Cyprus: Government protests Turkish war games

Πηγή: equities
By Elias Hazou (Cyprus Mail)
July 14 2012

THE GOVERNMENT said yesterday it would be lodging a complaint with the United Nations over Turkey's ongoing, unauthorised war games south of the island.

"As is the case each time, we are taking the appropriate actions and lodging complaints with the UN in relation to Turkey's acts, that is, its failure to notify the Republic of Cyprus [of the war games]," government spokesman Stefanos Stefanou said.

Turkey's air and naval exercise, yesterday and today, is taking place in waters south of Cyprus and within parts of the nation's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

The spokesman said yesterday's drills took place in international waters, but in areas falling within the Cypriot offshore blocks 2, 3, 8, 9, 13 and 12 – the latter where US firm Noble Energy is currently exploring for natural gas.

Some of these areas border Israel's Leviathan and Tamar gas fields. Turkey does not recognise an agreement between Israel and Cyprus which marks out each country's EEZ.

Yesterday's drills involved two torpedo gunboats and a corvette of the Turkish navy, Stefanou said.

"We are in a period when the UN itself has called for defusing tensions in the region. Yet instead we see that Turkey's response to the UN Secretary-general's appeals is to conduct military exercises," he added.

Meanwhile the British forces in Cyprus and the Israeli navy are carrying out air and naval exercises at the same time around the island.

The Israeli war games are taking place outside Cyprus' EEZ and as such no permission was required from the government, although the Israelis had notified Cyprus.

"Every time the Israelis carry out an exercise, we are in contact with them and any actions are governed by international law. Israel always cooperates with the Republic," said Stefanou.

He said the British bases had notified the government of their own war games.

Despite speculation that the British forces' aircraft training exercise – which began on July 9 and will conclude today – might overlap with the Turkish drills, an SBA spokesman yesterday told the Cyprus Mail "there has so far been no contact whatsoever with Turkish forces."

The British forces' drills were held in SBA territory and codenamed 'Lima' – over Milanda beach near Pissouri, he said.

On Wednesday, the Defence Minister said the government was considering charging Turkey with hampering and endangering air and naval navigation in the region. He did not elaborate.

The naval exercises come amid heightened tensions in the region in the wake of Syria shooting down a Turkish F4 jet. Turkey's relations with Israel are also at an all-time low.

Back in May Turkey accused Israel of violating the 'airspace' of the breakaway north.

Earlier that same month Turkey made official its plans for offshore hydrocarbon exploration in the eastern Mediterranean, with some of the designated areas overlapping Cyprus' EEZ.

Obesity to worsen, weigh heavily on healthcare costs

Πηγή: Reuters
By Tan Ee Lyn
Fri Aug 26, 2011


Obesity is most widespread in Britain and the United States among the world's leading economies and if present trends continue, about half of both men and women in the United States will be obese by 2030, health experts warned on Friday.

Obesity is fast replacing tobacco as the single most important preventable cause of chronic non-communicable diseases, and will add an extra 7.8 million cases of diabetes, 6.8 million cases of heart disease and stroke, and 539,000 cases of cancer in the United States by 2030.

Some 32 percent of men and 35 percent of women are now obese in the United States, according to a research team led by Claire Wang at the Mailman School of Public Health in Columbia University in New York. They published their findings in a special series of four papers on obesity in The Lancet.

In Britain, obesity rates will balloon to between 41-48 percent for men and 35-43 percent for women by 2030 from what is now 26 percent for both sexes, they warned.

"An extra 668,000 cases of diabetes, 461,000 of heart disease and 130,000 cancer cases would result," they wrote.

Due to overeating and insufficient exercise, obesity is now a growing problem everywhere and experts are warning about its ripple effects on health and healthcare spending.

Obesity raises the risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, various cancers, hypertension, high cholesterol, among others.

Because of obesity, the United States can expect to spend an extra 2.6 percent on its overall healthcare bill, or $66 billion per year, while Britain's bill will grow by 2 percent, or 2 billion per year, Wang and colleagues warned.

OBESITY BOMB TICKING EVERYWHERE ELSE TOO

In Japan and China, 1 in 20 women is obese, compared with 1 in 10 in the Netherlands, 1 in 4 in Australia and 7 in 10 in Tonga, according to another paper led by Boyd Swinburn and Gary Sacks of the WHO Collaborating Center for Obesity Prevention at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia.

Worldwide, around 1.5 billion adults are overweight and a further 0.5 billion are obese, with 170 million children classified as overweight or obese. Obesity takes up between 2 to 6 percent of healthcare costs in many countries.

"Increased supply of cheap, tasty, energy-dense food, improved food distribution and marketing, and the strong economic forces driving consumption and growth are the key drivers of the obesity epidemic," Swinburn and Sacks wrote.

The health experts urged governments to lead the fight in reversing the obesity epidemic.

"These include taxes on unhealthy food and drink (such as sugar sweetened beverages) and restrictions on food and beverage TV advertising to children," wrote a team led by Steven Gortmaker at the Harvard School of Public Health, which published the fourth paper in the series.

Bahrain: “The Puzzling Silence of Humanitarianism”

On 23 March, four days after Operation Unified Protector started in Libya the EU foreign policy adviser and Catherine Ashton's right-hand man Robert Cooper commenting on the Bahrain protests' brutal crackdown said: “I'm not sure if the police have had to deal with these public order questions before. It's not easy dealing with large demonstrations in which there may be violence. It's a difficult task for policemen. It's not something that we always get right in the best western countries and accidents happen”. This claim was similar to what Gaddafi had to say excusing his own crackdown on the Benghazi’s protesters.

Catherine Ashton in an official statement earlier on 17 March had called the Government “to initiate a political process with concrete steps that answers the legitimate demands and aspirations of the Bahrainis”. But then she was convinced by the regime's offer of talks: “"The crown prince of Bahrain has appeared to put forward an interesting proposal for a dialogue to start without preconditions, that would bring in the spectrum of opinion in Bahrain and begin discussions that over time would move forward to some sort of, I don't know, possibly constitutional monarchy. But certainly he has a plan".

In the case of Bahraini uprising the government didn’t use mercenaries as it was unfoundedly ascribed to Libya’s regime but imported Army from the neighbor Saudi Arabia. Robert Cooper in his obvious attempt to downplay the incident and maybe to evade the logical questioning “why intervening in Libya and not Bahrain the home to the US fifth fleet?” stated that it is "a rather pleasant, peaceful place” while “"one should understand the authorities were right to restore calm and order and that's what they've done".

Bahrain where some 40 per cent of the world’s oil passes through, is divided between a Shia majority (61,3%) receiving poor treatment in employment, housing, and infrastructure in favor of the Sunnis minority often imported from Pakistan and Syria. The protests started on 14 February when thousands gathered at the Pearl Square resulting to an open shooting by the police forces which left behind two dead and 55 wounded. In the ongoing every oppressing mean was used by the regime like tear gas, torture, tracing activists through social media and subsequent detentions, while around 600 people, including human rights defenders, political leaders, trade unionists, doctors, paramedics and clerics have been arrested since February 2011. On 14 March about 1,200 Saudi and other Gulf countries soldiers have reportedly entered Bahrain at the invitation of the Bahraini royal authorities in order to quell protests that have been raging there for a month. Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, Bahrain’s crown prince, formally requested the Saudi intervention. It is worth noting that this Saudi Arabia's national guard deployed in public order enforcement measures and the use of sniper rifles is trained by Britain’s "humanitarian" government.

Last year, Britain approved 163 export licences for military equipment to Saudi Arabia, worth £110m. Exports included armoured personnel carriers, sniper rifles, small arms ammunition and weapon sights. In 2009, the UK supplied Saudi Arabia with CS hand grenades, teargas and riot control agents. On 8 July a video released showing one of the formidable armored vehicles (62-ton Leopard tank) being used to suppress rioting civilians in Bahrain, fuelled criticism of Berlin’s decision to sell 200 Leopards to Saudi.

President Barack Obama called King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain to express his deep concern over the violence in Bahrain. Saudi Arabia, a large supplier of U.S. oil, which is Sunni, has made it clear it will not accept a Shiite government next door in Bahrain. Iran, with which Obama administration is already battling over its nuclear program, having a Shiite government that backs the Shiite majority in Bahrain, called the Saudi move "unacceptable, threatening to escalate a local political conflict into a regional showdown with Iran." According to Adrian Blomfield of the London Telegraph: “Saudi officials say they gave their backing to Western air strikes on Libya in exchange for the United States muting its criticism of the authorities in Bahrain, a close ally of the desert kingdom”.

Libya is not an advertisement for intervention

A hole caused by Nato bombings in Gaddafi's main Bab Al-Aziziya compound in Libya's capital, Tripoli. Photograph: Sergey Ponomarev/AP

Πηγή: Guardian

By Simon Jenkins

Friday 26 August 2011 08.00 BST

Several claims have been made about Nato's involvement in Libya that have little basis in reality

Nato – chiefly Britain – appears to have toppled the Gaddafi regime in Libya to "liberate" its people. The days are over where the mere triumph of arms justifies itself. The rightness of a war and the honesty of its methods are vital if the new "liberal interventionism" is to carry its proclaimed moral clout. The Libyan operation is already being declared a classic success for the ideology. The following claims have been made for it over the past six months.

Intervention was necessary to prevent a massacre in Benghazi

There had been no massacre in Benghazi, only the threat of an attack on the city by Gaddafi if the rebels failed to negotiate. While the threat was real, the assumption of "thousands" of deaths was Nato propaganda to justify its desire to "do something" for the Arab spring. Whether it reinforced the rebels in their intransigence must now be moot.

The threat to Benghazi was the sole basis on which UN and Arab league support was obtained for a no-fly zone. The threat was averted within days. No further resolution was gained to support a Nato advance on Tripoli, let alone to kill Gaddafi from the air, because one would not have been forthcoming. The ambition to topple the regime was based on the claim to be "protecting civilians" by installing a more democratic one.

The claim that the intervention "saved thousands of lives" was thus wholly conjectural, and must be set against the thousands that have certainly been lost, and may yet be lost, through the intervention. These deaths can be justified only on the thesis that any precipitated revolution is worth any number of lives – as is asserted by apologists for Iraq.

There would be no foreign troops on the ground

This Nato pledge was mendacious. From the moment air power failed to achieve the undeclared goal of Tripoli's surrender, the pledge was broken. British ground troops were extensively deployed in Libya, the distinction between overt and covert forces being spurious. "Special" soldiers are still soldiers, and will shortly be releasing a flood of "how I captured Tripoli" memoirs. Close air support is also identical in tactical effect to ground artillery, as deployed in the final assault on the Gaddafi compound. Britain gave the rebels an air force – and can hardly withdraw it now.

Britain was not taking sides in a foreign civil war

This has been stated throughout, but it clearly was. The rescue of Benghazi mutated, as did the Iraq venture, into a wider war to remove a regime no longer to Britain's liking. Aid of every sort was given to the rebels, from political and diplomatic support to training, logistics and reportedly battlefield leadership in the attack on Tripoli.

Throughout the campaign, the British government has said it is "for the Libyan people to decide their own fate" and its involvement would end once a tyrant had departed the scene. That was naive. Britain has, with Nato, most emphatically decided the fate of the Libyan people. It has brought anarchy in the place of order, hoping that anarchy will be brief. It cannot disown the consequences.

The foreign secretary, William Hague, admitted as much this week. He declared: "We're not looking at British troops being a significant part of a stabilisation operation." We were told there would be no troops at all. But Britain cannot wreck someone else's country and then walk away from it. From the start of this operation David Cameron knew that if he toppled Gaddafi, he would own the place. It was no good constantly saying he would "learn from Iraq". The lesson of Iraq was, don't do it in the first place.

European Unrest: Entirely Staged Political Theatre

Πηγή: Veterans Today
By Gordon Duff
Friday, August 12th, 2011

David Cameron’s New Role as “Darkie Basher”

The current civil unrest in Britain has been carefully staged by the government and security services working in concert with news media, Israeli intelligence and the a parallel government, a Freemason organization now believed to have planned and executed the Norway killings with full complicity of police, courts and security apparatus.

A quick look around the world gives us a picture worth noting. The EU is in total economic collapse. The war in Libya has failed, unrelated to rebels, there are dark secrets there. Gaddafi had suckered Tony Blair, with the help of Israel, into a position to be blackmailed, arms and oil contracts, huge political payoffs, not just to Britain but across Europe. Gaddafi had financed half of Europe’s elections and had bought the heart of Washington’s “neocons.” Gaddafi always knew where to put money, no reason to bribe honest people. Always bribe crooks. In Washington, this left everone available, Gaddafi could pick and choose and he did. Washington and London are terrified of what he knows.

Assassinating Gaddafi is their last hope.

Rupert Murdoch’s veneer of smut peddler is now shown to be what it has always been. David Cameron, Tony Blair, even Netanyahu have always worked for him, Murdoch the “not so secret” prime mover in western politics, denying his Jewish heritage and religion when courting the hate mongers of the right and playing “most powerful Jew in the world” behind closed doors when he has chosen to wield real power, not just his friends that control the world’s press, the Federal Reserve system in the US but more. Murdoch controls both political parties in Britain, controls the GOP in the US, a political group on a binge of total insanity for sure, even treason, but it goes further.

Then it all began to come apart, tap a few phones, hack a few computers, a movie star, rock musicians, cabinet ministers, heads of state, then get caught bribing and blackmailing.

The moves to put things back in order?

Murdoch’s creation in the US, that he calls “the Tea Party,” crashed the world’s currency markets and set the planet spiraling to economic ruin. Solutions that gut the consumer economies, stifle growth but have no revenue based “balance” are simply economic sabotage. Murdoch and the Tea Party just murdered the United States. The remnants of the real Republican Party found themselves alone and powerless with no ability to turn to Democratic leadership that had been, in itself, crippled, bought and bribed.

Look into Nancy Pelosi’s family finances for a good look at why America is where it is. Shocked? There are 400 members of congress worse, that’s the real shock. But to understand this August, the month of slaughter, dead SEALS, riots, coverups, a month when talk should be holiday, you have to turn to Murdoch. You also have to remember that, next month, Israel faces another humiliating vote in the UN where they will be labeled war criminals by most of the world. Didn’t know that? Hmm.

The obsession, Israel, security, myths of terrorism.

This is his organization, reaching out and crushing, not just President Obama, the man he believes threatens his beloved Israel’s desire to wipe Iran off the map with 300,000 American soldiers dead in the process, a plan developed by Paul Wolfowitz in 1999 (we had folks next to him at the time, after all Paul likes pretty girls and pretty girls talk).

Yesterday, Richard Clarke began talking about 9/11 and how the CIA had run the operation, the hijackers. Close friends of Clarke, however, during the run up to 9/11, named him as the individual running back and forth between the Mossad and Pentagon. In fact, Clarke himself, along with Steve Rosen, Condi Rice and others, had gone so far off the deep end during the early Bush years they began to think of themselves as gods. The FBI recorded everything, bugging Clarke, bugging Rosen, every phone Wolfowitz and his staff used, all with the permission of Condi Rice.