Update: Sarkozy confirms AQIM Murders Hostage Michel Germaneau

Last night, AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) claimed to kill French hostage Michel Germaneau after a failed Malian-French rescue mission last week.

In an address on French television this morning, President Sarkozy confirmed the fact and expressed his solemn regrets and a "promet de représailles" (promise of reprisals).

He added: "Le crime contre Michel Germaneau ne restera pas impuni." (The crime against Michel Germaneau will not go unpunsihed.)

The French retiree was 78. All he wanted was to help others less fortunate.

AQIM, on the other hand,  fuelled by the drug trade, acts with impunity in the lawless Sahel of sub-Saharan Africa.

International terrorism and the global, illicit narcotics trade cross paths in the Sahel. The crash of a Venezuelan cargo plane last year points to a terrorist aviation network for this purpose.

Mr. Germaneua´s tragic death is but a reminder of the dire threat Al Qaeda and its allies represent to the civilized world.

***If you are in São Paulo and need English lessons, or Elite English Services including translations (Spanish/French/Portuguese to English), please contact Professor Winn by sending an email to mrenglish101@gmail.com for a prompt evaluation.Buy your English-language texts today!

Al Shabaab - cnn.com

Al Qaeda remains a significant and growing threat to global security.

Somali-based Al Shabaab's attack in Kampala, Uganda, following the World Cup final earlier this month is credited by terrorist experts as a play for official membership in the Al Qaeda franchise club.

Uganda was not a random target. Its peacekeepers protect the weak Somali government which Al Shabaab hopes to sack. 

AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb-Sahel) operates in Sub-Saharan Africa and poses a direct danger to western Europe. It likes to capture and kill relief workers trying to improve the lives of those trapped in the desolate region.

In Yemen, the UK ambassador and his convoy narrowly survived a suicide bomb attack last April credited to  Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

AQAP is expanding its reach and scale of operations. In fact it just released its first English-language Inspire magazine for entrepreneurial suicide bombers in order to connect with a worldwide recruitment pool.

Moreover, AQAP is directly tied to the so-called Christmas Day bomber in the United States last year.

While the main Al Qaeda organization is pressured in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, start ups and franchises proliferate where lawlessness prevails like in the Sahel, Somalia, and Yemen.

It is clear the West's efforts to control the tide of terror wrought by Islamic fascism is failing.

While the real war is inside Islam, the West is a convenient target both in the minds and in the deeds of militant Islamics as an expression of their fundamentalist rage against the modern world.

***
If you need research from open sources in Spanish, French, or Portuguese and presented in a stylish English language report or a translation of documents in said languages to English, please contact Professor Winn at by sending an email to mrenglish101@gmail.com for a prompt evaluation.

Terror Inc. Inches Closer to Weaponized Nukes

credit: dw-world.de

Iran's unimpeded march to obtain weaponized nuclear material and the long-range missiles to deliver such a payload continues to trouble GSM.

Today's English daily Tehran Times prints this headline front and center: Iran begins nuclear fusion studies (more: Yahoo video).


The military aim of Iran's nuclear program is undeniable as evidenced by this news.

Terror,Inc.'s boldness (shamelessness?) is a testament to the rogue regime's confidence no one dare forcefully oppose its nefarious plans.

While the West dithers as predicted in our Net Assessment, the onus of confronting Iran falls ever greater on Israel, the frequent target of vitriol from the Teheran Tyranny.

A thoughtful essay (''A Military Attack on Iran? Considerations for Israeli Decision Making'') by Ron Tira in the current edition of INSS' Strategic Assessment journal weighs the ramifications of such an action to disrupt if not destroy Terror,Inc.'s nuclear program.

Mr. Tira acknowledges Israel cannot alone halt Iran's advance, but that a military campaign would force the world to finally face the dire threat a nuclear Iran presents to global security:

Thus the main value of an attack does not lie in the direct physical damage to the nuclear program, rather in the political follow-on trends necessary to realize the strategic goal. (pg.50)

The ''political follow-on trends'' may be anticipated, but not controlled once the powder keg explodes.

What will US President Barak Obama do after playing pattycake with the Teheran Tyranny for over a year and a half now, if Israel pulls the trigger?

Condemnation from the usual suspects in the international community of any Israeli action is predictable.

Washington has a choice to make as well. Time is running out.

***
If you need research from open sources in Spanish, French, or Portuguese and presented in a stylish English language report or a translation of documents in said languages to English, please contact Professor Winn at by sending an email to mrenglish101@gmail.com for a prompt evaluation.

23 Worst Dictators

Foreign Policy en español lists the 23 worst tyrants (los 23 peores tiranos). 

In an analysis of the locations of these dictators, Asia, Africa, and Latin America stand out.

Col. Gaddafi

In absence of Fidel Castro from the list (brother Raul is), the most senior member of the club is
Muamar Gaddafi of Libya (41 years) described as a ''egoísta excéntrico'' (eccentric egoist).

The most junior is Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov of Turkmenistan at 4 years, again, casting Raul Castro aside. The ''oscuro dentista'' (obscure dentist) continues the repressive policies of his predecessor.


***
If you need research from open sources in Spanish, French, or Portuguese and presented in a stylish English language report or a translation of documents in said languages to English, please contact Professor Winn at by sending an email to mrenglish101@gmail.com for a prompt evaluation.

Daring French Raid in Northern Mali

Northern Mali is the suspected headquarters for Al Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb (AQIM).

On Thursday, France presumably tried to rescue hostage Michel Germaneau in the region after a death threat by his captors, according to press reports. Its success is unknown.

A host of west European countries including Spain, France, Austria, and even Switzerland have had hostages taken in the Sahel by AQIM. Its tentacles reach deep into these countries.

Spain is actually more in the sights of AQIM than France, according to J. Peter Pham in World Defense Review.

Jihadist expert María Amparo Tortosa Garrigós explains in Madrid's El País in an interview last December that AQIM is creating an ''Afghanistan in the Sahel,'' a dagger aimed right at the EU.

***
If you need research from open sources in Spanish, French, or Portuguese and presented in a stylish English language report or a translation of documents in said languages to English, please contact Professor Winn at by sending an email to mrenglish101@gmail.com for a prompt evaluation.

Chavez's 11 Year Itch - Still Threatening Freedom in Latin America

The latest temper tantrum from Venezuela's Chavez is a shot across the bow of Colombian president-elect Juan Manuel Santos ahead of the peaceful handover of power on August 7 from Alvaro Uribe.

The break in relations with Colombia is also a distraction from Chavez's misrule resulting in economic destruction and social polarization at home.

Obviously Chavez was not amused by Colombia's evidence of FARC training camps in Venezuela.

Venezuela is lorded over by a former army colonel whose policies are deliberately zapping its democratic traditions and oil and gas wealth.

Chavez's bankrupt statist-Castrista policies have caused acute food shortages, and an electricity crisis.

 The ''Cubanization'' of Venezuela unsurprisingly has brought the same miserable results Castro,Inc. wrought on its prison paradise island.

The free press hangs by a hair as the last opposition redoubt, Globovision, feels increased hostility as a Chavista is installed on its board and the Venezuelan despot becomes a majority owner of the media giant, a move roundly criticized.

Venezuela's embrace of Iran, serving as a FARC-drug link, and coziness to international terrorists make it a pariah regime.

Indeed, as long as the Chavista regime remains in power, freedom hangs in the balance in Latin America. Colombia, a democracy, is an obstacle to Castrista Chavism, and thus draws Caracas' ire.

Chavez is so desperate to rally his countrymen he recently ordered national hero Simon Bolivar's body to be exhumed.

The former army colonel debases Bolivar's legacy of freedom in South American history by tapping it to describe his totalitarian revolución bolivariana. But Bolivar liberated, not enslaved, his followers.

Chavez's eleven-year itch as a complete failure presiding over Venezuela is to threaten his democratic and market-oriented neighbor and try to deflect scrutiny from the indisputable fact that statism is an unmitigated disaster every time and everywhere it is tried.
***
If you need research from open sources in Spanish, French, or Portuguese and presented in a stylish English language report or a translation of documents in said languages to English, please contact Professor Winn at by sending an email to mrenglish101@gmail.com for a prompt evaluation.

Pressure to Lift US Embargo on Cuba Grows

As GSM posited in its first comments after the release into freedom of Cuban political prisoners, the pressure is on for the United States to lift its economic embargo on La Habana: Cuba release 'could lead to US lifting embargo'.

Cuba trades with the rest of the world. Castro, Inc. has been very profitable in the years following la revolución.  Does the US embargo really matter as a practicality?

US President Barak Obama has shown leniency toward leftist gains in Latin America at the expense of freedom.

Will he seek more plaudits from the International Left and reward Castro,Inc.?

Or will he ignore the clamor for a change in Washington's 50-plus year policy toward Havana?

***
If you need research from open sources in Spanish, French, or Portuguese and presented in a stylish English language report or a translation of documents in said languages to English, please contact Professor Winn at by sending an email to mrenglish101@gmail.com for a prompt evaluation.

Brussels Journal Is Good Reading

GSM has linked to the Brussels Journal blog whose tagline is the "voice of conservatism in Europe."

Its bold and spot-on commentary is a rare breath of fresh air among opinion leaders on European political-economic-social affairs.

In reviewing its past commentary, we particulary liked The Rise and Fall of Spanish “Super-Judge” Baltasar Garzón and its blunt opinion like "Collectivism and its record: consistently downward" in a recent post, Duly Noted: Inconvenient Realities.

Check it out today!

***If you need research from open sources in Spanish, French, or Portuguese and presented in a stylish English language report or a translation of documents in said languages to English, please contact Professor Winn at by sending an email to mrenglish101@gmail.com for a prompt evaluation.

75 Freed Political Prisoners = End of US embargo on Cuba?

Castro´s Cuba, in its very sad and too long history, has never shied away from theatrics.

With another hunger-striker near death, El Máximo Castro reappears in public (again, only still-shots), and in an apparent breakthrough on the release of a block of unjustly jailed political opponents, some observers believe it is a win-win for the rogue regime in La Habana. If not, it would not have happened.

Madrid´s El País has led the coverage of Cuba´s biggest release to date of  75 presos políticos (political prisoners) in a deal evidently brokered by Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos Cuyabué.

The move drew jeers from influential Cuban-American blogger,Alberto de la Cruz, accusing Spain of "scheming behind closed doors with a murderous regime and the compromised and immoral leadership of the Catholic church in Cuba."

Undeniably, Spain under the unsteady leadership of socialist President José Luiz Zapatero, has been manipulated by the regime to gain coveted favorability by the European Union.

Moreover, the influential daily El Nuevo Herald in Miami reports the prisoner release is "...sólo una concesión táctica de un gobierno que enfrenta una fulminante crisis económica y es improbable que a largo plazo suavice medio siglo de autoritarismo y mano dura.(only a tactical concession by a regime facing a worsening economic crisis and it is unlikely to ease its half-century of authoritarian control in the long term).

Alas, is the door finally open for the left-leaning US President Barak Obama to ease, if not end the embargo, on the repressive prison paradise island?

Such a bold policy change would hand Castro, Inc. its long-sought moral victory and mark a total defeat in the US´s Cuba policy.

The Democrat-run House Agriculture Committee voted last week to ease the tough travel restrictions which allows more dollars to flow into Castro, Inc.´s coffers, moving the US closer to hollowing out the embargo.

Unfortunately, the trend is toward a "bailout" of Castro, Inc., not preparing for its burial as GSM mulled in its Top 6 Strategic Questions for 2010.
***
If you need research from open sources in Spanish, French, or Portuguese and presented in a stylish English language report or a translation of documents in said languages to English, please contact Professor Winn at by sending an email to wtglobalanalytics@gmail.com for a prompt evaluation.

Russian Spy Caper Imperils START Ratification

Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill reports the following online today: Russian spy ring may be last straw for Obama nuclear arms treaty.

While the Obama Adminstration refused to condemn Russia over the spy caper, in the US Senate, where the START Treaty must gain approval, bipartisan worries could endanger its ratification.

The aggressive cuts in the US nuclear arsenal without any strategic rationale have long concerned GSM.

There are numerous grounds to seriously stall any consideration of the treaty.

Finally, maybe even by accident, the flawed treaty reaches an unglorious end.
***
If you need research from open sources in Spanish, French, or Portuguese and presented in a stylish English language report or a translation of documents in said languages to English, please contact Professor Winn at by sending an email to wtglobalanalytica@gmail.com for a prompt evaluation.