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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States should be worried that Russia, China and OPEC oil-producing countries could use their growing financial clout to advance political goals, the top U.S. spy chief told Congress.
Discussing U.S. financial vulnerabilities, McConnell voiced “concerns about the financial capabilities of Russia, China and OPEC countries and the potential use of their market access to exert financial leverage to political ends.”
National Intelligence Director Michael McConnell
testifies on Capitol Hill (Dennis Cook/AP Photo)
Russia was positioning itself to control an energy supply and transportation network from Europe to East Asia. China’s global engagement was driven by a need to access markets and resources, McConnell said.
A weak U.S. dollar had prompted some oil suppliers to ask to be paid in other currencies, or to delink their currencies from the dollar.
“Continued concerns about dollar depreciation could tempt other producers to follow suit,” McConnell said.
WASHINGTON (AFP) – CIA director Michael Hayden for the first time admitted publicly that the agency had used “waterboarding,” or simulated drowning, in interrogations of three top Al-Qaeda detainees nearly five years ago.
The technique, which critics say is tantamount to torture, was used on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Abd Al-Rahim al-Nashiri at a time when further catastrophic attacks on the United States were believed to be imminent.
All three were initially held and interrogated at secret CIA-run detention centers overseas before being transferred in 2006 to a military-run detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Hayden’s remarks were the first direct official admission that agency interrogators had used “waterboarding” in questioning “war on terror” detainees.
Attorney General Michael Mukasy told Congress last week that the CIA no longer uses “waterboarding” and that it was not “currently” an authorized interrogation technique.
Mukasy refused to say whether waterboarding is torture.
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Shell with giant profits, their Dutch HQ is just a stone throw away from my place. Van der Veer is doing an excellent job for his employees and he does have environmental worries.
Even Qatar got hit by the dropping value of the dollar and are contemplating a currency basket for their sole source of income: OIL. Now their stash of cash raises worries in the Western capitalist world due to their Sovereign Wealth Funds. I doubt that will happen due to unrelentless US political pressure from Bush’s Front Office.
Think of BP, the British owned company can barely afford upkeep of pipelines in Alaska and their Texas refineries.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
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KABUL, Afghanistan – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday she has seen progress in Afghanistan during the past few years, despite a determined Taliban insurgency that has disrupted security and prompted concerns that the NATO-led military campaign is failing.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice attends a news conference with Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband in Lancaster House, central London. Rice and Miliband arrived in Kabul today for an unannounced visit to Afghanistan. Reuters/John Stillwell
Rice chalked up the deteriorating security in the country to “committed enemies” of Afghanistan and the United States and she told reporters that President Bush, after the 9/11 attacks by Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terrorists, had warned people that “this would be a long war.”
NATO – Jaap de Hoop Scheffer
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."