Friday, 30 November 2007
Lee Eisenberg
(CNN) -- Police took into custody a man they say walked into Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign office in Rochester, New Hampshire, and took several people hostage Friday.
The man, Lee Eisenberg, claimed to have a bomb strapped to his chest, police said.
After the hostage situation, Clinton, who was in Washington, said "I am very grateful that this difficult day has ended so well."
The situation began when Eisenberg walked into the office at about 1 p.m., Maj. Michael Hambrook of the New Hampshire State Police told CNN affiliate WMUR-TV.
After the hostage situation, Clinton, who was in Washington, said "I am very grateful that this difficult day has ended so well."
The situation began when Eisenberg walked into the office at about 1 p.m., Maj. Michael Hambrook of the New Hampshire State Police told CNN affiliate WMUR-TV.
On Friday afternoon, one of the hostages contacted the CNN Washington bureau and then put Eisenberg on the phone.
The hostage and Eisenberg called CNN multiple times throughout the afternoon and talked to CNN staffers.
Eisenberg said he had mental problems and couldn't get anyone to help him. CNN chose not to report Eisenberg's calls to avoid compromising the safety of the hostages.
Shortly before 2 p.m., police officers were gathered across the street from the office, some kneeling behind police cruisers with guns drawn.
The hostage and Eisenberg called CNN multiple times throughout the afternoon and talked to CNN staffers.
Eisenberg said he had mental problems and couldn't get anyone to help him. CNN chose not to report Eisenberg's calls to avoid compromising the safety of the hostages.
Shortly before 2 p.m., police officers were gathered across the street from the office, some kneeling behind police cruisers with guns drawn.
Other people were caught up at the start of the hostage situation
woman with a baby was released by the hostage-taker early on, she told a witness, Lettie Tzizik, who spoke to WMUR.
"A young woman with a 6-month or 8-month-old infant came rushing into the store just in tears, and she said, 'You need to call 911. A man has just walked into the Clinton office, opened his coat and showed us a bomb strapped to his chest with duct tape,' " the Web site reported.
Bill Shaheen, chairman of Clinton's New Hampshire campaign, told WMUR the people held were volunteers.
Clinton, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, is in the Washington area.
She was scheduled to speak at 3 p.m. at a Democratic National Committee event, but canceled the talk because of the situation, DNC Chairman Howard Dean said.
"A young woman with a 6-month or 8-month-old infant came rushing into the store just in tears, and she said, 'You need to call 911. A man has just walked into the Clinton office, opened his coat and showed us a bomb strapped to his chest with duct tape,' " the Web site reported.
Bill Shaheen, chairman of Clinton's New Hampshire campaign, told WMUR the people held were volunteers.
Clinton, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, is in the Washington area.
She was scheduled to speak at 3 p.m. at a Democratic National Committee event, but canceled the talk because of the situation, DNC Chairman Howard Dean said.
Guiliani in deep doo doo about Qatar connections
Contracts awarded to Rudy Giuliani's private security firm in the Gulf state of Qatar were overseen by a government minister suspected of harboring the al Qaeda terrorist who planned the 9/ll attacks, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, according to security consultants in the region.
New revelations about the extent of the contracts could pose a problem for a presidential contender who says he is the most qualified candidate to combat Islamic terrorism.
Since 2005, Giuliani Partners and its Giuliani Security & Safety (GS&S) unit has provided security consulting and advice in Qatar through contracts overseen by the country's Interior Ministry, which is currently run by a member of the royal family who has long been accused of supporting al Qaeda, according to security consultants familiar with the area.
The current interior minister, Sheik Abdullah Bin Khalid al-Thani, was suspected of sheltering Mohammed at his farm and tipping him off to the arrival of CIA and FBI teams coming to arrest the al Qaeda strategist back in 1996, according to the National Security Council's former chief counterterrorism adviser and ABC News consultant Richard A. Clarke, former CIA agent Robert Baer and a 2004 Congressional Research Service report.
"According to several counterterrorism experts who formerly worked for the U.S. government, Qatar's current Interior Minister and royal family member, Shaikh Abdullah bin Khalid Al-Thani briefly harbored Al Qaeda terrorists in 1996, including the suspected mastermind of the September 11th hijacking plot, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed," wrote Middle East policy analyst Jeremy M. Sharp in the CRS report.
Khalid al-Thani is also believed to have welcomed Osama bin Laden on two visits to the farm, according to an Oct. 10, 2007 CRS study.
In late 2001, Mohammed again reportedly sought shelter in Qatar with the assistance of prominent patrons and another royal family member, Abdul Karim al-Thani, who was accused of operating a safe house for Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the terrorist who later became al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Giuliani's firm has provided security consulting in terms of protecting the Queen (known as the Emir's consort) and the perimeter of the royal court, according to security consultants familiar with the area. The firm also provided advice to the royal-family-owned Qatar Foundation about securing several education facilities and consulted on security at the 2006 Asian Games held in Qatar's capital, Doha, according to two recent U.S. ambassadors.
The firm has also provided security consulting to a giant natural gas processing facility named Ras Laffan and to Qatar's state-run oil company, Qatar Petroleum, according to the Wall Street Journal and the Village Voice.
The firm's liaison with the royal family is Ali Soufan, an Arabic-speaking former FBI agent who investigated the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole and is currently the international director of GS&S, security consultants with knowledge of the contracts told ABC News.
Qatar is a strong U.S. ally in the region, and the government has cooperated with anti-terrorist initiatives, allowing a major American military base to be built there in the wake of 9/11.
But the Giuliani firm's contracts put them in contact with the interior ministry, which oversees all security contracts in the country.
"Any company that does security work in Qatar, they have to get permission from the interior ministry," ministry spokesman Hassan Sidibe told the Blotter on ABCNews.com. He referred calls about GS&S contracts to the ministry's Brig. Abdul al-Ansari, who did not return repeated calls and e-mails.
"Nothing goes on without their blessings," said a British security consultant who has worked in Qatar.
The firm's work in Qatar was too close for comfort to former law enforcement agents familiar with the country.
"We have a guy who could be president who's taking money from the same accounts that harbored terrorists," said Baer, the former CIA agent. "The general consensus is that [Sheikh Abdullah Bin Khalid al-Thani] protected Khalid Sheik Mohammed and that they tipped him off and he's still the interior minister."
Baer recounted being introduced to al-Thani in a hotel lobby in Dubai several years ago while he was filming the George Clooney movie, "Syriana."
"Al-Thani was told, 'Here's Bob Baer.' I shook his hand, and I might as well have plugged his finger into a light socket -- he just jumped up and ran away," he said.
Jack Cloonan, an ABC News consultant and former FBI investigator who was part of the team aiming to arrest Mohammed in 1996, felt that the issue might hurt Giuliani's security bonafides.
"He's a single-issue candidate -- national security -- and this definitely makes for a strange bedfellow," he said.
Asked about whether it was appropriate for Giuliani to pursue business in a country where his firm's contracts are overseen by interior minister Khalid al-Thani, Clarke, the former national security council counterterror adviser, responded via e-mail, "Only if he had done due diligence to clear the suspicions."
The country's former ambassador, Chase Untermeyer, defended Giuliani's role in Qatar.
"The notion that it's some kind of rogue state is just wrong," he said. "This is me pretending to be a political reporter, but I don't see how any association should be a blight unless somebody wants to demagogue and assume that any Arab country is a nest of terrorist sympathizers."
Untermeyer says that as part of a recent reshuffling in the Qatari government, the interior minister kept his title but lost some clout to Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser al-Thani, the minister of state for interior affairs.
"The man who has the title is a man who has a questionable past and is frequently suspected of sympathy and overt support for jihadis," he said. "But it's not unusual that the minister of state is the one who really runs the ministry and not the minister."
Yet Giuliani's contracts apparently began in 2005, when the interior minister was still in charge. When Giuliani visited Qatar in July 2005, he met with Untermeyer who says that Giuliani's firm already had contracts in place. The former ambassador, who recalls Giuliani asking many questions about the country's security situation and political and economic ties, was impressed with Giuliani.
"It's terrific that one candidate for the presidency has some familiarity with that part of the world," he says.
Patrick N. Theros, the previous U.S. ambassador to Qatar who currently runs the U.S.-Qatar Business Council, says that Giuliani's firm helped provide security for different installations -- "rent-a-cops, guys with a glove and a whistle and a radio." He says that they were hired by Qatar Foundation at one point to provide physical security around new education facilities and crowd control at the Asian Games.
Giuliani, who has consistently declined to reveal the identity of his firm's clients, hasn't always been discreet about his work in Qatar. He told South Africa's Business Times in June 2006 that he'd "recently helped Qatar" to transform Doha in preparation for the Asian Games.
When contacted for comment, Giuliani Partners spokeswoman Sunny Mindel said that the list of security consulting jobs in Qatar performed by GS&S was "not accurate" but declined to clarify.
Asked whether Giuliani or GS&S employees have met with members of the Interior Ministry, Mindel responded in an e-mail, "GP & GSS personnel participate in many meetings with organizations and individuals around the world. We do not as a rule discuss with whom our personnel are meeting nor do we confirm whether such meetings take place."
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/11/giulianis-ties.html
New revelations about the extent of the contracts could pose a problem for a presidential contender who says he is the most qualified candidate to combat Islamic terrorism.
Since 2005, Giuliani Partners and its Giuliani Security & Safety (GS&S) unit has provided security consulting and advice in Qatar through contracts overseen by the country's Interior Ministry, which is currently run by a member of the royal family who has long been accused of supporting al Qaeda, according to security consultants familiar with the area.
The current interior minister, Sheik Abdullah Bin Khalid al-Thani, was suspected of sheltering Mohammed at his farm and tipping him off to the arrival of CIA and FBI teams coming to arrest the al Qaeda strategist back in 1996, according to the National Security Council's former chief counterterrorism adviser and ABC News consultant Richard A. Clarke, former CIA agent Robert Baer and a 2004 Congressional Research Service report.
"According to several counterterrorism experts who formerly worked for the U.S. government, Qatar's current Interior Minister and royal family member, Shaikh Abdullah bin Khalid Al-Thani briefly harbored Al Qaeda terrorists in 1996, including the suspected mastermind of the September 11th hijacking plot, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed," wrote Middle East policy analyst Jeremy M. Sharp in the CRS report.
Khalid al-Thani is also believed to have welcomed Osama bin Laden on two visits to the farm, according to an Oct. 10, 2007 CRS study.
In late 2001, Mohammed again reportedly sought shelter in Qatar with the assistance of prominent patrons and another royal family member, Abdul Karim al-Thani, who was accused of operating a safe house for Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the terrorist who later became al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Giuliani's firm has provided security consulting in terms of protecting the Queen (known as the Emir's consort) and the perimeter of the royal court, according to security consultants familiar with the area. The firm also provided advice to the royal-family-owned Qatar Foundation about securing several education facilities and consulted on security at the 2006 Asian Games held in Qatar's capital, Doha, according to two recent U.S. ambassadors.
The firm has also provided security consulting to a giant natural gas processing facility named Ras Laffan and to Qatar's state-run oil company, Qatar Petroleum, according to the Wall Street Journal and the Village Voice.
The firm's liaison with the royal family is Ali Soufan, an Arabic-speaking former FBI agent who investigated the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole and is currently the international director of GS&S, security consultants with knowledge of the contracts told ABC News.
Qatar is a strong U.S. ally in the region, and the government has cooperated with anti-terrorist initiatives, allowing a major American military base to be built there in the wake of 9/11.
But the Giuliani firm's contracts put them in contact with the interior ministry, which oversees all security contracts in the country.
"Any company that does security work in Qatar, they have to get permission from the interior ministry," ministry spokesman Hassan Sidibe told the Blotter on ABCNews.com. He referred calls about GS&S contracts to the ministry's Brig. Abdul al-Ansari, who did not return repeated calls and e-mails.
"Nothing goes on without their blessings," said a British security consultant who has worked in Qatar.
The firm's work in Qatar was too close for comfort to former law enforcement agents familiar with the country.
"We have a guy who could be president who's taking money from the same accounts that harbored terrorists," said Baer, the former CIA agent. "The general consensus is that [Sheikh Abdullah Bin Khalid al-Thani] protected Khalid Sheik Mohammed and that they tipped him off and he's still the interior minister."
Baer recounted being introduced to al-Thani in a hotel lobby in Dubai several years ago while he was filming the George Clooney movie, "Syriana."
"Al-Thani was told, 'Here's Bob Baer.' I shook his hand, and I might as well have plugged his finger into a light socket -- he just jumped up and ran away," he said.
Jack Cloonan, an ABC News consultant and former FBI investigator who was part of the team aiming to arrest Mohammed in 1996, felt that the issue might hurt Giuliani's security bonafides.
"He's a single-issue candidate -- national security -- and this definitely makes for a strange bedfellow," he said.
Asked about whether it was appropriate for Giuliani to pursue business in a country where his firm's contracts are overseen by interior minister Khalid al-Thani, Clarke, the former national security council counterterror adviser, responded via e-mail, "Only if he had done due diligence to clear the suspicions."
The country's former ambassador, Chase Untermeyer, defended Giuliani's role in Qatar.
"The notion that it's some kind of rogue state is just wrong," he said. "This is me pretending to be a political reporter, but I don't see how any association should be a blight unless somebody wants to demagogue and assume that any Arab country is a nest of terrorist sympathizers."
Untermeyer says that as part of a recent reshuffling in the Qatari government, the interior minister kept his title but lost some clout to Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser al-Thani, the minister of state for interior affairs.
"The man who has the title is a man who has a questionable past and is frequently suspected of sympathy and overt support for jihadis," he said. "But it's not unusual that the minister of state is the one who really runs the ministry and not the minister."
Yet Giuliani's contracts apparently began in 2005, when the interior minister was still in charge. When Giuliani visited Qatar in July 2005, he met with Untermeyer who says that Giuliani's firm already had contracts in place. The former ambassador, who recalls Giuliani asking many questions about the country's security situation and political and economic ties, was impressed with Giuliani.
"It's terrific that one candidate for the presidency has some familiarity with that part of the world," he says.
Patrick N. Theros, the previous U.S. ambassador to Qatar who currently runs the U.S.-Qatar Business Council, says that Giuliani's firm helped provide security for different installations -- "rent-a-cops, guys with a glove and a whistle and a radio." He says that they were hired by Qatar Foundation at one point to provide physical security around new education facilities and crowd control at the Asian Games.
Giuliani, who has consistently declined to reveal the identity of his firm's clients, hasn't always been discreet about his work in Qatar. He told South Africa's Business Times in June 2006 that he'd "recently helped Qatar" to transform Doha in preparation for the Asian Games.
When contacted for comment, Giuliani Partners spokeswoman Sunny Mindel said that the list of security consulting jobs in Qatar performed by GS&S was "not accurate" but declined to clarify.
Asked whether Giuliani or GS&S employees have met with members of the Interior Ministry, Mindel responded in an e-mail, "GP & GSS personnel participate in many meetings with organizations and individuals around the world. We do not as a rule discuss with whom our personnel are meeting nor do we confirm whether such meetings take place."
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/11/giulianis-ties.html
Troy Stanley 3
again I dont think its Eisenberg
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,314302,00.html
A man claiming to have an explosive device strapped to his body who took hostages at the New Hampshire campaign office of Sen. Hillary Clinton is a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic named Troy Stanley, his ex-wife told FOX News Friday.
Stanley was not taking his medication, the woman told FOX, and had delusions that he had a chip implanted in his head. She said she had been married to Stanley for 20 years. Police declined to disclose any information about the assailant.
The man released two hostages he was holding Friday afternoon at Clinton's Rochester, N.H., campaign headquarters, law enforcement officials told FOX News, but as of 5:30 p.m. ET Friday there were unconfirmed reports of two more captives still inside.
The freed hostages — believed to be staffers — included a woman with a child. There were no reported injuries, Rochester Police Capt. Paul Callaghan said at a news conference.
"I'm not going to confirm any names," said Callaghan. "We've interviewed a lot of people. I'll just leave it at that."
ABC News reported that police believe the man is a local resident with a history of mental illness who told his son to "watch the news today."
Callaghan characterized the incident as a "hostage situation" that was under control, but said the investigation was ongoing.
"The situation is still fluid," Callaghan told reporters. "I want our residents to know that the area is stabilized and we’re very confident we have the resources available to handle this situation effectively and safely. ... We have a secure perimeter of about four to five blocks."
He declined to offer any more specifics about the case, the suspect or the hostages.
"It's inappropriate to do that right now," he said.
The drama began to unfold just after 1 p.m. Friday when local news reported that a man walked into the campaign office saying he wanted to speak with Clinton, a federal source told FOX News.
Clinton was not in New Hampshire at the time.
The man entered the office, ordered people onto the floor and then let a mother and her baby leave, said State Police Maj. Michael Hambrook. The two hostages he kept were volunteers, said Bill Shaheen, a top state campaign official.
Witnesses reported that the assailant had flares, not a bomb, strapped to his body. Federal law enforcement officials monitoring the situation from Washington confirmed to FOX that the suspect had flares in his possession that were purchased earlier at a local hardware store.
Three agents and a supervisor with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms arrived in Rochester Friday afternoon and were assessing the situation, a federal source told FOX News. One of the agents was assisting New Hampshire state officials in negotiating with the suspect, according to the source.
The FBI and the Secret Service, as well as multiple local police forces and agencies, were also on hand to assist in the investigation, Callaghan said.
Police and SWAT teams were using loudspeakers to communicate with the man, and there were reports that police tried to arrange for a cell phone to be given to him.
"There is an ongoing situation in our Rochester, N.H., office. We are in close contact with state and local authorities and are acting at their direction. We will release additional details as appropriate," the Clinton campaign said in a release issued at about 2:45 p.m. EDT.
Clinton canceled a scheduled speech Friday afternoon at the Democratic National Committee fall meeting in Northern Virginia, party chair Howard Dean announced.
Clinton was said to be monitoring the situation from her Washington, D.C., home. Husband Bill Clinton has a scheduled event in Newton, Iowa, where he was campaigning for his wife.
Sharpshooters were positioned near the building, and at least one tactical bomb-squad unit was also on the scene. A nearby school was in lockdown.
Other nearby presidential campaign offices have been evacuated, including those for Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and John Edwards, as well as several area businesses, according to news reports.
Witness Lettie Tzizik said she spoke to a woman shortly after she was released from the office by the suspect, according to WMUR in Manchester, N.H. The woman was carrying an infant and crying.
"She said, 'You need to call 911. A man has just walked into the Clinton office, opened his coat and showed us a bomb strapped to his chest with duct tape,'" Tzizik said.
The assailant is described as in his 40s with salt-and-pepper hair.
The small Clinton office is located in the New England community's downtown area in a strip of several storefronts, and has large glass windows with a campaign sign out front.
The incident is not a first for a presidential campaign, though such occurrences are extremely rare.
In March 1980, intruders claiming to be with the Puerto Rican separatist organization Armed Forces of National Liberation (Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional, or FALN) stormed the campaign offices of Jimmy Carter in Chicago and George H.W. Bush in New York.
They bound and gagged campaign workers in both offices, but left without injuring anyone after spray-painting nationalist slogans on the walls.
There have also been several non-fatal explosions at the campaign offices of other politicians, none of whom were running for president.
In June 2003, a pipe bomb filled with roofing nails exploded outside Calif. Rep. Loretta Sanchez’s campaign office in Santa Ana, Calif. Garden Grove resident Hai Duc Le, who was severely scarred in the incident, was sentenced to 21 months in prison for the blast. No one else was hurt, and authorities said at the time that the congresswoman was not a target.
In 1998, a soda-bottle bomb blew up outside Jesse Ventura’s gubernatorial campaign office in Minneapolis. Again police said they didn’t think the bombings were politically motivated, and no one was hurt.
And in 1994, then-Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson’s campaign office was also struck by a pipe bomb, but no one was wounded.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,314302,00.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,314302,00.html
A man claiming to have an explosive device strapped to his body who took hostages at the New Hampshire campaign office of Sen. Hillary Clinton is a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic named Troy Stanley, his ex-wife told FOX News Friday.
Stanley was not taking his medication, the woman told FOX, and had delusions that he had a chip implanted in his head. She said she had been married to Stanley for 20 years. Police declined to disclose any information about the assailant.
The man released two hostages he was holding Friday afternoon at Clinton's Rochester, N.H., campaign headquarters, law enforcement officials told FOX News, but as of 5:30 p.m. ET Friday there were unconfirmed reports of two more captives still inside.
The freed hostages — believed to be staffers — included a woman with a child. There were no reported injuries, Rochester Police Capt. Paul Callaghan said at a news conference.
"I'm not going to confirm any names," said Callaghan. "We've interviewed a lot of people. I'll just leave it at that."
ABC News reported that police believe the man is a local resident with a history of mental illness who told his son to "watch the news today."
Callaghan characterized the incident as a "hostage situation" that was under control, but said the investigation was ongoing.
"The situation is still fluid," Callaghan told reporters. "I want our residents to know that the area is stabilized and we’re very confident we have the resources available to handle this situation effectively and safely. ... We have a secure perimeter of about four to five blocks."
He declined to offer any more specifics about the case, the suspect or the hostages.
"It's inappropriate to do that right now," he said.
The drama began to unfold just after 1 p.m. Friday when local news reported that a man walked into the campaign office saying he wanted to speak with Clinton, a federal source told FOX News.
Clinton was not in New Hampshire at the time.
The man entered the office, ordered people onto the floor and then let a mother and her baby leave, said State Police Maj. Michael Hambrook. The two hostages he kept were volunteers, said Bill Shaheen, a top state campaign official.
Witnesses reported that the assailant had flares, not a bomb, strapped to his body. Federal law enforcement officials monitoring the situation from Washington confirmed to FOX that the suspect had flares in his possession that were purchased earlier at a local hardware store.
Three agents and a supervisor with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms arrived in Rochester Friday afternoon and were assessing the situation, a federal source told FOX News. One of the agents was assisting New Hampshire state officials in negotiating with the suspect, according to the source.
The FBI and the Secret Service, as well as multiple local police forces and agencies, were also on hand to assist in the investigation, Callaghan said.
Police and SWAT teams were using loudspeakers to communicate with the man, and there were reports that police tried to arrange for a cell phone to be given to him.
"There is an ongoing situation in our Rochester, N.H., office. We are in close contact with state and local authorities and are acting at their direction. We will release additional details as appropriate," the Clinton campaign said in a release issued at about 2:45 p.m. EDT.
Clinton canceled a scheduled speech Friday afternoon at the Democratic National Committee fall meeting in Northern Virginia, party chair Howard Dean announced.
Clinton was said to be monitoring the situation from her Washington, D.C., home. Husband Bill Clinton has a scheduled event in Newton, Iowa, where he was campaigning for his wife.
Sharpshooters were positioned near the building, and at least one tactical bomb-squad unit was also on the scene. A nearby school was in lockdown.
Other nearby presidential campaign offices have been evacuated, including those for Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and John Edwards, as well as several area businesses, according to news reports.
Witness Lettie Tzizik said she spoke to a woman shortly after she was released from the office by the suspect, according to WMUR in Manchester, N.H. The woman was carrying an infant and crying.
"She said, 'You need to call 911. A man has just walked into the Clinton office, opened his coat and showed us a bomb strapped to his chest with duct tape,'" Tzizik said.
The assailant is described as in his 40s with salt-and-pepper hair.
The small Clinton office is located in the New England community's downtown area in a strip of several storefronts, and has large glass windows with a campaign sign out front.
The incident is not a first for a presidential campaign, though such occurrences are extremely rare.
In March 1980, intruders claiming to be with the Puerto Rican separatist organization Armed Forces of National Liberation (Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional, or FALN) stormed the campaign offices of Jimmy Carter in Chicago and George H.W. Bush in New York.
They bound and gagged campaign workers in both offices, but left without injuring anyone after spray-painting nationalist slogans on the walls.
There have also been several non-fatal explosions at the campaign offices of other politicians, none of whom were running for president.
In June 2003, a pipe bomb filled with roofing nails exploded outside Calif. Rep. Loretta Sanchez’s campaign office in Santa Ana, Calif. Garden Grove resident Hai Duc Le, who was severely scarred in the incident, was sentenced to 21 months in prison for the blast. No one else was hurt, and authorities said at the time that the congresswoman was not a target.
In 1998, a soda-bottle bomb blew up outside Jesse Ventura’s gubernatorial campaign office in Minneapolis. Again police said they didn’t think the bombings were politically motivated, and no one was hurt.
And in 1994, then-Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson’s campaign office was also struck by a pipe bomb, but no one was wounded.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,314302,00.html
Eisenberg
LEELAND ELI EISENBERG formerly known as RALPH E.WOODWARD, JR.,Plaintiff,V.ROMAN CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOPOF BOSTON, a Corporation Sole, and BERNARD CARDINAL LAW a.k.aiICARDINAL BERNARD LAW/DefendantsEach Monday, for many weeks, after leaving the restaurant, Father Buntelwould take the Plaintiff back to the Rectory at Saint Catherine's and offer the Plaintiffadditional alcoholic beverages. After supplying the Plaintiff numerous drinks, FatherBuntel would bring out a box of pornographic materiah sit beside the Plaintiff on acouch,pullout pornographic pictures and magazines and insist the Plaintiff look at thepornographic materials. Father Buntel would then sexually molest the Plaintiff
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:U32obhEy0h0J:www.bishop-accountability.org/ma-boston/archives/PatternAndPractice/0092-Complaint-Eisenberg-v-RCAB.pdf+Leeland+Eisenberg&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:U32obhEy0h0J:www.bishop-accountability.org/ma-boston/archives/PatternAndPractice/0092-Complaint-Eisenberg-v-RCAB.pdf+Leeland+Eisenberg&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us
Flares
hostage situation in N.H., Clinton HQ
The man has strapped FLARES to his chest, not bombs. The flares were purchased earlier in the day.
waitress says, son of hostage taker says father was on 3 day drinking binch and is harmless.
he had roadside flares with him
This seems to be the same person mentioned before
http://ccoaler.blogspot.com/2007/11/troy-stanley.html
SORRY GUYS SKY NEWS DISCONFIRMED THIS.
CORRECTION: SKY NEWS HAS BEEN DENIED TO MAINTAIN ANY LONGER THE NAME OF THE SUSPECT
SKY NEWS IS SHOWING SOME LOCAL (WMUR TAPE I guess) VID.Cody Benett tells that Troy Stanley is the hostage taker.Troy Stanley thinks hes in the army.He thinks of a government conspiracy (probably zionist I guess).He has a history of mental illness
The suspect was an older man known around the town to be mentally unstable, the law enforcement official told the AP. He walked into the campaign office and opened his jacket, revealing what appeared to be a pipe bomb.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071130/ap_on_re_us/clinton_office_hostages;_ylt=Aioxw3ZIva0Lm3iql8OI8MOs0NUE
I guess its not Eisenberg
Eisenberg:
4:51 pm NBC tentatively identifies the suspect as "Leland Eisenberg." Son-in-law claims he was "drinking and that he was someone who wanted to be hospitalized."
4:48 pm "That was the most pointless press conference of all time" was the message I got from a reader. And, he's right.
4:35 pm Just heard from a very reliable source that all of Clinton's offices in Iowa have been shut down.
3:44 pm MSNBC: From AP, There were four hostages, but three have been released. One hostage is still being held. Also, the suspect is "known to local authorities from a past incident and that he may have a history of emotional problems."
3:19 pm ABC NEWS: Suspect is an older male with a history of mental illness who told his son today "watch the news."
http://www.americablog.com/2007/11/hostage-situation-at-hillary-campaign.html
Witnesses described the white male as in his 40s with salt-and-pepper hair.
WMUR-TV quoted a woman, Lettie Tzizik, saying she spoke to someone who said she had just been released by the man.
"A young woman with a 6-month- or 8-month-old infant came rushing into the store just in tears, and she said, 'You need to call 911. A man has just walked into the Clinton office, opened his coat and showed us a bomb strapped to his chest with duct tape.'"
Police surrounded the building, evacuated the immediate area and placed other buildings, including a nearby school, under lockdown.
"There are sharpshooters on the roof, and police are negotiating with someone in the building," another witness told WMUR-TV.
Workers for Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign office in Rochester also were evacuated, a campaign spokesman said. The office is four doors away from Clinton’s. Staffers in John Edwards’ office, a few buildings away, evacuated as well.
Located 75 miles north of Boston in neighboring Massachusetts, Rochester is home to 30,117 people and the site of one of 16 of Clinton's offices in the state, according to Clinton's campaign Web site.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22043358/
The man has strapped FLARES to his chest, not bombs. The flares were purchased earlier in the day.
waitress says, son of hostage taker says father was on 3 day drinking binch and is harmless.
he had roadside flares with him
This seems to be the same person mentioned before
http://ccoaler.blogspot.com/2007/11/troy-stanley.html
SORRY GUYS SKY NEWS DISCONFIRMED THIS.
CORRECTION: SKY NEWS HAS BEEN DENIED TO MAINTAIN ANY LONGER THE NAME OF THE SUSPECT
SKY NEWS IS SHOWING SOME LOCAL (WMUR TAPE I guess) VID.Cody Benett tells that Troy Stanley is the hostage taker.Troy Stanley thinks hes in the army.He thinks of a government conspiracy (probably zionist I guess).He has a history of mental illness
The suspect was an older man known around the town to be mentally unstable, the law enforcement official told the AP. He walked into the campaign office and opened his jacket, revealing what appeared to be a pipe bomb.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071130/ap_on_re_us/clinton_office_hostages;_ylt=Aioxw3ZIva0Lm3iql8OI8MOs0NUE
I guess its not Eisenberg
Eisenberg:
4:51 pm NBC tentatively identifies the suspect as "Leland Eisenberg." Son-in-law claims he was "drinking and that he was someone who wanted to be hospitalized."
4:48 pm "That was the most pointless press conference of all time" was the message I got from a reader. And, he's right.
4:35 pm Just heard from a very reliable source that all of Clinton's offices in Iowa have been shut down.
3:44 pm MSNBC: From AP, There were four hostages, but three have been released. One hostage is still being held. Also, the suspect is "known to local authorities from a past incident and that he may have a history of emotional problems."
3:19 pm ABC NEWS: Suspect is an older male with a history of mental illness who told his son today "watch the news."
http://www.americablog.com/2007/11/hostage-situation-at-hillary-campaign.html
Witnesses described the white male as in his 40s with salt-and-pepper hair.
WMUR-TV quoted a woman, Lettie Tzizik, saying she spoke to someone who said she had just been released by the man.
"A young woman with a 6-month- or 8-month-old infant came rushing into the store just in tears, and she said, 'You need to call 911. A man has just walked into the Clinton office, opened his coat and showed us a bomb strapped to his chest with duct tape.'"
Police surrounded the building, evacuated the immediate area and placed other buildings, including a nearby school, under lockdown.
"There are sharpshooters on the roof, and police are negotiating with someone in the building," another witness told WMUR-TV.
Workers for Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign office in Rochester also were evacuated, a campaign spokesman said. The office is four doors away from Clinton’s. Staffers in John Edwards’ office, a few buildings away, evacuated as well.
Located 75 miles north of Boston in neighboring Massachusetts, Rochester is home to 30,117 people and the site of one of 16 of Clinton's offices in the state, according to Clinton's campaign Web site.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22043358/
China
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- China has refused nine U.S. Navy ships and one Air Force jet entry to Hong Kong in the past month, U.S. military officials said Friday.
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/11/30/china.us/index.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/11/30/china.us/index.html
Troy Stanley
SORRY GUYS SKY NEWS DISCONFIRMED THIS.
CORRECTION: SKY NEWS HAS BEEN DENIED TO MAINTAIN ANY LONGER THE NAME OF THE SUSPECT
SKY NEWS IS SHOWING SOME LOCAL (WMUR TAPE I guess) VID.
Cody Benett tells that Troy Stanley is the hostage taker.
Troy Stanley thinks hes in the army.
He thinks of a government conspiracy (probably zionist I guess).
He has a history of mental illness
CORRECTION: SKY NEWS HAS BEEN DENIED TO MAINTAIN ANY LONGER THE NAME OF THE SUSPECT
SKY NEWS IS SHOWING SOME LOCAL (WMUR TAPE I guess) VID.
Cody Benett tells that Troy Stanley is the hostage taker.
Troy Stanley thinks hes in the army.
He thinks of a government conspiracy (probably zionist I guess).
He has a history of mental illness
Hostage situation at Clinton HQ
Sky News: "Unprecedented" Paul Callaghan-Police Captain, Rochester
tactic:Calm-Connect-change perspective of hostage taker
ALL HOSTAGES SEEM TO HAVE BEEN FREED NOW
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/30/hostages-held-at-clintons-nh-campaign-office/#comment-4171894
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/11/30/clinton.office/index.html
(CNN) -- Two people are being held hostage by an armed man at Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign office in Rochester, New Hampshire, police said Friday.
VID CROOKS AND LIARS/CNN
The man walked into the office at about 1 p.m., Maj. Michael Hambrook of the New Hampshire State Police told CNN affiliate WMUR-TV.
Hambrook and Clinton campaign officials said two people were believed to be inside.
Shortly before 2 p.m., police officers had taken positions across the street from the office, some kneeling behind police cruisers with guns drawn.
A woman and her baby were released by the hostage-taker, the woman told workers at a nearby business, according to the WMUR Web site.
A witness, Lettie Tzizik, told WMUR she spoke to a woman shortly after she was released from the office by the hostage-taker.
"A young woman with a 6-month or 8-month-old infant came rushing into the store just in tears, and she said, 'You need to call 911. A man has just walked into the Clinton office, opened his coat and showed us a bomb strapped to his chest with duct tape,'" the Web site reported.
She was scheduled to speak at 3 p.m. at a Democratic National Committee event, but canceled the talk because of the situation, DNC Chairman Howard Dean said.
"Unfortunately as some of you know, there is a hostage situation in New Hampshire involving a Clinton campaign staff person," Dean told those who had gathered for the event.
"The details are sketchy at this time, but understandably Senator Clinton is now dealing with this very difficult problem and she is not going to be able to join us today. And we will keep them in our prayers and hope for a resolution to this situation in New Hampshire."
The nearby campaign office for Sen. Barack Obama, also a Democratic candidate for president, was shut down as a precaution, WMUR said. The offices of former senator and Democratic candidate John Edwards remained open.
Clinton, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, is in the Washington area.
tactic:Calm-Connect-change perspective of hostage taker
ALL HOSTAGES SEEM TO HAVE BEEN FREED NOW
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/30/hostages-held-at-clintons-nh-campaign-office/#comment-4171894
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/11/30/clinton.office/index.html
(CNN) -- Two people are being held hostage by an armed man at Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign office in Rochester, New Hampshire, police said Friday.
VID CROOKS AND LIARS/CNN
The man walked into the office at about 1 p.m., Maj. Michael Hambrook of the New Hampshire State Police told CNN affiliate WMUR-TV.
Hambrook and Clinton campaign officials said two people were believed to be inside.
Shortly before 2 p.m., police officers had taken positions across the street from the office, some kneeling behind police cruisers with guns drawn.
A woman and her baby were released by the hostage-taker, the woman told workers at a nearby business, according to the WMUR Web site.
A witness, Lettie Tzizik, told WMUR she spoke to a woman shortly after she was released from the office by the hostage-taker.
"A young woman with a 6-month or 8-month-old infant came rushing into the store just in tears, and she said, 'You need to call 911. A man has just walked into the Clinton office, opened his coat and showed us a bomb strapped to his chest with duct tape,'" the Web site reported.
She was scheduled to speak at 3 p.m. at a Democratic National Committee event, but canceled the talk because of the situation, DNC Chairman Howard Dean said.
"Unfortunately as some of you know, there is a hostage situation in New Hampshire involving a Clinton campaign staff person," Dean told those who had gathered for the event.
"The details are sketchy at this time, but understandably Senator Clinton is now dealing with this very difficult problem and she is not going to be able to join us today. And we will keep them in our prayers and hope for a resolution to this situation in New Hampshire."
The nearby campaign office for Sen. Barack Obama, also a Democratic candidate for president, was shut down as a precaution, WMUR said. The offices of former senator and Democratic candidate John Edwards remained open.
Clinton, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, is in the Washington area.
Australia
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- Australia's prime minister-elect said Friday he would pull his country's combat troops out of Iraq by mid-2008, setting a timetable for the withdrawal he had promised.
The move is likely to disappoint the U.S. government, which has counted Australia as among few staunch allies in the unpopular war in Iraq.
Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd's victory ended more than 11 years of conservative rule under John Howard, who had strong personal ties with U.S. President George W. Bush.
"The combat force in Iraq we would have home by around about the middle of next year," Rudd was quoted by Australian Associated Press as telling a radio interviewer in Melbourne.
Rudd went to the polls with a policy of withdrawing Australia's 550 combat forces in Iraq, while leaving several hundred support troops.
The move is likely to disappoint the U.S. government, which has counted Australia as among few staunch allies in the unpopular war in Iraq.
Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd's victory ended more than 11 years of conservative rule under John Howard, who had strong personal ties with U.S. President George W. Bush.
"The combat force in Iraq we would have home by around about the middle of next year," Rudd was quoted by Australian Associated Press as telling a radio interviewer in Melbourne.
Rudd went to the polls with a policy of withdrawing Australia's 550 combat forces in Iraq, while leaving several hundred support troops.
John Gibson
Im still not thru with Gibsons shallow statement that outing Plame was a political issue. It can be a military one. So u go for it when the dems just took control of congress and theyll lynch your ass for it? Is Gibson trying to deroute from the military factor? M yeah well Plame undoubtfully looked for Iranian weapons of mass destruction and not iraqi weapons of mass destruction. So I as a Fox News commentator go free and tell the world that Im totally convinced of the ideo that Mr.Bush might clean the CIA of people who dont like his political views.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/21/gibson-wh-deserves-a-medal-for-outing-plame/#comments
Gibson not only repeatedly took the FOX fiction writer's script of a "War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought" -- a cultural war hot button piece of manipulation -- to the airwaves last year, but also he wrote (or had ghostwritten) an entire book on it. We know; we saw it move quickly into the remainder pile after January 1.
But as the Pensito Review pointed out, Gibson, who would look just fine in a Wehrmacht uniform, really outed himself recently. Apparently, he supports the party line, even if it means that the national security interests of the United States are endangered as a result.
The evidence at hand is a November 21 Gibson commentary, "Who Should Get Medal for Outing Valerie Plame?" It is challenging to even begin to approach the tortured, painful well-paid-for "argument" made by Gibson that standing by Bush means honoring anyone and everyone who rendered inoperative a specialist in tracking the illicit sale and possession of weapons of mass destruction.
http://mediaputz.com/07/11/putz1129.html
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/21/gibson-wh-deserves-a-medal-for-outing-plame/#comments
Gibson not only repeatedly took the FOX fiction writer's script of a "War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought" -- a cultural war hot button piece of manipulation -- to the airwaves last year, but also he wrote (or had ghostwritten) an entire book on it. We know; we saw it move quickly into the remainder pile after January 1.
But as the Pensito Review pointed out, Gibson, who would look just fine in a Wehrmacht uniform, really outed himself recently. Apparently, he supports the party line, even if it means that the national security interests of the United States are endangered as a result.
The evidence at hand is a November 21 Gibson commentary, "Who Should Get Medal for Outing Valerie Plame?" It is challenging to even begin to approach the tortured, painful well-paid-for "argument" made by Gibson that standing by Bush means honoring anyone and everyone who rendered inoperative a specialist in tracking the illicit sale and possession of weapons of mass destruction.
http://mediaputz.com/07/11/putz1129.html
Sudanese protesters demand execution thru firing squad
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa/11/30/sudan.bears/index.html
1000 Sudanese Muslims took to the streets. Protests occured after sentenced was reduced to some days in prison and expulsion. Moolahs called for protests during prayer.
1000 Sudanese Muslims took to the streets. Protests occured after sentenced was reduced to some days in prison and expulsion. Moolahs called for protests during prayer.
Prescott Bush
Naomi Wolf: America's Fascist Coup Owes Legacy To Bush's Nazi Grandfather
Author Naomi Wolf, who made headlines earlier this year after she identified the ten steps to fascism that were being followed to a tee by the Bush administration, spoke publicly for the first time yesterday about the origins of what we see unfolding today, Prescott Bush's attempt to launch a Nazi coup in 1930's America.
Speaking on the Alex Jones Show, Wolf said that she was first alerted to begin researching America's slide into fascism when her friend, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, warned her that the same events that laid the foundations for the rise of the Third Reich in early 1930's Germany, when it was still a Parliamentary democracy, were being mirrored in modern-day America.
"A small group of people began very systematically to use the law and dismantle the Constitution and put pressure on citizens to subvert the law - and that opened the door for everything that followed," said Wolf.
"When I started reading, not only are tactics and strategy being reproduced exactly right now by the Bush administration - but actual sound bytes and language and images and scenarios are being reproduced," she added
Speaking on the Alex Jones Show, Wolf said that she was first alerted to begin researching America's slide into fascism when her friend, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, warned her that the same events that laid the foundations for the rise of the Third Reich in early 1930's Germany, when it was still a Parliamentary democracy, were being mirrored in modern-day America.
"A small group of people began very systematically to use the law and dismantle the Constitution and put pressure on citizens to subvert the law - and that opened the door for everything that followed," said Wolf.
"When I started reading, not only are tactics and strategy being reproduced exactly right now by the Bush administration - but actual sound bytes and language and images and scenarios are being reproduced," she added
Wolf's essay, Fascist America, In 10 Easy Steps, has received plaudits for how it succinctly describes the ways in which dictatorships the world over throughout the 20th century have evolved by following the exact same blueprint for tyranny that we see unfolding in America today.
"Everybody that wants to close down a Democracy does the exact same ten things, the same classic steps and unfortunately we're starting to see these ten steps being put in place in the United States," said Wolf.
For the first time publicly, Wolf traced the origins of contemporary developments back to President Bush's Nazi grandfather, Prescott Bush, and his plan to launch a fascist coup in the 1930's.
"There was a scheme in the 30's and Prescott Bush was one of the leaders of this scheme, an industrialist who admired fascism and thought that was a good idea - to have a coup in the United States along the lines of the coup they saw taking place in Italy and Germany," said Wolf, referring to the testimony of Marine Corps Maj.-Gen. Smedley Butler, who was approached by a wealthy and secretive group of industrialists and bankers, including Prescott Bush - the current President's grandfather, who asked him to command a 500,000 strong rogue army of veterans that would help stage a coup to topple then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
"Everybody that wants to close down a Democracy does the exact same ten things, the same classic steps and unfortunately we're starting to see these ten steps being put in place in the United States," said Wolf.
For the first time publicly, Wolf traced the origins of contemporary developments back to President Bush's Nazi grandfather, Prescott Bush, and his plan to launch a fascist coup in the 1930's.
"There was a scheme in the 30's and Prescott Bush was one of the leaders of this scheme, an industrialist who admired fascism and thought that was a good idea - to have a coup in the United States along the lines of the coup they saw taking place in Italy and Germany," said Wolf, referring to the testimony of Marine Corps Maj.-Gen. Smedley Butler, who was approached by a wealthy and secretive group of industrialists and bankers, including Prescott Bush - the current President's grandfather, who asked him to command a 500,000 strong rogue army of veterans that would help stage a coup to topple then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
A recent BBC radio report confirmed that there was an attempted coup led by Prescott Bush.
"Smedley Butler had been involved with violent regime change throughout his career, but he was approached by these conspirators, including Prescott Bush, and he outed them and he testified to Congress that they were planning a coup in the United States - it's in the Congressional record," said Wolf, adding that the coup was being bankrolled by German industrialist and one of Hitler's chief financiers Fritz Thyssen.
"What is amazing to me and resonant to me is that when the Nuremberg trials were finally put in place, these Nazi industrialists, some of whom had colluded with Americans including IBM, were about to be brought to trial and sent to prison - there was a moment at which they were going to look into turning the spotlight on their American partners," said Wolf.
The author added that laws such as the Military Commissions Act of 2006 were consciously designed to protect current President Bush and his co-conspirators from being indicted for war crimes, harking back to Prescott Bush's history.
"The family history is that you can make so much money uniting corporate interests with a fascist state that violently represses people, that's why when I saw the recycling of so much Nazi language, Nazi tactics, Nazi strategies, Nazi imagery in the Bush White House and then finally belatedly people brought to me this history of Prescott Bush's attempted coup and Smedley Butler's revelations - it gives me absolute chills," said Wolf.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------ENDGAME 1.5: THE PhD COURSE IN UNDERSTANDING THE GLOBAL ELITEEndgame 1.5 documents how the global elite are seizing the infrastructure of the United States as part of a long-term plan to integrate the U.S. with Canada and Mexico.Watch it online at Prison Planet.tv!----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The fact that Bush's grandfather was a Nazi cannot be presented alone as proof that President Bush is carrying on the legacy, but his policies and rhetoric, which in her essay Wolf clearly documents are borrowed from the Nazi playbook, and in particular the recent move to smear administration critics as potential terrorists, are evidence that George W. Bush is the figurehead for a modern-day fascist coup in America led by the Neo-Cons.
Wolf concluded that history shows the only safe course for preserving freedom in such a climate is to prosecute and jail the protagonists of the coup as early as possible, a process many would argue should have been enacted several years ago.
"Smedley Butler had been involved with violent regime change throughout his career, but he was approached by these conspirators, including Prescott Bush, and he outed them and he testified to Congress that they were planning a coup in the United States - it's in the Congressional record," said Wolf, adding that the coup was being bankrolled by German industrialist and one of Hitler's chief financiers Fritz Thyssen.
"What is amazing to me and resonant to me is that when the Nuremberg trials were finally put in place, these Nazi industrialists, some of whom had colluded with Americans including IBM, were about to be brought to trial and sent to prison - there was a moment at which they were going to look into turning the spotlight on their American partners," said Wolf.
The author added that laws such as the Military Commissions Act of 2006 were consciously designed to protect current President Bush and his co-conspirators from being indicted for war crimes, harking back to Prescott Bush's history.
"The family history is that you can make so much money uniting corporate interests with a fascist state that violently represses people, that's why when I saw the recycling of so much Nazi language, Nazi tactics, Nazi strategies, Nazi imagery in the Bush White House and then finally belatedly people brought to me this history of Prescott Bush's attempted coup and Smedley Butler's revelations - it gives me absolute chills," said Wolf.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------ENDGAME 1.5: THE PhD COURSE IN UNDERSTANDING THE GLOBAL ELITEEndgame 1.5 documents how the global elite are seizing the infrastructure of the United States as part of a long-term plan to integrate the U.S. with Canada and Mexico.Watch it online at Prison Planet.tv!----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The fact that Bush's grandfather was a Nazi cannot be presented alone as proof that President Bush is carrying on the legacy, but his policies and rhetoric, which in her essay Wolf clearly documents are borrowed from the Nazi playbook, and in particular the recent move to smear administration critics as potential terrorists, are evidence that George W. Bush is the figurehead for a modern-day fascist coup in America led by the Neo-Cons.
Wolf concluded that history shows the only safe course for preserving freedom in such a climate is to prosecute and jail the protagonists of the coup as early as possible, a process many would argue should have been enacted several years ago.
dec2: Russian election
CNN
MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- Garry Kasparov has defeated the world's greatest chess players and battled a supercomputer for supremacy. Now, he's facing his toughest opponent, but trying to check the power of Russian President Vladimir Putin hasn't been easy.
Intensely sharp, the energetic 44-year-old Kasparov, whose political opposition party has been the most vocal against Putin's Kremlin, can hardly suppress his fury with the country's leadership.
Jailed for five days before Sunday's parliamentary elections, the brooding grandmaster has spent long hours plotting his moves and countermoves.
"This regime is entering a very dangerous phase that is turning it into a dictatorship," he told journalists as he arrived at his Moscow apartment shortly after his release on Thursday.
He said he had been denied access to a lawyer since his arrest at a banned anti-government protest that he organized in Moscow last weekend, but that his commitment to opposing Putin remained strong.
"I'm undeterred in my resolution to fight this regime," he said.
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/11/30/kasparov.putin/index.html#cnnSTCVideo
MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- Garry Kasparov has defeated the world's greatest chess players and battled a supercomputer for supremacy. Now, he's facing his toughest opponent, but trying to check the power of Russian President Vladimir Putin hasn't been easy.
Intensely sharp, the energetic 44-year-old Kasparov, whose political opposition party has been the most vocal against Putin's Kremlin, can hardly suppress his fury with the country's leadership.
Jailed for five days before Sunday's parliamentary elections, the brooding grandmaster has spent long hours plotting his moves and countermoves.
"This regime is entering a very dangerous phase that is turning it into a dictatorship," he told journalists as he arrived at his Moscow apartment shortly after his release on Thursday.
He said he had been denied access to a lawyer since his arrest at a banned anti-government protest that he organized in Moscow last weekend, but that his commitment to opposing Putin remained strong.
"I'm undeterred in my resolution to fight this regime," he said.
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/11/30/kasparov.putin/index.html#cnnSTCVideo
Negative ads start among Repugnicans
MANCHESTER, N.H. - Mitt Romney is the target, abortion is the issue, and the $100,000 ad buy will change the tone of the Iowa and New Hampshire presidential primaries.
This weekend marks the first negative TV advertising in the two early-voting states as the campaign headed into the critical weeks before the first voting, with an independent group's claim that the former Massachusetts governor has flip-flopped — a sometimes crippling charge in presidential politics. Analysts say similar negative ads are likely against his chief GOP rival, Rudy Giuliani, whose positions on gun control and immigration are markedly different from those he espoused as New York mayor.
The anti-Romney ad campaign, by a Republican group that supports abortion rights, is fairly modest in scope. But it may open the door to bigger ad buys targeting other candidates and topics, several campaign veterans said.
"This will be the beginning of it," said Patrick Griffin, a Manchester-based advertising executive who handled President Bush's 2000 media effort in New Hampshire.
Given the pending ad against Romney and the confrontational tenor of Wednesday's Republican debate in Florida, Griffin said, the top campaigns must be ready to launch hard-hitting ads the instant they decide the benefits outweigh the risks. "You can be sure there are scripts written and, very likely, spots produced," he said.
And if not television, then radio. On Thursday, a Republican group that advocates for gay rights launched a 60-second anti-Romney radio ad criticizing his tax record.
Negative ads are certainly possible in the Democratic contest as well. But strategists say they are not surprised to see them first in the Republican race, where front-runners Romney and Giuliani have left a long evidentiary trail of their changed positions on key issues.
"It's a target-rich environment for negative ads," said Dante Scala, a political scientist at the University of New Hampshire.
Accusations of flip-flopping have animated campaigns for years. They proved especially damaging to Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry in 2004, and they have dogged Romney and Giuliani this year.
Thus far the accusations have arisen only in debates and news accounts, not in potentially powerful TV ads that often employ ominous music and grainy black-and-white or slow-motion images. And while campaign ads have saturated the Iowa and New Hampshire airwaves for weeks, they have been mostly upbeat, biographical spots.
That will change this weekend when the group Republican Majority for Choice starts its ads — in Iowa and New Hampshire newspapers and TV spots — calling Romney a flip-flopper on abortion.
The ads' potential impact is unclear. Romney repeatedly has acknowledged being an outspoken supporter of abortion rights until he changed his mind a few years ago.
"I don't know how many times I can tell it: I was wrong," he said in Wednesday's debate. Voters seeking candidates who are "not willing to admit they're ever wrong," he said, will "have to find somebody else."
The major threat to Romney would be TV ads suggesting his conversion was politically motivated to appeal to Republican primary voters. Among the rivals already raising the issue is Arizona Sen. John McCain, who has said Romney's biggest challenge "will be convincing Republicans he has principled positions on important issues."
Questions about gay rights also might provide grist for anti-Romney ads. When he unsuccessfully challenged Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., in 1994, Romney vowed to outdo the senator in championing the rights of gay men and lesbians in the workplace. "We must make equality for gays and lesbians a mainstream concern," Romney said at the time.
He never supported gay marriage, and he now highlights his support of "the traditional family" and a constitutional amendment to ban on same-sex marriages.
Some Republicans feel Giuliani is equally vulnerable to charges of flip-flopping if a televised feud begins.
As mayor, Giuliani sued gun makers and distributors, backed a federal assault-weapons ban and once described the National Rifle Association as extremist. He no longer holds those views, saying the terrorist attacks of 2001 changed his thinking about weapons and personal protection. He was quoted in 2002 and 2004, however, still staunchly supporting gun control.
Giuliani promises to crack down on illegal immigration, a message also at odds with his record as mayor. In 1996 he said there are times "when undocumented aliens must have a substantial degree of protection" to feel safe sending their children to school, reporting crimes and seeking medical treatment.
Such policy shifts by Giuliani and Romney are ready-made for negative ads, campaign strategists say, but the strategy carries risks. New Hampshire's all-important independent voters are especially leery of one-sided claims, and "there's a danger it can backfire," said Dean Spiliotes, who writes a nonpartisan political blog in New Hampshire.
Moreover, several analysts said, a serious Romney-Giuliani spat could catapult another candidate, such as McCain, to the top.
For all those reasons, it is possible that most or all of the early negative ads will be aired by independent groups, such as the one now targeting Romney on abortion. If the candidates decide to launch their own attack ads, "I think it's likely to happen in the last week or two," said Andy Smith, a pollster at the University of New Hampshire.
Meanwhile, candidates will anxiously monitor polls, campaign event crowds and other signs that their campaign is going up, down or nowhere. Ultimately, at least one candidate will decide negative ads are worth the risk, said Michael P. Dennehy, McCain's New Hampshire-based national political director.
"No candidate wants to be the first to go negative," Dennehy said in an interview. "But it will be done, mark my word. It's just a question of when."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071130/ap_on_el_pr/campaign_negative_ads;_ylt=AlgosePvBnlzlB9nG4I5k8Cs0NUE
THINKPROGRESS.ORG: THE NUMBER BUSHS NAME WAS SAID (SURFACED)IN THE REPUBLICAN DEBATE WAS 4-IF U HAVE TO SELL AS A REPUG CANDIDATE, BUSH WILL TURN YOUR STORE INTO A MUSEUM
This weekend marks the first negative TV advertising in the two early-voting states as the campaign headed into the critical weeks before the first voting, with an independent group's claim that the former Massachusetts governor has flip-flopped — a sometimes crippling charge in presidential politics. Analysts say similar negative ads are likely against his chief GOP rival, Rudy Giuliani, whose positions on gun control and immigration are markedly different from those he espoused as New York mayor.
The anti-Romney ad campaign, by a Republican group that supports abortion rights, is fairly modest in scope. But it may open the door to bigger ad buys targeting other candidates and topics, several campaign veterans said.
"This will be the beginning of it," said Patrick Griffin, a Manchester-based advertising executive who handled President Bush's 2000 media effort in New Hampshire.
Given the pending ad against Romney and the confrontational tenor of Wednesday's Republican debate in Florida, Griffin said, the top campaigns must be ready to launch hard-hitting ads the instant they decide the benefits outweigh the risks. "You can be sure there are scripts written and, very likely, spots produced," he said.
And if not television, then radio. On Thursday, a Republican group that advocates for gay rights launched a 60-second anti-Romney radio ad criticizing his tax record.
Negative ads are certainly possible in the Democratic contest as well. But strategists say they are not surprised to see them first in the Republican race, where front-runners Romney and Giuliani have left a long evidentiary trail of their changed positions on key issues.
"It's a target-rich environment for negative ads," said Dante Scala, a political scientist at the University of New Hampshire.
Accusations of flip-flopping have animated campaigns for years. They proved especially damaging to Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry in 2004, and they have dogged Romney and Giuliani this year.
Thus far the accusations have arisen only in debates and news accounts, not in potentially powerful TV ads that often employ ominous music and grainy black-and-white or slow-motion images. And while campaign ads have saturated the Iowa and New Hampshire airwaves for weeks, they have been mostly upbeat, biographical spots.
That will change this weekend when the group Republican Majority for Choice starts its ads — in Iowa and New Hampshire newspapers and TV spots — calling Romney a flip-flopper on abortion.
The ads' potential impact is unclear. Romney repeatedly has acknowledged being an outspoken supporter of abortion rights until he changed his mind a few years ago.
"I don't know how many times I can tell it: I was wrong," he said in Wednesday's debate. Voters seeking candidates who are "not willing to admit they're ever wrong," he said, will "have to find somebody else."
The major threat to Romney would be TV ads suggesting his conversion was politically motivated to appeal to Republican primary voters. Among the rivals already raising the issue is Arizona Sen. John McCain, who has said Romney's biggest challenge "will be convincing Republicans he has principled positions on important issues."
Questions about gay rights also might provide grist for anti-Romney ads. When he unsuccessfully challenged Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., in 1994, Romney vowed to outdo the senator in championing the rights of gay men and lesbians in the workplace. "We must make equality for gays and lesbians a mainstream concern," Romney said at the time.
He never supported gay marriage, and he now highlights his support of "the traditional family" and a constitutional amendment to ban on same-sex marriages.
Some Republicans feel Giuliani is equally vulnerable to charges of flip-flopping if a televised feud begins.
As mayor, Giuliani sued gun makers and distributors, backed a federal assault-weapons ban and once described the National Rifle Association as extremist. He no longer holds those views, saying the terrorist attacks of 2001 changed his thinking about weapons and personal protection. He was quoted in 2002 and 2004, however, still staunchly supporting gun control.
Giuliani promises to crack down on illegal immigration, a message also at odds with his record as mayor. In 1996 he said there are times "when undocumented aliens must have a substantial degree of protection" to feel safe sending their children to school, reporting crimes and seeking medical treatment.
Such policy shifts by Giuliani and Romney are ready-made for negative ads, campaign strategists say, but the strategy carries risks. New Hampshire's all-important independent voters are especially leery of one-sided claims, and "there's a danger it can backfire," said Dean Spiliotes, who writes a nonpartisan political blog in New Hampshire.
Moreover, several analysts said, a serious Romney-Giuliani spat could catapult another candidate, such as McCain, to the top.
For all those reasons, it is possible that most or all of the early negative ads will be aired by independent groups, such as the one now targeting Romney on abortion. If the candidates decide to launch their own attack ads, "I think it's likely to happen in the last week or two," said Andy Smith, a pollster at the University of New Hampshire.
Meanwhile, candidates will anxiously monitor polls, campaign event crowds and other signs that their campaign is going up, down or nowhere. Ultimately, at least one candidate will decide negative ads are worth the risk, said Michael P. Dennehy, McCain's New Hampshire-based national political director.
"No candidate wants to be the first to go negative," Dennehy said in an interview. "But it will be done, mark my word. It's just a question of when."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071130/ap_on_el_pr/campaign_negative_ads;_ylt=AlgosePvBnlzlB9nG4I5k8Cs0NUE
THINKPROGRESS.ORG: THE NUMBER BUSHS NAME WAS SAID (SURFACED)IN THE REPUBLICAN DEBATE WAS 4-IF U HAVE TO SELL AS A REPUG CANDIDATE, BUSH WILL TURN YOUR STORE INTO A MUSEUM
Thursday, 29 November 2007
Saxony
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxony-Anhalt-Dutchy of Saxony
Magdeburg (AP) Der Direktor des Landeskriminalamtes Sachsen-Anhalt, Frank Hüttemann, hat am Mittwoch sein Amt aufgegeben. In einem persönlichen Gespräch mit Innenminister Holger Hövelmann habe der LKA-Chef die Verantwortung für Kommunikationsprobleme bei der Kriminalstatistik übernommen, teilte die Magdeburger Behörde mit. Der Minister habe dem Wunsch Hüttemanns entsprochen, ihn von seinen Aufgaben zu entbinden.
Anzeige
Die jüngste Halbjahresbilanz zur Kriminalitätsentwicklung in Sachsen-Anhalt hatte einen deutlichen Rückgang bei den «politisch motivierten Straftaten rechts», dafür aber einen Anstieg bei den Straftaten «ohne explizite politische Motivation» ausgewiesen. Über die veränderte Erfassung der Delikte war das Innenministerium nicht informiert worden.
Nach Angaben des Ministerium gebe es jedoch keinen Anhaltspunkt dafür, dass durch das Vorgehen des LKA die Statistik geschönt werden sollte. Keine politische Straftat sei durch die veränderte Zählweise unter den Tisch gefallen, wurde versichert.
© 2007 The Associated Press. Alle Rechte Vorbehalten - All Rights Reserved
Magdeburg (AP) Der Direktor des Landeskriminalamtes Sachsen-Anhalt, Frank Hüttemann, hat am Mittwoch sein Amt aufgegeben. In einem persönlichen Gespräch mit Innenminister Holger Hövelmann habe der LKA-Chef die Verantwortung für Kommunikationsprobleme bei der Kriminalstatistik übernommen, teilte die Magdeburger Behörde mit. Der Minister habe dem Wunsch Hüttemanns entsprochen, ihn von seinen Aufgaben zu entbinden.
Anzeige
Die jüngste Halbjahresbilanz zur Kriminalitätsentwicklung in Sachsen-Anhalt hatte einen deutlichen Rückgang bei den «politisch motivierten Straftaten rechts», dafür aber einen Anstieg bei den Straftaten «ohne explizite politische Motivation» ausgewiesen. Über die veränderte Erfassung der Delikte war das Innenministerium nicht informiert worden.
Nach Angaben des Ministerium gebe es jedoch keinen Anhaltspunkt dafür, dass durch das Vorgehen des LKA die Statistik geschönt werden sollte. Keine politische Straftat sei durch die veränderte Zählweise unter den Tisch gefallen, wurde versichert.
© 2007 The Associated Press. Alle Rechte Vorbehalten - All Rights Reserved
Boeselager turns 90
Georgia's former defense minister Irakly Okruashvili,
BERLIN, November 28 (Itar-Tass) - Georgia's former defense minister Irakly Okruashvili, who is currently a leader of political opposition to President Mikhail Saakashvili, has been arrested in Berlin upon a reques from the Georgian side.
A source at the State Prosecution Service who reported the fact did not specify the date on which President Saakashvili's former closest political ally had been arrested.
In the meantime, Okruashvili's Tbilisi-based lawyer Eka Besselia told reporters Wednesday she did not have any information on on her client's detention in Germany. http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=12119059&PageNum=0
A source at the State Prosecution Service who reported the fact did not specify the date on which President Saakashvili's former closest political ally had been arrested.
In the meantime, Okruashvili's Tbilisi-based lawyer Eka Besselia told reporters Wednesday she did not have any information on on her client's detention in Germany. http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=12119059&PageNum=0
Bush pushes Democrats to OK war funding
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071129/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush
WASHINGTON - President Bush sternly pressed Democrats to approve money to fund the Iraq war "without strings and without delay" before leaving town for the Christmas holidays, something congressional leaders have already indicated they will not do.
WASHINGTON - President Bush sternly pressed Democrats to approve money to fund the Iraq war "without strings and without delay" before leaving town for the Christmas holidays, something congressional leaders have already indicated they will not do.
Carthage
yes we multiply
so dont divide
violence causes contra violence
c and Jesus said so
fuck divide and impera
Nuke Traders
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/11/29/nuclear.arrests.ap/index.html
BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) -- Two Hungarians and a Ukrainian arrested in an attempted sale of uranium thwarted by police were peddling material enriched enough to be used in a radiological "dirty bomb," Slovak authorities said Thursday.
BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) -- Two Hungarians and a Ukrainian arrested in an attempted sale of uranium thwarted by police were peddling material enriched enough to be used in a radiological "dirty bomb," Slovak authorities said Thursday.
Manila coup bid ends in surrender
Troops storm Manila siege hotel
Police in the Philippines storm a luxury hotel in Manila, after it is taken over by armed renegade soldiers.
A coup bid by renegade Philippine soldiers has ended after hundreds of government troops stormed a luxury hotel in Manila.
The renegades were arrested by police and led, handcuffed, out of the Peninsula Hotel.
They had barricaded themselves in the building after breaking out of court where they were standing trial over a failed 2003 mutiny.
They were calling for the overthrow of President Gloria Arroyo.
In a website statement, the organisers of the botched coup attempt said the country was facing "a crisis of extreme proportions" and that Mrs Arroyo was a "bogus president".
"We have today withdrawn our support from Mrs Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, in order to end her unconstitutional and illegal occupation of the presidency," one of the leaders, Brig Gen Danilo Lim, wrote.
'Chaos and panic'
A five-hour overnight curfew has been imposed in Manila, starting at 2400 (1600GMT).
Interior minister Ronaldo Puno said it would allow the authorities to conduct "follow-up" security operations.
During the hotel assault, about 1,500 government troops had surrounded the building before an armoured personnel carrier smashed through the main entrance.
Tear gas and shots were fired, but there are no reports of casualties.
The BBC's Michael Barker at the scene said the lobby was covered with shattered glass and there were Christmas decorations on the floor.
A leader of the rebels, Sen Antonio Trillanes, said they were ending their action to save the lives of civilians and journalists inside the hotel.
He was arrested along with about two dozen soldiers.
Leonie Anning, a British tourist in Manila, told the BBC News website that she was in a nearby shop when she was evacuated and rushed onto the street.
"There was big chaos and panic," she said.
"There were many armed soldiers... and not knowing what's going on, it was pretty scary," she said.
However, Michael Whiting, the vice-chairman of the British Chamber of Commerce in Manila, told the BBC News website that his Filipino colleagues seemed "pretty apathetic".
"Most people have grown weary of attempts to overthrow the government," he said.
'World watching'
Robert Reyes, a priest who supported the rebels, said the violence was unnecessary.
"We did not really intend any violence - the violence came from the military," he said from the lobby before the rebels surrendered.
"You saw what happened - they had to ram a tank into the lobby of the hotel where there was not a single gunshot was fired. The whole world was watching - may the world have mercy on this government."
The Philippines has a history of insurrection and popular revolt.
Mrs Arroyo, whose popularity has been dented by long-standing corruption allegations, has already survived at least two coup plots and three attempts to impeach her during her time in office.
Sen Trillanes, a navy lieutenant, was elected in May but has remained in military detention while on trial over a 2003 mutiny.
Then renegade troops took over a shopping centre for a day, until they were overpowered by security forces.
MANILA, Philippines (CNN) -- Dramatically played out on live television, an opposition politician and rebel military officers surrendered to government forces after taking over a luxury hotel in Manila.
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/11/29/philippines.hotel/index.html
"We're going out for the sake of the safety of everybody," Philippines Sen. Antonio Trillanes said.
The senator made the decision to give up after the military peppered the inside of the hotel with tear gas. Live pictures from inside the hotel showed reporters and rebel soldiers covering their faces.
An armoured personnel vehicle was also seen firing into the lobby of Manila's Peninsula hotel and later rammed through the front entrance of the building.
"The situation is contained within the Peninsula hotel, Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro told CNN.
"The perpetrators are in the process of being arrested." Those who held the hotel were shown being loaded into a Philippine National Police bus.
Teodoro said no one was injured, but Associated Press reported that at least two people were injured.
The standoff began hours earlier when a group led by Trillanes and Army Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim bolted from a court hearing on charges linked to a failed 2003 coup attempt.
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/11/29/philippines.hotel/index.html#cnnSTCVideo
"What happened, to me, was clearly either an attempted rebellion or an attempted coup d'etat," Teodoro said.
Philippines military and police personnel had been surrounding the hotel, where the group was asking for President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to step down. After Trillanes' announcement, soldiers milled around the outside of the hotel, but the scene had calmed noticeably.
Arroyo had issued orders to the military and police in response to the seizure of the hotel, located in Manila's Makati financial district, journalist Adrian Addison told CNN. Few supporters of the rebels were visible around the Peninsula hotel, Addison said.
Philippine authorities gave the rebel group until 2:30 p.m. (0630 GMT) to allow guests to leave the hotel, and until 3:00 p.m. (0700 GMT) to surrender, the ABS-CBN news service reported.
Businessman Peter Parcel was caught in the middle of the hotel's takeover and subsequent tear-gassing. Listen to the eyewitness in the hotel describe what happened
"I couldn't see and couldn't breathe," he said, noting he faced "at least 100 guns" as he exited the hotel.
You had illegal immigrants working under your nose.
www.latimes.com/la-debate29nov29-vid,0,3570759.blurb?coll=la-home-center
Guiliani turns a bit too impolite towards Romney. It appears like some late retaliation for the scandal about Kerik's cleaner.
It sounds too much like personal advantage. Romney too sexy?
The village voice reported some months ago, Guiliani fucked most of the time in WTC7, the building that blew up without a plane ever touching it.
So far, Rudy Giuliani’s scandalous personal life has been largely ignored by major media outlets. One of these days, that’s going to change, and today may be the day.
Giuliani is the first thrice-married serial adulterer to ever even run for president, a fact that most reporters have ignored entirely. When the Village Voice reported a few months ago that Giuliani kept his emergency command center in 7 World Trade Center, in part so he could maintain a convenient love nest for his extra-marital affairs, the media, once again, yawned.
OK, but how about this one?
As New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani billed obscure city agencies for tens of thousands of dollars in security expenses amassed during the time when he was beginning an extramarital relationship with future wife Judith Nathan in the Hamptons, according to previously undisclosed government records.
The documents, obtained by Politico under New York’s Freedom of Information Law, show that the mayoral costs had nothing to do with the functions of the little-known city offices that defrayed his tabs, including agencies responsible for regulating loft apartments, aiding the disabled and providing lawyers for indigent defendants.
I realize the common-sense rules and norms don’t apply to Republican presidential candidates, but a story like this one could, and very well may, end Giuliani’s presidential campaign.
Even if one is inclined to ignore the character questions surrounding Giuliani’s shameless and repeated adultery, the scandal here goes much further, including financial irregularities, misuse of official city resources, and an attempt to conceal the mayor’s conduct.
A Giuliani campaign spokesperson declined to comment on any aspect of the story, including the travel documents or the billing arrangements. It’s just as well. Some things are just un-spinnable.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/11/28/giulianis-personal-scandals-take-a-turn-for-the-worse/
Three weeks after 9/11, when the roar of fighter jets still haunted the city's skyline, the emir of gas-rich Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifah al-Thani, toured Ground Zero. Although a member of the emir's own royal family had harbored the man who would later be identified as the mastermind of the attack—a man named Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, often referred to in intelligence circles by his initials, KSM—al-Thani rushed to New York in its aftermath, offering to make a $3 million donation, principally to the families of its victims. Rudy Giuliani, apparently unaware of what the FBI and CIA had long known about Qatari links to Al Qaeda, appeared on CNN with al-Thani that night and vouched for the emir when Larry King asked the mayor: "You are a friend of his, are you not?""We had a very good meeting yesterday. Very good," said Giuliani, adding that he was "very, very grateful" for al-Thani's generosity. It was no cinch, of course, that Giuliani would take the money: A week later, he famously rejected a $10 million donation from a Saudi prince who advised America that it should "adopt a more balanced stand toward the Palestinian cause." (Giuliani continues to congratulate himself for that snub on the campaign trail.) Al-Thani waited a month before expressing essentially the same feelings when he returned to New York for a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly and stressed how important it was to "distinguish" between the "phenomenon" of 9/11 and "the legitimate struggles" of the Palestinians "to get rid of the yoke of illegitimate occupation and subjugation." Al-Thani then accused Israel of "state terrorism" against the Palestinians.But there was another reason to think twice about accepting al-Thani's generosity that Giuliani had to have been aware of, even as he heaped praise on the emir. Al Jazeera, the Arabic news network based in Qatar (pronounced "Cutter"), had been all but created by al-Thani, who was its largest shareholder. The Bush administration was so upset with the coverage of Osama bin Laden's pronouncements and the U.S. threats to bomb Afghanistan that Secretary of State Colin Powell met the emir just hours before Giuliani's on-air endorsement and asked him to tone down the state-subsidized channel's Islamist footage and rhetoric. The six-foot-eight, 350-pound al-Thani, who was pumping about $30 million a year into Al Jazeera at the time, refused Powell's request, citing the need for "a free and credible media." The administration's burgeoning distaste for what it would later brand "Terror TV" was already so palpable that King—hardly a newsman—asked the emir if he would help "spread the word" that the U.S. was "not targeting the average Afghan citizen." Al-Thani ignored the question—right before Giuliani rushed in to praise him again. In retrospect, Giuliani's embrace of the emir appears peculiar. But it was only a sign of bigger things to come: the launching of a cozy business relationship with terrorist-tolerant Qatar that is inconsistent with the core message of Giuliani's current presidential campaign, namely that his experience and toughness uniquely equip him to protect America from what he tauntingly calls "Islamic terrorists"—an enemy that he always portrays himself as ready to confront, and the Democrats as ready to accommodate.The contradictory and stunning reality is that Giuliani Partners, the consulting company that has made Giuliani rich, feasts at the Qatar trough, doing business with the ministry run by the very member of the royal family identified in news and government reports as having concealed KSM—the terrorist mastermind who wired funds from Qatar to his nephew Ramzi Yousef prior to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and who also sold the idea of a plane attack on the towers to Osama bin Laden—on his Qatar farm in the mid-1990s.This royal family member is Abdallah bin Khalid al-Thani, Qatar's minister of Islamic affairs at the time, who was later installed at the interior ministry in January 2001 and reappointed by the emir during a government shake-up earlier this year.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/rudys-got-secrets-by-digby-most-of-you.html
Guiliani turns a bit too impolite towards Romney. It appears like some late retaliation for the scandal about Kerik's cleaner.
It sounds too much like personal advantage. Romney too sexy?
The village voice reported some months ago, Guiliani fucked most of the time in WTC7, the building that blew up without a plane ever touching it.
So far, Rudy Giuliani’s scandalous personal life has been largely ignored by major media outlets. One of these days, that’s going to change, and today may be the day.
Giuliani is the first thrice-married serial adulterer to ever even run for president, a fact that most reporters have ignored entirely. When the Village Voice reported a few months ago that Giuliani kept his emergency command center in 7 World Trade Center, in part so he could maintain a convenient love nest for his extra-marital affairs, the media, once again, yawned.
OK, but how about this one?
As New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani billed obscure city agencies for tens of thousands of dollars in security expenses amassed during the time when he was beginning an extramarital relationship with future wife Judith Nathan in the Hamptons, according to previously undisclosed government records.
The documents, obtained by Politico under New York’s Freedom of Information Law, show that the mayoral costs had nothing to do with the functions of the little-known city offices that defrayed his tabs, including agencies responsible for regulating loft apartments, aiding the disabled and providing lawyers for indigent defendants.
I realize the common-sense rules and norms don’t apply to Republican presidential candidates, but a story like this one could, and very well may, end Giuliani’s presidential campaign.
Even if one is inclined to ignore the character questions surrounding Giuliani’s shameless and repeated adultery, the scandal here goes much further, including financial irregularities, misuse of official city resources, and an attempt to conceal the mayor’s conduct.
A Giuliani campaign spokesperson declined to comment on any aspect of the story, including the travel documents or the billing arrangements. It’s just as well. Some things are just un-spinnable.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/11/28/giulianis-personal-scandals-take-a-turn-for-the-worse/
Three weeks after 9/11, when the roar of fighter jets still haunted the city's skyline, the emir of gas-rich Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifah al-Thani, toured Ground Zero. Although a member of the emir's own royal family had harbored the man who would later be identified as the mastermind of the attack—a man named Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, often referred to in intelligence circles by his initials, KSM—al-Thani rushed to New York in its aftermath, offering to make a $3 million donation, principally to the families of its victims. Rudy Giuliani, apparently unaware of what the FBI and CIA had long known about Qatari links to Al Qaeda, appeared on CNN with al-Thani that night and vouched for the emir when Larry King asked the mayor: "You are a friend of his, are you not?""We had a very good meeting yesterday. Very good," said Giuliani, adding that he was "very, very grateful" for al-Thani's generosity. It was no cinch, of course, that Giuliani would take the money: A week later, he famously rejected a $10 million donation from a Saudi prince who advised America that it should "adopt a more balanced stand toward the Palestinian cause." (Giuliani continues to congratulate himself for that snub on the campaign trail.) Al-Thani waited a month before expressing essentially the same feelings when he returned to New York for a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly and stressed how important it was to "distinguish" between the "phenomenon" of 9/11 and "the legitimate struggles" of the Palestinians "to get rid of the yoke of illegitimate occupation and subjugation." Al-Thani then accused Israel of "state terrorism" against the Palestinians.But there was another reason to think twice about accepting al-Thani's generosity that Giuliani had to have been aware of, even as he heaped praise on the emir. Al Jazeera, the Arabic news network based in Qatar (pronounced "Cutter"), had been all but created by al-Thani, who was its largest shareholder. The Bush administration was so upset with the coverage of Osama bin Laden's pronouncements and the U.S. threats to bomb Afghanistan that Secretary of State Colin Powell met the emir just hours before Giuliani's on-air endorsement and asked him to tone down the state-subsidized channel's Islamist footage and rhetoric. The six-foot-eight, 350-pound al-Thani, who was pumping about $30 million a year into Al Jazeera at the time, refused Powell's request, citing the need for "a free and credible media." The administration's burgeoning distaste for what it would later brand "Terror TV" was already so palpable that King—hardly a newsman—asked the emir if he would help "spread the word" that the U.S. was "not targeting the average Afghan citizen." Al-Thani ignored the question—right before Giuliani rushed in to praise him again. In retrospect, Giuliani's embrace of the emir appears peculiar. But it was only a sign of bigger things to come: the launching of a cozy business relationship with terrorist-tolerant Qatar that is inconsistent with the core message of Giuliani's current presidential campaign, namely that his experience and toughness uniquely equip him to protect America from what he tauntingly calls "Islamic terrorists"—an enemy that he always portrays himself as ready to confront, and the Democrats as ready to accommodate.The contradictory and stunning reality is that Giuliani Partners, the consulting company that has made Giuliani rich, feasts at the Qatar trough, doing business with the ministry run by the very member of the royal family identified in news and government reports as having concealed KSM—the terrorist mastermind who wired funds from Qatar to his nephew Ramzi Yousef prior to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and who also sold the idea of a plane attack on the towers to Osama bin Laden—on his Qatar farm in the mid-1990s.This royal family member is Abdallah bin Khalid al-Thani, Qatar's minister of Islamic affairs at the time, who was later installed at the interior ministry in January 2001 and reappointed by the emir during a government shake-up earlier this year.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/rudys-got-secrets-by-digby-most-of-you.html
Guiliani was payed by several obscure city agencies
As New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani billed obscure city agencies for tens of thousands of dollars in security expenses amassed during the time when he was beginning an extramarital relationship with future wife Judith Nathan in the Hamptons, according to previously undisclosed government records.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1107/7073.html
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1107/7073.html
Wednesday, 28 November 2007
News about some footprint near Kerchers body
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6659029147656067735
CNN has obtained a copy of the report that Perugia's chief prosecutor will present at a hearing Friday to decide if Amanda Knox, 20, Kercher's American roommate, and Knox's boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, 23, can continue to be held in custody.
In the document, Giuliano Mignini says Knox's DNA matched a blood stain found on the sink in the bathroom next to the victim's bedroom. The report also points to a footprint found by forensic police near to Kercher's body that it says belonged to Sollecito.
Kercher, an exchange student at Perugia's university, was killed late on November 1 in the villa where she lived. Investigators found her the next day, with a stab wound to her neck.
A report issued more than a week ago by an Italian judge suggested she may have been sexually assaulted at knifepoint before she was killed in her bed.
CNN has obtained a copy of the report that Perugia's chief prosecutor will present at a hearing Friday to decide if Amanda Knox, 20, Kercher's American roommate, and Knox's boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, 23, can continue to be held in custody.
In the document, Giuliano Mignini says Knox's DNA matched a blood stain found on the sink in the bathroom next to the victim's bedroom. The report also points to a footprint found by forensic police near to Kercher's body that it says belonged to Sollecito.
Kercher, an exchange student at Perugia's university, was killed late on November 1 in the villa where she lived. Investigators found her the next day, with a stab wound to her neck.
A report issued more than a week ago by an Italian judge suggested she may have been sexually assaulted at knifepoint before she was killed in her bed.
Death Squads
Mark Karlin, Editor and Publisher, BuzzFlash.com
November 28, 2007
You can excuse BuzzFlash for being confused sometimes as to what militias in Iraq the Bush Administration is currently backing. After all, Bush reportedly didn’t even know there was a difference between Shiites and Sunnis until well after the Iraq War started, so cut us some slack.
We do know this, as we read about new killings in Iraq, we just have to wonder which death squads the White House is arming and aiding.
That is why we don’t necessarily follow the conventional wisdom that a recent slaughter of 11 family members (including 7 children) of a "troublesome" Iraqi journalist in Jordan was the work of the Muqtada al Sadr Mahdi army.
Curiously, McClatchy news service (providing the most reliable mainstream news out of Iraq), notes: "Iraqi police and U.S. military officials said they had no record of the killings. But family members confirmed that the killings took place on Sunday." The news report also notes, "It was the third mass killing reported in Baghdad since Friday, underscoring the fragility of recent declines in violence."
We have to remember that many key members of the Bush Administration past and present – including Elliot Abrams, John Negroponte, and Otto Reich (now a "consultant") – were key advocates and enablers of the Central and South American "death squad" strategy during the Reagan years.
It is more than likely that their views – and the outlook of the Cheney wing -- on such tactics have not changed, and that many of the masked men running around killing targeted Iraqis and family members – as well as pesky journalists -- are being financed and supplied by the United States. The trick is figuring out which ones are "ours," and which ones are home grown insurgents (who are still managing to come up with U.S. weaponry, some speculate supplied by sympathetic members of the Iraqi Police and army.) Giving the shifting alliances of the ever-shifting Bush non-strategy, the death squads that they support today may be the ones that they have our soldiers battling tomorrow – or just killing each other.
The Sunday Times of London took a crack at sorting out the White House backed-mayhem in a November 25th article entitled, "American-backed killer militias strut across Iraq." Right now, The Times speculates, the Petraeus strategy is to back the Sunni militias as a counterweight to the allegedly Iranian aligned Mahdi Army.
But what is curious about that is that in the first Gulf War, Bush the First championed the liberation of the same Shiites that the White House is now demonizing. Of course, a Bush being a Bush, Bush the First urged the Shiites to rise up against the Sunni Saddam rule, only to abandon thousands upon thousands of them to be slaughtered by Hussein as Poppy Bush refused to protect the same people he was exhorting to take on Saddam.
Needless to say, Iraq remains a powder keg, as the Sunday Times article indicates, because the death squad policies of the Bush Administration (which, of course, you don’t hear about at Pentagon or White House briefings) are inevitably setting up all sides against the middle.
Bush is doing what he always does: what is most expedient to save his butt.
In the end, he is creating a Somalia style nation of warlord enclaves, each with their own militias.
The death squad strategy was the pride and joy of the neo-cons who cut their teeth in the Reagan Administration. If Blackwater can get away with murder, don’t you think that death squads operating with U.S. military and CIA support can carry out dirty deeds with impunity?
We just can never figure out, given our government’s deception on this issue, which death squads are on "our side."
You need to know who the "good bad guys" are, right?
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/editorblog/013
November 28, 2007
You can excuse BuzzFlash for being confused sometimes as to what militias in Iraq the Bush Administration is currently backing. After all, Bush reportedly didn’t even know there was a difference between Shiites and Sunnis until well after the Iraq War started, so cut us some slack.
We do know this, as we read about new killings in Iraq, we just have to wonder which death squads the White House is arming and aiding.
That is why we don’t necessarily follow the conventional wisdom that a recent slaughter of 11 family members (including 7 children) of a "troublesome" Iraqi journalist in Jordan was the work of the Muqtada al Sadr Mahdi army.
Curiously, McClatchy news service (providing the most reliable mainstream news out of Iraq), notes: "Iraqi police and U.S. military officials said they had no record of the killings. But family members confirmed that the killings took place on Sunday." The news report also notes, "It was the third mass killing reported in Baghdad since Friday, underscoring the fragility of recent declines in violence."
We have to remember that many key members of the Bush Administration past and present – including Elliot Abrams, John Negroponte, and Otto Reich (now a "consultant") – were key advocates and enablers of the Central and South American "death squad" strategy during the Reagan years.
It is more than likely that their views – and the outlook of the Cheney wing -- on such tactics have not changed, and that many of the masked men running around killing targeted Iraqis and family members – as well as pesky journalists -- are being financed and supplied by the United States. The trick is figuring out which ones are "ours," and which ones are home grown insurgents (who are still managing to come up with U.S. weaponry, some speculate supplied by sympathetic members of the Iraqi Police and army.) Giving the shifting alliances of the ever-shifting Bush non-strategy, the death squads that they support today may be the ones that they have our soldiers battling tomorrow – or just killing each other.
The Sunday Times of London took a crack at sorting out the White House backed-mayhem in a November 25th article entitled, "American-backed killer militias strut across Iraq." Right now, The Times speculates, the Petraeus strategy is to back the Sunni militias as a counterweight to the allegedly Iranian aligned Mahdi Army.
But what is curious about that is that in the first Gulf War, Bush the First championed the liberation of the same Shiites that the White House is now demonizing. Of course, a Bush being a Bush, Bush the First urged the Shiites to rise up against the Sunni Saddam rule, only to abandon thousands upon thousands of them to be slaughtered by Hussein as Poppy Bush refused to protect the same people he was exhorting to take on Saddam.
Needless to say, Iraq remains a powder keg, as the Sunday Times article indicates, because the death squad policies of the Bush Administration (which, of course, you don’t hear about at Pentagon or White House briefings) are inevitably setting up all sides against the middle.
Bush is doing what he always does: what is most expedient to save his butt.
In the end, he is creating a Somalia style nation of warlord enclaves, each with their own militias.
The death squad strategy was the pride and joy of the neo-cons who cut their teeth in the Reagan Administration. If Blackwater can get away with murder, don’t you think that death squads operating with U.S. military and CIA support can carry out dirty deeds with impunity?
We just can never figure out, given our government’s deception on this issue, which death squads are on "our side."
You need to know who the "good bad guys" are, right?
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/editorblog/013
Sarkozy tries to restore order
Sounds like attempted trespassing. Lets see how successful Sarko will become in upholding public order.
Crash Boom Bang Smoosh Criminal
cnn
PARIS, France (CNN) -- French President Nicolas Sarkozy was trying to restore order Wednesday after three consecutive nights of rioting caused widespread damage and injuries.
A French government spokeswoman said Sarkozy, fresh from a state visit to China, chaired a morning security meeting with Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie and Rachida Dati, the justice minister, which followed a meeting with the families of two teenagers killed in a collision with a police car -- an incident that started off this bout of violence.
Crash Boom Bang Smoosh Criminal
cnn
PARIS, France (CNN) -- French President Nicolas Sarkozy was trying to restore order Wednesday after three consecutive nights of rioting caused widespread damage and injuries.
A French government spokeswoman said Sarkozy, fresh from a state visit to China, chaired a morning security meeting with Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie and Rachida Dati, the justice minister, which followed a meeting with the families of two teenagers killed in a collision with a police car -- an incident that started off this bout of violence.
7 year old senate race may become PIVOTAL for US2008
In the course of three tumultuous weeks, Mr. Giuliani had been told by doctors that he had prostate cancer. He had announced he was leaving his wife after tabloids reported he was having an affair. And now, he had come to withdraw from the Senate race against Hillary Rodham Clinton, bringing a sudden end to what was arguably the most anticipated Senate campaign of modern times.
New York Times
Pivot Element: The value isnt 0 in this case; the "counter" is at least on 1
Doping in Iraq - Special: How to ignore orders
In the popular who dies first contest Blackwater guards seem to have become so popular that they are allowed to dope.
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/law/11/27/blackwater.iraq/index.html
Blackwater guards pumped on steroids, lawsuit alleges
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A quarter of Blackwater security guards in Iraq use steroids and other "judgment-altering substances," according to a lawsuit filed by the families of several Iraqis killed or wounded in a Baghdad shooting in September.
Blackwater denies the charges.
The suit, filed Monday in Washington, accuses the company of fostering "a culture of lawlessness" among its guards and says the use of excessive force helps the company preserve a key selling point -- the fact that none of its protectees have been killed during the four-year-old war.
"I think there is a whole corporate culture there that essentially rewards the use of excessive force -- shooting first, asking questions later," said Susan Burke, the lead attorney in the case.
The lawsuit accuses Blackwater of war crimes, wrongful death, assault, negligent hiring and emotional distress. The plaintiffs include two wounded survivors of the September 16 shootings around Nusoor Square, in western Baghdad, and the families of five people killed in the incident. Iraqi authorities say the guards killed 17 people in an act of "premeditated murder."
Can orders, this time of the Doping court (US Central Command) be ignored?
Lawsuit accuses Blackwater guards of ignoring orders.
The AP reports that a lawsuit filed Monday on behalf of five Iraqis who were killed and two who were injured in the September Blackwater shootout accuses Blackwater bodyguards “of ignoring a direct order and abandoning their post shortly before taking part” in the shootings:
Blackwater and State Department personnel staffing a tactical operations center “expressly directed the Blackwater shooters to stay with the official and refrain from leaving the secure area,” the complaint says. “Reasonable discovery will establish that the Blackwater shooters ignored those directives.”
Additionally, the lawsuit notes: “One of Blackwater’s own shooters tried to stop his colleagues from indiscriminately firing upon the crowd of innocent civilians but he was unsuccessful in his efforts.”
The complaint also accuses Blackwater of “failing to give drug tests to its guards in Baghdad — even though an estimated one in four of them was using steroids or other ‘judgment altering substances.’
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/27/lawsuit-accuses-blackwater-guards-of-ignoring-orders/#comment-4168155
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/law/11/27/blackwater.iraq/index.html
Blackwater guards pumped on steroids, lawsuit alleges
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A quarter of Blackwater security guards in Iraq use steroids and other "judgment-altering substances," according to a lawsuit filed by the families of several Iraqis killed or wounded in a Baghdad shooting in September.
Blackwater denies the charges.
The suit, filed Monday in Washington, accuses the company of fostering "a culture of lawlessness" among its guards and says the use of excessive force helps the company preserve a key selling point -- the fact that none of its protectees have been killed during the four-year-old war.
"I think there is a whole corporate culture there that essentially rewards the use of excessive force -- shooting first, asking questions later," said Susan Burke, the lead attorney in the case.
The lawsuit accuses Blackwater of war crimes, wrongful death, assault, negligent hiring and emotional distress. The plaintiffs include two wounded survivors of the September 16 shootings around Nusoor Square, in western Baghdad, and the families of five people killed in the incident. Iraqi authorities say the guards killed 17 people in an act of "premeditated murder."
Can orders, this time of the Doping court (US Central Command) be ignored?
Lawsuit accuses Blackwater guards of ignoring orders.
The AP reports that a lawsuit filed Monday on behalf of five Iraqis who were killed and two who were injured in the September Blackwater shootout accuses Blackwater bodyguards “of ignoring a direct order and abandoning their post shortly before taking part” in the shootings:
Blackwater and State Department personnel staffing a tactical operations center “expressly directed the Blackwater shooters to stay with the official and refrain from leaving the secure area,” the complaint says. “Reasonable discovery will establish that the Blackwater shooters ignored those directives.”
Additionally, the lawsuit notes: “One of Blackwater’s own shooters tried to stop his colleagues from indiscriminately firing upon the crowd of innocent civilians but he was unsuccessful in his efforts.”
The complaint also accuses Blackwater of “failing to give drug tests to its guards in Baghdad — even though an estimated one in four of them was using steroids or other ‘judgment altering substances.’
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/27/lawsuit-accuses-blackwater-guards-of-ignoring-orders/#comment-4168155
Tuesday, 27 November 2007
Foreign to Foreign Communications
'CLARIFICATION OF ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE OF NON-UNITED STATES PERSONS OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES' Sec. 105A. (a) Foreign to Foreign Communications-
(1) IN GENERAL - Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, a court order is not required for electronic surveillance directed at the acquisition of the contents of any communication between persons that are not known to be United States persons and are reasonably believed to be located outside the United States for the purpose of collecting foreign intelligence information, without respect to whether the communication passes through the United States or the surveillance device is located within the United States.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/11/27/184622/62
(1) IN GENERAL - Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, a court order is not required for electronic surveillance directed at the acquisition of the contents of any communication between persons that are not known to be United States persons and are reasonably believed to be located outside the United States for the purpose of collecting foreign intelligence information, without respect to whether the communication passes through the United States or the surveillance device is located within the United States.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/11/27/184622/62
T-Mobile quits cycling over doping
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/SPORT/football/11/27/cycling.germany.ap/index.html
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) -- Deutsche Telekom AG is ending its 16-year sponsorship of professional cycling because of a series of doping cases.
The telecommunications company has sponsored a team since 1991. Recently known as T-Mobile, they were considered one of the leading teams in the sport.
"We arrived at this decision to separate our brand from further exposure from doping in sport and cycling specifically," Deutsche Telekom said in a statement on Tuesday.
Deutsche Telekom's exit comes just weeks after Adidas announced it would end its sponsorship of the team, and is a further blow to cycling, which has suffered a series of doping scandals.
Patrick Sinkewitz, who was sacked by the team earlier this year, recently admitted to doping offences while competing for T-Mobile, and several of the team's former riders, including former Tour de France winner Jan Ullrich, have either admitted to or been implicated in doping scandals.
Deutsche Telekom only recently agreed to honor its sponsorship contract until 2010, but reserved the right to terminate it at any time.
"This was a difficult decision given our long history of support for professional cycling and the efforts of Bob Stapleton in managing the team in 2007," said Hamid Akhavan, a Telekom board member and CEO of T-Mobile International.
"We have an obligation to our employees, customers and shareholders to focus our attention and resources on our core businesses.
"We have worked very hard with the current team management to promote a clean cycling sport but we reached the decision to continue our efforts to rid all sports of doping by applying our resources in other directions," Akhavan added.
The team is now set to race under the name 'Team High Road' in 2008, according to their management company, High Road Sports.
"T-Mobile's decision to end its involvement in professional cycling is a challenge for the sport and our team," said team chief Stapleton.
"We will review and adapt our operations, and continue to advance our leadership position in athletic success and commitment to clean and fair sport that began during our work with T-Mobile."
A press release from High Road Sports added: "High Road Sports holds a ProTour team licence and will seek authorisation of the change in the team's identity and operations from the governing body, the UCI."
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) -- Deutsche Telekom AG is ending its 16-year sponsorship of professional cycling because of a series of doping cases.
The telecommunications company has sponsored a team since 1991. Recently known as T-Mobile, they were considered one of the leading teams in the sport.
"We arrived at this decision to separate our brand from further exposure from doping in sport and cycling specifically," Deutsche Telekom said in a statement on Tuesday.
Deutsche Telekom's exit comes just weeks after Adidas announced it would end its sponsorship of the team, and is a further blow to cycling, which has suffered a series of doping scandals.
Patrick Sinkewitz, who was sacked by the team earlier this year, recently admitted to doping offences while competing for T-Mobile, and several of the team's former riders, including former Tour de France winner Jan Ullrich, have either admitted to or been implicated in doping scandals.
Deutsche Telekom only recently agreed to honor its sponsorship contract until 2010, but reserved the right to terminate it at any time.
"This was a difficult decision given our long history of support for professional cycling and the efforts of Bob Stapleton in managing the team in 2007," said Hamid Akhavan, a Telekom board member and CEO of T-Mobile International.
"We have an obligation to our employees, customers and shareholders to focus our attention and resources on our core businesses.
"We have worked very hard with the current team management to promote a clean cycling sport but we reached the decision to continue our efforts to rid all sports of doping by applying our resources in other directions," Akhavan added.
The team is now set to race under the name 'Team High Road' in 2008, according to their management company, High Road Sports.
"T-Mobile's decision to end its involvement in professional cycling is a challenge for the sport and our team," said team chief Stapleton.
"We will review and adapt our operations, and continue to advance our leadership position in athletic success and commitment to clean and fair sport that began during our work with T-Mobile."
A press release from High Road Sports added: "High Road Sports holds a ProTour team licence and will seek authorisation of the change in the team's identity and operations from the governing body, the UCI."
Palestinians Protest Peace Talks
JERUSALEM, Nov. 27 — A Palestinian man was killed in the West Bank city of Hebron on Tuesday as Palestinian Authority police officers loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas fired their weapons to disperse protests against the Middle East peace gathering taking place in Annapolis, Md.
Sudan
After an English teacher in Sudan was asked about whether one can name a teddy bear "Mohammed" by her pupils, she said that it is possible. Mohammed is a common name in Sudan. One can compare it to South America, where many kids carry "Jesus" as a name, mostly as a second name.
Furthermore,most kids hug their teddy bears, so its surely without negative implications. Now, bulldozing this innocence, Sudan condemned this teacher to 40 leashes.
This case reminds me strongly of the Saudi case, where a gang raped victim was condemned to 200 leashes for adultery and stirring media attention. Both verdicts are pretty much unreasonable by ratio.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/video/videoplayer/0,,30000-1294467,.html?&lid=HTML_CAROUSEL_NEWS_ARTICLE_4&lpos=HTML_CAROUSEL
Furthermore,most kids hug their teddy bears, so its surely without negative implications. Now, bulldozing this innocence, Sudan condemned this teacher to 40 leashes.
This case reminds me strongly of the Saudi case, where a gang raped victim was condemned to 200 leashes for adultery and stirring media attention. Both verdicts are pretty much unreasonable by ratio.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/video/videoplayer/0,,30000-1294467,.html?&lid=HTML_CAROUSEL_NEWS_ARTICLE_4&lpos=HTML_CAROUSEL
Ratzinger will not welcome Dalai Lama
After German chancellor Merkel made huge fuzz about welcoming the Dalai Lama, German pope Ratzinger will not welcome the Buddhist. This was announced during the presence of Nicolas Sarkozy in China.
Veco Scandal made Lott resign
Right-Wing Magazine: Veco Oil Scandal Contributed To Lott’s Resignation
Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) refuses to say why he is retiring from Congress. Many in the media have reported that Lott likely wants to enter the lucrative world of K Street before “tougher restrictions in a new lobbying law” take effect.
But the right-wing American Spectator magazine speculates that brewing corruption scandals may have contributed to Lott’s decision:
The tin-foil-hat crowd was almost immediately pushing a Jack Abramoff angle to the surprise resignation of Sen. Trent Lott. But a more recent scandal brewing — which has already ensnared Sen. Ted Stevens, among others — may also be playing on Lott’s mind.
Lott, Stevens, as well as Rep. Dennis Hastert all have ties to Bill Allen, a larger than life Alaskan businessman who owned Veco, an oil-field services company, and who was a huge benefactor of Republican politicians.
Allen has pleaded guilty to bribing Alaska legislators, including Ben Stevens, the son of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK). The elder Stevens is currently the target of multiple federal investigation, including one on his ties to Veco.
Lott continues to stand by Stevens, donating $5,000 from his political action committee to Stevens’s re-election campaign. Lott also has ties to Allen, who accompanied him to the lavish annual “Waterfall Fishing Tournament” in Alaska. Since 1996, at least 10 current and former lawmakers have attended the trip, an opportunity for “the energy industry’s top brass” to influence lawmakers.
In addition to the lawmakers, high-ranking executives from the nation’s top oil firms — including Allen — attended the Waterfall excursions. Companies with business before Congress occasionally provided free trips to Waterfall for lawmakers and top executives on private company jets. Lawmakers may have violated congressional ethics rules by not paying for the trips. Marketplace, which originally reported on the event, noted that it could find no PAC, personal, or campaign payments for the trip from Lott.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/27/lott-veco/#comments
Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) refuses to say why he is retiring from Congress. Many in the media have reported that Lott likely wants to enter the lucrative world of K Street before “tougher restrictions in a new lobbying law” take effect.
But the right-wing American Spectator magazine speculates that brewing corruption scandals may have contributed to Lott’s decision:
The tin-foil-hat crowd was almost immediately pushing a Jack Abramoff angle to the surprise resignation of Sen. Trent Lott. But a more recent scandal brewing — which has already ensnared Sen. Ted Stevens, among others — may also be playing on Lott’s mind.
Lott, Stevens, as well as Rep. Dennis Hastert all have ties to Bill Allen, a larger than life Alaskan businessman who owned Veco, an oil-field services company, and who was a huge benefactor of Republican politicians.
Allen has pleaded guilty to bribing Alaska legislators, including Ben Stevens, the son of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK). The elder Stevens is currently the target of multiple federal investigation, including one on his ties to Veco.
Lott continues to stand by Stevens, donating $5,000 from his political action committee to Stevens’s re-election campaign. Lott also has ties to Allen, who accompanied him to the lavish annual “Waterfall Fishing Tournament” in Alaska. Since 1996, at least 10 current and former lawmakers have attended the trip, an opportunity for “the energy industry’s top brass” to influence lawmakers.
In addition to the lawmakers, high-ranking executives from the nation’s top oil firms — including Allen — attended the Waterfall excursions. Companies with business before Congress occasionally provided free trips to Waterfall for lawmakers and top executives on private company jets. Lawmakers may have violated congressional ethics rules by not paying for the trips. Marketplace, which originally reported on the event, noted that it could find no PAC, personal, or campaign payments for the trip from Lott.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/27/lott-veco/#comments
Romney
Romney falsely spins his anti-Muslim bigotry.
After facing intense scrutiny for his bigoted comments about Muslims serving in public office, Mitt Romney attempted to “clarify” his position during a campaign stop in Florida by saying he opposes religious quotas:
It’s something I rejected, number one. And number two, point out that haven’t given a lot of thought to the people I would have in my Cabinet. I don’t have boxes I check off in terms of ethnicity, and it’s not that I need a certain number of people representing ethnic groups. Instead, I would choose people based on their merits… I’m open to having people of any faith, ethnic group. But they would be selected based on their capacity and capabilities and what they could bring to the Administration, but I don’t choose people based on checking off a box.
In his spin, Romney conveniently forgets his original argument that a Muslim shouldn’t be given a cabinet position “based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population.” As Matthew Yglesias points out, the original “account of Romney’s answer makes it seem as if Romney has no problem in principle with the idea of a Muslim quota,” but he “just doesn’t think there are enough American Muslims to justify a cabinet post.”
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/27/romney-falsely-spins-his-anti-muslim-bigotry/#comments
After facing intense scrutiny for his bigoted comments about Muslims serving in public office, Mitt Romney attempted to “clarify” his position during a campaign stop in Florida by saying he opposes religious quotas:
It’s something I rejected, number one. And number two, point out that haven’t given a lot of thought to the people I would have in my Cabinet. I don’t have boxes I check off in terms of ethnicity, and it’s not that I need a certain number of people representing ethnic groups. Instead, I would choose people based on their merits… I’m open to having people of any faith, ethnic group. But they would be selected based on their capacity and capabilities and what they could bring to the Administration, but I don’t choose people based on checking off a box.
In his spin, Romney conveniently forgets his original argument that a Muslim shouldn’t be given a cabinet position “based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population.” As Matthew Yglesias points out, the original “account of Romney’s answer makes it seem as if Romney has no problem in principle with the idea of a Muslim quota,” but he “just doesn’t think there are enough American Muslims to justify a cabinet post.”
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/27/romney-falsely-spins-his-anti-muslim-bigotry/#comments
Holt turns up the heat on Klein.
Holt turns up the heat on Klein.
Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) sets the record straight, after Time magazine columnist Joe Klein ignorantly claimed the Democrats’ FISA reform legislation “would give terrorists the same legal protections as Americans.” Holt explains the Reform Act “explicitly states that no court order is required to listen to the conversations of foreigners that happen to pass through the U.S. telecommunications system. It does not grant Constitutional rights to foreign terrorists.” Glenn Greenwald writes, “It would be nice if other Congressional Democrats spoke up and objected to Time’s false smearing of them.” Meanwhile, FDL reports that Time is circling the wagons around Klein, refusing to answer questions about his errors.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/27/holt-turns-up-the-heat-on-klein/#comments
Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) sets the record straight, after Time magazine columnist Joe Klein ignorantly claimed the Democrats’ FISA reform legislation “would give terrorists the same legal protections as Americans.” Holt explains the Reform Act “explicitly states that no court order is required to listen to the conversations of foreigners that happen to pass through the U.S. telecommunications system. It does not grant Constitutional rights to foreign terrorists.” Glenn Greenwald writes, “It would be nice if other Congressional Democrats spoke up and objected to Time’s false smearing of them.” Meanwhile, FDL reports that Time is circling the wagons around Klein, refusing to answer questions about his errors.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/27/holt-turns-up-the-heat-on-klein/#comments
Coalition of the defeated
Last weekend, Australian Labor leader Kevin Rudd defeated staunch Bush ally Prime Minister John Howard, handing the conservative party its “worst election defeat in its 63-year history” and ending 12 years of conservative rule. Howard “suffered the additional ignominy of losing his own constituency seat,” the first time since 1929 that an Australian prime minister has been voted out of parliament.
Howard’s fate is similar to the story of many other Bush-friendly world leaders. After joining Bush’s Coalition of the Willing in 2003, several countries’ leaders have been ousted from office. In fact, of the original 49 countries who joined the Coalition, the AP reports that roughly 20 remain, with several in the process of withdrawing troops.
ThinkProgress has compiled a new report, highlighting the fate of world leaders from “coalition of the willing” countries who sent troops to support the invasion. Of 14 major partners in the Coalition, eight leaders were defeated in elections, two stepped down, two were term limited, and two remained in office. Click here to view the full report.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/27/coalition-defeated/#comments
Howard’s fate is similar to the story of many other Bush-friendly world leaders. After joining Bush’s Coalition of the Willing in 2003, several countries’ leaders have been ousted from office. In fact, of the original 49 countries who joined the Coalition, the AP reports that roughly 20 remain, with several in the process of withdrawing troops.
ThinkProgress has compiled a new report, highlighting the fate of world leaders from “coalition of the willing” countries who sent troops to support the invasion. Of 14 major partners in the Coalition, eight leaders were defeated in elections, two stepped down, two were term limited, and two remained in office. Click here to view the full report.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/27/coalition-defeated/#comments
Always wrong, never in doubt
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/27/always-wrong-never-in-doubt/#comments
“Rudy Giuliani said yesterday he ‘never had any doubt‘ that if he were President four years ago, he would have invaded Iraq. He said he is now ‘even more certain’ that it was the correct national security move.” Rudy then kicked it up yet another notch: “I actually believe that Democrats are going to agree with me on that by the time we get to the general election.”
Israelis, Palestinians agree on framework for peace talks
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/11/27/mideast.summit/index.html
ANNAPOLIS, Maryland (CNN) -- Israeli and Palestinian leaders will "immediately launch" peace talks -- aimed at creating a Palestinian state alongside Israel -- and they hope to finish negotiations before 2009, President Bush announced Tuesday.
ANNAPOLIS, Maryland (CNN) -- Israeli and Palestinian leaders will "immediately launch" peace talks -- aimed at creating a Palestinian state alongside Israel -- and they hope to finish negotiations before 2009, President Bush announced Tuesday.
Brown-Mugabe
Im no opponent of Mugabe. Land belonged to big farming corperations until Mugabe changed it. It was spreat to the people because AIDS infections spreat and people working for the companies and AIDS infected got fired. Starvation was often a result. Now, farming is too inefficient to feed the entire country.
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/11/27/brown.zimbabwe.ap/index.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/11/27/brown.zimbabwe.ap/index.html
Obama too sincere and truthful about drugs?
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/11/27/costello.drug.use/index.html
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama started the debate when he admitted to a high school audience in New Hampshire that he had experimented with drugs while he was in high school.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama started the debate when he admitted to a high school audience in New Hampshire that he had experimented with drugs while he was in high school.
Sean Taylor
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/11/27/obit.taylor/index.html
MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor has died a day after he was shot and wounded in his Miami home, Taylor's former attorney Richard Sharpstein said Tuesday.
MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor has died a day after he was shot and wounded in his Miami home, Taylor's former attorney Richard Sharpstein said Tuesday.
Monday, 26 November 2007
Collision: obstruction of justice collides with arms smuggling/kill investigation in Blackwater case
State Dept. 's kicked out of the room
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071126/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/state_vs_justice_blackwater;_ylt=AvQhqxMgm1SajSIVhLhXBSus0NUE
WASHINGTON - The State Department's acerbic top auditor wasn't happy when Justice Department officials told one of his aides to leave the room so they could discuss a criminal investigation of Blackwater Worldwide, the contractor protecting U.S. diplomats in Iraq.
The episode reveals the badly strained relationship between Bush administration officials over the probe into whether Blackwater smuggled weapons into Iraq that could have gotten into insurgents' hands.
As a result of the bureaucratic crosscurrents between State's top auditor and Justice, the investigation has been bogged down for months(...)
Krongard, whose credibility was damaged by the recent disclosure that his brother had a business affiliation with Blackwater, has disputed the charge, though he recused himself from Blackwater matters after the potential conflict of interest emerged.
His aide, Terry Heide, who was kicked out of the July 31 meeting, also says she's been unfairly blamed for slowing the Blackwater probe. Her role was to collect State Department documents for the investigators - a job she did well, according to her lawyer. But even Krongard's own staff saw her as a hindrance.
Brian Rubendall, a senior State Department investigator, has questioned the halt in the inquiry, telling the oversight committee in an October interview that there was no justifiable "reason for us to stop that investigation. None."
Krongard said he put the brakes on because he was concerned a separate audit of Blackwater contracts might "contaminate" the Justice Department's work.
Blackwater has called the smuggling allegations baseless. However, earlier this year two former Blackwater employees pleaded guilty to possession of stolen firearms that were shipped in interstate or foreign commerce. They are cooperating with federal agents. Blackwater said the two were fired after it was learned they were stealing from the company.
Altogether, the trail of internal e-mails, testimony from a Nov. 14 oversight hearing and interviews with participants form a picture of bureaucratic infighting with consequences far beyond Washington.
The State Department's role in the Blackwater weapons probe began months before the Sept. 16 Baghdad shootings by Blackwater guards that killed 17 Iraqis and escalated public scrutiny of the company.
In March, Ron Militana, a special agent in the investigations unit, received Rubendall's approval to interview State Department personnel and meet with Blackwater attorneys about allegations the company was illegally transporting arms into Iraq. Militana also discussed potential criminal proceedings in the case with a federal prosecutor.
In late June, John DeDona, then chief of the IG's investigative unit, e-mailed Krongard and his deputy, William Todd, to alert them to the probe. Krongard responded cryptically: "Please do not treat anything in the e-mail below as having been seen by me, advised to me, or understood or approved by me. If there is something significant in the message below, please come and tell me about it."
Two weeks later, as Militana was trying to obtain copies of Blackwater contracts from the department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, DeDona sent another message to Krongard telling him of Militana's work.
In a July 11 e-mail to DeDona, Krongard told him Militana was to "IMMEDIATELY" stop the work. Krongard said he wanted a briefing from the U.S. Attorney's office in North Carolina on its Blackwater investigation before his agents went farther.
Waxman and other critics say Howard Krongard's order to halt came at the same time Blackwater CEO Erik Prince was considering whether to offer his brother, Alvin "Buzzy" Krongard, a spot on the company's newly forming advisory board.
On July 26, Prince invited Alvin Krongard to join Blackwater's advisory board. A week later, Robert Higdon, chief of the criminal division in the U.S. Attorney's office for the eastern district of North Carolina, and James Candelmo, Higdon's deputy, were in Washington for the July 31 meeting with Krongard and his investigators.
Blackwater is based in Moyock, N.C.
Howard Krongard initially said his brother had no ties to Blackwater. But during the Nov. 14 oversight hearing, he recused himself from inquiries related to the company, explaining that Alvin Krongard had just told him he had attended an advisory board meeting. Alvin Krongard resigned from the board two days later because of the uproar the arrangement created.
While Democrats claimed a glaring conflict of interest, Krongard said he pulled his staff off the Blackwater probe so they wouldn't step on work being done by Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.
Bowen had sought help from Krongard's office to audit two Blackwater contracts — the same ones Militana was helping the U.S. Attorney's office examine, according to Krongard, who said alarms went off when he realized the potential overlap.
"To be assisting a criminal investigation into the exact same two contracts that we were already assisting a civil audit into, raised a question of parallel proceedings, which needed to be deconflicted before one infected or contaminated the other," he said.
Krongard did not say what the contracts are for or give their value. The State Department pays Blackwater and two other firms $570 million a year for security services.
In a deposition to the oversight committee, Todd, the deputy inspector general, supported Krongard. "We had basically several of the same organizations looking at the exact same stuff," Todd said.
But Waxman rejected the rationale. "You halted an investigation, demanded a personal briefing from the Justice Department, (and) assigned your congressional affairs director to keep tabs on the investigation," Waxman said to Krongard at the hearing. Waxman called the moves "highly unorthodox."
Heide, the congressional affairs director Krongard called his "alter ego," was collecting the documents needed by Bowen and the U.S Attorney's office, e-mails show.
But members of Krongard's own staff, along with Higdon and Candelmo of the U.S. attorney's office in North Carolina, saw her as a roadblock. Rubendall told the committee Candelmo and Higdon planned in advance to raise grand jury information during the July 31 meeting in order to force Heide out of the room.
"We weren't going to discuss grand jury material, but that was the ruse that they were going to use to get her out of the meeting," Rubendall said.
Heide referred questions to her attorney, David Laufman, who said an e-mail exchange between Krongard and Heide indicated she was doing as directed.
"I am trying to stay only situationally aware," she wrote Aug. 8, "so I can keep any conflicts at bay."
Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd would not comment on the investigation, but said, "The suggestion that the Justice Department engaged in a ruse in this matter is flatly incorrect."
According to Waxman, the problems hampering the Blackwater probe persist. Justice investigators have been unable to get needed documents. Militana has not been allowed to give his full attention to the criminal investigation even though Krongard said he would.
"I think that the State Department is responsible for investigating crimes perpetrated against the State Department," Militana said in an October interview with the committee. "The (Justice Department) can do it, of course, but there has to be some involvement by the State Department."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071126/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/state_vs_justice_blackwater;_ylt=AvQhqxMgm1SajSIVhLhXBSus0NUE
WASHINGTON - The State Department's acerbic top auditor wasn't happy when Justice Department officials told one of his aides to leave the room so they could discuss a criminal investigation of Blackwater Worldwide, the contractor protecting U.S. diplomats in Iraq.
The episode reveals the badly strained relationship between Bush administration officials over the probe into whether Blackwater smuggled weapons into Iraq that could have gotten into insurgents' hands.
As a result of the bureaucratic crosscurrents between State's top auditor and Justice, the investigation has been bogged down for months(...)
Krongard, whose credibility was damaged by the recent disclosure that his brother had a business affiliation with Blackwater, has disputed the charge, though he recused himself from Blackwater matters after the potential conflict of interest emerged.
His aide, Terry Heide, who was kicked out of the July 31 meeting, also says she's been unfairly blamed for slowing the Blackwater probe. Her role was to collect State Department documents for the investigators - a job she did well, according to her lawyer. But even Krongard's own staff saw her as a hindrance.
Brian Rubendall, a senior State Department investigator, has questioned the halt in the inquiry, telling the oversight committee in an October interview that there was no justifiable "reason for us to stop that investigation. None."
Krongard said he put the brakes on because he was concerned a separate audit of Blackwater contracts might "contaminate" the Justice Department's work.
Blackwater has called the smuggling allegations baseless. However, earlier this year two former Blackwater employees pleaded guilty to possession of stolen firearms that were shipped in interstate or foreign commerce. They are cooperating with federal agents. Blackwater said the two were fired after it was learned they were stealing from the company.
Altogether, the trail of internal e-mails, testimony from a Nov. 14 oversight hearing and interviews with participants form a picture of bureaucratic infighting with consequences far beyond Washington.
The State Department's role in the Blackwater weapons probe began months before the Sept. 16 Baghdad shootings by Blackwater guards that killed 17 Iraqis and escalated public scrutiny of the company.
In March, Ron Militana, a special agent in the investigations unit, received Rubendall's approval to interview State Department personnel and meet with Blackwater attorneys about allegations the company was illegally transporting arms into Iraq. Militana also discussed potential criminal proceedings in the case with a federal prosecutor.
In late June, John DeDona, then chief of the IG's investigative unit, e-mailed Krongard and his deputy, William Todd, to alert them to the probe. Krongard responded cryptically: "Please do not treat anything in the e-mail below as having been seen by me, advised to me, or understood or approved by me. If there is something significant in the message below, please come and tell me about it."
Two weeks later, as Militana was trying to obtain copies of Blackwater contracts from the department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, DeDona sent another message to Krongard telling him of Militana's work.
In a July 11 e-mail to DeDona, Krongard told him Militana was to "IMMEDIATELY" stop the work. Krongard said he wanted a briefing from the U.S. Attorney's office in North Carolina on its Blackwater investigation before his agents went farther.
Waxman and other critics say Howard Krongard's order to halt came at the same time Blackwater CEO Erik Prince was considering whether to offer his brother, Alvin "Buzzy" Krongard, a spot on the company's newly forming advisory board.
On July 26, Prince invited Alvin Krongard to join Blackwater's advisory board. A week later, Robert Higdon, chief of the criminal division in the U.S. Attorney's office for the eastern district of North Carolina, and James Candelmo, Higdon's deputy, were in Washington for the July 31 meeting with Krongard and his investigators.
Blackwater is based in Moyock, N.C.
Howard Krongard initially said his brother had no ties to Blackwater. But during the Nov. 14 oversight hearing, he recused himself from inquiries related to the company, explaining that Alvin Krongard had just told him he had attended an advisory board meeting. Alvin Krongard resigned from the board two days later because of the uproar the arrangement created.
While Democrats claimed a glaring conflict of interest, Krongard said he pulled his staff off the Blackwater probe so they wouldn't step on work being done by Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.
Bowen had sought help from Krongard's office to audit two Blackwater contracts — the same ones Militana was helping the U.S. Attorney's office examine, according to Krongard, who said alarms went off when he realized the potential overlap.
"To be assisting a criminal investigation into the exact same two contracts that we were already assisting a civil audit into, raised a question of parallel proceedings, which needed to be deconflicted before one infected or contaminated the other," he said.
Krongard did not say what the contracts are for or give their value. The State Department pays Blackwater and two other firms $570 million a year for security services.
In a deposition to the oversight committee, Todd, the deputy inspector general, supported Krongard. "We had basically several of the same organizations looking at the exact same stuff," Todd said.
But Waxman rejected the rationale. "You halted an investigation, demanded a personal briefing from the Justice Department, (and) assigned your congressional affairs director to keep tabs on the investigation," Waxman said to Krongard at the hearing. Waxman called the moves "highly unorthodox."
Heide, the congressional affairs director Krongard called his "alter ego," was collecting the documents needed by Bowen and the U.S Attorney's office, e-mails show.
But members of Krongard's own staff, along with Higdon and Candelmo of the U.S. attorney's office in North Carolina, saw her as a roadblock. Rubendall told the committee Candelmo and Higdon planned in advance to raise grand jury information during the July 31 meeting in order to force Heide out of the room.
"We weren't going to discuss grand jury material, but that was the ruse that they were going to use to get her out of the meeting," Rubendall said.
Heide referred questions to her attorney, David Laufman, who said an e-mail exchange between Krongard and Heide indicated she was doing as directed.
"I am trying to stay only situationally aware," she wrote Aug. 8, "so I can keep any conflicts at bay."
Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd would not comment on the investigation, but said, "The suggestion that the Justice Department engaged in a ruse in this matter is flatly incorrect."
According to Waxman, the problems hampering the Blackwater probe persist. Justice investigators have been unable to get needed documents. Militana has not been allowed to give his full attention to the criminal investigation even though Krongard said he would.
"I think that the State Department is responsible for investigating crimes perpetrated against the State Department," Militana said in an October interview with the committee. "The (Justice Department) can do it, of course, but there has to be some involvement by the State Department."
French youths torch police station
French youths torch police station
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/11/26/france.violence.ap/index.html
Australia
Russia 08
MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- The Russian presidential election will take place on March 2, the upper chamber of Russia's parliament, the Federation Council, announced Monday, as opposition leader Garry Kasparov continued his five-day jail term.
The election date has been unofficially known for a number of months but this is the first time it has been officially announced.
Presidential hopefuls must register between December 12 and January 16.
The election announcement comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin faces accusations that his government is cracking down on democratic dissent.
Riot police detained protesters -- including Gary Kasparov -- after breaking up a pro-democracy rally in Moscow Saturday.
The opposition leader was charged and sentenced to five days in jail for organizing an unsanctioned procession, resisting arrest and chanting anti-government slogans. Watch police hustle Kasparov away at protest »
The chess grand master claimed his conviction is part of a government effort to harass him.
It is not the first time Kasparov has clashed with the authorities. He was detained briefly, then fined, in April during another anti-Putin protest, when, witnesses said, he tried to lead a small group of demonstrators through lines of police.
Putin -- who is outlawed from seeking a third term under the Russian constitution -- has repeatedly denied he will contest the election.
The election date has been unofficially known for a number of months but this is the first time it has been officially announced.
Presidential hopefuls must register between December 12 and January 16.
The election announcement comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin faces accusations that his government is cracking down on democratic dissent.
Riot police detained protesters -- including Gary Kasparov -- after breaking up a pro-democracy rally in Moscow Saturday.
The opposition leader was charged and sentenced to five days in jail for organizing an unsanctioned procession, resisting arrest and chanting anti-government slogans. Watch police hustle Kasparov away at protest »
The chess grand master claimed his conviction is part of a government effort to harass him.
It is not the first time Kasparov has clashed with the authorities. He was detained briefly, then fined, in April during another anti-Putin protest, when, witnesses said, he tried to lead a small group of demonstrators through lines of police.
Putin -- who is outlawed from seeking a third term under the Russian constitution -- has repeatedly denied he will contest the election.
Sunday, 25 November 2007
Shallow
Im still not thru with Gibsons shallow statement that outing Plame was a political issue. It can be a military one. So u go for it when the dems just took control of congress and theyll lynch your ass for it? Is Gibson trying to deroute from the military factor?
M yeah well Plame undoubtfully looked for Iranian weapons of mass destruction and not iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
So I as a Fox News commentator go free and tell the world that Im totally convinced of the ideo that Mr.Bush might clean the CIA of people who dont like his political views.
Gibson: WH deserves a medal for outing Plame
Well, according to own statements Iran just produced nuclear fuel.
Iran produced nuclear fuel
SO we can take it like this: I maintain to look for weapons of mass destruction but in reality, I limit the search to states that I dont like in political terms.
One fine day I can even have an advantage of it. There might be a hot election time, lets call it sep 2008 ad, where some intterrupt in the heartbeat of 150.000 American troops can supoort the call for a strong leader.
Thats surely a viewpoint not to miss. the last two sentences arent even this shallow.
well this is political at last. but pretty much in another dimension
M yeah well Plame undoubtfully looked for Iranian weapons of mass destruction and not iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
So I as a Fox News commentator go free and tell the world that Im totally convinced of the ideo that Mr.Bush might clean the CIA of people who dont like his political views.
Gibson: WH deserves a medal for outing Plame
Well, according to own statements Iran just produced nuclear fuel.
Iran produced nuclear fuel
SO we can take it like this: I maintain to look for weapons of mass destruction but in reality, I limit the search to states that I dont like in political terms.
One fine day I can even have an advantage of it. There might be a hot election time, lets call it sep 2008 ad, where some intterrupt in the heartbeat of 150.000 American troops can supoort the call for a strong leader.
Thats surely a viewpoint not to miss. the last two sentences arent even this shallow.
well this is political at last. but pretty much in another dimension
Guiliani
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/23/AR2007112301687.html?hpid=topnews
While some of his original appointments to high-level city jobs were well regarded, these critics describe a pattern in which capable appointees either quit or were pushed out, leaving the top levels of the Giuliani administration increasingly populated by friends and close associates. Some of the later appointees became shrouded in scandal, including Bernard B. Kerik, the former police commissioner indicted this month on 16 counts of corruption, mail and tax fraud, obstruction of justice, and lying to the government.
While some of his original appointments to high-level city jobs were well regarded, these critics describe a pattern in which capable appointees either quit or were pushed out, leaving the top levels of the Giuliani administration increasingly populated by friends and close associates. Some of the later appointees became shrouded in scandal, including Bernard B. Kerik, the former police commissioner indicted this month on 16 counts of corruption, mail and tax fraud, obstruction of justice, and lying to the government.
Thats right. The rape verdict is not all bout Saudi Arabia. Despite its ENgland
Much of the debate turns on the fact that BAE made billions of dollars in clandestine and questionable payments to Saudi royals over the last 20 years as part of an $80 billion contract to supply the kingdom with advanced fighter jets and other military hardware. While the investigation of BAE’s business practices has followed a circuitous path in Britain, it has recently gained independent momentum in the United States, where the Justice Department is now investigating the company.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/business/25bae.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin
Beat the mobs on 'Cyber Monday'
Beat the mobs on 'Cyber Monday'
The Web kicks off its holiday-shopping season on the Monday after Thanksgiving.
http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/23/news/companies/cybermonday.moneymag/index.htm?postversion=2007112508
The Web kicks off its holiday-shopping season on the Monday after Thanksgiving.
http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/23/news/companies/cybermonday.moneymag/index.htm?postversion=2007112508
Drones
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/CNN_Houston_police_use_drone_planes_1124.html
When neighbors noticed black trucks, satellite dishes, swirling radars, and "a portable launch pad, with something covered up" on a Waller County Ranch, they had no idea what to think. CNN's Houston affiliate KPRC has partially solved the mystery: Houston police plan to start using unmanned drone aircraft. But, a question still remains: what, exactly, will the drones be used for?
The mood surrounding Waller County Ranch was highly secretive. At the entrance to the test site stood a Houston police road block, making sure only those invited were let through. HPD lieutenants refused to answer any questions from KPRC reporters, but KPRC still managed to gain footage of the "test [we] were not supposed to see."
"[The] drone was able to use a high-powered camera to track us," says Stephen Dean, who tracked the drone for KPRC. "Those cameras can actually look into people's homes or even follow them in moving cars."
Drone Planes are not new to the United States. The military has been using drones for secret war zone surveillance for years; drones were also used to put out the California wildfires last month. The drones used for the test in Houston weigh only 40 pounds, but can carry 15 pounds more in gear. They are able to stay airborn 15 to 24 hours without landing.
When neighbors noticed black trucks, satellite dishes, swirling radars, and "a portable launch pad, with something covered up" on a Waller County Ranch, they had no idea what to think. CNN's Houston affiliate KPRC has partially solved the mystery: Houston police plan to start using unmanned drone aircraft. But, a question still remains: what, exactly, will the drones be used for?
The mood surrounding Waller County Ranch was highly secretive. At the entrance to the test site stood a Houston police road block, making sure only those invited were let through. HPD lieutenants refused to answer any questions from KPRC reporters, but KPRC still managed to gain footage of the "test [we] were not supposed to see."
"[The] drone was able to use a high-powered camera to track us," says Stephen Dean, who tracked the drone for KPRC. "Those cameras can actually look into people's homes or even follow them in moving cars."
Drone Planes are not new to the United States. The military has been using drones for secret war zone surveillance for years; drones were also used to put out the California wildfires last month. The drones used for the test in Houston weigh only 40 pounds, but can carry 15 pounds more in gear. They are able to stay airborn 15 to 24 hours without landing.
Americablog: Clinton doing well in how shes fighting back
http://www.americablog.com/2007/11/clinton-campaigns-lesson-for-democrats.html
matter to her...Clinton said sth. about the Saudi verdict. Shes undoubtfully a woman and in the spotlight.
She said so. dot.
Medicare.THe topic she inested a lotta time in. Obama is too insinuating when he says she doesnt know how to pay for it.She should be more aggressive about it. thats ok.
Iranwell, Iran surely doesnt support women rights.DOT!Iran announced yesterday that it produced nuclear pellets AND producednuclear fuel.There is a real danger 150.000 US soldiers will be nuked during the Iraq quagmire. I cant see any reason for which Clinton should pull back facing Obama and Edwards. Theyre both putting up a heinous statement.
http://ccoaler.blogspot.com/2007/11/iran-says-nuclear-fuel-produced-for.html
come on. were not responsible for iran cause we didnt want to go to iraq?
So what happens if? Imagine the headlimes:150000 innocent US soldiers have been nuked due to ludacris democrats? AND THAT IS RESPONSIBLE IN PARTY TERMS?
matter to her...Clinton said sth. about the Saudi verdict. Shes undoubtfully a woman and in the spotlight.
She said so. dot.
Medicare.THe topic she inested a lotta time in. Obama is too insinuating when he says she doesnt know how to pay for it.She should be more aggressive about it. thats ok.
Iranwell, Iran surely doesnt support women rights.DOT!Iran announced yesterday that it produced nuclear pellets AND producednuclear fuel.There is a real danger 150.000 US soldiers will be nuked during the Iraq quagmire. I cant see any reason for which Clinton should pull back facing Obama and Edwards. Theyre both putting up a heinous statement.
http://ccoaler.blogspot.com/2007/11/iran-says-nuclear-fuel-produced-for.html
come on. were not responsible for iran cause we didnt want to go to iraq?
So what happens if? Imagine the headlimes:150000 innocent US soldiers have been nuked due to ludacris democrats? AND THAT IS RESPONSIBLE IN PARTY TERMS?
Heinous explanation given inmurder case Kercher
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/11/25/italy.student.murder/index.html
PERUGIA, Italy (CNN) -- The latest suspect in the case of murdered British student Meredith Kercher was in the victim's apartment when she was killed and tried to confront the assailant after the attack, his lawyer told CNN Sunday.
Rudy Hermann Guede, 20, was in Kercher's apartment the night the 21-year-old woman was stabbed in her bed, although the two did not have sex and he did not kill her, said Guede's lawyer, Walter Biscotti. They "kissed and flirted and touched the way 20-year-olds do," Biscotti said.
Last week, investigators said DNA on a vaginal swab taken from Kercher matched Guede's DNA, indicating the two had sex.
At some point during the night, Guede felt sick, Biscotti said, and left to use the bathroom. While outside the bedroom, Guede heard Kercher scream and ran into the room to help her, Biscotti said. The lawyer would not say in what condition Guede said he found Kercher.
Kercher whispered "A.F.," into Guede's ear, Biscotti said without elaboration.
Guede panicked and fled the bedroom, Biscotti said. The lawyer did not say whether Guede says Kercher was alive or dead when he last saw her.
Guede has said he saw a person, whom he describes as the killer, outside the bedroom door, Biscotti said.
Guede tried to confront the person, but the person ran away, Biscotti said. Biscotti would not describe the person or elaborate on the subsequent timeline of events other than to say that Guede left the apartment that night.
PERUGIA, Italy (CNN) -- The latest suspect in the case of murdered British student Meredith Kercher was in the victim's apartment when she was killed and tried to confront the assailant after the attack, his lawyer told CNN Sunday.
Rudy Hermann Guede, 20, was in Kercher's apartment the night the 21-year-old woman was stabbed in her bed, although the two did not have sex and he did not kill her, said Guede's lawyer, Walter Biscotti. They "kissed and flirted and touched the way 20-year-olds do," Biscotti said.
Last week, investigators said DNA on a vaginal swab taken from Kercher matched Guede's DNA, indicating the two had sex.
At some point during the night, Guede felt sick, Biscotti said, and left to use the bathroom. While outside the bedroom, Guede heard Kercher scream and ran into the room to help her, Biscotti said. The lawyer would not say in what condition Guede said he found Kercher.
Kercher whispered "A.F.," into Guede's ear, Biscotti said without elaboration.
Guede panicked and fled the bedroom, Biscotti said. The lawyer did not say whether Guede says Kercher was alive or dead when he last saw her.
Guede has said he saw a person, whom he describes as the killer, outside the bedroom door, Biscotti said.
Guede tried to confront the person, but the person ran away, Biscotti said. Biscotti would not describe the person or elaborate on the subsequent timeline of events other than to say that Guede left the apartment that night.
Kill of Burgstaller shades World Cup-lottery
http://de.eurosport.yahoo.com/25112007/73/wm-2010-wm-losglueck-dfb-treu.html
The death of a former Austrian player marks the soccer World Cup lottery. Ahead of the group assignments, a former Austrian player was killed.
Doch da hatte der Tod des früheren Salzburg-Profis Burgstaller, der laut "FAZ.net" auf Einladung von Beckenbauer in Durban weilte, längst einen dunklen Schatten auf die Veranstaltung geworfen. Der mutmaßliche Raubmord löste erneut Diskussionen über die hohe Kriminalitätsrate im WM-Land aus. Blatter dementierte jedoch umgehend eine Verbindung zu dem Großereignis.
The death of a former Austrian player marks the soccer World Cup lottery. Ahead of the group assignments, a former Austrian player was killed.
Doch da hatte der Tod des früheren Salzburg-Profis Burgstaller, der laut "FAZ.net" auf Einladung von Beckenbauer in Durban weilte, längst einen dunklen Schatten auf die Veranstaltung geworfen. Der mutmaßliche Raubmord löste erneut Diskussionen über die hohe Kriminalitätsrate im WM-Land aus. Blatter dementierte jedoch umgehend eine Verbindung zu dem Großereignis.
The Saudi govt announced that Saudi women may have extra-marital affairs
The Saudi govt. announced furthermore that it punishes such behaviour through 200 leashes.
(The victim of the leashes intentionally increased the probability for gang-rape thru her behaviour) .
long live the harem against heinous crimes. unsatisfied women have to yank! ah sry wank.
(thats forbidden also?)
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/11/24/saudi.rape/index.html
(CNN) -- Under fire for its treatment of a rape victim, the Saudi Arabian government on Saturday said that the woman had an "illegitimate relationship" with a man who was not her husband, and that both "exposed themselves to this heinous crime."
In a statement, the kingdom's Ministry of Justice said it was "forced ... to clarify the role of the woman and the man who was accompanying her in this case and its circumstances" because of what it claimed were false media reports.
The 19-year-old woman was initially sentenced to 90 lashes for meeting with the man -- described by her attorney as a former friend from whom she was retrieving a photograph.
The seven attackers, who abducted the pair and raped her, received sentences ranging from 10 months to five years in jail.
When the woman appealed her sentence, a Saudi court more than doubled it. The Qatif General Court also increased the sentence for the rapists, to two to nine years in prison.
The case has drawn international attention, provoked outrage in the West and cast light on the treatment of women under Saudi Arabia's strict Islamic law.
(The victim of the leashes intentionally increased the probability for gang-rape thru her behaviour) .
long live the harem against heinous crimes. unsatisfied women have to yank! ah sry wank.
(thats forbidden also?)
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/11/24/saudi.rape/index.html
(CNN) -- Under fire for its treatment of a rape victim, the Saudi Arabian government on Saturday said that the woman had an "illegitimate relationship" with a man who was not her husband, and that both "exposed themselves to this heinous crime."
In a statement, the kingdom's Ministry of Justice said it was "forced ... to clarify the role of the woman and the man who was accompanying her in this case and its circumstances" because of what it claimed were false media reports.
The 19-year-old woman was initially sentenced to 90 lashes for meeting with the man -- described by her attorney as a former friend from whom she was retrieving a photograph.
The seven attackers, who abducted the pair and raped her, received sentences ranging from 10 months to five years in jail.
When the woman appealed her sentence, a Saudi court more than doubled it. The Qatif General Court also increased the sentence for the rapists, to two to nine years in prison.
The case has drawn international attention, provoked outrage in the West and cast light on the treatment of women under Saudi Arabia's strict Islamic law.
German ecos move left in Nurremberg in a real-politix frame
http://de.news.yahoo.com/dpa2/20071125/tde-analyse-grne-rcken-nach-links-8eb6888.html
fuuuuuark! FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUARK!
fuk! (lmaorofl) FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUK
fuuuuuark! FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUARK!
fuk! (lmaorofl) FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUK
World Anglican leader launches attack on U.S.
LONDON (Reuters) - Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, leader of the world's Anglicans, has launched an attack on the United States, saying it has lost the high moral ground since the September 11 attacks in 2001.
Williams, a longtime critic of the war in Iraq, said in uncharacteristically blunt language: "We have only one hegemonic power at the moment. It is not accumulating territory, it is trying to accumulate influence and control. That's not working."
Asked in an interview with the Muslim lifestyle magazine Emel, if he thought the United States had lost the high moral ground since the 9/11 attacks, he replied "Yes."
Drawing comparisons between British imperialism and the 21st Century United States, Williams said: "It is one thing to take over a territory and then pour energy and resources into administering and normalizing it.
"Rigthly or wrongly, that is what the British Empire did -- in India for example."
"It is another thing to go in on the assumption that a quick burst of violent action will somehow clear the decks and that you can move on and other people will put things back together again -- Iraq for example."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071125/us_nm/religion_anglicans_usa_dc
Williams, a longtime critic of the war in Iraq, said in uncharacteristically blunt language: "We have only one hegemonic power at the moment. It is not accumulating territory, it is trying to accumulate influence and control. That's not working."
Asked in an interview with the Muslim lifestyle magazine Emel, if he thought the United States had lost the high moral ground since the 9/11 attacks, he replied "Yes."
Drawing comparisons between British imperialism and the 21st Century United States, Williams said: "It is one thing to take over a territory and then pour energy and resources into administering and normalizing it.
"Rigthly or wrongly, that is what the British Empire did -- in India for example."
"It is another thing to go in on the assumption that a quick burst of violent action will somehow clear the decks and that you can move on and other people will put things back together again -- Iraq for example."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071125/us_nm/religion_anglicans_usa_dc
Exit polls herald vote cliff-hanger in Croatia
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071125/wl_nm/croatia_election_dc
Exit polls herald vote cliff-hanger in Croatia
ZAGREB (Reuters) - Exit polls in Croatia's tightly contested national election on Sunday gave no sizeable advantage to either of the two main parties.
The opposition Social Democrats (SDP) had 34.6 percent of the votes and the ruling conservative Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) 33.2 percent, according to exit polls based on a sample of 35,000 voters broadcast by state television after voting ended.
If the results are borne out, the SDP would have 62 seats in parliament, and the HDZ 57. However, the HDZ can count on traditional support from Croatians living abroad for few extra seats.
First preliminary results were expected at midnight (2300 GMT). Turnout by 4 p.m. (1500 GMT) was 48 percent.
The main issues in the election were corruption, economic growth and reforms needed to take the country into the European Union. Both parties have reformist, pro-EU agendas, with the SDP being more insistent on a strong state role in the economy.
Political analyst Marijana Grbesa said voters would ultimately base their choices, not so much on the issues, but on which style of government they preferred.
It would be either "the current one concentrated around the personality of the prime minister" or the one offered by the Social Democrats, "which emphasizes the importance of (democratic) procedures rather than personalities," she said.
Neither party is likely to be able to form a government on its own and long coalition talks are possible.
Financial markets expect little impact from the election as the country's political and economic agenda is in practice dictated by EU membership talks, which Zagreb opened in 2005.
The country needs to reform its inefficient judiciary and bloated public administration, crack down on corruption and cut subsidies to indebted state firms, particularly shipyards, to prepare for competition within the EU.
Exit polls herald vote cliff-hanger in Croatia
ZAGREB (Reuters) - Exit polls in Croatia's tightly contested national election on Sunday gave no sizeable advantage to either of the two main parties.
The opposition Social Democrats (SDP) had 34.6 percent of the votes and the ruling conservative Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) 33.2 percent, according to exit polls based on a sample of 35,000 voters broadcast by state television after voting ended.
If the results are borne out, the SDP would have 62 seats in parliament, and the HDZ 57. However, the HDZ can count on traditional support from Croatians living abroad for few extra seats.
First preliminary results were expected at midnight (2300 GMT). Turnout by 4 p.m. (1500 GMT) was 48 percent.
The main issues in the election were corruption, economic growth and reforms needed to take the country into the European Union. Both parties have reformist, pro-EU agendas, with the SDP being more insistent on a strong state role in the economy.
Political analyst Marijana Grbesa said voters would ultimately base their choices, not so much on the issues, but on which style of government they preferred.
It would be either "the current one concentrated around the personality of the prime minister" or the one offered by the Social Democrats, "which emphasizes the importance of (democratic) procedures rather than personalities," she said.
Neither party is likely to be able to form a government on its own and long coalition talks are possible.
Financial markets expect little impact from the election as the country's political and economic agenda is in practice dictated by EU membership talks, which Zagreb opened in 2005.
The country needs to reform its inefficient judiciary and bloated public administration, crack down on corruption and cut subsidies to indebted state firms, particularly shipyards, to prepare for competition within the EU.
Fuck Swayze
I just saw dirty dancing. I still think its a flat out copy of Flamingo Road
Flamingo Road was NBC's first attempt to jump into the 1980s primetime soap opera craze. It was first seen as a TV movie on May 12, 1980, and as a series on January 6, 1981, after a rebroadcast of the pilot on December 29, 1980. The show was based on the 1949 movie starring Joan Crawford, which was, in turn, based on the novel by Robert Wilder. It was created to be NBC's idea of competition against CBS's Dallas and Knots Landing, nighttime dramas that were inspired by the daily soap operas that aired in the afternoon.
The series took place in the fictional town of Truro, Florida, which was situated on the inside of corner of the panhandle. Action revolved around the various characters of the show, most of whom had ties to the very wealthy Weldon family, who resided on the high-priced Flamingo Road: Claude, who gained his fortune through the paper industry; Eudora, his naive wife; Constance, their believed to be adopted daughter, and Skipper, their son who was in his early 20s. Fielding Carlyle was Constance's husband, whilst Lane Ballou was his frequent mistress. Lane worked for bar owner Lute-Mae Sanders, Constance's biological mother (Claude was her biological father, but no one knew it). At Lute-Mae's Lane became good friends with Sam Curtis, a construction magnate. Other important members in the cast were Titus Semple, the ruthless sheriff, and Elmo Tyson, editor of the Truro Clarion and Eudora's high school sweetheart.
Though the show was popular, it soon succumbed to being scheduled against ABC's hit romance/mystery Hart to Hart. NBC pulled the plug on the show in Spring 1982, though reruns aired in the timeslot until mid summer of that year. Several of its stars went on to become famous for other works, including Morgan Fairchild, Mark Harmon, John Beck, and Woody Brown. Others were already relatively known when the series debut, such as Howard Duff, Stella Stevens, Cristina Raines, and Barbara Rush.
The series took place in the fictional town of Truro, Florida, which was situated on the inside of corner of the panhandle. Action revolved around the various characters of the show, most of whom had ties to the very wealthy Weldon family, who resided on the high-priced Flamingo Road: Claude, who gained his fortune through the paper industry; Eudora, his naive wife; Constance, their believed to be adopted daughter, and Skipper, their son who was in his early 20s. Fielding Carlyle was Constance's husband, whilst Lane Ballou was his frequent mistress. Lane worked for bar owner Lute-Mae Sanders, Constance's biological mother (Claude was her biological father, but no one knew it). At Lute-Mae's Lane became good friends with Sam Curtis, a construction magnate. Other important members in the cast were Titus Semple, the ruthless sheriff, and Elmo Tyson, editor of the Truro Clarion and Eudora's high school sweetheart.
Though the show was popular, it soon succumbed to being scheduled against ABC's hit romance/mystery Hart to Hart. NBC pulled the plug on the show in Spring 1982, though reruns aired in the timeslot until mid summer of that year. Several of its stars went on to become famous for other works, including Morgan Fairchild, Mark Harmon, John Beck, and Woody Brown. Others were already relatively known when the series debut, such as Howard Duff, Stella Stevens, Cristina Raines, and Barbara Rush.
wealthy family whose lives are corrupted by power and greed.
Actor
Howard Duff
Titus Semple
Kevin McCarthy
Claude Weldon
Barbara Rush
Eudora Weldon
Morgan Fairchild
Constance Weldon
Stella Stevens
Lute Mae Saunders
Cristina Raines
Lane Ballou
Mark Harmon
Fielding Carlyle
John Beck
Sam Curtis
Woody Brown
Skip Semple
Peter Donat
Elmo Tyson
Glenn Richards
Jasper
David Selby
Michael Tyrone
Cynthia Sikes
Sande Swanson
Gina Gallego
Alicia Sanchez
William Windom
Charlie Banks
Fernando Allende
Julio Sanchez
Beverly Garland
Louise Stone
Stacy Keach
Senator Porter
Trisha Noble
Vanessa Curtis
Andra Akers
Vanessa Curtis
Denise Galik
Christie Kovacs
Marcia Rodd
Alice Kovacs
Sandra Kearns
Beth MacDonald
Ed Hooks
Paul
John Shearin
Deputy Tyler
Michael Baseleon
Slade
Charles Cioffi
Harrison Brand
Joel Bailey
Tony
Marte Boyle Slout
Tina
Myra Chason
Prostitute
Pat Colbert
Prostitute
Michael Telano
Frank Coyne
Director
Edward H Feldman
Director
John Newland
Director
Don Weis
Director
Bob Sweeney
Director
Nicholas Sgarro
Director
Fernando Lamas
Director
Barry Crane
Director
Michael Preece
Director
Paul Stanley
Director
Nick Havinga
Director
Ron Satlof
Director
Gabrielle Beaumont
Director
Stan Lathan
Director
Alan Cooke
Director
Larry Elikann
Director
Bill Duke
Director
Producer
Michael Filerman
Executive Producer
Lee Rich
Executive Producer
Kathleen Shelley
Producer
Rita Larkin
Producer
Gareth Davies
Producer
Edward H Feldman
Producer
Writer
Howard Larkin
Writer
Margaret Armen
Writer
Ann Marcus
Writer
Ellis Marcus
Writer
Robert Blees
Writer
Kathleen Shelley
Writer
Michael Furino
Writer
James Fritzhand
Writer
Stephen Black
Writer
Bill D'Avray
Writer
Jeff Freilich
Writer
Joel Steiger
Writer
Henry Stein
Writer
Joyce Perry
Writer
Judy Terl
Writer
Paul Eric Myers
Writer
Margaret Schibi
Writer
Production Management
David Menteer
Assistant Director
Art Department
James Bacon
Art Director
Music
Gerald Fried
Music
Gerald Fried
Theme Music ("Flamingo Road")
Elliot Kaplan
Music
Camera, Film & Tape
Roland Smith
Director of Photography
Frank Raymond
Director of Photography
Actor
Howard Duff
Titus Semple
Kevin McCarthy
Claude Weldon
Barbara Rush
Eudora Weldon
Morgan Fairchild
Constance Weldon
Stella Stevens
Lute Mae Saunders
Cristina Raines
Lane Ballou
Mark Harmon
Fielding Carlyle
John Beck
Sam Curtis
Woody Brown
Skip Semple
Peter Donat
Elmo Tyson
Glenn Richards
Jasper
David Selby
Michael Tyrone
Cynthia Sikes
Sande Swanson
Gina Gallego
Alicia Sanchez
William Windom
Charlie Banks
Fernando Allende
Julio Sanchez
Beverly Garland
Louise Stone
Stacy Keach
Senator Porter
Trisha Noble
Vanessa Curtis
Andra Akers
Vanessa Curtis
Denise Galik
Christie Kovacs
Marcia Rodd
Alice Kovacs
Sandra Kearns
Beth MacDonald
Ed Hooks
Paul
John Shearin
Deputy Tyler
Michael Baseleon
Slade
Charles Cioffi
Harrison Brand
Joel Bailey
Tony
Marte Boyle Slout
Tina
Myra Chason
Prostitute
Pat Colbert
Prostitute
Michael Telano
Frank Coyne
Director
Edward H Feldman
Director
John Newland
Director
Don Weis
Director
Bob Sweeney
Director
Nicholas Sgarro
Director
Fernando Lamas
Director
Barry Crane
Director
Michael Preece
Director
Paul Stanley
Director
Nick Havinga
Director
Ron Satlof
Director
Gabrielle Beaumont
Director
Stan Lathan
Director
Alan Cooke
Director
Larry Elikann
Director
Bill Duke
Director
Producer
Michael Filerman
Executive Producer
Lee Rich
Executive Producer
Kathleen Shelley
Producer
Rita Larkin
Producer
Gareth Davies
Producer
Edward H Feldman
Producer
Writer
Howard Larkin
Writer
Margaret Armen
Writer
Ann Marcus
Writer
Ellis Marcus
Writer
Robert Blees
Writer
Kathleen Shelley
Writer
Michael Furino
Writer
James Fritzhand
Writer
Stephen Black
Writer
Bill D'Avray
Writer
Jeff Freilich
Writer
Joel Steiger
Writer
Henry Stein
Writer
Joyce Perry
Writer
Judy Terl
Writer
Paul Eric Myers
Writer
Margaret Schibi
Writer
Production Management
David Menteer
Assistant Director
Art Department
James Bacon
Art Director
Music
Gerald Fried
Music
Gerald Fried
Theme Music ("Flamingo Road")
Elliot Kaplan
Music
Camera, Film & Tape
Roland Smith
Director of Photography
Frank Raymond
Director of Photography
upcoming democratic debates
Presidential debates
First presidential debate:Friday, September 26University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS
Vice presidential debate:Thursday, October 2Washington University in St. Louis, MO
Second presidential debate:Tuesday, October 7Belmont University, Nashville, TN
Third presidential debate:Wednesday, October 15Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY
http://www.debates.org/pages/news_111907.html
Vice presidential debate:Thursday, October 2Washington University in St. Louis, MO
Second presidential debate:Tuesday, October 7Belmont University, Nashville, TN
Third presidential debate:Wednesday, October 15Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY
http://www.debates.org/pages/news_111907.html
Washington University to hold vice presidential campaign oct 08
http://media.www.studlife.com/media/storage/paper337/news/2007/11/20/press/University.To.Host.2008.Vice.Presidential.Debate-3110565.shtml
Washington University will once again take its place on the national political stage as the host of the 2008 vice presidential debate on Thursday, October 2, 2008 at 8:00 p.m. CST.The University's selection was announced by the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) on Monday afternoon and by a press conference held in the Athletic Complex."We are delighted to have been selected for an unprecedented fifth time to be a host site for one of the debates sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates," said Chancellor Mark Wrighton. "It is a privilege to play an important role in the American electoral process and to be chosen from among 19 applicants to be one of the hosts."Wrighton went on to say that the debates were "one of the great traditions of Washington University" and stressed that the University was hosting the only Vice Presidential debate of the upcoming election cycle.This is the fifth consecutive time that the University has been selected as a host for a debate and the fourth debate that will occur. Notably, this is the first time that the University will host a vice presidential debate instead of a presidential debate.Following the 2004 debate, Wrighton stated that the University would not apply for future debates citing the cost and other factors; after taking into consideration comments from the community, however, Wrighton decided to apply."After listening to students, faculty and members of our community, I concluded that it meant a great deal to our region and our University to have the opportunity to become involved in hosting the presidential debate," said Wrighton. "Being selected five times in a row is very unusual, of course, and we feel that the Commission on Presidential Debates obviously has confidence in us and we well it is a responsibility to step forward in this public service.
Washington University will once again take its place on the national political stage as the host of the 2008 vice presidential debate on Thursday, October 2, 2008 at 8:00 p.m. CST.The University's selection was announced by the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) on Monday afternoon and by a press conference held in the Athletic Complex."We are delighted to have been selected for an unprecedented fifth time to be a host site for one of the debates sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates," said Chancellor Mark Wrighton. "It is a privilege to play an important role in the American electoral process and to be chosen from among 19 applicants to be one of the hosts."Wrighton went on to say that the debates were "one of the great traditions of Washington University" and stressed that the University was hosting the only Vice Presidential debate of the upcoming election cycle.This is the fifth consecutive time that the University has been selected as a host for a debate and the fourth debate that will occur. Notably, this is the first time that the University will host a vice presidential debate instead of a presidential debate.Following the 2004 debate, Wrighton stated that the University would not apply for future debates citing the cost and other factors; after taking into consideration comments from the community, however, Wrighton decided to apply."After listening to students, faculty and members of our community, I concluded that it meant a great deal to our region and our University to have the opportunity to become involved in hosting the presidential debate," said Wrighton. "Being selected five times in a row is very unusual, of course, and we feel that the Commission on Presidential Debates obviously has confidence in us and we well it is a responsibility to step forward in this public service.
Thailand election to take place dec 23rd
http://www.mysinchew.com/node/3158
The race is on for political parties contesting the Dec 23 general election that will put Thailand back on the path toward democratic revival. Having experienced the failure of democracy, a military coup and martial rule—all in little over one year—political awareness among the people could not be higher. Both the rural masses and the urban middle class are acutely aware of the significance of the upcoming general election, which they know will determine Thailand’s future as a democratic society. Whether the democracy that emerges once the interim Surayud government hands over power will be sustainable depends on the outcome of the election.
As long as the election is free and fair by generally accepted standards, the government that emerges from the political process must be considered legitimate. The Election Commission (EC) and the Surayud government must work together closely to ensure that political parties compete on a level playing field by strictly adhering to the rules and do not resort to dishonest practices, such as vote-buying, bribery or other types of electoral fraud to gain an unfair advantage over competitors.
If applied correctly, such measures will compel and encourage political parties to compete among themselves to try to win the hearts and minds of voters through persuasion. Political party leaders considered to be the main contenders in the election have been making the rounds organising press conferences, giving interviews and participating in panel discussions. With less than two months to go, they cannot afford to waste time. They and their candidates should introduce themselves to the public and disseminate information on their parties’ policy platforms.
The race is on for political parties contesting the Dec 23 general election that will put Thailand back on the path toward democratic revival. Having experienced the failure of democracy, a military coup and martial rule—all in little over one year—political awareness among the people could not be higher. Both the rural masses and the urban middle class are acutely aware of the significance of the upcoming general election, which they know will determine Thailand’s future as a democratic society. Whether the democracy that emerges once the interim Surayud government hands over power will be sustainable depends on the outcome of the election.
As long as the election is free and fair by generally accepted standards, the government that emerges from the political process must be considered legitimate. The Election Commission (EC) and the Surayud government must work together closely to ensure that political parties compete on a level playing field by strictly adhering to the rules and do not resort to dishonest practices, such as vote-buying, bribery or other types of electoral fraud to gain an unfair advantage over competitors.
If applied correctly, such measures will compel and encourage political parties to compete among themselves to try to win the hearts and minds of voters through persuasion. Political party leaders considered to be the main contenders in the election have been making the rounds organising press conferences, giving interviews and participating in panel discussions. With less than two months to go, they cannot afford to waste time. They and their candidates should introduce themselves to the public and disseminate information on their parties’ policy platforms.
Cases of bankruptcy expected to rise
what i donr get about this mortage crisis is that the dollar is worth less. so if u sell a good, u get more money in return, at least in numbers. So why cant people pay back?
http://n-tv.de/883983.html
http://n-tv.de/883983.html
Iran says nuclear fuel produced for Iran's research reactor -Iran says it made nuclear fuel pellets
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071124/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_nuclear_1
Iran says it made nuclear fuel pellets
TEHRAN, Iran - The head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization said Saturday that the country had produced its first nuclear fuel pellets for use in a heavy water reactor, which is still under construction.
The uranium oxide pellets are made using a process separate from the uranium enrichment at the heart of a standoff between Iran and the U.S., which accuses the clerical government of secretly pursuing a nuclear weapons program.
But the Arak reactor, which began construction in central Iran in 2004, is a concern to the West because the spent fuel from a heavy-water facility can be used to produce plutonium, which in turn can be used for a nuclear weapon. U.N. inspectors last visited the reactor in July, and Iran has said it hopes to have Arak up and running by 2009.
"Fuel pellets to be used in the 40-megawatt Arak research reactor have been produced," Iranian Vice President Gholam Reza Aghazadeh said, according to the official IRNA news agency.
Iran is developing Arak parallel to its better-known light-water reactor program, like the one being built with Russian help at Bushehr. Such light-water reactors use enriched uranium that, at far higher levels of enrichment, can also be used to produce the fissile material for a nuclear weapon.
Iran insists its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes including generating electricity.
The U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, had no comment Saturday.
Iran says nuclear fuel produced for Iran's research reactor
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071124/wl_mideast_afp/irannuclearpolitics_071124165728
"Based on the existing standards, the pellets useable in the 40-megawatt Arak research reactor have been produced," said the head of Iran's atomic energy organisation, Gholam Reza Aghazadeh.
"By the first half of the next Iranian year (September 2008), the fuel manufacturing plant will be able to provide fuel for the 40-megawatt Arak research reactor," he said.
The Arak reactor, due to be completed in 2009, would replace a research reactor in Tehran that was supplied by the Americans before the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Iran says it made nuclear fuel pellets
TEHRAN, Iran - The head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization said Saturday that the country had produced its first nuclear fuel pellets for use in a heavy water reactor, which is still under construction.
The uranium oxide pellets are made using a process separate from the uranium enrichment at the heart of a standoff between Iran and the U.S., which accuses the clerical government of secretly pursuing a nuclear weapons program.
But the Arak reactor, which began construction in central Iran in 2004, is a concern to the West because the spent fuel from a heavy-water facility can be used to produce plutonium, which in turn can be used for a nuclear weapon. U.N. inspectors last visited the reactor in July, and Iran has said it hopes to have Arak up and running by 2009.
"Fuel pellets to be used in the 40-megawatt Arak research reactor have been produced," Iranian Vice President Gholam Reza Aghazadeh said, according to the official IRNA news agency.
Iran is developing Arak parallel to its better-known light-water reactor program, like the one being built with Russian help at Bushehr. Such light-water reactors use enriched uranium that, at far higher levels of enrichment, can also be used to produce the fissile material for a nuclear weapon.
Iran insists its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes including generating electricity.
The U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, had no comment Saturday.
Iran says nuclear fuel produced for Iran's research reactor
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071124/wl_mideast_afp/irannuclearpolitics_071124165728
"Based on the existing standards, the pellets useable in the 40-megawatt Arak research reactor have been produced," said the head of Iran's atomic energy organisation, Gholam Reza Aghazadeh.
"By the first half of the next Iranian year (September 2008), the fuel manufacturing plant will be able to provide fuel for the 40-megawatt Arak research reactor," he said.
The Arak reactor, due to be completed in 2009, would replace a research reactor in Tehran that was supplied by the Americans before the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Saturday, 24 November 2007
Canberra is Labour
Telegraph: Rudd is nerdy
uh ah: on day of victory, rudd is suddenly nerdy. suddenly some human traces when it comes to depict the political opponent. listen guys: just go with fox news. Kick Plame in the face for lookin for wmds in Iran and not Iraq. Just build mosques or sth. But spare us with your degenerated for of humanity. If u comeup with some points that could be real, dont push it afterwards. Thats retard. thats ugly.
scroll down a bit for thinkprogress link after clickin this
scroll down a bit for thinkprogress link after clickin this
Caroline Overington slaps Labour candidate in the face
SYDNEY (AFP) - A respected journalist Saturday denied reports that she had slapped a candidate in Australia's election in the face, saying she had pushed him away when he approached her.
Opposition Labor Party candidate George Newhouse was at a polling station in Sydney's affluent eastern suburbs when award-winning journalist Caroline Overington arrived, witnesses told Australian Associated Press (AAP).
Overington allegedly shocked voters and booth attendants by walking up and slapping Newhouse across the face before striding off, AAP reported.
"At first we thought, 'Who was this woman yelling at Newhouse', then she slapped him and we realised it was Caroline Overington," one witness said.
But Chris Mitchell, Overington's editor at the national broadsheet The Australian, said the journalist denied slapping Newhouse.
Overington "admitted pushing him away with an open hand when he approached her, later apologised for that and said she regretted there had been any further contact with the candidate," Mitchell said.
A spokeswoman for Newhouse confirmed that an incident with Overington had taken place and said his team were "considering our options".
Newhouse is a candidate in the rich seat of Wentworth, currently held by government minister and self-made millionaire Malcolm Turnbull but considered winnable by the centre-left Labor Party.
But the seat has provided even more drama than simply politics, with Newhouse's ex-girlfriend Dani Ecuyer running against him as an independent.
Last week flirtatious emails sent by Overington to Newhouse were published in rival papers. Overington dismissed the emails as a joke.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071124/wl_asia_afp/australiavotemediaoffbeat;_ylt=An3JMDSvE8FmccxhoTi8j5YfYhAF
Opposition Labor Party candidate George Newhouse was at a polling station in Sydney's affluent eastern suburbs when award-winning journalist Caroline Overington arrived, witnesses told Australian Associated Press (AAP).
Overington allegedly shocked voters and booth attendants by walking up and slapping Newhouse across the face before striding off, AAP reported.
"At first we thought, 'Who was this woman yelling at Newhouse', then she slapped him and we realised it was Caroline Overington," one witness said.
But Chris Mitchell, Overington's editor at the national broadsheet The Australian, said the journalist denied slapping Newhouse.
Overington "admitted pushing him away with an open hand when he approached her, later apologised for that and said she regretted there had been any further contact with the candidate," Mitchell said.
A spokeswoman for Newhouse confirmed that an incident with Overington had taken place and said his team were "considering our options".
Newhouse is a candidate in the rich seat of Wentworth, currently held by government minister and self-made millionaire Malcolm Turnbull but considered winnable by the centre-left Labor Party.
But the seat has provided even more drama than simply politics, with Newhouse's ex-girlfriend Dani Ecuyer running against him as an independent.
Last week flirtatious emails sent by Overington to Newhouse were published in rival papers. Overington dismissed the emails as a joke.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071124/wl_asia_afp/australiavotemediaoffbeat;_ylt=An3JMDSvE8FmccxhoTi8j5YfYhAF
Howard says he picked up the trunk
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071124/ap_on_re_au_an/australia_election;_ylt=AicgPTM5FiYIqCTiK33x_yes0NUE
sniff. how remarkable
SYDNEY, Australia - Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd swept to power in Australian elections Saturday, ending an 11-year conservative era and promising major changes to policies on global warming and the Iraq war.
The win handed a humiliating end to the career of outgoing Prime Minister John Howard, who became Australia's second-longest serving leader — and who had appeared almost unassailable as little as a year ago.
"My fellow Australians, a few moments ago I telephoned Kevin Rudd and I congratulated him and the Australian Labor Party on a very emphatic victory," Howard said in Sydney in a nationally televised address. "This is a great democracy and I want to wish Mr. Rudd well."
sniff. how remarkable
SYDNEY, Australia - Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd swept to power in Australian elections Saturday, ending an 11-year conservative era and promising major changes to policies on global warming and the Iraq war.
The win handed a humiliating end to the career of outgoing Prime Minister John Howard, who became Australia's second-longest serving leader — and who had appeared almost unassailable as little as a year ago.
"My fellow Australians, a few moments ago I telephoned Kevin Rudd and I congratulated him and the Australian Labor Party on a very emphatic victory," Howard said in Sydney in a nationally televised address. "This is a great democracy and I want to wish Mr. Rudd well."
Howard's reign in Australia is over
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071124/ap_on_re_au_an/australia_election;_ylt=At.eTGd81Jm65axLP_4wIkWs0NUE
Howard's reign in Australia is over
SYDNEY, Australia - Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd earned a sweeping victory in Australia's elections Saturday, ending an 11-year conservative era and promising major changes to policies on global warming and the Iraq war.
Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio reported that Prime Minister John Howard's aides had said Howard had phoned Rudd to concede defeat.
Rudd's win handed Howard a humiliating end to a career in which he became Australia's second-longest serving leader — and who had appeared almost unassailable as little as a year ago.
Potentially adding insult to injury, Howard was among government lawmakers in danger of losing his seat in Parliament — he would be only the second sitting prime minister in 106 years of federal government to be dumped from the legislature.
Official figures from the Australian Electoral Commission showed Labor far in front with more than 60 percent of the ballots counted. An ABC analysis showed that Labor would get at least 81 places in the 150- seat lower house of Parliament — a clear majority.
"On the numbers we've seen tonight, Labor is going to form a government," deputy Labor leader Julia Gillard said on ABC television.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) — Labor leader Kevin Rudd appeared set for a sweeping victory in elections in Australia on Saturday, a win that would end a conservative era and usher in major changes to policies on global warming and the Iraq war.
A Labor win also would hand outgoing Prime Minister John Howard a humiliating end to a career in which he became Australia's second-longest serving leader, and who appeared almost unassailable as little as one year ago.
Potentially adding insult to injury, Howard was among government lawmakers in danger of losing his seat in Parliament — a result that would make him only the second sitting prime minister in 106 years of federal government to be dumped from the legislature.
Official figures from the Australian Electoral Commission showed Labor in front with more than 60 percent of the ballots counted. An Australian Broadcasting Corp. analysis showed that Labor would get at least 81 places in the 150- seat lower house of parliament — a clear majority.
"On the numbers we've seen tonight, Labor is going to form a government," deputy Labor leader Julia Gillard said on ABC television.
Howard was expected to concede defeat later Saturday, before Rudd formally claims victory.
Howard's four straight election victories and 11 years in power make him one of Australia's most successful politicians, and he has presided over an unprecedented economic boom fueled by demand from China and India for coal and other resources dug from Australia's Outback.
But, at 68, Howard suffered widespread perceptions that he has stayed too long.
Rudd, a 50-year-old former diplomat who speaks fluent Chinese, says Howard is ill-equipped to deal with new challenges like global warming and a high-speed Internet network.
He has said his first priority if he is elected would be to sign the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions, something Howard has refused for years to do.
Rudd also says he would withdraw Australia's 550 combat troops from Iraq, leaving twice that number in mostly security roles. Howard says all the troops will stay as long as needed.
Howard has been one of President Bush's staunchest allies, and reshaped Australia's image abroad with his unwavering support for Bush's war against terrorism.
Howard's reign in Australia is over
SYDNEY, Australia - Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd earned a sweeping victory in Australia's elections Saturday, ending an 11-year conservative era and promising major changes to policies on global warming and the Iraq war.
Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio reported that Prime Minister John Howard's aides had said Howard had phoned Rudd to concede defeat.
Rudd's win handed Howard a humiliating end to a career in which he became Australia's second-longest serving leader — and who had appeared almost unassailable as little as a year ago.
Potentially adding insult to injury, Howard was among government lawmakers in danger of losing his seat in Parliament — he would be only the second sitting prime minister in 106 years of federal government to be dumped from the legislature.
Official figures from the Australian Electoral Commission showed Labor far in front with more than 60 percent of the ballots counted. An ABC analysis showed that Labor would get at least 81 places in the 150- seat lower house of Parliament — a clear majority.
"On the numbers we've seen tonight, Labor is going to form a government," deputy Labor leader Julia Gillard said on ABC television.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) — Labor leader Kevin Rudd appeared set for a sweeping victory in elections in Australia on Saturday, a win that would end a conservative era and usher in major changes to policies on global warming and the Iraq war.
A Labor win also would hand outgoing Prime Minister John Howard a humiliating end to a career in which he became Australia's second-longest serving leader, and who appeared almost unassailable as little as one year ago.
Potentially adding insult to injury, Howard was among government lawmakers in danger of losing his seat in Parliament — a result that would make him only the second sitting prime minister in 106 years of federal government to be dumped from the legislature.
Official figures from the Australian Electoral Commission showed Labor in front with more than 60 percent of the ballots counted. An Australian Broadcasting Corp. analysis showed that Labor would get at least 81 places in the 150- seat lower house of parliament — a clear majority.
"On the numbers we've seen tonight, Labor is going to form a government," deputy Labor leader Julia Gillard said on ABC television.
Howard was expected to concede defeat later Saturday, before Rudd formally claims victory.
Howard's four straight election victories and 11 years in power make him one of Australia's most successful politicians, and he has presided over an unprecedented economic boom fueled by demand from China and India for coal and other resources dug from Australia's Outback.
But, at 68, Howard suffered widespread perceptions that he has stayed too long.
Rudd, a 50-year-old former diplomat who speaks fluent Chinese, says Howard is ill-equipped to deal with new challenges like global warming and a high-speed Internet network.
He has said his first priority if he is elected would be to sign the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions, something Howard has refused for years to do.
Rudd also says he would withdraw Australia's 550 combat troops from Iraq, leaving twice that number in mostly security roles. Howard says all the troops will stay as long as needed.
Howard has been one of President Bush's staunchest allies, and reshaped Australia's image abroad with his unwavering support for Bush's war against terrorism.
Bush is judged "modest" by the NYTimes
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/24/washington/24bush.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
As I remember, territory can be called remote.
As I remember, territory can be called remote.
Howard Reported to Have Conceded to Rudd
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=3907948
Labor Party Sweeps to Victory in Australian Election; Howard Reported to Have Conceded to Rudd
Labor Party Sweeps to Victory in Australian Election; Howard Reported to Have Conceded to Rudd
Friday, 23 November 2007
Richard Perle is unhappy
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/23/perle-iraq-wrong/
Well, wemust deny any attemot to interdict the fun. 1.1mio dead Iraqis is no fun for the guys carrying the guns. Insofar Mr.perle is totally correct about criticizing the current state of events. I think the problem about intention is that u have to define your primary objectiv. thats stupd about america. thinkof germany or being dutch one and a kill. americas 2-1-3 is just a fucking accident. think of mr.bush.
okay first up u define whats wrong about the enemy. wmds, torture, genocide. all preliminary conditions are totally false and imitated by the own forces. the commander has to be shot.
(okay could be a bit impolite)
Okay lets get back to Mr.Perle. Mr.Perle is unhappy. Furthermore he published a book,sohe must be able to write and read.
According to these circumstances we must admit the ability to suffer.
Well, wemust deny any attemot to interdict the fun. 1.1mio dead Iraqis is no fun for the guys carrying the guns. Insofar Mr.perle is totally correct about criticizing the current state of events. I think the problem about intention is that u have to define your primary objectiv. thats stupd about america. thinkof germany or being dutch one and a kill. americas 2-1-3 is just a fucking accident. think of mr.bush.
okay first up u define whats wrong about the enemy. wmds, torture, genocide. all preliminary conditions are totally false and imitated by the own forces. the commander has to be shot.
(okay could be a bit impolite)
Okay lets get back to Mr.Perle. Mr.Perle is unhappy. Furthermore he published a book,sohe must be able to write and read.
According to these circumstances we must admit the ability to suffer.
Congo
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa/11/23/congo.fighting.ap/index.html
RUGARI, Congo (AP) -- Explosions and machine-gun fire echoed through the hills of east Congo on Friday, as government troops battled rebels for a third day straight amid an ever- worsening humanitarian crisis.
Nearly 200,000 people have been displaced in the past few months, a U.N. military spokesman said.
Clashes between the army and insurgents loyal to rebel leader Laurent Nkunda erupted early Friday around Rugari, about 35 kilometers (20 miles) north of the regional capital, Goma, said Maj. Viveck Goyal, a spokesman for the peacekeeping force.
"The initial information we have is that the Nkunda elements are being pushed away from Rugari," Goyal said.
The shelling and machine-gun fire appeared to have stopped by late morning, when dozens of army soldiers could be seen packing up mortar tubes.
RUGARI, Congo (AP) -- Explosions and machine-gun fire echoed through the hills of east Congo on Friday, as government troops battled rebels for a third day straight amid an ever- worsening humanitarian crisis.
Nearly 200,000 people have been displaced in the past few months, a U.N. military spokesman said.
Clashes between the army and insurgents loyal to rebel leader Laurent Nkunda erupted early Friday around Rugari, about 35 kilometers (20 miles) north of the regional capital, Goma, said Maj. Viveck Goyal, a spokesman for the peacekeeping force.
"The initial information we have is that the Nkunda elements are being pushed away from Rugari," Goyal said.
The shelling and machine-gun fire appeared to have stopped by late morning, when dozens of army soldiers could be seen packing up mortar tubes.
Oklahoma officers seem to have abused "girls gone wild" founder
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ex-francis23nov24,0,4123332.story?coll=la-home-center
I dont want to present any superflous productions of this man, lets say we can can keep it political:
GOP GONE WILD:
I dont want to present any superflous productions of this man, lets say we can can keep it political:
GOP GONE WILD:
As in Belgium, the Muslim right in Lebanon is currently attempting to obstruct the country
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/11/23/lebanon.army/index.html?iref=mpstoryview
they leave a pro western government in place, now without a president.
this hints at their unwillingness for constructive political work.
they leave a pro western government in place, now without a president.
this hints at their unwillingness for constructive political work.
Polands government wont ratify EU human rights charta
http://de.news.yahoo.com/afp/20071123/tts-polen-regierung-parlament-eu-zf-4286055_1.html
Tusk stressed that hell pull back from Iraq.
Tusk stressed that hell pull back from Iraq.
German skins carved svastika on front head of girl
Belgish right proliferating ineptitude when it comes to reuniting
http://www.lalibre.be/article.phtml?id=10&subid=90&art_id=385178
Dutch/German and French righties are in power since a while in Belgium. They havent achieved a thing yet. Guy Verhofstadt (lefty) is still prime. The only thing that is becoming more sure each day is that Belgium will be axed in two parts.
Cette "convention" sera composée surtout de parlementaires, de membres du gouvernement fédéral et des gouvernements régionaux et communautaires.
Edito: Il y a des choses qu'on ne peut pas demander
Ecoutez l'édito de Vincent Slits
La mise sur pied d'une Convention qui discutera d'une prochaine réforme de l'Etat se précise. Elle fait partie des propositions exposées vendredi au roi par les présidents de la Chambre et du Sénat, Herman Van Rompuy et Armand De Decker.
Belgish state reform has been precised. It was suggested towards head of parliament.
Après le vote sur Bruxelles-Hal-Vilvorde et l'arrêt des négociations gouvernementales qui s'en est suivi, le chef de l'Etat a confié aux deux présidents d'assemblée une mission visant à concrétiser "le dialogue sur la poursuite de l'élaboration équilibrée de nos institutions et un renforcement de la cohésion entre les communautés".
After the vote concerning bruxelles hal vilvorde and the stop for governmental negotiations , the head of state confirmed to head of parliament to trigger a balanced dialogue regardin the institutions and the cooperation of cities..
Les deux "réconciliateurs" préconisent la création d'une Convention composée "surtout" de parlementaires, de membres du gouvernement fédéral et des gouvernements régionaux et communautaires, indique un communiqué du Palais diffusé après l'entrevue. Au sein de cette convention, un bureau, appelé Collège, serait constitué de personnes ayant de l'expérience en matière institutionnelle.
There'll be a convention. In it, there'll be representatives(deputees), members of government and representatives of regional governments. This was indicated thru a note of the king.
The convention will be called college.
All members will have preknowledge of institutional matters.
Ces propositions ont été accueillies de façon "plutôt positive" par les présidents de parti qui ont été consulté par les deux "réconciliateurs", précise le communiqué. Les propositions devront toutefois être élaborées davantage, dit encore le communiqué qui confirme que les discussions sur la réforme de l'Etat auront lieu après la formation du gouvernement, mais le plus vite possible.
All parties responded positive. They'll (the propositions to create a convention)be yet verified for sheer advantage.
"...et seront élaborées davantage en vue d'une mise en oeuvre le plus vite possible après la formation du gouvernement", souligne le texte.
After a government is formed they'll (the suggestions for state reform)be executed.
Avant d'être reçus par le chef de l'Etat, les deux "réconciliateurs" se sont réunis dans un restaurant d'Uccle jeudi soir avec le formateur, Yves Leterme, et les chefs de délégation de l'orange bleue, à savoir les présidents du CD&V, Jo Vandeurzen, du MR, Didier Reynders, de l'Open Vld, Bart Somers, et du cdH, Joëlle Milquet.
Yves Leterne and Jo Vandeurzen drank sth in a restaurant in Uccle (Belgium) after delivering the convention suggestion to the head of state.
C'était la première fois que les chefs de délégation se retrouvaient autour de la même table depuis l'arrêt des négociations. Celles-ci n'ont pas pour autant repris mais il n'y a pas eu de "clash", les divergences entre les uns et les autres ont pu être amoindries et une nouvelle réunion est prévue vendredi.
Thats been the first time French and German/Dutch delegations met since a while.
Ces derniers développements laissent entrevoir une éclaircie sur le front de la formation du nouveau gouvernement. Mercredi et jeudi, l'heure était au pessimisme. Yves Leterme avait tenté en vain de réunir les chefs de délégation mercredi soir. La volonté de la N-VA, mais aussi de certains CD&V, d'inclure dans une note communautaire des points relatifs à la sécurité sociale avait cabré le cdH. Le lendemain, la situation s'était envenimée quand un député de la N-VA a rappelé les exigences de son parti de régionaliser certaines matières, sous peine de ne pas approuver un futur accord de gouvernement.
(bla Laterne very lucky to achieve this bla)
Le travail est pourtant loin d'être achevé. "Nous ne sommes pas encore au bout de nos peines", a confié le président du MR, Didier Reynders. M. Reynders a rappelé que son parti, comme les autres formations francophones, attendait toujours le retour de la confiance pour reprendre les négociations.
Didier Reynders said "we didnt meet the bottom of pains yet." Work remains to be done.
"S'il y a un accord pour montrer que l'on va dans un cadre négocié avec toutes les familles politiques pour discuter d'une réforme de l'Etat, il sera possible de relancer les négociations", a-t-il expliqué, peu avant la diffusion du communiqué du Palais.
General discussion with all families of politics required
M. Reynders a également rappelé qu'une réforme de l'Etat impliquait aussi, selon lui, un renforcement de l'Etat fédéral. Il a dit par ailleurs l'opposition de sa formation à une remise en cause de la solidarité interpersonnelle.
Monsier Reynders reminded that a reform implies necessarily further strengthenin of the federal (split) order of belgium.
Après l'entrevue accordée dans la matinée par le roi aux présidents de la Chambre et du Sénat, Herman Van Rompuy et Armand De Decker, une nouvelle réunion était annoncée mais celle-ci n'a finalement pas eu lieu.
Another meeting was announced but didnt take place.
Les raisons de ce report demeurent imprécises. On indiquait à certaines sources que la présidente du cdH, Joëlle Milquet, avait déposé de nouveaux amendements à la note communautaire de M. Leterme. D'autres sources expliquaient que le problème se trouvait dans les exigences de régionalisation de la N-VA.
some voices said Joelle Milquet wants to redefine cities. Others said a problem exists with regional entities of nva.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New-Flemish_Alliance
Dutch/German and French righties are in power since a while in Belgium. They havent achieved a thing yet. Guy Verhofstadt (lefty) is still prime. The only thing that is becoming more sure each day is that Belgium will be axed in two parts.
Cette "convention" sera composée surtout de parlementaires, de membres du gouvernement fédéral et des gouvernements régionaux et communautaires.
Edito: Il y a des choses qu'on ne peut pas demander
Ecoutez l'édito de Vincent Slits
La mise sur pied d'une Convention qui discutera d'une prochaine réforme de l'Etat se précise. Elle fait partie des propositions exposées vendredi au roi par les présidents de la Chambre et du Sénat, Herman Van Rompuy et Armand De Decker.
Belgish state reform has been precised. It was suggested towards head of parliament.
Après le vote sur Bruxelles-Hal-Vilvorde et l'arrêt des négociations gouvernementales qui s'en est suivi, le chef de l'Etat a confié aux deux présidents d'assemblée une mission visant à concrétiser "le dialogue sur la poursuite de l'élaboration équilibrée de nos institutions et un renforcement de la cohésion entre les communautés".
After the vote concerning bruxelles hal vilvorde and the stop for governmental negotiations , the head of state confirmed to head of parliament to trigger a balanced dialogue regardin the institutions and the cooperation of cities..
Les deux "réconciliateurs" préconisent la création d'une Convention composée "surtout" de parlementaires, de membres du gouvernement fédéral et des gouvernements régionaux et communautaires, indique un communiqué du Palais diffusé après l'entrevue. Au sein de cette convention, un bureau, appelé Collège, serait constitué de personnes ayant de l'expérience en matière institutionnelle.
There'll be a convention. In it, there'll be representatives(deputees), members of government and representatives of regional governments. This was indicated thru a note of the king.
The convention will be called college.
All members will have preknowledge of institutional matters.
Ces propositions ont été accueillies de façon "plutôt positive" par les présidents de parti qui ont été consulté par les deux "réconciliateurs", précise le communiqué. Les propositions devront toutefois être élaborées davantage, dit encore le communiqué qui confirme que les discussions sur la réforme de l'Etat auront lieu après la formation du gouvernement, mais le plus vite possible.
All parties responded positive. They'll (the propositions to create a convention)be yet verified for sheer advantage.
"...et seront élaborées davantage en vue d'une mise en oeuvre le plus vite possible après la formation du gouvernement", souligne le texte.
After a government is formed they'll (the suggestions for state reform)be executed.
Avant d'être reçus par le chef de l'Etat, les deux "réconciliateurs" se sont réunis dans un restaurant d'Uccle jeudi soir avec le formateur, Yves Leterme, et les chefs de délégation de l'orange bleue, à savoir les présidents du CD&V, Jo Vandeurzen, du MR, Didier Reynders, de l'Open Vld, Bart Somers, et du cdH, Joëlle Milquet.
Yves Leterne and Jo Vandeurzen drank sth in a restaurant in Uccle (Belgium) after delivering the convention suggestion to the head of state.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Belgium#Head_of_state
C'était la première fois que les chefs de délégation se retrouvaient autour de la même table depuis l'arrêt des négociations. Celles-ci n'ont pas pour autant repris mais il n'y a pas eu de "clash", les divergences entre les uns et les autres ont pu être amoindries et une nouvelle réunion est prévue vendredi.
Thats been the first time French and German/Dutch delegations met since a while.
Ces derniers développements laissent entrevoir une éclaircie sur le front de la formation du nouveau gouvernement. Mercredi et jeudi, l'heure était au pessimisme. Yves Leterme avait tenté en vain de réunir les chefs de délégation mercredi soir. La volonté de la N-VA, mais aussi de certains CD&V, d'inclure dans une note communautaire des points relatifs à la sécurité sociale avait cabré le cdH. Le lendemain, la situation s'était envenimée quand un député de la N-VA a rappelé les exigences de son parti de régionaliser certaines matières, sous peine de ne pas approuver un futur accord de gouvernement.
(bla Laterne very lucky to achieve this bla)
Le travail est pourtant loin d'être achevé. "Nous ne sommes pas encore au bout de nos peines", a confié le président du MR, Didier Reynders. M. Reynders a rappelé que son parti, comme les autres formations francophones, attendait toujours le retour de la confiance pour reprendre les négociations.
Didier Reynders said "we didnt meet the bottom of pains yet." Work remains to be done.
"S'il y a un accord pour montrer que l'on va dans un cadre négocié avec toutes les familles politiques pour discuter d'une réforme de l'Etat, il sera possible de relancer les négociations", a-t-il expliqué, peu avant la diffusion du communiqué du Palais.
General discussion with all families of politics required
M. Reynders a également rappelé qu'une réforme de l'Etat impliquait aussi, selon lui, un renforcement de l'Etat fédéral. Il a dit par ailleurs l'opposition de sa formation à une remise en cause de la solidarité interpersonnelle.
Monsier Reynders reminded that a reform implies necessarily further strengthenin of the federal (split) order of belgium.
Après l'entrevue accordée dans la matinée par le roi aux présidents de la Chambre et du Sénat, Herman Van Rompuy et Armand De Decker, une nouvelle réunion était annoncée mais celle-ci n'a finalement pas eu lieu.
Another meeting was announced but didnt take place.
Les raisons de ce report demeurent imprécises. On indiquait à certaines sources que la présidente du cdH, Joëlle Milquet, avait déposé de nouveaux amendements à la note communautaire de M. Leterme. D'autres sources expliquaient que le problème se trouvait dans les exigences de régionalisation de la N-VA.
some voices said Joelle Milquet wants to redefine cities. Others said a problem exists with regional entities of nva.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New-Flemish_Alliance
Nuttig can mean whory in German
Rooting out evil thru cellphones
Scott McClellan Didn't Out Bush for High Crimes and Misdemeanors, Cheney Did.
BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG
Mark Karlin, Editor and Publisher, BuzzFlash.com
November 23, 2007
As we’ve noted before, BuzzFlash feels personally invested in the exposing of the White House treason surrounding the outing of Valerie Plame, which resulted in impairing our national security when it comes to tracking weapons of mass destruction. Following up on a David Corn commentary shortly after the infamous Bob "The Traitor" Novak column, BuzzFlash helped Corn raise the alarm about the dangerous and illegal significance of the identification of Plame as a CIA operative.
So it is with astonishment that we have watched the mainstream media ignore or dismiss the revelation by once White House loyalist Scott McClellan that Cheney and Bush were likely involved in the outing and knowingly sent him out to lie to the press about the role of the two key messengers: Libby and Rove.You’ve no doubt heard by now that the McClellan admission was made in a first person excerpt from a book being printed early next year by Public Affairs Press (affiliated with the Perseus Group).
While the first person confirmation of what anyone with a pea for a brain knew all along caromed across the Internet, the Washington Post and the New York Times gave it the cold shoulder, among other mainstream media outlets.
In the meantime, we suspect that the White House hit men gave McClellan and his publisher the same treatment that they have given other "made men" that ratted on them: the brass knuckles and warnings to back off if they cared about their families.
As one blogger noted: "John Dillulio calls them 'machiavellian mayberries' and suggests that they politicize everything--yet a week later he backs down completely. Paul O'Neill says that they planned on invading Iraq from the beginning, he is savaged by the machine."
So the publisher, within a day backed off the first person quote by McClellan, with a rather bizarre claim that the book wasn’t finished yet, even though it was the publisher that posted the quotation on its website. McClellan was in seclusion, of course, no doubt being waterboarded by some of Cheney’s crew.In an all too fitting and tragic irony, the mainstream media only took notice of the damning revelation of criminal behavior – certainly in the high crimes and misdemeanors category, as Valerie and Joe Wilson charge – on cue from the White House once the publisher recalled the first person quotation, which is indeed quite a remarkable feat, since clearly it would only be done under pressure, since it is hard for a publisher to post a first person quote and then claim that it was premature. What kind of credibility does that leave you with? But it was probably preferable than running a publishing house with two broken arms and a pencil rammed through your ear.
All along, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald noted in his investigation that a cloud of suspicion hung over Dick Cheney, and he all but said that Cheney was the key culprit. In fact, Scooter Libby’s crime – the one he was convicted for – was integrally related to an obstruction of justice essentially revolving around the reality that he was covering up for Cheney.
Long forgotten – and barely noticed during the trial – was a document introduced during the case that directly implicates Bush. And the notes on the document that point at Bush as being a co-conspirator were written by Dick Cheney.
Truthout.org covered this crucial link to Bush, including a copy of the handwritten note:
Copies of handwritten notes by Vice President Dick Cheney, introduced at trial by attorneys prosecuting former White House staffer I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, would appear to implicate George W. Bush in the Plame CIA Leak case.
Bush has long maintained that he was unaware of attacks by any member of his administration against [former ambassador Joseph] Wilson. The ex-envoy's stinging rebukes of the administration's use of pre-war Iraq intelligence led Libby and other White House officials to leak Wilson's wife's covert CIA status to reporters in July 2003 in an act of retaliation.
But Cheney's notes, which were introduced into evidence Tuesday during Libby's perjury and obstruction-of-justice trial, call into question the truthfulness of President Bush's vehement denials about his prior knowledge of the attacks against Wilson.
The revelation that Bush may have known all along that there was an effort by members of his office to discredit the former ambassador raises the question: Was the president also aware that senior members of his administration compromised Valerie Plame's undercover role with the CIA?
Further, the highly explicit nature of Cheney's comments not only hints at a rift between Cheney and Bush over what Cheney felt was the scapegoating of Libby, but also raises serious questions about potentially criminal actions by Bush. If Bush did indeed play an active role in encouraging Libby to take the fall to protect Karl Rove, as Libby's lawyers articulated in their opening statements, then that could be viewed as criminal involvement by Bush.
Last week, Libby's attorney Theodore Wells made a stunning pronouncement during opening statements of Libby's trial. He claimed that the White House had made Libby a scapegoat for the leak to protect Karl Rove - Bush's political adviser and "right-hand man."
"Mr. Libby, you will learn, went to the vice president of the United States and met with the vice president in private. Mr. Libby said to the vice president, 'I think the White House ... is trying to set me up. People in the White House want me to be a scapegoat,'" said Wells.
Cheney's notes seem to help bolster Wells's defense strategy. Libby's defense team first discussed the notes - written by Cheney in September 2003 for White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan - during opening statements last week. Wells said Cheney had written "not going to protect one staffer and sacrifice the guy that was asked to stick his head in the meat grinder because of incompetence of others": a reference to Libby being asked to deal with the media and vociferously rebut Wilson's allegations that the Bush administration knowingly "twisted" intelligence to win support for the war in Iraq.
However, when Cheney wrote the notes, he had originally written "this Pres." instead of "that was."
In another story on Truthout at the time of the Libby trial, it details other documents that indicate Cheney had claimed authorization from Bush to disclose classified information from a National Intelligence Estimate in order to try and discredit Joe Wilson.
It should also be remembered that Bush retained a private attorney in regards to the Libby case, a highly curious move for an innocent president. Furthermore, Bush promised to get to the bottom of the leak himself and fire anyone involved after the CIA formally requested a Justice Department investigation into Valerie Plame’s outing, because of the potential harm it had done to national security. As we now know, Bush, if he kept his word, would have ended up firing Dick Cheney and himself.
It is a testament to the persistent tacit alliance of the corporate media with the Republican Party (to ensure favorable big media regulations, tax cuts, and anti-trust favors) that damage done to the national security of the United States -- authorized in all likelihood by the President of the United States and most certainly orchestrated by the Vice-President of the United States -- is either roundly ignored or dismissed as insignificant.
Scott McClellan did not pen a rogue statement in his forthcoming book. What he said is entirely consistent with the information disclosed at the Libby trial, and even – ironically – with the defensive strategy of Libby’s own legal team, which was to position "Scooter" as a fall guy for the White House.
That may have, indeed, been the sole true assertion made on behalf of Mr. Libby.
BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/editorblog/009
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/21/gibson-wh-deserves-a-medal-for-outing-plame/#comments
Mark Karlin, Editor and Publisher, BuzzFlash.com
November 23, 2007
As we’ve noted before, BuzzFlash feels personally invested in the exposing of the White House treason surrounding the outing of Valerie Plame, which resulted in impairing our national security when it comes to tracking weapons of mass destruction. Following up on a David Corn commentary shortly after the infamous Bob "The Traitor" Novak column, BuzzFlash helped Corn raise the alarm about the dangerous and illegal significance of the identification of Plame as a CIA operative.
So it is with astonishment that we have watched the mainstream media ignore or dismiss the revelation by once White House loyalist Scott McClellan that Cheney and Bush were likely involved in the outing and knowingly sent him out to lie to the press about the role of the two key messengers: Libby and Rove.You’ve no doubt heard by now that the McClellan admission was made in a first person excerpt from a book being printed early next year by Public Affairs Press (affiliated with the Perseus Group).
While the first person confirmation of what anyone with a pea for a brain knew all along caromed across the Internet, the Washington Post and the New York Times gave it the cold shoulder, among other mainstream media outlets.
In the meantime, we suspect that the White House hit men gave McClellan and his publisher the same treatment that they have given other "made men" that ratted on them: the brass knuckles and warnings to back off if they cared about their families.
As one blogger noted: "John Dillulio calls them 'machiavellian mayberries' and suggests that they politicize everything--yet a week later he backs down completely. Paul O'Neill says that they planned on invading Iraq from the beginning, he is savaged by the machine."
So the publisher, within a day backed off the first person quote by McClellan, with a rather bizarre claim that the book wasn’t finished yet, even though it was the publisher that posted the quotation on its website. McClellan was in seclusion, of course, no doubt being waterboarded by some of Cheney’s crew.In an all too fitting and tragic irony, the mainstream media only took notice of the damning revelation of criminal behavior – certainly in the high crimes and misdemeanors category, as Valerie and Joe Wilson charge – on cue from the White House once the publisher recalled the first person quotation, which is indeed quite a remarkable feat, since clearly it would only be done under pressure, since it is hard for a publisher to post a first person quote and then claim that it was premature. What kind of credibility does that leave you with? But it was probably preferable than running a publishing house with two broken arms and a pencil rammed through your ear.
All along, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald noted in his investigation that a cloud of suspicion hung over Dick Cheney, and he all but said that Cheney was the key culprit. In fact, Scooter Libby’s crime – the one he was convicted for – was integrally related to an obstruction of justice essentially revolving around the reality that he was covering up for Cheney.
Long forgotten – and barely noticed during the trial – was a document introduced during the case that directly implicates Bush. And the notes on the document that point at Bush as being a co-conspirator were written by Dick Cheney.
Truthout.org covered this crucial link to Bush, including a copy of the handwritten note:
Copies of handwritten notes by Vice President Dick Cheney, introduced at trial by attorneys prosecuting former White House staffer I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, would appear to implicate George W. Bush in the Plame CIA Leak case.
Bush has long maintained that he was unaware of attacks by any member of his administration against [former ambassador Joseph] Wilson. The ex-envoy's stinging rebukes of the administration's use of pre-war Iraq intelligence led Libby and other White House officials to leak Wilson's wife's covert CIA status to reporters in July 2003 in an act of retaliation.
But Cheney's notes, which were introduced into evidence Tuesday during Libby's perjury and obstruction-of-justice trial, call into question the truthfulness of President Bush's vehement denials about his prior knowledge of the attacks against Wilson.
The revelation that Bush may have known all along that there was an effort by members of his office to discredit the former ambassador raises the question: Was the president also aware that senior members of his administration compromised Valerie Plame's undercover role with the CIA?
Further, the highly explicit nature of Cheney's comments not only hints at a rift between Cheney and Bush over what Cheney felt was the scapegoating of Libby, but also raises serious questions about potentially criminal actions by Bush. If Bush did indeed play an active role in encouraging Libby to take the fall to protect Karl Rove, as Libby's lawyers articulated in their opening statements, then that could be viewed as criminal involvement by Bush.
Last week, Libby's attorney Theodore Wells made a stunning pronouncement during opening statements of Libby's trial. He claimed that the White House had made Libby a scapegoat for the leak to protect Karl Rove - Bush's political adviser and "right-hand man."
"Mr. Libby, you will learn, went to the vice president of the United States and met with the vice president in private. Mr. Libby said to the vice president, 'I think the White House ... is trying to set me up. People in the White House want me to be a scapegoat,'" said Wells.
Cheney's notes seem to help bolster Wells's defense strategy. Libby's defense team first discussed the notes - written by Cheney in September 2003 for White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan - during opening statements last week. Wells said Cheney had written "not going to protect one staffer and sacrifice the guy that was asked to stick his head in the meat grinder because of incompetence of others": a reference to Libby being asked to deal with the media and vociferously rebut Wilson's allegations that the Bush administration knowingly "twisted" intelligence to win support for the war in Iraq.
However, when Cheney wrote the notes, he had originally written "this Pres." instead of "that was."
In another story on Truthout at the time of the Libby trial, it details other documents that indicate Cheney had claimed authorization from Bush to disclose classified information from a National Intelligence Estimate in order to try and discredit Joe Wilson.
It should also be remembered that Bush retained a private attorney in regards to the Libby case, a highly curious move for an innocent president. Furthermore, Bush promised to get to the bottom of the leak himself and fire anyone involved after the CIA formally requested a Justice Department investigation into Valerie Plame’s outing, because of the potential harm it had done to national security. As we now know, Bush, if he kept his word, would have ended up firing Dick Cheney and himself.
It is a testament to the persistent tacit alliance of the corporate media with the Republican Party (to ensure favorable big media regulations, tax cuts, and anti-trust favors) that damage done to the national security of the United States -- authorized in all likelihood by the President of the United States and most certainly orchestrated by the Vice-President of the United States -- is either roundly ignored or dismissed as insignificant.
Scott McClellan did not pen a rogue statement in his forthcoming book. What he said is entirely consistent with the information disclosed at the Libby trial, and even – ironically – with the defensive strategy of Libby’s own legal team, which was to position "Scooter" as a fall guy for the White House.
That may have, indeed, been the sole true assertion made on behalf of Mr. Libby.
BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/editorblog/009
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/21/gibson-wh-deserves-a-medal-for-outing-plame/#comments
China denies entry to Kitty Hawk
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/11/23/hongkong.us.warships.ap/index.html
Strange. USnecessities growing? I mean who really cares about an US aircraft carrier docking in China? Forgot sth?
HONOLULU, Hawaii (AP) -- The top U.S. military commander in the Pacific said he is "perplexed and concerned" by China's last-minute decision to deny a U.S. aircraft carrier entry to Hong Kong for a previously scheduled port visit.
Thursday, 22 November 2007
Syria
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/11/22/israel.syria.ap/index.html
JERUSALEM (AP) -- A Syrian site bombed by Israel in September was probably a plant for assembling a nuclear bomb, an Israeli nuclear expert said Thursday, challenging other analysts' conclusions that it housed a North Korean-style nuclear reactor.
Tel Aviv University chemistry professor Uzi Even, who worked in the past at Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor, said satellite pictures of the site taken before the Israeli strike on September 6 showed no sign of the cooling towers and chimneys characteristic of reactors.
Even said the absence of telltale features of a reactor convinced him the building must have housed something else. And a rush by the Syrians after the attack to bury the site under tons of soil suggests the facility was a plutonium processing plant and they were trying to smother lethal doses of radiation leaking out.
Israel has maintained an almost total official silence over the strike, which Syria said hit an unused military installation. But foreign media reports, some quoting unidentified U.S. officials, have said the strike hit a nuclear facility made with North Korean help and modeled on the North's Yongbyon reactor.
JERUSALEM (AP) -- A Syrian site bombed by Israel in September was probably a plant for assembling a nuclear bomb, an Israeli nuclear expert said Thursday, challenging other analysts' conclusions that it housed a North Korean-style nuclear reactor.
Tel Aviv University chemistry professor Uzi Even, who worked in the past at Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor, said satellite pictures of the site taken before the Israeli strike on September 6 showed no sign of the cooling towers and chimneys characteristic of reactors.
Even said the absence of telltale features of a reactor convinced him the building must have housed something else. And a rush by the Syrians after the attack to bury the site under tons of soil suggests the facility was a plutonium processing plant and they were trying to smother lethal doses of radiation leaking out.
Israel has maintained an almost total official silence over the strike, which Syria said hit an unused military installation. But foreign media reports, some quoting unidentified U.S. officials, have said the strike hit a nuclear facility made with North Korean help and modeled on the North's Yongbyon reactor.
Howard faces toughest election yet
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/11/21/australia.elections/index.html
SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) -- Polls suggest that more than 11 years of conservative rule in Australia looks likely to come to an end this Saturday as the nation votes on whether Prime Minister John Howard deserves another term.
Howard, chasing a fifth straight win for his Liberal-National coalition, is well behind Labor newcomer Kevin Rudd in the opinion polls.
But Howard, a veteran politician who is a staunch ally of U.S. President George W. Bush, is known as a wily and tenacious campaigner who has been written off in previous political battles, only to come back victorious.
"It's not over yet," he said this week, telling supporters Wednesday the election was still winnable for the coalition.
Rudd agrees it will be close.
"Whoever wins this election on Saturday will win by a nose," he told the National Press Club in the Australian capital Canberra on Wednesday.
The key issues for Australia's 13 million voters are seen as economic management, education, health, national security and climate change.
SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) -- Polls suggest that more than 11 years of conservative rule in Australia looks likely to come to an end this Saturday as the nation votes on whether Prime Minister John Howard deserves another term.
Howard, chasing a fifth straight win for his Liberal-National coalition, is well behind Labor newcomer Kevin Rudd in the opinion polls.
But Howard, a veteran politician who is a staunch ally of U.S. President George W. Bush, is known as a wily and tenacious campaigner who has been written off in previous political battles, only to come back victorious.
"It's not over yet," he said this week, telling supporters Wednesday the election was still winnable for the coalition.
Rudd agrees it will be close.
"Whoever wins this election on Saturday will win by a nose," he told the National Press Club in the Australian capital Canberra on Wednesday.
The key issues for Australia's 13 million voters are seen as economic management, education, health, national security and climate change.
Italian publicly funded RAI and Berlusconis Mediaset seem to have mutually eavedropped (wiretapped) each other
http://it.notizie.yahoo.com/rtrs/20071122/tts-rai-mediaset-petruccioli-punto-ca02f96_1.html
ROMA (Reuters) - Sale la tensione sulla vicenda delle intercettazioni Rai-Mediaset pubblicate ieri da Repubblica. Il leader dell'opposizione Silvio Berlusconi parla di sciacallaggio nei suoi confronti, il capo delle Stato Giorgio Napolitano invita a rispettare il segreto istruttorio, la Rai convoca un cda e assicura che si farà chiarezza mentre l'Authority delle Tlc apre un'inchiesta sull'accaduto.
Italian publicly funded RAI and Berlusconis Mediaset seem to hve mutually eavedropped each other.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20071122/world-news/rai-mediaset-in-political-scandal
Leaked phone taps suggesting state television Rai and its private rival Mediaset colluded to favour Silvio Berlusconi when he was prime minister have thrown the spotlight on political interference in Italy's media.
The left-wing daily La Repubblica printed transcripts yesterday of phone conversations in 2004 and 2005 between executives at Rai and at Mediaset, which is owned by Berlusconi.
In the conversations, the executives discuss how to present his defeat at local elections in a more favourable light in news programmes and talk shows.
During his five years in power, the media tycoon turned centre-right leader was widely accused by opponents of controlling 90 per cent of Italy's broadcasters because Rai is traditionally subject to government influence.
He has always denied the charge. Mediaset said it would sue La Repubblica and one of its board members called the allegations "nonsense".
asca.it
Non si placa la bufera sulla Rai scatenatasi dopo le intercettazioni pubblicate da ''Repubblica''. Silvio Berlusconi ha parlato chiaramente di ''sciacalli contro di me'' ma Gianfranco Fini non e' d'accordo: ''non vedo sciacalli in azione e questo e' un argomento che va approfondito''. Ma poi Berlusconi ha rincarato la dose nel corso della trasmissione ''Otto e mezzo'' di Giuliano Ferrara, su La7: ''Siamo ai limiti della comica, sono andati fuori di testa''. Un fatto che ''fa molto pensare - ha detto Berlusconi - perche' sono intercettazioni relative a persone non indagate e date in pasto alla pubblica opinione''. Rendendo noto il contenuto di quelle telefonate, ha continuato, c'e' stata ''una lesione della dignita' del singolo cittadino, c'e' stata una violazione della privacy''. ''Il mio giudizio sulla vicenda quindi non puo' che essere negativo'', ha aggiunto l'ex premier che definisce ''scandalosa'' la cosa. ''Ma lo scandalo e' che in Italia - ha rimarcato Berlusconi - nessuno puo' piu' essere sicuro di parlare al telefono'' per colpa di ''questi magistrati che violano la legge''. Duro, per altri versi, anche il giudizio del Presidente della Camera, Fausto Bertinotti, secondo il quale ''il quadro che esce e' quello di una Rai sfigurata da uno smarrimento e da una perdita della sua autonomia anche come azienda, oltre che come progetto di informazione''. Ma il capo dello Stato, Giorgio Napolitano, che oggi ha ricevuto il presidente della Rai Claudio Petruccioli, frena: ''Le intercettazioni - ha detto - sarebbe bene che restassero dove devono restare, in linea di principio, almeno fino a che c'e' il segreto istruttorio''. E ha poi ribadito di parlare, appunto, in linea di principio, e non nel merito dei fatti di questi ultimi giorni. Per il direttore generale di viale Mazzini, Claudio Cappon la Rai ''e' a un punto di non ritorno'' e chiede alla politica ''di dare molto rapidamente regole certe al servizio pubblico altrimenti il destino e' una lenta asfissia e la morte dell'azienda''. Sulla vicenda l'Autorita' per le garanzie nelle Comunicazioni ha aperto un'istruttoria: ''valuteremo la situazione - ha detto il presidente Corrado Calabro' - alla luce degli elementi di fatto che acquisiremo. In base ai riscontri, decideremo quali interventi adottare a garanzia sia del pluralismo, sia dell'indipendenza e della liberta' dell'informazione''. Intanto, dopo aver sconvocato la riunione di ieri, Petruccioli ha convocato il cda per giovedi' 29 novembre. E Cappon e' stato particolarmente esplicito: ''saremo garantisti fino all'ultimo, ma - ha puntualizzato - se saranno effettivamente accertati errori, agiremo di conseguenza in coerenza con quanto fatto nel recente passato con calciopoli e vallettopoli''. La Commissione di vigilanza dovrebbe comunque ascoltare sia Cappon, sia il precedente direttore generale, Flavio Cattaneo. Il Consiglio dell'Ordine dei Giornalisti del Lazio ha deciso di ascoltare Deborah Bergamini, Fabrizio Del Noce, Clemente Mimun, Francesco Pionati e Bruno Vespa per verificare ''eventuali violazioni deontologiche''.
ROMA (Reuters) - Sale la tensione sulla vicenda delle intercettazioni Rai-Mediaset pubblicate ieri da Repubblica. Il leader dell'opposizione Silvio Berlusconi parla di sciacallaggio nei suoi confronti, il capo delle Stato Giorgio Napolitano invita a rispettare il segreto istruttorio, la Rai convoca un cda e assicura che si farà chiarezza mentre l'Authority delle Tlc apre un'inchiesta sull'accaduto.
Italian publicly funded RAI and Berlusconis Mediaset seem to hve mutually eavedropped each other.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20071122/world-news/rai-mediaset-in-political-scandal
Leaked phone taps suggesting state television Rai and its private rival Mediaset colluded to favour Silvio Berlusconi when he was prime minister have thrown the spotlight on political interference in Italy's media.
The left-wing daily La Repubblica printed transcripts yesterday of phone conversations in 2004 and 2005 between executives at Rai and at Mediaset, which is owned by Berlusconi.
In the conversations, the executives discuss how to present his defeat at local elections in a more favourable light in news programmes and talk shows.
During his five years in power, the media tycoon turned centre-right leader was widely accused by opponents of controlling 90 per cent of Italy's broadcasters because Rai is traditionally subject to government influence.
He has always denied the charge. Mediaset said it would sue La Repubblica and one of its board members called the allegations "nonsense".
asca.it
Non si placa la bufera sulla Rai scatenatasi dopo le intercettazioni pubblicate da ''Repubblica''. Silvio Berlusconi ha parlato chiaramente di ''sciacalli contro di me'' ma Gianfranco Fini non e' d'accordo: ''non vedo sciacalli in azione e questo e' un argomento che va approfondito''. Ma poi Berlusconi ha rincarato la dose nel corso della trasmissione ''Otto e mezzo'' di Giuliano Ferrara, su La7: ''Siamo ai limiti della comica, sono andati fuori di testa''. Un fatto che ''fa molto pensare - ha detto Berlusconi - perche' sono intercettazioni relative a persone non indagate e date in pasto alla pubblica opinione''. Rendendo noto il contenuto di quelle telefonate, ha continuato, c'e' stata ''una lesione della dignita' del singolo cittadino, c'e' stata una violazione della privacy''. ''Il mio giudizio sulla vicenda quindi non puo' che essere negativo'', ha aggiunto l'ex premier che definisce ''scandalosa'' la cosa. ''Ma lo scandalo e' che in Italia - ha rimarcato Berlusconi - nessuno puo' piu' essere sicuro di parlare al telefono'' per colpa di ''questi magistrati che violano la legge''. Duro, per altri versi, anche il giudizio del Presidente della Camera, Fausto Bertinotti, secondo il quale ''il quadro che esce e' quello di una Rai sfigurata da uno smarrimento e da una perdita della sua autonomia anche come azienda, oltre che come progetto di informazione''. Ma il capo dello Stato, Giorgio Napolitano, che oggi ha ricevuto il presidente della Rai Claudio Petruccioli, frena: ''Le intercettazioni - ha detto - sarebbe bene che restassero dove devono restare, in linea di principio, almeno fino a che c'e' il segreto istruttorio''. E ha poi ribadito di parlare, appunto, in linea di principio, e non nel merito dei fatti di questi ultimi giorni. Per il direttore generale di viale Mazzini, Claudio Cappon la Rai ''e' a un punto di non ritorno'' e chiede alla politica ''di dare molto rapidamente regole certe al servizio pubblico altrimenti il destino e' una lenta asfissia e la morte dell'azienda''. Sulla vicenda l'Autorita' per le garanzie nelle Comunicazioni ha aperto un'istruttoria: ''valuteremo la situazione - ha detto il presidente Corrado Calabro' - alla luce degli elementi di fatto che acquisiremo. In base ai riscontri, decideremo quali interventi adottare a garanzia sia del pluralismo, sia dell'indipendenza e della liberta' dell'informazione''. Intanto, dopo aver sconvocato la riunione di ieri, Petruccioli ha convocato il cda per giovedi' 29 novembre. E Cappon e' stato particolarmente esplicito: ''saremo garantisti fino all'ultimo, ma - ha puntualizzato - se saranno effettivamente accertati errori, agiremo di conseguenza in coerenza con quanto fatto nel recente passato con calciopoli e vallettopoli''. La Commissione di vigilanza dovrebbe comunque ascoltare sia Cappon, sia il precedente direttore generale, Flavio Cattaneo. Il Consiglio dell'Ordine dei Giornalisti del Lazio ha deciso di ascoltare Deborah Bergamini, Fabrizio Del Noce, Clemente Mimun, Francesco Pionati e Bruno Vespa per verificare ''eventuali violazioni deontologiche''.
Neues Terror-Drohvideo gegen Deutschland aufgetaucht
Neues Terror-Drohvideo gegen Deutschland aufgetaucht
New Terror Video surfaced containing threats against Germany
Wien (ddp). Islamistische Extremisten haben im Internet offenbar ein neues Propagandavideo
Islamic extremists obviously published a new Video targeting Germany and Austria.
mit Terrordrohungen gegen Deutschland und Österreich veröffentlicht. In dem Video, das dem
in The video, which is available (according to own statements) to Hamburgs Spiegel (mirror) and Austrian TV station ORF, the global Muslim Media front (GIMF/GMMF) is renewdly demanding the withdrawal of German Armed forces from Afghanistan and it is threatenin new terror attax in Germany.
österreichischen ORF und «Spiegel Online» nach deren Angaben vorliegt, fordert die «Globale Islamistische Medien Front (GIMF)» erneut den Abzug der deutschen Bundeswehr aus Afghanistan und droht mit Terroranschlägen in Deutschland. Gleichlautende Drohungen werden gegen Österreich geäußert. Zugleich kündigen die Verfasser eine «Winteroffensive» der Taliban an, die auch Nordafghanistan einschließen soll.
Similiar threats were exclaimed against Austria. Meanwhile the creators of the vid announced a winter offensive of Taliban forces that shall include North Afghanistan where German Armed Forces are based.
http://de.news.yahoo.com/ddp/20071120/twl-neues-terror-drohvideo-gegen-deutsch-1d7bb94.html
Todesdrohung gegen deutsche Muslime
Death threats against German muslims
Erstmals sind deutsche Muslime in einem Video einer al-Qaida nahestehenden Gruppe mit dem Tode bedroht worden. Ayman Mazyek, der Generalsekretär vom Zentralrat der Muslime, wird als Feind des Islam bezeichnet. Dieser ist besorgt – sieht aber dennoch etwas Positives in der Drohung.
For the first time, Muslims living in Germany were threatened with death by a group close to al quaida.
Ayman Mayzek was called an enemy of Islam. Hes the chairman of the committee of muslims in germany.
In dem Video einer Al-Qaida-Freundesgruppe wurde unter anderem Ayman Mazyek, der Generalsekretär vom Zentralrat der Muslime (ZMD) als Feind des Islams bezeichnet. Der Film der „Globalen Islamischen Medienfront“ wurde Mitte der Woche ins Internet eingestellt.
The video of the GMMF /GIMF was made online at the mid of the week.
Die Extremisten werfen Mazyek vor, er sei „ein Freund der Juden und Christen“. Zudem vertrete er „die Religion der Demokratie“.
The extremists are accusing Mayzek of being a friend of Jews and Christians. As wel as him representing the religion of democracy.
Aus diesen Gründen sei Mazyek, dessen Kopf in dem Video eingeblendet wird, kein Muslim mehr. Neben dem ZMD wurde auch der deutsch-türkische Muslimverband Ditib als Organisation bezeichnet, die nicht dem Islam folge.
For these reasons, Mayzek was no muslim anymore. His head was shown in the vid.
Besides the committee Turkish Ditib was also called an orgaisation that doesnt act according to Islam.
Die „Globale Islamische Medienfront“ gilt als Übersetzer von Botschaften der Terrororganisation al-Qaida ins Deutsche.Das Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) stuft die Bedrohung durch das Video dennoch nicht als so konkret ein, dass derzeit erhöhte Sicherheitsmaßnahmen nötig seien.
THe GMMF/GIMF is reknown for being some kind of translator of Al-Quaida msgs into German. The German criminal agency (BKA) rated the level of menace as (no fact) not that real though, that one has to raise current protection measures.
Allerdings gab das BKA nicht an, was passieren müsse, damit die Bedrohung ausreichend konkret werde.
though the BKA did not announce how extreme the video has to be to regard it as a current threat.
ZMD-Generalsekretär Mazyek wundert sich daher über „diese lauwarme Reaktion des BKA“, schließlich lebe er in Sorge um seine Familie.
So Mayzek wondered about the lukewarm reaction of the BKA.
Mazyek sieht auch etwas Positives in der Drohung
Mayzek also sees sth positive in the threat
Dennoch kann er der Drohung etwas Gutes abgewinnen.
„Wenn man in solch einer Situation überhaupt etwas Positives sehen kann, dann ist es die Botschaft des Videos: Es gibt keinen Graben zwischen Islam und Westen. Es gibt nur friedliche Menschen unterschiedlichen Glaubens auf der einen Seite und Gewalt anbetende Extremisten auf der anderen.“
"If u can c anythin positive in such a situation, it is the msg of the vid: there s no trench between islam and the west. there are just peacy human beings and such who are praying towards violance, who admire violence."
Diese Botschaft versuche er zwar schon seit Jahren zu verbreiten, aber vielleicht könne dieses Ereignis dabei helfen.
He said though he already tried to spread this msg for years this event might be helpful.
Besorgt stimme ihn auch, dass manche Muslime im deutschen Sprachraum so heftig mit der Gewalt flirteten.
He said he was concerned about some Muslims in German speaking areas who are so hefty flirting with violence.
Zwar nehme nicht die Zahl der Extremisten zu, wohl aber ihre Aggressivität.
The number of extremists does not mount, but their level of aggression
Auch Ibrahim el-Zayat, Vorsitzender der Islamischen Gemeinschaft in Deutschland (IGD),
Ibrahim el Zayat also warned towards the growing of radical tendencies. Hes the chairman of the Islamic community in Germany.
warnt nun vor einem Anwachsen extremistischer Tendenzen unter Muslimen im Land. „Manche Muslime bekommen hierzulande den Eindruck, die friedlichen islamischen Verbände seien erfolglos und nutzlos. Das treibt sie in die Radikalität wahabitisch-saudischer Prägung“, so el-Zayat.
Some Muslims get the impression peacy islamic communities are useless.
thus they are driven towards communities designed by a wahabistic-Saudi stance.
Auch er selbst müsse sich inzwischen als Weichling beschimpfen lassen. Das ist bemerkenswert, schließlich wurde der IGD-Vorsitzende von Verfassungsschützern als Islamist eingestuft, weil er Kontakte zur internationalen Muslimbruderschaft besitzt.
http://news.de.msn.com/politik/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=6774863
New Terror Video surfaced containing threats against Germany
Wien (ddp). Islamistische Extremisten haben im Internet offenbar ein neues Propagandavideo
Islamic extremists obviously published a new Video targeting Germany and Austria.
mit Terrordrohungen gegen Deutschland und Österreich veröffentlicht. In dem Video, das dem
in The video, which is available (according to own statements) to Hamburgs Spiegel (mirror) and Austrian TV station ORF, the global Muslim Media front (GIMF/GMMF) is renewdly demanding the withdrawal of German Armed forces from Afghanistan and it is threatenin new terror attax in Germany.
österreichischen ORF und «Spiegel Online» nach deren Angaben vorliegt, fordert die «Globale Islamistische Medien Front (GIMF)» erneut den Abzug der deutschen Bundeswehr aus Afghanistan und droht mit Terroranschlägen in Deutschland. Gleichlautende Drohungen werden gegen Österreich geäußert. Zugleich kündigen die Verfasser eine «Winteroffensive» der Taliban an, die auch Nordafghanistan einschließen soll.
Similiar threats were exclaimed against Austria. Meanwhile the creators of the vid announced a winter offensive of Taliban forces that shall include North Afghanistan where German Armed Forces are based.
http://de.news.yahoo.com/ddp/20071120/twl-neues-terror-drohvideo-gegen-deutsch-1d7bb94.html
Todesdrohung gegen deutsche Muslime
Death threats against German muslims
Erstmals sind deutsche Muslime in einem Video einer al-Qaida nahestehenden Gruppe mit dem Tode bedroht worden. Ayman Mazyek, der Generalsekretär vom Zentralrat der Muslime, wird als Feind des Islam bezeichnet. Dieser ist besorgt – sieht aber dennoch etwas Positives in der Drohung.
For the first time, Muslims living in Germany were threatened with death by a group close to al quaida.
Ayman Mayzek was called an enemy of Islam. Hes the chairman of the committee of muslims in germany.
In dem Video einer Al-Qaida-Freundesgruppe wurde unter anderem Ayman Mazyek, der Generalsekretär vom Zentralrat der Muslime (ZMD) als Feind des Islams bezeichnet. Der Film der „Globalen Islamischen Medienfront“ wurde Mitte der Woche ins Internet eingestellt.
The video of the GMMF /GIMF was made online at the mid of the week.
Die Extremisten werfen Mazyek vor, er sei „ein Freund der Juden und Christen“. Zudem vertrete er „die Religion der Demokratie“.
The extremists are accusing Mayzek of being a friend of Jews and Christians. As wel as him representing the religion of democracy.
Aus diesen Gründen sei Mazyek, dessen Kopf in dem Video eingeblendet wird, kein Muslim mehr. Neben dem ZMD wurde auch der deutsch-türkische Muslimverband Ditib als Organisation bezeichnet, die nicht dem Islam folge.
For these reasons, Mayzek was no muslim anymore. His head was shown in the vid.
Besides the committee Turkish Ditib was also called an orgaisation that doesnt act according to Islam.
Die „Globale Islamische Medienfront“ gilt als Übersetzer von Botschaften der Terrororganisation al-Qaida ins Deutsche.Das Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) stuft die Bedrohung durch das Video dennoch nicht als so konkret ein, dass derzeit erhöhte Sicherheitsmaßnahmen nötig seien.
THe GMMF/GIMF is reknown for being some kind of translator of Al-Quaida msgs into German. The German criminal agency (BKA) rated the level of menace as (no fact) not that real though, that one has to raise current protection measures.
Allerdings gab das BKA nicht an, was passieren müsse, damit die Bedrohung ausreichend konkret werde.
though the BKA did not announce how extreme the video has to be to regard it as a current threat.
ZMD-Generalsekretär Mazyek wundert sich daher über „diese lauwarme Reaktion des BKA“, schließlich lebe er in Sorge um seine Familie.
So Mayzek wondered about the lukewarm reaction of the BKA.
Mazyek sieht auch etwas Positives in der Drohung
Mayzek also sees sth positive in the threat
Dennoch kann er der Drohung etwas Gutes abgewinnen.
„Wenn man in solch einer Situation überhaupt etwas Positives sehen kann, dann ist es die Botschaft des Videos: Es gibt keinen Graben zwischen Islam und Westen. Es gibt nur friedliche Menschen unterschiedlichen Glaubens auf der einen Seite und Gewalt anbetende Extremisten auf der anderen.“
"If u can c anythin positive in such a situation, it is the msg of the vid: there s no trench between islam and the west. there are just peacy human beings and such who are praying towards violance, who admire violence."
Diese Botschaft versuche er zwar schon seit Jahren zu verbreiten, aber vielleicht könne dieses Ereignis dabei helfen.
He said though he already tried to spread this msg for years this event might be helpful.
Besorgt stimme ihn auch, dass manche Muslime im deutschen Sprachraum so heftig mit der Gewalt flirteten.
He said he was concerned about some Muslims in German speaking areas who are so hefty flirting with violence.
Zwar nehme nicht die Zahl der Extremisten zu, wohl aber ihre Aggressivität.
The number of extremists does not mount, but their level of aggression
Auch Ibrahim el-Zayat, Vorsitzender der Islamischen Gemeinschaft in Deutschland (IGD),
Ibrahim el Zayat also warned towards the growing of radical tendencies. Hes the chairman of the Islamic community in Germany.
warnt nun vor einem Anwachsen extremistischer Tendenzen unter Muslimen im Land. „Manche Muslime bekommen hierzulande den Eindruck, die friedlichen islamischen Verbände seien erfolglos und nutzlos. Das treibt sie in die Radikalität wahabitisch-saudischer Prägung“, so el-Zayat.
Some Muslims get the impression peacy islamic communities are useless.
thus they are driven towards communities designed by a wahabistic-Saudi stance.
Auch er selbst müsse sich inzwischen als Weichling beschimpfen lassen. Das ist bemerkenswert, schließlich wurde der IGD-Vorsitzende von Verfassungsschützern als Islamist eingestuft, weil er Kontakte zur internationalen Muslimbruderschaft besitzt.
http://news.de.msn.com/politik/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=6774863
Obama retaliates (a bit)
During the last TV discussion, Clinton remarked, that the number of the population of 4 states Clinton mentioned (4smaller states, I remember one was south carolina) was left out by Obamas (not so) universal health care.
Now, Obama retaliated a bit by saying Clinton doesnt know how to finance her most universal health care.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071121/ap_on_el_pr/obama_health_care;_ylt=Avl_A6Y8.pU5Vx_JqULgrfSyFz4D
Anymore than if we mandate that people get car insurance. But (if) they can't afford it, they just don't get it," Obama said.
If u cant pay for life u die. blip.
Now, Obama retaliated a bit by saying Clinton doesnt know how to finance her most universal health care.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071121/ap_on_el_pr/obama_health_care;_ylt=Avl_A6Y8.pU5Vx_JqULgrfSyFz4D
Anymore than if we mandate that people get car insurance. But (if) they can't afford it, they just don't get it," Obama said.
If u cant pay for life u die. blip.
Australian right publishes flyers proclaiming the left supports terrorism
Is it terrorism to have a sense of community? terrorism to have children? terrorism to regard a state the sum of its citizens?
wait the other word not terrorism... ah revolution. thats it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7106164.stm
L.Craig- a tuf stance in toilet manners
http://www.guardian.co.uk/australia/story/0,,2215159,00.html
wait the other word not terrorism... ah revolution. thats it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7106164.stm
L.Craig- a tuf stance in toilet manners
http://www.guardian.co.uk/australia/story/0,,2215159,00.html
Wednesday, 21 November 2007
Hard disk loss at some kind of UPS in England
The accounting office asked for name and social security number.
the revenue service said:
a) its no banana republic here (or sth). either you get the entire information (for example birth names) or a shit
b) its too expensive to split the information anyways
the revenue service said:
a) its no banana republic here (or sth). either you get the entire information (for example birth names) or a shit
b) its too expensive to split the information anyways
Dow drops 211 AGAIN!
http://n-tv.de/882730.html
It did so before on august 28th.
http://ccoaler.blogspot.com/2007/08/dow-down-211.html
It did so before on august 28th.
http://ccoaler.blogspot.com/2007/08/dow-down-211.html
dramatic crash for Germanys social dems
http://n-tv.de/882426.html
The german social dems lost 2% in a recent poll.
The departure of Muentefering is seen as the deceissive reason for the drop.
There are no other reasons deriving from daily politics that could lead to such a crash.
MISSING LEFT-FILE.
The german social dems lost 2% in a recent poll.
The departure of Muentefering is seen as the deceissive reason for the drop.
There are no other reasons deriving from daily politics that could lead to such a crash.
MISSING LEFT-FILE.
I dont like Obamas Iran talk
What if? Obama becomes candidate. Obama laudates the beauty of Iran till sep08 and sep 08 the Iranians press the magic button.
Bush will waffle about the urgent necessity to look for wmds.
Guiliani will have easy going in a possible run.
The election will be lost.
Bush will waffle about the urgent necessity to look for wmds.
Guiliani will have easy going in a possible run.
The election will be lost.
Soldier ordered to pay back signing bonus after being injured in Iraq
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Soldier_ordered_to_pay_back_signing_1121.html
Clinton utters criticism
Pentagon rescinds repayment order right before soldier's TV appearance
As the military struggles to fill its ranks after six years of war it is finding cold-hard cash to be a powerful enticement.
But for one soldier who was injured serving his country in its wars, the military had another demand: pay us back.
Jordan Fox was seriously injured by a roadside bomb earlier this year, and the Army asked him to repay $3,000 of the $10,000 enlistment bonus he received.
"It was kind of like a slap in the face to know that I had done my best and tried to serve my country with honor and have them turn around and say, 'Well you owe us money,'" Fox said on MSNBC's Live with Dan Abrams Tuesday.
Perhaps realizing the wave of bad publicity that would result from Fox's nationally televised appearance, the Pentagon reversed course just before the program aired and vowed not to send its debt collectors after the wounded soldier.
Clinton utters criticism
Pentagon rescinds repayment order right before soldier's TV appearance
As the military struggles to fill its ranks after six years of war it is finding cold-hard cash to be a powerful enticement.
But for one soldier who was injured serving his country in its wars, the military had another demand: pay us back.
Jordan Fox was seriously injured by a roadside bomb earlier this year, and the Army asked him to repay $3,000 of the $10,000 enlistment bonus he received.
"It was kind of like a slap in the face to know that I had done my best and tried to serve my country with honor and have them turn around and say, 'Well you owe us money,'" Fox said on MSNBC's Live with Dan Abrams Tuesday.
Perhaps realizing the wave of bad publicity that would result from Fox's nationally televised appearance, the Pentagon reversed course just before the program aired and vowed not to send its debt collectors after the wounded soldier.
Petition condemns Iran for "disorder" in S.Iraq
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071121/pl_nm/iraq_iran_petition_dc_1
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - More than 300,000 Iraqis including 600 Shi'ite tribal leaders have signed a petition accusing Iran of sowing "disorder" in southern Iraq, a group of sheikhs involved in the campaign said.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - More than 300,000 Iraqis including 600 Shi'ite tribal leaders have signed a petition accusing Iran of sowing "disorder" in southern Iraq, a group of sheikhs involved in the campaign said.
Solana raises doubts on nuclear meeting
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071121/wl_mideast_afp/irannuclearpoliticseusolana_071121141023
Iran suggested a meetin for nov30
BRUSSELS (AFP) - EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana raised doubts Wednesday about meeting with Iran's nuclear negotiator before he files a crucial report to the UN Security Council at the end of the month.
"I have been in contact with them (the Iranians). I don't see this week because they have not offered any date. I will be at their disposal this week but it has not been possible," he told reporters in Brussels.
"Next week will be very difficult," he said.
Solana is due to take part in a key Middle East peace conference in the United States on Tuesday.
According to an Iranian source, a meeting between one of Solana's top aides and Iran's deputy nuclear negotiator, aimed at setting up the talks with the Islamic republic's new nuclear pointman Saeed Jalili, has been postponed.
Solana's spokeswoman said the Iranians had been offered different dates before November 25 for a meeting.
Iran suggested a meetin for nov30
BRUSSELS (AFP) - EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana raised doubts Wednesday about meeting with Iran's nuclear negotiator before he files a crucial report to the UN Security Council at the end of the month.
"I have been in contact with them (the Iranians). I don't see this week because they have not offered any date. I will be at their disposal this week but it has not been possible," he told reporters in Brussels.
"Next week will be very difficult," he said.
Solana is due to take part in a key Middle East peace conference in the United States on Tuesday.
According to an Iranian source, a meeting between one of Solana's top aides and Iran's deputy nuclear negotiator, aimed at setting up the talks with the Islamic republic's new nuclear pointman Saeed Jalili, has been postponed.
Solana's spokeswoman said the Iranians had been offered different dates before November 25 for a meeting.
Australia
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/21/asia/australia.php?WT.mc_id=rssasia
Australia is likely to draw the curtain on 11 years of government by the center-right coalition of Prime Minister John Howard when general elections are held Saturday, polls indicate.
Howard is one of Australia's most experienced politicians, and few analysts are ready to write off his chances entirely, but a survey published Tuesday shows that his coalition government is trailing the Labor Party by 46 percent to 54 percent, with the coalition on the defensive over inflation, interest rates, labor rights and the environment.
It has been a hard-fought race. The dominant theme has been a battle between styles of leadership, although the parties have done their best to amplify relatively minor differences in policy.
Howard, 68, has pitched his government as the voice of experience: the steady hand that has guided an economic boom and delivered the country from the power of the unions. A vote for the opposition, his advertising implies, would endanger future prosperity.
Australia is likely to draw the curtain on 11 years of government by the center-right coalition of Prime Minister John Howard when general elections are held Saturday, polls indicate.
Howard is one of Australia's most experienced politicians, and few analysts are ready to write off his chances entirely, but a survey published Tuesday shows that his coalition government is trailing the Labor Party by 46 percent to 54 percent, with the coalition on the defensive over inflation, interest rates, labor rights and the environment.
It has been a hard-fought race. The dominant theme has been a battle between styles of leadership, although the parties have done their best to amplify relatively minor differences in policy.
Howard, 68, has pitched his government as the voice of experience: the steady hand that has guided an economic boom and delivered the country from the power of the unions. A vote for the opposition, his advertising implies, would endanger future prosperity.
Sarkozy vows to punish saboteurs
Very large fire reported to have damaged signal equipment affecting 30km of track on the Atlantic lineSignal switches in the South East and East lines reported to have been sabotaged
Fire reported to have damaged signal cables affecting the North line
The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has called for those who sabotaged his country's high-speed TGV rail network to be punished with "extreme severity".
Mr Sarkozy asked the justice minister to carry out all necessary inquiries into what the state rail operator, SNCF, called a "concerted campaign".
Arsonists burnt tracks and signals, causing delays to services already hit by an eighth day of transport strikes.
Earlier, talks were held to try to end the dispute over economic reforms.
Managers from SNCF and the Paris public transport operator, RATP, held lengthy meetings with union and government representatives in the capital to try to reach a compromise.
Mr Sarkozy asked the justice minister to carry out all necessary inquiries into what the state rail operator, SNCF, called a "concerted campaign".
Arsonists burnt tracks and signals, causing delays to services already hit by an eighth day of transport strikes.
Earlier, talks were held to try to end the dispute over economic reforms.
Managers from SNCF and the Paris public transport operator, RATP, held lengthy meetings with union and government representatives in the capital to try to reach a compromise.
La direction de la SNCF a annoncé ce matin qu'une «action coordonnée de sabotage» avait eu lieu sur quatre lignes à grande vitesse (TGV) des réseaux Est, Atlantique, Nord et Sud-Est, «destinée à contrer la reprise observée des trafics», la CGT condamnant vivement toute «exaction».
Le secrétaire d'Etat aux Transports, Dominique Bussereau, a qualifié ces actes d' «exactions graves et condamnables», refusant toutefois d'utiliser le terme de sabotage, alors que les responsables de la CGT, Bernard Thibault et Didier Le Reste (cheminots), ont également condamné ces actions.
Sur la ligne à grande vitesse (LGV) Atlantique, «un incendie très important d'artères de câbles au kilomètre 108 a endommagé sur 30 km le réseau de signalisation», a expliqué l'entreprise, soulignant qu' «aucun train ne peut circuler» et que «les TGV sont détournés par les lignes classiques».
Sur les LGV Nord et Sud-Est, «la fermeture volontaire de commutateurs de signalisation crée des incidents de signalisation, tandis que d'autres incendies ponctuels de câbles ont été signalés».
Sur la LGV Est, «un incendie volontaire d'artères de câbles empêche la circulation normale des trains depuis 6h10». «Les trains circulent au ralenti», a précisé la SNCF.
liberation
Bush names new IRS chief
Bush names new IRS chief
President says he intends to nominate Douglas Shulman, the current head of Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/21/news/newsmakers/irs.ap/index.htm?postversion=2007112115
President says he intends to nominate Douglas Shulman, the current head of Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/21/news/newsmakers/irs.ap/index.htm?postversion=2007112115
Clinton: Saudi verdict an outrage
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/11/21/saudi.rape.victim/index.html
(CNN) -- U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has joined international condemnation of the sentence handed out to a Saudi rape victim: 200 lashes and six months in prison.
Labeling it "an outrage", Sen. Clinton urged the U.S. government to protest the decision.
"The Bush administration has refused to condemn the sentence and said it will not protest an internal Saudi decision," the Democratic presidential frontrunner said in a statement.
"I urge President Bush to call on King Abdullah to cancel the ruling and drop all charges against this woman."
The sentence resulted from an incident in March 2006, when the woman, then aged 18 and engaged to be married, and an unrelated man, were abducted from a mall in Qatif, Saudi Arabia by a group of seven men. She was later raped.
In October, the men were convicted and sentenced to between two and nine years in prison for the assault. She was convicted of violating the kingdom's strict Islamic law by not having a male guardian with her at the mall.
(CNN) -- U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has joined international condemnation of the sentence handed out to a Saudi rape victim: 200 lashes and six months in prison.
Labeling it "an outrage", Sen. Clinton urged the U.S. government to protest the decision.
"The Bush administration has refused to condemn the sentence and said it will not protest an internal Saudi decision," the Democratic presidential frontrunner said in a statement.
"I urge President Bush to call on King Abdullah to cancel the ruling and drop all charges against this woman."
The sentence resulted from an incident in March 2006, when the woman, then aged 18 and engaged to be married, and an unrelated man, were abducted from a mall in Qatif, Saudi Arabia by a group of seven men. She was later raped.
In October, the men were convicted and sentenced to between two and nine years in prison for the assault. She was convicted of violating the kingdom's strict Islamic law by not having a male guardian with her at the mall.
Chiraq
PARIS (AP) -- A judge filed preliminary charges against former President Jacques Chirac on Wednesday in a probe of suspicions that people were given fake jobs while he was mayor of Paris, his lawyer said.
The judge placed Chirac under formal investigation for suspected embezzlement of public funds, said the attorney, Jean Veil. The case is one of several hanging over Chirac, who had kept investigators at arm's length while he was president by using the immunity that comes with the post.
Under French law, preliminary charges mean the investigating judge has determined there is strong evidence to suggest involvement in a crime. The filing gives the magistrate time to further pursue an investigation that can result in a trial or the dropping of charges if no crime is found.
Under French law, preliminary charges mean the investigating judge has determined there is strong evidence to suggest involvement in a crime. The filing gives the magistrate time to further pursue an investigation that can result in a trial or the dropping of charges if no crime is found.
H.Clinton: Obama very illusional about his risen abilities thru livin in Kenya
Clinton mocks Obama on foreign policy
link
c also:Obama in bye, bye Kenya
SHENANDOAH, Iowa - Hillary Rodham Clinton ridiculed Democratic rival Barack Obama on Tuesday for his contention that living abroad as a child helped give him a better understanding of the foreign policy challenges facing the U.S.
"Voters will have to judge if living in a foreign country at the age of 10 prepares one to face the big, complex international challenges the next president will face," Clinton said. "I think we need a president with more experience than that, someone the rest of the world knows, looks up to and has confidence in."
Obama's retort: "I was wondering which world leader told her that we needed to invade Iraq."
Clinton's conclusion: "This campaign is getting kind of heated now. It's getting a little more exciting and intense."
A day earlier, touting his foreign policy credentials, Obama had said his life experience gave him a better feel for international issues than most candidates gain from official trips to other nations.
He noted his father was from Kenya and that he himself spent part of his childhood in Indonesia. "Probably the strongest experience I have in foreign relations is the fact I spent four years overseas when I was a child in Southeast Asia," he said Monday.
Clinton has been slapping harder at Obama on the issue of experience — on Monday she said the nation's economy "can't afford on-the-job training" for the next president — as surveys show them in a tight race with former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards for January's leadoff caucuses in Iowa.
A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows Obama with 30 percent support among likely Democratic caucus-goers, Clinton with 26 percent and Edwards with 22 percent. About half the Clinton supporters who were surveyed said they had never attended a caucus compared with 43 percent of Obama supporters — a finding that could be significant because voters considered the most reliable caucus participants are those who have caucused before.
After learning of her comments Tuesday, Obama responded during a town hall-style meeting in a gym in Conway, N.H.
"I mentioned that one of the reasons that I got it right when it came to Iraq was because I lived overseas when I was a child," he said. "It gives me some judgment and perspective around what other people think about America and how they might react or respond when we make some of the decisions that we do."
"Of course, both the Republicans, in their talking points, as well as Senator Clinton said, 'Well, I don't think that what Senator Obama did when he was 10 years old is relevant to our national security.' I didn't say that."
Clinton made her remarks to a crowd in Iowa Tuesday — but from a state away. She had been scheduled to open the second day of a campaign trip through Iowa with a town hall meeting in Shenandoah, but aides said her plane was unable to land because of fog, disappointing more than 400 people gathered to hear her speech. She addressed them by speaker phone — from Omaha, Neb.
She sought to compare her experience — a two-term New York senator after eight years as first lady — with that of Obama, a first-term senator from Illinois.
"I offer the experience of being battle-tested in the political wars here at home," said Clinton, arguing that her background not only was superior as a potential president but also made her the most electable Democrat.
"For 15 years I've been the object of the Republican attack machine and I'm still here," she said.
She said she would be ready to address the problems facing the country on her first day in the White House.
"We have so many issues to deal with," she said. "I've traveled the world on behalf of our country. I've met with countless world leaders and know many of them personally."
Aides said she made more than 70 overseas trips as first lady, was actively involved in policy during her husband's tenure in office and has been closely involved in foreign policy issues during her Senate tenure.
Obama's take on that: "A long resume does not guarantee good judgment."
At his final stop of the day in Laconia, N.H., Obama said "one of my rivals" — he wouldn't say Clinton's name — was ignoring his personal interest in U.S. security.
"I accept the challenge of any other candidate when it comes to being concerned about safety. I have a 9-year-old and 6-year-old daughter in a major American city. Don't tell me I don't care about keeping America safe," he said. "We will strike anybody who threatens American lives and American interests. That's not the question. The question is, what other kinds of power can we bring to make us more safe?"
He did, however, utter Clinton's name during a question-and-answer session when talking about her failed effort to overhaul the health care system in the 1990s, when she was first lady.
___
Associated Press writer Philip Elliott in Laconia, N.H., contributed to this report.
oil above 99$
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/BUSINESS/11/21/oil.prices.ap/index.html
Well, the dollar factor is also high. The dollar is worth less.
Well, the dollar factor is also high. The dollar is worth less.
Tuesday, 20 November 2007
Anna-Nicole Smith's son
http://unterhaltung.de.msn.com/stars/news-artikel.aspx?cp-documentid=6745906
The son of Anna-Nicole Smith died of a mix of antidepressants and tranquilizers.
The exact circumstances remain a mystery.
In a criminal case, a court on the Bahamas tries to determine whether it was murder.
Japan begins identifying foreigners
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/11/20/japan.foreigners.ap/index.html
NARITA, Japan (AP) -- Japan started fingerprinting and photographing arriving foreigners Tuesday in a crackdown on terrorists, despite complaints that the measures unfairly target non-Japanese.
NARITA, Japan (AP) -- Japan started fingerprinting and photographing arriving foreigners Tuesday in a crackdown on terrorists, despite complaints that the measures unfairly target non-Japanese.
Don Siegelman
CBS’s “60 Minutes” is gathering information in Alabama about the case of incarcerated former Gov. Don Siegelman. Siegelman’s prosecution was opposed by DoJ prosecutors and was reportedly interfered with by Bush administration political operatives.
THAT MEANS THAT BUSH ENFORCED THE PROSECUTION OF SIEGELMAN.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/20/thinkfast-november-20-2007/#comment-4161322
THAT MEANS THAT BUSH ENFORCED THE PROSECUTION OF SIEGELMAN.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/20/thinkfast-november-20-2007/#comment-4161322
Civil servants join French strike
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/11/20/france.strikes/index.html
PARIS, France (CNN) -- A 24-hour walkout by French civil servants has coincided with the seventh straight day of crippling strikes by transit workers, putting further pressure on the French government to negotiate an end to the weeklong walkout.
The striking civil servants -- who include teachers, hospital workers, tax collectors, customs officials and post office staff -- planned a march Tuesday afternoon in Paris and other parts of the country.
The one-day civil servants strike was not expected to cripple those services, however. The teachers union said about half its members would still be in the classrooms, so classes would be combined to make up for the teacher absences.
The streets of Paris were already filled with traffic and pedestrians as commuters, unable to take the trains, resorted to other means to get to work. Cars competed for space with people on foot, bikes, scooters, and rollerblades.
A dwindling number of transport workers were supporting the open-ended walkout. The French railroad authority said just 25 percent of its workers were absent Tuesday and the rest were working, and the Paris subway authority said 19 percent of its staff were on strike.
Still, the small number of striking workers was able to disrupt services because it represented train drivers, conductors, and others crucial to the operation of the lines.
The French finance minister said Monday the strikes were costing the economy an estimated €350 million ($517 million) a day. "It's a real worry for the French economy," Christine Lagarde said.
Transport unions are striking over plans by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to reform a special category of pensions. The government is focusing on pension plans which allow some workers -- mostly train drivers -- to retire as early as 50.
PARIS, France (CNN) -- A 24-hour walkout by French civil servants has coincided with the seventh straight day of crippling strikes by transit workers, putting further pressure on the French government to negotiate an end to the weeklong walkout.
The striking civil servants -- who include teachers, hospital workers, tax collectors, customs officials and post office staff -- planned a march Tuesday afternoon in Paris and other parts of the country.
The one-day civil servants strike was not expected to cripple those services, however. The teachers union said about half its members would still be in the classrooms, so classes would be combined to make up for the teacher absences.
The streets of Paris were already filled with traffic and pedestrians as commuters, unable to take the trains, resorted to other means to get to work. Cars competed for space with people on foot, bikes, scooters, and rollerblades.
A dwindling number of transport workers were supporting the open-ended walkout. The French railroad authority said just 25 percent of its workers were absent Tuesday and the rest were working, and the Paris subway authority said 19 percent of its staff were on strike.
Still, the small number of striking workers was able to disrupt services because it represented train drivers, conductors, and others crucial to the operation of the lines.
The French finance minister said Monday the strikes were costing the economy an estimated €350 million ($517 million) a day. "It's a real worry for the French economy," Christine Lagarde said.
Transport unions are striking over plans by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to reform a special category of pensions. The government is focusing on pension plans which allow some workers -- mostly train drivers -- to retire as early as 50.
Planned school rampage in Kaarst, Germany
BERLIN, Germany (CNN) -- Police say they have shut down a high school in northern Germany after receiving a tip that a gunman planned a rampage there.
A local
A local