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China Pledged Billions of Dollars of Financing to Venezuela and Ecuador, Two South American Energy Exporters Battered by Falling Oil Prices
China pledged billions of dollars of financing to Venezuela and Ecuador, two South American energy exporters battered by falling oil prices, as Beijing moved to secure resources and allies in the region.
China has increased its diplomatic clout throughout Latin America by extending over $100 billion in credit to the region since 2005, according to figures from Boston University’s Global Economic Governance Initiative.
Beijing has become the biggest foreign financier of both Venezuela and Ecuador, two oil-rich, leftist allies eager to help counter U.S. sway in the region.
Following a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping , his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolás Maduro announced bilateral accords that would bring $20 billion in new investment to Venezuela. Ecuador said it secured $7.5 billion in financing.
Both Mr. Maduro and his Ecuadorian counterpart, Rafael Correa, were in Beijing along with officials from various Latin American nations to take part in a regional gathering.
Both Latin countries, highly dependent on oil exports to pay for heavy public spending, were in dire need of a helping hand as crude prices tumble to less than half of their level from several months ago. A barrel of oil sold for about $50 on Wednesday.
Last week, Venezuela’s central bank released long-delayed figures, revealing the country entered a recession in 2014.
Venezuela needs oil to average around $117.50 a barrel to balance its 2015 budget, according to Deutsche Bank estimates.
In Ecuador, officials have reported a slowing economy, with growth of 3.4% in the third quarter, down from 5.6% in the July-through-September period in 2013.
Mr. Maduro, who has seen his approval rating swoon along with oil prices, offered few details on the new accords with China, which he said involved projects in the energy, industrial and housing sectors.
The Venezuelan leader, who has struggled to keep supporters happy amid shortages of basic goods, praised China for coming to the rescue.
“The economic war against our people and the oil price war is an opportunity to grow closer to our allies,” said Mr. Maduro, who has blamed Venezuela’s spiraling economy on an alleged plot by enemies of his leftist government.
Venezuela is slated to hold hotly contested legislative elections in December that many analysts see as a referendum on Mr. Maduro’s performance.
At a daily press briefing on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said “Relevant financing cooperation is going smoothly” with Venezuela. State-run China Central Television paraphrased Chinese President Xi Jinping as calling for “promoting oil development” in a meeting with Mr. Maduro.
Experts said it was unclear without further details what kind of impact the new financing would have on the Venezuelan and Ecuadorian economies.
China has extended to Caracas some $50 billion in credit since 2007 in exchange for guaranteed oil. It has committed more than $12 billion in financing to Ecuador between 2009 and 2014.
Wednesday’s agreement underscored China’s continuing support for Mr. Maduro despite his political woes, said Risa Grais Targow, senior Latin America analysts for Eurasia Group.
“This is because the Chinese are heavily exposed to Venezuela and are likely concerned about the prospect of regime change,” she said in a client note.
Since 2005, China has provided upwards of $87 billion in loan commitments to Latin American countries. China’s loan commitments of $37 billion in 2010 were more than those of the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, and U.S. Export-Import Bank combined. This interactive database provides up-to-date information on Chinese lending in Latin America by country, lender, sector and year.
Consider as you read below, how many we did not catch. Consider how many actually got a pass. Consider how many received visas from the State Department to come here under a green card.
Just consider Iraq, a worn torn country currently in a war. How many have been allowed into the United States and why? This is chilling only from 2013.
WASHINGTON—Two Iraqi citizens living in Bowling Green, Kentucky who admitted using improvised explosive devices (IEDs) against U.S. soldiers in Iraq and who attempted to send weapons and money to al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) for the purpose of killing U.S. soldiers were sentenced today to serve federal prison terms by Senior Judge Thomas B. Russell in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky.
The sentences was announced Lisa Monaco, Assistant Attorney General for National Security; David J. Hale, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky; and Perrye K. Turner, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Louisville Division.
Mohanad Shareef Hammadi, 25, a former resident of Iraq, was sentenced to life in federal prison, and Waad Ramadan Alwan, 31, a former resident of Iraq, was sentenced to 40 years in federal prison, followed by a life term of supervised release. Both defendants had pleaded guilty to federal terrorism charges.
Part of the humanitarian mission of the USRAP is to provide resettlement opportunities to especially vulnerable Iraqi refugees. Since large-scale Iraqi refugee processing was announced in February 2007, DHS and DOS have worked cooperatively to increase the number of Iraqi refugees admitted to the United States as part of the worldwide commitment. DHS and DOS have worked closely to expand processing capacity for Iraqi refugee applicants while ensuring the highest level of security. In support of these efforts, USCIS currently deploys approximately 55 officers per quarter to the Middle East to conduct refugee processing circuit rides. Since the inception of the program in 2007, 203,321 Iraqi nationals have been referred to the USRAP for resettlement to the United States. USCIS has interviewed 142,670 Iraqi refugee applicants; approved 119,202 for resettlement and, 84,902 Iraqi refugees have arrived in the United States.
Does Customs and Border Patrol coordinate with ICE, then DHS then the FBI? Well take a look at the FBI homepage on terrorism.
(CNSNews.com) – The Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection reports that in fiscal year 2014 (Oct. 1 through Sept. 30) agents apprehended 1,191 individuals from 12 of the 14 countries that DHS and the State Department have considered as countries that have problems with terrorism.
In December, CBP released its apprehension statistics for 2014, which show that of the 486,651 apprehensions, 257,473 were from countries “other than Mexico.” Of those apprehended from countries “other than Mexico,” CBP provided CNSNews.com the countries of origin of those taken into custody.
Of those from countries “other than Mexico,” 1,191 were from 12 countries – Iran, Sudan, Cuba and Syria (state sponsors of terror), and Afghanistan, Algeria, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen (“countries of interest”) – designated by the federal government to have terrorist links.
The breakdown of the apprehension of individuals from 12 countries designated as “countries of interest” is as follows, according to CBP: Afghanistan (4); Algeria (3); Cuba (1,061); Iran (4); Iraq (7); Lebanon (10); Nigeria (29); Pakistan (31); Saudi Arabia (16); Somalia (6); Syria (14); and Yemen (6).
As CNSNews.com reported in 2010, following the failed attempt to bring down Northwest Flight 253 on Dec. 25, the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) announced enhanced airport screening for people traveling through or from 14 “countries of interest.” TSA did not specify which nations it considered “countries of interest.”
“TSA is mandating that every individual flying into the U.S. from anywhere in the world who holds a passport issued by or is traveling from or through nations that are state sponsors of terrorism or other countries of interest will be required to go through enhanced screening,” the TSA said.
“TSA directed the increased use of enhanced screening technologies and mandates threat-based and random screening for majority passengers on U.S. bound international flights,” it added.
But a Jan. 4, 2010 New York Times report, citing Obama administration officials, identified them as Afghanistan, Algeria, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen. The other four – Iran, Sudan, Syria and Cuba – were identified as state sponsors of terrorism by the State Department.
A Jan. 4, 2010 report in USA Today, citing the TSA as the source, described the full list of nations whose citizens would be targeted for enhanced security checks as “14 countries with terrorism problems.”
The summary below translates into a few questions. Why does Secretary of State John Kerry continue to legitimize Iran and to bring the country on equal footing globally as they are a rogue nation? The next question, will the White House continue to ignore Iran’s history of terrorism?
At the dawn of 2015, the U.S. has yet to articulate a comprehensive foreign-policy strategy to counter the influence and territorial gains of Islamic State, the terrorist group that emerged last year — and poses a dangerous and vexing threat to stability across the Middle East and North Africa. By the Pentagon’s admission, we neither understand the underlying ideology of the merciless group nor have a grasp of all the players in the region who have aggravated the crisis.
Indeed, the fog of war seems to have muddied Iran’s role in this dark chapter of regional affairs. Is Tehran an ally or a nemesis in the fight against Islamic State? At least initially, the U.S. believed that Iran could play a constructive role in combating a mutual adversary. Secretary of State John F. Kerry, touting the age-old axiom “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” suggested that Iran could be part of the solution.
The only trouble is that Iran is a major part of the challenges we face.
Islamic State, also known by the acronym ISIS, rose out of the sectarian conflict that exploded in Iraq in 2004, shortly after the U.S.-led occupation. Iran immediately backed Shiite Muslim militant factions with training, money, weapons and intelligence, sparking a vicious Sunni Muslim militant counter-reaction that nourished Al Qaeda and, later, ISIS. The rise to power of Nouri Maliki, an inept and corrupt Shiite prime minister with strong ties to Tehran, sealed Iraq’s fate not only as a breeding ground for Sunni extremism, but as an Iranian satellite state.
Iran now has more than 7,000 Revolutionary Guards and elite Quds Force members in Iraq, according to the National Council of Resistance of Iran, an Iranian opposition organization. The killing of Iranian military advisor Hamid Taqavi, a brigadier general in the Revolutionary Guard, in December in Samarra put an exclamation point on the scope and significance of the Revolutionary Guard’s presence in Iraq. As the most senior commander of the Quds Force to die abroad since the Iran-Iraq war ended 26 years ago, Taqavi played a key role in Tehran’s training and control of Shiite militias in Iraq.
Amnesty International has pointed to the presence of Iran’s proxy militias in Iraq as a key source of instability and sectarian conflict there. In an October report called “Absolute Impunity, Militia Rule in Iraq,” Amnesty found that the growing power of Shiite militias has contributed to a “deterioration in security and an atmosphere of lawlessness” and that the Shiites “are ruthlessly targeting Sunni civilians … under the guise of fighting terrorism, in an apparent bid to punish Sunnis for the rise of the ISIS and for its heinous crimes.”
Iranian clerics’ paranoia over domestic discontent has made meddling in regional countries, Iraq in particular, a cornerstone of Tehran’s foreign policy and survival strategy. Speaking at Taqavi’s funeral, top Iranian security official Ali Shamkhani said, “Taqavi and people like him gave their blood in Samarra so that we do not give our blood in Tehran.”
Iran’s reasons for “fighting” ISIS diverge considerably from U.S. objectives. Whereas we seek a stable and nonsectarian government in Iraq, the mullahs’ interests are best served by the ascension of a subordinate Shiite leadership, enabling them to use the neighbor to the west as a springboard for their regional hegemonic, anti-Western designs. The Iranian government sees an opening in the turmoil in Iraq for consolidating its grip on that country, weakened by the ouster of Prime Minister Maliki.
Iran’s role in the civil war in Syria is following a similar dynamic: Through its proxy Hezbollah — the Shiite Muslim political and paramilitary organization — Iran has served as Syrian President Bashar Assad’s battering ram against his people, killing and enraging Sunnis and fueling ISIS’ exponential growth.
Aiding and abetting Iran’s destructive role in Iraq or Syria would be a strategic mistake for the U.S. that only exacerbates a profound crisis. It is a dangerous irony to even consider allying with Iran — which the U.S. State Department still considers the world’s most active state sponsor of terrorism — to fight the terrorism inspired by ISIS.
Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi, who is well versed in the agenda and ambitions of Tehran’s mullahs, rightly describes a potential Western alliance with Iran against ISIS as akin to “jumping from the frying pan into the fire.” The eviction of the Iranian government from the region, especially from Syria and Iraq, must be part of the U.S. strategy for countering ISIS and resolving the sectarian divides that drive extremism throughout the region, Rajavi says.
She’s right. The U.S. must think beyond ISIS to what kind of region will be left in its smoldering wake. As the U.S. weighs its policy options, any scenario that leaves Iran in control of large swaths of the region must be rejected outright. Gen. Hugh Shelton served as the 14th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Qatar has had a long history of funding terrorism and taking in combatants as free refugees such as the Taliban 5. Qatar is denying funding terrorism and the Pentagon is playing stupid on the matter at the behest of the U.S. State Department all for the sake of nefarious diplomacy.
What is more, since the Arab Spring and the power shift in Egypt, al Sissi has moved to terminate the Muslim Brotherhood footprint once based in Cairo. Additionally, Egypt has moved to terminate al Jazeera media in Egypt.
Pressure has been applied to Qatar by several Gulf States recently including the United Arab Emirates as well as Saudi Arabia. Some pressure has also been applied by the U.S. Treasury which tracks terror funding.
Reconciling with key Arab countries against Brotherhood, Doha boots political chief; Israel welcomes news, Hamas denies it
Qatar has deported Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal after hosting him for the past three years, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.
The move, first reported by a Turkish newspaper on Sunday, was swiftly denied by an official from the Islamist group.
According to a report in left-wing Turkish newspaper Aydınlık, Qatar has faced significant pressure from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to deport Mashaal, amid a diplomatic reconciliation process currently underway between the small Gulf state and the Arab world.
According to CNN, citing a Hamas-run news agency, Mashaal and other Muslim Brotherhood members were most likely to head to Turkey.
On December 20, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi met with Sheikh Mohammad bin Abdul Rahman, a special envoy of Qatari leader Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani. The meeting apparently ended the longstanding enmity between the two states over Qatar’s support for Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
In a written message Tuesday, Israel’s Foreign Ministry congratulated Qatar for its decision to deport Mashaal.
“The Foreign Ministry, led by minister Avigdor Liberman, has advanced various moves to cause Qatar to carry out this step and stop aiding Hamas, directly and indirectly. To this end, minister Liberman and the ministry’s professional staff have acted in overt and covert tracks with Qatar and other states. We expect the Turkish government to now follow suit,” the Foreign Ministry’s message read.
But a Hamas official, Izzat al-Rishq, denied reports that Mashaal was in fact deported.
“There is no truth to reports by certain media concerning the departure of Khaled Mashaal from Qatar,” Rishq wrote on his Facebook page Tuesday afternoon.
According to Arab media reports, the deal between Egypt and Qatar included the closing of anti-Sissi Qatari news channel Al-Jazeera Mubasher Misr on December 22; the extradition of Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood members from Qatar to Egypt; and a halt to Qatar’s funding of the Muslim Brotherhood.
If true, Mashaal’s departure from Qatar would mark the end of Hamas’s political presence in the Arab world. Expelled from Jordan in August 1999 and choosing to break ties with the Assad regime in Syria in January 2012, Mashaal has struggled — and failed — to foster political patrons in the tumultuous Arab Middle East.
Appearing before a gathering of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party in Konya December 27, Mashaal congratulated the people of Turkey “for having [Prime Minister Ahmet] Davutoğlu and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan” as heads of state, adding that “a strong Turkey means a strong Palestine … Inshallah, God is with us and with you on the road to victory.”
On Sunday, WikiLeaks revealed a State Department cable last December that labeled Qatar, the tiny, oil-rich Gulf nation, as the Middle East’s “worst” participant in counterterrorism efforts, the New York Timesreports. According to the cable, Qatari security was “hesitant to act against known terrorists out of concern for appearing to be aligned with the U.S. and provoking reprisals.”
Another cable from December 2009 stressed increased counterterrorism efforts as a talking point for the Emir’s January 2010 visit.
The details offered in these cables are particularly strange when compared with a 2008 Congressional Research Service report for Congress.
The U.S. State Department called Qatar’s terrorism support since 9/11 “significant,” according to the CRS report. Since the attacks, Qatar established both a Combating Terrorism Law and the Qatar Authority for Charitable Activities (QACA) in March of 2004. The QACA was meant to monitor the operations of all Qatari charity organizations and ostensibly make sure the charities weren’t funneling cash to terrorist organizations. But there was an asterisk: The Emir could stop the QACA from overseeing a particular organization’s activities whenever he wants.
“U.S. concerns regarding alleged material support for terrorist groups by some Qataris, including members of the royal family, have been balanced over time by Qatar’s counterterrorism and efforts and its broader, long-term commitment to host and support U.S. military forces being used in ongoing operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and the global war on terrorism,” wrote Christopher M. Blanchard, the Middle East affairs analyst who authored the CRS report.
So what changed between 2008 and 2009?
Probably not much. The discrepancy in rhetoric is likely more an issue of what the United States is willing to say in public, and in private.
“Keeping U.S. basing rights in Qatar and ensuring the stable flow of oil and LNG gas [liquefied natural gas] are both more important than Qatar’s willingness to deal seriously with its citizens involvement in terrorism,” says Toby Jones, an assistant Middle East history professor at Rutgers University. “The cost of [the United States] pressuring them publicly to take counterterrorism seriously, it seems, might come at too high an economic cost.”
But U.S. officials may have reason to be suspicious of Qatar. Members of the royal family reportedly hosted Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the 9/11 mastermind, in the late ’90s and may have helped him evade U.S. capture. In 2005, officials discovered another link between Qatar and al Qaeda: Qatar paid al Qaeda (and some speculate it may still be paying) millions of dollars each year so al Qaeda wouldn’t attack it. Qatar struck the deal before the 2003 Iraq invasion and renewed it in March of 2005, when an Egyptian suicide bomber attacked a theater in Doha. Many believed the bomber was part of al Qaeda. “We’re not sure that the attack was carried out by al Qaeda, but we ratified our agreement just to be on the safe side,” a Qatari official said at the time. “We are a soft target and prefer to pay to secure our national and economical interests. We are not the only ones doing so.”
It’s true: Qatar is one of many nations that have allegedly funded Islamic movements to save their own citizens, and that funding was another topic of discussion slated for last January’s meeting. “Officials should make known USG concerns about the financial support to Hamas by Qatari charitable organizations and our concerns about the moral support Hamas receives from Yousef Al-Qaradawi,” the December, 2009 cable said. “It is also essential to stress that high-level Qatari political support is needed, if financial flows to terrorists are to stop.”
But in a region rife with secret terrorist ties and illicit deals, it may seem strange that the only nation to host a U.S. military base could earn the dubious-least-valuable player title.
Yet America’s chummy relationship with Qatar is a key reason for Doha’s hesitancy to comply with every U.S. demand and its apparent eagerness to appease threatening countries and organizations. That relationship is, partly, what makes Qatar such a ready target.
Because it hosts the Al Udeid airbase and Camp As Sayliyah, a pre-positioning facility of U.S. military equipment, Qatar is at greater risk of terrorist attacks than neighboring countries, whose ties to the U.S. are less tangible. Notably, Qatar pays for the upkeep of the American military bases in its borders; the U.S. pays no rent, and no utilities.
So while countries like Saudi Arabia and the emirate of Abu Dhabi have aligned themselves strongly with the U.S. counterterrorism strategy because they rely somewhat on U.S. power and protection, Qatar has no such dependence. “[Qatar isn’t] fully behind the United States in the same way that Abu Dhabi clearly is,” explains Dr. Christopher Davidson, a United Nations and Middle East Policy Council expert on the Gulf monarchies, and a professor at Durham University in England. “This explains why there’s been some criticism of Qatar not being tight enough on counterterrorism. ”
Beyond Qatar’s alleged funding of al Qaeda and its ties to Hamas and Iran, it has also tried to bolster its reputation by allowing money to flow freely through the country, no questions asked. Implementing more scrutiny would likely anger terrorist groups and put Qatar at greater risk.
“If the funding is cut, or if the Qatari authorities listen to America and try to tighten things up so money can’t flow as easily, then you have the real risk of jihad coming home to Qatar,” Davidson explains. “The smaller Gulf states have never really faced a stage of serious terror attacks like Saudi Arabia has, but they all certainly live in fear of that.”
Last April, Attorney General at the Department of Justice in cadence with the Obama doctrine announced broader criteria for non-violent offenders serving sentences for narcotic crimes. This announcement set the table for the release of up to 200,000 criminals and the sentencing judges were never consulted nor were the police officers as part of the debate prior to this decision.
Almost a year later, Eric Holder’s ‘Smart on Crime’ operation has received thousands of applications for clemency and few cases have either been reviewed or granted. Questions are numerous most of all was this a ploy? It seems the Justice Department has turned to the ACLU. Another outsourcing operation to a complicit organization.
