Foreign Confidential ™
Foreign News and Analysis Since April 2005 -- formerly China Confidential -- What's Really Happening in the World
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
The Wang Lijun Affair
Click here to read about the Wang Lijun Affair and its importance to the Bo Xilai Scandal and the related Heywood Murder Mystery … and to politics in the United States, whose Chengdu-based diplomats did not grant asylum to Wang Lijun after listening to (and presumably taping) his revelations about the nexus of power and money in today's China.
The former vice mayor of Chengdu--Bo was his patron--could be convicted of treason and executed.
N. Korea Believed Close to Testing Uranium Nuke
North Korea is believed to be preparing its first test of a uranium nuclear weapon--Pyongyang's previous nuclear tests used plutonium. Click here to read more.
As the Reuters article makes clear, there is no civilian purpose for such a test. Nor was there a peaceful purpose to Pyongyang's plutonium device detonations. North Korea clearly intends to become a producer of nuclear bombs and warheads--its scientists and technicians have been working on miniaturization--and proving that it can use enriched uranium instead of plutonium to manufacture the weapons is a significant step forward for the "military-first" regime.
Iran Also Benefits
There is an Iranian hand in the North's uranium push. Should Iran decide to end its nuclear standoff with the West by accepting an agreement that will make it possible for the mullahocracy to end its suspect uranium enrichment activities while leaving intact an ability to secretly make several nuclear weapons at short notice--and at the same time also holding onto a presumed stockpile of dirty bombs--the regime would like to be able to outsource nuclear weapons production to its proliferation partner. Bombs and warheads can be smuggled; and nuclear-tipped missiles can be concealed in shipping containers and fired at coastal cities from seemingly civilian cargo vessels, using camouflaged launch systems that Iran and North Korea are believed to have already tested.
Endnote: Kimist/Communist North Korea and clerical fascist Iran will never scrap their nuclear arms programs altogether. They will stall and play for time--and play the useful idiots of the West like violins. Eventually, North Korea and Iran may even enter into phony arms control agreements. But they will never really disarm. Both rogues have learned from their common ally, Castroite Communist Cuba, that atomic arms can be used to extract a non-intervention commitment from the United States; and the regimes have also learned--by watching what happened to Libya's late leader after he abandoned weapons of mass destruction--the importance of preserving credible WMD capabilities. (Cuba is believed to have built up a formidable arsenal of biological weapons--another story.)
Copyright © 2012 Foreign Confidential™
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Lack of Insurance Could Halt Iran Oil Trade
Marine insurance, or lack of it, may yet turn out to be the most effective sanction used by Western nations in 17 years of tightening the screws on Iran's nuclear program.A European Union oil embargo on Iran, set to take effect in July, prohibits EU insurers from covering Iranian oil exports anywhere in the world. With around 90 percent of the world's tanker insurance based in the West, the arcane world of reinsurance and liability coverage has become a powerful weapon.
South American Security Agenda Ignores Iran
The Iranian threat--its intelligence gathering operations, sponsorship and control of terrorist cells and covert commando units, arms smuggling activities and cooperation with organized criminal gangs--is off the radar in South America. Click here for the story.
N. Korea Threatens US over Rocket, Food Aid
North Korea is behaving as expected, threatening the United States with retaliation for suspending food aid and hinting at new ICBM tests and possible armed confrontations. Click here for the news.
Related: A New Era of Belligerence Begins
Some Iranian ICBM Experts May Still be in N. Korea
Continued Presence Signals Possible Preparations
For More Missile Firings, Including Tests, Attacks
Foreign Confidential™ analysts believe that at least three Iranian ballistic missile experts are still in North Korea following its failed "satellite launch"--a thinly disguised test of an intercontinental ballistic missile that was produced with Iran's assistance. The remaining visitors were part of a larger Iranian delegation that observed the launch of the rocket that broke up about a minute after blasting off from the North's so-called space center.
The continued presence of Iranian missile experts in the country could be a sign that Pyongyang is preparing more missile firings, analysts say, possibly including tests of medium and long-range missiles and actual, medium-range missile strikes on South Korean targets.
Foreign Confidential™ was first among media outlets in reporting--and predicting--Iranian involvement in the North's ICBM test.
The North is also believed to be preparing a third overt test of a nuclear weapon--the regime is strongly suspected of conducting covert tests--and analysts say a delegation of Iranian nuclear experts will again observe the explosion, in keeping with past practice.
Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs would not be possible without Iranian support. The partnership of the world's most militantly atheist country--Kimist/Communist North Korea--and the world's foremost clerical fascist nation--Islamist Iran--is both ironic and telling. At the very least, their close cooperation in nuclear and missile crimes makes a mockery of the argument, popular in pro-appeasement circles, that Iran's hostility to the West in general and to the United States in particular stems to a significant degree from alleged Western and U.S. insults to Islam.
The Kimist-Islamist alliance also makes a mockery of the term international community. But that's another story.
Foreign Confidential™ (formerly China Confidential) is the only media outlet that predicted the North's two publicly acknowledged nuclear tests, in 2006 and 2009, including accurately forecasting the exact dates of the detonations.
Copyright © 2012 Foreign Confidential™
US Looking at All N. Korea Options as China Warns Ally
Nuclear Test Looms
The United States is looking at "all options" as it seeks to discourage North Korea from conducting a third nuclear test, a senior U.S. military officer said on Tuesday, days after a failed long-range rocket launch by the North that drew international condemnation.
VOA reports China has joined other world powers in warning the North that China will not tolerate further provocations. VOA:
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said late Monday in Brasilia that the U.N. Security Council members, including China, are agreed there will be "further consequences" in the event of another provocative act by North Korea. Recent satellite photographs show Pyongyang may be preparing for an underground nuclear test.China's state-controlled media are also showing signs of frustration with Pyongyang, noting that China took "a clear attitude in condemning" its longtime ally when it backed a U.N. Security Council statement criticizing the rocket launch.China's Communist Party-controlled Global Times newspaper said Tuesday that Pyongyang should not be misled into thinking it can ignore Beijing's wishes with impunity. The paper said North Korea will "pay the price if it tries to abduct China's North Korea policy."
Global Times quotes the dean of the Center for Korean Peninsula Studies at Tongji University in Shanghai as saying the North knows the consequences of another nuclear test would be much graver than in the past.
"The rocket launch has already cost the state roughly $850 million, enough to buy 2.5 million tons of corn," Cui Zhiying is reported to have said. "Does it have enough money to carry out another nuclear test? I seriously doubt it."
But Pyongyang may indeed have the money, given its (a) "military-first" policy and (b) relationship with Iran, which is believed to be subsidizing the Kimist regime's nuclear and missile programs in order to gain knowledge and divert attention from related Iranian activities.
Monday, April 16, 2012
On the Iranian Threat to Arab Nations
For more than seven years we have warned of the danger of Iranian infiltration in the region, and Tehran penetrating our states, repeating that Iran is not a “friendly” state, but rather an occupier of Arab lands.Many became jaded with these warnings, even believing they were an exaggeration, but today, after the Iranian president’s visit to the occupied Emirati island of Abu Musa, such people have started to panic and have finally become aware of the danger of Iran!However, is fear alone enough, particularly at the political level? The answer is no. Iran is active in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and Bahrain, and today it is supporting the tyrant of Damascus Bashar Assad, whose troops have so far killed more than 10,000 Syrians.In addition to all this, here is President Ahmadinejad daring to visit the occupied Emirati island of Abu Musa, as the first Iranian president to do so since Iran occupied the islands. The timing of this visit has clear and blatant implications, as it comes before the start of negotiations with the international community in Turkey, surrounding the Iranian nuclear file. The timing also coincides with UN-Arab League peace envoy Kofi Annan’s visit to Iran.This means that Ahmadinejad is effectively saying that Iran will negotiate using our region as play cards, rather than what Tehran can offer the international community with regard to the nuclear issue, i.e. Iran’s trump cards will be its interference in our region! Iran does all that, and Ahmadinejad dares to visit the occupied Emirati island of Abu Musa, but what about us, the Arabs? Where are we in relation to all that is going on?
Related: UAE Angered by Iranian Actions
Why They Call it Rocket Science
Al Qaeda Threatens Sierra Leone Troops in Somalia
The Sierra Leone Daily Mail reports Somalia's Al Qaeda-linked Al Shabab terrorists have threatened Sierra Leone peacekeeping troops in Somalia. Click here for the story.
In other security-relted news from Sierra Leone, VOA reports that Victor Foe, the Secretary-General of the country's governing All People’s Congress (APC) party, has reaffirmed that the government of President Ernest Bai Koroma is committed to holding free, fair, and non-violent elections in November. Foe’s comment came after the UN Security Council last week advised the government not to over-react to security threats after its reported purchase of assault weapons for the West African nation's police force.
The opposition Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) had accused the government of trying to intimidate its members ahead of the November 17 elections.
The APC's Foe firmly rejected the allegation, saying the opposition should look for a better message to counter Koroma’s record on socioeconomic development.
Foe said the government is being proactive by preparing for war in time of peace.
Police Force Doubled in Size
“The police force was only 5,000 in number" Foe explained. "Now, the police have grown in number to 11,000. That is more than a 100 percent increase. So, they have to be armed; they have to be provided with boots, uniforms and all of that. So, bringing in arms is not necessarily an unusual thing. It is merely the usual thing, to be proactive."
Foe said the elections should be a referendum on Koroma’s first term in office.
“The opposition ought to do their homework," Foe said. "President Ernest Bai Koroma has done a good four-year, five-year term of office. I believe the elections [in] 2012 should be a referendum on what he has been doing in his first term in office."
Regional Security Threats Noted
Foe stressed that Koroma is not afraid of elections, and not interested in intimidating an opposition that Foe described as a fragile group that is losing its membership by the day. [Foreign Confidential™ sources in Sierra Leone confirm that the SLPP is suffering mass defections as Koroma's popularity seems to be rising along with increasedforeign investment in mining, agriculture, tourism and other sectors of the economy.]
Foe said current upheavals in the West Africa sub-region give are reasons for Sierra Lone to prepare for war in time of peace.
“Look at what is happening in the sub-region," Foe said. "Look at what has happened in Mali. Look at what is happening all around us. Do [you] want to tell me that President Ernest Bai Koroma’s government must sit idly by and not arm the police, who are in charge of internal security and military, who are charge of external security?”
Yonhap Confirms Foreign Confidential™ Reporting: Iranians Involved in Ballistic Missile Program Observed N. Korea Launch
A dozen Iranian officials, responsible for the country's ballistic missile program, visited North Korea last week to observe its latest rocket launch, which ended in failure, a diplomatic source here said Sunday."On March 31, 12 Iranians of the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group (SHIG) arrived in North Korea. The Iranians undoubtedly were there to observe the missile launch and receive test data from North Korea," the source told Yonhap News Agency, requesting anonymity.South Korean government officials neither confirmed nor denied the allegations, citing a practice of not commenting on intelligence-related matter.
Iran was involved in Pyongyang's provocation, analysts say. North Korea's proliferation partner paid for the launch; Iranians observed the event.
The next day, Friday, April 13, Foreign Confidential™ again reported that an Iranian delegation "observed the North's missile launch … and will also be on hand for the country's upcoming missile firings … and nuclear tests."
Three days earlier, on April 10, Foreign Confidential™ reported "that a delegation of Iranian military and intelligence officers and scientists and technicians will be on hand for the event, as they were for previous nuclear and missile tests."
Iranian experts will probably observe the upcoming missile launch, which is set for sometime between April 12 and 16.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Why China's Bo Xilai Scandal Matters
The Bo Xilai scandal--the way it is unfolding and the power struggle that it reflects--is a reminder of how wrong the West's business and financial leaders and fawning media outlets were regarding China's political development. Contrary to their rosy predictions, China's astonishing economic transformation has not led to political democratization--certainly not at level of the national government, which controls national security and foreign policy.
The foolish conflating of economics and politics--the former is about wealth; the latter, power--recalls the forecasts of the period between the two world wars. The Nobel laureate Norman Angell, for example, argued in his popular nonfiction book, The Great Illusion, that the "economies of European countries had grown to such a degree that war between them would be entirely futile, making militarism obsolete." We all know how that turned out.
Which is not to say that China and the United States are destined to fight each other. On the contrary; although the potential for a future armed conflict between the countries clearly exists, it can and must be prevented.
The key to peace preservation is diplomacy. More specifically, avoiding a potentially catastrophic adversarial relationship will require a long-overdue revival of a concept that the "democracy promotion" and "humanitarian intervention" zealots have branded as obsolete--spheres of influence (as the term was used during the Cold War, of course, and not during the age of imperialism, when the industrialized European nations forced their way into China).
Notwithstanding its historic defense and security ties to Japan, which must remain strong for decades to come, the U.S. will have to recognize East Asia as China's sphere; and China will have to recognize Latin America and the Caribbean as America's sphere. Additionally, both nations will have to agree on what constitutes acceptable levels and forms of competition outside their spheres--for example, in Africa, where China has developed controversial political relationships in its relentless pursuit of energy and raw materials, or in the Middle East, where China's thirst for oil and interest in countering U.S. power and influence has (a) emboldened a nuclear-arming, clerical fascist regime that is bent on destroying Israel and driving the U.S. from the region, and (b) bolstered the Islamist regime's secular ally, which is waging war on its own people.
The urgent need for mutual understandings about spheres of influence and rules of competition between Washington and Beijing … and Washington and Moscow … is increasingly obvious and inexplicably ignored by the mainstream media, including liberal and conservative outlets.
Endnote: Ironically, the post-Cold War tendency of both Republican and Democratic U.S. administrations to treat the entire world as a U.S. sphere of influence has coincided with China's alarming Caribbean encroachment. Click here to read a column that indicates it could be too late to stop China from gaining potential military advantages in America's own backyard.
Copyright © 2012 Foreign Confidential™
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