Category: Communities of Practice

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Michelle Monk: Head of IMF Christine Lagarde in court charged with embezzlement and fraud

Commerce, Corruption, Government
Michelle Monk
Michelle Monk

Christine Lagarde in court charged with embezzlement and fraud

The head of the International Monetary Fund arrived in the dock of a Paris courtroom today as she braced herself to be formally charged with embezzlement and fraud. Christine Lagarde’s humiliation is not only a massive personal blow which could lead to her resignation, but one which will plunge the world’s banking system into further ignominy. The clearly nervous 57-year-old said nothing to reporters as she entered the Court of Justice of the Republic, a special tribunal set up to judge the conduct of France’s government ministers,  shortly after 8.30am. Lagarde faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in jail if found guilty of the very serious charges.

It was when she was President Nicolas Sarkozy’s finance minister that she is said to have authorised a 270 million pounds payout to one of his prominent supporters, so abusing her government position.  The money went to Bernard Tapie, a convicted football match fixer and tax dodger who supported Lagarde and Sarkozy’s UMP party.  It came after Dominque Strauss-Kahn, another senior French politician, was sacked as IMF chief following allegations that he attempted to rape a chambermaid in a New York hotel.  Ms Lagarde began campaigning to succeed Mr Strauss-Kahn soon after his arrest for the alleged crime.

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Click on Image to Enlarge

But now it is Ms Lagarde, a lawyer and retired synchronised swimming star, who is facing a long court process of her own, as well as a possible jail sentence.  The scandal will not only pile further shame on France’s political class, but worry politicians and bankers desperately trying to resolve the global financial crisis.  Mr Tapie, the former head of adidas in France, claims he was cheated out of millions by Credit Lyonnais bank when the sports kit empire was sold in 1993.  In 2007, Ms Largarde ended the epic dispute by ordering a panel of judges to arbitrate and, in turn, they awarded Tapie the damages.  Opposition MPs were furious, with former presidential candidate Francois Bayrou accusing Ms Lagarde of ‘dipping into the taxpayers’ pocket for a private beneficiary.’

Mr Strauss-Kahn’s Socialist Party also accused Ms Lagarde of improper conduct, pointing to the fact that Mr Tapie was a vocal supporter of Sarkozy.  Ms Lagarde’s lawyer, Yves Repiquet, said the inquiry was ‘in no way incompatible’ with her new job, and expected the case to be dismissed.  Ms Lagarde denies any wrongdoing, saying before today’s court appearance: ‘If it’s decided to continue with this inquiry it won’t be particularly surprising. Personally, it doesn’t worry me at all – I didn’t benefit personally’.  But it has been widely reported in the French media that investigators intend to charge her with fraud and embezzlement.  Le Monde said that magistrates had already written to Mrs Lagarde to tell her that she should not expect any special treatment because of her high-profile international job.

Phi Beta Iota:  If a panel of judges approved the payment amount, it would appear Madama Lagarde was simply acting as a government agent in settling the claim.  When combined with the new Russia-Berlin-French axis, and the new plans of the BRICS to create their own development bank that by-passed the World Bank and the IMF (and all of their predatory inter-locked “conditions,” one has to wonder if we are at the beginning of a global campaign to destroy the Western financial system that has been so nakedly amoral — legalized crime.

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Eagle: BRICS to USA, World Bank, IMF — “Piss Off” — Meanwhile, South Africa & China Talk About All of Africa

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Eagle: BRICS to USA, World Bank, IMF — “Piss Off” — Meanwhile, South Africa & China Talk About All of Africa

Government
300 Million Talons...
300 Million Talons…

BRICS Nations Plan New Bank to Bypass World Bank, IMF

Bloomberg, 26 May 2013

The biggest emerging markets are uniting to tackle under-development and currency volatility with plans to set up institutions that encroach on the roles of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

The leaders of the so-called BRICS nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — are set to approve the establishment of a new development bank during an annual summit that began today in the eastern South African city of Durban, officials from all five nations say. They will also discuss pooling foreign-currency reserves to ward off balance of payments or currency crises.

“The deepest rationale for the BRICS is almost certainly the creation of new Bretton Woods-type institutions that are inclined toward the developing world,” Martyn Davies, chief executive officer of Johannesburg-based Frontier Advisory, which provides research on emerging markets, said in a phone interview. “There’s a shift in power from the traditional to the emerging world. There is a lot of geo-political concern about this shift in the western world.”

The BRICS nations, which have combined foreign-currency reserves of $4.4 trillion and account for 43 percent of the world’s population, are seeking greater sway in global finance to match their rising economic power. They have called for an overhaul of management of the World Bank and IMF, which were created in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in 1944, and oppose the practice of their respective presidents being drawn from the U.S. and Europe.

. . . . . . .

African Leaders

Continue reading “Eagle: BRICS to USA, World Bank, IMF — “Piss Off” — Meanwhile, South Africa & China Talk About All of Africa”

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Neal Rauhauser: National Defense University’s New Directions

Cultural Intelligence, Government, Military
Neal Rauhauser
Neal Rauhauser

National Defense University’s New Directions

I recently finished NDU’s Convergence, which is a collection of monographs on illicit networks. Queued up right behind it New Directions in U.S. National Security Strategy, Defense Plans, and Diplomacy: A Review of Official Strategic Documents, which I finished a first review of last night.

The book collects seven important strategic studies and provides some commentary on each. These include, in chronological order of release:

Quadrennial Defense Review Report – DoD, February 2010. 128 pages.

Ballistic Missile Defense Report – DoD, February 2010. 61 pages.

Nuclear Posture Review – DoD, April 2010. 72 pages.

National Security Strategy – White House, May 2010. 60 pages.

NATO 2020: Assured Security; Dynamic Engagement – NATO experts, May 2010. 58 pages.

Quadrennial Defense Review Perspective Report – United States Institute of Peace, at the behest of SecDef, July 2010. 159 pages.

Leading Through Civilians Power: The First Quadrennial Diplomacy & Development Review – State Department, December 2010. 242 pages.

A broader context is required here. Barack Obama was elected in November of 2008. There is an end of year lull, then these reports are started in January of 2009, after Hillary Clinton was approved as Secretary of State. Obama left Robert Gates in place as Secretary of Defense. The QDR comes in first, closely followed by two companion reports. The White House then releases their National Security Strategy, advised in part by the DoD studies.

The NATO document involves the U.S. but it’s May release was timed to provide six months of review before the NATO summit that November in Lisbon. The July QDR Perspective was done at the behest of the Secretary of Defense in response to criticisms leveled at the QDR itself. The State Department issued it’s first Quadrennial Diplomacy & Development Review in December.

Obama’s win in November of 2012, then the nomination and approval of Secretary of Defense Hagel in February 2013 and Secretary of State John Kerry in March of 2013 are what set the stage for the next round of updates, due in the spring of 2014.

New Directions is just 178 pages and I chose to not read the nuclear and missile report portions, counting that as excess detail at this time. The seven reports themselves total 780 pages. I also noticed and curated the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review, which was released concurrent with the QDR in February of 2010. Since DHS is internal their report has no place in the assessment of our outward facing strategy.

I have roughly a nine month window to read and understand 958 pages of dense, high level material before the next update begins to arrive. I immediately see the usual set of issues that arise with any of our strategic planning.

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NIGHTWATCH: China Putting Troops Into Africa, Middle East & Africa Unraveling — Truth Still a Casualty

01 Poverty, 02 China, 02 Diplomacy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 06 Genocide, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Idiocy, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence
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Click on Image to Enlarge

China-Mali: For the record. China has offered to send more than 500 soldiers to the UN force seeking to contain Islamist militants in Mali .  This would be China's largest UN peacekeeping contingent.

Iraq: An attack at a military checkpoint at Taji, north of Baghdad, on Thursday killed 11 people, including four soldiers, and wounded five.

Comment: The pause appears ended. The fighting has killed 420 people this month.

Lebanon: Fighting in Tripoli continued for a fifth day. Overnight clashes killed six people and wounded 40. .The Middle East is now destabilized from the border of Iran to the Mediterranean.

Niger: Islamic militants executed coordinated attacks at two locations in Niger, the country east of Mali. In one attack, a suicide bomber detonated a car bomb at a French-Niger owned uranium mine in the town of Arlit. Simultaneously and 125 miles south, another bomber detonated a car bomb inside a military camp in the city of Agadez. Other jihadists in vehicles attempted to overrun the base, but were stopped by a firefight with Nigerian soldiers. The bombs killed 5 bombers, 25 people and injured 29, according to the Ministry of Defense. No expatriates were killed.

During this Watch, a surviving bomber is holding several Nigerien soldiers hostage

These were the first terrorist attacks of this kind in Niger. The two towns are in central Niger. Some of the facilities for processing uranium ore were damaged at Arlit.

An affiliate of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, known as the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) claimed responsibility. They were also involved in the Mali fighting. Nigerien officials judge the fighters came from Libya. One said that Libyan instability is destabilizing the entire region.

Early this year one military analyst judged that Niger was even less prepared than Mali to cope with Islamic militants and terrorists. Nevertheless, a Nigerien unit participated in clearing operations in Gao, Mali.

The key points are that the jihadists have not given up their plans to establish a base in Sahelian Africa and all the countries are vulnerable. Their territory is enormous with poor infrastructure. They are poor and have small, poorly supported security forces.

The attacks might compel France to deploy some of the troops withdrawing from Mali to Niger. Niger is France's single most important supplier of uranium for its extensive nuclear and electric power industries.

France might need to re-evaluate its strategy for providing security assistance to its former colonies. The threat calls for an integrated regional approach to security.  The Sahelian nations and France will certainly need outside help.

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH: China Putting Troops Into Africa, Middle East & Africa Unraveling — Truth Still a Casualty”

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Berto Jongman: Tom Engelhardt on Terracide by Terraists — Legalized Crime Destroying Earth & Humanity — Beyond Genocide, Beyond Ecocide

Commerce, Corruption, Earth Intelligence, Government, Lessons, Officers Call, Threats
Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

Terracide and the Terrarists 

Destroying the Planet for Record Profits 

By Tom Engelhardt

We have a word for the conscious slaughter of a racial or ethnic group: genocide.  And one for the conscious destruction of aspects of the environment: ecocide.  But we don’t have a word for the conscious act of destroying the planet we live on, the world as humanity had known it until, historically speaking, late last night.  A possibility might be “terracide” from the Latin word for earth.  It has the right ring, given its similarity to the commonplace danger word of our era: terrorist.

The truth is, whatever we call them, it’s time to talk bluntly about the terrarists of our world.  Yes, I know, 9/11 was horrific.  Almost 3,000 dead, massive towers down, apocalyptic scenes.  And yes, when it comes to terror attacks, the Boston Marathon bombings weren’t pretty either.  But in both cases, those who committed the acts paid for or will pay for their crimes.

In the case of the terrarists — and here I’m referring in particular to the men who run what may be the most profitable corporations on the planet, giant energy companies  like ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BP, and Shell — you’re the one who’s going to pay, especially your children and grandchildren. You can take one thing for granted: not a single terrarist will ever go to jail, and yet they certainly knew what they were doing.

It wasn’t that complicated. In recent years, the companies they run have been extracting fossil fuels from the Earth in ever more frenetic and ingenious ways. The burning of those fossil fuels, in turn, has put record amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. Only this month, the CO2 level reached 400 parts per million for the first time in human history. A consensus of scientists has long concluded that the process was warming the world and that, if the average planetary temperature rose more than two degrees Celsius, all sorts of dangers could ensue, including seas rising high enough to inundate coastal cities, increasingly intense heat waves, droughts, floods, ever more extreme storm systems, and so on.

How to Make Staggering Amounts of Money and Do In the Planet

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: Tom Engelhardt on Terracide by Terraists — Legalized Crime Destroying Earth & Humanity — Beyond Genocide, Beyond Ecocide”

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Jon Rappoport: White House Blood Relative with CBS News President — How Benghazi Exposure Was Stopped

Corruption, Government, Media
Jon Rappoport
Jon Rappoport

Explosive: president of CBS News and WH Benghazi fiction-writer are blood brothers

President of CBS News and WH Benghazi fiction-writer are blood brothers

by Jon Rappoport

May 23, 2013

www.nomorefakenews.com

Just a coincidence. Nothing to see. Move along.

Remember the Benghazi attacks? Remember how the White House rewrote their talking points to scrub out mention of a terrorist attack?

Well, here are some new talking points.

Point one: Star CBS investigative reporter, Sharyl Attkisson, has been discussing leaving CBS since April. She can’t get some of her Benghazi stories on the air. Attkisson was hot on the trail of figuring out who, at the White House, rewrote the Benghazi talking points.

Point two: One sure candidate at the White House? Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser and “mind-melding” speechwriter.

Point three: Who is Ben Rhodes’ brother? He is David Rhodes, who happens to be Sharyl Attkisson’s boss, the president of CBS News.

Point four: Read point three again.

Point five: Those White House Benghazi rewrites scrubbed prior mention of “terror attacks.”

Point six: Again, reporter Attkisson was hot on the trail of the White House fiction writers—which could have led to her boss’s brother.

Point seven: Again, Attkisson got into hot water at CBS for her Benghazi coverage.

Point eight: Again, the president of CBS News, her boss, is the brother of the man who helped organize the White House fiction writing on Benghazi.

The Daily Caller broke this story.

Point nine: Somebody has been fiddling with reporter Attkisson’s computers. Attkisson has been assembling evidence on the what and the who for several months.

You’re welcome, CBS. I just wanted to arrange all this information so you could release it in coherent form.

My question is: who at your network will do the rewrites on my talking points? I’d like to be in the room.

The September 2012 Benghazi attacks killed US Ambassador Christopher Stevens, embassy information officer Sean Smith, and embassy security officers Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty.

The White House, in their talking-points rewrites, wanted to avoid calling this a planned terrorist attack. Why? Because investigating the terrorists opens the door to the matter of their funding and support.

That investigation, unimpeded, could lead to the fact that the US government has been recruiting, arming, and using thugs/terrorists/mercenaries from Libya to destabilize parts of Africa and the Middle East.

And then we would come to the possibility that some of those US recruits attacked the Benghazi embassy in 2012.

These talking points, of course, aren’t in the CBS or White House portfolio. They’re buried deep under the White House, under CIA buildings in Langley, and under CBS News headquarters at Black Rock in New York.

Jon Rappoport

noble gold