There was a tasty race for Colorado senate when voters got to choose between Bacon and Fries.
In the end, Bacon won. Democrat incumbent Bob Bacon defeated Republican challenger Matt Fries on Tuesday 63 percent to 37 percent to represent the district that encompasses most of Larimer County in northern Colorado.
"I am so pleased that the voters appreciate the work that I have done," Bacon said. Bacon originally was elected to the seat in 2004 after serving three terms in the state House of Representatives. Fries is a long time education advocate. I have to admit I would take Bacon over Fries, too.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
11/15/2008
16:15 ||
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Muslim scholars in Morocco have raised objections to an international fair for wine producers in the city of Casablanca. The fair, hosted by the Elbertec group, began Thursday with more than 40 wineries from around the world participating, al-Arabiya reported Friday.
Mohamed Zahl, a founding member of the International Union for Muslim Scholars, said the fair is "a provocation for Muslims and an affront to their religion."
"Morocco is an Islamic fortress targeted by those who want to tamper with the taboos of Muslims," he said.
Sheikh Abdul-Bari al-Zamzami, a member of the Moroccan Scholars Association, faulted government officials for allowing alcohol production in the country. "We cannot blame those who bring alcohol to Morocco. Official religious establishments and the Ministry of Endowments should be held accountable. They have to oppose this fair, but they haven't taken any action," Zamzami said.
Police officers with convictions for gun crimes, benefit fraud and violent attacks are still serving, it emerged last night.
The offences include discharging a firearm, possession of a cannabis plant, being drunk and disorderly, assault and theft. Many of the crimes took place while the officers were in post, supposedly protecting the public.
Last night experts said the public would be alarmed by the revelations, which point to a fall in standards. MPs said they raised 'serious questions' over whether courts can trust the evidence given by police convicted of dishonesty.
Liberal Democrat justice spokesman Chris Huhne said: 'The public will be rightly concerned that there are serving police officers who have committed crimes as serious as assault and firearms offences. Serious questions arise over whether the criminal courts can trust the evidence given by police officers who have committed benefit fraud.'
David Green, director of the Civitas think-tank, said: 'Why are people convicted of crimes against civilians being allowed to remain in the police service? t is also surely inappropriate that people who have been convicted of serious crimes such as theft and dishonesty should be permitted to hold such a job.'
All British troops will be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of next year, the country's national security adviser claimed yesterday. Muwafaq al-Rubaie revealed negotiations on a pull-out between London and Baghdad began two weeks ago.
Britain has 4,000 troops in Iraq, mostly based near the southern city of Basra. A phased cutback of combat soldiers was expected next year but it was thought that up to 1,000 who are involved in training Iraqi troops would stay.
But yesterday Mr al-Rubaie said: 'By the end of next year there will be no British troops in Iraq.'
The Ministry of Defence said that 'no timetable' for withdrawal had yet been set and also denied a report that 2,000 more British soldiers are likely to be sent to Afghanistan to meet an expected request from incoming U.S. President Barack Obama. There are 8,100 British forces in Afghanistan, with the operational thrust in Helmand Province, but military chiefs have warned against sending those troops withdrawn from Iraq to join the Afghan fighting against the Taliban.
Mr Obama is planning to send two more combat brigades to Afghanistan and is expected to call on other Nato allies to beef up their deployments when he takes office in January.
A recent ICM poll for the BBC found that more than two-thirds of the public believe all British troops should be withdrawn from the troubled country in the next year.
Reports of the Iraq pull out and possible increase in Afghan numbers came as two Royal Marines killed in Afghanistan on Wednesday were named as Neil Dunstan and Robert McKibben. The soldiers were from UK Landing Force Command Support Group, working to gather information to improve troops' awareness of the surrounding area and conditions in the Garmsir district of southern Helmand when their vehicle was hit by a massive explosion.
The pair are the first to be killed while using the military's new heavily armoured ÂŁ600,000 three-man Jackal, which was designed to be mine resistant and is fitted with electronic equipment to detect roadside bombs. A third Marine was seriously injured. Their deaths took the British military death toll in Afghanistan and Iraq to 300 - 176 in Iraq and 126 in Afghanistan.
Tributes have poured in to the two soldiers, both of who had joined the Marines relatively late, at the age of 27, and had excelled as part of the reconnaissance force in Afghanistan.
Marine Dunstan, 32, from Bournemouth, had been due to marry his fiancee, Katie Miller, in summer 2010. She paid her own personal tribute, saying simply : 'Neil was so proud to be a Marine and lived each day to the full. He was my soulmate and the love of my life. Neil was very much loved by all the family.'
Lieutenant Colonel Andrew McInerney, Commanding Officer of the Marines, said Dunstan's 'quiet confidence and humility was an inspiration to all those who worked with him.'
He went on: 'A quiet but natural leader, his maturity and intellect made him a valued role model and mentor to the men with whom he served. He excelled as a reconnaissance operator, a role he was passionate about and which demanded initiative and guile, qualities for which he was never left wanting. Tough and committed, he was always prepared to go the extra mile for his comrades.'
Marine McKibben, 32, from Westport, Co Mayo, in the west of Ireland had planned to join the Special Forces. Local priest Micheal Mannion said the soldier's parents, Tony and Grainne O'Malley McKibben, had been expecting him home for a visit before Christmas. In a statement his parents, brother Raymond and sisters Carmel and Rachel said: 'We are all extremely proud of our Robbie. He had very definite plans of how he wanted to live his life. He was always thoughtful, considerate and had an amazing sense of humour that touched so many lives.
'He was so full of life and was loved so much by his family and by all his friends. Robbie has left a huge void in our hearts and he will never be forgotten.'
Lieut Col McInerney described McKibben as a larger than life character who was 'an immensely capable man' whose 'humility made him an example and inspiration to all he served with.'
He added: 'A true Commando, tough, unassuming and hugely convivial, he viewed life as a glass half-full. Marine McKibben had an indomitable sense of humour in the face of any adversity. Regardless of the task or conditions his 'can-do' attitude helped him and others overcome every test they encountered. Marine McKibben was a key personality within our tight-knit unit of professional specialists. He was held dear by his colleagues and leaves a great void with his passing.'
BUT...
President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia retreated Friday from his threat to deploy missiles on Europe's borders, but only if President-elect Barack Obama joined Russia and France in calling for a conference on European security by next summer.
At a meeting in Nice hosted by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, Mr. Medvedev backed away from the bellicose speech he gave last week, just hours after Mr. Obama won the United States presidential election. On Friday, the Russian leader argued instead that all countries "should refrain from unilateral steps" before discussions on European security next summer.
Mr. Sarkozy, who presided over the meeting between Russia and the 27 European Union nations in his capacity as the union's president, helped ease the way for Mr. Medvedev's retreat. The French leader supported the idea of talks on a new security architecture for Europe and suggested that they could be held by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in June or July.
Both Russia and the United States belong to the organization.
Mr. Sarkozy made clear that he wants the United States to think again about the missile defense systems that it plans to build in Poland and the Czech Republic. Mr. Medvedev last week threatened to respond by stationing missiles in Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave bordering Poland and Lithuania, both of which are members of NATO and the European Union.
"Between now and then," said Mr. Sarkozy, referring to the summer summit meeting, "please no more talk of antimissile protection systems."
Although he holds the rotating presidency, Mr. Sarkozy appeared to be speaking beyond his mandate because the bloc has little power over defense decisions. His intervention provoked immediate criticism from the Czech Republic, a member of NATO and the next in line for the presidency of the European Union.
Alexandr Vondra, the former Czech foreign minister, said he was surprised by Mr. Sarkozy's comments, which, he said, had contradicted French statements on missile defense at the last NATO summit meeting in Bucharest, Romania. He also said the comments had exceeded Mr. Sarkozy's portfolio as the European Union's president.
"It is my understanding that Mr. Sarkozy met Mr. Medvedev on behalf of the French presidency of the E.U.," Mr. Vondra said in a telephone interview. "There was nothing in the E.U. mandate to talk about missile defense."
Diplomats saw the intervention by Mr. Sarkozy as another example of his hyperactive brand of diplomacy, which has given him a global profile but proved controversial within the union.
Nevertheless, the move to defuse the dispute over missiles helped smooth European relations with Moscow before this weekend's meeting in Washington to discuss the institutions that have governed global finance for 60 years.
An Al-Qaeda group says seven of its fighters were killed when they attacked the US mission in Yemen in September and also claims an embassy official died in the strike, a US monitoring service reported on Friday.
The Yemen interior ministry had said six Yemeni soldiers, six civilians and six attackers, including one wearing an explosives belt, were killed in the September 17 attack on the highly-fortified US embassy in Sanaa.
The SITE Intelligence Group said an Al-Qaeda in Yemen branch had in an internet posting named the seven "martyrs" and had given a vivid description of how they had had breached the razor-tight security of the embassy in two vehicles. It said the group comprised scholar and fighter Lutf Muhammad Abu Abdul-Rahman and six of his students.
The group, Al-Qaeda in the South of the Arabian Peninsula, threatened further attacks to deliver a "taste of horrors." "So, tighten your guard, increase your security measures for embassies and all dens of the Crusaders," the group warned.
It also claimed that a US administrative official had died in the clash but that his death was later reported as having been due to a car accident, SITE said in a release. The US Embassy in Yemen posted a statement on its website saying administrative officer Jeffrey Patneau "died on October 4, 2008 from injuries sustained in a motor vehicle accident in Sanaa ... (on) September 29, 2008. "Recent claims to the contrary ... regarding the circumstances of Mr. Patneau's death are completely false," it added without elaborating.
At the time of the embassy attack, US President George W. Bush said it was an attempt by extremists to drive the United States out of regions like the Middle East.
Yemen said some days after the incident it was holding six key suspects, including an Islamist militant, Abu Ghaith al-Yamani, who had claimed responsibility for the assault. It said some of those being had links to Al-Qaeda.
In recent months Yemen has seen a series of assaults on security services and oil installations claimed by groups linked to Al-Qaeda. Experts have said that after being set back by the increased US military presence in Iraq, Islamists are focusing on Yemen as a new territory for their operations.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A Japanese journalist was shot Friday in the frontier city of Peshawar — the third attack on a foreigner there in three days, and missiles apparently fired by U.S. unmanned aircraft near the Afghan border killed at least 12 people, including several foreign militants, Pakistani officials said.
The Japanese journalist was traveling with a Pakistani assistant in a car in Peshawar when gunmen opened fire, said police officer Mohammed Khan. He was identified as Motoki Yotsukura from the Asahi Shimbun newspaper.
Khan said Yotsukura was wounded in the leg. It was unclear how serious his assistant's injuries were. No other information was immediately available.
Suspected Taliban militants killed a religious leader in western Afghanistan after he criticized the use of suicide attacks as a weapon of war in the country, an Afghan official said Friday.
Militants kidnapped Shamsudin Agha in Farah province's Anar Dara district on Tuesday, days after he led prayers condemning the practice of using suicide attacks, said provincial police Chief Abdul Ghafar Watandar.
Suicide attacks are one of the Taliban's preferred tactics in their assaults against Afghan and foreign troops. Most of the victims of such attacks have been civilians.
Authorities recovered Agha's body on Wednesday night, Watandar said.
Violence by the Taliban and other insurgent groups has spiked this year to record levels. Attacks are up 30 percent from 2007, military officials say.
On Thursday, another suicide car bomber struck a U.S. patrol, killing eight Afghan civilians and one U.S. soldier and wounding 74 civilians, Afghan officials said.
GAZA (Rooters) - An explosion in the northern Gaza Strip killed a Paleostinian militant and critically wounded another, medical workers said on Saturday.
Medical workers had earlier said two militants had been killed in the blast.
The Popular Resistance Committees militant group said an Israeli air strike targeted a group of its gunmen as they approached the Israel-Gaza border near the town of Beit Hanoun.
An Israeli army spokesman denied that the army had carried out an air strike.
Skirmishes between Israel and Paleostinian militants in the Hamas-controlled territory have threatened a five-month ceasefire along the Israel-Gaza frontier.
At least seven people were killed and more than two dozen wounded on Saturday when a car bomb exploded near an auto dealership in the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar, Iraqi police said. However, a US military spokesman said in a statement that 10 people were killed and another 20 wounded in the bombing, which he said took place near a car market and targeted civilians.
The town is halfway between the Syrian border and the city of Mosul, which the US military considers the last remaining urban bastion of Al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Iraq has seen dramatic improvements in security over the past year as US and Iraqi forces have teamed up with local tribes to drive out insurgents and militias, but attacks are still common in some parts of the country.
In Baghdad, 10 people were wounded, including seven civilians, in two separate bomb attacks, police said. One targeted a police patrol and another set alight a mostly empty oil tanker.
In another roadside bomb attack outside the town of Fallujah -- once the epicentre of the Sunni insurgency -- six policemen, including one officer, were wounded, police Captain Jumaa Hussein Hamadi.
A U.S. military helicopter had a hard landing in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Saturday after hitting overhead cables, a military spokesman said.
"There has been a helicopter incident in Mosul. They're classifying it now as a hard landing when it came in contact with wires," Captain Charles Calio said.
He said he had no immediate information about casualties in the incident. The helicopter involved was an OH-58 Kiowa Warrior, a small scout helicopter fitted with weapons.
Mosul has been the scene of some of the heaviest violence in Iraq in recent months. U.S. forces say al Qaeda and likeminded Sunni Muslim militant groups are making a stand in the northern city after being driven from other parts of Iraq.
Air crashes have remained common in Iraq even as violence has waned. A civilian cargo plane crashed in Western Iraq on Thursday killing seven people.
Two Black Hawk helicopters collided last month killing one U.S. soldier, and seven soldiers died when a Chinook transport helicopter crashed in southern Iraq in September.
A radical Islamic group seized another Somali port town Saturday, consolidating its control over a southwestern region that borders the Somali capital.
Amin Adan, a resident of the port town of Barawe, said that fighters of al-Shabab took control without a fight because the government's allies left as soon as they heard the fighters were on their way.
"We don't know whether it is a tactical retreat," Adan told The Associated Press by phone from Barawe, 110 miles (180 kilometers) southwest of Mogadishu. Barawe is near Merka, a key port town with an airstrip that al-Shabab seized earlier this week; both are in the region of Lower Shabelle, which surrounds Mogadishu.
The steady and seemingly uncontested rise in recent months of al-Shabab—meaning The Youth—which the United States considers a terrorist organization, is a far cry from the situation in late 2006, when Somalia's U.N.-backed government rolled into Mogadishu supported by powerful Ethiopian troops and drove out radical Islamists intent on ruling by strict Shariah law.
The past two years have been a bloodbath as the Islamic fighters launched a vicious insurgency, mainly in Mogadishu, that has killed thousands of civilians and sent an estimated half of the capital's 2 million people fleeing from near-daily roadside bombings and remote-controlled explosions.
The fighters have seized most of southern Somalia—advancing to within 10 miles (16 kilometers) of the capital on Wednesday.
In Mogadishu, where the government is still nominally in control, Shabab fighters carry out public punishments such as lashings and stonings, conduct training exercises and present themselves as an alternative government.
Despite their advances, however, the Islamists are suffering internal divisions. Al-Shabab—considered a terror group because its leaders are allegedly linked to al-Qaida—controls the most territory. But more moderate fighters from groups including the Council of Islamic Courts have also taken towns.
The U.S. worries that Somalia could be a terrorist breeding ground, particularly since Osama bin Laden declared his support for the Islamists. It accuses al-Shabab of harboring the al-Qaida-linked terrorists who allegedly blew up the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, killing more than 230 people.
Somali government forces acknowledge they are struggling but say that they will get all of Somalia under control. They offer no details, however.
"The government is preparing to retake all the areas it lost," said Col. Abdullahi Hassan Barise, a police spokesman.
KHARTOUM (Rooters) - Darfur rebels accused Sudan government forces on Saturday of bombing their territory, just days after the president announced a ceasefire in the region. But Sudan's armed forces denied the reports, saying they were sticking to the ceasefire. They said they had made no maneuvers in the area.
"Lies! All lies!"
The accusations, if confirmed, will dismay many governments and international bodies who praised Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on Wednesday for announcing an "immediate and unconditional" end to hostilities as part of a new peace push in the western region.
Other ceasefires have fallen apart in Darfur in the past.
Can't imagine why ...
The reports come at a particularly sensitive time for Khartoum which has stepped up diplomatic efforts to block moves by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to indict Bashir for war crimes in Darfur. International experts say more than five years of fighting in Darfur has killed 200,000 and driven more than 2.5 million from their homes. Khartoum accuses the media of exaggerating the conflict as part of a western conspiracy against Sudan.
Commanders from four rebel factions told Reuters government Antonov planes bombed land between the settlements of Kurbia and Um Mahareik, close to a key road in north Darfur, for several hours on Friday morning. U.N. sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they had received the same reports from rebels and civilians in the area. Many of the rebel and civilian witnesses had proved themselves reliable in the past, these sources added.
A second U.N. officer said officials were planning to visit the area on Sunday to check the reports for themselves.
A spokesman from Sudan's armed forces said there was no truth to the reports. "Sudan's armed forces are committed to the ceasefire announced by President al-Bashir. President al-Bashir is the first commander of the Sudanese army," he told Reuters. "The Sudanese army did not launch any air strike. The Sudanese army did not move in this area in any way."
Rebels said government Antonovs bombed a wide area of largely open ground for more than three hours on Friday morning. "They were bombing the area very seriously," said Ibrahim al-Helwu from the branch of the rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) controlled by Abdel Wahed Mohamed Ahmed al-Nur. "There is no ceasefire. They are just pretending," he said.
Both the head of the SLA's Unity faction Abdallah Yahia, and the London-based chairman of legislative council for the rebel Justice and Equality Movement Al-Tahir al-Feki, told Reuters their commanders in the northern region had confirmed the bombing took place.
"There is a pattern of behavior," said al-Feki adding that Khartoum had broken another ceasefire days after signing it last year.
The head of the insurgent United Resistance Front Bahar Idriss Abu Garda said the attack had not targeted any settlements or rebel camps and there had been no reports of casualties. "We think they were bombing the area for security ... They suspected somebody was going to ambush them," he said.
Kurbia and Um Mahareik lie either side of a major transport route in north Darfur that crosses into neighboring Chad. Khartoum has in the past vowed to defend key roads in Darfur, saying it wants to protect humanitarian convoys from attacks by rebels and bandits.
Another international source said government troops had stopped vehicles driving to the area on Friday.
Renewed fighting broke out Saturday between rebels and soldiers in eastern Congo, as a U.N. special envoy flew in for emergency talks and said President Joseph Kabila was ready to meet his main rival.
Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo spoke in Congo's capital, Kinshasa, before flying to the eastern city of Goma. Fighting erupted in August in the east, displacing 250,000 people and raising fears the violence could spread through the region.
Obasanjo met Kabila late Friday and said the Congolese leader "did not give anything that I would call conditions" for holding talks with rebel leader Laurent Nkunda. "But we are at the exploratory stage now," Obasanjo said.
Continued on Page 49
A wind-blasted wildfire tore through the city's northern foothills Saturday, devastating a large mobile home park, forcing a hospital to evacuate some patients and sending thousands of residents fleeing for safety.
The fire broke out late Friday in the foothill community of Sylmar on the edge of the Angeles National Forest and quickly spread across 2,600 acres--more than 4 square miles--as it was driven by Santa Ana wind gusting as high as 76 mph.
Dozens of homes were destroyed, officials said, and aerial footage from television helicopters showed rows of houses gutted in just in one subdivision. Fire crews had to abandon a mobile home park that was burning out of control.
#1
Oh, this is bad... this is the sort of thing that I grew up with. I posted a bit about California and fires ages ago, after my parents house burned in the Valley Center fire in 2004, and re-posted here. (I am doing stealth outreach and collecting fans of my writing.
#2
There will be more of this -- eucalyptus trees spread by fire if I recall correctly. But the Red Greens refuse to allow the invasive eucalyptus to be removed because in their little minds every tree is sacred... regardless how exquisitely flammable. I'd bet lots of money that the boom was the eucalyptus trees exploding.
#3
not so much north of SD county, TW. The Eucs were planted here as materials to use for Rail ties, before finding out they don't work. They don't spread by fire IIUC, but many pines do. Eucs are like matchsticks, with all the oil in them, they do "pop" as they ignite. Prayers to the evacuees and those who have losses...
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/15/2008 17:31
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#4
It's just fire season, Frank. Next it's the Mud Season, (unless earthquake weather is in the forecast first), then it's Pelosi/Waxman/Waters/Stark/Harmon/Filner/Sanchez/Lee/Miller action for the emergency US bailout money for Arnold's 'stituants.
#5
I was surprised someone would go to the effort, way back when, to:
a) think that Eucalyptus, which grow great in San Diego, which is alike Australia in climate, moisture, etc., then plant tens of thousands of them to use as railroad ties, only to
b) find out they don't work as RR ties.
Shouldn't "b" have preceded "a"? Something tells me it was a rich man's kid earning his "entrepreneurship" wings without the intelligence to sequence properly. Instead, San Diego has a tinder box of Eucs. Nice. At least, it ain't kudzu
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/15/2008 19:21
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Iraq's top Shiite Muslim cleric will leave it to the government to decide on a controversial US military pact, but associates of the reclusive leader said it must respect Iraqi sovereignty. Grand Ayatollah Ali Husseini al-Sistani -- revered as the highest religious authority by Iraq's Shiite majority -- rarely involves himself in politics and usually communicates his views only through associates.
"The Guide (Sistani) called for general elections which produced the country's government and the parliament," a religious official close to Sistani told AFP on condition of anonymity. "It is their constitutional responsibility to decide on the agreement."
US and Iraqi negotiators have been struggling to conclude a wide-ranging accord to govern the presence of more than 150,000 US-led troops in the country after their current UN mandate expires on December 31.
Sistani's opinion on the pact could be decisive for the country's main Shiite political bloc, which holds 86 seats in the 275-member national assembly and has expressed reservations about the draft agreement.
Another official close to Sistani insisted that the cleric had not seen the agreement but that he was familiar with its main points. "The Guide has not received a copy of the agreement and is not going to intervene on its components. He has only received the key points, and the rest is for those who will make the decision," the official said. "But if the agreement touches the sovereignty of Iraq the Guide will intervene and make his opinion clear," he added.
The cabinet was expected to vote within days on the latest draft of the agreement, which would have US-led forces withdraw from all Iraqi cities by June 2009 and from the rest of the country by the end of 2011. The two sides have gone back and forth on other key details of the accord, including legal immunity for US troops and contractors and demands that the United States promise not use Iraq to launch attacks on neighbouring states.
Posted by: ed ||
11/15/2008
13:04 ||
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President George W Bush's personal pet is facing the prospect of leaving the Oval Office in disgrace after biting not one, but two people during the administration's final weeks.
Perhaps unsurprisingly for a canine whose boss has not always enjoyed the most sympathetic media profile, the black-haired Scottish terrier's victims have been a television journalist and a PR woman.
Heather Walker, the public relations director for the Boston Celtics basketball team, has revealed how America's First Dog bit her wrist and drew blood after she tried to pat him during a White House ceremony honouring the team's 17th NBA championship back in September.
"I walked into the White House and in the first area you walk into, there are Miss Beazley (Mr Bush's wife Laura's Scottish terrier) and Barney," Ms Walker said. "They were sitting on this Oriental rug, and I just reached down to pat Barney and he attacked me."
Ms Walker, who had her wrist wrapped with a bandage by a Boston Celtics trainer, spoke out about her ordeal on Friday, just days after Barney bit Reuters television reporter John Decker's finger when he reached down to pat the seemingly docile hound. Sally McDonough, a spokeswoman for Laura Bush, remarked afterwards: "I think it was his way of saying he was done with the paparazzi."
Barney, whose has starred in several White House Christmas videos and has his own official website www.Barney.gov, has long been a controversial figure within the within the corridors of power. Karl Rove, Mr Bush's political strategist, once described him unflatteringly as "a lump," while former Russian president, Vladimir Putin, who owns a black labrador called Koni, is said to have remarked that such a small dog was unfitting for a world leader.
White House commentators have not been slow to analyse the significance of Barney's new belligerence, attributing it perhaps to his reluctance to vacate his Washington home and relocate to the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas. The White House's incoming occupant, Barack Obama, has promised to get his children a rescue dog in return for helping him during his election campaign.
The choice for America's new First Pet is being complicated by the fact that Malia, 10, Obamas' oldest daughter, is allergic to most breeds of dog - in much the same way as Barney now seems to be to some breeds of White House visitor.
Posted by: john frum ||
11/15/2008
13:04 ||
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#1
"I think it was his way of saying he was done with the paparazzi."
#2
It's Barney's nature! Scotties are bred to hunt rodents and will dig them out of their holes, just like the President pledged to do to AQ rats! I think Scottish terriers are an excellent choice for a world leader like Bush. Biden needs a Besengii!
Posted by: Bill Angains8020 ||
11/15/2008 19:55
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#8
"President George W Bush's personal pet is facing the prospect of leaving the Oval Office in disgrace honor and glory after biting not one, but two people media beasts during the administration's final weeks."
Ever since the Vietnam misadventure, a postmodern revolution had been looming in America. Barack Obama's tour de force is its clincher. American campuses have been mass-producing smug, politically correct poseurs and slogan-spouting groupthink conformists for decades. Converging circumstances enabled the postmodernists who indoctrinate America's younger minds to conquer its highest political bastions as well.
To us in Israel none of this is new, except that here postmodernists are called post-Zionists. Their underlying assumption is the absence of objective truths, justice or ethical absolutes. Nothing is black and white - just subjective shades of gray on a landscape of moral relativism. All cultures are of equal merit. The worst despotic societies aren't more villainous than societies which, their imperfections notwithstanding, sanctify civil liberties. Indeed, the postmodern inclination is to downplay autocratic repression while casting doubt on the freedoms of the world's most egalitarian systems.
IT WAS mind-boggling to gauge the zero-resonance to Yossi Beilin's unambiguous confession that he cooked up the Oslo fiasco clandestinely, sans authority, even behind Shimon Peres's back, and that he had conducted his negotiations in clear contravention of the then-prohibition against contact with the PLO, when it was appropriately designated a terrorist enemy.
In an October 31 Yediot Aharonot interview Beilin unabashedly admitted that during the Oslo process he "had to do things behind peoples' backs. I was deputy foreign minister. The foreign minister and prime minister [Peres and Yitzhak Rabin respectively] didn't know that I was conducting talks with the PLO until I decided to inform them."
Having backed India at the NSG for a waiver that ended its nuclear isolation, Canada is now negotiating a comprehensive atomic deal with the country which will allow New Delhi to develop civilian nuclear power plants.
Both sides had "informal" discussions in this regard last month and expect to schedule formal sessions soon, Canadian Foreign Office spokesperson Lisa Monette told PTI. She said Canada signalled its support for India's re-engagement with the broader nuclear-energy community when it backed the Nuclear Suppliers Group's decision on a waiver to India.
"India is a responsible democracy that shares with Canada the fundamental values of freedom, democracy, human rights and respect for the rule of law," she said. "India has made substantial non-proliferation and disarmament commitments to achieve the trust of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which were reiterated in a political statement on September 5."
Monette said Canada and India have longstanding bilateral ties, built upon shared values of democracy and pluralism and strong people-to-people links.
In recent years, both countries have been working to enhance bilateral cooperation in a number of areas of mutual priority, she noted. The 2005 Canada-India Joint Statement reaffirmed Canada and India's commitment to deepen their bilateral dialogue on key global issues and enhance their cooperation in areas of mutual priority, including regional security and counter-terrorism; science and technology; the environment; bilateral trade and investment; and people-to-people links, Monette said.
Posted by: john frum ||
11/15/2008
11:44 ||
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#1
Thank goodness Canada has got our back, while President-elect Obama insults India with rumours that he will send former president Clinton as his special envoy to solve the Kashmir problem.
#1
Try watching prime time, broadcast TV these days. There are a whole lot of "uncomfortable" moments. No wonder I gravitate to the History Channel.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
11/15/2008 11:01
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#2
Democracy can be a bitch [or is that un-PC to write?]. That's why instead of building new majorities [see the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts in the house of the people], they choose to seek POWER in the branch of government that believes and acts as though they should be the new aristocracy of the people.
#5
civil unions, yes. Their protests here have sunk any chance of forcing gay marriage down anyone's throats barring judicial intervention, and any judge that decides to do so will be unemployed, next election. Guaranteed. The people are tired of their voices overriden by robed elitists. In CA, we have the Rose Bird option: buh-bye
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/15/2008 20:01
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WASHINGTON -- Federal auditors have concluded the Rev. Al Sharpton's 2004 campaign owes the government nearly $500,000 for illegal donations and other financial improprieties. Sharpton has been feuding with the Federal Election Commission for years over his accounting in his failed run for president, for which he received $100,000 in so-called government matching funds that authorities later concluded he did not deserve because he hadn't followed campaign laws. As the article will demonstrate, that's putting things mildly...
The auditors have now determined that Sharpton owes $486,803 to the U.S. Treasury because of his campaign's taking improper donations, largely from the National Action Network, a not-for-profit corporation that Sharpton leads but is separate from his campaign committee. Separate checking accounts, and that's about it.
Sharpton will appeal the finding, aides said Friday, which would extend an already years-long fight with the government over how he raised and spent money to run for president.
The audit report is "a gross violation of Reverend Al Sharpton's right to perform his paid duties as president of the National Action Network, a traveling minister, lecturer, and an author who was promoting a book during the time period being audited," said his spokeswoman, Rachel Noerdlinger. Did you lose the race card or something?
Sharpton's campaign finances came under scrutiny as he campaigned, speaking at churches where he collected "love offerings" that are common to traveling preachers. Kinda like the wedding scene in Goodfellas with the big, puffy envelopes!
At the same time, he was campaigning for president, and paying for much of it with his personal American Express card. Don't leave home without it!
Some of the costs were paid by the National Action Network, some by a different company called Rev-Als Production Inc. Classic shell game.
"Virtually no effort appears to have been made by Sharpton 2004, the candidate, NAN, or Rev-Als. Production Inc. to keep any sort of detailed records demonstrating what payments paid for which travel," the report found, noting what it called the campaign's "nearly complete failure to produce any information on this subject in the course of the audit." "We don't need no steenkin' records!"
The FEC audit is just the latest in a long list of money problems for Sharpton. But wait, there's more!
Last summer, federal prosecutors decided not to seek criminal charges against him over unpaid taxes after a lengthy grand jury investigation.
The IRS obtained a $931,397 lien against Sharpton. City and state officials said he owned them another $933,577. Separately, the National Action Network said in its most recent tax filing that it owed at least $1.9 million in payroll taxes and related interest. If my math's right, Sharpton and entities under his control owe a combined total of $4,252,317 in unpaid taxes, interest and penalties. One question - why isn't this guy sharing a cell with Wesley Snipes?
French anti-terrorist police are holding 10 alleged members of a violent anarchist movement suspected of sabotaging power cables on high speed TGV train lines.
But it now transpires that the alleged culprits were netted thanks to information from the FBI, which allegedly linked two of them to the home-made bomb attack on an army recruitment centre in New York's Times Square in March.
Julien Coupat, 34, the suspected head of the "anarcho-autonomist" group, and his 25-year old girlfriend, known only as Yldune L, were stopped allegedly trying to enter Canada from the US illegally in January. It was claimed they were carrying anarchist texts in English and photos of an army recruitment centre in New York.
Although they had left the US before the bomb attack, they had allegedly been spotted shortly before at American anarchist meetings in New York.
Tipped off by the FBI, France's domestic intelligence services and anti-terrorist police had been watching them for months in a tiny village in the Corrèze region, central France.
Police also carried out arrests in the northern city of Rouen, the Meuse region in the northeast and in the Paris area.
Tens of thousands of French were hit by severe delays at the weekend when power was cut by metal bars hooked onto overhead electric cables on TGV lines around Paris.
"These individuals are characterised by a total rejection of any democratic expression of political opinion and an extremely violent tone," said Michele Alliot-Marie, the interior minister.
#1
Cooperation on anti-terror work IS something France actually does well. Even when we were squabbling over the Iraq invasion. So credit where it's due.
#6
If that's the case, I'm surprised the MSM isn't on it, Blondie.
Considering all the embarrassing things they went looking for in Sarah Palin's life....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
11/15/2008 17:03
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#7
Barbara, I am sure that they would go out of their way to cover that possibility in as much depth as they did his connections with Rezko, Ayers, et al.
About two years after he leaves office they might mention those things. On page 5. Bottom corner next to the public notice ads. In the Saturday edition. Maybe.
#8
I've had to show my original birth certificate on various occasions. Why shouldn't someone who is up for President--particularly since natural born citizen is a job requirement.
Posted by: Bill Angains8020 ||
11/15/2008 19:58
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#9
If that's the case, I'm surprised the MSM isn't on it, Blondie.
Barbara, I believe the convention here at the Burg is to append such remarks with [sarcasm] and [/sarcasm] tags ;-)
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
11/15/2008 20:48
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The era that defined Wall Street is finally, officially over. Michael Lewis, who chronicled its excess in LiarÂ’s Poker, returns to his old haunt to figure out what went wrong.
To this day, the willingness of a Wall Street investment bank to pay me hundreds of thousands of dollars to dispense investment advice to grownups remains a mystery to me. I was 24 years old, with no experience of, or particular interest in, guessing which stocks and bonds would rise and which would fall. The essential function of Wall Street is to allocate capital—to decide who should get it and who should not. Believe me when I tell you that I hadn’t the first clue.
I’d never taken an accounting course, never run a business, never even had savings of my own to manage. I stumbled into a job at Salomon Brothers in 1985 and stumbled out much richer three years later, and even though I wrote a book about the experience, the whole thing still strikes me as preposterous—which is one of the reasons the money was so easy to walk away from. I figured the situation was unsustainable. Sooner rather than later, someone was going to identify me, along with a lot of people more or less like me, as a fraud. Sooner rather than later, there would come a Great Reckoning when Wall Street would wake up and hundreds if not thousands of young people like me, who had no business making huge bets with other people’s money, would be expelled from finance.
When I sat down to write my account of the experience in 1989—Liar’s Poker, it was called—it was in the spirit of a young man who thought he was getting out while the getting was good. I was merely scribbling down a message on my way out and stuffing it into a bottle for those who would pass through these parts in the far distant future.
Unless some insider got all of this down on paper, I figured, no future human would believe that it happened.
I thought I was writing a period piece about the 1980s in America. Not for a moment did I suspect that the financial 1980s would last two full decades longer or that the difference in degree between Wall Street and ordinary life would swell into a difference in kind. I expected readers of the future to be outraged that back in 1986, the C.E.O. of Salomon Brothers, John Gutfreund, was paid $3.1 million; I expected them to gape in horror when I reported that one of our traders, Howie Rubin, had moved to Merrill Lynch, where he lost $250 million; I assumed they’d be shocked to learn that a Wall Street C.E.O. had only the vaguest idea of the risks his traders were running. What I didn’t expect was that any future reader would look on my experience and say, “How quaint.”
I had no great agenda, apart from telling what I took to be a remarkable tale, but if you got a few drinks in me and then asked what effect I thought my book would have on the world, I might have said something like, “I hope that college students trying to figure out what to do with their lives will read it and decide that it’s silly to phony it up and abandon their passions to become financiers.” I hoped that some bright kid at, say, Ohio State University who really wanted to be an oceanographer would read my book, spurn the offer from Morgan Stanley, and set out to sea.
Somehow that message failed to come across. Six months after LiarÂ’s Poker was published, I was knee-deep in letters from students at Ohio State who wanted to know if I had any other secrets to share about Wall Street. TheyÂ’d read my book as a how-to manual.
In the two decades since then, I had been waiting for the end of Wall Street. The outrageous bonuses, the slender returns to shareholders, the never-ending scandals, the bursting of the internet bubble, the crisis following the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management: Over and over again, the big Wall Street investment banks would be, in some narrow way, discredited. Yet they just kept on growing, along with the sums of money that they doled out to 26-year-olds to perform tasks of no obvious social utility. The rebellion by American youth against the money culture never happened. Why bother to overturn your parentsÂ’ world when you can buy it, slice it up into tranches, and sell off the pieces? Rest of 9 page article at link.
Posted by: ed ||
11/15/2008
06:59 ||
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#1
Lets see, while they were destroying capital, I was hauling a rifle around for $10K a year protecting their sorry asses.
#2
When the boards flood the market with so much paper that accountability is lost to institutional investors and portfolio managers who handle the company as nothing more than a 'unit' to wring out as much ROI and who make no effort to insure proper operation of the corporation and the efficiency of the management overhead, is anyone surprise of these results? The underlying basic purpose of the process has disappeared. The paper became the end not the company upon which it was predicated upon.
#3
I hoped that some bright kid at, say, Ohio State University who really wanted to be an oceanographer would read my book, spurn the offer from Morgan Stanley, and set out to sea.
Ahem. Kids, as someone who did become an "oceanographer"[1], I say, take the money. Retire when you're 45, buy your own damn boat. Sell your soul while you can; when you're old, there'll be no takers.
#4
Here, here, I'm telling you.
You gotta grab all you can, any time you can.
Cause it may never come your way again.
Once you've stuffed yourself a poke, they you can self-actualize at your leisure.
Bottom line, they haven't got a clue. Stiglitz comes the closest with his negative analysis of the IMF, but then steers off into lala land with his recommendation for a new global reserve currency.
It is sad to read the incoherence of Samuelson and yet his introductory economic textbooks still form the basis for most Eco 101 courses.
#2
Everyone pay attention now because some guy with a nobel is going to start talking out of both sides of his mouth and his a$$ at the same time. It's really quite amazing to watch.
#3
Well Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize for something that has nothing to do with peace. I guess some of these Nobel Laureates in economics can spout off theories that may or may not have much to do with the financial crisis we are currently dealing with. Unfortunately most of them as well as our Congress Critters who spend our money with great abandon will continue to have their job.
Posted by: Bill Angains8020 ||
11/15/2008 19:41
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"The woman, in my opinion, is a natural Patton. A fighter to the core."
Good Lord. She couldnÂ’t even cut Joe Biden off at the knees in their debate. ChristallfridaysÂ…talk about low hanging fruit. HeÂ’s been wrong on nearly every foreign policy decision from the Cold War to Iraq. Give her a green-screen and a gig with the Weather Channel.
#6
Not to mention that, as Mr. Wife said (Mr. Wife was a member of the debate club in high school), Senator Biden always has complete control of his facts, even if he has to make them up. Did the honourable senator say even one true thing that evening? The problem is, that to effectively debate a liar, one actually has to have complete mastery of even the minutest details of every subject mentioned, and Governor Palin hadn't time enough to get to complete mastery in the few weeks she was part of the McCain campaign. Under the circumstances, DepotGuy, that she earnt from Mr. Wife the opprobrium of an almost-tie is quite impressive indeed -- especially given that Mr. Wife still doesn't like her.
Old Spook this wasn't from Fredic the Great but from Saadi Carnot who was the war minister during the worst days of revolution. He was key on the overthrowing of Robespierre and put ijn place the system who detected talented soldersa made them officers while detecting talented officers and making generals of them. Massena, Lannes, Davout, Bonaparte were some of the products.
#7
Sami Alrabaa, a scholar at a nearby college, recalls attending a lecture by Prof. Kalisch and being upset by his doctrinaire defense of Islamic law, known as Sharia...The professor, a burly 42-year-old, says he has received no specific threats but has been denounced as apostate, a capital offense in some readings of Islam.
#8
Since the word 'perverted' is in play, this seems like as good a time as any to revive someone's (ed?) snark about a 'perverted whorehouse afterlife'.
#1
According to Congressman Barney Frank, one of the architects of the legislation that enables the deals: "Any use of these funds for any purpose other than lending - for bonuses, for severance pay, for dividends, for acquisitions of other institutions ... is a violation of the act." Yet this is exactly how the funds are being used.
And Barney knows which funds are bing used for what ... how? Funds are fungible, are they not?
Posted by: Bobby ||
11/15/2008 6:22
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#2
This SOB is one of the ones responsible for the credit crash.
When will the press investigate and publish the truth?
If the guy was a Republican, they'd be all over him.
#5
I'm not sure Naomi really understands how things work. Bush is in charge until January when Obama is President. Obama currently has no authority. None, nada, zip, beyond threats of what he might do if people don't cooperate and the niceties of others who want things to run smoothly in our government.
I think the first vote for change should be to insist that journalists attend, and pass, a high school civics class before being allowed to pontificate on politics.
An Iraqi soldier who shot dead two U.S. troops and wounded six on a rampage in the northern city of Mosul may have been an al Qaeda infiltrator, the spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq said on Thursday.
The Iraqi soldier opened fire on the Americans on Wednesday at a joint security station in the volatile city, before being killed by in return fire. "It appears there was an Iraqi soldier, possibly infiltrated by AQ, who engaged a number of soldiers and killed one of them," Brigadier General David Perkins told Reuters television, using an abbreviation for al Qaeda, the Sunni militant group.
Iraqi police and military sources said the shooting happened after a quarrel broke out between the Iraqi and U.S. soldiers at the station, but the U.S. military has denied there was a fight. "There were some false news reports that there had been altercations between the American soldiers and Iraqi soldier ... in fact there were no altercations," Perkins said.
The incident was not the first in which an Iraqi soldier has ended up in a gun battle with his U.S. counterparts. In December last year, an Iraqi soldier opened fire on U.S. troops during a joint patrol, also in Mosul, killing two and wounding three.
Posted by: ed ||
11/15/2008
00:14 ||
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Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Friday renewed threats to resume attacks on US forces if they don't leave Iraq, deepening the unease over a proposed US-Iraqi security agreement that would allow American troops to stay for three more years.
The threat came in a statement by the Iran-based cleric that was read to supporters gathered for Friday prayers in Baghdad's Shia Sadr City enclave and the city of Kufa, south of Baghdad. "I repeat my call on the occupier to get out from the land of our beloved Iraq, without retaining bases or signing agreements," al-Sadr said. "If they do stay, I urge the honorable resistance fighters ... to direct their weapons exclusively against the occupier."
The statement did not say exactly when and under what conditions such attacks might resume. Al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia launched two uprisings against US forces in 2004 and another one this past spring. In July, al-Sadr said he was disbanding most of the militia, but would keep a small combat unit of seasoned and loyal fighters in case they are called upon to fight the Americans again. In Friday's statement, al-Sadr for the first time gave that unit a name: "The Promised Day Brigade."
He also called on breakaway groups from his militia to join the brigade. He was apparently referring to so-called "special groups," which the US military says are trained and armed by Iran to attack Americans. Al-Sadr opposes the US-Iraqi security agreement under which American troops would stay in Iraq until the end of 2011. The pact has yet to be approved by Iraq's Cabinet and parliament.
Meanwhile Iraq's top Shia Muslim cleric will leave it to the government to decide on a controversial US military pact, but associates of the reclusive leader said it must respect Iraqi sovereignty. Grand Ayatollah Ali Husseini al-Sistani -- revered as the highest religious authority by Iraq's Shiite majority -- rarely involves himself in politics and usually communicates his views only through associates. "The Guide (Sistani) called for general elections which produced the country's government and the parliament," a religious official close to Sistani told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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#1
He sees Obama winning the election as a weakening of America and an opportunity.
#2
Why don't you stop hiding behind your mommy's skirt and give that a try, little man with the big mouth. Or are you going to start throwing rocks as soon as the last plane door shuts?
A tribal jirga of the Auriazai clan of Mamoond tribe in Bajaur Agency on Friday set a two-day deadline for the Taliban to surrender before a tribal lashkar. The jirga, held in Kuga area of Mamoond tehsil, told the Taliban that upon failure to leave by Sunday, a tribal lashkar would torch their houses. Meanwhile, the ongoing military action against Taliban continued and security forces targeted Nawagai and Mamoond areas, and destroyed Taliban hideouts. The Khyber Agency administration has sent a notice to local tribal elders in Jamrud warning that in case of a failure to expel Taliban from their areas, they would have to face the consequences under the FCR. An elder said, on condition of anonymity, it was the government's duty to control the situation and protect the people and their properties. He also showed a copy of the notice. He said the government could not be exempted from responsibility for the anarchy in the Tribal Areas.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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India has become the 4th nation to land on the moon with the maiden voyage of the unmanned Chandrayan-1 spacecraft Friday at 8:31 p.m. local time. Best of luck to the Indians.
At one time an American craft landed on the moon, American men walked on its surface. The universe was at our doorstep.
Then the carpers, the nay-sayers, the liberal artists with teeny-tiny, microscopic souls and all the imagination of a dairy cow decided the money would be better spent eradicating poverty. We still have poverty, but we no longer have the universe at our feet. Today we lack the imagination and the will to conquer the unknown.
Pick up the torch, Indians and Chinese. While you conquer new worlds our children will sing and dance for you, assuring themselves that they're ever so special while accomplishing nothing much of note.
In the long run it won't matter which nation reaches the stars, as long as the human race achieves them. Those among us with adventure in our souls will reach for them. The rest will stay home, safe and secure.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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#1
Uhm, no. It crashed into the moon. There is a significant difference between crashing into something and landing on it.
#2
Yep. It's an impactor. It impacted at 3300 miles per hour.
Posted by: john frum ||
11/15/2008 7:04
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A senior Isro scientist said he would not speculate on the final condition of the impactor or the flags. “Imagine what will happen when something crashes at more than 5,000km per hour,” the scientist said.
“Its job is over,” the scientist said.
Posted by: john frum ||
11/15/2008 7:07
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The lunar impactor from the Chandrayaan-1 mission today successfully made it to the surface of the moon, impacting inside the Shackleton crater on the moon's south pole. Above is an image transmitted back by the 34 kg box-shaped MIP (Moon Impact Probe) before it slammed into the moon.
Posted by: john frum ||
11/15/2008 11:48
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The chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Madhavan Nair (L) gifts a moon model to former president of India A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (R) during a conference at the ISRO center in Bangalore on November 14, 2008.
Kalam, a rocket scientist, put forward the idea during the International Lunar Exploration Working Group Conference at Udaipur in November 2004.
According to him, the probe will help in studying the moon’s geological features. ‘‘I visualise that in another four decades, the earth, moon and Mars will have economic and strategic importance.
He predicted that within 15 years, ISRO will enable Indian astronauts to walk on the moon.
Buoyed by its success, ISRO plans to send a second unmanned spacecraft to the moon in 2012 and separately launch satellites to study Mars and Venus.
Posted by: john frum ||
11/15/2008 15:12
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#9
The TV set-sized probe, painted in the green-white-and-orange colours of the Indian flag, made a "precise-to-the-second" landing on the lunar surface late Friday after being released from the unmanned moon-orbiting Chandrayaan-1 satellite, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said.
The probe's 25-minute descent to the moon was recorded "in its onboard memory for later readout. Finally, the probe had a hard landing on the lunar surface that terminated its functioning," ISRO said in a statement.
Not only has India "put our national flag on the lunar surface, we have also emerged as a low-cost travel agency to space," ISRO chief Madhavan Nair said, referring to the space mission's total 80-million-dollar price tag which is less than half spent on similar expeditions by other countries.
ISRO says its moon mission would help it achieve international "brand recognition" for India as a serious player in space.
Ladies and gentlemen, please fasten your seatbelts and raise your traytables in preparation for landing.
They'll be able to read out the data after they dig it up.
#10
The memory on the orbiter not the impacter. The orbiter then moved on to the dark side of the moon so it could not transmit the data until it came around again.
Posted by: john frum ||
11/15/2008 16:45
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#11
After the MIP separated from the mother-spacecraft at 8.06.54 p.m., it followed a curved path for 25 minutes before it impacted on the moon and self-destructed. The MIP had three payloads: a video camera, a radar altimeter and a mass spectrometer. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has received enormous amount of data from these three payloads throughout the MIPÂ’s flight.
“Whatever we did [during the MIP mission], we did for the first time and without anybody telling us how to do it,” said Dr. Goswami, who is also Director, Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad. ISRO was able to release it from Chandrayaan-1, spin it up, reduce its velocity of descent and then “approximately impact it at a point where we wanted to go,” he said. The 35-kg MIP, which was “a mini satellite of Chandrayaan-1” did everything it was expected to do. Its three instruments collected the data during its descent and transmitted them to the mother-spacecraft, which sent it to the ground. “We were doing something new and for the first time. That is why we have reasons to feel happy about whatever we have done,” Dr. Goswami said.
Posted by: john frum ||
11/15/2008 16:48
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#12
It was on November 21, 1963 that a Nike Apache rocket from the United States took off from the beachhead in the fishing village of Thumba near Thiruvananthapuram and climbed to an altitude of 208 km. The two-stage rocket weighed 715 kg.
The Nike Apache released sodium vapour which, with its orange trail, lit up the twilight sky. The sight created a sensation in Kerala and the neighbouring districts in Tamil Nadu. The Kerala Legislative Assembly was adjourned for a few minutes so that the members could watch the spectacle on the western sky. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, former President, was present at Thumba on that day and was in charge of Nike ApacheÂ’s payload.The launch signalled the start of IndiaÂ’s rocketry programme.
The indigenous space programme began on February 22, 1969, when a “pencil” rocket weighing 10 kg. from Thumba soared a few km. into the sky.
The Chandrayaan-1 has travelled 3,84,000 km to reach its final orbit of 100 km. above the moon. The PSLV-C11 that put it into its initial orbit around the earth stood 44.4 metres tall and weighed 316 tonnes.
Posted by: john frum ||
11/15/2008 16:49
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#13
Seems to me I remember us doing some hard landings before we tried a soft one.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
11/15/2008 16:56
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Bangalore: A year from now the world will have the most detailed three-dimensional image of the Moon, complete with the precise location of its craters and mountains, thanks to Chandrayaan-1. And the first 3-D picture of the MoonÂ’s terrain, taken by the Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) on board Chandrayaan, will be processed by Monday, according to M. Annadurai, project director of Chandrayaan-1.
Posted by: john frum ||
11/15/2008 16:59
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#15
The orbiter then moved on to the dark side of the moon so it could not transmit the data until it came around again.
with opening from Pink Floyd
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/15/2008 17:16
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In what could be construed as a response to India's efforts to expand its space exploration horizon, Pakistan has announced its plans for space research. Pakistan wants to become the first country to put a terrorist in orbit. This was revealed by Raza Hussain, Chairman of Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) at a press conference organized in Karachi.
Raza said that off late SUPARCO was focusing on path breaking new initiatives to inject fresh life into the nation's sagging space programme. Pakistan's only presence in space so far is a satellite PAKSAT-1, situated at 38 degree E Long in a geo stationary orbit. This satellite has been leased from Hughes Global and the lease period will expire in 2011.
"Our aim is to become the first country to put a terrorist in orbit by 2040. We are working closely with China, which has copied technology from Russia and USA for this goal," he said. When asked as to why Pakistan wanted to send a terrorist to space, he said "we have so far exported terrorists to India, USA, UK, Afghanistan, China and the list is endless. Today we have a terrorist in almost all major nations. Now is the time to look beyond earth".
Pakistan's space dreams will be fuelled by modified missiles imported from China and North Korea. "We plan to integrate the Chinese and Korean rockets and use solid propellant (provided by China from the fireworks leftover after the Beijing Olympics)," Raza claimed. It has also identified a bunch of future astronauts (suicide bombers) from its terrorist infested NWFP province for the project. "The recruits are more than willing to be part of this project as that's exactly what they are supposed to do; die here or there," a SUPARCO insider told this blogger.
"The initial plan is to have a terrorist orbit the earth in a low earth orbit and the subsequent missions may see a terrorist land on the moon. The branding team in ISI is right now working on naming an organization to which these terrorists will be affiliated to. I guess the name they have frozen on is the Moonian Mujaheedeen. If everything goes well, these guys may even blow themselves up on the moon," Raza informed.
The terrorists will also release threatening videos before touching down. "Some of these guys are also learning how to issue threats in sign language as the audio quality may not be up to the mark," the SUPARCO insider claimed.
Posted by: john frum ||
11/15/2008 18:41
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#17
"we (the U.S.) have launched portions of several Pakis, but never achieved orbit elevation of any kind. With UAV's, it's not possible. With the Pakland Gov'ts permission, we are willing to, at our cost, experiment with larger delivery vehicles. Let us know, k?"
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/15/2008 18:51
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#18
...we no longer have the universe at our feet. Today we lack the imagination and the will to conquer the unknown.
Sad but very true. All the national pride and drive that was evoked during JFK's speech giving his vision of the exciting goal of reaching into space has now been superceded. Our youth no longer gaze up at the stars. It's just not cool. Nowadays we just look inward, or at a screen a few inches from your nose; we no longer think in terms of light-years.
Our lofty goals have been replaced with a new direction, which is nothing more but go just where you're pointed, eyes at the ground, by the media, Hollywood, or rock-star politicos. They don't want your input, just your vote. And, since any warm body (and even some cold stone dead ones) can pull the lever, your imigination and thoughts are no longer needed.
Malaysia's opposition Islamist party PAS is opening its doors to non-Muslims to bolster its support in the nation where just over half of the people are Muslims, its deputy chief said on Friday. That make sense. Not a lot of sense, but sense. In an Islamic kind of way.
By constitution, Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS) -- largely run by Muslim clerics but gradually being taken over by young, moderate leaders -- is out of bounds to non-Muslims as direct members. But a surge of support by Chinese and Indian voters for the party outside its home base in the watershed March 8 general election has prompted PAS to change its tack, PAS deputy president Nasharudin Mat Isa said.
Politically, the PAS move could further unsettle the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition that has ruled the country for 51 years, analysts said. A resurgent opposition and a voter discontent caused the Barisan to stumble to its worst result in March, losing its key two-thirds majority in parliament and five of 13 states.
PAS is known for advocating a theocratic Islamic state in a multi-racial society of 27 million people where sizeable ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities practice Buddhism, Hinduism or Christianity.
But in the last election, it shied away from this long-standing objective in its campaign and instead pushed for a "welfare state" agenda to attract non-Muslim voters.
Under the membership plan, PAS will directly admit non-Muslims as members but they will not be allowed to contest in internal party elections, officials said.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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(SomaliNet) Great Britain's Prince Charles turns 60 today and has been spending his birthday with young people who have been helped by his charity, the Prince's Trust.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
I kn ow, I know, you got Bobama but you should still take a couple minutes to tank George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and other actors of Independence without forgetting those who died in the war.
Nations are close to adopting a series of measures aimed at combating a global recession and laying the groundwork for a broad reconstruction of the international financial system, as world leaders arrive in Washington for a major economic summit this weekend. Right. The people who got us into this mess will now attempt to get us out of this mess. That should work well.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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#1
I'm sure they will agree to dig themselves deeper into debt.
Six Taliban were killed and several injured in shelling by helicopter gunships and artillery firing as security forces geared up for an operation the villages in Charsadda district and Mohmand Agency, officials said Friday.
"Security forces are advancing towards the disputed villages (in Charsadda district and close to Mohmand tribal district) where militant dens have been set up and these areas need extensive combing," official sources told Daily Times.
They said the disputed villages, previously part of Mohmand, were heavily "infested by the militants".
Local residents told Daily Times that helicopter gunships shelled Kandharo area in Saafi tehsil of Mohmand, targeting a double-cabin Taliban jeep. Three Taliban were killed while two others were injured.
Curfew: The highway linking Mohmand with Peshawar is closed to all traffic, while an indefinite curfew is in place in Shabqadar. The people leaving the areas for safer places are facing problems.
"It is very difficult to move out of areas where a military operation is on the cards," a resident of Mohmand said.
During the search operation in Rashkai area, the security forces demolished three houses and a public school, which the Taliban were using for attacks against government forces.
Taliban house: Meanwhile, a private TV channel reported that security forces demolished the house of a Taliban commander Khalid and arrested five Taliban in Darra Adam Khel. "My house! Grandma's china! The silverware! You bastards!"
The houses of two tribesmen were also bulldozed in Jadukhel and Faroghan areas of Zarghunkhel for their alleged links to the Taliban. The security forces launched a search operation in Zarghaunkhel on Friday morning on a tip-off. According to the channel, both Khalid and his friend Tariq had claimed responsibility for plotting or carrying out 29 suicide attacks.They were believed to be hiding in Orakzai Agency.
Swat: Separately, security forces and Taliban exchanged fire in the Balugram area of Swat district, but there were no reports of casualties. The security forces are facing stiff resistance from Taliban in their advance from Kabal to Akhund Kalay. Taliban torched four snooker clubs in Usmanabad and Tahirabad areas of Swat.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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The FBI has arrested Tarek Mehanna and charged him with lying in an affidavit about his relationship to Daniel J. Maldonado, "a former Methuen resident who was suspected of training at an Al Qaeda terrorist camp to overthrow the Somali government." Maldonado pled guilty to receiving training from a foreign terrorist organization and is currently serving time in a U.S. federal prison.
The FBI picked up Mehanna, a U.S. citizen, as he was boarding a plane to "start a new job overseas," the Boston Globe reported.
Mehanna's family and lawyer claim he is innocent of the charges, but the FBI recorded Mehanna's phone call in which he admitted to lying to the FBI. Mehanna's lawyer, J.W. Carney Jr., dismissed Mehanna's activities as small-time. "If this is the FBI's idea of a terrorist, they are using a net that is designed to catch minnows instead of sharks," he told the Globe.
But Dr. Rusty Shackleford at the indispensible Jawa Report notes that Mehanna did more than lie to the FBI. Mehanna was in fact one of several bloggers who incites others to fight jihad overseas and recites the words of al Qaeda ideologues: ...
Posted by: ed ||
11/15/2008
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#2
Well, the "small-time" aspect doesn't wash since many small-timers went big-time like Timothy McVeigh who first made his threats to a courthouse in Arizona. Almost every 9/11 hijacker was small-time (DMV and visa over-stay fraud) before that dreadful day. The press always maligns such cases since it's 2-3 day story, but for them a 9/11/01, 3/11/04, 7/7/05, now your talking...let DHS/FBI/CIA/DIA et al keep the bad guys "Small-time".
(SomaliNet) Russia's Transport Ministry said Pirates armed with grenade launchers and automatic weapons attacked a Russian-operated freighter off the coast of Somalia on Thursday, but it escaped the attempted hijacking.
The ministry said ammunition fired by the pirates from a fast-moving boat started a fire in a crew member's cabin aboard the Cypriot-owned cargo ship Captain Maslov, but nobody was hurt and the blaze was extinguished.
The attack took place 300 miles (480 kilometers) off the coast of Somalia as the 16,000-ton cargo ship headed from Colombo, Sri Lanka, to the Kenyan city of Mombasa, the ministry said. The Cyprus-flagged ship, operated by a Russian company based in Vladivostok, had an all-Russian crew of 17 aboard.
The attack came a day after Russia's navy said Russian and British ships had repelled a pirate attack on a Danish freighter in the Gulf of Aden, sending up helicopters. The British military said the crew of a dhow suspected of attacking the Danish ship surrendered after a gunbattle that left two suspected pirates dead.
Russia sent the missile frigate Neustrashimy, or Intrepid, to protect Russian ships and crews off Somalia's coast after a Ukrainian freighter with three Russians aboard -- and loaded with battle tanks -- was hijacked in September. Its captain has died, and the 20 other crew are still being held aboard the MV Faina.
Russia's Transport Ministry said the Neustrashimy was about 1,200 miles (750 miles) from the site of Thursday's attack.
A NATO flotilla of seven vessels is also patrolling the Gulf of Aden to help the U.S. 5th Fleet in anti-piracy patrols and to escort cargo vessels. The 5th Fleet said that it has repelled about two dozen pirate attacks since Aug 22. NATO officials said alliance warships have not fended off any attacks on the merchant ships they are protecting.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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Intense speculation flared Friday over reports that president-elect Barack Obama is weighing whether to name former Democratic primary rival Hillary Clinton as a heavy-hitting secretary of state.
Sources close to Clinton and Obama did not deny media reports that the former first lady met Obama in Chicago on Thursday and was in the frame to become the top US diplomat and fourth in line to the presidency.
The reports came as Obama's team announced that the president-elect, who will take office in January during an intense economic crisis and with two foreign wars raging, would meet former Republican rival John McCain on Monday. The McCain talks and Clinton reports spurred speculation that Obama would assemble a deep "team of rivals" administration uniting his former political foes like that framed after the 1860 election by his hero Abraham Lincoln.
Two unnamed Obama advisers told NBC News the formidable former first lady, who is now a New York senator, was under consideration for secretary of state.
Clinton flew to Chicago to meet with the Democratic president-elect on Thursday, CNN and ABC said, but one adviser said it was on personal business. Aides to Obama and Clinton refused all comment on the rampant speculation, but equally did not deny the reports. Clinton herself also refused to give details.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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#1
two foreign wars raging
Pfeh. You wish, AFP.
Somehow, I prefer Hilly to JFnK.
Posted by: Bobby ||
11/15/2008 6:29
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#2
Don't forget Bill Richardson. I think he's eager to move on quickly as his expanded government expenditures were predicated upon state revenues generated by investments in oil and gas. Don't want to hang around when the tab comes due in January for next years budget.
#3
Barack will never let Hillary in for the same reason you won't let a rattlesnake into your bedroom.
Don Corleone said "Keep your friends close but your enemies closer". There are however limits.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
11/15/2008 11:22
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#4
Don't know why she would want it, actually. In the Senate she can build her own power base a la Ted Kennedy. She could be there for decades, getting legislation passed that she wants, and helping to set part of the national agenda.
As Sec'y of State she'd have to constantly bow to what Obama wants, and she would serve at his leisure. Not to mention that if Obama sucks at being Prez, she'd get a chunk of the blame for any foreign policy misstep, deserved or not.
#5
This is more CYA by the Hussien camp against Hillary : if she accepts, she is tied to his level of success and so must work her ass off to save him; if she refuses, his staff can start the "sour grapes and sour loser biddy" remarks.
#6
Consider it this way; if HRC takes the job and thus supports BO, then her light will be that much dimmer in 2012. If she stays in the Senate, then she can blast away at BO's dumb moves and position herself for a run, free of his mis steps.
and there is still a big pro-Hillary base out there that whoever the R's run will have to consider.
(SomaliNet) Rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have advanced to the outskirts of Kanyabanyonga. The city lies at the intersection of several important roads in the eastern province of North Kivu and is of considerable strategic importance. The rebels say they encountered almost no resistance from government troops during their advance.
Eyewitnesses say that more and more foreign troops are becoming involved in the conflict. Angolan and Zimbabwean troops are said to be operating in the east of the country. It is also being suggested that the Rwandan army is paying General Laurent Nkunda's rebels. Angola and Rwanda deny any involvement in the fighting.
The reports of foreign involvement are adding to fears that the conflict will lead to a renewed war in the DRC. From 1998 to 2003, nine countries were involved in what was called by many Africa's World War, a war that led to the deaths of more than five million people, mainly from disease and starvation. The United Nations says more than 250,000 refugees have now fled the fighting.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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Egypt has drawn up a blacklist of 26 firms in Saudi Arabia that allegedly abuse its workers, of whom nearly a million work in the conservative Gulf kingdom, press reports said on Friday. The reports come a day after Cairo barred doctors from taking up jobs in Saudi Arabia after an Egyptian medic was sentenced to 1,500 lashes and 15 years in jail for allegedly turning a Saudi princess into a drug addict.
"The Manpower and Immigration Ministry has a blacklist of 26 businesses and private companies in Saudi Arabia ... with which doing business is absolutely forbidden," the independent Al-Masri al-Yawm newspaper reported.
It said the listed companies are accused of "deliberately mistreating Egyptians," and added that more firms may be added later.
Labor and Immigration Minister Aisha Abdel-Hadi was quoted in the state-run daily Al-Gomhuria as saying the decision was taken after repeated complaints were lodged against the firms listed, alleging rights abuses.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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#1
Stop the presses! The Saudis abusing staff? After this going on for more than 30 years in Egypt, they're finally doing something? These Saudi pricks used to scream across the dessert near the pyramids scaring equestrians and horses for years, and not a word was spoken.
Derogatory remarks toward President-elect Barack Obama made on a social networking Web site are now the subject of an internal police investigation. A police department employee claims the statements were made on the MySpace pages of two Durham officers. "There's no exact words that were said," said Police Chief Jose L. Lopez Sr. in a telephone interview Wednesday from San Diego, where he is attending the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference. "It wasn't a racial slur, but we're still investigating it."
Investigators, who are focusing on the context of what was written, have been looking into the allegations since Thursday. Lopez wouldn't disclose what was said or identify the officers involved.
City Manager Tom Bonfield, who was notified of the investigation late Tuesday afternoon, said he advised Lopez to complete it as quickly as possible. Bonfield, whom Lopez reports to, said the department has the discretion to notify him of such inquiries.
The police, as well as other city agencies, have a good sense of when an issue is big enough to notify him, said Bonfield, who added that he notified city council members within an hour of talking with Lopez. "It's important that the investigators have a chance to do their jobs and make sure they get all of the information," he said. "I think it's important that the police are given the opportunity to respond against any allegations against them."
Bonfield added that if the allegations are found to be true and officers posted racially charged statements, then an appropriate response by the department would be warranted.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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Six shops, including two video shops, were completely destroyed while three persons were injured in two powerful remote-controlled explosions occurred at an interval of 8 hours on Friday. The first blast occurred at 10pm on Thursday night in a CD shop at Circle Road near Swayra Hotel. Three adjoining shops were also destroyed completely. The second blast occurred near Circle Road Eidgah Klan Mor at 6am on Friday in a video shop. The explosion destroyed two more shops. Three people were injured as a result of the blasts.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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Aswat al-Iraq: Six wanted men were captured on criminal charges in central al-Amara city, a Missan police official said on Friday.
"Policemen from Hittin on Friday captured six men wanted on criminal charges in the western side of the province," Col. Sadiq Sallam, the director of Missan police relations & information director, told Aswat al-Iraq.
"The captured men are remanded in custody pending investigations," he said, not giving more details.
Posted by: Fred ||
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The Sindh government has imposed a ban on circulation of the newspaper Weekly Zarbe Momin, Karachi and Daily Islam, Karachi in the province, an official handout said on Friday.
According to the handout the government has ordered that all copies in circulation should be forfeited. "The weekly Zarbe Momin Karachi and Daily Islam contain material that can be a source of inspiration for Jihadi outfits and youth, which is prejudicial to the national integration and will promote anti-state feelings, and they are liable to forfeiture for containing objectionable material under section 99-A CrPC 1898", the official handout said. The staff of the newspaper continued their work as per routine till late night on Friday.
A Daily Islam spokesman said that the newspaper management has not received any official order and was unaware of the allegations made against the paper. According to him the paper is published from six cities simultaneously including Karachi, Lahore, Multan, Rawalpindi, Muzzafarabad and Peshawar. Earlier in the day, the newspaper was seen being circulated free of cost outside the main gates of some mosques in the city.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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The Chinese forces can join coalition forces in Afghanistan, a private TV channel quoted British PM Gordon Brown as saying on Friday. According to the channel, Brown told New York's Council on Foreign Relations that China sending troops in Afghanistan was a possibility. He said he believes nations not currently involved in fighting will likely join the mission, adding all nations see Afghanistan as a frontline in the fight against terrorism.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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#1
Good - a new potential land supply route not through Pakiwakiland.
#2
WORLD MIL FORUM > VARIOUS POSTER THREADS on China's comparative advantages vee USA [Taiwan], INDIA, RUSSIA [Russ FE], + VIETNAM/SE ASIAN NATIONS [Vietnam's econ ready to collapse].
Taken collectively, it tells me Chin Posters are WORRYIN' + FEARIN' ABOUT ONE OR MORE WAR(S) POTENTIALLY BREAKING OUT IN ASIA.
#4
be a good way too see how the chinese military does in situtaions if they actual got into the fight. O fcourse there are no teling human violations they could commit and it WOULD be blamed on the US
Posted by: chris ||
11/15/2008 10:59
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#5
What's in it for the Chicoms? A way to pester India? A forward base against all the muzzies on China's border? A place to give their troops some actual combat experience? Welcome to camp, Mr. Hu.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
11/15/2008 11:35
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#6
What's in it for the Chicoms?
A potential monopoly on opium poppies, with high demand in these depressive times and global markets beckoning.
Posted by: ed ||
11/15/2008 12:23
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If China send troops, that reduces the pressure on the EU countries to do what they weren't going to do anyway. Then, too, it would be so much easier for China to take sponsorship of the Taliban away from Pakistan if there were a convenient place for meetings. Not that I'd want to suggest China would ever think such a thing; after all, China has never thought such a thing so many other places.
(SomaliNet) India has proposed a UN peace-keeping force under "a unified command'' to prevent the ever-mounting pirate attacks off Somalia, two days after the Indian Navy repulsed pirate attacks on a Saudi and an Indian merchant vessel in the Gulf of Aden.
Meanwhile, the Indian delegation at the ongoing 101st council meeting of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) in London recommended that the body should move the UN for establishing such a peace-keeping force.
Though the Indian Navy is coordinating with other foreign navies in the Gulf of Aden, which include US and European naval task forces, a formal UN peace-keeping force will go a long way in thwarting piracy in a concerted manner in this vital trade route.
Operating mainly from Somali ports of Eyl and Hobyo, pirates have created havoc for international shipping, having attacked 83 ships since January, hijacking 33 of them, in the region.
"The Indian delegation urged IMO to take urgent steps to provide assistance and security to international shipping irrespective of flag, nationality of seamen etc of the vessels. The call was supported by many other member-countries,'' said an official.
Shipping secretary APVN Sarma told the IMO council meeting that concerted action was needed since over 12% of the entire world's seaborne oil trade, around 50% of the dry bulk transportation and 33% of container trade passes through this vital sea lane.
Highlighting the problems, Sarma said the ongoing "disjointed efforts'' being made by several countries on their own had led to some navies laying down priorities in giving assistance to only those ships flying a particular flag or having seaman of a particular nationality.
Indian warships, as reported earlier, are patrolling the Gulf of Aden since last month to protect Indian merchant vessels transiting from Salalah (Oman) to Aden (Yemen) from pirates.
The decision to deploy the warships in the region was taken by the government after Somali pirates hijacked Japanese-owned Stolt Valor on September 15. The fate of the 18 Indians on board Stolt Valor, however, still hangs in the balance, with the pirates demanding a ransom upwards of $2.5million to free them.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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#1
UN Force to Frighten Pirates - hard to believe anyone could say this with a straight face.
A manhunt is under way in western Germany for a convicted drug dealer who escaped by mailing himself out of jail.
The 42-year-old Turkish citizen - who was serving a seven-year sentence - had been making stationery with other prisoners destined for the shops. At the end of his shift, the inmate climbed into a cardboard box and was taken out of prison by express courier. His whereabouts are still unknown. The chief warden of the jail told the BBC this was an embarrassing incident.
The prison authorities in Willich, near Duesseldorf, said the man, who was tall and broad-shouldered, had hidden in a box that was about 150cm by 120cm. When the weekly express courier arrived to pick up several boxes of merchandise, the one containing the prisoner was also loaded into the back of the lorry.
Shortly after it had passed through the prison gates, the inmate made his dash for freedom by cutting a big hole in the tarpaulin of the lorry and jumped off.
The driver alerted the police after he noticed the tarpaulin flapping in the breeze. The jail's chief warden, Beate Peters, said the man must have had accomplices outside the prison.
"As soon as the prisoner jumped off the back of the lorry his friends would have picked him up," she told the BBC. "We have no idea where the fugitive is hiding. We assume that he is still in the county and is lying low before making his move." Ms Peters said fellow convicts must also have known of his plan but that they would not talk because of a "code of honour" and because it is a criminal offence in Germany to help somebody escape from jail.
She said the incident showed that security needed to be beefed up urgently, something she had been lobbying for in the last few years. "I was not surprised that an escape happened on my watch. For years I had been asking for more security guards from the government. But now they'll have to listen."
Posted by: john frum ||
11/15/2008
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The economy of the 15-nation euro zone shrank over the past three months and is now considered to be in recession, the first such prolonged contraction since the adoption of the euro as a common currency a decade ago.
The Eurostat statistics agency reported on Friday that growth in the economic zone shrank 0.2 percent from July through October, compared with the prior three months. Following a similar decline from April through June, the euro zone economy has met one of the common definitions of recession -- two consecutive quarters of decline.
European leaders initially thought the current financial crisis would be confined largely to the United States, but they now face the most serious test to date of the economic integration symbolized by their use of the euro. The European Central Bank was slower to begin cutting interest rates than the Fed, the Bank of England and other major central banks, and has moved in smaller steps even after acknowledging that it needed to try to stimulate growth. Analysts now regard further rate cuts in the euro zone as a given. The Eurostat report adds to the accumulating evidence of a broad global recession.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Islamist rebels moved Friday into a small town on the outskirts of Somalia's capital near a checkpoint manned by Ethiopian troops, sparking fears among residents of renewed fighting.
Al-Shabaab fighters moved into Al-Asha town overnight, and are now 2 kilometers from Sinkadheer, where Ethiopian troops are based. Sinkadheer is 15 kilometers southwest of Mogadishu. "We have been fighting to get peace, we shall defend the people around Al-Asha and nearby areas from robbers or Ethiopians," said Sheikh Abdel-Rahim Isse Adow, a spokesman for the Islamic Courts Union whose fighters were alongside Al-Shabaab members in Elasha.
The Al-Shabaab movement was part of the Islamic Courts Union when it was in government in 2006, having brought the first semblance of rule in years to large parts of central and southern Somalia. The Islamists were ousted from power in early 2007 as Ethiopian troops invaded Somalia at the behest of the Somali interim government, a UN-backed body formed in exile that, at the time, only controlled a small portion of the country along the Kenyan border.
The Islamists, who launched an insurgency after being pushed from power, had briefly occupied Al-Asha on Thursday.
Al-Shabaab has been gaining territory in southern Somalia. In the past week, it has taken control of three towns and briefly occupied three others in the south. On Wednesday, the Islamists seized Merka, a strategic port 90 kilometers southwest of Mogadishu used by the UN World Food Program for food aid deliveries, giving Al-Shabaab its closest foothold yet to Mogadishu.
Al-Shabaab have rejected a UN-negotiated pact to set up a power-sharing administration between the interim government and some moderate opposition figures, vowing to continue the fight until Ethiopian soldiers leave Somalia.
Many residents in Al-Asha have already fled fighting in Mogadishu and were afraid renewed clashes would cut off the supply of food aid. "We do not know where to evacuate to again if Ethiopian troops and Al-Shabaab clash around our camps. We have no hope of getting relief food," Alasey Jimcale, a mother of four in Al-Asha, said. "Mogadishu is not a place to go back to."
Also Friday, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned that hundreds of thousands of Somalis face a major famine due to violence and a drought that is ravaging the center and south of the country. "We are seeing a major deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Somalia," said Pascal Mauchle, head of the organization's delegation for the country.
Posted by: Fred ||
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A new poll released today says a majority of Americans back giving automakers a $25 billion federal bailout -- that's in contrast two earlier polls that said Americans were skeptical or opposed the action. A poll from Rasmussen Reports released Thursday said 46 percent of Americans are opposed to the Big Three bailout, while 30 percent support and 25 percent are undecided.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Push Poll.
"Americans said the U.S. government should provide LOANS to American automakers"
Your cars suck like a bilge pump, and you refuse to honor your warranties. It is my sincerest hope none of you sons of bitches get a fucking dime of my tax money bailout money or other form of government welfare / intervention. Especially you, Chrysler. Before I die, I'd love to shove a Challenger up the ass of whatever schmuck CEO is running your piece of shit company into the ground. Your demise can't come fast enough for me.
#6
Total compensation per hour for the big-three carmakers is $73.20. That's a 52 percent differential from Toyota's (Detroit South) $48 compensation (wages + health and retirement benefits). In fact, the oversized UAW-driven pay package for Detroit is 132 percent higher than that of the entire manufacturing sector of the U.S., which comes in at $31.59.source
They want you to subsidize that. People voting themselves other people's money. Just because you use the government to be your accessory to the act doesn't make it theft.
#8
I think if you worded it cleverly enough, you could get a majority of Americans to appear to support male teachers whacking their pud in front of their students.
#9
"Would you prefer that your students be taught human physiology, biology, and demonstrations of self-confidence and self-satisfaction (at a job well done) by:
a) robots, or
b) human teachers with sensitivity and slippery mitts?"
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/15/2008 13:30
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#10
New poll says majority of Americans Union lackeys support bailout for Detroit's automakers.
#12
For all the whacks against GM, I bought a Buick Enclave last year, and it's easily the best car I've ever owned. Great fit and finish, no defects, great ride.
Of course, the Rendezvous I owned before that sucked. And the Saturn SL before that had its problems. But I'd like to think GM has been at least trying to get their act together.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/15/2008 14:47
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#13
Thanks to P2k for the salient figures. How does Detroit produce competitive product when their labor costs are 52% higher? Why take costs out of the product materials. Result cars w/52% less quality.
Posted by: regular joe ||
11/15/2008 16:58
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#14
Agreed, SW - my truck's in too fine condition to think about replacing, but I'd buy another F-150 in a second if this one was, say, totalled
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/15/2008 17:14
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#15
At some point we are going to have to have a bailout to bailout the bailout. Maybe we are already there.
Let's see: We pushed globalization so that poorer countries could be brought up to a our standard of living but what happened was that we got dragged down to a lower standard of living. We got rid of a lot of our manufacturing and jobs via various trade agreements. Consequently, we built an economy based on credit. Compound this by having crooked politicians who bought the votes of people who couldn't afford mortgages by making it very easy for them to obtain loans with no possibility of repayment. The jobs have been going away and so people don't have the earning power to pay their credit debts. Moreover, we created a lot of worthless mortgage derivatives with fancy names that were sold and resold and used to back other worthless mortgages. These ended up in pension funds, in community and state portfolios; others were sold investors. We have lots of housing foreclosures. I read where we have 35,000 foreclosures per day in Florida. If this is the foreclosure rate in Florida, what must it be in other places? Can we string up the geniuses that created this financial mess? We have thrown out all common financial sense on a global scale. This disaster has been 50-60 years in the making.
Posted by: Bill Angains8020 ||
11/15/2008 19:19
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Countries attending a UN inter-faith conference on Thursday rejected the use of religion to justify acts of terrorism, the killing of innocent civilians, violence and coercion. "E pur si muove."
A declaration agreed by participants from 80 nations at the high-level meeting -- called 'Culture of Peace' -- expressed concern over "serious instances of intolerance, discrimination, expressions of hatred and harassment of minority religious communities of all faiths".
The participants also underlined the importance of promoting dialogue, understanding and tolerance, as well as respect for all religions, cultures and beliefs.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon read the declaration near the end of the meeting that was initiated by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and brought 14 world leaders to New York -- including the US, Pakistani, Afghan and Israeli presidents.
"King Abdullah's initiative has come at a time when the need for dialogue has never been greater," Ban told a press conference. It has brought together people who might not otherwise have a chance to interact ... the challenge now is to go beyond words we have heard."
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Thursday the creation of a Palestinian state side-by-side with an Israeli state "can be achieved by goodwill".
Many speakers spoke out against religious extremists and stressed the importance of tolerance and freedom of religion.
US President George Bush echoed this theme saying, "We believe God calls us to live in peace and to oppose all those who use His name to justify violence."
President Asif Ali Zardari called terrorism, discrimination and violence against women 'un-Islamic'. He urged all countries to unite behind an international agenda in which "hate speech aimed at inciting people against any religion must be unacceptable, (and) injustice and discrimination on the mere basis of one's faith must be discouraged".
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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Three Afghan construction workers were gunned down by militants while a suicide attack wounded three policemen Friday in new insurgency-linked violence, officials said on Friday. The three men were shot dead by attackers in a passing vehicle in the eastern province of Khost as they had left their lodgings and headed to work, Ismail Khail district governor Dawlat Khan Qayomi told AFP. So it's okay, y'see. They didn't execute them. They murdered them. They were just saying yesterday how much they're against the death penalty.
The official blamed the attack on the "enemies of Afghanistan," a term often used by Afghan authorities to refer to Taliban-led insurgents who target Afghan and foreign troops as well as officials or people helping with reconstruction.
In the same province, a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-filled car near a police vehicle just outside Khost city. Three policemen were wounded, one of them seriously, provincial Governor Arsala Jamal told AFP. A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said his group had carried out the attack. "'At's right. We dunnit an' we're glad!"
US-led forces in Afghanistan announced meanwhile that its troops had killed four Al-Qaeda-linked militants Thursday in an operation aimed at a network helping to move Arab and other foreign fighters into the country. The four were shot dead near the border with Pakistan in the eastern province of Paktia's Zurmat district, the statement said. They were targeting an Al-Qaeda-linked militant "known to assist local Taliban leaders with the movement of Arabs and other foreign fighters into Afghanistan," it added.
CIA director Michael Hayden said in Washington on Thursday that the Al-Qaeda network remained resilient, having regrouped in Pakistan's tribal areas, which he described as a "safe haven" for the network.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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#1
I just HATE hurtin' children, fluffy bunnies and baby ducks, but it's time to go Mongol on this bunch of religious retards. The sooner we mop the last remains of the Pashtuns from Afghanistan and Pakistan, the sooner this crappy war will be over and we can go home. Begin in Kabul with the Big Cheese and his micenions, and work south.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
11/15/2008 12:16
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The Standard & Poor's (S&P) cut its sovereign ratings on Pakistan further into 'junk' territory on Friday, highlighting the country's difficulty in raising the money it needs to avoid defaulting on debt obligations.
The latest cut marks S&P's second downgrade of Pakistan's ratings in as many months. To debt investors, Pakistan's most pressing obligations are $500 million in bonds maturing in February. The risk of default on that have sent the cost of insurance in Pakistani debt soaring this year. "The downgrade reflects our view that the delay by Pakistan in securing external assistance has increased the prospect of near-term debt service difficulties, heralding either a rescheduling of commercial external debt or an outright payment default," said the S&P's Agost Benard.
S&P cut its long-term foreign currency rating on Pakistan to CCC from CCC-plus and its long-term local currency rating to CCC-plus from B-minus. The agency placed its outlook on the country as 'developing'.
It said even if Pakistan got the needed loans, it could spark popular discontent, and political instability would make it hard to implement the policies needed to stabilise the economy.
Pakistan's credit defaults swaps barely reacted to S&P's move given few investors are willing to trade the contract. A government official told Daily Times the cut in credit rating would make it difficult for Pakistani companies to open letters of credit with foreign companies.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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#1
Does this mean those cool carpets are gonna cost more?
US forces have begun working with Pakistan's military to take on Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters along the Afghan border, a development US officials say reflects Islamabad's new willingness to go after Taliban, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Friday.
The US and Pakistan are waging a co-ordinated military campaign known as Operation Lionheart, which involves US strikes on insurgent targets in the Kunar region of Afghanistan and a full-scale Pakistani campaign in the region of Bajaur, the report said.
According to the WSJ, US troops have recently conducted operations in Afghanistan in co-ordination with Pakistani forces across the border in Bajaur Agency. It quoted senior US official as saying they are sharing extensive real-time intelligence with their Pakistani counterparts. The two sides have also worked closely to seal the border and prevent insurgents from fleeing military operations in one country to havens in the other, the officials said.
Right direction: In an interview in Kabul, Gen David McKiernan, the commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said the US-Pakistani relationship now appeared to "be moving cautiously in the right direction".
The report quoted ISPR spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas as saying support from NATO forces in sealing the Afghan side of the border helped stop the flow of Taliban fighters in Bajaur, where Pakistan says its forces have killed more than 1,500 Taliban since August. "The co-operation greatly helped our forces in combating the militants in the area," Abbas said.
The WSJ noted the Central Intelligence Agency has used unmanned aerial drones to fire dozens of missiles into Pakistani territory recently, killing several senior Al Qaeda leaders.
Improved: The report quoted US Ambassador to Afghanistan William Wood as saying Pakistan's stance against the Taliban 'has improved' since a new government led by President Asif Ali Zardari took power.
"What we're talking about here is a new agreement or a new common understanding of what constitutes unacceptable behaviour and a new willingness to attack that unacceptable behaviour in a co-ordinated way," Wood was quoted as saying.
US Chief of Army Staff Gen George Casey said US commanders in Afghanistan have begun meeting their Pakistani counterparts once a week. "There's good contact going on," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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Most Hamas leaders are interested in maintaining a cease-fire with Israel in the short term, according to a former deputy chief of the Shin Bet security service.
In an article published on U.S. Web site regarding the escalation of violence that erupted more than a week ago between Israel the Gaza Strip, the official wrote that continuing the truce would allow Hamas to achieve its other political goals.
"Although certain Hamas officials (particularly in the military wing) want to abandon the ceasefire altogether, most of its leaders will most likely continue to emphasize the truce's benefits and maintain the agreement for the near term, since it allows Hamas to make progress on other goals," wrote the official."
"The organization is concerned that a large-scale incursion by the Israel Defense Forces [IDF] would prevent it from dealing with its complex set of challenges and also endanger its main achievement, the complete control of the Gaza Strip," the official wrote. "The truce promotes Hamas's interests by buying time to advance the movement's short- and long-term goals."
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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Aswat al-Iraq: Azerbaijan's parliament has voted to pull the ex-Soviet republic's small peacekeeping force out of Iraq, according to the U.S. newspaper Boston Globe on Friday. According to the daily, lawmakers voted 86-1 on Friday to back President Ilham Aliev's request to withdraw the 150 troops serving as part of the U.S.-led coalition.
The contingent has served in Iraq since 2003, working mostly as sentries, on patrols and protecting dams. It is unclear when the pullout will be completed.
The newspaper explained that Aliev has sought to strengthen his oil- and gas-rich country's ties with the European Union and the United States, in part to balance Russia's enormous clout in the Caspian region. The government earlier this year doubled its peacekeeping force in Afghanistan to 45 soldiers and has also sent troops to Kosovo.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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#1
Azerbaijan is another small, former Soviet country that has pulled well above its weight, especially compared to some NATO nations and others I could name. Thank you, and God bless your small nation and keep it safe.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
11/15/2008 13:16
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That stupid, incompetent, cowboy President Bush seems to have inadvertently gotten an awful lot of unexpected countries to help with the anti-jihadi effort. Thank goodness we now have a brilliant world citizen to take over the reins and do things properly!
#3
That;s right TW, and they are all getting their guys out of the way so the BambiXpress carrying our guys out dosen't run them down. Plus then we have to be the ones to turn out the lights, since we will be last.
(AKI) - Turkey has reached agreement with the Kurdish regional administration in northern Iraq on a strategic plan to counter violent separatists from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). According to Turkish media reports citing the Firat news agency, the administration in northern Iraq led by Massoud Barzani will cut links between Europe and the PKK, which uses bases in northern Iraq as a springboard to launch cross-border attacks on neighbouring Turkey.
Turkey also wants Barzani to force PKK militants to leave northern Iraqi territory, the agreement says.
The agreement also includes the deployment of special Turkish forces to strategic locations in northern Iraq, in addition to the Kurdish Peshmerga forces, in a bid to cut logistic, political and military support to the PKK.
In return Turkey will recognise the Barzani administration, Firat reported. Turkey will also open an embassy in Erbil and invite Barzani to the Turkish capital of Ankara, it added.
Turkish officials claim 2,000 PKK terrorists are hiding in the mountains of northern Iraq, where they enjoy free dom of movement.
Turkey, backed by intelligence from the United States, has stepped up its campaign to crackdown on the PKK both inside Turkey and in northern Iraq, since the organisation increased its attacks on Turkish soldiers, as well as civilians.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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#1
Iraqi Kurdistan plays the Turkey card.
Turkey should and probably will be the long term guarantor of an autonomous Kurdistan. Several irritants need to be cleared away first, notably the PKK.
Pakistan has asked the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a $9 billion bailout along with help from other lenders to avert a balance of payments crisis, a Finance Ministry official said on Friday.
Credit ratings agency Standard & Poor's cited Pakistan's tardiness in securing foreign assistance for a decision on Friday to lower its rating on the nation's sovereign debt deeper into junk bond territory. "We are asking $9 billion from the IMF, they are talking about $7.4 billion. IMF can give us up to $7.6 billion," a Finance Ministry official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Economic Adviser Shaukat Tareen told Reuters that the government would soon deliver a letter of intent to the IMF, paving the way for the world's lender of last resort to release funds rapidly. The international community is concerned that an economic meltdown in Pakistan could play into the hands of Al Qaeda.
Another official said the letter of intent would probably be sent before Monday, when potential donors are due to gather in Abu Dhabi for a Friends of Pakistan conference.
The conference is not expected to result in loans being pledged, but it could pave the way for a ministerial meeting later.
Tareen told Reuters a loan of $500 million from China could arrive within weeks. A Finance Ministry official said the IMF would like to see Pakistani interest rates above the core inflation rate, currently running at around 18.3 percent.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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#1
to: Admin - If You want to delete your site from my spam list, please sent url of your domain to my emai: stop.spam.today@gmail.com
And I will remove your site from my base within 24 hours
webmastegz
#2
To the Pathetic Loozer in Aisle 1: We're sending Betty Page over. You better run to the store and get some Vaseline before she gets there or you're just end up limping down there later for some Preparation H. And a caulking gun.
All British troops will be out of Iraq by the end of next year, Iraq's national security advisor said Friday, days before Baghdad was expected to vote on a controversial U.S. military pact.
"By the end of next year there will be no British troops in Iraq. By the end of 2009," Muwafaq al-Rubaie said, adding that negotiations between London and Baghdad on the pull-out had begun two weeks ago.
A British defense ministry spokesman in London said in response that Britain has "no timetable" for the withdrawal of its roughly 4,000 troops in Iraq, the vast majority of which are based in the southern Iraqi city of Basra. "We are hopefully making progress, we have made progress in Basra, and we are on course to meet the (British) prime minister's fundamental change of mission in 2009," the spokesman said, reiterating previously-stated plans.
Baghdad has been racing to secure separate agreements with both Britain and the United States to replace the U.N. mandate currently governing the presence of foreign troops in the country, which expires December 31.
Iraq's cabinet was expected to vote on the so-called Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), a wide-ranging U.S. military pact, either Saturday or Sunday. The two sides have been wrangling over the document for months.
Rubaie insisted however that the agreement Iraq sought with the British was simpler and would not take as much time to complete. He added that by the middle of next year there would be a "dramatic" reduction of British troops.
In July British Prime Minister Gordon Brown indicated he wanted to cut the number of Britain's troop in the violence-wracked country but ruled out a timetable for their withdrawal.
But Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told a British daily last month that British troops are no longer necessary for the security of Iraq and should go home. "We thank them for the role they have played, but I think that their stay is not necessary for maintaining security and control," he was quoted as saying in The Times.
Iraq has seen improvements in security over the past year as U.S. and Iraqi forces have allied with local tribal militias to flush insurgents and militias out of vast swaths of the country that were once ungovernable.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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RAIPUR: A non-commissioned officer of the Indian Air Force (IAF) was killed and a Squadron Leader injured when suspected naxalites attacked their helicopter as soon as it took off from Bijapur in South Bastar.
The helicopter was airlifting electronic voting machines and polling staff when it was attacked.
Sergeant Mustafa Ali received a bullet in the head and died on the spot while the pilot, Squadron Leader T.K. Chaudhury also received bullet injuries when the helicopter was fired upon from the rear with light machine guns. A volley of bullets hit the wings and some hit those inside, Director General of Police Vishwaranjan said.
Showing presence of mind, the crew flew the helicopter to Jagdalpur, district headquarters of Bastar. The casualties came to light only after the helicopter landed at Jagdalpur.
Earlier in the day, a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) man was killed after being hit by a sniper bullet at Antagarh in Kanker district. Elsewhere there were 25 encounters between security men and naxalites, all of which were repulsed. Six polling booths were attacked but the security forces beat back the attackers. As many as 21 EVMs were looted, 20 of which were replaced, Mr. Vishwaranjan said.
Heavy security arrangements had been made in the five districts of the Bastar division that has 12 Assembly segments. The naxalites had given a boycott call and even threatened to kill those who participated in the election process.
Despite the threat, the overall polling percentage in the naxalite-affected town remained high with Dantewada and Bijapur reporting close to 40 per cent.
Narayanpur saw 35 per cent voter turnout, Kanker 45 and Bastar 55 per cent. Reports reaching Raipur said there was virtually no polling at Bhopalapatnam on the Chhattisgarh-Andhra Pradesh border, despite deployment of security forces. Fearing retaliation after the personnel retreated, voters preferred to stay indoors.
Posted by: john frum ||
11/15/2008
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#1
In case you don't know what a naxalite is:
[From Wikipedia] Naxalite or Naxalism is an informal name given to communist groups that were born out of the Sino-Soviet split in the Indian communist movement. Ideologically they belong to various trends of Maoism. Initially the movement had its centre in West Bengal. In recent years, they have spread into less developed areas of rural central and eastern India, such as Chattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh through the activities of underground groups like the Communist Party of India (Maoist).[1] The CPI (Maoist) and some other Naxal factions are considered terrorists by the Government of India and various state governments in India.
The election is over, but the Joe the Plumber case is not. Ohio Inspector General Tom Charles said his office is now looking at a half-dozen agencies that accessed state records on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher.
The Beacon Journal has learned that, in addition to the Department of Job and Family Services, two other state offices -- the Ohio Department of Taxation and Ohio Attorney General Nancy Rogers -- conducted database searches of Joe the Plumber.
Wurzelbacher became an instant celebrity after he asked Barack Obama a series of questions in his Toledo driveway about the Democrat's tax policies. In the third debate between Obama and Republican John McCain on Oct. 15, the candidates referred to Joe the Plumber more than 20 times.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/15/2008
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Which basically says we have valid reason to distrust our "public servants". This is not only an abuse of power but a fundamental abuse of trust and exactly why so many average people do not trust the individuals in government positions not to abuse that trust to retaliate against citizens whose opinions differ from theirs.
This is a perfect example of the public's cynicism being validated by the actions of government employees. This can't be swept under the carpet. These people need to be fired and it needs to be very public.
#2
Wurzelbacher became an instant celebrity after he asked Barack Obama a series of questions in his Toledo driveway about the Democrat's tax policies.
I suppose it's too much to expect journalists to get their facts straight; Joe asked Obambi one fucking question. The reporter deserves to be cockpunched. Twice.
#6
I saw a post somewhere which claimed that Joe's tax return showed income of only $40,000. Apparently they accessed that also?
My daughter in Berkeley (who says she's a libertarian but appears to be caught in the force field) claims that Joe "chased Obama down" to ask his questions, oops, question. "He saw Obama and had to go over and butt in."
#7
Clean out their pipes, Joe! Sue 'em all! Sue em' good.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
11/15/2008 11:34
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Hey, who's that over there, trying to hide in the bushes? Why, it's...I do believe...yes! It's the ACLU! Oh,wait. I forgot. Joe's not a commie, nazi, terrorist, guest at Gitmo, illegal alien, pedophile, or any other kind of America-hating scum. Thus, he's fair game. My bad. Never mind...
NICE, France -- France's U.S.-friendly president sent a clear message Friday to the next American administration: Plans for a U.S. missile shield in Eastern Europe are misguided, and won't make the continent a safer place.
Because after all, everyone knows that the Iranians don't have the bomb and aren't working on intermediate range missiles ...
Nicolas Sarkozy also warned Russian President Dmitry Medvedev against upping tensions by deploying missiles on the borders of the European Union in response to the U.S. planned missile defense system.
Quiet or Putin will cut off the gas for your continent ...
Sarkozy's comments, at a summit with Medvedev, were the strongest to date by an American ally against the missile-defense plans -- and undercut the rationale behind U.S. President George W. Bush's European security strategy. "Deployment of a missile defense system would bring nothing to security ... it would complicate things, and would make them move backward," Sarkozy said at a news conference with Medvedev. Medvedev smiled and pointed his finger at Sarkozy in approval.
It's like this, Nick: we're trying to help. We think Iran is a threat, and we think protecting Europe from that threat is a good idea that benefits all of us. But we're not absolutely wedded to the proposition, especially with Bambi about to take office, so if you Y'urp-peons can't be bothered to defend yourselves, we just might walk away and leave you to your fate.
The remarks came at the end of a week in which the United States and Russia rejected each other's proposed solutions to the standoff over the missile plans, making it increasingly likely that it will not be resolved before U.S. President-elect Barack Obama takes office. Obama has not been explicit about his intentions on European missile defense, saying it would be prudent to "explore the possibility" but expressing some skepticism about the technical capability of U.S. missile defenses.
At this point it wouldn't bother me if Bambi packed it in ...
Czech Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for European Affairs Alexandr Vondra said in a statement he "was surprised" about Sarkozy's remarks, made at an EU-Russia summit. "France never consulted with us such a standpoint," he said. "As far as I know a stance on the missile defense was not part of the French presidency mandate for the EU-Russia summit." France currently holds the rotating EU presidency.
Sarkozy said he was worried about Russia's threat to deploy short-range Iskander missiles near Poland in response to the U.S. move. "We could continue between Europe and Russia to threaten each other with shields, with missiles, with navies," he said. "It would do Russia no good, Georgia no good and Europe no good."
He's already set to make a trade, our missiles for the Russian missiles. France, of course, wouldn't give up a thing.
Sarkozy said he would discuss the missile issue with NATO counterparts at a summit early next year and proposed a pan-European security conference after that, to include Russia. Medvedev welcomed the idea.
Course he did. He and Putin have the Euros buffaloed completely. Putin will accomplish what Brezhnev never could do: he'll neuter the Euros and separate them from the U.S.
edvedev stuck to Russia's stance. He suggested that the Russian threat to install missiles in the Baltic Sea region of Kaliningrad -- announced just hours after Obama's election -- was "a response to the behavior of certain European states that agreed to deploy new (missile defenses) on their own territories without consulting anyone."
Friday's summit made a key step toward rapprochement between Russia and the European Union: The EU announced the resumption of partnership talks with Russia that had been put on hold because of the war in Georgia. Critics, including the United States and Georgian governments and human rights groups, say it is too soon to forgive Russia, in effect, when Russian troops remain implanted and unchecked in the two breakaway Georgian provinces at the core of the war.
Sarkozy, temporarily in charge of the 27-nation EU, insisted that the resumption wasn't "a sign of weakness."
They have so many other signs of weakness this one wasn't necessary ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/15/2008
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He's welcome to opt out.
Posted by: ed ||
11/15/2008 0:19
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At least he's taking advantage of perhaps the single, if not sole, french achievement of the past half-century - nuclear powered energy self reliance.
Of all of Europe, he's in the best position to tell the russians where to go.
Note that he only told us we're "misguided" but told the russians "against" something. A non-subtle difference there.
#3
At least he's taking advantage of perhaps the single, if not sole, french achievement of the past half-century - nuclear powered energy self reliance self regard.
#4
They're scared russia is going to cut off their gas.
We can do it and get away with it, France has to make some sympathetic noises for russia, or its going to be a COLD winter in gay ol' Paris.
Posted by: chris ||
11/15/2008 10:30
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#6
Expect more of this. What politician is willing stick his neck out? All rhetoric aside, they knew Bush had their back. But with Bambi in office, they are on their own, and they know it.
Posted by: Minister of funny walks ||
11/15/2008 11:08
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#7
Topple the Mullacracy and the problem goes away. Faster Please.
#8
"All rhetoric aside, they knew Bush had their back. But with Bambi in office, they are on their own, and they know it."
Yep. The French know which way this tree is falling and have no intention standing underneath it.
Sad though. Sarkozy is one of the better European leaders and if he's willing to jump ship this soon in the game I can't wait to see what the rest of Europe will do when The One assumes office.
Aswat al-Iraq: Security forces captured three wanted men and suspects and defused two improvised explosive devices in Mosul city on Friday, a security source from the Ninewa Operations Command (NOC) said.
"An Iraqi force captured a wanted man in al-Thawra neighborhood, western Mosul, while another force from the National Police captured two suspects with a gun in their possession in the area of al-Borsa, also western Mosul," the source told Aswat al-Iraq.
"The police force also seized an unlicensed vehicle in the suspects' possession," the source added.
In Kokgli, eastern Mosul, another force from the Iraqi army defused, the source said, not giving more details.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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(SomaliNet) Russian MPs have passed a bill to extend the president's term in office from four years to six. President Dmitry Medvedev initiated the bill last week on the premise that a four-year term is too short to introduce the reforms needed in a huge country like Russia.
The move is fuelling speculation that Vladimir Putin may return to the presidency in the near future. Russia's constitution forced Mr Putin to stand down as president after two terms in office. He is currently serving as prime minister. Officially, the bill has to pass another two readings in the Duma but, given the majority held by Mr Putin's United Russia party, it is sure to be approved.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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Followed by Putin's 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th terms.
Posted by: ed ||
11/15/2008 0:21
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#2
Perhaps they want an election with a lifetime warranty?
Posted by: James ||
11/15/2008 14:27
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Aswat al-Iraq: Police forces seized a weapons and munitions cache that contained 33 Katyusha rockets and arrested two suspects in western Anbar, a source from the province's police said on Friday.
"The depot, seized at Esaita village of al-Obaidi district, also contained 20 RPG-7 shells and 25 explosive charges," the source told Aswat al-Iraq. "The arrested two suspects are currently under investigative custody," he added.
"The operation was conducted based on intelligence tips," the source said, not giving more details.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Russia has sold 12 MiG-29 fighter jets to Sudan, Sudanese Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Mohammed Hussein said during a visit to Moscow on Friday, Russian news agencies reported.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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#2
Ok, so Russia sells 12 top-of-the-line (for them) jets to Sudan. Who's going to fly them? Who's going to maintain them? Unless it's non-Sudanese, they've just sold Sudan 12 boat-anchors.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
11/15/2008 13:19
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Who's going to fly them? Who's going to maintain them?
Three people including two alleged listed criminals were killed in two separate incidents in the city yesterday.
Mohammadpur police yesterday recovered the bodies of Alam Yamin alias Ablan, 32, and Sirajul Amin alias Linkon, 30, from a field at Dhaka Housing of Mohammadpur around 7:00am. Both of them had bullet marks in their heads.
Just bullet marks? Whew, for a moment I thought they had bullet holes in their heads ...
Nah, just a entrance mark and a exit mark
Police said Ablan, a listed criminal of Kathalbagan area, had records of seven cases on twelve systems including two for murder while Linkon, a criminal of Adabor, had five cases against him.
Family members said a few people introducing themselves as members of Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) called out Ablan from his Adabor residence around 4:00pm on Thursday. "Ablan! Come out and plaaaay!"
Linkon had also been missing since that morning, his family said.
Maybe he'd been out on a bender ...
The two could have been killed over previous enmity, police said but refused to elaborate. The bodies were sent to the Dhaka Medical College for autopsy. "Doctor Quincy, delivery for you."
Meanwhile, police yesterday morning recovered the body of Parul Bala Das, 55, from a sack at Kajla in Jatrabari. Son of the deceased, Indrajit Das, told reporters that she had been missing since 3:00pm Wednesday after she set out for Shiddhirganj, Narayanganj to collect a debt-payment of Tk 3,000 from Khorsheda Begum, their former neighbour.
Indrajit had filed a general diary about his missing mother. Jatrabari police yesterday filed a murder case and arrested Khorsheda. But she refused her involvement with the incident. An autopsy of the body at Sir Salimullah Medical College Morgue found several marks of injury.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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From the times given i think we can rule out a gunu ine RAB Crossfire, but a cheap copycat imitation. The RABBies were all snug in the upazlias dreaming of stutter guns and round of bullet dancing in the micreant's head....
Nov. 14 (Bloomberg) -- OPEC, supplier of more than 40 percent of the world's oil, will probably announce plans to lower supply for the third time in as many months to prevent prices plunging toward $50 a barrel, a Bloomberg survey showed. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will cut output at a meeting in Cairo on Nov. 29, according to 17 of 18 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Fourteen of the analysts predict the reduction will be 1 million barrels a day or more.
``Given the rapid deterioration in the flow of economic data, and implications for further oil demand weakness, OPEC might have to cut by at least an extra 1 million barrels in order to catch the market's attention,'' said Harry Tchilinguirian, senior oil analyst at BNP Paribas SA in London.
The Cairo summit, originally intended for only the group's Arab members, was upgraded to a full OPEC meeting yesterday as oil prices dropped to a 21-month low. Oil futures in New York fell to $54.67 a barrel yesterday, the lowest since Jan. 30, 2007, and more than $90 below the record of $147.27 touched on July 11. Crude for December delivery traded at $56.44 as of 12:02 p.m. local time today.
Ministers from Algeria and Iran have said that production may have to be cut. The group announced a reduction of 1.5 million barrels a day on Oct. 24, on top of an earlier resolution in September to pare excess supplies by observing official output quotas. ``In order to strengthen prices, OPEC is very likely to recommend another production cut as the two previous ones had no effect,'' Iran's OPEC governor Mohammad Ali Khatibi told the Mehr News agency in Tehran today. ``The market is in turmoil.''
``Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Kuwait might be happy with lower prices to help the global economy but will probably go along with an agreement for the sake of OPEC unity,'' said Peter Beutel, president of energy consultant Cameron Hanover Inc. in New Canaan, Connecticut. ``I expect there will be another production cut announced in Cairo unless we have a massive rally before then,'' Beutel said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/15/2008
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#1
And Brazil will be adding a billion barrels by 2015. Production to start within two years. Oh, and Brazil isn't an OPEC member.
#3
In other words, they can't make a killing so why even try?
What ever happened to businesses that make a reasonable profit margin? Land based oil costs around $5 a bbl. to get on a tanker, offshore oil surely must cost more, but even if it were $20 bbl. to get on the ship, $30 a bbl. is a hell of a margin, 150% ?
Suspected US drones fired four guided missiles early on Friday at a house in a North Waziristan village, killing 12 people and wounding three others. We had this yesterday. Brought forward for any deail on who the guest of honor was.
The drone attack occurred at 1:45am in Aula Din Garaj Khel village, 50 kilometres southeast of Miranshah. The targeted house, belonging to a local tribesman Ameer Gul, was completely destroyed in the missile attack.
Three of the dead were identified as relatives of Ameer Gul while nine others could not be identified due to their bodies being deformed beyond recognition.
Three intelligence officials told AP that at least two missiles hit a house in Ghari Wam, a village about 18 miles from the Afghan border. Three of the dead were identified as relatives of Ameer Gul while nine others could not be identified due to their bodies being deformed beyond recognition. The injured were immediately shifted to nearby hospitals. One of the injured was critical. At least two of the injured were out of danger.
Foreign fighters: AP reported the 12 people killed included several foreign fighters. Taliban gunmen had cordoned the area and removed the bodies, one official said.
Another official put the toll at 13 and said 10 of them were foreigners. According to an estimate,
Friday's missile attack is the 38th in the Pakistan People's Party government's short span while a total of 36 such attacks took place during the tenure of the former regime under General (r) Pervez Musharraf.
Friday's missile attack is the 38th in the Pakistan People's Party government's short span while a total of 36 such attacks took place during the tenure of the former regime under General (r) Pervez Musharraf.
Top military officials demand halt to cross-border raids
Pakistani military authorities on Friday termed cross-border strikes in the Tribal Areas counterproductive and demanded their immediate halt, a private TV channel reported. The demand was made during a meeting between senior military officials and visiting ISAF commander Gen David McKiernan in Islamabad. The officials informed McKiernan that the attacks were undermining the war on terror.
The ISAF commander, however, reportedly expressed his inability to stop the raids, adding that the matter was political.
The ISAF commander, however, reportedly expressed his inability to stop the raids, adding that the matter was political and any decision in that regard rested with the next US administration.
'US drone attacks not helping win hearts and minds'
US strikes inside Pakistan are undermining efforts to win the hearts and minds of people, said President Asif Ali Zardari on Friday. "It's undermining my (nation's) sovereignty and it's not helping win the war (on terror) or the hearts and minds of people," Zardari told CBS News in an exclusive interview.
It does, however, reduce the number of hearts and minds that are dead set against us ...
He said the attacks were being carried out without his knowledge. He said the new US administration must let Pakistan deal with the Taliban on its own, as "we want to do more ... it's our own war". Pakistan would not allow the use of the Tribal Areas for an attack on the US, he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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#1
US strikes inside Pakistan are undermining efforts to win the hearts and minds of people, said President Asif Ali Zardari on Friday.
Hey mr 10% - we don't care about hearts and minds. We intend to put a lot of bad guys in the ground, either whole or in pieces. Quit harboring (and supporting) bad guys and we won't have reason to "violate Pakistan's sovereignty".
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
11/15/2008 12:31
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Does the IDF or the ministry of defense also have gummit civilian Senior Executive Service (SES) feather merchants similar to our own? This might explain (not justify) the upward trend.
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) chief Nawaz Sharif has said he does not recognise the current judiciary and will not appear before the Supreme Court on November 20 for proceedings in his disqualification case. In most countries it doesn't matter whether you recognize the current judiciary or not. What matters is whether the sheriffs they send to enforce the warrant have truncheons or worse.
In an interview with a private TV channel on Friday, Sharif said parliament should decide on seeking financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), adding consulting parliament would reduce the burden of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) government. He said it would be better for Pakistan not to seek IMF's assistance, as its past experiences with the fund had not been encouraging. The economy's tanked, the country's credit rating is subjunk. Uncle Fester is a genius.
Sharif said the government should not privatise Qadirpur Gas Field without having evaluated its deposits. He said 99 percent of the country's problems would be resolved if the sacked judges were reinstated, as they would bury the doctrine of necessity for good. He said the struggle of the legal fraternity and his party would continue until the sacked chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was restored. He said it would be appropriate for the PPP to quit the Punjab government, but declined to comment when asked if the PPP ministers would be included in the Punjab cabinet when it was expanded. He said the committee for the implementation of the joint parliamentary resolution on national security should be activated as early as possible so that it could engage the stakeholder in Tribal Areas and elsewhere to improve the security situation. Dialogue is the best option to solve the matters, he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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Aswat al-Iraq: A joint Iraqi-U.S. force on Friday detained a suspect and defused an improvised explosive device in the capital Baghdad, the Multi-National Force (MNF) said.
"The arrested man is suspected of having transported weapons for gunmen in al-Dora neighborhood, southern Baghdad," according to an MNF statement received by Aswat al-Iraq.
"A U.S. infantry corps force defused an IED emplaced on the main road in al-Dora," the statement added.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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(SomaliNet) Police in Canada have arrested a suspect in a bomb attack that killed four people at a Paris synagogue back in October 1980. The Canadian police were acting on a request by the French authorities. The suspect is a 54-year-old Canadian of Lebanese origin who works as professor of sociology at the University of Ottawa.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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The suspect is a 54-year-old Canadian of Lebanese origin who works as professor of sociology
No! Reeeeally? I thought they used it to make soup?
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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#1
Just to give a dimension to the problem, the Russians supposedly left 25 MILLION mines in place when they pulled out. Add the countless numbers of mortar rounds, artillery rounds, and other explosives scattered around throughout the country, and it's easy to understand how the volunteer mine-clearers may have missed a few.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
11/15/2008 12:38
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And don't forget the mines in the form of children's toys or dolls left by the Soviets.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/15/2008 14:18
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Malaysia's police, who have recently cracked down on dissident bloggers and broken up anti-government demonstrations, say that protests over an edict against Muslim women wearing trousers pose a security threat. Mainly Muslim Malaysia's National Fatwa Council recently issued a religious ruling that wearing trousers was un-Islamic. It said that, by wearing trousers, young girls risked becoming "tomboys" who became sexually active.
That move triggered small protests later from two non-Muslim non-government organizations -- Katagender and Food-not-Bombs.
"I'm warning them and will take stern action as it involves national security," Inspector-General of Police Musa Hassan told reporters on Thursday, according to the state-run Bernama news agency.
Malaysia frowns on oral and gay sex, describing them as against the order of nature. Under civil law, offenders -- male and female -- can be jailed for up to 20 years, caned or fined.
As well as women in trousers, the Fatwa Council is considering barring Muslims from practicing yoga if it includes any Hindu "religious elements" during the exercise.
Islam is the official religion of Malaysia, where more than 60 percent of the population of 27 million are Muslim Malays.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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I don't believe you become sexually active by wearing trousers. I believe you become sexually active by taking them off.
Internecine struggle between fighters belonging to the Somali opposition group the Union of Islamic Courts leaves a top UIC official dead.
The officer, named Sheikh Abdul Salam, was killed by the oppositionists supporting UIC's Djibouti-based members who had engaged with those in favor of the group's offshoot in Asmara, Eritrea, a Press TV correspondent in Somalia reported. The incident also Abdul Salam's bodyguard dead. The attackers were reportedly on the move to capture the southern town of Jowhar where the confrontation took place.
Senior opposition figure, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed recently clinched a deal in Djibouti with the country's leadership towards the goal of curbing the hostilities.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2008
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Top|| File under: Islamic Courts
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.
Muslim scholars in Morocco have raised objections to an international fair for wine producers in the city of Casablanca. The fair, hosted by the Elbertec group, began Thursday with more than 40 wineries from around the world participating, al-Arabiya reported Friday.
Police officers with convictions for gun crimes, benefit fraud and violent attacks are still serving, it emerged last night.
All British troops will be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of next year, the country's national security adviser claimed yesterday. Muwafaq al-Rubaie revealed negotiations on a pull-out between London and Baghdad began two weeks ago. 
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A Japanese journalist was shot Friday in the frontier city of Peshawar — the third attack on a foreigner there in three days, and missiles apparently fired by U.S. unmanned aircraft near the Afghan border killed at least 12 people, including several foreign militants, Pakistani officials said. 
GAZA (Rooters) - An explosion in the northern Gaza Strip killed a Paleostinian militant and critically wounded another, medical workers said on Saturday.
At least seven people were killed and more than two dozen wounded on Saturday when a car bomb exploded near an auto dealership in the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar, Iraqi police said. However, a US military spokesman said in a statement that 10 people were killed and another 20 wounded in the bombing, which he said took place near a car market and targeted civilians. 
A U.S. military helicopter had a hard landing in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Saturday after hitting overhead cables, a military spokesman said.
A radical Islamic group seized another Somali port town Saturday, consolidating its control over a southwestern region that borders the Somali capital. 
KHARTOUM (Rooters) - Darfur rebels accused Sudan government forces on Saturday of bombing their territory, just days after the president announced a ceasefire in the region. But Sudan's armed forces denied the reports, saying they were sticking to the ceasefire. They said they had made no maneuvers in the area.
Prehistory keeps getting pushed back!
Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Friday renewed threats to resume attacks on US forces if they don't leave Iraq, deepening the unease over a proposed US-Iraqi security agreement that would allow American troops to stay for three more years. 
(SomaliNet) Great Britain's Prince Charles turns 60 today and has been spending his birthday with young people who have been helped by his charity, the Prince's Trust.
Nations are close to adopting a series of measures aimed at combating a global recession and laying the groundwork for a broad reconstruction of the international financial system, as world leaders arrive in Washington for a major economic summit this weekend.
Six Taliban were killed and several injured in shelling by helicopter gunships and artillery firing as security forces geared up for an operation the villages in Charsadda district and Mohmand Agency, officials said Friday. 
(SomaliNet) Russia's Transport Ministry said Pirates armed with grenade launchers and automatic weapons attacked a Russian-operated freighter off the coast of Somalia on Thursday, but it escaped the attempted hijacking. 
Intense speculation flared Friday over reports that president-elect Barack Obama is weighing whether to name former Democratic primary rival Hillary Clinton as a heavy-hitting secretary of state. 
(SomaliNet) Rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have advanced to the outskirts of Kanyabanyonga. The city lies at the intersection of several important roads in the eastern province of North Kivu and is of considerable strategic importance. The rebels say they encountered almost no resistance from government troops during their advance. 
Derogatory remarks toward President-elect Barack Obama made on a social networking Web site are now the subject of an internal police investigation. A police department employee claims the statements were made on the MySpace pages of two Durham officers. "There's no exact words that were said," said Police Chief Jose L. Lopez Sr. in a telephone interview Wednesday from San Diego, where he is attending the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference. "It wasn't a racial slur, but we're still investigating it."
(SomaliNet) India has proposed a UN peace-keeping force under "a unified command'' to prevent the ever-mounting pirate attacks off Somalia, two days after the Indian Navy repulsed pirate attacks on a Saudi and an Indian merchant vessel in the Gulf of Aden. 
The economy of the 15-nation euro zone shrank over the past three months and is now considered to be in recession, the first such prolonged contraction since the adoption of the euro as a common currency a decade ago. 
Islamist rebels moved Friday into a small town on the outskirts of Somalia's capital near a checkpoint manned by Ethiopian troops, sparking fears among residents of renewed fighting.
Countries attending a UN inter-faith conference on Thursday rejected the use of religion to justify acts of terrorism, the killing of innocent civilians, violence and coercion. 
Three Afghan construction workers were gunned down by militants while a suicide attack wounded three policemen Friday in new insurgency-linked violence, officials said on Friday. The three men were shot dead by attackers in a passing vehicle in the eastern province of Khost as they had left their lodgings and headed to work, Ismail Khail district governor Dawlat Khan Qayomi told AFP.
The Standard & Poor's (S&P) cut its sovereign ratings on Pakistan further into 'junk' territory on Friday, highlighting the country's difficulty in raising the money it needs to avoid defaulting on debt obligations. 
Pakistan has asked the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a $9 billion bailout along with help from other lenders to avert a balance of payments crisis, a Finance Ministry official said on Friday.
NICE, France -- France's U.S.-friendly president sent a clear message Friday to the next American administration: Plans for a U.S. missile shield in Eastern Europe are misguided, and won't make the continent a safer place.
(SomaliNet) Russian MPs have passed a bill to extend the president's term in office from four years to six. President Dmitry Medvedev initiated the bill last week on the premise that a four-year term is too short to introduce the reforms needed in a huge country like Russia. 
Nov. 14 (Bloomberg) -- OPEC, supplier of more than 40 percent of the world's oil, will probably announce plans to lower supply for the third time in as many months to prevent prices plunging toward $50 a barrel, a Bloomberg survey showed. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will cut output at a meeting in Cairo on Nov. 29, according to 17 of 18 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Fourteen of the analysts predict the reduction will be 1 million barrels a day or more.
Suspected US drones fired four guided missiles early on Friday at a house in a North Waziristan village, killing 12 people and wounding three others. 
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) chief Nawaz Sharif has said he does not recognise the current judiciary and will not appear before the Supreme Court on November 20 for proceedings in his disqualification case. 
(SomaliNet) Police in Canada have arrested a suspect in a bomb attack that killed four people at a Paris synagogue back in October 1980. The Canadian police were acting on a request by the French authorities. The suspect is a 54-year-old Canadian of Lebanese origin who works as professor of sociology at the University of Ottawa.
Internecine struggle between fighters belonging to the Somali opposition group the Union of Islamic Courts leaves a top UIC official dead. 
