HAVANA (AP) - Philip Agee, a former CIA agent who became an outspoken critic of Washington's Cuba policy, has died in a Havana hospital following ulcer surgery, state media reported Wednesday. He was 72.
Agee quit the CIA in 1969 after 12 years working mostly in Latin America at a time when leftist movements were gaining prominence and sympathizers. His 1975 book "Inside the Company: CIA Diary," cited alleged CIA misdeeds against leftists in the region that included a 22-page list of purported agency operatives.
Granma, Cuba's Communist Party newspaper, said Agee died Monday night and described him as "a loyal friend of Cuba and fervent defender of the peoples' fight for a better world."
Bernie Dwyer, a journalist with state-run Radio Havana, said in a Tuesday message posted to a Cuba e-mail group that Agee's wife called him to say he had died in the hospital, where he has he been since Dec. 15.
"He had several operations for perforated ulcers and didn't survive all the surgery," Dwyer wrote, adding that Agee was cremated Tuesday and that friends planned a memorial ceremony for him Sunday at his Havana apartment.
In 2000, with European investors and a state-run travel agent as his partners, Agee opened a travel Web site designed to bring U.S. tourists to Cuba. The site, cubalinda.com, offers package tours and other help with Cuban tourism that is largely off limits to Americans.
There was no word of Agee's death on the site Wednesday.
The author of several other books besides "Inside the Company," one of Agee's last essays was published in Granma International newspaper in 2003 and came shortly after a Cuban government crackdown led to the arrest of 75 leading dissidents and political activists.
"To think that the dissidents were creating an independent, free civil society is absurd, for they were funded and controlled by a hostile foreign power and to that degree, which was total, they were not free or independent in the least," he wrote.
Agee has also been accused of receiving up to $1 million in payments from the Cuban intelligence service. He denied the accusations, which were first made by a high-ranking Cuban intelligence officer and defector in a 1992 report.
Barbara Bush, the wife of former President George H.W. Bushhimself a one-time CIA chiefin her autobiography accused Agee's book of exposing a CIA station chief, Richard S. Welch, who was later killed by leftist terrorists in Athens in 1975. Agee, who denied any involvement in the killing, sued her for $4 million for defamation, and she revised the book to settle the case.
Agee's U.S. passport was revoked in 1979. U.S. officials said he had threatened national security. After years of living in Hamburg, Germanyoccasionally underground, fearing CIA retributionAgee moved to Havana to open the travel site.
#7
Geez, Phil, maybe if you was in America you'd still be alive.
Oh, well. Worked out for everybody, I guess. For you: die happy in a Worker's Paradise. For us: you're dead.
Posted by: online poker ||
01/09/2008 17:12 Comments ||
Top||
#10
Agee dead?
Aw, geez, that just breaks my heart....
No, wait - that's just the chili.
Enjoy eternity with your buddies in HELL, traitor.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/09/2008 17:54 Comments ||
Top||
#11
Geez, Phil, maybe if you was in America you'd still be alive.
Oh, well. Worked out for everybody, I guess. For you: die happy in a Worker's Paradise. For us: you're very happily, although far later than it should have happened, dead.
There! TU3031, I knew you'd want that minor error fixed.
The US, the UK, China and Russia are "endemic surveillance societies", according to a recent study examining privacy protection around the world that gave the four nations the lowest possible rating.
The 10th annual report showed a global increase in surveillance and a decline in privacy safeguards during 2007, as concerns over immigration and border control continued to dominate national policy agendas.
The 2007 International Privacy Ranking, published by advocacy groups Privacy International of the UK and the Electronic Privacy Information Center in the US gave Britain the "black" or "endemic" ranking for the second year in a row.
Gus Hosein, of Privacy International, justified the UK's low ranking, noting that the country has the world's largest network of surveillance cameras, plans for national identity cards rich with personal and biometric information, and little government accountability when personal information is lost.
"This government has access to its people and technology that China doesn't," says Hosein. "It really is that bad here."
US fell to the bottom rung for the first time this year due to increasing government surveillance and decreasing federal oversight.
Political shifts in Congress that were expected to bolster personal protection had little effect. The Bush administration was specifically called out for tapping international phone calls and emails without a warrant for those with suspected links to terrorists.
The only country judged to have "adequate safeguards" was Greece, a country with relatively strong privacy rights and an independent Data Privacy Authority. It has the power to impose fines or even imprison government officials for breaches in personal information procedures.
"They are by no means great, but nowadays mediocre is what passes for amazing," says Hosein of Greece's privacy safeguards.
Part of the problem may be technology advancing faster than government safeguards. "There is a rapid expansion of technologies for surveillance, identification, and border control and a much slower adoption of policies to safeguard privacy and security," says Marc Rotenberg, of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
Despite their low ratings, the US and UK do not compromise privacy as much as China or Russia, says John Palfrey, of the OpenNet Initiative, an international academic research group that monitors government internet filtering and surveillance. Yet, he is troubled by the way governments can anonymously monitor internet traffic.
"Even democratic societies don't make clear to their citizens how comprehensively governments reach into the private lives of individuals," says Palfrey. "We have no way of knowing what our government can come to know about us as private citizens."
In a related blow to free speech, China announced new internet censorship policies last week that will severely restrict all video sharing websites such as YouTube that are not state controlled.
Don't like it numbnutz? Move to one of the gray areas on that map.
Do you find yourself laughing hysterically and hungry for more? Click on the link and check out some of the related articles!
#1
Lest we fergit, REDDIT [paraph] > the battle right now in AMERICA is between PUBLIC/GOVERNMENT AUTHORITY VERSUS INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM AND LIBERTIES, notsomuch the GWOT = the defense or protection of America from Terror.
See also JPOST > DANIEL PIPES - FASCISM'S LEGACY:LIBERALISM. The SOCIALIST GOVERNMENTIST kind.
*ION CHINA, TOPIX > TAIWAN PLANS TO KEEP BEIJING, WASHINGTON ON EDGE; + WAFF.com > WHATS REALLY BOTHERING CHINA [vv TAIWAN]. 'Tis NOT Taiwan the Island that the PRC really cares about - its Taiwan the DEMOCRATIC COUNTER-SYMBOL TO CHINESE COMMUNISM + AUTHORITARIANISM.
Dr. Phil's planned sitdown Monday with Britney Spears' parents dissolved into accusations he was exploiting the troubled singer's emotional crackup.
No, really?
The TV shrink insisted he canceled the taping with Jamie and Lynne Spears "because the Spears situation is too intense at this time, and out of consideration to the family."
Is there ever a time when the situation won't be too intense? And since when has anyone, anyone anywhere cared about the Spears family?
A source close to Dr. Phil McGraw said it was Britney's parents who cut him off, furious he blabbed about her mental state after visiting her in the psych ward at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
Who does he think he is? That's what publicists are for!
"As soon as Jamie realized Dr. Phil was making public statements about Britney, including assessments of her condition, he got angry," the source told Life & Style magazine. "He started making phone calls to everybody in the family, telling them not to cooperate." The show was to air Tuesday.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/09/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
poor Britney, she should have keept her Va J J under wraps.
#3
The TV shrink insisted he canceled the taping with Jamie and Lynne Spears "because the Spears situation is too intense at this time, and out of consideration to the family."
Hang on, doesn't she have a sister named Jamie Lynn?
I feel a bit nauseous.
#5
A little momentary distraction for me and thee and a major distraction for the "What War on Terror?" crowd.
Posted by: Bobby ||
01/09/2008 6:42 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Dr. Phil's planned sitdown Monday with Britney Spears' parents dissolved into accusations he was exploiting the troubled singer's emotional crackup.
And the parents and sister are experts on exploiting the trouble singer's emotional crackup. They don't neen any pointers from the Good Doctor.
#7
I'm such a mess, it's killin me (and I)
In Doctor Phil, I still believe (still believe)
Too many drugs, I've lost my mind
Give me a sign, exploit me baby one more time!
Posted by: Mike ||
01/09/2008 8:49 Comments ||
Top||
#8
"Parentin Be Hard": by Mama Spearz
Chapter 60: Doctir Fill Xploits us. Whatz xploit mean?
#9
Let's also take aim at the entertainment industry that lined its pockets and bottomline on the use and abuse of the child/teenager/adult here. If there ever was a model of exploitation of the worker by the grubby money hungry capitalists, this is a poster child. Guess all that socialist spewing drivel from Hollyweird is their concept of penance.
#11
Her Dad's name is James and the mom's name is Lynn. They named the other daughter Jamie Lynn -how country of them methinks. Anyway, Dr. Phil and Britney do share some similarities - they're both tacky whores.
#12
Doctor/patient confidentiality. Ethical problem. Lawsuit. Get 'im, Jamie. Oh, and if you need a good lawyer, John Edwards might be available sometime soon.
All these lefties never met a pervert or loser they didn't want to exploit for ratings...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
01/09/2008 14:16 Comments ||
Top||
#16
What ever makes momma and pappa look good is fine for TV. But help for the kid on national TV? NO WAY! That may make momma and pappa look bad during the final analysis. Stay the course!
... and I thought the girl was old enough to make up her own mind about things. Oops, that would mean no more millions for Management (mom and pop).
West Kalimantan (Antara): Floods have inundated 1,253 houses in five districts in Sambas regency, West Kalimantan, since Jan. 1, 2008. Flood waters reaching a height of between 30 and 70 centimeters inundated residential areas in Selakau, East Selaku, Galing, Sejangkung, and Teluk Keramat districts.
Sambas authorities had distributed relief aid consisting of instant noodles, rice and sweet soy sauce, Arsyad, secretary of the Sambas disaster mitigation center, said Saturday.
Some 8,077 people were affected by the floods which killed 158 poultry and submerged 411 hectares of rice fields and 4,073 hectares of rubber plantations. A number of refugee camps have been set up but most of the victims decided to stay at their homes.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/09/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
relief aid consisting of instant noodles, rice and sweet soy sauce
?? I just realized my basic college subsistence was "relief aid"
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/09/2008 10:30 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Yeah, Commodore Frank, but what about peanut butter and jelly sammiches?
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/09/2008 23:46 Comments ||
Top||
Kenya's president named half his Cabinet Tuesday, angering opposition leaders who accuse him of stealing the recent election and undermining mediation attempts for a power-sharing agreement to end violence that has left more than 500 dead.
In the hours after President Mwai Kibaki announced his Cabinet appointments, police fired over the heads of youths who set up a roadblock of burning tires in the western town of Kisumu, according to a resident there. In Nairobi's oldest slum, Mathare, a witness reported hearing the first gunshots in three days just an hour after the announcement.
Political violence in some areas since the East African nation's disputed Dec. 27 presidential election had deteriorated into clashes between other tribes and Kibaki's Kikuyu, which has long dominated Kenyan politics and the economy.
Salim Lone, a spokesman for opposition leader Raila Odinga's party, repeated the party's call for no demonstrations, saying it did not want to undermine African Union-mediated talks expected to begin Wednesday. "We think that the announcement of the Cabinet was a slap in the face for all the effort that Kenyans and the international community is making to avoid the crisis," Lone said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/09/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
KENYA'S embattled government has activated a murderous criminal gang to protect its supporters during a bloody confrontation over disputed elections, a leading human rights activist has claimed.
National Commission on Human Rights head Maina Kiai said the Mungiki, an ethnic Kikuyu gang notorious for beheading its victims, had returned.
"They are coming out again and being used by the state. We have firm evidence of that, some of their people came to us," he said.
Government spokesman Alfred Mutua angrily denied the claim. "If there is evidence of Mungiki, he should either table it - and he had better make sure that it is the right evidence - or just shut up," he said.
There have been unconfirmed reports of Mungiki attacks on other ethnic groups in Nairobi's slums since violence erupted after the disputed re-election of President Mwai Kibaki in a December 27 poll. About 600 people have died.
Many Kikuyus were killed in the Rift Valley and Nairobi's slums as other ethnic groups vented their rage over what they say was a rigged result.
Experts have long said the Mungiki were manipulated by Kikuyu politicians. They were first established to counter violence by Kalenjin ethnic gangs during elections in the 1990s, when Daniel arap Moi, himself a Kalenjin, was president.
But last year the human rights commission said police may have executed as many as 500 men during a crackdown on the Mungiki after the gang terrorised central Kenya with a wave of brutal attacks. Police denied the charge.
Mr Kiai said the government had offered the Mungiki protection in the future if they protected Kikuyus against supporters of opposition leader Raila Odinga, who claims he won the vote.
"They are now assured of security even afterwards. They said 'Okay we will not touch you again. We will not go for you as we did before'," he said.
Mr Kiai called on Western powers to revoke visas for members of the Kibaki government, senior members of the civil service and their families as well as opposition figures.
He said this was the only way to push politicians into negotiating an end to Kenya's post-election crisis.
"Bring them back to suffer with us. Maybe then they will be forced into talking to each other," he said.
"If all visas are revoked you will see movement so fast, you won't believe it. Many of them think 'I have a valid visa to the UK. If things get really bad I am off.' They need to have the same stakes as us."
Zimbabweans can expect to spend more time in the dark after the Mozambique power utility company, Hidroelectrica de Cahora Bassa, suspended supplies to Zimbabwe over an outstanding debt of US$26 million.
That's about 800 kagillion Zim-bucks.
They'll have to charter an Airbus 380 just to pay the interest...
This development was confirmed in a report in the state run Herald newspaper. Zimbabwe's power imports have been falling for various reasons. South Africa's Eskom has stopped supplies claiming "some operational hitches" at its power-generating plants. The Democratic Republic of Congo has also stopped power supplies to Zimbabwe because of 'problems with it's transmission network.' Analysts say the real reason these countries have cut Zimbabwe off is because of unpaid debts.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/09/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
So where are the calls denouncing this as a violation of the Geneva Conventions regarding collective punishment.
#5
JFM, you're partially right. There would be hell to pay if the people cutting off the power were white. Since they're not, the libs have no interest. Black on black = no liberal attention.
Detained former premier and Awami League (AL) chief Sheikh Hasina has demanded general elections on schedule despite her fears of being barred from taking part due to a "cooked up" extortion case.
The "concocted" Tk 3 crore extortion case was filed against her to undermine Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's family, she said in an emotion-choked voice.
She said this yesterday during a meeting with her counsels after the Court of the Sessions Judge fixed next Sunday for charge framing of the case filed by businessman Azam J Chowdhury on June 13 last year. "They want to make me disqualified from taking part in the general elections. And all the arrangements have been made in this regard. Even if I were barred from contesting the elections, let it be held in time," said an ailing Hasina. "The verdict has already been prepared to be delivered. And it was designed as far as it's possible to undermine the family of the father of the nation," added Hasina who appeared before the court with a feeble look yesterday morning.
"I've been given a condition that I have to accept the verdict, which means they know what would be the verdict in the end. Insisting that much on a issue that I cannot talk against the verdict only means the verdict is designed," said Hasina standing on the dock beside her cousin Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim, another accused in the case. "Obviously, I would not go abroad on any condition imposed," she said. "I want justice from the people of Bangladesh," Hasina uttered her last words before she was taken to the sub-jail.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/09/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
ION, TOPIX > INTELLIBRIEFS - ITS THE BRITISH EMPIRE, STUPID! Author > in case you don't know or realize it, the British Empire never went away - it just copyrighted and franchised itself, etc. unto new and greater global power/reach, espec vv AMERICA + again wid post 9-11 AMERICA'S GWOT = DUBYA'S REGIONAL-GLOBAL ENTRENCHMENT.
#1
The revelation that a large number of colleges have been caught in the crackdown on bogus institutions follows the Daily Mail's disclosure that immigration officers have been ordered to stop deporting foreign students who overstay their visas.
#2
A great deal for everyone - the "students" get their entry visas and promptly disappear into restaurant work, the schools get money with no need to hold classes, it's a win-win situation. That is, as long as the government doesn't enforce their own laws - my student visa in Japan was checked and the school had to verify that I was indeed attending classes.
January 9, 2008: After eight years of operation, South Korea lost communication (on the last day of 2007)
May be coincidence and the bird was way beyond it's expected life-span, but when you see a break down on a date cusp, you have to wonder about weak code.
#4
So the fat lady sang in New Hampshire. There are many other states to go and the general election. Hillary has a lot of baggage (Bill) to defend in the Presidential election. She might be an easier candidate to defeat than Obama.
I wonder what would happen to me if I ran around with a bullhorn informing everyone within earshot that I was straight.
Oh well. Thanks for for your service, Sergeant. And if you don't become some kind of discipline problem, perhaps we'll get to thank you for more.
Even if no one is asking, Army Sgt. Darren Manzella has been telling anyone who'll listen that he's gay without serious retribution so far from the military. Manzella, a medic who served in Iraq and Kuwait, has acknowledged his sexual orientation in national media interviews and again on Tuesday in a Washington news conference.
"This is who I am. This is my life," said Manzella, who received a combat medical badge for his service in Iraq. "It has never affected my job performance before. I don't think it will make a difference now. And to be honest since then, I don't see a difference because of my homosexuality."
Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, said Manzella's case demonstrates the military is arbitrarily enforcing its "don't ask, don't tell" policy now that the country is at war.
The "don't ask, don't tell" policy prohibits active-duty service members from openly acknowledging whether they are gay or lesbian.
Manzella still could be investigated now that he has left the battlefield. Every time he has said he is gay publicly can be counted as a violation of the policy, one of his attorneys said.
Manzella first told a military supervisor about his sexual orientation in August 2006 while he was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, and working in division headquarters. Three weeks after Manzella made the revelation, his battalion commander told him an investigation had been closed without finding "proof of homosexuality."
A month later, Manzella was redeployed for the war in Iraq.
Paul Boyce Jr., an Army spokesman, said he was unaware of an investigation of Manzella being opened or closed. He said the investigation would have been done by Manzella's Fort Hood unit, and officials there are on leave and unavailable to discuss the case.
"This particular soldier's unit only recently returned from the war to Fort Hood, Texas, so it's premature to speculate on any future actions until the young man's situation can be considered by his chain of command," Boyce said in a statement.
Manzella, originally from Portland, N.Y., returned from the Middle East last month and went on leave shortly before Christmas. He will return to the 1st Cavalry Division at Ford Hood at the end of the month.
A bill to eliminate the military's sexual orientation policy, filed by Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif., is pending in Congress. Sarvis said the bill is unlikely to get out of committee during this election year, but hearings could be held.
Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, said Manzella's commanders should have discharged him when they learned he was gay. Her group opposes allowing gays to join the military.
#1
A bill to eliminate the military's sexual orientation policy, filed by Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif., is pending in Congress. Sarvis said the bill is unlikely to get out of committee during this election year, but hearings could be held.
It's not policy its law. Now of course, you in Congress own that law and can change it. Title 10, USC, subsection commonly referred to as the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Punitive Articles;
Art. 125. Sodomy
(a) Any person subject to this chapter who engages in unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex or with an animal is guilty of sodomy. Penetration, however slight, is sufficient to complete the offense.
(b) Any person found guilty of sodomy shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.
Maybe the nutroots are right - sort of. Seems as though something is fishy with the numbers, but the problem may be so far under their noses they can't see it.
There will be a serious, critical look at the final pre-election polls in the Democratic presidential primary in New Hampshire; that is essential. It is simply unprecedented for so many polls to have been so wrong. We need to know why.
But we need to know it through careful, empirically based analysis. There will be a lot of claims about what happened - about respondents who reputedly lied, about alleged difficulties polling in biracial contests. That may be so. It also may be a smokescreen - a convenient foil for pollsters who'd rather fault their respondents than own up to other possibilities - such as their own failings in sampling and likely voter modeling.
There have been previous races that misstated support for black candidates in biracial races. But most of those were long ago, and there have been plenty of polls in biracial races that were accurate. (For more on past problems with polls in biracial races, see this blog I wrote for Freakonomics last May.) And there was no overstatement of Obama in Iowa polls.
On the other hand, the pre-election polls in the New Hampshire Republican race were accurate. The problem was isolated to the Democratic side - where, it should be noted, we have not just one groundbreaking candidate in Barack Obama, but also another, in Hillary Clinton.
A starting point for this analysis will be to look at every significant Democratic subgroup in the New Hampshire pre-election polls, and see how those polls did in estimating the size of those groups and their vote choices. The polls' estimates of turnout overall will be relevant as well.
In the end there may be no smoking gun. Those polls may have been accurate, but done in by a superior get-out-the-vote effort, or by very late deciders whose motivations may or may not ever be known. They may have been inaccurate because of bad modeling, compromised sampling, or simply an overabundance of enthusiasm for Obama on the heels of his Iowa victory that led his would-be supporters to overstate their propensity to turn out. (A function, perhaps, of youth.)
Prof. Jon Krosnick of Stanford University has another argument: That the order of names on the New Hampshire ballot - in which, by random draw, Clinton was toward the top, Obama at the bottom - netted her about 3 percentage points more than she'd have gotten otherwise. That's not enough to explain the gap in some of the polls, which presumably randomized candidate names, but it might hold part of the answer.
The data may tell us; it may not. What's beyond question is that it is incumbent on us - and particularly on the producers of the New Hampshire pre-election polls - to look at the data, and to look closely, and to do it without prejudging.
#2
Maybe people are finally taking Mike Royko's advice and lying to pollsters.
Or maybe a lot of pollsters are asking the wrong questions. I've gotten a few issue phone polls over the years, and in no case did their canned list of questions match my concerns well.
Posted by: James ||
01/09/2008 8:33 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Or it could be more "independent" voters were shipped into NH from Massachusetts by some candidate's get out the vote efforts. That might explain ballot shortages as much as the weather. Do any of the candidates have experience with that kind of thing? Hmmm.
#4
IIRC when you show up to the polls in NH, all you have to declare is an intent to establish residency in order to get to vote in the primary. Someone else can correct this point.
#8
Watching Fox they refused to call the race early because they said two precincts came in %99 for Hillary and that didn't seem possible.
They never repeated that statement.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/09/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
SO its NOt HILLARY vz MCCAIN, ala DRUDGE???
OTOH, REDDIT [paraph] > NY TIMES > GUILIANI argues that FREEDOM IS ABOUT AUTHORITY - ANARCHY WOULD RESULT IFF PEOPLE HAVE TOO MUCH FREEDOM???
Uh oh, you just know Amers will demand Rudy get a taserin' wid this one.
#2
Hillary just sent me an email thanking me. She says we came through with flying colors and surprised a lot of people tonight.
She also thanked me from the bottom of her cold, dead heart.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
01/09/2008 1:02 Comments ||
Top||
#3
REDDIT [paraph] > CNN - HILLARY ALREADY HAS 180 DELEGATES ... Why do Amers continue to think their vote means they have a say in national elections???
DIGG [paraph]> FEDS INCREASE SECURITY FOR OBAMA - BELIEVE OBAMA IS UNDER HEIGHTENED THREAT/RISK FOR ASSASSINATION AFTER WINS.
#4
RENSE > RED TIDE A 'RISIN. The ideo one = -ISM, not the tidal one; + WIRED > RUSSIAN JOURNAL: HAARP COULD CAPSIZE THE PLANET. Dastardly America has made a GEOPHYSICAL WEAPON. 1960's TV BATMAN > FEAR NOT, CITIZEN/GOOD CITIZENS OF GOTHAM, RUSSIA WILL SAVE THE DAY.
NEW YORK - A book by Pakistans former opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, finished just days before her assassination last month, is due to hit bookshelves in February, less than a week before crucial elections, her publisher said.
Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West is to come out earlier than originally intended on February 12, HarperCollins said in a statement Monday, explaining that Bhuttos family and advisors supported the early release.
In the book, Bhutto presents a powerful argument for a reconciliation of Islam with democratic principles, in the face of opposition from Islamic extremists and Western skeptics, the publisher said. The former prime minister writes in the book of her joy in returning to Pakistan in October and about a previous attempt on her life, when two suicide bombers attacked her homecoming parade, killing 139 people.
The book would also feature a short afterword by her husband and her children, the publishers said. No one could have known that these would be Benazir Bhuttos final words, and somehow that makes them carry even more weight, said Tim Duggan, the executive editor of HarperCollins. This book is her legacy, he added.
The book is due out six days before Pakistan goes to the polls on February 18 for an election originally scheduled for January 8 but delayed after Bhuttos December 27 assassination plunged the nation into turmoil.
How much seething will it cause if someone gives the book a one-star review at Amazon?
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/09/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Ima guessing no book-signing tour?
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/09/2008 10:36 Comments ||
Top||
#2
That's cold, Frank. But funny.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
01/09/2008 11:15 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Too bad a third of muslims are illiterate, might have been a real blockbuster.
GENEVA - Pakistan will pursue the widower of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto for 60 million Swiss francs ($54 million) it says the couple hid illegally in Switzerland, its lawyer said on Tuesday.
A hearing is expected to be held in Geneva in late January in the long-running money-laundering case, begun in 1997 against Bhutto and her husband Asif Ali Zardari, according to Jacques Python, Pakistans lawyer in the Swiss city. Zardari, now de facto leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party, is carrying the Bhutto dynastys torch after the former prime minister was killed in a gun and bomb attack on Dec. 27 as she left an election rally. Elections have been put off to Feb. 18.
We remain a civil party in the (criminal) procedure against Mr. Zardari, Python told Reuters. To our knowledge, 60 million Swiss francs remain frozen in connection with the case.
The amount is four times the $13 million previously referred to as being blocked in connection with alleged kickbacks from Swiss cargo inspection companies. Geneva judicial officials were not available to comment.
She (Bhutto) appears little in the bank documents. On the other hand, Zardaris name appears as the beneficial owner of most of the accounts that are frozen, Python said. The time has come to look at the technical issues so that the frozen funds can be returned to Pakistan.
The couple always denied the charges and Bhutto came to Geneva several times to testify that the case was politically motivated. They were convicted in 2003 of laundering funds worth $13 million and ordered to return that sum to Pakistan. But the verdict was thrown out on appeal, sparking a fresh probe by a Geneva judge, whose confidential findings last year were contested by lawyers for both Bhutto and Zardari.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/09/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"Bank of Grandpa"?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
01/09/2008 14:16 Comments ||
Top||
Israeli agents prepared to strike a ship suspected of smuggling missiles from North Korea to Syria in 1991 but cancelled it at the 11th hour under US pressure, a Japanese newspaper reported Wednesday.
Undercover agents of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency secretly attached a guidance system for an airstrike on a cargo vessel believed to be carrying 23 short-range Scud missiles to Syria, the Yomiuri Shimbun said.
The Yomiuri, reporting from Jerusalem, said it spoke to one of the agents involved in the operation, whose name was transliterated into Japanese as Michael Ross.
Ross said he and two colleagues disguised themselves as workers for shipping carriers and headed to Casablanca, Morocco.
In February 1991, they managed to get close to the ship, which was believed to be jointly owned by Syrian and Jordanian firms, and swam underneath it to set up equipment to guide an airstrike, the report said.
Israel had planned to destroy the vessel and missiles, which with a range of 500 kilometers (300 miles) would put the Jewish state at risk.
The incident came during the first Gulf War, during which the United States, managing a coalition with Arab states including Syria, pressured Israel not to respond to Scud missile attacks by Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
The Yomiuri said Israel's then prime minister Yitzhak Shamir called off the airstrike on the North Korean missiles at the last minute.
"Probably the prime minister gave up on the plan out of consideration to the United States," Ross was quoted as telling the Yomiuri.
"If we blew up the vessel, it would have been inevitable to have many Syrian casualties and it might have been taken as a declaration of war against Syria," he was quoted as saying. "What ship?"
Who's going to find out?
Impoverished North Korea, one of the few non-Muslim states that has no relations with Israel, is believed to rely on weapons exports as one of its top money-makers.
In September Israel launched an air strike in Syria, which Western media reports said targeted a nuclear facility developed with North Korea.
Maybe the US should just give up and contract Israel to do the intelligence work.
Exactly how many genes do you have to change before you have manufactured a new species?
and
If you implant some condor genes and aerodynamically streamline the animal, will people have to do all the ridiculous things they claimed they never would until...?
#2
Great! That means the glow in the dark flashing Christmas tree is not far off and I will not need to break a neck trying to put bulbs on the damned thing.
#6
When I saw the headline, I thought it was about Michael Moore.
Posted by: Tibor ||
01/09/2008 18:15 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Exactly how many genes do you have to change before you have manufactured a new species?
How many matters not as much as where.
In general, the genetic library is designed to self repair, or if the changes were too numerous the individual would likely not survive long after birth, or would be sterile.
The main issue is to find the corresponding dependencies of cytochrome 16S RNA (which expresses what domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus the organism belongs to) that are buried deep in the DNA chain, on several levels. If you get that, you can change species. Does not mean it would be viable, though. A slightest error, like missing some dependency, would be fatal to the object of your modificaton. And, you are constricted by the 16S itself--it has a preset format and syntax.
Glowing pig is still a pig and repoduces as a pig--the consequent degree of glowiness distributed according to Mendelian rules.
#8
just think how this "design", if implemented early enough, could've reduced global warmening climate change caused by the klieg lights on Rosie's stages
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/09/2008 21:05 Comments ||
Top||
#9
Nah, you did not think it through... she would have glowing reviews. ;-)
#1
Compare wid DEBKA > KURDISH PKK TO MOVE INTO SOUTH CAUCASUS.. Read - Russia, to save its butt and fight another day. Also, STRATEGYPAGE > AFGHANISTAN: TWO WARS, ONE ENEMY. Summary of multi-ethnic sectarianism + TALIBAN OFFENSIVE IN AFGHANIS IS TRANSNATIONAL [Pakistan]; + RUSSIA: NOT FADE AWAY, Besides the recent Kuznetzov carrier NAVEX/AIREX in the Mediterranean + Russ population still in decline [down to 100Milyuhn by 2050?], ARTIKLE > indics that RUSS WAR AGZ ISLAMIC TERRORISM IN CHECHNYA IS SPREADING TO REGIONS OUTSIDE OF CHECHNYA, espec as anti-Russ Islamist militants flee to escape Russ govt pressures.
TOPIX > NYT/CENTER FOR SECURITY POLICY - WE STILL NEED THE BIG GUNS. Author > The lesson from IRAQ is that OLD-FASHIONED FORCE STILL WORKS.
The wife of ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was arrested after she returned to Thailand on Tuesday to face corruption charges that could put her behind bars for 20 years, police said. Police presented Pojamarn Shinawatra with an arrest warrant at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi International Airport that went into effect after she signed it, said police Maj. Gen. Thaweesak Toochinda.
Former Prime Minister Thaksin, who was ousted in a September 2006 military coup, saw his wife off earlier Tuesday in Hong Kong.
"See ya honey! Don't forget to write!"
Pojamarn, wearing dark sunglasses and a black suit, was taken to the Supreme Court, where she smiled as she passed a crowd of journalists, escorted by her legal team and police.
The case involves Pojamarn's 2003 purchase of some prime Bangkok real estate from the Financial Institutions Development Fund - a state rescue fund directed by the central bank. An anti-corruption law bars prime ministers or their spouses from doing business with government agencies.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/09/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
HAVANA (AP) - Philip Agee, a former CIA agent who became an outspoken critic of Washington's Cuba policy, has died in a Havana hospital following ulcer surgery, state media reported Wednesday. He was 72. 
Dr. Phil's planned sitdown Monday with Britney Spears' parents dissolved into accusations he was exploiting the troubled singer's emotional crackup. 
West Kalimantan (Antara): Floods have inundated 1,253 houses in five districts in Sambas regency, West Kalimantan, since Jan. 1, 2008. Flood waters reaching a height of between 30 and 70 centimeters inundated residential areas in Selakau, East Selaku, Galing, Sejangkung, and Teluk Keramat districts.
KENYA'S embattled government has activated a murderous criminal gang to protect its supporters during a bloody confrontation over disputed elections, a leading human rights activist has claimed.
Zimbabweans can expect to spend more time in the dark after the Mozambique power utility company, Hidroelectrica de Cahora Bassa, suspended supplies to Zimbabwe over an outstanding debt of US$26 million.
Detained former premier and Awami League (AL) chief Sheikh Hasina has demanded general elections on schedule despite her fears of being barred from taking part due to a "cooked up" extortion case.
(on the last day of 2007) 
NEW YORK - A book by Pakistans former opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, finished just days before her assassination last month, is due to hit bookshelves in February, less than a week before crucial elections, her publisher said.
GENEVA - Pakistan will pursue the widower of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto for 60 million Swiss francs ($54 million) it says the couple hid illegally in Switzerland, its lawyer said on Tuesday.
