[UPDATE - 2010-03-09]
The Middle East Institute has posted video of a US-Libya business relations event that WL Central mentioned previously. The event called "US-Libya Relations: Surviving the WikiLeaks Controversy?" featured two individuals, David Mack and Charles Dittrich, with connections to the US-Libya Business Association.
The person introducing the event in the video (presumably a person with the Middle East Institute which hosted the panel) explains the WikiLeaks cables released on Libya rocked the relationship between the US and Libya. "The US' very able ambassador to Libya, Gene Cretz, was quoted in secret cables as talking about Muammar Gaddafi's reliance on a voluptuous blond Ukrainian nurse. That did not go down well in Tripoli."
Ambassador Cretz was recalled. But, as Mack says when he gets up to speak, a meeting in mid-December was held between business leaders from the US and Tripoli and there was a willingness to push onward and forget what had been revealed.
Previous post which appeared on 2010-02-22 appears below.
The only people more terrified of the foreign mercenaries or anti-aircraft missiles or the fighter jets deployed to shell protesters than Libyans are the businessmen working for oil and gas companies in Libya. In fact, this whole democracy thing is a nightmare for companies in Libya that fought just over two years ago to ensure the market in Libya would not be restricted by an amendment that aimed to prevent companies from doing business with rogue states designated as state sponsors of terrorism.
Financial Times reports escalating violence in Libya has kept oil prices at two and a half year highs. Many of the oil ports and refineries are now shut down. International oil companies are evacuating their staff from the "world's 12th largest oil exporter."
All the violence, protest and political tension in Libya and the wider Middle East and North Africa seems to have led the US-Libya Business Association to make a cold calculated decision to disappear from the Internet for the time being until calm returns to Libya. RAW STORY reported on February 21 that the website of the US-Libya Business Association (USLBA) went down.
Stories of what happened as Egyptian women protested in Tahrir Square and called for equality and fairness in Egyptian society in honor of International Women’s Day are circulating. Female Egyptians hoped to have a million women march. Unfortunately, only a few hundred women came out to demonstrate and the action turned violent as men disrupted what should have been a peaceful day of celebration.
Christian Science Monitor reports men showed up and shouted, “Go wash clothes!” And said, “You are not married; go find a husband,” and “This is against Islam!” Men suggested women already have enough rights. They argued now was not the time to argue for rights.
Men decided women had been demonstrating for too long and violently scattered the women provoking the military to fire shots in the air. Sexual harassment, which many female Egyptians said during the uprising had disappeared, happened during the “melee.”
Cairo-based reporter and writer Ursula Lindsey reports one “48 year-old accountant” was "horrified by the protesters’ demand that women be allowed to run for the presidency.” He suggested Egyptians would “reject this completely” and added, “Women have a role, and men have a role. We’re used to men ruling. Who rules in my house? My father. And who rules in my family? I do.”
Egyptians stormed Amn Dawla, a State Security building in Nasr City, over the weekend. Protesters were aware that security was burning, shredding and destroying documents that might incriminate State Security officials in any future investigations or pursuits of accountability in the aftermath of the toppling of President Hosni Mubarak. They entered the building, started taking photos and video and took some of the documents to scan and post online or hand over to the armed forces so State Security could not be free from justice.
Inspired by WikiLeaks, Amn Dawla Leaks was instantly born. Twitter and Facebook accounts began to circulate the documents. The information, in Arabic, received many requests for English translation. It became clear there was much world interest and many would want to know what was uncovered.
One main revelation that has come out in the first days involves a bombing that up to this point was believed to have been perpetrated by Bedouins or Islamists. In the resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula, about eighty-eight people were killed.
The document describes three car bombs that are to be detonated at the first entrance of the Movenpick Hotel. The second is to be detonated near the hotel and the third is to be detonated at a hotel in the village of Movenpick. All sites of detonation are intended to damage property owned by Hussein Salem. The bombings are planned for Revolution Day, a day that commemorates Gamal Abdel Nasser’s overthrow of King Farouk in 1952.
Over the course of the past 2 days, a Turkish court has reportedly ordered a writer and 6 journalists to be remanded in custody for alleged membership in an anti-government terrorist organization (Ergenekon). Odatv.com reports that a total of 15 journalists who write for the Turkish anti-government web site have been detained as a result of the "Odatv raid," which apparently revealed connections with Ergenekon. Yet Odatv reporters insist that the relationship between the suspects and Ergenekon is one of friendship and not active involvement.
The current Turkish government, in power since 2001 and led by the Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP), claims that Ergenekon is one of many terrorist organizations aiming to overthrow the AKP by force. Approximately 400 suspects are already on trial for suspected ties to the Ergenekon coup and similar anti-government coups. Since 2007, AKP government authorities have been rounding up suspects perceived as secularist or anti-Islamist, having questioned, detained and jailed writers (including fiction writers), professors, editors, military officers (including 4-star generals) and others.
*Special thanks to C-Cyte for recording my tweets and posting them online in a post for people to view if they do not normally use Twitter.
One hundred days ago, WikiLeaks began to release the US State Embassy cables. The release event, which continues, became known as Cablegate.
A future post will include a look at Cablegate and what its impact on journalism, international diplomacy, and human rights has been and what its role has been in world events like the uprisings and revolutions the world that are currently unfolding. For now, it is worth recounting what has actually been revealed because of the release.
One common denominator can be found in a majority of the cables: corruption. For all the talk of this country and that country being corrupt and that country being so corrupt it's gone, the plain fact is that between all the countries of the world, perhaps as a result of American coercion and/or threat of force, the world is one corrupt planet.
WikiLeaks has managed to partner with 50 media outlets over the course of the past months. 5,287 of 251,287 cables have been released so far. This not only means there will likely be a 200th, 300th and 400th Day of Cablegate but also means there will be many more revelations to come in the next year.
Next: Supreme Court judges took bribes to validate Yar'Adua/Jonathan election
"We had just had elections in 2007 that, by most accounts, were possibly worst ever, and the legitimacy of the presidential poll that the authorities had declared won by Umaru Yar'Adua and his running mate, Goodluck Jonathan, hung in the balance.
Justices of our Supreme Court, the final arbiters of the disputed election, immediately became the objects of affection of interested politicians, who proceeded to shower them with cash to make sure they confirmed the legitimacy of the election of Messrs Yar'Adua and Jonathan, according to secret US diplomatic cables leaked to the whistleblower site Wikileaks and made available to NEXT."
Next: EFCC not worth a penny, says Bankole
"Mr. Bankole's conversation with the then U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, Ms. Robbin Sanders, did not only indict the top echelon of the judiciary, the Speaker also derided the country's foremost anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Mr. Bankole said that the chairman of the EFCC, Farida Waziri, with the complicity of the president, was working hand-in-hand with the Attorney General of the Federation to ensure that the corruption charges brought against Mr. Ibori by the former chairman of the EFCC, Nuhu Ribadu, were quashed."
Next: Selling justice to the highest bidder
This story was written by @carwinb and @exiledsurfer. Recent updates by @kgosztola.
[UPDATE 2011-03-06]
Photo by LilianWagdy of protesters praying in front of SS headquarters in Lazoghly
Some protesters are out in Tahrir and some are still even out in and around Lazoghly, where army clashes took place earlier. The protesters were headed to the State Security headquarters. Smoke was coming from the building. State Security has been shredding, burning and destroying documents that presumably would incriminate them, as many like Habib el-Adly, former head of the Interior Ministry, are going to be facing investigations or trials.
Amn Dawla Leaks Website tweets the following links to documents [not in English]: "Outright fraud in the election of the Chamber of Commerce"
And a few on selecting judges:
"Letter to the security of the State Requests sort of judges between the cooperative and is in preparation for the selection of the elections", SSI intervention in identifying some of the judges, and nomination of names of some judges of "collaborators" to monitor the elections
WL Central reported on a document detailing a natural gas deal with Israel. Now, here from Al Masry Al Youm, an article describing the document and giving a little background.
Julian Assange has agreed to address the Cambridge Union on 15 March, reports the student paper The Tab.
The Union, officially the Cambridge Union Society, is a debating society founded in 1815 and is distinct from the student union. In addition to its weekly debates, it welcomes distinguished speakers from around the world.
The event will be open to Union members only. There is no word yet whether it might be otherwise transmitted.
Via @MarksLarks on Twitter
Manning's Forced Nudity at Quantico and Spanish Guantanamo Investigation Continues; Plus, 100 Days Since Cablegate Began
This week's guest was freelance investigative journalist, author and filmmaker Andy Worthington, who is known for covering Guantanamo Bay prison, torture and the wider "war on terror." [For Worthington's full bio click here.]
Worthington discussed the forced nudity that former Pfc. Bradley Manning (the whistleblower alleged to have leaked classified information like the "Collateral Murder" video to WikiLeaks) is being subjected to by the US military at Quantico Brig in Virginia and the 22 additional charges, which the military filed against Manning. [To read Worthington's article on Manning published this week, click
here.]
Worthington also talked about an article he recently published on a Spanish Guantanamo investigation into Bush administration officials' involvement in the torture and abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo. WikiLeaks revelations in the cable that showed US government officials interfered and worked to halt a Spanish investigation have pushed the national court to renew its efforts to bring those involved in torture to justice. And so, Worthington also talked about WikiLeaks' impact so far on helping detainees at Guantanamo get one step closer to justice and acknowledgment of the torture and abuse they experienced.
To listen to the podcast, just click play on the widget below. Or, you can go download the .mp3 file here. (Or, find it on iTunes by searching for "CMN News.")
Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF party have stepped up the customary rampage over human rights in Zimbabwe. Amnesty has issued an alert stating that with over 60 currently held in detention and many allegedly tortured, activists are facing a major clampdown.
Previously on WL Central we reported on the arrest, imprisonment, and torture for some, of Munyaradzi Gwisai, the International Socialist Organisation (ISO) general coordinator, and 45 others on February 19. They were charged on the 23rd with treason, which carries the death penalty, or subverting a constitutionally elected government, for which the maximum penalty is 20 years imprisonment, for watching a video of the uprising in Egypt. More activists have been arrested in Bulawayo and Manicaland province.
SW Radio Africa reports a man in Bulawayo was arrested over a Facebook comment he posted on February 13. Vikas Mavhudzi of Old Magwegwe, is being charged with “subverting a constitutional government” after posting a message on a Facebook page allegedly belonging to Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai: “I am overwhelmed, I don’t want to say Mr. or PM what happened in Egypt is sending shockwaves to dictators around the world. No weapon but unity of purpose worth emulating, hey.” He was arrested on February 24th and accused of “advocating or attempting to take-over government by unconstitutional means”. He has been refused bail and was remanded in custody till March 9th.
Amnesty has requested urgent action be taken in the case of Qatari blogger Sultan al-Khalaifi, who was arrested on March 2 and is being held incommunicado. Amnesty is concerned that he is at risk of torture or other ill-treatment.
Amnesty is requesting people to write
Urging the authorities to ensure that Sultan al-Khalaifi is protected from torture and other ill-treatment, and is allowed prompt and regular access to a lawyer of his choosing, his family and any medical treatment he may require;
Asking for details of any charges he faces to be made public and calling on the authorities to ensure that any legal proceedings against him conform to international fair trial standards.
Human rights organization Alkarama reports the arrest of three other Qatari nationals as well and says at nine o'clock at night on March 1, "a number of state security agents" raided Khulaifi's Doha residence and car and took him away. An officer informed his wife that the agents were sent by the Attorney General, but they had no judicial warrant.
Alkarama feels the arrest is a result of Khulaifi's human rights activities. He had served as Secretary-General of the Alkarama Foundation until the beginning of 2010, before leaving to found a new organization for the defense of human rights and he had contacted them recently regarding three cases of arbitrary detention which Alkarama then appealed to Qatari authorities about. The three individuals incarcerated are: Abdullah Ghanem Mahfouz Muslim Jouar, Salim Hassan Khalifa Rashid Al Kuwari and Hamad Rashid Al-Marri.
A cable from December 2007 features Gaddafi Development Foundation Executive Director Dr. Yusuf Sawani discussing trans-national terrorism threats and security with US diplomats. The director talks about the fact that a million sub-Saharan African guest workers are resident in Libya and says it should be a “cause of concern.” The workers are a concern because Dr. Sawani believes any of those individuals could possibly commit an act of terrorism. In recent days, many of those guest workers have fled, as Libyans have grown suspicious and attacked a number of black Africans due to reports that Leader Muammar Gaddafi hired “black African mercenaries.”
The latest from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) indicates 191,000 or more have fled Libya to Egypt, Tunisia and Niger. A previous report estimated around 80,000 Pakistanis, 59,000 Sudanese, 50,000 Bangladeshis, 26,000 Filipinos, 2,000 Nepalese and other African and Asian migrant workers are hosted by the country.
OCHA reports have been tracking the risk of violence migrant workers face. In a March 3 update, OCHA notes, “Sub-Saharan nationals remain at risk of violence from local populations on suspicion of being Government-recruited mercenaries.” A report on March 2 detailed the needs of those fleeing Libya highlights the need for protection. It reads:
WL Central will be updating news on Libya, with new items added at the top. You can contact me on twitter @GeorgieBC or by email at admin@wlcentral.org.
Current time and date in Tripoli:
MONDAY, February 28
11:00 PM The US Treasury has said that US$30 billion in Libyan assets have been blocked and US naval ships and planes are being moved closer to Libya, "planning and preparing" for missions, "whether humanitarian or otherwise". Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, would not discuss military options but said that the US would consider a range of responses against Gaddafi if he continued to attack his own people. David Cameron said the UK did not rule out the use of force against Muammar Gaddafi and he has asked colleagues to work on plans for a no-fly zone and would consider arming the Libyan opposition.
France is sending two planes with humanitarian aid, including medicine and doctors, to Benghazi – the first direct western aid to the uprising.
9:00 PM Muammar Gaddafi tells BBC that no one is protesting against him, no one is against him, all the Libyan people love him and would die for him. He says the people protesting are Al Qaeda.
The following brief was submitted to the meeting outlined here by WL Central:
On 2nd March 2011 at 9.15am a meeting was held, organised by Andrew Laming (Liberal Party MP Bowman Qld) at Parliament House Canberra to allow federal parliamentarians who wished to attend, some insights into the matters of Julian Assange facing extradition from the UK to Sweden, and facing (subject to that extradition process) a possible trial in Sweden and another possible extradition to the USA thereafter.
Among others, MPs Andrew Laming, Malcolm Turnbull, Doug Cameron and Sarah Hanson-Young were in attendance, along with parliamentary staff members.
Three speakers made themselves available for oral presentations and questions: Greg Barns, barrister from Tasmania; former Australian diplomat Tony Kevin and Peter Kemp solicitor from NSW, the latter two made written material available for the parliamentarians reprinted here with their permission.
The following brief was submitted to the meeting by Jennifer Robinson of the firm Finers Stephens Innocent. She is part of the legal team representing Julian Assange in the extradition proceedings requested by Sweden.
WL Central will be updating news on Yemen, with new items added at the top. All times are based off of Sanaa time in Yemen. You can contact me on Twitter @kgosztola or by email at kgosztola@hotmail.com.
Current time and date in Sanaa:
FRIDAY, March 4
Many videos and pictures from the day here on this Facebook page, which has been monitoring the Yemeni revolution.
Jane Novak has posted a statement of solidarity from people in Saada, Amran, and al Jawf, an organization that intends to move to overthrow Saleh The statement makes clear how the people plan to continue to push for Saleh to step down:
Aftenposten: QADHAFI SONS SQUABBLE OVER COCA COLA
"A lengthy standoff between the franchise-holder for Coca Cola-Libya, Ka´Mur Bottling Company-U.K., and two of Mu´ammar Qadhafi´s sons, Mu´tassim and Mohammed, appears to have stabilized in the wake of a compromise agreement. The problem became public on December 28, 2005 as security troops controlled by Colonel Qadhafi´s son Mu´tassim encamped at the Tripoli Coca-Cola plant, owned jointly by Ka´Mur Bottling Company and the Libyan Olympic Committee (LOC) through their joint venture, the Global Beverage Company (GBC). With the plant shut for more than three months, Colonel Qadhafi´s daughter Aisha may have intervened to broker a compromise, according to which LOC would--at an unspecified future date--sell its shares in GBC to the Libyan Social Security Fund. Mu´tassim´s men left the plant in late February, shortly after USLO sent a strongly-worded diplomatic note to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressing concern over the legality of the plant shutdown and urging a swift resolution to the conflict. Coca Cola´s General Manager for Libya credits USLO support for helping keep the incident under control as Ka´Mur, GBC and Coca Cola worked their own channels."
El País: El embajador norteamericano en México, noqueado por los papeles de Wikileaks (The U.S. ambassador to Mexico, knocked out by Wikileaks papers)
Former Pfc. Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of leaking classified information (specifically a video showing U.S. military in Iraq firing on civilians and two journalists), continues to experience intense solitary confinement in the Quantico Marine Brig in Virginia. The accused military whistleblower, whom the army filed 22 additional charges against days ago, was reportedly stripped naked March 2 of all his clothing and forced to remain in his cell naked for the next seven hours until early in the morning on March 3.
Coombs writes on his blog that a wake-up call was sounded at 5:00 am, "Manning was forced to stand naked at the front of his cell," a Duty Brig Supervisor arrived and Manning "was called to attention," a detainee count was conducted and afterwards Manning was told to sit on his bed, and minutes later his clothing was returned.
This is "degrading treatment," Coombs concludes, that is "inexcusable and without jurisdiction." This is "an embarrassment to our military justice system and should not be tolerated...No other detainee at the Brig is forced to endure this type of isolation and humiliation." But, no other detainee is at the center of a case that US military and government officials seem to have decided to use as an example case that could put in fear in any other military or government official who might seek to disseminate information to any organization like WikiLeaks in the future.
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WL Central will be updating news on Iran, with new items added at the top. All times are ET in USA. You can contact me on twitter @carwinb or by email at carwinb@hushmail.com.
Current time and date in Tehran:
* Thank you to @Green_alpha, without whom these updates and translations, would not have been possible.
Send Persian, Arabic, and English #firstaid images by MMS/SMS/email or print as fliers usng http://bit.ly/gv3tS #Iran. Survival Guide for citizens during revolutions.
FOR MARCH COVERAGE SEE CLICK HERE
MONDAY, February 28
Systematic Corruption ruptures Vietnam with inequality
Since the mid-1980s, the time when Vietnam launched the ‘Doi Moi (industrialization)’ project to boost the national economy, Vietnam has recorded remarkable GDP increase rate, 7 to 8% a year. However, the economic inequality gap and government debts are huge, and show no sign of shrinking.
Primary reasons for the problems lie in the structure of the ‘industrialization’. The only legal political party, the Vietnam Communist Party, utilized state owned enterprises(SOE) as useful tools which enable the government to take a firm grip on the state economy. In a rare thesis discussing the privatization of the Vietnamese economy, Fredrik Sjöholm pointed out that it’s actually a state takeover of economy in disguise of ‘privatization’; about one-quarter of state revenues come from SOEs and the state can take control of any SOEs by having ‘minority state ownership share’(Sjöholm, 2006)
Commonplace collusion between politics and economy, interwoven through shares, squandered bailout money and venal practices in the name of ‘industrialization’, generated astounding breeding ground for corruption and rapidly increasing debts. The ‘industrialization’ process had few constructive plans behind it, which produced obfuscated ownership responsibility while working on ad hoc economic strategies. This opened the door for private, often political, actors to ‘hijack’ the real control of the firms.
Despite the fact that the communist government firmly controls the Internet and blocks any web sites that might be any ‘threat to national security’, the Internet silently mends the fire of dissent voices simultaneously around Vietnam.
Courage cannot be ‘centralized’ – Farmers protest against arbitrary land seizures with the help of Internet
In a tightly controlled, Facebook-blocked country, Vietnamese farmers marched out to the Ho Chi Minh City, the country’s second largest city and a national economic hub, to resist the government’s decision to seize their land.
Due to the centralized economy, government authorities are sole legal actors who can switch legal status of any land. Besides, the legal procedure of dealing with various different land rights of the government and farmers are extremely complicated, which becomes the central loophole allowing public officials to blur the line where exact responsibilities lie.
Exploiting this, lots of corrupt officials can take away seemingly profitable lands, handing tiny amount of compensation money to the land owners. The victims mostly fail to find the proper government authorities to get the fair compensation due to the blurred responsibility.
Government officials have been arbitrarily ‘robbing’ the lands as huge ‘development plans’ have swept the major urban cities into the swirl of dazzling real estate speculation. The real estate prices have hit thousands of dollars per square meter, which made both cities involved in the ‘Most Expensive Cities in the World’ list. However, Vietnam has the lowest real estate transparency index among 15 countries in the Asia-Pacific region.
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