Kissinger Bombshell: Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan targeted to stop food-independence

[Dig]

Carnegie Endowment, home of nwo rich finance philanthropy, are going big on Egypt

Egypt's Path Ahead: Agree to the People's Demands
Writing from Cairo, Amr Hamzawy outlines the steps the Mubarak regime must take to meet protesters' demands and oversee a smooth transition toward democratic governance.

How to Achieve Real Reform in the Arab World
Marwan Muasher writes that if Arab governments wish to maintain power, they need to institute real and sustained reform processes that include building the power of legislatures and implementing more political checks and balances.

Time to Overhaul the European Union’s Role in North Africa
The EU, which has worked for decades on North Africa’s development, must step up its efforts to bolster the region’s private sector and dismantle its own agricultural protectionism, says Sinan Ülgen.

http://carnegieeurope.eu/

Carnegie, Ford, Rockefeller...

The C F R

[Dig]

Cybernetics, Deathcare, Food/Energy Speculation - Media Control

Saban - ProSiebenSat.1 Media - Permira - Kohlberg Kravis Roberts - Axel Springer AG

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permira

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProSiebenSat.1_Media

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohlberg_Kravis_Roberts

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axel_Springer_AG

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/kkr-permira-sell-prosiebensat1-59600

[Dig]

HERE IS YOUR NEW WORLD ORDER!


Kohlberg Kravis Roberts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohlberg_Kravis_Roberts

KKR & Co. L.P. (formerly known as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.) (NYSE: KKR) is a global private equity firm, specializing in leveraged buyouts, based in New York, New York. The firm sponsors and manages private equity investment funds. Since its inception, the firm has completed over $400 billion of private equity transactions and was a pioneer in the leveraged buyout industry.[3][4] In March 2010, KKR filed to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE),[5] with trading commencing on July 15, 2010.

The firm was founded in 1976 by Jerome Kohlberg, Jr., and cousins Henry Kravis and George R. Roberts, all of whom had previously worked together at Bear Stearns, where they completed some of the earliest leveraged buyout transactions. Since its founding, KKR has completed a number of landmark transactions including the 1989 leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco, which was the largest buyout in history to that point, as well as the 2007 buyout of TXU, which is currently the largest buyout completed to date.[6][7] KKR has completed investments in over 160 companies since 1977, completing at least one investment in every year except 1982 and 1990.[8]

KKR is headquartered in New York City with thirteen additional offices in the US, Europe and Asia.[2] In October 2009, KKR listed shares in the company, through KKR & Co. an affiliate that holds 30% of the firm's ownership equity, with the remainder held by the firm's partners.

KKR is operated by its managing partners Henry Kravis and George R. Roberts and a team of approximately 140 investment professionals and 400 total employees, organized into industry focused groups.[3] KKR is headquartered in the Solow Building at 9 West 57th Street in New York City and has offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, Houston, Washington, DC, London, Paris, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing, Mumbai, Dubai, Seoul and Sydney.[2]

KKR invests primarily through leveraged buyouts as well as growth capital investments (including "PIPE" investments in public companies). It specializes in private equity investments with a focus on specific industry sectors where the firm has created nine dedicated investment groups. The industries in which KKR has developed a specialization include:[9]

Chemicals
Consumer products
Energy & natural resources
Financial services
Health care
Industrial
Media and communications
Retail
Technology
KKR Financial (NYSE: KFN) is a real estate investment trust (REIT) and specialty finance company that invests in residential and commercial mortgage loans and mortgage-backed securities as well as corporate loans and debt securities, asset-backed securities and equity securities. KFN was founded in 2004 raising $795 million in a private placement and raised $849 million in a June 2005 initial public offering, increasing the size of the offering from an original $600 million target.[12] KKR had initially considered structuring KFN as a business development company like Apollo Management's Apollo Investment Corporation but chose to pursue the REIT structure to capitalize on the strength in REIT valuations at the time.[12]

KFN was an early casualty of the subprime mortgage crisis and in September 2007, Henry Kravis and George Roberts injected $270 million into the company. On February 20, 2008, KFN was once again forced to delay the repayment of billions of dollars of commercial paper, and began a new round of talks with creditors.[13] In April, KFN sold a controlling interest in a real estate subsidiary to an investment firm to raise cash and entered an agreement with the noteholders of certain secured commercial paper issued by two asset-backed entities. Following the transaction, KFN converted from a REIT to a limited liability company.[14] KKR Financial is a debt investment vehicle and does not invest in KKR's private equity transactions.[15]

KKR Private Equity Investors (Euronext: KPE) is a publicly traded private equity fund that invests as a fund of funds in KKR private equity funds. KPE also co-invests in transactions alongside KKR's private equity funds. KPE was founded in 2006. In May 2006, KKR raised $5 billion in an initial public offering for a KPE to serve as a new permanent investment vehicle listing it on the Euronext exchange in Amsterdam. KKR raised three times more than it expected, as many of the investors in KPE were hedge funds seeking exposure to private equity but could not make long term commitments to private equity funds. Because private equity had been booming in preceding years, investing in a KKR fund was attractive to investors.[16]

However, KPE's first-day performance was lackluster, trading down 1.7% and trading volume was limited.[17] Initially, a handful of other private equity firms and hedge funds had planned to follow KKR's lead but shelved those plans when KPE's performance continued to falter after its IPO. KPE's stock declined from an IPO price of €25 per share to €18.16 (a 27% decline) at the end of 2007 and a low of €11.45 (a 54.2% decline) per share in Q1 2008.[18]

KPE disclosed in May 2008 that it had completed approximately $300 million of secondary sales of selected limited partnership interests in, and undrawn commitments to, certain KKR-managed funds in order to generate liquidity and repay borrowings.[19]

Founding and early history

Running the corporate finance department for Bear Stearns in the 1960s and 1970s, Jerome Kohlberg and later with protégés Henry Kravis and George Roberts completed a series of what they described as "bootstrap" investments beginning in 1964-65. They targeted family-owned businesses, many of which had been founded in the years following World War II which by the 1960s and 1970s were facing succession issues. Many of these companies lacked a viable or attractive exit for their founders as they were too small to be taken public and the founders were reluctant to sell out to competitors and so a sale to a financial buyer could prove attractive.[4][20]

Their acquisition of Orkin Exterminating Company in 1964 is among the first significant leveraged buyout transactions.[21] In the following years the three Bear Stearns bankers would complete a series of buyouts including Stern Metals (1965), Incom (a division of Rockwood International, 1971), Cobblers Industries (1971), and Boren Clay (1973) as well as Thompson Wire, Eagle Motors and Barrows through their investment in Stern Metals. Although they had a number of highly successful investments, the $27 million investment in Cobblers ended in bankruptcy.[22]

By 1976, tensions had built up between Bear Stearns and Kohlberg, Kravis and Roberts leading to their departure and the formation of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. in that year. Most notably, Bear Stearns executive Cy Lewis had rejected repeated proposals to form a dedicated investment fund within Bear Stearns and Lewis took exception to the amount of time spent on outside activities.[23]

The new KKR completed its first buyout, that of manufacturer A.J. Industries, in 1977. KKR raised capital raised from a small group of investors including the Hillman Family[24] and First Chicago Bank. By 1978, with the revision of the ERISA regulations, the nascent KKR was successful in raising its first institutional fund with over $30 million of investor commitments.[25] In 1981, KKR expanded its investor base significantly when the Oregon State Treasury's public pension fund invested in KKR's acquisition of retailer Fred Meyer, Inc. Oregon remains an active investor in KKR funds more than 25 years later.[4]

KKR closed out the 1970s completing the public-to-private buyout of Houdaille Industries in 1979,[26] probably the largest take-private of a public company to that point. As the 1980s began, KKR was among the most prominent practitioner of leveraged buyouts and would prove the most prolific of the private equity investors in the 1980s.[4] Among the firm's most notable acquisitions during the 1980s buyout boom were the following:Investment   

Malone & Hyde   1984   KKR completed the first buyout of a public company by tender offer, by acquiring the food distributor and supermarket operator together with the company's chairman Joseph R. Hyde III.   [27]

Wometco Enterprises   1984   KKR completed the first billion-dollar buyout transaction to acquire the leisure-time company with interests in television, movie theaters and tourist attractions. The buyout comprised the acquisition of 100% of the outstanding shares for $842 million and the assumption of $170 million of the company's outstanding debt.   [28]

Beatrice Companies   1985   KKR sponsored the $6.1 billion management buyout of Beatrice, which owned Samsonite and Tropicana among other consumer brands. At the time of its closing in 1985, Beatrice was the largest buyout completed.   [29][30]

Safeway   1986   KKR completed a friendly $5.5 billion buyout of Safeway to help management avoid hostile overtures from Herbert and Robert Haft of Dart Drug. Safeway was taken public again in 1990.   [31]

Jim Walter Corp. (later Walter Industries)   1987   KKR acquired the company for $3.3 billion in early 1988 but faced issues with the buyout almost immediately. Most notably, a subsidiary of Jim Walter Corp (Celotex) faced a large asbestos lawsuit and incurred liabilities that the courts ruled would need to be satisfied by the parent company. In 1989, the holding company that KKR used for the Jim Walter buyout filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.   [32][33]

Barbarians at the Gate - KKR's leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco

After the 1987 resignation of Jerome Kohlberg at age 61 (he later founded his own private equity firm, Kohlberg & Co.), Henry Kravis succeeded him as senior partner. Under Kravis and Roberts, the firm was responsible for the 1988 leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco. RJR Nabisco proved to be not only the largest buyout in history to that time, at $25 billion ($31.1 billion, including assumed debt) as well as a high water mark and sign of the end of the 1980s buyout boom. The RJR Nabisco, which would remain the largest buyout for the next 17 years, was chronicled in the book, Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco, and later made into a television movie starring James Garner.[34]

In 1988, F. Ross Johnson was the President and CEO of RJR Nabisco, formed in 1985 by the merger of Nabisco Brands and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, a leading producer of food products (Shredded Wheat, Oreo cookies, Ritz crackers, Planters peanuts, Life Savers, Del Monte Fruit and Vegetables, and Snickers Chocolate) as well as Winston, Camel and Salem cigarettes. In October 1988, Johnson proposed a $17 billion ($75 per share) management buyout of the company with the financial backing of investment bank Shearson Lehman Hutton and its parent company, American Express.[35][36]

Days later, Kravis, who had originally suggested the idea of the buyout to Johnson, presented a new bid for $20.3 billion ($90 per share) financed with an aggressive debt package.[37][38][39] KKR also had the support of significant equity co-investments from leading pension funds and other institutional investors. Among KKR's investors included, the Coca-Cola, Georgia-Pacific and United Technologies corporate pension funds as well as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology endowment, the Harvard University endowment and the New York State Common Retirement Fund[10] However, KKR also faced criticism from existing investors over the firm's use of hostile tactics in the buyout of RJR.[40]

KKR proposed to provide a joint offer with Johnson and Shearson Lehman but was rebuffed and Johnson attempted to stonewall KKR's access to financial information from RJR.[41][42][43][44] Rival private equity firm, Forstmann Little & Co. was invited into the process by Shearson Lehman but attempted to provide a bid for RJR with a consortium of Goldman Sachs Capital Partners, Procter & Gamble, Ralston Purina and Castle & Cooke.[45] Ultimately the Forstmann consortium came apart and did not provide a final bid for RJR.[46] Many of the major banking players of the day, including Shearson Lehman Hutton, Drexel Burnham Lambert, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Salomon Brothers and Merrill Lynch were actively involved in advising and financing the parties.

In November 1988, RJR set guidelines for a final bid submission at the end of the month.[47] The management and Shearson group submitted a final bid of $112, a figure they felt certain would enable them to outflank any response by Kravis and KKR. KKR's final bid of $109, while a lower dollar figure, was ultimately accepted by the board of directors of RJR Nabisco.[48] KKR's offer was guaranteed, whereas the management offer lacked a "reset", meaning that the final share price might have been lower than their stated $112 per share.[49] Additionally, many in RJR's board of directors had grown concerned at recent disclosures of Ross Johnson' unprecedented golden parachute deal.[50][51] TIME magazine featured Ross Johnson on the cover of their December 1988 issue along with the headline, "A Game of Greed: This man could pocket $100 million from the largest corporate takeover in history. Has the buyout craze gone too far?".[52] KKR's offer was welcomed by the board, and, to some observers, it appeared that their elevation of the reset issue as a deal-breaker in KKR's favor was little more than an excuse to reject Ross Johnson's higher payout of $112 per share. F. Ross Johnson received $53 million from the buyout.[53] KKR collected a $75 million fee in the RJR takeover.[54]

At $31.1 billion of transaction value (including assumed debt), RJR Nabisco was by far the largest leveraged buyout in history.[55] In 2006 and 2007, a number of leveraged buyout transactions were completed that for the first time surpassed the RJR Nabisco leveraged buyout in terms of nominal purchase price. The deal was first surpassed in July 2006 by the $33 billion buyout of U.S. hospital operator Hospital Corporation of America, in which KKR also participated, though the RJR deal was larger, adjusted for inflation. However, adjusted for inflation, none of the leveraged buyouts of the 2006–2007 period would surpass RJR Nabisco. The RJR transaction benefited many of the parties involved. Investment bankers and lawyers who advised KKR walked away with over $1 billion in fees, and Henry Kravis and George Roberts attracted unprecedented amount of publicity that turned the cousins into instant celebrities. Unfortunately for KKR, size would not equate with success as the high purchase price and debt load would burden the performance of the investment. KKR was able to overcome the RJR Nabisco investment, raising a new investment fund and continuing to invest throughout the 1990s.[56]
Early 1990s: The aftermath of RJR Nabisco

The buyout of RJR Nabisco was completed in April 1989 and KKR would spend the early 1990s focused on the task of repaying the RJR's enormous debt load through a series of asset sales and restructuring transactions.[57][58][59] After the RJR Nabisco deal, KKR did not complete a single investment in 1990, the first year with no new investment activity since 1982. In fact, KKR did not complete another major leveraged buyout transaction for over three years, due largely to the shutdown of the high yield bond market and the collapse of Drexel Burnham Lambert which filed for bankruptcy in February 1990. Instead, KKR focused primarily on its existing portfolio companies acquired in the late 1980s buyout boom. Six of KKR's portfolio companies completed IPOs in 1991, including RJR Nabisco and Duracell.[4]

As the new decade began, KKR was immediately active in restructuring RJR. In January 1990, KKR completed the sale of RJR's Del Monte fruits and vegetables business to a group led by Merrill Lynch. KKR had originally identified a group of divisions that it could sell to reduce debt.[60] Over the coming years, RJR would pursue a number of additional restructurings, equity injections and public offerings of stock to provide the company with additional financial flexibility. KKR contributed $1.7 billion of new equity into RJR in July 1990 to complete a restructuring of the company's balance sheet that appeased unhappy bondholders. KKR's equity contribution as part of the original leveraged buyout of RJR had been only $1.5 billion.[61][62] Later, in December 1990, RJR announced an exchange offer that would swap debt in RJR for a new public stock in the company, effectively an unusual means of taking RJR public again and simultaneously reducing debt on the company.[63] RJR issued additional stock to the public in March 1991 to further reduce debt, resulting in an upgrade of the credit rating of RJR's debt from junk to investment grade.

KKR would begin to reduce its ownership in RJR, when in 1994, its stock in RJR was used as part of the consideration for its leveraged buyout of Borden, Inc., a producer of food and beverage products, consumer products, and industrial products, in a highly complex and unprecedented transaction.[64][65][66][67] The following year, in 1995, KKR would divest itself of its final stake in RJR Nabisco when Borden sold a $638 million block of stock.[68]

While KKR no longer had any ownership of RJR Nabisco by 1995, its original investment would not be fully realized until KKR finally exited the last of its investment in 2004. After sixteen years of efforts that included contributing new equity, taking RJR public, asset sales and exchanging shares of RJR for the ownership of Borden, Inc., KKR had finally sold the last remnants of its 1989 investment. In July 2004, KKR agreed to sell its stock in Borden Chemical to Apollo Management for $1.2 billion.[69]
Investments

In the early 1990s, the absence of an active high yield market prompted KKR to change its tactics, avoiding large leveraged buyouts in favor of industry consolidations through what were described as leveraged buildups or rollups. One of KKR's largest investments in the 1990s was the leveraged buildup of Primedia in partnership with former executives of Macmillan Publishing, which KKR had failed to acquire in 1988.[70] KKR created Primedia's predecessor, K-III Communications,[71] a platform to buy media properties, initially completing the $310 million divisional buyout of the book club division of Macmillan Publishing (publisher of The Weekly Reader) and the assets of magazine publisher Intertec Publishing Corporation in May 1989.[72][73] Throughout the early 1990s, K-III continued to acquire publishing assets, including a $650 million acquisition from News Corporation in 1991.[74] K-III went public, however instead of cashing out, KKR continued to make new investments in the company in 1998, 2000 and 2001 to support acquisition activity.[75] Ultimately, in 2005, Primedia redeemed KKR's preferred stock in the company but KKR was estimated to have lost hundreds of millions of dollars on its common stock holdings as the price of the company's stock collapsed.[73]

In 1991, KKR partnered with Fleet/Norstar Financial Group in the 1991 acquisition of the Bank of New England, from the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.[76] In January 1996, KKR would exchange its investment for a 7.5% interest in Fleet Bank.[77] KKR also completed the 1992 buyout of American Re Corporation from Aetna[78] as well as a 47% interest in TW Corporation, later known as The Flagstar Companies and owner of Denny's in 1992.[79] Among the other notable investments KKR completed during the early 1990s included World Color Press (1993–95),[80] RELTEC Corporation (1995) and Bruno's (1995).[81]

By the mid 1990s, the debt markets were improving and KKR had moved on from the RJR Nabisco buyout. In 1996, KKR was able to complete the bulk of fundraising for what was then a record $6 billion private equity fund, the KKR 1996 Fund.[82] However, KKR was still burdened by the performance of the RJR investment and repeated obituaries in the media.[83] KKR was required by its investors to reduce the fees it charged and to calculate its carried interest based on the total profit of the fund (i.e., offsetting losses from failed deals against the profits from successful deals).[4]
 
KKR acquired Regal Cinemas in 1998, only to see the company in bankruptcy by 2000

KKR's activity level would accelerate over the second half of the 1990s making a series of notable investments including Spalding Holdings Corporation and Evenflo(1996),[84] Newsquest (1996),[85] KinderCare Learning Centers (1997),[86] Amphenol Corporation (1997),[87] Randalls Food Markets (1997),[88] The Boyds Collection (1998),[89] MedCath Corporation (1998),[90] Willis Group Holdings (1998),[91] Smiths Group (1999) and Wincor Nixdorf (1999).[92]

KKR's largest investment of the 1990s, would unfortunately also be among its least successful. In January 1998, KKR and Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst agreed to the $1.5 billion buyout of Regal Cinemas.[93] KKR and Hicks Muse had initially intended to combine Regal with Act III Cinemas, which KKR had acquired in 1997 for $706 million[94] and United Artists Theaters, which Hicks Muse had agreed to acquire for $840 million in November 1997. Shortly after agreeing to the Regal takeover, the deal with United Artists fell apart, ultimately impacting the strategy to eliminate costs by building a larger combined company.[95] Just two years later, Regal encountered significant financial issues and was forced to file for bankruptcy protection and the company would pass to investor Philip Anschutz.[96]
 
Shoppers Drug Mart, the Canadian pharmacy was one of several successful buyouts in the early 2000s[97]

At the start of the 21st century, the landscape of large leveraged buyout firms was changing. Several large and storied firms, including Hicks Muse Tate & Furst and Forstmann Little & Company were dragged down by heavy losses in the bursting of the telecom bubble. Although, KKR's track record since RJR Nabisco was mixed, losses on such investments as Regal Entertainment Group, Spalding, Flagstar and Primedia (previously K-III Communications) were offset by successes in Willis Group, Wise Foods, Inc., Wincor Nixdorf and MTU Aero Engines, among others.[4]

Additionally, KKR was one of the few firms that was able to complete large leveraged buyout transactions in the years immediately following the collapse of the Internet bubble, including Shoppers Drug Mart and Bell Canada Yellow Pages.[4][98] KKR was able to realize its investment in Shoppers Drug Mart through a 2002 IPO and subsequent public stock offerings.[97] The directories business would ultimately be taken public in 2004 as Yellow Pages Income Fund, a Canadian income trust.[99]
 
KKR led a consortium in the buyout of Toys "R" Us in 2004

In 2004 a consortium comprising KKR, Bain Capital and real estate development company Vornado Realty Trust announced the $6.6 billion acquisition of Toys "R" Us, the toy retailer. A month earlier, Cerberus Capital Management, made a $5.5 billion offer for both the toy and baby supplies businesses.[100] The Toys 'R' Us buyout was one of the largest in several years.[101] Following this transaction, by the end of 2004 and in 2005, major buyouts were once again becoming common and market observers were stunned by the leverage levels and financing terms obtained by financial sponsors in their buyouts.[102]

The following year, in 2005, KKR was one of seven private equity firms involved in the buyout of SunGard in a transaction valued at $11.3 billion. KKR's partners in the acquisition were Silver Lake Partners, Bain Capital, Goldman Sachs Capital Partners, The Blackstone Group, Providence Equity Partners, and Texas Pacific Group. This represented the largest leveraged buyout completed since the takeover of RJR Nabisco in 1988. SunGard was the largest buyout of a technology company until the Blackstone-led buyout of Freescale Semiconductor. The SunGard transaction is also notable in the number of firms involved in the transaction, the largest club deal completed to that point. The involvement of seven firms in the consortium was criticized by investors in private equity who considered cross-holdings among firms to be generally unattractive.[103][104]
Since 2005 and the Buyout Boom

In 2006, KKR raised a new $17.6 billion fund the KKR 2006 Fund, with which the firm began executing a series of some of the largest buyouts in history. KKR's $44 billion takeover of Texas-based power utility, TXU, in 2007, proved to be the largest leveraged buyout of the mid-2000s buyout boom and the largest buyout completed to date.[105] Among the most notable companies acquired by KKR in 2006 and 2007 were the following:Investment   Year   Company Description   Ref.

HCA   2006   KKR and Bain Capital, together with Merrill Lynch and the Frist family (which had founded the company) completed a $31.6 billion acquisition of the hospital company, 17 years after it was taken private for the first time in a management buyout. At the time of its announcement, the HCA buyout would be the first of several to set new records for the largest buyout, eclipsing the 1989 buyout of RJR Nabisco. It would later be surpassed by the buyouts of Equity Office Properties, TXU and BCE (announced but as of the end of the first quarter of 2008 not yet completed).   [106]

NXP Semiconductors   2006   In August 2006, a consortium of KKR, Silver Lake Partners and AlpInvest Partners acquired a controlling 80.1% share of semiconductors unit of Philips for €6.4 billion. The new company, based in the Netherlands, was renamed NXP Semiconductors.   [107][108]

TDC A/S   2006   The Danish phone company was acquired by KKR, Apax Partners, Providence Equity Partners and Permira for €12.2 billion ($15.3 billion), which at the time made it the second largest European buyout in history.   [109][110]

Dollar General   2007   KKR completed a buyout of the chain of discount stores operating in the U.S.   [111]

Alliance Boots   2007   KKR and Stefano Pessina, the company’s deputy chairman and largest shareholder, acquired the UK drug store retailer for £12.4 billion ($24.8 billion) including assumed debt, after increasing their bid more than 40% amidst intense competition from Terra Firma Capital Partners and Wellcome Trust. The buyout came only a year after the merger of Boots Group plc (Boots the Chemist), and Alliance UniChem plc.   [112][113]

Biomet   2007   The Blackstone Group, KKR, TPG Capital and Goldman Sachs acquired the medical devices company for $11.6 billion.   [114]

First Data   2007   KKR and TPG Capital completed the $29 billion buyout of the credit and debit card payment processor and former parent of Western Union. Michael Capellas, previously the CEO of MCI Communications and Compaq was named CEO of the privately held company.   [115][116]

TXU (Energy Future Holdings)   2007   An investor group led by KKR and TPG Capital and together with Goldman Sachs completed the $44.37 billion[117] buyout of the regulated utility and power producer. The investor group had to work closely with ERCOT regulators to gain approval of the transaction but had significant experience with the regulators from their earlier buyout of Texas Genco. TXU is the largest buyout in history, and retained this distinction when the announced buyout of BCE failed to close in December 2008. The deal is also notable for a drastic change in environmental policy for the energy giant, in terms of its carbon emissions from coal power plants and funding alternative energy.   [118][119]

Other non-buyout investments completed by KKR during this period included Legg Mason, Sun Microsystems, Tarkett and Seven Network. In October 2006, KKR acquired a 50% stake in Tarkett, a France-based distributor of flooring products, in a deal valued at about €1.4 billion ($1.8 billion). On November 20, 2006 KKR announced it would form a AU$4 billion partnership with the Seven Network of Australia.[120] On January 23, 2007, KKR announced it would invest $700 million through a PIPE investment in Sun Microsystems.[121] In January 2008, KKR announced that it had made a $1.25 billion PIPE investment in Legg Mason through a convertible preferred stock offering.[122]

In addition to its successful buyout transactions, KKR was involved in the failed buyout of Harman International Industries (NYSE: HAR), an upscale audio equipment maker. On April 26, 2007, Harman announced it had entered an agreement to be acquired by KKR and Goldman Sachs.[123] As the financing markets became more adverse in the summer of 2007, the buyout was on tenuous ground. In September 2007, KKR and Goldman backed out of the $8 billion buyout of Harman. By the end of the day, Harman's shares had plummeted by more than 24% on the news.[124]Selected Kohlberg Kravis Roberts 2006-2008 Investments

Hospital Corporation of America 
NXP Semiconductors 
Dollar General 
Alliance Boots 
TXU 
Sun Microsystems 
Legg Mason 
Initial public offering

In 2007, KKR filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission[3] to raise $1.25 billion by selling an ownership interest in its management company.[125] The filing came less than two weeks after the initial public offering of rival private equity firm Blackstone Group. KKR had previously listed its KPE vehicle in 2006, but for the first time, KKR would offer investors an ownership interest in the management company itself. The onset of the credit crunch and the shutdown of the IPO market dampened the prospects of obtaining a valuation that would be attractive to KKR and the flotation was repeatedly postponed, and finally called off by the end of August.[126]

The following year, in July 2008, KKR announced a new plan to list its shares. The plan called for KKR to complete a reverse takeover of its listed affiliate KKR Private Equity Investors in exchange for a 21% interest in the firm.[127] In November 2008, KKR announced a delay of this transaction until 2009. Shares of KPE had declined significantly in the second half of 2008 with the onset of the credit crunch. KKR has announced that it expects to close the transaction in 2009.[128] In October 2009, KKR listed shares in KKR & Co. on the Euronext exchange, replacing KPE and anticipates a listing on the New York Stock Exchange in 2010. The public entity represents a 30% interest in Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.[129] In October 2010, KKR acquired bout nine members of Goldman Sachs Group proprietary trading team after entertaining offers from investment firms such as Perella Weinberg and Blackrock. With Goldman shutting down its proprietary trading operations, its executives, led by Bob Howard, will help KKR expand beyond leveraged buyouts into areas such as hedge funds.
Notable current and former employees

Over the years, KKR has seen the departure of many of its original partners, the most notable being the most senior of its three co-founders, Jerome Kohlberg. After a leave of absence due to an illness in 1985, Kohlberg returned to find increasing differences in strategy with his partners Kravis and Roberts.[130] In 1987, Kohlberg left KKR to found a new private equity firm Kohlberg & Company. Kohlberg & Company returned to the investment style that Kohlberg had originally practiced at Bear Stearns and in KKR's earlier years, acquiring smaller, middle-market companies.[4][131][132]

As of 1996, general partners of KKR included Henry Kravis, George R. Roberts, Paul Raether, Robert MacDonnell, Jose Gandarillas, Michael Michelson, Saul Fox, James Greene, Michael Tokarz, Clifton Robbins, Scott Stuart, Perry Golkin and Edward Gilhuly.[133] Among those who left were Saul Fox, Ted Ammon, Ned Gilhuly, Mike Tokarz and Scott Stuart who were instrumental in establishing KKR's reputation and track record in the 1980s.[134] KKR remains tightly controlled by Kravis and Roberts. The issue of succession has remained an important consideration for KKR's future as an ongoing institutionalized firm.[135]
Saul A. Fox left KKR in 1997 to found Fox Paine & Company, a middle market private equity firm with over $1.5 billion of capital under management[136][137]
Clifton S. Robbins left KKR to join competitor General Atlantic Partners in 2000 and later founded Blue Harbour Group,[138] a private investment firm based in Greenwich, CT.[139]
Edward A. (Ned) Gilhuly and Scott Stuart left KKR in 2004 to launch Sageview Capital. Prior to this, Gilhuly was the managing partner of KKR's European operations, based in London and Stuart managed KKR's energy and consumer products industry groups.[139]
Ted Ammon, started several new ventures including Big Flower Press, which printed newspaper circulars, and Chancery Lane Capital, a boutique private equity firm, before being murdered in October 2001.[139][140][141][142]
Paul Hazen, served as chairman and CEO of Wells Fargo (1995–2001).[143] Hazen would later return to KKR serving as chairman of Accel-KKR, a joint venture with Accel Partners and later as chairman of KKR's publicly listed affiliate, KKR Financial (KFN).
Clive Hollick, Baron Hollick, CEO of United News and Media (1996–2005)

As of 2010, the board of directors consists of Paul Hazen as Chairman of the Board, CEO William Sonneborn, CFO Jeffrey Van Horn, COO Michael McFerran, General Counsel Andrew Sossen, and the directors William Aldinger, Robert Hubbard, Ross Kari, Ely Licht, Deborah McAneny, Scott Nuttall, Vincent Finigan, Tracy Collins, Willy Strothotte, Scott Ryles.[144]
Works about KKR
Anders, George (1992). Merchants of Debt: KKR and the Mortgaging of American Business. New York: BasicBooks. ISBN 978-0-465-04522-8.
Baker, George; Smith, George (1998). The New Financial Capitalists: KKR and the Creation of Corporate Value. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-64260-6.
Bartlett, Sarah (1991). The Money Machine: How KKR Manufactured Power & Profits. New York: Warner Books. ISBN 978-0-446-51608-2.
Burrough, Bryan (1990). Barbarians at the Gate. New York: Harper & Row.

[Dig]

Merchants of Debt: KKR and the Mortgaging of American Business
http://www.beardbooks.com/beardbooks/merchants_of_debt.html

By George Anders
2002/09 - Beard Books
1587981254 - Paperback - Reprint -  354 pp.
US$34.95

Selected as one of the best business books of 1992 by Business Week.

Publisher Comments

Of interest:
Takeover: The New Wall Street Warriors: The Men, the Money, the Impact
The Money Machine: How KKR Manufactured Power and Profits
The Money Wars: The Rise & Fall of the Great Buyout Boom of the 1980s

The Titans of Takeover

With borrowed money, borrowed management, and a lot of nerve, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts acquired one Fortune 500 company after another in the 1980s, epitomizing both the best and worst of Wall Street's stunning rise to power in the age of casino capitalism. In the compelling book, the author explains why American business became so enchanted by debt; how KKR partners Jerome Kohlberg, Henry Kravis, and George Roberts became billionaires; and how their takeovers affected America's economic strength. This fascinating, behind-the-scenes account show how pride, jealousy, fear, and ambition fueled Wall Street's debt mania - with repercussions to millions of people.

From the back cover blurb:

With borrowed money, borrowed management, and a lot of nerve, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts acquired one Fortune 500 company after another in the age of casino capitalism, KKR epitomized both the best -- and the worst -- of Wall Street's stunning rise to power in the 1980s. In this book, the author explains why American business became so enchanted by debt; how KKR partners Jerome Kohlberg, Henry Kravis and George Roberts became billionaires, and how their takeovers affected America's economic strength. This fascination, behind-the-scenes account shows how pride, jealousy, fear, and ambition fueled Wall Street's debt mania -- with consequences that affected millions of people. Investors and businesspersons alike will find this expose engrossing and informative reading. This book was selected as one of the Best Business Books of 1992 by Business Week.

Referring to an earlier version:

For more than a decade, Henry Kravis and George Roberts have been archetypes, first of Wall Street's boom years and then of its excesses. Their story and that of their firm--the biggest, most successful, and most controversial participant in the age of leverage--illuminates an entire era of financial maneuvering and speculative mania. Kravis and Roberts wrote their way into the history books by concocting one giant takeover after another. Their technique: the leveraged buyout, an audacious way to acquire a company with borrowed money, borrowed management--and a lot of nerve. Their firm, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., dominated the Wall Street scene in the late 1980s, acquiring one Fortune 500 company after another, including Safeway, Duracell, Motel 6, and RJR Nabisco. Merchants of Debt draws on more than 200 interviews, including recurring access to the central figures and their KKR associates, as well as court documents and private correspondence to couch giant financial issues in human terms. The story of KKR shows how pride, jealousy, fear, and ambition fueled Wall Street's debt mania--with consequences that affected hundreds of thousands of people. Anders addresses three questions: Why did American business become so enchanted by debt in the 1980s? How exactly did Kravis and Roberts rise to the top of the heap? What have buyouts, especially KKR's deals, done to America's economic strength? Here is a gripping saga that takes readers behind closed boardroom doors to show how star-struck young bankers, ruthless deal-makers, and nervous CEOs changed one another's lives--and the whole American economy--over a fifteen-year span.

Thayer Watkins' Summary of Merchants of Debt:
Available here.  

 

From Turnarounds and Workouts, February 15, 2003
Review by Gail Owens Hoelscher

"For the first fourteen years of KKR's existence, the buyout firm's hallmark could be expressed in one word: debt! As KKR grew evermore powerful, Kravis and Roberts derived their economic clout from a single fact: They could borrow more money, faster, than anyone else," according to the chronicler of this high-flying firm. KKR acquired $60 billion worth of companies in wildly different industries in the 1980s: Safeway Stores, Duracell, Motel 6, Stop & Shop, Avis, Tropicana, and Playtex. They made piles of money by deducting interest expenditures from their taxes, cutting costs in their new companies and riding a long-running bull market.

The juggernaut of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. began rolling in 1976 when Jerome Kohlberg and cousins Henry Kravis and George Roberts left Bear, Stearns with about $120,000 to spend. The three wunderkind shortly invented and dominated the leveraged buyout as they sought investors and borrowed money to acquire Fortune 500 companies in dizzying succession. They put up very little money of their own funds, but their partnerships made out like bandits. Consider the case of Owens-Illinois: KKR pup up only 4.7 percent of the purchase price. The company's chairman earned $10 million within a few years, the takeover advisors got $60 million, Owens-Illinois was left "gaunt and scaled back," and about five years later, KKR took it public at $11 a share, more than twice what the KKR partnership had paid for it.

In this reprint of his 1992 books, George Anders tells us how they worked: "(t)ime after time, the KKR men presented a tempting offer. The CEO could cash out his company's existing shareholders by agreeing to sell the company to a new group that would be headed by KKR, but would include a lot of room for existing management. The new ownership group would take on a lot of debt, but aim to pay it off quickly. If this buyout worked out as planned, the KKR men hinted, the new owners could earn five times their money over the next five years. Presented with such a choice in the frenzied takeover climate of the 1980s, manages and corporate directors again and again said yes. To top management a leveraged buyout was the most palatable way to ride out the merger-and-acquisition craze."

The author includes a detailed appendix of KKR's 38 buyouts during the period 1977-1992 that presents the following on each purchase: price paid by KKR; percentage of the purchase price paid by KKR's equity funds; length of time KKR owned the company; financial payoff for the ownership group; and the annualized profit rate for investors over the life of the buyout. KKR used less than 9 percent of its own funds in 18 of the 38 cases. In only four cases did KKR put up more than 30 percent of the price. KKR owned the 38 companies for an average of about 5 years. As Anders puts it, "(a)s quickly as the KKR men had roared into a company's life, they roared off."

This behind-the-scene account shows the ambition, pride, envy and fear that characterized the debt mania largely engineered by KKR, a mania that put millions out of work and made a very few very rich. This book is a must read in understanding what happened to corporate America in the 1980s.

George Anders is the West Coast bureau chief of Fast Company magazine. He worked for two decades at the Wall Street Journal, and was part of a seven-person reporting team that won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting in 1997.

From BusinessWeek.Com
The Best Business Books of the Year (1992)
http://www.businessweek.com/1989-94/pre94/b32981.htm  

In Merchants of Debt: KKR and the Mortgaging of American Business, George Anders of The Wall Street Journal explores not just Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. but also the impact of the leveraged buyout deals it popularized. Reviewer Anthony Bianco found the book well-researched, fair-minded, and thorough in its history of transactions.

Discussing the $26.4 billion buyout of RJR Nabisco Inc., ``Anders goes beyond what has been previously published,'' Bianco wrote, with his convincing assertion that RJR's post-deal crises pushed KKR close to ruin. Leveraged buyouts in general Anders terms ``one of the most profoundly undemocratic ventures the United States had ever seen.'' Their only lasting impact, he says, was to shift wealth from the mass of corporate employees to a managerial elite allied with Wall Street.

Bianco faulted Anders for shying from sharp judgments and for failing to delve deeply into the motivations and character of KKR's dealmakers. But Anders won unparalleled access to Henry Kravis and his cousin and partner, George Roberts, Bianco noted. Crediting Anders with ``devastating reportage,'' Bianco said, ``His exhaustively researched book provides the closest look yet at KKR's inner workings.''

With borrowed money, borrowed management, and great nerve, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts acquired one Fortune 500 company after another--and changed the face of American business. Excerpted in the Wall Street Journal.

From New York Times Book Review, June 14, 1992

"[S ]omething refreshing and important: a book that reckons seriously with Wall Street's innovations and achievements, even as it chronicles its recklessness and intrigues... [A] far more enduring contribution to understanding one of the most dynamic and disturbing periods in American business history."

From Michael Lewis, Author of Liar's Poker and The New Thing

"Excellent... One of the few books that a person can use to evaluate what happened in the financial 1980s. It should be required reading for anyone who got rich, lost a job or watched in consternation as Wall Street's juggernaut swept the U.S. economy."

From Library Journal, June 14, 1992

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR) was founded in New York in 1976 by three . . . investment bankers, Jerry Kohlberg, George Kravis, and George Roberts, with the simple purpose of assisting companies to participate in management-led buyouts or leveraged buyouts (LBOs). . . . {The author} chronicles the rise of KKR during the 1980s, the 'age of debt,' and . . . {argues that} a simple formula using borrowed money could be successfully repeated over and over again in corporate takeovers.

This compelling book is recommended for all business collections.

George Anders is the West Coast bureau chief of Fast Company magazine. He previously spent two decades as a writer and editor at The Wall Street Journal. While there, he was part of a seven-person reporting team that won the Pulitzer prize for national reporting in 1997. He is a graduate of Stanford University, and has also authored a critical analysis of the HMO industry.

   Preface   ix
   Introduction   xiii
      
1.   Courting CEOs   1
2   The Growing Allure of Debt   19
3   In Pursuit of Profits   42
4   How to Talk to Banks   60
5   The Enchanting World of Drexel   82
6   The Takeover Minstrels   109
7   The Mentor's Fall   133
8   Ruling an Industrial Empire   156
9   The Discipline of Debt    176
10   Cashing Out   194
11   "We Don't Have Any Friends"   214
12   Credit Crunch   232
13   Fear, Humbling, Survival   250
14   Debt Is Out, Equity Is In   272
   Appendix: KKR's Buyouts   285
   Notes   295
   Index   319
   Epilogue   329

[worcesteradam]

private equity is very suspicious

leveraging huge sums to buy a company then transferring the debt onto the companies books and selling off the companies assets to pay the usury, all the while extracting a fee from every economic transaction into your private equity house.

[Dig]

KKR-led group to buy Del Monte for $4 bln
http://in.reuters.com/article/2010/11/26/idINIndia-53157720101126
By Megan Davies and Jessica Hall
NEW YORK/PHILADELPHIA | Fri Nov 26, 2010 8:08am IST

(Reuters) - Del Monte Foods Co agreed on Thursday to be bought by a group led by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co in a deal worth about $4 billion excluding debt, the latest in a flurry of private equity transactions. The $19 per share offer for the company, which makes Meow Mix cat food, Milk-Bone dog biscuits and canned vegetables, represents a 5.6 percent premium over Del Monte's closing stock price of $17.99 on Wednesday, and a premium of about 23 percent over its opening price on Nov. 18, when media reports about a possible deal began circulating. Del Monte's stock has surged 62 percent this year. Vestar Capital Partners and a fund run by Centerview partner James Kilts will join KKR in the deal, which ranks as one of the largest U.S. leveraged buyouts of the year. The three partners will assume about $1.3 billion in Del Monte's debt. When including the debt, the company said the deal value is $5.3 billion.


Middle East /North Africa Operations and Sales
http://www.freshdelmonte.com/company-business-divisions-dis-centers-mideast.aspx
Fresh Del Monte has 6 facilities in the Middle East/North Africa market that provide a variety of services including sales, ripening, sorting, repacking, fresh cut processing, poultry, meat processing and delivery.


Business, Politics, Geopolitical strategies, Trilateral diplomacy, Staging point for patsy false flags, end times calephate manufactured operations.

NO WONDER THE GLOBALISTS ARE DEMANDING CIA/MI6 CONTROL OVER 80 MILLION IN EGYPT!

[Dig]

http://www.emro.who.int/ceha/media/powerpoint/who%20undp%20gef.pps

WHO/UNDP/GEF  Project
on
Piloting Climate Change Adaptation to Protect human Health in Jordan

Munjed  Al-Sharif, PhD.
Director
Queen  Rania Al Abdullah Center  for Environmental Science  and Technology (QRACEST)
Jordan  University for Science  and Technology
(JUST)

Proposal  Development Highlights
(The participatory Approach)
 
A Technical Assistance Group (TAG) was formed in Jordan in order to guide the formulation of the project. The TAG is chaired by MoH, with members from MoA, MWI, MoEnv., Meteorology Dept.
CEHA  professionals have been  supervising and guiding  the proposal development  process.
UNDP  professionals has been  attending all TAG meetings  and providing feedback.
WHO  (Geneva office) experts  were providing guidance  through out the project  development process.
 
The  national consultant (NC)  team from QRACEST, (JUST), has surveyed all the previous work that have been done in the area of climate change, climate change adaptation, wastewater reuse projects and initiative, health surveillance studies that are related to climate change or those associated with wastewater reuse, in Jordan.
 
All  Jordanian laws and legislations  that deal with health,  water, agriculture, and  fields related to climate  change and wastewater  reuse were inspected  to evaluate them and  determine the need for  improvement to adapt  to climate change impacts  on human health.
 
The NC team members have also visited many institutions that are directly involved with the main theme of this project and its activities when needed.

Different stakeholders were also invited to the inception meeting on July, 16th, 2006 in order to introduce the project to them, to discuss the project objectives, focus, and the main theme of the project, to share their views, comments, feedback, and concerns, and to convey to them information on the working arrangements and format for completing the project.

[Dig]

Agro-industrial developing countries are all being annexed by CIA/MI6 NATO coups

Gálvez, Eva. The rise of agrifood technopoles in the Middle East and North Africa region.
Papeles de Europa (2010)

THE RISE OF AGRIFOOD TECHNOPOLES IN THE MIDDLE
EAST AND NORTH AFRICA REGION

EVA GÁLVEZ

Rural Infrastructure and Agro-Industries Division Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome

http://revistas.ucm.es/cee/19895917/articulos/PADE1010220042A.PDF

INTRODUCTION

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region1 has a high potential for shining in the global agribusiness system, starting with a relatively important agribusiness sector at national and international levels2; followed by a fast-growing domestic demand for agricultural and food products; a leading position in the fields of agroprocessing and irrigation technologies in some cases (notably Israel); an excellent culinary reputation, with Lebanon, Morocco and Syria in the lead; and a expanding land rental market for major agribusiness operations, especially in Morocco and Egypt. (Anima, 2010)

As a consequence of all the above, the Southern Mediterranean rim is becoming increasingly essential in the supply chain of agrifood companies targeting the Euro-African plate and the Middle East, contributing to a de facto positioning of the region relatively to other parts of the world. However, global pressure on the food industry of MENA countries is increasing and efforts to gain ground in the race for competitiveness are needed more than ever.

Although agribusiness is a major source of income, employment and food security in the region, the road to its full development is fraught with difficulties, related to infrastructural constraints, trade issues and insufficient access to financial, human and other productive resources (in particular, land and water). As a consequence, MENA countries are net importers of food. In fact, four of these countries (Egypt,Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia) are in the list of major Net Food-Importing Developing Countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO). MENA nations have always had food security on top of their priority list, but have placed further emphasis on this issue after the soaring food price crisis of 2008, which exacerbated the vulnerability of their food systems3. In the wake of such crisis, efforts to promote agro-industrial development as a way to ensure food security were redoubled.

A new agro-industrial strategy has emerged in the MENA region to foster the competitiveness of the sector, while at the same time ensuring food security. This strategy lies on the implementation of ambitious agro-industrial competitiveness programmes following a territorial approach such as food technopoles, clusters and other mechanisms of concentration of agricultural activity. These programmes are linked to investments in public productive infrastructure, particularly airports and ports. Such strategy is complemented by the deepening of public administration reforms aiming at improving the business environment and attracting private sector investment into agriculture, thanks to aggressive Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) hosting strategies, targeted at regional firms (beyond the traditional business elite), multinational agribusiness and companies from other sectors; and the negotiation of trade agreements within and outside the region, mainly with their main trading partners, i.e. the European Union (EU) and the United States.  MENA countries have tailored these agro-industrial programmes to their socio- economic situation and resource endowments. Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Syria and Tunisia, for example, are implementing agro-industrial development programmes to climb up the value chain ladder by developing food “hotspots”, such as agro- industrial technopoles, special economic zones (with an agribusiness component), and agro-based clusters (see definitions in Section 1).


1 According to the World Bank's classification of countries, the MENA region includes: Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Syrian Arab Republic, West Strip and Gaza, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

2 Syria, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Jordan, UAE, Morocco and Lebanon are in the list of the top 30 performers, among developing and emerging countries, in terms of agricultural export growth in the past 20 years, according to FAOSTAT, FAO 2010.

3 For instance, in Yemen, the doubling of the price of wheat and bread has resulted in a 12 percent loss in real income of the poor, which threatens to set back the progress achieved in poverty reduction from 1998 to 2005. (World Bank, 2008)

4 Gálvez, Eva. The rise of agrifood technopoles in the Middle East and North Africa region. Papeles de Europa 21 (2010): 42-75
MORE ON SUPPLY CHAIN NWO CONTROL OF FOOD DISTRIBUTION

Globalisation of Fresh Produce Markets
http://www.slideshare.net/revolver77/globalisation-of-fresh-produce-markets

[Dig]

-”If you control the food supply, you control the people”
 – Henry Kissinger

Kissinger's 1974 Plan for Food Control Genocide
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/1995/2249_kissinger_food.html

State Department Memorandum 200 – Population Control and Food as a Weapon
http://www.puppetgov.com/2009/04/20/state-department-memorandum-200-population-control-and-food-as-a-weapon/

Codex Alimentarius – How the global elite will control your food supply
http://thetruthorthefight.wordpress.com/2009/02/07/codex-alimentarius-how-the-global-elite-will-control-your-food-supply/

Food as Weapon
http://www.risingkashmir.com/news/food-as-weapon-852.aspx

Food as a weapon: Bucharest, Rome and the politics of starvation.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12307033

Food Shortages Or Globalist Depopulation Agenda?
http://www.infowars.com/food-shortages-or-globalist-depopulation-agenda/

[Dig]

Kissinger's 1974 Plan for Food Control Genocide
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/1995/2249_kissinger_food.html
by Joseph Brewda

On Dec. 10, 1974, the U.S. National Security Council under Henry Kissinger completed a classified 200-page study, "National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests." The study falsely claimed that population growth in the so-called Lesser Developed Countries (LDCs) was a grave threat to U.S. national security. Adopted as official policy in November 1975 by President Gerald Ford, NSSM 200 outlined a covert plan to reduce population growth in those countries through birth control, and also, implicitly, war and famine. Brent Scowcroft, who had by then replaced Kissinger as national security adviser (the same post Scowcroft was to hold in the Bush administration), was put in charge of implementing the plan. CIA Director George Bush was ordered to assist Scowcroft, as were the secretaries of state, treasury, defense, and agriculture.

The bogus arguments that Kissinger advanced were not original. One of his major sources was the Royal Commission on Population, which King George VI had created in 1944 "to consider what measures should be taken in the national interest to influence the future trend of population." The commission found that Britain was gravely threatened by population growth in its colonies, since "a populous country has decided advantages over a sparsely-populated one for industrial production." The combined effects of increasing population and industrialization in its colonies, it warned, "might be decisive in its effects on the prestige and influence of the West," especially effecting "military strength and security."

NSSM 200 similarly concluded that the United States was threatened by population growth in the former colonial sector. It paid special attention to 13 "key countries" in which the United States had a "special political and strategic interest": India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Turkey, Nigeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia. It claimed that population growth in those states was especially worrisome, since it would quickly increase their relative political, economic, and military strength.

For example, Nigeria: "Already the most populous country on the continent, with an estimated 55 million people in 1970, Nigeria's population by the end of this century is projected to number 135 million. This suggests a growing political and strategic role for Nigeria, at least in Africa." Or Brazil: "Brazil clearly dominated the continent demographically." The study warned of a "growing power status for Brazil in Latin America and on the world scene over the next 25 years."

Food as a weapon

There were several measures that Kissinger advocated to deal with this alleged threat, most prominently, birth control and related population-reduction programs. He also warned that "population growth rates are likely to increase appreciably before they begin to decline," even if such measures were adopted.

A second measure was curtailing food supplies to targetted states, in part to force compliance with birth control policies: "There is also some established precedent for taking account of family planning performance in appraisal of assistance requirements by AID [U.S. Agency for International Development] and consultative groups. Since population growth is a major determinant of increases in food demand, allocation of scarce PL 480 resources should take account of what steps a country is taking in population control as well as food production. In these sensitive relations, however, it is important in style as well as substance to avoid the appearance of coercion."

"Mandatory programs may be needed and we should be considering these possibilities now," the document continued, adding, "Would food be considered an instrument of national power? ... Is the U.S. prepared to accept food rationing to help people who can't/won't control their population growth?"

Kissinger also predicted a return of famines that could make exclusive reliance on birth control programs unnecessary. "Rapid population growth and lagging food production in developing countries, together with the sharp deterioration in the global food situation in 1972 and 1973, have raised serious concerns about the ability of the world to feed itself adequately over the next quarter of century and beyond," he reported.

The cause of that coming food deficit was not natural, however, but was a result of western financial policy: "Capital investments for irrigation and infrastucture and the organization requirements for continuous improvements in agricultural yields may be beyond the financial and administrative capacity of many LDCs. For some of the areas under heaviest population pressure, there is little or no prospect for foreign exchange earnings to cover constantly increasingly imports of food."

"It is questionable," Kissinger gloated, "whether aid donor countries will be prepared to provide the sort of massive food aid called for by the import projections on a long-term continuing basis." Consequently, "large-scale famine of a kind not experienced for several decades—a kind the world thought had been permanently banished," was foreseeable—famine, which has indeed come to pass.

[Dig]

http://www.puppetgov.com/2009/04/20/state-department-memorandum-200-population-control-and-food-as-a-weapon/

NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20506

April 24, 1974 National Security Study Memorandum 200


TO: The Secretary of Defense
The Secretary of Agriculture
The Director of Central Intelligence
The Deputy Secretary of State
Administrator, Agency for International Development

SUBJECT: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests

The President has directed a study of the impact of world population growth on U.S. security and overseas interests. The study should look forward at least until the year 2000, and use several alternative reasonable projections of population growth.

In terms of each projection, the study should assess:

- the corresponding pace of development, especially in poorer countries;

- the demand for US exports, especially of food, and the trade problems the US may face arising from competition for re-sources; and

- the likelihood that population growth or imbalances will produce disruptive foreign policies and international instability.

The study should focus on the international political and economic implications of population growth rather than its ecological, socio-logical or other aspects.

The study would then offer possible courses of action for the United States in dealing with population matters abroad, particularly in developing countries, with special attention to these questions:

- What, if any, new initiatives by the United States are needed to focus international attention on the population problem?

- Can technological innovations or development reduce growth or ameliorate its effects?

- Could the United States improve its assistance in the population field and if so, in what form and through which agencies-- bilateral, multilateral, private?

The study should take into account the President's concern that population policy is a human concern intimately related to the dignity of the individual and the objective of the United States is to work closely with others, rather than seek to impose our views on others.

The President has directed that the study be accomplished by the NSC Under Secretaries Committee. The Chairman, Under Secretaries Committee, is requested to forward the study together with the Committee's action recommendations no later than May 29, 1974 for consideration by the President.

HENRY A. KISSINGER

cc: Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff

NSSM 200:

IMPLICATIONS OF WORLDWIDE POPULATION GROWTH
FOR U.S. SECURITY AND OVERSEAS INTERESTS

December 10, 1974

CLASSIFIED BY Harry C. Blaney, III
SUBJECT TO GENERAL DECLASSIFICATION SCHEDULE OF
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11652 AUTOMATICALLY DOWN-
GRADED AT TWO YEAR INTERVALS AND DECLASSIFIED
ON DECEMBER 31, 1980.

This document can only be declassified by the White House.
---------------

Declassified/Released on 7/3/89
-------------------
under provisions of E.O. 12356
by F. Graboske, National Security Council

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
World Demographic Trends

Adequacy of World Food Supplies
Minerals and Fuel
Economic Development and Population Growth
Political Effects of Population Factors
Policy Recommendations
Policy Follow-up and Coordination
CHAPTER I – WORLD DEMOGRAPHIC TRENDS
FUTURE GROWTH IN MAJOR REGIONS AND COUNTRIES
CHAPTER II. POPULATION AND WORLD FOOD SUPPLIES
CHAPTER III – MINERALS AND FUEL
ANNEX OUTLOOK FOR RAW MATERIALS
II. World Reserves
Chapter IV – Economic Development and Population Growth
Chapter V — Implications of Population Pressures for National Security
CHAPTER VI – WORLD POPULATION CONFERENCE
P A R T T W O Policy Recommendations
--------------------------
1. World Population growth since World War II is quantitatively and qualitatively different from any previous epoch in human history. The rapid reduction in death rates, unmatched by corresponding birth rate reductions, has brought total growth rates close to 2 percent a year, compared with about 1 percent before World War II, under 0.5 percent in 1750-1900, and far lower rates before 1750. The effect is to double the world’s population in 35 years instead of 100 years. Almost 80 million are now being added each year, compared with 10 million in 1900.

2. The second new feature of population trends is the sharp differentiation between rich and poor countries. Since 1950, population in the former group has been growing at 0 to 1.5 percent per year, and in the latter at 2.0 to 3.5 percent (doubling in 20 to 35 years). Some of the highest rates of increase are in areas already densely populated and with a weak resource base.

3. Because of the momentum of population dynamics, reductions in birth rates affect total numbers only slowly. High birth rates in the recent past have resulted in a high proportion in the youngest age groups, so that there will continue to be substantial population increases over many years even if a two-child family should become the norm in the future. Policies to reduce fertility will have their main effects on total numbers only after several decades. However, if future numbers are to be kept within reasonable bounds, it is urgent that measures to reduce fertility be started and made effective in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Moreover, programs started now to reduce birth rates will have short run advantages for developing countries in lowered demands on food, health and educational and other services and in enlarged capacity to contribute to productive investments, thus accelerating development.

4. U.N. estimates use the 3.6 billion population of 1970 as a base (there are nearly 4 billion now) and project from about 6 billion to 8 billion people for the year 2000 with the U.S. medium estimate at 6.4 billion. The U.S. medium projections show a world population of 12 billion by 2075 which implies a five-fold increase in south and southeast Asia and in Latin American and a seven-fold increase in Africa, compared with a doubling in east Asia and a 40% increase in the presently developed countries (see Table I). Most demographers, including the U.N. and the U.S. Population Council, regard the range of 10 to 13 billion as the most likely level for world population stability, even with intensive efforts at fertility control. (These figures assume, that sufficient food could be produced and distributed to avoid limitation through famines.)

Adequacy of World Food Supplies

5. Growing populations will have a serious impact on the need for food especially in the poorest, fastest growing LDCs. While under normal weather conditions and assuming food production growth in line with recent trends, total world agricultural production could expand faster than population, there will nevertheless be serious problems in food distribution and financing, making shortages, even at today’s poor nutrition levels, probable in many of the larger more populous LDC regions. Even today 10 to 20 million people die each year due, directly or indirectly, to malnutrition. Even more serious is the consequence of major crop failures which are likely to occur from time to time.

6. The most serious consequence for the short and middle term is the possibility of massive famines in certain parts of the world, especially the poorest regions. World needs for food rise by 2-1/2 percent or more per year (making a modest allowance for improved diets and nutrition) at a time when readily available fertilizer and well-watered land is already largely being utilized. Therefore, additions to food production must come mainly from higher yields. Countries with large population growth cannot afford constantly growing imports, but for them to raise food output steadily by 2 to 4 percent over the next generation or two is a formidable challenge. Capital and foreign exchange requirements for intensive agriculture are heavy, and are aggravated by energy cost increases and fertilizer scarcities and price rises. The institutional, technical, and economic problems of transforming traditional agriculture are also very difficult to overcome.

7. In addition, in some overpopulated regions, rapid population growth presses on a fragile environment in ways that threaten longer-term food production: through cultivation of marginal lands, overgrazing, desertification, deforestation, and soil erosion, with consequent destruction of land and pollution of water, rapid siltation of reservoirs, and impairment of inland and coastal fisheries.

[Dig]

A second measure was curtailing food supplies to targetted states, in part to force compliance with birth control policies: "There is also some established precedent for taking account of family planning performance in appraisal of assistance requirements by AID [U.S. Agency for International Development] and consultative groups. Since population growth is a major determinant of increases in food demand, allocation of scarce PL 480 resources should take account of what steps a country is taking in population control as well as food production.

In these sensitive relations,

however,

it is important in style

as well as substance

to avoid the appearance of coercion."

"Mandatory programs may be needed and we should be considering these possibilities now," the document continued, adding, "Would food be considered an instrument of national power? ... Is the U.S. prepared to accept food rationing to help people who can't/won't control their population growth?"


Tunisia - Population Growth - 1.08 (UN)

Egypt - Population Growth -    2.03 (WF)

Jordan - Population Growth - 3.04 (UN)

Syria - Pupulation Growth - 2.52 (UN)

Yemen - Population Growth - 2.79 (WF)

Morocco - Population Growth - 1.20 (UN)

Algeria - Population Growth - 1.51 (UN)

AVERAGE - 1.15

Except for Tunisia, they all were having too many children. Then add the fact that with agro-industrialization, you have self sustainability with growth.

Also investigate policies on vaccinations and this whole bullshit organic revolution crap is exposed.

[Dig]

1.9.2008 8:43 AM
Africa's Population "Emergency"
Study: Continent Continuing Population Boom
http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/africa-population-47010905
By Dan Shapley

Sub-Saharan Africa is headed for a "population emergency" according to a new French analysis of demographic trends.

The population of the continent south of the Sahara, decimated by the slave trade and colonization, stood at 100 million in 1900, according to the study by Centre Population et Developpement. It had grown more than seven-fold to 770 million by 2005. By 2050, it will grow by as much as 2.6 times above that level, to 2 billion. The population of the entire world today is 6.6 billion.

In 1960, one African city had 1 million residents. Now, 40 do, and the rural exodus is continuing at such a pace that already strained cities are struggling to provide services, like health care, and infrastructure, like sewage treatment, enough to support the population growth.

Only six nations had economic growth above 7% – the rate believed needed to support population growth of this magnitude. The human toll of such poverty would be steep, and many environmental advocates warn that unique wildlife and landscapes cannot be protected over the long term unless people's lives are first made secure and relatively prosperous.

[Dig]

Development: The Second Scramble For Africa Starts
http://www.globalissues.org/news/2009/04/20/1256

[Dig]

Try not to puke with the sterilization projects throughout Africa (how can anyone still deny this shit?):

http://www.overpopulation.org/Africa.html

[Dig]

EGYPT WATER SUPPLY TRANSFORMATION OVER THE LAST 30 YEARS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_Egypt


Access

99% of Egyptians have access to an improved water source and 94% had access to improved sanitation in 2008.Access to Water and Sanitation in Egypt (2008)[1]
Urban (43% of the population)   
Rural (57% of the population)   
Total


Water   Broad definition   100%   98%   99%
House connections   99%   87%   92%
Sanitation   Broad definition   97%   92%   94%
Sewage   n/a   n/a   n/a


These figures show that Egypt is much better off than other African countries as it already reached the Millennium Development Goals of halving the number of people without proper access to save water and sanitation by 2015. Furthermore, especially the figures on water supply are a result of huge investments which have been made in the infrastructure sector during the last thirty years.

Derrrrdeeeeeeeeeederrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

30 years of Mubarak...30 years of transforming water/food independence = MUBARAK IS A GLOBALIZATION TERRORIST!

[worcesteradam]

The number of Americans receiving food stamps reached 43 million in November 2010, the highest number since the SNAP program began in 1939

All they have to do to get riots in America is take this away

[carlee]

The number of Americans receiving food stamps reached 43 million in November 2010, the highest number since the SNAP program began in 1939

All they have to do to get riots in America is take this away

we are three meals away from a revolution

[Georgiacopguy]

we are three meals away from a revolution

Which makes you wonder what would happen if there was a breakdown of commercial interstate freight, and the markets did not have fresh food to supply everyone with. One catastrophic incident would do that very thing, and I am scared shitless we are heading right for that very thing.

[Brocke]

USAID, Population Control, and NGO-Led Democratization in Egypt:
The Fate of the ICPD Programme of Action

http://www.scribd.com/doc/7886200/USAID-Population-Control-And-NGOLed-Democratization-in-Egypt

In June 2006 the Egyptian government recently suspended the activities of two US- based non-governmental organizations (NGOs), pending of?cial licensing. The National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI) are associated with the two major US parties and with the US NGO, National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and often receive funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Egyptian opponents of these NGOs’ activities took issue with a published inter- view with the IRI director, who asserted that ‘political reform in Egypt had not been achieved in the past 25 years and that the institute would work to speed [it] up’. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry described the comments as ‘blatant interference in the country’s internal affairs’, while a representative of the Cairo Institute of Human Rights insisted that the ‘decision to halt the activities of the two institutes has to do with the regime’s new agenda to curb public dissent and is not in any way linked to press claims that they are threatening national security’

Some critics of US democracy-promotion activities assert that USAID and allied international organizations and NGOs began in the 1980s to promote polyarchy, or superficially democratic systems that channel expressions of public frustration with structural adjustment, while facilitating continued elite dominance. Democracy- promotion strategies increasingly include the diversion of US foreign aid from states to NGOs, and draw intellectual support from liberal academics’ insistence on the importance of downsizing the state and strengthening civil society as a means to democratization. Some other critics, however, argue that US support for civil society in Egypt may actually impede democratization.

Critical case studies frequently illustrate the perverse outcomes of democracy assistance programmes intended to democratize fragile civil societies in spite of opposition by comparatively powerful authoritarian states. Many of these studies decry NGOs’ vulnerability to external influence resulting from lack of financial resources and grassroots support, which in turn leaves them open to charges of acting as ‘subcontractors’ to external powers.5Indeed, NGO efforts to attract external funding may mean that NGOs design grant proposals to appeal to donors’ interests rather than to grassroots needs.

During the 1930s Egyptian feminists joined domestic populationists to support the creation of the Ministry of Social Affairs (MOSA) in order to engage the government in domestic welfare activities, and studies of the ‘population problem’, respectively. These elite liberal feminists reasoned that access to contraceptives would both assist women in pursuing expanding public activities and limit population growth. Their NGOs played an important role in Egypt’s formal adoption of population control by urging President Gamar Abdel Nasser’s government to initiate such a policy, and by establishing experimental clinics to demonstrate the ef?cacy of family plan- ning activities while diverting related negative attention from the Egyptian government.

Initial USAID support for Egyptian economic liberalization was clearly re-ected in its population control prescriptions, linking reductions in fertility to lower future social services costs, and reductions in public provision of social services to reduced fertility. By the early 1980s, USAID and other international donors sought to strengthen Egyptian NGOs in order to help ‘bridge the gaps’ left by retreat- ing state services as a result of neoliberal economic reforms, to mobilize private initiative and resources in support of development, and to advance the cause of liberal democracy.

The ICPD and Egyptian NGOs

At the ICPD, the international women’s health movement substituted the population- ist ‘family planning’ paradigm with a counter-hegemonic feminist ‘reproductive health’ paradigm. By reframing the norm of population control in feminist ways, the International Women’s Health Movement (IWHM) hoped to redistribute population funding from top-down, state-directed family planning programmes like that sponsored by USAID in Egypt. Such programmes conceptualized women as contraceptive ‘acceptors’, while the IWHM supported more grassroots-driven, holis- tic ‘woman-centered’ reproductive health programmes. Central to this effort to decentralize and reconceptualize family planning programmes was a demand for greater autonomy and policymaking participation for domestic NGOs.

Under the NCPD’s first patron, Minister of Population and Family Planning Maher Mahran, the NCPD experienced unprecedented autonomy. However, the post-ICPD merger of the Ministry of Population and Family Planning and the Ministry of Health into the Ministry of Health and Population (MOHP) meant that the NCPD was now under the supervision of a less sympathetic and more powerful patron, Dr Ismail Sallam.

The NCPD not only experienced substantial MOHP and donor interference, but internal difficulties as well. Most NGO observers criticized the role of the NCPD’s Executive Director Samir Eleish, a previously unknown businessman whom many considered corrupt and self-promoting. His move directly from board member to executive director was somewhat controversial, but Eleish won the trust of Aziza Hussein and became her ‘right-hand man’. NGO activists who initially desired a decentralized NCPD disapprovingly noted that Eleish ‘started writing proposals for computers, databases, resource centres – all designed for a centralized organization’. According to another critical NGO leader, Eleish ‘blew everything and turned the NCPD into another bureaucracy – some donors, too, were well- orchestrated in this’

Conclusions

Interest in reproductive health among Egyptian activists has faded in the post-ICPD period, not only because of declining donor interest, but also because of frustrated implementation efforts, some of which are described above. Still, the fate of the NCPD clearly demonstrates the many pitfalls related to democratization strategies focused on external partnerships intended to strengthen NGOs located in authoritarian systems.

The experiences of Egyptian family planning and women’s advocacy NGOs in the post-ICPD period recounted above cannot ‘prove’ whether USAID policy consciously seeks to or, even, inadvertently promotes polyarchy (and/or actively obstructs democracy) by diverting funding from states to NGO targets, treating NGOs as implementers (rather than policymaking participants), and facilitating state control over them. Nevertheless, the foregoing narrative both illustrates and supports many critics’ concerns about NGO-focused efforts to strengthen civil society.

[Brocke]

Cotton costs rise for retailers as politics in Egypt unravel

By Thomas Grillo
Friday, February 4, 2011 - Updated 20 hours ago

Retailers are bracing for the cost of Egyptian cotton to skyrocket as a result of political turmoil in Egypt.

“I’m doing my pricing right now, and I’m pulling my hair out,” said Janice Masoud, president of Under the Nile, an online retailer that sells baby clothes and accessories. “I’ve had to raise prices by 30 percent because of the worldwide cotton shortage, and the unrest in Egypt could force prices even higher.”

Since the first of the year, cotton prices have shot up by nearly 22 percent — far more than other raw materials like metals, oil, and food staples such as wheat, according to Thomson Reuters. The cost of cotton — its highest in nearly 150 years — had been rising, in part, due to short supplies caused by flooding in major producing regions overseas and demand from emerging markets, including China and India.

more: http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view/2011_0204cotton_costs_rise_for_retailers_as_politics_in_egypt_unravel/


ICE to increase scrutiny as cotton futures price soars 19pc

    * Carolyn Cui and Leslie Josephs
    * From: The Wall Street Journal
    * February 04, 2011 2:47PM


THE world's top cotton-futures exchange is clamping down on speculation amid soaring demand that has sent prices so high that they threaten losses for mills, commodity merchants and apparel producers.

The next few weeks are a key time for cotton mills, which hold contracts to buy cotton under the March contract, which expires on March 9. Usually, they would have locked in a price for that cotton. But as prices kept soaring, many held off, hoping for a decline that never came.

IntercontinentalExchange, commonly referred to as ICE, fears that speculators could take advantage of the mills by buying up cotton, thereby causing a squeeze that would drive prices even higher. In response, ICE yesterday said it will increase its scrutiny of big positions from now on.


more: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/news/ice-to-increase-scrutiny-as-cotton-futures-price-soars-19pc/story-e6frg90x-1226000249996

[citizenx]

World
Egypt VP Target of Assassination Attempt That Killed Two Bodyguards, Sources Tell Fox News

Published February 04, 2011

AP

...A failed assassination attempt on Egypt's vice president in recent days left two of his bodyguards dead, sources tell Fox News.

Such an attempt on the life of Omar Suleiman would mark an alarming turn in the uprising against the government of President Hosni Mubarak, who only recently named Suleiman as vice president in an effort to quell the unrest and possibly line up a successor.

A senior Obama administration official confirmed that the attack happened soon after Suleiman was appointed, on Jan. 29. The official described it as an organized attack on Suleiman's motorcade...

entire article:

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/02/04/egypt-vp-targeted-assassination-attempt-killed-bodyguards-sources-tell-fox-news/

[citizenx]

Now Soetoro is blaming his poor vacillating response to the Egypt crisis on the CIA:



WASHINGTON — President Obama has criticized American spy agencies over their performance in predicting and analyzing the spreading unrest in the Middle East, according to current and former American officials.

The president was specifically critical of intelligence agencies for misjudging how quickly the unrest in Tunisia would lead to the downfall of the country’s authoritarian government, the officials said.

The officials offered few details about the president’s concerns, but said that Mr. Obama had not ordered any major changes inside the intelligence community, which has a budget of more than $80 billion a year. On Friday, a White House spokesman said spy agencies had given Mr. Obama “relevant, timely and accurate analysis” throughout the crisis in the Middle East.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/world/middleeast/05cia.html?_r=1&hp

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

Maybe, he should stop taking orders from..er..uh...listening to the CIA.

[No2NWO]

Disappearances up the ante in Tahrir Square

Even before the uprising in Egypt, secret detentions by police were common. Anti-Mubarak protesters know that if they lose, they are marked men and women.

Reporting from Cairo —
He was almost too shaken by sobs to speak, this thin-shouldered man with missing teeth. Finally he was able to choke out the words: "I am afraid my son is dead."

At 16, the boy, Rabiyeh, was his father's life and pride. Now he is missing, one of hundreds of people unaccounted for since the start of the 11-day-old rebellion against President Hosni Mubarak. Their loved ones fear they have been ensnared by Egypt's vast security apparatus, a shadowy world from which many never emerge.

Egypt's disappeared haunt the collective consciousness; they are an emblem of life in a modern police state. The uprising convulsing the country is in part a reaction to sweeping police powers of three decades running, a key enforcement mechanism of Mubarak's authoritarian rule.

Even in normal times, secret detentions are commonplace, but the maelstrom of protests has heightened that peril. Few expect this government to account for those picked up for challenging it. That is why people like Mohammed Said Ali — the weeping father who came to Tahrir Square on Friday, seeking some word of his son — are paralyzed by terror over the fate of those who have vanished.

Protest leaders, many of whom have been the victims of such detentions themselves, are sympathetic. A young organizer, Mohammed Mustafa, promised to see what he could find out about Ali's son. He already had a dog-eared list of 88 names of other missing people.

Looking lost on the edges of the raucous crowd at the square was Shadiya Abu Zeidi, slight and slender in a black robe and hijab. She, too, was weeping as she proffered a photograph of her 14-year-old son, Saber Hussein Godeh, who disappeared on the first day of the protests. The picture showed him laughing-eyed, leaning against a heap of watermelons.

Human rights activists say the earliest days of the unrest saw a surge in detentions, some 1,300 people, by a rough reckoning based on families' accounts. Many were freed when police, for reasons still unknown, abandoned their posts Jan. 28. But at least 500 people are thought to remain in custody, rights groups said.

To make matters worse, rights activists — often the only lifeline for those being held without trial or notification of relatives — are under siege themselves. More than two dozen were picked up in a raid this week at the offices of the Hisham Mubarak Law Center, headquarters for a number of rights groups.

Police often disavow knowledge of the detained, even when witnesses have seen them being picked up and know where they are being held. Sally Sami of the Institute for Human Rights in Cairo told of a lawyer who went to a police station to inquire about seven detained activists and was promptly taken into custody himself.

In Tahrir Square, the reach of the security apparatus weighed on the minds of protesters Friday, many of whom have freely given on-camera interviews, appeared in YouTube videos, or used Twitter and Facebook to air their opposition to the government.

In a country where chanting a single anti-Mubarak slogan would normally be grounds for arrest, they know the police could easily track them down.

"That's one reason that we must succeed in this endeavor," said Said Khirallah, a school administrator who has been in the square every day for a week. "Because if we falter now, we will each pay the price."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-egypt-disappeared-20110205,0,190997.story

[Dig]

Disappearances up the ante in Tahrir Square

Even before the uprising in Egypt, secret detentions by police were common. Anti-Mubarak protesters know that if they lose, they are marked men and women.

Reporting from Cairo —
He was almost too shaken by sobs to speak, this thin-shouldered man with missing teeth. Finally he was able to choke out the words: "I am afraid my son is dead."

At 16, the boy, Rabiyeh, was his father's life and pride. Now he is missing, one of hundreds of people unaccounted for since the start of the 11-day-old rebellion against President Hosni Mubarak. Their loved ones fear they have been ensnared by Egypt's vast security apparatus, a shadowy world from which many never emerge.

Egypt's disappeared haunt the collective consciousness; they are an emblem of life in a modern police state. The uprising convulsing the country is in part a reaction to sweeping police powers of three decades running, a key enforcement mechanism of Mubarak's authoritarian rule.

Even in normal times, secret detentions are commonplace, but the maelstrom of protests has heightened that peril. Few expect this government to account for those picked up for challenging it. That is why people like Mohammed Said Ali — the weeping father who came to Tahrir Square on Friday, seeking some word of his son — are paralyzed by terror over the fate of those who have vanished.

Protest leaders, many of whom have been the victims of such detentions themselves, are sympathetic. A young organizer, Mohammed Mustafa, promised to see what he could find out about Ali's son. He already had a dog-eared list of 88 names of other missing people.

Looking lost on the edges of the raucous crowd at the square was Shadiya Abu Zeidi, slight and slender in a black robe and hijab. She, too, was weeping as she proffered a photograph of her 14-year-old son, Saber Hussein Godeh, who disappeared on the first day of the protests. The picture showed him laughing-eyed, leaning against a heap of watermelons.

Human rights activists say the earliest days of the unrest saw a surge in detentions, some 1,300 people, by a rough reckoning based on families' accounts. Many were freed when police, for reasons still unknown, abandoned their posts Jan. 28. But at least 500 people are thought to remain in custody, rights groups said.

To make matters worse, rights activists — often the only lifeline for those being held without trial or notification of relatives — are under siege themselves. More than two dozen were picked up in a raid this week at the offices of the Hisham Mubarak Law Center, headquarters for a number of rights groups.

Police often disavow knowledge of the detained, even when witnesses have seen them being picked up and know where they are being held. Sally Sami of the Institute for Human Rights in Cairo told of a lawyer who went to a police station to inquire about seven detained activists and was promptly taken into custody himself.

In Tahrir Square, the reach of the security apparatus weighed on the minds of protesters Friday, many of whom have freely given on-camera interviews, appeared in YouTube videos, or used Twitter and Facebook to air their opposition to the government.

In a country where chanting a single anti-Mubarak slogan would normally be grounds for arrest, they know the police could easily track them down.

"That's one reason that we must succeed in this endeavor," said Said Khirallah, a school administrator who has been in the square every day for a week. "Because if we falter now, we will each pay the price."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-egypt-disappeared-20110205,0,190997.story

LA Times gives a flying shit about disappearances in Egypt? Really? Is this a f**king joke? Hey LA Times...why don't you finally admit you helped cover up the execution of Robert F. Kennedy you yellow journal Bilderberg puppet. What about an investigation into who executed Gary Webb. What about a column on Bilderberg's manipulation of the CIA regime change operations in Egypt. Hey LA Times...here is a local story for you:

Prisons in California
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisons_in_California

The California State Prison System is administered by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Division of Adult Institutions. which had 170,588 inmates as of 2007 - 475 inmates per 100,000 state residents), has been the focus of attention for growing influence upon the state's political arena. Former Governor Gray Davis was accused of favoring the prison guard union more than the interests of education. Allegations of prisoner abuse gave rise to increased attention of the prison oversight committees. Accusations of police guard favoritism by these committees have occurred as well.

Background

The California system has been a focus and origin of many trends in prison conditions within the United States as a whole. The state's large and diverse population, large size, large urban areas, history of gang and drug-related crime, tough sentencing laws and its status as an entry point to the U.S. for both immigrants and drugs has given California a large and complex prison environment. With more than 170,000 prisoners occupying facilities designed for 83,000, California prisons are overcrowded, with most facilities holding more than 200% of their design capacity, forcing prisoners to triple-bunk in open gymnasiums and day rooms.

The system, like the state as a whole, lacks a racial/ethnic majority among the population, with Hispanic inmates making up approximately 37% of the population, African American and white inmates each representing about 27%, and other inmates representing 8% as of 2006. Prisoner identification and affiliation is tied closely to race and region of the state, which has contributed to tension and violence within the system. There has been a long running racial tension between African American and Southern Mexican American prison gangs and significant riots in California prisons where Mexican inmates and African Americans have targeted each other particularly, based on racial reasons.[1] California is the birthplace of many of the country's most powerful and best-known prison gangs, such as the Aryan Brotherhood, the Nuestra Familia (which is a branch of the Nortenos which allies with African American gangs), Surenos 13 that branch of another powerful and best-known prison gang the Mexican Mafia. State efforts against these gangs made California a pioneer in the development of Security Housing Unit "supermax" control-unit facilities.

The overcrowded conditions and accusations of inadequate medical facilities and mistreatment have caused the federal courts to intervene in the system's operation since the 1990s, appointing special oversight and enforcing consent decrees over the system's medical system and the SHU units and capping populations at several facilities. As of 2007, the state has plans to continue to expand the system and to involuntarily transfer inmates to other states or federal prisons. Also as of 2007, by order of federal courts, the system's medical system is under federal receivership, and a federal court may impose a mandatory limit on the system's total population by June 2007.
Prison growth and overcrowding

From 1982 to 2000, California's prison population grew at a rate of 500%. To accommodate this population growth and the war on crime, the state of California built 23 new prisons at a cost of 280 million to 350 million dollars apiece. By way of comparison, the state of California had constructed a total of 12 prisons between 1852 and 1964. California's prisons are public and are financed by the Public Works Department and operated by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The state funds the prison system's annual costs. In 2005 the state rate of incarceration was 616 per 100,000 adults.

There are many explanations for the prison growth. One is the perceived drug epidemic in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and the presumed consequent threat to public safety. Building more prisons counters this threat with supposed stability. Another explanation is that, during this period, prison sentences increased and minimum sentencing gave lesser crimes longer jail terms. Moreover, unemployment led many citizens to commit property-related crimes, although, ironically, California has a relatively low rate of property crime occurrence compared to other states. In response to the perceived increasing crime rate, the citizens of California passed the Three Strikes Law, stipulating a life sentence for those who were convicted of three felonies. Government officials, policy advisers and the media tied the public concern over crime to the need for more prisons. Alleged decreases in crime due to such "crackdowns" are unsupported by researchers which note that rime rates have declined across the nation without regard to whether more punitive laws were enacted or not.

Of the 160,000 prisoners in California, two-thirds are African-American and Latino. Approxiamtely 17% were born abroad. Most prisoners come from California's high density population areas, however incarceration rates in less populated areas are higher than from more congested areas. About 62% of inmates in 2005 were sentenced from Southern California. The largest racial group in California prisons was whites from 1980 to 1986, blacks from 1986 to 1992, and Hispanics from 1992 to the present. For more statistical information and tables see [1]

The increase in prisons has led to job opportunities for communities in which prisons are located but locals are generally not benefited by these openings as rural areas where these new institutions are built are not populated by people with the skills or education required to be hired in the prisons. Negative impacts of prisons in such areas mainly include the attraction of inmate visitors who are often impoverished and bring little economic consumption to the community. The better paid prison staff generally lives and shops in other areas than where prisons are located. (See LA Times, May 3, 2010.)

The California Prison Industry Authority provides the inmates themselves with productive job opportunities. The inmate work program's main aim is to rehabilitate prisoners and promote their successful re-entry into society after their punishment has been completed. Through the program, approximately 5,900 inmates are given work assignments in 60 different lines of work at 22 California prisons. The goods produced by the inmates are available for local, state, and federal governmental agencies. Prisoners are able to earn between 30 and 95 cents per hour of work.
Prison Spending

California has "seen its prison-related spending swell to $10.4 billion for the 2008-2009 fiscal year (Washington Post, 5/5/08)".

[citizenx]

Egypt Officials Seek to Nudge Mubarak Out


By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and DAVID E. SANGER
Published: February 4, 2011
 
CAIRO — President Hosni Mubarak appeared increasingly isolated on Friday, as hundreds of thousands of protesters returned to Tahrir Square and the Obama administration and some members of the Egyptian military and civilian elite pursued plans to nudge him from power.

The country’s newly named vice president, Omar Suleiman, and other top military leaders were discussing steps to limit Mr. Mubarak’s decision-making authority and possibly remove him from the presidential palace in Cairo — though not to strip him of his presidency immediately, Egyptian and American officials said. A transitional government headed by Mr. Suleiman would then negotiate with opposition figures to amend Egypt’s Constitution and begin a process of democratic changes.

Administration officials said that among the ideas that had been discussed were suggesting to Mr. Mubarak that he move to his home at Sharm el Sheik, the seaside resort, or that he embark on one of his annual medical leaves to Germany for an extended checkup. Such steps would provide him with a graceful exit and effectively remove him as the central political player, going partway toward addressing a central demand of protesters on the streets of Cairo.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/world/middleeast/05egypt.html?_r=1&hp

[shipgeek]

What to wear to a riot: A saucepan lid, a hoodie, goggles and a rose for peace, advises pamphlet for Egyptian protesters

Egyptian activists have been spotted around Cairo with saucepans for helmets and even baguettes strapped to their heads - and perhaps this is the reason.

A bizarre pamphlet has been circulated among anti-government demonstrators, telling them how to prepare themselves to take on President Hosni Mubarak's regime.

Key to being successful, it appears, are a large saucepan lid to protect from riot policemen's batons or bullets and a pair of goggles to protect the eyes from tear gas.

Also required for the activist's equipment arsenal are spray paint, thick rubber gloves and 'shoes that make it easy to run away quickly'.

But the leaflet does also call on protesters to wear a rose 'so we can show that we can do as we ought to and join together in the most peaceful way possible'.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1353713/Egypt-Pamplet-tells-protesters-wear-riot-including-saucepan-lid-goggles.html#ixzz1D4OgFpZG

[shipgeek]

Blast at gas pipeline in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula

EL-ARISH, Egypt – An explosion went off at a gas terminal in Egypt's northern Sinai Peninsula on Saturday, setting off a massive fire along a gas pipeline that could be seen dozens of miles away, officials and witnesses said.

No injuries were immediately reported.

The governor of the region, Abdel Wahab Mabrouk, said he suspected "sabotage," but provided no details.

more here:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110205/ap_on_bi_ge/ml_egypt_pipeline_explosion

sabotage? you bet!

[mr anderson]

What to wear to a riot: A saucepan lid, a hoodie, goggles and a rose for peace, advises pamphlet for Egyptian protesters

Egyptian activists have been spotted around Cairo with saucepans for helmets and even baguettes strapped to their heads - and perhaps this is the reason.

A bizarre pamphlet has been circulated among anti-government demonstrators, telling them how to prepare themselves to take on President Hosni Mubarak's regime.

Key to being successful, it appears, are a large saucepan lid to protect from riot policemen's batons or bullets and a pair of goggles to protect the eyes from tear gas.

Also required for the activist's equipment arsenal are spray paint, thick rubber gloves and 'shoes that make it easy to run away quickly'.

But the leaflet does also call on protesters to wear a rose 'so we can show that we can do as we ought to and join together in the most peaceful way possible'.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1353713/Egypt-Pamplet-tells-protesters-wear-riot-including-saucepan-lid-goggles.html#ixzz1D4OgFpZG

Yeah becauses Roses are such high supply, that stands out as a Soros-"suggestion" to signify and identify the "revolutionaries". The Rose Revolutionaries. 

[mr anderson]

Blast at gas pipeline in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula

EL-ARISH, Egypt – An explosion went off at a gas terminal in Egypt's northern Sinai Peninsula on Saturday, setting off a massive fire along a gas pipeline that could be seen dozens of miles away, officials and witnesses said.

No injuries were immediately reported.

The governor of the region, Abdel Wahab Mabrouk, said he suspected "sabotage," but provided no details.

more here:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110205/ap_on_bi_ge/ml_egypt_pipeline_explosion

sabotage? you bet!

How OBVIOUS is this?! 

Any black ops group would have free reign in Egypt.

[citizenx]

Major Announcement Imminent From Egypt State TV; There’s A Rumor That Mubarak Will Step Down        

Business Insider
Friday, February 4, 2011

UPDATE: Now a major announcement is imminent from state TV.

Al-Arabiya says a rumor spread through Egypt this morning that the president has agreed to step down with certain guarantees. This produced celebrations and a tremendous feeling of relief in the crowd at Tahrir Square, says a commentator on Al-Jazeera.

However it remains just a rumor. Developing.

There are other signs that today could be a turning point, like the decision to air protest footage on Egyptian TV. And as the protestors stay peaceful, Mubarak can no longer play the chaos card.

A major shift here that may signal a further weakening of the resolve of the Mubarka (sic) government.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/major-announcement-imminent-from-egypt-state-tv-theres-a-rumor-that-mubarak-will-step-down.html
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We may indeed be approaching the endgame here FWIW.

[citizenx]

Re. the next president of Egypt:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sLNOhA7C2Q

[mr anderson]

What timing! 

Yup...they are going after the Suez Canal...

Days of Rage, Oil Prices, and the Suez Canal
http://www.prisonplanet.com/days-of-rage-oil-prices-and-the-suez-canal.html
Kurt Nimmo Prison Planet.com Thursday, February 3, 2011

Bloomberg warns today that an act of sabotage or a decision by a new regime – possibly headed up by the Muslim Brotherhood – to close the canal and its oil pipeline to punish supporters of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak could send oil prices through the stratosphere.

Egyptian troops currently guard the canal and its adjacent Suez-Mediterranean oil pipeline but that does not mean the flow of oil – more than 1.7 millions barrels per day – cannot be shut down.

About 2.5 percent of global oil production moves through Egypt via the Suez Canal and the Suez-Mediterranean Pipeline, according to Goldman Sachs.

From 1967 until 1975, Egypt kept the canal closed in response to Israel’s seizure of Arab territory, forcing tankers to travel around the Cape of Good Hope.

Earlier today, investors increased bets that oil prices will likely increase as much as $250 a barrel on concern the unrest in Egypt will shut down the flow of oil through the Suez Canal and spread to Saudi Arabia.

On January 28, Lindsey Williams told Alex Jones the situation unfolding in Egypt is a carefully engineered event instigated by the global elite as part of a plan to bankrupt the United States and send shock waves through the global economy.

In December, Williams told Jones that his insider connections said the price of oil will soon skyrocket to between $15-200 per barrel and this price increase will result in gasoline in the range of $4-5 per gallon.

Williams became a friend and trusted confidant of oil industry executives while serving as chaplain for them and their construction crews building the Alaska pipeline in the 1970s.

Market analysts are unsure how the current crisis will impact oil and the global economy. Robert Halver, from Baader Bank, compared Egypt to a raging volcano. He argued that the recent developments are ominous. Halver said that many experts fear the crisis may expand to other Arab states, which would lead to a decrease in oil supplies and an inevitable rise in prices, as Lindsey Williams predicted last year.

Several Arab states have announced plans to launch “Days of Rage” across the Middle East and Africa. See the map below for details.

“When the revolution comes, everyone will be prepared. At least in Northern Africa and the Middle East, where upsurges of optimism from the increasingly successful revolts in Tunisia and Egypt have led other nations’ oppositions to plan dates for their own,” writes Jason Ditz.

“Activists looking for democratic reforms in Syria and Sudan have begun to organize on Facebook and other social media outlets,” Earth Times reported on January 31. “A smaller group in impoverished Yemen also formed on the social media website.”

Algeria experienced five days of protests late last month and tens of thousands took to the streets in Yemen. Similar scenes played out in Jordan and elsewhere. “Undoubtedly, from Algeria to Yemen, the protesters have been emboldened and inspired by the Tunisian example,” the New Straits Times reported on January 29. The Tunisian protest and the downfall of the 23-year-rule of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali began after a young Tunisian set himself ablaze.

It is now obvious the timely emergence of ElBaradei and the Muslim Brotherhood on the chaotic political scene in Egypt was orchestrated by the global elite, as alluded to by Steven A. Cook, writing for the Council on Foreign Relation’s Foreign Affairs.

“The classic gambits of class-warfare, religion, and race seem to be tools well-oiled and working as smoothly as ever in the hands of the globalists as they dismantle their old ally in Egypt and prepare to replace him with their new man, Mohamed ElBaradei,” writes Tony Cartalucci. “If it is true that the Muslim Brotherhood is also a western intelligence front, it is no surprise then that they have come to support ElBaradei’s ‘National Front for Change’ or that they are fomenting similar unrest in Jordan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and beyond, all with the Brookings Institute, CFR and other globalists’ gleeful encouragement.”

As Cartalucci notes, the tip off should be ElBaradei’s presence on the Board of Trustees of the Zbigniew Brzezinski/George Soros globalist think-tank, the International Crisis Group.

Mohamed ElBaradei, then literally sitting on the International Crisis Group’s Board of Trustees with the likes of George Soros, would not only be a trusted candidate to sow instability throughout Egypt, but would make an equally trustworthy leader of a pliable proxy regime to turn against Iran, Russia, and China. An ElBaradei controlled Egypt could equally be turned against disruptive members of the other globalist pet project Egypt is conveniently positioned to deal with, the African Union. And last but not least, Egypt controls the Suez Canal. Greater control over Egypt means greater control over the passage of freight through the canal.

ElBaradei and the Muslim Brotherhood, at the behest of the globalists, may indeed close down the Suez Canal, as some observers fear, and send the price of oil skyrocketing into outer space as long predicted by Lindsey Williams and others.

–

[larsonstdoc]

  Of course, the Suez Canal--to increase oil prices and cripple all nations--especially the US.  How diabolical--you can be sure that Soros is behind this.

  I believe it will backfire.  America is on the verge of FINANCIAL COLLAPSE again.

[mr anderson]

  Of course, the Suez Canal--to increase oil prices and cripple all nations--especially the US.  How diabolical--you can be sure that Soros is behind this.

  I believe it will backfire.  America is on the verge of FINANCIAL COLLAPSE again.

Order out of chaos 

[larsonstdoc]

This is one hell of a comprehensive buffett of intelligence info. It is a dump of many behind the scenes players. But it fails to expose the coordinated effort by the soros/cfr nuts, the zionists, the qatar hereditary elite, the bilderbergers to manufacure chaos to destabilize regions. It still acts like they all oppose each other when the highest levels are working together.

Anyway, although i disagree with many of the opinions, the author sure as hell proves that this has very little to do with organic and spontaneous outrage and much more to do with IMF pressures and hijackings of public outcry by a multitude of intelligence operations.

http://www.t-room.us/2011/01/cp-wayne-madsen-report-january-31-2011-museum-looting-and-a-major-information-war-raging-with-wikileaks-and-the-corpo-media/

The main problems--Soros, the CFR, the Zionists, the Bilderbergers...

[larsonstdoc]

Order out of chaos  

  Without question---their favorite dagger.

[shipgeek]

Major Announcement Imminent From Egypt State TV; There’s A Rumor That Mubarak Will Step Down       
http://www.prisonplanet.com/major-announcement-imminent-from-egypt-state-tv-theres-a-rumor-that-mubarak-will-step-down.html
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We may indeed be approaching the endgame here FWIW.

Any other source besides PP?

[citizenx]

Yes, but it is Haaretz, so I didn't post it.

Business Insider is a little more respectable/credible IMO.  I haven't seen anything else.

[larsonstdoc]

Which makes you wonder what would happen if there was a breakdown of commercial interstate freight, and the markets did not have fresh food to supply everyone with. One catastrophic incident would do that very thing, and I am scared shitless we are heading right for that very thing.

  $5 gasoline would not help.  We live in a railroad town and I was thinking of the possibility of someone blowing up the railways.  Who would do that?  Ha Ha

  Yep, 3 meals from a catastrophe.  Store some food if you can.  Yes, I am a conspiracy realist.