Thinking holidays?

Still no ideas about what to do this summer holidays? Here go our suggestions:

- Would you like to go to an exotic place? Do you like exploring places where no-one else has been before and had come back to tell about it? Are you a nostalgic of the commie era? Then we have what you were looking for: North Korean holidays. Now booking for our August tours. First line seats for missile launches not included. Please, journalists and other informers refrain from apply.

- If you prefer instead the three S (Sun, sand and sea) then you are made specifically for Cuba. Come to our special resort in Guantanamo Bay. Individual rooms with excellent views to the ocean. Special offers for groups of Muslims. Special discounts for Afghan nationals. We promise a hell of fun. Miss Universe (not included in the pack) said that it was a wonderful place and lots of fun! Includes rap classes to sing after your holidays.

- I bet you always wanted to be Nemo traveling the seven seas in your submarine under the waves. Then this is specially created for you! A holiday in a Royal Navy submarine. You will be in the first line of incredible survival adventures! Also available flights with the Spanish Air Force.

- Do you like adventure and risk? Then join us in our tour to Afghanistan under the NATO umbrella. Now with discounts to groups traveling from Germany, Poland and Spain.

Read more »

Bibi, Libi and the Middle Eastern gas station

It’s official. Binyamin Netanyahu (Bibi for friends) has become the new Prime Minister of Israel, the 18th of the country and the 4th doing so twice in a political lifetime. The far-right Avigdor Lieberman (Libi for friends) and his Yisrael Beiteinu together with some ultra-orthodox parties from the settlers will be hand by hand with Bibi in the 32nd Government of Israel in the 60 years of history of the country. Not bad numbers.

To make up a bit the appearance, between so many ultra and far-right guy will be Ehud Barak and the Laborists. Or what is left from them. Their part will be merely testimonial. In the end it is just a marriage of convenience. Barak wanted a chair in the Government (the Defense portfolio). Netanyahu needed an international face wash in order to appear less radical in front of Obama and the EU. This way, everyone is happy.

Let’s face it. It’s not for a lack of ministerial portfolios. 30 in total. There are new Departments everywhere, some others that are newly divided in two or more and even ministers without portfolio. It is in fact a distribution typical of a corrupt country, where is usual to create new Departments every now and then to accommodate the friends who help you to get to (or stay in) the power.

And let’s face it. It’s not for a lack of corruption in Israeli politics. Usually, people see politicians as corrupt or corruptible people. In some countries, like Italy, looks like you have to be corrupt to make politics. In Israel, apparently, too.

The cases of Ariel Sharon (and his relatives), the former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and now, even before starting, Avigdor Lieberman, are a clear example of this. In fact, it looks like there is only one thing more useful than being corrupt to be President of Israel: being a former General from the army (extra points for atrocities like Sabra and Shatila).

By the way, the leader from Yisrael Beiteinu started really strong. The same day he sworn his new post (why wait for more) he made clear why the new Israeli Government will be a pain in the arse for the Obama Administration and his policy for the Middle East. For the new Foreign Minister Annapolis is the past, it doesn’t compromise at all to Israel and buries the possibility of a future Palestinian State.

Lieberman pushes hard, however, for the Road Map, very kind from him. He endorses a reactivation of Palestinian Economy -obviously this doesn’t include lifting the blockade to Gaza- and giving more autonomy to the Palestinian Territories. But a two-state solution sounds like sci-fi for him. The far-right politician will have on his side Ariel Atias, from the ultra-orthodox party Shas, who will be in charge of the Department of Housing. One of his first decisions will be to continue the plans to remodelate the shape of East Jerusalem, continuing the demolition of Arab houses and expanding the settlers’ colonies. In fact, this cuts de facto the West Bank in two.

Their Government leader is not far behind. While the rest of the world would kill for a photo with Obama -the phenomenon is almost as big as that of the rock band groupies-, Netanyahu seems to be waiting Obama to ask for a photo whit him, and not the opposite. We already knew he likes to be polemical.

We also already knew that Israel’s Prime Minister is the only one capable to give orders to the American President -and therefore, to all the US. Maybe because of that, Bibi allows himself to send suggestions and warnings (what the hell, almost direct orders) to Obama: “Stop Iran -or we will”.

Just in January, the Israeli militaries were saying that the security of Israel was not threatened by Iran, “with or without the bomb”. But that was before Netanyahu and his hawkish Government got into the office with the decision, apparently already taken.

Nobody doubts Israel is capable of hitting beyond his borders. It has been tested several times. The latest ones in Sirya and Sudan, the later only two months ago. Their own militaries reckon that a strike on Iran is not a matter of logistics or material, not even getting the authorization from Washington -why do that?-; but the political consequences of such attack.

Abdullah Toucan, from the Centre of International Strategic Studies, has made a report with the different possibilities for Israel. There are two possible ways of attacking: with jets and drones or with missiles. And there are three main targets that will delay or destroy the Iranian nuclear program: a research and enrichment centre in Esfahan, a uranium enrichment factory in Natanz and a heavy water production facility in Arak.

The option of a manned attack with jets isn’t new to the IAF (Israeli Air Force). If it’s made via the Israeli pilots, the task will fall over the F-16 with an escort of F-15, like in Sudan this year or like in Iraq in the 70’s during the Operation Opera. The other option is to rely only on the F-15, like in Syria.

But you only have to look at a map to realize that Sudan, Iraq and Syria are way closer to Israel than Iran. During the mentioned operations, Israeli pilots had to fly at maximum over a third country airspace (none in the case of Syria, a bit of Egypt’s in the case of Sudan and over Saudi Arabia in Iraq’s case).

But getting to Iran is slightly more complicated. Whatever the route you choose, you would have to fly over Iraq or Turkey’s airspace on the north (bad), Saudi or Iraqi airspace on the south (worse) or Syrian and Iraqi airspace in the middle (a f**king hell). Not to mention any on air re-fueling over at least one of those airspaces.

Now the ballistic missile option starts to sound like a more plausible and attractive idea. Trusting on the reliability and accuracy of the Jericho III (capable of carrying a 750kg. Warhead over 4,000km), the report from professor Toucan estimates that it would be needed at least two missiles for targeted location, 15 if the facility is underground.

But none of it eliminates the political consequences of an attack like this in the region. Apart from the evident environmental damage, the academic suggests that it could mean an immediate instability in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq. He also says that it could fireback directly into Israel in the way of more terrorist attacks.

Let’s say that getting with a torch into a gas station while refueling the tanks is not so dangerous.



.

Read more »

The real Korean threat (Updated, again)

PDRK started yesterday to refueling the tanks of the Taepodong-2 missile that will be used for a satellite launch this week. From now on, all is a matter of time. Days. Maybe just hours. And guess what, maybe it was true they were going to launch a satellite.

According to CNN, who quotes military sources, the satellite images show a bulbous cover on top of the rocket that could be -oh, surprise!- a satellite. Exactly what North Korea said they were about to do: put in orbit a Kwangmyongsong-2 (don’t ask me to say that) satellite.

Militaries are still worried, however. The point is that once you master satellite launches, the step from that to producing an ICBM able to reach the US is quite simple.

There is, however, a big obstacle for the Koreans. They have (maybe) nukes, they have (maybe) ICBMs; but they don’t have a way to put one into another. The miniaturization of the first ones in order to be capable of launching them inside the second ones remains still a challenge.

But meanwhile, let the propaganda continue flowing.



Photo: GeoEye via Telegraph.co.uk

.

Read more »

G20: Veni, vidi... vinci? (Updated, again)

London was calling. The G20 arrived, saw it and... Well, about the winning, not so much. It was an easy forecast. London summit hasn’t solved anything. To be fair, it wasn’t meant to anyway. Is not a lot what you can achieve in just one day. Only -maybe- set up the rules for an economic recovery. And that, we will see if so.

Who has been seen -and heard- high, clearly and loudly have been the protesters who invaded London during the two days of the summit. “Remember, remember; the Fifth of November”. Like in Guy Fawkes’ day, like in “V for vendetta”. If someone achieved their goal filling up frontpages in the newspapers, they were the ones. With the invaluable help -some say- from the City police.

About the financial breackdown, not a lot. The Chinese arrived in the summit asking for more decision power in the IMF (without increasing their contribution) and a global currency. None of that had an echo on the rest of the participants. They also were demanding more aid to the Third World countries, specially those in Africa (where their flow of business increases exponentially every year). Here they got a negative and a reprimand from both the Africans, but also from the G20 leaders.

On the French-German side, Sarkozy and Merkel won the petition asking for a tighter supervision of the high risk inversion funds, the hedge funds. On the other side, they got (initially) no favorable response for a list of tax havens, but at least from now on they will have to be more transparent. It doesn’t seem like a difficult task. The difficult would have been to push them into being less transparent, that could have been fun.

Neither Obama -and Japan, and in a lesser way, Britain- got his demands fully accomplished. No global bailouts.

The IMF, on the other hand, will have a great portion of the cake. To be exacts, more than a trillion dollars. Half of it will be for the IMF itself, $250 billons would go into special funds like the ones that already supplied Iceland and Bulgary with money to bailout their countries. The rest of it, will go to ease the markets and trade. Oh, and a small consolation prize for Obama and Brown: another $5 tr. to spend until the end of 2010 in stimulus plans. Don’t say there is no money in the bank.

But however, the main comments were around the photos in the summit. First about the First Dames’ photo. It was almost impossible to make a complete photo with all of them. Of course, there were a few absences before starting. The star of the crew, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, didn’t travel to London. Neither did the husbands of Angela Merkel or Cristina Fernandez de Kirtchner. And Sonsoles Espinosa (Spanish First Dame) didn’t appeared for the photos.

Then was the turn for the protagonists of the summit. Three times had to be shot the official photo until it came as it should. First, Canadian Prime Minister was missing. Then, it was Berlusconi the one missed. Finally, at the end of the afternoon, it could be made.

But back to the economics, let’s be optimistic. Maybe this is not “the day that the world came together, to fight back against the global recession” with “a plan” and a “clear timetable”, as Gordon Brown said. That is what the Premier wanted it to be and he couldn’t have. But at least, the basis for the new financial and economic rules are settle. Now, it is time to develop them.

Oh, and the Europeans finally made it to the photo with Obama. That’s important too.

What each one wanted and what they got.


Photo: The Guardian

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


Update: There is already a "black list" of tax havens, made by the OCDE and shown via the WSJ. The habitual suspects like Andorra or the Cayman Islands appear on it. There is as well a "grey list" (Other financial centers) with Switzerland, Belgium and others on it.

Update 2: Berlusconi couldn’t make it to the photo group at first, but he got at the end another one much more interesting.


.

Read more »

April's fool (Updated)

Today in the media...

From Australia, the best one is Melbourne's own bull running. New Zealand cannot be left out either.

From the UK, the first exclusive interview with the banker from "Deal or no deal". Oh, and The Guardian will be publish from now on just via Twitter.

From the US, for now, just the best hoaxes from all time.

Don't believe everything you read today...

Update: Here is a condensated resume of some of yesterday's hoaxes.

Read more »