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Britain's role in supplying information to an American military "kill list" in Afghanistan is being subjected to legal challenge amid growing international concern over targeted strikes against suspected insurgents and drug traffickers.An Afghan man who lost five relatives in a missile strike started proceedings against the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) and the Ministry of Defence demanding to know details of the UK's participation "in the compilation, review and execution of the list and what form it takes".

Soca refused to discuss its intelligence work, but the agency and the MoD said they worked "strictly within the bounds of international law". Its role in the operation to compile a "kill list" was first explained in a report to the US Senate's committee on foreign relations.The report described how a new task force targeting drug traffickers, insurgents and corrupt officials was being set up at Kandahar air field in southern Afghanistan. "The unit will link the US and British military with the DEA [Drug Enforcement Agency], Britain's Serious and Organised Crime Agency, and police and intelligence agencies from other countries." The 31-page report from 2009 acknowledged the precise rules of engagement were classified.

The letters to Soca's director general, Trevor Pearce, and the defence secretary, Philip Hammond, point to the Geneva conventions, which say that persons taking no active part in hostilities are protected from "violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds".They also draw on the International Committee of the Red Cross, which has said anyone accompanying an organised group who is not directly involved in hostilities "remains civilian assuming support functions".The legal letters, the first step towards seeking judicial review, say "drug traffickers who merely support the insurgency financially could not legitimately be included in the list" under these principles. The lawyers believe that, even if Isaf had targeted the right man, it may have been unlawful for others to have been killed in the missile strike.

An legitimately-elected (said by all international monitors) Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovich, has been driven from office, forced to flee as a war criminal after more than three months of violent protest and terrorist killings by so-called opposition. His “crime” according to protest leaders was that he rejected an EU offer of a vaguely-defined associate EU membership that offered little to Ukraine in favor of a concrete deal with Russia that gave immediate €15 billion debt relief and a huge reduction in Russian gas import prices. Washington at that point went into high gear and the result today is catastrophe. A secretive neo-nazi military organization reported linked to NATO played a decisive role in targeted sniper attacks and violence that led to the collapse of the elected government.

Snipers began shooting into the crowd on February 22 in Maidan or Independence Square. Panic ensued and riot police retreated in panic according to eyewitnesses. The opposition leader Vitali Klitschko withdrew from the deal, no reason given. Yanukovich fled Kiev.[3] The question unanswered until now is who deployed the snipers? According to veteran US intelligence sources, the snipers came from an ultra-right-wing military organization known as Ukrainian National Assembly – Ukrainian People’s Self-Defense (UNA-UNSO).

Strange Ukraine ‘Nationalists’ The leader of UNA-UNSO, Andriy Shkil, ten years ago became an adviser to Julia Tymoshenko. UNA-UNSO, during the US-instigated 2003-2004 “Orange Revolution”, backed pro-NATO candidate Viktor Yushchenko against his pro-Russian opponent, Yanukovich. UNA-UNSO members provided security for the supporters of Yushchenko and Julia Tymoshenko on Independence Square in Kiev in 2003-4.[4] UNA-UNSO is also reported to have close ties to the German National Democratic Party (NDP). [5] Ever since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 the crack-para-military UNA-UNSO members have been behind every revolt against Russian influence. The one connecting thread in their violent campaigns is always anti-Russia. The organization, according to veteran US intelligence sources, is part of a secret NATO “GLADIO” organization, and not a Ukraine nationalist group as portrayed in western media. [6] According to these sources, UNA-UNSO have been involved (confirmed officially) in the Lithuanian events in the Winter of 1991, the Soviet Coup d’etat in Summer 1991, the war for the Pridnister Republic 1992, the anti-Moscow Abkhazia War 1993, the Chechen War, the US-organized Kosovo Campaign Against the Serbs, and the August 8 2008 war in Georgia. According to these reports, UNA-UNSO para-military have been involved in every NATO dirty war in the post-cold war period, always fighting on behalf of NATO. “These people are the dangerous mercenaries used all over the world to fight NATO’s dirty war, and to frame Russia because this group pretends to be Russian special forces. THESE ARE THE BAD GUYS, forget about the window dressing nationalists, these are the men behind the sniper rifles,” these sources insist. [7]

Iraq's premier has fired several top security commanders in a major shake-up as fighting approached Baghdad in a militant onslaught that the UN warned risked breaking up the country.

More than a week after insurgents launched their lightning assault, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki dismissed several senior officers, including the commander for the northern province of Nineveh, the first to fall.Maliki also ordered that one of them face court-martial for desertion.The dismissals came after soldiers and police fled en masse as insurgents swept into Nineveh's capital Mosul, a city of two million, abandoning their vehicles and uniforms.As officials trumpet a counter-offensive, doubts are growing that Iraq's security forces can hold back the tide.

The violence has stoked regional tensions, with Iraq accusing neighbouring Saudi Arabia Tuesday of 'siding with terrorism' and of being responsible for financing the militants.The comments came a day after the Sunni kingdom blamed 'sectarian' policies by Iraq's Shi'ite-led government for triggering the unrest.The prime minister of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region told the BBC it would be 'almost impossible' for the country to return to how it was before the offensive, and called for Sunni Arabs to be granted an autonomous region of their own.Senior Sunni and Shi'ite political leaders, including Maliki and his rival parliament speaker Osama al-Nujaifi, jointly issued a televised statement pledging continuous dialogue and promising to preserve the country's unity.Alarmed by the collapse of much of the security forces in the face of the militant advance, foreign governments have begun pulling out diplomatic staff.

cuador is in the eye of the storm. Obama's earlier 2010 attempt to forcibly unseat popular President Rafael Correa failed.  He's trying again. Ecuadorean democracy is being attacked. Since early June, US-orchestrated right-wing protests (mainly in Quito and Guayaquil) erupted. They continue at times violently to replace Correa with fascist rule. They began on the pretext of announced higher inheritance and capital gains taxes affecting about 2% of the population - the Law to Redistribute the Wealth now being debated after Correa halted its implementation to make rich Ecuadorians pay more along with creating more social enterprises, collectives and cooperatives.  Protest leaders want Correa forcibly ousted. Interior Minister Jose Serrano revealed a plot to storm the presidential palace, block airports and bridges on the Colombian and Peruvian borders, as well as attack security forces.

Serrano said opposition lawmakers Andres Paez and Lourdes Tiban conspired with former Col. Mario Pazmino to instigate violence and chaos during protests. Pazmino was former army military intelligence head - "very close to the CIA," according to Correa. In 2008, he was sacked for colluding with Colombia's bombing of Ecuador.

On Thursday, violent clashes erupted. Right-wing extremists attacked Ecuadorean police near Quito's presidential palace. Their plan to breach their lines failed. Four officers sustained injuries.

Turkey has launched a "short-term" operation in northern Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish militants. Separate attacks earlier killed at least 18 Turkish police officers as violence continues to escalate.

Turkish special soldiers crossed the Iraqi frontier Tuesday as part of a "hot pursuit" of PKK rebels who were involved in a roadside bomb attack that killed 16 soldiers on Sunday, according to an unnamed Turkish government official. "This is a short-term measure intended to prevent the terrorists' escape," the official said on condition of anonymity. Turkish media, citing unnamed military sources, said two battalions from Turkey's special forces had crossed the border.

Seven out of the top ten countries afflicted by terrorist attacks are predominately Muslim, according to the Australia-headquartered Institute for Economics and Peace’s Global Terrorism Index for 2014, which is based on the University of Maryland’s meta-analytic Global Terrorism Database. Using a maximum value of ten and a minimum value of zero, the entire international community is systematically ranked. Although the definition of terrorist incidents in the University of Maryland’s Global Terrorism Database can definitely be debated over, important inferences can be made from its data sets and the Institute for Economics and Peace’s Global Terrorism Index. Several key features can be noticed, if readers look at the nature and identities of the perpetrators of what is classified as acts of terrorism among the top thirty countries in the Global Terrorism Index for 2014. The first feature is that the violence generated from the ascribed terrorist groups falls within the framework of insurrections and civil wars that are generally equated as acts of terrorism. For example, this is the case for countries like Somalia, the Philippines, Thailand, Colombia, Turkey, Mali, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Nepal, which are respectively ranked seventh, ninth, tenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, twenty-second, and twenty-fourth place. Under closer examination several of these insurgencies can be tied to international rivalries and power plays by the US and its allies. This becomes obvious when more observations are made.

The second feature is that the majority of the cases of terrorism in the indexed countries, especially the higher ranked they are on the list, are connected to Washington’s direct or indirect interference in their affair. For example, this is the case for Iraq, NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Russia, Lebanon, Libya, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, South Sudan, China, and Iran, which are respectively ranked first, second, third, fifth, seventh, eighth, eleventh, fourteenth, fifteenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth, twenty-fifth, and twenty-eighth. US-led wars, Pentagon interventions, US-backed coups, or US government support for so-called «opposition» groups or proxy regimes have all been a basis for the affliction of terrorism in these countries. Out of the above countries, according to the Global Terrorism Index, 82% of global deaths that are assigned to acts of terrorism happen in NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, and Nigeria. The ties to US foreign policy should be clear.

It has been claimed that if all terrorists are not Arabs or Muslims, that most terrorists are Arabs or Muslims. Is this true or another myth? An empirical look at data compiled in the US and Europe will help answer this question. In the US, which is ranked thirtieth in the Global Terrorism Index for 2014, the majority of terrorists are not Muslims and are non-Muslims according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Inside the US, 6% of terrorist cases from 1980 to 2005 were committed by Muslim terrorists. [1] The other 94% of terrorism cases and terrorists — in other words, the vast majority — were not related to Arabs, Muslims, or Islam. [2] While the FBI’s methodology on what is a terrorist attack and what is not a terrorist attack is questionable, it will be accepted herein for arguments sake. According to the same FBI report, there were actually more terrorist attacks launched by Jews from 1980 to 2005 on US soil. The same FBI data was compiled by the Princeton University-linked webpage loonwatch.com in a chart that describes the breakdown of cases of terrorist attacks on US soil from 1980 to 2005 as follows: 42% Hispanic terrorism; 24% extreme left-wing group terrorism; 16% other types of terrorists that do not fit into the other main categories; 7% Jewish terrorists; 6% Muslim terrorists; and 5% communist terrorists. [3] While Muslim terrorists comprised 6% of the attacks on US soil from 1980 to 2005, Jewish terrorists and Hispanic terrorists respectively comprised 7% and 42% of the terrorist attacks in the US during the same period. There, however, is no fear mongering about Jews or Hispanic people. The same media and government focus is not given to them as is given to ethnic Arabs and Muslims.

Israel jailed a suspected Jewish militant without trial on Tuesday, the first application of the controversial measure against a citizen in a government-ordered crackdown following the lethal torching of a Palestinian home. The suspect, Mordechai Meyer, a resident of a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, was arrested and placed under so-called "administrative detention" for six months, Israel's Defense Ministry said in a statement. It accused him of "involvement in violent activity and recent terrorist attacks as part of a Jewish terror group".Administrative detention, under which Israel holds hundreds of Palestinians and which civil liberties groups deplore as a blow to due process of the law, was among new measures Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's security cabinet approved for Jews suspected in Friday's arson in the West Bank. The attack killed a Palestinian toddler and severely injured three relatives. Detention without trial is required, Israel says, to prevent further violence in cases where there is insufficient evidence to prosecute, or where going to court would risk exposing the identity of secret informants. Two other Israelis with ties to far-right Jewish groups, Meir Ettinger and Eviatar Salonim, were arrested this week. Police said the former was remanded in custody pending further investigation but was not placed under administrative detention. They did immediately detail Salonim's terms.

The National Security Agency is secretly intercepting, recording, and archiving the audio of virtually every cell phone conversation on the island nation of the Bahamas. According to documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the surveillance is part of a top-secret system – code-named SOMALGET – that was implemented without the knowledge or consent of the Bahamian government. Instead, the agency appears to have used access legally obtained in cooperation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to open a backdoor to the country’s cellular telephone network, enabling it to covertly record and store the “full-take audio” of every mobile call made to, from and within the Bahamas – and to replay those calls for up to a month. SOMALGET is part of a broader NSA program called MYSTIC, which The Intercept has learned is being used to secretly monitor the telecommunications systems of the Bahamas and several other countries, including Mexico, the Philippines, and Kenya. But while MYSTIC scrapes mobile networks for so-called “metadata” – information that reveals the time, source, and destination of calls – SOMALGET is a cutting-edge tool that enables the NSA to vacuum up and store the actual content of every conversation in an entire country.

All told, the NSA is using MYSTIC to gather personal data on mobile calls placed in countries with a combined population of more than 250 million people. And according to classified documents, the agency is seeking funding to export the sweeping surveillance capability elsewhere. The program raises profound questions about the nature and extent of American surveillance abroad. The U.S. intelligence community routinely justifies its massive spying efforts by citing the threats to national security posed by global terrorism and unpredictable rival nations like Russia and Iran. But the NSA documents indicate that SOMALGET has been deployed in the Bahamas to locate “international narcotics traffickers and special-interest alien smugglers” – traditional law-enforcement concerns, but a far cry from derailing terror plots or intercepting weapons of mass destruction.

By targeting the Bahamas’ entire mobile network, the NSA is intentionally collecting and retaining intelligence on millions of people who have not been accused of any crime or terrorist activity. Nearly five million Americans visit the country each year, and many prominent U.S. citizens keep homes there, including Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Bill Gates, and Oprah Winfrey.

Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro has warned of “interventionist” activity emanating from the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, and says he is reevaluating relations with his country’s northern neighbour. In an interview with Telesur on Saturday Maduro claimed that actions being taken by the U.S. embassy were aimed at undermining Venezuela’s stability and were “beginning to become intolerable” despite Venezuelan efforts to “normalise diplomatic relations”.

“It’s lamentable that [U.S. president Barack] Obama allows his own U.S. embassy in Venezuela to act in a dangerous way…I have a lot of information about the interventionism of the U.S. embassy,” he said. The Venezuelan head of state explained that as a result his administration was “reevaluating” relations with the U.S. “At the right moment I will pertinently explain to our nation the actions that I have to take,” he added. Maduro also gave his opinion that racism had worsened in the U.S. under Obama. He said that the U.S. president had become “tired” of struggling for a progressive agenda and had “joined the worst causes, in the United States and the world”. The comments are the latest indicator of the poor state of U.S. – Venezuelan relations, which have remained frosty since the early years of the administration of former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.

Venezuela accuses the U.S. of having supported the short-lived coup against Chavez in 2002 and of plotting to destabilise and overthrow the Bolivarian government. U.S. government agencies have funneled over $100 million to pro-opposition groups since 2002. The U.S. meanwhile has expressed worry over some of Venezuela’s international alliances and has claimed the Bolivarian government displays authoritarian practices and tendencies domestically. In July the United States introduced a visa and travel ban against a handful of top Venezuelan officials for what it says were “human rights abuses” committed during an opposition-led wave of unrest in the country earlier this year which caused 43 deaths. Venezuelan officials counter that the opposition was responsible for the violence, and that any member of security forces suspected of using excessive force has been arrested or investigated.

The Taliban followed up two deadly attacks in Kabul earlier last week with a series of bombings, assaults, and suicide attacks in the capital and four provinces over the weekend. Twelve de-mining personnel, 11 Afghan soldiers and police, two Coalition troops, and a Supreme Court official are among those killed.

The Taliban have increased offensive operations in Kabul and the provinces as the US and NATO are ending the combat mission in Afghanistan. The rise in violence has forced the US to change the rules of engagement for next year and allow forces to conduct combat missions, as well as keep an additional 1,000 troops in country (10,800 troops will remain in Afghanistan as opposed to the planned 9,800).

Hypocrites up and down the line. Terrorists themselves. Leaders who have been stoking the furnace of terrorism themselves, creating terrorists, supplying them with arms, tolerating their education in Saudi Arabia. Hypocrites. All those leaders who have been attacking Muslim countries for years on end and supplying arms. Hypocrites. All those leaders who yell “terrorism” when it suits their grander schemes of domination. Now when there is blowback in Paris, they yell “extremism” and use the occasion to continue and enlarge the war on terror. They use it to strengthen police state surveillance and to frighten the populations under their control. The West’s leaders have created terrorism, intentionally and unintentionally, knowingly and unknowingly, depending on the person and situation, and now they again are seeking to benefit from an attack on western ground. These same leaders stand by while Netanyahu engages in slaughtering Palestinians. They dismember Libya. They supply arms in Syria. They attack and destroy Iraq and Afghanistan. They now bemoan deaths for which they bear responsibility, for it is they who have invaded one Muslim country after another.

“British prime minister David Cameron, German chancellor Angela Merkel and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu are among more than 40 world leaders who linked arms as they led the march to loud applause from the massive crowd. “Speaking at the march, Mr Cameron said extremist violence would remain a threat for many years to come. “‘We in Britain face a very similar threat, a threat of fanatical extremism,’ he said.” Among the unnamed 40 are the hypocrites who have been on the attack. Hypocrites, including Obama: “In the wake of terrorist attacks in France and elsewhere, the Obama administration announced Sunday it will host a Summit on Countering Violent Extremism next month.”

These leaders have no moral standing whatever, no moral credibility whatever on this matter or any other. They have long since dirtied their hands with their lies and propaganda. In their foulness, they have given up all respect. These are despicable people who are so low that they use the Paris attacks to jump on a moral white horse and act as if they are pure and defenders of their citizens. Hypocrites. They have no intention whatever of changing their very own policies of extremism and foreign intervention that have brought about attacks such as those in Paris and on 9/11. The West indulged in new forms of colonialism and imperialism in the 20th century and now the 21st. This has to be recognized, admitted and ended. It is leading to an even greater conflagration than anything yet seen.

This in the New York Times reads like an early announcement of a democratic pro-U.S. coup in Afghanistan: A coterie of powerful Afghan government ministers and officials with strong ties to the security forces are threatening to seize power if an election impasse that has paralyzed the country is not resolved soon. ... After weeks of quietly discussing the prospect of imposing a temporary government, officials within the Karzai government said the best way out of a crisis that had emboldened the Taliban, weakened an already struggling economy and left many here deeply pessimistic about the country’s democratic future, might well be some form of interim government, most likely run by a committee. ... It often happens that when power is seized during a political crisis, as in Thailand or Egypt, those taking charge argue that the step is essential to restore order and protect democracy in the long run. That is also the case here, where such a move is being advertised as a last resort to save democracy. It could also effectively discard the results of a presidential runoff election that, until it was derailed by allegations of fraud, had been promoted as a historic event in a country that never had a democratic transfer of power. Both presidential candidates in Afghanistan, the northern alliance affiliated Abdullah Abdullah and the Pashtu candidate Ashraf Ghani had bribed whoever they could to win the election. But in the end they can not decided who had bribed more and thereby won. The length of the impasse does not matter as long as the country's bureaucracy keeps functioning, but there is one deadline that is threatened by it. This deadline may very well be the reason why this coup is intended. The question is again cui bono?

The officials said they believed they would have the backing of Afghanistan’s army, police and intelligence corps. ... A new government is needed soon if there is to be any chance of securing deals to keep American and European troops here after the end of the year, some Afghan officials said. ... Three senior Afghan officials said they needed a government in place by mid-September to ensure security agreements needed to keep some United States and NATO forces in Afghanistan beyond the end of the year.

Secretary of State Kerry tried twice to arrange for some badly defined national unity government in Kabul. Such a government is the cure-all solution introduced wherever the U.S. wants to stay in control. But the two candidates and the interests they represent can not agree on the terms. The security forces, depending on U.S. largess, will try their best to secure their future pay by getting the Status of Force Agreement with the U.S. signed. As President Karzai does not want such an agreement and no new government is in sight the security forces are tempted to install their own new government. As such is the only possibility for the U.S. to keep its foothold in Afghanistan we will likely see any coup and the resulting government, like in Egypt, be recognized as "restoring democracy". But such an arrangement will only encourage more resistance from the Taliban and other anti-government forces. The new "take no prisoners" policy of the corrupt government security forces will also increase the Taliban's support. As long as the interests of the people represented by the Taliban - and their demand for all foreign forces to leave - are not met, there will be no peace for the country.

Hundreds of anti-Israeli demonstrators brought traffic to a standstill in London today after turning out in their droves to call for an end to military strikes on Gaza. Protesters crowded the streets outside the Israeli Embassy in Kensington High Street, west London, and some took it even further by standing on one of the city’s iconic double-decker buses. Waving placards which read ‘Gaza: End the Siege’ and ‘Freedom for Palestine’, demonstrators chanted and blocked the road as they protested against ‘Israeli aggression’ in the Middle East.

At least 17 people climbed on top of a London bus during the protest, with one holding a banner which read: ‘Judaism rejects the Zionist state and condemns its criminal siege and occupation’.Others lined the main road in Kensington High Street, preventing any vehicles from using the road for a short period.

However, despite the traffic jams and large crowds, police said the protest was largely peaceful as a whole.The demonstration came after the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which staged protests around the world today, called on people to ‘oppose Israeli aggression’. In a statement earlier this week, the group said: ‘This isn’t about rockets from Gaza. It’s about Israel fighting to maintain its control over Palestinian lives, and Palestinian land.

Using doublespeak – supporting an organization while pointing at it as the enemy and calling terrorists people who were previously hailed as ‘freedom fighters’, is not some prerogative of the French government. Producing one’s own enemy has become a pivotal process in Western strategy, one that comforts an imperial structure in which there is no separation any more between inside and outside, between law and sheer violence, between citizens and enemies. In Belgium the muslim preacher Jean-Louis Denis is tried in court for having promoted the jihad in Syria among young people because he is suspected of being acquainted with Sharia4Belgium, a group that is labelled as terrorist. His lawyer exposed the equivocation in the prosecution when he reminds the court that kids were indeed sent to fight for the Islamic State in Syria but by the Belgian intelligence service. He was referring to the part played by an undercover agent of the Belgian federal police. The signifier’s comeback It seems that in Paris too a major concern for the terrorists was to make it easy for them to be identified. Yet this paradox is no longer really a surprise. The miraculous find of ID papers has now become a classic feature in such circumstances. It is a recurring event, a repetitive compulsion that points again and again at people who belong to some jihadist movement. In the official version for 9/11 the FBI claimed that they found the unscathed passport of one of the pilots near one of the towers that were reduced to ashes by explosions whose heat melted even the steel columns in the buildings’ structure. The fourth plane’s crash near Shanksville also yielded a passport which, though scorched, still made it possible to read the person’s first name and surname and to see his ID photo. This is all the more disturbing as nothing at all was left in the crater, no part of the plane or of the people travelling in it, only this partly scorched passport.

In the case of the attack at Charlie Hebdo, investigators found the ID papers of the elder Kouachi brothers in a car they had abandoned in the north-east of Paris. This document allows them to conclude that the authors of the attack were known to the anti-terror department as ‘pioneers of the French Jihad.’ The ‘hunt’ could begin. How can killers who operate with such professional skill make such blunder? It is an elementary caution known to any burglar that you do not to take ID papers along. Since 9/11 unlikelihood has become part of our lives. It has become the basis on which  truth is assessed. Reason is banished. We must not believe what is said but the speaking voice, whatever nonsense it may utter. The more patently absurd, the more unwavering our belief in what is stated must be. Unlikelihood has turned into the measure of truth.

A leaked audio of a conversation between Venezuelan businessman, Lorenzo Mendoza, and former politician, Ricardo Hausman, has revealed Venezuela’s political and business opposition to be seeking collaboration with the IMF (International Monetary Fund) ahead of the country’s parliamentary elections on December 6th. In the phone conversation, leaked in Venezuela last Wednesday, both men speak about the possibility of IMF intervention in the Venezuelan economy and frequently refer to each other as “mate”.   Mendoza currently ranks as one the wealthiest businessmen in the world and controls key areas of the Venezuelan economy, such as the production of cornflour, beer and other household staples. Government supporters hold him responsible for the widespread shortage of key products, which they say is an attempt to destabilise the administration of current leftwing President Nicolas Maduro.   Hausman was formerly Planning Minister (1992-1993) to disgraced ex-Venezuelan President president, Carlos Andres Perez. He currently resides in the US where he is a lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. 

The recording has caused shockwaves amongst Venezuela’s citizens, who have widely rejected any IMF involvement in the country’s economics. The fund is largely held responsible by citizens for the country’s debt crisis in the 1980s, the economic turmoil of the 1990s, as well as for the riots known as the Caracazo in 1989 which led to widespread police repression and thousands of killings.  The IMF’s poisonous legacy in the country has led the country’s political opposition to distance itself publicly from the organisation. Nonetheless, its spokespeople have been consistently linked to the ill reputed fund over the past fifteen years of leftist government.  Earlier in February 2015, the political opposition led by Leopoldo Lopez, Maria Corina Machado and Antonio Ledezma, released a “Call for a National Transition Agreement” just days before the national government reported that it had uncovered plans for an attempted coup amongst the airforce.  “The Call for a National Transition” contained a number of points orientating the politics of a transitional regime in Venezuela, including selling off national public enterprises and the input of “international financial organisations”. 

In the audio, which is dominated by Hausman, the ex-minister reveals that he is a longterm friend of the IMF’s Vice-president for the Western Hemisphere, who has asked him to go to the organisation to “talk about Venezuela”. He explains that the fund is “worried” that it will have to “intervene” in the country.   “The condition is that we have a small committee meeting to speak, gloves off, about what the hell we can do to see… Or, if you were to receive a call from Obama or Holland, or whoever and they say… Hell, mate, for us it’s really important that they get involved in Venezuela,” says Hausman.  The economist also assures Mendoza that he is committed to the “war in Venezuela” despite his absence, stating that “there is no exit for Venezuela without substantial international help,” appearing to reference the opposition’s violent street campaign to unseat the government last year, entitled La Salida (the exit).  Specifically Hausman recommends a 40-50 billion dollar loan from the IMF, which he says will entail a significant restructure of the country’s “debt profile” and “what they euphemistically term, private sector involvement”. The two men also reference a group of Hausman’s students in the US, who appear to have been pinned by both men to carry out the economic restructuring in a post-Chavista government.  The conversation finishes with Hausman revealing that he has “projects” in Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Albania, and confirming that the time is right for “carrying out an adjustment plan in Venezuela”.