Kosovo Organ Harvesting: The Plot Thickens, by Seth J. Frantzman

 

http://www.balkanstudies.org/articles/kosovo-organ-harvesting-plot-thickens

Kosovo Organ Harvesting: The Plot Thickens

by Seth J. Frantzman

In his latest column (Bloody Coexistence, Nov.23), one of Israel's leading investigative journalists explores the bizarre horror and little-known roots of the Kosovo organ-trafficking ring. Almost all those involved were respected professionals in their communities…

In mid-November, the world media reported that Interpol was hunting for seven members of an organ-trafficking ring. They were accused of operating a clinic called Medicus in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo. Most news media were excited to reveal that two Israelis were among those named in the 46-page Interpol report. Less interest was shown in the other international members of the ring – Turkish and Albanian Muslims. Only one Israeli, Moshe Harel, was wanted by Interpol in connection with the ring. The other Israeli, Zaki Shapira, was listed as an unindicted coconspirator. A Turkish doctor and five Albanians were also indicted for their role in diverse criminal activities such as "trafficking in persons and unlawful exercise of medical activity."

THE ORIGINS of the ring appear relatively recent. According to reports, Lutfi Dervishi, a urologist and professor at Pristina University, visited Istanbul in 2006 to attend a conference. At the conference he let it be known that he was looking for someone who could perform organ transplants. He was contacted by Yusuf Sonmez, a Turkish national and surgeon who has a history of involvement with illegal organ harvesting.

Sonmez maintains a website which claims he completed his residency in surgery at Istanbul University medical faculty in 1984 and was an expert in kidney transplants. According to a November 3 article in Hurriyet he also worked at the Ministry of Health. He completed his first transplant from a live donor in 1993, and by 2006 claimed he had performed more than,1,300 kidney transplants. In 2005 he was running a private hospital in Istanbul. Turkish websites indicate that his hospital was shut down in 2007 after a police raid, during which his brother Bulent was also detained. He received a suspended sentence.

Sonmez again fell out with the law over organ thefts in 2008. His medical license was revoked and he was banned from the profession for six months – which news outlets criticized as too weak a punishment. At the time Turkish articles called him the "the Turkish butcher" and Hurriyet referred to him as "Frankenstein." In 2010, when it emerged that he was involved with organ trafficking in Kosovo, he turned up in Azerbaijan, apparently free to go about his bloody business. His status at present is not clear.

In 2006, while at the height of his power, operating his own clinic prior to the police raids, he contacted Dervishi. Sonmez then contacted a Turkish-Israeli, Harel, who according to the government of Kosovo was born in 1950 in Turkey. Harel later allegedly "identified, recruited and transported the victims, as well as managed the cash payments before the surgeries." Sonmez, it seems, was also the contact for Shapira, who has a history of brushes with the law regarding organ harvesting. Shapira was once head of kidney transplant services at Beilinson Medical Center in Petah Tikva. He was also a member of the Bellagio Task Force on global transport ethics. In the 1990s he ran afoul of ethics charges in Israel and moved to Turkey. In 2007 Shapira was arrested in Turkey; it seems he was already connected with Sonmez's hospital. Now Sonmez brought Harel and Shapira to Pristina to help run Dervishi's clinic. The clinic was operated by Dervishi's son, Arban. Illir Rrecaj, a Kosovo Health Ministry official, granted the clinic a license to do urological checkups but was, according to Interpol, privy to the actual goings on there.

 

In October 2008 police suspicions were raised when a poor man was dumped at the Pristina airport and it was found his kidney had been removed. A raid on the Medicus clinic discovered that the organ harvesting ring had been bringing in poverty stricken patients from countries such as Turkey and Russia, promising them 15,000 euros, and then selling their organs for upward of 100,000 euros. Rrecaj was dismissed from his post. On November 4, Harel was arrested.

BUT ACCORDING to other sources it appears the tentacles of the case go deeper. The Serbian newspaper Blic claims that Dervishi was also involved in the murder and harvesting of organs from Serbs who were captured by ethnic Albanian terrorists during the Kosovo war of 1999. After the war there were rumors that Kosovar Albanians were keeping Serb prisoners in camps near the Kosovo border with Albania.

A Spanish KFOR contingent attempted to penetrate the village of Vrelo but was called back. Carla Del Ponte, the former chief prosecutor of the UN for war crimes committed in Yugoslavia, claimed in her 2008 book that as many as 300 Serbs were murdered for their organs just across the border in the Albanian town of Burrel. The infamous "clinic" in Burrel became known as the "yellow house," but not until 2004 was it visited by a UN team to investigate the accusations. By then, only a few traces of blood remained.

According to Blic, in 1998 during the Kosovo crises, "[a] witness told Serbian war crimes prosecutors that he saw Dr. Lutfi Dervishi at locations where it was suspected that organs had been extracted from civilian prisoners and sold later." Another Serbian source alleges that Shapira was also involved in 1999 in instructing those who harvested the organs, and according to the Croatian magazine Politika, he showed up in Macedonia in the same year, connected to a similar operation. This claim is based on the fact that he had Turkish connections who were supporting the Kosovars during the war.

Whatever the case, it seems the recent organ-trafficking scandal is merely the latest emergence of the dark cloud that has hung over Kosovo for years; it has become a center for human and organ trafficking in Europe.

What makes the present case so shocking is that almost all those involved were respected professionals in their communities.A professor from Pristina, a member of the Kosovo Health Ministry, an Istanbul doctor and pioneer in organ transplants and a former head of transplant services at Beilinson. What made these men turn evil? What sort of strange dark coexistence is this, where Turks and Israelis work together to steal organs?

Does their ring have its origins in the dirty war fought in Kosovo in 1998-1999? The anti-Israel and anti-Semitic media like to shed light on supposed Israeli involvement in organ trafficking, but what this case shows is that the networks behind the story have much deeper and more disturbing roots.

NATO summit: The death of the west

The death of the west

19 November 2010 România libera Bucharest

 

The NATO summit to be held in Lisbon on 19 and 20 November will be marked by the rise of Russian influence in the alliance. A Romanian editorialist highlights the vital importance of the link between Eastern Europe and Washington.

Cristian Câmpeanu

Romanians should get used to the idea of living in a Europe where NATO will no be longer able to guarantee their security. The Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis has left us with only one option: the United States.

Hello and welcome to the 19th century! From now on — now being the first day of the "historic" NATO summit in Lisbon — we will be living in a new historic reality and a new geopolitical era. The summit is "historic," but not for the reasons cited by NATO officials and political leaders.

It is not a question — as promised in the promotional literature for the event — of inaugurating a more efficient and flexible alliance, but of official recognition for the death of the strategic and military concept of the "West," and the transformation of NATO into an EU-Russian political club, with the United States as an associate member.

The "problem" of Russia

It is a development that was in many ways inevitable. The disappearance of the Cold War enemy in the shape of the Soviet Union made NATO a victim of its own success. The wars in the Balkans highlighted Europe's military weakness, and the war in Afghanistan created a rift between the US and its European allies. Their inability to make a significant contribution to victory over the Taliban or to the stabilisation of the country, and the fact that some members of the alliance seemed to be incapable of joining in the fight while others were forced to take most of the casualties, resulted in the gradual crumbling of the alliance.

Some commentators have remarked on the historical irony of the fact that NATO should perish in Afghanistan, a country that was also responsible for the demise of the Soviet Union. But in so doing, they overlook the role played by Iraq, which triggered the first real crisis of the "West."

Then there is also the "problem" of Russia. The arrival of Vladimir Putin and his team of former KGB operatives in the Kremlin wiped out whatever small progress Boris Yeltsin had made in terms of democracy and the rule of law. In spite of all this, Western countries have turned a blind eye to abuses and the closing of Russian society in exchange for access to natural gas and cheap raw materials. And this has resulted in a widening rift between NATO allies that came to the fore at the 2008 Bucharest summit when Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy both fought tooth and nail to defend the status quo, and reject the Membership Action Plans (MAP) of the Ukraine and Georgia — a position that amounted to an implicit recognition of Russia's right to a veto in NATO affairs. Only a few months later, the invasion of Georgia heralded a de facto return to the 19th-century world of spheres of influence and the Concert of Europe, which had previously been wiped out by the massacre that was the First World War.

Americans are not going to disappear

The return to this world order will be made official tomorrow by the invitation extended to Russia to participate in the anti-missile shield. A study recently published by the European Council on Foreign Relations already speaks of the new architeture of European security that will be determined within the framework of a trilateral dialogue between the EU, Russia and Turkey. NATO does not enter into the equation. But the EU does not really mean Europe's 27 member states. Merkel made promises about European policy to Medvedev  without consulting her European partners, and there is no denying the symbolic importance of the Russian President's refusal to accept an invitation to the Lisbon summit addressed to him by the General Secretary of NATO, before finally agreeing to turn up on the behest of Sarkozy and Merkel.

Of course, the Americans are not going to disappear from the region, because they have to defend their interests in the Middle East and look after the anti-missile shield. Even if the Obama administration has wiped the slate clean and the White House is ready to give Russia the benefit of the doubt, the reinforcement of the alliance with the United States remains the best security option, better than joining the Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis.

No doubt we will be conscious of yet another historical irony when the Russian troops that were posted here in the communist era return to Romania in their new role as "advisers"  on the installation of the new anti-missile shield.

Co-operation
European defence on the back burner

Barack Obama is coming to the NATO summit in Lisbon on 19 and 20 November "to mediate the conflict between Merkel and Sarkozy", announces i. The Portuguese daily explains that nuclear deterrents are one bone of contention between the two leaders: "Germany thinks NATO ought to set an example in disarmament, while France thinks the nuclear option is vital to Europe's future."

This disagreement is one of several that might nip the European defence scheme in the bud. "From the Franco-British summit in London to the North Atlantic summit in Lisbon, the French defence policy seems to be scuppering Europe's every ambition in the space of a fortnight," writes political scientist Louis Gautier in Le Monde. Following the military cooperation deal with London signed on 2 November, Paris "is turning its back on European defence". "Struggling as it is to fund their own armies, France and the UK have opted to team up in what may be a vain hope of prolonging their military leadership in Europe." But their deal "runs counter to the European spirit" in that it "moves France away from Germany, our partner (in matters of armament as well)" laments the professor, "at the very time when Germany is busy overhauling its whole defence system", i.e. professionalising its army.

http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/397711-death-west

HOW OLD IS THE NEW NATO CONCEPT?

Zivadin Jovanovic                                                    November, 2010.

Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals

 

                          

                      HOW OLD IS THE NEW NATO CONCEPT?

 

In the eve of the NATO Lisbon summit there is a need to recall that eleven years ago Serbia (FRY) was a testing ground and first victim of so called new concept of NATO strategy which is to be formally endorsed in Lisbon November 19/20.

It is expected that the leaders of NATO members will, among other things, reauthorize themselves to undertake military actions beyond the area of their own territories, in fact, all over the globe. What will be necessary is to just formally proclaim that in certain region, certain country their interests are jeopardized – economic, energy, trade, routes. NATO will not seek authorization of the UN Security Council – it will act by its own merits. It imposes itself above UN, OSCE and all other international bodies. Division of burden and tasks with European Union will be the pillar of the new NATO strategic concept.

This concept was openly tested in Serbia (FRY) in 1999. "NATO has now had more than a decade of experience in the requirements to do expeditionary operations" – stated Michele Flournoy recently explaining the background of 21^st century NATO strategy to be adopted at the Lisbon Summit. One can suppose that "more than a decade of experience" include also NATO interventions in the civil wars in Bosnia and Herzegovina 1995, occupations of Afghanistan 2001 and of Irak 2003. What have been results of USA/NATO "expeditionary operations"? What are human losses, what are the losses in terms of instability, insecurity, financial and economic set-backs and lasting poverty, criminalization?  Are the Balkans, Afghanistan, Irak and other regions which have been victims of USA/NATO "expeditionary operations" more stable, more economically advanced today then before?

Putting aside other regions and other examples, let us recall only that during 72 days of continuous military aggression against Serbia NATO left thousands of dead, about 10.000 wounded, two thirds civilians, economy completely destroyed, environment polluted by depleted uranium missiles, hundreds of thousands of displaced. Even today, some of the buildings in the heart of Belgrade remain in ruins while over 200.000 of Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija cannot return to their homes.

NATO countries supported unilateral illegal secession of Kosovo and Metohija from Serbia (2008), they led the process of recognition of illegal creature of theirs. 

In the 90-ties many NATO countries had been financing, training and arming terrorist KLA. In return, KLA was their ground force in the time of aggression. Today NATO is arming, training and financing illegal Army of illegal Kosovo and Metohija composed of elements of former terrorist KLA. USA, Britain, Germany and Turkey are leading in this process.

No wonder that Kosovo and Metohija is perceived by many countries as NATO-state (NATO-stan), by others as a narco-state. In any case, military base "Bondstil" in Kosovo remains the largest USA base in Europe (some claim in the world). Some 9.000 NATO tropes today still occupy Kosovo while the Province continues to be safe heaven for narco-mafia, transit route of heroin from Afghanistan to Central and Northern Europe, for all sorts of international organized crime.

The implication of NATO aggression and unilateral secession of Kosovo and Metohija is instability in the region, growing socio-economic tensions.

At the end of October 2010 "representatives" of Albanians from Serbia, FYROM (Macedonia), Greece and Montenegro gathered in Tirana from where they formally launched common objective – to establish "natural Albania". For some reasons they did not say Greater Albania". All Albanians in one state! It should be recalled that before that gathering, high representatives of Albania, including the Prime Minister himself, called for unification of all Albanians. Former head of OSCE mission to Kosovo (KVM), USA ambassador William Walker at the beginning of November 2010, made a statement that Albanians from Kosovo have the right to unite with Albania. All in all, there are open claims for new redrawing of the borders in the Balkan.

NATO aggression on Serbia in 1999, NATO strategy in general, led to rise of secessions, legitimization of interventions, undermining of the role of UN and international law.

NATO has not resolved any problem in the Balkans, neither could it do so. Instead, NATO made the Balkan region of prolonged instability. The same applies to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Irak. Is this the role of NATO that Europe and the world want to see in the whole of 21 century?

 

With the best wishes,

 

Živadin Jovanović

Belgrade Forum for e World of Equals

Sremska 6/IV sprat

Tel:   + 381 11 32 83 778

Mob: + 381 63 327 859

 

 

Lisbon NATO Summit: Time for reflection

Lisbon NATO Summit: Time for reflection

14.11.2010 | 20:16

NATO is the anathema of today's international community, serving no purpose other than pandering to the needs, whims and caprices of the arms lobby which gravitates around the White House, creating a supra-national umbrella apparently lending credence to its expansionist policies.

As billions of people around the world wonder how they are going to put a crust of bread on the table at dinner time, Lisbon's luxury hotels are all booked up for the visit of the NATO delegations, representing many of the countries which spent centuries siphoning off resources under imperialist policies, destroying peoples and cultures and committing massacres.

And as the NATO delegations gather for the conference, there is an enormous cloud on the horizon, so enormous it blots out the sun illuminating NATO's very existence: what is NATO?

NATO began as a military and political alliance to defend the North Atlantic space against attack, a mutual defence agreement guaranteeing a massive response to any attack on a member state way back in 1949, over sixty years ago. Most of Africa was still ruled by imperialist powers, the ink was not yet dry on India's or Pakistan's treaties of independence from the British Raj, Queen Elizabeth II (who today is celebrating almost her diamond anniversary, 6 decades, on the throne) was just a royal princess, Churchill was yet to have another term as Prime Minister of the UK.

This attack never came, mainly because the Warsaw Pact was essentially a defensive military alliance, and therefore any talk about NATO "winning" the Cold War is ridiculous, and proof of sour grapes by those who knew very well that had NATO ever started hostilities, the Soviet Union would have obliterated its forces and the main cities of its member states within minutes.

So when the Warsaw Pact dissolved voluntarily on July 1, 1991 following the voluntary dissolution of the USSR and the reshaping of the geo-political space it had occupied between January 19, 1990 and December 31, 1991 why did NATO not follow suit?

Thousands of pages have been written on this topic but let us condense them into one or two: NATO exists on one level, a military one, with pretexts to perpetuate its own existence existing on another two, the political and social areas. And the more we study, the more we see that the military arm of NATO is the head of the octopus.

Pretexts, indeed, because when the Warsaw Pact dissolved, NATO lied, giving various pledges over the years that it would not station "substantial combat forces" on territories belonging to the former Warsaw Pact. Yet NATO subsequently did expand, creating new markets for its weapons and creating new sources of financing for Washington's wars.

That having been said, the rest is easy to explain. Take for example the trillion-dollar wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (the need to finance an expansionist policy based upon control of the Earth's energy resources, not by Lisbon, or Tirana, or Copenhagen, or Brussels, but by Washington).

It is easy to explain when we see that the Pentagon likes to dole out military contracts for weaponry tested in the battlefield, hence the need to create more conflicts and the more member states involved, the greater the sense of legitimacy.

It is easy to explain when we see that under NATO's able management, the opium production in Afghanistan, suppressed by the Taleban, has increased not four, nor fourteen but forty-fold. It is easy to explain when we see the need to create an ever-wider umbrella of legitimacy to guarantee that those responsible for NATO's war crimes will never be held accountable. Added to this, under NATO, Afghanistan has also become the world's leading supplier of hashish.

As a military alliance, NATO is an abject failure, restricted to paying off the Sunni militia in Iraq not to attack and to paying the Taleban to accompany NATO convoys in Afghanistan, while it is common knowledge that neither the Taleban, nor Al Qaeda, can be defeated by this multi-national force.

As a political grouping, how constitutional is it for NATO member states to support fellow members whose ex-leaders are the subject of arrest warrants for war crimes at the ICC in The Hague?

And as an organization which is trying to forge a social vector to justify itself, who or what is NATO and what right does it have to supplant the efforts of the UNO? And here lies the crux of the matter: in an international community with a United Nations Organization supposedly responsible for the resolution of international conflict and crisis management and now without a Warsaw Pact, where does NATO fit in?

Nowhere.

The only option open to NATO in Lisbon is to do the decent thing and disband, as a mutual and multilateral token of goodwill. Yet this will not happen, for the psyche behind NATO is sinister and not decent and the organization is anything but multilateral. Ask Portuguese President Anibal Silva about the time he was Prime Minister, cowering in a bunker, at the time of the first Gulf War, and the pressures NATO exerted at the time upon the country which now hosts the Summit...

Now, if NATO engaged Russia and the CSTO with a view to creating a worldwide rapid reaction force, integrating it into a UNO which was universally respected, nobody would have an axe to grind.

To note, the anti-NATO organizations gathering in Lisbon must remember that they represent the anti-NATO international community and as such have the obligation to behave in a way which respects the law and does not bring the image of those who have fought long and hard for justice against this violent anachronism into disrepute.

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey

 

http://www.moscowtopnews.com/

Pravda.Ru

 

Wolfgang Ischinger | Kosovo and Serbia: Options for a Modus Vivendi?

 

Wolfgang Ischinger / Oliver Rolofs

 

Kosovo and Serbia: Options for a Modus Vivendi?

 

Summary

 

On 22 July 2010, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) reaffirmed the view that the Republic of Kosovo is, and will remain, an independent state. The advisory opinion and the last UN resolution of the General Assembly on Kosovo of September 2010 – eleven years after the intervention of NATO – is hopefully going to usher in a modus vivendi for both Belgrade and Pristina.

The key elements needed to settle the dispute had already been developed by the Kosovo troika in 2007 using Ahtisaari's proposals as a guideline. Now they have to be implemented. To get the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina going, several elements are important: The EU needs to live up to their responsibility of supporting peace and stability in the entire region. For Serbia it is time to look ahead. From a political and economic point of view it is overdue that relations between Kosovo and Serbia return to normal.

For a productive dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, the article discusses six approaches to resolve the bilateral dispute and the EU's current dilemma of not being able to take decisions or lead due to internal dissent. The EU should assume a clear leadership role and develop perspectives for the region, and Belgrade and Pristina must find a modus vivendi with each other as they aspire to join the EU.

 

http://www.suedosteuropa-gesellschaft.com/mitteilungen/summaries/2010/summaries_04_05_2010.pdf

Western Capitalism Is In Crisis: Deception, Delusion and Abuse

Western Capitalism in Decline

 

 

ByPeter Morici, TheStreet.com Senior Contributor , On Tuesday June 8, 2010, 9:42 am EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Democratic capitalism is in eclipse.

From Berlin to Tokyo, governments struggle to instigate enough growth to pay their bills and gainfully employ workers, meanwhile, China enjoys breakneck progress.

Democratic capitalism is not flawed. Rather, government policy-makers are destroying a system that took mankind from dark feudal superstitions to cracking the secrets of life with deceptions, delusions and abuse.

From Athens to Sacramento, politicians have deceived voters by telling them pension systems can be constructed allowing retirement at ages 55 or 60. Whether funded by savings and investments or taxes, no solvent pension system is possible that permits educated professionals, unionized workers and government employees, who get most of the income and benefits, to work only 30 or 35 years and retire for another 20 or 25 years.

In the United States, President Obama has convinced American families earning less than $250,000 a year that they can have guaranteed health care that costs 50% more than what Germans and Canadians pay and double what the British shell out without paying a dime in additional health insurance premiums and taxes.

To make that work, he will have to start selling shares in the Brooklyn Bridge --thankfully Mayor Bloomberg owns it.

Sadly, after Greece defaults the dominos won't stop in Berlin but in Washington.

Politicians have deluded themselves into believing an education system that encourages young people to "find themselves" instead of "finding something productive" will give society enough scientists and engineers to solve the tough problems needed to perpetuate growth. They have deluded themselves into thinking that professors spending six hours a week or less teaching and the rest thinking great thoughts, or verbally pistol-whipping the society that supports them, is somehow wealth-creating.

Finally, free markets can't be wholly free but from Tokyo to Berlin national leaders have peculiar notions about who should compete, who should be regulated and how.

Most national leaders having been educated in squeaky clean environs like Harvard, Oxford and the University of Tokyo believe anything created by hand, other than an exquisite meal or with a computer keystroke, is somehow unworthy of western post-industrial society.

Hence, they have granted virtually free access to western markets for manufacturers from China. For its part, China maintains high tariffs and other arcane import barriers on western products, subsidizes exports through an undervalued currency, and offers other inducements to keep Chinese products artificially cheap on world markets. China grows at 10% a year, and the West sheds millions of "unworthy" manufacturing jobs and stagnates.

Meanwhile, in New York, London and elsewhere 30-year-old MBAs pull down bonuses of one, 10 and $20 million a year for trading securities that really don't exist and creating havoc that have cost U.S. and European governments upward of $4 trillion to clean up.

Simply, on Harvard Square and at Kings College, where tenured professors supported by the wealth of dead people inbreed and define our values -- remember where Barack Obama learned about law and economics -- the intelligentsia has decided IT entrepreneurs, financiers and Hollywood stars should be paid more than God.

The rest of us, suffering this abuse, should be satisfied with low pay, unemployment benefits and subsidized health care, all paid for borrowing from the Chinese.

From Barack Obama to Angela Merkel the system is suffering from delusions of grandeur, self deception and good old fashioned abuse by leaders who address the world as Ivy League intellectuals think it should, rather than how the facts of physics, demography and economics define it.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Western-Capitalism-in-tsmf-3665715476.html?x=0

Srdja Trifkovic: Ukraine: Yulia’s Breath of Stale Air

http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2010/11/08/ukraine-yulias-breath-of-stale-air/

Ukraine: Yulia's Breath of Stale Air

by Srdja Trifkovic

Chronicles Online, November 8th, 2010

 

According to a seasoned observer of Moscow's political scene, the Russian political class cringed last Wednesday morning on learning that Obama had suffered a humiliating political defeat. The Russian leaders don't think much of Obama personally, but they are worried over what the Republican control of the House might mean for the fledgling "reset" in US-Russian relations—the solitary foreign policy success of the Obama administration.

"One vulnerable target for the Republicans is the new START treaty which the Obama administration hopes to get ratified during the lame-duck session of the sitting Senate," our source says. "Another likely victim of the Republican congressional victory could be Obama's measured and cautious policy in the post-Soviet space, with clear signs of respect for Russia's legitimate, if not privileged, interests in the region. Republican control of the House and its Foreign Affairs Committee means that they would be in a position to pass provocative legislation … or provide financial support and even military assistance to Georgia"—enough to disrupt and perhaps destroy the "reset."

 

Moscow's fears over the future of the "reset" may well be justified. The neoconservatives, atavistically Russophobic and unhappy with the limited "engagement" of America around the world over the past two years, hope to use the Republican majority in the House to advocate a fresh round of bear baiting. Their agenda is apparent from the prominence the neoconservative flaghship, The Wall Street Journal, gave to ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's plea ("Save Ukraine's Democracy," October 29) for renewed Western meddling in Ukraine's internal affairs.

 

Having failed to interest anyone influential the West in her ill-founded claims of foul play following the presidential election last winter, Ms. Tymoshenko has rehashed the same talking points in connection with last Sunday's elections of regional councils and city mayors in Ukraine. "They are not just a local affair," she warned, "[t]hey warrant international scrutiny due to mounting evidence suggesting that they will neither be free nor fair. The European Union should be wary of a neighboring country that controls the flow of gas to millions of EU households sliding into authoritarianism":

Since President Yanukovych assumed office eight months ago, political power has been centralized and civil liberties threatened. Most notably, media freedoms have come under attack. The opposition is virtually excluded from the airwaves as a result of pressure from media barons loyal to President Yanukovych and self-censorship for fear of displeasing the administration or having their offices inspected… Western leaders can exert great pressure on Ukraine's government, for instance by attaching conditions to the next round of IMF loans or by using negotiations on Ukraine's Association Agreement with the EU as a lever… We appeal to the international community to be vigilant and safeguard the European values we hold so dearly.

What the Journal's readers may not realize, but most Europeans who matter know very well, is that it was former President Yushchenko's and Ms. Tymoshenko's brand of "Ukrainian democracy"—the dysfunctional Orange duopoly—that brought instability of the gas flow "to millions of EU households" two years ago. It takes some chutzpah for Ms. Tymoshenko to try playing this particular card now. Her rise to prominence was entirely due to her ability to make tens of millions of euros by reselling Russian gas to Eastern Europe before the "Orange Revolution," when she belonged to the old post-Soviet oligarchy. She swiftly turned anti-Russian after Yushchenko's triumph by declaring loyalty to the West. When Moscow responded by declaring that Ukraine would have to pay the same price for gas as the Germans and Italians, she was quick to rediscover the advantages of being nice to the Kremlin yet again. Her tenure as Prime Minister was marked by rampant corruption at home and irresponsible posturing abroad. Her heavy-handed treatment of the opposition helped her enemies then, and makes her claim of holding European values "so dearly" ridiculous now.

 

Having spent a week in Kiev last June, I can attest that following the end of the Orange regime Ukraine is becoming a more normal country. Russophobic Orangism has always been a minority obsession, but after Yushchenko it is discredited as a practical project. Today it is confined to the Galician fringe in the west of the country. The rest of Ukraine is finally getting on with focusing on pragmatic solutions to real problems. That means: NATO is off the agenda, there will be no gas disputes, the Black Sea Fleet's home base lease has been extended, lip service is still paid to the EU membership in the knowledge that it will not happen.

 

Ms. Tymoshenko refuses to accept that she is a failed politician devoid of new tricks. Unwilling to leave the scene, she is trying to play the role of Czechoslovakia's Gustav Husak in 1968—as the voice of ideological orthodoxy demanding foreign intervention. Her attempt is sordid. It would be irrelevant, were it not for the Journal giving it undue prominence. This indicates that the neocons have not given up on provoking Russia. They are irritated that having good relations with Moscow is a top priority in Paris, Berlin and Rome. They would like to return to the policy of encouraging an impoverished, practically defenseless nation such as Ukraine to become their pliant tool against the superpower next door. They have learnt nothing from Russia's response to Saakashvili's attack on South Ossetia in the summer of 2008, when Moscow maneuvered Washington into a position of weakness unseen since the final days of the Carter presidency three decades ago.

 

The EU and Obama are guilty of many sins, but at least they both see the need for a sane relationship with Moscow, the one that acknowledges that Russia has legitimate interests in her "near-abroad."
 Ukraine's geographic position as the natural transit route from the oil and gas fields of Russia, the Caucasus and Central Asia to Central and Western Europe is a valuable asset. The previous administration in Kiev unnecessarily turned that asset into a liability and a source of periodic friction with Moscow and the EU. It failed to grasp that being a transit route for a strategic commodity is not tantamount to having the commodity itself – especially if alternative transit routes are potentially available. The issue has always been political rather than economic. The new government understands that the solution is in a plus-sum-game model of shared responsibility and shared profits.

 

It is ironic that the "pro-Western reformists" Yushchenko and Tymoshenko were regarded as discredited by the international financial institutions, while President Yanukovych—maligned by the neocons as a neo-Soviet autocrat—is regarded by them as solid and trustworthy. Ukraine needs to continue reforming its energy policy, tightening fiscal discipline, combating corruption, reforming the judiciary, and ensuring free and fair elections—but the task is neither unique to Ukraine, nor more daunting than it is elsewhere.

 

Tymoshenko is still paying the price of her miscalculation from exactly a year ago. She could have started to build bridges with future opposition partners long before her expected defeat, but this did not happen due to her excessive self-confidence in the run-up to the presidential election. She remains blind to the fact that no consolidation of Ukraine's opposition can be effected on the basis of Orange demagoguery of six years ago. It may take months or even years for the Ukrainian opposition to come to terms with the new realities at home and abroad, but Ms. Tymoshenko is not the one to do it.

 

The U.S. policy toward Ukraine has always been and remains inseparable from its relations with Russia. Yanukovich's visit to Washington last spring marked the beginning of a genuine reset in the U.S.–Russian relations. It was Obama's helpful signal to those in Russia, notably President Medvedev, who believe that such a reset in Moscow's relations with the United States is possible. Premier Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov are reputed to take a more jaundiced view, having experienced the mendacity and duplicity that characterized the Russia policy of the Bush-Cheney administration. Continuing to reassure Moscow vis-à-vis Ukraine would serve the American interest in a key region, defined with realism and pursued with pragmatism.

 

EU report strongly criticises Serbia's progress

ZELJKO PANTELIC

Today @ 18:19 CET

Apart from a few warm words on the fight against drugs and organised crime, the European Commission does not see much cause to applaud Serbia in this year's progress report.

The report, seen by WAZ.EUobserver, contains an abundance of criticism of Serbia's lack of judiciary reform and against a market economy caught up in red tape. The Brussels body also raises a warning finger against the discrimination of minorities.

The most sensitive part of the progress report, however, is quite balanced, testifying to partial improvements in Serbia's relationships in the region.

The commission praises Serbia's steps towards reconciliation with neighbouring countries, particularly with Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. But it underlines that full cooperation with the war crimes tribunal in The Hague remains an international obligation and a key priority of the European partnership. The importance of good relations with Pristina is also highlighted.

"Serbia needs to demonstrate a more constructive attitude towards Kosovo's participation in regional trade and cooperation," says the report. "It should recognize Kosovo's customs stamps and strengthened cooperation with the EULEX rule of law mission. Regional cooperation was affected by a lack of agreement between Serbia and Kosovo on the latter's participation in regional meetings."

The report's writers are calling for cooperation: "An acceptable and sustainable solution for the participation of both in regional fora needs to be agreed as soon as possible. This is essential for inclusive and functioning regional cooperation. Serbia still does not accept the Kosovo customs stamps notified by UNMIK. In Kosovo, Serbia maintained parallel structures and organised parallel municipal by-elections," said the report, which will be publicly presented by enlargement commissioner Stefan Füle on 10 November in Brussels.

In order to correctly gauge the paper's gist, it is necessary to decipher Brussels' diplomatic vocabulary. "Some progress" or "limited progress" means that a country has not performed too well. "Progress" stands for sufficient but not impressive results. When the commission mentions "good progress" or "substantial progress", that amounts to a verbal slap on the back, meaning that the country has lived up to expectations.

While the Brussels executive is applauding Serbia for making "progress" towards meeting the political criteria, its assessment of judicial reforms is rather embarrassing for the Balkan state.

"Judicial reform has continued but there were serious shortcomings and non-transparency in the reappointment procedure of judges and prosecutors. Judges and prosecutors were not heard during the procedure and did not receive adequate explanations for the decisions. This puts into question the independence of the judiciary and may give room for political influence.

"The substantial backlog of pending cases remains a matter of concern. Corruption remains prevalent in many areas and continues to be a serious problem. In the absence of a new law, control of the funding of political parties and financing of election campaigns remains weak. The number of final convictions, especially in high-level cases, remain low. Public procurement, privatization and public expenditure remain areas of concern," the report said.

The commission will urge Serbia to undertake further efforts to improve the quality of its legislation and bring electoral laws fully into line with European standards.

"The coalition government remained stable and continued to demonstrate a high degree of consensus on EU integration as a strategic priority. However the preparation and implementation of new legislation need to become more effective."

Constitutional and legislative provisions for the protection of freedom of expression are in place, according to the report, but incidents involving hate speech, threats and attacks, in particular against journalists, have continued.

Despite laws protecting social and economic rights, discrimination continues to be practiced, particularly against Roma, the gay and lesbian community, women, national minorities and disabled people.

No progress has been registered regarding property rights, an area without an adequate legal basis for property restitution. Economic criteria have not been well met either.

"The progress in establishing a functioning market economy has been limited," says the report. "Serbia needs to make more efforts in restructuring its economy so as to cope in the medium term with the competitive pressures and market forces within the EU. The adoption of timely and appropriate measures in agreement with the IMF was key in re-establishing macroeconomic stability.

"Serbia has further postponed the reforms to tackle the biggest structural shortcomings. Despite gradual economic recovery, the labour market continued to deteriorate with decreasing employment and increasing unemployment."

The commission also notes the repeated delay in privatising state-owned companies and that the business environment continues to be dominated by red tape and a lack of legal predictability. Furthermore, deficiencies in competition and infrastructure bottlenecks remain barriers to business.

The most positive part of the progress report states that Serbia is well advanced in the sector of industry, small and medium enterprises, agriculture and food safety and that good progress has been made in the fight against drugs and organised crime.

Back to front page

http://waz.euobserver.com/887/31202

Obama hope was all hype

The US president has caved into vested interests and preserved extraordinary rendition. Not so different to his predecessor, then

• Comments (137)

• Tariq Ali
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 28 October 2010 22.00 BST
• Article history

As the midterms approach, 15 million Americans are out of work and Obama's ratings hover at about 40% to 45%. There is no doubt Democrat majorities in house and Senate may disappear. Democrats in marginal seats keep the president at arm's length, aware that the mood of the electorate reflects the desperate straits in which the country finds itself.

Obama's electoral triumph of 2008 coincided with the most colossal economic crisis since the Great Depression (and far more global in scope); to add to his troubles, two wars were under way on difficult terrain in far away Islamic lands. The first few months of 2009 became the most abbreviated honeymoon period granted a new president in recent memory.

In times of crisis, the incumbent suffers. And the bigger the crisis the greater the punishment inflicted on those in power, unless they do something that makes a change. Obama has not done so. Instead, both at home and abroad, the continuities between Obama's administration and that of Bush-Cheney far outweigh any differences.

Whenever vested interests resisted, Obama caved. On the economy, despite the advice of Robert Reich and Joseph Stiglitz, the president defended the very orthodoxy that led to the Wall Street crash. And this at a time when inequality in the US was much higher than it had been 40 years ago.

The healthcare "reforms" also saw a total capitulation to the corporations: the insurance companies, the pharmaceuticals, the for-profit hospitals and the top of the range specialists will benefit. Even the loyal Los Angeles Times felt compelled to complain: "As a candidate for president, Barack Obama lambasted drug companies and the influence they wielded in Washington. He even ran a television ad targeting the industry's chief lobbyist, former Louisiana congressman, Billy Tauzin … [for] preventing Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices … Tauzin has morphed into the president's partner. He has been invited to the White House half a dozen times in recent months."

Vested interests resisted. Obama caved. The healthcare "reform" was actually crafted by Liz Fowler, former executive for a private health insurer and an employee of Senator Max Baucus, who presides over the Senate finance committee and is, according to John R MacArthur, the publisher of Harper's Magazine, "a beneficiary of millions of dollars in contributions from insurance and health care companies".

To dissociate politicians from capitalists is slightly disingenuous, to put it mildly. US lawmakers are competitive and auction themselves to the highest bidder via the lobby system. As a result, the story of the healthcare reforms is replicated in numerous other spheres. The "new" education policies based on privatisation and charter schools that have been a disaster in parts of the country are to be continued as managers replace educationalists. Guantánamo remains open. Obama's legal guru now embedded in the state department, Harold Koh, publicly insists the drone attacks in Pakistan that kill more civilians than "terrorists" are perfectly legal. Elena Kagan, Obama's offering to the supreme court, told Congress that she agreed with John Yoo, a Bushman who served as an assistant attorney general, that a "terrorist" captured anywhere was subject to "battlefield law". Like his Republican predecessor, the new attorney general, Eric Holder, happily invoked "state secrets" to stop a trial, while Obama's CIA boss (a former Clinton employee), Leon Panetta, was in feisty mood after he got the job, boasting that he fully intended to preserve "extraordinary rendition", that is, sending prisoners to be tortured in Afghanistan, Egypt, Jordan or Pakistan.

The hope of 2008 soon morphed into hype. Admirers in the liberal media who had linked Obama vicariously to the civil rights movement sounded increasingly ridiculous; claiming the mantle of Martin Luther King for their man was an extravagance that had to be rapidly discarded. In one of his last big speeches, a year before he was assassinated, King had argued "that if our nation can spend $35bn a year to fight an unjust, evil war in Vietnam, and $20bn to put a man on the moon, it can spend billions of dollars to put God's children on their own two feet right here on earth". What had any of this to do with a seasoned machine politician from Chicago?

As a candidate, Obama projected himself as a new Reagan, above narrow party politics. He wanted to please all, but has ended up annoying many. And if the Republicans can find a halfway decent candidate (perhaps a uniformed one) I doubt the incumbent will get a second term. Will the Clintons even let him be the candidate?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/28/obama-hope-all-hype

Boris Johnson: “Kosovo-style social cleansing”

Most disappointing that Boris Johnson should suggest that there is any relevant connection with Kosovo and capping housing benefit at £400 ($600) per week.

Johnson actually was reasonably open-minded in 1999 and went to Beograd during or shortly after the bombing. It would be interesting to know what prompted him to use Kosovo - he is one of the few people in office who might have been expected to see that this shibboleth of Tony Bliar and New Labour is very vulnerable to criticism and hence a way to dismantle the overblown claims and immoral foreign policy they have built on this supposed success...  Tim Fenton

David Cameron scolds Mayor of London Boris Johnson over 'Kosovo' comment

David Cameron has delivered an unprecedented slap-down to Boris Johnson for comparing Government plans to stop housing benefit being claimed on expensive homes to "Kosovo-style social cleansing".

 

By Rosa Prince, Political Correspondent
Published: 6:11PM BST 28 Oct 2010

Link to this video

The Prime Minister was said to be "bristling" with anger after the Mayor of London suggested that capping housing benefit at just under £21,000 a year would lead to the poor being "pushed out" of their homes.

The plans are designed to stop low-income taxpayers subsidising expensive properties for benefits claimants. Ministers estimate that 21,000 people are living in homes for which the state pays more than £400 a week, including 17,000 in the capital.

 In a rare public rebuke, a spokesman for the Prime Minister said Mr Cameron disagreed with the mayor's choice of words and view of the housing benefit policy. Mr Johnson had appeared to suggest that he was seeking to prevent the housing cap being implemented in London.

"The last thing we want to have in our city is a situation such as Paris, where the less well-off are pushed out to the suburbs," he said.

"I'll emphatically resist any attempt to recreate a London where the rich and poor cannot live together.

"What we will not see and not accept is any kind of Kosovo-style social cleansing of

The Prime Minister was said to be "bristling" with anger after the Mayor of London suggested that capping housing benefit at just under £21,000 a year would lead to the poor being "pushed out" of their homes.

The plans are designed to stop low-income taxpayers subsidising expensive properties for benefits claimants. Ministers estimate that 21,000 people are living in homes for which the state pays more than £400 a week, including 17,000 in the capital.

In a rare public rebuke, a spokesman for the Prime Minister said Mr Cameron disagreed with the mayor's choice of words and view of the housing benefit policy. Mr Johnson had appeared to suggest that he was seeking to prevent the housing cap being implemented in London.

"The last thing we want to have in our city is a situation such as Paris, where the less well-off are pushed out to the suburbs," he said.

"I'll emphatically resist any attempt to recreate a London where the rich and poor cannot live together.

"What we will not see and not accept is any kind of Kosovo-style social cleansing of London. On my watch, you are not going to see thousands of families evicted from the place where they have been living and have put down roots."

Within two hours of the comments being broadcast, Mr Cameron's spokesman issued a public rebuke, saying: "The Prime Minister doesn't agree with what Boris Johnson has said or indeed the way he said it.

"He thinks the policy is the right one and he doesn't agree with the way [Mr Johnson] chose his words."

It is the first time that Mr Cameron's growing irritation with the Mayor has been made explicit, and confirms Mr Johnson's position as his only serious rival within the Conservative Party.

The mayor's words were unfortunate given that a day earlier, Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, had described as "deeply offensive" a Labour claim that the poor would be "sociologically cleansed" out of London if housing benefit was cut.

Senior Coalition figures rounded on Mr Johnson. Mr Clegg said: "I disagree with what Boris Johnson said on the policy and very strongly disagree with the way he expressed his views."

As No 10's displeasure was made clear, Mr Johnson issued a statement saying that his words, broadcast on BBC Radio London, had been "taken out of context".

Mr Johnson has had a somewhat fractious relationship with Mr Cameron for some time.

Sources suggested that Mr Johnson's wish to take over more control of London's housing budget would almost certainly now be rejected.

A source said: "The official line is that Boris is Boris, but he has gone too far this time.

"To accuse the Prime Minister of social cleansing is well over the top. It is fair to say that the PM was bristling with anger when he heard." 

Is the fate of the world being decided today in the Indian Ocean

michelcollon.info - Investig'Action

 Is the fate of the world being decided today in the Indian Ocean ?

INTERVIEW OF MOHAMED HASSAN BY GREGOIRE LALIEU & MICHEL COLLON

Straddled by the Islamic arch (which stretches from Somalia to Indonesia, passing through the countries of the Gulf and Central Asia), the region has certainly become the world's new strategic centre of gravity. This new chapter in our series 'Understanding the Muslim world', takes us there on a tour. Mohamed Hassan explains to us how China's economic development is overturning the world balance of power and is freeing the countries of the South from their dependence on the West.

He also lays bare the strategies employed by the US in its efforts to maintain its leadership. And why it is that the US empire is nevertheless destined to die. Finally, he predicts the end of globalisation. It remains to be seen if their planetary domination will end without a struggle, or whether the gangsters will be shooting hostages. read the interview

Serbia makes another u-turn on Europe

ZELJKO PANTELIC

Today @ 10:49 CET

Serbs are said to have a long memory which might help the Serbian leadership sell its latest sharp turn over European policy to its citizens.

After the Council of ministers finally forwarded Serbia's application for EU membership to the European Commission, the official position in Belgrade has swung back to euphoric pro-European rhetoric, new unrealistic promises and an understatement of conditions set by the EU for further progress on the road to membership.

Even foreign minister Vuk Jeremic has stopped talking about Kosovo (Photo: United Nations)

Just one year ago, Serbian officialdom celebrated the 55th anniversary of the communist takeover with plenty of pomp. Back then, Belgrade was visited by Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, the biggest ally in defending Serbia's sovereignty over Kosovo. It also dropped its previous political motto, 'There is no alternative to the EU', and launched the 'Four pillars policy' calling for close ties with Russia, China, the US and the EU.

Vuk Jeremic and Bozidar Djelic, the Serbian ministers for foreign affairs and for European integration, repeatedly stated that if Belgrade were forced to choose between the EU and Kosovo it would pick the latter.

This year, in less than two months, from July to September, Serbia's foreign policy has completely changed once again.

There are several reasons for this. The first is the opinion of the International Court of Justice which found no violation of international law in Kosovo's declaration of independence. The second is the global financial crisis which showed that the Serbian economy would collapse without good relations with the EU.

Thirdly, the 'Kosovo is more important than Europe' policy failed to lift the popularity of president Boris Tadic's party. On the contrary, the former radical Tomislav Nikolic has taken a lead in the polls with his new Progress party.

Even Mr Jeremic has stopped speaking about Kosovo, after more then 150 lobby trips around the world in one year, to lobby for Serbia's position on its former province. Two of the four pillars (China and Russia) have collapsed and, again, Serbia has found there is no alternative to the EU.

In 2008, after the coalition led by president Tadic won the elections, the Serbian government produced an action plan for EU integration of Serbia. It predicted that the country would be an official EU candidate before the end of 2008, would start negotiations for membership in 2009 and would enter the EU in 2012.

The plan was dropped after a few weeks but Serbian top officials continued to say that the country would be technically ready for EU membership in 2012.

Until a few months ago, official optimism liked to recall the old idea, dusted off by Greece, that in 2014, one century after the start of the First World War, the EU could complete its enlargement by admitting all of the western Balkan countries among its ranks.

Now, Serbian media keep referring to the forwarding of the EU application to the commission in such enthusiastic terms that the uninitiated would be forgiven in assuming that the country had already achieved candidate status. Nobody reported that Serbia had been waiting a record ten months to see its bid take at least the first step; Iceland waited less than one week and it took just four months for Montenegro.

The new proclaimed target date for entry in EU is 2016, which implies that Serbia would be ready in 2014.

Croatia got candidate status in 2004, started to negotiate with the EU in 2005, and is still negotiating today. Just few days ago Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, refused to name a date for Croatian accession.

The Serbian government has, however, managed to overcome Dutch resistance on the issue of war crimes. "Full cooperation" with the war crimes tribunal in The Hague is a key condition for European integration, but the Netherlands had strongly insisted for the arrest of Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb military commander suspected of war crimes and genocide, to be a precondition of any further steps on Serbia's EU track.

http://waz.euobserver.com/887/31146

http://waz.euobserver.com/887/31146

http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2010/10/25/eastern-europe-versus-the-open-society

Eastern Europe Versus the Open Society

by Srdja Trifkovic

Excerpts from a speech to the H.L. Mencken Club, Baltimore, October 23, 2010

Two weeks ago the first "gay pride parade" was staged in Belgrade. Serbia's "pro-European" government had been promoting the event as yet another proof that Serbia is fit to join the European Union, that is has overcome the legacy of its dark, intolerant past. Thousands of policemen in full riot gear had to divide their time between protecting a few hundred "LBGT" activists (about half of them imported from Western Europe for the occasion) and battling ten times as many young protesters in the side streets.

The parade, it should be noted, was prominently attended by the U.S. Ambassador in Belgrade Mary Warlick, by the head of the European Commission Office, Vincent Degert of France, and by the head of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Mission in Serbia, Dimitris Kipreos. Needless to say, none of them had attended the enthronment of the new Serbian Patriarch a week earlier. Two days later, Hillary Clinton came to Belgrade and praised the Tadic regime for staging the parade.

Mrs. Clinton et al are enjoying the fruits of one man's two decades of hard work in Eastern Europe. George Soros can claim, more than any other individual, that his endeavors have helped turn the lands of "Real Socialism" in central and eastern Europe away from their ancestors, their cultural and spiritual roots. The process is far from over, but his Open Society Institute and its extensive network of subsidiaries east of the Trieste-Stettin line have successfully legitimized the notions that only two decades ago would have seemed bizarre, laughable or demonic to the denizens of the eastern half of Europe.

The package was first tested here in America. Through his Open Society Institute and its vast network of affiliates Soros has provided extensive financial and lobbying support here for

• Legalization of hard drugs: We should accept that "substance abuse is endemic in most societies," he says. Thanks to his intervention the terms "medicalization" and "non-violent drug offender" have entered public discourse, and pro-drug legalization laws were passed in California and Arizona in the 90s.
• Euthanasia: In 1994 Soros—a self-professed atheist—launched his Project Death in America (PDIA) and provided $15 million in its initial funding. (It is noteworthy that his mother, a member of the pro-suicide Hemlock Society, killed herself, and that Soros mentions unsympathetically his dying father's clinging on to life for too long.) PDIA supports physician-assisted suicide and works "to begin forming a network of doctors that will eventually reach into one-fourth of America's hospitals" and, in a turn of phrase chillingly worthy of Orwell, lead to "the creation of innovative models of care and the development of new curricula on dying."
• Population replacement: Soros is an enthusiastic promoter of open immigration and amnesty & special rights for immigrants. He has supported the National Council of La Raza, National Immigration Law Center, National Immigration Forum, and dozens of others. He also promotes expansion of public welfare, and in late 1996 he created the Emma Lazarus Fund that has given millions in grants to nonprofit legal services groups that undermine provisions of the welfare legislation ending immigrant entitlements.

Soros supports programs and organizations that further abortion rights and increased access to birth control devices; advocate ever more stringent gun control; and demand abolition of the death penalty. He supports radical feminists and "gay" activists, same-sex "marriage" naturally included. OSI states innocently enough that its objectives include "the strengthening of civil society; economic reform; education at all levels; human rights; legal reform and public administration; public health; and arts and culture," but the way it goes about these tasks is not "philanthropy" but political activism in pursuit of all the familiar causes of the radical left—and some additional, distinctly creepy ones such as "Death in America."

Soros's "philanthropic" activities in America have been applied on a far grander scale abroad. His many foundations say that they are "dedicated to building and maintaining the infrastructure and institutions of an open society." What this means in practice? Regarding "Women's Health" programs in Central and South-Eastern Europe, one will look in vain for breast cancer detection programs, or for prenatal or post-natal care. No, Soros's main goal is "to improve the quality of abortion services." Accordingly his Public Health Program has focused on the introduction of easily available abortion all over the region, and the introduction of manual vacuum aspiration (MVA) abortion in Macedonia, Moldova, and Russia. Why is Soros so keen to promote more abortions? Overpopulation cannot be the reason: the region is experiencing a huge demographic collapse and has some of the lowest fertility rates in the world. Unavailability of abortions cannot be the answer either: only five European countries had more abortions than live births in 2000: the Russian Federation, Bulgaria, Belarus, Romania and Ukraine. The only answer is that Soros wants as few little European Orthodox Christians born into this world as possible.

Soros's Public Health Programs additionally "support initiatives focusing on the specific health needs of several marginalized communities," such as "gays" and AIDS sufferers, and promote "harm reduction" focusing on needle/syringe exchange and supply of methadone to adicts. His outfits lobby governments to scrap "repressive drug policies." Over the past decade and a half the Soros network has given a kick-start to previously non-existent "gay" activism in almost all of its areas of operation. The campaign for "LGBT Rights" is directed from Budapest, publishing lesbian and gay books in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia and Slovakia, opening Gay and Lesbian Centers in Ukraine and Rumania. Its activists routinely attack the Orthodox Church as a key culprit for alleged discrimination of "LGBTs."

Education is a key pillar of Soros's activities. His Leitmotif is the dictum that "no-one has a monopoly on the truth" and that "civic education" should replace the old "authoritarian" model. Even under communism Eastern Europe has preserved very high educational standards, but the Soros Foundation seeks to replace the old system with the concept of schools as "exercise grounds" for the "unhindered expression of students' personalities in the process of equal-footed interaction with the teaching staff, thus overcoming the obsolete concept of authority and discipline rooted in the oppressive legacy of patriarchal past." The purpose of education is not "acquisition of knowledge": the teacher is to become the class "designer" and his relationship with students based on "partnership." Soros's reformers also insist on an active role of schools in countering the allegedly unhealthy influence of the family on students, which "still carries an imprint of nationalist, sexist, racist, and homophobic prejudices rampant in the society at large."

"Racism" is Soros's regular obsession, but he had a problem finding it in racially non-diverse East European countries. This has been resolved by identifying a designated victim group—gypsies ("Roma"). His protégés now come up with policy demands to "protect" this group that could have been written by Rev. Jesse Jackson:

• anti-bias training of teachers and administrators;
• integration of Romani history and culture in the textbooks at all levels;
• legally mandated arffirmative action programs for Roma;
• tax incentives for employers who employ them;
• access to low-interest credit for Roma small family businesses;
• setting aside a percentage of public tenders for Roma firms;
• legislation to fight "racism and discrimination" in housing;
• adoption of "comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation";
• creation of mechanisms "to monitor implementation of anti-discrimination legislation and assist victims of racial discrimination in seeking remedies";
• recognition by governments of "the Roma slavery and the Holocaust through public apology along with urgent adoption of a package of reparatory measures."

A budding race relations industry is already in place, with the self-serving agenda of finding "discrimination" in order to keep itself in place for ever.

To make his agenda appear "normal" to the targeted population, millions of East Europeans are force-fed the daily fare of OSI agitprop by "the Soros media"—the term is by now well established in over a dozen languages—such as the B-92 media conglomerate in Serbia.

The social dynamics Soros uses to penetrate the target countries is interesting. To thousands of young East Europeans to become a "Soroshite" represents today what joining the Party represented to their parents: an alluring opportunity to have a reasonably paid job, to belong to a privileged elite, for many to travel abroad. The few chosen for the future new Nomenklatura go to Soros's own Central European University in Budapest. In all post-communist countries Soros relies overwhelmingly on the sons and daughters of the old Communist establishment who are less likely to be tainted by any atavistic vestiges of their native soil, culture and tradition. The comparison with the janissary corps of the Ottoman Army is more apt than that with the Communist Party. The new janissaries, just like the old, have to prove their credentials by being more zealous than the Master himself.

The key ideological foundation for Soros's beliefs is the same: that all countries are basically social arrangements, artificial, temporary and potentially dangerous. A plethora of quotes from his writings will make it clear that he thinks that owing allegiance to any of them is inherently irrational, and attaching one's personal loyalty to it is absurd. Like Marx's proletarian, Soros knows of no loyalty to a concrete country. He could serve any—or indeed all—of them, if they can be turned into the tools of his Wille zur Macht. In 1792, it could have been France, in 1917 Russia. Today, the United States is his host organism of choice because it is so powerful, and its media scene is open to penetration by his rabidly anti-traditionalist and deeply anti-American worldview and political agenda.

Textbooks and educational curricular reforms pushed by Soros in Eastern Europe indicate that he is trying to perform crude dumbing down of the young. Within months of coming to power in October 2000 the "reformists" within Serbia and their foreign sponsors insisted that schools—all schools, from kindergarden to universities—must be reformed and turned from "authoritarian" institutions into poligons for the "unhindered expression of students' personalities in the process of equal-footed interaction with the teaching staff, thus overcoming the obsolete concept of authority and discipline rooted in the opressive legacy of patriarchal past." They started with primary schools, with a pilot program of "educational workshops" for 7-12 year olds. The accompanying manual, sponsored by UNICEF and financed by the Open Society, denigrades the view that the purpose of education is acquisition of knowledge and insists that the teacher has to become the class "designer" and his relationship with students based on "partnership."

The reformers devote particular attention to the more active role of schools in countering the allegedly unhealthy influence of the family on students, which "still carries an imprint of nationalist, sexist, [anti-Roma] racist, and homophobic prejudices rampant in the society at large." The time-honored Balkan tradition of slapping childrens' bottoms when they exceed limits is now presented in the elementary classroom as a form of criminal abuse that should be reported and acted upon. Traditional gender roles are relativized by "special projects" that entail cross-dressing and temporary adoption of opposite gender names.

Soros's vision is hostile even to the most benign understanding of national or ethnic coherence. His core belief—that traditional morality, faith, and community based on shared memories are all verboten—is at odds even with the classical "open society" liberalism of Popper and Hayek, by whom he swears. His hatred of religion is the key. He promotes an education system that will neutralize any lingering spiritual yearnings of the young, and promote the loss of a sense of place and history already experienced by millions of Westerners, whether they are aware of that loss or not. Estranged from their parents, ignorant of their culture, ashamed of their history, millions of Westerners are already on the path of alienation that demands every imaginable form of self-indulgence, or else leads to drugs, or suicide, or conversion to Islam or some other cult.

To understand Soros it is necessary to understand globalization as a revolutionary, radical project. In the triumph of liberal capitalism, the enemies of civilization such as Soros have found the seeds of future victory for their paradigm that seeks to eradicate all traditional structures capable of resistance. The revolutionary character of the Open Society project is revealed in its relentless adherence to the mantra of Race, Gender and Sexuality. His goal is a new global imperium based that will be truly totalitarian. But he is making a colossal miscalculation. He does not realize that the unassimilated and unassimilable multitudes do not want to be the tools of his will to power. Illegal aliens in America, Algerians in France, Turks in Germany and Pakistanis in Britain have their own, instinctive scenario, and it does not entail leaving Soros and his ilk in positions of power, or alive.