Confiscating Libya's Sovereign Wealth Funds

Financial Heist of the Century: Confiscating Libya's Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWF) by Manlio Dinucci
Global Research, April 24, 2011
Il Manifesto (translated from Italian) - 2011-04-22
Email this article to a friend Print this article
6digg 1768Share
The objective of the war against Libya is not just its oil reserves (now estimated at 60 billion barrels), which are the greatest in Africa and whose extraction costs are among the lowest in the world, nor the natural gas reserves of which are estimated at about 1,500 billion cubic meters. In the crosshairs of "willing" of the operation “Unified Protector” there are sovereign wealth funds, capital that the Libyan state has invested abroad. The Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) manages sovereign wealth funds estimated at about $70 billion U.S., rising to more than $150 billion if you include foreign investments of the Central Bank and other bodies. But it might be more. Even if they are lower than those of Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, Libyan sovereign wealth funds have been characterized by their rapid growth. When LIA was established in 2006, it had $40 billion at its disposal. In just five years, LIA has invested over one hundred companies in North Africa, Asia, Europe, the U.S. and South America: holding, banking, real estate, industries, oil companies and others. In Italy, the main Libyan investments are those in UniCredit Bank (of which LIA and the Libyan Central Bank hold 7.5 percent), Finmeccanica (2 percent) and ENI (1 percent), these and other investments (including 7.5 percent of the Juventus Football Club) have a significance not as much economically (they amount to some $5.4 billion) as politically. Libya, after Washington removed it from the blacklist of “rogue states,” has sought to carve out a space at the international level focusing on "diplomacy of sovereign wealth funds." Once the U.S. and the EU lifted the embargo in 2004 and the big oil companies returned to the country, Tripoli was able to maintain a trade surplus of about $30 billion per year which was used largely to make foreign investments. The management of sovereign funds has however created a new mechanism of power and corruption in the hands of ministers and senior officials, which probably in part escaped the control of the Gadhafi himself: This is confirmed by the fact that, in 2009, he proposed that the 30 billion in oil revenues go "directly to the Libyan people." This aggravated the fractures within the Libyan government. U.S. and European ruling circles focused on these funds, so that before carrying out a military attack on Libya to get their hands on its energy wealth, they took over the Libyan sovereign wealth funds. Facilitating this operation is the representative of the Libyan Investment Authority, Mohamed Layas himself: as revealed in a cable published by WikiLeaks. On January 20 Layas informed the U.S. ambassador in Tripoli that LIA had deposited $32 billion in U.S. banks. Five weeks later, on February 28, the U.S. Treasury “froze” these accounts. According to official statements, this is "the largest sum ever blocked in the United States," which Washington held "in trust for the future of Libya." It will in fact serve as an injection of capital into the U.S. economy, which is more and more in debt. A few days later, the EU "froze" around 45 billion Euros of Libyan funds. The assault on the Libyan sovereign wealth funds will have a particularly strong impact in Africa. There, the Libyan Arab African Investment Company had invested in over 25 countries, 22 of them in sub-Saharan Africa, and was planning to increase the investments over the next five years, especially in mining, manufacturing, tourism and telecommunications. The Libyan investments have been crucial in the implementation of the first telecommunications satellite Rascom (Regional African Satellite Communications Organization), which entered into orbit in August 2010, allowing African countries to begin to become independent from the U.S. and European satellite networks, with an annual savings of hundreds of millions of dollars. Even more important were the Libyan investment in the implementation of three financial institutions launched by the African Union: the African Investment Bank, based in Tripoli, the African Monetary Fund, based in Yaoundé (Cameroon), the African Central Bank, with Based in Abuja (Nigeria). The development of these bodies would enable African countries to escape the control of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, tools of neo-colonial domination, and would mark the end of the CFA franc, the currency that 14 former French colonies are forced to use. Freezing Libyan funds deals a strong blow to the entire project. The weapons used by "the willing" are not only those in the military action called “Unified Protector.” Il Manifesto, April 22, 2011 Translated from Italian by John Catalinotto

Libya: It’s Not About Oil, It’s About Currency

Libya: It’s Not About Oil, It’s About Currency and Loans

By John Perkins

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- World Bank President Robert Zoellick Thursday said he hopes the institution will have a role rebuilding Libya as it emerges from current unrest.

Zoellick at a panel discussion noted the bank's early role in the reconstruction of France, Japan and other nations after World War II.

"Reconstruction now means (Ivory Coast), it means southern Sudan, it means Liberia, it means Sri Lanka, I hope it will mean Libya," Zoellick said.

On Ivory Coast, Zoellick said he hoped that within "a couple weeks" the bank would move forward with "some hundred millions of dollars of emergency support."( By Jeffrey Sparshott, Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES –full article here - http://tinyurl.com/3hj8yyp .)

We listen to U.S. spokespeople try to explain why we’re suddenly now entangled in another Middle East war. Many of us find ourselves questioning the official justifications. We are aware that the true causes of our engagement are rarely discussed in the media or by our government.

While many of the rationalizations describe resources, especially oil, as the reasons why we should be in that country, there are also an increasing number of dissenting voices. For the most part, these revolve around Libya’s financial relationship with the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), and multinational corporations.

According to the IMF, Libya’s Central Bank is 100% state owned. The IMF estimates that the bank has nearly 144 tons of gold in its vaults. It is significant that in the months running up to the UN resolution that allowed the US and its allies to send troops into Libya, Muammar al-Qaddafi was openly advocating the creation of a new currency that would rival the dollar and the euro. In fact, he called upon African and Muslim nations to join an alliance that would make this new currency, the gold dinar, their primary form of money and foreign exchange. They would sell oil and other resources to the US and the rest of the world only for gold dinars.

The US, the other G-8 countries, the World bank, IMF, BIS, and multinational corporations do not look kindly on leaders who threaten their dominance over world currency markets or who appear to be moving away from the international banking system that favors the corporatocracy. Saddam Hussein had advocated policies similar to those expressed by Qaddafi shortly before the US sent troops into Iraq.

In my talks, I often find it necessary to remind audiences of a point that seems obvious to me but is misunderstood by so many: that the World Bank is not really a world bank at all; it is, rather a U. S. bank. Ditto, its closest sibling, the IMF. In fact, if one looks at the World Bank and IMF utive boards and the votes each member of the board has, one sees that the United States controls about 16 percent of the votes in the World Bank (Compared with Japan at about 7%, the second largest member, Germany with 4%, at third place, and the United Kingdom and France with about 3.8% each, tied for fourth place ), nearly 17% of the IMF votes (Compared with Japan and Germany at about 6% and UK and France at nearly 5%), and the US holds veto power over all major decisions. Furthermore, the United States President appoints the World Bank President.

So, we might ask ourselves: What happens when a “rogue” country threatens to bring the banking system that benefits the corporatocracy to its knees? What happens to an “empire” when it can no longer effectively be overtly imperialistic?

One definition of “Empire” (per my book The Secret History of the American Empire) states that an empire is a nation that dominates other nations by imposing its own currency on the lands under its control. The empire maintains a large standing military that is ready to protect the currency and the entire economic system that depends on it through extreme violence, if necessary. The ancient Romans did this. So did the Spanish and the British during their days of empire-building. Now, the US (NdR: Like when during the Italian occupation in WWII using AM-LIRE) or, more to the point, the corporatocracy, is doing it and is determined to punish any individual who tries to stop them. Qaddafi is but the latest example.

Understanding the war against Quaddafi as a war in defense of empire is another step in the direction of helping us ask ourselves whether we want to continue along this path of empire-building. Or do we instead want to honor the democratic principles we are taught to believe are the foundations of our country?

History teaches that empires do not endure; they collapse or are overthrown. Wars ensue and another empire fills the vacuum. The past sends a compelling message. We must change. We cannot afford to watch history repeat itself.

Let us not allow this empire to collapse and be replaced by another. Instead, let us all vow to create a new consciousness. Let the grass-roots movements in the Middle East – fostered by the young who must live with the future and are fueled through social networks – inspire us to demand that our country, our financial institutions and the corporations that depend on us to buy their goods and services commit themselves to fashioning a world that is sustainable, just, peaceful, and prosperous for all.

We stand at the threshold. It is time for you and me to step across that threshold, to move out of the dark void of brutal exploitation and greed into the light of compassion and cooperation.

John Perkins

Visit us anytime on the web at www.dreamchange.org

FermianoLeBanche&ilNucleare

OGGETTO: presentazione abusiva, alle amministrative per Napoli del 15 e 16 maggio 2011, del mio simbolo FermianoLeBanche&ilNucleare nel simbolo Insieme per Napoli

COMUNICATOSTAMPA

Alfonso Luigi Marra
Centro Direzionale G1, 80143 Napoli, tel 0817879166

Rendo noto che il simbolo di FermiamoLeBanche & ilNucleare (FLB&N) è stato inserito fraudolentemente, quale ‘mosca’, nel simbolo di Insieme per Napoli.
Una frode realizzata mediante un uso abusivo della delega notarile a presentare FLB&N (reati perseguibile a querela, che non intendo presentare). Si è cioè verificato che, dopo un peraltro costoso inizio, che seguiva a un progetto a lungo coltivato di presentare FLB&N alle amministrative, avevo concordato, con quello che sarebbe poi risultato il fondatore di Insieme per Napoli, nonché con i responsabili dei Pensionati, della Lega Sud, e di Unione Popolare Cristiana, di presentare il simbolo con FLB&N a pieno campo con sotto le sigle dei tre predetti partiti come ‘mosche’ (nella forma che segue). Venerdì 15 aprile si sono quindi presentati al mio studio detto fondatore di Insieme per Napoli e il suo fiduciario per chiedermi una delega notarile per la presentazione di FLB&N. Non potendo certo immaginare il loro intento (anche perché stupidamente suicida), ho provveduto. Sennonché, sabato, da un giornale, ho visto che hanno usato la mia delega per presentare sì il simbolo di FLB&N, ma come ‘mosca’, unitamente agli altri tre, sotto al simbolo a tutto campo di Insieme per Napoli, di cui ho appreso in quel momento (come segue). Cose che (sia pure informalmente per non causare decadenze della lista alle quali non mi presterei) sono ora costretto a contestare, e non per questioni di meri centimetri, ma perché l’adesione al mio simbolo avrebbe evidenziato una conversione alle mie tesi senza la quale non avrei potuto addivenire a quel connubio, mentre accettare la sotto-posizione del mio simbolo a quello di
Insieme per Napoli, significherebbe una mia inconcepibile conversione alle ‘tesi’ (?) del suo fondatore. ‘Tesi’ tra cui quelle simbolizzate, per cominciare, dall’aver reso illeggibile sul simbolo la parola «banche», cambiandolo così in Fermiamo Il Nucleare, forse per convincermi che si possa fermare il nucleare anche senza prima fermare le banche, nonostante siano le proprietarie di tutto: dagli occhiali che abbiamo sul naso - scrivevo nel 1985- alle centrali. Una frode avvenuta dopoché i responsabili delle ‘forze politiche’ che compongono il simbolo presentato hanno a lungo recitato concordemente la commedia (così ricca di scene e personaggi che mancavano solo Totò e Peppino) che sarebbe invece stato presentato il simbolo con FLB&N a pieno campo e il loro sotto: condizione che avevo posto come inderogabile. Tutto ciò, oltre che nelle amichevoli cene fino a tarda notte e negli incontri, anche nei vani di quella che - in virtù di un contratto di locazione di cui ho per fortuna differito la firma - sarebbe dovuta diventare, a mie spese (avevo già acquistato e fatto consegnare buona parte dei mobili), la sede di FLB&N. Perché? Perché - dopo avermi coinvolto per avere il mio sostegno economico e usarmi come scudo, attrazione e collante - non si voleva il grande risultato a cui miravo io (perché sarebbe stato mio), bensì un risultato ‘a propria misura’ da barattare poi politicamente. L’altro motivo è però che – così come «l’uomo più brutto» di nietzschiana memoria non rinunzia per questo a ornarsi, non di una, ma di ben tre larghe cinture di porpora, e a porsi gorgogliante di prosopopea in cima al masso più alto per farsi rimirare – anche qui, benché non si veda nella politica altro che un modo per sottrarsi a un normale lavoro, non si rinunzia lo stesso a volersi sentire politici del futuro e risolutori dei drammi della società, nella fattispecie napoletana. Come mai non ci si è preoccupati delle mie reazioni? Perché si è così dominati dall’istinto di addentare qualcosa da credere lo siano tutti, e quindi anch’io, per cui si è ritenuto che, di fronte alla ‘garanzia’ (figurarsi..) che «comunque i candidati erano tutti di FLB&N e avrebbero ‘quindi’ messo il risultato elettorale a mia disposizione», avrei ‘abbozzato’ pur di incassare alla fine qualcosa. Un tipo di logica che però, com’è noto, non ho mai praticato, perché, è vero che, vestito dei miei panni ideologici vado per necessità a casa di tutti, ma sono sempre andato subito via quando avrei dovuto compiere gesti che non condividevo; come quando, nel 1996, mi sono dimesso da Forza Italia rinunziando alla ‘brillante carriera’ che, con un po’ di salamelecchi, sarei, credo, riuscito a fare. Come mai non ho valutato prima il mio interlocutore? Ebbene, non è questo il punto. Detto infatti che non smentisco nulla di quello che ho scritto a riguardo in campo giudiziario (la giustizia, specie napoletana, trova il modo di mettersi dalla parte del torto sempre e con chiunque), da un lato la perfezione è divina e, dall’altro, perle granché luminose tra i nostri politici non ce ne sono. Per cui, giacché non posso certo rinunziare a voler cambiare il mondo, cerco di usare quel che si trova perché l’occidentalesimo è basato sul pentimento, e quindi - così come si convertì la Maddalena, e visto che anche la Madonna era incinta, e non di Giuseppe - il punto è, insomma, che convertito che si fosse, andrebbe bene chiunque. Come mai sono stato così ingenuo a credere a questa conversione? Beh, intanto, se un individuo si gioca il tutto per tutto per ingannarti, può capitare che ci riesca; ma soprattutto, a un certo punto bisogna pur fidarsi, sennò diviene impossibile fare qualsiasi cosa. A parte poi che dietro la mia ingenuità ci sono le mie certezze e la mia forza, e quindi non ho paura di niente e di nessuno perché so pur sempre come risolvere per me e per gli altri, e tutto diviene allora materiale per le mie analisi e le mie opere. Se non mi spiacciono le delusioni? Si.. ..è come un pizzico, ...a volte una stretta; ...ma l’importante è proseguire.

19.4.2011
Alfonso Luigi Marra

THE DAYAN-KISSINGER PLOT

www.barrychamish.com ISRAELI GOVERNMENT TV FINALLY REVEALS THE DAYAN-KISSINGER PLOT by Barry Chamish On the first Thursday of April at 9 PM, Israel's government-owned tv Channel One grew up and in doing so cemented my reputation for accuracy. The channel presented a 90 minute documentary and follow up discussion proving that Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Israel Defence Minister Moshe Dayan cooked up Israel's nearly disastrous Yom Kippur War so that the Arabs would win. The film is directed by Yoram Irbamatz and is called, Who Murdered Daddy? It investigates the July,1, '73 murder of Col. Yosef Alon in Washington based on evidence gathered by his wife Dvorah and his two daughters. Here is the Hebrew film with some 20% in English during interviews of American investigators: http://www.iba.org.il/media/?recorded=1&starting=V01_1_2011-04-06_230932 Beginning in 1970, Alon was assigned for three years to the Israeli Embassy in Washington as the assistant air and naval attache. He worked vigorously to procure sophisticated American F-4 Phantoms and other weaponry for the Israeli Air Force as his country battled Egypt. Then on July 1, '73 Col. Alon, one of the founders of the Israeli Air Force, was gunned down by his house in front of his wife and daughters. It was a sophisticated hit and not an act of terror which would have included killing his family as well. For reasons that forced the Alon family to find his killer by themselves, the FBI and Mossad closed his file shortly after. Neither identified the killer nor his reasons for murder. Former President Ezer Weizman knew both answers but would never say. "If I told what I know, the nation would go into shock," he hinted. "Alon was a loud-mouthed drunk and couldn't be relied on to keep a secret." What secret could have got him assassinated? The one my old friend, the history Prof. Uri Milstein, told on the show. "Kissinger and Dayan decided to give the Arabs their pride back by not preparing the IDF for war. It would cost Israel 100 or 200 sacrificed soldiers, but then the Arabs would talk peace." Bentsi Tsfoni searched Alons out to tell his story to them. He was a soldier in the Engineering Corps who just prior to the Yom Kippur War dug up and exploded all the landmines along the 120 km length of the Suez Canal. He asked his superior why he was doing such a crazy thing and was told, "The army has a new diplomacy." Not said, the new diplomacy was to lose, but the viewers all got it. The author Nomi Frankel was responsible for all top secret IDF radio transmissions and she swears she witnessed the following communication between the IDF Chief of Staff Gen. David Elazar and Dayan. Elazar wanted a full scale mobilization and reinforcements for his troops along the Suez because war was imminent. Dayan replied, " No. We have an agreement with Kissinger not to attack Egypt." Elazar was murdered shortly after the war. As a military attache in the Israeli Embassy, Alon discovered, or was even apprised of, the plot to lose a war that autumn. Alon's oldest daughter concluded that, "My father would never have permitted that plan to go forward." Gen. Yaacov Agassi gave the documentary's lasting message: "Alon was murdered by an American squad with highly sophisticated intelligence after receiving the go-ahead from Dayan." And so ends the film but not the truth that was missing. And I know what was left out. First, I had been covering the Dayan plot for over 15 years. I wrote the following recently: Finally we have the reason Moshe Dayan turned into Israel's top traitor of his day. As Chief-0f-Staff of the IDF, Dayan HAD to have given the order for his Air Force to sink the Liberty. Pres. Johnson may have given the actual command, the American navy did nothing to rescue the stricken ship, but Dayan had the blood of 37 American sailors on his hands and if he didn't play major league ball, he and Israel would be turned into friendless lepers. Dayan began quickly, by handing over control of the Temple Mount, won by Israel with buckets of blood, to the Jordanian Wakf, the consequences of which are felt deeply to this day. Then in October 1973, as Defence Minister, under the duress of Henry Kissinger, Dayan agreed to give Egypt and Syria a full day to regain lost territory. The consequence of not pre-empting the Yom Kippur War was over 2000 dead Jewish soldiers in two days. After Pres. Carter forced PM Begin to take Dayan into his cabinet as foreign minister in 1977, Dayan abused his position to sway Begin to accept an accord with Egypt, that gave up every square inch of the Sinai to Sadat. This decision led directly to Egypt today allowing the Sinai to be a rocket funnel for Hamas. Now here is the Israeli who had to have approved Alon's murder, his boss, Ambassador Yitzhak Rabin. Rabin had fallen hard under Kissinger's spell and even went on the stumps for Nixon in 72. Not a month after Alon's assassination, he published an analysis in the Washington Post asserting that the Arabs would and could not go to war against Israel for another generation, a message which lulled and then murdered Israelis in their thousands. If the Americans got their approval for Alon's elimination from Israel, it could only have been from the top of the heap in the US, Ambassador Rabin. And this the documentary could not say. Only one fallen saint at a time. Rabin approved Alon's murder for peace, Pres. Shimon Peres later approved Rabin's murder for peace. Nothing has changed. end ** I SENT THIS TO A FEW OF MY MOST TRUSTED BENEFACTORS: Think of me in the giving season of Pesach 5771 / Passover 2011 as you have before. By supporting me in the past, you are an invaluable partner in saving Israel. Look at the progress we have made this year. I now have a radio show which gives a voice to the "other" Israelis like Dr. Daisy Stern of Hebron who told of the police and legal abuse of Yesha residents; Tamar Yonah of Adam in Samaria who movingly explained why she broadcasts her exposes of wrongful governmental crimes against Yesha; Reuven Baruch of Sderot who described what living in a constant Arab rocket attack really feels like; and Elad Pressman who has skillfully researched the crimes against the Jews by our own leaders. I am the only broadcaster reaching a vast audience of Christians giving an outlet to the Israeli reality that is deliberately ignored by the mainstream and alternative media. Listen to some of the shows and you'll know what I mean: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Barry-Chamish-Page/203350319678743 My work is finally entering the minds of all Israelis though we all know, I will likely never be recognized for it. For two decades I have written that the Yom Kippur War was deliberately planned to be an Israeli loss by Defence Minister Moshe Dayan and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. This week, Israeli TV broadcast a documentary about the unsolved murder of Washington-based Defence Attache Yosef Alon just prior to the war. It concluded that he was hushed up because he opposed the Dayan-Kissinger plot. Without my steady hammering out of the other story over the years, this emerging journalistic maturity would have been nigh impossible. And without your contributions I would have been long forgotten. You kept the truth alive and you will be blessed for it. Have a wonderful Pesach or Easter! Your grateful writer, Barry Chamish Barry Chamish POB 840157 Saint Augustine, FL 32080 USA Paypal: chamishba@gmail.com Listen to my radio show: http://wwfar.com/mp3s/BarryChamish/ BE SURE TO LISTEN TO BARRY CHAMISH Live TUESDAYS at 3PM PT / 6PM ET ON: www.FirstAmendmentRadio.com My new book, THE conPROMISED LAND can be ordered direct from the publisher http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback_book/the_conpromised_land/6398777

Gli USA si preparano ad un disastro immane

Gli USA si preparano ad un disastro immane

Dopo la notizia che gli Stati Uniti hanno preparato all'imminente uso un
sistema di allarme immediato nazionale:
http://mistufo.altervista.org/index.php?mod=read&id=1297782257
che usa tutti i sistemi di comunicazione per un messaggio simultaneo,
che arriva anche in tutti i telefoni cellulari, si viene ora a sapere
che l'Ente Federale di Gestione Emergenze (Fema) sta' accellerando al
massimo la raccolta di cibo da conservare in razioni per milioni di
profughi, ad un ritmo difficile da gestire per il mercato del settore:
http://mistufo.altervista.org/index.php?mod=read&id=1302014223
tanto che si teme di non poter produrre abbastanza cibo da poter
sostenere la richiesta del governo statunitense.
Certo tutti ricorderete l'incredibile recente raduno di ambasciatori
Usa, richiamati in patria per una conferenza a porte chiuse:
http://www.ecplanet.com/node/2348
che non c'e' stata neanche con la Seconda Guerra Mondiale, infatti e'
senza precedenti.
Ascoltate questo video incredibile fino in fondo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Pga_-88HMo
e cercate di leggere tra le righe per considerare ogni ipotesi...

Buona giornata.