Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Accuses the Pakis

No diplomatic subtlety here. Singh lays the blame of the Mumbai terror murders on elements in the Pakistani Government. That is an act of war. Now we will see what India does about it.

"Loose Change" - Panetta to the CIA is an Obama Misstep

What's on your mind Leon?

What does Barack Obama owe Leon Panetta? Why him and why now? The CIA is notoriously suspicious of inexperienced civilians and are masters at resistance to real change. What is a seventy year old politician with no intelligence experience going to accomplish with the CIA?

Hillary Clinton, Rahm Emmanuel, Bill Richardson and now Leon Panetta seems like pretty loose change to me.

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Panetta Chosen as C.I.A. Chief in Surprise Step


By MARK MAZZETTI and CARL HULSE, New York Times
Published: January 5, 2009

WASHINGTON — Leon E. Panetta, a former congressman and White House chief of staff, has been selected by President-elect Barack Obama to head the Central Intelligence Agency. The choice, disclosed Monday by Democratic officials, immediately revealed divisions in the party as two senior lawmakers questioned why Mr. Obama would nominate a candidate with limited experience in intelligence matters.

The job was the last unfilled major post for Mr. Obama, who has criticized the agency for using interrogation methods he characterized as torture. Democratic officials said Mr. Obama had selected Mr. Panetta for his managerial skills, his bipartisan standing, and the foreign policy and budget experience he gained under President Bill Clinton.

Mr. Panetta has himself been a sharp critic of the agency’s interrogation practices. Some Democrats expressed strong support for the choice, with Harry Reid of Nevada, the Senate majority leader, describing him as “one of the finest public servants I have ever served with and dealt with since he left the White House.”

But Mr. Panetta, 70, was also widely described as a surprising and unusual choice to head the C.I.A., an agency that has been notoriously unwelcoming to previous directors perceived as outsiders.

(more if you need it)

Is Putin Mentally Stable?

I doubt it and have for some time. From any rational standpoint, It is difficult to understand what Putin is trying to accomplish. He certainly is not encouraging anyone in their right mind to bet the farm on Russian gas being there when you need it.

Russia has very little to export other than arms and energy. Europe has no need for Russian arms and is dependent on Russian energy because it was thought that Russia was a reliable supplier.

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. The EU is trying to low key this, but I'll bet there are a lot of French nuclear plant salesman revisiting their contact lists. 

No responsible political leadership can count on Russia  as a reliable supplier of  energy. 

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Europe faces energy crisis as Vladimir Putin cuts Russian gas supply
Europe has been plunged into an energy crisis after Vladimir Putin ordered Russia's state-run gas company to cut supplies by 20 per cent.

By Miriam Elder in Moscow and Bruno Waterfield in Brussels Telegraph
Last Updated: 10:38PM GMT 05 Jan 2009

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin at the opening ceremony of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum in Moscow. Photo: EPA
As temperatures dropped below zero across much of Europe, the Russian prime minister instructed the head of Gazprom: "Cut it - starting today."

The cut was ordered to punish neighbouring Ukraine, which Russia accuses of topping up its own gas supply by siphoning off energy meant for European consumers and sent through its pipelines.

But Naftogaz, Ukraine's state-run gas company, said that it was European Union countries, including Britain, that would feel the effects of an increasingly bitter East-West energy row.

"Gazprom has in fact cut volumes of transit gas to European customers. The Russian company has therefore placed under threat the delivery of gas to European countries," Naftogaz said in a statement.

The EU meanwhile dispatched an emergency fact-finding mission to Ukraine after eight European countries reported a disruption of gas supplies following a smaller Russian cut last week.

The taskforce of senior officials from the European Commission and the Czech Republic, which has just taken over the EU's rotating presidency, will also hold crisis talks with Gazprom on Tuesday.

EU foreign ministers, meeting in Prague on Thursday, will then assess levels of gas supply disruption and discuss possible action to prevent energy shortages amid sub-zero temperatures in most European capitals.

EU countries are dependent for one quarter of their gas supplies on Russia, of which 80 per cent comes via pipelines that cross the Ukraine.

Some, such as Poland, depend on Gazprom for over three quarters of their gas supply. Britain receives up to 15 per cent of its supply from Russian sources, mainly channelled through French pipelines.

The Czech Republic, Poland, Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Croatia and Hungary have already reported problems with their supply.

The Commission has insisted that "there is no immediate danger of disruption for European citizens". But officials are worried that the latest wave of freezing weather, in one of the coldest winters for years, will push the EU into a full blown energy crisis by fuelling demand for Russian gas as people seek to heat their homes across Europe.

"The situation is changing. We are seeing a cold week ahead," said the Commission spokesman."Cold weather has an immediate effect on demand.

The supply of gas has to be higher or complemented with more use of storage."
At a meeting at Mr Putin's luxury dacha, he backed demands by Alexei Miller, the CEO of Gazprom, for a daily reduction to Ukraine's pipeline gas flow of 65.3 million cubic metres, energy that Russia claims that the Kiev has stolen during a price dispute.

Gazprom first started to cut gas supplies to Ukraine on New Year's Day, after talks over a supply contract broke down amid accusations that Kiev had failed to pay its full bill for 2008. Naftogaz denies allegations it has siphoned off gas without paying Russia.

You won't see this very often.

Worth Every Billion Spent and Life Destroyed

Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki visits Iran


Maliki hopes to use the two-day visit, including a meeting with Iranian President Ahmadinejad, to allay Tehran's concerns about U.S. influence in Iraq.

By Kimi Yoshino LA Times
January 4, 2009

Reporting from Baghdad -- Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri Maliki arrived in Iran on Saturday for a two-day visit with top leaders, during which he is expected to allay Tehran's concerns about the United States' continuing influence in Iraq.

The visit is Maliki's fourth since he was elected and comes just days after the U.S. handed over military control of the capital's Green Zone to Iraq and began a drawdown that is to lead to all American troops leaving the country by the end of 2011.

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I was quite relieved to find out that our hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives investment in Iraqi freedom and democracy will not give us too much influence over Iraq. One should not take these things too seriously, but should defer to the genius, planning and frugality of spending of our capital and assets, by our rulers and masters in Washington.

Moreover, let us not forget, they are all men of honor.

Yellowstone

Every six hundred thousand years or so Yellowstone blows a few hundred cubic miles of everything it can lift into the atmosphere and deconstructs everything in its path. The last time that happened was about 640,000 years ago. No amount of carbon offsets are going to do much about that mother of all cataclysmic farts. 

Yellowstone National Park is a giant collapsed volcano, or a caldera from previous eruptions. Lately there has been a rash of small earthquakes and that may mean something imminent or something in another hundred thousand years or so, but the caldera still rises. Imagine that.

Time after Time

New Year after New Year, some things never change.

There seems to be a collective or selective amnesia when it comes to the Middle East. Middle East memories are extremely short. No one seems to remember that Israel unilaterally left Gaza in 2005. Forgotten are the 20 Israeli settlements which were taken down and the settlers who were forcibly relocated.

For some reason, the world pays little notice as millions of people die in places like the Congo. It's hardly newsworthy when Israeli settlements are rocketed for months, but when Israel dares to strike back with "disproportionate" force, the cacophony of criticism builds to a crescendo.

Hamas calls for revenge, Israel hits Gaza again
02 Jan 2009 13:58:44 GMT
Source: Reuters
* Strike kills 3 children playing in street

* Hamas vows suicide attacks on "Zionists everywhere"

* Palestinian death toll reaches 424

* Protests turn violent in West Bank, Jordan

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA, Jan 2 (Reuters) - Palestinian Islamists vowed revenge on Israel on Friday for killing a senior Hamas leader and his family, and said all options including suicide bombs were now open to "strike at Zionist interests everywhere".

There was no sign of a ceasefire on the seventh day of the conflict, in which at least 424 Palestinians have been killed and 2,000 wounded. Four Israelis have been killed by Palestinian rockets.

Israel pressed on relentlessly with more than 30 air strikes, one of which killed three Palestinian children aged between eight and 12 as they played on a street near the town of Khan Yunis in the south of the Strip. One was decapitated.

"These injuries are not survivable injuries," said Madth Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor at Gaza's Shifa hospital who could not save another boy who had both feet blown off. "This is a murder. This is a child," he said.

Islamist fighters fired rockets at Israel's port of Ashkelon one of which blew out windows in an apartment building.

In Gaza City, a lucky few hundred foreign passport holders boarded buses in the pre-dawn murk to quit the Strip, with the help of the International Committee off the Red Cross, their governments and Israeli compliance.

"The situation is very bad. We are afraid for our children," said Ilona Hamdiya, a woman from Moldova married to a Palestinian. "We are very grateful to our embassy."

They left behind 1.5 million Palestinians unable to escape the conflict, a city facing another day of bombs, missiles, flickering electricity, queues for bread, taped-up windows and streets littered with broken glass and debris.

"We will not rest until we destroy the Zionist entity," said Hamas leader Fathi Hammad at the funeral of Nizar Rayyan, who was killed along with four wives and 11 children by an Israeli missile which hit his house on Thursday.

Spokesman Ismail Rudwan said that "following this crime, all options are now open including martyrdom operations to deter the aggression and to strike Zionist interests everywhere".

PROTESTS TURN VIOLENT

Bracing for protests and retaliatory violence, Israel sealed off the occupied West Bank to deny entry to most Palestinians and beefed up security at checkpoints.

There were protests by Palestinians in major West Bank cities. In Ramallah, Hamas supporters scuffled with the Fatah faction of Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, taunting them as "collaborators". Elsewhere, protesters stoned soldiers at checkpoints and some were wounded by rubber bullets.

In the Jordanian capital, Amman, riot police fired teargas to disperse hundreds of protesters marching on the Israeli embassy, chanting: "No Jewish embassy on Arab land".

A statement from Gaza by Hamas spokesman Ismail Rudwan said Israel's "terrorism, massacre and holocaust will not break us and will not force us to raise a white flag ... killing begets killing and destruction begets destruction".

The death toll rose to 424 as some badly wounded succumbed to their injuries and a morning strike killed two Palestinians in a house Israel said concealed a tunnel and a weapons dump.

A quarter of the dead are civilians, the U.N. estimates, and some 2,000 Palestinians have been wounded. Gaza rockets have killed four Israelis in the south over the past week.

The bearded cleric Rayyan, who mentored suicide bombers and sent one of his sons on a "martyrdom" mission, was the highest ranking Hamas official to be killed in the current offensive. He had called loudly for bombings in Israeli cities.

Israel's armoured forces remained massed on the Gaza frontier in preparation for a possible ground invasion, despite international calls for a halt to the conflict. An Israeli naval vessel lying offshore fired at a greenhouse in southern Gaza.

Late on Thursday, Israeli war planes bombed the Jabalya mosque. Israeli security officials said it was a meeting place and command post for Hamas militants and the large number of secondary explosions after the strike indicated that rockets, missiles and other weapons had been stored there.

Nine mosques have had been hit since last Saturday.

"I will pray at home. You never know, they may bomb the mosque and destroy it on our heads," said one man buying humus from a street stand. Another was defiant: "What better than to die while kneeling before God?" he said. (Writing by Douglas Hamilton; Editing by Keith Weir)

When Hamas was "democratically" elected in a landslide, they were urged to renounce their charter calling for the elimination of Israel. Hamas refused to do so and the world, led by the United Nations, acquiesed as they have time after time.

Hamas is not a secular organization. It is a fundamentalist Islamic group organized around its mosques. This marks the mosques as legitimate military targets but one thing the Arabs do well is manipulating public opinion when the television cameras and microphones are turned their way. They have mastered the art of appealing to the short memories and kind hearts of an increasingly secular and misguided world.

The news of riots on the West Bank put a damper on what was a glimmer of hope that the Palestinians under Fatah control would remain silent and this time would be different. We can always hope even if it's only a glimmer.

Happy New Year 2009. Good health and good luck!

It has been fun sparring and commiserating with one and all. All the best.