Political News or Comments

"Monsignors' mutiny" revealed by Vatican leaks

My niche in life: economic forensics; because nothing else works. And
because I am tired of being fucked over by these people.

Back to Santorum's 'Catholicism'; the Roman cult (SMOM; Opus Dei; Catholic
Church).

Synthesizing their world by distilling it into relevant chunks for comprehending

Somali lawmakers rebuff British forum on Somalia’s future

Total S.A. Libya

Paul Desmarais Sr compound in Sagard, Charlevoix, Canada

"Look, Nikolas, just as soon as we finish shaking
hands here, get your ass over to BNP Paribas and
finish the deal privatizing those French companies
for me or I'll have your ass out on the streets of
Paris begging for a job next week."

Tarpley - False Flag Alert - Blaming Assad For NATO Murders - The Kids Are Already Dead, Slain By NATO Death Squads

Against Oligarchy

Oh boy, government idiocy at its finest. Not only is the original claim bogus, the attempts to disappear it are hilariously inept. Apparently, they’ve never heard of Google Cache at the UN. Rather than simply saying “we were wrong,” they’ve now brought even more distrust onto the UN.

Back on April 11th, Gavin Atkins of Asian Correspondent asked this simple question: What happened to the climate refugees?

It is a valid question, and he backs it up with census numbers. Here’s the first part of his story.

In 2005, the United Nations Environment Programme predicted that climate change would create 50 million climate refugees by 2010. These people, it was said, would flee a range of disasters including sea level rise, increases in the numbers and severity of hurricanes, and disruption to food production.

The UNEP even provided a handy map. The map shows us the places most at risk including the very sensitive low lying islands of the Pacific and Caribbean.

It so happens that just a few of these islands and other places most at risk have since had censuses, so it should be possible for us now to get some idea of the devastating impact climate change is having on their populations. Let’s have a look at the evidence:

Bahamas:

Nassau, The Bahamas — The 2010 national statistics recorded that the population growth increased to 353,658 persons in The Bahamas. The population change figure increased by 50,047 persons during the last 10 years.

St Lucia:

The island-nation of Saint Lucia recorded an overall household population increase of 5 percent from May 2001 to May 2010 based on estimates derived from a complete enumeration of the population of Saint Lucia during the conduct of the recently completed 2010 Population and Housing Census.

Seychelles:

Population 2002, 81755

Population 2010, 88311

Solomon Islands:

The latest Solomon Islands population has surpassed half a million – that’s according to the latest census results.

It’s been a decade since the last census report, and in that time the population has leaped 100,000.

After Asian Correspondent posted the story on April 11th, it was picked up by news outlets around the world, such as Investor News and American Spectator, and was referred to in yesterday’s Australian newspaper and even got a mention on Fox News.

Since that story appeared, the “handy map” Atkins cites in his original story seems to be gone down the memory hole. This is what you get now; note my yellow highlight:

Only one small problem there, UN people: a little annoyance called Google Cache, which has that page archived here.

Google Cache pulls up the page that had been removed, with the “50 million refugees” title, but the map is missing.

Only one small problem there, UN people: a little annoyance called Google Cache, which has that page archived here.

Google Cache pulls up the page that had been removed, with the “50 million refugees” title, but the map is missing.

And here it is in full-sized hi-resolution glory, suitable for printing, slides, or coffee mugs…wherever it might be appropriate to show the folly of these boneheads.

This is what the UNEP web page originally said:

Fifty million climate refugees by 2010. Today we find a world of asymmetric development, unsustainable natural resource use, and continued rural and urban poverty. There is general agreement about the current global environmental and development crisis. It is also known that the consequences of these global changes have the most devastating impacts on the poorest, who historically have had limited entitlements and opportunities for growth.

And there you have it, folks, another bogus climate claim rubbished by reality, followed by an inept cover-up attempt.

Thanks to the reality of census numbers, followed by the UN’s handling of this, we can now safely say that the claim of “climate refugees” is total fantasy. Be sure to leave comments on any website that makes this claim, and link to this and the Asian Correspondent website.

Kudos to Gavin Atkins for asking this simple question after six years of this fantasy being used to push an agenda.

Update 1: The American Association for the Advancement of Science now says that there will be 50 million climate change refugees by 2020.

Update 2: Another blogger, following the lead by Gavin Atkins, Mr. Aaron Worthing at Patterico’s Pontifications, was the first to note the 404 error on the UNEP website, but he did not recover the hi-resolution map shown in this story.

Anthony Watts operates the most visited blog on climate science in the world, www.wattsupwiththat.com.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly attributed a recent estimate that there will be 50 million climate change refugees by 2020 to the UN. In fact, that prediction was made by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, though the original prediction that there would be 50 million climate change refugees by 2010 was in fact made by the UN.

Britain leads dash to explore for oil in war-torn Somalia

UN: 1.3 million still homeless from Iraq conflict

October 15, 2008

One would think that Iraqi farmers, now prospering under "freedom" and "democracy," would be able to plant the seeds of their choosing, but that choice, under little-known Order 81, would be illegal.

But first, it is important to set the context. Most people have never heard of the infamous "100 Orders," but they help explain why the majority of Iraqis remain opposed to foreign occupation. The 100 Orders allow multinational corporations to basically privatize an entire nation, and this degree of foreign and private control [they are both foreign and private] has not been witnessed since the days of the British East India Company and its extraterritoriality treaties.

A few examples of the 100 Orders are illuminating:

Order 39 allows for the tax-free remittance of all corporate profits.
Order 17 grants foreign contractors, including private security firms, immunity from Iraq's laws.
Orders 57 and 77 ensure the implementation of the orders by placing U.S.-appointed auditors and inspector general in every government ministry, [not quite, I suspect there will be Crown Agents - see url hyper-link below - placed as well especially in Iraq's central banking structure] with five-year terms and with sweeping authority over contracts, programs, employees and regulations. (1)

Crown Agents - Iraq

"They (East India Company) made their their massive money out of the dope trade. [HSBC Bank which is the bank identified in Lord James of Blackheath's talk in the video above in the empty British House of Lord's on an alleged $15,000,000,000,000 fraud]They first grew prime poppies in Kew gardens...[the British brought back opium seeds from Afghanistan and India and through a long process of hybridization came up with the most potent productive strains of opium at the Kew gardens in London, and then took those seeds back to Afghanistan and India to grow poppy plants for later harvesting of very potent opium to sell to the Chinese] got the best producing opium poppies, they then shipped them to Benares in India where they began a massive plantation of opium producing poppies. They then used their famous tea clippers to transport the poppies in the form of raw opium to China, and by their military force hey imposed an opium policy on China that turned the Chinese nation into a nation of addicts, and they enforced this policy that was known to the Royal family and Lord Gladstone the Prime minister, and every one of the lords and ladies of England, and they made a massive huge fortune. [astronomical fortune and parked it in the HSBC Bank; Lord James of Blackheath mentioned the Sassoon banker in the video above; the Sassoon's profited enormously off this same drug trade, in fact, David Sassoon ran it, so anything Lord James of Blackheath mentions in the video posted above concerning Sassoon has no credibility with me] In researching these documents in India House in London I came across some of the manifests of some of the old tea clippers and the numbers of kegs of opium they carried and the value and I totalled up these things and I found to my astonishment that if we took 1970 as an optimum year for profits in general Motors and Ford, in one year the opium trade with China was three times the profits of the combined profits of Ford and General Motors in 1970 and this was shared by 300 people. That was the committee that ran the India East India Company. They all had equal voting rights....and were of course sworn to secrecy." - Dr. John Coleman quote about the Committee of 300. Dr. John Coleman is a former intelligence agent of British MI6.

"Yaweh, give my country of Japan better industrial
output, and I promise to wear this skull cap back to
Japan and convert the Japanese people to Judaism."

Japanese must tap their 'inner Israeli'

Nils Daniel Carl Bildt KCMG (born 15 July 1949) is a Swedish politician and diplomat. Formerly Prime Minister of Sweden from 1991 to 1994 and leader of the liberal conservative Moderate Party from 1986 to 1999, Bildt has served as Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs since 6 October 2006.

The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is an order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George, Prince Regent, later George IV of the United Kingdom, while he was acting as Prince Regent for his father, George III.

Mercantilism is the economic doctrine in which government control of foreign trade is of paramount importance for ensuring the prosperity and military security of the state. In particular, it demands a positive balance of trade. Mercantilism dominated Western European economic policy and discourse from the 16th to late-18th centuries. [it remains dominant; look at Somalia; Libya; Syria; Iraq - Crown Agents will manage Iraq and Afghanistan once opposition has been killed off- Africa in general] Mercantilism was a cause of frequent European wars in that time and motivated colonial expansion. Mercantilist theory varied in sophistication from one writer to another and evolved over time. Favors for powerful interests were often defended with mercantilist reasoning.

THE CHINESE OPIUM WARS - The Queen of England Pushes Dope

Lessons from Mideast 'island' success story could help this nation out of its rut

By GLENN NEWMAN

Aimless, Japan has been struggling to find a suitable vision, or model, for its future. Should it strive to be like Finland, small but prosperous? Should it de-emphasize economic growth and focus on sustainability and lifestyle? Should it look to the go-go '80s for inspiration? Or should it withdraw from active engagement with the world and into its own cultural comfort zone (neo-isolationism, or shinsakokushugi)?

If walls could talk: Then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visits the Western Wall in Jerusalem in 2006. Japan and Israel are both islands (Japan literally, Israel due to conflict with its neighbors), but the effect of this isolation on each country's people has been very different, with Japanese increasingly turning inward while Israelis opt to break out of the Middle East the first chance they get.

Without a vision or model to aspire to and measure progress against, Japan will continue to drift. Consequently, I would like to throw one more candidate into the ring as a partial model for Japan: Israel.

I have worked with Israelis fairly often in recent years. Temperamentally, Israelis and Japanese are near-polar opposites. Japanese abhor conflict and strive for harmony; Israelis relish a good argument at any time, for any reason. Japanese practice tatemae; Israelis are pure honne. Japanese demand order; Israelis thrive on chaos. Japanese plan meticulously; Israelis prefer improvisation. Japanese are formal and reserved; Israelis are informal and familiar. Japanese find comfort in settled vertical relationships; Israelis have little use or respect for hierarchy.

Cultural traits aside, however, at a macro level Japan and Israel share a common core: Both nations possess few natural resources but their people. By effective deployment of their human resources, both rose from deprivation to prosperity in, historically speaking, the blink of an eye, leaving many other, seemingly more amply endowed, countries trailing far behind. Japan and Israel both live or die on their wits alone.

But while Japan saw its greatest period of economic growth and wealth creation come to an abrupt end two decades ago, Israel is now in the midst of an economic Golden Age, with healthy growth continuing despite the global financial slowdown and a perpetual state of conflict with their Mideast neighbors, amazing technological innovation at companies big and small, and the development of a wildly disproportionate number of world-beating startup companies.

Israel is punching far above its weight; Japan can't seem to get off the mat. Are there any lessons Japan can draw from Israel's successful management of its human resources to inject new life into its stagnant economy? Let's examine a few of the factors that have contributed to Israel's economic success.
Entrepreneurship

Israel is a hotbed of entrepreneurial activity, especially high-tech startups in telecoms, software, semiconductors, medical devices, clean tech, and so on. This is a recent phenomenon, dating back only to the early 1990s.

What accounts for Israel's success? First, government policies were successfully implemented to encourage new businesses, especially in high tech, by lowering corporate taxes, lifting onerous regulations and creating innovative public-private programs to funnel venture capital to promising startups. Second, Israelis welcome risk and are not cowed by failure. Once Israelis started to see some of their compatriots become successful in new ventures, more took the plunge. Success bred success in a now largely self-sustaining virtuous circle.

Japan can learn from Israel's example and do more to grow its relatively small venture business sector. The Japanese government has already adopted measures to promote business generally by moving towards a cut in corporate taxes, eliminating or softening some meddlesome regulations and, more timidly, promoting a venture capital industry. Regrettably, more energetic measures probably cannot be expected in the short term given Japan's dysfunctional political class.

There may be more hope for progress in cultivating an appetite among Japanese for high risk/high reward business ventures. Japan is already the birthplace of many world-class entrepreneurs. Soichiro Honda, in the face of strong government opposition, created one of the world's great car companies. Konosuke Matsushita built Panasonic from a small light socket and bicycle lamp manufacturer into a multinational consumer electronics giant. Akio Morita and his colleagues made Sony into the Apple of its day.

Today, Hiroshi Mikitani at Rakuten and Yoshikazu Tanaka at Gree are competing with Silicon Valley's powers-to-be as they take their Internet businesses global. The success of these and other innovators is built on boldness and a willingness to learn from failure and persevere (as the Japanese saying goes, shippai wa seikō no moto — success is founded on failure).

Japan has not empowered enough risk-takers, but surely no one can look at the likes of Mr. Honda and Mr. Mikitani and deny that the entrepreneurial spirit is native to Japan. Why aren't there more entrepreneurs in Japan today? It's a multifaceted problem, with the absence of readily available venture capital a big structural component.

But there are other, more human factors. There are, for example, thousands of talented potential entrepreneurs in Japan locked away in the R&D, marketing and other departments of giant, sluggish corporations. These folks may just need a push to get their entrepreneurial juices flowing. Painful as it would be, large-scale layoffs by overstuffed Japanese corporations might be just what the doctor ordered to spur talented people to take their fate into their own hands by launching new businesses. Think of it as a corporate prison-release program.

More newly minted, but un-(or under-)employed Japanese college graduates may also be coming to realize that they would be better off starting their own enterprises than seeking the false security of employment by large corporations or government. Most of these new businesses would fail, but many would succeed. A few might be game changers.
Antihierarchical decision-making

Israeli organizations are fairly flat, and Israelis themselves are informal in their dealings even with their nominal superiors. Israelis don't allow seniority, in terms of rank or age, to inhibit them from advocating for their beliefs or questioning the decisions of their managers. A result is more innovation and out-of-the-box thinking.

As recounted in "Start Up Nation" by Dan Senor and Saul Singer, engineers at Intel's far-flung outpost in Israel engaged in a sustained rear-guard action to persuade their bosses at company headquarters in California to fundamentally change the way Intel designed its flagship microprocessors. HQ finally relented. The Israeli-designed chips proved to be a huge boon for Intel.

Japan has the trappings of a very hierarchical society. Everyone knows the rank and age of their colleagues, with due deference shown. Superficially, Japanese and Israelis seem to have little in common in their attitude toward authority. But, as with many things in Japan, appearances can be deceptive.

Japan is a famously consensus-driven society. While titles are important and rank is respected, decisions cannot easily be made by executive fiat. All relevant constituencies need to buy into important decisions. This need for consensus means that being high in the pecking order often is more about status than exercisable authority.

Moreover, many Japanese companies are already skilled at uncovering and implementing good operational ideas from their rank-and-file (for example, Toyota's constant, incremental improvements to its manufacturing processes based on input from the factory floor). Consensus decision-making can upend hierarchy by requiring that all levels of an organization be involved in the process.

What is often missing in Japan is a sense that employees (junior, middle or even upper management) are safe to challenge a company's strategic decisions or try to move the company in a new or unconventional direction. Olympus and Daio Paper are but extreme examples of the general unwillingness to buck authority.

But there are exceptions. Toyota's Prius and Sony's Playstation were both developed in the teeth of significant internal opposition. I suspect that the advocates for the Prius at Toyota and Playstation at Sony acted a lot like Israelis would have (but without the yelling).
Global thinking

Japan and Israel are both islands (Japan literally, Israel because its borders are largely closed due to conflict or cold peace with its neighbors). The effect of this geographic isolation on each country's people has been very different.

Japanese often have an inward-looking, shima-guni (island country) mentality. This tendency has been further enabled by Japan's large internal market for goods and services, allowing many Japanese firms to prosper even as they restrict their gaze to the domestic market. While many large Japanese companies have obviously been very successful at exporting their products, the layer of people in Japan with meaningful foreign experience, global-mindedness and English language skills is remarkably thin. The situation is arguably getting worse, with the number of Japanese students studying abroad trending downward and, anecdotally, fewer Japanese salarymen attracted to overseas postings.

By contrast, Israelis feel the urge to break out of their Mideast isolation the first chance they get. Large numbers of young Israelis travel the world after they complete military service, exposing themselves to other cultures and ways of thinking. Many work abroad to support themselves during their travels, developing business skills and making contacts that will serve them later in life. Because the Israeli market is so small and Hebrew spoken by so few, Israeli businesspeople also know they must depend on foreign markets, and speak English, to achieve business success.

Japan can learn some lessons from Israel. The Japanese market is shrinking and may gradually become too small to produce the good jobs and prosperity that Japanese expect and deserve. To grow, many small- and medium-size Japanese companies that heretofore have focused solely on their backyard will have to look overseas for new markets. And they won't be able to do it speaking Japanese.

Japan has successfully faced this challenge before. In the early years of the Meiji Restoration many elite Japanese were dispatched to Europe and the United States to acquire foreign business, technological and legal know-how to enable Japan to build a modern society. In the postwar period, many up-and-coming Japanese businessmen went overseas to promote Japan Inc. Japan needs to repeat this feat, but this time, as in Israel, the dissemination of foreign thinking and languages (especially English) needs to reach much more deeply into Japanese society. In a knowledge-based, global economy, it is not enough for just an elite few to be able to understand and interact with the world at large.
Immigration

In stark contrast to Japan, Israel is a land of immigrants. Immigration has been a major contributor to Israel's economic success. There is an undeniable link, for instance, between the arrival of hundreds of thousands of immigrants from the former Soviet Union in the '80s and '90s, including many highly skilled engineers, and the rapid growth of Israel's high tech sector. And having citizens with know-how, networks and linguistic skills from around the world has given Israel a leg up in foreign markets. Immigrants are also often hungrier for material success than native-born citizens.

Are there any lessons Japan can glean from Israel's experience with immigration? A couple spring to mind. First, Israel has an "affinity-based" immigration policy. In order for foreigners to qualify for Israeli citizenship, they must either be Jewish or have strong Jewish familial ties. Thus, while there is huge cultural, geographic, linguistic and even racial diversity amongst immigrants to Israel, they all share Jewish roots. Second, Israel's government has a robust system for assimilating immigrants into Israeli society, including intensive Hebrew language programs.

Not long ago, a Japanese friend was preparing for a meeting with a high-ranking, Russian-born Israeli government official and asked me about possible topics for conversation. One that I mentioned was immigration and, specifically, how Israel has been able to sustain its national character and unity (at least when faced with adversity) in the face of massive immigration. Affinity immigration and comprehensive assimilation policies clearly have a lot to do with it. They also may present Japan with a road map to its own immigration reform.

The Japanese diaspora is much smaller, in relative and absolute terms, than the Jewish Diaspora that Israel has been able to tap. It is not insignificant, however. There are approximately 2.5 million descendants of Japanese immigrants outside of Japan, predominantly in the United States and Brazil. If even a small percentage were to settle in Japan, they could make a powerful contribution by bringing fresh ideas, knowledge of foreign practices, contacts and language ability.

Considering the depressed U.S. job market, many Japanese Americans might be interested in opportunities in Japan, especially if the welcome mat were laid out for them. And given Brazil's newfound status as a BRIC power, renewed efforts to attract Japanese Brazilians (this time perhaps with an emphasis on college graduates) could give Japanese companies a unique advantage in that vast, fast-growing market.

Japan should consider adopting an affinity-based immigration program granting long-term visas to any ethnic Japanese living abroad who is willing to move to Japan. To give the country time to adapt, the numbers could be limited at first by requiring the applicants to have a college degree and at least one Japanese parent or grandparent. The government should also encourage them to acquire Japanese citizenship and, to make their assimilation smoother, offer financial assistance while they are enrolled in a government-run or certified intensive Japanese language and cultural training institute. Affinity immigration would not be sufficient but could be the leading edge of a broader liberalization of Japan's immigration policies.

If Japan can learn from Israel's 21st century economic success story, it may be able to emulate it. Japan will have a brighter future if Japanese can find and nurture their "inner Israeli."

Feb. 26, '12: Long ago, hordes of corrupted Hebrew/reptilian hybrids and reptilians landed in Japan, interbred with the locals, and turned some of them onto Satanism.
Most Japanese people dowse as having 30-33% reptilian DNA, and on average maybe 10% Hebrew DNA. This is much more reptilian and Hebrew blood than the average "Jew" has. Most Israelis dowse as having 0% Hebrew blood; I presume that these are Khazars, but Khazar blood has no vibe that I can discern, so I can't be sure.
Oddly, Scottish Rite shapeshifter Netenyahu, who professes to being a Khazar, dowses as having 30% Hebrew blood (and 32% reptilian).

One interesting thing is that the Japanese royalty AKA Yamato Dynasty, all have 42% rept DNA and are shapeshifters, but are not Satanists or blood-ritual black magicians.
Japan is not the only country run by shapeshifters who are not Satanists. The Obamas (30-31%), Angela Merkel (32%), Ratu Epeli Nailatikau (41%), Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (33%)...I just noticed recently that it's not just Obama.

I do not know why many shape-shifting leaders are not black magicians. Some of these, certainly Obama (deceased) and his clone replacement, are puppets, whereas the Yamatos actually rule.

Note that, as far as I can figure out, if someone has enough reptilian DNA to potentially shape-shift, it requires some kind of activation before it happens. Ordinary Satanic practices may not do this, yet some other practices that do not involved blood rites will do this. Hence there are a few lowbrow Satanists who have plenty of rept DNA but know nothing about shape-shifting, and there are evil shape-shifters who are not tainted by blood rites.
How much rept DNA is necessary? I do not know what the lower limit is, but 30% is definitely enough. In other words, all Japanese people could shape-shift if activated. If I'm right about this.

I find it interesting that Japanese government does not have Satanists. The Japanese Satanists seem to be mainly in some of the samurai, ninja, and Yakuza clans. Examples of Japanese shape-shifting Satanists include Toshiro Mifune (41%) and Norio Hayakawa (31%). The Saotome Aikido clan are shape-shifting satanists that trace back to the corrupt Hebrews of yore. They have turned a lot of other Aikidoists onto black magic, for example Koichi Tohei (32% -- but not a shapeshifter as far as I can tell).

By contrast, in China it is pretty much only the oligarchs, the Politburo, etc. that are Satanists. Scottish Rite shapeshifters at that, although some Satanism was brought to China long ago by the corrupted Hebrews.

The original Hebrews were a fine people. And there are some special souls that were supposed to incarnate into Hebrew bodies, but the reptilians ruined the Hebrew race in this timeline. There are about 5K true Hebrew souls floating around in this time-line, discarnate. Also about 1400 have incarnated. They can incarnate into any human body that has less than 1% reptilian DNA.

But what about this "LAWSUIT THAT COULD END THE BANKSTER RULE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION"?
http://www.libertynewsonline.com/article_323_31291.php

I haven't studied this in depth, but this "Dragon family, a reclusive group of wealthy Asian families" feels like another mess of non-Satanist shapeshifters with 40+% rept DNA. Are we seeing a genuine conflict between shapeshifter groups? I suspect so.
The Japanese government is complicit in the Fukushima weirdness.
I haven't been able to make much sense of the situation.

In port.

The Royal Family of Norway is the family of King Harald V of Norway. In Norway there is a distinction between the Royal House and the Royal Family. The Royal House includes only the King and his spouse, the Queen, the King's eldest son with spouse, being the Crown Prince and Crown Princess, and the eldest child of the Crown Prince, being Princess Ingrid Alexandra. The remaining Royal Family includes also all other children, grandchildren, siblings of the King, and their spouses, not being part of the more restricted Royal House.

Members of the Royal House hold the style of either Majesty (HM) or Royal Highness (HRH) and their birthday is an official flag flying day. The princes and princesses of the Royal Family hold the style of Highness (HH).

Harald V (born 21 February 1937) is the king of Norway. He succeeded to the throne of Norway upon the death of his father Olaf V on 17 January 1991. The son of the then-Crown Prince Olaf and of Princess Märtha of Sweden, Harald was born at the Crown Prince Residence at Skaugum, Akershus, Norway.

Norway's royal family touched by tragedy: Crown Princess's step-brother was killed in island gun massacre

Norway, with its population of 4.6 million on the northern flank of Europe, is today one of the most wealthy nations in the world, both measured as GDP per capita and in capital stock. On the United Nation Human Development Index, Norway has been among the three top countries for several years, and in some years the very top nation. Huge stocks of natural resources combined with a skilled labor force and the adoption of new technology made Norway a prosperous country [biggest industries: mining, iron and steel, coal, electronics, automotive, textiles, telecommunications] during the nineteenth and twentieth century.

Norway freezes aid to Afghanistan over corruption

There are some pretty big pools of capital out there. Vanguard's 500 Index Fund has got $97.7 billion. The TIAA-CREF's College Retirement Equities Fund [implicated in compromised investments by fund managers on 9/11] is stocked with $150 billion. Then there's Bill Gates' personal brokerage account. But the 4.5 million citizens of chilly, oil-rich Norway may be sitting on the biggest gusher of them all. The largely unknown Petroleum Fund of Norway was worth 940.7 billion Norwegian kroner on June 30—about $147 billion—and is growing rapidly.

duckduckgo
ixquick

Sir Robert Hamilton Bruce Lockhart KCMG (2 September 1887 – 27 February 1970), was a journalist, author, secret agent, British diplomat in Moscow and Prague, and footballer. His 1932 book Memoirs of a British Agent became an international bestseller, and brought him to the world’s attention.

Israel has an "affinity-based" immigration policy. In order for foreigners to qualify for Israeli citizenship, they must either be Jewish or have strong Jewish familial ties. Thus, while there is huge cultural, geographic, linguistic and even racial diversity amongst immigrants to Israel, they all share Jewish roots. Second, Israel's government has a robust system for assimilating immigrants into Israeli society, including intensive Hebrew language programs.

Controversies

Former Senator William Fulbright, in the 1970s, and former senior CIA official Victor Marchetti, in the 1980s, contended that AIPAC should have registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).[32] FARA requires those who receive funds or act on behalf of a foreign government to register as a foreign agent. However, AIPAC states that the organization is a registered American lobbying group, funded by private donations, and maintains it receives "no financial assistance" from Israel or any other foreign group.[33]

In 2006, Representative Betty McCollum (DFL) of Minnesota demanded an apology from AIPAC, claiming an AIPAC representative had described her vote against the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006 as "support for terrorists." McCollum stated that AIPAC representatives would not be allowed in her office until she received a written apology for the comment.[34] AIPAC disputed McCollum's claim, and McCollum has since declared the incident over.[35]
[edit] Steiner resignation

In 1992, AIPAC president David Steiner was forced to resign after he was recorded boasting about his political influence in obtaining aid for Israel. Steiner also claimed that he had

"met with (then Bush U.S. Secretary of State) Jim Baker and I cut a deal with him. I got, besides the $3 billion, you know they're looking for the Jewish votes, and I'll tell him whatever he wants to hear ... Besides the $10 billion in loan guarantees which was a fabulous thing, $3 billion in foreign, in military aid, and I got almost a billion dollars in other goodies that people don't even know about."[36]

Steiner also claimed to be "negotiating" with the incoming Clinton administration over who Clinton would appoint as Secretary of State and Secretary of the National Security Agency. Steiner stated that AIPAC had "a dozen people in [the Clinton] campaign, in the headquarters... in Little Rock, and they're all going to get big jobs."[36]

NY real estate developer Haim Katz told The Washington Times that he taped the conversation because "as someone Jewish, I am concerned when a small group has a disproportionate power. I think that hurts everyone, including Jews. If David Steiner wants to talk about the incredible, disproportionate clout AIPAC has, the public should know about it."[37]
[edit] Allegations of Spying for Israel
Main article: Lawrence Franklin espionage scandal

In April 2005, AIPAC policy director Steven Rosen and AIPAC senior Iran analyst Keith Weissman were fired by AIPAC amid an FBI investigation into whether they passed classified U.S. information received from Franklin on to the government of Israel. They were later indicted for illegally conspiring to gather and disclose classified national security information to Israel.[38][39] AIPAC agreed to pay the legal fees for Weissman's defense through appeal if necessary,[40] but charges were subsequently dropped.[41]

In May 2005, the Justice Department announced that Lawrence Anthony Franklin, a U.S. Air Force Reserves colonel working as a Department of Defense analyst at the Pentagon in the office of Douglas Feith, had been arrested and charged by the FBI with providing classified national defense information to Israel. The six-count criminal complaint identified AIPAC by name and described a luncheon meeting in which, allegedly, Franklin disclosed top-secret information to two AIPAC officials.[42][43]

Franklin pleaded guilty to passing government secrets to Rosen and Weissman and revealed for the first time that he also gave classified information directly to an Israeli government official in Washington. On January 20, 2006, he was sentenced to 151 months (almost 13 years) in prison and fined $10,000. As part of the plea agreement, Franklin agreed to cooperate in the larger federal investigation.[44][45] All charges against the former AIPAC employees were dropped in 2009.