GS(3) Intelligence Briefing: Trouble Ahead in Turkey & Poland, Al Qaeda's "Long War" Trap, More on Severe Weather, Energy Security & Cyber Security

NOTE: GS(3) Intelligence Briefing is posted on a bi-weekly basis. As circumstances dictate, we may post special editions. The Briefing is organized into five sections: Europe, Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific, Americas, Global, and Cyberspace. Each issue provides insight on terrorism, cyber crime, climate change, health emergencies, natural disasters, and other threats, as well as recommendations on what actions your organizations should take to mitigate risks. “Words of Power" commentary is also posted on a bi-weekly basis. This commentary explores a range of issues in the interdependent realms of security, sustainability, and spirit. For more information, go to http://www.wordsofpower.net/

Here are highlights from 10 items, including both news stories and op-ed pieces, which provide insight on important global issues and trends, such as global warming, energy security, the struggle for geopolitical hegemony, economic disparities, and cyber crime. (Bird flu and the Yogyakarta earthquake were dealt with in previously posted GS(3) Thunderbolts.) Excerpts and links follow below this summary. Customized analysis is provided for clients.



Europe, Middle East & Africa
Though Turkey is continuing with preparations for the start of accession negotiations with the European Union, some troubling developments in recent months have prompted European diplomats and local observers to question the country’s determination to enact and adhere to EU-related reforms.…. While public support for EU membership was close to 80 percent two years ago, it now hovers at around 50 percent….There is some concern now that growing political tension in Turkey may further hinder the reform process….Eurasianet, 5-25-06)
London and Brussels feature as the richest EU regions, while the six poorest regions are all in Poland, according to new figures published on Thursday (18 May) by Eurostat, the EU's statistics office. The economic power of the top region - Inner London and the bottom region in the ranking - Lubelskie in Poland - differed by 278 to 33 per cent of the union's average respectively. (EU Observer, 5-19-06)

Asia Pacific
In recent weeks, media reports from both Iraq and Afghanistan have suggested the appearance of a slow evolution of the Islamist insurgents' tactics in the direction of the battlefield deployment of larger mujahideen units that attack "harder" facilities.  These attacks are not replacing small-unit attacks, ambushes, kidnappings, assassinations and suicide bombings in either country, but rather seem to be initial and tentative forays toward another stage of fighting….Al-Qaeda believes that it and its allies can only defeat the United States in a "long war", one that allows the Islamists to capitalize on their extraordinary patience, as well as on their enemies' lack thereof. (Michael Scheuer, Asia Times, 5-31-06)
Flash floods that hit northern Thailand this week, killing nearly 100 people, have revealed the vulnerability of communities to freak weather patterns in the region, say environmentalists. And this, they warn, will not be the last…. (Inter Press Service, 5-25-06)

Americas
US government forecasters earlier this month warned of another "very active" tropical storm season in the Atlantic Ocean, with an above-average 8-10 hurricanes expected to form over the next six months….Of the eight to 10 storms expected to reach hurricane status - with sustained winds of at least 74 miles an hour - four to six were likely to become "major" storms, reaching 3 or higher on the five-category scale of hurricane strength….(Financial Times Deustcheland,  5-30-06)
"We can't keep the soldiers at the petroleum wells," [President Evo] Morales said in comments Sunday. "We're going to withdraw the armed forces beginning Monday". Morales launched his nationalization plan on May 1 and ordered troops to guard all energy installations as well as gas stations and offices of foreign companies operating in Bolivia….The foreign companies, who allege have invested almost 6 billion US dollars since the 1990s, have 6 months to negotiate new contracts with the government or leave the country. (Mercosur Press, 5-30-06)

Global
Biologists have long recognized that when a species enters exponential growth in population, consumption, and the creation of wastes, it has entered plague mode(4). Humankind, however, appears oblivious to what is happening, and its political leadership has repeatedly failed to acknowledge that exponential growth by definition must have limits. By acting as if humanity can continue its expansionist trajectory indefinitely, we fail to apply to ourselves what is accepted as self evident for all other species.….Civilization overshoot of course has occurred many times in earlier years at the local geographic level; now for the first time it is occurring globally.  (Canadian Association for the Club of Rome, 5-23-06)
Climate models that predict the Earth's average temperature could rise as much as 10 degrees by the end of the century may have underestimated the increase by as much as four degrees. New research at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory suggests that as carbon dioxide emissions heat the globe, hotter oceans and soils will release stored carbon dioxide, which will in turn kick up the thermostat an extra notch…."It's a vicious cycle where more warming causes more greenhouse gas emissions, and more greenhouse gas emissions cause more warming," Torn said. "That could have serious consequences both for human populations and biodiversity." (Knight Ridder, 5-23-06)
The melting ice cap represents a colossal commercial opportunity….What is being discovered there?  Oil and natural gas. A quarter of the world’s untapped fossil fuels (including 375 billion barrels of oil) are thought to lie under the Arctic, and will become accessible as the ice melts…But who owns the Arctic? Unlike the Antarctic, which was carved up in 1959, there is no international treaty to determine each Arctic nation’s ownership….Is that a recipe for conflict? Yes….
(The Week, 5-12-06)

Cyberspace

Symantec has repaired a serious problem with versions of its leading anti-virus software, which protects some of the world's largest corporations and U.S. government agencies. The flaw lets hackers steal sensitive data, delete files or implant malicious programs.…eEye published a note about its discovery on its website last week but pledged not to reveal details publicly that would help hackers attack Internet users until after Symantec repaired its anti-virus software. (Ted Birdis, Associated Press, 5-30-06)



Europe, Middle East & Africa

Though Turkey is continuing with preparations for the start of accession negotiations with the European Union, some troubling developments in recent months have prompted European diplomats and local observers to question the country’s determination to enact and adhere to EU-related reforms.
“Watching it from Ankara, there’s a sense that the political will in Ankara is not as strong as it was, if there’s any left at all, to invest in this process with Europe,” says a diplomat from an EU country, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue….Most troubling from the EU perspective have been a number of court cases in which writers have been accused of insulting the state and “Turkishness,” raising concern about Turkey’s commitment to freedom of speech. Rights activists are worried that a new anti-terror bill that the government plans to introduce contains several troubling articles…. While public support for EU membership was close to 80 percent two years ago, it now hovers at around 50 percent….There is some concern now that growing political tension in Turkey may further hinder the reform process. The recent killing of a top judge in Ankara has placed the AKP government firmly on the defensive….
Yigal Schleifer, TURKEY BATTLES BOUT OF EU REFORM FATIGUE, Eurasianet,  5/25/06

London and Brussels feature as the richest EU regions, while the six poorest regions are all in Poland, according to new figures published on Thursday (18 May) by Eurostat, the EU's statistics office. The economic power of the top region - Inner London and the bottom region in the ranking - Lubelskie in Poland - differed by 278 to 33 per cent of the union's average respectively.  Out of the EU's 254 regions, 37 exceeded the 125 per cent level - with seven of them being in Germany, six in Italy and the UK, five in the Netherlands, three in Austria and two in Belgium and Finland. The only new member state to feature in the group was the Czech Republic, with Prague recording 138 percent of the EU's average
The countries from central and eastern Europe, which joined the block in 2004, dominate the lowest positions of the table, with sixteen Polish regions below 60 per cent of the EU's average, seven in the Czech Republic and six in Hungary.
The lowest ranked region amongst the old member states was Norte in Portugal (57%), while several poorer regions can be found in Greece, Italy and Germany, as well as overseas departments of France.
The survey is based on the 2003 GDP per inhabitant figures which are expressed in terms of purchasing power standards and it monitors the total economic activities of a region.
Lucia Kubosova, Huge gap remains between EU's richest and poorest regions, EU Observer, 5-19-06


Asia Pacific

In recent weeks, media reports from both Iraq and Afghanistan have suggested the appearance of a slow evolution of the Islamist insurgents' tactics in the direction of the battlefield deployment of larger mujahideen units that attack "harder" facilities.  These attacks are not replacing small-unit attacks, ambushes, kidnappings, assassinations and suicide bombings in either country, but rather seem to be initial and tentative forays toward another stage of fighting.  In the past month, reports have suggested Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his Iraqi resistance allies are trying to train semi-conventional units, and this month's large-unit action by the Taliban at the town of Musa Qala in southern Afghanistan may be straws in the wind in this regard.
Al-Qaeda believes that it and its allies can only defeat the United States in a "long war", one that allows the Islamists to capitalize on their extraordinary patience, as well as on their enemies' lack thereof. Before his death in a firefight with Saudi security forces, the leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Abu Hajar Abd al-Aziz al-Muqrin, wrote extensively about how al-Qaeda believed the military fight against the US and its allies would unfold. He envisioned a point at which the mujahideen would have to develop semi-conventional forces. He identified this period as the "Decisive Stage"
Michael Scheuer, Al-Qaeda's long march to war, Asia Times, 5-31-05

Flash floods that hit northern Thailand this week, killing nearly 100 people, have revealed the vulnerability of communities to freak weather patterns in the region, say environmentalists. And this, they warn, will not be the last.
The heavy rains in the three worst-hit provinces bear this out. Uttaradit, Sukhothai and Phrae received, over the weekend, a fifth of their annual rainfall, which is 1,500 millimetres, leading to Tuesday's flash floods and mudslides….These early monsoon rains have transformed some areas into a sea of mud that, at some points, was nearly two meters deep. The local media have carried images of wooden homes collapsed and on their sides and people waist-deep in water wading through streets. Over 100,000 people have been affected.  Greenpeace pointed out that such freak weather due to climate change was predicted by scientists at a Bangkok conference in March. They referred to Anond Sanidwongs of the Asia Pacific Network for Global Change Research predicting that ''La Nina is forming and should start hitting Thailand and Asia in the next two months, at the beginning of the rainy season.'' He had further predicted that ‘'the La Nina event will cause landslides and flooding nationwide.''
La Nina, which means ''the little girl'' in Spanish, is the name given to changing climate patterns arising out of extremely cold ocean temperatures in the equatorial region of the Pacific Ocean….''Government must take note of this changing weather patterns as well as realising that more people are living in vulnerable areas,'' says Durst of the U.N. food agency. ''More preparedness is needed to mitigate the impact on communities.'' (END/2006)
Marwaan Macan-Markar, THAILAND: Flash Floods Warn of Climate Change, Inter Press Service (IPS), 5-25-06


Americas

US government forecasters earlier this month warned of another "very active" tropical storm season in the Atlantic Ocean, with an above-average 8-10 hurricanes expected to form over the next six months. The prediction came as the US, Central America and the Caribbean continue recovering from last year's savage storm season, when a record 15 hurricanes caused heavy loss of life, billions of dollars in insurance claims and a jump in oil and gas prices. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the Atlantic remained in a period of elevated storm activity that had been under way for more than a decade, caused by unusually warm ocean temperatures and various atmospheric factors. Each hurricane that makes landfall in the US causes an average $3bn (£1.6bn) in insurance losses, according to the Tropical Storm Risk Insurance Consortium. Four storms - Katrina, Rita, Wilma and Dennis - exceeded that figure last year, but the estimated cost of Katrina alone was $80bn….The forecast is down from last year's record 28 named storms but above the long-term annual average of 11. Of the eight to 10 storms expected to reach hurricane status - with sustained winds of at least 74 miles an hour - four to six were likely to become "major" storms, reaching 3 or higher on the five-category scale of hurricane strength….Tropical storms also threaten the Gulf coast oil and gas industry, which provides about a quarter of US supplies.
Andrew Ward, US coast braced for another battering, Insurance premiums, gasoline prices, and people's nerves could all shoot sky-high, Financial Times Duestcheland, .

[President Evo] Morales launched his nationalization plan on May 1 and ordered troops to guard all energy installations as well as gas stations and offices of foreign companies operating in Bolivia. However the guarding of the gas stations and offices provoked criticism in Bolivia and bad feeling in the two largest energy investors in the country, Brazil's Petrobras and Spanish-Argentine Repsol YPF. At the time Bolivian authorities said the purpose of the military guard was to protect energy installations against possible acts of sabotage from the companies affected or from celebrations by extreme nationalist groups. As part of the nationalization, Bolivia's state energy company plans to take majority control over all energy operations in the country. The foreign companies, who allege have invested almost 6 billion US dollars since the 1990s, have 6 months to negotiate new contracts with the government or leave the country.
Bolivia withdraws troops from oil industry, Mercosur Press, 5-30-06


Global

Prior to the onset of the Industrial Revolution, world population had less than tripled during the preceding 1,750 years; during the last 255 years it has increased more than 8-fold, from 800 million to 6.5 billion. The population increase during the Industrial Revolution represents an incredible rate of increase 21 times greater than it was during the preceding 1,750 year period.
Until very recently, the world sounded no alarm bells in response to the above unprecedented increase in human numbers, together with a more than 100-fold increase in the consumption of natural resources during the same period, and an even greater level of increase in the pollution of the planet and its atmosphere. Our obsessive homocentric focus on ourselves has blinded us to the perils of destroying the ecosphere, the planetary home of humans and all other life forms. We have become a species run amok.
Biologists have long recognized that when a species enters exponential growth in population, consumption, and the creation of wastes, it has entered plague mode(4). Humankind, however, appears oblivious to what is happening, and its political leadership has repeatedly failed to acknowledge that exponential growth by definition must have limits. By acting as if humanity can continue its expansionist trajectory indefinitely, we fail to apply to ourselves what is accepted as self evident for all other species.….Civilization overshoot of course has occurred many times in earlier years at the local geographic level; now for the first time it is occurring globally. There are important differences between the collapse of historic civilizations in earlier times and the approaching collapse of today’s technically advanced global civilization. These differences include:
• Unlike all earlier civilizations, in the early 21st century we possess detailed population, economic, resource, and environmental data, as well as sophisticated computer analyses and projections, that provide us with advance warning of collapse. We possess the tools to warn us what may be coming, earlier civilizations did not.
• Because our present civilization is complex, its scope is global, and overshoot is increasing rapidly, the magnitude of mitigation efforts requires an unprecedented level of global cooperation and discipline, as well as preparation time measured in decades(7).
• The fact that our present civilization is global, not limited to one geographic area, as well as the fact that supplies of many critical resources are diminishing, increases the potential of global collapse imperiling the future of all humankind, perhaps for centuries. The stakes this time are very much greater.
While the evidence indicates that it is now too late to rescue civilization as it now exists, it may not be too late to preserve key elements of civilization, and the world’s present knowledge base. An important first step in formulating a survival blueprint for humankind is the adoption of a new world view to replace today’s doctrine of species selfish homocentrism with an ecologically responsible and Earth-centered perspective.
Andrew A. D. Clarke, The human ecological footprint, Canadian Association for the Club of Rome, 5-23-06

Climate models that predict the Earth's average temperature could rise as much as 10 degrees by the end of the century may have underestimated the increase by as much as four degrees. New research at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory suggests that as carbon dioxide emissions heat the globe, hotter oceans and soils will release stored carbon dioxide, which will in turn kick up the thermostat an extra notch. "We've probably underestimated the problem," said UC Berkeley ecologist John Harte….Harte and biogeochemist Margaret Torn of the Berkeley lab predict that if humans double the carbon dioxide, that will actually lead to more carbon dioxide being released naturally, which in turn will push the global thermostat up between 2.9 and 11 degrees, with the higher temperatures more likely. By the end of the century, the increase could be as much as 14 degrees. "It's a vicious cycle where more warming causes more greenhouse gas emissions, and more greenhouse gas emissions cause more warming," Torn said. "That could have serious consequences both for human populations and biodiversity."
Betsy Mason, Global Warming Could Be Worse Than Predicted, Research, Knight Ridder, 5-23-06

How fast is the ice cap melting?
….With average temperatures in the Arctic rising twice as fast as elsewhere in the world, climate scientists predict the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free by the summer of 2050….
Who stands to lose from all this?
The melting of the ice could shut down the Gulf Stream and wreak havoc with the world’s coasts and climate. It would spell potential disaster for traditional Arctic communities, for ecosystems, and for plant and animal species…
Who stands to gain?
The melting ice cap represents a colossal commercial opportunity….
What is being discovered there?
Oil and natural gas. A quarter of the world’s untapped fossil fuels (including 375 billion barrels of oil) are thought to lie under the Arctic, and will become accessible as the ice melts…
But who owns the Arctic?
Unlike the Antarctic, which was carved up in 1959, there is no international treaty to determine each Arctic nation’s ownership….
Is that a recipe for conflict?
Yes. Each summer, research ships from the Arctic nations set out on political missions to map the ocean floor to bolster territorial claims.…
How will these conflicts be resolved?
In theory, through negotiation, but when two nations cannot agree, the U.N. Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf is brought in as an arbitrator. (It has just turned down a Russian demand for greater Arctic rights.) The U.S., however, won’t accept the commission’s authority…
The Battle for the North Pole, The melting Arctic ice cap may be bad news for polar bears, but it is prompting a frantic scramble for territory and resources. What’s at stake?, The Week, 5-12-05


Cyberspace

Symantec has repaired a serious problem with versions of its leading anti-virus software, which protects some of the world's largest corporations and U.S. government agencies. The flaw lets hackers steal sensitive data, delete files or implant malicious programs.  Symantec, of Cupertino, Calif., began providing a repairing patch for its software over the Memorial Day weekend, just days after researchers disclosed the problem. The speedy response — many software manufacturers take months to do similar repairs — underscored the seriousness of the threat, which affected the latest corporate versions of Symantec Anti-virus. ….Symantec said its engineers have worked 24 hours a day on the problem since its discovery last week by eEye Digital Security of Aliso Viejo, Calif…eEye published a note about its discovery on its website last week but pledged not to reveal details publicly that would help hackers attack Internet users until after Symantec repaired its anti-virus software.
Ted Birdis, Symantec repairs flaw in anti-virus software, Associated Press, 5-30-06

Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and http://www.wordsofpower.net. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to http://www.wordsofpower.net/

global warming, climate change,
bird flu, Avian flu, H5N1, geopolitics, terrorism, Peak Oil, Energy Security, Environmental Security, Energy, Sustainable resources, Renewable Resources, Environment Millennium Goals, Alternative Energy

GS(3) Thunderbolt: Travel Security Lessons from the Upheaval within the Ring of Fire

"Tens of thousands camped out for a second night Sunday in streets, cassava fields and the paths between rice paddies as the death toll from Indonesia's earthquake topped 4,300. Rattled by hundreds of aftershocks, exhausted and grieving survivors scavenged for food and clothes in the brick, wood and tile rubble of their flattened houses....Torrential rain late Sunday added to the misery of some 200,000 people left homeless by Saturday's 6.3-magnitude quake, most of them living in makeshift shelters of plastic, canvas or cardboard. Thousands of wounded awaited treatment in hospitals overflowing with bloodied patients". (Associated Press, 5-28-06)

Thousands have died, and thousands more have been injured, in the 6.2 magnitude earthquake that struck Yogyakarta, in central Indonesia, over the weekend. Inter Press Service (IPS), Associated Press, Jakarta Post and other news organizations report collapsed buildings, gridlocked traffic, panicked people, blackouts, fuel shortages, and overflowing hospitals in the ancient, "royal" city of one million people. It is the seventh major earthquake to hit Indonesia since 2000, and the fourth in the last 17 months, including the magnitude 9 off the coast of Sumatra, which caused an Indian Ocean tsunami and resulted in the death of over 130,000 people in 2004.

Meanwhile, fifty miles away, Mount Merapi, one of the most active volcanoes on the planet, has been spewing ash and gas in recent weeks, and remains at “Level 4,” i.e., the highest alert status.

Borobudur, the magnificent 7th-9th century Buddhist temple, twenty five miles northwest of Yogyakarta, has apparently escaped damage. (Buried under volcanic ash, and swallowed by the jungle, Borobudur was discovered in 1814. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site.)

Challenged by deadly outbreaks of bird flu, Al Qaeda-style terrorist attacks, and deepening chaos in East Timor, this beautiful, but troubled archipelago may seem far away if you are based in Europe or North America. But there is a lot of global business travel to Indonesia, and a lot of global vacation travel, too.

Does your organization know where its people are traveling at any given moment? Do you know their itineraries? Do you have accurate and up-to-date contact information for family and friends? (Quite often, the emergency contact information is for a spouse or other family member traveling with the employee you are seeking to get in touch with.) Have your business travelers been given emergency contact instructions? Have they been briefed on what to do in the event of catastrophe? Does someone in your organization monitor the risks and threats of business travel? Does your organization even have a real travel security program? (Such programs can be economical and effective, if they are well-designed.) Is your workforce encouraged to take common-sense precautions when going on holiday, including leaving itineraries with a friend or appropriate manager at the office, so that you can confirm their status and provide emergency assistance if necessary?

Nor can the focus only be on business and holiday travel. If you have operations or interests in earthquake territory, e.g., in San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Mexico City, or anywhere along or within the Ring of Fire, do the relevant business continuity and crisis management plans reflect an appropriate degree of detail? Do you test your readiness adequately and regularly? Does your awareness and education program provide practical advice to your workforce on how to prepare their homes and families for such eventualities?

I suggest the motto of your organization’s security program should be “Anywhere, anytime…” Of course, you might also add, “particularly in Indonesia.”

Words of Power #21: Judith Miller, Ken Lay, Florida, 9/11 and The Return of The Forbidden Truths?

NOTE: Words of Power is published on a bi-weekly basis, and alternates with the GS(3) Intelligence Briefing, also posted on a bi-weekly basis. As circumstances dictate, we may post special editions. "Words of Power" commentary will explore a range of issues in the interdependent realms of security, sustainability and spirit. The GS(3) Intel Briefing is organized into five sections: Europe, Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific, Americas, Global and Cyberspace. Each issue will provide insight on terrorism, cyber crime, climate change, health emergencies, natural disasters, and other threats, as well as recommendations on what actions your organizations should take to mitigate risks. For more information, go to www.wordsofpower.net

In 2001, an anonymous White House source leaked top-secret NSA intelligence to reporter Judith Miller that Al Qaida was planning a major attack on the United States. But the story never made it into the paper…."I said, 'Why are you doing this? Why are you giving this to me?' and he said, 'I just can't get my headquarters to pay attention to me, but I know that if it's from the New York Times, they're going to give it a good read and ask me questions about it.' And there's also this genuine concern about how, if only the president shared the sense of panic and concern that they did, more would be done to try and protect the country."
Rory O’Connor Interviews Judith Miller on The 9/11 Story That Got Away, AlterNet, 5-18-06 NOTE: You should also read O’Connor’s follow up story, The Burial of The Story That Got Away (5-25-06)

Four years ago, when the taboo against calling George W. Bush a liar was even stronger than it is today, the national news media bought into the Bush administration’s spin that the President did nothing to bail out his Enron benefactors, including Kenneth Lay.
Bush supposedly refused to intervene, despite the hundreds of thousands of dollars that Enron had poured into his political coffers. That refusal purportedly showed the high ethical standards that set Bush apart from lesser politicians.
Bush’s defenders will probably reprise that storyline now that former Enron Chairman Lay and former Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Skilling stand convicted of conspiracy and fraud in the plundering of the onetime energy-trading giant. But the reality is that the Bush-can’t-be-bought spin was never true.
Robert Parry, Bush's Enron Lies (5-26-06)

Ugly truths, like mass graves, sometimes re-surface to the ruin of those that hid them.
Now that the scope and impact of the Bush-Cheney administration's post-9/11 blunders -- including the debacle in Iraq, the escape of Bin Laden, Zawahiri and Mullah Omar, the loss of US prestige around the world, the fracturing of the Western Alliance, the Crayola crayon hoax of “terrorist threat levels,” the attempted demolition of the CIA, FEMA and other vital resources, etc. -- have begun to hit home, are we getting any closer to the time when the 9/11 files will be re-opened, and the ugliest truth, the Forbidden Truth of alleged pre-9/11 negligence will finally be explored openly, thoroughly and unflinchingly?
A Zogby poll, sponsored by 911Truth.org, reveals that the US populace is, once again, way ahead of the political establishment and the mainstream news media: 42% believe there has indeed been a cover up, with 10% unsure, and 45% think ‘Congress or an International Tribunal should re-investigate the attacks, including whether any US government officials consciously allowed or helped facilitate their success,’ with 8% unsure. ( Zogby, 5-24-06) This scientifically conducted survey indicates that a majority of those polled are not satisfied with the answers that have been given up to this point.
Here is some context on how we got here, i.e., on what did and didn’t happen in the time before 9/11. It is context that the US mainstream news media (predictably), the opposition party leadership (disgracefully), and the 9/11 Commission (tragically), have refused to offer you. (And, no, I am not referring to questions about what really happened at the Pentagon, or what really happened to WTC Building #7, etc. You don’t have to go there. Those questions are even, to some extent, a distraction. I am referring to what didn’t happen at the White House.)
On 9/11/01, Al Qaeda dealt the USA a savage blow. The three-pronged attack slaughtered thousands of innocents, delivered a severe economic blow, and provided Bush-Cheney with the rationale it desperately needed to force its radical agenda upon the political establishment and the populace.
At the time, the “conventional wisdom” (which would, of course, be more aptly termed “convenient half-truths”) was that “the world changed on 9/11.” The world didn’t change that awful morning. The attack was simply an escalation in an ongoing struggle with Al Qaeda. The day and the hour might have been a surprised, but the attack itself was no surprise.
Several weeks earlier, on 8-6-01, Harriet Miers (yes, her) handed George W. Bush a Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) titled “Al Qaeda Determined to Strike in The U.S.” It mentioned airplane high-jacking. But Bush did nothing.
Indeed, the “Decider” and his minions, led by Dick Cheney, had largely undone the work of the Clinton-Gore administration’s national security team.
They halted the “principles meetings,” which had been established to overcome the already-identified problem of stove-piping within the federal government’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
They ignored the admonitions of Clinton-Gore national security adviser Sandy Berger and Counterterrorism Czar Richard Clarke to keep the crushing of Al Qaeda as the USA’s most urgent national security action item.
They dismissed the warnings and urgent recommendations of former Sens. Gary Hart (D-CO) and Warren Rudman (R-NH), whose truly bi-partisan commission had been empowered by Clinton-Gore to present a comprehensive strategy for real homeland security.
They had their new Ambassador to Yemen tell FBI counterterrorism expert, John P. O’Neill, to back off his investigation of the attack on the US Cole. In the summer of 2001, the frustrated O’Neill resigned, and took a job as security director for the WTC, only to perish at Ground Zero on 9/11.
Remember, too, that Zacarias Moussaoui had already been arrested. And, as we know from FBI whistleblower Colleen Rawley, dedicated field agents, working the case with diligence, could not get the attention of Beltwayistan.
Both the US mainstream news media and the opposition party abdicated their responsibility to explore the implications of these facts. They wimped out, and deferred to the 9/11 Commission. The 9/11 Commission, in turn, dispersed and diluted these facts in the footnotes, and in the voluminous mass of its final report, instead of aggregating them, connecting them, and highlighting them in the lead paragraphs of its executive summary, i.e., instead of speaking truth to power, which is what the grieving survivors of the slaughtered innocents deserved.
There has been no accountability for 9/11. Bin Laden, Zawahiri and Mullah Omar are still alive. The Bush-Cheney national insecurity team, that looked the other way, is still in power. And adding inexcusable insult to profound injury, the Bush-Cheney administration and the Republican-controlled US Congress have not even followed through on the 9/11 Commission recommendations.
On the bright side, there are signs of life in the USA.
In a recent interview, Al Gore spoke candidly, for the first time, about the aftermath of presidential election of 2000, which plunged the nation and the world into this horrific alternate timeline: Does he, like many Democrats, think the election was stolen? Gore pauses a long time and stares into the middle distance. “There may come a time when I speak on that,” Gore says, “but it’s not now; I need more time to frame it carefully if I do.” Gore sighs. “In our system, there’s no intermediate step between a definitive Supreme Court decision and violent revolution.” (New York Magazine, 5-17-06
And, in another important development, Ken Lay was convicted of fraud and conspiracy and faces 20 to 30 years in jail. Remember, it was "Kenny Boy" who flew George Bush around the country in an Enron plane during the 2000 campaign, financed the battle over Florida's disputed electoral votes, got assigned his own desk at the White House, and looked over maps of Middle East oil fields with Dick Cheney during those secret “energy plan” meetings.
Hopefully, the Forbidden Truths (yes, there are more than one) are going to be dug up.
Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and http://www.wordsofpower.net. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to http://www.wordsofpower.net/

geopolitics, terrorism, Iraq, Bush, Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, 911, Millennium Goals, Energy Security,

GS(3) Thunderbolt: Karo Cluster May Indicate Human to Human Transmission of Bird Flu

This GS(3) Intelligence Thunderbolt concerns recent developments in the spread of Bird Flu.

Businesses, governments and other organizations should be raising the awareness of those within their influence.
There are common-sense precautions that you should be passing on to people. There is illuminating information you should be imparting. Your goal should not be to scare people, but to enlighten and empower them.
Your organization should already have pandemic-specific crisis management and business continuity plans in place.
Bird flu may never break out as a pandemic, but even if it doesn't, you will have enhanced the baseline knowledge of those within your reach, and helped them become better prepared for the outbreak of any similar threat. Inevitably, we will be confronted with another pandemic. And, because of numerous, interdependent factors, ranging from globalization to climate change and the rise of Mega Slums, the impact of such a health emergency will be profound.

Take a moment to review the latest from WHO, and then click on the resources listed below.

Excerpted from a WHO update on the Karo cluster:

The Ministry of Health in Indonesia has confirmed an additional case of human infection with the H5N1 avian influenza virus. The case occurred in a 32-year-old man. He developed symptoms on 15 May and died on 22 May. The case is part of a family cluster in the Kubu Sembelang village, Karo District, of North Sumatra. The man is the seventh member of an extended family to become infected with the H5N1 virus and the sixth to die....The newly confirmed case is a brother of the initial case....Tests run overnight confirmed his infection. His 10-year-old son died of H5N1 infection on 13 May. The father was closely involved in caring for his son, and this contact is considered a possible source of infection....Although the investigation is continuing, preliminary findings indicate that three of the confirmed cases spent the night of 29 April in a small room together with the initial case at a time when she was symptomatic and coughing frequently. These cases include the woman’s two sons and a second brother, aged 25 years, who is the sole surviving case among infected members of this family. Other infected family members lived in adjacent homes. All confirmed cases in the cluster can be directly linked to close and prolonged exposure to a patient during a phase of severe illness. Although human-to-human transmission cannot be ruled out, the search for a possible alternative source of exposure is continuing.
Avian Influenza – Situation in Indonesia – Update 14, 5-23-06

As a starting point, review Words of Power #2: Indonesia’s State of Emergency on Bird Flu Demands Your Attention
Here is an excellent source of global Bird Flu news:
News Now
Here is a compilation of Bird Flu preparedness checklists:
PandemicFlu,gov

Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and http://www.wordsofpower.net. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to http://www.wordsofpower.net/

GS(3) Intelligence Briefing 5-19-06: Pandemics & Guerilla Wars in Mega-Slums, An Ice-Free Arctic, 182 Million African Deaths....Is This A Great Game?

NOTE: GS(3) Intelligence Briefing is posted on a bi-weekly basis. As circumstances dictate, we may post special editions. The Briefing is organized into five sections: Europe, Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific, Americas, Global and Cyberspace. Each issue provides insight on terrorism, cyber crime, climate change, health emergencies, natural disasters and other threats, as well as recommendations on what actions your organizations should take to mitigate risks. “Words of Power" commentary is also posted on a bi-weekly basis. This commentary explores a range of issues in the interdependent realms of security, sustainability and spirit. For more information, go to http://www.wordsofpower.net/


With its unprecedented risks and threats, e.g., global warming, mega slums, failed states, religious extremism, nuclear proliferation, etc., the 21st Century security crisis challenges humanity in many ways. Economic security and environmental security are inextricably intertwined with energy security. National security is unattainable without a global security framework. Economic espionage and cyber crime have a profound impact on globalization, and vice versa. Security and sustainability have become interdependent. We cannot achieve either one without the other. Furthermore, the many challenges of the 21st Century Security Crisis, or as I call it the “Dissonant Convergence,” demand a spiritual response, grounded in those life-affirming qualities of the human spirit that transcend any particular belief system: e.g., compassion, conscience, clarity of mind, acknowledging and accepting responsibility for the oneness of all life. That is why I call my analysis “GS(3) Intelligence,” “GS(3)” stands for Global Security, Sustainability and Spirit.
There is a serious disconnect between reality and public policy in both industrialized and developing nations. It is particularly egregious in the U.S.A. The superpower that should be leading the world is still in denial about global warming, and its misdirected, wrongly premised “war on terrorism” has only aggravated the threat of such attacks throughout the world. This disconnect is largely the result of too little courage, and too much complacency, in the mainstream news media and the political establishment. If the evening news wanted to inform and engage you, instead of sedate and distract you, it would read more like this GS(3) Intelligence Briefing, and less like a corporate infomercial or a government propaganda broadcast. If public policy and corporate strategy were aimed at serving the common good and cultivating opportunity, instead of pandering to suicidally self-absorbed special interests, we would be debating how best to implement the Kyoto Accords and the UN Millennium Goals, instead of arguing over illegal immigration and gay marriage.

Here are highlights from 15 items, including both news stories and op-ed pieces, which provide insight on important global issues and trends, such as bird flu, global warming, energy security, the struggle for geopolitical hegemony, human rights, economic espionage and cyber crime. Excerpts and links follow below this summary. Customized analysis is provided for clients.

EUROPE, MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA
“[Christian Aid] estimates that a "staggering" 182 million people in sub-Saharan Africa could die of disease directly attributable to climate change by 2100. Many millions more face death and devastation from climate-induced floods, famine, drought and conflict…..” (Independent, 5-15-06)
“Mountain glaciers in equatorial Africa are on their way to disappearing within two decades, a team of British researchers reports….Also known as the Mountains of the Moon, the glaciers on Rwenzori were first reported to Europeans by the ancient Greek geographer Ptolemy, who said the Nile was supplied by snowcapped mountains at the equator in Africa.” (Associated Press, 5-15-06)
“Behind its mighty facade, Russia’s energy sector, which the Kremlin has used in recent months to bully its neighbors and expand its geopolitical reach, suffers from a decaying infrastructure and a dependence on Western technology and cheap Central Asian energy. Russian exporters are able to ship large quantities of energy to Europe and Asia today only because of its unique relationship to Central Asian oil and gas producers. And the future of this relationship is crucial to understanding the global energy game….” (Eurasianet, 5-16-06)

ASIA PACIFIC
Seoul—a city long synonymous with unchecked urban development, where Parks were more commonly found in the phone book than on the streets—is growing green. Besides the restored Cheonggyecheon, which opened last October, the city has helped plant some 3.3 million trees since 1998 and recently developed Seoul Forest, a $224 million patch of urban woodland comparable to London's Hyde Park. A cutting-edge, clean-running transit system is slowly weaning Seoulites off their auto addiction….(Time Asia, 5-8-08)
Tropical Storm Chanchu pummeled southern China, where it killed at least eight people Thursday to bring its death toll in Asia to 47, flooding scores of homes in an area where officials evacuated almost 1 million people….The United Nations says the incidence of storms in the Western Pacific region rose by about 2 percent from the early 1980s to the late 1990s. Last year was particularly heavy, with a record 10 typhoons and tropical storms striking Japan….(Associated Press, 5-18-06)
"Human-to-human transmission in Indonesia is also suggested by the many clusters with 5-10 day gaps between the disease onset date of the index case in additional family members. In addition, the only human sequence that has been made public has a novel cleavage site….(Recombinomics, 5-18-06)
“Experts are frustrated that investigations into a cluster of bird flu infections in Indonesia are moving too slowly, fearing a failure to pin down the source quickly may mean they miss a dangerous mutation of the virus. Seven members of a family in Kubu Simbelang village in north Sumatra were infected with the H5N1 virus and six of them died between May 4 and 12.” (Reuters, 5-19-06)

AMERICAS
Brazilian police say they have shot dead at least 22 more suspected criminals in a crackdown on gang violence that has left more than 150 people dead in the Sao Paulo area. State officials said on Wednesday 93 followers of the Capital First Command gang - know as the PCC – had been killed since the violence erupted….About 40 police officers and four members of the public have been killed in the clashes and 18 inmates have died in prison uprisings blamed on the PCC…. (Al Jazeera, 5-18-06)
Under Hugo Chávez, Venezuela is the first major oil producer to use its oil revenue to liberate the poor…In the US media in the 1980s, the "threat" of tiny Nicaragua was seriously debated until it was crushed. Venezuela is clearly being "softened up" for something similar. A US army publication, Doctrine for Asymmetric War against Venezuela, describes Chávez and the Bolivarian revolution as the "largest threat since the Soviet Union and Communism". (Pilger, Guardian, 5-13-06)
“…the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) will unveil two 60-second TV ads focusing on what it calls “global warming alarmism and the call by some environmental groups and politicians to reduce fossil fuel and carbon dioxide emissions.” The ad, which will be aired in more than a dozen cities across the country, is being released just a week before the May 24th opening (in LA and NYC) of Al Gore’s new movie on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth.” (Think Progress, 5-17-06)

GLOBAL
The pace of decline since 2003, if continued, would see the Arctic totally ice-free in summer within 30 years - though few scientists would stake their reputations on a long-term trend drawn from only three years. Experts at the US Naval Postgraduate School in California think the situation could be even worse. They are about to publish the results of computer simulations that show the current rate of melting, combined with increased access for warmer Pacific water, could make the summertime Arctic ice-free within a decade. (Guardian, 5-15-06)
The developed countries remain the world's largest industrial producers, but the center of gravity has begun to shift towards the developing world. Developing countries account for roughly one-third of global manufactured exports, up from 18% in 1980….The transport sector has seen substantial growth in greenhouse emissions. In developed countries emissions from international aviation have grown twice as fast as overall transport emissions. (Green Biz, 5-06)
The world's oil, gas and mining industries account for nearly two-thirds of all violations of human rights, environmental laws and international labor standards, according to a soon-to-be-released United Nations study. The food and beverages industry is a distant second, followed by apparel, footwear, and the information and communications technology sector. (Inter Press Service, 5-17-06)
By its conservative accounting, a billion people currently live in slums and more than a billion people are informal workers, struggling for survival. They range from street vendors to day laborers to nannies to prostitutes to people who sell their organs [for transplant]….The entire future growth of humanity will occur in cities, overwhelmingly in poor cities, and the majority of it in slums…A Dickensian world of Victorian poverty is being recreated, but on a scale that would have staggered the Victorians….The illusion today, as in the 19th century, is that we can somehow separate ourselves, or wall ourselves off, or take flight from the diseases of the poor….Without minimizing the explosive social contradictions still stored up in the countryside, it's clear that the future of guerrilla warfare, insurrection against the world system, has moved into the city…. (Tom Dispatch, 5-06)

CYBERSPACE
Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) and process control systems are two common types of industrial control systems that oversee the operations of everything from nuclear power plants to traffic lights. Their need for a combination of physical security and cybersecurity has largely been ignored….(FCW, 5-19-06)

Excerpts from these stories with links to the full texts follow below. Remember, words-of-power.blogspot.com is also a searchable database. It is meant to accelerate, intensify and enrich your online research.


Europe, Middle East & Africa

The poorest people in the world will be the chief victims of the West's failure to tackle global warning, with millions of Africans forecast to die by the end of the century, Christian Aid says…..It estimates that a "staggering" 182 million people in sub-Saharan Africa could die of disease directly attributable to climate change by 2100. Many millions more face death and devastation from climate-induced floods, famine, drought and conflict….In its report, The climate of poverty: facts, fears and hopes, Christian Aid calls on rich countries to fund a switch from fossil fuels to clean energy sources….
The warnings
* 182 million people in sub-Saharan African could die of disease by 2100.
* Average global temperatures could rise by between 1.5C and 6C by 2100; sea levels are set to rise by between 15cm and 95cm.
* The number of people affected by storms and floods has increased from 740 million to 2.5 billion people since the 1970s.
* Up to 3 million people die of malaria each year. Warmer, wetter weather will help the disease to spread.
* Climate change could reduce Africa's crop yields by 10 per cent.
Philip Thornton, West's Failure over Climate Change 'Will Kill 182m Africans,' Independent, 5-15-06

Mountain glaciers in equatorial Africa are on their way to disappearing within two decades, a team of British researchers reports. Located in the Rwenzori Mountains on the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the glaciers will be gone within 20 years if current warming continues….A century ago the Rwenzori glaciers were surveyed at 2.5 square miles. The area covered by glaciers halved between 1987 and 2003 and is now down to about 0.4 square mile, the researchers said. They said the glaciers are expected to disappear within the next 20 years if present trends continue. Also known as the Mountains of the Moon, the glaciers on Rwenzori were first reported to Europeans by the ancient Greek geographer Ptolemy, who said the Nile was supplied by snowcapped mountains at the equator in Africa.
Glaciers in Africa Expected to Disappear, Associated Press, 5-15-06

Behind its mighty facade, Russia’s energy sector, which the Kremlin has used in recent months to bully its neighbors and expand its geopolitical reach, suffers from a decaying infrastructure and a dependence on Western technology and cheap Central Asian energy. Russian exporters are able to ship large quantities of energy to Europe and Asia today only because of its unique relationship to Central Asian oil and gas producers. And the future of this relationship is crucial to understanding the global energy game….To many outside observers, the Russian energy sector has assumed an aura of a juggernaut….Appearances can be deceptive, however, at least when it comes to Russia’s energy sector. There are numerous signs that Russia is in danger of overextending itself, while dawdling on investing in its energy infrastructure….For now, Central Asian energy is helping Russia mask both current energy problems and future dilemmas….If Central Asian states start pumping oil to China and Azerbaijan, Russia would likely have to use its own production to meet domestic needs. This, in turn, would dash Moscow’s export plans for Europe and Asia….Many political observers believe Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan remain vulnerable to social explosions….If such a scenario occurs, Central Asia’s export ability could be impaired and the major energy players – the United States, EU, Russia and China – would all stand to be big losers.
Stephen Blank, RUSSIA’S ENERGY SECTOR HIDES WEAKNESSES BEHIND POWERFUL FAÇADE, EurasiaNet, 5-16-06

Asia Pacific

Seoul—a city long synonymous with unchecked urban development, where Parks were more commonly found in the phone book than on the streets—is growing green. Besides the restored Cheonggyecheon, which opened last October, the city has helped plant some 3.3 million trees since 1998 and recently developed Seoul Forest, a $224 million patch of urban woodland comparable to London's Hyde Park. A cutting-edge, clean-running transit system is slowly weaning Seoulites off their auto addiction….If this concrete jungle can shift into clean, sustainable urban development, then there's hope that other messy, environmentally challenged Asian cities like Beijing, Bombay and Jakarta can do the same. The South Korean capital's example could be especially instructive for its fellow Asian Tiger Hong Kong, where short-sighted political leadership has allowed the environment to degrade alarmingly. "Seoul is an interesting model in terms of a megacity," says Karl Kim, an urban-planning expert at the University of Hawaii who has traveled back and forth to Korea for the past two decades….Kim Won Bae, a director at the Korean Research Institute for Human Settlements (KRIHS), a Seoul-based think tank, traces the change back to disasters like the collapse of the shoddily constructed Sampoong department store in 1995, which killed 501 people, and the economic crisis of 1997. "Those events made a lot of people think again about what economic growth was all about," he says….There's also mounting skepticism about the assumption that clean, attractive environs come at the cost of economic performance—a belief still widely held even in advanced Asian cities like Hong Kong. "If we don't place an emphasis on environmental friendliness, not only will citizens leave the city, but foreign investors won't choose Seoul," says Mayor Lee....
BRYAN WALSH, Saving Seoul: Pollution is ruining the quality of life in much of urban Asia. But Seoul's transformation into a greener city proves the tide can still be turned, Time, 5-8-06

Tropical Storm Chanchu pummeled southern China, where it killed at least eight people Thursday to bring its death toll in Asia to 47, flooding scores of homes in an area where officials evacuated almost 1 million people. Chanchu was the most severe typhoon to strike the South China Sea region during the month of May and already was blamed for 37 deaths and the destruction of thousands of homes in the Philippines last weekend….Twenty-seven Vietnamese fishermen, meanwhile, were believed missing after three boats in Chinese waters went down after being swept up in the storm, officials said Thursday….China said it had moved 905,000 people to safety in Guangdong and Fujian provinces just to the north. The storm bypassed the financial center of Hong Kong….The United Nations says the incidence of storms in the Western Pacific region rose by about 2 percent from the early 1980s to the late 1990s. Last year was particularly heavy, with a record 10 typhoons and tropical storms striking Japan, leaving nearly 220 people dead or missing _ the largest casualty toll since 1983.
Typhoon Chanchu kills 47 people; nearly 1 million evacuated in China, Associated Press, 5-18-06

"It is certainly alarming,'' said Dick Thompson, a WHO spokesman in Geneva. ``This is the largest H5N1 cluster we have seen. There are obviously important questions that we need answered. But right now it is too early in the investigation to say anything definitive.'' Yesterday, three members of the family said they were feeling sick, with symptoms including headache and cough. H5N1 bird flu symptoms in three additional family members are cause for concern….Six family members have already died and the index case developed symptoms about a week prior to symptoms in family members. The symptoms in the index case were April 27 and all infected family members were at an April 29 barbeque strongly implicating human-to-human transmission. H5N1 infection in three more family members would implicate human-to-human-to- human transmission in multiple family members.
Human-to-human transmission in Indonesia is also suggested by the many clusters with 5-10 day gaps between the disease onset date of the index case in additional family members. In addition, the only human sequence that has been made public has a novel cleavage site. One report has suggested that this novel sequence is found in additional human sequences, as well as a cat, and the swine in the Karo area have H5 antibodies. Since the sequence has not been reported in any poultry isolates, a non-poultry source is implicated However, testing of patients in Indonesia is predicated on exposure to dead or dying poultry, which would underestimate H5N1 from sources other than poultry.
Since there are over 30 confirmed H5N1 cases in Indonesia, it is likely that sequences from many or most of these cases is at a private WHO database. Those sequences should be released immediately.
Three Additional Family Members in Karo With Bird Flu Symptoms, Recombinomics, 5-18-06

Experts are frustrated that investigations into a cluster of bird flu infections in Indonesia are moving too slowly, fearing a failure to pin down the source quickly may mean they miss a dangerous mutation of the virus. Seven members of a family in Kubu Simbelang village in north Sumatra were infected with the H5N1 virus and six of them died between May 4 and 12. But experts and local health authorities have come no closer to finding the culprit. "This case shows surveillance work should intensify. When there are human infections, you have to find the source. It's too slow," said microbiologist Guan Yi…."If it was a pandemic strain, we'd be finished," he said….Bird flu antibodies were detected in pigs raised by the family, but nasal swabs taken from the swine, which all appear healthy, showed nothing. All the other animals tested negative….it is often impossible to determine if human-to-human transmission has occurred since family members are exposed to the same animal and environmental sources as well as to one another….
Tan Ee Lyn, Experts urge Indonesia to pin down bird flu source, Reuters, 5-19-06

Americas

Brazilian police say they have shot dead at least 22 more suspected criminals in a crackdown on gang violence that has left more than 150 people dead in the Sao Paulo area. State officials said on Wednesday 93 followers of the Capital First Command gang - know as the PCC – had been killed since the violence erupted on Friday….Newspapers used headlines such as "On the fifth day, revenge" and "Police respond with a massacre in Sao Paulo" in their reports on the police reaction. About 40 police officers and four members of the public have been killed in the clashes and 18 inmates have died in prison uprisings blamed on the PCC. The gangs launched a series of attacks on police stations, bars and banks in response to the transfers of their members, including leader Marcos "Marcola" Cacho, to a new high security prison. Police said they believed PCC leaders were organising the violence from their cells using mobile phones and shut down transmitters near the prisons.
Toll rises in Brazil violence, Al Jazeera, 5-18-06

Under Hugo Chávez, Venezuela is the first major oil producer to use its oil revenue to liberate the poor….His setting-up of misions as a means of bypassing saboteurs in the old, corrupt bureaucracy was typical of the extraordinary political and social imagination that is changing Venezuela peacefully. This is his "Bolivarian revolution", which, at this stage, is not dissimilar to the post-war European social democracies….It is not surprising that Chávez has now won eight elections and referendums in eight years, each time increasing his majority, a world record. He is the most popular head of state in the western hemisphere, probably in the world. That is why he survived, amazingly, a Washington-backed coup in 2002. Mariella and Celedonia and Nora and hundreds of thousands of others came down from the barrios and demanded that the army remain loyal….In the US media in the 1980s, the "threat" of tiny Nicaragua was seriously debated until it was crushed. Venezuela is clearly being "softened up" for something similar. A US army publication, Doctrine for Asymmetric War against Venezuela, describes Chávez and the Bolivarian revolution as the "largest threat since the Soviet Union and Communism". When I said to Chávez that the US historically had had its way in Latin America, he replied: "Yes, and my assassination would come as no surprise. But the empire is in trouble, and the people of Venezuela will resist an attack. We ask only for the support of all true democrats."
John Pilger, Chávez is a threat because he offers the alternative of a decent society: Venezuela's president is using oil revenues to liberate the poor - no wonder his enemies want to overthrow him, Guardian, 5-13-06

…the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) will unveil two 60-second TV ads focusing on what it calls “global warming alarmism and the call by some environmental groups and politicians to reduce fossil fuel and carbon dioxide emissions.” The ad, which will be aired in more than a dozen cities across the country, is being released just a week before the May 24th opening (in LA and NYC) of Al Gore’s new movie on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute, which widely publicizes its belief that the earth is not warming cataclysmically because of the burning of coal and oil, says Exxon Mobil Corp. is a “major donor” largely as a result of its effort to push that position. CEI also gets funding from other oil companies through the American Petroleum Institute. Exxon documents reveal the company gave $270,000 to CEI in 2004 alone. $180,000 of that was earmarked for “global climate change and global climate change outreach.” Exxon has contributed over $1.6 million to CEI since 1998….For the oil industry, Al Gore’s film exposing the truth is perceived as a threat, and they have no shortage of funds to try to distort it.
Big Oil Launchs Attacks on Al Gore, Think Progress, 5-17-06

Global

Record amounts of the Arctic ocean failed to freeze during the recent winter, new figures show, spelling disaster for wildlife and strengthening concerns that the region is locked into a destructive cycle of irreversible climate change…..The Arctic is rapidly becoming the clearest demonstration of the effects of mankind's impact on the global climate. The temperature is rising twice as fast as the rest of the planet….The pace of decline since 2003, if continued, would see the Arctic totally ice-free in summer within 30 years - though few scientists would stake their reputations on a long-term trend drawn from only three years. Experts at the US Naval Postgraduate School in California think the situation could be even worse. They are about to publish the results of computer simulations that show the current rate of melting, combined with increased access for warmer Pacific water, could make the summertime Arctic ice-free within a decade.
David Adam, Meltdown fear as Arctic ice cover falls to record winter low, Guardian, 5-15-06

Published in May 2006 [by the UN Department of Economics and Social Affairs], Trends in Sustainable Development….
Top trends include the following:
The world is gradually shifting to cleaner forms of energy, but traditional biomass is still widely used in the household sector of some developing regions.
The developed countries remain the world's largest industrial producers, but the center of gravity has begun to shift towards the developing world. Developing countries account for roughly one-third of global manufactured exports, up from 18% in 1980.
The phase-outs of leaded gasoline and CFCs are global success stories but particulate air pollution and SO2 emissions remain high in many developing country cities.
The transport sector has seen substantial growth in greenhouse emissions. In developed countries emissions from international aviation have grown twice as fast as overall transport emissions.
Trends in Sustainable Development (2006), Green Biz, 5-06

The world's oil, gas and mining industries account for nearly two-thirds of all violations of human rights, environmental laws and international labor standards, according to a soon-to-be-released United Nations study. The food and beverages industry is a distant second, followed by apparel, footwear, and the information and communications technology sector. "The extractive industries - oil, gas and mining - also account for most allegations of the worst abuses, up to and including complicity in crimes against humanity," says the interim report titled "Promotion and Protection of Human Rights". A more detailed study is expected to be released later this year. These are typically for acts committed by public and private security forces protecting company assets and property; large-scale corruption; violations of labor rights; and a broad array of abuses in relation to local communities, especially the indigenous peoples….The interim U.N. study, by a team headed by John Ruggie, a special representative of Secretary-General Kofi Annan, was conducted in response to a resolution by the now-defunct U.N. Commission on Human Rights…."The adoption of the Human Rights Norms for Transnational Corporations by the Sub-Commission on the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights was a step in that direction"….The U.N. study also said there are at least three "distinct drivers" behind the increased attention on transnational corporations. The first is simply the expression of one of the oldest axioms of political life: the successful accumulation of power by one type of social actor will induce efforts by others with different interests or aims to organize countervailing power….The second driver, according to the study, is that some companies have made themselves, and even their entire industries, targets by committing serious harm to human rights, labour standards, environmental protection and other social concerns…A third rationale for engaging the transnational corporate sector is the sheer fact that it has global reach and capacity, and that it is capable of acting at a pace and scale that neither governments nor international agencies can match.
Thalif Deen, The Scariest Predators in the Corporate Jungle, Inter Press Service, 5-17-06

Davis: Stunningly enough, classical social theory, whether Marx, Weber, or even Cold War modernization theory, none of it anticipated what's happened to the city over the last 30 or 40 years. None of it anticipated the emergence of a huge class, mainly of the young, who live in cities, have no formal connection with the world economy, and no chance of ever having such a connection….Previously, the data was untrustworthy, but the United Nations Habitat has made heroic efforts….By its conservative accounting, a billion people currently live in slums and more than a billion people are informal workers, struggling for survival. They range from street vendors to day laborers to nannies to prostitutes to people who sell their organs [for transplant]. These are staggering figures, even more so since our children and grandchildren will witness the final build-out of the human race. Sometime around 2050 or 2060, the human population will achieve its maximum growth, probably at around 10 to 10.5 billion people….fully 95% of this growth will occur in the cities of the south….The entire future growth of humanity will occur in cities, overwhelmingly in poor cities, and the majority of it in slums….The mega-slums of today were largely created in the 1970s and 80s….A Dickensian world of Victorian poverty is being recreated, but on a scale that would have staggered the Victorians. So, naturally, you wonder whether the preoccupation of the Victorian middle classes with the diseases of the poor isn't returning as well. Their first reaction to epidemics was to move to Hampstead, to flee the city, to try to separate from the poor. Only when it was obvious that cholera was sweeping from the slums into middle-class areas anyway, did you get some investment in minimum sanitation and the public-health infrastructure. The illusion today, as in the 19th century, is that we can somehow separate ourselves, or wall ourselves off, or take flight from the diseases of the poor….
Without minimizing the explosive social contradictions still stored up in the countryside, it's clear that the future of guerrilla warfare, insurrection against the world system, has moved into the city. Nobody has realized this with as much clarity as the Pentagon, or more vigorously tried to grapple with its empirical consequences. Its strategists are way ahead of geopoliticians and traditional foreign-relations types in understanding the significance of a world of slums…
TD: ...and of global warming.
Davis: Yes, because they realize the potential instability it will create and also perhaps imagine advantageous shifts in the balance of power in its wake. What the U.S. has demonstrated in recent years is an extraordinary ability to knock out the hierarchical organization of the modern city, to attack its crucial infrastructures and nodes, to blow up the TV stations, take out the pipelines and bridges. Smart bombs can do that, but simultaneously the Pentagon discovered that this technology isn't applicable to the slum periphery, to the labyrinthine, unmapped, almost unknown parts of the city, which lack hierarchies, lack centralized infrastructures, lack tall buildings. There's really quite an extraordinary military literature trying to address what the Pentagon sees as the most novel terrain of this century, which it now models in the slums of Karachi, Port au Prince, and Baghdad. A lot of this goes back to the experience of Mogadishu [in 1993], which was a big shock to the United States and showed that traditional urban war-fighting methods don't work in the slum city….
Tom Englelhardt Interviews w/ Mike Davis, Part I: Humanity's Ground Zero, Part II: The Imperial City and the City of Slums, TomDispatch.com, 5-06

Cyberspace

The electronic control systems that act as the nervous system for all critical infrastructures are insecure and pose disastrous risks to national security, cybersecurity experts warn. Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) and process control systems are two common types of industrial control systems that oversee the operations of everything from nuclear power plants to traffic lights. Their need for a combination of physical security and cybersecurity has largely been ignored….
SCADA on thin ice: Industrial control systems pose little-noticed security threat, FCW, 5-19-06

Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and http://www.wordsofpower.net. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to http://www.wordsofpower.net/

global warming, climate change,
bird flu, Avian flu, H5N1, geopolitics, terrorism, Peak Oil, Energy Security, Environmental Security, Energy, Sustainable resources, Renewable Resources, Environment Millennium Goals, Alternative Energy

Words of Power #20: Cusco, Kyoto and The Yellow Sand Storm

NOTE: Words of Power is published on a bi-weekly basis, and alternates with the GS(3) Intelligence Briefing, also posted on a bi-weekly basis. As circumstances dictate, we may post special editions. "Words of Power" commentary will explore a range of issues in the interdependent realms of security, sustainability and spirit. The GS(3) Intel Briefing is organized into five sections: Europe, Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific, Americas, Global and Cyberspace. Each issue will provide insight on terrorism, cyber crime, climate change, health emergencies, natural disasters, and other threats, as well as recommendations on what actions your organizations should take to mitigate risks. For more information, go to www.wordsofpower.net

Words of Power #20: Cusco, Kyoto & The Yellow Sand Storm



"His Holiness the Dalai Lama today successfully concluded his three-day visit to Peru with the address to the intellectuals and opinion makers at the auditorium of National Library of Peru….On the second day (May 8), His Holiness the Dalai Lama paid a visit to Cusco, the ancient mythical capital of Inca civilization, where he had a very emotional gathering with the elders of the indigenous people of Incas. The gathering was held at the Temple Qoricancha (Sacred Temple of Sun) in the heart of Cusco City, located at the altitude of 3,000 meters above the sea level…His Holiness gave a public talk on "Ancient Culture in the Modern Society" in the City Hall auditorium which was attended by 1,500 people (800 people in the main auditorium and another 700 people in the annexure of the Town Hall with a short circuit TV facility)… In his talk, His Holiness advised the audience to learn from the culture of native indigenous people how to care the mother earth, the only home for the humanity. His Holiness drew the attention of the audience to the issue of the global environmental crisis, by highlighting the seriousness the problem of global warming, shortage of drinking water in Indian sub-continent and China, and desertification in many parts of the world.…His Holiness is visiting Peru for the first time." Office of Tibet, Dalai Lama Concludes Three-Day Visit to Peru, 5-11-06

Recently, an ex-pat colleague, who lives in Kyoto, called to tell me that yellow sand from the deserts of China and Mongolia was falling from the sky in Japan. I hung up the phone, and googled corroboration from Yomiuri Shimbun and the Independent.
Yes, global warming is melting the glaciers on the Tibetan plateau, which, in turn, is causing desertification.
The consequences are profound:
“The dust contains hazardous substances and is on the increase due to global climate change….On April 16-17, an estimated 300,000 tons of sand fell on Beijing with the official Xinhua News Agency reporting that the capital looked like a desert. Two days later, an Earth observatory satellite of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration spotted the same sandstorm moving over Japan….” Yellow sand deluging Japan, Yomiuri Shimbun, 5-3-06
“….the glaciers of the Tibetan plateau are vanishing so fast that they will be reduced by 50 per cent every decade….the vast environmental changes brought about by the process will increase droughts and sandstorms over the rest of the country, and devastate many of the world's greatest rivers, in what experts warn will be an ‘ecological catastrophe’…Perhaps worst of all, the melting threatens to disrupt water supplies over much of Asia…..” Geoffrey Lean, Ice-capped roof of world turns to desert, Independent, 7-7-06
I closed my eyes, and remembered an extraordinary night, over thirty years ago, high in the Andes, on the Bolivian Altiplano. I had gone there to circumambulate the ruins of Tiahuanaco. I rented a room in the town of Copacabana on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Suddenly, at 9 P.M., as I sat writing in my notebook, the town generator was shutdown for the night. I was plunged into an utter darkness that was both terrifying and exhalting. Up on that barren plateau, there were no cities or airfields for hundreds of miles. The starry night cut into me like a great sword, wielded by the very hand of God. My body shook with the nearness of an utter majesty. I felt the whole of civilization dwarfed by the pulsating limitlessness of this One Being, within whom we erupt, and into whom we are reabsorbed.
As I opened my eyes, returning from the memory of that epiphany, I heard the voice of the Kogi, echoing from a 1993 documentary:
"I'm speaking on behalf of us all, to send out a message to all the Younger Brothers, and I'm going to have to say it in a way that they can understand. ... She taught, the Great Mother taught, she taught us right and wrong. The Great Mother gave us what we needed to live. ... But now they are taking out the Mother's heart. She'll end, and the world will end, if you do not stop digging and digging. ... What would they think if all we Mamas died ... and there was no one doing our work. Well, the rain wouldn't fall, it would get hotter and hotter from the sky, and the trees wouldn't grow and the crops wouldn't grow - or am I wrong and they would grow anyway?"
The Kogi was a “lost tribe.” It led a hidden life in Sierra Nevada de Santa Mara mountain range on the Columbian coast. They called themselves “Older Brother,” and referred to us as “Younger Brother.” They dressed in white, and lived without the wheel. They called their shaman “mamas.”
Alan Ereira of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) established contact, and trust, with them. They told him they had a message for “Younger Brother.” They wanted to break their “400-year silence.”
Their saga is chronicled in the remarkable "From the Heart of the World: The Elder Brothers' Warning” (Mystic Fire Video, 1993):
“….at the top of the mountain - the most sacred part because water and therefore life comes from it - there is no good news. Everything is drying up. ‘They have sold the clouds,’ one of the Mamas says. ‘The world will come to an end,’ another says. They are so few. Their voice is so muted. They have no money, no lobbyists. Chances are no one will listen…’BBC, tell the Younger Brother: Open your eyes,' a Mama says. Ereira is finally escorted back to the hanging bridge. ‘We want the Younger Brother to know that he can't come back,’ a leader says. They pull into place the symbolic barrier of sticks and turn their backs, a sad little procession high over a precipice." Michael J. Farrell, From the Heart of the World: The Elder Brothers' Warning, National Catholic Reporter, 10-27-95
When you feel the yellow sand falling from the sky, be like the Kogi; ask yourself, “How can I help Younger Brother to open his eyes.”
Some among us have asked themselves this question, and answered it by acting with courage and responsibility:
"An educational group that former Vice President Al Gore is helping to launch intends to spend millions of dollars convincing Americans that global warming is an urgent problem….The group, which yesterday adopted the name Alliance for Climate Protection, plans to use advertising and grass-roots organizing to try to raise awareness, particularly among labor groups, hunters, evangelicals and conservatives in general….Initial funding for the effort will come from projects run by Mr. Gore, which include ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ a film documentary starring Mr. Gore slated for release by Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Classics unit ahead of Memorial Day weekend in New York and Los Angeles." Antonio Regalado, Global Warming Will Be Core Focus Of Gore-Led Group, Wall Street Journal, 5-10-06
Gore’s bi-partisan group includes Brent Scowcroft, who served as National Security Adviser to George H.W. Bush, and Lee Thomas, who served as Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for Ronald Reagan.
But, of course, it is a national disgrace (and a global tragedy) that this effort is not being led by the White House, or even by the Congressional leadership of the opposition party. Ironically, even though Al Gore was not sworn into the high office he was elected to in 2000, he is still providing Presidential leadership on this most vital national security issue, as well as other moral challenges (e.g. the use of torture, and the threat to the U.S. Constitution).
As I sat in Copacabana, over thirty years ago, there were a lot more options, both collectively and individually, than there are now. Even a decade or so ago, when the Kogi message was delivered, there was a lot more space, and a lot more time. But the era of warnings and options has past. The global crisis is upon us, and it is deepening at every turn of the wheel.
Now, we are faced with a formidable adversary. It is our own image in the mirror of the world. In one hand, this adversary holds opportunity, in the other, denial. We can only overcome ourselves by choosing opportunity over denial, i.e. by accepting responsibility for one, and letting go of the other.
We must live our lives as examples, and as meditation in action.
Do not disparage the seemingly trivial (e.g., bringing your own cloth grocery bags to the store, and your own thermal cup to the espresso bar). Do not despair over the seemingly unassailable (e.g., the orgy of suicidal self-interest indulged in by corporatists, and their enablers in the major political parties and the mainstream news media organizations).
When you hear the news stories of refugees displaced, powerless and in desperate straits, realize that it could be a glimpse into your own future. But do not be afraid. Speak out. Get strong in your body, and in your psyche.
Remember that the universe itself is your ally in this struggle.
P.S. As I cited in GS(3) Intelligence Briefing for 5-11-06, the University of Chicago’s Cass R. Sunstein recently remarked that that the cost of the U.S.’s foolish military adventure in Iraq has already exceeded the projected cost of U.S. compliance with the Kyoto Accords (Washington Post, 5-10-06).

Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and http://www.wordsofpower.net. His writing, speaking and consulting focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to http://www.wordsofpower.net/

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GS(3) Intelligence Briefing 5-11-06

NOTE: GS(3) Intelligence Briefing is posted on a bi-weekly basis. As circumstances dictate, we may post special editions. The Briefing is organized into five sections: Europe, Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific, Americas, Global and Cyberspace. Each issue provides insight on terrorism, cyber crime, climate change, health emergencies, natural disasters and other threats, as well as recommendations on what actions your organizations should take to mitigate risks. “Words of Power" commentary is also posted on a bi-weekly basis. This commentary explores a range of issues in the interdependent realms of security, sustainability and spirit. For more information, go to http://www.wordsofpower.net/

Here are highlights from 12 items, including both news stories and op-ed pieces, which provide insight on important global issues and trends, such as bird flu, global warming, energy security, the struggle for geopolitical hegemony, human rights, economic espionage and cyber crime. Excerpts and links follow below this summary. Customized analysis is provided for clients.

EUROPE, MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA
The so-called quartet of international peace brokers in the Middle East has agreed to establish a temporary fund to channel humanitarian assistance to aid-starved Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.  After a meeting in New York….European leaders have expressed fears that the shortages could create violent riots and further instability in the region, and have urged the US to review its hard line against any financial engagement with Hamas. (EU Observer, 5-10-06)
Innocent Palestinian people are being treated like animals, with the presumption that they are guilty of some crime. Because they voted for candidates who are members of Hamas, the United States government has become the driving force behind an apparently effective scheme of depriving the general public of income, access to the outside world and the necessities of life….(Jimmy Carter, International Herald Tribune, 5-7-06)
The ambitious speaker of Armenia’s parliament, Artur Baghdasarian, has stoked geopolitical controversy in Yerevan by calling for the country’s eventual withdrawal from the Russian-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization and, ultimately, its accession to NATO. (Eurasianet, 5-5-06)

ASIA PACIFIC
Unheralded and almost unnoticed, the world has seen the emergence of a new economic model. It is a developed country that enjoyed faster economic growth than the US over the past decade. Yet it also offers universal healthcare and other social welfare benefits that the US does not….That country, rolling into its 16th year of uninterrupted growth, is Australia. (Financial Times, 5-10-06)
The [Australian] Departments of Defence and Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) want academics to report foreign students enrolled in particular subjects. The Federal Government also wants to broaden export controls, forcing lecturers to apply for licences if they are going to share their knowledge abroad. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 5-6-06)
In the space of 12 months, Russia and China have managed to move the pieces on the geopolitical chess board of Eurasia away from what had been an overwhelming US strategic advantage, to the opposite, where the US is increasingly isolated. It's potentially the greatest strategic defeat for the US power projection of the post-World War II period. This is also the strategic background to the re-emergence of the so-called realist faction in US policy.
(Asia Times, 5-9-06)

AMERICAS
The most recent example of the Chávez effect has been Evo Morales' action in Bolivia, but upcoming elections in Mexico and Peru could also lead to a situation in which more countries are involved in a leftwards move which would shift the balance of power away from Washington and challenge foreign ownership….(Guardian/UK, 5-6-06)
Venezuela, which supplies the United States with one-sixth of its imported oil, holds the largest petroleum reserves outside the Middle East, and possibly in the world…..Chávez constantly accuses President George W. Bush, whom he calls "terrorist" and a "drunkard," of plotting to invade Venezuela. Chávez says that's why he's buying 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles and, he hopes, MiG aircraft from Russia. In March, Chávez also started a civilian militia that trains to refrains including: "Yankees go home!" (Newsday, 5-7-06)

GLOBAL
For the United States, the cost of the Iraq war will soon exceed the anticipated cost of the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement designed to control greenhouse gases. For both, the cost is somewhere in excess of $300 billion…. (Washington Post, 5-10-06)
 Bird flu may be capable of invading people through the gut, not just the respiratory system, and diarrhea is sometimes the first symptom, said virologist Menno de Jong, whose team observed 18 cases in Vietnam. (Bloomberg, 5-9-06)
Bird flu is spreading more slowly as warmer spring weather in the Northern Hemisphere reduces the virus' ability to survive in the environment, world health experts reported….Scientists are counting on the slowdown in animal infections to reduce the number of human cases and fatalities. (Bloomberg, 5-6-05)

CYBERSPACE
Ohio University this week disclosed two separate but apparently unrelated incidents of data theft involving its computers. On April 24, IT officials at the university noticed that someone had hacked into an alumni database server containing personal and biographical information for more than 300,000 individuals and organizations….The second data compromise involved a server at the Technology Transfer Department, which is part of the University’s Innovation Center. FBI officials told the university about that breach on April 21. The server, which contained patent data and intellectual property files, was apparently involved in another incident that the FBI was investigating….(Computerworld,  5-3-06)

Excerpts from these stories with links to the full texts follow below. Remember, words-of-power.blogspot.com is also a searchable database. It is meant to accelerate, intensify and enrich your online research.


EUROPE, MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA

The so-called quartet of international peace brokers in the Middle East has agreed to establish a temporary fund to channel humanitarian assistance to aid-starved Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.  After a meeting in New York…the four members of the quartet - the US, the UN, Russia and the EU - said they had agreed on an international mechanism to ensure that aid reaches the region, according to press reports….The mechanism will initially be activated for three months, and one suggestion on the table is that the World Bank or another major international body could handle the distribution of aid money.  "The goal is to distribute aid to the Palestinian people without going through the Palestinian government," EU foreign policy commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said….The Palestinian authority has been in a financial quandary since Hamas came to power, with both the EU and the US freezing aid payments over the new government's failure to renounce violence and recognise Israel's right to exist. As a result, over 165,000 Palestinian public sector workers have not been paid for more than two months, causing schools and hospitals to suffer and leading to severe shortages of medicine and food in the region.  European leaders have expressed fears that the shortages could create violent riots and further instability in the region, and have urged the US to review its hard line against any financial engagement with Hamas.
Teresa Küchler, Quartet agrees temporary aid for Palestine, EU Observer, 5-10-06
 
Innocent Palestinian people are being treated like animals, with the presumption that they are guilty of some crime. Because they voted for candidates who are members of Hamas, the United States government has become the driving force behind an apparently effective scheme of depriving the general public of income, access to the outside world and the necessities of life. Overwhelmingly, these are school teachers, nurses, social workers, police officers, farm families, shopkeepers, and their employees and families who are just hoping for a better life. Public opinion polls conducted after the January parliamentary election show that 80 percent of Palestinians still want a peace agreement with Israel based on the international road map premises….It is almost a miracle that the Palestinians have been able to orchestrate three elections during the past 10 years, all of which have been honest, fair, strongly contested, without violence and with the results accepted by winners and losers. Among the 62 elections that have been monitored by us at the Carter Center, these are among the best in portraying the will of the people. One clear reason for the surprising Hamas victory for legislative seats was that the voters were in despair about prospects for peace. With American acquiescence, the Israelis had avoided any substantive peace talks for more than five years, regardless of who had been chosen to represent the Palestinian side as interlocutor….
Jimmy Carter, Hamas and the Palestinians: Punishing the Innocent is a Crime, International Herald Tribune, 5-7-06

The ambitious speaker of Armenia’s parliament, Artur Baghdasarian, has stoked geopolitical controversy in Yerevan by calling for the country’s eventual withdrawal from the Russian-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization and, ultimately, its accession to NATO.  The extraordinary statements, which run counter to one of the main tenets of Armenian foreign policy, prompted a stern rebuke from President Robert Kocharian and his close political allies. Baghdasarian responded by threatening to pull his Orinats Yerkir (Country of Law) party out of Kocharian’s governing coalition.  The row is widely linked to the parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled for 2007 and 2008. Some local observers believe Baghdasarian is courting Western support to bolster his reputed presidential ambitions. The controversy also provides additional evidence that the geopolitical mood in Armenia -- a country traditionally oriented toward Russia – is slowly shifting.
Emil Danielyan, ARMENIAN SPEAKER AT ODDS WITH GOVERNMENT OVER NATO MEMBERSHIP, Eurasianet, 5-5-06


ASIA PACIFIC

Unheralded and almost unnoticed, the world has seen the emergence of a new economic model. It is a developed country that enjoyed faster economic growth than the US over the past decade. Yet it also offers universal healthcare and other social welfare benefits that the US does not. Unemployment is similar to America’s, but without the glaring income disparities that characterise US growth. It is a country that seems to have achieved a sweet spot, combining the vigour of American capitalism with the humanity of European welfare, yet suffering the drawbacks of neither. And it manages this while keeping a consistent budget surplus. That country, rolling into its 16th year of uninterrupted growth, is Australia.  “In the last decade of the twentieth century, Australia became a model for other OECD countries,” wrote the 30-nation club of rich economies in its latest annual assessment of the country. Australia, which started life as a dump for Britain’s criminal effluent, was such an unlikely candidate to be any sort of economic role model that it should give hope to others….However, Australia is far from perfect and its reform drive has faltered in recent years. It has failed to manage properly the problems of its success…..Yet it has become a case study in the benefits of economic reform. It is a prototype society illustrating that vigorous capitalism can coexist with a humane welfare system.
Peter Hartcher, Sun, surf and birth of new economic model, Financial Times, 5-10-06

The Departments of Defence and Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) want academics to report foreign students enrolled in particular subjects. The Federal Government also wants to broaden export controls, forcing lecturers to apply for licences if they are going to share their knowledge abroad. Last month, the Departments of Defence and Foreign Affairs sent the document called "Export Controls, Your Responsibilities" to universities and research institutions. It says universities must inform the Government if suspicious parties are trying to get their hands on material or research that could be used in weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs….Another intelligence analyst who declined to be interviewed by ABC Radio's PM program says the guidelines are needed as America's enemies are targeting allies like Australia and Canada - countries he claims have underestimated espionage.
Sabra Lane, Govt urges academics to report on 'suspicious' student activities, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 5-6-06

Simply put: Bush and Cheney and their band of neo-conservative war hawks…were given a chance.  The chance was to deliver on the US strategic goal of control of petroleum resources globally, to ensure the US role as first among equals over the next decade and beyond. Not only have they failed to "deliver" that goal of US strategic dominance, they have also threatened the very basis of continued US hegemony, or as the Rumsfeld Pentagon likes to term it, "Full Spectrum Dominance".  The move by Bolivian President Evo Morales, after meetings with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Cuba's Fidel Castro, to assert national control over oil and gas resources is only the latest demonstration of the decline in US power projection…..The Bush Doctrine was and is a neo-conservative doctrine of preventive and preemptive war. It has proved to be a strategic catastrophe for the US role as sole superpower. That is the background to comprehend all events today as they are unfolding in and around Washington….In the space of 12 months, Russia and China have managed to move the pieces on the geopolitical chess board of Eurasia away from what had been an overwhelming US strategic advantage, to the opposite, where the US is increasingly isolated. It's potentially the greatest strategic defeat for the US power projection of the post-World War II period. This is also the strategic background to the re-emergence of the so-called realist faction in US policy.
F. William Engdahl, The US's geopolitical nightmare, Asia Times, 5-9-06


AMERICAS

The most recent example of the Chávez effect has been Evo Morales' action in Bolivia, but upcoming elections in Mexico and Peru could also lead to a situation in which more countries are involved in a leftwards move which would shift the balance of power away from Washington and challenge foreign ownership….On June 4 in Peru, Ollanta Humala, the former army commander, who is supported by Mr Chávez and who has pledged to redistribute wealth, faces the centre-left former president, Alan García, in the runoff presidential elections. Mr Humala has said he will rewrite contracts with mining companies and "put Peru's natural resources to the service of its people"….Mexico will vote on July 2 in what is another key test for the leftist network. A month ago, the leftist former mayor of Mexico City, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, appeared to be headed for victory but his substantial lead has slipped and he is now trailing the conservative, Felipe Calderón. Mr López Obrador, who has made no secret of his plans to shake up and radicalise the Mexican economy with the aim of redistributing wealth, has recaptured some of his lost ground.
Duncan Campbell, Network of 'Hugo's friends' links politics from Mexico to Brazil: The Chávez effect and the reshaping of a continent, Guardian/UK, 5-6-06

Venezuela, which supplies the United States with one-sixth of its imported oil, holds the largest petroleum reserves outside the Middle East, and possibly in the world.
Initially dismissed by critics as a "buffoon in a beret," Chávez, a former paratrooper, has emerged as the region's highest-profile leader, even making Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential figures of the year. One day, he's paying off Argentina's final, $2.3-billion debt to the International Monetary Fund, freeing it from an institution widely loathed in Latin America for its restrictive mandates. The next day, he's flying Salvadorans here for eye surgery or spending $1 million on samba parades in Brazil.…. "The elite up there want to attack us and take our petroleum so they can suck it up like Count Dracula -- not to help the people of the United States but to dominate the world with war machines," Chávez told the 60 U.S. heating-oil recipients, whom he flew here last month. The event was broadcast live on state-run television and Telesur, Chávez's leftist satellite network for Latin America. "But we use Venezuelan oil for peace, for love, for lifting people from their misery," he continued, waving a carved magic stick that a Penobscot Indian chief had given him in thanks for the heating oil, which Venezuela's U.S.-based subsidiary Citgo sold to 181,000 homes in the Bronx, Harlem and other U.S. communities at 40-percent discounts. Chávez constantly accuses President George W. Bush, whom he calls "terrorist" and a "drunkard," of plotting to invade Venezuela. Chávez says that's why he's buying 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles and, he hopes, MiG aircraft from Russia. In March, Chávez also started a civilian militia that trains to refrains including: "Yankees go home!"
LETTA TAYLOR, Giving and taking: Hugo Chávez uses Venezuela’s massive oil reserves to appease poor, strengthen his stand against the U.S., Newsday, 5-7-06


GLOBAL

For the United States, the cost of the Iraq war will soon exceed the anticipated cost of the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement designed to control greenhouse gases. For both, the cost is somewhere in excess of $300 billion….With respect to the Iraq war, careful estimates come from Scott Wallsten, a former member of the President's Council of Economic Advisers who is now at the American Enterprise Institute. Writing at the end of 2005, Wallsten estimated the aggregate American cost at about $300 billion. With the costs incurred since then, and an anticipated appropriation soon, the total will exceed $350 billion.  With respect to the Kyoto Protocol, the most systematic estimates come from William Nordhaus and Joseph Boyer of Yale University. Writing in 2000, they offered a figure of $325 billion for the United States, designed to capture the full costs of compliance over many decades. This staggeringly large figure helped support Kyoto skeptics in the Bush administration and elsewhere, who argued that the benefits of the agreement did not justify its costs. For the world as a whole, the comparison between the Iraq war and the Kyoto Protocol is even more dramatic. The worldwide cost of the war is already much higher than the anticipated worldwide cost of the Kyoto Protocol - possibly at least $100 billion higher.  The worldwide cost of the war now exceeds $500 billion, a figure that includes the cost to Iraq (more than $160 billion) and to non-American coalition countries (more than $40 billion). For the Kyoto Protocol, full compliance is projected to cost less than $400 billion, because the United States would bear most of the aggregate costs.
 Cass R. Sunstein, It's Only $300 Billion, Washington Post,  5-10-06

Bird flu may be capable of invading people through the gut, not just the respiratory system, and diarrhea is sometimes the first symptom, said virologist Menno de Jong, whose team observed 18 cases in Vietnam. Particles of the lethal H5N1 virus contained in the meat and blood of infected poultry may have been ingested by some patients, possibly causing their infection, said De Jong, who is head of the virology department at the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in Ho Chi Minh City….Scientists are studying H5N1 patients to improve their understanding and treatment of the virus, which has the potential to mutate into a pandemic form that may kill millions of people.
If live virus particles are carried outside the lungs and surrounding tissues to other parts of the body, some antiviral treatments such as inhaled zanamivir, marketed by GlaxoSmithKline Plc as Relenza, may not be effective treatments, De Jong said.
The infection rate in humans is increasing after more than 30 countries across three continents reported initial outbreaks in birds this year. H5N1 has killed at least 115 of the 207 people known to have been infected since late 2003, according to the World Health Organization. This year, 39 fatalities have been reported, almost as many as the 41 deaths recorded in the whole of 2005.
Jason Gale, Bird Flu May Infect People Through the Gut, Virologist Says, Bloomberg, 5-9-06

Bird flu is spreading more slowly as warmer spring weather in the Northern Hemisphere reduces the virus' ability to survive in the environment, world health experts reported….Scientists are counting on the slowdown in animal infections to reduce the number of human cases and fatalities. At least 29 people died of avian flu in the first three months of this year, marking the deadliest quarter yet, as the virus spread through Europe and Africa. "The peak transmission either in poultry or to humans is in the winter months," said Robert Webster of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. Webster has studied flu viruses for more than 40 years…."Maybe one of the more positive possibilities is that the summer is coming and the heat of Africa may be in our advantage," Webster told reporters in Singapore, where he addressed an avian flu forum this week sponsored by the Lancet medical journal. "Maybe we will have a summer before it starts spreading more."
Warm-up slows avian flu spread, BLOOMBERG, 5-6-05


CYBERSPACE

Ohio University this week disclosed two separate but apparently unrelated incidents of data theft involving its computers. On April 24, IT officials at the university noticed that someone had hacked into an alumni database server containing personal and biographical information for more than 300,000 individuals and organizations, said Bill Sams, the Athens-based university’s CIO. Faculty and staff members hired by the school before January 2004 were also affected. The compromised files did not include credit card or bank information, but they did include Social Security numbers for 137,800 individuals, Sams said….In the 13 months since the server was breached, “we have found that people have accessed it from both domestic and international IP addresses,” he said. The compromised server was supposed to have been decommissioned more than a year ago, and IT officials assumed the system had been taken off-line, Sams said....The second data compromise involved a server at the Technology Transfer Department, which is part of the University’s Innovation Center. FBI officials told the university about that breach on April 21. The server, which contained patent data and intellectual property files, was apparently involved in another incident that the FBI was investigating, Sams said, without providing further details. The university had no idea that the server had been broken into until the FBI pointed it out, he said....
Jaikumar Vijayan, Ohio University reports two separate security breaches, Computerworld,  5-3-06



Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and http://www.wordsofpower.net. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to http://www.wordsofpower.net/