Surrounded by barbwire fencing, the anonymous yet massive building on West Military Drive near San Antonios Loop 410 freeway looms mysteriously with no identifying signs of any kind. Surveillance is tight, with security cameras surrounding the under-construction building. Readers are advised not to take any photos unless you care to be detained for at least a 45-minute interrogation by the National Security Agency, as this reporter was...
Americas top spy agency has taken over the former Sony microchip plant and is transforming it into a new data-mining headquarters oddly positioned directly across the street from a 24-hour Walmart where billions of electronic communications will be sifted in the agencys mission to identify terrorist threats.
No longer able to store all the intercepted phone calls and e-mail in its secret city, the agency has now built a new data warehouse in San Antonio, Texas, writes author James Bamford in the Shadow Factory, his third book about the NSA. Costing, with renovations, upwards of $130 million, the 470,000-square-foot facility will be almost the size of the Alamodome. Considering how much data can now be squeezed onto a small flash drive, the new NSA building may eventually be able to hold all the information in the world.
So just what will be going on inside the NSAs new San Antonio facility? Bamford describes former NSA Director Mike Haydens goals for the data-mining center as knowing exactly what Americans were doing day by day, hour by hour, and second by second. He wanted to know where they shopped, what they bought, what movies they saw, what books they read, the toll booths they went through, the plane tickets they purchased, the hotels they stayed in In other words, Total Information Awareness, the same Orwellian concept that John Poindexter had tried to develop while working for the Pentagons [Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency].
Excuse me, but Bamford is FULL OF SHIT on this point.
He is not privy to certain NSA and other directives that specifically forbid activities involving US Persons, which means non-Americans as well as Americans.
#6
ooooooh! Walmart!!!1!! even got worked into this nonsense
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/06/2008 18:14
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"Bamford describes former NSA Director Mike Hayden's goals for the data-mining center as knowing "exactly what Americans were doing day by day, hour by hour, and second by second."
That is the job of the FBI. NSA handles stuff outside of the US. It is actually against the law to intercept communications of anyone legally inside the US without a court (FISA) order.
WASHINGTON: Pakistan has agreed to a 48-hour timetable set by India and the US to formulate a plan to act against Lashker-e-Taiba (LeT) and to arrest at least three Pakistanis who Indian authorities say are linked to the Mumbai terrorist assaults, the Washington Post reported citing a high-ranking Pakistani official.
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of diplomatic sensitivities, said India had also asked Pakistan to arrest and hand over LeT commander Zaki ur-Rehman Lakhwi and the former director of Pakistan's spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Hamid Gul, in connection with the investigation, the Post said on Saturday.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, who has expressed his country's solidarity with India, is expected to review plans by his nation's top military and intelligence officials and follow through on India's demands, the official was quoted as saying.
"The next 48 hours are critical," the Pakistani official added.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the daily said, had urged Pakistan to hand over Yusuf Muzammil, an LeT leader whom Indian and US investigators have identified as the mastermind behind the attacks, and other suspects.
The Post cited an unnamed high-level source in the Indian government as saying India had "clear and incontrovertible proof" that the Pakistan-based LeT planned the attacks and that the group's leaders were trained and supported by ISI.
"We have the names of the handlers. And we know that there is a close relationship between the Lashker and the ISI," the source told the Post.
US intelligence officials, however, were more cautious in their interpretation of the evidence, the US daily said.
Although US analysts acknowledged historical ties between Lashkar and ISI as well as more recent contacts between militants and Pakistani intelligence officers, they said they were not convinced that Pakistan supported the attacks in any significant way.
"Even if there were contacts between ISI and LeT, it's not the same as saying there was ISI support," it quoted an unnamed US counter-terrorism official as saying.
The official, the Post said, would not dismiss the possibility that further evidence would reveal active ISI involvement but said: "The evidence we've seen so far does not get you there."
Indian officials have said the sole surviving gunman in the attacks, who goes by the alias Muhammad Ajmal Kasav, 21, mentioned Lakhwi during police questioning. Police had earlier identified the gunman as Ajmal Amir Kasab.
The Wall Street Journal said Western intelligence officials have been quietly mediating between India and Pakistan. The CIA "is playing a huge role in this and trying to work behind the scenes and get past the emotion", it said citing a former senior intelligence official.
Referring to ISI, the official said, "The ISI and the Pakistani military do not ever want to kowtow to the Indians." Still, the official said, "They're working on some sort of scenario" where people Indian authorities are seeking would be detained and questioned.
Another Western official cited by the Journal said Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari would like to use the attacks as "an opportunity to get rid of some bad apples".
However, the official said, it would be difficult for him to marshal support from the ISI or military for rounding up any alleged culprits.
US and other Western officials have backed India's account of the roots of the Mumbai attacks, to a point. "When it comes to the connections with Lashker, that's absolutely true," a counter-terrorism official was quoted as saying. But Kasab's statements will take time to verify, he added.
Indian police have a sample of Kasab's DNA that they plan to provide to the FBI, which would check whether he is from the family he claims as his own in Faridkot village, the Journal said. The bureau would need to compare it with the DNA of any family member.
The New York Times also cited a senior American counter-terrorism official as saying it was highly likely that local accomplices were involved.
"They couldn't have gotten to the places they did without local help," the unnamed official cited by the Times said. "They just moved too quickly. They had to have had more assistance on the ground."
Posted by: john frum ||
12/06/2008
13:20 ||
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The next 40 hours are *really* critical now that everyone knows that it is coming. DUMB! It is like telling Osama "we are coming to get you in 48 hours ... now go hide!".
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/06/2008 17:55
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At this point I would say that the world would be a better place without Pakistan in it. Pakistan had better do something serious and effective in a very short period of time. The patience of the world community is wearing thin.
One of the saddest parts in Baracks Dreams from my Father is where he says he will never see Mark again because Marks views on race and rootedness to Africa are so anathema and upsetting to Barack. Mark loves Western civilization whereas Barack was taught by his mother to despise it.
Oil markets should brace for a surprise decision on output cuts when OPEC meets Dec. 17, the cartel's president said Saturday, suggesting that reductions could be deeper than expected.
"A consensus has formed for a significant reduction of production levels" by the 14-member Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC President Chakib Khelil told The Associated Press.
The OPEC head would not discuss how deep the output cut would be, but said it could be "severe," and noted that some analysts are predicting cuts of as much as 2 million barrels per day.
An output decision that startles markets would help bolster plunging oil rates, Khelil said. "The best way is to surprise them," he said. "I hope it (the decision) will," ...
Posted by: ed ||
12/06/2008
10:56 ||
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If the Obamessiah's going to throw a few trillion down the drainpipe to "revive the economy", I hope at least some of it's going into efforts to break OPEC's spine once and for all. The Mideast oil ticks - and the terrorists they bankroll - will still be a problem going forward because of the mountains of cash they already have salted away in Geneva, but at least we won't keep adding to the problem...
#5
The Big O could be a bloody hero by getting the country on a path to REAL energy independence. But he is beholden to too many moneyed backers who are calling the tune. It is obvious that GWB did not touch the saudis, and I would imagine that there is a saudi influence with the Big O, also. Look at Jimmuh and Willie, where do they get their money? We are well and truly f*cked until we break loose from the Opeckers.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/06/2008 17:11
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Please add the NYC Amish China lobby to Opeckers.
Shortly after the London Tube bombings in 2005, a reader of Tim Blair, The Sydney Daily Telegraph's columnist wag, sent him a note-perfect parody of a typical newspaper headline:
"British Muslims Fear Repercussions Over Tomorrow's Train Bombing."
Indeed. And so it goes. This time round Mumbai it was the Associated Press that filed a story about how Muslims "found themselves on the defensive once again about bloodshed linked to their religion".
Oh, I don't know about that. In fact, you'd be hard pressed from most news reports to figure out the bloodshed was "linked" to any religion, least of all one beginning with "I-" and ending in "-slam." In the three years since those British bombings, the media have more or less entirely abandoned the offending formulations "Islamic terrorists," "Muslim extremists" and by the time of the assault on Mumbai found it easier just to call the alleged perpetrators "militants" or "gunmen" or "teenage gunmen," as in the opening line of this report in The Australian: "An Adelaide woman in India for her wedding is lucky to be alive after teenage gunmen ran amok."
Kids today, eh? Always running amok in an aimless fashion.
The veteran British TV anchor Jon Snow, on the other hand, opted for the more cryptic locution "practitioners." "Practitioners" of what, exactly?
Hard to say. And getting harder. For the Wall Street Journal, Tom Gross produced a jaw-dropping round-up of Mumbai media coverage: The discovery that, for the first time in an Indian terrorist atrocity, Jews had been attacked, tortured and killed produced from the New York Times a serene befuddlement: "It is not known if the Jewish center was strategically chosen, or if it was an accidental hostage scene."
Hmm. Greater Mumbai forms one of the world's five biggest cities. It has a population of nearly 20 million. But only one Jewish center, located in a building that gives no external clue as to the bounty waiting therein. An "accidental hostage scene" that one of the "practitioners" just happened to stumble upon? "I must be the luckiest jihadist in town. What are the odds?"
Meanwhile, the New Age guru Deepak Chopra laid all the blame on American foreign policy for "going after the wrong people" and inflaming moderates, and "that inflammation then gets organized and appears as this disaster" in Mumbai.
Really? The inflammation just "appears"? Like a bad pimple? The "fairer" we get to the, ah, inflamed militant practitioners, the unfairer we get to everyone else. At the Chabad House, the murdered Jews were described in almost all the Western media as "ultra-Orthodox," "ultra-" in this instance being less a term of theological precision than a generalized code for "strange, weird people, nothing against them personally, but they probably shouldn't have been over there in the first place."
Are they stranger or weirder than their killers? Two "inflamed moderates" entered the Chabad House, shouted "Allahu Akbar!," tortured the Jews and murdered them, including the young rabbi's pregnant wife. Their 2-year-old child escaped because of a quick-witted (non-Jewish) nanny who hid in a closet and then, risking being mowed down by machine-gun fire, ran with him to safety.
The Times was being silly in suggesting this was just an "accidental" hostage opportunity and not just because, when Muslim terrorists capture Jews, it's not a hostage situation, it's a mass murder-in-waiting. The sole surviving "militant" revealed that the Jewish center had been targeted a year in advance. The 28-year-old rabbi was Gavriel Holtzberg. His pregnant wife was Rivka Holtzberg. Their orphaned son is Moshe Holtzberg, and his brave nanny is Sandra Samuels. Remember their names, not because they're any more important than the Indians, Britons and Americans targeted in the attack, but because they are an especially revealing glimpse into the pathologies of the perpetrators.
In a well-planned attack on iconic Mumbai landmarks symbolizing great power and wealth, the "militants" nevertheless found time to divert 20 percent of their manpower to torturing and killing a handful of obscure Jews helping the city's poor in a nondescript building. If they were just "teenage gunmen" or "militants" in the cause of Kashmir, engaged in a more or less conventional territorial dispute with India, why kill the only rabbi in Mumbai? Dennis Prager got to the absurdity of it when he invited his readers to imagine Basque separatists attacking Madrid: "Would the terrorists take time out to murder all those in the Madrid Chabad House? The idea is ludicrous."
And yet we take it for granted that Pakistani "militants" in a long-running border dispute with India would take time out of their hectic schedule to kill Jews. In going to ever more baroque lengths to avoid saying "Islamic" or "Muslim" or "terrorist," we have somehow managed to internalize the pathologies of these men.
We are enjoined to be "understanding," and we're doing our best. A Minnesotan suicide bomber (now there's a phrase) originally from Somalia returned to the old country and blew up himself and 29 other people last October. His family prevailed upon your government to have his parts (or as many of them as could be sifted from the debris) returned to the United States at taxpayer expense and buried in Burnsville Cemetery. Well, hey, in the current climate, what's the big deal about a federal bailout of jihad operational expenses? If that's not "too big to fail," what is?
Last week, a Canadian critic reprimanded me for failing to understand that Muslims feel "vulnerable." Au contraire, they project tremendous cultural confidence, as well they might: They're the world's fastest-growing population. A prominent British Muslim announced the other day that, when the United Kingdom becomes a Muslim state, non-Muslims will be required to wear insignia identifying them as infidels. If he's feeling "vulnerable," he's doing a terrific job of covering it up.
We are told that the "vast majority" of the 1.6 billion to 1.8 billion Muslims (in Deepak Chopra's estimate) are "moderate." Maybe so, but they're also quiet. And, as the AIDS activists used to say, "Silence=Acceptance." It equals acceptance of the things done in the name of their faith. Rabbi Holtzberg was not murdered because of a territorial dispute over Kashmir or because of Bush's foreign policy. He was murdered in the name of Islam "Allahu Akbar."
I wrote in my book, "America Alone," that "reforming" Islam is something only Muslims can do. But they show very little sign of being interested in doing it, and the rest of us are inclined to accept that. Spread a rumor that a Quran got flushed down the can at Gitmo, and there'll be rioting throughout the Muslim world. Publish some dull cartoons in a minor Danish newspaper, and there'll be protests around the planet. But slaughter the young pregnant wife of a rabbi in Mumbai in the name of Allah, and that's just business as usual. And, if it is somehow "understandable" that for the first time in history it's no longer safe for a Jew to live in India, then we are greasing the skids for a very slippery slope. Muslims, the AP headline informs us, "worry about image." Not enough.
Mulsims, time to stand up and declare which side you TRULY are on. Are you opposing terrorism in the name of you god, or are you the sea in which the filth swims?
If its the latter, then its time for your religion to be erased, for it is no longer a religion worthy of the moniker, but a mere ideology of hate and terror, like Nazism, and deserving of the same fate.
Posted by: ed ||
12/06/2008
10:42 ||
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Posted by: Grolush Darling of the Hatfields3195 ||
12/06/2008 17:31
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One of them arrested is an Indian undercover agent infiltrating Kashmiri groups and some security agency wants him back, but I guess not after the locals have their fun.
Posted by: Grolush Darling of the Hatfields3195 ||
12/06/2008 17:35
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Posted by: ed ||
12/06/2008
10:30 ||
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Makes sense only if they photographed, for future reference, everyone at the funeral ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/06/2008 11:15
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“Honestly I look at him seriously as a victim and not as a criminal, I think of him as a young victim," says Jamal....
Words fail....
Posted by: john frum ||
12/06/2008 11:31
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Certainly the Department of Homeland Security, the TSA, knows if these
men left the country and will be able to stop them when they return.
But, I worry about something else, what if they never left? Well as long as they don't have a joint of marijuana on them, they probably won't appear on the radar.
#5
Well, ed, what can I say? Unbelievable. Except it IS a baby step up. They bring the guy home dead. That is some kind of progress. Maybe precident-setting. If you are an Islamic-type jiihadi chap, you can come back to the US if you are dead. I will sent my suggestion to the INS, FBI,CIA,DOA, SOL.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/06/2008 16:49
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Wow it must have been difficult to bury him with all the muslims protesting...
#8
He is also a Minnesotan No real suprise here! Dumba$$ Al Fankin might want to say a few words on this one....
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
12/06/2008 22:40
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well after the bailouts this is another kick in the balls for us taxpayers since we are paying for this too.
I'm pretty sure neither he or his family have made any campaign contributions, so how come they are getting a bailout?
Sources tell WCCO the group suspected of recruiting the young Twin Cities men is know as al-Itihadd al-Islamiya, or AIAI, an organization with known ties to Al-Qaeda.
Ah! so they must have made the campaign contributions, makes sense now.
Whoever planned the Mumbai massacre - and it was planned, funded and executed by some group in Pakistan - the murders of at least 188 people and paralysis of India's largest city were intended to change geopolitics.
Topping the shortlist of suspects are al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the Pakistan Government and intelligence and security services, or rogue elements within those services working with Islamist extremists. But what would anyone in Pakistan stand to gain from a terrorist plot so easily traced to that country? And why has Pakistani culpability met with such a muted response from India and the West?
Pakistan is one of those countries - Israel another - for which a benign foreign policy environment is seen as essential to national survival. The stunted offspring of the Partition of the British Raj, Pakistan is doomed to live in India's shadow.
During the Cold War - in which Pakistan sided unreservedly with the United States, while India played footsie with the Soviets - Islamabad's existential fear of its neighbour was balanced by the confidence that only a friendly White House can give. But since the red menace evaporated and the West became a target of South Asia-based terrorists, Pakistan is less secure. The West's embrace of India as an economic and strategic balance to China has exacerbated Pakistan's insecurity.
The American alliance provided Pakistan with some immunity against India. Islamabad's politically-dominant army and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) used or worked closely with a variety of extremists bent on fuelling secessionist violence in parts of India, including Punjab and Kashmir. America even turned a blind eye to Pakistan's covert nuclear program from the 1970s until the early 1990s, when America's victory in Afghanistan led powerful figures in Washington to believe they did not need Pakistan any more, and economic and military aid was cut off.
Fast forward to September 2001 when al-Qaeda and the Taliban attacked the US. Having backed the Taliban in Afghanistan and worked hand in glove with armed Islamists in the 1999 Kargil invasion of Indian-controlled Kashmir, Pakistan was caught hand in cookie jar. Only when General Pervez Musharraf agreed to join the so-called War On Terror did America forgive its sins.
But controllers of Pakistan's security services always regarded that as a mere tactical retreat. Since the time of an earlier military ruler, the late General Zia ul-Haq, the country's ruling elite retained a barely concealed contempt for an American superpower that spent hundreds of billions of dollars buying their friendship. They were confident the West would eventually see the wisdom of subcontracting to Pakistan the messy business of South Asia security. The lavish and misplaced lauding of Musharraf as a hero in the War on Terror illustrated the tendency. But this year, Pakistan's confidence in its ability to set the terms of engagement was badly shaken. American strikes went ahead on al-Qaeda and Taliban forces based in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas despite Islamabad's vociferous protests. Meanwhile, India revived its diplomatic influence in an Afghanistan long regarded by Islamabad as an unofficial province of Pakistan. Adding to hardline alarm has been the vocal adventurism of Pakistan's new president - Asif Ali Zadari, widower of former leader Benazir Bhutto.
He recently pledged to shake up the ISI and uttered the ultimate apostasy by declaring Pakistan had nothing to fear from India and should have warm relations with New Delhi.
The Mumbai attack was designed to wreck rapprochement with India and replace it with military crisis. The same strategy underpinned the December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament - an attempt to murder the entire Indian government.
The key suspects for Mumbai all want the US to halt military strikes on Pakistani soil. They want to undermine Western resolve to stay in Afghanistan, thereby facilitating Pakistani suzerainty there. The strike on Mumbai was meticulously planned and expensive, with the foot soldiers getting the sort of specialist training usually restricted to commandos. Above all, it was exquisitely timed to tame two new presidents.
Pakistan's Zardari will find it difficult to pursue his peace and domestic reform agenda in the face of rising tensions with India. And Barack Obama finds his country plunged into another looming crisis in South Asia, one tailor-made to circumscribe his options so that his policy ultimately serves a Pakistan wedded to a chaotic and bloody status quo.
No sooner had India blamed Pakistan than Pakistan threatened to shift to the Indian border military forces fighting the Taliban and al-Qaeda - a threat guaranteed to send shivers down the Washington spine.
Panic, of course, is the wrong reaction, as is naivety. Nothing moves in Pakistan without ISI knowledge. The Mumbai massacre could not have been set in train in Pakistan without assistance of the security and intelligence establishment, past or present.
It has taken Pakistan decades to become the sovereign equivalent of a suicide bomber: "Do what we say or we'll blow ourselves up - and take everyone else with us!" Who would call the bluff? Nobody wants to see self-immolation of a country of 170 million people with nuclear weapons.
As always, India will be expected to swallow pain and turn a blind eye to the escape of the back room perpetrators. The more strident New Delhi's reaction, the more it suits the planners of this outrage. But the bitter pill of restraint will be made more palatable for India if it results in closer diplomatic, military and intelligence co-operation aimed at containing the Pakistan problem.
Events like Mumbai are rarely the work of wounded idealists. They are cynical acts of mass murder designed to achieve specific political outcomes. There is method in this madness, but also desperation.
Pakistani extremists - in and out of uniform - want to scare us out of the region and hold hostage to Pakistan indulgence our improving relations with India.
By staying the course, by building a stronger, better targeted international military presence in Afghanistan, by deepening our economic and security ties with India, and by working patiently and methodically to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism in South Asia, we deny the massacre architects their most heartfelt desire, and best serve the security of millions of decent people everywhere, including our own.
Christopher Kremmer, author of four books on modern Asia, is a scholar with the Writing and Society Research Group at the University of Western Sydney.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/06/2008
08:58 ||
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The Americans and Canadians share an overlapping and common cultural history. After the last spat in 1812-1814, we've maintained a civility that usually doesn't include our governments engaging in overt or covert acts to spill the other's blood other than on the hockey rink.
#2
<em>Nothing moves in Pakistan without ISI knowledge. The Mumbai massacre could not have been set in train in Pakistan without assistance of the security and intelligence establishment, past or present.</em>
We need to get more peopel involved in A-stan, and get India fully allied.
And we need to issue hunting permits on the ISI no matter where they are. ISI=DEAD shoudl be our policy. Start with the vidible leadership - sniper, car bombs, etc, in Pakistan, 500lb bombs or hellfires in the tribal areas, and Afghani firing squads in A-stan. Support India in doing the same in Kashmir.
We need to make the ISI pay a high price for its terrorist activity. It is a cancer and must be killed.
Back in 2005 I came to Pakistan in a time when moderate enlightenment was much being taught and talked about, I was surprised to see how India was marvelled for her advancement in the IT field and not to say a couple of box office hits Bollywood had produced. It was mostly people who were associated with the fashion industry and the entertainment industry in Pakistan who spoke too highly of the Indian achievements. And why not, they were getting envious receptions and rewards for speaking of no cultural differences between India and Pakistan. No cultural differences? That means the Two Nation Theory upon which the creation of Pakistan was based, was false. No wonder such people got red carpet receptions and warm welcomes, not to speak of the contracts given to them by the film industry in Mumbai.
These people who spoke their language and insisted that music could help melt the geographical boundaries. I mean, frankly speaking, singers who probably never made well up to their high schools were making such statements. And overwhelmingly, they got applause from their Indian hosts for the nice and humanistic approach they demonstrated. So, should I listen to these singers and comedians performing in India or should I listen to what Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Allama Iqbal, Maulana Altaf Husein Hali, Maulana Shibli Naumani, Sir Agha Khan and Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah said on the cultural identity of the Indian Muslims?
Here I am only taking an opportunity in the wake of the current scenario to talk about the Indian mindset that has surfaced in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks and that supports my long standing argument on the way we need to approach our relationship with India. And I believe that needs to be done with this in mind that they are not us and we must keep a check on over excitement in terms of our relations with a country that has aimed to demolish our identity in peace times.
This was Kuldip Nayyar (a veteran Indian journalist), meeting some friends at a private gathering in Lahore this summer where he pleaded the case of friendship through linguistic ties. Again, that we speak one language and that language is a binding force; hence geographical boundaries matter less when it comes to a shared language and therefore a common culture, nicely leading to no cultural differences. I asked Mr. Nayyar whether language was all we needed to form a common culture. And if so, how come Arabic speaking Middle East was divided into so many countries/nations? How come Polish and Russians were different nations since they could understand each other or why did not British and Americans become just one nation since they spoke the same language or by that definition why did not the English and the Irish people become one nation? Or for that reason if the basic notes of the music played in India and Pakistan are the same we are the same nation? If that is so, by drinking tea in the morning instead of lassi (yogurt shake) we can become British according to this theory!
And where were the linguistic ties when the trains full of Muslims migrating from Indian to Pakistan in 1947 were looted and mass massacre was carried out? Where was this shared culture when Pakistani cricketers received empty bottles and abuses from the spectators in the Eden Garden Stadium in Kolkata? Or why did not it work when the same culture Indians sent their army in the East Pakistan? Sure, we need to look forward to a better future but must we forget all that? But how can I believe in all that, when recently Samjhota Express (the friendship train between India and Pakistan) was attacked in the Indian territory during the peace talks? And why cannot those Pakistani artists see the Indian films engaged in demonising Pakistans image or the hatred and prejudice shown by the Indian television media in the last few days and even before? The Indian character as displayed by their film industry and television media and the human rights record of the largest democracy of India in terms of handling of its minorities (both Christians and Muslims in India) is a bit too ugly to be treated as a model.
Friendship is a nice sounding notion but how does one progress in this area when one party is constantly busy in demolishing and challenging the others identity? Mr Nayyar insisted that friendship was important and he came up with the idea of a United South Asia on the pattern of the European Union. It was a time when there were reports of India nearing the inauguration of the Baghliar Dam on the River Chenab and I asked Mr. Nayyar if that was a good way of making advancement on the path of friendship by stopping our water? Or was that a right way of promoting friendship by giving a few bucks to the singers and other artists from Pakistan to make statements against the Two Nation Theory (that there are no cultural differences between India and Pakistan) in the programmes on Indian television channels? I was finally told by him that I had spoken much and now others should be given an opportunity. The rest of the evening I was a silent spectator.
Faiz Ahmad Faiz said, If we begin our history from Mohenjodaro, we will be compelled to own the succeeding periods of history which include the periods of Barhama culture, and the period of Greek culture, and in consequence we will have to accommodate Ashok, Chandra Gupt, Alexander the Great, Raja Porus and Raja Risaloo among our heroes. My point of view is that Pakistans history starts from August 14, 1947, with Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah stating that a new nation is born and later Faiz affirming this point of view by saying that With the partition of the Subcontinent a new country came into existence and a new nation was born Pakistani nation.
And I maintain that our culture must be defined in terms of the sense of separation upon which the division of the Subcontinent took place. The formation of a nation is based on a shared experience of history and a collective past, and the experience which the Muslims of the Subcontinent shared in terms of the prejudice of the Hindus against the Indian Muslims laid the foundations of Pakistan. One needs to refresh in mind the events that led to a distancing of the Muslims from the Indian National Congress in 1906. Events like the Hindu dominated Congress stand against the Persian language as the official language of India because it was written in the same script as the Holy Quran, or the opposition to any such developments that in anyway benefited the Muslims in India during the British Raj. Mr. Nayyar, I said, I understand your nostalgia for the past when you lived in Sialkot (now Pakistan), that is your reality. But I am born in Pakistan and that is my reality. And my reality does not allow me to be linked with the Indian culture in anyway by means as absurd as music or a common language.
The writer holds an M Phil degree in film and television and teaches at various universities
Posted by: john frum ||
12/06/2008
08:45 ||
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Philosophy degree? In film and television?
That's like drawing a vacuum. There's a lot of noise and commotion going on, but in the end all you have is nothing!
I guess all the basket weaving and laundromat economics classes were full of the of the football scholarship kings.
#1
Hey! Here's a way to make Cal some cash! SELL those gay marriage certificates for $250,000 per pop. Want your homo shackup legal? Reach for your wallet and show you're a public spirited citizen. Not enough scratch? Back in the closet with you.
#2
Been gone from the state for over 15 years, Its not the same place I grew up in. There is a lot of 'fat' that could be trimmed, a lot of 'recipients' who could be cut loose and a hell of a lot of people with 'bad backs' that could be forced to work if they wanted to eat.
#4
Don't worry, Big Jim, the governator and the legislature together will threaten to cut the usual stuff -- the schools, the prisons, and the hospitals -- so as to get the rubes to fork over more tax dollars. Cutting the PR people, the earmarks and the pet projects, of course, can't be done ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/06/2008 11:21
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So what happens when the rubes have no more dollars to fork over?
#2
A funny story about a man who worked in a Kosher meat packing plant in New York. His job was after the suspended animals throat was cut, to chop its head off with a very large cleaver. After doing this for years, his right arm became very strong, and he could do it with a single blow.
The plant went out of business, so he moved to Chicago. Newly arrived, he wanted to take the El late at night, and was standing on the platform, when somebody shoved something into his back and said "give me your money, etc."
He turned around and hit the perp with a downward stroke of his right arm, on the perp's collarbone. Then he again turned around and got on the train.
The next day he saw the headline "Police baffled", about their discovery of a dead mugger found on that platform, who had been hit so hard by a heavy falling object that his collar bone and six of his ribs were broken. But there was no sign of the I-beam that hit him.
"For many European municipalities and a few American ones accommodating Islam is a big dilemma—but not an insoluble one."
A typical tagline from our erudite multi-culturalist friends at The Economist.Not suprising the article lists examples of the “xenophobic and intolerant” host cultures from numerous European cities but fails to mention even one of the so-called “American ones”.Perhaps it’s because the American version of “Assimilation” can be clearly defined as to being the responsibility of the guest culture not the host country.Maybe it’s due to the fact that “accomodation” is inherant in “American Culture”.One example is how a traditional Catholic observance usherd in Fish-Stick Friday in every public school in America.That is completely different then requiring schools to constantly serve a completly separate halal menu because of complaints of a “dietary apartheid”.
Gunmen armed with automatic weapons and grenades fired on Philippine police officers who were tailing them, leaving at least 17 people dead in a fierce shootout in a Manila suburb on Saturday.
Officers were following suspected members of a robbery gang when the gunmen sensed the surveillance and opened fire, triggering the gunfight late Friday near a residential subdivision in suburban Paranaque city, metropolitan Manila police chief Leopoldo Bataoil said.
He said the gunmen, some armed with M-16 rifles fitted with grenade launchers, thought they had been cornered and fired at everyone in sight. "When they found out they were being trailed ... they went berserk," he said. "They fired all around, including at a flammable tanker beside a warehouse."
Among those killed were 12 suspected members of the gang and a police officer. Four people nearby, including a man and his 7-year-old daughter who were sitting inside their car, were also killed.
Authorities earlier had received tip that the group was planning to rob the warehouse, and police deployed dozens of police around the area to apprehend the suspects, according to Bataoil. He said at least three of the gunmen were able to escape in a car they commandeered after firing a grenade at a gatehouse at the entrance to the community, wounding two guards. Three police officers were also wounded, he said.
Bataoil said investigators believe the assailants belonged to a violent gang whose members have posed as police officers, adding that two of the slain gunmen were found wearing police-style bulletproof vests.
The group has been blamed for the killing of bank teller and two guards of an armored truck that was picking up money from a bank on the University of the Philippines campus last month.
3AM, a bad guy gets pulled from the squad car trunk, gets a tap behind the ear, a gun and 2 rounds of bullet get thrown to the ground, then picked up, ambulance gets the call, "he's dead, Jim".
/call me cynical
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/06/2008 20:10
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I always thought that she'd move up here and run for Uncle Teddy's seat when he goes to the Big Oldsmobile in the Sky as I believe that was her father's seat.
WASHINGTON -- Caroline Kennedy is interested in the Senate seat that would open once Hillary Rodham Clinton becomes secretary of state, according to a close relative who says the powerful Kennedy clan is fully behind her rising to the office previously held by her uncle.
"I know she's interested," Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Friday. "She spent a lot of her life balancing public service with obligations to her family. Now her children are grown, and she is ready to move onto a bigger stage."
Once Clinton is confirmed to President-elect Barack Obama's cabinet, New York Gov. David Paterson will appoint someone to fill the seat for two years. The Kennedy family's connections and history cannot force Paterson to choose Caroline, who is the daughter of President John F. Kennedy. But the family's strong support could increase pressure on Paterson to choose her above lesser-known contenders.
Seeking the Senate seat would also be a significant departure from the life that she has lived until now, zealously guarding her family's privacy -- and her own.
Robert Kennedy said the family would come out en masse for her if she does get the appointment and has to run for election in 2010. "If she runs, you will see more Kennedys than you have ever seen in your life," he said. Oh...goody. Is that a threat or a promise ...
An environmental quack and ex junkie lawyer who took himself out of consideration for the Senate seat earlier this week, Robert Kennedy said he has spoken to his cousin about the position and is one of "many, many people" urging her to seek it. He also offered a policy rationale for her in the role: education. "She's probably one of the leading advocates in the nation on public education. She feels a lot of the issues she's worked on are in danger of being shunted aside because of the economic crisis," he said.
Democrats said Caroline Kennedy and Paterson have already spoken about the Senate seat, and she is interested. As a prominent member of the Kennedy clan, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg is the kind of high-profile, historic figure who could overshadow many other New York politicians hoping to be Paterson's choice. The governor has said he is in no rush to make a decision, and Clinton is not giving up the seat before she is confirmed as President-elect Barack Obama's secretary of state. Whoever Paterson appoints would serve for two years and then have to run in a special election in 2010, along with Paterson and New York's senior senator, Charles Schumer. The candidate would then have to run again in 2012.
She is easily the most famous contender for Clinton's Senate seat, but there are plenty of others. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is widely known in the state. Paterson could also pick Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown or Tom Suozzi, a Long Island elected official. There are also a number of House members in the running, including Reps. Carolyn Maloney, Kirsten Gillibrand, Steve Israel, Brian Higgins, Nydia Velazquez and Jerrold Nadler. Compared to that crew, she's probably not a bad pick.
#5
Her only "qualification" is her last name. She has never run a company, never been elected to anything of note, and never accomplished anything. The only thing that she has "done" is be a darling of the liberal left, and the press.
Remind you of anyone?
Put Guiliani against her and rip her to shreds.
Say NO to dynasties - look at Ted Kennedy and GW Bush as examples.
One of our faves...
LOS ANGELES -- Bettie Page, a 1950s pinup known for her raven-haired bangs and saucy come-hither looks, was hospitalized in intensive care after suffering a heart attack, her agent said Friday. "She's critically ill," Mark Roesler of CMG Worldwide told The Associated Press.
He said the 85-year-old had been hospitalized for the last three weeks with pneumonia and was about to be released when she had the heart attack Tuesday. Page was transferred to another hospital in Los Angeles and remained in intensive care Friday. A family friend, Todd Mueller, said Page was in a coma. When asked to confirm, Roesler said, "I would not deny that," but he would not comment further on her condition.
Page, a secretary turned model, is credited with helping set the stage for the sexual revolution of the rebellious 1960s. She attracted national attention with magazine photographs of her sensuous figure that were tacked up on walls across the country. Her photos included a centerfold in the January 1955 issue of then-fledgling Playboy magazine, as well as controversial sadomasochistic poses.
Page later spent decades away from the public eye, and during that time battled mental illness and became a born-again Christian. After resurfacing in the 1990s, she occasionally granted interviews but refused to allow her picture to be taken.
Mueller credits his business dealings with Page for bringing her out of seclusion. He said he first met her in 1989 when he offered her "a bunch of money" to show up at autograph signings."I probably sold 3,000 of her autographs, usually for $200 to $300," he said. "Eleanor Roosevelt, we got $40-$50. ... Bettie Page outsells them all."
#2
Sorry to hear this. Miss Page was hotter than a $2 pistol on Saturday night when she was in her prime, and her prime lasted a lot longer than most women. As the picture shows, she looked like a walking snack bar.
In my last post, part 77 of How not to measure temperature I pointed out that the National Weather Service in Upton NY has a weather station that is way out of compliance due to the way it is setup and the proximity to bias factors such as the parking lot.
There are thousands of weather stations across the USA, some run by various agencies. Often well see them at national parks with interpretive displays. This one I encountered in Ely Nevada on my last road trip to finish the Nevada USHCN station surveys was part of an air quality and environmental monitoring program jointly run by the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Desert Research Institute (DRI).
It is an impressive station with multiple state of the art sensors, solar power, and a datalogger with a satellite uplink to DRIs HQ. You can look at hourly data from the station at the CEMP DRI website here.
It is located about 2 miles northeast of town on government property, Bureau of Land Management land.
What is unique about this station is that it has an interpretive exhibit with live data readouts. I applaud DRI/DOE for doing this. As I said, I applaud DRI/DOE for doing this. Taking the effort to make such a wonderful educational display is a good use of taxpayer funds.
Except, that is, when they miss one critical detail.
You'll have to hit the link to see the teeny tiny oversight. And do take some time to look around the guy's site. He has a keen eye and a wicked sense of humor.
#5
It's not REALLY about weather anyway, is it?
It's about forcing other people to do and live like you think is best for them. How much energy they use, how big of a house they live in, what kind of shoes they wear, and lately we've even heard rumblings about stipulating what people should be allowed to eat or drink.
#6
Not long ago I listened to a guy who looked at all of the global warming temperature data worldwide, and dis some analysis of the sensor sites themselves, not the recording. overwhelmingly the data come from US stations at parts of western Europe. Most of the data comes from stations erected in the past 100 years, with lesser data going back as much as 200 years.
Most of the sites outside the US are suspect for continuity and maintenance, but overwhelmingly, the sites with higher confidence levels were built and maintained in some level of proximity to human habitation. No compensation for the data is reflected in the baseline records for urban encroachment, differences in the actual structures housing the collection mechanisms ( paint color, material for the containment box, proximity to other systems like roof tops of buildings with differing roofing materials over time), nor for the encroachment of urban environments.
In essence, the fundamental data from which warming trends is extrapolated is corrupt or suspect. Over the years, all those tar roofs, pavement, HVAC systems, smog, all reflective of the disporportionate heat-sink that is an urban environment, has not been correlated into the baseline data.
#2
The Hajj is, financially, probably a money loser for the Saudis.
The faithful visiting Mecca and Medina, don't usually have much money to spend after their travel expenses and the costs of infrastructure to accommodate this once-a-year event was costly to build. Operational costs are also high because of the nature of the event (although their is a secondary and tertiary quasi hajj also).
Aswat al-Iraq: A shepherd was wounded in Iranian artillery shelling of villages in the district of Zarawa, northern Qalaat Daza area, non-stop for six days now, the district chief said on Friday.
"The shelling intensified on Friday afternoon on the villages of Razka, Mardo, Shanawa, and Sbeilka, leaving a shepherd in the area slightly wounded," Azad Wasso told Aswat al-Iraq.
"The shelling is continuing in the area to create a state of panic and instability for the local residents there," he added.
Iranian forces shell northern Iraqi areas under the pretext that they harbor the fighters of the PJAK, or the Partiya Jiyana Azad a Kurdistanê (Party of Free Life of Kurdistan), a militant Kurdish nationalist group based in northern Iraq that has been carrying out attacks in the Kurdistan Province of Iran and other Kurdish-inhabited areas.
PJAK is a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Confederation (Koma Civakên Kurdistan or KCK), which is an alliance of outlawed Kurdish groups and divisions led by an elected Executive Council.
Led by Haji Ahmadi, the PJAK's objective is to establish a semi-autonomous regional entities or Kurdish federal states in Iran, Turkey and Syria similar to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq.
The PJAK, an Iranian Kurdish party that broke away from the PKK, or Partiya Karekeren Kurdistan in Kurdish, in 2004 after the imprisonment of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, has started its armed struggle against the regime in Iran with the aim of building a federacy for Iran's Kurdistan. The PJAK has about 3,000 armed militiamen.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2008
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Eight people were killed and 17 wounded when prisoners in Kabul's main jail went on the rampage, setting fire to their beds and taking guards hostage, an Afghan minister said on Friday. The inmates of the notorious Pul-e-Charkhi prison were protesting late Thursday against a move to search their cells for phones, knives and other weapons.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2008
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#1
Afghan prisons are the obvious choice for emptying out the detritus at Gitmo.
Thirteen gunmen died in armed clashes between Somali opposition fighters and another armed group Ahl-ul-Sunna wal- Jamaa in central Somalia. The fighting broke out in the town of Guri-El in the Galgaduud region after the Ahl-ul Sunna gunmen attacked Al-Shabaab fighters, the Press TV correspondent in Mogadishu reported. "Hrarrrr! We're holy'r'n youse are!"
"Ain't, neither!"
"Are, too!"
"Go fer yer guns, yew varmint!"
The spokesman for the influential Hawiye clan, Ahmed Dirie Ali, condemned the bloodshed. "Tut tut. And tut."
All the fighters are affiliated with the Somali Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) and oppose the leadership of the transitional federal government, accusing its leadership of excessive reliance on foreign support.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2008
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Sri Lanka's military said on Friday it had captured more than 100 small boats used by the separatist Tamil Tigers, after soldiers seized a coastal village while marching toward the last big port held by the rebels.
Soldiers captured Alampil on Thursday after heavy fighting on the east coast, where the army's 59th Division is trying to take the port of Mullaitivu controlled by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the military said.
"Troops recovered 100 fibreglass boats and 560 live rounds in Alampil," military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said. Alampil is about 10 kilometres south of Mullaitivu.
The military believes the Tigers have shifted many of their fighters and weapons to Mullaitivu. A heavy contingent remains dug in at Kilinochchi, the self-declared rebel capital that troops are advancing on from three directions.
With downpours easing, combat operations have resumed, the military said. The Air Force said jets bombed rebel positions in Kilinochchi on Friday but gave no details of casualties.
Highway captured: Sri Lankan troops have also secured parts of a key highway running through rebel-held territory, the defence ministry said on Friday. Security forces cleared a stretch of 21 kilometres of the main A-9 highway in an area that had been in no-man's land after the latest military thrust, defence officials said. With troops securing the town of Kankarayankulam, the de-facto frontier post shifted deeper into rebel-held areas, the ministry said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2008
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#1
Good. Once the Sri Lankan government forces have decisively won, they'll be able to send trained troops to assist elsewhere in the war on terror.
#2
They'd shut up the geniuses who keep saying "there's no military solution to terrorism" if the geniuses ever paid attention to the world around them.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2008 10:28
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But they'll still keep voting for them, won't they? They've got their choice of the Gandhi family's incompetent oligarchy, commies, or brown-turbanned Hinduvta pushers. Good luck with that. There are times I'm surprised they've come as far as they have -- and most of the time I'm convinced they've done it in spite of their government.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2008
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#1
Now, let see if they can sustain the anger long enough to do some good.
Brought forward from yesterday for commentary and additional detail. A suspected US missile kills 3 militants in a Pakistani tribal district known as haven for pro-Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked insurgents. "A missile fired by a suspected US drone killed three people outside the town of Mir Ali in Miranshah tribal district," an unnamed security official told AFP on Friday. There goes the old sovreignty...
Local officials confirmed the strike and said it targeted the houses of a suspected Taliban militant north of Mir Ali. "And he wudn't doin' nuttin'! Jes' standin' around mindin' their own bidniz, and suddenly the infidels show up, violatin' our sovreignty, and bump him off and his distinguished guests, who also wudn't doin' nuttin'!
Pakistan's tribal areas bordering Afghanistan have witnessed a rising frequency in missile attacks launched by suspected US drones. The unmanned aircraft have carried out more than 20 missile attacks in the region since August. More than 400 people - among them civilians as well as suspected militants - have been killed in the attacks in the tribal belt. "Yeah! They got Mom! The infidel bastards got Mom!"
Islamabad has repeatedly protested against the attacks and has called for a halt to the raids. The issue has become extremely sensitive in Pakistan where anti-American sentiment is rising.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2008
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Pakistan
#1
A suspected US missile
One just has to love the things Pak journos can do with English.
#2
Nope, not us, no missiles. Their ISI suppliers gave them a bad batch of detonators and the bomb they were building went off prematurely. It's been happening a lot lately so it must be on purpose. So, Blinky, do what you have to do.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
12/06/2008 9:12
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#4
Run an ARCLIGHT strike down through the heart of Islamabad, and they'll quit complaining about drone attacks in the NWFP. It's all a matter of perspective. We DON'T want to nuke Karachi, since that's the only major port in Pakistan. I DO believe it's time to build a new, four-lane superhighway from Karachi directly to Kabul. Run armed convoys along the route, with orders to shoot to kill. I'm sure we can get SOMEONE to take that contract...
(AKI) - The Palestinian Authority's acting Foreign Minister said he will ask the United Nations Security Council to send international peacekeeping troops to the West Bank. "We will ask the (UN) Security Council to send an armed force to protect our Palestinian people, particularly in Hebron," said Foreign Minister Riad Malki in a media conference in the Palestinian city of Ramallah on Friday.
"Help! Help! We're being oppressed!"
Moreover, Malki also said he would ask the Security Council to demand the removal of Israeli settlers from the West Bank city of Hebron.
Following the forced evacuation on Thursday of hardline settlers from Hebron's 'house of contention' or 'house of peace' as the settlers call it, Israeli rioters ran amok. They began desecrating Muslim graves, throwing stones, setting Palestinian cars, homes and fields on fire and in one case, firing live ammunition.
Malki also said that 30 Palestinians were injured in the violence, five with gunshot wounds. After the violence, more than 500 Israeli police and border policemen were deployed to Hebron and the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba.
Also on Friday, the UN's envoy to the Palestine Liberation Organization and the PA, applauded the eviction of the Hebron settlers by Israel but condemned settler violence against Palestinians.
"I condemn the ensuing violence and attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians and the destruction and desecration of Palestinian property," said Robert Serry. "As the occupying power, the Government of Israel is under obligation to protect Palestinian civilians, property and holy sites,' the UN representative to the Palestinian areas."
Do the Paleos have any obligation to protect Israeli civilians, property and holy sites?
"Actions of extremists continue to pose a threat to the peace process, and further underline the need for action to fulfil Roadmap commitments," concluded Serry, referring the stalled Palestinian-Israeli peace process.
About 500 settlers live in enclaves in central Hebron in an area under Israeli military control. The town also has around 170,000 Palestinian inhabitants. The settlers have vowed to avenge the forceful evacuation.
"We will choose the timing and the hour to respond," an activist told Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth. "In the game between cat and mouse, the mouse, who is smaller and more nimble, always wins and knows every tunnel and hole," said the settler.
Some religious Israeli settlers consider the West Bank part of the biblical land of Israel and thus claim a God-given right to own the land. However, the settlers claim they lawfully purchased the 'house of contention' from a Palestinian and Hebron resident named Faiz Rajabi.
Rajabi says the building belongs to him and denied having sold it to the settlers. "Thank God, the building has returned to its owners and I hope they will not come back," Rajabi said, quoted by Arab TV network Al-Jazeera.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2008
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Top|| File under: Palestinian Authority
#2
Following the forced evacuation on Thursday of hardline settlers from Hebron's 'house of contention' or 'house of peace' as the settlers call it, Israeli rioters ran amok. They began desecrating Muslim graves, throwing stones, setting Palestinian cars, homes and fields on fire and in one case, firing live ammunition.
It's a hard life, ain't it?
Sucks to be the victim of violence, doesn't it?
I still don't think they have put 2+2 together.
I'm a wondering sort, and one of the things I wonder about occasionally is where all those rockets come from. Whenever you see pictures of guys with turbans and automatic weapons there are also pictures of guys with RPGs or worse.
Are they locally produced? I understand there are actual factories producing locally made AKs -- though I'm not sure where they get the steel. Are there factories in Charsadda or Multan or Mingora turning out poles with rockets on the ends of them by the hundreds, even by the thousands? Is there a quality control program to ensure they'll launch? Do hundreds of bearded factory workers show up every day with their lunch buckets, to labor from 8 to 5 turning out munitions for the use of the devout, to return home when the whistle blows?
You also see the Lions of Islam with other tools of devotion, to include BM13 and BM21 multiple rocket launchers, the venerable 107 mm recoilless rifle, and even antitank guns and artillery. They probably don't make those in the shed out back, or in the garage. The primitives routinely battle it out over religion or the fine point of hillbilly honor with these.
So where do they come from? Does Mom labor long hours in the kitchen preparing Grannie's secret C4 recipe? Or do they come from someplace as yet undetermined, like the former Yugoslavia or Birobidzhan in Russia or even Upper Volta or Dahomey? If so, that implies somebody's paying for all this arms and ammunition, which even in wholesale lots doesn't come that cheap. So my questions always comes back to: Who's selling? Who's buying? And who's paying?
(AKI) - At least two policemen and four Taliban militants were killed in a rocket attack and clashes in the town of Bannu in Pakistan's volatile North Western Frontier Province on Friday. Pro-Taliban militants fired rockets at the Peerdil Khel police checkpost in Bannu, killing two and injuring three others.
Four Taliban militants were killed after police responded to the attack, said Pakistan's Geo News.
The attacks took place after Pakistani forces carried out air strikes on militant hideouts in the Mohmand Agency in northwestern Pakistan.
In a separate incident, at least six people were killed in a suicide attack in a busy market area in Pakistan's Orakzai Agency.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2008
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#2
Iran/Contra, Air America during Viet Nam, FARC, the Taliban, and others are arms deals in exchange for drugs. Arms suppliers have long profitted from conflicts or they would be bankrupt. Russians like Abramovich, one of the wealthiest in the world, has his own "navy" and 767 that flies regularly into Tel Aviv, where the Russian Mafia accesses Israeli arms. Bout supplied any with $$$. Still other billionaires have regular routes from the Caribbean to Africa and Europe. Bulgaria is notorious for arms dealing. Then there are some Chinese shipping magnates that have to cover the high cost of shipping useless plastic boobies across the world. Unbridled capitalism is the black market, and shutting down one dealer, opens the window of opportunity for another. I wonder why Alex Widmer, Swiss banking CEO at Julius Baer, committed suicide.
They're not going to do anything, certainly not anything of substance. Their society's built on turbans and automatic weapons, grafting oligarchies, generals with sashes and sprockets who've never won a war, and holy men lording it over ignorant tribesmen. They're now going through the old familiar dance we've seen time after time: first deny, then claim it was somebody else, then wave their nukes. They're a pathetic lot, an international migraine, a stench and a pestilence. The only reason they're never going to go away as a problem is that the civilized world is too civilized, unable to stomach the thought of rooting them out and killing all who don't surrender, then killing all who show the first sign of not staying surrendered, which'd be most of them.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2008
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#7
I've modified the comments page. Let me know when the bugs come out.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2008 10:34
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#8
the Nic shows the email address when it posts
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/06/2008 10:41
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#9
Preview button missing. Had to reload the page before the posted comment appeared.
Posted by: ed ||
12/06/2008 10:49
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#10
I forgot what I was going to say.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
12/06/2008 11:05
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#11
Let me know which browser you're using when you report bugs. It seems well-behaved on Safari on the Mac.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2008 11:12
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#12
Except for having to reload, I mean...
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2008 11:13
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#13
If you ask me, it looks like we can do some pretty spiffy comments with these new changes. Too much for the typical doggerel that we produce. Phew! You had me worried Fred, then I tried the Bold and the background color and they didn't seem to work. Keep it simple for old dogs.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
12/06/2008 11:06
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#14
How does the bold text work?
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2008 11:23
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#18
its also not loading the page after the comment submission - and with IE, the db query flashes up there for a few seconds. Also, I noticed the comments cozy up to the number in FF, but are inserted below it in IE submissions.
Comment box still looks the same on both. Some sort of RTF edit box.
Posted by: ed ||
12/06/2008 11:39
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#20
Let me try the reload thingy again...
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2008 11:57
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#21
That didn't work well at all...
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2008 11:59
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#22
Just tried it in Opera 9.0, and it doesn't work - at all. The cursor is at the top of the page, not in the "comments" area. You can't update the "Source" box or type any comments. It displays everyone else's comments just fine.
#30
It seems to work pretty well in Flock (Netscape replacement). One problem in using Firefox - it won't "remember" your nic, and it reloads the entire page when you press "send". I'm trying bold and highlight now, along with a few other options. The underlined text is the only thing that doesn't seem to work.
Posted by: Bob Gloluth7170 ||
12/06/2008 12:21
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Posted by: Frank G ||
12/06/2008 13:37
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#40
BUG REPORT, when I press "Submit query" it instantly pops me to the head of page one, it does NOT go to the page where my comment posts.
I'm using win XP and IE currently. Jim D
Posted by: Rednek Jim ||
12/06/2008 14:16
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#41
Hey Fred - New system's not accepting my nickname. I try entering Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) over the auto-generated nick, but it puts the auto-generated one at the bottom anyway. Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.1, using Safari 3.2.1.
(SomaliNet) New Zealand's central bank has cut its interest rate by 1.5 percent to five percent. The bank says the reduction is needed because of the continuing unrest in the financial markets and the sombre economic outlook. The latest cut brings the total reduction since July to 3.25 percent.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2008
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#1
Goodbye Forex carry trades!
Its been nice knowin ya!
Aswat al-Iraq: A total 276 discharged officers were brought back to service during the course of Operation Bashaer al-Kheir, according to the Diala police chief on Friday.
"Those officers were part of 5,400 discharged from service during the past five years for different reasons like collaboration with armed groups or quitting service after they were subjected to forced displacement," Maj. General Abdelhussein al-Shimari told Aswat al-Iraq.
He said that he has given instructions to study the files of those brought back to service.
"It turned out that 15 of the officers brought back to service are wanted by judicial authorities and will be discharged again after official memos in this respect were sent to the interior ministry," said Shimari.
The Iraqi security forces had launched Operation Bashaer al-Kheir (Promise of Good) in Diala late last July with the aim of tracking down armed groups and consolidate the state's power over the volatile province.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2008
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Top|| File under: Iraqi Insurgency
On his way home last month after receiving a PET scan at Portsmouth Regional Hospital, Michael Rosenthal noticed a State Police sport utility vehicle driving next to him and the trooper inside staring at him strangely. The trooper then sped in front of Rosenthal, slowed down, and pulled behind him.
"I was in the granny lane, driving on cruise control, taking my time, when all of a sudden I looked over and I saw this trooper with a puzzled look," said Rosenthal, a former New York City police officer who lives in East Wakefield, N.H. "When he put on his blue lights and pulled me over, I knew it wasn't a normal traffic stop."
The trooper, Bill Burke, walked over to Rosenthal, but the State Police veteran didn't ask for his license or registration. Instead, he had an all-too-knowing, Big Brotherlike question. "Were you in contact with any radioactivity today?" he asked.
Rosenthal began to wonder whether his veins were glowing from the chemicals injected for the scan. "I thought it was an odd question, like I was on 'Candid Camera,' " Rosenthal said.
He asked Burke why he was asking the question, and the trooper explained that he carries a radioactivity sensor and that something in Rosenthal's car set off the alarm.
"It's very rare that you get them going off for a vehicle going by," said Sergeant John Begin of State Police Troop G, which monitors radioactive waste in commercial vehicles passing through New Hampshire. "I can only think of three or four cases."
Rosenthal registered a six on the sensor's scale, which goes from one to nine, with nine the highest amount of radioactivity.
Begin said that about 30 New Hampshire troopers carry the sensors, which are the size of a bulky cellphone and can detect radioactivity as far away as 100 feet. New Hampshire bought the radiation-detecting equipment, called Mini rad-Ds and made by D-tect Systems, with a grant from the US Department of Homeland Security before the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston as part of efforts to prevent attacks on the city.
On the side of the turnpike that Nov. 21, Rosenthal explained to Burke that he had just come from having a positron emission tomography scan, which requires an injection of short-lived radioactive isotopes to identify any unhealthy cellular activity. The isotopes can remain in the body for as long as 18 hours, and patients are advised to keep their distance from others for that period.
"I told him I was surprised his equipment could detect the radioactivity in my body," Rosenthal said.
But Burke didn't take Rosenthal's word for it. He asked him to prove it. "I was very lucky that I had the documents with me from the hospital," he said. "After that, he was satisfied and sent me on my way."
Like hospitals around the country, Portsmouth Regional does hundreds of scans a week. Nancy Notis, a hospital spokeswoman, said Rosenthal's case is the first time they've heard of a patient being pulled over for emitting radioactivity. As a result, she said, the hospital is reviewing whether to alert patients that they could be stopped by police.
Despite his delay getting home, Rosenthal said he is happy to know the police are on the prowl for terrorists. "It made me feel good in one respect - that our money is going to good purposes," he said.
#3
Back in 1984 there was a well-publicized case of contamination that actually originated here in Lubbock. A large hospital here got a new radiotherapy machine and sold their old one to a clinic in Juarez, Mexico, complete with its standard capsule full of very hot cobalt 60 pellets. The Juarez clinic went out of business, and the machine and its capsule ended up being sold for scrap. The result was 600 tons of contaminated steel.
The situation came to light by an incredible fluke. A truck driver delivering a load of steel beams to an American contractor happened to get lost in the New Mexico desert. He pulled into the nearest likely place to ask directions. Lights and alarms started going off, and the driver soon found himself surrounded by armed men in NBC gear. He had innocently pulled into one of the security gates at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Full story here.
#4
I recall hearing of a case or cases like this about four years ago now, in NYC and Washington, DC, where police intercepted a man after he'd had radioactive dye.
#5
And I've heard similar stories about people given 131I to destroy their cancerous thyroids being stopped at airports and other facilities.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
12/06/2008 7:48
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#6
The development and rapid deployment (still under way) of detectors for radiation and biochem sniffers is one of those quiet successes in the GWOT for which Bush does not get the credit his administration deserves. It's not that there haven't been attempts on us since 9/11 - it's that we've caught many of them. And used surveillance to intecept others before the plots got that far.
#7
Don't kid yourself that this sort of thing dates from the WoT. Even back in the 1980s, the US had coastal gamma detectors that may still be classified.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/06/2008 9:17
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#9
Interesting, Atomic Conspiracy. There was another article involving radioactive medical waste from China and India that was put into the recycling pile, with the shipping container of new goods setting off the detectors in Europe. I was also wondering about those elite coffee machines the Eurosnobs are checking on because of unusual taste--the irony of all the cheap outsourcing coming back with a cost no one wants to pay.
#10
I read a news story about 6 years ago about children who cracked the case of the machine and found beautiful glowing purple powdr, which they promptly spread all over themselves as it was "Beautiful".
Yup, they all died.
Posted by: Rednek Jim ||
12/06/2008 14:30
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US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has called for the military to develop an enduring capacity to fight "irregular" wars, and to rethink its reliance on ever-more costly high-tech weapons. Writing in Foreign Affairs quarterly, Gates said the United States needs "a military whose ability to kick down the door is matched.
It saved us a lot of money and men when Nizamuddin Shamzai, the proprietor of Binori Mosque and the father of the Taliban, departed the gene pool. Just think how much more would be save should the same happen to Qazi and to Hafiz Saeed. And it wouldn't take much to tumble Fazl down the stairs some dark night, would it?
Has the advantage of deniability, too. Modesty is a virtue after all.
Operation Lemony Snickett lives ...
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2008
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#1
I suspect that he is trying to teach Obambi that such a thing exists, and it works, so don't cut it, stupid.
#2
File under - History [human behavior] repeats itself.
For insightful reading of events which have meaning today may I recommend, Frontier Regulars: The United States Army and the Indian 1866-1891 by Robert M. Utley. The perspective of a small and overtaxed military establishment conducting operations in a demanding environment, physically and politically, while bringing 'civilization' to the vastness of the west can be related to the contemporary operations on the world stage today. Of particular note would be chapters three: The Problem of Doctrine, four: The Army, Congress, and the People, and eighteen: Mexican Border Conflicts 1870-81.
Some excerpts:
"Chapter 3: The Problem of Doctrine. âThree special conditions set this mission apart from more orthodox military assignments. First, it pitted the army against an enemy who usually could not be clearly identified and differentiated from kinsmen not disposed at the moment to be enemies. Indians could change with bewildering rapidity from friend to foe to neutral, and rarely could one be confidently distinguished from another...Second, Indian service placed the army in opposition to a people that aroused conflicting emotions... And third, the Indians mission gave the army a foe unconventional both in the techniques and aims of warfare... He fought on his own terms and, except when cornered or when his family was endangered, declined to fight at all unless he enjoyed overwhelming odds...These special conditions of the Indian mission made the U.S. Army not so much a little army as a big police force...for a century the army tried to perform its unconventional mission with conventional organization and methods. The result was an Indian record that contained more failures than successes and a lack of preparedness for conventional war that became painfully evident in 1812, 1846, 1861, and 1898.
Chapter 4. The Army, Congress, and the People. Shermanâs frontier regulars endured not only the physical isolation of service at remote border posts; increasingly in the postwar years they found themselves isolated in attitudes, interests, and spirit from other institutions of government and society and, indeed from the American people themselves...Reconstruction plunged the army into tempestuous partisan politics. The frontier service removed it largely from physical proximity to population and, except for an occasional Indian conflict, from public awareness and interest. Besides public and congressional indifference and even hostility, the army found its Indian attitudes and policies condemned and opposed by the civilian officials concerned with Indian affairs and by the nationâs humanitarian community."
#3
It seems our opponents have found several cheap and effective methods. Perhaps the Mandarins in Washington could consider deploying some of their own.
Posted by: ed ||
12/06/2008 10:46
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#4
Proc2K, we learned about those things in the Regimental history -- 2ACR had a long (and well recorded in terms of ops logs, etc) history of operations in the Indian Wars.
And that's where they came up with some of the counter-strategies in Iraq. BG (then Col) McMaster pioneered these, and its no mere coincidence that he served in the 2 ACR (Cavalry) and earned his spurs there, and had to read up on regimental history. Its the oldest continually operational combat regiment in the US military, so it, unlike most other units, actually has "historical memory" similar to the USMC's way of recording and teaching their own history.
Taliban shot dead a tribesman in North Waziristan Agency, accusing him of spying for the United States, officials said on Friday. The body of the 30-year-old man was dumped on a roadside on Friday in the town of Mir Ali in North Waziristan, they said. A note attached to the victim's body warned that anyone "found spying against mujahedeen would face the same fate," a security official said. Local officials said the man's body had been handed over to his family for burial. Taliban have killed several people whom they accuse of spying for the Pakistani army and the US-led forces operating across the border in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, suspected Taliban dumped two dead bodies, one of them beheaded, in the Sanpaga Mountain in Upper Orakzai Agency on Friday. The identities of the dead could not be verified.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2008
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(AKI) - Australian police claim to have uncovered a 4.5 million dollar drug ring allegedly run from a maximum security prison cell by a convicted murderer via his cell phone.
The drug ring is allegedly led by Bassam Hamzy, the ringleader of the so-called "Super-Max jihadists".
He is suing the state of New South Wales for keeping him in segregation in Lithgow prison, 150 kilometres west of Sydney, after an alleged attempt to break out of another top-security jail in the regional city of Goulburn. Hamzy is alleged to have made 19,000 calls in six weeks, an average of 460 a day. The 29-year-old convicted killer, will be brought out of the state's top-security jail within the next 48 hours to face 15 fresh criminal charges.
He has not been outside a prison cell for almost a decade after the 1998 shooting murder outside the Mr Goodbar nightclub in the heart of Sydney. Hamzy, who fled to Lebanon, the United States, Belize and Colombia after killing Kris Toumazis and wounding another man, was recaptured and sentenced to spend 21 years in jail.
On Thursday, his father Khaled Hamzy, his brother Ghassan Amoun, and his cousin Khaled Hamzy Jnr. were among the associates arrested in a major police operation across Sydney, the capital city of New South Wales, and the neighbouring state of Victoria. Two others, Mohammad Abbas and Thomas Miholic were also arrested in police raids.
It is alleged the group shipped about 162,000 dollars worth of drugs from Sydney to Melbourne each week.
This article starring:
Bassam Hamzy
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2008
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#1
No doubt there's a very good reason Mr. Hamzy was allowed a cell phone in prison.
#3
Sorry about the blank post. This new version does strange things behind your back.
tw, the main reason may have been to allow him to lead the police to the rest of the vermin that needed cleaning up in southeastern Australia. Seems he fulfilled that role. Maybe it's time for him to slip in the shower.
Crude oil prices plunged below $40 on Friday to their lowest levels in nearly four years, as worse-than-expected jobs data in the United States raised prospects of a severe decline in energy demand. In London, Brent North Sea crude slid to $39.50 a barrel, the lowest level since the January 2005. $40/barrel is roughly $1.50 a gallon for gas: a buck for product, 50 cents for taxes, title, tags, and transportation.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2008
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#1
I won't be content until I'm bothered on the street by people collecting for famine relief in Saudia.
#2
This really puts the oil exporters in a double-bind. If they attempt to lower production, it further reduces revenue. Countries like Iran and Russia really need the revenue. Countries like Iraq are prepared to INCREASE production to increase revenue. As Iraq increases production it will put pressure on other countries to increase their production as well because Iraq can offset any decrease they might try and keep prices low.
So basically Iran is in a position where it can ship X million barrels for $40 dollars a barrel or X-1 million for $40 a barrel. Decreasing production in that scenario only reduces revenue. We could be in a production battle soon with a flood of oil in the face of reduced demand.
That is what happens when an economy of several countries depends on one product.
#5
And the marginal cost thingy comes into play to. The Iranians may be close to the point where they lose money on every gallon they sell. But they'll make it up on volume.
#6
Unfortunately, as the price of oil drops, so does our collective motivation to seek alternative energy sources. Personally, I'd love to see the government set a floor of $2.50 and use the difference to fund investment in alternative energy. After paying $4/gallon, $2.50 seems positively 'cheap'.
#7
I'd rather see the govt. keep the BILLIONS of our tax dollars that they hand out to America hating assholes all over the world that chant 'Death to America' in the streets and use that money for alternative fuel development. Leave gas at $1.60 a gal and give US a goddamned break for once in my lifetime.
#8
If ALL producers successfully cut production, the rise in price will be sufficiently large to increase TOTAL revenues (because the demand for oil is highly inelastic, particularly in the short run). However, the incentive to cheat on cartel agreements is substantial.
#9
So, Iraq can pay back Iranian interference with their internal development by pumping as much oil as they can and get cash back in return. A twofer.
But wait, didn't we just have the 'experts' say we had met Peak Oil(tm) and that high prices were now the future? /sarcasm off
#13
The lower prices affect aviation, also. Here in Anchorage, 100LL avgas goes down to $3.64, from a high of $5.96. That is a savings of $24/hour on my bird.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/06/2008 17:02
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#14
Good! Then you can fly me out to Galena and back for $ 10. eh?
(AKI) - Two gunmen equipped with assault rifles and a hand grenade stopped a humanitarian convoy in Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur region, beat up the aid workers and stole money in the latest of a long series of such assaults that are impeding relief operations, the United Nations reported.
The non-governmental organisation convoy of three vehicles with six local staff was stopped in South Darfur on its way from Nyala, the provincial capital, to the Kalma camp, the joint UN-African Union mission in Darfur or UNAMID said in a statement.
"Although the workers complied without resistance to demands for money, the attackers assaulted them up before leaving the scene," it added "Three out of the six workers were reportedly severely beaten and taken to the local hospital, where their condition is listed as stable and non life-threatening."
Initial reports suggest that the assailants were informed of the workers' movements and that they were transporting cash intended for the payment of salaries for the Kalma camp staff.
"If proven right, these suspicions would point to an act of banditry," UNAMID added.
UNAMID, slated to reach 26,000 personnel but now only 10,500-strong, is being deployed throughout Darfur in an effort to bring peace to a region where more than five years of fighting between Government forces, allied Janjaweed militia and rebel groups have killed an estimated 300,000 people and driven another 2.7 million from their homes.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2008
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(SomaliNet) At least 19 people have been killed and dozens injured in a double bombing in Fallujah in Iraq. Two police stations were rammed by vehicles packed with explosives.
Fallujah in Anbar province was known as a stronghold of Sunni rebels but the town has recently seen an improvement in security. The improved situation led to Iraqi authorities taking over power in Fallujah from United States forces.
Similar handovers of power have taken place in most other Iraqi provinces and it has been agreed that US troops will withdraw from Iraq by 2011 at the latest.
The withdrawal security accord agreed by the US and Iraq has now been approved by the presidential council, comprising President Jalal Talabani and the two vice presidents.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2008
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(AKI) - India's new Interior Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram on Friday admitted 'security and intelligence failure' over last weeks deadly terror assault on Mumbai that killed 172 people and injured nearly 300. India has blamed Pakistan-based militants for the attacks but Islamabad denies any role. "Nope. Nope. Wudn't us."
"I agree that security and intelligence failed," the Press Trust of India news agency cited Chidambaram as telling journalists, following a visit to the Mumbai railway station, one of the locations hit by terrorists last week. "But it wudn't our fault!"
The militant assault mainly targeted locations popular with tourists, including two luxury hotels, the Taj Mahal (photo) and the Oberoi. A total 26 foreigners died in the attacks.
When asked about the possible involvement of Pakistan's spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, Chidambaram said: "There is ample evidence to link terror attacks to organisations or entities who have in the past been responsible for terror."
He said there was a proposal to set up an intelligence agency at the national level similar to the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation. There were some lapses in security, coastal or otherwise which need to be rectified, Chidambaram added.
US media said this week that Washington had warned India in October that Mumbai could be targeted by militants arriving by sea.
The Indian government has faced growing domestic criticism over its handling of the attacks. Thousands of people took to the streets of Mumbai on Wednesday to demand that India's leaders do more to protect them from extremists.
Chidambaram took over as Interior Minister on Monday after his predecessor Shivraj Patil was forced to step down amid criticism from media and the opposition that he was taking a "soft approach on terror".
British MPs on Friday passed a motion pledging the UK would do its utmost to help India fight terrorism. The motion called the Mumbai carnage an attack on democratic values throughout the world. "This House... Believes that these attacks are targeted at the basic fabric of India represented by its secularism, democracy, tolerance, unity and faith and are an attack on democratic values... Throughout the whole world," the motion said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2008
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head to link for photos and story
KITTERY, Maine The NR-1 research submarine arrived at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Thursday morning to begin the inactivation process after a glorious naval career of exploring the depths around the globe.
The one-of-a-kind, nuclear-powered undersea research and ocean engineering submarine, along with her crew of four officers and 30 enlisted navy personnel, was towed up river by the USNS Grasp, a rescue and salvage ship.
Fresh off her final mission to search for the wreckage of the Bonhomme Richard, the flagship of naval hero John Paul Jones, the NR-1 submarine is expected to spend a year at the shipyard. The process of inactivating the 40-year-old submarine involves it being defueled using the same techniques that have been used to refuel and defuel more than 400 naval nuclear reactors. The hydraulic systems are drained; expendable materials, tools, spare parts and furnishings are removed; and tanks containing oil and other fluids are drained and cleaned.
Following the successful completion of the inactivation, the boat will then be prepared for transport to Bremerton, Wash., for reactor compartment disposal at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility.
A new study conducted on archeological finds suggests that humans may have evolved over 80,000 years earlier than previously believed.
Dating the stone tools found in the 1970s at the archaeological site of Gademotta, in Ethiopia's Rift Valley, researchers at Berkeley Geochronology Center found that the volcanic ash layers of the site were at least 276,000 years old.
The argon-argon dating - a technique that compares different isotopes of the element argon - showed that the tools were much older than the oldest known Homo sapien bones, which date back to around 195,000 years ago.
The tools are believed to be associated with the emergence of the modern human species, Homo sapiens, the National Geographic reported.
"It seems that we were technologically more advanced at an earlier time that we had previously thought," said study co-author Leah Morgan, from the University of California, Berkeley.
Archeologists believe Gademotta attracted many settlers because of its close proximity to fresh water and its rich resources of a hard, black volcanic glass, known as obsidian. "Due to its lack of crystalline structure, obsidian glass is one of the best raw materials to use for making tools," Morgan explained.
Lack of skeletal remains makes it difficult for archeologists to determine whether Homo sapiens created the Gademotta tools or other human species may have had the required mental and manual abilities to forge them.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Judging by my reaction to Raquel's picture, I'm guessing I'm not a member of the genus Homo.
#3
It has long been known that, at the time of the arrival of Europeans to North America, very culturally advanced tribes existed right next door to very primitive tribes.
While they were all technologically still Stone Age, technology is a poor descriptor of civilization. Some of the primitives were like what we think of as cavemen, living next door to tribes that were intellectually about on a par with the European Age of Reason.
Now extrapolate that to 200,000 years of humanity. It is not hard to imagine very intellectual, yet less-technological societies flourishing side by side with what we think of as entirely intellectually primitive societies. And yet we think of them all as cavemen.
The decisive factor in human evolution appears to be the cultural trait of expansionism. Many more advanced societies seemingly abhorred the idea of leaving their home turf, which ultimately exterminated them. Only when nomadic peoples arose, did humanity start to evolve in earnest.
And when tribes became expansionistic, both cultural and technological development exploded. This is where we see the first traces of nations and history, and when man made the jump from stone to bronze to iron.
#4
funny what future archeologists will make of the fact that most of the "humans" currently living in caves wear turbans and live in Pakland
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/06/2008 10:27
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#5
Chimps, gorillas, and bonobos live, if not side by side, in similar environments. Ditto several species of baboons.
Human evo did not, apparently take place as a matter of linear succession. No reason there could not have been two or even three vairants living simultaneously.
After all, Peewee Herman and Hulk Hogan are both considered Homo Sap, but if their skeletal remains were discovered a million years from now, the question would be whether Hulk had a pet or Peewee a draft animal.
Anybody who discovers a skeleton more than, say, 100k years old wants to have discovered a new species. Get their name on it, and all.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
12/06/2008 10:51
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#6
She's a homo? Pity for the majority of us guys.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
12/06/2008 13:14
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#8
It is not hard to imagine very intellectual, yet less-technological societies flourishing side by side with what we think of as entirely intellectually primitive societies. And yet we think of them all as cavemen
You just described the whole Middle east.
Posted by: Rednek Jim ||
12/06/2008 14:39
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The property bubble in Dubai, the business hub of the United Arab Emirates, is bursting as investors start to dump assets, a report says. Didn't the Doobabs just have a party celebrating how rich they are?
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Must have smelled that sewage pit we were discussing the other day.
#2
Gulf goes down, so does Pak and lots of India since there's a ton of remittance money going back to the subcontinent from there. The key will be when you start hearing about "excess workers being returned to country of origin."
When you see that message, just figure there are lots of Pakis and Indians, and a fair number of Filipinos, wondering how long the savings can last and where their next meal will come from once it's gone.
#4
Seriously though, is Dubai not synonymous with conspicuous excess? Who couldn't have seen this coming? Financial 'experts' never fail to astound me, they NEVER see the train till its two feet from them, never.
#6
What's holding it back? Dubai is one of the most bubbley places around. So,why aren't the hand baskets all lined up in front of the gates of Hell? Now, it's not really bad until there are places where the terrorists are gathered, crying out for 'alms for the poor Warriors of Jihad. Then! I'll be impressed about how bad things are.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
12/06/2008 11:17
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#7
Maybe we'll be next
Big Jim,
We're already two years ahead of everyone else in the real estate market. The re-fi market is already starting to revive. So we're back to pulling the entire world out recession with our big, strong shoulders. Of course, the world will be as grateful as they usually are.
#8
Coming from a water and sewer guy (a Pisces, too), I say, first look at their infrastructure. It is the non glamorous part that holds up the rest. Do they have good water treatment and distribution? Do they have good wastewater collection and treatment? If they have great buildings and little sanitation infrastructure, then they have something. If not, they are basically full of sh*t, literally and figuratively.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/06/2008 17:26
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#9
PIMF
If they have great buildings and good sanitation infrastructure, then they have something. If not, they are basically full of sh*t, literally and figuratively.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/06/2008 17:27
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(AKI) - The top United Nations envoy to Somalia on Friday called for hostages being held in the war-ravaged Horn of Africa nation to be freed immediately as a sign of good will during a Muslim holiday. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the Secretary-General's Special Representative said releasing the hostages would improve Somalia's image and "show that its people deserve respect and confidence."
"On the eve of Eid al-Adha, a period of forgiveness, I appeal to all Somalis to help ensure that those hostages being held, both Somalis and foreigners, are allowed to enjoy their freedom and to return home safe and sound," Ould-Abdallah said.
Four foreign journalists and two Italian Catholic nuns are amongst those being held.
Journalists and foreign aid workers have increasingly become targets for kidnap and murder this year, mainly in south and central Somalia where Islamist insurgents (photo) are waging a bloody conflict against the government.
Ould-Abdallah said he was especially concerned for the two nuns, who were kidnapped in neighbouring Kenya in November and taken across the border. "They should be allowed to return home immediately and I do not see any excuse for holding them any longer," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2008
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#1
called for hostages being held in the war-ravaged Horn of Africa nation to be freed immediately as a sign of good will during a Muslim holiday. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah
Appealing for good will to fellow Muslims? You've been too long away from your roots, Ahmedou.
#2
Nobody kidnaps Catholic Nuns. Even in the worst El Salvadorian slums Catholic nuns can travel on foot at night unmolested.
These guys really are cockroaches. Somalia must be what the world would look like if the mooks ran it.
(SomaliNet) French President Nicolas Sarkozy has announced a 26 billion euro stimulus plan to support his country's faltering economy.
26 billion Euros? Pah, our Federal Reserve can go through that in a day ...
Ten billion euros are to be spent on infrastructure projects. Four billion euros will go to higher education, sustainable development and the defence industries. The housing and automobile sectors will receive almost three billion euros.
The plan means that the French budget deficit will increase to 3.9 percent. According to European Union rules, an EU member's budget deficit may not go over three percent. However, member states are being permitted to exceed this limit because of the financial crisis.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2008
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#1
GREAT WHITE NORTH?????????????
Why is this article considered to be the GREAT WHITE NORTH????
Former President Bill Clinton said Friday the U.S. government has no choice but to spend its way out of its worst economic crisis in decades. But of course! We got into it by not spending, so... Hey. Waidadaminnit.
With the U.S. economy in a recession, Clinton said President-elect Barack Obama must also shore up plummeting property values. "The big risk now for America and the world is deflation, contraction, dropping asset prices. We have to stimulate the economy which means in the short run, he has to take America into even more debt. There is no alternative," Clinton said at a lecture organized by the Sekhar Foundation, a philanthropic group that aims to foster an understanding of different cultures. "And then when we're out of it, we're gonna have to continue spending like sailors! Otherwise we'll get back in it!"
Obama "has to put a floor under the asset values and then use the government's spending ability to trigger economic activities," Clinton said. "Then when we resume growth, we should adopt a more conservative and traditional budget policy."
The U.S. has not suffered through a prolonged bout of deflation since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Congress passed a $700 billion bailout fund for financial institutions to combat the economic crisis.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
It's always worked for Bill. Especially when it's somebody elses money...
It is sink or swim.
Economic correction is very healty in the long term.
We have been "stimulating" a false economy for long enough. Do not fund economic bubbles - this is our lesson.
The more the economy does to route unstable business, the better we will be off in the next 20 years.
'
The more debt this government creates for us in their useless petty anty efforts, the longer we will feel the pain.
#7
What I've been pointing out for a while now is that since WWII, the Democrats have relied on inflationary spending sprees, and the Republicans have relied on economic growth, as the *only* two means to support and balance the post-war "easy credit", leveraged economy.
But this cannot continue, because it created a debt bubble with no mechanism for reduction. This could have possibly lasted for many more years, if it was limited to just the US government.
But the fools allowed it to be used in unregulated and less regulated markets as well. This turned a bad chronic problem into a severe and acute problem, worse by more than a factor over even the US government's problem. Running into the hundreds of trillions of dollars of unsustainable debt.
There is no way of "fixing" things the way they are now, so the only possibility is to segregate the "real" economy from the leveraged economy, and let the leveraged economy completely collapse.
The leveraged economy cannot even be allowed to try and survive, it must be wiped out entirely, because until that happens, there is no possibility of restoring the real economy. If any parts of the leveraged economy survives, it will parasitically draw the liquidity out of the real economy like a malignant tumor, and destroy it as well.
The way to segregate the two economies is with regulated currency control. Virtual money is inextricably tied to the leveraged economy, so the real economy must rely on physical cash.
At the consumer level, there is only the fraction of the cash we need, so there is a severe cash deflation in the near term. However, at the "big money" level, the government will need to issue very high denomination bills that can only be transferred with Treasury Department permission. $100k to $10M bills.
Only real economy corporations will be provided these bills in exchange for their virtual funds, and they will guarantee both that these corporations cannot go bankrupt, and that they retain 100% collateral for any loans they need to operate.
This is a government backed real corporation insurance policy. Any virtual money beyond this limit the corporation earns or uses is up to it. But it cannot spend those bills, and they cannot be taken from them, except by Treasury permission.
The leverage economy corporations will go to any lengths to try and obtain these bills, but even if they take over a real company and loot is virtual liquidity, it cannot take and use these bills for its own purposes. Even if they buy the real company, the government just invalidates the bills, unless that company continues to perform its real economy function.
This real economy insurance will also make the restoration of American heavy industry very stable, as once a new corporation is accepted into the real economy group, its existence is assured far into the future, until eventually the high denomination bills are redeemed for good.
#8
As much as I hate to admit it. Bill MIGHT be on to something here. I read an article about the Japan 10+ year recession and the conclusion is that the deficit spending is better in the long run then the alternative.
#11
Sir Winston Churchill "We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle."
#13
More money chasing the same goods and services means the value of your money drops. Econ 101. We laugh at Zimbob 10 bil bills. We are following exactly the same path, collectively fools.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/06/2008 17:07
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#14
It's worse than that.
Government borrowing crowds out private investment borrowing, therefore there are less goods created to use the money!
#16
Bright Pebbles and Besoeker---I find this whole govt spending (or rather raiding the treasury) horribly depressing. The Congress has taken its middle finger and held it up right in front of the face of the American taxpayer, and said, "F*ck you. We do not care what you think and you cannot do anything about it."
Besides the enormous financial implications of this is the damage to the institutions of the United States by the contempt and lack of respect they have generated with the public. It is hard or impossible to get back. Just like tax evasion is a national sport in Italy, getting around the government will be a national sport here. Look at illegal immigration. Nice rule of law here. We will become a banana republic in mindset.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/06/2008 17:18
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Zimbabwe's crumbling economy and services have transformed this South African border town into a teeming district of shoppers, asylum-seekers and job hunters. Now something new has traveled south across the river that divides the two countries: cholera.
This week, the front lawn of Musina's lone, 80-bed hospital was a scene of despair. Beneath trees exploding with yellow and red blossoms, more than 100 adults and children lay inside steamy tents and under bushes, intravenous tubes stretching from the backs of their hands to bags of liquid hanging from tree trunks. Some, suffering through the gravest stages of an illness that causes severe diarrhea and dehydration, wore nothing but adult-size diapers.
Nearly all were from Zimbabwe, where the government declared a national emergency Thursday because of the cholera epidemic ravaging its population and reaching farther each day into neighboring countries such as this one. South Africa announced Friday that it would send military doctors to the border to treat cholera victims, and would send clean water and other aid into Zimbabwe, along with a fact-finding team that will recommend additional humanitarian steps.
"At the moment I knew something was wrong, I had to come here to Musina," said Godfrey Mawunganidze, 40, a Zimbabwean cross-border trader who lay under a tree, a damp towel covering his head. "Because if you go to a hospital in Zimbabwe, that's a dead zone."
Zimbabwe's humanitarian and economic crisis is so dire that millions have fled the nation, where sewage and health-care systems are nearly defunct and food is scarce. Cholera, which is spread through contaminated water and food, has become a symbol of the regional spillover of Zimbabwe's devastation.
But as it crosses borders, the outbreak may also serve as a catalyst for neighboring countries to become more involved in ending months of political impasse that has defied regional mediation and international pressure.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, traveling in Europe, said Friday that the cholera should be a signal to other nations to stand up the government Robert Mugabe, who was re-elected in an internationally condemned election in June. Rice told reporters it was "well past time" for Mugabe to resign. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said the deteriorating situation was "a further illustration of the misrule of Zimbabwe's rogue government."
Both Britain and the Netherlands are urging tougher EU sanctions against Mugabe's regime. Mugabe blames Western sanctions for his once-productive nation's ravaged economy and the desperate plight of an increasing number of its citizens.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2008
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#1
Behold, Famine and Pestilence Without Borders. I blame poor crop rotation and over-tilling by Dutch farmers....Agg.
(AKI) -By Syed Saleem Shahzad - As US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met Pakistani leaders on Thursday, it was still unclear whether Islamabad would succumb to American pressure and detain leaders of a banned militant group linked to last week's terrorist attacks in India.
The sole gunman to survive the violent siege in which 188 people died in the Mumbai attacks (Photo) told Indian police interrogators that he was from Pakistan. He said that he and his fellow gunmen were trained at a camp there run by outlawed Kashmiri separatist group Lashkar-e-Toiba.
Lashkar-e-Toiba have denied any involvement in the attacks, while a previously unknown group calling itself the Deccan Mujahadeen claimed responsibility.
Pakistan has so far shown no intention of grilling alleged Lashkar-e-Toiba leaders, whom the Indians claim have renamed the group, Jamaat ud-Dawa. Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and Zakiur Rahman are two of the names said to be linked to the attacks.
Informed sources told Adnkronos International (AKI) that training camps in Muzzafarabad, in Pakistani-administered Kashmir were immediately evacuated soon after Indian forces were placed on high alert after the Mumbai attacks last week.
Rice and Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike Mullen, both visited the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, this week for meetings with top officials aimed at pressuring Pakistan to cooperate in probing the attacks.
Mullen and Rice separately met President Asif Ali Zardari and the Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani on Wednesday and Thursday and discussed Pakistan's crucial role in fighting terrorism.
While Pakistan has so far shown no intention of questioning the two Lashkar-e-Toiba leaders, Zardari gave assurances on Thursday that Pakistan would do everything possible to aid the investigations . However, AKI's sources maintained that the next 24 hours following Rice and Mullen's visit would be crucial.
Gillani's advisor on the interior, Rahman Malik, dismissed as "rumours" reports that India has submitted a list to Pakistan of 20 'most wanted' terrorists or that Pakistan has handed over any of these individuals.
Malik also denied that two underworld bosses wanted in connection with the devastating 1993 bombings in Mumbai that killed 250 people are hiding the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi.
"Neither Dawood Ibrahim nor Tiger Memon are in Pakistan, he said.
Indian police have accused Lashkar-e-Toiba of carrying out a previous attack in Mumbai in August 2003 that killed 55 people and injured 180.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2008
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(SomaliNet) It is time for African leaders to force Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe to resign, Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga says.
Right. They're gonna force him from office, just like they did... ummm... No. He died in office... ummm... No... His army threw him out... How about?... No. Even cannibalism wasn't enough for Africa to get together and toss him... Well. I'm sure they could do it if they wanted to.
Mr Odinga has been holding talks with Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, and points out that nothing has come of power sharing talks in Zimbabwe.
Three months ago, President Mugabe agreed to form a government of national unity with the opposition. Talks on the details of power sharing, however, have failed.
The crisis in Zimbabwe continues to intensify, with the economy in ruins, and shortages and infrastructure failures the order of the day.
Meanwhile, a cholera epidemic has already claimed the lives of over 550 people and Zimbabwe has now asked the international community for help.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2008
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#1
Raila Odinga, are you going to be the one to tell him? I thought so. Talk is cheap, but noone seems willing to act.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
12/06/2008 13:16
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#2
I thought the nation was so overpopulated, it bulged at the seams?
How'd they notice 550 dead?
Posted by: Rednek Jim ||
12/06/2008 14:12
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(AKI) - By Syed Saleem Shahzad - Faced with evidence of alleged Pakistani involvement in last week's terror assault on the Indian city of Mumbai, Islamabad has assured the United States it will take action at the right moment against those involved, according to well placed Pakistani intelligence sources.
"When's the right moment?"
"About fifty years from now, give or take. More likely give."
"There is no pressure on us so far, nor is there is any reason for the arrest of the top leadership," said Yahya Mujahid, spokesman for Jamaatut Dawa, formerly Lashkar-i-Toiba, the outlawed Kashmiri militant group suspected of being behind the Mumbai bombings.
The surviving gunman from the Mumbai assault reportedly told his Indian interrogators he was from Pakistan and was recruited and trained by Lashkar-i-Toiba. The attacks killed 172 people and injured nearly 300. "We have nothing to do with Laskhar-i-Toiba. Jamaatut Dawa chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed condemned the Mumbai attack. We never condone attacks against civilians," Mujahid told Adnkronos International (AKI).
Of course, no infidel can be a civilian ...
Pakistan's Government banned Laskhkar-e-Toiba after Al-Qaeda's 11 September 2001 atacks against the United States and renamed itself Jamaatut Dawa. The group still operates with the same name in Indian-administered Kashmir as a militant organisation while Jamaatut Dawa claims to be a welfare and political party in Pakistan.
Laskhkar-e-Toiba sources said that training camps in Muzzafarabad, in Pakistani-administered Kashmir were immediately evacuated soon after Indian armed were placed on high alert after the Mumbai attacks last week. The group feared an Indian Air Force attack could target Laskhkar-e-Toiba training camps in Muzzafarabad.
Pooled Indian and US intelligence points to the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency (ISI) having had a role in training the gunmen who carried out the attack, Indian media have reported this week, quoting intelligence sources.
Precisely what action has been taken against ISI is unclear but the noose has tightened around the organisation. The US recently sent a list of four former ISI officials to the United Nations Security Council whom it wants the body to label as terrorists.
Good luck with that ...
The officials include retired former ISI chief, Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul and retired Squadron Leader Khalid Khawaja. The list was compiled before the Mumbai attacks but is part of an Amrerican policy to curtail the role of ISI in the region.
Gul has confirmed that his name is mentioned in the list and if the government of Pakistan does not contact him, he will contact the UN to defend himself. "I am vocal against the American imperialist designs in the region. I can read their mind and expose their strategies and warn my nation in advance. That's why they want me declared a terrorist," Gul told AKI.
This article starring:
Hamid Gul
Khalid Khawaja
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2008
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#1
Always, with the American Imperialist b.s.
Gul baby, I hope you are a light sleeper. If you hear a buzzing sound in the sky above your house, just ignore it.
#2
Laskhkar-e-Toiba sources said that training camps in Muzzafarabad, in Pakistani-administered Kashmir were immediately evacuated soon after Indian armed were placed on high alert after the Mumbai attacks last week.
Gosh, it's as if they expected someone would act like LeT were responsible. By the way, what kind of training camps does a charitable organization need: Water Boiling For Cholera Prevention and Inoculation Methodology In Theory & Practice? Surely that wouldn't require more than a small building -- even the Red Cross national headquarters doesn't need that kind of space.
A car bomb explosion outside an Imambargah near Peshawar's historic Qisakhwani Bazaar killed at least 22 people and injured more than 90 on Friday. Imambargah Alamdar Karbala and several adjacent buildings in the Kocha Risaldar alley were damaged and the ensuing fire engulfed buildings, markets and vehicles. The powerful explosion also damaged electricity wires, plunging the area into darkness.
Police and rescue workers searched for survivors in the dark, and firefighters were impeded by broken glass and debris that blocked the narrow alleys.
Rasul Khan, staying in the nearby Pak Hotel, was injured when the windowpanes of his room shattered because of the impact of the explosion. He told reporters at hospital he and others were stranded for hours as part of the hotel caught fire. He was rescued after the fire was put out.
Peshawar Police chief Sawfat Ghayoor confirmed 18 deaths and said he could not confirm if it was a car bomb after investigations were complete. Police's first priority is to rescue the injured and put out the fire, he said. "The terrorists are changing their tactics, but the police will also use new techniques to counter them," Ghayoor said while talking to reporters.
NWFP Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain told Daily Times that about 20 to 25 kilogrammes of explosives were used in the blast, which he said did not appear to be a suicide bombing. The explosion created a five feet deep crater.
The site of the bombing is one of the busiest markets in the city, with hundreds of shops in markets that sprawl a labyrinth of narrow alleys. The market was packed with Eid shoppers.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani condemned the bombing in a statement released later on Friday, expressing "deep shock and anguish" over the "cowardly act".
"Anti-state elements" wanted to create law and order problems in Pakistan, he said, "to impede the flow of investment in the country and derail the ongoing development activities".
In a separate message, President Asif Zardari said the perpetrators of "such a heinous act" would be brought to justice. He said the government was committed to fighting terrorism and extremism and said such attacks "will not dent the government's resolve to root out this menace". He condoled with the families of the victims.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2008
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Eight Colombian police were killed and another wounded Friday in a suspected attack by Marxist FARC rebels in eastern Colombia, officials told AFP. The ambush took place early Friday in the town of Fortul, not far from the Venezuelan border, a police spokesman for the Arauca region told AFP.
Gun-toting attackers "activated the device and finished the police off with rifle shots. They killed the commander of the station, the deputy commander, the secretary, two corporals and three patrolmen," said the spokesman on condition of anonymity. Another police officer was wounded and transferred to a local hospital.
"It was a cowardly attack because they had a bomb ... This is not a form of combat, it is a cowardly terrorist attack," Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santo told reporters.
Santo did not rule out that the attack may have been perpetrated by the National Liberation Army (ELN), a lesser-known rebel group.
The incident occurred two days after the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) attacked another police patrol in the southwestern region of Narino, injuring two policemen. Santo told AFP the FARC "is surviving in very precarious conditions and the government is still ready to negotiate for peace ... but the guerrillas are not showing any signs they are willing to negotiate."
The FARC still have about 7,000 members, Santo added. Non-governmental organizations put the number at some 10,000 men.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2008
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#1
well, FARC should see a real turn around in their fortunes come Jan 20...
guess they are celebrating early
P.S.
The new comments tool looks nice.
Posted by: Abu do you love ||
12/06/2008 17:57
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Gunmen armed with automatic weapons and grenades fired on Philippine police officers who were tailing them, leaving at least 17 people dead in a fierce shootout in a Manila suburb on Saturday.
Eight people were killed and 17 wounded when prisoners in Kabul's main jail went on the rampage, setting fire to their beds and taking guards hostage, an Afghan minister said on Friday. The inmates of the notorious Pul-e-Charkhi prison were protesting late Thursday against a move to search their cells for phones, knives and other weapons.
Thirteen gunmen died in armed clashes between Somali opposition fighters and another armed group Ahl-ul-Sunna wal- Jamaa in central Somalia. The fighting broke out in the town of Guri-El in the Galgaduud region after the Ahl-ul Sunna gunmen attacked Al-Shabaab fighters, the Press TV correspondent in Mogadishu reported.
A suspected US missile kills 3 militants in a Pakistani tribal district known as haven for pro-Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked insurgents. "A missile fired by a suspected US drone killed three people outside the town of Mir Ali in Miranshah tribal district," an unnamed security official told AFP on Friday.
Crude oil prices plunged below $40 on Friday to their lowest levels in nearly four years, as worse-than-expected jobs data in the United States raised prospects of a severe decline in energy demand. In London, Brent North Sea crude slid to $39.50 a barrel, the lowest level since the January 2005.
A new study conducted on archeological finds suggests that humans may have evolved over 80,000 years earlier than previously believed.
The property bubble in Dubai, the business hub of the United Arab Emirates, is bursting as investors start to dump assets, a report says.
(SomaliNet) French President Nicolas Sarkozy has announced a 26 billion euro stimulus plan to support his country's faltering economy.
Former President Bill Clinton said Friday the U.S. government has no choice but to spend its way out of its worst economic crisis in decades.
Zimbabwe's crumbling economy and services have transformed this South African border town into a teeming district of shoppers, asylum-seekers and job hunters. Now something new has traveled south across the river that divides the two countries: cholera.
(AKI) -By Syed Saleem Shahzad - As US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met Pakistani leaders on Thursday, it was still unclear whether Islamabad would succumb to American pressure and detain leaders of a banned militant group linked to last week's terrorist attacks in India.
(AKI) - By Syed Saleem Shahzad - Faced with evidence of alleged Pakistani involvement in last week's terror assault on the Indian city of Mumbai, Islamabad has assured the United States it will take action at the right moment against those involved, according to well placed Pakistani intelligence sources.
A car bomb explosion outside an Imambargah near Peshawar's historic Qisakhwani Bazaar killed at least 22 people and injured more than 90 on Friday. Imambargah Alamdar Karbala and several adjacent buildings in the Kocha Risaldar alley were damaged and the ensuing fire engulfed buildings, markets and vehicles. The powerful explosion also damaged electricity wires, plunging the area into darkness. 
