Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion.
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"News that's not known, or not known enough." Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion. |
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Details, details, & details by Marie K., Unknown News Nov. 19, 2008 What always seems to be missing from many news stories, no matter what the source are the details, i.e. the actual unknown news most of the time. What can you really understand without them? So any link that actually clearly offers a few seems worth mentioning to me. So here goes. This article indicates that “credit default swaps [CDSs] were one of the core agenda items at the G-20 meeting this weekend.” Importantly, the G-20 want the current “over-the-counter” (OTC) CDS contracts arranged by the parties in secret to be “exchange traded.” It seems that this recommendation accepts the existence of CDSs that some would like to see banned. I assume this is because they believe that with more transparency the risks could be reduced. Two more recommendations involved “keeping credit rating agency’s honest” (given the lies about the quality of the mortgages) and “ensuring that financial institutions have sufficient capital” (given how extremely leveraged they've been).
This article is for Anthony C. -- it indicates even larger issues, and it starts off like this: “The government’s approval on the security pact between Iraq and the United States is ‘meaningless,’ according to a spokesman for Shiite Muqtada al-Sadr’s bloc ...” The reason, according to a quote in the article, is that “’the agreement will be rejected by the parliament.’” So what IS a “SOFA” agreement? Wikipedia says that a “Status of Forces Agreement” is related to “stationing military forces” in a host country. Actually, there have been many SOFA agreements made by many countries regarding bases and facilities for foreign troops in host countries. Also, who will have jurisdiction related to the particular crimes committed by the troops is set out. Related to the Iraqi agreement, Wikipedia also indicates that it is two-thirds of the Parliament that will have to agree to it for it to pass, and that the largest group in Parliament is supported by an important religious leader, Ali al-Sistani. Sistani has been AGAINST the pact on the grounds that it violates Iraqi sovereignty. However, this article indicates that Sistani says he’ll not object once it gets PARLIAMENTARY support -- which seems unlikely if the Sadr bloc is correct in thinking that other blocs in parliament are also against it. Actually, without the pact, the UN mandate allowing US troops to stay in Iraq expires in December 2008. So NOT passing it makes sense, since the pact extends this time and forces the Iraqis to sign on for their own occupation. Also, waiting to sign an agreement presented by President Obama might make sense -- his timeline for leaving was shorter. So what exactly is the problem with the pact as it is currently written? This June 9, 2008 article indicates specifically what the Iraqis saw as violating their sovereignty -- the US has demanded 58 bases in Iraq, the US determines whether Iraq has been attacked and the response, the US controls Iraq’s air space, and there's immunity from prosecution for US troops and private military contractors. Since then, Wikipedia says that the US has made some concessions related to immunity for US troops and contractors -- they won’t have immunity when they’re “off-duty” but when they’re “on-duty” it will still remain. Hmmmm. The article from antiwar.com mentions that 100 amendments were requested by the Iraqi government, and mentions a few more of the changes -- more details that are probably unknown news unless you read these articles. However, I’ve seen no final details anywhere related to how many US bases there will be, and other articles indicate that Sadr is saying that there WILL be US bases. Then, there are those 18 benchmarks, agreements related to Iraq’s oil, and Iraq’s revenues located in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. As I've written before, the benchmarks involved changes to Iraq’s constitution, the creation of federal regions that break up the country, and the US pocketing monies from the sale of Iraq’s oil. What’s been happening related to these issues? Where are those details? I WILL be looking for them. © by the author. | Latest entry | Recent entries | Older entries |
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