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Paul Merrell

President Xi's speech to Davos in full | World Economic Forum - 0 views

www.weforum.org/...te-at-the-world-economic-forum

globalization China Xi Davos speech must-read

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” These are the words used by the English writer Charles Dickens to describe the world after the Industrial Revolution. Today, we also live in a world of contradictions. On the one hand, with growing material wealth and advances in science and technology, human civilization has developed as never before. On the other hand, frequent regional conflicts, global challenges like terrorism and refugees, as well as poverty, unemployment and widening income gap have all added to the uncertainties of the world. Many people feel bewildered and wonder: What has gone wrong with the world? To answer this question, one must first track the source of the problem. Some blame economic globalization for the chaos in the world. Economic globalization was once viewed as the treasure cave found by Ali Baba in The Arabian Nights, but it has now become the Pandora’s box in the eyes of many. The international community finds itself in a heated debate on economic globalization.
  • Today, I wish to address the global economy in the context of economic globalization. The point I want to make is that many of the problems troubling the world are not caused by economic globalization. For instance, the refugee waves from the Middle East and North Africa in recent years have become a global concern. Several million people have been displaced, and some small children lost their lives while crossing the rough sea. This is indeed heartbreaking. It is war, conflict and regional turbulence that have created this problem, and its solution lies in making peace, promoting reconciliation and restoring stability. The international financial crisis is another example. It is not an inevitable outcome of economic globalization; rather, it is the consequence of excessive chase of profit by financial capital and grave failure of financial regulation. Just blaming economic globalization for the world’s problems is inconsistent with reality, and it will not help solve the problems.
  • But we should also recognize that economic globalization is a double-edged sword. When the global economy is under downward pressure, it is hard to make the cake of global economy bigger. It may even shrink, which will strain the relations between growth and distribution, between capital and labor, and between efficiency and equity. Both developed and developing countries have felt the punch. Voices against globalization have laid bare pitfalls in the process of economic globalization that we need to take seriously. As a line in an old Chinese poem goes, “Honey melons hang on bitter vines; sweet dates grow on thistles and thorns.” In a philosophical sense, nothing is perfect in the world. One would fail to see the full picture if he claims something is perfect because of its merits, or if he views something as useless just because of its defects. It is true that economic globalization has created new problems, but this is no justification to write economic globalization off completely. Rather, we should adapt to and guide economic globalization, cushion its negative impact, and deliver its benefits to all countries and all nations.
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • Whether you like it or not, the global economy is the big ocean that you cannot escape from. Any attempt to cut off the flow of capital, technologies, products, industries and people between economies, and channel the waters in the ocean back into isolated lakes and creeks is simply not possible. Indeed, it runs counter to the historical trend.
  • First, lack of robust driving forces for global growth makes it difficult to sustain the steady growth of the global economy. The growth of the global economy is now at its slowest pace in seven years. Growth of global trade has been slower than global GDP growth. Short-term policy stimuli are ineffective. Fundamental structural reform is just unfolding. The global economy is now in a period of moving toward new growth drivers, and the role of traditional engines to drive growth has weakened. Despite the emergence of new technologies such as artificial intelligence and 3-D printing, new sources of growth are yet to emerge. A new path for the global economy remains elusive. Second, inadequate global economic governance makes it difficult to adapt to new developments in the global economy. Madame Christine Lagarde recently told me that emerging markets and developing countries already contribute to 80 percent of the growth of the global economy. The global economic landscape has changed profoundly in the past few decades. However, the global governance system has not embraced those new changes and is therefore inadequate in terms of representation and inclusiveness. The global industrial landscape is changing and new industrial chains, value chains and supply chains are taking shape. However, trade and investment rules have not kept pace with these developments, resulting in acute problems such as closed mechanisms and fragmentation of rules.
  • Third, uneven global development makes it difficult to meet people’s expectations for better lives. Dr. Schwab has observed in his book The Fourth Industrial Revolution that this round of industrial revolution will produce extensive and far-reaching impacts such as growing inequality, particularly the possible widening gap between return on capital and return on labor. The richest one percent of the world’s population own more wealth than the remaining 99 percent. Inequality in income distribution and uneven development space are worrying. Over 700 million people in the world are still living in extreme poverty. For many families, to have warm houses, enough food and secure jobs is still a distant dream. This is the biggest challenge facing the world today. It is also what is behind the social turmoil in some countries. All this shows that there are indeed problems with world economic growth, governance and development models, and they must be resolved. The founder of the Red Cross Henry Dunant once said, “Our real enemy is not the neighboring country; it is hunger, poverty, ignorance, superstition and prejudice.” We need to have the vision to dissect these problems; more importantly, we need to have the courage to take actions to address them.
  • First, we should develop a dynamic, innovation-driven growth model. The fundamental issue plaguing the global economy is the lack of driving force for growth.Innovation is the primary force guiding development. Unlike the previous industrial revolutions, the fourth industrial revolution is unfolding at an exponential rather than linear pace. We need to relentlessly pursue innovation. Only with the courage to innovate and reform can we remove bottlenecks blocking global growth and development. With this in mind, G-20 leaders reached an important consensus at the Hangzhou Summit, which is to take innovation as a key driver and foster new driving force of growth for both individual countries and the global economy. We should develop a new development philosophy and rise above the debate about whether there should be more fiscal stimulus or more monetary easing. We should adopt a multipronged approach to address both the symptoms and the underlying problems. We should adopt new policy instruments and advance structural reform to create more space for growth and sustain its momentum. We should develop new growth models and seize opportunities presented by the new round of industrial revolution and digital economy. We should meet the challenges of climate change and aging population. We should address the negative impact of IT application and automation on jobs. When cultivating new industries and new forms models of business models, we should create new jobs and restore confidence and hope to our peoples.
  • Second, we should pursue a well-coordinated and inter-connected approach to develop a model of open and win-win cooperation. Today, mankind has become a close-knit community of shared future. Countries have extensive converging interests and are mutually dependent. All countries enjoy the right to development. At the same time, they should view their own interests in a broader context and refrain from pursuing them at the expense of others. We should commit ourselves to growing an open global economy to share opportunities and interests through opening-up and achieve win-win outcomes. One should not just retreat to the harbor when encountering a storm, for this will never get us to the other shore of the ocean. We must redouble efforts to develop global connectivity to enable all countries to achieve inter-connected growth and share prosperity. We must remain committed to developing global free trade and investment, promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation through opening-up and say no to protectionism. Pursuing protectionism is like locking oneself in a dark room. While wind and rain may be kept outside, that dark room will also block light and air. No one will emerge as a winner in a trade war.
  • Third, we should develop a model of fair and equitable governance in keeping with the trend of the times. As the Chinese saying goes, people with petty shrewdness attend to trivial matters, while people with vision attend to governance of institutions. There is a growing call from the international community for reforming the global economic governance system, which is a pressing task for us. Only when it adapts to new dynamics in the international economic architecture can the global governance system sustain global growth. Countries, big or small, strong or weak, rich or poor, are all equal members of the international community. As such, they are entitled to participate in decision-making, enjoy rights and fulfill obligations on an equal basis. Emerging markets and developing countries deserve greater representation and voice. The 2010 IMF quota reform has entered into force, and its momentum should be sustained. We should adhere to multilateralism to uphold the authority and efficacy of multilateral institutions. We should honor promises and abide by rules. One should not select or bend rules as he sees fit. The Paris Agreement is a hard-won achievement which is in keeping with the underlying trend of global development. All signatories should stick to it instead of walking away from it as this is a responsibility we must assume for future generations.
  • Despite a sluggish global economy, China’s economy is expected to grow by 6.7 percent in 2016, still one of the highest in the world. China’s economy is far bigger in size than in the past, and it now generates more output than it did with double-digit growth in the past. Household consumption and the services sector have become the main drivers of growth. In the first three quarters of 2016, added value of the tertiary industry took up 52.8 percent of the GDP and domestic consumption contributed to 71 percent of economic growth. Household income and employment have steadily risen, while per unit GDP energy consumption continues to drop. Our efforts to pursue green development are paying off. The Chinese economy faces downward pressure and many difficulties, including acute mismatch between excess capacity and an upgrading demand structure, lack of internal driving force for growth, accumulation of financial risks, and growing challenges in certain regions. We see these as temporary hardships that occur on the way forward. And the measures we have taken to address these problems are producing good results. We are firm in our resolve to forge ahead. China is the world’s largest developing country with over 1.3 billion people, and their living standards are not yet high. But this reality also means China has enormous potential and space for development. Guided by the vision of innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development, we will adapt to the new normal, stay ahead of the curve, and make coordinated efforts to maintain steady growth, accelerate reform, adjust economic structure, improve people’s living standards and fend off risks. With these efforts, we aim to achieve medium-high rate of growth and upgrade the economy to higher end of the value chain.
  • We should foster a culture that values diligence, frugality and enterprise and respects the fruits of hard work of all. Priority should be given to addressing poverty, unemployment, the widening income gap and the concerns of the disadvantaged to promote social equity and justice. It is important to protect the environment while pursuing economic and social progress so as to achieve harmony between man and nature and between man and society. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development should be implemented to realize balanced Development across the world. A Chinese adage reads, “Victory is ensured when people pool their strength; success is secured when people put their heads together.” As long as we keep to the goal of building a community of shared future for mankind and work hand in hand to fulfill our responsibilities and overcome difficulties, we will be able to create a better world and deliver better lives for our peoples.
  • This is a path that puts people’s interests first. China follows a people-oriented development philosophy and is committed to bettering the lives of its people. development is of the people, by the people and for the people. China pursues the goal of common prosperity. We have taken major steps to alleviate poverty and lifted over 700 million people out of poverty, and good progress is being made in our efforts to finish building a society of initial prosperity in all respects. This is a path of pursuing reform and innovation. China has tackled difficulties and met challenges on its way forward through reform. China has demonstrated its courage to take on difficult issues, navigate treacherous rapids and remove institutional hurdles standing in the way of development. These efforts have enabled us to unleash productivity and social vitality. Building on progress of 30-odd years of reform, we have introduced more than 1,200 reform measures over the past four years, injecting powerful impetus into China’s development.
  • This is a path of pursuing common development through opening-up. China is committed to a fundamental policy of opening-up and pursues a win-win opening-up strategy. China’s development is both domestic and external oriented; while developing itself, China also shares more of its development outcomes with other countries and peoples. China’s outstanding development achievements and the vastly improved living standards of the Chinese people are a blessing to both China and the world. Such achievements in development over the past decades owe themselves to the hard work and perseverance of the Chinese people, a quality that has defined the Chinese nation for several thousand years. We Chinese know only too well that there is no such thing as a free lunch in the world. For a big country with over 1.3 billion people, development can be achieved only with the dedication and tireless efforts of its own people. We cannot expect others to deliver development to China, and no one is in a position to do so. When assessing China’s development, one should not only see what benefits the Chinese people have gained, but also how much hard effort they have put in, not just what achievements China has made, but also what contribution China has made to the world. Then one will reach a balanced conclusion about China’s development.
  • Between 1950 and 2016, despite its modest level of development and living standard, China provided more than 400 billion yuan of foreign assistance, undertook over 5,000 foreign assistance projects, including nearly 3,000 complete projects, and held over 11,000 training workshops in China for over 260,000 personnel from other developing countries. Since it launched reform and opening-up, China has attracted over $1.7 trillion of foreign investment and made over $1.2 trillion of direct outbound investment, making huge contribution to global economic development. In the years following the outbreak of the international financial crisis, China contributed to over 30 percent of global growth every year on average. All these figures are among the highest in the world. The figures speak for themselves. China’s development is an opportunity for the world; China has not only benefited from economic globalization but also contributed to it. Rapid growth in China has been a sustained, powerful engine for global economic stability and expansion. The inter-connected development of China and a large number of other countries has made the world economy more balanced. China’s remarkable achievement in poverty reduction has contributed to more inclusive global growth. And China’s continuous progress in reform and opening-up has lent much momentum to an open world economy.
  • Fourth, we should develop a balanced, equitable and inclusive development model. As the Chinese saying goes, “A just cause should be pursued for common good.”development is ultimately for the people. To achieve more balanced development and ensure that the people have equal access to opportunities and share in the benefits of development, it is crucial to have a sound development philosophy and model and make development equitable, effective and balanced.
  • — China will foster an enabling and orderly environment for investment. We will expand market access for foreign investors, build high-standard pilot free trade zones, strengthen protection of property rights, and level the playing field to make China’s market more transparent and better regulated. In the coming five years, China is expected to import $8 trillion of goods, attract $600 billion of foreign investment and make $750 billion of outbound investment. Chinese tourists will make 700 million overseas visits. All this will create a bigger market, more capital, more products and more business opportunities for other countries. China’s development will continue to offer opportunities to business communities in other countries. China will keep its door wide open and not close it. An open door allows both other countries to access the Chinese market and China itself to integrate with the world. And we hope that other countries will also keep their door open to Chinese investors and keep the playing field level for us.
  • — China will vigorously foster an external environment of opening-up for common development. We will advance the building of the Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific and negotiations of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership to form a global network of free trade arrangements. China stands for concluding open, transparent and win-win regional free trade arrangements and opposes forming exclusive groups that are fragmented in nature. China has no intention to boost its trade competitiveness by devaluing the RMB, still less will it launch a currency war. Over three years ago, I put forward the “Belt and Road” initiative. Since then, over 100 countries and international organizations have given warm responses and support to the initiative. More than 40 countries and international organizations have signed cooperation agreements with China, and our circle of friends along the “Belt and Road” is growing bigger. Chinese companies have made over $50 billion of investment and launched a number of major projects in the countries along the routes, spurring the economic development of these countries and creating many local jobs. The “Belt and Road” initiative originated in China, but it has delivered benefits well beyond its borders.
  • Ladies and Gentlemen,Dear Friends, World history shows that the road of human civilization has never been a smooth one, and that mankind has made progress by surmounting difficulties. No difficulty, however daunting, will stop mankind from advancing. When encountering difficulties, we should not complain about ourselves, blame others, lose confidence or run away from responsibilities. We should join hands and rise to the challenge. History is created by the brave. Let us boost confidence, take actions and march arm-in-arm toward a bright future.
  • Paul Merrell on 26 Jan 17
     
    Very important speech. A must-read (I snipped only portions).
Gary Edwards

Details you need to fight Sustainable Development and Agenda 21 Marxism - 0 views

us1.campaign-archive2.com/?u=3af5d41d21ad9fce53c86ba9d&id=3da4340aa4&e=da533b503a

sustainable-development Agenda-21 Marxism New-World-Order Paganism Banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 29 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 29 Jan 14
     
    Excellent discussion explaining the connection between local planning boards, Sustainable Development, the UN's Agenda 21, and New World Order Marxism. excerpt: "The Sustainablists will always claim that planning has been with us throughout history and this is nothing new. However, the fact is, older planning groups like the American Planning Association, which had a history in old style planning and zoning, has adopted the Sustainable Development agenda while trying to pretend it hasn't. The fact is,  APA's policy is no different than that brought on by the UN's International Council on Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI).     For proof of this, visit Plannersnetwork.org (of which the APA is a part) and look at its Statement of Principles. This revealing quote will be found: "We believe planning should be a tool for allocating resources…and eliminating the great inequalities of wealth and power in our society…because the free market has proven incapable of doing this."   That is the philosophy under which the APA operates. It advocates social justice and anti-capitalism as part of its purpose in enforcing planning.   Agenda 21 is divided into three parts (Economic, Equity and Environment). The "Three Es." Equity is Social Justice. The issue of social justice is the key to understanding Agenda 21 and Sustainable Development. It is the heart of the policy. The environmental concern is a convenient excuse to sacrifice liberty. The economic concern - Public/Private Partnerships is the direct elimination of capitalism through the fascist policy of partnerships between government and business. Social Justice is the redistribution of wealth, which is key to understanding Sustainable Development and specifically to understand what is meant by the Plannersnetwork.org quote above.   Connecting the American Planning Association to Agenda 21:While the APA consistently denies any UN or Agenda 21 connection to its planning programs, recently we f
Gary Edwards

Member List - ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability USA - 0 views

www.icleiusa.org/...member-list

Property-Rights Property-Seizure-AND-Redistribution-of-Wealth Agenda-21 ICLEI

shared by Gary Edwards on 25 Jan 13 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 25 Jan 13
     
    ICLEI is a UN Agenda 21 initiative.  It's a direct assault on property ownership rights.  I had my own first hand view of these Marxists at work in the small town of Belmont California, when the Fire Chief presented a plan to turn 2/3rd's of the cities land over to the State by declaring it "a risk fire hazard zone".  The declaration would move the 2/3rds to State control and regulation, dramatically increasing the costs of building codes compliance and insurance, while effectively ending development and property improvement.  It would also end the sale of homes in these sectors since Home Owners insurance and property compliance would be prohibitively expensive.  Agenda 21 at work.  Right next door.   From TeaPartyORG:  http://goo.gl/QHIOS ......   "The International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) is a conglomerate of 600 national, regional, and local government associations who promote "sustainable development" and protection of the environment because of man-made global warming that does not exist. "Sustainable development" is the United Nations effort to contain and limit economic development in developed countries and thus control population growth. It is "sustainable de-growth," plain and simple. The focus is "low-income agriculture" and to set limits on the developed world. United Nations and its affiliates believe that first world countries polluted significantly during their development while urging third world countries to reduce pollution thus impeding their growth. Implementation of"sustainable development" would revert our society to a pre-modern lifestyle. ICLEI wants to keep the environment as pristine as possible through "ideal-seeking behavior." These euphemisms are not clearly defined in terms of what or who will evaluate or set the standards for this "ideal-seeking behavior." Agenda 21 sets up the global infrastructure to manage, count, and control assets. It is not concerned with
Gary Edwards

Michael Coffman -- Goodbye Property Rights - How Agenda 21 will destroy the Constitution - 0 views

www.newswithviews.com/...mike137.htm

Agenda-21 property-rights Property-Seizure-AND-Redistribution-of-Wealth progressive-socialism

shared by Gary Edwards on 05 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 05 Dec 12
     
    Excellent historical background to the Agenda 21 effort to regulate private property and eventually put all private property under the control of the UN regional governments. "Since the early 1970s there has been a systematic and deliberate effort to destroy private property rights in America through the warm and fuzzy goal of sustainable development. David Rockefeller co-founded the Club of Rome in 1968 as an elite, somewhat occult think tank. The Club of Rome published Limits to Growth in 1972, which called for severe limits on human population and state control of all development in the world to achieve "sustainable development." Sustainable development was eventually formalized into a United Nations global action plan called Agenda 21, which President Bush committed the U.S. to at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. President Clinton put into action by the creation of Sustainable America in 1996. If fully implemented, private property rights will be a thing of the past. Concurrent to Limits of Growth, New York's Governor Nelson Rockefeller introduced legislation to create the Adirondack Park Agency in 1971 patterned after Limits of Growth. It was so successful that Nelson's brother-Laurence Rockefeller-commissioned and led a study entitled Use of Land: A Citizen's Policy Guide to Urban Growth as a set of goals for America. Published in 1973, the nationally based Use of Land was a companion to the Club of Rome's internationally based Limits of Growth. The Use of Land was edited by William Reilly, who would later be appointed by George H. W. Bush as the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1989. Reilly also attended the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, where he advised President Bush to sign the UN Agenda 21, thereby committing the United States to Agenda 21. Although utterly evil, the Rockefeller's effort to destroy the constitutional basis of property rights was brilliant. The thrust of the Use of Land report sup
Gary Edwards

Tax Code Tweak Might Make CNG for Vehicles More Available | RedState - 0 views

www.redstate.com/...ng-for-vehicles-more-available

William-Cassidy Natural-gas CNG Energy

shared by Gary Edwards on 08 May 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 08 May 12
     
    Representative Dr. William Cassidy (R-LA) has put forward a common sense change to the tax code that will jump the economy of the USA forward, making use of plentiful and comparatively inexpensive natural gas. excerpt: The recent natural gas boom in the United States has been so wide-spread and profound that it has dropped natural gas prices to historical lows. These prices are so low that producers have begun to scale back operations as extraction has almost become uneconomical. We should be focused on exploring new commercial markets for natural gas to take advantage of such a low-cost energy source. Because technology and supply is currently available to sell the natural gas equivalent for about $1.50 a gallon compared with the current price of gasoline, it would seem natural for consumers to begin making the switch to compressed natural gas CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) vehicles. So if the technology is already available and we have at least a 100-year supply of natural gas right here in America, why aren't we all driving CNG cars? Unfortunately, the main obstacle is a lack of natural gas fuel infrastructure in our country. Currently in the United States, there are only 449 CNG fueling stations accessible to the public, which is dwarfed by the more than 157,000 gasoline stations. There are a number of proposals to spur natural gas infrastructure development in Washington. Not surprisingly, when it comes to Congress, the most talked about option involves subsidies for both natural gas vehicles and for the actual CNG fuel itself. While we should be using all of our available natural resources to aid in lowering the costs of transportation, the reality is that our country has neither the money to subsidize development nor the expertise to pick winners and losers in the energy and transportation sectors. As opposed to subsidies, I believe that a simple change to our tax code would help those companies that develop natural gas look at domestic retail infrastruc
Gary Edwards

The obscure legal system that lets corporations sue countries | Claire Provost and Matt Kennard | Business | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...rtations-sue-states-ttip-icsid

ISDS TTIP Banksters World-Banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 10 Jun 15 - No Cached
  • Every year on 15 September, thousands of Salvadorans celebrate the date when much of Central America gained independence from Spain. Fireworks are set off and marching bands parade through villages across the country. But, last year, in the town of San Isidro, in Cabañas, the festivities had a markedly different tone. Hundreds had gathered to protest against the mine. Gold mines often use cyanide to separate gold from ore, and widespread concern over already severe water contamination in El Salvador has helped fuel a powerful movement determined to keep the country’s minerals in the ground. In the central square, colourful banners were strung up, calling on OceanaGold to drop its case against the country and leave the area. Many were adorned with the slogan, “No a la mineria, Si a la vida” (No to mining, Yes to life). On the same day, in Washington DC, Parada gathered his notes and shuffled into a suite of nondescript meeting rooms in the World Bank’s J building, across the street from its main headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue. This is the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID): the primary institution for handling the cases that companies file against sovereign states. (The ICSID is not the sole venue for such cases; there are similar forums in London, Paris, Hong Kong and the Hague, among others.) The date of the hearing was not a coincidence, Parada said. The case has been framed in El Salvador as a test of the country’s sovereignty in the 21st century, and he suggested that it should be heard on Independence Day. “The ultimate question in this case,” he said, “is whether a foreign investor can force a government to change its laws to please the investor as opposed to the investor complying with the laws they find in the country.”
  • Most international investment treaties and free-trade deals grant foreign investors the right to activate this system, known as investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), if they want to challenge government decisions affecting their investments. In Europe, this system has become a sticking point in negotiations over the controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) deal proposed between the European Union and the US, which would massively extend its scope and power and make it harder to challenge in the future. Both France and Germany have said that they want access to investor-state dispute settlement removed from the TTIP treaty currently under discussion. Investors have used this system not only to sue for compensation for alleged expropriation of land and factories, but also over a huge range of government measures, including environmental and social regulations, which they say infringe on their rights. Multinationals have sued to recover money they have already invested, but also for alleged lost profits and “expected future profits”. The number of suits filed against countries at the ICSID is now around 500 – and that figure is growing at an average rate of one case a week. The sums awarded in damages are so vast that investment funds have taken notice: corporations’ claims against states are now seen as assets that can be invested in or used as leverage to secure multimillion-dollar loans. Increasingly, companies are using the threat of a lawsuit at the ICSID to exert pressure on governments not to challenge investors’ actions.
  • “I had absolutely no idea this was coming,” Parada said. Sitting in a glass-walled meeting room in his offices, at the law firm Foley Hoag, he paused, searching for the right word to describe what has happened in his field. “Rogue,” he decided, finally. “I think the investor-state arbitration system was created with good intentions, but in practice it has gone completely rogue.”
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  • The quiet village of Moorburg in Germany lies just across the river from Hamburg. Past the 16th-century church and meadows rich with wildflowers, two huge chimneys spew a steady stream of thick, grey smoke into the sky. This is Kraftwerk Moorburg, a new coal-fired power plant – the village’s controversial next-door neighbour. In 2009, it was the subject of a €1.4bn investor-state case filed by Vattenfall, the Swedish energy giant, against the Federal Republic of Germany. It is a prime example of how this powerful international legal system, built to protect foreign investors in developing countries, is now being used to challenge the actions of European governments as well. Since the 1980s, German investors have sued dozens of countries, including Ghana, Ukraine and the Philippines, at the World Bank’s Centre in Washington DC. But with the Vattenfall case, Germany found itself in the dock for the first time. The irony was not lost on those who considered Germany to be the grandfather of investor-state arbitration: it was a group of German businessmen, in the late 1950s, who first conceived of a way to protect their overseas investments as a wave of developing countries gained independence from European colonial powers. Led by Deutsche Bank chairman Hermann Abs, they called their proposal an “international magna carta” for private investors.
  • In the 1960s, the idea was taken up by the World Bank, which said that such a system could help the world’s poorer countries attract foreign capital. “I am convinced,” the World Bank president George Woods said at the time, “that those … who adopt as their national policy a welcome [environment] for international investment – and that means, to mince no words about it, giving foreign investors a fair opportunity to make attractive profits – will achieve their development objectives more rapidly than those who do not.” At the World Bank’s 1964 annual meeting in Tokyo, it approved a resolution to set up a mechanism for handling investor-state cases. The first line of the ICSID Convention’s preamble sets out its goal as “international cooperation for economic development”. There was sharp opposition to this system from its inception, with a bloc of developing countries warning that it would undermine their sovereignty. A group of 21 countries – almost every Latin American country, plus Iraq and the Philippines – voted against the proposal in Tokyo. But the World Bank moved ahead regardless. Andreas Lowenfeld, an American legal academic who was involved in some of these early discussions, later remarked: “I believe this was the first time that a major resolution of the World Bank had been pressed forward with so much opposition.”
  • now governments are discovering, too late, the true price of that confidence. The Kraftwerk Moorburg plant was controversial long before the case was filed. For years, local residents and environmental groups objected to its construction, amid growing concern over climate change and the impact the project would have on the Elbe river. In 2008, Vattenfall was granted a water permit for its Moorburg project, but, in response to local pressure, local authorities imposed strict environmental conditions to limit the utility’s water usage and its impact on fish. Vattenfall sued Hamburg in the local courts. But, as a foreign investor, it was also able to file a case at the ICSID. These environmental measures, it said, were so strict that they constituted a violation of its rights as guaranteed by the Energy Charter Treaty, a multilateral investment agreement signed by more than 50 countries, including Sweden and Germany. It claimed that the environmental conditions placed on its permit were so severe that they made the plant uneconomical and constituted acts of indirect expropriation.
  • With the rapid growth in these treaties – today there are more than 3,000 in force – a specialist industry has developed in advising companies how best to exploit treaties that give investors access to the dispute resolution system, and how to structure their businesses to benefit from the different protections on offer. It is a lucrative sector: legal fees alone average $8m per case, but they have exceeded $30m in some disputes; arbitrators’ fees at start at $3,000 per day, plus expenses.
  • Vattenfall v Germany ended in a settlement in 2011, after the company won its case in the local court and received a new water permit for its Moorburg plant – which significantly lowered the environmental standards that had originally been imposed, according to legal experts, allowing the plant to use more water from the river and weakening measures to protect fish. The European Commission has now stepped in, taking Germany to the EU Court of Justice, saying its authorisation of the Moorburg coal plant violated EU environmental law by not doing more to reduce the risk to protected fish species, including salmon, which pass near the plant while migrating from the North Sea. A year after the Moorburg case closed, Vattenfall filed another claim against Germany, this time over the federal government’s decision to phase out nuclear power. This second suit – for which very little information is available in the public domain, despite reports that the company is seeking €4.7bn from German taxpayers – is still ongoing. Roughly one third of all concluded cases filed at the ICSID are recorded as ending in “settlements”, which – as the Moorburg dispute shows – can be very profitable for investors, though their terms are rarely fully disclosed.
  • “It was a total surprise for us,” the local Green party leader Jens Kerstan laughed, in a meeting at his sunny office in Hamburg last year. “As far as I knew, there were some [treaties] to protect German companies in the [developing] world or in dictatorships, but that a European company can sue Germany, that was totally a surprise to me.”
  • While a tribunal cannot force a country to change its laws, or give a company a permit, the risk of massive damages may in some cases be enough to persuade a government to reconsider its actions. The possibility of arbitration proceedings can be used to encourage states to enter into meaningful settlement negotiations.
  • A small number of countries are now attempting to extricate themselves from the bonds of the investor-state dispute system. One of these is Bolivia, where thousands of people took to the streets of the country’s third-largest city, Cochabamba, in 2000, to protest against a dramatic hike in water rates by a private company owned by Bechtel, the US civil engineering firm. During the demonstrations, the Bolivian government stepped in and terminated the company’s concession. The company then filed a $50m suit against Bolivia at the ICSID. In 2006, following a campaign calling for the case to be thrown out, the company agreed to accept a token payment of less than $1. After this expensive case, Bolivia cancelled the international agreements it had signed with other states giving their investors access to these tribunals. But getting out of this system is not easily done. Most of these international agreements have sunset clauses, under which their provisions remain in force for a further 10 or even 20 years, even if the treaties themselves are cancelled.
  • There are now thousands of international investment agreements and free-trade acts, signed by states, which give foreign companies access to the investor-state dispute system, if they decide to challenge government decisions. Disputes are typically heard by panels of three arbitrators; one selected by each side, and the third agreed upon by both parties. Rulings are made by majority vote, and decisions are final and binding. There is no appeals process – only an annulment option that can be used on very limited grounds. If states do not pay up after the decision, their assets are subject to seizure in almost every country in the world (the company can apply to local courts for an enforcement order).
  • While there is no equivalent of legal aid for states trying to defend themselves against these suits, corporations have access to a growing group of third-party financiers who are willing to fund their cases against states, usually in exchange for a cut of any eventual award.
  • Increasingly, these suits are becoming valuable even before claims are settled. After Rurelec filed suit against Bolivia, it took its case to the market and secured a multimillion-dollar corporate loan, using its dispute with Bolivia as collateral, so that it could expand its business. Over the last 10 years, and particularly since the global financial crisis, a growing number of specialised investment funds have moved to raise money through these cases, treating companies’ multimillion-dollar claims against states as a new “asset class”.
  • El Salvador has already spent more than $12m defending itself against Pacific Rim, but even if it succeeds in beating the company’s $284m claim, it may never recover these costs. For years Salvadoran protest groups have been calling on the World Bank to initiate an open and public review of ICSID. To date, no such study has been carried out. In recent years, a number of ideas have been mooted to reform the international investor-state dispute system – to adopt a “loser pays” approach to costs, for example, or to increase transparency. The solution may lie in creating an appeals system, so that controversial judgments can be revisited.
  • Brazil has never signed up to this system – it has not entered into a single treaty with these investor-state dispute provisions – and yet it has had no trouble attracting foreign investment.
  • Gary Edwards on 10 Jun 15
     
    "Luis Parada's office is just four blocks from the White House, in the heart of K Street, Washington's lobbying row - a stretch of steel and glass buildings once dubbed the "road to riches", when influence-peddling became an American growth industry. Parada, a soft-spoken 55-year-old from El Salvador, is one of a handful of lawyers in the world who specialise in defending sovereign states against lawsuits lodged by multinational corporations. He is the lawyer for the defence in an obscure but increasingly powerful field of international law - where foreign investors can sue governments in a network of tribunals for billions of dollars. Fifteen years ago, Parada's work was a minor niche even within the legal business. But since 2000, hundreds of foreign investors have sued more than half of the world's countries, claiming damages for a wide range of government actions that they say have threatened their profits. In 2006, Ecuador cancelled an oil-exploration contract with Houston-based Occidental Petroleum; in 2012, after Occidental filed a suit before an international investment tribunal, Ecuador was ordered to pay a record $1.8bn - roughly equal to the country's health budget for a year. (Ecuador has logged a request for the decision to be annulled.) Parada's first case was defending Argentina in the late 1990s against the French conglomerate Vivendi, which sued after the Argentine province of Tucuman stepped in to limit the price it charged people for water and wastewater services. Argentina eventually lost, and was ordered to pay the company more than $100m. Now, in his most high-profile case yet, Parada is part of the team defending El Salvador as it tries to fend off a multimillion-dollar suit lodged by a multinational mining company after the tiny Central American country refused to allow it to dig for gold."
Paul Merrell

Catalog Reveals NSA Has Back Doors for Numerous Devices - SPIEGEL ONLINE - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...numerous-devices-a-940994.html

surveillance state NSA NSA-methods NSA-backdoors routers hard-drives must-read

shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • When it comes to modern firewalls for corporate computer networks, the world's second largest network equipment manufacturer doesn't skimp on praising its own work. According to Juniper Networks' online PR copy, the company's products are "ideal" for protecting large companies and computing centers from unwanted access from outside. They claim the performance of the company's special computers is "unmatched" and their firewalls are the "best-in-class." Despite these assurances, though, there is one attacker none of these products can fend off -- the United States' National Security Agency.
  • Specialists at the intelligence organization succeeded years ago in penetrating the company's digital firewalls. A document viewed by SPIEGEL resembling a product catalog reveals that an NSA division called ANT has burrowed its way into nearly all the security architecture made by the major players in the industry -- including American global market leader Cisco and its Chinese competitor Huawei, but also producers of mass-market goods, such as US computer-maker Dell.
  • The specialists at ANT, which presumably stands for Advanced or Access Network Technology, could be described as master carpenters for the NSA's department for Tailored Access Operations (TAO). In cases where TAO's usual hacking and data-skimming methods don't suffice, ANT workers step in with their special tools, penetrating networking equipment, monitoring mobile phones and computers and diverting or even modifying data. Such "implants," as they are referred to in NSA parlance, have played a considerable role in the intelligence agency's ability to establish a global covert network that operates alongside the Internet. Some of the equipment available is quite inexpensive. A rigged monitor cable that allows "TAO personnel to see what is displayed on the targeted monitor," for example, is available for just $30. But an "active GSM base station" -- a tool that makes it possible to mimic a mobile phone tower and thus monitor cell phones -- costs a full $40,000. Computer bugging devices disguised as normal USB plugs, capable of sending and receiving data via radio undetected, are available in packs of 50 for over $1 million.
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  • These NSA agents, who specialize in secret back doors, are able to keep an eye on all levels of our digital lives -- from computing centers to individual computers, and from laptops to mobile phones. For nearly every lock, ANT seems to have a key in its toolbox. And no matter what walls companies erect, the NSA's specialists seem already to have gotten past them. This, at least, is the impression gained from flipping through the 50-page document. The list reads like a mail-order catalog, one from which other NSA employees can order technologies from the ANT division for tapping their targets' data. The catalog even lists the prices for these electronic break-in tools, with costs ranging from free to $250,000. In the case of Juniper, the name of this particular digital lock pick is "FEEDTROUGH." This malware burrows into Juniper firewalls and makes it possible to smuggle other NSA programs into mainframe computers. Thanks to FEEDTROUGH, these implants can, by design, even survive "across reboots and software upgrades." In this way, US government spies can secure themselves a permanent presence in computer networks. The catalog states that FEEDTROUGH "has been deployed on many target platforms."
  • The ANT division doesn't just manufacture surveillance hardware. It also develops software for special tasks. The ANT developers have a clear preference for planting their malicious code in so-called BIOS, software located on a computer's motherboard that is the first thing to load when a computer is turned on. This has a number of valuable advantages: an infected PC or server appears to be functioning normally, so the infection remains invisible to virus protection and other security programs. And even if the hard drive of an infected computer has been completely erased and a new operating system is installed, the ANT malware can continue to function and ensures that new spyware can once again be loaded onto what is presumed to be a clean computer. The ANT developers call this "Persistence" and believe this approach has provided them with the possibility of permanent access. Another program attacks the firmware in hard drives manufactured by Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor and Samsung, all of which, with the exception of the latter, are American companies. Here, too, it appears the US intelligence agency is compromising the technology and products of American companies.
  • Other ANT programs target Internet routers meant for professional use or hardware firewalls intended to protect company networks from online attacks. Many digital attack weapons are "remotely installable" -- in other words, over the Internet. Others require a direct attack on an end-user device -- an "interdiction," as it is known in NSA jargon -- in order to install malware or bugging equipment. There is no information in the documents seen by SPIEGEL to suggest that the companies whose products are mentioned in the catalog provided any support to the NSA or even had any knowledge of the intelligence solutions. "Cisco does not work with any government to modify our equipment, nor to implement any so-called security 'back doors' in our products," the company said in a statement. Contacted by SPIEGEL reporters, officials at Western Digital, Juniper Networks and Huawei also said they had no knowledge of any such modifications. Meanwhile, Dell officials said the company "respects and complies with the laws of all countries in which it operates." Many of the items in the software solutions catalog date from 2008, and some of the target server systems that are listed are no longer on the market today. At the same time, it's not as if the hackers within the ANT division have been sleeping on the job. They have continued to develop their arsenal. Some pages in the 2008 catalog, for example, list new systems for which no tools yet exist. However, the authors promise they are already hard at work developing new tools and that they will be "pursued for a future release."
  • Paul Merrell on 30 Dec 13
     
    Oh, great. My router and all of my hard drives have NSA backdoors in them. And my BIOS on the Linux box may be infected with a backdoor. What are the odds that NSA has not developed similar capability for the UEFI on our two newer Windows boxes? 
Paul Merrell

Greece Invited to Join New BRICS Development Bank | News | teleSUR English - 0 views

www.telesurtv.net/...opment-Bank-20150512-0039.html

BRICS Greece Russia

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 May 15 - No Cached
  • Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will reportedly participate in the World Economic Forum of St. Petersburg after being invited by Russia on Monday to become the sixth member of the BRICS Development Bank. The Greek prime minister was invited to join the BRICS after a phone call conversation with Russian Finance Vice-minister Serguéi Storchak, RT reported. Tsipras has shown interest in the proposal and will join the BRICS countries in June at the forum in St. Petersburg to discuss the possibility. If Greece agrees to join the new Development Bank, the country would become its sixth member alongside Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The BRICS Development Bank is a new initiative that will help BRICS member states lessen their dependence on the IMF. The bank will have a $100 billion foreign currency reserve for the BRICS, which would protect national currencies from the volatility of global markets.
  • "A large part of the fund [International Monetary Fund] goes toward saving the euro and the national currencies of developed countries. Given that governance of the IMF is in the hands of western powers, there is little hope for assistance from the IMF in case of an emergency. That is why the currency reserve pool would come in very handy," said Russian ambassador-at-large Vadim Lukov. The currency reserve pool would ensure that, in the event of a financial emergency - such as a crisis in the banking system - the BRICS countries would no longer have to depend on the IMF. The BRICS group of nations includes five of the world's largest developing economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
  • Paul Merrell on 14 May 15
     
    But adding Greece will really trash the very nice BRICS acronym. Time to rename Greece. 
Gary Edwards

Oklahoma House Passes Bill to Ban UN Agenda 21 - 0 views

thenewamerican.com/...asses-bill-to-ban-un-agenda-21

Oklahoma Agenda-21

shared by Gary Edwards on 20 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 20 Mar 13
     
    The State of Oklahoma looks to be well on its way towards joining Alabama, Kansas, and Tennessee as States passing laws to block any efforts to implement the insidious United Nations socialist initiative known as Agenda 21.   Excerpts: lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in Tennessee adopted a resolution blasting the dubious UN agenda as a radical "socialist" plot at odds with individual liberty, private-property rights, and the U.S. Constitution. Lawmakers in Kansas followed suit. Numerous other state governments, under heavy pressure from activists across the political spectrum, are also working to ban the "sustainable development" scheme in their jurisdictions. City and county governments, meanwhile, are taking action to protect residents, too.  "One of the goals of the United Nations Agenda 21 Initiative is to influence governments," Kern explained. "My constituents are concerned about that influence and about their property rights being infringed upon by government regulations that originated from Agenda 21. My legislation addresses those concerns by protecting individual property rights." "The Oklahoma bill passed by the House last week reads: "The state or any political subdivision of the state shall not adopt or implement policy recommendations that deliberately or inadvertently infringe upon or restrict private property rights without due process, as may be required by policy recommendations originating in, or traceable to United Nations Agenda 21/Sustainable development." Also prohibited under the measure is state or local government participation in "any other international law or ancillary plan of action that contravenes the Constitution of the United States or the Oklahoma Constitution." The legislation also ensures that state and local governments are barred from working with UN-linked groups promoting the controversial agenda. "Since the United Nations has accredited or enlisted numerous nongovernmental and intergovernmen
Paul Merrell

Shady Companies With Ties to Israel Wiretap the U.S. for the NSA | Threat Level | Wired.com - 0 views

www.wired.com/...2

surveillance state NSA Israel Narus Verint espionage

shared by Paul Merrell on 15 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • In addition to constructing the Stellar Wind center, and then running the operation, secretive contractors with questionable histories and little oversight were also used to do the actual bugging of the entire U.S. telecommunications network. According to a former Verizon employee briefed on the program, Verint, owned by Comverse Technology, taps the communication lines at Verizon, which I first reported in my book The Shadow Factory in 2008. Verint did not return a call seeking comment, while Verizon said it does not comment on such matters. At AT&T the wiretapping rooms are powered by software and hardware from Narus, now owned by Boeing, a discovery made by AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein in 2004. Narus did not return a call seeking comment. What is especially troubling is that both companies have had extensive ties to Israel, as well as links to that country’s intelligence service, a country with a long and aggressive history of spying on the U.S.
  • In fact, according to Binney, the advanced analytical and data mining software the NSA had developed for both its worldwide and international eavesdropping operations was secretly passed to Israel by a mid-level employee, apparently with close connections to the country. The employee, a technical director in the Operations Directorate, “who was a very strong supporter of Israel,” said Binney, “gave, unbeknownst to us, he gave the software that we had, doing these fast rates, to the Israelis.” Because of his position, it was something Binney should have been alerted to, but wasn’t. “In addition to being the technical director,” he said, “I was the chair of the TAP, it’s the Technical Advisory Panel, the foreign relations council. We’re supposed to know what all these foreign countries, technically what they’re doing…. They didn’t do this that way, it was under the table.” After discovering the secret transfer of the technology, Binney argued that the agency simply pass it to them officially, and in that way get something in return, such as access to communications terminals. “So we gave it to them for switches,” he said. “For access.”
  • But Binney now suspects that Israeli intelligence in turn passed the technology on to Israeli companies who operate in countries around the world, including the U.S. In return, the companies could act as extensions of Israeli intelligence and pass critical military, economic and diplomatic information back to them. “And then five years later, four or five years later, you see a Narus device,” he said. “I think there’s a connection there, we don’t know for sure.” Narus was formed in Israel in November 1997 by six Israelis with much of its money coming from Walden Israel, an Israeli venture capital company. Its founder and former chairman, Ori Cohen, once told Israel’s Fortune Magazine that his partners have done technology work for Israeli intelligence. And among the five founders was Stanislav Khirman, a husky, bearded Russian who had previously worked for Elta Systems, Inc. A division of Israel Aerospace Industries, Ltd., Elta specializes in developing advanced eavesdropping systems for Israeli defense and intelligence organizations. At Narus, Khirman became the chief technology officer.
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  • A few years ago, Narus boasted that it is “known for its ability to capture and collect data from the largest networks around the world.” The company says its equipment is capable of “providing unparalleled monitoring and intercept capabilities to service providers and government organizations around the world” and that “Anything that comes through [an Internet protocol network], we can record. We can reconstruct all of their e-mails, along with attachments, see what Web pages they clicked on, we can reconstruct their [Voice over Internet Protocol] calls.” Like Narus, Verint was founded by in Israel by Israelis, including Jacob “Kobi” Alexander, a former Israeli intelligence officer. Some 800 employees work for Verint, including 350 who are based in Israel, primarily working in research and development and operations, according to the Jerusalem Post. Among its products is STAR-GATE, which according to the company’s sales literature, lets “service providers … access communications on virtually any type of network, retain communication data for as long as required, and query and deliver content and data …” and was “[d]esigned to manage vast numbers of targets, concurrent sessions, call data records, and communications.”
  • In a rare and candid admission to Forbes, Retired Brig. Gen. Hanan Gefen, a former commander of the highly secret Unit 8200, Israel’s NSA, noted his former organization’s influence on Comverse, which owns Verint, as well as other Israeli companies that dominate the U.S. eavesdropping and surveillance market. “Take NICE, Comverse and Check Point for example, three of the largest high-tech companies, which were all directly influenced by 8200 technology,” said Gefen. “Check Point was founded by Unit alumni. Comverse’s main product, the Logger, is based on the Unit’s technology.”
  • According to a former chief of Unit 8200, both the veterans of the group and much of the high-tech intelligence equipment they developed are now employed in high-tech firms around the world. “Cautious estimates indicate that in the past few years,” he told a reporter for the Israeli newspaper Ha’artez in 2000, “Unit 8200 veterans have set up some 30 to 40 high-tech companies, including 5 to 10 that were floated on Wall Street.” Referred to only as “Brigadier General B,” he added, “This correlation between serving in the intelligence Unit 8200 and starting successful high-tech companies is not coincidental: Many of the technologies in use around the world and developed in Israel were originally military technologies and were developed and improved by Unit veterans.
  • Equally troubling is the issue of corruption. Kobi Alexander, the founder and former chairman of Verint, is now a fugitive, wanted by the FBI on nearly three dozen charges of fraud, theft, lying, bribery, money laundering and other crimes. And two of his top associates at Comverse, Chief Financial Officer David Kreinberg and former General Counsel William F. Sorin, were also indicted in the scheme and later pleaded guilty, with both serving time in prison and paying millions of dollars in fines and penalties. When asked about these contractors, the NSA declined to “verify the allegations made.”
  • Paul Merrell on 15 Jun 13
     
    So, allegedly a Zionist working in NSA passed NSA's telecommunications data mining software to Israel, was identified, but was never prosecuted. And the Verint CEO is now a fugitive from justice on charges of "fraud, theft, lying, money laundering, and other crimes." What's not to like in having this company processing all of our telephone metadata?
Gary Edwards

Agenda 21 on Steroids « The PPJ Gazette - 0 views

ppjg.me/...agenda-21-on-steroids

Agenda-21

shared by Gary Edwards on 16 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 16 Mar 12
     
    Agenda 21 groups are now touring the Bay Area as part of ABAG - the State and local funded Association of Bay Area Governments.  They are holding community awareness sessions, explaining their new community building, utilities, travel and communications concepts.  And taking votes.  Scary people these Agenda 21 types.  They really think they have the right to dictate how people live. Meanwhile Agenda 21 Marxist lead by billionaire George  Soros are busy buying up foreclosed farmland like there is no tomorrow.  Oh wait ..... excerpt: The Draft International Covenant on Environment and Development is Agenda 21 on steroids. If you take the word "Environment" out of the title (which seems to be thrown in to placate you), and call this the International Covenant on Development, you will more clearly see the intent of this manifesto. The Covenant is intended to become a binding Global Treaty and the template for international law. International attorneys have been hammering this out for about 16 years. The 4th draft was issued in 2010. The Covenant is about control of Development, and social engineering, by the United Nations. Remember, the United Nations is a trade organization funded by money from corporations, organizations and associations funded by corporations, and foreign governments. The Covenant states it focuses on "social and economic pillars." In the Covenant's footnotes, it refers to the constitutions of Brazil, India, Namibia, and even the Islamic Republic of Iran. But this manifesto doesn't adhere to the U.S. Constitution. If the Covenant is adapted by the United States, it will be the end of our Constitution and our rights.
Paul Merrell

German Economy Hit by US, EU Sanctions on Russia - SPIEGEL ONLINE - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...ctions-on-russia-a-982075.html

banksters Russia sanctions Germany

shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • The US, for its part, penalized a dozen leading Russian conglomerates, including oil giant Rosneft, natural gas producer Novatek, Gazprombank and the weapons manufacturer Kalashnikov. From now on, they are forbidden from borrowing money from American monetary institutions and from issuing medium- and long-term debt to investors with ties to the US.
  • Even prior to the sanctions, the Russian economy had been struggling. Now, though, the Ukraine crisis is beginning to make itself felt in Germany as well. German industry's Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations believes that the crisis could endanger up to 25,000 jobs in Germany. Were a broad recession to befall Russia, German growth could sink by 0.5 percent, according to a Deutsche Bank study.
  • The most recent US sanctions, warns Eckhard Cordes, head of the Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations, have placed an additional strain "on the general investment climate." Particularly, he adds, because European companies have to conform to the American penalties.
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  • Already, the uneasiness can be seen in the Ifo Business Climate Index. One in three of the companies surveyed at the end of June said it expected adverse effects. "Russian customers have begun looking for suppliers outside of Europe," says Ulrich Ackermann, a foreign trade expert with the German engineering association VDMA. "They are concerned that European companies, because of the threat of increased sanctions, won't be able to deliver."
  • Even prior to the latest sanctions, business has been slowing in almost all sectors. The Düsseldorf-based energy giant E.on, for example, recently built power stations in Russia worth €9 billion. Most of the generators are already online, but because the economy in Russia is suffering, the returns are much lower than forecast. Volkswagen is a further example. The carmaker's sales figures for 2014 are 10 percent lower than they were last year. Opel's figures dropped by 12 percent during the first five months of the year.
  • Paul Merrell on 24 Jul 14
     
    Germany, and other European nations whose economies are interdependent on Russia's, are beginning to feel the pain from U.S. efforts to blockade BRICS nations from doing business with Europe. That's what U.S. meddling in Ukraine is about, another of the key U.S. initiatives in the the new Iron Curtain being constructed between BRICS and the U.S.-led Bankster Empire. I suspect that the sanctions will prove to be a dumb move. The BRICS nations will develop new industry to replace the goods it had been buying from Europe, all paid for without U.S. dollars. A pinch in the beginning, but longer term economic growth because the BRICS nations will also sell their new products to developing nations eager to hop off the U.S. dollar. That's when the new BRICS development bank counterpart to the IMF comes to the fore. That's the handwriting on the wall that the U.S. is painting for Germany and the rest of the E.U. Will Germany take that kind of economic hit out of loyalty to the U.S. and love of the sinking value of the dollar? The only end in sight for the dollar's sinking value is the inevitable crash. Or does Germany part ways with the dollar and hitch its wagon to the rising star of the BRICS nations' economy? Because Germany is the island of prosperity in the Eurozone, as goes Germany, so goes the future of the E.U. and NATO. Meanwhile, the Fed manipulates the gold market to keep the price artificially low and thus prop up the dollar a bit longer. But that keeps the price of gold low for China too. The drama of gangster capitalism's demise. http://goo.gl/DGfEq6
Paul Merrell

Abbott to say No to Xi and the New Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank - Twice | nsnbc international - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...tructure-investment-bank-twice

banksters de-dollarization AIIB China dollar-collapse Australia

shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is expected to say no to Chinese President Xi about joining the new Chinese-led Asia Infrastructure Development Bank (AIIB) when he will meet Xi at the ASEAN summit in Beijing this week. Abbott’s no to joining the bank would come against the advise of Australian treasurer Joe Hockey and after intense U.S. pressure for Australia to reject the proposed participation.
  • The decision to reject Australia’s participation in the 21 nation regional bank was made during a session of the Australian government’s National Security Committee and was explained as a “decision made on strategic grounds”. The decision has been criticized by several of Australia’s leading experts on economy. The Asian Development Bank  (ADB) estimated in 2011 that Asia would require some US$750 per year through 2020 to meet the needs for regional infrastructure Development. In 2012 the ADB merely lent US$7.5 billion reported Australia’s Treasury.
  • A growing number of regional governments including Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar and many other are gravitating towards China as China increasingly opens up its economy and banking system for foreign businesses and investment.
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  • Australian Treasurer Joe Hockey repeatedly stressed that Australia’s national interests would be better served by joining the new AIIB while Abbott attempted to position the AIIB as a “unilateral institution”. While it is correct that China is the main investor into the bank, it is a 21 nation project and Abbott’s explanation is given little credence by objective economists who are aware of the inherent problems with U.S. dominance and the dominance of rogue corporate cartels who hold e.g the World Bank, the IMF and the US government in a state of capture.
  • The development gains perspective, considering that the former Chief Economist of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) William White in 2013, and other top-economists are predicting that a collapse of the U.S. dollar and the Bretton Woods institutions has become unavoidable, that it may happened overnight, and that it is likely to happen sometime by the end of 2014 or the first half of 2015. A recent analysis of the development described U.S. pressure against nations’ joining the new Asia Infrastructure development Bank as the choice between gold and gunfire, noting that the U.S. applies relative soft pressure against Australia, while it won’t hesitate to provoke civil wars in for example Thailand to prolong the (f)ailing new American Century, just a little bit longer.
  • Gold or Gunfire: Hedging Against the Collapse of the Dollar
Paul Merrell

Can the AEC be a success? - nsnbc international | nsnbc international - 0 views

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trade ASEAN AEC outlook

shared by Paul Merrell on 28 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • After almost two decades of discussion, the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) will be proclaimed on 31st December. The AEC is a potentially significant and competitive economic region, should it be allowed to develop according to the aspiration of being a “single market and production base, with free flow of services, investments, and labour, by the year 2020”.
  • The ASEAN region as a composite trading block has the third highest population at 634 million, after China and India. GDP per capita is rapidly rising. The AEC would be the 4th largest exporter after China, the EU, and the United States, with still very much scope for growth from Cambodia, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Vietnam from a diverse range of activities ranging from agriculture, food, minerals and commodities, electronics, and services. The coming AEC is already the 4th largest importer of goods after the United States, EU, and China, making it one of the biggest markets in the world. Unlike the other trade regions, the AEC still has so much potential for growth with rising population, rising incomes, growing consumer sophistication, and improving infrastructure. Perhaps the biggest benefit of the upcoming AEC is the expected boost this will give to intra-ASEAN trade. Most ASEAN nations have previously put their efforts into developing external relationships with the major trading nations like the EU, Japan and the US through bilateral and free trade agreements. To some extent, the potential of intra-ASEAN trade was neglected, perhaps with the exception of the entrepot of Singapore. The AEC is an opportunity to refocus trade efforts within the region, especially when Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia are rapidly developing, and Myanmar is opening up for business with the rest of the region.
  • There are no integrated banking structures, no agreement on common and acceptable currencies (some ASEAN currencies are not interchangeable), no double taxation agreements, and no formal agreements on immigration. There is not even any such thing as a common ASEAN business visa. These issues are going to hinder market access for regional SMEs. Any local market operations will have to fulfil local laws and regulations which may not be easy for non-citizens to meet and adhere to. Even though there are some preferential tariffs for a number of classes of ASEAN originating goods, non-tariff barriers are still in existence, which are insurmountable in some cases like the need for import licenses (APs) in Malaysia, and the need to have a registered company which can only be formed by Thai nationals within Thailand. Some of these problems are occurring because of the very nature of ASEAN itself. ASEAN was founded on the basis of consultation, consensus, and non-interference in the internal affairs of other members. This means that no formal problem solving mechanism exists, and the ASEAN Secretariat is a facilitator rather than implementer of policy. Illegal workers, human trafficking, money laundering, and haze issues between member states have no formal mechanisms through which these issues can be solved from an ASEAN perspective. This weakens the force for regional integration.
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  • However the necessary infrastructure to support intra-ASEAN trade growth is lagging behind with a delay in the completion of the Trans-Asia Highway in Cambodia, and vastly inadequate border checkpoints between Malaysia and Thailand in Sadao and Kelantan. Some infrastructure development projects have been severely hit by finance shortfalls within member states. There are a number of outstanding issues concerning the growth and development of the AEC. The ASEAN Secretariat based in Jakarta has a small staff, where the best talent is lacking due to the small salaries paid. The Secretariat unlike the EU bureaucratic apparatus in Brussels relies on cooperation between the member state governments for policy direction, funding and implementation of the AEC. Thus the frontline of AEC implementation are the individual country ministries, which presents many problems, as some issues require multi-ministry cooperation and coordination, which is not always easy to achieve as particular ministries have their own visions and agendas. Getting cooperation of these ministries isn’t easy. There are numerous structural and procedural issues yet to be contended with. At the inter-governmental level, laws and regulations are yet to be coordinated and harmonized. So in-effect there is one community with 10 sets of regulations in effect this coming January 1st. Consumer laws, intellectual property rights, company and corporate codes (no provision for ASEAN owned companies), land codes, and investment rules are all different among the individual member states.
  • One of the major issues weakening the potential development of the AEC is the apparent lack of political commitment for a common market by the leadership of the respective ASEAN members. Thailand is currently in a struggle to determine how the country should be governed. Malaysia is in the grip of corruption scandals where the prime minister is holding onto power. Myanmar is going through a massive change in the way it will be governed. Indonesia is still struggling with how its archipelago should be governed. There is a view from Vietnam that business within the country is not ready for the AEC. Intense nationalistic sentiments among for example Thais, exasperated by the recent Preach Vihear Temple conflict along the Thai-Cambodian border need to be softened to get full advantage out of the AEC. The dispute in the International Court of Justice over Pedra Branca, and the Philippine rift with China over the South China Sea show the delicacy of relationships among ASEAN members. The recent Thai court decision on the guilt of Zaw Lin and Win Zaw Tun in the murder of two young British tourists may also show how fragile intra-ASEAN relationships can be. The AEC is going to fall far short of achieving its full potential of becoming a major influence in global trade. The AEC is not intended to be the same model as the EEC. The AEC is far from being any fully integrated economic community. The lack of social, cultural, and political integration within the ASEAN region indicates the massive job ahead that Europe had been through decades ago. There is still a lot of public ignorance about what the AEC is, and lack of excitement or expectation for what should be a major event within the region. Respective national media are scant on information about the forthcoming launch of the AEC.
Paul Merrell

Information Awareness Office - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

en.wikipedia.org/...Information_Awareness_Office

surveillance state NSA DARPA Poindexter lies

shared by Paul Merrell on 23 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • The Information Awareness Office (IAO) was established by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in January 2002 to bring together several DARPA projects focused on applying surveillance and information technology to track and monitor terrorists and other asymmetric threats to U.S. national security, by achieving Total Information Awareness (TIA). This would be achieved by creating enormous computer databases to gather and store the personal information of everyone in the United States, including personal e-mails, social networks, credit card records, phone calls, medical records, and numerous other sources, without any requirement for a search warrant.[1] This information would then be analyzed to look for suspicious activities, connections between individuals, and "threats".[2] Additionally, the program included funding for biometric surveillance technologies that could identify and track individuals using surveillance cameras, and other methods.[2] Following public criticism that the development and deployment of this technology could potentially lead to a mass surveillance system, the IAO was defunded by Congress in 2003. However, several IAO projects continued to be funded, and merely run under different names.[3][4][5][6]
  • The IAO was established after Admiral John Poindexter, former United States National Security Advisor to President Ronald Reagan, and SAIC executive Brian Hicks approached the US Department of Defense with the idea for an information awareness program after the attacks of September 11, 2001.[5] Poindexter and Hicks had previously worked together on intelligence-technology programs for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. DARPA agreed to host the program and appointed Poindexter to run it in 2002. The IAO began funding research and development of the Total Information Awareness (TIA) Program in February 2003 but renamed the program the Terrorism Information Awareness Program in May that year after an adverse media reaction to the program's implications for public surveillance. Although TIA was only one of several IAO projects, many critics and news reports conflated TIA with other related research projects of the IAO, with the result that TIA came in popular usage to stand for an entire subset of IAO programs. The TIA program itself was the "systems-level" program of the IAO that intended to integrate information technologies into a prototype system to provide tools to better detect, classify, and identify potential foreign terrorists with the goal to increase the probability that authorized agencies of the United States could preempt adverse actions. As a systems-level program of programs, TIA's goal was the creation of a "counterterrorism information architecture" that integrated technologies from other IAO programs (and elsewhere, as appropriate). The TIA program was researching, developing, and integrating technologies to virtually aggregate data, to follow subject-oriented link analysis, to develop descriptive and predictive models through data mining or human hypothesis, and to apply such models to additional datasets to identify terrorists and terrorist groups.
  • Among the other IAO programs that were intended to provide TIA with component data aggregation and automated analysis technologies were the Genisys, Genisys Privacy Protection, Evidence Extraction and Link Discovery, and Scalable Social Network Analysis programs. On August 2, 2002, Dr. Poindexter gave a speech at DARPAtech 2002 entitled "Overview of the Information Awareness Office"[7] in which he described the TIA program. In addition to the program itself, the involvement of Poindexter as director of the IAO also raised concerns among some, since he had been earlier convicted of lying to Congress and altering and destroying documents pertaining to the Iran-Contra Affair, although those convictions were later overturned on the grounds that the testimony used against him was protected.
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  • On January 16, 2003, Senator Russ Feingold introduced legislation to suspend the activity of the IAO and the Total Information Awareness program pending a Congressional review of privacy issues involved.[8] A similar measure introduced by Senator Ron Wyden would have prohibited the IAO from operating within the United States unless specifically authorized to do so by Congress, and would have shut the IAO down entirely 60 days after passage unless either the Pentagon prepared a report to Congress assessing the impact of IAO activities on individual privacy and civil liberties or the President certified the program's research as vital to national security interests. In February 2003, Congress passed legislation suspending activities of the IAO pending a Congressional report of the office's activities (Consolidated Appropriations Resolution, 2003, No.108–7, Division M, §111(b) [signed Feb. 20, 2003]). In response to this legislation, DARPA provided Congress on May 20, 2003 with a report on its activities.[9] In this report, IAO changed the name of the program to the Terrorism Information Awareness Program and emphasized that the program was not designed to compile dossiers on US citizens, but rather to research and develop the tools that would allow authorized agencies to gather information on terrorist networks. Despite the name change and these assurances, the critics continued to see the system as prone to potential misuse or abuse. As a result House and Senate negotiators moved to prohibit further funding for the TIA program by adding provisions to the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2004[10] (signed into law by President Bush on October 1, 2003). Further, the Joint Explanatory Statement included in the conference committee report specifically directed that the IAO as program manager for TIA be terminated immediately.[11]
  • Paul Merrell on 23 Jun 13
     
    What became today's NSA programs of public concern were the brain child of Admiral John Poindexter and a private sector compadre. U.S. v. Poindexter, 951 F.2d 369, 390 (D.C. Cir. 1991). Poindexter had previously been convicted on five criminal counts involving lying to Congress and destruction and alteration of evidence.  His convictions were overturned on appeal on grounds that some of the testimony against him had been immunized from use in prosecution by Congress. There was no claim on appeal that any such evidence had been false.  86 U.S. v. Poindexter, 951 F.2d 369, 390 (D.C. Cir. 1991), . For far more detail of the evidence against Poindexter, see the August 4, 1993 final report by independent prosecutor Lawrence Walsh, Vol 1, Part 4 section 3, .  So one might say that today's controversial NSA activities were the idea of and conceived by a government official more than willing to lie to Congress and  to destroy and alter evidence. 
Paul Merrell

S/RES/487 (1981) of 19 June 1981 - 0 views

domino.un.org/...57312cc8bd93ca852560df00653995

Israel Iranian nukes Iraq UN Security Council Resolution

shared by Paul Merrell on 07 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • Resolution 487 (1981) Adopted by the Security Council at its 2288th meeting on 19 June 1981 The Security Council, Having considered the agenda contained in document S/Agenda/2280, Having noted the contents of the telegram dated 8 June 1981 from the Foreign Minister of Iraq (S/14509), Having heard the statements made to the Council on the subject at its 2280th through 2288th meetings, Taking note of the statement made by the Director-General of the International Atomic Emergency Agency (IAEA) to the Agency's Board of Governors on the subject on 9 June 1981 and his statement to the Council at its 2288th meeting on 19 June 1981,
  • Further taking note of the resolution adopted by the Board of Governors of the IAEA on 12 June 1981 on the "military attack on the Iraq nuclear research centre and its implications for the Agency" (S/14532), Fully aware of the fact that Iraq has been a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons since it came into force in 1970, that in accordance with that Treaty Iraq has accepted IAEA safeguards on all its nuclear activities, and that the Agency has testified that these safeguards have been satisfactorily applied to date, Noting furthermore that Israel has not adhered to the non-proliferation Treaty, Deeply concerned about the danger to international peace and security created by the premeditated Israeli air attack on Iraqi nuclear installations on 7 June 1981, which could at any time explode the situation in the area, with grave consequences for the vital interests of all States,
  • Considering that, under the terms of Article 2, paragraph 4, of the Charter of the United Nations: "All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations", 1. Strongly condemns the military attack by Israel in clear violation of the Charter of the United Nations and the norms of international conduct; 2. Calls upon Israel to refrain in the future from any such acts or threats thereof; 3. Further considers that the said attack constitutes a serious threat to the entire IAEA safeguards regime which is the foundation of the non-proliferation Treaty;
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  • 4. Fully recognizes the inalienable sovereign right of Iraq, and all other States, especially the developing countries, to establish programmes of technological and nuclear development to develop their economy and industry for peaceful purposes in accordance with their present and future needs and consistent with the internationally accepted objectives of preventing nuclear-weapons proliferation; 5. Calls upon Israel urgently to place its nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards; 6. Considers that Iraq is entitled to appropriate redress for the destruction it has suffered, responsibility for which has been acknowledged by Israel; 7. Requests the Secretary-General to keep the Security Council regularly informed of the implementation of this resolutio
  • Paul Merrell on 07 Aug 12
     
    In 1981, an Israeli air strike destroyed a nuclear reactor under construction in Iraq. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osirak The UN Security Council, where the U.S. had and has veto power, promptly issued Resolution 487 condemning Israel for violation of the U.N. Charter provision forbidding the use of force against the territorial integrity of another nation. The resolution also recognized Iraq and all other nations' right to nuclear development for peaceful purposes. Israel was instructed to never do such things in the future. Yet here we stand today with both Israel and the U.S. threatening military strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities.   
  • Paul Merrell on 07 Aug 12
     
    But our Constitution commands in article VI: "This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; *and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land;* and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding,"  Thus, because the U.S. is still a member of the U.N. Treaty, our Constitution commands that we obey that Treaty and its prohibition against unilateral use of force. There is no applicable exception to the Treaty that would permit the U.S. or Israel to mount an attack on the Iranian nuclear facilities. Thus there is no such exception to the Constitution.
Paul Merrell

Remarks by Director David H. Petraeus at In-Q-Tel CEO Summit - Central Intelligence Agency - 0 views

www.cia.gov/...in-q-tel-summit-remarks.html

surveillance state CIA Patraeus internet of things CIA-targets NSA-targets

shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • In any event, our partnership with In-Q-Tel is essential to helping identify and deliver groundbreaking technologies with mission-critical applications to the CIA and to our partner agencies.
  • As you know, our Agency has a global charter to collect intelligence. It’s our job to ensure that challenges that arise in any corner of the world are not surprises to the President or to other policymakers. Certainly, we will continue relentlessly to pursue terrorists and support the troops in several different theaters. That is imperative, and the last year has seen considerable achievement in the fight against al-Qa‘ida and its affiliates. But, to use the kids’ soccer analogy, we cannot turn the counterterrorist fight into a game of magnetball, in which the leadership is always focused on the counterterror mission. Everyone can’t flock to the ball and lose sight of the rest of the field—the whole rest of the world. And it’s an enormous field to cover:  again, the whole world, with proliferation of weapons and technology, cyber threats, counterintelligence threats, the next developments in the evolution of the Arab Spring, Iran, North Korea, China, illegal narcotics, emerging powers, non-state organizations, and even lone wolves. Our duty is nothing less than to be on top of every potential foreign challenge and opportunity facing the United States—and we now have to do it without the steady budget growth we saw in the years after 9/11. And this is why my job is so intellectually stimulating.
  • First, given the digital transparency I just mentioned, we have to rethink our notions of identity and secrecy. In the digital world, data is everywhere, as you all know well. Data is created constantly, often unknowingly and without permission. Every byte left behind reveals information about location, habits, and, by extrapolation, intent and probable behavior. The number of data points that can be collected is virtually limitless—presenting, of course, both enormous intelligence opportunities and equally large counterintelligence challenges. We must, for example, figure out how to protect the identity of our officers who increasingly have a digital footprint from birth, given that proud parents document the arrival and growth of their future CIA officer in all forms of social media that the world can access for decades to come. Moreover, we have to figure out how to create the digital footprint for new identities for some officers. As you all know, exploiting the intelligence opportunities—which is an easier subject to discuss in an unclassified setting than the counterintelligence challenges—will require a new class of in-place and remote sensors that operate across the electromagnetic spectrum. Moreover, these sensors will be increasingly interconnected.
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  • The current “Internet of PCs” will move, of course, toward an “Internet of Things”—of devices of all types—50 to 100 billion of which will be connected to the Internet by 2020. As you know, whereas machines in the 19th century learned to do, and those in the 20th century learned to think at a rudimentary level, in the 21st century, they are learning to perceive—to actually sense and respond. Key applications developed by our In-Q-Tel investment companies are focused on technologies that are driving the Internet of Things. These include: Item identification, or devices engaged in tagging; Sensors and wireless sensor networks—devices that indeed sense and respond; Embedded systems—those that think and evaluate; And, finally, nanotechnology, allowing these devices to be small enough to function virtually anywhere.
  • Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters—all connected to the next-generation Internet using abundant, low cost, and high-power computing—the latter now going to cloud computing, in many areas greater and greater supercomputing, and, ultimately, heading to quantum computing. In practice, these technologies could lead to rapid integration of data from closed societies and provide near-continuous, persistent monitoring of virtually anywhere we choose. “Transformational” is an overused word, but I do believe it properly applies to these technologies, particularly to their effect on clandestine tradecraft. Taken together, these developments change our notions of secrecy and create innumerable challenges—as well as opportunities.
  • Paul Merrell on 30 Dec 13
     
    I missed this gem before, from March 1, 2012. Speech by then-CIA chief Gen. David Patraeus to a group of reps. from ICT startups who are employed by CIA through its In-Q-Tel technology development non-profit corp. See https://www.iqt.org/about-iqt/ Patraeus announces that the Internet of Things (devices of all kinds) is becoming an intelligence target. And that boils down to everything from your clock radio to your home's climate control system and more becoming a potential intelligence source. If the CIA is investing in this, you can bit your bippy that NSA is too; Patraeus mentions that "partner agencies" are also receiving applications via the In-Q-Tel investments.  Finally, Patraeus also acknowledges that the intelligence mission extends far beyond counter-terrorism, offering some detail. So it seems that before the Snowden leaks his the press, the intelligence mission was not all about counter-terrorism.
Paul Merrell

How the NSA Plans to Infect 'Millions' of Computers with Malware - The Intercept - 0 views

firstlook.org/...ect-millions-computers-malware

surveillance state NSA GCHQ NSA-methods malware

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • Top-secret documents reveal that the National Security Agency is dramatically expanding its ability to covertly hack into computers on a mass scale by using automated systems that reduce the level of human oversight in the process. The classified files – provided previously by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden – contain new details about groundbreaking surveillance technology the agency has developed to infect potentially millions of computers worldwide with malware “implants.” The clandestine initiative enables the NSA to break into targeted computers and to siphon out data from foreign Internet and phone networks. The covert infrastructure that supports the hacking efforts operates from the agency’s headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland, and from eavesdropping bases in the United Kingdom and Japan. GCHQ, the British intelligence agency, appears to have played an integral role in helping to develop the implants tactic.
  • The NSA began rapidly escalating its hacking efforts a decade ago. In 2004, according to secret internal records, the agency was managing a small network of only 100 to 150 implants. But over the next six to eight years, as an elite unit called Tailored Access Operations (TAO) recruited new hackers and developed new malware tools, the number of implants soared to tens of thousands. To penetrate foreign computer networks and monitor communications that it did not have access to through other means, the NSA wanted to go beyond the limits of traditional signals intelligence, or SIGINT, the agency’s term for the interception of electronic communications. Instead, it sought to broaden “active” surveillance methods – tactics designed to directly infiltrate a target’s computers or network devices. In the documents, the agency describes such techniques as “a more aggressive approach to SIGINT” and says that the TAO unit’s mission is to “aggressively scale” these operations. But the NSA recognized that managing a massive network of implants is too big a job for humans alone.
  • “One of the greatest challenges for active SIGINT/attack is scale,” explains the top-secret presentation from 2009. “Human ‘drivers’ limit ability for large-scale exploitation (humans tend to operate within their own environment, not taking into account the bigger picture).” The agency’s solution was TURBINE. Developed as part of TAO unit, it is described in the leaked documents as an “intelligent command and control capability” that enables “industrial-scale exploitation.”
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  • TURBINE was designed to make deploying malware much easier for the NSA’s hackers by reducing their role in overseeing its functions. The system would “relieve the user from needing to know/care about the details,” the NSA’s Technology Directorate notes in one secret document from 2009. “For example, a user should be able to ask for ‘all details about application X’ and not need to know how and where the application keeps files, registry entries, user application data, etc.” In practice, this meant that TURBINE would automate crucial processes that previously had to be performed manually – including the configuration of the implants as well as surveillance collection, or “tasking,” of data from infected systems. But automating these processes was about much more than a simple technicality. The move represented a major tactical shift within the NSA that was expected to have a profound impact – allowing the agency to push forward into a new frontier of surveillance operations. The ramifications are starkly illustrated in one undated top-secret NSA document, which describes how the agency planned for TURBINE to “increase the current capability to deploy and manage hundreds of Computer Network Exploitation (CNE) and Computer Network Attack (CNA) implants to potentially millions of implants.” (CNE mines intelligence from computers and networks; CNA seeks to disrupt, damage or destroy them.)
  • But not all of the NSA’s implants are used to gather intelligence, the secret files show. Sometimes, the agency’s aim is disruption rather than surveillance. QUANTUMSKY, a piece of NSA malware developed in 2004, is used to block targets from accessing certain websites. QUANTUMCOPPER, first tested in 2008, corrupts a target’s file downloads. These two “attack” techniques are revealed on a classified list that features nine NSA hacking tools, six of which are used for intelligence gathering. Just one is used for “defensive” purposes – to protect U.S. government networks against intrusions.
  • The NSA has a diverse arsenal of malware tools, each highly sophisticated and customizable for different purposes. One implant, codenamed UNITEDRAKE, can be used with a variety of “plug-ins” that enable the agency to gain total control of an infected computer. An implant plug-in named CAPTIVATEDAUDIENCE, for example, is used to take over a targeted computer’s microphone and record conversations taking place near the device. Another, GUMFISH, can covertly take over a computer’s webcam and snap photographs. FOGGYBOTTOM records logs of Internet browsing histories and collects login details and passwords used to access websites and email accounts. GROK is used to log keystrokes. And SALVAGERABBIT exfiltrates data from removable flash drives that connect to an infected computer. The implants can enable the NSA to circumvent privacy-enhancing encryption tools that are used to browse the Internet anonymously or scramble the contents of emails as they are being sent across networks. That’s because the NSA’s malware gives the agency unfettered access to a target’s computer before the user protects their communications with encryption. It is unclear how many of the implants are being deployed on an annual basis or which variants of them are currently active in computer systems across the world.
  • Infiltrating cellphone networks, however, is not all that the malware can be used to accomplish. The NSA has specifically tailored some of its implants to infect large-scale network routers used by Internet service providers in foreign countries. By compromising routers – the devices that connect computer networks and transport data packets across the Internet – the agency can gain covert access to monitor Internet traffic, record the browsing sessions of users, and intercept communications. Two implants the NSA injects into network routers, HAMMERCHANT and HAMMERSTEIN, help the agency to intercept and perform “exploitation attacks” against data that is sent through a Virtual Private Network, a tool that uses encrypted “tunnels” to enhance the security and privacy of an Internet session.
  • Eventually, the secret files indicate, the NSA’s plans for TURBINE came to fruition. The system has been operational in some capacity since at least July 2010, and its role has become increasingly central to NSA hacking operations. Earlier reports based on the Snowden files indicate that the NSA has already deployed between 85,000 and 100,000 of its implants against computers and networks across the world, with plans to keep on scaling up those numbers. The intelligence community’s top-secret “Black Budget” for 2013, obtained by Snowden, lists TURBINE as part of a broader NSA surveillance initiative named “Owning the Net.” The agency sought $67.6 million in taxpayer funding for its Owning the Net program last year. Some of the money was earmarked for TURBINE, expanding the system to encompass “a wider variety” of networks and “enabling greater automation of computer network exploitation.”
  • Before it can extract data from an implant or use it to attack a system, the NSA must first install the malware on a targeted computer or network. According to one top-secret document from 2012, the agency can deploy malware by sending out spam emails that trick targets into clicking a malicious link. Once activated, a “back-door implant” infects their computers within eight seconds. There’s only one problem with this tactic, codenamed WILLOWVIXEN: According to the documents, the spam method has become less successful in recent years, as Internet users have become wary of unsolicited emails and less likely to click on anything that looks suspicious. Consequently, the NSA has turned to new and more advanced hacking techniques. These include performing so-called “man-in-the-middle” and “man-on-the-side” attacks, which covertly force a user’s internet browser to route to NSA computer servers that try to infect them with an implant.
  • To perform a man-on-the-side attack, the NSA observes a target’s Internet traffic using its global network of covert “accesses” to data as it flows over fiber optic cables or satellites. When the target visits a website that the NSA is able to exploit, the agency’s surveillance sensors alert the TURBINE system, which then “shoots” data packets at the targeted computer’s IP address within a fraction of a second. In one man-on-the-side technique, codenamed QUANTUMHAND, the agency disguises itself as a fake Facebook server. When a target attempts to log in to the social media site, the NSA transmits malicious data packets that trick the target’s computer into thinking they are being sent from the real Facebook. By concealing its malware within what looks like an ordinary Facebook page, the NSA is able to hack into the targeted computer and covertly siphon out data from its hard drive. A top-secret animation demonstrates the tactic in action.
  • The TURBINE implants system does not operate in isolation. It is linked to, and relies upon, a large network of clandestine surveillance “sensors” that the agency has installed at locations across the world.
  • The NSA’s headquarters in Maryland are part of this network, as are eavesdropping bases used by the agency in Misawa, Japan and Menwith Hill, England. The sensors, codenamed TURMOIL, operate as a sort of high-tech surveillance dragnet, monitoring packets of data as they are sent across the Internet. When TURBINE implants exfiltrate data from infected computer systems, the TURMOIL sensors automatically identify the data and return it to the NSA for analysis. And when targets are communicating, the TURMOIL system can be used to send alerts or “tips” to TURBINE, enabling the initiation of a malware attack. The NSA identifies surveillance targets based on a series of data “selectors” as they flow across Internet cables. These selectors, according to internal documents, can include email addresses, IP addresses, or the unique “cookies” containing a username or other identifying information that are sent to a user’s computer by websites such as Google, Facebook, Hotmail, Yahoo, and Twitter. Other selectors the NSA uses can be gleaned from unique Google advertising cookies that track browsing habits, unique encryption key fingerprints that can be traced to a specific user, and computer IDs that are sent across the Internet when a Windows computer crashes or updates.
  • Documents published with this article: Menwith Hill Station Leverages XKeyscore for Quantum Against Yahoo and Hotmail Five Eyes Hacking Large Routers NSA Technology Directorate Analysis of Converged Data Selector Types There Is More Than One Way to Quantum NSA Phishing Tactics and Man in the Middle Attacks Quantum Insert Diagrams The NSA and GCHQ’s QUANTUMTHEORY Hacking Tactics TURBINE and TURMOIL VPN and VOIP Exploitation With HAMMERCHANT and HAMMERSTEIN Industrial-Scale Exploitation Thousands of Implants
  • Paul Merrell on 13 Mar 14
     
    *Very* long article. Only small portions quoted.
Gary Edwards

XKeyscore: NSA tool collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet' | World news | theguardian.com - 1 views

www.theguardian.com/...top-secret-program-online-data

Edward-Snowden Glenn-Greenwald NSA NSA-Patriot-Act-NDAA NSA-Whistleblower

shared by Gary Edwards on 01 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • The latest revelations will add to the intense public and congressional debate around the extent of NSA surveillance programs. They come as senior intelligence officials testify to the Senate judiciary committee on Wednesday, releasing classified documents in response to the Guardian's earlier stories on bulk collection of phone records and Fisa surveillance court oversight.
  • The files shed light on one of Snowden's most controversial statements, made in his first video interview published by the Guardian on June 10
  • "I, sitting at my desk," said Snowden, could "wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email".
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  • US officials vehemently denied this specific claim. Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee, said of Snowden's assertion: "He's lying. It's impossible for him to do what he was saying he could do."
  • But training materials for XKeyscore detail how analysts can use it and other systems to mine enormous agency databases by filling in a simple on-screen form giving only a broad justification for the search. The request is not reviewed by a court or any NSA personnel before it is processed.
  • XKeyscore, the documents boast, is the NSA's "widest reaching" system developing intelligence from computer networks – what the agency calls Digital Network Intelligence (DNI). One presentation claims the program covers "nearly everything a typical user does on the internet", including the content of emails, websites visited and searches, as well as their metadata.
  • Analysts can also use XKeyscore and other NSA systems to obtain ongoing "real-time" interception of an individual's internet activity.
  • Under US law, the NSA is required to obtain an individualized Fisa warrant only if the target of their surveillance is a 'US person', though no such warrant is required for intercepting the communications of Americans with foreign targets.
  • But XKeyscore provides the technological capability, if not the legal authority, to target even US persons for extensive electronic surveillance without a warrant provided that some identifying information, such as their email or IP address, is known to the analyst.
  • One training slide illustrates the digital activity constantly being collected by XKeyscore and the analyst's ability to query the databases at any time.
  • The purpose of XKeyscore is to allow analysts to search the metadata as well as the content of emails and other internet activity, such as browser history, even when there is no known email account (a "selector" in NSA parlance) associated with the individual being targeted.
  • Analysts can also search by name, telephone number, IP address, keywords, the language in which the internet activity was conducted or the type of browser used.
  • One document notes that this is because "strong selection [search by email address] itself gives us only a very limited capability" because "a large amount of time spent on the web is performing actions that are anonymous."
  • Email monitoring
  • One top-secret document describes how the program "searches within bodies of emails, webpages and documents", including the "To, From, CC, BCC lines" and the 'Contact Us' pages on websites".
  • To search for emails, an analyst using XKS enters the individual's email address into a simple online search form, along with the "justification" for the search and the time period for which the emails are sought.
  • One document, a top secret 2010 guide describing the training received by NSA analysts for general surveillance under the Fisa Amendments Act of 2008, explains that analysts can begin surveillance on anyone by clicking a few simple pull-down menus designed to provide both legal and targeting justifications.
  • Once options on the pull-down menus are selected, their target is marked for electronic surveillance and the analyst is able to review the content of their communications:
  • Chats, browsing history and other internet activity
  • Beyond emails, the XKeyscore system allows analysts to monitor a virtually unlimited array of other internet activities, including those within social media.
  • An NSA tool called DNI Presenter, used to read the content of stored emails, also enables an analyst using XKeyscore to read the content of Facebook chats or private messages.
  • The XKeyscore program also allows an analyst to learn the IP addresses of every person who visits any website the analyst specifies.
  • The quantity of communications accessible through programs such as XKeyscore is staggeringly large. One NSA report from 2007 estimated that there were 850bn "call events" collected and stored in the NSA databases, and close to 150bn internet records. Each day, the document says, 1-2bn records were added.
  • William Binney, a former NSA mathematician, said last year that the agency had "assembled on the order of 20tn transactions about US citizens with other US citizens", an estimate, he said, that "only was involving phone calls and emails". A 2010 Washington Post article reported that "every day, collection systems at the [NSA] intercept and store 1.7bn emails, phone calls and other type of communications."
  • The ACLU's deputy legal director, Jameel Jaffer, told the Guardian last month that national security officials expressly said that a primary purpose of the new law was to enable them to collect large amounts of Americans' communications without individualized warrants.
  • "The government doesn't need to 'target' Americans in order to collect huge volumes of their communications," said Jaffer. "The government inevitably sweeps up the communications of many Americans" when targeting foreign nationals for surveillance.
  • Gary Edwards on 01 Aug 13
     
    "One presentation claims the XKeyscore program covers 'nearly everything a typical user does on the internet' ................................................................. A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden. The NSA boasts in training materials that the program, called XKeyscore, is its "widest-reaching" system for developing intelligence from the internet. The latest revelations will add to the intense public and congressional debate around the extent of NSA surveillance programs. They come as senior intelligence officials testify to the Senate judiciary committee on Wednesday, releasing classified documents in response to the Guardian's earlier stories on bulk collection of phone records and Fisa surveillance court oversight. The files shed light on one of Snowden's most controversial statements, made in his first video interview published by the Guardian on June 10. "I, sitting at my desk," said Snowden, could "wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email". US officials vehemently denied this specific claim. Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee, said of Snowden's assertion: "He's lying. It's impossible for him to do what he was saying he could do." But training materials for XKeyscore detail how analysts can use it and other systems to mine enormous agency databases by filling in a simple on-screen form giving only a broad justification for the search. The request is not reviewed by a court or any NSA personnel before it is processed. XKeyscore, the documents boast, is the NSA's "widest reaching" system developing intelligence from computer networks - what the agency calls Digital Network Intelligence (DNI). One
  • Paul Merrell on 02 Aug 13
     
    "But training materials for XKeyscore detail how analysts can use it and other systems to mine enormous agency databases by filling in a simple on-screen form giving only a broad justification for the search. The request is not reviewed by a court or any NSA personnel before it is processed. " Note in that regard that Snowden said in an earlier interview that use of this system rarely was audited and that when audited, the most common request if changes were requested was to beef up the justification for the search. The XScore system puts the lie to just about everything the Administration has claimed about intense oversight by all three branches of federal government and about not reading emails or listening to (Skype) phone calls. The lies keep stacking up in an ever-deepening pile.
Paul Merrell

America's Lead Iran Negotiator Misrepresents U.S. Policy (and International Law) to Congress « Going to Tehran - 0 views

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war & peace Iran nuclear-non-proliferation-treaty NNTP Iranian-nukes-myth Obama lies

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Last month, while testifying to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Wendy Sherman—Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs and the senior U.S. representative in the P5+1 nuclear talks with Iran—said, with reference to Iranians, “We know that deception is part of the DNA.”  This statement goes beyond orientalist stereotyping; it is, in the most literal sense, racist.  And it evidently was not a mere “slip of the tongue”:  a former Obama administration senior official told us that Sherman has used such language before about Iranians. 
  • Putting aside Sherman’s glaring display of anti-Iranian racism, there was another egregious manifestation of prejudice-cum-lie in her testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that we want to explore more fully.  It came in a response to a question from Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) about whether states have a right to enrich under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).  Here is the relevant passage in Sherman’s reply:  “It has always been the U.S. position that Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty does not speak about the right of enrichment at all [and] doesn’t speak to enrichment, period.  It simply says that you have the right to research and development.”  Sherman goes on to acknowledge that “many countries such as Japan and Germany have taken that [uranium enrichment] to be a right.”  But, she says, “the United States does not take that position.  We take the position that we look at each one of these [cases].”  Or, as she put it at the beginning of her response to Sen. Rubio, “It has always been the U.S. position that Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty does not speak about the right of enrichment at all” (emphasis added). 
  • Two points should be made here.  First, the claim that the NPT’s Article IV does not affirm the right of non-nuclear-weapons states to pursue indigenous development of fuel-cycle capabilities, including uranium enrichment, under international safeguards is flat-out false.  Article IV makes a blanket statement that “nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination.”  And it’s not just “countries such as Japan and Germany”—both close U.S. allies—which affirm that this includes the right of non-weapons states to enrich uranium under safeguards.  The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) countries and the Non-Aligned Movement (whose 120 countries represent a large majority of UN members) have all clearly affirmed the right of non-nuclear-weapons states, including the Islamic Republic of Iran, to pursue indigenous safeguarded enrichment.  In fact, just four countries in the world hold that there is no right to safeguarded enrichment under the NPT:  the United States, Britain, France, and Israel (which isn’t even a NPT signatory).  That’s it.  Moreover, the right to indigenous technological development—including nuclear fuel-cycle capabilities, should a state choose to pursue them—is a sovereign right.  It is not conferred by the NPT; the NPT’s Article IV recognizes states’ “inalienable right” in this regard, while other provisions bind non-weapons states that join the Treaty to exercise this right under international safeguards.       
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • There have been many first-rate analyses demonstrating that the right to safeguarded enrichment under the NPT is crystal clear—from the Treaty itself, from its negotiating history, and from subsequent practice, with at least a dozen non-weapons states building fuel-cycle infrastructures potentially capable of supporting weapons programs.  Bill Beeman published a nice Op Ed in the Huffington Post on this question in response to Sherman’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee testimony, see here and, for a text including references, here.  For truly definitive legal analyses, see the work of Daniel Joyner, for example here and here.  The issue will also be dealt with in articles by Flynt Leverett and Dan Joyner in a forthcoming special issue of the Penn State Journal of Law and International Affairs, which should appear within the next few days.         From any objectively informed legal perspective, denying non-weapons states’ right of safeguarded enrichment amounts to nothing more than a shameless effort to rewrite the NPT unilaterally.  And this brings us to our second point about Sherman’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee testimony. 
  • Sherman claims that “It has always been the U.S. position that Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty does not speak about the right of enrichment at all [and] doesn’t speak to enrichment, period.”  But, in fact, the United States originally held that the right to peaceful use recognized in the NPT’s Article IV includes the indigenous development of safeguarded fuel-cycle capabilities.  In 1968, as America and the Soviet Union, the NPT’s sponsors, prepared to open it for signature, the founding Director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, William Foster, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—the same committee to which Sherman untruthfully testified last month—that the Treaty permitted non-weapons states to pursue the fuel cycle.  We quote Foster on this point:   “Neither uranium enrichment nor the stockpiling of fissionable material in connection with a peaceful program would violate Article II so long as these activities were safeguarded under Article III.”  [Note:  In Article II of the NPT, non-weapons states commit not to build or acquire nuclear weapons; in Article III, they agree to accept safeguards on the nuclear activities, “as set forth in an agreement to be negotiated and concluded with the International Atomic Energy Agency.”] 
  • Thus, it is a bald-faced lie to say that the United States has “always” held that the NPT does not recognize a right to safeguarded enrichment.  As a matter of policy, the United States held that that the NPT recognized such a right even before it was opened for signature; this continued to be the U.S. position for more than a quarter century thereafter.  It was only after the Cold War ended that the United States—along with Britain, France, and Israel—decided that the NPT should be, in effect, unilaterally rewritten (by them) to constrain the diffusion of fuel-cycle capabilities to non-Western states.  And their main motive for trying to do so has been to maximize America’s freedom of unilateral military initiative and, in the Middle East, that of Israel.  This is the agenda for which Wendy Sherman tells falsehoods to a Congress that is all too happy to accept them.    
  • Paul Merrell on 14 Nov 13
     
    What should be the reaction of Congress upon discovering that the U.S. lead negotiator with Iran in regard to its budding peaceful use of nuclear power lies to Congress about the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty's applicability to Iran's actions? 
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