understand in essence- what must be changed. These coming elections will not bring Somaliland anything better unless ideologies are changed, movement objectives are rethought and we realize, recognize, understand and acknowledge that we are in fact- ONE PEOPLE. 

Somaliland: Dream job turns into a nightmare by Shaun Ho (TheStarMY)
The lure of a high-paying job took telecommunications consultant Hor Chee Fei to Somalia, one of the world’s most dangerous places. 
But three months on, he had to run for his life, empty-handed and glad just to get out. 
He was forced to flee the lawless land and was chased right up to the runway of the airport by his employer’s henchmen. 
Hor and five other Malaysians managed to avoid detection by blending in with a crowd of Chinese tourists. 
Hor, 49, had been asked to help set up a mobile telephone network in the self-declared Republic of Somaliland, a breakaway region in the northwest of Somalia. 
“It was a big contract and the money was good,” said Hor, who has experience working in several African countries. 
The consultant said he was engaged by the telco’s owner on a one-year contract. 
He added that the owner, who is very rich, arranged for the company’s CEO to take him to inspect the facilities in Hargeisa, Somaliland’s capital city, to prove that it was a legitimate business. 
Convinced, Hor recruited five others and they flew there in December and immediately got to work. 
“They have excellent machinery but the local workers were incompetent,” Hor said during an interview. 
He said his team managed to get things running although progress was very slow. 
However, when a new CEO took over in January, their pay was withheld as the company claimed they had not performed, despite working over 12 hours a day and taking up tasks that were not part of their job scope. 
“We sensed something was not right and knew we had to leave as we were being bullied there,” Hor said. 
He said they felt threatened because it was a lawless place and they were in no position to demand their dues. 
Besides, their employers also implied that they could make it difficult for them if they did not continue their work. 
The Malaysians hatched an escape plan with the help of some local contacts when everyone was busy celebrating during the network’s launch last Saturday. 
“We did not feel safe until the aeroplane door was locked,” said Hor, who flew to Dubai from Berbera, three hours away by road. 
“Men came looking for us at the airport departure lounge and even on the runway,” said Hor, who arrived home together with the other Malaysians on Tuesday morning. 
He is currently consulting with his lawyers to get the workers their six-figure salary, which was to be paid in US dollars. 
He warned small companies to be careful when dealing with powerful “businessmen” from that part of the world. 
Johnson Lukose, 47, from Kuala Lumpur, described the trip as an unnecessary risk, adding that he would never return there. 
“I am bitter about the incident and at Hor for putting us in that situation. But I’m also grateful to him for getting us out of there,” said Lukose, who was hired as a power systems consultant.
[N.B.: In Berbera actually still 3 SriLankan and two Pakistani seafarers are held against their will.]

Somali clans clash over water, land, 11 killed (Reuters)
Fighting between two clans in central Somalia over land and water killed at least 11 people and wounded several others on Saturday, a rights group said. 
The two clans have been fighting over land and water in recent weeks in Mudug and the latest clash was about 110 km northeast of Dhusamareb, provincial capital of Galgadud. 
“At least 11 people died in clan clashes today. The two clans fought inhumanely using knives and guns,” Ali Yasin Gedi, the vice chairman of Elman peace and human rights group told Reuters. 
Somalia has had no effective central government for 19 years. Western and neighbouring countries say it has become a safe haven for militants. 
Fighting this week in the capital between government troops and al Shabaab rebels killed at least 64 people and wounded 189 others, Elman said.

Women and girls trafficking in Somalia: a tragedy by Mahdi Haile

THE REAL PIRATES: The UN
Three Somalis and their network of collaborators from within the UN and WFP received over 40 million US dollars last year alone in a row of 12 years, while diverting more than 50% of the commodities and thereby already paying their costs off. That is half a billion dollars net income for the organized crime the UN becomes more and more known for as being the core business of the world-body !!!! STOP UN AND STOP NATO – and people can be in peace again !!!!
Now it becomes also clear that is was not the money from the sea-shifta which poured into Nairobi, bought plush villas and built big buildings.

Big contractors banned in Somali aid probe by Jonathan Rugman (C4N)
The United Nations has suspended its biggest aid transport contractors in Somalia after it found up to 50 per cent of its food aid was not reaching its target, a report obtained by Channel 4 News reveals.
The UN report highlights three Somali contractors: Abukar Omer Adaani, Abdulqaadir Mohamed Nuur “Enow”, and Mohamed Deylaaf as the culprits. 
They are understood to have received over $41m last year – more than 60 per cent of the total transport budget from United Nation’s food aid branch, known as the World Food Programme (WFP). 
“For over 12 years, delivery of WFP food aid has been dominated by three individuals”, the UN Monitoring Group report says. 
“On account of their contracts with WFP, these three men have become some of the wealthiest and influential individuals in Somalia.
The report continues: “A handful of Somali contractors for aid agencies have formed a cartel and become important powerbrokers – some of whom channel their profits – or the aid itself – directly to armed opposition groups.” 
The WFP is the world’s largest humanitarian agency and the biggest operating in Somalia. It says the three named transporters are receiving no more contracts with immediate effect. 
An internal WFP investigation in 2009, prompted by a Channel 4 News report, found no evidence of wrongdoing by WFP staff.  
But the UN Security Council enquiry, obtained by Channel 4 News, accuses the WFP of deliberately obstructing  investigators: “the Monitoring Group experienced obstructionist non-cooperation by the WFP Somalia office”, the report says. 
The UN report urges the UN Secretary General to launch an independent investigation of the WFP Somalia country office and calls on the WFP to revise its internal procedures. 
“The integrity of our organization is paramount and we will be reviewing and investigating each and every issue raised,” said WFP Executive Director, Josette Sheeran. “WFP stands ready to offer full cooperation with any independent inquiry into its work in Somalia.” The report by the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia is due to be presented to the UN Security Council next week.

Somalia: UN report’s key findings by Jonathan Rugman (C4N)
Channel 4 News has obtained a recent UN monitoring group report on Somalia. Foreign affairs correspondent Jonathan Rugman highlights the key findings of the report, which is not expected to be officially published until next week.
The following are extracts from the report: 
Diversion of World Food Programme Aid 
“Percentages vary, but sources interviewed by the monitoring group describe an approximate diversion of 30 per cent for the implementing partner and local World Food Programme (WFP) personnel, 10 per cent for the ground transporter, and 5-10 per cent for the armed group in control of the area (according to a WFP spokesman, al-Shabaab control 95 per cent of WFP’s areas of operation.)” 
“Some humanitarian resources, notably food aid, have been diverted to military uses. A handful of Somali contractors for aid agencies have formed a cartel and become important powerbrokers – some of whom channel their profits – or the aid itself – directly to armed opposition groups. 
“The Adaani family, one of the three largest contractors for the WFP in Somalia, has long been a financier of armed groups. 
 ”According to WFP transporters and other sources…the system offers a variety of opportunities for diversion all along the supply chain.
 ”Diversion involving collusion between ground transporters and implementing partners is a common form of fraud – especially where transporters and implementing partners are actually owned or controlled by the same people.
 ”Some implementing partners possess protected warehouses located near Somali markets where diverted food can be readily sold.
 ”For over 12 years, delivery of WFP food aid has been dominated by three individuals and their family members or close associates: Abukar Omer Adaani, Abdulqaadir Mohamed Nuur “Enow” and Mohamed Deylaaf…on account of their contracts with WFP, these three men have become some of the wealthiest and influential individuals in Somalia.
“In its investigations into the principal contractors of humanitarian assistance, the Monitoring Group experienced obstructionist non-cooperation by the WFP Somalia office. 
“This was only mitigated somewhat by the direct intervention of the WFP Inspector-General in the course of his own investigations into diversion.”
 ”WFP should take immediate steps to dismantle the de facto cartel that has monopolised its Somali operations for so many years and to distance itself from  those business interests and individuals manifestly aligned with armed groups or criminal activities.”
Alleged visa fraud in Somalia’s government
“Some Transitional Federal Government Ministers and Members of Parliament abuse their official privileges to engage in large-scale visa fraud, smuggling illegal migrants to Europe and other destinations, in exchange for hefty payments.
“Somali Ministers, Members of Parliament, diplomats and freelance ‘brokers’ have transformed access to foreign visas into a growth industry matched possibly only by piracy, selling visas for $10-15,000 each. 
“Among those who can afford to pay such sums are individuals who profit from piracy, and leaders of armed groups.”
Somali government forces 
“Despite infusions of foreign training and assistance, TFG forces remain ineffective, disorganised and corrupt – a composite of independent militias loyal to senior government officials and military officers who profit from the business of war”
United States’ weapons supplies 
“Most of the American consignment was ammunition and only a limited supply of infantry weapons in order to minimise losses. Nevertheless, there are widespread reports of TFG forces selling ammunition, and weapons from the same consignment appear to have ended up on the market.”  
Recommendations 
“The Security Council urge the Secretary General to initiate a genuinely independent investigation of the WFP Somalia country office and for WFP to revise its internal procedures.
“The European governments take urgent steps to investigate incidents of immigration fraud and take measures to better coordinate consular functions among their embassies in East Africa….a ban should be placed on Somali Ministers, MPs and officials who make fraudulent requests for travel.”

Somali tied to Islamists worked with two U.N. agencies by Louis Charbonneau (Reuters)
A Somali businessman, who has been linked to Islamist militants and may have pocketed ransom money paid for the release of kidnapped French aid workers, has been a contractor for the World Food Program and UNICEF, a U.N. report said.
The confidential report by the U.N. Somalia Monitoring Group, seen by Reuters on Thursday, described the man it named as Adbdullah Ali Luway and his links with Islamist al Shabaab militants as a case study in how U.N. agencies have unwittingly allowed aid for needy Somalis to enrich rebels and criminals.
Three French workers with humanitarian group Action Against Hunger were snatched by gunmen in July 2009 and held for several months. In October a ransom of $1.36 million was paid into an account belonging to Luway at a money transfer firm in Baidoa, Somalia, the report said.
“A prominent businessman, Luway serves as a contractor for WFP and UNICEF in the Baidoa area,” it said, adding that he rents vehicles to both agencies and his water firm Gargarwadag often works for UNICEF.
He also receives $3,000 a month in rent from UNICEF, the United Nations children’s fund, for use of a building that formerly housed the parliament of Somalia, a virtually lawless country that has lacked an effective government since 1991.
In addition to his work with the United Nations, Luway had been the “local financier” of the al Shabaab authority in Baidoa since the Islamist group took control the area in January 2009. He is a “close associate” of Sheikh Muktar Robow Abuu Mansuur, a senior al Shabaab official, the report said.
The United States lists Robow as a terrorist. [N.B.: And Robow lists the U.S. as terrorist state.]
EXPLOITING CONNECTIONS
Al Shabaab, which controls much of southern and central Somalia, has pledged loyalty to al Qaeda and wants to impose its own harsh version of sharia law throughout the country.
Luway, the report says, is also believed to have been involved in the looting of the U.N. compound in Baidoa in July 2009, when U.N. vehicles were stolen and taken to Mogadishu.
“Luway has successfully exploited his social and political connections into an intermediary role between al Shabaab leadership in Baidoa and the United Nations — a situation that has evoked formal protest from clan elders,” it said.
The report, which was submitted to the U.N. Security Council’s Somalia sanctions committee and will be discussed by the council next week, says that as much as half the food aid sent to Somalia is diverted to a network of corrupt contractors, radical Islamist militants and local U.N. staff.
The report, which has not been published, outlines such serious problems that it recommends U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon open an independent investigation into the WFP’s operations in Somalia.
It also details violations of the U.N. arms embargo against Somalia, saying many of the rebels’ weapons come from Yemen, but also from Somalia’s weak U.N.-backed [N.B.: ... and Anglo-American financed] transitional government, which al Shabaab hopes to overthrow.
WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran said in a statement that her agency “stands ready to offer full cooperation with any independent inquiry into its work in Somalia.”
The WFP suspended its work in much of southern Somalia in January due to threats against its staff and because al Shabaab was demanding payments for security.
UNICEF spokesman Christopher de Bono said his agency had neither received the report nor had it been consulted about it. “With no information, we are not able to determine the facts or respond at this time,” he said.

————  reports, news and views from the global village with an impact on Somalia ——————- 

Admittedly, my evidence is anecdotal. For the last couple of months, I’ve seen dozens of private emails describing the monumental efforts by private charitable organizations such as Catholic Social Services and Food for the Poor, and by the U.S. military, in delivering emergency humanitarian aid in Haiti. Catholic Social Services and the U.S. military are entirely different institutions, and yet they both seem well-suited to dispense humanitarian aid—though for obviously different reasons. 
There’s something to be said for economies of scale, infrastructure, and military might when it comes to humanitarian aid. But there’s also something to be said for local knowledge, religious conviction, and on-the-ground experience. 
But not all humanitarian aid programs work so well. In fact, the world’s largest one doesn’t work so well. The New York Times reports that according to the United Nations’ own study, its World Food Program is having a terrible time in Somalia:

As much as half the food aid sent to Somalia is diverted from needy people to a web of corrupt contractors, radical Islamist militants and local United Nations staff members, according to a new Security Council report.

I’m pretty sure that’s not the goal of the program. I have no desire to disparage hardworking UN aid workers in dangerous parts of the world; but at some point, stories like this ought to make us ask what it is about the UN that causes its programs to work so poorly. Is there something about the UN institutionally—which distinguishes it from the successful efforts by national militaries and private religious charities—that too often subverts its stated mission? 
The United States often gets badgered for not funding the UN adequately; but perhaps our money would be more effectively spent elsewhere.

Supermodel Waris Dirie going home to save Africa’s girls by Matthew Campbell

Focus on Somalia: Peace and Reconciliation Forum in Dubai (GlobalArabNetwork)
The Global Centre for Renewal and Guidance (GCRG) hosts a summit in Dubai March 13-14, to call for reconciliation and peace in Somalia. 
The Summit, which will be attended by President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed , the President of Somalia will focus on finding solutions to creating a more peaceful and reconciled Somalia by using the knowledge and expertise of leading global and Somali Islamic Scholars to counter the negative use of Islamic doctrines by political insurgents.
The event under the Chairmanship of the President of GCRG Shaykh Abdullah Bin Bayah will focus on the refutation of the ideologies of violent Islamists in Somalia who abuse the name of Shariah by imposing their own literal, ill-informed interpretations onto the innocent population. The summit will draw upon the expertise of Muslim scholars such as Hamza Yusuf (USA) Amr Khaled (Egypt) , Shaykh Tijane Cisse (Senegal) , Shaykh Mohamed Gharib Allah, (Sudan) and Shaykh Habib Ali Al Jifri the General Director of Tabah Foundation; who will clarify the orthodox position on Jihad and Takfir (judging a Muslim to be outside the fold of Islam).
The Summit will analyse in detail the religious motivation of the violent factions within Somalia in order to rebut their corrupt understanding of key Islamic concepts. The corollary of this is to highlight the principles of orthodox Islam that include peace, tolerance, diversity and respect.
At the close of the Summit all scholars attending signing a declaration that condemns the religiously-inspired fighting in Somalia.
The summit carries with it the support of the Somali Government who see the work of the GCRG summit as a vital contribution to the achievement of peace and stability throughout the country and the wider region.

Sheikh Hassan Mahdi, a senior official from Hizbul Islam confirmed that the Sudanese police arrested Arale while he was trying to cross the border and reach Eritrea.
Muse Arale absconded money from the group and reached Sudan last two months ago, but the Sudanese were looking for him in Khartoum.
Reports say Arale travelled from Mogadishu by car crossed the Kenyan border and entered south Sudan where he then reached Khartoum secretly.

Kenya may be teetering on the brink of collapse (TheIrishTimes)
Barely two years on from the worst violence since independence, Kenya is gearing up for another round of clashes, writes Jody Clarke at Mai Mahiu displaced persons’ camp in Naivasha
For Douglas Karanja (21), living in a tent means more than just getting wet from time to time. It also represents a spectacular fall from grace.
“We had a hotel, a proper stone house with a TV, fridge and microwave. Here, we don’t even have chairs,” he says, pointing towards the three sodden mattresses he and his two brothers now bed down in. “If it wasn’t for the UN, I wouldn’t even have a bed to sleep in.”
Karanja is one of 1,500 members of the Kikuyu tribe forced out of their homes in Eldoret in the months following December 2007, during the worst tribal violence to hit Kenya since independence in 1963.
His family’s hotel was burned down with one of the staff still inside, as a nine-acre farm and 200 sacks of maize were destroyed. And all because Mwai Kibaki, the man elected president, was a member of their tribe.
“It was like a remote control,” Karanja says. “The results came in at 1pm and then everything changed. People we went to church with suddenly put God aside and fought us. How can you be a Christian after that?”
For a country regarded as a beacon of peace and stability for the region, the violence, which left 1,500 dead and more than 600,000 homeless, came as a shock to many. But given recent developments, it might just be a foretaste of what is to come.
Arms seizures are becoming regular news, as allegations fly that state ammunition is increasingly finding its way into civilian hands.
The next election is scheduled for 2012 but already people are arming themselves ahead of it.
Some 30,000 rounds of government ammunition were recently found at a businessman’s property in the Rift Valley.
“When a police force as corrupt and inefficient as Kenya’s can still find 30,000 rounds of bullets, you know there is a problem,” says Kwamchetsi Makokha, one of Kenya’s most respected political analysts. “In the Rift Valley, groups are arming themselves along ethnic lines, while it is quite apparent that the Mungiki [a violent group of racketeers] have a grip on the Central Province.”
Last time they used machetes. This time, according to several reports, they have AK47s.
But paralysed by a power struggle that has intensified in recent weeks, the “unity” government seems reluctant to do anything about any of this.
The president has overturned a decision by his prime minister to dismiss two ministers accused of graft, while the prime minister himself tours the country on what looks like a never-ending election campaign, even though the next one is two years off. The cares of ordinary Kenyans, meanwhile, are largely ignored.
This is feeding into the hands of groups such as the Mungiki, who are multiplying as the security situation deteriorates, according to a recent study. This has some Kenyan watchers whispering the words “failed state”. “It’s pretty apparent that that’s what Kenya has become,” says Makokha.
While that does not mean the country will become another Somalia, it could lead to a Balkanised system if the state collapses.
“You could see Kenya turn into small regional blocks where regional movements of self-determination will spring up,” says Makokha.
He believes many Kenyans, already frustrated by the corruption in the government, “wouldn’t care if government or gangs was extorting money from them”.
Where this could leave Kenya, easily east Africa’s most important economy, no one knows. But if Kenyans want an idea, they should look no further than Karanja, and the roadside camp he shares with 1,500 others an hour north of Nairobi.
Two children have died of pneumonia in the past year and none of the teenagers go to school – their parents do not have jobs anymore and cannot afford to send them.
Instead, teenagers wander aimlessly around the camp, where their families subsist on plots of about 50m x 100m, sowing vegetables and raising small livestock in the hope of selling them in the local market in Mai Mahiu.
There are no public services. If ever there was an example of a what a failed state looks like, this small area of UNHCR-labelled tents is surely it.
It is not the kind of life they are used to. But then, as Karanja says, what option do they have? “It’s not fair to take something that it’s taken 15 to 20 years to build and just take it away in two days. Here, we get nothing.”
Many Kenyans might well say the same.

The security sources said that about 382 of the Africans were Ethiopians, arrested either immediately at their arrivals to the Yemeni coasts or inside cities.
The rest of the Africans were from different nationalities; Nigerian, Sudanese, Eritrean and Djiboutian.
Moreover, security authorities in Abyan province have arrested on 102 Ethiopians, including 15 women and three children, in Ahwar coast, while five others were arrested in Taiz province. All of them were sent to the competent authorities to take the legal procedures.
People from the Horn of Africa countries continue to flee their ravaged countries heading to Yemen, with the authorities saying the number of those who have already arrived in the country until last year is more 700,000 people, mainly coming from Somalia.
Yemen has ordered security authorities in all coastal cities to close all waterways to prevent possible infiltration of terrorists from Africa after Somalia’s al-Shabaab Movement said it would send fighters to support al-Qaeda in the country. 
Al-Shabaab’s statement followed successful government raids against al-Qaeda hideouts in north and south Yemen in late 2009 in which scores of terrorist suspects were killed and arrested.

Black and White Homegrown al-Qaeda by Kurt Nimmo (Infowars) (*)
Earlier in the week we learned about Colleen LaRose, a woman described as insane by her neighbors who, according to the government, morphed into “Jihad Jane” in short order and teamed up with supposed Muslim terrorists in Ireland and plotted to kill an artist for drawing a degrading cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed. LaRose was arrested in October, but her indictment was rolled out this week to coincide with other terror-related propaganda. 
In the wake of the LaRose story, the corporate media today is playing up the arrest of Sharif Mobley in Yemen. According to the Associated Press, Mobley is a “suspected member of the same branch of al-Qaida that’s linked to the failed Christmas Day bombing attempt of a Detroit-bound jet.” He sits in a Yemen jail because he stands accused of killing a guard in an attempt to break out of a hospital. 
The Associated Press cuts right to the chase:

Mobley, a former laborer at several nuclear power plants in the U.S., appears to be the latest example of the phenomenon of Americans joining terror movements overseas, which U.S. intelligence officials have warned of. 
His case surfaces days after charges of terrorist connections were brought against Colleen LaRose, an American-born woman known as “Jihad Jane” who lived for years in Pennsylvania. 
Mobley, a 26-year-old natural-born U.S. citizen, was identified by Yemeni officials as a Somali-American. A former neighbor said he moved to Yemen about two years ago, supposedly to learn Arabic and study Islam.

A suspected terrorist linked to al-Qaeda in Yemen worked at nuclear power plant. This is major ammo for the ongoing and intensifying propaganda campaign that increasingly warns that America is at risk from homegrown terrorists. Terrorists blowing up a nuclear power plant is a worst case scenario. 
The government offers the usual caveat in regard to Mobley’s employment: 
“An FBI spokesman did not immediately return a call, but a law enforcement official told The Associated Press that authorities don’t believe Mobley’s job at the nuclear plant was related to his activities in Yemen. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter.” 
Russia Today covers the “Jihad Jane” case.
In order to spike the story and send the message that homegrowners are a threat, the Associated Press rolls in Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood last year. 
As for Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the fizzle pants non-bomber apprehended over Christmas, the State Department refused to revoke his visa, even though he was on a terror watch list. He was allowed to board a plane in Amsterdam. 
After a barrage of sensationalistic and misleading headlines and stories designed to rekindle the flagging war on terror, authorities quietly reversed the official story behind the aborted attack and acknowledged that an accomplice was involved, despite weeks of denial and derision of eyewitness Kurt Haskell’s description of a sharp-dressed man who helped Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab board Flight 253 headed for Detroit. 
“The Delta 253 incident was just one of the dozens of terror busts and stings since 9/11 to have been orchestrated by handlers aiding the accused terrorists at every turn,” Paul Joseph Watson wrote on March 6, 2010. “We have never come across a major case where the terrorists involved in a plot were not being prodded by the FBI and federal informants, or where clear prior knowledge and forewarning was not evident.” 
Finally, in addition to creating the specter of homegrown terrorism, the corporate media has launched an orchestrated propaganda effort to demonize the internet as a medium that supposedly facilitates terrorism. 
“From charismatic clerics who spout hate online, to thousands of extremist websites, chat rooms and social networking pages that raise money and spread radical propaganda, the Internet has become a crucial front in the ever-shifting war on terrorism,” reports the Los Angeles Times. “From their side, law enforcement and intelligence agencies are scrambling to monitor the Internet and penetrate radical websites to track suspects, set up sting operations or unravel plots before they are carried out.” 
“They have really improved their ability to radicalize people and bring them into the fight, which of course severely hampers our ability to disrupt and get ourselves involved in the process,” Garry Reid, deputy assistant secretary of Defense, told the Senate subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities on Wednesday. 
The Christian Science Monitor linked this supposed threat directly to Colleen LaRose, the reportedly mentally disturbed all-American jihadist who was tracked down by a group of neocon sleuths in search of terror on the internet. “The anonymity of the Internet, current regulations governing its surveillance and the sheer speed of communications across it make it an easy tool for recruitment,” the Christian Science Monitor declared on March 10. 
Expect more shrill demands on the part of the government and its lapdog corporate media to regulate and surveil the internet in the days and weeks ahead. 
(*) Prison Planet.tv Members Can Watch Fall Of The Republic Right Now Online – Don’t Miss Out!

‘Get real, Bob – buying guns might have been better than buying food’
After Geldof’s angry outburst, an expert on Africa hits back by Richard Dowden (*) (DailyMail)
Bob Geldof has never been a man to mince his words. But even by his own colourful standards he went absolutely ball-istic last week over claims that some of the money he raised through Live Aid in the Eighties might have been diverted to buy guns.
What made his vitriolic outburst even more remarkable was that it was aimed at the BBC, which famously alerted to the crisis, inspired Geldof to rage against the world’s failure to act and backed his unprecedented effort to save millions from starvation in Ethiopia. 
And which continued its uncritical support right up to his more controversial Live8 concert in 2005. 
Now he has launched a bitter, personal attack on Martin Plaut, the BBC World Service’s Africa Editor, who reported that some of the Live Aid cash had been used to buy weapons, rather than food. 

The subterfuge, he said, was carried out by rebel forces in Tigray without the knowledge of the aid agencies. 
Geldof scornfully replied that not a shred of evidence had been produced to show that any Band Aid or Live Aid money had been diverted. 
He has threatened to sue over the report which, he said, was proof that the BBC World Service had become rotten. ‘I am as bereft as a jilted lover,’ he wrote of his new-found estrangement. 
The BBC stands by its story. But they can’t both be right.
Bob Geldof’s outburst at the famine in Ethiopia in 1984 served a noble purpose. Who can forget those BBC images of the time: vast encampments of starving people, heart-rending pictures of parents scratching the rock-hard ground to dig graves for their children? 
Michael Buerk’s sonorous report of a ‘biblical famine… the closest thing to Hell on Earth’ gave Ethiopia a sense of cataclysm. 
Then came Geldof’s shrill, enraged demand: ‘Don’t go to the pub tonight. Give me the money – NOW!’ The money poured in and the Live Aid concert eventually raised £150million. 
But Geldof’s fury continued. Where was the UN’s World Food Programme that was supposed to feed the starving? 
He bought grain and hired a bulk carrier to take it by sea. The RAF was called in to air-drop food to the starving. Suddenly the whole world cared about Ethiopia.
Since then, I’ve asked many outsiders working in Africa what first inspired them to go there. Most say: ‘The reports of the 1984 Ethiopian famine and Live Aid.’ 
But surely there is a time for anger and a time for adult, sober assessment. Most people with any experience of Africa, famine, aid and civil war realise it would be impossible to deliver aid to those who most need it without some being lost as an undeclared ‘tax’ to local warlords.
Did we even understand why this famine was happening? Buerk and some of the other journalists did mention the war but this was not the time for a lesson in Ethiopian history and politics. 
The impression was made that nature had caused the great hunger, a terrible Biblical plague, an act of God. All the poor Ethiopians needed was food. 
They did need food but they also needed peace. Rebel movements were driving the government and its army out of two mountainous regions, Tigray and Eritrea. 
The government, headed by the military dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, was backed by the Soviet Union and Cuba and had the biggest army in Africa. 
Mengistu ruled with brutal Soviet-style-policies of forced migration and starvation. Traditional trade routes and the movement of much-needed food was impossible. 
The well-organised rebels rec-eived almost no help from anyone. They lived off the land, captured weapons from their enemy and taxed the people to buy more guns and ammunition. 
Although some areas of Tigray were hard hit by hunger, there was food in others. 
]There was also food across the border in Sudan. Some aid agencies, notably the Catholic aid agency Cafod, saw it would be better to buy food locally rather than bring it from overseas. They also worked with a local partner. 
Cafod’s local partner was the Relief Society of Tigray, known as REST, the aid department of the rebel movement, the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front, the TPLF. 
This is the organisation the BBC claims diverted money meant to buy food and bought arms and military equipment instead. 
I remember REST well. It had an office in Highbury, North London, and was staffed partly by British volunteers but led by Tigrayans. I was based in London at that time and if you wanted to know how the war was going, you called REST. 
Its chairman was Dr Solomon Inquai, who went on to be speaker of the regional parliament in Tigray. When the boss of the TPLF, Meles Zenawi, came to London, REST staff hosted him. 
It was part of the rebel movement and everyone knew it. In 1991 the TPLF defeated Mengistu and took over the whole country. Meles is now the Prime Minister. 
Two disaffected TPLF leaders, Gebremedhin Araya, a former treasurer, and a co-founder, Dr Aregawi Berhe, told the BBC that their fighters posed as grain merchants and aid money handed over to them by REST officials was actually used to buy guns, not food. 
Dr Aregawi says that out of the £65million given to REST, £62million bought weapons. 
No hard evidence has emerged and that seems an unlikely figure. Food was definitely supplied in those areas. 
Most aid agencies in war emergencies estimate that between 20 and 30 per cent of their aid will be hijacked or stolen. 
In Somalia, the UN reported last week, up to 50 per cent of food aid is being stolen. Some would argue that is the price of getting the rest of the food through. Others say that aid is wasted or used to fund the war and should be stopped.
Both Gebremedhin and Aregawi have left Ethiopia and hold grudges against Prime Minister Meles. Their uncorroborated testimony should not be relied on. But the United States’ evidence for stolen aid is more credible. 
The Americans had not given any substantial help to the Tigrayan rebels or their Eritrean allies, as the Soviet Union began to collapse and stopped supplying Mengistu with weapons, Washington tried to woo him. 
Bob Houdek, a former US amb-assador to Addis Ababa, revealed that former rebels now in government had admitted to him that some of the food aid was ‘monetarised’ – ie sold for money to buy weapons’. 
It is an eternal dilemma in places like Africa. There are some wars – Somalia is a good current example – where stolen food aid might be funding warlords or, even worse, Al Qaeda supporters. 
But the wars the Eritreans and Tigrayans fought against a Soviet-backed military dictator in the Seventies and Eighties had justification. 
The ultimate cause of the famine that hit Ethiopia in 1984 was not a localised drought, but a dictatorship that led to war. War disrupted trade, prevented food being moved in and caused famine. 
Ending the famine meant ending the war and that meant the defeat of the vile Mengistu regime. 
Any thought of buying weapons was probably the last thing on the minds of generous people as they signed a cheque or phoned in a contribution for aid to Ethiopia. 
But the irony that escapes Geldof is that guns and getting rid of the Mengistu regime may have been Live Aid’s greatest contribution to preventing a new famine. That’s the reality of aid and politics in Africa. 
Get real, Bob. And calm down. 
(*) Richard Dowden is the author of Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has sharply rebuked Israel over its recent decision to build new settlements in East Jerusalem.
She told Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu by telephone that the move was “deeply negative” for US-Israeli relations. 
The BBC’s Washington correspondent, Kim Ghattas, says it was a rare and sharp rebuke from Washington. 
Israel’s announcement overshadowed a visit by US Vice-President Joe Biden aimed at restarting peace talks. 
Since then the Palestinians have indicated they will not return to the negotiating table unless the Israeli decision is revoked. 
Apology
America’s top diplomat delivered her rebuke during a 43-minute telephone conversation with Mr Netanyahu, the US state department said. 
US state department spokesman PJ Crowley said Mrs Clinton called “to make clear that the United States considered the announcement to be a deeply negative signal about Israel’s approach to the bilateral relationship and contrary to the spirit of the vice-president’s trip”. 
“The secretary said she could not understand how this happened, particularly in light of the United States’s strong commitment to Israel’s security,” he added. 
“She made clear that the Israeli government needed to demonstrate not just through words but through specific actions that they are committed to this relationship and to the peace process.” 
The Quartet of Middle East peace mediators – the US, Russia, the EU and the UN – also condemned the Israeli housing announcement and said it would review the situation at its ministerial meeting scheduled for 19 March in Moscow. 
Mr Netanyahu earlier apologised for the timing of the settlement announcement, which was made as Mr Biden was holding a day of talks in Jerusalem. 
He said he had summoned Interior Minister Eli Yishai to reprimand him. 
Israeli and Palestinian leaders had agreed to hold indirect, “proximity talks” in a bid to restart the peace process, which has been stalled for more than a year. 
But after the announcement, the Palestinian Authority said talks would be “very difficult” if the plans for the homes were not rescinded. 
Close to 500,000 Jews live in more than 100 settlements built since Israel’s 1967 occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. They are illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this. 
The latest announcement by the Jerusalem municipality approves 1,600 new housing units in the East Jerusalem settlement of Ramat Shlomo.

Hillary Rodham Clinton Interview by CNN’s Jill Dougherty
QUESTION: Madam Secretary, thank you again for being with us. In the speech that you just gave at the UN, you said that the oppression of women is a national security threat to the United States and to the world. Why?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Because, by definition, the denial of women their rights means that you don’t have a democracy. One of the things we’ve learned is that democracy doesn’t guarantee peace, but it’s a pretty good criteria for determining whether you’re going to have a peaceful, stable relationship.
When you have women who are denied their rights, it’s often in cultures that are prone to extremism. We’ve seen that again and again. And generally, it is such a challenge to American values and American interests when you have half a population of a country denied the fundamental rights that we stand for.
And if you look across conflict zones, where we spend a lot of our time worrying, from Afghanistan to the Democratic Republic of Congo to Somalia to Yemen, every place that we worry about is a place where women are denied their rights.
QUESTION: Fifteen years ago, you were in Beijing making what turned out to be a very important speech. Today, another one in the (inaudible) here at the UN. What is different now that you’re Secretary of State?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, 15 years has seen some real changes, which I briefly summarized in my speech. Being Secretary of State gives me both a platform and the authority to make some decisions that I think will further that progress. And I’m delighted that the Obama Administration is committed to this, not as a nice thing to do, but as really integral and essential to our foreign policy objectives.
QUESTION: You mentioned violence against women, rape as a tool of war. And how do you change that mindset, the culture of abusing women? Because after all, in some conflict zones, you’ve even had UN staff raping women.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Jill, this is one of the worst manifestations of the oppression and terrible abuse that women face around the world. I remember reading Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s autobiography. I admire her so much. She is the president of Liberia, the first woman elected to lead an African nation. And she went through this horrible period during the civil war in her country and, at one point really feared for her life and really feared that she was going to be attacked. And she tried to talk to these young men who were so menacing. And at one point, she said, “Well, think of your mothers.” She said to this day, she doesn’t know why she wasn’t attacked.
And part of what I’m trying to figure out is how do we find the language that cuts across cultures, that tries to interrupt a rampage of violence, a sense of entitlement, of power that too often motivates the fighters in these various conflicts around the world so that they stop and think and they regain some sense of humanity.
So we have taken very seriously the whole issue of gender and sexual-based violence. I was privileged to chair the Security Council when they adopted a resolution condemning it and putting forth more United Nations efforts to try to combat it. But it’s gratuitous. You could go back in history and you can always find marauding armies that pillaged and raped along the way, but now it’s almost as though that’s the purpose of it. It is to subjugate women. It is to use women as a prize in armed conflict. And we just have to stand so strongly against that. It is just barbaric and inhuman.
QUESTION: Chelsea was in the (inaudible) tonight.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Yes.
QUESTION: How has Chelsea’s life changed because of what you have done to promote women’s rights?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I don’t want to make some big claim about what I have done, but I think she came of age at a time when there was a growing awareness by not just women, but women and men, mothers and fathers, of the importance of continuing the march towards women’s equality. And she’s living now in a world and being able to make choices because she’s an American, but as an American woman she has so many more opportunities than women in our own country in the past had. Even in my own life, I’ve seen those changes.
And still today, one of the real things she knows is that she’s a very lucky person because still today, so many young girls who are smart as she is, who are motivated, never have that opportunity. So I think she has seen in her own life, because of the experiences she’s had and the travel she’s been able to, how fortunate we are in America and how, in a sense, we’re called to try to provide more opportunities for women everywhere.
QUESTION: Another thing you said was extremist voices are calling for women’s rights to be constricted and those voices are growing louder. How do you fight that, especially in countries – let’s look at Afghanistan, where the United States, right now, may be working with the people who are violently opposed to women’s rights?
SECRETARY CLINTON: That is an issue I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about, because as I said at the conference on Afghanistan in London, the United States is very committed to looking toward a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Afghanistan, but not at the expense of the rights of the women of Afghanistan.
The constitution of Afghanistan sets forth those rights. And what we have said is that we will support a process of reintegration and of reconciliation if the Taliban lay down their arms, renounce al-Qaida, commit to living peacefully in accordance with the constitution of their country. And the constitution guarantees that girls have a right to healthcare, they have a right to go to school. And that’s what we’re going to be really pressing, because we do not want to see a rejection of the progress that’s been made. For so many women now in Afghanistan who are in school that never were when the Taliban were there, they have a chance to go see a doctor that they were deprived of doing. They can go open a business.
And yet we know that culture is a very powerful force. We respect that. We know that we don’t want to homogenize the world, that there’s going to be a difference in view, some of it historical, some of it religious. But at the same time, there should be a basic recognition that every girl child is entitled to certain rights. And we feel strongly about that.
QUESTION: Another question on Afghanistan. A key part of the mission right now of the United States is not only military but civilian, that it’s not going to work, you would say, without the civilian side of it. That includes women, of course. But when you have this new report, a disturbing new report that came out about the Embassy in Kabul – low morale, overcrowding, people working exhausted – isn’t that going to really – how can you sustain that civilian surge under those conditions?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, that’s why we are bringing in more people all the time, because it is the fact – and I’ve been there several times, as you have – the work is so intense. I mean, it’s important work and the people who do it are very committed to it. But you can only work so many 100-hour weeks. You can only worry about your safety when you drive down a road so many times. You can only wonder whether you’re going to get somebody you can trust who can help you build that school or provide that healthcare or help that farmer plant his crops. It’s very demanding and intense work.
And we know we have to do it because there is no military solution. Our military is doing a great job. Their offensive in Marjah was very successful. But they’re the first to tell you that as soon as they clear out the Taliban, they need a civilian presence, they need an Afghan Government presence, and they need the United States and our other international partners. So we’re working as hard as we can. We’ve tripled the number of people who are on the ground in our civilian forces in Afghanistan. We’ll be adding more.
QUESTION: Let me ask you about the Middle East. You had what we understand was a very tough conversation with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A lot of it had to do with the settlement activity that came at the very moment that Vice President Biden was visiting Israel. Is the U.S.-Israeli relationship at risk now because of this?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Oh, it’s not at risk. I mean, our relationship is durable and strong. It’s rooted in common values. But we have to make clear to our Israeli friends and partner that the two-state solution, which we support, which the prime minister himself has said he supports, requires confidence-building measures on both sides. And the announcement of the settlements on the very day that the Vice President was there was insulting. I mean, it was just really a very unfortunate and difficult moment for everyone – the United States, our Vice President, who had gone to reassert America’s strong support for Israeli security – and I regret deeply that that occurred and made that view known.
QUESTION: Do you blame him for that?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I don’t have any reason to believe he knew about it, but he is the prime minister. It’s like the President or the Secretary of State; when you have certain responsibilities, ultimately, you are responsible.
QUESTION: But who’s behind it, then? Is there some group that wants to undermine this entire process?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I think on both sides there are people who do not favor the two-state solution, who do not favor a peaceful path toward the resolution of the issues that divide the Israelis and the Palestinians. There are a lot of outside actors who agitate, as we know. But I think that the resumption of the talks, which we are very committed to, is the most important goal. And we want to see that take place and we want to get about the difficult negotiations that will lead to the two-state solution.
QUESTION: If I could, a quick question on Iran. Right now, obviously, pushing for sanctions at the UN, but there is – there’s a certain doubt among the unity – about the unity – there’s a certain doubt about the unity of the members of the Security Council. You have Brazil saying let’s continue to try diplomacy. You have the Chinese still not committing. You have a relationship with Turkey which is not very good at this point. Doesn’t – what kind of a symbol or message about unity does that send to Iran?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I think that the process that we’re engaged in right now at the United Nations is to narrow the differences and to arrive at a resolution that can be adopted by the Security Council that will have teeth, that will set forth consequences for Iran’s violations of regulations that they agreed to under the Nonproliferation Treaty, ignoring the International Atomic Energy Agency as well as resolutions by the United Nations.
I mean, our argument with Iran is not the United States versus Iran. It’s the international community versus Iran. It’s not the United States which issued a report about a week ago setting forth in great detail all the evidence which points toward Iran pursuing nuclear weapons. It was the International Atomic Energy Agency.
And the Security Council members have been united up till now. Now, some of the members, both the permanent and the non-permanent members, believe that they can, through their efforts, persuade Iran to take action that Iran so far has shown no inclination to take. We respect their commitment to diplomacy and negotiation, but we think the time has come for the international community to express itself that unilateral actions on the diplomacy track or unilateral actions that could lead to an arms race in the Middle East, that could lead to conflict in the Middle East, are not a very good outcome.
So that’s why we want to get this unity in order to send the message to Iran and make it clear to all the neighbors that the international community is acting.
QUESTION: Secretary Clinton, thank you very much for being with us on this important day here at the UN.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you, Jill. It’s great to be with you again.

Anti-war activist on war coverage: Media afraid to ‘make Obama look bad’ by Alex Pappas  (The Daily Caller) 

Hands Off our Shackles, Please 
The Debate Over German Security Policies by Constanze Stelzenmüller (*) (DerSpiegel)
Two decades after reunification, the German decision to call in a NATO air strike on fuel trucks in the Kunduz province of Afghanistan is a test of Germany’s maturity. But even the handling of this incident has already turned a harsh spotlight on the shortcomings of Berlins security policy. 
On many levels — equipment, leadership, information, communication, strategy, and perhaps even perceptions of the incident itself — grave mistakes were made. And not only by Colonel Georg Klein and his staff, but also by Germany’s military and civilian leadership. These issues are now the subject of a parliamentary inquiry. Yet at best, this forum will only indirectly address the core questions of German security policy. Such as: Does Germany actually have a security policy worthy of the name? If so, is this policy actually based on a strategy? How effective are the actors and institutions that shape and implement such policy? Do Germany’s policies towards its alliances bear inspection? And finally, how good are the tools at its disposal? The following are intended as a contribution to this debate. 
Thesis #1: Germany is Fully Sovereign; Its Security Policy is Not 
In the 1970s a U.S. cigarette brand courted the emancipated woman with the slogan: “You’ve come a long way, baby.” The same could be said of Germany. No other country in Europe had as much ground to make up in the field of security policy after 1989, as the Federal Republic. Germany’s armed forces, the Bundeswehr, were created as the price for NATO entry in 1956, against massive domestic resistance, with a single mission: to defend the country’s 1,700-mile border along the Iron Curtain against a possible Warsaw Pact attack. The Bundeswehr’s ranks swelled to nearly 700,000 after taking over the GDR’s “National People’s Army.” Twenty years on, it has shrunk to a third of that size. After an agonized national debate about whether the nation’s Basic Law even permits “out-of-area missions” (the Constitutional Court handed down a conditional yes in 1994), Germany sent troops to UN, NATO and EU missions in Cambodia, Somalia, the Balkans, the Horn of Africa and Afghanistan; German soldiers saw combat for the first time in Kosovo. All the while, a succession of German governments firmly maintained the primacy of the civilian executive over the military and the pre-eminence of soft over hard power. These were, and are, remarkable achievements. Still, from the point of view of even its most sympathetic neighbors and allies, Germany still looks like a “nation in shackles of its own making,” as theSüddeutsche Zeitung‘s Stefan Kornelius put it. 
This became particularly obvious from 1998 onwards under the “red-green” coalition formed by the Social Democrats and the Green Party. In this period, German security policy lurched wildly between a commitment to the culture of restraint and the plunge into military action, between self-congratulatory paeans to “civilian power” and hard power projection, between hypermoralism and opportunism. The new “black and yellow” coalition formed by the Christian Democrats and the Free Democrats, like the grand coalition before it, operates with rather less heat and noise. Nevertheless, the impression remains that the strategic framework of German security policy is rudimentary, above all when it comes to the “hard” questions now besetting the West: the Afghan “surge,” sanctions against Iran, and a more assertive approach towards Russia and China. 
It is symptomatic of this state of affairs that fundamental decisions regarding German security policy have been repeatedly forced into the Procrustean bed of moral necessity, domestic imperatives, or the demands of external alliances. German politicians sent the Bundeswehr into Kosovo in 1998 with the slogan “Never again Auschwitz” and to Afghanistan in 2002 out of “unconditional solidarity” with the United States. More recently, intra-coalition tensions or the need to co-opt the opposition and/or the German public have been cited as grounds for resisting allied entreaties for more German soldiers in the Hindu Kush. It is no less telling that it took the Kunduz bombing to wring her first government declaration on Afghanistan from Chancellor Merkel together with the overdue acknowledgement that the Bundeswehr’s operations in the north of the country had now become a “combat operation.” 
The result of all this, as the Hamburg historian Klaus Naumann wrote recently, is a security policy that substitutes “a tactical policy dictated by caveats instead of a strategic logic dictated by goals.” All too often, decision-making and accountability are shunted out of the policymaking sphere and dumped on the military leadership. This is politics fleeing from itself-the very opposite of responsibility. And it inevitably leads to excessive burdens being placed on military commanders. 
Hence my first recommendation: Shaping security policy is the sovereign duty of the political leadership. It requires conceptual vigor, a willingness to lead, a sense of responsibility and courage.
Thesis #2: Germany Does not Have a Security Strategy
The United States has a national security strategy. The United Kingdom and France have one. Even the European Union has one. What Germany has is a White Paper issued by the Ministry of Defense and thus a programmatic void at the national level.
The 2006 White Paper is an appraisal of Germany’s security policy and has the approval of the other ministries. But no government has the right to ask its soldiers to die for a White Paper. A national security strategy must come from the chancellery. The fact that all attempts to produce such a policy over the years have foundered on the rocks of petty departmental competition is also a consistent failure of political leadership.
It is not absolutely necessary to write down strategies and publish them, but it helps. It promotes discipline, sets standards, and fosters public debate. But grand strategy is more than assembling a catalog of values, threats, and plans. Strategy is the attempt to translate a nation’s raison d’état into coherent, long-term governmental action.
What, then, is Germany’s raison d’état? Quite simply, it is to protect something that many Germans appear to take for granted: the freest, most democratic, open, peaceful, and lawful state ever created on German soil. In a globalized world of porous borders, threats to this momentous achievement can come from far away. In as much as they are man-made, such threats are typically asymmetrical in the sense that they originate from less privileged parts of the world.
The most effective way of protecting Germany’s societal model-the Western-style open civil society-is still to export it (and German policy on Eastern Europe would do well to remind itself of this more often). But sometimes the last resort is to defend it militarily, for instance against a terrorist organization such as Al Qaeda or against the Taliban that provided it with sanctuary and protection. This may displease those whom journalist Gero von Randow has described as harboring “a critical attitude to the new realities of security policy inasmuch as they deny the existence of these realities.” But such denial is not an option in the real world.
Multilateralism, meanwhile, is a method, not a strategy. Nor is it enough to derive a raison d’état from a conviction of moral superiority based on Germany’s recognition of its responsibility for two world wars and the Holocaust. That is narcissism, not strategy. Such hubris (not to say moral megalomania) alienates even Germany’s most forgiving friends and produces distorted views of reality. How else could a German government attempt to establish its claim to a permanent seat on the UN Security Council not on bank transfers or troop deployments but on the fact that it said no to the Iraq war? The persistent denial of the dangers facing German troops in northern Afghanistan, founded on the conviction that Germany is on the side of the angels (due, among other things, to its refusal to support the Iraq war) is just one more instance of these distorted perceptions.
Every German government — and this is my second recommendation — should commit itself to formulating a national security strategy at the beginning of its tenure and submitting it to the parliament as a government declaration.
Thesis #3: Germany’s Security Policy Elites and Institutions are Underdeveloped
According to a popular cliché, Germany does not have a “strategic community.” In reality, there is a great deal of expertise, experience, and a desire to see Germany taking on greater responsibilities in the ministries, the Bundestag, the military, universities, think tanks and non-governmental organizations. The real problem is that the community’s size is in no way commensurate with Germany’s weight. One of the reasons is that-unlike other nations-Germany does not have a tradition of institutions dedicated to teaching the making of public policy. (Germany’s first public policy schools were founded in the 1990s; they are a step in the right direction, but more needs to be done.) 
Instead, Germany’s culture relies on a kind of politico-bureaucratic Darwinism: leadership positions are conferred on those who, having clambered laboriously up the career ladder and survived old boys’ networks, hierarchies, the seniority principle, tribal warfare, male feminism, and sundry other mechanisms designed to repress temperament and talent, finally surmount the first ridge in relatively unbowed condition (at about 50 years of age). The consequences of this process are on permanent display in our politics. In a political culture that institutionalizes immaturity, the lack of mature characters should not come as a surprise. 
Moreover, the German strategic community, such as it is, is strictly subdivided and circumscribed. In America, there is an institutionalized revolving door between government and civil society, which connects the two and allows for the regular flow of new ideas; its German counterpart is not much more than a crack in the wall. 
However, the deficits of German security policy are not primarily due to individuals or a lack of personnel. There is another reason for the cacophony of voices combined with lowest-common-denominator policies (the best example of both being the Russia policy of the last grand coalition). Formally, it is the Chancellor who directs policy; In reality, German foreign policy is being forged in several places at once, and the chancellery’s imprint is often hard to discern. 
In fact, the dissipation of energies and lack of coherence that we are only too happy to attribute to the European Union or NATO equally permeates the policy making process within Germany; this is best exemplified by our engagement in Afghanistan. We demand that NATO and our allies subscribe to our notions of a comprehensive approach and networked security; But we are not even able to implement these ideas at home. The result: Paralysis, blockades, and sham control mechanisms. What we need is an interdepartmental, integrative mechanism subject to the oversight of the Chancellor. The Federal Security Council — an interministerial committee which meets ad hoc and essentially restricts itself to oversight of defense exports — would be an obvious candidate for this role. 
Thus, my third recommendation for Germany is to do better at training and recruiting security policy professionals. The Federal Security Council should also be remodeled as an organ that coordinates the shaping of security policy.
Thesis #4: Germany’s Value as an Ally is Measured by Its Will to Bear an Appropriate Degree of Risk
Bluntly put, the policy notions that Germany sets store by, such as the “comprehensive approach,” will never be taken seriously if our combat troops are not. Still, the question of our value as an ally is by no means just a military one. Obviously, it is a problem for our allies when we are unable or unwilling (or both) to supply military clout to joint operations. And when we do decide to contribute military force, we place it under geographical and legal caveats which substantially restrict its efficacy. Lastly, the handicaps we so compulsively impose on ourselves make us politically vulnerable to the demands our allies make. 
Still, the core problem of our value as an ally is one of political will. Among NATO members the Germans are seen as passive, reactive, and inclined to block or put a brake on things: in short, the Germans are the new French. 
Of course it is acceptable for Berlin to be skeptical toward the volleys of turbocharged concepts that emanate in regular intervals from the United States, such as the revolution in military affairs, global war on terror, global alliances, or a league of democracies. There are legitimate strategic debates to be had here-and Germany is by no means alone with its doubts in the alliance. Even Germany’s position on the current process of rewriting NATO’s Strategic Concept of 1999 –which might not unfairly be summarized as “it wasn’t all bad” — is defensible. But it is also far from enough. 
Quite possibly, it is not so much our lack of will as our lack of ideas that risks relegating us into the second tier of alliance partners. Take nuclear arms control. Germany, as is well known, does not have nuclear weapons of its own, but it stores a small number of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons. Their military value is infinitesimal, as is their relevance in the current arms control debate; However, they do assure us a seat at the table in NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group. Nonetheless, the majority of our leading politicians have enthusiastically and populistically embraced a “Global Zero” solution for strategic nuclear weapons, and called for a “return to sender” policy for the tactical nukes — ensuring simultaneous irritation in Paris, London and Washington. Here too, we need only remember that Germany was once valued as an expert and honest broker in complex multilateral arms control negotiations; Not least, because we were discreet about it. If we want to be taken seriously in this field, we need to bring new ideas and political clout to the table; Waxing nostalgic about Cold War institutions and treaties simply does not make the grade. 
Much the same is true of Germany’s bilateral relationships with traditional allies like France, the UK and the United States — former ironclad constants of German security policy. Yet our current approach to them is one of listless routine even when, as is now the case in the United States, there is a real readiness to reset policy and engage with the world. 
Our frequent use of the term “Bündniszwang” — an untranslatable term that amounts to saying: We don’t want to, but we have to, because of our allies — is revelatory in this context. In reality, our alliances are force multipliers that we cannot afford to do without. 
Which is why my fourth recommendation is: The German government should review its alliance strategies and commit to sharing the burden of military and political risk in a manner that is commensurate with its weight.
Thesis #5: Even Measured Against Germany’s own Ambitions, the Instruments of its Security Policy are Inadequate
As a major civilian power Germany has a lot of experience to offer. And yet it exhibits an odd inability to act on lessons learned. In 1995, Berlin first promised police and judges for Rwanda, then for Bosnia, later for Kosovo, and then again for Afghanistan; Today, Germany has a Center for International Peace Operations (ZiF) which prepares civilian professionals for international peace operations, and an “action plan” for civilian crisis prevention. Nevertheless, in all these operations including the current one in Afghanistan, Germany struggles to fulfil the promises made to its allies and partners; And each time we have blamed these shortcomings on our federal structures. (Police or other civilian personnel are mainly provided by the German Länder; And when they fail to do so, the federal government’s powers of persuasion or coercion are practically nonexistent.) Why are we not specifically training police for international deployments or administrators and trainers for nation-building projects? And if we can’t, why do we keep promising them? 
All this is harmless compared to the problems facing the Bundeswehr. The military transformation initiated 10 years ago is now in a state of paralysis. Out of 253,000 soldiers only four battalions are ready for combat operations. The military leadership is holding on to compulsory military service because they see it as the cheapest way to attract qualified personnel; In reality it is merely tying up valuable resources. Rigid rules of engagement, inadequate equipment, and above all a public debate that denies operational realities: All this has created a deep sense of frustration in the armed forces, whose achievements have been extraordinary and who deserve better. 
My fifth and final recommendation is therefore the creation of a commission charged with formulating proposals for improving the civilian and military instruments of German security policy. 
(*) Constanze Stelzenmüller is a senior trans-Atlantic fellow with the German Marshall Fund in Berlin.
[N.B.: The Anglo-American axis could since the end of the second world war not stand that Germany and the Germans still had friends all over the world based on historically excellent relationships and on deep routed friendship and trust, especially with non-Christian countries and their people. This the Anglo-American powers tried and still try to destroy by forcing Germans and Germany into their military operations and ill-conceived global wars for supremacy. The same powers hindered the Germans from giving themselves a constitution, though they were supposed to do so as enshrined in their "Basic Law", a post-WWII construct installed under Allied oversight to establish pseudo-constitutional legality for the legal changes the new masters had to put in place to serve their own goals. The newly emerging friendship between France and Germany as well as the Western-European Alliance without the Brits was quickly overcome by luring France back into NATO and ruling the EU from within, often using European microcephali like the Dutch to install obedience to their secret masters in the European vassals. With breaking the independent spirits of even the Irish and the Czech people via EU's Lisbon treaty and fostering the old style desires of people like the Spanish to rule the world with engaging them along the Anglo-American axis has them now all lined up at the troughs and the battlefields as well. No wonder that they pay "Marshall-planned" stooges like the author of the above scribble to urge the German public via Spiegel-fostered and allegedly paid-for publications to walk the line. But the real independent German spirit is still not dead and so is the Irish and the Czech and even the core French. Question is only when the people in these countries will wake up, stand together and break all the shackles.]

Malta government hopeful of development in Libya issue but considering all options by Annaliza Borg (MaltaIndependent)

Malta prepared for ‘any eventuality’ if Libya visas issue persists – minister (TimesOfMalta)
The month-long impasse between Schengen area countries and Libya could be broken today if the Swiss government accepts a solution proposed by the Spanish EU presidency, Foreign Minister Tonio Borg said this morning.
 He said at a press conference that while Malta hoped that the problem could be finally resolved, it was preparing for ‘all eventualities,’ but did not give details.
 Maltese workers have been among Schengen area travellers barred entry to Libya after Libya retaliated to a Swiss Schengen blacklist of 188 Libyan officials.
 Dr Borg had talks with the Libyan prime minister in Tripoli earlier this week.
 He said this morning that Malta stood by its view that the Schengen treaty should not be used for political issues. Malta, he said, also did not wish to be involved in issues between other states.
 Asked why Italian workers were being allowed into Libya, but Maltese were not, Dr Borg said he could not confirm that the Italians were being let in, but it appeared that these could be workers engaged in a particular Libyan project.
SOMALIA OPERATION
Dr Borg also referred to plans for Maltese troops to be sent to Somalia as part of anti piracy operations (see separate story). He said this not only helped Maltese soldiers gain experience, but it also benefited the standing of the Maltese merchant flag.
In other comments, Dr Borg said the visit to Malta by Italian President Georgio Napolitano is expected to take place in June. The visit to Malta by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is also still on the cards.
 Dr Borg said that highlights of the activities of his ministry over the past year included the setting up of the EU-Arab League liaison office in Floriana and the EU decision to locate in Malta the seat of the Immigration and Asylum Agency.
 He said that his ministry had been very active in promoting trade exchanges and had facilitated the signing of 15 double taxation agreements.
€330,000 were distributed in overseas development aid last year. Most went for capital projects in Africa in which Maltese NGOs are involved.

CHINA & U.S. OUT OF AFRICA AND THE INDIAN OCEAN !
- until there are justice and human rights at home safeguarded.

China issues shocking U.S. Human Rights Record report
Human Rights begin at home. Clean up own backyard China urges U.S.
China’s Information Office of the State Council published a report titled “The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2009″ yesterday. The full text of China’s State Council assessment of U.S. human rights violations as published by  Xinhuanews follows: 
The State Department of the United States released its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2009 on March 11, 2010, posing as “the world judge of human rights” again. As in previous years, the reports are full of accusations of the human rights situation in more than 190 countries and regions including China, but turn a blind eye to, or dodge and even cover up rampant human rights abuses on its own territory. The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2009 is prepared to help people around the world understand the real situation of human rights in the United States. 
I. On Life, Property and Personal Security 
Widespread violent crimes in the United States posed threats to the lives, properties and personal security of its people. 
In 2008, U.S. residents experienced 4.9 million violent crimes, 16.3 million property crimes and 137,000 personal thefts, and the violent crime rate was 19.3 victimizations per 1,000 persons aged 12 or over, according to a report published by the U.S. Department of Justice in September 2009 (Criminal Victimization 2008, U.S. Department of Justice, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov). In 2008, over 14 million arrests occurred for all offenses (except traffic violations) in the country, and the arrest rate for violent crime was 198.2 per 100,000 inhabitants (Crime in the United States, 2008, http://www.fbi.gov). In 2009, a total of 35 domestic homicides occurred in Philadelphia, a 67 percent increase from 2008 (The New York Times, December 30, 2009). In New York City, 461 murders were reported in 2009, and the crime rate was 1,151 cases per 100,000 people. San Antonio in Texas was deemed as the most dangerous among 25 U.S. large cities with 2,538 crimes recorded per 100,000 people (The China Press, December 30, 2009). The murder rate rose 5.5 percent in towns with a population of 10,000 or fewer in 2008 (http://www.usatoday.com, June 1, 2009). Most of the United States’ 15,000 annual murders occur in cities where they are concentrated in poorer neighborhoods (http://www.reuters.com, October 7, 2009). 
The United States ranks first in the world in terms of the number of privately-owned guns. According to the data from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), American gun owners, out of 309 million in total population, have more than 250 million guns, while a substantial proportion of U.S. gun owners had more than one weapon. Americans usually buy 7 billion rounds of ammunition a year, but in 2008 the figure jumped to about 9 billion (The China Press, September 25, 2009). In the United States, airline passengers are allowed to take unloaded weapons after declaration. 
In the United States, about 30,000 people die from gun-related incidents each year (The China Press, April 6, 2009). According to a FBI report, there had been 14,180 murder victims in 2008 (USA Today, September 15, 2009). Firearms were used in 66.9 percent of murders, 43.5 percent of robberies and 21.4 percent of aggravated assaults (http://www.thefreelibrary.com). USA Today reported that a man named Michael McLendon killed 10 people in two rural towns of Alabama before turning a gun on himself on March 11, 2009. On March 29, a man named Robert Stewart shot and killed eight people and injured three others in a nursing home in North Carolina (USA Today, March 11, 2009). On April 3, an immigrant called Jiverly Wong shot 13 people dead and wounded four others in an immigration services center in downtown Binghamton, New York (The New York Times, April 4, 2009). In the year 2009, a string of attacks on police shocked the country. On March 21, a 26-year-old jobless man shot and killed four police officers in Oakland, California, before he was killed by police gunfire (http://cbs5.com). On April 4, a man called Richard Poplawski shot three police officers to death in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. On November 29, an ex-convict named Maurice Clemmons shot four police officers to death inside a coffee shop in Parkland, Washington (The New York Times, December 1, 2 and 3, 2009). 
Campuses became an area worst hit by violent crimes as shootings spread there and kept escalating. The U.S. Heritage Foundation reported that 11.3 percent of high school students in Washington D.C. reported being “threatened or injured” with a weapon while on school property during the 2007-2008 school year. In the same period, police responded to more than 900 calls to 911 reporting violent incidents at the addresses of Washington D.C. public schools (A Report of The Heritage Center for Data Analysis, School Safety in Washington, D.C.: New Data for the 2007-2008 School Year,http://www.heritage.org). In New Jersey public schools, a total of 17,666 violent incidents were reported in 2007-2008 (Annual Report on Violence, Vandalism and Substance Abuse in New Jersey Public Schools by New Jersey Department of Education, October 2009, http://www.state.nj.us). In the City University of New York, a total of 107 major crimes occurred in five of its campuses during 2006 and 2007(The New York Post, September 22, 2009). 
II. On Civil and Political Rights 
In the United States, civil and political rights of citizens are severely restricted and violated by the government. 
The country’s police frequently impose violence on the people. Chicago Defender reported on July 8, 2009 that a total of 315 police officers in New York were subject to internal supervision due to unrestrained use of violence during law enforcement. The figure was only 210 in 2007. Over the past two years, the number of New York police officers under review for garnering too many complaints was up 50 percent (http://www.chicagodefender.com). According to a New York Police Department firearms discharge report released on Nov. 17, 2009, the city’ s police fired 588 bullets in 2007, killing 10 people, and 354 bullets in 2008, killing 13 people (http://gothamist.com, November 17, 2009). On September 3, 2009, a student of the San Jose State University was hit repeatedly by four San Jose police officers with batons and a Taser gun for more than ten times (http://www.mercurynews.com, October 27, 2009). On September 22, 2009, a Chinese student in Eugene, Oregon was beaten by a local police officer for no reason (The Oregonian, October 23, 2009, http://blog.oregonlive.com). According to the Amnesty International, in the first ten months of 2009, police officers in the U.S. killed 45 people due to unrestrained use of Taser guns. The youngest of the victims was only 15. From 2001 to October, 2009, 389 people died of Taser guns used by police officers (http://theduckshoot.com). 
Abuse of power is common among U.S. law enforcers. In July 2009, the Federal Bureau of Investigation put four police officers in the Washington area under investigation for taking money to protect a gambling ring frequented by some of the region’s most powerful drug dealers over the past two years (The Washington Post, July, 19, 2009). In September 2009, an off-duty police officer in Chicago attacked a bus driver for “cutting him off in traffic” as he rode a bicycle (Chicago Tribune, September 2009, http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com). In the same month, four former police officers in Chicago were charged with extorting close to 500,000 U.S. dollars from a Hispanic driving an expensive car with out-of-state plates and suspected drug dealers in the name of law enforcement, and offering bribes to their superiors (Chicago Tribune, September 19, 2009). In November 2009, a former police chief of the Prince George’s County’s town of Morningside was charged with selling a stolen gun to a civilian (The Washington Post, November 18, 2009). In major U.S. cities, police stop, question and frisk more than a million people each year – a sharply higher number than just a few years ago (http://huffingtonpost.com, October 8, 2009). 
Prisons in the United State are packed with inmates. According to a report released by the U.S. Justice Department on Dec. 8, 2009, more than 7.3 million people were under the authority of the U.S. corrections system at the end of 2008. The correctional system population increased by 0.5 percent in 2008 compared with the previous year (http://www.wsws.org). About 2.3 million were held in custody of prisons and jails, the equivalent of about one in every 198 persons in the country. From 2000 to 2008, the U.S. prison population increased an average of 1.8 percent annually (http://mensnewsdaily.com, January 18, 2010). The California government even suggested sending tens of thousands of illegal immigrants held in the state to Mexico, in order to ease its overcrowded prison system (http://news.yahoo.com, January 26, 2010). 
The basic rights of prisoners in the United States are not well-protected. Raping cases of inmates by prison staff members are widely reported. According to the U.S. Justice Department, reports of sexual misconduct by prison staff members with inmates in the country’s 93 federal prison sites doubled over the past eight years. Of the 90 staff members prosecuted for sexual abuse of inmates, nearly 40 percent were also convicted of other crimes (The Washington Post, September11, 2009). The New York Times reported on June 24, 2009 that according to a federal survey of more than 63,000 federal and state inmates, 4.5 percent reported being sexually abused at least once during the previous 12 months. It was estimated that there were at least 60,000 rapes of prisoners across the United States during the same period (The New York Times, June 24, 2009). 
Chaotic management of prisons in the United State also led to wide spread of diseases among the inmates. According to a report from the U.S. Justice Department, a total of 20,231 male inmates and 1,913 female inmates had been confirmed as HIV carriers in the U.S. federal and state prisons at yearend 2008. The percentage of male and female inmates with HIV/AIDS amounted to 1.5 and 1.9 percent respectively (http://www.news-medical.net, December 2, 2009). From 2007 to 2008, the number of HIV/AIDS cases in prisons in California, Missouri and Florida increased by 246, 169, and 166 respectively. More than 130 federal and state inmates in the U.S. died of AIDS-related causes in 2007 (http://thecrimereport.org, December 2, 2009). A report by the Human Rights Watch released in March 2009 said although the New York State prison registered the highest number of prisoners living with HIV in the country, it did not provide the inmates with adequate access to treatment, and even locked the inmates up separately, refusing to provide them with treatment of any kind. (www.hrw.org, March 24, 2009). 
While advocating “freedom of speech,” “freedom of the press” and “Internet freedom,” the U.S. government unscrupulously monitors and restricts the citizens’ rights to freedom when it comes to its own interests and needs. 
The U.S. citizens’ freedom to access and distribute information is under strict supervision. According to media reports, the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) started installing specialized eavesdropping equipment around the country to wiretap calls, faxes, and emails and collect domestic communications as early as 2001. The wiretapping programs was originally targeted at Arab-Americans, but soon grew to include other Americans. The NSA installed over 25 eavesdropping facilities in San Jose, San Diego, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Chicago among other cities. The NSA also announced recently it was building a huge one million square feet data warehouse at a cost of 1.5 billion U.S. dollars at Camp Williams in Utah, as well as another massive data warehouse in San Antonio, as part of the NSA’s new Cyber Command responsibilities. The report said a man named Nacchio was convicted on 19 counts of insider trading and sentenced to six years in prison after he refused to participate in NSA’s surveillance program (http://www.onelinejournal.com, November 23, 2009). 
After the September 11 attack, the U.S. government, in the name of anti-terrorism, authorized its intelligence authorities to hack into its citizens’ mail communications, and to monitor and erase any information that might threaten the U.S. national interests on the Internet through technical means. The country’s Patriot Act allowed law enforcement agencies to search telephone, email communications, medical, financial and other records, and broadened the discretion of law enforcement and immigration authorities in detaining and deporting foreign persons suspected of terrorism-related acts. The Act expanded the definition of terrorism, thus enlarging the number of activities to which law enforcement powers could be applied. On July 9, 2008, the U.S. Senate passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act of 2008, granting legal immunity to telecommunication companies that take part in wiretapping programs and authorizing the government to wiretap international communications between the United States and people overseas for anti-terrorism purposes without court approval (The New York Times, July 10, 2008). Statistic showed that from 2002 to 2006, the FBI collected thousands of phones records of U.S. citizens through mails, notes and phone calls. In September 2009, the country set up an Internet security supervision body, further worrying U.S. citizens that the U.S. government might use Internet security as an excuse to monitor and interfere with personal systems. A U.S. government official told the New York Times in an interview in April 2009 that NSA had intercepted private email messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by U.S. Congress the year before. In addition, the NSA was also eavesdropping on phones of foreign political figures, officials of international organizations and renowned journalists (The New York Times, April, 15, 2009). The U.S. military also participated in the eavesdropping programs. According to CNN reports, a Virginia-based U.S. military Internet risk evaluation organization was in charge of monitoring official and unofficial private blogs, official documents, personal contact information, photos of weapons, entrances of military camps, as well as other websites that “might threaten its national security.” 
The so-called “freedom of the press” of the United States was in fact completely subordinate to its national interests, and was manipulated by the U.S. government. According to media reports, the U.S. government and the Pentagon had recruited a number of former military officers to become TV and radio news commentators to give “positive comments” and analysis as “military experts” for the U.S. war in Iraq and Afghanistan, in order to guide public opinions, glorify the wars, and gain public support of its anti-terrorism ideology (The New York Times, April 20, 2009). At yearend 2009, the U.S. Congress passed a bill which imposed sanctions on several Arab satellite channels for broadcasting contents hostile to the U.S. and instigating violence (http://blogs.rnw.nl). In September 2009, protesters using the social-networking site Twitter and text messages to coordinate demonstrations clashed with the police several times in Pittsburgh, where the Group of 20 summit was held. Elliot Madison, 41, was later charged with hindering apprehension of the protesters through the Internet. The police also searched his home (http://www.nytimes.com, October 5, 2009). Vic Walczak, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, said the same conduct in other countries would be called human rights violations whereas in the United States it was called necessary crime control. 
III. On Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 
Poverty, unemployment and the homeless are serious problems in the United States, where workers’ economic, social and cultural rights cannot be guaranteed. 
Unemployment rate in the U.S. in 2009 was the highest in 26 years. The number of bankrupt businesses and individuals kept rising due to the financial crisis. The Associated Press reported in April 2009 that nearly 1.2 million businesses and individuals filed for bankruptcy in the previous 12 months – about four in every 1,000 people, a rate twice as high as that in 2006 (http://www.floridabankruptcyblog.com). By December 4, 2009, a total of 130 U.S. banks had been forced to close in the year due to the financial crisis (Chicago Tribune, December 4, 2009). Statistics released by the U.S. Labor Department on Nov. 6, 2009 showed unemployment rate in October 2009 reached 10.2 percent, the highest since 1983 (The New York Times, November 7, 2009). Nearly 16 million people were jobless, with 5.6 million, or 35.6 percent of the unemployed, being out of work for more than half a year (The New York Times, November 13, 2009). In September, about 1.6 million young workers, or 25 percent of the total, were jobless, the highest since 1948 when records were kept (The Washington Post, September 7, 2009). In the week ending on March 7, 2009, the continuing jobless claims in the U.S. were 5.47 million, higher than the previous week’s 5.29 million (http://247wallst.com, March 19, 2009). 
The population in poverty was the largest in 11 years. The Washington Post reported on September 10, 2009, that altogether 39.8 million Americans were living in poverty by the end of 2008, an increase of 2.6 million from that in 2007. The poverty rate in 2008 was 13.2 percent, the highest since 1998. The number of people aged between 18 to 64 living in poverty in 2008 had risen to 22.1 million, 170,000 more than in 2007. Up to 8.1 million families were under poverty, accounting for 10.3 percent of the total families (The Washington Post, September 11, 2009). According to a report of the New York Times on Sept. 29, 2009, the poverty rate in New York City in 2008 was 18.2 percent and nearly 28 percent of the Bronx borough’s residents were living in poverty (The New York Times, September 29, 2009). From August 2008 to August 2009, more than 90,000 poor households in California suffered power and gas cuts. A 93-year-old man was frozen to death at his home (http://www.msnbc.msn.com). Poverty led to a sharp rise in the number of suicides in the United States. It is reported that there are roughly 32,000 suicides in the U.S. every year, nearly double the cases of murder, which numbered 18,000 (http://www.time.com). The Los Angeles County coroner’s office said the poor economy was taking a toll even on the dead as more bodies in the county went unclaimed by families who could not afford funeral expenses. A total of 712 bodies in Los Angles County were cremated with taxpayers’ money in 2008, an increase of 36 percent over the previous year (The Los Angeles Times, July 21, 2009). 
The population in hunger was the highest in 14 years. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported on Nov. 16, 2009, that 49.1 million Americans living in 17 million households, or 14.6 percent of all American families, lacked consistent access to adequate food in 2008, up 31 percent from the 13 million households, or 11.1 percent of all American families, that lacked stable and adequate supply of food in 2007, which was the highest since the government began tracking “food insecurity” in 1995 (The New York Times, November 17, 2009; 14.6% of Americans Could Not Afford Enough Food in 2008,http://business.theatlantic.com). The number of people who lacked “food security,” rose from 4.7 million in 2007 to 6.7 million in 2008 (http://www.livescience.com, November 26, 2009). About 15 percent of families were still working for adequate food and clothing (The Associated Press, November 27, 2009). Statistics showed 36.5 million Americans, or about one eighth of the U.S. total population, took part in the food stamp program in August 2009, up 7.1 million from that of 2008. However, only two thirds of those eligible for food stamps actually received them (http://www.associatedcontent.com). 
Workers’ rights were seriously violated. The New York Times reported on Sept. 2, 2009 that 68 percent of the 4,387 low-wage workers in a survey said they had experienced reduction of wages. And 76 percent of those who had worked overtime were not paid accordingly, and 57 percent of those interviewed had not received pay documents to make sure pay was legal and accurate. Only eight percent of those who suffered serious injuries on the job filed for compensation. Up to 26 percent of those surveyed were paid less than the national minimum wage. Among those who complained about wages or treatment, 43 percent had experienced retaliation or dismissal (The New York Times, September 2, 2009). According to a report by the USA Today on July 20, 2009, a total of 5,657 people died at workplaces across the U.S. in 2007, about 17 deaths each day. About 200,000 workers in New York State were injured or sickened at workplaces each year (USA Today, July 20, 2009). 
The number of people without medical insurance has kept rising for eight consecutive years. Data released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Sept. 10, 2009, showed 46.3 million people were without medical insurance in 2008, accounting for 15.4 percent of the total population, comparing 45.7 million people who were without medical insurance in 2007, which was a rise for the eighth year in a row. About 20.3 percent of Americans between 18 to 64 years old were not covered by medical insurance in 2008, higher than the 19.6 percent in 2007 (http://www.census.gov). A study released by the Commonwealth Fund showed health insurance coverage of adults aged 18 to 64 declined in 31 U.S. states from 2007 to 2009 (Reuters, October 8, 2009). The number of states with extremely high number of adults who were not covered by medical insurance increased from two in 1999 to nine in 2009. More than one in every four people in Texas were uninsured, the highest percentage among all states (http://www.ncpa.org). Houston had 40.1 percent of its residents uninsured (http://www.msnbc.msn.com). In 2008, altogether 2,266 U.S. veterans under the age of 65 died for lack of health insurance coverage or medical care, 14 times higher than the U.S. military death toll in Afghanistan that year (AFP, November 11, 2009). A report by the Consumer International showed 34 percent of U.S. families with annual income below 50,000 U.S. dollars and 21 percent of homes with annual income exceeding 100,000 U.S. dollars lost medical insurance or suffered reduction in medical insurance in 2009. In addition, two thirds of households with annual income below 50,000 U.S. dollars and one third of homes earning more than 100,000 U.S. dollars a year cut their medical expenses last year. About 28 percent Americans chose not to see a doctor when they fell ill; a quarter of them could not afford medical bills; 22 percent postponed medical treatment; a fifth of them did not buy medicine prescribed by doctors or undergo medical checkups; 15 percent took expired drugs or did not follow medical instructions to take medicine on time in order to save money (http://www.oregonlive.com). According to a report of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on December 8, 2009, average life expectancy of Americans was 78.1 years in 2007, ranking the fourth from bottom among all member states of OECD. The average life expectancy of OECD member states was 79.1 that year (http://www.msnbc.msn.com). 
The number of homeless has been on the rise. Statistics show that by September 2008, an upward of 1.6 million homeless people in the U.S. had been receiving shelter, and the number of those in families rose from 473,000 in 2007 to 517,000 in 2008 (USA Today, July 9, 2009). Since 2009, homeless enrollments in the six counties of Chicago area had climbed, with McHenry County seeing the biggest hike – an increase of 125 percent over the previous year (Chicago Tribune, November 28, 2009). These families could only live in shabby places such as wagons. In March 2009, a sprawling tent city was seen in Sacramento of California where hundreds of homeless gathered. Police in Santa Monica of southern California even regularly used force to drive the homeless out of the city (www.truthalyzer.com). In October, several thousand homeless in Detroit got into a fight, worrying they might not receive the government’s housing subsidies (USA Today, October 8, 2009). In December, there were 6,975 homeless single adults in shelters in New York City, not including military veterans, chronically homeless people, and the 30,698 people living in short-term housing for homeless families (The New York Times, December 10, 2009). The Houston Chronicle reported on March 16, 2009 that large numbers of houses in Galveston were destroyed by Hurricane Ike in September 2008, leaving thousands homeless. About 1,700 households did not receive any aid and most of them do not have fixed residences (Houston Chronicle, March 16, 2009). 
IV. On Racial Discrimination 
Racial discrimination is still a chronic problem of the United States. 
Black people and other minorities are the most impoverished groups in the United States. According to a report issued by the U.S. Bureau of Census, the real median income for American households in 2008 was 50,303 U.S. dollars. That of the non-Hispanic white households was 55,530 U.S. dollars, Hispanic households 37,913 U.S. dollars, black households only 34,218 U.S. dollars. The median incomes of Hispanic and black households were roughly 68 percent and 61.6 percent of that of the non-Hispanic white households. Median income of minority groups was about 60 to 80 percent of that of majority groups under the same conditions of education and skill background (The Wall Street Journal, September 11, 2009; USA Today, September 11, 2009). According to the U.S. Bureau of Census, the poverty proportion of the non-Hispanic white was 8.6 percent in 2008, those of African-Americans and Hispanic were 24.7 percent and 23.2 percent respectively, almost three times of that of the white (The New York Times, September 29, 2009). About one quarter of American Indians lived below the poverty line. In 2008, 30.7 percent of Hispanic, 19.1 percent of African-Americans and 14.5 percent of non-Hispanic white lived without health insurance (Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2008, www.census.gov). According to a report issued by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, a record 10,552 fair housing discrimination complaints were filed in fiscal 2008, 35 percent of which were alleged race discrimination (The Washington Post, June 10, 2009). The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that while African-Americans make up 12 percent of the US population, they represent nearly half of new HIV infections and AIDS deaths every year (The Wall Street Journal, April 8, 2009; revised statistics released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). 
Employment and occupational discrimination against minority groups is very serious. Minority groups bear the brunt of the U.S. unemployment. According to news reports, the U.S. unemployment rate in October 2009 was 10.2 percent. The jobless rate of the U.S. African-Americans jumped to 15.7 percent, that of the Hispanic rose to 13.1 percent and that of the white was 9.5 percent (USA Today, November 6, 2009). Unemployment rate of the black aged between 16 and 24 saw a record high of 34.5 percent, more than three times the average rate. Unemployment rates for the black in cities such as Detroit and Milwaukee had reached 20 percent (The Washington Post, December 10, 2009). In some American Indians communities, unemployment rate was as high as 80 percent (The China Press, November 6, 2009). According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for black male college graduates aged 25 and older in 2009 has been twice that of white male college graduates, 8.4 percent compared with 4.4 percent (The New York Times, December 1, 2009). In 2008, a record number of workers filed federal job discrimination complaints, with allegations of race discrimination making up the greatest portion at more than one-third of the 95,000 total claims (AP, April 27, 2009). According to an investigation by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a Houston-based oil and gas drilling company faced five complaints of racial harassment and discrimination (AP, November 18, 2009). According to a news report, by the end of May 2009, the black and Hispanic groups each accounted for roughly 27 percent of New York City’s population, but only 3 percent of the 11,529 firefighters were black, and about 6 percent were Hispanic since the city’s fire department unfairly excluded hundreds of qualified people of color from the opportunity to serve (The New York Times, July 23, 2009). 
The U.S. minority groups face discriminations in education. According to a report issued by the U.S. Bureau of Census, 33 percent of the non-Hispanic white has college degrees, proportion of the black was only 20 percent and Hispanic was 13 percent (US Bureau of Census, April 27, 2009, www.census.gov). According to a report, from 2003 to 2008, 61 percent of black applicants and 46 percent of Mexican-American applicants were denied acceptance at all of the law schools to which they applied, compared with 34 percent of white applicants (The New York Times, January 7, 2010). African-American children accounted for only 17 percent of the U.S. public school students, but accounted for 32 percent of the total number which were expelled from the schools. According to a research by the University of North Carolina and Michigan State University, most of the black juvenile believed that they were victims of racial discrimination (Science Daily, April 29, 2009). According to another study conducted among 5,000 children in Birmingham, Ala., Houston and Los Angeles, prejudice was reported by 20 percent of blacks and 15 percent of Hispanics. The study showed that racial discrimination was an important cause to mental health problems for children of varied races. Hispanic children who reported racism were more than three times as likely as other children to have symptoms of depression, blacks were more than twice as likely (USA Today, May 5, 2009). 
Racial discrimination in law enforcement and judicial system is very distinct. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, by the end of 2008, 3,161 men and 149 women per 100,000 persons in the U.S. black population were under imprisonment (www.ojp.usdoj.gov). The number of life imprisonment without parole given to African-American young people was ten times of that given to white young people in 25 states. The figure in California was 18 times. In major U.S. cities, there are more than one million people who were stopped and questioned by police in streets, nearly 90 percent of them were minority males. Among those questioned, 50 percent were African-Americans and 30 percent were Hispanics. Only 10 percent were white people (The China Press, October 9, 2009). A report released by New York City Police Department, of the people involved in police shootings whose ethnicity could be determined in 2008, 75 percent were black, 22 percent were Hispanic; and 3 percent were white (The New York Times, November 17, 2009). According to a report by Human Rights Watch, from 1980 to 2007, the ratio of the African-Americans being arrested for dealing drugs across the U.S. was 2.8 to 5.5 times of that of the white (www.hrw.org, March 2, 2009). 
Since the Sept. 11 event, discrimination against Muslims is increasing. Nearly 58 percent of Americans think Muslims are subject to “a lot” of discrimination, according to two combined surveys released by the Pew Research Center. About 73 percent of young people aged 18 to 29 are more likely to say Muslims are the most discriminated against (http://www.washingtontimes.com, September 10, 2009). 
Immigrants live in misery. According to a report by the U.S. branch of Amnesty International, more than 300,000 illegal immigrants were detained by U.S. immigration authorities each year, and the illegal immigrants under custody exceeded 30,000 for each single day (World Journal, March 26, 2009). At the same time, hundreds of legal immigrants were put under arrest, denied entry or even sent back under escort every year (Sing Tao Daily, April 13, 2009). A report released by the Constitution Project and Human Rights Watch revealed that from 1999 to 2008, about 1.4 million detained immigrants were transferred. Tens of thousands of longtime residents of cities like Los Angeles and Philadelphia were sent, by force, to remote immigrant jails in Texas or Louisiana (The New York Times, November 2, 2009). The New York City Bar Association received a startling petition in October 2008 which was signed by 100 men, all locked up without criminal charges in the Varick Street Detention Facility in the middle of Manhattan. The letter described their cramped, filthy quarters where dire medical needs were ignored and hungry prisoners were put to work for 1 dollar a day (The New York Times, November 2, 2009). Some detained women who were still in lactation period were denied breast pumps in the facilities, resulting in fever, pain, mastitis, and the inability to continue breastfeeding upon release (www.hrw.org, March 16, 2009). A total of 104 people have died while in custody of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency since October, 2003 (The Wall Street Journal, August 18, 2009). 
Ethnic hatred crimes are frequent. According to statistics released by the U.S. Federal Investigation Bureau on November 23, 2009, a total of 7,783 hate crimes occurred in 2008 in the United States, 51.3 percent of which were originated by racial discrimination and 19.5 percent were for religious bias and 11.5 percent were for national origins (www.fbi.gov). Among those hate crimes, more than 70 percent were against black people. In 2008, anti-black offenses accounted for 26 persons per 1,000 people, and anti-white crimes accounted for 18 persons per 1,000 people (victim characteristics, October 21, 2009, www.fbi.gov). On June 10, 2009, a white supremacist gunned down a black guard of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum with another two wounded (The Washington Post, June 11, 2009, The Wall Street Journal, June 11, 2009). According to a report issued by the Southern Poverty Law Center, an environment of racial intolerance and ethnic hatred, fostered by anti-immigrant groups and some public officials, has helped fuel dozens of attacks on Latinos in Suffolk County of New York State during the past decade (The New York Times, September 3, 2009). 
V. On the Rights of Women and Children 
The living conditions of women and children in the United States are deteriorating and their rights are not properly guaranteed. 
Women do not enjoy equal social and political status as men. Women account for 51 percent of the U.S. population, but only 92 women, or 17 percent of the seats, serve in the current 111th U.S. Congress. Seventeen women serve in the Senate and 75 women serve in the House (Members of the 111th United States Congress, http://en.wikipedia.org). A study shows minorities and women are unlikely to hold top positions at big U.S. charities and nonprofits. The study reveals that women make up 18.8 percent of nonprofit CEOs compared to just 3 percent at Fortune 500 companies. Among the 400 biggest charities in the U.S., no cultural organization, hospital, public affairs group, Jewish federation or other religious organization is headed by a woman (The Washington Times, September 20, 2009). 
Women have difficulties in finding a job and suffer from low income and poor financial situations. According to statistics from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), workplace discrimination charge filings with the federal agency nationwide rose to 95,402 during Fiscal Year 2008, a 15 percent increase from the previous fiscal year. Charge of workplace discrimination because of a job applicant’s sex maintained a high proportion (www.eeoc.gov, November 3, 2009). According to statistics released by the U.S. Census Bureau in September 2009, the median incomes of full-time female workers in 2008 were 35,745 U.S. dollars, 77 percent of those of corresponding men whose median earnings were 46,367 U.S. dollars, which is lower than the 78 percent in 2007 (The Wall Street Journal, September 11, 2009; www.census.gov, September 10, 2009). According to the Associated Press, a female pharmacist who had been working for Walmart for ten years was fired in 2004 for demanding the same income as her male counterparts (The Associated Press, October 5, 2009). By the end of 2008, 4.2 million, or 28.7 percent of families with a female householder where no husband is present were poor (www.census.gov, September 10, 2009). About 64 million, or 70 percent of working-age American women have no health insurance coverage, or have inadequate coverage, high medical bills or debt problems, or problems in accessing care because of cost (The China Press, May 12, 2009). 
Women are frequent victims of violence and sexual assault. It is reported that the United States has the highest rape rate among countries which report such statistics. It is 13 times higher than that of England and 20 times higher than that of Japan (Occurrence of rape, http://www.sa.rochester.edu). In San Diego, a string of similar attacks happened to five women who have been sexually assaulted by a home invader in March 2009 (Sing Tao Daily, March 14, 2009). According to a report released by the Pentagon, more than 2,900 sexual assaults in the military were reported in 2008, up nearly 9 percent from the year before. And of those, only 292 cases resulted in a military trial. The report said the actual numbers of such cases could be five to ten times of the reported figure (The evening news of the Columbia Broadcasting System, March 17, 2009). Reuters reported that based on in-depth interviews on 40 servicewomen, 10 said they had been raped, five said they were sexually assaulted including attempted rape, and 13 reported sexual harassment (Reuters, April 16, 2009). 
American children suffer from hunger and cold. A report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture showed that 16.7 million children, or one fourth of the U.S. total, had not enough food in 2008 (The Washington Post, USA Today, November 17, 2009). The food relief institution Feeding America said in a report that more than 3.5 million children under the age of five face hunger or malnutrition. This figure accounts for 17 percent of American children aged five and under. In 11 states, more than 20 percent of young children were at risk for hunger. Louisiana, with 24.2 percent, had the highest rate of child food insecurity (www.feedingamerica.org, May 7, 2009). Children at or below 18 account for more than one third of the U.S. people in poverty. Figures from the U.S. Census Bureau showed that the number of children younger than 18 who live in poverty increased from 13.3 million in 2007 to 14.1 million in 2008 (http://www.census.gov, The Washington Post, September 11, 2009). According to statistics from the U.S-based National Center on Family Homelessness, from 2005 to 2006, more than 1.5 million children, or one in every 50 children, were homeless in the U.S. every year. Among the homeless children, 42 percent were younger than 6 and the majority were African-Americans and Indians (CNN.com, MSNBUC.com, March 10, 2009). In 2008, nearly one tenth of the children in the United States were not covered by health insurance. It was reported that about 7.3 million children, or 9.9 percent of the American total, were without health insurance in 2008. In Nevada, 20.2 percent of the children were uncovered by insurance (http://www.census.gov, the Washington Post, September 21). On August 13, 2009, a state board voted that California will begin terminating health insurance for more than 60,000 children on October 1. The program could ultimately drop nearly 670,000 children by the end of June 2010 (The Los Angeles Times, The China Press, August 14, 2009). A research led by the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center showed that lack of health insurance might have led or contributed to nearly 17,000 deaths among hospitalized children in the U.S. in the span of less than two decades (Journal of Public Health, October 30, 2009). The A/H1N1 flu has infected about 8 million children under 18 from April to October 2009, killing 540 of them, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the United States (USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, November 13, 2009). 
Children are exposed to violence and living in fear. It is reported that 1,494 children younger than 18 nationwide were murdered in 2008 (USA Today, October 8, 2009). A report released by the Health Department of the New York City on June 16, 2009 showed that between 2001 and 2007, the national average rate of child deaths was 20 per 100,000 children aged 1 to 12 years. Homicide rates were 1.3 deaths per 100,000 among the group (http://www.nyc.gov). A survey conducted by the U.S. Justice Department on 4,549 kids and adolescents aged 17 and younger between January and May of 2008 showed, more than 60 percent of children surveyed were exposed to violence within the past year, either directly or indirectly. Nearly half of all children surveyed were assaulted at least once in the past year, about 6 percent were victimized sexually, and 13 percent reported having been physically bullied in the past year (The Associated Press, October 7, 2009). There have been at least 1,227 children died from abuse or neglect in Texas since 2002 (The Houston Chronicle, October 22, 2009). According to research of U.S.-based institution and public health media reports, in the U.S., one third of children who run away or were expelled from home performed sexual acts in exchange for food, drugs and a place to stay every year. The justice system no longer considers them as young victims, but as juvenile offenders (The China Press, October 28, 2009). 
Child farmworkers are prevalent. An organization devoted to protecting children’s rights disclosed that as many as 400,000 children are estimated to work on U.S. farms. Davis Strauss, executive director of the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs, noted that for decades, children, some as young as eight years old, have labored in the fields using sharp tools and toiling amongst dangerous pesticides. The association’s president Ernie Flores said children account for about 20 percent of all farm fatalities in the United States (Spain’s Uprising newspaper, October 14, 2009). A labor standards act permits a child beyond 13 to work in heat for long time in a farm, but does not permit that child to work in an air-conditioned office and even forbids them working in a fast food restaurant. 
The U.S. is the only country in the world that does not apply parole system to minors. Detentions of juveniles have increased 44 percent from 1985 to 2002. Many children only committed only minor crimes but could not get assistance from lawyers. Many procurators and judges turned a blind eye on abuse in juvenile prisons. 
VI. On U.S. Violations of Human Rights against Other Nations 
The United States with its strong military power has pursued hegemony in the world, trampling upon the sovereignty of other countries and trespassing their human rights. 
As the world’s biggest arms seller, its deals have greatly fueled instability across the world. The United States also expanded its military spending, already the largest in the world, by 10 percent in 2008 to 607 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 42 percent of the world total (The AP, June 9, 2009). 
According to a report by the U.S. Congress, the U.S. foreign arms sales in 2008 soared to 37.8 billion U.S. dollars from 25.4 billion a year earlier, up by nearly 50 percent, accounting for 68.4 percent of the global arms sales that were at its four-year low (Reuters, September 6, 2009). At the beginning of 2010, the U.S. government announced a 6.4-billion-U.S. dollar arms sales package to Taiwan despite strong protest from the Chinese government and people, which seriously damaged China’s national security interests and aroused strong indignation among the Chinese people. 
The wars of Iraq and Afghanistan have placed heavy burden on American people and brought tremendous casualties and property losses to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. The war in Iraq has led to the death of more than 1million Iraqi civilians, rendered an equal number of people homeless and incurred huge economic losses. In Afghanistan, incidents of the U.S. army killing innocent people still keep occurring. Five Afghan farmers were killed in a U.S. air strike when they were loading cucumbers into a van on August 5, 2009 (http://www.rawa.org). On June 8, the U.S. Department of Defense admitted that the U.S. raid on Taliban on May 5 caused death of Afghan civilians as the military failed to abide by due procedures. The Afghan authorities have identified 147 civilian victims, including women and children, while a U.S. officer put the death toll under 30 (The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 9, 2009). 
Prisoner abuse is one of the biggest human rights scandals of the United States. A report presented to the 10th meeting of Human Rights Council of the United Nations in 2009 by its Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism showed that the United States has pursued a comprehensive set of practices including special deportation, long-term and secret detentions and acts violating the United Nations Convention against Torture. The rapporteur also said, in a report submitted to the 64th General Assembly of the United Nations, that the United States and its private contractors tortured male Muslims detained in Iraq and other places by stacking the naked prisoners in pyramid formation, coercing the homosexual sexual behaviors and stripping them in stark nakedness (The Washington Post, April 7, 2009). The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has begun interrogation by torture since 2002. The U.S. government lawyers disclosed that since 2001, CIA has destroyed 92 videotapes relating to the interrogation to suspected terrorists, 12 of them including the use of torture (The Washington Post, March 3, 2009). The CIA interrogators used a handgun and an electric drill to frighten a captured al-Qaeda commander into giving up information (The Washington Post, August 22, 2009). The U.S. Justice Department memos revealed the CIA kept prisoners shackled in a standing position for as long as 180 hours, more than a dozen of them deprived of sleep for at least 48 hours, three for more than 96 hours, and one for the nearly eight-day maximum. Another seemed to endorse sleep deprivation for 11 days, stated on one memo (http://www.chron.com). The CIA interrogators used waterboarding 183 times against the accused 9/11 major plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and 83 times against suspected Al-Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah (The New York Times, April 20, 2009). A freed Guantanamo prisoner said he experienced the “medieval” torture at Guantanamo Bay and in a secret CIA prison in Kabul (AFP, London, March 7, 2009). In June 2006, three Guantanamo Bay inmates could have been suffocated to death during interrogation on the same evening and their deaths passed off as suicides by hanging, revealed by a six-month joint investigation for Harpers Magazine and NBC News in 2009 (www.guardian.co.uk, January 18, 2010). A Somali named Mohamed Saleban Bare, jailed at Guantanamo Bay for eight years, told AFP the prison was “hell on earth” and some of his colleagues lost sight and limbs and others ended up mentally disturbed (AFP, Hargisa, Somali, December 21, 2009). A 31-year-old Yemeni detainee at Guantanamo Bay who had been on a long hunger strike apparently committed suicide in 2009 after four prior suicide deaths beginning at 2002 (The New York Times, June 3, 2009). The U.S. government held more than 600 prisoners at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan. A United Nations report singled out the Bagram detention facility for criticism, saying some ex-detainees allege being subjected to severe torture, even sexual abuse, and some prisoners put under detention for as long as five years. It also reported that some were held in cages containing 15 to 20 men and that two detainees died in questionable circumstances while in custody (IPS, New York, February 25, 2009). An investigation by U.S. Justice Department showed 2,000 Taliban surrendered combatants were suffocated to death by the U.S. army-controlled Afghan armed forces (http://www.yourpolicicsusa.com, July 16, 2009).
The United States has been building its military bases around the world, and cases of violation of local people’s human rights are often seen. The United States is now maintaining 900 bases worldwide, with more than 190,000 military personnel and 115,000 relevant staff stationed. These bases are bringing serious damage and environmental contamination to the localities. Toxic substances caused by bomb explosions are taking their tolls on the local children. It has been reported that toward the end of the U.S. military bases’ presence in Subic and Clark, as many as 3,000 cases of raping the local women had been filed against the U.S. servicemen, but all were dismissed (http://www.lexisnexis.com, May 17, 2009). 
The United States has been maintaining its economic, commercial and financial embargo against Cuba for almost 50 years. The blockade has caused an accumulated direct economic loss of more than 93 billion U.S. dollars to Cuba. On October 28, 2009, the 64th session of the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution on the “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba,” with a recorded vote of 187 in favor to three against, and two abstentions. This marked the 18th consecutive year the assembly had overwhelmingly called on the United States to lift the blockade without delay (Overwhelming International Rejection of US Blockade of Cuba at UN, www.cubanews.ain.cu). 
The United States is pushing its hegemony under the pretence of “Internet freedom.” The United States monopolizes the strategic resources of the global Internet, and has been retaining a tight grip over the Internet ever since its first appearance. There are currently 13 root servers of Internet worldwide, and the United States is the place where the only main root server and nine out of the rest 12 root servers are located. All the root servers are managed by the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), which is, by the authority of the U.S. government, responsible for the management of the global root server system, the domain name system and the Internet Protocol address. The United States has declined all the requests from other countries as well as international organizations including the United Nations to break the U.S. monopoly over the root servers and to decentralize its management power over the Internet. The United States has been intervening in other countries’ domestic affairs in various ways taking advantage of its control over Internet resources. The United States has a special troop of hackers, which is made up of hacker proficients recruited from all over the world. When post-election unrest broke out in Iran in the summer of 2009, the defeated reformist camp and its advocators used Internet tools such as Twitter to spread their messages. The U.S. State Department asked the operator of Twitter to delay its scheduled maintenance to assist with the opposition in creating a favorable momentum of public opinion. In May 2009, one web company, prompted by the U.S. authorities, blocked its Messenger instant messaging service in five countries including Cuba. 
The United States is using a global interception system named “ECHELON” to eavesdrop on communications worldwide. A report of the European Parliament pointed out that the “ECHELON” system is a network controlled by the United States for intelligence gathering and analyzing. The system is able to intercept and monitor the content of telephone calls, fax, e-mail and other digital information transmitted via public telephone networks, satellites and microwave links. The European Parliament has criticized the United States for using its “ECHELON” system to commit crimes such as civilian’s privacy infringement or state-conducted industrial espionage, among which was the most striking case of Saudi Arabia’s 6-billion-dollar aircraft contract (see Wikipedia). Telephone calls of British Princess Diana had been intercepted and eavesdropped because her global campaign against land-mines was in conflict with the U.S. policies. The Washington Post once reported that such spying activities conducted by the U.S. authorities were reminiscent of the Vietnam War when the United States imposed wiretapping and surveillance upon domestic anti-war activists. 
The United States ignores international human rights conventions, and takes a passive attitude toward international human rights obligations. It signed the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 32 years ago and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women 29 years ago, but has ratified neither of them yet. It has not ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities either. On Sept. 13, 2007, the 61st UN General Assembly voted to adopt the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which has been the UN’s most authoritative and comprehensive document to protect the rights of indigenous peoples. The United States also refused to recognize the declaration. 
The above-mentioned facts show that the United States not only has a bad domestic human rights record, but also is a major source of many human rights disasters around the world. For a long time, it has placed itself above other countries, considered itself “world human rights police” and ignored its own serious human rights problems. It releases Country Reports on Human Rights Practices year after year to accuse other countries and takes human rights as a political instrument to interfere in other countries’ internal affairs, defame other nations’ image and seek its own strategic interests. This fully exposes its double standards on the human rights issue, and has inevitably drawn resolute opposition and strong denouncement from world people. At a time when the world is suffering a serious human rights disaster caused by the U.S. subprime crisis-induced global financial crisis, the U.S. government still ignores its own serious human rights problems but revels in accusing other countries. It is really a pity. 
We hereby advise the U.S. government to draw lessons from the history, put itself in a correct position, strive to improve its own human rights conditions and rectify its acts in the human rights field.

Facing Beijing by Hon David Kilgour
Gao Zhisheng
Permit me to speak first of Gao Zhisheng, who I understand was recently nominated for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize by a number of qualified persons in Canada, Europe and the United States. He is also the lawyer who in 2006 invited David Matas and myself to come to China to investigate whether allegations of organ pillaging from Falun Gong were true. While unable to attend university because of family poverty, he managed to pass the bar exams and in 2001 was named one of the country’s top ten lawyers by China’s ministry of Justice.
Party agents released their full wrath when Gao defended Falun Gong practitioners. It began with removing his permit to practise law, an attempt on his life, having police harass his wife and teenage daughter and son, and denying the family any income. It intensified when Gao responded in the nonviolent tradition of Gandhi by launching nationwide hunger strikes calling for equal dignity for all Chinese. Gao wrote later about several weeks of torture in prison. Police arrived at his home and took him away again on Feb. 4th, 2009. The rest of the family has fled China and are now refugees in the United States; they are terribly worried about him.
Recently, the policeman who took Gao away in early 2009 told Gao’s brother that the lawyer “went missing” in September, 2009. Following this pronouncement, a Chinese Foreign ministry official said that Gao “is where he should be” according to quotes reported by the Associated Press in Beijing. A lawyer for Gao, Li Fangping, called the official’s comments “extremely insincere,” and noted that after one year no one in Gao’s family knows where he is and are unaware of any charges or proceedings. The latest development is the claim by the party-state that Gao is working in the isolated Urumqi district. Last week, photos appeared on the Internet (see below) purporting to show Gao in a summer T-shirt, posed with his arm around a man in a heavy coat and presumably meant to convey the impression that he is happy and well in Urumqi. A second photo has him wearing the same T-shirt and a distinctive bracelet, but there is clear evidence that he gave this bracelet away in 2007. Friends of Gao around the world want the government of China to release a video of him speaking today, perhaps holding a current newspaper, before we will accept that he is medically well.
For years, I allowed my respect for the Chinese people to mute criticism of its government. I rationalized this, especially during visits to China, by saying that at least it was not like the regime of Mao Tse-tung, which caused an estimated 35 million citizens to starve to death during its inhuman ‘Great Leap Forward’ alone (1958-61). When apologists for the party-state insisted that the economic position of a growing part of the population was getting better, I was far too willing to overlook egregiously bad governance, continuing official violence, growing social inequalities, absence of the rule of law and widespread nepotism and corruption.
The Chinese people want the same things all of us do, including, education, good jobs and a healthy natural environment. Living standards have improved on the east coast, but most of the population continues to be exploited by the party-state and domestic industrial firms, often owned by or contracted for manufacturing to multinationals, which operate today across China often like 19th century industrial robber barons. This explains partly why the prices of products ‘made in China’ seem so low—the externalities are borne by workers, their families and the natural environment.
Many across China have indicated in protests and other ways that “enough is enough”. Friends of the Chinese people everywhere must support the voices crying for justice. In a 2007 UPI/Zogby opinion poll, 79 percent of Americans said they had a favourable opinion of the Chinese people, but 87 percent had an unfavourable opinion of their government. A similar survey done today in any rule-of-law country, including Canada, would probably produce similar findings. What would the vast majority of the Chinese people tell a pollster, if they could without serious risk of violence or imprisonment, about the communist party?
The rest of this talk will be divided into four brief parts: abuses of the natural environment, the economy, the Matas-Kilgour study, and how changing the way the trade partners of China do business with it can improve the situation.
Abuse of Natural Environment
Three decades of ‘anything goes’ economics have done enormous harm to the people and natural environment of China. Consider:

• Nearly half a billion Chinese citizens lack access to safe drinking water, yet many factories continue to dump waste into surface water.
• A World Bank study done with China’s environmental agency concluded that outdoor pollution is causing 350,000-400,000 preventable deaths a year across the country.
• Indoor pollution contributed to another 350,000 for a total of 750,000 premature deaths a year.
• Coal now provides about two-thirds of China’s energy and it already burns more of it than Europe, Japan and the U.S. combined. Sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from coal plants in China are now reaching well beyond China’s borders.
• Many companies are degrading China’s environment by dumping waste into its rivers and smoke into its sky. Those in power since 2003 in Beijing have failed to achieve anything substantive concerning water, air, and soil. Many experts have concluded that China cannot go green without political change.

Consider, for example, the fate of Lake Tai. The International Herald Tribune on Oct. 15, 2007 noted that the lake had succumbed earlier to effluent wastes by turning fluorescent green. Two million people who live on its shores had to stop using their main source of water. Local farmer Wu Lihong had protested for more than a decade that the chemical industry and its friends in the local government were destroying one of China’s ecological treasures.
Wu Lihong, holding petitions against pollution Wu was sentenced to three years in prison on what the Herald Tribune described as an “alchemy of charges that smacked of official retribution.” At trial, Wu testified that his confession had been coerced by being forced to stay awake for five days and nights by police. The ‘court’ ruled bizarrely that, since Wu could not prove that he’d been tortured, his confession remained valid. The larger tragedy, of course, is
that Lake Tai is only one instance of what unregulated capitalism since 1978 has done to much of China’s water, air and soil. Instead of stopping the pollution, the regime punishes the heroic Wus.
Economy
With much hype about the economy of China in our media, permit me to offer part of two recent viewpoints which I share. Here’s Jonathan Manthorpe in the Vancouver Sun: “What one is seeing in China is variations of what can only be called a Ponzi scheme. A local government, without a functioning system for raising tax revenue — and anyway so riddled with corruption it’s irrelevant — sells development land to garner cash. (Often, of course, it
will first have to get rid of peasants living on the land, but that’s another story.) The land will then be sold to a development company that is owned by the local government. And, this being China, where the remnants of the command economy survive, the municipality has the power to instruct banks to lend the development company the money for the sale.
So the local government gets its cash, the municipally-owned company gets to build a speculative residential or industrial complex, and all seems well.”
David Pauly in Bloomberg News:
“It’s time someone in the U.S. stopped coddling the Chinese police state… Though Google is late coming around as an advocate of free speech in China, it still deserves applause. The company said last week it would stop censoring its Chinese search engine, Google.cn , as the communist government dictates — and might even close the business… The U.S. government has both economic and political reasons for not challenging a government that
muzzles its people and kills them if they get too obstreperous… China held about $800 billion of Treasury securities on Oct. 31… Google may eventually compromise with China.
That would be a shame. Someone in the U.S. has to let the dictatorship know what we stand for. Google slamming the door as it leaves China would be a welcome step.”
Killing of Falun Gong
David Matas and I came to the dismaying conclusion that Falun Gong practitioners in China have been and are being killed for their organs. We wrote a report that came to this conclusion in July 2006. A third account in book form was published recently as Bloody Harvest. Falun Gong is a set of exercises with a spiritual foundation which became public in China in 1992.
Initially the government encouraged it as beneficial for health. By 1999, it had grown so popular that the party became afraid that its own supremacy might be threatened. The numbers of persons practicing Falun Gong across China had grown from virtually none in 1992 according to a government estimate to 70-100 million by 1999. The practice was accordingly banned and outrageously labeled a cult by the government.
Practitioners were asked to recant. Those who did not and continued the practice and those who protested the banning were arrested. If they recanted after arrest, they were released. If they did not, they were tortured. If they recanted after torture, they were then released. If they did not recant after torture, they disappeared into the Chinese detention and forced labour system.
What happened to the disappeared? Our conclusion is that many of them were killed for their organs, which were sold to transplant tourists. It would take too much time to set out how we came to that conclusion. We invite you to read our report, which is on the internet (accessible at www.david-kilgour.com or our book. Briefly, two of the dozens of evidentiary trails we followed to our conclusion are these:
1. Only Falun Gong practitioners in forced labour camps and prisons are systematically blood and tissue-tested and physically examined with equipment, such as ultrasounds, which test one’s organs. This testing cannot be motivated by concerns over the health of practitioners because they are also systematically tortured. Testing ensures compatibility between the organ source and the recipient.
2. Traditional sources of transplants –prisoners sentenced to death and then executed, voluntary donors, the brain dead/cardiac alive — come nowhere near to explaining the total number of transplants reported by China’s own statistics. There is no organized system of organ donations. There is no law allowing for organ harvesting from the brain dead/cardiac alive. There is a cultural aversion to organ donation. The only significant source in China of organs for transplants before the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners began was prisoners sentenced to death and then executed. The volume of
organ transplants in China went up dramatically shortly after the banning of the practice of Falun Gong. Yet, the numbers of those sentenced to death and then executed did not increase.
Since our first report came out, the Ministry of Health announced that from June 2007 Chinese patients would be given priority access to organ transplants over foreigners. The announcement also banned all medical institutions from transplanting organs into foreign transplant tourists.
The government announced in August 2009 that the Red Cross Society of China was launching an organ donation system. With these changes, however, the carnivore commerce continues.
The recipients have changed from foreign to local, but the sources remain substantially the same. The government denies that organs for transplants are being sourced from prisoners who are Falun Gong practitioners. Yet, the Government accepts that organs for transplants are being
sourced from prisoners. The only debate we have with the Government is which group of prisoners is the source of organs.
“Non consenting parties”
Sourcing of organs from prisoners is done without consent. Deputy Health Minister Huang Jiefu at a conference of surgeons in Guangzhou in 2006, said, “too often organs come from non consenting parties”. The Chinese law on transplants enacted in 1984 contemplated involuntary donations from “uncollected dead bodies or the ones that the family members refuse to collect.”
The Government of China accepts that sourcing of organs from prisoners is wrong. Huang at the time of the announcement of an organ donor pilot project stated that executed prisoners “are definitely not a proper source for organ transplants”. This principle, that prisoners are not a proper source for organs, is accepted by the Transplantation Society and the World Medical Association.
So the question becomes, what are we going to do about the Chinese government abuse of global transplant ethics? Our report and book have a long list of recommendations. Given the shortness of time, I mention here only two.
One possibility is extraterritorial legislation. The sorts of transplants in which the Chinese medical system engages are illegal everywhere else in the world. But it is not illegal for a foreigner from any country to go to China, benefit from a transplant which would be illegal at home, and then return home. Foreign transplant legislation everywhere is territorial; it has no extraterritorial reach. Many other laws are global in their sweep. For instance, child sex tourists
can be prosecuted not just in the country where they abuse children, but, often at home as well.
This sort of legislation does not exist for transplant tourists who pay for organ transplants without bothering to determine whether the organ donor has consented.
A second recommendation is that any person known to be involved in trafficking in the organs of prisoners in China should be barred entry by all foreign countries. It might be noted that the International Society for Human Rights in Europe has recently joined David Matas and me in combating the abuse of the Chinese government against the Falun Gong practitioners by sourcing their organs..
Changing the Way Trade is Done with China
The Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman has predicted that Beijing’s ongoing refusal to let its currency float will cause retaliation from economies, where high unemployment can be traced in part to Beijing’s ongoing refusal to let the yuan rise and its manufacturing focus in a world struggling with overcapacity. The party-state continues to dump consumer goods–no doubt including many made by Falun Gong in forced labour camps– at lower-than-cost in foreign markets. The manipulated yuan creates an enormous competitive advantage for China and keeps some workers from Canada and across the world out of work. Krugman also says that by displacing the output of foreign producers with its own low-wage goods China is arguably the prime culprit in holding back a robust recovery in global economies.
Peter Navarro, author of The Coming China Wars, has a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard and is a professor at the University of California. He argues that consumer markets across the world have been ‘conquered’ by China largely through cheating on trade practices. These include export subsidies, widespread counterfeiting and piracy of products, currency manipulation, and environmental, health and safety standards so lax and weakly enforced that they have made China a very dangerous place to work.
Navarro has comprehensive proposals for all countries trading with China, which are intended to ensure that commerce becomes fair. Specifically, he says all trading partners must: 

1. refrain from illegal export subsidies and currency manipulation and abide by the rules of the WTO;
2. define currency manipulation as an illegal export subsidy and add it to other subsidies when calculating anti-dumping and countervail penalties;
3. respect intellectual property; adopt and enforce health, safety and environmental
4. regulations consistent with international norms;
5. ban the use of forced labour and provide decent wages and working conditions;
6. dopt a ‘zero-tolerance’ policy for anyone who sells or distributes pirated or counterfeit goods;
7. block defective and contaminated food and drugs by measures which make it easier to hold importers liable for selling foreign products that do harm or kill people or pets; and
8. include strong provisions for protection of the natural environment in all bilateral and multilateral trade agreements in order to reverse the `race to the environmental bottom’ in China.

(*) Hon. David Kilgour is the former Canadian Secretary of State for Africa

Concern about missing Chinese lawyer (compiled by Marie Beaulieu)
UN urged to act on Chinese lawyer - Aljazeera.net
UN expert concerned about missing Chinese lawyer - The Associated Press - ‎Gao, who took up sensitive cases defending prominent people in Tibet, Xinyiang, Uighurs, members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual group and followers of …
UN urged to act on Chinese lawyer - Aljazeera.net - ‎Gao has taken on cases involving the banned Falun Gong spiritual group and defended cases against the government involving alleged police corruption, …
Lawyers ask UN to help missing Chinese lawyer - The Associated Press - ‎Gao is among China’s most daring lawyers and has taken on cases
involving the banned Falun Gong spiritual group. His case has drawn international attention …
Commission probes China’s alleged violation of RI press freedom - Jakarta Post - ‎Raymond admitted to be a follower of the Falun Gong movement, which is banned in China. He said the station, which sometimes broadcasts in Chinese, …
New EU draft law on organ donation ‘close to adoption’ - TheParliament.com - ‎Liese also urged the commission to investigate Canadian claims that
members of the Falun Gong practice in China were being kept in camps and killed for …
In Chinatown, politics of old country still spark - Boston Globe - They point to followers of the spiritual movement Falun Gong who use the park on Sundays, practicing their breathing and posting large and graphic displays …

Is China actually bankrupt? by Jim Jubak

Is China broke?
It seems like a silly question, right? China’s foreign-exchange reserves stood at $2.4 trillion at the end of 2009. Yes, China announced that its proposed annual budget for 2010 would produce a record deficit, but the deficit is just $154 billion, or 2.8% of China’s gross domestic product. In contrast, the Congressional Budget Office projects the U.S. budget deficit for fiscal 2010 at $1.3 trillion. That’s equal to 9.2% of GDP.
But remember the theme of my column earlier this week: All governments lie about their finances. At worst, as in Greece and the United States, the lies are bold and transparent. Everybody knows the emperor has no clothes, but no one want to say so. At best, as in Canada and China, the lies are more subtle — more like a magician’s misdirection than a viking raider’s ax. Look at these great numbers, the lie goes, but don’t look at those up my sleeve.
There’s a good argument to be made that if you look at all the numbers, instead of just the ones the budget magicians want you to see, China is indeed broke.
More debt than meets the eye 
Want to see how that could be?
If you look only at the current position of China’s national government, the country is in great shape. Not only is the current budget deficit at that tiny 2.8% of GDP, but the International Monetary Fund projects the country’s accumulated gross debt at just 22% of 2010 GDP. U.S gross debt, by comparison, is projected at 94% of GDP in 2010. The lowest gross-debt-to-GDP figure for any of the Group of Sevendeveloped economies is Canada’s 79%.

But China has a history of taking debt off its books and burying it, which should prompt us to poke and prod its numbers. If we go back to the last time China cooked the national books big time, during the Asian currency crisis of 1997, we can get an idea of where its debt might be hidden now.
The currency crisis started in 1997 with the collapse of the Thai baht – and then, like dominoes, the currencies of Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines collapsed. 
In each case, the country had built up an export-led economy financed by foreign debt. When the hot money that had been flowing in instead flowed out, that sent currencies, stock markets and economies into a nose dive.
China escaped the first stage of the crisis because the country’s tightly controlled currency and stock markets, and its economy, had kept out hot money from overseas. China had built its export-led economy on domestic bank loans instead. The majority of bank loans, then as now, went to state-owned companies — about 70% of the total, the Congressional Research Service estimated in a 1999 examination of the period.
Those loans were all that kept the doors open at many of China’s biggest state-owned companies. In its review, the Congressional Research Service estimated that about 75% of China’s 100,000 largest state-owned companies lost money and needed bank loans to continue operating.
That became a problem when, in the aftermath of the currency crisis, China’s exports fell. That sent revenue plunging at state-owned companies that were already losing money. Suddenly, China’s banks were sitting on billions and billions of debts that anybody who’d taken Bookkeeping 1 in high school could tell were never going to be paid. This was especially a problem for China’s biggest banks, all of which had ambitions to raise more capital — and their international profile — by going public in Hong Kong and New York. But no bank could go public with this much bad debt on its books.
What to do? Why not bury the bad debt?
The Beijing government created special-purpose asset management companies for the four largest state-owned banks, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (IDCBY, news, msgs), the AgriculturalBank of China, the Bank of China (BACHY, news, msgs) and China Construction Bank (CICHY, news, msgs). These asset management companies – China Cinda, China Huarong, China Orient andChina Great Wall – would ultimately wind up buying $287 billion in bad loans from state-owned banks. The majority of those purchases were at book value.
So how did the asset management companies pay for the purchase of that $287 billion in bad loans? They certainly didn’t pay cash. Instead, they issued bonds to the banks in exchange for the bad loans. The bonds, of course, were backed by the promise that the asset management companies would gradually sell off or collect on the bad loans in time to redeem the bonds. And in the meantime, they’d pay the banks interest on those bonds.
Neat, huh? In one swell foop, the state-owned banks got $287 billion in bad loans off their books and turned deadbeat loans that would never pay off into streams of income from these bonds. To read more on this neat bit of financial engineering, check out this research paper (.pdf file).
Of course, that still left the little issue of where the asset management companies were going to get the approximately $30 billion in annual interest they had promised to pay the state-owned banks. There was also the small matter of how they were going to pay off these bonds when they came due in 10 years, especially since the cash recovery rate on these bad loans would run at just 20.3% in the first five years.

China denies currency undervalued

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We do not send pictures with these reports, because of the volume, but picture this emetic scene with your inner eye:
A dying Somali child in the macerated arms of her mother besides their bombed shelter with Islamic graffiti looks at a fat trader, who discusses with a local militia chief and a UN representative at a harbour while USAID provided GM food from subsidised production is off-loaded by WFP into the hands of local “distributors” and dealers – and in the background a western warship and a foreign fishing trawler ply the waters of a once sovereign, prosper and proud nation, which was a role model for honesty and development in the Horn of Africa. (If you feel that this is overdrawn – talk to people who lived in Somalia in the 70s and 80s and come with us into Somalia and see the even more cruel reality today for yourself!) 
- and if you need lively stills or video material on Somalia, please do contact us.   

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