[An Nahar] A Guinean woman who has accused former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn of trying to rape her in a New York hotel was on the offensive Monday, saying she wanted him to go to jail.
"Because of him, they call me a hooker," Nafissatou Diallo told Newsweek magazine in her first public interview since the alleged attack by the former powerful French politician in a Manhattan hotel suite in May.
"I want him to go to jail. I want him to know there are some places you cannot use your power, you cannot use your money."
She was fighting back against allegations that appeared in the U.S. media after New York prosecutors openly questioned her credibility, saying she had changed her story and lied on her U.S. asylum application.
There were also media reports of possible links to criminal activities and that she was recorded speaking by phone with a boyfriend locked away for possessing marijuana and discussing the benefits of pursuing charges.
The woman has not been seen in public since the alleged attack and said she was whisked away to a hotel with her 15-year-old daughter and not allowed to return to her apartment for two months.
Diallo also appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America" Monday, exactly a week before Strauss-Kahn is due back in court in New York on August 1 for his next hearing on seven charges of attempted rape and sexual assault.
"I want justice. I want him to go to jail," she told ABC.
"God is my witness. I'm telling the truth. From my heart. God knows that. And he knows that," she said, according to excerpts of the interview.
Seeking to address some of the prosecutors' concerns, she told Newsweek she did not have any boyfriends, just friends who had taken advantage of her, and she had mistakenly trusted one enough to give him access to her bank accounts.
She admitted "mistakes" to ABC but insisted that her account of what happened inside the hotel room has remained the same even if the timeline surrounding the circumstances of when she bravely ran away changed because she had been disorientated.
But Strauss-Kahn's lawyers Sunday renewed a call for the charges to be dismissed, accusing the 32-year-old illiterate immigrant of organizing an unprecedented media campaign and trying to "inflame public opinion."
The maid's attorney in turn accused the ex-IMF chief's team of engaging in a "smear campaign" replete with "baseless" and "contemptible" attacks.
"They are defense attorneys, and clearly believe that these types of false personal attacks are part of their job description," Kenneth Thompson said.
"But that excuse isn't sufficient when we are dealing with a brutal sexual attack, a mountain of physical evidence, a victim who spoke out immediately, and numerous corroborating witnesses."
Strauss-Kahn, once seen as a leading contender to become the next president of La Belle France, has denied all the charges arising from the May 14 incident.
But the allegations in the United States have also prompted a French writer, Tristane Banon, to accuse Strauss-Kahn -- who had earned a reputation as a womanizer -- of attempted rape in 2003.
He has denied having any detailed knowledge of that attack, but it led to top fellow Socialist presidential hopeful Francois Hollande being quizzed by police last week.
Strauss-Kahn's U.S. accuser was working as a chamber maid when she says she was attacked in a suite on the Sofitel's 28th floor.
She told Newsweek she had called out "Hello, housekeeping" as she entered the room, before a naked man with white hair appeared.
"Oh, my God," she said. "I'm so sorry." And she turned to leave. "You don't have to be sorry," the man allegedly replied. But he was like "a crazy man to me."
She said the man clutched her breasts and slammed the door. He allegedly then pushed her to her knees, gripped her head hard and tried to force his penis into her mouth. "He was moving and making a noise. He was going like 'uhh, uhh, uhh,'" the woman said.
"I got up. I was spitting. I run. I run out of there. I don't turn back. I run to the hallway. I was so nervous. I was so scared. I didn't want to lose my job."
Diallo said the whole incident took less than 15 minutes and as she hid in the corridor trying to compose herself, she saw him come out of his room dressed, with his luggage. He nodded at her and then stared straight ahead, saying nothing.
Strauss-Kahn's lawyers slammed her attorneys' behavior as "unprofessional."
"Her lawyers know that her claim for money suffers a fatal blow when the criminal charges are dismissed, as they must be," William Taylor and Benjamin Brafman said.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2011 00:00 ||
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[Emirates 24/7] The mother of Amy Winehouse's ex-husband Blake Fielder-Civil is terrified her son will "kill himself" over her death. That would be nearly as great a loss to civilization as the late Amy's demise...
Georgette Fielder-Civil - whose son was divorced from Amy in 2009 after two years of marriage- is worried that Blake, who is currently serving 32 months in prison for burglary and possession of an imitation firearm, ... and littering...
will self-harm while in jail when he hears about the singer's demise from a suspected overdose on Sunday
She told the Daily Star Sunday: "I can't believe it. I could cry.
"Blake will kill himself. He won't make it without her. He will be devastated, totally and utterly devastated. He'll go straight back to self-harming. I'll have to ring the prison and he'll have to be put on watch.
"He was always ringing her and she was always ringing him. Blake always wanted her back. She couldn't walk away from him and he couldn't walk away from her. Her and Blake were both lost and we handled it badly."
Meanwhile, ...back at the abandoned silver mine, the water was up to Jack's neck and still rising... it is believed Amy's post-mortem will not take place before today. If it's today and it hasn't already then by definition it won't.
Although it had been suggested her funeral would be held yestarday, in keeping with Jewish tradition, a statement from London's Metropolitan Police has ruled this out. The statement said: "Death of Amy Winehouse - a date and time for the post-mortem will not be scheduled before Monday morning." Oh, dear! I'm just so interested in what she died of! I'll bet it was heart failure.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Must be love - ALMOST-KURT-COBAIN STYLE.
Kurt followed Courtney around Guam like a lovesick puppy - it appears Blakey is the same???
"I want to believe" it was the same for Anna Nicole Smith.
#4
In other news - Amy Winehouse was cremated today. Hazmat Level Four procedures in effect, and a small flash-fire was quickly put down. The town's inhabitants were allowed to return to their homes late afternoon with a chlorine bleach spray for exposed surfaces.....that is all
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/26/2011 19:39 Comments ||
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#5
Who? And who? And I'm supposed to give a rat's patootie because....?
Posted by: Barbara ||
07/26/2011 20:15 Comments ||
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[An Nahar] A man suffered life-threatening burns Monday after a portaloo he was using exploded apparently after he lit a cigarette.
Paging Charles Darwin! Darwin to the white courtesy phone!
The victim, who was taking part in a joint Australia-United States military exercise at the time, was rushed to hospital with burns to his head, face, arms, chest and airways after the incident at Rockhampton airport.
"There was some sort of explosion in a portaloo. It's believed the man was lighting a cigarette at the time," a Department of Community Safety spokeswoman said.
"He was taken to the Rockhampton hospital in a serious condition."
A spokeswoman from the military operation -- Talisman Sabre -- confirmed the explosion, but could not say if an Australian or American was involved.
"I can confirm that an incident has happened but we're still gathering information," she told the Courier-Mail newspaper.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2011 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] A 50-year-old South African man thought to be dead woke up in a chilly morgue on Sunday and shouted to be let out, scaring off two attendants who thought he was a ghost, local media reported.
"His family thought he had died," health front man Sizwe Kupelo told the Sapa news agency.
"The family called a private undertaker who took what they thought was a dead body to the morgue, but the man woke up inside the morgue on Sunday at 5:00 pm and screamed, demanding to be taken out of the cold place."
This caused two mortuary attendants on duty to flee the building in the small town of Libode in the rural Eastern Cape as they thought it was a ghost.
After calling for help and returning to find the man alive, an ambulance was sent to fetch the man who had "been exposed to extreme cold for nearly 24 hours" said Kupelo.
He said the public should not assume that a sick person had died and contact a mortuary, the report said.
"Doctors, emergency workers and the police are the only people who have a right to examine the patients and determine if they are dead or not."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Well, ya know, it is the GWCC "ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE"!
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Supporters of President Bob Muggsy Mugabe's Octogenarian President-for-Life of Zim-bob-we who turned the former Breadbasket of Africa into the African Basket Case... Zanu PF party on Sunday assaulted an MP and four journalists as they disrupted a parliamentary committee receiving submissions on a proposed human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... law.
Journalists who were caught in the mayhem said a crowd of more than 200 Zanu PF supporters stormed the parliament building singing revolutionary songs.
A woman reportedly attacked an MP from Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party accusing him of not singing the national anthem.
The politician was dragged out of the building and was repeatedly assaulted. Journalists from privately owned newspapers were also locked inside the building and heavily assaulted.
One journalist was reportedly injured in the pandemonium. The Zim-bob-we Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) said police who loyal to Mugabe did nothing to stop the bad turbans.
"Eventually the mob left the building and spent considerable time dancing and protesting outside parliament," ZLHR said in a statement.
"Police did nothing to disperse the crowd even when they attacked vehicles and members of the public who were passing by."
A similar meeting in the southern city of Masvingo was abandoned on Thursday after the Zanu PF supporters turned rowdy.
MPs say Zanu PF is not happy with the proposed law because it seeks to deal with human rights violations dating back to the country's independence in 1980.
Mugabe deployed the army in the southern parts of the country which killed more than 20 000 civilians. His party is also accused of perpetrating political violence in previous elections.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Octogenarian President-for-Life of Zim-bob-we who turned the former Breadbasket of Africa into the African Basket Case...
....who was installed in 1980 by fawning UK and US politicians and black majority rule advocates. But then again "it is easy, when you live ten thousand miles away, to prescribe solutions, knowing that if the whole thing blows upa and goes sour, you do not have to live with the results."
[Bangla Daily Star] A Dhaka court on Monday asked Tarique Rahman, senior vice-chairman of BNP, to appear before it on August 8 in a money laundering case.
Judge Mohammad Mozammel Hossain of the Special Judge's Court-3 passed the order as 'Tarique did not appear before the court for a single day in the case'.
The court further said if Tarique, elder son of BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia Three-term PM of Bangla, widow of deceased dictator Ziaur Rahman, head of the Bangla Nationalist Party, an apparent magnet for corruption ... , fails to appear before it on the scheduled day, charge will be framed against him in his absence.
Meanwhile, ...back at the the conspirators' cleverly concealed hideout the long-awaited message arrived. They quickly got to work with their decoder rings... the court adjourned the hearing on charge framing against Tarique's business partner Giasuddin Al Mamun, another accused in the case, till August 8 following a time petition.
Mamun's lawyer placed the petition on the ground that a writ petition have been submitted with the High Court on behalf of Tarique seeking to quash the case but hearing on the petition remains pending.
Tarique's lawyer also submitted a petition seeking adjournment of the hearing on the ground that the Supreme Court has rejected a review petition submitted on behalf of Tarique.
The lawyer, however, did not receive the certified copy of the judgement and so prayed for the adjournment of the hearing.
Prosecution lawyer Anisul Huq told the court that there is no ground for seeking adjournment of the hearing against Tarique.
Since Mamun's lawyer could not get any stay order from the higher court, there was no legal bar to frame charges against him, he said.
The judge, however, did not pass any order on the petition filed on behalf of Tarique on Monday.
Mamun was present during the hearing while Tarique had gone abroad earlier for medical treatment.
Previously on May 5, the Metropolitan Sessions Judge's Court took into cognisance the charges against Tarique and Mamun and transferred the money laundering case to the Special Judge's Court-3 for its quick disposal.
According to the Supreme Court's (SC) verdict on February 9 this year, proceedings of the case against Tarique cannot run under the Money Laundering Prevention Act 2009 as the alleged offence took place before its enactment.
However, there's more than one way to stuff a chicken... the trial can proceed under the 2002 act, the SC added.
On July 6 last year, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) pressed charges against the duo for laundering Tk 20.41 crore between 2003 and 2007.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
When The Hell Is America going to wake up and send these idiotic freaks packing? Everyday just another reason to vomit with all the things they pass or try to do to this country.
Posted by: One Eyed Dark Lord of the Geats7832 ||
07/26/2011 10:45 Comments ||
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#2
45 Senators guarantees no treaty, and that would generally be the end of it. Why negotiate a treaty that that the Senate has pre-nullified for you? But this administration is above such menial things and will boldly forge ahead.
#4
"Why negotiate a treaty that that the Senate has pre-nullified for you?"
Kyoto comes to mind, Iblis. Perhaps AlBore or Clinton can explain why (other than that they're just idiots). I suspect it has something to do with impressing their "friends" on the far Left.
Posted by: Barbara ||
07/26/2011 13:10 Comments ||
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#5
More insidious than that. The way the scoundrels are writing treaties today is to do so in such a way that nations "commit before agreement", in which the leaders agree to target "goals" in their nations, before the treaty has been approved and signed.
This turns things around, by requiring majority *disapproval* of a treaty, rather than *approval* before at least parts of it are implemented.
For example, when Clinton was leaving office, he signed on to the ICC treaty, forcing Bush and the Republican controlled senate to say "Hell no!" Even before then, the Republican senate had rejected the signed Test Ban treaty.
We still have the damned Kyoto agreement over our heads, because while the senate won't confirm, it won't trash can it, at least yet.
#1
Man, what kind of crooked weasel do you have to be to get D.C voters AND city councilmen to call for your resignation? Perhaps he wasn't "giving back" to the community.
[Dawn] The Supreme Court on Monday directed the government to reinstate a team previously investigating the Haj corruption case, DawnNews reported.
The order was issued during a hearing of the case.
The apex court also directed former interior secretary and Director General of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to appear during the case's upcoming hearing.
During today's proceedings, Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry stated that concerned officers are transferred off the probe as soon as they begin to make progress in the case.
Earlier also, the court has expressed displeasure and frustration with the slow pace of investigation into mismanagement in last year's Haj operations.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2011 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] Lethargy on part of federal government to mobilise international donors and last minute spanner by World Bank to seek third party validation of official data has added to miseries of hundreds of thousands people affected by the worst floods in the country's history last year, according to sources.
"Moreover, the government has backed out of its commitment to pay Rs80,000 to every affected family for reconstruction of house. It has now slashed the amount by half, meaning that each household will now get Rs40,000," they added.
Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani ... Pakistain's erstwhile current prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ... had earlier announced Rs80,000 compensation for each family affected by the disaster. However, there's more than one way to stuff a chicken... after lapse of one year the last installment has still not been paid because of delay in compilation and validation of data of affected population and pooling funds. The affected people have received Rs20,000 through Watan Card scheme so far.
Officials said that federal government and donors agencies including World Bank, United States Agency for International Development and Department for International Development had pledged to contribute $580 million to the funds set up for the flood affected people. The World Bank has pledged $125 million soft loan.
The bank, an official said, had now linked release of the loan with third party validation in flood affected areas. He said that the bank finished third party assessment in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... but it had yet to release the report formally.
He said that sample survey by the bank had not been initiated in Sindh and Punjab, causing delay in payment of compensation money.
The catastrophic floods had played havoc across the country in July 2010, killing over 1,600 people and rendered millions of people homeless. Only in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, about 300,000 families were affected by the disaster that swallowed huge infrastructure.
To stand eligible for the cash assistance, millions of affected people have to face problems due to extensive paperwork and red-tape. The poor people, who have lost their abodes and properties in the floods, desperately need cash to rebuild their houses.
Syed Badshah, a resident of Banda Sheikh Ismailkhel, a hamlet near the bank of the Kabul River in Nowshera district, has been living with relatives along with seven children since floods washed away his mud house. "If government gives money then I will be able to reconstruct my house otherwise I don't have anything," said 48-year-old Badshah.
Areas like Muhib Banda, Pashtoon Ghari and other severely affected areas in Nowshera still wear a destructive look and people have to content with living in semi-constructed houses.
Agriculture and dairy farming are the main sources of income of affected people. But a large number of people had lost their cattle in the flood.
Some donor agencies and NGOs have done some work, but they had not been reached to the conditions in which they were before last year flood.
In many cases, people are using plastic sheets instead of boundary walls of their houses, which were washed away by 10 to 12 feet deep water.
Mohammad Riaz, a resident of Rahimabad locality, said that an NGO had constructed 80 rooms and 42 bathrooms in Pashtoon Ghari while some donor agencies installed hand pumps and reconstructed embankments of water channels.
The NGOs had also distributed wheat seeds and fertilisers free of cost, enabling the farmers to cultivate their lands.
"The government should give soft loans to people to restart their businesses instead of leaving fields for NGOs and donors," Mr Riaz said. However, there's more than one way to skin a cat... future of the affected people depends upon the government and donor agencies. Officials are hopeful
about payment of the remaining amount within the next two months.
An official in the Provincial Disaster Management Authority said that remaining payment was likely to be started by the end of August or September next provided donor agencies endorsed third party validation report in other provinces.
He said that compensation would be paid through Watan Cards under the supervision of the bank.
Officials said that 300,000 Watan Cards had been distributed in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and according to PDMA 14,000 card holders had not been paid fist installment due to multiple reasons.
Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa needs Rs12 billion to be paid to the card holders if federal government and donors fulfil their pledges.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2011 00:00 ||
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AFP - Bakhsh Ali Lashari has spent the last year living in a tent since floods devastated a third of Pakistan. His home is no longer under water, but death threats mean he's never going back.
The monsoon-triggered floods -- the worst in Pakistani history -- affected up to 21 million people, killed another 1,750 and ran up losses of $10 billion; a year later a shattered economy has barely recovered.
Lashari's part of southern Pakistan was one of the worst hit areas, submerged in gushing waters that took months to recede. But the disaster gave him a chance to break free from centuries of oppression. He is one of thousands who prefer life in rotting camps to returning to feudal estates where debts and marriages can end in death. Lashari had a steady income as a labourer in Jacobabad, 375 kilometres (234 miles) north of Karachi, but said life became unbearable when an influential tribe took against one of their women marrying one of his relatives.
"We are poor peasants but as members of a tribe we're bound to follow our chieftains and fight against rivals. But I don't want to see any of my children killed in such feuds."
"The couple suddenly disappeared and the influential tribe threatened all of us with death," said Lashari, wearing just baggy shalwar trousers and standing in a tent city on the fringes of Sukkur city. "We couldn't have moved away in normal circumstances. Then the floods came and we fled. It was a blessing in disguise. We are not going back now." His camp, lying under a bridge, was one of scores set up by foreign aid groups, the United Nations and local charities in August 2010.
But as waters have receded, many relief organisations abandoned the camps, dismantling education programmes and leaving behind uncomfortable, sagging tents where thousands have remained, either unable or unwilling to go home. "They have nothing to lose if they don't go home," said Jaffer Memon, who edits a newspaper in the southern city of Hyderabad and who worked as a volunteer during the floods. "In fact they'll get rid of feuds, burgeoning debts and lethal customs that force them to marry off minor daughters to elderly men to settle feuds, and kill their mothers, wives, sisters and daughters in the name of honour," said Memon.
Deedar Ali Jatoi, an ailing grandfather from the town of Garhi Khero, whose entire family has moved into tents, couldn't agree more. His community was locked in a feud with a rival tribe that killed dozens of loved ones on both sides. "We've decided never to return. We don't want to put our lives in danger again," he told AFP in the same tent city on the edge of Sukkur, where women cook on makeshift wooden stoves and younger children play naked outside.
"We are poor peasants but as members of a tribe we're bound to follow our chieftains and fight against rivals. But I don't want to see any of my children killed in such feuds."
"We have started earning now and can support our families. We're not going anywhere. We want homes here, not there," Jatoi said. In Hyderabad, hundreds of flood survivors are camped out in the corridors of buildings of a new fruit market. Most found the wages double what they were earning back home -- up to $4.50 a day for menial jobs.
Those who returned home have tales of woe. "Our houses have been under water for months and are too dangerous to live in," said Virsingh Patel, 34, a peasant from a Hindu village near Hyderabad. "We were given just a few bricks to construct our homes. We have no money to purchase cement and extra bricks to make our homes safe," said Patel.
Nadeem Ahmed, who was chairman of the National Disaster Management Authority during the floods, acknowledged the shortcomings, which he attributed to a lack of donation pledges -- in sharp contrast with the response after the 2005 earthquake. "Now where things have really gone wrong is the reconstruction," he told reporters in Islamabad on Thursday. "Out of those $10 billion required for reconstruction, I think hardly $1 billion or $1.5 billion have been committed so far. So there is a huge gap towards rebuilding or reconstruction."
In Patel's village, Radha Kolhi, 50, pointed to a picture of her dead husband hanging on a cracked wall and clothes and utensils lumped in a corner. "Even if we can rebuild our house, we'll never live without fear.
"The flood washed away the hurdles between us and the river, so now even a smaller flood can send us in camps," she said.
Lockheed Martins prototype High Altitude Airship may make its maiden voyage from the Akron Airdock soon. The solar-powered blimp technically called the High Altitude Long Endurance Demonstrator or HALE-D has been delayed for years because of federal funding problems. At 240 feet long and 70 feet in diameter, this prototype airship is bigger than the 192-foot long, 55-foot diameter Spirit of Goodyear blimp. The test flight is intended to take the untethered airship as high as 60,000 feet over central Ohio until its tests are completed. No limit was given on how long the tests may take. The blimp will be floating above the jet stream in the stratosphere, higher than where commercial jets fly, Lockheed Martin said.
Its possible but unlikely that people will be able to see the blimp overhead on a clear day, Lockheed Martin said.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/26/2011 10:00 Comments ||
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#2
Airships seem to have a perpetual, general purpose curse on them. About the only long term success story with them are the Goodyear blimps.
And yet, there is a huge military need for such airships, as they can perform detailed surveillance over a vast area; act as a very high bandwidth communications relay; as a much more powerful AWACS controlling the airspace of an entire region; and even working as part of an anti-ballistic missile system.
Airships seem to have a perpetual, general purpose curse on them.
This one, for example, is in Akron.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
07/26/2011 18:20 Comments ||
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#5
Mariah is hating on airships always.
Posted by: S ||
07/26/2011 18:30 Comments ||
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#6
US-WORLD NAVAL AIRCRAFT CARRIERS = GREAT OR MASSIVE "OFFENSIVE" POWER BUT ALSO GREAT VULNERABILITY.
Ditto HT AIRSHIPS as per GREAT OR MASSIVE "DEFENSIVE" POWER MIXED WID GREAT VULNERABILITY.
Think integrated "a fully-armed B52 BUFF, Recce-SPAWAR, AC130 SPECTRE, andor BMD Sys that hardly or never leaves a combat area or strategic zone".
AFAIK the US Army + USDOD-DARPA are dev WIP designs for utility as an AIRBORNE RR = ORBITAL TROOPS, CARGO LARGE-UNIT/QUANTITY MIL TRANSPORT.
The Cold War Soviets recognized the above potential of Airships + deemed it as inherently "destabilizing", demanding that neither US-NATO nor their own WARSAW PACT ever develop + deploy same for military purposes.
#7
There has been some very good systems. RAID was one that deployed balloons on a cable high above Baghdad and gave great intel on the plantings of IED's. The future is remote control and it's very Orwellian.
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.