Australia Plans to Kill Thirsty Camels – CBS News

Australian authorities plan to corral about 6,000 wild camels with helicopters and gun them down after they overran a small Outback town in search of water, trampling fences, smashing tanks and contaminating supplies.

In August, the federal government set aside 19 million Australian dollars for a program to slash the wild camel population, including a possible mass slaughter. (via Australia Plans to Kill Thirsty Camels – CBS News).

For Australians this has become a habit. Some time back it was cane toads. Before that it was kangaroos. Before that it was dingos. And before that were humans.

Their justification – camels “are not native to Australia but were introduced in the 1840s, have smashed water tanks, approached houses to try to take water from air conditioning units, and knocked down fencing at the small airport runway …”.

The last time I heard, the current human population of Australia was also not native to Australia – and the the native population of Australia has itself been annihilated. The obvious Desert Bloc answer to any problem is genocide, slaughter and killing.

And after that is an apology.

Climate Change at Copenhagen – Britain mounts a Trojan operation

The Europeans, especially the UK, have been at the forefront of diplomatic maneuvers to carve out a separate voice of small vulnerable countries such as Bangladesh and Maldives which would, in the name of strong global action, put pressure on India and China to take commitments. The UK government had recently part-funded and helped organize a meeting of this group, called the “Vulnerable 14″ countries, in Maldives. (via Cracks appear in G-77 bloc on Day One – Europe – World – The Times of India).

Awesome.

1. The Maldives jigsaw

The Maldives Government staged a dramatic PR coup to draw world media attention on climate change, by holding an underwater cabinet meeting. Nepal Government followed up with a cabinet meeting at the Himalayan foothills. These were in a long line of various other such PR stunts.

The PR agency for the Maldives Travel and Tourism Authority McCluskey International does  seem to either bask in reflected glory – or is hinting at the authorship of this stunt. Apparently, Maldives has been at the forefront of climate change trip for some time. One journalist, from New York Times, Andrew C. Revkin, recounts his first encounter with Maldives representatives in

Toronto in 1988 to report on the First International Conference on the Changing Atmosphere. Most of the discussions centered on devising strategies to curb emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases from automobiles, power plants, and the burning of tropical forests. Among those in attendance was Hussein Manikfan, who holds the title Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Permanent Representative to the United Nations from the republic of Maldives. At first it seemed odd to find a representative from the Maldives at the meeting. The country, a sprinkling of 1,190 coral islets in the Indian Ocean southwest of Sri Lanka, has no tropical forests, hardly any automobiles, and little industry beyond the canning of bonito.

Well coached, when Manikfan was asked what was he doing in Toronto, a slick and dramatic answer was available.

Why was he in Toronto? “To find out how much longer my country will exist,” was his simple reply.

Such answers and sound-bites have been a recurring and regular Maldives phenomenon.

Media management and Maldives

The hallmark of the Maldives’ climate  change campaign has been it slick PR. Dramatic statements, intriguing sound bites, the Maldives’ campaign was beyond the common bureaucratic ‘creature’ – much less a Maldives’ bureaucrat. This is consistent and in line with Al Gore’s media and public relations management – which won the PR agency, the campaign of the year award. And Al Gore the Nobel Prize.

For sometime, Nasheed was in Britain, a ‘political refugee’. Amnesty International declared  Nasheed a ‘prisoner of conscience’ in 1996. The Maldives climate change campaign seems to be headquarted in Britain also.The New York Times report mentions how

Officials in the Maldives made the decision after soliciting a report on how to cut fossil fuel use and otherwise trim the country’s climate footprint from  Chris Goodall and  Mark Lynas, British environmentalists and authors of books on energy and climate.

The British press has been quite generous in its coverage and published his writings. Such coverage from Western media is normal for Western leaders or a significant head of State. Not for a President of a 300,000 people island-State.

President Mohamed Nasheed, declared with saturation Western media coverage, that Maldives will be the first country in the world to be carbon neutral. At another gab-fest, he dramatically declared, “We don’t want a global suicide pact” - which received wide publicity, especially in Canada, Britain, US media. News agencies like AFP and AP gave Nasheed saturation coverage.

Much like how the population explosion report by the ‘Club of Rome’ was released from the Smithsonian, the climate change

“announcement was made in the Maldives, but synchronized with the London premiere of ” The Age of Stupid,” a new film on global warming and oil that is a mix of documentary, dramatization and animation.

In response to this article in NY Times, significant data was shown, how Maldives will not go under-water.

High noon in Maldives

Interestingly, the current President of Maldives came to power, in rather unusual ‘circumstances’. “After violent civil riots in 2003 and fierce international pressure pushed Gayoom, to call for the 2008 Maldives Presidential elections. During the campaign and electioneering, “Gayoom’s allies accused Nasheed of seeking to spread Christianity in the increasingly conservative Muslim country, while the opposition accused the president of being a dictator who abused human rights.”

In the first round, Nasheed was placed second with 44,293 votes (24.91%), behind President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom of the long-ruling Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP), who received 71,731 votes (40.34%). In the second round, Nasheed (supposedly supported by the unsuccessful first round candidates) won 54.25% of the vote against Gayoom (45.75) – “anyone waiting in line was permitted to cast a vote.”

Displaying penchant for excellent PR, Nasheed promptly declared himself as “the world’s first democratically elected president of a 100 percent Muslim country” – and promised to “to fight inflation, downsize government, tackle corruption and protect human rights”.

One comment simplified the Maldives riddle very well.

If the Maldives are doomed why spend $1.1 billion on the place. Abandon the islands. Move to higher ground. Ans.: They won’t get many $$ if they ask for any other reason. And they know better than anyone they are not sinking!

Of course, this begs the question, why Maldives? That brings us to the next part of the climate change factors. For more than 2 decades, Maldives has been nursed into a ‘leadership’ position. President Nasheed today leads the calling themselves the V11 – the vulnerable 11, which has become 14. Led by Maldives, this group includes far bigger and important countries like Bangladesh, Kenya,  Ghana, Tanzania and Vietnam among others. Most of India’s neighbours have joined this group – like Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan.

If it wasn’t such deliciously, low life fraud, I may have even admired it.

PR Stunts – The Maldives underwater meeting

The 'science' of global warming

Maldivian officials said the idea to hold the attention-grabbing underwater cabinet meeting came from President Mohamed Nasheed when he was asked by an activist group to support its “environmental day” action on October 24.

“The 350.org group asked if the Maldives can hold an underwater banner supporting environmental day,” an official from the president’s office said.

“The president thought for a while and then came up with the idea to have an underwater cabinet meeting.” (via Maldives cabinet rehearses underwater meeting).

Its been done before

From the early 1950′s to the late eighties, the Western world created hysteria regarding ‘population explosion’  in India and China. Enormous pressures were brought onto the Chinese and Indian Governments to ‘control’ their populations.

The West succeeded in China – and failed in India, thanks to the healthy disrespect that desi Indians had for ‘phoren’ ideas. This entire theory on population explosion was based on wrong ethical, economic and political bases. Above all, it was based on a fear that China and India could raise an army bigger than the entire population of the West put together. Much like the climate control campaign, the population explosion campaign was sustained over the years – and called for great ‘foresight’ from the West.

The Maldives trojan

Propping up Maldives as ‘fifth’ column was similarly done over the last more than 20 years. Based on excellent PR and media management skills, the Maldives was the Trojan horse that India was blind-sided on.

The hallmark of the Maldives’ climate  change campaign has been it slick PR. Dramatic statements, intriguing sound bites, the Maldives’ campaign was beyond the common bureaucratic ‘creature’ – much less a Maldives’ bureaucrat. This is consistent and in line with Al Gore’s media and public relations management – which won the PR agency, the campaign of the year award. And Al Gore the Nobel Prize.

350.org is rather well armed on the PR front – with a specific agency for South Asia itself. The PR agency for the Maldives Travel and Tourism Authority McCluskey International does  seem to either bask in reflected glory – or is hinting at the authorship of this stunt. The Maldives climate change campaign seems to be headquarted in Britain also.

Maldives is now tied up with a the ‘Vulnerable 14′ to actively create pressure on (especially) China and India.

If it was not such a delicious fraud, I could have even admired this operation.

42 terror camps still active in Pakistan: Indian Army chief

Chief of Army Staff Gen Deepak Kapoor has said that there are still 42 terror camps operating across the border in Pakistan in which 2000 to 2500 terrorists are still waiting to infiltrate into Indian side. (via 42 terror camps still active in Pakistan: Army chief- Hindustan Times).

Such cross-border firings did come down for some time after the two countries agreed to a ceasefire along the 198-km International Border in J&K, the 778-km LoC and the 150-km Actual Ground Position Line in Siachen on November 26, 2003.

But Pakistan army is now back to its old strategy of actively aiding and abetting infiltration, and the ceasefire is increasingly turning fragile. Army chief General Deepak Kapoor, in fact, recently said Pakistan army was trying to push in as many militants as possible before the mountain passes get snowed under. (via Terror infrastructure in Pak still intact: Antony – India – The Times of India).

Post-colonial India

So … if we know this … what are we doing about these 42 camps?

Post-Independence India has inherited a Pakistan Fixation, which predisposes us to whine – and demonize Pakistan. Endless whining about Pakistan’s bad deeds gets us nowhere. A ‘victorious’ Congress, ruling for most of the 60 years of post-colonial India, had three clear propaganda imperatives.

1 – TINA, There is no alternative

They needed to prove that it was only the Congress which could ‘take on’ and  ‘defeat’ the ‘glorious and the mighty’ British Empire on which the sun never set. The logic went, “what could India(ns) have done without the Congress”. This thinking went deeper and dirtier, when a certain Deb Kant Barooah, declared “India is Indira and Indira is India.”

Pakistani press trying to 'even' the score

Similarly, Congress decided to re-write history and take all credit for the departure of the British colonialists. Contributions of leaders like SC Bose was ignored or the importance of the February 1946 joint action by the Indian Armed Forces against the colonial forces, was minimized to the ‘Naval Ratings Mutiny.’ Leaders like VD Savarkar (the first to write a non-colonial history of the War of 1857), or Shyama Prasad Mukherjee (the founder of the Jana Sangh-BJP) was dismissed as fascism.

Fact is, that Britain was bankrupt and could not hold onto India. Fact is, that for a 150 years – from 1797-1947, many rebellions, wars, individual hits were made against the colonial British Government. The myth of non-violent Indian freedom movement, served both colonial and Congress interests. It showed the British as ‘civilized’ colonialists – and the Congress as ‘enlightened’ leadership. Just like most Western literature caricatures African-American characters as hard-working, humble, docile, placid, obedient, gentle!

2 – If you don’t have an enemy, create one!

The Congress needed to create an enemy. A demon, who they could blame, use, abuse – and Pakistan fitted the bill perfectly. A failed state (!), a hotbed of terrorism – and to top it all, an Islamic State. What more could the West-Congress combine ask for?

Easily slipping into colonial legacy of ‘divide et impera’, the Congress went onto a disastrous foreign policy trail of Hindi-Chini bhai bhai. A solid realtionship with Pakistan would have,  arguably, saved Tibet from the Chinese maws – which Nehru’s foreign policy predicated.

3 – Craven desires

To gain Western approval, acceptance, favours, privileges et al.

Consider the English language policy of the post-colonial Congress Government. It has massively subsidized English education in India so that the children of the elite could ‘escape’ to the West. The demeaning ‘population control theory’, the English language education – all, a result of this need of the Congress Party.

The deliberate colonial distortion of Indian history continues unchecked and unhindered. You only have to read Congress Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh’s speech at Oxford, praising the Raj,  while receiving his honorary doctrate, or Chidambaram’s decision to end “abject poverty” in India that he seems to “have known for 5,000 years.”

When each of these elements are looked at in isolation, we can take benign view of these actions. When looked at collectively, it forms a clear pattern.

Poor Sri Lankan cricket team got a taste of Pakistan ...

A rather ominous pattern.

The Root Of This Problem

The state of inter-government relations in South Asia is a sign of lazy Indian diplomatic corps (the IFS) which considers all these neighbourhood postings as ‘punishment’ postings. The ‘best’ of IFS corps wants postings to Western capitals. Like the IAS, the IFS is another albatross around India’s neck.

A large part of India’s Foreign Ministry budget goes towards Western engagement (for proof, look at the dubious Festivals of India in USA, France, Russia, Britain, etc). Instead if the same money was spent in the sub-continent, it would have been better spent. The huge monies spent on Western embassies are mis directed. It would be ideal if those Western embassies were Spartan, frugal (I should actually say Gandhian) – and our the money saved was invested in the sub-continent. India’s Western engagements are at a direct cost of involving and managing the neighbourhood relationships.

If India’s problems were limited to Pakistan, possibly, there is some merit to India’s Pakistan Fixation. India’s relations with its other neighbours are also in trouble. Its relations with Bangladesh are at a historic low. Relations with Sri Lanka are back from the brink. Nepal is the new fire in the sub-continent.

What should India do?

The other issue is that Indian bureaucrats whine. They issue empty threats – and take no follow up actions.

For instance, cut off Pakistan’s supplies of paper, inks, dies, presses, spares for the currency printing. Are things changing.? India has indeed has taken the first intelligent action (that I have seen) in a long time in handling Pakistan.

Next! Send a 100 Indian agents to lob grenades into Pakistani terrorists camps – every month. Just one grenade in one terrorist camp every month. Within the next 6 months the terror infrastructure of Pakistan will evaporate.

Other options India can consider.

1. Zardari wants to export cement and sugar to India. India has a large market for both – and can easily absorb Pakistani exports. Tie these Pakistani exports to quantitative achievements in shutting down terror camps in Pakistan.
2. Pakistan precarious financial position does not allow it the luxury of an arms race with India. Pakistan has access to Western technology for – in defence for RDX, machine guns, PACs, etc. The world must withdraw all technology from Pakistan for all arms and ammunition. No RDX, no tanks, no F-16s, no APCs. Pakistan must be put on strict diet of military technology blockade by the world. No less.
3. Fake Indian currency notes are also allegedly coming out of technology supplied by Europeans. Close these channels. Pakistan’s suspected role in counterfeit currency operations must also be put under the scanner. Controlling Government’s of the 12 companies that dominate the currency printing business must be made to choose. Between India and Pakistan. If the German Government can arm twist their companies to suspend currency supply to Zimbabwe, there is no excuse for them to not to lean on dealings with Pakistan.
4. Pakistani Hindus (especially Dalits) are crucial to Pakistan. Announce a scheme for Hindu immigration from Pakistan to India. The loss of this 2% of Pakistani population can make life difficult for Pakistan. Facilitate their immigration to India.
5. Work with US, NATO, Afghan Governments to close down the Peshawar arms bazaar. This small time bazaar became the sourcing centre for terrorists all over the world. Initially, stocked up with arms from the CIA funded jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan, Peshawar, has become a problem that never ends. If required, there should be a UN mandate to send in a multinational force to surround, capture and destroy this centre for arms and armaments.
6. Pakistan is at the crossroads of a jihadi, terrorist, criminal elements who have joined together and created an incendiary mash-up. Fueled by a drugs trade worth billions, arms trade worth millions and respectability, as they are ‘carrying out a religious jihad’.
7. The leadership of these gangs has to be de-fanged. LK Advani, as the earlier Home Minister, forwarded a list of ‘Most Wanted 20′ to Pakistan nearly 7 years ago. Not one has come to India. The US has not co-operated on this one important Indian requirement.

The Pakistan problem is finally not as complex and it is made out.

Nor as easy as some may want it to be.

Climate head steps down over e-mail leak

Professor Phil Jones, director of the U.K.’s University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit said he stands by the science produced at the center but while the investigation takes place it was important that the CRU “continues its world leading research with as little interruption and diversion as possible.” (via Climate head steps down over e-mail leak – CNN.com).

Coming together at Copenhagen

More than 20,000 official delegates are converging today to major international conference. Venue – Bella centre, Copenhagen. Sponsor – United Nations. Conference subject – Climate Change, managed by Yvo de Boer, the UN climate head. What about the climate change, could be so important to draw more than 20,000 people to one city from nearly 200 countries (192 to be exact).

What makes this more curious and intriguing is that “never in peacetime history has the government-media-academic complex been in such sustained propagandistic lockstep about any subject.” The motivation for this campaign is (as per Washington Post) is to fix on the “world’s … population … the saddle of ever-more-minute supervision by governments.”

At least three threads seem to be running through the climate change cloth of debate. One thread is oil. The other is the competitive hobbling – like the false debate on population explosion. The third is the scientific skullduggery which seems to be rampant in the climate change debate – “the complex climate politics between the US, China and India.”

The most interesting is Maldives.

1. The Maldives jigsaw

The Maldives Government staged a dramatic PR coup to draw world media attention on climate change, by holding an underwater cabinet meeting. Nepal Government followed up with a cabinet meeting at the Himalayan foothills. These were in a long line of various other such PR stunts.

The PR agency for the Maldives Travel and Tourism Authority McCluskey International does  seem to either bask in reflected glory – or is hinting at the authorship of this stunt. Apparently, Maldives has been at the forefront of climate change trip for some time. One journalist, from New York Times, Andrew C. Revkin, recounts his first encounter with Maldives representatives in

Toronto in 1988 to report on the First International Conference on the Changing Atmosphere. Most of the discussions centered on devising strategies to curb emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases from automobiles, power plants, and the burning of tropical forests. Among those in attendance was Hussein Manikfan, who holds the title Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Permanent Representative to the United Nations from the republic of Maldives. At first it seemed odd to find a representative from the Maldives at the meeting. The country, a sprinkling of 1,190 coral islets in the Indian Ocean southwest of Sri Lanka, has no tropical forests, hardly any automobiles, and little industry beyond the canning of bonito.

Well coached, when Manikfan was asked what was he doing in Toronto, a slick and dramatic answer was available.

Why was he in Toronto? “To find out how much longer my country will exist,” was his simple reply.

In response to this article in NY Times, significant data was shown, how Maldives will not go under.

High noon in Maldives

Interestingly, the current President of Maldives came to power, in rather unusual ‘circumstances’. In the 2008 Presidential elections, in the first round, Nasheed were placed second with 44,293 votes (24.91%), behind President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom of the long-ruling Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP), who received 71,731 votes (40.34%). In the second round, Nasheed (supposedly supported by the unsuccessful first round candidates) won 54.25% of the vote against 45.75% for Gayoom.

Displaying penchant for excellent PR, Nasheed promptly declared himself as “the world’s first democratically elected president of a 100 percent Muslim country”.

Media management and Maldives

The hallmark of the Maldives’ climate  change campaign has been it slick PR. Dramatic statements, intriguing sound bites, the Maldives’ campaign was beyond the common bureaucratic ‘creature’ – much less a Malives’ bureaucrat.

For sometime, Nasheed was in Britain, a ‘political refugee’. The Maldives climate change campaign seems to be headquarted in Britain also.The New York Times report mentions how

Officials in the Maldives made the decision after soliciting a report on how to cut fossil fuel use and otherwise trim the country’s climate footprint from  Chris Goodall and  Mark Lynas, British environmentalists and authors of books on energy and climate.

The British press has been quite liberal in its coverage and published his writings. President Mohamed Nasheed, declared with saturation media coverage, that Maldives will be the first country in the world to be carbon neutral. This is quite in line with Al Gore’s media and public relations management – which won the PR agency, the campaign of the year award. And Al Gore the Nobel Prize.

Much like how the population explosion report by the ‘Club of Rome’ was released from the Smithsonian, the climate change

“announcement was made in the Maldives, but synchronized with the London premiere of ” The Age of Stupid,” a new film on global warming and oil that is a mix of documentary, dramatization and animation.

One comment simplified the Maldives riddle very well.

If the Maldives are doomed why spend $1.1 billion on the place. Abandon the islands. Move to higher ground. Ans.: They won’t get many $$ if they ask for any other reason. And they know better than anyone they are not sinking!

Of course, this begs the question, why Maldives? That brings us to the next part of the climate change factors.

2. What if

The entire global warming debate is just a facade to keep up demand for oil from India and China. What is the biggest item on the climate change talks? Coal based power plants. Does it seem far fetched that the opposition to coal fired power plants is to stop India and China from reducing the growth in oil consumption.

After all practically all of British GDP today is declining North Sea oil and British Petroleum. Apart from Chinese money, the other source of liquidity, which keeps the US afloat is petro-dollars. And, remember, US future is so closely linked to Arctic oil. Looking at the speed and persistence with which the 123 Agreement was done by the US, it’s use as a lever against Indian negotiating position cannot be underestimated or ignored.

Coincidentally, along with the Copenhagen Summit, the India-Africa Hydrocarbons Conference started in New Delhi. If Africa, the Caribbean and South America start producing their own oil, where does that leave the Oil-West-Dollar Axis? If China and India reduce their growth in oil consumption, what happens? If India and China were to reduce their reliance on oil, leading to a price collapse, the biggest losers will be the Anglo Saxon bloc.

Makes one think!

India’s pharma exports

3.Three things…

First, many of the regulatory bodies (like IMF, World Bank, OECD, et al)are actually a US-Euro Club – to fool the world, with token actions and steps to demonstrate inclusion and fairness to the developing world.

And second, these token actions divert the attention of the developing world. For instance, World Bank list of banned entities were significantly, from two sectors - Software and Pharma.

These are the two sectors where the US still has a lead – and the Indians are its biggest challengers. Generic pharma firms from India have become world beaters - and the Indian software companies have built up US$50 billion a year business, in less than 10 years. These 50 billion dollars have come out of (arguably) US pockets.

At least, the actions against Wipro and Nestor Pharma were pathetic excuses to ban a business – and no third party arbiter will uphold these actions.

Third, on January 9, Standard & Poor’s announced that Greece, Spain and Ireland were on review for a possible downgrade, indicating that a Euro-zone country could default. The cost of the US bailout is likely to exceed US$3 trillion. Current US budget deficit is likely to break all records and estimates.

Not so long ago …

In 1999, an employee of an auto-components manufacturer, Autolite, was arrested in France for trademarks and copyright infringement – based on a complaint by the car manufacturer PSA Puegeot Citroen. The French police, on similar complaints, arrested two other nationals, a Belgian and a Taiwanese woman also.

The Belgian was of course granted bail – and the Indian and the Taiwanese were denied bail - ‘The lawyers representing the Indian businessman offerred to deposit his passport and the sum of 100,000 French Francs claimed by Peugeot in the custody of the court as bailbond, pending the trial of the case on November 12′.

French court procedures took nearly 1 month and the Indian executive was finally granted bail after being in prison for 1 month. After two years of appeals and expensive litigation, the complaint was found to be without any merit – and dismissed.

More recently …

A shipment of medicines destined for Brazil, from India, was detained at Rotterdam. The Dutch Customs used a complaint from a local Dutch company, to detain this shipment, based on local patent laws. After a few months of ‘negotiations’, the shipment was sent back to India. An expert writes, what

‘EU is doing is using Council Regulation (EC) No. 1383/2003 to impound drugs that are suspected of violating patents registered in member-countries even if these are simply in transit. The regulations permit customs to hold these goods for a minimum of 10 working days while informing the patent holder of the seizure. The patent holder then applies to a civil court to initiate legal proceedings in order to prove that infringement has taken place.’

Again coincidentally, India decided to proceed against the EU on the same day as the beginning of the Copenhagen meeting.

Public sector or oblivion?

During the Great Depression, more than 19 auto companies (similar to the number of banks today) were folded into the Big 3. The Big 3 lived to fight for another 70 years. In their death throes, the US Big Auto is likely to go the way European auto sector has gone – public sector or oblivion.

What is on the table

Two out of the G-7 countries are bankrupt – US and Britain. Their industrial base was supported by raw materials and captive markets – acquired by genocide, and the loot of centuries.

France, Germany, Canada, Italy  and Australia (not in G7) are tethering on the brink – under the weight of their social security system, and most of their business is in the public sector. A geriatric Japan is dependent almost entirely on exports to these declining seven. Japan’s investment in India and China has been negligible.

Unhappy negotiators

When certain negotiators in India were ‘worried’ about the conditionalities – Indian played up the Kakodkar card. Kakodkar was supposed to be unhappy with the deal. After much speculation and ‘negotiations’ Kakodkar gave the go-ahead.

Just before the Copenhagen meeting, another Indian negotiator, Chandrashekhar Dasgupta, ‘outed’ the impending Government Of India’s surrender. His analysis and logic was well presented in this post, on the morning of the Copenhagen meeting.

Crooked scientists

As the Climate Change talks came to the actual date, it was discovered that the ‘chief repository’ of data and information was hacked, released to the world. What this ‘leak’ showed the world, was how the scientists are playing dirty.

In June, however, he became a sudden celebrity with the surfacing of a few e-mail messages that seemed to show that his contrarian views on global warming had been suppressed by his superiors because they were inconvenient to the Obama administration’s climate change policy. Conservative commentators and Congressional Republicans said he had been muzzled because he did not toe the liberal line. (via Furor Over Alan Carlin, a Climate Change Skeptic – NYTimes.com).

When data from Indian scientists was released, it showed that the Himalayas have been retreat for nearly a 50 years. The most glaring of it was when

In its 2007 report, the Nobel Prize-winning Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said: “Glaciers in the Himalayas are receding faster than in any other part of the world and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate.

Careful reading of the report by

Professor Cogley has found a 1996 document by a leading hydrologist, VM Kotlyakov, that mentions 2350 as the year by which there will be massive and precipitate melting of glaciers.

“The extrapolar glaciation of the Earth will be decaying at rapid, catastrophic rates – its total area will shrink from 500,000 to 100,000 square kilometres by the year 2350,” Mr Kotlyakov’s report said.

Mr Cogley says it is astonishing that none of the 10 authors of the 2007 IPCC report could spot the error and “misread 2350 as 2035″.

India ‘arrogant’ to deny global warming link to melting glaciers, was Dr.Pachauri’s response.

When the levee breaks

A few days ago, some hackers broke into the East Anglia HQ, where most of the climate change data was being ‘studied’ and ‘analysed’.

This data was released by these ‘data thieves’ a few days before the Copenhagen meeting. The effect was electric.

This scientific bunker holds the world’s largest trove of climate-change data, gleaned from Siberian tree-ring counts, Greenland ice-layer measurements and centuries-old thermometer readings.

Now the pirating of thousands of e-mail messages from within its walls has revealed a dangerous bunker mentality among the scientists who guarded those records and a data-fudging scandal that has created a crisis of confidence in global-warming science that is threatening to destroy the political consensus around next week’s carbon-policy summit in Copenhagen.

Said one scientist working at the institute: “It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that this has set the climate-change debate back 20 years.”

Al Gore’s docu-drama, An Inconvenent Truth, was based on this faulty, fudged and corrupt data. The PR team for that film won the PRSA award for that year. Al Gore’s team won the Nobel Prize. Now some academy members want to take back the Academy Award given to Al Gore, the former vice-president and a carbon-cap advocate, for his climate documentary An Inconvenient Truth.

Al Gore has cancelled the US$1200 dinner at Copenhagen.

Whats the climate change

These seem like offensive actions from the EU and the US – to undermine their competitors and to bolster Euro-US businesses. It makes me doubt the Satyam saga. To carry the conspiracy theory thread forward, was there a Merrill Lynch-Ramlinga Raju ‘deal’?

Modern day protectionism, huh?

This also furthers the importance of having non-Western bodies, which are sponsored by the Third World, which will regulate and govern international laws. To depend on the West, is to further dig the hole that the Third World finds itself in.

And in case you forget, remember that for some time Indian cows were blamed for global warming!

The African model

Dot have children – but have Christian children, if you must!

Africans!! Why have children, at all? If you must, at least have Christian children!

August company

A worried Bill Gates cant sleep at night. He is spending billions (ok … ok … not billions for now … just hundreds of millions) to solve this problem. An equally worried Ted Turner has already given away billions – and waiting in line to give away more. Ted Turner ‘thinks’ that people will eat people - instead of food, which will become scarce. David Packard (of Hewlett Packard) was an equally worried man. His foundation has given hundreds of millions each year.

What’s worrying them? Linux? Mobile phones OS. Google? Naah Why worry? Is anyone else making money?. They are a long way off. Let them get closer.

So, what is it? It is the thought of all the Asians, Browns and the Blacks in the world having sex. And the children they will have. The Packard family, Bill Gates, Ted Turner are not alone in having the population crisis and the people bomb on their mind. All these paranoid thinking based on bad economic theory!!

cartoon is a study in arrogance and contempt.

Arrogance in that the West knows best – and the poor Africans must not have non-Christian children. Contempt – for freedom of (personal) choices for Africans. Economic aid is tied to population control measures – or abusive relationships with aid receipients. Or they can go to the nearest Church for aid.

All this while the Italians are scared that kebabs and curries will destroy Italian cuisine.

Public debt imperils world economy

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has warned that the world’s 30 leading industrialized economies will see their indebtedness grow to 100% of output in 2010, a near doubling from the percentage 20 years ago. (via Public debt imperils world economy – International News – livemint.com).

Till the fat lady sings

The debt spiral is not ended yet.

Like the Dubai crash shows, the world economy is not yet out of the woods. Struggling firms, in the face of a weak consumer and industrial markets, may just keel over. A domino effect may set off yet another round of closures, bankruptcies, mergers, and defaults.

More importantly, are Western Governments. With public debt (read that as Government debt) exceeding 100% of GDP for every Western Government – Ireland at more than 1000%, Britain at nearly 200%, US at more than 100%, they are the vulnerable soft-spot of the global economy.

I want more

The shopping bill for Western welfare state is not going away – except up. Welfare bills are getting more ambitious – and the domestic lobbies want more ambitious schemes. High cost economies are being protected by barriers and stockades.

Run … hide … but you can’t turn your back

The political constructs of the West have hit a wall – and there is no way but down! Since the West is busy hiding elephants in the room, the need for a different political ideology remains unaddressed.

An ideology like भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra.

Related articles

• Moody’s puts Japan debt ratings on review (theglobeandmail.com)
• Chinese public debt: Coming clean (economist.com)
• Moody’s reviewing Japan rating for downgrade (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• How to illustrate U.S. public debt? (ask.metafilter.com)
• Japan disaster may hurt world economy (politico.com)
• Debts, Debts, Debts (businessinsider.com)
• Moody’s Threatens To Warn About Cutting US Debt Rating (businessinsider.com)

European banks growing bigger

Each time the music stops. there are fewer players

European banks are emerging from the credit crisis bigger than before, posing more risk to their national economies. BNP Paribas, Barclays and Banco Santander are among at least 353 European lenders that have increased in size since the beginning of 2007. Fifteen European banks now have assets larger than their home economies, compared with 10 lenders three years ago. (via European banks growing bigger, sowing seeds for the next crisis).

Concentration of power

What this has done is increase the concentration of power, risk, capital, manipulation into the hands of a few people. With Europe, USA and Japan dominating the Fortune 500 listing, with Super-mega corporations, the  outlook for dilution of power and risk seems bleak and remote.

The other risk is again the full-employment economic model. Mega corporations, which can be easily controlled at arm’s length by the State, dominate the economic sphere. Power is concentrated in the hands of less than 0.1% of the population. Less than 300,000 people control the US economy of more than 30 crore people (300 million).

Jobs for everyone

So, what happens to the 99.9% people who do not control the economy?

They are given jobs. They become employees, associates, apprentices, trainees, understudies, etc – who will fulfill the purpose of these 300,000 people-in-power. From the media and academia, public and private sector, NGOs and Government, bureaucrats and business managers.

Sleight of hand

And while our attention diverted by war, crisis, threats, the real game is being played somewhere else – out of sight and out of bounds.

Self employment, independence, small business are driven out of business by channeling increasing amounts of debt to organizations controlled by the O.1% of the powerful people.

This growth in banks beyond the size or the home economies signifies greater concentration of wealth – and not less. The world would do well to remember that East India Company was after all a company, a private company!

Swiss move to ban minarets on mosques

Does secularism give freedom of religious choice?

In theory Switzerland is a secular state, whose constitution guarantees freedom of religious expression to all. In practice however mosques in Switzerland tend to be confined to disused warehouses and factories.

Across the country, there are only two small minarets, one in Zurich and one in Geneva, neither of which are permitted to make the call to prayer. In Switzerland’s capital Berne, the largest mosque is in a former underground car park. (via BBC NEWS | Europe | Swiss move to ban minarets).

The European mind

The entire Swiss-minarets issue is revealing. The media coverage is a peep-hole into European subconscious that fears loss of civility. Beneath Euro-gloss, lies recent and murky history – of persecution, slaughter, bigotry, slavery, genocide, war, intolerance, et al.

The European mind is pulled apart by an instinctive tendency towards imposition of standards, uniformity (aka ‘assimilation’ and ‘integration’) on one hand. On the other, is a conscious, felt need to broaden the mental canvas and borders of the European sub-conscious.

Referendum and after

Anyway, even without the referendum,

no minarets are being built anywhere in Switzerland; the controversy has created a situation in which no local planning officer wants to be the first to approve one.

In the small town of Langenthal, just outside Berne, plans to build a very modest minaret have been put on ice following thousands of objections.

The New York Times adds some details about

The referendum, which passed with a clear majority of 57.5 percent of the voters and in 22 of Switzerland’s 26 cantons, was a victory for the right. The vote against was 42.5 percent. Because the ban gained a majority of votes and passed in a majority of the cantons, it will be added to the Constitution.

Of 150 mosques or prayer rooms in Switzerland, only 4 have minarets, and only 2 more minarets are planned. None conduct the call to prayer. There are about 400,000 Muslims in a population of some 7.5 million people. Close to 90 percent of Muslims in Switzerland are from Kosovo and Turkey, and most do not adhere to the codes of dress and conduct associated with conservative Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, said Manon Schick, a spokeswoman for Amnesty International in Switzerland.

France … has been talking about banning the full Islamic veil as a way to stop the influence of the more fundamentalist Salafist forms of Islam …

Euro-reactions

Pretending, as though the Swiss Government had a choice, the New York Times report continued,

The Swiss government said it would respect the vote and … reassure(d) the Muslim population … that the minaret ban was “not a rejection of the Muslim community, religion or culture.”

In classic double speak, Swiss authorities reacted

“We don’t have anything against Muslims,” said Oskar Freysinger, member of parliament for the Swiss People’s Party.

“But we don’t want minarets. The minaret is a symbol of a political and aggressive Islam, it’s a symbol of Islamic law. The minute you have minarets in Europe it means Islam will have taken over.”

Will a few minarets mean Islamic takeover of Switzerland? Is Catholic-Swiss-European culture in such dire straits that a few minarets will annihilate it?

Nervous Euro-liberals, renewed their liberal credentials by speaking out against this ‘development’. The Telegraph of the UK quoted

Wolfgang Bosbach a senior CDU MP said that criticising the Swiss ban would be counterproductive. It reflected a fear of growing Islamisation “and this fear must be taken seriously,” he said.

The LA Times went further and pointed that

Belgian newspaper Le Soir noted that some people found minarets “scary,” and added, “There is a strong chance that if there was a vote in Belgium, a majority of citizens would be against it too.”

Islamic reaction

The Islamic reaction is equally interesting. From Egypt to Indonesia, Muslim leaders and clerics were quick to pounce on this development – and issue soundbites. The Times of London, quotes a Indonesian Muslim leader,

“This is the hatred of Swiss people against Muslim communities. They do not want to see a Muslim presence in their country and this intense dislike has made them intolerant,” said Maskuri Abdillah, the head of Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia’s biggest Muslim group.

Egypt’s Mufti Ali Gomaa denounced the ban on new minarets as an insult to all Muslims. “This proposal … is not considered just an attack on freedom of beliefs, but also an attempt to insult the feelings of the Muslim community in and outside Switzerland.”

Dear Shri Abdillah, while you have been swift to condemn the Swiss, have you ever questioned why Saudi Arabia has no Hindu or Buddhist temples? Clearly, the Desert Bloc needs to understand that the ‘tolerance’ cannot be selective or a one way street.

To Israel, From India with love

Otto Preminger filmed the Leon Uris novel

The greatest level of sympathy towards Israel can be found in India, according to international study on behalf of the Foreign Ministry, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Friday.

According to the study, which was unprecedented in scope and was undertaken by an international market research company, 58% of Indian respondents showed sympathy to the Jewish State. The United States came in second, with 56% of American respondents sympathizing with Israel.

A total of 5,215 people took part in the study. Other countries that showed significant sympathy to Israel included Russia (52%) Mexico (52%) and China (50%). At the bottom of the list, the study ranked Britain (34%) France (27%) and Spain (23%) as the least sympathetic countries towards Israel. (via From India with love – Israel News, Ynetnews).

Leopards don’t change

This study was mighty interesting. On three counts.

Western Europe continues with its sterling record of intolerance, xenophobia, the push for ‘assimilation and integration’. In Western Europe (Britain, France, Spain, et al), prejudice against Jews is marked. Whether it was Shakespeare in the Merchant of Venice or Hitler in Europe, Antisemitism is alive, well and kicking in Europe.

Of course, the proxy for Antisemitism in today’s Europe is Israel.

Classic propaganda

Desert Bloc remains the prime exponent of propaganda – maya. Illusion. Something that tricks people.

For this maya, Israel has to thank people like Leon Uris writer of Exodus, (hired by Edward Gottlieb for ‘improving Israel’s image), The Raid at Entebbe, ( the rescue of Israeli hostages from Idi Amin’s Uganda) or the hunt for Eichmann movies.

The propaganda overdrive on the Holocaust won the State of Israel many sympathizers. The propaganda on how the kibbutzim made the desert bloom, covered  the open wounds of the Palestinians expulsions.

Propaganda practitioners and PR gurus like Edward Gottlieb and Howard Dietz embraced the Zionist cause and promoted the idea of the State of Israel. Edward Gottlieb, a PR pioneer, author of a PR primer book, worked on the cause of Israel. Edward Gottlieb’s masterstroke was to send Leon Uris to Israel to ‘research’ the story of the Exodus. Howard Dietz, the publicist of Sam Goldwyn, (reputedly behind many of Goldwyn’s malapropisms)was another.

from Fifty years of Israel By Donald Neff, page 19

The fall guys

The third part of the story is the story of the ‘fall guys’. The classic ‘fall guys’ for this propaganda operation were the distant bystanders. The ‘sympathy’ shown to Israel, comes from typically countries with a small or negligible Jewish populations – like China, Mexico – and India. People who saw these events from far – very far. The Indians, Chinese, Mexicans, et al.

Indians know of the Israeli story through the movies, fiction and ‘war’ stories. In school, the size of the Exodus, made me shirk from the starting the book. But the many ‘rave’ reviews from classmates steeled me to pick up the book – and 1 week later. I was a ‘convert’ to the Jewish cause.

A few years later, it was a different story. My neighbours, some Jordanian-Palestinian students dropped in to see me, in Poona, one night. Over some music and soda, they introduced me to the ‘other’ side of the problem. (I wonder where these Iranian and Palestinian students have disappeared?)

Indians (suckers for propaganda) have been taken in by the maya of Israel.