Michael J. Daly, a lifetime resident of Fairfield and a Medal of Honor recipient in World War II, died at home today. He was 83.
The cause of death, according to a relative, was pancreatic cancer.
President Harry S. Truman placed the blue ribbon of the Congressional Medal of Honor around the neck of 20-year-old Capt. Daly at the White House on Aug. 23, 1945. The award gave the modest Daly an aura of celebrity, which thereafter caused him some embarrassment.
"I'm no hero," he often said. "The heroes were those who gave their lives."
During World War II, which he entered as an 18-year-old infantry private, Daly was awarded the Silver Star twice for bravery in addition to the Medal of Honor. The latter came following his actions at the siege of Nuremberg in April 1945 with the Third Division of the Seventh Army.
Leading his infantry company through the rubble and exposing himself to enemy fire over and over, he eliminated three machine-gun positions, killing 15 of the enemy, with his own small carbine.
"Anybody would have done what I did," he later told a friend. "Luck is important in life. But in combat it is crucial. The bravest things are often done with God the only witness."
Following the war, Daly returned to Fairfield and began a business life as a salesmen for an oil company. He soon after commenced an independent entrepreneurial career that proved to be rewarding for him and to the many others whom he helped along the way.
Michael Daly & Associates had a small office on Harbor Road in Southport and the associates were most often his many friends. Daly was notably proud of his association with the St. Vincent's Medical Center in Bridgeport, for which he helped to raise considerable financial support for many years.
A Democrat, he flirted with politics but declined invitations to run for office although encouraging to his brother, the late Judge T.F. Gilroy Daly, in the latter's unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. Senate in 1982.
Daly was also supportive of Fairfield's longtime first selectman, his friend John J. Sullivan, who earned election as a Democrat in a town with a Republican majority for a record 12 terms.
Daly is survived by his wife of 50 years, Margaret Wallace Daly; his daughter, Deirdre Daly; his son, Michael of Fairfield; son-in-law, Alfred Pavlis; grandsons Michael, Nicholas and William, all of Fairfield; sisters, Bevan Daly Patterson of Garrison, N.Y., and Alison Daly Gerard of New York City; a stepson, W. Sanford Miller of Chadds Ford, Pa., and a stepdaughter, Blair Miller of Asheville, N.C.
AT least one of the robbers still at large after a bank heist in Brisbane may be injured from his gang's own explosion, police say.
The Bank of Queensland Aspley branch, on Gympie Road, was gutted and charred by an explosion at about 3.15am (AEST) today.
The bank's automatic teller machine was thrown onto the footpath by the blast.
After initial investigations at the scene, police believe one of the men was standing near the explosion.
North Brisbane Police District acting superintendent Jeff Kelly said a paper delivery operator also saw a man dressed in dark clothing "stagger" from the bank.
"The gentleman staggered over to a late '90s model Holden sedan, dark colour, which was parked adjacent to the bank where two other persons dressed in similar clothing were standing behind the vehicle," Superintendent Kelly said.
"That vehicle was then seen to drive off at a high speed in a west direction towards Albany Creek."
Police said they were appealing to hospital staff and medical practitioners for assistance.
Any medical practitioners with information about a man or men with injuries consistent with an explosion, such as burns or shrapnel injuries, were asked to contact Crime Stoppers.
Queensland Fire and Rescue Service senior operation coordinator Paul Simmons said firefighters brought a resulting blaze under control within 30 minutes of the explosion.
It is not known if anything was stolen from the bank.
No bystanders or bank staff were injured.
The fire also damaged a neighbouring business and parts of the Fountain Shopping Centre bounded by Gympie and Albany Creek roads remain closed, but all roads are open.
Scientific officers remain at the scene to investigate the cause of the fire.
The Bank of Queensland has advised that the branch will be closed until further notice.
Anyone with information which could assist police with their investigations should contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
The Sun was the first newspaper to track down and speak to Bernard Obama, 37. And he said of Democrat candidate Barack: Im very proud of my big brother.
Its quite a funny feeling that he might be the next President of the USA. Muslim Bernard an avid Manchester United fan and Sun reader is staying with his bingo-loving mum Kezia, 67, who has lived in the Berkshire new town for six years.
He was glued to the TV news in the modest suburban bungalow last night as Barack, 46, was due to arrive in Britain. Bernard leads a quiet life, running a car parts firm in Nairobi, Kenya. But he is a regular visitor to the UK to visit Elvis fan Kezia.
(Newser) The prayer Barack Obama put in Jerusalems Western Wall yesterday was removed by a Jewish seminary student and published in a local newspaper, the AP reports. It read, LordProtect my family and me. Forgive me my sins, and help me guard against pride and despair. Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just. And make me an instrument of your will.
The rabbi in charge of Judaisms holiest site was livid: The notes placed between the stones of the Western Wall are between a person and his maker. It is forbidden to read them or make any use of them. He added that the publication damages the Western Wall and damages the personal, deep part of every one of us that we keep to ourselves.
SEN. BARACK OBAMA said in an interview the day after his Berlin speech that it "allowed me to send a message to the American people that the judgments I have made and the judgments I will make are ones that are going to result in them being safer." Just what judgements does a community organizer make?
If that is what the senator thought he was doing, he still has a lot to learn about both foreign policy and the views of the American people. Hmm, Bolton seems unconvinced that The One's 148 days in the Senate are enough
Although well received in the Tiergarten, the Obama speech actually reveals an even more naive view of the world than we had previously been treated to in the United States. In addition, although most of the speech was substantively as content-free as his other campaign pronouncements, when substance did slip in, it was truly radical, from an American perspective.
These troubling comments were not widely reported in the generally adulatory media coverage given the speech, but they nonetheless deserve intense scrutiny. It remains to be seen whether these glimpses into Obama's thinking will have any impact on the presidential campaign, but clearly they were not casual remarks. This speech, intended to generate the enormous publicity it in fact received, reflects his campaign's carefully calibrated political thinking. Accordingly, there should be no evading the implications of his statements. Consider just the following two examples.
First, urging greater U.S.-European cooperation, Obama said, "The burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together." Having earlier proclaimed himself "a fellow citizen of the world" with his German hosts, Obama explained that the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Europe proved "that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one."
Perhaps Obama needs a remedial course in Cold War history, but the Berlin Wall most certainly did not come down because "the world stood as one." The wall fell because of a decades-long, existential struggle against one of the greatest totalitarian ideologies mankind has ever faced.
It was a struggle in which strong and determined U.S. leadership was constantly questioned, both in Europe and by substantial segments of the senator's own Democratic Party. In Germany in the later years of the Cold War, Ostpolitik "eastern politics," a policy of rapprochement rather than resistance continuously risked a split in the Western alliance and might have allowed communism to survive. The U.S. president who made the final successful assault on communism, Ronald Reagan, was derided by many in Europe as not very bright, too unilateralist and too provocative. Bush wasn't the first US President to be unliked in Europe
But there are larger implications to Obama's rediscovery of the "one world" concept, first announced in the U.S. by Wendell Willkie, the failed Republican 1940 presidential nominee, and subsequently buried by the Cold War's realities.
The successes Obama refers to in his speech the defeat of Nazism, the Berlin airlift and the collapse of communism were all gained by strong alliances defeating determined opponents of freedom, not by "one-worldism." Although the senator was trying to distinguish himself from perceptions of Bush administration policy within the Atlantic Alliance, he was in fact sketching out a post-alliance policy, perhaps one that would unfold in global organizations such as the United Nations. This is far-reaching indeed.
Second, Obama used the Berlin Wall metaphor to describe his foreign policy priorities as president: "The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down." Ever hear the one about "Fences make good neighbors?"
This is a confused, nearly incoherent compilation, to say the least, amalgamating tensions in the Atlantic Alliance with ancient historical conflicts. One hopes even Obama, inexperienced as he is, doesn't see all these "walls" as essentially the same in size and scope. But beyond the incoherence, there is a deeper problem, namely that "walls" exist not simply because of a lack of understanding about who is on the other side but because there are true differences in values and interests that lead to human conflict.
The Berlin Wall itself was not built because of a failure of communication but because of the implacable hostility of communism toward freedom. The wall was a reflection of that reality, not an unfortunate mistake. You go, John!
Tearing down the Berlin Wall was possible because one side our side defeated the other. Differences in levels of economic development, or the treatment of racial, immigration or religious questions, are not susceptible to the same analysis or solution. Even more basically, challenges to our very civilization, as the Cold War surely was, are not overcome by naively "tearing down walls" with our adversaries.
Throughout the Berlin speech, there were numerous policy pronouncements, all of them hazy and nonspecific, none of them new or different than what Obama has already said during the long American campaign. But the Berlin framework in which he wrapped these ideas for the first time is truly radical for a prospective American president. That he picked a foreign audience is perhaps not surprising, because they could be expected to welcome a less-assertive American view of its role in the world, at least at first glance. Even anti-American Europeans, however, are likely to regret a United States that sees itself as just one more nation in a "united" world.
The best we can hope for is that Obama's rhetoric was simply that, pandering to the audience before him, as politicians so often do. We shall see if this rhetoric follows him back to America, either because he continues to use it or because Sen. John McCain asks voters if this is really what they want from their next president.
NB : for an israeli view of islamic prisoners.
For years, extremist Iraqi detainees in U.S. custody held self-styled Islamic courts and tortured or killed inmates who refused to join them, military officials said, disclosing new details about the use of American prisons to recruit for the insurgency.
Sorta like what happens in an American maximum security pen with the gangs ...
The problem became the main catalyst for a decision to separate moderate detainees from the extremists, part of a broader reform package aimed at correcting widespread U.S. prison abuses that sparked international criticism. Yes, this is AP.
"We were having people who weren't insurgents who were being forced to be insurgents because of the power of these courts, the power of al-Qaida and other extremist groups," said Lt. Col. Kenneth Plowman, a spokesman for Task Force 134, which operates coalition detention facilities in Iraq.
He told The Associated Press Friday that the jailhouse Sharia courts formed, despite the presence of U.S guards, to enforce an extreme interpretation of Islamic law. They were then used to convict moderate inmates, who were then tortured or killed, he said.
In comments published in the Sierra Vista Herald in Arizona, Brig. Gen. Rodney L. Johnson, commander of the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command, put the number of detainees tried by the courts in the double-digits. Neither he nor Plowman would give specific numbers. The courts were eradicated and none has been detected in six months although some gang-related issues persist, Plowman said.
"We have a detainee population of about 21,000. You're gonna have extremists who will find a way to communicate and to form these kind of organizations," he added. But he said guards had stepped up to block efforts to form new courts.
The classification of detainees into moderate and extremist groups was part of sweeping reforms launched by the former commander of detainee operations, Maj. Gen. Douglas Stone, in a bid to overcome a series of scandals over the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody. It also was in line with a new counterinsurgency strategy by the Americans that focused on isolating the general population from the militants to stem support for the fighting.
"The problem's been apparent and when Stone took command that was one of his first initiatives--to separate out the detainees into categories like moderate, extremists etc. in order to resolve this issue," Plowman said. "There hasn't been any real Sharia court for six months or so."
Allegations of abuse at U.S. prisons escalated in 2004 with the release of pictures of grinning U.S. soldiers posing with detainees at the Abu Ghraib facility west of Baghdad. Some were naked, being held on leashes or in painful and sexually humiliating positions. That prison has since been closed, and 11 U.S. soldiers were convicted of breaking military laws, and five others were disciplined in the scandal.
Stone expressed regret over the old U.S. policies during a June 1 news conference, shortly before relinquishing command to Rear Adm. Garland Wright. "By not emphasizing population protection and the exemplary treatment of detainees, our facilities became breeding grounds for extremist recruitment. As a result, we changed many of our practices," he said.
Reforms also included educational and vocational programs in a bid to rehabilitate less dangerous prisoners, as well as increased releases under amnesty programs. Plowman said the inmates are thoroughly vetted by a series of interrogations by Muslim clerics and prison board members to determine to which category they should be assigned.
The overall number of detainees has fallen from a peak of 26,000 last summer to just over 21,000, according to officials. The problem was concentrated at Camp Bucca--a facility in southern Iraq that holds 18,000 of the inmates, including some of the most dangerous--and the courts were usually led by al-Qaida in Iraq, Plowman said. He said the problem had been happening since U.S. detainee operations began in 2004.
At least 29 people were killed and 88 wounded when a series of small explosions hit the western Indian city of Ahmadabad on Saturday, a top official said, a day after seven similar blasts struck a southern city.
Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat state where Ahmadabad is located, said at least 16 bombs went off Saturday evening in several neighborhoods of the busy city.
Modi called the blasts "a crime against humanity," and said the state government would cover the medical costs of all those wounded in the attacks.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for either set of blasts, and it was not clear if they were connected but Modi said that the attacks appeared to be masterminded by a group or groups who "are using a similar modus operandi all over the country."
Distraught relatives of the wounded crowded the city's hospitals and television channels showed video footage of police officers and sniffer dogs scouring the areas that were hit.
There also were images of a bus with shattered windows, destroyed roadside stalls, twisted bicycles and charred vehicles. Most of the blasts took place in the narrow lanes of the older part of Ahmadabad, which is crowded with tightly packed homes and small businesses.
Prithviraj Chavan, a junior minister in the prime minister's office, called the explosions "deplorable" and said they were set off by people "bent upon creating a communal divide in the country"language officials usually use when blaming Islamic militants believed to be behind bombings that have repeatedly hit India's cities in recent years.
"Anti-national elements have been trying to create panic among the people of our country. Today's blasts in Ahmadabad seem to be part of the same strategy," federal Home Minister Shivraj Patil told reporters in New Delhi.
Patil provided no details about the explosions.
The latest attacks came a day after seven synchronized small bombs shook Bangalore, India's high-tech hub, killing two people and wounding at least five others.
On Saturday, police found and defused an eighth bomb near a popular shopping mall in Bangalore, said Srikumar, the director general of police in Karnataka state, where the city is located. Like many Indians, he uses only a single name.
As in past bombings in India, suspicion for both sets of explosions quickly fell on Muslim militants blamed for attacks such as the July 2006 bombings that ripped through Mumbai's commuter rail network, killing nearly 200 people.
Those fears were amplified by the history of Ahmadabad, a crowded and historic city that in 2002 was the scene of one of worst incidents of rioting between India's Hindu majority and its Muslim minority.
The violence killed about 1,000 people, most of them Muslims. It was triggered by a fire that killed 60 passengers on a train packed with Hindu pilgrims. Hindu extremists blamed the deaths on Muslims and rampaged through Muslim neighborhoods, although the cause of the blaze remains unclear. That last bit is fuzzy, I thought the train was attacked by a (muslim) mob IIRC?
#1
I work with alot of Indians. I'll ask them about this Monday. We have a mix of Hindi/Muslim. They get along at work fine but they don't mingle at lunch or after work too much.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam ||
07/26/2008 20:18
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#2
Sounds like the Christians are killing Hindus again.
Posted by: allan ||
07/26/2008 20:53
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From Reuters "Several TV channels said they had received an email from a group called the "Indian Mujahideen" at the time of the blasts. The same group claimed responsibility for eight bombs that killed 63 people in the western city of Jaipur in May."
So it looks like they are opening up the Eastern Front.
A must see! Caught just the last part of this last night on Hannity as I was clicking during commercials (was watching Monk). Didn't take long to make it to YouTube
The Times Of London Columnist Gerald Baker reads his July 25th, 2008 column about Barack Obama
On Wednesday, New York Times Co. (NYT) reported disappointing second-quarter earnings, and on Thursday the stock continued in its steep descent. At the end of trading it stood at 12.48, or virtually half the price it commanded one year ago.
This part of the story is unsurprising, given how the Street is slamming any newspaper stock. What's startling is something else: If you back out much of the rest of the company's portfolio, you arrive at a surprisingly teeny valuation for the vaunted New York Times itself, despite all the respect the brand commands.
At its current $12.48 stock pricedown 46.3% from a year agoTimes Co. has a $1.79 billion market cap. To put this in perspective, CBS recently acquired tech publisher CNET, a much weaker media brand, for $1.8 billion. Add in the company's $1.1 billion of debt, subtract $42 million for its cash on hand, and the company's total enterprise valuea valuation measure that totals up those items in such a fashionis just $2.85 billion.
In a research note published on July 9, Lehman Brothers (LEH) analyst Craig Huber estimated the Boston Globe and the 14 regional newspapers the company owns could be sold for $575 million after taxes. Huber valued the 17% stake in the Boston Red Sox, after taxes, at $152 million and the Times's portion of its new headquarters building in midtown Manhattan at $750 million after taxes. The company paid $410 million three years ago for Web property About.com; according to an estimate by tech blog Silicon Alley Insider, that could be sold for approximately $600 million today. That sounds low to us, since About has consistently reported increasing revenues. Let's conservatively kick that up to $700 million and assume a 20% tax bite on the Times's $290 million gains in that sale, which is $58 million. So $642 million, aftertax, for About.com.
Totaling up those figures gets you to just over $2.1 billion. Subtract that from the enterprise value, and you get $750 million for the company's remaining assets.
Does anyone really believe that Times Co.'s other assetsThe New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, and its New York City radio stationcould be worth only $750 million?
#2
Does anyone really believe that Times Co.'s other assetsThe New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, and its New York City radio stationcould be worth only $750 million?
When the owners and management has been riddled with incompetence for years and the newspaper has only been a cheer leading section for the liberal dhimocrat party instead of a news organization...
#3
> Does anyone really believe that Times Co.'s other assets--The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, and its New York City radio station--could be worth only $750 million?
Yes. Next question. Are they worth anything at all?
Have you read Maureen Dowd or Paul Krugman lately?
Posted by: Mike ||
07/26/2008 17:38
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...despite all the respect the brand commands.
ROTFL. Like sub-prime mortgage paper. Why should anyone pay to be the front for the Democratic Party? Let the Party pay for their own in house organ on their own dime and own time. There's nothing historically wrong with a Party putting out its own paper. Just be up front about it, instead of hiding behind the very poor Potemkin facade.
#6
Do I smell a bargain in the air? The outlook for any large newspaper is bleak. With the highest profile in the US, it's going to take more of a hit than some. But is it trash or treasure? What am I bid?
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
07/26/2008 21:38
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Let's see, a syndicate of ten million conservatives, $200 subscription....
The look on Krugman and Rich's faces when we lay them off, priceless!
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/26/2008
13:31 ||
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#1
Ah, alas its not even good Onion.
2. Immediately make offers to the 20% of your journalists and editors that we think can make the transition to digital (24/7 real-time blogging). These folks won't be hard to find, given that some of them are writing excellent blogs already. (Andrew Ross Sorkin, Floyd Norris, David Carr, Joe Nocera, Gretchen Morgenson, Brian Stelter, Saul Hansell, Paul Krugman, Landon Thomas, and a few dozen other folks jump to mind.) By the way, we don't mind if these folks continue to distribute their stuff in the paper, too, so don't worry about losing them. In fact, that would be great exposure for us.
Just go to powerlineblog.com and do a search on the lad.
COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lankan troops continued their offensive against Tamil Tiger rebels in two days of fighting in the north that killed 66 Tigers and eight soldiers, the military said on Saturday. The fighting in the district of Jafna, Vavuiya Polonnaruwa, Mannar and Mullaitivu came three days after the government dismissed a declaration by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of a unilateral ceasefire from July 26 to August 4.
"Our offensives are going on, troops had killed 66 LTTE terrorists in the fighting on Thursday and Friday," said military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara. "Eight soldiers had died and 11 were injured from the fighting," he added. The Tigers were not immediately available for comment. The government and rebels trade death toll claims that are almost impossible to verify independently.
Sri Lanka's government is pursuing a strategy to gradually retake the Tiger's northern stronghold and win the 25-year civil war amidst an almost daily barrage of land, sea and air attacks in northern rebel-held territories.
NEW DELHI, India (AP) -- Media reports say a series of explosions have hit the western Indian city of Ahmadabad. The TV reports say the blasts went off in several neighborhoods of the busy city on Saturday evening. There was no immediate police comment and it was not clear if there were any casualties. New reports indicate about 4 bombs went off.
Several Indian cities have been hit by serial blasts in recent months. The attacks have been blamed on Islamic militants.
Saturday's blasts come a day after seven small explosions hit the southern technology hub of Bangalore, killing two people.
#5
These crowd estimate games piss me off. Take a flight over the crowd. Snap a few pictures. Then use ordinary techniques to produce an estimate that means something. There is no sense in putting up with these pretend numbers.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
07/26/2008 21:45
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20,000 or 200,000 - it's a little alarming when any number of Germans get together and and start chanting some speech-maker's name.
A 'shootout', not a true 'crossfire', but we like them all the same.
Another aide of slain top criminal Pichchi Hannan was killed yesterday in a shootout between his cohorts and Rab-2 in the capital's Tejgaon industrial area.
Another #3 bites the dust ...
The deceased was identified as Shaheb Ali, 35.
Never got vested in the criminal pension plan ...
Rab-2 sources said acting on a tip-off a team of Rab-2 ...
... with thanks to Mahmoud the Weasel ...
... raided a place near the truck stand at Tejgaon where Shaheb Ali and his accomplices gathered at about 1:30am.
Just mindin' their own business, they were ...
Sensing the presence of Rab members, ...
"Hark! My spider-sense is tingling!"
... Shaheb Ali and his accomplices opened fire on the law enforcers prompting them to retaliate.
Random aimless fire aimed at the RAB of course, but just two shots by the RAB in return, one behind each of Shaheb's ears. Wonder if anyone ever does a ballistics analysis at the crime scene ...
Shaheb was killed on the spot ...
"Which spot?"
"THAT spot!"
... while his cohorts managed to escape the scene.
As if they were never there.
Rab members recovered a revolver and a bullet from the spot.
A 'shootout' doesn't get a shutter-gun ...
The body was sent to the Dhaka Medical College morgue for autopsy.
Just so everyone knows he's dead ...
Sources said Shaheb was accused on twelve systems in a number of cases of different charges including murder.
So his mother likely didn't love him.
Earlier in 2005, Shaheb Ali sustained bullet injuries during a gunfight between Rab and henchmen of Pichchi Hannan. Hannan and two of his accomplices were killed in the shootout.
Clearly he didn't learn from the experience ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/26/2008
12:39 ||
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From East Asia Intel, subscription.
Chinese blue water navy ambitions as well as its hunger for imported energy have apparently resulted in a new warning to the worlds largest corporation, ExxonMobil.
A Hong Kong newspaper says Beijings diplomats have threatened retaliation if ExxonMobil goes ahead with a preliminary agreement between the Vietnamese state oil firm PetroVietnam. The deal covers exploitation in the South China Sea off Vietnam's south and central coasts.
Beijing claims a huge swath of the South China Sea just east of the Indochina peninsula and west of the Philippines. And there is long history of clashes among the riparian powers with Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodia, Taiwan and China making claims. There have been a number of small military skirmishes in the past two decades. The most serious occurred in 1976, when China invaded and captured the Paracel Islands from Vietnam. In 1988, Chinese and Vietnamese navies clashed at Johnson Reef in the Spratly Islands, sinking several Vietnamese boats and killing more than 70 sailors.
Last year, Chinese media targeted an agreement between Vietnam and BP near the Spratlys maintaining that those islands had been an indisputable part of Chinese territory since ancient times. The Spratlys, like other island groups in the region, are uninhabited rocky outcroppings and coral but are in an area that may contain large oil and gas deposits.
The islands also lie directly across the major shipping route for oil from the Persian Gulf to markets in China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.
The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Beijing signed a "Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea." The united front of Southeast Asian countries, concerned that Beijing might be strengthening its claims over much of the South China Sea, called for restraint and strict observance of international law in a high-level meeting with China in January 2000. Yeah, call for restraint from the Chicoms. That is a winning strategy.
All parties, theoretically, agreed to exercise self-restraint in the conduct of activities in the South China Sea that would complicate or escalate disputes and affect peace and stability, including, among others, refraining from inhabiting the presently uninhabited islands, reefs, shoals, cays and other features and to handle their differences in a constructive manner. But ASEANs effort at a joint position vis-a-visa Beijing fell apart when China and the Philippines began discussing possible joint exploration for petroleum in the disputed Spratlys. "Yes, we agree to a peaceful resolution. Now if you don't mind, please step aside. We have a drilling ship to move into position."
Backing up its claims, China has sent naval vessels into the area and constructed crude buildings on some of the islands. Reconnaissance photos taken by the Philippine air force show radar systems not normally associated with the protection of fishermen, as Beijing claimed. China maintains a base on Mystic Island, one of the Spratly group. All this fits into a strategy revealed by aerial photography recently when a giant new secret Chinese submarine base was exposed on Chinas Hainan Island just north of the disputed waters.
It may be significant that the most recent Chinese warnings, according to the South China Morning Post, were made verbally by Chinese diplomats in Washington. The hint was that ExxonMobils future business interests on the Mainland could be in jeopardy.
On the Vietnamese side, China is an ancient enemy of Hanoi dating back over centuries even though the two countries were allied after the Chinese Communists came to power in 1949. That lasted through the two Vietnam wars, one between the French and the Vietnamese and the other the U.S. engagement. But it fell apart in 1979 when the two countries fought a brief border war after Vietnam occupied Cambodia another instance of an ancient and bitter rivalry and overthrew the pariah Khmer Rouge regime, a staunch ally of Beijing. Beijing, champion of human rights, threw its lot in with the Khmer Rouge. Also the junta in Burma, Zim Bob, Sudan. The list goes on and on.
China-Vietnam relations have since improved with the Vietnamese adopting what many call the post-Deng Xiaoping China model of development. On June 21, the Vietnamese Communist Party newspaper Nhan Dan reported Vietnamese Communist Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh had successfully concluded an official visit to China at the invitation of the Chinese Party General Secretary and President Hu Jintao.
In fact, Vietnam and China have agreed to cooperate in oil and gas exploration in the Gulf of Tonkin just off the northern Vietnamese major port of Haiphong. But still, last year BP halted plans to conduct exploration work off the southern Vietnamese coast, citing territorial tensions caused by Chinese claims. And in December, China chided Vietnam after protests in front of the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi proclaimed that the Spratly and Paracel islands belonged to the Vietnamese.
The Hong Kong newspaper quoted unidentified sources saying Exxon Mobil was confident of Vietnam's sovereign rights to the blocks it was now seeking to explore. But it is clear that Exxon Mobil could not dismiss China's warnings out of hand given the rapidly increasing Chinese market for crude oil and oil products. The newspaper said China's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to queries about the situation, and an Exxon Mobil spokesman refused comment. However, Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dung came back with the assertion that Hanoi's dealings with foreign oil partners fell entirely within Vietnam's legal rights and sovereignty. Got to be able to back up your words. This whole episode just goes to show that we need to get off of foreign oil. Otherwise it is just intimidation and blackmail by psychopath oil ticks. We have the resources and the smarts. We just need the will to do it.
Posted by: Alaska Paul with his Parka on ||
07/26/2008
12:38 ||
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#1
So can we use this as an established principle to tell them to sod off drilling between Key West and Cuba?
JAMALPUR, July 25 (UNB): A madrasah student was killed after rape at Purbo Gamaria village in Islampur Upazila Wednesday. The victim was identified as Jahanara Begum, daughter of day labourer Alam and a student of class VIII of a local Dakhil madrasah.
Police said miscreants picked up Jahanara from her house after tying up her stepmother with whom she was sleeping. They killed the girl after rape and left the body near a bridge of her house.
A reminder: this wouldn't happen if young Muslim girls were given dirks and taught how to use them. Should be a principle of American foreign policy.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/26/2008
12:24 ||
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Steve, ol' buddy, you don't get it. See, Islam is the religion of submission, so it's the women's and young boys' job to submit. Any time, any place, any way Big Mo's older male followers want to give it to them, they just have to bend over and take it. Otherwise Allan won't like them, ya see...
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday that Iran now possesses 6,000 centrifuges, a significant increase in the number of uranium-enriching machines in its nuclear program, the semi-official Fars news agency reported. The new figure is double the 3,000 centrifuges Iran had previously said it was operating in its uranium enrichment plant in Natanz.
"Islamic Iran today possesses 6,000 centrifuges," Ahmadinejad told university professors in the northeastern city of Mashhad. In April, Ahmadinejad said Iran had begun installing 6,000 centrifuges at Natanz. His reported comments Saturday provided the first public assertion that Iran has reached that goal.
Meanwhile, Javier Solana ponders, over lunch, what to do next ...
A report by the U.N.'s nuclear monitoring agency delivered to the Security Council in May said Iran had 3,500 centrifuges, although a senior U.N. official said at the time that Iran's goal of 6,000 machines running by the summer was "pretty much plausible." The workhorse of Iran's enrichment program is the P-1 centrifuge, which is run in cascades of 164 machines. But Iranian officials confirmed in February that they had started using the IR-2 centrifuge that can churn out enriched uranium at more than double the rate.
A total of 3,000 centrifuges is the commonly accepted figure for a nuclear enrichment program that surpasses the experimental stage and can be used as a platform for a full industrial-scale program that could churn out enough material for dozens of nuclear weapons. Iran says it plans to move toward large-scale uranium enrichment that ultimately will involve 54,000 centrifuges.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/26/2008
12:20 ||
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DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - Four peace activists were arrested on Friday as they attempted to make a "citizens arrest" of Karl Rove, who was one of President George W. Bush's top aides before leaving the administration last year.
"It should be Karl Rove in that van. War Criminal!" one of a dozen protestors shouted as the four were put into a police van outside a Des Moines country club where Rove spoke at a private state Republican party fundraiser.
Chet Guinn, a retired Methodist Minister, was among those led away. "To be silent when major crimes are being committed against all humanity makes us accomplices," Gwinn told reporters just before his prearranged arrest, which took place when protestors stepped past a gate.
Was there a prearranged thumping shortly afterwards?
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/26/2008
12:12 ||
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Reports that a number of international oil companies are on the brink of signing contracts with Iraq have prompted a furious reaction in certain parts of the media and on Capitol Hill. The deals have been widely characterized as no-bid contracts, implying that Big Oil has somehow used its political clout to muscle in on Iraq and renewing suspicion that the whole U.S. intervention in Iraq was primarily a grab for natural resources. In the Senate, senior Democrats have argued that like everything else they choose the contracts would heighten Iraq's sectarian tensions, and those lawmakers are threatening to cut financing for some nonmilitary programs in Iraq if the deals go ahead without prior passage of new hydrocarbons legislation.
These are gross mischaracterizations of the Iraqi contracts.
If the Iraq invasion was about oil, let the record show that that mission has been botched even worse than the war's toughest critics claim the military expedition has been. Iraqi oil production steeply declined after the conflict began, and only this year has it returned to the levels of the Saddam Hussein era. This recovery can partly be put down to better security, especially along the northern export pipeline. But international oil companies also deserve some credit.
More than 40 foreign oil firms - ranging from the largest Western giants to minnows - have signed memorandums of understanding with the Iraqi Oil Ministry over the past four years. The companies have provided millions of dollars worth of advice, field studies, training programs and, in some cases, guidance on procurement and reservoir management to an increasingly beleaguered ministry, all free of charge. None of the companies kept secret its hope that this help would position it well for the future, but the assistance has been vital to restoring Iraq's oil production, especially at the country's biggest-producing fields.
Last year the Iraqi Oil Ministry found itself in a bind. It realized that this one-way relationship could not go on forever, but with political disputes hampering passage of a hydrocarbons law and foreign investment, it needed to extend the remote assistance program. So last autumn, ministry officials reached out directly to nine companies - not all super-majors by any means - in a bid to formalize the relationships through a two-year bridging mechanism known as a technical support agreement. The goal was to contract with the companies to support the ministry's procurement, project management and field management tasks to increase production sustainably. None of the nine companies will operate on the ground, and all have one thing in common: They have in the past provided valuable help in managing the oil fields that Iraq counts on most.
Although the companies were sought out by the Iraqis, the past 10 months of talks have not been a cakewalk for the firms. Iraqi oil officials have proved to be tough and unyielding negotiators, seeking the best bargains for their country. Terms have not been made public, but the returns for the companies are thought to be low and the production targets challenging. Perhaps most significant, the companies have been told that the support agreements will not guarantee them preferential access to these or any other fields when Iraq eventually goes ahead with open bidding, which the Oil Ministry hopes will take place early next year.
To block the support agreements at this stage would be a major disservice to Iraq. Such action would deny Iraq's oil industry much-needed help from the companies with which Baghdad most wants to work. It would also rob the country of revenue that could improve its financial strength and ease the burden on U.S. taxpayers.
Senate critics are also doing a disservice to U.S. interests: Obstructing the deals simultaneously conveys to Iraqis the image of direct U.S. interference in their sovereign affairs and the impression that America is somehow seeking to impede their country's recovery. Given the record oil prices of late and concerns over the availability of crude supplies, delaying - or possibly quashing - a move by a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to increase its output by as much as 500,000 barrels per day is folly. The senators no doubt mean well, but it is difficult to see how their actions serve the long-term interests of Iraq or the United States.
The writer is a senior director at PFC Energy in Washington, where he heads the Iraqi Advisory Service, which advises oil and gas companies - including some of the nine mentioned in this column - on investment risk in Iraq. PFC Energy does not have a direct commercial stake in the Iraqi market.
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/26/2008
11:25 ||
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#1
serving the longterm interests of Iraq and/or the U.S. is not part of the Democrat Party strategy. Serving the Democrat Party is.
Used to be the political parties looked for votes and advancing national interests. The Donks seem to look to fight wars in areas that contain no national interests, and refuse to fight or win in areas that do. Cowards and self-promoting treasonists
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/26/2008 13:11
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"serving the longterm interests of Iraq and/or the U.S. is not part of the Democrat Party strategy. Serving the Democrat Party is."
The Dems drank deep of the "no blood for oil" crowd.
"It's all about the oil" has always sounded stupid to me. Now that it's 2008 and we've won in Iraq, I'm thinking that it sounds stupid to quite a few people.
But it's too late for the Democrats; The die is cast. They have to dance with the one who brung 'em. And I think it's going to cost them. Once again, I think the democrats are going to outcompete the republicans for blowing an election. And sadly, yet one more election cycle that I wish BOTH sides could lose.
Posted by: Bin thinking again ||
07/26/2008 15:40
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America's first war over oil started on December 7th, 1941. Japan needed oil to support her industrial expansion and had none. Western powers refused to supply her additional oil because of her military adventures in China. Japan figured the best way to secure an adequate supply was to take the Dutch East Indies.
In order to take that oil supply and secure the supply route, Japan needed to knock out the US Pacific Fleet, and so was born the operation at Pearl Harbor. Ironically, Japan would have succeeded if it wasn't for one mistake. Not knowing where our carriers were spooked the Japanese command in charge of the raid so a third wave of bombing that was supposed to take out all the oil storage in Hawaii was called off, in part because of the great success of the earlier waves. They figured we would never be able to recover from the loss of so many ships that they didn't need to destroy the oil storage.
If they had destroyed that storage, all naval operations out of Pearl Harbor would have stopped and the Pacific Fleet would have had to be pulled back to the West Coast of the US. There would have been no battle of Midway and Japan would likely have taken the Hawaiian Islands.
As it was, we were able to send ships to Pearl Harbor and begin repair operations. We did not have tanker capacity to support operations in the far Pacific from the coast of the US, but we could do it from Pearl and it would have taken about 5 years to rebuild oil stocks in Hawaii if that storage had been lost.
World War II against Japan was America's first war over oil, when we were the number one supplier in the world.
You know how it is - to some of these folks, dissent is the highest form of patriotism. Treason is the highest form of dissent. Implying that in their minds, treason is the highest form of patriotism.
President Bush plans to sign a bill next week that commits the United States to spending about $40 billion over the next five years to fight AIDS overseas, a major expansion of what many consider his most successful foreign policy initiative.
The legislation also extends an implicit pledge that has little precedent in the history of U.S. foreign assistance: to continue purchasing lifesaving drugs for millions of individual people in developing countries for an indefinite period of time.
Foreign aid for health care has traditionally been used to put up buildings, buy equipment and train workers. Direct medical care of individuals was limited to one-time interventions such as vaccinations, emergency treatment after natural disasters, and curative treatments of limited duration for diseases such as tuberculosis or leprosy.
Bush's program is fundamentally different. So far, it has purchased vast quantities of antiretroviral drugs and supported day-to-day medical care for more than 1.4 million people whose survival depends on continued treatment.
"It is the first time I can think of where we have foreign aid treating a chronic disease," said Michael H. Merson, director of Duke University's Global Health Institute and a former head of the World Health Organization's AIDS office. "It's a challenge to take this on. I think the questions it raises are going to be important ones for the future."
Once started, AIDS therapy must continue indefinitely, because stopping it can rapidly lead to death. As a consequence, international health experts and medical ethicists say it would be immoral to withdraw the financial assistance that pays for the therapy unless someone else steps in to replace it.
Although all governments and organizations supporting AIDS patients overseas have made an implied open-ended commitment, it looms largest for the United States, which provides about 40 percent of global AIDS assistance. Few experts say they think the needy countries now getting help from the United States will be able to fend for themselves anytime soon.
"We've never really been confronted with this in the international health arena," said Paul De Lay, a physician formerly with the U.S. Agency for International Development who is now with UNAIDS, a United Nations program in Geneva.
The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a surprise announcement in the 2003 State of the Union address, has spent about $19 billion in the last five years. The president sought to double it to $30 billion in a bill reauthorizing it for another five years, but Congress trumped him, sending him a larger bill that when it passed on Thursday authorized the spending of $48 billion -- $39 billion for AIDS and the rest for other diseases.
The money is provided to governments, charitable organizations and academic medical centers to buy drugs and equipment, train workers and run programs. By the administration's estimates, PEPFAR in five years has provided antiretroviral drug therapy for 1.4 million people; treatment for 1 million infected women during pregnancy so they are less likely to transmit the virus to their babies; care for nearly 3 million AIDS orphans; and 33 million counseling-and-testing sessions.
Although Bush's initiative enjoys support in both parties and has been praised around the world, some policy experts say the implications of its open-ended commitment have been largely ignored. A few view PEPFAR as essentially an open-ended "entitlement program" for citizens of other countries.
One person with that view is Mead Over, a former World Bank economist who is now at the Center for Global Development, a Washington think tank. He fears that if PEPFAR's commitments grow, as they are likely to, they will squeeze out funding for other, equally important, foreign aid.
He also worries that with such lopsided and personal relationships between countries, providing life-sustaining care may become a "strategic resource that will be used, or will be an implicit bargaining chip, in negotiations." He added that "sovereign countries are likely to feel quite vulnerable if they perceive that the lives of a substantial number of their citizens are dependent on the continued largess of a donor." Aha! So it's a subtle Rovian plot!
Over's solution is to spend much more AIDS assistance on prevention efforts, and to channel money for treatment through international organizations to spread future obligations among as many donors as possible.
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/26/2008
11:10 ||
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#1
Not a single 'Thank you, U.S.!" was offered by the lot of these a**holes.
#2
Actually, lots of educated people, if not governments, have long been praising W. Bush, agreeing with the statement that he has done more for Africa than all other US presidents combined.
Surprised that such statements are not to be found in the MSM?
Hamas security arrested dozens of supporters of the rival Fatah group, hurled grenades at the home of one Fatah leader and set up checkpoints across Gaza on Saturday, following a mysterious beachside blast that killed five Hamas members and a 6-year-old girl.
Hamas leaders blamed Fatah for Friday's explosion, and began the toughest crackdown against the rival group in recent months. A Gaza-based human rights group reported Hamas security officials arrested at least 160 Fatah loyalists, and some 40 institutions connected to the group were raided. Fatah leaders denied involvement, and an aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the crackdown is reducing prospects for eventual reconciliation. I fear for the cause of Palestinian unity
#2
"Hamas .... set up checkpoints across Gaza"
Of course, these are the totally acceptable Islamic checkpoints, not illegal ones like the Israelis set up in the West Bank.
#1
Muslim men have both sole custody rights and the right to abandon wives and children. One Hadith grants male ownership of breast milk, after divorce.
During a talk which was supposed to focus on raising money for conservation work, the veteran comic launched a tirade against his estranged third wife.
Cleese asked the audience at Bristol Zoo: "Guess how much I'm paying her at the moment? I'm paying her £900,000 ($1.86 million) a year. And we had no children. It really is astonishing."
What's astonishing is that he didn't get a prenup. Third time lucky? Guess not...
#4
"Guess how much I'm paying her at the moment? I'm paying her �900,000 ($1.86 million) a year. And we had no children. It really is astonishing."
Old punchline - Well, we know what you are, we're just negotiating the price.
The InstaProf's wife's webpage chronicles the evolution of the growing male boycott of marriage. Rightly or wrongly, stuff like this only adds more poison to the situation. I'm sure Sir Paul McCartney can sympathize.
#11
Cleese blamed his estranged wife's lawyer for turning their separation into an embittered dispute over money, saying his wife is now "taking me for everything she can get".
Comparing the split with the break-up from his previous wives, Connie Booth and Barbara Trentham, he said: "My two other divorces were very peaceful affairs. We went to mediation and it was very civilised."
Cleese also spoke openly about his new relationship with 34-year-old marketing executive Veronica Smiley.
"She's absolutely gorgeous, and incredibly intelligent."
Marrage #4? comming up... GET A CLUE JOHN...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.5MT: #8 So the wife can watch HD House pr0n upstairs?
.5MT: #9 Never mind.... Ima near blind.
.5MT Prescription:
New 'Coke Bottle' Expando Glasses will hep... yep 3 out of ten Drs. recommend.
P0rn: Only "Do" "Ginormus Jugs" p0rn for the next 6 weeks and then see Nurse Mammary in the RBee clinic.
...much easier on the eyes..
#12
I wonder if she's added HGTV to the list of reasons?
Actually, InstaProf linked to another blog that covered that issue. That female blogger ripped the women on House Hunters who constantly talk about the closet in the main bedrooms being just adequate for her clothes but no space for hubby, who usually meekly grunts. That started a comment avalanche.
#13
Proc, I read that article and the comments. If my anecdotal evidence is anything to go by, I'd say the marriage boycott is definitely a reality for young men. They just don't see any reason to play a game they feel is rigged against them. Since most young women will have sex without marriage anyway, why take the risk?
As some of you may know my best friend is an Iraqi Kurdish-American and a good friend of Jalal Talibani. What our lazy MSM does not tell you is why the Kurds are upset about the new election law.
The Parliament passed the law that does not allow elections in Kirkuk Province but instead appoints all leaders based on a formula of 25% Kurds, 25% Arabs, 25% Turkuman, and 25% Assyrians. Kirkuk is 65% Kurd and the Turkuman and Assyrians make up less than 15% combined. This was all passed with less than a quorum.
It would be like a minority of Congress telling DC it could no longer elect its local leaders. But, instead they were going to be appointed by Congress to govern the District based on a formula of 25% Black, 25% White, 25% Asian and 25% Hispanic. I'm sure the Blacks would be as upset as the Kurds are in Iraq.
BAGHDAD - Iraq's political party leaders are being asked to study objections to a draft provincial elections law and offer proposals within 48 hours.
Khalid al-Attiya, a deputy parliament speaker, says the parties and various committees are being asked to help end disputes that have held up the elections planned for this fall. A main sticking point is how to allocate local council seats in the disputed city of Kirkuk.
Saturday's move hopes to break the political deadlock and clear the way for the elections which are strongly supported by Washington as a step toward political reconciliation.
The elections were scheduled for Oct. 1, but election officials say it appears that the voting could be put off to December or later.
#1
Bad analogy, GB. Actually, Congress is SUPPOSED to appoint the government of Washington, DC. They've opted out, but the Constitution still says it's their responsibility.
I think what Baghdad's trying to do here is to ensure that the Kurds don't hold 100% of the government jobs, since they're a majority in the district. The central government could have done so in a much more respectable and discrete manner, but then, most of the Shiites aren't happy with not being 100% in charge, and many of the Sunnis feel the same way.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/26/2008 15:12
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Fact is DC leaders are elected, so what if the congress gave their responsibility a by.
In the mean time maybe Basra should have their leaders appointed so the Shiites don't use their majority to run the place. How about Anbar, to keep the Sunni's from controlling the Province. And, how about California so the liberal Democrats would not hold control of most of the State.
About 15,000 sailors will be involved in Operation Brimstone. Both the Roosevelt and Iwo Jima will be deployed in the Middle East in the coming months. The exercise is scheduled to end July 31, two days before the US-European ultimatum to Iran expires. Immediately after the Geneva talks ended in failure, the US State Department issued a statement giving Tehran the option of "cooperation or confrontation."
A partial blockade of Iran's shores, a key element of the new sanctions, would be limited to withholding from Iran supplies of benzene and other refined oil products - not foodstuffs or other commodities. Short of refining capacity, Iran has to import 40 percent of its benzene consumption and will be forced to react to the stoppage.
Operation Brimstone boasts two striking features:
1. It will include for the first time units of the US Expeditionary Combat Command, who are trained to operate in shallow coastal waters and rivers, such as the coastal waters of the Persian Gulf and the small islands around its chokepoint, the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian Revolutionary Guards marine units are posted on these islands. The international force will have to control the islands to ensure oil shipping freed passage out to world markets.
2. The Roosevelt's decks will for the first time host French Rafale fighter jets which will share space with US warplanes, while the only French carrier Charles de Gaulle undergoes maintenance. I can't imagine that's going to be fun for the Navy. Spares and so on. Plus the unwashed French pilots will stink up the mess halls.
Does the Chicken of the Seaever get out of port?
Our military sources note that French warplanes have in the past performed short landings and takeoff drills on US carriers from the Charles de Gaulle, but never before taken part in a fully cooperative operational exercise.
This joint endeavor signifies that French President Nicolas Sarkozy is fully committed to a joint US-European military action if necessary to halt Iran's progress toward a nuclear weapon. Go Sarkozy.
#1
Plus the unwashed French pilots will stink up the mess halls.
Gee, I hope seeing all those nimble french pilots won't do too much harm to the self-esteem of all those obese, lazy americans! And I hope too that when they tell them they come from France, they will have at least an approximate idea of where the country is, and not think it's an US State from the other coast!
#2
On second thought, I should have added something about Viet Nam, because in Europe, everyone knows that the US soldier can't fight, and has to rely on technology and massive firepower to overcome even a rag-tag opponent!/see, I can do it too II
#3
All Rafale training was made in USA. Also French carroers have E-2C Hawkeyes. Oh and btw i think Rafales are better than F-18 which isnt suprising they are newer.
#4
Plus the unwashed French pilots will stink up the mess halls.
Deck-scrubbing brushes and harsh laundry soap, operated by some of the tougher Boatswain's Mates or guys from the Marine detachment, should go a long way to correcting & discouraging Frankish scrounginess...
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
07/26/2008 13:57
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Ulolump...Most Super Hornet drivers will tell you that it's a pig...it does nothing really well, and is marginal in a lot of phases of flight and mission. I have a couple of buddies who have had some harrowing cat shots.
#7
agreed. Thanks to the French for the joint exercise. I believe Sarkozy is doing good things over there, and it's disrespectful to throw the slurs at our resident French RBers, who I like...yes, even you, Kevin ;-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/26/2008 16:47
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#8
Perhaps the French pilots will be kind enough to bring some tidbits for the mess hall, or whatever it's called on American carriers. I imagine the sailors and pilots will have lots of fun together making the Iranians even more nervous than they already are.
/now children, you know you love one another, so behave! ;-)
#9
Love one another? I don't think so. Perhaps if Sarkozy had not meddled in our election by paying obeisance to the Obamessiah, but I still eat Freedom Fries.
#12
Ive posted pix here of French interop flights. Its not new. But it is good to have the French on our side rather than in our way.
Watch this before you diss the french pilots. These guys can flat out fly, low and in there, star wars style.
If I were the Iranian air defense guys, this footage would give me nightmares. Without an overhead look-down radar, they'd never see these guys coming.
Pardon the crappy eurodisco. turn down the sound and just watch.
PESHAWAR, Pakistan It was once known as the Parrots Beak, a strategic jut of Pakistan that the American-backed mujahedeen used to carry out raids on the Russians just over the border into Afghanistan. That was during the cold war.
Now the area, around the town of Parachinar, is near the center of the new kind of struggle. The Taliban have inflamed and exploited a long-running sectarian conflict that has left the town under siege.
The Taliban, which have solidified control across Pakistans tribal zone and are seeking new staging grounds to attack American soldiers in Afghanistan, have sided with fellow Sunni Muslims against an enclave of Shiites settled in Parachinar for centuries. The population of about 55,000 is short of food. The fruit crop is rotting, residents say, and the cost of a 66-pound bag of flour has skyrocketed to $100.
And, in a mini-conflict that yet again demonstrates the growing influence of the Taliban and the Pakistan governments lack of control over this highly sensitive border area, young and old, wounded and able-bodied, have become refugees in their own land.
Thousands of displaced Shiites from Parachinar are scattered among relatives in Peshawar, capital of North-West Frontier Province, which abuts the tribal areas, and in hotels and shelters where images of Iranian religious leaders decorate the halls.
Last month, a Pakistani government relief convoy loaded with food and medicines that had been sent to break the siege was attacked by the Taliban at the village of Pir Qayyum. Many of the 22 vehicles were burned and 12 drivers were killed by the Taliban, according to government officials here and Shiites.
And little seems to be hindering the Taliban since the army, six months ago, agreed to a peace deal with the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, and has remained in its barracks.
Groups of Taliban affiliated with Mr. Mehsud, who according to the Bush administration is supported by Al Qaeda, now control wide swaths of the tribal areas, from Waziristan in the south to Bajur in the north.
From some parts of the tribal areas, like Waziristan and Mohmand, the Taliban have stepped up their operations into Afghanistan against NATO and American soldiers, cross-border attacks that have resulted in rising casualties for coalition forces over the last two months, the Bush administration said.
In Kurram, the general area where Parachinar is located, the Taliban are a relatively new phenomenon, exploiting the generations-old sectarian conflict as a way of keeping the government out of the strategically important piece of territory, the senior government official in Kurram, Azam Khan, who serves as the political agent and who organized the June convoy, said in an interview.
But Shiites say the Taliban are doing more than just keeping the government at bay. The Shiites say that because they are stopping the militants from entering Afghanistan, the Taliban are attacking them.
The situation has attracted the attention of the leading Shiite figure of Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who has encouraged all Shiites in Pakistan to do what they can to help their brethren in Parachinar, said Sheik Mohammed Shifah Alnajafi, the deputy representative of Ayatollah Sistani in Pakistan, and the vice principal of a Shiite seminary in the capital, Islamabad.
About 80 percent of Pakistans overwhelmingly Muslim population is Sunni, and about 20 percent Shiite. In Kurram as a whole, the two sects are almost evenly divided, with Parachinar almost entirely Shiite, according to figures from the secretariat of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, the body that loosely oversees the tribal region.
The origins of the siege reach back to April 2007, when sectarian violence between Shiites and Sunnis flared over provocative remarks made by a Sunni of Wahhabi beliefs against historical Shiite figures, said Muhammad Amin Shaheedi, the director of the Islamic Research Council in Islamabad, and a leader of the Shiite community in Pakistan.
But unlike previous bouts of sectarian violence that were settled by mediation after a few days, the tensions mounted, exacerbated by the Taliban, who sided with some of the Sunni, he said.
Then, last Nov. 16, the tensions exploded in a day of extraordinary violence in Parachinar and surrounding villages, including mortar fire between Sunni mosques and Shiite mosques, said M. B. Bangash, a Shiite businessman from Parachinar who has taken refuge in Peshawar.
In contrast to other parts of the tribal areas, the Pakistani Army has had a garrison in Parachinar for decades, but it failed to stop the violence, he said. The government is indifferent, Mr. Bangash said.
Some of the moderate Sunni families in Parachinar, who had often helped Shiites in conflicts, were attacked in the November fighting by extremist Shiites and were forced to flee, according to Mr. Khan, a well-regarded political agent who was appointed last month to the area in an effort by the government to reduce tensions. This left the general Shiite population feeling more vulnerable to the Taliban, he said.
But the ambush of the convoy last month proved the power of the Taliban, the displaced Shiites in Peshawar said.
A driver of one of the trucks who survived, Asif Hussain, described being captured at Pir Qayyum, taken to a Taliban training camp in the village of Shasho, interrogated and then released after convincing his captors that he was not Shiite, but Sunni.
At the camp, the Taliban killed eight other drivers because they were Shia, said Mr. Hussain, 33, in a telephone interview from Parachinar.
An official of the Pakistan Peoples Party from Parachinar, Mirza Jihadi, confirmed the existence of the Shasho camp, which, he said, is at a place where Afghan refugees used to live and is now controlled by loyalists of Mr. Mehsud, the head of the Pakistani Taliban.
The displaced in Peshawar told stories of growing hardship at home, and they complained bitterly of the failure of the government to help.
I want to go home but the government does not provide any transportation, said Mohib Ali, 45, at a hotel here, as he nursed a bandaged right arm that was wounded, he said, in fighting.
He had spent the previous day at the Peshawar airport hoping to board a military helicopter that he had been told would take civilians back to Parachinar. But instead, he said, it filled up with soldiers returning after leave, and a few favored others with good contacts.
The army garrison in the town had done little to help, and had failed to organize major food supplies, said Haji Gulab Hussain, a retired government official who leads a Shiite tribal council.
The lower-ranking soldiers are ready for any action, he said. But the army is supporting the Taliban. There are no orders. During the November violence, he said, The army did nothing.
Parachinar has prided itself on the best education in the tribal areas since the British colonial era, so the closing of schools since the violence began is a special blow, some of the displaced said. Teachers were too afraid to travel, they said.
The one hospital in Parachinar was left with only a few nurses. Basic medicines, including anesthesia equipment and oxygen, were depleted, according to a medic reached by telephone.
Killings have demoralized the population. In the village of Bilyamin, 22 miles south of Parachinar, two students walking to their matriculation exams were shot dead by the Taliban, Mr. Bangash said.
Some solace was coming from Afghanistan, the refugees said. A schoolboy, Ashfaq Hussain, 12, arrived in Peshawar on Tuesday after a two-day journey by car through Afghanistan to enroll at Islamia Collegiate School, a prestigious school here.
We can go through Afghanistan without a visa, its a help, said his father, Sabir Hussain.
But his sons travel to Peshawar by car via Afghanistan cost the equivalent of $50 over two days, instead of the usual $3 by bus in about five hours, he said.
Much of the vegetable crop of potatoes and tomatoes that is normally sold to markets in the heart of Pakistan was now being sent to Kabul, Mr. Bangash said. More perishable fruits were wasted.
After the disaster of the June convoy, Mr. Khan, the political agent, said he had a new plan to try to persuade moderate tribesmen, both Sunni and Shiite, who were now weary of the violence, to allow the opening of the 45-mile road that runs from the town of Thal along a deep, wide valley up to Parachinar.
Its been an intense year of warfare, he said. Both sides are fed up.
In Islamabad, Mr. Jihadi said the Interior Ministry had promised on Wednesday to resume flights by the government airline, Pakistan International Airways, to the airstrip in Parachinar, which had been abandoned long ago.
To try to quash the Taliban, the ministry would urge the local tribes to form small armies, known as lashkar, he said. The ministry was also offering local people financial rewards, he said, if they killed a Taliban leader.
But whether the army would take a role in the efforts to find a solution appeared to remain an open question.
Posted by: john frum ||
07/26/2008
08:15 ||
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#1
Before the LOC ceasefire, Pakistan artillery would routinely pound Shiite villages in Indian Kashmir.
The Pak dictator Zia Ul Haq ordered a pogrom of Shia in the Gilgit area of Kashmir. He had an officer organize a lashkar of Arab jihadis to do the killing.
That officer was named Pervez Musharraf. The lashkar was led by an arab named Osama Bin Laden.
Zia was killed in a mysterious crash of his C-130 aircraft. There were suspicions that some PAF Shia aircrew were involved.
Posted by: john frum ||
07/26/2008 8:24
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#2
John, National Geographic has an excellent article from September, last year, which backgrounds a lot of the issues in this article. Struggle for the Soul of Pakistan
Chinese authorities denied claims by a group calling itself the Turkistan Islamic Party that it was responsible for deadly bus explosions in Shanghai and Yunnan province ahead of the Olympic Games, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday. The group released a video threatening the Beijing Olympic Games and claiming responsibility for deadly bus explosions in Shanghai and in Yunnan's Kunming, a terrorism monitoring firm in Washington said on Friday. But Xinhua reported that a police investigation of the Shanghai blast on May 5 had nothing to do with "terrorist attacks".
The blast, which killed three people and wounded 12, was caused by inflammables such as oil, Cheng Jiulong, Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau deputy head, was quoted by Xinhua as saying. "The blast was indeed deliberate but had nothing to do with terrorist attacks," he said.
IntelCenter, a U.S.-based terrorism monitoring firm, said the group had released a video entitled "Our Blessed Jihad in Yunnan", featuring a statement by the group's leader, Commander Seyfullah, threatening next month's Olympics. "Despite the Turkistan Islamic Party's repeated warnings to China and international community about stopping the 29th Olympics in Beijing, the Chinese have haughtily ignored our warnings," IntelCenter quoted Seyfullah as saying.
Seyfullah said the group bombed two public buses in Shanghai on May 5 and "took action against police" in Wenzhou on July 17 with a tractor loaded with explosives. The group also bombed a plastics factory in Guangzhou on July 17 and bombed three public buses in Yunnan on July 21, according to IntelCenter. The Xinhua report did not specifically address the group's other claims.
"The Turkistan Islamic Party warns China one more time," Seyfullah said, according to the IntelCenter transcript. "Our aim is to target the most critical points related to the Olympics. We will try to attack Chinese central cities severely using the tactics that have never been employed." He urged spectators and athletes "particularly the Muslims" planning to attend the Olympics to change their minds.
The warning comes two weeks before the start of the Beijing Games on August 8.
#3
#2: Or those violent and radical Presbyterians.
If only! I'd love to see the day when the Presbyterians would become "violent and radical" about their religion, instead of being namby-pamby milque-toast appeasers for Christianity.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/26/2008 14:45
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Uniformed gunmen presumed to be terrorists insurgents attacked a police station in Sai Buri district of Pattani province just before dawn Saturday, causing heavy damage to the structure, police said, but no casualties.
Police said the attackers, dressed in official-appearing uniforms, traveled by motorcycle and pickup truck drove into the police station compound and fired an automatic rifle at the building. An exchange of gunfire lasted for about five minutes before the assailants withdrew. Police said the walls and glass windows were heavily damaged but no casualties were reported. A combined police and army force is now hunting the assailants.
A mysterious explosion in a suburb of Teheran that killed 15 people last Saturday was likely an attack on a Iranian military convoy carrying arms to Hizbullah, the Telegraph reported Friday.
Way to go Team CIA. And remember to deny everything when the New York Times comes a'calling ...
The Iranian Revolutionary Guards imposed a news black-out immediately after the blast, but the UK newspaper reported that it looked like sabotage was responsible for destroying the convoy as it traveled through Khavarshahar. The newspaper noted that the company responsible for moving the military equipment, LTK, was owned by the Revolutionary Guards and was allegedly involved in shipping arms to Hizbullah.
Last Saturday's incident was the latest in a series of mysterious explosions in the Islamic republic.
Operation Lemony Snickett is in full swing, I see ...
In May, Iran blamed British and US agents for an explosion at a mosque in Shiraz that had just been the site of a military exhibition. In 2007, more than a dozen Iranian engineers lost their lives while trying to fit a chemical warhead to a missile in Syria. A few months earlier, a train apparently carrying military supplies to Syria was derailed by an explosion in northern Turkey.
#2
I'd bet money it was more a Mossad hit than a CIA one. The best reason to say that is because it worked. Of course, it could also have been one of the half-dozen anti-Khoumeni groups that are active in Iran, some of which are, indeed, funded by the CIA.
I hope Israel understands that striking Iran's nuclear works in Natanz and elsewhere is a legitimate operation, but attacking the civilian population in IRAN is a no-no. In Lebanon, however...
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/26/2008 14:28
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#3
had it been CIA, it likely would've been on the front page of the NYT the week before: "Bush's Plan For Illegal War on Iran"
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/26/2008 15:22
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DelFly Micro air vehicle. This successor to the DelFly I and II weighs barely 3 grams, and with its flapping wings is very similar to a dragonfly. Ultra-small, remote-controlled micro aircraft with cameras, such as this DelFly, may well be used in the future for observation flights in difficult-to-reach or dangerous areas. The DelFly Micro will make a short demonstration flight during the presentation.
The DelFly Micro is a 'Micro Air Vehicle' (MAV), an exceptionally small remote-controlled aircraft with camera and image recognition software. The Micro, weighing just 3 grams and measuring 10 cm (wingtip to wingtip) is the considerably smaller successor to the successful DelFly I (2005) and DelFly II (2006). The DelFly Micro, with its minuscule battery weighing just 1 gram, can fly for approximately three minutes and has a maximum speed of 5 m/s.
Ultra-small remote-controlled, camera-equipped aircraft are potentially of great interest because they could eventually be used for observation flights in difficult-to-reach or dangerous areas.
Nature
The basic principle of the DelFly is derived from nature. The 'dragonfly' has a tiny camera (about 0.5 grams) on board that transmits its signals to a ground station. With software developed by TU Delft itself, objects can then be recognised independently. The camera transmits TV quality images, and therefore allows the DelFly II to be operated from the computer. It can be manoeuvred using a joystick as if the operator was actually in the cockpit of the aircraft. The aim is to be able to do this with the DelFly Micro too.
Miniaturisation
The development of the DelFly is above all the story of continuing miniaturisation of all the parts, from the DelFly I (23 grams and 50 cm) via the DelFly II (16 grams and 30 cm) to the present DelFly Micro (3 grams and 10 cm).
The DelFly II drew huge attention in 2006 because it could fly horizontally (21 km/hr) as well as hover, just like a hummingbird, and also fly backwards. The DelFly Micro, incidentally, cannot do this just yet.
In a few years time, the new objective of the project, the DelFly NaNo (5 cm, 1 gram) will have been developed. The Micro is an important intermediate step in this development process. A second objective for the future is for the DelFly to be able to fly entirely independently thanks to image recognition software.
#5
Philip K. Dick invented the idea years ago - confer the movie "Minority Report". Could be a godsend to catch big time dealers/coyotes, and stash house operators here in Tucson.
#6
I don't think that the camera will be useful unless the fly can glide or land. When its wings are buzzing, the picture will be too jerky. Microphones might work.
The Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl (JUI-F) peace jirga in the Tirah Valley of the Khyber Agency will meet party chief Fazlur Rehman after completing negotiations with militants on Friday.
Jirga members will inform Fazl of the progress in talks with Ansarul Islam (AI) and Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) and seek his guidance for furthering the "peace process", JUI-F NWFP Information Secretary Haji Jalil Jan told Daily Times.
Sources said that JUI-F jirga failed to break the ice mainly because of the cold response from the AI of Qazi Mahboob. A source privy to the three-day negotiations at an undisclosed location in Khyber Agency said, "No prominent leader of the AI met the jirga members during their three-day stay in the area." The source said that the jirga members managed to meet only leaders and nominees of the LI of Bara-based warlord Mangal Bagh.
The jirga, headed by JUI-F NWFP Secretary General Maulana Shujaul Mulk, had launched their peace initiative in the Tribal Areas soon after the conclusion of the Bara operation. Without being able to arrange a truce between the two warring factions despite visits to the Tirah Valley, the jirga will now make another effort to meet representatives of the AI and discuss their peace formula, said the source. More than 60 people have been killed in fighting between the two militant outfits in the remote valley during the last month.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2008
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NATO membership candidate Ukraine has drafted a controversial law for the departure of the Russia Black Sea fleet from its port of Sevastopol, its foreign minister announced Tuesday, Interfax reported.
Ukraine wants the fleet to quit the Ukrainian port when a 20-year post-Soviet Union lease expires in 2017.
A convicted fugitive spammer, his wife and 3-year-old daughter were found slain outside a Denver-area farm house Thursday in an apparent murder-suicide.
U.S. Attorney Troy Eid said Edward "Eddie" Davidson, whom the authorities called the "Spam King," and the other two were found at the home in a rural part of Bennett, about 25 miles east of Denver. Eid said Davidson shot himself; the woman and girl were also dead from gunshots.
Authorities had been searching for Davidson, 35, since Sunday, when he and his wife drove away from a minimum-security federal prison in Florence, 90 miles south of Denver. Davidson was sentenced April 28 to 21 months in prison and ordered to pay $714,139 in restitution to the IRS after pleading guilty to falsifying header information to send spam e-mail, tax evasion and criminal forfeiture. "What a nightmare, and such a coward," Eid said. "Davidson imposed the 'death penalty' on family members for his own crime."
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Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2008
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#2
Power. He was rendered powerless after lauding over all of us with what he thought was impunity. That all changed. Then he had a taste for being under someone else's power for a short time. Couldn't handle it. The butchery of his wife and child was a last futile destructive demonstration of his power.
(APP): The law enforcing agencies raided on the suspected hideouts of miscreants at Sherplam area of Matta Tehsil in restive Swat district and arrested about 10 miscreants besides recovering arms and ammunition, an official of District Police informed. On a tip off about presence of outlaws at Sherplam area, the law enforcing agencies raided on the militants' hideouts and arrested 10 miscreants during the three hour long search.
A spokesman of Swat Media Centre informed the journalists that the arrested persons are Abdul Qayyum, Umer Zada, Muhammad Rahim, Abdul Wahab, Muhammad shops Fazle Subhan, Imran, Ihsan Elahi, Muhammad Rehman, Iqbal Khan and Faiz Ali Khan told the local reporters here that the entire cloth in their shops have been burnt causing losses of millions of rupees.
Similarly some accused detonated Government Girls High School in Totano Bandai area as a result of which the entire record and furniture was burnt to ashes. This is the 31st incident of school burning in Swat district during the current unrest in the district.
In Tehsil Charbagh areas, some unknown militants burnt a barbershop of Shaukat and Karyana Store of Javed. No one has accepted the responsibility for these subversive acts in the districts.
Meanwhile Security forces during five hours search operation nabbed ten suspects from Sherpalam area and seized arms and ammunition from their possession. Ghani, Faisal, Abdul Ghaffar, Rafique and Najeeb Khan. They have been shifted for identification.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2008
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In a stunning upset, Barack Obama this week won the Iraq primary. When Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki not once but several times expressed support for a U.S. troop withdrawal on a timetable that accorded roughly with Obama's 16-month proposal, he did more than legitimize the plan. He relieved Obama of a major political liability by blunting the charge that, in order to appease the MoveOn left, Obama was willing to jeopardize the astonishing success of the surge and risk losing a war that is finally being won.
Maliki's endorsement left the McCain campaign and the Bush administration deeply discomfited. They underestimated Maliki's sophistication and cunning.
What is Maliki thinking? Clearly, he believes that the Iraq war is won. Al-Qaeda is defeated, the Sunni insurgency is in abeyance, the Shiite extremists are scattered and marginalized. There will, of course, be some continued level of violence, recurring challenges to the authority of the central government and perhaps even mini-Tet Offensives by both Shiite and Sunni terrorists trying to demoralize U.S. and Iraqi public opinion in the run-up to their respective elections. But in Maliki's view, the strategic threats to the unity of the state and to the viability of the new democratic government are over.
Maliki believes that his armed forces are strong enough to sustain the new Iraq with minimal U.S. help. He may be overconfident, as he has been repeatedly in estimating his army's capacities, most recently in launching a somewhat premature attack on militias in Basra that ultimately required U.S. and British support to succeed. And he is certainly more confident of his own capacities than is Gen. David Petraeus.
Whether warranted or not, Maliki's confidence allows him to set out a rapid timetable for U.S. withdrawal, albeit conditioned on continuing improvement in the security situation -- a caveat Obama generally omits. But Maliki calculates that no U.S. president, whatever his campaign promises, would be insane enough to lose Iraq after all that has been gained and then be saddled with a newly chaotic Iraq that would poison his presidency.
So Maliki is looking ahead, beyond the withdrawal of major U.S. combat forces, and toward the next stage: the long-term relationship between America and Iraq.
With whom does he prefer to negotiate the status-of-forces agreement that will not be concluded during the Bush administration? Obama or McCain?
Obama, reflecting the mainstream Democratic view, simply wants to get out of Iraq as soon as possible. Two years ago, it was because the war was lost. Now, we are told, it is to save Afghanistan. The reasons change, but the conclusion is always the same. Out of Iraq. Banish the very memory. Leave as small and insignificant a residual force as possible. And no long-term bases.
McCain, like George Bush, envisions the United States seizing the fruits of victory from a bloody and costly war by establishing an extensive strategic relationship that would not only make the new Iraq a strong ally in the war on terror but would also provide the U.S. with the infrastructure and freedom of action to project American power regionally, as do U.S. forces in Germany, Japan and South Korea.
For example, we might want to retain an air base to deter Iran, protect regional allies and relieve our naval forces, which today carry much of the burden of protecting the Persian Gulf region, thus allowing redeployment elsewhere.
Any Iraqi leader would prefer a more pliant American negotiator because all countries -- we've seen this in Germany, Japan and South Korea -- want to maximize their own sovereign freedom of action while still retaining American protection.
It is no mystery who would be the more pliant U.S. negotiator. The Democrats have long been protesting the Bush administration's hard bargaining for strategic assets in postwar Iraq. Maliki knows the Democrats are so sick of this war, so politically and psychologically committed to its liquidation, so intent on doing nothing to vindicate "Bush's war," that they simply want out with the least continued American involvement.
Which is why Maliki gave Obama that royal reception, complete with the embrace of his heretofore problematic withdrawal timetable.
Obama was likely to be president anyway. He is likelier now still. Moreover, he not only agrees with Maliki on minimizing the U.S. role in postwar Iraq. He now owes him. That's why Maliki voted for Obama, casting the earliest and most ostentatious absentee ballot of this presidential election.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/26/2008
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#1
"But Maliki calculates that no U.S. president, whatever his campaign promises, would be insane enough to lose Iraq after all that has been gained and then be saddled with a newly chaotic Iraq that would poison his presidency"
Maliki clearly doesn't understand about the Democrats.
#2
What other choice does Maliki have? He has to prepare for working with the new president, whoever he is. McCain will forgive him a few weasle words, BO may not, if offended by him. Maliki is covering himself. He needs to do this. I'm glad to see he has the moxie to take care of himself on this.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
07/26/2008 11:06
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#3
Or he was mistranslated, which I thought I read here. But I've slept since then.
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/26/2008 11:24
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#4
When Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki not once but several times expressed support for a U.S. troop withdrawal on a timetable that accorded roughly with Obama's 16-month proposal
That's the dominant narrative, but is is NOT the truth.
#5
Sounds like Maliki might be feeling a little frisky. And talk like this helps his stature at home.
I don't mind if the Iraqis want us out by 2010. We'll have done the job by then, and the IA can stand on its own. If the Iraqis are smart they'll let us stay for a while longer to help them, but international law doesn't ban national stupidity.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/26/2008 12:55
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#6
Maliki Votes for Obama
My Oh My.. How the 'Shi-Town Machine' has fallen on hard times...
Why I remember when the demoCraos only let the Dead Vote...
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
07/26/2008 12:57
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President Bush Friday ordered expanded U.S. sanctions against what he termed the "illegitimate" government of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. At the same time, the United States is offering the country aid if there is a negotiated end to the country's political conflict.
The Bush administration had promised to tighten unilateral U.S. sanctions against Zimbabwe after a draft U.N. Security Council resolution for international sanctions was vetoed earlier this month by Russia and China.
An announcement from the U.S. Treasury Department said 17 Zimbabwean commercial entities and one individual, an Omani businessman with close ties to President Mugabe, are being added to a U.S. sanction list that already includes among others, Mr. Mugabe, his wife, and key associates.
Several government-owned or controlled companies are on the new list including the Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation and the Agriculture Development Bank of Zimbabwe.
The Treasury Department said Mr. Mugabe, senior officials and cronies had used the entities to illegally siphon cash and foreign exchange from the Zimbabwean people.
Treasury officials said the Omani national, Thamer Bin Saeed Al-Shafari and a company he owns - Oryx National Resources - had enabled Mr. Mugabe and senior officials to derive personal benefit from mining ventures in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In a White House statement, President Bush said the action against what he termed the "illegitimate" Mugabe government is a direct result of its continued politically-motivated violence despite international appeals, and its continued ban on activity by non-governmental aid groups that could help the country's "suffering and vulnerable" people.
Mr. Bush said no regime should ignore the will of its own people and calls from the international community without consequence. But the U.S. administration also took note of efforts begun this week among Mr. Mugabe and his political rivals, including opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, to negotiate an end to the political conflict spawned by the disputed presidential run-off election in June.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2008
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#1
Al-Shafari is an extremely soiled player linked to Oryx Senga-Senga so called 'blood' Diamonds, weapons trading in the Congo, the bloody Russians, the usual African fare. Where sex money is involved, there's enough blame to go around. Many diamond buyers in London and Antwerp, IDE, etc, etc, have said the campaign against conflict diamonds won't stip them buying rough diamonds from any sorce they choose.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Spain's King Juan Carlos shook hands and made up on Friday in their first meeting since the monarch told the president to "shut up" at a summit in November. A relaxed Chavez joked "Why don't we go to the beach?" as he met the smiling king in sunshine outside the royals' summer residence on the island of Majorca. However, the outspoken Venezuelan leader fell short of giving the monarch a hug, as he said he would like to do last Sunday on his weekly television show.
Relations deteriorated between the two countries last year after the king shouted at Chavez: "Why don't you shut up?", when Chavez interrupted a speech by Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero at the Ibero-American summit in Chile. Footage of the outburst was beamed around the world, inspiring mobile phone ringtones, mugs and T-shirts.
The king lost his temper after Chavez called former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar - of the conservative PP party - a fascist, prompting Socialist Zapatero to ask for respect for an elected representative of the Spanish people. Minutes after the incident a grim-faced king rose from his seat and stormed out of the forum. Chavez later threatened to review diplomatic and business ties with former colonial power Spain, a major investor in the region, and demanded a public apology from the king.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2008
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Michigan State Police troopers are investigating a possible assault by Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick on a deputy accompanying an investigator for the Wayne County prosecutor Thursday at the home of the mayor's sister, Sheriff Warren Evans said.
Evans said the 6-foot-4 mayor, a former star football player at Florida A&M University, allegedly pushed a sheriff's deputy and knocked him into the female investigator, who was working for Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy. The officers were attempting to serve a subpoena on Bobby Ferguson, a city contractor and close friend of Kilpatrick. The mayor's sister, Ayanna Kilpatrick, is married to Daniel Ferguson, a cousin of Bobby Ferguson.
Evans said the officers were cleared to go up to the house by members of the mayor's executive protection unit. He said his deputy was armed and he believes he made a wise decision in leaving the property with the investigator before the incident could escalate further.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2008
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#1
Birds of a feather....
Demolition man Bobby Ferguson
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said Tuesday she would demand that jailed mayoral pal Bobby Ferguson, a Detroit contractor, make up hours he should have served in custody as part of his work release in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl.
Ferguson, a close friend of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, is serving 10 months for pistol-whipping one of his employees last year. Under an Oct. 7 sentencing agreement, he was supposed to be locked up from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m. six days a week and for 24 hours on Sundays, Worthy said.
Instead, Ferguson, 37, was allowed to stay out of the Wayne County Jail until 1 a.m. for more than two weeks to fulfill a city demolition contract before the Feb. 5 Super Bowl.
Wayne County Circuit Judge Bruce Morrow approved the amended sentence on Jan. 19, to run from Jan. 23 to Feb. 6.
Morrow explained Tuesday that Ferguson's company, Ferguson Enterprises, received a contract to tear down the old Motown headquarters and a smaller adjacent building at Woodward and I-75. The work began in late January.
The Philippine government and the largest Muslim rebel group failed to reach a pact on Friday to create an ancestral home for 3 million Muslims in the country's south, both sides said.
Such an agreement is seen as vital for a resumption of formal peace talks, but would not guarantee the end of a near 40-year-old conflict that has killed 120,000 people and displaced 2 million on the resource-rich island of Mindanao.
"We failed to settle the old issues after two days of hard bargaining," Mohaqher Iqbal, chief negotiator of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), said after talks in Kuala Lumpur brokered by the Malaysian government.
"The talks collapsed because the government was undoing already-settled issues. The signing ceremony set for August 5 was cancelled," he told Reuters. "They're trying to re-open discussions on what had been agreed upon."
Friday's breakdown came a week after both sides reported a breakthrough on the issue following several days of talks. Malaysian and Philippine foreign ministers had been due to witness the signing of the pact on August 5.
A Malaysian government source said the two sides became deadlocked over the issue of territorial rights. "To everyone's surprise, the Philippine government re-visited the territorial issues which took us 14 months to resolve," the source said. "The territorial issue ... has created an impasse and led to the collapse."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2008
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A naked model photographed using Peru's flag as a saddle while mounted on a horse will face charges that could put her in jail for up to four years for offending patriotic symbols, the country's defense minister said on Wednesday.
The suggestive shot of Leysi Suarez, whose main job is dancing for the band Alma Bella, or Beautiful Soul, was splashed on the cover of DFarandula magazine and has caused a political uproar as Peru prepares to celebrate the 187th anniversary of its independence from Spain on Monday. "These are patriotic symbols that demand total respect, and using them improperly requires punishment," Defense Minister Antero Flores told reporters. "This is an offense." Flores has ordered a public prosecutor to take up the case and file charges.
Suarez said it was patriotic to pose for the photo. "I haven't committed a crime. I love Peru and show it with my body and soul," the dancer said on RPP radio.
Mario Amoretti, a well-known lawyer, said it depends in part on how Peru's red-and-white flag was used. "It's one thing to cover your body with the flag, but quite another thing to be naked and using it as a horse's saddle," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2008
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#4
Good work -- a photo is these cases is vital in determining whether the exhibitionist's relative attractiveness makes her action constitute a crime. Judging by those horse flank-crushing thighs, I say 30 days in the hole.
Posted by: regular joe ||
07/26/2008 9:14
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#5
I believe I saw her riding at the Hunt Country Stable Tour back in May.
The Palestinian Authority is considering cutting off its diplomatic contacts with Israel and unilaterally declaring statehood, the Arabic-language a-Sharq al-Awset daily reported on Friday. "In light of the crisis we have encountered in talks with Israel, the Authority is testing a number of options," one Palestinian official told the daily. According to the report, the Palestinian Authority is also re-evaluating how to proceed with consolidating its security services.
Salah Rafat, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) council told the daily that "The Palestinian leadership will be able to make a clear and serious decision regarding the peace process," following trilateral talks in Washington next week.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Friday there was still time to reach a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians by the end of 2008.
Rice said the trilateral peace talks next week between the United States, Israel and the Palestinian Authority should be closed to offer the best hope of progress.
Rice said the latest round of talks which began in Annapolis in the United States in November 2007 had laid a "firm foundation on which these two parties can finally end their conflict."
"There is still time for them, in accordance with the Annapolis, to reach agreement by the end of the year and we will keep working towards that goal," Rice told a news conference in Perth in western Australia on Friday.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2008
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#1
A state that still wants their electricity and fuel for free from Israel . That kind of state?
Sen. Barack Obama urged Iran Friday to "end its illicit nuclear program" or face increased pressure from a unified international community, and he warned Tehran not to "wait for the next president" before accepting proposals to resolve a stalemate with Western countries.
In a joint news conference after conferring with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the presumptive Democratic candidate for president highlighted the "extraordinarily grave situation" resulting from Iran's pursuit of a uranium enrichment program, which the United States and its allies fear could be used eventually to build nuclear weapons. The Illinois senator said he found "uniform concern about Iran" in his meetings with leaders in the Middle East and Europe during a seven-country tour that concludes in Britain Saturday.
Obama also said that "Afghanistan is a war that we have to win" because al-Qaeda and the radical Islamic Taliban movement cannot be allowed to establish new havens for planning "terrorist attacks . . . that could affect Paris or New York."
"So we don't have a choice," Obama said. "We've got to finish the job." He said the United States "needs to send two additional brigades at least" to Afghanistan and praised Sarkozy for his willingness to send more French troops to the country.
A day after a speech in Berlin before an estimated 200,000 people, Obama used the news conference to press his call for greater U.S.-European cooperation and to portray a possible Obama administration as one that would listen to its allies and seek consensus in dealing with problems, such as global warming, that require an international effort.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2008
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#1
Waalll, snoot to you, too, pal. If ever anyone was overwhelmed with unjustified arrogance, it's Oblabla. Give odds that within a week he'll be opining about the necessity to accommodate Iran's legitimate demands for respect for its sovereign rights. Or some such BS.
And then a fruit bat will fly up his nose and eat his brains.
{One of the above statements is wishful thinking.}
Posted by: Brian H ||
07/26/2008 1:51
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#2
Caption for your pic: "Admire my nostrils, peasants!"
Posted by: Brian H ||
07/26/2008 2:57
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#3
Photographer:
More chin please. Sir look this way please. To the right now. More chin, more, more, up, up, up,....uppity, uppity, uppity. That's it!!!
A Turkish court agreed on Friday to hear a case against 86 people accused of plotting to overthrow the government.
The investigation into the alleged underground organisation, known as Ergenekon, has rattled markets and increased political tensions in Turkey, which is also unsettled by a case to shut down the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) for Islamist activities.
"Istanbul's penal court has accepted the indictment of 86 suspects as part of the Ergenekon investigation," state-run Anatolian news agency reported. A source from the court confirmed to Reuters that it had accepted the case.
CNN Turk television, which broadcast footage showing pages from the near-2500 page indictment, said the court would hold its first hearing on October 20 in Silvri prison, near Istanbul. The defendants, including the head of a small nationalist party and retired army officers, face charges including incitement to armed insurrection, aiding a terror group and possession of explosives. Two senior retired generals have also been arrested as part of the investigation but have not yet been charged. A further 26 people were detained on Wednesday on suspicion of being involved.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2008
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(APP): Advisor to Prime Minister on Interior Rehman A Malik said on Friday said upto 40 commanders of Al-Qaeda including Amjad and Rafi had been arrested during operations in Hangu and Bara, while 17 security personnel embraced martyrdom.
Malik was talking to journalist at Chaklala Air Base while seeing off the Foreign Minister of United Arab Emirates. Secretary Interior Syed Kamal Shah was also present. The Advisor said government would go for negotiations to sort out problems of FATA, but he cautioned of stern actions should peace deals done between NWFP Government and tribals fail.
He said operation in Hangu, which was meant for establishing writ of the State there, was conducted on the request of NWFP Government.
Malik told that during his upcoming visit to USA would he discuss strategies against terrorism. He dispelled the impression that the UAE Foreign Minister came to Pakistan for any kind of reconciliation.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2008
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The Lal Masjid administration started to conduct classes for Jamia Hafsa students in tents on Friday, as a petition demanding contempt of court proceedings against officials responsible for flouting a Supreme Court (SC) order to reconstruct the Jamia Hafsa was filed in the apex court.
Around 100 students attended the classes of Daura-e-Hadith. However, the administration announced that the city district government was forcing them to abandon their plans to conduct such classes in future.
Lal Masjid deputy cleric Aamir Saddique told Daily Times that the district government was pressuring the administration to abandon its plans to conduct future classes, while also stalling on rebuilding the madrassa, in violation of SC orders.
He said that the clerics would implement a strategy to set up the tents on the site of the demolished madrassa if the government did not meet their demands.
When contacted, Additional Deputy Commissioner Rana Akbar Hayat confirmed that the administration was trying to convince Lal Masjid clerics to abandon their tents and await a government decision. He also said: "It was not appropriate to initiate the classes in a tent village."
The court petition filed by Dr Akmal Saleemi through advocate Tariq Asad under Article 204 of the Constitution has named the interior secretary, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) chairman and the chief commissioner of Islamabad as respondents.
The petitioner prayed the court that, apart from initiating contempt of court proceedings, the respondents should also be ordered to reconstruct the Jamia Hafsa. He said that until it was completely reconstructed, the students should be accommodated at the Jamia Faridia.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2008
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#1
And here I thought Reconstruction ended in SC in 1877... :))
Researchers have discovered that an explosion of magnetic energy a third of the way to the moon powers substorms, sudden brightenings and rapid movements of the aurora borealis, called the Northern Lights.
The culprit turns out to be magnetic reconnection, a common process that occurs throughout the universe when stressed magnetic field lines suddenly "snap" to a new shape, like a rubber band that's been stretched too far.
"We discovered what makes the Northern Lights dance," said Dr. Vassilis Angelopoulos of the University of California, Los Angeles. Angelopoulos is the principal investigator for the THEMIS mission.
Substorms produce dynamic changes in the auroral displays seen near Earth's northern and southern magnetic poles, causing a burst of light and movement in the Northern and Southern Lights. These changes transform auroral displays into auroral eruptions.
Substorms often accompany intense space storms that can disrupt radio communications and global positioning system signals and cause power outages.
Solving the mystery of where, when, and how substorms occur will allow scientists to construct more realistic substorm models and better predict a magnetic storm's intensity and effects.
"As they capture and store energy from the solar wind, the Earth's magnetic field lines stretch far out into space. Magnetic reconnection releases the energy stored within these stretched magnetic field lines, flinging charged particles back toward the Earth's atmosphere," said David Sibeck, THEMIS project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
"They create halos of shimmering aurora circling the northern and southern poles."
He is reclusive like Taliban leader Mullah Omar and popular like al-Qaeda's Osama bin Laden, and he pledges his allegiance to both. This is Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, whom the Pakistani security agencies have tried their best to engage, but he remains defiant, so much so that he is even suspected of being an agent for India's Research and Analysis intelligence agency.
Baitullah, who operates in the South Waziristan tribal area on the border with Afghanistan, has frequently fallen out with the Afghan Taliban for directing his jihadis against the Pakistani security forces rather than sending them to Afghanistan.
Initially, this pleased American and European intelligence agencies as he turned the tide from the Afghan battlefield to Pakistan. But now Baitullah is viewed with extreme suspicion as he has proved to be a man who always achieves what he sets out to do, and jihadis from around the world are flooding into his camps to be trained for global jihad. This in turn has allayed the fears of the Afghan Taliban, who realize they will be ensured a smooth supply of fighters to Afghanistan. For these reasons, Baitullah is now a marked man.
Over the past few months, Pakistani security agencies and coalition leaders from Afghanistan have shared intelligence in an attempt to track down Baitullah and pinpoint where he gets his resources, but he remains elusive.
All the same, this has not diminished his effectiveness. Last week, for instance, security forces were sent to the Hangu district of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) after the government announced it was reneging on peace deals and launching an all-out offensive against militants in NWFP. Mehsud called a meeting in South Waziristan of all powerful commanders from the Pakistani tribal agencies and announced that the minute any attack was mounted anywhere against militants, offensives would be launched against the Pakistani security forces in the tribal areas as well as on the federal capital, Islamabad, and on the leadership and allies of the leading party in the ruling coalition, the Pakistan People's Party.
Further, President Pervez Musharraf and his associates and anyone connected with the storming in Islamabad last year of the radical Lal Masjid (Red Mosque), which was pro-Taliban, would also be targeted.
Subsequently, the Pakistani security agencies advised the government to immediately withdraw the forces. The reasoning was that Pakistan could withstand pressure from the United States to act against militants, but it could not win a showdown with Baitullah. A high-level meeting presided over by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani agreed.
The problem now is to hunt down Baitullah, who is also wanted in connection with the assassination last year of former premier Benazir Bhutto and other attacks.
Using Baitullah's differences with some regional commanders - Baitullah comes from the Mehsud, one of the four sub-tribes of the Waziri - Pakistan tried to erect a web of opposition around him, but none survived. The Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) also tried to sow seeds of enmity against Baitullah, without success. Haji Omar, once a powerful chief of the Taliban in South Waziristan and also a Wazir, tried to challenge Baitullah's command, but he now lives in exile in North Waziristan, without forces or resources.
Haji Nazeer, another Wazir, who runs the biggest Pakistani Taliban fighting network in Afghanistan, also tried to confront Baitullah, at the behest of the security forces, but he failed. Last month, Baitullah drove out all tribes related to Haji Nazeer from South Waziristan.
Now that Baitullah is unchallenged in South Waziristan, he aims to broaden his network. He has raised his presence in neighboring North Waziristan and the biggest network of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Haqqani faction, has no choice but to side with Baitullah.
The Swat Valley's Mullah Fazlullah has also announced Baitullah as his chief mentor, and after wiping out the ISI-backed Shah group from Mohmand Agency, Baitullah's men are calling the shots in Orakzai Agency, Mohamand Agency and Darra Adam Khail in NWFP.
With each consolidation of Baitullah's power, Islamabad, along with its Western allies, becomes all the more convinced that he has to be eliminated, otherwise there can never be any sustained military operations against militants in the tribal areas. His demise would also lead to the disintegration of the Taliban's and al-Qaeda's networks in the tribal areas, leaving only weakened stand-alone outfits.
Baitullah is well aware that he is now public enemy number one. A senior Pakistani affiliate of al-Qaeda, now close to Baitullah, told Asia Times Online, "It is not Baitullah Mehsud's style to hide when people sniff around him. He will open the floodgates of offensives and if there is a conspiracy between Islamabad and the political and military leadership, they will taste Baitullah's response."
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2008
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#1
You choose the pie and you will get cake death.
The police and Bomb Disposal Squad (BDS) defused at locally made bomb that weighed nearly five kilogrammes Friday. It was found near a wine shop within the jurisdiction of Zaman Town police station.
The wine shop is located at Korangi Crossing, Essai Mohalla. Its owner Enayat Masih, who also lives there, informed the police at helpline 15 Madadgar, when he saw it. It took one hour to defuse it.
The bomb was based on three detonators, a timer and a plastic bottle loaded with petrol. "If anybody had hit it or the weather had become hot it would have blown up," said SHO Pervaiz Ali Shah, adding that the area was mostly populated by Christians, therefore it was possible that the people behind it wanted to target them. FIR No. 273/08 has been registered on behalf of the government against unidentified men.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2008
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Israel has been preparing to deal with the Iranian S-300s, including practicing against S-300s operated by the Greek armed forces. The S-300 has never had any combat experience, although it looks good on paper. Russia has done a lot of realistic testing of the S-300, but never had it confront a Western air force possessing equipment designed to defeat the Russian system. So developments in Iran are being watched closely by air defense experts around the globe.
The Su-34 is 1980's technology. It first flew in 1990. It has the same engines as the Su-27 with a maximum speed of Mach 1.8.
It's a 2-seat (in a highly unusual side-by-side arrangement and the pressurized (to 10 thousand meters) cabin is large enough to allow the crew to stand up and move around during large missions and there is a small toilet and galley reportedly between the seats) dedicated fighter-bomber intended to replace the Su-24. So far, the Russians themselves have only purchased 2 of the beasts and only 70 are slated for deployment by 2015 with possibly 200 in service by 2020.
It has an impressive weapons loadout, but is primarily intended to be a strike bomber, not an air-to-air fighter. It's cockpit arrangement is a "glass cockpit" design and its has some impressive avionics, a rearward facing radar, and an infrared missile detection system. Maximum range w/3 inflight refuelings is about 14 thousand km, supposedly, 4 thousand unrefueled.
In air-to-air combat against the Raptor the Su-34 is dog meat.
But, let the Chinese continue to believe what they want to. It'll make their pilots that much more overconfident and that's exactly the sort of thing US pilots love.
#3
#1 ION CHINESE MIL FORUM > [IIRC] THE SU-34 CAN TAKE ON AND DEFEAT THE RAPTOR!?
Maybe at odds of 40-1, but anything less would be a disaster for the Chinese. As they'll learn, if they're not careful.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/26/2008 20:54
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Earlier this month, a Mumbai city official stood up to make a presentation on water meters only to be heckled and jeered into silence by his colleagues. He had tried to make his presentation in English. India's capital of commerce speaks in many tongues but from this month, when it comes to official communications within the municipal authority, English will no longer be one of them. The decision to ditch English, the global language of business, in favour of Marathi, a language largely restricted to the surrounding state of Maharashtra, has left some officials struggling to express themselves.
"I love Marathi. I am Marathi," said Ashish Shelar, an elected official. "But Mumbai city has become a global city now. The language of Mumbai city has changed."
India has long grappled with the problem of Babel. Its constitution recognises 22 official languages, including English. Mumbai in particular, a cosmopolitan harbour city and a magnet for Indians across the country, is helplessly polyglot. The move was pushed through without debate by Shubha Raul, the mayor, who is a member of Shiv Sena, a political party that encourages the nativist pride of Marathis and chastises Indian immigrants who fail to behave like good guests in the city.
No city official is against Marathi communication - although Marathis make up less than half of Mumbai's population the language is understood to some degree by many long-term residents. But some officials say that while the Marathi of the bazaars is easy to understand, the officialese version of the language is confusing, and a poor substitute for English. Like the Academie Francaise in Paris, city bureaucrats are increasingly on guard against English loanwords, even when they are more widely understood than the Marathi equivalent.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2008
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#1
They are going to find it hard to steal our customer service jobs speaking marathi.
#2
Many, if not most, of the customer service jobs are in cities like Bangalore, where they speak Kannada (and English), and Chennai, where they speak Tamil, I think (and English).
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
07/26/2008 3:01
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#3
I doubt this will last. This political party is "militant nationalist", which means nostalgic reactionary. They less support India than an idealistic view of what they have romanticized India once was.
Usually that kind of party gentrifies itself out of business.
#7
The decision to ditch English, the global language of business, in favour of Marathi 'French', a language largely restricted to the surrounding state of Maharashtra province of Quebec.
Militants blew up a girls' high school, a shopping centre selling women's clothing and two barber shops in different areas of Swat on Friday, while security forces arrested 10 suspected militants, local and official sources said. Security forces imposed curfew in the Sher Palam area of the Matta tehsil on Friday and arrested ten suspected militants.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2008
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The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) will not launch operation against the NWFP government after the expiry of the deadline that they had issued, Online quoted TTP spokesman Maulvi Omar as saying. He said that the TTP had decided to "sincerely review the behaviour of the NWFP government". He said that the decision was taken during a session of Taliban Shura presided over by TTP chief Baitullah Mehsud.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2008
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A Beverly Hills hotel security guard told FOXNews.com he intervened this week between a man he identified as former Sen. John Edwards and tabloid reporters who chased down the former presidential hopeful after what they're calling a rendezvous with his mistress and love child.
The Beverly Hilton Hotel guard said he encountered a shaken and ashen-faced Edwards -- whom he did not immediately recognize -- in a hotel men's room early Tuesday morning in a literal tug-of-war with reporters on the other side of the door.
"What are they saying about me?" the guard said Edwards asked.
"His face just went totally white," the guard said, when Edwards was told the reporters were shouting out questions about Edwards and Rielle Hunter, a woman the National Enquirer says is the mother of his child.
Shouldn't need a DNA test to figure out if the Silky Foal was sired by the Breck Boy versus Andy Young. Might not even need 20/20 vision ...
The guard said he escorted Edwards, who was not a registered guest at the hotel, out of the building after 2 a.m. Edwards did not say anything while he was escorted out, said the guard, adding that at times the reporters on the scene were "rough on him," sticking a camera in his face and shouting questions.
The guard did not recognize Edwards at the time of the incident, but said he concluded it was the 2008 presidential hopeful after hearing reports about the incident and finding an Enquirer reporter's notebook at the scene.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2008
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#1
Pray telleth, what does Cuzin' PARIS HILTON say, since 'twas reportedly = reporteth a BEVERLY HILLS HILTON HOTEL occurreth???
#2
WE should chase this Hypocrite Bastard John Edwards down and then sue his Libelous Ass for fornicating with young Blondes while his wife is suffering in grave danger with incurable Breast Cancer.
BTW: I think Fornicating with Blondes, Brunettes, and Red-Headed wimmins is a great goal and wonderful thing to do... but not if you are married and your wife is suffering with incurable Breast Cancer.
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
07/26/2008 3:32
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#3
there are two Americas, and apparently, Silky Ambulance Chasers get 'tang in both!
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/26/2008 5:49
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#4
Speaking to Dem women on this they are universally appalled, but not because he's running around on a wife dying of cancer. Their three main issues are:
1. His dying wife is better looking (she looks like Camille Parker Boles w/out the UK horseface)
2. He has MUCH better hair than the she does (check out her "just rolled out of the love nest" look in the Enquirer).
3. She's wearing a shirt with a Bedazzler rhinestones heart/peace symblom.
Posted by: regular joe ||
07/26/2008 9:24
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#5
The NE totally covered its butt on this one. Elsewhere it was written that they got sworn statements from at least a dozen witnesses, as well as vehicle license plate numbers, and everything short of bringing along a notary public.
Their standards of legal CYA are light years beyond the NYT and other such tabloids.
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
07/26/2008 13:00
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#10
he gets a due-over
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/26/2008 13:03
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#11
And the Mainstream medi has this story firmly on ignore.
Imagine if this were Mitt Romney, or Mike Huckabee. Would the NYT have not mentioned even one word of this story were it one of them?
Whats the difference - its that the NYT is nakedly partisan and will NOT report on Dem failings, while it splashes a GOP rumor (the fals one about McCain) on the headlines and editorilizes about it for weeks.
Shut the NYT down NOW! Or at least force it to declare that it is part and parcel of the Democrat party, and subject it to rules on speech.
#12
10 eyewitnesses (video has been mentioned)...I love the idea of this fool locking himself in the men's room to avoid the press, a sweaty shaken mess. He can call Gary Hartpence for advice
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/26/2008 13:37
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#13
Thanks Frank and Red Dawg- but I would prefer a Dhue-over, if it could be arranged! ;-)
Seriously I liked her as a "smart women wrapped in an easy on the eyes package"... I hope she finds her next place soon...
(VOI) -- Unknown gunmen kidnapped two girls and a child when they were hanging out in north of Mosul, a source from the Ninewa police said on Friday. "Unidentified armed men on Friday afternoon abducted two girls and one boy when they were hanging out at all-Ghabat area in north of Mosul," the source told Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq - (VOI) on condition of anonymity. "The armed abductors were driving a black car when they kidnapped the three victims," he said. He did not mention further details, but noted "The car's descriptions have been distributed on checkpoints, and searching is still underway to find the kidnappers."
Al-Ghabat area is considered one of the most important tourist places in Mosul at the Tigris River, and many people from inside and outside Ninewa province like to picnic there, especially on Fridays.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2008
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NEW YORK (AP) -- Whether or not any bubble has burst, Americans now live in an economy where the prospect of a gallon of gas for less than $4 is cause for relief. That barrier may be broken as early as this weekend, as a two-week nosedive in crude prices begins to ripple out to gas stations nationwide.
The national average for a gallon of regular pulled back to just above $4 a gallon and oil tumbled to its lowest point in weeks Friday on the belief that prices have yet to reflect just how badly demand has deteriorated in the United States, the world's thirstiest oil consumer.
Gas is down 15 cents a gallon in the last three weeks in my neighborhood.
Prices at the pump are poised to dip even further, and could cost as much as 25 cents less by Labor Day, AAA spokesman Geoff Sundstrom said. "People say typically prices shoot up like a rocket, fall like a feather. But this time ... it looks like it's different," Sundstrom said. "The retail sector is interested in bringing these prices down as fast as they can to stimulate business in their convenience stores."
In the trading pits, oil continued on a two-week sell-off. Light, sweet crude for September delivery fell $2.23 to settle at $123.26 a barrel in on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Earlier the contract dropped as far as $122.50, its lowest point since June 5.
Many analysts say the market's momentum points to further declines. Crude has fallen in seven of the last nine sessions, and is down more than 16 percent from its peak above $147 a barrel earlier this month. "There's just nothing sufficiently bullish coming into the market right now to sustain a rally," said Jim Ritterbusch, president of energy consultancy Ritterbusch and Associates. "We're just seeing a new theme in which demand has become a very important part of the equation."
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/26/2008
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#1
"Just above four dollars" > Still US$4.84 this AM here in Guam.
#3
Regular gasoline is 4.40 a gallon in Anchorage, Alaska. However, in western and NW Alaska villages served by barge, gas goes from $7.00 to $8.00 per gallon and it won't go down until next year's barge shows up in spring or early summer.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
07/26/2008 2:19
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#4
North San Mateo Peninsula..
High 4.80 reg 3-4 weeks ago
Today 4.60 or so...
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
07/26/2008 3:03
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#5
may the Politicians and Lawyers eat my olde nasty shorts.
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
07/26/2008 3:06
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#6
To keep the price dropping we need to continue to move toward more drilling and maintain reduced demand. We're down about 2% on demand which could disappear quickly if reduced prices encourage more consumption.
#7
We DO need to drill in the US. But any policy change will have to wait until November, at least. For the near to mid term though, it's a moot point. With crude at $100+, every OTHER country on the planet is drilling like mad (not to mention ripping down rainforests to plant oil crops) and all the manpower and drilling rigs are already under contract. If and when US policy does change, we will have to wait our turn for drilling teams.
The good news is extra supply is "in the pipeline".
The bad news is that we'll have to import it.
We really do have to start drilling here.
Posted by: Bin thinking again ||
07/26/2008 8:38
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#9
"W" could gain a few yards if he asked the American people to... voluntarily stay to the RIGHT and drive SLOWER, possibly 55. He could also demand that the far left lane of 4 lanes and interstates be restricted to heavy trucks and that folks yield to oncoming traffic from behind them. I know this would be revolutionary and possibly racist and discriminatory here in the Fulton Co. area, but in time (200-300 years), natives locals would catch on.
#10
A week or two after the chorus of voices praised W. Bush for causing the price drop, which happened immediately after he acted, I just saw Harry Reid claim credit for it, by saying that "The oil companies and speculators were afraid that congress might eventually pass legislation against them."
George announce lifting the executive ban, and the top end came off the market. Furutes have been staedily unwinding since, and its down at the sport market now, Just as I predicted.
Now if they announce actually drilling bills and pass them, then you'll see another drop to $100, and the prices will then becoem very steady, without the cheap credit backed speculators artificially inflating the cost of a contract.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
07/26/2008 13:50
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#17
It's simple. Raise the cost of crude high enough and everything will become so expensive that all the businesses will have to shut down. Whey they lay off their workers, the workers won't have to drive anymore and demand will plummet.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
07/26/2008 14:36
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#18
...$3.60 in Cayce, SC (just outside of Columbia) and the manager says he expects $3.50 by the end of next week.
God, I love capitalism. That's because, unlike so many of my elected representatives, I understand how it works.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
07/26/2008 14:58
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#19
Paid $3.64 outside Richmond, Va., on Friday.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
07/26/2008 15:13
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#20
"
gasbuddy.com
Helped me save $.30 a gallon."
Good tip! And don't forget to zoom in! Gas station by gas station MAP of prices in your area!
Posted by: Bin thinking again ||
07/26/2008 15:19
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#22
good site, thx. Helps me plan my fuel stops on vacation in a couple weeks. Highest appears to be in Bishop, CA and So. Lake Tahoe... about $4.49-$4.59....hopefully it will keep going down
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/26/2008 16:15
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#23
Sorry for off topic
Not many family members going to my family reunion in Tahoe this year due to gas prices with their Winnebago type vehicles getting poor gas mileage. I'm also staying home, doing the work vacation getting stuff done around the house.
It would have been fun to try connecting with you again Frank as it sounds like you're going out that way again. Have a great time, Tahoe is beautiful Jan
Posted by: Jan ||
07/26/2008 16:31
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#24
thx Jan :-)
the boat is staying home - boat gas is around $7 on the lake
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/26/2008 16:43
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#25
$3.879 for premium in Northeast Ohio.
Posted by: Mike ||
07/26/2008 17:36
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#26
100LL avgas in Birchwood, near Anchorage 5.96/gal, at Galena Airport 8.29, OUCH!
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
07/26/2008 20:34
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#27
Gas at tip of little finger of Michigan was $4.399/gal on Thurs. 30 miles away it was $3.999/gal.
The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has, quietly, become a very effective counter-terror agency. The arrest of international arms dealers Victor Bout and Monzar al-Kasser (in operations worthy of movie scripts) were only one example. The agency had at least a peripheral role in the Betancourt rescue â a DEA operation inserted bugged satellite phones into the FARC, a crucial tactic that has made a tremendous contribution to the FARCâs overall breakdown. In general the agency seems to have adapted well overall to the counter-terror mission, among other things doing a competent job at building up its analytical capabilities.
....
#2
The agency had at least a peripheral role in the Betancourt rescue a DEA operation inserted bugged satellite phones into the FARC
Posted at the Rant as a possible probable the day after it went down. Post-operation publicity will once again enusre that the success will not soon be repeaded.
#3
Would have thought the ATF would be involved in taking down an arms dealer. Since drugs finance a good deal of terror, it would make sense that DEA would be involved. They have had an international presence in crimes related to drug trafficking for some time.
You get the idea that the Mad Mullahs really mean it when they say 'no deal', and all the bloviating in the world by Javier Solana and the EU3 won't change a thing except give the Mullahs time to build a bomb and a missile delivery system.
TEHERAN - Former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani yesterday said that Teheran would not accept any ultimatum in the talks on its nuclear programme. We have agreed to talk (with the world powers) on the issue for finding a settlement (in the nuclear dispute) and are indeed hopeful to do so, Rafsanjani said at a Friday prayer congregation in Teheran. But again they (world powers) come up with ultimatums, timetables and even threats which are unacceptable for Iran, added the moderate cleric who is one of the most vehement critics of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The five United Nations Security Council member states plus Germany have given Iran a two-week deadline to either accept suspension of uranium enrichment - and in return avail itself of Western economic and political incentives - or face further financial sanctions.
Ahmadinejad on Wednesday rejected the demand and called on the veto powers to accept realities and acknowledge Irans right to pursue nuclear projects, including uranium enrichment.
We are ready to remove all international concerns and negotiations are the best framework to do so, and to prove that Irans nuclear projects are peaceful and that Iran would never be after acquiring weapons of mass destruction due to religious obligations, Rafsanjani said.
The cleric added that during the 1980-1988 war with Iraq, although the regime of former Iraq president Saddam Hussein used toxic gas against Iranian forces, Teheran refrained from reciprocating and utilised just internationally acknowledged methods of warfare.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/26/2008
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#1
Definitely cruisin' for a bruisin'. There's just no talking to these bozos. Never has been any point. I doubt anyone can point to any actual benefit ever achieved through negotiations with them, other than a few cosmetic or appearances-only variations on their SOP.
Posted by: Brian H ||
07/26/2008 1:46
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I represent the Lollipop Guild, the Lollipop Guild, the Lollipop Guild...
WASHINGTON -- Rep. Dennis Kucinich's quest to impeach President Bush is got an unofficial airing in the House Judiciary Committee on Friday. The Ohio congressman's single impeachment article is not expected to move forward, but critics of the Bush administration were taking the opportunity in a House Judiciary Committee hearing to push for removing the president from office. Ah. A dog and pony show. Oh, well. They're good at that. That's about all they're good at...
Kucinich got a rock star welcome of whistles, hoots and clapping as he walked into the hearing room, holding hands with his wife, from hundreds of anti-war, anti-Bush people crammed into the room and lining the hallways outside. T-shirts reading "Arrest Bush" and "Veterans for Impeachment" illustrated the sentiments of many. Hey, everybody! Look at meeeeeeeeeeeeee!
"The decision before us is whether to demand accountability for one of the gravest injustices imaginable," Kucinich testified, avoiding use of the "I" word. Tape running on this?
Yes, sir, Mr Cheney.
Goooood. If it passes, I wanna be ready...
The committee reminded lawmakers and those testifying that House rules prohibit "personal abuse, innuendo or ridicule of the president." The House Rules and Manual points out that suggestions of mendacity, or accusations of hypocrisy, demagoguery or deception were out of order. Man, I'll bet that pisses them off. Didn't leave much to talk about, did it ...
"The rules of the House prevent me or any witness from utilizing familiar terms," Kucinich said. "But we can put two and two together in our minds." Yeah, yeah, yeah...Bush equals Hitler. Could ya get on with it? It's Friday...
Later, former Los Angeles County Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, known for his prosecution of Charles Manson in 1970, acknowledged that "I am forbidden from accusing him of a crime, or even any dishonorable conduct" under House rules. But he could still encourage people to read his book, "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder." When did Bugliosi become a nutjob?
Despite several mentions early of the "I" word elsewyer, committee chairman Rep. John Conyers explained to the audience it was not, technically, an impeachment hearing "to the regret of many." Ah, another of the usual suspects.
He said the House would have to vote for an impeachment inquiry to begin, a test not met by the July 15 vote to send Kucinich's impeachment resolution to the Judiciary Committee. Harrrumph harrumph harrrumph...
The hearing began shortly after 10 a.m. ET, and it didn't take long for the call to impeach Bush to bring an applause line, if not to wade through political statements on each side of the aisle. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla., said the administration has committed "serious abuses, that if proven, would certainly constitute high crimes." Therefore, "The most appropriate response to this unprecedented behavior is to hold hearings for impeachment." And another usual suspect rears his head...
The line drew hoots of approval from some members of the audience, which drew a warning to the audience from Conyers, D-Mich. Get the rope!
"Let's restrain ourselves, please," Conyers said. Get the rope!
That's better.
Just after he spoke, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., made her thoughts known: "It is my judgment that President Bush is the worst president that our country has suffered." And that makes me ever so sad. He's a big meanie! That's what he is!
The top-ranked Republican on the committee, Lamar Smith of Texas, dismissed the hearing as a waste of time. Likening the hearing to "an anger management class," Smith said, "Nothing is going to come out of this hearing with regard to impeachment. ... That's because there is no evidence to support impeachment." Wait'll Barack takes over. They're making a list. You just made it...
He said the partisan tone of the hearing was probably one of the reasons congressional approval ratings are at historic lows, recently below 10 percent. "That makes President Bush's approval rating of 32 percent look pretty good," Smith said. You might think they'd figure that out on their own, wouldn't ya?
Cracking a joke at his Democratic colleagues' expense, Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Calif., belittled the hearing, saying, "Maybe what we're here for is impeachment light' " -- a "never, never land" where Democrats lay out their accusations, but don't follow up on impeachment. Now, now. Let's not make fun of Mr. Kucinich's district...
Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., tried to argue against the point of the hearing on a legal point."The framers (of the Constitution) did not intend impeachment as a political device," Pence said, adding that he believed the president has "consistently put the American people's need before his own." You just made the list too, Buster!
It took the committee more than an hour to get to Kucinich, the first witness. Would you like a booster seat, Mr. Kucinich?
But the fact that the hearing took place was almost as improbable as the intended outcome of Kucinich's wishes -- the ouster of the president. Under the Constitution, impeachment powers lie in the House. But despite deep divisions between the House Democratic Caucus and White House on a broad swath of issues -- the Iraq war, the economy, energy, climate change, to name a few -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has pointedly said impeachment is off the table. But if I get a chance to make Bush look bad, ah, why not? Besides, it'll keep that creepy little bastard Kucinich away from me for awhile.
The hearing Friday, titled "Executive Power and Its Constitutional Limitations," followed the July 15 vote to send Kucinich's impeachment resolution to the panel. Will the witness state his name, please.
Well, actually, I'm channeling the ghost of Saddam Hussein, so should I, like, give you his name or mine?
The witness panel that is loaded with people from the foundations of the anti-Bush movement. Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., for instance, earlier this month repeated his long-held belief that the administration invaded Iraq solely to secure oil and benefit oil companies. "That is why this administration let Usama bin Laden go because they wanted to justify attacking Iraq," Hinchey said, according to The (Kingston, N.Y.) Daily Freeman. Damn! It was about the oiiiiil! How could I have missed that!
Another witness scheduled for Friday, Reagan administration lawyer turned Bush-basher Bruce Fein, met with reporters alongside antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan on Thursday, ahead of the hearing. According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Fein accused Bush of making a power-grab on the presidency, but also took on Democrats for letting him do it. "It doesn't matter if the country goes to hell in a hand basket as long as Democrats are steering the Titanic when it sinks," Fein said according to the paper. Sounds like The Gang's All Here. Ward Churchill busy this week?
The list also included Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., an Iraq war critic; Rep. Brad Miller, D-N.C.; former Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman, D-N.Y.; former Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., now the Libertarian Paty presidential candidate; Ross "Rocky" Anderson, founder of High Roads for Human Rights and former mayor of Salt Lake City. The other witnesses are: Stephen Presser, of the Northwestern University School of Law; Jeremy Rabkin, George Mason University School of Law; Elliot Adams, board president of Veterans for Peace; and Frederick A. O. Schwarz Jr., of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. Ooooooooh! Oooooooh! Me too! Me too! Pick me! Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeze!
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/26/2008 5:55
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#2
During his first year in Congress, Wexler attempted to commute between South Florida and Washington. "It quickly became apparent that I would miss out on the bulk of my children's lives," he said,
I'm sure those serving their second and third tour in the ME*, or just our Navy folk who put out to sea every six months feel the pain Congressman. Leadership by example, except for the elite. You know it comes with the job. Adjust or seek other employment.
*Because the Executive and Legislative Branches decided to gut the active Army from from 750,000 circa 1992 to 480,000 by 2001 and keep it there till 2007.
#6
Unless we want to piss off the space aliens big-time, steve (and I'm sure we don't want to take that chance), I think we're probably stuck with the loon him. :-(
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
07/26/2008 22:03
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Posted by: Frank G ||
07/26/2008 7:14
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#4
Question: all our attack submarines are listed as having Mark 48 torpedoes. However, against Chinese submarines, wouldn't it be better to use Mark 54-LHT torpedoes?
Critics have increased the pressure on Gordon Brown after Labour's defeat in the Glasgow East by-election, but colleagues have leapt to his defence. The head of one of the UK's top unions has demanded a leadership contest, while Tory leader David Cameron has called for a general election. But Chancellor Alistair Darling urged Labour to "rediscover the conviction" on which it won three elections. Members are at Warwick University for the party's National Policy Forum.
The SNP won Glasgow East - previously considered one of Labour's safest seats - by 365 votes, achieving a 22.54% swing. John Mason, the victorious candidate, said the result was "not just a political earthquake, it is off the Richter scale". It followed Labour's recent loss of the Crewe and Nantwich seat, the London mayoralty and poor results in local elections.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2008
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#1
maybe a british rantburg reader could translate as to what this means.
(APP): Local Taliban Friday released eight government officials out of 29 hostages after a day-long successful negotiations held at adjacent Aurakzai Agency between Taliban and peace jirga, said District Nazim Hangu Khan Afzal.
Those set free by the Taliban included Wapda Superintendent Khan Mir Shah, Engineer Works and Services Muhammad Asad, SDO PTCL Qamaruddin, Wapda official Aslam Pervez, FC personnel Mir Jang, Cashier National Saving Center Zahir Shah and a police official.
The district administration, he said is hopeful for the release of remaining abductees, he said and added, peace negotiations would now resume again on coming Monday.
Meanwhile the administration relaxed curfew in Doaaba area of Hangu on Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. first time in last 13 days after the operation was launched in the area.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2008
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(VOI) - Forces from national security ministry on Friday arrested a women kidnapping gang in Baghdad, a media advisor said. "The Ministry Forces captured a gang abducting women to demand ransoms from their families in Kadhimiya, north Baghdad,"Fadhil al-Shuwaili,media advisor for national security ministry, told Aswat al-Iraq-Voices of Iraq(VOI). The advisor termed the gang as "one of the most dangerous gangs", adding "the operation was based on intelligence tips-off". The security official did not elaborate details, but he said "gang members were from Baghdad".
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2008
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#1
What? Not enough terorists in Badghdad to catch? Have to keep busy by arresting criminals?
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
07/26/2008 11:31
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Same guys with a career change. Terrorism's too dangerous now no matter how much it pays, so it's back to the old game.
Sectarian clashes broke out Friday in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, killing six people, including a 10 year-old-boy and a policeman, and wounding at least 15, police officials said. The clashes between Sunni Muslim gunmen and Alawites, an offshoot Shiite sect, broke out at dawn after a hand grenade was thrown toward a Sunni area, the state-run National News Agency reported.
Tension has been high along Lebanon's religious and political fault lines since the militant Shiite group Hezbollah overran parts of Beirut in May in response to government attempts to limit its power.
The deal that ended that crisis saw Hezbollah and other opposition politicians re-enter the government of the Western-backed prime minister, Fuad Saniora, with veto power over its decisions.
Friday's clashes occurred as the government was struggling to draft a document outlining plans for its term in office amid disagreements with Hezbollah.
The fighting escalated as automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades were used between the Sunni Bab el-Tabaneh district and the predominantly Alawite Jabal Mohsen neighborhood, the police officials said. The two officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak to the media.
A cease-fire went into effect at 1 p.m. after mediation by the grand mufti of north Lebanon, Sheik Malek al-Shaar, who has acted as a mediator throughout the recent weeks of fighting.
But after a brief lull fighting broke out again, said residents of the city, located 50 miles north of Beirut. The police officials said three more people died in the afternoon fighting, including a policeman and two women. A 10-year-old boy struck by a stray bullet also died later Friday, bringing the total to six people killed.
The International Committee of the Red Cross urged those fighting to stop and allow the wounded to be evacuated and medical personnel to carry out their tasks.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2008
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#3
Send a flight of B-52s across the paleostain "refugee camp" there, dropping concrete bombs from 45,000 feet. Five hundred pounds of concrete dropped from 45,000 feet will leave a BIG impression on anyone it hits close to. ALL the roads will have to be repaired, and any water, electricity, or sewer lines into or through the camp will have to be replaced.
I always did like that photo - it's so OBVIOUSLY staged.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/26/2008 14:33
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Iranians are grappling with daily power blackouts, lonq queues at petrol stations and warnings of water cuts, while the situation could worsen if the international community imposes new sanctions on Iran over its nuclear drive.
"I have spent at least two hours at the bank because the computer system was not functioning because of the power cut," said Massoud, a 65-year-old retired man who went to cash his pension cheque.
Power blackouts have become daily fare for Iranians in the capital Tehran and other cities since the start of the summer, with electricity cut between two to four hours each day.
"Every day between one in the afternoon and until three, we have no electricity," says Farhad Mahmoudzadeh, a dentist who is forced to stop work during these hours. "I will buy a power generator as in time of war," he said referring to the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq conflict when Iran faced crippling electricity cuts.
#2
Or, perhaps they are diverting a good amount of their fuel supply to storage in anticipation of a disruption of supply in the case of a confrontation over the nuclear issue.
Iran is also building refineries in Venezuela to refine their crude and ship the refined products to Iran. It looks like Chavez is building the infrastructure needed to stop selling oil to the US completely. Rather than forcing other countries to build special refineries capable of handling the heavy Venezuelan crude, is inviting countries to build or share capacity there and take delivery of the finished products rather than crude oil.
(VOI) - Security forces on Friday seized 20 stolen car hidden in a farm in Karbala, the police chief said. "Security forces cordonned off a farm, seizing 20 stolen cars hidden in a makesfit garage installed inside a farm in south Karbala", Brig. Gen. Raid Shakir, Karbala's police chief, told Aswat al-Iraq-Voices of Iraq(VOI). The security official noted "the operation was based on an intelligence tips-off from local residents". He added "the farm was empty and no one was arrested during the raid". The police chief called on people to report their stolen cars to the police department to file a lawsuit".
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2008
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Greek- and Turkish-Cypriot leaders meeting in Nicosia have agreed to resume reunification talks in September to try and end the 34-year division of the Mediterranean island. The U.N. Chief of Mission in Cyprus, Taye-Brook Zerihoun, made the announcement that a breakthrough had been made after hosting a meeting between the Greek Cypriot President Demetris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2008
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#1
Truly historic REUNIFICATION talks will be between the Vulcans and Romulans in the distant future...
#2
Probably not with the results hoped for. Good luck convincing the Muslims to give up their free-for-all "sovereign" sector. Once Arafat's HQ's, Binny's heroin and the arms dealers freely transited through there and turf wars are sure to result.
Youngsters are being recruited by the Taliban and paid 1,000 rupees a day, or $9, to become jihadis. Would-be jihadi "martyrs" get the princely sum of $120, a big number in a part of the world where only 16 percent of the men and 3 percent of the women can read, and where there is no economic activity in parts of FATA and NWFP.
#1
Would-be jihadi "martyrs" get the princely sum of $120
Do they get it in advance, so they can rent a woman before they die (or at least buy an ice cream), or does it go to their families after they blow up?
(VOI) -- An explosive charge went off in central Karbala on Friday left casualties among civilians, an eyewitness said. "A bomb, placed inside a car, went off in Bab al-Abbas region in central Karbala, leaving a number of casualties," the witness told Aswat al-Iraq -- Voices of Iraq (VOI). "A number of ambulances rushed some wounded to the city's hospitals and I saw a child and his mother burnt inside the car," he added
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2008
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Forty Taliban were killed in air strikes to take back a district of Afghanistan captured by Islamist rebels while a British soldier was killed in a separate clash, officials said Friday.
Afghan and NATO-led ground forces supported by international military air support launched an offensive on Wednesday to retake Ajristan, 200 kilometres (124 miles) southwest of Kabul, after rebels stormed in Monday. "Over 40 Taliban fighters were killed and 30 were wounded in an overnight coalition air strike in Ajristan district," Ghazni province spokesman Ismail Jahangir told AFP as the operation continued Friday for a third day.
The district governor, who fled after the Taliban captured the district, confirmed the air strike casualties and said two civilians also died. "On top of 40 Taliban killed and 30 wounded, we have information that two civilians were also killed in the bombing," Rad Mohammad Waziri told AFP. International forces could not immediately confirm the air strike.
Fifteen militants were killed on the first day of the operation by joint Afghan and international forces, Jahangir said earlier.
Ajristan was also captured by Taliban insurgents in October last year and was retaken the following day, when about 300 security forces moved into the small district centre. Taliban have captured several mainly remote districts in the past but have not been able to hold most of them for long, although there are a handful in southern Helmand province that security forces admit are in rebel control.
A British army dog handler and his explosives sniffer dog were killed Thursday in Helmand when they came under fire while on patrol, the Ministry of Defence in London said. Six other soldiers were also injured, although not seriously.
Meanwhile, in the western province of Farah, a roadside bomb apparently intended to hit Afghan or NATO troops blew up a civilian vehicle and killed three people, said Akramudin Yawar, police commander for western Afghanistan. He blamed the attack on the Taliban.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2008
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#1
Even with all that fresh meat living with the 72 virgins, there has to be a few equivalent company level and battalion level leaders taking dirt naps with them.
The varying explanations for the cancellation of Barack Obama's planned visit today to the U.S. military's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany are leaving campaign-watchers puzzled.
Obama had been scheduled to greet U.S. troops at the hospital just before leaving Germany this afternoon for Paris, where he met French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elysee Palace.
Then he found out that there wouldn't be any cameras ...
But first, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs released a statement Thursday night saying the senator had decided "out of respect for these servicemen and women that it would be inappropriate to make a stop to visit troops at a U.S. military facility as part of a trip funded by the campaign."
The campaign amended that explanation this morning. Obama wanted to thank the troops for their service, but "we learned from the Pentagon last night that the visit would be viewed instead as a campaign event.," Obama advisor Scott Gration, a retired Air Force major general, said in a statement.
The Senator could have walked in without campaign aides. He could have spent an hour there. He could have had a military escort to guide him around -- he would have been perfectly safe. He could have had some quiet words with various wounded soldiers and their families. Perhaps shook the hands of some of the staff that make all the great medical care possible. He could have quietly thanked people for their hard work and their sacrifice.
He didn't.
On Obama's flight from Berlin to Paris, Gibbs offered more details. Around July 15, the Pentagon approved Obama's visit. But military officials later invoked a rule on political activity at military bases and questioned whether it would cover Obama's visit, Gibbs said. Obama spokesmen said they were seeking clarification on what the rule is. Gibbs also declined to speculate on why the Pentagon did not cite the rule until Wednesday.
That account, however, didn't square with the Defense Department's explanation. The Pentagon said it informed the Obama campaign on Monday that he and his Senate staff could visit Landstuhl, where wounded soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan are treated, but that no press would be allowed. "Sen. Obama is more than welcome to visit Landstuhl or any other military hospital around the world," said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary. "But he has to do so, just as any other senator has to do so, in his official capacity. It is not acceptable to do so as a candidate."
"In an election year," Morrell said, "I don't believe that any candidate is allowed to visit a DOD facility with press."
The Messiah did find time to thank the German police, even though he couldn't visit our wounded soldiers.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2008
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#1
he could've got photos from the military photogs, but they wouldn't frame him with the obligatory faux-halo he's expecting from the AP, Rooters, et al. I'm reeeaaally starting to dislike this arrogant POS, empty-headed racist and marxist blow-hole, even more than his wife
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/26/2008 7:19
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What Frank said (except for the "starting" part lol)
On the bright side, I'm sure B.O. boosted the morale of our wounded heroes by NOT showing up. I know having that self aggrandizing SOB use my woundedness for a campaign photo-op would have SERIOUSLY pissed me off.
Posted by: Bin thinking again ||
07/26/2008 8:49
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#3
Here it is again, Obama's African agenda. Gration was raised in the Congo by missionary parents. He speaks Swahili and is the President and CEO of Millennium Villages ("Extreme Poverty Ends Here"). He accompanied the Obamessiah on his trip to kenya two years ago. Gration's bio at the link.
EDUCATION
1974 Bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J.
1988 Master of arts degree in national security studies, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.
1988 Armed Forces Staff College, Norfolk, Va.
1993 National War College, Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, D.C.
1999 Executive Program for General Officers of the Russian Federation and the United States, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard
University, Cambridge, Mass.
2002 National Security Decision Making Seminar, the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md.
Christians are considered 'Westerners' in Pakistan despite their efforts in the country's independence movement and nation building, said Community Development Initiatives (CDI) Executive Director Asif Aqeel at a seminar on Friday.
That's likely because Christians, by their outlook, are oriented to things that are traditionally associated with the West: freedom to think and freedom to question being the most important.
Provincial Minorities Minister Kamran Michael, Forman Christian College University (FCCU) Vice Rector Dr CJ Dubash, US Consulate Political and Economic Affairs Officer Antone C Greubel, St Anthony's High School Principal Shanti Maxwell and Father Abid Habid were present at the seminar, titled 'Socio-economic Challenges Faced by Christians'.
Aqeel said that about 90 percent of Christians had converted from the lowest stratum of the Hindu society, called the scheduled caste in the middle of the 19th century. He said, "It is also an interesting fact that these Christians are aboriginals and the remnants of the Indus Valley Civilisation. It was the Aryan conquest that brought these people to the status where they were considered untouchables." Keeping this heritage in mind, he said, Pakistani Muslims should understand that their fellow Christian countrymen had nothing to do with the West.
He lamented that after 9/11, churches and Christian schools had been targeted. "More than 20 Christians were abducted in Peshawar recently during worship."
At the time of independence, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah met Christian leader Chandu Lal to get the minorities' support for Pakistan. Chandu Lal assured Jinnah of the Christian community's support, Aqeel said.
He further said Christians had supported democracy because it was the only way to transform Pakistan in accordance with Jinnah's ideals. He said the Quaid had envisioned a state where people were not discriminated on the basis of their caste, colour, creed or gender.
Dr Dubash said that nations could not grow without education and if they focused on education, they became indispensable. He added that Pakistanis should focus on learning the English language because it had become the lingua franca.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2008
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#1
Last I heard, Pakistan students spend one third of school time studying the Koran and Arabic. And its worse in the Madrasas.
Paradox: Pakistani immigrants to the West remain Islamic; Persian (Iran) immigrants tend to abandon the Arab murder cult. Wonder why?
#2
That's likely because Christians, by their outlook, are oriented to things that are traditionally associated with the West: freedom to think and freedom to question being the most important.
I think the pink (I mean salmon, yes, salmon, that's right, it's important we all pretend it's salmon) inlining Doc is over-thinking this, in all due respect. It's most likely it's a very primal case of "Us vs Them", Christians there are not "us", therefore, they're part of the ennemy. It's not what Christians think (and IIRC, many usually are at the bottom of society thanks to paki tolerance, so I don't believe they're that "progressive" thinking, it's wishful thinking at least in some part), it's what they are.
#4
But what makes the Paks 'us' and the Christians 'them'?
Religion, of course.
Not that the Paks need any reason to get uppity and go for their shooting irons, but the Christians are different because they're a different faith. They think differently and that makes them act differently. And in Pakistan, that's all it takes.
Or just marrying the wrong cousin, I dunno ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/26/2008 10:17
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They think differently and that makes them act differently. And in Pakistan, that's all it takes.
I don't want to seem to be nitpicking, but again, it's probable they don't even act very differently from other paks on several levels (cf. the honor killing by a Christian father a while back), though the hardwiring must be different (better education, possibly, don't know if they're indoctrined with the same mix of pak religious ethno-nationalism?).
It's not what they do, but what they are : infidels living in the land of the pure, AND, they're Christians, that is, they hail from the same religion than the Great Satan, the filthy danish dogs, all the devils that are besieging the Master Religion.
IIUC, back in the Olden Days, dhimmis were perceived very differently according on if they were joooooooos or Christians; jews were the arch-dhimmis, and while their status was often very low (like in northern africa, where they had to live in secluded town areas, had to walk barefooted, were to be stoned at will by the local kiddies, etc, etc), they had more leeway and could become more involved in society, like in slave trade. The Christians, on the other hand, were seen as being part of the western ennemy, even though like the jews they were the actual indigenous people, and were treated as a potential fifth column.
I think this is the exact same pattern here. If the pak Christians were a vanilla minority, they would be treated with the usual Tolerance, but, on top of that, they're dumped with the ennemies of islam (and even if the West doesn't see itself as the ennemy of islam, important thing is joe islam sees the West as an ennemy of islam). It's really not what they do. That's why when the danish mo' cartoons were published, the local rubes went into the Christian ghettos/neighbourhoods to riot and wreck havoc (remember that woman who was potentially sentenced to death because she filed a police complaint after having been stripped naked, and the local pious muslims accused her of soiling a pic of the Kaaba with feces? Not that the story was important enough for the international msm to report this, less even follow it...)... because, they were "them", regardless of what they do, think, act, believe,...
Cf. this for lot of meat on the idea of "us vs them" societies : Augean Stables » Prime Divider Societies
#6
That's likely because Christians, by their outlook, are oriented to things that are traditionally associated with the West: freedom to think and freedom to question being the most important.
Which reminds me that IIRC, arab nationalism & baathism were created and pushed mostly by arab Christians (michel aflak firstly, of course), because it was seen as a way of overcoming the disctinction between Christians and the Master Race (exactly as IMHO lotsa jews in the 19th & early 20th century embrassed socialism and marxism, because this was seen consciously or not as a way to "transcend" the distinction between the minority jews and the majority Christians by going into a larger non-disctinctive socialist utopia of some sort, this was most probably true in russia, with the predominetntly jewish bolsheviks supremos).
Again, all this was futile, and panarabism didn't help arab Christians escape their condition, because, again, it's not what they do or believe, it's what they are.
Paramilitary forces have abandoned four checkposts along the border with Afghanistan in Bajaur tribal district and the Taliban have claimed taking over two of them, officials said on Friday. "We were facing difficulties in supplying necessities to the four checkposts and they have now been abandoned," said Iqbal Khattak, assistant political agent in Khar. Meanwhile, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan spokesman Maulvi Umar said the Kagha Pas and Damanghi posts had been taken over by them.
This article starring:
Iqbal Khattak, assistant political agent in Khar
Maulvi Umar
Taliban
Posted by: Fred ||
07/26/2008
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On July 14, during a meeting in Moscow little reported in the foreign press, Interfax reported that Saudi Arabian Secretary-General Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz and Russia's VTS (Military-Technical Cooperation) agency head Mikhail Dmitriev, in the presence of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, signed "an agreement about military-technical collaboration."
As the United States has been Saudi Arabia's primary arms supplier for the last three decades, the announcement must have sent CEOs of the military-industrial complex spinning. For the last decade Saudi oil money has purchased nearly $1 billion annually in arms, and a year ago Washington announced the sale of $20 billion worth of advanced weaponry to Saudi Arabia and its fellow Gulf Cooperation Council members.
But if the announcement set alarm bells ringing in defense corporate boardrooms, a second brief announcement later the same day had even greater potential import for the world energy market, as Interfax quoted Bandar bin Sultan as remarking, "Both Russia and Saudi Arabia agree upon and understand each other in virtually every energy-related issue."
#1
What tax payer wouldn't gladly give up a billion bucks if doing so would eliminate the most disgusting political entity on earth? The House of Saud is a parasite nest. We need them like we need to AIDS virus.
#3
Wait a minute! Don't tell me "Bandar Bush" has been kissing up to Putie. I hope he didn't look deep into Putie's eyes. Even a smooth talking A-rab can't schmooze enuff to outsmart that old KGB'er.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Friday laughed shrugged off a reward for her arrest as a war criminal announced by disaffected university slackers students freeloading off Mumsy and Dadsy ahead of a visit to New Zealand. "Protest is a part of democratic society and student protests are particularly a long honoured tradition in democratic society," Rice told a news conference in the West Australian capital Perth. "And I can only say that the United States has done everything that it can to, in this war on terror, live up to our international and our national laws and obligations."
New Zealand university bugwits students had earlier offered blood money a reward for anyone foolish enough to be carrying out a citizen's arrest on Rice after her arrival late Friday for talks with Prime Minister Helen Clark on Saturday. Auckland University Student Association (AUSA) president David Do Do said the reward of 5,000 New Zealand dollars (3,725 US) was being offered to the usual rubes for Rice's arrest for her role in "overseeing the illegal invasion and continued occupation" of Iraq.
With any luck David will someday get to live in a country that matches his rhetoric. At some point shortly after that he'll either be dead or be a refugee drifting in a leaky boat in the South Pacific.
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#1
Five grand? I'm insulted! That's cheap even for a bunch of lefty slackers. You would think that Soros or Ted Turner could spare at least a measly million or two for the comrades in Helengrad.
This offer is kind of interesting in light of yesterday's attempt by American terror-tools to "arrest" Karl Rove.
It would appear that vigilante action has succeeded the pink tank as a leading protest fad.
Btw, four of Rove's would-be captors were themselves arrested, while Rove was still free at last report.
#6
Auckland University Student Association (AUSA) president David Do said the reward of 5,000 New Zealand dollars (3,725 US) was being offered for Rices arrest for her role in overseeing the illegal invasion and continued occupation of Iraq.
Illegal invasion? New Zealand loons have the same mantra that our loons have.
#2
The difference between a state controlled press and a the one we have now is? If the difference gets much smaller why should they be granted 'protection'? Regulate through the commerce clause like any other business for content. Lies and outright misrepresentations would bring fines like any other business that conducted itself in such disregard to the quality of the product or service.
(VOI) -- Police forces on Friday arrested six persons specialized in drug dealing and seized an amount of drug and weapons found in their possession, a police source said. "A force from the criminal police raided a house in central Hilla after receiving information on the presence of a six-person drug dealing gang," the source, who asked not to be named, told Aswat al-Iraq -- Voices of Iraq (VOI). "The forces found 127 drug packets, two hand grenades, two guns and a Kalashnikov," he added. The source gave no more details.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Interesting. I wasn't aware of the drug market in Iraq.
Congressman Peter Hoekstra from Michigan has recently introduced legislation that would ban the banning by the Government of the use of various terms describing Islamic jihadists who want to wage holy war against us. The Administration has decided using such terms by Government officials somehow ârewardsâ jihadists and offends regular, moderate Muslims. This topic has been covered by the CTB fairly extensively.
Now the usual cast of jihadist apologists are deriding Congressman Hoekstra for his efforts in trying to stop what many believe is the Governmentâs PC nonsense...better to call terrorists who themselves declare their violent, murderous actions Islamic inspired jihad mere criminals. Is this argument really rather silly, or could there be something more at stake?
The death toll from clashes between Ethiopian forces and Somali Islamist fighters rose to 18 after villagers found nine more bodies Friday, witnesses said. Fighting erupted Thursday when Ethiopian troops came under insurgent attack in Beledweyne town, 350 kilometres (220 miles) north of the capital Mogadishu, prompting a return of fire that killed nine civilians.
"We sent a committee to asses the casualties and they confirmed at least 18 civilians, most of them nomads who brought livestock to the town, were killed in two days," said Osman Sheik Mohamed, a local elder. He added that thousands of civilians had been displaced.
"Some of the dead were collected from outside the town where they were killed in the crossfire," said Hadi Abdi Yusuf, a local aid worker.
Residents said the clashes raged for a second day Friday with the rival sides firing artillery shells at each other.
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Sri Lankan troops killed at least 22 Tamil Tiger rebels in fresh fighting in the far north of the island on Friday, the military said, as government forces continue their push against the rebels' northern stronghold.
The fighting in the northern district of Mullaitivu came a day after the military captured a rebel-held area in Mallavi, also in the same district, killing 25 Tamil Tiger rebels. "Troops successfully repulsed a terrorist retaliation attempt south of Mallavi last night," said a spokesman at the Media Centre for National Security. "Troops have recovered 22 bodies of terrorists including two leaders and a search operation is going on."
The military said the day earlier fighting in four northern districts had killed 13 Tamil Tiger rebels and wounded 42. Three soldiers had also died and 13 were wounded. The military also said the navy had destroyed three Tamil Tiger boats along the coast at Chilavaththai in Mullaitivu on Thursday evening.
The fighting comes a week after military said it had dealt a "fatal blow" to the Tamil Tigers, with the capture of the northwestern town of Vidattaltivu, the main base of the Tigers' sea wing and their logistics hub for the region.
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Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Friday said that the freedom and the command of law enforcement authorities must be protected, in reference to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's response to recent allegations he was obstructing the corruption investigations against him by failing to cooperate with police investigators.
"The courts, the police and the state prosecution must be protected from attempts to harm their authority and their freedom," Barak said at a Labor Party conference Friday. "Over recent days, we have seen a renewed assault against the law enforcement authorities," he added, warning that the "prosecution, police and the courts are essential bodies in any democracy."
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U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has suggested that a surge in violence by the Taliban in Afghanistan had its roots in the lawless tribal areas along the border with Pakistan. The authorities in Islamabad were urged to do more to bring the region under its control.
Rice insists that despite the hostile terrain, the Pakistanis must do more. "There's an uptick in terrorism, not just against forces but against the Afghan people and in that regard everybody needs to do more but Pakistan does need to do more. That border, we understand that it's difficult, we understand that the northwest frontier area is difficult but militants cannot be allowed to organise there and to plan there and to engage across the border and so more needs to be done."
This blunt message to Islamabad comes just a few days before Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani is to meet U.S. President George Bush in Washington. The Pakistani government has said it will not allow its soil to be used by extremists or for them to launch attacks into neighbouring Afghanistan. It has also resisted suggestions that American or other foreign troops should be deployed in the region to combat the Taliban.
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These tests of coal powder present significant proof of the Cyclone Engine's versatility in utilizing diverse fuel sources without modification of the engine's primary components and system design. In this specific instance, an additional propane torch was utilized to ignite the solid fuel particles.
Over the last few months, the company has successfully tested a multitude of liquid fuels such as algae-based biodiesel, and gaseous fuels such as propane. This test, however, was the first for the Cyclone external combustion engine with a fuel in a solid, powdered state.
"While the environmental merits of 'clean' coal are debatable," stated Cyclone's CEO, Harry Schoell, "it is still one of the most abundant, inexpensive and widely-used fuel sources we have in the United States."
#1
The use of coal dust plasma engines has been around for a long time, even before WWII. basically wafting the dust around in air, combustion is very thorough and there is a lot less waste of fuel. However, its pollutants are problematic.
#2
Also consider the hazards of transport and storage. Coal dust and flour dust are explosive mixtures and how they are delt with might be an interesting engineering challenge.
#5
It's a little known fact, but the amount of thorium, a radioactive element usable in nuclear reactors, in a kilogram of coal has more energy density than the coal itself does by an extremely large margin.
In addition, burning coal in any form releases radioactivity from items such as thorium into the atmosphere.
Tell that to the greenies who want to stop nuclear power (none of them want to build more coal plants, but a coal planet vents more radioactivity in a year than a nuke plant will in a century).
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.
SEN. BARACK OBAMA said in an interview the day after his Berlin speech that it "allowed me to send a message to the American people that the judgments I have made and the judgments I will make are ones that are going to result in them being safer."
JAMALPUR, July 25 (UNB): A madrasah student was killed after rape at Purbo Gamaria village in Islampur Upazila Wednesday. The victim was identified as Jahanara Begum, daughter of day labourer Alam and a student of class VIII of a local Dakhil madrasah.
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday that Iran now possesses 6,000 centrifuges, a significant increase in the number of uranium-enriching machines in its nuclear program, the semi-official Fars news agency reported. The new figure is double the 3,000 centrifuges Iran had previously said it was operating in its uranium enrichment plant in Natanz.
DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - Four peace activists were arrested on Friday as they attempted to make a "citizens arrest" of Karl Rove, who was one of President George W. Bush's top aides before leaving the administration last year.
Chinese authorities denied claims by a group calling itself the Turkistan Islamic Party that it was responsible for deadly bus explosions in Shanghai and Yunnan province ahead of the Olympic Games, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday. The group released a video threatening the Beijing Olympic Games and claiming responsibility for deadly bus explosions in Shanghai and in Yunnan's Kunming, a terrorism monitoring firm in Washington said on Friday. But Xinhua reported that a police investigation of the Shanghai blast on May 5 had nothing to do with "terrorist attacks".
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Spain's King Juan Carlos shook hands and made up on Friday in their first meeting since the monarch told the president to "shut up" at a summit in November. A relaxed Chavez joked "Why don't we go to the beach?" as he met the smiling king in sunshine outside the royals' summer residence on the island of Majorca. However, the outspoken Venezuelan leader fell short of giving the monarch a hug, as he said he would like to do last Sunday on his weekly television show. 
A naked model photographed using Peru's flag as a saddle while mounted on a horse will face charges that could put her in jail for up to four years for offending patriotic symbols, the country's defense minister said on Wednesday.
The Palestinian Authority is considering cutting off its diplomatic contacts with Israel and unilaterally declaring statehood, the Arabic-language a-Sharq al-Awset daily reported on Friday. "In light of the crisis we have encountered in talks with Israel, the Authority is testing a number of options," one Palestinian official told the daily. According to the report, the Palestinian Authority is also re-evaluating how to proceed with consolidating its security services. 
Sen. Barack Obama urged Iran Friday to "end its illicit nuclear program" or face increased pressure from a unified international community, and he warned Tehran not to "wait for the next president" before accepting proposals to resolve a stalemate with Western countries. 
He is reclusive like Taliban leader Mullah Omar and popular like al-Qaeda's Osama bin Laden, and he pledges his allegiance to both. This is Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, whom the Pakistani security agencies have tried their best to engage, but he remains defiant, so much so that he is even suspected of being an agent for India's Research and Analysis intelligence agency. 
A Beverly Hills hotel security guard told FOXNews.com he intervened this week between a man he identified as former Sen. John Edwards and tabloid reporters who chased down the former presidential hopeful after what they're calling a rendezvous with his mistress and love child.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Whether or not any bubble has burst, Americans now live in an economy where the prospect of a gallon of gas for less than $4 is cause for relief. That barrier may be broken as early as this weekend, as a two-week nosedive in crude prices begins to ripple out to gas stations nationwide.
Critics have increased the pressure on Gordon Brown after Labour's defeat in the Glasgow East by-election, but colleagues have leapt to his defence. The head of one of the UK's top unions has demanded a leadership contest, while Tory leader David Cameron has called for a general election. But Chancellor Alistair Darling urged Labour to "rediscover the conviction" on which it won three elections. Members are at Warwick University for the party's National Policy Forum. 
Sectarian clashes broke out Friday in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, killing six people, including a 10 year-old-boy and a policeman, and wounding at least 15, police officials said. The clashes between Sunni Muslim gunmen and Alawites, an offshoot Shiite sect, broke out at dawn after a hand grenade was thrown toward a Sunni area, the state-run National News Agency reported.
Forty Taliban were killed in air strikes to take back a district of Afghanistan captured by Islamist rebels while a British soldier was killed in a separate clash, officials said Friday.
The death toll from clashes between Ethiopian forces and Somali Islamist fighters rose to 18 after villagers found nine more bodies Friday, witnesses said. Fighting erupted Thursday when Ethiopian troops came under insurgent attack in Beledweyne town, 350 kilometres (220 miles) north of the capital Mogadishu, prompting a return of fire that killed nine civilians.
