Jurors at the New York trial of a former Soviet Air Force officer and alleged international arms dealer are getting an inside look at the secretive world of illegal arms dealing.
Russian businessman Viktor Bout is accused of conspiring to sell thousands of military-grade weapons, including surface-to-air-missiles, that he believed would be used to kill American pilots in Colombia, among others. He was arrested in Thailand in 2008 after meeting with confidential U.S. informants posing as Colombian rebels from FARC, a group listed by the U.S. as a terrorist organization. He has pleaded not guilty.
Douglas Farah is author of "Merchant of Death," about Bout's career as what he portrays is the most prolific illegal arms merchant ever. Farah says it began when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and Bout, a former Soviet Air Force officer, gained access to unused cargo planes and weapons.
"He moved literally millions and millions of rounds of ammunition, he moved hundreds of thousands of AK-47s. In the pre-Viktor Bout era in Africa, if you wanted to buy AK-47s, you could, there were a lot of people who could provide you with 50, 100. But very few people could provide anti-tank systems, anti-aircraft systems, attack helicopters, put them on an airplane and deliver them within a matter of weeks," Farah said.
Farah said the result was far deadlier wars in Rwanda, Congo and Sierra Leone, for example. Kathi Austin, a former arms trafficking expert for the United Nations, has been at Bout's trial from the first day. She says Bout initiated some conflicts, by offering sophisticated arms to warlords in exchange for diamonds and other natural resources.
"They were changing the face of war in those countries, where most of the victims became civilians rather than armies and rebel groups fighting against one another. And an arms trafficker like Viktor Bout actually went so far as to initiate conflict in certain areas, just to make a profit," Austin said.
Austin says the trial promises to reveal both the scope and details of Bout's operations - in part through hours of wiretapped recordings of meetings and phone calls with Bout and his associates. "The general public now, through the course of the trial, is learning intimate details of how an entire illegal arms deal is put together, from the supply to the trans-shipment point, all the way to the end-user recipient," she said.
Carlos Sagastume, the first confidential U.S. informant to testify, stated that - as heard on a wiretap played in the courtroom -- Bout advised FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia - FARC ) to buy a bank in which to launder drug money and weapons payments. Bout also can be heard on the tapes telling the agents he thought were FARC rebels to set up different companies to mask their activity, and offering them weapons training, and help falsifying documents to cover the weapons sales.
Sagastume also testified that - as heard on a wiretap recording played for the jury -- Bout said that he and FARC had the same "enemy." His testimony will continue.
A U.N. Security Council resolution from 2004 asked member states to refuse Viktor Bout transit and to freeze his assets. Bout's lawyer, Albert Dayan, told the court that $6 billion of Bout's assets was subsequently frozen. He said he plans to call no witnesses.
The U.S. employment picture remains grim nationwide, particularly for local civil servants. Hundreds of thousands of teachers, police officers, and firefighters have been idled since 2008, and more risk losing their jobs due to budget shortfalls. Senate Democrats are pushing for $35 billion in federal assistance to local communities, paid for by a slight boost in taxes paid by millionaires. The proposal faces stiff Republican opposition.
They teach American kids, fight crime on America's streets, and respond to tragedy and disaster. Their numbers are decreasing nationwide, as counties and cities grapple with lower tax revenues.
A large contingent of teachers, police officers, and firefighters came to the Capitol this week with a message for lawmakers debating aid to local communities.
Among them: laid-off Florida high-school teacher Cherine Akbari, who risks losing her home, but is more worried about her pupils. "Students absolutely are the ones who suffer. It is not just me, it is not just about my job."
Connecticut police officer Jennifer Pierce says cuts in law enforcement will leave communities unprotected. "If we do not get the officers we need, obviously there will be less patrol presence on the street, crime rates are going to go up, as we have already seen. Burglaries are up, street robberies are up," Pierce said.
The rally had a surprise speaker. Vice President Joseph Biden said budget cuts - even temporary ones - bring lasting consequences. "There is nothing temporary about kindergarten being eliminated, because it has an effect on a child for the rest of their life. There is nothing temporary about the life saved in a home invasion or a robbery because a squad car is able to get there in five minutes and not in 30. There is nothing temporary about that for real, live people," Biden said.
President Barack Obama's $476 billion jobs plan was defeated on Capitol Hill last week. Undeterred, Democratic lawmakers are forcing votes on the plan's individual components, starting with federal assistance to cash-strapped communities.
But Republicans oppose using federal funds to prop up local governments.
"Bailouts do not solve the problem. In fact, they perpetuate it," saidSenate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
McConnell argues President Obama's $800 billion stimulus plan failed to improve America's jobs picture in 2009, and spending even more now makes no sense.
"Again and again, the president has demanded that Congress do something that creates jobs. And the only thing we seem to end up with at the end of the day is more debt, more government, and fewer jobs," McConnell said.
Republicans are united in opposing tax hikes on the wealthy to fund federal jobs programs. "Job-killing tax increases are the wrong medicine for our struggling economy," said Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona.
Instead, Republicans urge deep spending cuts to improve the nation's fiscal health, and economic deregulation to unchain America's entrepreneurs.
Unions representing teachers and emergency responders are appealing to the American public through advertisements.
One advertisment said "The economic crisis is crippling public safety. Hey, Congress, we may be just kids, but right now we need help, too. Our school days are being cut."
And President Obama is keeping up the pressure, as well. "We need to put people to work right now. I think most Americans understand that," he said.
A recent poll showed 76 percent of Americans favor federal efforts to save local government jobs.
BANGKOK (BNO NEWS) -- Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on Thursday said that it is impossible to protect all of Bangkok from the country's worst floods in decades, describing the situation as a "national crisis", the Bangkok Post reported.
The Thai government has reinforced the city's flood walls in an attempt to protect the densely populated city. However, Yingluck said that they "cannot block the water forever" and they will choose which parts of the city to allow the water through to minimize the impact.
"The longer we block the water the higher it gets," she said. "We need areas that water can be drained through so the water can flow out to the sea."
Inner Bangkok has so far escaped major flooding as authorities divert water to areas outside the main capital, but efforts to keep the city of 12 million people dry have been complicated by a seasonal high tide. "Flood waters are coming from every direction and we cannot control them because it's a huge amount of water. We will try to warn people," Yingluck said.
Thailand has been hit by unusually heavy monsoon rains in the past months, killing at least 320 people in flood-related incidents and affecting thousands of villages. Currently, about one-third of Thailand's provinces are affected.
In April and May, Thailand was also hit by flooding in the country's southern region, causing billions in damages to their fishing industry, industrial sector, tourism, and business and trade, among other areas.
(Copyright 2011 by BNO News B.V. All rights reserved. Info: sales@bnonews.com.)
JAKARTA (BNO NEWS) -- Hundreds of people were arrested in Indonesia's eastern province of West Papua on Wednesday for allegedly planning a coup during the Papuan People III Congress, the Jakarta Post reported on Thursday.
The violence erupted when hundreds of paramilitary police and army troops entered the congress venue in Abepura, Jayapura on Wednesday afternoon by force, arresting about 300 people. Among the detainees were an activist from the Secretariat of Justice and Peace of Catholic Church, Neles, Papua Tribal Council Head Forkorus Yeboisembut and prominent Papuan figure Edison Waromi.
"We will interrogate them, if we find evidence that they were involved in planning a coup we will continue to detain them, if not they will be released," Papua Police spokesman Wachyono told the newspaper.
The congress ended after a political declaration regarding the self-determination of the indigenous Papuan population was read out. According to reports received by the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), security forces fired warning shots, used tear gas, and beat up numerous participants while dispersing the crowd.
AHRC reported that one of the Congress participants was found dead behind a local military office. Other reports said at least two bodies had been found, but local authorities have not confirmed the number of casualties.
In the past, many people have been arrested for expressing political views that support independence from Indonesia. Soon after the Second Papuan People's Congress in 2000, the elected political representative of the indigenous Papuan community was abducted and killed by the Indonesian military, the AHCR reported.
Foreign journalists are not given access to the Papuan provinces by Indonesia and several international groups including the Red Cross have been banned from operating in Papua.
(Copyright 2011 by BNO News B.V. All rights reserved. Info: sales@bnonews.com.)
In a speech on March 28, President Barack Obama said the United States had a responsibility to help protect civilians threatened by Moammar Gadhafi, and that American interests and values were at stake in Libya.
The military campaign that began last March with U.S. cruise missiles and French aircraft strikes soon became a NATO-directed operation, and a key test of his administration's determination to spread the burden of military action among key allies and partners.
From the start, Obama made clear U.S. ground troops would not be involved; he drew a distinction between situations where military force was required, such as Afghanistan, and those where U.S. interests were not directly challenged.
But the president said the U.S has an obligation to act against threats to "common humanity and common security." He said U.S. policy was based on key principles, including support for universal rights and governments responsive to the aspirations of their people.
"For the region, today's events prove once again that the rule of an iron fist inevitably comes to end," Obama said Thursday, recalling these principles in the White House Rose Garden. "Across the Arab world, citizens have stood up to claim their rights. Youth are delivering a powerful rebuke to dictatorship. And those leaders who try to deny their human dignity will not succeed."
Longtime Middle East expert Aaron David Miller has been an advisor to six U.S. secretaries of state and is now with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.
He says events in Libya vindicate the president's decision to make a "relatively low-cost American investment" that allowed Libyans to take the lead in ousting Gadhafi, but broader implications remain unclear.
"We cannot do in Syria what we have done in Libya [or in] other Arab states," he said. "The Saudis, the Jordanians [who] will ultimately will be faced also with demands for greater political reform, greater respect for human rights [and] transparency."
As for any Obama "doctrine" regarding use of military force, Miller says it will continue to be difficult to apply a single model to all countries in the Arab Spring.
Leslie Gelb of the Council on Foreign Relations has a similar perspective that emphasizes the inherent geopolitical complexities such a decision entails.
"People will start debating whether or not we should be playing this role in getting rid of dictators, but they will soon find that any such policy is fraught with contradictions," he said. "The Saudis are dictators. Are we going to go in and help to overthrow them? Not a chance."
Exactly how much credit Americans will give Obama for current success of his Libya strategy remains to be seen. Miller says many Americans are focused on economic problems at home.
"There was a reckoning with Osama bin Laden," said Miller. "It did not marginally let alone significantly alter the relationship between the vast majority of people in this country who believe that the president's economic policies have failed."
But Miller says Republicans seeking to replace Obama in 2012 will have a hard time persuading voters that the president has been weak when it comes to foreign policy.
Gelb says the degree of domestic political impact for Obama will depend upon ongoing developments in Libya.
"We have to see next month and next year whether that country becomes a haven of opposition to western interests and ideals or whether it miraculous begins to edge toward democracy," he said.
In his remarks at the White House, Obama said the U.S. is under no illusions, saying Libya still faces a "long and winding road" to full democracy. But the U.S. and international community, he said, remain committed to the Libyan people.
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