Random
Source Code
Random
(IRANIAN HISTORY) A coup d'etat against the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, Muhammed Mossadegh (s.1951-1953). Perpetrators: the US CIA and the UK MI-6. The operation successfully replaced the constitutional monarchy of Iran with a dictatorship by Shah Muhammad Reza (August 1953). The motivation of the operation was to liquidate a genuinely popular nationalist leader who had stood up to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) (whose assets had been nationalized by Mossadegh after it had robbed Iran for 42 years).
The AIOC's reputation was so stained with evil afterward that it changed its name to British Petroleum (or BP, p.l.c.).
Operation Ajax is often blamed for poisoning the relationship between the USA and the Islamic world. It was approved by John Foster Dulles, who also embroiled the USA in the Second Indochina War.
Operation Ajax actually was launched soon after the nationalization of AOIC's assets in Iran (1951). Initially the situation was hopeless, because Mossadegh was far too popular and because the previous arrangement with AOIC made Iran nearly impossible to govern. The UK suffered a balance of payments crisis because the AOIC was the single largest source of overseas payments.
John Foster Dulles, however, was very sympathetic to the oil company's plight.
21π 5π
(US GOVERNMENT) Agency in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Mostly a new entity, which is perhaps the single most conspicuous domestic policy failure of the US government since 2000.
The TSA's job is to inspect baggage carried on flights at 450 international airports in the USA. Implementing this mandate simply consisted of "federalizing" thousands of private-sector employees who had been woefully under-qualified. Initially, the DHS had been formed explicitly to break law enforcement unions (which contribute to fighting corruption in law enforcement, as well as protecting law enforcement officers' rights as employees). In the case of the TSA, this had disastrous consequences for the quality of air travel.
The Transportation Security Administration has one mission, namely, to check passengers and luggage at 450 international airports across the USA. It does not inspect freight or border entries; that is done by Customs and Border Protection. For this function, it employs 45,000 screeners under lousy conditions with awful pay. And it spends more doing this one thing than Sweden spends on its entire military.
31π 12π
(MULTILATERAL GOVERNMENT) International court created in 2002 to try criminal cases (as opposed to civil cases) in international law. Criminal charges may include: genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Ultimately, the ICC is supposed to be able to try crimes against the peace (or aggression), something it presently cannot do.
The three basic categories of international crimes were defined in the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi officials. However, because the Nuremberg Tribunals only tried citizens of Axis nations for crimes against Allied or neutral states, their moral authority was greatly weakened.
The ICC complements the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which tries civil cases.
Even before the International Criminal Court commenced operations in 2002, it was critically weakened by the vociferous opposition of China, the USA, Israel, Iraq (then under the rule of Saddam Hussein), and Libya. These countries went so far as to vote against the Treaty of Rome (1998). The US government subsequently signed the treaty (December 2000), but "unsigned" it in May 2002.
One other country to do this has been Sudan.
India, Indonesia, Pakistan, and China have never signed the treaty; Russia, Egypt, and Israel have signed it, but not ratified it.
12π 6π
(US GOVERNMENT) Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement; agency formerly known as the Minerals Management Service (MMS). Some minor reorganization supposed to reduce incentives for corruption.
The original MMS was created in 1982 to manage offshore drilling and other forms of mineral exploitation of the ocean coastal shelf (OCS). It had every incentive to take the money of corporations and give them license to do what they wanted. In 2010, due to scandals from gross corruption and lax oversight, the White House reacted by...changing the agency's name.
The BOEMRE had to change its name from the "Minerals Management Service" because its reputation was utterly ruined by constant corruption scandals.
13π 2π
(MULTILATERAL GOVERNMENT) United Nations entity created in 1982 (entered operation 1994); arbitrates disputes related to the oceans, seas, and minerals underneath. It is based in Hamburg, Germany.
The International Tribune for the Law of the Sea has jurisdiction over those areas of the ocean floor that are not clearly delineated national waters. It was created by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea is in the news a lot these days because of growing controversy over possible mineral rights to the Arctic Ocean.
10π 4π
(US HISTORY) sector of the Gulf of Mexico seabed in which the Deepwwater Horizon was drilling. The name, assigned long before the platform was erected, is an example of dramatic irony. On 20 April 2010, the Deepwater Horizon blew out*, killing eleven crew members; over the next 12 weeks the wreckage spewed some 4 million bbls of crude oil into the ecologically sensitive region off the coast of Louisiana and Mississippi.
Properly known as the Macondo Prospect, or MC 252 (for "Mississippi Canyon"). Name comes from the fact that major rivers have large, deep underwater canyons on the ocean floor beyond their deltas. Macondo Prospect is formally owned by the Federal Bureau of Land Management (US BLM), and leased to British Petroleum by the {former} Minerals Management Service.
__________________________________
* "blew out" = past tense of "blow out"; rupture of an oil well, particularly at the well head.
The name Macondo is the same name as the fictitious cursed town in the novel *One Hundred Years of Solitude* by Colombian ... writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Oil companies routinely assign code names to offshore prospects early in the exploration effort. This practice helps ensure secrecy during the confidential pre-sale phase, and later provides convenient names for casual reference
Wikipedia entry, "Macondo Prospect"
16π 3π
(US GOVERNMENT) Former agency of the US government responsible for the enforcement of immigration law, and the processing of visa/permit requests. After the attacks of 11 September 2001, Congress passed a bill creating the Department of Homeland Security (DHS); the INS was split up into its enforcement functions (which became part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and its processing functions (Citizenship and Immigration Services, or CIS).
Prior to its dissolution in 2003, the INS was part of the Department of Justice. The CIS and ICE are both part of the DHS.
Because of its extraordinary power over the lives of millions of US nationals and residents, the Immigration and Naturalization Service gained lasting notoriety. Seven years after it was superseded by the CIS, most people associated visa regulations with the INS.
"Brother from Another Planet" was a brilliant parody of INS agent behavior.
24π 8π