Cashless Sweden, Missile Secrets, Korea Cold War - New World Next Week

Source: Corbett Report and Media Monarchy

Welcome back to New World Next Week - the video series from Corbett Report and Media Monarchy that covers some of the most important developments in open source intelligence news. This week:

Story #1: In Sweden, Cash Is King No More
Flashback: Cashless Society By 2012, Says Visa Chief

Story #2: US Dangles Secret Data for Russia Missile Shield Approval
Related: On Persian New Year, Obama Tries To Pierce Iran's "Electronic Curtain"
Did Russia And Israel Swap Data On Their Enemies?

Story #3: In Echo of Cold War Tension with North Korea, Obama to Visit Demilitarized Zone Next week
Related: North Korea's Kim Game for "Let's Make a Deal"

Bonus: Food World Order on Corbett Report Radio
The 2010 Video Archive DVD from Corbett Report

Barack Obama: the World Establishment’s Uncle Tom Card in the Re-Colonization of Africa

Source: Boiling Frogs Post
Sibel Edmonds

The Right Man to Pacify ‘Crying Race’ while Terrorizing & Colonizing Africa

Only three years under the Obama presidency and we have had several covert and overt wars in Africa with the sole purpose of the re-colonization of Africa and its rich oil-mineral resources, while posing under the guise of ‘humanitarian intervention.’ The overt war in Libya, a not so secret war in Somalia, establishing a base in Uganda, sending troops to chase the Lord’s Resistance Army rebel group in the Congo, quietly setting up a number of new bases in Ethiopia and the Seychelles … and the list goes on. Not to mention the number of bodies piling up on top of each other as the West sinks its teeth into the long-sought-after continent and its resources. 

Many have been writing about and analyzing Obama’s Africa Fever. You must admit the man has been acting very feverish. In fact, I’d say he’s been the most feverish president we’ve had when it comes to slicing, dicing, and re-colonizing Africa. Granted, he is not the only one with the fever. The French, Brits, and a couple of other Old Europe players have been feverish as well; they’ve been salivating at the idea of reviving their old glory days of empire and colonies. Yet, the most feverish, I’m talking mouth-foaming delirious fever, appears to be our president-Barack Obama. And oddly enough, there doesn’t seem to be much “crying race” and colonialism from the black communities here in the U.S. I say here in the US because the majority of blacks in Africa seem to recognize, resent and speak out on this Black Super Power President’s colonization crusade in their land:

You can still see Obama’s likeness around town these days, especially in the tourist areas. But for many Ghanaians, the honeymoon with Obama is over. And it started to go sour when the first warplanes strafed Benghazi and Tripoli, in a NATO effort to protect civilians from strongman Muammar Qaddafi.That was the Libya-intervention’s official purpose, anyway. But Ghanaians aren’t buying it. To many observers here, it looks like a grab for Libya’s oil riches; to others, it’s a nefarious Western plot to re-colonize Africa.

They know one when they see one. They recognize colonizers when they see colonizers and their actions. Then why don’t we hear a major outcry from the black communities in the United States? I can assure you that we’d have heard the outcry if a white president had supported, armed and directed militias and rebels who did the following

Corbett Report Interviews Pepe Escobar on R2P and MEK

Source: Corbett Report
James Corbett

Today we talk to veteran investigative journalist about the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine by which NATO has begun waging its “humanitarian” wars around the world. We discuss where this idea came from, how it has been used, and the way it is shaping international geopolitics. We also talk about the MEK, a bizarre terror cult that is increasingly popular inside the beltway in Washington.

Joseph Kony & More AFRICOM Wars over Oil

Source: Boiling Frogs Post
William Engdahl

A Major AFRICOM & US State Department Campaign to Undermine Chinese Influence in Central Africa

According to their website, the American NGO, Invisible Children, claims now to have had over 80 million viewers to their YouTube video, “Kony2012,” since its release on YouTube a few weeks ago. For anyone with the patience to sit through the entire YouTube of Kony2012, it is questionable how truthful the figure of 80 million viewers is. Eighty million is unprecedented in YouTube history by all accounts.

The video features such prominent Hollywood personalities as Angelina Jolie, George Clooney, Lady GaGa, Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs and other notables. It’s a slick, sentimental story directed by Jason Russell, a 33-year-old now-hospitalized American filmmaker who apparently just underwent a bizarre mental disconnect on the streets of San Diego.[1] The YouTube video depicts a young Ugandan, Jacob Acaye, whom Russell claims he befriended some ten years earlier after Acaye escaped conscription into Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) as an 11-year-old killer. The film portrays Kony as the world’s worst beast and terrorist, in effect, Africa’s Osama bin Laden. [2]

The Invisible Children NGO is itself opaque. It reportedly rakes in millions from sales of such things as buttons, Invisible Children T-shirts, bracelets and posters priced from $30-$250, but it ranks low on transparency regarding other donors. The group, which employs around 100 people, is expected to raise millions of dollars from their “Kony2012” video, but so far it refuses to say how much has been donated or how it will spend the money. The founders of the group, who advocate direct US military intervention in response to the LRA, had been previously criticized for posing with guns alongside members of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) in 2008, an organization widely accused of rape and looting. The group issued a statement in response: “We thought it would be funny to bring back to our friends and family a joke photo. You know, ‘Haha – they have bazookas in their hands but they’re actually fighting for peace’.” [3] HaHa…

Declining, Desperate U.S. Intensifies China-Bashing

Source: Beijing Review
Chen Xiangyang - Deputy director of the Institute of World Political Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations

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International political rules consist of diplomatic practices, public international law and norms of international relations, the core principle of which are respecting state sovereignty and non-interference in a nation’s internal affairs. “Humanitarian intervention” and the “responsibility to protect,” though highly advocated by Western powers in recent years, have yet to become universally accepted.

The United States has long considered itself the rule maker for the world. American lawmakers often hold hearings on other countries’ domestic affairs. The U.S. Government regularly releases reports on foreign governments’ policies ranging from human rights and religious freedom to monetary policies.

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Playing the blame game

As the sole superpower, the United States is the biggest beneficiary of current international rules. Taking advantage of its dominant status in the international system, Washington has recently adopted a new tactic when dealing with Beijing: It has bashed the country with “international rules,” calling China a challenger and a violator of established rules.

When meeting with visiting Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping in February, U.S. leaders once again urged China to follow the U.S. version of international rules.

There are several reasons why the United States has intensified its China-bashing rhetoric. Since the outbreak of the global financial crisis, China has continued to develop swiftly while the United States is mired in financial and fiscal crises. China’s catching up has caused a sense of anxiety in the United States. Also, in a U.S. election year, candidates from both parties tend to make China a scapegoat to court voters. They have attributed U.S. troubles to China’s unfair competition and violation of international rules. For instance, Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has repeatedly accused China of being a “currency manipulator.”

Coup in Beijing, Says Chinese Internet Rumor Mill

Source: Epoch Times

UPDATE: Words Related to ‘Coup’ in Beijing Censored on Weibo

Over the night of March 19 and early morning of March 20, Bejing local time, a message about a large number of military police showing up in Beijing spread widely across microblogs in mainland China.

The key figures in the action are said to be: Hu Jintao, the head of the CCP; Wen Jiabao, the premier; Zhou Yongkang, who has control of the People’s Republic of China’s police forces; and Bo Xilai, who was dismissed from his post as head of the Chongqing City Communist Party on March 15 by Wen Jiabao, after a scandal involving Bo’s former police chief.

Li Delin, who is on the editorial board of Securities Market Weekly and lives in Dongcheng District of Beijing, wrote on his microblog a report that confirmed unusual troop movements: “There are numerous army vehicles, Changan Street is continuously being controlled. There are many plainclothes police in every intersection, and some intersections even had iron fences set up.”

According to the message that went viral on China’s Internet, a military force with unknown designation quickly occupied many important places in Zhongnanhai, the Chinese leadership compound in Beijing, and Beijing in the early morning of March 20, with the cooperation of Beijing armed police.

The troops entered Beijing to “get and protect Bo Xilai,” according to the message.
A mainland Chinese reader has told The Epoch Times that a military coup has taken place in Beijing.

It is still unknown who, if anyone, has been arrested.

Engdahl: Arab Spring a Pentagon Strategy

Source: RT

The UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan has urged the UN Security Council to break the political deadlock on Syria. He said 'unity over the crisis will help his peace mission' - comments he made during his briefing to the body about his findings following his recent visit to Damascus. William F. Engdahl, researcher and author of "Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order"

Genocidal Turkish Government Eyes Syria

Source: Land Destroyer Report
Tony Cartalucci

Once again Turkey, a NATO member since 1952, is considering the partial military invasion of Syria to give foreign terrorists and extremist militants attempting to overthrow the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a reprieve in their failing campaign.

Cross-border mass murder is a routine procedure for Turkey, who has been carrying out a very real genocidal campaign against the Kurd minority within and beyond its own borders for decades - this after the early 1900's Armenian genocide which the government of Turkey to this day still denies.

Photo: Turkish tanks entering Iraq to raid Kurdish towns and hunt suspected rebels in 2008. More recently, Turkey has been bombing "suspected" rebel bases in both Turkey and Iraq, as well as conducting mass nationwide arrests. Strangely, as Turkey verifiably does what Libya's Qaddafi and Syria's Assad have been accused of doing, the West's myriad of disingenuous rights advocacy groups are quiet as is the Wall Street/London beholden UN Security Council and the West's corporate media editorials.

....

Turkey is currently strafing and rolling tanks over its own people.

Turkey has been waging a decades-long bloody campaign against its own armed uprising in predominately Kurdish areas bordering Syria, Iraq, and Iran. In fact, at one point, the US allowed Turkish tanks to cross into American-occupied Iraq to attack villages suspected of harboring armed Kurdish separatists in 2008, mirroring the very tactics Erdogan is now condemning Syria for. The Guardian reported in their 2008 article, "Iraq demands Turkey withdraw from border conflict with Kurds," that the conflict had been raging since 1984 and had cost the lives of 40,000 people - dwarfing the UN's fabricated death toll for Syria's current conflict.

U.S. Threatens Asian Region with Penalties for Continuing Iran Oil Purchases

Source: Activist Post

According to the RT report above, Barack Obama is set to impose penalties on India for continuing to purchase oil from sanction-strapped Iran.  A vague new U.S. law seeks also to sanction any country that is not willing to reduce its purchase of Iranian oil. However, India has expressed reluctance to abide by unilateral sanctions that are not legally binding.  India's Oil Minister has stated that they will continue to purchase from Iran as needed for their growing energy demands, while perhaps turning to gold as a means of sidestepping any attempt at imposing sanctions.  This could be merely a face-saving measure, as other players in the region including China, Japan, and South Korea have taken quick measures to reduce imports following U.S. demands.  Once again, the U.S. proves that ally or not, every sovereign nation must cave to Washington's imperial objectives, or else.  This latest move seems designed to further stress the region and force a shift in the oil economy toward Western-controlled interests, as the U.S. is conveniently offering to broker deals with Saudi Arabia and Iraq as a solution to the problem. (Source: Bloomberg)  

Russia Calls U.S.-Led Military Exercises In Georgia Provocation

Source: Xinhau News Agency
Russia calls U.S.-Georgia drills “provocation”

MOSCOW: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has described joint U.S.-Georgia drills which started Wednesday as “provocation”.

“The drills are supposed to be for the suppression of riots. I told the (U.S.) Secretary of State that this looks like provocation,” Lavrov told a meeting in the Russian State Duma, the lower house of parliament.

Moscow hoped those holding the exercises would bear in mind the fragile stability in Trans-Caucasian region, Lavrov said.

Meanwhile, he denied Moscow had urged anyone to recognize the independence of Georgia’s breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, saying Russia had only actively supported the regions in expanding their international contacts.

“We do not hold these talks. This is a business of our allies, Abkhazia and South Ossetia,” Lavrov said, adding Russia would support its friends politically.

Moscow recognized the two regions’ independence in August 2008 following a brief armed conflict with Georgia. In response, Georgia severed its diplomatic relations with Russia.

Source: Civil Georgia

Lavrov: U.S.-Georgian Military Drills ‘Provocative’

 

Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, said that ongoing joint U.S.-Georgian military exercises “seems somewhat provocative” and that he had raised this “serious issue” when he met with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier this week in New York.

Why Putin is Driving Washington Nuts

Source: Asia Times
Pepe Escobar

Forget the past (Saddam, Osama, Gaddafi) and the present (Assad, Ahmadinejad). A bet can be made over a bottle of Petrus 1989 (the problem is waiting the next six years to collect); for the foreseeable future, Washington's top bogeyman - and also for its rogue North Atlantic Treaty Organization partners and assorted media shills - will be none other than back-to-the-future Russian President Vladimir Putin.

And make no mistake; Vlad the Putinator will relish it. He's back exactly where he wants to be; as Russia's commander-in-chief, in charge of the military, foreign policy and all national security matters.

Anglo-American elites still squirm at the mention of his now legendary Munich 2007 speech, when he blasted the then George W Bush administration for its obsessively unipolar imperial agenda "through a system which has nothing to do with democracy" and non-stop overstepping of its "national borders in almost all spheres"." 

So Washington and its minions have been warned. Before last Sunday's election, Putin even advertised his road map The essentials; no war on Syria; no war on Iran; no "humanitarian bombing" or fomenting "color revolutions" - all bundled into a new concept, "illegal instruments of soft power". For Putin, a Washington-engineered New World Order is a no-go. What rules is "the time-honored principle of state sovereignty".

No wonder. When Putin looks at Libya, he sees the graphic, regressive consequences of NATO's "liberation" through "humanitarian bombing"; a fragmented country controlled by al-Qaeda-linked militias; backward Cyrenaica splitting from more developed Tripolitania; and a relative of the last king brought in to rule the new "emirate" - to the delight of those model democrats of the House of Saud.

More key essentials; no US bases encircling Russia; no US missile defense without strict admission, in writing, that the system will never target Russia; and increasingly close cooperation among the BRICS group of emerging powers.

Most of this was already implied in Putin's previous road map - his paper A new integration project for Eurasia: The future in the making. That was Putin's ippon - he loves judo - against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the International Monetary Fund and hardcore neo-liberalism. He sees a Eurasian Union as a "modern economic and currency union" stretching all across Central Asia.

Kony 2012: Wrapping Imperialism in "Activism"

Source: NileBowie
Nile Bowie

Editor's Note: It is worth mentioning the background of "Invisible Children's" CEO, Ben Keesey and that he was formally pursuing a career at JP Morgan before suddenly becoming an advocate for a US AFRICOM invasion of resource rich Africa.

Like other fraudulent NGOs including Avaas.org who's founder is formally of Fortune 500-funded, George Soros and Zbignew Brzezinski's International Crisis Group (page 5) as well as the Soros-affiliated MoveOn.org, they exist within one degree of separation from the most depraved corporate-financier interests on earth, promoting identical agendas of invasion, war, occupation, and foreign meddling.

Youth Movement Promotes US Military Presence in Central Africa

Edward Bernays believed that society could not be trusted to make rational and informed decisions on their own, and that guiding public opinion was essential within a democratic society. Bernays founded the Council on Public Relations and his 1928 book, Propaganda cites the methodology used in the application of effective emotional communication. He discovered that such communication is capable of manipulating the unconscious in an effort to produce a desired effect – namely, a capacity to manufacture mass social adherence in support of products, political candidates and social movements. Nearly a century after his heyday, Bernays’ methodology is apparent in almost every form of civic and consumer persuasion. The platform of social media is being used in unprecedented new ways, one such example is a new online documentary about the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), an extremist rebel group operating in Central Africa.

The documentary is unprecedented, not for its educational attributes but for its capacity to use visual branding, merchandising and highly potent emotional communication to influence the viewer to support US military operations in resource rich Central Africa under the pretext of capturing the LRA’s commander, Joseph Kony. The Lord’s Resistance Army was originally formed in 1987 in northwestern Uganda by members of the Acholi ethnic group, who were historically exploited as forced laborers by the British colonialists and later relegated by the nation’s dominant ethic groups following independence. Together with the Holy Spirit Movement, the LRA represented the armed wing of a resistance faction aiming to overthrow the government of current Ugandan President and staunch US military ally, Yoweri Museveni.

The LRA was originally formed to combat ethic marginalization, but soon became dominated by Joseph Kony, a self-proclaimed spiritual messenger of the (Christian) Holy Spirit. Kony utilized his messianic persona to lead a syncretic spiritual movement based on Acholi tribal beliefs’ and extremist Christian dogma. It is claimed that LRA seeks to establish a theocratic state based on the Ten Commandments, however its inner ideological mythology is largely unknown. In an effort to mobilize a large scale armed resistance, the LRA routinely recruited child soldiers and forced them to commit heinous acts such as cannibalism and mutilation on others who resisted to join the rebel group during their extensive twenty-five year campaign.

KONY 2012 is directed by Jason Russell and runs just thirty minutes; the video has received over twenty million views on YouTube and Vimeo and it’s national support group on Facebook is said to gain 4,000 members each hour. The highly produced feature is narrated from the perspective of Russell and his attempt to explain the Lord’s Resistance Army to his infant son, Gavin. The video features footage from Russell’s trip to Uganda (prior to 2006, when the LRA was still operating in the region) and introduces the viewer to Jacob, a Ugandan boy who was formally recruited by the LRA as a child soldier. Russell presents various montages of ethically diverse groups of students raising their fists in the air, sporting KONY t-shirts, and scenes of mass celebration in response to President Obama signing the S. 1067: Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009.

China Votes Against an Excuse for War

Source: China.org.cn
Qu Xing - President of the China Institute of International Studies

In February, China voted twice against a UN draft resolution which strongly condemned the Syrian President Bashar Assad's cruel crackdown on domestic uprising and calls for his resignation.

This action is a comprehensive judgment that considers the basic principles of the Charter of the United Nations, basic guidelines of contemporary international relations, China's national interests, and bilateral relations between China and the related countries.

In fact, China appreciates the Arab League's peace efforts; the reason why China voted against the draft resolution is related to its certain sections: they would provide a foundation for Western countries to launch a future Syrian war.

For example, the draft resolution agreed to solve the issue according to the schedule of the Arab League, and reserved the right to take further action if the draft cannot be carried out. But that hides acquiescence for free interpretation which would be nothing less than starting the vicious dominoes of foreign armed intervention in the Syrian conflict.

Libya has served a good example in this regard, where the Security Council resolutions had been overstepped and the Security Council authorization had been abused.

During the six-month war in Libya, at least 25,000 civilians lost their lives, and no one can tell the exact number of the people injured. If the Libyan model is applied to the case of Syria, a similar disaster will undoubtedly occur, and the wounds of war will be difficult to heal.

Obama Administration Moves to Aid Syrian Opposition

Source: Cryptogon

In the piece below, we read that this, “Stops short of providing any direct military assistance to the armed opposition.”

If you want to read detailed, voluminous accounts of how the U.S. covertly and illegally provides weapons to any state or group it pleases, see, Spider’s Web: The Secret History of How the White House Illegally Armed Iraq by Alan Friedman and, Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA by Terry Reed.

In other words, planeloads of weapons are going to be given to Al Qaeda (See: Syria: Clinton Admits U.S. On Same Side As Al Qaeda).

Via: Foreign Policy:

The Obama administration is moving to provide direct assistance to the internal opposition in Syria for the first time, marking a shift in U.S. policy toward a more aggressive plan to help oust President Bashar al-Assad.

Last week, a group of senior Obama administration officials met to finalize a package of options for aiding both the internal and external Syrian opposition, to include providing direct humanitarian and communications assistance to the Syrian opposition, two administration officials confirmed to The Cable. This meeting of what’s known as the Deputies Committee of the National Security Council set forth a new and assertive strategy for expanding U.S. engagement with Syrian activists and providing them with the means to organize themselves, but stops short of providing any direct military assistance to the armed opposition.

Mossad, CIA and Blackwater operate in Syria - report

Source: RT

A security operation in Homs reveals Mossad, CIA and Blackwater are involved in the military violence in this part of Syria, as over 700 Arab and Western gunmen and Israeli, American and European-made weapons were detained in Baba Amr district. 

­Syrian security forces got yet further proof of Western powers’ military involvement in Syria’s internal conflict, reports Al-Manar, a news agency, affiliated with Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based militant group and political party.

Around 700 gunmen were recently arrested in the former rebel stronghold of Babar Amr.

“The captured gunmen held Arab nationalities, including Gulf, Iraqi, and Lebanese. Among them were also Qatari intelligence agents and non-Arab fighters from Afghanistan, Turkey, and some European countries like France,” the agency quotes Syrian expert in strategic affairs Salim Harba as saying.

Harba also confirmed to the agency that “a coordination office was established in Qatar under American-Gulf sponsorship. The office includes American, French, and Gulf – specifically from Qatar and Saudi Arabia – intelligence agents, as well as CIA, Mossad, and Blackwater agents and members of the Syrian Transitional Council.”

The Syrian expert also added the security forces have also seized Israeli-, European- and American-made weapons.

US to Attempt Overthrow of Putin Government

Source: Land Destroyer Report
Tony Cartalucci

  

Wall Street & London elite lay groundwork to justify large scale destabilization in Russia. 

As predicted - the Western media and US State Department-funded "opposition" inside Russia have called Vladimir Putin's landslide victory a "fraud." It was stated on Thursday March 1, that the Western media had "already determined how Russia's elections will unfold, creating the pretext in the minds of impressionable viewers to justify the unrest the US is undoubtedly planning."

Image: Despite every poll indicating well in advance an easy victory for Vladimir Putin, and his critics admitting mobs of anti-Putin protesters constitute but a minority, claims of "election fraud" are rife across Western media. Clearly a man sure to win is not going to taint his victory by needlessly cheating. Conversely, in Thailand, when convicted criminal Thaksin Shinawatra ran for office by proxy through his own sister, and squeaked by with a tenuous victory, the Western media hailed it as a triumph of democracy. The difference? Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand works for Wall Street, Vladimir Putin does not.

....

This is similar to what took place during the 2009 Iranian elections where US State Department-funded opposition groups also claimed the elections were "illegitimate" and took to the streets in an attempt to reverse the democratic process through ochlocratic means. In Egypt, directly before the US-engineered Arab Spring, elections that predictably overlooked the suspicious Mohamed ElBaradei were likewise called "fraudulent" and used as the rhetorical justification to execute destabilization long-planned by the US State Department since 2008.

Proceeding Thailand's July, 2011 elections, as explained in ""Stolen Elections" Battle Cry of the Color Revolution," Wall Street and London's operatives laid the groundwork to likewise call any result aside from their proxies' full installation to power "fraud," to then be used as impetus to justify street mobs, destabilization, and violence.

The New Mediterranean Oil and Gas Bonanza: Part II

Source: Boiling Frogs Post
F. William Engdahl

Rising Energy Tensions in the Aegean—Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Syria

 

The discovery in late 2010 of the huge natural gas bonanza off Israel’s Mediterranean shores triggered other neighboring countries to look more closely at their own waters. The results revealed that the entire eastern Mediterranean is swimming in huge untapped oil and gas reserves. That discovery is having enormous political, geopolitical as well as economic consequences. It well may have potential military consequences too.

Preliminary exploration has confirmed similarly impressive reserves of gas and oil in the waters off Greece, Turkey, Cyprus and potentially, Syria.

Greek ‘energy Sirtaki’

Not surprisingly, amid its disastrous financial crisis the Greek government began serious exploration for oil and gas. Since then the country has been in a curious kind of a dance with the IMF and EU governments, a kind of “energy Sirtaki” over who will control and ultimately benefit from the huge resource discoveries there. 

In December 2010, as it seemed the Greek crisis might still be resolved without the by-now huge bailouts or privatizations, Greece’s Energy Ministry formed a special group of experts to research the prospects for oil and gas in Greek waters. Greece’s Energean Oil & Gas began increased investment into drilling in the offshore waters after a successful smaller oil discovery in 2009. Major geological surveys were made. Preliminary estimates now are that total offshore oil in Greek waters exceeds 22 billion barrels in the Ionian Sea off western Greece and some 4 billion barrels in the northern Aegean Sea.[1]

The southern Aegean Sea and Cretan Sea are yet to be explored, so the numbers could be significantly higher. An earlier Greek National Council for Energy Policy report stated that “Greece is one of the least explored countries in Europe regarding hydrocarbon (oil and gas-w.e.) potentials.”[2] According to one Greek analyst, Aristotle Vassilakis, “surveys already done that have measured the amount of natural gas estimate it to reach some nine trillion dollars.” [3] Even if only a fraction of that is available, it would transform the finances of Greece and the entire region.

Revolt Injection: 'Cash, Arms and Jihadists Fuel Syria War'

Source: RT

Syrian government forces have regained control of the Baba Amr district in Homs - which has been the main centre of armed resistance for almost a month. Washington says it'll keep up efforts to convince Russia and China to put pressure on President Assad and impose tougher sanctions against the Syrian regime. James Corbett - editor of the Japan-based independent news website the Corbett Report, says it's not developments within Syria, but international politics, that will shape the country's future.

Russian Expert: Azerbaijan’s Territory May Be Used To Strike Iran

Source: PanArmenian.net

Azerbaijan’s Milli Mejlis held debates on amending the Constitution and renaming the country into the Republic of Northern Azerbaijan, a Russian expert says.

“Supporters of this idea insist that today’s Azerbaijan is just a part of the Azerbaijani state that used to exist before and was divided by Russia and Iran in the 19th century; they claim two thirds of this state still remain within Iran’s territory, and this is historic injustice,” said Alexander Krylov, chairman of the Scientific Society of Caucasian studies experts, leading research scientist of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations according to Analitika.at.ua.

“Apparently, Tehran views such statement as a bellicose action and a direct challenge to Iran. Debates in Azerbaijan’s Milli Mejlis further complicated the tensions between the neighbouring countries. Baku blames Iranian government for activities undermining Azerbaijani state, in particular, through the Turkic-language Iranian 2A TV channel,” the expert said.

“Azerbaijan’s authorities and politicians are particularly indignant over the channel’s claims regarding Azerbaijani statehood being groundless, and Azerbaijan being a historic part of Iran. Activists of Azerbaijan’s Islamic party charged with subversive activities against Azerbaijan in favor of Iran were arrested recently in Azerbaijan.

So, a question emerges: how far can this conflict extend? In terms of legislation, renaming of a country requires amending the Constitution; to do this, majority of Azerbaijan’s citizens should vote for it during a nationwide referendum. So far, nothing is said about a referendum. Therefore, the problem is not the renaming of Azerbaijan but something else. Obviously, Baku uses development of this issue as a lever of political pressure on Iranian government and as a method of solving its own domestic problems,” Krylov said.

According to the expert, in case of a military resolution of the Iranian issue the U.S. and Israeli politicians are insisting on for many years, Azerbaijan’s territory may be used for striking Iran.

“In this case, the current propaganda against Iran is likely to be a part of preparation for this scenario. U.S. may attempt to use Azerbaijan as a new version of Afghan “Northern Alliance”; also, in case of large-scale changes in the borders and establishment of new countries in the regions (i.e. Kurdistan), Azerbaijan may receive vast territories,” the Russian expert stated.

EU Pushes Trans-Caspian Pipeline Versus Russia, Iran

Source: Trends News Agency
E. Ismayilov

Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and the EU are preparing two documents that will allow them to take delivery of the Caspian and in particular Turkmen gas to Europe, Azerbaijani Industry and Energy Minister Natiq Aliyev said at a meeting with members of the Caspian-European Integration Business Club (CEIBC) on Wednesday.

He said Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and the European Union are preparing a political document to support the Southern Gas Corridor, as well as an inter-governmental agreement on Trans-Caspian gas pipeline. This should take place before the end of the year.

In September, 2011 the EU Council gave a mandate for negotiations between the EU, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan to build the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline.

Trans-Caspian gas pipeline running to around 300 kilometres will be laid from the Turkmen coast of the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijani, where it will be linked to the Southern Gas Corridor. Negotiations between Turkmenistan and the EU and other countries on the construction of the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline have been on-going since the late 90s.

During negotiations with Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, the EU will discuss agreements outlining the legal obligations of the parties necessary for Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan for the construction and operation of the Trans-Caspian pipeline. Also on the agenda will be the legal framework to be applied to the issue of filling the gas pipeline from Turkmenistan including the recognition of commercial agreements.

The Southern Gas Corridor' is one of the priority energy projects for the EU. It is designed to diversify the routes and sources of supply and thereby increase the energy security of the EU. The Southern Gas Corridor project includes Nabucco, the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) and ITGI.

The Trans Caspian project involves laying a pipeline (300 km) through the seabed from Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan.

Do you have any feedback? Contact our journalist at agency@trend.az