ZHUKOVKA, Russia (AP) - Russia's foreign minister on Friday called for an internationally developed "road map" to resolve the hot tensions over separatist Abkhazia, but raised serious objections to a plan devised by major countries. Sergey Lavrov's comments underlined the deep divisions in the dispute, which many have feared will boil into war. Lavrov met Friday with German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who is pushing the three-step plan that was rejected by Abkhazia's president earlier in the day.
Abkhazia split from Georgia in a separatist war in the 1990s and its status has since been in stasis. This year, however, Russia and Abkhazia have alleged Georgia was preparing to retake the region by force, while Georgia claimed Russia intended to annex it.
Georgians should let it go. The Abkhazians don't want to be part of them.
Russia sent additional troops into Abkhazia this spring to bolster peacekeeping forces that Georgia alleges support the separatists.
An unmanned Georgian spy plane was shot down over Abkhazia and U.N. investigators blamed Russia, a charge that Moscow denies. A series of bomb explosions in and near Abkhazia this month further raised tensions, with each side accusing the other of provocations.
"The escalation over the past days and weeks, in which there have been victims, obliges the sides to find a way out of the spiraling violence," Steinmeier said after meeting Lavrov in a Moscow suburb.
Before visiting Russia, Steinmeier made stops in Georgia and Abkhazia to promote the plan, which was developed by the so-called U.N. Secretary-General's Group of Friends of Georgia - which includes Germany, Britain, France, the United States and Russia. "We should intensify our cooperation in the framework of the Group of Friends and the United Nations to form such a three-stage road map ... that will allow us to persuade the sides to start negotiation as soon as possible," Lavrov said.
But he said the plan brought by Steinmeier was flawed because it called for the return of Georgian refugees as part of the first phase instead of at the end of the process. Both Lavrov and Abkhazian separatist president Sergei Bagapsh said a first step must be Georgia withdrawing troops from the disputed Kodori Gorge. Abkhazian and Russian officials have said they believe Georgia intends to launch an offensive from there to retake Abkhazia.
Steinmeier also met Friday with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who "underlined that the only way out of the current situation is the acceptance of a joint document with obligation to not use force and guaranteeing security and the withdrawal of Georgian forces from the upper part of the Kodori Gorge," according to a Kremlin statement.
The Steinmeier plan also calls for negotiations to determine Abkhazia's final status, but Bagapsh insisted Abkhazia's status is not open to question. "Abkhazia is an independent republic, and this point is not subject to any negotiations," he said after the meeting at a U.N. mission office in Gali, a town in Abkhazia. Abkhazia's claim of independence is not recognized by any nation or international organization.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/19/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
"Georgians should let it go. The Abkhazians don't want to be part of them"
Most residents of Abkhazia were ethnic Georgians until the Abkhazians ethnically cleansed hundreds of thousands of them with Russian support.
The situation is a bit like the expulsion of Greek Cypriots from Northern Cyprus by the Turks -- except that the Turks actually had an excuse back then, and the Russians didn't even have that.
Plus -- the Abkhazians themselves under Georgia were a hundred times more free than they are under Russia. I'm all in favour of the self-determination of regions (free the Basques if they want to, free Scotland, free Quebec, free Northern Ireland, free Tibet), but not when they are merely cover stories for a neighbouring nation's imperialism (Russian imperialism in the case of Abkhazia, Transnistria, Crimea, Southern Ossetia. Albanian imperialism in the case of Kosovo. Serb imperialism in the case of Republika Srpska) -- in those cases they're merely new Sudetenlands.
To surrender Georgia to the Russians will one day be considered like the surrender of Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany.
Posted by: Ar is ||
07/19/2008 9:13 Comments ||
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#2
like a herpetic troll, you return where you're unwanted.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/19/2008 9:20 Comments ||
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#3
"like a herpetic troll, you return where you're unwanted."
...As Wormtongue said to Gandalf.
Posted by: Ar is ||
07/19/2008 11:08 Comments ||
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#4
Aris tries to return. We dump him.
At some point he'll get it into his pointy, small Greek noggin that he's not welcome to comment at the Burg.
AoS.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/19/2008 11:22 Comments ||
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#5
heh, but I do enjoy saying "herpetic troll"
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/19/2008 12:04 Comments ||
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#6
Hai ghost geek! I hears you is have a job. Good for you. Work long and perspire, remember you brother is English.
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - A Dutch court punched a hole in toughened immigration restrictions, ruling an illiterate Moroccan woman cannot be required to pass a Dutch language test to join her husband in the Netherlands. The order dismayed politicians who have sought to curb immigration from non-Western countries and they vowed Friday to fix the law to cover the loophole exposed by the Amsterdam District Court.
Faced with public outrage over Islamic radicalization and the religion-motivated murder of a Dutch filmmaker, parliament enacted a tough law in 2005 requiring immigrants to pass an exam on the Dutch language and culture before they are granted a visa.
The Amsterdam court, however, found the test requirement was omitted from a clause referring to family reunification and ruled in favor of an unidentified North African woman who had been rejected for a visa.
Even with the ruling, the law will require her to pass another integration test within 3 1/2 years to maintain residency in the Netherlands.
The Christian Democrat Alliance, the largest party in the governing coalition, said it was determined to overturn the ruling, either through a judicial appeal or new legislation. "We think that when you start here, you have to know something about the values over here," said Chantal van den Berg, a party spokeswoman.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/19/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Muslims cannot integrate. Every interaction with the despised disbeliever, is viewed by them as a step to an Islamic Republic. They are fighting a war of attrition, through immigration, excessive births and receipt of privileges. When they have the numbers, open warfare will commence. Fortunately, we have Europe to serve as a lab for stimulated jihad rats.
Barack Obama seems set to speak next to Berlin's famous Victory Column when he visits next week. The speech is expected to draw thousands and has put Obama's view on trade in the spotlight.
In what is viewed as a compromise, Obama, the presumptive US Democratic presidential candidate, will not speak directly at the Brandenburg Gate as originally proposed.
Expect this scene
Instead, Obama will speak next to a 67-meter column topped with the golden image of the Roman goddess Victory. The Brandenburg Gate, an iconic symbol of Berlin's reunification, will be 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) at the opposite end of a tree-lined boulevard.
Obama is expected to addresses a large crowd in Berlin on Thursday, July 24. Some have estimated that more than 10,000 Berliners could show up for the event. A recent poll shows that 72 percent of Germans would vote for Obama if given the opportunity.
With President George W. Bush deeply unpopular in Germany, many are rooting for an Obama win.
"People here see him almost as a political redeemer after seven years of Bush," political analyst Jan Techau of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) told DPA news agency, although he warns that sustaining the euphoria will be difficult.
The candidate's visit will also include a meeting with Merkel in the chancellery, her spokesman confirmed.
Spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm says the meeting is expected to take place on Thursday morning.
Berlin will come at the end of a trip Obama is taking that will start with visits to Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel and the Palestinian territories.
#2
Obama is running as an Internationalist Marxist, not as an American leader. Blogger Atlas Shrugs is looking at those sending in private money and much of it is coming from abroad. So it is all about screw you America when he dicided to use "private" funding and to break his promise of only using election funding. He will run America in a way that appeases everyone outside the country but Americans.
Hopefully a story of this subject line comes up as a story somewhere so that we can put a post up about it here rather than this comment buried in the comment sections about what another blogger is finding.
Posted by: a yankee ||
07/19/2008 17:37 Comments ||
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#3
#1 - actually Das Horst Wessel Lied has been outlawed in Germany for 63 years.
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
07/19/2008 18:02 Comments ||
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#5
Right idea, Besoeker, but wrong song. It'll be more like this! Complete with nifty posters for the adoring throngs of Eurotwits...just make sure to swap out ol' Vladimir Ilyich's face before they're printed up & distributed.
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
07/19/2008 19:17 Comments ||
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#6
A yankee - not that I doubt what you're saying, but I believe it's illegal for American presidential (and I think other federal) candidates to receive funding from foreign sources.
He must have a very good way of hiding washing it....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
07/19/2008 20:14 Comments ||
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VIENNA - Ahead of briefing the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-member board of governors and representatives of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon yesterday met IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei and discussed the text of an India-specific safeguards agreement. Menon told ElBaradei, a strong advocate of the India-US civil nuclear deal, about the finer aspects of the safeguards pact and sought to know from him the perception among the IAEA board about the pact. ElBaradei also met US Under-Secretary of State William Burns, who is in Vienna to push the nuclear deal with the IAEA board and the NSG countries.
Later yesterday, Menon was scheduled to meet the IAEA board and delegates of the NSG countries to allay their concerns about the implications of the pact on the global non-proliferation architecture. The special briefing, coinciding with the third anniversary of the July 18, 2005 India-US civil nuclear understanding, will he held at a place outside the premises of the IAEA secretariat.
Menon is leading an Indian team comprising senior officials of the external affairs ministry and the Department of Atomic Energy that includes R.B. Grover, the chief negotiator of the India-US safeguards agreement and DAE's director (Strategic Planning). Of the 35 nations in the IAEA board, 26 are NSG members. The remaining 19 NSG countries have also been invited for the briefing in the run up to the board's scheduled meeting in Vienna on August 1.
The IAEA board will have to approve the India-specific safeguards pact before the 45-nation NSG decides on amending its guidelines to resume global nuclear trade with India after a gap of more than 30 years.
Menon is likely to underline India's impeccable non-proliferation record despite not having signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and stress that the country's burgeoning economy needs environmentally clean fuel like nuclear energy. The safeguards agreement that was unveiled last week, meets three of New Delhi's key concerns: uninterrupted fuel supplies for its safeguarded reactors, a strategic fuel reserve, and the right to take corrective action in case fuel supplies are disrupted. -
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/19/2008 00:00 ||
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In South Africa, a total of 90 A(H1N1) viruses have been isolated during the 2008 influenza season to date, and all of the 23 influenza A(H1N1) viruses tested by the WHO collaborating Centres in London and Melbourne were found to have resistance to oseltamivir by neuraminidase enzyme-inhibition assay.
We knew this was coming.
None of these patients were receiving oseltamivir at the time of sampling, and no unusual clinical feature or underlying conditions have been found.
To date, preliminary test results show that the viruses carry the specific neuraminidase mutation (H274Y) that confers oseltamivir resistance in N1
From Chile, three of the 24 A(H1N1) viruses tested showed the specific neuraminidase mutation (H274Y).
The above comments from the WHO update on oseltamivir (Tamiflu) resistance indicate the frequency has now reached 100% in South Africa (based on the first 23 H1N1 samples tested). In the southern hemisphere, the 2008 flu season is ongoing. Consequently, Chile is also reporting H274Y in the current season. These isolates are almost certainly Brisbane/59 (clade 2B), which has been linked to the vast majority of Tamiflu resistant isolates from the 2007/2008 season.
Earlier positives from last season were on New Caledonia (clade 1) genetic backgrounds in the United States and Hong Kong (clade 2C) backgrounds in China. This season there have been multiple introductions of H274Y onto the Brisbane (clade 2B).
The expansion of H274Y has been facilitated by the vaccine mismatch, which targeted Solomon Islands (clade 2A) this season. There is no evidence for any clade 2A in circulation this season.
The expansion of H274Y via the Brisbane strain is cause for concern. It has now reached 100% in South Africa, which represents a growing reservoir of H274Y, which can clearly jump from one H1N1 clade to another, which is most easily explained by homologous recombination.
This polymorphism is identical to the H274Y on H5N1, suggesting that oseltamivir will have limited value for blunting an H5N1 pandmic.
#1
Granted, I only know enough about this kind of thing to be dangerous, but would that also mean that Relenza would be ineffective against the virus? Or is it just different enough that it may still offer some resistance?
Posted by: Swamp Blondie in the Cornfields ||
07/19/2008 23:03 Comments ||
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#2
I have a degree in genetics and I'd say rapid resistance is something that will happen to most if not all anti-viral agents, since all they do is suppress viral loads. I can't say if Tamiflu resistance transfers to Relenza.
Blondy, look up their chemical structure in wikipedia. If they have a different chemical structure then resistance transfer is unlikely. If they are similar, then it's likely.
Washington allies haven't always been easy to come by for U.S. automakers, but Republican presidential candidate John McCain told General Motors Corp. employees Friday that reviving the struggling industry would be of utmost importance in his administration. "The key, integral, vital part of our ability to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil will be directly related to that sign over there," McCain told an invitation-only town hall meeting at the GM Technical Center in Warren, pointing to a sign for GM's first plug-in electric car, the Chevrolet Volt. "I wish you every success, and I want to help in every way," he said.
Organizers added seats and risers to accommodate at least 500 people in GM's Design Dome. The Macomb County technical center north of Detroit employs nearly 17,000 people and is where GM is designing the Volt.
Before the town-hall meeting, the Arizona senator toured the facility with GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner and other company executives. McCain examined and got into a model of a Chevrolet Volt, a plug-in hybrid-electric car GM says it plans to have on the market by 2010.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Excuse me but the power grid in California can barely sustain our existing load today. Where are we going to get the infrastructure and additional power plants needed to fuel cars from the grid?
It SOUNDS like a nice idea until you begin to ask where the power is going to come from, particularly in summer. Now if you build about 50 nuclear plants and double the grid capacity, now we're talking.
#2
A local Guam restaurant patron likes to say that NICHOLAI TESLA believed it was possible for man to possess vast amounts of power, including for personal travel in advanced vehicle designs, widout need of using or burning any fossil fuels which Tesla recognized was bad for the environment.
PATRON > opined that many US-WORLD POLITICOS + INDUSTRIALISTS HATED TESLA BECUZ HIS IDEAS WERE SO ADVANCED AS TO NOT REQUIRE HUGE MASSES OF PEOPLE = HUMAN LABOR TO OPERATE, THUS WAS POLITICALLY UNPOPULAR OR IMPOSSIBLE TO SUPPORT BY BOTH GOVT AND BIG INDUSTRY. In this Age of GLOBAL WARMING, Tesla's anti-fossil, pro-electro energy ideas have become relevant iff not absolutely vital??? PATRON > also opined that, despite any rhetoric or offcial denials to the contray, the USGovt + USDOD always knew Tesla's ideas had substantive merit, and is what is being dev and empowered over at AREA 51 + OTHER SECRET US MIL/SCIFACS???
#9
The anticipated demand for electric cars would be at night when demand is VERY low right now. Range is getting up around 125 miles per charge, and battery life is well over 100,000 miles. I'm frankly surprised to hear so much negative commenting on it here. I'll admit the concept isn't very sexy, but you can charge the car for about $.30 a day. Check out the Chevy Volt website, it's worth the read.
Diesel-Electric car allows the diesle to run a constant speed, which gets the greatest economy from it. Electric drive motors, computer controlled, as well as regenerative braking, provide efficiency in terms of how the energy is expended. Batteries are there for regulating power, and can be used alone for short runs, liek to the grocery, etc - the typical 5 mile or less trip. For long trips or added power, the diesel would directly drive the vehicle's electrical drive.
That way not as much battery power and space is needed as in a typical gasoline hybrid, and its a much cleaner design, one that is well known and been in use in submarines since WW2.
#12
For comparison's sake, do a google search on "subaru diesel." It'll bring up articles about the diesel-equipped Legacy wagons they're selling in Europe now.
They get 50 MPG Hwy.
I think that's about double what the US version gets.
I'm fairly sure it doesn't meet the US requirements for smog reduction and whatnot.
I'm not sure if a version that did would have as good a mileage.
We've designed pollution regulations for cars for the half of the country where it never rains and wonder why all our cars get worse mileage than everywhere else.
#14
Jay Len has a 1909 Baker Electric car in his garage. The electric car is not new. If we are going to go "electric," we'd better fix up our grid and build a bunch of new power plants.
I saw where a new Prius has a solar panel to supplement the batteries.
#15
"The anticipated demand for electric cars would be at night when demand is VERY low right now"
Horse crap. People are going to drive to work and want to plug their cars in. Or they are going to drive home and plug them in right away.
Anyone who believes people are going to let a discharged car sit there until night to charge it has a serious case of cranial rectosis. People are going to charge those things at all hours of the day.
#16
I actually drove an electric car for a few years long before it was fashionable, and I hated that thing.
Basically a souped up golf cart, it had no ergonomic design, would have been a death trap in an accident, was very heat intolerant and tended to blow large lead sink fuses, splattering hot lead all over the place.
The fuses had to be replaced on a hot circuit, since the batteries were wired in parallel. And the batteries would sometimes release enough hydrogen gas to form a flammable bubble under the seat, so when you touched the accelerator--bang!
The company that made it went out of business, and finally the car's owner gave it away to a local university engineering school, writing it off for a huge amount of money as a "research vehicle".
Right after it was parked in their lot and the paperwork signed, all four leaf springs broke, leaving the plastic body of the car resting on the asphalt.
#17
The Volt looks really good. I put myself on the waiting list for it as soon as I found out about it. I believe a modest Solar array on your garage banking energy all day will easily recharge the battery system. Good to see GM stretch for a new market. They are finally starting to act like a hungry company that is trying to get back on top.
#18
What was it 'moose? Was it a home built?
Tesla is dead. My dog told me last week that he can turn meat into chocolate.
You dawg is lie! Is your dawg friend a Sheltie or and Irish Shelper? You can't trust them, they have good insticts but bad execution. Now Ima know a Border Collier that came close to making damn fine fudge, failed at reading the candy thermometre tho. Sad. Still it was ediable.
#20
I'd drive a diesel over a petrol vehicle any day, for the reliability alone. And I'm not the only person. Small diesel cars are becoming very popular.
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.
ZHUKOVKA, Russia (AP) - Russia's foreign minister on Friday called for an internationally developed "road map" to resolve the hot tensions over separatist Abkhazia, but raised serious objections to a plan devised by major countries. Sergey Lavrov's comments underlined the deep divisions in the dispute, which many have feared will boil into war. Lavrov met Friday with German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who is pushing the three-step plan that was rejected by Abkhazia's president earlier in the day.
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - A Dutch court punched a hole in toughened immigration restrictions, ruling an illiterate Moroccan woman cannot be required to pass a Dutch language test to join her husband in the Netherlands. The order dismayed politicians who have sought to curb immigration from non-Western countries and they vowed Friday to fix the law to cover the loophole exposed by the Amsterdam District Court.
VIENNA - Ahead of briefing the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-member board of governors and representatives of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon yesterday met IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei and discussed the text of an India-specific safeguards agreement. Menon told ElBaradei, a strong advocate of the India-US civil nuclear deal, about the finer aspects of the safeguards pact and sought to know from him the perception among the IAEA board about the pact. ElBaradei also met US Under-Secretary of State William Burns, who is in Vienna to push the nuclear deal with the IAEA board and the NSG countries.
