Media accounts widely differ on an offer being extended by Seychelles for naval forces of the People's Republic of China to have access to the African island nation. The offer was apparently made when a delegation from the People's Liberation Army arrived in Seychelles on Dec. 1, headed by China's defense minister, Gen. Liang Guanglie. An account by Eurasia Review states that an agreement was signed for China to set up a naval base in the Seychelles, to police the region against pirates operating out of Somalia. The LA Times' World Now blog says the Chinese Defense Ministry denies the facility would rise to the level of a naval base, but also notes a study by US government consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton finding that China is seeking to acquire a "string of pearls" across the Indian Ocean for eventual encirclement of India. Ironically, Voice of America portrays the deal in the least alarmist terms, saying it would be a refueling facility, and that China has not yet committed to it.

Three inmates at Corcoran state prison who participated in this year's California prisoner hunger strike— Zaharibu Dorrough, Heshima Denham and Kambui Robinson—issued a statement Dec. 6 proposing "10 core demands" for the Occupy Wall Street movement. The communiqué, issued from Corcoran's supermax Secure Housing Unit (SHU), says the demands were hashed out by prisoners at Corcoran and Pelican Bay under the name of the NARN Collective Think Tank. It states, "These 10 core demands can be modified, augmented or amended to take into account the broadest cross-section of the 99 percent possible and the collective will of the movement." The demands are online at San Francisco Bay View:

The website Algeria ISP reports (citing unnamed "Arab" sources) Dec. 11 that the US and France have jointly established a secret drone base in the Libyan desert, near the area of Katroune. Craft from the secret base are allegedly flying missions to Niger, Mali and Mauritania, with the ostensible objective of seeking out Saharan arms trafficking networks of al-Qeada in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Algeria has reportedly refused to allow the drones to fly through its territory.

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), successor to the good ol' Soviet-era KGB, applies pressure on the VKontakte social networking site—in a bid to snuff post-electoral protests, and put a long-escaped genie back into the totalitarian bottle. Good luck with that, guys. From Reuters:

Both the Bottom Line business blog at the San Francisco Chronicle and the On Deadline blog at USA Today make note of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union's apparent dissent from the Occupy Wall Street movement's call for a West Coast Port Blockade on Monday Dec. 12. In a call to action, the Occupy movement states:

In a frightening development that has received appallingly little coverage in English, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) released the results of a study Nov. 30 finding that melted fuel at the Fukushima Daiichi No. 1 reactor has nearly reached the bottom steel wall under the concrete at the base of the containment structure. TEPCO estimates the fuel rods have already melted through the concrete base of the reactor container by up to 65 centimeters. If the melt-through continues another 37 centimeters, it will reach the steel wall. If it melts through that, it will be released into the soil, and likely the groundwater.

The hegemonic media line that Greece's new "austerity" government is being staffed by non-ideological "technocrats" is deflated by Mark Ames on the Naked Capitalism blog Nov. 16. Ames documents that in fact this "technocratic" government includes figures from the old-line Greek fascist right, spawn of the military junta that ruled from 1967 to 1974. The post sports a photo of three men walking on a college campus—one armed with a club, another with an axe. The text explains:

The case against Jose Pimentel, the latest accused would-be Islamist terrorist who was busted in New York City, is starting to smell more and more dubious. It seems the case was left to the NYPD and Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance because the FBI—not exactly known for its caution or scrupulous reverence for defendants' rights—declined to get involved, fearing a weak case. City authorities are portraying Pimental as an "al-Qaeda sympathizer" (note: "sympathizer," not "operative") but also as a "lone wolf" with no actual overseas connections. He was impecunious (hardly a condition for an effective terrorist), and openly maintained a website espousing his jihadist beliefs and bad-assing about blowing shit up (ditto). The FBI was apparently worried about entrapment—which has already been invoked as a possibility by Pimentel's attorney.