GOI Monitor - The Indian Land Grab In Africa

http://countercurrents.org/goi201211.htm

By GOI Monitor

20 December, 2011
Goimonitor.com

Joining the neo-colonial bandwagon, Indian companies are taking over agricultural land in African nations and exporting produced food at the cost of locals

Indian companies venturing abroad is always regarded as a healthy trend, an indicator of India's new-found economic status. But little is known about how these companies are flexing their imperalistic muscles in poorer countries, grabbing the land and giving little in return. A report ‘India’s Role in the New Global Farmland Grab’ by researcher Rick Rowden brings forth these atrocities which are shockingly similar to what India used to blame rich western countires for.

Joiing the race with China, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, South Korea and the European Union, Indian and Indian-owned companies are acquiring land in Africa at throwaway prices, indulging in enviornmental damange and exporting the food while locals continue to starve. The origin of this unhealthy practice can be traced back to the food crisis of 2008 when rich countries were forced to confront the reality of how fragile the global food scenario can be, especially for those without sufficient cultivable land. To ensure more direct control over food, these countries started acquiring land in poorer African countries and shipping the produce back home. A recent World Bank report found that 45 million hectares of large scale farmland deals had been announced between 2008 and 2009.

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Rodrigue Tremblay - The "Official End" of the Bush-Cheney Disaster in Iraq?

By Prof. Rodrigue Tremblay

Global Research, December 20, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28289

"Just think of what happened after 9/11. Immediately before there was any assessment there was glee in the [Bush-Cheney] administration because now we can invade Iraq." Ron Paul, U.S. Congressman (R-Tex.) and 2012 Republican presidential candidate

“After the war [against Iraq] has ended, the United States will have to rebuild much more than the country of Iraq. We will have to rebuild America's image around the globe.” Sen. Robert Byrd, (D-W.Va), March 19, 2003

“Let me say this as plainly as I can: by August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end... Through this period of transition, we will carry out further redeployments. And under the Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government, I intend to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2011.” President Barack Obama, Friday, February 27, 2009

The Obama administration officially put an end to the Iraq war  on Thursday December 15, 2011, close to nine years after the March 20, 2003 military invasion of Iraq, dubbed “shock-and-awe.”

I had not intend to comment on the end of this most unnecessary war, but since I wrote a book to explain how it all came about, I feel that I must say something.

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sinodaily.com - Unrest challenging China before leadership change

by Staff Writers

http://www.sinodaily.com/reports/Unrest_challenging_China_before_leadership_change_999.html

Beijing (AFP) Dec 18, 2011

An open revolt against officialdom by Chinese villagers last week demonstrated the challenge social unrest poses to the Communist party as it prepares for a generational leadership handover.

Angered by decades of government land grabs, the villagers of Wukan drove out local Communist officials and police, erecting roadblocks to stop them re-entering and electing their own leaders.

The protest has become a symbol of rising public anger over a plethora of perceived injustices, from corruption to income disparities, that analysts say will bring growing difficulties forChina's leaders as economic growth slows.

"What's enabled the leadership to maintain stability is the economic pie's growth. If the pie shrinks, the unrest is more likely to grow," said Willy Lam, history professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

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Ray McGovern - Battlefield America -- Is Gitmo in Your Future?

By Ray McGovern, Consortium News
Posted on December 4, 2011, Printed on December 18, 2011
http://consortiumnews.com

Ambiguous but alarming new wording, which is tucked into the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and was just passed by the Senate, is reminiscent of the “extraordinary measures” introduced by the Nazis after they took power in 1933.

And the relative lack of reaction so far calls to mind the oddly calm indifference with which most Germans watched the erosion of the rights that had been guaranteed by their own Constitution. As one German writer observed, “With sheepish submissiveness we watched it unfold, as if from a box at the theater.”

The writer was Sebastian Haffner (real name Raimond Pretzel), a young German lawyer worried at what he saw in 1933 in Berlin, but helpless to stop it since, as he put it, the German people “collectively and limply collapsed, yielded and capitulated.”

“The result of this millionfold nervous breakdown,” wrote Haffner at the time, “is the unified nation, ready for anything, that is today the nightmare of the rest of the world.” Not a happy analogy.

The Senate bill, in effect, revokes an 1878 law known as the Posse Comitatus Act, which banned the Army from domestic law enforcement after the military had been used —and often abused — in that role during Reconstruction. Ever since then, that law has been taken very seriously — until now. Military officers have had their careers brought to an abrupt halt by involving federal military assets in purely civilian criminal matters.

But that was before 9/11 and the mantra, “9/11 changed everything.” In this case of the Senate-passed NDAA – more than a decade after the terror attacks and even as U.S. intelligence agencies say al-Qaeda is on the brink of defeat – Congress continues to carve away constitutional and legal protections in the name of fighting “terrorism.”

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Global Research - The Real Dangers of War: New Russian Strategic Missiles Can Penetrate U.S. Missile Shield

The Real Dangers of War: New Russian Strategic Missiles Can Penetrate U.S. Missile Shield

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28234

Stop NATO

December 16, 2011 New Russian strategic missiles invulnerable - RVSN commander  -"It seems to me that as long as a stable mechanism of nuclear deterrence based on a threat to use nuclear weapons exists in the world, it should not be undermined, provoking a strategic offensive arms race. Should it happen, any strategic stability would be out of the question. I do not think that such a situation will benefit anyone." MOSCOW: Nearly all of the silo-based and mobile missile systems belonging to the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces (RVSN) are equipped with warheads capable of overpowering missile defense shields, RVSN Commander Lt. Gen. Sergei Karakayev said. "The capabilities of such combat means were demonstrated to U.S. technical control means during the trials of the Yars ground-based mobile missile system and the Bulava sea-based missile system. It also concerns hypersonic warheads capable of performing altitude and trajectory maneuvers," he told journalists. "The new missiles have characteristics that allow them to stay invulnerable at all sections of their flight," Karakayev said. "Today we have to vigorously respond to America's missile defense build-up because the U.S. has chosen to ignore Russia's concerns over it," the commander said. "New missile systems of RVSN will be equipped with highly effective maneuverable and guided warheads and more advanced means able to overpower missile defense shields. All this allows us to confidently forecast the Russian strategic nuclear forces' ability to maintain the country's security no matter what scenario the international situation follows," Karakayev said.

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Joshua Holland - Has the Israel Lobby Gone Too Far?

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet

Posted on December 16, 2011, Printed on December 17, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/153468/has_the_israel_lobby_gone_too_far

When Josh Block, a former communications director for the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), sent an “oppo dump” about a group of progressive journalists and bloggers at the Center for American Progress (CAP) and Media Matters to a list-serv of conservative journalists and asked them to push the narrative that the writers were echoing “the words of anti-Semites,” he probably didn't think much of it. 

After all, this is how self-identified “pro-Israel” activists have long policed the discourse surrounding the Middle East conflict and the “special relationship” that exists between the United States and Israel.

In 2009, an influential Israeli think-tank carefully cherry-picked posts from the Huffington Post, Daily Kos and Salon, quoted them out of context and concluded that “progressive blogs and news sites in the United States are a new field where Jew-hatred, in both its classic and anti-Israeli forms, manifests itself.” Avocates of maintaining the destructive status quo in the Middle East have long attempted to define a “new anti-Semitism” to include criticism of the Israeli government that goes beyond the pale, as they define it. (So-called pro-Israel groups have managed to get the EU to adopt a "working definition" of anti-Semitism that includes harsh criticism of the Israeli government -- a definition Block sent to journalists to ostensibly prove his case.) 

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Robert Parry - Will Iraq Debacle Prevent Iran War?

December 15, 2011

http://consortiumnews.com/2011/12/15/will-iraq-debacle-prevent-iran-war/

Exclusive: Neoconservatives are livid over President Obama’s declaration that the Iraq War is over, fearing that its disastrous outcome will undercut plans for a new war with Iran. But Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich says, if elected, he stands ready to join Israel in invading Iran, Robert Parry reports.

By Robert Parry

President Barack Obama is putting the best face on the final American troop withdrawal from Iraq, declaring that the last soldiers will leave with “their heads held high.” Meanwhile, neoconservative war hawks are denouncing Obama’s failure to twist enough arms to get Iraqi leaders to accept “residual” U.S. military bases.

Yet, however it is spun, the Iraq War represents one of the worst strategic defeats in American history. An arrogant President George W. Bush invested about $1 trillion and nearly 4,500 American lives in a conflict that did little to advance U.S. national security interests and overall harmed U.S. standing in an economically crucial part of the world.

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Julian Borger - Vaclav Havel, former Czech president, dies aged 75

Dissident playwright who led velvet revolution and became first post-communist Czechoslovakian president dies

• Julian Borger

• guardian.co.uk, Sunday 18 December 2011 

Václav Havel, the dissident playwright who led the Czechoslovakian "velvet revolution" and was one of the fathers of the east European pro-democracy movement that led to the fall of the Berlin wall, has died aged 75.

Reports quoted his assistant, Sabina Tančevová, as saying Havel died at his weekend house on Sunday morning, and the news was announced on Czech television during an interview with the current prime minister, Petr Necas.

Necas called Havel "the symbol of 1989" and said he did "a tremendous job for this country".

Havel's state funeral is likely to draw a crowd of leaders, artists and intellectuals from around the world. Havel was a renowned playwright and essayist who, after the crushing of the Prague spring in 1968, was drawn increasingly into the political struggle against the Czechoslovakian communist dictatorship, which he called Absurdistan. His involvement in the Charter 77 movement for freedom of speech won him admiration around the world.

His commitment to non-violent resistance helped ensure the velvet revolution was bloodless. It also help ensured that the "velvet divorce" three years later, when the country split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, was equally peaceful.

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Bill van Auken - The Iraq Withdrawal and the Continuing Eruption of US Militarism

By Bill Van Auken

Global Research, December 14, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28213

The White House has used the imminent withdrawal of all but a handful of US troops from Iraq to promote Barack Obama’s reelection campaign. The president’s strategists are conducting a cynical propaganda operation aimed at simultaneously identifying him with the military and pushing the claim that the pullout is a fulfillment of his 2008 campaign promises.

The president used the visit of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to the White House Monday to proclaim, “After nearly nine years, our war in Iraq ends this month.” Today, he and his wife Michelle fly to Fort Bragg, North Carolina to deliver an address to a captive audience of American soldiers.

Recent polls have shown that three out of four Americans support the complete withdrawal of all American forces from Iraq. At the same time, they indicate that two-thirds of the population believes the war was not worth fighting, given its terrible costs.

Nearly 4,500 American soldiers and Marines were killed in the nearly nine years of war, while tens of thousands returned home severely wounded and many more suffered psychological and emotional trauma that will last a lifetime.

According to conservative estimates, the war’s costs will amount to over $3.5 trillion, a vast expenditure that is being paid for through unending cutbacks in public sector jobs and social programs upon which millions depend.

For the people of Iraq, the costs were far steeper, with an estimated one million lives lost and many millions more wounded or driven from their homes and turned into refugees. The war will forever be associated with horrific crimes such as the “shock and awe” bombing of Baghdad, the siege of Fallujah and the mass torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib, deeds that horrified and repulsed people all over the world, including in the US itself.

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Bill McKibben - What Stinks in DC

Wednesday 14 December 2011

by: Bill McKibben, Los Angeles Times 

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-mckibben-congress-20111214,0,3498758.story

It was one of those uncomfortable moments when you suddenly realize you're in the wrong place, that you're a rube from the sticks in a sophisticated city whose customs you don't quite understand.

Politico was sponsoring a "Washington Year in Review" symposium last week, and they'd invited me to be part of the energy panel. So even though I'd spent barely three weeks in Washington this year (and the most memorable nights were spent in its central cellblock for protesting outside the White House [4] to block the Keystone XL pipeline), I found myself traveling down from Vermont to share a stage with Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Lee Terry [5] (R-Neb.).

I was a little nervous, because Terry had recently introduced a bill to force the rapid approval of the Keystone pipeline, overriding the president. But we talked back and forth amiably enough, as I explained why the jobs figures for the proposed project he kept repeating were wrong. Markey pointed out that the Canadian tar sands oil that would be transported through the pipeline, far from enhancing U.S. energy security, was destined to be sold abroad. It was all "agree to disagree" harmony.

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Israel Shamir - Russia and the Return of the Repressed

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/13/russia-and-the-return-of-the-repressed/

December 13, 2011

by ISRAEL SHAMIR

Moscow saw its biggest demo in a decade last Saturday. It was a feel-good, peaceful manifestation of youthful Facebook users, and it was already nicknamed the Likes Parade, as the prospective participants had clicked on “like” in response to the call to demonstrate. The predictions were dire: some expected clashes and bloody martyrdom, others hoped for a conquest of the Kremlin and revolution. However things went smoothly. Police were friendly too; riot police were stationed far away near the Kremlin gates so as not to annoy the people. The speakers stressed their desire to avoid revolutionary upheaval; there were speakers from diverse groups including nationalists, the far left, liberals and the far right.

The big winners of the elections (the communists of KPRF and Fair Russia) sent some token representatives but stayed away en masse, leaving the ground to small opposition groups. Crowd assessments varied from 30,000 to 90,000; not too many for a city of 15 million inhabitants, but undoubtedly impressive.

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Barry Lando - Iran: A Dangerous Game

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/iran_a_dangerous_game_20111212/

Posted on Dec 12, 2011

By Barry Lando

The downing of a sophisticated U.S. RQ-170 Sentinel drone over Iran is the latest ratcheting of tension among Washington, Tehran and Jerusalem. Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities have been crippled by sophisticated cyber attacks. Key Iranian scientists and officials have been killed, including a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander who died when a rocket research site was hit by a spectacular and still unexplained explosion.

That we know. But what else is going on in this murky, dangerous game?

In July 2008, Seymour Hersh reported in The New Yorker that in the previous year the U.S. Congress agreed to a request from President George W. Bush “to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence and congressional sources. These operations, for which the president sought up to $400 million, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran’s suspected nuclear-weapons program.”

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Marcela Valente - Argentina Shows World How to Beat the Crisis

Published on Tuesday, December 20, 2011 by Inter Press Service

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/12/20-2

by Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES - What is happening in the European Union and the United States today happened a decade ago in Argentina, when it was a hotbed of protest and the streets of major cities were seething with people telling their leaders they had had enough. And then a new story began to be written.

The historic protests of Dec. 19-20, 2001 in Argentina left 40 people dead and many injured. They were the consequence of years of recession and public indebtedness that led to economic collapse and the skyrocketing of unemployment and poverty to levels never before seen in the country's modern history. The historic protests of Dec. 19-20, 2001 in Argentina left 40 people dead and many injured. They were the consequence of years of recession and public indebtedness that led to economic collapse and the skyrocketing of unemployment and poverty to levels never before seen in the country's modern history.

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Tyler Durden - Britain's Foreign Office Prepares For Riots In Europe; Sees Euro Collapse "When, Not If"

Tyler Durden on ZERO HEDGE  11/26/2011 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/britains-foreign-office-prepares-riots-europe-sees-euro-collapse-when-not-if

As every major developed economy hits Bass's Keynesian Endgame, the status quo is set to change dramatically. Nowhere is this climax playing out louder than in Europe and the implicit solution of Germany-uber-alles (while seemingly inevitable though nevertheless lengthy in execution) is likely to not sit well with many of the EMU nations. To wit, The Telegraph today reports that Britain's Foreign Office is advising its overseas embassies to draw up plans to help expats should the collapse of the Euro turn explosive. Almost incredibly, a senior minister has revealed that Britain is now planning on the basis that a euro collapse is matter of time.

The Telegraph: Prepare for riots in euro collapse, Foreign Office warns

British embassies in the eurozone have been told to draw up plans to help British expats through the collapse of the single currency, amid new fears for Italy and Spain.

As the Italian government struggled to borrow and Spain considered seeking an international bail-out, British ministers privately warned that the break-up of the euro, once almost unthinkable, is now increasingly plausible.

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Jeremy R. Hammond - Newt Gingrich's Invented History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Gingrich’s Serial Hypocrisy Knows No Bounds

By Jeremy R. Hammond

Global Research, December 12, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28180

The Republican presidential candidates are falling all over themselves competing for who can be the most “pro-Israel”, with Newt Gingrich taking the game to a whole new level  last week when he said in an interview with The Jewish Channel that Palestinians were an “invented” people. When asked whether he considered himself a Zionist, Gingrich responded (his emphasis):

Well, I believe that the Jewish people have the right to have a state, and I believe that the commitments that were made at the time—remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire. And I think that we’ve had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs and who were historically part of the Arab community. And they had a chance to go many places, and for a variety of political reasons, we have sustained this war against Israel now, since the 1940s, and it’s tragic.

Shall we take that as a “Yes”? During the ABC News Republican debate in Iowa on December 10, Gingrich defended his comments by saying:

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Miriam Elder - 50,000 Demonstrate Against Putin's Election in Russia; Leaders Try to Calm Anger as More Rallies Planned

By Miriam Elder, The Guardian

Posted on December 12, 2011, Printed on December 13, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/153410/50%2C000_demonstrate_against_putin%27s_election_in_russia%3B_leaders_try_to_calm_anger_as_more_rallies_planned

 The Russian leadership has sought to calm tensions following an unprecedented protest against Vladimir Putin that brought tens of thousands of demonstrators on to the streets of Moscow.

The prime minister has yet to comment on the protest, but his spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said: "We respect the point of view of the protesters. We are hearing what is being said. We will continue to listen to them."

Up to 50,000 people demonstrated in Moscow on Saturday following the disputed parliamentary election in which Putin's United Russia party won nearly 50% of the vote amid widespread allegations of fraud.

Protests took place in more than 50 cities, with a reported 7,000 people gathering in St Petersburg and up to 4,000 in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, despite the temperature of -20C.

Protesters have promised to gather again in two weeks' time if the Kremlin refuses to annul the result, which was confirmed by the election commission on Friday.

Peskov said: "In the past few days, we also witnessed demonstrations by other segments of the population who were supporting those results." United Russia is rallying supporters for a protest on Monday in support of Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev.

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Ira Chernus - Gingrich on Palestine: Small Truths In A Big Lie

Published on Monday, December 12, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/12/12-1

by Ira Chernus

If Newt had really said what the headlines claimed:  “Gingrich Calls Palestinians an ‘Invented’ People,” I would have shrugged and said, So what? Americans are an invented people too. So are British, Chinese, and every other national group. We’ve been teaching that in our college classrooms for twenty years or more as an obvious no-brainer.

But that’s not what Gingrich said.  He said “We,” apparently meaning the United States, “have invented the Palestinian people.” Wrong! The Palestinians invented themselves, at least as early as the first Palestinian National Congress in 1919. So it’s the “we,” not the “invented,” that should get headlines and stir angry reactions.

Gingrich got another small piece of the truth right when he said that the Palestinians “are in fact Arabs and are historically part of the Arab people.” the dream of one big pan-Arab nation was a powerful idea before World War I. But it died for all practical purposes after that war when Britain and France divvied up the Middle East between them and started creating new nations.

Those smaller mistakes by Newt and the mass media pale, though, before their big ones. Read the whole transcript.

Newt blandly asserted that the Palestinians -- both the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority and Hamas -- are “a group of terrorists who are firing missiles everyday” because of their “enormous desire to destroy Israel.” In fact, missiles aren’t often fired at Israel any more. And when they are, it’s in response to Israeli provocation.

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Robert Perry - Is Iraq War End a New Day?

Robert Perry will be a guest this evening on The Progressive Commentary Hour with Gary Null, Monday December 19, at 7 pm ET / 4 PT, speaking with John Feffer and Dr. Null about the consequences of America’s invasion of Iraq, the cost to human life, infrastructure and the environment, and the role the war has played in raising Iran as a major power in the Middle East.

Robert (Bob) Parry is one of our leading progressive investigative journalists best known for his uncovering Iran-Contra story and Oliver North’s involvement which earned him the George Polk Award for National Reporting in 1984.  He current writes for Consortium News, and has covered many important stories on domestic and foreign affairs issues including right wing terrorism, the Bush and Obama presidencies, the rise and influence of the Neocons and our wars overseas.  He has worked as a journalist for the Associated Press, Newsweek and PBS Frontline.

December 19, 2011

http://consortiumnews.com/2011/12/19/is-iraq-war-end-a-new-day/

Exclusive: The departure of the last 500 U.S. combat troops from Iraq in the predawn hours on Sunday marked an anti-climatic end to a near-nine-year war that began with “shock and awe” and “embedded” journalists joining the invasion force. But Robert Parry wonders if any lessons were learned — and what lies ahead.

By Robert Parry

Under the cover of darkness early Sunday morning, the last 500 U.S. combat troops sped out of Iraq in a 110-vehicle convoy to Kuwait, a departure kept secret even from Iraqi allies to avoid possible leaks to militants who might have inflicted one more ambush.

It was an ignominious end to an imperial adventure that cost around $1 trillion and left nearly 4,500 U.S. soldiers dead, along with uncounted hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, not to mention many thousands more injured and maimed.

Iraq’s infrastructure also remains devastated by the war, and there is the strong possibility that sectarian tensions will again erupt into violence. With a new round of political arrests just this weekend, many Iraqis fear they may have traded one dictator, secular Sunni Saddam Hussein, for another tyrant, Shiite Nouri al-Maliki, today’s strongman prime minister.

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Gail Tverberg - Saudi Arabia - Headed For A Downfall?

By Gail Tverberg

06 December, 2011
ASPO-USA

http://countercurrents.org/tverberg061211.htm

Saudi Arabia recently announced that it had halted a $100 billion oil production expansion plan to raise capacity to 15 million barrels a day by 2020. At this point, the country claims to have capacity of 12 million barrels a day. What does this mean for its future? Let’s take a look behind the figures.

The figure shows that Saudi Arabia has not been increasing its production for many years. At the same time, the country’s oil consumption has been rising rapidly. The combination means that oil exports have already started declining.

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Tony Cartalucci - US Caught Meddling in Russian Elections!

Putin compares US funded NGOs to Judas the betrayer

By Tony Cartalucci

landdestroyer.blogspot.com - 2011-12-05

http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2011/12/us-atempts-to-overthrow-russian.html

December 4, 2011 - What would Americans say if they found their polling stations and certain political parties entirely infiltrated by Chinese money, Chinese observers, and Chinese-backed candidates promoting China's interests in an AMERICAN election? The answer ranges from incarceration, to trials featuring charges ranging from fraud, to sedition and even treason with sentences ranging from decades to life in prison, perhaps even death, as well as possible military action for what could easily be considered an act of war.

Indeed, the attempted subversion of a foreign nation and/or meddling in its elections are acts of war, an act of war the United States government through its various "Non-Governmental Organizations" (NGOs) have been committing on and off for decades around the globe. In fact, the very "Arab Spring" is a geopolitical conflagration tipped off by this vast network of Western backed NGOs.

The New York Times in its article, "U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings," clearly stated as much when it reported, "a number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping the region, including the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and grass-roots activists like Entsar Qadhi, a youth leader in Yemen, received training and financing from groups like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House, a nonprofit human rights organization based in Washington."

The Times would continue by explaining, "the Republican and Democratic institutes are loosely affiliated with the Republican and Democratic Parties. They were created by Congress and are financed through the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up in 1983 to channel grants for promoting democracy in developing nations. The National Endowment receives about $100 million annually from Congress. Freedom House also gets the bulk of its money from the American government, mainly from the State Department."

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