Key Players – Page 135 – Public Intelligence Blog

2012/05/112012/05/12

Robert Steele: World Bank Open Access / Open Knowledge

Access, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Future-Oriented, Government, International Aid, IO Deeds of Peace, Key Players, Knowledge, Non-Governmental, Officers Call, Open Government, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Resilience, Threats, True Cost, World Bank

steele smiling final — Robert David STEELE Vivas

Press Release

WASHINGTON, April 10, 2012 – The World Bank today announced that it will implement a new Open Access policy for its research outputs and knowledge products, effective July 1, 2012. The new policy builds on recent efforts to increase access to information at the World Bank and to make its research as widely available as possible. As the first phase of this policy, the Bank launched today a new Open Knowledge Repository and adopted a set of Creative Commons copyright licenses.

The new Open Access policy, which will be rolled out in phases in the coming year, formalizes the Bank’s practice of making research and knowledge freely available online. Now anybody is free to use, re-use and redistribute most of the Bank's knowledge products and research outputs for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

“Knowledge is power,” World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick said. “Making our knowledge widely and readily available will empower others to come up with solutions to the world’s toughest problems. Our new Open Access policy is the natural evolution for a World Bank that is opening up more and more.”

The policy will also apply to Bank research published with third party publishers including the institution’s two journals—World Bank Research Observer (WBRO) and World Bank Economic Review (WBER)—which are published by Oxford University Press, but in accordance with the terms of third party publisher agreements. The Bank will respect publishing embargoes, but expects the amount of time it takes for externally published Bank content to be included in its institutional repository to diminish over time.

Event 21 May 2012 1230-1400 Washington DC

Join us for an Open Discussion: What the Bank's Open Access Policy Means for Development

Monday, May 21, 2012 12:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. ET/16:30 – 18:00 GMT

The World Bank will be adopting an Open Access Policy as of July 1. In addition, the Bank recently launched the World Bank Open Knowledge Repository (OKR) and became the first major international organization to adopt a set of copyright licenses from Creative Commons. As a result, a wealth of Bank research and knowledge products are now freely available to anyone in the world for use, re-use, and sharing.

Why is this so significant?
How can open access contribute to the goal of eliminating poverty?
How does the new policy impact the Bank's researchers and authors?
How will the OKR benefit users of Bank knowledge, in particular those in developing countries?

Join us in person at the World Bank or online for a lively conversation about these and other aspects of open access to research, and its potential for development progress.

FEATURED GUESTS:
Peter Suber Director of the Harvard Open Access Project and a leading voice in the open access movement	Cyril Muller Vice President for External Affairs at the World Bank
Michael Carroll American University law professor and founding board member of Creative Commons	Adam Wagstaff Research Manager of the World Bank's Development Research Group
HOST:
Carlos Rossel World Bank Publisher

THE OPEN SOURCE EVERYTHING MANIFESTO: Transparency, Truth & Trust

INTELLIGENCE FOR EARTH: Clarity, Diversity, Integrity, & Sustainability

COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

Open Source Agency: Executive Access Point

2012/05/11

Mini-Me: $4 Billion for Israel, Nothing for US Jobs

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Budgets & Funding, Corruption, DoD, Government, Idiocy

Huh?

Congressional Committee Proposal would raise US taxpayer support for Israel’s military in 2013 to a record $4 billion.

Tim King | Salem-News.com

(WASHINGTON DC) – As news about Israeli political parties merging dominates headlines, this one is being overlooked. The US House of Representatives Defense Appropriations Subcommittee yesterday approved almost $1 billion for Israel’s anti-missile defense programs.

The expensive systems are called Arrow 3. The American politicians propose spending this exorbitant amount in order to upgrade the current Arrow system, David’s Sling, and Iron Dome.

The names are fancy, unlike the missiles they say they are defending themselves from. The munitions fired from Gaza are al Qassam rockets and they are little more than unguided fireworks.

Israeli and American media portray the ‘rocket attacks from Gaza’ as a serious danger and they claim that the large U.S. tax payer contributions are necessary in order to ‘defend’ Israel. The Gaza rockets have in all time, killed a total of 28 Israeli citizens. Some place the number at 29.

The total appropriation is the highest ever approved for the four programs; it reflects the willingness of the United States to back yet another racist, apartheid government that uses American investments to send Israeli youth to college, and to kill Palestinians; Muslims and Christians, who have few rights under a system that Israel created, offering one set of laws and punishments to Jews, and a different set for all other human beings.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota: Equally troubling is the continued borrowing of $1 trillion a year and the continued waste of over $2 trillion a year.

2012/05/102012/05/14

Bin Laden Show 00: Taliban Offer Pre-9/11 and Post-9/11, US Rejection

04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 11 Society, Blog Wisdom, Corruption, Government, Peace Intelligence

Interview with Mullah Omar, Arnaud de Borchgrave (June 2001) – Very important and rare interview with Mullah Omar the head of the Taliban almost three months before 9-11 on the front page of the Washington Times (June 18). Omar suggested Osama bin Ladin was a problem he wanted to resolve. Bush Administration showed no interest in pursuing this lead. The information in de Borchgrave’s 2001 report is consistent with that in an important report issued in February 2011 by theCenter on International Cooperation at New York University, which is summarized by Gareth Porter in Counterpunch here.

Chuck Spinney
The Blaster

Phi Beta Iota: There are other reports of the Taliban approaching the US Department of State (including one approach to a CIA officer under cover). After 9/11 the Taliban resurfaced these offers, but asking only that Bin Laden receive a public trial. In every instance before and after 9/11 the US refused to consider the Taliban offers to turn over Bin Laden. One can only surmise that between them the CIA and the White House were quite content with the role Bin Laden was playing in AF, and that removing him would actually interfere with US plans for which Bin Laden was, like Lee Harvey Oswald, a “patsy” in the not-so-great game.

2012/05/092012/05/09

NIGHTWATCH: France-Greece Shock Bankers Into Reality

08 Wild Cards, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence

Europe: For the record. German Chancellor Merkel and the European Council have changed in the last 48 hours from emphasizing austerity and the importance of adhering to agreements and goals to focusing on growth.

The two economic ideas are not mutually exclusive. Nevertheless, the growth has not been discussed in connection with south European sovereign debt. The rise of the socialists in France and the rejectionists in Greece seems to jolted the European bankers to consider potentially more innovative ideas about continental economic health besides “pay what you owe” policies.

The window of innovation will not last long because the debt exceeds the capacity to pay it down. The demographics of up to 50% unemployment among the most able cohorts of the work forces in Mediterranean European states defeat growth without statism. This is the threat.

NIGHTWATCH KGS Home

Chuck Spinney: Europe in Crisis Rule by Troika Spain and Hungary Next

Chuck Spinney: Financial Coups Destroying Europe

Chuck Spinney: German Economic Imperialism Killing Europe?

John Steiner: Iceland Defies Banks, Recovering Rapidly

Michel Bauwens: Michael Hudson on the crucial link between democracy and debt throughout history

Mini-Me: Iceland Breaks the Back of Western Banking

Mini-Me: Iceland Triumphs Over Banks, Western Governments Continue the Charade

NIGHTWATCH: Financial Crisis Now a Crisis of Fundamentals

Mini-Me: US Dollar Out, Yuan, System D, and Open Money In + Meta-RECAP

2012/05/032012/05/03

DefDog: Afghanistan security deal Obama signed has holes

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, DoD, Government, IO Impotency, Officers Call

This represents one of the dishonorable acts a politician can commit. Using other people's lives to win an election…….a clear indication of the lack of integrity of an individual who holds the highest office of the land….and the speech sounds like it was modeled after LBJ's equally incoherent speech in the closing days of Viet-Nam. The second article is pure propaganda, witless and without merit.

Afghanistan security deal Obama signed has holes

CBS News, May 3, 2012

WASHINGTON — The 10-year security compact that President Barack Obama signed with Afghan President Hamid Karzai contains promises the United States and Afghanistan cannot guarantee they will keep, and loopholes for both nations.

The deal signed Tuesday also allows either nation to walk away on a year's notice. That could allow the next U.S. president, or the next Afghan leader, to scuttle a deal negotiated by his or her predecessor.

For Obama, the agreement represents a compromise with Karzai after messy negotiations over U.S. military detention of Afghan suspects and raids on Afghan homes that offend Afghans.

Read full article.

Obama’s Deal With Afghanistan Underscores Its Crucial Role in the War on Terror

2012/05/022012/05/02

Reference: Fukishima Update — Much Much Worse

03 Economy, 07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, Corruption, Government

Fukushima Primed For Worldwide Disaster

The radioactive Fukushima Genie is out of the bottle and is primed to accomplish a worldwide disaster. If the roof of Reactor building #4 collapses, a building that is now seismically rated at zero, a pool of 1563 spent fuel rods perched 100 feet above the ground would also collapse ~ resulting in a gusher of global radiation that would put most of the world’s human and biological populations at severe risk.

by Allen L Roland

The greatest and most dangerous on going cover up in the world today is not the official 9/11 cover up (now into its 11th year); it is not the supposed assassination of Bin Laden by Navy Seals last year (an operation with no confirmed body, no video and completely staged as a re-election gimmick as we are now witnessing); but instead, it is the unspoken on going conspiracy of silence regarding the spreading worldwide nuclear radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster on March 11, 2011.

. . . . . .

Just recently, authorities in Japan confessed that the amount of cesium-137 released by Fukushima is equivalent to 168 of the nuclear bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A brief confirmation came from a recent article in the Telegraph ~ “Japan’s government estimates the amount of radioactive caesium-137 released by the Fukushima nuclear disaster so far is equal to that of 168 Hiroshima bombs.”

Read full article with photos, videos, and links.

2012/05/02

Reference: Surrounding Iran – Updated with Pop-Up Info Boxes

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Iran, 07 Other Atrocities, DoD, IO Deeds of War, Military

Interactive: Map: US bases encircle Iran

Dozens of US and allied forces' military installations dot the region, from Oman, UAE and Kuwait to Turkey and Israel.

Doha, Qatar – US military bases continue to form a strategic envelope around Iran, although the American withdrawal from Iraq at the end of 2011 may have changed the regional balance somewhat towards Iran's favour. While US forces are scaling back in many parts of the globe due to budget cuts – and have begun a gradual depature from Afghanistan to be completed by 2014 – their international presence remains vast.

From an active-duty force of 1.4 million soldiers, the US has deployed some 350,000 troops to at least 130 foreign countries around the world. Some are at Cold War-era installations, but many are in or near combat zones in the Middle East. At more than 750 bases internationally, private contractors and third-country nationals also form a large percentage of the staff, in addition to military reservists and civilian employees of the Pentagon.

US military installations in the Middle East serve to keep an eye on Iran, but their regional footprint was significantly expanded well before Iran became the most publicly cited foreign “threat”.

There were three reasons why the US sought a presence across the Middle East, says Mehran Kamrava, Director of the Center for International and Regional Studies at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in Qatar:

“Securing oil resources, guaranteeing the security of the state of Israel and combating threats to American interests” were the initial priorities of US military activity in the region prior to the first Gulf War, Kamrava says.

“Subsequently, direct military presence wasn't in the form of impositions, but the [security umbrella] was a conscious policy decision on the part of the Persian Gulf states.”

See Interactive Map

Earlier Version with Black Dots: Graphic: US Bases (44) Surrounding Iran