WARNING!! WWIII and US Downfall

[Microdizzey]

DEBKAfile - Iran Gains African Foothold up to Chad through Pacts with Sudan
Iran Gains African Foothold up to Chad through Pacts with Sudan
From DEBKA-Net-Weekly 341 Exclusive
May 31, 2008



New Sudanes defense minister
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Iran jumped in with gusto to meet Sudan president Omar al-Bashir’s application for a military package including arms and training of his army. The application was received after the horrendous Darfur tragedy and Khartoum’s backing for Chad rebels finally convinced Sudan’s traditional arms suppliers, Russia, China and Libya, to back away from arming Sudan’s 120,000-strong army.
Beijing came last, sensitized to its international image by the approaching Olympic Games in August. Libya has a major beef with Khartoum for backing the rebels fighting to overthrow Chad president Idriss Debby.



The pacts were signed on March 8 by Iran’s defense minister Gen. Mostafa Mohammad Majjar and his Sudanese counterpart, Gen. Abdul Rahim Mohammad Hussein, a fighter pilot appointed defense minister last month.

For years Tehran has been building up its military ties with Khartoum with an eye on its geopolitical assets: a long coast on the Red Sea, a main sea lanes to the Persian Gulf, a Muslim nation located opposite Saudi Arabia and next door to Egypt; Sudan’s command of oil resources and the White Nile, a major water source for an entire African region. This strategic jewel finally dropped into Iran’s fundamentalist lap.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Iranian sources disclosed its substance on March 14, 2008:
1. The Sudanese Army will gradually re-adjust from Russian and Chinese weaponry to Iranian-made items.
2. A 50 percent discount on Iran arms sold to Sudan.
3. Iran will build Sudan a military industry for the manufacture of Iranian weapons.
4. The two governments will establish a joint military commission to translate mutual defense collaboration into practical form. Each undertakes to come to the other’s aid in the event of foreign aggression.
5. The two air forces, navies and armored corps will exchange delegations.
6. Iran will help Sudan plan and construct security systems for strategic locations, such as oil fields, ports and the Nile River dams.
The $1.8 billion White Nile River Merowe Dam hydropower project, which includes a 174-kilometer long reservoir, is funded by China and Arab countries. Chinese, Sudanese, German and French companies participate in this project and in the Kajbar Dam downstream of the Merowe Dam.


The Sudanese are afraid that Egypt, which claims the Merowe project is diverting its water supply, may attack and destroy the project.


On March 10, the UN center in Geneva published a report compiled by a group of experts monitoring human rights in Sudan, which had this to say about these dams:


“We regret that the government did not allow access to Kajbar, Amir, Merowe and Makabrab in the northern state. The visit was planned to meet with local authorities and affected communities in the Nile valley area where two hydropower dams are being constructed. It was canceled by Sudan’s state security committee the day before it was scheduled to travel to the area. The reasons provided by the government did not justify their decision to prevent access.


‘”After being prevented from traveling to the area, the international experts met with representatives from the affected communities in Khartoum. They urged the government to ensure the safety and adequate housing of persons displaced from the area.


They also requested access for UN human rights officers to conduct an independent assessment mission to the area.”
According to the information reaching DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s sources, the Merowe Dam is displacing more than 50,000 people living in the fertile Nile Valley and casting them out to arid desert locations. The government is violently suppressing the protests of the Nubian people who would be displaced by the Kajbar Dam.
7. Iran has assumed responsibility for sending instructors to train Sudanese army units deployed in Darfur. To disguise the aid rendered to the forces perpetrating atrocities in Darfur, the Iranians have set up a number of welfare facilities in the province.
The have also built a military hospital to serve the Sudanese army.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military and intelligence sources disclose that in 2006, Sudan secretly permitted Iran to deploy intelligence agents along its border with Chad. These agents were entrusted with three missions.
Their missions were Oneb: To subjugate the Chad tribes working the uranium deposits of eastern Chad preparatory to their seizure; Two: To establish links with Chadian elements willing to challenge Libyan influence; Three: To strike west via Chad and hook up with the terrorist organizations battling Western influence - primarily American and Israeli – on the African continent.
By no coincidence, an American-Israeli plot was suddenly “uncovered” in Khartoum - at the very moment last month when the Sudanese defense minister was away in Tehran signing military pacts.


Sudan’s security agencies were said to have carried out a snap search of a private plane belonging to an unnamed American company operating in Sudan as it arrived with oil field equipment. What they claimed to have found was an “Israeli Mossad electric surveillance device” which was to have been planted at local military facilities.
Khartoum’s tie-in between a US oil company operating in Sudan and Israeli intelligence warned Washington that Omar al-Bashir was in the process of lining up behind Tehran’s anti-American campaign.


Our sources add that Sudan’s vice president Salva Kiir Mayardit, head of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), who has good relations with the Americans, has chosen to stay silent at this point and not demur against the new military pacts signed with Iran.






SAUDI-RUSSIAN MILITARY COOPERATION - Eurasia Daily Monitor
[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif]SAUDI-RUSSIAN MILITARY COOPERATION [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]By John C. K. Daly [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Friday, July 18, 2008[/FONT]

​

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (R) and National Security Council of Saudi Arabia Secretary General Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz (L) [/FONT]​

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]A simple, one-sentence Russian language news item published by Russia's Interfax on July 14 seemingly signals yet another tectonic shift in the Middle East's volatile mixture of oil, religion and weaponry. The item read, "An agreement about military-technical collaboration (VTS) between Russia and Saudi Arabia was signed Monday evening, reports an Interfaks [sic] correspondent; the agreement was signed in the presence of RF Prime Minister Vladimir Putin by Federal agency on VTS head Mikhail Dmitriev and National Security Council of Saudi Arabia Secretary General Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz" (Interfax, July 14).

The next day the Saudi Press Agency provided more details, differing from the Interfax bulletin by noting that it was actually Bandar and Putin who signed the agreement, adding that "Bandar reiterated the keenness of the Custodian of the two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz on further cementing Saudi-Russian relations in the political, military, security, cultural and technological domains" (Saudi Press Agency, July 15).

While no text of the agreement was published, the news apparently represents a major potential realignment of the Middle East's geopolitical realities, made all the more extraordinary by the fact that, beginning 29 years ago and continuing through the entire Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia matched, dollar for dollar, the United States' covert assistance to the Mujahideen.

Saudi Ambassador to Russia Ali bin Hassan Jaafar commented that the event reflected the two nations' "sincere" desire to develop not only military-technical cooperation, but also broader joint endeavors in other fields, adding, "It will be one more bridge linking our countries" (Vedomosti, July 16).

Russian sources remarked that the Saudi military was particularly interested in Mi-17 transport and Mi-35 (NATO designation--"Hind-E") attack/transport helicopters. Ironically, an earlier variant of the Mi-35, the Mi-24, was used extensively during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to strafe Mujahideen, operating with complete air superiority until July 1985, when the United States began to supply the Mujahideen with hundreds of FIM-92A Stinger anti-aircraft missiles.

Riyadh's shopping list apparently is not limited to transporters and helicopters, as the source also stated that Saudi Arabia also was interested in purchasing Russia's most advanced aircraft and air defense systems, as well as T-90S main battle tanks, and was considering purchasing and integrating Russian-built S-300 and S-400 air defense systems with their U.S. Patriot systems (Vremya Novostei, July 16).

Discussions between Riyadh and Moscow have been underway since then President Putin visited Saudi Arabia in February 2007, when he met not only with King Abdullah but also with Sultan, former ambassador to the United States, who was appointed NSC head in October 2005, and Sultan's father, Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, half-brother of King Abdallah and currently Saudi Arabia's minister of defense and aviation (Rossiiskaya Gazeta, February 16, 2007).

Obviously impressing his host, Abdullah awarded Putin the Order of King Abdul Aziz, Saudi Arabia's highest governmental award. Extending his trip to call on other U.S. regional allies, Putin also visited Qatar and Jordan.

Following up on Putin's 2007sojourn, Defense Minister Sultan subsequently visited Moscow in November, while last February Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal visited Moscow for discussions with then President Putin (Kommersant, February 15).

Putin said of the agreement, "Our relations are developing well; trade turnover is growing, though in absolute terms it still looks modest, but considering our good ties, we have good prospects and a good basis" (Interfax, July 14).

Speculation immediately flared in the Russian press that Riyadh was using the agreement and dangling large potential weapons contracts in front of Russia in an effort to woo Moscow away from Iran (Kommersant, July 15). Dmitry Peskov, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's spokesman, was forced to deny the reports, saying, "Any allegations to the effect that Russia's relations with Saudi Arabia with regard to military technological cooperation may in any way be linked to the Russian-Iranian dialogue are out of place and untrue" (Interfax, July 15). If the allegations are true, they provide yet another hidden aspect to the West's efforts to cajole and pressure Tehran into abandoning its uranium enrichment program.

The news is unpleasant for the U.S., as from 1999 to 2006, Saudi Arabia received $6.5 billion under arms transfer agreements with the United States, an annual average of $815 million in inflation-adjusted fiscal year 2006 dollars; and in July 2007 Washington announced the sale of $20 billion in advanced weaponry to Saudi Arabia and its neighbors in the Gulf Cooperation Council. For Russia, to enter such a lucrative arms market, which for years was the exclusive purview of the EU and the U.S., is potentially worth billions of dollars. While Saudi Arabia has yet to express an interest in such top-end (and expensive) items as fighters, Riyadh's potential shopping list reportedly includes not only the items mentioned earlier, but also 150 advanced T-90S tanks, over 100 helicopters including the Mi-35, Mi-17 and Mi-28NE variants, the Buk-M2E medium range air defense systems and several hundred BMP-3 armored personnel carriers; and the wish list could grow, according to a Russian defense industry source (Interfax-AVN, July 15).

For Washington, perhaps the most surprising aspect of the agreement is the deep involvement of Bandar, who appears to be the driving agent behind Saudi Arabia's growing military cooperation with Russia. During his time in Washington, Bandar by dint of seniority became the unofficial dean of the diplomatic corps and was so close to the Bush family that he earned the sobriquet, "Bandar Bush." Obviously Bandar's loyalties may be more malleable than Washington previously thought.

More concrete details of the agreement will doubtless become known in the coming days; but for Washington the final slap must be Bandar bin Sultan's comment, "Both Russia and Saudi Arabia agree upon and understand each other in virtually every energy-related issue" (Interfax, July 14). Saudi Arabia and Russia are the world's number one and two oil exporters, controlling nearly a quarter of the world's oil production between them. If the two "understand each other," then the potential anguish over the growing Russian-Saudi rapprochement could extend far beyond the Western military-industrial complex to include motorists and those seeking to heat their homes next winter. The only potential silver lining in the newfound friendship between the two is that Saudi Arabia is a member of OPEC while Russia is not, which may cause their interests to diverge. An energy hungry world can only hope so. [/FONT]​

 

[Microdizzey]

Scientist to Congress: U.S. risks 'catastrophe' in nuke EMP attack



[FONT=palatino, times new roman, georgia, times]WorldNetDaily Exclusive
Congress warned: U.S. risks 'catastrophe' in EMP attack
Expert: Growing threat posed by Iran, Russia, China, North Korea, terrorists[/FONT]
[FONT=palatino, times new roman, georgia, times]Posted: July 10, 2008
6:22 pm Eastern[/FONT]
[FONT=palatino, times new roman, georgia, times]WorldNetDaily [/FONT]

[FONT=palatino, times new roman, georgia, times]WASHINGTON – A top scientist today warned the House Armed Services Committee America remains vulnerable to a "catastrophe" from a nuclear electromagnetic pulse attack that could be launched with plausible deniability by hostile rogue nations or terrorists.[/FONT]
[FONT=palatino, times new roman, georgia, times]William R. Graham, chairman of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack and the former national science adviser to President Reagan, testified before the committee while presenting a sobering new report on "one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences."[/FONT]
[FONT=palatino, times new roman, georgia, times]It is the first report from the commission since 2004 and identifies vulnerabilities in the nation's critical infrastructures, "which are essential to both our civilian and military capabilities."[/FONT]
[FONT=palatino, times new roman, georgia, times]Not taking the steps necessary to reduce the threat in the next three to five years "can both invite and reward attack," Graham told the committee.[/FONT]
[FONT=palatino, times new roman, georgia, times]The scariest and most threatening kind of EMP attack is initiated by the detonation of a nuclear weapon at high altitude in the range of 25 to 250 miles above the Earth's surface. The immediate effects of EMP are disruption of, and damage to, electronic systems and electrical infrastructure. Such a detonation over the middle of the continental U.S. "has the capability to produce significant damage to critical infrastructures that support the fabric of U.S. society and the ability of the United States and Western nations to project influence and military power," said Graham.[/FONT]
[FONT=palatino, times new roman, georgia, times]"Several potential adversaries have the capability to attack the United States with a high-altitude nuclear weapon-generated electromagnetic pulse, and others appear to be pursuing efforts to obtain that capability," said Graham. "A determined adversary can achieve an EMP attack capability without having a high level of sophistication. For example, an adversary would not have to have long-range ballistic missiles to conduct an EMP attack against the United States. Such an attack could be launched from a freighter off the U.S. coast using a short- or medium-range missile to loft a nuclear warhead to high altitude. Terrorists sponsored by a rogue state could attempt to execute such an attack without revealing the identity of the perpetrators. Iran, the world's leading sponsor of international terrorism, has practiced launching a mobile ballistic missile from a vessel in the Caspian Sea. Iran has also tested high-altitude explosions of the Shahab-III, a test mode consistent with EMP attack, and described the tests as successful. Iranian military writings explicitly discuss a nuclear EMP attack that would gravely harm the United States. While the commission does not know the intention of Iran in conducting these activities, we are disturbed by the capability that emerges when we connect the dots."[/FONT]

William R. Graham
[FONT=palatino, times new roman, georgia, times]Graham reminded the committee even smaller nuclear weapons can create massive EMP effects over wide geographic areas. He also pointed out that United Nations investigators recently found that "the design for an advanced nuclear weapon, miniaturized to fit on ballistic missiles currently in the inventory of Iran, North Korea and other potentially hostile states, was in the possession of Swiss criminals affiliated with the A.Q. Khan nuclear smuggling network."[/FONT]
[FONT=palatino, times new roman, georgia, times]Theoretically, an EMP attack is devastating because of the unprecedented cascading failures of major infrastructures that could result. Because of America's heavy reliance on electricity and electronics, the impact would be far worse than on a country less advanced technologically. Graham and the commission see the potential for failure in the financial system, the system of distribution for food and water, medical care and trade and production.[/FONT]
[FONT=palatino, times new roman, georgia, times]"The recovery of any one of the key national infrastructures is dependent upon the recovery of others," he said. "The longer the outage, the more problematic and uncertain the recovery will be. It is possible for the functional outages to become mutually reinforcing until at some point the degradation of infrastructure could have irreversible effects on the country's ability to support its population."[/FONT]
[FONT=palatino, times new roman, georgia, times]Graham took the EMP debate out of the realm of science fiction by reminding the committee that as recently as May 1999, during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, Russian leaders threatened a U.S. congressional delegation with the specter of such an attack that would paralyze the U.S.[/FONT]
[FONT=palatino, times new roman, georgia, times]He also quoted James J. Shinn, assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific Security, who two weeks ago told the same House committee that China's arms buildup includes exotic experiments with electromagnetic weapons that can devastate electronics with bursts of energy similar to those produced by a nuclear blast.[/FONT]
[FONT=palatino, times new roman, georgia, times]"The consequence of EMP is that you destroy the communications network," Shinn said. "And we are, as you know, and as the Chinese know, heavily dependent on sophisticated communications, satellite communications, in the conduct of our forces. And so, whether it's from an EMP or it's some kind of a coordinated [anti-satellite] effort, we could be in a very bad place if the Chinese enhanced their capability in this area."[/FONT]
[FONT=palatino, times new roman, georgia, times]Graham says terrorists who get their hands on one or a few unsophisticated nuclear weapons might well calculate they could get the most bang for their buck from attempting an EMP attack.[/FONT]
[FONT=palatino, times new roman, georgia, times]Recovery from a widespread EMP attack could take months or years, Graham warned. The fact that key components of the U.S. electrical grid are not even manufactured in America and must be ordered a year in advance from foreign suppliers suggests just how complicated and time-consuming recovery might be. The high state of automation within America's utilities further complicates recovery. There just might not be sufficient trained manpower available to get the job done in a timely way.[/FONT]
[FONT=palatino, times new roman, georgia, times]"The commission's view is that the federal government does not today have sufficient human and physical assets for reliably assessing and managing EMP threats," said Graham. "The commission reviewed current national capabilities to understand and to manage the effects of EMP and concluded that the U.S. is rapidly losing the technical competence and facilities that it needs in the government, the national laboratories and the industrial community."[/FONT]
[FONT=palatino, times new roman, georgia, times]Graham said it's not too late for Congress to take the bull by the horns and take the steps necessary to prepare for the threat – and thereby reduce it.[/FONT]
[FONT=palatino, times new roman, georgia, times]"A serious national commitment to address the threat of an EMP attack can lead to a national posture that would significantly reduce the payoff for such an attack and allow the United States to recover from EMP, and from other threats, man-made and natural, to the critical infrastructures," said Graham.[/FONT]
[FONT=palatino, times new roman, georgia, times]Graham's predecessor as chairman of the commission had equally tough words on the impact of the EMP threat.[/FONT]
[FONT=palatino, times new roman, georgia, times]"Their effects on systems and infrastructures dependent on electricity and electronics could be sufficiently ruinous as to qualify as catastrophic to the nation," Lowell Wood, acting chairman of the commission, told members of Congress in 2005.[/FONT]
[FONT=palatino, times new roman, georgia, times]The commission's previous report went so far as to suggest, in its opening sentence, that an EMP attack "might result in the defeat of our military forces."[/FONT]

 

[Microdizzey]

NUCLEAR TERRORIST THREAT IN AMERICA
Newsmax.com - Bin Laden Planning Hiroshima-Type Destruction?


Bin Laden Planning Hiroshima-Type Destruction?

Thursday, July 17, 2008 10:26 AM

By: Paul M. Weyrich​

Article Font Size ​

Does Osama bin Laden possess nuclear weapons? Has he smuggled these weapons into the United States? Does he have a plan to detonate these weapons in multiple American cities if Israel attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities? Dr. Hugh Cort, president of the American Foundation for Counter-Terrorism Policy and Research, believes the answer to all of these questions is yes.
Cort has assembled a body of evidence which he claims supports the view that bin Laden has a plan for an “American Hiroshima” which will be implemented in the near future. He has sent this material to various U.S. officials, including Robert S. Mueller III, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Cort believes that the government is not doing enough to prevent an attack.
Much of his evidence centers around one Hamid Mir, a Pakistani journalist who has conducted the only interview of bin Laden after 9/11. Bin Laden told Mir that he had acquired 20 suitcase nuclear bombs from the former Soviet Union. Mir told Cort that bin Laden’s men have smuggled these bombs into the United States.
His men supposedly are waiting for bin Laden to give them the signal, then seven to ten American cities will be struck. If true it is little wonder that Iran’s leader confidently predicts that the United States will be bombed back to the Stone Age.
Bin Laden supposedly has fulfilled Islamic law by warning the United States that an attack is coming and offering a truce — convert to Islam and you will not be attacked. Refusal to convert to Islam means that an attack against America is justified. Three weeks prior to 9/11 bin Laden warned that the United States would be attacked in an unprecedented way for its support of Israel.
Already bin Laden has called for all Muslims in the United States to leave. Instead of a mass exodus of Muslims from this country, new mosques are opening every few weeks. Muslim schools also are being established, which suggests that families plan to stay here for the foreseeable future. But Yossef Bodansky, director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism from 1988 to 1998, has testified that bin Laden has obtained nuclear weapons.
He told Congress that “Osama has recruited former Soviet Special Forces (SPETSNAZ) soldiers to teach al-Qaida how to maintain and operate the bombs.”
Mir, by the way, has suggested that most of the nuclear weapons have been smuggled across the border from Mexico. Opponents of illegal immigration long have argued that they want the border monitored and closed for national security purposes.
Proponents of illegal immigration have maintained that opposition to it is “racist.” Clearly, opponents of illegal immigration have the better case; although if Mir is correct, the door may have been open too long.
Ronald Kessler, chief Washington correspondent for Newsmax.com, interviewed Mueller, who said that he is very concerned about bin Laden having nuclear weapons in the United States, so concerned that the FBI has surrounded mosques in 10 American cities with nuclear radiation detectors. Cort quotes Steve Coll, president of New America Foundation, as stating that these detectors cannot sense enriched uranium when it is shielded in lead. If Islamists have such bombs, no doubt they are wrapped in lead.
Cort says that Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff does not have a plan in the event that these bombs are detonated. In such a scenario real deaths will come from radiation. If people know how to avoid radiation prior to an attack, there may be many survivors.
If people can devise a radiation-proof shelter in their own homes to survive a detonation, two days later radiation is one, one-hundredth the strength of the initial blast. If people can spend three days in the shelter and then only make brief trips outside once a day, they can defeat radiation. But what credible source has warned people of the potential threat and how they can meet it?
Is all of this just alarmist talk? Has Cort missed something important which would nullify his answers? I have no idea.
It seems more than reasonable that we proceed as if it is true. If it proves to be a false alarm, what have we lost? But if Cort’s research has merit and we are prepared to handle such a situation, we could minimize its terrible impact.
When I asked some U.S. officials why no one in the government is warning people, I was told “we don’t want to unduly alarm people.” Nonsense.
I have great faith that the American people will do the right thing if properly informed. We did in the mid-1950s when told that the Soviet Union could start a nuclear war. We can do so again, but someone with credibility must tell Americans the truth.
Paul M. Weyrich is chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation.
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.






Food Scarcity 'Creating New World Order' | OneWorld.net (U.S.)
Food Scarcity 'Creating New World Order'

June 5, 2008
Antoaneta Bezlova


Inter Press Service
Eating rice in the Philippines © sinosplice (flickr)
BEIJING, Jun 4 (IPS) - Unprecedented food scarcity is beginning to dictate the rules of a new political order where individual countries are scrambling to secure their own food supplies with little concern for the rest of the world, says the founder of the Earth Policy Institute.
Recent manifestations of national food insecurity like export restrictions imposed by some grain-producing countries are the troublesome portents of an "entirely new chapter in the book of food security," Lester Brown told foreign correspondents in Beijing on Tuesday.
"We are in the midst of the most severe food crisis in the world's history," Brown said. "This is not your mother's food shortage...but a chronically tight food situation, a serious and long-term problem.''
Politicians have been meeting in Rome to find global solutions to soaring food prices and civil unrest caused by food shortages, but in reality many countries are already acting unilaterally to secure supplies for the future.
From Africa to Asia, countries are scrambling to buy or lease land overseas to grow crops and feed their people. China, which has to feed the world's largest population, has taken the lead by contracting land in Tanzania, Laos, Kazakhstan, Brazil, and others.
Lester Brown India has set its eyes on Uruguay and Paraguay, while South Korea is looking for farming deals in Sudan and Siberia. Libya and Egypt for their part have been negotiating deals to lease land in Ukraine.
The worry here, according to Brown, is that "the more influential countries would be able to secure food supplies, leaving a number of low-income, less influential countries with no food to import."
"This could create a lot of desperate countries," he says. The United Nations says soaring prices of basic foods such as rice and other cereals could affect around 100 million of the world's poorest people. In Asia, rice prices have almost tripled this year alone, leading many governments to fear the consequences if the poor cannot afford to buy their staple food.
To protect their domestic consumers, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, and China have all taken steps to restrict exports. This year has seen China's first grain trade deficit in decades. It has scrapped export rebates for wheat, rice, paddy, maize and soybeans, and it will start imposing export duties of 5 to 25 percent.
World Worries as China Begins to Import Grain
As the current food crisis unfolded, China's role as the world's largest grain producer and consumer has come in for increasing scrutiny. Politicians around the globe are looking at China, which has to feed 1.3 billion people, with apprehension, worrying that any change in the country's long-held policy of self-sufficiency could have a tremendous effect on the global grain markets.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has said China's main priority is to feed its own population and that this would be the country's "biggest contribution to the world." Beijing contends it has large grain reserves to weather the current food crisis. However, the size of the country's state and private reserves is uncertain.
Chinese rice farmer © kevsunblush (flickr) "It is mostly rice," says Zhao Jinhou, a grain analyst with Shenyin Securities. Chinese planners subsidize grain production and this has led to discrepancies between international and domestic prices of rice. While global prices of rice have soared, China's domestic prices have remained stable. "There has been no incentive to sell the rice stocks," Zhao says.
In 2007, China produced more than 501.5 million tons of grain, almost level with the nation's annual consumption of 510 million tons, according to official statistics. Chinese officials have vowed to keep the nation's grain output stable and above 500 million tons to cope with rising global grain prices. But analysts say even a stable grain output in China could do little to slow down global price surges as the country is already a net grain importer.
Last year, China imported 31 million tons of grain, or 22 million tons more than what it exported. The bulk of the total imports were soybeans.
"[The Chinese] have sacrificed their self-sufficiency in soybeans in order to preserve land and water for other crops," says Brown, predicting it is only a matter of time before Beijing moves to the world markets for grain as it has done with soybeans.
"China only needs to import 10 percent of its grain consumption to influence markets greatly," he reckons.
The devastation caused by the grade-8 Sichuan earthquake on May 12 has also heightened speculations that Beijing may take further steps to restrict its exports to rein in inflation and ensure domestic supplies.
"More restrictions on grain exports would hurt China's ability to assume its leading role of a big country in the current crisis," cautions Mei Xinyu, researcher with the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, under the ministry of commerce. "The side effects of further tightening of exports would be significant and there will be more harm than benefit."
The impact of Asia's export curbs has already provoked riots in Africa and Haiti, places that depend on cheap food imports. The U.S. Department of Agriculture predicts that high prices and export restrictions will cut the volume of rice traded internationally by 9 percent in 2008, which will drive prices even higher.
At the ongoing food summit in Rome, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon pressed nations around the world to ease a wide range of export bans and import tariffs to help millions of poor cope with the highest food prices in 30 years.

 

[xXMaslanXx]

Fuck off the us of a is the greatest country in the world!

 

[misshestermoffitt]

The US was the greatest country in the world, but now we're going downhill so fast there is actually a whistling sound........

 

[fdd2blk]

better late than never.

 

[BloodShot420]

That EMP pulse will erase everything on magnetic data storage devices (hard drives)...

 

[Microdizzey]

This info is ooold.

 

[ilkhan]

NO not EMP ACK!! my Hard drive!!! That's were I keep my Video Games ARRRG!!

Really I would bet if a bomb goes off it would serve as a real nice distraction from whats happening with the economy and the destruction of the dollar. This is the end of US hegemonic control of the world now we can make peace or destroy the planet, Our Choice.

 

[medicineman]

The end of US hedgemony, arrrggggg, that's a hard pill to swallow. Geeze, think of all that military money we could inject into the domestic economy, a chicken in every pot. I think the elites actually get off on their contention they are better than everyone else, I think it's time to pass out the shovels and potato peelers, let them get a feel for the rest of us.

 

[jimthorpe215]

Is this the scifi channel??? Emp?? Bull shit >>>is not true >>>> scare tactics

 

[******]

The US was the greatest country in the world, but now we're going downhill so fast there is actually a whistling sound........

tell him who got us here they'er trying to spin history ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,was it the late 80's when bin laden said he was going to draw us into a world war and defeat us and look who took that cheese ,,,,,,,,,look at spelling i must not be putting the cheese in the trap,,,,,,,,now

 

[Microdizzey]

Is this the scifi channel??? Emp?? Bull shit >>>is not true >>>> scare tactics

HAHA SCIFI

Please leave this forum and come back when you graduate from high school.

The term electromagnetic pulse (sometimes abbreviated EMP) has the following meanings:

1. Electromagnetic radiation from an explosion (especially a nuclear explosion) or an intensely fluctuating magnetic field caused by Compton-recoil electrons and photoelectrons from photons scattered in the materials of the electronic or explosive device or in a surrounding medium. The resulting electric and magnetic fields may couple with electrical/electronic systems to produce damaging current and voltage surges. See Electromagnetic bomb for details on the damages resulting to electronic devices. The effects are usually not noticeable beyond the blast radius unless the device is nuclear or specifically designed to produce an electromagnetic shockwave.
2. A broadband, high-intensity, short-duration burst of electromagnetic energy.

 

[ilkhan]

Yeah, we could bring our troops home stop bombing people and just make nice. "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" that is so true today. Terrorists love that we are over their on their ground bombing innocents growing a healthy hatred for Americans in people who would otherwise give a shit less about us and would make good trade partners.

Oh, EMP is real. But I don't buy into scare tactics they can do what they want Islam will never take root here. The worst they can do is wreck our economy, and we let them.

 

[9inch bigbud]

LOL more bull shit i see. it sounds like an excuse to go to war again remember buck to 2003 and W.O.M.D in iraq? there was none, but that never stoped the war the real reson to attack was the rich oil iraq have. bush should be standing on trial for war crimes the war was illegal under the U.N.