Category: Communities of Practice

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Yoda: India’s Economic Policy Change in Favor of Foreign Retailers and Foreign Ownership of Natural Resources

03 Economy, 03 India, Corruption, Government
Got Crowd? BE the Force!

Any country that can marshal 100 million protesters on a single call, or produce 2,000 suicides among debt-ridden farmers distraught by draught, is by definition a “crowd” economy that will not respond well to any repetition of the Industral-Era mistakes of the USA that rigged the system in favor of the few at the expense of the many. Below are multiple headlines, the most critical being – predictably but not dismissively – from the World Socialist Web Site.

India is a demographic power — the most complicated on the planet, with far more diversity (good) and religious or ethnic friction (bad) than any of the other demographic powers (Brazil, China, Indonesia, Russia).  Any policy that is inconsistent with the needs of the larger demographic base should be suspect.

India is opening up to investors who bring with them false money – money created by financial fraud against other publics – and false propositions, including the fiction that wealth for the many can be created by any form of top-down favoritism.  What India SHOULD be doing is rethinking public governance and true cost economics (especially water), connecting every citizen to the Internet with free hand-held devices (OpenBTS), and providing free education one cell call at a time via a mix of government call centers and the global diaspora.  Infinite wealth is achievable by India if it leverages the infinite energy and intelligence of its distributed public — there is not enough money on the planet to “invest” or “buy” growth on the scale that India needs to achieve.

All-India general strike against pro-investor “big bang” economic “reforms”

Strike over economic reforms shuts India

Skepticism and Caution Greet India’s New Policy on Retailers

What are the BJP's alternatives to the government policies it bashes?

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Mini-Me: Secret World Has a New Story Line — Sharing TOO MUCH (We Do Not Make This Stuff Up….)

Corruption, Government, IO Impotency
Who? Mini-Me?

Huh?

Intell community's new problem: Sharing too much data

Rutrell Yasin

GCN Sep 19, 2012

After a Nigerian man attempted to detonate plastic explosives hidden in his underwear while aboard a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Dec. 25, 2009, critics and the media accused intelligence agencies of still being in silos and not sharing information.

But that wasn’t the case, retired Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA and National Security Agency, told a Washington audience recently.

The issue was not the lack of information sharing. “The issue was we couldn’t deal with the volume of information we were sharing,” said Hayden, who was director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2006 to 2009 and is currently a principal at the Chertoff Group, a security consultancy.

Continue reading “Mini-Me: Secret World Has a New Story Line — Sharing TOO MUCH (We Do Not Make This Stuff Up….)”

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DefDog: The Truth About Afghanistan – A Book, “No Worse Enemy”

Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Media, Military
DefDog

Author Q&A

Afghanistan: “It’s Just Damage Limitation Now”

Briton Ben Anderson is a documentary filmmaker (the BBC, HBO, the Discovery Channel), but he turns to the written word in No Worse Enemy: The Inside Story of the Chaotic Struggle for Afghanistan. The book offers a gritty – and grim — assessment of the war.

Anderson embedded with U.S. and British troops for months in the southern part of the country from 2007 to 2011. He details corruption, incompetence, fear — by both allied troops and Afghan civilians — and a Groundhog Day kind of existence., where a battle fought for days has to be fought again, later. Most distressingly, he argues that the American and British publics are getting a misleading picture of progress on the ground. Battleland conducted this email chat with Anderson last weekend.

Amazon Page

Why did you write No Worse Enemy: The Inside Story of the Chaotic Struggle for Afghanistan?

I’d been travelling to Helmand for five years, first in 2007 with the Brits, then later mostly with the U.S. Marines, covering every major operation since the war in the south was taken seriously.

Despite new troops, extra resources and new polices, it kept getting worse.

It was more dangerous for me and the troops I was with, Afghan security forces didn’t seem to be improving, and perhaps most importantly, locals were not being won over but instead were complaining of civilian casualties, damage to their homes, being inconvenienced and disrespected, or preyed upon by the Afghan police.

Yet in the second half of 2010, statements from Kabul, Washington and London kept talking of progress, goals being met and the Taliban being on their last legs.

This was the exact opposite of what I had been seeing, so I felt that I had to write this book.

Read full interview.

Continue reading “DefDog: The Truth About Afghanistan – A Book, “No Worse Enemy””

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Mini-Me: Italian Court Confirms Convictions of CIA Personnel for Rendition & Torture – Way Now Clear for Formal Extradition Request

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Ethics, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call
Who, Mini-Me?

Huh?

Italy court upholds American convictions in CIA case

ROME (AP) — Italy's highest criminal court on Wednesday upheld the convictions of 23 Americans in the abduction of an Egyptian terror suspect from a Milan street as part of the CIA's extraordinary rendition program, paving the way to possible extradition requests by Italian authorities.

The ruling by the Court of Cassation marks the final appeal in the first trial anywhere in the world involving the CIA's practice of abducting terror suspects and transferring them to third countries where torture is permitted.

The Americans were convicted in absentia following a three-and-a-half-year trial, and have never been in Italian custody. They risk arrest if they travel to Europe and one of their court-appointed lawyers suggested that the final verdict would open the way for the Italian government to seek their extradition.

“It went badly. It went very badly,” lawyer Alessia Sorgato said after the court announced its decision after a day of deliberations. “Now they will ask for extradition.”victed in absentia following a three-and-a-half-year trial, and have never been in Italian custody. They risk arrest if they travel to Europe and one of their court-appointed lawyers suggested that the final verdict would open the way for the Italian government to seek their extradition.

Milan Prosecutor Armando Spataro, one of Italy's top anti-terrorism magistrates who shaped the prosecution, hailed the top court's decision, saying it was tantamount to a finding that extraordinary rendition “is incompatible with democracy.”

Read full article.

Continue reading “Mini-Me: Italian Court Confirms Convictions of CIA Personnel for Rendition & Torture – Way Now Clear for Formal Extradition Request”

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Penguin: Global Covert Campaign to Undermine Obama – Who, Exactly, Is Doing What?

Corruption, Government, Military
Who, Me?

Am in Europe where this was brought to my attention.  I don't know what to think of this.   My local government counterparts are  quite certain that this anti-Islam film was a deliberate and orchestrated affair. We live in a very dangerous time. I hope people will take the right decisions.

EDIT:  One of my counterparts just told me this:

Sorcha Faal is sensationalist and has it wrong quite often. They base stories on real news stories that can be checked but they extrapolate in weird directions and sometimes make up strange conspiracy theories. The news stories they pick are  often very murky and cases disappear from the news without being solved.  Very often there is no follow up. They always start with an introduction that a new report has been brought to the attention of president Putin or the Russian secret service to give it some authority. And very often the stories are repeated in official news stories as  ‘intelligence'. It may be a deliberate IO operation.

September 17, 2012

China Warns World War III Being Planned To Oust Obama

By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers

A new report prepared by the Foreign Military Intelligence Main Directorate (GRU) of the General Staff of the Armed Forces for President Putin is warning today that the mysterious 5-day visit by Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guanglie to India this past week (the first such visit to India by a high ranking Chinese defense official in 8 years) was in preparation for a World War China says is being planned within the next few weeks in order to oust US President Barack Obama from office.

As anti-Japanese protests grow in China to levels not seen in modern times, this report says, Defense Minister Guanglie was particularly concerned over the “assassination” of Japanese Ambassador to China Shinichi Nishimiya who last week mysteriously collapsed and died in Tokyo two days after being appointed to his post.

The death of Ambassador Nishimiya, GRU analysts say in this report, was meant to cause a further escalation in tensions between Japan and China where even today important elements within the Chinese leadership are stating:  “For The Respect Of The Motherland, We Must Go To War With Japan”.

Continue reading “Penguin: Global Covert Campaign to Undermine Obama – Who, Exactly, Is Doing What?”

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Koko: Cities are Jungles – Fruit Should Grow in Jungles

Civil Society, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Innovation
Koko

Koko like.

Fruitful disobedience: Guerrilla Grafters grow undercover orchards

A secret operation in San Francisco disregards city regulations and grafts fruit branches onto non fruit-bearing public trees, hiding farm-fresh produce in an urban environment. Officials have banned fruit trees from the city sidewalks in the hopes that it will help keep urban areas clean and avoid messy situations as a result of fallen fruit. But Tara Hui and Miriam Goldberg have found a way around that law.

The two women are the leaders of Guerrilla Grafters, a group that exists to make “delicious, nutritious fruit is made available to urban residents” through the creation of inner-city orchards. Using electrical tape to color code their work, the Guerrilla Grafters develop partnerships in each neighborhood they graft in so there’s someone local to monitor progress. According to Hui, “There’s no ownership of these trees. There’s just stewardship.”

The LA Times reports that though city officials disapprove of the grafts, they haven’t done anything to formally remove them. But, it is considered vandalism and if this project were ever to really gain momentum it’s possible that officials would eventually decide to step in and halt it. Others, however, are impressed by their efforts: their work was featured in the “Spontaneous Interventions: Design Actions for the Common Good” exhibit at the 13th International Architecture Biennale in Venice, Italy.

The group (which consists of about 30 people) has grafted about 50 trees so far. Perhaps it will always be a small-scale project, but Guerrilla Grafters is working to reach as many people as possible: they’ve developed an online mapping app to help track their illicit produce and have an active Facebook group to help grow popularity.

[via LA Times, SF Gate]

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NIGHTWATCH: Afghanistan – One Attack, $150 Million in Losses

Civil Society, Economics/True Cost, Ethics, Government, Knowledge, Military, Peace Intelligence, Politics

Attack on Camp Bastion: The Taliban strike on Camp Bastion in Helmand Province destroyed more than $150 million worth of planes and equipment, Western officials said on 16 September. Military officials said the insurgents destroyed six AV-8B Harrier jets and three refueling stations. Two other Harrier aircraft and six soft-skin aircraft hangars were significantly damaged in the attack.

Comment: An investigation of this security breach is in progress. As with other similar attacks, the success of this attack almost certainly indicates the attackers had extensive intelligence provided by insiders and inside assistance in penetrating the bases at the time of attack

NIGHTWATCH KGS Home

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