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Bangla sepoy mutiny: Mass grave horror stuns nation
Today's Headlines
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-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Indonesia: Java mudflow is human rights threat, says key body
Is there nothing that's not a human rights threat?
Posted by: Fred || 02/28/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Is there nothing that's not a human rights threat?

Apparently neither islam nor jihad.
Posted by: ed || 02/28/2009 1:31 Comments || Top||

#2  This IS the most populous Muzzie country right? Yet another example of Ishallah mainentance, design and corruption, no?
Posted by: AlanC || 02/28/2009 9:12 Comments || Top||

#3  Mudflows! Why do they hate us?
Posted by: Jack is Back! || 02/28/2009 10:18 Comments || Top||

#4  o/ Ebonia Mighty Land Arising!
Posted by: .5MT || 02/28/2009 11:02 Comments || Top||

#5  Indonesian National Commission on Human Rights is human rights threat says Peabody.
Posted by: Phagum de Medici9985 || 02/28/2009 12:50 Comments || Top||

#6  A mud volcano is usually a natural occurrence, meaning it's an "act of God". Indonesia has suffered at least a dozen earthquakes, several regular volcano eruptions, and now a mud volcano. I'd assume by now they'd understand that their god is either very angry with them, or unable to do anything about nature. Better to blame it on "others" than to go there, though...
Posted by: Old Patriot || 02/28/2009 16:27 Comments || Top||


Africa Subsaharan
Madagascar's feuding leaders to return to talks
Madagascar's political rivals have agreed a return to negotiations to resolve a power struggle.
Posted by: Fred || 02/28/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Regional ministers seek donor help for Zimbabwe
Southern African finance ministers agreed on Friday to push for donor help to rebuild Zimbabwe after economic collapse.
Posted by: Fred || 02/28/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Its a pity Ian Smith has left our plane. He might have had a thought or two which would not cost too much.

Where are all the apologists who sang the praises of Mugabe when he with fighting the government of Southern Rhodesia? He promised a new world, peace, freedom and change.

MMMmmmm Is that an echo I hear??

Posted by: Omoter Speaking for Boskone7794 || 02/28/2009 7:57 Comments || Top||

#2  I recommend a read of "Bitter Harvest." There are no shocking surprises in any of what has happened in Zimbabwe over the past few decades. None whatsoever.

Posted by: Besoeker || 02/28/2009 8:04 Comments || Top||

#3  I wonder how Zambia is making out? Initially they brought in a good number of white Rhodesian refugees to help them improve their farming and technical capabilities with some positive results. But I never heard any follow-up after the first year or two, and being caught between Mugabeland and South Africa is tricky, to say the least.
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/28/2009 9:55 Comments || Top||

#4  Glenmore, no news is pro'ly good news ...
Posted by: Steve White || 02/28/2009 11:41 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Saudi Prince Walid Humbled by Citigroup's Woes
Posted by: tipper || 02/28/2009 16:29 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Caribbean-Latin America
Jewish Center attacked in Venezuela
Assailants threw an explosive at a Jewish community center on Thursday, but nobody was hurt in the blast - the second assault against Venezuela's Jewish community this year.

Abraham Garzon, president of the Jewish Community Center, told the local Globovision television news channel that a small explosive resembling a pipe-bomb was lobbed at the building in Caracas before dawn on Thursday. The explosion damaged the doors to the center.

"It seems there are people in the country dedicated to sowing terrorism," Garzon said.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack, which immediately reignited fears of rising anti-Semitism in Venezuela.

A Caracas synagogue was ransacked and vandalized last month. The assailants shattered religious objects, spray-painted "Jews, get out" on the temple's walls and stole a computer database containing names and addresses of Jews living in Venezuela.

Posted by: Fred || 02/28/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Suprise.
Posted by: newc || 02/28/2009 3:59 Comments || Top||

#2  stole a computer database containing names and addresses of Jews living in Venezuela.

I wonder why they wanted this?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/28/2009 4:56 Comments || Top||

#3  I'd leave. Isn't there a large Venezuelan colony in Florida already?
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/28/2009 7:10 Comments || Top||

#4  You'd move from Chavezia to Obambia, TW?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/28/2009 7:12 Comments || Top||

#5  TW, yes, Kendall.
Posted by: .5MT || 02/28/2009 11:09 Comments || Top||

#6  Thank you, .5MT. Yes, I would, g(r)omgoru. Obambia is, I have faith, a temporary and reversible state of affairs. My mother twice walked away with what she could carry in her school bag and an overnight case. I can do the same if I must, and start over somewhere civilized.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/28/2009 15:32 Comments || Top||


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Report: Russian navy to get at least 3 carriers
MOSCOW - A Russian news agency is reporting that an admiral said the navy may commission at least three nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

RIA-Novosti has quoted Vice Adm. Anatoly Shlemov as saying that engineers have begun work to design a new carrier.

Shlemov said Friday the prospective carriers will be nuclear-powered and have a displacement of 50,000-60,000 tons, according to the report. His statement appeared to contradict comments by Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov that the navy should focus on smaller ships, no bigger than frigates or corvettes.
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/28/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  What about the one they owe India?
Posted by: 3dc || 02/28/2009 0:20 Comments || Top||

#2  "...And it'll have ponies - lots of ponies!!"

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 02/28/2009 0:30 Comments || Top||

#3  Go git 'em Ivan. Less money available for SSBNs.
Posted by: ed || 02/28/2009 0:45 Comments || Top||

#4  They owe India that sub but it is looked at as cursed now after it drouned everyone onboard in fire retardant.
Posted by: newc || 02/28/2009 0:53 Comments || Top||

#5  These are half the displacement tonnage of US carriers, and only about a quarter of the effectiveness.

They will be nice for showing the flag, but not all that useful in actual use against a modern AF or Navy of any significant size.

Blue-water operations are not for faint of heart, nor for the inexperienced and untrained.
Posted by: OldSpook || 02/28/2009 0:59 Comments || Top||

#6  Would a carrier this size be capable of operating modern naval jets like the F-18 or navalized MiG-29, or are they strictly for jump jets, etc?
Posted by: Steve White || 02/28/2009 1:26 Comments || Top||

#7  And for each carrier, a squadron of open sea tug boats.
Posted by: Penguin || 02/28/2009 1:33 Comments || Top||

#8  They can operate both navalized MiG-29s and SU-27s. Without catapults the aircraft are lightly fueled and loaded.

Kuznetsov
Posted by: ed || 02/28/2009 1:35 Comments || Top||

#9  So these carriers will be slightly larger than the Wasp-class LHDs, of which the US has 8 in service, along with 3 Tarawa-class LHAs. That does NOT count the Nimitz class carriers.
The US Marine Corps has effectively 4 times the projected carrier strength of the Russians and about 60 years more experience with them.
Posted by: Shieldwolf || 02/28/2009 2:11 Comments || Top||

#10  Excellent! Keep the Russians spending their money on useless crap like aircraft carriers, nukes, and boomers, and less on actual useful things like UAV development and combat robots.
Posted by: gromky || 02/28/2009 2:33 Comments || Top||

#11  Somewhere I have video of flight operations aboard the Kuznetsov I downloaded from Venik Russian aviation page. Iffin anyone has a link,please post it.

That carrier was designed around the aircraft it was s'posed to carry the Yak-38 jump jet, a small light VSTOL jet aircraft. The aircraft they were trying to move in and out of bays were navalized MiG-29s and the navalized SU-25UTG, ( formerly designated the SU-25UM) both of which Russian sailors could barely move through the bulkheads, the openings were too small, probably built for the YAK.

Russian AEW aircraft consists of the KA-31 Helix, standard Russian navy helo fitted with a medium range radar, low tech and vulnerable. At the moment the Russians have no long range navalized aircraft capable of airborne early warning, such as our venerable E-2C "Hawkeye"

The Russian Navy is a littoral force. Russian defense doctrine stretching back hundreds of years is that the homeland is what is to be defended. Even with carriers I seriously doubt Russians would want them to sail very far from their shores,no power projection, no blue water operations, not especially against the US which has 70 years and counting of experience with carrier operations.

Most Russian naval aviation operations will still, as long as there is a Russian, operate from Russia,s very shores.
Posted by: badanov || 02/28/2009 7:26 Comments || Top||

#12  Video
Posted by: badanov || 02/28/2009 7:40 Comments || Top||

#13  Nice footage thar BadMan, especially like the shots of the escorts (Udaloy ?) in heavy seas.
Posted by: .5MT || 02/28/2009 11:17 Comments || Top||

#14  Udaloy ?

Dunno. It ain't worth a thing, if it ain't got no wings.
Posted by: badanov || 02/28/2009 11:32 Comments || Top||

#15  My wife's comment on the video of the planes landing was "What are they doing - practicing touch and go?". I said that I thought they had just missed the wire(s). There is not a lot of room for error in a carrier landing, especially with a short deck like the Kusnetzov.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia || 02/28/2009 13:18 Comments || Top||

#16  Russian carrier doctrine is very different from ours. They see their carriers as defensive, not offensive platforms. Remember, too, that the Admiral Kuznetsov has vertical launch cells!
Posted by: Plastic Snoopy || 02/28/2009 14:11 Comments || Top||

#17  I watched this puppy being built. Let's just say that crew comfort is not a consideration of the Russian Navy. The "island" underwent three modification before the ship was launched.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 02/28/2009 16:42 Comments || Top||

#18  OP, you forgot to mention the state of DC and their construction that is not conducive to DC efforts.

The US Navy excels at DC, and constructs its ships to survive.

The Russian Navy and its vessels are not set up that way. Smaller crews, fewer bulkheads, etc.
Posted by: OldSpook || 02/28/2009 17:00 Comments || Top||

#19  For the uninitiated, DC means "damage control." We and the Brits and maybe the Germans are masters of this skill.
RKC ET1SS
Posted by: AlmostAnonymous5839 || 02/28/2009 18:10 Comments || Top||

#20  And we've paid for that expertise in blood.
Posted by: Pappy || 02/28/2009 22:48 Comments || Top||


Russian Navy admits causing Irish oil slick
Oh, that oil slick...
DUBLIN (AP) -- The Russian navy finally admitted Friday it caused an oil slick off Ireland's southwest coast -- 12 days after European and Irish marine authorities first spotted the threat and linked it to the Russians' breakdown-prone aircraft carrier.

Ireland's government and coast guard also offered a much bigger estimate for the size of the slick than the Russians did -- ten times as big. But they agreed with a Russian navy statement that the slick was unlikely to pose a major risk to Ireland's coastal habitat, thanks chiefly to unusually mild seas that were keeping the slick offshore.

In Moscow, Russian navy spokesman Capt. Igor Dygalo said unspecified ships spilled 20 to 30 metric tons of oil. It was Russia's first public admission of involvement, although Russian Navy officials admitted their role in a private meeting Monday in Dublin with Irish Coast Guard commanders.

The Irish Coast Guard said Friday that the size of the remaining slick involved an estimated 300 tons of light crude. It said the mishap happened when Russia's only aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, was being refueled by an accompanying tanker.

The Kuznetsov has been plagued with technical problems since entering full service in 1995, suffering lengthy dockings for repairs. Since leaving its Arctic base in Severomorsk in December, the carrier has been accompanied by a tanker and at least one tugboat in case of a breakdown. In January, while the carrier was operating off Turkey's coast, a fire on board the ship killed a crew member.

Ireland estimates it has already spent more than euro250,000 ($325,000) monitoring the slick by helicopter and screening shellfish for pollution. Its transport department has asked the Russian Federation to reimburse Ireland for at least some of that expense. The Irish Coast Guard said the slick was moving slowly eastward about 45 miles (70 kilometers) south of the County Cork coastline, and was unlikely to reach shore before disintegrating, unless the wind strengthens and changes course unexpectedly. "(The slick) is continuing to weather and significantly disperse ... and has not significantly moved over the last number of days," it said.
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/28/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Having a carrier is not the same as operating a carrier.
Posted by: OldSpook || 02/28/2009 0:57 Comments || Top||

#2  And India is actually paying for a Russian AC Carrier? /s
Posted by: tipover || 02/28/2009 1:07 Comments || Top||

#3  We need to rehab the Kitty Hawk and freaking give to the Indians for a dollar! At least the Kitty can go on deployment without an unending string of disasters and mishaps.
Posted by: Shieldwolf || 02/28/2009 2:17 Comments || Top||

#4  Having a carrier is not the same as operating a carrier.

In 1957, the Russian Defence Minister, Marshal Zhukov, visited India. In Cochin, Rear Admiral RD Katari, the Fleet Commander, invited him to a banquet on board the flagship. In his memoirs, "A Sailor Remembers" he recalls: (Page 83). "From the moment Marshal Zhukov, stepped on board, he virtually impaled me against the centre-line capstan and demanded to know why we were acquiring an aircraft-carrier. Resisting the temptation to tell him that it was none of his business, I tried to explain to him the reasons which induced us to do so, but he could not, or would not, accept them. The discussion was obviously reaching a point of exasperation to both sides but the climax came when Zhukov made the provocative observation that we were buying the carrier at the behest of the British and to please them."
Posted by: john frum || 02/28/2009 7:23 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Work begins on India's first home built aircraft carrier
KOCHI: India on Saturday laid the keel of the country's first aircraft carrier here, heralding the coming of age of the Indian Navy as a maritime power.

Speaking at the Cochin Shipyard Ltd, Defence Minister A.K. Antony described the occasion as a "historic moment for India". "It is a crucial milestone and a moment to cherish in the country's maritime history."

The yard began steel cutting for the project in April 2005, after the government sanctioned the design in January 2003.

The planned ship will be 260 metres long and 60 metres wide and will be propelled by two LM2,500 gas turbines that will enable it to attain speed of over 28 knots.

It will also have two runways and a landing strip and carry a maximum of 30 aircraft.
Posted by: john frum || 02/28/2009 05:59 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Is this like when Homer Simpson tried to build an aircraft carrier? Because that was funny.
Posted by: gromky || 02/28/2009 6:36 Comments || Top||

#2  Humble beginnings. Anyone remember the chain-drive Honda coupe?
Posted by: gorb || 02/28/2009 6:59 Comments || Top||

#3  In other news, here is the INS Viraat (formerly HMS Hermes) under repair in Kochi (Cochin), Kerala


Posted by: john frum || 02/28/2009 7:06 Comments || Top||

#4  India probably has more engineers and scientists than USA, gromky. Plus, an ace up their sleeve.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/28/2009 7:10 Comments || Top||

#5  artist's impression of the home built Indian carrier (INS Vikrant)
Posted by: john frum || 02/28/2009 7:24 Comments || Top||

#6  According to the Indian journalist Shiv Aroor

But it is now clear that while Cochin Shipyards will build three aircraft carriers in the current 37,500-ton category (the second and third are to be christened INS Viraat and INS Vishaal apparently), design work has already begun in earnest to develop and build two more aircraft carriers with not only much larger displacements, but possibly nuclear propulsion as well.
Posted by: john frum || 02/28/2009 7:26 Comments || Top||

#7  Not much into the navy, ships and the like but it would appear a bow approach is out of the question? :(
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/28/2009 7:33 Comments || Top||

#8  An aircraft carrier is just a huge target for modern antiship missiles. I've no idea why developing nations insist on building them - useless white elephants.
Posted by: gromky || 02/28/2009 9:57 Comments || Top||

#9  Because they're extraordinarily useful for power projection. Nothing like a floating air base you put where you want it.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/28/2009 12:07 Comments || Top||

#10  An aircraft carrier is just a huge target for modern antiship missiles. I've no idea why developing nations insist on building them - useless white elephants.

Well, the anti-missile defenses we have prove you wrong. It takes a massive force with a massive launch to get past the defensive screen nowdays. The soviets could afford the ships, planes and missiles. The Chinese can, but other nations can't. So, they can fire a couple of anti-ship missiles at a carrier, watch them get shot down, and then have enemy planes bombing your coast anyway.
Posted by: DarthVader || 02/28/2009 13:13 Comments || Top||

#11  How many anti-missile missiles does an aircraft carrier carry?
Posted by: gorb || 02/28/2009 14:51 Comments || Top||

#12  Depends. Its escorts carry a lot of them.
Posted by: Pappy || 02/28/2009 15:00 Comments || Top||

#13  I think the Arleigh Burke class DDGs carry 36 Patriots and 64 Sea Sparrows each. Most CVNx are equipped with Phalanx and Sea Sparrow for close-in defense.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 02/28/2009 16:52 Comments || Top||

#14  And remember the Western doctrine about carrier escorts : when they run out of defensive missiles, the destroyers literally put themselves in the path of the oncoming missiles aimed at the carrier. The Navy figures that destroyers, cruisers, and frigates are much more replaceable that carriers.
Posted by: Shieldwolf || 02/28/2009 16:59 Comments || Top||

#15  Aircraft carriers are very vulnerable and i can count by the fingers in one of my hands that number of times a missile was intercepted in War by an anti-missile. So anti-missile is not a proven technology. Now aircrafts carriers are also the best ships to protect and project( or better put less worse).

Indian ship is based in Italian Conte Di Cavour
http://digilander.libero.it/shinano/Italia/Conte%20di%20Cavour/foto.htm
Posted by: Large Snerong7311 || 02/28/2009 19:15 Comments || Top||


Zardari leading nation toward mid-term polls: Nawaz
Pakistan Muslim League-N chief Mian Nawaz Sharif has said that President Asif Ali Zardari wants to drag the nation toward mid-term elections. In an exclusive interview with Geo News today (Friday) after his disqualification, Nawaz Sharif said that no third force could come into power if the government showed maturity and responsibility. Â"I will not come in their way if President Zardari restores the deposed judges,Â" he said. He further said that Zardari had backed out from the promises he made with his Nawaz League. The democratic revolution could rise in the days to come and it must happen, he added. Former prime minister said that deposed judges were not being restored due to the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO). Â"We have not closed the door to contact the Prime Minister,Â" he said. Mr. Sharif said that President Zardari should become the descendant of Benazir Bhutto, not of former president Pervez Musharraf.
Posted by: Fred || 02/28/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  Slogan: "Re-elect Zardari! He only takes ten percent!"
Posted by: DMFD || 02/28/2009 10:35 Comments || Top||


President has not demanded PM's resignation: Spokesman
Presidential spokesman has denied the reports saying the President has demanded resignation from the Prime Minister. According to the Presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar brushed these reports, saying they are fabricated and baseless. He said these reports are aimed at disintegrating the party and the government.
Posted by: Fred || 02/28/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Thousands of Pakistanis protest against Zardari
Pakistani police fired tear gas and rounded up protesters in the capital Friday, with the nuclear-armed nation in turmoil since a court banned the top opposition leader from contesting elections.

The cabinet met to discuss the crisis and paramilitaries went on alert as thousands rallied, one day after the country marked the biggest protests yet against President Asif Ali Zardari, who took office last September.

Protesters are heeding a call from former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who leads the second largest party in Pakistan, to rise up after the Supreme Court Wednesday barred him and his brother from holding public office.

Zardari and Sharif are at loggerheads over the future of Pakistan, a key U.S. ally in the fight against Taliban and al-Qaeda militancy which has been teetering under financial crisis, Islamist extremism and weak government.
Posted by: Fred || 02/28/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Punjab CM will be from PPP: Farhatullah
Farhatullah Babar, spokesman of President Asif Ali Zardari Friday said the new chief minister of Punjab will be from Pakistan People's Party. Talking to media after the meeting of PPP's parliamentary party Punjab held under the chairmanship of President Zardari, he said the meeting had expressed its confidence in the leadership of President Asif Ali Zardari. He said the Punjab CM will be from PPP and that President Asif Ali Zardari will nominate the candidate for the post.
Posted by: Fred || 02/28/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


PML-N protest goes wild, no city corner spared
RAWALPINDI PML-N protest went wiled on Friday, making Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Road and the areas that surround it into a battlefield for party workers and police.

The PML-N workers blocked roads and streets, burnt tyres, and showered stones and bricks on police and private vehicles on the third consecutive day of their agitation against a Supreme Court (SC) order disqualifying their leaders Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif from electoral process.

Shouting anti-government, they ran amok forcing the police to baton-charge and tear-gas them to break up the tension. They damaged electricity poles, private hoardings and security barriers.

Mukhtar has a close shave: They attacked vehicle of Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar; threw stones on it near Dhoke Kala Khan on Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Road. The defence minister had a close shave as his driver sped off the troubled spot on time. Police and law enforcement agencies succeeded to take the minister to a safe place.

PML-N convoy attacked: PML-N Chairman Raja Zafarul Haq's convoy also came under attack by some unknown people when he tried to go to Liaquat Bagh to lay floral wreath at Benazir Bhutto's monument. Rare windscreen of his jeep was damaged. PPP leaders and Police high-ups advised him not to go there because PPP workers were infuriated over burning of BB portrait by PML-N workers on Wednesday.

Faizabad violence: In the evening, stick-wielding people took over Faizabad, blocking all traffic, attempted to torch three buses and ransacked the market. The police retaliated and succeeded in routing the hoodlums.

Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Road remained the centre of all protesters, where PML-N leaders Raja Zafarul Haq, Hanif Abbasi, Haji Pervaiz, Malik Abrar, Yasir Hafeez, Sheryar Riaz, Sardar Nasim and others led a mega rally of hundreds of people. The protesters blocked a road from Raja Bazaar to Committee Chowk. They held up sticks, burnt tyres and effigies of President Asif Ali Zardari. They shouted slogans against the government and the judiciary, demanding the SC to reverse its decision. The PML-N workers also attacked police vehicles at different places.

Raja Bazaar, Iqbal Road, Bohar Bazaar, Liaquat Road, DAV College Road and Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Road from Liaquat Bagh to Fiazabad remained highly tense. Armoured Personnel Vehicles (APVs) were seen moving in disturbed areas where heavy deployment of police and personnel of other law-enforcement agencies was made. Clashes were also reported in various parts of the city between the PPP and PML-N workers.

The tension escalated after Friday prayers when the PML-N workers thronged roads and starting damaging buildings and steel-n-glass shopping malls. The police told fuel stations on Liaquat Road, Ratta Road, Gunjmandi, Bagh Sardarn, Asghar Mall Road to close down because of violence.
Posted by: Fred || 02/28/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


International-UN-NGOs
'US won't participate in Durban II'
The United States has decided not to participate in a UN conference on racism in April unless the final document is changed to drop all references to Israel and the defamation of religion, a senior US official said Friday.
Not just any religion, mind you...
The conference is a follow-up to the contentious 2001 conference in the South African city of Durban which was dominated by clashes over the Middle East and the legacy of slavery.
If you thought the original was stoopid and vicious, you ain't seen nothin' yet...
The US and Israel walked out midway through that eight-day meeting over a draft resolution that singled out Israel for criticism and likened Zionism to racism.

Israel and Canada have already announced that they will boycott the upcoming World Conference Against Racism in Geneva from April 20-25, known as Durban II, but US President Barack Obama's administration decided to assess the negotiations before making a decision on US participation. Last week, the State Department sent two US representatives to Geneva, where the final document to be issued by conference participants at the end of the conference is being negotiated. The representatives - Betty White, a former US ambassador to the UN Economic and Social Council, and Felice Gaer, the chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom - held 30 meetings with representatives of different countries and attended the negotiations, the US official said. While the US presence was warmly welcomed, the US official said that in the negotiations, a bad document got worse.

The United States has decided that it will not participate in further negotiations on the outcome document and will not participate in the conference itself on the basis of the latest text, the US official said. The Obama administration would reconsider its position if the document improves in a number of areas including dropping references to any specific country, references to defamation of religion which the US views as a free speech issue, and language on reparations for slavery. It also wants a shorter text and does not want the final document for Durban II to reaffirm the final document from the 2001 Durban conference, the US official said.

Itzhak Levanon, Israel's former UN envoy in Geneva, said before departing last August that with Libya chairing preparations for Durban II and Iran and Cuba also involved, the conference had the making of another international "bashing of Israel."
Posted by: Fred || 02/28/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Finally a hint of sanity.
Posted by: OldSpook || 02/28/2009 1:00 Comments || Top||

#2  It is like a turd that you cannot wipe from your behind every year.
Posted by: newc || 02/28/2009 3:47 Comments || Top||

#3  Genuine surprise---no sarcasm.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/28/2009 4:59 Comments || Top||

#4  <<<<<<< Israel and Canada have already announced that they will boycott >>>>

I wonder if Harper had a little word with Obama on his recent visit.

Sarcasm aside, it is a welcome change given the negative comments about Hilary's views on Israel yesterday.
Posted by: Omoter Speaking for Boskone7794 || 02/28/2009 8:01 Comments || Top||

#5  Now if we can just stop participating (and paying for) in the U.N. itself...
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/28/2009 8:18 Comments || Top||

#6  Genuine surprise---no sarcasm.

When Comrade Ogabe's major Jewish donors called him up and told him that he was out of line, he belatedly realized he was on thin ice. This jerk isn't having a change of heart, he changed his mind when he realized his oxygen was about to be cut off. Re-election isn't a given, and he has all kinds of starry-eyed Jewish advisers who could have the scales fall from their eyes and ruin his administration will tell-all memoirs about his radicalism and limited abilities if Ogabe actually follows through with his anti-Semitic instincts.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 02/28/2009 8:49 Comments || Top||

#7  Genuine surprise---no sarcasm

Mark, 2/28/2009 16.25 Z
Posted by: .5MT || 02/28/2009 11:26 Comments || Top||

#8  Genuine surprise---no sarcasm.

Apparently the Arab "check is in the mail" excuse isn't used just for Gaza.
Posted by: Pappy || 02/28/2009 16:15 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Israel's Livni-Netanyahu talks on unity govt fail
Israeli right-winger Benjamin Netanyahu and centrist Tzipi Livni met on Friday but failed to agree on forming a coalition government and left it unclear whether negotiations between their parties would continue.

After meeting for over an hour in Tel Aviv, each came out and blamed the other for lacking the will to compromise and form a broad-based, national unity government. Livni indicated her disappointment with Netanyahu's skeptical approach to peace talks with the Palestinians, which she has led since 2007. However, neither of them ruled out further coalition negotiations.

"I have done everything possible to achieve unity ... but to my great regret, I faced categorical rejection from Mrs Livni," Netanyahu, the leader of the right-wing Likud party said.
Posted by: Fred || 02/28/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Good. In 3 months half Kadima MKs will defect to Likud.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/28/2009 4:58 Comments || Top||

#2  Grom,
Did Netanyahu really want Livni in his cabinet, or did he have to give that appearance to make it easier for the Kadima MKs to defect?

To an outsider, it seems that he went more than halfway to bring Kadima into the coalition.


Posted by: Chuck || 02/28/2009 6:27 Comments || Top||

#3  I faced categorical rejection from Mrs Livni," Netanyahu

Out of camera range, Netanyahu, Ayalon, and Lieberman... 'high-fives' all around, followed by pats on the back and ice cold Maccabee. Tzipi's talks with Gazukians, brahhahahaha.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/28/2009 7:00 Comments || Top||

#4  Why would Bibi want a half-wit like Livni (look at her record) as #2 is his government, when he can get the MKs anyway?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/28/2009 7:01 Comments || Top||

#5  Absolutely not. He's simply obliged to go through the motions.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/28/2009 7:02 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
M'sia economy grew only 0.1%
MALAYSIA'S trade-driven economy grew a dismal 0.1 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2008 from a year earlier, bringing full-year growth to 4.6 per cent, the government said on Friday.
Posted by: Fred || 02/28/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Khatami opens campaign headquarters
Former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami officially takes his re-election bid to the next level by opening his campaign headquarters.
Posted by: Fred || 02/28/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front Economy
Schadenfreude
Massive Layoffs Hit The RIAA

Details have been spilling out over the last few days that the RIAA has been making pretty massive cuts to staff. We already knew that EMI was cutting back on its support of the RIAA/IFPI, and it seems that with the rest of the RIAA's major label supporters also having economic troubles, the writing is on the wall that the RIAA is about to go through a major transformation.

I'm sure some will somehow "blame piracy" for this turn of events, but it's hard to see how that's even remotely the issue. The real issue is that the RIAA has basically managed to run one of the dumbest, most self-defeating strategies over the last decade.

Rather than helping major record labels adjust to the changing market, it continually, repeatedly and publicly destroyed its own reputation and the reputation of the labels -- each time shrinking their potential market by blaming the very people they should have been working to turn into customers.

They may claim that they "had" to take this strategy because it's what the labels wanted (and, indeed, that was Hilary Rosen's excuse), but that's ridiculous. It was evident to pretty much anyone who took the time to understand the issues back in the mid- to late-90s, that the internet represented an opportunity to those who embraced it.

The RIAA's decision to fight progress and its own customers at every turn has been nothing short of a complete disaster. That the group is now being gutted is the inevitable result of a poor strategy that could have easily been avoided.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 02/28/2009 18:26 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Good!
About time.
Now about the MPAA.
Posted by: 3dc || 02/28/2009 21:00 Comments || Top||

#2  DVD sales have slumped. Down by a half.
Posted by: phil_b || 02/28/2009 22:09 Comments || Top||


Berkshire Profit Plunges 96% on Stock Market Bets
(Bloomberg) -- Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. posted a fifth-straight profit drop, the longest streak of quarterly declines in at least 17 years, on losses from derivative bets tied to stock markets.

Fourth-quarter net income fell 96 percent to $117 million, or $76 a share, from $2.95 billion, or $1,904 a share, in the same period a year earlier, the Omaha, Nebraska-based firm said in its annual report.

Berkshire, where Buffett serves as chairman, chief executive officer and head of investing, suffered as the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 Index turned in its worst year since 1937. Liabilities widened on derivatives linked to world equity markets, though the contracts don't require Berkshire to pay out until at least 2019, if at all.

"This is an abnormal time," said Tom Russo, a partner at Gardner Russo & Gardner, in an interview before the earnings were released. The derivatives, Russo said, "are pegged to a market that's declining, so you're going to see some losses on those."

Berkshire shares have fallen 44 percent in the past year as the value of the firm's top stock holdings dropped and losses increased on the derivatives. Nineteen of the top 20 stocks in Berkshire's U.S. portfolio, valued at $51.9 billion as of Dec. 31, declined last year. Coca-Cola Co., Berkshire's top holding, dropped 26 percent. American Express Co. plunged 64 percent. Oil producer ConocoPhillips fell 41 percent.

Derivative Bets

Book value, a measure of assets minus liabilities, fell 9.1 percent in the three months ended Dec. 31 to $109.3 billion on the declines in the equity and fixed-income portfolios and the derivatives writedown. Berkshire's liability on equity derivatives grew about 49 percent in the quarter to $10 billion.

"Derivatives are dangerous," Buffett said in his annual letter to shareholders that accompanies the yearend results. "Our expectation, though it is far from a sure thing, is that we will do better than break even and that the substantial investment income we earn on the funds will be frosting on the cake."

Posted by: Fred || 02/28/2009 10:38 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  From Buffett's 2002 report "I view derivatives as time bombs, both for the parties that deal in them and the economic system." Warren must have crossed the red & black wires when he assembled this one.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/28/2009 13:44 Comments || Top||

#2  Warren must have crossed the red & black wires when he assembled this one.

*Ouch*, that's gonna leave a mark. Well done!
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) || 02/28/2009 13:47 Comments || Top||

#3  Lucky for him he's such a young man with many years ahead of him to recover.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/28/2009 14:22 Comments || Top||

#4  Buffett can make mistakes. And his politics suck.
Posted by: OldSpook || 02/28/2009 16:30 Comments || Top||

#5  Fourth-quarter net income fell 96 percent to $117 million, or $76 a share, from $2.95 billion, or $1,904 a share, in the same period a year earlier

In other words, they still made a profit and are retaining their original capital which is something a number of other venerable institutions can't claim.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/28/2009 16:49 Comments || Top||

#6  retaining their original capital

Not sure what you meant by that but BH is a holding company and they have lost substantial capital as shares they own have fallen.

BTW, the article alludes to very long options BH sold and which represent a huge future (potential) liability.

Only time will tell, but they will either be seen a slamdunk surefire bet or incredibly reckless.
Posted by: phil_b || 02/28/2009 17:18 Comments || Top||

#7  Further proof that Buffet is better at making money by owning insurance companies (the core of his company - Now you know why his politics suck) than he is by trading stocks.
Posted by: Mike N. || 02/28/2009 17:40 Comments || Top||

#8  From Buffet's Letter to Shareholders

“there’s another less pleasant reality: During 2008 I did some dumb things in investments. I made at least one major mistake of commission and several lesser ones that also hurt… Furthermore, I made some errors of omission, sucking my thumb when new facts came in that should have caused me to re-examine my thinking and promptly take action.”
Posted by: Skunky Glins 5*** || 02/28/2009 19:09 Comments || Top||

#9  I believe Buffett wrote plain vanilla put options on various world equity indexes. The problem for him is if we end up with a Japan-like scenario (where equities fell 80% over 19 years). Depending on the size of these positions, Berkshire could lose its shirt and then some.

This year's report will include the fuller description that Buffett promised U.S. regulators he would provide about how Berkshire values its derivatives contracts.

Many involve put options that are tied to where the Standard & Poor's 500 and three other stock indexes are trading starting in 2019.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 02/28/2009 21:38 Comments || Top||

#10  Notional value is $35.5b. If the indexes fall in half as of 2019, Berkshire is on the hook for $18b.

Berkshire’s derivative contracts were sold to undisclosed buyers for $4.85 billion. Under the agreements, Berkshire must pay out if, on specific dates starting in 2019, four market indexes are below the point where they were when he made the agreements. In the meantime, Berkshire can invest the cash. Buffett has been buying preferred shares and debt of companies including General Electric Co. and Harley-Davidson Inc. to lock in yields as high as 15 percent.

The indexes, which include the S&P and three others Buffett hasn’t identified, would all have to fall to zero for Berkshire to be liable for the entire $35.5 billion that’s at risk.

The liabilities on the derivatives -- those expected to have affected book value in the fourth quarter -- are accounting losses that reflect the falling value of the stock indexes, not cash that Berkshire has paid out.

“There’s the potential for significant losses on that position,” said Bill Bergman, an analyst with Morningstar Inc. who gives Berkshire five stars, his firm’s highest rating. “But this is what they do. They’re in the risk absorption business, and in the long term it’s hard to see how there are going to be significant losses in 2019 or later.”
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 02/28/2009 22:18 Comments || Top||


Anti-stimulus tea parties light up Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and social media
David Sarno
In the latest example of how user-produced media can capture so-called "massively-shared" events in a way mainstream media can't, a wave of images, blog posts and videos from a nationwide protest has been washing across the Web. The protests, dubbed "tea parties" by participants, were held Friday in several U.S. cities including Portland and Washington, D.C. as a response to what demonstrators see as unfettered spending and encroaching government as represented by President Obama's economic recovery plans.

The tea parties were catalyzed by the widely seen screed by CNBC personality Rick Santelli, in which he jokingly suggested he'd organize a Chicago tea party to protest what he saw as the president's plan to "subsidize the losers' mortgages."

The idea is a reference to the Boston Tea Party, the famous revolutionary-era event in which American colonists dumped British tea into the Boston Harbor to protest oppressive taxation policies by the British government.

Though even a year ago it would've been a slow and difficult process to chronicle a widely scattered protest such as this, the online community is now mastering the art of high-speed media sharing, a trend that can unite geographically disparate communities via the Web. Much of the sharing is now facilitated by the fast-growing messaging site Twitter, where today the keyword "teaparty" was one of the most frequently used terms. Users sent out a flurry of updates about attendance, links to photos on Flickr and Photobucket, and videos on YouTube and other sites.

The protests appeared to be rather small and did not attract much coverage in the mainstream new media. But interested observers had a remote window into the activities taking place in cities such as Tulsa, Okla., Austin, Texas, Nashville, Chicago, Lansing, Mich., Houston, Hartford, Conn., and Los Angeles, where a group that gathered this morning on the Santa Monica pier. (This blog reports that, as a part of that action, former "Saturday Night Live" actor Victoria Jackson read the definition of "socialism").

If social media is a good barometer, it looks like the spending bill is stimulating the citizenry already.

Posted by: Fred || 02/28/2009 10:28 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Among others, Instapundit has a listing of tea party dates/locations, photos and after action reports. Just keep scrolling down.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/28/2009 15:15 Comments || Top||

#2  I'm glad to see the Big O is uniting the country.
Posted by: SteveS || 02/28/2009 16:07 Comments || Top||

#3  apologies to Oscar Robertson. Barry Hussein Obama will never be the Big O
Posted by: Frank G || 02/28/2009 16:09 Comments || Top||

#4  The protests appeared to be rather small and did not attract much coverage in the mainstream new media

I suspect that they were well-recorded, though.
Posted by: Pappy || 02/28/2009 16:10 Comments || Top||


Citigroup gets new rescue
The U.S. government will boost its equity stake in Citigroup Inc to as much as 36 percent, bolstering the bank's capital base in the latest emergency effort to save the ailing banking giant.
Posted by: Fred || 02/28/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Why does this not give me a warm and fuzzy feeling? Perhaps because the only group I can think of who would be less competent to run a big bank than the current Citi executives is the current US administration?
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/28/2009 10:00 Comments || Top||

#2  A vampire bank kept alive by the blood of taxpayers.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/28/2009 13:39 Comments || Top||

#3  I've had dealings with citi,They screwed me,let them sink.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 02/28/2009 17:20 Comments || Top||


U.S. fourth-quarter GDP drop biggest since 1982
The U.S. economy suffered its deepest contraction since early 1982 in the fourth quarter, shrinking at a much worse-than-expected 6.2 percent annual rate as exports plunged and consumers slashed spending.
Posted by: Fred || 02/28/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It's like the people (without capital P) weren't trusting the One---don't they understand that his economic advisors have the best education that money can buy?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/28/2009 7:17 Comments || Top||

#2  Is it too early to blame Gary Locke? Why can't these people at Commerce get with the program!
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/28/2009 7:40 Comments || Top||

#3  I expect the economy to hit bottom around July-September. Then a long and slow recovery finishing around 2011-12.
Posted by: DarthVader || 02/28/2009 10:46 Comments || Top||

#4  Darth, I hope you are right. Problem is the mass of government growth will likely stifle any recovery, and the jump in taxes will kill off business and job creation, and the good old Laffer curve will rear its head as taxes increase, tax intakes will drop, meaning a bigger deficeit.

And that spells stag-inflation and high unemployment like it did under Jimmy Carter.
Posted by: OldSpook || 02/28/2009 16:55 Comments || Top||

#5  I think summer is too soon for revory. Third quarter. Maybe.
Posted by: Mike N. || 02/28/2009 18:11 Comments || Top||


Antigua's senate OKs bid to seize Stanford assets
Antigua's Senate voted Friday to seize R. Allen Stanford's property, setting up a possible showdown with a court-appointed receiver who is securing the billionaire's assets for investors in his allegedly fraudulent offshore bank scheme.
Posted by: Fred || 02/28/2009 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:



Who's in the News
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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.
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Two weeks of WOT
Sat 2009-02-28
  Bangla sepoy mutiny: Mass grave horror stuns nation
Fri 2009-02-27
  Paleofactions agree to form unity govt
Thu 2009-02-26
  Bangla: At least 50 feared dead in sepoy mutiny
Wed 2009-02-25
  Lanka: Troops enter last Tamil Tiger-controlled town
Tue 2009-02-24
  Mulla Omar orders halt to attacks on Pak troops
Mon 2009-02-23
  100 rounded up in Nineveh
Sun 2009-02-22
  1 European killed, 9 others wounded in Egypt blast
Sat 2009-02-21
  Handcuffed JMB man pops grenade at press meet
Fri 2009-02-20
  Tamil Tiger planes raid Colombo
Thu 2009-02-19
  MPs visit Swat to pay obeisance to Sufi Mohammad
Wed 2009-02-18
  Four killed, 18 injured in Peshawar car bombing
Tue 2009-02-17
  Surprise! Pervez Musharraf was playing 'double game' with US
Mon 2009-02-16
  Another Wazoo dronezap
Sun 2009-02-15
  Talibs: Pak will surrender in Swat
Sat 2009-02-14
  Suspected U.S. Missile Strike Zaps 27

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