Tuesday 30 September 2008

IRAQI TURKMENS - Correct spelling of Turkmen Names



REMINDER


TO: JOURNALISTS, WRITERS, HISTORIANS...


It is logical and right that Turkmen names should be written in the form preferred by IRAQ'S TURKMENS and according to their own pronounciation.

Therefore, please note that:


1. The correct spelling of the name of Iraq's third main ethnic community, the Turkmens, is :

TURKMENS

and NOT : Turkoman, Turkomen, Turcoman, Turkman, etc.


2. The correct spelling of the Turkmens' capital city and main cultural centre in Iraq is :

KERKUK

and NOT: Kirkuk, Kirkouk, Karkuk, etc.


3. Please note the correct spelling of the following Turkmen cities:


TELAFER

and NOT : Tal Afar, Talafar, etc.


ALTUN KOPRU

and NOT : Altoun Kopri or Kupri


TUZ KHURMATU

and NOT : Tuz Hurmatu, Toz Khurmato, Tuz Khurmato, etc.


QIZLARBAT

NOT : Sa'diye


QARAGHAN

NOT: Jalawla


KHANEQIN

NOT: Hanekin



BESHIR

NOT: Al-Bashir, etc.


Please also note that Turkmens use the following spelling for MUSUL,

and NOT: Mosul, Mousil, Mawsil, etc.

THE END OF U.S. ARROGANCE

SPIEGEL ONLINE

09/30/2008
THE END OF ARROGANCE
America Loses Its Dominant Economic Role
By SPIEGEL Staff


The banking crisis is upending American dominance of the financial markets and world politics. The industrialized countries are sliding into recession, the era of turbo-capitalism is coming to an end and US military might is ebbing. Still, this is no time to gloat.

There are days when all it takes is a single speech to illustrate the decline of a world power. A face can speak volumes, as can the speaker's tone of voice, the speech itself or the audience's reaction. Kings and queens have clung to the past before and humiliated themselves in public, but this time it was merely a United States president.
Or what is left of him.

George W. Bush has grown old, erratic and rosy in the eight years of his presidency. Little remains of his combativeness or his enthusiasm for physical fitness. On this sunny Tuesday morning in New York, even his hair seemed messy and unkempt, his blue suit a little baggy around the shoulders, as Bush stepped onto the stage, for the eighth time, at the United Nations General Assembly.

He talked about terrorism and terrorist regimes, and about governments that allegedly support terror. He failed to notice that the delegates sitting in front of and below him were shaking their heads, smiling and whispering, or if he did notice, he was no longer capable of reacting. The US president gave a speech similar to the ones he gave in 2004 and 2007, mentioning the word "terror" 32 times in 22 minutes. At the 63rd General Assembly of the United Nations, George W. Bush was the only one still talking about terror and not about the topic that currently has the rest of the world's attention.

"Absurd, absurd, absurd," said one German diplomat. A French woman called him "yesterday's man" over coffee on the East River. There is another way to put it, too: Bush was a laughing stock in the gray corridors of the UN.

The American president has always had enemies in these hallways and offices at the UN building on First Avenue in Manhattan. The Iranians and Syrians despise the eternal American-Israeli coalition, while many others are tired of Bush's Americans telling the world about the blessings of deregulated markets and establishing rules "that only apply to others," says the diplomat from Berlin.

But the ridicule was a new thing. It marked the end of respect.

"Well," Brazilian President Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva began, standing outside the General Assembly Hall. Then he looked out the window and said: "He decided to talk about terrorism, but the issue that has the world concerned is the economic crisis." Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the president of Argentina, said that the schoolmasters from Washington had dubbed the 1994 Mexican crisis the "tequila effect" and Brazil's 1999 crisis the "Caipirinha effect."
Are we now experiencing the "whiskey effect?" But President Kirchner was gracious and, with a smile, called it the "jazz effect."

Is it only President George W. Bush, the lame duck president, whom the rest of the world is no longer taking seriously, or are the remaining 191 UN member states already setting their sights on the United States, the giant brought to its knees? UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon referred to a "new reality" and "new centers of power and leadership in Asia, Latin America and across the newly developed world." Are they surprised, in these new centers, at the fall of America, of the system of the Western-style market economy?

Even America's closest allies are distancing themselves -- first and foremost the German chancellor. When push came to shove in the past, Angela Merkel had always come down on the side of the United States. As a candidate for the Chancellery for the conservative Christian Democrats, she helped Bush in the Iraq war, and as chancellor she supported tougher sanctions on Iran and campaigned in Europe for an embargo against Cuba. "The partnership with the United States," the chancellor insisted again and again, "has a very special meaning for us Germans."

There was no mention of loyalty and friendship last Monday. Merkel stood in the glass-roofed entrance hall of one of the German parliament's office buildings in Berlin and prepared her audience of roughly 1,000 businesspeople from all across Germany for the foreseeable consequences of the financial crisis. It was a speech filled with concealed accusations and dark warnings.

Merkel talked about a "distribution of risk at everyone's expense" and the consequences for the "economic situation in the coming months and possibly even years." Most of all, she made it clear who she considers the true culprit behind the current plight. "The German government pointed out the problems early on," said the chancellor, whose proposals to impose tighter international market controls failed repeatedly because of US opposition. "Some things can be done at the national level," she said, "but most things have to be handled internationally."

Merkel had never publicly criticized the United States this harshly and unapologetically. In this regard, she enjoys the wholehearted support of her coalition government partner, the center-left Social Democrats (SPD). In a speech before Germany's parliament, the Bundestag, Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück of the SPD spoke of the end of the United States as a "superpower of the global financial system."

The banking crisis in the United States has shaken many things in recent days, not just the chancellor's affection for America and the respect the rest of the world once had for the US as an economic and political superpower. Since the US investment bank Lehman Brothers plummeted into bankruptcy two weeks ago, the financial crisis has developed a destructive force of almost unimaginable strength. The proud US investment banks with globally recognized names like Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs have all gone bankrupt, been bought up or restructured. The American real estate market has essentially been nationalized. And the country's biggest savings and loan, Washington Mutual, has failed and been sold at a loss.

In light of the almost daily reports of losses in the financial sector, it seemed almost secondary to note that the disaster had also turned into one of the biggest criminal investigations in American history. The Federal Bureau of Intelligence (FBI) is already investigating 26 large financial corporations as well as 1,400 smaller companies and private citizens for possible fraud.

Economists now characterize what began two years ago with falling prices in the American real estate market as the biggest economic disaster since the world economic crisis of the 1930s. No one knows whether and how the meltdown of global financial markets, which would have grave consequences for the world economy, can still be prevented.

And now, of all times, the world is faced with a preeminent power that no longer seems capable of leading and a US president who is not even able to unite his divided country in an hour of need.

For weeks, Bush ignored the crisis, insisting on the strength of the market and telling Americans: "Everything will be fine."

In a televised address to the nation last Wednesday, Bush gave his oath of disclosure. He warned Americans that they could face a "long and painful recession" and that "millions of Americans could lose their jobs" unless swift action is taken.

But nothing happened swiftly, at least not at first. The crisis is happening while the United States is in a political vacuum. Bush lacks the power needed for decisive leadership, and his potential successors, John McCain and Barack Obama, seem more concerned about making a strong impression on voters.

Ironically, it is in the country of unfettered capitalism that the government now plans to intervene in the economy on a scale not seen since the Great Depression, and, with hundreds of billions of dollars, attempt to save the financial sector from failure -- out of fear of something even worse: an economic collapse with declining prices and widespread unemployment.
This is no longer the muscular and arrogant United States the world knows, the superpower that sets the rules for everyone else and that considers its way of thinking and doing business to be the only road to success.

A new America is on display, a country that no longer trusts its old values and its elites even less: the politicians, who failed to see the problems on the horizon, and the economic leaders, who tried to sell a fictitious world of prosperity to Americans.

Also on display is the end of arrogance. The Americans are now paying the price for their pride.
Gone are the days when the US could go into debt with abandon, without considering who would end up footing the bill. And gone are the days when it could impose its economic rules of engagement on the rest of the world, rules that emphasized profit above all else -- without ever considering that such returns cannot be achieved by doing business in a respectable way.
With its rule of three of cheap money, free markets and double-digit profit margins, American turbo-capitalism has set economic standards worldwide for the past quarter century. Now it is proving to be nothing but a giant snowball system, upsetting the US's global political status as it comes crashing down. Every bank that US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is currently forced to bail out with American government funds damages America's reputation around the world.

Of course, it is not solely the result of undesirable economic developments that the United States is in the process of forfeiting its unique position in the world and that the world is moving toward what Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International, calls a "post-American age." Washington has also lost much of its political ability to impose its will on other countries.

Bush's Failed Leadership

The failed leadership of President Bush, whose departure most of his counterparts from other countries are now looking forward to more and more openly, is not solely to blame. Nor are his two risky wars: the one in Iraq, which he launched frivolously in the vain hope of converting the entire region to the American way of life, and the other in Afghanistan, in which Bush now risks the world's most powerful defense alliance, NATO, suffering its first defeat.

But it's hard to forget how this president's mentors celebrated the power to shape world affairs the United States acquired in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the East-West conflict. There was talk of a "unipolar moment," of "America's moment," even of an "end of history," now that all other countries apparently had no other choice but to become smaller versions of America: liberal, democratic and buoyed by an unshakeable confidence in the free market economy.

The Bush administration wanted to cement forever this unique moment in history, in which the United States was undoubtedly the strongest power on earth. It wanted to use it to clean house in chronic crisis zones around the world, especially the Middle East. Far from relying on the classic, cumbersome and often unsuccessful tools of multilateral diplomacy, the Bush warriors were always quick to threaten military intervention -- just as quick as they were to make good on this threat.

The strategists of this immoderately self-confident administration formulated these principles in the "Bush doctrine" and claimed, for themselves and their actions, the right to "preemptive" military intervention -- with little concern for the rules of alliances or international organizations.
The superpower even claimed privileges over its allies, even offending some of its best friends during Bush's first term. Bush withdrew the American signature from a treaty to establish the International Criminal Court, he refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol to combat climate change and he withdrew from an agreement with the Russians to limit the number of missile defense systems.

Washington sought to divide the world into good and evil -- and did so as it saw fit.
Now, in the wake of the crash on Wall Street, the debate in the UN reveals that the long-humiliated have lost their fear of the giant in world politics. Even a political dwarf like Bolivian President Evo Morales is now talking big. "There is an uprising against an economic model, a capitalistic system that is the worst enemy of humanity," Morales told the UN General Assembly.

The financial crisis has uncovered the world power's true weakness. The more the highly indebted United States has to spend to stabilize its own economic system, the more trouble it has performing its self-imposed duties as the world's policeman.

The new US president will only have been in office for a short time when a document titled "Global Trends 2025" appears on his desk. The report is being prepared by analysts at the National Intelligence Council. Its chairman, Thomas Fingar, has already released a preview, and reading it will not exactly be enjoyable for proud American. "Although the United States will remain the most important power, American dominance will be sharply reduced," says Fingar.
According to the preview of the report, the erosion of American supremacy will "accelerate in the areas of politics and economics, and possibly culture."

The century that just began is unlikely to be declared the American century again. Instead, "Asia will shape the fate of the world, with or without the United States," says Parag Khanna, a young Indian-American political scientist whose book "The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order" has attracted a great deal of attention in the United States.
There is much to be said for Khanna's assertion. Beijing is already funding a large share of the gigantic American trade deficit, while at the same time selling many consumer goods to the United States. In other words, it benefits from the US's weakness in two ways. And politically speaking, the newly self-confident Chinese will no longer allow themselves to be domineered by the West. Reacting to worldwide criticism of political oppression in Tibet, the Chinese encouraged their nationalist youth to assault Western institutions and refused to allow themselves to be lectured on human rights.

Republican Senator Chuck Hagel has acknowledged that the "world's largest debtor nation" cannot simultaneously shape the course of the world. The challenges America faces have multiplied, especially in recent times.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union and a decade of weakness, resource-rich Russia now expects to be treated as an equal to its former Cold War rival. The invasion of Georgia by Russian troops showed NATO where Moscow sees the limits of expansion of the Western military alliance. Indeed, some time ago, Russian bombers resumed patrolling the borders of the Western defense alliance.

Iran has also been unimpressed by Washington's approach to force it to terminate its uranium-enrichment process by threatening to use military force. The expansion of the nuclear facility at Natanz is progressing at a brisk pace, as expected, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad now considers his adversary, Bush, to be finished. "The American empire in the world is reaching the end of its road," he said in his speech to the UN General Assembly, "and its next rulers must limit their interference to their own borders."

Even before the financial crisis, there was lively debate in the United States over whether the world's largest economy could become overtaxed in the long run as a result of its international obligations and the global deployment of its armed forces. The war in Iraq costs the country $3 billion (€4.35 billion) a week. And it is already clear that Bush's successor will find his powers in the White House further limited by the enormous mountain of debt he inherits.

And then there are the costs of the financial crisis -- and the recession that will inevitably follow.
Most Americans are opposed to Treasury Secretary Paulson's plan to buy the banks' bad loans for $700 billion (€483 billion). A rare coalition of the left and right reject this one-time bailout package as "un-American" and as a completely excessive act of government intervention that, in fact, rewards those responsible for the debacle: the key players in New York's financial industry.
The government and large parts of the establishment disagree. They fear that if the program fails, it could drag the American financial markets and then the global economy into the abyss.

With only five weeks to go before the presidential election, the emergency Wall Street bailout has turned into a high-stakes political drama. Last Tuesday's hearing before the US Senate, which lasted several hours and included Paulson, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Christopher Cox, was reminiscent of a show trial, with the government and the Federal Reserve playing the role of prosecutor.

The administration struck back the next day, when Bush gave his dramatic televised address to the nation. But then the Republican Party base revolted. For many Republicans, the idea of giving away $700 billion in tax money to Wall Street banks is tantamount to the introduction of socialism on American soil.

They believe that Bush and Paulson are betraying the ideals of their party, and their fears were confirmed elsewhere on Thursday. The mood did not improve when, without further ado, the government seized one of the country's largest savings & loan institutions and sold it to JP Morgan Chase.

Many experts are also skeptical. Allan Meltzer, an advisor to former President Ronald Reagan, is critical of what he calls "intimidation tactics" designed to serve "private, not public interests."
"We are applying cold compresses to the fever patient instead of fighting the actual infection," says Christopher Mayer of Columbia University in New York. According to Mayer, the billions would be better spent reducing mortgage interest. This would reduce the number of foreclosures and attract buyers back to the market.

But as divided as Washington is, doing nothing would still be the worst alternative.
"There is no other option now than to move the plan forward," says Ed Yardeni, the former chief investment strategist at Deutsche Bank, who now heads his own research firm outside New York. "The US treasury secretary and chairman of the Federal Reserve predicted a financial Armageddon," says Yardeni. "Unless action is taken now, it'll get really ugly on the markets."

At the end of last week, investors' loss of confidence worldwide led to the credit markets becoming essentially frozen once again. This could cause the flow of money in the broader economic environment to run dry, as happened once before in the world economic crisis. This explains why Paulson, Bush and Bernanke are so nervous.

The bailout plan they unveiled at the end of last week was arrogant and incomplete. The Democrats, in particular, fought for some key changes. They want to give Congress more control over the treasury secretary and the ability to monitor his spending on an ongoing basis. Instead of approving $700 billion in one fell swoop, the Democrats want the funds to be disbursed in portions. Banks wishing to take advantage of the government bailout would also have to impose limits on executive compensation.

Finally, the Democrats want taxpayers to get something in return for their sacrifice: The government would buy the financial institutions' toxic mortgage securities at a preferred price. In return, it would receive bank shares that it could later sell, if and when prices recovered.
Overall, the hope was that this would reestablish relatively normal market conditions. Banks would be able to unload their junk securities for a clear price, their balance sheets would no longer be adversely affected by virtually worthless mortgage-backed securities, and transparency and confidence would be restored.

Wall Street's Central Values: Avarice and Greed

It is an optimistic scenario, but with no guarantee of success. Still, what's the alternative? "Maybe we can let Wall Street implode," writes Princeton economist Paul Krugman in the New York Times, "and Main Street would escape largely unscathed." But, he continues, "that's not a chance we want to take."

The effects of the financial crisis are already serious, both for the American taxpayer, who will end up footing the bill no matter what, and for the relationship between the government and the economy. An era of American economic policy is coming to a close. Ironically, and surprisingly to many, the last few months of the Bush administration will mark the end of the so-called "Reagan revolution."

Since the early 1980s, the United States has radically emphasized deregulation, which has meant lowering taxes, eliminating regulations and generally leaving the markets to their own devices. Ronald Reagan began his presidency in 1981 with this program, and it was following by a prolonged economic upturn.

It was driven in part by an aggressive policy of cheap money, for which a second icon of the American boom was responsible: former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan. During the 18 years of his tenure, whenever there was trouble brewing in the stock market and financial markets, Greenspan would drown the crises in a flood of fresh money. Whether it was the 1997 market crash in the Asian tiger countries, the selloff of Russian government bonds a year later, the collapse of the LTCM hedge fund or, finally, the bursting of the New Economy bubble at the beginning of the new millennium, Greenspan's rescue operations could be counted on to return growth to the world's markets. But there was one thing Greenspan overlooked: By repeatedly printing money, he also laid the foundation for the next financial bubble, and its destructive energy grew from one intervention to the next.

Over the last 15 years, Greenspan was opposed to oversight and control over those companies that used the ready cash made available by his policies to introduce a wave of so-called financial innovations. As long as he was in office, he blocked all attempts to impose government collateral requirements on the credit, stock and financial markets. In Greenspan's view, it would only hamper "necessary flexibility."

His policies were borne out by the successes of two decades. Fed by cheap money and freed of most regulations, the American financial industry experienced an unprecedented boom. The industry's excessive growth was reflected in exorbitant salaries and ostentatious skyscrapers but also in the withdrawal of a large share of American value creation.

In 2007, at the beginning of the crisis, the American financial and lending sector was responsible for 14 percent of economic performance, while collecting 33 percent of all corporate profits.
The financial boom also set the turbo-charger in motion that would lend a new face to worldwide capital from then on. Avarice and greed have always been the central values on Wall Street, but now they had become a benchmark for the real global economy. The American banking industry paid for globalization and the Internet revolution, the Asian upswing and the boom in the commodities markets. "We need a 25-percent return," or else his bank would not be "competitive internationally," Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackermann said, thereby establishing a benchmark that would soon apply not just to banks but also to automobile makers, machine builders and steel companies.

But, as is often the case with recipes for success, at some point the healthy dose is exceeded and soon the risks and side effects begin to accumulate. The result: The supposed medicine instead becomes a pathogen instead.

In the United States, this process began after the collapse of the New Economy. Once again, Greenspan flooded the economy with money and, yet again, Wall Street started looking for a new market for its growth machine. This time it discovered the American homeowner, convincing him to take out mortgages at favorable terms, even when there was practically no collateral.

The total value of all outstanding mortgage loans in the United States -- $11 trillion (€7.6 trillion) -- is almost as large as the country's gross domestic product. At the same time, with the help of Wall Street's financial engineers, the Americans managed to sell a portion of the risk to other parts of the world, reasoning that if the risk was out of sight it would be out of mind.

But the fact that risks do not disappear when they are distributed around the world became clear at the beginning of last year. Interest rates rose across the board and house prices came down, triggering a chain reaction with collateral damage that was bringing down ever-growing segments of the financial sector from one week to the next. Today, 18 million single-family homes and condominiums in the United States are empty. More and more Americans can no longer afford the high interest rates they are being charged. Many consumers have even been forced to bid farewell to their beloved credit cards because the banks are no longer willing to extend credit to them.

To make matters worse, because a large share of the mortgage loans are now distributed all over the world, the crisis is spreading halfway around the globe like an infectious disease. In recent years, many of the industrialized countries deregulated their financial markets based on the American model. This has led to a relatively unimpeded flow of capital around the world today.

The financial assets that economies hold abroad have grown more than sevenfold in the past three decades. By late 2007, the market volume for derivatives, which are used to bet on interest rate, stock and credit risks worldwide, had reached a previously unthinkable level of $596 trillion (€411 trillion).

At the same time, the number of players has multiplied. The banks stopped being the only ones in control of the industry some time ago. Nowadays, hedge funds bet on falling stock prices and mortgage rates, private equity companies buy up failed banks and bad loans, and wealthy pension funds keep the fund managers afloat.

The "greater complexity of linkages within and between the financial systems" now has one man worried, a man whose profession ought to provide him with a better idea of what's going on: Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank. In a recent speech at New York University, Europe's highest-ranking central banker complained about the "obscurity of and interactions among many financial instruments," often combined with a "high level of borrowing."

The inventors of these complex securities hoped that they could be used to distribute risk more broadly around the globe. But instead of making financial transactions more secure, they achieved the opposite effect, increasing the risks. Today the notion of using "many shoulders for support," the constant mantra of the gurus of financial alchemy, has proved to be one of the catalysts of the crash.

American economist Raghuram Rajan, whom ECB President Trichet is frequently quoting these days, had a premonition of the current disaster three years ago. The total integration of the markets "exposes the system to large systemic shocks," Rajan wrote then in a study. Although the economy had survived many crises before, like the bursting of the Internet bubble, "this should not lead us to be too optimistic." "Can we be confident that the shocks were large enough and in the right places to fully test the system?" Rajan asked. "A shock to equity markets, though large," he continued, "may have less effect than a shock to credit markets."

There was certainly no shortage of warnings, and there were many voices of caution. As long ago as 1936, John Maynard Keynes recognized the risk that "speculation may win the upper hand" in the markets. Its influence in New York, the British economist wrote, was "enormous," and the situation would become serious "when the capital development of a country becomes the by-product of the activities of a casino."

Irrational Exuberance

US economist Robert Shiller, who predicted the bursting of the dot-com bubble at the turn of the century, was one of the first to notice that the value of houses and condominiums in the United States was rising at a suspiciously fast rate. In Shiller's view, this was another case of irrational exuberance. In December 2004, Stephen Roach, the former chief economist at investment bank Morgan Stanley, cautioned against the "grimmest of all financial bubbles."

New York economist Nouriel Roubini presented the most accurate scenario of a crash, from the bursting of the real estate bubble to the domino-like demise of major banks. Roubini, known as a notorious alarmist, now predicts a prolonged recession in the United States that will drag down the entire global economy with it. "The US consumer has consumed himself to death," says Roubini.

Paul Samuelson, the doyen of the world's economists, predicted this bitter outcome three years ago. "America's position is under pressure because we have become a society that hardly saves," Samuelson, 90 at the time, said in an interview with SPIEGEL. "We don't think of others or of tomorrow."

And now the global conflagration is a reality, triggered by cleverly packaged US subprime mortgages sold around the world, even to bankers in the provincial eastern German state of Saxony. So-called credit derivatives, which banks and investment funds used to hedge against the failure of commercial loans, could soon add new fuel to the fire. In the wake of the subprime crisis, could credit derivatives be the next bad thing? Is the world facing a wave of bankruptcies that could soon bring the financial world crashing down through the mechanism of credit derivatives?

US market guru Warren Buffett calls derivatives " ." They are the creations of inventive financial alchemists, concoctions that blend classic forms of investment, like stocks, bonds and commodities.

In fact, within this discipline, derivatives used to hedge against credit risk are among the most dangerous gambles and, as one would expect within the global financial casino, they have experienced dizzying growth. In the last five years, the volume of credit derivatives has grown thirtyfold to about $55 trillion (€38 trillion), or about 20 times the gross national product of Germany.

The world is encased in a tightly woven network of reciprocal payment obligations. "The core problem is that it is no longer possible to know where the risks have ultimately landed," warns Thomas Heidorn, a professor at Frankfurt's Institute for Law and Finance. This is because traders pass on credit risks an infinite number of times, which explains the dizzying market volume. Where the risks end up is anyone's guess.

Nevertheless, only a handful of firms set the tone in this high-stakes game of bingo in which trillions are on the line. According to a survey by Fitch Ratings, an international credit rating agency, about four-fifths of all credit derivatives bought and sold worldwide in 2004 was on the books of only 15 banks and major dealers. Lehman Brothers was one of the Top 10 players in the business, and its bankruptcy has torn giant holes in the fragile network of credit insurance. "Not saving Lehman was a huge mistake," says a banking executive in Frankfurt, who notes that the shock waves will be extremely difficult to control.

Germany, where banks have had to write off about €40 billion ($58 billion), has managed to come away relatively unscathed until now. Experts believe that that number will be increased by significantly more than €10 billion ($14.5 billion).

German banks are now concerned that they will be at a competitive disadvantage if their US competitors are permitted to unload their bad debt with the government in the future, thereby improving their credit ratings. The Germans are demanding equal treatment. Last Thursday, leading representatives of the industry informed Finance Minister Steinbrück of their wishes -- and were rebuffed.

The financial storm has even been felt in the most unexpected of places, such as the offices of German town halls. At the turn of the millennium, hard-up German cities like Bochum, Recklinghausen and Wuppertal, used complex agreements, to sell large shares of the municipal family silver to US investors -- and then turned around to re-lease it. In many cases these so-called Cross-Border Leases (CBL) -- in which entire sewage systems or municipal transport operations were sold off -- were insured by the US insurance giant AIG, which was recently nationalized to avoid bankruptcy.

Naturally, the small print of the CBL agreements contains an explosive clause. It stipulates that if the guarantor loses its top-rated AAA credit rating, additional collateral must be provided. Despite government intervention, AIG was downgraded. Under their CBL agreements, the affected city councils have only a few weeks to come up with a solution.

By contrast, their counterparts in the cities of Münster, Troisdorf, Munich and Frankfurt can only wait and hope. They invested portions of their tax revenues with the Frankfurt subsidiary of now-bankrupt Lehman Brothers. By offering generous terms and citing a deposit insurance fund, the Americans managed to drum up urgently needed liquidity in Germany shortly before their bankruptcy.

The funds that German cities coughed up to help the Wall Street gamblers survive are not likely to be repaid anytime soon. BaFin, Germany's Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, has imposed a moratorium on the German subsidiary, freezing all transactions until further notice.
On August 15, when the US investment bank was already on shaky ground, Helga Bickeböller, a member of Münster's city council, transferred €15 million ($22 million) to Frankfurt in two tranches. "The offer was 0.004 percent higher than the next-best offer," Bickeböller says in justifying the transaction.

The credit crunch is tearing holes in the balance sheets of municipalities, companies and private households across the world. Banks hardly lend each other money anymore, consumer confidence is evaporating, and investors are questioning whether new sales will help them recoup money already spent on new equipment. In Germany, Arcandor -- a major holding company in the mail order, retail and tourism industries that reported €21 billion in 2007 sales -- threatens to become the first victim of tighter credit terms.

As the bad news accumulates -- in recent days, especially in the United States -- the mood around the world is growing increasingly dire. In August, sales of new homes in the United States dropped to their lowest level in 17 years. In comparison to last year, which was already a bad year, new home sales have dropped by more than 34 percent. At the same time, more and more US citizens have applied for unemployment benefits. And the manufacturing industry is reporting significant declines in order volume.

"The United States cannot avoid an 18-month-long, severe recession and a deep-seated financial crisis," warns Roubini, the New York economist. He would consider it a success if the country manages not to plunge into years of stagnation, as Japan did in the 1990s.

The consequences of the economic downturn in the United States are being felt around the world, especially in Germany, which is currently the world's leading exporter. Hans-Werner Sinn, president of the Munich-based Ifo Institute for Economic Research, calls it an "extremely worrisome situation." According to an analysis by the German Economics Ministry, the economy is exposed to "external shocks" and a "noticeably worsened external economic environment." The report even mentions the dreaded word "recession," although it adds that that recession is "not a foregone conclusion."

This is all the more vexing for the German government because it was the one that warned against the current malaise some time ago. During the G-8 economic summit in Heiligendamm more than a year ago, for example, Chancellor Angela Merkel tried to convince her state guests of the need for tighter controls on the financial markets. But President Bush and then British Prime Minister Tony Blair gave the chancellor the cold shoulder.

'One Can See that We Are on a more Solid Base'
Back to Reality

For far too long, the Americans and the British made fun of the Germans for their risk-averse, savings-oriented mentality, says Bernd Pfaffenbach, Merkel's chief negotiator on foreign trade issues. But now the relative conservatism that Germans have shown in financial matters is paying off. "One can see that we are on a more solid base," says Pfaffenbach, who refers to the crisis as a "purifying storm."

Pfaffenbach isn't the only one to see the problem in this light. The American bank crash has prompted economists and politicians worldwide to prepare for the end of an era of turbo-capitalism driven by the financial markets.

The financial industry -- especially in the United States -- will shrink considerably, while the significance of the real economy will increase. Once again, the government will have to base its supervisory function on the old banker's principle: security first.

This is especially true when it comes to monetary policy. For years, central bankers "paid attention almost exclusively to developments in consumer prices," complains Thomas Meyer, chief European economist at Deutsche Bank. If consumer prices were going up by 2 percent or 3 percent, the risk of inflation was thought to have been averted.

The fact that the prices of stocks, bonds and real estate were often rising at double-digit rates was usually ignored until the financial bubbles burst with a loud bang. Some economists recommend that central bankers should also consider asset inflation when reaching future decisions.

At the same time, Europe's finance ministers are calling for tighter supervision of the credit and securities markets, as a group of experts from the G-8 countries recently recommended. Their plan calls for requiring banks to maintain larger capital reserves for specific risks. In addition, they have recommended that hidden financial risks that banks have assumed be made more transparent and that better guidelines be developed for the valuation of financial instruments.
Most of all, the G-8 council of experts stresses the need to reform the risk classification of securities. The major international rating agencies, such Moody's and Standard & Poor's, have deeply embarrassed themselves in the current crisis. In many cases, they gave their highest ratings to what were really junk securities. The G-8 experts have proposed that these institutions be made subject to a code of conduct.

At the same time, the experts also warn against intervening too much in the financial markets. As was illustrated by Germany's public sector Landesbanken, hard hit by the subprime crisis, as well as state-owned lender KfW -- which transfered €350 million to Lehman Brothers the day it filed for bankruptcy protection -- the government is usually not up to the task of owning and operating banks. Simply banning certain financial market operations also makes little sense, they believe, as such prohibitions are often easily circumvented.

If the G-8 experts prevail, there will be major consequences. For now, it would spell the end of ever-rising returns with constantly changing securities. At the same time, the market position of Anglo-Saxon banks would be significantly restricted, which would benefit the up-and-coming financial institutions of the emerging Asian and Eastern European economies.

A new chapter in economic history has begun, one in which the United States will no longer play its former dominant role. A process of redistributing money and power around the world -- away from America and toward the resource-rich countries and rising industrialized nations in Asia -- has been underway for years. The financial crisis will only accelerate the process.

The wealthy state-owned funds of China, Singapore, Dubai and Kuwait control assets of almost $4 trillion (€2.76 trillion), and they are now in a position to buy their way onto Wall Street in a big way.

But they have remained reserved until now, partly as a result of poor experiences in the past. The China Investment Corp., for example, invested in the initial public offering of the Blackstone Group, a private equity firm, and invested $5 billion (€3.45 billion) in Morgan Stanley. In both cases, it lost a lot of money.

But time is on the side of the Chinese. American stocks are becoming cheaper and cheaper. And the longer the crisis lasts, the weaker American objections to buyers from the Far East will become. In fact, it is quite possible that they will soon be celebrated as saviors.

The Chinese are interested in keeping the situation in the United States from spinning out of control. In a telephone conversation last Monday, Chinese President Hu Jintao told President Bush that he hoped that the measures to stabilize US financial markets would "achieve quick results and improve the economic and financial situation."

Bush had called his Chinese counterpart to inform him about his government's bailout program. Once again, the conversation symbolized just how great the mutual dependence between the two countries has become.

No Time to Gloat

Both in Asia and the United States, expressing schadenfreude over the decline of the United States as a superpower is out of place. The risk is too great that if America goes into a tailspin, it will drag the rest of the world down with it.

Despite the anger felt toward Bush, there is little enthusiasm in Europe's capitals for the political consequences. The financial crisis will reinvigorate America's tendency toward isolationism, which never quite disappeared.

The triumphalism of the Bush years could easily be followed by the "I'll-sit-this-one-out" years of an Obama administration committed to a strict policy of belt-tightening. If that happens, both old and new Europe will have to demonstrate whether the European Union can rightfully claim to be on an equal footing with the United States.

In the past, the US government's solo efforts provided the Europeans with an all-too-comfortable excuse for simply doing nothing. But that excuse is no longer valid.

BEAT BALZLI, KLAUS BRINKBÄUMER, FRANK HORNIG, HANS HOYNG, ARMIN MAHLER, ALEXANDER NEUBACHER, WOLFGANG REUTER, CHRISTOPH PAULY, MICHAEL SAUGA
URL:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,581502,00.html

Sunday 28 September 2008

Turkish President Abdullah Gul says he wants to visit Iraq soon



The Turkish President, who has accepted an invitation from his Iraqi counterpart, said Saturday he wants to visit Iraq soon and show his support for this country.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani reiterated Saturday his invitation to the Turkish President Abdullah Gul during their meeting in New York on the sidelines of a session of the U.N. General Assembly.

"The prime minister visited Iraq recently. I would also like to visit Iraq soon in a convenient time and show my support for Iraq," Gul told a press conference after the meeting.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan in July visited Iraq to meet his Iraqi counterpart Nouri al-Maliki, as the first Turkish prime minister to visit the neighboring country after 18 years.

"Iraq is Turkey's neighbor, and it is passing an important process," he added.

Gul said he and Talabani also discussed Turkey's ongoing military operations against the outlawed PKK bases in northern Iraq during their meeting in New York.
Turkey held numerous air operations to crackdown outlawed PKK separatists in the northern Iraq, and launched an eight-day long cross-border operation in February.

Turkey's operations in Iraq's largely autonomous Kurdistan region often draw protests from Baghdad. Ankara, for its part, has been highly critical of Baghdad's failure to deal with the several thousand guerrillas holed up in the north. The PKK uses northern Iraq as a base to stage attacks on targets inside neighboring Turkey.

Friday 26 September 2008

Turkish jets bombed PKK in northern Iraq

At least 10 Turkish fighter jets bombed suspected terrorist positions in northern Iraq on Thursday, senior security sources said on Friday.

The sources, who declined to be named, said the strikes began after 1900 GMT on Thursday in two separate regions in northern Iraq.

"Last night two separate regions were bombed where the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) was believed to be taking shelter," a high-ranking security official told Reuters.
Turkish armed forces have conducted several cross-border operations, including a brief land offensive, against the terrorist PKK bases in mountainous northern Iraq over the past 12 months.

Turkey says it believes that thousands of terrorist PKK militants use northern Iraq to stage attacks inside Turkey.

The government has asked parliament to extend a mandate, which expires next month, to launch further military operations against the terrorists in northern Iraq.
Since a land offensive in February, Turkey's military has confined its cross-border operations to air strikes and shelling against PKK targets.

Ankara blames the PKK, considered a terrorist organisation by the United States and the European Union, for the deaths of more than 40,000 people since it launched its campaign with the aim of autonomy in southeast Turkey in 1984.

26.09.2008
News
TODAY'S ZAMAN WITH WIRES

Thursday 25 September 2008

5 Milyon yabancıdan bir Türkmen seçildi



35 milyon’un üzerinde üyesi olan Almanya’nın ve Avrupa’nın önde gelen en büyük sağlık sigortalarından birisi olan devlet sigortası AOK, Almanya’da yaşayan yaklaşık 5 milyon yabancı arasından 2008 – 2009 yılı reklam programı çerçevesinde yabancılar arasında yaptığı kamu araştırma sonucu en seçkin, aktif ve topluma faydası olan gişeler arasından bir Kerküklü Türkmen’i seçti. Seçilen kişi Irak Türkmen Cephesi Almanya Temsilcisi sayın Ganim Authman seçilmiştir. AOK Sigorta şirketi bütün sezon boyunca dergi, reklam ve afişlerinde Sn. Authman’ın fotoğrafını kullanacaktır.

İnfo. Berlin

Wednesday 24 September 2008

ALJAZEERA VIDEO: Iraq signs multi-billion dollar deal with Shell

Iraq signs multi-billion dollar deal with Shell -
23 Sep 08

Please click on:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=t-uwxXj8OlE

Iraq deal over province elections

Parliament has now set a deadline of 31 January 2009 for elections to be held in 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces.

However, that excludes KERKUK and three other Kurdish provinces, which will hold elections at a later date, reports say.
....

The Iraqi parliament has passed a law which paves the way for provincial elections, after months of wrangling.

The decision brings to an end months of debate over how the law would be applied to the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

As a compromise, parliament has agreed to deal separately with the issue of Kirkuk, so that elections can go ahead in other parts of the country.

Agreement over the drafting of the laws has been seen as a key part of political reform in Iraq.

One member of parliament told the BBC the agreement was a sign of national reconciliation.

The law must now go before the country's three-man presidency council, headed by President Jalal Talabani.

The head of the Iraqi parliament's legal committee, Bahaa al-Araji, told reporters that a compromise deal had been reached on Kirkuk.

"We tell our brothers in the south, the centre of Iraq and Kurdistan that this is an achievement by parliament," he said.

"The elections will be soon, so the people of Iraq can put forward their votes to select new local government."

Correspondents say provincial elections are part of an American-backed plan to reconcile rival groups, particularly the Sunnis, who boycotted the last round of provincial elections in 2005.

Disputed city


Control of Kirkuk is disputed between Iraqi Arabs, Kurds and ethnic Turkmen, and disagreements over how to treat the city held up debate in parliament.
Iraqi Kurds believe they should control the city, which has a Kurdish majority but which lies outside their semi-autonomous northern enclave.

They believe any deal should reflect what they say was the "artificial Arabisation" of the city under Saddam Hussein.

But Kirkuk's ethnic Arabs and Turkmen say it should be under the control of the central government.

Parliament adopted a draft provincial election law in July, despite a boycott by Kurdish and some Shia Muslim MPs, but it was rejected by the presidential council.

Deep apathy

Polls had been scheduled for October this year, but were cancelled after MPs failed to reach an agreement.

Mahmoud Mashhadani, speaker of the Iraqi parliament, said the new deal was "what the Iraqi people want" and had been "written for them by the Iraqi politicians".

Parliament has now set a deadline of 31 January 2009 for elections to be held in 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces.

However, that excludes Kirkuk and three other Kurdish provinces, which will hold elections at a later date, reports say.

The BBC's Hugh Sykes, in Baghdad, says that the low level of registration on the electoral roll prior to the earlier cancelled polls suggests a deep level of apathy among voters.

Many people wonder what the point is of turning out to vote when they still have to endure limited electricity supplies, high unemployment and poor facilities, says our correspondent.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/7633557.stm

Published: 2008/09/24

The facts about Usury: Why Islam is Against Lending Money at Interest

To see the details please click on image of the Qur'ân


by Sahib Mustaqim Bleher
http://www.mustaqim.co.uk/

At times of economic hardship, when every good idea fails, just because "the money can't be found", when a decline in services is explained with the need "to reduce the deficit", when business can't afford new investment because of the "high cost of borrowing", when mortgage rates have gone up so much that it becomes diffcult to maintain a decent living standard, many small savers still think that high interest rates mean at least that they get the most out of their savings. The truth is, they pay more than they get.

According to most govemments the only ways to control the deficit are to raise taxes or to cut govemment spending. However, considering that the deficit continues to grow simply because of the exorbitant amounts of compound interest added to the original debt, one of the most effective ways to reduce the deficit would be to reduce interest rates.

Lower interest rates = lower deficit
In fact, at zero interest, the debt would not grow at all, and the large amounts of money spent in servicing the debt could be used to pay it off.

Now consider what the Qur'ân has to say on the subject of usury, that is lending money at interest:

Those who devour usury will not stand except as stands one whom the devil by his touch has driven to madness. That is because they say: Trade is like usury: but Allah has permitted trade and forbidden usury.... Allah will deprive usury of all blessing, but will give increase for deeds of charity, for He loves not any ungrateful sinner.... O you who believe, fear Allah and give up what remains of your demand for usury, if you are indeed believers. If you do it not, take notice of war from Allah and His messenger, but if you repent you shall have your capital sums; deal not unjustly, and you shall not be dealt with unjustly. And if the debtor is in difficulty, grant him time til it is easy for him to repay. But if you remit it by way of charity, that is best for you if you only knew. [Surah al Baqarah, verse 275-280 ].

How urgently is this message needed in a world where the "debt crisis" threatens to destroy and annihilate our civilisation, were open warfare is increasingly the consequence of the anxiety and suffering that spring from third world debt.

Politicians have seldom looked at money-lending at interest as the cause of widespread poverty in the midst of plenty, because whilst this practice was once forbidden by Judaism, Christianity and Islam alike, it has become universally accepted in the modern world of secularism.

It has been argued that money is a "producer good" and that the lender should receive a share of the extra wealth that these goods produce. Yet this is illogical on several points. The only true producer of wealth (i.e. goods and services) is Labour when it is applied to either Land or Capital. Unlike Land, Money is infinite when not artificially restricted, which it often is. Money is man-made out of nothing and at tiny real cost. This credit creation confers enormous economic power and influence on those usually private institutions who have secured for themselves monopoly rights in this money issue.

That private banks create money out of nothing is a fact too little known amongst the public. Our national debt stands at over 200 billion pounds, and that of other industrialised countries is of similar magnitude. Have you ever asked yourself who is that fabulous lender who always seems to have all the money which the government does not have? Whom does the nation owe the national debt? The truth is that when banks create money (as cheque-money or blips on computer screens) they lend what they have not got to reap where they did not sow.

Their loans are not backed by any real wealth on their behalf. Nor do they lend out depositors' money (or when did the bank last tell you that you can't take out money from your account, because it has been lent to someone else?). When you give your house or business as guarantee for their money, this money is not backed by gold, silver or tangible wealth. It is an empty promise except for the fact that the govenment, with the central bank as lender of the last resort, is ready to bail out the banks should a run on their money occur.

Bank-created credit is based on the nation's capacity to produce and consume in the sense that whilst it is not issued nor backed by the government, the government - being the largest debtor - guarantees a certain return in debt service payments from its revenue.

An increasing part of local and national government taxation today is raised for the purpose of servicing the interest payments on local and national govemment debt. So whether you personaily borrow or not, you pay the interest on that fictitious money.

Likewise, when you take a bank loan, you pay at least twice: you give a guarantee of real wealth in case of default, and you pay a penalty (as interest) for accepting money as a loan which costs the lender nothing and did not exist until it was created as a loan to you. Heads you lose, tails you lose again...

As should be evident by now, to base an economy on interest is a pretty stupid way of servicing a nation's need to produce, consume and trade. It results in the evils of inflation, unemployment, decline of services, trading war, and finally, shooting-wars.

Using interest rates as a means to control the problems of a nation's economy is futile, as these problems were created by interest in the first place. Only when a government creates its own money supply free of charge to the nation to facilitate production, consumption and trade, instead of authorising private banks to create the nation's money and then holding the nation at ransom by breaking its back under the ensuing interest debt, only when we get back to a system where the usurer is not being rewarded for taking advantage of others' difficulties, will we achieve real prosperity.

Islam, often laughed at for sticking to its principles and not "moving with the times", has never given in to the demands of the money-lenders to change its tough stance on interest. Naturally, Islam has increasingly been attacked by the financial interests behind today's media and politics.

Looking at the evidence with an open mind, however, it should not take you long to realise that Islam makes sense, and interest doesn't.

Monday 22 September 2008

Qu'elle est donc cette arme meurtrière secrète utilisée en Irak?

Le journaliste Bob Woodward compare ce programme clandestin au projet Manhattan.
L'arme secrète pourrait-elle être un effroyable canon à radiation?

Le journaliste Bob Woodward, qui s'est déjà mérité le prix Pulitzer, a révélé hier soir [le 8 septembre] à l'émission Larry King Live présentée sur CNN, que les États-Unis ont lancé un « programme meurtrier secret » en Irak qui a considérablement réduit les attaques contre les troupes de la coalition en anéantissant les résistants.

Mais de quelle arme secrète pourrait-il s'agir?

Un reportage de CNN donne le détail des révélations faites par Woodward. Le programme – que Bob Woodward compare au projet Manhattan qui a permis de développer la bombe atomique au cours de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale - doit pour l'instant demeurer secret sinon, les « personnes seront tuées, » déclarait-il à l'émission Larry King Live sur CNN.

Les opérations top secrètes vont « un jour… être dévoilées au plus grand étonnement du public, » a déclaré Woodward.

Bien qu'on n'en dévoilera pas tous les détails, Woodward a précisé que les résistants qui en ont été la cible en connaissent dorénavant toute la puissance.
« L'ennemi connaît ce danger parce qu'ils en ont été la cible et plusieurs d'entre eux ont été tués. Ce n'est rien de nouveau pour eux, » a-t-il dit.

Pour que cette arme soit comparée à la bombe atomique, on pourrait croire qu'il puisse s'agir d'une sorte de nouvelle technologie possiblement liée à la recherche sur la bombe à neutrons et sur les armes électromagnétiques.

Dès 2002, un reportage des services de nouvelles de la société Cox intitulé « Des armes micro-ondes top secrètes sont peut-être utilisées en Irak, » prétendait que l'armée se préparait à utiliser des armes micro-ondes de grande puissance capables de diriger des rafales d'énergie électromagnétique qui désactivent complètement les appareils électroniques de l'ennemi.

Cependant, les propos de Bob Woodward concernant la capacité de cette arme secrète à anéantir en grand nombre des résistants présumés laisse croire qu'il pourrait s'agir d'un engin beaucoup plus barbare que le dispositif d'arme EMP, un dispositif qui serait utilisé principalement contre des formations de troupes armées plutôt qu'à l'encontre d'insurgés dispersés.

Il est possible que cette arme soit quelque chose de similaire à la description donnée par le fantassin Majid al-Ghazali au réalisateur de films Patrick Dillon - un effroyable appareil géant lanceur de flammes qui, plutôt que de lancer des flammes, lance des sorte « d'éclairs concentrés » ou des décharges de radiation qui provoquent presque littéralement la liquéfaction des véhicules et des gens.

Le 12 avril 2003, au cours d'une bataille dans les rues de Bagdad, Majid Al-Ghazali témoigne avoir vu des troupes américaines découvrir un curieux tank qui, « tout à coup, s'est mis à lancer un flot aveuglant de ce qui semblait être à la fois du feu et de la foudre en faisant brusquement disparaître un autobus et trois voitures. »

« En quelques secondes le bus était à moitié fondu et il avait l'air «d'un chiffon humide » a-t-il dit. Il a aussi déclaré que le bus s'est rapidement atrophié et qu'il s'est rétréci à la dimension d'une coccinelle de Volkswagen. Comme si cela n'était pas suffisamment bizarre, Maqjid al-Ghazali a décrit avoir vu de nombreux corps humain se ratatiner à la taille de nouveau-nés. Avant que le combat ne soit terminé, il estime qu'entre 500 et 600 soldats et civils avaient été « cuits » vivants par ce mystérieux dispositif monté sur un tank. »

Maqjid Al-Ghazali ajoute qu'après la bataille, les troupes américaines ont scrupuleusement caché les preuves laissées par l'arme meurtrière, mais que des signes tangibles ont survécus et il les a montrées au journaliste Patrick Dillon.

Patrick Dillon, un membre du personnel médical sur les champs de bataille du Vietnam, de la Somalie et du Kosovo, déclare: « J'ai vu tout un éventail de destruction dans ma vie, les lance-flammes, le napalm, le phosphore blanc, la thermite, etc. Je connais rien de comparable à la bombe H pour liquéfier instantanément un bus ou qui puisse instantanément griller un corps humain et le réduire à la taille d'un nourrisson. » Que Dieu ait pitié de l'humanité si cette chose est un aperçu de ce qui nous attend au 21e siècle.

Des travailleurs humanitaires de même que plusieurs autres personnes appuient les reportages concernant les nouveaux systèmes d'armement terrifiant actuellement utilisés et qui provoquent des blessures horribles et une mort douloureuse. Enfin, précisons que les victimes étiquetées comme étant de simples « terroristes » par le journaliste Bob Woodward dissimule le fait qu'un grand nombre des victimes de ces armes brutales sont sans doute d'innocentes victimes prises au beau milieu des combats.

Traduction de Dany Quirion pour Alter Info
Article original anglais : http://www.prisonplanet.com/what-is-the-secret-killing-weapon-in-iraq.html NDT : Des vidéos, de langue anglaise, peuvent être visionnées à la fin de l'article original anglais.
14 Septembre
danyquirion@videotron.ca

Sunday 21 September 2008

IRAK: Morts irakiens dus à l'invasion des états unis:1.267.401

L'HORREUR DE L'OCCUPATION U.S. EN IRAK

Iraqi children cry after their parents were killed when US troops opened fire on their car as it approached a checkpoint in Tal Afar. Photo credit: Chris Hondros/Getty Images


La douleur d'enfants irakiens dont les parents ont été tués par des soldats américains lorsque leur véhicule (avec leurs six enfants à bord) s'approchait d'un check point à Tel Afar dans le nord de l'Irak en janvier 2005.



1.267.401 Morts
Le chiffre est choquant et consternant.

Il est environ 10 fois supérieur à la plupart des estimations données dans les médias américains, et est basé sur une enquête scientifique valide sur les pertes irakiennes violentes causées par l’invasion américaine de mars 2003.

Cette étude, publiée dans le prestigieux journal médical « The Lancet », a évalué que plus de 600,000 Irakiens avaient été tués suite à l'invasion depuis juillet 2006.
Les pertes irakiennes n’ont jamais cessé depuis lors.

Aujourd'hui on évalue que 1.267.401 irakiens sont morts à cause de l'invasion illégale de l'Irak par les Etats-Unis en mars 2003.

Le compteur ci-dessus fournitune mise à jour quotidienne brute de ce chiffre, basé sur un taux d'augmentation tiré du « Iraq Body Count ». (Voir l'explication complète.)

Ce bilan humain dévastateur demande une plus grande reconnaissance. Il éclipse le génocide rwandais, et les dirigeants des USA en sont directement responsables.

Pas étonnant qu’ils ne le disent pas publiquement !

http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths_fr.html




Voir : L'étude de l'ORB (Opinion Research Business) septembre 2007:



http://www.opinion.co.uk/Newsroom_details.aspx?NewsId=78


September 2007 – More than 1,000,000 Iraqis murdered


In the week in which General Patraeus reports back to US Congress on the impact the recent ‘surge’ is having in Iraq, a new poll reveals that more than 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have been murdered since the invasion took place in 2003.


Previous estimates, most noticeably the one published in the Lancet in October 2006, suggested almost half this number (654,965 deaths). These findings come from a poll released today by ORB, the British polling agency that has been tracking public opinion in Iraq since 2005.


In conjunction with their Iraqi fieldwork agency a representative sample of 1,499 adults aged 18+ answered the following question:-



Q How many members of your household, if any, have died as a result of the conflict in Iraq since 2003 (ie as a result of violence rather than a natural death such as old age)? Please note that I mean those who were actually living under your roof.


None 78%
One 16%
Two 5%
Three 1%
Four or more 0.002%



Given that from the 2005 census there are a total of 4,050,597 households this data suggests a total of 1,220,580 deaths since the invasion in 2003. Calculating the affect from the margin of error we believe that the range is a minimum of 733,158 to a maximum of 1,446,063.



Please click on this link if you want a local perspective on these figures - a short interview with our pollster Dr Munqeth Daghir - http://195.158.192.26/munqeth/

Detailed analysis (which is available on our website) indicates that almost one in two households in Baghdad have lost a family member, significantly higher than in any other area of the country. The governorates of Diyala (42%) and Ninewa (35%) were next.



The poll also questioned the surviving relatives on the method in which their loved ones were killed. It reveals that 48% died from a gunshot wound, 20% from the impact of a car bomb, 9% from aerial bombardment, 6% as a result of an accident and 6% from another blast/ordnance.



This is significant because more often that not it is car bombs and aerial bombardments that make the news – with gunshots rarely in the headlines. As well as a murder rate that now exceeds the Rwanda genocide from 1994 (800,000 murdered), not only have more than one million been injured but our poll calculates that of the millions of Iraqis that have fled their neighbourhoods, 52% have moved within Iraq but 48% have crossed its borders, with Syria taking the bulk of refugees. And for those left in Iraq, although 81% may describe the availability of basic groceries such as bread and fresh vegetables as “very/fairly good”, more than one in two (54%) consider them to be “expensive”.




Note: The opinion poll was conducted by ORB and the survey details are as follows:



•Results are based on face-to-face interviews amongst a nationally representative sample of 1,720 adults aged 18+ throughout Iraq (1,499 agreed to answer the question on household deaths)



•The standard margin of error on the sample who answered (1,499) is +2.5%



•The methodology uses multi-stage random probability sampling and covers fifteen of the eighteen governorates within Iraq. For security reasons Karbala and Al Anbar were not included. Irbil was excluded as the authorities refused our field team a permit.



•Interviews conducted August 12th – 19th 2007.

•Full results and data tabulations are available at www.opinion.co.uk/newsroom.aspx



•ORB is a full member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules

TABLESreligioncorrected.pdfFinalDeadNumbersWEIGHTED.xls

Telafer'de Patlama



21 Eylül 2008, Pazar


Bomba yüklü aracın infilakı sonucu 1 kişi öldü, 10 kişi yaralandı. Irak'ın kuzeyindeki Türkmen kenti Telafer'de meydana gelen patlamada ilk belirlemelere göre, bir kişi öldü, 10 kişi yaralandı.

Telafer'in Muallimin semtinde meydana gelen olayda, bomba yüklü olduğundan şüphenilen bir araç polis tarafından durdurulmak istendi. Bu sırada meydana gelen patlamada ilk belirlemelere göre bir kişi öldü, 10 kişi yaralandı.

Yaralılar çevredeki hastanelerde tedavi altına alındı.
Ölü ve yaralı sayısının artmasından endişe ediliyor.

TRT

Exposing the fallacy of anti-Zionism equaling anti-Semitism

by Khaled Amayreh

Influential Zionist circles around the world have been bullying western governments to promulgate legislations that would incriminate critics of Israel on the ground that anti-Zionism is actually anti-Semitism in disguise.

The Zionist efforts have not been a complete failure as some western politicians and lawmakers are shamelessly parroting the Zionist canard, ignoring the huge chasm between the pathological hatred of Jews, commonly known as anti-Semitism or Judeophobia, and the moral rejection of Israel’s manifestly criminal policies toward the Palestinian people.



In recent years, a famous French author was found guilty of displaying "anti-Semitism" for writing a book on Zionist mythology with regard to Palestine.In Austria, a British historian was dumped in jail for questioning the Israeli-Zionist narrative regarding the holocaust.And in the United States, the country of the First Amendment, a major British Publishing House has been "ousted" because it publishes books the world-wide Jewish lobby considers "anti-Israeli."Fortunately, there are many conscientious Jews who courageously reject the Zionist claim that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are two sides of the same coin.



The small but increasingly active group, known as Natori Karta (guardians of the City) represents the most pronounced Jewish opposition to Zionism and Israel.


The group believes that Zionism is inherently immoral and antithetical to true Judaism.



In light, one is almost innately prompted to ask how can a group of ultra-Orthodox Jews who include Torah sages of impeccable credentials be anti-Semites?



Well, the classical Zionist answer is that Jews who reject Zionism are self-hating Jews!!!


This explanation, however, is as valid as claiming that Germans who rejected the Third Reich were self-hating or incomplete Germans.I am making this analogy because there is really more commonality between Zionism and Nazism than there is between Zionism and Judaism.



What do they want?


But what do the Zionists hope to achieve by trying to outlaw criticisms of and public opposition to Israel and Zionism, especially in the West?



Well, their ultimate goal is clear. They want the rest of the world to recognize and acknowledge that Israel is a special nation since Jews are said to be a special people.They want the world to acknowledge that the rules and norms that apply to the rest of the world, e.g. the rule of international law, doesn’t apply to Israel.



They want me and you and the entire humanity to acknowledge that while war crimes and crimes against humanity may be condemned when perpetrated by the "goyim" (the non-Jewish world), the same crimes must be tolerated and even accepted as legitimate when perpetrated by Jews.



And when the world speaks up against such crimes when committed by Zionist Jews, the ready-made charge of "anti-Semitism" will be unleashed in the face of Israel critics.



And if the critics happen to be Jewish, the disgusting mantra of "self-hating Jews" will be invoked to silence and intimidate the Jewish critics.



Well, the world must never succumb to Zionist intimidation and bullying. We are supposed to be living in an ethical universe where right is right and wrong is wrong.And if we allowed these self-worshiping megalomaniacs, God forbid, to have their way, then at one point we would be forced to morph ourselves into robot-like slaves in the service of a universal satanic power that is hell-bent on controlling the peoples of the world by controlling the governments of the world.



Hence, we must never allow ourselves to succumb to this monstrous "Jewish power" that is trying to bastardize universal morality and corrupt human conscience. We must continue to call the spade a spade even if we see it in the hands of the strongest of men.



Israel is not hated because it is Jewish



It is important though to make it abundantly clear that Israel is no more hated for being "Jewish" than Nazi Germany was for being Aryan or German.



Israel is hated because of her evil ideology and equally evil practices. A country whose birth and survival were and continue to be at the expense of another people is an evil country and has no right to exist.



A country that is dedicated to the destruction and obliteration of another people is an evil country regardless of how many admirers its has around the world.



Israel is hated because of its systematic, institutionalized oppression, ethnic cleansing, mass murder, home demolition, apartheid, racism and slow-motion genocide of non-Jews as is the case in the Gaza Strip.



Israel is hated because it oppresses people and discriminates against them in ways reminiscent of the Nazi era because the victims don’t belong to the "holy tribe"!!!



In short, Israel is hated because of its evil acts, not because of its Jewish identity. Claiming that it is hated because of its religion or "race" is a canard amounting to a Big Lie.



Anti-Zionism highest moral obligation



There is no doubt that anti-Semitism, like Islamophobia and other forms of racism, must be fought relentlessly and uprooted, although this may well be an impossible task, given the human nature.



However, anti-Zionism is a different thing, since Zionism represents evil in is ugliest form. Yes, Zionism produced many scientists and made some technological advancements. But so what? Nazi Germany, too, produced many scientists and made technological advancement.



In the final analysis nations, like individuals, are primarily judged according to their moral credentials not scientific achievements, especially if these achievements are utilized to further injustice toward fellow human beings. This is why a given scientist who does and supports evil should be viewed as an evil man no matter how many prestigious awards he has won.



For all these reasons, I believe that standing against Zionism is a high moral obligation upon the entire humanity.



In the final analysis, combating Zionism also serves the best interests of the Jewish people .

Saturday 20 September 2008

THY resumes Baghdad flights after 17 years

Turkish Airlines (THY) will launch flights to Baghdad on Oct. 26, 17 years after it ceased flights on this route at the start of the First Gulf War.

The carrier will offer three flights a week on the İstanbul-Baghdad route. THY, in addition to its goal to draw Iraqis to İstanbul for tourism and business, aims to make İstanbul a transit hub for Iraqis traveling to European countries.

The flights will depart from İstanbul at 12:30 p.m. every Monday, Thursday and Saturday, arriving in the Iraqi capital at 4:15 p.m. The return flights from Baghdad will be on the same days at 5:45 p.m.

20.09.2008
Business
TODAY’S ZAMAN

Friday 19 September 2008

Human rights take back seat at EU-Central Asia talks

PHILIPPA RUNNER
Today @ 16:56 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - EU and Central Asian foreign ministers pledged to work together on new gas pipelines and counter-terrorism at a meeting in Paris on Thursday (18 September), with the problem of grave human rights abuses in the region pushed down the agenda.
"We re-affirm the importance of active co-operation in the development of different hydrocarbon transport corridors that aim to ensure a guaranteed and reliable supply for European markets," the ministers' joint statement said.

The Paris meeting was in itself a diplomatic coup for the EU's Central Asia policy. (Photo: eu200.fr)

The EU and the five Central Asian countries - Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan - will in future hold "regular exchanges" on security risks. The EU will help combat terrorist financing and offer expertise on how to stop the illegal traffic of people, arms and drugs.

The EU also offered to develop hydro-electric and water management projects to head off confrontation between upstream and downstream countries, such as Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan.
"The expression 'common threats and challenges' may seem audacious, as it covers two vast regions separated by ... six thousand kilometres," EU foreign relations head Javier Solana said. But energy security, terrorism and drug smuggling "impact our two societies equally and in a direct way."

The Paris meeting was in itself a diplomatic coup for the EU's Central Asia policy, launched in June 2007 with the aim of pulling the young post-Soviet states closer to the West.

The modest package, which sees EU spending of just €100 million a year on all five states, has had little impact so far. EU plans to open large embassies in the five capitals have stalled, with the blue flag visible only in Astana, Kazakhstan. Plans to build a major gas pipeline - Nabucco - linking Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan to Europe via Turkey, are also wobbling.

EU states such as Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary and Greece have backed a competing Russian pipeline. However, the Georgia conflict has made the transit route more risky, and the European Commission is sending mixed messages on whether it backs Nabucco or small-scale, compressed gas alternatives instead.

"We intend to redouble our efforts to develop energy links between the EU and Central Asia through diversified energy transportation routes and new energy infrastructure, including Nabucco," external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said in Paris.

Human rights nuisance
EU diplomacy has not been entirely ineffective. Earlier this year, Turkmenistan pledged to supply 10 billion cubic metres of gas a year for EU energy projects and none of the Central Asian countries have joined Russia in recognising Georgia's rebel enclaves as independent states.
But efforts to build relations with the repressive regimes are complicated by obligations to make at least some noise on democracy and human rights, with the values enshrined in the EU's foreign policy charter and monitored by NGOs such as Human Rights Watch (HRW).

"It's unrealistic to expect these countries to become like Europe. None of our [energy] competitors in the region - Russia, China, America - make co-operation conditional on human rights," an EU official said.

The EU has taken an increasingly soft line on values since the launch of the Central Asia package. EU states suspended a visa ban on Uzbek officials for six months and will in October debate scrapping the ban entirely. The EU's special envoy to Central Asia, Pierre Morel, is keen to push through a trade agreement with Turkmenistan despite objections from MEPs.

Neither Ms Ferrero-Waldner nor Mr Solana mentioned human rights in their Paris speeches, while the joint text made Central Asia sound like a co-guardian of EU values.

"Driven by a shared commitment to developing and organising our long-term partnership on the basis of ... respect for human rights and the development of the rule of law and democracy," the statement began.

Boiling water
The Paris meeting saw activists from French NGO Reporters Without Borders mount a brief protest inside the Turkmen embassy to demand the release of two journalists.

Annakurban Amanklychev and Sapardurdy Khadjiev have been in jail since 2006. They were arrested with a third reporter, Ogulsapar Muradova, who died in prison, AP reports.
HRW is calling for Uzbekistan to free human rights activist Akzam Turgunov, arrested for bribery, and journalist Salijon Abdurakhmanov, charged with drug smuggling, with 18 other dissidents also stuck in prison.

Mr Turgunov had boiling water poured on his neck during police questioning. "In evaluating Uzbekistan, the EU should demand evidence of real reform, because Turgunov's prosecution shows that nothing has changed," HRW researcher Igor Vorontsov said.

© 2008 EUobserver.com. All rights reserved. Printed on 19.09.2008.

Fears that Shiite-Kurdish political alliance will fall apart

Extract from Informed Comment

http://www.juancole.com/


Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that after months of wrangling in parliament over the enabling legislation for provincial elections, parliament has failed to find a mutually agreed-upon formula. Worse, the parliamentary debates on this issue have deepened the dispute between the Kurds and a Sunni-Shiite Arab coalition. There are fears that the sectarian civil war (between Shiites and Sunnis) will now be followed by an ethnic one, between Arabs and Kurds.

The escalation of this conflict has been in significant ways impelled by the imposition of the Kurdish paramilitary, the Peshmerga, on areas outside Kurdistan proper. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said of the Kurds 2 days ago, "It is impossible for a state to arise without a central power," adding "political participation does not mean a vet exercised by one side against another . . ." Al-Maliki's spirited defense of a strong central government angered many Kurds.

Al-Hayat says that US military commanders are petrified that the Shiite-Kurdish political alliance will fall apart and Arab-Kurdish fighting lead to a deterioration of the security situation.

Thursday 18 September 2008

Cross-border operation mandate to be extended, Çiçek announces

A motion granted to the government by Parliament to launch cross-border military operations into northern Iraq against terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants hiding in that area will be extended for another year, when the period of the current mandate expires on Oct. 17, government spokesperson and Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Çiçek announced yesterday, following the Cabinet's meeting during the weekly briefing he gives to journalists.

The request to extend the parliamentary permission will be sent to Parliament soon, the ministers decided in yesterday's meeting, Çiçek said.

He also announced that the Third National Program, an EU harmonization package announced by the government two weeks ago, was mailed to the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), whose administration refused to schedule an appointment with chief EU negotiator and Foreign Minister Ali Babacan to discuss the package.

Yesterday's four-and-a-half-hour Cabinet meeting discussed the World Water Forum, scheduled to be held in Turkey on March 16, 2009, Çiçek said, noting that Turkey was now capable of hosting such key organizations as the World Water Forum, in which 20,000 people will participate.

The Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) has become a shareholder in the pan-European news station Euronews, he announced. With the new partnership, Turkey will have the opportunity to explain its viewpoint on issues throughout the European Union, Çiçek said, but gave no further details on the partnership.

The Cabinet also announced that the official Ramadan Holiday, beginning on Sept. 29, will last nine days, until Oct. 2, a long-expected statement from the public.

18.09.2008
News
TODAY'S ZAMAN

Turkey Government Under Pressure To Probe Charity After Scandal

ANKARA (AFP)--Turkey's government came under pressure Thursday for a probe into an Islamist-leaning charity close to the ruling party after millions of dollars from its offspring in Germany were embezzled.

The probe into Deniz Feneri (Lighthouse) in Germany, which resulted in three convictions Wednesday, triggered a political storm in Turkey amid claims that the charity, whose founders are close to the government, might have funneled funds into the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP.

Several people based in Turkey were implicated as the masterminds who guided the three convicts and "if they are not put on trial, that will confirm that the AKP government is protecting corruption," Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a senior member of the main opposition, said.
"It's now Turkey's turn," the mass-selling Hurriyet daily trumpeted on its front page, while the English-language Turkish Daily News headlined: "Real culprits in Turkey."

A court in Frankfurt jailed the three charity managers for directing EUR14.5 million raised from the sizable Turkish community in Germany into private companies.

Most of the money is believed to have ended up in a business group close to the AKP and a television channel, Kanal 7, known as a staunch government supporter.

Among those who were implicated is also Zahid Akman, a former Kanal 7 anchorman and now the head of Turkey's media watchdog, who allegedly carried large amounts of cash from Germany to Turkey.

The government pledged it wouldn't turn a blind eye to the scandal.
"All those allegations must be investigated by Turkish prosecutors," Justice Minister Mehmet Ali Sahin said. "I believe our prosecutors will ask for the file on the case in Germany."
The scandal has the potential to shatter the AKP's claim to being a rare clean force in Turkey's corruption-ridden politics, which helped it win re-election for a second term last year with almost 47% of the vote.

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