via Tim Blair
Wild fighting erupted between police and local journalists on the field during the lunch break in the second cricket Test between Australia and Bangladesh. Tensions became heightened between the two camps after a leading Bangladesh sports photographer was bashed by a policeman while trying to enter Chittagong Divisional Stadium by the wrong gate. The anger developed into open brawling at the side of the field at the luncheon interval with journalists being kicked and hit with the butts of police rifles.
The ugly scenes threaten any possibility of international cricket returning to the port city in the nation's south after Australia's tour and the International Cricket Council could look into the matter. The majority of the local press went on strike for the day after the dramatic events and threatened to boycott the rest of the Australian tour. Several reporters were left bloodied and battered from the altercations.
The situation degenerated when the angry journalists went to stage a second protest on the ground during lunch after calling for the responsible officer to be stood down from his duties. Dozens of fuming scribes went out to voice their anger on the pitch but were met by police and wild brawls broke out like spot fires at the side of the ground. The police showed little restraint by singling out and surrounding journalists and belting them in savage fashion. The media mob then streamed onto the ground before going into the Bangladesh team's change room to voice their protests. The drama delayed the start of play for the second time after journalists initially protested before the match began by sitting next to the pitch.
#1
The anger developed into open brawling at the side of the field at the luncheon interval with journalists being kicked and hit with the butts of police rifles.
Festivities indeed! Throw in some Lawyers and Internal Revenue Agents, and Oz will have a worldbeating event!
An earthquake measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale has rattled Taiwan but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties, the Seismology Centre said. The temblor hit at 6:40 am local time, with its epicentre 19.9 kilometres north-east of Taitung, a town in the island's south-east. It originated 11.7 kilometres beneath the seabed. "Aftershocks with a magnitude of more than 5.0 are expected to hit the south-east," an official at the centre said. Earlier the US Geological Survey had put the quake's magnitude at 5.8, with its epicentre 260 kilometres south of Taipei.
A little to the left, I think...
Posted by: Fred ||
04/17/2006 00:00 ||
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The Vatican and the Archbishop of Canterbury have used Easter messages to denounce the popularity of conspiracy theories. In his Easter Sunday sermon, the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams attacked conspiracy theories such as The Da Vinci Code and the so-called "Gospel of Judas". The latter manuscript claims Christ himself asked Judas to betray him. "We are instantly fascinated by the suggestion of conspiracies and cover-ups," Dr Williams said. "This has become so much the stuff of our imagination these days that it's only natural to expect it when we turn to ancient texts," he said.
That could be because clergymen like Dr. Williams don't provide a strong and consistent interpretation of the scriptures which would anchor Christianity to Christian thought, rather than to... ummm... whatever the hell else it is that Rowan's interested in.
Dr Williams says the texts are divisive. "We treat them as if they were unconvincing press releases from some official source, whose intention is to conceal the real story," he said. Vatican priests also attacked The Da Vinci Code while in his first Easter Sunday sermon in St Peter's Square, the Pope dismissed the "Gospel of Judas".
I'm apparently wrong in my assumption that the Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction. I believe it's based on an earlier work of fiction in which the Christ family is somehow tied to the Merovingian pretender in France and similar nonsense. I confess I haven't been following the current story, but if it features 2000-year-old bloodlines, secret societies, and the last of the Merwigs, I wouldn't expect the end of civilization as we know it.
The Gospel of Judas is a similarly goofy story, appealing to those of a reflexively Revolutionary turn of mind, rather than to anyone with any sense. There are a number of Gnostic gospels, to include the Gospel of Peter, and they've been available to both scholars and the curious since they were first written. The Judas gospel apparently fell out of favor with the early Christians even earlier than most, which is why the poor condition of the most recent reprints. That's because Judas' sin was one of betrayal, not (like Peter) a lapse of courage or (like Thomas) a lapse of belief.
The also-ran gospels (sometimes referred to as the Lost Gospels) are more contradictory than the four "real" gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John complement each other, while Peter, for instance, shows a rather un-Christlike Christ in many cases. I believe it was the Gospel of Peter that had the young Jesus turning some local bad boys into bears.
The heart of the two stories, though, is what the Archdruid and the Pope are talking about, and it does represent a serious problem to Western Civilization. I've pointed out before that we live in a world where verities are constantly being turned on their heads. It's a world of sympathetic vampires and evil clowns, where Mom's a bitch, apple pie oozes deadly cholesterol and probably alar, and baseball is the haven of millionaire druggies. The Boy Scouts are homophobes, racism is rampant just under the surface of what only appears to be a tolerant and easy-going culture, and marriage either isn't for anyone or it's for everyone, to include a boy and his dog. There are no heroes, everyone has feet of clay, and there's no such thing as progress. One culture is as good as another, and the differences among Capitalism, Communism, Fascism, and any other system you'd care to name are so negligible as not to be worth mentioning.
That's pretty much post-modernism in a nutshell, I think, and it's a perniciously parasitical growth that will eventually kill its host unless it's excised. It will be, I suspect, the next war after the one we're having now with Islam, unless its presence in our cultural system weakens us sufficiently that we lose this one.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/17/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
You hit the nail on the hit with this summary. Next Easter, the MSM will probably treat us with the Gospel according to Elvis.
--- My favorite heresy is the "Adamite Heresy"
Adamites were attributed to be in a "divine state of grace" or religious perfectionism as were Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden before the Fall. In principle they rejected most civil, moral and social restraints on their behavior. Individuals could regain their innocence by being unfettered of their clothing and the false modesty of Society, as the reasoning went.
Once you're saved, you're saved, right?
From the same source
Adamites behavior has often been attributed to other radical groups. Among these were the Ranters, who exhibited some public "nakedness". Later Ranter images were often based on earlier Adamite iconography.
Haven't seen much of that iconography around Rantburg, though.
#2
There is some interesting history behind these 'conspiracies'. Of particular note is the copper scroll found near the dead sea and its link to the Knights Templar.
#3
Of all the various Eastery things that were on TV this weekend, the Discovery Channel show on Judas got my attention - but what was interesting wasn't Judas or his rehab - I didn't much care about him whether as an icon or a man... it was Mary Magdalene that grabbed me and made me listen - or more accurately she was Miriam of Magdala.
The show examined the "Gospels of Mary" and the biblical references and historical finds and was far more fascinating to me. I don't know (or care) about all this DaVinci Code ruckus. The simple story about Miriam made sense and was extremely interesting.
A decent and seemingly fair overview of Miriam of Magdala.
My favorite factoid was that she was no prostitute - that was a Pope Gregory hit job. My favorite scene was a wall painting showing Miriam (Mary) standing alongside Peter teaching as his equal.
Some things, in the absence of objective proof - such as that wall painting - must be judged on other criteria and there was a solid ring of truth to the story the show presented with its little panel of "experts".
You'll get tons of good hits on "Mary of Magdala" if you're interested in reading more. She was there, from beginning to end, and then the new beginning. Recall, she was "the very first to proclaim the Easter message". And ticked off a LOT of men, lol.
#4
Early Church Fathers, in their writings, praised Mary for her discipleship, never once questioning her moral character. Hippolytus of Rome, in a commentary written around the end of the second century or beginning of the third, was the first to call her the apostle to the apostles. It became a favorite title for her.
In the meantime, some biblical commentators [note that they are NOT official theologians of the Church] began speculating whether the Mary of Lukes chapter eight might also be the unnamed sinful woman in his preceding chapter.
So how did it happen? Sixth-century pope, St Gregory the Great, governed in a licentious age, and moral reform was his goal. Deciding that Marys seven demons (biblically, she had 7 demons drive out) stood for the seven capital sins (a theology just then being developed), and the worst one (most emphasized) was promiscuity. He used Mary of Magdala as the prime example of how even the worst sinner could reform (i.e. somone afflicted with demons that caused her to commit all 7 of the cardinal sins).
So powerful and long-lasting was Gregorys influence that a mischaracrurization of his judgment of Mary continued into the 20th century.
The Eastern Orthodox Church, incidentally, has never seen her in any light other than its honorary title for her: Equal to the Apostles.
So there's no conspiracy, and St Gregory did not impugn her character in as much as peopel grabbed it and ran with it, and the church said nothing to clarify it until recently. That Mary Magdelene was a prostitute was never the "official" nor "declared" position of the Catholic Church, to the best of my knowledge.
Just correcting a bit of "not quite the whole story" that you can collect on the internet, from various Catholic-bashing sites.
As Paul Harvey would say, Now You Know the REST of the story.
#5
Excellent rant, Fred! Check out http://princeofcairo.livejournal.com for more amusing information on the ongoing controversy surrounding The Da Vinci Code. Basically, Dan Brown is a hack who inserts other peoples (fairly questionable) research into his characters mouths whole cloth; a bad habit that landed him in court recently. The Prince of Cairo (a.k.a. Kenneth Hite) has a professional interest in the case. Besides being an extraordinarily good guy, hes also a legitimate expert on conspiracy theories; meaning, of course, that people pay him to write books on the topic.
The Gnostic Gospels are another matter entirely. Before rushing to any judgement on the texts contained within the Nag Hammadi Codex, I urge all of you to read any of three books written by Yale professor of ancient religions Elaine Pagels: The Gnostic Gospels, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent, and Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas. You will find her work enlightening, informative, and intensely well researched.
#6
IMHO Pagels is a bad joke. Her research is a bit on the fantasy side and is not all that well done in terms of modern hermeneutics. She swallows a lot of Gnostic heresies unquestioningly, becasue they agree wit her political leanings - and they make spectacular ways to promote her books.
In my opinion, theologically speaking, she's as reliable for presenting all the facts as asking Jimmy Carter about Iran policy.
I prefer James M. Robinson, one of the world's leading scholars on Gnosticism, and the editor of the Nag Hammadi Library. In an AP story, Robinson said, bluntly: "Does it go back to Judas? No." He says the text is valuable to scholars of the second century but dismissed the notion that it'll reveal unknown biblical secrets: "There are a lot of second-, third- and fourth-century gospels attributed to various apostles," Robinson said. "We don't really assume they give us any firstcentury information."
Robinson is a scholar, Pagels has simply become a new-age artiste, wrapped in a veneer of scholarship. Elaine Pagels published her controversial bestseller, The Gnostic Gospels in 1979 with a minimum of research, very soon after the release of the Nag Hammadi scrolls. This book popularized Gnosticism, not only as an academic curiosity, but also an appealing alternative to orthodox Christianity. Pagels saw in the Gnostic writings a way to forge a successful academic and publishing career, in addition to fighting orthodox Christianity and promoting liberal values.
Gnosticism, especially when run through the interpretive grid of postmodern academia, seemed to support many of the values endorsed by liberal- or post-Christian academics. Gnosticism was envisioned to support feminism, religious pluralism, the supremacy of knowledge, the non-divinity of Christ, the non-literal resurrection, and the self as the source of ultimate meaning. Gnosticism also appealed to the elitism that is rampant in academia.
As for the truthfulness of the Gnostic "gospels", second-century Gnostics were accomplished at taking biblical stories, either from the New Testament or from the Old, and turning them on their heads. For example, in Gnostic stories of creation the world and humankind are created by an evil god. But the good serpent comes to reveal hidden knowledge to people so they can escape the evil creation. This is Genesis turned on its head. Similarly, a creative Gnostic writer refashioned the New Testament story of Judas, making him the hero because he was responsible for the death of the (bad) body of Jesus. That way they denigrate the humanity of Jesus, and emphsize thier view that its all based on human knowledge, not on faith. Along the way, this Gnostic author was also able to denigrate the other disciples of Jesus, those upon which orthodox Christianity based its doctrine and authority. Holding up the reconfigured Judas, therefore, plays perfectly into the Gnostic agenda of attacking orthodox Christianity by subverting Christianity into a Gnostic mystery cult based on leaders with secret knowledge (rather than salvation visible and freely available to all and any).
So take Pagels context and intent into account - with a HUGE grain of salt.
(Much of the above shameless stolen/paraphrased or copied from Mark D Roberts and elsewhere on the web)
#7
I have to agree with SM that Dan Brown is not a very good writer and DaVinci Code is a shameless rip off of Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Quite an interesting book BTW. Not so much for the descendants of Christ theme, but for showing that much of history is the 'official version' of events promoted by the powers that be at the time.
#8
gentlemen: there's a reason it's called fiction. As a Catholic, I was never taught Mary was a prostitute or anything close....other than the sophomoric jokes about the "immaculate" conception and Joseph's worldliness
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/17/2006 21:13 Comments ||
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(The guy that released all the guys on death row and made it easy for terrorists to get trucker licenses.)
A federal jury convicted former Gov. George Ryan today on all charges that as secretary of state he steered state business to cronies in return for vacations, gifts and other benefits for himself and his family.
Lobbyist Lawrence Warner, a close Ryan friend, was also found guilty on all charges against him in the historic trial.
On their eleventh day of deliberations, the six-woman, six-man jury found Ryan, 72, guilty on 18 counts of racketeering, mail fraud, false statements and tax violations. Warner, 67, was convicted on 12 counts of racketeering, mail fraud, extortion, money laundering and evading cash-reporting requirements.
The verdict came three weeks after U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer excused two jurors during deliberations following Tribune stories that both had apparently concealed arrest records during jury selection in September. Rejecting defense calls for a mistrial, Pallmeyer added two alternates in their place and ordered that deliberations restart from scratch on March 29.
The initial eight-day deliberations had been plagued by apparent infighting among jurors, prompting Pallmeyer at one point to instruct them to treat one another "with dignity and respect." The same problems didn't appear to be taking place with the jury after the two alternates were added. The jury didn't send out any notes raising questions or problems in the final four days of deliberations.
The trial played out over 5œ months as prosecutors portrayed Ryan as a shameless, greedy politician at the center of a series of dirty deals that enriched Warner and other friends who kicked back gifts to Ryan and his family.
But the defense called the evidence woefully inadequate, arguing not a single witness saw Ryan take money to influence his decisions and assailing key government witnesses for slanting their testimony to win leniency. Neither Ryan nor Warner testified.
The charges against Ryan largely stemmed from his scandal-scarred tenure as secretary of state. But he was accused as governor of lying to FBI agents, arranging a lucrative make-work lobbying deal for a friend, lobbyist Arthur "Ron" Swanson, and leaking the selection of a state prison site to Swanson, who improperly profited on the tip. Ryan also diverted state resources and staffers to half a dozen political campaigns, including his 1998 election as governor.
Prosecutors alleged that in 1995 Ryan helped arrange to be paid secretly by former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm's ill-fated presidential campaign, funneled the money through a company operated by a trusted operative and passed on nearly $10,000 to four daughters.
The defense brought out that Ryan was given thousands of dollars in cash in annual Christmas gifts from employees to try to counter bank records showing Ryan withdrew only $6,700 cash in nearly a decade. Prosecutors argued the limited withdrawals were circumstantial evidence that Ryan's cash spending came from kickbacks on state contracts and leases.
Among the wide-ranging charges against Ryan, prosecutors alleged as secretary of state he gutted the office's investigative arm in 1995 to stop its agents from looking into shady fundraising practices of his campaign apparatus.
One investigator testified that Dean Bauer, Ryan's handpicked inspector general, refused to let him investigate a 1994 crash outside Milwaukee in which six children of Duane and Janice Willis were killed. The fiery accident occurred when a heavy piece of metal undercarriage fell from a truck and punctured the gas tank of the Willis van. The truck driver, Ricardo Guzman, had paid a bribe for his commercial driver's license in Illinois and could not understand warnings from other truckers, in English, that the piece was dangling dangerously from his rig. Jurors heard limited details about the crash because Pallmeyer considered the issue too prejudicial for the defense.
#2
A federal jury convicted former Gov. George Ryan today on all charges that as secretary of state he steered state business to cronies in return for vacations, gifts and other benefits for himself and his family
#3
"I believe this decision today is not in accordance with the kind of public service that I provided to the people of Illinois over 40 years, and needless to say I am disappointed in the outcome," the former governor said.
Yeah, George, what's the world coming to? Forty years on the government tit and a guys not even allowed to make a coupla hundred grand on the side?
Ungrateful bastards!
#5
CS - Ryan is a Republican. Although you had to read to the tenth paragraph in the AP story to find that out. Don't know why they didn't stick to the story line.
#6
Well, now he'll have his chance for kinky sex™. Not that he'll like it.
Google the reasons for his divorce from Jeri "7 of 9" Ryan. Definitely NSFW.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
04/17/2006 19:11 Comments ||
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#7
And the odds are none of this would of ever come out if the majority of a family hadn't burned to death on I-94 in Milwaukee when some scrap fell off of a truck driven by one of the "qualified" truck drivers who got his ticket through the scam. Of course I am not shocked that Ryan was even mildly crooked. I assume that ALL politicians in the Land of Lincoln are. But the good news is they are getting closer and closer to Lil Richie Daley
MIANWALI: Two girls, aged 12 and seven, had been offered in Nikah in abstentia as compensation to an aggrieved family for a crime committed by the girls brother in Bundial village in Qaidabad 40 kilometres from Mianwali. The Panchayat head has threatened the father of the girls to hand them over to the aggrieved party before April 20. Rehmatullah, the girls brother, developed relations with neighbour Ghulam Muhammads daughter Shahnaz. Rehmatullah and Shehnaz later eloped in March 2006. They informed their parents of their marriage and sent them a copy of their Nikah Nama.
If only they'd sent the original ...
Shahnazs father approached the local Panchayat, saying that the couple had dishonoured him. Upon receiving Ghulam Muhammads complaint, Malik Muhammad Yar Bandial, the village landlord summoned the Panchayat. The gathering ordered Rehmatullahs father to hand over his daughter as compensation to Shahnazs already married brother. Amina Bibi, 12, will be handed over to Muhammad Afzal, 28, a father of two. Rehana Bibi, 7, will be handed over to Ghulam Muhammads nephew, Ramzan, eight. A Nikah ceremony was also held where Muhammad Esab, the local imam, performed the ceremony in absentia. The Nikah, however, has not been registered.
The Panchayat has threatened the father of the girls not to report the matter to police or press. The Panchayat also banned the entry of Shahnaz and Rehmatullah to the village. A tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye, the Panchayat members warned anyone daring to commit dishonour. Ghulam Muhammad, the father of the girls, has appealed to the chief justices of the Supreme Court, Lahore High Court, Punjab Chief Minister, inspector general of Punjab police to intervene in the matter and save his daughters. When contacted the Panchayat head described it as a minor incident involving a Kamee (low-cast) family.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/17/2006 00:00 ||
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The Afghan Minister for Culture and Youth Syed Makhdoom Rahim said that work on publishing the Holy Quran with a translation in Pushto has been started in the country. He said that for the first time in the history of Afghanistan, the Holy Quran has been translated into Pushto and would be published soon. The Holy Quran has been translated by a council of experts and is expected to consist of 1,230 pages, Radio Tehran reported.
It was when the Bible was translated from Latin into the vernacular that Protestantism really got under way, so I'd consider this a good sign. I'm not sure how many Pashtuns are actually literate, but I'm expecting a considerable amount of turban scratching as they read their holy book in their own language and discover that it makes no more sense in Pashto than it does in Arabic, and maybe less.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/17/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Four more pages and it would have been perfect.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/17/2006 7:22 Comments ||
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#2
I'll bet they "fixed" it. No dull axes to be found anywhere these days.
#3
Definitely less sense. All the poetic allusions would be gone, which is a serious problem. Not that it is understandable that way by most Arabs either.
The thing would need a boatload of footnotes.
And of course there is the problem of the rest of the literature, hadiths and sunnah.
The legal committee of the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) has observed that there has been no decrease in the registration of fake first information reports (FIRs) in blasphemy cases, despite the appointment of a senior police officer to investigate such cases. Consequently, the CII has postponed consideration on its legal committee's recommendation that had called for an amendment to the Criminal Procedure Code that deals with blasphemy case investigations. The committee said that the law could not curtail registration of fake blasphemy cases since station house officers (SHO), responsible for registering FIRs in such cases, were often held hostage to the influence of local figures wishing to pursue their own agenda, sources said.
I think what they're saying, despite the fact that not much of the above makes any sense, is that they're not going to amend the present law and/or procedures because they don't work. They're not going to replace them, but they're not going to change them, either. Silly infidels, we'd consider the appearance of large numbers of people in court at risk of their lives and property on trumped-up charges as a bug. The CII regards it as a feature.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/17/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
The Islamic version of the old proverb "Give a dog a bad name and you might as well hang him" has become "Call someone you dislike a blasphemer/apostate and a mob will lynch him for you"
Original mostly NSFW image swapped out on account of me not getting in hot H2O from da boss...
Original image now cleverly hidden by Em's replacement image.
PESHAWAR: A family has refused to accept a thirteen-year-old girl as 'Swara' and demanded a replacement, saying the girl was mentally upset and a minor.
"We don't want her! That girl's plumb stoopid!"
"And she's got the body of a 16-year-old!"
Bibi Jan was bought by a family for Rs 53,000 to be given as compensation to a family whose girl had eloped with a member of their family. However, the recipient family rejected Jan, demanding a 'healthier' girl be given to them. Jan was given as compensation following a jirga decision in Rusthum in Mardan district that had directed Afsar Ali of Shahbaz Gari to hand over a girl to the family of Gul Sanga of Rusthum. Since Ali had neither a sister nor a close relative, the jirga ordered him to buy a girl and then hand her over to the Sanga family.
"I'd like to buy a girl, please?"
"Certainly, sir! And what kind would you like?"
"Ummm... Pubescent, I think. And not too smart, okay?"
"Aisle 3, by the ammunition."
Sajjid, a cousin of Ali, helped implement the jirga decision by purchasing Jana from Nothia Bazzar in Peshawar. Samar Minallah, the project director of Ethnomedia, which researches cases of Swara, has held the local police responsible for the incident.
Posted by: Fred and john ||
04/17/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
by purchasing Jana from Nothia Bazzar in Peshawar
Enlightened moderation in Pakistan... in the year 2006, you can buy a teenage girl in the bazaar...
Posted by: john ||
04/17/2006 0:17 Comments ||
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You will know that Pakistan has entered the modern age when one can get a Swara girl delivered in 30 minutes or less.
Posted by: ed ||
04/17/2006 8:57 Comments ||
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Massive fraud hits tsunami aid Michael Sheridan, Banda Aceh
Builders take charity millions
THIS was supposed to be the scene of the worlds greatest aid effort, but endemic corruption has drained it of millions of pounds while leaving tens of thousands of tsunami victims stranded in tents.
Banda Aceh was ground zero in the tsunami of Boxing Day 2004, which claimed more than 200,000 lives across the Indian Ocean. More people died here than anywhere else.
Now two charities that raised unprecedented sums in Britain have fallen victim to rip-offs that ruined their efforts to house the survivors and have forced them to suspend key projects.
Save the Children and Oxfam were both targeted by unscrupulous building contractors who took their money, only to build structures so flimsy that a new wave would wash them away.
Save the Children may have to write off more than £400,000 worth of building contracts. Oxfam, which counts its losses in tens of thousands of pounds, has stopped its construction work around Banda Aceh until investigators establish the extent of the abuse.
Indonesian anti-corruption campaigners, who uncovered the Save the Children case, have also assembled a dossier of fraud and incompetence that reveals why the Jakarta government and international aid agencies have failed in their promises to the survivors of Aceh.
We calculate that 30% to 40% of all the aid funds, Indonesian and international, have been tainted by graft, said Akhiruddin Mahjuddin, an accountant who investigates aid spending for the Aceh Anti-Corruption Movement.
The movement is partly funded by foreign donors and its findings are regarded as credible by embassies and aid agencies.
The betrayal is all the more cruel because it has been committed, in the main, by the Acehnese themselves. Indonesia, which lost more than 131,000 people, got the most pledges of aid, totalling $6.5 billion (£3.7 billion). It has already collected $4.5 billion in funds.
The aid effort won praise for saving thousands of lives by prompt action to stop disease and to restore clean water supplies.
Yet the bereaved, the orphans and the dispossessed are eking out their 16th month in tents and shacks flung down amid palm groves and rice paddies around this sweep of ravaged coast, ringed by sharp-toothed green mountains, in the north of Sumatra.
Funds have been frozen. Projects wait on hold while worried aid administrators fly in and out of Banda Aceh clutching audit reports. Bureaucratic and political paralysis means only 10.4% of the funds allocated by the government have actually been spent, said Akhiruddin.
Of the 170,000 homes promised to the people of Aceh, only about 15,000 have been built, one year and four months after the tsunami.
Save the Children intended to help bridge the gap by funding 741 buildings, including schools, in the Bireun, Pidie and Lhokseumawe districts of the province, issuing contracts worth £404,000.
Akhiruddin displayed the list of 15 contractors on his Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, showing a web of companies and subcontractors. Most appear to be controlled by a few individuals related to one another.
No surprise here. The father in law built a petrochemical plant there that turned into walls of bribe tables and a complete port city.
Some hints here if you ever are suicidal enough to want to build anything in Indonesia. The father-inlaw spent good money on dectives to figure this out.
#1 Most of the workers sleep wherever and grab fruits from trees along the roads. They don't need much money. Indonesia is a class society. Give them something their money can't buy to get them to work for you. Build a REC-CENTER & Movie Theater first.
#2 Pay the prevailing low wages but give them tokens for each hour worked that can be used only in the REC-CENTER.
#3 Rec center should only accept tokens not money. This for movies, videogames, computers, exercise equipment, pool, pingpong soccer everything.
#4 Study the main ruling families in Indonesia and the President's. Forget the others. Use distance info from these families to calculate bribes.
#5 Once your bribe tables are constructed its only a database lookup to see if somebody deserves a bribe and exactly how much.
#6 Armed robery is common. You can even talk them into leaving you enough to grab a bus back home. Always carry enough cash to keep a robber happy enough that he won't kill you. Carry ids, credit cards and larger amts of cash in hidden money belts and such.
That's a good start.
They were supposed to sink foundations up to 60cm, he said. But we found theyd just propped wooden stilts on stones and dug no foundations at all. The timber was substandard and already warping.
His team recommended that Save the Children demolish all 741 buildings and start again. The contractors have been dismissed but neither compensation nor criminal proceedings are likely, he said.
Of course not! They are all relatives of IMPORTANT PEOPLE running the country. Indo-bribery 101 should have covered that. The table goes: F(family name, wife's family name, position)=ideal bribe
Save the Children issued a statement to the Indonesian media, acknowledging problems with the Aceh projects and promising to put them right. Hi, we screwed up but we are stupid marks at this carney so we'll play the games some more
Jasmine Whitbread, chief executive of Save the Children, said this weekend: During routine evaluation and monitoring, we discovered the poor workmanship and immediately took steps to rectify the situation, including terminating the contract and instigating repairs. We will tolerate nothing less than the most efficient and effective use of money.
Oxfam has sent in five investigators, including a former police officer, to unravel the skein of apparent corruption that has led to losses in its Banda Aceh office and forced it to suspend construction.
We took the decision because of the need for accountability and also to make it clear that aid agencies are serious about these issues, said Craig Owen, a spokesman. We are committed to spending £42m here over three years and you have to remember that this is like rebuilding an area the size of Birmingham: its a challenge.
Oxfam plans to resume work in phases while the investigation team prepares its report and recommendations.
According to Akhiruddin, however, these woes are a mere fraction of the frauds. Among the cases that his investigation uncovered were:
o Indonesias government reconstruction agency spent £6.3m on temporary housing that was either overpriced or fictitious. I went to one site in Aceh Besar and found no barracks had been built at all, said Akhiruddin.
o More than £40,000 was embezzled from a childrens food distribution centre.
o One aid group paid for 70 new houses, only to find that its own local staff had occupied most of them.
o Another bought 100 new fishing boats for £1,166 each when a fair price was £800 per vessel. The cost difference came to £86,600.
o A German aid group sent £1.4m raised from provincial newspaper readers, promising to rebuild 400 homes. So far one has been built.
The government reconstruction agency is trying to fight internal corruption, said Akhiruddin. It cancelled 90% of tenders in one two-month period last year. But having issued a blacklist of 18 companies deemed unsuitable for contracts, it hastily withdrew the list. Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, the agencys head, is respected for his personal honesty and has pledged to clamp down.
Last week Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Indonesias president, vowed there would be no safe haven for the corrupt. He was backed up by Paul Wolfowitz, president of the World Bank, who has spearheaded tough lending guidelines for borrowers such as Indonesia.
But the politics and scrutiny all take up time. The consequences are that peoples suffering is being prolonged unnecessarily, said Akhiruddin.
While the contractors and their accomplices enjoy the fruits of their misdeeds, one young survivor, a girl named Fajriyana, is still living in a blue plastic tent in the mud.
The Sunday Times found Fajriyana there last December and told her story of miraculous survival, of the loss of her mother and her reunion after many months with her father and sisters, who had believed that she was dead.
Fajriyana celebrated her fourth birthday in the tent on February 4. I have scraped together all our savings to buy us a small piece of land, said her father, Nasruddin, a mechanic. Now we are waiting for the government, God willing, to build us a new house.
It may be a long wait. And the soaking rains, with their cargo of dampness and disease, are coming over the teeth of the mountains soon.
#4
God forbid a Tsunami hits Gaza. They'll all be expecting their very own Graceland
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/17/2006 21:14 Comments ||
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#5
So.. em...
Where's the U.N. and Koffi in all this? Did they just swing in to take the credit (for the work of the Abraham Lincoln and other groups) and then went off to another conference?
An Albany woman was accused of crashing a Sudanese wedding party early Sunday and splashing people with a glass bottle full of acid, injuring six people, authorities said.
Just like being back home in Sudan, ain't it?
Or Pakistan. Or Mauritania. Or ...
Two firefighters were injured when their latex gloves melted as they tried to treat the others splashed with the substance. ``Acid thrown in someone's face is pretty unique,'' said firefighter Darren Marino. ``You gotta be pretty twisted. It was pretty nasty.''
Yes, pretty twisted, or a member of a certain religious/cultural background ...
It's only pretty unique in the civilized world. Adherents of the Religion of Peace have a thing for melting each other.
Marino said the firefighters thought they were answering a call for a hot-water burn and didn't realize they were dealing with acid until they reached the hospital and their fingers started burning. Police were investigating why the woman, who was among the injured, attacked the group.
"Legume! Bring me the Book of Common Wisdom!"
Rihab Hagelkhider, 39, allegedly targeted Hayfa Hussein, 29, who suffered burns on her face and body, police said. ``It appears there was some type of problem between them,'' said police Lt. Pete Frisoni.
"I'll teach you, you brazen hussy!"
"My honor and dignity demand that I hideously disfigure you!"
Hagelkhider was charged with assault and reckless endangerment. Police have not yet identified the acid.
Your choices are a) glacial acetic acid b) sulfuric acid c) blood from a critter from Alien.
The party of Sudanese immigrants and others was held at the Friendship House, which is affiliated with the Friendship Baptist Church. Marino said there was a language barrier at first. ``I jumped out of the rig and I didn't understand anything. But I understand pain.'' All victims were treated at local hospitals and released.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/17/2006 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
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#2
Thank you Catholic Charities for your ceaseless efforts to bring Mogadishu to America.
Posted by: ed ||
04/17/2006 8:58 Comments ||
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#3
The party of Sudanese immigrants and others was held at the Friendship House, which is affiliated with the Friendship Baptist Church
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/17/2006 10:34 Comments ||
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#4
I singled out Catholic Charities because they are by far the largest importer of muslim refugees into the US. Importing those in time of war, who by religious defintion, would destroy Catholocism and dominate or destroy the US.
Catholic Charities is not the only group. For instance the aforementioned Friendship Baptist Church or Lutheran Immigration & Refugee Services or a host of others who rake in millions of tax money each year by settling our enemy into our midst ($2000 cash + matching federal $ per refugee) and then supporting them to the tune of hundreds of millions of our tax dollars. Catholic Charites alone took in $17 million in 2002
We are setting ourselves up for the same situation as Europe. It's wrong, wrong, wrong.
Just one town in Maine, Lewiston: Lewiston Mayor: A Letter to the Somali Community To date, we have found the funds to accommodate the situation. A continued increased demand will tax the City's finances. This large number of new arrivals cannot continue without negative results for all. The Somali community must exercise some discipline and reduce the stress on our limited finances and our generosity. I am well aware of the legal right of a U.S. resident to move anywhere he/she pleases, but it is time for the Somali community to exercise this discipline in view of the effort that has been made on its behalf.
Somali migration transforms Lewiston "Maine is crazy cold," says Abdullahi Abdullahi, president of the new Somali Community Development Organization in Clarkston. But, he says, "the welfare system is much better." Indeed, in moving from Georgia to Maine, Somalis are trading one of the nation's least generous welfare systems for one of its most generous.
Posted by: ed ||
04/17/2006 11:47 Comments ||
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#5
FG: The party of Sudanese immigrants and others was held at the Friendship House, which is affiliated with the Friendship Baptist Church
These Sudanese aren't Christians. Christians don't have Arab/Muslim names like Rihab and Hayfa. For instance, the resistance leader's name was John (Garang).
#6
We don't need any Muslims here. They are totally incompatible with our way of life and culture. Just read an article about one who spent many years here in US working at one of our airports. Went back to become a car bomber in Iraq. All they could find was one hand chained to the steering wheel used to ID him. They come here, live well from our generosity, then sabotage us at the first opportunity. Wake up.
Once again, the Rantburg editorial staff cordially invites the RB readership to join us for some of that unseemly mirth and frivolity our betters are always warning us against.
So set aside some time on the evening of Saturday April 22 and come meet your fellow Rantburgers. As always, Fred and I will be attending, with (green) Steve appearing as this Palooza's celebrity moderator.
All y'all interested in attending, please email me for details. Your email will not be sold, rented, or otherwise loaned out to my neighbor who still owes me a shutter gun and three rounds of bullet.
We look forward to a lovely evening and only a small bill for damages.
Update: keep sending me email; I'm back from family Easter stuff and am ready for some libations!
#6
This'll be my first Rantapalooza, what's the dress code? We supposed to wear shirts and shoes?
Posted by: Steve ||
04/13/2006 8:26 Comments ||
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#7
Unfortunately it's a tad far for me, so I can't tell of you my plan to flood Bangla with shutter guns, seeing the unfortunate consequences being in possesion of one causes for undesireable characters. That is, once I figure out what a shutter gun is.
#8
Usually we come naked, but we do wear funny hats.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/13/2006 9:41 Comments ||
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#9
My parole officer is always warning me to stay away from miscreants, and the guest list already looks suspicious. Can I write this off as a charity tribute to St. Pancake?
#11
I think we also need a rantapalooza for the greater gulf coast co-prosperity sphere.
Posted by: Phil ||
04/13/2006 10:30 Comments ||
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#12
Sounds like a very fun time, third one's a charm as they say heh. Can't make it with distance, expense and timing. Thanks for the invite though.
Any chance of having streaming video? ;) Or would this get too many folks into trouble lol.
Posted by: Jan ||
04/13/2006 11:09 Comments ||
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#13
Rantapalooza(TM) franchises are available! Please email me for all the licensing information.
#23
Will to another Rantapalooza toast by phone like last year, I'm a feared. But will have my own stock of beer, though, in order to feel the LOOOOVVE.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/14/2006 20:29 Comments ||
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#24
Wish we could arrange a SoCal meeting at the same time to usher in the harmonic convergence.
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.
An earthquake measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale has rattled Taiwan but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties, the Seismology Centre said. The temblor hit at 6:40 am local time, with its epicentre 19.9 kilometres north-east of Taitung, a town in the island's south-east. It originated 11.7 kilometres beneath the seabed. "Aftershocks with a magnitude of more than 5.0 are expected to hit the south-east," an official at the centre said. Earlier the US Geological Survey had put the quake's magnitude at 5.8, with its epicentre 260 kilometres south of Taipei.
The Vatican and the 
MIANWALI: Two girls, aged 12 and seven, had been offered in Nikah in abstentia as compensation to an aggrieved family for a crime committed by the girls brother in Bundial village in Qaidabad 40 kilometres from Mianwali. The Panchayat head has threatened the father of the girls to hand them over to the aggrieved party before April 20. Rehmatullah, the girls brother, developed relations with neighbour Ghulam Muhammads daughter Shahnaz. Rehmatullah and Shehnaz later eloped in March 2006. They informed their parents of their marriage and sent them a copy of their Nikah Nama. 
The Afghan Minister for Culture and Youth Syed Makhdoom Rahim said that work on publishing the Holy Quran with a translation in Pushto has been started in the country. He said that for the first time in the history of Afghanistan, the Holy Quran has been translated into Pushto and would be published soon. The Holy Quran has been translated by a council of experts and is expected to consist of 1,230 pages, Radio Tehran reported.
The legal committee of the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) has observed that there has been no decrease in the registration of fake first information reports (FIRs) in blasphemy cases, despite the appointment of a senior police officer to investigate such cases. Consequently, the CII has postponed consideration on its legal committee's recommendation that had called for an amendment to the Criminal Procedure Code that deals with blasphemy case investigations. The committee said that the law could not curtail registration of fake blasphemy cases since station house officers (SHO), responsible for registering FIRs in such cases, were often held hostage to the influence of local figures wishing to pursue their own agenda, sources said. 
An Albany woman was accused of crashing a Sudanese wedding party early Sunday and splashing people with a glass bottle full of acid, injuring six people, authorities said.
Once again, the Rantburg editorial staff cordially invites the RB readership to join us for some of that unseemly mirth and frivolity our betters are always warning us against.
