Birth Pangs of Matthew 24, Jan. 16-19, 2007

[Shammu]

Israeli, Syrian representatives reach secret understandings
By Akiva Eldar, Haaretz Correspondent

In a series of secret meetings in Europe between September 2004 and July 2006, Syrians and Israelis formulated understandings for a peace agreement between Israel and Syria.

The main points of the understandings are as follows:

An agreement of principles will be signed between the two countries, and following the fulfillment of all commitments, a peace agreement will be signed.

As part of the agreement on principles, Israel will withdraw from the Golan Heights to the lines of 4 June, 1967. The timetable for the withdrawal remained open: Syria demanded the pullout be carried out over a five-year period, while Israel asked for the withdrawal to be spread out over 15 years.

At the buffer zone, along Lake Kinneret, a park will be set up for joint use by Israelis and Syrians. The park will cover a significant portion of the Golan Heights. Israelis will be free to access the park and their presence will not be dependent on Syrian approval.

Israel will retain control over the use of the waters of the Jordan River and Lake Kinneret.

The border area will be demilitarized along a 1:4 ratio (in terms of territory) in Israel's favor.

According to the terms, Syria will also agree to end its support for Hezbollah and Hamas and will distance itself from Iran.

The document is described as a "non-paper," a document of understandings that is not signed and lacks legal standing - its nature is political. It was prepared in August 2005 and has been updated during a number of meetings in Europe.

The meetings were carried out with the knowledge of senior officials in the government of former prime minister Ariel Sharon. The last meeting took place during last summer's war in Lebanon.

Government officials received updates on the meetings via the European mediator and also through Dr. Alon Liel, a former director general at the Foreign Ministry, who took part in all the meetings.

The European mediator and the Syrian representative in the discussions held eight separate meetings with senior Syrian officials, including Vice President Farouk Shara, Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, and a Syrian intelligence officer with the rank of "general."

The contacts ended after the Syrians demanded an end to meetings on an unofficial level and called for a secret meeting at the level of deputy minister, on the Syrian side, with an Israeli official at the rank of a ministry's director general, including the participation of a senior American official. Israel did not agree to this Syrian request.

The Syrian representative in the talks, Ibrahim (Abe) Suleiman, an American citizen, had visited Jerusalem and delivered a message to senior officials at the Foreign Ministry regarding the Syrian wish for an agreement with Israel. The Syrians also asked for help in improving their relations with the United States, and particularly in lifting the American embargo on Syria.

For his part, the European mediator stressed that the Syrian leadership is concerned that the loss of petroleum revenues will lead to an economic crash in the country and could consequently undermine the stability of the Assad regime.

According to Geoffrey Aronson, an American from the Washington-based Foundation for Middle East Peace, who was involved in the talks, an agreement under American auspices would call for Syria to ensure that Hezbollah would limit itself to being solely a political party.

He also told Haaretz that Khaled Meshal, Hamas' political bureau chief, based in Damascus, would have to leave the Syrian capital.

Syria would also exercise its influence for a solution to the conflict in Iraq, through an agreement between Shi'a leader Muqtada Sadr and the Sunni leadership, and in addition, it would contribute to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including the refugee problem.

Aronson said the idea of a park on the Golan Heights allows for the Syrian demand that Israel pull back to the June 4 border, on the one hand, while on the other hand, the park eliminates Israeli concerns that Syrians will have access to the water sources of Lake Kinneret.

"This was a serious and honest effort to find creative solutions to practical problems that prevented an agreement from being reached during Barak's [tenure as prime minister] and to create an atmosphere of building confidence between the two sides," he said.

It also emerged that one of the Syrian messages to Israel had to do with the ties between Damascus and Tehran. In the message, the Alawi regime - the Assad family being members of the Alawi minority - asserts that it considers itself to be an integral part of the Sunni world and that it objects to the Shi'a theocratic regime, and is particularly opposed to Iran's policy in Iraq. A senior Syrian official stressed that a peace agreement with Israel will enable Syria to distance itself from Iran.

Liel refused to divulge details about the meetings but confirmed that they had taken place. He added that meetings on an unofficial level have been a fairly common phenomenon during the past decade.

"We insisted on making the existence of meetings known to the relevant parties," Liel said. "Nonetheless, there was no official Israeli connection to the content of the talks and to the ideas that were raised during the meetings."

Prior to these meetings, Liel was involved in an effort to further secret talks between Syria and Israel with the aid of Turkish mediation - following a request for assistance President Assad had made to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

That attempt failed following Israel's refusal to hold talks on an official level - and a Syrian refusal to restrict the talks to an "academic level," similar to the framework of the talks that had preceded the Oslo accords.

There was no initial formal response from the Prime Minister's Office after the story broke early on Tuesday. But the Israel Radio quoted unnamed senior Israeli officials as stating that Israel is not holding contacts with Syria.

Israeli, Syrian representatives reach secret understandings

[Shammu]

U.S. State Department Reveals North Korea’s Misuse of U.N. Development Program Funds and Operations

Friday , January 19, 2007

By George Russell

NEW YORK — Has North Korean leader Kim Jong Il subverted the United Nations Development Program, the $4 billion agency that is the U.N.’s main development arm, and possibly stolen tens of millions of dollars of hard currency in the process?

According to a top official of the U.S. State Department — using findings made by the U.N.’s own auditors — the answer appears to be a disturbing yes, so far as UNDP programs in North Korea itself are concerned.

And just as disturbingly, the U.N. aid agency bureaucracy has kept the scamming a secret since at least 1999 — while the North Korean dictator and his regime were ramping up their illegal nuclear weapons program and making highly publicized tests of intermediate range ballistic missiles.

Nothing was disclosed even to the UNDP Executive Board, which oversees its operations and is composed of representatives of 36 nations — including the United States and, this year, North Korea itself.

That fact is sure to be a bombshell at the Executive Board’s regular annual meeting, which begins Friday and extends through Jan. 26. Among the main items to be discussed is the $18 million, two-year UNDP budget in North Korea.

Moreover, the period of scandal and secrecy in the UNDP’s North Korean operations coincided in large measure with the tenure of Mark Malloch Brown, most recently Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations itself, as administrator of the UNDP.

Malloch Brown took over the UNDP in July 1999, and stayed in his post even after August 2005, when he also became chief of staff for then-U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who at the time was reeling under the effects of the Oil for Food scandal.

In March 2006, Malloch Brown took over as Deputy Secretary General from Louise Frechette, who suddenly left the U.N. ahead of schedule, after her own role in Oil for Food became widely known and criticized. Only then did Malloch Brown give up his UNDP fiefdom.

Malloch Brown left the U.N. along with Annan at the end of last year and has since been harshly critical of the Bush Administration and its former ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton, for their demands for greater U.N. transparency and reform.

From at least 1999 to at least 2004, it appears the UNDP, and the U.N. itself, had no idea what Kim Jong Il did with the aid agency’s money, ostensibly intended for aid programs ranging from development of energy programs and small and medium sized businesses, and for environmental protection.

But the UNDP had plenty of warnings from auditors it had contracted to look at the program during that period, and who signaled loudly that something was badly awry.

In a letter sent to the UNDP on Jan. 16, Mark Wallace, the U.S. State Department ambassador at the U.N. for management and reform, wrote that the auditors’ testimony shows it is “impossible” for the U.N. aid agency to verify whether its funds “have actually been used for bona fide development purposes or if the DPRK [North Korea] has converted such funds for its own illicit purposes.”

Click here to read U.S. Ambassador Mark Wallace's letter to the UNDP. (pdf)

Ironically enough, neither Wallace nor the U.S. government has been allowed to obtain copies of the audits, which are deemed “management tools” by UNDP bureaucrats and therefore not even available to governments that pay for the organization.

Their contents came to light only after Wallace and the U.S. demanded an opportunity to view the audits at UNDP headquarters, and took careful notes based on the documents. Wallace reiterated the contents in his letter, addressed to Ad Melkert, the UNDP’s No. 2 official.

The difficulties in finding out what the UNDP was doing in North Korea were apparently something that U.S. diplomats and UNDP auditors shared.

Wallace relates in his letter that whenever the auditors, contracted from the consulting firm KPMG, tried to discover what was going wrong, they were either limited in what they were allowed to investigate, or they were forced to accept “sham” audits done by the North Koreans themselves.

The picture painted by the auditors, according to Wallace, shows a U.N. agency that “operated in blatant violation of U.N. rules.”

The UNDP allowed members of Kim’s regime to “dominate” local UNDP staff, who were apparently first selected by the North Korean government itself, the auditors said, and added that Kim’s operatives even ran “core” financial and managerial functions directly.

The regime also demanded cash payments from the aid agency in violation of U.N. rules, and kept UNDP officials from visiting many of the sites where development projects were supposed to be underway.

On at least three occasions, in 1999, 2001 and 2004, the KPMG auditors filed reports that brought troubling aspects of the situation to the attention of UNDP headquarters, recommending “timely corrective action.” There is no evidence that any such action took place.

Just exactly how much money the UNDP funneled into North Korea in all those years is not revealed in Wallace’s letter. But he notes that in 1999 there were 29 ongoing UNDP projects in North Korea, with a total budget of $27.86 million. Two-thirds of the programs were so-called “National Execution programs” run by North Korea directly, using UNDP money. The other third was ostensibly run by UNDP itself.

But that may not have made a difference. The auditors complained that even UNDP-run programs paid for everything in cash, which is against UNDP policy, at prices set by the Kim regime, and to suppliers that the regime designated. There were not even any purchase orders involved. The regime provided no audits of the programs under its own direct control.

In his letter to Melkert, Wallace called for a “full independent and outside forensic audit” of UNDP’s programs in North Korea, going back to at least 1998.

Only “the bright light of real oversight” would allow the UNDP’s overseers to decide whether any or all of the programs should be continued, he said.

UPDATES:

In the wake of this FOX News story, Republicans in Congress have started to take up the issue. Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, ranking Republican member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called on the UNDP Friday to end its project funding in North Korea. She further called on newly inaugurated U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to hold accountable officials who had allowed the North Korean regime to control UNDP programming. "This is yet another example of the abuses made possible by the lack of accountability within the U.N. system," Ros-Lehtinen said.

A representative speaking for Ban Ki-Moon announced Friday that in response to the allegations regarding North Korea and the UNDP, the secretary-general has called for "an urgent, systemwide and external inquiry into all activities done around the globe done by the U.N. funds and programs."

U.S. State Department Reveals North Korea’s Misuse of U.N. Development Program Funds and Operations

[Shammu]

Saudis May Ban Letter ‘X’

A group of Islamic clergy in Saudi Arabia has condemned the letter "X” because of its similarity to a hated banned symbol – the cross.

The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which has the ultimate say in all legal, civil and governance matters in the kingdom, issued a fatwa, or religious edict, against the "X.” It came in response to a Ministry of Trade query about whether a Saudi businessman could be granted trademark protection for a new service with the English name "Explorer.”

The request from the businessman, Amru Mohammad Faisal, was turned down.

"Experts who examined the English word ‘explorer’ were struck by how suspicious that ‘X’ appeared,” Youssef Ibrahim writes in the New York Sun.

"In a kingdom where Friday preachers routinely refer to Christians as pigs and infidel crusaders, even a twisted cross ranks as an abomination.”

In response to the turndown, Faisal wrote an article that appeared on several Arabian Web sites, sarcastically suggesting that the authorities might consider banning the "plus” sign in mathematics because of its similarity to the cross.

Among the commission’s earlier edicts is the 1974 fatwa declaring that the Earth is flat.

Saudis May Ban Letter ‘X’

[Shammu]

Japan, Australia Ask China to Explain Space Missile (Update5)

By Paul Tighe and Takashi Hirokawa

Jan. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Japan and Australia asked China to explain the test firing of a missile into space that destroyed an obsolete Chinese weather satellite orbiting the Earth.

The satellite was hit by the missile on Jan. 11, Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council, said yesterday. Li Junhua, a Chinese envoy to the United Nations in New York, said in a telephone interview that he ``never heard of that.'' The Chinese Foreign Ministry didn't reply to fax and phone queries.

Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso said China should explain its actions while Australia summoned the Chinese ambassador in Canberra and asked for details of the test. The missile launch runs counter to the ``spirit of cooperation'' in civilian space exploration, the U.S. government said yesterday.

President George W. Bush signed a policy paper in October that asserts a U.S. right to use force against any countries or groups whose hostile acts disrupt American satellites.

The U.K. has ``raised concerns'' about the test and possible damage any debris may cause with Chinese authorities, Prime Minister Tony Blair's spokesman Tom Kelly told reporters. ``We don't believe it contravenes international law,'' Kelly said. ``We are concerned about the lack of consultation.''

U.S. government officials have said that some countries are acquiring capabilities to attack civilian and military space systems. While they declined to identify the countries, Defense News, an independent weekly publication, reported in September that China has been conducting tests aimed at blinding U.S. satellites with lasers.

Weather Satellite

The Feng Yun 1C polar orbit weather satellite was hit by a ``kinetic kill vehicle'' on board a ballistic missile fired from or near the Xichang Space Center, Aviation Week and Space Technology reported, citing unidentified individuals in the space field. U.S. intelligence agencies are working to obtain detailed data on the test, the publication said on its Web site.

``We and other countries have expressed our concern to the Chinese,'' said Johndroe.

Australia sought an explanation from the Chinese ambassador on Jan. 16 about China's future plans for developing and deploying weapons systems capable of destroying space assets, Scott Bolitho, public affairs officer at the department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said in an e-mailed statement.

``We're concerned about the militarization of outer space on the one hand and, secondly, we're concerned about the impact that debris from destroyed satellites could have on other satellites,'' Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said today, according to an e-mailed statement from the ministry.

No Chinese Comment

China's Foreign Ministry and the ambassador aren't aware of the issue and will ``get back to us and provide us with some information about it,'' he said. ``The Chinese, at this stage, are looking into it.''

The Japanese government is ``certainly concerned about the report in light of the need for peaceful use of space and security,'' Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki said at a regular press conference in Tokyo. Japan is asking China through its embassy in Beijing to explain its actions, he added.

The government hasn't concluded that China is a military threat, Shiozaki said, adding: ``I hope China takes into account that a lack of transparency will invite various speculation.''

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters that China has stated in the past its activities in space are peaceful. He declined to make a specific comment on the test.

Chinese Space Probe

China in 2003 became the third country, after the U.S. and Russia, to send a person into space aboard its own rocket. The communist country, fueled by the fastest-growing major economy, plans to send a robot to the moon to fetch lunar soil by 2017.

``American satellites are the soft underbelly of our national security,'' Representative Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said yesterday in a statement. ``It is urgent that President Bush move to guarantee their protection by initiating an international agreement to ban the development, testing, and deployment of space weapons and anti-satellite systems.''

The Chinese satellite was stationed about 500 miles (800 kilometers) above the Earth, and its debris may become a problem for other satellites, said Markey, the chairman of the House subcommittee on telecommunications and the Internet.

A cloud of debris may threaten vital U.S. space-based machines, he said. These include a constellation of 66 communications satellites on which commercial and military clients rely.

The U.S. is especially vulnerable to interference with its machines in space because it is so dependent on them. Power, water supply, gas and oil storage, banking and finance and government services rely on communications via satellites.

The military uses satellites for missile tracking, intelligence gathering and secure voice communications with troops on the ground.

Japan, Australia Ask China to Explain Space Missile

[Shammu]

Iran to start assembling centrifuges
Associated Press, THE JERUSALEM POST    Jan. 18, 2007

Iran is ready to start assembling 3,000 centrifuges to produce enriched uranium - a possible pathway to nuclear arms - after finishing most preliminary work on an underground facility housing such machines, a diplomat and a UN official said Thursday.

The two - who demanded anonymity in exchange for divulging confidential information - said much, but not all of the hardware needed for the installation of the centrifuges was now in place at the Natanz facility designated to house Teheran's industrial-scale enrichment program.

Both men emphasized that the facility had been ready for some time, and there was no sign that actual work on putting in the centrifuges would begin at any particular date.

Still, there has been speculation that the hard-line leadership might start doing so next month, to celebrate the 28th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution that brought the clerical leadership to power.

The revelations - based on reports by inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency visiting Natanz this week - appeared to strengthen claims from Teheran that it is moving toward large-scale enrichment involving 3,000 centrifuges, which spin uranium gas into enriched material. Low-enriched uranium can be used to generate power, while highly enriched levels serve as the fissile core of nuclear warheads.

"We are moving toward the production of nuclear fuel, which requires 3,000 centrifuges and more than this figure," government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham told reporters Monday. "This program is being carried out and moving toward completion."

Iran's leaders have suggested those machines would be in place by March 20, the end of the Iranian year. But the diplomat and official said quick completion of such a large-scale project was unlikely, describing the complicated process of setting up linked "cascades" of thousands of centrifuges that are needed to repeatedly spin uranium to varying degrees of enrichment as taking "months," even for countries with more technically advanced enrichment programs than the Islamic republic.

Another point of uncertainty is how many centrifuges Iran has assembled. The IAEA has not seen any beyond the few hundred Teheran has shown inspectors. But David Albright, whose Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security tracks Iran's nuclear activities, said Teheran technicians are likely to have built more than 1,000 of the machines at a secret location.

The United States and some of its allies accuse Iran of trying to produce nuclear weapons.
Iran denies this, saying its program is only for generating electricity. Teheran says that as a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, it has the right to develop a peaceful uranium enrichment program to produce nuclear power.

The IAEA has said it has found no evidence that Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons, but it has criticized the country for concealing certain nuclear activities, conducting experiments with possible links to weapons programs, possessing a drawing linked to nuclear warheads and failing to answer questions about the program.

Iran first showed its ability to enrich uranium in February, when it produced a small batch of low-enriched material using a first set of 164 centrifuges at its pilot complex in Natanz.

Iran plans to ultimately expand its enrichment program to 54,000 centrifuges, which spin uranium gas into enriched material to produce nuclear fuel. That would give if the capacity to produce dozens of nuclear warheads a year, if it chose to develop weapons.

The diplomat - who had been briefed on the IAEA inspectors' latest findings - said the Iranians recently finished "putting down the cabling, the air conditioning and all the other hardware," all part of the preliminary setup for the installation of centrifuges linked in cascades.

While "they are bound to have some technical problems, they are capable" of setting up the machines and running them, he told The Associated Press.

The only known assembled cascades for now are above ground at Natanz, consisting of two linked chains of 164 machines each and two smaller setups.

The two larger cascades have been running only sporadically to produce small quantities of non-weapons grade enriched uranium, while the smaller assemblies have been underground "dry testing" since late November, IAEA inspectors have reported.

That has led to experts and diplomats speculating that Iran was hesitant to provoke UN Security Council sanctions harsher than the relatively mild penalties agreed on last month in response to Teheran's refusal to heed a council deadline to suspend enrichment. Or, they said, it could be a sign of headway by relative moderates in the leadership unhappy with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's confrontational manner.

But the president denounced his critics Thursday, saying their calls for compromise echo "the words of the enemy" and will not affect his government's nuclear policies.

Iran's refusal to suspend enrichment work led the Security Council to impose sanctions on Dec. 23 - relatively mild penalties banning specified materials and technology that could contribute to Iran's nuclear and missile programs.

It also imposed an asset freeze on key companies and individuals in the country's nuclear and missile programs named on a UN list and gave the country 60 days to comply or face the likelihood of tougher nonmilitary sanctions.

Iran to start assembling centrifuges

[Shammu]

Group won't reveal PM's message
January 19, 2007 01:16pm

THE Prime Minister has been caught in a religious row after taping a goodwill message for a fundamentalist Christian group previously accused of inciting anti-Islamic hatred.

The Prime Minister has appeared in a DVD message for a major multi-denomination gathering in Melbourne on Australia Day that is being sponsored by the controversial Catch the Fire ministries.

Organisers are refusing to release the content of the Prime Minister's message, other than to confirm it was on "Australian values" - saying anyone interested in hearing it will have to come to the event.

But it has been reported that in the message, Mr Howard says Christianity has been a force for good in the world.  A spokesman for the PM has said Mr Howard does not regret recording the message.

The PM's decision has been described as "dangerous".  Muslim community leaders said Mr Howard risked legitimising hateful anti-Islamic views.

Yasser Soliman, a member of Mr Howard's Muslim Community Reference Group and a former president of the Islamic Council of Victoria, said today while Mr Howard is free to address whom he chooses, he should have thought twice.

"What he says is extremely influential and what he fails to say is also influential. I would hope that he would clearly condemn hate speeches in all their forms, irrespective of who the perpetrators are," he said.

"I can't stop the Prime Minister addressing who he wants to, but he should be very cautious, especially with groups which have a history of toxic-hate speech."

Last month the Victorian Court of Appeal threw out the charges brought in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Appeals Tribunal which had sought to jail Pastor Danny Nalliah and Daniel Scot for allegedly inciting hatred, contempt, revulsion and ridicule of Muslims.

The outcry comes as federal police launched an investigation into inflammatory comments by Sydney's Sheik Feiz Mohammed, which included a description of Jews as pigs and calls for children to die as "martyrs of faith".

Friday's Christian rally at Melbourne's Festival Hall is expected to attract up to 5000 people of various denominations.

Mr Howard is being promoted in flyers as delivering a keynote message which will be "personally directed to Catch the Fire ministries".

The rally will also say prayers against terrorism, for divine protection for Australia's armed forces and for the Government, according to organisers.

Pastor Nalliah, one of two Catch the Fire ministers charged with breaking state vilification laws in 2002, has refused to divulge what Mr Howard has said in his recorded message for fear it will be taken out of context.

"I have kept it confidential up until Australia Day," he said.

"The best thing is for the media to come and listen to it firsthand on Australia Day, then say what they believed they heard the Prime Minister said."

He said the event involves a wide range of religious groups including the Salvation Army, Presbyterian and Anglican churches and smaller organisations.

"It's about coming together to pray for a nation and I think it's a great opportunity," he said.

Pastor Nalliah said Treasurer Peter Costello, Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaille and former deputy PM John Anderson had addressed Catch the Fire meetings in the past.

Islamic Council of Victoria board member Waleed Aly described Catch the Fire as "spectacularly ignorant", claiming its members were in alliance with the far-Right League of Rights.

Amid the fallout of Sheik Feiz's lecture DVD becoming public, Acting Attorney-General Kevin Andrews said the Government was worried about a pattern of behaviour among outspoken Islamic leaders.

Federal Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd called the sheik's rant obscene and demanded action.

"As I see it, Sheik Mohammed's comments add up to an incitement to terrorism," Mr Rudd said.

Mr Howard is in Brisbane today for the funeral of Liberal stalwart Sir James Killen.

Group won't reveal PM's message

[Shammu]

The Prime Minister has appeared in a DVD message for a major multi-denomination gathering in Melbourne on Australia Day that is being sponsored by the controversial Catch the Fire ministries.

Organisers are refusing to release the content of the Prime Minister's message, other than to confirm it was on "Australian values" - saying anyone interested in hearing it will have to come to the event.

But it has been reported that in the message, Mr Howard says Christianity has been a force for good in the world.  A spokesman for the PM has said Mr Howard does not regret recording the message.

All I can say is, Good for you Mr. Howard.

[Soldier4Christ]

Iran to start assembling centrifuges

There was an article almost a month ago that said they already them fully assembled and in use.

 

I think that AP is behind the times.

[Soldier4Christ]

Group won't reveal PM's message

AMEN! STAND UP FOR JESUS!!