A Quick Fix to the Food Crisis

Πηγή: Scientific American

By Timothy Searchinger

June 16, 2011 

When food prices rose steeply in 2007 and climaxed in the winter of 2008, politicians and the press decried the impact on the billion or so people who were already going hungry. Excellent growing weather and good harvests provided temporary relief, but prices have once again soared to record heights. This time around people are paying less attention.

The public has a short attention span regarding problems of the world’s have-nots, but experts are partly to blame, too. Economists have made such a fuss about how complicated the food crisis is that they have created the impression that it has no ready solution, making it seem like one of those intractable problems, like poverty and disease, that are so easy to stash in the back of our minds. This view is wrong.

To be sure, reducing hunger in a world headed toward more than nine billion people by 2050 is a truly complicated challenge that calls for a broad range of solutions. But this is a long-term problem separate from the sudden rise in food prices. High oil prices and a weaker dollar have played some part by driving up production costs, but they cannot come close to explaining why wholesale food prices have doubled since 2004. The current price surge reflects a shortfall in supply to meet demand, which forces consumers to bid against one another to secure their supplies. Soaring farm profits and land values support this explanation. What explains this imbalance?

Crop production has not slowed: total world grain production last year was the third highest in history. Indeed, it has grown since 2004 at rates that, on average, exceed the long-term trend since 1980 and roughly match the trends of the past decade. Even with bad weather in Russia and northern Australia last year, global average crop yields were only 1 percent below what the trends would lead us to expect, a modest gap.

The problem is therefore one of rapidly rising demand. Conventional wisdom points to Asia as the source, but that’s not so. China has contributed somewhat to tighter markets in recent years by importing more soybeans and cutting back on grain exports to build up its stocks, which should serve as a warning to policy makers for the future. But consumption in China and India is rising no faster than it has in previous decades. In general, Asia’s higher incomes have not triggered the surge in demand for food.

That starring role belongs to biofuels. Since 2004 biofuels from crops have almost doubled the rate of growth in global demand for grain and sugar and pushed up the yearly growth in demand for vegetable oil by around 40 percent. Even cassava is edging out other crops in Thailand because China uses it to make ethanol.

Increasing demand for corn, wheat, soybeans, sugar, vegetable oil and cassava competes for limited acres of farmland, at least until farmers have had time to plow up more forest and grassland, which means that tightness in one crop market translates to tightness in others. Overall, global agriculture can keep up with growing demand if the weather is favorable, but even the mildly poor 2010 growing season was enough to force a draw down in stockpiles of grain outside China, which sent total grain stocks to very low levels. Low reserves and rising demand for both food and biofuels create the risk of greater shortfalls in supply and send prices skyward.

Although most experts recognize the important role bio­fuels play, they often underestimate their effects. Many of them misinterpret the economic models, which understate the degree to which biofuels drive up prices. These models are nearly all designed to estimate biofuels’ effects on prices over the long term, after farmers have ample time to plow up and plant more land, and do not speak to prices in the shorter term. Commentators also often lump all sources of crop demand together without recognizing their different moral weights and potential for control. Our primary obligation is to feed the hungry. Biofuels are undermining our ability to do so. Governments can stop the recurring pattern of food crises by backing off their demands for ever more biofuels. 

General's Abdul Fatah Youni assassination mystery

On July 24 the Jordan based Al - Bawaba media reported that General Abdul Fatah Younis "head of the rebel forces army in Libya, was killed in the fighting in Brega area some 10 days ago in what was described as mysterious circumstances." "It is worth mentioning that there were differences between some rebel leaders and Younes as some rebels claimed he was responsible for killing and injuring hundreds of people in front of Italy's consulate in Benghazi in 2006. This incident was related to a protest against the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed." Next day he gave a radio interview to announce he was alive and well and declare that the rebels would achieve victory before the impending start of Ramadan. TNC officials claimed afterwards that someone was impersonating Gen Younes, who was indeed under arrest. He accused Gaddafi regime of distributing this false information in order to influence the morale of the rebels.

Mustafa Abdel Jalil

On July 28 General Abdul Fatah Younis reported that was killed along with his comrades Colonel Mohammed Khamis and Major Nasser Mathkour. National Transitional Council (TNC), the opposition's administration based in Benghazi chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil said in the subsequent press conference that Libyan state TV had announced to its listeners that they would “hear good news about Abdul Fatah Younis this week.” As for the assassination he remarked: "Today, we learned that Major General Abdel Fattah Younes Faraj and his two companions were shot by gunmen after he was summoned to appear before a judicial committee to investigate military affairs. But the deceased did not appear before this committee, because of the procedures that happened to him, which are under investigation. The head of the armed group, one of them that actually carried out the assassination, was arrested." He gave a last warning "to the individuals who are armed inside the cities, we will not allow armed militias within the city limits. They have one of two choices: They have to join the front, or they have to join the national security forces inside the cities" and exteneded condolences "to all the Libyans and all the tribes, especially the tribe of Obeidat that have paid heavily with more than 40 martyrs and in excess of 500 injured at the front" adding that "these events will not turn the Obeidat tribe away from the revolution. Relatives of the dead, relatives of the martyrs and some of these tribes are here, and we all ask the Allah the almighty to give his mercy upon all of them.."


The TNC claimed that Major-General Abdel Fatah Younes had been shot by pro-Gaddafi forces. But this was immediately dismissed by supporters of the commander, who claimed he had been killed by fellow revolutionary fighters. Roadblocks were being set up in Benghazi after units loyal to Gen Younes were reported to have left the front line at the port of Brega and entered the opposition capital. The roads to the commander's home were sealed off by the Shabaab, volunteer militia fighters formed after the uprising. Later in the evening, gunmen burst into a hall where the head of the TNC, Mustafa Abdul Jalil had announced Gen Younes's death, and sprayed the room with rifle fire. A witness said that they later managed to enter the hotel with their weapons but security forces calmed them down and convinced them to leave. “They shouted ‘You killed him,’” in reference to the NTC, he added.

Ali Tarhouni

After 24 hours of confusion, rebel minister Ali Tarhouni said Younes had been killed by fighters who were sent to fetch him from the front and his bullet-riddled and partially burned body was found at a ranch near the rebel capital of Benghazi. Tarhouni said late on Friday a militiaman had been arrested and confessed that his subordinates had carried out the killing. He announced that the assassination of Gen Younes had been conducted by "renegade" members of the Abu Obeida al-Jarrah brigade which had taken Gen Younes into custody on suspicion of treason. Younes had been recalled over suspicions he or his family were secretly in contact with the Libyan leader.

Gaddafi's government pointed the finger at Fawzi Bu Kitf, head of the Union of Revolutionary Forces, a federation of armed rebel groups operating in the east of the country. In an apparent effort to distance himself from the killing, Bu Kitf on Saturday named the key suspect as Mustafa al-Rubh, the field commander who had been dispatched to arrest Younes.

On 30/7 Al - Jazeera reported that Younis was shot dead "after he had been held and questioned by their investigators regarding "a military matter", the head of the council says." Jalil claimed that since the throats of the men had not been cut the killing was not the work of Islamists but of pro - Qaddafi agents seeking to create divisions within the opposition. There was a warrant signed by Ali Essawi, his deputy, and that after Abdel Fattah Younes, the commander of the rebel armed forces, had been questioned on Thursday he had been released.

Gaddafi spokesman Moussa Ibrahim told reporters. that behind this act it was al-Qaeda that wanted to mark out its presence and its influence in this region. Mohammed Agoury, a member of the rebel special forces, told the AP news agency that he was present when a group of rebels from the February 17th Brigade came to Younes' operations room before dawn on Wednesday and took him away for interrogation.

Abdul Fatah Younis was a senior military officer in Libya. He held the rank of Major General and the post of Minister of Interior, considered as a key supporter of Muammar al-Gaddafi or even No. 2 in the Libyan government. He had arrived in Benghazi commanding a special forces unit whose mission was to help relieve the beseiged Katiba compound, which had sheltered the remaining loyalist forces in the city since 18 February, and which was undergoing almost continuous attack. He claimed to have ordered his soldiers not to shoot at protesters, and negotiated an arrangement whereby the loyalists were permitted to retreat from the building and the city. Reading his short speech from a paper he resigned on camera on 22 February 2011 to defect to the rebel side.

Col Khalifa Haftar

The committed assassination possibly will leave Khalifa Haftar at the helm of the rebel's army. Haftar is probably the CIA's man in Libya. He came to Benghazi on March 14, straight from Fairfax, Virginia, where had lived for 20 years. Upon his arrival with his two sons he self - proclaimed as commander of the Free Libyan Army. Claiming that he doesn't report to Omar Hariri, the rebels' defense minister or to Gen. Abdel Fattah Younes, who had the title of chief of staff, he told that one of his sons was in regular contact with James Clapper, U.S. director of National Intelliglence, a claim that a spokesperson for Clapper said was inaccurate. In March, Younes was rumoured to have nearly come to blows with Col Khalifa Belqasim Haftar, a rival within the rebel camp, and for a time both men claimed to be in command of the rebel forces as they raced towards Tripoli, only to be thrown back towards Benghazi. Hifter swiftly replaced Younis as the commander of rebel forces as his son claimed that he was responsible for commanding rebel troops in the field, while Younes served as chief of staff back at headquarters. Omar Hariri, defence minister at the time, represented the military before the NTC, he said in late April. Furthermore he claimed that his father along with Jalil and Ali Essawi that later signed the warrant against Younes worked together as a team, a kind of military council. According to Hifter Jalil and Essawi was a figurehead and commander in chief only in name. But in the contrary it seems that the NTC degraded his role and promoted Younes. As Abdulhafiz Ghoga, the NTC's vice chairman and spokesman, told Al Jazeera in an interview later Younes was at the top of the army’s chain of command. Hariri represented the military before the NTC, it was true, but Hifter was only a commander, one of many leaders of the newly formed rebel brigades.

In recent months, the dispute seemed to resolve. The NTC presented a more disciplined public face to the media, eliminated contradictory remarks about who was in charge and minimised Hifter's role in favor of Younes. It replaced Defence Minister Omar Hariri with Jalal al-Dogheily, a senior opposition figure who was older than both Younes and Hifter and whose job was to both coordinate military affairs and mediate between the two men. 

It seems that the pro - American rebel's officials blame the Islamists, the more localized conservatives blame Qaddafi while himself blames Al - Qaeda. Anyway the whole story underlines the fragmentaion of the revolutionaries among different foreign policy trends, local mentality, contest for power among the tribes and fundamentalism and retaliation. Abdul Fatah Youni's death was for the moment per se less important than the ongoing political manipulation of the assassination. Finally, it must be noted that the the Obeidat tribe loyal to Yunis blaming the NTC for his death, that Jalil had wished that "these events will not turn from the revolution" expressing his "condolences ... especially (to) the tribe of Obeidat that have paid heavily with more than 40 martyrs and in excess of 500 injured at the front", is divided to 15 sub - tribes standing at the center of the Harabi Confederation, the practically hegemonic tribe among the tribes of Cyrenaica, which overlaps between the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and al Qaeda. 

Fighting back against the CIA drone war

Human rights lawyers and activists in the UK and Pakistan are on a quest for justice and transparency. 

Πηγή: Al Jazeera
By Muhammad Idrees Ahmad 

Last Modified: 30 Jul 2011 11:16



US Predator drones have played a large role in the CIA's extrajudicial killing program in Pakistan, where some 2,500 people in Pakistan, mostly civilians, have been killed by US forces since June 2004 [EPA]

They call it "bug splat", the splotch of blood, bones, and viscera that marks the site of a successful drone strike. To those manning the consoles in Nevada, it signifies "suspected militants" who have just been "neutralised"; to those on the ground, in most cases, it represents a family that has been shattered, a home destroyed.

Since June 18, 2004, when the CIA began its policy of extrajudicial killings in Pakistan, it has left nearly 250 such stains on Pakistani soil, daubed with the remains of more than 2,500 individuals, mostly civilians. More recently, it has taken to decorating other parts of the world.

Since the Pakistani government and its shadowy intelligence agencies have been complicit in the killings, the CIA has been able to do all this with complete impunity. Major human rights organisations in thrall to the Obama Administration have given it a pass. So have the media, who uncritically accept officials' claims about the accuracy of their lethal toys.

Two recent developments might change all this.

The unlawful combatant


On July 18, 2011, three Pakistani tribesmen, Kareem Khan, Sadaullah, and Maezol Khan, filed a formal complaint against John A Rizzo, the CIA's former acting General Counsel, at a police station in Islamabad. Until his retirement on June 25, 2009, Rizzo served as legal counsel to the program whose victims have included Kareem Khan's son and brother, Maezol Khan's seven-year-old son, and three family members of Sadaullah (who also lost both legs and an eye in the attack).

In an interview with Newsweek's Tara McKelvey, Rizzo bragged that he was responsible for signing off on the "hit list" for "lethal operations". The targets were "blown to bits" in "businesslike" operations, he said. By his own admission, he is implicated in "murder". Indeed, he boasted: "How many law professors have signed off on a death warrant?" And that is not the full extent of Rizzo's derring-do: he claims he was also "up to my eyeballs" in Bush's program of torture in black sites in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

The detailed First Information Report (FIR) that barrister Mirza Shahzad Akbar prepared on behalf of the tribesmen was filed at the Secretariat Police Station in Islamabad, whose territorial jurisdiction includes the residence of Rizzo's leading co-conspirator Jonathan Banks, the CIA station chief who has since fled Pakistan. As a party to a conspiracy to commit murder in Pakistan, Akbar believes that Rizzo is subject to the country's penal code.

Clive Stafford Smith, the celebrated human rights lawyer best known as George W Bush's nemesis over Guantanamo, is leading the campaign to secure an international arrest warrant for Rizzo. Asked about the question of jurisdiction, Smith told me that that "there is no issue of jurisdiction - these are a series of crimes, including murder … committed on Pakistani soil against Pakistani citizens". The CIA, he says, is "waging war against Pakistan". He insists that "there is no question that [Rizzo] is liable for the crimes he is committing. The only issue is whether he will face the music or be kept hidden by the authorities".

Smith, who heads the legal charity Reprieve, is a practical man, uninterested in mere symbolic gestures. Earlier, he successfully sued the Bush administration for access to prisoners at Guantanomo and has so far secured the release of 65 of them. He is confident that once the Islamabad police issues a warrant, Interpol will have no choice but to pursue the case. Furthermore, he notes, depending on the success of this test case, they will broaden it to also include drone operators.

The US position so far is to either claim that it is engaged in legitimate self-defence, or to make the policy more palatable by downplaying its human cost. Neither argument is tenable.

The laws of war do not prohibit the killing of civilians unless it is deliberate, disproportionate or indiscriminate. However, Akbar and Smith reject the applicability of these laws to CIA's drone war. "The US has to follow the laws of war," Smith recently told the Guardian. But "the issue here is that this is not a war" - there is no declared state of conflict between the US and Pakistan. Moreover, Gary Solis of Georgetown University, an expert in the laws of war, told Newsweek that "the CIA who pilot unmanned aerial vehicles are civilians directly engaged in hostilities, an act that makes them 'unlawful combatants' and possibly subject to prosecution".

Murder by numbers

The US government has made bold claims for the extraordinary accuracy of its wonder-weapons. In a press conference earlier this year, US president Barack Obama's chief counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan insisted that "nearly for the past year there hasn't been a single collateral death" in the CIA's drone war.

This would be remarkable indeed if it weren't demonstrably false. A major investigation by the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) has shown that in just ten CIA drone attacks since August last year there were a minimum of 45 individuals killed who were confirmed civilians. These include women, children, policemen, students and rescuers among others. TBIJ has also identified an additional 15 attacks in which 65 more civilians might have been killed.

Unlike the New America Foundation or the neoconservative Long War Journal - the two most frequently cited, and least reliable, sources on drone casualties - TBIJ's investigation does not rely on official claims or the media reports that exclusively rely on them. Chris Woods, the journalist who led the TBIJ investigation, told me earlier this month that, besides reviewing thousands of media reports about the attacks - including those written days, weeks, or even months after the initial incident - the Bureau has worked with journalists, researchers, and the lawyers representing the civilians killed in the attacks. The Bureau has also employed its own researchers in Waziristan to corroborate the evidence it has gathered.

However, as the Bureau notes, its figures for civilian casualties are a "conservative estimate". It has only included those in its list whose civilian status it can confirm through multiple sources. The actual figures are likely much higher. But given the restrictions on travel to the region, a more comprehensive assessment of the war's human cost remains impossible.

The respected Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai told me that it is no longer possible for journalists from outside to travel to the tribal region and, as a result, most of the reporting comes from a handful of stringers based in Miranshah and Mir Ali.

Confined to the environs of the region's two main cities, even the journalists based in FATA have to call up the military's press office for information on all strikes that occur beyond those limits. The kind of courage exhibited by 39-year-old Noor Behram, who photographed the aftermath of 27 drone attacks in North and South Waziristan between November 29, 2008, and June 15, 2011, is rare. The photos are currently on display at London's Beaconsfield gallery. Unsurprisingly, the picture that emerges does not quite jibe with the CIA's claims. "For every ten to 15 people killed," he told the Guardian, "maybe they get one militant".

The CIA claims that of the nearly 2,500 Pakistanis killed in the drone attacks, 35 were "high value targets" - that is, people it actually intended to kill. The rest it claims were mostly "suspected militants". The world of think-tankery is even more linguistically challenged - in the New America Foundation's database there is no category for "civilian" - there are only "militants" and "others". Until now we had only the CIA and the ISI's word for the presumed guilt of those killed. Given the history of both organisations there is ample ground for scepticism, but in the light of the Bureau's investigation, the public would be wise to treat all future victims of the drone war as civilians unless proven otherwise.

But even where guilt is established, the killings would still constitute extra-judicial murder since no declared state of hostilities exists between the US and Pakistan. Things have come a long way since July 2001, when following Israel's "targeted killing" of Palestinians, the then US Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk declared: "The United States government is very clearly on record as against targeted assassinations ... They are extrajudicial killings, and we do not support that."

Under Obama, extrajudicial killings have been adopted as a less complicated alternative to detention. Earlier in the year, Newsweek quoted one of Obama's legal svengalis - American University's Kenneth Anderson, author of an essay on the subject that was read widely by Obama White House officials - as saying: "Since the US political and legal situation has made aggressive interrogation a questionable activity anyway, there is less reason to seek to capture rather than kill."

"And if one intends to kill, the incentive is to do so from a standoff position because it removes potentially messy questions of surrender."

Deferred reckoning

So far, the drones policy has been an unmitigated disaster. The handful of Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders killed have been replaced by a more ruthless leadership which has progressively expanded its operational ambit into the Pakistani mainland. To the extent that "militants" are killed, they are mostly foot soldiers whose death has no discernible impact on the outcome of the insurgency; indeed, it merely helps deepen resentment and broaden the militants' support base. The CIA practice of bombing funerals and rescuers has ensured that even those who might otherwise disdain the Taliban identify with them as common victims of a uniquely barbarous adversary. Unable to strike back at the US, the Taliban instead revenge themselves on Pakistani soldiers and civilians in attacks that are no less brutal.

Two years ago, when I spoke to Yusufzai amid one of the most ferocious wave of terrorist attacks on Peshawar, he remained optimistic that, once the US withdrew from Afghanistan the militancy would recede. Events of the past two years have tempered his optimism. Last week when I spoke to him again, he told me that conditions have deteriorated so much that Pakistan will have to live with the consequences of America's reckless war long after it has withdrawn. The drone attacks are merely compounding the mess.

Campaigners in Britain and Pakistan are determined to bring transparency to Obama's secretive war and justice to its victims. Barrister Akbar told me in an email that with his team of researchers, he is "working to dig out information beyond the news reports, trying to find out the identities of individuals killed in drone strikes". He is now representing a growing number of individuals who have lost family members to the CIA drones, and many more are coming forward.

"This is only the start of a long, long, peaceful battle to stop this kind of 'murder by videogame'," says Smith. "What we most need are allies willing to work with us, and help provide truthful information about what is really happening on the ground in Pakistan's border regions."

Real Threat to Social Security Benefits is Government Spending

Πηγή: A View from the Nest
by The Resident Raptor in Life

July 25, 2011

In his Friday night prime time media event, the President Obama spread the notion that he might be forced to delay the August Social Security payments.

Jessica Yellin was one of the pre-selected White House reporters to set the President up with a friendly question .

Standing here tonight, Mr. President, can you assure the American people they will get their Social Security checks on August 3rd? And if not, who’s to blame?

With that question, Obama launched into a long discourse inferring that Social Security and more were in fact at risk and the Republican House of Representatives was to blame. You can read the entire transcript courtesy of the Wall Street Journal here

This is an oft-repeated strategy used by government to intimidate opposition to budget cuts. The same mantra is used over and over again. If you cut the federal budget at all senior citizens. the sick and infirm, education of our children, and the middle class will suffer. How many times must we hear ‘the sky is falling’ before we realize all these threats are lies. Yes there is a real threat to future social security benefits and it is simply federal spending. The failure to raise the debt limit should not affect social security in any way since President Reagan signed into law the 1983 social security reform act .

Since the inception of Social Security, the government had administrated it as a pay-as-you-go program, paying benefits out of current receipts rather than building up a capital fund for each contributor. However, in the mid-1970s, expenditures for Social Security benefits began to exceed tax payments coming into the trust funds. This occurred because a serious recession reduced employment and trust-fund revenues while inflation simultaneously created a need to increase benefits. Public concern developed over the possibility that the Social Security system might become bankrupt over time. Since the funds had been accumulating for over 35 years, they had a reserve of more than $40 billion in 1976, so the system was in no immediate danger. Nevertheless, experts warned that in the long-term the reserve would eventually become depleted. In an effort to restore the financial integrity of Social Security , the government began to reform the system of contributions and benefits. source

This was part of a much larger package of program changes designed to address the financial solvency of the program. One might fairly say that cutting benefits and raising revenues was the purpose of the 1983 Amendments, and the adoption of Social Security benefit taxation was simply one provision among many to facilitate these aims. It is also important to note that funds raised under this provision does not go into the General Fund of the Treasury but into the Social Security Trust Funds. This emphasizes again that the purpose of introducing this provision was to raise revenue to help restore Social Security’s financial solvency. (The Committees estimated the six-year savings from this provision at $26.6 billion, and estimated that this provision would supply almost 30% of the total additional long-range funding provided by the Amendments.)source

The reality however is less rosy. Since the federal government sees all revenues coming into the treasury as "government money" the funds that should have been held in reserve in the social security trust fund have long since been raided to spend on other government programs, and as kick-backs to political cronies to garner votes and to gain constituent support. In other words the federal government is the enemy of Social Security. The federal government has long ago spent any ‘social security surplus’ and replaced it with worthless paper IOU’s.
Had the government actually invested the funds it collected from the separate FICA payroll deductions into tradable treasury notes, then the value of the ‘trust fund’ would have gained value, instead they spent all the money and ‘promised’ to repay it with other funds taken from the general fund. These funds of course need to be raised from the private sector through taxation and regulation or out right theft.

In simple terms, the federal government stole the money they forced you to pay into a retirement fund. These funds that should have been held in secure treasury bonds were spent on other government programs and wasted in federal largess. The Social Security trust fund now only contains worthless IOU’s. As the number of retirees continues to grow and the number of workers to support these retirees continues to decline the deficit created by this funding disparity continues to grow year after year.

But since the Supreme Court has declared that Social Security is not a contractual entitlement and that the congress can do with the fund as they see fit, there is no incentive to secure your Social Security by this or any other congress.

Section 1104 of the 1935 Act, entitled "RESERVATION OF POWER," specifically said: "The right to alter, amend, or repeal any provision of this Act is hereby reserved to the Congress." Even so, some have thought that this reservation was in some way unconstitutional. This is the issue finally settled by Flemming v. Nestor .

Therefore it is reasonable to assume that unless you personally take control of your own retirement, congress has no obligation to honor Social Security payments to future generations. There is no law requiring this or any other congress to secure these FICA payments, in fact the law says this or any future congress can change the rules of Social Security or eliminate it altogether without any court remedy.

How secure do you feel now? So regardless of whether Social Security checks get issued on August 3 or not is not the question that should be asked. What should be asked is can we opt out of this gamble and select to use our own money to fund our own retirement accounts which congress can not eliminate with the stroke of a pen, and the funds are not made available to the federal government general fund.money flowing into the trust funds is invested in U. S. Government securities. Because the government spends this borrowed cash, some people see the trust fund assets as an accumulation of securities that the government will be unable to make good on in the future. Without legislation to restore long-range solvency of the trust funds, redemption of long-term securities prior to maturity would be necessary.source

Private-sector trust funds invest in real assets ranging from stocks and bonds to mortgages and other financial instruments. However, the Social Security trust funds are only "invested" in a special type of Treasury bond that can only be issued to and redeemed by the Social Security Administration. As the Congressional Research Service noted in a report on May 5, 1998:

When the government issues a bond to one of its own accounts, it hasn’t purchased anything or established a claim against another entity or person. It is simply creating a form of IOU from one of its accounts to another.

According to the Office of Management and Budget under the Clinton Administration in 1999:

These [trust fund] balances are available to finance future benefit payments and other trust fund expenditures–but only in a bookkeeping sense. These funds are not set up to be pension funds, like the funds of private pension plans. They do not consist of real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits. Instead, they are claims on the Treasury, that, when redeemed, will have to be financed by raising taxes, borrowing from the public, or reducing benefits or other expenditures. [Emphasis added.]

In short, the Social Security trust fund is really only an accounting mechanism. The trust fund shows how much the government has borrowed from Social Security, but it does not provide any way to finance future benefits. The money to repay the IOUs will have to come from taxes that are being used today to pay for other government programs. For that reason, the most important date for Social Security is 2018, when taxpayers must begin to repay the IOUs, not 2042, when the trust fund is exhausted. Source

The Social Security System is now, forever has been, and forever will be a system where money is taken from people who work and given to people who do not work. It is also one of the most incredible cons ever perpetrated on a citizenry. So the only solutions to the so-called Social Security crisis are these:

Raise Taxes

Raise the Federal Debt

Reduce Benefits

Some combination of these three things will happen. There absolutely is no avoiding it. As it is very unfortunate for a person with a brain tumor to be told he has a headache, and to treat it with aspirin, so, to, would the Social Security situation benefit from an honest appraisal of what it is and what it is not. It is not a retirement program.

How secure do you feel now? So regardless of whether Social Security checks get issued on August 3 or not the question that should be asked is can we opt out of this gamble and select to use our own money to fund our own retirement accounts which congress can not eliminate with the stroke of a pen, and the funds are not made available to the federal government general fund. Only when you take control of your own future can your future be guarenteed. No government run program has your best interest at heart. They simply can not be trusted.

The Units for Reistatement of Order “Cleaned Up” Syntagma Square

Πηγή: Greek Reporter

30/7/2011

The mayor of Athens, as he warned yesterday while speaking on the Greek channel SKAI, sent on Saturday, August 30, at 4 am, 25 trucks with employees of the municipality of Athens and Units for the Reinstatement of Order (MAT) to remove the tents and banners from Syntagma Square.
According to the police, 4 Greeks, 2 French, a German and a Romanian were arrested, accused of violations concerning the protection of the environment.
A public prosecutor of Athens was asked to conduct research a few days ago to find out whether the setting up of tents caused problems to the environment.
The protesters claimed they would continue to congregate peacefully at Syntagma Square and the rest of the squares around Greece in order to fight for their rights. They also accused the local authorities of coming to the square like thieves at 4 in the morning to destroy the tents and property of the protesters, comparing them to the police during the dictatorship of 1967-1974.

The War on Libya : An Imperialist Project to Create Three Libyas

Πηγή: Global Research
By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

TRIPOLI, July 28, 2011 The division of Libya into three separate countries is part of the US-NATO imperial design. It is part of a project shared by the U.S., Britain, Italy, and France.

The NATO war launched against Libya in March 2011 was geared towards the breakup of the country into three separate entities.

The NATO led war, however, is back firing. The Libyan people have united to save their country and Tripoli is exploring its strategic options.

Preface: Reality versus Fiction

Almost all of the text herein was written a few months prior to my trip to Tripoli. It is part of a series of articles on Libya which I have been updating. It is fitting to conclude it in Tripoli, Libya. To be here on the ground in Libya is to be witness to the lies and warped narratives of the mainstream media and the governments. These lies have been used to justify this criminal military endeavor.

The mainstream media has been a major force in this war. They have endorsed and fabricated the news, they have justified an illegal and criminal war against an entire population.

Passing through the neighbourhood of Fashloom in Tripoli it is apparent that no jets attacked it as Al Jazeera and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) falsely claimed. Now the same media networks, newspapers, and wires claim on a daily basis that Tripoli is about to fall and that the Transitional Council is making new advances to various cities. Tripoli is nowhere near falling and is relatively peaceful. Foreign journalists have also all been taken to the areas that are being reported to have fallen to the Transitional Council, such as Sabha and its environs.

The mainstream media reporting out of Tripoli have consistently produced false reports. They report about information from “secure internet services” which essentially describes embassy and intelligence communication media. This is also tied to the “shadow internet” networks that the Obama Administration is promoting as part of a fake protest movement directed against governments around the world, including Latin America, Africa and Eurasia.

The foreign press operating out of Libya have deliberately worked to paint a false picture of Libya as a country on the brink of collapse and Colonel Qaddafi as a despot with little support.

A journalist was filmed wearing a bulletproof vest for his report in a peaceful area where there was no need for a bulletproof vest. These journalists broadly transmit the same type of news as the journalists embedded with the armed forces, the so-called embedded journalists. Most of the foreign press has betrayed the sacred trust of the public to report accurately and fairly.

Not only are they actively misreporting, but are serving the interests of the military coalition. They are actively working "against Libya." They and their editors have deliberately fashioned reports and taken pictures and footage which have been used to portray Tripoli as an empty ghost town.

Le Monde for example published an article on July 7, 2011 by Jean-Philippe Rémy, which included misleading photographs that presented Tripoli as a ghost city. The photographs were taken by Laurent Van der Stickt, but it was the editors in Paris who selected the pictures to be used for publication. Le Monde is an instrument of war propaganda. It is publishing material which serves to mislead French public opinion.

Sky News is no better. Lisa Holland of Sky News has always used the words “claimed,” “claim,” and “unverified” for anything that Libyan officials say, but presents everything that NATO says without the same doubt-casting language as if it is an unquestionable truth. She used every chance she had to degrade the Libyans. When she visited the bombed home of the daughter of Mohammed Ali Gurari, where the entire family was killed by NATO, she repeatedly asked if Qaddafi was responsible for the bombing to the dismay of those present, with the exception of the reporters who helped paint distorted pictures in the mind of their audiences and readers. She has deliberately distorted the underlying the reality of the situation, blaming Qaddafi, while knowing full well who had killed the Gurari family.

Other reports include those of Liseron Boudoul., Boudoul is a reporter for Télévision française 1 (TF1), who has been in Tripoli for months. She reported on March 22, 2011 that all the reports coming out of Tripoli are reviewed and censored by Tripoli. This statement was fabricated. If the Libyans had been censoring the news, they would not have allowed her to make that statement or for her and her colleagues to continue their disinformation campaign. Like all the other foreign journalists in Libya, she has witnessed the popular support for Colonel Qaddafi, but this important information has been deliberately withheld from her reports.

Much of what is being passed on as news by foreign reporters on the ground is a mirror of the US-NATO's fake humanitarian mandate.

There is a real military-industrial-media complex at work in North America and Western Europe. Most of the media claims are nonsensical and contrary to the facts on the ground. They ignore the realities and hard facts. Were these to have been revealed, people in NATO countries would be mobilizing against their governments and against the NATO led war on Libya.

They have helped portray the victim as the aggressor. They use every chance they have to demonize the Libyan government, while upholding the legitimacy of NATO. Essentially many of these so-called journalists are professional propagandists.

The mainstream media has also basically worked as an intelligence branch of the Pentagon and NATO in multiple ways. The mainstream media has been party to atrocities and crimes and that point should not be lost when analyzing the war in Libya. British journalists have even been said to have given coordinates for bombings to NATO.

Libya: A Nation and its Society

Because of its geographic location, Libya has been at the crossroads, a meeting point of various ethnic groups and nationalities, The inhabitants of Libya are a mixed people of various stocks from Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, Europe, and Southwest Asia. Berbers, Egyptians, Greeks, people of Italian descent, people from the Levant, Iranians, Arabs, Turks, Vandals, Hadjanrais, Tuaregs (the Kel Tamajaq or Kel Tamashq), and several other groups have all contributed to the mosaic that constitutes the present population and society of Libya.

The genesis of the concept of a Libyan nation as a loosely-knit entity started with the imperial rule of the Ottoman Empire in North Africa. For the inhabitants of Libya it resulted in a shared feeling of similarity that intensified after the Italo-Ottoman War. After this war between the Ottoman Empire and Italy, the three Ottoman provinces in Libya fell under Italian colonial control.

N.R.C. Lowers Estimate of How Many Would Die in Meltdown

The Surry Power Station in Virginia is an example in an N.R.C. study.

Πηγή: New York Times
By MATTHEW L. WALD
Published: July 29, 2011

ROCKVILLE, Md. — The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is approaching completion of an ambitious study that concludes that a meltdown at a typical American reactor would lead to far fewer deaths than previously assumed.

The conclusion, to be published in April after six years of work, is based largely on a radical revision of projections of how much and how quickly cesium 137, a radioactive material that is created when uranium is split, could escape from a nuclear plant after a core meltdown. In past studies, researchers estimated that 60 percent of a reactor core’s cesium inventory could escape; the new estimate is only 1 to 2 percent.

A draft version of the report was provided to The New York Times by the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nuclear watchdog group that has long been critical of the commission’s risk assessments and obtained it through a Freedom of Information Act request. Since the recent triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan, such groups have been arguing that the commission urgently needs to tighten safeguards for new and aging plants in the United States.

The report is a synthesis of 20 years of computer studies and engineering analyses, stated in complex mathematical terms. In essence, it states that if a prolonged loss of electric power caused a typical American reactor core to melt down, the great bulk of the radioactive material released would remain inside the building even when the reactor’s containment shell was breached.

Big releases of radioactive material would not be immediate, and people within a 10-mile radius would have enough time to evacuate, the study found. The chance of a death from acute radiation exposure within 10 miles is therefore near zero, the study projects, although some people would receive doses high enough to cause fatal cancers in decades to come.

One person in every 4,348 living within 10 miles would be expected to develop a “latent cancer” as a result of radiation exposure, compared with one in 167 in previous estimates.

“Accidents progress more slowly, in some cases much more slowly, than previously assumed,” Charles G. Tinkler, a senior adviser for research on severe accidents and one of the study’s authors, said in an interview at a commission office building here. “Releases are smaller, and in some cases much smaller, of certain key radioactive materials.”

The N.R.C. did not intend to release the report until next spring and said its conclusions were still being adjusted after a peer review.

The health effects of a catastrophic meltdown were hypothetical until the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island. That destroyed a billion-dollar reactor but caused no apparent physical harm to nearby residents, immediately or over time. Debate has persisted over whether the United States skirted a disaster or whether that accident was about as bad as it could get.

Edwin Lyman, a nuclear physicist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, contends that the nuclear commission has consistently painted an overly rosy picture and that its latest study does as well. He noted that the study assumed a successful evacuation of 99.5 percent of the people within 10 miles, for example. The report also assumes “average” weather conditions, he noted.

But if a rainstorm were under way during a release of radioactive materials, he said, it could wash contaminants out of the air into a small area, producing a high dose there.

Jennifer L. Uhle, the deputy director of the commission’s office of nuclear regulatory research, said the report was intended to present the “best estimate” and not the worst case.

Dr. Lyman said the earlier estimate was of a different accident, a major pipe break. The new study considered that accident too unlikely to analyze.

Dr. Lyman suggested that in projections of fatal cancer cases, the focus should be on people who live within 50 miles. The average population within 10 miles of an American nuclear plant is 62,000; within 50 miles, it is about five million.

The commission’s old projection of eventual cancer deaths was one for every 2,128 people exposed within 50 miles; the new study projects one cancer death for every 6,250 people exposed, which still comes to hundreds of cancer deaths within the 50-mile circle, in addition to the hundreds of thousands who would be expected to die of cancer from other causes.

Dr. Lyman countered that when dealing with estimates based on so many variables — including more than 100 reactors of different designs and vintage, in areas with disparate population densities — a difference of a factor of three is not important. In his view, the study reconfirms that reactors pose serious risks.

The commission’s shift in thinking about how much radioactive cesium 137 would escape after a core meltdown is based on a conclusion that most of it would either dissolve in water that stays put or adhere to surfaces within the plant. The authors said previous analyses had made “conservative assumptions” that most of the cesium and other materials would escape. But laboratory studies and computer modeling have not borne out that hypothesis, they said.

Commission experts have said that a total blackout would be extremely rare at an American plant and that backup generators and other machinery would fill the breach until grid power was restored. Nonetheless, the study focused on what would happen in the event of a nuclear station blackout, meaning a complete loss of power from the grid and from backup diesel generators, and then an exhaustion of batteries that supply power, leading to a meltdown. That is what happened at Fukushima.

The study focused on two common reactor types in this country: boiling-water reactors at the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania, similar to those at Fukushima, and pressurized-water reactors at the Surry Power Station in Virginia.

The study gives a highly detailed prediction of which equipment would stop operating; what temperatures, steam pressures and flows of water and steam would result; and where and when leaks would begin after a meltdown.

It concluded that Peach Bottom would not release enough radioactive material to kill anyone immediately, although it could increase the rate of cancer deaths over future decades. At Surry, the probability was so low and the number of people living within 10 miles so small that the death toll would be a fraction of a person.

The report was prepared by staff members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission andSandia National Laboratories, a Department of Energy lab. Beyond the revisions to be made as a result of the peer review, the report could undergo further changes after public comments are received next year.

Once completed, it might be used by the commission when it analyzes proposed safety improvements in terms of costs and benefits, or decides where reactors should be located.

“Once we think we know what the best estimate is, we think we can start thinking about applications,” said Jason H. Schaperow, a senior reactor systems engineer and one of the authors.

Turkey's military in turmoil as top brass quit

Πηγή: Reuters
By Simon Cameron-Moore
ISTANBUL | Sat Jul 30, 2011 6:22am EDT

(Reuters) - Turkey faced turmoil within its military on Saturday after the country's four most senior commanders quit, offering Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan an opportunity to extend his authority over the once dominant armed forces.

Chief of General Staff General Isik Kosaner stepped down on Friday evening along with the army, navy and air force commanders in protest over the detention of 250 officers on charges of conspiring against Erdogan's government.

In a farewell message to "brothers in arms," Kosaner said it was impossible to continue in his job as he could not defend the rights of men who had been detained as a consequence of a flawed judicial process.

Relations between the secularist military and Erdogan's socially conservative Justice and Development Party (AK) have been fraught since it first won power in 2002, due to mistrust of the AK's Islamist roots.

Though the departures are embarrassing, they could give Erdogan a decisive victory over a military that sees itself as guardian of the secularist state envisioned by the soldier statesman and founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Analysts see little political threat to Erdogan's supremacy.

AK won a third consecutive term, taking 50 percent of the vote in a parliamentary election in June.

Erdogan marked out Kosaner's successor on Friday, as his office put out a statement naming paramilitary Gendarmerie commander General Necdet Ozel as new head of land forces, and acting deputy chief of general staff, effectively making him next in line when Kosaner handed over the baton.

In years gone by, Turkey's generals were more likely to seize power than quit. They have staged three coups since 1960 and pushed an Islamist-led government from power in 1997.

Some founders of AK, including Erdogan, were members of the Welfare Party, an Islamist party whose coalition was forced out 14 years ago. But as prime minister, Erdogan has ended the military's dominance through a series of reforms aimed at advancing Turkey's chances of joining the European Union.

FOUR-STAR EARTHQUAKE

"Four-star earthquake," a headline in Sabah newspaper said of the generals' decision, while papers also highlighted Kosaner's criticism of media reporting on the military.

"They tried to create the impression that the Turkish Armed Forces was a criminal organization and ... the biased media encouraged this with all kinds of false stories, smears and allegations," Kosaner's statement said.

On Istanbul's streets, views of the issue reflected Turkey's polarization between government supporters and opponents.

"This is a move to place AK Party supporters in the army. There was only the army to protect secularism but they took that as well," said retired 54-year-old Perihan Guclu.

"This has been a good development. We have got one of the biggest numbers of generals in the world but we are becoming a democracy slowly," said a 52-year-old who gave his name only as Dursun.

The subordination of the generals was starkly demonstrated last year when police began detaining scores of officers over "Operation Sledgehammer," an alleged plot against Erdogan's government discussed at a military seminar in 2003.

The officers say Sledgehammer was merely a war game exercise and the evidence against them has been fabricated. About 250 military personnel are in jail, including 173 serving and 77 retired staff. Most are charged in relation to Sledgehammer.

MILITARY MORALE SAPPED

A court accepted on Friday an indictment on another alleged military plot, known as the "Internet Memorandum" case, and prosecutors sought the arrest of 22 people including the Aegean army commander and six other serving generals and admirals.

Aksam newspaper described this as "the indictment which triggered a crisis" in a case where the military is accused of setting up anti-government websites. Papers said disagreements over new senior appointments also prompted the generals to quit.

The detentions have sapped morale and spread mistrust and suspicion among the officer corps, and many had been looking for Kosaner to take a stand since his appointment last August.

More than 40 serving generals, almost a tenth of Turkey's commanders, are under arrest, accused of a various plots to bring down the AK party.

"It is clear as day that this extraordinary development has opened the door to a serious state crisis," said Devlet Bahceli, head of the opposition Nationalist Movement Party.

The government statement said the four commanders had retired and made no mention of the reasons why. It said a meeting of the Supreme Military Council, which meets twice-yearly to make top appointments, would go ahead as planned on Monday, showing Erdogan is in a hurry to restore the chain of command and present an image of business as usual.

The announcement hit sentiment on Turkey's financial markets on Friday, weakening the lira and pushing bond yields higher on concerns about increased political risk.

Feds plan changes to death penalty procedure

Πηγή: Politico

July 29, 2011

It's increasingly likely that President Barack Obama will serve out his entire first-term without presiding over the execution of a prisoner on federal death row, after the federal government decided to move forward with revisions to its death penalty procedures.

The Justice Department informed a federal judge Thursday about its plans to revise the so-called protocol for executions. Government lawyers gave no reason for the changes, but they likely stem from a shortage of the key drug used in most lethal injection executions in recent decades, sodium thiopental.

"The Federal Bureau of Prisons has decided to modify its lethal injection protocol but the protocol revisions have not yet been finalized," government lawyers wrote in a court filing in a case challenging the constitutionality of the federal execution process. The Justice Department offered no timeline for completing the new protocol, but offered to update the court monthly on the progress. A spokeswoman for the department said she had no information beyond the brief statement in the court filing.

Federal executions have been effectively halted since 2006, when a judge blocked executions for three inmates. Three additional prisoners have been subsquently added to the injunction.

"We're in the midst of this litigation and the judge was about to say looks like the protocol meets the standards, but now they're going to have to stop and go back and look at that again," said Richard Dieter of the Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment.

Since the Justice Department agrees that the prisoners who brought the challenge to the current protocol will be entitled to detailed information about the protocol and how it was developed, it seems likely that the legal process of green lighting it could extend through next fall's election.

"They're going to need time just to see what's happening, then the judge will make a decision. Either side will appeal to the circuit court and possibly the U.S. Supreme Court. I think it will take a year at a minimum but it's hard to predict," Dieter said.

Just last December, the Justice Department said it was ready to move forward with setting an execution date for Jeffrey Paul, who was convicted in 1997 of the shooting death of a retired, 82-year-old National Park Service employee, Sherman Williams. However, no execution date was ever set for Paul, who is not covered by the injunction.

Most executions in the U.S. are carried out by the states, which handle most murder cases. There are currently 58 prisoners on federal death row, according to DPIC. The last federal executions were three under President George W. Bush, beginning with the execution of Oklahoma City bomber Tim McVeigh in 2001. The last previous federal execution was in 1963.

Unlike his two predecessors who had served as governors before coming to the White House, Obama has never presided over an execution or the question of whether to grant a reprieve to someone on death row. He does have some familiarity with the issue, though, since he pursued death penalty reform as a state legislator in Illinois.

Ghost towns: Rural America accounts for just 16% of population

Πηγή: The Coming Depression
28/7/2011

In 1950 the countryside remained home to a majority of Americans, amid post-World War II economic expansion and the baby boom. However, once busy areas have been abandoned, in South Dakota for example, the town of Scenic is up for sale for $799,000 as today just eight people live there.

Vast swathes of the U.S. countryside are emptying and communities becoming ghost towns as rural America now only accounts for just 16 per cent of the population.

The 2010 census results suggest that by 2050 many of these areas could shrink to virtually nothing as businesses collapse and schools close.

This dramatic population implosion is the culmination of a century of migration to cities, as in 1910 the share of rural America was at 72 per cent. 

These soon to be ghost towns never get it. Instead of cutting services and expenses for a dwindling tax base/population they raise taxes. Instead of consolidating schools, they build new schools. Ron Parsons live in one of the ghost towns. His town’s population has declined by 30%, the demographics are skewed to an aging population, they floated a bond for $14-million to renovate a relatively new school. They have more cops than during our hay day. They have municipal employees for every conceivable function from street sweepers to parking meter cops.

As with all government, it takes on a life of its own. These local politicians can mull over a budget for months and not find a single dollar it can cut. They have repeatedly refused to give tax abatements to anyone who may want to use the abandoned industrial sites. Rural American is even worse because it’s must have projects are even bigger and grander for the people who will be long gone before the projects are completed.

We’re going to become a ghost country pretty soon if we don’t create sustainable middle class jobs. Corporations that have been outsourcing the labor to cheap foreign labor markets for 15-20 years are now seeing that they can’t have it both ways. They wanted the cheap labor abroad, but still sell goods to a vibrant U.S. consumption economy. The well has run dry, and many Americans have stopped consuming anything that isn’t critical to survival. I guess these historically U.S. corporations that have reaped all the benefits of being here for decades or more than a century may consider moving everything to China, Mexico, India, etc. etc. Its’ simple economics folks: if the bulk of the purchasing power is not with the majority of the people, then the economy can not sustain. We need a financially healthy middle class, that has some money left over to spend once the mortgage, utility, and grocery bills are paid.

World Population Predicted to Hit 7 Billion This Year

Πηγή: Time

By: MEGAN GIBSON 

30/7/2011

If this keeps up, things are going to get crowded.

A new study shows that the earth's population will hit 7 billion in 2011, which is double what it was in the 1960s, according toDiscovery News. What's more, researchers predict that another 2.3 billion people will be added to our planet over the next 39 years. In case you were wondering, that's a lot of people in not a lot of time.

Worryingly, the study adds:

"Over the next forty years, nearly all (97%) of the 2.3 billion projected increase will be in the less developed regions, with nearly half (49%) in Africa. By contrast, the populations of more developed countries will remain flat, but will age, with fewer working-age adults to support retirees living on social pensions."

Which means the coming population explosion will be bad news all across the globe, putting strains on space, labor and the environment. And, if estimates turn out to be true, things are going to get far, far worse: by the year 2100, the earth could be home to a staggering 15.8 billion people.

Debt Crisis? Bankruptcy Fears? See Jefferson County, Ala.

Tasos Touloupis, owner of Ted's Restaurant, talked with customers about the county's problems.

Πηγή: New York Times

By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON and MARY WILLIAMS WALSH
Published: July 29, 2011


BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — A few hundred miles north of here, politicians are fighting over debt. It is a spirited debate, full of discussions about what kind of country will be left for future generations and pledges not to kick the can down the road.


But one does not have to go far to see that possible future. Welcome to Jefferson County. This is the end of the road, where the can cannot be kicked any farther.

There are lessons for everyone here, and they are all painful: lessons for those who are not concerned about the prospect of mounting debt, for those who insist that steep cuts can be relatively painless, for those who think the bill for big spending can safely be put off into the future, for those who have blind faith in the market and for those who think the government can always be relied upon to protect the interests of the people.

All of these beliefs have led to a place where the government can no longer borrow and the little cash on hand is being demanded by creditors, where the Sheriff’s Department cannot afford to respond to traffic accidents and hundreds of county workers are sitting at home, temporarily or possibly permanently out of work. They have also led to a widely held conclusion among residents that no one is on their side.

“I get tired of them dumping on the little people,” said Deb Passmore, 58, who had to shut down her Laundromat several years ago when the sewer and water bills reached $500 a month.

The prospect of county bankruptcy, which would be the largest of its kind in United States history, has gone from being an unwelcome mark of distinction to something that many residents insist should have happened a long time ago.

It still stings to think about how things got this way, how county residents are stuck with the tab from a reckless binge by Wall Street bankers, middlemen and crooked politicians, a greed-fueled spree that none of the voters actually wanted or even knew was happening. But residents know that complaints about fairness have not made that debt, all $3.2 billion of it, go away.

“What are you going to do?” said Steve Mordecai, 50, who was eating lunch at Ted’s, a meat-and-three place here that is somewhat less crowded than usual on Fridays, given that so many county employees are no longer working. “The county created the mess,” Mr. Mordecai said. “Now we have to pay it back.”

The story that ends in overspending excess began in neglect: in 1996, the federal government accused Jefferson County of sending raw sewage into area rivers and demanded that it rebuild its dilapidated sewer system. Such a project would be costly, but officials hoped to avoid unpopular rate increases first by pushing that cost into the future, and then by adding a maze of derivatives that were supposed to shield the county from interest-rate increases.

But the bond deals were fraught with pay-to-play scandals. Four county commissioners were convicted of taking bond-related bribes. Two bankers are fighting federal accusations that they made secret payments, and in 2009 J.P. Morgan forfeited $752 million to settle a complaint by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The complicated bond-and-derivative structures failed during the financial turmoil of 2008, leaving the county with a $3.2 billion debt to pay, faster than planned. Sewer revenues that were pledged to pay the debt cannot keep up. The problems keep compounding: federal prosecutors have taken a derivatives consultant to court on bid-rigging charges. And the Internal Revenue Service is investigating whether the sewer bonds really should have been marketed as tax exempt.

But the fiscal crisis went from a simmer to a full boil in April, when the Alabama Supreme Court declared a major county tax unconstitutional. Shortly afterward, with the county reeling from the severe shortfall in general funds, a court-appointed receiver recommended a steep increase in county sewer rates, and also laid claim to the county’s only cash reserves, saying they were needed to bolster the sewer system’s finances.

At the end of June, Gov. Robert Bentley declared a shaky truce while negotiations took place. On Thursday, the County Commission announced that it was entering a seven-day standstill period to consider a settlement offer from the creditors, an announcement that was met with grumbles across most of the county.

“They should have filed for bankruptcy 10 years ago,” said Howard Faulk, an owner of Sophie’s Deli across the street from the county courthouse, where the lines for county business are hours long but the parking is free because the county cannot afford parking attendants. “If you’re standing in water this deep,” Mr. Faulk asked, his hand at his neck, how much deeper can it get?

But any residents who think a bankruptcy will simply wipe the debt clean are probably in for a bleak surprise. Chapter 9 of the federal bankruptcy code, the one local governments use, does not work like Chapter 11, where corporations restructure and bondholders routinely suffer losses.

In fact, Chapter 9 was amended in 1988 with the specific goal of making clear that certain types of municipal bonds would keep on paying even in bankruptcy, said James E. Spiotto, a bankruptcy specialist with the firm of Chapman Cutler. The bonds issued to finance Jefferson County’s giant sewer project are this type.

“The whole purpose is to assure the market that in times of distress, the bonds will be paid,” Mr. Spiotto said in an interview.

Many citizens of the county speak bitterly of a perception that other parts of Alabama think of the county as unworthy of help. Even one of the county’s own state senators blocked a plan to allow Jefferson to raise revenue to replace some of what was taken away by the April court decision, thus forcing layoffs.

“In Alabama, Jefferson County is Chinatown,” said David Mowery, a Montgomery political consultant, using the metaphor for hopeless inscrutability from the Roman Polanski film of the same name. “Forget it,” he said, summing up the general attitude toward the county. “There’s nothing you can do about it.”

But as Alabama’s own governor learned over the spring and summer, you cannot just forget Jefferson County, where Birmingham is the county seat. If it goes down, it takes the state — and the state’s credit — with it. This realization prompted the governor to intervene when the county was near declaring bankruptcy at the end of June.

Still, little of this reassures the people slogging through here, who realize that life will get harder before it gets better. The only consolation is gallows humor and signs they might not be alone.

“I used to think what awful leadership we have in Jefferson County,” said Phillip Winette, 58, who runs a printing company. “But now I’m watching the debate on a national level. It’s an epidemic.”

Libya conflict: Younes death betrays rebel divisions

Abdul Fattah Younes defected after decades serving Col Gaddafi

Πηγή: BBC

By Shashank Joshi, Associate fellow, Royal United Services Institute

30 July 2011 Last updated at 09:03 GMT

Abdul Fattah Younes defected after decades serving Col Gaddafi

On Wednesday, British Foreign Secretary William Hague hailed the Libyan rebels' "increasing legitimacy, competence, and success".

On Thursday, with impeccable timing, it transpired that those rebels might have murdered their top military commander.

If Abdul Fattah Younes did indeed die at the hands of soldiers he nominally led, it would be little surprise.

Gen Younes was a man with many enemies.

He had defected to the rebels only after four decades of friendship with and service to Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi.

Rumours of his lingering ties to the regime seemed to have caught up with him after he was summoned by a panel of judges in Benghazi.

That came on the heels of severe criticism of his military leadership for a series of territorial losses early in the uprising.

The furious reaction from members of Gen Younes' Obeidi tribe, amongst the largest in eastern Libya, indicates the resurgence of tribal divisions hitherto papered over by the strenuous efforts of the broad-based National Transitional Council (NTC).

These will not shatter the NTC or lead to the collapse of Benghazi, but they point to longer-term problems for the anti-Gaddafi rebels.Simplifying factor?

The first irony is that the assassination of Gen Younes will scarcely affect the military campaign. For a short period some months ago, the rebels' military command was anyway bifurcated between the defector Gen Younes and the war hero and long-time US resident Colonel Khalifa Hifter.

This war will likely be won more than 500 miles away from the political wrangling of Benghazi”

The NTC denied that these divisions mattered. And yet, shipments of rifles would never make it to official units, orders from Gen Younes would be amended by Col Hifter, and bitter debates over strategy and tactics got in the way of decision making.

Col Hifter or another commander will likely step into the breach and Gen Younes' death might, perversely, simplify things. But even if it doesn't, it might not matter much.

This is because Libya's revolution has already fractured into hundreds of semi-independent fronts, each driven by local fighters soldiering in local conditions.

The most important battlefield successes of the past month, those in the western mountains and around Tripoli, have had virtually nothing to do with Gen Younes' operational nous.
Rebels made gains in the west even as Gen Younes' death was announced in the east

That much should be clear from the widespread looting and executions - essentially, war crimes - by rebel soldiers in western towns like al-Qawalish and al-Awaniya, actions patently incompatible with the commitment to military professionalism and legality professed by the NTC.

As if to underline this detachment, between formal leadership and the various theatres of operations, even as news of Gen Younes' death was trickling out from Benghazi, major advances were being made in the plains south of the capital and near the border with Tunisia.

Seizures of the towns of Tekut, Hawamid, and Ghazaya now place rebel forces in a strong position to sever supply lines into Tripoli, hastening what they hope will be an organic urban uprising.

Just as Misrata was liberated from within (though not without some assistance from the east), this war will likely be won more than 800km (500 miles) away from the political wrangling of Benghazi and the frustrating stalemate around the oil town of Brega.Factional animosities

But the second irony is that Gen Younes' death threatens to unpick the NTC's credibility and cohesion at exactly the moment of its latest diplomatic triumph - fresh endorsement from Britain, the last major rebel ally to recognise the opposition as Libya's legitimate representatives.

The concern that emerges most sharply from this incident is not so much that the NTC will splinter before Tripoli falls, but that it might do so after”

The NTC, though lax in investigating and stopping battlefield transgressions by its own soldiers, has earnestly sought to include representation from across Libya's regions and tribes. It is now at pains to placate Gen Younes' Obeidi tribe and counter the regime's narrative that the revolution is simply a tribal, rather than democratic, movement.

That narrative is exaggerated propaganda, intended to discredit the opposition. But the resurgence of at least some tribal and factional animosities has been apparent for months.

In the west, it is evident in the revenge attacks on the pro-Gaddafi Mashaashia tribe. In the east, it was clear from the spontaneous shows of force by the Obeidi tribe after Gen Younes' death, including the establishment of roadblocks in Benghazi and an attack by tribesmen on the hotel where the NTC had just given a press conference.

These latent divisions were well known. They underpinned the British and American decisions to refrain from directly arming the opposition. But as deeply embarrassed as the rebels' international backers will be at these episodes, they see no alternative but to work through the NTC, having invested so much in the removal of Gaddafi, and absent any other viable partners.

The concern that emerges most sharply from this incident is not so much that the NTC will splinter before Tripoli falls, but that it might do so after.

If it struggles to represent the full spectrum of political forces in a transition period, in the face of armed factions demanding political sway, Gen Younes' killing might not be the last political assassination amongst the self-described Free Libya Forces.

Libya conflict: Nato targets TV satellite dishes

Nato forces have been carrying out air strikes over Libya for months

Πηγή: BBC

30 July 2011 Last updated at 08:39 GMT


Nato says it has disabled three Libyan state TV satellite transmission dishes in the capital, Tripoli, through a "precision air strike".

It said the operation was intended to stop "inflammatory broadcasts" by Col Muammar Gaddafi's regime.

Nato said it was in the process of assessing the effect of the strike.

Libyan state TV broadcasts remained on air following the Nato statement about the raid.

Coalition forces began operations in Libya in March, under a UN mandate authorising military action for the protection of civilians.

Libyan rebels began an uprising against Col Gaddafi in February. Despite Nato's intervention, they have struggled to break a military deadlock.

A Nato statement said the strike was "performed by Nato fighter aircraft using state-of-the-art precision guided munitions", and that there had been "due consideration and careful planning to minimise the risks of casualties".

"Our intervention was necessary as TV was being used as an integral component of the regime apparatus designed to systematically oppress and threaten civilians and to incite attacks against them," it said.

It said the strike would "reduce the regime's ability to oppress civilians" but also "preserve television broadcast infrastructure that will be needed after the conflict".

Reports from Tripoli said a series of loud explosions were heard in the city centre late on Friday evening.

Libyan state TV reported that civilian targets had been hit, though this could not be verified.

The Libyan capital has been a regular target for Nato air strikes in recent weeks.