A Romanian nun has died after being bound to a cross, gagged and left alone for three days in a cold room in a convent, Romanian police have said. Members of the convent in north-west Romania claim Maricica Irina Cornici was possessed and that the crucifixion had been part of an exorcism ritual. Not all the religious crackpots are Moslem...
Cornici was found dead on the cross on Wednesday after fellow nuns called an ambulance, according to police. On Saturday a priest and four nuns were charged in connection with her death. Police say the 23-year-old nun, who was denied food and drink throughout her ordeal, had been tied and chained to the cross and a towel pushed into her mouth to smother any sounds. A post-mortem is to be carried out, although initial reports say that Cornici died from asphyxiation. Local media reports that the young woman had arrived at the remote convent three months before, having initially gone there to visit a friend and opted to stay. Mediafax news agency said Cornici suffered from schizophrenia and the symptoms of her condition caused the priest at the convent and other nuns to believe she was possessed by the devil. "They all said she was possessed and they were trying to cast out the evil spirits," police spokeswoman Michaela Straub said. Father Daniel who is accused of orchestrating the crime is said to be unrepentant. "God has performed a miracle for her, finally Irina is delivered from evil," AFP quoted the priest as saying. "I don't understand why journalists are making such a fuss about this. Exorcism is a common practise in the heart of the Romanian Orthodox church and my methods are not at all unknown to other priests," Father Daniel added. If found guilty of killing Cornici, Father Daniel and the accused nuns could face 20 years in jail. Kill a poor nun who was Schizophrenic, and only get 20 years... I just love "European justice"!
#3
Many Christians believe in exorcisms these days... we just had a travelling preacher Bob Larson star on a TV show here: John Safran Vs God (where journalist John Safran road tested religions).
The last episode showed Safran being exorcised and he did indeed scream and perform on camera.
However I saw no difference between the techniques of the preacher and those of a stage hypnotist I once saw at university.
Clearly Safran has a suggestible personality (in an earlier episode he pretended he saw the earth in his clenched fist to an indian Fakir because he felt pressured to) and also Bob Larson has a powerful and charismatic personality that at close quarters can be quite alarming.
It is not harmless fun to make people believe gobbledygook when totally natural and explainable forces are at work.
#4
The problem here was one of diagnosis: was the problem psychological (meaning that mental healing, not exorcism, was required), physical (physical healing required), or demonic (exorcism required). Jesus did all three.
However, Jesus never required that the unfortunate victims be bound, crucified, gagged, and left alone to die. Didn't need to. Didn't need all the trappings or bargainings that the priest in The Exorcist. Paul didn't either. In fact, he got in trouble for SUCCEEDING, not FAILING like these losers.
I was once oppressed (not possessed, but oppressed) by a demon who got its foothold in me via my experimentation in ESP while indulging in "scientific psychic research". Stupidest thing I ever did. I attended a meeting of a former witch turned Christian Exorcist who looked like (and acted like) my mother. I stood in line, and felt my belly start shaking the moment she got within two people of me, and got worse the closer she got. I was not freaked out, just puzzled: why the hell was I scared of a lady who could have passed as my Aunt? She got to me, touched me on the forehead, and (I am NOT kidding, and I was NOT emotional) I felt like a damned freight train ran through my belly button. I went down on the floor like a sack of potatos, and THAT didn't happen when I got filled with the Spirit. Dismissing me as "suggestible" puts you in the same class as Lefties who assert, on similar grounds, that someone is racist or that Bush is a Nazi: less a statement of truth than an exercise in paradigm protection at someone else's expense.
When asked whether the nun was mentally ill and in need of medical help instead of exorcism, he responded: "You can't take the devil out of people with pills."
Posted by: john ||
06/19/2005 21:12 Comments ||
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In WOT Background due to their report on deaths in Iraq
By Mark Henderson
Nobel prizewinners in the Royal Society attack on editor over publication of flawed research
BRITAIN'S premier medical journal is endangering public health by publishing unfounded scare stories, 30 of the country's leading scientists say today.
Poor editorial judgment at The Lancet has fuelled panic over issues such as the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine, hormone replacement therapy and genetically modified (GM) crops, the eminent medical researchers charge in a letter that the journal has refused to publish.
The signatories, thirty fellows of the Royal Society, two of whom are Nobel laureates, accuse it of favouring "desperate headline-seeking" over sound science, to the detriment of public health. "Under the editorship of Richard Horton, the publication of badly conducted and poorly refereed scare stories has had devastating consequences for individual and public health, in the UK and abroad, and carried a high economic cost," they say.
The letter, seen by The Times, responds to a Lancet editorial last month that criticised the Royal Society as a "shrill and superficial cheerleader for British science" that no longer makes major contributions to medicine.
Fellows of the national science academy were outraged by the attack, which they saw as a cheap shot from a journal with a record of publishing research with serious flaws. Last year, The Lancet partially retracted the 1998 study led by Andrew Wakefield that triggered the MMR vaccine scare. Dr Horton admitted the study was "entirely flawed". Many scientists believe the paper should have been rejected by the journal's referees.
It has also been criticised for publishing research by Arpad Pusztai that claimed to show that GM potatoes produced worrying biological changes in rats. A Royal Society committee found it was based on poorly conducted experiments.
The letter suggests that the decision to publish such research stemmed from a desire to attract headlines and not from balanced assessment of the best evidence. "The remarkably poor editorial judgment responsible for this policy is reflected again in the present egregious, error-strewn and wholly unwarranted attack on the Royal Society," it said.
Professor Mark Pepys, of the Royal Free Hospital, London, who drafted the letter, said: "The Pusztai and MMR papers are the two most serious examples. The MMR study was not well reviewed — it was a disgracefully bad piece of work and the decision to publish it was clearly scaremongering.
"It has had terrible effects: children have died of measles, mumps is now out there, it has ruined the vaccination programme for MMR and cost the British taxpayer millions to repair the damage." Other signatories include Sir Paul Nurse and Sir Aaron Klug, who have won Nobel prizes for their work, Sir Walter Bodmer, one of the world's leading geneticists, and the neuroscientist Dame Nancy Rothwell.
Sir Walter said: "At the very least, people in glass houses should not throw stones. I have given up taking The Lancet, which I used to read regularly."
Dr Horton said the journal had decided not to publish the letter as it had accepted similar ones from Lord May of Oxford, the President of the Royal Society, and Professor David Weatherall, chairman of a committee named in the editorial.
He said that it was part of The Lancet's job to scrutinise institutions such as the Royal Society, and defended his journal's record and integrity. "I can't see why trying to generate a debate about the role of the Royal Society should have been received with such outright hostility," he said.
"I can't believe the people who have signed this letter have looked into the contribution of The Lancet to public health in any detail, or appreciate the breadth of what we have achieved. I find these suggestions insulting to those scientists around the world who have chosen to publish in the journal."
The MMR and GM papers have not been the only sources of controversy during Dr Horton's eight-year editorship of The Lancet. In 2003 Professor David Purdie, of Hull-York Medical School, a leading authority on HRT, criticised a Lancet study suggesting that the treatment could double the risk of breast cancer as "unbalanced and inflammatory".
An accompanying editorial that urged women to stop taking HRT in light of evidence about its health risks caused further outrage among doctors, who said that it would dissuade thousands from taking a medication with proven benefits.
Later that year Dr Horton called on the Government to ban all tobacco smoking, a move ridiculed by the Royal College of Physicians and even by the anti-smoking group ASH. They felt the extreme tone would undermine efforts to secure a ban in public places, which has wide support in the medical community.
The journal was also criticised last year for, on the eve of the US presidential election, publishing a statistical study estimating the death toll from the Iraq war at 100,000. Using highly flawed statistical estimation techniques
Dr Horton has been praised widely, however, for the high profile his journal has given to health issues in the developing world, particularly those concerning children.
He has also won plaudits for his scrutiny of the pharmaceutical industry, though his stance has made enemies. The Lancet has been fiercely critical of drug companies that cover up tests revealing side-effects or sponsor doctors' attendances at conferences
Posted by: too true ||
06/19/2005 09:55 ||
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#1
A classic example of a once-respected institution which has succumbed to leftist/idiotarian rot.
#2
I used to subscribe to Lancet the same as I do the New England Journal of Medicine. I gave up the former precisely because of the editorial drift -- they couldn't decide if they were going to be a serious medical journal or the medical World Weekly News. They still have some useful information, and I check up on them on the net occasionally to see if I've missed anything, but ordinarily I don't bother with them anymore. Ditto with JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) -- I gave them up for the same reason. If I want political news, I come to the web, not to JAMA.
That's what happens when you squander a reputation.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/19/2005 10:45 Comments ||
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#3
Don't forget the Lancet is also the Home of the 100,000 Iraqi DeadTM.
The bell from a British troopship sunk in World War II with more than 5,000 people on board exactly 65 years ago has turned up in a military cemetery in France, an association of survivors and descendants from those on the vessel said.
The heavy bell of the Lancastria, a Cunard Line cruise ship converted to military transport, was discovered by 90 members of the British association in the Pornichet cemetery in western France on Thursday with an anonymous note by the person who left it there.
In the message, the author said he had kept the bell - which is inscribed with the former name of the cruise ship, Tyrrhena - for the past 30 years after raising it from the wreck.
He said he now wanted to donate it to the Lancastria association.
The HMT Lancastria was sunk on June 17, 1940 after taking on board between 5,000 and 9,000 British troops and civilians being evacuated from France following that country's defeat to the invading Germans.
Luftwaffe planes caught the ship exposed off France's Atlantic coast and bombed it, causing it to roll over and sink within 20 minutes as lit fuel set the surrounding sea ablaze. There were 2,477 survivors.
It was Britain's worst maritime disaster in history, and then British prime minister Winston Churchill ordered news of the ship's sinking be suppressed. Official records have been sealed to 2040.
The wreck has been designated a protected war grave.
Posted by: too true ||
06/19/2005 07:51 ||
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This restores our perspective a little. The Lancastria sinking was worse than 9-11, yet it is just a footnote in most World War 2 histories.
It wasn't even the war's worst maritime disaster, that was the German liner Wilhelm Gustlof, sunk by a Soviet submarine in the Baltic during the final days of the war. More than 7000 people perished in that one, yet it, too, is relatively little-known against the backdrop of that immense struggle.
Well, we don't have to worry about a resurgent German army any time soon. But it doesn't bode well for German resolve to deal with any tough issues in the GWOT or at home.
GI Joe's buzz used to be troop standard, as officers meticulously monitored the length of soldiers' hair. Now even ponytails are allowed in the German army after a few shaggy men demanded equal treatment with the women.
Demi Moore might have shaved off her luxurious mane to prove she was just as tough as her male colleagues. But these days in Germany, soldiers are looking more enviously towards GI Jane's long hair and demanding equal treatment.
Equal treatment for all — those were the arguments German women used to gain entry into the army. Now the men are doing an about-face and learning to apply the same terms to push gender neutrality. After all, why shouldn't men also enjoy the same pleasures of coming through their long locks?
That's what an 18-year-old recruit argued, when his commanding officer demanded he cut off his 25-centimeter long ponytail. When he refused to do so, he was imprisoned for subordination and fined 150 euros. Only after he was faced with up to three weeks arrest, did the young man agree to sacrifice his tresses.
At the same time he sought legal council and demanded the repeal of the so-called "hair and beard regulation," which enforces strict -- and specifically short -- standards of hairdressing for men ("closely cut so that it lies flat on the head; it must not cover the ears or eyes of the soldier), while allowing longer coiffures for women.
The fact that female soldiers could get away with wearing a wider range of hairdos as long as they didn't interfere with the correct placement of the hat was unfair, the soldier argued. It meant he didn't have the same freedom to develop his personality as the women.
A military court in Bavaria was convinced. It said the dual standard violated the armed forces guidelines on equal rights and ruled that the hair regulation was unconstitutional. Requiring male soldiers to cut off their hair was an infringement of the basic right to freedom of expression.
Posted by: too true ||
06/19/2005 09:58 ||
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Since, unlike our military, any women in the German army would probably never get close enough to a battle to be part of any fighting, this works for me.
With long hair, the idiot male members of the German Army won't be able to get their gas masks to fit right, and.... (fill in the blank yourself). Darwinism in action.
Not that I think the German Army will actually be in combat anytime soon. Except maybe in their own country against islamofascists. (Or maybe not, if they've been hanging around the appeasing Phrogs too long.)
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
06/19/2005 12:31 Comments ||
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#2
The one thing to keep in mind is the German army is mostly made up of draftees and will probably remain so for the near and at least mid future. Hence the focus on 'rights' and 'personality development'.
If they ever get serious about having an effective army again, this sort of thing will change in a hurry, I suspect.
#3
This reminds me of someone (jokingly) describing the 19th century British Army as "a social institution prepared for any emergency save that of war."
Posted by: Matt ||
06/19/2005 12:47 Comments ||
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#4
I'm not so sure about the combat thing. Germany's defense mninister did announce recently that the Bundeswehr will participate in more international missions, is likely to be involved in combat and should be prepared for casualties.
That said I can't remember having met a soldier with long hair yet so I guess it's pretty much a non issue.
Those guys will probably peel potatos for the rest of their draft time.
#5
Not to mention ABSALOM's long hair getting caught in a thicket and giving his position away. Ask CROMWELL and America's civil war Armies, North and South, how many men suffered serious or debilitating head and upper body rashes due to pervasive head sweat and lice, ... all the way to Vietnam and Desert Storm.
This rolls back a key, if limited, economic reform unless they do something else to pay for it.
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's supporters voted a law through on Friday to restore more generous jobless benefits to older unemployed people in Germany, less than a year after pushing through the cuts in the face of demonstrations.
Centre-right opposition parties who are forecast to win power at a likely general election in September rejected the changes. Those parties have the power to delay the legislation in the Bundesrat upper house so that it expires when the election is called.
In the Bundestag lower house, Schroeder's Social Democrats justified their about-face as a response to continuing high unemployment in Germany.
The legislation postpones by two
years, from 2006 to 2008, a reform that will shorten the duration of pay-linked benefits for unemployed people over 45. Currently a person aged 57 or older when losing a job can claim a benefit for as long as 32 months.
Leftist groups organised big demonstrations last summer against the benefit cuts.
Posted by: too true ||
06/19/2005 07:58 ||
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#1
Trying to make Merkel's life difficult after he loses the upcoming election?
#2
Everything the Bundestag does now is just desperate Red/Green window dressing and rather irrelevant.
Last polls give the CDU/CSU 49% of the votes and an absolute majority by seats. Merkel has already climbed to be the second most popular polititician (after President Köhler). Schröder is plummeting, his SPD now also faces opposition by a new Leftist Alliance.
We'll see the major political swing Germany ever had.
#3
TGA i afraid you will have the problem that Durão Barroso had here in Portugal. After being elected to fix the Socialist disaster by Guterres, with Media(most is Left or far Left) completely against him, after 3 months of reformist drive all ended with nothing more than some cosmetic changes. The deficit stoped to hike like at socialist levels but nothing strutural was made to stop it. Then when he got the EC invite he just run away. Note that his governement with Popular Party had Parliament majority. The Media and protests stopped any possibility helped by some ineptitude by Durão Barroso himself and his governement that at first big protest just give up.
If the political discurse in Germany is at left then there will be no chances.
#5
I don't think so. The German public may hate the reforms but they know they are necessary. If anything positive can be said about Schröder is that he paved the way.
If the Conservatives fail to enact working reforms the Left will be back in 4 years.
#7
I hope you're right, TGA, but in light of the IG Metall newsletter, I have My doubts. That such hateful propaganda would be put out by an organization with a lot of members and support is troubling.
Italian newspapers Friday laid into France's President Jacques Chirac, labelling him an obstacle to the course of the European Union and calling on Italy to swing over to Britain's vision of the future of the bloc. The economic daily Il Sole 24 Ore, in a hard-hitting front-page editorial, called the French leader "the enemy of the EU," while Confindustria, organ of the Italian employers' federation, said Chirac should take the first step to get Europe out of its current deadlock, by resigning and vanishing from the political stage.
The left-wing La Repubblica said Chirac, who has failed to bounce back since French voters shocked him by rejecting the EU constitution in a March 29 referendum he had called, was a beaten man. "His weakness in France makes him a lame duck in Europe," the paper said, contrasting him with the right's rising star, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.
Renato Brunetta, an economic adviser to Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, told La Stampa daily that the French-German axis within Europe was now dead, adding, "Italy must support Tony Blair, the only one able to exercise leadership at present." Other newspapers agreed, with Il Corriere della Sera saying that while France's interest in sustaining the Common Agricultural Policy was well known, "we, who are losing competitiveness in the markets, have other interests, other priorities to assert." Berlusconi, media mogul as well as Italian PM
Posted by: too true ||
06/19/2005 07:56 ||
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#1
sniff, sniff... what's that smell, is it... blood?
Hey chiracy, might want to get out of the water while you are still in one piece.
#2
2b, nah, not going to happen. Isn't there some goofy law protecting him from getting arrested while he's in charge? Some corruption charges are hanging over his head, I think.
This may be an historic turning point for the EU. Either Blair succeeds in injecting Anglosphere ideas of democracy into the EU or relations will turn so acrimonious that the UK will be on its way out. I'm no fan of Tony Blair but the guy is willing to roll the dice and for that I give hime credit.
Unrepentant over the collapse of Friday's EU summit, Tony Blair will embark on a campaign this week to appeal to European opinion over the heads of Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schröder and other leaders of "old Europe".
The Prime Minister flew home yesterday with the recriminations of half of Europe ringing in his ears. Most other European leaders blamed the failure of the summit on his refusal to make concessions on Britain's EU budget rebate unless they were linked to reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy.
But Mr Blair believes that the European public supports his ideas for modernising the EU, an argument he intends to pursue during Britain's six-month presidency, which begins next week.
The Luxembourg Prime Minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, who chaired the talks as the current holder of the presidency, was so angry when the summit ended, according to British officials, that his country is threatening to refuse to co-operate when it hands over to Britain. Mr Juncker warned that the EU is now "in deep crisis".
Mr Blair's crusade will begin with a speech to the European Parliament in Brussels on Thursday, when he will tell European MPs not to confuse his stance with that taken by Margaret Thatcher.
Mr Blair is expected to insist that he believes in a strong "social model" for Europe, rather than an unfettered free market. He will claim that this is proved by his record as the Prime Minister who signed the UK up to the social chapter of the Maastricht treaty, and oversaw the introduction of a national minimum wage.
British officials admitted yesterday that Mr Blair is facing a bad start to his six months at the head of the EU, with other European leaders holding him responsible for what the German Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, described yesterday as "one of the worst political crises Europe has ever seen". But Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, insisted that the crisis could be turned into an opportunity to rethink the EU's future.
"If people are caught up for 36 hours in a soulless building in Brussels, tempers are going to fray,'" Mr Straw told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "It is in many ways a sad day for Europe. But out of this ... there is an opportunity to reconnect. This will be seen as something of a turning point for the European Union. Sometimes to secure a turn in democracies, there has to be a shock."
Mr Straw added: "It is essentially a division between whether you want a European Union that is able to cope with the future or a European Union that is trapped in the past."
The EU Trade Commissioner, Peter Mandelson, also said some good could come out of the crisis. "There will be many of us working hard to make sure that there's a proper debate and that Europe and its budget emerges, not unscathed, but in a better, improved form," he said.
The budget talks reached an impasse between Mr Blair's refusal to accept any cut in the British rebate and the refusal of President Jacques Chirac's refusal to discuss the Common Agricultural Policy, which mainly benefits French farmers.
Mr Juncker had offered what was intended as a compromise, but the British claimed that it would have meant a cut of between a quarter and a third of the rebate without any concession from the French.
#1
Time to start talking up Churchill's 'Union of English Speaking Peoples' as a replacement for the UN, NATO, etc.
Posted by: Jong Cravirong9792 ||
06/19/2005 8:53 Comments ||
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#2
"one of the worst political crises Europe has ever seen"
LOL!
Why this is worse than the summer of '14!
Hey! Who turned out the lights?
Posted by: Wilson ||
06/19/2005 9:45 Comments ||
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#3
Such an astounding notion, that somebody actually has to work and earn money to pay the largesse to those who don't! Perhaps they should set up some kind of European-wide government works project that offers tents, worker's uniforms, food, medical care and minimum wage to the millions in exchange for their improving large areas of Wales and Scotland for agricultural and other uses. In fact, there are hundreds of sites all over Europe that could be significantly improved with massive amounts of hand labor.
#4
#1 Time to start talking up Churchill's 'Union of English Speaking Peoples' as a replacement for the UN, NATO, etc.
Unfortunately that would include the Dhimmi Republic of Canada, and would not include Poland, the Czech Republic, Japan, Italy, and other countries that actually value freedom.
#5
I made the deuced "lights" comment. Not that bloody Wilson you keep referring to. Get your history straight!
Ahem. Let me just straighten my collar and stiffen my upper lip. There. Sorry about the outburst, but sometimes a gentleman has to protect his legacy.
Posted by: Lord Grey of Fallodon ||
06/19/2005 13:37 Comments ||
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#6
Don't need to be English-speaking, just need to have the same values. NATO took a potentially fatal hit when the US called in it's IOU's on Article 5 "an attack on one, is an attack on all" and was (I believe) genuinely shocked when other NATO countries said "err, not sure about that". You find out who your friends are in situations like that. Much better to have bi-lateral arrangements!
Blair is a funny one - he *is* a socialist, so be careful about lionising him just because he's supporting the WoT (contrast with what support the US would have if Thatcher were in power) - he was in CND and is a fully signed up member of the 'social model' of Europe. He's always wanted a legacy, and with the recent election is mainly a busted flush in this country - so he can't do much here, as his leftwing backbenchers will stop all but the most ineffectual reforms. It's understood he always wanted to be the first President of Europe, but that's not going to happen now, so he may try and, well, 'save' Europe. 49% of the EU budget going on Agricultural subsidies and a further 16% spent on moving the entire parliament between Strasbourg and Brussels on a regular basis is *not* a recipe for future prosperity!
Interesting times ahead ;)
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
06/19/2005 15:26 Comments ||
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#7
Yeah! You're right! It was Grey, not I can remember who Wilson was.... Ambassador to France?
#2
Where's the elan, the sophstication, the vaunted savoir faire?
*poof*
Bickering, strutting, posturing, artless dissembling, faithless perfidy, greed and treachery - a mere schoolyard fraud. These assclowns are no one's betters.
If the EU breaks up. France will be over at our place at 2 a.m. shouting to the neighbors about wearing her panties on our head ( not true ) and throwing up on a neighbor's dog after that bender Memorial Day ( true, but she didn't have to tell them that ), then threatening to go get a VPO if you don't at least 'talk' to her.
#5
Should the EU break up,France is up the proverbial merde creek w/out a boat. No subsidies to French farmers,no funding for Space program,no funding for AirBust,no subsidies to French arms companies to help them compete against the Russians in the "affordable" arms market,all the gazillion ways France leeches money from the EU-gone. France will struggle to the very end and beyond to keep some sort of EU alive-she has to!
Posted by: Stephen ||
06/19/2005 14:26 Comments ||
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World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz said developed countries have an obligation to prevent bribery in Africa by Western firms. Wolfowitz also praised South African President Thabo Mbeki for sacking his deputy, Jacob Zuma, after he was implicated, but not charged, in a corruption scandal.
That almost deserves our 'jaw drop' picture.
A corruption trial jailed Zuma's former financial adviser Schabir Shaik for 15 years and found there had been a "generally corrupt relationship" between the two. The case against Shaik hinged on payments made to Zuma solicited from a French arms company in return for protection from investigation into a multi-million-dollar arms deal.
"As an outsider it would suggest that the President of this country takes the issue of corruption seriously and is prepared to take it on and that is only to be applauded," Wolfowitz told Reuters late on Saturday at the end of his first tour of Africa. "I think for every corruptee there is a corrupter and some of those corrupters are in developed countries and I think developed countries have an obligation to tackle corruption on their end."
Excellent. Simple words, simply phrased, very powerful. The US can certainly lead this fight.
Wolfowitz praised "new leadership" on the continent for fighting corruption that had held back African development in the past.
In a television interview on Saturday, Zuma said his conscience was clear and he had not resigned because it might set a precedent that anyone accused of wrongdoing would be forced to quit.
Mbeki has yet to announce a replacement for Zuma, who is the deputy leader of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), but some young ANC members have expressed anger over the dismissal. Finance Minister Trevor Manuel stood in for Mbeki on Sunday, with the South African leader at a meeting in Nigeria, but officials told reporters not to read anything into that.
South African newspapers were mixed in their approach to Zuma's dismissal on Sunday, with some praising Mbeki but others worrying he had been fired to pander to international investors. "We cannot, as a country, sacrifice great values at the altar of populism," said the Sunday Independent, backing Mbeki.
If you don't think he's dirty, why not publish all the evidence and do an analysis? You're a newspaper.
Posted by: too true ||
06/19/2005 07:48 ||
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Right after GM, Ford, etc stop offering rebates :)
Posted by: Jong Cravirong9792 ||
06/19/2005 8:54 Comments ||
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Say what???
There's a rather big difference between open sales incentives to consumers spending their own money OTOH and hidden bribes to a government official for a multimillion dollar deal done on behalf of the government with other peoples' tax monies OTOH.
Blair never ceases to surprise me. If this article is correct then he appears to be aligning himself with the Bush administrations position on energy. The way to reduce carbon emissions is to reduce oil dependence. A position even I a long time Kyoto critic would support. SHARKS were not on Sir Bob Geldolf's radar when he invited the world to Scotland for the G8 summit. But they are swimming north anyway, we learnt last week, as refugees from the global warming which makes England's water too hot.
The 65% increase in Scottish sightings of basking sharks was taken to prove a key G8 theme: that climate change is real, nature is already being contorted and we're all slowly heading to a watery Armageddon.
At the G8 summit next month, Tony Blair will act. But, to his credit, the 'Gleneagles Declaration' he is putting together on climate change is shaping up to be a sensible response to a complex situation. It could well be a Kyoto for grown-ups.
Since world leaders signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, the debate around climate change has taken enormous strides, producing both heat and light, but very little consensus.
The experts agree on a few key facts. In the last million years, the Earth has been through seven glacial cycles, the last of which - named the Holocene - began 10,000 years ago. We are living in it still.
Between 900AD and 1100AD, the planet was warmer than today - then chilled during the 'little ice age' from 1400 to 1900. In the century just passed, the world has grown about 0.6°C hotter - the sharpest rise for a millennium.
Sea levels rose between 10cm and 25cm over the last century (civilisation somehow coped) and estimates for the next range from 9cm to 80cm - a lot more, but hardly enough to submerge Big Ben.
So how much of this is due to man? Most of it, argue most Kyoto signatories: it's time for each country to cut back its emission of greenhouse gases, and if this means slower economic growth, then so be it.
George W Bush's administration emphatically disagrees, describing Kyoto as "flawed logic" and a recipe for destroying jobs. Soon after his election, the President tore up Kyoto - saying the science was not right.
There are now thousands of facts backing up either side, but one political constant remains. Climate change is a politically-charged cause, close to the heart of anyone who dislikes free markets or the United States of America.
There is, however, another America which confounds this stereotype. President Bush has pledged to reduce US greenhouse gas intensities by 18% within 10 years - a tougher target than Kyoto-signing Britain, which has set a target of 12%.
Bush's White House is pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 500 tonnes over a decade - a bigger saving than the rest of Europe put together, albeit a smaller one than Kyoto's signatories envisaged.
Where America comes into its own is spending. The US federal government is devoting $3bn each year to climate change technology, and this is where Blair comes in.
His Gleneagles Declaration acknowledges that America will never sign Kyoto - but that it is playing every bit as valid a part in the climate change battle by scientific leadership. The draft text mentions some of his projects by name.
The first is 'carbon capture' technology, which stores carbon dioxide emitted from fossil fuels rather than releasing it into the atmosphere. Such gases can be kept under ground and used to improve oil recovery.
Next comes the Methane to Markets scheme, which attempts to capture waste methane, a key greenhouse gas, and use it as a clean energy source. The US has now signed up a 15-strong 'coalition of the willing' on the same project.
The White House's motivation could not be further removed from that of Greenpeace. The administration wants to ditch America's reliance on Arab oil, and is mesmerised by the 670 trillion cubic feet of methane in reserves, there to be mined.
If such methane can be turned into energy, argue American neoconservatives, there would be less need for Arab oil - making Saudi Arabia a far easier place to invade.
The latest US government estimates suggest that by 2015, the Methane to Markets programme will have removed 1% of all greenhouse gases emitted by humans into the atmosphere.
This is the environmental equivalent of closing down England's entire road network, or shutting down 50 coal-fired power stations. And unlike the Kyoto Protocol, the methane project would oil the world economy, spreading prosperity.
There are several other examples of climate technology, mostly pursued by American politicians who want to cut reliance on Arab sources of energy, or businesses seeking more profit by making fuel more efficient.
The free market is in a headlong rush to find green solutions: whosoever discovers the next source of energy will be rich indeed. Blair is accepting this common interest, and producing a document everyone can agree on.
It gets better with every draft. It started out proclaiming that climate charge is an "urgent" problem, echoing the implausible claims made around the time that Kyoto was in fashion that it was the single biggest emergency facing man.
The Americans are toning it down, reluctant to have their energy policy decided by outsiders. This is enough to earn criticism from those who believe President Bush is a cowboy reneging on his duties to the international community.
But to cast him as the number one enemy to the environment requires a long hard look at what he's planning, what he's paying for and the targets he has set his own administration without any pressure.
This is why the Gleneagles Declaration will, literally, not have one word which goes beyond the US position. But its emphasis on investment, technology and clean fuels may serve to push the focus on to a new era for environmentalism.
When the world community is presented with a genuine and proven threat, as it was with the emission of CFCs in the 1980s, it has shown itself more than capable of responding. CFC emissions are now back to 1950s levels.
The hole in the ozone layer will be repaired in about 50 years as a result. The more developed a country becomes, the more careful it is with its energy: this is a natural law of economics that needs no treaty to ratify it.
Kyoto only came alive last February after Russia signed up, making the requisite number of signatories. Yet four months on it is already looking out of date. A good piece of fuel research could be worth a decade-worth of the economic restraint it would impose.
It will pain the environmentalists to admit this, but President Bush and his profit-hungry energy firms may be their best hope for cutting greenhouse gases. It will be a test of the maturity of both sides to see if they can agree at Gleneagles.
#1
It bears repeating: Kyoto if all nations including US and Australia both signed and complied, would ONLY REDUCE GLOBAL TEMPERATURES BY 2/10ths of a DEGREE CELCIUS OVER 50 YEARS
Thus slowing global warming by a couple of months.
The earth is warming and cutting carbon emissions is NOT repeat NOT going to make it stop.
meanwhile there is no reason to believe that global warming is a bad thing. In past centuries it is the mini ice-ages that impacted civilisations and biodiversity hardest and the warming periods that had an explosion of life.
It is a myth that carbon dioxide is a pollutant. It is a benign gas necessary for plant growth. We all exhale it.
It is a myth that eating red meat is bad for the environment (hence McDonalds is terrible) due to the methane produced by the cows. There is no evidence to suggest the total amount of large herbivores is any greater now than in centuries past: cows simply replaced bison/buffalo etc that used to graze the plains.
In fact atmospheric levels of methane are actually falling: scientists don't know why.
It is FUTILE to try to cut carbon dioxide and there is no real reason to try. It is not a dangerous pollutant in fact it leads to better plant growth.
Kyoto is just a stick to beat "rich" countries to hold back their development so the "poor" third world countries who don't have to sign can catch up. Marxism wearing a green coat.
Which really annoys me because I really am an environmentalist. I love nature and want to minimise species destruction probably more than the idiots from Greenpeace who piss member's donations up the Kyoto/global warming flagpole.
I think you haven't understood: Kyoto was NEVER designed to transfer funds between rich and poor countries (the idea didn't came from Cameroon). It was designed to transfer funds from countries with buoyant economies and growing populations to other rich countries whose economies are stagnating whose working hours are well below 40 hours (1) a week and whose people have been unwilling to spend their money in raising children (all things being equal or near equal the stagnat will pollute less than the buoyant) so now they face BIG problems for financing retirements.
There are some cosmetic measures in order to get the votes of poor countries but who will have little effect (specially after the local tyrant has taken his share and deposited it in his account in Europe)
(1) Please no easy jokes about the French: if my memory is any good the average number of worked hours in Germany is still lower than in France.
#4
Phil_b writes: The way to reduce carbon emissions is to reduce oil dependence. A position even I a long time Kyoto critic would support.
Actually, I think we'd go a lot farther replacing coal fired power plants with nuclear power plants. The problem being the proliferation problem for third world countries building nuclear plants that would use the civilian programs as covers for bomb programs.
Thanks to Pakistan, North Korea, and Iran, we now know a lot more about how that would be done.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
06/19/2005 13:25 Comments ||
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#5
Proliferation can be countered by technology. For instance by developping reactors working with thorium instead of uranium. Uranium nuclear reactions produce plutonium, a fissile (ie who can be made unto a bomb) material who can be separated by purely chemical (ie relatively easy and cheap). But thorium reactions don't produce plutonium or other fissile isotopes so no bomb, at least no affordable bomb (enrichichment costs gazillions)
#11
Phil F, while I don't under-estimate the proliferation problem. In large part it stems from (France excepted) there has been no technological advancement in reactor design and build for at least 40 years, because almost none have been built in the developed world. What is needed is safe off-the-shelf designs or kits for nuclear power stations. Not only does this make nuclear power affordable, it takes away the rational for developing your own and hence the opportunity to use it to develop nuclear weapons. Any country like Iran that doesn't buy the kits and spends vastly more to develop their own design would come under immediate suspicion.
#3
Remember that a widowed or divorced woman is in a terrible way, literally facing starvation. $200 a month in Iraq goes a long way to having a roof and food. Remember also that if she is an official wife, she gets a full cut of everything the first wife gets--few men can afford that. So it impresses that this is a "happy medium" for women who are otherwise un- or under-educated, who really can't fend for themselves having lost the support of both their family and their husband's family. "Intimacy" uses up very little time, so she has a lot left over to improve her condition. Last but not least, Iraq is full of war-widows, most of whom share the same economic rung of the ladder. So the fewer of them in competition for the few jobs, the better.
#4
Now some Iraqi clerics and women's rights activists are complaining that the contracts have become less a mechanism for taking care of widows than an outlet for male sexual desires.
And how go these folks figure that out? Is it 49% widows and 51% desires? Should we stop the process at that point? Who decides when the "complaint" is valid? And then what? Mandate a social program, with US funds, tell the Iraqis they have to have "social security", or just whine about it?
I, too, would like to see them adopt some western values, but it is their country.
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/19/2005 11:32 Comments ||
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#5
I imagine they'll be able to have social security when the Saudis stop blowing up their oil pipelines.
(Gee, you'd almost think they were doing it just to cut down on the competition...)
MULTAN, Pakistan - A Pakistani woman who captured international attention for her bravery after suffering a gang rape three years ago said on Saturday she wouldn't allow anyone to use her name to tarnish the image of her country.
Don't you worry Mai, there's no need to use your name to tarnish the image of Pakiwakiland.
Mukhtar Mai's comments came a day after Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, told reporters in New Zealand that he ordered a recent travel ban on her because foreign private groups wanted to take her to America "to bad-mouth Pakistan" over the "terrible state" of the nation's women.
"Pakistan is my country, and how can I allow anyone to bring (a) bad name to Pakistan," Mai, 36, told The Associated Press from Meerwala, a village in eastern Punjab province where she was raped in June 2002 to punish her family for her brother's alleged affair with a woman from another family.
On Saturday Mai said she had no plans to settle abroad. "I will live and die here, and I assure the president that I would never do anything against Pakistan," she said.
"There. I said it. Please don't kill me!"
Mai added, however, that she would continue to demand punishment for her attackers.
She has expressed worries about the safety of her family since June 10, when a court in the eastern city of Lahore ordered the release of a dozen men detained in connection with her rape. Mai is from the Gujar clan while her alleged attackers were from a clan considered socially higher, called Mastoi.
At what point does a clan rise high enough to be considered 'upper Paleolithic'?
She has denied that her 13-year-old brother had sexual relations with the Mastoi woman, and said a council of villagers ordered her rape to cover up a sexual assault on the boy by Mastoi men.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/19/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
It says clan but more accurately they would be called castes.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
06/19/2005 0:22 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A Romanian nun has died after being bound to a cross, gagged and left alone for three days in a cold room in a convent, Romanian police have said. Members of the convent in north-west Romania claim Maricica Irina Cornici was possessed and that the crucifixion had been part of an exorcism ritual. 
Italian newspapers Friday laid into France's President Jacques Chirac, labelling him an obstacle to the course of the European Union and calling on Italy to swing over to Britain's vision of the future of the bloc. The economic daily Il Sole 24 Ore, in a hard-hitting front-page editorial, called the French leader "the enemy of the EU," while Confindustria, organ of the Italian employers' federation, said Chirac should take the first step to get Europe out of its current deadlock, by resigning and vanishing from the political stage. 
MULTAN, Pakistan - A Pakistani woman who captured international attention for her bravery after suffering a gang rape three years ago said on Saturday she wouldn't allow anyone to use her name to tarnish the image of her country.
