Libyan entrepreneurs enjoy boom

BBC.

Foreign Network at Front of CIA's Terror Fight

From Dana Priest's Foreign Network at Front of CIA's Terror Fight in the Washington Post

Tenet Courts Yemen

Persuading foreign presidents and intelligence chiefs to begin or deepen relationships with the CIA often took the personal intervention of Bush, Vice President Cheney and the secretary of state. But closing a deal was left to the CIA's chiefs of station, other top officials, and foremost, Tenet, 'the master of liaison,' as one longtime intelligence officer dubbed him.

Gregarious and comfortable in foreign settings, Tenet by Sept. 11 had earned a reputation among Muslim countries as an honest broker in the Arab-Israeli dispute and for his role in training Palestinian security forces.

He was a natural at bonding with foreign chiefs of service, current and former intelligence officials said. Once, during a dinner for a foreign service chief, the guests asked Tenet about Bush, whom Tenet briefed every morning. 'He would tell them what time he gets up. He'd say, 'The president calls me Jorge.' It was really human-being-to-human-being,' said a former intelligence official. 'He didn't give away anything classified, but they felt important and could go back to their president and say, 'The president calls him Jorge.' '

'George Tenet is a charming man, but also a very tough cookie,' said a senior French official.

Yemen, with its terrorist training camps and al Qaeda presence, was one of Tenet's most significant successes. Its president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, had little control over the northern border with Saudi Arabia, which had turned into a haven for extremists, and even less over his violent rivals.

Faris Sanabani, a Yemeni presidential adviser, said Tenet's trips to Yemen after Sept. 11 helped persuade Saleh to work with the CIA in a way that would have been unthinkable before. 'He made an effort to reach out when people were really scared of Yemen,' said Sanabani, who sat in on meetings between Tenet and Saleh. 'He's the kind of person who doesn't work from a report or from behind the office desk.'

In the wake of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Saleh thought Yemen was next on the target list, said one current and one former intelligence official. Tenet did not disabuse him of this idea, they said. 'You don't take anything off the table,' one said.

At the same time, Tenet 'listened to him, took his views seriously and did not rebuke him. He sought to meet Saleh's needs,' he said.

Tenet provided millions of dollars for Yemen's cooperation. He gave helicopters, eavesdropping equipment, weapons and bulletproof vests. He brought in 100 Army Special Forces trainers to help Yemen create an antiterrorism unit.

Tenet also won Saleh's approval to fly Predator drones armed with Hellfire missiles over the country to hunt and kill al Qaeda figures. In November 2002, the CIA killed six al Qaeda operatives driving in the desert, including Abu Ali al-Harithi, suspected mastermind of the 2000 attack on the USS Cole.

'All of the sudden our enemy became common,' Sanabani said. 'That's why Yemen and the United States reached out to one other.'"

We sort of knew how Yemeni-US relations changed so palpably after 9/11 but it's always amazing to see this kind of stuff.

A blast from the past: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/middle_east/1860413.stm

Google cache of a story from al-Ahram Weekly that won't load right now.

The Daily Star - Business Articles - Oil expert urges Lebanon to conduct 3D study of deposits

The Daily Star - Business Articles - Oil expert urges Lebanon to conduct 3D study of deposits

An energy expert told The Daily Star last month that Lebanon's reserves could yield 70,000 to 90,000 barrels per day. If oil prices hold near $60 per barrel, Lebanon could earn $60 billion over 20 years from oil sales.

"Ten years ago it was unreal to the government that there could be oil," Mourad said. "But now, they want to move forward with the project."

A number of international firms, including Shell, Occidental, Total Elf Fina, Petrocanada, Amerada Hess, and Reading and Bates have shown interest in bidding to drill in Lebanon.

Gaza: feathers in the cap

Guardian:

[Former World Bank head and quartet representative] James Wolfensohn, the international community's envoy, warned of the dangers of failure on Monday. "If you want to blow each other up, I have a nice house in Wyoming, and in New York, and in Australia and I will watch with sadness as you do it," he said.

Rich people can care so much.

Also in the Guardian’s article by Jonathan Freedland on Amir Peretz:

[The Gaza agreement] represents the first time the Bush administration has become involved in the detailed, hair-splitting negotiations of which Middle East diplomacy is made. Rice stayed an extra night in Jerusalem, shuttling between the two sides, personally keying in changes to a draft agreement on a laptop in her hotel room. Until now, the Bush team has steered clear of such waist-deep involvement, seeing this as the quicksand that swallowed up so much of the Clinton presidency. That Rice stuck at it is a shift. That she succeeded may give her a taste to do more.

After the Lewinsky scandal, Clinton turned his attention again to the PA-Israel negotiations as his last attempt to secure for himself some type of “legacy.” And in his eagerness to do a deal to cement his place in history, he helped force unacceptable terms onto the Palestinians, and then blamed all failures on Arafat.

Are Bush and Rice going to try something similar now that the Bush presidency is polling so low and there seems to be no positive legacy that Bush is leaving us?

And speaking of the Gaza agreement, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights has this to say:

While PCHR hopes that the agreement will be implemented and that travel and movement of Palestinians, as well as the movement of imports and exports, will be eased, it asserts that:

• Compared to the current disastrous conditions for the movement for passengers and goods and the current state of economic and social strangulation, this agreement is a step forward, and in this sense is positive. However, the agreement is negative in that it maintains the de facto IOF control over Rafah International Crossing Point; it does not guarantee free interaction with the outside world; and the IOF will continue to control the civilian and commercial movement between the Gaza Strip and West Bank;


• The absence of actual Israeli military presence inside the Gaza Strip does not mean that the Israeli military occupation has come to an end. The field conditions in the Gaza Strip prove that IOF have continued to control movement to and from the Gaza Strip. This agreement reinforces the IOF control over, and occupation of the Gaza Strip, which has not come to an end with the implementation of the "Disengagement Plan."


• The agreement reinforces the current deprivation of tens of thousands of Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, who do not have ID cards, of their right to travel and meet family members abroad.


• The agreement strengthens the Israeli control over the Gaza Strip economy, and hinders attempts to develop the economy. This is achieved through controlling the movement of imports and exports, which can be stopped by IOF in light of any field developments or under security claims.


• PCHR is concerned over the continuation of IOF violations of international humanitarian law, especially the Fourth Geneva Convention, and the continued use of the policy of closure and economic strangulation, as a method of pressurising Palestinians;


• The IOF's bad will, regarding the facilitation of movement and travel, is proven by the delay in re-opening Gaza International Airport, which requires only a few months for renovation and operational readiness. The sea port, whose construction is allowed to start according to the agreement, will need more than two years before it becomes ready for operation.

But no major news outlet seems to have worried about including their views. Palestinian human rights? Boring.

Here we go again

Here we go again


New York Times, November 11, 2005

U.S. Starts Semi-Independent Forum for Mideast DemocracyBy STEVEN R. WEISMAN
MANAMA, Bahrain, Friday, Nov. 11 - The Bush administration, facing complaints that it is trying to impose democracy in the Middle East, is forming a government-financed but semi-independent foundation to promote political activities with less of a taint from being financed solely by Washington, administration officials say.
The program, the Foundation for the Future, and a Fund of the Future to promote business activities are to be announced as many American officials say President Bush's democracy initiative has borne fruit in some places and met resentment in others.
"In many ways we're seeing that veil of fear is lifting," said Elizabeth Cheney, the State Department's official in charge of promoting democracy in the Middle East and the vice president's daughter. "We're seeing something very real happening across the region in terms of progress toward opening up societies, opening up political systems and economic systems."
But other officials, speaking anonymously to avoid being seen as undermining the effort to promote democracy, say the record has been disappointing, particularly in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, two of the United States' most important Middle East allies. What can often sound like preaching from American officials has not helped the cause, they say.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who arrived Friday in Bahrain for a meeting involving Europe, Japan and Muslim nations, part of the Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiative started by Mr. Bush in June 2004, said Thursday that the initial financing goals for the new programs would be $100 million for the business fund and $50 million for the democracy foundation, raised from American, European and Arab governments.
"The remarkable thing about this is that we're going to have Arab partners and Middle Eastern partners," she said. How much the financing for the new efforts would supplant money for other American aid programs was unclear.
American officials say the Bahrain meeting will signal a recalibration of Mr. Bush's approach to aiding democracy. This year, the Middle East Partnership Initiative is to spend $100 million to support election monitors, candidate training and political groups in the Middle East. But under the new programs, $85 million from the initiative is to go to the two new semi-independent efforts. Financing would be directed by people in the region, not Americans.

Funding?

OVER $100 million (BD37.8m) will be set aside by G8 countries and other partners for a foundation and a fund to support democratic, educational and economic reforms in the Broader Middle East and North Africa (BMENA), according to top US and Bahrain officials. The Foundation for the Future, which will provide grants to Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) trying to bring democracy to the region, will mainly be supported by the US, which is contributing $35m (BD13.2m) to the project.
A total of $2m (BD756,000) will come from Europe, $1m (BD378,000) from Jordan and $6m (BD2.3m) from other countries.
Meanwhile, the Fund for the Future, which will support entrepreneurship, will be underwritten with $50m (BD18.9m) from the US, $20m (BD7.6m) from Egypt, $20m (BD7.6m) from Morocco and $1m (BD378,000) from Denmark

Funding also pledged by Qatar and Greece

State department official BMENA page

China: Oil Investors Tapped Out Of Wells

Oil and politics at the local level in Western China. Peter S. Goodman of the Washington Post has a long story on a contested oil field in the Gobi.

Yiqikelike, the first oil field developed in Xinjiang, was drilled in 1958 by Chinese engineers with Russian help. It sits more than 80 miles from the county seat, accessible only by a rough gravel road. Where the only other local industry had been sheep herding, a veritable city took shape -- with brick dormitories housing some 20,000 workers who supported the drilling rigs beneath snow-capped peaks.

For a time, the field yielded 30,000 tons of crude oil a year. By the 1980s, however, production had slipped and costs were climbing. In 1986, the Xinjiang Petroleum Administration Bureau -- a state entity that was a forerunner to CNPC -- ceased operations. Today, the city is a ghost town, the old structures scoured down by the elements to resemble the tan boulders that punctuate the stark landscape.

Some oil continued to gurgle to the surface. In 1987, the government for Akesu district, which includes Kuche, complained to Xinjiang provincial authorities that oil from the wells threatened local drinking supplies. Akesu sought and gained the power to allow villagers to collect whatever oil sprung from the wells. With local government encouragement, peasants with donkey carts began hauling away oil in buckets.

Buckets?!

The local municpality began contracting out access to the wells in return for a cut. This slowly grew under the radar of CNPC, attracting more investors, who have stories like this:

In April 2003, he came for a look. Several hundred men were sleeping in tents and cold sheds amid the all-night puttering of machinery. Discarded parts, blackened oil drums and beer bottles littered the dusty ground. Undeterred, Zheng borrowed money from friends and relatives, combined it with his own meager savings and sunk more than $125,000 into the project.

"It's remote, we have to swallow bitterness, and it's risky," Zheng said. "I don't care. I wanted to make a lot money."

Oil fever also reached Tongxin county in Ningxia province, one of China's poorest, where the Hui ethnic minority community saw it as a path to upward mobility. There, it reached Ma, a father of four who had been making a decent living buying wool from local farmers and selling it to spinning factories.

Ma had about $12,000 in savings. He borrowed another $12,000 from his siblings and began collecting more from local villagers. With Ningxia caught in a three-year drought, the oil business beckoned as salvation. Before he and a friend left for Xinjiang in November 2003, they had collected $360,000, he said.

"From what our friend said, and with the local government support, we thought it was a good investment," Ma said.

Then CNPC decides the operations are getting too big to tolerate:

In April 2003, two Toyota Land Cruisers had arrived, bearing officials from the giant state oil firm. According to Zheng, the leader of the party asserted claims over the wells. "He said, 'This is my personal asset,' " Zheng recalled. "He was extremely angry, rude and unpleasant. He vowed that he would put us out of business."

Zheng thought the local government would protect them. "Here, it's all about personal relationships," he said. "We pay our taxes. Why would they want us to stop?"

But the Tarim Oil Field Authority -- a local CNPC subsidiary -- soon filed a report with Xinjiang provincial authorities declaring that the venture had exceeded its rights to collect oil, according to investors. In late 2003, after an investigation, Kuche authorities ordered a shutdown. The venture pulled strings with local officials to resume less than a month later, but when CNPC found out the following year, another shutdown was imposed.

As the cat-and-mouse game continued, central government officials flew to Kuche in October 2004 to meet with local leaders and the private investors. They returned to Beijing without issuing a judgment. This May, working teams returned to Kuche for further investigation.

And the latest chapter of the story has the issue decided seemingly in favor of the CNPC, with the investors contesting the interpretation of a government decision and playing the ethnic card:

Summer brought a decision: a July 29 document signed by 10 central government ministries. "The oil wells and land ownership should be returned from the unqualified enterprises," the state decreed -- seemingly a victory for CNPC. But the private investors, hoping for more time, are focusing on the section of the ruling that addresses the sensitivity of the involvement of ethnic minorities in the project: "In order to maintain unity among different minority groups and preserve regional stability, the parties should negotiate with CNPC fully and seriously."

So far, no talks have been scheduled. At the oil field, the pumps still groan, depositing a trickle into pools carved into the desert floor.

Hopefully we will get a follow up story sometime.