FROM: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Acting Assistant Attorney General Mythili Raman Testifies Before the U.S. House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
~ Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Chairman McHenry, Ranking Member Green, and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee: Thank you for inviting the Department of Justice to appear before you today to discuss our efforts to combat financial crime. I am pleased to be here and am privileged to oversee the important work of the Criminal Division.
The Justice Department is committed to vigorously investigating allegations of wrongdoing at financial institutions and, along with our many law enforcement partners, holding individuals and corporations to account for their conduct.
Our track record in recent years shows our commitment to pursuing the most challenging and complex financial crime investigations in the country. Over the last three fiscal years alone, the Department has filed nearly 10,000 financial fraud cases against nearly 14,500 defendants. These prosecutions have led to stiff prison sentences for many defendants. Last year, for example, the Criminal Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Houston secured a 110-year sentence for Robert Allen Stanford for orchestrating a 20-year, $7 billion investment fraud scheme – just one of numerous investment fraud schemes the Department has prosecuted in recent years.
We have been just as aggressive in bringing prosecutions involving the manipulation of the markets, as seen by the extraordinary success of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan in an unprecedented string of insider trading cases over the last several years.
Our prosecutors and agents also continue to doggedly pursue health care fraudsters. Our Medicare Fraud Strike Force has convicted over 1,000 defendants of felony health care fraud offenses since the Strike Force’s inception, and the average sentence in Strike Force cases is approximately 45 months in prison.
Our fight against foreign bribery, too, is as robust as it has ever been. In just the past two months, we have announced charges against 11 individuals – including corporate executives and employees, and one foreign official – in active Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigations.
Similarly, our investigation of the manipulation at various banks of interbank lending rates, including LIBOR, has had reverberations across the globe. As detailed in my written statement, the consequences thus far for several multinational banks have been far reaching, ranging from replacement of senior leaders at Barclays, to criminal charges against traders at UBS, to detailed admissions of criminal wrongdoing and the payment of substantial penalties by three global banks, to felony guilty plea agreements by Japanese subsidiaries of UBS and RBS.
As is evident from this track record, we are deeply committed to holding wrongdoers – whether individuals or business entities – to account for their crimes. In our investigations of business entities, in particular, we are guided by firmly rooted Department policy, set out in the U.S. Attorneys’ Manual, which requires our prosecutors to consider a number of factors in determining how and whether to bring charges – including the seriousness of the entity’s conduct, the pervasiveness of the wrongdoing, the extent of the entity’s cooperation with our investigation, and the remedial actions taken by the company.
There has been some discussion in recent months about one of those factors – the potential collateral consequences of charging a corporate entity – and we appreciate your interest in better understanding the extent to which the Department may consider possible collateral consequences of criminal prosecutions against large, complex financial institutions.
The consideration of collateral consequences on innocent third parties, like the other factors we must consider when determining whether and how to proceed against a corporation, has been required by the U.S. Attorneys’ Manual since 2008. But the basic principles underlying that policy have a much longer history at the Department. The first Department-wide guidance on this subject was issued in 1999, and those basic principles have been reaffirmed multiple times since then, including in 2003, 2006, and 2008.
As more fully explained in my written statement, although the factors set forth in the U.S. Attorneys’ Manual, for good reason, inform our prosecutorial decisions, none of those factors, including potential collateral consequences, acts as a bar to prosecution, or has prevented the Justice Department from pursuing investigations and seeking criminal penalties in cases involving large, complex financial institutions. No individual or institution is immune from prosecution, and we intend to continue our aggressive pursuit of financial fraud with the same strong commitment with which we pursue other criminal matters of national and international significance.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide the Subcommittee with this overview of our financial fraud enforcement efforts. I look forward to answering any questions you may have.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
TOTAL S.A. WILL PAY $398 MILLION TO SETTLE SEC'S BRIBERY CHARGES REGARDING AN IRANIAN OFFICIAL
FROM: U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C., May 29, 2013 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged France-based oil and gas company Total S.A. with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by paying $60 million in bribes to intermediaries of an Iranian government official who then exercised his influence to help the company obtain valuable contracts to develop significant oil and gas fields in Iran.
The SEC alleges that Total made more than $150 million in profits through the bribery scheme. Total attempted to cover up the true nature of the illegal payments by entering into sham consulting agreements with intermediaries of the Iranian official and mischaracterizing the bribes in its books and records as legitimate "business development expenses" related to the consulting agreements. Total had inadequate systems to properly review the consulting agreements and lacked sufficient internal controls to comply with federal laws prohibiting bribery.
Total, whose securities are publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange, agreed to pay more than $398 million to settle the SEC’s charges and a parallel criminal matter announced today by the U.S. Department of Justice.
"Total used illicit payments to win business in Iran, and reaped substantial financial benefits as a result," said Andrew M. Calamari, Director of the SEC’s New York Regional Office. "Total must now pay back all of its profits from the company’s corrupt conduct and additionally pay criminal penalties on top of that."
According to the SEC’s order instituting settled administrative proceedings, Total negotiated a development contract in 1995 with the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) for the country’s Sirri A and E oil and gas fields. Prior to executing the contract, Total held a meeting with the Iranian official and agreed to enter into a purported consulting agreement with an intermediary he designated. They agreed that Total would make payments to the intermediary under the guise of a consulting agreement when the real purpose was to induce the Iranian official to use his influence to help obtain NIOC’s approval of the development agreement. After the contract was executed, Total corruptly made the bribery payments that resulted in NIOC allowing Total to develop the Sirri A and E oil and gas fields and make more than $150 million in profits.
The SEC’s order requires Total to pay disgorgement of $153 million in illicit profits and retain an independent compliance consultant to review and report on Total’s compliance with the FCPA. Total also must cease and desist from committing or causing any violations of Section 30A, Section 13(b)(2)(A), and Section 13(b)(2)(B) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
In the parallel criminal proceedings, Total agreed to pay a $245.2 million penalty as part of a deferred prosecution agreement. Total also was charged today by the prosecutor of Paris (François Molins, Procureur de la République) of the Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris for violations of French laws.
The SEC’s investigation was led by Sharon Binger, Alex Janghorbani, and Barry O’Connell of the New York Regional Office’s Enforcement Division with significant assistance from the SEC Enforcement Division’s FCPA Unit and the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division’s Fraud Section. The SEC also appreciates the assistance of French regulatory authorities.
Washington, D.C., May 29, 2013 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged France-based oil and gas company Total S.A. with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by paying $60 million in bribes to intermediaries of an Iranian government official who then exercised his influence to help the company obtain valuable contracts to develop significant oil and gas fields in Iran.
The SEC alleges that Total made more than $150 million in profits through the bribery scheme. Total attempted to cover up the true nature of the illegal payments by entering into sham consulting agreements with intermediaries of the Iranian official and mischaracterizing the bribes in its books and records as legitimate "business development expenses" related to the consulting agreements. Total had inadequate systems to properly review the consulting agreements and lacked sufficient internal controls to comply with federal laws prohibiting bribery.
Total, whose securities are publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange, agreed to pay more than $398 million to settle the SEC’s charges and a parallel criminal matter announced today by the U.S. Department of Justice.
"Total used illicit payments to win business in Iran, and reaped substantial financial benefits as a result," said Andrew M. Calamari, Director of the SEC’s New York Regional Office. "Total must now pay back all of its profits from the company’s corrupt conduct and additionally pay criminal penalties on top of that."
According to the SEC’s order instituting settled administrative proceedings, Total negotiated a development contract in 1995 with the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) for the country’s Sirri A and E oil and gas fields. Prior to executing the contract, Total held a meeting with the Iranian official and agreed to enter into a purported consulting agreement with an intermediary he designated. They agreed that Total would make payments to the intermediary under the guise of a consulting agreement when the real purpose was to induce the Iranian official to use his influence to help obtain NIOC’s approval of the development agreement. After the contract was executed, Total corruptly made the bribery payments that resulted in NIOC allowing Total to develop the Sirri A and E oil and gas fields and make more than $150 million in profits.
The SEC’s order requires Total to pay disgorgement of $153 million in illicit profits and retain an independent compliance consultant to review and report on Total’s compliance with the FCPA. Total also must cease and desist from committing or causing any violations of Section 30A, Section 13(b)(2)(A), and Section 13(b)(2)(B) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
In the parallel criminal proceedings, Total agreed to pay a $245.2 million penalty as part of a deferred prosecution agreement. Total also was charged today by the prosecutor of Paris (François Molins, Procureur de la République) of the Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris for violations of French laws.
The SEC’s investigation was led by Sharon Binger, Alex Janghorbani, and Barry O’Connell of the New York Regional Office’s Enforcement Division with significant assistance from the SEC Enforcement Division’s FCPA Unit and the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division’s Fraud Section. The SEC also appreciates the assistance of French regulatory authorities.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
ISAF NEWS FROM AFGHANISTAN FOR MAY 29, 2013
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| U.S. Army Staff Sgts. Matthew J. Bubb, left, and Jeremy N. Butler use the optic lenses on their weapons to scan rows of grapes after the unit received fire during a traffic control point in the Panjwai district in Afghanistan's Kandahar province, May 23, 2013. Bubb and Butler are assigned to 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Shane Hamann |
FROM: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Combined Force Arrests Insurgent in Kandahar
From an International Security Assistance Force Joint Command News Release
KABUL, Afghanistan, May 29, 2013 - A combined Afghan and coalition security force arrested an insurgent during a search for a Taliban facilitator in Kandahar province's capital of Kandahar today, military officials reported.
The facilitator builds improvised explosive devices and distributes them to insurgents operating in the Arghandab River Valley and the provincial capital. He also oversees weapons caches and plans attacks against Afghan and coalition forces.
In Afghanistan operations yesterday:
-- A combined force in Balkh province's Chimtal district arrested a senior Taliban leader who plans and conducts IED attacks against Afghan government officials and Afghan and coalition forces. He also facilitates the transfer, manufacturing and testing of IEDs, coordinates and conducts kidnappings for ransom to fund insurgent operations, and coordinates the movement of insurgent fighters.
-- In Logar province's Muhammad Aghah district, a combined force wounded an insurgent during a search for a Taliban facilitator who transports fighters, weapons and suicide bombers. He also controls a group that attacks Afghan and coalition forces, equips suicide bombers with IEDs and coordinates the locations of their attacks.
-- A combined force in Paktia province's Gardez district arrested a Haqqani network leader who coordinates and directs attacks against Afghan and coalition forces and facilitates the movement of weapons, equipment and money to local insurgent cells. He also serves as an intelligence operative for senior Haqqani leadership.
THE AIRMAN AND THE TORNADO
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| Air Force Senior Airman Brandon Tucker, a crew communication specialist with the 185th Air Refueling Squadron, steps through a space where a window once was at his home in Moore, Okla., May 22, 2013. Moore was heavily damaged following a deadly tornado that passed through central Oklahoma on May 20, 2013. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Daniel Nelson Jr. |
Oklahoma Airman Experiences Moore Tornado's Wrath
By Army Sgt. Daniel Nelson Jr.
145th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment
MOORE, Okla., May 23, 2013 - The Midwest region is certainly no stranger to inclement weather, having heavy snow and ice in the winter months and severe thunderstorms and deadly tornados during the spring and summer.
However, the recent string of storms that have passed through the region have left the Oklahoma communities of Newcastle, Moore, Oklahoma City and Shawnee in tatters, displacing hundreds of families, and resulting in 26 confirmed deaths.
For many residents affected by the record EF-5 tornado that tore through the central Oklahoma landscape, the week began with an anticipation of thunderstorms and heavy rain. That all changed May 20 as a deadly tornado developed southwest of Oklahoma City. The tornado grew as it moved through southeastern Oklahoma City and across Moore.
In the wake of the destruction, first responders from across the country began to pour into Moore and Oklahoma City, including support from the Oklahoma National Guard.
For one Oklahoma Air National Guardsman, the tornado came only a month after he returned from a six-month deployment to the Middle East. Air Force Senior Airman Brandon Tucker, a crew communication specialist with the 185th Air Refueling Squadron, was at home working in his garage, getting his personal items moved back into his house after deciding to take his house off the real estate market.
"I was here right before the tornado came through," Tucker said. "I noticed that the wind had picked up quite a bit, and all of a sudden it just stopped, which I thought that was kind of odd. I walked inside in time to see Gary England announce that a tornado was heading toward the Newcastle Casino. I high-tailed it out of there."
The citizens of Oklahoma City and Moore sought cover wherever they could and braced for their lives. The tornado left a trail of destruction stretching 17 miles from Newcastle to southeast Oklahoma City.
Search-and-rescue efforts immediately began as first responders, Oklahoma National Guardsmen and citizens of surrounding communities converged on the area in hopes of finding survivors. As the nation anxiously watched, news reports shifted from severe weather coverage to rescues and how others could contribute through much-needed donations.
With entire neighborhoods having been being wiped out by the tornado's wrath, hundreds of Oklahomans were finding themselves homeless, and with only the clothes on their backs. Many of the residents started sifting through piles of debris and rubble in hopes of finding any personal items not swept away by the tornado's more than 200 mph winds. Some of the neighborhoods were unreachable other than by foot or were too dangerous to allow residents back into as first responders were faced with fires, natural gas leaks and unstable structures.
"It was a full 24 hours before I was able to get back home with the streets so littered with debris; you just couldn't get through any other way than by foot," Tucker said. "When I finally got back, I could hardly recognize my house. I was overwhelmed by the amount of damage."
Some of Tucker's fellow National Guardsmen went with him as he rummaged through a pile of debris that now stands where his house once was. With the support of his military family that includes his father, Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Kevin Tucker, public affairs sergeant for the 137th Air Refueling Wing, Brandon Tucker has begun the long process of cleaning and rebuilding.
"I was able to find a couple of pictures that could not be replaced with just money, and my pet has also safely made it through all of this with me," Brandon Tucker said.
Oklahoma City has seen the effects of deadly tornados time and again in the past, and the resiliency of its citizens will help those who were most directly affected.
Like Brandon, the many people impacted have the support of the nation, the Oklahoma National Guard and the communities in which they live as they cope with loss and rebuild their lives.
SEED DISPERSAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS IN AFRICAN FORESTS
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| Nouabale-Ndoki National Park in Central Africa, site of the scientists' research. Credit: Wikimedia Commons |
Seeing the Forest for the Trees: Seed Dispersal, Environmental Conditions Matter in African Forests
Nouabale-Ndoki National Park is a tree-dotted enclave in Central Africa's Republic of Congo. Heavy logging surrounds the park, but it still has one of the largest intact forests in Africa. In recognition, it recently became a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Trees--thousands of them--make up a forest. How did Nouabale-Ndoki's trees become so numerous, and how do they stay that way?
The answer, say biologists, lies far below the tree canopy, in the soil where seedlings sprout.
Today in the journal PLOS ONE, scientists report results of an extensive seedling experiment in Nouabale-Ndoki National Park.
The research, which involved sowing 40,000 seeds of five tree species, is a new look at "seeing the forest for the trees."
The findings, which show what limits seedling growth, are important to reforestation efforts in areas that have been logged.
Every tree can produce hundreds of thousands of seeds in its lifetime, but on average, only one seed survives to adulthood, says John Poulsen of Duke University, a co-author of the journal paper.
Other paper co-authors are Connie Clark, also of Duke, and Doug Levey, formerly of the University of Florida and now a program director in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Environmental Biology.
Which seeds have the best chance of making it to old age?
"There are basically two ways to look at successful seedling recruitment [survival]," says Levey. "Species may be seed-limited or establishment-limited."
A tree species is seed-limited if its ability to grow is determined by whether its seeds reach a particular location on the ground. The seeds may arrive on the wind or simply by falling from trees.
Establishment-limited trees are those that depend on the environment around them, rather than on seeds landing in just the right spot. If the soil is too wet or there is too much shade, a species is establishment-limited.
To test the importance of these two limitations on seedling recruitment, the scientists sowed tens of thousands of seeds.
They chose the species randomly, which allowed the results to be generalized to all tree species, not just the most common ones, says Poulsen.
The seeds were planted in different amounts in plots that stretched across an area the size of the state of Rhode Island.
Latter-day Johnny Appleseeds, the researchers couldn't do it alone, however.
"We hired a small army of indigenous, Mbendzélé hunter-gatherers," says Clark. "These families could easily locate seeds, and we were the beneficiaries of their intimate knowledge of the forest's natural history."
After the seeds were planted, the ecologists watched them grow into seedlings over two years.
They found that only a small fraction of seeds, some 16 percent, became seedlings. An even smaller amount, about six percent, survived to reach their second birthdays.
When numbers of seeds were at one end of a spectrum--rare or abundant--the trees' recruitment was seed-limited.
"When seeds were at intermediate densities," says Levey, "the chance of recruitment was influenced by environmental factors such as soil type and sunlight."
The importance of seed- and establishment-limitation changes over time, Levey says. "As individual trees get older, they need the correct soil and light exposure [become more establishment-limited]."
Not that different from our changing needs for the right nutrients and enough light as we reach our sunset years.
FORMER COP AND TWO MEMBERS OF LATIN KINGS GANG SENTENCED TO PRISON
FROM: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Former Chicago Police Officer and Two Members of Latin Kings Street Gang Sentenced in Indiana for Racketeering Conspiracy and Related Crimes
A former Chicago police officer and two members of the Latin Kings street gang were sentenced to prison today in Hammond, Ind., federal court for racketeering conspiracy and related crimes.
Assistant Attorney General Mythili Raman of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney David Capp of the Northern District of Indiana made the announcement following the sentencing hearings before U.S. District Judge Rudy Lozano in the Northern District of Indiana.
A former officer with the Chicago Police Department, Antonio C. Martinez, Jr., 40, of Chicago, was sentenced today to 144 months in prison after pleading guilty on Nov. 18, 2011, to racketeering, drug, and robbery conspiracies and other related charges. According to court records, Martinez and another officer committed armed robberies on behalf of a Latin Kings gang member – in some instances while in uniform and driving police-issued vehicles. They stole drugs, weapons and cash, and in some instances they were given a portion of the funds they stole as payment for committing the armed robberies.
Hiluterio Chavez, aka "Tails," 37, of Chicago, was sentenced today to 240 months in prison after pleading guilty on Jan. 24, 2012, to racketeering and drug conspiracies. Chavez, who became a Latin Kings member at an earlier age, admitted in court that he traveled with other Latin Kings leadership from the Chicago area to Texas to facilitate the organization of the Latin Kings in Texas and to ensure their allegiance to the Chicago Latin Kings. Among other crimes, Chavez participated in a robbery with Martinez and presented himself as a law enforcement officer.
Jermaine Ellis, aka "J-Dub," 21, of Chicago, was sentenced today to 205 months in prison after pleading guilty on July 30, 2010, to racketeering conspiracy. Ellis, who also became a Latin Kings member at an early age, admitted that while a juvenile he participated in the shooting deaths of James Walsh and Gonzalo Diaz in Griffith, Ind., on Feb. 25, 2007.
Court records allege that the Latin Kings is a nationwide gang that originated in Chicago and has branched out throughout the United States. The Latin Kings is a well-organized street gang that has specific leadership and is composed of regions that include multiple chapters.
The Latin Kings enforces its rules and promotes discipline among its members, prospects and associates through murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to murder, assault and threats against those who violate the rules or pose a threat to the Latin Kings. Members are required to follow the orders of higher-ranking members, including taking on assignments often referred to as "missions."
Twenty-three Latin Kings members and associates have been indicted in this case. Aside from Martinez, Ellis and Chavez, 19 of the other defendants pleaded guilty and one remains a fugitive.
This case was investigated by the FBI; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Drug Enforcement Administration; ICE Homeland Security Investigations; the National Gang Intelligence Center; the Chicago Police Department; the Houston Police Department; the Griffith Police Department; the Highland Police Department; the Hammond Police Department; and the East Chicago Police Department.
The case is being prosecuted by Joseph A. Cooley of the Criminal Division’s Organized Crime and Gang Section and David J. Nozick of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Indiana. Andrew Porter of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois provided significant assistance.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Former Chicago Police Officer and Two Members of Latin Kings Street Gang Sentenced in Indiana for Racketeering Conspiracy and Related Crimes
A former Chicago police officer and two members of the Latin Kings street gang were sentenced to prison today in Hammond, Ind., federal court for racketeering conspiracy and related crimes.
Assistant Attorney General Mythili Raman of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney David Capp of the Northern District of Indiana made the announcement following the sentencing hearings before U.S. District Judge Rudy Lozano in the Northern District of Indiana.
A former officer with the Chicago Police Department, Antonio C. Martinez, Jr., 40, of Chicago, was sentenced today to 144 months in prison after pleading guilty on Nov. 18, 2011, to racketeering, drug, and robbery conspiracies and other related charges. According to court records, Martinez and another officer committed armed robberies on behalf of a Latin Kings gang member – in some instances while in uniform and driving police-issued vehicles. They stole drugs, weapons and cash, and in some instances they were given a portion of the funds they stole as payment for committing the armed robberies.
Hiluterio Chavez, aka "Tails," 37, of Chicago, was sentenced today to 240 months in prison after pleading guilty on Jan. 24, 2012, to racketeering and drug conspiracies. Chavez, who became a Latin Kings member at an earlier age, admitted in court that he traveled with other Latin Kings leadership from the Chicago area to Texas to facilitate the organization of the Latin Kings in Texas and to ensure their allegiance to the Chicago Latin Kings. Among other crimes, Chavez participated in a robbery with Martinez and presented himself as a law enforcement officer.
Jermaine Ellis, aka "J-Dub," 21, of Chicago, was sentenced today to 205 months in prison after pleading guilty on July 30, 2010, to racketeering conspiracy. Ellis, who also became a Latin Kings member at an early age, admitted that while a juvenile he participated in the shooting deaths of James Walsh and Gonzalo Diaz in Griffith, Ind., on Feb. 25, 2007.
Court records allege that the Latin Kings is a nationwide gang that originated in Chicago and has branched out throughout the United States. The Latin Kings is a well-organized street gang that has specific leadership and is composed of regions that include multiple chapters.
The Latin Kings enforces its rules and promotes discipline among its members, prospects and associates through murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to murder, assault and threats against those who violate the rules or pose a threat to the Latin Kings. Members are required to follow the orders of higher-ranking members, including taking on assignments often referred to as "missions."
Twenty-three Latin Kings members and associates have been indicted in this case. Aside from Martinez, Ellis and Chavez, 19 of the other defendants pleaded guilty and one remains a fugitive.
This case was investigated by the FBI; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Drug Enforcement Administration; ICE Homeland Security Investigations; the National Gang Intelligence Center; the Chicago Police Department; the Houston Police Department; the Griffith Police Department; the Highland Police Department; the Hammond Police Department; and the East Chicago Police Department.
The case is being prosecuted by Joseph A. Cooley of the Criminal Division’s Organized Crime and Gang Section and David J. Nozick of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Indiana. Andrew Porter of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois provided significant assistance.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
U.S. AND EU ON GLOBAL NONPROLIFERATION OF WMD
FROM: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
U.S., EU Lead Global Nonproliferation, Biosurveillance Efforts
By Cheryl Pellerin
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, May 28, 2013 - As nuclear, biological and chemical threats continue to evolve worldwide, partnership between the United States and European Union countries to counter such threats remains critical, a senior Defense Department official said today in Helsinki.
Andrew C. Weber, assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs, spoke at a meeting of the Atlantic Council on U.S.-European Union cooperation in countering the use of weapons of mass destruction.
The Atlantic Council is a public policy institution founded in 1961 to promote transatlantic cooperation and international security.
"In the coming years," Weber said, "our countries must continue to work together to raise safety and security standards, strengthen the Global Partnership and the [Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons], detect and report threats in real time, and promote disarmament."
The Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction consists of 25 countries, including 12 members of the European Union, works to reduce the global risk.
Such threats, Weber added, "are evolving in ways that affect all of our countries."
Increasing globalization, advances in dual-use technologies, and the emergence of new microbes and drug-resistant pathogens are complicating the ability to meet nonproliferation and counterproliferation goals, the assistant secretary observed.
Advances in technology and the work of illicit networks are making it easier for nonstate actors to access materials needed to produce weapons of mass destruction, he added, and the regimes in Syria and North Korea "are proving that we must maintain our focus on state-sponsored programs."
The European Union and the United States have made firm commitments to addressing the full range of concerns about weapons of mass destruction, Weber said.
"As Finland's 2012 Security and Defense Policy report points out," he continued, 'In the era of global challenges the EU and the United States, being close strategic partners, are expected to cooperate to achieve lasting solutions.'"
Cooperation is especially important in addressing threats of this magnitude and complexity, he said. "As Finland's defense policy report notes," he added, "the U.S. administration believes strongly in using partnerships and cooperation to mitigate global threats."
Weber called this a guiding principle for efforts to counter weapons of mass destruction threats.
In December, he noted, President Barack Obama said the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction, or CTR, program to reduce nuclear, biological and chemical threats is one of the most important U.S. national security programs and a perfect example of the kind of partnerships needed to meet challenges that no nation can address on its own.
"For two decades, our cooperative threat reduction work focused on the former Soviet Union and on reducing nuclear threats. Since then, it has evolved both geographically and by focus area," Weber said. That evolution, along with other collaborative efforts, is increasing the cooperative threat reduction focus on biological threats, he noted.
"The United States looks forward to working with international partners to launch, enhance and link global networks for real-time biosurveillance, expanding International Health Regulation capabilities across the globe and developing novel diagnostics," he said, adding that many European Union countries with advanced biological-science sectors are helping to build global reporting networks.
Weber said that uniting the health, security and emergency-response sectors in the United States and European Union countries is critical to preparedness for any kind of threat.
"By applying this principal to our international partnerships, both the EU and the United States are contributing to more resilient communities around the world," he added.
The European Union and the United States also lead the world on a path toward disarmament, the assistant secretary said, and strengthening the nonproliferation treaty and other nonproliferation initiatives remains a core principle of their defense strategies.
Weber recognized Finland's leadership on this and its commitment to moving toward a weapons-of-mass-destruction-free zone in the Middle East. He also commended the efforts of Ambassador Jaakko Laajava, Finnish undersecretary of state for foreign and security policy, to set the conditions for making this vision a reality.
"For the United States," he said, "President Obama has set a bold vision for disarmament and continues to prioritize the Nuclear Security Summit process ... [and] established ambitious goals for a world safe and secure from biological threats."
The assistant secretary quoted part of Obama's 2012 address before the U.N. General Assembly: "We must come together to prevent and detect and fight every kind of biological danger -- whether it's a pandemic like H1N1, or a terrorist threat, or a treatable disease.'"
Under the president's leadership, Weber said, "the United States now has national strategies for countering biological threats and advancing global biosurveillance capabilities."
U.S., EU Lead Global Nonproliferation, Biosurveillance Efforts
By Cheryl Pellerin
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, May 28, 2013 - As nuclear, biological and chemical threats continue to evolve worldwide, partnership between the United States and European Union countries to counter such threats remains critical, a senior Defense Department official said today in Helsinki.
Andrew C. Weber, assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs, spoke at a meeting of the Atlantic Council on U.S.-European Union cooperation in countering the use of weapons of mass destruction.
The Atlantic Council is a public policy institution founded in 1961 to promote transatlantic cooperation and international security.
"In the coming years," Weber said, "our countries must continue to work together to raise safety and security standards, strengthen the Global Partnership and the [Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons], detect and report threats in real time, and promote disarmament."
The Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction consists of 25 countries, including 12 members of the European Union, works to reduce the global risk.
Such threats, Weber added, "are evolving in ways that affect all of our countries."
Increasing globalization, advances in dual-use technologies, and the emergence of new microbes and drug-resistant pathogens are complicating the ability to meet nonproliferation and counterproliferation goals, the assistant secretary observed.
Advances in technology and the work of illicit networks are making it easier for nonstate actors to access materials needed to produce weapons of mass destruction, he added, and the regimes in Syria and North Korea "are proving that we must maintain our focus on state-sponsored programs."
The European Union and the United States have made firm commitments to addressing the full range of concerns about weapons of mass destruction, Weber said.
"As Finland's 2012 Security and Defense Policy report points out," he continued, 'In the era of global challenges the EU and the United States, being close strategic partners, are expected to cooperate to achieve lasting solutions.'"
Cooperation is especially important in addressing threats of this magnitude and complexity, he said. "As Finland's defense policy report notes," he added, "the U.S. administration believes strongly in using partnerships and cooperation to mitigate global threats."
Weber called this a guiding principle for efforts to counter weapons of mass destruction threats.
In December, he noted, President Barack Obama said the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction, or CTR, program to reduce nuclear, biological and chemical threats is one of the most important U.S. national security programs and a perfect example of the kind of partnerships needed to meet challenges that no nation can address on its own.
"For two decades, our cooperative threat reduction work focused on the former Soviet Union and on reducing nuclear threats. Since then, it has evolved both geographically and by focus area," Weber said. That evolution, along with other collaborative efforts, is increasing the cooperative threat reduction focus on biological threats, he noted.
"The United States looks forward to working with international partners to launch, enhance and link global networks for real-time biosurveillance, expanding International Health Regulation capabilities across the globe and developing novel diagnostics," he said, adding that many European Union countries with advanced biological-science sectors are helping to build global reporting networks.
Weber said that uniting the health, security and emergency-response sectors in the United States and European Union countries is critical to preparedness for any kind of threat.
"By applying this principal to our international partnerships, both the EU and the United States are contributing to more resilient communities around the world," he added.
The European Union and the United States also lead the world on a path toward disarmament, the assistant secretary said, and strengthening the nonproliferation treaty and other nonproliferation initiatives remains a core principle of their defense strategies.
Weber recognized Finland's leadership on this and its commitment to moving toward a weapons-of-mass-destruction-free zone in the Middle East. He also commended the efforts of Ambassador Jaakko Laajava, Finnish undersecretary of state for foreign and security policy, to set the conditions for making this vision a reality.
"For the United States," he said, "President Obama has set a bold vision for disarmament and continues to prioritize the Nuclear Security Summit process ... [and] established ambitious goals for a world safe and secure from biological threats."
The assistant secretary quoted part of Obama's 2012 address before the U.N. General Assembly: "We must come together to prevent and detect and fight every kind of biological danger -- whether it's a pandemic like H1N1, or a terrorist threat, or a treatable disease.'"
Under the president's leadership, Weber said, "the United States now has national strategies for countering biological threats and advancing global biosurveillance capabilities."
FUTURE THREAT TO HUMANS MAY COME FROM THE BANDED MONGOOSE
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| Banded Mongoose. Credit: Wikimedia. |
Human Disease Leptospirosis Identified in New Species, the Banded Mongoose, in Africa
The newest public health threat in Africa, scientists have found, is coming from a previously unknown source: the banded mongoose.
Leptospirosis, the disease is called. And the banded mongoose carries it.
Leptospirosis is the world's most common illness transmitted to humans by animals. It's a two-phase disease that begins with flu-like symptoms. If untreated, it can cause meningitis, liver damage, pulmonary hemorrhage, renal failure and death.
"The problem in Botswana and much of Africa is that leptospirosis may remain unidentified in animal populations but contribute to human disease, possibly misdiagnosed as other diseases such as malaria," said disease ecologist Kathleen Alexander of Virginia Tech.
With a grant from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Coupled Natural and Human Systems Program, Alexander and colleagues found that the banded mongoose in Botswana is infected with Leptospira interrogans, the pathogen that causes leptospirosis.
Coupled Natural and Human Systems is part of NSF's Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability investment and is supported by NSF's Directorates for Biological Sciences; Geosciences; and Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences.
"The transmission of infectious diseases from wildlife to humans represents a serious and growing public health risk due to increasing contact between humans and animals," said Alan Tessier, program director in NSF's Division of Environmental Biology. "This study identified an important new avenue for the spread of leptospirosis."
The results are published today in a paper in the journal Zoonoses and Public Health. The paper was co-authored by Alexander, Sarah Jobbins and Claire Sanderson of Virginia Tech.
The banded mongoose, although wild, lives in close proximity to humans, sharing scarce water resources and scavenging in human waste.
The disease-causing pathogen it carries can pass to humans through soil or water contaminated with infected urine.
Mongoose and other species are consumed as bushmeat, which may also contribute to leptospirosis exposure and infection in humans.
"I was convinced that we were going to find Leptospira interrogans in some species in the ecosystem," said Alexander.
"The pathogen had not been reported previously in Botswana, with the exception of one cow more than a quarter of a century ago.
"We looked at public health records dating back to 1974 and there were no records of any human cases of leptospirosis. Doctors said they were not expecting to see the disease in patients. They were not aware that the pathogen occurred in the country."
Alexander conducted a long-term study of human, wildlife and environmental health in the Chobe District of Northern Botswana, an area that includes the Chobe National Park, forest reserves and surrounding villages.
"This pathogen can infect many animals, both wild and domestic, including dogs," said Jobbins. "Banded mongoose is likely not the only species infected."
The researchers worked to understand how people, animals and the environment are connected, including the potential for diseases to move between humans and wildlife.
"Diseases such as leptospirosis that have been around for a very long time are often overlooked amid the hunt for the next newly emerging disease," Alexander said.
Leptospirosis was first described in 1886, said Jobbins, "but we still know little about its occurrence in Africa."
With the new identification of leptospirosis in Botswana, Alexander is concerned about the public health threat it may pose to the immunocompromised population there. Some 25 percent of 15- to 49-year-olds are HIV positive.
"In much of Africa, people die without a cause being determined," she said.
"Leptospirosis is likely affecting human populations in this region. But without knowledge that the organism is present in the environment, overburdened public health officials are unlikely to identify clinical cases in humans, particularly if the supporting diagnostics are not easily accessible."
The researchers looked for Leptospira interrogans in archived kidneys collected from banded mongoose that had been found dead from a variety of causes. Of the sampled mongoose, 43 percent tested positive for the pathogen.
"Given this high prevalence in the mongoose, we believe that Botswana possesses an as-yet-unidentified burden of human leptospirosis," said Jobbins.
"There is an urgent need to look for this disease in people who have clinical signs consistent with infection."
Because banded mongoose have an extended range across sub-Saharan Africa, the results have important implications for public health beyond Botswana.
"Investigating exposure in other wildlife, and assessing what species act as carriers, is essential for improving our understanding of human, wildlife, and domestic animal risk of leptospirosis in this ecosystem," the scientists write in their paper.
The paper also cites predictions that the region will become more arid, concentrating humans and animals around limited water supplies and increasing the potential for disease transmission.
"Infectious diseases, particularly those that can be transmitted from animals, often occur where people are more vulnerable to environmental change and have less access to public health services," said Alexander.
"That's particularly true in Africa. While we're concerned about emerging diseases that might threaten public health--the next new pandemic--we need to be careful that we don't drop the ball and stop pursuing important diseases like leptospirosis."
Alexander is working to identify immediate research and management actions--in particular, alerting frontline medical practitioners and public health officials to the potential for leptospirosis in humans.
The research was also funded by the WildiZe Foundation. Jobbins and Sanderson were supported in part by Virginia Tech's Fralin Life Science Institute.
-NSF-
ISAF NEWS FROM AFGHANISTAN FOR MAY 28. 2013
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| A U.S. Marine offloads a container after conducting a combat logistics patrol to Forward Operating Base Shukvani in Helmand province, Afghanistan, May 19, 2013. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Anthony L. Ortiz |
FROM: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Combined Security Force Arrests Haqqani Network Leader
Compiled from International Security Assistance Force Joint Command News Releases
WASHINGTON, May 28, 2013 - A combined Afghan and coalition security force arrested a Haqqani network leader and seven other insurgents during an operation in the Gardez district of Afghanistan's Paktia province today, military officials reported.
The Haqqani leader is responsible for kidnappings of Afghan civilians, coordinates the movement of weapons and plans and executes attacks against Afghan and coalition forces.
In other Afghanistan operations today:
-- A combined force in Kandahar province's Kandahar City arrested a Taliban leader who controls a cell responsible for attacks against Afghan and coalition forces in the Panjwai district. He also is involved in financing insurgent operations, procuring weapons and conducting reconnaissance of Afghan and coalition installations. The security force also arrested another insurgent.
-- In Kandahar's Panjwai district, a combined force arrested three insurgents during a search for a Taliban facilitator who is responsible for acquiring weapons and equipment for attacks against Afghan and coalition forces. He also directs local improvised explosive device operations and manages weapons caches. The security force also seized opium in the operation.
In operations yesterday:
-- A combined force in Baghlan province's Baghlan-e Jadid district killed three insurgents during a search for a senior Taliban leader who facilitates IED attacks and manages insurgent weapon distribution.
-- In Kunar province's Watahpur district, a combined force killed two insurgents during a search for a senior leader who is responsible for al-Qaida operations in the Waygal and Watahpur Valley. He oversees al-Qaida training in Nuristan, and he plans and conducts attacks against Afghan and coalition forces.
-- A combined force in Helmand province's Nad-e Ali district arrested a senior Taliban leader who oversees a cell responsible for attacks against Afghan and coalition forces. He also procures weapons for insurgents and manages Taliban personnel actions in his area. The security force also arrested eight other insurgents and seized three rifles.
-- In Helmand's Nahr-e Saraj district, a combined force arrested a senior Taliban leader who controls insurgents responsible for attacks against Afghan and coalition forces. He also runs IED operations in two districts and has handled logistics for suicide bombings. The security force also arrested another insurgent and seized a pistol.
-- A combined force in Kandahar province's Zharay district arrested a Taliban leader who coordinates IED activity and facilitates Taliban weapon movement. The security force also arrested another insurgent.
In May 26 operations:
-- A combined force killed two insurgents during a search in Paktia province's Sayyid Karam district for a senior Haqqani network leader who is involved with IED attacks, coordinates insurgent movement and attacks, and provides information to senior Haqqani leaders. He also facilitates the movement of IEDs, weapons and money into the area.
-- In Logar province's Pul-e Alam district, a combined force arrested a Haqqani network high-profile attack facilitator who also houses transient Taliban commanders when they pass through his area. The security force also arrested another insurgent and seized more than 50 pounds of bomb-making materials.
-- A combined force arrested a Taliban facilitator who provides weapons and equipment for insurgent groups and coordinates suicide-bombing operations. The security force also arrested another insurgent.
In May 25 operations:
-- Afghan special forces soldiers, local police and coalition forces killed 22 insurgents after insurgents engaged the combined force with fire in Ghazni province's Gelan district. The forces were in the area to discuss the construction of future local police checkpoints with local residents when the incident took place. An Afghan quick reaction force joined the fight shortly after local police radioed the district operations coordination center for reinforcements. Following the engagement, Afghan forces recovered five motorcycles, weapons and ammunition.
-- In Nangarhar province's Achin district, a combined force killed eight insurgents during a search for a senior Taliban leader who has planned, coordinated and executed attacks against Afghan government facilities and against Afghan and coalition forces. He controls insurgent groups and relays operational guidance to them from senior Taliban leadership.
-- A combined force in Paktiya province's Gardez district arrested a Haqqani network high-profile attack facilitator who acquires weapons and equipment and distributes them to local insurgent groups. At the time of this arrest, officials said, he was actively planning an attack involving several suicide bombers. The security force also arrested another insurgent.
-- In Kandahar province's Arghandab district, a combined force arrested a Taliban facilitator responsible for procuring IEDs and distributing them to insurgent groups. He also is involved in indirect-fire attacks against Afghan and coalition forces. The security force also arrested two other insurgents and seized a handgun.
In May 24 operations:
-- Afghan local police killed a Taliban insurgent and wounded two others while defending the Haji Safraz checkpoint in Kunduz province's Archi district. The local police returned fire after Taliban fighters attacked the checkpoint with small-arms fire.
-- In Kandahar province's Mya Neshin district, Afghan special forces and local and uniformed police killed an insurgent while responding to an ambush targeting the district police chief.
-- A combined force in Logar province's Muhammad Aghah district killed two insurgents and wounded two others during a search for a Haqqani network-affiliated Taliban leader who plans, facilitates and executes attacks against Afghan and coalition forces. He purchases and distributes explosives, weapons and equipment for Taliban and Haqqani insurgent cells.
-- Provincial Response Company Ghazni, enabled by coalition forces, found and destroyed more than a ton of potassium chlorate, an ingredient in homemade explosives, in Ghazni province's Dey Yak district.
SECRETARY OF STATE KERRY'S REMARKS AT WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Remarks to Special Program on Breaking the Impasse World Economic Forum
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Dead Sea, Jordan
May 26, 2013
SECRETARY KERRY: Klaus, thank you very much for a very generous introduction. And it is wonderful to be here with all of you. I have enjoyed participating in the World Economic Forum for many years, as Klaus said in his introduction. And Klaus, I think everybody here joins me in thanking you for creating this remarkable and important institution. It gives people a great opportunity, and we thank you. (Applause.)
I want to thank – let me say, Mr. President Abbas and Mr. President Peres, thank you so much for those comments. I have an agreement here which you both can come up and sign if you want. (Laughter and applause.) We’ll get there, we’ll get there, we’ll get there.
Your Royal Highnesses and your Excellencies and distinguished many guests, I want to first begin just by expressing a very special thank you to His Majesty, King Abdullah. I think all of us are honored to be in a hall that is named after his father, who fought hard for peace, and I thank him for his leadership. I thank King Abdullah for his leadership on so many issues in the region. (Applause.)
It’s also very special for me to be here with President Peres. He is a great friend. For many years I have been meeting with him in Israel or elsewhere around the world, and I have long admired him for his remarkable, eloquent, and steady leadership. And thank you very much, Shimon, for what you do. (Applause.)
I’m also very, very pleased that President Abbas would be here and share his thoughts with us. He, too, is a friend who I have gotten to know better and better. We meet frequently now, and we all count on him to continue to be the essential partner for peace at this critical juncture. Thank you, Mr. President, for being here. (Applause.)
It’s also a great pleasure to be in this remarkable country of Jordan, and I thank my counterpart Nasser Judeh, who had to get back to Amman. But I thank him for his hospitality always, but more importantly for his partnership as we navigate these tricky waters. And I want to say a special thank you to the Quartet Representative, former Prime Minister Tony Blair. (Applause.) He has never lost his passion for or interest in peace in this region. He has labored hard in these last years, and he is working diligently on a special project that I want to share with you in a few minutes.
I also want to acknowledge Chairwoman Kay Granger, who is here from the United States Congress. She is the Chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Appropriations, and believe me, folks, she is critical to all of us here. (Applause.)
I spent the last week traveling through the Middle East and Africa, and I have spoken with national leaders, business leaders, community leaders, and young people. I just had a session with young people at the University of Addis Ababa earlier this morning. And we talked with them, as I have talked with all of these leaders, about the enormous choices that are before us – weighty decisions that confront us in the aftermath of the Arab Awakening – decisions that we need to make and reach before the demographic tipping points just around the corner begin to overwhelm us.
No one doubts that this is a very complex moment in international relations. But still, I don’t think that there is any secret about the conditions that are necessary for peace and stability to succeed. Those are: good governance, security, and economic opportunity. And so the real question for all of us, for President Abbas, President Peres, Prime Minister Netanyahu, all of us, is a very simple one: Will we, despite the historic hurdles, have the courage to make the choices that we know we need to make in order to break the stalemate and provide a change of life for people in this region?
How we answer that question will determine whether the popular revolutions that are transforming this region will indeed fulfill their promise. It will determine whether businesses and the booming youth populations across the Middle East and North Africa will realize their potential. It will determine whether we grasp the possibility of peace which I believe is actually within our reach.
I want to thank those who took part and are taking part and will continue to take part in the Breaking the Impasse. My good friends, Munib Masri, whom I have known and worked with and been to some of those private and quiet meetings with him in various places, and Yossi Vardi, thank you, both of you, for stepping up and being courageous. (Applause.) They represent a courageous and visionary group of people, civic and business leaders, Israelis and Palestinians who have I think the uncommon ability to look at an ageless stalemate and actually be able to see opportunities for progress.
And even as they found plenty to disagree on – and I understand they did in the course of their discussions – even as they fully understand the difficult history that is embedded in this conflict – they refuse to underestimate the potential for the future.
And that’s because Breaking the Impasse’s guiding principle is to respect the freedom and the dignity of all peoples.
I want you to think about that, and I want to put my comments about the peace process in a larger context, if I can for a minute.
As we all remember, it was the lack of that kind of basic respect that ignited the Arab Awakening. It started with a single protest – a street vendor who deserved the right to be able to sell his goods without police interruption and corruption. And then it spread to Cairo, where young Egyptians used their cell phones and tweeted and texted and Googled and called and summoned people to the cause. And they used the social media to organize and demand more jobs, more opportunity, and the liberty to embrace and direct their own destiny. In doing so, these individuals and these individual acts embraced values that are so powerful that they, against all probability, removed dictators who had served for years. And they did it in a matter of days.
Now, of course, there are sectarian and religious and ideological motivations to many of today’s clashes that have followed those events, but those events weren’t inspired by religious extremism or ideological extremism. They were driven by motivation for opportunity and a future.
And what is fundamentally driving the demand for change in this region is, in fact, generational. It’s about whether the massive populations of young people, still growing, has hope that there is something better on the horizon. It’s about opportunity and it’s about respect and it’s about dignity.
And the aspirations that are driving the extraordinary transformations that began in Tunisia and Tahrir Square – the same ones that sparked what has unraveled into a brutal civil war with some sectarian overtones at this point, those aspirations aren’t unique to any one country. They’re universal. They have driven all of history.
So we ignore the lessons of the Arab Awakening at our own peril. And with an important part of the world upside down, it is imperative that all of us channel our creativity and our energy into making sure that people actually do have better choices.
The public and private sectors alike – and this is where you all come into this. The public and private sectors alike have a fundamental responsibility to meet the demands of this moment. And one can’t do it without the other. We need you at the table, Munib and Yossi and all of you.
In fact, this moment is actually – this moment in history is actually one of the great stories of our time. But the ending remains unwritten, which is why what we’re doing here is actually important. Insh’allah, we get to write that ending.
And how we do that is what I want to talk to you about here today. We have to remember that the choices being made – whether they’re being made north of here in Syria, or south of here in Yemen, or just across the Jordan River in Jerusalem, or in Ramallah, or further west in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia – they all have something very important in common: They each offer two clear paths that really couldn’t be more different one from the other, and they couldn’t have more different consequences.
If we don’t eagerly grab this moment, we will condemn ourselves to future conflict. We are staring down a dangerous path filled with potential violence, with the capacity to harden divisions, increase instability. And as most here are very, very aware, this will be a path that will be haunted by violent extremists who rush to fill the vacuum filled by the failure of leadership.
As King Abdullah said here yesterday, extremism has "grown fat" on conflict. If we make the wrong choices or no choices at all, dangerous people will come to possess more of the world’s most dangerous weapons. We will face huge pressure on states from growing populations of refugees, just like the camps that are metastasizing just over here on the border of Jordan and Syria.
Now, everybody here knows it’s not that governments or people will purposefully choose that option. That’s not the concern. It’s that by failing to choose the alternative and failing to take the risks for peace and stability, those with power will make the worst possibilities inevitable.
So what is the other alternative? Let me talk about that a little bit.
Governments need to pay attention to governance. They need to be open, transparent, and accountable to people. And they need to be seen implementing a vision that addresses the needs of their people – the needs to be able to work, to get an education, to have an opportunity to be treated with that dignity and respect that brought people to Tahrir Square and to so many other causes in this region.
Countries like Egypt, Libya and Tunisia need to make the right choices, and that is a combination of building capacity – capacity for governance, capacity for security which doesn’t exist, capacity to provide jobs. They need to aggressively re-emerge into the global economic community.
And in making these choices, a significant part of the outcome of the Arab Awakening for certain will be defined by government, because the choices that government makes clearly will have an impact on the playing field. As Egypt moves toward the acceptance of the IMF and hopefully works to bring the opposition to the table, Egypt will be far stronger than if Egypt doesn’t choose to do those things.
But the burden, I want you to know, does not just lie within palaces and parliaments. There is a huge role for business to play here and a huge opportunity for you to share in the success. No one here should underestimate the degree to which the private sector can promote change and force critical choices, as well as impact the actions of government. The fact is that good governance, peace, and economic development necessarily go hand-in-hand.
And that’s why I believe it is time to put in place a new model for development. The old model is one that saw government make grants or give money government-to-government or invest directly in some infrastructure, some kind of public sector investment. The private sector pretty much did what the private sector thought was in the best interest of the private sector in terms of the bottom line. They did their own thing. And so while aid was government-to-government, there was a sort of division of responsibility, if you will.
In this new age, when there is such a greater amount of wealth, so much cash on the sidelines, and where we see so much pressure on governments in terms of their budgets, and where there is still such a great amount of great poverty, we need a new model for how we are going to bring order and open up the possibilities to the future. We need to partner with the private sector because it is clear that most governments don’t have the money, and in certain places, the private sector actually has a greater ability to move things faster than government does. Government can facilitate. Government can leverage. And in fact, government has gained skills and knowledge about how to do that in ways that we never had 10, 15, 20 years ago. And we can do it with greater skill than ever before.
The greater Middle East and many of the countries experiencing the upheaval at this time need to seize on this new model because the task of building stability by creating millions of jobs is urgent for all of us.
Now, one thing I want to make crystal clear, and President Peres mentioned this in his comments: The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not the cause of the Arab Awakening. But this fundamental principle of what economics can do to play a profound role in meeting the needs of both peoples is critical.
And that is what we’re hoping to do now in the West Bank.
As I mentioned earlier, I have asked Quartet Representative Tony Blair and many business leaders to join together. And Prime Minister Blair is shaping what I believe could be a groundbreaking plan to develop a healthy, sustainable, private-sector-led Palestinian economy that will transform the fortunes of a future Palestinian state, but also, significantly, transform the possibilities for Jordan and for Israel.
It is a plan for the Palestinian economy that is bigger, bolder and more ambitious than anything proposed since Oslo, more than 20 years ago now. And this, the intention of this plan, of all of its participants, is not to make it merely transformative, but frankly, to make it enormously powerful in the shaping of the possibilities of the future so that it is more transformative than incremental and different from anything that we have seen before.
To achieve that, these leaders have brought together a group of business experts, who have donated their time, who have come from around the world over the course of the last six weeks to make this project real and tangible and formidable – as we say, shovel-ready. They have come from all over the world because they believe in peace, and because they believe prosperity is both a promise and a product of peace.
This group includes leaders of some of the world’s largest corporations, I’m pleased to say. It includes renowned investors and some of the most brilliant business analysts out there – and some of the most committed. One of these senior business leaders actually just celebrated his 69th birthday in Jerusalem at the Colony Hotel after spending a 14-hour day in the West Bank trying to figure it out.
When others ask them, all of them, why they’re here, doing this on their own time, the unanimous answer is: "Because we want a better future for both Israeli children and Palestinian children."
Their plan begins with encouraging local, regional and international business leaders to, and to encourage government leaders in various parts of the world. I raised this issue with the President of China, with the Prime Minister of Japan, with all of our European leaders, and everywhere – with the Brazilian Foreign Minister a few days ago, with the New Zealand Foreign Minister. All of them have on the tip of their tongues the idea that we can make peace in the Middle East and need to, and all of them are committed to be part of this effort in order to change life on the ground.
The fact is that we are looking to mobilize some $4 billion of investment. And this team of experts – private citizens, donating their time – are here right now. They’re analyzing the opportunities in tourism, construction, light manufacturing, building materials, energy, agriculture, and information and communications technology.
This group will make recommendations to the Palestinians. They’re not going to decide anything. The Palestinians will decide that in their normal course of governance. But they will analyze and make recommendations on a set of choices that can dramatically lift the economy.
The preliminary results already reported to me by Prime Minister Blair and by the folks working with him are stunning: These experts believe that we can increase the Palestinian GDP by as much as 50 percent over three years. Their most optimistic estimates foresee enough new jobs to cut unemployment by nearly two-thirds – to 8 percent, down from 21 percent today – and to increase the median annual wage along with it, by as much as 40 percent.
These experts hope that with their plan in full force, agriculture can either double or triple. Tourism can triple. Home construction can produce up to 100,000 jobs over the next three years, and many of them would be energy efficient.
Ultimately, as the investment climate in the West Bank and Gaza improves, so will the potential for a financial self-sufficient Palestinian Authority that will not have to rely as much on foreign aid. So just think, my friends – we are talking about a place with just over 4 million people in a small geographic area. When you’re talking about $4 billion or more and this kind of economic effort, you are talking about something that is absolutely achievable.
I am happy to say that both Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas support this initiative, knowing that just as people find the dignity in a good job, a nation finds pride by functioning and growing an economy that can stand on its own two feet. This will help build the future.
Now, is this fantasy? I don’t think so, because there are already great examples of investment and entrepreneurship that are working in the West Bank.
So we know it can be done – but we’ve never experienced the kind of concentrated effort that this group is talking about bringing to the table.
Now, everyone here also knows how much more can be done if we lift some of the barriers to doing business, build confidence, bring people together. I just ask you to imagine the benefits from a new, open market next door, a new wave of foreign investment that could flow into both Israel and Palestine – and Jordan, and all of them share it.
The effect that could echo throughout the region, and if we prove that this can work here, that can become a model for what can work in other places that are facing similar confrontations.
So my friends, as we gather on the shore of the Dead Sea, a destination unlike any other destination in the world, it’s worth noting the key role that tourism could play in all of this. It’s just one element of the broad sector analysis that I talked about, but it is one of the best opportunities for both countries, for all of the region, for economic vitality and for worldwide use of its reputation.
Today, the Palestinian Authority – the Palestinian Territories attract fewer tourists than Yemen. Even Israel’s tourism is not fully met. Until 2011, Egypt, Jordan and Syria all attracted significantly more tourists than Israel. And despite all the incredible rich archaeological and religious sites in Israel, Jordan, the West Bank, Gaza, together they still attract fewer tourists than the United Arab Emirates.
There is just no question whatsoever – ask Tony Blair, ask the people working on this effort – there is no question whatsoever that the powerful combination of investment in business and investment in peace – risks both worth taking – could turn all of this all around. Imagine a welcoming part of the world that boasts the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the site of the Tomb of the Patriarchs and the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, the Western Wall, the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, and more of the world’s other great sites that have drawn tourists and religious pilgrims for centuries.
Most importantly, the success of this this new approach to development could, in fact, become its own example, its own model for the Sahel, for the Maghreb, for the Arabian Peninsula, and beyond. Foreign direct investment – private investment, leveraged investment, visionary investment – has the ability to be able to change the world.
Now, maybe you can get a sense that I actually believe in the potential that we have the power to unleash. But this effort – and this is critical, critical to what was said by both of our speakers before – this effort is only part of the answer, and it will not blossom to its full potential without the other critical part of the equation.
As we learned in the Arab Awakening, as long as prospects for economic advancement remain weak, so do the prospects for peace and stability.
But the opposite is true. The economics will never work properly or fully without the political process. The economic approach is absolutely not – Mr. President Abbas, the economic approach is not a substitute for the political approach. The political approach is essential and it is our top priority. (Applause.) In fact, none of this vision – but it’s good to have the vision, it’s good to know where you want to go, it’s good to know what’s possible – but none of it will happen without the context of the two-state solution.
And the consequences of prolonging the status quo in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is simply in no one’s interest.
We are compelled to come here today to the Dead Sea in the contexts of Breaking the Impasse to ask: If we don’t break the age-old deadlock, if we don’t create the conditions for economic opportunity and responsive, representative governments, where does all this go?
The absence of peace is, in fact, perpetual war, even if it’s low intensity. Are we ready? Do we want to live with a permanent intifada? Most important, the Palestinian Authority, to its credit and credit to the leadership of President Abbas, has taken great risks and invested deeply in a policy of nonviolence in a region where not a lot of people always adopt that in these circumstances. If this experiment is allowed to fail, what is going to replace it? (Applause.)
The truth is that when considering the security of Israelis or Palestinians, the greatest existential threat and the greatest economic threat to both sides is the lack of peace, and the ugly realities that are festering under the surface, capable of catching fire at any time. To not try to head these off would be tragic and it would be irresponsible.
Now, I have been around long enough and I have heard all the arguments against working for Middle East peace. It is famously reputed to be diplomatic quicksand. I am familiar with the cynicism and the skepticism. And after so much disappointment on all sides, I can understand exactly where it comes from.
So of course now, there is huge cynicism about this journey and it greets any push for peace. But cynicism has never built anything, certainly not a state. (Applause.) It is true that the challenge of peace is formidable. But let me say unequivocally: the necessity for peace is much greater.
Indeed, right now the strategic case for peace based on the two-state solution – a secure state of Israel and a viable, independent state of Palestine – the case for that has never been stronger. We talked earlier about the turmoil in the region. There is a reason for that discussion, because everyone feels the uncertainty and the instability as the Middle East slowly releases itself from the past and tries to forge a new and a democratic future.
It’s now clear that the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians is not the cause, as I mentioned. But it’s equally clear that the resolution of the conflict would bring enormous gains in the political and social environment of the region and help to symbolize and help to crystallize and help to advance the future of the entire region.
Most of all, those who suggest that a two-state solution is already a casualty of years of failed negotiation, and who say that we should search for a new and a different solution, my friends, they have noticeably failed to actually articulate one. And this is for a very simple reason: It is because there is no sustainable alternative solution that exists.
A greater Israel that would end up trying to swallow up the Palestinian people could only possibly survive in a state of institutionalized division and discord, a pale shadow of the democratic vision that motivated and animated the founders of Israel. (Applause.)
And any attempt by Palestinian politicians to wait out Israel in the hope that somehow, some day, the Israelis will just give up and go away, or that somehow they can win a one-state solution, that will only result in decades of futile confrontation and eventual disillusion, and perhaps worse, violence.
So we have no choice but to try again for peace and to find it. We have no alternative to its inevitable difficulty but of challenging and moving down that path. We have to go down that path. And we should negotiate, recognizing that despite all the frustrations, large majorities in the Palestinian Territories and in Israel both support a two-state solution. They support peace. (Applause.) What they need more than anything from all of us is a renewal of hope that peace can actually be achieved. Now, I am well aware that the credibility of anything that is called a "peace process" right now is at a very low base. I know that. I understand that.
But if we give up, we give to those who don’t want reform, or who don’t have the stomach to make the tough choices, an excuse for their own inaction. And two great peoples could come to be known not just for their proud cultures and their contributions to history, or their entrepreneurial energy, but they could come to be known for what they failed to do – or even worse, what they refused to do.
My friends, beyond all the strategies and all the maneuvering, all the politics, there really are some simple realities.
The second graders I have personally seen and met in Sderot, they shouldn’t have to worry about running into a bunker as part of their school day in order to avoid rockets.
And the little girls that I saw playing in rubble in Gaza when I visited it four years ago, they should be able to grow up in a neighborhood where the playgrounds aren’t made of debris, and their lives are not determined by terrorists in their midst.
And the shop owners that I met in Ramallah, some just the other day, they should know that their businesses can flourish without the restrictions that are placed on them, or without the threat of violence.
Time is not on anyone’s side in this – (applause) – and changes on the ground could rob all of us of the possibilities of peace.
The leaders of the Arab Initiative, as have been mentioned earlier, with whom I met in Washington last month, moved and changed and offered an update of the Arab Peace Initiative, and they are committed to making a dramatic step towards peace.
And we all hope and pray that Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas don’t allow this conflict to outlast their administrations.
Negotiations can’t succeed if you don’t negotiate. We are reaching a critical point where tough decisions have to be made. And I just ask all of you to keep your eyes focused on what can really be done here. Think of all that can change. That’s what should motivate us. With renewed and normal relations between Israel and the Arab nations, we could end the regional boycott of Israeli goods. New markets would open up and would connect to one another, and jobs would follow in large numbers.
With renewed strength, the new neighbor states of Israel and Palestine could actually become another hub in the Middle East for technology, finance, tourism. Israel and Palestine and Jordan together could become an international finance center, attracting companies that simply won’t take that risk today.
With a bold, fresh approach like the West Bank project that Tony Blair is heading up and that we discussed earlier, other things can develop here.
In the end, the only way for Israel to survive and thrive as a secure, Jewish, democratic and economically successful state is through the realization of an independent and viable Palestine.
And the only way Palestinians will obtain their sovereignty and the opportunity that comes with it is through direct negotiations with Israelis for a solution of two states for two peoples.
And I say to you, President Abbas: No one is talking about temporary borders. We are talking about an end-of-conflict, end-of-claims peace. (Applause.)
So I come here today to say at this important gathering on Break the Impasse that President Obama is deeply committed to this solution. That is why he came to Israel in an effort to try to open up the people’s minds and hopes and ideas about those possibilities of peace. And I believe that people in both places responded to his call for action.
The only way that both states can succeed side-by-side is with the kind of work that we’re doing here today and the kind of work that must go on in these next months in negotiations.
The true significance of the Arab Awakening isn’t about what was torn down, but it’s about what the people of this region can now choose to build up.
Similarly, the story of the stalemate between Israelis and Palestinians simply can no longer be about all the times that we have been let down by failed efforts. It has to be about the very real ways that we can lift people up, create opportunity, and create the conditions for peace.
I think everybody here believes in this possibility. And standing here with you at the lowest point on earth, I believe we can actually reach for the heights. And I hope we will get about the business of doing it.
Thank you. (Applause.)
Remarks to Special Program on Breaking the Impasse World Economic Forum
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Dead Sea, Jordan
May 26, 2013
SECRETARY KERRY: Klaus, thank you very much for a very generous introduction. And it is wonderful to be here with all of you. I have enjoyed participating in the World Economic Forum for many years, as Klaus said in his introduction. And Klaus, I think everybody here joins me in thanking you for creating this remarkable and important institution. It gives people a great opportunity, and we thank you. (Applause.)
I want to thank – let me say, Mr. President Abbas and Mr. President Peres, thank you so much for those comments. I have an agreement here which you both can come up and sign if you want. (Laughter and applause.) We’ll get there, we’ll get there, we’ll get there.
Your Royal Highnesses and your Excellencies and distinguished many guests, I want to first begin just by expressing a very special thank you to His Majesty, King Abdullah. I think all of us are honored to be in a hall that is named after his father, who fought hard for peace, and I thank him for his leadership. I thank King Abdullah for his leadership on so many issues in the region. (Applause.)
It’s also very special for me to be here with President Peres. He is a great friend. For many years I have been meeting with him in Israel or elsewhere around the world, and I have long admired him for his remarkable, eloquent, and steady leadership. And thank you very much, Shimon, for what you do. (Applause.)
I’m also very, very pleased that President Abbas would be here and share his thoughts with us. He, too, is a friend who I have gotten to know better and better. We meet frequently now, and we all count on him to continue to be the essential partner for peace at this critical juncture. Thank you, Mr. President, for being here. (Applause.)
It’s also a great pleasure to be in this remarkable country of Jordan, and I thank my counterpart Nasser Judeh, who had to get back to Amman. But I thank him for his hospitality always, but more importantly for his partnership as we navigate these tricky waters. And I want to say a special thank you to the Quartet Representative, former Prime Minister Tony Blair. (Applause.) He has never lost his passion for or interest in peace in this region. He has labored hard in these last years, and he is working diligently on a special project that I want to share with you in a few minutes.
I also want to acknowledge Chairwoman Kay Granger, who is here from the United States Congress. She is the Chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Appropriations, and believe me, folks, she is critical to all of us here. (Applause.)
I spent the last week traveling through the Middle East and Africa, and I have spoken with national leaders, business leaders, community leaders, and young people. I just had a session with young people at the University of Addis Ababa earlier this morning. And we talked with them, as I have talked with all of these leaders, about the enormous choices that are before us – weighty decisions that confront us in the aftermath of the Arab Awakening – decisions that we need to make and reach before the demographic tipping points just around the corner begin to overwhelm us.
No one doubts that this is a very complex moment in international relations. But still, I don’t think that there is any secret about the conditions that are necessary for peace and stability to succeed. Those are: good governance, security, and economic opportunity. And so the real question for all of us, for President Abbas, President Peres, Prime Minister Netanyahu, all of us, is a very simple one: Will we, despite the historic hurdles, have the courage to make the choices that we know we need to make in order to break the stalemate and provide a change of life for people in this region?
How we answer that question will determine whether the popular revolutions that are transforming this region will indeed fulfill their promise. It will determine whether businesses and the booming youth populations across the Middle East and North Africa will realize their potential. It will determine whether we grasp the possibility of peace which I believe is actually within our reach.
I want to thank those who took part and are taking part and will continue to take part in the Breaking the Impasse. My good friends, Munib Masri, whom I have known and worked with and been to some of those private and quiet meetings with him in various places, and Yossi Vardi, thank you, both of you, for stepping up and being courageous. (Applause.) They represent a courageous and visionary group of people, civic and business leaders, Israelis and Palestinians who have I think the uncommon ability to look at an ageless stalemate and actually be able to see opportunities for progress.
And even as they found plenty to disagree on – and I understand they did in the course of their discussions – even as they fully understand the difficult history that is embedded in this conflict – they refuse to underestimate the potential for the future.
And that’s because Breaking the Impasse’s guiding principle is to respect the freedom and the dignity of all peoples.
I want you to think about that, and I want to put my comments about the peace process in a larger context, if I can for a minute.
As we all remember, it was the lack of that kind of basic respect that ignited the Arab Awakening. It started with a single protest – a street vendor who deserved the right to be able to sell his goods without police interruption and corruption. And then it spread to Cairo, where young Egyptians used their cell phones and tweeted and texted and Googled and called and summoned people to the cause. And they used the social media to organize and demand more jobs, more opportunity, and the liberty to embrace and direct their own destiny. In doing so, these individuals and these individual acts embraced values that are so powerful that they, against all probability, removed dictators who had served for years. And they did it in a matter of days.
Now, of course, there are sectarian and religious and ideological motivations to many of today’s clashes that have followed those events, but those events weren’t inspired by religious extremism or ideological extremism. They were driven by motivation for opportunity and a future.
And what is fundamentally driving the demand for change in this region is, in fact, generational. It’s about whether the massive populations of young people, still growing, has hope that there is something better on the horizon. It’s about opportunity and it’s about respect and it’s about dignity.
And the aspirations that are driving the extraordinary transformations that began in Tunisia and Tahrir Square – the same ones that sparked what has unraveled into a brutal civil war with some sectarian overtones at this point, those aspirations aren’t unique to any one country. They’re universal. They have driven all of history.
So we ignore the lessons of the Arab Awakening at our own peril. And with an important part of the world upside down, it is imperative that all of us channel our creativity and our energy into making sure that people actually do have better choices.
The public and private sectors alike – and this is where you all come into this. The public and private sectors alike have a fundamental responsibility to meet the demands of this moment. And one can’t do it without the other. We need you at the table, Munib and Yossi and all of you.
In fact, this moment is actually – this moment in history is actually one of the great stories of our time. But the ending remains unwritten, which is why what we’re doing here is actually important. Insh’allah, we get to write that ending.
And how we do that is what I want to talk to you about here today. We have to remember that the choices being made – whether they’re being made north of here in Syria, or south of here in Yemen, or just across the Jordan River in Jerusalem, or in Ramallah, or further west in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia – they all have something very important in common: They each offer two clear paths that really couldn’t be more different one from the other, and they couldn’t have more different consequences.
If we don’t eagerly grab this moment, we will condemn ourselves to future conflict. We are staring down a dangerous path filled with potential violence, with the capacity to harden divisions, increase instability. And as most here are very, very aware, this will be a path that will be haunted by violent extremists who rush to fill the vacuum filled by the failure of leadership.
As King Abdullah said here yesterday, extremism has "grown fat" on conflict. If we make the wrong choices or no choices at all, dangerous people will come to possess more of the world’s most dangerous weapons. We will face huge pressure on states from growing populations of refugees, just like the camps that are metastasizing just over here on the border of Jordan and Syria.
Now, everybody here knows it’s not that governments or people will purposefully choose that option. That’s not the concern. It’s that by failing to choose the alternative and failing to take the risks for peace and stability, those with power will make the worst possibilities inevitable.
So what is the other alternative? Let me talk about that a little bit.
Governments need to pay attention to governance. They need to be open, transparent, and accountable to people. And they need to be seen implementing a vision that addresses the needs of their people – the needs to be able to work, to get an education, to have an opportunity to be treated with that dignity and respect that brought people to Tahrir Square and to so many other causes in this region.
Countries like Egypt, Libya and Tunisia need to make the right choices, and that is a combination of building capacity – capacity for governance, capacity for security which doesn’t exist, capacity to provide jobs. They need to aggressively re-emerge into the global economic community.
And in making these choices, a significant part of the outcome of the Arab Awakening for certain will be defined by government, because the choices that government makes clearly will have an impact on the playing field. As Egypt moves toward the acceptance of the IMF and hopefully works to bring the opposition to the table, Egypt will be far stronger than if Egypt doesn’t choose to do those things.
But the burden, I want you to know, does not just lie within palaces and parliaments. There is a huge role for business to play here and a huge opportunity for you to share in the success. No one here should underestimate the degree to which the private sector can promote change and force critical choices, as well as impact the actions of government. The fact is that good governance, peace, and economic development necessarily go hand-in-hand.
And that’s why I believe it is time to put in place a new model for development. The old model is one that saw government make grants or give money government-to-government or invest directly in some infrastructure, some kind of public sector investment. The private sector pretty much did what the private sector thought was in the best interest of the private sector in terms of the bottom line. They did their own thing. And so while aid was government-to-government, there was a sort of division of responsibility, if you will.
In this new age, when there is such a greater amount of wealth, so much cash on the sidelines, and where we see so much pressure on governments in terms of their budgets, and where there is still such a great amount of great poverty, we need a new model for how we are going to bring order and open up the possibilities to the future. We need to partner with the private sector because it is clear that most governments don’t have the money, and in certain places, the private sector actually has a greater ability to move things faster than government does. Government can facilitate. Government can leverage. And in fact, government has gained skills and knowledge about how to do that in ways that we never had 10, 15, 20 years ago. And we can do it with greater skill than ever before.
The greater Middle East and many of the countries experiencing the upheaval at this time need to seize on this new model because the task of building stability by creating millions of jobs is urgent for all of us.
Now, one thing I want to make crystal clear, and President Peres mentioned this in his comments: The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not the cause of the Arab Awakening. But this fundamental principle of what economics can do to play a profound role in meeting the needs of both peoples is critical.
And that is what we’re hoping to do now in the West Bank.
As I mentioned earlier, I have asked Quartet Representative Tony Blair and many business leaders to join together. And Prime Minister Blair is shaping what I believe could be a groundbreaking plan to develop a healthy, sustainable, private-sector-led Palestinian economy that will transform the fortunes of a future Palestinian state, but also, significantly, transform the possibilities for Jordan and for Israel.
It is a plan for the Palestinian economy that is bigger, bolder and more ambitious than anything proposed since Oslo, more than 20 years ago now. And this, the intention of this plan, of all of its participants, is not to make it merely transformative, but frankly, to make it enormously powerful in the shaping of the possibilities of the future so that it is more transformative than incremental and different from anything that we have seen before.
To achieve that, these leaders have brought together a group of business experts, who have donated their time, who have come from around the world over the course of the last six weeks to make this project real and tangible and formidable – as we say, shovel-ready. They have come from all over the world because they believe in peace, and because they believe prosperity is both a promise and a product of peace.
This group includes leaders of some of the world’s largest corporations, I’m pleased to say. It includes renowned investors and some of the most brilliant business analysts out there – and some of the most committed. One of these senior business leaders actually just celebrated his 69th birthday in Jerusalem at the Colony Hotel after spending a 14-hour day in the West Bank trying to figure it out.
When others ask them, all of them, why they’re here, doing this on their own time, the unanimous answer is: "Because we want a better future for both Israeli children and Palestinian children."
Their plan begins with encouraging local, regional and international business leaders to, and to encourage government leaders in various parts of the world. I raised this issue with the President of China, with the Prime Minister of Japan, with all of our European leaders, and everywhere – with the Brazilian Foreign Minister a few days ago, with the New Zealand Foreign Minister. All of them have on the tip of their tongues the idea that we can make peace in the Middle East and need to, and all of them are committed to be part of this effort in order to change life on the ground.
The fact is that we are looking to mobilize some $4 billion of investment. And this team of experts – private citizens, donating their time – are here right now. They’re analyzing the opportunities in tourism, construction, light manufacturing, building materials, energy, agriculture, and information and communications technology.
This group will make recommendations to the Palestinians. They’re not going to decide anything. The Palestinians will decide that in their normal course of governance. But they will analyze and make recommendations on a set of choices that can dramatically lift the economy.
The preliminary results already reported to me by Prime Minister Blair and by the folks working with him are stunning: These experts believe that we can increase the Palestinian GDP by as much as 50 percent over three years. Their most optimistic estimates foresee enough new jobs to cut unemployment by nearly two-thirds – to 8 percent, down from 21 percent today – and to increase the median annual wage along with it, by as much as 40 percent.
These experts hope that with their plan in full force, agriculture can either double or triple. Tourism can triple. Home construction can produce up to 100,000 jobs over the next three years, and many of them would be energy efficient.
Ultimately, as the investment climate in the West Bank and Gaza improves, so will the potential for a financial self-sufficient Palestinian Authority that will not have to rely as much on foreign aid. So just think, my friends – we are talking about a place with just over 4 million people in a small geographic area. When you’re talking about $4 billion or more and this kind of economic effort, you are talking about something that is absolutely achievable.
I am happy to say that both Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas support this initiative, knowing that just as people find the dignity in a good job, a nation finds pride by functioning and growing an economy that can stand on its own two feet. This will help build the future.
Now, is this fantasy? I don’t think so, because there are already great examples of investment and entrepreneurship that are working in the West Bank.
So we know it can be done – but we’ve never experienced the kind of concentrated effort that this group is talking about bringing to the table.
Now, everyone here also knows how much more can be done if we lift some of the barriers to doing business, build confidence, bring people together. I just ask you to imagine the benefits from a new, open market next door, a new wave of foreign investment that could flow into both Israel and Palestine – and Jordan, and all of them share it.
The effect that could echo throughout the region, and if we prove that this can work here, that can become a model for what can work in other places that are facing similar confrontations.
So my friends, as we gather on the shore of the Dead Sea, a destination unlike any other destination in the world, it’s worth noting the key role that tourism could play in all of this. It’s just one element of the broad sector analysis that I talked about, but it is one of the best opportunities for both countries, for all of the region, for economic vitality and for worldwide use of its reputation.
Today, the Palestinian Authority – the Palestinian Territories attract fewer tourists than Yemen. Even Israel’s tourism is not fully met. Until 2011, Egypt, Jordan and Syria all attracted significantly more tourists than Israel. And despite all the incredible rich archaeological and religious sites in Israel, Jordan, the West Bank, Gaza, together they still attract fewer tourists than the United Arab Emirates.
There is just no question whatsoever – ask Tony Blair, ask the people working on this effort – there is no question whatsoever that the powerful combination of investment in business and investment in peace – risks both worth taking – could turn all of this all around. Imagine a welcoming part of the world that boasts the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the site of the Tomb of the Patriarchs and the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, the Western Wall, the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, and more of the world’s other great sites that have drawn tourists and religious pilgrims for centuries.
Most importantly, the success of this this new approach to development could, in fact, become its own example, its own model for the Sahel, for the Maghreb, for the Arabian Peninsula, and beyond. Foreign direct investment – private investment, leveraged investment, visionary investment – has the ability to be able to change the world.
Now, maybe you can get a sense that I actually believe in the potential that we have the power to unleash. But this effort – and this is critical, critical to what was said by both of our speakers before – this effort is only part of the answer, and it will not blossom to its full potential without the other critical part of the equation.
As we learned in the Arab Awakening, as long as prospects for economic advancement remain weak, so do the prospects for peace and stability.
But the opposite is true. The economics will never work properly or fully without the political process. The economic approach is absolutely not – Mr. President Abbas, the economic approach is not a substitute for the political approach. The political approach is essential and it is our top priority. (Applause.) In fact, none of this vision – but it’s good to have the vision, it’s good to know where you want to go, it’s good to know what’s possible – but none of it will happen without the context of the two-state solution.
And the consequences of prolonging the status quo in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is simply in no one’s interest.
We are compelled to come here today to the Dead Sea in the contexts of Breaking the Impasse to ask: If we don’t break the age-old deadlock, if we don’t create the conditions for economic opportunity and responsive, representative governments, where does all this go?
The absence of peace is, in fact, perpetual war, even if it’s low intensity. Are we ready? Do we want to live with a permanent intifada? Most important, the Palestinian Authority, to its credit and credit to the leadership of President Abbas, has taken great risks and invested deeply in a policy of nonviolence in a region where not a lot of people always adopt that in these circumstances. If this experiment is allowed to fail, what is going to replace it? (Applause.)
The truth is that when considering the security of Israelis or Palestinians, the greatest existential threat and the greatest economic threat to both sides is the lack of peace, and the ugly realities that are festering under the surface, capable of catching fire at any time. To not try to head these off would be tragic and it would be irresponsible.
Now, I have been around long enough and I have heard all the arguments against working for Middle East peace. It is famously reputed to be diplomatic quicksand. I am familiar with the cynicism and the skepticism. And after so much disappointment on all sides, I can understand exactly where it comes from.
So of course now, there is huge cynicism about this journey and it greets any push for peace. But cynicism has never built anything, certainly not a state. (Applause.) It is true that the challenge of peace is formidable. But let me say unequivocally: the necessity for peace is much greater.
Indeed, right now the strategic case for peace based on the two-state solution – a secure state of Israel and a viable, independent state of Palestine – the case for that has never been stronger. We talked earlier about the turmoil in the region. There is a reason for that discussion, because everyone feels the uncertainty and the instability as the Middle East slowly releases itself from the past and tries to forge a new and a democratic future.
It’s now clear that the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians is not the cause, as I mentioned. But it’s equally clear that the resolution of the conflict would bring enormous gains in the political and social environment of the region and help to symbolize and help to crystallize and help to advance the future of the entire region.
Most of all, those who suggest that a two-state solution is already a casualty of years of failed negotiation, and who say that we should search for a new and a different solution, my friends, they have noticeably failed to actually articulate one. And this is for a very simple reason: It is because there is no sustainable alternative solution that exists.
A greater Israel that would end up trying to swallow up the Palestinian people could only possibly survive in a state of institutionalized division and discord, a pale shadow of the democratic vision that motivated and animated the founders of Israel. (Applause.)
And any attempt by Palestinian politicians to wait out Israel in the hope that somehow, some day, the Israelis will just give up and go away, or that somehow they can win a one-state solution, that will only result in decades of futile confrontation and eventual disillusion, and perhaps worse, violence.
So we have no choice but to try again for peace and to find it. We have no alternative to its inevitable difficulty but of challenging and moving down that path. We have to go down that path. And we should negotiate, recognizing that despite all the frustrations, large majorities in the Palestinian Territories and in Israel both support a two-state solution. They support peace. (Applause.) What they need more than anything from all of us is a renewal of hope that peace can actually be achieved. Now, I am well aware that the credibility of anything that is called a "peace process" right now is at a very low base. I know that. I understand that.
But if we give up, we give to those who don’t want reform, or who don’t have the stomach to make the tough choices, an excuse for their own inaction. And two great peoples could come to be known not just for their proud cultures and their contributions to history, or their entrepreneurial energy, but they could come to be known for what they failed to do – or even worse, what they refused to do.
My friends, beyond all the strategies and all the maneuvering, all the politics, there really are some simple realities.
The second graders I have personally seen and met in Sderot, they shouldn’t have to worry about running into a bunker as part of their school day in order to avoid rockets.
And the little girls that I saw playing in rubble in Gaza when I visited it four years ago, they should be able to grow up in a neighborhood where the playgrounds aren’t made of debris, and their lives are not determined by terrorists in their midst.
And the shop owners that I met in Ramallah, some just the other day, they should know that their businesses can flourish without the restrictions that are placed on them, or without the threat of violence.
Time is not on anyone’s side in this – (applause) – and changes on the ground could rob all of us of the possibilities of peace.
The leaders of the Arab Initiative, as have been mentioned earlier, with whom I met in Washington last month, moved and changed and offered an update of the Arab Peace Initiative, and they are committed to making a dramatic step towards peace.
And we all hope and pray that Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas don’t allow this conflict to outlast their administrations.
Negotiations can’t succeed if you don’t negotiate. We are reaching a critical point where tough decisions have to be made. And I just ask all of you to keep your eyes focused on what can really be done here. Think of all that can change. That’s what should motivate us. With renewed and normal relations between Israel and the Arab nations, we could end the regional boycott of Israeli goods. New markets would open up and would connect to one another, and jobs would follow in large numbers.
With renewed strength, the new neighbor states of Israel and Palestine could actually become another hub in the Middle East for technology, finance, tourism. Israel and Palestine and Jordan together could become an international finance center, attracting companies that simply won’t take that risk today.
With a bold, fresh approach like the West Bank project that Tony Blair is heading up and that we discussed earlier, other things can develop here.
In the end, the only way for Israel to survive and thrive as a secure, Jewish, democratic and economically successful state is through the realization of an independent and viable Palestine.
And the only way Palestinians will obtain their sovereignty and the opportunity that comes with it is through direct negotiations with Israelis for a solution of two states for two peoples.
And I say to you, President Abbas: No one is talking about temporary borders. We are talking about an end-of-conflict, end-of-claims peace. (Applause.)
So I come here today to say at this important gathering on Break the Impasse that President Obama is deeply committed to this solution. That is why he came to Israel in an effort to try to open up the people’s minds and hopes and ideas about those possibilities of peace. And I believe that people in both places responded to his call for action.
The only way that both states can succeed side-by-side is with the kind of work that we’re doing here today and the kind of work that must go on in these next months in negotiations.
The true significance of the Arab Awakening isn’t about what was torn down, but it’s about what the people of this region can now choose to build up.
Similarly, the story of the stalemate between Israelis and Palestinians simply can no longer be about all the times that we have been let down by failed efforts. It has to be about the very real ways that we can lift people up, create opportunity, and create the conditions for peace.
I think everybody here believes in this possibility. And standing here with you at the lowest point on earth, I believe we can actually reach for the heights. And I hope we will get about the business of doing it.
Thank you. (Applause.)
USS PEARL HARBOR DEPARTS FOR PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP 2013
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| 130525-N-GI544-099.jpg PEARL HARBOR (May 25, 2013) - Pacific Partnership embarked aboard the amphibious dock landing ship USS Pearl Harbor (LSD 52) transits past the USS Missouri museum and the USS Arizona memorial as the ship departs Pearl Harbor. Pacific Partnership is the largest disaster response-preparation mission in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. The mission contributes to stability and security by opening dialogue between leaders, fostering friendships and building mutual trust and respect, while ensuring that the international community is better prepared to work together as a coordinated team when a regional disaster strikes. (U.S. Navy Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Laurie Dexter/Released) |
USS Pearl Harbor Heads to First Mission Port of Pacific Partnership 2013
By By Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Samantha J. Webb
PEARL HARBOR (NNS) -- The amphibious dock landing ship USS Pearl Harbor (LSD 52) departed its namesake city May 25 for Samoa, the first mission port of Pacific Partnership 2013.
Conducted annually since 2006, Pacific Partnership is the largest disaster preparedness response mission in the Indo-Asia-Pacific Region. The mission was born after U.S. military responded to the needs of people in Southeast Asia following the devastating tsunami in 2004.
Samoa is scheduled to be the first of many mission ports including Tonga, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Papua New Guinea, Kiribati, and the Solomon Islands.
After a visit to the ship on Friday, Adm. Cecil D. Haney, commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet, said he was impressed by the enthusiasm displayed for Pacific Partnership 2013, an important deployment that both builds relationships and improves the multilateral approach needed to successfully respond in the eventuality of a regional crisis or disaster.
"It builds trust, enhances cooperation and opens dialogues between leaders," Haney said of the mission's multilateral approach, "That benefits all Pacific nations including the United States."
This year's mission will partner the U.S. Navy with non-governmental organizations and regional partners including Australia, Canada, France, Japan, Malaysia and New Zealand to improve maritime security, conduct humanitarian assistance and strengthen regional disaster response preparedness. Partner nations will lead individual phases for the first time in the history of the mission.
DEFENDANTS ORDERED TO PAY MILLIONS FOR OPERATING COMMODITY POOL PONZI SCHEME
FROM: U.S. COMMODITY FUTURES TRADING COMMISSION
Federal Court in Florida Orders Defendants Philip Milton and Trade, LLC, and Four Relief Defendants to Pay Millions in Restitution, Disgorgement, and Civil Monetary Penalties for Operating a $28.4 Million Ponzi Scheme
Washington, DC – The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) today announced that Judge Daniel Hurley of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida entered supplemental consent Orders against Defendants Philip Milton of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, and Trade, LLC, based in Palm Spring Gardens, Florida, requiring Milton to pay restitution of more than $10.8 million and a $7.6 civil monetary penalty and Trade, LLC, to pay restitution of over $11.4 million and a $28.4 million civil monetary penalty for operating a multi-million dollar Ponzi commodity pool scheme.
The court also required Relief Defendants BD, LLC, CMJ Capital, LLC, Center Richmond, LLC, and TWTT, LLC, all Florida corporations, to disgorge $545,200, $2,826,981.37, $1,253,862.62, and $100,000, respectively.
The CFTC filed a Complaint against Defendants Philip Milton, William Center, Gregory Center, and Trade, LLC on June 22, 2010, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. The Complaint charged the Defendants with fraudulently soliciting approximately $28.4 million from at least 2,000 customers to participate in a commodity pool to trade futures and securities and with misappropriating at least $9.6 million of pool funds for their personal use and to continue the scam. The complaint also named the four Relief Defendants, all corporations owned by the individual defendants, for receiving funds as a result of the defendants’ misappropriation to which they have no legitimate entitlement.
On, April 15, 2011, the court entered a consent Order of permanent injunction against Milton and entered a similar consent order against Trade, LLC and the Relief Defendants on September 6, 2011. These consent Orders found the consenting parties liable for the fraud and misappropriation, as charged in the CFTC’s complaint, and ordered them to pay restitution, disgorgement, and civil monetary penalties in amounts to be determined at a later day. The CFTC’s litigation continues against Defendants William Center and Gregory Center.
The CFTC appreciates the assistance of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Florida Office of Financial Regulation.
CFTC Division of Enforcement staff members responsible for this case are Jason Mahoney, Timothy J. Mulreany, George Malas, and Joan Manley.
Federal Court in Florida Orders Defendants Philip Milton and Trade, LLC, and Four Relief Defendants to Pay Millions in Restitution, Disgorgement, and Civil Monetary Penalties for Operating a $28.4 Million Ponzi Scheme
Washington, DC – The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) today announced that Judge Daniel Hurley of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida entered supplemental consent Orders against Defendants Philip Milton of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, and Trade, LLC, based in Palm Spring Gardens, Florida, requiring Milton to pay restitution of more than $10.8 million and a $7.6 civil monetary penalty and Trade, LLC, to pay restitution of over $11.4 million and a $28.4 million civil monetary penalty for operating a multi-million dollar Ponzi commodity pool scheme.
The court also required Relief Defendants BD, LLC, CMJ Capital, LLC, Center Richmond, LLC, and TWTT, LLC, all Florida corporations, to disgorge $545,200, $2,826,981.37, $1,253,862.62, and $100,000, respectively.
The CFTC filed a Complaint against Defendants Philip Milton, William Center, Gregory Center, and Trade, LLC on June 22, 2010, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. The Complaint charged the Defendants with fraudulently soliciting approximately $28.4 million from at least 2,000 customers to participate in a commodity pool to trade futures and securities and with misappropriating at least $9.6 million of pool funds for their personal use and to continue the scam. The complaint also named the four Relief Defendants, all corporations owned by the individual defendants, for receiving funds as a result of the defendants’ misappropriation to which they have no legitimate entitlement.
On, April 15, 2011, the court entered a consent Order of permanent injunction against Milton and entered a similar consent order against Trade, LLC and the Relief Defendants on September 6, 2011. These consent Orders found the consenting parties liable for the fraud and misappropriation, as charged in the CFTC’s complaint, and ordered them to pay restitution, disgorgement, and civil monetary penalties in amounts to be determined at a later day. The CFTC’s litigation continues against Defendants William Center and Gregory Center.
The CFTC appreciates the assistance of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Florida Office of Financial Regulation.
CFTC Division of Enforcement staff members responsible for this case are Jason Mahoney, Timothy J. Mulreany, George Malas, and Joan Manley.
ION PROPULSION ENGINE TESTED
FROM: NASA
The Engine Burns Blue
This image shows a cutting-edge solar-electric propulsion thruster in development at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., that uses xenon ions for propulsion. An earlier version of this solar-electric propulsion engine has been flying on NASA's Dawn mission to the asteroid belt.
This engine is being considered as part of the Asteroid Initiative, a proposal to robotically capture a small near-Earth asteroid and redirect it safely to a stable orbit in the Earth-moon system where astronauts can visit and explore it. This image was taken through a porthole in a vacuum chamber at JPL where the ion engine is being tested.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Monday, May 27, 2013
PUMPING TEST BEGINS ON CHROMIUM PLUME
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| Well R-50 at Los Alamos National Laboratory has detected chromium at levels which exceed New Mexico standards. Photo taken during well construction in 2011. (LANL photo) |
Los Alamos National Laboratory Begins Pumping Tests on Chromium Plume
About chromium
Chromium occurs naturally in the environment in two forms, trivalent, Cr(III), and hexavalent, Cr(VI). The Environmental Protection Agency identifies hexavalent chromium in groundwater as having potential adverse health effects when ingested at concentrations elevated above naturally occurring levels. Chromium in the groundwater plume at LANL is hexavalent chromium
Data will be used to help determine final remedy
LOS ALAMOS, N.M., May 22, 2013—Los Alamos National Laboratory will begin pumping tests this summer at two groundwater monitoring wells located on Lab property within a chromium plume in the regional aquifer.
The purpose of the pumping tests is to refine understanding of the plume properties within the regional aquifer and evaluate the potential for large-scale pumping to remove chromium. Chromium concentrations in the plume exceed state and federal standards for groundwater.
"These pumping tests are a key step in identifying measures to address the plume," said Pete Maggiore, assistant manager for environmental projects at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos Field Office. "Data from this testing will be used to recommend a final remedy which we will then submit to the state."
The chromium investigation is part of environmental work being conducted under the 2005 Consent Order between New Mexico, the Lab and the Department of Energy. Under the Consent Order process, the state will select a final remedy after input from the public.
The chromium originated from cooling towers at a Laboratory power plant and was released from 1956 to 1972. At that time, chromium was commonly used in industry as a corrosion inhibitor. Water containing chromium was flushed out of the cooling towers into Sandia Canyon and over time infiltrated into the regional aquifer beneath Mortandad Canyon. The Laboratory estimates that approximately 160,000 pounds of chromium were discharged into the environment in this manner.
The Laboratory discovered the plume in late 2005 and has investigated the nature and extent of the plume since then. A network of 20 monitoring wells at various depths is used to define and monitor the chromium. The wells are part of a larger effort to address chromium, which includes stabilization of a wetland near the location where the chromium was released into Sandia Canyon. Stabilization of the wetland helps ensure that immobile chromium present in wetland sediments remains in place and in its non-toxic form.
The federal standard for total chromium in groundwater is 100 parts per billion (ppb) and the New Mexico standard is 50 ppb. The Laboratory has detected and reported levels of less than 50 ppb at the plume boundaries to approximately 1,000 ppb in the center.
Water supply wells outside the plume all have "sentinel" monitoring wells nearby to detect early arrival of the contaminant plume. The sentinel wells show chromium concentrations are well below standards.
"Moving forward with a remedy that will ensure protection of the public and groundwater is one of our highest environmental priorities," said Jeff Mousseau, associate director for environmental programs at the Laboratory. "We’ve committed this to the state and it’s the right thing to do."
SECRETARY OF DEFENSE HAGEL PRAISES NETHERLANDS FOR SUPPORT
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| Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel welcomes Dutch Defense Minister Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert upon her arrival at the Pentagon for defense talks, May 22, 2013. DOD photo by U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Aaron Hostutler |
Hagel Hails Netherlands as Strong U.S., NATO Partner
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, May 22, 2013 - Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel hosted the Netherlands' Minister of Defense Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert at the Pentagon today, Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said.
Little said Hagel strongly emphasized the importance of the Netherlands as both a bilateral partner and North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally, and on behalf of the Department of Defense, reemphasized the commitment of the U.S. to the strong United States-Netherlands defense partnership.
Hagel and Minister Hennis-Plasschaert discussed a range of issues, including the Joint Strike Fighter program, NATO's role in post-2014 Afghanistan, and Syria, Little said.
On JSF, Hagel underscored U.S. commitment to the program and encouraged continued cooperation between the U.S. and the Netherlands in its development, Little said.
Hagel thanked Minister Hennis-Plasschaert for the Netherlands' decision to support the NATO Patriot missile deployment to Turkey, Little said, and he stressed the need for continued international cooperation on the ongoing crisis in Syria.
SECRETARY OF DEFENSE CHUCK HAGEL'S MEMORIAL DAY MESSAGE
FROM: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
As Written by Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, Washington, D.C., Monday, May 27, 2013
Today is a day for all Americans to gather with friends and family in communities across the country to enjoy each other's company, and honor those generations of patriots who have fought and died in uniform to preserve the freedoms we all cherish. We also grieve with those families who lost loved ones too soon – parents, wives, husbands, sons, and daughters for whom Memorial Day will always be a time of solemn remembrance. The perseverance and resilience of our military families is the bedrock of our military strength.
Over more than a decade of sustained war, the United States has been blessed to have millions of men and women step forward to serve, to risk their lives and stand watch in every corner of the world to defend our nation. Today we remember the more than 6,600 men and women in uniform who have perished on distant battlefields since September 11th, 2001.
The men and women that serve today are as humble, patriotic, and selfless as any generation that has come before them. Many have deployed on multiple tours – active duty, guardsmen, and reservists – all citizens doing their part for the country they love. They continue to make enormous sacrifices, along with their families. We owe them and their families our most heartfelt thanks and constant support, for they have added another chapter to our nation's book of honor.
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