In the Caucasus, the United States and Russia are vying for control of the region. The great oil game is in full swing. Whoever controls the Caucasus and its roads, also controls the transport of oil that comes from the Caspian Sea.

Al Jazeera:

Tbilisi, Erevan and Baku - the three capitals of the Caucasus. The oil from Baku in Azerbaijan is a strategic priority for all the major companies.

From the fortunes of the Nobel family to the Russian revolution, to World War II, oil from the Caucasus and the Caspian has played a central role. Lenin fixated on conquering the Azeri capital Baku for its oil, as did Stalin and Hitler.

On his birthday in 1941, Adolf Hitler received a chocolate and cream birthday cake, representing a map. He chose the slice with Baku on it.

On June 22nd 1941, the armies of the Third Reich invaded Russia. The crucial battle of Stalingrad was the key to the road to the Caucasus and Baku’s oil, and would decide the outcome of the war.

Stalin told his troops: "Fighting for one’s oil is fighting for one’s freedom."

After World War II, President Nikita Krushchev would build the Soviet empire and its Red Army with revenues from the USSR’s new-found oil reserves.

Decades later, oil would bring that empire to its knees, when Saudi Arabia and the US would conspire to open up the oil taps, flood the markets, and bring the price of oil down to $13 per barrel. Russian oligarchs would take up the oil mantle, only to be put in their place by their president, Vladimir Putin, who knows that oil is power.

The US and Putin‘s Russia would prop up despots, and exploit regional conflicts to maintain a grip on the oil fields of the Caucusus and the Caspian.

But they couldn't have forseen the rise of a new, strong and hungry China, with a seeming limitless appetite for oil and energy. Today, the U.S., Russia and China contest the control of the former USSR’s fossil fuel reserves, as well as the supply routes. The world watch on as they fought for control, a power war, between three ferocious beasts – The American eagle, the Russian bear, and the Chinese dragon.

Up next, the final installment in the series, Part Four, A Time for Lies.

A recent video posting from "Anonymous" appears to be a response to McAfee's prediction that Anonymous will become less influential in the coming year. Anonymous has clarified that it has no plans to fade away in the New Year. It also issued a statement over the weekend that warned the world to "Expect us 2013."

Via:

McAfee argues that a lack of structure and organization in the hacking collective referred to as Anonymous has impacted the idea's reputation. Misinformation, false claims and hacking for the simple joy of it may result in the collective's political claims taking a beating. As a result, success and fame will decline -- but higher-level professional hacking groups may take up the slack, and promote a rise in military, religious, political and "extreme" campaign attacks.

The video boasts of Anonymous' campaigns and exploits carried out in 2012. It details the group's temporary shutdown of the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI, Universal Music, and the Motion Picture Association of America's Web sites in protest of the U.S. government's indictment of the operators of popular file-hosting site MegaUpload.

"The operations which are listed in the video are only examples, there are far more operations," Anonymous wrote in the statement. "Some of them still running, like Operation Syria. We are still here."

Another fire broke out at a garment factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, two days after a blaze at a separate clothing factory killed at least 121 people.

The fire broke out on the third floor of the 12-story building, which houses four different garment factories. Some of the building’s workers are trapped on the rooftop, firefighters reported.

Al Jazeera reports that some workers had been trapped on the roof by the new fire, but authorities said that although they were still searching the building, they believed most had escaped and there were no reported deaths.

"We don't have any casualties but the firefighters will search the building and see whether anyone has been suffocated," said Nisharul Arif, Dhaka deputy commissioner of police.

About 15,000 Bangladeshi workers protested blocks from the gutted fire Monday, demanding justice for the victims and improved safety. Some 200 factories were closed for the day after the protest erupted in Savar, a suburb of Dhaka, the capital.

Protesters blocked a major highway, and some threw stones at factories and smashed vehicles, but there were no arrests and no clashes with police.

More details emerge on the deadly garment factory fire on Saturday:

Survivor Mohammad Ripu said Monday that he tried to run out of the building when the fire alarm rang but was stopped.

"Managers told us, 'Nothing happened. The fire alarm had just gone out of order. Go back to work,'" Ripu said. "But we quickly understood that there was a fire. As we again ran for the exit point we found it locked from outside, and it was too late."

Ripu said he jumped from a second-floor window and suffered minor injuries.

Another surviving worker, Yeamin, who uses only one name, said fire extinguishers in the factory didn't work, "So these were meant just to impress the buyers or authority."

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In this video, Omar Khadr, a 15 year old Canadian detainee – the youngest at Guatanamo bay – speaks to a team of Canadian intelligence agents after being tortured by US officials before even arriving at the facility.

This just-barely teen boy was taken into custody by the US after a firefight in Afghanistan in September 2002. Khadr was severly wounded in this battle, tortured after being taken into custody, and a month later was sent to Guantanamo Bay. Shortly after he arrived, Canadian security agents spent four days interrogating him, which are documented here. In this clip,the psychologically perverse interrogation techniques used are exposed, as you follow Khadr's painful realization that the Canadian agents are not there to take him home but to manipulate him into making incriminating statements whether or not those statements are true.

In July 2008, the video of this interrogation was ordered to be made available in a Canadian supreme court ruling that stated: “ Interrogation of a youth, to elicit statements about the most serious criminal charges while detained in these conditions and without access to counsel, and while knowing that the fruits of the interrogations would be shared with the US prosecutors, offends the most basic Canadian standards about the treatment of detained youth suspects.”

The transformation of this 7 minute video into a documentary titled “Four Days in Guantanamo” is increasing the level of awareness regarding the treatments of prisoners at this infamous detention center.

The directors explain that International conventions which protect the rights of children in wartime (especially child soldiers) should have applied to Omar, but the Canadian government sidestepped those laws.

In October 2010, Omar pleaded guilty to all the charges pressed by the US. It was a strategic plea bargain which enabled the young boy to serve eight years in jail, instead of 40. He is the first person ever convicted as a war criminal for acts committed as a juvenile. He served a total of 3619 days in Guantanamo.

Omar has returned to Canada after a decade in custody and has been transferred to a maximum security prison in Canada where he awaits parole, which, according to his attorney, could be as early as 2013.

The U.S. added 114,000 jobs in September, causing the unemployment rate to slip to 7.8 percent—a figure not seen since January 2009, when President Obama first took office. There were other unexpected nuggets of good news, too: numbers for July and August were revised upward to show 86,000 more jobs created than previously reported. The numbers could have a crucial effect on the presidential election, in which Mitt Romney has been running on the weak economy.

Total employment rose by 873,000 in September, a significant jump that could help explain the drop in the unemployment rate.

This is also the first report to be released since the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced it had undercounted employment for the previous year by 386,000.

Read the full report at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The US' housing bubble burst nearly six years ago, but the worst may be yet to come. After a landmark settlement, the major banks have lifted a freeze on foreclosures and government relief has been too small to make a difference.

[Via]

The controversial WikiLeaks founder is safe inside the Ecuadoran Embassy in London, Ecuador’s president said Saturday. President Rafael Correa said British police have withdrawn threats to force their way into the building where Julian Assange has remained since being granted asylum by the South American nation. “We consider this unfortunate incident over, after a grave diplomatic error by the British in which they said they would enter our embassy.” Assange is wanted in Sweden on allegations of sexual assault, and he fears that he would be extradited to the United States to face charges over his WikiLeaks activity. The United States has not issued any such charges and denies it has made any attempt to extradite Assange.

Meanwhile, in the photograph above, a London policeman has accidentally leaked an arrest plan for Assange, in what UK media have branded an "embarrassing slip-up" by London's Metropolitan Police.

The photo, captured by the Press Association news agency and published in several newspapers, shows a clipboard held by a uniformed officer Friday outside the Ecuadorian embassy where Assange has been holed up since June.

"Clearly legible in a zoomed-in view of the clipboard, on a sheet of paper headed "Restricted," are the words: "EQ Embassy brief - Summary of current position re. Assange. Action required - Assange to be arrested under all circumstances."'

The paper also suggests possible ways in which Assange could be removed from the building, such as in a "diplomatic bag or vehicle."

Police told CNN that the photo is not related to the Assange case. Must be some other "Assange" they want to arrest in a "diplomatic bag."

Monday marked Iraq’s bloodiest day so far this year, as 107 people died from bombings and shootings, in a coordinated surge of violence against mostly Shi'ite Muslim targets. Just a few days prior, the leader of the country’s al Qaeda faction declared a new offensive in an attempt to take advantage of the disorganized Baghdad government U.S. troops are leaving behind. Monday’s violence suggests al Qaeda is much more powerful than U.S. and Iraqi officials admit. Security forces and government offices were the two most common targets of the day’s attacks. The worst part of the offensive took place in an town 12 miles north of Baghdad, where 41 people were killed after bombs exploded around five houses and the police who arrived to help were attacked by a suicide bomber.

[Probably not suitable for work]

This is your Moment of Clarity #156: The United States has the most obese people in the world AND the most anorexic people. How did we end up with a society riddled with bizarre disparities?

[more at LeeCamp.net]