Ghana Produces More Gold!

Published on April 4

Gold production in Ghana climbed to 4.2 million ounces from 3.6 million ounces in 2011, the 2012 figure beats the commission's forecast of 3.9 million ounces. 

According to Ghana Minerals Commission, the increase in output was mainly due to rising prices that encouraged higher output by companies. 

Gold prices averaged $1,668 an ounce in 2012 from $1,572 an ounce a year earlier.
Production climbed to 4.2 million ounces from 3.6 million ounces in 2011, The 2012 figure
beats the commission's forecast of 3.9 million ounces. 

Australian miner Adamus Resources poured its first gold in January last year. Newmont's
second gold mine at Akyem, located about 125 kilometres (80 miles) northwest of Accra is
expected to start commercial production in 2013 with as much as 450,000 ounces annually.

Bauxite rose to 662,925 metric tons in 2012 from 410,918 tons a year earlier, Diamond output fell to 215,118 carats from 283,368 carat. 

Johannesburg-based miners AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. and Gold Fields Ltd also operate in
Ghana, which has West Africa's second-biggest economy after Nigeria. 

Ghana produced 2.97 million ounces of gold in 2010. Output was originally seen rising in 2011 but in the end shrunk as a number of firms focused on longer-term maintenance and expansion projects rather than maximising existing production.

Editor’s Note:

The big  question is who  benefits from the production of as much  as 4.2 million ounces of gold when official  statistics  indicate that the people  of Ghana get only  five  per cent of the value of gold exported  from the country? Who takes the 95 per cent?

Who is also paying for    the pollution of the Ghanaian environment by the mining companies?

EDITORIAL

WELL DONE!

The directive by President John Dramani Mahama to local authorities to start naming streets and properly number houses is a good one.

Indeed finding places in Ghana has become a huge problem because of the absence of significant landmarks and the haphazard numbering of houses.

This situation has been bad for business, social life, crime prevention and many other things.

It is the hope of The Insight that this directive will be taken seriously and acted upon.

However we want to caution against names which devalue Ghanaian pride and aspirations.

How could Ghana which led the struggle for decolonization South of the Sahara name its major street or highways after George W. Bush, former President of the United States of America?

What values does George Bush reflect beyond war-mongering and the arrogance of a fading super power?

Let’s name our streets and number our houses properly but please select the names well.

Why is the ICC Picking Only on Africa? By David Bosco

Fatou Bensouda, ICC Chief Prosecutor

Almost 15 years ago, delegates from more than 100 countries gathered in a crowded conference room in Rome, cheering, chanting and even shedding a few tears. After weeks of tense negotiations, they had drafted a charter for a permanent court tasked with prosecuting genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes around the world.

Kofi Annan, then U.N. secretary general, cast the new International Criminal Court in epochal terms: Until now, when powerful men committed crimes against humanity, they knew that so long as they remained powerful, no earthly court could judge them.

That earthly court is now rooted. Its glassy headquarters on the outskirts of the Hague houses more than 1,000 lawyers, investigators and staff members from dozens of countries. Judges hail from all regions of the world.

But for an institution with a global mission and an international staff, its focus has been very specific: After more than a decade, all eight investigations the court has opened have been in Africa. All the individuals indicted by the court more than two dozen have been African. 

Annan’s proclamation notwithstanding, some very powerful people in other parts of the world have avoided investigation.

The court began its work in Uganda and Congo, where it focused mostly on crimes by militia groups (one key militia leader accused of crimes in Congo surrendered to the court this month). In 2005 came a major investigation into allegations of genocide and ethnic cleansing in the Darfur region of Sudan. Then the court launched inquiries in the Central African Republic and Kenya. And in 2011, the prosecutor opened an investigation of violence in Ivory Coast. Around the same time, the ICC jumped into the Libya imbroglio, ultimately indicting Moammar Gaddafi, his son and the regime’s intelligence chief. Most recently, the court announced its intention to scrutinize atrocities in Mali.

 

African leaders have taken note of the ICC’s intense interest in their continent. The backlash swelled after the court indicted Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir in 2009. Many African officials argued that the court’s intervention would torpedo chances for a negotiated solution to that country’s conflicts. Several African governments pushed the court to reconsider. The African Union, which represents more than 50 nations, even instructed its members that they had no legal obligation to arrest Bashir. Malawi’s president complained that subject[ing] a sovereign head of state to a warrant of arrest is undermining African solidarity and African peace and security.

ICC logo

To this day, the A.U. has refused to allow the ICC to establish a liaison office at its headquarters. There are even plans for an African criminal court that might displace the ICC.

Former A.U. chairman Jean Ping has suggested to journalists that the court is a neocolonial plaything and that Africa has been a place to experiment with their ideas. At an African summit meeting in 2009, he accused the ICC of ignoring crimes in other parts of the world: Why Africa only? Why were these laws not applied on Israel, Sri Lanka and Chechnya and its application is confined to Africa?

Those kinds of complaints land mostly on the desk of the court’s prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda. Originally from Gambia, she was elected in December 2011 with strong support from African states and has made repairing the rift between the court and the continent a priority. Along the way, she has fired back at some of the court’s African critics, insisting that seeking justice for victims on the continent is hardly evidence of discrimination.

All of the victims in our cases in Africa are African victims, she has said. And they are the ones who are suffering these crimes.

The latest developments in Kenya may test Bensouda’s reconciliation efforts. In early March, Kenyans elected as President Uhuru Kenyatta, who was indicted by the court for crimes against humanity allegedly committed in 2008. There’s evidence that by making him appear to be a victim of a mostly Western-funded court, the indictment helped Kenyatta attract votes. A Kenyatta voter described the court to the New York Times as a tool of Western countries to manipulate undeveloped countries.

President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya

In the wake of his victory, Kenyatta’s lawyers demanded that the court dismiss the case against him, while the ICC prosecutor insisted that it would go forward.

Why is the world’s first criminal court picking on Africa? There are several explanations for the regional focus. Persistent conflict plagues several parts of Africa, and the continent hosts some of the globe’s weakest states. Dozens of African countries chose to join the court, giving the institution broad jurisdiction over violence inside their borders. Congo, Uganda, the Central African Republic and Ivory Coast even explicitly asked the court to investigate atrocities on their territory.

Asian and Arab states have been much more reluctant to join, and that has created an uneven jurisdictional landscape. The court cannot reach inside Syria or Sri Lanka, for example, but it can investigate crimes in the Central African Republic, Congo and Mali. (The United States has not joined the ICC, limiting the court’s jurisdiction over U.S. officials or troops.)

The U.N. Security Council does have the power to expand the court’s reach. By referring a case to the ICC, it creates jurisdiction even over states that have not joined the court.

However, in the cases when it has done so Sudan and Libya it’s given the court more room to operate inside Africa. The council has declined to do the same in Syria, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Iraq, North Korea and other non-African states where violence and repression are endemic.

Great-power politics are the key here. China has a veto over Security Council action and wants the court to stay well away from North Korea, for instance.

 

President Laurent Gbagbo unjustly held at the ICC

Russia will not permit an ICC investigation in Syria. And when violence in Iraq was at its most intense, the United States would have blocked any move to give the court jurisdiction there. A stray comment by an Iraqi minister in 2005 suggesting that the country might join the ICC produced nervous phone calls from U.S. diplomats. They got the assurances they wanted: Baghdad would not become a member.

Much of the responsibility for the court’s skewed caseload therefore falls outside the institution but not all. The court has chosen not to open several non-African investigations that it could have taken on. As a senior Rwandan official has argued: There is not a single case at the ICC that does not deserve to be there. But there are many cases that belong there, that aren’t there.

Afghanistan is the most glaring example. Thousands of civilians have been killed in that country since the court began operating, most by the Taliban and also by NATO troops and aircraft led by the United States. The court has not moved to investigate. The ICC also stayed out of the 2008 Russia-Georgia conflict, which produced thousands of deaths and injuries and well-documented war crimes. It has not opened a full investigation of rebel and paramilitary violence in Colombia. The prosecutor’s office has moved extremely cautiously on accusations against Israel by the Palestinians, who attempted to give the court jurisdiction in 2009.

Still fragile, the ICC has no desire to provoke Washington, Beijing or Moscow. A full-blown confrontation with a major power could threaten the court in ways that tussles with Sudan and Kenya do not. It’s not so much that the court is biased against Africa as that it is reluctant to meddle in cases in which the geopolitics are intense. But the result is the same: stricter justice for one part of the world.

Source:Ocnus.net 2013

ASAMOAH GYAN SEEMS TO DO IT ALL

Asamoah Gyan

To some Ghanaian soccer fans, the Black Stars' striker Asamoah Gyan is one of those players who enjoy the fruits of success but are not always comfortable handling the pressure that comes with it. 

Case in point: Gyan and his brother Baffour nearly walked out on the Black Stars in 2008, after they were criticized for their play at the Africa Cup of Nations. (AFCON)

Then last year, just before Gyan's mother died, he promised her that he would no longer take penalty kicks for the Black Stars. Therefore, at the 2013 AFCON tournament in South Africa in January-February, the onerous duty of penalty taker fell to the young and relatively inexperienced teammate Mubarak Wakaso. 

Gyan's mother had seen her son's anguish after he missed a penalty kick near the end of extra time during Ghana's loss to Uruguay in the 2010 FIFA World Cup quarterfinal, also, played in South Africa. 

She didn't want her son to face that level of trauma again - and Gyan, who is known as the "Baby Jet," apparently agreed that his mother knew best. 

So, for example, during the recently completed 2013 AFCON, when Gyan could have attempted a pair of penalties against Cape Verde, the national captain instead delegated that duty to Wakaso. 

''When there is no other option, like in a penalty shootout, I will take a penalty for Ghana," Gyan said. "But I came to the decision not to be Ghana's penalty taker with my mum just before she died." 

Many fans - perhaps frustrated by another AFCON disappointment this year, after losing in the semifinal against Burkina Faso - might interpret Gyan's pullback from penalty duty as a sign of weakness. 

But Gyan sees things differently. He says the captaincy and the sometimes lonely patrol of the Black Stars' forward line are enough jobs for him to handle. 

In recent years, Ghana's national team has evolved tactically to the point where Gyan has emerged as the standout leader of the forward line. 

Although Gyan has played alongside several striking partners for the Black Stars, seldom has he enjoyed a long, successful pairing with another brilliant through-the-middle type of striker. The Ghanaian team simply has not produced such a man. 

"I have been playing as what people talk about, a lone striker for a few years now," Gyan said before the AFCON semifinal against Burkina Faso, "and there are times when it can be frustrating. 

"But if you end up on the winning side, obviously you are happy, and that is what has happened here" - that is, until Ghana lost to Burkina Faso, who went on to become the tournament's runner-up, falling 1-0 to Nigeria in the final.

Still, with his cleverness and dexterity at protecting the ball, Gyan has mastered the
lone striker role. His effectiveness as a target man and his intelligent running creates opportunities and space for the likes of Kwadwo Asamoah, Emmanuel Agyemang Badu and Wakaso to cause havoc for opponents from midfield. 

The downside, however, is that when Ghana falls back to play a more defensive-oriented match - as it did against Cape Verde - that style of play can leave Gyan looking isolated.

Club success

One place where Gyan seems to have fewer such worries is at AI Ain in the United Arab Emirates, where the Ghanaian international plays his club soccer as a member of the top team in the Etisalat UAE Pro League. 

On March 3, in a key match dubbed as the Abu Dhabi "El Clasico," it was Gyan who scored with 10 minutes left on the clock - his 22nd goal of the pro season - to give first-place AI Ain a victory over title contenders AI Jazira at a packed Tahnoun bin Mohammed Stadium in AI Ain.

The win gave AI Ain - who are chasing a record 11th title and second in a row - a six- point lead over Bani Yas, who leapfrogged over AI Jazira following a 2-1 win over Dibba AI Fujairah earlier that night. 

Against AI Jazira, Gyan actually had two previous chances to score for AI Ain, but the Al Jazira goalkeeper, AIi Khaseif, made some beautiful saves. 

Gyan has seemed to make a second home for himself in AI Ain, and feels less lonely there than he sometimes feels when playing for the Black Stars. 

As he told reporters during AFCON, when he moved to the UAE nearly two years ago, he brought an entourage from Ghana with him.

"I can't be alone," he said, "so I brought my childhood friends over." In addition, he said, family members from Ghana also visit frequently. (One family member, of course, is brother Baffour, who currently plays for Asante Kotoko in the Ghana Premier League.) 

Gyan also seems less lonely on the pitch in the UAE. His steady stream of goals has been made possible with the help of generous teammates. 

So during club play, he says, he feels less like a soloist than when he plays for the Black Stars. 

One experienced coach in West Africa, who works as a scout and talent spotter for some major clubs in Europe, once explained his theory about how Ghana and Cote d'I voire differ in the skills prioritized by schoolboy soccer players - and perhaps his in- sights might help explain Gyan's frequent lack of a scoring partner in Ghana. 

In Ghana, the unnamed coach observed, children would typically play on makeshift pitches or patches of rough urban space of 20 or 30 square meters, with goal posts marked by stones set perhaps 60 centimeters apart at either end. In neighboring Cote d'l voire, he noticed, there were many more examples of makeshift goalposts and cross-bars painted onto walls where boys played. 

His point was that these nuances shaped the strengths of a generation: Ghana's higher- profile players of recent years have been central midfielders - Stephen Appiah, formerly of Juventus; Real Madrid's Michael Essien; and AC Milan's AIi Sulley Muntari - while more of their most sought-after Ivorian contemporaries have been strikers, brought up with an instinct for hitting the target rather than seeking control, via skill and strength, of restricted spaces.

Remarkable career

Whether recent criticisms of Gyan are valid or not, it is in- disputable that he has had one of the most remarkable careers of any Ghanaian soccer player.

Gyan, who turned 27 in November, first gained widespread global attention after
scoring three goals at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa - a run of success that was somewhat overshadowed during the same tournament by his missing that crucial penalty kick against Uruguay. 

But by that time, Gyan had already made himself well known to soccer insiders - both in Ghana and elsewhere. 

His European club career started in 2003, when he signed with Italy's Udinese after playing for Ghanaian club Liberty Professionals in Accra. 

In Italy, Gyan spent two years on loan at Serie B club Modena to gain match experience. Following some excellent displays during the 2006 World Cup, he attracted interest from Russian club Loko- motiv Moscow. Gyan returned to Udinese at the start of 2006, but on Feb. 17, 2007, Udinese pulled out of a deal to move him. 

The striker was on the verge of signing a three-year deal with Lokomotiv Moscow for  $10.5 million, the fourth largest transfer fee in Russian soccer history. 

Gyan explained at the time: ''The striker Udinese targeted to replace me did not sign for them. I've been told I will now have to stay in Italy for the rest of the season." 

On Aug. 10, 2007, along with Fabio Quagliarella, Gyan signed an improved five-year extension to stay at Udinese until June 30, 2012, as a reward for his fine form in the 2007-08 pre-season. 

"I have decided to stay here because it is one of the top leagues in the world," Gyan said at the time. "There is the possibility of me playing regular [soccer] here to make me a better player. I am comfortable with the new deal and I know I can help Udinese achieve things for the future." 

Gyan and Quagliarella marked their contract extensions with a goal apiece in Udinese's 7-0 friendly win later that evening.

Gyan scored eight goals in 2006-07 to help the Studio Friuli club finish in 10th place in Serie A. 

But he was dogged by injury during the 2007-08 season and never appeared for Udinese again after January 2008, having played only 13 Serie A matches and scored three times that season.

On to France

On July 11, 2008, Gyan was signed by French Ligue 1 Club Stade Rennais for four years on a transfer fee of 8 million euros. He played 48 times for Rennes, scoring 14 goals. By the end of his stay at Rennes, he became a well-known scorer, netting 13 league goals in the 2009-10 season.

However, Gyan played only three games in Ligue 1 the following season, bringing his total appearances to 53, before he departed for Sunderland of the English Premier League.

Premier League

Gyan signed a four-year deal with Sunderland on Aug.31 2010 and scored in his debut match against Wigan Athletic on Sept. 11 after coming on as a substitute for Danny Welbeck. The match ended in a 1-1 draw, with Antolin Alcaraz scoring Wigan's equalizer. 

Gyan later made his first start for Sunderland, netting its only goal in a League Cup loss to West Ham United, then scored twice in the next game (which Sunderland won 2-0) against Stoke City on Nov. 6. 

The Ghanaian enjoyed a productive stretch of matches heading into 2011, up until an April 23, 2011, match against Wigan Athletic, from which he was removed after suffering a hamstring injury. 

Although Gyan recovered in time for Sunderland's last game of the season at West Ham, he didn't add to his tally of 10 league goals for the season.

AlAin

On Sept. 10, 2011, it was confirmed that Gyan would leave on a season-long loan to Al Ain FC in the United Aral Emirates. Gyan said that hi left Sunderland for the money saying that the offer he received was "too good to refuse. 

The Ghanaian finished the season with Al Ain by helping it to capture its 10th league title, and leading the league in scoring 22 goals. 

Gyan later signed a five year contract with Al Ain on July 6, 2012, worth in excess of £6.4 million. The contract would see Gyan earning more than £140,000 per week for five years, starting in July 2012.

Black Stars highlights

Gyan made his international debut at age 17. He scored during his senior inter-
national debut for Ghana against Somalia on Nov. 19, 2003, netting a goal in the
90th minute after replacing Isaac Boakye in the 62nd minute of a 2006 FIFA World
Cup qualifier, three days before he turned 18. 

With that goal, he became the youngest ever player to score for Ghana.

He scored four times in seven matches during that successful World Cup qualifying campaign, and was part of the 2004 Ghana Olympic squad, which exited in the first round after finishing in third place in Group B. 

Gyan also played for Ghana in the 2008 AFCON quarterfinal victory against Nigeria.

During the 2006 World Cup in Germany, Gyan scored a memorable goal on June 17 against the Czech Republic. 

Not only did it come a record 68 seconds into the match, but it was also Ghana's first-ever goal at the World Cup final.

The Black Stars eventually won 2-0.

But Ghana's World Cup run ended in a defeat to Brazil in the Round of 16, a match in which Gyan was sent off the field in the 81st minute after collecting his second booking (for diving). 

At the 2008 AFCON, Gyan and his brother Baffour almost walked out on the Black Stars following criticism after their unconvincing 1-0 win over Namibia. The media learned that the brothers had packed their bags and were ready to leave the team hotel but were persuaded to stay by teammates. 

Two years later, Gyan helped an injury-plagued Ghana team reach the AFCON finals, scoring three of Ghana's four goals during the tournament. 

Gyan scored a penalty kick in the 85th minute of Ghana's first match of the 2010 World Cup against Serbia, in a 1-0 Win. 

In second game, Gyan scored from another penalty kick in the 26th minute to earn his team a 1-1 draw against Australia. 

In a Round of 16 match against the United States, Gyan scored in extra time, giving Ghana a 2-1 win. In the quarterfinal against Uruguay, he missed a penalty kick with no time remaining at the end of extra time, hitting the cross- bar and necessitating a penalty shootout to decide the match. He converted his penalty in the shootout, but Uruguay won 4-2. 

On March 29, 2011, Gyan scored Ghana's equalizer against England in an international friendly at Wembley Stadium in London. 

In the 2012 AFCON semifinal, Gyan again missed a crucial penalty kick in a major tournament, as Ghana lost 1- O. Afterward, Gyan decided to take an "indefinite break" from international play, but rejoined the Black Stars on May 8.

Personal life

Aside from the entourage that accompanies Gyan in the United Arab Emirates, the
Ghanaian soccer star also enjoys a variety of interests away from the pitch.

For instance, in the summer of 2010 Gyan recorded and released a Hiplife music video with Castro The Destroyer, in which he performs under the alias "Baby Jet."

The video shows his famous "Asamoah Gyan Dance" celebration, which he demonstrated at the 2010 World Cup and at Sunderland. The song won a Ghana Music award in 201l. 

In same year Gyan started his own mobile disco business. He also joined Castro for an- other duo "Do Da Dance." 

Gyan is also a Brazilian jiujitsu brown belt under Renzo Gracie, and says he would one day like to fight for the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Gyan has recently turned his attention toward boxing promotion and was making plans to put on his debut boxing show in Ghana. 

"Ghana has a lot of great boxers previously, like Azumah Nelson, Ike Quartey and Joshua Clottey," Gyan said last summer, "so we need to push the young ones coming up. I would like to encourage the young ones coming up and those who want to achieve their aim." 

Political Assassinations: Chavez Knew US Special Services Were After Him

By Nil Nikandrov

Hugo Chavez was not the man obsessed by the thought he was being followed and watched, that’s what the propaganda tried to make him look like. He was a politician who faced the reality and knew how hated he was in Washington for opposing the United States on all political or economic issues. He treated seriously the threats coming from presidents Bush and Obama, the State Department and the Pentagon.

He knew well the Western special services had a diverse arsenal of means to physically liquidate people… Fidel Castro shared his own experience, there had been over 600 assassination attempts to kill him committed by the CIA and US military intelligence. Even a limited number of documents declassified prove the special services went to any length, including snipers and poison, to do the job. Fidel accused him of being carefree and told him to watch around. He said new technology appeared, it was not safe to take the food one was offered. He told Chavez: «Chávez take care. These people [the Americans] have developed technology. You are very careless. Take care what you eat, what they give you to eat… a little needle and they inject you with I don’t know what».

The President and the security service were concerned about massive Western propaganda than demonized Chavez, presenting him as a threat to “free world”, religion, private property and traditional family values. Some people subject to systematic emotional effect become prone to committing terrorist acts. According to statistics, there had been dozens of assassination attempts against Chavez committed by deranged people coming armed to take part in meetings and demonstrations. Some law enforcement personnel fell victim to such impact. In February 2008 some National Guard officers were arrested accused of taking part in an assassination attempt. In September 2008 a group of servicemen was detained while preparing an attack with the use of grenade launchers against Air Force 1.

 The US special services made the first attempts to have it over and done with Chavez in the days of the 1998 presidential campaign. A group of professional hitmen, hired by the CIA in Columbia and the Dominican Republic, followed the candidate during his campaign in out-of-the-way places of Venezuela. 

Snipers lying in ambush were seen near the places where the President made public speeches. After that, hunting terrorists trying to accomplish the mission to kill Chavez became a daily routine for Bolivarian security services. In May 2009 Frederic Laurent Bouquet, a Frenchman, and three Dominicans were detained. 

There were sniper rifles, machine guns, grenades and a kilogram of explosives found in the apartment. The group was tasked with Chavez assassination, According to Venezuelan Internal Affairs Minister Tarek El – Aissami, Bouquet was a military on active service in the armed forces of one of European countries. According to Internet leaks, the US services arranged to send the French military intelligence officer to Venezuela.

The victory of Chavez at the 2012 presidential election was inevitable. Accordingly, in the period 2009-beginning of 2010 the mission of eliminating Chavez was on the US intelligence community’s priority list. The traditional methods, for instance, murders committed by deranged persons, aircraft crashes and the like, were off the table. Using well known poisons were out of the question too. There had been too many cases the Latin American leaders were neutralized this way. A bullet, an aircraft crash or poison would indicate who stood behind the action.

So, contamination leading to an incurable decease was chosen as the way to do the job. It was technically possible. José Vicente Rangel wrote in the article Cancer Inoculated published in the 03.17.13 edition of Ultimas Noticias newspaper that the experiments on creating cancerous growth had been conducted in the US for no less that forty years. The laboratories situated in Fort Detrick, Maryland, conduct clandestine research on biological arms; the National Cancer Institute is situated there too. The Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research functioning under the CIA and the Pentagon supervision is an example.

As the Internet sources report, a special virus cancer program has been successfully fulfilled there. The cancer virus gets into blood and lymph. Access to DNA makes the virus personalized and more effective. It brings to mind a WikiLeaks post –the document with State Department instructions to the US embassy in Paraguay to stealthily get DNA of the four candidates for presidency. 

It mentioned all four on purpose to cover the one who was of real interest – the left wing forces candidate Fernando Lugo, a potential ally of Hugo Chavez, who supported the idea of creating “an axis of populist states” on the continent. Two years after the election, Lugo fell ill of lymphatic cancer, a less dangerous form of the decease. He had to go for cure to Brazil, while Vice-President Federico Franco, the favorite son of the CIA and the State Department, ruled the country.

The Latin American cancer epidemic spread around striking left-wing presidents, the fact couldn’t go unnoticed. Fernando Lugo, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, Dilma Rouseff, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner were given this diagnosis –they received the Black Spot, the warning that it is not safe to oppose the US interests on the international scene. 

The death of Hugo Chavez demonstrated the implications that may follow. For someone who is not convinced the US is involved in cleansing trying to get rid of unfriendly leaders, suffice it to recall the fate of many influential politicians in many regions of strategic importance. The punitive actions are not over. They swoop on Syria, Iran and Pakistan are next. Then it’ll be the turn of BRICS members, the US will do its best to prevent it from becoming an international powerful force of the XXI century.

Chavez warned about it. He always called a spade a spade. For him, the United States was “an evil empire”, an aggressor, a terrorist state constantly waging wars to conquer the territories rich in resources… He called upon his colleagues in Latin America and the Caribbean basin to create alliances with teeth to counter the US policy.

He paid dearly for it. The leadership of Venezuela and the leading Latin America leaders, who were friendly with Chavez, don’t believe he died for natural causes. The guesses it was a special operation are voiced more and more often. On the day of Chavez’s death, Vice President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, said in an address to the nation that “there’s no doubt that Commandante Chavez’s health came under attack by the enemy.” He said there was solid ground for launching an investigation.

According to him, “We have not a single doubt and at the proper moment we will convene a medical board to confirm that Chavez was attacked.” He linked Chavez’s case with that of Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat, whose death, Maduro said, was caused by poisoning by the Israelis. According to the findings of laboratory research conducted at the Institute de Radiophysique in Lausanne, Switzerland, Arafat was poisoned by polonium – 210. 

Nicolas Maduro said Chavez was taken tissue samples to make a diagnosis. The Patient’s name undisclosed, the samples were sent to Brazil, China, Russia and even the USA. The reply was the same, the cancer cells have special features, like unusual intensiveness of propagation and multiplication never encountered before in medical practice.

According to Maduro, a special investigation commission tasked to comprehensively review the details of Chavez demise will be created after the election on April 14. The news came the Bolivarian government plans to pay a million dollars reward to those who will help to make precise the circumstances and concrete perpetrators of the crime – the murder of President Chavez.

US, IRAQ WAR VETERAN WRITES TO BUSH AND CHENEY

Thomas Young, US Army Veteran

From Tomas Young, a Known Veteran

My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live.

I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq.

I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. 

I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care. 

I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. 

I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. 

Most wanted war criminal George W. Bush

I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all-the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief. 

You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans-my fellow veterans-whose future you stole.

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. 

I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. 

You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans-my fellow veterans-whose future you stole.

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character.

You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. 

Former US Vice President Dick Cheney

 Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. 

I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. 

I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. 

I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion.

I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. 

The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East.

On every level-moral, strategic, military and economic-Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. 

Thomas Young is dieing

I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.

I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. 

I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. 

A victim of the Iraq War

 You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins?

I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul. 

My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. 

I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness. 

Originally posted at Veterans Today

NATO proxies using WMD's in Syria

By Tony Cartalucci

After a 10 year war and occupation in Iraq, the death of over a million people including thousands of US soldiers, all based on patently false claims of the nation possessing "weapons of mass destruction," (WMDs), it is outrageous hypocrisy to see the West arming, funding, and politically backing terrorists in Syria who in fact both possess, and are now using such weapons against the Syrian people. 

At least 25 are reported dead after a chemical weapons attack targeting Syrian soldiers was carried out by NATO-backed terrorists in the northern city of Aleppo. 

Aleppo is located near the Syrian-Turkish border. Had Libya's looted stockpiles of chemical weapons been shipped to Syria, they would have passed through Turkey along with weapons sent from Libya by the US and thousands of Libyan terrorists who are admittedly operating inside Syria, and would most likely be used to target cities like Aleppo.

Worse yet, any chemical weapons imported into the country would implicate NATO either directly or through gross negligence, as the weapons would have passed through NATO-member Turkey, past US CIA agents admittedly operating along the border and alongside Western-backed terrorists inside Syria. 

Libya's WMD's are in Terrorist Hands
Libya's arsenal had fallen into the hands of sectarian extremists with NATO assistance in 2011 during the culmination of efforts to overthrow the North African nation. Since then, Libya's militants led by commanders of Al-Qaeda's Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) have armed sectarian extremists across the Arab World, from as far West as Mali, to as far East as Syria. 

  

Western backed Syrian terrorists

 In addition to small arms, heavier weapons are also making their way through this extensive network. The Washington Post in their article, "Libyan missiles on the loose," reported:

"Two former CIA counterterrorism officers told me last week that technicians recently refurbished 800 of these man-portable air-defense systems (known as MANPADS) - some for an African jihadist group called Boko Haram that is often seen as an ally of al-Qaeda - for possible use against commercial jets flying into Niger, Chad and perhaps Nigeria."

While undoubtedly these weapons are also headed to Niger, Chad, and perhaps Nigeria, they are veritably headed to Syria. Libyan LIFG terrorists are confirmed to be flooding into Syria from Libya. In November 2011, the Telegraph in their article, "Leading Libyan Islamist met Free Syrian Army opposition group," would report: 

Abdulhakim Belhadj, head of the Tripoli Military Council and the former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, "met with Free Syrian Army leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey," said a military official working with Mr. Belhadj. "Mustafa Abdul Jalil (the interim Libyan president) sent him there."

Another Telegraph article, "Libya’s new rulers offer weapons to Syrian rebels," would admit

Syrian rebels held secret talks with Libya's new authorities on Friday, aiming to secure weapons and money for their insurgency against President Bashar al-Assad's regime, The Daily Telegraph has learned.

At the meeting, which was held in Istanbul and included Turkish officials, the Syrians requested "assistance" from the Libyan representatives and were offered arms, and potentially volunteers. 

"There is something being planned to send weapons and even Libyan fighters to Syria," said a Libyan source, speaking on condition of anonymity. "There is a military intervention on the way. Within a few weeks you will see."

Later that month, some 600 Libyan terrorists would be reported to have entered Syria to begin combat operations and have been flooding into the country ever since. 

Washington Post's reported "loose missiles" in Libya are now turning up on the battlefield in Syria. While outfits like the Guardian, in their article "Arms and the Manpads: Syrian rebels get anti-aircraft missiles," are reporting the missiles as being deployed across Syria, they have attempted to downplay any connection to Libya's looted arsenal and the Al-Qaeda terrorists that have imported them. In contrast, Times has published open admissions from terrorists themselves admitting they are receiving heavy weapons including surface-to-air missiles from Libya. 

In Time's article, "Libya’s Fighters Export Their Revolution to Syria," it is reported:

Some Syrians are more frank about the assistance the Libyans are providing. “They have heavier weapons than we do,” notes Firas Tamim, who has traveled in rebel-controlled areas to keep tabs on foreign fighters. “They brought these weapons to Syria, and they are being used on the front lines.” Among the arms Tamim has seen are Russian-made surface-to-air missiles, known as the SAM 7.

Libyan fighters largely brush off questions about weapon transfers, but in December they claimed they were doing just that. “We are in the process of collecting arms in Libya,” a Libyan fighter in Syria told the French daily Le Figaro. “Once this is done, we will have to find a way to bring them here.” 

Clearly NATO's intervention in Libya has left a vast, devastating arsenal in the hands of sectarian extremists, led by US State Department, United Nations, and the UK Home Office listed terrorist organization LIFG, that is now exporting these weapons and militants to NATO's other front in Syria. It is confirmed that both Libyan terrorists and weapons are crossing the Turkish-Syrian border, with NATO assistance, and it is now clear that heavy weapons, including anti-aircraft weapons have crossed the border too. 

The Guardian reported in their November 2011 article, "Libyan chemical weapons stockpiles intact, say inspectors," that: 

Libya's stockpiles of mustard gas and chemicals used to make weapons are intact and were not stolen during the uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi, weapons inspectors have said.

But also reported that:

The abandonment or disappearance of some Gaddafi-era weapons has prompted concerns that such firepower could erode regional security if it falls into the hands of Islamist militants or rebels active in north Africa. Some fear they could be used by Gaddafi loyalists to spread instability in Libya.

Libyan Chemical Weapons

Last month Human Rights Watch urged Libya's ruling national transitional council to take action over large numbers of heavy weapons, including surface-to-air missiles, it said were lying unguarded more than two months after Gaddafi was overthrown.

On Wednesday the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said the UN would send experts to Libya to help ensure nuclear material and chemical weapons did not fall into the wrong hands. 

And while inspectors claim that Libya's chemical weapons are in the "government's" hands and not "extremists'," it is clear by the Libyan government's own admission, that they themselves are involved in sending fighters and weapons into Syria. 

It remains to be seen where these chemical weapons came from. Should they appear to be from Libya's arsenal, NATO, especially the US and Turkey, would be implicated in supplying Al-Qaeda terrorists with WMDs, the very scenario the West has been paralyzed in fear over for the past 10 years, has given up its liberties, and spilled the blood of thousands of its soldiers to prevent. 

The implications of Western-backed terrorists using chemical weapons, regardless of their origin, have cost the West its already floundering legitimacy, jeopardized its institutions, and have further shaken the confidence of the many shareholders invested in them - politically, financially, industrially, and strategically. 

Such shareholders would be wise to begin looking for exits and cultivating alternatives outside the Wall Street-London international order.