Communist Chinese gov. buys full ownership of Canada oil sands project, 'eager' to step in amid US disinterest in Canada natural resources-AP

.
"Overall, Alberta, Canada has more oil than Russia or Iran. Only Saudi Arabia and Venezuela have more."

1/3/2012, "PetroChina to take full ownership of Canadian oil sands project for the first time," AP via Washington Post

"China will take over full ownership over a Canadian oil sands project for the first time after Athabasca Oil Sands Corp announced Tuesday it sold the remaining 40 percent of the MacKay River oil sands development to PetroChina for

• US$673 million.

The deal continues a trend that has seen China’s state-owned oil companies invest billions of dollars in exploration or production ventures in Canada, Africa, Latin America and elsewhere.

But China’s state-owned oil companies have preferred to take non-operating or minority stakes in oil sands projects in Canada until this latest deal.

The deal does not need the approval from the Canadian government under the the Investment Canada Act.

Athabasca had previously sold PetroChina a 60 percent stake in two oil sands projects, including MacKay river, and the possibility of the Chinese taking over full ownership was included in that deal and approved by the Canadian government....

Although it is the first oil sands project to be fully owned by a Chinese firm, they have full ownership deals involving conventional oil and gas companies in Canada. Sinopec bought

• conventional oil and gas-focused Daylight Energy Ltd. in its entirety last year.

The sale comes shortly after Alberta regulators approved the project.

The first phase of the MacKay River project is expected to produce 35,000 barrels per day, eventually expanding to 150,000 barrels.

Construction of the project will begin next month with startup targeted for 2014.

China is the world’s second-biggest oil consumer and has a growing appetite for oil that may one day surpass that of the U.S. which views Canada’s oil sands as a pillar of its future energy needs.

Canada is increasingly looking to China to sell its vast oil reserves after the U.S. delayed a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline that would bring oil from Canada to refineries in the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Alberta has the world’s third largest oil reserves, more than 170 billion barrels. Daily production of 1.5 million barrels from the oil sands is expected to nearly triple to 3.7 million in 2025. Overall, Alberta has more oil than Russia or Iran.

• Only Saudi Arabia and Venezuela have more.

Canada’s only major oil export market is the U.S. But with the product of oil sands and pipeline delivery to the U.S. under perennial clouds of environmental objections, and with Asian demand growing, Canada wants to diversify its market, and China is eager to oblige.

The Chinese have urged the Canadian government to approve a pipeline to Canada’s Pacific coast so that tankers can ship oil sands crude to China. Sinopec, a Chinese state-controlled oil company, has a stake in a $5.5 billion plan drawn up by the Alberta-based Enbridge company to build the Northern Gateway Pipeline from Alberta to the Pacific coast province of British Columbia.

Sinopec also recently paid $4.6 billion for a 9 percent stake in Syncrude, Canada’s largest oil sands project. Taking partial ownership has been seen as a way for the Chinese companies to make their investments more politically palatable. Chinese state-owned CNOOC was stymied in its bid for U.S. oil and gas producer Unocal Corp. in 2005. It withdrew its $18.5 billion offer after U.S. lawmakers complained about how the sale would jeopardize national security.

Wenran Jiang, a political science professor at the University of Alberta and a senior fellow of the Asia Pacific Foundation, said the Athabasca deal shows that China knows that Canada is more welcoming to Chinese investment in recent years.

He said China would like to see the oil shipped to China eventually but is also content to produce more oil for the global marketplace at spot prices.

“It works out to be a very good equation with the Chinese capital coming in, with the Canadian jobs created and the oil produced and shipped to the United States,” he said."

------------------------

What's it going to be, Tom Friedman? You want to be like CC or no? ed.

via Steve Maley at RedState

Obama again uses taxpayer funded public school time and captive audience of dependent children at a pep rally to lie about taxpaying adult matters

.
1/4/12, Obama angrily tells captive audience of dependent school children that he is obligated to violate the law if he wants to.

The problem: "Its hard enough for adults to deal with propaganda but its almost impossible for children."



Obama video from Shaker Heights High School, Wed., Jan. 4, 2012, "WZ: Obligation"

"When Congress refuses to act....and as a result HURTS OUR ECONOMY....and puts our people at risk...then I have an obligation as president .... to do what I can

• without them."...

(Applause, cheers)

"...I've got an obligation to act on the behalf of the American people and I’m not going to stand by while a minority in the Senate puts party ideology ahead of the people.”"...

(Cheers)

1/4/12, "Obama Defends Cordray Appointment: I Have An “Obligation” To Act Like A Dictator…," Weasel Zippers

---------------------------

Jan., 2012, "President Obama Returns to Shaker January 4," Shaker.org

----------------------------

1/3/12, "Ticket-Holders Thrilled to Attend President Obama's Speech in Shaker Heights," Fox8.com

----------------------------

1/4/12, "President Obama’s Speech About The Economy – At Shaker Heights High School – Shaker Heights, Ohio – 4 January 2012 – Transcript Text – (TCP)CHICAGO," Critical-Post.com



via Mark Levin Show

Solar company goes bust, leaves Michigan, hailed by former Mich. Gov. Granholm as 'setting up in abandoned auto plant'

.
1/2/12, "Solar Company Scraps Factory, Leaves Mich. in Dark," NBCBayArea, S. McGrew

"A San Jose-based company has pulled out of plans to build a multimillion-dollar solar cell factory in Saginaw, Mich.

GlobalWatt CEO Sanjeev Chitre blamed the shutdown on the poor economy and competition from overseas; however, many critics are wondering if there really was much of a factory to shut down. Far from a mega-factory promised in early paperwork, GlobalWatt's Saginaw operations

• actually employed slightly more than a dozen workers.

GlobalWatt promised the small Michigan town jobs in exchange for state and city tax credits potentially worth tens of millions of dollars. Paperwork publicized by the group Mackinac Center for Public Policy show GlobalWatt claimed Texas had offered the solar company a competing tax credit plan -- presumably to pressure Michigan into meeting or exceeding the offer. However, the center's fiscal director says

• "We [now] know that to be false."

Says Mackinac Center's Michael LaFaive: "Now we know [the state of Michigan] did not really look too deeply into the matter. You know, I discovered these inconsistencies between what was said on the application and what we now know to be true, simply with a few phone calls to Texas and a Google search. The data was available -- all you gotta do is look for it."

GlobalWatt did not respond to the Mackinac Center's claims, but the CEO of the company did talk to NBC Bay Area.

"We did not get a single cent from the city of Saginaw or the state of Michigan," said GlobalWatt CEO Sanjeev Chitre. He defended the small size of the plant in Saginaw, saying "at least a thousand" solar panels were built before the shutdown. Chitre said the company no longer needed the massive facility as the American solar industry faced low-cost competitors in China and Europe. "We were paying between five and seven thousand on electricity every month for the large facility," Chitre said.

The mayor of Saginaw confirmed the company did not collect on any state or city tax breaks.

Michigan was very excited about GlobalWatt's promises of a $177 million plant. "In fact, GlobalWatt literally left Silicon Valley in California to set up shop in an abandoned auto plant in Saginaw" enthused [then] Governor Jennifer Granholm in her state of the state address.

• The town newspaper wrote of Saginaw's "solar flair."

The Michigan Economic Development Corporation once estimated the GlobalWatt facility could have generated a total of 2,768 direct and indirect jobs by 2016 - a far different number than the dozen-plus who actually ended up working shifts. The development agency has been under fire for

• several other wildly high estimates on projects that did not turn out.

In its application for tax breaks and grants, the company wrote "it is the intent of GlobalWatt to serve as an anchor for the City of Saginaw to develop [its] industrial sector as a renewable energy industrial area".

Certainly the Solyndra disaster factors in any solar venture. "Companies like Solyndra have dried up capital," said Chitre. "Solar is a bad word."

Fremont -based Solyndra did make the sort of mega-facility GlobalWatt envisioned, only to shut down a few years later. Though unlike Solyndra, says a past business partner "these guys [at GlobalWatt] aren't doing anything innovative. Nothing fancy." The person asked not to be named, concerned about future business deals. "We had to eat a bunch of legal fees and travel expenses" after deals with GlobalWatt "died on the vine" the supplier said.

There's no question GlobalWatt presented itself to the state of Michigan as a Silicon Valley company large enough to stimulate the local economy and turn around a region of the country beset with layoffs and economic malaise. The company said it expected to initially offer at least 500 jobs at an average hourly wage of $15.57.

GlobalWatt's website shows a seven story gleaming building (pictured right) in what appears to be a downtown area with the words "corporate headquarters 2680 North First Street Suite 215 San Jose."

In fact the company's headquarters (pictured below) is located above a dentist's office in a low slung brown edifice in one of Silicon Valley's many office parks. Chitre says he does not know what the building pictured on the website actually is. "I think it is a solarized building. It doesn't say its our headquarters [specifically]."

While the company claims on its website it sells "mobile power systems, water filtration systems" and "disaster relief kitchens," its not immediately apparent as to how to purchase any of those devices, though the CEO assures NBC Bay Area the products are available. Bloggers point out GlobalWatt once sold 5 solar cell assemblies on eBay, but they were not manufactured by GlobalWatt."...

via Climate Depot

Iowa county maps: Romney and Ron Paul won Obama counties, Rick Santorum won McCain counties

.
1/4/12, "Rick Santorum: Iowa’s Conservative Choice," Joel B. Pollak, Big Government

"Romney and Paul have largely won in areas that went for Barack Obama, Santorum’s wins have tended to come in areas that voted for John McCain....

The maps below say it all."....(Top map 2012, bottom 2008 Obama/McCain)

(continuing, Big Government): "The upper map is from the Des Moines Register, and shows the county-by-county results in tonight’s caucuses. The red counties are those where Santorum has won or is leading; the blue counties are going for Romney, and the yellow counties to Paul. (Two counties in pink went to Perry; Gingrich, who bested Perry statewide, did not win any counties.)

The lower map is from the New York Times, and shows the county-by-county election results

• from November 2008."

-----------------------------------

I find maps like this fascinating. ed.

.

Obama working to get as many dangerous immigrants in here as possible, orders agents to just say yes-The Daily, Inspector Gen. report

.
Obama administration wants US immigration officials to break laws according to Inspector General Report. A demoted officer says they ordered him to approve a bunch of cases that "weren't in line with the laws."

1/3/12, "The Daily Exclusive: RUBBER STAMP," The Daily, Sarah Ryley

"Probe reveals feds pressuring agents to rush immigrant visas – even if fraud is feared"

"Higher-ups within U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services are pressuring rank-and-file officers to rubber-stamp immigrants’ visa applications, sometimes against the officers’ will, according to a Homeland Security report and internal documents exclusively obtained by The Daily.

A 40-page report, drafted by the Office of Inspector General in September but not publicly released, details the immense pressure immigration service officers are under to approve visa applications quickly, sometimes while

• overlooking concerns about fraud, eligibility or security.

One-quarter of the 254 officers surveyed said they have been pressured to approve questionable cases, sometimes “against their will.”

The report does not call out any particular officials and indicates that the agency has had a problem with valuing quantity over quality

• since at least the 1980s.

But high-ranking USCIS officials said the pressure has heightened after the Obama administration appointed Alejandro Mayorkas as director in August 2009 during an effort to pass comprehensive immigration reform, bringing

• with him a mantra of “get to yes.”

Internal communications provided to The Daily indicate that the new leadership seemed to fundamentally clash with career agency employees over when to afford the benefit of the doubt, culminating in a whistle-blower investigation into a senior appointee

• and, ultimately, the

• agency-wide inspector general inquiry that produced the report.

“We recognize their right to interpret things as liberally as possible, but you still have to follow the law,” said one high-ranking official who was unhappy with the current push.

At least five agency veterans seen as being too tough on applicants were either demoted, or given the choice between a demotion or a relocation from Southern California — where their families were — to San Francisco and Nebraska, according to sources and letters of reassignment provided to The Daily.

Those kind of threats have caused lower-level employees to fall in line, sources said.

“People are afraid,” said one longtime manager, who requested anonymity for fear of being fired. “Integrity only carries people so far because they’ve got to pay the rent.”

A rank-and-file officer who was not involved in the investigation claimed he was demoted to working on less technical cases because he had a high denial rate. “They don’t reprimand you, they just move you,” he said.

“They attempted to basically get me to come into line and approve a bunch of cases. And I just wouldn’t compromise myself because the approvals they ordered, they weren’t in line with the laws,” said the officer.

These employees’ claims are reflected in the inspector general report, which found that 14 percent of respondents had “serious concerns” that employees who focused on fraud or ineligibility were evaluated unfairly. The report also found that supervisors sometimes take cases away from an unwilling officer and assign them to someone else,

• against agency rules.

Recommendations for improvements in the report included raising the burden of proof and doing away with the popular informal and special appeals practices, which immigration lawyers said would only lengthen an already onerous process.

Attorney David Leopold, who was recently president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said the formal appeals process can take up to two years.

“When you’re dealing with business visas, those visas cannot wait around a year, or two years, for review. They needed an answer yesterday,” said Leopold. “I think when they’ve [the officers] made a mistake at that level ...

• sometimes you can just reason with people and ask them to take a look at it again.”

Nevertheless, USCIS approved 86 percent of the 3.9 million immigration cases it reviewed between October 2008 and October 2009 — a 4 percent drop from the year before, according to the most recent data provided to The Daily.

And immigration attorneys complained that it seems like officers are just looking for reasons to deny a case, and already demand a higher standard of proof than what is required. That standard is now considered a 51 percent likelihood that a fact is true.

“We’re getting ridiculous denials and requests for evidence on things that should be approved very easily,” said immigration attorney Deb Notkin, adding that it’s particularly tough for specialty industries like fashion, software development and graphic design.

The attorneys applauded Mayorkas’ more open dialogue with them, and other proponents of immigration reform, who had previously felt shut out of the bureaucracy. “Mayorkas, to his credit, is very accessible, so we are able to express our concerns about the adjudication process,” said Leopold.

But sometimes, the openness led to a perception that private attorneys were “running” the agency, according to the inspector general’s report, which cited emails in which individual cases were granted special review

• after private attorneys complained to management.

Mayorkas and Homeland Security press officers said yesterday they could not comment on the allegations."

-----------------------------

Ed. note: GOP silent if not cheering Obama. They love flooding the streets with criminals as much as Obama does. It keeps the irritating middle class stuck in their houses in hopes of not being shot, robbed, or run over.


via Drudge

Iowa result: They didn't want Romney in 2008 and they don't want him now-RedState

.
If the people don't want Romney it's a home run for the Beltway establishment and their buddies at the NY Times. Ergo, McCain endorses Romney tomorrow. Translation: GOP to America: Drop Dead.

1/3/12, "Result of Iowa: They Didn’t Want Mitt in 2008; They Don’t Want Him Now," RedState.com, Daniel Horowitz

1/3/12, "McCain To Endorse Romney Tomorrow.," BuzzFeed.com, via Hot Air

.

'Private sector job growth' under Obama turns out to mean many men taking jobs in retail that used to be done by women-USA Today

.
"Hundreds of thousands of men are showing up in the once mostly female world of retailing."

1/2/12, "Men grab most new jobs, even 'women's work' in retailing," USA Today, Mullaney

"Men are claiming more than two-thirds of the private-sector jobs created as the economy recovers, reversing a long-running trend that came within a whisker of giving the USA its first-ever majority-female workforce.

In a wrinkle that puzzles economists, one important driver of the trend is that hundreds of thousands of men are showing up in the once mostly female world of retailing.

Nearly 1.28 million men gained jobs in the 12 months that ended in November, compared with 600,000 women, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Though men have returned to work in greater numbers in goods-producing jobs and service-related businesses,

• they're not returning to still-stagnant construction industries.

Instead, retailers have added 216,900 men — about five times as many as have been added by traditionally male financial services companies — vs. about 9,000 women. Also, manufacturers have added more than 250,000 men and cut 33,000 women.

"It's a testament to how difficult the job market is," said Moody's Analytics economist Ryan Sweet, noting that there are still 4.5 times more unemployed people than U.S. job openings.

• "Men are taking jobs you wouldn't think they would."

Women's share of U.S. jobs — private and government — peaked at 49.99% in October 2009 as layoffs racked construction and financial services. The percentage of

• women in workplaces is down to 49.4%, according to the BLS.

BLS economist Marcy Jacobs said the agency hasn't studied why new jobs are skewing male, but a leader of a research group on working families said the shift is a pendulum swing after men took the brunt early in the recession....

The most important factor pushing men into new fields may be the looming expiration of unemployment benefits, Sweet said.

"They decide, do you drop out of the labor force

• or take anything you can?" he said."

---------------------

Ed. note: The article's first paragraph uses the phrase, "as the economy recovers," meaning the economy is recovering or could be recovering. It doesn't provide evidence that this is so. I've read nothing to suggest the US economy will ever recover. Certainly the housing market will never recover. A strong US economy would require a strong middle class and the middle class has been targeted for extinction. It's better to be realistic about these things. If more women need jobs and can't get them it will probably help Obama. In 2008 70% of all single women voted for him:

4/1/2010, "Single women voted by better than two to one for Obama over McCain (70-29 percent). In a post-election analysis, the polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosser concluded: “Barack Obama would have lost the women’s vote and the 2008 election if it were not for the contribution of the unmarried woman. All told, Obama split men 49-48 percent, but lost married women 47-50 percent. Unmarried women, however, delivered 70 percent of their vote to the Democratic candidate, up from 62 percent in 2004."...

April 1, 2010, "The Obama Coalition," The Atlantic, Thomas Byrne Edsall (item cited about a third into the article) The elimination of the middle class is seen by social engineers as utopia.

------------------------------------

11/1/2011, "Americans’ Incomes Have Dropped 6.7 Percent During the ‘Recovery’," Jeffrey H. Anderson, Weekly Standard

"New evidence suggests there’s a reason why this economic “recovery” hasn’t felt much like a recovery. Figures from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, compiled by Sentier Research, show that the “recovery” has actually been harder on most Americans than the recession from which they’ve allegedly been recovering.

According to Sentier’s report, the median American household income has actually fallen during the “recovery.” Not only that, but it has fallen even more than it did during the recession. Gordon Green, former chief of the Governments Division at the U.S. Census Bureau and co-author of the report (with fellow Census veteran John Coder), says, “Real income fell by 3.2 percent during [the recession]. And during the recovery it went down by 6.7 percent.” So “income [has] declined twice as much in the recovery as in the recession itself.”

According to the report — which has been referenced by both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times — in early 2000, Americans’ median annual household income was $55,836, in real (inflation-adjusted, June 2011) dollars. By the start of the recession (in December 2007), Americans’ real incomes had fallen 0.9 percent, to $55,309 — a decline of $527. During the recession (which ended in June 2009), their incomes fell an additional 3.2 percent, to $53,518 — a decline of another $1,791. During the first two years of the “recovery” (from June 2009 to June 2011), they fell an additional 6.7 percent, to $49,909 —

• a decline of another $3,609.

So, from the start of 2000 to mid-2011, the typical American household’s real income dropped nearly $6,000 — and more than 60 percent of that drop (over $3,600) came after the start of the “recovery” and thus squarely on Obama’s watch.

While the real median income of American households dropped 6.7 percent during the first two years of the “recovery,” the incomes of many households dropped even more than that. The income drop was steeper for those under 25 years of age (their incomes were down 9.5 percent), for those between 25 and 34 years of age (down 9.8 percent), for black Americans (down 9.4 percent), for families with three or more children (down 9.5 percent), and for families headed by part-time workers (down 11.5 percent). And that’s despite the fact that the report’s income tallies include unemployment compensation and monetary public assistance (both state and federal).

In fact, the anemic economy has meant that Americans’ incomes have declined during the “recovery” even without adjusting for inflation. According to Green, in actual (non-inflation-adjusted) dollars, the median American household income was $51,140 at the start of the “recovery,” but it fell to $49,909 two years later.

Suffice it to say, such declining incomes are giving new meaning to the word “recovery.”"

via Lucianne and WZ

15 year old tortured Afghan girl escaped months ago but Afghan authorities forced her to go back to torturers, not considered a big deal

.
1/3/12, "Locals say the family simply promised to stop hurting her. Ziaulhaq also alleged that bribes were paid to government officials to hush up the affair." US tax dollars at work.



1/3/12, "Tortured Afghan child bride had been sent back to in-laws," Sydney Morning Herald, Jon Boone

"A 15-year-old Afghan girl who was nearly tortured to death by her husband and his family attempted to escape from her attackers more than four months ago but was sent back home by local authorities, it has emerged.

Sahar Gul, a child bride married off to a soldier called Gulam Sakhi who then tried to force her into prostitution, is being treated for horrific injuries in a hospital in Kabul after she was rescued last week.

During her ordeal several of her fingernails were ripped out with pliers and one of her ears was badly burned by an iron. Her husband is now on the run, and her mother-in-law and sister-in-law have been arrested....

But disturbing new details about how the local community and authorities responded to her abuse has highlighted the ambivalence many Afghans have over how far women should be able

• to exercise the most basic of legal rights.

"She ran away to her neighbour's house and told them that her husband was trying to make her become a prostitute," said local community leader Ziaulhaq. " 'If you are a Muslim, you must tell the government what is happening to me,' she told them."

The locals said they did take the case to the authorities. When the police arrived Sahar's mother-in-law tried to fight them off, screaming all the while that her son had "bought" the girl who therefore had to do what she was told.

She appeared to be alluding to the dowry paid by Sakhi's family, a sum thought to be about $4000.

Locals say the family simply promised to stop hurting her. Ziaulhaq also alleged that bribes were paid to government officials to hush up the affair.

Although she emphatically denied money was paid, Rahima Zarifi, the women's affairs chief in Baghlan province, said she could not remember the details of the case, or why Sahar was sent back home.

The abuse resumed and continued for months until a male relative visited. When he found the girl, who had been starved in a locked basement for weeks, Sahar was almost unable to speak.

Fauzia Kufi, an MP who campaigns on women's issues, said that even then local authorities attempted to resolve the abuse through "traditional means".

"Basically they wanted the relative to sit down with his sister's abusers and work out an agreement," she said.

Kufi also claims there was strong pressure not to publicise the case.

"Many people don't take these sorts of crimes seriously and don't think it should be reported," she said.

"Even the local authorities have blamed the department for women's affairs for not trying to solve it locally between families in the traditional way."

Horrific abuse of women is still common in Afghanistan, particularly against brides who can be regarded as chattels by their husbands or are exchanged between families in order to resolve feuds.

The government is frequently unwilling to enforce laws it has often been forced to pass by the country's international backers, and the writ of the state often does not run in areas far away from urban centres.

However, the case of Sahar was not in the remote countryside but in Puli Khumri, an important, mid-sized town which has one of the country's few factories.

Kufi also claimed that local sources told her that Sakhi, despite having a warrant out for his arrest, returned briefly to his home on Sunday night and that

• locals did not inform the police.

The claim is strongly denied by community leaders who say they were appalled by the crimes of the family and had never attempted a low-key, traditional mediation between the parties.

Abdullah Fahim, a senior adviser to the minister of public health, said the case was part of the "bitter reality" of Afghanistan....

The law on the elimination of violence against women was passed more than two years ago and criminalised many abuses for the first time, including domestic violence and child marriage.

But a recent UN report found only a small percentage of reported crimes against women were pursued by the Afghan government.

Between March 2010 and March 2011, prosecutors opened 594 investigations involving crimes under the law - just 26 per cent of the incidents registered by the Afghan human rights commission." photo ap

---------------------------------

As of Oct. 2011, "87 percent of Afghan women report having experienced physical, sexual or psychological violence or forced marriage." For $6 billion a month we were supposed to 'get them to like us.' Instead, we are bankrupt, our women soldiers wear hijabs, and violence against women is worse than ever.

1/1/12, "Afghan girl tortured after refusing prostitution," Reuters

"A 15-year-old Afghan girl was brutally tortured, beaten and locked in a toilet by her husband's family for months after she refused to become a prostitute, officials said on Saturday.

Sahar Gul was in critical condition when she was rescued from a house in northern Baghlan province last week, after her neighbours reported hearing Gul crying and moaning in pain.

According to police in Baghlan, her in-laws pulled out her nails and hair, and locked her in a dark basement bathroom for about five months, with barely enough food and water to survive.

"She was married seven months ago, and was originally from Badakhshan province. Her in-laws tried to force her into prostitution to earn money," Rahima Zarifi, head of women's affairs in Baghlan told Reuters.

Gul is covered in scars and bruises, with one eye still swollen shut six days after her rescue. She is being treated in a government hospital in Kabul, but her recovery could take weeks and she may have to be sent to India, doctors said....

Despite progress in women's rights and freedom since the fall of the Taliban 10 years ago, women throughout the country are still at risk of abduction, rape, forced marriage and being traded as commodity.

However it can be hard for women to escape violent situations at home, because of huge social and sometimes legal pressure to stay in marriages.

Running away from an abusive husband or a forced marriage are considered "moral crimes", for which women are currently imprisoned in Afghanistan.

Some rape victims have also been imprisoned, because sex outside marriage, even when the woman is forced, is considered adultery, another "moral crime"."

---------------------

12/31/11, "Afghan child bride tells of 'torture' by in-laws," Reuters

"Her brother had sold her to her husband about seven months ago for $5,000....

The minister said it was an example of "increased cases of violence against women in Afghanistan".

Women continue to suffer in Afghanistan despite billions of dollars of international aid which has poured into the country during the decade-long war.

Dalil said Gul was suffering from severe blood loss, with multiple burns and injuries....

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission logged 1,026 cases of violence against women in the second quarter of 2011 compared with

• 2,700 cases for the whole of 2010.

And according to figures in an Oxfam report in October, 87 percent of Afghan women report having experienced physical, sexual or psychological violence or forced marriage."

15 year old Afghan girl rescued from toilet where she was imprisoned. afp

-----------------------------

"Subcontractors are impossible to trace."...

7/25/11, "U.S. trucking funds end up in Taliban hands," Reuters

"Cash from part of a $2.16 billion U.S. transportation contract in Afghanistan has ended up in the hands of Taliban insurgents, the Pentagon said on Monday."...

===================

10/13/10, "Afghan firms "pay off Taliban with foreign [American] cash," Reuters

-------------------------

9/25/11, "Government by crime syndicate," LA Times, Op-ed, Sarah Chayes,

"In Afghanistan and elsewhere, rampant corruption threatens security and the rule of law."

"Afghanistan is controlled by a structured, mafiaesque system, in which money flows upward via purchase of office, kickbacks or "sweets" in return for permission to extract resources (of which more varieties exist in impoverished Afghanistan than one might think)."...


via Atlas Shrugs