Tuesday, April 21, 2009
On the Chinese-African Relationship
Collin Spears has published an in-depth analysis of the Chinese-African relationship. An excerpt appears below.China’s prevailing business model in Africa has been to look for niche opportunities where Western companies have found it too politically controversial, too risky, or financially enviable. For example, many of the assets held by China’s national oil company were too small for international oil companies and were either passed on or relinquished. China has also marketed itself as an alternative for African nations that are no longer interested in traditional Western aid programs, which often required economic and political restructuring. China offers less aid and more loans and business opportunities.
In addition, China is often willing to pay for goods with infrastructure projects and training. By the end of 2008, China trained 11,000 African professionals. Two thousand African students receive scholarships to study in China each year, most of whom study engineering, medicine, and science; that number is expected to double. China sends professionals to Africa to work on various environmental, medical, and agricultural projects. China has also dedicated $3 billion to the China-Africa Development Fund, which has funded 20 projects. The fund provides preferential loans to African nations and preferential buyers’ credit, as well as waives bad debts.
In spite of these humanitarian efforts, China continues to take heavy criticism from the West. Many complain that much of Africa is already struggling to develop and China not only promotes and enables bad governance, but also destroy domestic businesses through unfair competition. Beijing’s economic model for development runs counter to Western free market neo-liberalism, which critics often complain is a detrimental example for African governments.
There are also complaints about China’s lending practices. The former Bush Administration accused China of being a “rogue creditor” by not only bypassing the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, but also not adhering to their lending standards, which encourage transparency and assesses the overall fiscal health of the lender. To maintain good long-term relations, China has canceled the debt of 31 African countries to the tune of $1.2 billion.
China has been panned for its military sales and reluctance to punish nations the West see as pariah states. It is true that China has a non-interference policy in the domestic affairs of sovereign nations, which it has long promoted in the UN Security Council. Despite this, China has pushed for a stronger role for Peacekeepers in Sudan, where it has contributed its own troops, as well the Democratic Republic of Congo and Liberia.
From 2003 to 2006, 15% percent of total arms sales to Africa came from China, putting them behind Russia and Germany. These sales included those to Sudan, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Burundi, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. Still the United States and other Western nations express hypocritically selective outrage. During the Cold War, the West propped up dictatorships or overthrew democratically elected governments based on its interests and continues to do so. China’s behavior is far from unique; the real issue is that China and the West have interests that currently conflict.
Click here to read the entire essay.Monday, April 20, 2009
American Met Fugitive Assassin Before Vanishing
The mysterious disappearance in Iran of an American private detective and former FBI agent, Robert Levinson, continues to confound intelligence experts. Levinson was last seen on Kish Island, an Iranian resort, two years ago. He is believed to have been investigating a cigarette smuggling case.
He vanished after meeting with an Iranian assassin, David Belfield.
An African-American convert to Islam, Belfield (aka Dawud Salahuddin) murdered Ali Tabatabai in Bethedsa, MD in 1980. Belfield posed as a letter carrier in order to gun Tabatabai down with a 9 mm pistol in the doorway of his suburban home.
Tabatabai was a press attache to the Iranian Embassy in Washington, DC before the overthrow of the Shah, reporting to Iran's charismatic and popular ambassador, Ardeshir Zahedi. After the revolution, Tabatabai founded and led the Iran Freedom Foundation. His statements and press releases on the Ayatollah's atrocities--aided by Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization, which supplied shooters for firing squads and terrorist trainers--resulted in a steady stream of death threats. But the Carter administration, which betrayed the Shah in a craven attempt to curry favor with Khomeini--whom Carter's U.N. envoy, Andrew Young, referred to as a "saint"--steadfastly refused to protect Tabatabai.
In his last days, the former diplomat began to carry a revolver for personal protection. Fearing for his life, he told friends that he was going to resign the presidency of the Iran Freedom Foundation, which he ran from his home office, following a planned protest that aimed to highlight the Khomeini-PLO connection.
Tabatabai was killed days before the demonstration. Belfield, who worked for the Algerian Embassy's Iran interest section, was allowed to escape the country. He made his way to a hero's welcome in Iran, where he has lived ever since.
The Tabatabai assassination was what journalists used to call a "one-day wonder." Liberal editors, reporters, and pundits have shown no interest in the case. Had Tabatabai worked for an anti-American regime instead of an American ally (and tacit ally of Israel), the story of his murder would have been thoroughly investigated.Recalling a Heroic CIA Officer, Kidnapped, Tortured and Murdered by Iran-Backed Islamist Terrorists
Fact: In the wake of the Obama administration's release of the so-called torture memos, the liberal media is showing more concern for the supposed rights of the mastermind of 9/11--the worst-ever attack on American soil--than the media ever showed for the CIA's heroic station chief in Lebanon, William Buckley, who was taken hostage by a Hezbollah front group in March 1984, and died in captivity the next year, after undergoing 15 months of truly horrible, Nazi-like torture. His Islamist Iran-backed, terrorist kidnappers boasted of torturing and killing him; they even sent three videos to the CIA to document their monstrous work.
A detailed, disturbing account of the case can be found here.Book Reveals Carter's Role in Iranian Menace
Who knows what sort of calamity he may unleash on the world?
-Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi (commenting on U.S. President Jimmy Carter).
Mike Evans has written the book this reporter always wanted to write (but never got around to). In 1978, as managing editor of an important weekly, he predicted in a front-page article that the Carter administration-assisted overthrow by the Ayatollah Khomeini of a staunch American ally, Iran's Shah, would result in the installation of an implacable foe--a viciously antidemocratic, anti-American, anti-Israel regime. The article followed a prediction by America's United Nations envoy, Andrew Young, that Khomeini would eventually be seen as a "saint."
Click below to view a promotional video for Jimmy Carter: The Liberal Left and World Chaos. The provocative subtitle, A Carter/Obama Plan That Will Not Work, makes the book extremely timely.
Evans tells China Confidential:On Inauguration Day 1980, shortly after 4:00 AM, President Carter wire-transferred $7.9 billion in an attempt to buy back the American hostages held in Iran, after 444 days of humiliation.
On Inauguration Day 2009, Carter released his Plan for Peace in the Holy Land to persuade President Obama to weaken Israel, America's strongest ally in the Middle East; support terror regimes that have murdered scores of Americans and Israelis; and heed the call to divide Jerusalem, giving East Jerusalem to the Palestinian Authority as its Islamic capital.
This is an appeasement plan that will not solve the problems in the Holy Land; it will instead unify and embolden radical Islam once again.US Treasury Targets Qaeda-Linked Chinese Islamist
The U.S. Department of the Treasury on Monday targeted Al Qaida's support network by designating Abdul Haq, the overall leader and commander of the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Party (ETIP), a terrorist organization. The Treasury acted pursuant to an Executive Order that targets terrorists and those providing financial, technological, or material support to terrorists or acts of terrorism by freezing the assets of designated persons and prohibiting transactions with them.
The United Nations Security Council has placed Haq on its list of persons associated with Osama Binladen, Al Qaida, or the Taliban and subject to sanctions by U.N. member states.
"Abdul Haq commands a terror group that sought to sow violence and fracture international unity at the 2008 Olympic Games in China," said Stuart Levey, Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. "Today, we stand together with the world in condemning this brutal terrorist and isolating him from the international financial system."
Overall ETIP Leader
Haq, aka Maimaitiming Maimaiti, is the overall leader and commander of the ETIP, which is also known as the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement.
As the group's overall leader, Haq raised funds, recruited new members and further developed the terrorist organization.
In early January 2008, Haq directed ETIP's military commander to attack various Chinese cities, particularly focusing on the cities holding the Olympic Games. Under Haq, trained terrorists planned to sabotage the Olympic Games by conducting terrorist attacks within China before the Olympics began.
Since late 2007, Abdul Haq sent terrorists to the Middle East to raise funds and buy explosive materials for terrorist attacks against Chinese targets outside China. Haq became the leader of ETIP following the death of the previous ETIP leader in October 2003. As of 2005, Haq was also a member of Al Qaida's Shura Council.China Making Major Military Advances
China's nuclear, space and cyberwarfare capabilities are steadily improving.
A Chinese admiral told state media last week that China aims to accelerate development of warships, stealth submarines and long-range missiles. A stronger navy is a priority in military modernization, he said.
State media have played up the government's announced intention to build an aircraft carrier. The vessel is seen as a sign of a strong, mature country capable of protecting its far-flung interests, including trade and investment in overseas oil and other natural resources.
China has also developed a revolutionary, new "kill weapon" capable of targeting and destroying American aircraft carriers with a single strike. The Dong Feng 21 anti-ship ballistic missile has been tested and is believed to be operational--the first-ever ballistic missile designed to attack vessels at sea.
There is no known defense for ships against a ballistic missile attack.
China Confidential reported on the Dong Feng-21 on March 31. Click here for the story.Insolvent GM Sees its Future in China
Was the giant American automaker bailed out to build cars in China?
Bloomberg's Stephanie Wong reports General Motors, "shuttering U.S. plants in a bid to avoid bankruptcy, is 'likely' to build a new factory in China on surging demand."
China Confidential auto industry sources say GM is planning to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection--a pre-packaged, financial restructuring--within 30 days.Holocaust-Denying Iranian Maniac-in-Chief Tells UN Israel Established on 'Pretext of Jewish Suffering'
On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, a wannabe Hitler, the Holocaust-denying president of nuclear-arming, Islamist Iran, has again signaled to the world that he intends to make good on his vow to annihilate the Jewish State.
Reuters reports:Diplomats streamed out of a United Nations conference on racism Monday after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Israel had occupied Palestinian land on "the pretext of Jewish suffering."
"Following World War II they resorted to military aggressions to make an entire nation homeless under the pretext of Jewish suffering," Ahmadinejad told the conference, speaking through a translator.
"And they sent migrants from Europe, the United States and other parts of the world in order to establish a totally racist government in the occupied Palestine," he said.
"And in fact, in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe, they helped bring to power the most cruel and repressive racist regime in Palestine."
In Israel, the annual Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah) will begin Monday night. All places of entertainment will be closed as the country marks special memorial services for the six million Jews slaughtered by the Nazi regime.
This year's theme of remembrance is "Children in the Holocaust.”
During the annual "Every Person Has a Name" ceremony, the names of children murdered in the Holocaust will be read aloud.
Approximately one-and-a-half million of the victims were children.
Not by accident, an Iranian-backed Hamas leader has called for the extermination of Jewish children along with all Jews everywhere. Click here or scroll down to view the video of his hate speech.Japanese Politician Agrees with China Confidential, Says N. Korea Has Nuclear Warheads, Can Hit Tokyo
A former Japanese finance minister, Shoichi Nakagawa, has suggested that Japan should consider developing its own nuclear deterrent in the face of growing threats from nuclear-armed North Korea.
Nakagawa, who represents northern Japan, was quoted by Kyodo News as saying: "It is common sense worldwide that in a purely military sense it is nuclear that can counteract nuclear."
The senior politician also said he believed that North Korea was in possession of nuclear warheads and medium range Rodong missiles capable of being delivered to any part of Japan.
Click here for the story.Sunday, April 19, 2009
Tuesday, 21 April 2009
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