-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/ <A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/">The Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe</A> ----- NATO to Bomb Africa Next? Citing Threats, US Closes African Embassies Why doesn't the world love our bombs and missiles? WASHINGTON - The United States has ordered the temporary closing of six embassies in Africa based on ''concrete information'' suggesting that terrorist attacks may be in the works, the State Department said Friday. The embassies in Gambia, Togo, Madagascar, Liberia, Namibia and Senegal were closed Thursday and will remain shuttered through Sunday. The State Department spokesman, James Rubin, said Friday that a decision would be made over the weekend on whether they would be reopened Monday. On Friday, Britain also closed diplomatic missions because of threats to security, in four African countries. A Foreign Office spokesman in London said: ''We have information of a possible threat to diplomatic missions in Gambia, Madagascar, Namibia and Senegal. We are taking this threat seriously and have taken the precautionary measure of temporarily closing our missions in these countries.'' Mr. Rubin said U.S. embassies in Africa and the rest of the world had been placed on a heightened state of alert because of increased security concerns. ''We had information suggesting suspicious individuals were surveying the sites, and as a precautionary, prudent measure we suspended operations,'' he said. Mr. Rubin did not cite any specific threats or militant organizations. But he added: ''We have seen a pattern of activity indicating continued planning for terrorist attacks by members of Osama bin Laden's network. And we take reporting of such threats seriously.'' The British Foreign Office spokesman declined to elaborate on the threat or where it came from, but said no diplomatic staff were being evacuated. ''The possible threat is to diplomatic missions, not to British nationals,'' he said. The spokesman declined to say whether the British decision to close its missions was linked to the American move, or to any threat from Mr. bin Laden. He said he did not know how long the closures would last. U.S. embassies have been closed before in response to terrorist threats or concerns they might be targeted. But Mr. Rubin said terrorists were not intimidating the United States or having an impact on U.S. foreign policy. ''We have foiled their objective of stopping our determination to have an American presence around the world and to interfere with our determination as a global power to have American troop presence in various countries,'' he said. ''So, they have failed.'' But, he said, ''that doesn't mean we don't have to adjust our practices, that we don't have to spend more money to protect our people, and we are determined to do that.'' Mr. Rubin, speaking on the ABC television program ''Good Morning America,'' said the United States was putting pressure on a number of governments to capture Mr. bin Laden, believed to be the mastermind of a bomb attack on the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi that killed 213 people and wounded more than 5,000. An almost simultaneous attack killed 11 Tanzanians and injured more than 70 people outside the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam. Mr. bin Laden has been placed on the FBI's list of 10 most-wanted fugitives. He is believed to be in Afghanistan. Last week, U.S. intelligence officials said Mr. bin Laden was believed to be in the final stages of planning another attack on U.S. facilities. ''We think that Osama bin Laden is responsible for the deaths of Americans and he will have nowhere to run and nowhere to hide,'' Mr. Rubin said Friday. ''We're determined to find those responsible for killing Americans no matter how long it takes.'' ABC reported that in Mozambique people inside a parked car were seen in May videotaping the U.S. embassy in Maputo, but they fled when police approached them. The State Department noted that U.S. embassies worldwide had been on a heightened alert status because of increased security concerns. At installations around Africa, guard duties have been doubled and given bomb detectors since the bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, and concrete crash barriers have been installed on nearby streets . In the Senegalese capital, Dakar, gendarmes cordoned off three streets around the closed U.S. Embassy. Although the embassy in Abidjan, Ivory Coast's commercial capital, remained open Friday, U.S. Marine guards and security men swept electronic detectors across the engines of vehicles entering the embassy. Most U.S. embassies in sub-Saharan Africa were ordered closed for two days in December, after U.S. action in Iraq. The U.S. Embassy in Uganda has also closed on a few occasions because of security concerns. International Herald Tribune, June 26, 1999 Reproduction Professor Sperm Bank Opens in China Publish or perish BEIJING, Jun 25, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) A sperm bank which only accepts donors with academic degrees equal to associate professor and above has opened in China, official media said Thursday. The bank, known as the Notables' Sperm Bank, has been flooded with calls from potential donors, mainly intellectuals, since it opened in Chengdu, in southwest China, manager Huang Ping told Xinhua news agency. She said donors must be aged under 60, be healthy and have no family history of congenital disease. She added the Notables' Sperm Bank pays more for donations than other donor centers. To avoid the possibility of impregnation with a relative's sperm, a man can only give a maximum of five donations and one donor's sperm will be only be used by women who live in different regions, Huang said. But Zhang Sizhong, a leading genetics professor at Huaxi Medical University, told Xinhua that sperm of highly educated people may not necessarily be better than that of others. And Yu Pingzhe, a philosophy professor at Sichuan University, questioned the ethics of the Notables' Sperm Bank, insisting both "foolish and clever people have the right to live", according to Xinhua. Xinhua noted sperm banks were a relatively new idea in China and hospitals found it very difficult to obtain sufficient donations for infertile couples. Inside China Today, June 25, 1999 Financial Scams Superciliation at the Alleged Scene of this Alleged Fraud Old thieves have culture; new thieves just have money In the leafy lanes of "back- country" Greenwich, Connecticut's old-money set has long been accustomed to rubbing shoulders with Wall Street's latest nouveaux riches. Mansions dating from the 1920s, riding their well watered lawns, signal the stock market's last great high-water mark. The giant fraud that has just shaken the wealthy suburb 30 miles from New York City, however, is pure late-twentieth century melodrama. Not far from Lake Avenue, scene of this alleged fraud, staid New England families mingle with the international jet set at the polo club at White Birch Farm. Hector Barrantes, who married Sarah Ferguson's mother, was a frequent player: The Duchess of York has just cancelled a visit planned for this weekend. These bastions of old money stand side by side with the brash emblems of new Wall Street fortunes. Faded parodies of Tudor villas and clapboard Colonials are being renovated and extended. New dry-stone walls, the latest fashion for a generation striving to adopt the ways of the landed class, line the wooded roads. Martin Frankel slipped into this secluded haven with ease. A young and reclusive mid-westerner, he might once have seemed out of place in Stockbroker Belt. But Stockbroker Belt has been transformed, in the late twentieth century, into an outpost of modern high finance. This is a place where young men like Martin Frankel, dressed in jeans and T-shirts, are just as likely to be juggling the odd $100m as turning up to fix the cable system. Mike Vranos, once one of the most powerful bond traders on Wall Street and now manager of a Greenwich hedge fund, wears jeans and casual shirts to his unassuming office beside a golf course. From behind a low-rise office in Greenwich last autumn, John Meriwether and his partners at Long-Term Capital Management succeeded in shaking the international financial system to its foundation. It seems fitting that Charles Davidson, who sold Mr Frankel one of the two mansions he bought in recent months, is himself a former partner of hedge-fund superstar Michael Steinhardt. Even by the standards of the secretive world of modern high finance, however, Martin Frankel's behaviour stood out. No sooner had he bought the back-country mansion he had been renting for some years than he threw up elaborate security around the premises. According to the FBI, the modern stone dwelling was converted into a warren of offices. Some 80 computers were packed into the building, hooked up to large satellite dishes that linked the enterprise to the wider financial system. In fact, say Federal investigators, the whole enterprise was nothing more than a giant money-laundering factory. And Mr Frankel himself, far from being a latter-day Gatsby, was busy pulling off one of the biggest frauds of recent years, siphoning more than $300m from a group of insurance companies located hundreds of miles away. According to an affidavit filed by the FBI, an investment fund set up by Mr Frankel had gained control of a handful of private insurance companies in Mississippi and other southern states. Insurance premiums collected by these companies were channelled to Liberty National Securities - a company that Mr Frankel operated from his Greenwich home. But rather than investing the money in safe US government bonds, as the insurance companies thought, he is alleged to have laundered the cash through a web of bank accounts, front companies and charitable foundations. The insurers have now launched a lawsuit seeking $950m, though much of this appears to relate to profits that Mr Frankel claimed to have earned for the companies, but which never in fact existed. Most of the money is now missing - as is Martin Frankel, leaving behind a bizarre trail. Though born a Jew in Toledo, Ohio, the high school drop-out controlled his financial empire through two Catholic charities. One, the St Francis of Assisi Foundation, claimed assets of nearly $2bn and the support of the Vatican. Using a false name and claiming to be a devout Catholic himself, Mr Frankel won the support of influential people. Everything about the foundation now appears to have been falsified. Other scraps of evidence hint at the nature of Mr Frankel's business - and his growing unease as his scheme began to come to light. Among the remains of burnt and shredded documents left behind when he disappeared, according to the FBI, was a handwritten list of things to do. Its first item: "Launder money." Astrological charts had been drawn up to answer questions which included: "Will I go to prison?" The most mysterious thing about Martin Frankel, however, may be just how he managed to hide behind his facade of high finance for so long. A lifetime ban from the securities business, imposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 1992 after complaints from clients of an earlier investment business, was publicly available, an official says. Yet it was not until this spring, when insurance commissioners from Mississippi, home to several of the defrauded insurers, became suspicious, that the facade on Lake Avenue crumbled. The Financial Times, June 26, 1999 Copper Market Broken Hill Broke and Closing US Operation Supply reduction? Broken Hill Proprietary, Australia's largest resources group, is to close its US copper operations in the third quarter - a move that will remove nearly 200,000 tonnes a year of copper supply from global markets. The announcement sparked a surge in copper prices, though analysts said BHP's move would not be enough to counter the global surplus that has sent prices to 12-year lows. It also ended uncertainty about what Paul Anderson, the recently appointed American chief executive of BHP, would do with the group's ailing US copper operations. BHP's decision was accompanied by its announcement of the worst full-year results in Australian corporate history. The group reported a net loss of A$2.31bn (£950m) for the year to May, compared with a net deficit of A$1.47bn the year before. Though the result was better than most analysts' forecasts, Mr Anderson described it as "deplorable". He said it was largely due to massive write-downs on unprofitable assets, restructuring and low commodities prices. BHP took an A$1.8bn charge against profits for its US copper assets. The decision to close the operations went against predictions that the company would mothball them temporarily. Before Mr Anderson took office last November, BHP had written off two-thirds of Magma, its main US copper facility, which it bought in 1996 for A$3.2bn. The closure of the group's US copper operations include high-cost mines in Arizona and Nevada, together with smelting and refinery assets and a rod mill in Arizona, and a refinery in Michigan. Despite the poor results, BHP's share price jumped to A$17.26 in intraday trading before the stock eased back to close at A$16.90, up 11 cents. Analysts said the trend showed confidence in the restructuring efforts. Mr Anderson said BHP was at the end of its first phase in restructuring, which he described as "fix-up and clean-up". The second phase would be to "get maximum return on the group's remaining assets" and then "expand the portfolio going forward". The copper market welcomed BHP's decision, with particularly heavy trading in Asia. On the London Metal Exchange, the benchmark three-month contract rose to $1,522 a tonne at one stage - its highest for a month - but had given up much of its gain by the close. "It's a step in the right direction and will probably push prices up in the short term. But the market needs more cuts to tackle the surplus and support prices," one analyst said. The Financial Times, June 26, 1999 ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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