Deciphering the Qatar Enigma - Middle East Online

Deciphering the Qatar Enigma

This past year has seen a major change in Qatari diplomacy: From being an impartial mediator, praised by all parties, Qatar has begun to take sides in Middle East conflicts, explains Patrick Seale.

Middle East Online

Of all the actors in the Arab Spring, one of the most effective -- and perhaps the most intriguing -- has been the state of Qatar. Protruding from the eastern flank of Saudi Arabia, this mini-state points a plump finger of waterless desert at Iran on the opposite side of the Gulf. Situated between these two regional giants -- with each of whom it entertains somewhat wary relations -- little Qatar’s remarkable achievement has been to carve out an independent and ambitious role for itself. How has this pocket-sized state become a world-class mover and shaker? And what is it seeking to achieve? Any visitor to Doha, Qatar’s glittering sea-front capital-city, is bound to ask himself these questions so great is the contrast between the country’s global ambitions and its limited human resources. Its foreign service, active on numerous fronts across the world, is staffed by a mere 250 diplomats. Its native population numbers only some 200,000. These fortunate few – whose annual per capital income of over $100,000 is said to be the highest in the world – are served, pampered and supported by an immigrant Arab and Asian population of 1.7 million. Over nearly two decades, Qatar has built a considerable reputation for itself in the tricky and often tedious field of conflict mediation. It has tried, and usually succeeded, in calming tempers and forging agreements between opponents – whether between Eritrea and Yemen in their dispute over the Hamish Islands in 1996; or between Eritrea and Sudan a couple of years later; or between Yemen and its Huthi rebel movement in 2007; or between rival Lebanese factions in 2008, which ended 17 months of crisis and prevented a return to civil war; or between Sudan and Chad in 2009; or between Eritrea and Djibouti in 2010; or between feuding Palestinians factions in early February 2012, to name only some of its many endeavours in the cause of peace. This past year, however, has seen a major change in Qatari diplomacy: From being an impartial mediator, praised by all parties, it has begun to take sides in Middle East conflicts. For example, it played a key role in the overthrow of Libya’s dictator Muammar al-Qadhafi, pouring into the civil war hundreds of its own well-equipped troops and some $400m in aid to the rebels. In Syria, Qatar has led the assault against President Bashar al-Assad, pressing for his condemnation and boycott in the Arab League while arming and funding the opposition. Even more significantly, Qatar has been a major backer of the Muslim Brothers in their recent rise to power across the Arab region. This has caught the West by surprise, in particular the United States. Having spent the past fifteen years fighting the Islamists, Washington is now scrambling to come to terms with -- and even befriend -- these new political actors, whether in Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Morocco and elsewhere. Unlike Qatar’s earlier mediations, this switch to activist policies inevitably makes enemies as well as friends. Not the least of Qatar’s contradictions is that while it embraces progress and modernity with open arms, it also promotes radical Islamic movements, for example giving ample airtime on Al Jazeera to the tele-preacher Yusuf al-Qaradawi. In waging its battles, Qatar deploys many assets, of which the first is undoubtedly the vigour and daring of its leadership. Four members of its ruling autocracy deserve special mention. The Emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, 60, a graduate of Britain’s Sandhurst military academy and former Defence Minister, deposed his father in a bloodless coup in 1995, setting the country on its path to spectacular development. The Emir’s right-hand man is his distant cousin, Sheikh Hamad bin Jasim Al Thani, 53, who has served as Foreign Minister (since 1992) and also as Prime Minister (since 2007), acquiring a formidable reputation as an international diplomatist but also as a remarkable financier with major stakes in Qatar Airways, in the London department store Harrods, and dozens of other real-estate, commercial and industrial enterprises. He is the owner of the 133-metre yacht al-Mirqab, said to be the eighth largest super-yacht in the world, valued at over $1bn. Some sources estimate his personal fortune, perhaps with a touch of hyperbole, at $35bn. Another major figure is the Emir’s second wife, Sheikha Mozah, widely admired for her elegance, energy and culture, who chairs the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development. One of her five sons is Crown Prince Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, a clever, highly-popular, French-speaking young man in his early thirties. Sheikha Mozah’s Foundation has brought numerous foreign universities to Qatar’s ‘Education City’ and sponsors many training and leadership programmes, as well as the lively Doha Debates on Al Jazeera television, Qatar’s brilliant media arm -- a powerful agent of its world-wide influence. Needless to say, all this would be vain were it not for the prodigious revenues Qatar derives from exporting oil and liquefied natural gas. Its oil reserves of 25 billion barrels would enable continued output at current levels for the next 57 years, while the reserves of its offshore gas fields are estimated at 250 trillion cubic feet, the third largest such reserves in the world. Gas provides 85% of Qatar’s export earnings and 70% of government revenue. Qatar’s skill has been to acquire a wide variety of foreign friends without being overly dependent on any of them. Since his 1995 coup, the Emir has forged especially close ties with France, which supplies some 80% of the country’s military equipment. He has purchased one of France’s top football clubs, Paris Saint Germain (PSG) -- perhaps as a prelude to hosting the 2022 World Cup -- as well as a score of valuable properties across the French capital. Serious investments have been made in major French firms such as Veolia and Lagardère. Qatar also has warm relations with Britain, the former colonial overlord of the Gulf until its withdrawal in 1971, and is bound militarily and industrially to the United States. Qatar’s Al Udeid Air Base is the forward headquarters of the United States Central Command, which oversees a vast area of responsibility extending from the Middle East to North Africa and Central Asia. CENTCOM forces are deployed in combat roles in Afghanistan as well as at smaller bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. No doubt the presence of CENTCOM provides Qatar with some protection, but it also runs the risk of attracting hostility if, for example, Qatar were to allow itself to be sucked into the quarrel now raging between the United States and Israel on one side and Iran on the other. A regional war could deal a catastrophic blow to Qatar’s prosperity and development. Qatar has become a global brand name as well as a global player. These are clearly the goals its leaders have striven to achieve. But this mini-state operates in a turbulent region, a situation which demands constant vigilance and nimble footwork. Many might wish it had restricted itself to its noble role as a peace-maker. Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East. His latest book is The Struggle for Arab Independence: Riad el-Solh and the Makers of the Modern Middle East (Cambridge University Press). Copyright © 2012 Patrick Seale – distributed by Agence Global

Africa talking to Beijing: Ethiopia [51709550] | African news, analysis and opinion – The Africa Report.com

Tough governments are able to get the most out of the rise in emerging-market interest in Africa. Here is one example of countries trying to get beyond the 'win-win' rhetoric in engagements with their Chinese partners. In Ethiopia Addis Ababa holds the reigns.

MELES ZENAWI AND WEN JIABAO/ PHOTO/ REUTERS

During his August 2011 trip to China, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi visited the Pearl River Delta, where higher production costs are driving manufacturers offshore.

He invited his Chinese hosts to visit Ethiopia. Among other things, he wanted them to look at a leather-based industrial cluster Ethiopia is developing to better utilise its live stock population, Africa's largest.

Within weeks, a delegation of Chinese businessmen had arrived in Addis Ababa. Among them were representatives of the privately owned Huajian Group that produces 16m pairs of leather shoes per year. By October, Huajian had decided to invest.

Huajian's general manager arrived in November, hired 50 Ethiopian technical school graduates and sent them off to China for training.

Huajian is leasing a factory site in Ethiopia's Eastern (Oriental) Industrial Zone, Hagos Sequar, an Ethiopian industry ministry official told The Africa Report.

"The machinery is already on its way to Djibouti," he added. Ethiopia, at the end of 2011, reflects the surprising complexity of Chinese engagement in Africa, how it differs from that of the West and – possibly of more significance to the continent –how central the role of African agency is.

China is no newcomer here. In 1972, China financed the Wereta-Weldiya road across Ethiopia's Rift Valley. Between 1998 and 2004, the Chinese contributed 15 per cent of the cost of Addis Ababa's ring road, while Ethiopia paid the rest.

But when Ethiopia's economy began to grow at Asian rates, Chinese investors saw increased opportunities. Not all were in the direction stereotypes would have predicted.

Yes, China's state-owned petroleum companies explored for oil but often as contractors for Ethiopian companies. The Chinese government also unleashed a variety of state-sponsored tools for building economic ties.

Most of these do not involve China's relatively modest foreign aid. The China-Africa Development Fund has made equity investments in a leather factory, a cement plant and a glass factory.

The Eastern Industrial Zone is being built and run by a private Chinese company, with performance-based subsidies from China's economic cooperation fund.

Chinese telecoms firm ZTE teamed up with Chinese banks to provide a $1.5bn commercial suppliers' credit (at the London Interbank Offered Rate [LIBOR]plus 1.5 per cent) to roll out cellular and 3G service across the country.

A preferential export buyer's credit is paying more than half of the $612m cost of a toll road between Addis Ababa and Djibouti.

The tolls will help repay the loan over 20 years. In a twist on a financing mode popularised in Angola, where infrastructure loans were repaid with Angola's main export, oil, China's Export-Import Bank has provided commercial loans for electricity distribution lines, cement factories and other projects, secured (and repaid) by Ethiopia's exports to China, mainly sesame seeds.

These credits are known as hu hui dai kuan or mutual benefit loans. A Chinese company gets the business, Ethiopia gets finance for development at LIBOR plus 2-3 per cent.

Of course, there are downsides. Chinese banks continue to show interest in financing large hydro-power projects with daunting environmental and social challenges.

Reportedly, working conditions were so onerous at the enormous African Union complex built by a Chinese firm that some Chinese workers went on strike.

Ethiopians also complain about the quality of ZTE's technology. At the same time, observers sometimes accuse China of sins it has yet to commit.

In July, Günter Nooke, German chancellor AngelaMerkel's Africa adviser, said that in Ethiopia China's "large-scale land purchases" were partly to blame for a devastating famine.

The California-based Oakland Institute had reported just a month earlier, after an exhaustive four-month 'land grab'study, that Chinese investors were "surprisingly absent from land investment deals" in Ethiopia.

Ethiopia is clearly in charge in this engagement. Chinese traders and shop keepers, who are fixtures across many African cities, are absent on Ethiopia's streets.

These positions are reserved for locals and the Ethiopian government enforces the rules. And China listens. A decade ago, Chinese companies building the ring road complained they could not find enough local skilled workers.

The Ethiopian government asked China to establish a college that would focus on construction and industrial skills. The fully equipped Ethio-China Polytechnic College opened in late 2009, funded by Chinese aid.

Chinese professors offer a two-year degree with Chinese language classes alongside engineering modules. Chinese companies are waiting to hire its first crop of graduates.

This article was first published in the November edition of The Africa Report, on sale at newsstands,
via our print subscription or our digital edition.

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Ethiopia, Kenya and South Sudan to jointly fund new oil pipeline

The cost of a massive a transportation corridor project aimed to link Kenya to South Sudan and Ethiopia will be shared among the three east African countries, according to a report.

The $22billion dollar Lamu-Southern Sudan-Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) Corridor project is expected to be launched next month.

To cope up financial constraints, the LAPSSET master plan report has proposed that the subjects - Kenya, South Sudan and Ethiopia should share part of the project cost, although the countries are seeking an external finance source.

The groundbreaking ceremony will be held on 2 March in the presence of President mwai Kibaki of Kenya, Ethiopian Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, and South Sudan president, Salva Kiir.

US drones have Assad in their sights: Voice of Russia

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Photo: AFP

Syria has become yet another country whose airspace is being used by unmanned US drone planes to collect information about attacks against civilians by President Assad’s forces. There have been no reports as to whether the drones are reporting about opposition movements as well. The Voice of Russia’s Konstantin Garibov sends this report.

The Pentagon makes it no secret that is aims to intercept talks between Syria’s political leadership and its military command. The US is thereby striving to substantiate its claims that the shelling of Syrian cities and attacks on Syrian civilians pursue the purpose of preserving the current regime. This information will then be passed to the UN Security Council in order to toughen sanctions against Syria or even set the stage for foreign intervention. The US keeps assuring the world community that drones over Syria do not testify to military preparations against Damascus. Vladimir Sotnikov of the Institute for Oriental Studies, doubts that.

"It looks like the data supplied by the American drones are passed to British and Qatar special task forces which are deployed in Homs, which has been the scene of fierce clashes between opposition supports and government troops. Drones flying above Syria send clear evidence that western partners are expecting a change of government in Syria at an early date."

US drones caused a big international row in Iraq. Baghdad was angered by US unmanned planes flying over the Iraqi territory without the consent of the local authorities. This airspace is ours, not America’s, Iraq’s Interior Minister Adnan al-Assadi said. His Syrian counterpart could well say the same. Both would be right, given that flying drones above other countries’ territories runs counter to international law.

According to The New York Times, the US is bound to send more drones to countries, such as Pakistan and Afghanistan, in the near future. Meanwhile, the Pentagon and the CIA have been using unmanned aircraft against terrorist groups in Yemen and Somalia. Washington has drone bases in Ethiopia, on the Seychelles and on the Arab Peninsula.

The US has been launching drone planes not only from its military bases. It has also resolved to assign them to US embassies. Reports by the US State Department say that using heavy armed drones like Predator and Reaper are out of the question. These kinds of aircraft penetrate any obstacles for scanning telemetric data. Given that this aircraft costs a startling $899mln, even such a rich country as South Korea which planned to acquire US drones for gathering secret data in the airspace above North Korea and China, had to think better of it.

Congress Pushes Iran Regime Change Over Diplomacy Lawrence Wilkerson: Obama painting himself into a corner, Congress handing him the paint Watch full multipart Is There Evidence Iran Is Building A Nuclear Weapon?

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Context: As yet there are no context links for this item. → Suggest Context Links Here Bio Lawrence Wilkerson is a retired United States Army soldier and former chief of staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell. Wilkerson is an adjunct professor at the College of William & Mary where he teaches courses on US national security. He also instructs a senior seminar in the Honors Department at the George Washington University entitled "National Security Decision Making." Transcript PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Washington. And in Washington, when it comes to foreign policy issues, of course Syria is being talked about hot and heavy. But the bigger picture is Iran. In fact, most people think the reason the United States is interested in Syria is because of Iran. Well, in the last few days, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell and now an often-contributor to The Real News Network, was on the Hill talking to senators and congressmen about what's happening in Iran and vis-à-vis the United States and Israel. And he now joins us. Thank you for joining us. LAWRENCE WILKERSON, FMR. CHIEF OF STAFF TO COLIN POWELL: Thanks for having me. JAY: So what's the mood about what's happening in Iran on the Hill? WILKERSON: There are three aspects of it to me that were disconcerting. One is a constant admission from both Republican and Democrat alike that the political space is very, very small, if at all, for maneuver. That has a lot to do with the herd mentality, and especially the herd mentality vis-à-vis Israel. That is to say, almost no one is really willing to lead the way in a charge that could be interpreted in any way, fashion, or form as being even neutral, let alone against Israel. So that's complicating matters for having maneuverability. JAY: Does this have to do with funding or actual votes? WILKERSON: I think it has to do with actual votes. When you start looking at some of the—for example, some of the harebrained proposals to amend the current banking legislation, things like Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and her staff suggesting that we put a part in there that says no U.S. citizen, period—diplomat, soldier, Marine, admiral, anyone—can talk to an Iranian, that it's material support to terrorism, if you will, and punishable, these are the kinds of lunacies that more sober, sane people have had to deal with on the staff in drafting some of this sanctions legislation. JAY: So this is like a competition to show how militant you are [crosstalk] WILKERSON: Precisely. And so that limits the maneuver space for—in fact, you get a very senior staffer who says, we're very proud of what we've accomplished given the obstacles. And yet what they've accomplished—and they're somewhat aware of this, perhaps not as intensely as they should be—is not supportive of a real, solid diplomatic track. In fact, it is probably antithetical to a real, solid diplomatic track, so much so that it brings me to my second point (before you interrupted me), that not only is there not space for maneuver, but what has become diplomacy is sanctions. There is no other aspect to the diplomacy. Diplomacy equals sanctions, sanctions equal diplomacy. It's not going to work. It's simply not going to work. So if on the one hand you've said Iran approaching red lines or having a nuclear weapon is unacceptable, and on the other hand said all options are still on the table—well, you're running out of options fast if your diplomacy is not geared to work. JAY: Do people on the Hill seem aware that the American intelligence agencies have still not said anything other than there is no plan in Iran to have a nuclear weapon, that Leon Panetta said a couple weeks ago, testifying to Congress, that Iran has not decided to build a bomb? I mean, do people on the Hill—are they aware of where this conversation's at, the IAEA has no evidence that there is a nuclear weapon? WILKERSON: I think the more studied amongst them, the ones who actually look at this issue hard and examine it. And you say, well, aren't they all doing that? No. Aren't their staffs all doing that? No. That's—that might worry you. It concerns me as a citizen. But no, they're not taking that kind of level of detail approach to it. And part of the reason is (and I'll admit this on my own behalf; there's no question in my mind as a military man, as a diplomat would-be, as a citizen) that Iran's intention is, at a minimum, to get to the point where they would—as one of their own people said recently, we want to be like Japan, where they could build a nuclear weapon in roughly a heartbeat. That's—I think that is what they're driving towards. JAY: So let's say it is. So then—. WILKERSON: Remember, they is a very amorphous thing, too. They—Iran, has as much decision dissension in its ranks right now as we do in ours. JAY: Well, so, first of all, for the record, Iran denies all of this. There's still not yet any evidence other than that they have a nuclear energy program. IAEA says there are some unanswered questions that need to be resolved and then people can reach their own conclusions. WILKERSON: I agree your facts are correct. But we're talking here not about an interpretation of capabilities at the moment but intent over time. And the latter is much more difficult to ascertain by intelligence professionals or whomever than the former. JAY: Okay. So you knowing all this, you, if I understand correctly, think diplomacy is the answer. WILKERSON: I do. JAY: Why? WILKERSON: I do, but real diplomacy. JAY: So what does that mean? WILKERSON: Real diplomacy means that you're willing to bilaterally and multilaterally—because we've trapped ourselves, in this case, into P5+1, going at it by sitting down, talking, talking, talking, until you recognize in the conversation, as Ambassador Dobbins and Ambassador Pickering have pointed out recently, what it is you want, because you don't know what you want until you get into that dialog. You can't. You may express what you want, and it may be almost like ultimata on both sides, but you don't know what you want until you get into negotiations and begin to feel the other side out and understand what you might get. JAY: Now, a lot of people we've talked to have suggested that the real issue here isn't the weapon anyway. The real issue is Israel does not want to have Iran as such a power in the region. They particularly don't want Iran beefing up Hezbollah and Hamas. And it's really about that more than it is about the weapon. WILKERSON: Well, now you hit my third point that I was going to make originally. JAY: Go ahead. WILKERSON: It is simply that it appears to me that wittingly or unwittingly both the White House and the legislature have adopted a policy of regime change and not diplomacy. And that's frightening. I could see, for example, as happened to Bill Clinton in '97 or '98, as I recall, when he was forced by, then, a Republican legislature, essentially, to sign a piece of legislation that declared official U.S. policy regime change in Iraq—and like other presidents he might have thought he could control that, and for the end of his administration he did. But the Republicans, George W. Bush, my administration, was able to use that as buttressing for what they eventually did in Iraq. It was official U.S. policy, a regime change. I think we may be headed towards that kind of legislation with regard to Iran. JAY: Now, Biden, and Obama himself, when they ran in the primaries in '08, both said, if you didn't want Iran as a regional power, you shouldn't have invaded Iraq, Obama said, and Biden said, if you don't want them to have nuclear weapons, stop threatening regime change. WILKERSON: And you shouldn't have, I might add, recognized them as the hegemon in the Gulf for 26 years when they had our tyrant in control, '53 to '79. JAY: Do you think—from what you can tell on the Hill, your sense of the politics of D.C., is regime change the Obama administration plan? Is it a Netanyahu play with the Republicans? WILKERSON: For us I think—I used this metaphor yesterday. I think the president is painting himself into a corner and the legislature's handing him the paint. And I don't know how you stop that, except by, you know, retracting the paint, getting rid of the brush, or whatever. But that's what's happening. We've got a legislature that has no political space to maneuver. Israel surely complicates that majorly. And we've got a president who thinks he can control the situation, at least through the election, and so that it doesn't damage his chances to be reelected. And he's, yet, unleashed these—not just rhetoric, but also these lack of rhetoric in key places, that is to say, not showing the courage to push back against some of this. That is putting him in a position where he's going to wake up, as John Kennedy did, for example, in '61, and he's going to have a plan, and the plan's going to have to be executed, and it's going to be the Bay of Pigs, only it's going to be with regard to Iran and it's going to be far more catastrophic than the Bay of Pigs turned out to be, in my view. It's the closing down of space. It is the closing down of maneuver room. It's putting all the instruments of our government into one bag, tying Israel to that bag, and saying, let's go forward from here. That's not a very wide space to go forward in. JAY: Our correspondent in Israel was just at a security conference she covered, and some of the top Israeli security people were saying, just get used to it; Iran's going to have the capability to have a nuclear weapon; and essentially said, well, so what? They were saying this—you can't call this an existential threat. So we're not hearing any of this kind of conversation over here. WILKERSON: I heard a little bit of it, and I enjoyed joining in a very friendly debate that ultimately—with several staffers and one member, that ultimately ended, I think, in our implicit agreement that, yeah, it wasn't existential, and we all knew that. But we appreciated Tel Aviv's position, and we particularly appreciated Netanyahu's position. At that point, someone suggested that they knew that—and I have no reason to doubt this person's expertise in this regard, that Netanyahu and his closest advisers right now are toying with the idea of calling an election and using that win—and this is interesting, because the individual there knew more about Israel's history than I did—said no prime minister who's ever done this has won, has subsequently won. And then I said, well, what do you think about Netanyahu's chances? Very good, very good at winning. So he would use this mandate, as it were, being reelected and having called the elections himself, as an expression of majority Israeli opinion in agreement with whatever he wanted to do. And given the U.S. election coming up, and given the hands-tied atmosphere that it's going to create for President Obama, then he would go ahead and execute. He would—in this period of opportunity, if you will, rather than immunity, he would go ahead and execute, expecting, fully expecting that the United States would pick up the pieces in whatever way they needed to to make sure it was a successful series of strikes. That's very worrisome. I don't have to believe that scenario. I think it's further out, if it's going to happen, than between now and the election. But I understand the individual's point, and I understand his reasoning, and I can see how he arrived at the conclusions he came to. JAY: So, based on what you saw on the Hill the other day, do you find some voices that are raised against this kind of a policy? WILKERSON: I find a lot of understanding on the Democratic side, some on the Republican side, that when we got Senator Kirk from Illinois, for example, to sign up as a cosponsor on the Incidents at Sea agreement, I think that was an indication that he's beginning to understand the catastrophic nature of war with Iran. I think the understanding's there. But, again, you can have all the understanding the world; if you don't give them maneuver space, if you don't have political opportunity to do what you need to do to move out courageously and forcefully, to say what you feel and to put that feeling into some kind of support for the White House and, ultimately, for diplomacy, it's of no consequence. One person said this, which I thought was very, very appropriate, sadly enough. This person is about 75. I feel like we're in Vietnam again. And he was not talking about comparing Vietnam with Iran or Iraq or anything; he was talking about the decision-making atmosphere, that when McGeorge Bundy and Walt Rostow and LBJ were thinking about the escalation in '65 and then afterwards, and Nixon and Kissinger, too, trying to end it, they felt trapped. They couldn't go this way, they couldn't go that way, because the circumstances were trapping them into a certain mode of decision-making. It couldn't be truer about '65 and LBJ and the decision to escalate and, essentially, put 500,000 Americans in Vietnam, finally. It is that kind of environment. JAY: So what would break that? WILKERSON: Wow. Successful secret diplomacy, which I pray to God is going on right now, that there are these kind of talks going on right now wherever. JAY: So, I mean, what I take from what you're saying is, if the objective really is about the nuclear weapons program, there are negotiations and diplomacy that could probably be effective. If your real objective is regime change, then you ain't interested in diplomacy. WILKERSON: Let me back up and say now I'm not sure that the diplomacy could be effective even if you did it right. But we haven't even tried. That's my concern. We haven't even tried. And until you've tried, you're guilty. JAY: Thanks for joining us. WILKERSON: Sure. JAY: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network. End DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.