Afghanistan’s mineral riches and poor people

This video from the USA is about the war in Afghanistan. Droning, bombing & killing for Oil & Gas?

From AFP news agency today:

Afghan ‘geological reserves worth a trillion dollars’

Sun Jan 31, 7:48 am ET

KABUL – Afghanistan, one of the world’s poorest countries, is sitting on mineral and petroleum reserves worth an estimated one trillion dollars, President Hamid Karzai said Sunday.

The war-ravaged nation could become one of the richest in the world if helped to tap its geological deposits, Karzai told reporters.

“I have very good news for Afghans,” Karzai said.

“The initial figures we have obtained show that our mineral deposits are worth a thousand billion dollars — not a thousand million dollars but a thousand billion,” he said.

He based his assertion, he said, on a survey being carried out by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), due to be completed in “a couple of months”.

The USGS, the US government’s scientific agency, has been working on the 17-million dollar survey for a number of years, Karzai said.

While Afghanistan is not renowned as a resource-rich country, it has a wide range of deposits, including copper, iron ore, gold and chromite, as well as natural gas, oil and precious and semi-precious stones.

Mr Karzai forgot to add that, as long as Afghanistan will be an occupied country, the billions of dollars to be made out of the mineral riches of Afghanistan, will go to foreign corporations. To the three-piece suited Enron kind of guys; Halliburton kind of guys, like Dick Cheney; Bernie Madoff kind of guys; Allen Stanford kind of guys. The kind of guys who made the present world economic crisis, which is hurting the Afghan people. If that happens, the Afghan people will remain “a people who don’t have money, food or clothes”, as Karzai’s minister Adel said. Maybe a few elite Afghans like Mr Adel, Mr Karzai and his brother will get a few crumbs off the neo-colonialists’ table, and will get resented for that.

Of course, the war is not just about oil, gas, etc. in Afghanistan itself. It is about transporting gas etc. from the north through Afghanistan as well.

Remember the conservative hysteria whenever anyone suggested that George W. Bush’s wars might be about something else than “bringing democracy” as the propaganda said?

And oh yeah, George W. Bush stopped talking about Osama bin Laden being the reason for the Afghan war pretty soon; and very few people in Washington talk about that now.

Afghanistan’s government has vowed to “bring to justice” US forces who were accused of killing four Afghan soldiers at the weekend: here.

Afghan women: here.

Spanish probe of Guantanamo torture

This video from the USA is called TORTURE: From Guantanamo to Chicago Interrogation Rooms.

From AFP news agency:

Spanish judge to probe Guantanamo torture claims

Saturday January 30, 2010

Spain‘s top investigating judge Baltasar Garzon is to probe suspected torture and ill-treatment of inmates at the US prison of Guantanamo Bay, a judical source said Saturday.

The judge will be acting on complaints lodged by a number of associations, focussing on one prisoner, Ahmed Abderraman Hamed, who has Spanish nationality, the source added, confirming a report published in daily El Pais.

Three other detainees, Moroccan Lahcen Ikasrrien, Palestinian Jamiel Abdulatif al-Banna and Libyan Omar Deghayes would also be concerned as they had links with Spain.

In 2005 Spain declared itself competent to investigate any crime committed abroad, but after diplomatic problems the scope of the inquiries was reduced in 2009.

Spanish courts can now deal only with cases that have a clear link with Spain, or cases that are not being investigated in countries where the offences are alleged to have been committed.

Omar Al-Deghayes: My Guantanamo Nightmare: here.

The case against Aafia Siddiqui, charged with the attempted murder of US personnel in Afghanistan, is rapidly unraveling. Her trial in New York is aimed at covering up the torture and rendition to which she and her children were subjected: here.

Aafia speaks out about her ordeal in US custody: here.

The Obama Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility has concluded that Office of Legal Counsel lawyers who penned the infamous memos justifying torture under the Bush administration will not be subject to disciplinary action: here.

Canada’s Supreme Court has unanimously overturned a Federal Court decision ordering Canada’s Conservative government to seek the repatriation of Omar Khadr, a Guantanamo Bay detainee and Canadian citizen: here.

This Saturday will mark the eighth year of incarceration without trial of British Guantanamo prisoner Shaker Aamer: here.

Tens of thousands of people marched through Madrid and other Spanish cities on Saturday in a huge show of support for Judge Baltasar Garzon: here.

Bramblings and redwings

This morning, a walk along the Peerlkamplaan.

Two redwings eating berries in a shrub near a window.

A bit further, eleven male and female bramblings in a tree. See also here. And here.

Nuthatch and greenfinch sounds. Three blue tits on a tree. Great tit.

Along the old canal, a grey heron and two wrens.

In the old harbour, the female common pochard, the tufted ducks, and one mute swan are still there. We see the female mandarin duck. Is the male hiding under overhanging branches somewhere?

From the USA: The Wood Duck Aix sponsa is a survivor. Hunted nearly to extinction during early 20th century, careful management procedures and nest box placements have succeeded in raising the population to well over a million: here.

Dutch birds of prey counted

This is a Dutch film about a little owl on a rainy day.

From the Stad Tiel site in the Netherlands:

Many buzzards in annual raptor count

Saturday, January 30, 2010 19:42

Buren – The annual raptor count by the Natuur en Vogelwacht Culemborg (NVWC) was this Saturday, January 30th with beautiful conditions: 5 cm freshly fallen snow, no wind, sunny and about 0 degrees centigrade. They made for a nice total count of 122 buzzards, 15 kestrels, 5 sparrowhawks, 3 goshawks and 2 little owls.

February 2011: Goshawk chicks in Kielder Water & Forest Park are having their mouths swabbed in a bid to discover more about the creature’s blood lines in the 62,000 hectare (155,000 acre) Northumberland wilderness: here.

Japanese mass protest against US military bases

This Greenpeace video (Japanese sound, English subtitles) is called Save the Dugong – Okinawa Dugong.

From the Washington Post in the USA:

Thousands in Tokyo protest US military presence

By JAY ALABASTER
The Associated Press

Saturday, January 30, 2010; 11:47 AM

TOKYO — Thousands of protesters from across Japan marched Saturday in central Tokyo to protest the U.S. military presence on Okinawa, while a Cabinet minister said she would fight to move a Marine base Washington considers crucial out of the country.

Some 47,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Japan, with more than half on the southern island of Okinawa. Residents have complained for years about noise, pollution and crime around the bases.

Japan and the U.S. signed a pact in 2006 that called for the realignment of American troops in the country and for a Marine base on the island to be moved to a less populated area. But the new Tokyo government is re-examining the deal, caught between increasingly adamant public opposition to American troops and its crucial military alliance with Washington.

On Saturday, labor unionists, pacifists, environmentalists and students marched through central Tokyo, yelling slogans and calling for an end to the U.S. troop presence. They gathered for a rally at a park – under a banner that read “Change! Japan-U.S. Relations” – for speeches by civil leaders and politicians.

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has repeatedly postponed his decision on the pact, with members of his own government divided on how to proceed. Last week he pledged to resolve the conundrum by May, just before national elections.

“The Cabinet is saying that it will announce its conclusion in May. For this reason, over the next few months we must put all of our energy into achieving victory,” Cabinet minister Mizuho Fukushima said at the rally, to shouts of approval from the crowd.

Fukushima – who has a minor post in the Cabinet and heads a small political party – wants the base moved out of Japan entirely. Hatoyama’s government must appease such political allies to maintain its majority coalition in parliament, and the public are increasingly vociferous on the U.S. military issue, even outside of Okinawa.

“I’m against having troops here. I’m not sure we can get them all out, but at least some of them should leave,” said Seiichiro Terada, 31, a government tax collector who attended the rally.

Terada said he traveled from his home in the central prefecture of Shizuoka, which hosts a Marine base at the foot of Mt. Fuji.

The deal with Washington calls for the Marine base in a crowded part of Okinawa to be moved to a smaller city called Nago. But last week residents of Nago elected a new mayor who opposes the move, ousting the incumbent that supported a U.S. military presence.

The Japanese government has revealed the existence of a five-decades-old secret arrangement with the US, allowing the American military to bring nuclear weapons into the country: here.

ANPO: Art X War, a remarkable documentary from first-time director Linda Hoaglund, deals with the mass opposition that erupted in Japan in 1960 to the continuation of the US military presence in that country: here.

Japan’s Ainu: here.

US dollars first, critically injured Haitians second

From the New York Times in the USA:

Cost Dispute Halts Airlift of Injured Haiti Quake Victims

By SHAILA DEWAN
Published: January 29, 2010

MIAMI — The United States has suspended its medical evacuations of critically injured Haitian earthquake victims until a dispute over who will pay for their care is settled, military officials said Friday.

The military flights, usually C-130s carrying Haitians with spinal cord injuries, burns and other serious wounds, ended on Wednesday after Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida formally asked the federal government to shoulder some of the cost of the care.

Hospitals in Florida have treated more than 500 earthquake victims so far, the military said, including an infant who was pulled out of the rubble with a fractured skull and ribs. Other states have taken patients, too, and those flights have been suspended as well, the officials said.

The suspension could be catastrophic for patients, said Dr. Barth A. Green, the co-founder of Project Medishare for Haiti, a nonprofit group affiliated with the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine that had been evacuating about two dozen patients a day.

“People are dying in Haiti because they can’t get out,” Dr. Green said.

It was not clear on Friday who exactly was responsible for the interruption of flights, or the chain of events that led to the decision. Sterling Ivey, a spokesman for Mr. Crist, said the governor’s request for federal help might have caused “confusion.” …

The expenditure comes at a time when the state is suffering economically and Mr. Crist, a Republican, is locked in a tough primary battle for the Senate seat that had been held by Mel Martinez. …

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services said the decision to suspend the flights was made by the military, not the federal health department. …

Some of the patients being airlifted from Haiti are American citizens and some are insured or eligible for insurance. But Haitians who are not legal residents of the United States can qualify for Medicaid only if they are given so-called humanitarian parole — in which someone is allowed into the United States temporarily because of an emergency — by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Only 34 people have been given humanitarian parole for medical reasons, said Matthew Chandler, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security. …

In the aftermath of the earthquake, Haitian medical facilities were quickly overwhelmed. Since then, medical help has come in the form of mobile hospitals and other aid. Major Lowe said that as medical care had become available in Haiti, the need for the flights had declined significantly. But Dr. Green and nonprofit groups with a presence in Haiti said the need for evacuations remained dire.

“Right now we have in the queue dozens of paraplegics, burn victims and other patients that need to be evacuated,” Dr. Green said. “And other facilities are asking us to coordinate the evacuation of their patients.”

A spokeswoman for Partners in Health, a Boston charity with doctors and nurses in Haiti, said the group had a backlog of patients, many with head, spine or pelvic injuries, who needed surgery that could not be performed there.

Major Lowe said patients could still be evacuated in private planes, but Dr. Green said medically equipped planes were very expensive and generally could carry only one or two patients.

Sociologist and economist, Camille Chalmers is the director of the Haitian Platform advocating alternative development. He discusses the present geopolitical context in the Caribbean: here.

Corporate vultures circle occupied Haiti: here.

Haitian community organisations have united to demand an “end to the militarisation of aid” and plead for international solidarity brigades to help the country’s reconstruction: here.

Feeding mandarin ducks

Lots of snow last night, and also today sometimes.

During a sunny spell, to the old harbour.

The tufted ducks and female common pochard are still there.

The two mute swans have returned.

The male and female mandarin duck are under overhanging branches on the other bank of the canal.

When they see that my bread attracts the swans, coots, and mallards, they come as well, swimming and walking across an ice floe, and join in eating.

A redwing on the other bank.

Winter weather sees influx of bittern sightings in UK: here.

First ever sighting of a Bittern at Oxfordshire reserve: here.

The loss of wetlands in the prairie pothole region of central North America due to a warmer and drier climate will negatively affect millions of waterfowl that depend on the region for food, shelter and raising young, according to research published today in the journal BioScience: here.

This video from the USA says about itself:

At National Wildlife Federation headquarters in Reston, VA in the winter, I rarely spot anything more than a sparrow. But some fresh snow fell over the weekend, revealing visitors who don’t work 9 to 5.

http://vroegevogels.vara.nl/typo3conf/ext/vara_flashplayer/player/player.swf

This is a Dutch mandarin duck video.

Birdfeeders leading to evolution: here.

Dutch police suspect ‘Afghan war hero’ of drug crimes

This is the video of Dutch Queen Beatrix awarding the Military William Order to Captain Kroon.

This video from the USA is called Rethink Afghanistan (Part 4): Civilian Casualties.

From Dutch news agency ANP:

Police interrogates war hero Kroon

January 30, 2010 06:59

DEN BOSCH – This Friday, the police have interrogated captain Marco Kroon, who last year because of his heroic actions in Afghanistan received the Military William Order.

Awarded by the Queen, 55 years since it had been awarded for the last time.

The Brabants Dagblad reported this.

This was confirmed by Den Bosch police on Saturday. The spokeswoman would not say whether Kroon and his partner were still prisoners.

The police in connection with this case arrested four suspects in December. They were two women and one man from Den Bosch and a resident of Schijndel.

Suspects

At the same time the police interrogated two other Den Bosch suspects. In house searches, police found several weapons. They expect to complete the investigation soon.

Both civilian and military police are thought to have Kroon in their sights since October. They have a suspicion of cocaine use by the decorated soldier and patrons of Vinny’s Cafe, the pub in Den Bosch which Kroon manages. …

Kroon in 2006 commanded a platoon which did several daring commando operations in Afghanistan. For the way he did that, he received the award.

From Radio Netherlands Worldwide:

The defence ministry has confirmed media reports that former Captain Marco Kroon is suspected of drugs possession and violating the gun law.

United States of America, Chief Kingpin in the Afghanistan Heroin Trade? Here.

Talking about the Afghan war:

Four Afghan soldiers have been killed and another six wounded after Nato troops clashed with them and called in air attacks, Afghan provincial officials say.

Economic crisis in USA, Eastern Europe

A so-called “bad bank” for heavily indebted East European countries had been established in the Austrian capital of Vienna: here.

This video from the USA says about itself:

On July 6, 2009, Educators, Elected Officials, Candidates, Activists, Parents, and Students, climbed up ;the steps of the Tweed Courthouse on Chambers Street in City Hall New York City, in protest to Mayor Bloomberg’s control of the New York Education System and what he’s done with that control over the past 8 years.

Over intense opposition from students, teachers and parents, New York City’s Panel for Educational Policy (PEP) voted early Wednesday morning to close seven middle or elementary schools and 12 high schools: here.

The University of Pittsburgh Medical System is closing Braddock hospital on Sunday, delivering another blow to this once thriving steel town south of Pittsburgh along the Monongahela River: here.

Barney Frank: We’re broke because of war: here.

After guns and the Iraq war, Michael Moore is now taking on an entire political and economic system in his latest documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story: here.

Criminal charges against US Republican

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/35106897#35106897

USA: James O’Keefe, the Republican activist who became a hero in extreme right-wing circles last year after he carried out a provocative sting-type operation against Acorn, faces felony trespass charges: here.

See also here.