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Mexico shuts down Mexico. Obama leaves border open. Where's the common sense?

In Mexico City, a metropolis of 20 million, all schools, restaurants, nightclubs and public events have been shut down to try to stop the disease from spreading, bringing normal life to a virtual standstill, yet when Obama was asked about closing the US border, the all knowing one said, "At this point, (health officials) have not recommended a border closing," ... "From their perspective, it would be akin to closing the barn door after the horses are out, because we already have cases here in the United States.

Think about this. 

All roads point to Mexico. The Mexicans in their desperation and wisdom say,  "hold commerce and travel for five days." The President of Mexico, Calderon, states, "There is no safer place than your own home to avoid being infected with the flu virus."

Bush was harshly criticised for not acting promptly after Hurricane Katrina. Obama has chosen not to act swiftly and decisively with a common sense approach being used by the Mexicans in Mexico. The borders should have been closed. There were still plenty of infected horses left in the barn. A horse's ass on a thoroughbred is still a horse's ass.

Swine flu prompts Mexico to shut down economy

Thu Apr 30, 2009 2:37am EDT
By Catherine Bremer

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican President Felipe Calderon told his people to stay home from Friday for a five-day partial shutdown of the economy, after the World Health Organization said a swine flu pandemic was imminent.

Calderon ordered government offices and private businesses not crucial to the economy to stop work to avoid further infections from the new virus, which has killed up to 176 people in Mexico and is now spreading around the world.

"There is no safer place than your own home to avoid being infected with the flu virus," Calderon said in his first televised address since the crisis erupted last week.

Eleven countries have reported cases of the H1N1 strain, and Texas officials said a 22-month-old Mexican boy had died in Texas while on a family visit, the first confirmed swine flu death outside Mexico.

Switzerland confirmed on Thursday its first case, saying a man returning from Mexico had tested positive for the flu.

The WHO raised the official alert level to phase 5, the last step before a pandemic.

"Influenza pandemics must be taken seriously precisely because of their capacity to spread rapidly to every country in the world," WHO Director General Margaret Chan told a news conference in Geneva on Wednesday.

"The biggest question is this: how severe will the pandemic be, especially now at the start," Chan said. But she added that the world "is better prepared for an influenza pandemic than at any time in history."

WORLD STOCK MARKETS RALLY

Mexico's peso currency weakened sharply early on Thursday after the government called for chunks of the economy to close. The peso fell 1.6 percent to 13.83 per dollar.

But world stocks struck a four-month peak, powered by gains in Asia on Thursday, as investors took heart from signs of improvement in the U.S. economy.

Markets earlier in the week had taken fright and fallen on worries that a major flu outbreak could hit the struggling global economy. Almost all those infected outside Mexico have had mild symptoms, and only a handful of people have been hospitalized.

In Mexico City, a metropolis of 20 million, all schools, restaurants, nightclubs and public events have been shut down to try to stop the disease from spreading, bringing normal life to a virtual standstill.

Spain reported the first case in Europe of swine flu in a person who had not been to Mexico, illustrating the danger of person-to-person transmission.

Both U.S. and European officials have said they expect to see swine flu deaths.

President Barack Obama said during an evening news conference at the White House on Wednesday there was no need for panic and rejected the possibility of closing the border with Mexico.

"At this point, (health officials) have not recommended a border closing," he said. "From their perspective, it would be akin to closing the barn door after the horses are out, because we already have cases here in the United States."

Obama also praised his predecessor for stockpiling anti-viral medication in anticipation of such an outbreak.

"I think the Bush administration did a good job of creating the infrastructure so that we can respond," Obama said. "For example, we've got 50 million courses of anti-viral drugs in the event that they're needed."

EXPERT SAYS VIRUS RELATIVELY WEAK

Masato Tashiro, head of the influenza virus research center at Japan's National Institute of Infectious Disease and a member of the WHO emergency committee, told Japan's Nikkei newspaper it appeared the H1N1 strain was far less dangerous than avian flu.

"The virus is relatively weak and about the same as regular influenza viruses passed on via human-to-human contact. I don't believe it will become virulent," he was quoted as saying.

"The threat to health from the avian influenza and its fatality rate is much greater than the new flu," he said.

"I am very worried that we will use up the stockpile of anti-flu medicine and be unarmed before we need to fight against the avian influenza. The greatest threat to mankind remains the H5N1 avian influenza."

The WHO's Chan urged companies who make the drugs to ramp up production. Two antiviral drugs -- Relenza, made by GlaxoSmithKline and Tamiflu, made by Roche AG and Gilead Sciences Inc -- have been shown to work against the H1N1 strain.

Mexico's central bank warned the outbreak could deepen the nation's recession, hurting an economy that already shrank by as much as 8 percent from the previous year in the first quarter.

France said it would seek a European Union ban on flights to Mexico. The EU, the United States and Canada have advised against non-essential travel to Mexico, and many tourists were hurrying to leave, crowding airports

.

(Reporting by Maggie Fox and Tabassum Zakaria in Washington; Jason Lange, Catherine Bremer, Alistair Bell and Helen Popper in Mexico City; Laura MacInnis and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Yoko Nishikawa in Tokyo; Writing by Andrew Marshall and Dean Yates; Editing by Bill Tarrant)

Pakistan is getting serious about the Taliban, sort of.

Pakistan drops troops behind Taliban lines
Wed Apr 29, 2009 7:05am BST

BUNER, Pakistan (Reuters) -

Pakistani troops dropped from helicopters onto hillsides behind Taliban fighters holding entrances to the Buner valley, according to witnesses, as the second day of an offensive began on Wednesday.

Pakistan's demonstration of military resolve will reassure U.S. President Barack Obama and Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai, when they meet Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari in Washington on May 6/7 to discuss regional strategy.

The Taliban's entry into a region just 100 km (60 miles) northwest of Islamabad earlier this month had sent shivers through Pakistan and sparked alarm in the United States.

The army, however, said a few hundred militants holed up in the mountains did not represent a real threat to the capital of the nuclear-armed Muslim nation, despite their proximity.

Residents could see and hear the fighting on the slopes overlooking Buner town on Wednesday, and several saw troops rappelling down ropes from helicopters in a drop behind enemy lines.

"We saw a helicopter dropping troops on the hills early this morning. It came about seven or eight times," said Arshad Imran standing in the town's central bazaar.

"We hear sound of explosions off and on and we can see helicopters flying over the mountains."

The military estimated some 500 militants were in Buner, and that it might take a week to clear them out. Jet fighters and helicopters gunships provided air support for army and paramilitary troops leading the offensive on Tuesday.

U.S. ENCOURAGEMENT

Pakistan is desperate for military and economic support to fight the insurgency.

But allies had feared Zardari's government was too ready to appease the militants after he signed off on a regulation to introduce Islamic sharia courts in the Malakand division in the North West Frontier Province.

Malakand has a long history of Islamist fervour going back to the British Raj in pre-Partition India, even though in earlier times the Swat valley had been a centre of Buddhism and until a couple of years ago had been a favourite destination for honeymooners, hikers and skiers.

While Buner is located south of Swat, the first military operation began southwest of Swat, in Lower Dir district on Sunday.

The government had hoped that meeting demands for sharia courts would quieten the militants in Swat.

But the Taliban instead became emboldened, fanning out of Swat into other parts of Malakand, including Buner, Lower Dir and Shangla districts.

A military spokesman said 10 soldiers and around 70 militants were killed in three days of fighting in Dir, though there were no independent casualty estimates.

The Pentagon urged Pakistan to remain on the offensive.

"The key is to sustain these operations at this tempo and to keep the militants on their heels and to, ultimately, defeat them," Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said.

"The test of all of these Pakistani military operations -- because we've seen them from time to time in the past -- is always their sustainability," he told reporters in Washington.

Washington is considering rushing hundreds of millions of dollars in emergency aid to Pakistan, the U.S. Senate's second-ranking Republican, Jon Kyl of Arizona, told reporters.

There have been signs of a sea change within Pakistan's fractious polity, with even conservative religious parties recognising the need to push the Taliban back.

A police official in Buner, speaking on condition of anonymity, said militants briefly took dozens of policemen and Frontier Constabulary personnel hostage in the district's Pir Baba area but released them on condition they would stay out of the fight. There was no official confirmation of the incident.

(Additional reporting by Junaid Khan and Augustine Anthony in Pakistan; Writing by Simon Cameron-Moore; Editing by Bill Tarrant)

Vestas, world's biggest wind energy group, losing sail.

A Danish Nordtank wind turbine suffers a brake failure 

( manufactured by Vestas ). Hard to understand why anyone would object to this in their neighborhood.

Care to speculate how many billions will get blown in US wind dreams and boondoggles?

_____________________

Britain's only wind turbine plant to close

Vestas is to shut down its Isle of Wight factory in the face of collapsing demand from a wind-farming industry hobbled by the recession and red tape

Tim Webb
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 28 April 2009 13.13 BST

The UK's only wind turbine manufact uring plant is to close, dealing a humili ating blow to the government's promise to support low-carbon industries.

Vestas, the world's biggest wind energy group, said today that it would close its Isle of Wight facility, which employs about 700 people and makes blades for wind farms in the US.

The group had planned to convert the factory in Newport so it could make blades for the British market, but said this morning that the paralysis gripping the industry meant that orders had ground to a halt. Such low demand could not justify the investment, Ditlev Engel, the chief executive, told the Guardian.

He said the group would consult with the workers for the next two to three months, adding that there was a glimmer of hope investment in the plant could still go ahead if orders picked up soon.

Engel said last week's budget, which increased subsidies available for offshore wind farms, as well as recent moves to free up the sluggish planning process, could boost the industry but it was too early to say whether orders would pick enough to rescue the plant.

"The government has tried to improve the situation," he said. "Whether it's enough I don't know."

In early March, Gordon Brown convened a low-carbon industrial summit aimed at finding ways to help low-carbon manufacturers lead the UK out of recession. Vestas representatives attended the meeting.

Engel said the group was in "constant dialogue" with the government and had informed it of today's move. He admitted that no aid or assistance had been offered by Whitehall to try to save the plant. But he reserved his fiercest criticism for local politicians who he said were holding up projects, particularly onshore, giving the UK one of the lengthiest planning processes for developers wanting to build wind farms anywhere in the world.

"Since last summer, the order intake in the UK market has dropped significantly. Therefore it would be very difficult to substantiate the investment as we had already planned.

"The UK has large wind resources and it's a priority for the government but the orders didn't move. That's why we're telling employees that we're not reinvesting there.

"We are waiting to see in the coming period if the government initiative announced last week will get the market to move again. At least it gives some hope but it's too early to tell."

Engel said the weakness of the pound had also had an effect, making it more expensive to build wind farms in the UK, but the major problem lay in planning application.

"It is extremely time consuming and extremely complicated. Some of our developers, customers, will tell you it is so difficult. In the UK nimbyism is a huge challenge. This is outside of Whitehall territory.

"People talk about big offshore parks. Why not put in onshore parks? The cost of installation is half compared to offshore."

The Isle of Wight facility will stop making blades in June. The R&D department, which employs about 150 people, will remain open.

Engel admitted that if Vestas makes its skilled workers redundant but sees a pick-up in orders later in the year, it would be harder to reopen the plant because it would have to find a new skilled workforce.

The real world pirates are the Chinese.

The West used to know how to treat Chinese pirates.

The New York Times headline is somewhat different from what I chose for them. Read the article about intellectual theft and technological piracy. China deserves a special tariff to compensate the west for their brazen thievery, 125% is about right for my taste. The article is intellectual spit.

_________________________

April 28, 2009
In China, Knockoff Cellphones Are a Hit

By DAVID BARBOZA NY Times

SHENZHEN, China — The phone’s sleek lines and touch-screen keyboard are unmistakably familiar. So is the logo on the back. But a sales clerk at a sprawling electronic goods market in this Chinese coastal city admits what is clear upon closer inspection: this is not the Apple iPhone; this is the Hi-Phone.

“But it’s just as good,” the clerk says.

Nearby, dozens of other vendors are selling counterfeit Nokia, Motorola and Samsung phones — as well as cheap look-alikes that make no bones about being knockoffs.

“Five years ago, there were no counterfeit phones,” says Xiong Ting, a sales manager at Triquint Semiconductor, a maker of mobile phone parts, while visiting Shenzhen. “You needed a design house. You needed software guys. You needed hardware design. But now, a company with five guys can do it. Within 100 miles of here, you can find all your suppliers.”

Technological advances have allowed hundreds of small Chinese companies, some with as few as 10 employees, to churn out what are known here as shanzhai, or black market, cellphones, often for as little as $20 apiece.

And just as Chinese companies are trying to move up the value chain of manufacturing, from producing toys and garments to making computers and electric cars, so too are counterfeiters. After years of making fake luxury bags and cheap DVDs, they are capturing market share from the world’s biggest mobile phone makers.

Although shanzhai phones have only been around a few years, they already account for more than 20 percent of sales in China, which is the world’s biggest mobile phone market, according to the research firm Gartner.

They are also being illegally exported to Russia, India, the Middle East, Europe, even the United States. “The shanzhai phone market is expanding crazily,” says Wang Jiping, a senior analyst at IDC, which tracks technology trends. “They copy Apple, Nokia, whatever they like, and they respond to the market swiftly.”

Alarmed by the rapid growth of counterfeits and no-name knockoffs, global brands are pressing the Chinese government to crack down on their proliferation, and are warning consumers about potential health hazards, like cheap batteries that can explode.

Nokia, the world’s biggest cellphone maker, says it is working with Beijing to fight counterfeiting. Motorola says much the same. Apple Inc. declined to comment.

Even Chinese mobile phone producers are losing market share to underground companies, which have a built-in cost advantage because they evade taxes, regulatory fees and safety checks.

“We’re being severely hurt by shanzhai phones,” says Chen Zhao, a sales director at Konka, a Chinese cellphone maker. “Legal cellphone makers should pay 17 percent of their revenue as value-added tax, but shanzhai makers, of course, won’t pay it.”

So far, however, China has done little to stop the proliferation of fake mobile phones, which are even advertised on late-night television infomercials with pitches like “one-fifth the price, but the same function and look,” or patriotic appeals like “Buy shanzhai to show your love of our country.”

Last month, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology did warn consumers about the hazards of shanzhai phones, saying “their radiation usually exceeds the limit.” China’s consumer protection agency says faulty mobile phones were the No. 1 consumer complaint last year.

A few weeks ago, a 45-year-old man in south China was severely burned after his cellphone exploded in his shirt pocket, according to state-run news media.

But that hasn’t seemed to affect sales of black market phones, which typically sell at retail for $100 to $150. In the spirit of what is called “shanzhai” — which suggests rebels or bandits and which applies to counterfeit products of all kinds — many consumers are willing to take a risk on a cheap item that looks stylish.

“I saw iPhone pictures on the Web; it’s so cool. But it costs over $500 — too expensive,” says Yang Guibin, 30, an office worker from Chongqing. “So I decided to buy a shanzhai iPhone. I bought it in a digital market here; it looked exactly like the iPhone.”

Some experts say they believe the shanzhai phenomena is about being creative, Chinese style.

“Chinese grass-roots companies are actually very innovative,” says Yu Zhou, a professor at Vassar College. “It’s not so much technology as how they form supply chains and how rapidly they react to new trends.”

While the phones may look like famous brands, companies actually add special features like bigger screens, dual-mode SIM cards (which allow two phone numbers) and even a telescopic lens attachment for the phone’s camera.

Since it is the SIM card that makes a phone run in China, as in most places other than the United States, all you have to do is insert a valid SIM card into a shanzhai phone and it works.

All this innovation comes from an industry that only took off in 2005, after Mediatek, a semiconductor design company from Taiwan, helped significantly reduce the cost and complexity of producing a mobile phone.

Using what experts call a turnkey solution, Mediatek developed a circuit board that could inexpensively integrate the functions of multiple chips, offering start-ups a platform to produce a low-cost mobile phone.

The industry got another boost in 2007, when regulators said companies no longer needed a license to manufacture a cellphone.

That set off a scramble by entrepreneurs in this electronics manufacturing center. Counterfeiting and off-brand knockoffs flourished. Tiny companies would buy a Mediatek chip loaded with software, source other components and ask a factory to assemble them.

Marketing strategies were simple: steal. Designs and brand names were copied identically or simply mimicked. (Sumsung for Samsung or Nckia for Nokia.)

Tapping into the supply chains of big brands is easy, producers say. “It’s really common for factories to do a night shift for other companies,” says Zhang Haizhen, who recently ran a shanzhai company here. “No one will refuse an order if it is over 5,000 mobile phones.”

The people who make fake iPhones admit it’s a shady business.

“We are a kind of illegal producer,” says Zhang Feiyang, whose company, Yuanyang, makes an iPhone clone. “In Shenzhen there are many small mills, hidden. Basically, we can make any type of cellphone.”

The competition is already forcing global brands to lower prices, analysts say. And new Chinese brands are emerging, like Meizu, a would-be Apple that has opened stylish stores here.

“Our phone is even better than the iPhone,” says Liu Zeyu, a Meizu salesman in Shenzhen. “Our goal is to create a phone that makes Chinese proud.”

Chen Yang contributed research.

Mark Levin on Sal Alinsky (For Trish)

Taliban murder Pakistani couple for adultery, on video. Allah Akbar, of course.

Taliban gunmen have been filmed executing a surprised couple whom they repeatedly shot for the alleged crime of adultery.

Pakistan is getting a close look at the horror of what is before them. It is late in the game but Pakistani paramilitary troops assisted by helicopter gunships attacked Taliban militants in the Malakand Agency on Sunday. They claimed that they killed 30 militants. 

Of course, had they been attacked by US forces, 29 of them would have been widows and orphans on the way to a religious shrine.

It is too little too late.

___________________________

Taliban gunmen shooting couple dead for adultery caught on camera

Telegraph

Their deaths were squalid, riddled with bullets in a field near their home by Taliban gunmen as the execution was captured on a mobile telephone.

In footage which is being watched with horror by Pakistanis, the couple try to flee when they realise what is about to happen. But a gunman casually shoots the man and then the woman in the back with a burst of gunfire, leaving them bleeding in the dirt.

Moments later, when others in the execution party shout out that they are still alive, he returns to coldly finish them with a few more rounds.

Their "crime" was an alleged affair in their remote mountain village controlled by militants in an area that was only recently under the government's sway. It was the kind of barbarity that has become increasingly familiar across Pakistan as the Taliban tide has spread.

But this time, with black-turbaned gunmen almost at the gates of Islamabad, the rare footage has shown urban Pakistanis what could now await them.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, has warned that Islamic extremists could take over the nation.

In the past few days the footage has circulated among Pakistanis who usually show little interest in the rough ways of the distant frontier regions.

They have now started to wake up to the fear that al-Qaeda-linked rebels from the frontier could take over their nation.
The killings happened in Hangu district, in North West Frontier Province, about two hours drive from the regional capital Peshawar. The punishment was administered by a local group of the Pakistani Taliban, the Islamic militia which has swept across the NWFP towards the capital Islamabad.

Last week, the Taliban had reached within 60 miles of Islamabad, in Buner district. Their takeover sparked panic in the West, which was already appalled by a peace deal that the government had signed this month with Taliban in adjacent the Swat valley.

In an extraordinary move, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, called on the people of Pakistan to defy their government, saying they "need to speak out forcefully against a policy that is ceding more and more territory to the insurgents".

The Taliban had agreed a withdrawal, in the last couple of days, to their stronghold of Swat. That will scarcely make the government and elite in the capital Islamabad feel much safer, as Swat is only 100 miles from them.

"The Taliban are steady and confident, the government is weak and faltering," said Pervez Hoodbhoy, a professor at Islamabad's Quaid-e-Azam University and one of Pakistan's leading intellectuals.

"A Taliban victory will enslave our women, destroy Pakistan's rich historical and cultural heritage, make education and science impossible, and make the lives of its citizens impossibly difficult. Some are already contemplating an exodus."

Pakistan today stands on a knife-edge, threatened with anarchy. The desperate deal signed with the Taliban in Swat looks set to fall apart. The result will almost certainly be violence. An army convoy heading into Swat on Saturday morning was stopped by the Taliban and forced to turn back, in a naked display of their power.

They seem to have been only emboldened by the peace agreement. Many believe that a bloody military operation now looks inevitable,

For those in areas falling under Taliban control, their harsh rule is terrifying.

An SOS text message sent out on Friday by a terrified local resident, in an area of Swat called Bahrain, says that the Taliban have established total control. Asking not be named for fear of reprisal, he said that they have set up check posts at the entrance to Bahrain, from where they kidnap those they want, including young women.

"They've even warned the local schools to close the girl classes or face dire consequences. Yet the government says its writ is in Swat."

Another Swat resident said: "Every day I see armed Taliban move around freely. At the time of prayer, if they see anyone in his shop or walking about, they whip him with a stick."

The Pakistani Taliban, a copy of the Afghan extremist movement, have long controlled the tribal area along the Afghan border, which is a sanctuary for militants, including al-Qaeda. But it is their march into the heart of the country that has horrified ordinary Pakistanis, and the wider world. And the threat comes not just from the Taliban to the west. Islamic extremists, who are not part of the Taliban, are already entrenched in Islamabad and across the Punjab, the most populous province, seemingly ready to surface when their moment comes.

Islamabad's defences are being hurriedly fortified, with paramilitary troops stationed on the Margalla Hills, which overlook the city from the West. In the capital, there are thousands of followers of the radical Red Mosque, where there are now open calls for Islamic revolution at the weekly Friday prayers.

"The Taliban will not stop at Swat. They will come towards Islamabad," said Hasan Askari Rizvi, a military analyst based in Lahore. "If the army is to take action against them, it is going to be a really bloody battle. And then civil government will be knocked out."

"Extremist groups based in Islamabad will move from within and they (Taliban) will build pressure from outside."
The footage Pakistanis have been watching shows them what they could expect.

A local journalist was invited to witness the execution, who filmed it with his mobile phone for a Pakistani channel, Dawn News. The Sunday Telegraph is showing the footage in the West for the first time.
There were no names for the two victims.

"Using the media is part of their (the Taliban's) psychological warfare," said Imtiaz Gul, chairman of Centre for Research and Security Studies, an independent think tank in Islamabad. "This way, they inject fear into the minds of people who might oppose them, keeping the majority silent."

After the couple were shot, the family were told to take their bodies away for burial. The punishment was administered by a local group of the Pakistani Taliban linked to warlord Baitullah Mehsud.

Presenting, President Zuma of South Africa.

Jacob Zuma faces first lady dilemma

ANC leader who looks set to be South Africa's next president may have to choose between his many wives
David Smith in Pretoria
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 23 April 2009

The voters appear to have made their choice abundantly clear in South Africa's election. Now the president-in-waiting, Jacob Zuma, must make a delicate diplomatic choice of his own: which of his wives will be the country's first lady?

When Zuma attends events such as the G20, at which the Wags attracted much attention recently, there is likely to be only one seat allocated to his spouse alongside the likes of Michelle Obama, Sarah Brown and Carla Bruni-Sarkozy.

Zuma once told a television interviewer: "There are plenty of politicians who have mistresses and children that they hide so as to pretend they're monogamous. I prefer to be open. I love my wives and I'm proud of my children."

When the president of the African National Congress (ANC) voted in his rural Zulu homeland yesterday, one of his wives stood to the side watching patiently as he was mobbed by cheering crowds and reporters.

Nompumelelo Ntuli, 34, Zuma's youngest wife, was soon attracting her own crowd of admirers. Women whispered: "Isn't she beautiful!" as Ntuli, decked out in an apricot and blue tie-dye outfit, cast a smile. "Jesus is Lord!" was all she said in response to questions.

Reports conflict on how many times Zuma, 67, a Zulu traditionalist and unabashed polygamist, has married over the years. His first wife is Sizakele Khumalo, whom he has known for 50 years and married in 1973.

He wed Ntuli last year, and reportedly was married again in January to Thobeka Mabhija, a Durban socialite with whom he is said to have two children.

Two more wives are no longer with him. Kate Mantsho Zuma killed herself in 2000. He divorced the other, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, in 1998, although she remains a trusted aide and, as the country's foreign affairs minister, is expected to join his cabinet. He is said to have more than 10 children; possibly as many as 18.

South African law recognises such marriages, although fewer young South Africans are entering into them because they are seen as expensive and old-fashioned. It remains common among several tribes, however, including the Zulus and Swazis.

In the contest to be first lady, Khumalo has the seniority and experience but Ntuli has the glamour and ease in social situations. Khumalo, who presides over the family homestead near the school where Zuma voted in Kwanxamalala, rarely appears in public.

Ntuli, who uses her maiden name, as is customary in polygamous marriages to differentiate among the wives, has been more active outside the home. She organised a prayer meeting in south-eastern South Africa earlier this year, calling for political tolerance, and established a community development foundation.

ANC officials decline to comment, insisting that it is a private matter for Zuma.

Swine flu.

(CNN) -- Mexican officials are asking citizens to avoid large crowds, refrain from kissing as a greeting and maintain a distance of at least 1.8 meters (six feet) from each other amid growing concern in the country and elsewhere over new cases of suspected and confirmed swine flu infection.

Several countries issued travel notices and tightened restrictions to brace against the virus the World Health Organization is calling "a public health emergency of international concern."

By Sunday, 81 deaths had been deemed "likely linked" to a deadly new strain of the virus by health authorities in Mexico. Viral testing has confirmed 20 cases, said Dr. Jose A. Cordova Villalobos, Mexico's health secretary. In the United States, the number of confirmed swine flu cases stood at 11.

In New Zealand, officials said 22 students and three teachers, who returned from a three-week-long language trip to Mexico, may have been infected with the virus.

The 25 students and teachers at Auckland's Rangitoto College returned to New Zealand via Los Angeles on Saturday.

Fourteen have shown flu-like symptoms, with four "more unwell than others," said Dr. Julia Peters, clinical director of Auckland Regional Public Health Service.

Health Minister Tony Ryall said 10 students tested positive for influenza A. The specimens will be sent to WHO to determine whether it is H1N1 swine influenza. H1N1 influenza is a subset of influenza A.

The WHO results are expected back by midweek. The group remains quarantined at home.

"It's certainly has not been confirmed that they have swine flu," said Dr. Craig Thoinley, medical officer of health in influenza. "We already have provisional information that some of the group have influenza A. We won't know if they have the type of influenza A that is swine flu."

In England, authorities stressed that a crew member who developed flu-like symptoms during a flight from Mexico City to Heathrow did not test positive for swine flu.

"I can confirm that the patient doesn't have swine flu," said Jonathan Street, a spokesman for Northwick Park Hospital in London.

"We have done all test, and they all came back negative."

In Israel, doctors are running tests on a man who recently returned from Mexico with light flu symptoms.

U.S. health officials said Friday that some cases of the virus in the United States matched samples of the deadly Mexican virus. All the patients have recovered or are expected to.

The panic over the virus prompted Canada to issue a travel health notice, saying the public health agency was "tracking clusters of severe respiratory illness with deaths in Mexico." Watch CBC report on Canadian microbiologists' concerns »

South Korea said it will test airline passengers arriving from the United States. And Japan will convene a Cabinet meeting Monday to come up with measures to block the entry of the virus into the country.

The United States had not issued any travel warnings or quarantines.

But US Airways said Saturday night it would allow passengers to change plans if they wanted to because of the outbreak.

Airline spokeswoman Michelle Mohr said it was not asking people not to travel to Mexico, but wanted to "give them that flexibility" if "they don't feel comfortable."

Gregory Hartl, of the World Health Organization, said the strain of the virus seen in Mexico is worrisome because it has mutated from older strains. Watch how public health officials grade phases of pandemic alerts »

"Any time that there is a virus which changes ... it means perhaps the immunities the human body has built up to dealing with influenza might not be adjusted well enough to dealing with this new virus," Hartl said.

He said that, in Mexico, otherwise young, healthy people have been hit by the virus -- "one of the pieces of the puzzle that is worrying us," he said.

More than 1,300 people with flu-like symptoms have been admitted to hospitals in Mexico, and officials are trying to determine how many of them have swine flu, said Jose Cordova Villalobos, the country's health minister.

The H1N1 strain of swine flu is usually associated with pigs. When the flu spreads person-to-person, instead of from animals to humans, it can continue to mutate, making it a tougher strain that is harder to treat or fight off.

Symptoms of swine flu include fever, lethargy, lack of appetite, coughing, runny nose, sore throat, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, the CDC said. Learn more about swine flu and how to treat it »


President Barack Obama, who visited Mexico last week en route to the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, is not sick.

"The president's trip to Mexico has not put his health in any danger," spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

Is there a more pathetic power than our Nato ally, Germany?

Definitely not their grandfathers' navy

This news clip appears in DW, which is the German voice to the World: 

Pirates have seized a German vessel. 

No outrage, calm,  but the first sentence does say " the ship's 17 crew members are unhurt, according to a Kenyan maritime official." OK, a German ship is taken on the high seas by pirates and the Germans are relieved because a Kenyan maritime official tells them all is well. 

But the Germans are going to do something about it, right? 

We learn the vessel is sailing under the flag of Malta. OK, I guess that makes it a little less of a German problem. 

A Mombasa-based East African Seafarers Assistance Program says they heard about the taking. That was news to the Germans, because some Ministry officials in Berlin said they didn't know much about it but were investigating. WTF kind of ministry are they exactly? It gets worse.

"The attack comes just a day after NATO decided to extend its anti-piracy work off the coast of Somalia." 

Nato really scared the shit out of them didn't they, but we learn more about the Nato ops:

"Four vessels from NATO's Standing Naval Maritime Group One have been conducting anti-piracy work and escorting merchant ships, including some carrying food aid for Somalia, since last month."

War ships carrying food aid, does this war ship have any guns? WTF? It gets worse.

"The naval ships were due to make courtesy port visits to Karachi in Pakistan, Singapore and Perth in Western Australia, but the last two visits have been cancelled, the spokeswoman said.". 

The pirates are off Somalia. They are not in Singapore or Perth, Australia. How much are the Germans spending on Nato? How much are we spending on Nato? It gets worse.

"They now will break off to visit Karachi on April 26-27 but will return to continue their counter-piracy work until June 6.

"With the great increase in pirate attacks and the ensuing international attention, NATO's recent contribution to counter-piracy has been significant," the spokeswoman said.

Six weeks and they are tired. This is significant counter piracy from Nato?

Please get us out  of Nato, mach schnell.

________________

PIRACY | 25.04.2009
Somali pirates hijack German ship after NATO extends naval mission

The latest hijacking came after NATO extended it anti-piracy mission

Somali pirates have seized a 31,000-ton German grain carrier in the Gulf of Aden but the ship's 17 crew members are unhurt, according to a Kenyan maritime official.

The US Navy's 5th Fleet confirmed that the ship "Patriot" was seized 300 kilometers south-east of the Yemeni coastal city Muqalla. The freighter was sailing under the flag of Malta.

"I hear it was taken early this morning," said Andrew Mwangura, director of the Mombasa-based East African Seafarers Assistance Program, in a statement released on Saturday.

Ministry officials in Berlin could not confirm the reports but said investigations were under way.

Piracy attacks off the eastern African coast have escalated in the past few weeks despite the presence of a flotilla of foreign navy warships in the region.

Pirates there are holding more than 250 hostages and have made millions of dollars through ransoms, driving up insurance costs. Some shipping lines now opt to use a longer and more expensive route around the Cape of Good Hope to avoid capture.

NATO extends anti-piracy mission

The attack comes just a day after NATO decided to extend its anti-piracy work off the coast of Somalia.

"NATO has decided to continue the counter-piracy activities off Somalia in the Gulf of Aden," said a spokesman for the transatlantic alliance at its Brussels headquarters.

NATO ships will continue to patrol the Gulf of Aden

Four vessels from NATO's Standing Naval Maritime Group One have been conducting anti-piracy work and escorting merchant ships, including some carrying food aid for Somalia, since last month.

The naval ships were due to make courtesy port visits to Karachi in Pakistan, Singapore and Perth in Western Australia, but the last two visits have been cancelled, the spokeswoman said.

They now will break off to visit Karachi on April 26-27 but will return to continue their counter-piracy work until June 6.

"With the great increase in pirate attacks and the ensuing international attention, NATO's recent contribution to counter-piracy has been significant," the spokeswoman said.

Pirates attacked over 130 merchant ships in the Gulf of Aden last year — more than double last year's total, according to the International Maritime Bureau.

Attacks increased tenfold in the first three months of 2009 compared to the same period last year.

"The more I see of man, the more I like dogs" - Mme. de Stael

Plastics are devastating the seas.

The Telegraph:

Drowning in plastic: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is twice the size of France

There are now 46,000 pieces of plastic per square kilometre of the world's oceans, killing a million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals each year. Worse still, there seems to be nothing we can do to clean it up. So how do we turn the tide?

Way out in the Pacific Ocean, in an area once known as the doldrums, an enormous, accidental monument to modern society has formed. Invisible to satellites, poorly understood by scientists and perhaps twice the size of France, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is not a solid mass, as is sometimes imagined, but a kind of marine soup whose main ingredient is floating plastic debris.

It was discovered in 1997 by a Californian sailor, surfer, volunteer environmentalist and early-retired furniture restorer named Charles Moore, who was heading home with his crew from a sailing race in Hawaii, at the helm of a 50ft catamaran that he had built himself.

For the hell of it, he decided to turn on the engine and take a shortcut across the edge of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, a region that seafarers have long avoided. It is a perennial high pressure zone, an immense slowly spiralling vortex of warm equatorial air that pulls in winds and turns them gently until they expire. Several major sea currents also converge in the gyre and bring with them most of the flotsam from the Pacific coasts of Southeast Asia, North America, Canada and Mexico. Fifty years ago nearly all that flotsam was biodegradable. These days it is 90 per cent plastic.

'It took us a week to get across and there was always some plastic thing bobbing by,' says Moore, who speaks in a jaded, sardonic drawl that occasionally flares up into heartfelt oratory. 'Bottle caps, toothbrushes, styrofoam cups, detergent bottles, pieces of polystyrene packaging and plastic bags. Half of it was just little chips that we couldn't identify. It wasn't a revelation so much as a gradual sinking feeling that something was terribly wrong here. Two years later I went back with a fine-mesh net, and that was the real mind-boggling discovery.'

Floating beneath the surface of the water, to a depth of 10 metres, was a multitude of small plastic flecks and particles, in many colours, swirling like snowflakes or fish food. An awful thought occurred to Moore and he started measuring the weight of plastic in the water compared to that of plankton. Plastic won, and it wasn't even close. 'We found six times more plastic than plankton, and this was just colossal,' he says. 'No one had any idea this was happening, or what it might mean for marine ecosystems, or even where all this stuff was coming from.'

So ended Moore's retirement. He turned his small volunteer environmental monitoring group into the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, enlisted scientists, launched public awareness campaigns and devoted all his considerable energies to exploring what would become known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and studying the broader problem of marine plastic pollution, which is accumulating in all the world's oceans. (continue)

Eco Tourists get taught a lesson.

Barack Hussein Obama, American Hater-in-Chief

Showing his true stripes and they ain't red and white.

Barack Obama and the CIA: why does President Pantywaist hate America so badly?
Posted By: Gerald Warner at Apr 24, 2009 Telegraph

If al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the rest of the Looney Tunes brigade want to kick America to death, they had better move in quickly and grab a piece of the action before Barack Obama finishes the job himself. Never in the history of the United States has a president worked so actively against the interests of his own people - not even Jimmy Carter.

Obama's problem is that he does not know who the enemy is. To him, the enemy does not squat in caves in Waziristan, clutching automatic weapons and reciting the more militant verses from the Koran: instead, it sits around at tea parties in Kentucky quoting from the US Constitution. Obama is not at war with terrorists, but with his Republican fellow citizens. He has never abandoned the campaign trail.

That is why he opened Pandora's Box by publishing the Justice Department's legal opinions on waterboarding and other hardline interrogation techniques. He cynically subordinated the national interest to his partisan desire to embarrass the Republicans. Then he had to rush to Langley, Virginia to try to reassure a demoralised CIA that had just discovered the President of the United States was an even more formidable foe than al-Qaeda.

"Don't be discouraged by what's happened the last few weeks," he told intelligence officers. Is he kidding? Thanks to him, al-Qaeda knows the private interrogation techniques available to the US intelligence agencies and can train its operatives to withstand them - or would do so, if they had not already been outlawed.

So, next time a senior al-Qaeda hood is captured, all the CIA can do is ask him nicely if he would care to reveal when a major population centre is due to be hit by a terror spectacular, or which American city is about to be irradiated by a dirty bomb. Your view of this situation will be dictated by one simple criterion: whether or not you watched the people jumping from the twin towers.

Obama promised his CIA audience that nobody would be prosecuted for past actions. That has already been contradicted by leftist groups with a revanchist ambition to put Republicans, headed if possible by Condoleezza Rice, in the dock. Talk about playing party politics with national security. Martin Scheinin, the United Nations special investigator for human rights, claims that senior figures, including former vice president Dick Cheney, could face prosecution overseas. Ponder that - once you have got over the difficulty of locating the United Nations and human rights within the same dimension.

President Pantywaist Obama should have thought twice before sitting down to play poker with Dick Cheney. The former vice president believes documents have been selectively published and that releasing more will prove how effective the interrogation techniques were. Under Dubya's administration, there was no further atrocity on American soil after 9/11.

President Pantywaist's recent world tour, cosying up to all the bad guys, excited the ambitions of America's enemies. Here, they realised, is a sucker they can really take to the cleaners. His only enemies are fellow Americans. Which prompts the question: why does President Pantywaist hate America so badly?

Nancy Pelosi, accessory to the fact.

Hill Briefed on Waterboarding in 2002

In Meetings, Spy Panels' Chiefs Did Not Protest, Officials Say

By Joby Warrick and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 9, 2007; A01

In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.

Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.

"The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough," said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange.

Congressional leaders from both parties would later seize on waterboarding as a symbol of the worst excesses of the Bush administration's counterterrorism effort. The CIA last week admitted that videotape of an interrogation of one of the waterboarded detainees was destroyed in 2005 against the advice of Justice Department and White House officials, provoking allegations that its actions were illegal and the destruction was a coverup.

Yet long before "waterboarding" entered the public discourse, the CIA gave key legislative overseers about 30 private briefings, some of which included descriptions of that technique and other harsh interrogation methods, according to interviews with multiple U.S. officials with firsthand knowledge.

With one known exception, no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003, said Democrats and Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter. The lawmakers who held oversight roles during the period included Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan).

Individual lawmakers' recollections of the early briefings varied dramatically, but officials present during the meetings described the reaction as mostly quiet acquiescence, if not outright support. "Among those being briefed, there was a pretty full understanding of what the CIA was doing," said Goss, who chaired the House intelligence committee from 1997 to 2004 and then served as CIA director from 2004 to 2006. "And the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement."

Congressional officials say the groups' ability to challenge the practices was hampered by strict rules of secrecy that prohibited them from being able to take notes or consult legal experts or members of their own staffs. And while various officials have described the briefings as detailed and graphic, it is unclear precisely what members were told about waterboarding and how it is conducted. Several officials familiar with the briefings also recalled that the meetings were marked by an atmosphere of deep concern about the possibility of an imminent terrorist attack.

"In fairness, the environment was different then because we were closer to Sept. 11 and people were still in a panic," said one U.S. official present during the early briefings. "But there was no objecting, no hand-wringing. The attitude was, 'We don't care what you do to those guys as long as you get the information you need to protect the American people.' "

Only after information about the practice began to leak in news accounts in 2005 -- by which time the CIA had already abandoned waterboarding -- did doubts about its legality among individual lawmakers evolve into more widespread dissent. The opposition reached a boiling point this past October, when Democratic lawmakers condemned the practice during Michael B. Mukasey's confirmation hearings for attorney general.

GOP lawmakers and Bush administration officials have previously said members of Congress were well informed and were supportive of the CIA's use of harsh interrogation techniques. But the details of who in Congress knew what, and when, about waterboarding -- a form of simulated drowning that is the most extreme and widely condemned interrogation technique -- have not previously been disclosed.

U.S. law requires the CIA to inform Congress of covert activities and allows the briefings to be limited in certain highly sensitive cases to a "Gang of Eight," including the four top congressional leaders of both parties as well as the four senior intelligence committee members. In this case, most briefings about detainee programs were limited to the "Gang of Four," the top Republican and Democrat on the two committees. A few staff members were permitted to attend some of the briefings.

That decision reflected the White House's decision that the "enhanced interrogation" program would be treated as one of the nation's top secrets for fear of warning al-Qaeda members about what they might expect, said U.S. officials familiar with the decision. Critics have since said the administration's motivation was at least partly to hide from view an embarrassing practice that the CIA considered vital but outsiders would almost certainly condemn as abhorrent.

Information about the use of waterboarding nonetheless began to seep out after a furious internal debate among military lawyers and policymakers over its legality and morality. Once it became public, other members of Congress -- beyond the four that interacted regularly with the CIA on its most sensitive activities -- insisted on being briefed on it, and the circle of those in the know widened.

In September 2006, the CIA for the first time briefed all members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, producing some heated exchanges with CIA officials, including Director Michael V. Hayden. The CIA director said during a television interview two months ago that he had informed congressional overseers of "all aspects of the detention and interrogation program." He said the "rich dialogue" with Congress led him to propose a new interrogation program that President Bush formally announced over the summer

"I can't describe that program to you," Hayden said. "But I would suggest to you that it would be wrong to assume that the program of the past is necessarily the program moving forward into the future."

Waterboarding Used on at Least 3

Waterboarding as an interrogation technique has its roots in some of history's worst totalitarian nations, from Nazi Germany and the Spanish Inquisition to North Korea and Iraq. In the United States, the technique was first used five decades ago as a training tool to give U.S. troops a realistic sense of what they could expect if captured by the Soviet Union or the armies of Southeast Asia. The U.S. military has officially regarded the tactic as torture since the Spanish-American War.

In general, the technique involves strapping a prisoner to a board or other flat surface, and then raising his feet above the level of his head. A cloth is then placed over the subject's mouth and nose, and water is poured over his face to make the prisoner believe he is drowning.

U.S. officials knowledgeable about the CIA's use of the technique say it was used on three individuals -- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks; Zayn Abidin Muhammed Hussein Abu Zubaida, a senior al-Qaeda member and Osama bin Laden associate captured in Pakistan in March 2002; and a third detainee who has not been publicly identified.

Abu Zubaida, the first of the "high-value" detainees in CIA custody, was subjected to harsh interrogation methods beginning in spring 2002 after he refused to cooperate with questioners, the officials said. CIA briefers gave the four intelligence committee members limited information about Abu Zubaida's detention in spring 2002, but offered a more detailed account of its interrogation practices in September of that year, said officials with direct knowledge of the briefings.

The CIA provided another briefing the following month, and then about 28 additional briefings over five years, said three U.S. officials with firsthand knowledge of the meetings. During these sessions, the agency provided information about the techniques it was using as well as the information it collected.

Lawmakers have varied recollections about the topics covered in the briefings.

Graham said he has no memory of ever being told about waterboarding or other harsh tactics. Graham left the Senate intelligence committee in January 2003, and was replaced by Rockefeller. "Personally, I was unaware of it, so I couldn't object," Graham said in an interview. He said he now believes the techniques constituted torture and were illegal.

Pelosi declined to comment directly on her reaction to the classified briefings. But a congressional source familiar with Pelosi's position on the matter said the California lawmaker did recall discussions about enhanced interrogation. The source said Pelosi recalls that techniques described by the CIA were still in the planning stage -- they had been designed and cleared with agency lawyers but not yet put in practice -- and acknowledged that Pelosi did not raise objections at the time.

Harman, who replaced Pelosi as the committee's top Democrat in January 2003, disclosed Friday that she filed a classified letter to the CIA in February of that year as an official protest about the interrogation program. Harman said she had been prevented from publicly discussing the letter or the CIA's program because of strict rules of secrecy.

"When you serve on intelligence committee you sign a second oath -- one of secrecy," she said. "I was briefed, but the information was closely held to just the Gang of Four. I was not free to disclose anything."

Roberts declined to comment on his participation in the briefings. Rockefeller also declined to talk about the briefings, but the West Virginia Democrat's public statements show him leading the push in 2005 for expanded congressional oversight and an investigation of CIA interrogation practices. "I proposed without success, both in committee and on the Senate floor, that the committee undertake an investigation of the CIA's detention and interrogation activities," Rockefeller said in a statement Friday.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a former Vietnam War prisoner who is seeking the GOP presidential nomination, took an early interest in the program even though he was not a member of the intelligence committee, and spoke out against waterboarding in private conversations with White House officials in late 2005 before denouncing it publicly.

In May 2007, four months after Democrats regained control of Congress and well after the CIA had forsworn further waterboarding, four senators submitted written objections to the CIA's use of that tactic and other, still unspecified "enhanced" techniques in two classified letters to Hayden last spring, shortly after receiving a classified hearing on the topic. One letter was sent on May 1 by Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.). A similar letter was sent May 10 by a bipartisan group of three senators: Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).

In a rare public statement last month that broached the subject of his classified objections, Feingold complained about administration claims of congressional support, saying that it was "not the case" that lawmakers briefed on the CIA's program "have approved it or consented to it."

Staff writers Josh White and Walter Pincus and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

MoveOn.org moves on the attack. Americans love it.

Poll: Public thinks highly of Obama

By Susan Page, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — His opening months in the Oval Office have fortified Barack Obama's standing with the American public, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, giving him political capital for battles ahead.
As his 100th day as president approaches next Wednesday, the survey shows Obama has not only maintained robust approval ratings but also bolstered the sense that he is a strong and decisive leader who can manage the government effectively during a time of economic crisis.

"A lot of things were ignored over the last eight years, and I think it's all coming home to roost," says Benjamin Bleadon, 51, an insurance broker from Skokie, Ill., who was among those surveyed. "He has given the perception that he understands the issues and that he has taken control … and we'll just have to wait and see if it works."

FU ACLU, FU Pentagon . The Obama Pentagon to damage US men in uniform.

The ACLU says making public additional images of detainee treatment is critical for helping the public understand the scope and scale of prisoner abuse. The Obama Defense Department is going along with it.

I am buying none of it.

I am releasing the Berg video to help the idiotic public understand the meaning of the term "moral equivalency."

This is Obama's doing.

The world, according to Obama, needs to see the pentagon photos. Then let them look at the beheading of Berg for some context.

It shows what Islam is all about. It shows what Obama is all about in doing everything to tear down existing US institutions. Make no mistake now, Obama is not fit to be President of The United States of America.

Obama is out to destroy the USA as you knew it and remake it from his anti- American international leftist point of view.

__________________________

Defense Department to Release Photos Showing Detainee Treatment in Iraq, Afghanistan

The Department of Defense announced late Thursday that at least 44 photos depicting treatment of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan will be released.

FOX

The Department of Defense -- on the heels of the firestorm over the release of Bush-era memos on CIA interrogation techniques -- said Thursday it plans to make public at least 44 photos depicting potentially abusive treatment of detainees at prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The decision to release the photos was announced Thursday in a letter filed in a federal court in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in 2004.

It sets a May 28 deadline for the Department of Defense to produce 21 images that the court in 2006 ordered the government to release and 23 additional related images, as well as "a substantial number of other images" in the Army's possession.

The images were part of the military's investigation of potential abuse of detainees by U.S. personnel at facilities other than Iraq Abu Ghraib, though the photos apparently aren't as shocking as those that set off a prisoner abuse scandal in 2004, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Even so, Defense officials say they worry that the new release of photos could set off a backlash in the Middle East against the United States, the Times reports.

The Bush administration had refused to disclose the images after the ACLU's request made in 2003, claiming that the public disclosure of such evidence would generate outrage and would violate U.S. obligations towards detainees under the Geneva Conventions.

The decision to release images comes on the same day that congressional aides said President Obama resisted pressure from Democrats to investigate Bush-era interrogation techniques, though Obama also has been under fire since last week from Republicans and former Bush advisers for releasing memos from 2002 and 2005 justifying the interrogation techniques used by the CIA.

The ACLU says making public additional images of detainee treatment is critical for helping the public understand the scope and scale of prisoner abuse as well as for holding senior officials accountable for authorizing or permitting such abuse.

"These photographs provide visual proof that prisoner abuse by U.S. personnel was not aberrational but widespread, reaching far beyond the walls of Abu Ghraib," said Amrit Singh, staff attorney with the ACLU.

According to the Times, additional disclosures will include transcripts of detainee interrogations by the CIA, a CIA inspector general's report that has been kept mostly secret, and background materials of a Justice Department internal investigation into prisoner abuse.

This video was successfully posted. It is the video of the Berg beheading. ZERO.

Bummer in Buner. Taliban preparing for end game in Pakistan?

Now I ask the hyperbolic assholes, who are in a high frequency jitter over some fresh cold water mixed with snot, what about Swat?

Do they seriously question whether or not the use of water-boarding would be effective and ethical to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of the Taliban?

According to this morning's Telegraph, the Obama left-wing disinformation machine is lying about the effectiveness of the practice.

Cheney had it right

...a condensed version provided to the press omitted the detail about the value of the information – a move that has incensed Mr Obama's critics and opened him up to accusations of manipulation for political purposes.

Adml Blair's original note to his staff last Thursday said "high value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al-Qaeda organisation that was attacking this country".
The memo is an embarrassment for Mr Obama because the conclusion reached by Adml Blair, who oversees the CIA and 15 other US intelligence agencies or departments, undermines a central plank of the White House argument – that the harsh techniques did not work.

Four memos, running to 126 pages, written by officials in Mr Bush's Justice Department contained explicit details of the CIA's methods of extracting information from al-Qaeda suspects between 2002 and 2005.
They revealed that emerged that the highly controversial technique of "waterboarding", a type of simulated drowning, had been used 266 times on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah, two senior al-Qaeda prisoners.

(more)

________________________________

April 23, 2009
Taliban Seize Vital Pakistan Area Closer to the Capital

By JANE PERLEZ NY Times

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pushing deeper into Pakistan, Taliban militants have established effective control of a strategically important district just 70 miles from the capital, Islamabad, officials and residents said Wednesday.

The fall of the district, Buner, did not mean that the Taliban could imminently threaten Islamabad. But it was another indication of the gathering strength of the insurgency and it raised new alarm about the ability of the government to fend off an unrelenting Taliban advance toward the heart of Pakistan.

Buner, home to about one million people, is a gateway to a major Pakistani city, Mardan, the second largest in North-West Frontier Province, after Peshawar.

“They take over Buner, then they roll into Mardan and that’s the end of the game,” a senior law enforcement official in North-West Frontier Province said. He asked that his name be withheld because was not authorized to speak to the news media.

The Taliban had pushed into the district from the neighboring Swat Valley, where the Pakistani Army agreed to a truce in mid-February and remains in its barracks.

On Wednesday heavily armed Taliban militants were patrolling villages, and the local police had retreated to their station houses in much of Buner, officials and residents said.

The staff members of local nongovernmental organizations have been ordered to leave, and their offices have been looted, they said. Pakistani television news channels showed Taliban fighters triumphantly carrying office equipment out of the offices of the organizations.

“They are everywhere,” one resident of Daggar, Buner’s main city, said by telephone. “There is no resistance.”

The Taliban advance has been building for weeks, with the assistance of sympathizers and even a local government official who was appointed on the recommendation of the Taliban, the senior official said.

It also comes 10 days after the government of President Asif Ali Zardari agreed to the imposition of Islamic law, or Shariah, in Swat, as part of the deal with the Taliban.

A local politician, Jamsher Khan, said that people were initially determined to resist the Taliban in Buner, but that they were discouraged by the deal the government struck with the Taliban in Swat.

“We felt stronger as long we thought the government was with us,” he said by telephone, “but when the government showed weakness, we too stopped offering resistance to the Taliban.”

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she was concerned that Pakistan’s government was making too many concessions to the Taliban, emboldening the militants and allowing them to spread by giving in to their demands.

“I think that the Pakistani government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and to the extremists,” Mrs. Clinton told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Capitol Hill.

She added that the deterioration of security in nuclear-armed Pakistan “poses a mortal threat to the security and safety of our country and the world.”

A senior American official said Mrs. Clinton’s remarks were prompted in part by news of the Taliban takeover in Buner. The officials said that the further erosion of government authority in an area so close to the capital ought to stir concern not only in Pakistan but also among influential Pakistanis abroad.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, arrived in Islamabad on Wednesday for the second time in two weeks, reflecting the sense of alarm in the Obama administration. He was scheduled to meet with Pakistan’s top military and intelligence commanders.

The takeover of Buner (pronounced boo-NAIR) is particularly significant because the people there have tried in the past year to stand up to the Taliban by establishing small private armies to fight the militants. Last year when the militants encroached into Buner, killing policemen, the local people fought back and forced the militants out.

But with a beachhead in neighboring Swat, and a number of training camps for fresh recruits, the Taliban were able to carry out what amounted to an invasion of Buner.

“The training camps will provide waves of men coming into Buner,” the senior law enforcement official said.

The Taliban expansion into Buner has begun to raise alarm among the senior ranks of the Pakistani Army, said a Western official who was familiar with the Pakistani military.

On Wednesday, one of the highest-ranking army officers traveled from Islamabad to Peshawar and met with the officers of the 11th Corps, the army division based in Peshawar, to discuss the “overall situation in Buner,” the official said.

One of the major concerns is that from the hills of Buner the Taliban have access to the flatlands of the district of Swabi, which lead directly to the four-lane motorway that runs from Islamabad to Peshawar, the capital of North-West Frontier Province.

The Pakistani military does not have a presence in Buner, Pakistani and Western officials said. The main government authority in Buner is the police, who have become demoralized by their low pay and lack of equipment in the face of the Taliban, Pakistani police officials say.

The Taliban have set up checkpoints in a number of villages in Buner, intimidating policemen and forcing them into their police stations, residents in Daggar said by telephone.

The militants were patrolling the bazaar in Daggar, residents said. Women, who used to move freely around the bazaars, were scarcely to be seen, they said. Those who did venture out were totally covered.

One of the big attractions of Buner for people from all over Pakistan, the shrine of the Sufi saint Pir Baba, was now in the control of the militants, the senior law enforcement official said.

Last year, the villagers around the shrine kept the Taliban at bay when the militants threatened to take it over.

But in the last 10 days, the Taliban closed the shrine and said it was strictly off limits to women, the senior official said. The militants are now patrolling it.

The Taliban control in Buner came swiftly in the last few days, officials said.

The militants were helped by the actions of the commissioner of Malakand, Javed Mohammad, who is also the senior official in Swat and who was appointed on the recommendation of the Taliban, the senior law enforcement official said.

The Taliban began their assault on Buner in early April, when a battalion of the Taliban militia with heavy weaponry crossed over the hills from Swat to Buner, according to an account in the newspaper Dawn that appeared on Saturday.

The Taliban then captured three policemen and two civilians, and killed them, the newspaper said.

Infuriated by the killings, people in lower Buner and Sultanwas assembled a volunteer force and killed 17 Taliban fighters, the account said.

But soon after that, Mr. Mohammad tried to persuade the local elders to allow the Taliban to enter Buner, the newspaper said.

Soon afterward, Mr. Mohammad ordered the local armies to dissolve, the senior law enforcement official said. The order led many of those who had been willing to stand up to the Taliban to either flee or give up, the official said. Among those who are reported to have fled is Fateh Khan, a wealthy Buner businessman. Mr. Khan had been one of the main organizers and financiers of the private armies in Buner.

In a show of strength, the militants held a feast in the home of a local Taliban sympathizer two weeks ago, and since then the Taliban have fanned out into the district, the senior official said.

Pir Zubair Shah contributed reporting from Islamabad, and Mark Landler and David Stout from Washington.

It's the economy stupid. The CIA investigation is blowing up in Obama's face.

Just a couple of more thoughts on this outrage. I have to believe that a significant percentage of American voters either wanted to believe in what Obama was selling or genuinely trusted him. His shuck and jive was all about a new beginning, a post- partisan, post-racial, bringing together of the American people, to focus on things that really mattered to the average person.

Those of us who saw Obama as a dangerous ideologue where ridiculed as being part of the same old same old.

Obama came into office with the top priority being the economy. That is how he won Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia.

Did he get bored? Does he have some chief executive attention deficit disorder or more sinisterly is he incapable of hiding his hard left wing agenda. In either case, it will not wear well. The rope a dope only goes so far.

On another matter: rough interrogation.

The CIA is charged with gathering information to protect the country. 911 was all about the failure to protect and the consequences of that failure. Much time, money and effort has been put into making the US safer than it was before 911.

Someone will have to explain to me why this exposure was necessary at this time and what and who will it benefit. Wouldn't you want your secret clandestine service to be in a condition to keep your enemy guessing about what they know, and what they will do to get to know?

If your enemy thinks that you may use the so-called torture to extract information, does that not in fact make it unnecessary for you to use it? Was that not how nuclear deterrence was formulated? You have the nuclear weapons and keep your enemy guessing as to whether you will use them. Deterrence comes about by having an ultra-strong military and using it occasionally to let your enemies that you have it and will use it. It has the practical affect of not having to use it at all.

Announce that you will not use it and soon enough you will be forced to do so.

Advice to the US Military: Obama has your Back. Act accordingly.

Do not think for one moment that this witch hunt will stop with the CIA, DOJ lawyers, elected politicians, staff or high ranking military officers. Blood is in the water and the blame American first supporters of Barrack (can't find my birth certificate) Obama have the scent. The left in this country has always hated the military and under Obama it will be payback time. The left has their Commander-in-Chief and you have a pretender.

Obama will have your back like every other bare back left behind on Obama's climb to power. He will be with you through thick and through thin. When things get too thick, he will thin out. The Marine One Helicopter will always be the first off the roof. Obama will not support US interests unless they are in lock step with the hard far International and Amerikan left.


Obama went to Europe using his soft diplomacy to get EU help in Afghansitan and came back with marshmallows. Not a peep out of Obama, not one word of criticism. The Germans won't fight and there will be no tangible assistance from other European powers. Americans and a few ardent allies will do the heavy fighting and take all the risks. They will "thank you for your service" with the conviction of "have a nice day" but when the New York Times starts opening the door on things they do not understand, your day will come.

______________________________________

Barack Obama opens Pandora's Box with green light for "torture" prosecutions
Posted By: Toby Harnden at Apr 21, 2009 Telegraph

Barack Obama's decision to give the nod to Congress and his attorney general to investigate and possibly prosecute former Bush administration officials opens a Pandora's Box that could ultimately consume his presidency.

When he released the four so-called "torture" memos - the Obama administration has now all but abandoned their use of the t-word - the new president, who has yet to pass the early landmark of 100 days in office - insisted he wanted to "move forward".

He added that "at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past".

When pressed yesterday about why the Justice Department officials led by Jay Bybee, now a federal judge, should not face prosecution, Mr Obama's press secretary Robert Gibbs shot back: "The president is focused on looking forward, that's why."

Despite the rhetorical somersaults that Gibbs subjected himself to in arguing that there had been no policy shift, it was clear that there had been a major change of heart by Obama.

The platitudes about drawing a line under the past were still being mouthed but they rang decidedly hollow as Gibbs talked of an investigation on the scale of the 9/11 Commission - which took two years and millions of dollars.

Obama reversed himself because of press from Congressional Democrats, who want to haul officials before their committees for what could become the political equivalent of show trials, and Left-wing groups such as MoveOn.org.

The problem for Obama is that many on the Left will not be happy until President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are in leg irons and sharing a cell at the Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado along with the likes of the Unabomber .

Already, the fightback on the Right has begun. Although it might be questionable whether Cheney's re-entry into the political fray benefits Republicans who are themselves trying to move on from the Bush years, his argument that more memos ought to be released is hard to argue with.

Cheney and other former Bush administration officials, as well as the former CIA chief Michael Hayden - a intelligence professional and no political partisan - maintain strenuously that the interrogation techniques yielded information that saved American lives. The former vice-president maintains that there are memos that details this. If there are, we need to see them.

The hornet's nest that Obama has just stirred up is bad enough even in the current climate, when it is more than seven years since the US has been attacked by al-Qaeda.

It will be nothing, however compared to the aftermath of another terrorist attack on US soil - which many intelligence officials believe is inevitable - when Americans will once again be clamouring to find out why Obama did not "connect the dots" and demanding to know how he will stop another Islamist strike.

Who will Obama prosecute first, the Bush Administration or Al-Qaeda?

Here is where this is going and the left will not be satisfied until they complete their own mission accomplished.


Let me state this loud and clear, Barack Hussein Obama is not American enough to be President. He has shallow roots in this country. He was given a pass by the American people because he is black. He had no qualifications in leadership. He is not fit to serve as Commander in Chief. The first affirmative action president has the gall to attack real Americans that rose to the occasion to do what had to be done to protect our country. His actions and hints of prosecution against his betters deserve rebuke, contempt and will tear this country apart.

Pentagon computer system hacked. F-35 info stolen. Don't wait for the outrage.

Hackers steal JSF data from Pentagon computers
Published: Tuesday 21 April 2009 10:16 UTC
Last updated: Tuesday 21 April 2009 10:16 UTC Radio Netherlands

Hackers have stolen information on the Joint Strike Fighter from the Pentagon computer system. In The Wall Street Journal, US government officials say the computer system has been broken into several times in the last two years.

The hackers targeted companies involved in the development of the JSF. Although it is unclear what information was stolen, countries could use the information to improve their defences against the new fighter plane.

The JSF is America's most expensive defence project ever. The Netherlands is also considering buying the JSF to replace its F-16 fleet.

The homosexual thought police strangle-hold tightens.

"I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody there. But that's how I was raised and that's how I think it should be" - Carrie Prejean

Gay is such a nice word, or it used to be... In true Orwellian fashion, it has been seized by the sad in the Homosexual community who wanted the right to be free in America.

A beautiful young (dare I say, once thought to be normal) American woman expresses the radical notion that marriage is between a man and woman and best left that way.

That impure, non-gay thought , offended a normally gay but now sad beauty queen judge, who is surely at a minimum a queen judge. Miss Prejean loses, because the once aberrant, but now mainstream queen, was visibly shaken, by the thought of marriage being a state sanctioned union between a man and a woman.

Still got hope?

_________________

Miss USA stirs controversy


The Internet was buzzing Monday about a Miss USA controversy.
Detroit Free Press

First runner-up Carrie Prejean (Miss California) was asked about legalizing same-sex marriage from judge Perez Hilton, the Internet blogger behind perezhilton.com.

"I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody there. But that's how I was raised and that's how I think it should be," Prejean said during Sunday night's live telecast.

Hilton was visibly upset, and there was a mixed reaction from the live audience. Prejean ultimately came up short, losing the title to Miss North Carolina, Kristen Dalton.

On Monday, Keith Lewis, the executive director for Miss California USA/Teen USA, said he was saddened by Prejean's response.

This is the visibly upset judge, Perez Hilton, who was offended.

The Left wants to seize gun rights because you did not vote for Obama

Dionne seems to argue that polls trump the Constitution. He further argues that since Obama did not get the majority of votes from gun-owning households and that, by implication, gives him the right to take away constitutionally guaranteed rights.

Had McCain won the election and since blacks voted 93% for Obama, would it have been OK to ignore their rights?

It sure doesn't seem to take much to qualify to write a column for the Washington Post. Read this:

..."Obama, at least, should understand this: He was not elected by the gun lobby. It worked hard to rally gun owners against him -- and failed to stop him.

According to a 2008 exit poll, Obama received support from just 37 percent among voters in households where guns are present -- barely more than John Kerry's 36 percent in 2004. But among the substantial majority of households that don't have guns, Obama got 65 percent, up eight points from Kerry. Will Obama stand up for the people who actually voted for him?"

______________________________________

Who Will Face Down the Gun Lobby?
By E.J. Dionne Jr.
Monday, April 20, 2009

Try to imagine that hundreds or thousands of guns, including assault weapons, were pouring across the Mexican border into Arizona, New Mexico and Southern California, arming criminal gangs who were killing American law enforcement officials and other U.S. citizens.

Then imagine the Mexican president saying, "Well, we would really like to do something about this, but our political system makes helping you very difficult." Wouldn't Mexico's usual critics attack that country's political system for corruption and ineptitude and ask: "Why can't they stop this lawlessness?"

That, in reverse, is the position President Obama was in last week when he visited Mexico. The Mexican gangs are able to use guns purchased in the United States because of our insanely permissive gun regulations, and Obama had to make this unbelievably clotted, apologetic statement at a news conference with Mexican President Felipe Calderón:

"I continue to believe that we can respect and honor the Second Amendment rights in our Constitution, the rights of sportsmen and hunters and homeowners who want to keep their families safe, to lawfully bear arms, while dealing with assault weapons that, as we know, here in Mexico, are helping to fuel extraordinary violence. Violence in our own country as well. Now, having said that, I think none of us are under the illusion that reinstating that ban would be easy."

In other words: Our president can deal with all manner of big problems, but the American gun lobby is just too strong to let him push a rational and limited gun regulation through Congress.

It's particularly infuriating that Obama offered this statement of powerlessness just a few days before today's 10th anniversary of the massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado -- and just after a spree of mass homicides across the United States took the lives of least 57 people.

No other democratic country in the world has the foolish, ineffectual gun regulations that we do. And, unfortunately, what Obama said is probably true.

Earlier this year, when Attorney General Eric Holder called for a renewal of the ban on assault weapons -- he was only repeating a commitment Obama made during the presidential campaign -- the response from a group of 65 pro-gun House Democrats was: No way.

Their letter to Holder was absurd. "The gun-control community has intentionally misled many Americans into believing that these weapons are fully automatic machine guns. They are not. These firearms fire one shot for every pull of the trigger." Doesn't that make you feel better?

Those Democrats should sit down with Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania. "Time and time again, our police are finding themselves outgunned," Rendell said in Harrisburg last week. "They are finding themselves with less firepower than the criminals they are trying to bring to justice."

The Democratic governor told his own state's legislators that if they didn't support such a ban, "then don't come to those memorial services" for the victims of gun violence. "It's wrong," he said. "It's hypocritical."

And why can't we at least close the gun show loophole? Licensed dealers have to do background checks on people who buy guns. The rules don't apply at gun shows, which, as the Violence Policy Center put it, have become "Tupperware Parties for Criminals."

But too many members of Congress are "petrified" of the gun lobby, says Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), a crusader for sane gun legislation ever since her husband was killed and her son paralyzed by a gunman on the Long Island Rail Road in 1993.

Family members of the victims of gun violence, she says, are mystified by Congress's inability to pass even the most limited regulations. "Why can't you just get this done?" she is asked. "What is it you don't understand?"

Obama, at least, should understand this: He was not elected by the gun lobby. It worked hard to rally gun owners against him -- and failed to stop him.

According to a 2008 exit poll, Obama received support from just 37 percent among voters in households where guns are present -- barely more than John Kerry's 36 percent in 2004. But among the substantial majority of households that don't have guns, Obama got 65 percent, up eight points from Kerry. Will Obama stand up for the people who actually voted for him?

Yes, I understand about swing voters, swing states, the priority of the economy and all that. But given Congress's default to the apologists for loose gun laws, it will take a president to make something happen.

Obama gathers cabinet to save 14 minutes of federal spending per year.

Thanks Dad.

The headlines read: "Obama to gather Cabinet, seeking $100 million in cuts"

Here is the good news: Two top administration officials say president wants $100 million in expenses cut. Agencies would have to report how they saved on expenses after 90 days.

Here is the fine print: House and Senate returns from recess this week to work on $3.67 trillion Obama budget request.


Here is the context: $3.67 Trillion is $3,670 Billion. The Obama team proposes to spend $10 Billion a day. That amounts to $7 million per minute.

Listen up, Obama is going to be spending $7 million per minute, each and every minute, 24/7 for 365. He is gathering his cabinet to see how they can cut 14 minutes of government spending per year.

We now learn that The Department of Homeland Security plans to save $52 million over five years by purchasing office supplies in bulk.

Just so you know that I shit you not, here is how CNN reports the 14 minutes of savings:

Obama to gather Cabinet, seeking $100 million in cuts

CNN, By Suzanne Malveaux

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Obama returned to Washington on Sunday night with his eye back on his domestic agenda and a plan to save government money.


President Obama arrives by Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House on Sunday.

On Monday, Obama will gather his full Cabinet together for the first time as president and challenge it to cut a total of $100 million in the next 90 days, two senior administration officials said.

The officials spoke anonymously because the announcement had yet to come from the president, who returned Sunday from the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago.

The agencies would have to report how they saved on expenses after 90 days, the officials said.

A senior administration official described the edict as part of Obama's "commitment to go line by line through the budget to cut spending" and "reform the government."

As House and Senate lawmakers return from recess this week, they are expected to start reconciling their versions of the fiscal 2010 budget resolution. The president's budget request is $3.67 trillion.


In context of the federal budget, $100 million in savings is a small amount, but the White House wants to demonstrate fiscal responsibility.

On Monday, Obama will offer examples of how various agencies have started cost-cutting measures, including:

• The Department of Homeland Security's plan to save an estimated $52 million over five years by purchasing office supplies in bulk.

• The Department of Agriculture's effort to consolidate 1,500 employees from seven locations into a single facility in 2011. It's estimated to save $62 million over a 15-year lease.

• The Veterans Affairs Department's move to cancel or delay 26 conferences, saving nearly $17.8 million. Veterans Affairs also will use video-conferencing to cut costs.

Antony and Cleopatra

Egypt, thou knew'st too well: is Cleopatra's final secret out?
Archaeologists believe they are on brink of discovering queen's final resting place

By Kunal Dutta
Monday, 20 April 2009 Independent

Just as he did fictitiously with Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare immortalised Antony and Cleopatra as a tragic tale of a defeated couple. But unlike Verona's star-crossed lovers, Marc Antony and Cleopatra's final resting place has remained a mystery.

Now archaeologists believe they are on the cusp of a conclusive discovery. Three sites buried deep underneath the crumbling limestone of a 2,000-year-old temple are thought to contain a series of complex systems of tunnels which archaeologists believe could lead to the tomb of the two lovers.

And to prove it, Zahi Hawass, director of Egypt's Superior Council for Antiquities, showcased a range of items yesterday that have been found at the site at Burg El-Arab, nearAlexandria. They include 22 coins bearing Cleopatra's image, a fragment of a mask – with a cleft chin which he believes could belong to Antony – and 10 mummies of apparent nobles. "The discovery of the cemetery this week really convinced me that there is someone important buried inside this temple," he said. "No one would be buried outside a temple without a reason. We saw in the pharaonic days, they were always buried beside pyramids."

Urging caution, he added: "If you look at the face of Mark Antony, many believed he had this cleft on his chin and that's why I thought this could be him."

The discoveries follow excavations that started last week on three sites along the tunnels by teams from Egypt and the Dominican Republic. It is hoped that one of the deep shafts, identified by a radar scan, will lead to a burial chamber where the tomb will be found. Dr Hawass believes that the tomb could be "bigger than that of King Tutankhamen's", discovered in 1922.

It was more than two millennia ago when Mark Antony and Cleopatra challenged Caesar Augustus for control of the Roman Empire. Their armies were defeated and in 30 BC, rather than surrender, the two lovers committed suicide – Mark Antony by his sword, and Cleopatra with a poisonous asp.

The Roman historian Plutarch said Caesar allowed the two lovers to be buried together, but thelocation of their tomb was kept secret. "If this tomb is found, it will be one of the most important discoveries of the 21st century because of the love between Cleopatra and Mark Antony, and because of the sad story of his death," said Dr Hawass.

Kathleen Martinez, the Dominican archaeologist who has been working at the site for the past three years, said the Taposiris Magna temple was chosen after 12 years of studying the life of Cleopatra. Describing it as the "most sacred temple of its time", she argued that the lovers were "buried in a temple rather than a public tomb to protect them from the Romans".

But John Baines, an Egyptologist at Oxford University asked why Augustus, who defeated Antony, would have chosen such a distinguished burial place. "I don't see a particular connection between that site and Antony and Cleopatra," he said.

Several discoveries have already been made at the site. Last year, archaeologists unearthed a bronze statue of the goddess Aphrodite, the alabaster head of a Queen Cleopatra statue and another mask believed to belong to Mark Antony.

For most, Cleopatra will forever be imagined as the stunning seductress portrayed by Elizabeth Taylor, opposite Richard Burton in the 1963 Hollywood classic Cleopatra.

However, academics from the University of Newcastle recently poured cold water on this, claiming that the Egyptian Queen was a pointy-nosed, thin-lipped woman with a jutting jaw. Dr Hawass believes that the discovery of the coins that show Cleopatra with an "attractive" face, argued otherwise. "The findings reflect a charm ... and indicate that Cleopatra was in no way unattractive," he said.

Is spending billions and billions for high speed rail a good idea?

The reality of train travel.

The idea a minute crowd in the Obama administration has seized on to the idea of high speed rail as a transportation solution. I assume this has the backing of Joe Biden, who has been using Amtrak for twenty years and has never spent five cents of his own money doing so.

He also has a driver meet him at the station in Washington, gets to the office when he feels like it, and Union Station is within blocks of the Senate. Driving into and out of DC is a nightmare and taking the train from Philadelphia or Wilmington makes sense. Unfortunately that is the exception and not the rule.

In order to have high speed rail in America, a lot has to change. The first thing is new track has to be put down. It is unsafe, unwise and impractical to have passenger and freight sharing the same track. Passenger service to be effective requires speed and convenience of schedule. Freight requires inexpensive transport and many transfer points.

A successful inter city system between New York and Washington make sense if you are going from Georgetown to Manhattan, but what if your final stop is in Queens, Brooklyn or the Bronx. That requires transfers to some fairly unpleasant stations and subway trains, where there is neither glamour nor romance and often inconvenience of schedules.

Wishing they were in an SUV?

What if it rains or snows or you miss a connection?

It is next to impossible to go from station to station and still be convenient to and from your home to your destination which  may be blocks or miles away from the high speed station. No high speed line will offer the convenience, privacy, comfort and safety of your own automobile. No train will match the speed of an airplane.

The only way high speed train service makes sense is to open new satellite cities for development, and that is centralized planning on a massive scale and has nothing to do with time or fuel efficiency. Just the opposite may be true. You very well may end up with more development, more destruction of the natural environment and ironically more automobile traffic in areas where today there is little.

This idea is best forgotten.

More Susan Boyle

Obama knows best. Overrules FOUR former CIA chiefs.

I tell you what, you must have to be one bad ass mother fucker to be a community organizer. I seriously underestimated the talent and insight required to get people to sign up for food stamps and to boycott and intimidate corporations in shake downs.

Four former CIA directors, General Michael Hayden, Porter Goss, George Tenet and John Deutch fought the White House over releasing documents both embarrassing and compromising to the CIA. All of them combined could not change the mind of the anointed one.

Silly me. I thought the rap on George Bush was that he was stubborn and could not take advice from people with more hands on experience than he had.

I thought George Bush was too ideological.

I thought the CIA was concerned about American security.

I thought the President of The United States of America was there to put US security interests first.

Three thousand Americans were burned to death, splattered on side walks, choked and gagged by smoke, shit themselves in absolute terror and panic,  their living flesh ripped off them by falling debris,  crying on the phone to loved ones, begging God to save them, to spare them. 

They jumped through broken glass to  fall and fall and fall, and this no good son of a bitch, and I mean that quite literally, is indignant that we put a wet towel on some cretin's face.

God damn him.

__________________________________________

Four CIA chiefs said 'don't reveal torture memos'
Agency's ex-directors objected to interrogation techniques being revealed. But Barack Obama went ahead anyway

By Pamela Hess
Sunday, 19 April 2009 Independent
AFP

Four former CIA directors opposed the release of classified Bush-era interrogation memos, officials say, describing objections that went all the way to the White House and slowed disclosure of the records. Former CIA chiefs Michael Hayden, Porter Goss, George Tenet and John Deutch all called the White House in March warning that release of the so-called "torture memos" would compromise intelligence operations, current and former officials say.

President Barack Obama ultimately overruled the objections after internal discussions that intensified in the weeks that followed the former directors' intervention. The memos were released on Thursday.

Mr Obama's involvement grew as the decision neared, and he even led a National Security Council session on the matter, four senior administration officials said. White House adviser David Axelrod, who said he also talked to Mr Obama about the pending release of the memos in recent weeks, said the ex-directors' opposition was considered seriously but did not impede the decision-making process. "The CIA directors weighed in and it slowed things down," Mr Axelrod said on Friday.


The memos detailed the legal rationales that senior Bush administration lawyers drew up authorising the CIA to use simulated drowning and other harsh techniques on terror suspects. They described how prisoners were naked, shackled and hooded at the start of interrogation sessions. When the CIA interrogator removed the hood, the questioning began. When a prisoner resisted, the documents outlined techniques the CIA could use to bring him back in line:

* Nudity, sleep deprivation and dietary restrictions kept prisoners compliant and reminded them they had no control over their basic needs. Clothes and food could be used as rewards for co-operation.

* Slapping prisoners on the face or abdomen was allowed. So was grabbing them forcefully by the collar or slamming them into a false wall, a technique called "walling" intended to induce fear rather than pain.

* Water hoses were used to douse the prisoners for minutes at a time. The hoses were turned on and off as the interrogation continued.

* Prisoners were put into one of three "stress positions", such as sitting on the floor with legs out straight and arms raised in the air.

* At night, the detainees were shackled, standing naked or wearing a nappy. The length of sleep deprivation varied but was authorised for up to 180 hours, or seven and a half days. Interrogation sessions ranged from 30 minutes to several hours and could be repeated as necessary, and as approved by psychological and medical teams.



The Bush administration approved the use of waterboarding, a technique in which a suspect was strapped to a board, his feet raised above his head, and his face covered with a wet cloth as interrogators poured water over it. The body responds as if it is drowning, over and over as the process is repeated. "We find that the use of the waterboard constitutes a threat of imminent death," Justice Department attorneys wrote. "From the vantage point of any reasonable person undergoing this procedure in such circumstances, he would feel as if he is drowning at the very moment of the procedure due to the uncontrollable physiological sensation he is experiencing."

But attorneys decided that waterboarding caused "no pain or actual harm whatsoever" and so did not meet the "severe pain and suffering" standard to be considered torture.

President Obama has ended the CIA's interrogation programme. CIA interrogators are now required to follow army guidelines, under which waterboarding and many of the techniques listed above are prohibited.

The President gave the question of these documents' release "the appropriate reflection", Mr Axelrod said. He said Mr Obama's deliberations revolved around "the issue of national security versus the rule of law", and amounted to "one of the most profound issues the President of the United States has to deal with".

On 18 March, the Justice Department told the Director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, as he was leaving for a foreign trip, that it would be recommending that the White House release the memos almost completely uncensored, officials said. Mr Panetta told the US Attorney General, Eric Holder, and officials in the White House that the administration needed to discuss the possibility that the memos' release might expose CIA officers to lawsuits on allegations of torture and abuse. Mr Panetta also pushed for more censorship of the memos, officials said. The Justice Department informed other senior CIA leaders of the decision to release the memos and, as a courtesy, told former agency directors.

Senior CIA officials objected, arguing that the release would damage the agency's ability to interrogate prisoners. They also said the move would tarnish CIA officers who had acted on the Bush officials' legal guidance. And they warned that the action would erode foreign intelligence services' trust in the CIA's ability to protect national security secrets. The four former directors immediately protested to the White House, officials said. The enhanced interrogation procedures outlined in the memos had been approved on Mr Tenet's watch during the Bush administration.

On 19 March, the Justice Department requested a two-week delay in responding to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) that asked for release of the memos. Justice officials told the court dealing with that lawsuit that it was considering releasing the memos voluntarily. Two weeks later, Justice Department lawyers told the court the memos would come out on or before 16 April.

Inside the White House, according to aides, Mr Obama expressed concerns that releasing the memos could threaten current intelligence operations as well as US officials. He also echoed the CIA chiefs' worries about US relationships with always-skittish foreign intelligence services. The Justice Department argued that the ACLU lawsuit would in the end force the administration to release the documents anyway, officials said.

Mr Obama eventually agreed. The administration decided it would be better to make the release voluntarily, so as not to be seen as being forced to do so, the officials said. The only items blacked out included names of US employees or foreign services or items related to techniques still in use. Still, CIA officials needed reassurance about the decision, the officials said.

Mr Obama took the unusual step of accompanying his decision with a personal letter to CIA employees. He also devoted a big share of his public statement to saying and repeating that he believed strongly in keeping intelligence operations secret, and operations about them classified. He said he would not apologise for doing so in the future

What the memos reveal

The Bush administration memos describe the interrogation methods used against 28 terror suspects, the fullest government account of the techniques to date. They range from waterboarding – or simulated drowning – to using a plastic neck collar to slam detainees into walls. The treatment of two suspects in particular are described:

Abu Zubaydah In 2002, the Justice Department authorised CIA interrogators to step up the pressure even further on the suspected terrorist. Justice Department lawyers said the CIA could place Zubaydah in a cramped confinement box. Because Zubaydah appeared afraid of insects, they also authorised interrogators to place him in a box filled with caterpillars (though the tactic was not in fact used). Finally, the Justice Department authorised interrogators to take a step into what the United States now considers torture: waterboarding. Zubaydah was strapped to a board, his feet raised above his head. His face was covered with a wet cloth as interrogators poured water over it.

No wet towels here

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed A memo dated 30 May 2005 says that before the harsher methods were used on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a top al-Qa'ida detainee, he refused to answer questions about pending plots against the US. "Soon, you will know," he said, according to the memo. It says the interrogations later extracted details of a plot called the "second wave", using East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner in Los Angeles. Plots that were disrupted, the memos say, include the alleged effort by Jose Padilla to detonate a "dirty bomb", spreading radioactive materials by means of explosives.

Topple the dollar, and with it goes American power.

The Barack Obama vision of a more social-democratic country was conceived almost without reference to the greatest economic catastrophe to hit America for 80 years.

Obama's house of prosperity may yet be a castle in the air

He feels like the right man to be President, but has he come at the right time, asks Charles Moore in Washington.

Charles Moore The Telegraph
Last Updated: 7:51PM BST 17 Apr 2009

The best way to arrive in Washington is by rail. You leave the platform and enter the magnificent main hall of Union Station. Then, through the glass doors, you see the Capitol proud on the hill in front of you. When I came that way this week, and saw it all in the blossom-filled spring sunlight, I momentarily felt the slightly insane optimism that grips James Stewart when he first claps eyes on the same view in the classic film Mr Smith Goes to Washington. He is the tall, thin, young senator whose innocence, against all the odds, prevails.

Until January, Barack Obama was a tall, thin, young senator, and one reason he is President of the United States today is because he answered – in modernised form – that American yearning for purity and simplicity. He knows that his appeal is still strong, which explains why, virtually every day, he makes a speech.

On Tuesday, at Georgetown University here in Washington, Mr Obama spoke about the economy. I was told that the White House, hypersensitive to conveying the wrong visual message, insisted that the university's device, which includes the initials IHS, the traditional, particularly Jesuit, abbreviation for Jesus Christ, be obliterated from the backdrop. But the President invoked the Sermon on the Mount all the same.

He reminded his audience of how the well-meaning attempt to spread home-ownership in America had been perverted into forms of debt so ill- or unsecured that they had provoked the world financial crisis. He repeated Jesus's parable of the two houses. One was built on "a pile of sand", and so fell when the rain came. The other was built upon a rock. "We must build our house upon a rock," said the President.

The house that Barack wants to build is architecturally grand. It will have five pillars, he announced. The first is that Wall Street will have new rules to reward "drive and innovation, not reckless risk-taking". The last is that "new savings in the federal budget… will bring down the debt for future generations". Sandwiched between these pillars are the other three. Each of these involves "new investments" – education, renewable energy, and health care. This, said Mr Obama, would be the "new foundation".

How rock-like is that foundation likely to be? Back in Britain, we still await Alistair Darling's Budget, to find out how he proposes to restore financial order to government, but in America, Mr Obama's is already there for all to read. I am grateful to Larry Lindsey, former economic adviser to three Presidents, for drawing my attention to Table S.9. It states that the total "required to be borrowed from the public" (the PSBR, in British-speak) in the fiscal year 2009 is $2.562 trillion. That is 18 per cent of American GDP. Fiscal 2009 ends on September 30. Given what the federal government needs to borrow in the time that remains, the sum works out at between $6 and $10 billion per day. I make that roughly the entire British annual defence budget in one week.

Normally, a country borrowing on that scale faces collapse, and has to call in the IMF. America is not a normal country, of course: it is the axis on which the world turns, with the currency to which people resort for safety. In the past, its huge deficits have never produced the catastrophe predicted for them. Perhaps they will not do so this time, although what the nation faces today is more than twice as big as the largest previous deficits in US history (under Ronald Reagan). But it does make one wonder whether the President's five-pillared house is a castle in the air.

Like New Labour, Mr Obama likes to speak – he used their favourite phrase again in Georgetown – of "tough choices". So when he offers his social reforms to the American people, he argues that they will be financially as well as morally virtuous. He says he is attacking entitlements – what Tony Blair and later David Cameron called "the bills of social failure" – and he rightly castigates the waste and fraud in existing US medical provision. But it is not clear that these choices are actually going to be made. What is clear – it is publicly stated – is that an extra $634 billion has been allocated in the Budget to begin to create his new health-care system. When Aneurin Bevan set up our own dear NHS, one of his beliefs was that better health care, by making people well, would lead to lower health spending. To say that these savings did not materialise is the understatement of the century.

Two thoughts occur.

The first is to ask what markets will think of this as it sinks in. Suppose, for example, that this burden of debt crowds out the economic recovery that Mr Obama is trying to engineer. Suppose that the small stirrings of life showing just now disappear in the third quarter as nervous Americans continue to save, not spend, and more people lose their jobs. The world contemplating buying US government debt will understand why it might be worth spending big to repair the banks. Would it feel the same about money borrowed for a US-style NHS and lots of windmills? If the world really doubted America's dedication to its own fiscal and financial order, that would topple the dollar, and with it American power.

The second thought occurred to me because I had made my train journey to Washington from Princeton University. There I had been lecturing, 30 years on, about how Margaret Thatcher confronted economic crisis when she first came to power in 1979. The point that strikes one is that it was the crisis which, above all, galvanised her, captured her intellect, harnessed her energy. Like Churchill in relation to the Second World War, she felt that all her life had been a preparation for that hour. Her vision of what was wrong with her country, and how to put it right, was seen entirely through the prism of the crisis.

The same cannot be said of Barack Obama. This is not merely because he has no previous experience of governing. It is because his idea of what he wants to do is really something quite different from what is actually happening to his country. In his inauguration address, he spoke of the need to get on with the business of "remaking America". For him, that economic stuff is not really part of the remaking, but a distraction from it. His vision of a more social-democratic country was conceived almost without reference to the greatest economic catastrophe to hit America for 80 years. He barely had to argue, or even think about it before or during the campaign. It shows. He says that his education, energy and health reforms must happen so that "such a crisis [the financial one] never happens again", but he merely asserts the link: he does not prove it.

Through his astonishing personal qualities, allied with his ethnicity, Mr Obama feels like the right man to be President. But perhaps he has come at the wrong time.

Reaction to the Lincoln assasination. A snapshot in history

Op-Archive: Lincoln Memorial Diary


After news of President Lincoln's assassination reached New York, in all arteries and capillaries of the city, shopkeepers designed makeshift shrines to the martyred president. An anonymous diarist walked for miles, drawing sketches of as many storefronts as he could (evidence suggests, but does not confirm, that the diarist was a man). Through his relentless activity this nameless reporter made the news a bit more comprehensible. Here are selections from the diary entries. Notice the street addresses and read the sentiments. Go here please

China to accelerate new generation of warships, submarines, fighter aircraft, missiles and an aircraft carrier.Thank you Walmart shoppers.

Why not let China worry about Afghanistan and Pakistan? Say goodbye to Iraq. Let the Middle East sort out their own mess. Take a break. Rebuild our domestic industry. Focus on the Americas. Increase our national wealth. Refurbish our military and mind our own very neglected business. That is not isolationist. It is salvation.

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China plans to expand navy

By Kathrin Hille in Hohhot and Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington
Published: April 16 2009 17:48 | Last updated: April 16 2009 17:48

China has unveiled plans for a big overhaul and expansion of its navy, in an unusually bold confirmation that its naval ambitions have started to reach far beyond its own shores.

Admiral Wu Shengli, the commander-in-chief of the People’s Liberation Army Navy, said it would accelerate efforts to develop a new generation of warships, submarines, fighter aircraft and high-precision long-range missiles to counter the rise in non-conventional threats.

The remarks were published by state media on Thursday, a week ahead of the navy’s 60th anniversary, which some military observers believe will increase clarity over whether Beijing is building an aircraft carrier.

China has for years been expanding the reach of its navy, documented by a new submarine base on the southern island of Hainan and sightings of its submarines east of Taiwan. In recent months, Beijing has more openly asserted its ambitions for a blue-water navy – one capable of operating in the open seas far off its own shores.

Several PLA sources have been quoted by state media over the past three months demanding that China proceed to build its own aircraft carrier. In November, a Chinese military spokesman told the Financial Times that the world should not be surprised if China built one.

The PLA navy has been participating in anti-piracy missions in the Gulf of Aden since late last year, its first out-of-area mission, which has been welcomed by US naval commanders as an opportunity to work more closely with China.

However, the Chinese navy’s more assertive stance was recently underscored when its vessels harassed a US surveillance ship in the South China Sea, an area which it views as part of its territory, in claims conflicting with those of several neighbouring countries. The incident spark renewed calls from US military officials for Beijing to be more transparent about its intentions. US experts on the Chinese military point out that China announced in its 2006 defence white paper that its navy would take on a more expansive role, reaching out beyond its traditional focus on the coastline. The development of a new kind of submarine – the Jin class – that would carry nuclear warheads has also sparked more intense surveillance missions by US spy ships in the South China Sea.

A foreign defence expert in Beijing said Admiral Wu’s remarks were “setting the scenes for next week’s anniversary. It is now even clearer to us that that event is meant as a milestone.”

The anniversary, which will be attended by Admiral Gary Roughead, the head of the US Navy, will be marked with celebrations including a parade at sea. Foreign military vessels, including the USS Fitzgerald, will also sail to Qingdao for the event.

China generally claims that its military strategy is purely defensive, mentioning potential moves towards formal independence by Taiwan, terrorism and piracy as main threats. The US regularly challenges that, saying that Beijing develops and possesses capabilities considered not needed to address those threats.

Adm Wu’s reference to China’s “expanded” national interests partly confirms this. Peng Guangqian, a military expert in Beijing, said one reason China needed a blue-water navy was to safeguard sea lanes for its exports and energy imports

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Another example of why the US should re-industrialize in the Americas

The American appetite for artificially cheap goods made in China has proven to have some very expensive consequences. Simply stated the Chinese national strategy of flooding the US with manufacturing goods has caused a lopsided investment in US housing, decimated basic US manufacturing, imperiled pension funds, military spending and technology transfers adverse to US interests, increased Chinese influence on a global scale, distorted trade patterns, exasperated environmental conditions, and has assisted the Chinese to establish a grip on natural resources.

The US and other western countries were seduced into the China trade with the assumption that they would come out ahead by exporting more high value added products to China. They did not anticipate that the Chinese would ignore intellectual rights, deconstruct their products and then send them right back at them. The Chinese have only just begun. There are responses that should be made, but sooner rather than later.

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A 'Copper Standard' for the world's currency system?

Hard money enthusiasts have long watched for signs that China is switching its foreign reserves from US Treasury bonds into gold bullion. They may have been eyeing the wrong metal.

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Telegraph
Last Updated: 2:41PM BST 16 Apr 2009

China's State Reserves Bureau (SRB) has instead been buying copper and other industrial metals over recent months on a scale that appears to go beyond the usual rebuilding of stocks for commercial reasons.

Nobu Su, head of Taiwan's TMT group, which ships commodities to China, said Beijing is trying to extricate itself from dollar dependency as fast as it can.

"China has woken up. The West is a black hole with all this money being printed. The Chinese are buying raw materials because it is a much better way to use their $1.9 trillion of reserves. They get ten times the impact, and can cover their infrastructure for 50 years."

"The next industrial revolution is going to be led by hybrid cars, and that needs copper. You can see the subtle way that China is moving into 30 or 40 countries with resources," he said.

The SRB has also been accumulating aluminium, zinc, nickel, and rarer metals such as titanium, indium (thin-film technology), rhodium (catalytic converters) and praseodymium (glass).

While it makes sense for China to take advantage of last year's commodity crash to restock cheaply, there is clearly more behind the move. "They are definitely buying metals to diversify out of US Treasuries and dollar holdings," said Jim Lennon, head of commodities at Macquarie Bank.

John Reade, metals chief at UBS, said Beijing may have a made strategic decision to stockpile metal as an alternative to foreign bonds. "We're very surprised by Chinese demand. They are buying much more copper than they will need this year. If this is strategic, there may be no effective limit on the purchases as China's pockets are deep."

Zhou Xiaochuan, the central bank governor, piqued the interest of metal buffs last month by calling for a world currency modelled on the "Bancor", floated by John Maynard Keynes at Bretton Woods in 1944.

The Bancor was to be anchored on 30 commodities - a broader base than the Gold Standard, which had caused so much grief in the 1930s. Mr Zhou said such a currency would prevent the sort of "credit-based" excess that has brought the global finance to its knees.

If his thoughts reflect Communist Party thinking, it would explain the bizarre moves in commodity markets over recent weeks. Copper prices have surged 49pc this year to $4,925 a tonne despite estimates by the CRU copper group that world demand will fall 15pc to 20pc this year as construction wilts.

Analysts say "short covering" by funds betting on price falls has played a role. But the jump is largely due to Chinese imports, which reached a record 329,000 tonnes in February, and a further 375,000 tonnes in March. Chinese industrial demand cannot explain this. China has been badly hit by global recession. Its exports - almost half GDP - fell 17pc in March.

While Beijing's fiscal stimulus package and credit expansion has helped lift demand, China faces a property downturn of its own. One government adviser warned this week that house prices could fall 50pc.

One thing is clear: Beijing suspects that the US Federal Reserve is engineering a covert default on America's debt by printing money. Premier Wen Jiabao issued a blunt warning last month that China was tiring of US bonds. "We have lent a huge amount of money to the US, so of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets," he said.

This is slightly disingenuous. China has the world's largest reserves - $1.95 trillion, mostly in dollars - because it has been holding down the yuan to boost exports. This mercantilist strategy has reached its limits.

The beauty of recycling China's surplus into metals instead of US bonds is that it kills so many birds with one stone: it stops the yuan rising, without provoking complaints of currency manipulation by Washington; metals are easily stored in warehouses, unlike oil; the holdings are likely to rise in value over time since the earth's crust is gradually depleting its accessible ores. Above all, such a policy safeguards China's industrial revolution, while the West may one day face a supply crisis.

Beijing may yet buy gold as well, although it has not done so yet. The gold share of reserves has fallen to 1pc, far below the historic norm in Asia. But if a metal-based currency ever emerges to end the reign of fiat paper, it is just as likely to be a "Copper Standard" as a "Gold Standard".

A very powerful moment in American history? Or not?

Governor Says Texans May Want to Secede From Union But Probably Won't

Texas Gov. Rick Perry fired up an anti-tax "tea party" with his stance against the federal government and for states' rights.

AP via FOX
Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Texas Gov. Rick Perry fired up an anti-tax "tea party" Wednesday with his stance against the federal government and for states' rights as some in his U.S. flag-waving audience shouted, "Secede!"

An animated Perry told the crowd at Austin City Hall -- one of three tea parties he was attending across the state -- that officials in Washington have abandoned the country's founding principles of limited government. He said the federal government is strangling Americans with taxation, spending and debt.

Perry repeated his running theme that Texas' economy is in relatively good shape compared with other states and with the "federal budget mess." Many in the crowd held signs deriding President Barack Obama and the $786 billion federal economic stimulus package.

Later, answering news reporters' questions, Perry suggested Texans might at some point get so fed up they would want to secede from the union, though he said he sees no reason why Texas should do that.

"There's a lot of different scenarios," Perry said. "We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we're a pretty independent lot to boot."

Perry is running for re-election against U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, a fellow Republican. His anti-Washington remarks have become more strident the past few weeks as that 2010 race gets going and since Perry rejected $550 million in federal economic stimulus money slated to help Texas' unemployment trust fund.

Perry said the stimulus money would come with strings attached that would leave Texas paying the bill once the federal money ran out.

He said he believes he could be at the center of a national movement that is coordinated and focused in its opposition to the actions of the federal government.

"It's a very organic thing," he said. "It is a very powerful moment, I think, in American history."

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, also Republicans, have been outspoken against the federal economic stimulus spending and were supportive of tea parties in their states.

The protests, organized throughout the country by conservative groups and talk show hosts, were held on the federal income tax deadline day to imitate the original Boston Tea Party of American revolutionary times.

FOX News' Glenn Beck broadcast live in San Antonio from outside the Alamo, a legendary symbol of Texas independence. Park police estimated 4,000 to 5,000 people packed into the small plaza, many waving signs or carrying little yellow flags that read, "Don't tread on me." A local barbecue chain gave away free cups of iced tea.

Rocker Ted Nugent performed a shredder guitar version of the national anthem, but unlike some rallies elsewhere, San Antonio organizers forbade politicians from speaking.

"They are welcome to come and listen to us, for a change," they said in their statement.

Mike Smart, a 51-year-old oil field worker from West Texas, held up a white handwritten sign that said, "I'll keep my freedom, my $ and my guns. You keep the change."

"I just want the government to stay out of my way. I won't get in their way if they don't get in mine," said Smart, who described himself as conservative but not a Republican.

Government spending, going back multiple administrations, has reached a boiling point with the latest rounds of stimulus spending, he said. While the Bush administration spent heavily before he left office, the Obama administration has fast-tracked big spending, he said.

"Ol' George was going to the same destination. He just didn't want to tell anyone," said Smart.

Another protester, 38-year-old Melva Fried, said the forced ouster of General Motors Corp. CEO Rick Wagoner was the last straw for her -- a symbol the federal government was moving toward socialism.

"When a president can fire the head of a company, that's too much," she said, holding a sign that read "Stop Rewarding Failure."

The sales associate, who considers herself a disaffected Republican, said she doesn't believe the government should bail anyone out, including banks and individual homeowners.

The crowd at the Austin tea party appeared decidedly anti-Democrat. Many of the speakers were Republicans and Libertarians.

One placard said, "Stop Obama's Socialism." Another read, "Some Pirates Are in America," and it showed photographs of Obama, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wearing pirate hats.

Rebecca Knowlton, 45, of Smithville, said she took the day off of home-schooling her three children and brought them to the rally to teach them about civic duty. She felt camaraderie at the demonstration.

"The movement is growing stronger," she said. "You're not alone."

China locking in Latin American resources for years.

The economies of Latin America will revive, and when they do, the give-away contracts signed with the Chinese will look very sour. Why it is taking so long for this to sink into the collective American skull is beyond me.

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Deals Help China Expand Its Sway in Latin America

By SIMON ROMERO and ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
Published: April 15, 2009 NY Times

CARACAS, Venezuela —

As Washington tries to rebuild its strained relationships in Latin America, China is stepping in vigorously, offering countries across the region large amounts of money while they struggle with sharply slowing economies, a plunge in commodity prices and restricted access to credit.

In recent weeks, China has been negotiating deals to double a development fund in Venezuela to $12 billion, lend Ecuador at least $1 billion to build a hydroelectric plant, provide Argentina with access to more than $10 billion in Chinese currency and lend Brazil’s national oil company $10 billion. The deals largely focus on China locking in natural resources like oil for years to come.

China’s trade with Latin America has grown quickly this decade, making it the region’s second largest trading partner after the United States. But the size and scope of these loans point to a deeper engagement with Latin America at a time when the Obama administration is starting to address the erosion of Washington’s influence in the hemisphere.

“This is how the balance of power shifts quietly during times of crisis,” said David Rothkopf, a former Commerce Department official in the Clinton administration. “The loans are an example of the checkbook power in the world moving to new places, with the Chinese becoming more active.”

Mr. Obama will meet with leaders from the region this weekend. They will discuss the economic crisis, including a plan to replenish the Inter-American Development Bank, a Washington-based pillar of clout that has suffered losses from the financial crisis. Leaders at the summit meeting are also expected to push Mr. Obama to further loosen the United States policy toward Cuba.

Meanwhile, China is rapidly increasing its lending in Latin America as it pursues not only long-term access to commodities like soybeans and iron ore, but also an alternative to investing in United States Treasury notes.

One of China’s new deals in Latin America, the $10 billion arrangement with Argentina, would allow Argentina reliable access to Chinese currency to help pay for imports from China. It may also help lead the way to China’s currency to eventually be used as an alternate reserve currency. The deal follows similar ones China has struck with countries like South Korea, Indonesia and Belarus.

As the financial crisis began to whipsaw international markets last year, the Federal Reserve made its own currency arrangements with central banks around the world, allocating $30 billion each to Brazil and Mexico. (Brazil has opted not to tap it for now.) But smaller economies in the region, including Argentina, which has been trying to dispel doubts about its ability to meet its international debt payments, were left out of those agreements.

Details of the Chinese deal with Argentina are still being ironed out, but an official at Argentina’s central bank said it would allow Argentina to avoid using scarce dollars for all its international transactions. The takeover of billions of dollars in private pension funds, among other moves, led Argentines to pull the equivalent of nearly $23 billion, much of it in dollars, out of the country last year.

Dante Sica, the lead economist at Abeceb, a consulting firm in Buenos Aires, said the Chinese overtures in the region were made possible by the “lack of attention that the United States showed to Latin America during the entire Bush administration.”

China is also seizing opportunities in Latin America when traditional lenders over which the United States holds some sway, like the Inter-American Development Bank, are pushing up against their limits.

Just one of China’s planned loans, the $10 billion for Brazil’s national oil company, is almost as much as the $11.2 billion in all approved financing by the Inter-American Bank in 2008. Brazil is expected to use the loan for offshore exploration, while agreeing to export as much as 100,000 barrels of oil a day to China, according to the oil company.

The Inter-American bank, in which the United States has de facto veto power in some matters, is trying to triple its capital and increase lending to $18 billion this year. But the replenishment involves delicate negotiations among member nations, made all the more difficult after the bank lost almost $1 billion last year.

China will also have a role in these talks, having become a member of the bank this year.

China has also pushed into Latin American countries where the United States has negligible influence, like Venezuela.

In February, China’s vice president, Xi Jinping, traveled to Caracas to meet with President Hugo Chávez. The two men announced that a Chinese-backed development fund based here would grow to $12 billion from $6 billion, giving Venezuela access to hard currency while agreeing to increase oil shipments to China to one million barrels a day from a level of about 380,000 barrels.

Mr. Chávez’s government contends the Chinese aid differs from other multilateral loans because it comes without strings attached, like scrutiny of internal finances. But the Chinese fund has generated criticism among his opponents, who view it as an affront to Venezuela’s sovereignty.

“The fund is a swindle to the nation,” said Luis Díaz, a lawmaker who claims that China locked in low prices for the oil Venezuela is using as repayment.

Despite forging ties to Venezuela and extending loans to other nations that have chafed at Washington’s clout, Beijing has bolstered its presence without bombast, perhaps out of an awareness that its relationship with the United States is still of paramount importance. But this deference may not last.

“This is China playing the long game,” said Gregory Chin, a political scientist at York University in Toronto. “If this ultimately translates into political influence, then that is how the game is played.”

Simon Romero reported from Caracas, and Alexei Barrionuevo from Rio de Janeiro.

Mission accomplished. China's two biggest state-owned oil companies pursuing a joint venture in Iraq.

China's motivation in the area is not purely financial. The past few months has seen the country's state-owned commodities giants embark on a shopping spree among recession-hit Western rivals, including Rio Tinto, Oz Minerals and Fortescue. Trying to secure access to much-needed raw materials, the most significant deals have been for oil. China Development Bank is lending $35bn (£23bn) to tottering state oil companies in return for 400,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) for decades to come. A toehold in Iraq would provide yet more security.

The battle for Iraq's oil

Major oil companies and their state-owned counterparts are all jostling for a slice of the world's third-largest reserves. Sarah Arnott reports

Wednesday, 15 April 2009 Independent

Royal Dutch Shell is talking to two of China's biggest state-owned oil companies with a view to pursuing a joint venture in Iraq. Although Shell would not confirm details of the talks, a possible tie-up with China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec) is reported to focus on a bid to develop the Kirkuk field in the north of the country. "Discussions with potential partners are at a very early stage," a spokesman for Shell said yesterday.

The putative deal is just the latest move as both international oil companies and their state-owned counterparts jostle for position in the vast and underdeveloped Iraqi oil market.

The prize is huge. The country has proven reserves of 115 billion barrels, the third largest in the world after Saudi Arabia and Iran. "Iraq is a jewel for the international oil companies and always has been," said Manouchehr Takin, a senior petroleum analyst at the Centre for Global Energy Studies. "Not only does it have large proven reserves but there are also big estimates for undiscovered resources. People agree or disagree on the detail, but many think there may be even more yet to be found."

But the country's oil sector is inefficient and under-resourced after years of war, upheaval and sanctions against Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime. Of the 80 known oilfields, only 15 are developed – between them producing about 2.4 million barrels per day.

For Iraq itself, oil exports make up 95 per cent of government revenue and are the only way to fund the rebuilding of the shattered country. With the price of crude back down to $50 per barrel from last July's unprecedented $149, making the most of the nation's vast resources is an even more pressing priority.

Oil companies large and small have been lining up for a piece of the action since Saddam was deposed in 2003 and there have been some isolated deals, often not involving putting people on the ground. From 2004, BP, for example, was involved in the Rumeila field in the south, analysing geophysical data and providing guidance on ways to boost recovery rates. But the unclear legal position of the new government, and the dangerous security situation, counselled against more serious involvement.

The first attempt to bring in foreign expertise, in the form of two-year service contracts, collapsed last year and was superseded by the current plan for a series of 20-year service and investment deals. Thirty-two companies are bidding for the first round of contracts, which will cover six oilfields and two gas fields. According to the timetable, the first deals could be signed by the end of the year, although insiders are sceptical. A second round, launched in December, is looking for developers for another 11 fields and has attracted a further nine bidders in addition to the original 32.

But the contracts are not of the production-sharing type common elsewhere in the world. The winning bidder will not take over the operations entirely. Instead, it will establish a joint venture with whichever Iraqi state company is responsible for the field, working with them to expand and develop it. The proposal may not be the free-for-all the internationals dream of, but it is still a significant chunk of business. An estimated $50bn in investment is needed to meet Baghdad's target to raise output to six million bpd by 2014, and the collapsing price of oil has already changed the dynamic between the government and its potential partners.

Under the proposed arrangements, a proportion of the investment will come from the oil major and a proportion from the Iraqi state company. Assuming success, and production improved in line with targets agreed at the outset, the international company will recover its costs and receive a fee. In February, the contractor's stake was raised from 49 per cent to 75 per cent, and the production targets demanded by Iraq have also been lowered.

But even with softened terms, the attraction of the deals is more the foot in the door than the contracts themselves. "These are quite sophisticated arrangements, but they are very, very different from the contracts you might have elsewhere in the world, where the reserves can be booked in your accounts," a source at one major oil company said last night.

There are two problems that need to be overcome before any greater involvement. One is that deals with foreign oil companies are a thorny issue. Saddam's nationalisation of the industry in 1972 is one of very few aspects of his rule that is not criticised within Iraq, and any sense that the country's resources are being sold out to the West would be viewed as a gross betrayal.

The other is Iraq's internal politics. Since 2003, about 30 smaller oil companies have signed traditional production-sharing agreements with the government of the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan in the north, which has fewer than 10 per cent of the country's total oil reserves. But major companies including BP and Shell pulled out after Baghdad branded the deals illegal and threatened to ban any company pursuing such arrangements from bidding for work elsewhere in the country.

The row, which centres on whether the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has the right to make deals in its own right or must get them signed off by Baghdad, shows little sign of resolution. As well as holding up investment in the region itself, the stand-off is also scuppering the progress of the post-Saddam government's planned hydrocarbon law, which would provide a framework for rights and revenues, not to mention the involvement of foreign oil companies, for the country as a whole.

Despite years of discussion, and numerous different drafts, the law is still not on the statute books and attempts to revise it may require a revision of the Iraqi constitution governing the relationship between Baghdad and the KRG.

"There is a huge internal debate in Iraq about whether the government should make these types of deal," Mr Takin said.

Against such a background, the oil ministry is trying to get on with increasing production – and raising revenues for the state – within its existing remit. As well as the long-term services contracts, it has also put together a number of isolated deals, awarded without a competitive tendering process. Last autumn, Shell joined a $4bn joint venture to collect and market the 700 million cubic feet of gas flared from 19,000 square kilometres of oil field in the Basra region.

In August, CNPC – now in talks with Shell over Kirkuk – signed a $3bn deal to develop the Ahdab field in central Iraq, thus agreeing the first oil deal since the fall of Saddam. But as Baghdad and the KRG do not even agree whether Kirkuk is in Kurdistan or not, even the smallest steps are worth taking.

The Taliban, too many to kill, and badly in need of killing.

Those poor modern souls that are the victims of the Taliban cannot be helped at a price that is acceptable to the United States. The Europeans are not coming. The Russians tried and failed. The US helped save Afghanistan from Communism and the Taliban is the legacy.

The world will not accept the killing required. Minds that will not be changed are encased in skulls that should be crushed, but modernity has moved us into an era where that is not politically possible or tolerable to our evolved delicacies. There is no exit price too high to leave them to what they have done to themselves.

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Taleban 'kill love affair couple'

BBC

The Taleban in Afghanistan have publicly killed a young couple who they said had tried to have an illicit affair, officials say.
The man, 21, and woman, 19, were shot dead on Monday in front of a mosque in the south-western province of Nimroz.
Nimroz is an area where the Taleban have a strong influence.

Governor Ghulam Dastageer Azad told the AFP news agency the killings followed a decree by local religious leaders and were an "insult to Islam".

Dangerous region

Mr Azad said: "An unmarried young boy and an unmarried girl who loved each other and wanted to get married had eloped because their families would not approve the marriage."

Officials said the couple were traced by militants after they tried to go to Iran. They were made to return to their village in Khash Rod district.

"Three Taleban mullahs brought them to the local mosque and they passed a fatwa (religious decree) that they must be killed. They were shot and killed in front of the mosque in public," the governor said.

He said there were some reports that the families of the young couple could have links with the Taleban. The Taleban could not be immediately reached for comment.

Correspondents say that the killings took place in a remote and dangerous region, where the government has no access.
The Taleban ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 and during that time implemented its austere interpretation of Islamic Sharia law, carrying out public killings and floggings.

Unmarried men and women were forbidden from talking or meeting in public and women were not allowed out of their homes without a male relative. Girls were discouraged from going to school.

Extrajudicial "honour killings" have been widely carried out in Afghanistan since then by conservative families angered by a relative who has brought them shame - usually by refusing to marry a chosen partner.

The Taleban have widened their influence over the past three years and now control many remote districts where there are not enough coalition forces to establish a permanent presence

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Latin America will be the biggest US diplomatic and economic fiasco yet.

Trade between China and Latin America reached a record of more than $140 billion last year, 40 percent higher than the $101 billion of 2007. U.S. exports to Latin America, in the same year, grew at 9.1%.

I wonder how much trade the US will end up with between itself and say Iraq and Afghanistan? How much trade has the US lost to China in Latin America? Take a look:

Viva la progress: China's Latin links

China Daily

There is little doubt that deals will be done when Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez arrives for top-level talks in Beijing Wednesday. His mission, after all, is to improve his nation's ties with China. But no matter what agreements he pens with President Hu Jintao, it will be little more than a diplomatic triumph, likely having little impact on the lives of common Chinese citizens. Right?

Wrong, claims 72-year-old Huang Shikang, the ex-ambassador to Chile, Mexico and Colombia between 1986 and 2000, who feels the bonds brokered today herald a better future and seem far from the days when relations with South America were first forged.

Trade between China and Latin America reached a record of more than $140 billion last year, 40 percent higher than the $101 billion of 2007. But decades ago, it was a very different story.

"In 1986, Chinese commodities could hardly get on to the shelves in supermarkets in Chile, and it was the same in Mexico in early 1990s," recalled Huang, who witnessed the progress of Sino-Latin American ties on the frontline.

Huang first arrived on the continent in 1959 as an interpreter with a visiting Chinese media group. Eight years later, he started his diplomatic career as part of the first long-term delegation to Chile under the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT).

"For many Latin Americans, China was a mysterious country, far away," he said, adding that Beijing had occasionally sent music groups and staged Chinese art shows for locals.

Apart from his daily job of reading the local press for the chief representative of the CCPIT office in Chile and accompanying him to meetings with Chilean officials and communities, Huang said another major task was to "make more friends".

Former Chilean president Salvador Allende, whose term saw the first diplomatic ties with China in 1970, became a good friend, he said, but it was clear that, for Latin American countries, recognizing China was mainly a political need before the 1980s as the country was a permanent member of the United Nations' Security Council.

Things improved dramatically after China started economic reform and its wealth began growing, and Huang found more countries in the region keen to learn more about this "economic powerhouse". By 2004, the annual growth rate of trade volume between China and Latin America stood at 50 percent.

After an extensive working life in Latin America, Huang said the prospect for developing ties further is "promising".

And, today, cooperation between the two has moved on to a much broader agenda than trade.

On March 24, Chavez inaugurated the construction of an $800-million, 290-mile railway project in central Venezuela, financed by the China-Venezuela Strategic Development Fund set up last year. Meanwhile, the nation's first satellite roared into space last October from a launch pad in Sichuan province.

China signed the Free-Trade Agreement with Chile in 2005, extending cooperation from trade to service sectors, while talks on a similar deal with Peru is expected to be finalized soon, according to media reports. And following the onset of the global financial crisis in January, China jointly formed the Inter-American Development Bank.

But China's initial links with countries in Latin America and the Caribbean drew harsh comments from skeptics who questioned Beijing's motives.

The Council of Hemispheric Affairs (COHA), a Washington-based think tank, published a paper last month arguing the blooming ties between China and Costa Rica were Beijing's "aggressive expansion" into the "backyard of the United States".

"China's multifaceted involvement in Latin America means it is expanding its economic and political presence in a region the US concretely has long regarded as its preeminent sphere of influence," it said in its report "China Courts Costa Rica; Expands its Presence in Washington's Backyard".

The COHA also added China's deeper involvement had come at a time when US President Barack Obama's administration had still to "react to new Latin American realities".

In May last year, while still running for office, Obama said: "While the US fails to address the changing realities in the Americas, others from Europe and Asia, notably China, have stepped up their own engagement."

But analysts have not been pleased with this view, not least Peter Lewis, a researcher at the University of Chile's institute of international studies, who wrote in a recent article that China's strategic goal had been over-estimated as people have not understood Beijing's "internal goals".


Lewis said that when China develops its ties with South and Central America, it is because the country is looking for new markets for its exports and for natural resources to power its domestic growth. He added: "Without such comprehension, China will be strategically over-estimated by the US, causing harmful economic and politically consequences for the US, Latin America and China, amongst many others."

In Beijing, Wu Guoping, a professor in Latin America studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), said any claim China had branched out into the US' "backyard" was absurd and based on a "Cold War mentality".

"In the age of globalization, a viewpoint like 'Who is within whose sphere of influence?' doesn't stand," Wu said, adding that seeking closer ties with Latin America "aims at no one while no one in Latin America would consider their homeland as the US' backyard."

Barbara Schieber, editor of the Guatemala Times, agreed and has already urged the US to stop referring to Central America as its "backyard". "We find that term offensive and a sign of outdated imperialistic thinking", she wrote online when commenting on the COHA paper.

Along with COHA's controversial viewpoint, though, others have also accused Beijing of trying to "grab" natural resources from Latin America.

"China has been hoovering up South America's commodities to satisfy its booming economy: soya and iron ore from Brazil, soya and oil seed from Argentina, copper from Chile, tin from Bolivia and oil from Venezuela," said the British Broadcasting Corporation, based in London.

Chinese analysts have strongly denied the claims leveled at the nation, while pointing out that the cooperation deals are to the benefit of both countries involved.

Professor He Shuangrong, also with the CASS, agreed China needed resources from Latin America but added the nation's economic growth was "surely a good thing for Latin America", while the need for Chinese investment in the Americas, mainly to build and improve infrastructure, was "very, very big".

The money used in joint-funded projects helped to create more opportunities for people, she added, citing that the Venezuelanalysis had reported the $800-million railway project will create more than 1,800 jobs in the country. The progress of Sino-Latin American relations alongside China's increasing globalization was "only natural", He added.

Last November, Beijing published its first policy paper on Latin America and the Caribbean and, as a general guideline, it outlined the intention to strengthen "comprehensive cooperation" in the region in areas of politics, economics and culture, as well as on peace, security and judicial affairs, said the Foreign Ministry.

The paper also clearly marked out China's goals to promote mutual respect and trust, achieve win-win results and boost common progress.

"They share the same principles, with both sides having respect for multilateralism," said Courtney Rattray, Jamaican Ambassador to China, who added China is handling its relations with Latin American and Caribbean countries "based on principles", not just interests.

"China has an understanding as a developing country of what our needs are, and most of the countries in Latin America are developing countries," he said, explaining that China's growing wealth means a "huge market" for Jamaica's exports in "niche products such as coffee, rum and beer".

When asked for his views on the strong ties between China and Latin America, Rattray enthused: "I think it's a perfect match."

Here is a typical Chinese factory that is beating our brains out. Pick out at least ten reasons why that is happening, considering they have to ship half way around the world to the Americas:

No one wants Caroline Kennedy

Dejected and rejected.

The fallen Princess of Camelot just can't quite function in prime time. We first learned that the petulant little princess, in her quest to pick up the empty Senate seat from Hillary, had somehow never had much time to vote. That in itself did not kill her newly discovered political ambitions, but it highlighted her utter lack of qualification. That was too much even for New York.

Miss Kennedy found, that to represent New York in the Senate, New York expected that she, at a minimum, should have voted in New York, or voted period. The Vatican has the quaint notion that an American Catholic, who wishes to represent American interests to the Vatican, should not be notoriously hostile to Catholic doctrine, values and principals. That is their right.

Pointedly, US Catholic conservatives do not like Caroline Kennedy. They didn't want her and she is not going. Oprah still loves her.

_______________________

Vatican blocks Caroline Kennedy appointment as US ambassador
The Vatican has blocked the appointment of Caroline Kennedy as US ambassador, according to reports.

By Alex Spillius in Washington Telegraph
Last Updated: 8:37AM BST 11 Apr 2009

Vatican sources told Il Giornale that their support for abortion disqualified Ms Kennedy and other Roman Catholics President Barack Obama had been seeking to appoint.

Mr Obama was reportedly seeking to reward John F Kennedy's daughter, who publicly gave her support to his election bid. She had been poised to replace Hillary Clinton as New York senator, but dropped out amid criticism that she lacked enough experience for the job.

The Italian paper said that the Vatican strongly disapproved of Mr Obama's support for abortion and stem cell research. The impasse over the ambassadorial appointment threatens to cloud his meeting with the Pope during a G8 summit in Itay in July.
Ms Kennedy, 53, has said that she supports abortion. Raymond Flynn, a former US ambassador to the Vatican, said earlier this week that Ms Kennedy would be a poor choice.

"It's imperative, it's essential that the person who represents us to the Holy See be a person who has pro-life values. I hope the President doesn't make that mistake," he told the Boston Herald. "She said she was pro-choice. I don't assume she's going to change that, which is problematic."

The White House refused to comment.

An Instapundit Solution to Piracy Problem

Gun Control Works–for Pirates

A Common Sense Solution to the Piracy Problem
by Bill Levinson, Instapundit
published December 12, 2008

The recent terrorist rampage by Islamic supremacists in Mumbai shows that India’s strict gun control laws work–for vicious Islamic supremacist terrorists. Even many of India’s police were armed only with lathis, or bamboo sticks, and they learned the hard way that it is a bad idea to bring a bamboo stick to a gunfight.

The epidemic of piracy off the Somali has underscored the same lesson for the world’s merchant marines and passenger cruise lines: gun control works for pirates, corsairs, and buccaneers who freely ignore laws against the possession of destructive devices (like rocket launchers) to prey on unarmed shipping.

Piracy was apparently less of a problem during the age of traditional pirates (16th through early 19th centuries), even though merchant ships could not dial 911 or the equivalent for assistance from the nearest frigate. The reason was that dinghies, rubber boats, or their equivalent (e.g. rowboats) had no chance against even an unescorted merchant ship; the pirates needed a sloop or even a frigate to take, for example, an East Indiaman. This picture (The East Indiaman Repulse (1820) in the East India Dock Basin. Creator: Charles Henry Seaforth, October 1842) makes the reason obvious.

East Indiaman

Note the presence of at least ten gun ports (on the lower deck only), which means the ship is at least as well armed as a sloop of war. Portcities London, meanwhile, displays a picture of an East Indiaman of 1690, which carries more than sixty guns. The “weight of metal” per broadside, a typical measure of a ship’s fighting power, probably exceeded that of a contemporary frigate (counterpart of a modern heavy cruiser).

There were of course plenty of pirates during this era, but they did not operate from the equivalent of rubber dinghies or even mother ships because a merchantman of that era would have blown them to bits. A direct hit from a cannonball was not necessary, as the gun could be loaded with grapeshot to kill the exposed rowboat crew. Even if the rowboat managed to come alongside, the merchant seaman had the option of dropping cannon balls that would have gone right through the rowboat’s hull. The pirates therefore needed the counterparts of modern destroyers or cruisers to prey on merchant shipping on the high seas.

We can therefore recommend a simple, common sense solution to the epidemic of piracy off the African coast, and especially that of Somalia. It should be implemented as quickly as possible despite the bleatings of the political Left, Brady Campaign, Million Mom March, and various Kumbaya-singers. Arm merchant ships and passenger cruise ships with weapons ranging from the United States’ excellent 50 caliber machine gun to 35 or 40 millimeter (1-pounder) cannons, and train the crews to use them. (The U.S. could in fact probably earn some money by supplying the weapons and professional training from Navy instructors.)

A punk in a dinghy can menace an unarmed ship with a shoulder-fired rocket because, even though the rocket cannot possibly sink something that displaces 10,000 or more tons, he can continue to fire rockets with impunity. He won’t fire more than one rocket at someone who has a fifty-caliber machine gun, though, because the gun will blow him and his dinghy into unrecognizable fragments before he can reload. A 40-millimeter cannon could probably go further by putting down even the typical mother ship that many pirates use.

This would end the piracy problem quite quickly, because the pirates are unlikely to acquire actual warships that could take on armed merchant ships. The solution is common sense, and political correctness is the only barrier to its implementation.

Three Pirates shot and killed, one arrested, Captain saved.

Captain Sparrobama makes his bones, Chicago style.

Congratulations to our Master and Commander in Chief.

Thomas Friedman Knows Nothing About Costa Rica

Tom Friedman must have a nose problem.

Hat tip: Doug

I had to laugh at the NY Times piece by Thomas Friedman. It is a puff about the rivers and power resources in Costa Rica. It is supposed to be a model for the US. Tom Friedman has to be a better fiction writer than he is a journalist. I prefer to believe that Friedman was just sloppy and not totally dishonest, but honestly for starters, Costa Rica has no municipal sewage treatment plants. The capital of San Jose, two million people, pumps everything into the rivers. The river where Thomas Friedman went white water rafting faces this:

During the last decades, the proliferation of tourism megaprojects and agricultural infrastructure have caused considerable impacts on the region’s natural systems, which already suffer from regular impacts caused by natural processes, including floods and droughts. The development of infrastructure projects to control floods, as well as the unrestrained extraction of superficial and subterraneous waters for irrigation threaten the ecological integrity of the region.

Duke University

The air in San Jose from auto pollution is choking and the city has regular scheduled power outages as the government monopoly rations power distribution.

I would not swim on any Costa Rican beach that has a house or hotel in sight. There is not one state in the United States that would tolerate the pollution and power distribution standards that exist in Costa Rica. I will add, that I happen to like Costa Rica, but am not blinded by a ten day sheltered exposure.

This is not the direction the United States wants to go in either energy or conservation.

__________________

(No) Drill, Baby, Drill


By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN New York Times
Published: April 11, 2009
Liberia, Costa Rica

Sailing down Costa Rica’s Tempisque River on an eco-tour, I watched a crocodile devour a brown bass with one gulp. It took only a few seconds. The croc’s head emerged from the muddy waters near the bank with the footlong fish writhing in its jaws. He crunched it a couple of times with razor-sharp teeth and then, with just the slightest flip of his snout, swallowed the fish whole. Never saw that before.

These days, visitors can still see amazing biodiversity all over Costa Rica — more than 25 percent of the country is protected area — thanks to a unique system it set up to preserve its cornucopia of plants and animals. Many countries could learn a lot from this system.

More than any nation I’ve ever visited, Costa Rica is insisting that economic growth and environmentalism work together. It has created a holistic strategy to think about growth, one that demands that everything gets counted. So if a chemical factory sells tons of fertilizer but pollutes a river — or a farm sells bananas but destroys a carbon-absorbing and species-preserving forest — this is not honest growth. You have to pay for using nature. It is called “payment for environmental services” — nobody gets to treat climate, water, coral, fish and forests as free anymore.

The process began in the 1990s when Costa Rica, which sits at the intersection of two continents and two oceans, came to fully appreciate its incredible bounty of biodiversity — and that its economic future lay in protecting it. So it did something no country has ever done: It put energy, environment, mines and water all under one minister.

“In Costa Rica, the minister of environment sets the policy for energy, mines, water and natural resources,” explained Carlos M. Rodríguez, who served in that post from 2002 to 2006. In most countries, he noted, “ministers of environment are marginalized.” They are viewed as people who try to lock things away, not as people who create value. Their job is to fight energy ministers who just want to drill for cheap oil.

But when Costa Rica put one minister in charge of energy and environment, “it created a very different way of thinking about how to solve problems,” said Rodríguez, now a regional vice president for Conservation International. “The environment sector was able to influence the energy choices by saying: ‘Look, if you want cheap energy, the cheapest energy in the long-run is renewable energy. So let’s not think just about the next six months; let’s think out 25 years.’ ”

As a result, Costa Rica hugely invested in hydro-electric power, wind and geo-thermal, and today it gets more than 95 percent of its energy from these renewables. In 1985, it was 50 percent hydro, 50 percent oil. More interesting, Costa Rica discovered its own oil five years ago but decided to ban drilling — so as not to pollute its politics or environment! What country bans oil drilling?

Rodríguez also helped to pioneer the idea that in a country like Costa Rica, dependent on tourism and agriculture, the services provided by ecosystems were important drivers of growth and had to be paid for. Right now, most countries fail to account for the “externalities” of various economic activities. So when a factory, farmer or power plant pollutes the air or the river, destroys a wetland, depletes a fish stock or silts a river — making the water no longer usable — that cost is never added to your electric bill or to the price of your shoes.

Costa Rica took the view that landowners who keep their forests intact and their rivers clean should be paid, because the forests maintained the watersheds and kept the rivers free of silt — and that benefited dam owners, fishermen, farmers and eco-tour companies downstream. The forests also absorbed carbon.

To pay for these environmental services, in 1997 Costa Rica imposed a tax on carbon emissions — 3.5 percent of the market value of fossil fuels — which goes into a national forest fund to pay indigenous communities for protecting the forests around them. And the country imposed a water tax whereby major water users — hydro-electric dams, farmers and drinking water providers — had to pay villagers upstream to keep their rivers pristine. “We now have 7,000 beneficiaries of water and carbon taxes,” said Rodríguez. “It has become a major source of income for poor people. It has also enabled Costa Rica to actually reverse deforestation. We now have twice the amount of forest as 20 years ago.”

As we debate a new energy future, we need to remember that nature provides this incredible range of economic services — from carbon-fixation to water filtration to natural beauty for tourism. If government policies don’t recognize those services and pay the people who sustain nature’s ability to provide them, things go haywire. We end up impoverishing both nature and people. Worse, we start racking up a bill in the form of climate-changing greenhouse gases, petro-dictatorships and bio-diversity loss that gets charged on our kids’ Visa cards to be paid by them later. Well, later is over. Later is when it will be too late.

__________________

Costa Rican Electricity Institute
Says No Power Outages This Year

Power outages are somewhere near the top of residents' complaint lists. In Costa Rica, like much of Central America, sometimes the lights go out, though often there's a warning from the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) before they do.

But 2008, ICE claims, will be a blackout-free year, the daily Al Día reported.

This might come as relief to those who recall in mid-April when the government declared a state of emergency amid sweeping blackouts across the country. There wasn't enough rain to feed Costa Rica's hydroelectric plants, said ICE President Pedro Quirós.

Quirós told Al Día Friday the reservoirs in Arenal and Chachí are now at capacity, and users can rest assured that “this year there will be no cuts in electricity service.”

-Tico Times


Costa Rica to ration power amid hydro shortfall
27 Apr 2007 02:24:05 GMT
Source: Reuters
this article | RSS

SAN JOSE, April 26 (Reuters) - Costa Rica said on Thursday a lack of rainfall to drive its hydroelectric plants meant it would have to start rationing electricity.
Power will be rationed twice a day for five hours at a time for different sectors of the population on a rotating basis, Pedro Pablo Quiros, executive president of the state-run Costa Rican Electricity Institute, said.
Costa Rica's rainy season, which normally starts in March, has still not begun, leaving the country's resevoirs depleted and triggering periodic power outages over the past week.
A sprinkle of rain spotted San Jose on Thursday, a far cry from the dousing needed to replenish the reservoirs.
"No one foresaw that the summer would be so strong," said Presidency Minister Rodrigo Arias.
Costa Rica, famous for its lush rainforests, relies heavily on hydro-power, but built its first combined-cycle electricity plant in 2004 to meet 10 percent of its energy needs.
It now plans to install a 150-megawatt thermal electric generator at a cost of $150 million to help ease the shortage.

Tourism boom threatens Costa Rica eco-paradise
Fri Jun 20, 2008 6:44am EDT Email | Print | Share | Reprints | Single Page [-] Text [+]

TAMARINDO, Costa Rica (Reuters) - Pungent brown sewage spews into the Pacific ocean. In the background, cranes put up hotels and beachfront apartments.

Once home to monkeys, turtles and other rare wildlife, this stretch of coast in northwest Costa Rica is developing so fast that it is tarnishing the country's reputation as a destination for eco-tourists.

Biting the hand that feeds in Costa Rica

...Agro-export organizations oppose conservation measures that aim to improve the landscape to entice ecotourists. Use of pesticides is rampant, even though 20 per cent of them only make produce look better. There are five times more crop pests in Costa Rica than in North America, and agriculturalists argue that pesticides are a must to control them, even though pesticides cause huge wildlife losses through poisoning.

To make matters worse, Costa Ricas waste disposal is a nightmare. Raw sewage is usually dumped in the nearest wastercourse, just anywhere it can flow away.

The Costa Rican federal and local governments are so poor, largely due to a lack of any organized taxation system, that enforcement of all conservation laws is in the hands of local communities.

They, too, lack financial capability to enforce conservation laws. Even though Costa Rica has had a national conservation strategy since 1984, it has not spawned any workable programs.

"The laws are tough, but nobody really pays much attention to them," said a conservationist based at San Jose.

"Sure we have national parks and wildlife reserves, but nobody really enforces environmental laws there, or anywhere else," said a spokesman for the Fondacion Neotropica.

Wildtrapping of birds is a case in point. It is unlawful, but almost everybody does it. Costa Rica has one of the highest rates of pet ownership in the world, and fully one-half are wild birds, poached from wild nests. About 50 per cent of Costa Ricans admit that they have owned a wild parrot at some point in their lives.

There are almost 200,000 pet parrots in Costa Rica, all belonging to species that are threatened or endangered.

Tax for Releasing Sewage Into Rivers
Posted 04-07-2009 at 09:51 AM by larryhans

In Costa Rica, we have to pay a tax for polluting rivers with raw sewage and soap out of households, industries, businesses and government offices.

This is the new canon of discharges which came into force this year and aims to raise funds to build wastewater treatment facilities throughout the country.

The tax is collected by the Ministry of the Environment, Energy and Telecommunications (Minaet) through the Water Department. Homes will receive their surcharge in their drinking water bills.

Ticosland

Two months ago, a report was released by the government citing Jaco Beach has having a bacteria count of coliforms multiple times higher than acceptable for human bathing. Many people who live here already know this is a problem since they can smell the raw sewage as they walk by the rivers or over the bridges on a daily basis. Furthermore, business owners and homeowners are not surprised by this report since they know themselves to be pollutors and/or contributors. More so, Costa Ricans know very clearly where the pollution is coming from as noted by the Sala IV in 2007.

The problem is further exacerbated by local business advocates focusing not on the report but that the report was published with alterior political motives. Translated: They are not denying the reports of “Aguas Negras” or “Black Water” but fuming about how the report was published and its timing. Nobody seems to focus on the real issue which is lack of enforcement for existing laws.

Currently, there is one inspector for about 400 septic treatment plants in this area and once cited the violator has XX months to correct the problem. When the inspector returns to check on progress, who has oversight of the inspector? When you pay minimum wages to an inspector, the lure of pay-offs to look the other way from larger developers is huge. People cannot deny that payoffs occur and in fact exists and happen on a daily basis.

One leading local business leader says “control the rivers and we will control the pollution.” This might be true but it still does not address the root problem which is education and enforcement of existing laws. How can a law be enforced if the penalty is not a deterrent? When a developer spending millions of dollars to build pays only hundreds for a penalty, it makes good business sense to move the project along without regard to preserving the enviroment or minimizing the damage.

Until Costa Rica suffers a loss of tourist dollars, which is forthcoming, the governement will not move to correct these issues. Costa Ricans never created parks or bio-zones because they wanted to preserve their beautiful country, business leaders and foreigners did this to create opportunities. The opportunity to be the “green” tourism destination was a economic decision not a altruistic one. So when Costa Rica begins to lose hundreds of millions of dollars each year in tourism because people finally have witnessed the hypocrisy of this country. Only then will the government and the business leaders move to correct the issues.

The sad truth is we do not have to wait until then, If people were to understand that preserving their country and not polluting it, means a better future for them and their families. Or their health will be much better if Costa Rica remains clean, then we will really begin to make REAL changes here. The false promises of business leaders, government, and developers is short sighted and dollar related. True fundamental change begins with each person living in the country, each persons decision not to pollute, and each persons committment to a cleaner and safer home for all of us. This can only be achieved through education and massive public service announcments.

Two years ago, a sign was erected on the highway that leads to the central pacific beaches from San Jose. The sign was titled “Playa Limpia” or Clean Beach, and discussed how we need to keep our beaches clean for us and others and for the environment. It was a great public service, the problem is ticos erected the sign and could only be seen by people returning to San Jose after they have spent the weekend littering the beaches and towns. Common sense tells most of us, the message should be delivered prior to arrival at the beach. Imagine in the US Parks, you are leaving Yosemite during the dry season, upon you exiting the park, you are given a message that using fire is prohibited.

Surf in jaco

Captain Jack Sparrobama

faced with an 'overseas contingency operation'

Our view: President must deliver harsh message to pirates
Eagle Tribune

President Barack Obama is facing a serious foreign policy challenge with the attack on an U.S.-flagged cargo ship by Somali pirates. How the president responds will likely set a pattern for future reaction to aggression by his administration.

This is not a time for the delicate nuances of diplomacy and negotiations. The United States is at its core a naval power. And nations whose security depends on control of the seas cannot tolerate piracy.

Last week Somali pirates operating off the east coast of Africa seized the cargo ship Maersk Alabama, laden with food aid destined for Kenya. Pirates have been harassing shipping along the busy trade route for month, holding vessels, cargo and crews for ransom.

The crew of the Alabama, many of them New Englanders, eventually repelled the pirates, but not before they took the vessel's captain as a hostage. The pirates are holed up with Capt. Richard Phillips of Underhill, Vt., on one of the Alabama's lifeboats. They are being shadowed by a destroyer, the USS Bainbridge, which is attempting to prevent the pirates from reaching shore, where they could disappear with their captive into the lawlessness of Somalia.

President Obama must look to history for instruction in dealing with piracy. Our experience with pirates goes back to the nation's earliest days.

Then, merchant sailors from the new nation's busy ports of Salem and Boston were under constant threat from pirates based in the Barbary states of Africa's Mediterranean coast. Pirates would seize the ships steal their contents and sell the crews into slavery. To buy protection from the pirates, the U.S. government paid tribute to the rulers of the Barbary states. At one point, such tribute consumed 20 percent of federal expenditures.

But in 1801, newly inaugurated President Thomas Jefferson chose a new course. He declined a demand for tribute from Tripoli and instead sent a naval squadron to the Mediterranean. Jefferson believed, rightly, that it was cheaper in the long run to pay for the construction of a navy than to continue to pay tribute to the pirate states.

The strategy was to attack the pirates' bases of operations — in Morocco, Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli — to deny them sanctuary and popular support. It is from these operations that our Marine Corps hymn contains the line "... to the shores of Tripoli."

The United States fought two campaigns against the Barbary states — the first from 1801-1805, the second in 1815 — before finally bringing the piracy to an end. Jefferson's decisive action bought us nearly 200 years of freedom from large-scale piracy.

Now, the time again has come for action.

Payment of ransom to pirates will only encourage more attacks on U.S. shipping. Attacks on the pirates and their bases of operations will make the marauders pay for their actions. When the price becomes too high, the piracy will stop.

Debates about American strength or weakness in the face of aggression are not mere academic exercises. They have real consequences for our nation and for individual Americans. Ask the crew of the Maersk Alabama.

President Obama must deliver a harsh message here. Pirates cannot be allowed to prey on American shipping with impunity.

Iranian drones appear in Iraq. Israel decides it is a good time to supply them to Russia.

16/03/2009 - 17:43:54 IE News

The US shot down an unmanned Iranian spy plane as it flew over Iraqi territory about 60 miles from Baghdad, the military said today.

A statement said the drone was tracked for more than an hour before fighter jets shot it down “well-inside Iraqi airspace”.

It added that the aircraft’s presence over Iraqi airspace last month “was not an accident”.

The US has frequently accused the Iranians of supplying weapons, training and money to Shiite extremist groups opposed to the US military presence and to the US-backed Iraqi government.

______________________

Russia Buys A Bunch Of Israeli UAVs

Strategy Page

April 9, 2009: Late last year Russia began to investigate buying Israeli UAVs. Now it has placed an order for over fifty aircraft, including the Bird-Eye 400, I-View MK150 and Searcher 2. The Bird-Eye 400 is a nine pound micro-UAV with a maximum endurance of 80 minutes, max ceiling of 1,000 feet and can operate 15 kilometers from the operator. It is mainly for the use of small infantry units. The I-View MK150 is a 550 pound aircraft with an 7 hour endurance, max altitude of 17,000 feet and can operate up to 150 kilometers from the operator. It can carry a 44 pound payload, which enables day and night vidcams. It can take off using an airfield or from a truck mounted launcher. It can land on an airfield or via parachute. It is usually employed to support brigades. The Searcher 2 is a half ton aircraft with an endurance of 20 hours, max altitude of 23,000 feet and can operate up to 300 kilometers from the operator. It can carry a 264 pound payload. This is closer to the U.S. Predator, and usually supports a division or brigade.

Russia has been building UAVs for several decades, but has not achieved the kind of performance found in Israeli and American UAVs. With this $50 million purchase of Israeli UAVs, the Russians get some hands on experience with the best stuff out there, and there engineers get a close look at how competitive UAVs are put together.

The U.S. lost interest in UAVs after Vietnam, while in Israel, work proceeded. And UAVs figured prominently in the spectacular Israeli aerial victory over the Bekaa Valley in 1982. Using UAVs in cooperation with their warplanes, Israel was able to shut down the Syrian Air Force (and destroy 86 aircraft) in a few days. Israel pioneered the use of UAVs for real-time surveillance, electronic warfare and decoys. But in the U.S., there was either no interest, or some inexplicably botched UAV development projects. Americans wondered how the Israelis did it while the Department of Defense continued to screw up attempts to create useful UAVs. Russia is now in a situation similar to that of the United States in the 1970s. The Russian UAVs consistently had short duration (a few hours) and reliability problems.

But the U.S. eventually solved its problems. With some urging (and ridicule) from Congress, the Department of Defense began to buy UAVs from Israel. The Navy bought the Israeli Pioneer UAV, which is still in use. Many of these Israeli UAVs (plus some newly developed U.S. ones) were used in the 1991 Gulf War. There weren't that many of them, but the army and Marines noted that the Air Force and Navy were stingy with answering requests for recon missions. This made the ground troops aware of how they could create their own Air Force of UAVs. All of a sudden, the Army and Marines were back in the UAV development business. This time they were serious and a number of successful UAVs were developed. The Predator entered service in 1995. Russia is apparently seeking to shape up using the same route the U.S. choose.

U.S. – Colombian trade represents $18 billion annually

Rep. Wasserman Schultz meets with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to discuss U.S./Colombian relations.

Colombia is one of our most important allies in Latin America and can be instrumental in the economic revival of the Americas. Colombia is also having a rough time with a falling currency. It is a country where we can have a serious and balanced trade relationship. Here is a serious Democrat doing and saying the right thing.

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Rep. Wasserman Schultz Completes High-Level Visit to Colombia

Meetings with Colombian President, Defense Minister, Attorney General, Foreign Relations Minister, Trade Minister, and Labor Officials focused on U.S./Colombian relations, trade, and continued cooperation

April 9, 2009 US House of Representatives

(Washington, DC) -- Rep. Wasserman Schultz (FL-20) has wrapped up a two day visit to Colombia meeting with senior government, military, and labor officials in both Cartagena and Medellin. The Congresswoman was part of an official Congressional delegation consisting of the following members of the House of Representatives: Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (MD-5), Roy Blunt (MO-7), Gerald E. Connolly (VA-11), Joseph Crowley (NY-7), Elijah Cummings (MD-7), Norm Dicks (WA-6), Gregory W. Meeks (NY-6), Lucille Roybal–Allard (CA-34), Aaron Schock (IL-18), and Adrian Smith (NE-3).

In Cartagena, the delegation met with President Álvaro Uribe, Defense Minister Santos, Foreign Relations Minister Bermudez, Trade Minister Plata, and the Mayor of Cartagena, Judith Pinedo. They were also briefed by Admiral Guillermo Barrera on narcotics interdiction and by the Center for Coordinated and Integrated Action Fusion Center which coordinates military, social, and government efforts to clear areas held by drug traffickers and restore stability and security.

“We have a significant and important Colombian-American population living here in South Florida,” said Rep. Wasserman Schultz. “Additionally, U.S. – Colombian trade represents $18 billion annually, much of which flows through South Florida, resulting in jobs for our community. Our continued strong relationship with Colombia and the improved security situation within the country will help South Floridian residents and businesses as well as the Colombian people.”

Their trip to Cartagena also involved a site visit to the Indufrial AID project, which provides education, vocational training, and loans to start small businesses. This visit also allowed the delegation to meet with internally displaced persons (IDPs) and demobilized paramilitary members helped by the Indufrial AID project.

In Medellin, the delegation met with Attorney General Iguaran, and the Mayor of Medellin, Alonso Salazar. They also discussed the proposed U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement with labor unions both for and against the trade pact and discussed internal security with demobilized paramilitary members.

Israel to Sell Spy Drones to the Russians

This should clarify any nonsense that two countries always have similar interests. They do not and should not. This is too foolish to ever actually happen, but a lesson just the same. Good old Pollard should stay in jail for another ten years over this beauty.

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Reports: Russia to buy Israeli spy drones
© 2009 The Associated Press Houston Chronicle
April 10, 2009, 9:39AM

Hat tip: Rufus

MOSCOW — Russia is buying pilotless spy aircraft from Israel in hopes of improving its own unmanned drones after a poor performance in the war against Georgia last August, Russian news agencies quoted a top military official as saying Friday.
Deputy Defense Minister Vladimir Popovkin said the military has signed a contract to buy an unspecified number of pilotless drones from an Israeli company he did not identify, state-run RIA-Novosti and ITAR-Tass reported. "I was in Israel and even operated one," RIA-Novosti quoted him as saying.

Russia has never before announced a purchase of military hardware from Israel. Their relations have vastly improved since the Cold War, when Moscow supplied weapons worth billions of dollars to Israel's Arab foes, but Russia continues to anger the Jewish state by selling arms to other Mideast nations.

According to the reports, Popovkin said Russia has no plans to use the Israeli drones in combat. It wants to study the technology in an effort to improve its own seriously flawed fledgling drones, he said.

Popovkin said Russia had used a drone called the Tipchak toward the end of the conflict over Georgia's separatist South Ossetia region, but it had "very many problems," RIA-Novosti reported.

"You could hear it flying from 100 kilometers away," RIA-Novosti quoted Popovkin as saying. And because of flaws in the system that is supposed to identify it to Russian forces as friendly, it was hit by both Georgian and Russian fire, he said.
"It returned all shot up," Popovkin was quoted as saying.

Popovkin, who is in charge of procurement, said Russia will use its own weapons in combat. According to ITAR-Tass, he joked that "as for the Israeli pilotless aircraft, we will work on them like the Chinese do" — a suggestion that China uses military technology it acquires from other nations to improve its own capabilities.

Georgia used Israeli-made drones before and during the five-day war, in which Russian and South Ossetian forces routed Georgian troops who had launched an offensive in the breakaway region.

Defense Ministry officials could not immediately be reached for comment Friday, but the chief of staff of Russia's armed forces said in December that Russia was negotiating with Israel to buy a batch of spy drones.

Despite warmer ties, there is tension between Russia and Israel over Russia's cooperation with Iran and Syria. Israel is concerned that Russia could sell its them advanced anti-aircraft missile systems that would make any potential strike at Iran's first nuclear power plant — which Russia building — more difficult.

Hostage dies as French attack Somali pirates. Four saved.

The Tanit in happier days. The two couples had been warned against sailing off the Somali coast.


The French military attacked pirates holding a private yacht and one of the five hostages died during the rescue. The rescue saved four others. Unfortunately the spread of the terror on the high seas has occurred because of negotiations with the terrorists and the paying of ransom. If every other nation followed the French lead, the problem would end and ultimately more lives will be saved.

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Two pirates also killed in rescue operation


(CNN) --

A French hostage and two pirates died Friday in a rescue operation off Somalia's coastline, the French president's office in Paris said Friday.


French commandos last year training for operations against pirates.

Four hostages, including a child, were freed from the hijacked yacht after almost a week of captivity, Nicolas Sarkozy's office said.

The French military decided to move in when pirates refused their offers and increased threats against the hostages, it said.

The four adults and a child had been held aboard their yacht, the Tanit, since it was seized in the Gulf of Aden on Saturday, the president's statement said.

"Chisinau surrounded by troops," a user tweeted. "People are protesting. The US said the elections were OK. Not nice."

It seems as if the communist community organizers rigged an election in Moldova. Of course, our new administration and State Department were fine with it, but the Moldovans were not and decided to let their rulers and masters feel their teeth. Here is what our pathetic State Department had to say:

QUESTION: In Moldova, the opposition is contesting the results of the elections and there are violences. What is the U.S. position on that?

MR. WOOD: Well, we’re obviously concerned about any violence taking part, and we want to see people refrain from further violence. We want calmer heads to prevail. And we’ll just have to see how things develop.

QUESTION: Do you think the elections were free and fair?

MR. WOOD: Well, let me just say that I believe the OSCE, its election monitoring mission, did an assessment which basically said that the – you know, the elections were generally positive, but there were some concerns, I think, about undue administrative influence on the process.
You know, I think – you know, we’re obviously doing our own assessment. You know, we haven’t completed it, but I think we would probably say that it’s – it was generally positive. But again, we haven’t completed our assessment and we share some of those concerns about undue administrative influence. But that, you know, that is – what we don’t want to see is continued violence as a result of these elections because that’s in no one’s interest.

QUESTION: Do you think the opposition is right to contest the victory of the communist party?

MR. WOOD: Well, look, I mean, what we’re for is a free and fair election. And you know, those who win, you know, that’s the result of an election. But again, what’s important here is that there be – that people desist from any type of violent activity. That doesn’t help anything. It only adds more tension to a region that doesn’t need any further tension.
But I’ve given you our – just our general assessment of the elections. And I’m sure we’ll have a, you know, further readout for you once we’ve completed that assessment.
Yes, Nina.

Daily State Department briefing from Robert Wood

________________________________

Facebook, Twitter help Moldova protester organize demonstrations


Social media platforms helped protesters know when to show up where

Even as the Moldovan government refused entry to foreign journalists, new media tools including Twitter and Facebook are playing key roles in organizing protesters at demonstrations in the Moldovan capital.

Protests of around 15,000 people against disputed legislative elections seemingly materialized out of nowhere on Monday and Tuesday in central Chisinau after an SMS campaign initiated by critics of the government.

Sergei Muntian, a 22-year-old protestor, told the AFP news agency that the outpouring began after many people received an SMS that said: "Come fight the Communists in the front of the government building. Pass this message on."

After protests turned violent on Tuesday, cell phone service in the areas surrounding the demonstrations was not available. Whether disruptions were initiated by authorities to stem protesters' ability to communicate or if phone networks were overloaded by the massive crowds gathering in the capital of Chisinau remains unclear.

Unfiltered reports


Twitter users flagged their messages with the label #pman
But outside of the main protest areas protesters were able to access the Internet to post updates on Twitter and Facebook.

Messages on Thursday said NGOs and student groups were planning protests at Avram Iancu Square and linked to YouTube videos of demonstrators reporting cases of abuse by the police.

Using the searchable keyword #pman, named after Chisinau's central square's Romanian name Piata Marii Adunari Nationale, Twitter postings, called tweets, have flooded the online service so much that the protests have been dubbed the "Twitter Revolution."

"Chisinau surrounded by troops," a user named robintel posted Wednesday on the micro-blogging service Twitter. "People are protesting. The US said the elections were OK. Not nice."

Membership at several groups set up on social networking site Facebook have seen membership swell since protests began Monday. One such group titled "Support Moldova" boasted nearly 7,000 on Thursday.

Decentralized organization

Governments have a difficult time controlling information on Facebook and Twitter

The protests were spearheaded by a committee of activists called "I am an Anti-Communist" and their size came as a surprise not just to the government but also to mainstream opposition parties that lost Sunday's election.

"Using the Internet we managed to gather 15,000 people on the square in a few minutes," Natalya Morar, one of the leaders of the committee, told reporters.

Twitter and Facebook posts, though often not verified by independent sources, are proving to be a major source of information about developing events in Chisinau. Some 18 journalists working for Romanian and international media were prevented from entering Moldova on Wednesday, and other Romanian journalists were sent back from Chisinau airport, according to Reporters Without Borders.

Wide-spread use of mobile phones and text messaging was seen to be a central element in the success of the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine as well as protests in Belarus in 2006. Internet-based media platforms also provided nearly instantaneous reports from terror attacks in Mumbai, the crash landing of a passenger plane in the Hudson River near Manhattan, and an earthquake in China.

But despite the large amount of updates emerging via social media from Chisinau, bloggers in eastern Europe have also complained about the lack of information getting in.

Since (the media) have no facts to report, they published an article about the social networking aspects of the protests," wrote Kyiv-based, American blogger Ann M. Merrill. "Please. Give me some real news!"

-DW

Obama approvals are high because Americans hold Republicans in contempt.

Obama has a new radical idea a day and is everywhere all the time.

He is thinking about seeding the clouds to hold back the rays of the sun. He is designing cars, fixing banks, firing CEO's, nationalizing health care and education, changing the defense procurement program, reestablishing relations with Cuba, Iran and Russia, closing down Guantanamo and missile defense, and has not yet hit the 90 day mark.

This morning it is reported Obama will fix immigration. That will probably be followed by open borders with Haiti and nationalizing health care in Africa. Who knows?

He is spending money like he just won the lottery and expects to win it next week, the week after that, and every other week till Christmas.

Despite that, the Republicans cannot find a bottom. Why is that?

I believe it is because Americans cannot stomach hypocrites and they do not believe a thing the Republicans have to say.

__________________

Bunning approval: 28 percent

Political Wire is teasing the results of a Public Policy Polling survey out tomorrow that shows Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) with a rock-bottom 28 percent approval rating.

That's even worse than the low approval ratings of another embattled senator, Connecticut Democrat Chris Dodd, who held a 33 percent approval rating in the latest Quinnipiac poll.

Even worse for Bunning, the poll shows him losing to all of his prospective Democratic opponents, including Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo.

The Electric Car Delusion

Barack Obama's new best buddy, Gordon Brown, knows nothing about automobiles and Obama probably less. Both however have the vision thing. They can see what is best for you, yours and your choices. They are also both beholden to the radical left greenies, and unfortunately have a strangle-hold on their automobile industries.

It seems as if both are enamored with electric cars. (Forget that our visionary preferred a Chrysler 300 when no one was looking.) That means big trouble ahead and wasted billions on cars that most people want nothing to do with now and when they do get to know them, they will hate them. Mike Rutherford gives us a preview.

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Gordon Brown should realise electric cars are a battery-powered nightmare
The electric car is no good friend of the consumer or the environment, warns Mike Rutherford.

By Mike Rutherford Telegraph
Last Updated: 7:26PM BST 08 Apr 2009

After ignoring the British car industry for more than a decade, Gordon Brown has finally decided to get involved. The Prime Minister's latest – and only – message to the sector that employs almost a million of his citizens is that he intends to save it by establishing the UK as the epicentre of the electric-car industry.

Never mind that South Korea and Japan produce more vehicles than we do, and that their corporations are years ahead in terms of battery technology. The confident – if unofficial – word is that this month's Budget will create additional employment for up to 400,000 people, largely thanks to the creation of eco-friendly vehicles. In other words, you can have any colour car you like – as long as it's green.

Having driven my first electric car a quarter of a century ago, I've been following the technology for a while. But while cars that run on batteries have an important role to play in Britain, it's going to be a limited one – and they certainly aren't the answer to the deep-rooted problems with our car industry, or the environment.

True, they can be cheap to recharge (although not necessarily). But they're comparatively expensive to buy. And setting aside the £90,000 Tesla (see what I mean by expensive?), they're slow, and don't run for long before their batteries go to sleep. I once drove a battery-powered Peugeot into the country, which told me I had enough charge to drive home. Sadly, it changed its mind, leaving me no option but to park on the drive of a country house, whose owner kindly poured me gallons of tea as I plugged the car into one of her three-pin sockets for an hour or two.

Even when we can develop batteries that last longer, there's another problem: these cars do not and cannot run without emissions. True, there are no fumes from their exhaust pipes, because they don't have any. But where do you think the energy comes from to charge those colossal battery packs? Certainly not from their owners' solar panels or wind turbines.

No, it is nuclear or coal-fired power stations that provide the essential fuel for electric cars, which usually need to be plugged into the mains for many hours in order to recharge. That means countless tons of CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere: not to mention the additional ecological damage done to the environment after two or three years, when the battery banks lose their juice and have to be disposed of.

Even if you don't care about the environment, are you sure that the electricity companies won't push through a massive hike in the price of power once we're all chugging around in Gordon's green machines? And as for recharging your car at the side of the road, how much do you think companies and councils will charge you for that?

In the long term, it's arguable that batteries are a dead-end technology, and that the real eco-cars of the future are the impressive, hydrogen-fuelled machines that I've test-driven in cities such as Seoul, Tokyo and Los Angeles. But there is little, if anything, happening in Britain to ensure that filling stations of the future will be able to store and sell the fuel of that distant future.

Instead, Brown is blindly backing the battery-powered car over the internal combustion engine. I can't say that I'll be doing the same. I can currently buy a conventional, 70mpg car with a range of 500 miles, running costs of pennies per mile and a price tag of about £7,000. Alternatively, I can pay £15,795 for a state-of-the-art, battery-powered G-Wiz with a top speed of 51mph and a range of only 75 miles.

Mr Brown might want us to live the electric dream. But for motorists outside the cities, it sounds more like a battery-powered nightmare.

What're you listening to?.

Barney says, 'labels are important' as he tries to bully Harvard student.

How does "petulant queen" work as a label?

Look at the audience. Obviously, there are many Harvard professors laughing at Frank's petulant sarcastic comments. Democrats such as Frank are the best hope for a Republican comeback in 2010. Maybe. Hopefully.

Amazing satellite photo of Korean Rocket launch from Digital Globe

Digital Globe Imagery

Click the photo for a higher clarity view.

Many years ago I worked on an over the horizon radar system monitoring Soviet missile launches. We used to get excited looking at phosphorescent spikes on a radar screen, which represented real time missile launches from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome or Tyuratam .

This is a technological and photographic coup.

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North Korean rocket launch caught on film

Guardian

A striking satellite image released yesterday shows the moment North Korea launched a long-range rocket on Sunday in defiance of international pressure.

The image was taken from an altitude of 308 miles (496km) by the WorldView-1 satellite moments after the rocket blasted off at 11.10am local time.

North Korea's official news agency said the Taepodong-2 rocket placed a satellite in orbit that is now broadcasting revolutionary songs. The Pentagon claimed the launch failed and the rocket broke up and fell into the Pacific Ocean.

The launch triggered an emergency meeting of the UN security council amid fears the launch was a covert military exercise. The rocket is capable of carrying warheads and has a range of 4,160 miles, putting Alaska and Hawaii within its reach.

The WorldView-1 satellite is operated by the US imaging company Digital Globe, which snapped the North Korean rocket on its launchpad last week using another satellite called Quickbird. Allison Puccioni, a senior image analyst for IHS Jane's, said it was the first time a satellite had captured a rocket mid-launch.

"The significance of this image is quite extraordinary," she said. "I have never seen anything like it."

The image shows a long contrail left behind by the rocket as it reaches supersonic speeds over the Korean peninsula.

The rocket itself appears in white at the end of the contrail. Puccioni said analysts are still studying the image, which appears to show the rocket at an angle.

"It looks as though there's been a slight change in its trajectory," she said. The rocket may have been caught during a stage separation.

The camera aboard the WorldView-1 satellite has a resolution of 50cm and would have been over North Korea from 11am to midday on the morning of the launch. It travels at 17,000mph and can only take one picture as it hurtles overhead.

Puccioni suspects Pyongyang had timed the controversial launch to coincide with the satellite's arrival, in the hope of maximising publicity of the launch.

Exchanging meat for sex. Only for chimps?

Share and share alike: a male chimp will give up his hard-earned catch for sex. He is not alone.


Chimpanzees exchange meat for sex

By Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC News


Chimpanzees enter into "deals" whereby they exchange meat for sex, according to researchers.
Male chimps that are willing to share the proceeds of their hunting expeditions mate twice as often as their more selfish counterparts.

This is a long-term exchange, so males continue to share their catch with females when they are not fertile, copulating with them when they are.

The team describe their findings in the journal PLoS One.

Cristina Gomes and her colleagues, from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, studied chimps in the Tai Forest reserve in Ivory Coast.

She and her team observed the animals as they hunted, and monitored the number of times they copulated.
"By sharing, the males increase the number of times they mate, and the females increase their intake of calories," said Dr Gomes.

"What's amazing is that if a male shares with a particular female, he doubles the number of times he copulates with her, which is likely to increase the probability of fertilising that female."

High value

Meat is important for the animals' diet because it is so high in protein. Since female chimps do not usually hunt, "they have a hard time getting it on their own," explained Dr Gomes.

One Night Stands

Males might share meat with a female one day, and only copulate with her a day or two later
Cristina Gomes

The "meat for sex hypothesis" had already been proposed to explain why male chimps might share with females.
But previous attempts to record the phenomenon failed, because researchers looked for direct exchanges, where a male shared meat with a fertile female and copulated with her right away.



Dr Gomes' team took a new approach. In a previous study, she had found that grooming exchange - where the animals take it in turns to groom each other - happens over long periods, she related. "So we thought, why not meat and sex?

"We looked at chimps when they were not in oestrus, this means they don't have sexual swellings and aren't copulating."
"The males still share with them - they might share meat with a female one day, and only copulate with her a day or two later."
Dr Gomes thinks that her findings could even provide clues about human evolution.

She suggests this study could lay the foundations for human studies exploring the link between "good hunting skills and reproductive success".

"This has got me really interested in humans," she said. "I'm thinking of moving on to working with hunter-gatherers."
Michael Gurven from the University of California in Santa Barbara studies human behaviour in communities of hunter-gatherers in South America.

He told BBC News that the direct link between success in hunting and reproduction highlighted by this study could "help in our thinking about humans".

Professor Gurven, who was not involved in this study, added that the nature of this exchange of meat for sex is "kind of like pair bonding in humans, because it's long-term.

"This highlights something we haven't seen in chimps before."

GM's Loses its Mind

We have all had to avert our eyes from a desperate and hopeless victim of disease. It is worse when they clutch to some off-the-wall herbal remedy only served up by a shaman in some remote Mexican village. Poor and desperate GM has found a shaman.

__________________________________________

GM, Segway join forces to produce two-wheel personal transporter
By Sharon Terlep
Last update: 11:18 a.m. EDT April 7, 2009
By SHARON TERLEP

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) --

General Motors Corp. (GM:2.05, -0.22, -9.7%) will on Tuesday make another push into the realm of alternative vehicle technology through a joint venture with Segway Inc. to produce a two-wheeled upright personal transporter.

The auto maker is targeting a 2012 launch for its electric-powered PUMA transporter, which would also employ wireless technology to allow users to navigate in urban areas and avoid traffic congestion.

However, GM faces a crowded field of contenders in the alternative vehicle space which, like Segway's iconic but commercially-unsuccessful people mover, have to overcome the challenges of cost, convenience and public indifference.

With a clock running down to a June 1 deadline that could push the company into bankruptcy protection, GM is using the unveiling to try and demonstrate that it retains prowess in new vehicle development having already seen its much-hyped Volt electric car described as unviable by the U.S. auto task force. A prototype of the PUMA - which stands for Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility - will take to the streets of Manhattan this week during the New York auto show.

"Imagine small, nimble electric vehicles that know where other moving objects are and avoid running into them," said Larry Burns, GM's vice president of research, development, and strategic planning, in a statement.

The Segway Personal Transporter launched in 2002 failed to meet lofty sales goals and, despite a cult following in the technology sector, has languished as a novelty for tour groups, police forces and shopping mall security staff.
GM has adapted the original design, adding an enclosed cabin and more powerful motor delivering a top speed of 35 miles-per-hour in a bid to attract a more mainstream customer base. The Puma would run on lithium-ion batteries with a range of about 35 miles.

GM and Segway won't disclose the Puma's likely selling price, if launched commercially. However, he said the cost of acquiring and running a Puma would be one-third to one-quarter that of a traditional vehicle.

Segway Chief Executive Jim Norrod said the PUMA will target fast-growing urban centers in developing nations, where congestion and pollution are major concerns.

"There are cities the size of Chicago popping up in China, and they're saying 'We must resolve this issue of congestion,'" he said. Nerrod said the company pitched the idea of a car-like Segway to Burns and former GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner a year and a half ago.

Segway will provide the batteries and drive system, while GM will design the body and provide communications technology.

Russian military threat may be blown out of proportion.

Am I alone in finding Obama increasingly to be something of a bore?

Barack Obama really does go on a bit
Posted By: Iain Martin at Apr 5, 2009 at 18:26:40
Telegraph

Isn't it time for him to go home yet? It is good, in theory, that the new President of the United States is taking so much time to tour Europe. He arrived in London last Tuesday, has been to Strasbourg, Prague yesterday and now he's off to Turkey. It shows, I suppose, that he cares about the outside world and that is 'A Good Thing'. But his long stay means that we are hearing rather a lot from him, way too much in fact.

His speeches have long under-delivered, usually leaving a faintly empty sensation in this listener even though I welcomed, moderately, his victory last year as offering the possibility of a fresh start and a boost to confidence.

Yet, we are told that he is a great orator and in one way he certainly is. He does have a preternatural calm in the spotlight and a mastery of the cadences we associate with the notable speakers in US history - such as JFK and MLK. But beyond that, am I alone in finding him increasingly to be something of a bore?

His performance at the first press conference in London with Gordon Brown featured moments in which he sparkled - his riff on loving the Queen was a high-point. But most of the serious answers that I listened to were interminable, windy and not very impressive. At points there were pauses so long that it appeared he had simply lost his train of thought.

Today, we were treated to another set-piece Obama speech, and my didn't he go on a bit? The crowd in Prague was huge, and initially wildly enthusiastic, but what he served up was not any more impressive than his damp squib in Berlin last year. Is there a computer which churns this stuff out for him?

"For over a thousand years, Prague has set itself apart from any other city in any other place. You have known war and peace. You have seen empires rise and fall. You have led revolutions in the arts and science, in politics and poetry. Through it all, the people of Prague have insisted on pursuing their own path, and defining their own destiny. And this city - this Golden City which is both ancient and youthful - stands as a living monument to your unconquerable spirit."

Empires rising and falling, destinies being defined and a Golden City standing as a monument to unconquerable spirit... goodness, what a ham. When he really gets going he's worse than Tony Blair.

But Obama was only warming up. "When I was born," (Everything usually leads back to him, you'll notice)... "the world was divided, and our nations were faced with very different circumstances. Few people would have predicted that someone like me would one day become an American President." (Him again)...

"Few people would have predicted that an American President would one day be permitted to speak to an audience like this in Prague. And few would have imagined that the Czech Republic would become a free nation, a member of NATO, and a leader of a united Europe. Those ideas would have been dismissed as dreams". (Not by Ronald Reagan they wouldn't have been, when most of Obama's Democrat friends thought the then US President's robust approach to the Cold War made him a loony on the loose).

"We are here today because enough people ignored the voices who told them that the world could not change. We are here today because of the courage of those who stood up - and took risks - to say that freedom is a right for all people, no matter what side of a wall they live on, and no matter what they look like... (subtly this time, but right at the end the sentence leads back to him again).

The Obamas have handled their trip well and in their public appearances have been a credit to their country. But I'll wager that within a year or so he'll be marked down as a wind-bag.

...'no risk of Iranian attack... no need for the missile shield facilities in Europe" -President Obama

Barack Obama delivers missile shield warning to Russia

Options for missile shield project in the Czech Republic and Poland set out by Barack Obama in Prague

Ian Traynor, Europe editor
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 5 April 2009 13.35 BST

Barack Obama went to the heart of Europe today to deliver a pointed, if carefully calibrated message to Russia - that the Pentagon would press ahead, if need be, with its contentious missile shield project in the Czech Republic and Poland.

Plans for missile interceptors in Poland and a radar station south of Prague are adamantly opposed by Moscow, which refuses to accept the US argument that the project is aimed not at Russia, but at a potential ballistic missile attack from Iran.

In his first presidential statement on the controversy, in the Czech capital, Prague, Obama built in caveats to his commitments, saying the missile shield would need to be "proven and cost effective".

He also declared that if there was no risk of Iranian attack, there would be no need for the missile shield facilities in Europe.

The outgoing Czech government is keen to secure the Pentagon radar station and seized on Obama's speech as a green light after weeks of anxiety that the White House was ditching this part of George Bush's legacy.

The Poles, by contrast, are not so eager to play host to silos of 10 missile interceptors. They agreed to the US installation in order to be a loyal ally and in return for US promises of beefed up Polish air defences, including Patriot missiles, as security against Russia.

"The driving force for missile defence in Europe will be removed" if there was no perceived nuclear or ballistic missile threat from Iran, Obama said.

Gary Samore, the new arms control adviser to the president, said the North Korean missile launch showed the need for continuing with the missile shield.

"The North Korean test illustrates the importance of continuing to develop missile defence in order to protect the country and our allies in Asia," he said.

But the European sites play no role here. The Pentagon's other two missile shield sites, in California and Alaska, are intended to intercept potential attacks from or in Asia.

Thank you North Korea for defying Obama and launching your missile

Buy this man a drink.

It has been confirmed that the North Koreans have defied the warnings from Obama and have launched their rocket. The North Korean rocket is said to be capable of putting a 100 kilo satellite into an orbit 250 miles high. If used as a ballistic missile, it has the threat capability of launching a two ton warhead 3,700 miles. This rocket is larger than anything that they have launched to date. This is all very good news.

The United States has spent huge amounts of money to develop the technology to intercept missile warheads and is in a position to install systems that have a very credible and unknown capability to defend against a limited missile attack. (Unknown is a good thing in the world of deterance.) 

Slowing or stopping our missile defense research and deployment would give China and Russia time to catch up with the US. As that happens, the technology will leach out to other countries, leaving the US weaker and more vulnerable to a missile attack.

The Norks have done us a great big favor. How are Obama and the Democrats going to justify slowing or halting missile defense now? 

A big hug and a kiss for the great chairman.

This clip from CNN explains why:

Nato saves the day. Belgium to send 35 trainers to Afghanistan

It costs more to clean this room per year than Belgium will spend with her 35 trainers in Afghanistan.

Hat tip: al-bob

It is a wonderful thing to have friends and allies when you need them. Certainly it is a tribute to past US sacrifices in Belgium, that Belgium steps in as a clutch player and offers 35 of her finest to supplement thousands of US fighting forces in Afghanistan. No, I am not talking about 35 divisions, not 35 brigades or platoons. No I said 35 trainers. Thirty five?

There are around 360 Belgian soldiers already deployed in Afghanistan, most of them maintaining security at Kabul Airport.

The total cost of the extension of the Belgian contribution to the military effort to Afghanistan was 30 million euros ($44.60 million) in 2008 from 24.5 million euros in 2007.

Wind back the clock.

In December 1944, German forces launched the Ardennes Offensive in southeastern Belgium. That was the Battle of the Bulge.

The liberation of Belgium began in September 1944 and at the end the US paid for the venture with 75,000 casualties.

It took the Belgian army less than 18 days to surrender to the Nazis in 1940.

'The Wire' goes to Britain

The Wire: arguably the greatest television programme ever made

Telegraphh

No other series in history has attracted such critical praise, not least from the kind of high-minded cultural arbiters who would usually only watch a US crime drama with a peg on their nose. According to these critics, The Wire isn't merely the best thing on TV; it merits comparison with the works of Dickens and Dostoevsky. As the entertainment industry magazine Variety observed, "When television history is written, little else will rival The Wire, a series of such ambition that it is, perhaps inevitably, savoured only by the appreciative few."
Until very recently, this was true: The Wire was minority pursuit, an "unmissable" TV show that most viewers on both sides of the Atlantic had managed to miss. On HBO, the US cable network which produced and first broadcast five series of The Wire between 2002 and 2008, it attracted a zealous but relatively small following of around 4 million viewers an episode. In the UK, fans of The Wire were even thinner on the ground. When the fifth and final season reached its climax last year on the digital channel FX fewer than 70,000 viewers tuned in.

Last Monday, however, the appreciative few became the appreciative many as the BBC aired The Wire's very first episode, introducing the drama to a mainstream terrestrial audience for the first time. BBC2 is now showing all 60 episodes nightly, Monday to Friday. The drama made further headlines this week when the British actor Dominic West, one of the show's stars, criticised the BBC for drowning its schedules with costume dramas and failing to make any "high end contemporary stuff" to rival The Wire.

Regardless of whether you agree with West's sideswipe at the bonnets and britches brigade, he has a point about the "contemporary stuff". The Wire is a TV programme like no other. Its central character isn't a cop or a criminal but a city: the faded industrial port of Baltimore, Maryland. Over the course of 60 episodes and multiple storylines, The Wire portrays Baltimore – and by extension urban America as a whole – through the eyes of dozens of characters. Each series focuses on a different facet of the city, including the drug-ravaged housing projects, down-at-heel docks, crumbling public schools and corrupt political administration. Regardless of whether its characters are running drugs or running for office, The Wire refuses to make black-and-white judgements about them. Its prevailing moral universe is grey.

Much of The Wire's power derives from its authenticity. "All the things that have been depicted in The Wire over the past five years – the crime, the corruption – actually happened in Baltimore," says David Simon, one of the show's creators. "The storylines were stolen from real life." Simon wrote from experience: he is a former journalist who spent years working as a crime reporter on The Baltimore Sun. The series' co-creator, Ed Burns, is a former Baltimore homicide detective.
In fact, The Wire is so unflinching in its portrayal of the city and its problems that Sheila Dixon, the Mayor of Baltimore, has publicly criticised it for being "overly negative". (Incidentally, Dixon was indicted in January of this year for charges that included theft and misconduct in office.) While in 2005, during a trial in New York, members of a drugs gang said that they had been studying episodes of The Wire in order to learn about the latest police surveillance techniques, such was the show's realism.

Baltimore's fallen world of drug dealers and urban decay will strike some viewers as a depressing subject, which it is. The Wire is deliberately dense, dark and difficult to watch. Storylines take whole series to unravel, characters move in and out of focus – or are killed off without warning – as the labyrinthine plots develop, and some of the characters use street slang so impenetrable viewers are often forced to turn on the subtitles. David Simon, despairing of and despising most mainstream US television dramas, wants to force viewers of The Wire to concentrate and work hard for the show's rewards, just as they would when reading a challenging book.

In a sense, The Wire's aims are literary. "Our models are the big Russian novels," says Simon, "and also writers like Balzac. We're trying to do with modern-day Baltimore what Balzac did with Paris, or Dickens with London." This isn't quite the boast it sounds; The Wire's contributing writers include several novelists, including Simon himself and the acclaimed crime writers Dennis Lehane and George Pelecanos. "The show is structured like a visual novel," says Simon, "and these writers understand the complexity of theme." By making the show "difficult", Simon hopes to wean them off the pat plots and formulaic characterisation of most TV drama, and give them something to chew on instead.

One reason The Wire managed to break the mould is the creative licence Simon has been granted by the show's creators, HBO, the network also responsible Band of Brothers and the drama with which The Wire is most frequently compared, The Sopranos. HBO is paid for by subscription, which means it is less beholden to advertisers or obsessed with winning huge prime-time viewing figures for each and every show it makes. In 2005, HBO almost cancelled The Wire because its modest viewing figures couldn't justify the $50 million it costs to make each series. The show was saved after Simon pitched the storylines for series four and five to Chris Albrecht, an HBO executive. Albrecht was so taken with Simon's script ideas that he signed HBO up for two further series, even though they were unlikely to attract many new subscribers. It is hard to imagine an executive at any other US network putting a compelling plot before profit.

The Wire is even a pioneer in the way it is watched. Thanks to its complexity, many viewers prefer to download episodes or buy each series on DVD so that they can watch it undisturbed or several episodes at a time. Tellingly, all five series remain in the top 40 DVD sales charts on Amazon.co.uk, even though the first series has been available for seven years. The Wire is an archetypal slow-burning, word-of-mouth success.

Yesterday the final episode of the medical drama ER was broadcast in America. Over the course of its 15-year run, ER won a record 122 Emmy nominations and, at its peak, attracted more than 32 million viewers. Some commentators say it permanently altered the landscape of television drama.

By contrast, The Wire has never won an Emmy and often appears to have been watched by more enthusiastic TV critics than viewers. However, if the slowly mounting DVD and download sales are to be trusted, it is The Wire, not ER, that will be credited with changing the face of television. Perhaps now it is finally being aired on a terrestrial channel, The Wire will be savoured by more than an appreciative few.

An interesting report of a speech from Obama

Big transatlantic moment as Barack Obama bemoans "arrogance" of US and "insidious" anti-Americanism of Europe
Posted By: Toby Harnden at Apr 3, 2009 at 16:24:00
Posted in: Foreign Correspondents Telegraph

Here in the Rhenus Sports Arena in Strasbourg, I've just witnessed what is surely a very important - I hesitate to say historic - moment in transatlantic relations. Barack Obama went further than any previous president in apologising for American behaviour.

"In America, there is a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world," he said in a prepared speech delivered before a campaign-style town hall meeting in which he took questions from mainly French and German students.

"Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive."

But he balanced this startling mea culpa - or, perhaps more accurately, a George W. Bush culpa - with a clear message to Europeans that blaming America for everything was unacceptable.

"In Europe, there is an anti-Americanism that is at once casual, but can also be insidious. Instead of recognising the good that America so often does in the world, there have been times where Europeans choose to blame America for much of what is bad."

Then, in classic Obama fashion, he sought to find a synthesis between the two poles. "On both sides of the Atlantic, these attitudes have become all too common. They are not wise. They do not represent the truth.

"They threaten to widen the divide across the Atlantic and leave us both more isolated. They fail to acknowledge the fundamental truth that America cannot confront the challenges of this century alone, but that Europe cannot confront them without America."

I was standing beside a White House official who told me afterwards that the speech was a concerted attempt to draw a line under the Bush years and offer an olive branch to Europe.

The time is fast approaching when Obama will have to be more than the unBush - that will not get him a pass in Europe indefinitely. He recognises this, saying: "I think it is important for Europe to understand that even though I am president and George Bush is not president, al-Qaeda is still a threat."

In concrete, immediate terms Obama wants to use his vow to rebuild America's global relations by securing more troops for Afghanistan.

The rather woolly US language on this subject last week now seems to be hardening up considerably with Obama saying that although "we will be partnering with Europe on the development side and on the diplomatic side" that isn't in itself enough.

"There will be a military component to it," he said. "And Europe should not simply expect the United States to shoulder that burden alone. We should not, because this is a joint problem, and it requires joint effort."

Word is that Gordon Brown has just pledged to send 1,000 more troops to Afghanistan. We should soon know whether the continental Europeans will also be - as Obama put it while standing alongside Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany - "stepping up to the plate".

More from the Islamic shit hole of Swat, Pakistan

The White House announced that it would no longer use the phrase "war on terror."

One wonders how The White House word merchants who now use the catchy phrase, "overseas contingency operations," would describe a seventeen year old girl being humiliated and beaten in the street by an Islamic thug. Perhaps "attitude adjustment."
----------------

Taliban Lash 17 Year Old Girl
Times on line

This grainy footage appears to show a 17-year-old girl being beaten by Islamic radicals in Pakistan’s northwestern region of Swat, where Sharia law was introduced after the government reached a truce with the Taleban in February.

A local Taleban commander in the militant stronghold of Matta, 25 miles from the regional capital, Mingora, ordered the girl to be flogged a week ago after accusing her of adultery, according to local reporters.

But some residents of Matta have accused the commander of ordering the beating to get revenge after the girl refused to accept his proposal of marriage, the reporters told The Times.

“Please! Enough! Enough!” the girl is heard crying in Pashtu, the language of the tribes who dominate northwestern Pakistan – now the main hub of Taleban and al-Qaeda activity.

At another point, she cries: “I am repenting, my father is repenting what I have done, my grandmother is repenting what I have done...”

The man flogging her is also heard abusing his colleague as he struggles to hold her down and stop her covering her backside with her hands.

“You should hold her tightly so she doesn’t move,” he is heard saying.

President Zardari of Pakistan insists that the truce was made with “moderates” in the region and his officials have even held it up as a model for other parts of Pakistan’s troubled northwest, which borders Afghanistan.

The deal was agreed with Sufi Mohammed, the leader of an outlawed Islamic movement who was recently released after six years in jail for leading thousands of his supporters to Afghanistan to fight American forces in 2001.

He is the father-in-law of Mullah Fazlullah, the 33-year-old cleric who leads the Pakistani Taleban in Swat and is known for propagating his strict interpretation of Islam through pirate FM radio broadcasts.

Pakistani officials argue that many residents of the Swat Valley, which only became part of Pakistan in 1969, have long demanded Sharia law because of the weakness of the secular state judicial system.

However, this footage appears to back up reports from many local residents that the men who have over-run Swat are no more moderate than the Taleban government that ruled Afghanistan until 2001.

It is also likely to reinforce fears that the militants are now using Swat, which is just 100 miles from the Pakistani capital, as a base to spread their ideology and launch terrorist attacks deeper within Pakistan.

Is the Senate Re-thinking Cap and Trade? They better be.

Cap and Trade, if passed, will be the mother of all boondoggles. It is an economic train wreck and ironically, would be the saving grace of the Republican Party. Democrats are beginning to notice. Thankfully.

________________

Congress closes in on budget; GOP offers its own

By Andrew Taylor
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The House took up a budget plan yesterday that would allow Democrats to enact health-care legislation more easily, while Senate Republicans won a key vote to slow the advance of global-warming legislation.
As debate continued on nonbinding Democratic budget plans largely mimicking President Obama's $3.6 trillion budget proposal, Republicans in the House offered an alternative that would eventually end the Medicare program as it is now known.

For all the pell-mell developments on Capitol Hill, Obama's budget proposal, while stripped to its essentials, appeared on track to pass today.

The House and Senate budget resolutions are a necessary step toward enacting major legislation such as Obama's plans to overhaul the health-care system.

Much of the debate centered on who is to blame for mammoth deficits and what to do about them. But the most contentious question may be whether to use the budget plans as a precursor to advancing health-care legislation under fast-track rules that would allow it to pass the Senate by a simple majority after just a 20-hour debate.

As a general rule, debate is freewheeling in the Senate and most bills need 60 votes to advance, guaranteeing leverage to the minority party.

House leaders are insisting on having a filibuster-proof bill at the ready if bipartisan efforts to pass health care fall apart. That effort is being resisted by the Senate, though it seems increasingly clear that the final House-Senate compromise on the budget is likely to allow health-care reform to pass on a fast track.

After a decisive vote yesterday, apparently global-warming legislation will not advance on such a filibuster-proof path. By a 67-31 tally, the Senate adopted an amendment against allowing cap-and-trade legislation to pass the Senate with fewer than 60 votes.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said the Senate "slammed the door on using the fast-track process to jam through a new national energy tax."

In the House, Republicans unveiled a budget plan that would gradually eliminate traditional fee-for-service Medicare, offering a stark alternative to blueprints from Obama and his Democratic allies.

The plan would have future Medicare beneficiaries enroll in private insurance plans and receive a subsidy on their premiums. Benefits would not change for people in the program or those 55 or older.

"If we don't reform our entitlement programs, they go bankrupt and people's benefits get cut automatically," said Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), author of the plan. Democrats said the GOP proposal would result in sharply higher costs for the elderly.

Chairman Obama should look at business friendly China

This is not Detroit

China IPO rule for small firms to help boost growth
By V. Phani Kumar, MarketWatch
Last update: 11:19 p.m. EDT March 31, 2009

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- China is planning to make it easier for small and medium-sized companies to go public, setting up a new trading platform with looser listing rules, and also winning praise from investors and analysts.
The move will further the development of its equity markets and give young private enterprises an additional source of funds, said analysts.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission issued the new rules Tuesday governing initial public offerings on the new trading board, to be created on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

Under the terms, companies seeking to raise funds via an IPO must have been profitable for two years with accumulated profits of 10 million yuan ($1.46 million).

Those requirements are significant easing from current rules, calling for a profitable record of three years with at least 30 million yuan in profits.

The new rules take effect May 1, clearing the path for the introduction of the much-awaited trading platform, to be known as the Growth Enterprise Market.

"We take the launch of a second board as a long-term positive to the economy, as it provides a much-needed exit mechanism for investors in high growth, small and medium enterprises, and should thus encourage further investments in the SME sector," Deutsche Bank wrote in a report.

The announcement boosted shares of Chinese brokerages Tuesday on hopes it will expand the number of traded securities and improve trading volumes.

Wednesday saw the brokerages trading on a more subdued note, with China Everbright (HK:165: news , chart , profile ) rising 4.5% in Hong Kong, and Guoyuan Securities up 0.3% in Shenzhen, but Haitong Securities down 0.2%, and Citic Securities 0.6% lower in Shanghai.

"We believe this also demonstrates [Chinese regulators'] commitment to continued capital market development/reform, which should help investor sentiment on China brokers," Goldman Sachs wrote in a report. "We believe second-tier brokers such as Everbright and Haitong could benefit more from the launch of the [trading platform]."