Somewhat dated and possibly a dupe, but useful for those planning an escape from the snow. That it is not news is a statement of how bad things have gotten.
After a long, controversial career, Brig. Gen. Mauro Enrique Tello Quiñones retired from active duty last month to work for the Cancun mayor and fight the drug cartels that have penetrated much of Mexican society. He lasted a week.
Tello, 63, along with his bodyguard and a driver, were kidnapped in downtown Cancun last Monday evening, taken to a hidden location, methodically tortured, then driven out to the jungle and shot in the head. Their bodies were found Tuesday in the cab of a pickup truck on the side of a highway leading out of town. An autopsy revealed that both the general's arms and legs had been broken.
The audacious kidnapping and killing of one of the highest-ranking military officers in Mexico drew immediate expressions of outrage from the top echelons of the Mexican government, which pledged to continue the fight against organized crime that took the lives of more than 5,300 people last year. Military leaders, who are increasingly at the front lines of the war against the cartels, vowed not to let Tello's death go unsolved or unpunished.
#2
Southern African Development Community Tribunal, a court of last resort which ruled that Mr Mugabe had ethnically purged white farmers and failed to pay compensation.
Mexico will start a national register of mobile phone users that will include fingerprinting all customers in an effort to catch criminals who use the devices to extort money and negotiate kidnapping ransoms.
Under a new law published on Monday and due to be in force in April, mobile phone companies will have a year to build up a database of their clients, complete with fingerprints. The idea would be to match calls and messages to the phones' owners.
Hundreds of people are kidnapped in Mexico every year and the number of victims is rising sharply as drug gangs, under pressure from an army crackdown, seek new income.
Lawmakers who pushed the bill through Congress last year say there are around 700 criminal bands in Mexico, some of them operating from prison cells, that use cell phones to extract extortion and kidnap ransom payments.
Most of Mexico's 80 million mobile phones are prepaid handsets with a given number of minutes of use that can be bought in stores without any identification. The phones can be topped up with more minutes via vendors on street corners.
The register, detailed in the government's official gazette, means new subscribers will now be fingerprinted when they buy a handset or phone contract.
The plan also requires operators to store all cell phone information such as call logs, text and voice messages, for one year. Information on users and calls will remain private and only available with court approval to track down criminals.
It was not clear whether the government would provide any funding to aid in the logistics of the register.
Billionaire Carlos Slim, who controls Mexico's No. 1 cell phone operator America Movil, said the law would be more useful if it tracked the movements of cell phone users. "What needs to be done is another type of more effective measures," Slim told reporters.
Former Finance Minister Francisco Gil Diaz, head of the local unit of Spain's Telefonica, has criticized the law, saying it will only create more bureaucracy for operators. Telefonica is Mexico's No. 2 mobile operator behind America Movil.
Lawmakers say phone users must immediately report lost or loaned phones to avoid being held responsible for a handset used in a crime. Carlos Slim is becoming a "dangerous billionaire", like George Soros.
MOSCOW - The United States is ready to look at re-modelling its missile defence plans to include Moscow, a senior U.S. diplomat said on Friday in a concession to Russian opposition. The Kremlin has been pressing Washington to give ground on the proposed missile shield in exchange for Russia helping supply the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistana priority for new President Barack Obama.
Bambi's gonna cave ...
Washington and Moscow have in the past discussed a compromise deal that would give Russia a role in the U.S. shield but those talks petered out in the last days of the previous U.S. administration.
(Washington is) open to the possibility of cooperation, both with Russia and NATO partners, in relation to a new configuration for missile defence which would use the resources that each of us have, Interfax news agency quoted U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns as saying.
The U.S. embassy in Moscow confirmed the text of the interview. Burns, a former ambassador to Moscow, was in Russia this week for talks with officials. Burns gave no details on what form the new missile defence configuration might take, but the wording he used appeared to go further than previous U.S. proposals aimed at easing Russias concerns.
Russias ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, told Reuters in an interview that Moscow would have to wait to see how Washington follows up on Burns remarks. But he said if the United States reviewed its missile defence plans it will be a big present not just to Russia but a gift to Europe and Russia and the American people themselves because we will be able to find an alternative answer for the defence of our peoples from rogue states.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/14/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
These difficulties will soon be resolved. If the new administration can't trust the Russians, who can they trust?
#2
Yeah, for the next four years we can forget about the Russians, Venezuela, Iran, and North Korea. Obama will concentrate fighting the REAL enemy - the Republicans (as well as small business and taxpayers).
"It" is shortages of critical commodities, a worrisome example of which is the raw materials used to prepare pharmaceutical drugs. Last week a Wegmans pharmacy in upstate New York ran out of OxyContin® and several other prescription medicines. Customers were told that Wegmans' supplier did not have the ingredients to make several medicines and did not know when they would have them. Wegmans isn't a mom-and-pop corner store with no buying power. It's a 71-store chain on the east coast, is one of the largest private companies in the US and had sales of $4.8 billion in 2008.
Tasmania and India are the largest producers of thebaine, the active ingredient of OxyContin®, which is one of 20 alkaloid compounds derived from the opium poppy. Alkaloids cannot be stored by law, so each year's crop size is limited by the expected sales. However, it's only February so the shortage in the US is not due to exporters' supplies having run out.
There is a worldwide shortage of acetonitrile, a critical chemical ingredient used in the purification of pharmaceutical compounds. Acetonitrile is a by-product of the automotive industry and is in short supply due to the worldwide slowdown in that industry, which, in turn, has caused chemical production facilities to close.
Another drug in critical short supply is leucovorin, a generic used in the treatment of colon cancer. Its shortage, too, is due to "manufacturing" delays, according to the suppliers. In an interview with Forbes, Michael Katz, chair of a committee of patients that advises the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group, said, "I've never heard of anything like it." The ECOG group of doctors, who have played a key role in testing new cancer medicines, recently started hearing from hospitals that they were almost out of leucovorin. There is a fear that shortages will occur more frequently with generic drugs because the margins are so thin. Even worse, many of the most important cancer drugs have gone off patent, according to Katz. Further, he wonders why there is no system to catch these shortages before they harm patients or halt clinical trials. The shortage is so acute in Florida that many cancer patients are receiving lower-than-prescribed dosages or none at all.
Going forward, a number of factors will influence the availability of life-saving medicines and other critical commodities.
Supply disruptions: The majority of growers and producers of the raw materials for drugs are in Asia. You remember the cliff dive of the Baltic Dry Index last year. It was a reflection of severe disruptions in international trade, which, in large part, was caused by the unwillingness of banks to accept letters of credit. This could be the reason for the shortages of opium distillates, which are showing up in US pharmacies now.
Profitability and production stoppages: Indian pharmaceutical companies have stopped manufacturing some unprofitable drugs and they threaten to cut back on more. Their profits have been eroded by the fall in value of the rupee, which has raised their procurement costs for both packaging materials and bulk purchases of raw materials from China.
Distribution: Trucking companies across the country are both cutting back on routes and closing due less business and higher costs. This reached crisis proportions during the gas price spike last spring and summer and is continuing due to reduced demand for hauling. Bankruptcies were up more than 118% by the second half of 2008. In a Reuter's interview, industry consultant Fred Crawford said he expects the acceleration of bankruptcies seen in the second half of 2008 to continue this year.
If demand for medicine decreases in a depression, it's not because people aren't sick. In fact, more people are sick, but they can't afford medical care. If you've come across the crisis-preparedness list of 100 Things that Disappear First, you know that drugs are at the top of the list. Well, we are in a crisis and, sure enough, medicines are disappearing.
#1
100 Things that Disappear First
"From a Sarajevo War Survivor:...
3. After awhile, even gold can lose its luster. But there is no luxury in war quite like toilet paper. Its surplus value is greater than gold's."
The Romans used sponges and recycled. Paid the 'washers' at the public toilets for clean ones. Call Mike Rowe, we may have a new "Dirty Jobs" episode in the future.
#3
deflation should cause some shortages and disrupt just-in-time supply chains, but I doubt serious effects in the US due to the reserve currency status of the dollar.
During the great depression even having money couldn't get you basic staples in under developed areas due to supply chain problems.
Today we have longer shelf lives, so the risk of not being able to sell items is unlikely to ever cause those kind of shortages.
Bottom line is food will inflate irregularly, luxury goods across the line, big ticket items will deflate.
No big deal, the expectation is that the CDS problems will be dealt with this year either by bailout or bankruptcy, and recovery during 2010.
slow bailouts and/or nationalization of banks can be a big problem (japan model) It doesn't clear up the problem like bankruptcy does.
She first swung into action 50 years ago, helping her boyfriend Batman rid Gotham City of villains until she was killed off in 1979.
Now Batwoman is making a comeback, replacing Batman - who is missing, presumed dead - in the popular DC Comics series. And this time around the superheroine's alter ego, Kathy Kane, is a red-headed lesbian. Ohfergawdsake.
Billed as a "lesbian socialite by night and a crime-fighter by later in the night," the new Batwoman is clad in a figure-hugging black outfit with knee-high red stiletto boots.
She is set to appear in at least 12 issues of the Detective Comics, the first of which will appear in June, the BBC reports. "We've been waiting to unlock her - it's long overdue," DC Comics writer Greg Rucka said.
#3
You think they've already run this by Hollyweird for their multi-media game plan and future movie deal given how crappy tinsel town has been in coming up with scripts and writing beyond blockbuster movies based upon comic heroes. Guys, when your story lines match titles of crappy adult vids, you are in the institutional death spiral you not going to pull out of.
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
02/14/2009 9:05 Comments ||
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#5
"I know it was Batwoman, officer! She had long red hair, a sleeveless Bat-lumberjack shirt and vest, Bat Levis and Bat Birkenstocks, and a tattoo of 'Ellen' on her shoulder!"
#15
This is a calculated move. They figure the title is dead so why not (a) possibly attract young boys to the title (b) earn kudos with the certain people because they are being 'risky'.
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.
MOSCOW - The United States is ready to look at re-modelling its missile defence plans to include Moscow, a senior U.S. diplomat said on Friday in a concession to Russian opposition. The Kremlin has been pressing Washington to give ground on the proposed missile shield in exchange for Russia helping supply the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistana priority for new President Barack Obama.
