Egypt’s armed forces threatened on Monday to intervene in the country’s political crisis, warning President Mohamed Morsi and other politicians that they had 48 hours to respond to an outpouring of popular protests that have included demands for his resignation.
In a statement read on state television, General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the head of the Egyptian military, said the mass demonstrations that intensified over the weekend, including the storming of the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in Cairo early Monday, reflected an “unprecedented” expression of popular anger at Mr. Morsi and his Islamist backers in the brotherhood during his first year in power.
It was unclear from the general’s statement whether the military was specifically demanding that Mr. Morsi resign. But the statement said that if Mr. Morsi did not take steps to address demands for a more inclusive government, the armed forces would move to impose its “own road map for the future.”
Rumsfeld- USAID in Kyrgyzstan, Drugs & Underground Madrasahs, Saakashvili vs. Ivanishvili & More!
By: Christoph Germann- BFP Contributing Author & Analyst
The Great Game Round-Up brings you the latest newsworthy developments regarding Central Asia and the Caucasus region. We document the struggle for influence, power, hegemony and profits in Central Asia and the Caucasus region between a U.S.-dominated NATO, its GCC proxies, Russia, China and other regional players.
At the beginning of this week Georgia was rocked by an extremely interesting discovery: Interior Ministry: Large Arms Cache Uncovered Underground cache included “large amount of explosives and explosive devices; hand grenades; firearms and other weapons and military munitions; communications gear, as well as large amount of narcotics and psychotropic medicines including heroin, opium, cocaine, subutex etc.,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement. The Interior Ministry said that the cache also included video tapes showing “brutal torture, sexual abuse, beating and inhuman treatment of individuals by representatives of the law enforcement agencies.”
Saakashvili vs. Ivanishvili
According to the Georgian Interior Ministry the arms cache was hidden under “the direct supervision of former high ranking officials of the interior ministry during the previous authorities” and it was not the only one:
Arms Caches Allegedly Connected To Georgian President’s Party
Georgian investigators say they have found several caches filled with weapons, explosives, drugs, and documents targeting opponents of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s party.
The spokeswoman said the caches contained photos and written material about people Saakashvili’s United National Movement party allegedly planned to arrest if it won last year’s parliamentary elections.
Many of Saakashvili’s associates have been arrested and charged with wrongdoing since Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream coalition won parliamentary elections in October 2012.
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Shortly thereafter, several arrests were made:
Georgia Arrests Torture Suspects in New Swipe at Old Government
Georgian police on Wednesday arrested nine serving and former police and military officers on suspicion of torture, which the interior minister said was a ”systemic problem” under the previous government of President Mikheil Saakashvili.
The nine suspects are accused of involvement in the torture and rape of two detainees depicted on videos found this week in a cache along with guns and drugs, Interior Minister Irakly Garibashvili said.
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Just a few days before the arms caches were discovered, the Georgian police detained two suspected terrorists:
Georgia detains two suspected terrorists
Ministry spokesperson Nino Giorgobiani said Thursday that police searched their temporary place of residency and discovered a large amount of potent explosives, electric detonators, firearms, ammunition and fake identity papers.
Kadiev was wanted by Interpol and according to the investigation he has been hiding in Georgia since 2011, but periodically left the country.
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The Interior Ministry highlighted the connection between one of the arrested men and President Saakashvili [emphasis mine]:
Georgia: Jihad in the Backyard
Police on June 13 recovered a significant stash of explosives and firearms from a Tbilisi apartment and arrested two men for allegedly plotting an act of terror, the interior ministry said. The two men, Mikail Kadiev and Rizvan Omarov, have Russian passports, and are presumed to hail from Russia’s North Caucasus.
What was supposed to be a bipartisan discussion of security threats eventually got reduced to attempts by the Saakashvili team to show that they still matter, and Ivanishvili’s attempts to show that they don’t. And so the pattern continued with yesterday’s arrests. The interior ministry informed the public that one of the suspects used to live at an apartment owned by President Saakashvili’s “personal pilot.” The presidential office was quick to accuse the ministry, which is loyal to Ivanishvili, of trying to smear the president.
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These latest incidents illustrate the struggle in Georgia between Saakashvili and Prime Minister Ivanishvili. The latter has taken a different approach towards Russia and faced strong criticism for this even before his election when President Saakashvili tried to paint him as a Russian puppet.
There is not much evidence to support this accusation and ties between the country in the South Caucasus and NATO are in no way threatened. Quite the contrary, some analysts argue that Ivanishvili is getting Georgia closer to NATO than Saakashvili did.
Recent developments corroborate this and the cooperation is now closer than ever:
NATO Trains U.S. Troops At Georgian Mountain Training Center
Delegation from Turkish General Staff visits Georgia
Additionally, the country wants to cement ties in the military sector with neighbouring NATO proxy Azerbaijan and is turning its attention to Central Asia. Kazkhstan’s resources and strategic location arouse great interest:
David Cameron will be first serving British Prime Minister to visit Central Asia
This meeting is significant because Kazakhstan will likely play a key role in the withdrawal of military equipment from Afghanistan in 2014, CA-News reports. This is an opportunity for Western leaders involved in Afghanistan to “get Central Asian leaders on board,” since Central Asia is the most reliable exit route for military hardware, what with the increasing instability in Pakistan, The Independent reported.
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GCC Skyscrapers & Extremism
UAE’s investments in Kazakhstan were already discussed last week and now we can add Central Asia’s tallest building to the list. But even this will pale in comparison with the new Saudi project which might be implemented in Moscow.
Meanwhile Kazakhstan and Russia are trying to contain the threat of extremism:
Kazakhstan blocks 45 foreign religious sites in 2012
Kazakh students need permission to study religion in Saudi Arabia
Police, security officers and migration officials in a joint raid on Friday detained some 300 people, including 170 foreigners, in a praying room for Muslims in a non-residential building in the southeast of Moscow, Interfax reported.
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Three people belonging to Hizb ut-Tahrir detained in Dagestan
For more information about the role of Hizb ut-Tahrir and similar groups in U.S./NATO’s Operation Gladio B, I encourage you to read the corresponding round-ups here and here. The arrest of three HT members in Dagestan is hardly surprising considering the source of funding for extremists in this region:
Russia says 50 groups in U.S. raise funds for North Caucasus extremists
According to the Jamahiriya News Agency, Russian intelligence reveals that 50 organizations, many of which are Islamic charities, are actively soliciting and distributing funds from their headquarters in U.S. to terrorist groups in the North Caucasus—the same region where Tamerlan Tsarnaev journeyed prior to the Boston Marathon bombings. Islamic Relief, the largest Muslim charity in America, is included on Russia’s list.
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One of the countries, which has been facilitating terrorism in the North Caucasus and providing refugee for Chechen terrorists, is close U.S. ally Azerbaijan. But this won’t stop Russia from striking a bargain with its southern neighbor:
Russia Starts Delivering $1Bln Arms Package to Azerbaijan
A source at the Russian Defense Ministry said the order had been on hold for some time to avoid upsetting the military balance in the South Caucasus, where Russia has a military base in Armenia and an agreement to defend the country if it comes under attack. But the deal had been pushed through at the behest of Russia’s powerful arms industry, he said.
As far as business dealings are concerned, it was a great week for Moscow: Russia and China oil cooperation estimated at the unprecedented $270bn – Putin The value of 25 years of cooperation between Russia’s state oil major Rosneft and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) will be $270 billion, said President Putin at the economic forum in St. Petersburg. Under the contract Rosneft will export 360.3 million tonnes of crude to China. … While securing energy supplies from Russia and Central Asia, Beijing is increasing its efforts to ensure stability in the vital Xinjiang region [emphasis mine]: China And Central Asia: A Significant New Energy Nexus – Analysis China has turned to Central Asia for energy supply, for two main reasons. Besides accessing a more stable and closer source of abundant energy, China aims to compete aggressively for its energy security by developing its “energy diplomacy” with the region. Secondly, developing close ties with Central Asia through an energy nexus will help China deter threats from the separatist activists in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. China has reorganized the army units in Xinjiang to safeguard its oil fields given the 3,300 km western border with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. … – See more at: http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2013/06/23/the-new-great-game-round-up-june-23-2013/#sthash.opb1nE6X.dpuf
Rumsfeld, USAID in Kyrgyzstan
Xinjiang’s Central Asian neighbor Kyrgyzstan recently experienced civil unrest. Coincidentally, this happened after the Kyrgyz government announced to push for an end of U.S. military presence at the Manas Transit Center [emphasis mine]:
Kyrgyzstan: Kamchibek Tashiyev freed. Parliament’s dissolution imminent?
“The opposition forces in Kyrgyzstan became very active over the last several weeks. [This] indicates they must have received financial incentives,” Aleksandr Filippov, a co-founder of the Moscow Institute for Humanitarian and Political Research, maintains. “If one was to test the “seek the benefiter” hypothesis, a political crisis and the parliament’s dissolution would certainly meet U.S. interests in the region at the moment. If the opposition cracks the parliament apart, discussions over kicking the [U.S.] military airbase would be postponed at least for six months. It does not matter what causes the dissolution – the Kumtor issue or anything else. It was George W. Bush who stated that the USA’s military presence in Kyrgyzstan is not time limited. The USA could provide the opposition in this country [with funds] in order to exert pressure on the Kyrgyz leadership.”
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To the delight of Russia, there was no dissolution of the Kyrgyz parliament and the vote delivered a clear result:
Lawmakers voted in favor of ending the agreement in June 2014 to lease the Manas Transit Center in connection with withdrawal due to lack of need for further operation of the facility.
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But the United States already reiterated that it won’t be giving up and “remains in close contact” with Kyrgyzstan. So what does that mean? Well, currently George W. Bush’s old buddy and fellow war criminal, Donald Rumsfeld, happens to be in the country working for his suspicious foundation [emphasis mine]:
Former U.S. Defense Secretary arrives in Kyrgyzstan
Former Defense Secretary of the Unites States Donald Rumsfeld arrived in Kyrgyzstan, the U.S. Embassy in Kyrgyzstan reported. According to its information, he arrived in Kyrgyzstan on June 19 for discussion of the Rumsfeld Foundation issues. “The visit has nothing to do with us,” the U.S. Embassy noted.
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Rumsfeld’s Visit To Kyrgyzstan Sets Tongues Wagging
Officially, he was there on the business of the Rumsfeld Foundation, a group that offers short-term fellowships to young scholars from Central Asia and the Caucasus to study in Washington, D.C. And the timing of the visit, at the same time as the parliamentary vote, was just a coincidence.
But as anyone following Central Asian politics knows, there is no such thing as coincidence. And the Kyrgyzstan and Russian press has been rife with speculation about what Rumsfeld’s real agenda was in Bishkek.
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The efforts of the Rumsfeld Foundation are primarily focused on Central Asia and, with the help of its partners, the organization reaches out to more vital regions:
“The Rumsfeld foundation partners with the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University to administer fellowships to young leaders from Central Asia, the Caucasus, Afghanistan, and Mongolia.”
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Rumsfeld’s educational foundation is in the business of grooming future puppet leaders. This procedure always follows more or less the same script, as outlined by Sibel Edmonds:
“The location – always a resource rich country or one strategically crucial to resource rich countries. A viable candidate (sometimes candidates) chosen based on the exact same set of criteria – such as degree of corruptibility, and degree of atrocity or criminal tendencies. The grooming and training locations also are the same: the United States of America or the proxy brother, The United Kingdom. The supporting actors are a combination of old timers, think World Bank or IMF, and newer ones with even fancier names, such as XYZ Democratization and Development Fund, posing as well-intentioned NGOs. Okay, enough with the details, since we are very familiar with this repeating script and its consistent execution – collectively known and referred to as United States Foreign Policy.”
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Kyrgyzstan is hosting another unpleasant organization and the Kyrgyz government should consider to follow Bolivia’s example and expel USAID. The United States Agency for International Development has been conducting suspicious activities in the country for quite a while and was recently the topic of conversation between the mayor of Osh, which is located in the Fergana Valley, and the U.S. Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, Pamela Spratlen:
Osh mayor asks USA to assist in search for initiators of 2010 June events
The parties discussed political and economical issues, bilateral relations, and the work of USAID.
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CIA’s USAID is also involved in neighbouring Tajikistan [emphasis mine]:
U.S. government fosters cross-border energy trade between Tajikistan and Afghanistan
USAID, through its Central Asia Regional Energy Security, Efficiency, and Trade project, is providing $785,000 to extend cross-border transmission lines to Viyod village in the Shugnan district, and to two Sarchashma sub-villages, Tizhmoy and Pidrud, in Afghanistan.
The USAID Regional Energy Security, Efficiency, and Trade project is one of the many development projects made possible by the American people through USAID. Since 1992, the American people have invested over $1 billion in programs in support of Tajikistan’s democratic institutions, health care, education, and economic growth.
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That is really generous of the American people. However, we should consider the possibility that their money is not supporting “Tajikistan’s democratic institutions” but financing Pentagon’s Operation Gladio B.
Drugs & Underground Madrasahs
Recently, Kyrgz and Tajik authorities increased the cooperation in the War on Drugs and there are regularly small victories:
200 kilograms of drugs detained during raid in Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyz seized 2 tonnes of drugs
But the drug trade is very lucrative and offers large incentives, especially for the people who are supposed to prevent this trade:
Border officer gets long jail term for drug trafficking
Former deputy commander of one of frontier posts deployed in southern Tajikistan has reportedly got a long jail term for drug trafficking.
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All countries in the region must work together to fight against the sophisticated drug networks:
Pakistani drug control officers thwart attempt to smuggle precursor chemicals to Tajikistan
Officers from Pakistan’s Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) have reportedly thwarted an attempt to smuggle a large consignment of precursor chemicals from Pakistan to Tajikistan via Afghanistan. Two Tajik nationals have been arrested.
“About 103,563 kilograms of acetic anhydride/ hydrochloric acid, used in the manufacturing of heroin has been seized. Three smugglers including two foreigners of Tajik origin have been arrested,” said a press release.
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Another security challenge for Tajikistan is the advancing Islamization, as demonstrated by this week’s discovery of two underground madrasahs near Dushanbe:
Secret religious schools with kidnapped pupils discovered in Tajikistan
‘The detainee confessed that he had abducted the children with the purpose of their further education at illegal religious home schools. A corresponding check fully confirmed Rajabov’s testimony,” the ministry note. The police who made surprise appearances at the schools discovered the recently abducted boy from Dushanbe and nine other children from different parts of Tajikistan there. The ministry says that many of the children were from poor families and some of the parents did not even report their disappearances. “The detained self-proclaimed clergymen had taught religion to children in insanitary conditions and without a corresponding permit, i.e. illegally. Besides, they kept the children by force and previously committed another grave crime by kidnapping them,” the press release says.
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Radicalizing young children in secret religious schools resembles the modus operandi of Fethullah Gülen’s CIA-sponsored network in Central Asia:
“He has since established more than 300 madrasahs in Central Asia and what he calls universities that have a front that is called Moderate Islam, but he is closely involved in training mujahideen-like militia Islam who are brought from Pakistan and Afghanistan into Central Asia where his madrasahs operate, and his organization’s network is estimated to be around $25 billion.
He has opened several Islamic universities in the United States. As I said it’s being promoted under Moderate Islam. It is supported by certain U.S. authorities here because of the operations in Central Asia, but what they have been doing since late 1990s is actually radical Islam and militizing (phonetic) these very, very young, from the age 14, 15, by commandoes they use, and this is both commandoes from Turkish military, commandoes from Pakistani ISI in Central Asia and Azerbaijan, and after that they bring them to Turkey, and from Turkey they send them through Europe, to European and elsewhere.”
Christoph Germann is an independent analyst and researcher based in Germany, where he is currently studying political science. His work focuses on the New Great Game in Central Asia and the Caucasus region. You can visit his website here
Greece: the sequel (this time with even more tourists)
By Helena Smith
Holiday sector hits all-time high as nation savaged by austerity reinvents itself
The Greek island of Mykonos is expecting 1 million tourists during the summer as yacht owners and cruise ship passengers make up a much bigger proportion of visitors to Greece. Photograph: Getty ImagesLong before the setting sun turns the sky above Mykonos into a blaze of crimson, they begin to arrive: super-yachts and pleasure boats and high-speed craft all vying for a spot in the Aegean isle’s picturesque old port.
In his aviator sunglasses, Mykonos’s harbourmaster, Lieutenant Jr Nicholaos Zigouris, supervises this elegant race for space.
“It wasn’t like this last year or the year before,” he says. “There’s been a huge leap in the number of private and professional boats sailing in, and the tourist season has barely begun.”
Mykonos, the island made famous by Jackie Onassis, is braced to accept 1 million tourists this summer but it is not only the international jet-set descending on its shores.
The island’s economy may be in freefall, its people hit by the harshest peacetime austerity programme ever imposed on an advanced western state, but Greece is back in business.
After three lean years marked by riots, strikes, social upheaval and political unrest, 17 million or so holidaymakers – 1.5 times the country’s population and an all-time record — are about to visit, according to officials.
The arrivals have never mattered more. Tourism accounts for almost 20% of GDP – and jobs. With recession-hit Greeks also struggling with a record level of unemployment, which has reached nearly 28%, the highest in the eurozone, industry earnings this year may well be the only income for many.
Up in the mini-resort that his father, Mykonos’s first hotelier, built back in the 1960s, Andreas Fiorentinos says Greeks have learned the hard way to appreciate the benefits of tourism.
“The crisis has taught us that we cannot fool our clients,” says Fiorentinos, taking in a spectacular view framed by bobbing yachts below. “And it has made us more aware. People understand how important it is for our economy.”
Like many, the third-generation hotelier believes the time has come for Greece to reinvent itself. For too long, he says, the industry has been overly dependent on its image as a destination of sun, sand and sea. “As a result of catering to price-sensitive tourists interested only in drinking and going to the beach, we have failed to tap into a whole market,” he sighs. “It’s an outdated model that has to change.”
Fiorentinos is also deputy secretary general of EOT, the country’s tourism board. “For the past year we’ve been visiting tourist expos around the world to convey the message that Greece is not only about souvlaki and Zorba the Greek. If it weren’t for our lumbering state we would have moved away from those stereotypes long ago.”
The efforts to appeal to a broader and more affluent audience – evident in the blossoming of five-star resorts, boutique hotels and gastronomic and cultural tourism – have not been easy.
Breaking old moulds has frequently been thwarted by corruption and vested interests, the twin ills blamed for bringing the country to its knees.
“Take Delos,” says Fiorentinos referring to Mykonos’s adjacent isle, an archaeological treasure trove and the country’s most sacred site. “It was considered the most important place in the ancient world. But do we show it off? No. Every day it closes at 3pm because the [state-run] archaeological service refuses to do otherwise.”
In the same vein it has taken nearly 20 years for Mykonos to get a new marina, seen as vital for attracting the fast-growing cruise tourism sector and niche commerce.
This year’s sharp rise in numbers has been partly attributed to a 40% increase in travellers on cruise ships, mostly from the US.
But it is not just westerners who are fuelling this tourism boom. Seated in his air-conditioned Athens office, Andreas Andreadis, who heads the association of Greek tourism enterprises, SETE, says much of Greece’s new traffic arises from the lifting of visa restrictions in long-haul emerging markets such as China, Turkey and Russia.
Russian arrivals at regional airports alone have shot up by 230% this year.
Andreadis says about 1.2 million Russians are expected to visit the country this year. “The volume is so high that SETE has employed 20 of its own people just to help stamp visas.”
Airlines have got more than 1m extra seats and scores of new routes to the country, including to places such as Mykonos island.
“We are linked to 14 countries and 28 destinations. There are daily flights to London, Milan and Istanbul,” says Athanasios Kollias, the air traffic controller at the island’s newly expanded airport. “From now on, 120 charters are expected every week. In May the number of passengers flying in from abroad more than doubled.”
Summer bookings to Greece from Germany and the UK have also soared. Some of the 15% increase from Germany was attributed to the chancellor, Angela Merkel – because of her insistence on austerity, exhorting her compatriots to visit the country. This month, Lufthansa chose Athens for the inaugural flight of its new flagship plane, the B747-8, the largest aircraft in the world.
For Andreadis the key to sustaining this boom is quality. And on Super Paradise beach, Mykonos’s favoured spot for the cool and trendy, the emphasis on improved service is everywhere to be seen. There’s a champagne bar at one end and a massage tent at the other as holidaymakers lounge on new sunbeds, under new, thatched, umbrellas, and take in the turquoise waters below.
For people like Nikos Xydakis, who has run a beach taverna for the past 40 years, the new look is not just about survival. “This year we had to do everything, even clean the beach because the state is in no position to help. But in life everything changes. The crisis has played a big role. Our tourists have changed and we have changed too.”
Thousands march in Istanbul in solidarity with Kurds
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Reuters in Istanbul
- guardian.co.uk,
Protesters 
chant anti-government slogans in wake of killing of Kurdish demonstrator in south-east Turkey on Friday
A demonstrator applauds during an anti-government protest march in Istanbul on Saturday. Photograph: Umit Bektas/Reuters
Thousands of protesters marched to Istanbul’s Taksim Square on Saturday chanting slogans against the government and police after security forces killed a Kurdish demonstrator in south-east Turkey.
The protest had been planned as part of larger unrelated anti-government demonstrations that have swept through the country since the end of May, but became a voice of solidarity with the Kurds after Friday’s killing.
“Murderer police, get out of Kurdistan!” some protesters chanted. “This is only the beginning, the struggle continues. The murderer state will pay!”
Turkish forces killed the man and wounded 10 others when they fired on a group protesting against the construction of a gendarmerie outpost in the Kurdish-dominated region.
The incident, in the Lice district of Diyarbakır province, appeared to be the most violent in the region since a ceasefire declaration in March by jailed Kurdish rebel chief Abdullah Ocalan in a decades-old conflict between his fighters and the Turkish state, and it risks derailing the nascent peace process.
About 10,000 protesters descended on Taksim Square, which has been the centre of weeks of anti-government demonstrations, but were prevented from entering the square by riot police.
Many in the crowd sat in the roads leading to the square after being denied entry. “Long live the brotherhood of the people!” people shouted in both Turkish and Kurdish.
Most of the protesters dispersed after a couple of hours, with a group of about 1,000 remaining near the square. Riot police pushed them away from the square with shields and slow moving water cannon trucks although no water was fired. Announcements were made for protesters to return to their homes.
The Kurdish tensions come at a time of increased vigilance among Turkish security forces after the anti-government protests in Istanbul, Ankara and other cities in which four people have died and thousands have been injured.
The protests, which had largely died down over the past week, have emerged as the biggest public challenge to prime minister Tayyip Erdoğan’s 10-year rule. He has dismissed the protesters as pawns of Turkey’s enemies and has called supporters to back his party in municipal elections next year.
Globalpost: Dirty money of Aliyev regime reached the U.S.
Baku hopes to buy itself a favorable opinion in DC, the chair of the Azerbaijani-Americans for Democracy, a non-profit US organization promoting support for democracy and human rights in Azerbaijan Elmar Chakhtakhtinski wrote in US news agency Globalpost.
The Article says that a large US delegation visited Azerbaijan’s capital Baku last month to take part in the US-Azerbaijan Conference. Different rights groups raised concerns with the high-profile American involvement in what they saw as a PR show by the corrupt and repressive government of Azerbaijan.
A good example of such viewpoint is the recent piece by George Friedman, “Why Azerbaijan should matter to America,” published online by Forbes Magazine, the author says.
Friedman heads a geopolitical intelligence firm Stratfor and he also was one of the speakers at the US-Azerbaijan convention in Baku. In his article, posted shortly after his return from the convention, he defends the ruling regime in Azerbaijan, highlighting the country’s importance to the US energy and security interests to counter the criticism over the lack of democracy.
However, as the article says, even a quick Google search would have revealed Azerbaijan’s appalling record on human rights and democracy. High-level corruption and persecution of dissent in that country is well documented by the world’s most reputable rights organizations, US State Department’s annual reports and the international media.
Azerbaijan is led by a president who has been recognized as the “most corrupt person” in the world for 2012 by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). More and more facts keep emerging about the enormous wealth hidden in secretive offshore holdings by President Ilham Aliyev’s family and his close circle of minister-oligarchs.
The tainted wealth of Azerbaijan’s ruling elite has reached American shores and entered DC lobbying scene. The Azerbaijan American Alliance (AAA) was founded in 2010 by Anar Mammadov, a playboy son of the Azerbaijan’s corrupt transport minister Ziya Mammadov.
Before founding AAA, Anar Mammadov was known for suing a newspaper that published a story about him paying $1 million dollars at a restaurant to grill a live bear from the venue’s small zoo. His father, Ziya Mammadov, is mentioned in Wikileaks cables and OCCRP reports as one of the top corrupt Azeri oligarchs.
Millions of dollars are paid by AAA to a DC-based firm Fabiani & Company to establish contacts with the US officials. Former congressman Dan Burton is hired as AAA’s Chairman. House Speaker John Boehner, Senator John McCain and other members of Congress and the US government officials have attended extravagant receptions hosted by AAA.
Anti-Morsi protests staged across Egypt
June 30, 2013 – 18:51 AMT
Protests calling for the resignation of Egypt’s President Mohammed Morsi and early presidential elections have begun in the capital, Cairo, and around the country, BBC News reported.
His opponents say he has failed to tackle economic and security problems.
Thousands spent the night in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, focus of protests which brought down ex-leader Hosni Mubarak.
Morsi critics also say he has put the Islamist agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood party ahead of the country’s wider interests. Windows in the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in Cairo were reinforced with sandbags ahead of the protests.
A huge rally of presidential supporters is also under way in the Cairo suburb of Nasr City. People there are carrying banners denouncing the opposition, and warning that “legitimacy is a red line”. Some are wearing banners saying that they are willing to be martyrs for the cause of keeping the president in power.
Morsi, who hails from the Muslim Brotherhood, became Egypt’s first Islamist president on June 30, 2012, after winning an election considered free and fair. His first year as president has been marred by constant political unrest and a sinking economy.
(“A Twelve Year Old Tells Us How the Banks Are Robbing Us”), Victoria Grant, (Video)
(“A Twelve Year O
ld Tells Us How the Banks Are Robbing Us”), Victoria Grant, calls out the corruption of the Canadian private banking system. She is articulate and gutsy. She provides policy alternatives. If Victoria represents even a sliver of the future generations, then there is hope for positive change.
Change of life: What I like about this more pragmatic video (“The High Price of Materialism”) is its concise demonstration of how we can actually improve our standard of living by owning less and sharing more. Sustainable change can actually be a step up, rather than a step down.
Conclusion
As these videos show, we can embrace our highest human possibilities by engaging change constructively. These videos also demonstrate that if we fail to courageously and consciously work for mindful, positive change we will leave thoughtless, destructive change in our wake.
The present situation is clear. We have created far greater threats by trying to avoid change, then by accepting the challenge of change. Our refusals to change our wasteful ways, our addictions to personal comfort, and our tendencies to exploit others, have created greater environmental, political, and economic instability, not less.
Even now, when the consequences are in our face, we still resist the need for deep changes. For all the rhetoric of “reform” and “change you can believe in” in education, economics, politics, and the environment, precious little substantive change has been initiated and sustained. Perhaps, we are avoiding future blame or running from past guilt.
When we embrace change, we replace these small and static conceits with the desire for initiative and movement.
Let’s take up change as a joy, rather than a grim necessity. Let’s make change an invited, pleasurable part of how we learn. We will be straining against every habit of our industrial training, our deeply engrained emotional, institutional, and cultural habits.
However, if we pull this off, a powerful liberation will emerge. No longer will we be hiding away in our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual caves, because now we can live with each other and appreciate the gift of change that we have created together.
In this viral, interconnected world, small change influences can assert large effects. Conscious change that you embrace now can have a multiplied result. Therefore, seize the opportunity and challenge of change in what deeply calls you, and work with others to become more dynamic participants in the shaping of our world.
Now is time to make good. Now is the time to make change good.
RT Report: Egypt’s opposition claims to have 22 million signatures for Morsi’s resignation ahead of mass protests
Pressure on embattled Islamist President Mohammed Morsi is building, as opposition claim more people want him to resign, than those who voted him into office. There are fears that huge protest rallies scheduled for Sunday will descend into violence.
Activists for the Tamarod, or Rebellion, campaign – who the Prosecutor General says will be investigated for trying to overthrow the regime – claim they have gathered 22.1 million signatures since April, calling for Morsi to step down after just one year in power. 13.2 million people voted for the President in the closely-contested run-off last year.
The collection is timed to coincide with the one-year anniversary of Morsi inauguration on June 30 – a symbolic date chosen by the opposition, who believe that protests across all the major cities in the country will attract millions, and trigger a repeat election.
Islamist supporters of the President have rejected the signatures, saying the numbers have been vastly inflated, maintaining that the petition has no legal power.
“How do we trust the petitions?” declared Muslim Brotherhood member Ahmed Seif Islam Hassan al-Banna in an interview with AP. “Who guarantees that those who signed were not paid to sign?”
The anti-Morsi coalition comprises a wide range of political forces – from the urban elites who initiated the protests against former president Hosni Mubarak in 2011, to Mubarak’s associates, who have been shifted from power, to minorities concerned about their rights.
“You cannot say that Morsi has failed as a President – he has been able to do very little,” Ahmed Badawi from Egyptian think-tank TRANSFORM told RT. “But he has failed as a person who could create a stable framework that could avoid the exact kind of trouble we are seeing now.”
On the eve of the protests, a group of as many as 22 anti-Morsi deputies has resigned from the Shura Council, Egypt’s upper parliamentary chamber. The Shura Council has been in charge of legislation in the country after the Muslim-dominated lower house was dismissed in acrimony by the Supreme Court a year ago (new elections have still not been scheduled).
“We gave them a chance to lead a reconciliation but they didn’t. The resignation comes to support the popular trend in Egypt,” said Mona Makram Ebeid, one of those who resigned.
The opposition accuses Morsi of trying to monopolize political power in the country, by proposing an openly Islamist constitution, stuffing the bureaucracy with his associates, and banning the courts from overruling his decisions.
“The agenda is not about health reform or how to build an Egyptian Harvard or Yale,” said Moataz Abdel Fattah, a political scientist at the American University in Cairo. “It is just a competition over who should preside and set the rules.”
Protesters also say he has mishandled the economy, with electricity and fuel shortages becoming a regular feature of daily life, as the government tries to secure more loans from international financial organizations.
“The executive branch has no clue how to run Egypt. It’s not a question of whether they are Muslim Brothers or liberals — it’s a question of people who have no vision or experience. They do not know how to diagnose the problem and then provide the solution. They are simply not qualified to govern,” wrote Nobel Peace Prize winner and opposition figurehead Mohammed ElBaradei in Foreign Policy magazine.
Morsi, a former engineer who spent a large part of his life in the US, has repeatedly claimed that he has been held back from carrying out key reforms by a mistrustful bureaucracy, which he says is still staffed by Mubarak sympathizers, and by an opposition that has questioned his every move. He has also hinted that “outside forces” are setting him up to fail.
“Morsi can either make concessions or he can increase the level of violence. So far he has offered very few concessions,” Said Sadek, a sociologist from the American University in Cairo, told RT.
Tension has already neared boiling point as contesting factions occupy the same streets.
In the past week at least seven people – including an American college student – have died in clashes, with several hundred more injured. Five Muslim Brotherhood offices across the country were set on fire by angry protesters.
In return, Morsi’s more radical Islamist supporters have openly urged the president to initiate a crackdown on dissent, calling protesters “thugs”.
“Vigilance is required to ensure we do not slide into civil war,” warned Cairo’s respected Islamic Al-Azhar institute.
Although Cairo has been relatively quiet – with sit-ins on both sides – some neighborhoods have blocked up their doors in anticipation of ransacking not only by political activists, but opportunist marauders. Most flights out of the Egyptian capital have been booked over the weekend as tourists and diplomats flee the country en-masse.
The outcome of the protests may hinge on intervention from the army and security forces.
The army, which stepped in during the Arab Spring two years ago, has promised to prevent “an attack on the will of the people”, and to intervene if one of the antagonists incites violence. Both sides say that they are confident the military will back them if the violence escalates.
The police, which has been notably reluctant to protect Muslim Brotherhood offices, and residences occupied by its official, is not expected to curtail the protests.
Turkish government combing Twitter in search of protest organizers to arrest (Turkish government brutality on protesters continue)
Turkish protesters clash with Turkish riot policemen on Taksim square in Istanbul on June 22, 2013. (AFP Photo / Bulent Kilic)
Turkish government officials are investigating Twitter and similar social media platforms in an attempt to identify and eventually prosecute the organizers of mass demonstrations, Erodgan administration officials said this week.
In the latest attack on social media’s role in protests, the country’s Transportation and Communications Minister Binali Yildirim called on social media networks on Friday to cooperate with authorities in the probe.
“Yes to the Internet … but an absolute no to its misuse as a tool for crimes, violence, chaos and disorder,” Yildirim said quoted as saying by the local Dogan news agency.
Authorities have scoured social networks searching for protest leaders since national unrest began on May 28 at a rally in Instanbul’s Taksim Square. Police have turned over at least 35 names to prosecutors in the city, according to Turkey’s Aksam newspaper.
It is illegal to ‘insult‘ public officials in Turkey.
Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag acknowledged the existence of the list, the Associated Press reported, only saying ‘profanities and insults conducted electronically‘ had contributed to the protests.
‘Crimes determined as such by the law don’t change if they are carried out through Facebook, Twitter or through other electronic means,’ he said. ‘No one has the right to commit crimes under the rule of law.’
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government has taken international criticism for the brutal police crackdown on protesters in the past month. The prime minister himself, when the rallies began, branded Twitter a ‘troublemaker‘ used to spread ‘lies.’
What began as a protest against the redevelopment of Istanbul’s historic Gezi Park morphed into a national movement calling for a pluralistic society instead of Erdogan’s ‘authoritarian‘ rule. The prime minister has also lost support for what critics say has been an attempt to impose Islamist values on a largely secular population.
He previously banned YouTube for two years beginning in 2008, citing the widespread presence of obscene material.
Erdogan’s deputies expressed hope that Facebook would allow them to comb through data and identify possible demonstration organizers. Facebook released a statement this week denying the disclosure, though, of any information to the government and expressing concern about future requests.
‘We will be meeting with representatives of the Turkish government when they visit Silicon Valley this week, and we intend to communicate our strong concerns about these proposals directly at that that time,’ Facebook said in a statement.
Turkish Minister of Transport, Maritime Affairs and Communications Binali Yildirim added that Twitter has not shown a ‘positive approach‘ despite ‘necessary warnings‘ from Turkey. He said that the Turkish government has asked Twitter, along with other social media sites, to set up a representative office inside the country.
‘We have told all social media that…if you operate in Turkey you must comply with Turkish law… When information is requested, we want to see someone in Turkey who can provide this… there needs to be an interlocutor we can put our grievance to and who can correct an error if there is one,’ he said.
‘Twitter will probably comply too. Otherwise, this is a situation that cannot be sustained,’ Yildirim stressed. His statement was presumably referring to social media’s role in the recent protests, though the social media companies themselves have had no role. He added that the government seeks only to ‘turn down the volume of the social media,’ rather than blocking it altogether.
Baghdad (AINA) — A series of attacks against Assyrian establishments in the last three days has shaken the Assyrian community of Iraq. Four Assyrian businesses and one church were attacked, resulting in two fatalities and more than 12 injuries.
Gunmen opened fire on St. Mary Assyrian Church at 2 AM on Tuesday morning, wounding two security guards. The gunmen were traveling in a civilian car, according to a source in the interior ministry, when they fired a barrage of bullets at the church, which is located in the Ameen Thania neighborhood in eastern Baghdad. The church guards were taken to Al Kindi hospital. According to Bishop Gewargis of the Assyrian Church of the East, who visited the guards at the hospital, one guard was released and the other remains in hospital in serious but stable condition.
Three Assyrian businesses were attacked in the Karada district. The Warda Store on Alkarada street was bombed, killing Ashur Yonan, an Assyrian, and a Muslim employee. Several others were wounded. The store was completely destroyed. A video posted on Facebook shows the aftermath of the explosion.
Simultaneous with the bombing of the Warda Store, another Assyrian Business, Mariana, in Alsinaa Souq, was attacked. There were no injuries.
In both attacks booby trapped cars were used.
Two days earlier an attack occurred on Assyrian and Yezidi owned alcohol shops in Bataween. Muslims had threatened the owners and ordered them to stop selling alcohol.
Assyrians have been the target of a low grade genocide since 2004.
The first church was bombed on June 26, 2004. This marked the start of the campaign against Assyrians. Since then the population of Assyrians in Iraq has dropped precipitously from 1.4 million to 600,000 — more than one half of Assyrians have fled Iraq to Syria, Jordan and Turkey (report). This Assyrian flight has been caused by the following:
- 5 priests were kidnapped and released after ransom was paid. 7 priests and 3 deacons were murdered, for a total of 15. 8 of these occurred in Baghdad, 7 in Mosul.
- 73 churches were attacked or bombed since June, 2004: 45 in Baghdad, 19 in Mosul, 7 in Kirkuk and 1 in Ramadi (see church bombings).
- At least 13 young women were abducted and raped, causing some of them to commit suicide.
- Female students were targeted in Basra and Mosul for not wearing veils; some had nitric acid squirted on their faces. Elders of a village in Mosul were warned not to send females to universities.
- Mahdi Army personnel circulated a letter warning all Christian women to veil themselves.
- Al-Qaeda moved into an Assyrian neighborhood and began collecting the jizya and demanding that females be sent to the mosque to be married off to Muslims.
- Assyrian businesses were targeted. 95% of liquor stores were attacked, defaced or bombed. 500 Assyrian shops in a Dora market were burned in one night (AINA 9-7-2005).
- Property was confiscated by Kurds in the north and Shiites in Baghdad.
- Kurdish authorities denied foreign reconstruction assistance for Assyrian communities and used public works projects to divert water and other vital resources from Assyrian to Kurdish communities. Kurdish forces blockaded Assyrian villages
- Children were kidnapped and forcibly transferred to Kurdish families.