Les dessous de l’information mondiale-Downside World News

Possible Smoking Gun -Tinkering With The Sun

By Ted Twietmeyer
2-21-8

I believe we have finally found the smoking gun that someone is tinkering with our sun and/or perhaps time with Earth. Needless to say, the implications of this cannot be good for the Earth in the long term.

 

This story began yesterday morning, on the 19th day of February 2008. I noticed upon my regular observation of solar activity, that something was wrong with the X-Ray activity. Specifically, this was about the lack of X-rays for a longer X-ray wavelength and a very low level for a shorter X-ray wavelength. (See [1] for more details.) This was beginning to look like a possible time jump had taken place. However, until today no repetitive pattern to the odd X-ray levels had been established.

NEW DATA FOUND

The first thing I did this morning was to look at the same chart again. Incredibly, no new data had been posted in the past 12 hours. Normally this X-ray chart and other charts from the GOES 10 satellite update automatically every 5 minutes with new satellite data, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Note that the time on the chart shown is 5 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time in the USA, since this is Universal Time.

In the past this was commonly called GMT, and is a reference to zero degrees longitude located at Greenwich, England.

Around mid-day today, I noticed that suddenly the missing data had appeared. After capturing it an analysis for patterns was performed. What was found was quite amazing.

When comparing the past three days, it became apparent that numerous X-ray level shifts occurred with peculiar synchronicity over a three day period. According to the National Science Foundation a “solar heartbeat” was discovered several years ago. The heartbeat has a 16 month cycle but clearly this isn’t the function we see.

This X-ray pattern is a complex waveform by any standards. For a chaotic mass like our Sun to perform such a duplicate X-ray variation almost exactly 24 hours apart just doesn’t happen. I have been monitoring solar X-ray, magnetic field, proton, electron, sunspot and other activity daily since it became available in real- time on the web back in the 1990’s on the web. To the best of my knowledge, a complex pattern perfectly timed like we see below has not happened before.

Solar X-ray chart – data collection ending Feb. 20th 2008. White vertical dashed lines show nearly perfect temporal (time) alignment. You can also follow the lines across the chart, and see that X-ray levels match as well. (I left these lines off for readability.)

What is the mathematical probability of all this happening by coincidence over three full days?

In this chart, we see that timed X-ray level shifts have occurred not once, but several times over the past THREE days. Each of these major shifts with only a few exceptions, took place with the same timing intervals.

The tick marks along the bottom of the large graph define 3 hour intervals. Note that the X-ray activity for both types of X-rays dropped to nearly zero, just before midnight on Feb. 19 for three hours, and again at midnight on Feb. 20.

On the third day, we see that the complex waveform was repeated. However, the start of the X-ray variations was delayed by about 3 hours. The third day more closely resembles the first day, Feb. 18, other than one small reversal near the center of the waveform.

When the X-ray variations commenced again on the third day about 3 hours late, we can see that numerous X-ray levels were repeated again, with the very same timing intervals and X-ray levels!

If this X-ray data provided by NASA is real and isn’t a game, then this is the smoking gun many of us have been looking for.

It shows intelligent manipulation of either time or the Sun. And it should be of great concern for all of us, considering we’ve had tornados in WINTER this year.

 

Ted Twietmeyer

tedtw@frontiernet.net

http://rense.com/general80/tink.htm

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(1) -

Possible Time Jump? Solar X-Rays Momentarily Drop To Zero

By Ted Twietmeyer
2-19-8

 

Something interesting is happening with our Sun. X-Rays are a well known product of the fusion process which is what our Sun is.

It appears that on more than one occasion, X-ray emission levels have dropped to incredibly low levels – if not virtually down to zero.

Up until now, I have not discussed very much about this observation in previous solar reports. This has recently appeared sporadically in other X-ray charts, even though I’ve not specifically mentioned it recently.

Another virtual “zero X-ray event” apparently has occurred again, according to two NOAA instruments measuring two different X-Ray wavelengths on one satellite (see red arrow below.)

 

 http://www.rense.com/general80/time.htm

Le ministre iranien du Pétrole signe un accord avec le géant gazier russe « Gazprom »

21 Février 2008

http://www2.irna.ir/

Opening a Pandora’s Box:

Kosovo “Independence”

and the Project for a “New Middle East”

By: Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

on: 20.02.2008

Western public opinion has been misled. Unfolding events and realities on the ground in former Yugoslavia have been carefully manipulated.Germany and the U.S. have deep-seated geo-strategic interests in dividing Yugoslavia. Washington and Berlin have also been the first governments to recognize the secessionist states, which resulted from the breakup of the Yugoslav federation.The Broader Implications of Kosovo “Independence”

The February 2008 declaration of independence of Kosovo is a means towards legitimizing the dissolution and breaking up of sovereign states on a global scale.

Eurasia is the main target. Kosovar “independence” is part of a neo-colonial program with underlying economic and geo-political interests. The objective is to instate a New World order and establish hegemonic control over the global economy.

In this sense Kosovo provdes a blueprint, a “dress-rehearsal” which can now be applied to restructuring the economies and borders of the Middle East, under the Project for a “New Middle East.”

The restructuring model that is being applied in the former Yugoslavia is precisely what is intended for the Middle East — a process of balkanization and economic control.

Kosovo’s Pseudo-Declaration of Independence

On February 17, 2008, the secessionist province of Kosovo declared unilateral independence from the Republic of Serbia. The occasion was declared through an extraordinary gathering of the Kosovar Parliament and its executive bodies. Belgrade has not had any control over Kosovo since 1999, when NATO went to war with Serbia to impose control over Kosovo under humanitarian arguments.

President Fatmir Sejdiu, Prime Minister Hashim Thaci and Parliament Speaker Jakup Krasniqi all marked the occasion with speeches inside and outside of the Kosovar Parliament.

Many in Kosovo’s ethic Albanian majority celebrated what they believed was a shift towards self-determination. The truth of the matter is that the Kosovar declaration of independence was a declaration of dependency and surrender to colonial forces.

Kosovar leaders have transformed their land into a colonial outpost of Franco-German and Anglo-American interests. February 17, 2008 also marked the day that Kosovo further entrenched itself as a NATO-E.U. protectorate. Under the so-called independence” roadmap, NATO and E.U. troops and police officers will formally administer Kosovo.

In reality, Kosovo would have had greater independence as an autonomous province in an agreement of autonomy with Serbia, which had been envisaged in bilateral talks between Belgrade and Pristina. The majority of Kosovars would have been satisfied under such an agreement.

However, the talks were never meant to succeed for two obvious reasons:

1) the leadership of Kosovo are agents of foreign interests that do not represent the Kosovar populaiton;

2) the U.S. and E.U. were determined to establish another protectorate in the former Yugoslavia.

Kosovo: Another phase in the Economic Colonization of the former Yugoslavia

One of the leading global academic figures who has thoroughly documented the foreign-induced disintegration of Yugoslavia and the situation in Kosovo is Michel Chossudovsky. He has documented the economic and geo-strategic motives that have acted as the fingers pulling the strings that have caused the collapse of Yugoslavia and the drive for the independence of Kosovo from Serbia. His work unmasks the truth behind the downfall of Yugoslavia and the tactics being used to divide nations and peoples who have lived together in peace for hundreds of years.

A glance at the restructuring of Bosnia-Herzegovina must be made before further discussing the case of Kosovo.

Bosnia’s constitution was written at a U.S. Air Force base in Dayton, Ohio by U.S. and European “experts.”
Chossoduvsky appropriately labels Bosnia-Herzegovina as a neo-colonial entity. NATO troops have dominated Bosnia-Herzegovina, closely followed by the imposition of a new political and economic framework and model.

Chossudovsky’s work also reveals that the real head of the Bosnian government, the High Representative, and the head of the Bosnian Central Bank are both foreigners that are hand-picked by the European Union, the U.S., and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). 1 This is a clear re-enactment of a colonial administration.

This model has also been replicated with some variations in several of the former republics of the Yugoslav federation. The major obstacle to the full implementation of this agenda is the popular will of the local people in the former Yugoslavia, especially the Serbs.

Serbia, like an island of resistance, is the last bastion of independence left in the former Yugoslavia and the Balkans, but even in Serbia a modus vivendi exists where the local people have made a one-sided accommodation with the foreign economic agenda to allow their way of life to go on for a little longer. However, this accommodation is not meant to last.

The same Political and Socio-Economic Model is being applied in the Balkans and the Middle East

The process in Iraq is no different than the model applied in the former Yugoslavia. Divisions are fueled by foreign catalysts, the economy is destabilized, national dissolution is induced, and a new politico-socio-economic order is established.

Foreign interference and military intervention are also justified on bogus humanitarian grounds. It is no coincidence that a “High Representative” was appointed by the US led coaltion to govern Iraq, thereby replicating the Bosnia-Herzegovina model, which is characterised by E.U. appointed “High Representative”. The pattern should start becoming startlingly familiar!

The parallels between Iraq and the former Yugoslavia are endless.

In the wake of the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, the U.S. and Britain established the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), which evolved into the Coalition Provisional Authority.

The head of the Coalition Provisional Authority was also called “Special Representative,” “Governor,” “Special Envoy,” and “Consul.”

The justifications for setting up the occupation administration in Iraq, similarly to Bosnia-Herzegovina, where originally humanitarian and national stabilization. However, the main objectives of the Coalition Provisional Authority were to decentralize the state and implement a mass privatization program.

It is no coincidence that Bosnia-Herzegovina was divided alongside ethnic and religious lines: Serb, Croat, and Bosniak); Christian Muslim. To these various ethnic-religious divisions, however, further sectarian divisions were created: Eastern Orthodoxy versus Roman Catholicism.

A similar strategy of “divide and rule” was applied in Iraq. Just like in the former Yugoslavia the centralized economic system of Iraq was also shattered by the occupying administration. Under the Anglo-American occupation and its Coalition Provisional Authority foreign corporations entered Iraq in a second wave of foreign invasion, an economic takeover.

The neo-colonial project is based on two inderdependent building blocks: a military stage executed by NATO and process of political, social and economic restructuring executed by the U.S. and E.U. with the help of corrupt local leaders. The shock and awe of war opens the door for destabilization followed by “nation building” or the restructuring process, which even attacks the cultural and social roots of the target nation-state.

The Economic Colonization of Kosovo

The economic affairs of Kosovo are to be exclusively under the hands of the E.U. in partnership with the United States. The euro was already being used in Kosovo, despite of the protests of Belgrade, as the official currency for a number of years before 2008. The utilization of the euro was part of the process of untying the Kosovar economy from the rest of the Serbian economy and a means of establishing control over the sovereignty of Kosovo via monetary and financial means.

The Kosovar flag has been designed to match both the flags of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the European Union. The Bosnian flag was also designed to match the flag of the European Union.

This unraveling process has been the modus operandi throughout the former Yugoslavia. The key players behind this process are the usual players; the U.S., Germany, Britain, and France, which have been sharing the spoils of war and economic colonization in the former Yugoslavia. NATO and the E.U. have been the agents of this process on behalf of all four Western powers.

An Illegal Precedent: Paving the Way for the Dismantlement of other Nation-States

In the realm of international law, a Pandora’s Box has been opened. A new form of interventionism which threatens nation-states has emerged. Worldwide, nations have been divided into two camps in regards to Kosovo: those that recognize it at the expense of international law and those that do not recognize Kosovar independence.

There are profound implications in regards to the events in Yugoslavia. The law of the jungle and the concept that “might is right” have been unveiled as the true ideals of E.U. and American foreign policy. From Somalia, Sudan, and Iraq to the Russian Federation and Central Asia, a dangerous precedent has been established. The latter is intent upon fracturing and dividing.

The E.U. and NATO have also threatened Belgrade and the Serbian people with military action if they try and keep Kosovo. NATO had prepared for Kosovar independence through the holding of war games in late-2007. As Germany has admitted, negotiations for a solution were never taken seriously by Western powers from the start. NATO’s military preparations for the secession of Kosovo suggests that the negotiations were a diplomatic game, which was intended to succeed.

The global ramifications of EU-US interentionism are significant. Nations combating secessionist movements worldwide have voiced disapproval of the Kosovar declaration of Independence, while espressing apprehension regarding the enthusiastic support shown by American, German, British, and French officials.

China has voiced disapproval out of fears that Taiwan (Chinese Taipei) may declare independence under the precedent set by Kosovo. Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Spain, the Republic of Azerbaijan, and Russia have all voiced opposition because of their own secessionist movements such as the Tamil Tigers and the Basque separatist group ETA.

Ramifications of the Kosovo Precedent in the Caucasus and the Former Soviet Space

While fully acknowledging the fact that the Kosovo precedent is internationally illegal, Moscow has nonetheless used the Kosovo precedent against Georgia. Moscow’s objective is to strengthen its control in the geo-strategically important Caucasus region. Georgia has opposed the push by Kosovar Albanians for independence because of secessionist movements in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Adjara. While Adjaran separatism has become prominent, Abkhazia and South Ossetia have standing armies, with close ties to Moscow, and are virtually independent.

Russia is arguing that if the U.S. and E.U. recognize the independence of Kosovo , then the independence of Abkhazia and South Oesstia must also be recognized.

The Kosovar declaration of independence also has ramifications for Trans-Dniester (also known as Transnistria or Transdniestria), a tiny breakaway Russian-majority portion of Moldava.

The effects of Kosovar independence have also been watched carefully by the leaders of Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan, because of the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict. In the cases of Trans-Dniester, Nagorno-Krabakh, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia, all four breakaway republics believe they have far stronger cases for lobbying for official recognition by the Commonwealth of Independent States (C.I.S.), Russia, and the United Nations.

Preparing a Dangerous Precedent for the Middle East and Beyond

The ghosts of Versailles and earlier schemes still hunt humanity. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s seemingly good intentioned declaration of creating an arc of “national self-determination” stretching from the Baltic Sea and the Balkans to the Middle East after the First World War is coming into fruition.

Since the First World War, the larger and more powerful states of Eastern Europe and the Middle East have progressively been carved up into smaller and weaker states. This process was part of a colonial project to control the Eurasian Heartland 2

The board is being set for the recognition of new states in a redrawn Middle East in total disregard for international law. The Kosovar declaration of independence from Serbia is part of the broader post-Cold War balkanization and dismantlement of Yugoslavia. Kosovar “independence” serves to extend Anglo-American and Franco-German influence across the globe. This model is tied in a straight line with the forthcoming plans in the Middle East to breakup countries such as Iraq, Syria, and Iran in fragmented and easy to control protectorates managed by the E.U., the U.S., and Israel.

Russia and China also are aware of the real danger of dividing their territory as has been advocated for years by Anglo-American policy makes in Washington, D.C. and London. Iran is also aware of a Kosovo-like scenario planned for its predominately Arab regions in Khuzestan. The declaration of independence was also closely watched by the Kurdish Regional Government of Northern Iraq.

The synchronization of other global events with Kosovo Independence: Coincidence?

The “Arc of Instability” is yet again being exasperated and agitated. In Pakistan threats of civil war and balkanization loom large. In the Levant one of Hezbollah’s top officials, Imad Mughniyeh, was assassinated in Syria by a car bomb similarly to those killing Lebanese politicians.

Most probably Imad Mughniyeh was assassinated by the Mossad, the intelligence agency of Israel. American, Jordanian, Saudi, French, British, and German intelligence were almost all likely to be involved. It is an open secret that all these intelligence agencies have been collaborating together in Lebanon against Hezbollah and have been behind attempts to assassinate Hezbollah leaders. The timing of the assassination is extremely suspicious.

Mughniyeh’s assassination also came just before the anniversary of the Hariri Assassination and could have been meant to further galvanized political tensions in Lebanon. Israel has denied being behind the assassination, but it is now talking about a new war with Lebanon that it conveniently plans to blame Hezbollah for starting with the help of Syria and Iran.

The rupture of multiple conflicts and crises can be a means to also encircle and envelope the westernmost periphery of Russia within an arc of conflict or in other words there may be a deliberate attempt to supersaturate the “Arc of Instability” to paralyze Russia and other opposing players.

A Prepackaged Solution: Supranationalism?

The leadership in Serbia is playing a balancing act between its people and foreign interests. The Serbian people are against the foreign agenda in their region, but the leadership in Serbia is the spawn of a Western-funded and supported Velvet Revolution that occurred in 2000 and ousted Slobodan Milosevic. A large portion of Belgrade’s leadership supports the foreign agenda and has been co-opted into the neo-liberal restructuring project for the Balkans. The fact that the U.S. and the E.U. became major paymasters for Serbia after the Kosovo War is a mere testimony to this.

Surpanationalism or entry into the E.U. or a larger supranational entity for both Serbia and Kosovo is most probably going to be presented as the solution for Kosovar independence. Similar such a solution may also be presented for a balkanized Middle East through such projects as the Mediterranean Union. Supranationalism is also being pressed as an answer to the unification of Cyprus under the Mediterranean Union.

Returning to Serbia and Kosovo, many of the leaders of Serbia are opposing Kosovar succession, but this is merely a façade that is meant to occupy the minds of the Serbian general public. These same leaders are taking a soft stance on the issue and also moving towards integration into the European Union. To them, like the case of Québec, supranationalism is a solution.

On the Eve of the New World Order: Welcome to the Rule of the Jungle

While the E.U. pushes for a bridge to end national and ethnic divisions amongst its own members it does the opposite in the cases of Kosovo and other regions. Is not the American Civil War marked with honour, because the Union States fought a war to keep the Confederate States within the “American Union” by force?

Whatever the case, the hypocrisy of the E.U. and the U.S. in international relations is exposed by the recognition of Kosovar independence. Firstly, it is a breach of international law, but also it is insincere and for self-serving motives and not because of genuine principles or concerns for the people of Kosovo.

In addition, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus has a far more legitimate case of being recognized in addition to its own institutions and maturity. Although there is a secure and stable means to peacefully address the desires of the Basque and the Catalans in the Pyrenees and the Flemish in the Flanders region of Belgium, these separatist movements are also ignored.

The Armenian majority in Nagorno-Karabakh declared independence on December 10, 1991. Yet, the self-proclaimed and functioning breakaway republic enjoys no backing from either the U.S. or the E.U. unlike Kosovo. What sets Northern Cyprus, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, and Trans-Dniester apart from Kosovo? The answer is: Anglo-American and Franco-German interests represented through the E.U. and NATO are the forces behind self-serving “exceptionalism” — the same force that permitted the Nazis to believe that they could colonize Eastern Europe and the Eurasian Heartland without guilt.

American and European Union leaders have argued that the Serbs are no longer morally capable of managing the affairs of Kosovo. What gives the governments of the U.S., Germany, France, and Britain any moral capability after years of blood baths and a deficit in credibility? If these claims where based on any principle then what about the case of the Palestinians? Does Israel have any moral capability to occupy the Palestinians? Yet, the occupation continues. Ironically it is not Serbian troops who occupy Kosovo, but NATO troops and tanks.

NOTES

1 Michel Chossudovsky, The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order, (Montreal, Global Research, 2003), pp.257-277.

2 Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, The “Great Game:” Eurasia and History of War, Global Research, December 3, 2007.

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is an independent writer based in Ottawa specializing in Middle Eastern affairs. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8132

Breaking News: Serbian Security Forces Enter Kosovo!

This article appeared in the Guardian on Wednesday February 20 2008 on p20 of the International section.

It was last updated at 00:44 on February 20 2008.

Up to 1,000 men, some suspected of being members of the Serbian Ministry of Interior police, crossed into northern Kosovo yesterday amid rising fears that minority Serbs living in the new state’s north would attempt effectively to partition Kosovo along the Ibar River.

After two days of rapidly rising tensions between Serbs and Albanians following Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia on Sunday, eyewitnesses counted close to 200 cars and buses crossing from southern Serbia full of men.

In a day of high drama, masked Serbs also torched two border posts separating Serbia from Kosovo, located at Jarnije and Banja about 18 miles north of Mitrovica, with bulldozers and plastic explosives.Nato troops later closed down the roads leading to the checkpoints, cutting off the only link between northern Kosovo and Serbia.

Several incidents were reported overnight, including masked attackers throwing grenades at UN and Albanian-owned buildings. No one was reported injured.

UN and Nato officials seemed to have been taken largely by surprise by yesterday’s events, which saw KFor troops being sent in to rescue personnel trapped at the border posts.

Protesters also tipped over metal sheds that housed Kosovo’s customs service and sent them sliding down a hill and into a river. They also vandalised and set fire to passport control booths. “It was very dangerous and the police had to withdraw and call for help from Nato peacekeepers,” said Veton Elshani, a spokesman for Kosovo’s multi-ethnic police force.

In Belgrade, the Serbian government minister for Kosovo, Slobodan Samardzic, hailed the attacks, saying: “Today’s action is in accordance with the general Serbian government policies.

“Belgrade has the intention to take over the customs in northern Kosovo,” Samardzic told private B92 television. “The customs points were intended to become part of Kosovo’s state border and we are not going to let that happen.”

The attacks and arrival of the convoys from Serbia were an ominous reminder of the enduring potential for violence in the new nation of Kosovo as it embarks on European-supervised independence.

The EU’s new envoy, Pieter Feith, arrived in Pristina yesterday, accompanied by the EU foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, to mark the beginning of Kosovo’s new era. Feith will lead a “stability mission” of 1,800 EU police and legal experts who will run the country’s court system for the next few years.

In the coming days, Feith, a Dutch diplomat with extensive Balkan experience, will also take over leadership of the International Civilian Office, which will give him the power to overturn legislation and sack Kosovan officials.

European officials insisted he would try to keep a low profile and use his powers only in extreme circumstances when, for instance, the country’s democracy or minority rights were in jeopardy.

Yesterday’s incidents were an illustration of the central problem facing Feith and the Albanian majority government in Pristina – the refusal of Kosovo’s Serb minority and the Belgrade government to acknowledge the former province’s sovereignty.

Elsewhere in the Serb-dominated north witnesses also spoke of police stations once occupied by the joint Serb-Albanian Kosovo police service now displaying the Serb flag. The fears that Serbia is intending to put its police force into the north follow rumours being circulated among Kosovo police service officers in Mitrovica that Serb members are planning to resign en masse in the coming days.

The attacks and the arrival of a convoy from Serbia come as further demonstrations are planned against the declaration of independence in Mitrovica and Serbian cities this week.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/20/kosovo.Serbia

Related Links :

Opening a Pandora’s Box

Large Potential Albanian Oil and Gas Discovery Underscores Kosovo’s Importance

Kosovo Independence: “End of Europe”

“Dying for a Second Round.”

Israel Said to Plan Attack on Lebanon
 

 By: Allan Nairn

on: 20.02.2008

On Friday I asked a top-level Israeli, a former IDF (Israel Defense Forces) elite unit man and prime-ministerial confidante, whether the assassination of Hezbollah’s Imad Mughniyeh could have been done by a Lebanese group.

He snorted at the preposterous notion. This was “way too sophisticated,” he said. “This the car bombing was a precisely orchestrated international operation,” and this was the “third or fourth or fifth time in a year that Israel has carried out a military operation in Syria.”

When I asked him to repeat that last part he added the word “allegedly.”

But the message, or at least the boast, was clear. So why is Israel doing this?

The man said of his colleagues: “There are a lot of Israeli military and cabinet people just dying for a second round with Lebanon. If given the opportunity they’ll take it,” i.e. attack Lebanon again, not in spite of “but because of” the perception that their ‘06 attack failed.

Though the IDF leveled blocks and villages, dropped 4 million cluster bomblets (some of which are still exploding), and killed some 200 Hezbollah combatants and 1,000 Lebanese civilians (roughly 40 Israeli civilians were killed by Hezbollah), they apparently departed Lebanon feeling politically inadequate.

The official feeling was that they either did not destroy enough, or destroy enough of the right people and items, to avoid the embarrassing perception that they lost to Hezbollah.

So to have the option of solving this problem they’ve apparently staged a provocative assassination in hopes of goading Hezbollah into retaliating and providing a pretext for new — better — destruction that this time around will “succeed,” i.e. soothe hurt Israeli feelings.

There’ve been attempts to put this in strategic terms, as educated killers (and those who study them) prefer. ‘Israel must prove its strategic value to the United States’ (What? Washington is going to dump Israel? Hezbollah’s “victory” strengthened the Palestinians, or Lebanon, or put Israel’s existence in danger?). Or, alternatively: ‘Hezbollah must be eradicated’ (which everyone knows is impossible).

In fact, the closer you look the more it looks like leaders’ blood psychotherapy.

And the same thing goes for the publics that follow them. Olmert is in political trouble. If he doesn’t kill some Arabs soon (who or where is secondary), his governing coalition may well dissolve. The public has to feel good, too.

The problem — for the to-be-killed, and for the notion of murder law, not to mention (and few do) decency — is that the Israeli body politic is now set this way: demanding — with a few, brave, exceptions — not just daily, routine, killings of Palestinians, but periodic dramatic strikes that thrill and let them strut like hero/ victims.

It’s as if the inhabitants of a US Fox News studio had multiplied and become a nation.

It, of course, doesn’t have to be that way, but it is obviously that way now. All you have to do to see it is pick up the papers or talk to a few Israelis. (For representative quotations see Gideon Levy, “Little Ahmadinejads, Haaretz,” 10/06/2007).

Its one thing for a state to be murdering and/or oppressing others when their local public doesn’t know about it (as was largely the case when Washington was decimating Central America in the 1980s), but it’s another when the public knows about it and supports the injustices and crimes (as was the case with US whites and slavery, and in the first stages of US/Iraq, where public support seemed to turn — as it may still — on the question of whether the US was “winning”).

In the first situation, the killing policy is vulnerable. If word gets out, the public might be angry. But in the second it is more stable, and deadly, since the public knows, and asks for more.

But people and states don’t get to entirely write their own histories.

They usually interact with others.

In the case of Israel, the key interaction is with the US, their military guarantor/ mass subsidizer, and with American Jews, where, among the young, opinion appears to be slowly turning (see postings of December 7, 2007, “Imposed Hunger in Gaza. The Army in Indonesia. Questions of Logic and Activism,” and February 13, 2008, “Big Killer Takes Out Smaller One. ‘Wipe Out a Neighborhood.’ Life by Mafia Rules in the Israeli – US Domain,” particularly the plaint of Malcom Hoenlein.).

Alternatively, Palestinians and groups like Hezbollah and Hamas could join the US as important determinants, but only if they too reset their outlooks (and their willingness to kill or murder) — as some Palestinians and other Arabs at the grassroots level are now urging, cautiously — and switched to active, but non-violent, or minimally violent resistance (like the first intifada, or the Gaza wall-breaking) and stopped letting themselves be used as a “provocation-response” button that Israel can press when it wants a thrill.

(See posting of January 26, 2007. “The Breaking of the Gaza Wall. Wise, Justified Political Violence.”).

http://newsc.blogspot.com/2008/02/dying-for-second-round-israel-said-to.html

Large Potential Albanian Oil and Gas Discovery Underscores Kosovo’s Importance

February 20, 2008

On January 10, Swiss-based Manas Petroleum Corporation broke the news. Gustavson Associates LLC’s Resource Evaluation identified large prospects of oil and gas reserves in Albania, close to Kosovo. They’re in areas called blocks A, B, C, D and E, encompassing about 780,000 acres along the northwest to southeast “trending (geological) fold belt of northwestern Albania.”

Assigned estimates of the find (so far unproved) are up to 2.987 billion barrels of oil and 3.014 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. However, because of their depth, oil deposits may be capped with a layer of gas. If so, Gustavson calculates the potential to be 1.4 billion barrels of light oil and up to 15 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Further, if only gas is present, the discovery may be as much as 28 trillion cubic feet. In any case, if estimates prove out, it’s a sizable find.

In its statement, Gustavson reported: “The probability of success for a wildcat well in a structurally complex area such as this is relatively high (because) it is in a structurally favorable area (and) proven hydrocarbon source and analogous production exists only 20 to 30 kilometers away.”

Currently, the Balkans region has small proved oil reserves of about 345 million barrels, of which an estimated 198 million barrels are in Albania. Proved natural gas reserves are much larger at around 2.7 trillion cubic feet.

In December 2007, Albania’s Council of Ministers allowed DWM Petroleum, AG, a Manas subsidiary, to assist in the exploration, development and production of Albania’s oil and gas reserves in conjunction with the government’s Agency of Natural Resources.

This development further underscores Kosovo’s importance and the cost that’s meant for Serbia. Since the 1999 US-led NATO war, it’s been all downhill for the nation, the region and its people:

–Kosovo is part of Serbia; at least it was; since 1999 it’s been a Washington-NATO occupied colony stripped of its sovereignty in violation of international law;

– it’s been run by three successive US-installed puppet Prime Ministers with known ties to organized crime and drugs trafficking;

– it’s the home of one of America’s largest military bases in the world, Camp Bondsteel; the province/country is more a US military base than a legitimate political entity;

– its part of Washington’s regional strategic objective to control and transport Central Asia’s vast oil and gas reserves to selected markets, primarily in the West;

– on February 17 during a special parliamentary session, Kosovo unilaterally declared its independence; the action violates international law; Kosovo is as much part of Serbia as Illinois is one of America’s 50 states; to no surprise, Washington and dominant western countries support it; opposed are Serbia, Russia, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Slovakia, Malta, Bulgaria, Romania and Cyprus;

– might makes right; the issue is a fait accompli; the February 17 declaration ignores EU division pitting one-third of its 27 members in opposition; and

– unilateral western-supported independence mocks the 1999 UN Security Council Resolution 1244; it only permits Kosovo’s self-government as a Serbian province; the resolution recognizes the “sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia;” only a new UN resolution in compliance with international law can change that legally; nonetheless, it happened anyway on another historic day of infamy when Washington again trashed international law and the rules and norms of civil society.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached
at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Mondays from 11AM to 1PM US Central time for cutting-edge discussion of world and national topics with distinguished guests.

Blast at Big Spring oil refinery rattles buildings

20-02-08

BIG SPRING, Texas — Five people were injured Monday after an explosion rocked an oil refinery, shaking buildings and frightening residents miles away.

Blake Lewis, a spokesman for refinery owner Alon USA, said late Monday that the fire had been extinguished and it appeared that the explosion was centered in the propylene splitter area of the refinery.

Paul Berringer, 37, of Big Spring, was in satisfactory condition at University Medical Center in Lubbock, where he was being treated for burns. Lewis said three contractors were treated but not hospitalized — one for a concussion and two for possible hearing problems.

A fifth person was injured when her car was struck by debris on Interstate 20, Big Spring Mayor Russ McEwen told the Odessa American. She was treated and released from a hospital.

Lewis said all workers were accounted for about an hour after the 8:30 a.m. explosion.

Fires that lingered after the blast were extinguished late Monday afternoon, Lewis said. The next step will entail getting into the site to determine what happened and how to make repairs.

A skeleton crew of just 40 people were there Monday because of the Presidents Day holiday, Alon USA Vice President David Foster told the newspaper. There are typically about four times as many people on duty at the time of the explosion, he said.

Foster said he expected the refinery to be offline for weeks.

The blast sent black smoke billowing into the sky, closed schools and shut down an interstate.

“It was extremely scary. You shook you were so scared,” said Laura McEwen, the mayor’s wife, who lives about two miles from the refinery. “Our walls shook. It jolted your bed. It was like an earthquake.”

Two elementary schools were evacuated, then classes were canceled at all nine campuses in the Big Spring school district, said assistant superintendent Carie Dunnam.

Classes also were canceled at Howard College, according to the two-year junior college’s Web site.

Classes were expected to resume Tuesday at the college and in the school district.

The explosion forced open the doors of the school district’s administration building about four miles from the plant, Dunnam said.

“Literally pieces of my ceiling came on top of my head,” she said.

The 78-year-old refinery employs about 170 people and has the capacity to put out about 70,000 barrels a day.

Interstate 20 was shut down near the plant until about 6:30 p.m., the Department of Public Safety said.

Big Spring is about halfway between Dallas and El Paso.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/5551032.html