Apple is the biggest tax avoider in USA !

Funny that even the corrupt (to the bone marrow level) US president took side tax dodger Apple, Inc when this company was accused by EU of cheating huge tax while operating out of its Ireland facility.

Apple biggest tax avoider in US stashing $215bn offshore

RT: 5 Oct, 2016

A new study reveals Fortune 500 companies are holding nearly $2.5 trillion in accumulated profits offshore to pay less tax. Top is Apple which since 2009 funneled $214.9 billion to tax havens and would owe $65.4 billion if the profits returned to the US.

The report was published just weeks after a European investigation concluded Ireland provided Apple with a favorable tax rate which allowed the company to pay one percent on EU profits in 2003 down to 0.005 percent in 2014. Apple is now obliged to pay $14.5 billion in back taxes.

The $215 billion Apple booked offshore through three tax havens last year is bigger than the gross domestic product of Portugal, Greece or New Zealand. If the company returned the earnings to the US and paid the $65.4 billion in tax, it would have been more than economies of Belarus, Uruguay or Croatia.

According to the authors, the second biggest tax avoider is pharmaceutical giant Pfizer with 181 offshore subsidiaries and almost $194 billion of profits booked offshore.

Number three is Microsoft with five tax haven subsidiaries and $124 billion of profits held offshore.

Sneaker giant Nike holds $10.7 billion offshore and would owe $3.6 billion in US taxes. One of the authors of the report, Citizens for Tax Justice, has noted that Nike’s offshore companies in Bermuda are named after its own brands, like Air Max Limited, Nike Cortez, Nike Flight, Nike Force, Nike Huarache, Nike Jump Ltd., Nike Lavadome, Nike Pegasus, Nike Tailwind and Nike Waffle.

Goldman Sachs holds $28.6 billion offshore, but “reports having 987 subsidiaries in offshore tax havens, 537 of which are in the Cayman Islands despite not operating a single legitimate office in that country, according to its own website.”

Overall, if all the Fortune 500 companies paid taxes on their profits in the US, the country would get an additional $717.8 billion. In 2015, the US budget deficit stood at $438 billion.
The royalties earned should have been subject to a 20.42 per cent withholding tax but instead, as the royalties were earned through iTunes software built into the iPhone, the money was included into the cost of buying an iPhone handset, according to FT.
Through the intricate tax avoidance system in place, Apple is then able to funnel these royalty payments into their Irish holding company, where they are subject to very low tax.

Apple ordered to repay record €13bn to cover unpaid EU tax

RT : 30 Aug, 2016

 

The European Commission ruled on Tuesday that "selective treatment" by Ireland allowed Apple to pay a tax rate of one percent on EU profits in 2003 down to 0.005 percent in 2014. The US company has been ordered to pay up to €13 billion to cover the unpaid tax.

“Member States cannot give tax benefits to selected companies – this is illegal under EU state aid rules. The Commission’s investigation concluded that Ireland granted illegal tax benefits to Apple, which enabled it to pay substantially less tax than other businesses over many years. In fact, this selective treatment allowed Apple to pay an effective corporate tax rate of one percent on its European profits in 2003 down to 0.005 percent in 2014,” said EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager EU in a press release before her speech.
Apple was attributing its profits to a "head office" in Cork that had no employees, premises or any economic activity, and paid almost no tax, said Vestager.
The 130-page ruling on Apple's Irish operations was published on Tuesday following a three-year investigation.
“I disagree profoundly with the commission’s decision,” said Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan, adding that the country’s tax system leans on the law “without exception.”
According to a FT source familiar with the matter, Apple would have to restate its accounts as a result of the ruling. The US company allegedly paid tax at a rate of one percent, well below Ireland’s then official 12.5 percent corporate tax.
The investigation was accompanied by strong warnings from Washington not to fine American companies. The US Department of Justice accused the European Commission of becoming a “supranational tax authority” overriding the tax codes of its member countries. The Obama administration warned the EU that the investigation could “create an unfortunate international tax policy precedent.”
The European Commission accused Ireland in 2014 of dodging international tax rules by allowing Apple to funnel tens of billions of dollars of European profits into the country in return for maintaining jobs. Apple has rejected the decision and said it will appeal.
"The European Commission has launched an effort to rewrite Apple’s history in Europe, ignore Ireland’s tax laws and upend the international tax system in the process. The Commission’s case is not about how much Apple pays in taxes, it’s about which government collects the money. It will have a profound and harmful effect on investment and job creation in Europe," a statement from Apple said.
The multibillion dollar penalty for Apple will be much bigger than fines on other US companies such as Starbucks and Fiat Chrysler. The European watchdog had previously ordered the Netherlands and Luxembourg to recover €30 million in unpaid taxes from the coffee company and car maker.
The biggest penalty to date involved EDF, the French energy group, which was ordered to repay €1.4 billion.

Washington threatens Brussels over plan to demand billions in unpaid taxes from Apple

RT : 25 Aug, 2016

The US Treasury Department has warned about possible retaliation if the European Commission pursues American companies like Apple, Amazon and Starbucks over tax avoidance.
The EU has been investigating whether Apple’s tax dealings in Ireland, which allowed the company to pay very little income tax for its European earnings, violated European rules. Apple is suspected of using loopholes in tax laws and paying just two percent tax in Ireland, well below the official 12.5 percent. The decision is expected to be announced next month.
The Obama administration warned the EU that the investigation could “create an unfortunate international tax policy precedent.” According to the document from the US Treasury, Brussels is taking on the role of a “supranational tax authority” overriding the tax codes of its member countries.
“This shift in approach appears to expand the role of the Directorate-General for Competition beyond enforcement of competition and state aid law . . . into that of a supranational tax authority that reviews member state” decisions on corporate tax, it said.
The US also criticized Brussels for setting unfair and “disturbing” precedents and singling out US companies.
Apple has been accused of funneling billions of dollars into Ireland, known for its lucrative tax rates. JP Morgan, which is working for Apple, said the tech company could face a bill for $19 billion in a worst-case scenario.
Amazon and McDonald's are also being investigated by the EU, while Starbucks faces back taxes of up to €30 million.

Apple hit with $118mn tax bill in Japan after funneling money through Ireland

RT : 16 Sep, 2016

Apple’s tax bills continue to mount after yet another multi-million penalty was handed down to an iTunes unit in Japan. A total of $118 million (12 billion yen) is owed after it was found the company was funneling money through Ireland.

After investigating the company, the Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau found that the royalties earned from fees paid by Apple iTunes subscribers in Japan were withheld from the exchequer, with the money instead channeled through a licensing firm owned by Apple in the Republic of Ireland.
Apple have refused to comment on the tax bill, saying it doesn’t discuss specific cases, according to FT. The company wasn’t slow to find the funds, however, with reports indicating that the money has already been paid.
In August, the European Commission ruled that Apple owed the Irish government up to €13 billion ($14.6 billion) to cover the unpaid tax.

It was the found that the company had received "selective treatment" which had allowed them pay a tax rate of one percent on EU profits in 2003 down to 0.005 percent in 2014.
Both Apple and the Irish government have signaled plans to appeal the ruling, claiming no laws had been broken.

Selected Readers' Comments:

# That's the American way of life. No social responsibility whatsoever. Making money is the be and end all with a little hypocritical Christianity thrown in for good measure.

# In the meantime, every hard working American is threatened with prison if doesn't pay the tax. Still no money for fresh water for Flint. The greed turned USA into third world country, pretty soon same greed will destroy it.

# Apple is just one of Big Americanski Tax Criminals. Other Big Names are not better. White House is the biggest Money Laundry Machine ever!

# Apple is not a company it is a tool to control people! Tax is for citizens not for the elite the western so called democracies are totally corrupted. 

# $215B stashed tax havens and the greedy btrds won't agree to pay $14B in EU taxes?  Pfftt...  I won't be buying Apple....

# It is easier to tax the poor. In this neo-liberal world only Capital is free but all of us are becoming slaves to corporations scheme.

# We the people are the sacrificial lambs on the altar of Capitalism.

# So what if if they paid the tax? That's only a one time magic number that won't make a difference in the grand scheme of things considering the debt surpasses that many times over. Things will continue like this in the US until the last minute and when the bubble bursts, al those 1% with dual nationalities will just bail out and live in their lavishly built castles and mansions overseas while reading the news and smiling at all memories they made off the back of the yanks.

# Immediately arrest the chief executives and board members and their accountants on national security grounds, unless they pay up are indefinitely confined without trial nor risk of parole and all of their personnel asserts seized.They did it with Al Capone these are no different enemies of the state.

# This is why they're so desperately in hate with Trump. Their cronies in Washington have the same dislike of the American people they do and have been allowing them to get away with this for years. It's the 1% who purchased all the media and bought up every independent outlet with any credentials so they could put them out of business or keep them as a propaganda arm for themselves. The politicians haven't been interested in breaking up their monopoly and in return they support the crooked politicians. They control the narrative and even with the internet, people are too lazy to seek out the truth.

# I'm more surprised that IBM has $68 billion.

Detox Products Are Basically Sham !

Commercials and food labels continue to harp a mantra detoxing your body is not a thing. Detox and other health fads have been around for centuries, and are generally debunked by medical science. Although "detox" is a hot, buzzing word in the healthy living industry in this time and age, please don't be fooled by those propaganda scam. Our liver, kidneys, skin, and other body organs are doing all the required detoxifying effects for them. If our body actually contained all the built-up toxins that marketers mention in commercials and promotions, we'd be in need of immediate medical attention. Or dead. Keep that in mind...

Simply put, detoxing is pseudoscience at best, and just a random marketing term at worst. The people who actually can detox their bodies are those with life-threatening drug addictions. Regular people who just eat fast food and beer every once in awhile? There's nothing a detoxifying tea will do for that, because there's no shortcut to being healthy besides eating right and exercising. It's that plain and simple ! Intermittent fasting has been shown to have some positive health benefits.

Pentagon Initiates Further Encirclement of China

The blood-thirsty war monger (Ass Carter) is on the loose...

Pentagon Announces “Third Phase” of Military Build-Up Against China. U.S. Economic Hegemony under TPP Supported by Military Might

By Peter Symonds

Global Research, October 04, 2016

World Socialist Web Site 3 October 2016

US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter announced last Thursday a further dramatic expansion of the Pentagon’s “rebalance” or “pivot” to the Asia Pacific that will only heighten the already tense military confrontation with China in the region. He insisted that the Asia Pacific was “the single most consequential region for America’s future.”

Speaking on board the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson in San Diego, Carter outlined what he called the “third phase” of the US military build-up and the strengthening of a “principled and inclusive security network” in Asia. While claiming that Beijing was not excluded from the “network,” every aspect of the “third phase” is aimed at preparing for a war with China.

The importance that Carter attached to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to “bind the United States more closely together with 11 other countries” underlines the real purpose of the “pivot:” to maintain American dominance and subordinate China to the interests of the United States. The very terms of the TPP ensure that Beijing will be excluded unless it accepts the rules set by Washington.

The defence secretary made clear US economic hegemony had to be underpinned by military might. In outlining the “third phase,” he declared that “the United States will continue to sharpen our military edge so we remain the most powerful military in the region and the security partner of choice.”

Carter indicated that the “first phase” of the “pivot” announced in 2011 involved a quantitative boost of the US military and the restructuring of its basing arrangements. Tens of thousands of American military personnel were redirected to Asia, with a commitment to station 60 percent of overseas naval and air assets in the region. The restructuring of US bases in Japan, South Korea, Guam and Hawaii was begun and new basing arrangements reached with Australia.

The “second phase” involved sending the “most advanced capabilities” to the Asia Pacific, including F-22 and F-35 stealth fighter jets, P-8 maritime patrol aircraft and the navy’s newest surface warfare vessels, as well as continuous deployments of strategic bombers. It also included a concerted effort to expand military ties throughout the region in an effort to encircle China with allies and strategic partners. Carter highlighted strengthened security relations with Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, India, Singapore, Vietnam and New Zealand in particular.

In order to maintain the “military edge,” Carter outlined extensive plans to “qualitatively upgrade and invest in our regional force posture.” He provided a list of hi-tech projects that will be funded, starting this year, including:

* Making Virginia-class nuclear submarines “more lethal and more capable” by trebling their cruise missile payload.

* Increased funding for multiple types of undersea drones, as part of more than $40 billion in allocations over the next five years to maintain “the most lethal undersea and anti-submarine force in the world.”

* Providing $12 billion over five years for the new B-21 Raider Long-Range Strike Bomber.

* Spending $56 billion over five years to buy more than 400 stealthy F-35 joint strike fighters.

* Investing nearly $16 billion over five years to upgrade the aerial tanker fleet.

* Re-purposing the SM-6 missile “so that it can also strike enemy ships at sea at very long ranges.”

* Investing in improving the “range and accuracy for land attack and anti-ship missiles,” as well as new torpedoes.

* Making large new investments, to the tune of $34 billion next year alone, in cyber, electronic and space warfare.

Every one of these new weapons and upgrades is geared to fighting a war with China, premised on the Pentagon’s AirSea Battle strategy—a massive missile and air assault on the Chinese mainland supplemented by a crippling naval blockade.

Moreover, as Carter indicated, there were also “more surprises”—some “leap-ahead” investments—that will “keep our decades-old commitment to undergirding security in the Asia-Pacific, strong and unchallengeable.”

The “third phase” features the intensification of the “Asia-Pacific’s growing principled and inclusive security network,” which Carter declared was “not a formal alliance, nor is it an effort to contain or isolate anyone.” The use of the term “principled”—denoting “shared interests and values”—is designed to exclude China, by cynically and hypocritically contrasting a network of supposed “democracies” with the autocratic regime in Beijing.

Carter’s speech was delivered just before attending a meeting of the defence ministers of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), in order to draw these countries into the US-led “security network.” It is worth noting that the 10 ASEAN members are: the Thai military junta, Stalinist police-state regimes in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, virtual one-party states in Malaysia and Singapore, the absolute monarchy of Brunei, the Philippines currently headed by the fascistic President Rodrigo Duterte, along with Indonesia and Myanmar, whose militaries continue to play a significant political role.

Carter nevertheless declared that the second informal dialogue with ASEAN defence ministers would “reflect on our shared interests and principles and identify new ways to partner together to realise them.” The real purpose of the gathering is to draw the ASEAN countries into an anti-China alliance and ramp up pressure on China over the South China Sea.

The meeting, which focussed on “maritime security,” came in the wake of the July 12 ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague in favour of a US-backed challenge by the Philippines to Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea.

Washington is increasingly concerned that Philippine President Duterte is backing away from a confrontation with China over the issue and announced a loosening of military ties with the United States. In this context, Carter’s declaration that “our alliance with the Philippines is iron clad” is a thinly-veiled threat to Duterte not to move into Beijing’s camp.

Carter sought to impress the assembled defence ministers with a display of American military might with flyovers by F-22 Raptor fighters and a B-1B strategic bomber. Friday’s events concluded with a dinner on board the battleship USS Missouri, followed on Saturday by a tour of the destroyer USS Chung-Hoon.

The defence secretary outlined new maritime security initiatives, including an ASEAN maritime dialogue and a maritime domain awareness exercise. The Pentagon is already providing $425 million over five years in a Maritime Security Initiative to provide hardware and boost collaboration with some ASEAN members—the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.

There is nothing innocent or peaceful about the Pentagon’s determination to rapidly roll out the “third phase” of its rebalance to Asia. In the name of maintaining regional security, US imperialism is rapidly and recklessly preparing for a showdown with China, with potentially catastrophic consequences.

The original source of this article is World Socialist Web Site

Copyright © Peter Symonds, World Socialist Web Site, 2016

Bangladeshi female architect wins Aga Khan award

Marina, along with another male Bangladeshi architect, won this year's Prince Aga Khan award.

Bangladeshi mosque architect smashes glass ceiling
AFP, 4 October 2016

Marina Tabassum was an unconventional choice to design Bangladesh’s new Baitur Rouf Mosque

Dhaka: As one of the only female architects in a country where women rarely even enter mosques, Marina Tabassum was an unconventional choice to design Bangladesh’s new Baitur Rouf Mosque, which has just won a prestigious international prize.

But there is little of the conventional about the 45-year-old Tabassum or her design, which eschews traditional minarets and domes in favour of a single-storey terracotta brick structure that is suffused with light and remains cool even in the scorching summer months.

Like most women in deeply conservative Bangladesh, Tabassum had barely set foot in a mosque when she was commissioned to design the building in 2005 after her grandmother donated a piece of land.

Few of Bangladesh’s mosques have dedicated sections for female worshippers, and most women pray at home.

But Tabassum visited over 100 before setting pen to paper for the Baitur Rouf Mosque in north Dhaka, focusing on creating a haven of peace in a poor neighbourhood of one of the world’s most congested cities.

“We may not have a tradition of women going into mosques to pray in the Indian subcontinent, but I have experienced some really beautiful spiritual spaces. That has always been a great inspiration to me,” she told AFP in a recent interview.

“The whole idea of spirituality as an element in design has always been something very intriguing and I like working with spiritual spaces.”

The 45-year-old, who emerged as one of Bangladesh’s top architects after designing Dhaka’s Museum of Independence, says her sex has not constrained her career.

“I think of myself as a professional. This whole notion of me being a woman really does not exist in my mind. It just does not exist,” she said.

‘Natural air conditioning’

The Aga Khan Award for Architecture is handed out every three years and rewards excellence in architecture serving Muslim communities. This year the $1 million prize was shared between six projects around the world.

The jury said the Dhaka mosque “challenges the status quo”, praising its “robust simplicity that allows for deep reflection and contemplation in prayer”.

Officially secular but mainly Muslim Bangladesh has a rich history of mosque building, dating back to the Turkish invasion of the 13th century.

The earliest combined their own designs with elements found in local traditions, such as the use of brick and small domes that span the roof, creating a unique style.

Tabassum said she tried to fuse those “glorious lost traditions” of mosque design with contemporary architectural practices.

Since it was completed in 2012, the Baitur Rouf Mosque has attracted visitors from around the country - to the obvious delight of the imam, Deen Islam.

“Unlike other mosques in the country, it does not have a minaret, or a dome, or a platform to deliver Friday prayers. Yet to these visitors it is one of the most beautiful mosques of the country,” the 38-year-old imam told AFP on a recent visit.

“The mild light that enters the mosque is very soothing. Even during a hot summer day, the temperature inside remains mild. You feel like you’re in natural air conditioning.”

Dozens of tiny windows in the roof and walls create a soft light that changes through the day as the sun passes over the building, while the traditional terracotta bricks keep the interior cool.

Tabassum also teaches architecture students and says she is highly selective about the projects she takes on, and every one must have some social value.

“We are a very young nation and an architect’s responsibility goes beyond just designing beautiful buildings,” she said.

“We can design buildings like the ones designed by Frank Gehry. But I would question whether that would be the right thing to do in a country like Bangladesh, whose economy is still not developed.

“In the Bangladesh context, that would be an ugly thing to do.”

Danger Mounts of Escalation in Syrian War !

Direct involvement between the two parties rather than thru' proxies?

US Suspends Talks with Russia as Danger Mounts of Escalation in Syrian War

By Jordan Shilton

Global Research, October 04, 2016

World Socialist Web Site 4 October 2016

 

In a highly provocative move, the United States announced yesterday it was breaking off bilateral talks with Russia on halting fighting in Syria’s civil war. The decision is only the latest indication that the US is preparing the ground for a major escalation of military operations in its war for regime-change in Syria.

With boundless hypocrisy, US State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement that Russia had failed to maintain its end of the bargain. “This is not a decision that was taken lightly,” Kirby said. “Unfortunately, Russia failed to live up to its own commitments, and was also either unwilling or unable to ensure Syrian regime adherence to the arrangements to which Moscow agreed.”

US officials added that contact between the two countries would continue to reduce the risk of clashes between US and Russian aircraft operating in Syrian air space. But this pledge cannot conceal the fact that both powers have mutually incompatible agendas in Syria and are perilously close to a direct military clash that could spiral out of control and trigger a wider war. As White House spokesman Josh Earnest bluntly put it, on Syria, there was “nothing more for the US and Russia to talk about.”

Washington’s attempt to pin the blame on Russia for the breakdown of diplomacy in Syria is thoroughly dishonest. The United States never had any intention of abiding by the ceasefire agreement struck between Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov last month. It exploited the week-long pause in fighting to enable its proxy Islamist “rebels” to regroup in the face of a Russian- and Iranian-backed offensive by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s troops in Aleppo, while continuing to provide its Al Qaeda-linked allies with arms. The US-backed anti-Assad forces never accepted the ceasefire.

Open differences emerged within the US political and military establishment over the ceasefire terms, with the Pentagon publicly rejecting military and intelligence cooperation with Moscow in the name of fighting terrorism. It is likely that a September 17 US air strike on a Syrian army outpost near the town of Deir ez-Zor, which helped ISIS fighters capture positions in the area, was deliberately launched by a faction of the US military opposed to intelligence-sharing with Russia, for the purpose of blowing up the ceasefire agreement.

The incident had the desired effect. The ceasefire collapsed several days later when a UN aid convoy came under attack. Washington and its European allies blamed the attack on Moscow and used it to demand that Russia and Syria ground their aircraft. Russia denied any involvement in the bombing of the aid convoy.

The US government and media have seized on the bombardment of “rebel”-held eastern Aleppo, controlled by the al-Nusra front, which Washington lists as a terrorist organization, to accuse Russia of war crimes and prepare the ground for an escalation of the war. Since intervening on the side of the Syrian government last September, Moscow has sought to advance its own interests by propping up its ally Assad. Syria is the site of Russia’s sole naval base outside of the former Soviet Union.

According to UN figures, at least 320 civilians have been killed in Aleppo since the end of the ceasefire. Civilians have been targeted by both sides, although the Western media has generally buried reports of the shelling of government-controlled areas by Islamist “rebels.” Up to 270,000 civilians, including 100,000 children, are trapped in the city.

The crocodile tears shed by US and Western politicians over the fate of Aleppo’s inhabitants are a transparent fraud, aimed at concealing the fact that primary responsibility for the catastrophe in Syria, where more than half a million people have lost their lives and over 50 percent of the population have fled their homes, lies with the US and its allies. Washington deliberately fomented the civil war with the aim of removing Assad, installing a puppet government, and asserting its hegemony in the energy-rich Middle East against its main rivals, Russia and China.

The Western powers’ humanitarian pretenses were further exposed by a leaked UN report which placed chief responsibility for the disastrous conditions in Syria on the US and European Union’s sanctions regime. The report, which was published in May but only released Sunday by the Intercept after it obtained a leaked copy, accuses Washington and Brussels of imposing since 2011 “some of the most complicated and far-reaching sanctions regimes ever imposed.”

US prohibition on money transfers has made it almost impossible for aid groups to pay salaries and buy supplies, leaving the way open for ISIS and the al-Nusra Front to open unofficial avenues for the transfer of financial assistance. A separate letter from “a key UN official” in August described the sanctions as a “principal factor” in the collapse of the healthcare system.

The Obama administration never had any intention of reaching a deal with Russia to curb the violence in Syria unless it fully capitulated to US demands for the installation of a pro-Western puppet regime.

Moscow has instead made increasingly clear that it is unwilling to back down in the face of US threats to encourage Islamist terrorists to direct their attacks against Russia. After Kirby menacingly declared last week that extremists could attack “Russian interests” and even Russian cities, an ominous pronouncement given Washington’s long-standing collaboration with Jihadi terrorists, Russia shot back that any US escalation in Syria would lead to “total war” and cause “tectonic shifts” throughout the Middle East.

Earlier on Monday, President Vladimir Putin announced the suspension of the United States from an agreement regulating the disposal of plutonium from decommissioned nuclear weapons. Putin cited as reasons “the radical change in the environment, a threat to strategic stability posed by the hostile actions of the US against Russia, and the inability of the US to deliver on the obligation to dispose of excessive weapons plutonium under international treaties.”

On Syria, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Washington had failed to separate US-backed “moderate rebels” from the al-Nusra Front, which was to have been a first step under the ceasefire deal to the establishment of a joint implementation center from which Moscow and Washington would coordinate attacks on terrorists.

“We are becoming more convinced that in a pursuit of a much desired regime-change in Damascus, Washington is ready to ‘make a deal with the devil,’” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Monday. For the sake of ousting Syrian President Assad, the US appears to be ready to “forge an alliance with hardened terrorists.”

In truth, such an alliance has long been cemented. In 2011, the Obama administration exploited similar “humanitarian” concerns as those now being whipped up over Syria to justify the bombardment and destruction of Libya so as to overthrow the Gaddafi regime. This was combined with support to Islamist extremist forces, leading to the deaths of tens of thousands and plunging the North African country into a brutal civil war. Many of these same Islamists were then relocated to Syria, supplied with arms funneled through the CIA, the Gulf states and Turkey, and encouraged to wage war on the Assad regime. It was out of this environment that ISIS emerged and began to gain ground.

The US political and military establishment is fully prepared to risk an all-out conflict with nuclear-armed Russia to secure its geo-strategic ambitions in the Middle East and beyond. Less than two weeks ago, General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress that extending US control over Syrian air space would mean war with Syria and Russia. He emphasized that the US military had no intention in establishing any kind of intelligence-sharing arrangement with Russia.

Last week, in another calculated provocation, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter delivered remarks at a nuclear base in North Dakota threatening nuclear conflict with Russia.

The escalation of tensions with Russia has the support of Washington’s Western allies, including Britain and France. The suspension of talks coincided Monday with reports that Paris is circulating a draft UN Security Council resolution demanding that the Assad regime halt its bombardment of Aleppo and warning that those responsible for war crimes will be held accountable.

The text also refers to the need to immediately halt all military flights over Aleppo, which in effect restricts only Syrian and Russian planes and could serve as the initial step to a “no-fly” zone enforced by US and allied aircraft. Diplomats expect Russia will veto the resolution if it comes to a vote, a move that French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault has vowed would result in Moscow being labeled as complicit in war crimes.

The original source of this article is World Socialist Web Site

Copyright © Jordan Shilton, World Socialist Web Site, 2016

Whereabouts of Michelangelo's Secret Drawings

Little known facts from history...

Michelangelo's Secret Drawings Are Underneath The Medici Chapel

Michelangelo is arguably one of the most famous artists of all time, whose work is some of the most recognized. But many of us may not have heard of his secret stash of drawings, which researchers found hundreds of years after his death. The drawings are on the walls of a small, cell-like room beneath the Medici Chapel of the Basilica di San Lorenzo chapel in Florence. And here's where the story takes a turn for the even more interesting: He was holed up there for months while the Medici family wanted him dead.

In 1530, Michelangelo and many other Italians defied the pope in hopes of a more democratic system of governance. This was a bold choice for Michelangelo, who owed his entire career to the powerful Medici family. The pope himself was a Medici, by the way ; so this caused major problems for the artist. The pope and his family sought to punish anyone defying their rule, which would have included Michelangelo had he not hid in his dank little room beneath the chapel, which he had originally built as a mausoleum for the Medici Family. The drawings on the walls, which may include doodles of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, were discovered in 1976 by the director of the Museum of the Medici Chapel.

 

The Project for a “New Middle East”

A subset of PNAC (Project for a New American Century)...

Plans for Redrawing the Middle East: The Project for a “New Middle East”

By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

Global Research, October 01, 2016

Global Research 18 November 2006

“Hegemony is as old as Mankind…” -Zbigniew Brzezinski, former U.S. National Security Advisor

The term “New Middle East” was introduced to the world in June 2006 in Tel Aviv by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (who was credited by the Western media for coining the term) in replacement of the older and more imposing term, the “Greater Middle East.”

This shift in foreign policy phraseology coincided with the inauguration of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) Oil Terminal in the Eastern Mediterranean. The term and conceptualization of the “New Middle East,” was subsequently heralded by the U.S. Secretary of State and the Israeli Prime Minister at the height of  the Anglo-American sponsored Israeli siege of Lebanon. Prime Minister Olmert and Secretary Rice had informed the international media that a project for a “New Middle East” was being launched from Lebanon.

This announcement was a confirmation of an Anglo-American-Israeli “military roadmap” in the Middle East. This project, which has been in the  planning stages for several years, consists in creating an arc of instability, chaos, and violence extending from Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria to Iraq, the Persian Gulf, Iran, and the borders of NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan.

The “New Middle East” project was introduced publicly by Washington and Tel Aviv with the expectation that Lebanon would be the pressure point for realigning the whole Middle East and thereby unleashing the forces of “constructive chaos.” This “constructive chaos” –which generates conditions of violence and warfare throughout the region– would in turn be used so that the United States, Britain, and Israel could redraw the map of the Middle East in accordance with their geo-strategic needs and objectives.

New Middle East Map

Secretary Condoleezza Rice stated during a press conference that “[w]hat we’re seeing here [in regards to the destruction of Lebanon and the Israeli attacks on Lebanon], in a sense, is the growing—the ‘birth pangs’—of a ‘New Middle East’ and whatever we do we [meaning the United States] have to be certain that we’re pushing forward to the New Middle East [and] not going back to the old one.”1

The Anglo-American Military Roadmap in the Middle East and Central Asia 

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s speech on the “New Middle East” had set the stage. The Israeli attacks on Lebanon –which had been fully endorsed by Washington and London– have further compromised and validated the existence of the geo-strategic objectives of the United States, Britain, and Israel. According to Professor Mark Levine the “neo-liberal globalizers and neo-conservatives, and ultimately the Bush Administration, would latch on to creative destruction as a way of describing the process by which they hoped to create their new world orders,” and that “creative destruction [in] the United States was, in the words of neo-conservative philosopher and Bush adviser Michael Ledeen, ‘an awesome revolutionary force’ for (…) creative destruction…”2

Anglo-American occupied Iraq, particularly Iraqi Kurdistan, seems to be the preparatory ground for the balkanization (division) and finlandization (pacification) of the Middle East. Already the legislative framework, under the Iraqi Parliament and the name of Iraqi federalization, for the partition of Iraq into three portions is being drawn out. (See map below)

Moreover, the Anglo-American military roadmap appears to be vying an entry into Central Asia via the Middle East. The Middle East, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are stepping stones for extending U.S. influence into the former Soviet Union and the ex-Soviet Republics of Central Asia. The Middle East is to some extent the southern tier of Central Asia. Central Asia in turn is also termed as “Russia’s Southern Tier” or the Russian “Near Abroad.”

Many Russian and Central Asian scholars, military planners, strategists, security advisors, economists, and politicians consider Central Asia (“Russia’s Southern Tier”) to be the vulnerable and “soft under-belly” of the Russian Federation.3

It should be noted that in his book, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geo-strategic Imperatives, Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former U.S. National Security Advisor, alluded to the modern Middle East as a control lever of an area he, Brzezinski, calls the Eurasian Balkans. The Eurasian Balkans consists of the Caucasus (Georgia, the Republic of Azerbaijan, and Armenia) and Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan) and to some extent both Iran and Turkey. Iran and Turkey both form the northernmost tiers of the Middle East (excluding the Caucasus4) that edge into Europe and the former Soviet Union.

The Map of the “New Middle East”

A relatively unknown map of the Middle East, NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan, and Pakistan has been circulating around strategic, governmental, NATO, policy and military circles since mid-2006. It has been causally allowed to surface in public, maybe in an attempt to build consensus and to slowly prepare the general public for possible, maybe even cataclysmic, changes in the Middle East. This is a map of a redrawn and restructured Middle East identified as the “New Middle East.”

Map of the New Middle East

Note: The map was prepared by Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters. It was published in the Armed Forces Journal in June 2006, Peters is a retired colonel of the U.S. National War Academy. (Map Copyright Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters 2006).

Although the map does not officially reflect Pentagon doctrine, it has been used in a training program at NATO’s Defense College for senior military officers. This map, as well as other similar maps, has most probably been used at the National War Academy as well as in military planning circles.

This map of the “New Middle East” seems to be based on several other maps, including older maps of potential boundaries in the Middle East extending back to the era of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and World War I. This map is showcased and presented as the brainchild of retired Lieutenant-Colonel (U.S. Army) Ralph Peters, who believes the redesigned borders contained in the map will fundamentally solve the problems of the contemporary Middle East.

The map of the “New Middle East” was a key element in the retired Lieutenant-Colonel’s book, Never Quit the Fight, which was released to the public on July 10, 2006. This map of a redrawn Middle East was also published, under the title of Blood Borders: How a better Middle East would look, in the U.S. military’s Armed Forces Journal with commentary from Ralph Peters.5

The concept of a redrawn Middle East has been presented as a “humanitarian” and “righteous” arrangement that would benefit the people(s) of the Middle East and its peripheral regions. According to Ralph Peter’s:

International borders are never completely just. But the degree of injustice they inflict upon those whom frontiers force together or separate makes an enormous difference — often the difference between freedom and oppression, tolerance and atrocity, the rule of law and terrorism, or even peace and war.
The most arbitrary and distorted borders in the world are in Africa and the Middle East. Drawn by self-interested Europeans (who have had sufficient trouble defining their own frontiers), Africa’s borders continue to provoke the deaths of millions of local inhabitants. But the unjust borders in the Middle East — to borrow from Churchill — generate more trouble than can be consumed locally.
While the Middle East has far more problems than dysfunctional borders alone — from cultural stagnation through scandalous inequality to deadly religious extremism — the greatest taboo in striving to understand the region’s comprehensive failure isn’t Islam, but the awful-but-sacrosanct international boundaries worshipped by our own diplomats.
Of course, no adjustment of borders, however draconian, could make every minority in the Middle East happy. In some instances, ethnic and religious groups live intermingled and have intermarried. Elsewhere, reunions based on blood or belief might not prove quite as joyous as their current proponents expect. The boundaries projected in the maps accompanying this article redress the wrongs suffered by the most significant “cheated” population groups, such as the Kurds, Baluch and Arab Shia [Muslims], but still fail to account adequately for Middle Eastern Christians, Bahais, Ismailis, Naqshbandis and many another numerically lesser minorities. And one haunting wrong can never be redressed with a reward of territory: the genocide perpetrated against the Armenians by the dying Ottoman Empire.
Yet, for all the injustices the borders re-imagined here leave unaddressed, without such major boundary revisions, we shall never see a more peaceful Middle East.
Even those who abhor the topic of altering borders would be well-served to engage in an exercise that attempts to conceive a fairer, if still imperfect, amendment of national boundaries between the Bosphorus and the Indus. Accepting that international statecraft has never developed effective tools — short of war — for readjusting faulty borders, a mental effort to grasp the Middle East’s “organic” frontiers nonetheless helps us understand the extent of the difficulties we face and will continue to face. We are dealing with colossal, man-made deformities that will not stop generating hatred and violence until they are corrected. 6
(emphasis added)

“Necessary Pain”

Besides believing that there is “cultural stagnation” in the Middle East, it must be noted that Ralph Peters admits that his propositions are “draconian” in nature, but he insists that they are necessary pains for the people of the Middle East. This view of necessary pain and suffering is in startling parallel to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s belief that the devastation of Lebanon by the Israeli military was a necessary pain or “birth pang” in order to create the “New Middle East” that Washington, London, and Tel Aviv envision.

The overhaul, dismantlement, and reassembly of the nation-states of the Middle East have been packaged as a solution to the hostilities in the Middle East, but this is categorically misleading, false, and fictitious. The advocates of a “New Middle East” and redrawn boundaries in the region avoid and fail to candidly depict the roots of the problems and conflicts in the contemporary Middle East. What the media does not acknowledge is the fact that almost all major conflicts afflicting the Middle East are the consequence of overlapping Anglo-American-Israeli agendas.

Many of the problems affecting the contemporary Middle East are the result of the deliberate aggravation of pre-existing regional tensions. Sectarian division, ethnic tension and internal violence have been traditionally exploited by the United States and Britain in various parts of the globe including Africa, Latin America, the Balkans, and the Middle East. Iraq is just one of many examples of the Anglo-American strategy of “divide and conquer.” Other examples are Rwanda, Yugoslavia, the Caucasus, and Afghanistan.

Amongst the problems in the contemporary Middle East is the lack of genuine democracy which U.S. and British foreign policy has actually been deliberately obstructing.  Western-style “Democracy” has been a requirement only for those Middle Eastern states which do not conform to Washington’s political demands. Invariably, it constitutes a pretext for confrontation. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan are examples of undemocratic states that the United States has no problems with because they are firmly alligned within the Anglo-American orbit or sphere.

Additionally, the United States has deliberately blocked or displaced genuine democratic movements in the Middle East from Iran in 1953 (where a U.S./U.K. sponsored coup was staged against the democratic government of Prime Minister Mossadegh) to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, the Arab Sheikdoms, and Jordan where the Anglo-American alliance supports military control, absolutists, and dictators in one form or another. The latest example of this is Palestine.

The Middle East, in some regards, is a striking parallel to the Balkans and Central-Eastern Europe during the years leading up the First World War. In the wake of the the First World War the borders of the Balkans and Central-Eastern Europe were redrawn. This region experienced a period of upheaval, violence and conflict, before and after World War I, which was the direct result of foreign economic interests and interference.

The reasons behind the First World War are more sinister than the standard school-book explanation, the assassination of the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian (Habsburg) Empire, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo. Economic factors were the real motivation for the large-scale war in 1914.

The redrawing and partition of the Middle East from the Eastern Mediterranean shores of Lebanon and Syria to Anatolia (Asia Minor), Arabia, the Persian Gulf, and the Iranian Plateau responds to broad economic, strategic and military objectives, which are part of a longstanding Anglo-American and Israeli agenda in the region.

The Middle East has been conditioned by outside forces into a powder keg that is ready to explode with the right trigger, possibly the launching of Anglo-American and/or Israeli air raids against Iran and Syria. A wider war in the Middle East could result in redrawn borders that are strategically advantageous to Anglo-American interests and Israel.

NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan has been successfully divided, all but in name. Animosity has been inseminated in the Levant, where a Palestinian civil war is being nurtured and divisions in Lebanon agitated. The Eastern Mediterranean has been successfully militarized by NATO. Syria and Iran continue to be demonized by the Western media, with a view to justifying a military agenda. In turn, the Western media has fed, on a daily basis, incorrect and biased notions that the populations of Iraq cannot co-exist and that the conflict is not a war of occupation but a “civil war” characterised by domestic strife between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.

Attempts at intentionally creating animosity between the different ethno-cultural and religious groups of the Middle East have been systematic. In fact, they are part of a carefully designed covert intelligence agenda.

Even more ominous, many Middle Eastern governments, such as that of Saudi Arabia, are assisting Washington in fomenting divisions between Middle Eastern populations. The ultimate objective is to weaken the resistance movement against foreign occupation through a “divide and conquer strategy” which serves Anglo-American and Israeli interests in the broader region.

(abridged)

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya specializes in Middle Eastern and Central Asian affairs. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).