Tuesday 17 March 2015

The European Union Times

Egypt plans to abandon Cairo, make New Futuristic Capital

Posted: 16 Mar 2015 05:40 AM PDT

Egypt has published official plans for a brand new capital city, located next to Cairo, which it says will be constructed with investment from Gulf states. The new city, which will house five million people, is expected to be built in under seven years.
“We are talking about a world capital,” housing minister Mustafa Kamel Madbouli said during a press event at Sharm-el-Sheikh, where the country is staging a high-profile investment conference.
“The idea to build the new city originated from our awareness that Cairo’s current population, 18 million, will double in the next 40 years.”
While government officials have voiced conflicting figures on details of the development, the official website of the city – simply named ‘The Capital’ – shows plans for a theme park seven times bigger than California’s Disneyland, an inner-city airport larger than Heathrow, and 40,000 hotel rooms. The 700 square kilometer city will be about the size of Singapore.

The project will be led by self-made UAE billionaire Mohammed Alabbar, whose company built the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, in Dubai, and is constructing an even more expensive megapolis, the King Abdullah Economic City, in Saudi Arabia.
“It is a wonderful opportunity to be able to design something from scratch, and to design it keeping in mind the needs of the Egyptian people and the Egyptian government,” Alabbar told the BBC, promising that the new development will be a source of “national pride” for Egypt’s 80-million strong population.
Alabbar’s Capital City Partners group has promised that the new city will be “sustainable,” with 90 square kilometers of solar panels and an electric railway connecting it with the current Egyptian capital.
Plans to move the government, embassies and business headquarters out of the polluted and crowded Cairo first surfaced last year, and earlier this month investment minister Ashraf Salman divulged more details, saying the government would “incur zero cost” in the project, which is now valued at about US$45 billion.

Salman predicted that the development would take 12 years, but Madbouli said the city would be complete in five to seven years, which would require a torrid pace of construction.
The announcement of the city plans at Sharm-el-Sheikh is not a coincidence. The conference has been a means for the government of Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi to forge ties, not just with Western investors and politicians – John Kerry headed the US delegation – but also with Gulf states. The region’s desert kingdoms pledged a collective $12.5 billion to the Egyptian state, alongside plans for a new capital.
“The aim is to put Egypt back on the map of international investment, and send a message to the world that the country is safe and attractive,” said International Cooperation Minister Naglaa al-Ahwani at the event.
Egypt suffered a collapse of its tourism industry following the Arab Spring of 2011 and the instability that accompanied the removal of long-time leader Hosni Mubarak and the tumultuous leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Growth has been at a sluggish two percent per annum since 2011, with the IMF predicting an increase to 4.3 percent per year in 2015-16. With a rapidly expanding population, Egypt’s GDP per capita currently sits outside the top 100 countries in the world.
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Russian president says US plotted ‘coup’ in Ukraine

Posted: 16 Mar 2015 05:31 AM PDT

Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused Washington of organizing what he describes as an armed coup in Ukraine, saying Moscow saw through the US ploy of hiding behind Europe in the bid to overthrow the former Ukrainian government.
“The trick of the situation was that outwardly the [Ukrainian] opposition was supported mostly by the Europeans. But we knew for sure that the real masterminds were our American friends,” Putin said in an interview for a documentary dubbed “Crimea – The Way Home,” that was aired Sunday by Rossiya 1 news channel.
“They helped training the nationalists, their armed groups, in Western Ukraine, in Poland and to some extent in Lithuania,” he said, adding that “they facilitated the armed coup.”
Putin also explained that, during the Western-backed coup in Ukraine, which eventually led to the removal of then-President Viktor Yanukovich, “the law was thrown away,” alleging that “the beneficiaries of the coup” attempted to assassinate Yanukovich but that Putin personally got involved to ensure his flight out of the country.
“I invited the heads of our special services, the Defense Ministry, and ordered them to protect the life of the Ukrainian president. Otherwise he would have been killed,” Putin said, adding that, at one point, Russian signal intelligence, which was tracking Yanukovich’s motorcade route, realized that he was about to be ambushed.
According to the documentary, the Russian president personally ordered the preparation for Crimea’s special operation the morning after Yanukovich escaped the country, saying that “we cannot let the [Crimean] people be pushed under the steamroller of the nationalists.”
“I [gave them] their tasks, told them what to do and how we must do it, and stressed that we would only do it if we were absolutely sure that this is what the people living in Crimea want us to do,” Putin said.
He further asserted that an emergency public opinion poll conducted in Crimea indicated that at least 75 percent of the people desired to join Russia.
“Our goal was not to take Crimea by annexing it. Our final goal was to allow the people express their wishes on how they want to live,” he added.
The Russian president also revealed that part of the operation in Crimea was to deploy K-300P Bastion coastal defense missiles to display Kremlin’s determination to protect the peninsula from a potential military attack.
“We deployed them in a way that made them clearly visible from space,” Putin said.
He vowed in the documentary that the Russian armed forces were prepared for any developments and would have armed nuclear weapons if necessary.
The Crimean people voted in a referendum to join Russia after rejecting the Western-backed government that took over power in Kiev in February 2014. The move triggered an international controversy after the new government’s foreign sponsors accused Russia of annexing the peninsula through military force.
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Vladimir Putin says Russia was preparing to use Nuclear Weapons ‘if necessary’

Posted: 16 Mar 2015 05:26 AM PDT

Vladimir Putin has said Russia was so fearful of attack at the height of the Ukraine crisis that it was preparing to arm its nuclear weapons, in extraordinary claims aired on state TV on Sunday night.
Amid ongoing Russian media speculation that the President was watching the Crimea documentary from his sickbed, Mr Putin’s full interview with Rossiya One provided new insight into his country’s involvement in the annexation of the Black Sea peninsula.
In the documentary, which marks a year since the referendum that saw Russia take control of Crimea, Mr Putin described the Ukrainian revolution to oust Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014 as an armed coup “masterminded by our American friends”.
He said Washington tried to “trick” the world into thinking the regime change was “supported mostly by the Europeans”, according to a translation of the interview on Russia Today.
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Israel has ‘true puppets in US Senate’ – Scott Rickard

Posted: 16 Mar 2015 05:21 AM PDT

American Republican senators who “put together a really ridiculous position” by writing a letter to Iran are true puppets of the Zionist regime in the Senate, says a political commentator.
“What you have here is a clear influence by the right-wing Zionist community and Zionist influencers in American politics that have true puppets within the American senator seats,” said Scott Rickard, an international peace activist and ex-US intelligence linguist in Florida.
Last week, a group of 47 Republican senators wrote an open letter to Tehran, warning that the outcome of the nuclear talks would not be acceptable without Congress approval and could be revoked when President Barack Obama leaves the White House in 2017.
Speaking in a phone interview to Press TV, Rickard said, “It’s very interesting to see the extremely highly-influenced senators like Bob Menendez, Mark Kirk and others, the 47 other Republican senators, who have put together a really ridiculous position to go against the international community in their negotiations with Iran to basically guarantee an energy-based nuclear program in Iran.”
“It’s unfortunately an ongoing problem with [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and other extremely right-wing pro-Israel Zionist politicians. They have been misleading the public in all around the world and obviously in Israel and in Europe and in the United States and elsewhere and they have been misleading them for over 20 years, basically claiming that Iran was developing a nuclear weapons program, when in fact that has not been the case,” Rickard added.
President Obama blasted the senators for writing the letter, saying they were undermining his administration’s efforts in nuclear negotiations with Iran.
The letter appeared at a time when nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 countries, the US, Britain, France, China, Russia, and Germany, have entered a sensitive final stage ahead of the July 1 deadline for a comprehensive agreement.
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Venezuela holds Massive Military Drills against “US Threat”

Posted: 16 Mar 2015 05:00 AM PDT

Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez (R) mans a Russian-made 9K338 “Igla-S” (SA-18) man-portable air-defence (MANPAD) surface-to-air missile launcher in Caracas on March 14, 2015.

Nearly 100,000 soldiers are taking part in massive 10-day military exercises across Venezuela, which were staged to counter an alleged US threat. It follows Washington’s decision to impose new sanctions against Venezuelan officials last week.
Venezuelan Defense Minister General Vladimir Padrino Lopez announced that the military exercises began on Saturday and were designed to get the troops ready for “their mission, their goal, and with the will to be victorious.”
Lopez added that the US sanctions are an “imminent danger for us,” which is why the nation’s army must be ready to fight for its independence.
Most of the maneuvers will be carried out south of Caracas. The rest will take place in Venezuela’s oil-producing areas, such as the Caribbean coast.
The nation’s army will also be testing its air defenses and anti-aircraft systems, ensuring they are ready to be deployed.
The military exercises are due to show off Chinese amphibian weapons, Russian-built missiles, and other military hardware.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro praised the country’s army in a televised address on Saturday, stating “We have a military that is the best guarantee of peace.”
“The insolent boot of imperialism dared touch the sacred land of Venezuela, that day if we had to fight for the dignity of our country, we would do it for peace and for the sovereignty and the integrity [of the country],” he added.
American-Venezuelan relations hit a new low last week, after US President Barack Obama signed and issued an executive order imposing sanctions against Venezuelan officials who allegedly participated in human rights abuses. He also declared the country a threat to US national security.
“Venezuelan officials past and present who violate the human rights of Venezuelan citizens and engage in acts of public corruption will not be welcome here, and we now have the tools to block their assets and their use of US financial systems,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a statement.
In response, Maduro has accused the US of trying to “defeat” and “intervene in” his government.
“President Barack Obama, representing the US imperialist elite, has personally decided to take on the task of defeating my government and intervening in Venezuela to control it,” Maduro said in a national TV address. “That’s why they have taken today’s measure.”
The Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) rejected Washington’s move on Saturday.
Relations between Washington and Caracas have been tense since Venezuela’s iconic former leader, Hugo Chavez, came to power in 2000. The two have not had full diplomatic representation since 2008.
One of the most recent escalations was Maduro announcing a new mandatory visa requirement for all Americans visiting the country on March 1. He said the move was a reciprocal measure to what “a Venezuelan pays to travel to the US.”
Maduro has also been asking his government to review and reduce the number of US diplomatic staff in the country, following allegations of “conspiratorial meetings” against Venezuela.
In February, Maduro accused the US of being behind the attempted coup in Venezuela, pointing to US Vice President Joe Biden as the mastermind.
“The northern imperial power has entered a dangerous phase of desperation, going to talk to the continent’s governments to announce the overthrow of my government. And I accuse Vice President Joe Biden of this,” Maduro said.
The Venezuelan government had been with dealing with massive unrest amid protests called by opposition leaders. The US has accused Maduro’s government of heavy-handedly quelling the opposition. In turn, Maduro last month announced that Venezuela successfully defeated the alleged US-sponsored coup, adding that an attack on the presidential palace or another top target was planned.
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