* China's central bank calls for super-sovereign currency

* Dollar's dominance has intensified risk, worsened crisis

* IMF should manage part of its members' FX reserves

By Zhou Xin and Chris Buckley

BEIJING, June 26 (Reuters) - China's central bank renewed its call on Friday for the creation of a super-sovereign reserve currency to reduce the dollar's global domination, which it said had worsened the financial crisis.
In its annual financial stability report, the central bank did not mention the dollar by name but said it was a serious defect that one currency should tower over all others.
"An international monetary system dominated by a single sovereign sovereign currency has intensified the concentration of risk and the spread of the crisis," the People's Bank of China said.
In thinly-veiled criticism of loose U.S. monetary and fiscal policies, the PBOC urged the International Monetary Fund to exercise closer supervision of the economic and financial policies of major reserve-issuing countries.
The 170-page report dusted off a call by the bank's governor, Zhou Xiaochuan, for the creation of a super-sovereign currency.
In an essay in late March, Zhou caused a stir by suggesting that the Special Drawing Right, the IMF's unit of account, could eventually displace the dollar as the principal reserve currency. [ID:nPEK184558]
Friday's report not only advocated a full role for the SDR but said the IMF should be entrusted with managing a portion of its member countries' foreign currency reserves.
"To avoid intrinsic shortcomings in using a sovereign currency as a reserve currency, we need to create an international reserve currency that is divorced from sovereign states and can maintain a stable value over the long term," the report said.
DOLLAR DILEMMA
Chinese officials have expressed growing concern in recent months that massive U.S. fiscal and monetary stimulus will generate inflation and drive down the dollar, handing Beijing big losses on its vast portfolio of U.S. bonds.
Bankers say China holds perhaps 70 percent of its $1.95 trillion in official currency reserves in dollars.
"When a national currency becomes the global price-setting currency for primary products, the trade settlement currency and the reserve currency, that national currency has great difficulty attending to both domestic monetary policy goals and the reserve currency needs of various countries.
"And the economic development model of debt-based consumption is most difficult to sustain," the report said.
The PBOC also levelled criticism at international banking rules, drawn up by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, which it said had paid inadequate attention to the risks inherent in complex credit securities.
Oversight of derivatives had also been lax, the report said.
Turning to the domestic economy, the PBOC said the slump in global trade caused by the international financial crisis would spawn risks for China's banks as exporters ran into difficulties.
By weighing on incomes, the crisis might also slow China's drive to develop a consumption-led economy, the PBOC said.
The central bank also said China could face inflationary pressure in the medium- to long-term as a result of liquidity now being pumped into the global financial system, coupled with extensive deficit spending by many governments. (Reporting by Zhou Xin, Aileen Wang and Chris Buckley; Writing by Alan Wheatley; editing by Patrick Graham

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—The stench of a multimillion dollar scam can be smelled in the Pakistani capital. This time it has to do with the estimated $1.5 to 2 billion deal that the Pakistan Navy has almost finalized with Germany. But it seems there are strong lobbies in Islamabad that want to oblige France and buy French vessels because Paris is willing to pay heavy bribes. To ensure the deal is sealed with France instead of Germany, a junior bureaucrat has been appointed as Pakistan’s ambassador in Paris bypassing the Pakistani foreign office. Reports accuse President Asif Ali Zardari of orchestrating this appointment.

No one would be more disturbed at these developments than the government of Angela Merkel in Germany. Berlin went out on a limp to approve the Pakistani request for the submarines in the face of strong opposition to selling weapons to Pakistan.

India, whose 90% of weapons continue to be aimed at Pakistan while feigning peace and making excuses about threats from China, has launched a quiet diplomatic effort to convince Germany not to sell the vessels to Pakistan.

The deal with Germany is ready to be inked and the Germans await Pakistan to make a formal order for the submarines. But this order is not coming despite the visit by Pakistani Army Chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani to Berlin on 18 June. The Defense minister has also visited Germany earlier to discuss the deal.

Seven months ago, the CEO of the company that building the submarines for Pakistan visited Karachi and told The News International that the deal between Germany and Pakistan was “95% done”.

So why is the Pakistani side reluctant now?

On Friday, security analysis service BRASSTACKS issued an alert that said:

“All is set for the new [German] submarines. Almost all hurdles have been removed. But we fail to understand why there is no pressure from the Naval Headquarters (NHQ) on DP MoD [Director of Purchases at the Ministry of Defense] to finalize the contract. Already the Indians are exploiting the situation and pressurizing the Germans to stop the sale. It is not less than a miracle that the Germans are adamant on going ahead with the sale despite the pressures. Pakistan Navy is set to lose this deal due to a lack of will, lack of decision making, and due to other vested interests.”

One reason could be France. The French are lobbying to get Pakistan to cancel the German deal and buy French submarines.

Coincidentally, in 1995, the Pakistan People’s Party was in power when the government bought three French Agosta 90-B submarines. President Zardari was an investment minister then. The incumbent French President Nicolas Sarkozy was also in power at the time as a minister and key aide to then French President Edouard Balladur. Ironically, both were powerful men who operated behind the scenes. And now both of them stand accused of receiving lavish kickbacks from the Agosta deal.

The French media has accused President Zardari of being part of a list of powerful people in both Paris and Islamabad who received kickbacks. The French judges have also accused others besides Mr. Zardari especially within the military of receiving parts of the bribe. On the French side, the bribe money from the deal helped finance the reelection campaign of Mr. Balladur in which Mr. Sarkozy played a key role.

A French judge has even accused some powerful Pakistanis including Mr. Zardari of having something to do with the murder of 11 French engineers in Karachi in May 2002 as a retaliation for the decision of France’s new government to cease bribe payments from the 1995 deal.

As recently as Friday, 26 June 2009, The Independent of London published a report titled Bribes and Bombs that mentioned the names of both President Zardari and President Sarkozy as prime suspects among others in receiving bribes for the French submarines. The opening paragraphs of the report said this:

“A political scandal is gathering pace over claims that 11 French submarine engineers were murdered in a bomb attack in Karachi seven years ago to punish France for the non-payment of arms contract "commissions" to senior Pakistani officials. Lawyers for the French victims' families believe the attack, allegedly carried out by Islamist terrorists, was in fact part of a web of financial chicanery and political maneuvering which may yet severely embarrass senior figures, including the French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari.”

Interestingly, when Mr. Zardari decided to pay a visit to Paris in May, Mr. Sarkozy wasn’t exactly a happy man. The French media highlighted a letter that the families of the 11 engineers sent to the French president showing displeasure at meeting Mr. Zardari. The German news agency, DPA, reported that Mr. Zardari’s decision to visit Paris “has placed the French president in a delicate position.”

The Independent newspaper report published the following list of the key figures in the French submarine bribes scandal. This list is based on the French investigation into the murder of the 11 engineers.


The key figures: 15 years ago and now
Edouard Balladur, 80
THEN Centre-right prime minister in cohabitation with the Socialist president, François Mitterrand. Ran for presidency in 1995 but was knocked out by Chirac in first round.
ROLE It is alleged in documents seized by French police that his campaign – quite possibly without his knowledge – benefited from illegal kickbacks.
NOW Retired.
Jacques Chirac, 76
THEN Mayor of Paris and leader of the centre-right RPR party. Ran for the presidency in 1995 for the third time and won.
ROLE As president, he ordered the cancellation of the Pakistani "commissions", allegedly in pique against M Balladur.
NOW Retired.
Charles Millon, 63
THEN Chirac's defence minister in 1995.
ROLE Admits he cancelled Pakistani commissions on Chirac's orders.
NOW Faded from mainstream politics.
Asif Ali Zardari, 53
THEN Minister in government of his wife, Benazir Bhutto, who was murdered in 2007 after she returned to Pakistan.
ROLE Alleged to have "distributed" part of the commissions paid by France, which were legal under French law.
NOW President of Pakistan.

What is compounding suspicions is the decision by the Pakistani government to appoint a civil servant from the District Management Group [a classification within the Pakistani bureaucracy] as the Ambassador of Pakistan to France. This is an unusual appointment. For the first time, the Pakistan Foreign Office and the veteran diplomats there have been bypassed for this critical station. Again, Mr. Zardari’s name has come up as the man behind the move and his spokesman had to step in to deny it.
So is the delay in the issuing of the order for the German submarines that were almost finalized in December 2008 has something to do with President Zardari’s meeting with President Sarkozy of France in May 2009? Is the appointment of a junior civil servant as the envoy to Paris related to this? And has all of this something to do with the reluctance of the Ministry of Defense in issuing a purchase order for the German submarines?

The delay could also be an attempt at hurting the fast developing military ties between Pakistan and Germany.

Pakistan and Germany have deepened military and security ties over the past years.

Germany has become the fourth country after the United States, Japan and Russia to begin a strategic dialogue with Pakistan.

There are regular political-military talks with Pakistan army officials on security and military issues which include counter- terrorism and training of Pakistani officers in Germany.

Pakistani officers have received military training and education in Germany in recent years as part of military education and training programs

Pakistan needs the German Class-214 submarines. India’s military buildup is coupled with renewed aggressiveness toward Pakistan. The Indians are expected to use the naval buildup to bully Pakistan. It is imperative that Islamabad build up its naval defense to maintain peace through deterrence.

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Similarly we will never know why listed companies like Google and Facebook are speeding up Persian translations of their sites when no profit is involved. [Will their stockholders accept democracy instead of profits?] Or why the government of President Zardari exerted pressure for the removal of the Saudi ambassador in Islamabad. And why the government did not object when the U.S. and other allied donors tried to create a special fund for Balochistan and NWFP with the condition that it operate outside Pakistan’s control. And why the Saudi ambassador strongly opposed the plan when Mr. Zardari’s team almost endorsed it. Could this be one of several reasons why the Saudi ambassador became unwelcome here, received threats to his life and then was unable to meet the President before leaving despite several attempts?

The popular Pakistani understanding of the battle against Baitullah Mehsud is more American than Pakistani. This prevents us from accepting that this insurgency is wrapped in multiple layers of deceit. The entire prevailing narrative of the situation is exclusively American, tailored to suit Washington’s worldview. It talks about a uniform threat of Taliban and al Qaeda with no distinction made between the Afghan Taliban and the new Pakistani version; the American narrative does not explain how or why the ranks of the Pakistani Taliban have been swelling steadily when the Afghan Taliban is not experiencing a similar surge; and why the American narrative suppresses any discussion of Pakistani grievances about an organized anti-Pakistan terror wave emanating from Afghanistan.

The Pakistani counter narrative is missing on the government level and is probably limited to some circles within the Pakistani strategic and intelligence communities. The impression is that the Pakistani government is essentially bartering silence for U.S. aid.

This is a dangerous bargain.

It means that Pakistani officials won’t take a stand on the use of Afghan soil to export terror to Pakistan. In fact, there are strong grounds to conclude that while other parts of the U.S. government engage Pakistan, freewheeling elements within the Central Intelligence Agency are probably conducting their own foreign policy on the ground in the region. The simultaneous trouble in both the Pakistani and Iranian parts of Balochistan is but one case in point.

Another downside to our enthusiasm for U.S. aid money at any cost is our waning ability to resist the upcoming American plan to install India as the resident guardian over Pakistan and Afghanistan. A senior US national security official is expected to bring this plan to Pakistan in the next few days. Islamabad’s obsession with US aid while staying mum on vital Pakistani interest is absurd. Why is Prime Minister Gilani complaining now about the US ‘surge’ in Afghanistan when Mr. Zardari and his foreign minister wasted no time in warmly welcoming it when Mr. Obama unveiled the plan in March?

This explains why Mr. Zardari signed an American-proposed agreement to give India overland trade routes to Afghanistan. No wonder U.S. diplomats in Islamabad are so emboldened that recently some of them spent half the day camped at the federal petroleum ministry to force a rollback of the Iran gas deal.

There are also fresh questions on the extent of support the United States is getting from two of its closest allies India and Israel in Afghanistan. There are credible reports that Indian and Israeli intelligence involvement in U.S.-controlled Afghanistan has deepened in the past seven years. Some American military and intelligence officials are impressed with the record of both countries in fighting Islamic groups, especially the Indian experience in occupied Kashmir. The Israelis have invested heavily in establishing schools that study the art of Islamic indoctrination. These schools were used to learn how clerics can brainwash recruits and then exploit them politically. Israeli spymasters have used this knowledge to penetrate Mideastern Islamic groups. They have passed this technique to the Indians to help them counter pro-Pakistan religious groups in Kashmir. In the Kargil war in 1999, Pakistanis and Kashmiris faced a direct Israeli special operations intervention on the side of the Indian military.

The mess in Pakistan’s western areas is not just a battle with religious extremism. A larger part is a battle of proxies. None of this means that we should treat Washington as an enemy. But it does have an agenda that is increasingly diverging from Pakistan’s strategic interests.

The Western press has clearly taken a side and has successfully managed to drag its uninformed audience along with it. News reports all refer to the continuing groundswell of protest to the election results as an "unprecedented" show of courage, resistance, and people power against the government not seen in Iran since the 1979 revolution.
But what we have seen this past week seems to have far more in common with the events of fifty-six years ago, rather than just thirty.
In 1953, the United States government, at the behest of Britain, tasked CIA operatives Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. and Donald Wilber to overthrow the democratically-elected government of Iran, in order to put an end to the process of oil nationalization by Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh. This nationalism "outraged the British, who had 'bought' the exclusive right to exploit Iranian oil from a corrupt Shah, and the Americans, who feared that allowing nationalization in Iran would encourage leftists around the world." The coup d'etat, which took a mere three weeks to execute, was accomplished in a number of stages. First, members of the Iranian Parliament and leaders of political parties were bribed to oppose Mossadegh publicly, thereby making the government appear fragmented and not unified. Newspaper owners, editors, columnists and reporters were then paid off in order to spread lies and propaganda against the Prime Minister.
Furthermore, high-ranking clerics, influential businessmen, members of the police, security forces, and military were bribed, as well. Roosevelt hired the leaders of street gangs in Tehran, using them to help create the impression that the rule of law had totally disintegrated in Iran and that the government had no control over its population. Stephen Kinzer, journalist and author of All the Shah's Men, tells us that "at one point, [Roosevelt] hired a gang to run through the streets of Tehran, beating up any pedestrian they found, breaking shop windows, firing their guns into mosques, and yelling, 'We love Mossadegh and communism.' This would naturally turn any decent citizen against him." In a stroke of manipulative genius, Roosevelt then hired a second mob to attack the first mob, thereby giving the Iranian people the impression that there was no police presence and that civil society had devolved into complete chaos, with the government totally incapable of restoring order. Kinzer elaborates,They rampaged through the streets by the tens of thousands. Many of them, I think, never even really understood they were being paid by the C.I.A. They just knew they had been given a good day’s wage to go out in the street and chant something. Many politicians whipped up the crowds during those days...They started storming government buildings. There were gunfights in front of important buildings.After all was said and done, Prime Minister Mossadegh had been deposed and a military coup returned the monarchy to Iran by installing the pro-western Mohammed Reza Pahlevi on the Peacock throne. The Shah's brutal, tyrannical dictatorship - established, supported, and funded by the United States - lasted 26 years. In 1979, the Iranian people returned the favor.
So what have we been seeing in Iran this past week?
Whereas there is scant evidence of any actual voter fraud or ballot rigging in the recent reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the popular movement we've been seeing on the streets of Tehran and elsewhere is being treated by the American media as some sort of new revolution; an energized, grassroots, and spontaneous effort to overthrow the leaders of the Islamic Republic in favor of a secular, pro-Western "democracy."
Yet, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that, whereas there are surely thousands of sincere and committed activists and participants in the recent protests, what we are witnessing may very well be the culmination of years of American infiltration and manipulation of both the Iranian establishment and public.
Back in 2005, the United States government was already funding groups it designated as terrorist organizations to carry out violent attacks within Iran in order to destabilize the Iranian government. In 2007, ABC News reported that George W. Bush has signed a secret "Presidential finding" which authorized the CIA to "mount a covert “black” operation to destabilize the Iranian government." These operations, according to current and former intelligence officials, included "a coordinated campaign of propaganda broadcasts, placement of negative newspaper articles, and the manipulation of Iran's currency and international banking transactions."
In May of that same year, the London Telegraph reported that Bush administration zealot John Bolton revealed that an American military attack on Iran would “be a ‘last option’ after economic sanctions and attempts to foment a popular revolution had failed.” Two weeks later, the Telegraph independently verified the ABC report, saying that, “Mr. Bush has signed an official document endorsing CIA plans for a propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilize, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs.”
Daniel McAdams tells us that, at the time, "the president met with the Congressional Star Chamber, the “gang of 8″ House and Senate leaders, and was granted the authorization to use some $400 million for among other things, as the Washington Post reported, “activities ranging from spying on Iran’s nuclear program to supporting rebel groups opposed to the country’s ruling clerics…"
Then, in early May 2008, Counterpunch's Andrew Cockburn revealed that "Six weeks ago, President Bush signed a secret finding authorizing a covert offensive against the Iranian regime that, according to those familiar with its contents was 'unprecedented in its scope.'"Bush’s secret directive covers actions across a huge geographic area – from Lebanon to Afghanistan – but is also far more sweeping in the type of actions permitted under its guidelines – up to and including the assassination of targeted officials. This widened scope clears the way, for example, for full support for the military arm of Mujahedin-e Khalq, the cultish Iranian opposition group, despite its enduring position on the State Department's list of terrorist groups.
Similarly, covert funds can now flow without restriction to Jundullah, or "army of god," the militant Sunni group in Iranian Baluchistan – just across the Afghan border - whose leader was featured not long ago on Dan Rather Reports cutting his brother-in-law's throat.
Other elements that will benefit from U.S. largesse and advice include Iranian Kurdish nationalists, as well the Ahwazi Arabs of southwest Iran.Of course, US officials denied any "direct funding" of Jundallah, but admitted regular contact since 2005 with its leader Abd el Malik Regi, who was widely reputed to be involved in heroin trafficking from Afghanistan. Funding has reportedly been funneled through Iranian exiles with connections in Europe and the Gulf States.
Furthermore, on June 29, 2008, Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker confirmed all of these reports, writing, “Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and Congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership.” Among the activities Hersh cited were "gathering intelligence about Iran's suspected nuclear-weapons program", "undermining Iran's nuclear ambitions" and "trying to undermine the government through regime change [by] working with opposition groups and passing money."
But the US campaign against Iran didn't come to a halt with the ascension of President Obama. There is no evidence to conclude that the $400 million dollars Bush signed off on has been put to different use (like, say, funding public schools or healthcare.) In early June 2008, Justin Raimondo of Antiwar wrote, "Obama, with his peace overtures [to Iran], serves as the smiley-face mask for some pretty loathsome activities. The U.S. government claims to be fighting terrorism, yet is sponsoring groups that plant bombs in mosques, kidnap tourists as well as Iranian policemen, and fund their activities with drug-running in addition to covert subsidies courtesy of the U.S. taxpayers." He continues,"What’s going on in Iran today – a sustained campaign of terrorism directed against civilians and government installations alike – is proof positive that nothing has really changed much in Washington, as far as U.S. policy toward Iran is concerned. We are on a collision course with Tehran, and both sides know it. Obama’s public "reaching out" to the Iranians is a fraud of epic proportions. While it’s true that our covert terrorist attacks on Iran were initiated under the Bush regime, under Obama we’re seeing no letup in these sorts of incidents; if anything, they’ve increased in frequency and severity."Days before the Iranian election, a suicide-bomber killed at least 25 people, and wounded over 125 others, inside a prominent Shi'a mosque in the city of Zahedan, in the southeast province of Sistan-Baluchistan. The rebel Sunni group, Jundallah, which is linked to the US, claimed responsibility for the blast, which was immediately followed up by attacks on banks, water-treatment facilities, and other key installations in and around Zahedan, including a strike against the local campaign headquarters of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Last year, Jundallah ( which is committed to establishing a Baluchi Islamic state in southeastern Iran and parts of Pakistan and one of whose founding members is allegedly the infamously waterboarded al Qaeda operative Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) kidnapped 16 Iranian policemen and videotaped their execution. There was also recently an attempted bombing of an Iranian airplane, which took off from the southwestern city of Ahvaz on the Iraqi border, which has a heavily Arab population. These recent events add up to what Raimondo refers to as "a small-scale insurgency" arising in Iran’s southern provinces.
Both the White House and State Department immediately denounced these attacks and denied any involvement in what they called "recent terrorist attacks inside Iran." Furthermore, there were reports that the Obama administration was considering adding Jundallah to the State's Department's list of terrorist organizations. However, analyst Steve Weissman notes, "the administration suddenly backed away from making the terrorist designation or from otherwise indicating that it would stop the destabilization campaign."
(Incidentally, one of the only two provinces in Iran that went for Mousavi last Friday was Sistan-Baluchistan and crowds of about 2,000 people have taken to the streets in Ahvaz since the election.)
Support for Jundallah - which in what could be the result of a savvy public relations suggestion by the Pentagon, recently changed its name to the Iranian People's Resistance Movement - is just one way the United States has worked to foment an anti-Iranian united front within the country on the verge of the Presidential elections. As such, we are told, "the U.S. is, in effect, conducting a secret war against Tehran, a covert campaign aimed at recruiting Iran’s ethnic and religious minorities – who make up the majority of the population in certain regions, such as in the southeast borderlands near Pakistan – into a movement to topple the government in Tehran, or, at least, to create so much instability that U.S. intervention to 'keep order' in the region is justified."
Ken Timmerman, the executive director of the right-wing Foundation for Democracy in Iran, which is the Persian Service of Voice of America (VOA), "spilled the beans on activities of the other arm of US meddling overseas, the obscenely mis-named National Endowment for Democracy, in a piece written one day before the election," McAdams tells us. Timmerman apparently stated that “there’s the talk of a 'green revolution' in Tehran," prompting McAdams to "wonder where that 'talk' was coming from. Timmerman did not appear to be writing from Iran." McAdams continues,Timmerman went on to write, with admirable candor and honesty, that:
“The National Endowment for Democracy has spent millions of dollars during the past decade promoting ‘color’ revolutions in places such as Ukraine and Serbia, training political workers in modern communications and organizational techniques.
“Some of that money appears to have made it into the hands of pro-Mousavi groups, who have ties to non-governmental organizations outside Iran that the National Endowment for Democracy funds.”
Yes, you say, but what does a blow-hard propagandist like Timmerman know about such things? Well, he should know! His very spooky Foundation for Democracy in Iran has its own snout deep in the trough of NED’s “open covert actions” against the Iranian government.
How does the “Foundation for Democracy in Iran” seek to “promote democracy” in Iran with our tax dollars? Foundation co-founder Joshua Muravchik gives us a hint in his subtly-titled LA Times piece, “Bomb Iran.”Additionally, Weissman warns of Timmerman's devious sincerity: "Please note that this comes from a very involved right-wing critic who personally knows the expatriate Iranian community," he writes. "It is impossible to know how much government money went to these groups, since Congress has purposely exempted the National Endowment for Democracy from having to make public how it spends taxpayer money."
Even more recently, commentator Stephen Lendman reports that former Pakistani Army General Mirza Aslam Beig told Pasto Radio on June 15 that "undisputed" intelligence proves CIA interference in the internal affairs of Iran. "The documents prove that the CIA spend $400 million inside Iran to prop up a colorful-hollow revolution following the election" and to incite regime change for a pro-Western government.
So, are we finally seeing that $400 million pay off in Iran this past week?
There are plenty of clues that reveal the Iranian street protests we're seeing daily in the news may not be all we're told they are. Indeed, the sheer numbers of protesters are impressive and anyone who feels that an injustice has occurred should certainly take to the streets - and not be subject to any sort of police brutality - but much of what we've seen and heard in the past two weeks shows signs of orchestration and bears fingerprints of foreign manipulation.
Many of the protesters we have seen are well-dressed westernized young people in Tehran who are carrying signs written in English, reading, “Where is My Vote?” and other such slogans in English. If the young voters of Iran were addressing their frustrations to their own government, why weren't they speaking the same language? Protesters seen in many YouTube videos and interviewed on American television also speak perfect English. An early message received through a social networking site after the election, sent to the National Iranian American Council and subsequently reported by the American media, came from (allegedly) an Iranian in Tehran. It read:“I am in Tehran. Its 3:40 in the morning. I’ve connected with you [by hacking past the government filter]. It’s a big mess here. People are yelling from their houses – ‘death to the dictator.’ They are setting up a military government. No one dares to go out. No one has seen Mousavi today. Rumor has it that they have arrested him. I don’t have an email but I will contact you again.
Help us.”The idea of an Iranian, aware of the long history of US interference in Iranian affairs, beseeching an audience in America for "help" is, to put it lightly, dubious.
(The same should definitely be said about a recent OpEd featured in the New York Times last Sunday which was supposedly written by "a student in Iran." The article, clearly hoping to galvanize the American readership into strongly supporting pro-Mousavi protesters against the Iranian government, was almost surreal. In it, the author - curiously named "Shane M." which is perhaps the least Iranian name ever - denies the accuracy of pre-election polling by writing, "let’s not cloud the results with numbers that were, like bagels, stale a week later." Later, he describes a scene from the widespread pre-election pro-Mousavi street parties in Tehran, including this observation: "A girl hung off the edge of a car window “Dukes of Hazzard” style." What possible young "Iranian student" would casually reference bagels and Dukes of Hazzard is beyond me, but I can probably think of a few CIA agents that may enjoy both.)
As for the widespread claim, published in nearly every major newspaper, that Mousavi had been disappeared, imprisoned, or put under house arrest, it obviously wasn't true considering that the very next day Mousavi was addressing a crowd of tens of thousands in the middle of Tehran from the roof of his car.
Furthermore, the chants we hear of “death to the dictator, death to Ahmadinejad” don't make much sense coming from Iranian citizens. As Paul Craig Roberts points out, "Every Iranian knows that the President of Iran is a public figure with limited powers. His main role is to take the heat from the governing grand Ayatollah. No Iranian, and no informed westerner, could possibly believe that Ahmadinejad is a dictator. Even Ahmadinejad’s superior, Khamenei, is not a dictator as he is appointed by a government body that can remove him." Roberts goes on to say,The demonstrations, like those in 1953, are intended to discredit the Iranian government and to establish for Western opinion that the government is a repressive regime that does not have the support of the Iranian people. This manipulation of opinion sets up Iran as another Iraq ruled by a dictator who must be overthrown by sanctions or an invasion.Early reports of the Tehran rallies revealed that pro-Mousavi protesters were throwing rocks at Iranian police and security forces, as well as burning police motorcycles, city buses, and even private and government buildings. In contrast, we also heard of riot police beating protesters, gas and water cannons being used on crowds, and Basiji paramilitary groups opening fire on peaceful demonstrators. Even though Iranian officials have blamed recent street violence on Mousavi supporters and marchers point to pro-government gangs, accusing them of staging incidents in order to justify further "crackdown" of dissent, the truth may be even more sinister. As one pro-Mousavi protester, who has taken part in every single march so far this week, told Newsweek, "I think some small terrorist groups and criminal gangs are taking advantage of the situation." American money well-spent, perhaps.
According to the national intelligence services, a group of US-linked terrorists who had planned to set off twenty explosions in Tehran were discovered. Nevertheless a bomb still went off near the shrine of Iran's revolutionary founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, killing one and injuring two.
Despite the rise in violence in the past week, Khamenei has consistently differentiated between what he believes are rebel groups and non-political protesters and "the electoral fans and supporters" of Mousavi. He is quoted as saying that "those who devastate the public assets and private belongings of the people are carrying out the aggressive actions without any political purposes" and urged the defeated presidential candidates to utilize "legal venues" to voice their complaints. Khamenei stated, "the destiny of elections would be determined on the ballots, not on the palm of the streets."
Officials in the Iranian government are well-aware, and appropriately suspicious, of foreign meddling in their domestic affairs. Ali Larijani, the pragmatic, moderate conservative Speaker of Parliament and frequent Ahmadinejad opponent, said recently in a live televised speech, "those who under the mask of political fans of a certain movement or candidate impose damages to the public properties or paralyze the daily life of ordinary people are not among the protestors who want their votes to be virtuously preserved," adding that "the liberty of demonstrations should be respected, and those who are in charge of issuing certifications to legitimize the protesting rallies should cooperate and issue them constructively."
The Western media is certainly not helping matters. It should be remembered, first off, that both the BBC and New York Times played important roles in the 1953 overthrow. Bill Van Auken's The New York Times and Iran: Journalism as State Provocation tells us of the documentation of journalism as the media arm of the imperial state, including the direct military participation of one of its CIA-connected reporters in the coup against Mossadegh:In 1953, [the New York Times] correspondent in Tehran, Kennett Love, was not only a willing conduit for CIA disinformation, but also acknowledged participating directly in the coup. He subsequently wrote of giving an Iranian Army tank column instructions to attack Mossadegh's house. Afterwards, the Times celebrated the coup and demanded unconditional support for the Shah’s regime.The BBC is known to have spearheaded Britain's own propaganda campaign, broadcasting the code word ("exactly") that launched the coup d'état itself. Even the rise and importance of new media has to be viewed critically - something Western journalists aren't very good at. CNN recently created a new disclaimer icon to account for all the "unverified" material they've been broadcasting 'round the clock in their effort to stand with protesters and against the Iranian government.
The Iranian "twitter boom" has, to a certain extent, been engineered by a small group of anti-Ahmadinejad advocates in the United States and Israel. Whereas media organizations excitedly report about young Iranians twittering away on the streets of Tehran, it's clear that most of the activity is simply Americans "tweeting" amongst themselves. Nevertheless, the US government requested that Twitter postpone a scheduled downtime for maintenance so that tweeting from Iran could go uninterrupted. But, of course, this isn't meddling. Additionally, Caroline McCarthy of CNET News reports that "Users from around the world are resetting the location data in their profiles to Tehran, the capital of Iran, in order to confuse Iranian authorities who may be attempting to use the microblogging tool to track down opposition activity." While I'm not sure about "confusing" Iranian authorities, I am sure that actions like this serve to overhype the scope, reach, and importance of social networking and alternative media in Iranian politics and activism. The voices of the Iranian people should, of course, be heard and listened to - but the twittering mass of American, European, and Israeli support can hardly be said to speak on behalf of the Iranian public.
This disingenuous statement of President Obama may offer us some insight. In the early days of the post-election protests, he said, "It is not productive, given the history of US and Iranian relations to be seen as meddling in Iranian elections."
American meddling, Mr. Obama? Never! Especially not when our government is responsible for thirty years of sanctions, overt and covert operations designed to weaken one of the only countries that has ever successfully stood up to American imperialism in the face of aggressive efforts to foment dissent and promote regime change.

ISLAMABAD, June 24: The federal government has appointed an officer of the district management group (DMG) Pakistan’s ambassador to France, creating unease among career foreign service diplomats.
Jahanzaib Khan is probably the first DMG officer to get an ambassadorial assignment and that too in one of the most important capitals in the world.
Earlier, Jalil Abbas Jilani, High Commissioner in Canberra and a relative of the prime minister, had been tipped as the next ambassador to France.
Some officials alleged that the appointment had been made under pressure from the presidency, but presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar said the prime minister’s office made all foreign appointments and Mr Khan had worked for the embassy in Paris as commercial counsellor.
Mr Khan’s deputy at the embassy, Rafiuz Zaman Siddiqui, a career diplomat, is senior to him.
Contrary to a tradition of posting Grade-22 diplomats to Paris, the government has made the new appointment of an officer who is in BPS 20.
According to sources, diplomats belonging to the 12th Common — a much senior batch of civil servants than Mr Khan’s — have only recently begun getting posted as ambassadors in lesser known capitals. They said Mr Khan’s appointment appeared to be a part of the policy to appease the district management group. Another DMG officer, Sohail Ahmed, was earlier appointed chairman of the Federal Bureau of Revenue.—Baqir Sajjad Syed

This picture was an official handout from the Presidency on June 26, 2009, showing President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani receiving Pakistan's cricket team, winners of the T20 World series. The portraits of the PPP leaders can be seen in the background. No trace of the official portrait of the Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan's Founding Father.

The current democracy in Pakistan was installed by the United States. All the parties in power now in the country are pro-American and pro-Indian: the PPP, MQM, JUI-F and ANP. The last one, ANP, spent most of its career supporting separatist ideas. MQM's chief has just given a statement that opposes the very independence of Pakistan saying the country should not have been "partitioned" from India [someone needs to teach him history; the day Pakistan got independent, India was still a British colony and wasn't officially independent until one more day.] But these ruling parties are not alone in completely ditching the Pakistani flag and the official portraits of the Founding Father of the nation. There is PMLN, JI, and other smaller parties that never raise the Pakistani flag in their rallies or public events.

This is how The News International, the largest Pakistani English-language daily newspaper, reported the story on Saturday, June 27:
The portraits of Founder of Pakistan Quaid-e-Azam Muhammed Ali Jinnah have been removed from the Prime Minister House and Presidential House, Geo News revealed Saturday.Two days ago, President Asif Ali Zardari hosted a reception in the honour of national cricket team on winning the ICC Twenty20 World Cup title. On this occasion, the team players and officials had a group photo with President Zardari and Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani.There are pictures of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto, Bilawal Zardari Bhutto and President Zardari without any picture of founder of Pakistan are seen hung in the backdrop of photo.Similarly, an Internship Award ceremony was held with PM Gilani in chair on Friday. On this occasion, the stage was decorated with the pictures of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto, President Zardari and PM Gilani; however, there was no picture of Quaid-e-Azam.In a similar photograph, President Zardari was administering oath of Federal Mohtasib to Dr Shoaib Suddle; however, the backdrop flashed with a picture of Quaid-e-Awam sans any photo of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammed Ali Jinnah.Similarly, in a meeting with US delegation, no photograph of Muhammed Ali Jinnah was visible.Under law, to hang the portrait of Quaid-e-Azam at offices of government officials, President and Prime Minister is compulsory.

I still stand by my belief that the existing political elite in Pakistan is inept, uncreative and now compromised thanks to the 'outreach' done by the US and the UK embassies in Islamabad.

The best way is still this:

1. Ban any political party that is based on ethnicity/language. This will eliminate 98% of these parties.

2. Enforce fair and free internal elections, monitored by the Election Commission of Pakistan. No party allowed to run for office without this condition.

3. An interim, technocratic government in Islamabad for a minimum of five years, assigned to execute a visionary plan of reform that would include more administrative provinces and new laws organizing political activity and absolute focus on economic and education rebuilding.

4. Harsh measures against politicians who try to defy this plan. Harshest measures if necessary.

5. Stern warning to countries such as the US and UK to desist from interfering in Pakistan's internal matters. If they are allies, then they should support the stabilization of Pakistan. See this PPPistan or Nawazistan or Altafistan or Pakistan?

Just when you think our so called ‘elected representatives’ can’t embarass us anymore, they tend to prove us wrong.
The Sindh Assembly has this morning held a minute’s silence as a mark of respect to Michael Jackson, on his sad demise. Yes, you can read that again.
Our army is busy fighting a bitter war against foreign funded terrorists, over 3 million of our people have been made homeless and we’re facing what could potentially be the worst crisis in our history if not dealt with properly. Our politicians on the other hand just cannot grasp the seriousness of the situation.
The Federal Information Minister feels it important to entertain himself with a $15,000 lapdance from an Indian hooker while on a begging round. Is begging that stressful? Maybe he should learn something off his President who doesn’t seem to mind it at all.
When did the president or any senior members of his team last visit the affected areas to show solidarity with our people? Why have they never bothered turning up and paying respect at the homes of our fallen soldiers? What have they contributed out of their own pockets towards caring for our internal refugees?
The point isn’t whether Jacko was a global superstar or that he had reportedly converted to Islam – Michael Jackson had absolutely f*ck-all to do with Pakistan, its history, its culture, its language, its people and its politics. This is the Provincial Assembly of Sindh, Pakistan, not the California State Assembly. Or are we now officially the 51st state?
What next? Will Muttahida’s gun toting ‘activists’ and PPP Jayalas forcefully shut all businesses in Karachi for a shutter-down strike next time Britney shaves her head? Or will we have a national day of mourning when Paris Hilton’s little pooch dies?
Why have we as a nation become so passive about these incompetent crooks who are turning us into a joke? And not a funny one either.

ISLAMABAD, June 25: Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani visited South Waziristan on Thursday and spent the day interacting with the field commanders and troops.
The visit indicated that the stage was set for a full-scale operation against Baitullah Mehsud and his group.
It is believed that the army chief discussed operational details of the offensive during his stay in Wana, the regional headquarters, and Tiarza, a 'hotspot' in the area. He was briefed on the situation by the general officer commanding.
Gen Kayani urged local tribes to support the government and the armed forces in their campaign to isolate and eliminate terrorists.
According to an official, he said that most of the local tribes were peaceful and terrorist elements wanted to impose their own version of Islam.
He praised troops’ performance and high morale and offered Fateha for security personnel who had lost their lives during the operation.
Gen Kayani said the army was executing a deliberate ‘campaign plan’ to re-establish the writ of the state while ensuring that there was minimum loss of life and damage to property.
He said the security forces had been asked to go for precision strikes and avoid collateral damage even if they had to take risks.
He thanked the people of the country for their whole-hearted support which, he said, was an essential element for the success of unconventional military operations. He paid tribute to the role played by air force in the operations.
Military sources said troops and equipment had been positioned and more troops were available in reserve.
They said a full-scale operation in South Waziristan was likely to be launched soon.
Meanwhile, security personnel apprehended three terrorists and seized arms and ammunition in Malakand and Dir on Wednesday and Thursday. According to the ISPR, a hunt for terrorists was carried out in Akhun Kale, Gamon bridge, Rangeela, Khazana, Wakilabad, Baiddarra and Garai in Swat. A suspected terrorist of Khawazakhela was held in Besham.
A soldier was injured in a clash in Kabal.
A similar operation was carried out around Zhoaib and Lal Qila in Dir.
Two soldiers were injured by a mine and another by firing.A militant commander, Iqbal, and another terrorist were arrested and a signalling device, two rifles with ammunition and two small machine-guns were seized during a search operation in Shewa and Utala areas of Adinzai.
Army engineers were reported to be repairing the Malakand-Barrikot, Barrikot-Udigram and Udigram-Balogram roads.
In Mingora, 43 tube-wells have been made functional.Five truckloads of food and relief goods were distributed among displaced people.

“While the US media continues to leak information about possible compromise by the Zardari government on the Pakistani nuclear program [there are reports that Mr. Zardari has agreed to transfer used Pakistani uranium to US for disposal, in addition to reports about increased access for foreigners to the offices of the Strategic Plans Division, which oversees the nuclear and strategic arsenal], the Pakistani military intervenes once again at the highest level to confirm this will not be allowed. This is reassuring because it is difficult to trust an elected government that has come to power with full foreign backing and some of its key figures appear to be working on a foreign agenda.”

We all heard and read the leaked and calculated propaganda in the American media that seeks to spread worldwide confusion and alarm about Pakistan. Part of this campaign is the recent interesting American reports that Pakistani nuclear weapons are stored ‘disassembled’, as if Pakistan made huge investment in its strategic weapons only to end up storing them in pieces. Here is a credible and strong argument that sets the record straight, from one of Pakistan’s eminent nuclear experts.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—This is in reference to your editorial of June 8, 2009, titled “Safe and sound ".

While I am appreciative of the broader position taken by you on the safety and security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons, on which there must be no doubt, western propaganda notwithstanding; there are at least two aspects that need to be seen in the correct perspective.
Firstly, while your assertion that Pakistan has invested heavily in the security of its facilities and weapons is absolutely valid, your interpretation that the warheads are 'stored in a disassembled state in more than one location. No warhead is attached to a delivery system. No delivery system is located in the same facility as the warhead parts' is basically speculative, conjectural and conveys a state of operational unpreparedness, which would be a very dangerous situation and seriously erode the credibility of our nuclear deterrence.

I have never seen any official statement, and I emphasize on 'any' official statement, depicting the status that you describe in your editorial. The best description that one comes across is the position that our weapons are not on hair trigger, contrary to the Cold War times regarding the American and Soviet nuclear weapons. Now, not being on hair trigger does not imply scattered and disassembled weapons. Somehow the latter perception seems to have caught the imagination, and needs to be corrected. Any military would want to strike a balance between operational readiness and preventing accidental or unauthorized use.
Secondly, I agree with your concern that there can be individuals in our society who may tend to think of an agenda to find links with people within Pakistan's strategic organisations to gain nuclear knowledge, thereby creating an 'insider threat'. This must, however, be seen in consideration of Pakistan's proactive response to such possibilities. Nuclear security is a multi-dimensional and robust mechanism that covers all aspects of security, including physical security tiers, intelligence systems, counter-intelligence set-ups, technical solutions to security and more importantly the so-called Personnel Reliability Programme (PRP) that amply covers the human factor risk. All individuals within the nuclear establishment are subjected to the PRP, which commences from background checks, police records, medical records, etc and goes on to include security screening, periodic, as well as random security clearances, closely monitored access controls, two-person rule, sensitive material accounting, etc. The list is long and stringent. While one is never complacent about security systems and one must never be- we should rest assured that any potential tendency of a possible 'insider threat' would be identified at the outset and would be nipped in the bud. Finally, much seems to have been made of the so-called US assistance in this area. To the best of my information, it has been extremely modest, focused on very elementary training and mostly inconsequential -- and most certainly non-intrusive. All of the security solutions in place are home-grown and entirely indigenous.

• Some fighters using infrared patches on shirts to signal they are ‘friends’
  
• GAO official says few regulatory controls exist for military technology sold domestically
  
• Lawmaker says infrared patches should be treated as munitions
  
• Retired four-star general says risk may be overstated

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: Some Taliban fighters have been able to ward off attacks by US aircraft by wearing special infrared patches on their shirts that signal they are friends rather than foes.
The patches, which can also help suicide bombers get close to US targets, are supposed to be the property of the US government alone, but can be easily purchased over the Internet for about $10 each, a report published in The Washington Times had revealed. Some of the patches have been stolen during raids on US re-supply convoys in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and reveal an American flag when looked at with an infrared light and are designed to avoid friendly fire during night-time battles.
Few controls: In a recent investigation, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) bought patches using fake names and a front company with only a valid credit card. Jonathan Meyer, assistant director of forensic audits and special investigations for the GAO, told The Washington Times: “Based on our conversations with the Department of Defence, terrorists have used US uniforms and the infrared patches to get close to US and allied forces on the battlefield and at bases. This is more of a potential suicide-bomber risk.” Meyer, who helped lead the GAO investigation, concluded that few regulatory controls exist for dual-use and military technology sold domestically.
Representative Bart Stupak, Michigan Democrat, who chairs the House Energy and Commerce oversight and investigations subcommittee, said the infrared patches are also made in China. “It is rather simple technology,” he said. “We not only sell this on the domestic market here, and they sell them to anybody, but you can get them from China, and the Chinese will sell them to others. They have been used by the enemy in the war. It’s of grave concern because you don’t know who is friendly or not,” he added.
“An enemy fighter wearing these [infrared] flags could potentially pass as a friendly service member during a night combat situation, putting US troops at risk,” the GAO report said. “Nevertheless, these items are completely legal to buy and sell within the US.” The report followed up on a 2008 GAO study that exposed the fact that military-surplus items, such as spare parts for fighter jets, could be purchased on eBay and Craigslist.
Munitions: Representative Brad Sherman, California Democrat and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee that deals with export controls, said that it may be time to treat the infrared patches as a munition that would need to be controlled through the Arms Export Control Act. “If there is an item that has only a military use, like the patches, the fact that they are non-lethal doesn’t mean we should not treat them as munitions,” he said.
Overstated: However, a retired four-star general, Jack Keane, said the risk had been overstated. “Since the beginning of warfare, people have been dressing up as the enemy to infiltrate,” he said. “We certainly have done this in the past to our enemies, and our enemies have done this to us.” But “it would seem to me that something we are using to help identify ourselves should not be available to the general public, and it should be something that is only acquired through military channels,” he added.
Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, said the military was reviewing the report. “The Department of Defence takes force protection very seriously. As a matter of course, we are concerned any time sensitive equipment has the potential to fall into enemy hands,” he said.
A spokesman for the Justice Department’s National Security Division, Dean Boyd, said that since October 2007, the US government has created 20 counter-proliferation task forces to look at the issue. However, he said “no one is really taking responsibility” in the US government to deal with the problem. The National Security Council, the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security have declined comment on the GAO report.

Army in final stage of Swat offensive

ISLAMABAD: The army said on Monday it had completed the exercise of pre-positioning forces and equipment in South Waziristan to launch a decisive action against Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan chief Baitullah Mehsood and his network.

Military spokesman Maj-Gen Athar Abbas told a press briefing that the preparatory manoeuvring phase had already started to clear a key road in Wana, the headquarters of South Waziristan.
The objective of the operation would be to dismantle ‘suicide attack schools’ being run by the Mehsud network, he said.
According to him, a large number of foreign terrorists were holed up there.
In reply to a question, Gen Abbas said there was no authentic information about the encirclement of Baitullah Mehsud. However, he added, the main leadership of militants was being continuously targeted and many of them were reported to have been killed and secretly buried at unknown places. ‘We, however, do not have evidence in hand.’
Maj-Gen Abbas said the Swat operation had entered a final phase. The last stronghold of terrorists in Biha valley had been secured and Shamozai area was being cleared, the ISPR chief said.
He said that search operations were continuing in the secured areas to ensure safe return of the displaced people. He said that all areas, except Kabal and Shamozai, were safe for government employees and hence they had been asked to return to their duty.
‘A security cover will be available for government employees and there is no cause of concern that could hinder their return.’
He said that 1,592 terrorists had been killed and over 60, including foreigners, captured since the operation began last month.
The spokesman said that success had been achieved on the basis of information provided by the arrested militants and intelligence reports.
Photographs of over 50 dead militants, secret tunnels and hideouts and arms and ammunition recovered during the operation were screened during the briefing.
Maj-Gen Abbas said the level of preparation by insurgents was astounding as tunnels, hideouts and the quantity of arms recovered spoke volumes for their preparation for a ‘full-scale war’.
He said that troops had neutralised a number of improvised explosive devices and destroyed several tunnels.
Meanwhile, the ISPR said 22 militants had been killed and five captured during an operation in Malakand division on Sunday and Monday. Fourteen militants were killed on Shamozai bridge alone.
Eight IEDs left on the bridge were defused.
Security forces have cleared Biha valley and Bartana, south of Chuprial. Three small tunnels were destroyed in Loi Namal.
A jirga handed over a militant to security forces in Bahrain. Four militants were caught in Wanai, Shalkosar, Bashkhela and Drushkhela.
Eight militants were killed and one was injured during clashes with a tribal lashkar in Lower Dir.

MUMBAI, June 23: An Indian court issued arrest warrants on Tuesday for 22 Pakistani nationals accused of masterminding last year’s deadly Mumbai terrorist attacks, including the founder of a militant group recently freed by a Pakistani court.
An Indian prosecutor demanded that Islamabad extradite all the suspects, though Pakistan has vowed that it will not transfer any Mumbai suspects to India, saying instead it will try them in its own courts.

The warrants were issued in response to a prosecutors’ motion in the ongoing trial of Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, the only surviving suspected gunman in last year’s attacks that left some 166 dead in a three-day siege.
Among those sought for arrest were Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, founder of Lashkar-i-Taiba, which India blames for the launching attacks, and Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi and Zarar Shah, two leaders of the group.

Pakistan arrested all three in December after Indian diplomats provided a dossier of evidence in a rare sharing of intelligence between the nuclear-armed rivals, who have fought three wars since independence. However, a court in Lahore earlier this month freed Saeed. Indian officials condemned the move.The Indian court’s issuance of arrest warrants on Tuesday had been expected, since New Delhi has long identified the 22 suspects as terrorists.

Still, the demand for extradition, which Pakistan is unlikely to meet, emphasised the animosity between the neighbours since teams of gunmen rampaged through Mumbai last November.
Public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam said on Tuesday that the warrants would be handed to Interpol to deliver to the Pakistan government for extradition.
“We want the suspects to be sent to India to stand trial. There is sufficient evidence to prosecute them in India,” Nikam told The Associated Press.

On Tuesday, Nikam told Special Judge M.L. Tahiliyani that Saeed, Lakhvi and others planned the Mumbai terror attacks and gave training to those who carried out the assault.
Pakistan has acknowledged the Mumbai attacks were partly plotted on its soil.
Judge Tahiliyani is presiding over the trial of the only surviving suspected gunman, Kasab, who has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him in the Indian court, including waging war against the country and murder. Kasab, said to be in his early 20s, will face the death penalty if convicted

Jamie Doward, Gaby Hinsliff and Mark Townsend

A confidential record of a meeting between President Bush and Tony Blair before the invasion of Iraq, outlining their intention to go to war without a second United Nations resolution, will be an explosive issue for the official inquiry into the UK's role in toppling Saddam Hussein.
The memo, written on 31 January 2003, almost two months before the invasion and seen by the Observer, confirms that as the two men became increasingly aware UN inspectors would fail to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD) they had to contemplate alternative scenarios that might trigger a second resolution legitimising military action.

Bush told Blair the US had drawn up a provocative plan "to fly U2 reconnaissance aircraft painted in UN colours over Iraq with fighter cover". Bush said that if Saddam fired at the planes this would put the Iraqi leader in breach of UN resolutions.

The president expressed hopes that an Iraqi defector would be "brought out" to give a public presentation on Saddam's WMD or that someone might assassinate the Iraqi leader. However, Bush confirmed even without a second resolution, the US was prepared for military action. The memo said Blair told Bush he was "solidly with the president".

The five-page document, written by Blair's foreign policy adviser, Sir David Manning, and copied to Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the UK ambassador to the UN, Jonathan Powell, Blair's chief of staff, the chief of the defence staff, Admiral Lord Boyce, and the UK's ambassador to Washington, Sir Christopher Meyer, outlines how Bush told Blair he had decided on a start date for the war.
Paraphrasing Bush's comments at the meeting, Manning, noted: "The start date for the military campaign was now pencilled in for 10 March. This was when the bombing would begin."

Last night an expert on international law who is familar with the memo's contents said it provided vital evidence into the two men's frames of mind as they considered the invasion and its aftermath and must be presented to the Chilcott inquiry established by Gordon Brown to examine the causes, conduct and consequences of the Iraq war.

Philippe Sands, QC, a professor of law at University College London who is expected to give evidence to the inquiry, said confidential material such as the memo was of national importance, making it vital that the inquiry is not held in private, as Brown originally envisioned.

In today's Observer, Sands writes: "Documents like this raise issues of national embarrassment, not national security. The restoration of public confidence requires this new inquiry to be transparent. Contentious matters should not be kept out of the public domain, even in the run-up to an election."

The memo notes there had been a shift in the two men's thinking on Iraq by late January 2003 and that preparing for war was now their priority. "Our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning," Manning writes. This was despite the fact Blair that had yet to receive advice on the legality of the war from the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, which did not arrive until 7 March 2003 - 13 days before the bombing campaign started.

In his article today, Sands says the memo raises questions about the selection of the chair of the inquiry. Sir John Chilcott sat on the 2004 Butler inquiry, which examined the reliability of intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war, and would have been privy to the document's contents - and the doubts about WMD running to the highest levels of the US and UK governments.
Many senior legal experts have expressed dismay that Chilcott has been selected to chair the inquiry as he is considered to be close to the security services after his time spent as a civil servant in Northern Ireland.

Brown had believed that allowing the Chilcott inquiry to hold private hearings would allow witnesses to be candid. But after bereaved families and antiwar campaigners expressed outrage, the prime minister wrote to Chilcott to say that if the panel can show witnesses and national security issues will not be compromised by public hearings, he will change his stance.

Lord Guthrie, a former chief of the defence staff under Blair, described the memo as "quite shocking". He said that it underscored why the Chilcott inquiry must be seen to be a robust investigation: "It's important that the inquiry is not a whitewash as these inquiries often are."
This year, the Dutch government launched its own inquiry into its support for the war.

Significantly, the inquiry will see all the intelligence shared with the Dutch intelligence services by MI5 and MI6. The inquiry intends to publish its report in November - suggesting that confidential information about the role played by the UK and the US could become public before Chilcott's inquiry reports next year.

Hello all ...

The political creed of Zionism has big ears and a long trunk and I think it's time that was pointed out. It also stampedes through our lives at every level and that needs to be said, too.

It has created a pincer-movement on the human mind by hijacking staggering amounts of political, corporate, banking and media power on one side and by using the fear of being called 'anti-Semitic' if you dare to state the bloody obvious.

They have been able to do this by equating in public perception that Zionism = Jewish people. It does not. Zionism is a political creed introduced by the House of Rothschild to advance the goals of the Illuminati families that are largely controlled by the Rothschilds.

When people think of Zionism they think of Jewish people. When they think of Israel they think of Jewish people. That's understandable given the propaganda, but it is seriously misleading and those instant connections need to be broken if we are going to understand what's going on here. Zionism means Rothschild just as Israel means Rothschild.

When we see the extraordinary number of Zionists in key positions around the world we are looking not at 'manipulating Jews', but manipulating Zionists representing the interests and demands of the Rothschilds.

Significant numbers of Jewish people are not Zionists and oppose that appalling creed while many Zionists are not Jewish. These include the Christian Zionists and Obama's vice-president, Joe Biden, who told Israeli television 'I'm a Zionist'. Here's the clip if you can stand it ... If, as Biden rightly says, you don't have to be a Jew to be a Zionist, how can it be a racial rather than a political movement? It can't. It's just made to appear like that to manipulate public perception because opposing Zionism then becomes opposing Jewish people as a whole and the 'you're a racist' card can be played over and over.

Far from protecting and advancing the interests of the mass of Jewish people it has often been devastating for them and caused millions to be labelled unfairly by the actions of the Zionist elite. On the Jews Against Zionism website one feature highlights how Rothschild Zionism targeted Jews who had lived for generations in Palestine side-by-side with Arabs in peace and harmony:

'The religious Jews who by virtue of their faith, clearly contradicted Zionist nationalism, and who had lived peacefully with their Arab neighbors for generations, became unwillingly identified with the Zionist cause and their struggle with the Arabs.

They requested the United Nations that Jerusalem be designated as a defacto international city. They appealed to the diplomatic corps assigned to Jerusalem -- but to no avail. They were hence confronted with the choice of either becoming a part of the Zionist State, which diametrically opposed the interests of Jews as a religion, or abandoning the land of which their forefathers were the first Jewish settlers.

Let's get this straight. Zionism doesn't give a damn about Jewish people. To the Rothschilds and their Zionist gofers and thugs the Jewish people as a whole are merely cattle to be used and abused as necessary - just like the rest of the human population.

The networks of the House of Rothschild were behind Hitler and the rise of the Nazi Party in the Rothschild heartland of Germany where they had changed their name from Bauer in 18th century Frankfurt and launched the dynasty that was to control global finance. After the war the Rothschilds used public sympathy for Jewish people targeted by the Nazis to press for a homeland in Palestine. This was the alleged reason for the founding of Zionism, but that is only part of it.

As I show in my books, the campaign to impose a Rothschild fiefdom in Palestine goes back at least to the earlier part of the 19th century and probably long before. It was given a massive boost with the Balfour Declaration in 1917 when the British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour declared in a letter his government's support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. This letter was sent by Balfour, an inner-circle member of an elite secret society called the Round Table, to Baron (Walter) Rothschild who funded the Round Table.

Today, Rothschild Illuminati fronts like the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg Group, Royal Institute of International Affairs, and others, still answer to the Round Table which string-pulls and coordinates from the shadows. This is why Zionists in government are invariably connected with these Rothschild-controlled organisations.

The Rothschilds funded the early settlers from Europe to relocate in post-war Palestine and they also funded and armed the terrorist groups, like Irgun, which bombed and terrorised Israel into existence in 1948, a campaign which forced 800,000 Palestinians to leave the land of their birth.

Israel is simply the State of Rothschild and how appropriate that they paid for the construction of the Israeli parliament building, the Knesset, and the Israel Supreme Court. The name Rothschild means Red-shield and it originates with the red shield 'Star of David' symbol (not a Jewish symbol before the Rothschilds) which they displayed on their house in Frankfurt ...

... Seen it somewhere before ...?

The very flag of Israel tells you who owns it. There are many reasons why the Rothschilds and their allies wanted to hijack Palestine and one was to keep the Middle East in a state of disruption and turmoil from which a global war can eventually be triggered to usher in the New World Order of world government dictatorship.

The creation of Israel is a means not an end and the Rothschilds will be quite happy to leave the Jewish population to their fate if it suits them. After all, they've done it before. The world's second biggest Zionist population is in the United States and given that both America and Israel are controlled by the Rothschild networks it is not hard to fathom why that slither of land in the Middle East receives around a third of all US overseas aid.

An average $3 billion a year is handed to the State of Rothschild as a result of decisions made by American administrations that are always, 'Republican' or 'Democrat', controlled by the Rothschilds. One hand of the network hands over the cash to another. This explains why the United States never talks about the arsenal of nuclear weapons stockpiled by one of the world's most trigger-happy states. Israel refuses to discuss them and the American policy, recently reconfirmed by Obama, is never to ask or bring up the subject.

The last two US administrations are testament to the extent of Zionist (Rothschild) control of America and thus its foreign policy, not least with regard to Iraq, the former land of Sumer and Babylon, which according to some just happens to be part of the 'Greater Israel' that the Zionists seek to secure. The 'Bush' government was the glove-puppet of the so-called neo-cons, or neoconservatives, whose only political philosophy in truth was the interests of Zionism.

At the heart of the Rothschild-controlled neocon cabal were Richard Perle (Zionist), Paul Wolfowitz (Zionist), Dov Zakheim (Zionist), Douglas Feith (Zionist), John Bolton (Zionist), Lewis Libby (Zionist), the list goes on and on. These were the people who orchestrated the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq on behalf of the Rothschilds.

Economic policy was dictated through the years of Reagan-Bush, Father Bush, Clinton and most of Boy Bush by Alan Greenspan (Zionist), chairman of the privately-owned US 'central bank', the Federal Reserve. Privately owned, that is, by the Rothschilds through a network of front people and organisations.

Greenspan introduced the policies of deregulation that culminated, as designed, in the free-for-all frenzy of greed by banks and financial markets in general that led to the crash in the last weeks of the Bush presidency. Greenspan resigned from the Fed before the consequences of his long-term game-plan exploded in lost homes, jobs and savings. He was replaced by Bernard Bernanke (Zionist).

Greenspan was enthusiastically supported in his deregulation through successive administrations by Treasury Secretaries in the Clinton years, Robert E. Rubin (Zionist) and Larry Summers (Zionist), and also by the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the most powerful in the Fed cabal, Timothy Geithner (Zionist). When Mr. Fake Change won the presidency amid the gathering financial crisis, caused by all of the above, and others, he appointed Geithner as his Treasury Secretary and Summers as head of the White House Economic Council.

Both are protégés of Robert Rubin who resigned from Citigroup earlier this year for his role in 'advising' it to the brink of collapse. Obama's Budget Director is Peter Orszag (Zionist) who headed the company that advised the Icelandic Central Bank in the prelude to the crash of Iceland's financial system. This has led to Iceland being fast-tracked into the Rothschild-created European Union to 'save' its economy.

Orszag also advised the Russian Treasury when state-owned assets and resources were handed to Zionist oligarchs, including Roman Abramovich who is famous in the UK as the owner of Chelsea Football Club. Add to all this the fact that the World Bank is headed by Robert Zoellick (Zionist), who replaced Paul Wolfowitz (Zionist), and that the International Monetary Fund, or IMF, is run by Dominique Strauss-Kahn (Zionist).

Anyone still doubt that the Rothschild network controls global finance and therefore the lives and choices of virtually every man, woman and child on the planet? The Rothschilds are at the heart of the Obama White House in the form of Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel (Zionist) and Chief White House Advisor David Axelrod (Zionist). Emanuel has served in the Israeli army and his father was an operative with the Rothschild terrorist group, Irgun, as it bombed Israel into being. This included the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946 that killed 91 people.

Rahm Emanuel also worked closely Robert E. Rubin (Zionist) during the Clinton years to impose NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, which was designed from the start to be a stepping-stone to a North American, and eventually an American Union, along the lines of the EU. The Zionist world is very small indeed.

David Axelrod ran Obama's election campaigns and now oversees his every word slavishly read from his teleprompter screens. There is little that Obama says that his Zionist handlers don't tell him or give him to say. They have also ensured that US policy for Iran and the Persian Gulf is headed by Dennis Ross (Zionist) who has served Israeli interests in successive American administrations.

There will not be a cigarette paper behind the scenes between him and that trio of tyranny, Netanyahu, Lieberman, Barak, the prime minister, foreign minister and defence minister of Israel. Rothschild stooges, in other words. Zionist Mandelson works for the pyramid The most influential figure by far in the current British government is Peter Mandelson (Zionist) who continues to amass more titles and powers from the beleaguered Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Mandelson is an insider operative for the Rothschilds and has frequently accepted hospitality from his close friend and associate, Nathaniel Rothschild. This week Mandelson called for the UK to join the (Rothschild) single European currency. Meanwhile, the hapless and hopeless Gordon Brown did as he was told and appointed Ivan Lewis (Zionist) to be minister of state with responsibility for, wait for it ...

British policy on the Middle East. Lewis, vice-chair of the Labour Friends of Israel, was an outspoken supporter of Israel's slaughter of the innocent in Gaza this year. Lewis said of his new job: 'My responsibility for the Middle East peace process is particularly poignant. I have never hidden my pride at being Jewish or my support for the State of Israel.' What chance do the Palestinians have of fairness and justice? None.

In France, as I mentioned last week, President Sarkozy (Zionist) is a long-time asset of Mossad, the Rothschild enforcement agency masquerading as the intelligence agency of Israel. Mossad has been implicated in terror attacks and other horrors all over the world because it represents the Rothschild global agenda and not the people of Israel.

Look also at the Zionist (Rothschild) control of the entertainment and media industry in the form of people like Fox News President Peter Chernin (Zionist); Paramount Pictures Chairman Brad Grey (Zionist); Walt Disney CEO Robert Igor (Zionist); Sony Pictures Chairman Michael Lynton (Zionist); Warner Brothers Chairman Barry Meyer (Zionist); CBS CEO Leslie Moonves (Zionist); MGM Chairman Harry Sloan (Zionist); and NBC/Universal Studios CEO Jeff Zucker (Zionist).

The Rothschilds control America

The Los Angeles Times columnist Joel Stein (Zionist) wrote an article proclaiming that Americans who don't think Jews (Zionists) control Hollywood are just plain 'dumb'. Stein went on: 'The Jews are so dominant. I had to scour the trades to come up with six Gentiles in high positions at entertainment companies. But lo and behold, even one of that six, AMC President Charles Collier, turned out to be a Jew! ...

As a proud Jew, I want America to know of our accomplishment. Yes, we control Hollywood.' And not only Hollywood. Shahar Ilan, a daily features editor with the leading Israeli newspaper, Ha'aretz, wrote: 'The Jews do control the American media. This is very clear, and claiming otherwise is an insult to common knowledge'. Zionists have truly massive influence over the news media with the likes of Rupert Murdoch (Zionist) with his vast television and newspaper empire, and the Sulzberger family (Zionists) who own the New York Times.

The list is enormous across television, radio, newspapers and the Internet. When you look at the number of Zionists in key positions of power and control in politics, banking, corporations, news media, Hollywood and so on, it is sobering to think that Jewish people are just 1.7% of the American population and many of those won't be Zionists. What if the same situation happened with Arab people or Chinese, Irish or even black Americans?

There would be an outcry and questions asked about how one group can have so much influence over the lives of a whole nation, indeed many nations. And I stress again that, in the end, this control system leads to the Rothschilds and the spider they represent at the centre of the web.

B'nai Brith Front Man Harry Abrams

The Rothschilds established B'nai B'rith in 1843 to prevent exposure of the global Zionist networks. The ' BB' is an offshoot of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry and operates worldwide to brand as 'anti-Semitic' anyone who exposes the Rothschild operation.

In 1913, B'nai B'rith launched an organisation specifically to target and defame researchers, in fact anyone, who questions, criticises or exposes Israel and the ever-gathering Zionist influence across the world. With typical irony they called it the Anti-Defamation League, better known as the ADL, and claimed it was there to protect Jewish people. As Plato said: 'This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector'.

The ADL is, in fact, a sub-agency of the Israeli (Rothschild) centre for covert operations, the Mossad, which, according to a former agent, has the motto: 'By way of deception, thou shalt do war'. If that isn't the motto, it should be. The ADL is behind the introduction of 'hate laws' which are aimed at silencing dissent against Zionism or Israel. The Jewish academic, Noam Chomsky, said this of the ADL in his book, Necessary Illusions:

'The ADL has virtually abandoned its earlier role as a civil rights organization, becoming "one of the main pillars" of Israeli propaganda in the U.S., as the Israeli press casually describes it, engaged in surveillance, blacklisting, compilation of FBI-style files circulated to adherents for the purpose of defamation, angry public responses to criticism of Israeli actions, and so on.

These efforts, buttressed by insinuations of anti-Semitism or direct accusations, are intended to deflect or undermine opposition to Israeli policies, including Israel's refusal, with U.S. support, to move towards a general political settlement.' The American rabbi, Michael Lerner, agrees:

'The ADL lost most of it credibility in my eyes as a civil rights organization when it began to identify criticisms of Israel with anti-Semitism, still more when it failed to defend me when I was receiving threats to my life from right-wing Jewish groups because of my critique of Israeli policy toward Palestinians (it said that these were not threats that came from my being Jewish, so therefore they were not within their area of concern).'

Firstly, the ADL has never been a civil rights organisation. Its very purpose has been to take them away.

Secondly, it is not there to defend anyone, Jewish or otherwise. It's there to represent the sadistic interests of the House of Rothschild and the wider Illuminati.

It is so important that people are aware of this background to Zionism because at the moment it is basically speeding along unchallenged through lack of awareness and fear of being dubbed 'racist'.

Well, I couldn't care less what people say about me with regard to this or anything else. I want to uncover the truth, not win a popularity contest. Please, let's circulate this information as effectively as we can and bring it from the shadows to public attention.

We must refuse to be intimidated into silence over this.

Martin Luther King said: '... we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent.' It is time to stand up, in every sense.