Revolutionising Awareness

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Posts Tagged ‘geo politics’

A different story about the Annunaki

Posted by Admin on April 12, 2011

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sumer_anunnaki/anunnaki/anu_12.htm#inicio

Introduction

For those of you who are Sitchin fans, you may notice some similarities between his information and mine. I respect the exhaustive research he has done, and the great scholar that he is. He contributed to opening up our planet’s memory of the Anunnaki. Scholastic and intellectual viewpoints and written documents are of value and add one part to understanding who we are. However, I feel we must not rule out our holographic, multidimensional viewpoints as being of equal value.

This is what I present to you.


I don’t agree with all of Sitchin’s data, and I include a lot that he does not. There have been many viewpoints from many different writers about the Anunnaki. Most of my information comes from personal memories and channeled information. And, similarities will also exist between certain channels because deeper truth is consistent; those who can channel or tap into universal energies on their own will also receive many parallels to this story. [My personal memories and more about me and Enki can be found in my article Nakmemories.]

I have something I’d like to add here – the Anunnaki had bases around the world, but primarily in the Middle East – Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Iraq – and in India and South Africa. There are many artifacts that still exist in Iraq but are not allowed to be seen, and the West has not had much access at all to these artifacts of the Anunnaki. It is my understanding that Saddam Hussein has hoarded many of these and kept many in private vaults under the ground. It is my hope that governments will encourage the Iraqi people who have access to these artifacts to bring them out and share them with the world.

Much still lies beneath the sands and it would be fantastic for humanity to be able to uncover the past in this region. Ur, between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, was the birthplace of humanity in modern times on Plan-ET Earth, the Garden of Eden, and everyone is entitled to have safe access to it. Therein lies many eophysical keys to remembering who we all are. (Please see the addendum to this article for a more complete explanation of how the war with Iraq is related to the Anunnaki, added April, 2003.)

Special update on May 1, 2003: The Tomb of Gilgamesh is thought to have been found in Iraq. The story can be read here and please note the comments on the canals, which Enki built.


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Preface


Humans were not only created by G-d, but are also genetically, symbolically and literally, related to a few off-planet civilizations; one particularly known on Earth as the Anunnaki.

[If you believe humans evolved solely from apes, why, then, are there still apes?]

Our story, (a term which replaces “history”, because “our story” belongs to all of us), of human life on Earth is often told as creation myths, the planets in the heavens.

But these myths were based on something – – – fact. This is why, around the world, we see the same tales of how one ’god’ was instrumental in assisting humanity during creation, the great flood, bringing knowledge to humanity. All cultures have their own creation stories of the ’gods and goddesses,’ beings on ships that came from the skies (often wearing masks or strange clothing and possessed some amazing abilities), giants (Anakim), war epochs between two sides of a family, and all over the Earth we also share very similar artwork, music and technology, largely based on extraterrestrial activity and intervention. From Lemuria to Atlantis to Sumeria to Egypt. These portray the story of our cosmos, the constellations, sun and moon, and put into human and “god” forms.

Personally, I feel that much of what we attribute to the Anunnaki was not their own doing. For instance, I think that the Anunnaki were limited in their abilities, yet were given credit for doing things that were done by other alien species. But, as human beings saw the Anunnaki as gods and goddesses, they naturally transferred credit to the Annunaki, because they were more tangible, something they could see, make an image of, and so forth. In this article you will see some comparisons between B’raisheet (Genesis) and the written history the Anunnaki.

Although this may not be for everybody (because some people simply aren’t interested or curious about any of this stuff), why could it be of value to examine our past in this particular way, with our connections to extraterrestrials, as well as with our past lifetimes? Because when we re-member more of who we are, why we continue to repeat patterns without understanding them, then we can be more of our whole selves in a way that is free from old baggage. We can have clear knowledge of ourselves, accept ourselves, heal what needs healing, and create what we want to have for our future.

Or, to quote from a popular TV show (“Kung Fu: The Legend Continues”):

“The seeds of destiny are nurtured by our roots in the past.”

If you want to know what the Anunnaki looked like, one easy way is to see the crop circle from 2001 called the first Chilbolton Face in Hampshire.

Mention the name Anunnaki to some people and deep within them something stirs; a memory of Earth and Mars – and often there is anger, fear, pain, and confusion about the Anunnaki. People seem to like to blame them for all of Earth’s problems. Some people remember being part of their family, for better or worse.

And yet others don’t want to hear anything about them because it dredges up feelings they’d rather avoid or deny. I even hear stories from people who think that the Anunnaki are vicious reptilians who have been battling for control over the Earth for the last half a million years, and they call all of the shots while we sit here like helpless pawns. I feel that A LOT of what we’ve learned about the Anunnaki was via bad press due to incorrect translations and the need to have a scapegoat. Do I agree with everything the Anunnaki did, or they way in which they did things? No.

They had good sides and also some really awful sides. There were different Anunnaki factions, and there were aliens who gave the impression they were Anunnakis. This article presents some of each. What they did was their responsibility and I’m not about to excuse or even attempt the impossible, which would be to vindicate their actions.

The Anunnaki are archetypal, symbolic, and mythic, too. So, we may each feel a certain personal identification with one or more of them, which is a very interesting phenomenon to investigate. Because people feel a reaction to the Anunnaki, it is a HUGE key that our personal feelings and memories (emotional and cellular) about the Anunnaki still influence us today. In other words, these archetypes are within ourselves. Joseph Campbell stated that, “myths are clues to the spiritual potentialities of the human life.” We seek the experience, the rapture of life, and myths help us as guides through life, show us what we are capable of, and mirroring what we feel. We can use the mythology of the Anunnaki as a way to understand and heal ourselves.

From Enki and Enlil, Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers, Moses and Ramses, Hatshepsut and Tuthmose, Akhenaten’s one god versus the many deities; Inanna (with her insatiable greed for power and adoration who still failed to realize that without her possessions she was nothing); Jehovah and Adoni; Sin (a.k.a. Nanna, Allah); the war over who controls Israel.

We have seen brother go against brother (the main theme), religions and governments against others, men against women and women against men up into current times. I feel it’s time to get over the past (not necessarily forget it), and heal a lot. It is my hope that through such understanding of who we are, we can resolve ancient battles between nations and heal bitterness and hurts that have held us back from fully enjoying our lives and being the creators that we are RIGHT NOW. It’s time to remember who the false gods were and who the real G-d is….the One that is in charge of it all, that is within us; the one that transcends definition.

The return of love/G-d (and the G-d as the common source within us all that is synchronicity, wisdom – love and light) is not only required for our survival, I feel it is eminent. Examining the deep, dark secrets within and healing them can help us accomplish this faster, I think. The most important event that took place when the Anunnakis ruled the Earth was that man rebelled against slavery and demanded sovereignty, and received it. The Anunnaki left. At the end of this article is more information along these lines about what this means for us as a civilization.

My thanks go to my higher self, and Enki for helping me, for all of his love and care he gives to me and to all of life.


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In the beginning…..


When the Source (G-d) created souls in order to be able to reflect back to itself what it was, beings later manifested in the constellation of Lyra. These were the first “creator gods” (the Council of Twelve and Elohim) who knew how to create matter from light. And create they did – planets, stars, universes, life forms for themselves, and eventually others.

The Lyran’s physical lifetimes lasted for approximately one thousand years. In time, however, their life span decreased. They sought out something that would enable them to live longer lives so that they could experience the wonder and miracle of existence. They found that gold not only increased their longevity, but provided them with a superconductivity which gave them the ability to be very telepathic and experience their multidimensionality.

Many thousands of years passed, and the beings from Lyra spread out into the cosmos and created new civilizations. Some went to Vega, others the Pleiades, and yet others Sirius. But, they knew (more or less) of their roots in Lyra/Vega and Sirius and that they were creator gods, at that point a.k.a. the Watchers. The search for gold to maintain their longevity continued because, unfortunately, their source for this magical substance was not forever lasting. Their planet (part of Sirius) was destroyed and their lives were doomed. They had to find another way of living – elsewhere.

The following universal history information is from Bashar (channeled by Darryl Anka), and Enki [through myself]:

 

“Approximately 4.6 billion years ago in our solar system there existed: Mercury, Venus, Mars (no moons), a 4th planet (larger than Earth with many moons, including a large one), Jupiter, Saturn (no rings), Uranus, Neptune and Pluto (which was a satellite of Saturn).

“4 billion years ago, another planet came into our still forming solar system. This planet had its own moons. It arrived at approximately the same orbit as the 4th planet called Maldek – the one that existed beyond Mars. Mars was then the 3rd planet. [Please read the Sumerian Epic of Creation – the Enuma Elish, as this says it all and explains the importance of the Tablets of Destiny.]

“This planet’s moons impacted the 4th planet shattering it so that part of it became the Asteroid Belt. The remnant of the impact (as it cooled and moved into a tighter orbit around the sun) became the Earth and brought with it the large planet that was the moon of the 4th planet. This is our moon. Approx. 67% of the former planet is Earth. Earth brought with it water – but there was water on the other planet, as well. As it reformed and became a sphere again, the rift where the shattering took place is now the Pacific Ocean area.

“This other planet was responsible for shattering the moons gravitationally that caused Saturn’s rings and for turning Uranus on its side, so that it has a highly inclined axis. And – this also caused Pluto to release from Saturn and come into its own orbit.”

This planet, of course, that caused all the havoc was/is Nibiru. It is our 10th planet – not really the 12th. In the late 1980’s it was about halfway back.

Bases were set up on the Moon. Mars’ moons – Phobos and Deimos, are remnants of that original impact that created the Asteroid Belt. These moons have been used for bases and minerals and water.

[The above information on the solar system is recorded in ancient texts, and has been accessed through memory and channelings by myself, in sessions by Bashar, and other entities.]

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Next phase

The group of beings who originated in Lyra later split up and evolved into Vegans, Sirians and Pleiadeans, are known as the Anunnaki. This particular group is attributed to having their own satellite. Their “planet” (which is partially artificial) was considered to be Nibiru. However, Nibiru is not really the home of the Anunnaki. Sirius was.

Nibiru was made up of what I’d call space pirates who imitated other beings, and sometimes a few from one planet would join them, including the Anunnaki. I’ve seen these pirates – they’re not at all like the real Anunnaki. The story of the Anunnaki has been mixed up with these pirates through time so some see the Anunnaki as being only evil.

(Some of the Anunnaki also were present on Mars before it was destroyed, and here’s an article that talks about Mars.)

The name “Anunnaki” can mean many different things [based on Hebrew interpretations] – it is rich with meaning.

  • “An” is short for “anachnu,” which means “we”

  • “An” also means “heaven”

  • “Naki” means “clean”

So, the name can mean “We are clean” and “heaven is clean,” clean as in “pure.” “Ki” means “Earth,” so “We are here on Earth.” “Heaven is on Earth.” “Anu is here on Earth.” The “we” is also meant as a collective oneness, of the Source.

They were tall, giant, (in Hebrew the word for giants is “Anakim”) and have also been called the Nordics or Blonds, even though not all of them had blond hair or blue eyes. It is easy to see their Lyran and Sirian roots in their appearance. They also glowed a golden color. Their symbol is the winged disk, which not only represents their starships, but also symbolic of the ability of the spirit to fly free while remembering it’s wise, divine source. These Anunnaki were later called the Elohim, and Nephilim (those who descended, came down). However, they were NOT “the” Elohim, but Elohim became the word used for the plural of god.

In B’raisheet (Genesis) 6:4 it is written:

“The Lord said, “My breath shall not abide in man forever, since he too is flesh; let the days be allowed him be one hundred and twenty years.” It was then, and later too, that the Nephilim appeared on earth – when the divine beings cohabited with the daughters of men, who bore them offspring. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.”

It is thought, by some, that the Nephilim were sinful gods who “fell from grace.” They fell, alright, in their spaceships. This can also be seen as symbolic. The “fall” having to do with lowering one’s frequency from spirit into physical matter, which is slower and denser. “Fall” also meaning forgetting one’s true Source. As life forms choose to come to Earth their vibration goes through changes so that they are more matched to the frequency of Earth, their new home.

Now these ETs literally came down from space, but souls choosing to incarnate upon the earth also had to change their vibrational frequencies. Enlil was first to come to Earth and was there even before mankind was created. The Sumerian texts called mankind the “Black-Headed People.”

If anyone doubts the location of Eden, or why it was chosen by the Anunnaki as a locale, please read on from Genesis:

“Then, before there was any rain, he formed man, from the dust of the earth. He blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and placed there the man whom He had formed…”,

and then all the other life forms came into being, water, animals, minerals. Genesis does say that the first river in Eden was Pishon and winds through the whole land of Havilah, where the gold is – the gold of that land is good; bdellium is there, and lapis lazuli. The name of the second river is Gihon, the one that winds through the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Tigris, the one that flows east of Asshur.

And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

[For more Biblical references to the Anakim, Anakites, Anunnaki, Nephilim, etc., please see:

  • Numbers: 13:22; 13:28-33;

  • Deut: 1:28; 2:1-; 9:2;

  • Joshua: 11:21-22; 14:12; 14:15; 15:13-14;

  • Judges: 1:20. Many of these giants were the result of Anunnaki and human reproduction, such as Gilgamesh]

Being a dreamtime medicine person, I traveled to this place of human’s origins and saw the space pirates who gave the impression of being the Anunnaki. This was on the border of Iran and Iraq at Lake Zaga. This lake no longer exists, as it has been covered up by sand, but it exists inside the earth and interdimensionally.

To date no one else has ever talked about Lake Zaga or knows where it is – that is, aside from myself and channeled entities who have confirmed my visions and memories of it. I would like to find someone who can provide me with archaeological, geological evidence that this place once existed. I also know the language of the place, and how there are underground facilities, passageways, there. It was once controlled by the Anunnaki. There are many interesting details of how this place once looked, but I am preserving this information for another time.

This is part of Earth’s story and occurred after there already was life on Earth, hominid beings. Hominids are distinctly human-like creatures, different from apes or chimpanzees. The Anunnaki came to Earth (some of their crafts had crashed in the process), for a haven for themselves, and found it rich with gold, copper, silver and other minerals. They felt that here was their last chance for longevity, survival and the gold was the best conductor of energy which had many important uses. They mined gold for a very long time – hundreds of thousands of years by our standards; for theirs only a few weeks have passed.

What, according to the Old Testament happened? God said,

“Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and bad, what if he should stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever!”

So man was banished from Eden to work the soil from which he was taken.

Further on in Genesis, we read:

“The Lord saw how great was man’s wickedness on earth, and how every plan devised by his mind was nothing but evil all the time. And the Lord regretted that He had made man on earth, and His heart was saddened. The Lord said, “I will blot out from the earth the men whom I created – men together with beasts, creeping things, and birds of the sky; for I regret that I made them.” But Noah found favor with the Lord….For My part, I am about to bring the Flood – waters upon the earth – to destroy all flesh under the sky in which there is breath of life; everything on earth shall perish. But I will establish My covenant with you, and you shall enter the ark, with your sons…””

This ark was symbolic and literal, not only a ship, but a covenant.

Stephanie Dalley, author and translator, states from her book “Myths From Mesopotamia: Creation, The Flood, Gilgamesh and Others” (1991) that in the “Epic of Creation” (the epic which explains the history of the cosmos, and the Anunnaki as creator gods), the key element involves the possession of the Tablets of Destinies (which I will discuss at a later time because it’s very relevant to today).

There also could have been several different versions spread around retelling the Epic. About the Epic, Ms. Dally writes:

“Here is no struggle against fate, no mortal heroes, no sense of suspense over the outcome of events. The success of the hero-god Marduk is a foregone conclusion. None of the good gods is injured or killed; no tears are shed. Yet cosmic events are narrated: the earliest generations of the gods are recounted leading up to the birth of the latest hero-god; the forces of evil and chaos are overcome, whereupon the present order of the universe can be established, with its religious centers, its divisions of time, its celestial bodies moving according to proper rules, and with mankind invented to serve the does.

The gods themselves behave in an orderly fashion: they assemble, discuss, agree, and elect their leaders in a gathering of males; after Tiamat’s primeval parturition and the spawning of monsters, goddesses play no part in creating the civilized world, not even in creating mankind.”

[p. 228]

However, I find this hard to believe because without a female donor, beings could not procreate, not give birth, and so on. There have been many women I have personally met who remember being birth goddesses, used by the aliens to have embryos implanted within them, to go through the pregnancies and give birth, then raise the children – if they survived.

Dalley also writes that in the Atrahasis, the mother goddess, Ninhursag/Ninharsag-Ki, (Mami, Nintu, who I abbreviate as “Nin”), with Ea, make man out of clay, mixed with the blood from a god slain by Nin, Geshtu-e:

“A ghost came into existence from the god’s flesh, And she (Nin) proclaimed it as his living sign. The ghost existed so as not to forget (the slain god).”

Mixing and concocting continues and the “womb-goddesses” (creator of fate) were assembled. When birthing time arrived, Nin served as the mid-wife. The ghost is the spirit, the breath, divine life force, that was NOT created by the Anunnaki. This is only created by The Source.

[Personal note: My spelling of Ninhursag is how the name is spoken, and how it is in my memory. When analyzed numerologically, it has a number of 111, which according to Norma Smith, Expert Analyst and Ph.D. in Universal Harmonics Analysis, is a master triple number, and its meaning is DNA template for humanity. I think Sitchin’s spelling of the name as Ninharsag is to justify his translation of the name through Hebrew – “har” meaning “mountain.” Ninharsag has a value of 91 and means “spirit” and “oneness.” So, it is more of a spiritual name for Ninhursag.]

In Dalley’s own translation of the Epic, Tiamat is a female who is plotted against by her own family, and then has the tables turned on her by her lover Kingu (Qingu, or Zu) and the Anunnaki, after she gives him the Tablets of Destiny – the Anu power. Ea, married to Damkina, overhears the plot and takes the fate into his own hands, slaying Apsu and Mummu. Afterwards he rested in his own quarters and named them Apsu and made his home there. Here is where he and Damkina created their son Marduk, and Marduk was raised by a nurse and he was suckled by the goddesses.

What follows in the Epic is a war (created by accusations and conspiracies back and forth) between the forces of Anshar, his son Anu, his son EA, and his son Marduk against Tiamat and Kingu. Marduk slays Tiamat – of womankind – the gods rejoice and make Marduk their leader. Marduk took back the Tablets of Destinies and became the king of the entire universe.

Let’s remember that we’re talking about extraterrestrials here, (symbolic and literal); not THE Source.

Some of these beings were very wise and knew how to transform energy/light into matter. They were/are seeders. Basically, the Anunnaki who came to Earth were not terribly different from where we are today in terms of scientific development. According to the Enuma Elish, the idea occurred to Marduk that they could create a being that would mine the gold for them and then the gods could take it easy.

They used the blood (DNA) of slain Kingu and combined it with a humanoid being on Earth. After many various experiments in which they created other races, (and they had many horrible failures, as well), they created a hybrid being (Adam, Adapa) which evolved into modern human.

It is written,

“He created mankind from his blood, Imposed the toil of the gods (on man) and released the gods from it. When Ea the wise had created mankind, Had imposed the toil of the gods on them – That deed is impossible to describe…”

In both the Enuma Elish and Atrahasis the reason for creating man is the same – to relieve the gods of hard labor. Why there are different versions of this story of creation is more speculative than concretely known.

But we can assume that a couple of reasons could be the era in which the Epics were written, who was in power at the time, and who wanted to praise one god over another god or goddess.

Actually, the name “human” can be traced to Enki (a.k.a. EA). HU is a transliteration of the ancient Sumerian EA (Grimms’ law of interchangeable letters and sounds). Isis (pronounced Ish-Ish, which is interesting, because in Hebrew ’Ish’ means ’man’) was Enki’s mother. Isis was not Nibiruan; she was Sirian, with some Orion connections. His father was Anu. (Anu and his official wife, Antu, had a son named Enlil.)

HU was also Horus, by the way, therefore another connection to Ninhursag, a.k.a. Hathor. What about EArth? EN.KI is “lord of earth.” In the early days on Earth, Enki’s symbol was the crescent moon with a bearded, olden god surrounded with flowing water. The crescent moon relates to science, measuring, the oceans/tides – Enki’s specialties. In later years, the crescent moon developed another association – keep reading. In other ancient “mythology” Enki is known as Oannes, Ptah, Quezecotl, even as his own son, Thoth.

The Anunnaki (who some call the Nephilim) later procreated with the beings who were on Earth at that time. The souls of those who became human came to Earth by their own free will to experience physicality. Several other extraterrestrial civilizations later contributed their own input into human DNA and created many races of humans and other creatures (a couple of which have since left this planet – such as the dinosaurs). However, these hybrids (our missing link in our evolution) helped the Anunnaki mine their gold.

As seems pretty obvious thus far, the Anunnaki were pattern-makers, the creators of archetypes and a part of the template for human life on Earth. Throughout all cultures on Earth the same story of these gods (albeit with different names depending on where you are), their gifts to humanity, their failures, their characteristics, their loves, their battles and the results of such warfare are recorded in literature, ritual, art, oral tradition and religion. Astrology is one of the major sciences they brought to Earth, and each main god/goddess had their own constellation. The Anunnaki gave the humans knowledge of how to be this human being, how to take care of themselves, gave them guidelines, rules, for proper living.

And yet, at times they were also manipulators, and as long as people didn’t upset the “gods” they were safe and provided for. After some time, the humans evolved to a point where they began to question their purpose and their future. They rebelled against their “creators,” the Anunnaki. The humans wanted to have the nectar of the gods for themselves. Why shouldn’t they be able to have their free will, live as long as their gods did? Why shouldn’t they have power and wealth or whatever they felt they lacked?

And then the sad realization that they were NOT like “the gods.” Read the early sad epics of Enkidu and Gilgamesh who desperately wanted to be divine and have everlasting life, only to find out that their mortal side won out.

You will also find out more about the flood and the Anunnaki from the Epic of Gilgamesh.

The Anunnaki discussed the possible consequences if they shared the gold (the process of alchemy) with the humans. Some of the Anunnaki, such as the Sirian leader, Enki, were in favor of letting humans be free and equal to them. Other Anunnaki were angry because of the blending of the two life forms and the continual complaints humans had to the Anunnaki.

One of the Anunnaki leaders who had no patience for humans was EN.LIL. Enlil was the Prince of heaven and Earth. He was in charge of airspace, he was chief of the gods and Lord of Sumer. Enki and Enlil were half brothers through the same father, Anu, who was the leader of this Anunnaki group. They also had to contend with Marduk (one of Enki’s sons) who was proclaimed the greatest king of the gods. In later years, the symbol of the crescent moon was associated with Nanna/Sin (Enlil’s and Ninlil’s son), who Sinai was named for, and who became known as Allah.

Note the symbol (with the star) is used in Islam and is directly related to Enlil’s side of the family. This is proof of the battle for power by the two camps of Anunnaki, those of Enki versus those of Enlil – actually a terrible, nuclear war between the Anunnaki took place in the Sinai, and at the Great Pyramid, for control over the region.

Ninhursag acted as mediator and brought the two sides to a peace agreement. (But, in fact, there were many more camps that evolved out of Enki and Enlil’s lineages.)

The Anunnaki had two factions fighting one another over humanity’s future. This was coded in the books as the Garden of Eden (a genetic metaphor and a literal place). Enlil didn’t want the humans to be equal to them. Enki was in favor of allowing humans self-rulership, respect and equality. In order to ensure that humans would be able to, in the long run, benefit from their ancestry, Enki (the serpent of wisdom and healing) suggested those who came to be called Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge.

Had they eaten only from the Tree of Life, humans would have lived a very long time, but not have been the wiser. Nor would humans have reached their own intellectual and spiritual evolution in which they would realize that they are equal to the ’gods’ who created them as new humans by virtue of their DNA.

This “trick” enraged Enlil who, from that point onward, was furious that humans mated with the Anunnaki, and he wanted to punish humanity. We see this reflected in our societies ever since as the wild drive towards materialism, or racism, or shame, or the focus on doing anything which keeps people from remembering who they are, being in denial of who they are, or angry with life – blaming The G-d.

Civilizations and religions were created by Enki and Enlil (and later their offspring). Egypt, for example, was developed by Enki and his lineage. The areas of the Sinai, Jerusalem, Sumer, India and more were fought over by the two families of Enki and Enlil, changing hands back and forth through differentPyramid Wars.

[This was the of battles of Ra/Marduk, Horus, Thoth, Inanna, Set, Osiris, and mediated into peace by Nin.]

The battle Horus fought for Ra against Seth was the first that used humans in a war with weapons, and this began wars mankind fought against itself. The war between the factions of the Anunnaki continued between humans with claims such as, “There is only One god,” or “There are many gods,” or “My god is THE god, but yours isn’t,” or “We are the chosen people, or the superior race – God told us so!”

This wasn’t from The G-d, the love-energy source of all life: instead this was more reflective of “the creator gods” who had their own beliefs, agendas. The battle between Egypt and Israel goes way back, and it was due to the control and confusion set into motion by many of these factors; extraterrestrials, angels (and messages from THE G-d), humans, mixed messages, control and fear, between worshipping Enki’s family or Enlil’s family.

Atlantis’ finally sinking was due to astronomical events combined with those humans and Anunnakis experimenting with sound technology. They didn’t plan on destroying the place – they just miscalculated. The last great flood, approximately 13,000 years ago, became a legend when Enki went against the other Anunnaki and saved humans (the Noahs of Earth) when this accident occurred. The first flood was in Lemuria and then there were others in Atlantis (several times). Those with Enki forced Enlil to help save whatever humans they could.

Enki, having felt completely disgusted and disappointed by Enlil’s fierce control, (refer to the Tower of Babel here) left Earth during the Exodus. Moses in confusion as to who he was speaking with on the mountain. He heard The G-d, messengers (Elohim and Nephilim) as a mixture. The Ten Commandments were supposedly dictated to Moses and he wrote it down, after he was taught the Hebrew alphabet and language, which he would later teach to his people. Have you ever noticed how, at this point in the Hebrew Bible, Adonai is no longer mentioned, and YHWH, Jehovah, Yahweh, is? And yet, everyone thinks they’re the same G-d. Just who is this Jehovah, YHWH? Jehovah was an agent of Enlil!

Not long after the Exodus, the other Anunnaki left their Earthly influence, and their secrets of transforming gold into the powerful substance that allowed their longevity and spiritual abilities also vanished. Their knowledge about life was held in the hands of very few who began to abuse it and became greedy. Then, in time, humans who remembered died or disappeared.

A lot of knowledge was lost. And yet, people kept trying to capture that special essence of gold in the form of statues or other such items, mistakenly believing that power equated to violence and destruction and hoarding wealth. They felt it was their key to immortality – that which would make them THE G-d. Powdered gold has beneficial properties, but the real gold is within – remembering one’s self and connection to Source. This is really what Enki had tried to infuse into people.

The Anunnaki left the Earth, in a sense, but not without creating counterparts or aspects of themselves who would reincarnate as humans in order to share the human experience with them, their oversouls.

Some of these continued the lineage through King David and Jesus. Some of these counterparts or aspects have stubbornly stuck to what they presume was Enlil’s and Marduk’s agenda to control the Earth for their own purposes, keeping humans more fearful, dependent, ignorant. Yet, others continue to share the ancient wisdom from other Anunnaki, encouraging humanity to remember their source which they can access from within their individual and collective cellular/spiritual memories in order to break the ancient and false bonds of slavery, fear and ignorance and reclaim what they feel is rightfully theirs.

Any way you look at it, the confusing, chaotic battle continues – and it doesn’t have to.

Return


WHAT HAPPENS NOW, ON THE FLIP SIDE?


Are these Anunnaki “gods” returning to Earth via Nibiru? (Remember – Nibiru really wasn’t the home of the Anunnaki.) “They” have never really left! First of all, they exist in many of us as a reincarnation or as aspects of them. (And boy, that’s created some sad, major identity crises.)

And as a human civilization, we have finally reached the understanding that we are more than ETs or humans, and we do have free will and choice. We can decide how WE want our experiences to be. Secondly, time exists in the third dimension but not beyond, so one can argue that everything is happening right now, but honestly, that doesn’t always change what already happened in our “past.” All that matters is NOW.

Please don’t make a big deal about the “return of Nibiru.” If you’re looking for a savior, look to yourselves. I know that the family of Anu is helping us. We are also helping the few Anunnaki and humans who are still tuck in old, negative paradigms. Whatever we, or they, do effects the whole (all of life in the cosmos). Regardless, we all have to be self-responsible. And, if one day the Anunnaki, will we still be playing out old dramas and wars? Will we be able to greet them as equals? Will we even want them to be here? Will we care, either way? Is it even possible for these old Anunnaki to return here and be as they once were?

If we want our lives to be destructive or a joyous creation, the choice is ours – truly it is. However, we have to know that our thoughts and feelings are manifesting instantaneously as our reality, so we have to be more aware than ever of what we focus on and CHOOSE what we want for ourselves. We have to know who WE are, what our own energy is like versus what another’s is like. Using our individual and collective power of choice is our means of attaining complete independence from the limitations and illusions we, or others, have imposed upon us/ourselves. After all, if we, as souls, didn’t want to be part of the Anunnaki experience, in a physical life on Earth, we wouldn’t have been. It was always a co-creation.

Some of the Anunnaki games, such as that of the needy toddler or dysfunctional adolescent, are still being played by people on Earth: who is more godly, who is more deserving, who is evil, who is powerful, who has to be punished, who gets to own that land, or “I want it, just because I want it, or because he has one!” These “gods” wanted things only “their” way.

Some people feel so badly for what they did as Anunnaki that they cover it up or punish themselves, over and over, never letting go of the past. Then there are others won’t give up on blaming the Anunnaki for making their current lives miserable, always saying, “It’s their fault. I hate them. Poor me.”

It’s time to have forgiveness, compassion, and gratitude, for them, for ourselves – all of our Selves, and become very clear what we’re doing, and why. If we are repeating old patterns, relating to any one of these Anunnaki archetypes, we have to become aware of how destructive these patterns can be. And it’s in us – from Enki to Enlil to Sin, from Marduk to Inanna, from those masquerading as the Anunnaki.

We have been repeating battles (worldwide), holding on to ancient and unhealthy grudges and dramas, martyring ourselves, fearful of letting go (because these old patterns are comfortable and familiar) and moving forward.

Return


IDENTITY CRISES


Which brings me to identity crises. What about people who claim they are, or were, one of these Anunnaki? There are many who do. I can tell you that I’ve met at least 5 people who all claim to be Enki, several more Inannas, and there are others who remember being Anu, Nin, and lesser known Anunnaki.

I, too, remember being part of the Anunnaki family. Sometimes these encounters and friendships have been destroyed all because of being hung up on a past identity. I’ve had confrontations and arguments with people who demand I acknowledge them as being the only Enki, or so and so. But, I can’t acknowledge it as being fact if I feel it is a delusion, a hope, a confusion.

Sometimes they are identifying with an archetype thinking it is exactly the same as the individual it symbolizes, such as the hero who builds and saves the world (Enki); the evil, selfish, destructive demon (Marduk); the wronged and martyred tantric, materialistic Queen (Inanna); the mother of all creation (Isis), and so on.

What does it mean and why are people identifying this way? That varies from person to person. Some people are actual reincarnational aspects, off-shoots of these beings and some like to believe that they were the one and only this, or that. Some were friends or family members of them, but not “them.” Some are channeling various Anunnakis.

From what I have encountered, I have not found many who were those exact, complete, real, one and only beings such as Anu reincarnated in this lifetime. I think that’s very rare. It is more common that we share in the same oversoul as one of them, which sometimes makes it feel like we were them because oversoul share information with those in it. But, if identifying with one of them is key for you in this lifetime – why is that? How are these archetypes helping you?

Is there some importance in remembering one’s personal connection with the Anunnaki? I think it relates to self-discovery, healing, and in some cases a need to feel special, important. To say “I am Enki, or Marduk, or Hathor, or the almighty YHWH, or Queen of Heaven, or Jesus/Krishna” is not being real, right now. Whether or not you were one of them, these are OLD identities and not who you, or they, are on Earth at this moment.

Even if you are a multidimensional aspect of one of them that doesn’t make you them because your focus is here. What if you were them back then? What have you learned about your experience and yourself? What if you’re only WISHING you were them? Should it matter to anyone else?

Well, many people (regardless of affiliation with the Anunnaki) still keep playing out the old roles and battles. That doesn’t mean people have to bow down and worship them or help them live in the past or an illusion of grandeur and satisfy their negative ego. Maybe there’s some denial going on, or failure to own up to what they did, or someone in their oversoul did, or think they did (when they really didn’t), once up on a time?

Okay – then it’s up to that person to deal with it or not. In the long run, it doesn’t matter anyway – that identity is not what your, or their, real essence is, nor who you are now in physicality. But, it can still help a lot to be deeply honest about it. We’re still part of everyone and All That Is and we have many lifetimes and experiences – the Anunnaki could be just one of them. It’s the importance one places on this identification and separation that could use some exploration and understanding.

Until we see this, forgive and release ourselves, and them, release the past and value our true selves, we can’t move forward; we can’t even live productively or whole in the present. Let’s clean up our act. We can re-member that we (our multidimensional selves) were and/or are of these ETs and “creator gods.” We share much of the same DNA – but THIS DOESN’T MEAN THAT WE HAVE TO REPLAY THEIR OLD BATTLES AND KEEP THEIR DYSFUNCTIONS. Let go of these old patterns. They are not our gods or goddesses, and yet they did give us much that makes us who we are today. Let’s thank them and let them go. We may share similar feelings and thoughts, but more importantly we are all from the same Source.

And actually, it doesn’t matter if we focus on that ET “stuff” within us, or not, unless one has an issue about it.

Return


EPILOGUE: HEALING


We are who we are right now – a combination of our past and present, creating our future selves. It is my hope that rather than focusing on hatred, fear, racism, sexism, separation, or superiority of one religion above another, humanity can release more of the old energies of false power, martyrhood, tyranny, victimhood, fear, manipulation and pain.

Then we can embrace our higher selves and the oneness of all creation, the free, creative beings that we are, appreciate our differences and what we share in common, and move into a future of more love, light, knowledge, wisdom, and joy. We have to remember that we are all human beings (little matters which color, religion, gender, and so forth), and all G-d’s creations.

The choice and opportunity is always before us to remember more of who we are. The humans rebelled against the Anunnaki along time ago and the Anunnaki left. What does this say about us? We claimed Earth and got it. We claimed our sovereignty and got it.

Why go back?

“Then he realized I indeed am this creation for I have poured it forth from myself. In that way he became this creation. And verily, he who knows this becomes in this creation, a creator.”

— The Upanishads

If you’d like a biblical reference, here’s one from Deuteronomy 30:

“For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, and cause us to hear it, that we may do it? Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, and cause us to hear it, that we may do it? But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.”

This means FIND YOUR OWN RELATIONSHIP AND DEFINITION OF GOD BY GOING WITHIN YOURSELF, AND THEREIN YOU SHALL KNOW AUTHENTIC TRUTH (BEAUTY, LOVE, AND PEACE). Don’t be afraid to be all that love and light that you are. It is your birthright.

Return

 

The Sumerians. Their History, Culture and Character

Translation by Samuel Noah Kramer

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), PP. 17483

introductory material paraphrased and summarized

by M. Eliade from Kramer, OP. Cit., PP. 171-4

 

 

Enki, the king of the Abzu, overpowering in his majesty, speaks up with authority:
’My father, the king of the universe,
Brought me into existence in the universe,
My ancestor, the king of all the lands,
Gathered together all the, ME’s, placed the me’s in my hand.
From the Ekur, the house of Enlil,
I brought craftsmanship to my Abzu of Eridu.
I am the fecund seed, engendered by the great wild ox, I am the first born son of An,
I am the “great storm” who goes forth out of the “great below,” I am the lord of the Land,
I am the gugal of the chieftains, I am the father of all the lands,
I am the “big brother” of the gods, I am he who brings full prosperity,
I am the record keeper of heaven and earth,
I am the car and the mind of all the lands,
I am he who directs justice with the king An on An’s dais,
I am he who decrees the fates with Enlil in the “mountain of wisdom,”
He placed in my hand the decreeing of the fates of the “place where the sun rises,”
I am he to whom Nintu pays due homage,
I am he who has been called a good name by Ninhursag,
I am the leader of the Anunnaki,
I am he who has been born as the first son of the holy An.
After the lord had uttered (his) exaltedness,
After the great Prince had himself pronounced his praise,
The Anunnaki came before him in prayer and supplication:
’Lord who directs craftsmanship,
Who makes decisions, the glorified; Enki praise!’
For a second time, because of his great joy,:
Enki, the king of the Abzu, in his majesty, speaks up with authority
’I am the lord, I am one whose command is unquestioned, I am the
foremost in all things,
At my command the stalls have been built, the sheepfolds have been enclosed,
When I approached heaven a rain of prosperity poured down from heaven,
When I approached the earth, there was a high flood,
When I approached its green meadows,
The heaps and mounds were piled up at my word.

[After the almost unintelligible description of Enki’s rites, Enki proceeds to decree the fates of a number of cities. Ur is one example.]
He proceeded to the shrine Ur,
Enki, the king of the Abzu decrees its fate:
City possessing all that is appropriate, water-washed, firm-standing ox,
Dais of abundance of the highland, knees open, green like a mountain,
Hashur-grove, wide of shade-he who is lordly because of his might
Has directed your perfect ME’s,
Enlil, the “great mountain,” has pronounced your lofty -name in the universe.
City whose fate has been decreed by Enlil,
Shrine Ur, may you rise heaven high


[Enki next stocks the land with various items of prosperity: A deity is placed in charge of each. For example:]
He directed the plow and the . . . yoke,
The great prince Enki put the ’horned oxen’ in the . . . Opened the holy furrows,
Made grow the grain in the cultivated field.
The lord who do-ns the diadem, the ornament of the high plain,
The robust, the farmer of Enlil, Enkimdu, the man of the ditch and dike,
Enki placed in charge of them.
The lord called the cultivated field, put there the checkered grain,
Heaped up its . . . grain, the checkered grain, the innuba-grain into piles,
Enki multiplied the heaps and mounds,
With Enlil he spread wide the abundance in the Land,
Her whose head and side are dappled, whose face is honey-covered,
The Lady, the procreatress, the vigour of the Land, the ’life’ of the black-heads,
Ashnan, the nourishing bread, the bread of all,
Enki placed in charge of them.
He built stalls, directed the purification rites,
Erected sheepfolds, put there the best fat and milk,
Brought joy to the dining halls of the gods,
In the vegetation-like plain he made prosperity prevail.

 


 


He filled the Ehur, the house of Enlil, with possessions,
Enlil rejoiced with Enki, Nippur was joyous,
He fixed the borders, demarcated them with boundary stones,
Enki, for the Anunnaki,
Erected dwelling places in the cities,
Set up kids for them in the countryside,
The hero, the bull who comes forth out of the hashur (forest), who roars lion-like,
The valiant Utu, the bull who stands secure, who proudly displays his power,
The father of the great city, the place where the sun rises, the great herald of holy An,
The judge, the decision-maker of the gods,
Who wears a lapis lazuli beard, who comes forth from the holy heaven,
the .. . heaven,
Utu, the son born of Ningal,
Enki placed in charge of the entire universe.

 

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Unreported Soros Event Aims to Remake Entire Global Economy

Posted by Admin on April 10, 2011

Left-wing billionaire’s own experts dominate quiet push for ‘a grand bargain that rearranges the entire financial order.’
  • By Dan Gainor
  • Wednesday, March 23, 2011 4:48 PM EDT

Two years ago, George Soros said he wanted to reorganize the entire global economic system. In two short weeks, he is going to start – and no one seems to have noticed.
On April 8, a group he’s funded with $50 million is holding a major economic conference and Soros’s goal for such an event is to “establish new international rules” and “reform the currency system.” It’s all according to a plan laid out in a Nov. 4, 2009, Soros op-ed calling for “a grand bargain that rearranges the entire financial order.”
The event is bringing together “more than 200 academic, business and government policy thought leaders’ to repeat the famed 1944 Bretton Woods gathering that helped create the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Soros wants a new ‘multilateral system,” or an economic system where America isn’t so dominant.
More than two-thirds of the slated speakers have direct ties to Soros. The billionaire who thinks “the main enemy of the open society, I believe, is no longer the communist but the capitalist threat” is taking no chances.
Thus far, this global gathering has generated less publicity than a spelling bee. And that’s with at least four journalists on the speakers list, including a managing editor for the Financial Times and editors for both Reuters and The Times. Given Soros’s warnings of what might happen without an agreement, this should be a big deal. But it’s not.
What is a big deal is that Soros is doing exactly what he wanted to do. His 2009 commentary pushed for “a new Bretton Woods conference, like the one that established the post-WWII international financial architecture.” And he had already set the wheels in motion.
Just a week before that op-ed was published, Soros had founded the New York City-based Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), the group hosting the conference set at the Mount Washington Resort, the very same hotel that hosted the first gathering. The most recent INET conference was held at Central European University, in Budapest. CEU received $206 million from Soros in 2005 and has $880 million in its endowment now, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.
This, too, is a gathering of Soros supporters. INET is bringing together prominent people like former U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker and Soros, to produce “a lot of high-quality, breakthrough thinking.”
While INET claims more than 200 will attend, only 79 speakers are listed on its site – and it already looks like a Soros convention. Twenty-two are on Soros-funded INET’s board and three more are INET grantees. Nineteen are listed as contributors for another Soros operation – Project Syndicate, which calls itself “the world’s pre-eminent source of original op-ed commentaries” reaching “456 leading newspapers in 150 countries.” It’s financed by Soros’s Open Society Institute. That’s just the beginning.
The speakers include: 

  • Volcker is chairman of President Obama’s Economic Advisory Board. He wrote the forward for Soros’s best-known book, ‘The Alchemy of Finance‘ and praised Soros as “an enormously successful speculator” who wrote “with insight and passion” about the problems of globalization.
  • Economist Jeffrey Sachs, director of The Earth Institute and longtime recipient of Soros charity cash. Sachs received $50 million from Soros for the U.N. Millennium Project, which he also directs. Sachs is world-renown for his liberal economics. In 2009, for example, he complained about low U.S. taxes, saying the “U.S. will have to raise taxes in order to pay for new spending initiatives, especially in the areas of sustainable energy, climate change, education, and relief for the poor.”
  • Soros friend Joseph E. Stiglitz, a former senior vice president and chief economist for the World Bank and Nobel Prize winner in Economics. Stiglitz shares similar views to Soros and has criticized free-market economists whom he calls “free market fundamentalists.” Naturally, he’s on the INET board and is a contributor to Project Syndicate.
  • INET Executive Director Rob Johnson, a former managing director at Soros Fund Management, who is on the Board of Directors for the Soros-funded Economic Policy Institute. Johnson has complained that government intervention in the fiscal crisis hasn’t been enough and wanted “restructuring,” including asking “for letters of resignation from the top executives of all the major banks.”

Have no doubt about it: This is a Soros event from top to bottom. Even Soros admits his ties to INET are a problem, saying, “there is a conflict there which I fully recognize.” He claims he stays out of operations. That’s impossible. The whole event is his operation.
INET isn’t subtle about its aims for the conference. Johnson interviewed fellow INET board member Robert Skidelsky about “The Need for a New Bretton Woods” in a recent video. The introductory slide to the video is subtitled: “How currency issues and tension between the US and China are renewing calls for a global financial overhaul.” Skidelsky called for a new agreement and said in the video that the conflict between the United States and China was “at the center of any monetary deal that may be struck, that needs to be struck.”
Soros described in the 2009 op-ed that U.S.-China conflict as “another stark choice between two fundamentally different forms of organization: international capitalism and state capitalism.” He concluded that “a new multilateral system based on sounder principles must be invented.” As he explained it in 2010, “we need a global sheriff.”
In the 2000 version of his book “Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism,” Soros wrote how the Bretton Woods institutions “failed spectacularly” during the economic crisis of the late 1990s. When he called for a new Bretton Woods in 2009, he wanted it to “reconstitute the International Monetary Fund,” and while he’s at it, restructure the United Nations, too, boosting China and other countries at our expense.
“Reorganizing the world order will need to extend beyond the financial system and involve the United Nations, especially membership of the Security Council,’ he wrote. ‘That process needs to be initiated by the US, but China and other developing countries ought to participate as equals.”
Soros emphasized that point, that this needs to be a global solution, making America one among many. “The rising powers must be present at the creation of this new system in order to ensure that they will be active supporters.”
And that’s exactly the kind of event INET is delivering, with the event website emphasizing “today’s reconstruction must engage the larger European Union, as well as the emerging economies of Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Asia.” China figures prominently, including a senior economist for the World Bank in Beijing, the director of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the chief adviser for the China Banking Regulatory Commission and the Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations.
This is all easy to do when you have the reach of George Soros who funds more than 1,200 organizations. Except, any one of those 1,200 would shout such an event from the highest mountain. Groups like MoveOn.org or the Center for American Progress didn’t make their names being quiet. The same holds true globally, where Soros has given more than $7 billion to Open Society Foundations – including many media-savvy organizations just a phone call away. Why hasn’t the Soros network spread the word?
Especially since Soros warns, all this needs to happen because “the alternative is frightening.” The Bush-hating billionaire says America is scary “because a declining superpower losing both political and economic dominance but still preserving military supremacy is a dangerous mix.”
The Soros empire is silent about this new Bretton Woods conference because it isn’t just designed to change global economic rules. It also is designed to put America in its place – part of a multilateral world the way Soros wants it. He wrote that the U.S. “could lead a cooperative effort to involve both the developed and the developing world, thereby reestablishing American leadership in an acceptable form.”
That’s what this conference is all about – changing the global economy and the United States to make them “acceptable” to George Soros.
– Iris Somberg contributed to this commentary

Dan Gainor is the Boone Pickens Fellow and the Media Research Center’s Vice President for Business and Culture. His column appears each week on The Fox Forum. He can also be contacted on FaceBook and Twitter as dangainor.

 

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Is this the biggest crisis of all?

Posted by Admin on March 31, 2011

Proportion of CDSs nominals (lower left) held ...

Credit Default Swaps held by U.S.A Banks

http://in.finance.yahoo.com/news/Is-biggest-crisis-equitymaster-812900507.html

On Thursday 31 March 2011, 8:30 AM

We seem to be living in rather fragile times. There is too much going on in the world that can yet again derail the global economy. There’s the oil price and then there’s the Middle East turmoil. The Japan earthquake was a sorry addition to the list. And not to forget, the US economy is still not completely out of danger, trillions of dollars worth of injections not withstanding.

Clearly, the battle seems to be on as to what will really upset the applecart this time around. But what if we say the most likely candidate is not even in the list of events that we just discussed. It has somehow got pushed to the backburner.

But perhaps not anymore. Forbes adds that a severe escalation in Europe‘s credit crisis has the capacity to cause a repeat of the 2008 meltdown. Indeed, the chance that anyone or all of the so called PIIGS nations could default keeps rising by the day.

Not a week goes without something nasty taking place in any one of these nations. The latest issue to flare up has its roots in Portugal. Apparently, the parliament of the peripheral European nation recently voted against austerity measures of any kind. Not surprisingly, the ratings agencies swung into action and promptly downgraded the country’s sovereign debt ratings.

Other of the PIIGS may not be far behind. Already, Greece, Ireland and Portugal are commanding a heavy premium over the other two in the highly punitive Credit Default Swaps (CDS) market. CDS is nothing but an instrument that helps insure against defaults by corporate or sovereign bonds. Higher the premium, greater is the probability of a default.

Forbes adds that if Italian or Spanish CDSs start being grouped alongside Ireland and Portugal, it could signal a tipping point of sorts. This will then lead to a problem that will not be solvable by tossing another 100 billion Euros at the problem. And it will be not just sovereign bonds that will be on the line. It can have a huge impact on the European banking system. Not to forget the flight to safety attitude of investors that could spark a global sell off.

Thus, there you go. For the next few weeks, do not worry about the Japan tragedy much. Neither do fret about how high oil is headed next. Keep an eye on those troubled Euro nations. Particularly the risk premium they are commanding in the default market. And this would be the key to unlocking the mystery of the direction of the global economy.

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Libyan forces bombard rebels in the east and west

Posted by Admin on March 16, 2011

via Flickr”]Muammar al-Gaddafi  Mouammar Kadhafi  _DDC6346

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110316/ap_on_re_af/af_libya

By RYAN LUCAS and MAGGIE MICHAEL, Associated Press Ryan Lucas And Maggie Michael, Associated Press 26 mins ago

TOBRUK, LibyaMoammar Gadhafi intensified offensives in the east and the west Wednesday with relentless shelling aimed at routing holdout rebels and retaking control of the country he has ruled with an iron fist for more than four decades.

As Gadhafi’s forces gained momentum, the rebels lashed out at the West for failing to come to their aid.

“People are fed up. They are waiting impatiently for an international move,” said Saadoun al-Misrati, a rebel spokesman in the city of Misrata, the last rebel-held city in the west, which came under heavy shelling Wednesday.

“What Gadhafi is doing, he is exploiting delays by international community. People are very angry that no action is being taken against Gadhafi’s weaponry.”

The breakdown of rebel defenses in Ajdabiya, 480 miles (800 kilometers) southeast of Tripoli, threatened to open the gateway to the long stretch of eastern Libya that has been in the control of the opposition throughout the monthlong uprising. Its fall would allow regime forces to bombard Benghazi, Libya‘s second largest city and the de facto capital of the opposition, by air, sea and land.

Gadhafi’s forces continued shelling the city of 140,000 people overnight and throughout the morning with relentless artillery fire and little resistance from the rebels.

An activist hiding out in the city said the rebels were lightly armed but still managed to ambush a group of regime troops marching into the city on foot late Tuesday, but the victory was short lived. Artillery shelling was ongoing, he said.

“The rebels set a trap and managed to take over four tanks, but now I see none of them,” Abdel-Bari Zwei said when reached by telephone. “Ajdabiya is witnessing unprecedented destruction. This is the end of the city.”

Residents in Ajdabiya fled either to tents set up outside the city or 140 miles (200 kilometers) northeast to Benghazi.

“The shelling hasn’t stopped since last night. The residential areas are under attack,” Zwei said, adding that the hospital had been overwhelmed and many of the injured had to be taken to Benghazi.

The city was besieged from the west, where Gadhafi’s brigades were deployed from his stronghold of Sirte, and from the north with a warship in the Mediterranean Sea.

“The city is sealed off from the south, from the west and the northern Zwitina port by a warship,” he said.

Libyan state television aired calls for the opposition to stop fighting, apparently hoping to sway populations in the east away from support of the rebels.

Ajdabiya has been a key supply point for the rebellion, with ammunition and weapons depots. Until now, the Gadhafi forces’ offensive toward the east has battled over two oil ports on the Mediterranean Sea, and Ajdabiya is the first heavily populated city in the area they have tried to retake.

It was a major setback to the rebels, who less than two weeks ago were poised to march on Tripoli, the capital, and had appeared capable of sweeping Gadhafi out of power, inspired by successful uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia. But the regime’s better armed and organized military has reversed the tide as efforts led by France and Britain to create a no-fly zone to protect the rebels foundered.

Oil prices rose to above $98 a barrel Wednesday in Asia as fears that clashes in Libya and the Gulf kingdom of Bahrain could further disrupt crude supplies outweighed concern Japan’s disaster will crimp demand.

Gadhafi warned rebels: “There are only two possibilities: Surrender or run away.”

He said he was not like the Tunisian or Egyptian leaders who fell after anti-government protests. “I’m very different from them,” he said in an interview published Tuesday in the Italian newspaper Il Giornale. “People are on my side and give me strength.”

In a separate appearance, Gadhafi addressed supporters in Tripoli late Tuesday, calling the rebels “rats” and blasting Western nations. “They want Libyan oil,” he said.

During his appearance, a crowd watching on a TV projection on a wall in Benghazi shouted curses and threw shoes at the image, in video broadcast live by Al-Jazeera satellite TV.

Gadhafi’s forces also launched an attack on Misrata — which for days has been under a punishing blockade, its population running out of supplies. The barrage came a day after the government recaptured the last rebel-held city west of Tripoli, solidifying his control over the coastline from the capital to the Tunisian border.

“There is coordinated shelling by Gadhafi’s brigades firing artillery and machine guns from three different city entrances,” rebel spokesman Saadoun al-Misrati said, speaking by satellite phone.

He said the shelling began at 7 a.m. and regular telephone lines had been cut.

Europe and the United States, meanwhile, were tossing back and forth the question of whether to impose a no-fly zone that the opposition has pleaded for.

On Tuesday, top diplomats from some of the world’s biggest powers deferred to the U.N. Security Council to take action against Libya, as France and Britain failed to win support for a no-fly zone in the face of German opposition and U.S. reluctance. France said the Group of Eight agreed that a new U.N. resolution should be adopted by week’s end with measures to help Libyan rebels.

A U.N. resolution introduced Tuesday includes no-fly provisions. It also calls for increased enforcement of an arms embargo and freezing more Libyan assets, according to U.N. diplomats said who spoke on condition of anonymity because the text has not been released. One diplomat said the Security Council will be looking to see whether members of the Arab League, which is pressing for the no-fly zone, are ready to seriously participate in the establishment and operation of a zone.

The U.S. added sanctions Tuesday, banning business with Libya’s foreign minister and 16 companies it owns or controls.

__

Michael reported from Cairo.

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West moves to help Libya uprising, Gadhafi digs in

Posted by Admin on February 28, 2011

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110228/ap_on_re_af/af_libya

TRIPOLI, Libya – The U.S. military deployed naval and air units near Libya, and the West moved to send its first concrete aid to Libya’s rebellion in the east of the country, hoping to give it the momentum to oust Moammar Gadhafi. But the Libyan leader’s regime clamped down in its stronghold in the capital and appeared to be maneuvering to strike opposition-held cities.

In Washington, Defense Department spokesman Col. Dave Lapan said the naval and air forces were deployed to have flexibility as Pentagon planners worked on contingency plans, but did not elaborate. The U.S. has a regular military presence in the Mediterranean Sea.

The European Union slapped an arms embargo, visa ban and other sanctions on Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s regime, as British Prime Minister David Cameron told British lawmakers Monday he is working with allies on a plan to establish a military no-fly zone over Libya, since “we do not in any way rule out the use of military assets” to deal with Gadhafi’s embattled regime.

In the most direct U.S. demand for Gadhafi to step down, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the Libyan leader must leave power “now, without further violence or delay.”

France was sending two planes with humanitarian aid, including medicine and doctors, to Benghazi, the opposition stronghold in eastern Libya, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said. That would be the first direct Western aid to the uprising that has taken control of the entire eastern half of Libya. Fillon said it was the start of a “massive operation of humanitarian support” for the east and that Paris was studying “all solutions” — including military options.

The two sides in Libya’s crisis appeared entrenched in their positions, and the direction the uprising takes next could depend on which can hold out longest. Gadhafi is dug in in Tripoli and nearby cities, backed by security forces and militiamen who are generally better armed than the military. His opponents, holding the east and much of the country’s oil infrastructure, also have pockets in western Libya near Tripoli. They are backed by mutinous army units, but those forces appear to have limited supplies of ammunition and weapons.

In the two opposition-held cities closest to Tripoli — Zawiya and Misrata — rebel forces were locked in standoffs with Gadhafi loyalists.

An Associated Press reporter saw a large pro-Gadhafi force massed on the western edge of Zawiya, some 30 miles (50 kilometers) west of Tripoli, with about a dozen armored vehicles and tanks and jeeps mounted with anti-aircraft guns. An officer said they were from the elite Khamis Brigade, named after the Gadhafi son who commands it. U.S. diplomats have said the brigade is the best equipped force in Libya.

Residents inside the city said they were anticipating a possible attack.

“Our people are waiting for them to come and, God willing, we will defeat them,” one resident who only wanted to be quoted by his first name, Alaa, told AP in Cairo by telephone.

In Misrata, Libya’s third largest city 125 miles (200 kilometers) east of Tripoli, Gadhafi troops who control part of an air base on the city’s outskirts tried to advance Monday. But they were repelled by opposition forces, who include residents armed with automatic weapons and army unites allied with them, one of the opposition fighters said.

He said there were no casualties reported in the clashes and claimed that his side had captured eight soldiers, including a senior officer.

The opposition controls most of the air base, and the fighter said dozens of anti-Gadhafi gunmen have arrived from further east in recent days as reinforcements.

Several residents of the eastern city of Ajdabiya said Gadhafi’s air force also bombed an ammunition depot nearby held by the opposition. One, 17-year-old Abdel-Bari Zwei, reported intermittent explosions and a fire, and another, Faraj al-Maghrabi, said the facility was partially damaged. The site contains bombs, missiles and ammunition — key for the undersupplied opposition military forces.

State TV carried a statement by Libya’s Defense Ministry denying any attempt to bomb the depot. Ajdabiya lies about 450 miles (750 kilometers) east of Tripoli along the Mediterranean coast.

Gadhafi opponents have moved to consolidate their hold in the east, centered on Benghazi — Libya’s second largest city, where the uprising began. Politicians there on Sunday set up their first leadership council to manage day-to-day affairs, taking a step toward forming what could be an alternative to Gadhafi’s regime.

The opposition is backed by numerous units of the military in the east that joined the uprising, and they hold several bases and Benghazi’s airport. But so far, the units do not appear to have melded into a unified fighting force. Gadhafi long kept the military weak, fearing a challenge to his rule, so many units are plagued by shortages of supplies and ammunition.

Gadhafi supporters said Monday that they were in control of the city of Sabratha, west of Tripoli, which has seemed to go back and forth between the two camps the past week. Several residents told The Associated Press that protesters set fire to a police station, but then were dispersed. Anti-Gadhafi graffiti — “Down with the enemy of freedom” and “Libya is free, Gadhafi must leave” — were scrawled on some walls, but residents were painting them over.

In the capital, several hundred protesters started a march in the eastern district of Tajoura, which has been the scene of frequent clashes. After the burial of a person killed in gunfire last week, mourners began to march down a main street, chanting against the Libyan leader and waving the flag of Libya’s pre-Gadhafi monarchy, which has become a symbol of the uprising, a witness said.

But they quickly dispersed once a brigade of pro-Gadhafi fighters rushed to the scene, scattering before the gunmen could fire a shot, the witness said. He and other residents in the capital spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

There were attempts to restore aspects of normalcy in the capital, residents said. Many stores downtown reopened, and traffic in the streets increased.

Tripoli was in turmoil on Friday, when residents said gunmen opened fire indiscriminately on protesters holding new marches. But since then, the capital has been quiet — especially since foreign journalists invited by Gadhafi’s regime to view the situation arrived Friday.

Long lines formed outside banks in the capital by Libyans wanting to receive the equivalent of $400 per family that Gadhafi pledged in a bid to shore up public loyalty.

One resident said pro-Gadhafi security forces man checkpoints around the city of 2 million and prowl the city for any sign of unrest. She told The Associated Press that the price of rice, a main staple, has gone up 500 percent amid the crisis, reaching the equivalent of $40 for a five-kilogram (10-pound) bag.

Bakeries are limited to selling five loaves of bread per family, and most butcher shops are closed, she said.

Some schools reopened, but only for a half day and attendance was low. “My kids are too afraid to leave home and they even sleep next to me at night,” said Sidiq al-Damjah, 41 and father of three. “I feel like I’m living a nightmare.”

Gadhafi has launched by far the bloodiest crackdown in a wave of anti-government uprisings sweeping the Arab world, the most serious challenge to his four decades in power. The United States, Britain and the U.N. Security Council all slapped sanctions on Libya this weekend.

In Geneva, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was meeting Monday with foreign ministers from Britain, France, Germany and Italy, pressing for tough sanctions on the Libyan government. A day earlier, Clinton kept up pressure for Gadhafi to step down and “call off the mercenaries” and other troops that remain loyal to him.

“We’ve been reaching out to many different Libyans who are attempting to organize in the east and as the revolution moves westward there as well,” Clinton said. “I think it’s way too soon to tell how this is going to play out, but we’re going to be ready and prepared to offer any kind of assistance that anyone wishes to have from the United States.”

Two U.S. senators said Washington should recognize and arm a provisional government in rebel-held areas of eastern Libya and impose a no-fly zone over the area — enforced by U.S. warplanes — to stop attacks by the regime. But Fillon said a no-fly zone needed U.N. support “which is far from being obtained today.”

Sabratha, 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of Tripoli — a city known for nearby Roman ruins — showed signs of the tug-of-war between the two camps. On Monday, when the journalists invited to Libya by the government visited, many people were lined up at banks to collect their $400. When they saw journalists, they chanted, “God, Moammar and Libya.”

Ali Mohammed, a leader from the Alalqa tribe, the main tribe in the area, said in previous days Gadhafi opponents burned the main police station, an Internal Security office and the People’s Hall, where the local administration meets. “I then held a meeting with the protesters to stop these acts the people said they will control their children and since then there has been no problems,” he said.

“The thugs and rats were roaming the streets and they attacked the police station and then they disappeared,” said resident Taher Ali, who was collecting his $400. “They are rats and thugs. We are all with Moammar.”

An anti-Gadhafi activist in Sabratha told The Associated Press in Cairo by telephone that the opposition raided the police station and security offices last week for weapons, and had dominated parts of city. But then on Sunday, a large force of pro-Gadhafi troops deployed in the city, “so we withdrew,” he said.

“The city is not controlled by us or them. There are still skirmishes going on,” he said.

In Tripoli, a government spokesman blamed the West and Islamic militants for the upheaval, saying they had hijacked and escalated what he said began as “genuine” but small protests demanding “legitimate aand much needed political improvements.”

“On one hand, Islamists love to see chaos … this is paradise for them,” he said. “The West wants chaos to give them reason to intervene militarily to control the oil.”

“The Islamists want Libya to be their Afghanistan … to complete their crescent of terror,” he said. “This is not the first time the Islamic militants and the west find common cause.”

___

AP correspondents Hamza Hendawi, Bassem Mroue and Ben Hubbard in Cairo, and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.

 

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Gunfire pounds anti-Mubarak protest camp in Cairo

Posted by Admin on February 3, 2011

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110203/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_egypt

CAIROHeavy automatic weapons fire pounded the anti-government protest camp in Cairo‘s Tahrir Square before dawn on Thursday in a dramatic escalation of what appeared to be a well-orchestrated series of assaults on the demonstrators. At least three protesters were killed by gunfire, according to one of the activists.

The crowds seeking an end to President Hosni Mubarak’s nearly three decades in power were still reeling from attacks hours earlier in which Mubarak supporters charged into the square on horses and camels, lashing people with whips, while others rained firebombs and rocks from rooftops.

The protesters accused Mubarak’s regime of unleashing a force of paid thugs and plainclothes police to crush their unprecedented nine-day-old movement, a day after the 82-year-old president refused to step down. They showed off police ID badges they said were wrested from their attackers. Some government workers said their employers ordered them into the streets.

The violence intensified overnight, as sustained bursts of automatic gunfire and powerful single shots rained into the square starting at around 4 a.m. and continuing for more than two hours.

Protest organizer Mustafa el-Naggar said he saw the bodies of three dead protesters being carried toward an ambulance. He said the gunfire came from at least three locations in the distance and that the Egyptian military, which has ringed the square with tank squads for days to try to keep some order, did not intervene.

Footage from AP Television News showed one tank spreading a thick smoke screen along a highway overpass just to the north of the square in an apparent attempt to deprive attackers of a high vantage point. The two sides seemed to be battling for control of the overpass, which leads to a main bridge over the Nile.

In the darkness, groups of men hurled firebombs and rocks from the bridge, where a wrecked car sat engulfed in flames. Others dragged two apparently lifeless bodies from the area.

Egypt‘s health minister did not answer a phone call seeking confirmation of the number killed.

Click image to see photos of anti-government protests in Egypt

At daybreak, the two sides were still battling with rocks and flaming bottles of gasoline along the front line on the northern edge of the square, near the famed Egyptian Museum.

Demonstrators took cover behind makeshift barricades of corrugated metal sheeting taken from a nearby construction site and Mubarak supporters seemed to hold their ground on the overpass. Between them stretched a burning no-man’s-land of smoldering cars, hunks of concrete and fires.

The fighting began more than 12 hours earlier, turning the celebratory atmosphere in the square over the previous day into one of terror and sending a stream of wounded to makeshift clinics in mosques and alleyways on the anti-government side. Three people died in the violence on Wednesday and 600 were injured.

Mustafa el-Fiqqi, a senior official from the ruling National Democratic Party, told The Associated Press that businessmen connected to the ruling party were responsible for what happened.

The notion that the state may have coordinated violence against protesters, who had kept a peaceful vigil in Tahrir Square for five days, prompted a sharp rebuke from the Obama administration.

“If any of the violence is instigated by the government, it should stop immediately,” said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

The clashes marked a dangerous new phase in Egypt’s upheaval: the first significant violence between government supporters and opponents. The crisis took a sharp turn for the worse almost immediately after Mubarak rejected the calls for him to give up power or leave the country, stubbornly proclaiming he would die on Egyptian soil.

His words were a blow to the protesters. They also suggest that authorities want to turn back the clock to the tight state control enforced before the protests began.

Mubarak’s supporters turned up on the streets Wednesday in significant numbers for the first time. Some were hostile to journalists and foreigners. Two Associated Press correspondents and several other journalists were roughed up in Cairo. State TV had reported that foreigners were caught distributing anti-Mubarak leaflets, apparently trying to depict the movement as foreign-fueled.

The scenes of mayhem were certain to add to the fear that is already running high in this capital of 18 million people after a weekend of looting and lawlessness and the escape of thousands of prisoners from jails in the chaos.

Soldiers surrounding Tahrir Square fired occasional shots in the air throughout Wednesday’s clashes but did not appear to otherwise intervene and no uniformed police were seen. Most of the troops took shelter behind or inside the armored vehicles and tanks stationed at the entrances to the square.

“Why don’t you protect us?” some protesters shouted at the soldiers, who replied they did not have orders to do so and told people to go home.

“The army is neglectful. They let them in,” said Emad Nafa, a 52-year-old among the protesters, who for days had showered the military with affection for its neutral stance.

Some of the worst street battles raged near the Egyptian Museum at the edge of the square. Pro-government rioters blanketed the rooftops of nearby buildings and hurled bricks and firebombs onto the crowd below — in the process setting a tree ablaze inside the museum grounds. Plainclothes police at the building entrances prevented anti-Mubarak protesters from storming up to stop them.

The two sides pummeled each other with chunks of concrete and bottles at each of the six entrances to the sprawling plaza, where 10,000 anti-Mubarak protesters tried to fend off more than 3,000 attackers who besieged them. Some on the pro-government side waved machetes, while the square’s defenders filled the air with a ringing battlefield din by banging metal fences with sticks.

In one almost medieval scene, a small contingent of pro-Mubarak forces on horseback and camels rushed into the anti-government crowds, trampling several people and swinging whips and sticks. Protesters dragged some riders from their mounts, throwing them to the ground and beating their faces bloody. The horses and camels appeared to be ones used to give tourists rides around Cairo.

Dozens of men and women pried up pieces of the pavement with bars and ferried the piles of ammunition in canvas sheets to their allies at the front. Others directed fighters to streets needing reinforcements.

The protesters used a subway station as a makeshift prison for the attackers they managed to catch. They tied the hands and legs of their prisoners and locked them inside. People grabbed one man who was bleeding from the head, hit him with their sandals and threw him behind a closed gate.

Some protesters wept and prayed in the square where only a day before they had held a joyous, peaceful rally of a quarter-million, the largest demonstration so far.

Egyptian Health Minister Ahmed Sameh Farid said three people died and at least 611 were injured in Tahrir Square on Wednesday. One of those killed fell from a bridge near the square; Farid said the man was in civilian clothes but may have been a member of the security forces.

Farid did not say how the other two victims, both young men, were killed. It was not clear whether they were government supporters or anti-Mubarak demonstrators.

After years of tight state control, protesters emboldened by the uprising in Tunisia took to the streets on Jan. 25 and mounted a once-unimaginable series of demonstrations across this nation of 80 million. For the past few days, protesters who camped out in Tahrir Square reveled in a new freedom — publicly expressing their hatred for the Mubarak regime.

“After our revolution, they want to send people here to ruin it for us,” said Ahmed Abdullah, a 47-year-old lawyer in the square.

Another man shrieked through a loudspeaker: “Hosni has opened the door for these thugs to attack us.”

The pressure for demonstrators to clear the square mounted throughout the day, beginning early when a military spokesman appeared on state TV and asked them to disperse so life in Egypt could get back to normal.

It was a change in attitude by the army, which for the past few days had allowed protests to swell with no interference and even made a statement saying they had a legitimate right to demonstrate peacefully.

Then the regime began to rally its supporters in significant numbers for the first time, demanding an end to the protest movement. Some 20,000 Mubarak supporters held an angry but mostly peaceful rally on Wednesday across the Nile River from Tahrir, responding to calls on state TV.

They said Mubarak’s concessions were enough. He has promised not to run for re-election in September, named a new government and appointed a vice president for the first time, widely considered his designated successor.

They were bitter at the jeers hurled at Mubarak.

“I feel humiliated,” said Mohammed Hussein, a 31-year-old factory worker. “He is the symbol of our country. When he is insulted, I am insulted.”

The anti-Mubarak movement has vowed to intensify protests to force him out by Friday.

State TV said Vice President Omar Suleiman called “on the youth to heed the armed forces’ call and return home to restore order.” From the other side, senior anti-Mubarak figure Mohamed ElBaradei demanded the military “intervene immediately and decisively to stop this massacre.”

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke with Suleiman to condemn the violence and urge Egypt’s government to hold those responsible for it accountable, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said.

___

AP correspondents Sarah El Deeb, Hamza Hendawi, Diaa Hadid, Lee Keath, Michael Weissenstein and Maggie Michael contributed to this report.

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AP Interview: CG admiral asks for Arctic resources

Posted by Admin on October 19, 2010

ABOVE NORTHERN ALASKA – The ice-choked reaches of the northern Arctic Ocean aren’t widely perceived as an international shipping route. But global warming is bringing vast change, and Russia, for one, is making an aggressive push to establish top of the world sea lanes.

This year, a Russian ship carrying up to 90,000 metric tons of gas condensate sailed across the Arctic and through the Bering Strait to the Far East. Last year, a Russian ship went the other way, leaving from South Korea with industrial parts. Russia plans up to eight such trips next year, using oil-type tankers with reinforced hulls to break through the ice.

All of which calls for more U.S. Coast Guard facilities and equipment in the far north to secure U.S. claims and prepare for increased human activity, according to Rear Admiral Christopher C. Colvin, who is in charge of all Coast Guard operations in Alaska and surrounding waters.

“We have to have presence up there to protect our claims for the future, sovereignty claims, extended continental shelf claims,” Colvin told The Associated Press in a wide-ranging interview conducted aboard a C-130 on a lumbering flight to the Arctic Ocean.

The advent of Russian shipping across the Arctic is of particular concern to Alaska and the U.S. because “there’s one way in and out of the Arctic Ocean for over half the world, and that’s the Bering Strait,” Colvin said.

The 56-mile wide strait lies between northwestern Alaska and Siberia, separating the North American and Asian continents and connecting the Bering Sea to the Arctic Ocean.

“The Bering Strait will end up becoming a significant marine highway in the future, and we’re seeing it with Russia, the way they are promoting this maritime transportation route above Russia right now, today.”

Warming has facilitated such travel. The National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado reported last month that Arctic sea ice coverage was recorded at a summer low of 1.84 million square miles. It said sea ice melted to the third-lowest level since satellite monitoring began in 1979.

More open water is something Colvin’s veteran icebreaker captains confirm.

They’re also concerned about the state of their fleet.

The Coast Guard has three icebreakers, of which only one — the Healy — is operational. The two other icebreakers, the Polar Sea and the Polar Star — “are broken right now,” Colvin said. Both are docked in Seattle, with the Polar Sea expected back in service next June. The Polar Star isn’t expected back until 2013.

Help could be on the way. A bill that awaits President Obama’s signature would have the government conduct a 90-day review of the icebreaker fleet, looking at possibly renovating the current fleet and building new icebreakers.

Colvin said it’s imperative the Coast Guard has icebreakers operating in the Arctic, and not only to have a presence there to protect U.S. claims.

“We need to have U.S. vessels with U.S. scientists operating in the U.S. Arctic, conducting research,” he said.

Such research was the basis for last week’s flight to the Arctic Ocean, deploying two buoys to collect information from both ice floes and the open ocean. However, the buoys in the University of Washington project failed. The first was not deployed after a malfunction aboard the C-130, and the other did not transmit data after it was dropped out the back of the plane and fluttered to the open water via a parachute.

Icebreakers aren’t the only need for the Coast Guard. It also needs operations in northern Alaska since the closest base is in Kodiak, about 1,000 miles to the south.

“What I’d like to see someday is a hangar in Barrow,” he said of the nation’s northernmost city. It would have to be large enough to house a Coast Guard C-130 and perhaps H60 helicopters.

He bases that need on an incident in October 2008 when the Coast Guard flew one of the cargo planes to theNorth Pole. They had to stop on the way back in Barrow, and left the airplane outside overnight.

Arctic temperatures caused the seals on the propellers to freeze, forcing a four-day delay to fly mechanics to Barrow to change out all the seals.

“That just doesn’t work. We really need a structure that we can put our C-130s in to protect them when we come up here and operate,” he said.

Adventurers going to the opening Arctic are another reality for the Coast Guard. Two years ago, seven people went to the Arctic, including two people who had to be rescued while trying to kayak across the Bering Straight. This year, 18 thrillseekers ventured north. Future rescues are a certainty as more people venture to the Arctic.

“I’m sure people will say, ‘Why are we going to waste U.S. government money on a rescue?'” Colvin said. “But you know, that’s our responsibility, our requirements to rescue anybody that does get in distress.”

This month, Shell Oil said it has applied for one exploration well in the Beaufort Sea off Alaska’s north coast and will seek a permit for a second.

While Colvin said he is always concerned about a possible oil spill, he’s not as wary about oil exploratory operations in the summer months in open Arctic water.

“Open water, summer months, 24 hours of daylight, shallow water, that’s been done successfully throughout the world, I’m not particularly concerned about that,” he said.

“Where I become concerned is year-round production in the winter months up in the Arctic,” Colvin said, adding more science, research and information is needed before moving forward.

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New Obama security adviser clashed with military

Posted by Admin on October 8, 2010

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama named close aide Tom Donilon as his top security adviser on Friday, elevating a skeptic of the U.S. troop surge in Afghanistan to coordinate a major review of the war.

Donilon, 55, was among Obama’s advisers reported to have counseled the president last year to resist Pentagon requests for a larger troop increase to combat Taliban militants. Obama eventually agreed to send an extra 30,000 soldiers.

“Those of us who support the war effort maybe should be a wee bit concerned,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the BrookingsInstitution.

The president told congressional leaders in a letter this week he had no plans for any major changes in his Afghanistan war strategy, at least for now. A comprehensive review of that strategy is set for December.

Obama ordered the extra 30,000 troops to Afghanistan last December but also announced they would start coming home in July 2011. His plan calls for stepped-up training of Afghan forces to take over increasing responsibility from foreign troops in the war that began in late 2001.

At a White House ceremony, Obama praised outgoing national security adviser Jim Jones, a former Marine general, calling him a dedicated public servant who had held one of the most difficult jobs in the administration.

Naming Donilon as his replacement, Obama said: “We have some huge challenges ahead. We remain a country at war.”

At a Pentagon briefing, Defense Secretary Robert Gates tried to play down suggestions of tensions with Donilon, after he was quoted as saying in a new book that Donilon would be a “disaster” as national security adviser.

“I have and have had a very productive and very good working relationship with Tom Donilon, contrary to what you may have read, and I look forward to continue working with him,” Gates said.

The resignation of Jones had been expected as part of a mid-term reshuffle at the White House, although he was thought to be going after the November 2 congressional election.

Gates has signaled his intention to resign sometime in 2011. Admiral Mike Mullen, the top U.S. military officer, is also expected to retire.

The series of departures will give Obama an opportunity to reshape his national security team as the United States tries to find an exit strategy from the unpopular war in Afghanistan, to wind down the war in Iraq and to pursue a multi-pronged strategy to end nuclear standoffs with Iran and North Korea.

(Additional reporting by Caren Bohan and David Alexander; Editing by John O’Callaghan)

 

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Ahmadinejad calls for US leaders to be 'buried'

Posted by Admin on October 3, 2010

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran’s president Sunday called for U.S. leaders to be “buried” in response to what he says are American threats of military attack against Tehran’s nuclear program.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is known for brash rhetoric in addressing the West, but in a speech Sunday he went a step further using a deeply offensive insult in response to U.S. statements that the military option against Iran is still on the table.

“May the undertaker bury you, your table and your body, which has soiled the world,” he said using language in Iran reserved for hated enemies.

Several top U.S. officials including Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff have said in recent months that the military option remains on the table and there is a plan to attack Iran, although a military strike has been described as a bad idea.

The crowd of military men and clerics in the town of Hashtgerd just west of the capital chuckled at the president’s insult and applauded.

The speech was broadcast by both state television and the official English-language Press TV, but the latter glossed over the insult in the simultaneous translation.

Ahmadinejad’s remarks come in sharp contrast to ones he made to Al-Jazeera Arabic news channel in August in which he offered the U.S. Iran’s friendship.

In Sunday’s speech, Ahmadinejad also questioned once more who was behind the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S. and said they gave Washington a pretext for seeking to dominate the region and plunder its oil wealth.

During his speech in front of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, he said a majority of people in the U.S. and around the world believe the American government staged the attacks, drawing a strong rebuke from President Barack Obama.

Ahmadinejad often resorts to provocative statements to lash out enemies. He has already compared the power of Iran’s enemies to a “mosquito,” saying Iran deals with the West over its nuclear activities from a position of power and he has likened the United States to a “farm animal trapped in a quagmire” in Afghanistan.

Iran also condemned the latest U.S. sanctions slapped on eight Iranian officials Wednesday, saying they show American interference in Tehran’s domestic affairs.

Washington this week imposed travel and financial sanctions on the eight Iranians, accusing them of taking part in human rights abuses during the turmoil following Iran’s June 2009 presidential election.

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Musharraf says to return to Pakistan politics

Posted by Admin on October 2, 2010

Musharraf says to return to Pakistan politics ... Fri, Oct 1 06:29 PM

Pakistan’s former military ruler Pervez Musharraf said on Friday he will return to lead a new political party to tackle corruption, revive the sluggish economy and step up the fight against Islamist militants.

Musharraf, who quit office in 2008 to avoid impeachment charges, said he feared the nuclear-armed country could break up without a change of political leadership.

Pakistan is a frontline state in the United States‘ fight against Islamist militancy in the region, but questions about Islamabad’s commitment to the campaign have raised tensions between the two countries.

“When there is a dysfunctional government and the nation is going down and its economy is going down…there is a pressure on the military from the people,” he told BBC radio.

“There is a sense of despondency spreading in Pakistan. We cannot allow Pakistan to disintegrate. So who is the saviour? The army can do it. Nobody else can do it.”

London-based Musharraf, who took power in a military coup in 1999, denied that he faced arrest for treason if he returns to Pakistan, although he said he did fear assassination attempts.

“There is no charge against me, whoever thinks like that doesn’t know the reality,” he said. “There are other dangers.”

Asked when he would return, Musharraf said it would be before the next elections, due by 2013.

“I won’t wait until 2013,” he said. “The stronger I am politically, the more grounds there will be for me to go.”

He warned that a Taliban insurgency could engulf Pakistan unless the government takes a stronger stance.

“If we don’t curb it, there is a possibility that we keep going down and it could end up destroying (the country),” he told BBC radio. “If the armed forces of Pakistan don’t want that, it will never end up destroying Pakistan.”

Musharraf has talked of re-entering politics several times over the past year. Since leaving Pakistan, he has spent most of his time in Britain and the United States.

His popularity waned after he clashed with the judiciary and imposed a six-week stint of emergency rule in 2007 to thwart opposition to his efforts to secure another term. An alliance with the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks was also deeply unpopular with many voters.

Political analyst Hasan Askari Rizvi said Musharraf’s prospects in Pakistani politics were weak — at least for now.

“Traditionally, military rulers have not succeeded in popular politics, including those who went to the opposition,” he said. “He’ll have to come back and demonstrate his support. While sitting in London you can’t really do politics.”

Political commentator Najam Sethi said Musharraf’s new party faced big hurdles.

“Musharraf does have a constituency but since the two mainstream parties, the media and the judiciary are against him, the short-term prospects don’t look good,” he said.

(Reporting by Peter Griffiths in London and Augustine Anthony in Islamabad; Editing by Louise Ireland)

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Mattis New Centcom Commander

Posted by Admin on July 15, 2010

I’m sure the appointment of Gen. James Mattis, previously head of U.S. Joint Forces Command, to succeed Gen. David Petraus at Centcom makes sense somehow but his gaffes in past commands dismay me.  The video tells the story and the article below it amplifies.

Among them:

“Actually, it’s a lot of fun to fight. You know it’s a helluva hoot. I’ll be right up front with you. I like brawling. You go into Afghanistan, you get guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil … guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them.”

Where is discernment here? Where is due process?  How does a crime perpetrated by some people translate into a death sentence for all people?

The clip of his speech is being shown throughout the Muslim world. Gen. Mattis moves into a position that depends on trust. I can’t say I’m optimistic about his chances of success.

It’s fun to kill in Afghanistan, says top US commander

By Kim Sengupta, Defence Correspondent

10 July 2010

The Independent

http://tinyurl.com/3ae6svx

The US military, still recovering from the shock of the sacking of General Stanley McChrystal, its top commander in Afghanistan – is facing fresh problems over revelations that another top commander declared that it was “fun to shoot people” in Afghanistan.

A video of General James Mattis making his comments was yesterday spreading through the Muslim world at a fraught time in Afghanistan for the US and it’s Western allies. General Mattis has been named as successor to General David Petreaus as head of US Central Command. General Petraeus is moving to Afghanistan after McChrystal’s sacking over derogatory remarks made about President Obama to Rolling Stone magazine. But General Mattis has yet to be confirmed by the US Senate. The general led the controversial US military assault on the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004.

The comments which have come back to haunt him were made at a leadership seminar in 2005. He said: “Actually, it’s a lot of fun to fight. You know it’s a helluva hoot. I’ll be right up front with you. I like brawling. You go into Afghanistan, you get guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil … guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them.”

Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, said that the remarks were made five years ago and General Mattis had learnt his lesson. But one senior American officer serving in Kabul, said: “This is not what we want to see happen after a very difficult time in the campaign. But we don’t think the Senate will block his appointment.

“The fact is people in the forces tend not to speak like bishops. We’ll have to make clear to Afghans that what he was talking about related to the Taliban, who oppress women, and certainly not Afghans and Muslims as a whole.”

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