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OB OY oF VEN? THE OIL FACTOR IN KOSOVO INDEPENDENCE n 17 February 2008, Kosovo broke away from Serbia and declared its independence. Not surprisingly, it was instantly recognised as a state by the USA, Germany, UK and France. With 4,203 square miles of area, Kosovo may be a tiny territory but in the great game of oil politics it holds great importance which is in inverse proportion to its size. Kosovo does not have oil, but its location is strategic because the trans-Balkan pipeline—known as the AMBO pipeline, after its builder and operator, the US- registered Albanian Macedonian Bulgarian Oil Corporation—will pass through it. The pipeline will pump Caspian oil from the Bulgarian port of Burgas via Macedonia to the Albanian port of Vlora, for transport to European countries and the United States. Specifically, the US$1.1 billion AMBO pipeline will permit oil companies operating in the Caspian Sea to ship their oil to Rotterdam and the East Coast of the USA at substantially less cost than they are experiencing today. When operational by 2011, the pipeline will become a part of the region's critical East-West corridor infrastructure which includes highway, railway, gas and fibre- optic telecommunications lines. who don't share our values. We're trying to move these newly independent countries toward the West." This leaves little doubt that the war in the former Yugoslavia was fought solely in order to secure access to oil from new and biddable states in Central Asia. It is obvious that the former Yugoslavia, especially Serbia, was a serious problem for the realisation of the plan. The intervention in Kosovo and Metohija was carried out in order to please Albania, whose port of Vlora is the ultimate destination of the pipeline. (Source: Uruknet, 24 February 2008, www.uruknet.info?p=41436) DEATH TOLL RISES FROM GARDASIL HPV VACCINE jac Watch, the US public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, recently released documents obtained from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, detailing as many as 11 deaths related to Merck's HPV vaccine Gardasil®. Those deaths occurred between 8 June 2006—when the vaccine received FDA approval—and August 2007, when the latest data were available. The documents reveal that reports of adverse reactions from the HPV vaccine, given to girls at least as young as twelve, are increasing daily at an alarming rate. According to a report by LifeSiteNews, which scanned a publicly available database of adverse effects from the HPV vaccine, 3,137 adverse effects were reported to 28 September 2007. Many of the cases were deemed "life threatening" and required hospitalisation. In one case highlighted by Judicial Watch, a seventeen-year-old girl who was vaccinated in June 2007 died the very day she was vaccinated. According to the report, she "was vaccinated with a first dose of Gardasil". Other reported serious side-effects associated with the Gardasil HPV vaccine include paralysis, Bell's palsy, Guillain— Barre syndrome and seizures. (Source: LifeSiteNews.com, 5 October 2007, http://www. lifesite.net/Idn/2007/oct/ 07100507.html; also see the Judicial Watch website, http:/Avww.judicialwatch.org/) A US Trade and Development Agency paper published May 2000 assesses that the pipeline is a US strategic interest. According to the paper, the pipeline will provide oil and gas to the US market worth $600 million a month, adding that the pipeline is necessary because the oil coming from the Caspian Sea will quickly surpass the safe capacity of the Bosphorus. In November 1998, Bill Richardson, the then US Energy Secretary, spelt out his policy on the extraction and transport of Caspian oil. "This is about America's energy security," he explained. "It's also about preventing strategic inroads by those nia 6 = NEXUS APRIL — MAY 2008 www.nexusmagazine.com