Underground Stories : 073014

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Middle Eastern firm’s deal to manage U.S. cargo port raises security concerns

For the first time in U.S. history, a Middle Eastern-based firm is poised to manage a strategic U.S. port on Florida’s Atlantic coast, rekindling national security concerns inside Congress.
Rep. Duncan Hunter, the California Republican who oversees port security as chairman of the House Transportation’s maritime transportation subcommittee, demanded Tuesday that the Obama administration conduct a full national security review of the decision last month by Gulftainer to sign a 35-year contract with Florida’s Port Canaveral.

The firm is a privately owned cargo terminal operator based in the United Arab Emirates, a confederation of governments friendly to the U.S. but which has also been identified as a source of terrorist funding over the years. The 9/11 commission, in fact, reported that much of the money for the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington flowed through UAE’s open financial sector.
The Middle Eastern company will be operating a U.S. terminal in one of the busiest cruise ports in the world, and not far from the Trident Turning Basin, which the Navy uses to support its fleet of nuclear ballistic missile submarines.
Mr. Hunter wrote Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, urging that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), an interagency committee that reviews the national security implications on foreign investments, thoroughly review the Port Canaveral deal.
“It is critical that — before this agreement proceeds — CFIUS determines whether a terminal operation agreement with Gulftainer presents any risk or impact to U.S. national security,” Mr. Hunter wrote.
Less than a decade ago, Congress forced Dubai Ports World, also based in UAE, to abandon plans to enter the U.S. port market after lawmakers cited security concerns and argued that foreign governments should not own strategic assets such as U.S. ports.
Following a 62-2 vote against DP World by the House Committee on Appropriations, the company abandoned its bid and sold off its American port operations.

Kerry tries to woo India: Nobody expects him to quickly succeed

 U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visits India this week as Washington tries to revitalize ties it sees as a counterbalance to China’s rising power, but rapid progress is unlikely, despite the reformist reputation of India’s new leader.
The visit by Kerry, and a trip by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel next month, follow the resounding election win of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May and are meant to create a good climate for Modi’s planned visit to Washington in September.
Analysts say it is only once Modi meets President Barack Obama that the United States may have a more realistic hope for progress on big defense projects, on removing obstacles to U.S. firms’ participation in India’s nuclear power industry, and for firmer statements of shared interests in Asia.
“India will play a much greater role in Asia under the Modi administration, but it will do so for its own reasons and under its own terms,” said Ashley Tellis of Washington’s Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank.
Four years ago, Obama declared the U.S.-India relationship would be “one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century” and last week the State Department called it one of “enormous strategic importance.”
But while the two countries are in many ways natural allies, as big democracies with shared concerns about Islamist militancy and the rise of China, the relationship falls far short of Obama’s rhetorical billing.
Disputes over protectionism and intellectual property rights have soured the business climate and India has remained cautious about committing to U.S. strategic designs, given concerns that U.S. power, eroded by domestic budget battles, may be waning.
The relationship took a dive last year after an Indian diplomat was arrested in New York on charges of mistreating her domestic help, an episode that provoked outrage and resentment in New Delhi.
Modi, whose Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party swept to an overwhelming victory after years of shaky Indian coalitions, has yet to make clear how closely he plans to work with Washington.

John Kerry gets Arabs and Jews to agree — on despising John Kerry

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry must feel he is being “swiftboated” again, as politicians and critics in the Middle East  rail against his non-stop missteps in trying to resolve the crisis in Gaza.

Even the Palestinian Authority slammed Kerry on Sunday evening for “crossing all red lines” in his latest ceasefire proposal, according to Channel 2, the Times of Israel reported.
The [emergency Foreign Ministers] Paris meeting between the US, Turkey, and Qatar representatives was tantamount to an international gathering of “the friends of Hamas,” it said, declaring “The PA is the only representative of the Palestinian people,”
Not only were representatives of Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the PA not invited to participate, but Kerry’s chumminess with Qatari and Turkish emissaries roiled their leaders to no end. Qatar has been the principal financier of Hamas’s infrastructure build-up to make war with Israel, and Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday described Israel’s actions in Gaza as “ten times worse than what Hitler did to the Jews,” and called Egypt’s leader “a tyrant.”
Journalist Barak Ravid of Israel’s Ha’Aretz newspaper, a persistent critic of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, blasted Kerry in his Sunday column for his poor judgment and major misunderstandings in assessing the Middle East mosaic.

The Russians are ‘openly laughing’ at Obama

Sen. Ted Cruz believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian leaders no longer respect President Obama because of his failure to lead.
“The only thing Putin respects is strength … At this point the Russians are openly laughing at the president,” Cruz, R-Texas, told the Washington Examiner.
Cruz added that Putin’s aggressiveness was “a direct consequence” of the absence of American leadership in the world.

“The weakness and incoherent foreign policy of the Obama administration — from President Obama, under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and under Secretary [John] Kerry — has undermined our allies and has strengthened our enemies and put Putin in particular in a far stronger position,” Cruz declared.
Cruz acknowledged that he was glad Obama was “reluctantly” and “slowly” moving toward acting on Ukraine, but added that he should be doing more.
He suggested that Obama sign a free trade agreement with Ukraine, develop natural gas infrastructure to export resources to Ukraine, and restore a missile defense program in Eastern Europe.
“I think Putin’s aggressiveness and act of war against Ukraine is a direct consequence of the absence of U.S. leadership,” Cruz said. “For five years, America has receded from leadership in the world, and into that vacuum has stepped in nations like Russia, Iran, and China — and has made the world a much more dangerous place.”

Ukraine Official: Rebels Lay Mines Near Crash Site

DONETSK, Ukraine (AP) — Almost two weeks after Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 went down, clashes on Wednesday between Ukrainian forces and separatist rebels again prevented international experts from reaching the crash site to recover remains still baking in midsummer heat in farm fields — deepening frustration for victims' relatives and the governments whose citizens died.
In their latest attempt to get to the wreckage zone, observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe left in two vehicles from the rebel-held city of Donetsk but only got as far as the city's outskirts — without investigators from the Netherlands who have been trying to reach the site for four days.
The observers talked with rebels and headed back to Donetsk instead of making what would have been a two-hour journey after being "warned of gunfire on the route and in the surrounding areas," the Dutch team said in a statement.
They will keep trying to reach the site in coming days, but the statement cautioned that "it remains questionable whether the situation will become safer."
That means that almost two weeks after the July 17 disaster, safety concerns and hindrance from the separatists who control the area are still obstructing access to the site and making a desperate wait for victims' relatives even worse.
"We are still waiting and it is a miserable process," said Jasmine Calehr, the grandmother of two Dutch brothers who died in the crash.

Cambodia court begins genocide trial of Khmer Rouge leaders

Cambodia's UN-backed Khmer Rouge court has begun a second trial of two former regime leaders on charges including genocide of Vietnamese people and ethnic Muslims, forced marriages and rape.
The complex case of the regime's two most senior surviving leaders has been split into a series of smaller trials, initially focusing on the forced evacuation of people into rural labour camps and related crimes against humanity.
The first trial against the most senior surviving Khmer Rouge leader, Nuon Chea, 88, known as Brother Number Two, and former head of state Khieu Samphan, 83, was completed late last year, with the verdict – and possible sentences – due to be delivered on 7 August.
At the opening hearing of the second trial on Wednesday, judge Nil Nonn read out the charges against both suspects as more than 300 people watched the proceedings from the court's public gallery.
Nuon Chea did not attend the hearing for health reasons, while Khieu Samphan sat in court alongside his defence team.
During the inaugural session of the second trial, which focuses on genocide and other crimes against humanity, judges will discuss issues such as reparations for victims.
"The second trial is equally important as the first, and more victims and witnesses will have the opportunity to testify about their experiences and suffering during the Khmer Rouge regime, on a broader range of criminal allegations," court spokesman Lars Olsen told AFP.
The mass killings of an estimated 100,000 to 500,000 ethnic Cham Muslims and 20,000 Vietnamese form the basis of the genocide charges against Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan.

U.S. to seize $100-million of Iraqi Kurdish oil in tanker off Texas

U.S. authorities were set on Tuesday to seize a cargo of crude worth more than $100-million from Iraqi Kurdistan anchored off the Texas coast after a judge approved a request from Baghdad, raising the stakes in an oil sales dispute between Iraq’s central government and the autonomous region.
The tanker United Kalavrvta, carrying some one million barrels of Iraqi Kurdish crude oil, arrived near Galveston Bay on Saturday, but has yet to unload its disputed cargo.
The U.S. judge’s overnight approval of the request from Baghdad on Monday deals another blow to the Kurdistan Regional Government’s attempts to establish its own oil sales, which are seen as a crucial step in the autonomous region’s push for independence.
Baghdad, which is struggling to contain a Sunni Islamist insurgency that has captured swathes of central and northern Iraq, sees such oil sales as smuggling.
It has cut the KRG’s budget since the start of the year over the oil-sales dispute. Washington has opposed the KRG’s oil sales, fearing they could contribute to a break-up of Iraq, but has stopped short of banning U.S. companies from buying the oil.
The judge’s order was issued to the U.S. Marshals Service, an enforcement agency within the U.S. Department of Justice.
“Although the U.S. government did not act to stop the tanker, Baghdad has been able to make use of the U.S. courts,” said Richard Mallinson at U.K.-based consultancy Energy Aspects.
“The question is now whether the KRG has anything left up its sleeve to either overcome this legal obstacle or to find buyers elsewhere in the world. The prospects for the Kurds putting oil exports on a sustainable footing without Baghdad’s approval are looking increasingly dim.”
A spokesman for the KRG’s Ministry of Natural Resources did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Court filings named a British Virgin Isles-registered company called Talmay Trading, which has previously traded Russian crude, as a party to the deal. But it does not own refineries and is not believed to be the end user in the United States.
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As Sanctions Pile Up, Russians’ Alarm Grows Over Putin’s Tactics MOSCOW — Russia, facing the toughest round of Western sanctions imposed since the Ukraine crisis erupted, has adopted a nonchalant public stance, with President Vladimir V. Putin emphasizing the importance of self-reliance and a new poll released Tuesday indicating a “What, me worry?” attitude among the bulk of the population. But beneath that calm facade, there is growing alarm in Russia that the festering turmoil in Ukraine and the new round of far more punitive sanctions — announced Tuesday by both European nations and the United States — will have an impact on Russia’s relations with the West for years to come and damage the economy to the extent that ordinary Russians feel it. Until now, Mr. Putin’s tactics seemed to be working. Russia was feeding the separatist insurgency in Ukraine without leaving distinct fingerprints — able to press Kiev to come to terms while avoiding a rupture with Europe that would alienate Russia’s business elite. But that strategy is beginning to crumble, battered under successive shock waves generated by the crisis.

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The Movement to Fire Harry Reid is Exploding: “He Needs to Go”

Many Democrats running for election in 2014–even incumbents running for re-election–are understandably nervous. They know that the American people are fed up with Washington’s gridlock and partisan attacks and it’s been so long since they’ve seen any statesmanship from the Senate that they probably wouldn’t recognize it if they did.
The left and its allies in the mainstream media are fond of blaming House Republicans for these issues–and, in honesty, both sides of the aisle deserve some blame–but the truth is that much of the responsibility for the lack of congressional action in recent years belongs squarely with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Because of this, several GOP lawmakers and a number of citizen protestors gathered in Washington this week to “support Republicans and fire Harry Reid,” according to reports from Fox News.

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