http://www.liveleak.com/browse?q=Almaty Sat, 25 May 2013 07:43:25 -0400 Liveleak http://edge.liveleak.com/80281E/u/u/ll2/logo.gif http://www.liveleak.com/browse?q=Almaty Fri, 10 May 2013 10:32:43 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1a6_1368196302 AntiPropagaanda Iraq, Iran : the lesson of sanctions International security Iran Iraq Middle East Sovereignty Les dossiers du CERI Auteur(s) : Francois Nicoullaud Date : 05/2013 In 1990, Saddam Hussein did not understand that the world had changed with the fall of the Wall. He thought that the USSR would protect him from America after the invasion of Kuwait, and paid dearly his mistake. Abandoned by the Soviets, Iraq had to bear the cost, first of a war lost, and second of international sanctions, on a scale and harshness still unmatched today. On the 6th of August, 1990, four days after the invasion of Kuwait, the Security Council adopted, with the approval of its five permanent members, Resolution 661 implementing an overall embargo on imports from, and exports to Iraq, and on all financial movements. It envisaged a kind of safety valve for the supply of humanitarian goods, but this provision did not come into effect until 1996, in the form of the "Oil for Food" program, because of Iraq's initial resistance to further controls. After the liberation of Kuwait, Resolution 687, adopted on the 3rd of April, 1991, again with the assent of the five Permanent Members, launched the search and destruction of all nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, and of missiles over a 150 kilometer range. Two days later, Resolution 688 condemned the repression of civilian populations, especially the Kurds, and opened the way to the famous "right of humanitarian intervention". Finally, moving beyond the decisions of the Security Council, the United States, Great-Britain and France set up two no-fly zones, one as soon as April 2011 in Northern Iraq, to protect the Kurds, the second in the South on the following year, to protect Shi'a populations. Over the years, the toll inflicted by the embargo on Iraqis' health and welfare raised growing questions in the international opinion. Humanitarian NGOs started producing reports detailing how sanctions were entailing hundreds of thousands deaths, especially among children. In 1997, the French president, Jacques Chirac, declared at an international Summit in Hanoi : "Our goal is to convince, not to compel. I have never seen a policy of sanctions producing anything positive." The year before, France had stopped contributing to the Northern no-fly zone. It withdrew from the Southern one in 1999. In the meantime, Iraq was bearing grudgingly the international inspections set up by Resolution 687. By December, 1998, the United States inflicted on the country a wave of targeted strikes, in principle to degrade its suspected WMD capacities, more likely to help topple Saddam Hussein's regime. But the Regime held on, and a new war had to be launched in 2003 to finally bring it down. How do sanctions against Iran compare to such a history? First, Russia, succeeding the USSR, and China, do not look at the world as in 1990, and have developed growing reservations regarding the use of sanctions. And the Iranian case, in its outset, did not carry a violation of international law as blatant as the Iraqi case, which saw the massive aggression of a UN member state by another member state. Russia and China have consequently refused to endorse an embargo expanding beyond the points of contention, i.e. nuclear, military and ballistic. These sanctions having produced but a feeble impression on the Iranian regime, the United States and the European Union have resolved to resort to their own additional sanctions, interrupting all oil-related business, and progressively drying up all financial flows with Iran. And to reinforce the efficiency of these sanctions, the United States set up "secondary sanctions", compelling third parties to join in. In the past, such a practice had been strongly opposed by the European Union. This time, it has quietly endorsed US pressures on a vast array of countries, especially in Asia, to convince them to reduce their purchases of Iranian oil, and to interrupt their monetary transactions with Tehran, except for trade expressed in their national currencies. In spite of its unwavering support, the European Union has been submitted, like everyone else, to the pressures of the American Administration and Congress, for instance when the question arose to forbid to Iranians banks access to European automated banking services. But this new architecture of sanctions suffers from a lesser legitimacy than the Iraqi set of sanctions, which was placed entirely under the aegis of the United Nations. The great consumers of Iranian oil : China, Japan, India, South Korea... have reduced their purchases only in the proportion required to avoid punition by the United States. True, Iranian oil exports have been cut by half. But this oil is sold at a price fluctuating between 80 and 100 dollars per barrel, as the price of the barrel seldom went over 30 dollars from the beginning of the Islamic revolution, in 1979, to the election of Ahmadinejad as president, in 2005. Furthermore, an unknown share of the Iranian production is, in all likelihood, sold under a few other pavilions. And quite obviously, some banks exotic enough to be able to dodge American monitoring succeed, at the proper price, in managing exchanges between Iran and the outer world. True also, the Iranian riyal has lost about two thirds of its value in dollars, but it was until recently, as a matter of prestige, maintained at a grossly overrated level. Its present value is much closer to the economic truth. This correction has certainly encouraged inflation. But it offers margins of competitiveness quite unheard of to the Iranian industry, which was until now stifled by Asian productions. It offers an opportunity to raise the proportion of non-oil exports in the Iranian trade balance. This devaluation has therefore positive aspects. Of course, the Iranian population pays dearly for these sanctions, and also for the erratic management of the economy by the Iranian government, as was the case in Saddam's Iraq. In theory, imports of humanitarian products, like food and medicine, do not fall under the embargo. But the complexity of the system make such imports more or less impracticable, except for exceptional cases as when some giant of the food industry, like Cargill, deems it convenient to sell corn to Iran. All things considered, the shock created by sanctions is not as heavy as it was in Iraq. The sheer size of the Iranian population - 75 million inhabitants versus 20 million Iraqis at the turn of the century - acts as an absorber. And in spite of serious shortcomings, the level of self-sufficiency of the Iranian economy, in agriculture as well as in industry, is clearly higher than in Saddam's Iraq. Could the Iranians be less resigned than the Iraqis to be taken as hostages by their government in its quarrel with the outer world? If they were to rise from submission, would the Regime be ready to show itself as merciless as the former master of Baghdad, or the present master of Damascus? The Iranian civil society has already paid a heavy price for the upheavals entailed by the rigged elections of 2009. It is not in a position to challenge again the Regime. On the other hand, this Regime will probably hesitate to rig the upcoming presidential election as grossly as last time. All in all, one does not see coming from the horizon the internal crisis which could undermine the Islamic Republic to a point where it would have no other choice but to give up to the West. And the present nuclear showdown is here to last quite a while. The last round of negotiation in Almaty, at the beginning of April, has revealed a wide and enduring gap between the parties, even if there has been some progress in the quality of their exchanges. A breakthrough seems for the moment out of reach, all the more as Iran is going to be absorbed in the presidential election and the installation of its new president until the end of summer. In order to hasten the moment when Iran's economic collapse and political isolation would drive it to a full surrender, can we envisage to exert on the Regime even higher pressure? Francois Hollande, the French president, has been declaring at the beginning of March : "France will take its responsibilities in order to maintain pressure, to harden the sanctions, so as the Iranian rulers abide by their international commitments, by the Security Council's resolutions." But then, it becomes somehow difficult to see what kind of crushing sanctions could complement the present ones. Such sanctions will not be able to rely on the legitimacy of the United Nations. They will have to take into account the low motivation of most third countries to partake in such an escalation, as well as the growing ingenuity of Iran in dodging the embargo. One cannot therefore exclude that, as in the Iraqi case, sanctions will not be able to bring the desired outcome. Then, again as in the Iraqi case, comes the temptation to resort to force. But Tehran is taking great care to avoid offering to the United States the opportunity to intervene. It stays cautiously behind the red line defined by President Obama as the beginning of the production of a nuclear explosive device. It stays even behind the red line defined by Prime Minister Netanyahu as the possession of enough 20% enriched uranium to obtain in a matter of weeks, by further enrichment, enough highly enriched uranium for a first atomic bomb. And the US administration will not dare to build a case like the one which led to the invasion of Iraq. To show how times have changed, the US Intelligence Community, much to the chagrin of the neoconservatives eager to knock heads with Iran, reminds regularly since 2007 that the Islamic Republic has interrupted its clandestine nuclear program by the end of 2003, and has not, since then, taken the decision to produce nuclear weapons. There should be a third way to come out of the crisis, but it implies a deep change in the parameters of the negotiation. There is one idea, and only one, on which such a change could be built : the recognition of Iran's right to enrich, but enshrined in a system of controls powerful enough to practically forbid any access to the Bomb. Ali Khamenei, leader of the revolution, has recently supported such a formula in a public speech. Now, if there were an interest in exploring it, the initiative rather belongs to the West. It belongs in reality to Barack Obama, the sole Western leader in a position to boost the negotiation as the European leaders have chosen to stand back, for lack of imagination, lack of cohesion, and lack of political will. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1a6_1368196302 AntiPropagaanda Iraq, Iran : the lesson of sanctions Iran, Iraq, /sanctions, Lies, Wars, Oil, Wed, 01 May 2013 00:39:17 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=162_1367383104 Pakistani QUETTA: If you ever wanted a greenhouse that can literally run on remote control, then you need to talk to Waleed Bashir. Hailing from Khuzdar, this 15 year old Pakistani recently bagged the Grand Winner position, along with a gold medal, at the International Infomatrix Asia Computer Competition, held between April 18 and 21 in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Infomatrix is an annual international computer project competition which aims at bringing together computer science students from across Asia. Although the Infomatrix competitions have been held since 2003, this was the first International Computer Project Olympiad. This means that Bashir beat out competitors and projects from over 20 countries. Participating nations included Russia, India, Bangladesh, Georgia, Bosnia, Ukraine, Kyrghzstan, Azerbaijan, and Kenya, and judges had to choose between hundreds of projects. They chose Bashir's 'Green Automation' project . Bashir, a ninth grader at the Quetta chapter of Pakturk International Schools & Colleges, designed an automation system that illustrates how to control a greenhouse with only a computer and an internet connection. With heat, water level, humidity and other factors controlled through strategically installed sensors, there is virtually no need for human attendants,. That's not all; the energy required for the functioning of the system is provided by movable solar panels that follow the position of the sun for the best possible energy recovery. "The honor and the pride belong to my country, Pakistan. They belong to my school and teacher, and to my parents," he said. "Carrying our flag on an international platform, with dignity and honour, was my dream," he said. In addition to this, students from Pakturk schools across the country hold countless awards. Through many international competitions held in 2012, the Quetta chapter of the same institution won a gold medal in Turkmenistan and a silver medal in Turkey. http://www.defence.pk/forums/technology-science/248028-infomatrix-competition-gold-medals-greenhouses.html http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=162_1367383104 Pakistani Infomatrix Competition: Gold medals and greenhouses Infomatrix Competition: Gold medals and greenhouses Fri, 26 Apr 2013 11:45:22 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=01c_1366990661 AntiPropagaanda Chorus grows against Obama administration's sanctions-heavy Iran policyThe Obama administration's effort to end Iran's nuclear program has focused on punitive measures, with little diplomatic outreach. Critics say this jeopardizes negotiations. By Scott Peterson, Staff writer / April 25, 2013 President Barack Obama leaves after speaking in the Brady Press Briefing at the White House in Washington, Friday, April 19, 2013. Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP America's nuclear negotiators with Iran got it all wrong, according to a growing chorus of critics arguing that over-reliance on pressure and sanctions may be jeopardizing a diplomatic deal. The Obama administration has implemented a host of crippling sanctions on Iran targeting its central bank and lifeblood oil exports. The goal has been to pressure Iran into giving up its most sensitive nuclear work, which could be a pathway to an atomic bomb. But a year of high-profile talks between Iran and world powers has yielded little progress. Now a number of senior former US officials and analysts say a White House obsession with the pressure track may be backfiring, and are calling for a pivot toward the diplomatic track to reestablish balance. RECOMMENDED: How much do you know about Iran? Take our quiz to find out. "I was in the Department when they kept talking about the so-called two-track policy, and it was clear the whole thing was nonsense, there never were two tracks," says John Limbert, the former US deputy assistant secretary of state for Iran from 2009 to 2010. "The sanctions took all the air out of the room. It was 95 percent sanctions, and that was on a good day." The US 'knows' sanctionsOne reason for the sanctions focus is "we know how to do them. It's familiar (although it has failed almost every single time it has been used). And to do them, we don't have to deal with the Iranians; we deal with the British, the United Nations , the Russians, the Chinese," says Ambassador Limbert, who was also held captive in Iran during the 1979 to 1981 hostage crisis, and speaks fluent Persian. "Whereas diplomacy with Iran, that's hard. Nobody knows how to do that, and every time we've tried, we've failed, and as soon as we fail we've given up and gone back to doing what we know how to do." Limbert, who now teaches at the US Naval Academy , is among a growing number of people calling for a recalibration of the American strategy on Iran - a greater emphasis on diplomacy and real incentives, like substantial sanctions relief - in exchange for real concessions by Iran. "It is time for the administration to make the sweat equity investment in negotiations equal to what it has done on sanctions and the potential to use military force," Tom Pickering, the former US Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs, said at the launch last week in Washington of a report by The Iran Project , an independent group of former officials and professionals that seeks to improve official US-Iran ties. "First and foremost we believe the President needs to make that decision - 'I want a deal' - and instruct his people to get a deal," he said. Ambassador Pickering and Limbert were among 35 signatories of the report, which included other veteran diplomats and officials like Zbigniew Brzezinski , President Jimmy Carter 's national security advisor; Ryan Crocker , former ambassador to Afghanistan , Iraq and other trouble spots; Lee Hamilton , a former congressman and vice chairman of the 9-11 Commission; and former Central Intelligence Agency chief Michael Hayden . There are signs that message is getting through. Despite a strong desire on Capitol Hill and in Israel for more sanctions against Iran, Secretary of State John Kerry asked Congress last Thursday to hold off: "We don't need to spin this up at this point in time.... You need to leave us the window to try to work the diplomatic channel," he said. Fewer optionsThe widening bid for better diplomacy comes after the latest round of nuclear talks in the Kazakh city of Almaty earlier this month failed to narrow differences between Iran and the P5+1 group (the US, Russia , China , Britain , France and Germany ). Calling for "strengthening the diplomatic track in order to seize the opportunity created by the pressure track," The Iran Project notes that while US policies "possibly slowed the expansion of Iran's nuclear program," they also "may have narrowed the options for dealing with Iran by hardening the regime's resistance to pressure." The report states that "it seems doubtful that pressure alone will change the decisions of Iran's leaders," though stronger diplomacy "that includes the promise of sanctions relief in exchange for verifiable cooperation" could lead to a deal. Another risk of current policy, warns the report: "Sanctions-related hardships may be sowing the seeds of long-term alienation between the Iranian people and the United States ." The current P5+1 offer, which has been seen by The Christian Science Monitor , calls upon Iran to halt enrichment of uranium to 20 percent purity - which is a few technical steps away from bomb-grade of more than 90 percent - and "reduce readiness" of a deeply buried enrichment facility by disconnecting and removing key equipment. After those steps, the P5+1 would provide partial sanctions relief on gold transfers and petrochemical exports, but not on far more painful financial or oil sanctions. Iran says the offer is unbalanced, and wants a more "reciprocal" approach. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stated in February that pressure and sanctions are akin to the US "pointing a gun at Iran and say either negotiate or we will shoot." In March, Khamenei said, "if the Americans sincerely want" to resolve the nuclear issue "they should stop being hostile towards the Iranian nation in words and in action." Both sides in the nuclear negotiations have staked out positions unacceptable to the other. Iran has signaled repeatedly in the past two years a willingness to cap its 20 percent enrichment, but has balked at the low price on offer. "I think the answer is probably pretty simple. We're going to have to sweeten the offer on sanctions relief," former US assistant secretary of state under the George W. Bush administration and veteran troubleshooter James Dobbins said at the report launch. Sanctions should be suspended, not dropped, he said, until Iran also demonstrates it can hold to its side of any bargain. "Is the level of mistrust so high, that it doesn't matter at the end of the day what we offer?" asks Limbert. "Anything short of a full surrender - and maybe even that - the Iranians are going to say, 'Well, obviously this is some trick...we're not sure how you're doing it, but we know you are.'" The same applies to US suspicions of Iran, adds Limbert: "That's exactly the way the two sides operate. This nuclear issue has gotten so invested with manhood neither side feels it can back down." Has Obama already failed?The Iran Project report is only the latest critique of White House handling of Iran that raises questions about missed opportunities and even the desire to make a deal. The Atlantic Council earlier this month called for the US to prepare a roadmap that clarifies a "step-by-step reciprocal and proportionate plan" to lift sanctions as Iran's makes its own moves. "To make meaningful concessions, Iran needs to see off-ramps and an endgame," the Washington think tank concluded . Likewise, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Federation of American Scientists this month determined: "Washington's overwhelming focus on coercion and military threats has backed US policymakers into a rhetorical corner ." Yet a further report , published by the International Crisis Group in February, noted how Iran and the West "view the sanctions through very dissimilar prisms." While the US and Europe count on a "cost-benefit analysis" such that Iran will eventually cave in to hardship, "the world looks very different from Tehran the one thing considered more perilous than suffering from sanctions is surrendering to them." That disconnect has bedeviled the Obama White House, writes former administration official Vali Nasr in a book published this month, "The Dispensable Nation." "The dual-track policy only gave Iran a reason to dig in deeper and clutch its nuclear ambitions tighter," writes Mr. Nasr, who is now dean of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University . "In the end, Obama's Iran policy failed. He pushed ahead with sanctions for the same reason Lyndon Johnson kept up the bombing of North Vietnam - neither could think of anything else to do," asserts Nasr. "Obama's sanctions-heavy approach did not change Iranian behavior; instead it encouraged Iran to accelerate its race to nuclear capability." Creating a solution may require a change in approach, say the authors of The Iran Project report. "We have to do something the Iranians aren't expecting, that gets them to stop and say, 'Wait a minute... maybe the Americans are serious,'" said James Walsh , a non-proliferation expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , at the report launch. "The only way this hard stuff will get done is if the President of the United States makes it his issue," added Walsh. "Absent that, we're going to continue to do what we've done over and over again, only it will get worse." http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=01c_1366990661 AntiPropagaanda Chorus grows against Obama administration's sanctions-heavy Iran policy Iran, America, Policy, Nuclear Energy, 20%, 95%, Israel, War, Sanctions, Benefit, AIPAC, Fri, 12 Apr 2013 05:19:08 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=65d_1365758140 GIXXARDR Imagine if this had of happened at speed!? (Correct date is 10.04.2013) credit to: Forty6Two http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=65d_1365758140 GIXXARDR Poor biker has an epileptic fit stopped at lights.. epileptic, epilepsy, fit, Almaty, Mon, 04 Mar 2013 12:42:18 -0500 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ea8_1362418658 Jersey_Devil 03/04/2013 Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan Today, about four in the morning, on the route Almaty-Bishkek was terrible accident. Due to heavy fog and poor visibility witnesses assumes that the collision occurred head on. It was such a heavy impact that parts of the car had gone hundreds of metres away from the accident. One of the cars started burning. The passing of an impact vehicles road users filmed video on your DVR, stopped and called the traffic police and an ambulance. (I posted this video earlier today when a driver arrived at the scene. It can be seen in the above footage) http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ea8_1362418658 Jersey_Devil Survivor of brutal and fatal crash films the aftermath (graphic) driver scene accident brutal fatal car crash dead survivor film Mon, 04 Mar 2013 07:44:46 -0500 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=9b2_1362400788 Jersey_Devil 03/04/2013 Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan Today, about four in the morning, on the route Almaty-Bishkek was terrible accident. Due to heavy fog and poor visibility witnesses assumes that the collision occurred head on. It was such a heavy impact that parts of the car had gone hundreds of metres away from the accident. One of the cars started burning. The passing of an impact vehicles road users filmed video on your DVR, stopped and called the traffic police and an ambulance. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=9b2_1362400788 Jersey_Devil Driver arrives at the scene of a brutal and fatal accident driver scene accident brutal fatal car crash dead Sun, 03 Mar 2013 18:06:15 -0500 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=87d_1362351821 2Crazy4U Caught on dashcam by a car with the most irritatingly loud wipers in Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan. While both lanes in the same direction stopped at pedestrian crossing to allow pedestrians across, a few small-dicked douchebags chose to pass respectful drivers by driving on the oncoming lanes. Pedestrians, including a child started to cross and after entering the lanes with traffic from the right, the child got hit by an SUV that came from the left. Idiot on that big ass SUV probably bought it with money from trafficking of drugs to all the junkies from the former Soviet Republic. He's too fucking macho to keep to his lanes behind the cars in order in which they approached the crossing. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=87d_1362351821 2Crazy4U Child Run Over by Idiot on SUV Child Run Over by Idiot on SUV Fri, 27 Apr 2012 07:23:05 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c07_1335524479 posmotrika On one of the intersections in Almaty face 2 car http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c07_1335524479 posmotrika Pirouette Cayenne, crash Porsche, Cayenne, Toyota, Exiv, crash, Almaty, Kazakhstan Tue, 31 Jan 2012 08:15:05 -0500 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=153_1328015418 Private-Parts Almaty, Kazakhstan, 27 January 2012 - Toyota driver loses control on on a slippery road and crashes with oncoming car. Nice to see the pedestrians on the sidewalk were alert. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=153_1328015418 Private-Parts Skid Into Oncoming Toyota, car, driver, loses control, skid, crash, collision, oncoming, traffic, Almaty, Kazakhstan Fri, 16 Nov 2012 10:23:35 -0500 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a19_1353079150 brrrtmn :) http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a19_1353079150 brrrtmn It's not good to be a fat fat,man,car,accident,dash cam,almaty,kazakhstan Thu, 17 May 2012 05:58:59 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1d7_1337248583 posmotrika http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1d7_1337248583 posmotrika Head-on collision Almaty,Kazakhstan,Head-on collision,crash,auto Tue, 13 Mar 2012 14:01:26 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7ef_1331661603 Geoterror That's nothing my SUV can't handle http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7ef_1331661603 Geoterror Huge gaping hole in the road gaping hole almaty car crash bump