FOR SALE; National Food and Buffer stock Company Is Going

Kofi Humado, Ghana Agricultural Minister

The Agricultural Minister Clement Kofi Humado has announced plans by government to privatize the National Food and Buffer Stock Company.

In an exclusive interview with Joy News, the minister said government has no money to pump into the company, but said  legislative processes are underway to Commodity Exchange system.

The minister believes that is the surest way to arrest the financial predicament of the company.

The National Food and Buffer Stock Company which was inaugurated in 2010 had the mandate to purchase, preserve, sell and distribute foodstuffs in the country.

The company, solely and fully owned by the government, was to guarantee farmers an assured income by providing a minimum guaranteed price and a ready market for their produce.

However, the 15 million Ghana cedis seed capital for the project announced during the inauguration, is yet to be fully redeemed by government.

Operations Manager of the company Ken Aquaye told Joy News the institution needs a major capital injection to deliver on its mandate.

The Agric minister Clement Humado says government has had a change of mind on the operations of the company.

He told Joy News' Gifty Andoh-Appiah, the direct capital injection from government will no longer happen and charged the company to position itself appropriately to be attractive to private investors.

Mr Humado said his ministry has gone far in pursuing legislation to introduce a Commodity Exchange system similar to the Ghana Stock Exchange.

Under the new commodity exchange system which Ghana seeks to replicate from Ethiopia, representatives of both farmers and buyers will negotiate on prices, make payments and take delivery of the produce.

This is expected to cut down on stocks of farm produce which gets stuck in warehouses and boost the Buffer stock Company's finances the minister says.

Currently the Buffer stock company has no budgetary allocation.

Credit: Joy News

Editorial

JUST SELL, DON’T THINK

Over the last 30 years, the official policy appears to be “just sell, don’t think”

 Under this policy which is crafted by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) more than 400 of Ghana’s industries have been privatised.

 The result is that about 300, 000 workers have been retrenched from the public sector.

 Ghana has also become heavily dependent on imports for her survival as many or most of the privatised industries have collapsed.

Now, the Government and its Divestiture Implementation Committee (DIC) have turned their attention to selling Ghana’s forests without regard for the environmental consequences.

The news that the Government intends to sell the Buffer Stock Company is most shocking.

 Don’t the authorities know that the national buffer stock is an issue with profound security implications?

Why would any government committed to the welfare of its people sell its national buffer stock company?

The Hows and Whys of Gold Price Manipulation

Gold Bars from Ghana

By Paul Craig Roberts and Dave Kranzler.

The deregulation of the financial system during the Clinton and George W. Bush regimes had the predictable result: financial concentration and reckless behavior. A handful of banks grew so large that financial authorities declared them “too big to fail.” Removed from market discipline, the banks became wards of the government requiring massive creation of new money by the Federal Reserve in order to support through the policy of Quantitative Easing the prices of financial instruments on the banks’ balance sheets and in order to finance at low interest rates trillion dollar federal budget deficits associated with the long recession caused by the financial crisis.

The Fed’s policy of monetizing one trillion dollars of bonds annually put pressure on the US dollar, the value of which declined in terms of gold. When gold hit $1,900 per ounce in 2011, the Federal Reserve realized that $2,000 per ounce could have a psychological impact that would spread into the dollar’s exchange rate with other currencies, resulting in a run on the dollar as both foreign and domestic holders sold dollars to avoid the fall in value. Once this realization hit, the manipulation of the gold price moved beyond central bank leasing of gold to bullion dealers in order to create an artificial market supply to absorb demand that otherwise would have pushed gold prices higher. The manipulation consists of the Fed using bullion banks as its agents to sell naked gold shorts in the New York Comex futures market. Short selling drives down the gold price, triggers stop-loss orders and margin calls, and scares participants out of the gold trusts. The bullion banks purchase the deserted shares and present them to the trusts for redemption in bullion. The bullion can then be sold in the London physical gold market, where the sales both ratify the lower price that short-selling achieved on the Comex floor and provide a supply of bullion to meet Asian demands for physical gold as opposed to paper claims on gold.

The evidence of gold price manipulation is clear. In this article we present evidence and describe the process. We conclude that ability to manipulate the gold price is disappearing as physical gold moves from New York and London to Asia, leaving the West with paper claims to gold that greatly exceed the available supply.

The primary venue of the Fed’s manipulation activity is the New York Comex exchange, where the world trades gold futures. Each gold futures contract represents one gold 100 ounce bar. The Comex is referred to as a paper gold exchange because of the use of these futures contracts. Although several large global banks are trading members of the Comex, JP Morgan, HSBC and Bank Nova Scotia conduct the majority of the trading volume. Trading of gold (and silver) futures occurs in an auction-style market on the floor of the Comex daily from 8:20 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. New York time. Comex futures trading also occurs on what is known as Globex. Globex is a computerized trading system used for derivatives, currency and futures contracts. It operates continuously except on weekends. Anyone anywhere in the world with access to a computer-based futures trading platform has access to the Globex system.

In addition to the Comex, the Fed also engages in manipulating the price of gold on the far bigger–in terms of total dollar value of trading–London gold market. This market is called the LBMA (London Bullion Marketing Association) market. It is comprised of several large banks who are LMBA market makers known as “bullion banks” (Barclays, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JPMorganChase, Merrill Lynch/Bank of America, Mitsui, Societe Generale, Bank of Nova Scotia and UBS). Whereas the Comex is a “paper gold” exchange, the LBMA is the nexus of global physical gold trading and has been for centuries. When large buyers like Central Banks, big investment funds or wealthy private investors want to buy or sell a large amount of physical gold, they do this on the LBMA market.

The Fed’s gold manipulation operation involves exerting forceful downward pressure on the price of gold by selling a massive amount of Comex gold futures, which are dropped like bombs either on the Comex floor during NY trading hours or via the Globex system. A recent example of this occurred on Monday, January 6, 2014. After rallying over $15 in the Asian and European markets, the price of gold suddenly plunged $35 at 10:14 a.m. In a space of less than 60 seconds, more than 12,000 contracts traded – equal to more than 10% of the day’s entire volume during the 23 hour trading period in which which gold futures trade. There was no apparent news or market event that would have triggered the sudden massive increase in Comex futures selling which caused the sudden steep drop in the price of gold. At the same time, no other securities market (other than silver) experienced any unusual price or volume movement. 12,000 contracts represents 1.2 million ounces of gold, an amount that exceeds by a factor of three the total amount of gold in Comex vaults that could be delivered to the buyers of these contracts.

This manipulation by the Fed involves the short-selling of uncovered Comex gold futures. “Uncovered” means that these are contracts that are sold without any underlying physical gold to deliver if the buyer on the other side decides to ask for delivery. This is also known as “naked short selling.” The execution of the manipulative trading is conducted through one of the major gold futures trading banks, such as JPMorganChase, HSBC, and Bank of Nova Scotia. These banks do the actual selling on behalf of the Fed. The manner in which the Fed dumps a large quantity of futures contracts into the market differs from the way in which a bona fide trader looking to sell a big position would operate. The latter would try to work off his position carefully over an extended period of time with the goal of trying to disguise his selling and to disturb the price as little as possible in order to maximize profits or minimize losses. In contrast, the Fed‘s sales telegraph the intent to drive the price lower with no regard for preserving profits or fear or incurring losses, because the goal is to inflict as much damage as possible on the price and intimidate potential buyers.

The Fed also actively manipulates gold via the Globex system. The Globex market is punctuated with periods of “quiet” time in which the trade volume is very low. It is during these periods that the Fed has its agent banks bombard the market with massive quantities of gold futures over a very brief period of time for the purpose of driving the price lower. The banks know that there are very few buyers around during these time periods to absorb the selling. This drives the price lower than if the selling operation occurred when the market is more active.

A primary example of this type of intervention occurred on December 18, 2013, immediately after the FOMC announced its decision to reduce bond purchases by $10 billion monthly beginning in January 2014. With the rest of the trading world closed, including the actual Comex floor trading, a massive amount of Comex gold futures were sold on the Globex computer trading system during one of its least active periods. This selling pushed the price of gold down $23 dollars in the space of two hours. The next wave of futures selling occurred in the overnight period starting at 2:30 a.m. NY time on December 19th. This time of day is one of the least active trading periods during any 23 hour trading day (there’s one hour when gold futures stop trading altogether). Over 4900 gold contracts representing 14.5 tonnes of gold were dumped into the Globex system in a 2-minute period from 2:40-2:41 a.m, resulting in a $24 decline in the price of gold. This wasn’t the end of the selling. Shortly after the Comex floor opened later that morning, another 1,654 contracts were sold followed shortly after by another 2,295 contracts. This represented another 12.2 tonnes of gold. Then at 10:00 a.m. EST, another 2,530 contracts were unloaded on the market followed by an additional 3,482 contracts just six minutes later. These sales represented another 18.7 tonnes of gold.

All together, in 6 minutes during an eight hour period, a total amount of 37.6 tonnes (a “tonne” is a metric ton–about 10% more weight than a US ”ton”) of gold future contracts were sold. The contracts sold during these 6 minutes accounted for 10% of the total volume during that 23 hours period of time. Four-tenths of one percent of the trading day accounted for 10% of the total volume. The gold represented by the futures contracts that were sold during these 6 minutes was a multiple of the amount of physical gold available to Comex for delivery.

The purpose of driving the price of gold down was to prevent the announced reduction in bond purchases (the so-called tapering) from sending the dollar, stock and bond markets down. The markets understand that the liquidity that Quantitative Easing provides is the reason for the high bond and stock prices and understand also that the gains from the rising stock market discourage gold purchases. Previously when the Fed had mentioned that it might reduce bond purchases, the stock market fell and bonds sold off. To neutralize the market scare, the Fed manipulated both gold and stock markets. (See Pam Martens for explanation of the manipulation of the stock market: http://wallstreetonparade.com/2013/12/why-didn’t-the-stock-market-sell-off-on-the-fed’s-taper-announcement/ )

While the manipulation of the gold market has been occurring since the start of the bull market in gold in late 2000, this pattern of rampant manipulative short-selling of futures contracts has been occurring on a more intense basis over the last 2 years, during gold’s price decline from a high of $1900 in September 2011. The attack on gold’s price typically will occur during one of several key points in time during the 23 hour Globex trading period. The most common is right at the open of Comex gold futures trading, which is 8:20 a.m. New York time. To set the tone of trading, the price of gold is usually knocked down when the Comex opens. Here are the other most common times when gold futures are sold during illiquid Globex system time periods:

- 6:00 p.m NY time weekdays, when the Globex system re-opens after closing for an hour;
- 6:00 p.m. Sunday evening NY time when Globex opens for the week;
- 2:30 a.m. NY time, when Shanghai Gold Exchange closes
- 4:00 a.m. NY time, just after the morning gold “fix” on the London gold market (LBMA);
2:00 p.m. NY time any day but especially on Friday, after the Comex floor trading has closed – it’s an illiquid Globex-only session and the rest of the world is still closed.

In addition to selling futures contracts on the Comex exchange in order to drive the price of gold lower, the Fed and its agent bullion banks also intermittently sell large quantities of physical gold in London’s LBMA gold market. The process of buying and selling actual physical gold is more cumbersome and complicated than trading futures contracts. When a large supply of physical gold hits the London market all at once, it forces the market a lot lower than an equivalent amount of futures contracts would. As the availability of large amounts of physical gold is limited, these “physical gold drops” are used carefully and selectively and at times when the intended effect on the market will be most effective.

The primary purpose for short-selling futures contracts on Comex is to protect the dollar’s value from the growing supply of dollars created by the Fed’s policy of Quantitative Easing. The Fed’s use of gold leasing to supply gold to the market in order to reduce the rate of rise in the gold price has drained the Fed’s gold holdings and is creating a shortage in physical gold. Historically most big buyers would leave their gold for safe-keeping in the vaults of the Fed, Bank of England or private bullion banks rather than incur the cost of moving gold to local depositories. However, large purchasers of gold, such as China, now require actual delivery of the gold they buy.

Demands for gold delivery have forced the use of extraordinary and apparently illegal tactics in order to obtain physical gold to settle futures contracts that demand delivery and to be able to deliver bullion purchased on the London market (LBMA). Gold for delivery is obtained from opaque Central Bank gold leasing transactions, from “borrowing” client gold held by the bullion banks like JP Morgan in their LBMA custodial vaults, and by looting the gold trusts, such as GLD, of their gold holdings by purchasing large blocks of shares and redeeming the shares for gold.

Central Bank gold leasing occurs when Central Banks take physical gold they hold in custody and lease it to bullion banks. The banks sell the gold on the London physical gold market. The gold leasing transaction makes available physical gold that can be delivered to buyers in quantities that would not be available at existing prices. The use of gold leasing to manipulate the price of gold became a prevalent practice in the 1990′s. While Central Banks admit to engaging in gold lease transactions, they do not admit to its purpose, which is to moderate rises in the price of gold, although Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan did admit during Congressional testimony on derivatives in 1998 that “Central banks stand ready to lease gold in increasing quantities should the price rise.”

Another method of obtaining bullion for sale or delivery is known as “rehypothecation.” Rehypothecation occurs when a bank or brokerage firm “borrows” client assets being held in custody by banks. Technically, bank/brokerage firm clients sign an agreement when they open an account in which the assets in the account might be pledged for loans, like margin loans. But the banks then take pledged assets and use them for their own purpose rather than the client’s. This is rehypothecation. Although Central Banks fully disclose the practice of leasing gold, banks/brokers do not publicly disclose the details of their rehypothecation activities.

Over the course of the 13-year gold bull market, gold leasing and rehypothecation operations have largely depleted most of the gold in the vaults of the Federal Reserve, Bank of England, European Central Bank and private bullion banks such as JPMorganChase. The depletion of vault gold became a problem when Venezuela was the first country to repatriate all of its gold being held by foreign Central Banks, primarily the Fed and the BOE. Venezuela’s request was provoked by rumors circulating the market that gold was being leased and hypothecated in increasing quantities. About a year later, Germany made a similar request. The Fed refused to honor Germany’s request and, instead, negotiated a seven year timeline in which it would ship back 300 of Germany’s 1500 tonnes. This made it apparent that the Fed did not have the gold it was supposed to be holding for Germany.

Why does the Fed need seven years in which to return 20 percent of Germany’s gold? The answer is that the Fed does not have the gold in its vault to deliver. In 2011 it took four months to return Venezuela’s 160 tonnes of gold. Obviously, the gold was not readily at hand and had to be borrowed, perhaps from unsuspecting private owners who mistakenly believe that their gold is held in trust.

Western central banks have pushed fractional gold reserve banking to the point that they haven’t enough reserves to cover withdrawals. Fractional reserve banking originated when medieval goldsmiths learned that owners of gold stored in their vault seldom withdrew the gold. Instead, those who had gold on deposit circulated paper claims to gold. This allowed goldsmiths to lend gold that they did not have by issuing paper receipts. This is what the Fed has done. The Fed has created paper claims to gold that does not exist in physical form and sold these claims in mass quantities in order to drive down the gold price. The paper claims to gold are a large multiple of the amount of actual gold available for delivery. The Reserve Bank of India reports that the ratio of paper claims to gold exceed the amount of gold available for delivery by 93:1.

Fractional reserve systems break down when too many depositors or holders of paper claims present them for delivery. Breakdown is occurring in the Fed’s fractional bullion operation. In the last few years the Asian markets–specifically and especially the Chinese–are demanding actual physical delivery of the bullion they buy. This has created a sense of urgency among the Fed, Treasury and the bullion banks to utilize any means possible to flush out as many weak holders of gold as possible with orchestrated price declines in order to acquire physical gold that can be delivered to Asian buyers.

The $650 decline in the price of gold since it hit $1900 in September 2011 is the result of a manipulative effort designed both to protect the dollar from Quantitative Easing and to free up enough gold to satisfy Asian demands for delivery of gold purchases.

Around the time of the substantial drop in gold’s price in April, 2013, the Bank of England’s public records showed a 1300 tonne decline in the amount of gold being held in the BOE bullion vaults. This is a fact that has not been denied or reasonably explained by BOE officials despite several published inquiries. This is gold that was being held in custody but not owned by the Bank of England. The truth is that the 1300 tonnes is gold that was required to satisfy delivery demands from the large Asian buyers. It is one thing for the Fed or BOE to sell, lease or rehypothecate gold out of their vault that is being safe-kept knowing the entitled owner likely won’t ask for it anytime soon, but it is another thing altogether to default on a gold delivery to Asians demanding delivery.

Default on delivery of purchased gold would terminate the Federal Reserve’s ability to manipulate the gold price. The entire world would realize that the demand for gold greatly exceeds the supply, and the price of gold would explode upwards. The Federal Reserve would lose control and would have to abandon Quantitative Easing. Otherwise, the exchange value of the US dollar would collapse, bringing to an end US financial hegemony over the world.

Last April, the major takedown in the gold price began with Goldman Sachs issuing a “technical analysis” report with an $850 price target (gold was around $1650 at that time). Goldman Sachs also broadcast to every major brokerage firm and hedge fund in New York that gold was going to drop hard in price and urged brokers to get their clients out of all physical gold holdings and/or shares in physical gold trusts like GLD. GLD and other gold ETFs are trusts that purchase physical gold/silver bullion and issue shares that represent claims on the bullion holdings. The shares are marketed as investments in gold, but represent claims that can only be redeemed in very large blocks of shares, such as 100,000, and perhaps only by bullion banks. GLD is the largest gold ETF (exchange traded fund), but not the only one. The purpose of Goldman Sachs’ announcement was to spur gold sales that would magnify the price effect of the short-selling of futures contracts. Heavy selling of futures contracts drove down the gold price and forced sales of GLD and other ETF shares, which were bought up by the bullion banks and redeemed for gold.

At the beginning of 2013, GLD held 1350 tonnes of gold. By April 12th, when the heavy intervention operation began, GLD held 1,154 tonnes. After the series of successive raids in April, the removal of gold from GLD accelerated and currently there are 793 tonnes left in the trust. In a little more than one year, more than 41% of the gold bars held by GLD were removed – most of that after the mid-April intervention operation.

In addition, the Bank of England made its gold available for purchase by the bullion banks in order to add to the ability to deliver gold to Asian purchasers.

The financial media, which is used to discredit gold as a safe haven from the printing of fiat currencies, claims that the decline in GLD’s physical gold is an indication that the public is rejecting gold as an investment. In fact, the manipulation of the gold price downward is being done systematically in order to coerce holders of GLD to unload their shares. This enables the bullion banks to accumulate the amount of shares required to redeem gold from the GLD Trust and ship that gold to Asia in order to meet the enormous delivery demands. For example, in the event described above on January 6th, 14% of GLD’s total volume for the day traded in a 1-minute period starting at 10:14 a.m. The total volume on the day for GLD was almost 35% higher than the average trading volume in GLD over the previous ten trading days.

Before 2013, the amount of gold in the GLD vault was one of the largest stockpiles of gold in the world. The swift decline in GLD’s gold inventory is the most glaring indicator of the growing shortage of physical gold supply that can be delivered to the Asian market and other large physical gold buyers. The more the price of gold is driven down in the Western paper gold market, the higher the demand for physical bullion in Asian markets. In addition, several smaller physical gold ETFs have experienced substantial gold withdrawals. Including the more than 100 tonnes of gold that has disappeared from the Comex vaults in the last year, well over 1,000 tonnes of gold has been removed from the various ETFs and bank custodial vaults in the last year. Furthermore, there is no telling how much gold that is kept in bullion bank private vaults on behalf of wealthy investors has been rehypothecated. All of this gold was removed in order to avoid defaulting on delivery demands being imposed by Asian commercial, investment and sovereign gold buyers.

The Federal Reserve seems to be trapped. The Fed is creating approximately 1,000 billion new US dollars annually in order to support the prices of debt related derivatives on the books of the few banks that have been declared to be “to big to fail” and in order to finance the large federal budget deficit that is now too large to be financed by the recycling of Chinese and OPEC trade surpluses into US Treasury debt. The problem with Quantitative Easing is that the annual creation of an enormous supply of new dollars is raising questions among American and foreign holders of vast amounts of US dollar-denominated financial instruments. They see their dollar holdings being diluted by the creation of new dollars that are not the result of an increase in wealth or GDP and for which there is no demand.

Quantitative Easing is a threat to the dollar’s exchange value. The Federal Reserve, fearful that the falling value of the dollar in terms of gold would spread into the currency markets and depreciate the dollar, decided to employ more extreme methods of gold price manipulation.

When gold hit $1,900, the Federal Reserve panicked. The manipulation of the gold price became more intense. It became more imperative to drive down the price, but the lower price resulted in higher Asian demand for which scant supplies of gold were available to meet.

Having created more paper gold claims than there is gold to satisfy, the Fed has used its dependent bullion banks to loot the gold exchange traded funds (ETFs) of gold in order to avoid default on Asian deliveries. Default would collapse the fractional bullion system that allows the Fed to drive down the gold price and protect the dollar from QE.

What we are witnessing is our central bank pulling out all stops on integrity and lawfulness in order to serve a small handful of banks that financial deregulation allowed to become “too big to fail” at the expense of our economy and our currency. When the Fed runs out of gold to borrow, to rehypothecate, and to loot from ETFs, the Fed will have to abandon QE or the US dollar will collapse and with it Washington’s power to exercise hegemony over the world.

Dave Kranzler traded high yield bonds for Bankers Trust for a decade. As a co-founder and principal of Golden Returns Capital LLC, he manages the Precious Metals Opportunity Fund.

CASTRO TAKES AMERICAN POLICE TO TASK

Fidel Castro

Dr Fidel Castro, Cuban Prime Minister, speaking as a military experts and guerrilla leader, has cited “strange circumstances” surrounding the assassination of President Kennedy.

Speaking on Radio Havana, monitored here in Ghana he said the telescopic sight on the weapon Lee Harvey Oswald, was alleged to have used was designed to shoot 300 or 500 yards or more.

``It is strange that someone who was going to make an attack from 80 yards from a window would acquire a gun with a telescopic sight’’. He said.

``It could be that the gun appeared there as part of the plot to fire against a moving object with a sight is a hindrance’’, he added.

``Furthermore, it is strange that a person would try to attempt such an assassination from the place where he worked, where within five minutes he would be pursued on all sides’’.

Dr. Castro added, ``he would sought another roof, another building. He would have been situated with a telescopic rifle at a distance that would permit him to escape. This thing does not make sense. A series of strange things, trying to escape knowing that he would be identify immediately.

``There are contradictory things that show that either… a guilty person was invented or  that he is not guilty and was converted by the police into a guilty person’’.

Dr. Castro added: ``In the eyes of the world it is clear that the reactionaries of the United States wanted to make our country the victim of their criminal designs even at the price of assassinating the President of the United States.

``Those guilty of Kennedy`s death wanted at all cost to eliminate the accused to keep him from talking’’.

(First published in the Evening News of Friday November 29, 1963)

The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster: What Happened on “Day One”?

By Yoichi Shimatsu

On the first day of the Fukushima disaster, Tepco reported that reactors 1, 2 and 6 were operating at the time of the quake and tsunami, and that the other 3 reactors were empty of fuel rods for periodic maintenance. 1, 2 and 6 were designed by GE, old model Mark-1.

Then reactor 3 blows and burns, and without any correction to the first report, Tepco then says 1, 2 and 3 were operating and the others were down. No. 3, which is run on plutonium-uranium MOX fuel, was built by Toshiba. (no. 5 is also a Toshiba) Toshiba has an international partnership with Westinghouse to build nuclear plants. The leak from No.3 accounted then for the reports of leaked plutonium. 

Then reactor 4 building catches on fire, due to a dry cooling pool for spent rods. No..4 is built by Hitachi, which has a partnership with GE to build nuclear plants and also currently develop a laser (plasma) separation process for plutonium extraction. 

The fire is so extreme (for depleted uranium) that the reactor is damaged. This suggests that reactor 4 was also internally damaged, meaning that it was operating at time of the tsunami, in an unscheduled run for either of two purposes: offline electrical generation for some reason inside Fukushima 1; or for a controlled reaction aimed at reprocessing (neutron enrichment) of spent fuel rods to increase their fissile uranium content (prior to extraction).

Next, reactors 4 and 5 are found to be generating hydrogen gas. 

H gas is produced when the fission process, which releases electrons as well as neutrons, splits water molecules, H20, into hydrogen, supercharged oxygen and some hydroxyl radicals. The presence of a gas build-up indicates that these two reactors contain fuel rods, contrary to Tepco claims. This means reactors 4 and 5 had recently conducted runs or were being prepared for operations of an undetermined (and unreported) nature. 

The other technical mystery is that Tepco engineers suggested that the electric power inside the plant was knocked out by something other than the tsunami. I have pointed to this possibility early on, that the quake and control disruptions could have made the control computers vulnerable to the Stuxnet virus. 

The other possibility to consider is that a high-power electromagnetic event (for example a sudden energy burst from the released of ionized gases from the de-magnetized laser-plasma process) could have knocked out all electrical systems, similar to how a neutron bomb would incapacitate power system. 

Very little of this information was recorded in newspaper reports, but came as nearly inadvertent admissions during the minute-by-minute televised coverage of the disaster by NHK. 

The other major mystery is the one-minute blackout of NHK World News at the mention of the fire and plant shutdown at the Onagawa nuclear plant in Miyagi Prefecture. 

The Secret War in Libya

By Eric Draitser

The battles currently raging in the South of Libya are no mere tribal clashes. Instead, they represent a possible burgeoning alliance between black Libyan ethnic groups and pro-Gaddafi forces intent upon liberating their country of a neocolonial NATO-installed government.

On Saturday January 18th, a group of heavily armed fighters stormed an air force base outside the city of Sabha in southern Libya, expelling forces loyal to the “government” of Prime Minister Ali Zeidan, and occupying the base. At the same time, reports from inside the country began to trickle in that the green flag of the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya was flying over a number of cities throughout the country. Despite the dearth of verifiable information – the government in Tripoli has provided only vague details and corroboration – one thing is certain: the war for Libya continues.

On the Ground

Libya’s Prime Minister Ali Zeidan called an emergency session of the General National Congress to declare a state of alert for the country after news of the storming of the air base broke. The Prime Minister announced that he had ordered troops south to quell the rebellion, telling reporters that, “This confrontation is continuing but in a few hours it will be solved.” A spokesman for the Defense Ministry later claimed that the central government had reclaimed control of the air base, stating that “A force was readied, then aircraft moved and took off and dealt with the targets…The situation in the south opened a chance for some criminals…loyal to the Gaddafi regime to exploit this and to attack the Tamahind air force base…We will protect the revolution and the Libyan people.”

In addition to the assault on the airbase, there have been other attacks on individual members of the government in Tripoli. The highest profile incident was the recent assassination of the Deputy Industry Minister Hassan al-Droui in the city of Sirte. Although it is still unclear whether he was killed by Islamist forces or Green resistance fighters, the unmistakable fact is that the central government is under assault and is unable to exercise true authority or provide security in the country. Many have begun speculating that his killing, rather than being an isolated, targeted assassination, is part of a growing trend of resistance in which pro-Gaddafi Green fighters figure prominently.

The rise of the Green resistance forces in Sabha and elsewhere is merely one part of larger and more complex political and military calculus in the South where a number of tribes and various ethnic groups have risen against what they correctly perceive to be their political, economic, and social marginalization. Groups such as the Tawergha and Tobou ethnic minorities, both of which are black African groups, have endured vicious attacks at the hands of Arab militias with no support from the central government. Not only have these and other groups been the victims of ethnic cleansing, but they have been systematically shut out of participation in Libyan political and economic life.

The tensions came to a head earlier this month when a rebel chief from the Arab Awled Sleiman tribe was killed. Rather than an official investigation or legal process, the Awled tribesmen attacked their black Toubou neighbors, accusing them of involvement in the murder. The resulting clashes have since killed dozens, once again demonstrating that the dominant Arab groups still view their dark skinned neighbors as something other than countrymen. Undoubtedly, this has led to a reorganization of the alliances in the region, with the Toubou, Tuareg and other black minority groups that inhabit southern Libya, northern Chad and Niger moving closer to the pro-Gaddafi forces. Whether or not these alliances are formal or not still remains unclear, however it is apparent that many groups in Libya have come to the realization that the government installed by NATO has not lived up to its promises, and that something must be done.

The Politics of Race in Libya

Despite the high-minded rhetoric from Western interventionists regarding “democracy” and “freedom” in Libya, the reality is far from it, especially for dark skinned Libyans who have seen their socioeconomic and political status diminished with the end of the Jamahiriya government of Muammar Gaddafi. While these peoples enjoyed a large measure of political equality and protection under the law in Gaddafi’s Libya, the post-Gaddafi era has seen their rights all but stripped from them. Rather than being integrated into a new democratic state, the black Libyan groups have been systematically excluded.

In fact, even Human Rights Watch – an organization which in no small measure helped to justify the NATO war by falsely claiming that Gaddafi forces used rape as a weapon and were preparing “imminent genocide” – has reported that, “A crime against humanity of mass forced displacement continues unabated, as militias mainly from Misrata prevented 40,000 people from the town of Tawergha from returning to their homes from where they had been expelled in 2011.” This fact, coupled with the horrific stories and images of lynchings, rapes, and other crimes against humanity, paints a very bleak picture of life in Libya for these groups.

In its 2011 report, Amnesty International documented a number of flagrant war crimes carried out by the so called “freedom fighters” of Libya who, despite being hailed in the Western media as “liberators”, used the opportunity of the war to carry out mass executions of black Libyans as well as rival clans and ethnic groups. This is of course in stark contrast to the treatment of black Libyans under the Jamahiriya government of Gaddafi which was praised up and down by the Human Rights Council of the United Nations in their 2011 report which noted that Gaddafi had gone to great lengths to ensure economic and social development, as well as specifically providing economic opportunities and political protections to black Libyans and migrant workers from neighboring African countries. With this in mind, is it any wonder that Al Jazeera quoted a pro-Gaddafi Tuareg fighter in September 2011 as saying, “fighting for Gaddafi is like a son fighting for his father…[We will be] ready to fight for him until the last drop of blood.”

As the Toubou and other black ethnic groups clash with Arab militias, their struggle should be understood in the context of a continued struggle for peace and equality. Moreover, the fact that they must engage in this form of armed struggle again illustrates the point that many international observers made from the very beginning of the war: NATO’s aggression was never about protecting civilians or human rights, but rather regime change for economic and geopolitical interests. That the majority of the population, including black ethnic minorities, is worse off today than they ever were under Gaddafi is a fact that is actively suppressed.

Black, Green, and the Struggle for Libya

It would be presumptuous to assume that the military victories made by the pro-Gaddafi Green resistance in recent days will be long-lasting, or that they represent an irreversible shift in the political and military landscape of the country. Though decidedly unstable, the neocolonial puppet government in Tripoli is supported economically and militarily by some of the most powerful interests in the world, making it difficult to simply overthrow it with minor victories. However, these developments do signal an interesting shift in the calculus on the ground. Undoubtedly there is a confluence between the black ethnic minorities and the Green fighters as both recognize their enemy as being the tribal militias who participated in the overthrow of Gaddafi as well as the central government in Tripoli. Whether a formal alliance emerges from this remains to be seen.

Were such an alliance to develop however, it would be a watershed moment in the continued war for Libya. As Green resistance fighters have shown in Sabha, they are able to organize themselves in the south of the country where they enjoy a large degree of popular support. One could imagine an alliance in the south that would be able to hold territory and possibly consolidate power throughout the southern part of Libya, creating a de facto independent state. Naturally, the cry from NATO and its apologists would be that this is anti-democratic and counter-revolution. This would be understandable as their goal of a unified Libya subservient to international finance capital and oil interests would become unattainable.

One should be careful not to make too many assumptions about the situation in Libya today, as reliable details are hard to come by. More to the point, Western media has attempted to completely suppress the fact that the Green resistance even exists, let alone is active and winning victories. All this simply further illustrates that the war for Libya rages on, whether the world wants to admit it or not.

Eric Draitser is the founder of StopImperialism.com. He is an independent geopolitical analyst based in New York City. You can reach him at ericdraitser@gmail.com.

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OSWALD WAS USED TO COVER UP FACTS

In a related development,

A Tunisian security expert said yesterday that Lee Harvey Oswald had only fired blank cartridges to distract attention while the real killer slipped through the crowd and shot President Kennedy with a silenced gun and then fled.

National security expert, Mr. Bechir Latrech put forward his version of last Friday`s assassination in Dallas, Texas, in a letter published yesterday’s newspaper ``La Presse de Tunisie’’.

Backing up his theory, Mr. Latrech said ``the doctors who examined President Kennedy’s body, after the killing, said that the bullet entered just above the Adam’s apple and came out above the ear. That was later confirmed. Hence an upward trajectory, but all officials (police, journalist etc) said that the bullet which killed President Kennedy was fired by a rifle, from a fifth floor or a downward trajectory’’.

Mr. Latrech added: ``if the doctors are formal in stating that the bullet entered by the throat and came out by the skull, they should know what they are talking about.

(First published in the Evening News of Friday November 29, 1963)

Cold air

Researchers say lower temperatures can help people burn more calories. 

A research carried out by Dutch scientists into the effects of lower temperatures on human beings’ metabolism suggests that feeling cold could help people lose weight.

The findings of the 10-year-long study by the researchers from Maastricht University Medical Center in the Netherlands indicated that a more variable indoor temperature that more closely mirrors temperatures outside could affect people’s weights.

According to the study, non-shivering heat the body produces in response to feeling cold could account for up to 30 percent of a person’s energy budget, therefore, a mild cold is capable of considerably increasing the number of calories burned up instead of being stored as fat.

“Since most of us are exposed to indoor conditions 90 percent of the time, it is worth exploring health aspects of ambient temperatures,” said lead researcher Wouter van Marken Lichtenbelt.

“What would it mean if we let our bodies work again to control body temperature?” he added.

Lichtenbelt further said the research hypothesizes that frequent mild cold exposure can significantly “affect our energy expenditure over sustained time periods.”

The researchers discovered that people got used to the cold over time and after six hours a day in the cold for a period of 10 days, levels of heat-generating brown fat in the body boosted and people became more comfortable and quivered less.

“Indoor temperature in most buildings is regulated to minimize the percentage of people dissatisfied. This results in relatively high indoor temperatures in wintertime,” said the research which was published in the journal Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism on Wednesday.

“This is evident in offices, in dwellings and is most pronounced in care centers and hospitals. By lack of exposure to a varied ambient temperature, whole populations may be prone to develop diseases like obesity. In addition, people become vulnerable to sudden changes in ambient temperature,” it added.