http://www.arkancide.com/
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1598954/posts
http://1984arkansasmotheroftheyear.blogspot.com/2014_03_01_archive.html
http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/arkansas_murderous_ways.htm
Friday, September 25, 2015
Thursday, September 24, 2015
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
JFK J.R. assassination and fbi cover up
By Wayne Madsen
August 12, 2009 --
WMR has learned from a source who was a close friend of the late John F. Kennedy, Jr. that the FBI originally treated the July 16, 1999, crash of his Piper Saratoga in the waters off Martha' Vineyard as a murder investigation. Kennedy, his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and his sister-in-law Lauren Bessette were killed when their plane plummeted into the Atlantic en route from Caldwell Airport in Essex County, New Jersey to Martha's Vineyard. Kennedy's wife was also three month's pregnant with a boy.
Kennedy was to drop off Lauren Bessette at Martha's Vineyard before flying to Hyannisport to attend his cousin Rory's wedding.
According to the Kennedy friend, the son of the late president and publisher of "George" magazine, was about ready to announce his run for the U.S. Senate from New York. Kennedy was acutely aware of his vulnerability and hired on a personal security team just prior to his announcing for the Senate. Kennedy also decided, unlike all previous flights, not to file a flight plan at Caldwell. Instead, Kennedy, instead of filing an FAA flight plan, provided his own "flight following" by having a Kennedy friend waiting at the Martha's Vineyard airport. When the plane was overdue the friend notified Woods Hole Coast Guard Station which, in turn, notified the FAA and other agencies.
According to the source, Kennedy, contrary to press reports, decided not to fly over open ocean from Montauk at the eastern tip of Long Island to the Vineyard but instead hugged the Connecticut and Rhode Island coast lines until flying direct to the island. Kennedy did not identify his ultimate destination on the radio - he said that6 he was flying "east of Teterboro."
Fearing for his safety, Kennedy thought it best to be within sight of the coastline. According to the Kennedy friend, Kennedy told him his plans prior to his departure. Kennedy had also arranged for all the onboard bags, including his own and that of his family, to be hand searched by security personnel at Caldwell prior to departure. Kennedy decided not to take along a co-pilot because he felt his flight was somewhat of a risk. Kennedy's friend said Kennedy was always concerned about the "underdog" and did not want to put a co-pilot in any potential danger. In any event, Kennedy felt confident of his and his family's security since he had retained a security firm to provide for his protection prior to his Senate run announcement.
Media reports at the time of the disappearance suggested that the weather near Martha's Vineyard was "hazy" and Kennedy may have become disoriented, causing the crash. However, the Kennedy friend states that this was not the case and cites the fact that visibility around the Vineyard was clear at 9:41 pm when the plane disappeared from the sky. The following is from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) report on the crash and quotes the Martha's Vineyard tower manager:
"During an interview, the tower manager stated that no actions were taken to augment or edit the ASOS during his shift. He also stated the following:
'The visibility, present weather, and sky condition at the approximate time of the accident was probably a little better than what was being reported. I say this because I remember aircraft on visual approaches saying they had the airport in sight between 10 and 12 miles out. I do recall being able to see those aircraft and I do remember seeing the stars out that night...To the best of my knowledge, the ASOS was working as advertised that day with no reported problems or systems log errors.'"
ASOS is the Automated Surface Observation System. Media reports claimed that visibility was around 2 miles with haze, a far cry from what the tower manager at Martha's Vineyard stated to the NTSB.
The weather report around the time of the crash also indicated clear weather in the area:
"2053...Clear at or below 12,000 feet; visibility 8 miles; winds 250 degrees at 7 knots; temperature 23 degrees C; dewpoint 19 degrees C; altimeter 30.09 inches of Hg.
2153...Clear at or below 12,000 feet; visibility 10 miles; winds 240 degrees at 10 knots, gusts to 15 knots; temperature 24 degrees C; dewpoint 18 degrees C; altimeter 30.10 inches of Hg"
Some twelve minutes after Kennedy's plane crashing, visibility around Martha's Vineyard was reported at 10 miles, described as near perfect conditions by professional pilots.
There were also questions raised about Kennedy's piloting skills. However, he had logged in 310 hours. The NTSB report also reported Kennedy's most recent flight record:
"In the 15 months before the accident, the pilot had flown about 35 flight legs either to or from the Essex County/Teterboro, New Jersey, area and the Martha's Vineyard/Hyannis, Massachusetts, area. The pilot flew over 17 of these legs without a CFI [Certified Flight Instructor] on board, including at least 5 at night. The pilot's last known flight in the accident airplane without a CFI on board was on May 28, 1999."
Kennedy's most recent three legs were with a CFI on board and along the same route taken on July 16 but significant rain and a 800 foot ceiling. Kennedy had, according to his friend, been flying for 17 years. Before Kennedy flew the Piper Saratoga he flew a Cessna 182.
There were also media reports that Kennedy was impeded by a foot cast from an accident he suffered while parasailing. However, according to Kennedy's friend, the cast had aready been removed when Kennedy took to the skies on July 16.
The Kennedy friend also stated that he learned from an FBI agent, as well as a Secret Service agent, who were friends of the Kennedy family that the FBI originally treated their investigation of the plane crash as a possible murder. Kennedy no longer enjoyed Secret Service protection as a protected person, according to the friend.
FBI agents, after the crash, fanned out across convenience and other stores in the Caldwell, New Jersey area and asked if anyone had recently purchased epoxy. According to the French magazine, France Dimanche, a pilot at the Caldwell airport had reported he heard a "weird noise" coming from Kennedy's plane on takeoff. The FBI theorized that a whistle had been glued on the aft section of the plane in order to emit a distinct, unique, and high-pitched noise for the benefit of someone on the ground who wanted to correctly identify the plane when it descended for landing at Martha's Vineyard.
The FBI asked pilots if a whistle attached to the rear of a plane such as Kennedy's could be heard from the cockpit. The answer from all the pilots was no because the sound would only be heard by those on the ground as the plane passed overhead while descending to an audible range. There was also a belief that if the whistle had been fashioned from a water-soluble material, such as plaster-of-paris, it would have dissolved in the seawater.
The FBI discovered that there was "suspicious boating activity" in an area of Martha's Vineyard where Kennedy's plane was descending to 2000 feet for its final approach to the airport. The "suspicious" boaters claimed to be fishing for striped bass. However, when the FBI asked local fishermen to corroborate the suspicious boaters' story, they stated that the particular area where they were discovered was not an area where Atlantic striped bass would be found. In fact, salt water striped bass do not start to run in Massachusetts coastal waters in great numbers until the autumn.
The FBI also found an unusual number of extra batteries in the fishermens' boat. The FBI was suspicious of the boat's contents because after the plane's wreckage was discovered, investigators found, according to Kennedy's friend, that every light bulb, including that in the emergency flashlight, had been blown out on the plane and every circuit board, including those in the engine sensors and other electronic equipment, had been literally "melted." FBI agents on the scene preliminarily concluded that a "massive electromagnetic event" caused Kennedy's plane to crash. FBI agents also found that the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) had its battery removed, possibly before the flight. Every simulation the FBI conducted of a plane in Kennedy's situation, with all lights off at night and with only the engine and the vacuum pump-operated attitude indicator functioning, resulted in the same result: the plane crashing into the water.
Before the FBI could begin examining the ocean floor for any "special equipment" that may have been thrown overboard from the fishing boat, their "murder" investigation was abruptly called off by FBI headquarters in Washington.
Kennedy was preparing to re-tool "George" magazine to take on investigations of a number of major stories, not least of which was the actual story behind the assassination of his father in Dallas on November 22, 1963. According to an article in Germany's Bild am Sonntag on August 1, 1999, Kennedy was also preparing to meet with the deputy chief of Mossad, Amiran Levine, at the Oak Room in Manhattan's Plaza Hotel the Wednesday after Kennedy was killed. The subject was the assassination of Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 and that Rabin was assassinated by one of his body guards and not the convicted murderer Yigal Amir.
Kennedy's friend said the real priority of the "George" publisher was to re-open the case of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the role that the father of the all-but-announced Republican presidential candidate for the upcoming 2000 election -- George W. Bush -- played in the assassination. Apparently, some documents had come into Kennedy's possession that pointed to George H. W. Bush as a prime participant, on behalf of the CIA, in President Kennedy's murder.
On a 1997 visit to see Cuban President Fidel Castro in Havana for an interview for "George," the Cuban President reportedly told Kennedy a number of details about those behind his father's assassination. The occasion of Kennedy Jr.'s visit was the 35th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis between his father and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. According to Kennedy's friend, Castro confided to Kennedy that a mafia ring headed up by Meyer Lansky, who lost his Cuban gambling holdings to Castro's revolution, and a Canadian Zionist veteran of Israel's Haganah army, Louis Bloomfield, were the primary planners of the Dallas "hit" on his father. Jack Ruby, who killed the alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, worked directly for Lansky's organization, Kennedy was told.
Although the information on J.F.K. Jr.'s plans to more thoroughly examine the facts of his father's assassination came from a single source -- a friend of the late Kennedy Jr. -- this editor is in a unique position to corroborate part of the story.
On Saturday, July 17, 1999, I was driving to a hotel in Crystal City, Virginia to proctor a certification examination for a group of computer security professionals. Listening to the radio, the bulletin came across that John F. Kennedy Jr.'s plane was missing. The news came as a body blow. In a few weeks, I was scheduled to meet with Kennedy at his magazine's offices in Washington, DC to discuss hiring on as one of a few investigative journalists Kennedy wanted to dig deep into a number of cases, but most importantly that of his father's assassination. Kennedy had made initial contact with me via a colleague with The Village Voice. I signaled my readiness to do whatever Kennedy wanted because, first of all, I have always been an admirer of the Kennedy family, and after twelve years under Bush presidencies, that admiration has developed into a loyalty for which I make no apologies.
My past discussions with President Kennedy's press secretary Pierre Salinger and Texas Governor John Connally led me to believe that the young Kennedy was on to the story of a lifetime -- a lifetime that for Kennedy Jr. would be tragically snuffed out early.
After I heard the news report about Kennedy's plane and knowing of his plans, I knew deep down that he was gone and that the renewed investigation of America's worst crime of the 20th century was dead along with him. Little did I realize at the time, but I heard the news about Kennedy as I was driving along Route 110 past the side of the Pentagon where the worst crime of the 21st century would take place under the administration of George W. Bush.
In the end, Hillary Clinton was elected to the U.S. Senate seat that Kennedy was to run for. Kennedy's sister, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, would see her own hopes to be appointed to the Senate seat dashed when, according to John H. Kennedy Jr.s' friend, Senator Charles Schumer and Barack Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel conspired to have New York Governor David Paterson appoint a virtual unknown, Kirsten Gillibrand, to the seat. Caroline Kennedy was instead offered a consolation prize of the post of U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, a position that Schumer and Emanuel knew in advance she would never accept.
http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/articles/20090812_4
August 12, 2009 --
WMR has learned from a source who was a close friend of the late John F. Kennedy, Jr. that the FBI originally treated the July 16, 1999, crash of his Piper Saratoga in the waters off Martha' Vineyard as a murder investigation. Kennedy, his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and his sister-in-law Lauren Bessette were killed when their plane plummeted into the Atlantic en route from Caldwell Airport in Essex County, New Jersey to Martha's Vineyard. Kennedy's wife was also three month's pregnant with a boy.
Kennedy was to drop off Lauren Bessette at Martha's Vineyard before flying to Hyannisport to attend his cousin Rory's wedding.
According to the Kennedy friend, the son of the late president and publisher of "George" magazine, was about ready to announce his run for the U.S. Senate from New York. Kennedy was acutely aware of his vulnerability and hired on a personal security team just prior to his announcing for the Senate. Kennedy also decided, unlike all previous flights, not to file a flight plan at Caldwell. Instead, Kennedy, instead of filing an FAA flight plan, provided his own "flight following" by having a Kennedy friend waiting at the Martha's Vineyard airport. When the plane was overdue the friend notified Woods Hole Coast Guard Station which, in turn, notified the FAA and other agencies.
According to the source, Kennedy, contrary to press reports, decided not to fly over open ocean from Montauk at the eastern tip of Long Island to the Vineyard but instead hugged the Connecticut and Rhode Island coast lines until flying direct to the island. Kennedy did not identify his ultimate destination on the radio - he said that6 he was flying "east of Teterboro."
Fearing for his safety, Kennedy thought it best to be within sight of the coastline. According to the Kennedy friend, Kennedy told him his plans prior to his departure. Kennedy had also arranged for all the onboard bags, including his own and that of his family, to be hand searched by security personnel at Caldwell prior to departure. Kennedy decided not to take along a co-pilot because he felt his flight was somewhat of a risk. Kennedy's friend said Kennedy was always concerned about the "underdog" and did not want to put a co-pilot in any potential danger. In any event, Kennedy felt confident of his and his family's security since he had retained a security firm to provide for his protection prior to his Senate run announcement.
Media reports at the time of the disappearance suggested that the weather near Martha's Vineyard was "hazy" and Kennedy may have become disoriented, causing the crash. However, the Kennedy friend states that this was not the case and cites the fact that visibility around the Vineyard was clear at 9:41 pm when the plane disappeared from the sky. The following is from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) report on the crash and quotes the Martha's Vineyard tower manager:
"During an interview, the tower manager stated that no actions were taken to augment or edit the ASOS during his shift. He also stated the following:
'The visibility, present weather, and sky condition at the approximate time of the accident was probably a little better than what was being reported. I say this because I remember aircraft on visual approaches saying they had the airport in sight between 10 and 12 miles out. I do recall being able to see those aircraft and I do remember seeing the stars out that night...To the best of my knowledge, the ASOS was working as advertised that day with no reported problems or systems log errors.'"
ASOS is the Automated Surface Observation System. Media reports claimed that visibility was around 2 miles with haze, a far cry from what the tower manager at Martha's Vineyard stated to the NTSB.
The weather report around the time of the crash also indicated clear weather in the area:
"2053...Clear at or below 12,000 feet; visibility 8 miles; winds 250 degrees at 7 knots; temperature 23 degrees C; dewpoint 19 degrees C; altimeter 30.09 inches of Hg.
2153...Clear at or below 12,000 feet; visibility 10 miles; winds 240 degrees at 10 knots, gusts to 15 knots; temperature 24 degrees C; dewpoint 18 degrees C; altimeter 30.10 inches of Hg"
Some twelve minutes after Kennedy's plane crashing, visibility around Martha's Vineyard was reported at 10 miles, described as near perfect conditions by professional pilots.
There were also questions raised about Kennedy's piloting skills. However, he had logged in 310 hours. The NTSB report also reported Kennedy's most recent flight record:
"In the 15 months before the accident, the pilot had flown about 35 flight legs either to or from the Essex County/Teterboro, New Jersey, area and the Martha's Vineyard/Hyannis, Massachusetts, area. The pilot flew over 17 of these legs without a CFI [Certified Flight Instructor] on board, including at least 5 at night. The pilot's last known flight in the accident airplane without a CFI on board was on May 28, 1999."
Kennedy's most recent three legs were with a CFI on board and along the same route taken on July 16 but significant rain and a 800 foot ceiling. Kennedy had, according to his friend, been flying for 17 years. Before Kennedy flew the Piper Saratoga he flew a Cessna 182.
There were also media reports that Kennedy was impeded by a foot cast from an accident he suffered while parasailing. However, according to Kennedy's friend, the cast had aready been removed when Kennedy took to the skies on July 16.
The Kennedy friend also stated that he learned from an FBI agent, as well as a Secret Service agent, who were friends of the Kennedy family that the FBI originally treated their investigation of the plane crash as a possible murder. Kennedy no longer enjoyed Secret Service protection as a protected person, according to the friend.
FBI agents, after the crash, fanned out across convenience and other stores in the Caldwell, New Jersey area and asked if anyone had recently purchased epoxy. According to the French magazine, France Dimanche, a pilot at the Caldwell airport had reported he heard a "weird noise" coming from Kennedy's plane on takeoff. The FBI theorized that a whistle had been glued on the aft section of the plane in order to emit a distinct, unique, and high-pitched noise for the benefit of someone on the ground who wanted to correctly identify the plane when it descended for landing at Martha's Vineyard.
The FBI asked pilots if a whistle attached to the rear of a plane such as Kennedy's could be heard from the cockpit. The answer from all the pilots was no because the sound would only be heard by those on the ground as the plane passed overhead while descending to an audible range. There was also a belief that if the whistle had been fashioned from a water-soluble material, such as plaster-of-paris, it would have dissolved in the seawater.
The FBI discovered that there was "suspicious boating activity" in an area of Martha's Vineyard where Kennedy's plane was descending to 2000 feet for its final approach to the airport. The "suspicious" boaters claimed to be fishing for striped bass. However, when the FBI asked local fishermen to corroborate the suspicious boaters' story, they stated that the particular area where they were discovered was not an area where Atlantic striped bass would be found. In fact, salt water striped bass do not start to run in Massachusetts coastal waters in great numbers until the autumn.
The FBI also found an unusual number of extra batteries in the fishermens' boat. The FBI was suspicious of the boat's contents because after the plane's wreckage was discovered, investigators found, according to Kennedy's friend, that every light bulb, including that in the emergency flashlight, had been blown out on the plane and every circuit board, including those in the engine sensors and other electronic equipment, had been literally "melted." FBI agents on the scene preliminarily concluded that a "massive electromagnetic event" caused Kennedy's plane to crash. FBI agents also found that the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) had its battery removed, possibly before the flight. Every simulation the FBI conducted of a plane in Kennedy's situation, with all lights off at night and with only the engine and the vacuum pump-operated attitude indicator functioning, resulted in the same result: the plane crashing into the water.
Before the FBI could begin examining the ocean floor for any "special equipment" that may have been thrown overboard from the fishing boat, their "murder" investigation was abruptly called off by FBI headquarters in Washington.
Kennedy was preparing to re-tool "George" magazine to take on investigations of a number of major stories, not least of which was the actual story behind the assassination of his father in Dallas on November 22, 1963. According to an article in Germany's Bild am Sonntag on August 1, 1999, Kennedy was also preparing to meet with the deputy chief of Mossad, Amiran Levine, at the Oak Room in Manhattan's Plaza Hotel the Wednesday after Kennedy was killed. The subject was the assassination of Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 and that Rabin was assassinated by one of his body guards and not the convicted murderer Yigal Amir.
Kennedy's friend said the real priority of the "George" publisher was to re-open the case of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the role that the father of the all-but-announced Republican presidential candidate for the upcoming 2000 election -- George W. Bush -- played in the assassination. Apparently, some documents had come into Kennedy's possession that pointed to George H. W. Bush as a prime participant, on behalf of the CIA, in President Kennedy's murder.
On a 1997 visit to see Cuban President Fidel Castro in Havana for an interview for "George," the Cuban President reportedly told Kennedy a number of details about those behind his father's assassination. The occasion of Kennedy Jr.'s visit was the 35th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis between his father and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. According to Kennedy's friend, Castro confided to Kennedy that a mafia ring headed up by Meyer Lansky, who lost his Cuban gambling holdings to Castro's revolution, and a Canadian Zionist veteran of Israel's Haganah army, Louis Bloomfield, were the primary planners of the Dallas "hit" on his father. Jack Ruby, who killed the alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, worked directly for Lansky's organization, Kennedy was told.
Although the information on J.F.K. Jr.'s plans to more thoroughly examine the facts of his father's assassination came from a single source -- a friend of the late Kennedy Jr. -- this editor is in a unique position to corroborate part of the story.
On Saturday, July 17, 1999, I was driving to a hotel in Crystal City, Virginia to proctor a certification examination for a group of computer security professionals. Listening to the radio, the bulletin came across that John F. Kennedy Jr.'s plane was missing. The news came as a body blow. In a few weeks, I was scheduled to meet with Kennedy at his magazine's offices in Washington, DC to discuss hiring on as one of a few investigative journalists Kennedy wanted to dig deep into a number of cases, but most importantly that of his father's assassination. Kennedy had made initial contact with me via a colleague with The Village Voice. I signaled my readiness to do whatever Kennedy wanted because, first of all, I have always been an admirer of the Kennedy family, and after twelve years under Bush presidencies, that admiration has developed into a loyalty for which I make no apologies.
My past discussions with President Kennedy's press secretary Pierre Salinger and Texas Governor John Connally led me to believe that the young Kennedy was on to the story of a lifetime -- a lifetime that for Kennedy Jr. would be tragically snuffed out early.
After I heard the news report about Kennedy's plane and knowing of his plans, I knew deep down that he was gone and that the renewed investigation of America's worst crime of the 20th century was dead along with him. Little did I realize at the time, but I heard the news about Kennedy as I was driving along Route 110 past the side of the Pentagon where the worst crime of the 21st century would take place under the administration of George W. Bush.
In the end, Hillary Clinton was elected to the U.S. Senate seat that Kennedy was to run for. Kennedy's sister, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, would see her own hopes to be appointed to the Senate seat dashed when, according to John H. Kennedy Jr.s' friend, Senator Charles Schumer and Barack Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel conspired to have New York Governor David Paterson appoint a virtual unknown, Kirsten Gillibrand, to the seat. Caroline Kennedy was instead offered a consolation prize of the post of U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, a position that Schumer and Emanuel knew in advance she would never accept.
http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/articles/20090812_4
Sunday, September 20, 2015
convert cell phone signals to electricity
http://pratt.duke.edu/news/wireless-device-converts-lost-energy-electric-power
Saturday, September 19, 2015
Friday, September 18, 2015
army manual for american internment camps!
https://info.publicintelligence.net/USArmy-InternmentResettlement.pdf
Thursday, September 17, 2015
war on water nestle claims water is not a human right!
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-privatisation-of-water-nestle-denies-that-water-is-a-fundamental-human-right/5332238
reasons to oppose water privitization
https://www.citizen.org/documents/Top10-ReasonsToOpposeWaterPrivatization.pdf
Water "the new oil" is being bought up by the elite and internationalist bankers all over the world!
This article was first published on December 21, 2012
A disturbing trend in the water sector is accelerating worldwide. The new “water barons” — the Wall Street banks and elitist multibillionaires — are buying up water all over the world at unprecedented pace.
Familiar mega-banks and investing powerhouses such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, Macquarie Bank, Barclays Bank, the Blackstone Group, Allianz, and HSBC Bank, among others, are consolidating their control over water. Wealthy tycoons such as T. Boone Pickens, former President George H.W. Bush and his family, Hong Kong’s Li Ka-shing, Philippines’ Manuel V. Pangilinan and other Filipino billionaires, and others are also buying thousands of acres of land with aquifers, lakes, water rights, water utilities, and shares in water engineering and technology companies all over the world.
The second disturbing trend is that while the new water barons are buying up water all over the world, governments are moving fast to limit citizens’ ability to become water self-sufficient (as evidenced by the well-publicized Gary Harrington’s case in Oregon, in which the state criminalized the collection of rainwater in three ponds located on his private land, by convicting him on nine counts and sentencing him for 30 days in jail). Let’s put this criminalization in perspective:
Billionaire T. Boone Pickens owned more water rights than any other individuals in America, with rights over enough of the Ogallala Aquifer to drain approximately 200,000 acre-feet (or 65 billion gallons of water) a year. But ordinary citizen Gary Harrington cannot collect rainwater runoff on 170 acres of his private land.
It’s a strange New World Order in which multibillionaires and elitist banks can own aquifers and lakes, but ordinary citizens cannot even collect rainwater and snow runoff in their own backyards and private lands.
“Water is the oil of the 21st century.” Andrew Liveris, CEO of DOW Chemical Company (quoted in The Economist magazine, August 21, 2008)
In 2008, I wrote an article,
“Why Big Banks May Be Buying up Your Public Water System,” in which I detailed how both mainstream and alternative media coverage on water has tended to focus on individual corporations and super-investors seeking to control water by buying up water rights and water utilities. But paradoxically the hidden story is a far more complicated one. I argued that the real story of the global water sector is a convoluted one involving “interlocking globalized capital”: Wall Street and global investment firms, banks, and other elite private-equity firms — often transcending national boundaries to partner with each other, with banks and hedge funds, with technology corporations and insurance giants, with regional public-sector pension funds, and with sovereign wealth funds — are moving rapidly into the water sector to buy up not only water rights and water-treatment technologies, but also to privatize public water utilities and infrastructure.
Now, in 2012, we are seeing this trend of global consolidation of water by elite banks and tycoons accelerating. In a JP Morgan equity research document, it states clearly that “Wall Street appears well aware of the investment opportunities in water supply infrastructure, wastewater treatment, and demand management technologies.” Indeed, Wall Street is preparing to cash in on the global water grab in the coming decades. For example, Goldman Sachs has amassed more than $10 billion since 2006 for infrastructure investments, which include water. A 2008 New York Times article mentioned Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, and the Carlyle Group, to have “amassed an estimated an estimated $250 billion war chest — must of it raised in the last two years — to finance a tidal wave of infrastructure projects in the United States and overseas.”
By “water,” I mean that it includes water rights (i.e., the right to tap groundwater, aquifers, and rivers), land with bodies of water on it or under it (i.e., lakes, ponds, and natural springs on the surface, or groundwater underneath), desalination projects, water-purification and treatment technologies (e.g., desalination, treatment chemicals and equipment), irrigation and well-drilling technologies, water and sanitation services and utilities, water infrastructure maintenance and construction (from pipes and distribution to all scales of treatment plants for residential, commercial, industrial, and municipal uses), water engineering services (e.g., those involved in the design and construction of water-related facilities), and retail water sector (such as those involved in the production, operation, and sales of bottled water, water vending machines, bottled water subscription and delivery services, water trucks, and water tankers).
Update of My 2008 Article: Mega-Banks See Water as a Critical Commodity
Since 2008, many giant banks and super-investors are capturing more market share in the water sector and identifying water as a critical commodity, much hotter than petroleum.
Goldman Sachs: Water Is Still the Next Petroleum
In 2008, Goldman Sachs called water “the petroleum for the next century” and those investors who know how to play the infrastructure boom will reap huge rewards, during its annual “Top Five Risks” conference. Water is a U.S.$425 billion industry, and a calamitous water shortage could be a more serious threat to humanity in the 21st century than food and energy shortages, according to Goldman Sachs’s conference panel. Goldman Sachs has convened numerous conferences and also published lengthy, insightful analyses of water and other critical sectors (food, energy).
Goldman Sachs is positioning itself to gobble up water utilities, water engineering companies, and water resources worldwide. Since 2006, Goldman Sachs has become one of the largest infrastructure investment fund managers and has amassed a $10 billion capital for infrastructure, including water.
In March 2012, Goldman Sachs was eyeing Veolia’s UK water utility business, estimated at £1.2 billion, and in July it successfully bought Veolia Water, which serves 3.5 million people in southeastern England.
Previously, in September 2003, Goldman Sachs partnered with one of the world’s largest private-equity firm Blackstone Group and Apollo Management to acquire Ondeo Nalco (a leading company in providing water-treatment and process chemicals and services, with more than 10,000 employees and operations in 130 countries) from French water corporation Suez S.A. for U.S.$4.2 billion.
In October 2007, Goldman Sachs teamed up with Deutsche Bank and several partners to bid, unsuccessfully, for U.K.’s Southern Water. In November 2007, Goldman Sachs was also unsuccessful in bidding for U.K. water utility Kelda. But Goldman Sachs is still looking to buy other water utilities.
In January 2008, Goldman Sachs led a team of funds (including Liberty Harbor Master Fund and the Pinnacle Fund) to buy U.S.$50 million of convertible notes in China Water and Drinks Inc., which supplies purified water to name-brand vendors like Coca-Cola and Taiwan’s top beverage company Uni-President. China Water and Drinks is also a leading producer and distributor of bottled water in China and also makes private-labeled bottled water (e.g., for Sands Casino, Macau). Since China has one of the worse water problems in Asia and a large emerging middle class, its bottled-water sector is the fastest-growing in the world and it’s seeing enormous profits. Additionally, China’s acute water shortages and serious pollution could “buoy demand for clean water for years to come, with China’s $14.2 billion water industry a long-term investment destination” (Reuters, January 28, 2008).
The City of Reno, Nevada, was approached by Goldman Sachs for “a long-term asset leasing that could potentially generate significant cash for the three TMWA [Truckee Meadows Water Authority] entities. The program would allow TMWA to lease its assets for 50 years and receive an up-front cash payment” (Reno News & Review, August 28, 2008). Essentially, Goldman Sachs wants to privatize Reno’s water utility for 50 years. Given Reno’s revenue shortfall, this proposal was financially attractive. But the water board eventually rejected the proposal due to strong public opposition and outcry.
Citigroup: The Water Market Will Soon Eclipse Oil, Agriculture, and Precious Metals
Citigroup’s top economist Willem Buitler said in 2011 that the water market will soon be hotter the oil market (for example, see this and this):
“Water as an asset class will, in my view, become eventually the single most important physical-commodity based asset class, dwarfing oil, copper, agricultural commodities and precious metals.”
In its recent 2012 Water Investment Conference, Citigroup has identified top 10 trends in the water sector, as follows:
1. Desalination systems
2. Water reuse technologies
3. Produced water / water utilities
4. Membranes for filtration
5. Ultraviolet (UV) disinfection
6. Ballast-water treatment technologies
7. Forward osmosis used in desalination
8. Water-efficiency technologies and products
9. Point-of-use treatment systems
10. Chinese competitors in water
Specifically, a lucrative opportunity in water is in hydraulic fracturing (or fracking), as it generates massive demand for water and water services. Each oil well developed requires 3 to 5 million gallons of water, and 80% of this water cannot be reused because it’s three to 10 times saltier than seawater. Citigroup recommends water-rights owners sell water to fracking companies instead of to farmers because water for fracking can be sold for as much as $3,000 per acre-foot instead of only $50 per acre/foot to farmers.
The ballast-water treatment sector, currently at $1.35 billion annually, is estimated to reach $30 to $50 billion soon. The water-filtration market is expected to outgrow the water-equipment market: Dow estimates it to be a $5 billion market annually instead of only $1 billion now.
Citigroup is aggressively raising funds for its war chest to participate in the coming tidal wave of infrastructure privatization: in 2007 it established a new unit called Citi Infrastructure Investors through its Citi Alternative Investments unit. According to Reuters, Citigroup “assembled some of the biggest names in the infrastructure business at the same time it is building a $3 billion fund, including $500 million of its own capital. The fund, according to a person familiar with the situation, will have only a handful of outside investors and will be focused on assets in developed markets” (May 16, 2007). Citigroup initially sought only U.S.$3 billion for its first infrastructure fund but was seeking U.S.$5 billion in April 2008 (Bloomberg, April 7, 2008).
Citigroup partnered with HSBC Bank, Prudential, and other minor partners to acquire U.K.’s water utility Kelda (Yorkshire Water) in November 2007. This week, Citigroup signed a 99-year lease with the City of Chicago for Chicago’s Midway Airport (it partnered with John Hancock Life Insurance Company and a Canadian private airport operator). Insiders said that Citigroup is among those bidding for the state-owned company Letiste Praha which operates the Prague Airport in the Czech Republic (Bloomberg, February 7, 2008).
As the five U.K. water utility deals illustrate, typically no one single investment bank or private-equity fund owns the entire infrastructure project — they partner with many others. The Citigroup is now entering India’s massive infrastructure market by partnering the Blackstone Group and two Indian private finance companies; they have launched a U.S.$5 billion fund in February 2007, with three entities (Citi, Blackstone, and IDFC) jointly investing U.S.$250 million. India requires about U.S.$320 billion in infrastructure investments in the next five years (The Financial Express, February 16, 2007).
UBS: Water Scarcity Is the Defining Crisis of the 21st Century
In 2006, UBS Investment Research, a division of Switzerland-based UBS AG, Europe’s largest bank by assets, entitled its 40-page research report, “Q-Series®:Water”—“Water scarcity: The defining crisis of the 21st century?” (October 10, 2006) In 2007, UBS, along with JP Morgan and Australia’s Challenger Fund, bought UK’s Southern Water for £4.2biillion.
Credit Suisse: Water Is the “Paramount Megatrend of Our Time”
Credit Suisse published its report about Credit Suisse Water Index (January 21, 2008) urged investors that “One way to take advantage of this trend is to invest in companies geared to water generation, preservation, infrastructure treatment and desalination. The Index enables investors to participate in the performance of the most attractive companies….” The trend in question, according to Credit Suisse, is the “depletion of freshwater reserves” attributable to “pollution, disappearance of glaciers (the main source of freshwater reserves), and population growth, water is likely to become a scarce resource.”
Credit Suisse recognizes water to be the “paramount megatrend of our time” because of a water-supply crisis might cause “severe societal risk” in the next 10 years and that two-thirds of the world’s population are likely to live under water-stressed conditions by 2025. To address water shortages, it has identified desalination and wastewater treatment as the two most important technologies. Three sectors for good investments include the following:
§ Membranes for desalination and wastewater treatment
§ Water infrastructure — corrosion resistance, pipes, valves, and pumps
§ Chemicals for water treatment
It also created the Credit Suisse Water Index which has the equally weighed index of 30 stocks out of 128 global water stocks. For investors, it offered “Credit Suisse PL100 World Water Trust (PL100 World Water),” launched in June 2007, with $112.9 million.
Credit Suisse partnered with General Electric (GE Infrastructure) in May 2006 to establish a U.S.$1 billion joint venture to profit from privatization and investments in global infrastructure assets. Each partner will commit U.S.$500 million to target electricity generation and transmission, gas storage and pipelines, water facilities, airports, air traffic control, ports, railroads, and toll roads worldwide. This joint venture has estimated that the developed market’s infrastructure opportunities are at U.S.$500 billion, and emerging world’s infrastructure market is U.S.$1 trillion in the next five years (Credit Suisse’s press release, May 31, 2006).
In October 2007, Credit Suisse partnered with Cleantech Group (a Michigan-based market-research, consulting, media, and executive-search firm that operates cleantech forums) and Consensus Business Group (a London-based equity firm owned by U.K. billionaire Vincent Tchenguiz) to invest in clean technologies worldwide. The technologies will also clean water technologies.
During its Asian Investment Conference, it said that “Water is a focus for those in the know about global strategic commodities. As with oil, the supply is finite but demand is growing by leaps and unlike oil there is no alternative.” (Credit Suisse, February 4, 2008). Credit Suisse sees the global water market with U.S.$190 billion in revenue in 2005 and was expected to grow to U.S.$342 billion by 2010. It sees most significant growth opportunities in China.
JPMorgan Chase: Build Infrastructure War Chests to Buy Water, Utilities, and Public Infrastructure Worldwide
One of the world’s largest banks, JPMorgan Chase has aggressively pursued water and infrastructure worldwide. In October 2007, it beat out rivals Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs to buy U.K.’s water utility Southern Water with partners Swiss-based UBS and Australia’s Challenger Infrastructure Fund. This banking empire is controlled by the Rockefeller family; the family patriarch David Rockefeller is a member of the elite and secretive Bilderberg Group, Council on Foreign Relations, and Trilateral Commission.
JPMorgan sees infrastructure finance as a global phenomenon, and it is joined by its global peers in investment and banking institution in their rush to cash in on water and infrastructure. JPMorgan’s own analysts estimate that the emerging markets’ infrastructure is approximately U.S.$21.7 trillion over the next decade.
JPMorgan created a U.S.$2 billion infrastructure fund to go after India’s infrastructure projects in October 2007. The targeted projects are transportation (roads, bridges, railroads) and utilities (gas, electricity, water). India’s finance minister has been estimated that India requires about U.S.$500 billion in infrastructure investments by 2012. In this regard, JPMorgan is joined by Citigroup, the Blackstone Group, 3i Group (Europe’s second-largest private-equity firm), and ICICI Bank (India’s second-largest bank) (International Herald Tribune, October 31, 2007). Its JPMorgan Asset Management has also established an Asian Infrastructure & Related Resources Opportunity Fund which held a first close on U.S.$500 million (€333 million) and will focus on China, India, and other Southern Asian countries, with the first two investments in China and India (Private Equity Online, August 11, 2008). The fund’s target is U.S.$1.5 billion.
JPMorgan’s Global Equity Research division also published a 60-page report called “Watch water: A guide to evaluating corporate risks in a thirsty world” (April 1, 2008).
In 2010, J.P. Morgan Asset Management and Water Asset Management led a $275 million buyout bid for SouthWest Water.
Allianz Group: Water Is Underpriced and Undervalued
Founded in 1890, Germany’s Allianz Group is one of the leading global services providers in insurance, banking, and asset management in about 70 countries. In April 2008, Allianz SE launched the Allianz RCM Global Water Fund which invests in equity securities of water-related companies worldwide, emphasizing long-term capital appreciation. Alliance launched its Global EcoTrends Fund in February 2007 (Business Wire, February 7, 2007).
Allianz SE’s Dresdner Bank AG told its investors that “Investments in water offer opportunities: Rising oil prices obscure our view of an even more serious scarcity: water. The global water economy is faced with a multi-billion dollar need for capital expenditure and modernization. Dresdner Bank sees this as offering attractive opportunities for returns for investors with a long-term investment horizon.” (Frankfurt, August 14, 2008)
Like Goldman Sachs, Allianz has the philosophy that water is underpriced. A co-manager of the Water Fund in Frankfurt, said, “A key issue of water is that the true value of water is not recognized. …Water tends to be undervalued around the world. …Perhaps that is one of the reasons why there are so many places with a lack of supply due to a lack of investment. With that in mind, it makes sense to invest in companies that are engaged in improving water quality and infrastructure.” Allianz sees two key investment drivers in water: (1) upgrading the aging infrastructure in the developed world; and (2) new urbanization and industrialization in developing countries such as China and India.
Barclays PLC: Water Index Funds and Exchange-Traded Funds
Barclays PLC is a U.K.-based major global financial services provider operating in all over the world with roots in London since 1690; it operates through its subsidiary Barclays Bank PLC and its investment bank called Barclays Capital.
Barclays Bank’s unit Barclays Global Investors manages an exchange-traded fund (ETF) called iShares S&P Global Water, which is listed on the London Stock Exchanges and can be purchased like any ordinary share through a broker. Touting the iShares S&P Global Water as offering “a broad based exposure to shares of the world’s largest water companies, including water utilities and water equipment stocks” of water companies around the world, this fund as of March 31, 2007 was valued at U.S.$33.8 million.
Barclays also have a climate index fund: launched on January 16, 2008, SAM Indexes GmbH licensed its Dow Jones Sustainability Index to Barclays Capital for investors in Germany and Switzerland. Many other banks also have a climate index or sustainability index.
In October 2007, Barclays Capital also partnered with Protected Distribution Limited (PDL) to launch a new water investment fund (with expected annual returns of 9% to 11%) called Protected Water Fund. This new fund, listed in the Isle of Man, requires a minimum of £10,000 and is structured as a 10-year investment with Barclays Bank providing 100% of capital protection until maturity on October 11, 2017. The Protected Water Fund will be invested in some of the world’s largest water companies; its investment decisions will be made based on an index created by Barclays Capital, the Barclays World Water Strategy, which charts the performance of some of the world’s largest water-related stocks (Investment Week and Reuters, October 11, 2007; Business Week, October 15, 2007).
Deutsche Bank’s €2 Billion Investment in European Infrastructure: “Megatrend” in Water, Climate, Infrastructure, and Agribusiness Investments
Deutsche Bank is one of the major players in the water sector worldwide. Its Deutsche Bank Advisors have identified water as a part of the climate investment strategies. In its presentation, “Global Warming: Implications for Investors,” they have identified the four following major areas for water investment:
§ Distribution and management: (1) Supply and recycling, (2) water distribution and sewage, (3) water management and engineering.
§ Water purification: (1) Sewage purification, (2) disinfection, (3) desalination, (4) monitoring.
§ Water efficiency (demand): (1) Home installation, (2) gray-water recycling, (3) water meters.
§ Water and nutrition: (1) Irrigation, (2) bottled water.
In addition to water, the other two new resources identified were agribusiness (e.g., pesticides, genetically modified seeds, mineral fertilizers, agricultural machinery) and renewable energies (e.g., solar, wind, hydrothermal, biomass, hydroelectricity).
The Deutsche Bank has established an investment fund of up to €2 billion in European infrastructure assets using its Structured Capital Markets Group (SCM), part of the bank’s Global Markets division. The bank already has several “highly attractive infrastructure assets,” including East Surrey Holdings, the owner of U.K.’s water utility Sutton & East Surrey Water (Deutsche Bank press release, September 22, 2006).
Moreover, Deutsche Bank has channeled €6 billion (U.S.$8.55 billion) into climate change funds, which will target companies with products that cut greenhouse gases or help people adapt to a warmer world, in sectors from agriculture to power and construction (Reuters, October 18, 2007).
In addition to SCM, Deutsche Bank also has the RREEF Infrastructure, part of RREEF Alternative Investments, headquartered in New York with main hubs in Sydney, Singapore, and London. RREEF Infrastructure has more than €6.7 billion in assets under management. One of its main targets is utilities, including electricity networks, water-treatment or distribution operations, and natural-gas networks. In October 2007, RREEF partnered with Goldman Sachs, GE, Prudential, and Babcok & Brown Ltd. to bid unsuccessfully for U.K.’s water utility Southern Water.
§ Crediting the boom in European infrastructure investment, the RREEF fund by August 2007 had raised €2 billion (U.S.$2.8 billion); Europe’s infrastructure market is valued at between U.S.$4 trillion to U.S.$6 trillion (DowJones Financial News Online, August 7, 2007).
§ Bulgaria — Deutsche Bank Bulgaria is planning to participate in large infrastructure projects, including public-private partnership projects in water and sewage worth up to €1 billion (Sofia Echo Media, February 26, 2008).
§ Middle East — Along with Ithmaar Bank B.S.C. (an private-equity investment bank in Bahrain), Deutsche Bank co-managed a U.S.$2 billion Shari’a-compliant Infrastructure and Growth Capital Fund and plans to target U.S.$630 billion in regional infrastructure.
Deutsche Bank AG is co-owner of Aqueduct Capital (UK) Limited which in 2006 offered to buy U.K.’s sixth-largest water utility Sutton and East Surrey Water plc from British tycoon Guy Hand. According to an OFWAT consultation paper (May 2007), Deutsche Bank formed this new entity, Aqueduct Capital (short for ACUK), in October 2005, with two public pension funds in Canada, Singapore’s life insurance giant, and a Canadian province’s investment fund, among others. This case, again, is an illustration of the complex nature of ownership of water utilities today, with various types of institutions crossing national boundaries to partner with each other to hold a stake in the water sector. With its impressive war chest dedicated to water, food, and infrastructure, Deutsche Bank is expected to become a major player in the global water sector.
Other Mega-Banks Eyeing Water as Hot Investment
Merrill Lynch (before being bought by Bank of America) issued a 24-page research report titled “Water scarcity; a bigger problem than assumed” (December 6, 2007). ML said that water scarcity is “not limited to arid climates.”
Morgan Stanley in its publication, “Emerging Markets Infrastructure: Just Getting Started” (April 2008) recommends three areas of investment opportunities in water: water utilities, global operators (such as Veolia Environment), and technology companies (such as those that manufacture membranes and chemicals used in water treatment to the water industry).
Mutual Funds and Hedge Funds Join the Action in Water
Water investment funds are on the rise, such as these four well-known water-focused mutual funds:
1. Calvert Global Water Fund (CFWAX) — $42 million in assets as of 2010, which holds 30% of its assets in water utilities, 40% in infrastructure companies, and 30% in water technologies. Also between 65% to 70% of the water stocks derived more than 50% of their revenue from water-related activities.
2. Allianz RCM Global Water Fund (AWTAX) — $54 million assets as of 2010, most of it invested in water utilities.
3. PFW Water Fund (PFWAX) — $17 million in assets as of 2010, with a minimum investment of $2,500, with 80% invested in water-related companies….
4. Kinetics Water Infrastructure Advantaged Fund (KWIAX) — $26 million in assets as of 2010, with a minimum investment of $2,500.
This is a brief list of water-centered hedge funds:
§ Master Water Equity Fund — Summit Global AM (United States)
§ Water Partners Fund — Aqua Terra AM (United States)
§ The Water Fund — Terrapin AM (United States)
§ The Reservoir Fund — Water AM (United States)
§ The Oasis Fund — Perella Weinberg AM (United States)
§ Signina Water Fund — Signina Capital AG (Switzerland)
§ MFS Water Fund of Funds — MFS Aqua AM (Australia)
§ Triton Water Fund of Funds — FourWinds CM (United States)
§ Water Edge Fund of Funds — Parker Global Strategies LLC (United States)
Other banks have launched water-targeted investment funds. Several well-known specialized water funds include Pictet Water Fund, SAM Sustainable Water Fund, Sarasin Sustainable Water Fund, Swisscanto Equity Fund Water, and Tareno Waterfund. Several structured water products offered by major investment banks include ABN Amro Water Stocks Index Certificate, BKB Water Basket, ZKB Sustainable Basket Water, Wagelin Water Shares Certificate, UBS Water Strategy Certificate, and Certificate on Vontobel Water Index. There are also several water indexes and index funds, as follows:
Credit Suisse Water Index
HSBC Water, Waste, and Pollution Control Index
Merrill Lynch China Water Index
S&P Global Water Index
First Trust ISE Water Index Fund (FIW)
International Securities Exchange’s ISE-B&S Water Index
The following is a small sample of other water funds and certificates (not exhaustive of the current range of diverse water products available):
Allianz RCM Global EcoTrends Fund
Allianz RCM Global Water Fund
UBS Water Strategy Certificate—it has a managed basket of 25 international stocks
Summit Water Equity Fund
Maxxwater Global Water Fund
Claymore S&P Global Water ETF (CGW)
Barclays Global Investors’ iShares S&P Global Water
Barclays and PDL’s Protected Water Fund based on Barclays World Water Strategy
Invesco’s PowerShares Water Resources Portfolio ETF (PHO)
Invesco’s PowerShares Global Water (PIO)
Pictet Asset Management’s Pictet Water Fund and Pictet Water Opportunities Fund
Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce’s Water Growth Deposit Notes
Criterion Investments Limited’s Criterion Water Infrastructure Fund
One often-heard reason for the investment banks’ rush to control of water is that “Utilities are viewed as relatively safe assets in an economic downturn so [they] are more isolated than most from the global credit crunch, initially sparked by concerns over U.S. subprime mortgages” (Reuters, October 9, 2007). A London-based analyst at HSBC Securities told Bloomberg News that water is a good investment because “You’re buying something that’s inflation proof and there’s no threat to earnings really. It’s very stable and you can sell it any time you want” (Bloomberg, October 8, 2007).
More Pension Funds Investing in Water
Many pension funds have entered the water sector as a relatively safe sector for investment. For example, BT Pension Scheme (of British Telecom plc) has bought stakes in Thames Water in 2012, while Canadian pension funds CDPQ (Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, which manages public pension funds in Québec) and CPPIB (Canada Pension Plan Investment Board) have acquired England’s South East Water and Anglian Water, respectively, as reported by Reuters this year.
Sovereign Wealth Investment Funds Jumping into Water
In January 2012, China Investment Corporation has bought 8.68% stakes in Thames Water, the largest water utility in England, which serves parts of the Greater London area, Thames Valley, and Surrey, among other areas.
In November 2012, One of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), also purchased 9.9% stake in Thames Water.
Billionaires Sucking up Water Globally: George H.W. Bush and Family, Li Ka-shing, the Filipino Billionaires, and Others
Not only are the mega-banks investing heavily in water, the multibillionaire tycoons are also buying water.
Update on Hong Kong Multibillionaire Li Ka-shing’s Water Acquisition
In summer 2011, the Hong Kong multibillionaire tycoon Li Ka-shing who owns Cheung Kong Infrastructure (CKI), bought Northumbrian Water, which serves 2.6 million people in northeastern England, for $3.9 billion (see this and this).
CKI also sold Cambridge Water for £74 million to HSBC in 2011. Not satisfied with controlling the water sector, in 2010, CKI with a consortium bought EDF’s power networks in UK for £5.8 billion.
Li is now also collaborating with Samsung on investing in water treatment.
Warren Buffet Buys Nalco, a Chemical Maker and Water Process Technology Company
Through his Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffet is the largest institutional investor of Nalco Holding Co. (NLC), a subsidiary of Ecolab, with 9 million shares. Nalco was named 2012 Water Technology Company of the Year. Nalco manufactures treatment chemicals and water treatment process technologies.
But the company Nalco is not just a membrane manufacturer; it also produced the infamous toxic chemical dispersant Corexit which was used to disperse crude oil in the aftermath of BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Before being sold to Ecolab, Nalco’s parent company was Blackstone……
Former President George H.W. Bush’s Family Bought 300,000 Acres on South America’s and World’s Largest Aquifer, Acuifero GuaranÃ
In my 2008 article, I overlooked the astonishingly large land purchases (298,840 acres, to be exact) by the Bush family in 2005 and 2006. In 2006, while on a trip to Paraguay for the United Nation’s children’s group UNICEF, Jenna Bush (daughter of former President George W. Bush and granddaughter of former President George H.W. Bush) reportedly bought 98,840 acres of land in Chaco, Paraguay, near the Triple Frontier (Bolivia, Brazil, and Paraguay). This land is said to be near the 200,000 acres purchased by her grandfather, George H.W. Bush, in 2005.
The lands purchased by the Bush family sit over not only South America’s largest aquifer — but the world’s as well — Acuifero GuaranÃ, which runs beneath Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. This aquifer is larger than Texas and California combined.
Online political magazine Counterpunch quoted Argentinean pacifist Adolfo Perez Esquivel, the winner of 1981 Nobel Peace Prize, who “warned that the real war will be fought not for oil, but for water, and recalled that Acuifero Guaranà is one of the largest underground water reserves in South America….”
According to Wikipedia, this aquifer covers 1,200,000 km², with a volume of about 40,000 km³, a thickness of between 50 m and 800 m and a maximum depth of about 1,800 m. It is estimated to contain about 37,000 km³ of water (arguably the largest single body of groundwater in the world, although the overall volume of the constituent parts of the Great Artesian Basin is much larger), with a total recharge rate of about 166 km³/year from precipitation. It is said that this vast underground reservoir could supply fresh drinking water to the world for 200 years.
Filipino Tycoon Manuel V. Pangilinan and Others Buy Water Services in Vietnam
In October 2012, Filipino businessman Manuel V. Pangilinan went to Vietnam to scout for investment opportunities, particularly on toll road and water services. Mr. Pangilinan and other Filipino billionaires, such as the owners of the Ayala Corp. and subsidiary Manila Water Co. earlier announced a deal to buy a 10-per cent stake in Ho Chi Minh City Infrastructure Investment Joint Stock Co. (CII) and a 49-per cent stake in Kenh Dong Water Supply Joint Stock Co. (Kenh Dong).
The Ayala group has also entered the Vietnamese market by buying significant minority interest in a leading infrastructure company and a bulk water supply company both based in Ho Chi Minh City.
Water Grabbing Is Unstoppable
Unfortunately, the global water and infrastructure-privatization fever is unstoppable: many local and state governments are suffering from revenue shortfalls and are under financial and budgetary strains. These local and state governments can longer shoulder the responsibilities of maintaining and upgrading their own utilities. Facing offers of millions of cash from Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, UBS, and other elite banks for their utilities and other infrastructure and municipal services, cities and states will find it extremely difficult to refuse these privatization offers.
The elite multinational and Wall Street banks and investment banks have been preparing and waiting for this golden moment for years. Over the past few years, they have amassed war chests of infrastructure funds to privatize water, municipal services, and utilities all over the world. It will be extremely difficult to reverse this privatization trend in water.
References for Several Articles Mentioned
“Goldman Sachs eyes bid for Veolia Water,” by Anousha Sakoui and Daniel Schäfer, Financial Times, March 13, 2012.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/183cfae4-6d21-11e1-a7c7-00144feab49a.html#axzz2CM8OLnFQ
“Hong Kong tycoon to buy Northumbrian Water,” by Mark Wembridge, Financial Times, August 2, 2011.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/3df07960-bcdb-11e0-bdb1-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2CM8OLnFQ
“Why Big Banks May Be Buying up Your Public Water System: In uncertain economic and environmental times, big banks and financial groups are buying up public water systems as safe investments,” by Jo-Shing Yang, AlterNet, October 31, 2008.
http://www.alternet.org/zstory/105083/why_big_banks_may_be_trying_to_buy_up_your_public_water_system
“Barclays Capital Backs Water Fund,” by Dylan Lobo, October 11, 2007. Reuters.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2007/10/11/citywire-barclays-water-idUKNOA13736320071011
“Investors Gush Over SouthWest Water Buyout,” March 3, 2010, Forbes.
http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/03/southwest-water-novell-markets-equities-deals-marketnewsvideo.html
“Hideout or Water Raid? Bush’s Paraguay Land Grab,” by CP News Wire, Counterpunch, October 22-26, 2006.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2006/10/20/bush-s-paraguay-land-grab/
“Paraguay in a spin about Bush’s alleged 100,000 acre hideaway,” by Tom Phillips, The Guardian, October 22, 2006.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/oct/23/mainsection.tomphillips
“Cities Debate Privatizing Public Infrastructure,” by Jenny Anderson, August 26, 2008, The New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/27/business/27fund.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
“Philippine tycoon eyes investments in Vietnam,” by Doris C. Dunlao in Manila, Philippine Daily Inquirer, October 18, 2012.
http://my.news.yahoo.com/philippine-tycoon-eyes-investments-vietnam-060002777.html
Jo-Shing Yang is an independent researcher and author of “Ecological Planning, Design, & Engineering. Solving Global Water Crises: New Paradigms in Wastewater and Water Treatment. Small and On-Site Systems for Water Self-Sufficiency and Sustainability.”
Copyright © Jo-Shing Yang, Market Oracle, 2015
A disturbing trend in the water sector is accelerating worldwide. The new “water barons” — the Wall Street banks and elitist multibillionaires — are buying up water all over the world at unprecedented pace.
Familiar mega-banks and investing powerhouses such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, Macquarie Bank, Barclays Bank, the Blackstone Group, Allianz, and HSBC Bank, among others, are consolidating their control over water. Wealthy tycoons such as T. Boone Pickens, former President George H.W. Bush and his family, Hong Kong’s Li Ka-shing, Philippines’ Manuel V. Pangilinan and other Filipino billionaires, and others are also buying thousands of acres of land with aquifers, lakes, water rights, water utilities, and shares in water engineering and technology companies all over the world.
The second disturbing trend is that while the new water barons are buying up water all over the world, governments are moving fast to limit citizens’ ability to become water self-sufficient (as evidenced by the well-publicized Gary Harrington’s case in Oregon, in which the state criminalized the collection of rainwater in three ponds located on his private land, by convicting him on nine counts and sentencing him for 30 days in jail). Let’s put this criminalization in perspective:
Billionaire T. Boone Pickens owned more water rights than any other individuals in America, with rights over enough of the Ogallala Aquifer to drain approximately 200,000 acre-feet (or 65 billion gallons of water) a year. But ordinary citizen Gary Harrington cannot collect rainwater runoff on 170 acres of his private land.
It’s a strange New World Order in which multibillionaires and elitist banks can own aquifers and lakes, but ordinary citizens cannot even collect rainwater and snow runoff in their own backyards and private lands.
“Water is the oil of the 21st century.” Andrew Liveris, CEO of DOW Chemical Company (quoted in The Economist magazine, August 21, 2008)
In 2008, I wrote an article,
“Why Big Banks May Be Buying up Your Public Water System,” in which I detailed how both mainstream and alternative media coverage on water has tended to focus on individual corporations and super-investors seeking to control water by buying up water rights and water utilities. But paradoxically the hidden story is a far more complicated one. I argued that the real story of the global water sector is a convoluted one involving “interlocking globalized capital”: Wall Street and global investment firms, banks, and other elite private-equity firms — often transcending national boundaries to partner with each other, with banks and hedge funds, with technology corporations and insurance giants, with regional public-sector pension funds, and with sovereign wealth funds — are moving rapidly into the water sector to buy up not only water rights and water-treatment technologies, but also to privatize public water utilities and infrastructure.
Now, in 2012, we are seeing this trend of global consolidation of water by elite banks and tycoons accelerating. In a JP Morgan equity research document, it states clearly that “Wall Street appears well aware of the investment opportunities in water supply infrastructure, wastewater treatment, and demand management technologies.” Indeed, Wall Street is preparing to cash in on the global water grab in the coming decades. For example, Goldman Sachs has amassed more than $10 billion since 2006 for infrastructure investments, which include water. A 2008 New York Times article mentioned Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, and the Carlyle Group, to have “amassed an estimated an estimated $250 billion war chest — must of it raised in the last two years — to finance a tidal wave of infrastructure projects in the United States and overseas.”
By “water,” I mean that it includes water rights (i.e., the right to tap groundwater, aquifers, and rivers), land with bodies of water on it or under it (i.e., lakes, ponds, and natural springs on the surface, or groundwater underneath), desalination projects, water-purification and treatment technologies (e.g., desalination, treatment chemicals and equipment), irrigation and well-drilling technologies, water and sanitation services and utilities, water infrastructure maintenance and construction (from pipes and distribution to all scales of treatment plants for residential, commercial, industrial, and municipal uses), water engineering services (e.g., those involved in the design and construction of water-related facilities), and retail water sector (such as those involved in the production, operation, and sales of bottled water, water vending machines, bottled water subscription and delivery services, water trucks, and water tankers).
Update of My 2008 Article: Mega-Banks See Water as a Critical Commodity
Since 2008, many giant banks and super-investors are capturing more market share in the water sector and identifying water as a critical commodity, much hotter than petroleum.
Goldman Sachs: Water Is Still the Next Petroleum
In 2008, Goldman Sachs called water “the petroleum for the next century” and those investors who know how to play the infrastructure boom will reap huge rewards, during its annual “Top Five Risks” conference. Water is a U.S.$425 billion industry, and a calamitous water shortage could be a more serious threat to humanity in the 21st century than food and energy shortages, according to Goldman Sachs’s conference panel. Goldman Sachs has convened numerous conferences and also published lengthy, insightful analyses of water and other critical sectors (food, energy).
Goldman Sachs is positioning itself to gobble up water utilities, water engineering companies, and water resources worldwide. Since 2006, Goldman Sachs has become one of the largest infrastructure investment fund managers and has amassed a $10 billion capital for infrastructure, including water.
In March 2012, Goldman Sachs was eyeing Veolia’s UK water utility business, estimated at £1.2 billion, and in July it successfully bought Veolia Water, which serves 3.5 million people in southeastern England.
Previously, in September 2003, Goldman Sachs partnered with one of the world’s largest private-equity firm Blackstone Group and Apollo Management to acquire Ondeo Nalco (a leading company in providing water-treatment and process chemicals and services, with more than 10,000 employees and operations in 130 countries) from French water corporation Suez S.A. for U.S.$4.2 billion.
In October 2007, Goldman Sachs teamed up with Deutsche Bank and several partners to bid, unsuccessfully, for U.K.’s Southern Water. In November 2007, Goldman Sachs was also unsuccessful in bidding for U.K. water utility Kelda. But Goldman Sachs is still looking to buy other water utilities.
In January 2008, Goldman Sachs led a team of funds (including Liberty Harbor Master Fund and the Pinnacle Fund) to buy U.S.$50 million of convertible notes in China Water and Drinks Inc., which supplies purified water to name-brand vendors like Coca-Cola and Taiwan’s top beverage company Uni-President. China Water and Drinks is also a leading producer and distributor of bottled water in China and also makes private-labeled bottled water (e.g., for Sands Casino, Macau). Since China has one of the worse water problems in Asia and a large emerging middle class, its bottled-water sector is the fastest-growing in the world and it’s seeing enormous profits. Additionally, China’s acute water shortages and serious pollution could “buoy demand for clean water for years to come, with China’s $14.2 billion water industry a long-term investment destination” (Reuters, January 28, 2008).
The City of Reno, Nevada, was approached by Goldman Sachs for “a long-term asset leasing that could potentially generate significant cash for the three TMWA [Truckee Meadows Water Authority] entities. The program would allow TMWA to lease its assets for 50 years and receive an up-front cash payment” (Reno News & Review, August 28, 2008). Essentially, Goldman Sachs wants to privatize Reno’s water utility for 50 years. Given Reno’s revenue shortfall, this proposal was financially attractive. But the water board eventually rejected the proposal due to strong public opposition and outcry.
Citigroup: The Water Market Will Soon Eclipse Oil, Agriculture, and Precious Metals
Citigroup’s top economist Willem Buitler said in 2011 that the water market will soon be hotter the oil market (for example, see this and this):
“Water as an asset class will, in my view, become eventually the single most important physical-commodity based asset class, dwarfing oil, copper, agricultural commodities and precious metals.”
In its recent 2012 Water Investment Conference, Citigroup has identified top 10 trends in the water sector, as follows:
1. Desalination systems
2. Water reuse technologies
3. Produced water / water utilities
4. Membranes for filtration
5. Ultraviolet (UV) disinfection
6. Ballast-water treatment technologies
7. Forward osmosis used in desalination
8. Water-efficiency technologies and products
9. Point-of-use treatment systems
10. Chinese competitors in water
Specifically, a lucrative opportunity in water is in hydraulic fracturing (or fracking), as it generates massive demand for water and water services. Each oil well developed requires 3 to 5 million gallons of water, and 80% of this water cannot be reused because it’s three to 10 times saltier than seawater. Citigroup recommends water-rights owners sell water to fracking companies instead of to farmers because water for fracking can be sold for as much as $3,000 per acre-foot instead of only $50 per acre/foot to farmers.
The ballast-water treatment sector, currently at $1.35 billion annually, is estimated to reach $30 to $50 billion soon. The water-filtration market is expected to outgrow the water-equipment market: Dow estimates it to be a $5 billion market annually instead of only $1 billion now.
Citigroup is aggressively raising funds for its war chest to participate in the coming tidal wave of infrastructure privatization: in 2007 it established a new unit called Citi Infrastructure Investors through its Citi Alternative Investments unit. According to Reuters, Citigroup “assembled some of the biggest names in the infrastructure business at the same time it is building a $3 billion fund, including $500 million of its own capital. The fund, according to a person familiar with the situation, will have only a handful of outside investors and will be focused on assets in developed markets” (May 16, 2007). Citigroup initially sought only U.S.$3 billion for its first infrastructure fund but was seeking U.S.$5 billion in April 2008 (Bloomberg, April 7, 2008).
Citigroup partnered with HSBC Bank, Prudential, and other minor partners to acquire U.K.’s water utility Kelda (Yorkshire Water) in November 2007. This week, Citigroup signed a 99-year lease with the City of Chicago for Chicago’s Midway Airport (it partnered with John Hancock Life Insurance Company and a Canadian private airport operator). Insiders said that Citigroup is among those bidding for the state-owned company Letiste Praha which operates the Prague Airport in the Czech Republic (Bloomberg, February 7, 2008).
As the five U.K. water utility deals illustrate, typically no one single investment bank or private-equity fund owns the entire infrastructure project — they partner with many others. The Citigroup is now entering India’s massive infrastructure market by partnering the Blackstone Group and two Indian private finance companies; they have launched a U.S.$5 billion fund in February 2007, with three entities (Citi, Blackstone, and IDFC) jointly investing U.S.$250 million. India requires about U.S.$320 billion in infrastructure investments in the next five years (The Financial Express, February 16, 2007).
UBS: Water Scarcity Is the Defining Crisis of the 21st Century
In 2006, UBS Investment Research, a division of Switzerland-based UBS AG, Europe’s largest bank by assets, entitled its 40-page research report, “Q-Series®:Water”—“Water scarcity: The defining crisis of the 21st century?” (October 10, 2006) In 2007, UBS, along with JP Morgan and Australia’s Challenger Fund, bought UK’s Southern Water for £4.2biillion.
Credit Suisse: Water Is the “Paramount Megatrend of Our Time”
Credit Suisse published its report about Credit Suisse Water Index (January 21, 2008) urged investors that “One way to take advantage of this trend is to invest in companies geared to water generation, preservation, infrastructure treatment and desalination. The Index enables investors to participate in the performance of the most attractive companies….” The trend in question, according to Credit Suisse, is the “depletion of freshwater reserves” attributable to “pollution, disappearance of glaciers (the main source of freshwater reserves), and population growth, water is likely to become a scarce resource.”
Credit Suisse recognizes water to be the “paramount megatrend of our time” because of a water-supply crisis might cause “severe societal risk” in the next 10 years and that two-thirds of the world’s population are likely to live under water-stressed conditions by 2025. To address water shortages, it has identified desalination and wastewater treatment as the two most important technologies. Three sectors for good investments include the following:
§ Membranes for desalination and wastewater treatment
§ Water infrastructure — corrosion resistance, pipes, valves, and pumps
§ Chemicals for water treatment
It also created the Credit Suisse Water Index which has the equally weighed index of 30 stocks out of 128 global water stocks. For investors, it offered “Credit Suisse PL100 World Water Trust (PL100 World Water),” launched in June 2007, with $112.9 million.
Credit Suisse partnered with General Electric (GE Infrastructure) in May 2006 to establish a U.S.$1 billion joint venture to profit from privatization and investments in global infrastructure assets. Each partner will commit U.S.$500 million to target electricity generation and transmission, gas storage and pipelines, water facilities, airports, air traffic control, ports, railroads, and toll roads worldwide. This joint venture has estimated that the developed market’s infrastructure opportunities are at U.S.$500 billion, and emerging world’s infrastructure market is U.S.$1 trillion in the next five years (Credit Suisse’s press release, May 31, 2006).
In October 2007, Credit Suisse partnered with Cleantech Group (a Michigan-based market-research, consulting, media, and executive-search firm that operates cleantech forums) and Consensus Business Group (a London-based equity firm owned by U.K. billionaire Vincent Tchenguiz) to invest in clean technologies worldwide. The technologies will also clean water technologies.
During its Asian Investment Conference, it said that “Water is a focus for those in the know about global strategic commodities. As with oil, the supply is finite but demand is growing by leaps and unlike oil there is no alternative.” (Credit Suisse, February 4, 2008). Credit Suisse sees the global water market with U.S.$190 billion in revenue in 2005 and was expected to grow to U.S.$342 billion by 2010. It sees most significant growth opportunities in China.
JPMorgan Chase: Build Infrastructure War Chests to Buy Water, Utilities, and Public Infrastructure Worldwide
One of the world’s largest banks, JPMorgan Chase has aggressively pursued water and infrastructure worldwide. In October 2007, it beat out rivals Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs to buy U.K.’s water utility Southern Water with partners Swiss-based UBS and Australia’s Challenger Infrastructure Fund. This banking empire is controlled by the Rockefeller family; the family patriarch David Rockefeller is a member of the elite and secretive Bilderberg Group, Council on Foreign Relations, and Trilateral Commission.
JPMorgan sees infrastructure finance as a global phenomenon, and it is joined by its global peers in investment and banking institution in their rush to cash in on water and infrastructure. JPMorgan’s own analysts estimate that the emerging markets’ infrastructure is approximately U.S.$21.7 trillion over the next decade.
JPMorgan created a U.S.$2 billion infrastructure fund to go after India’s infrastructure projects in October 2007. The targeted projects are transportation (roads, bridges, railroads) and utilities (gas, electricity, water). India’s finance minister has been estimated that India requires about U.S.$500 billion in infrastructure investments by 2012. In this regard, JPMorgan is joined by Citigroup, the Blackstone Group, 3i Group (Europe’s second-largest private-equity firm), and ICICI Bank (India’s second-largest bank) (International Herald Tribune, October 31, 2007). Its JPMorgan Asset Management has also established an Asian Infrastructure & Related Resources Opportunity Fund which held a first close on U.S.$500 million (€333 million) and will focus on China, India, and other Southern Asian countries, with the first two investments in China and India (Private Equity Online, August 11, 2008). The fund’s target is U.S.$1.5 billion.
JPMorgan’s Global Equity Research division also published a 60-page report called “Watch water: A guide to evaluating corporate risks in a thirsty world” (April 1, 2008).
In 2010, J.P. Morgan Asset Management and Water Asset Management led a $275 million buyout bid for SouthWest Water.
Allianz Group: Water Is Underpriced and Undervalued
Founded in 1890, Germany’s Allianz Group is one of the leading global services providers in insurance, banking, and asset management in about 70 countries. In April 2008, Allianz SE launched the Allianz RCM Global Water Fund which invests in equity securities of water-related companies worldwide, emphasizing long-term capital appreciation. Alliance launched its Global EcoTrends Fund in February 2007 (Business Wire, February 7, 2007).
Allianz SE’s Dresdner Bank AG told its investors that “Investments in water offer opportunities: Rising oil prices obscure our view of an even more serious scarcity: water. The global water economy is faced with a multi-billion dollar need for capital expenditure and modernization. Dresdner Bank sees this as offering attractive opportunities for returns for investors with a long-term investment horizon.” (Frankfurt, August 14, 2008)
Like Goldman Sachs, Allianz has the philosophy that water is underpriced. A co-manager of the Water Fund in Frankfurt, said, “A key issue of water is that the true value of water is not recognized. …Water tends to be undervalued around the world. …Perhaps that is one of the reasons why there are so many places with a lack of supply due to a lack of investment. With that in mind, it makes sense to invest in companies that are engaged in improving water quality and infrastructure.” Allianz sees two key investment drivers in water: (1) upgrading the aging infrastructure in the developed world; and (2) new urbanization and industrialization in developing countries such as China and India.
Barclays PLC: Water Index Funds and Exchange-Traded Funds
Barclays PLC is a U.K.-based major global financial services provider operating in all over the world with roots in London since 1690; it operates through its subsidiary Barclays Bank PLC and its investment bank called Barclays Capital.
Barclays Bank’s unit Barclays Global Investors manages an exchange-traded fund (ETF) called iShares S&P Global Water, which is listed on the London Stock Exchanges and can be purchased like any ordinary share through a broker. Touting the iShares S&P Global Water as offering “a broad based exposure to shares of the world’s largest water companies, including water utilities and water equipment stocks” of water companies around the world, this fund as of March 31, 2007 was valued at U.S.$33.8 million.
Barclays also have a climate index fund: launched on January 16, 2008, SAM Indexes GmbH licensed its Dow Jones Sustainability Index to Barclays Capital for investors in Germany and Switzerland. Many other banks also have a climate index or sustainability index.
In October 2007, Barclays Capital also partnered with Protected Distribution Limited (PDL) to launch a new water investment fund (with expected annual returns of 9% to 11%) called Protected Water Fund. This new fund, listed in the Isle of Man, requires a minimum of £10,000 and is structured as a 10-year investment with Barclays Bank providing 100% of capital protection until maturity on October 11, 2017. The Protected Water Fund will be invested in some of the world’s largest water companies; its investment decisions will be made based on an index created by Barclays Capital, the Barclays World Water Strategy, which charts the performance of some of the world’s largest water-related stocks (Investment Week and Reuters, October 11, 2007; Business Week, October 15, 2007).
Deutsche Bank’s €2 Billion Investment in European Infrastructure: “Megatrend” in Water, Climate, Infrastructure, and Agribusiness Investments
Deutsche Bank is one of the major players in the water sector worldwide. Its Deutsche Bank Advisors have identified water as a part of the climate investment strategies. In its presentation, “Global Warming: Implications for Investors,” they have identified the four following major areas for water investment:
§ Distribution and management: (1) Supply and recycling, (2) water distribution and sewage, (3) water management and engineering.
§ Water purification: (1) Sewage purification, (2) disinfection, (3) desalination, (4) monitoring.
§ Water efficiency (demand): (1) Home installation, (2) gray-water recycling, (3) water meters.
§ Water and nutrition: (1) Irrigation, (2) bottled water.
In addition to water, the other two new resources identified were agribusiness (e.g., pesticides, genetically modified seeds, mineral fertilizers, agricultural machinery) and renewable energies (e.g., solar, wind, hydrothermal, biomass, hydroelectricity).
The Deutsche Bank has established an investment fund of up to €2 billion in European infrastructure assets using its Structured Capital Markets Group (SCM), part of the bank’s Global Markets division. The bank already has several “highly attractive infrastructure assets,” including East Surrey Holdings, the owner of U.K.’s water utility Sutton & East Surrey Water (Deutsche Bank press release, September 22, 2006).
Moreover, Deutsche Bank has channeled €6 billion (U.S.$8.55 billion) into climate change funds, which will target companies with products that cut greenhouse gases or help people adapt to a warmer world, in sectors from agriculture to power and construction (Reuters, October 18, 2007).
In addition to SCM, Deutsche Bank also has the RREEF Infrastructure, part of RREEF Alternative Investments, headquartered in New York with main hubs in Sydney, Singapore, and London. RREEF Infrastructure has more than €6.7 billion in assets under management. One of its main targets is utilities, including electricity networks, water-treatment or distribution operations, and natural-gas networks. In October 2007, RREEF partnered with Goldman Sachs, GE, Prudential, and Babcok & Brown Ltd. to bid unsuccessfully for U.K.’s water utility Southern Water.
§ Crediting the boom in European infrastructure investment, the RREEF fund by August 2007 had raised €2 billion (U.S.$2.8 billion); Europe’s infrastructure market is valued at between U.S.$4 trillion to U.S.$6 trillion (DowJones Financial News Online, August 7, 2007).
§ Bulgaria — Deutsche Bank Bulgaria is planning to participate in large infrastructure projects, including public-private partnership projects in water and sewage worth up to €1 billion (Sofia Echo Media, February 26, 2008).
§ Middle East — Along with Ithmaar Bank B.S.C. (an private-equity investment bank in Bahrain), Deutsche Bank co-managed a U.S.$2 billion Shari’a-compliant Infrastructure and Growth Capital Fund and plans to target U.S.$630 billion in regional infrastructure.
Deutsche Bank AG is co-owner of Aqueduct Capital (UK) Limited which in 2006 offered to buy U.K.’s sixth-largest water utility Sutton and East Surrey Water plc from British tycoon Guy Hand. According to an OFWAT consultation paper (May 2007), Deutsche Bank formed this new entity, Aqueduct Capital (short for ACUK), in October 2005, with two public pension funds in Canada, Singapore’s life insurance giant, and a Canadian province’s investment fund, among others. This case, again, is an illustration of the complex nature of ownership of water utilities today, with various types of institutions crossing national boundaries to partner with each other to hold a stake in the water sector. With its impressive war chest dedicated to water, food, and infrastructure, Deutsche Bank is expected to become a major player in the global water sector.
Other Mega-Banks Eyeing Water as Hot Investment
Merrill Lynch (before being bought by Bank of America) issued a 24-page research report titled “Water scarcity; a bigger problem than assumed” (December 6, 2007). ML said that water scarcity is “not limited to arid climates.”
Morgan Stanley in its publication, “Emerging Markets Infrastructure: Just Getting Started” (April 2008) recommends three areas of investment opportunities in water: water utilities, global operators (such as Veolia Environment), and technology companies (such as those that manufacture membranes and chemicals used in water treatment to the water industry).
Mutual Funds and Hedge Funds Join the Action in Water
Water investment funds are on the rise, such as these four well-known water-focused mutual funds:
1. Calvert Global Water Fund (CFWAX) — $42 million in assets as of 2010, which holds 30% of its assets in water utilities, 40% in infrastructure companies, and 30% in water technologies. Also between 65% to 70% of the water stocks derived more than 50% of their revenue from water-related activities.
2. Allianz RCM Global Water Fund (AWTAX) — $54 million assets as of 2010, most of it invested in water utilities.
3. PFW Water Fund (PFWAX) — $17 million in assets as of 2010, with a minimum investment of $2,500, with 80% invested in water-related companies….
4. Kinetics Water Infrastructure Advantaged Fund (KWIAX) — $26 million in assets as of 2010, with a minimum investment of $2,500.
This is a brief list of water-centered hedge funds:
§ Master Water Equity Fund — Summit Global AM (United States)
§ Water Partners Fund — Aqua Terra AM (United States)
§ The Water Fund — Terrapin AM (United States)
§ The Reservoir Fund — Water AM (United States)
§ The Oasis Fund — Perella Weinberg AM (United States)
§ Signina Water Fund — Signina Capital AG (Switzerland)
§ MFS Water Fund of Funds — MFS Aqua AM (Australia)
§ Triton Water Fund of Funds — FourWinds CM (United States)
§ Water Edge Fund of Funds — Parker Global Strategies LLC (United States)
Other banks have launched water-targeted investment funds. Several well-known specialized water funds include Pictet Water Fund, SAM Sustainable Water Fund, Sarasin Sustainable Water Fund, Swisscanto Equity Fund Water, and Tareno Waterfund. Several structured water products offered by major investment banks include ABN Amro Water Stocks Index Certificate, BKB Water Basket, ZKB Sustainable Basket Water, Wagelin Water Shares Certificate, UBS Water Strategy Certificate, and Certificate on Vontobel Water Index. There are also several water indexes and index funds, as follows:
Credit Suisse Water Index
HSBC Water, Waste, and Pollution Control Index
Merrill Lynch China Water Index
S&P Global Water Index
First Trust ISE Water Index Fund (FIW)
International Securities Exchange’s ISE-B&S Water Index
The following is a small sample of other water funds and certificates (not exhaustive of the current range of diverse water products available):
Allianz RCM Global EcoTrends Fund
Allianz RCM Global Water Fund
UBS Water Strategy Certificate—it has a managed basket of 25 international stocks
Summit Water Equity Fund
Maxxwater Global Water Fund
Claymore S&P Global Water ETF (CGW)
Barclays Global Investors’ iShares S&P Global Water
Barclays and PDL’s Protected Water Fund based on Barclays World Water Strategy
Invesco’s PowerShares Water Resources Portfolio ETF (PHO)
Invesco’s PowerShares Global Water (PIO)
Pictet Asset Management’s Pictet Water Fund and Pictet Water Opportunities Fund
Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce’s Water Growth Deposit Notes
Criterion Investments Limited’s Criterion Water Infrastructure Fund
One often-heard reason for the investment banks’ rush to control of water is that “Utilities are viewed as relatively safe assets in an economic downturn so [they] are more isolated than most from the global credit crunch, initially sparked by concerns over U.S. subprime mortgages” (Reuters, October 9, 2007). A London-based analyst at HSBC Securities told Bloomberg News that water is a good investment because “You’re buying something that’s inflation proof and there’s no threat to earnings really. It’s very stable and you can sell it any time you want” (Bloomberg, October 8, 2007).
More Pension Funds Investing in Water
Many pension funds have entered the water sector as a relatively safe sector for investment. For example, BT Pension Scheme (of British Telecom plc) has bought stakes in Thames Water in 2012, while Canadian pension funds CDPQ (Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, which manages public pension funds in Québec) and CPPIB (Canada Pension Plan Investment Board) have acquired England’s South East Water and Anglian Water, respectively, as reported by Reuters this year.
Sovereign Wealth Investment Funds Jumping into Water
In January 2012, China Investment Corporation has bought 8.68% stakes in Thames Water, the largest water utility in England, which serves parts of the Greater London area, Thames Valley, and Surrey, among other areas.
In November 2012, One of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), also purchased 9.9% stake in Thames Water.
Billionaires Sucking up Water Globally: George H.W. Bush and Family, Li Ka-shing, the Filipino Billionaires, and Others
Not only are the mega-banks investing heavily in water, the multibillionaire tycoons are also buying water.
Update on Hong Kong Multibillionaire Li Ka-shing’s Water Acquisition
In summer 2011, the Hong Kong multibillionaire tycoon Li Ka-shing who owns Cheung Kong Infrastructure (CKI), bought Northumbrian Water, which serves 2.6 million people in northeastern England, for $3.9 billion (see this and this).
CKI also sold Cambridge Water for £74 million to HSBC in 2011. Not satisfied with controlling the water sector, in 2010, CKI with a consortium bought EDF’s power networks in UK for £5.8 billion.
Li is now also collaborating with Samsung on investing in water treatment.
Warren Buffet Buys Nalco, a Chemical Maker and Water Process Technology Company
Through his Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffet is the largest institutional investor of Nalco Holding Co. (NLC), a subsidiary of Ecolab, with 9 million shares. Nalco was named 2012 Water Technology Company of the Year. Nalco manufactures treatment chemicals and water treatment process technologies.
But the company Nalco is not just a membrane manufacturer; it also produced the infamous toxic chemical dispersant Corexit which was used to disperse crude oil in the aftermath of BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Before being sold to Ecolab, Nalco’s parent company was Blackstone……
Former President George H.W. Bush’s Family Bought 300,000 Acres on South America’s and World’s Largest Aquifer, Acuifero GuaranÃ
In my 2008 article, I overlooked the astonishingly large land purchases (298,840 acres, to be exact) by the Bush family in 2005 and 2006. In 2006, while on a trip to Paraguay for the United Nation’s children’s group UNICEF, Jenna Bush (daughter of former President George W. Bush and granddaughter of former President George H.W. Bush) reportedly bought 98,840 acres of land in Chaco, Paraguay, near the Triple Frontier (Bolivia, Brazil, and Paraguay). This land is said to be near the 200,000 acres purchased by her grandfather, George H.W. Bush, in 2005.
The lands purchased by the Bush family sit over not only South America’s largest aquifer — but the world’s as well — Acuifero GuaranÃ, which runs beneath Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. This aquifer is larger than Texas and California combined.
Online political magazine Counterpunch quoted Argentinean pacifist Adolfo Perez Esquivel, the winner of 1981 Nobel Peace Prize, who “warned that the real war will be fought not for oil, but for water, and recalled that Acuifero Guaranà is one of the largest underground water reserves in South America….”
According to Wikipedia, this aquifer covers 1,200,000 km², with a volume of about 40,000 km³, a thickness of between 50 m and 800 m and a maximum depth of about 1,800 m. It is estimated to contain about 37,000 km³ of water (arguably the largest single body of groundwater in the world, although the overall volume of the constituent parts of the Great Artesian Basin is much larger), with a total recharge rate of about 166 km³/year from precipitation. It is said that this vast underground reservoir could supply fresh drinking water to the world for 200 years.
Filipino Tycoon Manuel V. Pangilinan and Others Buy Water Services in Vietnam
In October 2012, Filipino businessman Manuel V. Pangilinan went to Vietnam to scout for investment opportunities, particularly on toll road and water services. Mr. Pangilinan and other Filipino billionaires, such as the owners of the Ayala Corp. and subsidiary Manila Water Co. earlier announced a deal to buy a 10-per cent stake in Ho Chi Minh City Infrastructure Investment Joint Stock Co. (CII) and a 49-per cent stake in Kenh Dong Water Supply Joint Stock Co. (Kenh Dong).
The Ayala group has also entered the Vietnamese market by buying significant minority interest in a leading infrastructure company and a bulk water supply company both based in Ho Chi Minh City.
Water Grabbing Is Unstoppable
Unfortunately, the global water and infrastructure-privatization fever is unstoppable: many local and state governments are suffering from revenue shortfalls and are under financial and budgetary strains. These local and state governments can longer shoulder the responsibilities of maintaining and upgrading their own utilities. Facing offers of millions of cash from Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, UBS, and other elite banks for their utilities and other infrastructure and municipal services, cities and states will find it extremely difficult to refuse these privatization offers.
The elite multinational and Wall Street banks and investment banks have been preparing and waiting for this golden moment for years. Over the past few years, they have amassed war chests of infrastructure funds to privatize water, municipal services, and utilities all over the world. It will be extremely difficult to reverse this privatization trend in water.
References for Several Articles Mentioned
“Goldman Sachs eyes bid for Veolia Water,” by Anousha Sakoui and Daniel Schäfer, Financial Times, March 13, 2012.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/183cfae4-6d21-11e1-a7c7-00144feab49a.html#axzz2CM8OLnFQ
“Hong Kong tycoon to buy Northumbrian Water,” by Mark Wembridge, Financial Times, August 2, 2011.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/3df07960-bcdb-11e0-bdb1-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2CM8OLnFQ
“Why Big Banks May Be Buying up Your Public Water System: In uncertain economic and environmental times, big banks and financial groups are buying up public water systems as safe investments,” by Jo-Shing Yang, AlterNet, October 31, 2008.
http://www.alternet.org/zstory/105083/why_big_banks_may_be_trying_to_buy_up_your_public_water_system
“Barclays Capital Backs Water Fund,” by Dylan Lobo, October 11, 2007. Reuters.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2007/10/11/citywire-barclays-water-idUKNOA13736320071011
“Investors Gush Over SouthWest Water Buyout,” March 3, 2010, Forbes.
http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/03/southwest-water-novell-markets-equities-deals-marketnewsvideo.html
“Hideout or Water Raid? Bush’s Paraguay Land Grab,” by CP News Wire, Counterpunch, October 22-26, 2006.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2006/10/20/bush-s-paraguay-land-grab/
“Paraguay in a spin about Bush’s alleged 100,000 acre hideaway,” by Tom Phillips, The Guardian, October 22, 2006.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/oct/23/mainsection.tomphillips
“Cities Debate Privatizing Public Infrastructure,” by Jenny Anderson, August 26, 2008, The New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/27/business/27fund.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
“Philippine tycoon eyes investments in Vietnam,” by Doris C. Dunlao in Manila, Philippine Daily Inquirer, October 18, 2012.
http://my.news.yahoo.com/philippine-tycoon-eyes-investments-vietnam-060002777.html
Jo-Shing Yang is an independent researcher and author of “Ecological Planning, Design, & Engineering. Solving Global Water Crises: New Paradigms in Wastewater and Water Treatment. Small and On-Site Systems for Water Self-Sufficiency and Sustainability.”
Copyright © Jo-Shing Yang, Market Oracle, 2015
Monday, September 14, 2015
some brief fact about cia involvement in the drug trade
excerpted from
Drug Fallout
by Alfred McCoy
Progressive magazine, August 1997
Throughout the forty years of the Cold War, the CIA joined with urban gangsters and rural warlords, many of them major drug dealers, to mount covert operations against communists around the globe. In one of history's accidents, the Iron Curtain fell along the border of the Asian opium zone, which stretches across 5,000 miles of mountains from Turkey to Thailand. In Burma during the 1950s, in Laos during the 1970s, and in Afghanistan during the 1980s, the CIA allied with highland warlords to mobilize tribal armies against the Soviet Union and China.
In each of these covert wars, Agency assets-local informants-used their alliance with the CIA to become major drug lords, expanding local opium production and shipping heroin to international markets, the United States included. Instead of stopping this drug dealing, the Agency tolerated it and, when necessary, blocked investigations. Since ruthless drug lords made effective anti-communist allies and opium amplified their power, CIA agents mounting delicate operations on their own, half a world from home, had no reason to complain. For the drug lords, it was an ideal arrangement. The CIA's major covert operations-often lasting a decade-provided them with de facto immunity within enforcement-free zones.
In Laos in the 1960s, the CIA battled local communists with a secret army of 30,000 Hmong-a tough highland tribe whose only cash crop was opium. A handful of CIA agents relied on tribal leaders to provide troops and Lao generals to protect their cover. When Hmong officers loaded opium on the ClA's proprietary carrier Air America, the Agency did nothing. And when the Lao army's commander, General Ouane Rattikone, opened what was probably the world's largest heroin laboratory, the Agency again failed to act.
"The past involvement of many of these officers in drugs is well known," the ClA's Inspector General said in a still-classified 1972 report, "yet their goodwill . . . considerably facilitates the military activities of Agency-supported irregulars."
Indeed, the CIA had a detailed know ledge of drug trafficking in the Golden Triangle-that remote, rugged corner of Southeast Asia where Burma, Thailand, and Laos converge. In June 1971, The New York Times published extracts from an other CIA report identifying twenty-one opium refineries in the Golden Triangle and stating that the "most important are located in the areas around Tachilek, Burma; Ban Houei Sai and Nam Keung in Laos; and Mae Salong in Thailand." Three of these areas were controlled by CIA allies: Nam Keung by the chief of CIA mercenaries for northwestern Laos; Ban Houei Sai by the commander of the Royal Lao Army; and Mae Salong by the Nationalist Chinese forces who had fought for the Agency in Burma. The CIA stated that the Ban Houei Sai laboratory, which was owned by General Ouane, was ' believed capable of processing 100 kilos of raw opium per day," or 3.6 tons of heroin a year-a vast output considering the total yearly U.S. consumption of heroin was then less than ten tons.
By 1971, 34 percent of all U.S. soldiers in South Vietnam were heroin addicts, according to a White House survey. There were more American heroin addicts in South Vietnam than in the entire United States-largely supplied from heroin laboratories operated by CIA allies, though the White House failed to acknowledge that unpleasant fact. Since there was no indigenous local market, Asian drug lords started shipping Golden Triangle heroin not consumed by the GIs to the United States, where it soon won a significant share of the illicit market.
*****
Within a few years, the currents of global geopolitics then shifted in ways that pushed the CIA into new alliances with drug traffickers. In 1979, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan and the Sandinista revolution seized Nicaragua, prompting two CIA covert operations with some revealing similarities. During the 1980s, while the Soviets occupied Afghanistan, the CIA, working through Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence, spent some $2 billion to support the Afghan resistance. When the operation started in 1979, this region grew opium only for regional markets and produced no heroin. Within two years, however, the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands became the world's top heroin producer, supplying 60 percent of U.S. demand. In Pakistan, the heroin-addict population went from near zero in 1979 to 5,000 in 1981 and to 1.2 million by 1985-a much steeper rise than in any other nation.
CIA assets again controlled this heroin trade. As the Mujaheddin guerrillas seized territory inside Afghanistan, they ordered peasants to plant opium as a revolutionary tax. Across the border in Pakistan, Afghan leaders and local syndicates under the protection of Pakistan Intelligence operated hundreds of heroin laboratories. During this decade of wide-open drug-dealing, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in Islamabad failed to instigate major seizures or arrests.
In May 1990, as the CIA operation was winding down, The Washington Post published a front-page expose charging that Gulbudin Hekmatar, the ClA's favored Afghan leader, was a major heroin manufacturer. The Post argued, in a manner similar to the San Jose Mercury News's later report about the contras, that U.S. officials had refused to investigate charges of heroin dealing by its Afghan allies "because U.S. narcotics policy in Afghanistan has been subordinated to the war against Soviet influence there."
In 1995, the former CIA director of the Afghan operation, Charles Cogan, admitted the CIA had indeed sacrificed the drug war to fight the Cold War. "Our main mission was to do as much damage as possible to the Soviets. We didn't really have the resources or the time to devote to an investigation of the drug trade," he told an Australian television reporter. "I don't think that we need to apologize for this. Every situation has its fallout.... There was fallout in terms of drugs, yes. But the main objective was accomplished. The Soviets left Afghanistan."
Again, distance and complexity insulated the CIA from any political fallout. Once the heroin left Pakistan's laboratories, the Sicilian mafia managed its export to the United States, and a chain of syndicate-controlled pizza parlors distributed the drugs to street gangs in American cities, according to reports by the Drug Enforcement Agency. Most ordinary Americans did not see the links between the ClA's alliance with Afghan drug lords, the pizza parlors, and the heroin on U.S. streets.
In Central America, proximity simplified the political equation. According to sections of the San Jose Mercury News story that the mainstream press have not contested, this "dark alliance" began in the early 1980s when the contra revolt against Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista government was failing for want of funds. In 1981, the CIA hired ex-Nicaraguan army Colonel Enrique Bermudez to organize what became the main contra guerrilla army, the Nicaraguan Democratic Front. Bermudez then accepted funds from two Nicaraguan exiles active in the crack trade to supplement meager Agency funding.
In California, Danilo Blandon, the former director of Nicaragua's farm-marketing program, used his business skills to open a new drug-distribution network. Blandon allied with the rising young black drug dealer "Freeway Rick" Ross to convert tons of cocaine into low-cost crack for a growing market among the city's poor African Americans. With supplies of cheap cocaine from Central America, Ross undercut rival dealers and built a booming drug business that spread up the California coast and across the Midwest. Ross and Blandon avoided arrest for years. But in the late 1990s, the operation lost its contra connection. Both dealers were soon arrested on drug charges. Freeway Rick started serving a ten-year sentence, while the Justice Department intervened to free the contra-connected Blandon and send him home as a well paid Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) informant.
Other responsible sources have made similar allegations about contra involvement in cocaine smuggling to the United States In December 1985, the Associated Press issued a story about the contra alliance with cocaine smugglers. "Nicaraguan rebels operating in northern Costa Rica have engaged in cocaine trafficking," wrote AP reporters Robert Parry and Brian Barger, "in part to help finance their war against Nicaragua's leftist government, according to U.S. investigators and American volunteers who work with the rebels." As evidence, the reporters cited a CIA intelligence report noting "the contras in Nicaragua had bought aircraft with drug profits."
After lengthy investigations, a U.S. Senate subcommittee chaired by John Kerry, the Democratic Senator from Massachusetts, issued a report in 1988 concluding that "individuals associated with the contra movement" were traffickers; cocaine smugglers had participated in "contra supply operations; and the U.S. State Department had made "payments to drug traffickers . . . for humanitarian assistance to the contras. in some cases after the traffickers had been indicted . . . on drug charges."
During this decade of contra operations from bases in southern Honduras, the region was effectively closed to narcotics investigations. In 1983, at the height of the contra war, the DEA suddenly shut down its Honduran office even though the agent there, Tomas Zepeda, had, in his words, "generated a substantial amount of useful intelligence" about Honduran military involvement in the cocaine traffic to the United States. "The Pentagon made it clear that we were in the way," an anonymous DEA agent explained. "They had more important business." As host to the main contra bases and the ClA's supply operation, the Honduran military, like the commander of the Royal Laotian Army and Pakistani Intelligence, were spared investigation of their involvement in drug trafficking.
Alfred W. McCoy, a history professor at the University of Wisconsin, is the author of "The Politics of Heroin: The CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade."
Drug Fallout
by Alfred McCoy
Progressive magazine, August 1997
Throughout the forty years of the Cold War, the CIA joined with urban gangsters and rural warlords, many of them major drug dealers, to mount covert operations against communists around the globe. In one of history's accidents, the Iron Curtain fell along the border of the Asian opium zone, which stretches across 5,000 miles of mountains from Turkey to Thailand. In Burma during the 1950s, in Laos during the 1970s, and in Afghanistan during the 1980s, the CIA allied with highland warlords to mobilize tribal armies against the Soviet Union and China.
In each of these covert wars, Agency assets-local informants-used their alliance with the CIA to become major drug lords, expanding local opium production and shipping heroin to international markets, the United States included. Instead of stopping this drug dealing, the Agency tolerated it and, when necessary, blocked investigations. Since ruthless drug lords made effective anti-communist allies and opium amplified their power, CIA agents mounting delicate operations on their own, half a world from home, had no reason to complain. For the drug lords, it was an ideal arrangement. The CIA's major covert operations-often lasting a decade-provided them with de facto immunity within enforcement-free zones.
In Laos in the 1960s, the CIA battled local communists with a secret army of 30,000 Hmong-a tough highland tribe whose only cash crop was opium. A handful of CIA agents relied on tribal leaders to provide troops and Lao generals to protect their cover. When Hmong officers loaded opium on the ClA's proprietary carrier Air America, the Agency did nothing. And when the Lao army's commander, General Ouane Rattikone, opened what was probably the world's largest heroin laboratory, the Agency again failed to act.
"The past involvement of many of these officers in drugs is well known," the ClA's Inspector General said in a still-classified 1972 report, "yet their goodwill . . . considerably facilitates the military activities of Agency-supported irregulars."
Indeed, the CIA had a detailed know ledge of drug trafficking in the Golden Triangle-that remote, rugged corner of Southeast Asia where Burma, Thailand, and Laos converge. In June 1971, The New York Times published extracts from an other CIA report identifying twenty-one opium refineries in the Golden Triangle and stating that the "most important are located in the areas around Tachilek, Burma; Ban Houei Sai and Nam Keung in Laos; and Mae Salong in Thailand." Three of these areas were controlled by CIA allies: Nam Keung by the chief of CIA mercenaries for northwestern Laos; Ban Houei Sai by the commander of the Royal Lao Army; and Mae Salong by the Nationalist Chinese forces who had fought for the Agency in Burma. The CIA stated that the Ban Houei Sai laboratory, which was owned by General Ouane, was ' believed capable of processing 100 kilos of raw opium per day," or 3.6 tons of heroin a year-a vast output considering the total yearly U.S. consumption of heroin was then less than ten tons.
By 1971, 34 percent of all U.S. soldiers in South Vietnam were heroin addicts, according to a White House survey. There were more American heroin addicts in South Vietnam than in the entire United States-largely supplied from heroin laboratories operated by CIA allies, though the White House failed to acknowledge that unpleasant fact. Since there was no indigenous local market, Asian drug lords started shipping Golden Triangle heroin not consumed by the GIs to the United States, where it soon won a significant share of the illicit market.
*****
Within a few years, the currents of global geopolitics then shifted in ways that pushed the CIA into new alliances with drug traffickers. In 1979, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan and the Sandinista revolution seized Nicaragua, prompting two CIA covert operations with some revealing similarities. During the 1980s, while the Soviets occupied Afghanistan, the CIA, working through Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence, spent some $2 billion to support the Afghan resistance. When the operation started in 1979, this region grew opium only for regional markets and produced no heroin. Within two years, however, the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands became the world's top heroin producer, supplying 60 percent of U.S. demand. In Pakistan, the heroin-addict population went from near zero in 1979 to 5,000 in 1981 and to 1.2 million by 1985-a much steeper rise than in any other nation.
CIA assets again controlled this heroin trade. As the Mujaheddin guerrillas seized territory inside Afghanistan, they ordered peasants to plant opium as a revolutionary tax. Across the border in Pakistan, Afghan leaders and local syndicates under the protection of Pakistan Intelligence operated hundreds of heroin laboratories. During this decade of wide-open drug-dealing, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in Islamabad failed to instigate major seizures or arrests.
In May 1990, as the CIA operation was winding down, The Washington Post published a front-page expose charging that Gulbudin Hekmatar, the ClA's favored Afghan leader, was a major heroin manufacturer. The Post argued, in a manner similar to the San Jose Mercury News's later report about the contras, that U.S. officials had refused to investigate charges of heroin dealing by its Afghan allies "because U.S. narcotics policy in Afghanistan has been subordinated to the war against Soviet influence there."
In 1995, the former CIA director of the Afghan operation, Charles Cogan, admitted the CIA had indeed sacrificed the drug war to fight the Cold War. "Our main mission was to do as much damage as possible to the Soviets. We didn't really have the resources or the time to devote to an investigation of the drug trade," he told an Australian television reporter. "I don't think that we need to apologize for this. Every situation has its fallout.... There was fallout in terms of drugs, yes. But the main objective was accomplished. The Soviets left Afghanistan."
Again, distance and complexity insulated the CIA from any political fallout. Once the heroin left Pakistan's laboratories, the Sicilian mafia managed its export to the United States, and a chain of syndicate-controlled pizza parlors distributed the drugs to street gangs in American cities, according to reports by the Drug Enforcement Agency. Most ordinary Americans did not see the links between the ClA's alliance with Afghan drug lords, the pizza parlors, and the heroin on U.S. streets.
In Central America, proximity simplified the political equation. According to sections of the San Jose Mercury News story that the mainstream press have not contested, this "dark alliance" began in the early 1980s when the contra revolt against Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista government was failing for want of funds. In 1981, the CIA hired ex-Nicaraguan army Colonel Enrique Bermudez to organize what became the main contra guerrilla army, the Nicaraguan Democratic Front. Bermudez then accepted funds from two Nicaraguan exiles active in the crack trade to supplement meager Agency funding.
In California, Danilo Blandon, the former director of Nicaragua's farm-marketing program, used his business skills to open a new drug-distribution network. Blandon allied with the rising young black drug dealer "Freeway Rick" Ross to convert tons of cocaine into low-cost crack for a growing market among the city's poor African Americans. With supplies of cheap cocaine from Central America, Ross undercut rival dealers and built a booming drug business that spread up the California coast and across the Midwest. Ross and Blandon avoided arrest for years. But in the late 1990s, the operation lost its contra connection. Both dealers were soon arrested on drug charges. Freeway Rick started serving a ten-year sentence, while the Justice Department intervened to free the contra-connected Blandon and send him home as a well paid Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) informant.
Other responsible sources have made similar allegations about contra involvement in cocaine smuggling to the United States In December 1985, the Associated Press issued a story about the contra alliance with cocaine smugglers. "Nicaraguan rebels operating in northern Costa Rica have engaged in cocaine trafficking," wrote AP reporters Robert Parry and Brian Barger, "in part to help finance their war against Nicaragua's leftist government, according to U.S. investigators and American volunteers who work with the rebels." As evidence, the reporters cited a CIA intelligence report noting "the contras in Nicaragua had bought aircraft with drug profits."
After lengthy investigations, a U.S. Senate subcommittee chaired by John Kerry, the Democratic Senator from Massachusetts, issued a report in 1988 concluding that "individuals associated with the contra movement" were traffickers; cocaine smugglers had participated in "contra supply operations; and the U.S. State Department had made "payments to drug traffickers . . . for humanitarian assistance to the contras. in some cases after the traffickers had been indicted . . . on drug charges."
During this decade of contra operations from bases in southern Honduras, the region was effectively closed to narcotics investigations. In 1983, at the height of the contra war, the DEA suddenly shut down its Honduran office even though the agent there, Tomas Zepeda, had, in his words, "generated a substantial amount of useful intelligence" about Honduran military involvement in the cocaine traffic to the United States. "The Pentagon made it clear that we were in the way," an anonymous DEA agent explained. "They had more important business." As host to the main contra bases and the ClA's supply operation, the Honduran military, like the commander of the Royal Laotian Army and Pakistani Intelligence, were spared investigation of their involvement in drug trafficking.
Alfred W. McCoy, a history professor at the University of Wisconsin, is the author of "The Politics of Heroin: The CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade."
Sunday, September 13, 2015
Saturday, September 12, 2015
albert pike
Very few outsiders know about the intimate plans of Albert Pike and the architects of the New World Order. In the 19th Century Albert Pike established a framework for bringing about the One World Order. Based on a vision revealed to him, Albert Pike wrote a blueprint of events that would play themselves out in the 20th century, with even more of these events yet to come. It is this blueprint which we believe unseen leaders are following today, knowingly or not, to engineer the planned Third and Final World War.
About Albert Pike
Picture of Albert PikeAlbert Pike was born on December 29, 1809, in Boston, and was the oldest of six children born to Benjamin and Sarah Andrews Pike. He studied at Harvard, and later served as a Brigadier-General in the Confederate Army. After the Civil War, Pike was found guilty of treason and jailed, only to be pardoned by fellow Freemason President Andrew Johnson on April 22, 1866, who met with him the next day at the White House. On June 20, 1867, Scottish Rite officials conferred upon Johnson the 4th to 32nd Freemasonry degrees, and he later went to Boston to dedicate a Masonic Temple.
Pike was said to be a genius, able to read and write in 16 different languages, although I cannot find a record anywhere of what those languages were. In addition, he is widely accused of plagiarism, so take with a pinch of salt. At various stages of his life we was a poet, philosopher, frontiersman, soldier, humanitarian and philanthropist. A 33rd degree Mason, he was one of the founding fathers, and head of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, being the Grand Commander of North American Freemasonry from 1859 and retained that position until his death in 1891. In 1869, he was a top leader in the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
Incidentally, Freemasonry itself is a fascinating subject and I could devote an entire website to it. Simon Gray, a Freemason, has compiled a stunning amount of information on Freemasonry that I recommend for anyone who wants to learn more about it.
Pike was said to be a Satanist, who indulged in the occult, and he apparently possessed a bracelet which he used to summon Lucifer, with whom he had constant communication. He was the Grand Master of a Luciferian group known as the Order of the Palladium (or Sovereign Council of Wisdom), which had been founded in Paris in 1737. Palladism had been brought to Greece from Egypt by Pythagoras in the fifth century, and it was this cult of Satan that was introduced to the inner circle of the Masonic lodges. It was aligned with the Palladium of the Templars. In 1801, Issac Long, a Jew, brought a statue of Baphomet (Satan) to Charleston, South Carolina, where he helped to establish the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. Long apparently chose Charleston because it was geographically located on the 33rd parallel of latitude (incidentally, so is Baghdad), and this council is considered to be the Mother Supreme Council of all Masonic Lodges of the World.
Pike was Long's successor, and he changed the name of the Order to the New and Reformed Palladian Rite (or Reformed Palladium). The Order contained two degrees:
Adelph (or Brother), and
Companion of Ulysses (or Companion of Penelope).
Pike's right-hand man was Phileas Walder, from Switzerland, who was a former Lutheran minister, a Masonic leader, occultist, and spiritualist. Pike also worked closely with Giusseppe Mazzini of Italy (1805-1872) who was a 33rd degree Mason, who became head of the Illuminati in 1834, and who founded the Mafia in 1860. Together with Mazzini, Lord Henry Palmerston of England (1784-1865, 33rd degree Mason), and Otto von Bismarck from Germany (1815-1898, 33rd degree Mason), Albert Pike intended to use the Palladian Rite to create a Satanic umbrella group that would tie all Masonic groups together.
Albert Pike died on April 2, 1891, and was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery, although the corpse of Pike currently lies in the headquarters of the Council of the 33rd degree of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry in Washington, D.C. (see The Deadly Deception, by Jim Shaw - former 33rd degree Mason and Past Master of all Scottish Rite bodies.)
The Albert Pike Monument
Albert Pike made his mark before the war in Arkansas as a lawyer and writer, but as a Confederate Brigadier General, he was, according to the Arkansas Democrat of July 31, 1978, a complete "WASH-OUT," not a hero. Yet, Gen. Albert Pike is the only Confederate general with a statue on federal property in Washington, DC. He was honoured, not as a commander or even as a lawyer, but as Southern regional leader of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. The statue stands on a pedestal near the foot of Capitol Hill, between the Department of Labor building and the Municipal Building, between 3rd and 4th Streets, on D Street, NW. More background on the colorful history of the statue can be found at the Masonic Info website. During the 1992 presidential campaign, Lyndon H. LaRouche and his vice presidential running mate, the Reverend James Bevel, launched a mobilization to remove the statue of General Albert Pike from Washington, D.C.'s Judiciary Square. On February 1, the campaign drew an angry attack from freemasonic leader C. Fred Kleinknecht, who attempted to defend both Pike and the Ku Klux Klan from LaRouche and Bevel's attack. A speech by Anton Chaitkin entitled 'Why Albert Pike's Statue Must Fall' can be found here (September 21, 1992).
The Illuminati and Albert Pike
Adam Weishaupt (1748 - 1811) formed the Order of Perfectibilists on May 1, 1776 (to this day celebrated as May Day throughout many western countries), which later became known as the Illuminati, a secret society whose name means "Enlightened Ones". Although the Order was founded to provide an opportunity for the free exchange of ideas, Weishaupt's background as a Jesuit seems to have influenced the actual character of the society, such that the express aim of this Order became to abolish Christianity, and overturn all civil government.
An Italian revolutionary leader, Giusseppe Mazzini (1805-1872), a 33rd degree Mason, was selected by the Illuminati to head their worldwide operations in 1834. (Mazzini also founded the Mafia in 1860). Because of Mazzini's revolutionary activities in Europe, the Bavarian government cracked down on the Illuminati and other secret societies for allegedly plotting a massive overthrow of Europe's monarchies. As the secrets of the Illuminati were revealed, they were persecuted and eventually disbanded, only to re-establish themselves in the depths of other organizations, of which Freemasonry was one.
During his leadership, Mazzini enticed Albert Pike into the (now formally disbanded, but still operating) Illuminati. Pike was fascinated by the idea of a one world government, and when asked by Mazzini, readily agreed to write a ritual tome that guided the transition from average high-ranking mason into a top-ranking Illuminati mason (33rd degree). Since Mazzini also wanted Pike to head the Illuminati's American chapter, he clearly felt Pike was worthy of such a task. Mazzini's intention was that once a mason had made his way up the Freemason ladder and proven himself worthy, the highest ranking members would offer membership to the secret 'society within a society'.
It is for this reason that most Freemasons vehemently deny the evil intentions of their fraternity. Since the vast majority never reach the 30th degree, they would not be aware of the real purpose behind Masonry. When instructing Pike how the tome should be developed, Mazzini wrote the following to Pike in a letter dated January 22, 1870. Remember that Freemasonry wasn't started by Pike - rather it was infiltrated by the Illuminati who were looking for a respectable forum in which to hide their clandestine activities:
"We must allow all the federations to continue just as they are, with their systems, their central authorities and their diverse modes of correspondence between high grades of the same rite, organized as they are at the present, but we must create a super rite, which will remain unknown, to which we will call those Masons of high degree whom we shall select. With regard to our brothers in Masonry, these men must be pledges to the strictest secrecy. Through this supreme rite, we will govern all Freemasonry which will become the one international center, the more powerful because its direction will be unknown." 1
In 1871, Pike published the 861 page Masonic handbook known as the Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry.
After Mazzini's death on March 11, 1872, Pike appointed Adriano Lemmi (1822-1896, 33rd degree Mason), a banker from Florence, Italy, to run their subversive activities in Europe. Lemmi was a supporter of patriot and revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi, and may have been active in the Luciferian Society founded by Pike. Lemmi, in turn, was succeeded by Lenin and Trotsky, then by Stalin. The revolutionary activities of all these men were financed by British, French, German, and American international bankers; all of them dominated by the House of Rothschild.
Between 1859 and 1871, Pike worked out a military blueprint for three world wars and various revolutions throughout the world which he considered would forward the conspiracy to its final stage in the 20th Century.
In addition to the Supreme Council in Charleston, South Carolina, Pike established Supreme Councils in Rome, Italy (led by Mazzini); London, England (led by Palmerston); and Berlin, Germany (led by Bismarck). He set up 23 subordinate councils in strategic places throughout the world, including five Grand Central Directories in Washington, DC (North America), Montevideo (South America), Naples (Europe), Calcutta (Asia), and Mauritius (Africa), which were used to gather information. All of these branches have been the secret headquarters for the Illuminati's activities ever since.
Albert Pike and Three World Wars
Continued from Part 1.
Albert Pike received a vision, which he described in a letter that he wrote to Mazzini, dated August 15, 1871. This letter graphically outlined plans for three world wars that were seen as necessary to bring about the One World Order, and we can marvel at how accurately it has predicted events that have already taken place.
Pike's Letter to Mazzini
It is a commonly believed fallacy that for a short time, the Pike letter to Mazzini was on display in the British Museum Library in London, and it was copied by William Guy Carr, former Intelligence Officer in the Royal Canadian Navy. The British Library has confirmed in writing to me that such a document has never been in their possession. Furthermore, in Carr's book, Satan, Prince of this World, Carr includes the following footnote:
"The Keeper of Manuscripts recently informed the author that this letter is NOT catalogued in the British Museum Library. It seems strange that a man of Cardinal Rodriguez's knowledge should have said that it WAS in 1925".
It appears that Carr learned about this letter from Cardinal Caro y Rodriguez of Santiago, Chile, who wrote The Mystery of Freemasonry Unveiled.
To date, no conclusive proof exists to show that this letter was ever written. Nevertheless, the letter is widely quoted and the topic of much discussion.
Following are apparently extracts of the letter, showing how Three World Wars have been planned for many generations.
"The First World War must be brought about in order to permit the Illuminati to overthrow the power of the Czars in Russia and of making that country a fortress of atheistic Communism. The divergences caused by the "agentur" (agents) of the Illuminati between the British and Germanic Empires will be used to foment this war. At the end of the war, Communism will be built and used in order to destroy the other governments and in order to weaken the religions." 2
Students of history will recognize that the political alliances of England on one side and Germany on the other, forged between 1871 and 1898 by Otto von Bismarck, co-conspirator of Albert Pike, were instrumental in bringing about the First World War.
"The Second World War must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences between the Fascists and the political Zionists. This war must be brought about so that Nazism is destroyed and that the political Zionism be strong enough to institute a sovereign state of Israel in Palestine. During the Second World War, International Communism must become strong enough in order to balance Christendom, which would be then restrained and held in check until the time when we would need it for the final social cataclysm." 3
After this Second World War, Communism was made strong enough to begin taking over weaker governments. In 1945, at the Potsdam Conference between Truman, Churchill, and Stalin, a large portion of Europe was simply handed over to Russia, and on the other side of the world, the aftermath of the war with Japan helped to sweep the tide of Communism into China.
(Readers who argue that the terms Nazism and Zionism were not known in 1871 should remember that the Illuminati invented both these movements. In addition, Communism as an ideology, and as a coined phrase, originates in France during the Revolution. In 1785, Restif coined the phrase four years before revolution broke out. Restif and Babeuf, in turn, were influenced by Rousseau - as was the most famous conspirator of them all, Adam Weishaupt.)
"The Third World War must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences caused by the "agentur" of the "Illuminati" between the political Zionists and the leaders of Islamic World. The war must be conducted in such a way that Islam (the Moslem Arabic World) and political Zionism (the State of Israel) mutually destroy each other. Meanwhile the other nations, once more divided on this issue will be constrained to fight to the point of complete physical, moral, spiritual and economical exhaustion…We shall unleash the Nihilists and the atheists, and we shall provoke a formidable social cataclysm which in all its horror will show clearly to the nations the effect of absolute atheism, origin of savagery and of the most bloody turmoil. Then everywhere, the citizens, obliged to defend themselves against the world minority of revolutionaries, will exterminate those destroyers of civilization, and the multitude, disillusioned with Christianity, whose deistic spirits will from that moment be without compass or direction, anxious for an ideal, but without knowing where to render its adoration, will receive the true light through the universal manifestation of the pure doctrine of Lucifer, brought finally out in the public view. This manifestation will result from the general reactionary movement which will follow the destruction of Christianity and atheism, both conquered and exterminated at the same time." 4
Since the terrorist attacks of Sept 11, 2001, world events, and in particular in the Middle East, show a growing unrest and instability between Modern Zionism and the Arabic World. This is completely in line with the call for a Third World War to be fought between the two, and their allies on both sides. This Third World War is still to come, and recent events show us that it is not far off.
About Albert Pike
Picture of Albert PikeAlbert Pike was born on December 29, 1809, in Boston, and was the oldest of six children born to Benjamin and Sarah Andrews Pike. He studied at Harvard, and later served as a Brigadier-General in the Confederate Army. After the Civil War, Pike was found guilty of treason and jailed, only to be pardoned by fellow Freemason President Andrew Johnson on April 22, 1866, who met with him the next day at the White House. On June 20, 1867, Scottish Rite officials conferred upon Johnson the 4th to 32nd Freemasonry degrees, and he later went to Boston to dedicate a Masonic Temple.
Pike was said to be a genius, able to read and write in 16 different languages, although I cannot find a record anywhere of what those languages were. In addition, he is widely accused of plagiarism, so take with a pinch of salt. At various stages of his life we was a poet, philosopher, frontiersman, soldier, humanitarian and philanthropist. A 33rd degree Mason, he was one of the founding fathers, and head of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, being the Grand Commander of North American Freemasonry from 1859 and retained that position until his death in 1891. In 1869, he was a top leader in the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
Incidentally, Freemasonry itself is a fascinating subject and I could devote an entire website to it. Simon Gray, a Freemason, has compiled a stunning amount of information on Freemasonry that I recommend for anyone who wants to learn more about it.
Pike was said to be a Satanist, who indulged in the occult, and he apparently possessed a bracelet which he used to summon Lucifer, with whom he had constant communication. He was the Grand Master of a Luciferian group known as the Order of the Palladium (or Sovereign Council of Wisdom), which had been founded in Paris in 1737. Palladism had been brought to Greece from Egypt by Pythagoras in the fifth century, and it was this cult of Satan that was introduced to the inner circle of the Masonic lodges. It was aligned with the Palladium of the Templars. In 1801, Issac Long, a Jew, brought a statue of Baphomet (Satan) to Charleston, South Carolina, where he helped to establish the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. Long apparently chose Charleston because it was geographically located on the 33rd parallel of latitude (incidentally, so is Baghdad), and this council is considered to be the Mother Supreme Council of all Masonic Lodges of the World.
Pike was Long's successor, and he changed the name of the Order to the New and Reformed Palladian Rite (or Reformed Palladium). The Order contained two degrees:
Adelph (or Brother), and
Companion of Ulysses (or Companion of Penelope).
Pike's right-hand man was Phileas Walder, from Switzerland, who was a former Lutheran minister, a Masonic leader, occultist, and spiritualist. Pike also worked closely with Giusseppe Mazzini of Italy (1805-1872) who was a 33rd degree Mason, who became head of the Illuminati in 1834, and who founded the Mafia in 1860. Together with Mazzini, Lord Henry Palmerston of England (1784-1865, 33rd degree Mason), and Otto von Bismarck from Germany (1815-1898, 33rd degree Mason), Albert Pike intended to use the Palladian Rite to create a Satanic umbrella group that would tie all Masonic groups together.
Albert Pike died on April 2, 1891, and was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery, although the corpse of Pike currently lies in the headquarters of the Council of the 33rd degree of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry in Washington, D.C. (see The Deadly Deception, by Jim Shaw - former 33rd degree Mason and Past Master of all Scottish Rite bodies.)
The Albert Pike Monument
Albert Pike made his mark before the war in Arkansas as a lawyer and writer, but as a Confederate Brigadier General, he was, according to the Arkansas Democrat of July 31, 1978, a complete "WASH-OUT," not a hero. Yet, Gen. Albert Pike is the only Confederate general with a statue on federal property in Washington, DC. He was honoured, not as a commander or even as a lawyer, but as Southern regional leader of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. The statue stands on a pedestal near the foot of Capitol Hill, between the Department of Labor building and the Municipal Building, between 3rd and 4th Streets, on D Street, NW. More background on the colorful history of the statue can be found at the Masonic Info website. During the 1992 presidential campaign, Lyndon H. LaRouche and his vice presidential running mate, the Reverend James Bevel, launched a mobilization to remove the statue of General Albert Pike from Washington, D.C.'s Judiciary Square. On February 1, the campaign drew an angry attack from freemasonic leader C. Fred Kleinknecht, who attempted to defend both Pike and the Ku Klux Klan from LaRouche and Bevel's attack. A speech by Anton Chaitkin entitled 'Why Albert Pike's Statue Must Fall' can be found here (September 21, 1992).
The Illuminati and Albert Pike
Adam Weishaupt (1748 - 1811) formed the Order of Perfectibilists on May 1, 1776 (to this day celebrated as May Day throughout many western countries), which later became known as the Illuminati, a secret society whose name means "Enlightened Ones". Although the Order was founded to provide an opportunity for the free exchange of ideas, Weishaupt's background as a Jesuit seems to have influenced the actual character of the society, such that the express aim of this Order became to abolish Christianity, and overturn all civil government.
An Italian revolutionary leader, Giusseppe Mazzini (1805-1872), a 33rd degree Mason, was selected by the Illuminati to head their worldwide operations in 1834. (Mazzini also founded the Mafia in 1860). Because of Mazzini's revolutionary activities in Europe, the Bavarian government cracked down on the Illuminati and other secret societies for allegedly plotting a massive overthrow of Europe's monarchies. As the secrets of the Illuminati were revealed, they were persecuted and eventually disbanded, only to re-establish themselves in the depths of other organizations, of which Freemasonry was one.
During his leadership, Mazzini enticed Albert Pike into the (now formally disbanded, but still operating) Illuminati. Pike was fascinated by the idea of a one world government, and when asked by Mazzini, readily agreed to write a ritual tome that guided the transition from average high-ranking mason into a top-ranking Illuminati mason (33rd degree). Since Mazzini also wanted Pike to head the Illuminati's American chapter, he clearly felt Pike was worthy of such a task. Mazzini's intention was that once a mason had made his way up the Freemason ladder and proven himself worthy, the highest ranking members would offer membership to the secret 'society within a society'.
It is for this reason that most Freemasons vehemently deny the evil intentions of their fraternity. Since the vast majority never reach the 30th degree, they would not be aware of the real purpose behind Masonry. When instructing Pike how the tome should be developed, Mazzini wrote the following to Pike in a letter dated January 22, 1870. Remember that Freemasonry wasn't started by Pike - rather it was infiltrated by the Illuminati who were looking for a respectable forum in which to hide their clandestine activities:
"We must allow all the federations to continue just as they are, with their systems, their central authorities and their diverse modes of correspondence between high grades of the same rite, organized as they are at the present, but we must create a super rite, which will remain unknown, to which we will call those Masons of high degree whom we shall select. With regard to our brothers in Masonry, these men must be pledges to the strictest secrecy. Through this supreme rite, we will govern all Freemasonry which will become the one international center, the more powerful because its direction will be unknown." 1
In 1871, Pike published the 861 page Masonic handbook known as the Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry.
After Mazzini's death on March 11, 1872, Pike appointed Adriano Lemmi (1822-1896, 33rd degree Mason), a banker from Florence, Italy, to run their subversive activities in Europe. Lemmi was a supporter of patriot and revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi, and may have been active in the Luciferian Society founded by Pike. Lemmi, in turn, was succeeded by Lenin and Trotsky, then by Stalin. The revolutionary activities of all these men were financed by British, French, German, and American international bankers; all of them dominated by the House of Rothschild.
Between 1859 and 1871, Pike worked out a military blueprint for three world wars and various revolutions throughout the world which he considered would forward the conspiracy to its final stage in the 20th Century.
In addition to the Supreme Council in Charleston, South Carolina, Pike established Supreme Councils in Rome, Italy (led by Mazzini); London, England (led by Palmerston); and Berlin, Germany (led by Bismarck). He set up 23 subordinate councils in strategic places throughout the world, including five Grand Central Directories in Washington, DC (North America), Montevideo (South America), Naples (Europe), Calcutta (Asia), and Mauritius (Africa), which were used to gather information. All of these branches have been the secret headquarters for the Illuminati's activities ever since.
Albert Pike and Three World Wars
Continued from Part 1.
Albert Pike received a vision, which he described in a letter that he wrote to Mazzini, dated August 15, 1871. This letter graphically outlined plans for three world wars that were seen as necessary to bring about the One World Order, and we can marvel at how accurately it has predicted events that have already taken place.
Pike's Letter to Mazzini
It is a commonly believed fallacy that for a short time, the Pike letter to Mazzini was on display in the British Museum Library in London, and it was copied by William Guy Carr, former Intelligence Officer in the Royal Canadian Navy. The British Library has confirmed in writing to me that such a document has never been in their possession. Furthermore, in Carr's book, Satan, Prince of this World, Carr includes the following footnote:
"The Keeper of Manuscripts recently informed the author that this letter is NOT catalogued in the British Museum Library. It seems strange that a man of Cardinal Rodriguez's knowledge should have said that it WAS in 1925".
It appears that Carr learned about this letter from Cardinal Caro y Rodriguez of Santiago, Chile, who wrote The Mystery of Freemasonry Unveiled.
To date, no conclusive proof exists to show that this letter was ever written. Nevertheless, the letter is widely quoted and the topic of much discussion.
Following are apparently extracts of the letter, showing how Three World Wars have been planned for many generations.
"The First World War must be brought about in order to permit the Illuminati to overthrow the power of the Czars in Russia and of making that country a fortress of atheistic Communism. The divergences caused by the "agentur" (agents) of the Illuminati between the British and Germanic Empires will be used to foment this war. At the end of the war, Communism will be built and used in order to destroy the other governments and in order to weaken the religions." 2
Students of history will recognize that the political alliances of England on one side and Germany on the other, forged between 1871 and 1898 by Otto von Bismarck, co-conspirator of Albert Pike, were instrumental in bringing about the First World War.
"The Second World War must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences between the Fascists and the political Zionists. This war must be brought about so that Nazism is destroyed and that the political Zionism be strong enough to institute a sovereign state of Israel in Palestine. During the Second World War, International Communism must become strong enough in order to balance Christendom, which would be then restrained and held in check until the time when we would need it for the final social cataclysm." 3
After this Second World War, Communism was made strong enough to begin taking over weaker governments. In 1945, at the Potsdam Conference between Truman, Churchill, and Stalin, a large portion of Europe was simply handed over to Russia, and on the other side of the world, the aftermath of the war with Japan helped to sweep the tide of Communism into China.
(Readers who argue that the terms Nazism and Zionism were not known in 1871 should remember that the Illuminati invented both these movements. In addition, Communism as an ideology, and as a coined phrase, originates in France during the Revolution. In 1785, Restif coined the phrase four years before revolution broke out. Restif and Babeuf, in turn, were influenced by Rousseau - as was the most famous conspirator of them all, Adam Weishaupt.)
"The Third World War must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences caused by the "agentur" of the "Illuminati" between the political Zionists and the leaders of Islamic World. The war must be conducted in such a way that Islam (the Moslem Arabic World) and political Zionism (the State of Israel) mutually destroy each other. Meanwhile the other nations, once more divided on this issue will be constrained to fight to the point of complete physical, moral, spiritual and economical exhaustion…We shall unleash the Nihilists and the atheists, and we shall provoke a formidable social cataclysm which in all its horror will show clearly to the nations the effect of absolute atheism, origin of savagery and of the most bloody turmoil. Then everywhere, the citizens, obliged to defend themselves against the world minority of revolutionaries, will exterminate those destroyers of civilization, and the multitude, disillusioned with Christianity, whose deistic spirits will from that moment be without compass or direction, anxious for an ideal, but without knowing where to render its adoration, will receive the true light through the universal manifestation of the pure doctrine of Lucifer, brought finally out in the public view. This manifestation will result from the general reactionary movement which will follow the destruction of Christianity and atheism, both conquered and exterminated at the same time." 4
Since the terrorist attacks of Sept 11, 2001, world events, and in particular in the Middle East, show a growing unrest and instability between Modern Zionism and the Arabic World. This is completely in line with the call for a Third World War to be fought between the two, and their allies on both sides. This Third World War is still to come, and recent events show us that it is not far off.
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