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Posted by mzaidi in US FOREIGN POLICY & INTERNATIONAL LAW on July 5th, 2013
The appalling hubris of the imperial mindset in Washington was on full display yesterday when the U.S. government apparently pressured the governments of France, Spain, Portugal and Italy to deny a plane carrying Bolivia’s Evo Morales permission to pass through their air space. The plane was thus redirected, in flight, and forced to land in Vienna. The reason? Morales said he would consider granting political asylum to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and the suspicion was that Snowden was on the plane with the Bolivian president.
That suspicion was flat out wrong. But even if it was correct, the move, according to the Guardian, went ”above international law and the rights of a president of a sovereign nation.” Unsurprisingly, Washington yet again has violated international law and abused the rights of weaker nations.
“Bolivia has denounced what it calls a ‘kidnap’ operation of its president by imperial powers that violates the Vienna convention and its national sovereignty,” writes theGuardian‘s Jonathan Watts. “Venezuela, Argentina, Ecuador and Uruguay have joined in the condemnation. Angry headlines have been splashed on newspapers across the region.”
“Politicians and commentators in the region are already adding the action to a long list of interventions, invasions and ‘policing actions’ by Latin America’s giant northern neighbour, alongside the Monroe Doctrine, the annexation of half of Mexico, the Bay of Pigs invasion, support for Chile’s Augusto Pinochet and other dictators and the ousting of democratically elected leftist governments in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras and elsewhere,” Watts adds.
In a statement yesterday, Amnesty International said the U.S. government’s pursuit of Snowden is a gross violation of his rights and international law:
The U.S. authorities’ relentless campaign to hunt down and block whistleblower Edward Snowden’s attempts to seek asylum is a gross violation of his human rights. It is his unassailable right, enshrined in international law, to claim asylum and this should not be impeded.
The U.S. attempts to pressure governments to block Snowden’s attempts to seek asylum are all the more deplorable when you consider the National Security Agency (NSA)whistleblower could be at risk of ill-treatment if extradited to the U.S.
No country can return a person to another country where there is a serious risk of ill-treatment. We know that others who have been prosecuted for similar acts have been held in conditions that not only Amnesty International, but UN officials considered cruel inhuman and degrading treatment in violation of international law.
Meanwhile, the focus on Snowden is continuing to serve as a distraction from the fact that the NSA is violating “the constitutional rights of everybody in the country,” in the words of NSA whistleblower William Binney.
The ACLU reminds us today that the NSA’s collection of intelligence on Americans is not “inadvertent,” as they claim. Under the authority of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, “the NSA claims only to intercept American communications ‘inadvertently,’ but this is a clever fiction: the surveillance program has been engineered to sweep up American communications in vast quantity, while giving the NSA cover to claim that it is not intentionally targeting Americans.”
This deliberate collection of Americans’ communications happens in at least three ways. First, the government can target foreigners on the other end of Americans’ international communications. So, if you call or email family, friends, or business associates abroad, the NSA can intercept those communications so long as it doesn’t intentionally target a specific, known American in another country. The surveillance must also relate to “foreign intelligence,” but this term has been construed so broadly as to be all but meaningless.
Second, the government has set a dismally low bar for concluding that a potential surveillance target is, in fact, a foreigner located abroad. By default, targets are assumed to be foreign. That’s right, the procedures allow the NSA to presume that prospective targets are foreigners outside the United States absent specific information to the contrary—and to presume therefore that those individuals are fair game for warrantless surveillance.
Third, the procedures allow the NSA to collect not just the communications of a foreign target, but any communications about a foreign target. This provision likely results in significant over-collection of even purely domestic communications. So, rather than striving to protect Americans, the procedures err on the side of over-collection and less respect for privacy rights.
Hopefully some good will come out of the U.S.’s overreach in grounding Morales’s plane. Maybe this will push forward the Bolivian government’s consideration of asylum for Snowden. What would be great is if Morales issued a formal complaint at the United Nations. The U.S. should be as embarrassed about this ordeal as possible.
Posted by Fawad Mir in NAWAZ SHARIF: THE LOOTER on July 5th, 2013
Pakistan’s Poverty And The Multi-Million-Dollar Watch
By Palash Ghosh | June 18 2013 2:29 PM
A Pakistani lawmaker who allegedly wore a very expensive watch during a session of the National Assembly has sparked an outcry over the huge wealth gap in a country reeling with massive poverty.
Louis Moinet Meteoris watchIt’s not clear which member of the Pakistani government was wearing the watch in question, but it was Shazia Marri who brought it to the public’s attention. According to Pakistani media, Marri, an assembly member affiliated with the Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) – which just lost a national election to new Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan’s Muslim League (PML-N) – criticized the new government for its failure to present a program to alleviate poverty in the national budget, saying the new budget favors the wealthy (particularly industrialists). “What else one can expect from a party whose leaders are fond of wearing such expensive personal items,” Marri said on Monday.
Marri was apparently referring to a watch that she valued at $4.6 million, worn by an unidentified PML-N member. The statement shocked the parliament and prompted Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq to ask Marri if she meant 4.6 million U.S. dollars or Pakistani rupees. She confirmed she meant U.S. currency. (Converted into Pakistani currency, the watch would cost a cool 455 million rupees.)
“Then the owner of the watch must have got it adequately insured,” the speaker quipped. But Marri refused to identify who was wearing such a costly accoutrement, even after the speaker asked her.
ZeeNews of India reported that, according to Twitter accounts, it was none other than Nawaz Sharif who was wearing the watch, a Louis Moinet “Meteoris” that does indeed fetch a price of $4.6 million.
According to watchmaker Louis Moinet, the Meteoris watch includes pieces of actual meteorites, as well as pieces of the moon and asteroids.
If Sharif is actually the owner of the Meteoris, he can certainly afford it.
According to Daily Pakistan, Sharif’s family owns assets estimated at a minimum of $1.4 billion — apparently generated by their interests in steelmaking and paper mill businesses as well as land in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the Middle East — making them the fourth-wealthiest clan in the country. Sharif also owns a bewildering array of luxurious properties in Pakistan as well as stakes in companies from Lahore to London.
Sharif, who spent several years in the early 2000s in exile in Saudi Arabia, reportedly enjoys contacts with high-level government and business figures in the kingdom.
Very few people in Pakistan could possibly afford to purchase an indulgence like the Meteoris. Pakistan, one of the poorest nations on earth, has an average annual per capita income of about $1,257. At that rate, the average Pakistani wage-earner would have to work almost 3,700 years to be able to purchase a Meteoris.
However, Meteoris is merely the world’s fifth-most-expensive timekeeper; according to Rediff.com, the absolute priciest watch in the world is the Chopard 201-Carat, which is listed at $25 million.
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5:57 AM (10 hours ago)
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What a joke with this poor countryA dubious person reported to have been spoted wearing Rs. 455 million wrist watch while POOR MAN BUDGET was being presented in the National Assembly of Pakistan was no one else but suspicious looking Janab i Nawaz Sharif Sahib, the newly selected Prime Minister of poor Pakistan by R.Os of our Judiciary.
The selected Prime Minister just to please IMF, in his madding speech in the National Assemly after laspe of 14 years started his tenure of government by warning the poor & helpless people of Pakistan, that they will have to tighten their belts in days come to save the country from defaulting. No doubt idea presented was not bad. Nation should collectively come forward to share the burden inaccordance with their capacity to bear the burden for a good cause.
Unfortunately, at the same time when the most expansive watch in Pakistan was being displayed to the stun members of the relatively less richer class in National assembly, a mind boggling, ruthless budget was being presented by his cronies in the name of the poor bringing devastation in their lives,literally erroding their already hand to mouth state of life. The most corrupt elite class further crushed poor & white colored middle class of the country by levying with loads of unnecessary taxes, specially on those who were already bearing the burnt of existing taxes much beyond their capacity to pay, badly effecting their day to day lives, leavig filthy rich to go Scott free to enjoy their lives in one of the poorest countries of the world.
Everything essentially required for living of a human being has increased almost10 times higher then the prices of commodoties availible in the days of President General Musharraf.
What a hard luck for those who work whole day like an animals but at the end of day could not even earn enough tofeed their childern properly, while this shameless Prime Minister opts to show his expansive watch to the helpless nation.
The idea meet the requirements of the country. His party has already burdened the nation with unnecessary taxes beyond the reach & capacity of the of the people, while
Now the question arises as to how and from where this gentleman managed to buy such an expansive watch, had this much amount as being said ever been reflected or accounted in any of their tax statements released earlier at their end mentioning purchase of a watch for such a huge sum.
The answer would probably would be Big NO. Accordingly, in the interest of the people of Pakistan, it is requested that at least one SUO-MOTO be taken by the chief Justice who is keeping his NUM on the subject, enabling the people to see the true face of these jugglers.
But one must say, Hats off to such shameless jokers, who don’t care to pay taxes themselves but take such nasty steps to squeeze even blood of its people, where around 39% of its population live below povert line.
Posted by Dr. Salman in China- Global Security on July 4th, 2013
The state of Sino-U.S. ties will be decided by the U.S., because China has always maintained a constructive attitude and is committed to preserving a positive, cooperative and comprehensive relationship in the 21st century, Major General Luo Yuan told China.org.cn on during the CPPCC session.
Major General Luo Yuan, deputy secretary general of the China Society of Military Science and a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) [Zhang Ming’ai/China.org.cn] |
China will not change its policy towards the U.S. as its national power grows, said Luo, who is deputy secretary general of the China Society of Military Science and a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. China’s traditional culture and national character emphasize modesty and prudence, and China will neither seek hegemony, nor pose a threat to the United States, he added.
“We are very clear about our realities,” said Luo. “I have visited former revolutionary base areas in remote and border areas and found that people there are still living in poverty.” He said that as a visiting scholar abroad he saw quite clearly that China still lags far behind western countries. Those who see China as a threat to the United States and believe that China is competing for world leadership with the U.S. should go to western China and have a close look at how people live there, Luo said.
Well-informed Americans understand that China is not capable of posing a threat to the United States, Luo said. “Those who say China is a threat to the U.S. are just playing the ‘China card’ to achieve other goals, such as increased military spending, shifting the public’s attention from domestic issues and avoiding blame at home, or forming alliances with other counties.”
According to the Major General, there is no country in the world capable of constituting a military threat to the United States. “China has never sent surveillance aircraft and ships to the U.S. East Coast or West Coast, but the U.S. regularly carries out surveillance activities in the South China Sea and East China Sea.” Those who know China understand that China neither wants to nor has the power to pose a threat to the U.S., Luo added. “The China threat theory is utterly absurd.”
But Americans who know little about China see China as a monster because China is a socialist country led by a communist party, said Luo. They believe there is a structural conflict between China and U.S. Moreover, they don’t believe China can develop peacefully without seeking hegemony, because there is no precedent. Previously all big powers achieved their goals through waging wars or pillaging.
When asked how to enhance mutual trust between China and the U.S., Luo said China should address American doubts and explain its military strategy to the world, as well as demonstrating by its actions that it is pursuing peaceful development.
Is the U.S. encircling China?
During her visit to the Asia Pacific last October, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claimed that the U.S. was not seeking to contain China.
But the U.S. has strengthened its military cooperation with Taiwan; it has also enhanced ties with its five military allies in the Asia-Pacific region, and its alliances with Japan, S. Korea and Philippines cover both the South China Sea and the East China Sea. It has gained access to military bases in many South Asian countries and has built a strategic partnership with India; it has also built a dozen military bases in Central Asia under the pretext of fighting terrorism. The U.S. has also tried to woo Mongolia, Luo said.
Is the U.S. encircling China? Please take a look around China, Luo said. “The U.S. constantly urges China to increase transparency in its military strategy. We would also like them to explain to us their military intentions.”
Americans believe that their values are best and they are determined to spread them across the world and maintain their dominant position in the world. Because China’s social system, ideology and cultural traditions differ from theirs, they are unwilling to allow China to fully integrate into the international community, but they cannot ignore 5000 years of Chinese civilization, Luo said.
Three barriers to Sino-U.S. military ties
Major General Luo said that China has made great efforts to develop sound and stable military ties with the United States: China publishes a defense white paper every two years and has participated in the UN Military Budget Transparency Mechanism and the Conventional Weapons Registration System. China has also invited many U.S. high ranking military officials to visit China, including Robert Gates, who visited the Second Artillery Force of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) during his recent China tour.
But three issues still hamper Sino-U.S. military relations: arms sales to Taiwan; frequent reconnaissance missions by U.S. ships and aircraft in China’s waters and airspace; and U.S. legislative limits on military exchanges with China, Major General Luo said. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2010 and the Delay Amendment set restrictions on military exchanges with China in 12 areas.
Sino-U.S. relations in 2011
Luo said Sino-U.S. relationship should improve and develop smoothly this year as the U.S. has just held mid-term elections and the general elections are some time off. But accidental factors could not be avoided, such as the Taiwan issue and the Korean Peninsula issue, Major General Luo said. “If the U.S. sells F-16 CD fighter aircraft to Taiwan, it will definitely harm Sino-U.S. relations.”
Reference