#1
Oh. I thought this was going to be about something else Ray Nagin said.
Posted by: Matt ||
02/26/2006 10:54 Comments ||
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#2
I call bs. Of course I am biased being allergic like millions of others to cows milk. Just another marketing scheme disguised as scientific research.
KAMPALA: Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni won the country's first multi-party polls since 1980, according to official results released Saturday giving him an insurmountable lead over opposition challenger Kizza Besigye. The Electoral Commission said Museveni had taken 60.8 percent of Thursday's vote to Besigye's 36 percent with 91 percent of polling stations reporting, making his bid to extend a 20-year hold on power an unannounced certainty.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/26/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Comments? Is this good or bad? I haven't been following this and I'm sure 99.9 percent of the rest of the world hasn't either. (clicks worldmap to remind self where Uganda is).
Now if they dig up Natalie Holloway, then that will put them on the map. But in the mean time, how about a little help for the ignorant?? ;-)
The US has formally agreed a free trade pact with El Salvador but has told five more Central American nations that they must do more to finalise similar deals. Congress sanctioned a Central American Free Trade Agreement (Cafta) last year but official implementation has been delayed by a series of legal wrangles.
But the US-El Salvador agreement will now come into force on 1 March. The announcement, by the US Trade Representative's office, came ahead of a meeting between US President George W Bush and his Salvadorean counterpart Antonio Saca.
Washington has urged Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic to make greater efforts to bring domestic regulations into line with multilateral standards required by the treaty.
Rules governing meat inspection remain a major sticking point. The US views certain countries' reluctance to recognise its own system as equivalent to their own as a barrier to its exports. "We hope and expect that we will be able to bring additional Cafta partners into the agreement soon," Rob Portman, the US Trade Representative said on Friday.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/26/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
What does El Salvador export to the US? Besides MS-13 members? Bannanas, sweatshop designer clothing?
Trade (2004): Exports--$3.3 billion: textiles, diverse manufactures, coffee, sugar, and shrimp. Major markets--U.S. 65.4%, Central American Common Market (CACM) 24.9%. ...
The Salvadoran economy continues to benefit from a commitment to free markets and careful fiscal management. The economy has been growing at a steady and moderate pace since the signing of peace accords in 1992 ... Much of the improvement in El Salvador's economy is a result of free market policy initiatives carried out by the ARENA governments, including the privatization of the banking system, telecommunications, public pensions, electrical distribution and some electrical generation, reduction of import duties, elimination of price controls, and enhancing the investment climate through measures such as improved enforcement of intellectual property rights.
One of the biggest challenges in El Salvador has been to manage the decline in the coffee sector ... Moderate climate and a hard-working and enterprising labor pool comprise El Salvador's greatest assets. El Salvador has sought to leverage these assets in creating new export industries through fiscal incentives for free trade zones, and currently there are 15 free trade zones in El Salvador. The largest beneficiary has been the maquila industry, which directly provides 88,700 jobs, and primarily consists of cutting and assembling clothes for export to the United States. The apparel industry has greatly benefited from the Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act, which allows these goods to enter the United States duty free under certain conditions. Moreover, the U.S.-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), negotiated by the five countries of Central America with the United States in 2003, will make these benefits permanent. ...
U.S. support for El Salvador's privatization of the electrical and telecommunications markets markedly expanded opportunities for U.S. investment in the country. More than 300 U.S. companies have established either a permanent commercial presence in El Salvador or work through representative offices in the country. The Department of Commerce maintains a Country Commercial Guide for U.S. businesses seeking detailed information on business opportunities in El Salvador.
#5
Not sure I follow that ... the free trade arrangements with El Salvador have been in place for a good while in the leadup to CAFTA, as have the resulting business relationships.
The United States has agreed to grant citizenship to 7,000 Ahiska Muslims who will be settled in Pennsylvania, reported a Russian newspaper on Friday, July 23. The first 11-strong batch of the Ahiska Muslims, living in the Russian province of Krasnodar, left for Geneva on Thursday, July 22, before flying to Philadelphia, reported Novie Izvestia. It added that the Muslims would be housed near the grand mosque in Philadelphia.
The paper recalled that Krasnodar governor Alexander Tkachev was notified of the American decision on February 15. Izvestia said the Russian government does not treat Ahiska Muslims as citizens and has not therefore given them passports or IDs.
An official in Krasnodar administration had told Interfax on Tuesday, July 20, that of the 11,999 Ahiska Muslims living in the region, 4,943 have received Russian citizenship and 744 have embarked on Russian naturalization procedures. He added that more than 5,000 others have expressed a desire to emigrate to the United States.
Earlier, Chingiz Neiman-zade, chairman of Vatan, a Meskheti Turks association based in Georgia, said the United States had offered to accept the Ahiska Muslims living in Krasnodar as immigrants. "On February 16, the International Migration Organization began an information program in Krasnodar to explain the terms for the resettlement of the Ahiska Muslims in the U.S.," he told Chicago Tribune on Thursday, July 22.
"The immigrants will be provided with housing and furniture, they will be helped to learn the English language and to complete formalities needed for residence in the US, which is especially important, and have been promised life-long welfare allowances for pensioners and the disabled."
Ahiska Muslims were happy with the American offer. "This decision marks a great change in our life", said Tepeshon Swanidze, leader of the Ahiska Muslim community in Russia. "We thank the US administration for its humanitarian decision", he added.
Ahiska Muslims, originally hailing from Anatolia, were exiled from their homeland after Russia seized the region of Ahiska following its 1828-1829 war with the Ottoman Empire. Many Ahiska Muslims were forced to seek refugee in Erzurum in eastern Turkey after being persecuted by the Russian Csar for supporting the Ottoman Empire.
Facing a similar fate under the notorious Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, Ahiska Muslims fled to Uzbekistan in 1944. One year later, they went to Azerbaijan where they currently reside.
Turkish and Azeri parliamentarians had recently appealed for an international intervention to pressure the Georgian government into allowing the return of Ahiska Muslims. Ahiska became part of Georgia in 1918.
#1
"The immigrants will be provided with housing and furniture, they will be helped to learn the English language and to complete formalities needed for residence in the US, which is especially important, and have been promised life-long welfare allowances for pensioners and the disabled."
Wonderful. Let's import a few thousand folks likely to be hostile to us, our culture, our government, and our way of life and put them on welfare so we'll be able to share the cost of creating a cancer in our midst. Apparently we've not been paying attention to recent events in Europe.
#3
agree. This idea worked so well in Europe. Let's try it here.
Whose responsible for this and how much money did they get for gracing us with a group of people whose stated goal is to undermine our democracy and replace it with Sharia?
Jeesh. I'm all for being nice. But there's a difference between being nice and allowing yourself to be abused.
#4
What in hell is wrong with us? They're Russia's problem, not ours. If Russia wants to be rid of them, let Putin send them to Turkey, not Pennsylvania. WE DON'T NEED OR WANT ANY MORE MUSLIMS IN THIS COUNTRY. WE'D BE BETTER OFF WITHOUT THE ONES WE HAVE!!!!!
Posted by: mac ||
02/26/2006 7:58 Comments ||
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#5
Cheer up Mac,
Maybe the plane will go down over the Bermuda Triangle or something.
#6
I dunno ... we sure don't need more hostile Muslims here.
OTOH - reading the history of this small community and knowing just how horridly the Tsars acted in that part of the world (and Stalin afterwards) I have some real sympathy for them. Maybe they will indeed add to the threat here. But I suspect that they will turn out like most of the hill tribes from southeast Asia who came here. Most showed great courage in adopting to a totally alien world and their kids are doing fine and contributing to society.
On the third hand, from the dates given in the article it appears they are already here. Given that, it is not only generous but also a prudent course of action to be sure that we don't dump them and ignore them. That would guarantee their kids would join whatever jihad movement them come up against.
Ahiska Turks, coming from Anatolia were forced to settle in the region between 1578 and the Russian invasion in 1828 and then became the indivisible part of the Anatolian Turkism. The essential homelands of Ahiska Turks are the provinces of Ahiska, Ahýlkelek, Aspinza, Adýgen and Bogdanovka that are within the lands of the Republic of Georgia and the neighbours of Turkey ... Until it was subjected to the Russian dominion in the year of 1828, Ahiska remained as a forefront city of the Ottoman State. When it was separated from Turkey, the Serhat Turks that lived in this region met with their bad destiny. In the course of the Ottoman-Russian war in 1853-1856, some of Ahiska people ran away and took shelter in Erzurum due to the intense pressure imposed upon them on the grounds that they collaborated with the Ottoman army. Pursuant to this war, Kars was broken off from the Ottoman borders and Ahiska remained far away from the border of Turkey. In this period, an Armenian migration was experienced from the North East Anatolia towards the Ahiska region.
As ethnic Anatolians they're not likely to thrive under increased Iranian pressure in the region. But I haven't seen any speculation on why Turkey didn't take them in.
(After being forcibly removed to central Asia by the Russians in the 19th century) in the end of 1980s, the attack against them has increasingly escalated in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan ... Ahiska Turks had to immigrate in Krasnodar Region of Russian Federation. They have lived under primitive conditions in this region by involving in agriculture and stock breeding. Ahiskans are deprived from the citizenship rights and are not granted residence and working permission, are not provided access to the health and education services, are experienced ethnic discrimination, especially they are harassed, attacked continuously and their goods are robbed by Russian and Kazaks organizations.
Finally, after the period of 16 years, they have to immigrate to, this time, the USA with the facilities provided by the USA. Within the framework of this resettlement program, as first wave of resettling, 90 families (nearly 300-350 people) departed from Krasnodar in which nearly 30. 000 Ahiska Turks live and they are resettled to Texas and Philadelphia states (Telford town) of the USA. The American officials said that total 11-12 thousands persons will take advantage from this resettlement program.
... Ahiska Turks are informed about providing them residence and job from the date they are resettled to the USA and renewing residence permission in every period of 6 months, giving examination to them for such courses as language, knowledge about citizenship after 5 years. While Ahiskan families are allocated lands by the American officials in order to plant cotton and tobaccos, they are definitely prohibited to work in other fields rather than farming. Also they have been prohibited to travel out of the USA for 5 years, if they want to go out the USA after 5 years period, they must repay the aid of 10.000 dollars which are given them unconditionally when they came to the USA. While Ahiskans are resettled in distant regions as per 3 families, even members of the same family must be resided in different settlements. It is observed that Ahiskans concern for their future since they are broken off each other and even off their families, they consider this practice is only the result of assimilation policy.
#10
...reported a Russian newspaper on Friday, July 23.... That's July 23 2004. This very same IslamOnLine.com story was posted on Rantburg July 26 2004.(See that thread. Note Chuck Simmins' post, #4) Anyone from Pennsylvania know the latest status of this 18 month old plan? Also, anything locally about the politics, eg Wahhabist,etc., of the grand mosque in Philadelphia? I just hope this isn't another battallion of the 'unarmed invaders' I ranted about the other day in #19 of this thread.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/26/2006 11:28 Comments ||
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#13
OMG, here I was berating the French and about to start on the Germans when I see this. What in hell is wrong with this administration ? This Congress? I USED TO BE aRepublican. No more. Not after the performance of this Repulican majority. They care nothing about our security. What is Santorum doing ? Got his headwhere the sun don't shine. Stop letting Muslims into US. They are strictly Persona non Grata. Pass a law based on political basis as with Communism. We don't want or need Muslims here. We need to get rid of the ones already here. Think of the twerp in Lodi, Ca.
#14
You know, that's the sort of thing some people said when the Vietnamese boat people came here.
And earlier, when the eastern European immigration wave hit.
And before that, about the Irish.
And before that, about the Germans.
History doesn't record much about what the native Americans said when the English and Spanish and French colonists showed up, although I suspect it included the equivalent of "there goes the neighborhood".
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/26/2006 15:44 Comments ||
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#19
Heh. Let's be fair - back then, who knew? ;-)
When discussing the Pahtee! vs Parent issue, one is tempted to recount Nurse Nancy's tales of reproductive woe from the Saudi Clinic System... The ignorance (under Shari'a) still lives!
I freely admit that Nancy has her own, um, foibles. The have quite a bit to do with her affectation for latex...
#20
You know, that's the sort of thing some people said when the Vietnamese boat people came here.
And earlier, when the eastern European immigration wave hit.
And before that, about the Irish.
And before that, about the Germans.
Funny, I think they said the same about the Chinese. (That it was the Irish is ironic but besides the point.) Not exactly amused, am I, by many of the comments here.
... and if this article is old as hell, then why the bitchery?
Thanks, lotp. :) I appreciate your bringing this up.
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
02/26/2006 16:16 Comments ||
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#21
as long as they're not guaranteed welfare or unemployment (i.e.: sponsors) and they choose to assimilate and take the oaths, no problem here, either. Willing to work and become American = welcome
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/26/2006 16:29 Comments ||
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#22
You have anything against BJ's, EY?
As a mongrel mix of Scots, English, and Native American Noble Savage (lol), plus a smattering of other mongrel ethnicities, I find the entire range of mild snobbery / racism a BIG yawn. I detect a whiff of another manufactured bit of PCism. Doesn't mean shit by the second generation if the immigrants aren't morons and assimilate in every way possible. (And yes, all the ethnic BS is baggage and boat anchors, IMNERHO. All of it.) I offer the benefit of the doubt and suggest that most of the above are referring to the morons, not to us. Don't fall for the faux outrage game, bro - you're a solid citizen and that just wastes your needed and welcomed brain power. :-)
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan - Authorities in Tajikistan have started demolishing the country's only synagogue in order to make way for a new presidential residence, an official said Friday. The century-old synagogue on government land in the ex-Soviet republic's capital Dushanbe will be completely torn down by June "as part of the plans to build a new presidential palace," said city administration spokesman Shavkat Saidov.
Last month, city authorities demolished the synagogue's ritual bathhouse, classroom and kosher butchery, the Norway-based international Forum 18 religious rights group said. Tajikistan's Jewish community, mainly made up of Bukharan Jews, is mostly elderly and poor and cannot afford to build a new synagogue. About 280 Jews live in Dushanbe, of about 480 across the country.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/26/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Isn't eliminating churches and synagouges a requirement for any country with "stan" in its name.
(NYT: Now with even more obnoxious registration. Article shown in full.)
The Cambie Surgery Center, Canada's most prominent private hospital, may be considered a rogue enterprise. Accepting money from patients for operations they would otherwise receive free of charge in a public hospital is technically prohibited in this country, even in cases where patients would wait months or even years in discomfort before receiving treatment.
But no one is about to arrest Dr. Brian Day, who is president and medical director of the center, or any of the 120 doctors who work there. Public hospitals are sending him growing numbers of patients they are too busy to treat, and his center is advertising that patients do not have to wait to replace their aching knees.
The country's publicly financed health insurance system frequently described as the third rail of its political system and a core value of its national identity is gradually breaking down. Private clinics are opening around the country by an estimated one a week, and private insurance companies are about to find a gold mine.
Dr. Day, for instance, is planning to open more private hospitals, first in Toronto and Ottawa, then in Montreal, Calgary and Edmonton. Ontario provincial officials are already threatening stiff fines. Dr. Day says he is eager to see them in court. "We've taken the position that the law is illegal," Dr. Day, 59, says. "This is a country in which dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week and in which humans can wait two to three years."
Dr. Day may be a rebel (he keeps a photograph of himself with Fidel Castro behind his desk), but he appears to be on top of a new wave in Canada's health care future. He is poised to become the president of the Canadian Medical Association next year, and his profitable Vancouver hospital is serving as a model for medical entrepreneurs in several provinces.
Canada remains the only industrialized country that outlaws privately financed purchases of core medical services. Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other politicians remain reluctant to openly propose sweeping changes even though costs for the national and provincial governments are exploding and some cancer patients are waiting months for diagnostic tests and treatment.
But a Supreme Court ruling last June it found that a Quebec provincial ban on private health insurance was unconstitutional when patients were suffering and even dying on waiting lists appears to have become a turning point for the entire country. "The prohibition on obtaining private health insurance is not constitutional where the public system fails to deliver reasonable services," the court ruled.
In response, the Quebec premier, Jean Charest, proposed this month to allow private hospitals to subcontract hip, knee and cataract surgery to private clinics when patients are unable to be treated quickly enough under the public system. The premiers of British Columbia and Alberta have suggested they will go much further to encourage private health services and insurance in legislation they plan to propose in the next few months.
Private doctors across the country are not waiting for changes in the law, figuring provincial governments will not try to stop them only to face more test cases in the Supreme Court. One Vancouver-based company launched a large for-profit family medical clinic specializing in screening and preventive medicine here last November. It is planning to set up three similar clinics in Toronto, Ottawa and London, Ontario next summer and nine more in several other cities by the end of 2007. Private diagnostic clinics offering MRI tests are opening around the country.
Canadian leaders continue to reject the largely market-driven American system, with its powerful private insurance companies and 40 million people left in the Medicaid insurance program uninsured, as they look to European mixed public-private health insurance and delivery systems. "Why are we so afraid to look at mixed health care delivery models when other states in Europe and around the world have used them to produce better results for patients at a lower cost to taxpayers?" the premier of British Columbia, Gordon Campbell, asked in a speech two weeks ago.
While proponents of private clinics say they will shorten waiting lists and quicken service at public institutions, critics warn that they will drain the public system of doctors and nurses. Canada has a national doctor shortage already, with 1.4 million people in the province of Ontario alone without the services of a family doctor. "If anesthetists go to work in a private clinic," Manitoba's health minister, Tim Sale, argued recently, "the work that they were doing in the public sector is spread among fewer and fewer people."
Actually, they might stay in Canada instead of emigrating to the States or to Australia.
But most Canadians agree that current wait times are not acceptable. The median wait time between a referral by a family doctor and an appointment with a specialist has increased to 8.3 weeks last year from 3.7 weeks in 1993, according to a recent study by The Fraser Institute, a conservative research group. Meanwhile the median wait between appointment with a specialist and treatment has increased to 9.4 weeks from 5.6 weeks over the same period. Average wait times between referral by a family doctor and treatment range from 5.5 weeks for oncology to 40 weeks for orthopedic surgery, according to the study.
Last December, provincial health ministers unveiled new targets for cutting wait times, including four weeks for radiation therapy for cancer patients beginning when doctors consider them ready for treatment and 26 weeks for hip replacements.
But few experts think that will stop the trend toward privatization. Dr. Day's hospital here opened in 1996 with 30 doctors and three operating rooms, treating mostly police officers, members of the military and worker's compensation clients, who are still allowed to seek treatment outside the public insurance system. It took several years to turn a profit. Today the center is twice its original size and has yearly revenue of more than $8 million, mostly from perfectly legal procedures.
Over the last 18 months, the hospital has been under contract by overburdened local hospitals to perform knee, spine and gynecological operations on more than 1,000 patients. Since the Supreme Court ruling in June, it began treating patients unwilling to wait on waiting lists and willing to pay their own money.
Now Dr. Day says he is considering building a full-service private hospital somewhere in Canada with a private medical school attached to it. "In a free and democratic society where you can spend money on gambling and alcohol and tobacco," Dr. Day said, "the state has no business preventing you and me from spending our own money on health care."
A few years back I was a visiting professor in Winnipeg. As part of my day I met with the only sleep specialist in Manitoba. Average waiting time for a return appointment after the first consultation? Eighteen months. Talk about a frustrated doc who knew he wasn't delivering the kind of care that needed to be done.
Washington defense contractor Mitchell J. Wade admitted yesterday in federal court that he attempted to illegally influence Defense Department contracting officials and tried to curry favor with two House members, in addition to lavishing more than $1 million in cash, cars, a boat, antiques and other bribes on convicted Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.).
The new admissions, including details that identify Reps. Virgil H. Goode Jr. (R-Va.) and Katherine Harris (R-Fla.) as recipients of illegal campaign contributions, are contained in Wade's agreement to plead guilty to four criminal charges stemming from his role in the Cunningham probe. The congressman resigned after pleading guilty in November to taking $2.4 million in bribes from Wade and others in return for steering federal funds and contracts their way.
ISLAMABAD: The police arrested three people, including a cleric, on Saturday on charges of desecrating the Holy Quran. Passersby informed police that 17 copies of the Holy Quran had been dumped at a drain in Sector G-6/4. During probe, police found Qazi Abdul Islam, a cleric in the Qutab Shaheed Madrassa, responsible for the desecration. Police said that Islam admitted that he had asked his two students to dump the copies of the Quran in a well. However, the students threw the copies into the drain. The police have registered a case under Section 295-B.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/26/2006 00:00 ||
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#2
Note the little icon (might be a mosque) on the left (the muslim's right).
If he took this Quran with him to Saudiland for Hajj, this Quran would have been confiscated and burned because the ruling theos there don't allow such things.
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.
KAMPALA: Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni won the country's first multi-party polls since 1980, according to official results released Saturday giving him an insurmountable lead over opposition challenger Kizza Besigye. The Electoral Commission said Museveni had taken 60.8 percent of Thursday's vote to Besigye's 36 percent with 91 percent of polling stations reporting, making his bid to extend a 20-year hold on power an unannounced certainty.
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan - Authorities in Tajikistan have started demolishing the country's only synagogue in order to make way for a new presidential residence, an official said Friday. The century-old synagogue on government land in the ex-Soviet republic's capital Dushanbe will be completely torn down by June "as part of the plans to build a new presidential palace," said city administration spokesman Shavkat Saidov.
ISLAMABAD: The police arrested three people, including a cleric, on Saturday on charges of desecrating the Holy Quran. Passersby informed police that 17 copies of the Holy Quran had been dumped at a drain in Sector G-6/4. During probe, police found Qazi Abdul Islam, a cleric in the Qutab Shaheed Madrassa, responsible for the desecration. Police said that Islam admitted that he had asked his two students to dump the copies of the Quran in a well. However, the students threw the copies into the drain. The police have registered a case under Section 295-B.
