In the past few days, UK news has been full of the peccadilloes of former Co-operative Bank chairman Paul Flowers. Not only has the right-on bank he ran basically been bankrupted, and narrowly bailed out by being flogged off to hedge funds, but Flowers – a Methodist minister - has been caught buying illegal drugs, including cocaine. Worse, it has become apparent that the financially clueless Flowers had no background in banking whatsoever; his appointment to the top job at the Co-op was an entirely political one. But Flowers is merely an amusing sideshow. It is the Co-op Bank’s audacious reinforcement of anti-business sentiment and its bashing of its competitors’ practices that is truly emetic. Here is the Co-op’s description of itself: ‘The Co-operative is a unique family of businesses owned by our members and led by our principles. From community projects to a share of the profits, renewable energy to Fairtrade products, we believe that when the benefits are passed around, it’s good for everyone. Our online TV channel gives you the chance to see our community projects come to life and learn more about our values and principles.’ Yuk.

The Co-op even ran adverts in 2009 featuring Bob Dylan’s 1960s counter-culture protest song ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ to promote the ethical stance of all its businesses, including banking. The ad, dreamt up by mainstream agency McCann Erickson, traces the wind-blown journey of a dandelion clock being tossed around between windmills, Fairtrade farms and Icelandic icebergs. The message we were meant to swallow was that the Co-op is uniquely green, caring and ethical.

Well, the Co-op’s self-righteousness has been trumped. And one has to wonder why the likes of BBC business editor Robert Peston were so soft on the Co-op for so long. Did the media share the Co-op’s prejudices and digest its hype, while they bashed its rivals? – a real fraud

It gets more serious when one questions the role of other players. Reverend Flowers might have been a loose canon (pun intended), but where were the financial regulators, Flowers’s fellow chairmen, the Co-op board and other people who should have known and cared, including media analysts and politicians? They seemingly had no idea, no interest anyway, or worse, no expectation that a bank’s chairman (or woman) ought to have some idea what they are doing.

 Source: crown capital journal | Harare-The Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) is embarking on a US$1,3 billion expansion programme for Hwange Thermal Station in a move that will see the power utility increase its power generation by 600 megawatts.

The tender for the expansion of Hwange Thermal Power Station was awarded to China Machinery Engineering Co-operation (CMEC) by the State Procurement Board and contract negotiations have been under way since May this year.

The expansion project will see the thermal station having two additional units each producing 300 megawatts of power.

The initiative has seen a ZPC team visit Shanghai, Harbin Boiler Turbine and Generator Manufacturers in China to have an appreciation of the projects that have been undertaken by CMEC.

Speaking during a ministerial visit at Hwange Thermal Power Station, Zimbabwe Power Company General Manager in charge of projects Washington Mareya said funding negotiations which had stopped before elections have resumed.

He said they will include the finalisation of the Bill of Quantities and commercial negotiations, while the signing of the contract is expected to be held on the 11th of next month.

Mareya said the power utility is also embarking on another expansion programme which will see the installation of an additional two units each producing 150 megawatts at a cost of US$354 million at Kariba Hydro-Electric Power Station.

Sino-Hydro of China which has been awarded the contract to undertake the Kariba Power Station expansion programme is already on the site to carry out investigations which will pave way for the basic design for the project which is expected to take 42 months to complete.

Meanwhile, ZPC is also embarking on the Gairezi Mini-Hydro Project which is expected to produce 30 megawatts at cost of US$120 million and the feasibility study has been carried out while the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) has been approved.

The project is expected to take up to 36 months.

The expansion projects that the power utility is embarking on have been initiated at a time when the country is undergoing excessive power cuts due to frequent breakdowns and use of obsolete equipment, among other factors.

Wholesale Global Indoctrination on a Massive Scale | Pat Regan explains how the Scientific Community has fooled the peoples of the world.

The question of alleged Man-Made Global Warming (MMGW) is highly divisive to say the least. Like a vicious civil war, it regrettably sets good friends and family against each other.  In the following article I shall try to dispel a few popular misconceptions in the sincere hope that greater understanding will develop. Firstly it is vitally important to clarify the crux of the argument; Is the earth's climate progressively changing due to natural causes or is it warming because of human activity?

Cultures on the whole are largely emotionally dependent on the religious world-views that have created them. When we get down to intimately analysing the psychology ‘behind’ MMGW beliefs, we soon discover we are dealing with a subsidiary of biblical myth (end-time/ messianic ethos). Three quarters of those who ‘believe’ in it have never identified or acknowledged the big difference between MMGW and climate change. This really is the vital crux of the matter. The ‘big difference’ I highlight here has unfortunately caught out many good and caring folk who have simply been unmindful to the major difference at hand!The climate has always moved through dramatic cycles and some have been more significant than others. Today we find folks in one area of the planet crying out for drier weather, whilst others say: ‘please send the rains this way as our land is parched and dying’. This summer for instance is set to be the second wettest in the UK since records began, according to the Met Office. It never seems to stop raining here. Other lands though are seeing entire woodlands dry up and die. No one is disputing that this is occurring!

The environmental advocate: eco management legislation and Jakarta Indonesia blog

Do We Live On A Doomed Planet?

The big question remains - is this a man-made problem or is it the result of the planets natural evolution?   If it is the latter then nothing we can do will modify it because Gaia/Mother Nature is far too dominant, certainly far too commanding for science to find a solution.   People who place all their faith in the great God of Science (like most people these days) hold onto their sacred MMGW views like religious fundamentalists hold onto their apocalyptic, Armageddon position. In effect, many Christians believe in ‘both’ theories of course and unite with the proposal that man is ethically ‘accountable’ for the demise of the planet through MMGW by his ‘sinful’ activities.

There is of course, an argument which says that biblical prophecy of the destruction of the earth by fire which has consistently been injected into the minds of nominal Christians makes the idea of 'MMGW' somehow more unconsciously expected.   By believing in MMGW millions of Christians throughout the world are confirming the accuracy and validity of their particular religious belief by having science confirm their worst fears.   Of course, old Satan gets the blame herein as can be expected. The Horned fellow has misled mankind, they cry, into destruction and this helps to support their messianic faith regarding an anticipated Second Coming following a satanic fall…  How ironic this is when you consider that, with the man-made global warming model, modern science which normally despises religion as superstitious extraneous nonsense, is actually reinforcing the Christian world-view and finding it a bulwark of support for MMGW ideas!

Many have become so indoctrinated into a wholesale dependence on science that they have utterly missed the finer points of the debate. They wrongly see science as the ‘Great Redeemer’ and  the only solution to what they erroneously ‘think’ needs fixing. They have swallowed the idea that intellect is somehow superior to everything else hook, line and sinker! Science is widely perceived as logical yet it invented the ‘Bomb’, which could annihilate the planet in the first place and is far more dangerous than alleged MMGW. Therefore, if the Bomb was invented by an allegedly rational force then why do the globalwarmists consider science to be so well-judged in essence when depending on it to save us from the spectre of MMGW?

The alarmists appear to think they know ‘better’ than the gods themselves and place contemporary science ‘above’ the will and power of the gods. This is typical human vanity brought about by reliance in the indoctrinated credos of both monotheistic and scientific half-truths. Sadly a subconscious ‘us against them’ mentality has been forged by the alarmists. Anyone who dares to criticise the MMGM belief system is instantly judged to be immoral and perceived as the blasphemous Bad Guy. Nothing could be further from the truth however.

Climate will change yet again when Nature wishes it to do so, regardless of mankind’s fruitless hopes and fears. Mankind’s subconscious guilt complex, over a naturally changing climate phenomenon, will not modify what is occurring on a grand scale. Humanity may wish it to be different but  because we are puny in contrast with the enormous natural forces which power the planet we have to learn,  to ‘adapt and improvise’ towards the new situation at hand.  Pretending science can do something about it is a complete illusion but a nice bandwagon for unnecessary funding for the hundreds of thousands of scientists being churned out by the educational system.

The earth, like the greater cosmos, is constantly changing and we must learn to change too. We will never ‘ever’ have power over the climate or the planet because we are typically reliant upon it for our very survival. Science is deviant and supercilious in many instances. Until the alarmists realise their thinking uses a bankrupt philosophy they will never actually access the entire truth. In many ways this is the core of the matter at hand.

I advocate care and respect for the ecosystem and have been happy to defend it at all cost many times. I have also discovered that most genuine new-age people realise that Nature is in control of the climate (not man). Pseudo-scientific esoteric misinformation on Global warming has trapped many otherwise first-class people in a deceptive world of guilt, wherein man is generally considered to be immoral and a stain on the planet.

Yes agreed, humankind is most certainly not without blame when it comes to outrageous commercial destruction of the environment for profit - but individuals cannot be expected to change what cannot be changed, via a wasteful reliance upon the God of Science.

America thinker | The American Intelligence Community (IC) is starting to resemble a large cast of delinquents, a Faustian opera where bad behavior seeks constant rationalization and confirmation.  And like most bad behavior, the real remedy might not be that complicated.  Restraint is always an obvious solution; unfortunately, this is an obvious path seldom prescribed or taken by any branch of government these days, especially Intelligence agencies.  Ironically, the 9/11 attack in New York, the worst warning failure since Pearl Harbor, produced a knee-jerk windfall for American Intelligence.  Like public school systems, failure became a kind of fiscal stimulus.  Subsequently, government agencies that could embed "terrorism" in their mission statements were showered with tax dollars. 

The logic behind such largess is bigness, the assumption that more is the key to effectiveness: more personnel, more toys, more facilities, and more deficit spending.  Unfortunately, these days, big Intelligence looks more like the problem than the solution.  And the performance deficit didn't begin with Benghazi or Boston. It took ten years for the American IC to find bin Laden.  Several of his thugs still serve today as propaganda martyrs at Gitmo, yet to be convicted of anything.  Nonetheless, all are hosted at American taxpayer expense, indefinitely, with three hots, a cot, and a Koran unsullied by the touch of infidels. The Israeli Mossad took out most of Black September, Palestinians responsible for the Munich massacre (1972), immediately after the atrocity.  The Russian FSB took less than two years to find and kill  Shamil Baysev, Chechen jihadist responsible for the children's massacre at Beslan (2004).  Rendition is seldom a measure of effectiveness for successful anti-terror doctrine.  The Twin Towers failure in New York was not a one off either.  The slide may have begun with Vietnam era "systems analysis" where CIA and DOD cooked statistics to suggest there was "a light at the end of the tunnel. "  And then there was the surprise loss of Shia Iran (1979) to theocracy four years after the fall of Saigon.  Or maybe it was the surprise advent of nuclear weapons in North Korea and Pakistan.  The Islam bomb was a watershed.  Surely the Shia in Iran could not let that Sunni advantage stand.  Alas, American intelligence fudged the call on the first bomb in Pakistan, and is still too timid to make a call on the coming Muslim bomb in Iran.

On this corner: green option community and Indonesia news group

The problem with truth is that it often makes action imperative.  Alter truth and the need to act can always be deferred. Or maybe it was the "shock and awe" of not finding any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq after being assured by national intelligence  estimates (see George Tenant and Colin Powell at the UN, 2003) that Saddam Hussein was so armed.  Were truths told:  Iraq 1 was about oil and Iraq 2 was about regime change? And let's be candid, since the invasion of Kuwait (1990), regime change has been the leitmotif of American and European foreign policy.  This sponsored change strategy is underwritten by an assertion that imperial Sunni Islam is a protected religion, not theocratic fascism or puerile imperial politics.

Regime change policies have two pillars.  First, Islam is said to be "one of the world's great religions," thus entitled to moral equivalence and related immunities.  A second axiom claims that the Sunni brand of irredentism is the "right side of history.  “See almost any public statement on these matters by John Brennan, James Clapper, or Barack Hussein Obama.  Unfortunately, support to any Muslim faction in their millennial feuds is a little like, as Churchill might have said, "Feeding crocodiles with the hope of being eaten last.  “Negotiating with the Taliban is just the first course in the coming South Asia buffet. The Arab (or Sunni) tilts in Intelligence and policy are expensive.  Playing defense is always more costly -- and often mistaken for appeasement.  And surrender, no matter the rhetoric, always has a political cost.  Such things are often managed with mendacity.

All intelligence operatives lie; it's part of their job.  Heretofore, the mendacity was reserved for the enemy.  But now, if Jim Clapper can be believed, we need to lie to the folks who vote and pay the bills too.   Peace (talks) with the Taliban is the big lie du jour.  The only thing left to negotiate with south Asia Islamists is the terms of allied surrender and retreat. The Stuxnet and Prism disclosures are just symptoms of decay too, signs that American Intelligence has lost its original moorings.  All agencies begin with good ideas until the institution becomes the enemy of the original ideal.  Big Intelligence is an example of such excess and decay.

And the failure of the IC to provide strategic warning is not the worst of it.   American Intelligence is frontloaded; omnivorous collection undone by inadequate processing and tainted analysis. Analysis is both the product and weakest link in the Intelligence chain.  The most expensive technical collection systems on earth feed the worst amateur estimates.  And this corrupt product sets the stage for all manner of national security folly. Just two examples suffice; John Brennan and Susan Rice.  Personalities, we might point out, promoted recently for being agenda merchants, accomplished liars, and not very modest about either skill.  Loyalty, not achievement or professional integrity, seems to be the only bullet on Obama staff resumes.

Brennan is clearly the architect of the modern a priori paradigm, an analytic model which provides the "great religion" narrative for administration policy.  Brennan is the Intelligence Svengali if you will.   Decoupling Islamism from Islam at the White House is his great career achievement, even if has been a little like arguing that cheese and goats are unrelated. The Brennan ad vericundium analysis of Islam and Islamism is now fixed policy.  And with Brennan at CIA, any event or evidence that contradicts the "great religion" assertion is likely to be ignored, minimized, or spun.  There may be 16 Intelligence agencies in the IC, but CIA is still the big dog in the National Intelligence Estimates pound.

The Susan Rice saga provides the lurid details of how these things are done, a sordid tale of how corrupt and malleable Intelligence analysis has become. The immediate IC assessment of the Benghazi slaughter was revised 12 times after passing through some unknown number of layers of bureaucratic review in the IC, at the NSC, and  over at the State Department.  In the process, facts and conclusions about terror and Islamism were altered.  All of which makes the collection of evidence, and any objective analysis of those facts, irrelevant. After the Benghazi talking point memo was 'scrubbed,' it was released to Ms.  Rice, then UN ambassador, as blessed Intelligence.  Rice was subsequently launched at the Sunday chat shows to sell a blatant lie, a sanitized edition of yet another national humiliation.

The Sunni tilt or bias colors recent reportss and analysis of Egypt too.  The IC and CIA didn't predict another military coup in Cairo because such speculation would contradict the "Arab Spring" charade.

If ground truth is bureaucratic revision or political spin, why call it an assessment or analysis, no less Intelligence? If national security analysis can be suborned by political hacks, the IC might be just another cabal of pricy beltway whores. James Clapper is one of the most impressive chaps working in Washington.  He began his military career as an enlisted Marine and rose to become an Air Force general.  Eventually, he became the Director of National Intelligence.  His technical achievements in Intelligence collection are impressive.  Prism, speaks for itself.   Somewhere along the way, however, Clapper also sold his soul.

American national security has devolved into a very expensive game of liar's poker where the voting public needs to be kept in the dark too.  Jim Clapper admits as much in Congressional testimony.  In doing so, General Clapper tells us that truth and administration politics are mutually exclusive.  Deception in the name of national security might be justified, but lying in the name of venal politics makes American Intelligence a very frivolous extravagance.

(Jakarta environmental issues crown eco management) | A scathing new report out today outlines just how risky some of the world's largest coal export projects are. Funnily enough, they're not the risks environmentalists care about - the fact that they're going to be built inside the great barrier reef for instance. No, what the report is concerned with are the risks to the billions in investment at stake if the projects go sideways. If I had my money on the line (which I might if US Ex Im Bank President Fred Hochberg uses US taxpayer dollars to subsidize this boondoggle ) I'd pay attention because the report doesn't come from just anyone, but from financial industry heavyweights Tom Sanzillo (former New York State Comptroller) and Tim Buckley (former head of Australasian equity research at Citigroup). | huffingtonpost

Before we get into the risks outlined in the report let's start with the project as the developer (GVK) sees it: India has 300 million people without electricity, the country is facing a supply crunch of epic proportions), and the government is hell bent on building a massive pipeline of projects. GVK is well suited to help fuel this pipeline and alleviate the supply crunch by developing one of the world's largest integrated coal mine, rail, and export project in nearby Australia. Seems pretty cut and dry, what exactly has these analysts so worried? Leverage, leverage, leverage. It turns out GVK is trying to pull a fast one on Australian investors by getting them to pony up the cash for the project to cover the holes in their own balance sheets - which are enormous. Check out the graph below comparing the projects costs ($10 billion) with the current market capitalization of GVK ($243 million). That combined with net deb t of ~$2.7 Billion and GVK faces a whopping 1,149% debt to market ratio. For the financially illiterate - it's a financial crisis waiting to happen.

News watch: environmental scam, scam alert

Normally this kind of analysis drives me crazy because the 'rational' market rarely prices in such risk. Instead institutions like the Ex Im Bank provide a rubber stamp and average citizens are on the hook for crazy financial decisions. Turns out GVK is the exception to the rule. Check out how much their stock price has tanked in the past year. For those counting that's 80% below the Indian market index.

One of the biggest reasons for the crash is likely the fact that despite claiming to be a "leading global infrastructure owner, manager and operator" GVKPIL (a shell company created to hide the company's debt - more on that later) has no experience operating any business outside of India. Worse, it has never successfully built and operated a coal mine - ever. That's right, the company planning to develop the world's largest vertically integrated coal export project smack dab in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef has no experience doing anything like this. This should turn out well. But there's a coal supercycle, never ending demand shall save this from catastrophe right? Not quite. Under existing financial assumptions, the Alpha Project's cost of coal production is likely to render the project uneconomic. The Newcastle FOB thermal coal price is currently around US$88/t, 30% below the peak seen in 2008. This leaves little headroom to move against a largely debt-funded US$10bn project proposal with a cash cost of production estimated to be at least US$70/t. Why does this matter? Because GVK is claiming production costs of US$55/t. Add to that Australian mining history which suggests capital cost blowouts of over 20% are likely, and you have a lot of lost cash.

It's ironic because the first time I wrote about this project I was disgusted that the US Export Import Bank would be involved with a project whose environmental impact would be so large Australia's federal environment minister Toney Burke called its review a 'shambolic joke.' Now I'm disgusted any self respecting investor would give this proposal the time of day. After this report finds its way to Aurizon I'm guessing they'll personally thank Tom Sanzillo and Tim Buckley for saving them billions.

Google Community | Chinese Premier Li Keqiang is wrapping up his visit to Germany and says China wants to work with the European Union to build up trust and cooperation. China and Germany have pledged to strengthen extensive economic cooperation as the two sides signed 17 deals on manufacturing, investment, agriculture and energy saving.

The Chinese Premier says the visit to Germany shows the new Chinese leadership highly values its relation with the European Union. He says the common interests between China and Europe are far greater than the differences. That comment comes as Li Keqiang once again reiterated China's opposition to the EU's pursuit of anti-dumping cases them.

"We decisively disapprove of this decision. This decision will not only endanger jobs in China and the development of the affected sectors, it will also endanger the European sector in that area."

Meng Hong, an expert on German studies with China Renmin University, says consultation is the best way-out.

"Actually, not only Germany but also other European companies in related industries are protesting against double tariffs imposed on solar products made in China. If sanctions are put on Chinese solar companies, development of certain industries in Europe might be affected. All of us are hoping to find an appropriate way out through compromise and consultation rather than intensifying the problem."

Earlier, Germany officially told the European Commission it did not back the imposition of import duties averaging at around 47 percent on Chinese solar panels. The Chinese Premier says they want to work with European countries to promote cooperation.

An example of that's perhaps the free trade agreement signed during Li Keqiang's visit to Switzerland, making them the first European country to do so.

Feng Zhongping, the director of the European Studies with China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, says the deal serves as a model for the cooperation with the rest of Europe.

"The free trade agreement will boost bilateral trade and investment, especially the cooperation in financial field. China is Switzerland's largest economic partner in Asia, and the FTA will cut down restrictions on trade including tariff, so the deal is a key move. "

Germany now, is the Premier's last leg of his first ever overseas tour since taking office.

Along with Switzerland, it also included visits to India and Pakistan.

As far as Europe is concerned, the Chinese Premier says they want to see a strong Europe and that China's development will only present more opportunities to not just European but the global economy.