Libya Leaders Say China Relationship Will Suffer If Arms Sold to Qaddafi

Libya’s new leaders said the country’s relations with China will suffer if they confirm a report that Chinese state companies offered to sellMuammar Qaddafi $200 million worth of arms in the midst of a rebellion.
“If indeed the Chinese government agreed to sell arms to Qaddafi only a month ago, definitely it will affect our relationship with China,” the National Transitional Council’s finance minister, Ali Al Tarhouni, told Al Jazeera television today. The outcome would be “not favorable,” he said.

Tarhouni was speaking in response to a story by Toronto’s Globe and Mail newspaper, whose reporter in Tripoli said he found Qaddafi-government documents suggesting Chinese companies offered to sell to surface-to-air missiles designed to bring down aircraft, in addition to other weapons and munitions.
The Arabic-language documents, copies of which were posted yesterday on the newspaper’s website, include details of a trip to Beijing by Libyan security officials to discuss the possible purchase of weapons on July 16, when Libya was six months into the conflict and under a United Nations arms embargo.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, denied today that state-owned companies offered to sell arms to Qaddafi, who is in hiding after rebel forces took control of the capital, Tripoli, late last month.

“The Qaddafi regime sent people to China to make contact with certain individuals of relevant Chinese companies in July without the knowledge of government departments,” she said in Beijing. “Chinese companies have not signed any military trade contracts with Libya, let alone sold arms to Libya.”

Third Countries

The Globe and Mail said one of its reporters found the documents in the trash in Tripoli’s Bab Akkarah neighborhood, where Qaddafi loyalists had lavish homes, and that the material suggested the arms would be delivered through third countries such as South Africa or Algeria. The documents didn’t confirm whether any military assistance had been delivered.

Jiang said no arms were exported following the UN Security Council sanctions banning weapons shipments to Libya, either directly or indirectly.

Popular sentiment among many Libyan rebels is set against China already because of a perception that the government in Beijing objected to the UN Security Council resolutions in March that authorized the arms embargo, sanctions and an air campaign.

“We don’t want China, because China is not going with us,” said a Misrata hotel executive, Mahmoud Al Malbrook, in an interview. “China, it deals all the time with Qaddafi.”

No Recognition

The image of China as harmful to the Libyan rebel cause is widespread in areas under the control of the National Transitional Council, and is unlikely to help Chinese trade with Libya. China hasn’t yet recognized the NTC, while about 60 states have.

In late May, Abdeljalil Mayuf, spokesman for the Arabian Gulf Oil Co., at the time the largest oil company in rebel hands, said in an interview in Benghazi that China would suffer a penalty for a perceived lack of support for the UN resolutions.

“There must be a reordering for India, China, Brazil,” said Mayuf. “I am sure that some of these contracts will be canceled. Russia and China have personal control with sons of Qaddafi, they gambled on the wrong horse.”

Chinese oil companies are among 44 businesses that have contracts for oil exploration in concessions agreed on with Libya since 2007. The NTC has repeatedly said it will honor all of Libya’s contracts.
Whether Beijing will fare as well in the contracts likely to be signed to rebuild Libya and modernize its oil, gas and power-generation industry is less clear.

China Deemed ‘Unfriendly’

Abdul Hakim Moktar, a rebel fighter based in Misrata, said the opposition wants to use the postwar period to reward friendly nations and punish unfriendly ones. He singled out Qatar, the U.S., Britain and France as “friendly” states and characterized China and Russia as “unfriendly.”

“The countries who helped us, we will not forget them,” he said in an interview. “In this war, many people love us and we will not forget them. China did not help us.”

Yet even in Misrata, where sentiment against China seems strong, trade with the country continues: A consignment of several thousand plastic independence flags arrived in the city last month to be given out for planned street celebrations when the war officially ends. They were made in China.
Source Bloomberg

President zero

By Rick Manning
Zero.

It hasn’t happened in the lifetimes of anyone who isn’t eligible for social security.

Zero net jobs were created in the month of August for the first time since 1945. It is almost mind boggling to think about what may turn out to be this President’s singular accomplishment — ending a 792 month job creation winning streak for the American economy.

Historians will be looking to determine just how the Obama Administration reached this milestone?
What were Obama’s secrets?

Just how did he spend almost a trillion dollars in ‘stimulus’ funding and get to a very round number?
The search for answers takes us around the country and indeed around the globe.

In Seattle, Washington, the federal government spent $20 million dollars on a federal grant to weatherize homes as part of their greening of America plan. How many jobs were created for $20 million? Fourteen total, eight of which are specifically tasked with administratively handling the grant.
Get full story here.

Our least sustainable energy option

By Paul Driessen


President Obama and a chorus of environmentalists, politicians, corporate executives and bureaucrats are perennially bullish on wind power as the bellwether of our “clean energy economy of the future.”

In reality, wind energy may well be the least sustainable and least eco-friendly of all electricity options. Its shortcomings are legion, but the biggest ones can be grouped into eight categories.

Land. As American humorist and philosopher Will Rogers observed, “They ain’t making any more of it.” Wind turbine installations impact vast amounts of land, far more than traditional power plants.

Arizona’s Palo Verde nuclear plant generates 3,750 megwatts of electricity from a 4,000-acre site. The 600-MW John Turk ultra-supercritical coal-fired power plant in Arkansas covers part of 2,900 acres; two 600-MW coal-fired units in India use just 600 acres. Gas-fired units like Calpine’s 560-MW Fox Energy Center in Wisconsin require several hundred acres. All generate reliable power 90-95 percent of the year.

By contrast, the 600-MW Fowler Ridge wind installation (355 turbines) spans 50,000 acres of farm country along Indiana’s I-65 corridor. The 782-MW Roscoe project in Texas (627 turbines) sprawls across 100,000 acres. Oregon’s Shepherds Flat project (338 gigantic 2.5 MW turbines) covers nearly 80,000 wildlife and scenic acres along the Columbia River Gorge, for a “rated capacity” of 845 MW.

The Chokecherry-Sierra Madre project will blanket some 320,000 acres of sage grouse habitat and BLM land in Wyoming with 1,000 monstrous 3-MW turbines, to generate zero to 3,000 MW of intermittent power. That’s eight times the size of Washington, DC, to get an average annual output one-fourth of what Palo Verde generates 90 percent of the time. But C-SM has already received preliminary approval from BLM.

To replace just 20 percent of the United States’ 995,000 MW of total installed generating capacity, we would need to blanket an area the size of Kansas with wind turbines, and then add nearly a thousand 600-MW gas-fired backup generators … and thousands of miles of new high voltage transmission lines.
Get full story here.

NEW YORK MASSACRE

NEW YORK MASSACRE

MAYOR CRIES FOR HELP AS 24 PEOPLE WERE SHOT DEAD. By NewsOne.com
NEW YORK (NewsOne.com) - New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is demanding action from Washington after 24 people where shot in the city during a span of 24 hours, this Labor Day weekend.
A rash of shootings in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx from 6 a.m. Saturday to 6 a.m. Sunday left many injured and one man dead. As of Sunday night, no arrests have been made.

New York Daily News reports:

"The mayor said 24 people shot in 24 hours in the city 'is just unconscionable.'

'We cannot tolerate it,' Bloomberg said while speaking at the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn. “There are just too many guns on the streets and we have to do something about it.

"New York has the toughest gun laws in the country, but Bloomberg said the city alone cannot stop the onslaught of shootings. 'We need the federal government to step up,' he said.

* CLICK HERE FOR THE STORY*

OBAMA AND LABOR DAY

OBAMA AND LABOR DAY

PRESIDENT OBAMA PLANS TO COMBAT JOB CRISIS. By Wayne Hodges
WASHINGTON — As we celebrate Labor Day, let's keep in mind the domestic job market is considerably worse than what the 9.1 percent unemployment rate indicates. And recent labor statistics certainly support the claim.
Coming up!
 1) Alonzo  releases his CNN video

2) Heart Surgeon discusses sex & more

3) Matt Cassel could miss home opener

4) Mass Appeal News Radio is back

5) Julee Jonez has the celebrity 411
6) 24 people shot and killed in NY

And much, much more. Back to the story.

Today, 14 million Americans are unemployed. Another 8.8 million are underemployed, meaning they are part-timers seeking full-time employment. And 2.6 million have already conceded rejection and have stopped looking for work altogether.

That equates to 26 million Americans mired in dire financial straits.
Compounding matters is the disappointing fact employers added zero net jobs for the month of August; easily the weakest output since September 2010.

"You go to all these interviews for entry-level positions, and you lose out every time," said 26-year-old Ryan McGrath, who has been unsuccessful in landing full-time work.


"Right now, finding a job is my job," said Emma Draper, 23, who lost her public relations job earlier this summer. "If that was the only thing I had to do, I'd be going insane. There is only so much time you can sit at your computer, sending out resumes."

The jobless numbers, of course, are even more grim for African-Americans. Blacks are currently inflicted with an unemployment rate of 16.1 percent; nearly double the national figure.

More food for thought:  26 percent of African Americans are underemployed. 22 percent of Hispanics are underemployed. And 15 percent of Whites are underemployed.

Nationally, roughly 4.5 unemployed people are competing for each job opening whereas under normal economic conditions, the average is two per opening.

The economic outlook is so grim, U.S. President Barack Obama has scheduled a national address for Thursday night with plans to outline an emergency blueprint to help stimulate hiring.
Good luck.

The speech, nevertheless, is coming amid constant criticism of the Obama Administration's failure to lend credence to the socioeconomic complaints of the poor, and African-Americans in particular.

With the 2012 presidential election rapidly approaching, recent polls indicate Obama has fallen completely out of favor with blacks - the same group that supported him with a 98% voter count during his campaign in 2008.

So, given that data, the national address and proposed job stimulant doesn't come as much of a surprise.
Obama is smart.

He understands re-gaining black support is imperative to securing another stint in office. If African-Americans all of a sudden feel inclined to get out and vote, Obama's hopes for re-election are doomed.  
Speaking of Obama, the general consensus among his supporters claim former president George W. Bush is the culprit primarily responsible for America's financial decline.

If most of us are in agreement Bush's policies are indeed the problem, you should be terribly discouraged in Obama's decision to extend so many of them - most notably the Bush Tax Cuts which feature significant tax incentives for the rich. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big Obama supporter. But I'd like to see him get a little tougher.
Here's what one frustrated reader had to say about Obama and the prospect of a Republican being voted into office:

Javon707 says: "what would happen if one of the 'republikkkans' were to get elected? It’s not like the black community is doing any better with barry-o in office. you guys talk as if the republicans are going to round up all the blacks and put them on plantations.
 "what will happen? 

"the end of the world as we know it?

“Bush had eight years to destroy the country’s economy. And Obama is continuing Bush’s policies. So tell me what is he doing different? He (Obama) put an extra $25 dollars a week in unemployment insurance and repealed 'Dont Ask Dont Tell.' Whoopty Doo.

"Alot of us WERE obama supporters who finally seen the wolf in sheep’s clothing. We are not rightwingers. We are disappointed because the man we supported in ‘08, isnt what he campaigned.
"Now if youre still hoping for that “hope and change”, keep believing, who am I to piss in your bowl of cheerios. dont begrudge the rest of us who see the smoke and mirrors."

Wow! Anyway, please share your thoughts. Obviously, many Americans are frustrated with today's abysmal job climate. Economists have already predicted the economy won't return to pre-recession levels until the year 2020.

Hang in there America.
We only have 9 more years to go.
Wayne Hodges, an MBA from St. Mary University, is the Editor-in-Chief of “Mass Appeal News.” He's also a contributing writer to YourBlackWorld.com, he’s a Democrat reporter for the Examiner, and he’s a film critic with ILoveBlackMovies.com. Wayne welcomes your comments 24/7 at whodges@massappealnews.com