Link to article here.

Port sparks NAFTA super-railway challenge
Another national line plans ‘Asian gateway’ to North America
By Jerome R. Corsi
September 19, 2007
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

Canadian National railway’s North America logo

With the focused development of the port in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, as an official “Asian Gateway,” Canadian National is positioned to compete with Canadian Pacific as the first truly continental NAFTA super-railroad, reaching from Canada to Mexico through the heart of the U.S. On Sept. 12, Canadian National used the opening of its new container terminal at Prince Rupert to declare the railroad the “Midwest Express,” a reference to its ambition to move containers of good manufactured in China into the heartland of North America through distribution hubs in Chicago and Memphis. James Foote, Canadian National’s vice president of sales and marketing, boasted Canadian National could move containers from China into the U.S. Midwest more quickly through Prince Rupert than through any other West Coast port, including Los Angeles and Long Beach.

According to the Canadian National website, the now-completed Phase I development of the Canadian National Prince Rupert container terminal has a capacity to handle 500,000 20-foot containers per year, growing to a 2 million container capacity in 2010, when Phase II development of the 150-acre facility is completed.

A video on the Canadian National website bills Prince Rupert as “North America’s Northwest Gateway,” stressing the 54th parallel location as the closest connection with the Far East and China, “shaving 30 hours shipping time for the shortest, quickest route across the Pacific.”“It’s all in the numbers,” Canadian National boasts, pointing out Prince Rupert is 5,286 miles from Hong Kong, while Los Angeles is 6,380 miles away. Also, Shanghai is 4,642 miles from Port Rupert but 5,810 miles from Los Angeles.”

Protected by the Queen Charlotte Islands, Prince Rupert is a natural deep-water tidal harbor easily capable of handling the new class of 12,500 container-capacity post-Panamax ships now being built for China.

The Canadian National route map can be conceptualized as a giant “T” that stretches across Canada from Prince Rupert and Vancouver in British Columbia to Halifax in Nova Scotia.

The Canadian National then crosses into the U.S. at Winnipeg and at Windsor, to complete the “T” through Detroit, Chicago and Memphis, ending up in the Louisiana Gulf Coast.

As WND reported, the route map of rival Canadian Pacific in the U.S. roughly parallels Interstate 35, while the Canadian National route map follows more the Mississippi River and roughly the proposed NAFTA superhighway route planned for Interstate 69.

A map on the Canadian National website shows containers from China will enter North America at Prince Rupert.

A secondary, southern route is shown on the Canadian National map, with Chinese containers traveling through the Panama Canal and linking up with Canadian National routes in Louisiana, or heading north into the Atlantic to connect with Canadian National in Halifax.

WND reported plans to build a deeper and wider Panama Canal are aimed at opening a route for Chinese post-Panamax container mega-ship from the Pacific to U.S. ports in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean.

To complete its route map into Mexico, Canadian National has marketing agreements in place with Kansas City Southern, or KCS.

KCS’s reach into Mexico qualifies it as a NAFTA railroad, but a combination between KCS and either Canadian National or Canadian Pacific is required before the configuration of a continental NAFTA super-railroad becomes apparent.

WND reported the Canadian Pacific acquisition of DM&E gives Canadian Pacific a connection with KCS at the Knoche Yard in Kansas City.

Thus, both Canadian National and rival Canadian Pacific rely on KCS to compete for the claim to be the first North American continental NAFTA railroad.

A route map on the Canadian National website shows the railroad connecting through KCS Mexican railroads down to the Mexican port Lazaro Cardenas, a port WND frequently has identified as another alternative to Los Angeles and Long Beach for containers from China to enter North America.

While the KCS marketing agreements give Canadian National the reach into Mexico, the Canadian National website emphasizes Prince Rupert as the railroad’s primary gateway for containers from China to enter North America.

Through Prince Rupert, Canadian National can transport containers from China along 100 percent Canadian National lines, down into the heartland of the U.S., from Detroit and Chicago south to the Louisiana coast.

Yet, Canadian National would have to partner with KCS to reach into Mexico to transport containers from China north from Lázaro Cárdenas.

As WND previously reported, KCS operating alone can already bring Chinese containers from the Mexican ports of Manzanillo and Lazaro Cardenas to Kansas City where Kansas City SmartPort is planning to be an “inland port” for switching Chinese containers to destinations east and west on U.S. rail lines.

For a brief period, 1993-1995, Canadian National operated under a CN North America logo, even entering into negotiations to acquire the rival Canadian Pacific.

We put out this information earlier in the year and the mainstream press is beginning to pick-up on Rudy Giuliani’s conflicts of interests and deep ties to a controversial public policy gripping the nation, superhighways in the hands of foreign companies to benefit multi-national corporations through a massive influx of imports from China. Giuliani’s going to directly profit from the Trans Texas Corridor…this man has no business being the next president!

Giuliani Builds Political Base in Texas
September 21, 2007 – AUSTIN, Texas
from ABC 7 News

Republican Rudy Giuliani – thrice-married, liberal on social issues and a consummate New Yorker – seems an unlikely White House contender to be embraced by a Texas’ GOP establishment rooted in the energy industry and dominated by religious conservatives. But the former New York mayor has built a formidable political base in Texas with the help of well-connected Republican money men. He owes his advantage in part to his role as a name partner with a powerhouse, Houston-based law firm known for its impressive roster of energy-giant clients, Bracewell & Giuliani.

His partnership in the law firm has also brought Giuliani unwelcome criticism in connection with some of the firm’s more controversial clients, including a Spanish contractor involved in planning part of a Texas superhighway toll road known as the Trans-Texas Corridor.

Texas farmers and other landowners are worried their property rights will be trampled to make way for the highway. Conspiracy theorists see Giuliani, because of his highway connections, as allied with a cabal of international monied interests plotting to supplant the United States with a North American Union that includes Mexico and Canada.

Giuliani joined the law firm – then called Bracewell & Patterson – in March 2005. More than 400 lawyers work for the firm, which has offices in New York, Washington, Connecticut, Dubai, Kazakhstan and London.

Giuliani reported in a federal financial disclosure form in May that he received $1.2 million in income from Bracewell & Giuliani during 2006 and the first five months of 2007. He was also entitled to a 7.5 percent share of revenue from the firm’s New York office.

The firm’s managing partner, Patrick Oxford of Houston, is the national chairman of Giuliani’s presidential campaign. A former University of Texas System regent appointed by then-Gov. George W. Bush, Oxford has strong ties to many of Texas’ top political leaders. He raised $100,000 for Bush in his 2000 presidential run, served as co-chairman of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison’s re-election campaign last year and is treasurer for Sen. John Cornyn’s current re-election campaign.

The law firm’s employees in several Texas cities have also donated to Giuliani’s campaign, federal election reports show.

“The relationship with Bracewell has given Giuliani a financial foothold in the state,” said Craig McDonald, director of Texans for Public Justice, which tracks money in politics.

While Giuliani isn’t “totally in sync with the base on social issues,” Texans liked his take-charge approach during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and his mayoral record on crime-fighting and budget control, said Austin-based GOP consultant Reggie Bashur, who is not working with any presidential candidates.

“The grassroots in Texas is … strongly conservative. … very much right-to-life, very fiscally conservative, strong on national defense, very strong on the war on terror, not overly sympathetic to the gay rights movement,” Bashur said.

Because Texas’ primary comes late in the lineup of nomination contests, the state’s role in the nomination is primarily that of money generator. Giuliani’s campaign finance chairman is Roy Bailey, a former finance chairman of the Texas Republican Party. Dallas billionaire T. Boone Pickens and Texas Rangers owner Tom Hicks are major fundraisers.

Giuliani had raised $3.69 million in Texas as of July 30, the most of any presidential candidate. Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton was second with $2 million. Among Giuliani’s Republican rivals, Sen. John McCain has raised $1.79 million from Texas donors and Mitt Romney has raised $1.76 million.

“I think there are many issues, principally on the issue of leadership and overall electability, that are causing many voters in Texas to support the mayor,” said Giuliani spokesman Elliott Bundy.

Giuliani has also developed a bond with Texas Gov. Rick Perry, whom he helped win re-election last year. That groundwork could make Perry a high-profile ally in Texas, although the governor hasn’t yet endorsed a presidential candidate.

Bracewell & Giuliani’s political action committee gave $10,000 to Perry a year ago, just a few weeks before his re-election. Perry and Giuliani have talked in person and by telephone several times and have a good relationship, Black said.

Bracewell & Giuliani represents a business consortium involved in the Trans-Texas Corridor, a costly, high-profile toll road pushed by Perry and opposed by farmers and ranchers.

The first phase of Perry’s proposed $184 billion toll road, envisioned as part of a superhighway stretching from Oklahoma to the Mexico border, was planned by the Cintra Zachry consortium, composed of Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte SA of Spain, one of the world’s largest developers of toll roads, and Zachry Construction Co. of San Antonio.

Landowners say they worry that fields and farmhouses in Texas families for generations would be bulldozed for the highway. The state acknowledges some private land will be taken, but Perry said new roads are needed to handle Texas’ growing population and trade.

The consortium sued Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott last year to keep parts of its development agreement with the state secret, saying the information was proprietary. The Texas Department of Transportation took the unusual step of siding with the consortium in the lawsuit against Abbott, whose office had ruled the agreement should be made public.

The transportation department and the consortium dropped the lawsuit last October and agreed to release the contents of the contract.

But the lawsuit further fueled concerns about foreign ownership of a major Texas highway, and the project continues to be criticized by conservative groups like the Eagle Forum and the John Birch Society, who see it as part of an international conspiracy to create a North American Union. The conspiracy theory has also provided fodder for cable television commentators like CNN’s Lou Dobbs.

Earlier this year, Giuliani sold his investment firm, Giuliani Capital, for an undisclosed sum to the Macquarie Group, which is part of Macquarie Bank of Australia.. Cintra and Macquarie’s infrastructure group formed a consortium that operates a major toll road in Indiana.

Scott Segal, a Washington-based Bracewell & Giuliani partner in charge of its government relations division, said Giuliani was not involved in the Texas toll road legal work and that the law firm doesn’t lobby on behalf of Cintra Zachry.

“Mayor Giuliani has had no association or has done no work for the Cintra Zachry venture,” Segal said.

Black, Perry’s spokesman, said he doubts Perry even knows that Giuliani’s firm has represented the transportation companies in connection with the project.

“The governor does not concern himself with who Rudy Giuliani’s law firm may or may not represent,” Black said.

© 2007 WJLA-TV
© 2007 The Associated Press

Link to article here.

Mexican official urges North American Union
Tells Denver trade conference EU is ‘model we need to follow quickly’
By Michael Howe
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
September 21, 2007

Mayor Evaristo Lenin Perez of Ciudad Acuna, Mexico

At a Denver conference on intercontinental trade corridors, a Mexican mayor called for a swift move toward a European Union-style merger of the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Referring to Europe, Evaristo Lenin Perez of Ciudad Acuna – a sister city of Del Rio, Texas – told the Great Plains International Conference, “It’s a model we need to follow quickly.”

Perez later told WND, “If only people know the benefits of opening the borders and working together, improving the quality of life for all, then no one would be opposed to the idea of a North American Union.”

A spokesman for organizers of the conference – which began Wednesday and concludes today – rejected the Mexican mayor’s view.

“This is not what the conference is about, it is not about a North American Union,” said Joe Kiely, vice president of the Ports-to-Plains Trade Corridor Coalition. “It is about developing infrastructure and economic opportunities in the Great Plains. I am equally surprised the other items were brought up here.”

Ports-to-Plains describes itself as “a planned, multimodal transportation corridor including a multi-lane divided highway that will facilitate the efficient transportation of goods and services from Mexico, through West Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, and Oklahoma, and ultimately on into Canada and the Pacific Northwest.”

The conference, held at the Adams Mark Hotel, is promoted as an opportunity to “highlight the efforts of communities and citizens working together to bring the benefits of investment in transportation infrastructure and trade home to the Great Plains region.”

Asked why he chose the conference to promote the idea of a North American Union, Perez told WND, “It’s as good as any place and the right people are here.”

“This is not a new idea,” he said. “In fact when there are border meetings between border governors or border legislatures this is a topic that continually comes up.”

Perez also affirmed the Ports to Plains Corridor is basically a NAFTA Superhighway and needs to be developed as such.

“We need to begin by building the infrastructure in the three countries, investing in Mexico, and then we can sell the main idea that Mexicans should stay in Mexico. We just need to create an equal level for all,” Perez said.

Del Rio, Texas, Mayor Efrain Valdes told conferees he came to build relationships he hopes will last for decades to come.

“We are all North Americans,” he said. “Three countries, but we are all North Americans.”

Michael Reeves, president of Ports-to-Plains Trade Corridor Coalition, kicked off the conference with brief remarks.

Eduardo Arnal, consulate general of Mexico in Denver, later provided numerous statistics documenting the strong economic relationship between Mexico and the U.S.

“Because of NAFTA, we are partners in the fight against terror and need to help ensure each other’s safety,” Arnal said.

Arnal later discussed with WND the relationship between Mexico and the U.S. and the issue of illegal immigration.

“The best and only way to stop illegal immigration is for the United States to invest in Mexico,” he said. “A fence will not work. It’s a simple equation of supply and demand – Mexicans go to the U.S. for work because the demand for their labor and wages is there.”

Arnal said although Mexico must share responsibility for the immigration issue, it is the U.S. that really needs to step up and begin investing more in Mexico to help bring the country to a level playing field.

The Canadian perspective was delivered by Phillippe Taillon, vice consul and trade commissioner of the Canadian Consulate in Denver. Like his Mexican counterpart, Taillon presented statistics on the relationship between the three countries and told the crowd “NAFTA has been hugely profitable for all three countries.”

He also expressed an interest in continuing to integrate rail, truck and air transportation networks as Canada looks to open new markets from Asia.

Link to article here. Senator John Carona is a listed speaker for this conference on privatization. After encouraging Senator Robert Nichols to file a private toll moratorium, Carona then tried to kill the bill in his committee (privately telling a pro-toll industry magnate that the moratorium “was bad public policy”) and then later brokered a back room deal, SB 792, with pro-toll, pro-privatization Governor Rick Perry. Then in yet another flip-flop, Carona tried to act outraged that TxDOT was trying to circumvent the moratorium by attempting to continue to funnel money to private entities in his hearing August 7. So in public, it’s outrage over privatization, in private, it’s give privatization a green light. So who knows what Carona will say at this conference since they’re banning a reporter from telling the public what our elected officials are saying about the most controversial road financing scheme in Texas history.

Reporter banned from secret meeting on selling U.S. assets

‘We don’t feel WND is appropriate for a business conference’
September 19, 2007
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

EuroMoney PLC, the UK-based company that arranges dozens of financial conferences around the world each year, has refused to allow WND staff reporter Jerome Corsi to attend next week’s “North American PPP (Public-Private Partnership) & Infrastructure Finance Conference” in New York, even though WND offered to pay the $1,999 conference fee required to attend.

“When government officials want to go behind closed doors with investment bankers and lawyers to discuss selling our public infrastructure to foreign investment leaders, investigative reporters need to be there to tell the public what is really going on,” Corsi said.

“Why is it that all these PPP and SPP (Security and Prosperity Partnership) meetings are behind closed doors,” Corsi asked, “and government officials and their supporters think that’s normal? But when investigative reporters want to attend and report on what is being said, we are the ones who get accused of being the conspiracy theorists?”

“By refusing to allow WND to attend as a paying customer,” Corsi argued, “EuroMoney is telling the American public that they intend to conduct a secret meeting designed to teach government officials how to sell out U.S. public infrastructure to foreign investment concerns.” “I’m sure we will all be told that EuroMoney seminars and PPP structures are really for our ‘security and prosperity,’ just as President Bush asserts for the SPP itself,” Corsi continued. “Evidently we are just supposed to close our eyes and trust government officials, investment bankers and international lawyers, putting aside national security concerns and other economic issues which we believe may be of concern to our readers.” According to the conference brochure, the purpose of the EuroMoney seminar is to teach state and local government officials in the U.S. how to lease a wide range of public assets to international and foreign private investment groups. “Your online news service is known for its political rather than business content,” EuroMoney’s Joanna Johnson explained yesterday to WND in an e-mail, while refusing to allow Corsi permission to attend the conference. “We don’t feel it’s appropriate for a business conference.”

In an Aug. 29 e-mail, Johnson told WND that the seminar was “only open to those who are internal to EuroMoney or those with whom we have a media partnership. In this instance I am unable to extend a press pass to your organization.”

WND then offered to pay the full registration fee.

In response, Johnson sent a second Aug. 29 e-mail asking WND for payment details and confirming that Corsi could attend, provided WND paid the full registration fee as offered.

Yesterday’s e-mail shutting the door to Corsi came after WND pressed EuroMoney to send an invoice.

“So, EuroMoney made a political decision to keep me out of their private meeting,” Corsi commented, “but WND is the one EuroMoney objects to as being too political. Seems to me like a case of guilty conscience where EuroMoney is accusing WND of a fault EuroMoney knows itself to be committing.”

Public-private partnerships, or PPPs, were authorized by Executive Order No. 12803 President George H.W. Bush signed on April 30, 1992, clearing federal barriers for cities and states to lease public works infrastructures to private investors.

Writing in WND, Corsi has repeatedly exposed the PPP structure the Texas Department of Transportation has used to allow Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte, a foreign investment consortium in Spain, to finance the Trans-Texas Corridor, retaining for Cintra resulting rights to operate and receive tolls from TTC superhighways for 50 years after completion.

Corsi first exposed the EuroMoney seminar agenda in an article published in WND on Jan. 5, discussing an earlier EuroMoney seminar on PPP financing of public infrastructure projects scheduled for Miami in March, entitled “PPP: The North American Private Partnerships Intensive Seminar.”

“This is an outrageous affront to freedom of the press,” Corsi said, “but it affirms the government officials and investment bankers who are pushing PPP structures have something to hide.”

The EuroMoney brochure for next week’s seminar in New York indicates that attendees will include officials from the state departments of transportation in Virginia, Wisconsin, Louisiana, Texas, Delaware, Colorado and Washington, D.C.

Other attendees will be investment bankers including managing directors from the Carlyle Group, Nuveen Asset Management, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, AIG Highstar, Allstate Investments and Morgan Stanley.

The brochure names David Narefsky as the workshop leader.

Narefsky is listed as a partner in the Government Practice Group of the law firm Mayer, Brown, Row, and Maw, an international law firm that “has been counsel in the major privatizing transactions that have been completed or are now under way in the United States, including the Chicago Skyway, the Indiana Toll Road and Chicago-Midway Airport.”

The brochure further notes that Narefsky has played “a leading role in these transactions,” crediting Narefsky as being “actively involved in the drafting and analysis of PPP legislation for various state and local jurisdictions.”

In the Jan. 5 WND article, Corsi reported a spokesman for EuroMoney in the UK told WND the target office was government employees at the state and local level who want to learn the “how-to” of putting deals together such as the one by Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte to finance the Trans-Texas Corridor.

The EuroMoney seminar brochure notes a director of Cintra from Spain is scheduled to attend the conference and speak to the attendees.

Panels at the New York seminar are scheduled to discuss the Trans-Texas Corridor, taking up such topics as “Is the politics a knee-jerk or a ground swell?” “Reviewing current activity in the state legislature,” “What will the effect be on different states and the industry in general?” “Will Texas deals get through the instability?” and “What does this mean for equity partners?”

WND has reported Texas Gov. Rick Perry has vetoed a series of laws passed overwhelming by the Texas legislature with the intent of blocking TTC superhighway construction altogether, or at a minimum placing a two-year moratorium on the project.

The 300 senior decision-makers from state government, investment banking, and legal counsel that Money expects to attend the New York meeting will hear seminars instructing them how to create private finance deals on public infrastructure projects including toll roads, water treatment and waste management facilities, port infrastructure, state lotteries, airports, municipal parking, and military housing developments.

“The complex nature of politics in North America has led to challenges for financiers, investors and contractors in convincing all from local to national levels that PPP is an accountable and credible form of public finance,” the EuroMoney conference brochure notes. “Moreover, on an electoral level, those in the public sector that have pushed for such solutions have often had to fight hard to gain public acceptance. What is clear is that to push projects through, strong leadership is needed, along with effective communication and an increasingly credible history of procurement success.”

The conference chairman is scheduled to be Tom Nelthorpe, the editor of Project Finance Magazine, a EuroMoney publication promoting private investment structures in public infrastructure deals.