Yes, Short Attention Span Theater can tie in with the war on terror... I'll put it on page 3, but it feels like maybe it should be page 2. I am going to have to look up how this saga ended sooner or later; the events in the article transpired in 2000.
Poor little rich Brunei. For the past two years the tiny sultanate, which controls vast oil fields off Borneo's coast, has been wracked by a squabble between Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah and his brother Prince Jefri Bolkiah. Jefri left for London after his sprawling Amedeo Group collapsed under $10 billion in debt--blowing a sizable hole in the national budget. Although auditors suspect Jefri and his associates of embezzling billions from the state treasury, there was hope the feud would end when Jefri returned from London in January.
Not a chance. On Feb. 21 the government sued Jefri in Brunei High Court for the funds he allegedly ''misappropriated.'' Government lawyers then filed injunctions--in Brunei and London--freezing Jefri's assets. Now, both sides are drawing battle lines across the U.S. and Europe to fight what palace watchers in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei's humid capital, are calling ''the mother of all legal battles.''
That may not be far off the mark. At this point, it's not even clear how much Jefri may have siphoned off during his years as finance minister, chairman of the Brunei Investment Agency, and head of Amedeo--all hopelessly intertwined positions. The Borneo Bulletin, a Bandar daily owned by Prince Mohamed Bolkiah, another of
Jefri's three brothers, says Jefri is accused of making off with $9 billion. John M. Callagy, a lawyer at Kelley Drye & Warren LLP in New York, says it's $40 billion--and that the charges are false. Kelley Drye represents Amedeo Hotels Ltd., one of 68 companies the government contends Jefri controls.
URGENCY. There's some urgency to all this. For one thing, Brunei (population 300,000) needs the missing billions to help recast its economy. In February, the Brunei Economic Council, headed by Mohamed, issued an economic diversification plan and warned that with dwindling reserves, the sultanate's dependence on oil--even amid rising prices--is ''unsustainable.'' For another, the sultan wants the mess cleared up before November, when Brunei hosts a regional summit that is to include President Clinton and the Japanese Prime Minister. ''They're anxious to settle,'' a diplomat in Bandar says. ''They want to improve their image.''
That won't be easy. In 16 months of negotiations before Jefri returned, the sultan insisted that his errant sibling unload a pile of assets that includes everything from Old Master oils to a global hotel chain and a yacht. But Jefri hasn't parted with much. Many of his baubles, palace watchers say, are too vulgar to fetch anything close to what the prince paid. In the case of Amedeo Hotels, whose properties include the New York Palace, Jefri refuses to let go.
And then there's the email I got this morning...
I am Prince Fayad Bolkiah, Son of Prince Jefri Bolkiah of the Royal Family of Brunei Darussalam.
I urgently need help with a discrete business in London involving a few millions of dollars.
You can visit this web site http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_14/b3675221.htm and http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1494944.stm to undertand why I need your help.
Due to the policital situation here, I am not able to handle the operation my self and I sincerely need your help.
I assure you the business is 100% legitimate and I would give you full details of the transaction when you reply to this message.
Your reward/commission for his service would be discussed when I hear from you.
Finally, handle his business as top confidential. Insah Allah, you would be richer than you can dream about very soon as you would be working for me and my father on many more project like this.
I hope to hear from you soon.
Regards,
HRH Prince Fayad Bolkiah
Brunei Darussalam
Alternate Email: fayadbolkiah@bruneipage.com
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
06/20/2005 18:31 ||
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Horry - from the three! Abusing my position, Go Spurs Go!
Posted by: Steve ||
06/20/2005 09:04 ||
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#1
Brillant play - one even that has been Hubie Brown even predicted. Larry Brown fell on his face on that one. But give credit to Horry - he hurts himself a few seconds before but comes back for the winner. This will be his 6th championship with 3 different teams. Best playoff player in the playoffs.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
06/20/2005 13:44 Comments ||
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Police yesterday raided flats in Deira and Bur Dubai and arrested a number of people including women from Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries for prostitution and overstaying. The Dubai police warned real estate agents to be cautious when renting out flats and stressed a passport copy on its own would not determine the credentials of the tenant. They asked agents to make sure where the prospective tenants worked and their terms of employment. The warning comes in the wake of yesterday's raids, which police said were part of an investigation and manhunt for a suspect in a major case. The police said some rent out their flats to people they don't even know and move into cheaper accommodations.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/20/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
Hookers in Dubai? Nooo. Can't be.
I love how real estate agents will be made the scapegoat, requiring them to verify employment details - LOL!, instead of the Immigration Officials who are handsomely paid off to let them in. How perfectly Arab.
Oh, and you bet they've got a bunch of CIS girls - the Arabs get all giggly over blonds.
I'm guessing somebody, somebody with wasta, either didn't get his cut - or has decided to take over the whole show... maybe he found his own foreign source for wymyns. Remember the bombings in Riyadh where they blamed those poor tortured Brits and Canucks? Same game. That time booze, this time broads.
#2
.com -
When I was there, we were warned to watch out for the 3000 AIDS-infected Russian stewardesses that had somehow gotten into Bahrain. Apparently they've just moved down the coast.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
06/20/2005 1:11 Comments ||
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#3
Mike - 3000 with AIDS? That has to be a monumental exaggeration! I'd believe 300-400 Russian wymyns total. I don't want to admit too much, lol, but given the number of likely hotels added to the ones I'm sure of, I'm not sure you could even house 3000 Russian hookers in Manama without massive, and I mean wholesale, "official" collaboration. Sheesh - that's an army... they'd stick out like a sore thumb in a tiny place like Bahrain, and all with AIDS? Nah. Mebbe a creative Medical Officer was havin you guys on!
As for Dubai, well, it was the BA stews, looking ahead to their retirement you understand, that I'll remember best, lol!
#4
.com-
'Exaggeration' would have been an improvement. We knew it didn't pass the smell test, and that getting 3000 of ANYBODY into Bahrain would have been a challenge. However, we got straightfaced briefings on that - somebody at CENTAF took it seriously. I remember a couple of guys getting pinged on during the briefing because they wouldn't stop laughing.
(Of course, I promised not to laugh after that.)
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
06/20/2005 7:34 Comments ||
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#5
Mike, when we got to Korea we were forced to watch a horrific slide show on VD. It was graphic, disgusting, and (because of the female 2LT seated next to me) very entertaining. The Commanders don't want you out of service due to a case of VD and they always use the scare tactic to try and stop you.
#6
CyberSarge-
I'm with you there - when I was at Kunsan, I had the unpleasant experience of having my entire crew - 4 airmen - all report to sick call one Monday morning with cases of NSU. Needless to say, the leadership was unhappy with me.
Didn't intend to belittle the concerns of the local leadership at Al-Kharj, I know they only had our best interests at heart. It was the near hysteria with which CENTAF trumpted the story that made the impression it did.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
06/20/2005 20:52 Comments ||
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QOLQEPUNKU GLACIER, Peru -- One recent moonlit night high in the Peruvian Andes, about 200 men dressed in furry cloaks and woolen masks trekked up to a glacier whose ice is said to have magical healing properties. In the past these men, called ukukus after the word for bear in the local Quechua language, cut and hauled down large blocks of ice to share with family, friends and livestock as part of an annual Catholic pilgrimage known as El Señor de Qoyllur Rit'i that usually draws about 40,000 worshipers to a dizzying 16,000 feet above sea level.
These days, cutting ice is all but taboo. "We used to take ice, but now it's prohibited," said Darwin Apaza Año, a broad-faced ukuku from the province of Anta. The bear-men say their sacred glacier is disappearing. Over a period of two decades, its edge has drawn back 600 feet along the boulder-strewn slope leading to the church in the valley below, according to people here. Even compared with last year, the glacier is noticeably smaller. That's a worrisome portent for locals who still worship snowcapped mountains as gods, or apus. It's out of concern for the apu living here, the bear-men say, that they have decided not to take any more blocks of ice.
Although few on this remote mountaintop are aware of it, the demise of this Andean ice-cutting ritual is likely the result of global warming. The United Nations says rising temperatures are causing glaciers to recede throughout the world, with some of the most pronounced effects on relatively rare patches of ice in countries like Peru that lie within the tropics.
#2
What are these "government grants" you speak of?
Posted by: Beaucoup: King of the Ukuku ||
06/20/2005 10:26 Comments ||
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#3
Global Warming DOES mean the End of the World is Nigh?
Neyt!...'splain...what the ukukus and earth first gloom & doomers have failed to factor into the equation is the world-wide net increase in total ice over the last century.
Thats because the dimwits didn't add up all the ice we make in our freezers at home. Sheesh, I think I'll go get some holy ice right now.
#5
Teodoro Sullca, a mechanic dressed in a furry tunic tied with bells, flags and a plastic doll, was disappointed. "It used to be that everyone went up," he said.
A mechanic wearin' a doll? Heck, in this red state, he'd be run outta town! This mental image alone sums up the eco-nuts to me.
Posted by: BA ||
06/20/2005 10:59 Comments ||
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#6
Mathias Vuille, a climatologist at the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Mass., said fireworks and campfires aren't likely to affect a massive glacier. "I couldn't possibly imagine that would have an impact," he said.
But, then he added "But that shouldn't keep us from banning all campfires and fireworks!"
Posted by: BA ||
06/20/2005 11:00 Comments ||
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#7
1) Climate change is inevitable, it has changed hugely over history. Do you expect it to stay static? There is no evidence that a warmer planet will be worse, and some circumstantial evidence that in fact life flourishes in warmer periods.
2) Climate change is never the end of the world, species adapt.
3) Kyoto protocol will do nothing to stop climate change, as even if the US and Australia signed and all countries lived up to their agreed carbon cuts, it would only reduce global warming by 2/10ths of a degree celsius over a 50-year period.
4) Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant but a benign natural gas needed by plants to grow
5) The hundreds of billions of dollars wasted by attempting to hobble the industrialised world by forcing them to stick to punitive carbon quotas (while allowing the developing world to burn as much fuel as they like) could be better spent building water pipelines, desalination plants, nature reserves to conserve habitat for species ... etc.
Wealth breeds environmental conservation. The best way to ensure environmental degradation is to make the world poorer.
So go ahead, piss billions up the wall of Kyoto just to make the industrial world poor for what even Greenpeace admits is just a symbol.
I can think of cheaper symbols.
Meanwhile the nuclear industry creates the most toxic waste imaginable, dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years, and is the main beneficiary of the Great Global Warming Scare (worse than the Y2K scare as there is no end in sight)
Add the solar energy people too cause thousands die every year from heat stroke and skin cancer created by the largest continuous thermonuclear reaction in the neighborhood - The Sun.
Posted by: Jong Cravirong9792 ||
06/20/2005 11:31 Comments ||
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#9
Heat stroke is unrelated to nuclear radiation.
Skin cancer is caused by radiation from the sun: correct.
1 in 3 Australians get it we are the skin cancer capital of the world.
But that is why we wear sunscreen, shady hats, sunglasses and long sleeved shirts.
Skin cancer is not an advertisement for how safe radiation is but rather that it is carcinogenic, cumulative and needs to be minimised.
#10
The Nuclear industry can also use those byproducts in breeder reactors, much like Japan is doing, to enrich and create more fuel from the waste. The rest of the waste can be dealt with in many different ways, all of them fairly safe - and much safer in aggregate than the current burning of coal and oil. You're more at risk to radiation poisoning by the radon in your basement than you are to reactor byproducts.
A vast proportion of the "nuclear waste" is low-level stuff that was made into "nuclear" waste not by radiation, but by legislative fiat without regard to actual probabilities of radiative damage. Things like structural members of buildings, etc.
Nukes and the hydrogen economy are the only way out of the oil patch. And even then, eventually nuclear power will have to be fusion, not fisson, power.
Aside fromall that, the solar output probably has more to do with cyclical climatalogical change. Look at temps in the middle ages, or in the earlier eras (dinosaurs, etc). The earth used to be a LOT warmer than now.
#11
Glaciers receding in Montana's Glacier Nat'l park too.
I seen it!
Water Cartels will control all by 2045
MM
Posted by: Mountain Man ||
06/20/2005 12:05 Comments ||
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#12
Exactly, Old Spook: earth has been both a lot warmer and a lot colder than now. No biggie!
But re: reactors.
Breeder reactors also make a stack of plutonium for bombs which is why Saddam wanted one so badly in the early '80s.
If nuclear energy is the big winner from the fake-carbon-scare it's going to be impossible to stop every tinpot third world dictator who wants it from getting nukes because they will ALL be clamouring for reactors 'for energy only'.
And the waste is only one problem of reactors, there's the decommissioning, the contaminated land, the fact you cannot get radio isotopes out of the biosphere once they are released into the environment and that even a slight increase in background radiation produces more cancers and birth deformities as the effects of radiation are cumulative.
On the other hand, Saudi oil reserves MAY be running out. They have reportedly all peaked. This leaves Iraq as second biggest reserve and (I think) Venezuela as 3rd biggest...
#13
As has been mentioned here before, there are breeder reactors based on thorium that produced U233 rather than plutonium -- this approach is heavily favored by India and some other countries already. And the Integral Fast Reactor design recycles nearly all of the radioactive waste - what remains decays within 300 years to the base activity of the original ores, i.e. as low as in nature if they had not been mined.
even a slight increase in background radiation produces more cancers and birth deformities as the effects of radiation are cumulative.
Define "slight" and "more". Warning: I am closely related to a health physicist who specialized in nuclear issues so precision and accuracy will get you a better hearing here ....
Posted by: too true ||
06/20/2005 12:50 Comments ||
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#14
Global Warming DOES mean the End of the World is Nigh
I may as well run out and buy that Beemer bike I've been coveting, and enjoy it while I can....
#15
Two things: Global warming started 8,000 years ago and without it, we'd be well into another ice age by now - based on analysis of solar cycles.
Hydrogen is nice, but takes more energy to make than it releases, so you need cheap electricity to make hydrogen. The cheapest there ever was was nuclear. Hydro floods, coal kills (mines, transport, burning), wind power has drawbacks (especially for aesthetics, birds, and bats!), solar costs too much (now), and fusion is still a good ways off.
Third (out of two) there are no easy answers, only tough choices!
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/20/2005 14:17 Comments ||
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#16
A young engineer once asked me what caused the last ice age and I said, "It got cold". He then asked me what ended it and I said, "It got warm".
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
06/20/2005 16:13 Comments ||
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#17
Heat stroke is unrelated to nuclear radiation. Bullsh@@! Sunshine is nuclear radiation. anon1, you sound a lot like the nuclear scaremonger I throughly debunked last year. I'll spell it out for you (again) in words of one syllable. All risks are relative. Doing anything has risks associated with it, as does doing nothing. An argument requires that you quantify the risks relative to any alternatives. Otherwise you are just spewing emotive claptrap.
#18
>And the waste is only one problem of reactors, there's the decommissioning, the contaminated land<
Sorry sport, but you must be thinking about them Soviet reactors. USuns ain't allowed to contaminate the land.
>the fact you cannot get radio isotopes out of the biosphere once they are released into the environment<
Anything can be cleaned up if you're willing to spend the time and money. Even Chernobyl, but the Russkies ain't gots no money, nor do the Ukrainians, Moldavians, Belarussians, etc. etc.
>and that even a slight increase in background radiation produces more cancers and birth deformities as the effects of radiation are cumulative.<
BS and incredible BS at that. You should stop reading Greenpeace's phoney science on nuclear power. There's plenty of sane places on the web were you can find out about nuclear power that doesn't start with "OH SH*T, We're all gonna die!"
1) Climate change is inevitable, it has changed hugely over history. Do you expect it to stay static? There is no evidence that a warmer planet will be worse, and some circumstantial evidence that in fact life flourishes in warmer periods.
Yep. The chair I'm sitting in would have been deep under an inland sea a couple hundred million years ago.
The hundreds of billions of dollars wasted by attempting to hobble the industrialised world by forcing them to stick to punitive carbon quotas (while allowing the developing world to burn as much fuel as they like) could be better spent...
How so? If you mean that it is generated by Sun's nucular oven, you're wroooong! To your consolation, you are not alone. Almost everyone is convinced that is the case. But Sun isn't a slow burning nucular oven.
Sounds like they need UN peacekeepers... Oh. Wait...
Posted by: Fred ||
06/20/2005 00:00 ||
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No, no, no....what they NEED is the services of Jimmy Carter, John Kerry, Joe Biden, and Dick Durbin, and ... um ...wahsherface ...Maureen Dowd! Yeah!
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/20/2005 14:54 Comments ||
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#2
They've got jihadis in Haiti?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
06/20/2005 23:05 Comments ||
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Posted by: Fred ||
06/20/2005 00:00 ||
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"More than 28,000 people of Japan and the United States lost their lives here on Iwo Jima. I hope I can contribute to a permanent world peace, knowing that their ultimate sacrifice has brought about today's peace and prosperity," Koizumi said before placing flowers.
But 60 years ago, the American public was growing tired of the war, and the government was supressing bad news. That fear of "quagmire" led to the decision to use the bomb. What will the historians say about the War on Terror in 60 years?
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/20/2005 9:33 Comments ||
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Chinese defector Hao Feng Jun has provided further alleged evidence about the claims of surveillance and monitoring of Australian citizens and residents by China.
Mr Hao told Lateline that two weeks ago when he came into Australia on a tourist visa that he smuggled a computer file carrying hundreds of Chinese security documents that he had secretly downloaded from his police computer.
ABC TV's Lateline program has had some of these documents translated and if they are accepted as authentic, the targets are members of the spiritual movement Falun Gong in Australia.
Mr Hao's lawyer Bernard Collaery says that for the time being he is not giving the documents to ASIO because of his concerns that Australian officials may have visited senior Chinese officials in the Public Security Bureau.
However, he is already cooperating with another Western intelligence agency.
"The thought of Australian officials going in the front door and (Chinese security office) 6-10 information going out the back door leaves us with some fears about making this information available to the Australian intelligence services," Mr Collaery said.
The Chinese Embassy declined to comment on the claims.
A second Chinese defector, former diplomat Chen Yonglin, backs Mr Hao's claims.
Mr Chen said the document given to Lateline by Mr Hao is most likely genuine.
"This document sounds like a real one, except no stamp and I believe that - yes, it sounds like a real one," he said.
Members of the movement in Australia believe they have been subjected to a sustained campaign of harassment by Chinese agents.
Intelligence report
One of the documents is an alleged intelligence report, dated October last year, apparently compiled in Beijing and circulated to senior Chinese officials.
It details plans by the New South Wales Falun Gong to hold a conference in Sydney after Christmas and it names the organisers, including John Deller, an Australian Falun Gong practitioner, whom it describes as being behind "quite a few activities to disturb and damage the Chinese Government".
Mr Deller confirms the broad accuracy of the intelligence report - Falun Gong did hold a conference in Sydney after Christmas - but he is horrified by the personal references.
"It's a little creepy actually to think that activities here in Australia are being monitored so closely by Chinese Communist officials," Mr Deller said.
"I think it's outrageous that an ordinary Australian citizen like myself is coming under such surveillance."
Chinese-Australian university student Yan Yan Che is also named in the report as a key Falun Gong organiser among Chinese students on New South Wales campuses.
It describes her as "an overseas Chinese student, female, 22 years old, "from Shangdong province, second year student of NSW University".
"It's surprising, it's just sickening, it's scary," she said.
"It pinpoints my name, where I came from, where my ancestors came from, my age, where I study.
"I never know that I am actually being monitored by 610. I never felt so close to China and the Communist Party as I do now."
Another document, dated January 24 this year, names a Chinese woman presently seeking refugee status in Australia.
It says the woman, named Chen Hong, was sentenced to a year in a labour camp in 2000 because of her Falun Gong beliefs and was expelled from the Communist Party.
She applied for a visa from the Australian commission in Shanghai in 2003. It records that she is now in Australia.
'6-10 Office'
Speaking on ABC TV's Lateline program, Mr Chen still says he is living in fear of being sent back to China to face imprisonment or death.
While waiting for the Australian Immigration Department to process his asylum claim, Mr Chen has been given the number of a policeman to call if he is threatened in any way.
Mr Chen again maintained the existence of the Chinese 6-10 security office that defecting policeman, Mr Hao, had previously told Lateline he had worked for in China.
"Yes, 6-10 Office was established in 1999 on June 10," Mr Chen said.
"That was established to control the Falun Gong organisation and, in my view, to persecute Falun Gong practitioners."
Mr Chen says it is common knowledge among Chinese officials, diplomats and consular offices that the 6-10 Office exists.
"Every diplomat working in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs knows that existed, yes, 6-10," Mr Chen said.
Mr Chen says China wants to crack down on Falun Gong members in Australia.
"Their idea is that it is overseas missions to blame that caused the problem in China," he said.
"If there is no disturbance from overseas in China, the 6-10 Office can solve every problem in China, should finish the Falun Gong issue very quickly.
"Overseas - the Falun Gong practitioners put pressure to the government, the Chinese Government, and launch too many activities so that - and try to influence, mobilise their force, their influence in China."
Alleged kidnappings
Mr Chen stands by his previous claims that Chinese citizens have been kidnapped from Australia
"I'm an honest man even in a state of fear. I'm a very honest man, a man of dignity," he said.
"I get it (the claim) from a very reliable source ... just because it's not the proper time to get into all the details of it.
"To my sense, I talk about this case to draw the attention of the Australian Government. I believe the Australian Government has taken some necessary steps to prevent such a case from occurring in the future - that's the result I would like to see."
Mr Chen says when "it is time and necessary", he will give the evidence he has to the Australian authorities.
He says that he and his family remain in danger.
"I'm still worrying about my family and we haven't been assured about the security and at this stage we have a bridging visa with condition of no work and no Medicare, and I am still worrying about my future," he said.
"And there is still, the possibility is there that may possibly be sending back to China.
"My walking out of the consulate is an action against the Chinese Communist Government. They won't tolerate any official who would take actions against the Communist Party.
"For my case, some lawyers said that I may be sentenced to 15 years to prison or even the death penalty because of my case - very special."
JAPAN is taking a diplomatic pounding today from anti-whaling nations over its plan to slaughter more than 800 whales over the coming year. Australia, New Zealand and Britain have led a barrage of outrage against one of the world's most powerful countries after it announced plans today to double its catch of minke whales and extend its whaling to include endangered species.
At an International Whaling Commission meeting today, Japan said it would catch about 850 minkes annually in the Antarctic Ocean starting with a voyage late this year. Japan said its research plan submitted to the International Whaling Commission the opening of an annual meeting in Ulsan, South Korea.
New Zealand's Conservation Minister Chris Carter said: "New Zealand totally rejects Japan's proposals to double the number of whales slaughtered in the Southern Ocean," he said. "Where is the science from 18 years of scientific whaling? Where is the science? It doesn't exist."
Australia's Environment Minister Ian Campbell said Japan's plan was an "outrage". Voting at the meeting, he said, "will come down to a clash between those who want to continue to whale and to expand whaling in this millennium and those of us who want to see whaling relegated to an historic fact from the last millennium."
Japan also plans to hunt 20 endangered fin whales and broaden its catch to include humpbacks over the next two years. The quota system lets a country go 10 per cent above or below the round figure, meaning Japan could go up to 935 minke whales. Currently, Japan has a guideline of 400 whales a year and most years kills the top limit of 440.
Japan, where whale meat is part of the diet, says Western nations that oppose its hunt are offending its culture and that it does not need IWC approval. Australia has spearheaded efforts to stop Japan from hunting near its waters.
Japan also said it would extend its hunt from minke whales to larger fin and humpback whales, which are both considered endangered by the World Conservation Union. Japan said it would hunt 10 fin whales a year for the next two years and then raise its quota to 50, with the program to be reviewed in six years. Japan also plans to hunt 50 humpbacks annually from the third year or late 2007.
Ben Bradshaw, the British minister responsible for fisheries said the kind of suffering that many whales were subjected to, was "totally unacceptable in 2005". "We don't think there's a humane way to kill a whale," he said. "This is an absolutely vital IWC meeting ... Future generations will not forgive this meeting if we go backwards in our conservation of whales."
The boost in the Antarctic Ocean will bring Japan's annual cull of whales to about 1300 as the country also hunts about 380 minke and other whales in the northwestern Pacific.
Japan reluctantly accepted a 1986 IWC moratorium on whaling and ended its commercial whaling in the Antarctic Ocean with a voyage from late 1986 to early 1987. But it started "research" whaling with a voyage from late 1987, in line with the IWC charter but was harshly criticised by anti-whaling nations that see it as thinly-disguised commercial whaling. The meat from the "research" is sold on the market in line with IWC rules.
Japan said in a statement its new program was meant to "shed light on the ecosystem centring on whales in the Antarctic Ocean, develop a management model covering several species of whales and improve management of minke stocks." Japan would collect data such as the whales' maturity, pregnancy ratios and stomach contents for "more appropriate management of whale stocks," it said.
Japan says whaling is an essential part of its heritage that if conducted sustainably and through strict quotas should be allowed to continue. It says recovering whale stocks are increasingly swallowing up profits of the Japanese fishing industry, an argument environmentalist groups completely dismiss.
Earlier this month, the WWF conservation group laid into the hunt, saying Japan's stance that it kills whales for research is not only a commercial hunt in disguise but is also based on lousy science. It also said "research" on whales would be more effective by conducting genetic tests on small samples of whale skin that can be removed in a non-harmful way.
But Japanese officials argue that non-lethal research gives them only limited information and they need to kill whales to get more detailed data such as how mature they are and whether they are active in reproduction.
#1
I wish I knew what snazzy comment went with this...
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
06/20/2005 1:04 Comments ||
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#2
That's a hell of a research project with 400 to 800 whales taken every year.
I have seen several whale hunts around Kivalina and Point Hope, Alaska. Pretty neat. They have bowhead and gray whales up there. One time in Barrow, they were pulling a bowhead whale up out of the water and on to the shore with the traditional block and tackle, and rope. Everyone gets in line and heave-hos the whale. Well, one time something failed and the block went sailing into the pullers and killed a woman.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
06/20/2005 2:56 Comments ||
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#3
they need to kill whales to get more detailed data such as how mature they are
probably more mature than the whalers
Posted by: Rafael ||
06/20/2005 4:00 Comments ||
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#4
Sorry, but hunting whales is no different to hunting bear, deer, kangaroo or any other mammal. I'm neutral on hunting anything, but as far as I can see the only thing different about whales is international law and treaties have gotten into the act.
#5
Are the specific whales being hunted on the endangered species list? If not, WTF.
Another baby seals, puppy dogs, and baby ducks moment.
Posted by: Jong Cravirong9792 ||
06/20/2005 8:07 Comments ||
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#6
Are the specific whales being hunted on the endangered species list? If not, WTF.
Another baby seals, puppy dogs, and baby ducks moment.
Australia, New Zealand and Britain have led a barrage of outrage against one of the world's most powerful countries after it announced plans today to double its catch of minke whales and extend its whaling to include endangered species...
...Japan also said it would extend its hunt from minke whales to larger fin and humpback whales, which are both considered endangered by the World Conservation Union.
So yes, there are.
And it's not like this is real hunting or anything; it's market hunting, and I don't think anyone of average income in Japan is going to be eating much whale meat. Assume about 1000 2000-lb. whales, and the whales are all-meat... and the population of Japan is 100 million... you get 2000000/100000000... which works out to 2/100 of a pound of whalemeat per year per person in Japan.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
06/20/2005 8:27 Comments ||
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#7
Here ya do,Phil.
"Captain,there be whales here"LTC.Scott:eginering officer.
#13
"It's a cultural thing" means in this case that Japan doesn't want to mothball its whaling fleet. It's like the Japanese engineering firm that landed a contract to build a bridge to an island nobody goes to for a hundred million dollars: we want people to keep their jobs, whether it makes sense or not.
There is no scientific reason to hunt whales. Period.
In related news, whale sharks, the largest known fish, have declined in overall length by 2 meters. What this means is that the population is under stress and the sharks simply aren't living as long. Lobsters and fish off the Grand Banks are in the same trouble: overfishing is killing off the older, stronger, hardier breeders. The fisheries are crashing.
Mr Juncker was in a such a state his officials feared that he would lose his composure completely. "Basically, they had to take him off into a small room and hose him down," a British source said.
Yes, he seems quite peeved. Probably that Prussian heritage (Google Junckers + Prussia). Later:
As the briefing wars continued Mr Juncker, in a barbed aside, declared he would not be at the European Parliament on Thursday to hear Mr Blair's keynote speech to MEPs announcing the working programme for the forthcoming British presidency, on the spurious-sounding grounds that "it is Luxembourg's national day". Journalists applauded.
MADRID — Spanish police have arrested 22 mafia 'capos' or bosses of the Russian and Georgian crime gangs in raids from Barcelona to Marbella.
In what police called the biggest anti-mafia operation in Europe, the 'capos' were among 28 people detained over the weekend for alleged offences of money laundering, fraud and belonging to criminal gangs. Most were from mafias from the former Soviet republic of Georgia.
More than 400 officers were involved in 'Operation Wasp' in which 41 homes were raided. At least 800 bank accounts were frozen in 41 different banks. More than 42 luxury cars, including Mercedes, Porsche, Jaguar, BMW and Bentleys were seized. Police also said "numerous" properties were raided along the Spanish coast, from Marbella on the Costa del Sol to Barcelona in the north-east.
The international operation has involved help from German, French, Belgian, US, Russian and Israeli forces as well as Interpol and Europol.
The Spanish Interior ministry said the Georgian mafia had been involved the second phase of expansion, principally in Catalonia, the Costa del Sol and Alicante. They had been creating economic and financial infrastructures often with Spanish front men to give them extra legitimacy. These financial entities were often used for money laundering funds gained from criminal activities in their own countries. The cash was used to buy "numerous" bars, houses, restaurants and luxury cars.
The operation started in Barcelona, Castelldefels, Malaga, Marbella, Fuengirola, Benalmadena, Torremolinos, Alicante, Orihuela, Benissa and Altea. Police disclosed the 'capos' were called 'Vor z Konen' in Russian, in the same way as the 'capo di capi' or boss of bosses of the Italian mafias were known.
Posted by: too true ||
06/20/2005 10:53 ||
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PARIS, June 18 (AFP) - The EU summit in Brussels was a "Franco-British" war in which President Jacques Chirac was trounced by Prime Minister Tony Blair on the ruins of the European Union, the French press said on Saturday.
The summit which collapsed in chaos in the early hours was seen as a duel between Chirac and Blair recalling the historic defeats for France of Waterloo and Trafalgar in the Napoleonic wars. "Our people have confronted each other for 1,000 years," said France Soir.
Remember who won?
Those tensions, it wrote, have ended in Europe's "great divorce", and "the weakening of Jacques Chirac" by the French rejection of the EU constitution which "put Tony Blair in a position of strength."
"It is Europe that suffered through Waterloo on this June 18," wrote the left-leaning daily Liberation, noting that the summit closed in the small hours on the anniversary of that great battle 190 years ago not far from Brussels. "Blair aboard", read its headline. "The idea of a European constitution has been set back indefinitely," lamented its editorial.
Further left, the communist L'Humanite railed: "The European Council is mocking us!"
So are we, but pray, continue.
"The euro-liberals have dug up a 'Plan D' for denial of democracy," a reference to the 'Plan B' that was never prepared in case the constitution failed, it said.
Le Figaro, in its on-line edition, recalled Chirac's warning that France should not become the "black sheep" of the 25-member bloc. "In this context, it is important for him not to become closed off in what would appear to be a quarrel between the old and the new."
It was Blair who came in for special treatment in all the smaller dailies. "You can't call him the 'Iron Man' yet but he can bitterly defend his patch," wrote La Provence in an editorial in reference to Britain's former premier, 'Iron Lady' Margaret Thatcher. But it begrudgingly acknowledged that Blair was part of the "legitimate nouveau riche" and that he "really humiliated President Chirac."
L'Union, based in Reims, east of Paris, said the British leader was "intransigent and intractable", calling him a "petulant, tight-fisted Labourite" who was dressed "in a Thatcherite suit in the worst-possible taste."
I'd like such a suit. 52L, cuffs.
All that was missing from the show, its editorial writer, said "was Punch's big stick to make his partners dance to the metronomic beat of Big Ben."
In the country's biggest and most respected regional paper, Ouest-France, editorial writer Francois Regis expressed deep concern over the seriousness of the crisis that the 25-member bloc was now facing. "Now is the time, once again, for the great voices to rise and remind everyone that a failure does not have to mean the end of a project, as General (Charles) de Gaulle ... once proclaimed amid widespread despair." Besides being an amusing example of French self-importance, this suggests Chirac's popularity is waning. So does this other article which reports his support down to 28%.
Posted by: too true ||
06/20/2005 10:50 ||
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Europe reminds me of an old couple who have lived together for years, but never got married:
There can be closeness, but only when a safe distance is maintained...
The budget summit fiasco has left Poland feeling bitter that richer EU members particularly Britain, until now a close Polish ally were unwilling to be generous to the much poorer countries that entered the Union last year. "We see it as a fault in national egoism in many countries," Jaroslaw Pietras, Poland's European affairs minister, told the Financial Times, naming France, Britain and Germany as particularly guilty of being influenced by the short-term concerns of the voters at home instead of the long-term good of Europe.
Senior British figures acknowledge the collapse of the deal was bad news for the EU's 10 new accession states because the lack of a budget agreement threatens to delay projects and slash structural payments.
Having often posed in the past as the champion of the "new Europe" against the Franco-German core, Tony Blair, British prime minister, will therefore try to keep the 10 new member states on his side by pledging to try to get a budget deal agreed in the next six months.
Given the dramatic clash between Mr Blair and President Jacques Chirac of France in Brussels last week, it is hard to see a deal being brokered rapidly. Mr Chirac ruled out any attempt to reopen the deal on Common Agricultural Policy spending agreed in October 2002. "It was not the most acrimonious European council I have been at but it was certainly up there," said a UK official, suggesting that President Chirac and German chancellor Gerhard Schröder had rounded on Mr Blair on Friday night.
In Poland there is a sense of unfairness that old EU members, suddenly afraid of their eurosceptical voters, have taken to defending their national interests single-mindedly without thinking much about the EU as a whole. Warsaw is mindful of the enormous benefits gained by other poor countries included in earlier enlargements such as Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain and is worried that similar generosity may not be on offer to the former communist states who joined last year.
Funny, the French and the Belgians were looking to you new EU members to fix their problems.
It is not just a question of money. Only Britain, Ireland and Sweden allowed workers from the new member states access to their labour markets. Old Europe has also been wary about reducing barriers for service providers, hugely important for poor, high-unemployment countries like Poland.
But wealthy European self-interest may exact a price. "Rich countries cannot say that we aren't going to give you a free market and aren't going to give you much money either," said Mr Pietras. "If we get no compensation, then we want competition."
Marek Belka, Poland's prime minister, had offered a last-minute proposal to reduce payments to new EU members, an idea that Mr Blair rejected. "If there had been a will to compromise, then the offer by the new member states might have been accepted," Jan Truszczynski, Poland's deputy foreign minister, told the Financial Times. "If Britain had signalled its minimum conditions earlier, a compromise might have been possible."
For Poland, the failure to pass an EU budget for 2007-2013 could have enormous consequences. If the budget is adopted next year, under the Austrian presidency, funding for some Polish projects could be delayed. If there is no new budget, then a provisional budget would go into effect that would see annual structural fund transfers to Poland cut to €4.6bn ($5.7bn, £3.1bn) from the €8.7bn under the failed Luxembourg proposal.
The next EU budget cycle is Poland's best chance of catching up to western Europe. Poland could get a total of €81bn, including both regional and agricultural funds. The budget cycle after that would be for an EU that included much poorer Romania and Bulgaria, and would also be looking toward possible Turkish membership, leaving much less for Poland. Mr Truszczynski said: "A future budget compromise may be less advantageous for Poland."
Polish anger at the old EU's lack of financial generosity is matched by dismay that an inward-looking Union will have no time or energy to think of further expansion. Warsaw is in favour of Turkey joining the club but is most interested in attracting Ukraine, which would move Poland from Europe's periphery closer to its centre.
Gunter Verheugen, vice-president of the European Commission, sounded a cautious note about a future enlargement of the EUover the weekend, saying, "No new promises can be made." While Bulgaria and Romania have already completed accession negotiations, the EU's commitment to these two countries provided for "a postponement of membership, should [they] prove insufficiently ready", he told Germany's Bild-am-Sonntag weekly.
Mr Verheugen, a former enlargement commissioner in the previous Commission, also stressed that accession talks with Turkey, scheduled to begin in October, would be open-ended and might not necessarily end with full EU-membership.
Posted by: too true ||
06/20/2005 10:13 ||
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Hidden in all of this is the significant tension that now exists between "old" and "new" Europe. Interestingly, it is the "new" guys that want to keep the Union strong and expanding and on-budget and with-purpose versus the "old" guys who only want to "twitch" their pecs. Poland and the Balts offered to accept reduced payments from the EU in order to allow the UK to get its usual and entitled rebate. Even that was received as being unacceptable since it would show the "old" rich guys as needing help from the poor "new" guys. Can't have that can we?
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
06/20/2005 14:00 Comments ||
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After a good thunderstorm the air is much fresher.
Blair cannot justify the British rebate any longer BUT he is right about the idiocy of agricultural subsidies. They should be drastically reduced.
Chirac won't bite: His stauchest supporters are French farmers. The stupidity of the subsidies is that mostly the big agricultural enterprises benefit from them, not the small farmer with his 20 cows.
But the real issue will be to find out where we want Europe to go:
1) A free market, with free exchange of goods, services and people, but no political union (The British Way)
2) A not so free market, with high subsidies, bureaucracy and a political role in a "multipolar world" (French Way)
3) A bit of a mix (current German position, likely to change)
My way?
Leaning on the British model, but Europe should have common political aims as well, a cohesion of states that goes beyond merely economical issues. Europe is more than a free market.
#3
but Europe should have common political aims as well
Which will boil down to French & German aims. Won't work unless Europe goes for option 1.a.) free market, with free exchange of goods, services and people, and some form of political union (in other words, a US of E, totally like the US of A... but that's a long time off).
Posted by: Rafael ||
06/20/2005 14:25 Comments ||
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The unholy Chirac/Schröder only hides that France and Germany actually do NOT have the same political interests.
Germany will look to Central and Eastern Europe. France hasn't much to offer except overpriced whine and running cheese.
#6
Blair cannot justify the British rebate any longer
Why not? AIUI Britain recieves less per capita than wny other EU member from CAP spending. Why should any one country be the lowest recipient and not receive some form of compensation?
#7
Bulldog, that should read "the full rebate". The UK (with the rebate) is the second biggest net payer (after Germany).
But I guess we agree that not every country can be a net beneficiary.
The real problem is France. You have all my sympathies for not wanting to subsidize French farmers.
If EU money is put to good use, I'm sure the UK is willing to compromise on the rebate. That's how I understand Blair. The system is rotten.
EFL:Seemed lahk a good idea at the time...
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Sen. Robert C. Byrd's new memoir reveals both his encyclopedic knowledge of political history and the unlikely inspiration that helped launch his own political career: A Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan. Think if a Republican ever said this that there might be a... bit of a stink?
It was a Klan leader who motivated the young Byrd during his short-lived tenure in the racist organization — something he writes was "an extraordinarily foolish mistake" that has haunted him for 40 years."It has emerged throughout my life to haunt and embarrass me, and has taught me in a very graphic way what one major mistake can do to one's life, career and reputation," the West Virginia Democrat says in an autobiography being released Monday. "I displayed very bad judgment, due to immaturity and a lack of seasoned reasoning."
It's a mistake he has paid for time and again, the only significant scandal ever attached to a man who grew up in Wolf Creek Hollow and who next June stands to become the longest-serving senator in U.S. history. He's been a senator for a thousand years. How much did it hurt him?
Even now, with the 2006 election more than 18 months away, Republicans are using it in their campaign to oust him. Byrd has not declared whether he will run again, and his book gives no hints."Robert C. Byrd: Child of the Appalachian Coalfields" chronicles his 87 years, from boyhood to his re-election in 2000.But at 770 pages, the $35 paperback from West Virginia University Press is more weighty tome than light reading. Looks like the West Virginia University Press will do VERY WELL when this year's pork is doled out...
It portrays a man who is religious, socially conservative, respectful and respected — a man for whom a promise is an unbreakable bond. But it is more the chronology of a career than the story of a man, dispassionately detailing virtually every federal dollar brought to West Virginia. ...and it's only 770 pages?
According to Citizens Against Government Waste, he's helped secure $1.6 billion for the state just since 1999. But any reader expecting an apology will be disappointed. Byrd is proud of supporting a state that suffered more than most through economic recessions — long exploited for its natural resources and slower than most to attain prosperity. "The Washington critics of 'pork' had a full-time job in trying to keep up with me," he writes. Look soon for The Robert C. Byrd Center for Frog Shit Research in Morgantown.
The book reflects Byrd's appreciation for political history, but the private man remains private, revealing little of his heart. One exception lies in his explanation of the folly with the Klan. As a boy, he watched a parade of white hoods in Matoaka, learning years later his father had been among them. Back then "many of the 'best' people were members," he says, and Byrd was vulnerable to the anti-Communism rhetoric.He recruited 150 members, and when Grand Dragon Joel L. Baskin came to a meeting in Crab Orchard, Byrd was unanimously elected Exalted Cyclops. The Exalted Cyclops! And here we were demeaning him with that Kleagle title.
"You have a talent for leadership, Bob," Baskin told him. "The country needs young men like you in the leadership of the nation." "Suddenly lights flashed in my mind!" Byrd writes. "Someone important had recognized my abilities. I was only 23 or 24, and the thought of a political career had never struck me. But strike me that night, it did. "It was the appealing challenge I had been looking for. Wolf Creek Hollow seemed very near and Washington very far away, with the road in between all uphill," he says. "But I was suddenly eager to climb the mountain." ...and the rest is history! Another reason to despise the Klan.
He belonged to the Klan for a year, then moved in 1943 to Baltimore to help build ships. Byrd says he never resented blacks, Catholics or Jews, but he failed to "examine the full meaning and impact of the ugly prejudice behind the positive, pro-American veneer. My only explanation for the entire episode is that I was sorely afflicted with tunnel vision — a jejune and immature outlook — seeing only what I wanted to see because I thought the Klan could provide an outlet for my talents and ambitions." ...and since Ah'm a Democrat, Ah get a swell free pass!
Posted by: Beaucoup: King of the Ukuku ||
06/20/2005 10:32 ||
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Oh, you feel bad now Senator blowhard? Take the advice of many - just phuking resign and shut the heck up, hypocritical idiot. No need for you to gain experience and "seasoning" on the taxpayer's dime is there?!
#3
yeah, west virginia is known for a center of culture and enterprise. Why, what other state can claim as many doublewide trailers as the state of west virginia.
If I were a citizen of West Virginia, I think that by now I'd be asking of the old Byrd...show ME the money, Senator.
#7
What Byrd "laments" is it's no longer fashionable to be a racist bigot. And the MSM can't cover for him any longer.
How do you spell the illustrious senator's name? "Worthless POS"
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
06/20/2005 17:21 Comments ||
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at least there will be full employment in W. VA for a century, chiselling the old f*&kers' name off gov't buildings, bridges, monuments, and schools
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/20/2005 19:34 Comments ||
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WASHINGTON - Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., said Sunday he intends to run for president in 2008.
But Biden, who also sought the nomination in 1988, said he would give himself until the end of this year to determine if he really can raise enough money and attract enough support.
Going after the nomination "is a real possibility," he said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "My intention, as I sit here now, is, as I've proceeded since last November as if I were going to run. I'm quite frankly going out, seeing whether I can gather the kind of support," Biden said.
Biden said he was taking his "game on the road, letting people know what I think." He added, "If, in fact, I think that I have a clear shot at winning the nomination by this November or December, then I'm going to seek the nomination."
Biden dropped out of the 1988 presidential race after a series of disclosures that he had liberally borrowed from other politicians in his stump speeches and after questions about his law school records.
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/20/2005 09:25 ||
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More proof they put those plugs in too tight...
#5
Slow Joe can be dismissed after the first debate....
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/20/2005 11:21 Comments ||
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His role is to show that Hillary won the nomination against competition. It gives the media an excuse for lots of coverage of her.
Posted by: too true ||
06/20/2005 11:24 Comments ||
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He's calling for a withdrawal schedule form Iraq. The last time the Dems did this, over 2 millioned died and the abandoned were left with an authoritarian/communist government in Southeast Asia. Yes, please step up to the target circle, the opposition party appears to have finally found a voice after your brother Durbin revealed how your party really supports the troops. Just another Dem program, its all about appearences not about solving the problem, in this case terrorism. This isn't 1976. After the 'gulag, nazi', and other contructive comments, I look forward to the Rep finally getting some guts and start showing the bodies dropping from the Twin Towers. If the choice is casualties in Iraq or casualties here at home, I don't think the Dems have a clue what the American public prefers [even after the 2002 and 2004 elections].
Posted by: Jong Cravirong9792 ||
06/20/2005 11:43 Comments ||
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The assassin of Col. James Rowe, the "political prisoner" Danilo Continente, is scheduled to be freed from prison on June 28th after serving his maximum sentence. Philippine President Fidel Ramos refused to pardon Continente during his term of office despite representations by 'human rights organizations'. But with his sentence served, Continente will soon be a free man. The left-leaning Philippine Daily Inquirer has started a countdown to the blessed moment.
In just nine days, Donato Continente becomes a free man. And for him, freedom means becoming a full-time father to his 6-year-old son. Continente, 43, one of two men convicted in the killing of US Army Col. James Rowe in 1989, is set to be released from the New Bilibid Prisons (NBP) in Muntinlupa on June 28. Bureau of Corrections records show that he has served the maximum sentence of 16 years.
Read the whole article. It's sad, sobering, and it will likely make you very mad. Donato...I truly hope you hear quiet footsteps every moment for the rest of your miserable life.
HANOI, Vietnam --Two more people from northern Vietnam have been sickened with bird flu while thousands of chickens have died in the south -- in the country's first new outbreak among poultry in three months, officials said Monday. The two newest victims tested positive for the virus after being admitted to Bach Mai Hospital in Hanoi over the weekend, said hospital director Tran Quy. That brought the number of human cases to 13 over the past two weeks, he said, adding the patients, all from the northern provinces, are in stable condition.
Bird flu ravaged poultry farms across Vietnam in late 2003, killing or forcing the demise of more than 45 million birds. The virus began jumping to humans around the same time, and has killed a total of 38 people in Vietnam, 12 in Thailand and four in Cambodia.
Meanwhile, more than 4,000 out of 6,700 chickens on a farm in the southern province of Ben Tre died suddenly on June 9, said Mai Van Hiep, director of the provincial animal health bureau. Authorities killed the remaining chickens two days later, and tests showed they were infected with the H5N1 strain of the bird flu. Mr. Hiep added that authorities have disinfected the farm and surrounding areas.
So far the majority of human victims have contracted the disease through close contact with sick birds. However, epidemiologists worry that if the H5N1 virus mutates into a form that can be passed directly between people, it could lead to a global influenza pandemic, potentially killing millions.
Medical officials say that there has been only one probable case of human-to-human transmission of the bird-flu virus so far: that of a Thai woman who contracted the disease from her sick daughter.
Posted by: too true ||
06/20/2005 09:50 ||
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And thanks to China, one of only two anti-viral treatments available is no longer effective.
Thanks, China!
Oops that last para sent a chill up my spine ... there WAS a case of human-to-human transmission?
OH my GOD it's the coming of the plague. Seriously! If this thing gets human-to-human transmission we may end up with another SARS on our hands only worse as the vector is avian... and thus impossible to patrol the borders for...
#2
I think the human-to-human transition was a long time ago - last year, maybe?
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/20/2005 13:05 Comments ||
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the Institute of Tropical Diseases in Hanoi capital city from June 18-19. Currently, the institute is treating 28 people with bird flu symptoms, of whom 13 have been tested positive to H5N1. The majority reported no contact with domestic animals/birds.
Seven Cambodian men were charged in court Sunday with involvement in the death of a 2-year-old Canadian boy during last week's takeover at an international school.
Takes a lot of guts to plug a 2-year-old, you betcha...
Four men accused of carrying out the attack on the school near northwestern Cambodia's Angkor Wat temple complex were charged with premeditated murder, kidnapping, illegal detainment of persons for ransom and illegal use of a weapon, prosecutor Bou Bunhang said. The charges carry penalties ranging from 15 years to life in prison.
Being real old-fashioned, which of course makes me barbaric in my outlook, I'd favor the death penalty for the lot of them.
Their three alleged accomplices — two private security guards and a man who sold the handgun used to kill the Canadian boy — were charged with conspiracy to commit premeditated murder, illegal detainment and illegal use of a weapon. One of the guards worked at the school.
He doesn't sound like the best investment they ever made...
Four men stormed Siem Reap International School on Thursday and held about 30 students and some teachers hostage for more than six hours. Their alleged leader, Chea Sokhom, used the handgun, their only weapon, to shoot the Canadian boy in the head because he would not stop crying, according to police.
I usually get by with my sainted father's tactic of threatening to swat the child's bottom, thereby giving the little brat something to cry about. I can't say I've ever had the urge to shoot a 2-year-old, though it has occurred to me with regard to some of their parents. But even that urge quickly passed...
The crisis ended when police cornered the van in which the attackers tried to escape with several child hostages and a reported $30,000 ransom. Ou Em, head of the serious crime division in Siem Reap province, said police Saturday arrested Un Nee, who allegedly sold the handgun to Chea Sokhom for $150. The two security guards told police that Chea Sokhom had invited them to join in a plot to hold the school's students for ransom, police said.
Brilliant. Simply brilliant.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/20/2005 00:00 ||
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MeI ussally put thier littlte butts in another room,tell them they can come out when they stop crying and shut the door.
For Atomic Conspiracy.
Remember when a handful of media companies were supposedly going to take over the world and program our brains? Back in 2000, for example, a number of folks were running around saying that the media sky would fall after Time Warner and AOL announced their mega-merger. As Reason journalist Matt Welch has noted, when the deal was announced, the Chicken Little crowd came out in full force with claims that the AOL-Time Warner deal represented "Big Brother," "the end of the independent press," and a harbinger of a "new totalitarianism."
But it turned out that AOL-Time Warner was "the Big Brother who never was," as Welch put it. In fact, by April of 2002, just two years after the marriage took place, the firm had reported a staggering $54 billion write-down in the worth of the company's combined assets and a $200 billion loss in stock market value. By September of 2003, Time Warner decided to drop AOL from its name altogether. More recently, Time Warner CEO Dick Parsons has hinted that he would consider entirely spinning off AOL as a separate stock if the division's latest business strategy doesn't work. And what is AOL's latest business strategy? Giving away most of its content. That sounds like the impact of intense competition to me, but some people still claim that Time Warner is part of a "New Media Monopoly."
Two years ago, those same "media monopoly" concerns prompted a great deal of hand-wringing following the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) revision of its rules governing media ownership. Although the FCC's order only moderately relaxed the existing regulations -- and even retained or strengthened some of the rules under consideration -- many groups and lawmakers mounted a vociferous campaign to overturn the revisions alleging that media ownership liberalization would result in more industry consolidation, less "diversity," the "death of localism," and a "threat to democracy." During the debate on the House floor over the rules, for example, Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) said the FCC's tweaking of the rules was an attempt to impose a centralized "Saddam-style information system in the United States." Other lawmakers expressed their opposition to the new rules by making references to the movie Citizen Kane, or referred to the new rules as "mind control" that would result in Soviet Union-esque control of the media. Things got so out of hand that, at one point, big media cry baby Ted Turner compared the popularity of the Fox News Channel to the rise of Adolf Hitler prior to World War II.
OK, now let's flash-forward to the present. What a difference a few years makes. Today's headlines about the media industry all scream one consistent message: Traditional media providers and outlets are in big trouble. A recent issue of The Wilson Quarterly featured a cover story / symposium on "The Collapse of Big Media." The Christian Science Monitor recently ran a story entitled, "Newspapers Struggle to Avoid Their Own Obit," which was ironic since the CSM is currently undergoing major changes and is rumored to be considering a switch to an all Internet-based format. In an editorial entitled "Death to the Networks," Broadcasting & Cable magazine posits that several of the traditional TV networks may be extinct within the next few years.
What has happened over the past few years to lead to such a stunning reversal of fortunes for traditional media? The Age of Scarcity has given way to the Age of Abundance. The code words for our new media environment are customization, personalization, choice, competition, and, above all, abundance. Citizens now enjoy more news and entertainment options than at any other point in American history or human civilization.
These developments were well underway when the AOL-Time Warner deal and the FCC ownership revisions were announced, but many still feared that the old media giants would just buy up everything in sight and stifle the new forms of competition and choice. That fanciful scenario never developed, of course. Indeed, since the time of AOL-Time Warner, old media operators have done a stunning about-face and engaged in DE-consolidation maneuvers to get back to basics and salvage some value out of deals gone wrong. As a result, beyond the gradual disintegration of AOL-Time Warner, we have seen divestiture moves or spin-off proposals by many large media operators over the past year, including: Viacom, Clear Channel, Disney, Emmis Commnications, Liberty Media, and Cablevision just to name a few.
In some cases, the "synergies" that many media operators hoped for simply did not develop. In other cases, technological change and the rapid evolution of the media marketplace overtook them and nullified any advantages that might have been gained from the mergers.
Regardless, this is an example of a well-functioning, dynamic marketplace at work. Media critics seem to think that any merger or acquisition is all just part of some sort of grand conspiracy to destroy democracy or competition, but in the end, things sort themselves out and we end up with an ever-expanding universe of media options at our disposal. Indeed, ask yourself a simple question: Do you have more media options and outlets at your disposal today than you did 5 to 10 years ago?
It's safe to say that the "mass media meltdown" we are witnessing today will likely continue and perhaps even accelerate. With traditional media operators and industries (books, magazines, newspapers, television, radio, CDs, etc.) experiencing rapidly declining audience share thanks to substitution by new forms of digital media (Internet, blogging, mobile devices, DVDs, video games, i-Pods, satellite radio, etc.), we can be sure that the media environment five years from now will look radically different than it does today.
Of course, that process may be accelerated -- and unfairly so -- by the continued existence of a complex web of FCC regulations that burden just the older media outlets. Thus, old media operators are struggling to reinvent their business models and offer consumers new products and services that fit their more demanding media needs, but they are being forced to make this gut-wrenching transition with one arm tied behind their backs.
The real danger here in not just that asymmetrical FCC regulations will doom old media players to an early extinction, it is that -- in the name of fairness and "leveling the playing field" -- the old rules gradually come to incorporate new media outlets and technologies as well. The current debate about the applicability of campaign finance regulations to the Internet and blogs in particular foreshadows many other debates to come about media policy for the Age of Information Abundance. Do we need children's programming mandates for IPTV (Internet protocol television) operators? How about indecency regulations for satellite radio and cell phones? Should politicians get free airtime for ads and debates on all these new digital outlets? And so on.
Of course, in the Age of Information Abundance, why do we really need any of these rules anyway? The question of who owns what or how much they own is irrelevant in a world of information overload. In such an environment, it is fundamentally unfair to impose asymmetrical regulations and ownership controls on one class of information providers while leaving others completely free to arrange their affairs -- and, by extension, their speech -- as they wish.
Adam Thierer is Senior Fellow at the Progress & Freedom Foundation (www.pff.org) in Washington, D.C. and Director of PFF's Center for Digital Media Freedom. He is the author of Media Myths: Making Sense of the Debate over Media Ownership.
A PAKISTANI poured kerosene over his sleeping wife and daughter and burned them to death in the country's latest example of so-called honour killings, police said today.
The 45-year-old man, named as Jalil Ahmed, snapped after his brother caught his daughter having sex with a neighbour in the remote town of Samasatta, about 105 km south of the central city of Multan, police said. He rushed back from his workplace in the southern city of Karachi and with the help of his brother tied the 20-year-old girl, named as Shomaila, and her mother to wooden beds as they slept, local police officer Arif Nawaz said.
They then set light to the two women - the girl for having an affair and the 40-year-old mother Azeem Mai for "not discouraging her daughter", the police officer said.
Police have arrested the girl's father and uncle and efforts were under way to arrest their neighbour, who fled the town after the incident.
"We have registered a case against three persons and arrested two of them, who have confessed the crime," the policeman said.
"They said they had killed them for honour."
Officials say about 4000 people, mostly women, have died as a result of brutal "honour punishments" in rural areas of Pakistan over the past four years.
Last week a Pakistani widow and her two daughters were beaten and forced to parade naked through a market after her son allegedly had an affair with another man's wife in Qabula, 175 kilometres east of Multan.
Mukhtaran Mai, 33, became the victim of a notorious gang rape in June 2002, in Meerwala village, which is in the same area. She was raped for more than an hour on the orders of a tribal council to atone for her brother's alleged affair with a woman of a powerful rival clan.
President Pervez Musharraf early this year signed into law a bill introducing the death penalty for honour killings.
I await with bated breath the Amnesty International condemnation....
#2
You know, I wonder how far back this custom goes.
The idea that innocent female relatives are appropriate targets for retribution for the sexual misdeeds of males is a curious one.
This is not an Arab thing that I know of - among the Arabs its a matter for family to kill the misbehaving woman to preserve their "honor". And this is not peculiar to the Arabs either, though they are the only ones backward enough to be still at it today, but there are echoes of it in obsolete customs from around the Mediterranean. But that is not the case with the Paki thing.
So that Pakistani custom is most likely a folk holdover from pre-Islamic times, and maybe something unique to the Punjab. It would be interesting to see whether any British records from the days of the Raj had something to say about it.
#3
The way to end Islamofascism is to tell everyone of the braindead terrorists either:
- their mother is looking at another man,
- their wife/girlfriend is looking at another man,
- their daughter is looking at another man.
#4
And of course, the "womens' rights" groups do nothing.
There's been a lot of criticism that those groups (Yes, Gloria Steinem & friends, I'm talking to you!) don't care about women who happen to be various shades of brown. I see that criticism is well earned.
#5
Why just the other day the walas down at the bazaar were worked up in a frenzy on how Osama's woman was seen patting the hand and comforting Mullah Omar behind Slahp Salahmi's hut last week. Worse yet was the shepherd boy who recognized her not wearing her burqa veil. This had been the second time the boy had seen her face and barely lived thru thye last event last summer. Osama's private lessons with the boy had been interrupted by her delivery of hot howels for the two when her veil slipped and Osama got so unholy angry. That was how the little shepherd boy recognized the uncovered woman with Mullah Omar. This was not the fault of Mullah Omar since his blind eye faced her facial nakedness. But both eyes of the innocent shepherd boy were filled with her facial nakedness and thus caused him shame and even blush. The walas down at the bazaar are already arriving at a punishment to be reecommended to the oldest, smelliest and nastiest bearded wala who is honarable enough to convene a sharia shing ding in the valley. Mullah Omar is exempt due to his exemption tax and being such the loveable old perv that he is. He is a victim as well as the shepherd boy. "Osam's woman is really gonna get it good!", said one old wala red and wrinkled in furious anger. "Yeah!" seconded a second old grizzled bearded one with pita stuck in his beard.
Shares of Michelin & Cie, the world's largest tiremaker, fell more than 3 percent after Formula One cars using its tires pulled out of the U.S. Grand Prix at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on safety concerns.
Seven teams, accounting for 14 of the 20 cars in the world's most popular racing series, withdrew, leaving only six drivers using Bridgestone tires in the race yesterday.
``Considering all of the investment and the company's image in the U.S., there will be consequences to sales,'' said Salah Seddik, a fund manager at Richelieu Finance in Paris, which manages about $2.2 billion of equities.
Michelin, which generates a third of its sales in North America, told the seven teams not to participate in the event, the only U.S. stop on the Formula One circuit, because it couldn't determine the cause of tire failures that led to two crashes during practice earlier in the month. The tires, being used for the first time this year, have had unexplained drops in pressure.
``It was a fiasco, but we don't regret the decision,'' Frederic Henri Biabaud, deputy director for Clermont-Ferrand, France-based Michelin's racing-related operations, said in an interview. ``We couldn't have risked the possibility of an accident.''
Michelin shares dropped as much as 3.1 percent and fell 70 euro cents, or 1.4 percent, to 50.8 euros at 2:35 p.m. in Paris.
World championship points leader Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen, who's second in the standings, dropped out. Michael Schumacher won his 84th career race and the first this season.
Angry Fans
Fans booed and threw debris when Schumacher entered victory lane. Some held up hand-written signs saying, ``Money Back.'' Schumacher, the seven-time Formula One champion, didn't spray champagne as is customary for the race winner.
Formula One has had a hard time winning over U.S. fans who favor Nascar stock-car racing to the open-wheel series. Many drivers and team owners expressed concern that yesterday's race wouldn't help them attract new fans.
``It's the worst possible advert for Formula One,'' Nick Fry, chief executive of the BAR-Honda team, said in a statement. ``We all wanted to race, that's what we came here to do.''
The International Automobile Federation, known by its French acronym FIA, told teams yesterday they would have to compete with original Michelin tires as required by the rules rather than switch to new models shipped in overnight. It said the drivers would have to go slower through a high-speed turn where the practice crashes occurred.
Safety Query
The FIA sent a letter to Michelin two weeks ago not to sacrifice safety for performance after the suspension on Raikkonen's McLaren car failed at the European Grand Prix in Nurburgring, Germany. Damage to the right-front Michelin tire caused the problem. Michelin's failure to bring a backup tire to Indianapolis may prompt the FIA to sanction the company, the U.K.'s Guardian newspaper reported.
Max Mosley, president of the sport's governing body, last week set out his proposed rules for the sport from 2008, including using a single tire supplier for the series.
North America accounted for a third of Michelin's 2004 sales of 15.7 billion euros ($19.2 billion). The company makes Michelin, B.F. Goodrich, Uniroyal and Kleber tires.
``We are totally aware that the USA is an important market for Formula One,'' the Michelin teams said in a joint statement yesterday. ``It is sad that we couldn't showcase Formula One in the manner we would have liked.''
Michelin quit Formula One in 1984, citing a recession in the global tire industry. Attracted by the sport's increased worldwide television audiences, the company announced its return to the grand prix circuit in December 1999. Formula One this year halved its viewing audience estimates to 150 million people a race because of a drop in European viewers. U.S. TV audiences last year were as low as 244,000 on Speed Channel, a cable TV station, according to BusinessF1 magazine.
Formula One cars, which have top speeds of over 200 miles an hour, use special tires that are built to be lightweight and strong and to last only about 120 miles.
Posted by: too true ||
06/20/2005 11:21 ||
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#1
One of the fat cats that you would love to despise is Bernie Ecclestone. This couldn't have happened to a better one than him. Plus it is the most boring racing league in the world. All this has done is "cement" further the popularity of NASCAR in America. If I was NASCAR I would start to think about a few races in England (where they were suppose to be building an oval track somewhere in the Midlands) or better yet, Germany!! I think the Brits and the German auto-fanatics would immediately fall hard for NASCAR.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
06/20/2005 13:40 Comments ||
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#2
Worse news, rule changes in 2 years posit only 1 tire supplier and I doubt it will be Bridgestone.
F1's not boring but it is an acquired taste and the acquiring is gettnig more and more difficult.
#4
This was a major screw up by Michelin. Don't look for them to be the single supplier now. There are oval tracks in both the UK and Germany. Champ cars have run at both of them. The Euros have what they call "saloon" car classes, which are similar to NASCAR. It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out, but it really is a huge black eye to F1, not just in the US, but all over the world.
The West African nation of Guinea-Bissau held its first presidential elections Sunday since a bloodless 2003 coup, a vote many hope will restore democracy and jump-start development in a war-ravaged country that is also one of the world's poorest. Three former heads of state were among 13 candidates vying for the nation's top post — including ex-President Kumba Yala, the man the military ousted two years ago, and two other former heads of state. The poll marks the nation's first presidential ballot since the military ousted democratically elected Yala in a September 2003 coup, replacing him with interim leader Henrique Rosa, who's not running.
The next president faces a moribund economy based largely on cashew-nut production, with risk-wary foreign investors largely shunning the tiny coup-prone, ex-Portuguese colony of 1.4 million. Decades of instability have left Guinea-Bissau one the world's 10 least-developed countries, according the United Nations, with 80 percent of the population living on less than $2 per day.
Another West African success story. G-B at one time had a little commie revolution going, led by a guy with the nom-de-guerre of Dick Daring. I have no idea whatever happened to him, because it's hard to maintain an interest in that kind of place. It looks like they've taken the traditional path of oligarchy and coup d'etat. But that's okay. We should give them money, because their own ineptitude at running even a small country is somehow our fault.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/20/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
I had to look, this is what I found.... is that Spanish or Portugeese?
#2
"Dick Daring of the Mounties"... in Spanish. Un classico!
Posted by: Fred ||
06/20/2005 7:14 Comments ||
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#3
Perhaps Bob Geldoff and his bandaid bunnies would like to sing a tune or two for Guinea-Bissau?
Mark Steyn had a good rant that what Africa needs is accounants and a decent administrative system (non-corrupt) and not pop star benefit gigs or billions in foreign aid.
No. Ya think? No, Fred, of course it is all our fault!
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.
Police yesterday raided flats in Deira and Bur Dubai and arrested a number of people including women from Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries for prostitution and overstaying. The Dubai police warned real estate agents to be cautious when renting out flats and stressed a passport copy on its own would not determine the credentials of the tenant. They asked agents to make sure where the prospective tenants worked and their terms of employment. The warning comes in the wake of yesterday's raids, which police said were part of an investigation and manhunt for a suspect in a major case. The police said some rent out their flats to people they don't even know and move into cheaper accommodations.
QOLQEPUNKU GLACIER, Peru -- One recent moonlit night high in the Peruvian Andes, about 200 men dressed in furry cloaks and woolen masks trekked up to a glacier whose ice is said to have magical healing properties. In the past these men, called ukukus after the word for bear in the local Quechua language, cut and hauled down large blocks of ice to share with family, friends and livestock as part of an annual Catholic pilgrimage known as El Señor de Qoyllur Rit'i that usually draws about 40,000 worshipers to a dizzying 16,000 feet above sea level.
Seven Cambodian men were charged in court Sunday with involvement in the death of a 2-year-old Canadian boy during last week's takeover at an international school.
