Dubai Poised To Acquire Large Stakes in N.Y. Banks

Funny, you could say exactly the same thing about the budget deficit.

But the only way they CAN invest those American dollars is by buying American assets, like like American movie studios, ports and banks.

So ... put the price up. Double, triple, quintuple the prices of your movie studios, ports and banks. This is why dollar-flush investors who are tied into making American investments get crushed time and time again. In the nicest possible way, these assets aren't worth what some people are willing to pay for them just to avoid carrying dollars.

We didn’t think it worthy of a Manhattan style effort to become energy independent.

A 'Manhattan style' solution wouldn't have worked.

Think about it, one of the biggest reasons oil is at $90 is because we use so much of it. If we didn't use so much of it the price would be $10, and that 'Manhattan style' solution wouldn't make any economic sense, and would be abandoned.

As long as the world is awash in oil, the solution to our problem is to drill at home. That's something that doesn't need a 'Manhattan style' solution.

We just need to steamroller the libs.

Dubai:

United Arab Emirates, which remains a cash-based society and is considered an important regional financial center for the Gulf region, because of its role as the primary transportation and trading hub for the Gulf states, East Africa, and South Asia, and with expanding trade ties with the countries of the former Soviet Union, it is regarded as having the potential to be a major center for money laundering. Money laundering may take place within the formal banking system, including the numerous money exchange houses, but is believed to be largely confined to the informal and largely undocumented “hawala” remittance system – an undocumented and nontransparent system. The UAE government also has admitted the need to better regulate “near-cash” items such as gold, jewelry, and gemstones, especially in the burgeoning markets in Dubai. UAE acceded to the Kimberley Process in November 2002 and began certifying rough diamonds exported from there on Jan. 1, 2003. UAE customs officials may delay or even confiscate diamonds entering UAE from a KP member nation without the proper KP certificate.

(snip)

The evidence at trial also showed that HOMA’s principal business was transferring funds from third parties to accounts and individuals around the world, particularly in Iran. During the time GAVIDEL was operating HOMA, there was an embargo against trade with Iran, prohibiting all exports to Iran, including the financial services that GAVIDEL and HOMA provided. As the evidence at trial showed, GAVIDEL disguised his transfers of funds to Iran by sending them in bulk through third parties, principally a broker based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. In total, between mid-1998 and 2000, GAVIDEL illegally transferred approximately $2 million to Iran through Dubai. Proof at trial of this offense included extensive accounting records maintained by GAVIDEL of his illegal transfers to Iran, as well as numerous intercepted faxes from accomplices in Iran and Dubai confirming the receipt and deposit of funds in Iran. Trial evidence also showed that, when questioned by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (”OFAC”) about HOMA transactions destined for Iran, GAVIDEL falsely stated that, “at no point had business relations or the transfer of funds between [HOMA] and Iran existed” and described HOMA’s business as merely an “importer, exporter and trader of various products in the Middle East and Far East.”

Following GAVIDEL’s conviction, he was remanded to the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service.

(snip)

Top Money Laundering Experts For Dubai Banking Summit

Colourful ex-felon on speakers’ list

DUBAI - Money laundering, a scourge of the world’s financial and law-enforcement sectors, will be under the microscope in Dubai in April at a global banking strategy summit, Channels, and one of the visiting speakers will know all about having a captive audience.

Among a host of elite speakers flying in from Europe, Asia, the Far East, Australia and South Africa for ‘Channels 2004’ from April 25-28 will be Humberto Aguilar, a one-time criminal defence lawyer- turned criminal himself, and now an anti-money laundering expert.

Miami-based Aguilar is clearly a case of ‘set a thief to catch a thief’. Aguilar certainly boasts first-hand experience, having been convicted in the US in 1990 for helping his clients defraud the Internal Revenue Service by hiding their illegally obtained funds in foreign bank accounts and for having participated in sharing revenues from drug importation conspiracy.

His professional duties these days include lecturing for Money Laundering Alert in Miami, Puerto Rico and Panama, a monthly column for Money Laundering Bulletin and writing for Offshore Financial Intermediary.

Aguilar also says he has been drafted in by the US Government to aid in the War on Terror.

“I have been retained by the US Department of Homeland Security’s Bureau of Immigration and Customs Security to help thwart terrorism financing through money laundering activities.”

Aguilar says he is looking forward to his Dubai visit where he will join more than 50 experts of international standing in the global financial sector who will take the stage at the Channels strategy forum over the four days as either speakers or panelists.

Venue is the Crowne Plaza Hotel, where the exhibition for top-tier players in the financial service industry has been sold out for months due to regional executives being ultra-keen to hear the speakers and panel discussions.

Among globalisation, profitability and technology subjects to be featured at Channels are multi-channel delivery strategies, bancassurance, branding, product innovations and Islamic finance.

“Channels will be the banking industry’s biggest event in Dubai this year. It will be a unique forum that won’t be afraid to deal with the thorniest issues,” says event organiser Cordelia Henry, Conference Director for IIR.

Experts in the globalisation field will deal in depth with the Gulf States and the WTO, cross-border banking as well as mergers and acquisitions.

Another high-profile speaker is Joseph DiVanna, author of six books, whose lively subject will be “Everything You Wanted To Know About Retail Banking in 30 Minutes.”

Channels will be held against a series of significant developments in the economic mechanisms of the Gulf region. A number of Gulf states, notably Bahrain and the UAE, have embarked on pushes to be major international financial players.

http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/10/01/inv.pakistan.funds/index.html

Sources: Suspected terrorist leader was wired funds through Pakistan

October 1, 2001 Posted: 11:00 AM EDT (1500 GMT) WASHINGTON (CNN)

Excerpts: “— As much as $100,000 was wired in the past year from Pakistan to Mohamed Atta .... the wire transfers from Pakistan were sent to Atta through two banks in Florida. Then, Atta allegedly would obtain money orders — a few thousand dollars at a time — to ddistribute to others involved in the plot in the months before the hijackings. Atta lived in Florida much of that time. ... sources in the Middle East confirm that Atta and two other men wired more than $15,000 back to the United Arab Emirates just before the attacks — what may have been leftover cash from the terrorism funds. The money went to a man who flew out of Dubai for Karachi, Pakistan, on September 11 — the day of the attack. Atta sent $5,000, according to the sources. His Florida roommate, Marwan Al-shehhi, wired $5,400. A third man, Waleed Alshehri, sent slightly more than $5,200......”..” From CNN Correspondents Susan Candiotti in Washington, Rym Brahimi in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and CNN Producer Rich Phillips in Miami. “

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-102001money.story

Money Trail Leads to Gulf Accounts Probe: Three suspected hijackers wired $15,000 to an exchange house in United Arab Emirates on eve of the attacks.
By T. CHRISTIAN MILLER and PATRICK J. McDONNELL, Times Staff Writers

“..Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi...wired about $15,000 in cash to the currency exchange on the eve of the attacks. .... wire transfers to a man identified as Mustafa Ahmad, thought to be a financial officer in Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terrorist network.

..Al-Shehhi wired $5,400 to Ahmad, also known as Shaykh Saiid, shortly before noon on Sept. 10 from a Western Union office at the Greyhound bus terminal in Boston...
... Separately, .. Waleed M. Alshehri sent $5,215 to Ahmad from a currency booth at Boston’s Logan Airport on the evening of Sept. 9.
.... Finally, Atta wired money to Ahmad on Sept. 8 and 9. ... Ahmad picked up the transfers on Sept. 11 from the Al Ansari exchange in Sharja... The same day, Ahmad used a Saudi Arabian passport to fly from Dubai to Pakistan..”

(Rest in Peach Daniel! You are not forgotten)

November 16, 2001

Much-smuggled gem aids al-Qaida
Bought, sold by militants near mine, tanzanite ends up at Mideast souks

By Robert Block and Daniel Pearl
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

(snip)

A TRADE GROUP called the Tanzanian Mineral Dealers Association denies that bin Laden’s al-Qaida has any role in the tanzanite trade. But in the bars and cafes that dot the streets of Tanzania’s mining community, the radical connections are no secret. According to miners and local residents, Muslim extremists loyal to bin Laden buy stones from miners and middlemen, smuggling them out of Tanzania to free-trade havens such as Dubai and Hong Kong.

“Yes, people here are trading for Osama. Just look around and you will find serious Muslims who believe in him and work for him,” says Musa Abdallah, a Kenyan who has worked as a tanzanite miner for six years.

(snip)

Continued:

November 16, 2001

Much-smuggled gem aids al-Qaida
Bought, sold by militants near mine, tanzanite ends up at Mideast souks

By Robert Block and Daniel Pearl
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

(snip)

ROAD TO DUBAI

Sheik Omari and Mustafa say they sell their stones to a prominent local dealer, Abdulhakim Mulla, who Mustafa says sends some of the gems on to Dubai. The dealer denies the Dubai connection. In any event, on a recent day Sheik Omari could be overheard telling miners to bring perfect stones to the mosque, because “our market in Dubai only wants perfect stones.”

To Westerners in the gem business, mention of Dubai raises alarms. For one thing, the emirate is known as a center of money laundering and the underground cash-transfer system known as hawala, much-favored by bin Laden. Dubai also has no gem-cutting industry. It lies far outside normal channels for the trade in rough gemstones, most of which go to Jaipur, to Bangkok or to a few other traditional centers of cutting and polishing.

“Dubai is the kind of place that should throw up a flag that something is definitely askew,” says Cap R. Beesley, president of American Gemological Laboratories in New York, which tests colored stones. “When you see any rechanneling through nontraditional destinations like Dubai, it means someone is finding some financial incentive not to play by the book.”

U.S. law-enforcement officials have identified Dubai as a haven for al-Qaida business interests. The FBI and the Treasury Department are currently trying to help the United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is a part, to crack down on the abuse of Dubai’s free-trade zones by terrorists and criminals. While this effort mainly focuses on gold smuggling, the U.S. also has reports that al-Qaida uses tanzanite as a way to move funds around the world, says a U.S. government investigator familiar with Dubai.

Out of more than 12,000 pounds of official tanzanite exports from Tanzania last year, a mere 13 pounds were sold to Dubai dealers. But Magyane estimates that a hundred times that amount actually made its way to Dubai, through smuggling.

CASH BUSINESS

In Dubai, on a strip of small jewel shops along a creek, Africans often go door to door trying to sell plastic bags full of unrefined gold and sometimes uncut gemstones for cash. D.B. Siroya, an Indian dealer based in Dubai for two decades, says he has sometime acquired rough tanzanite in Dubai on behalf of Indian friends, buying from sellers he knows.

The cash element is part of what makes the gem trade attractive to al-Qaida, according to Wechsler, the former U.S. counterterrorism official. He says the gem business is also attractive because it is tiered, with many layers of brokers, traders, cutters, polishers and wholesalers between miner and consumer.

A U.S. government-funded report last year for Tanzania’s mining industry noted that the country’s gem industry was “subject to abuse by money launderers, arms and drug dealers.” Afgem Ltd., a South African mining company, has been trying to change that. It advocates branding tanzanite stones with tiny laser-etched logos and bar codes, plus other regulations to discourage smuggling. But its plan last year ignited clashes with small miners, who, Tanzanian intelligence claims, were funded by foreigners with a stake in the current loose system.

The many tiers in the business make it possible for unsavory players to get in and out without leaving much of a trace. In the U.S. jewelry industry, which consumes nearly 80 percent of tanzanite gems, many participants say they have heard industry reports of tanzanite links to al-Qaida only recently, and tend to discount them.

QVC Inc. says it has met with its seven tanzanite vendors to make sure they comply with its ethics code, which says QVC won’t knowingly deal in gemstones “that originate from a group or a country which engages in illegal, inhumane or terrorist activities.” Darlene Daggett, executive vice president of merchandising, says that if tanzanite “definitively can be linked to terrorist activities, we will not continue to sell it.”

Zale Corp. says it has heard “bits and pieces” about such a link, but not enough to know if it needs to change procedures. “It comes down to knowing who we do business with and knowing where they get their stones,” says spokeswoman Sue Davidson. “But all we really know is what they’re telling us. Without some kind of gemstone authorization, certification and tracking system in place, we cannot guarantee that no stone has been smuggled.”

Zale CEO Robert DiNicola adds: “If it came to light that there is a problem with tanzanite, we wouldn’t deal with it.”

Jewelers of America, a retail jewelers’ trade group, says it has been focusing on the “far more significant consequences to human life” of “blood” diamonds, those whose sale helps to fuel African conflicts. “I’m not suggesting we are not willing to look at other connections,” but “we need more information,” says the group’s chief executive, Matthew Runci.

Continued

(snip)

Terrorist Financing

Alongside the importance of finding fugitive terrorists and assessing military options, tackling terrorist financing and sharing intelligence are paramount. Especially relevant in this case are Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Saudi officials are keen to stress their cooperation with the United States in the war on terrorism, and their cooperation on the law enforcement and intelligence fronts is reportedly rather strong. Terrorist financing remains a very sensitive issue, however. At minimum, the Saudis have long exhibited a pattern of looking the other way when funds are used for extremist purposes.

As a major financial centre, the UAE — Sharjah and Dubai in particular — is also a major concern to U.S. officials: the untraceable hawala money-transfer operators, the gold market, drug smuggling, and unregulated air cargo traffic from the Emirates to Afghanistan and beyond.

In both the Saudi and UAE cases, the United States must express its willingness to work discreetly with their respective officials to address these issues, while at the same time firmly indicating that the events of September 11 have lowered the threshold of tolerance — that behavior which may have been acceptable last August is no longer acceptable today.

(snip)

Hijacker Fayez Banihammad.

June 25, 2001: Hijacker Fayez Banihammad opens a bank account in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), with 9/11 paymaster "Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi." That name is a likely alias for Saeed Sheikh, who is known to frequently visit Dubai in this time period (see January 1, 2000-September 11, 2001 and September 24, 2001-December 26, 2002). [MSNBC, 12/11/01] Banihammad flies to the US the next day (see April 23-June 29, 2001). Banihammad gives power of attorney to "al-Hawsawi" on July 18, and then "al-Hawsawi" sends Banihammad Visa and ATM cards in Florida. Banihammad uses the Visa card to buy his airplane ticket for 9/11. [Washington Post, 12/13/01, MSNBC, 12/11/01] The same pattern of events occurs for some other hijackers, though the timing is not fully known. [Congressional Intelligence Committee, 9/26/02] Visa cards are given to several other hijackers in Dubai. [London Times, 12/1/01] Other hijackers, including Hani Hanjour, Abdulaziz Alomari and Khalid Almihdhar, open foreign bank and credit card accounts in the UAE and in Saudi Arabia. Majed Moqed, Saeed Alghamdi, Hamza Alghamdi, Ahmed Alnami, Ahmed Alhaznawi, Wail Alshehri and possibly others purchase travelers checks in the UAE, presumably with funds given to them when they pass through Dubai. It is believed that "al-Hawsawi" is in Dubai every time the hijackers pass through. [Congressional Intelligence Committee, 9/26/02]

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Early August 2001 (D): The ransom for a wealthy Indian shoe manufacturer, kidnapped in Calcutta, India, two weeks earlier, is paid to an Indian gangster named Aftab Ansari. Ansari is based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and has ties to the ISI and Saeed Sheikh (see November 1994-December 1999). Ansari gives about $100,000 of the about $830,000 in ransom money to Saeed, who sends it to hijacker Mohamed Atta. [Los Angeles Times, 1/23/02, Independent, 1/24/02] A series of recovered e-mails shows the money is sent just after August 11. This appears to be one of a series of Indian kidnappings this gang carries out in 2001. [India Today, 2/14/02, Times of India, 2/14/02] Saeed provides training and weapons to the kidnappers in return for a percentage of the profits. [Frontline, 2/2/02, India Today, 2/25/02] Note that this appears to be an additional $100,000 sent by Saeed to Atta on top of the $100,000 he likely sent to Atta in 2000 (see June 29, 2000-September 18, 2000). If it's true ISI Director Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed orders Saeed to send $100,000 to the hijackers, it isn't clear to which $100,000 that refers (see October 7, 2001).

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"Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi"

September 24, 2001-December 26, 2002: In 2000, the 9/11 hijackers receive money from a man using "Mustafa Ahmed Al-Hisawi" and other aliases (see June 29, 2000-September 18, 2000). On September 8-11, 2001, the hijackers send money to a man in the United Arab Emirates who uses the aliases "Mustafa Ahmed," "Mustafa Ahmad," and "Ahamad Mustafa" (see September 8-11, 2001). Soon the media begins reporting on who this 9/11 "paymaster" is, but his reported names and identities will continually change. The media has sometimes made the obvious connection that the paymaster is the British man Saeed Sheikh, a financial expert who studied at the London School of Economics (see June 1993-October 1994), who undisputedly sent hijacker Mohamed Atta money the month before (see Early August 2001 (D)), was making frequent trips at the time to Dubai, where the money is sent, and is also known to have trained the hijackers (see January 1, 2000-September 11, 2001)

------------------------------------------------------

January 22-25, 2002: FBI Director Mueller visits India, and is told by Indian investigators that Saeed Sheikh sent ransom money to hijacker Mohamed Atta in the US (see Early August 2001 (D)). In the next few days, Saeed is publicly blamed for his role with gangster Aftab Ansari in financing Atta and organizing the Calcutta terrorist attack (see January 22, 2002). [Press Trust of India, 1/22/02, Los Angeles Times, 1/23/02, Independent, 2/24/02, AFP, 1/27/02, Telegraph, 1/27/02] Meanwhile, on January 23, Saeed helps kidnap reporter Daniel Pearl (see January 23, 2002) and is later arrested (see February 5, 2002). Also on January 23, Ansari is placed under surveillance after flying to Dubai, United Arab Emirates. On January 24, Mueller and US Ambassador to Pakistan Wendy Chamberlin discuss Saeed at a previously scheduled meeting with Pakistani President Musharraf. Apparently Saeed's role in Pearl's kidnapping is not yet known. [AP, 2/24/02] Mueller then flies to Dubai on his way back to the US to pressure the government there to arrest Ansari and deport him to India. Ansari is arrested on February 5 and deported 4 days later (see February 9, 2002 (C)). [AP, 2/10/02, Frontline, 2/16/02, India Today, 2/25/02]

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Aftab Ansari

February 9, 2002 (C): Gangster Aftab Ansari is deported to India. He was arrested in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on February 5 (see January 22, 2002 and January 22-25, 2002). [Independent, 2/10/02] He admits funding terrorist attacks through kidnapping ransoms (see Early August 2001 (D)), and building a network of arms and drug smuggling. [Deutsche Presse-Agentur, 2/11/02] He later also admits to close ties with the ISI and Saeed Sheikh, whom he befriended in prison (see November 1994-December 1999). [Press Trust of India, 5/13/02]

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Sheik accused in camel jockey abuse plot

By JANET PATTON

Lexington Herald-Leader

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Sheik Mohammed, one of the richest horse buyers in Kentucky and the world, has been implicated in the slave trade of child camel jockeys by a cable TV news program.

A report aired this week on HBO’s Real Sports includes footage of appalling living conditions at camel-training camps and alleges that boy camel jockeys — some as young as 3 — are kidnapped or sold into slavery, starved, beaten and raped. The report links the abuses to Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum.

Sheik Mohammed is the crown prince of Dubai, one of the United Arab Emirates. He also serves as defense minister for the UAE.

No representative of the Maktoum organization would comment on the report. Sheik Mohammed owns two horse farms in the Bluegrass — Raceland in Paris and Darley at Jonabell in Lexington; no one from the farms would respond publicly.

And an e-mail sent Friday afternoon to Sheik Mohammed from his official Web site was not answered.

The report, which HBO says was filmed in the UAE, is not specific about the locations of the camps featured. Some appear to be in Abu Dhabi, which is also in the UAE. The report lays the responsibility for these atrocities at the feet of ‘’the rulers of the United Arab Emirates I the sheiks.’’

But it focuses on only one member of any UAE royal family: Sheik Mohammed. At least some of the boy jockeys shown are allegedly at the Dubai camel track, which is owned and run by the Maktoum family.

The report calls the track ‘’the playground of the crown prince’’ and contrasts the boys’ hovels with the treatment of Sheik Mohammed’s horses and camels.

HBO correspondent Bernard Goldberg said on the report that HBO received a letter from unnamed UAE officials who said that they were ‘’shocked that this is happening’’ and that they ‘’are adamantly against it.’’

The UAE, a confederation of Arab states, in 1993 banned the use of jockeys under the age of 15 or under 45 kilograms (99 pounds); in 2002, it reiterated the ban.

Greg Sullivan, chief spokesman for the State Department’s Near Eastern Affairs Bureau, said State Department officials have urged the UAE to aggressively crack down on the trafficking of underage camel jockeys and are looking into the allegations raised in the HBO documentary.

‘’If the allegations prove true, the U.S. will use that information to further engage the United Arab Emirates government on that issue,’’ he said.

Sullivan said that the State Department asked HBO to provide the names of the underage children featured in the documentary, but HBO declined to provide the information.

The State Department’s 2004 Trafficking in Persons Report said the UAE government has made ‘’substantial efforts’’ to crack down on the trafficking of children for camel jockey work, but Sullivan said the practice still exists as ‘’a form of human slavery.’’

State Department officials have urged the UAE to impose a minimum age of 18 for camel jockeys.

Kentucky ties

Sheik Mohammed and other members of the Maktoum family have long been fixtures at the thoroughbred auctions at Keeneland. Under the royal blue silks of Godolphin, the family racing stable, the Maktoums have run horses in the biggest races in Europe and the United States, including the Kentucky Derby. The Maktoums annually hold the richest race in the world — the Dubai World Cup at Nad Al Sheba — and they fly the best horses and trainers there to compete.

Kiaran McLaughlin, a Lexington native who now trains horses in New York, spent a decade working for the Maktoums in Dubai. He said on Friday that he and other horse workers were well-treated.

McLaughlin said that he trained within half a mile of the camels but never saw any abuse or signs of child slavery. ‘’I don’t know about that. I can tell you that I lived there and loved it,’’ McLaughlin said.

‘’I can promise you Sheik Mohammed did not abuse any children,’’ he said.

Members of the racing press, including a Herald-Leader photographer and reporter, were invited to Dubai in 1999 and given a tour of the country. While there, they saw tiny jockeys who appeared much younger than 15.

And Anti-Slavery International, a human rights group, in June 2004 released photos that they said were taken in Dubai showing child jockeys; they accused the UAE of keeping the boys in brutal conditions.

Kentuckians Marci and Todd Boston lived in Dubai for years. Todd Boston moved to Dubai in 1995 to work as a blacksmith for Sheik Mohammed. His wife joined him in 1996; Marci left in 2000; Todd left in 2002.

They always said that they loved their time in Dubai, thought of it as a second home, and meant to return someday.

But the Bostons said Friday they are very disturbed by the HBO report, and in retrospect by what they saw in Dubai.

They remember child camel jockeys.

‘’You kind of knew about it. You knew about the little kids,’’ Todd Boston said, but they never heard about sexual abuse or beatings.

But based on the way he saw Arabs treat adult workers from India, Pakistan or Bangladesh, he said, he isn’t surprised by the allegations of child abuse.

The HBO report said many of the child jockeys were from slums in those countries.

Marci Boston said that she heard rumors at the time that the boys were ‘’taken’’ from poor homes in South Asia, but that she never imagined the conditions they were living in while in Dubai.

Todd Boston said that in the morning as he went to the horse track he would wait as the camels crossed the road to their track.

‘’There would be a pickup truck following them with little bitty kids in the back, with little helmets on, waving,’’ Boston said.

The Bostons are haunted by the memory of one green-eyed boy, about 4 years old they think, who they saw at the camel market wearing a helmet.

The boy stared at them as if he were ‘’desperate for love,’’ Todd Boston said. They have no idea what happened to him.

‘’This is a double-edged sword. I worked for Sheik Mohammed and I respect him very much, but on the other side, I am just horrified by this,’’ he said.

‘’I expect to hear from Sheik Mohammed. We need explanations,’’ Marci Boston said. ‘’I’m so angry. We were there — we saw the kids riding camels. I don’t have a doubt about it.’’

(snip)

Under the enlightened despotism of its Crown Prince and CEO, 56 year old Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the Rhode Island sized Emirate of Dubai has become the new global icon of imagineered urbanism. Although often compared to Las Vegas, Orlando, Hong Kong or Singapore, the sheikhdom is more like their collective summation - a pastiche of the big, the bad and the ugly. It is not just a hybrid but a chimera - the offspring of the lascivious coupling of the cyclopean fantasies of Barnum, Eiffel, Disney, Spielberg, Jerde, Wynn, and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.

Multibillionaire Sheikh Mo - as he’s affectionately known to Dubai’s expats - not only collects thoroughbreds (the world’s largest stable) and super-yachts, but also seems to have imprinted Robert Venturi’s cult Learning from Las Vegas in the same way that more pious Muslims have memorized the Koran. Under his leadership the coastal desert has become a huge circuit board into which the elite of transnational engineering firms and retail developers are invited to plug high-tech clusters, entertainment zones, artificial islands, ‘cities within cities’ - whatever is the latest fad in urban capitalism. The same phantasmagoric but generic Lego blocks, of course, can be found in dozens of aspiring cities these days but Sheikh Mo has a distinctive and inviolable criterion - everything must be ‘world class’, by which he means number one in The Guinness Book of Records. Thus Dubai is building the world’s largest theme park, the biggest mall, the highest building, and the first underwater hotel, among other firsts.

Sheikh Mo’s architectural megalomania, although reminiscent of Albert Speer and his patron, is not irrational. Having ‘learned from Las Vegas,’ he understands that if Dubai wants to become the luxury consumer paradise of the Middle East and South Asia (its officially defined ‘home market’ of 1.6 billion), it must ceaselessly strive for excess. From this standpoint, the city’s monstrous caricature of futurism is simply shrewd marketing. Its owners love it when designers and urbanists anoint it as the cutting edge. Architect George Katodrytis wrote, ‘Dubai may be considered the emerging prototype for the 21st century: prosthetic and nomadic oases presented as isolated cities that extend out over the land and sea.’ Moreover Dubai can count on the peak-oil epoch to cover the costs of these hyperboles. Each time you spend $40 to fill your tank, you are helping to irrigate Sheik Mo’s oasis.

Precisely because Dubai is rapidly pumping the last of its own modest endowment of oil, it has opted to become the postmodern ‘city of nets’ - as Bertolt Brecht called his fictional boomtown of Mahagonny - where the super-profits of oil are to be reinvested in Arabia’s one truly inexhaustible natural resource, sand. (Indeed, mega-projects in Dubai are usually measured by volumes of sand moved, 1 billion cubic feet in the case of ‘The World’).

Al Qaida and the war on terrorism deserve some of the credit for this boom. Since 9/11 many Middle Eastern investors, fearing possible lawsuits or sanctions, have pulled up stakes in the west. According to Salman bin Dasmal of Dubai Holdings, the Saudis alone have repatriated one third of their trillion-dollar overseas portfolio. The sheikhs are bringing it back home, and last year the Saudis were believed to have ploughed at least $7 billion into Dubai’s sand castles.

Another aqueduct of oil wealth flows from the neighbouring Emirate of Abu Dhabi. The two statelets dominate the United Arab Emirates - a quasi-nation thrown together by Sheikh Mo’s father and the ruler of Abu Dhabi in 1971 to fend off threats from Marxists in Oman and, later, Islamists in Iran. Today Dubai’s security is guaranteed by the American nuclear super-carriers usually berthed at the port of Jebel Ali. Indeed the city-state aggressively promotes itself as the ultimate elite ‘Green Zone’ in an increasingly turbulent and dangerous region.

Meanwhile as increasing numbers of experts warn that the age of cheap oil is passing, the al-Maktoum clan can count on a torrent of nervous oil revenue seeking a friendly and stable haven. When outsiders question the sustainability of the current boom, Dubai officials point out that their new Mecca is being built on equity, not debt.

Since a watershed 2003 decision to open unrestricted freehold ownership to foreigners, wealthy Europeans and Asians have rushed to become part of the Dubai bubble. A beachfront in one of the ‘Palms’ or, better yet, a private island in ‘The World’ now has the cachet of St Tropez or Grand Cayman. The old colonial masters lead the pack, as Brit expats and investors have become the biggest cheerleaders for Sheikh Mo’s dreamworld - David Beckham owns a beach and Rod Stewart an island (rumoured, in fact, to be named Great Britain).

An indentured, invisible majority

The utopian character of Dubai, it must be emphasised, is no mirage. Even more than Singapore or Texas, the city-state really is an apotheosis of neo-liberal values. On the one hand it provides investors with a comfortable, western-style property rights regime, including freehold ownership that is unique in the region. Included with the package is a broad tolerance of booze, recreational drugs, halter tops, and other foreign vices formally proscribed by Islamic law. (When expats extol Dubai’s unique ‘openness’, it is this freedom to carouse - not to organise unions or publish critical opinions - that they are usually praising.)

On the other hand, Dubai, together with its Emirate neighbours, has achieved the state of the art in the disenfranchisement of labour. Trade unions, strikes and agitators are illegal and 99 percent of the private sector workforce are easily deportable non-citizens. Indeed the deep thinkers at the American Enterprise and Cato institutes must salivate when they contemplate the system of classes and entitlements in Dubai.

At the top of the social pyramid, of course, are the al-Maktoums and their cousins who own every lucrative grain of sand in the sheikhdom. Next, the native 15 percent of the population - whose uniform of privilege is the traditional white dishdash - constitutes a leisure class whose obedience to the dynasty is subsidised by income transfers, free education and government jobs. A step below are the pampered mercenaries - 150,000 or so British expats, along with other European, Lebanese and Indian managers and professionals, who take full advantage of their air-conditioned affluence and two months of overseas leave every summer.

However, South Asian contract labourers, legally bound to a single employer and subject to totalitarian social controls, make up the great mass of the population. Dubai lifestyles are attended by vast numbers of Filipina, Sri Lankan and Indian maids, while the building boom is carried on the shoulders of an army of Pakistanis and Indians working 12-hour shifts, six and half days a week, in the blast-furnace desert heat. Dubai, like its neighbours, flouts ILO labour regulations and refuses to adopt the international Migrant Workers Convention. Human Rights Watch in 2003 accused the Emirates of building prosperity on ‘forced labour’. Indeed, as the Independent recently emphasised in an exposé on Dubai, ‘The labour market closely resembles the old indentured labour system brought to Dubai by its former colonial master, the British.’

‘Like their impoverished forefathers,’ the paper continued, ‘today’s Asian workers are forced to sign themselves into virtual slavery for years when they arrive in the United Arab Emirates. Their rights disappear at the airport where recruitment agents confiscate their passports and visas to control them.’

In addition to being super-exploited, Dubai’s helots are also expected to be generally invisible. The bleak work camps on the city’s outskirts where labourers are crowded six, eight, even 12 to a room are not part of the official tourist image of a city of luxury without slums or poverty. In a recent visit, even the United Arab Emirates’ minister of labour was reported to be profoundly shocked by the squalid, almost unbearable conditions in a remote work camp maintained by a large construction contractor. Yet when the labourers attempted to form a union to win back pay and improve living conditions, they were promptly arrested.

Paradise, however, has even darker corners than the indentured labour camps. The Russian girls at the elegant hotel bar are but the glamorous facade of a sinister sex trade built on kidnapping, slavery and sadistic violence. Dubai - any of the hipper guidebooks will advise - is the ‘Bangkok of the Middle East’, populated by thousands of Russian, Armenian, Indian and Iranian prostitutes controlled by various transnational gangs and mafias. (The city, conveniently, is also a world centre for money laundering with an estimated 10 percent of real estate changing hands in cash-only transactions.)

Sheikh Mo and his thoroughly modern regime, of course, disavow any connection to this burgeoning red-light industry although insiders know that the women are essential to keeping all those five-star hotels full of European and Arab businessmen. But the sheikh himself has been personally linked to Dubai’s most scandalous vice: child slavery.

Camel racing is a local passion in the Emirates, and in June 2004 Anti-Slavery International released photos of preschool-age child jockeys in Dubai. HBO Real Sports simultaneously reported that the jockeys, ‘some as young as three - are kidnapped or sold into slavery, starved, beaten and raped’. Some of the tiny jockeys were shown at a Dubai camel track owned by the al-Maktoums.

The Lexington Herald-Leader - a newspaper in Kentucky, where Sheikh Mo has two large thoroughbred farms - confirmed parts of the HBO story in an interview with a local blacksmith who had worked for the crown prince in Dubai. He reported seeing ‘little bitty kids’ as young as four astride racing camels. Camel trainers claim that the children’s shrieks of terror spur the animals to a faster effort.

Sheikh Mo, who fancies himself a prophet of modernisation, likes to impress visitors with clever proverbs and heavy aphorisms. A favourite: ‘Anyone who does not attempt to change the future will stay a captive of the past.’ Yet the future that he is building in Dubai, to the applause of billionaires and transnational corporations everywhere, looks like nothing so much as a nightmare of the past - Walt Disney meets Albert Speer on the shores of Araby.

Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery

United Arab Emirates (UAE) [ Country-by-Country Reports ]

The United Arab Emirates [map] is a federation of sheikhdoms located in SE Arabia, on the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. The federation consists of seven sheikhdoms: Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah, and Umm al-Qaiwain. The city of Abu Dhabi in Abu Dhabi is the capital. The UAE has an open economy with a high per capita income and a sizable annual trade surplus. Its wealth is based on oil and gas output (about 30% of GDP), and the fortunes of the economy fluctuate with the prices of those commodities. Since the discovery of oil in the UAE more than 30 years ago, the UAE has undergone a profound transformation from an impoverished region of small desert principalities to a modern state with a high standard of living.

The United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) is a destination country for women trafficked primarily from South, Southeast, and East Asia, the former Soviet Union, Iran and other Middle Eastern countries, and East Africa, for the purpose of sexual exploitation. A far smaller number of men, women, and teenage children were trafficked to the U.A.E. to work as forced laborers. Some South Asian and East African boys were trafficked into the country and forced to work as camel jockeys. Some were sold by their parents to traffickers, and others were brought into the U.A.E. by their parents. A large number of foreign women were lured into the U.A.E. under false pretenses and subsequently forced into sexual servitude, primarily by criminals of their own countries. Personal observations by U.S. Government officials and video and photographic evidence indicated the continued use of trafficked children as camel jockeys. There were instances of child camel jockey victims who were reportedly starved to make them light, abused physically and sexually, denied education and health care, and subjected to harsh living and working conditions. Some boys as young as 6 months old were reportedly kidnapped or sold to traffickers and raised to become camel jockeys. Some were injured seriously during races and training sessions, and one child died after being trampled by the camel he was riding. Some victims trafficked for labor exploitation endured harsh living and working conditions and were subjected to debt bondage, passport withholding, and physical and sexual abuse.

The U.A.E. Government does not collect statistics on persons trafficked into the country, making it difficult to assess its efforts to combat the problem. Widely varying reports, mostly from NGOs, international organizations, and source countries, estimated the number of trafficking victims in the U.A.E. to be from a few thousand to tens of thousands. Regarding foreign child camel jockeys, the U.A.E. Government estimated there were from 1,200 to 2,700 such children in the U.A.E., while a respected Pakistani human rights NGO active in the U.A.E. estimated 5,000 to 6,000. The U.A.E. Government has taken several steps that may lead to potentially positive outcomes, such as requiring children from source countries to have their own passports, and collaborating with UNICEF and source-country governments to develop a plan for documenting and safely repatriating all underage camel jockeys.

The Government of the U.A.E. does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so. Despite sustained engagement from the U.S. Government, NGOs, and international organizations over the last two years, the U.A.E. Government has failed to take significant action to address its trafficking problems and to protect victims. The U.A.E. Government needs to enact and enforce a comprehensive trafficking law that criminalizes all forms of trafficking and provides for protection of trafficking victims. The government should also institute systematic screening measures to identify trafficking victims among the thousands of foreign women arrested and deported each year for involvement in prostitution. The government should take immediate steps to rescue and care for the many foreign children trafficked to the U.A.E. as camel jockeys, repatriating them through responsible channels if appropriate. The government should also take much stronger steps to investigate, prosecute, and convict those responsible for trafficking these children to the U.A.E. - U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2005

Full report posted here
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/backroom/1472612/posts?page=52#52

Kyrgyz Sex Trade Flourishes

The sex trade in Kyrgyzstan has become a big business that the authorities are powerless to stop

By Alexander Zelichenko in Bishkek (RCA, 24-Mar-00)

It is often said that prostitution did not exist under Communism. It did. The sex trade was simply tightly controlled and organised with the tacit approval of the authorities.

Then known as Frunze, the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek boasted a training school for fighter pilots from Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. Certain women were allowed to “entertain” the visiting cadets in a handful of local hard currency bars and restaurants.

In an era of general shortage and shabbiness, these women were distinguished by their Western fashions and expensive perfumes. From time to time, the police would organise show raids when the prostitutes were rounded up then released back at the station.

After independence, these women used their experience and overseas contacts to ply a lucrative trade as international pimps. The oil-rich United Arab Emirates (UAE) became their main market. Here Kyrgyz “businesswomen” met patrons, searched out loopholes in the law and studied the mores of potential clients. Returning home to Bishkek, they began to seek out their quarry.

They dazzled Kyrgyz girls with promises of well-paid work in Dubai as waitresses and dancers. Special companies took care of all the travel arrangements. But, as soon as they arrived in Dubai, the girls were relieved of their passports and forced into prostitution by the racketeers.

However, a string of suicides and high-profile scandals forced the cartels to change their tactics.

The sex industry turned its attention to call-girls who were already working in Bishkek’s flourishing saunas and hotels. These new courtesans knew exactly what they were getting into and courses were even established to teach manners, dancing and English.

From small beginnings, the sex trade to Dubai has ballooned to such an extent that, according to official figures, a total of 794 Kyrgyz “tourists” visited the Gulf state over a nine-month period last year. Of these, 556 were women - 450 aged between 18 and 35.

(snip)

Realistic export controls

Because the United States has little diplomatic leverage with Iran, export controls are the main vehicle for impeding Iran’s efforts. Unfortunately, the Clinton Administration’s decision to slash export controls had made it much easier for Iran to get what it needs.

Dubai is an example. In our database, we have listed 22 Iranian companies operating in Dubai’s free trade zone, the main purpose of which is to handle re-exports, frequently to Iran. These companies are legally off-limits to American exporters because of the U.S. embargo against Iran, but the companies are probably getting U.S. goods anyway because U.S. exporters have no way of knowing the companies are Iranian. The U.S. Commerce Department has never published a list of Iranian companies operating in Dubai. In fact, after the Commerce Department’s recent decontrol of high-speed computers, U.S. companies can now ship powerful supercomputers (operating at up to 7 billion operations per second) to buyers in Dubai without an export license. And because Dubai has no effective export control system, there is nothing to prevent these supercomputers from going on to Iran or anywhere else. Iran now imports more goods through Dubai than through its own ports. The lesson here is that you cannot slash controls on exports to everyone in the world except the “rogue nations” and expect the rogues not to get things through retransfers.

(snip)

THE ANZ BANKING GROUP HAS just signed an agreement providing more than $390 million worth of finance credit to Iran’s five main commercial banks. This is the first time such an accord has been undertaken by an Australian bank. (German and Austrian banks set up similar arrangements in 1996). ANZ has entered into the arrangement with its regional subsidiary ANZ Grindlays Bank. Industrial and other project finance packages can now be arranged for Iranian projects. Funding will be provided for 85% of capital procurement on a specific project. The remaining 15% will represent the down payment.

The packages will only be concluded where export credit agencies (ECAs) of OECD countries provide cover to Tehran. ECA cover will be available to the ANZ because the agreement carries a sovereign guarantee from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Darren Rickards, Senior Corporate Banking Manager, Dubai and Iran, said that ANZ’s role will be as executor of the Framework Agreement and provider of finance. ANZ Investment Bank Australia signed the agreement in Dubai this month.

(snip)

2.2 BSA TAHIR

Alleged that BSA TAHIR, a SRI LANKAN businessman based in DUBAI was a trusted and close confidante of the arms expert and was actively involved in supplying centrifuge components for LIBYA’s uranium-enrichment programme; and....

(snip)

11. During investigations, BSA TAHIR alleged that his involvement with the nuclear expert started sometime in 1994/1995. That year, the latter had asked BSA TAHIR to send two containers of used centrifuge units from PAKISTAN to IRAN. BSA TAHIR organized the transshipment of the two containers from DUBAI to IRAN using a merchant ship owned by a company in IRAN. BSA TAHIR said the payment for the two containers of centrifuge units, amounting to about USD$3 million was paid in UAE Dirham currency by the Iranian. The cash was brought in two briefcases and kept in an apartment that was used as a guesthouse by the Pakistani nuclear arms expert each time he visited DUBAI.

(snip)

12.2

About 1998 to 2002. During this time, several meetings were held between the arms expert, accompanied by BSA TAHIR and the Libyans headed by MOHAMAD MATUQ MOHAMAD. One discussion was held in Casablanca, MOROCCO and several discussions in DUBAI.

(snip)

13.3

Project Machine Shop 1001. This was a project to set up a workshop in LIBYA to make centrifuge components which could not be obtained from outside LIBYA. The machines for the workshop were obtained from SPAIN and ITALY. BSA TAHIR said the middleman involved in this project was PETER GRIFFIN, a BRITISH citizen who is believed to have once owned Gulf Technical Industries (GTI) based in DUBAI. PETER GRIFFIN is said to be retired and living in FRANCE. The management of GTI has been taken over by his son PAUL GRIFFIN. BSA TAHIR also said that the plans for the Machine Shop 1001 was prepared by PETER GRIFFIN.

(snip)

15.4

SELIM ALGUADIS, a citizen of TURKEY. Also said to be an engineer. Alleged to have supplied electrical cabinets and power supplier-voltage regulator to LIBYA. Two weeks after action against the ship BBC China in Taranto, Italy on 4 Oct 2003, BSA TAHIR is alleged to have arranged the transshipment of electrical cabinets and power supplier-voltage regulator to LIBYA through DUBAI on behalf of SELIM ALGUADIS.

(snip)

15.7 SWITZERLAND

FRIEDRICH TINNER, mechanical engineer, alleged to have had dealings with the nuclear arms expert since 1980s. FRIEDRICH TINNER was reported to have prepared certain centrifuge components, including safety valves, and he sourced many of the materials that were made in several companies in Europe. FRIEDRICH TINNER did not keep the stock himself but arranged for the supply to reach DUBAI and then on to LIBYA. FRIEDRICH TINNER is also the President of CETEC, a company in SWITZERLAND; and

(snip)

ROLE OF BSA TAHIR

19.1

Sometime in 2001, BSA TAHIR is alleged to have planned to manufacture components with GUNAS JIREH in TURKEY. However, BSA TAHIR later changed his mind and offered a new business plan said to be legitimate to produce components for petroleum and gas to SCOPE. The staff were under the impression that the production was for petroleum and gas intended for DUBAI.

(snip)

MANUFACTURE AND EXPORT

24. The materials obtained from Bikar Metal i.e. aluminium round tube and aluminium round bar are semi-finished products that were sent to the SCOPE factory in SHAH ALAM for machining to be made into components for export. The order from BSA TAHIR was a one-off production estimated at about RM13 million and was sent in four stages to DUBAI. This was not a long-term contract on a continuing basis.

25. The SCOPE factory records show that a total of 14 types of components were manufactured. The components were sent in four stages i.e. in the month of Dec 2002 to Aug 2003. All four shipments were sent to DUBAI to Aryash Trading Company.

26. Though a document, delivery note/packing list, dated 1 Aug 2002 (Appendix “A”) shows that SCOPE had sent a shipment addressed to Gulf Technical Industries LCC, P.O. Box 29576, Dubai, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, the consignment was directed to Desert Electrical Equipment Factory, P.O.Box 51209, DUBAI on the instructions of URS TINNER. Documents related to the delivery to Desert Electrical Equipment Factory is as at “B”.

27. From the document retrieved such as ‘delivery note and packing list’, it has been found that SCOPE only shipped the components to DUBAI. No document was traced that proved SCOPE had delivered or exported the said components to LIBYA. Only BSA TAHIR and URS TINNER are said to know any preparation or arrangements to LIBYA.

(snip)

SEARCH ON BBC CHINA VESSEL

28. As explained, on 4 October 2003, a vessel, BBC CHINA, was searched at the Taranto port, ITALY where a total of 5 containers to LIBYA was seized following allegations it contained certain components for ‘centrifuge.’ The containers were sent by BSA TAHIR from DUBAI. Several items inside the container that is said to be components of a ‘centrifuge’ are as follows....

(snip)

29. All the above items, were made of ‘quality aluminium’ and were in wooden boxes with the SCOPE logo. This was part of the ‘transshipment’ delivered by SCOPE to Aryash Trading Company, DUBAI. The shipment of the items or components by BSA TAHIR to LIBYA via the vessel BBC CHINA was outside the knowledge of the management of SCOPE.

(snip)

31.1

BSA TAHIR claimed that’ together with the seized components on board BBC CHINA on October 4, 2003, was a consignment sent by GUNAS JIREH, a Turkish national who supplied ‘aluminum casting and dynamo’ to LIBYA for its ‘machine shop 1001’ project. These items were delivered through DUBAI using the services of TUT Shipping (TS) via vessel BBC CHINA. It is surprising that the consignment from GUNAS JIREH direct to LIBYA was allowed without any action; and

31.2

Two weeks after action taken against BBC CHINA, BSA TAHIR claimed to have arranged a ‘transshipment of electrical cabinet and power supplier-voltage regulator’ to LIBYA through DUBAI on behalf of SELIM ALGUADIS. These transshipment too arrived in LIBYA without any obstruction and this is unusual. SELIM ALGUADIS is said to have known AQK since the 1980s’.

(snip)

February 2004: Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) begins inspections of Libyan chemical weapons.

IAEA details history of Libya’s nuclear program in a public report and finds its past activities noncompliant with its NPT obligations, but commends its recent cooperation.

Malaysian investigators report that the Khan network shipped partly enriched uranium, as well as designs and technology for making a nuclear bomb, to Libya on Pakistani planes in 2001 and 2002. The report also says entities from Turkey, Germany, Switzerland, Britain, Dubai and Malaysia were involved in Libya’s nuclear program.

U.S. eases sanctions against Libya.

Libya tells the IAEA it wants to retain at least three nuclear facilities, including a uranium conversion plant that the U.S. wants dismantled and removed.

More:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/backroom/1472612/posts?page=54#54

My take is they are using the low dollar to acquire US mercantile-based assets like ports, banks, etc. to strenghen their role as a global business center and our inter-dependence with them beyond just energy.

In 15 years their energy supplies run out and they don't want to be deposed by Islamic fundamentalism. They will need our assistance but without the benefit of oil.

The Family Bush. The First Chicom/Islamic 1000 Points Of NWO Religion of Peace owned U.S. Presidents. We elected them as a nation we deserved them as a nation. When will this nation wake up? Wudy? Fwed, Dim Witt Mitt, John John the Bush’s son? We are in deep, deep trouble as far as leadership goes. Leadership not a one. Any one of those four means more Bush policies. No thanks!

http://www.efe.com/principal.asp?opcion=0&idioma=INGLES
Iran’s Ahmadinezhad, Venezuela’s Chavez: fall of the dollar and of U.S. imperialism is near

Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinezhad and his Venezuelan counterpart, Hugo Chavez, predicted here today a coming “fall of the dollar” and of “US imperialism,” and said that their countries “will stick together until the end.”

The two presidents discussed the results of the OPEC summit that ended Sunday in Riyadh, and signed several accords on economic, industrial, and financial cooperation.
“Fortunately we are witnesses to the fall of the (US) system of arrogance and the continuing victories of the people,” Ahmadinezhad said at a joint press conference where Chavez reiterated his support for Iran’s “peaceful” nuclear program and praised the alliance of his country with that Islamic republic.
“Soon we will no longer have to talk about the dollar...the dollar is falling and with it will fall, thank God, the imperialism of the United States,” the Venezuelan president said at the press conference, held at the conclusion of his brief visit to Tehran.

He also said that the cooperation of Iran and Venezuela has particular importance for Caracas “from the moral, political, economic, social, and geopolitical points of view,” and said that investments in each other’s countries amount to $4.6 billion.

“During this visit we have signed solid agreements that, together with the 186 accords signed previously, establish a true network of collaboration and represent a comprehensive document of our alliance,” Chavez said.

It is unknown, however, if Chavez asked in his conversations with Ahmadinezhad for Tehran’s aid in the program of “peaceful” nuclear energy that this country plans to develop.

After his appearance in Iran, the Venezuelan President planned to continue on to France and possibly Portugal.

NOTE: Tens of thousands of Iranians live in Dubai.

Check this out. Iranian banks, obviously, have been black listed. Now Dubai, the money laundering capital of the world that has thousands of Iranians living there are going to try to buy into our banking system after Ahmadinezhad makes a speech about the ‘fall of the dollar’ and of ‘US imperialism,’ at a summit the other day in Riyadh.

This is what we get for refusing to drill our own oil

bump

Duncan Hunter has spoken of Dubai too.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1911560/posts
Dubai...Ally of the USA? Duncan Hunter ‘gets it’!

(snip)

There are also differences with the U.S. over Iran, which is one of Dubai’s closest neighbor, largest trading partners, and one of its biggest investors. Any hostilities in the Persian Gulf could present the sheikh with some difficult choices. But for the time being, business is still booming.”[snip]

During a recent debate the subject of Dubai operating US ports as requested by the Bush Administration was presented. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Texas Rep. Ron Paul, Arizona Sen. John McCain, former Tennesssee Sen. Fred Thompson, and Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback agreed with the deal, but no so for but California Rep. Duncan Hunter and Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo.

If you recall, Duncan Hunter is the man who stood against the port takeover by the Dubai Sheikh. Hunter said he does not believe the company should have been allowed the large stake in the exchange.

“Because I don’t trust them,” he said.

And with good reason, Mr. Hunter! Perhaps Duncan Hunter understands more about our ‘friends’ than most of us realize.

Congressman Duncan Hunter: “No, because I don’t trust them. And I don’t trust them because a few years ago Dubai, while an American Customs agent was trying to stop them, set for delivery a set of nuclear triggers to an anonymous recipient in Islamabad, probably for the A.Q. Khan network. That went directly against American interests. So I would not do that.”

(snip)