A no-fly zone should urgently be imposed in Libya

It now is becoming increasingly clear a no-fly zone is urgently needed in order to stop Gaddafi from using his army and security forces to slaughter even more civivilians. Michael Singh, writing in Foreign Policy, explains the case for a no-fly zone:

But for others, especially those closest to Qaddafi, the sanctions and threats of international prosecution, combined with the advance of opposition forces, may convince them that they have little choice but to hunker down in Tripoli and Sirte and fight.
To deal with this possibility that Qaddafi and his loyalists will use all of the force at their disposal before giving in, and that the violence in Libya may therefore get considerably worse, further international action is needed. The United States and EU should seek U.N. Security Council authorization for the imposition of a no-fly zone in Libya.
We have heard much from U.S. officials in recent days about the risks of imposing a no-fly zone, but inaction also has its consequences.
Qaddafi has used warplanes against the opposition in recent days, and there is little indication that he will cease doing so as long as it is an option. This not only increases the chances of mass casualties, but it will extend the conflict as the relatively lightly-armed and poorly-trained rebels worry about advancing while Qaddafi has such armaments at his disposal. As the fighting drags on and the violence deepens, the risk that extremist groups will enter the fray as they have in other conflicts in the region increases as well, which has serious implications for our future relations with whatever Libya that emerges from the fighting.
Inaction also strikes a blow to U.S. credibility. On Capitol Hill March 2, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the "stakes are high" in Libya, which she warned could become a "giant Somalia." The United States has "joined the Libyan people in demanding that Colonel Qaddafi must go now, without further violence or delay," she asserted. Yet it is not clear to the world that we have joined the Libyan people in doing anything about it. Our sanctions will work indirectly and over the long term. Our warships are standing off the coast of Libya, but taking no part in the struggle there. This perception -- that we can help but have chosen not to, despite calls from the Libyan opposition to impose a no-fly zone --is one we may rue for years to come.
The reasons provided by senior U.S. officials for not imposing a no-fly zone in Libya seem pale in comparison to their descriptions of the stakes in Libya. They have said that imposing a no-fly zone would be complicated and would not account for fighting on the ground. These are prudent points, but they make better arguments for a smartly-crafted intervention than for doing nothing. There are well-grounded fears that a no-fly zone could turn into a long-term commitment (like the one over Iraq in the 1990s) if a stalemate develops. But this risk must be weighed against the potential of a no-fly zone to bring the conflict to an earlier end, keeping in mind that a protracted conflict will carry costs for U.S. national security regardless of whether we are directly involved. U.S. officials have also questioned whether aircraft are being used by Qaddafi against civilians, or whether the Libyan opposition wants a no-fly zone. Recent news reports undermine both points. Likewise, fears that Russia and China would veto a no-fly zone in the Security Council should not deter us from putting the question to them.

Read the entire article here.

PS
If the UN Security Council is unable to agree on the no-fly zone, then the US and NATO should act on their own. The killing of civilians bust be stopped in Libya!

China´s defense build-up worries Taiwan and other neighbouring countries

Communist China continues to increase its defense budget in a way that worries its neighbours, particularly Taiwan and Japan:

China will beef up its military budget by 12.7 percent this year, the government said yesterday, a return to double-digit spending increases that will stir regional unease.
The country’s growing military clout has coincided with a more assertive diplomatic tone, evident in spats last year with Japan and Southeast Asia over disputed islands and in rows with Washington over trade, the yuan and human rights.
National People’s Congress (NPC) spokesman Li Zhaoxing (李肇星) said the defense budget would increase from 532.1 billion (US$81 billion) yuan last year to 601.1 billion yuan this year. The budget went up by just 7.5 percent last year, after a long period of double-digit hikes.
Many experts believe China’s actual spending on the 2.3 million-strong People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is far higher than the figures the government reports.
“It’s widely accepted that these figures bear only a marginal relationship with the actual overall spending. Overall, it means the Chinese are saying we are going to [boost] our defense budget, whatever the real numbers are,” said Dean Cheng, a China security expert at the Heritage Foundation in Washington.
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“The PLA is an important and powerful force in decision-making and there is obviously a desire to signal to the Chinese public and Chinese nationalists that China is going to continue to get stronger,” said Rory Medcalf of Australian think tank the Lowy Institute.
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Some officials in Taiwan are especially alarmed. China has about 1,400 missiles aimed at the island, according to the government.
“China’s military power is now growing quickly,” said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Lin Yu-Fang (林郁方), who is also a member of the Legislative Yuan’s defense committee, in response to the Chinese budget number.
“The United States should help us turn the situation around, and we hope European countries will also sell us advanced weapons,” he said
       
Read the entire article in the Taipei Times here.
Also Japan is worried about China´s defense build-up:

Japanese Foreign Minsiter Seiji Maehara on Friday expressed fresh concern over China's ballooning defense spending, after Beijing announced a double-digit increase in its secretive military budget.
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Li said the figure represented six percent of the total national budget in the world's second-largest economy.
"It is an extremely high ratio for defense spending," Maehara told reporters during a press conference. "We cannot help worrying about what all the money is used for."
"We have great concerns," he said, adding Tokyo will "continue encouraging China to increase transparency."
Tokyo has repeatedly questioned Beijing's military intentions.
In December Japan called China's military rise a source of international "concern" in its 10-year defense guidelines, following Beijing's increased assertiveness in territorial disputes in the East China and South China seas.

Read the entire piece here.

Ten frightening facts about the Chinese defense build-up:

• China has the world's largest military, with 2.3 million active personnel and 1.2 million in reserve. By comparison America has under 3 million in total active and reserve personnel.

• CHINA'S GROUND FORCE: 1.9 million personnel, 14,000 tanks, 14,500 artillery units, 453 helicopters.

• CHINA'S AIR FORCE: 470,000 personnel, 2,556 jet fighters, 400 ground attack jets

• CHINA'S NAVY: 250,000 personnel, 66 submarines, 27 destroyers, 52 frigates

• CHINA'S MISSILE ARSENAL: 100,000 personnel, 140 nuclear missiles, 1,000 conventional theater missiles

• NEW WEAPON: The Dong Feng 21D is a land-based missile capable of striking an aircraft carrier as far as 2,000 miles offshore

• China bought the rights to license and reproduce the Sukhoi-27 fighter jet from the Soviet Union, after its collapse

• By 2020 China is expected to have a fleet of carriers, fitting of a 'great naval power'. It will have its first this year

• Pentagon officials believe that China has secretly built a base, capable of housing up to 20 nuclear submarines, on Hainan Island.

• China has now developed and tested its first stealth fighter jet, the J-20. The U.S. is the only other country in the world to have a stealth fighter.

Read the entire article here.

PS

One can only wonder, why China chooses this expensive defense build-up instead of focusing on improving the lot of hundreds of millions of poor Chinese people.

Smart grids not so smart

Like so much else in the politically correct "green" dream world, "smart grid" is just a beautiful catchword, that makes no sense economically. Lawrence Solomon reveals the reality behind the not so smart grids:

Power companies around the world are planning to spend trillions of dollars building smart grids — next-generation marvels likened to the transcontinental railroad and the Internet because they are seen as revolutionizing society.
It won’t happen. The smart grid is nothing more than a politically driven fantasy that has no economic rationale other than to support politically favoured technologies that themselves have no economic rationale other than to save the world from global warming. And on global warming the public in most developed countries, public opinion polls show, has already spoken: Global warming is a non-problem.
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The one smart grid that was completed — a small smart grid in Boulder, Colo., called Smart Grid City — came in at $100-million, three times the original cost estimates, and at a cost of $2,000 per billpayer, it has little value to show for itself. Politicians still push the smart grid, but at some point they will need to face reality — the renewable technologies that the smart grid is intended to support, along with the global warming ideology that underpins them, is all but dead.
The world’s electricity systems will remain predominantly fossil fuelled, and because fossil fuels are both flexible and cheap, they won’t require a smart grid to manage them. The politician-driven smart grid will disappear, and with it the trillions of dollars in needless investment now on the drawing boards.

Read the entire article here.

The Bush freedom agenda

Charles Krauthammer reminds us of some facts:

Voices around the world, from Europe to America to Libya, are calling for U.S. intervention to help bring down Moammar Gaddafi. Yet for bringing down Saddam Hussein, the United States has been denounced variously for aggression, deception, arrogance and imperialism.

A strange moral inversion, considering that Hussein's evil was an order of magnitude beyond Gaddafi's. Gaddafi is a capricious killer; Hussein was systematic. Gaddafi was too unstable and crazy to begin to match the Baathist apparatus: a comprehensive national system of terror, torture and mass murder, gassing entire villages to create what author Kanan Makiya called a "Republic of Fear."
Moreover, that systemized brutality made Hussein immovable in a way that Gaddafi is not. Barely armed Libyans have already seized half the country on their own. Yet in Iraq, there was no chance of putting an end to the regime without the terrible swift sword (it took all of three weeks) of the United States.
No matter the hypocritical double standard. Now that revolutions are sweeping the Middle East and everyone is a convert to George W. Bush's freedom agenda, it's not just Iraq that has slid into the memory hole. Also forgotten is the once proudly proclaimed "realism" of Years One and Two of President Obama's foreign policy - the "smart power" antidote to Bush's alleged misty-eyed idealism.

Read the entire column here.

PS
Krauthammer is, of course, right about Iraq and the Bush freedom agenda. Bush was not perfect - who is? - but history will be much kinder to him than people relying on the picture given by the MSM have been lead to believe.

Medvedev on freedom

"Freedom from fear, humiliation, poverty, disease, freedom for everyone, in my opinion, is our current goal of development," 

Dmitry Medvedev 4.3.2011


Read Robert Amsterdam´s comment here.

No human rights in communist China - Blind activist beaten senseless

A video featuring One Child Policy activist Chen Guangcheng was leaked to the China Aid Association on February 9.  The next day Chen and his wife, Yuan Weijing, were “beaten senseless” in retaliation for the release of the video. This is how the rotten and corrupt communist regime in China treats people who dare to speak up.

Watch the Chen video (with subtitles in English) here:

Womens´ Rights Without Frontiers has some background information:

Blind activist Chen exposed the systematic use of forced abortion in implementing China’s One Child Policy.  His work has not gone unnoticed by the world.  Time Magazine named him in its list of “2006’s Top 100 People Who Shape Our World,” in the category of “Heroes and Pioneers.”  In 2007 he was awarded the Magsaysay award, known as Asia’s Nobel Prize.
The Chinese Communist Party, however, took a different view.  For standing up for the rights of Chinese women, Chen was handed a four year, three month jail sentence, was tortured and denied medical treatment, and is now languishing under house arrest.  No one had heard from him since September until yesterday, when he released this video. 
We are alarmed about the brutal beating of Chen and his wife, who are reportedly unable to move from their beds.  We are also indignant about the conditions of Chen’s house arrest.  A total of 66 security police surround their home day and night.  Chen has been denied medical treatment.  Nor can they communicate with the outside world, as their phone and computer access have been cut off.
At least that was the plan of the Chinese Communist Party.  That plan was shattered by “a reliable government source who is sympathetic to Chen’s cause and outraged by the treatment of Chen,” according to CAA.  In other words, Chen’s video was leaked to the West by a Chinese government insider.
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Why is the CCP so determined to crush Chen, as though he were a dangerous criminal?  The CCP wants the world to believe that its One Child Policy is voluntary.  Chinese President Hu Jintao, during his visit to Washington last month, told Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen that China has no policy of forced abortion.  In contrast, Chen single-handedly exposed the fact that there were 130,000 forced abortions and involuntary sterilizations in Linyi County, Shandong Province in just one year, 2005.  If China truly has no forced abortion policy, then why didn’t the regime jail those who were performing these forced abortions?  Why instead has it jailed and beaten Chen Guangcheng?  (This is not the first time Hu Jintao has been caught lying! /NNoN)
The fact that Chen remains under house arrest proves that President Hu’s statement is false.  The fact that Chen remains unyielding – continuing to urge his fellow citizens to stand up for their rights in China – must rankle party bosses. 
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Chen Guangcheng is the “Tank Man” against China’s One Child Policy.  Impoverished, beaten and blind, Chen nevertheless possesses the surpassing backbone to stand alone against the grinding juggernaut of this totalitarian regime.  The CCP apparently perceives in Chen a real threat to its crumbling legitimacy.
In pressing for justice for Chen and his family, let us not forget those for whom he has sacrificed his freedom:  the women and families of China who are being shattered daily by forced abortion, forced sterilization and infanticide.  The coercive enforcement of China’s One Child Policy causes more violence against women and girls than any other official policy on earth.  It is the greatest women’s rights issue in the world today.  It does not matter whether you are pro-life or pro-choice on this issue.  No one supports forced abortion, because it is not a choice.


Women’s Rights Without Frontiers calls for the immediate, unconditional release from house arrest of Chen Guangcheng and his family, and for urgent medical treatment. To sign a petition to Free Chen Guangcheng, click here: http://www.womensrightswithoutfrontiers.org/

Putin´s dream of controlling Europe´s energy future is over

We have said it before, but it´s worth repeating; the shale gas revolution is a game changer: Putin´s dream of controlling Europe´s energy future is over. Russia will never more be able to use the energy weapon against Ukraine, Poland and other countries. The much touted Russian-German Nord Stream project will be of minor - if any -interest in the years to come. Altkanzler Schröder might as well take early retirement from the wellpaid job his friend Putin gave him.

Australia and Argentina are countries with massive potential new reserves ....

If you don´t believe it, read the article by Jack Barnes in Oilprice.com:

The natural gas cartel, a dream of Russia’s just a few years ago, is dead. It died when a natural gas revolution broke out and Gazprom lost.  Energy importing nations around the world are evaluating their own geology, currently, to see if they have shale reserves that can be tapped.  Nations like Argentina, Germany, Poland, France, and Sweden are looking into their national shale reserves.
The shale gas revolution is changing the world we live in, and the power structures of the past.  It is also quickly changing the politics of future energy relationships.  Nations that had to be nice to an exporter, due to energy supplies, will be freed of their need for discretion.
Shale gas is quite simply changing the whole energy paradigm in real time.  The unlocking of source rock, has altered the future history of mankind.  The world has discovered and unlocked its newest true world changing source of stored energy.
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The world has shale fields spread around the globe in locations famous for oil production, and some not so famous.  The new technology will change the basic political power structures that exist today.  The era of Russia controlling Europe’s natural gas future is drawing to a close.
“The size of reserves is mind boggling,” he said. “It makes a huge argument for a gas economy going forward.”Annop Poddar, Partner, Energy Ventures.
If the shale fields in Poland and Germany can be brought online at the same level of production seen in the US, Europe on shore will be energy independent via their own production.  France has shale oil and shale gas locations.
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The US is now growing its overall hydrocarbon production profile again.  This is after many years of “experts” pontificating that the US was always going to be an importer of energy.  The US was supposed to be trapped importing larger levels of energy from abroad forever.  No one expected the US to quickly become the largest producer of natural gas in the world.
Currently, companies like LNG are looking to spend billions of dollars converting LNG import plants into export plants.  The US could, once again, become a major exporter of hydrocarbons.  This is not a joke.  The era of the US being dependent on Middle East oil, is also ending.
Exxon is quietly buying up shale rights in Germany, as is Shell in Poland.  Australia and Argentina both have massive potential new reserves.  In short, there appears to be the equivalent of new Saudi Arabia’s in BTU totals now popping up in western nations.  The US natural gas reserves are thought to be equal to 2x new Saudi Arabia’s.  It will take decades to unlock this gas, and make it commercially viable in the market place.

Read the entire article here.

PS
There is a huge added bonus connected to the shale gas revolution; it will hasten the demise of the present corrupted leadership in Russia. Sooner, rather than later, Putin will join Mubarak and other criminal and corrupted leaders forced out of office.

There will then be billions to freeze on bank accounts in Switzerland ...

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