Underground Stories 03-25-14

Afghan president Hamid Karzai backs Russia's annexation of Crimea

The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, has backed Russia's annexation of Crimea, saying a much-criticised referendum on its future reflected its people's "free will" to decide their future.
That stance, announced at a meeting with a US congressional delegation, puts Afghanistan in company with Venezuela, Syria and a few other nations.
It was an unexpected move from a man who has little stake in Ukraine's future, spent years fighting to evict Soviet forces from his own country, and now leads a democracy funded largely by the western nations that have slapped sanctions on Moscow.
However, Karzai has always been keen to counter accusations that he is a foreign puppet, and more recently has been at odds with the United States over everything from air strikes and the forthcoming presidential election to the recent release of dozens of prisoners captured by foreign troops.
He may also be looking to strengthen regional ties, at a time when western interest in Afghanistan is fading and with it the funds the government needs to pay the army and keep the country running.
"The two sides discussed issues of regional importance, in particular the annexation of Crimea and Sevastopol to the Russian Federation," an account of the meeting issued by Karzai's office said.
"The president said that Afghanistan respects the free will of the people of Crimea to decide about their own future," the statement added, without giving further details.
Karzai travelled to Sochi for the recent Winter Olympics when many European heads of state boycotted the ceremony, and Russia is starting to put money back into Afghanistan as foreign troops leave, retooling a factory that builds prefabricated housing and opening a cultural centre among other projects.

US confirms troops hunting Joseph Kony will be used across central Africa

A US military detachment being sent to Uganda will also be used in parts of Central African Republic, DR Congo and South Sudan, the White House confirmed on Monday, after announcing its second deployment of special operations forces in Africa within a week.
At least four CV-22 Ospreys, a tilt-rotor aircraft capable of vertical takeoff and landing, are being sent with 150 special operations airmen to assist in the hunt for members of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).
The escalating pursuit of Joseph Kony, the fugitive leader of the LRA accused of scores of massacres, comes just days after the White House also deployed US navy Seals in north Africa to capture an oil tanker taken by Libyan rebels.
White House officials stressed that the Ugandan assistance was an evolution in its existing support for the fight against the LRA, and not a sign of greater military involvement in the region.
“The deployment of these aircraft and personnel does not signify a change in the nature of the US military advisory role in this effort,” said spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden. “African Union-led regional forces remain in the lead, with US forces supporting and advising their efforts.”
The US says its African partners have “consistently identified airlift as one of their greatest limiting factors as they search for and pursue the remaining LRA leaders across a wide swath of one of the world’s poorest, least governed, and most remote regions.”
But the White House was also forced to defend its decision to provide logistical support to a Ugandan government that has itself been heavily criticised in Washington and around the world for its treatment of gay people.
"Ensuring justice and accountability for human rights violators like the LRA and protecting LGBT rights aren’t mutually exclusive. We can and must do both,” Hayden said.

Yemeni militants attack elite paratroopers, killing 20 

SANA, Yemen -- Militants believed linked to Al Qaeda staged a deadly dawn strike Monday on a remote checkpoint in southern Yemen, killing 20 elite paramilitary troops and wounding eight others in the latest blow to government forces at the hands of Islamist extremists.

The Interior Ministry confirmed the fatalities in the checkpoint raid outside the city of Al-Raidah in restive Hadhramaut province and said several senior security officials had been suspended in response. Witnesses and officials said that most of the slain special forces troops were asleep when the surprise attack took place and that the assailants escaped.
Although there was no immediate claim of responsibility, the Interior Ministry blamed a group known as Ansar al Sharia, loosely affiliated with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as the Yemen franchise is known. Officials and analysts said the strike bore the hallmarks of Al Qaeda, whose offshoots in Yemen are considered among the organization’s most dangerous.
Impoverished Yemen, strategically located close to key oil-shipping routes, has fallen into increasing turmoil in the wake of the 2011 uprising that drove out its strongman president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. A concerted campaign of U.S. drone strikes aimed at militant figures has stirred popular anger, with outrage fueled by ever-mounting reports of civilian casualties alongside intended targets.
Monday’s raid was a carefully planned and complex operation, involving attackers who arrived in four vehicles and were armed with both light and heavy weapons. The attackers initially killed two soldiers standing guard about 5:30 a.m., then swiftly broke into the checkpoint’s barracks, catching the troops inside unawares. Five of the wounded were in critical condition, officials said.
As in many such strikes on military installations, the attackers’ methods suggested familiarity with routines of the soldiers deployed there, perhaps from inside knowledge that had been passed on to the militants. Reinforcements and helicopters rushed to the scene, but the attackers had already gotten away, and choppers were used to ferry away the dead.

EU approves liquid explosives detector

A new product for detecting liquid explosives in hand-carry luggage has won certification for use from European Union authorities.

The European Civil Aviation Conference has approved an advanced baggage X-ray scanner by Smiths Detection for liquid explosives detection in Europe.

The HI-SCAN 6040-2is, which met Standard 2 Type C requirements for liquid explosive detection systems, is a dual-view X-ray inspection system for automatic detection for use at security checkpoints. The standard resolution is suited for use in public buildings and hotels, the company said, while the high resolution version is approved for the detection of liquids in hand luggage at airports in European Union countries.
“The HI-SCAN 6040-2is expands our broad product range for the detection of hazardous liquids in hand luggage,” said Hans Zirwes, Smiths Detection’s vice president of International Sales. “It has been well received and considerably strengthens our ability to provide tailored solutions for different customer requirements in the aviation market.”
According to Smiths Detection, the system can scan items as big as 24.2 inches wide and 16.1 inches high.

Egypt Gets Muscular Over Nile Dam

CAIRO, Mar 21 2014 (IPS) - When Egypt’s then-president Mohamed Morsi said in June 2013 that “all options” including military intervention, were on the table if Ethiopia continued to develop dams on the Nile River, many dismissed it as posturing. But experts claim Cairo is deadly serious about defending its historic water allotment, and if Ethiopia proceeds with construction of what is set to become Africa’s largest hydroelectric dam, a military strike is not out of the question.
Relations between Egypt and Ethiopia have soured since Ethiopia began construction on the 4.2 billion dollar Grand Renaissance Dam in 2011.
Egypt fears the new dam, slated to begin operation in 2017, will reduce the downstream flow of the Nile, which 85 million Egyptians rely on for almost all of their water needs. Officials in the Ministry of Irrigation claim Egypt will lose 20 to 30 percent of its share of Nile water and nearly a third of the electricity generated by its Aswan High Dam.
Ethiopia insists the Grand Renaissance Dam and its 74 billion cubic metre reservoir at the headwaters of the Blue Nile will have no adverse effect on Egypt’s water share. It hopes the 6,000 megawatt hydroelectric project will lead to energy self-sufficiency and catapult the country out of grinding poverty.
“Egypt sees its Nile water share as a matter of national security,” strategic analyst Ahmed Abdel Halim tells IPS. “To Ethiopia, the new dam is a source of national pride, and essential to its economic future.”
The dispute has heated up since Ethiopia began diverting a stretch of the Nile last May, with some Egyptian parliamentarians calling for sending commandos or arming local insurgents to sabotage the dam project unless Ethiopia halts construction.
Ethiopia’s state-run television responded last month with a report on a visit to the site by army commanders, who voiced their readiness to “pay the price” to defend the partially-built hydro project.
Citing a pair of colonial-era treaties, Egypt argues that it is entitled to no less than two-thirds of the Nile’s water and has veto power over any upstream water projects such as dams or irrigation networks.
Accords drawn up by the British in 1929 and amended in 1959 divvied up the Nile’s waters between Egypt and Sudan without ever consulting the upstream states that were the source of those waters.

U.S. shifts Syria strategy to 'southern front' 

IRBID, Jordan — The Free Syrian Army commander, head of a moderate rebel force fighting just across the border in southern Syria, watched helplessly for months as better-funded Islamist militant groups peeled off half the 2,000 fighters from his brigade.

That changed in February when an intelligence operative from a country he refuses to name handed him an envelope full of cash — salaries for his remaining combatants.
"It's a good amount of money; I can keep my fighters," the commander said, as scented smoke from his arghileh [water pipe] obscured a scar across his face, the product of a battle in Syria, just 16 miles north of this drab Jordanian town.
In recent months, Syria's so-called "southern front" has become the focus of a reinvigorated U.S.-backed initiative to bolster faltering opposition forces now losing ground in their three-year battle to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad.
With peace talks stalled and a pronounced slide toward Islamist militancy in the rebel ranks elsewhere across Syria, Washington and allied foreign governments are increasingly concentrating on helping insurgents based in southern Syria. Northern Jordan has become the staging ground.
It is here that U.S. officials and their Persian Gulf allies, notably Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are recalibrating their approach in what many view as a last chance to turn around the civil war that has begun to tilt heavily in favor of Assad. But such a strategy could prove too little too late, the type of intra-rebel clashes that have come to define the opposition in northern and eastern Syria has already begun to wreak havoc in the south.
The foreign powers are hoping to re-energize what remains of the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army as a "moderate" alternative to extremists with such groups as Al Qaeda-affiliated Al Nusra Front — deemed a terrorist organization by Washington — that seek to impose militant Islamic rule.
The cash-stuffed envelopes meant to secure the loyalty of rebel fighters are an essential component of the embryonic southern campaign, according to interviews in Jordan with opposition commanders. All insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about operational matters.
"Every rebel and activist is looking to the much-vaunted southern front for good news and restored hope," said Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma.

Japan To Turn Over Nuclear Stockpile To U.S. For Safe Keeping

Japan has agreed to hand over to the U.S. a decades-old stockpile of weapons-grade plutonium and highly enriched uranium that is said to be large enough to build dozens of nuclear weapons.
The 700-pound cache, which had been maintained by Japan for research purposes, would be turned over to the U.S. for safe keeping, according to an agreement announced Monday at the G7 nuclear security summit in The Hague, Netherlands. It's part of an Obama administration push to prevent the nuclear material from being stolen by potential terrorists.
"This is a very significant nuclear security pledge and activity," U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz told reporters. "The material will be transferred to the United States for transformation into proliferation-resistant forms."
Yosuke Isozaki, a senior national security adviser to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, said through an interpreter that "Japan shares a vision of a world without nuclear weapons."

Russia warns of investor flight

Russia expects investors to move up to $70bn (£42bn) of assets out of the country in the first three months of this year.

The sign that investors are becoming nervous about Russia comes amid sanctions and tensions over Ukraine.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Andrei Klepach, Russia's deputy economy minister, also warned of stagnant growth and rising inflation.
He expects growth in the first quarter to be "around zero".
The Russian economy grew by just 1.3% last year, but Mr Klepach said it was "too soon" to talk about "a recovery from stagnation".
"There won't be a recession, but there is a problem of stagnation: it's length and depth," Mr Klepach said.
"Unfortunately the investment slump is continuing. I'm not ready to say how long it will continue."
The Russian economy ministry forecasts suggest $65-70bn of assets would be taken out of Russia this quarter, but Mr Klepach said the figure was likely to be closer to $70bn.
That would mark a significant rise on 2013, when capital outflows for the entire year totalled $63bn.
Mr Klepach said sanctions imposed by the US and EU in the wake of the Ukraine crisis had yet to have a significant impact, but said "worsening of relations is a significantly negative factor for economic growth and correspondingly influences the capital outflow."

Thai Anti-Government Demonstrators Resume Protests

BANGKOK, March 24 (Reuters) - Anti-government demonstrators in Thailand resumed street protests on Monday after lying low for weeks, piling pressure on increasingly beleaguered Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who is expected to face impeachment within days.

Her opponents were emboldened by a Constitutional Court decision on Friday to nullify last month's election, delaying the formation of a new administration and leaving Yingluck in charge of a caretaker government with limited powers.

Yingluck's opponents first took to the streets in late November. Twenty-three people were killed and hundreds wounded in the political violence before the protests began to subside earlier this month. But the court ruling appears to have given her foes a second wind.

The protests are the latest installment of an eight-year political battle broadly pitting the Bangkok middle class and royalist establishment against the mostly rural supporters of Yingluck and her billionaire brother, former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a 2006 coup.

There are growing fears that Thailand could be heading towards serious civil unrest. After months of restraint, Thaksin's "red shirt" supporters have begun making militant noises under hardline new leaders.

They plan a big rally on April 5, possibly in Bangkok, and the political atmosphere is expected to become even more highly charged in coming days.

Yingluck has until March 31 to defend herself before the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) for dereliction of duty over a ruinous rice-buying scheme that has run up huge losses.

If the commission recommends her impeachment, she could be removed from office by the upper house Senate, which is likely to have an anti-Thaksin majority after an election for half its members on March 30.

Israel closes embassies around the world as diplomats strike

(Reuters) - Israeli diplomats launched an unprecedented strike on Sunday, forcing the complete closure of embassies around the world as they escalated a dispute over pay, officials said.
The industrial action has already threatened to postpone a visit by Pope Francis to Israel planned for May - one of 25 trips by foreign officials affected by a work slowdown the diplomats began on March 5 when wage talks broke down.
By escalating the action to a full strike - the first by the diplomatic corps since the country's establishment in 1948 - the diplomats will close all of Israel's 102 missions abroad, paralyzing most diplomatic work with other countries and the United Nations.
"We are completely shutting down the (foreign ministry) office and missions abroad. This is the first time ever," ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said.
Another ministry official told Reuters: "As of now, the foreign ministry doesn't exist. It's not possible even to submit complaints".
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman Called the strike "irresponsible" and "a wretched decision and a display of a loss of control on union's part."
"We shall do whatever possible to minimize the damage to the country and its citizens," Lieberman said.
Diplomats said the strike - involving some 1,200 foreign service employees - was open-ended and had been called after the Treasury had failed to present any acceptable proposals.
They are demanding an increase in monthly salaries, which they put at 6,000-9,000 shekels ($1,700-$2,600), and want compensation for spouses forced to quit jobs due to foreign postings. They say about a third of their number has quit in the past 15 years due to poor wages.
Yacov Livne, spokesman for the diplomats' union, said: "the Treasury is determined to destroy the foreign ministry and Israeli diplomacy."
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Obama to reportedly call for end to NSA's bulk phone data collection

WASHINGTON –  The National Security Agency may be getting out of the business of sweeping up and storing vast amounts of data on people's phone calls.
The Obama administration this week is expected to propose that Congress overhaul the electronic surveillance program by having phone companies hold onto the call records as they do now, according to a government official briefed on the proposal. The New York Times first reported the details of the proposal Monday night.  The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss the plan.
The White House proposal would end the government's practice of sweeping up the phone records of millions of Americans and holding onto those records for five years so the numbers can be searched for national security reasons. Instead, the White House is expected to propose that the records be kept for 18 months, as the phone companies are already required to do by federal regulation.
Details of the government's secret phone records collection program were disclosed last year by a former NSA systems analyst. Privacy advocates were outraged to learn that the government was holding onto phone records of innocent Americans for up to five years.
In January, President Obama tasked his administration with coming up with an alternative to the current counterterrorism program. Obama also said that the option of having the phone companies hold the records posed problems.
"This will not be simple," Obama said. An independent review panel suggested that the practice of the government collecting the phone records be replaced by a third party or the phone companies holding the records, and the government would access them as needed.

Ukraine loan package, Russian sanctions clear key Senate hurdle

WASHINGTON -- Legislation to approve $1 billion in loan guarantees for Ukraine and impose sanctions against Russia cleared a key Senate hurdle Monday, but Congress remained locked in a partisan fight over the details of the package.

By a vote of 78-17, the measure advanced after overcoming the threat of a GOP filibuster and objections from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and other tea party-aligned conservatives.
But the Senate package still faces opposition in the House, where Republicans -- with backing from key Democrats -- are crafting their own version.
The full Senate is expected to pass its bill later in the week.
Lawmakers, who returned Monday from a weeklong recess, have been struggling to set aside partisan squabbles to show a unified front following Russian President Vladimir Putin's annexation of the Crimean peninsula.
Both Republicans and Democrats largely agree with President Obama's broad goals of providing Ukraine up to $1 billion in loan guarantees and penalizing the Russians through sanctions on individuals close to Putin. A stand-alone loan package has already been approved by the House.
Key to the objections from Cruz, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and others is a provision in the Senate version sought by the White House to expand the loan-making authority of the International Monetary Fund. Critics say the extra loans are unnecessary, and the conservative group Heritage Action urged a no vote.
The IMF approved the changes several years ago as part of a plan to bolster participation in the fund from countries with emerging economies. Ukraine's ability to borrow from the fund would almost double to $14.5 billion, officials said. The U.S. is the last IMF member country to approve the changes, and White House officials said Monday that the additional loan authority would be key to Kiev's ability to stabilize its economy.

Possible 2016 race hangs in the air as Jeb Bush and Hillary Rodham Clinton share billing

IRVING, Tex. — They didn’t stand on stage together and they certainly didn’t debate each other. They met briefly backstage and, yes, exchanged compliments, but that was about it.

Yet Jeb Bush and Hillary Rodham Clinton’s joint appearance at an education conference here Monday underscored their shared status in the early 2016 presidential sweepstakes — two dynastic candidates who are the preferred picks of elites in their respective political parties.

Neither Bush nor Clinton has declared a run for president, and neither is expected to announce a decision until the end of this year at the earliest. But if the Republican and Democratic establishments have their way, the 2016 general election could pit Bush — the brother and son of former presidents — against Clinton, the wife of a former president.
“Jeb and Hillary — that easily could be what the race comes down to,” said Fred Davis, a senior adviser on past GOP presidential campaigns. “You have two dynasties, and that actually helps Jeb’s chances. Everybody always says there’s no way people would elect another Bush. Well, same with Clinton.”
Bush and Clinton are substantive leaders with long records of public service — he as a two-term governor of Florida, she as a senator from New York and a secretary of state. They both have centrist views on many policy issues, and have shown the potential to appeal broadly to the nation’s diversifying electorate.

Sinking of the Surgeon General

It’s about guns, it’s about the midterms, and maybe it’s about the first primary states in 2016, too.

Democrats thought they would win confirmation for more of President Obama’s nominees by waiving the 60-vote filibuster hurdle for executive branch appointments, but they didn’t factor in nervous red-state senators afraid of taking tough votes that could sink their reelection in November.
The latest apparent casualty is Vivek Murthy, a 30-something British-born American doctor, whose parents are from India, and whose Ivy League credentials and activism on public-health issues includes co-founding Doctors for America, which launched in 2008 as Doctors for Obama.
Murthy is Obama’s nominee to become surgeon general, the nation’s top doctor and a mostly ceremonial post that occupants use to highlight and elevate health issues of national concern. Testifying before Congress, Murthy said he would focus on obesity, but Republican Sen. Rand Paul believes Murthy would use the post to “propagandize” on behalf of the Affordable Care Act and against the Second Amendment.

WaPo: Fear the End of the Real-Estate Bubble!

Washington Post real estate correspondent Dina ElBoghdady warns of the coming real-estate collapse in an article that starts with this sentence:
“The super-low mortgage rates that tens of millions of Americans locked in during the refinancing boom are now discouraging many of these borrowers from buying another home and giving up those loans.”
Is the subject of that sentence “mortgage rates” modified by “super low”? If so, how can super-low mortgage rates be discouraging borrowers from going deeper into debt?
ElBoghdady, whom last we met gathering wool on the high rate of re-defaults in the Home Affordable Mortgage Program, plucks a string here she has strummed in the past: The solution to the puzzle is a “lock-in” effect claimed by the Institute for Housing Studies at DePaul University. Here is the research brief [pdf] and here is the working paper [pdf] on the lock-in concept. The idea is that if you’ve locked in a superlow rate, you will now turn up your blue nose at anything higher. ElBoghdady finds a couple who are undecided about whether to do another heap of living in the same old house:

Ella Lore said she and her husband are fence-sitting. Now that their daughter is studying abroad, they would like to sell their D.C. home, buy a two-bedroom condominium and rid themselves of the hassles and costs of maintaining a large home.
But when they did the math, they discovered that they would be paying about the same amount each month for considerably less space partly because of rising mortgage rates, Lore said. The couple refinanced into a loan with a 2.8 percent rate in 2012. Now, with a new loan, they’d get a 4.25 percent rate.

Now yard-sale economics holds that the Lores should hold onto their home rather than buying a condo, because after they have sold off everything else they will still have a yard to sell. I often wonder what real-estate agents would do if they interpreted their fiduciary duty to include truly advising listing owners to do things in their own financial interest. In many cases they would advise people not to get divorced, to rent rather than buy, not to downgrade from a house to a condo, or not to pony up more than enough money for their kid to have one semester abroad.
The Post piece is notable mainly for its inflationary rhetoric (and Page One treatment). The fear is that rates could this year reach “just shy of 5 percent by year’s end on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage and hit nearly 6 percent by the end of 2015.”
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