(Xinhua) -- The talks between Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF and opposition MDC to end Zimbabwe's political and economic crisis are set to resume Sunday, South African President Thabo Mbeki said after meeting his Zimbabwean counterpart Robert Mugabe.
Mbeki flew to Harare for discussions with Mugabe after the talks adjourned on Tuesday amid suggestions by the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) that they were deadlocked, the South African Press Association reported.
Mbeki said he had already met Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the bigger faction of the MDC, in Pretoria on Tuesday after the negotiations adjourned, and would meet the leader of another MDC faction later Wednesday.
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Posted by: Fred ||
07/31/2008 00:00 ||
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The Bangladesh government has created a truth commission to allow corrupt politicians and business owners to avoid jail if they confess and refund any illegally obtained money.
President Iajuddin Ahmed says the three-member Truth and Accountability Commission will be headed by a fomer high court judge and will take submissions for the next five months.
It's hoped the new body will clear a massive backlog of cases built up during the anti-graft campaign launched by the interim government when it took power at the start of last year.
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Posted by: Fred ||
07/31/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
The Bangladesh government has created a truth commission to allow corrupt politicians and business owners to avoid jail if they confess and refund any illegally obtained money.
Turkey's Islamist-rooted ruling party narrowly escaped being banned Wednesday for undermining secularism as the Constitutional Court decided to punish it with financial sanctions instead. Six of the court's 11 judges voted in favour of closing down the Justice and Development Party (AKP) -- just one short of the seven required to implement a ruling, court president Hasim Kilic said..
But he added that the court was still sending the party a "serious warning" by cutting half of the treasury funds it was entitled to this year. The ruling appeared to offer a compromise solution to Turkey's political problems, sparing the country the sort of turmoil a full ban might have unleashed, while also urging the AKP to toe the line. "I hope the party in question will evaluate this outcome very well and get the message it should get," Kilic said. The judges who supported the financial sanctions said the AKP had become a "focal point" of anti-secular activities as the country's chief prosecutor argued, "but not that serious," he said.
The AKP, which won a resounding re-election victory last year, was quick to hail the court decision as a victory for democratic principles. Democratic bar lifted: "With this decision, the bar of democracy has been lifted up," parliamentary speaker Koksal Toptan was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's party was accused of seeking to replace Turkey's secular system with a regime based on Sharia law. Chief prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya had also called for the court to bar President Abdullah Gul, Erdogan and 69 other AKP officials from party politics for five years. Closing down the AKP, which dominates parliament and is still the country's most popular party, could have sparked political chaos, wrecked Turkey's EU accession talks and hit the economy.
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Posted by: Fred ||
07/31/2008 00:00 ||
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Posted by: Fred ||
07/31/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Where he will die of old age, just like Milosevic, before his trial is over.
And if, miracle of miracles, he does survive his trial, he will receive no more than life in prison; probably it will be reduced to time served. (10-15 years)
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
07/31/2008 0:26 Comments ||
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#2
What are you doing for the next ten years or so?
Smoking appears to have sparked a fire that caused $70 million in damage to the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington, Naval officials said Wednesday.
The announcement by the Navy came as Adm. Robert F. Willard, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, ordered that the carrier's commanding officer, Capt. David C. Dykhoff, and the executive officer of duty, Capt. David M. Dober, be relieved of duty.
Willard cited lost confidence in the commanding officer and his failure to meet mission standards after the investigation found unauthorized smoking by a crew member appeared to have ignited flammable liquids and other combustible material that were improperly stored. The other officer was relieved of duty for substandard performance.
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President Bush approved an order Wednesday that rewrites the rules governing spying by U.S. intelligence agencies, both in the United States and abroad, and strengthens the authority of the national intelligence director, according to a U.S. official and government documents.
Executive Order 12333, which lays out the responsibilities of each of the 16 agencies, maintains the decades-old prohibitions on assassination and using unwitting human subjects for scientific experiments, according to a power point briefing given to Congress that was reviewed by The Associated Press. The CIA notoriously tested LSD on human subjects in the 1950s, which was revealed by a Senate investigation in 1977.
The new order gives the national intelligence director, a position created in 2005, new authority over any intelligence information collected that pertains to more than one agency -- an attempt to force greater information exchange among agencies traditionally reluctant to share their most prized intelligence. The order directs the attorney general to develop guidelines to allow agencies access to information held by other agencies. That could potentially include the sharing of sensitive information about Americans.
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#3
However, maybe CIA could contract out with the Halliburton Mind Control Division and plant the thought into mind of a Muslim to take care of it for us ;)
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama says he is offering fundamental change from what he calls "reckless" Republican economic policies that have hammered middle-class families.
The Illinois senator says his rival John McCain plans to stay on the economic course charted by President George W. Bush.
Obama was speaking to thousands jammed into a high school gymnasium in Springfield, Missouri, the first stop on a bus tour devoted to discussing economic security.
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Posted by: Fred ||
07/31/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
If elected, BHO will give new meaning to the word "reckless." Jimmy Carter redux. Or almost certainly worse, since government will have subsumed health care.
#3
Reckless? Like refusing to open up oil exploration of the OCS, obstructing construction of needed power plants and oil shale development with bureaucrats and lawsuits? Moral cowardice in Congress? Playing chicken with the biggest tax increase in the history of the nation? Refusing to see our wounded soldiers because you can't get a photo op out of it?
(Xinhua) -- A House panel voted Wednesday to issue a contempt citation against Karl Rove, a top aide of President George W. Bush.
The 20-14 vote was cast along party lines and held Rove accountable of failing to testify in Congress on "politicization" within the Justice Department scheduled on July 10.
Democrats in the House Judiciary Committee had wanted to question him about his knowledge of the prosecution of former Alabama Democratic Gov. Don Siegelman, as well as the firing of nine U.S. attorneys back in 2006. Rove has denied he has any involvement in the two cases.
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Posted by: Fred ||
07/31/2008 00:00 ||
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#4
Just released -- A federal judge ruled Thursday that Bush administration advisers are not immune to congressional subpoenas.
The decision gives Democrats on Capitol Hill a major victory in their attempts to hamstring the Bush administration through a number of ongoing investigations.
In one of the probes, the House Judiciary Committee wants to question the president's chief of staff, Josh Bolten, and former legal counsel Harriet Miers, about the firing of nine U.S. attorneys. Congress has subpoenaed them both, and issued contempt citations.
But President Bush says the two are immune from such subpoenas and Congress can't force them to testify or turn over documents.
U.S. District Judge John Bates disagreed. He said there's no legal basis for that argument. He said that Miers must appear before Congress and, if she wants to refuse to testify, she must do so in person.
"Harriet Miers is not immune from compelled congressional process; she is legally required to testify pursuant to a duly issued congressional subpoena," Bates wrote.
He said that both Bolten and Miers must give Congress all non-privileged documents related to the firings.
The Bush administration can appeal the ruling.
"This is very good news for anyone who believes in the Constitution and the separation of powers. This has consequences for other contempt citations pending before the House," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters Thursday morning after learning of the decision.
And House Judiciary Committtee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., called the rulling "a ringing reaffirmation of the fundamental principle of checks and balances and the basic American idea that no person is above the law," adding that he expected Miers to testify before his panel in September.
Earlier this year, the full House voted to hold Bolten and Miers in contempt of Congress for failing to testify.
And just yesterday, the House Judiciary Committee voted to hold former White House adviser Karl Rove in contempt of Congress for failing to testify about the firing of the U.S. attorneys, which Democrats allege was done on the basis of political purposes.
House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, downplayed the weight of the decision, saying the case "will go on until next year and be appealed and go through the courts and become a moot issue" after the Bush administration leaves office.
He also dismissed the case as "a political ruse by some Democratic Committee Chairman."
White House spokesman Tony Fratto said: "We're reviewing the decision. We will let you know if we have more comment."
#5
Seems to me they can just blow off congress. If congress wants to hold them in contempt and ever actually get them convicted of anything the President can pardon them. Blow me congress.
Vienna: The Indian safeguards agreement, which the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is set to approve on Friday, will mark the first time a United Nations body recognises the reality, if not the legitimacy, of India possessing nuclear weapons.
But even as they join the consensus that has built up in Vienna, many of the 35 countries who sit on the IAEA board harbour misgivings about the agreement. They will make declarations during the August 1 meeting to clarify that they remain committed to the goal of getting India to give up its nuclear weapons.
In meetings and interviews with several members of the Board, none except Mexico was prepared to go on record about their reservations. "We will support India but we have mixed feelings," Ambassador Alejandro Diaz of Mexico told The Hindu on Thursday.
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Posted by: john frum ||
07/31/2008 16:17 ||
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Now that's biting, incisive journalism, by Gum. Gets right to the point, whatever the hell it is.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/31/2008 00:00 ||
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However, the opposition Likud party said Olmert's announcement was sufficient cause for a general election, after which Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu said he would aspire to establish a national unity government.
hmm.. only seems fair...
#2
yeah, of course Bibi wants an election NOW, with him ahead in the polls, and Kadima without even an official candidate.
Kadima wont buy that. Neither will Labor or Meretz. What the religious parties and smaller rightwing parties will do, I dont know, probably go with Bibi. I dont think Likud can force through elections before Kadima has its primary. Then its a question of whether the new Kadima head (Livni, Im betting) can put together a coalition - and depending on the polls at THAT point, how badly she wants to avoid a new election. If the religious parties ask for a lot of concessions to join a govt, and the polls look close, she can refuse them and go into the elections as the one who stood up to religious party blackmail - as well as the TRUE and COMPETENT heir to Sharon and the Kadima strategy.
#4
Here's my reaction: don't wait for two months, you lying, incompetent, cowardly MF; quit now and call elections so Bibi can get in and start cleaning up the complete mess you've made.
You're a disgrace to Israel, Olmert. You should seriously consider suicide.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert intends to hand his resignation letter to President Shimon Peres the day after the September 17 Kadima primary and ask him to entrust the new party leader with forming a new government, Olmert's associates said Wednesday night.
They spoke soon after the prime minister had made a somber speech at his official residence in Jerusalem in which he announced that he would not seek to retain the leadership.
By law, Olmert will remain prime minister until a new government is formed. If the new Kadima leader forms a government soon after the primary, Olmert will then leave office. But if no new government is established, Olmert, despite having formally tendered his resignation, could remain prime minister until after a general election that would likely be held in spring 2009.
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Posted by: Fred ||
07/31/2008 00:00 ||
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Perhaps he can place a dignified, but somehow mysteriously bitter note, in the Wall for a skulking journalist to print for posterity.
HD Moore has been owned. That's hacker talk, meaning that Moore, the creator of the popular Metasploit hacking toolkit, has become the victim of a computer attack.
It happened on Tuesday morning, when Moore's company, BreakingPoint, had some of its Internet traffic redirected to a fake Google page that was being run by a scammer. According to Moore, the hacker was able to do this by launching what's known as a cache poisoning attack on a DNS server on AT&T's network that was serving the Austin, Texas, area. One of BreakingPoint's servers was forwarding DNS (Domain Name System) traffic to the AT&T server, so when it was compromised, so was HD Moore's company.
[ See related story on how the DNS patch is causing problems. ]
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
07/31/2008 07:45 ||
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#1
Karma, dude. Karma!
Posted by: Mike ||
07/31/2008 16:59 Comments ||
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Iran's president on Tuesday blamed the US and other "big powers" for nuclear proliferation, AIDS and other global ills and accused them of exploiting the UN and other organizations for their own gain - and the developing world's loss.
But, he said, time was on the poor countries' side.
"The big powers are going down," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told foreign ministers of the Nonaligned Movement meeting in Teheran. "They have come to the end of their power, and the world is on the verge of entering a new, promising era."
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#3
"In May 2005, it was reported that scholars at Oxford University using advanced imaging techniques[10] had been able to read previously illegible portions of the earliest known record of the Book of Revelation, from the Oxyrhynchus site, Papyrus 115 or P115, dating to the mid to late third century. The fragment gives the Number of the Beast as 616 (chi, iota, stigma), rather than the majority text 666 (chi, xi, stigma).[1] The other early witness Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (C) has it written in full: hexakosiai deka hex (lit. six hundred sixteen).[11]
Significantly, P115 aligns with Codex Alexandrinus (A) and Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (C) which are generally regarded as providing the best testimony to Revelation. Thus, P115 has superior testimony to that of P47 which aligns with Codex Sinaiticus and together form the second-best witness to the Book of Revelation. This has led some scholars to conclude that 616 is the original number of the beast.[12][13]"
OK guys, just make sure you have the right number. Nothing like scrawling the wrong one on only to find out later its bogus. :)
#6
Yeah, DinnerJacket sees the poor countries bringing in the dawning of the Age of Aquariums. Go for it, big fellah.
Posted by: Alaska Paul in Fairbanks ||
07/31/2008 16:31 Comments ||
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#7
Procopius2k, you must be wrong. Heavy metal bands are in a better position to know and they confirm that 666 is the number of the beast. Hell and fire, spawned to be released.
RALEIGH, N.C. -- The scholarship program started by former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards that has sent rural high school graduates to college for free is ending after three years, a newspaper reported Thursday. The College for Everyone program at Greene Central High School in eastern North Carolina will end this year, The News & Observer of Raleigh reported.
He may need the money for child support payments instead ...
The pilot program has sent 190 Greene County students to college and cost $600,000 in its first two years. It was started in 2005, the year after Edwards was the Democratic vice presidential candidate.
Before his presidential nomination campaign ended this year, Edwards said he wanted a similar national program, spending $8 billion to send 2 million students to college.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The country didn't get the energetic rebound in economic growth hoped for from the government's tax rebates in the second quarter, ...
Other than the 1.9% growth in GDP, which with a troubled housing market, auto market and election jitters seems pretty darned good.
... and the economy jolted into reverse at the end of 2007, raising new recession fears.
Except that the new growth eases recession fears.
The Commerce Department reported Thursday that gross domestic product, or GDP, increased at an annual rate of 1.9 percent in the April-to-June period. That marked an improvement over the feeble 0.9 percent growth logged in the first quarter of this year and the outright contraction in the economy during the final quarter of last year.
Still, the second-quarter rebound wasn't as robust as economists had hoped; they were forecasting growth at a 2.4 percent pace.
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Posted by: Steve White ||
07/31/2008 12:06 ||
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There are fears that as the bracing tonic of the tax rebates fades,
Is the AP saying tax rebates are a good thing? Then perhaps they'd support more and deeper tax cuts?
#2
The AP economists are probably looking at ponies in every stable and fluffy bunnies for all as an indicator.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
07/31/2008 14:00 Comments ||
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#3
Ummmmm, fluffy bunnies - tastes just like chicken!
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/31/2008 15:28 Comments ||
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#4
Wait... I'm confused.
We had positive 0.9% growth? And now the pace has more than doubled to 1.9% annualized growth? Just what kind of 'recession' are we having with positive growth rates?
Posted by: Grenter, Protector of the Geats ||
07/31/2008 15:35 Comments ||
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#5
Our wonderful liberal RINO governor here in Mexifornia just signed an order laying off 10 thousand part time state employees and ordering the state controller to investigate ways of reducing all 200 thousand state employee's pay rate to the $6.55 federal minimum.
As much as I'd love to see a lot of state fatcats get their pay slashed there are a lot of people who work for the state who will be devastated by this (even though it will never happen - the CSEA and SEIU will have it in court by this afternoon).
Sixty-four days and counting until I'm out of California and I can't wait.
#8
rj's right. It's grandstanding, just like demanding the remaining State employees only make the Fed min wage during this emergency. It turns up the heat on the CA Donk legislature majority who keep trying to ram tax increases (go figure?) down the minority GOP's throat. It's deadlock time and the stakes are high
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/31/2008 21:56 Comments ||
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The administration began aggressively enforcing workplace laws after Congress last year failed to pass an immigration overhaul. In the months since, thousands of workers have been arrested in scores of raids. Evidence that the strategy may have succeeded in reducing the number of illegal immigrants was presented in a report Wednesday by a group favoring tighter curbs on all forms of immigration.
The report by the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington-based think tank, says that the number of illegal immigrants fell about 11% between last August and May, from 12.5 million to 11.2 million. Independent demographers said they also had seen a drop in the illegal immigrant population.
The study was based on an analysis of census data. Steve A. Camarota, the center's research director, acknowledged that the economy played a role in the decline but said that several factors pointed to enforcement as key. For instance, the legal immigrant population continues to grow, while the fall-off in illegal immigrants began even before unemployment began rising.
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#2
They're also getting priced out. My brother the firefighter says the Brazilians in my old hometown are moving south because it's too expensive to live up here.
#3
That doesn't make sense, tu3031. House prices have fallen, and the value of the dollar as well, but the latter only affects those dealing with international currencies.
#4
Why would anyone want to move to the US anyway? Our economy is in a depression, there are no jobs, our air and water are polluted so badly they kill millions of people a day, we hate anybody who doesn't look like us, there is no opportunity, everything is awful ...
/liberal rant (sarcasm, if you didn't already get it)
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
07/31/2008 12:15 Comments ||
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#5
If anything the illegal immigrant thing should have us confronting the "living wage" and "minimum wage" mindset because a lot of liberals seem to think everyone but illegals deserves these things. IF we were to demand on living wage and minimum wage law enforcement the demand for illegals would dry up and the problem would go away.
#6
slightly better enforcement on the border, Jobsite enforcement, falling construction, increasing automation in agribusiness and the downturn in economic activity are all parts of the equation.
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.
(Xinhua) -- The talks between Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF and opposition MDC to end Zimbabwe's political and economic crisis are set to resume Sunday, South African President Thabo Mbeki said after meeting his Zimbabwean counterpart Robert Mugabe. 
Smoking appears to have sparked a fire that caused $70 million in damage to the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington, Naval officials said Wednesday. 
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama says he is offering fundamental change from what he calls "reckless" Republican economic policies that have hammered middle-class families. 
(Xinhua) -- A House panel voted Wednesday to issue a contempt citation against Karl Rove, a top aide of President George W. Bush. 
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert intends to hand his resignation letter to President Shimon Peres the day after the September 17 Kadima primary and ask him to entrust the new party leader with forming a new government, Olmert's associates said Wednesday night. 
HD Moore has been owned. That's hacker talk, meaning that Moore, the creator of the popular Metasploit hacking toolkit, has become the victim of a computer attack.
RALEIGH, N.C. -- The scholarship program started by former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards that has sent rural high school graduates to college for free is ending after three years, a newspaper reported Thursday. The College for Everyone program at Greene Central High School in eastern North Carolina will end this year, The News & Observer of Raleigh reported.
