#1
SPACEWAR > TERRA DAILY > Large parts of South China, and Asia, at risk of flooding due to rising sea levels + storms due to Global Warming. Also in SPACEWAR > NORWAY - NOAH's ARK OF SEEDS PUT DEEP INTO MOUNTAIN.
#2
Forgot to post that GLOBAL/SOLAR-UNIVERSAL WARMING > Next ICE AGE may be delayed by roughly/circa 500,000 years. IOW, Humanity can expect to be hit by GLOBAL FOGGING = MOTHER OF ALL WORLD-COVERING FOG/FOG-ZILLA. *Once more, D ***nged CARS PLUS Commercials!
#3
Don't forget that paving and roofs increase the risk of flooding. And deforestation and logging, especially clear-cutting.
But enginers can (somewhat) precisely calulate the increase and design to mitigate the increase; it just costs more. As opposed to 'more' CO2 results in 'less' transpiration by plants, resulting in 'more than previously thought' risks of flooding.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/30/2007 6:30 Comments ||
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#4
What that article seems to miss is that plants put water vapor into the atmosphere. Water vapor is a more common and potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
Of course, without water vapor in the atmosphere we would all die.
An outbreak of cholera in two northern Iraqi provinces has claimed the lives of eight people and left dozens more infected with the disease, Kurdistan's regional Health Minister Zeryan Othman said Wednesday.
Othman made his comments during a visit to Azadi hospital in this northern oil-rich city along with a delegation from the central Health Ministry in Baghdad. Earlier this week, Othman spoke about dozens of cases in the city of Sulaimaniyah. "There are 47 cholera cases in Kirkuk and 35 in Sulaimaniyah. This is in addition to 2,250 people suffering from diarrhea in Sulaimaniyah and 2,000 similar cases in Kirkuk," Othman told reporters during a news conference held in this ethnically-mixed city. "Seven people died in Sulaimaniyah and one in Kirkuk," the minister added.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/30/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
An entirely preventable disease. I thought this part of the country had pretty much fixed its infrastructure - stuff like water treatment plants; I guess not. Rule #1: drink from upstream of the latrine.
A Bangladesh court sentenced former minister Shahjahan Siraj to eight years in jail on Wednesday for not paying income tax, court officials said.
The court ordered his wife Rabeya Siraj and son Rajib Siraj to also serve eight years each in jail for helping the ex-minister to conceal taxable income. The special anti-corruption court passed sentence in the absence of the accused, who police said have been in hiding since the army-backed interim government launched a nationwide drive against corruption after taking charge in January this year. Siraj served as a cabinet minister in the government of the most recent prime minister, Begum Khaleda Zia.
This article starring:
Begum Khaleda Zia
his wife Rabeya Siraj
Shahjahan Siraj
son Rajib Siraj
Posted by: Fred ||
08/30/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
If China has so little regard for over 15% of their own populationthat's some 225,000,000 peoplejust try to imagine how dreadfully worried they must be about a few of us capitalist running dogs and cats getting poisoned by their cadres of unscrupulous hucksters.
China's Mandarins are not worried about "business". In fact, the Politburo's endemic corruption and arbitrary regulatory structure are exceptionally "bad for business". Such capricious and fickle government interference with free enterprise means that business operators ignore all concepts of safety, hygiene and workmanship standards in order to temporarily maximize profit. This overwhelming sense of uncertainty derives from how an individual's factory or shop might be closed, appropriated or confiscated on the merest whim.
The Politburo is concerned with only one thing, PROFIT. Revenues translate into graft, bribery and skimming which is where over 90% of political wealth originates in China. They could give a damn about what's "bad for business" (as usual), so long as the money is green keeps flowing. Cause even a minuscule hiccup in that and you'd better have your will written out.
#4
LUCIANNE > NASA> GLOBAL WARMING > EARTH TO SEE MORE INTENSE TORNADOES, STORMS. *D *** ng it, see See X-MEN 2:REVOLUTION - Mutuant Babe STORM wipes out two pursuing F-16's wid ferocious waterspouts/sea tornadoes. D *** ng it Part Deux, D***nged SEA TORNADOES AREN'T D ***NGED EVEN NEAR D*** ng GUAM - WTH made this flick???
#5
ION, KOMMERSANT > CHINA no longer the potential enemy of Eussia [new 2007 Russ Poll]; + RIAN > Russian PACFLT NAVEX no threat to Russia's neighbors. Russ ASW units intercept anti-ship missles.
Chinese Defence Minister Cao Gangchuan is to begin a five-day visit to Japan for talks with top military leaders. Mr Cao is expected to meet his newly-installed counterpart, Masahiko Komura, and inspect Japanese Self-Defence Force troops.
His visit is the first by a Chinese defence minister in over nine years. It is being seen as a sign of improving Sino-Japanese ties, which were strained under Japan's former Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi. China had objected to Mr Koizumi's repeated visits to a controversial war-linked shrine, and high-levels summits were suspended over the issue.
But since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took office in September 2006, ties have warmed and Mr Cao's visit is being seen as a chance for further thawing.
Too bad Mr. Abe can't find a suitable stick to poke them with.
The talks between the two defence ministers are likely to focus on confidence-building measures such as naval exchanges and the setting up of a military-to-military hotline.
But as ever, says the BBC's Rob Watson, the symbolism is as important as the substance, with both Tokyo and Beijing seemingly intent on better relations.
No kidding, Rob?
Analysts say the change in mood reflects a growing feeling among senior Japanese officials both inside and outside the military that China is too big and too important to ignore. To some extent Japan is following the lead of the US, which has clearly softened its line towards China under Defence Secretary Robert Gates, our correspondent adds.
But Tokyo and Beijing are hedging their bets, with both simultaneously pursuing military modernisation programmes just in case.
A heap of discarded documents has helped the national military intelligence service (VZ) uncover an intricate database used to shield secret agents during the communist era.
The VZ completed a three-year project Aug. 13 to reconstruct the records of the former military counterintelligence unit (VKR), the communist secret police StBs military branch.
After sifting through 112,803 documents unearthed four years ago in a Defense Ministry storage room, the VZ uncovered a coded system that investigators had tried to crack since the fall of the communist regime.
The reconstruction reveals a history of systematic cover-ups intended to conceal the identities of StB agents who continued to hold intelligence posts after the revolution.
Even 13 years after the revolution, the VZ had incomplete information about the individuals in its databases, says VZ spokesman Ladislav ticha. The new information may launch new queries into the credibility of current intelligence service employees. The addition of these documents will play a decisive role in future screenings and lustrations, ticha says.
While they do not reveal the names of previously unknown StB agents and collaborators, the recovered documents may affect the status of individuals who previously passed security screenings intended to flush out henchmen of the old regime.
Evidence about these individuals already existed in the VZs database, which the VKR handed over to the VZ after the departments dissipation in 1990.
The secret system allowed agents to purposely misidentify their status in the official database, where high-ranking agents were given low-risk flags, such as under investigation or confidant.
In the recently recovered secret database, these same individuals are identified as active collaborators, secret agents and spies. According to ticha, these agents continued to work for the Defense Ministry after the revolution. In the end, 221 VKR agents were employed at the emergent VZ, ticha says. Considering the fact that the VKR was dissolved as one of the main pillars of the oppressive power of the communist regime, its a surprisingly high number.
The secret documents were discovered four years ago, after security concerns voiced by VZ leadership led then Defense Minister Miroslav Kostelka to issue an order that all materials formerly under the control of the VKR be consolidated under the VZ.
A resulting department-wide inventory led to the discovery of 202 sacks of documents stashed away in a Defense Ministry storage room and labeled as unimportant, ticha says.
Before sending them to the shredder, investigators performed a routine checkup, and were amazed to discover myriad classified material including memoranda, cooperation contracts and meeting records. For 10 years, no one missed or bothered to look for these documents, ticha says. While no one can say who hid them, its logical that the former VKR agents who managed to survive in office after 1990 and were given control of these documents would have had an interest in their disappearance.
An attempt to destroy the documents was made in 1993, when former VKR agents presented then Defense Minister Antonín Baudy with a request to shred the documents as unimportant material. Luckily, they were unable to convince Baudy to sign the request, ticha says.
More about the security risks posed by the former commies at the link.
German federal court on Tuesday ordered a retrial for two brothers acquitted of fatally shooting their sister in what prosecutors have described as an ''honor killing'' meant to punish the Turkish-German woman for her Western lifestyle.
Gee, we haven't heard that one before.
A Berlin court last year acquitted the two _ Mutlu Surucu and Alpaslan Surucu, both in their mid-20s _ of murder, citing lack of sufficient evidence of their involvement in the 2005 killing of Hatan Surucu, 23. However, the court convicted her youngest brother _ Ayhan Surucu, who was 18 at the time of the crime _ as a juvenile and sentenced him to nine years and three months for the murder.
He'll be out when he's 21.
The case outraged Germans and raise questions about similar instances of forced marriages and abuses of young Turkish-German women seeking a Western lifestyles. It also prompted calls for better integration of the nation's roughly 2.7 million Turks, many of them second- and third-generation immigrants.
And rob them of their culture? Heaven forfend!
Boy howdy that integration thing is done so well by our Y'urp-peon betters.
While Ayhan's conviction is unaffected by Tuesday's ruling, the Federal Court of Justice granted prosecutors' plea to overturn the two acquittals and ordered a retrial in Berlin for the elder brothers, who have denied involvement in the murder.
No double-jeopardy?
The federal court faulted the Berlin judges for failing to evaluate adequately evidence given during the trial by a friend of the youngest brother.
Hatun Surucu, a 23-year-old divorced mother, was killed by three shots to her head in February 2005 on a Berlin street near her home. Hatan Surucu, a German citizen, was born and raised in Berlin. In 1998, she was forced to return to Turkey to marry a cousin. A year later, she gave birth to a son in Berlin and refused to return with her husband to Turkey, prosecutors said.
She and her son then moved out of her parents' home against their will and continued her studies, entering an apprenticeship as an electrician, prosecutors said.
Sounds like she was trying to integrate. Maybe her family wasn't so keen on integration? Something the Euros might want to look into.
Among her brothers, Mutlu Surucu also is a nominal German citizen; Ayhan and Alpaslan are Turkish citizens. According to their attorneys, both Mutlu and Alpaslan are in Turkey.
Since they have a clear idea of the decadesyearsmonths weeks they might spend in a German resorthotel prison if they return.
It was not immediately clear if the brothers would attend the trial, although Germany could ask for Mutlu's extradition.
Might ask the new Turkish President Gul Dukat to help out on this one; see if he really means what he says.
Prosecutors argued at the start of the Berlin trial that Surucu's brothers lured her to a bus stop with the intent of killing her because they were ashamed of her Western lifestyle.
Yup, brazen hussy, studying, working, making money, looking after herself, fitting into an infidel society, obviously had to be killed ...
During the proceedings, Ayhan Surucu admitted to the murder, saying he regretted the act but insisting his two older brothers were not involved.
There was no immediate word on a date for the retrial.
#1
The double-jeopardy principle is only recognized in legal systems derived from England.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
08/30/2007 0:47 Comments ||
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#2
No double-jeopardy?
This assumes that they were in jeopardy of being punished the first time around. It's a European court, so whatever the punishment just about any crime will probably be worth the time.
#4
I should add, that the reason I posted the picture is - that we must confront the Politically Correct Totalitarians who say we should understand other cultures.
Well, this was murder. And there are some actions that are wrong, and to say they are wrong is truth. Simply, acts of evil can supercede "culture". This lady was a victim of evil family members.
This is a perfect use for the death penalty, but the Eurowusses sensibilities are afraid to re-instate it.
They may not think they are evil, but they are evil in the purest form. If they are in any communication with God, they would know not to do this, but they are obviously not in any communiction with God.
#1
I could use some money mr Hzu... maybe I need to run for dogcatcher or something. You are getting too much publicity with bribing Hillary... just send it my way.
#4
Well, so I didn't read the whole article, but it seemed to me the real thrust of the story was that there really was no liberal bias (yeah, right!) in the MSM, it was all due to the fact that Trunks are camera shy.
Which may be true, but it doesn't mean there's no liberal bias, either!
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/30/2007 16:18 Comments ||
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KATHMANDU - A United Nations team reviewing Nepals electoral process in the run-up to key elections in November said Wednesday that the countrys security situation had not improved.
Wanna bet the gummint's failings are splashed high and the murders committed by the Maoists are pretty much ignored?
The UN comments came in a report by Electoral Expert Monitoring Team (EEMT) which was handed over to the Nepalese government and the countrys election commission. EEMT was in Nepal for its second visit in late July to early August.
The report details the findings of this second visit, with a mention that the security situation has not improved since the first visit in June, United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) said. The EEMT states that establishing an adequate security environment for the Constituent Assembly election will depend not so much on the number of police or arms deployed, but on cooperation between political parties and clear instructions to their activists in the districts.
The team also felt Nepalese press faced serious limitations in reporting and distributing newspapers, especially in the southern Nepalese plains known as Terai.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/30/2007 00:00 ||
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The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) central executive committee (CEC) on Wednesday decided that the Sharif family including former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and former Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif would land in Islamabad before September 15, and Nawaz Sharif would make a formal announcement in this regard today (Thursday). The sources said that the CEC meeting finalised all arrangements for the Sharifs homecoming. The Sharif family would land at the Islamabad airport and then taken to Lahore in a procession. They added that if the Sharif brothers were arrested, then Nawazs wife Kulsoom Nawaz would lead the procession.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/30/2007 00:00 ||
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Nawaz Sharif, former prime minister and PML-N chief, said on Wednesday General Pervez Musharrafs offer to step down as army chief was too little, too late, and that he planned to return to Pakistan within a fortnight to lead a campaign to oust the general, AFP reported. Musharraf does not qualify to be a presidential candidate, whether in or out of uniform ... He has lost credibility and the people of Pakistan want him out, Nawaz told The Telegraph in an interview. Speaking to the Financial Times, Nawaz said that Benazir Bhuttos attempts to deal with Musharraf were a setback and a clear violation of a deal agreed between the two former prime ministers to do no deals with military dictators. She decided to go down a different path, he said, but added that Benazirs discussions with Musharraf were offset by the overwhelming support of the people for the end of military rule.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/30/2007 00:00 ||
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Representatives from the Arab countries will meet in Dubai to attempt to bridge the widening Internet & Technology gap between the Middle East and the rest of the world.
Be careful what you wish for.
Dubai will host the region's second annual Government Technology (GT) Summit and Exhibition on November 19th. A total of 11 Arab countries, including all the Gulf states, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Syria and Yemen will take part in the gathering, and focus on challenging issues in technology facing the governments in the Arab world.
The internet is information. Islam doesn't thrive on information. It thrives on the Koran.
The Middle East ranks 6 out of the 7 regions of the world in terms of the population of Internet users, according to a recent Internet World Statistics report, lagging behind Africa, and scraping in ahead of Australia in last place.
They're referring to numbers of users there, not to percentage of population. Australia has fewer people than the Arab world.
People in the U.S. below the poverty line have a higher internet use than people in the Middle East.
The question is, will the attending decision-makers be capable of leading their respective countries out of the current bleak state for the Middle East?
Do they, in fact, want to?
Officials in communications, commerce, education, finance, health, infrastructure and public works are expected to attend - but will they rise above the bureaucracy and status quo to generate a shift towards economies that are driven efficiently by electronic business?
My guess is they won't.
Back in the early 70s more than one IT system was developed around the fact that executives wouldn't touch a keyboard. Then a few began to realize that their competitors with info savvy CEOs were wiping their clocks and suddenly MBA spreadsheets were all the rage.
In the Arab world, tho, you've got a lot of high status and wannabe-high status males who won't even answer the phone themselves. At least they didn't 20 yrs ago. I guess their kids/grandkids with web enabled cell phones and pr0n downloading skills might make the transition, but somehow I'm doubtful.
Penetration Problems In terms of the percentage of Internet users in each region's population, the Middle East also ranks 6th with 10.8% population penetration. North America ranks highest in population penetration at 69.5%, and Africa is last (7th) with 3.5%.
Lebanon has 700,000 registered Internet users as of one year ago, or 15.4% penetration. The UAE's 1,400,000 users, or 35.1% penetration is the highest among Arab countries. Israel's 3,700,000 users, or 51.1% penetration is the highest in the Middle East. At the bottom of the barrel are Iraq, Yemen, and Syria. With the continuing state of chaos in Iraq, only 36,000 internet users are reported, tallying up to a miserable 0.1% population penetration. Only 1% of Yemen's population has access to the Internet, as do only 5.6% of Syria's population. Use of communication and information technology in the Arab region still lags behind that of landlines and mobiles.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/30/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
The internet cuts across distance and through cultural barriers now, and this tendency will accelerate over time as the technology spreads further and computers are made more proficient at automatic translation. Western values will inevitably be propagated on the grassroots level to some of the most Islamic places on Earth, leading to a revolution in thought which may someday contribute to the reformation of these societies from within. Liberal Western values have proven popular and influential throughout other parts of the world and could be favored eventually even in the most seemingly unlikely places. Changes may not occur fast enough to avert disaster with leaders such as Ahmadinejad in power today, but it does at least offer some hope for a better future.
#3
"Arab countries lagging way behind in Internet access..."
and science... and human rights... and manufacturing...
Posted by: Dar ||
08/30/2007 12:23 Comments ||
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#4
We should be pushing laptops with Internet access throughout the area. Give the cell pnone generation further accesss to information that might counteract their propogandic "education" and teach them to think rather than submit.
#5
I don't believe better access to information is the solution. Remember it is the better western educated Muslims who experience directly the advancement of the West over Islam and resent it the most.
Posted by: Titus Hayes4699 ||
08/30/2007 18:31 Comments ||
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#3
To be published in Energy & Environment. Unfortunately, subscriptions to this journal are about 400 British Pounds, so unless this information is published elsewhere, I doubt it is going to get a lot of reading.
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.
An outbreak of cholera in two northern Iraqi provinces has claimed the lives of eight people and left dozens more infected with the disease, Kurdistan's regional Health Minister Zeryan Othman said Wednesday. 
A Bangladesh court sentenced former minister 
Chinese Defence Minister Cao Gangchuan is to begin a five-day visit to Japan for talks with top military leaders. Mr Cao is expected to meet his newly-installed counterpart, Masahiko Komura, and inspect Japanese Self-Defence Force troops. 
German federal court on Tuesday ordered a retrial for two brothers acquitted of fatally shooting their sister in what prosecutors have described as an ''honor killing'' meant to punish the Turkish-German woman for her Western lifestyle.
Dubai will host the region's second annual Government Technology (GT) Summit and Exhibition on November 19th. A total of 11 Arab countries, including all the Gulf states, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Syria and Yemen will take part in the gathering, and focus on challenging issues in technology facing the governments in the Arab world.
In terms of the percentage of Internet users in each region's population, the Middle East also ranks 6th with 10.8% population penetration. North America ranks highest in population penetration at 69.5%, and Africa is last (7th) with 3.5%.
