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GS(3) Intel Brief 6-10-06: Huge Meteor hits Norway, Bosnian Link to Canadian Terror Busts, Russia & China Outplay Bush-Cheney in “Great Game,” Canadian Scientists Fight Revisionists, Kyoto Protocol Successes, Human-to-Human Bird Flu, Nuclear Workers Data Hacked, and more!
Here are highlights from 11 items, including both news stories and op-ed pieces, from diverse news sources (Aftenposten, Yomiuri Shimbun, Washington Note, Asia Times, Eurasian Secret Services Daily Review, Inter Press Service, Reuters, Mercosur Press, Xinhuanet and Information Week) which provide insight on important global issues and trends, such as terrorism, global warming, energy security, the struggle for geopolitical hegemony, Bird Flu, and cyber crime. Excerpts and links follow below this summary. Customized analysis is provided for clients.
Europe, Middle East & Africa
As Wednesday morning dawned, northern Norway was hit with an impact comparable to the atomic bomb used on Hiroshima. (Aftenposten, 6-9-06)
The arrest of 17 suspected terrorists in Canada last weekend may be linked with the similar actions in Bosnia- Herzegovina last year, Bosnian media reported. The Prosecutor's Office of the Sarajevo-based Bosnia-Herzegovina State Court, according to reports, handed over to their Canadian colleagues some information obtained in a couple of operations by Bosnian police against suspected terrorists last year…..(Eurasian Secret Services Daily Review, 6-9-06)
Not surprisingly, the wisdom of Washington's one-track counter-terrorism policy in Somalia has long been questioned by professional foreign-service officers and CIA analysts who argued that an effective real counter-terrorist policy in the world's oldest "failed state" would include an emphasis on "nation-building," as well as "snatching" or killing suspected terrorists. But, in a pattern that has become all too familiar, they were overwhelmed by the hawks in the Pentagon and the White House….(Jim Lobe,The Washington Note, 6-8-06)
Asia Pacific
In recent months SCO [Shanghai Cooperation Organization] members have taken several potentially strategic steps to distance themselves from energy and monetary dependence on the US….Russia has by far the world's largest natural-gas reserves and Iran the second-largest. With Iran inside, the SCO would control the vast majority of the world's natural-gas reserves, as well as a significant portion of its oil reserves, not to mention the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow corridor for a majority of Persian Gulf oil-tanker shipment to Japan and the West….For its part, Beijing is also moving to "secure energy at the sources"….(F William Engdahl, Asia Times, 6-10-06)
Given the importance of national defense, it is a matter of course to promote the [Japanese] Defense Agency to a ministry. The Cabinet endorsed Friday a set of bills related to the promotion of the agency's status. The bills were immediately submitted to the Diet….The bills are unlikely to pass the current ordinary Diet session, given that it will close June 18. But the government should do its utmost to have the bills passed during the extraordinary Diet session to be convened in autumn. (Yomiuri Shimbun, 6-10-06)
Americas
Stronger and more frequent hurricanes in summer and stronger winter storms are clearly the result of climate change, according to new scientific studies reported at the 40th annual Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS) congress in Toronto….Although not the first time the Society has made public statements, it has been quite vocal about climate change of late. Part of the reason is that Canada's new Conservative government does not support the Kyoto Protocol for lower emissions of greenhouse gases…(Inter Press Service, 6-8-06)
Chile could face power shortages as a result of Bolivia’s plan to nationalise its gas sector, energy experts have warned. More than a third of Chile’s energy generating capacity is supplied by gas, all of which is imported from Argentina….Bolivia and Chile have not had diplomatic ties since 1978. Relations have been tense since the 19th century, when Chile defeated Bolivia and annexed its mineral-rich coastline. (Mercosur Press, 6-10-06)
Global
Human-to-human transmission of bird flu probably occurred in Indonesia's seven cluster cases, a minister said. But he ruled out a pandemic of H5N1 across the archipelago. "Limited human-to-human transmission may have occurred in small clusters in the country. It has not only happened in several regions in Indonesia but also in Azerbaijan and other places in the world," Coordinating Minister for the People's Welfare Aburizal Bakrie said…(Xinhuanet, 6-10-06)
A U.N. scheme to promote renewable energy use in poor nations is growing sharply and will axe emissions of greenhouse gases by more than a billion tonnes by 2012, the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat said….It said that the programme, part of the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol meant to combat global warming by curbing fossil fuel use, has more than 800 projects such as wind farms in India or power plants burning sugar cane waste in Brazil….Many of the projects have been in Brazil, China, India and South Korea with relatively few, for instance, in Africa. The Netherlands, Britain and Japan have been the leading investors in CDM schemes. (Alister Doyle, Reuters, 6-9-06)
Cyberspace
A computer hacker got into the U.S. agency that guards the country's nuclear weapons stockpile and stole the personal records of at least 1,500 employees and contractors, a senior U.S. lawmaker said on Friday. The target of the hacker, the National Nuclear Safety Administration, is the latest agency to reveal that sensitive private information about government workers was stolen….(Reuters, 6-9-06)
A former systems administrator for financial giant UBS PaineWebber goes on trial Tuesday for allegedly sabotaging two-thirds of the company's computer network in what prosecutors say was a vengeful attempt to profit from a crashing stock price. (Sharon Gaudin, Information Week, 6-2-06)
Europe, Middle East & Africa
As Wednesday morning dawned, northern Norway was hit with an impact comparable to the atomic bomb used on Hiroshima. At around 2:05 a.m. on Wednesday, residents of the northern part of Troms and the western areas of Finnmark could clearly see a ball of fire taking several seconds to travel across the sky. A few minutes later an impact could be heard and geophysics and seismology research foundation NORSAR registered a powerful sound and seismic disturbances at 02:13.25 a.m. at their station in Karasjok…."There were ground tremors, a house shook and a curtain was blown into the house," Norway's best known astronomer Knut Jørgen Røed Ødegaard told Aftenposten.no. Røed Ødegaard said the meteorite was visible to an area of several hundred kilometers despite the brightness of the midnight sunlit summer sky. The meteorite hit a mountainside in Reisadalen in North Troms.
"This is simply exceptional. I cannot imagine that we have had such a powerful meteorite impact in Norway in modern times. If the meteorite was as large as it seems to have been, we can compare it to the Hiroshima bomb. Of course the meteorite is not radioactive, but in explosive force we may be able to compare it to the (atomic) bomb," Røed Ødegaard said.
Record meteorite hit Norway, Aftenposten, 6-9-06
The arrest of 17 suspected terrorists in Canada last weekend may be linked with the similar actions in Bosnia- Herzegovina last year, Bosnian media reported. The Prosecutor's Office of the Sarajevo-based Bosnia-Herzegovina State Court, according to reports, handed over to their Canadian colleagues some information obtained in a couple of operations by Bosnian police against suspected terrorists last year….A certain amount of weapons and explosives, as well as video tapes with instructions for a prayer before the suicide attacks, was found in the suspects' homes during the operation….A spokesman for Bosnia-Herzegovina Prosecutor's Office, Boris Grubesic, told media that during the investigation into suspected terrorist activities last year the office contacted many countries. However, he refused to give details of the contacts or reveal the names of the countries involved. The arrests of Bektasevic and Cesur in the Bosnian capital last year led to a number of arrests in Denmark where five men and one woman were detained last November over suspected terrorist activities, believed to be linked with the alleged terrorist group in Bosnia.
Eurasian Secret Services Daily Review, 6-9-06
Is what happened in Mogadishu during the past week a microcosm of how badly the Bush administration has fundamentally mishandled its "global war on terror?
Superficially, at least, it would seem so. By all accounts, the administration's single-minded obsession with seizing suspected al Qaeda and associated Islamist terrorists without any regard for the political context not only undermined ongoing indigenous and international efforts to rebuild a shattered nation, but it also boosted popular backing for of local Islamic militias against U.S.-backed warlords who have now been expelled from the Somali capital….Not surprisingly, the wisdom of Washington's one-track counter-terrorism policy in Somalia has long been questioned by professional foreign-service officers and CIA analysts who argued that an effective real counter-terrorist policy in the world's oldest "failed state" would include an emphasis on "nation-building," as well as "snatching" or killing suspected terrorists. But, in a pattern that has become all too familiar, they were overwhelmed by the hawks in the Pentagon and the White House. The result: "The U.S. now has nothing to show for three years of investing in these warlords as the sole element of their counter-terrorism (CT) strategy in Somalia," according to the ICG's John Prendergast, who called the policy a ''travesty.''
Jim Lobe: The Implications of Somalia, The Washington Note, 6-8-06
Asia Pacific
In recent months SCO [Shanghai Cooperation Organization] members have taken several potentially strategic steps to distance themselves from energy and monetary dependence on the US. In his recent State of the Union speech, President Putin announced that Russia is planning to make the ruble convertible into other major currencies and to use it in its oil and gas transactions. A convertible ruble is to be introduced, according to latest Russian statements, on July 1, six months earlier than originally planned. Russia also has stated it plans to shift a share of its now considerable dollar reserves away from the US currency and that it will use 40 billion US dollars to purchase gold reserves. Russia's state-owned natural-gas transport company, Transneft, has consolidated its pipeline control to become the sole exporter of Russian natural gas. Russia has by far the world's largest natural-gas reserves and Iran the second-largest. With Iran inside, the SCO would control the vast majority of the world's natural-gas reserves, as well as a significant portion of its oil reserves, not to mention the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow corridor for a majority of Persian Gulf oil-tanker shipment to Japan and the West. Late last month Russia and Algeria, the two largest gas suppliers to Europe, agreed to increase energy cooperation. Algeria has given Russian companies exclusive access to Algerian oil and gas fields, and Gazprom and Sonatrach will cooperate in delivery to France. Putin has canceled Algeria's US$4.7 billion debt to Russia and, for its part, Algeria will buy $7.5 billion worth of Russian advanced jet fighters, air defense systems and other weapons….For its part, Beijing is also moving to "secure energy at the sources"….On May 26, crude oil began to flow into China through a newly completed pipeline from Atasu, Kazakhstan, to the Alataw Pass in China's far-western region of Xinjiang, a 1,000-kilometer route announced only last year. It marked the first time oil is being pumped directly into China….China is also in negotiations with Russia for a pipeline to deliver Siberian oil to northeastern China, a project that could be completed by 2008, and a natural-gas pipeline from Russia to Heilongjiang province in China's northeast….In its relentless quest to secure future oil supplies "at the source", China has also moved into traditional US, British and French oil domains in Africa. In addition to being the major developer of Sudan's oil pipeline, which ships some 7% of total China oil imports, Beijing has been more than active in West Africa, the source of vast fields of highly prized low-sulfur oil. Since the creation of the China-Africa Forum in 2000, China has scrapped tariffs on 190 imported goods from 28 of the least developed African countries, and canceled $1.2 billion in debt….Immediately after his humiliating diplomatic visit to Washington in April, President Hu went on to Nigeria, Africa's largest oil producer and long regarded by Washington as in its "oil sphere of interest". In Nigeria, Hu signed a deal whereby the African country will give China four oil-drilling licenses in exchange for a commitment to invest $4 billion in infrastructure. of the world's largest oil and gas basins"…..Almost all of Nigeria's current oil production is controlled by Western multinationals. But the situation there will also soon change in China's favor.
F William Engdahl, US outflanked in Eurasia energy politics, Asia Times, 6-10-06
Given the importance of national defense, it is a matter of course to promote the Defense Agency to a ministry. The Cabinet endorsed Friday a set of bills related to the promotion of the agency's status. The bills were immediately submitted to the Diet….The bills are unlikely to pass the current ordinary Diet session, given that it will close June 18. But the government should do its utmost to have the bills passed during the extraordinary Diet session to be convened in autumn.
In other countries, all governmental organizations tasked with jobs of national defense are ministry-level organizations. There is an argument that the agency should not be upgraded to a ministry because doing so would ruffle feathers in neighboring countries. But that is an absurd line of thinking.
The Defense Agency currently is an external body of the Cabinet Office. While cabinet ministers are allowed to put key issues on the agenda of cabinet meetings and submit budgetary requests to the finance minister, the Defense Agency director general does not have such powers….
Amid the change in the national security environment in the post-Cold War era, the roles of the SDF have expanded beyond preventing and responding to invasions. They are now faced with the emergence of diversified threats, such as terrorist attacks and ballistic missile attacks.
In connection with the realignment of U.S. forces stationed in Japan, the missions and roles of the SDF will be comprehensively reviewed. As Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi put it, the Japan-U.S. alliance is evolving into a "Japan-U.S. alliance in the world."
Japan obviously needs a defense ministry, Yomiuri Shimbun, 6-10-06
Americas
Stronger and more frequent hurricanes in summer and stronger winter storms are clearly the result of climate change, according to new scientific studies reported at the 40th annual Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS) congress in Toronto. "Climate change is real, the Kyoto Protocol is an important first step, but we need to do a lot more," Ian Rutherford, CMOS executive-director, told IPS….Although not the first time the Society has made public statements, it has been quite vocal about climate change of late. Part of the reason is that Canada's new Conservative government does not support the Kyoto Protocol for lower emissions of greenhouse gases, and opposed stricter emissions for a post-Kyoto agreement at a United Nations meeting in Bonn in May. Another reason is that a small, previously invisible group of global warming sceptics called the Friends of Science are suddenly receiving attention from the Canadian government and media. "The Conservative government is listening to them (the sceptics) because they tell them what they want to hear," he said.
Stephen Leahy, New Data Clearly Links Storms and Warming, Inter Press Service, 6-8-06
Chile could face power shortages as a result of Bolivia’s plan to nationalise its gas sector, energy experts have warned. More than a third of Chile’s energy generating capacity is supplied by gas, all of which is imported from Argentina. But in order to fulfil its export commitments to Chile of about 15m cubic metres of gas a day, Argentina imports on average 6m cu m a day from Bolivia for $3.35 per million BTU. Bolivia, which moved to nationalise its gas industry last month, is now demanding sharp increases in the price of gas to be exported to Argentina to $5.50 per million BTU….Bolivia and Chile have not had diplomatic ties since 1978. Relations have been tense since the 19th century, when Chile defeated Bolivia and annexed its mineral-rich coastline. In 2003, former Bolivian president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada was forced out of office after proposing gas exports via Chile.
Bolivia’s gas plan may hit Chile’s supply, Mercosur, 6-10-06
Global
Human-to-human transmission of bird flu probably occurred in Indonesia's seven cluster cases, a minister said. But he ruled out a pandemic of H5N1 across the archipelago. "Limited human-to-human transmission may have occurred in small clusters in the country. It has not only happened in several regions in Indonesia but also in Azerbaijan and other places in the world," Coordinating Minister for the People's Welfare Aburizal Bakrie said Friday after a meeting with agencies involved in curbing the spread of the disease….However, WHO officials could not be reached for comment on Aburizal's comments. A statement on its website reads: "Although at present the virus is not spreading efficiently or sustainably among humans, human-to-human transmission cannot be ruled out."
Bird flu human transmission probable in Indonesia, Xinhuanet, 6-10-06
A U.N. scheme to promote renewable energy use in poor nations is growing sharply and will axe emissions of greenhouse gases by more than a billion tonnes by 2012, the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat said….It said that the programme, part of the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol meant to combat global warming by curbing fossil fuel use, has more than 800 projects such as wind farms in India or power plants burning sugar cane waste in Brazil….Under the CDM, rich nations can invest in renewable energy projects in developing nations -- such as hydroelectric power plants in Guatemala or a methane capture scheme in China -- and then claim credits back home for the emissions they save. Those credits can in theory then be sold -- giving the rich nations the incentive to invest. Some experts say that the CDM could eventually channel more than $100 billion to renewable energy schemes from Africa to Latin America….But the Climate Secretariat said that the growth in the CDM had been lopsided. "Whilst the mechanism is seeing exponential growth, the growth is still too unevenly distributed," said Richard Kinley, officer in charge of the secretariat. Many of the projects have been in Brazil, China, India and South Korea with relatively few, for instance, in Africa. The Netherlands, Britain and Japan have been the leading investors in CDM schemes.
Alister Doyle, U.N. scheme to save 1 bln tonnes of greenhouse gas, Reuters, 6-9-06
Cyberspace
A computer hacker got into the U.S. agency that guards the country's nuclear weapons stockpile and stole the personal records of at least 1,500 employees and contractors, a senior U.S. lawmaker said on Friday. The target of the hacker, the National Nuclear Safety Administration, is the latest agency to reveal that sensitive private information about government workers was stolen. The incident happened last September but top Energy Department officials were not told about it until this week, prompting the chairman of the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee to demand the resignation of the head of the NNSA….Earlier this week the Pentagon revealed that personal information on about 2.2 million active-duty, National Guard and Reserve troops was stolen last month from a government employee's house. That comes on top of the theft of data on 26.5 million U.S. military veterans, the Department of Veterans Affairs has said.
Chris Baltimore, Data on nuclear agency workers hacked: lawmaker, Reuters, 6-9-06
A former systems administrator for financial giant UBS PaineWebber goes on trial Tuesday for allegedly sabotaging two-thirds of the company's computer network in what prosecutors say was a vengeful attempt to profit from a crashing stock price. Roger Duronio, 63, of Bogota, N.J., is facing federal charges in front of a U.S. District Court in Newark, in connection to the creation and planting of malicious code on more than 1,000 computers in the company's central office, as well as in approximately 370 branch offices. When the malicious code, or "logic bomb," was triggered on March 4, 2002, it began deleting files and data, taking down many PaineWebber computers across the United States and hindering trading for days in some branch offices and for several weeks in others, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Mauro Wolfe, lead prosecutor on the case.
The attack, according to the indictment, cost UBS PaineWebber, which was renamed UBS Wealth Management USA in 2003, $3 million just to assess and repair the damage. The company didn't submit a list of losses to the government based on business downtime or lost trading opportunities….The government contends that in the months leading up to the planting of the logic bomb and the subsequent attack, Duronio, using the U.S. postal system, bought more than $21,000 worth of 'put option' contracts for PaineWebber's parent company, UBS, A.G.'s stock. A put option is a type of stock that actually increases in value when the stock price drops. According to Wolfe, Duronio was betting the attack would cripple the company's network, and its stock would fall in the aftermath, allowing him to cash in.
Sharon Gaudin, System Admin Faces Trial For Computer Sabotage, Information Week, 6-2-06
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
