As I pointed out several memos ago. Bernanke's bull may prove dangerous to dismount.
Michael Pento has negative outlook. (See 1 below.)
---
The Supreme Court's decision regarding affirmative action suggests that it is less enamored with the consequences of previous racial preference cases and Justice Thomas' concurring opinion cited evidence racial preference has actually been counterproductive.
The decision was not as gangbusters as was thought it would be.
---
This is not posted to advocate any personal opinion on whether to own or ban guns but it is interesting. (See 2 below.)
---
What scandal? (See 3 and 3a below.)
---
Whether our First lady is or is not proud of our nation I am and I am proud of what our immigrant citizens have meant to this country and the world: "http://YouTube/embed/e-y581HdWfY?rel=0"
---
Unlike Obama this Egyptian General seems capable of being decisive. (See 4 below.)
---
Snowden makes Obama look impotent with his pleas to Russia. (See 5 and 5a below.)
---
Dick
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1)Pento to Moneynews: 'Big Trouble' Ahead — Bonds, Stocks, Real Estate, Consumption
Now that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has indicated the central bank will likely begin to taper its quantitative easing later this year, the financial markets — and economy — are in big trouble, says Michael Pento, president of Pento Portfolio Strategies.
"Here's what's going to occur," Pento tells Newsmax TV in an exclusive interview.
"Bernanke is foolish enough to believe that he can take his pressure off interests rates and allow the market to take interest rates a little bit higher. But what he fails to realize is that when interest rates rise, it's going to collapse the real-estate market, the stock market, the consumption bubble, and, of course, part of the bond bubble will collapse."
That bond meltdown will likely come in 2015 or 2016, says Pento.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note jumped to a 22-month high of 2.54 percent Friday. And the Standard Poor's 500 Index has dropped 3.6 percent since Tuesday.
Bernanke is a confused man, Pento says.
"So in the beginning of 2013, which was not even six months ago, the man thinks that inflation is way too low, and the economy is way too weak and that QE4 needs to be launched five years after the first QE was inaugurated," says Pento, author of "The Coming Bond Market Collapse."
But now, Bernanke "puts out a timeline for reversing QE," Pento says. The Fed chairman said tapering may begin later this year and finish around the middle of 2014. The central bank is currently purchasing $85 billion of Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities a month.
"The man is either 100 percent focused on his legacy, or he's actually starting to fear this $3.5 trillion Fed balance sheet and says what we've done to this point — taking it from $800 billion to $3.5 trillion — hasn’t worked, and we have to stop," Pento says.
The economic recovery has been "predicated on reigniting bubbles that had once popped," Pento says. The S&P 500's climb from 666 in March 2009 to a high of 1,669 last month "was predicated on multiple iterations of quantitative easing," he says.
QE has helped housing rebound too, Pento says. "So the unwinding of this process — the unwinding of asset bubbles— is going to crater the economy. And cratering the economy isn’t very good for corporate earnings. So how could that be good for stocks?"
While corporations sport impressive cash holdings now, that's not going to last, Pento says.
"Corporate balance sheets are flush with cash because they've been selling debt to buy back their shares, and the earnings look better," he says.
"So, when debt becomes more expensive, they're going to do a lot less of that. In addition, much of the health of corporate balance sheets stems from the current strength of the consumer sector," Pento says.
"And if the consumer has to pull back his horns, then what do you think's going to happen to corporate earnings?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2)The latest Murder Statistics for the world: Murders per 100,000 citizens
3)
Jim: "You mean the Mexican gun running?"
Bob: "No, the other one."
All presidents have a bumpy ride in their second term and Obama is no exception. But the scope and variety of recent malpractice is astounding. Yet few folks seem to care: the media remains incurious and the wired generation is busy with their Facebook status, Tweets, YouTube, and almost any Kardashian gluetus maximus.
Foreign policy malpractice registers on a global scale. At some point in the first term, Obama went, at least in the minds of most voters, from dithering amateur to decisive statesman.
How did Obama survive a first term that had all the earmarks of a Jimmy Carter rerun? The Democrats lost the House in the mid-term elections and the subsequent health care bill was probably the most partisan, complicated, expensive, and divisive domestic bill ever passed by the US Congress. There were more than a few moments when it seemed Marion Barry might have been better suited to the Oval Office than Obama.
Political resurrection is a hat trick where the timing is often as important as any complicated matrix of explanations. The timing of the Osama Bin Laden kill was surely a defining moment for the Obama reelection. The stage had been set for that iconic Situation Room photo opportunity early in the president's first term. From the beginning, John Brennan had been riding point for a legion of spin masters that included the NSC, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), and the Intelligence Community. David Petraeus and James Clapper incorporated the best, some say worst, of those worlds.
From the outset, the Obama (nee Brennan) doctrine, sought to narrowly define the national security threat as a single man representing and a single small organization, Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. Never mind that by 2008, government and historical data bases were bursting with dozens of Islamist groups and an alarming tally of atrocities that had nothing to do with al Qaeda -- and everything to do with a global tsunami of anti-Semitism and Muslim terror.
But spin is as spin does. While minimizing the terror threat, the administration was also taking sides in the various intramural Arab blood baths. Indeed, in Tunisia, Egypt, the emirates, Libya, Afghanistan, and now Syria; the Brennan doctrine sides with the Sunni brand of irredentism. In this, the American Left may still be smarting from, or motivated by, the defection (1979) of the Persian Shia during the Carter years.
It's difficult to fathom the blowback from such strategic schizophrenia. If history and numbers matter, Sunni theologians (Wahhabis and Salifists) and Arab jihadists kill more infidels and apostates than all other known terror groups combined. Yet, we are consistently assured by the Brennan doctrine that collaborating with Sunni factions is the "right side of history."
Actually, American foreign policy is drifting to the wrong side, with a tail wind from the European Left. Theocracy is too often the default setting for failed Muslim autocracies. The corrupt seculars of the Ummah are in the crosshairs today. Yet, pandering will not take European and the American social democrats off the imperial religious radar tomorrow. Think of the Twin Towers, Benghazi, and the Boston Marathon as auguries. We are constantly assured that Islam is one of "great" religions while all evidence from global mayhem and misogyny argues otherwise.
Indeed, the principal contributions of political Islam to modern global culture are sexual repression, terror, religious war, and the renaissance of theocracy. How does a culture that rejects, in part or whole; art, science, music, wine, women, and dogs get a place at any table? How does a culture that tolerates honor killings, genital mutilation, misogyny, polygamy, indentured servitude, and child marriage merit the adjective "great" in any context?
The Brennan doctrine coupled with the Manichean assumptions of Islamic dogma would have you believe that we infidels and apostates are "unclean" while Islam is a superior variety of social hygiene. Alas, it might take more than ritual bath to wash such doublespeak from the double think. The West has not confronted religious fascism since the Inquisition. And political "science" (see Fukuyama) assures us that secular fascism is history. So we are left with strange bedfellows; an iconic Muslim martyr who, in death by assassination, saves an iconic American socialist.
Still, let's give credit where due: the Brennan doctrine managed to confine the Muslim threat, in the public mind, to al Qaeda; and at the same time let the Taliban off the hook. Mullah Omar, a semi-literate Sunni cleric that makes Shia ayatollahs look like girl scouts, is still at large. The Leader of the Taliban is never featured in administration "stabilization" spin. And now the Taliban is poised to take Kabul -- again. Karachi, and a ready-made cache of nuclear weapons, is in reach next door.
The Taliban just opened an office in Qatar. John Kerry has granted the worst among a bad lot a seat at the negotiating table. The Taliban shadow government again calls itself the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan." In this we hear a faint echo of John Brennan suggesting that Jerusalem should be called al Quds. Karzai might now be hung and castrated on the same traffic light that hosted his predecessor, Najibullah. Giving the Taliban any official status anywhere is a little like juggling with nitroglycerine.
And "peace" talks with the Taliban in Doha have to be a kind of black comedy. Arabia and Egypt are the financiers and philosophers of the most virulent Islamism. Any deal made in sharia compliant Arabia will be at the expense of secular Karachi and secular Kabul -- and all women and children in South Asia.
Alas, the West has nothing to offer the Taliban; Islamists are already winning. John Kerry might be looking for some flaccid assurance that the Taliban will stop hosting al Qaeda. Done deal! Pashtuns don't like foreigners anyway, especially rich, decadent Arabs.
Islamist and American policy objectives are now joined. Both sides are motivated by "regime change." Ultimately, the allied 'transition' will leave Muslim Asia to the tender mercies of the worst jihad on the planet.
Kick Karzai to the curb! Break out the burkas! The world's first theocratic narco-state is a making its debut. Heroin and hijabs are sure to be an unstoppable combination. South Asia is already flying green and black flags.
Washington, London, Paris, and Berlin should be flying white flags.
G. Murphy Donovan is a former Intelligence director who served under the incumbent DNI when James Clapper was the chief of USAF Intelligence
Honduras 91.6El Salvador 69.2Cote d'lvoire 56.9Jamaica 52.2Venezuela 45.1Belize 41.4US Virgin Islands 39.2Guatemala 38.5Saint Kits and Nevis 38.2Zambia 38.0Uganda 36.3Malawi 36.0Lesotho 35.2Trinidad and Tobago 35.2Colombia 33.4South Africa 31.8Congo 30.8Central African Republic 29.3Bahamas 27.4Puerto Rico 26.2Saint Lucia 25.2Dominican Republic 25.0Tanzania 24.5Sudan 24.2Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 22.9Ethiopia 22.5Guinea 22.5Dominica 22.1Burundi 21.7Democratic Republic of the Congo 21.7Panama 21.6Brazil 21.0Equatorial Guinea 20.7Guinea-Bissau 20.2Kenya 20.1Kyrgyzstan 20.1Cameroon 19.7Montserrat 19.7Greenland 19.2Angola 19.0Guyana 18.6Burkina Faso 18.0Eritrea 17.8Namibia 17.2Rwanda 17.1Mexico 16.9Chad 15.8Ghana 15.7Ecuador 15.2North Korea 15.2Benin 15.1Sierra Leone 14.9Mauritania 14.7Botswana 14.5Zimbabwe 14.3Gabon 13.8Nicaragua 13.6French Guiana 13.3Papua New Guinea 13.0Swaziland 12.9Bermuda 12.3Comoros 12.2Nigeria 12.2Cape Verde 11.6Grenada 11.5Paraguay 11.5Barbados 11.3Togo 10.9Gambia 10.8Peru 10.8Myanmar 10.2Russia 10.2Liberia 10.1Costa Rica 10.0Nauru 9.8Bolivia 8.9Mozambique 8.8Kazakhstan 8.8Senegal 8.7Turks and Caicos Islands 8.7Mongolia 8.7British Virgin Islands 8.6Cayman Islands 8.4Seychelles 8.3Madagascar 8.1Indonesia 8.1Mali 8.0Pakistan 7.8Moldova 7.5Kiribati 7.3Guadeloupe 7.0Haiti 6.9Timor-Leste 6.9Anguilla 6.8Antigua and Barbuda 6.8Lithuania 6.6Uruguay 5.9Philippines 5.4Ukraine 5.2Estonia 5.2Cuba 5.0Belarus 4.9Thailand 4.8Suriname 4.6Laos 4.6Georgia 4.3Martinique 4.2AndThe United States 4.2ALL 107 countries above America have 100% gun bans
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------It might be of interest to note that Switzerland also has NO MURDER OCCURRENCE. However their law requires that EVERYONE own a gun, maintain marksman qualifications and "carry".
3)
Bob: "Did you hear about the Obama administration scandal?"
Jim: "You mean the Mexican gun running?"
Bob: "No, the other one."
Jim: "You mean SEAL Team 6 Extortion 17?'
Bob: "No, the other one."
Jim: "You mean the State Dept. lying about Benghazi ?"
Bob: "No, the other one."
Jim: "You mean the voter fraud?"
Bob: "No, the other one."
Jim: "You mean the military not getting their votes counted?"
Bob: "No, the other one."
Jim: "You mean the president demoralizing and breaking down the military?"
Bob: "No, the other one."
Jim: "You mean the Boston Bombing?"
Bob: "No, the other one."
Jim: "You mean the president wanting to kill Americans with drones in our own country without the benefit of the law?"
Bob: "No, the other one."
Jim: "You mean the president arming the Muslim Brotherhood?"
Bob: "No, the other one."
Jim: "The IRS targeting conservatives?"
Bob: "No, the other one."
Jim: "The DOJ spying on the press?"
Bob: "No, the other one."
Jim: "Sebelius shaking down health insurance executives?"
Bob: "No, the other one."
Jim: "The NSA monitoring our phone calls, e-mails and everything else?"
Bob: "No, the other one."
Jim: "The president's ordering the release of nearly 10,000 illegal immigrants from jails and prisons and falsely blaming the seqester?"
Bob: "No, the other one."
Jim: "The president's threat to impose gun control by Executive Order in order to bypass Congress?"
Bob: "No, the other one."
Jim: "The president's repeated violation of the law requiring him to submit a budget no later than the first Monday in February?"
Bob: "No, the other one."
Jim: "The president's unconstitutional recess appointments in an attempt to circumvent the Senate's advise-and-consent role?"
Bob: "No, the other one."
Jim: "The State Department interfering with an Inspector General investigation on departmental sexual misconduct?"
Bob: "No, the other one."
Jim: "HHS employees being given insider information on Medicare Advantage?"
Bob: "No, the other one."
Jim: "Clinton, the IRS, Clapper and Holder all lying to Congress?"
Bob: "No, the other one."
Jim: "I give up! Oh wait, I think I got it! You mean that 65 million low-information voters stuck us again with the most corrupt
administration in American history?"
Bob: "THAT'S THE ONE!"
3a) Obama's Terror Gambit
By G. Murphy Donovan
It seems that the Goebbels playbook is working. Obama fronts the game so well that he dodges any personal responsibility for various lies and administration blunders now in the news. And all of this is OK with the Twitter twits. The buck no longer stops at the top: it stops with the assistant to the deputy assistant's assistant down in the bowels of some obscure bureaucracy. Or maybe amateur video auteurs are at fault.
All presidents have a bumpy ride in their second term and Obama is no exception. But the scope and variety of recent malpractice is astounding. Yet few folks seem to care: the media remains incurious and the wired generation is busy with their Facebook status, Tweets, YouTube, and almost any Kardashian gluetus maximus.
Foreign policy malpractice registers on a global scale. At some point in the first term, Obama went, at least in the minds of most voters, from dithering amateur to decisive statesman.
How did Obama survive a first term that had all the earmarks of a Jimmy Carter rerun? The Democrats lost the House in the mid-term elections and the subsequent health care bill was probably the most partisan, complicated, expensive, and divisive domestic bill ever passed by the US Congress. There were more than a few moments when it seemed Marion Barry might have been better suited to the Oval Office than Obama.
Political resurrection is a hat trick where the timing is often as important as any complicated matrix of explanations. The timing of the Osama Bin Laden kill was surely a defining moment for the Obama reelection. The stage had been set for that iconic Situation Room photo opportunity early in the president's first term. From the beginning, John Brennan had been riding point for a legion of spin masters that included the NSC, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), and the Intelligence Community. David Petraeus and James Clapper incorporated the best, some say worst, of those worlds.
From the outset, the Obama (nee Brennan) doctrine, sought to narrowly define the national security threat as a single man representing and a single small organization, Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. Never mind that by 2008, government and historical data bases were bursting with dozens of Islamist groups and an alarming tally of atrocities that had nothing to do with al Qaeda -- and everything to do with a global tsunami of anti-Semitism and Muslim terror.
But spin is as spin does. While minimizing the terror threat, the administration was also taking sides in the various intramural Arab blood baths. Indeed, in Tunisia, Egypt, the emirates, Libya, Afghanistan, and now Syria; the Brennan doctrine sides with the Sunni brand of irredentism. In this, the American Left may still be smarting from, or motivated by, the defection (1979) of the Persian Shia during the Carter years.
It's difficult to fathom the blowback from such strategic schizophrenia. If history and numbers matter, Sunni theologians (Wahhabis and Salifists) and Arab jihadists kill more infidels and apostates than all other known terror groups combined. Yet, we are consistently assured by the Brennan doctrine that collaborating with Sunni factions is the "right side of history."
Actually, American foreign policy is drifting to the wrong side, with a tail wind from the European Left. Theocracy is too often the default setting for failed Muslim autocracies. The corrupt seculars of the Ummah are in the crosshairs today. Yet, pandering will not take European and the American social democrats off the imperial religious radar tomorrow. Think of the Twin Towers, Benghazi, and the Boston Marathon as auguries. We are constantly assured that Islam is one of "great" religions while all evidence from global mayhem and misogyny argues otherwise.
Indeed, the principal contributions of political Islam to modern global culture are sexual repression, terror, religious war, and the renaissance of theocracy. How does a culture that rejects, in part or whole; art, science, music, wine, women, and dogs get a place at any table? How does a culture that tolerates honor killings, genital mutilation, misogyny, polygamy, indentured servitude, and child marriage merit the adjective "great" in any context?
The Brennan doctrine coupled with the Manichean assumptions of Islamic dogma would have you believe that we infidels and apostates are "unclean" while Islam is a superior variety of social hygiene. Alas, it might take more than ritual bath to wash such doublespeak from the double think. The West has not confronted religious fascism since the Inquisition. And political "science" (see Fukuyama) assures us that secular fascism is history. So we are left with strange bedfellows; an iconic Muslim martyr who, in death by assassination, saves an iconic American socialist.
Still, let's give credit where due: the Brennan doctrine managed to confine the Muslim threat, in the public mind, to al Qaeda; and at the same time let the Taliban off the hook. Mullah Omar, a semi-literate Sunni cleric that makes Shia ayatollahs look like girl scouts, is still at large. The Leader of the Taliban is never featured in administration "stabilization" spin. And now the Taliban is poised to take Kabul -- again. Karachi, and a ready-made cache of nuclear weapons, is in reach next door.
The Taliban just opened an office in Qatar. John Kerry has granted the worst among a bad lot a seat at the negotiating table. The Taliban shadow government again calls itself the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan." In this we hear a faint echo of John Brennan suggesting that Jerusalem should be called al Quds. Karzai might now be hung and castrated on the same traffic light that hosted his predecessor, Najibullah. Giving the Taliban any official status anywhere is a little like juggling with nitroglycerine.
And "peace" talks with the Taliban in Doha have to be a kind of black comedy. Arabia and Egypt are the financiers and philosophers of the most virulent Islamism. Any deal made in sharia compliant Arabia will be at the expense of secular Karachi and secular Kabul -- and all women and children in South Asia.
Alas, the West has nothing to offer the Taliban; Islamists are already winning. John Kerry might be looking for some flaccid assurance that the Taliban will stop hosting al Qaeda. Done deal! Pashtuns don't like foreigners anyway, especially rich, decadent Arabs.
The bin Laden kill was not just the tipping point for the Obama rebrand; the Special Forces raid also remade Barack Hussein into a Teflon don, the kind of kind of immunized phoenix that makes places like Chicago and Illinois famous. No surprise then that the victory laps have already begun. And here again, John Brennan and James Clapper are riding point.
Administration strategy seems to assume that the voting public is too inert, lazy, ignorant, and corrupt to care much about foreign policy. In this, team Obama may have their finger on the American pulse
Islamist and American policy objectives are now joined. Both sides are motivated by "regime change." Ultimately, the allied 'transition' will leave Muslim Asia to the tender mercies of the worst jihad on the planet.
Kick Karzai to the curb! Break out the burkas! The world's first theocratic narco-state is a making its debut. Heroin and hijabs are sure to be an unstoppable combination. South Asia is already flying green and black flags.
Washington, London, Paris, and Berlin should be flying white flags.
G. Murphy Donovan is a former Intelligence director who served under the incumbent DNI when James Clapper was the chief of USAF Intelligence
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4)Egyptian army gives politicians a week to solve impasse
AFRICA : President Obama has already taken hits for the jaw-dropping cost of his upcoming trip to Africa – a continent rich with in natural resources and potential development. But that cost might be nothing compared to the disappointment Africans are expected to heap on the president when he visits later this week.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4)Egyptian army gives politicians a week to solve impasse
By Mohamed Hassan Shaban Asharq Al-Awsat
Egyptian army threatens intervention unless political impasse resolved
before 30 June anti-president demonstrations
before 30 June anti-president demonstrations
Cairo, Asharq Al-Awsat—The commander of the Egyptian armed forces, General
Abdel-Fattah El-Sissi, called on political parties to reach a political
settlement before the planned opposition demonstrations on 30 June on
Sunday, and warned that they army would not stay on the sidelines if there
was a risk of chaos in the country.
Abdel-Fattah El-Sissi, called on political parties to reach a political
settlement before the planned opposition demonstrations on 30 June on
Sunday, and warned that they army would not stay on the sidelines if there
was a risk of chaos in the country.
General Sissi said the army’s main responsibility to the nation made it
imperative for the army to intervene if there was a threat that the would
begin country “slipping into darkness”.
imperative for the army to intervene if there was a threat that the would
begin country “slipping into darkness”.
Sissi pointed out that “the armed forces had avoided being drawn into the
political arena, but that its national, historic and moral responsibility to
the people makes it imperative that it intervenes to stop Egypt slipping
into a dark tunnel of conflict, internal fighting, exchanging accusations of
treason and criminality, sectarian sedition, and the collapse of
institutions.”
political arena, but that its national, historic and moral responsibility to
the people makes it imperative that it intervenes to stop Egypt slipping
into a dark tunnel of conflict, internal fighting, exchanging accusations of
treason and criminality, sectarian sedition, and the collapse of
institutions.”
He warned against the dangers of division within the political arena
following last Friday’s demonstrations in support of President Mursi.
following last Friday’s demonstrations in support of President Mursi.
He said: “It is important to have harmony among all parties, and those who
think this situation is good for the country are mistaken. It harms the
country and threatens Egyptian national security.”
think this situation is good for the country are mistaken. It harms the
country and threatens Egyptian national security.”
The armed forces have kept a distance from politics since Sissi took command
in August last year. He told a gathering of his officers yesterday: “They
who think that we are safe from the dangers threatening our country are
mistaken, and we will not watch in silence as the country slides into an
uncontrollable conflict.”
in August last year. He told a gathering of his officers yesterday: “They
who think that we are safe from the dangers threatening our country are
mistaken, and we will not watch in silence as the country slides into an
uncontrollable conflict.”
The armed forces governed Egypt in the period after the fall of former
President Hosni Mubarak in February 2011 and the arrival of Mohamed Mursi in
June 2012.
President Hosni Mubarak in February 2011 and the arrival of Mohamed Mursi in
June 2012.
Sissi, whose statement is likely to increase speculation that the Egyptian
army is re-entering the political arena, added: “the will of the Egyptian
people’s is what governs [the army], and we embrace it with honor and
integrity. We are totally responsible for its protection and will not allow
anyone to harm the will of the people.”
army is re-entering the political arena, added: “the will of the Egyptian
people’s is what governs [the army], and we embrace it with honor and
integrity. We are totally responsible for its protection and will not allow
anyone to harm the will of the people.”
Sissi continued: “It is not brave to stand aside and watch our Egyptian
people being threatened and intimidated; it is better to die than allow any
Egyptian to be harmed in the presence of their army.” This comment was
interpreted as a response to threats made by Islamists last Friday to try to
prevent large numbers of people from joining the 30 June anti-president
demonstrations.
people being threatened and intimidated; it is better to die than allow any
Egyptian to be harmed in the presence of their army.” This comment was
interpreted as a response to threats made by Islamists last Friday to try to
prevent large numbers of people from joining the 30 June anti-president
demonstrations.
He urged people to stop attacking the armed forces, warning that the army
will not stay silent to these attacks. He concluded his statement by saying
“the armed forces call on everyone to find a principle of understanding and
communication, and genuine reconciliation, to protect Egypt and its people.
We have a week in which a lot can be achieved.”
will not stay silent to these attacks. He concluded his statement by saying
“the armed forces call on everyone to find a principle of understanding and
communication, and genuine reconciliation, to protect Egypt and its people.
We have a week in which a lot can be achieved.”
Muslim Brotherhood Guidance Bureau member, Mahmoud Ghazlan told Asharq
Al-Awsat that “despite the embarrassment this statement causes to the
presidency, because it represents an intrusion by the army in politics, the
Muslim Brotherhood does not have a problem in dealing positively with it.”
Al-Awsat that “despite the embarrassment this statement causes to the
presidency, because it represents an intrusion by the army in politics, the
Muslim Brotherhood does not have a problem in dealing positively with it.”
Ghazlan added that “the opposition could have spared the country this
embarrassment by responding to our repeated calls for reconciliation, a call
made also by the presidency.”
embarrassment by responding to our repeated calls for reconciliation, a call
made also by the presidency.”
He added that the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies had shown restraint in
last Friday’s demonstration in support of Mursi, in which they avoided
violence, adding that it was the Muslim Brotherhood who adhered to
democratic values, not others.
last Friday’s demonstration in support of Mursi, in which they avoided
violence, adding that it was the Muslim Brotherhood who adhered to
democratic values, not others.
Meanwhile, Asharq Al-Awsat has learnt that leading members of the opposition
Salvation Front have called for an urgent meeting to discuss the statement.
They told Asharq Al-Awsat that any reconciliation talks must be preceded by
a call by President Mursi for early presidential elections.
Salvation Front have called for an urgent meeting to discuss the statement.
They told Asharq Al-Awsat that any reconciliation talks must be preceded by
a call by President Mursi for early presidential elections.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5)Obama’s Foreign Policy Agenda Begins to Crumble
Earlier this month, President Obama shook up his foreign policy team, appointing former UN ambassador Susan Rice as national security chief, while naming Samantha Power to replace Rice.
Rice and Power are heavyweights in the liberal foreign policy community. Their selection was widely seen as the president attempting to create a team that would cement his foreign policy legacy in his second term.
The idea of a second term legacy is one borrowed from history. Reagan ended the Cold War in his second term; Clinton came very close to securing a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians; and George W. Bush secured a legacy in Africa as an anti-HIV pioneer.
The world expects much from Obama partly because he was given the Nobel Peace Prize just months after he was sworn in as president. But to date, Obama’s foreign policy has been dominated by withdrawal, passive engagement and stealth attacks on terrorist targets.
He’s ended the war in Iraq, and is overseeing the final withdrawal from Afghanistan. At the same time, he’s kept an arm’s length from the conflicts in Syria and Libya, offering tacit support to NATO allies.
Obama’s recent attempt to invigorate his foreign policy agenda has largely failed. Forces outside of the president’s control derailed a series of foreign visits. And he’s now facing a trip to Africa, a continent that feels abandoned by a president they celebrate as their own (in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, he’s referred to as Our President Obama, even though he’s Kenyan).
Here are the most pressing challenges foreign allies and rivals are presenting for the president, as well as a seemingly unpredictable x-factor that could derail the president’s second term all together.
CHINA : Obama’s recent meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinxing was supposed to mark a turning point in the relationship between the world’s two economic superpowers. But NSA leaker Edward Snowden derailed that agenda by leaking that Chinese institutions were targeted by U.S. cyber forces.
The fact that Snowden has left Hong Kong removes pressure from U.S.-Chinese relations. China’s leadership showed little interest in courting Snowden, and now that he’s gone it allows for both sides to move forward in a positive way.
But the most important part of the U.S.-China relationship is economic. Each needs the other to thrive. Over the next three years, neither is likely to do much to jeopardize that, even as the cyber Cold War rages on.
SYRIA : Events in Syria have threatened to undermine broad foreign policy objectives. The Civil War there dominated the G8 conference last week. Leaders were supposed to be talking trade policy, but instead squared off with Russia over support for Syrian President Assad.
The policy that Syria threatens the most is the anti-interventionist posture the Obama administration has adopted. The lack of American appetite for war is evidenced by the pullbacks in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the limited role the United States played in the Libya conflict. With staunch humanitarian interventionists (not the neo-con variety) like Rice and Power at his ear and Assad’s atrocities mounting, the president might be pressured to do more than simply provide weapons.
GERMANY : Obama’s visit to the most important country in Europe was widely considered a dud, especially in light of the rock star treatment he received in 2008 when 200,000 Germans greeted him at Berlin’s victory column. Some estimates have attendance at his speech as low as 5,000 people.
But the role he played in German politics is what should truly embarrass the president. He came to make a grand statement about nuclear reduction, but was used by Chancellor Angela Merkel as a campaign tool. Germans might not like Obama’s policies, but they love him, and Merkel took every chance she could to be photographed standing proudly beside him. The president got little in return.
AFGHANISTAN : The Obama administration’s relationship with the Karzai administration continued to deteriorate this week, with the Afghan president pulling out of peace talks with the Taliban at the last minute. This embarrassed the Americans while erecting yet another obstacle to sustained peace.
At this point, the Obama administration might simply be waiting to leave, putting responsibility for the country squarely on Karzai’s narrow shoulders. He’s already proven to be an ineffective leader with an inadequate military and crumbling infrastructure. At this point, simply leaving next year and letting Karzai deal with the fallout might be the president’s best option.
AFRICA : President Obama has already taken hits for the jaw-dropping cost of his upcoming trip to Africa – a continent rich with in natural resources and potential development. But that cost might be nothing compared to the disappointment Africans are expected to heap on the president when he visits later this week.
The continent that embraced the president now feels scorned by him. He’s largely ignored humanitarian issues there apart from those related security threats to American interest. In advance of the trip, African commentators are rightly pointing out that George W. Bush did more for African than the president ever could. Expect that criticism to grow louder and angrier during Obama’s visit.
EDWARD SNOWDEN: Right now, Edward Snowden is thought to be somewhere in Moscow, waiting for a flight to Ecuador where asylum awaits. Whether he has more documents to leak remains to be seen.
But even if his leaks have dried up, he remains a thorn in the administration’s side. He’s been given a platform to bash Obama domestic and foreign policies, and the White House has no means to fight back. He’s become a net freedom hero, embarrassing a president who campaigned around the world as a champion of open government.
5a)Edward Snowden out of sight as U.S. asks Russia to hand him over
By
MOSCOW — Edward Snowden, sought on espionage charges after bringing secret U.S. surveillance programs to light, receded still further into the shadows Monday as the United States strenuously called on Russia to turn him over for prosecution.
Snowden, a former government contractor who has not been seen in public since he was said to have arrived in Moscow on Sunday after slipping out of Hong Kong, set off a flurry of diplomatic activity around the globe as frustrated U.S. officials tried to interrupt his flight to asylum. The 30-year-old fugitive , according to Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, who said he was advising Snowden.
After reporters and airline officials said Snowden failed to board a flight from Moscow to Havana on Monday afternoon as expected, the United States intensified its pressure on the countries suspected of offering him possible protection. Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said the United States believed Snowden was still in Moscow.
The episode, which began with embarrassing disclosures about American intelligence-gathering, has reverberated from China to South America. As Snowden stays one step ahead of U.S. law, countries large and small are exploiting the opportunity to demonstrate their ability to flout American will.
“We continue to hope that the Russians will do the right thing,” Secretary of State John F. Kerry, traveling in India, told NBC News. “We think it’s very important in terms of our relationship.
Russian news agencies quoted a string of careful statements from unnamed sources, who said they were powerless to intervene because Snowden remained in a transit area of the airport and had not crossed the border into official Russian territory.
“The Americans can’t demand anything,” Vladimir Lukin, Russia’s human rights ombudsman and a former U.S. ambassador, told the Interfax news agency.
Ecuadoran Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño , who was traveling in Vietnam, read from a letter he said Snowden had sent President Rafael Correa. In the letter, Snowden compared himself to Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, charged in the leak of a trove classified material passed to WikiLeaks, and said he did not believe he would be treated justly and that he could be executed if returned to the United States.
Assange, speaking to reporters by telephone from his sanctuary in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London, said Snowden was with Sarah Harrison, a top WikiLeaks lieutenant and Assange confidante who had escorted him from Hong Kong. Assange said that Snowden was in a “safe place” and that his “spirits are high” but would say only that he was “bound for Ecuador via a safe path through Russia and other states.”
A former contractor for the National Security Agency, Snowden has presented the United States with a tantalizing and maddening mystery since he left Hong Kong early Sunday local time despite a request by the United States to detain him.
Journalists in Moscow have been led on one unsatisfying chase after another since Snowden arrived at the airport Sunday. About two-dozen of them bought tickets to the Monday flight to Havana — costing more than $2,000 each, round-trip — and were dismayed when the seat in Row 17 reportedly assigned to Snowden remained empty as the plane took off. Some hoped, apparently in vain, that he was wearing a disguise or hiding in a crew area of the Aeroflot Airbus.
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