NEW DELHI--Only a quarter of condoms made in India are used for sex, most of the others are used to make saris, toys and bathroom slippers, a newspaper reported Saturday. The condoms are valuable to manufacturers because of the lubricant on them. Sari weavers place the condoms on their thread spools and the lubricant on the prophylactics is rubbed off on the thread, making it move faster through their sewing machines,...
#3
Just use matzah as the challah, Shipman. It's a straight one for one substitution -- no dilemma. We can, after all, eat matzah as a bread year round, not just for the Passover holiday. It's just that during P. we can't have yeast bread, too.
#4
I just knew you'd have a solution. The local paper made it sound like there was only a 10 minute window for bread, if you chased all the bread out prior, etc.
Three Saudi women have valiantly withstood social stigmas and defied traditions when they started their jobs as waitresses in a five-star hotel in Jeddah around two months ago.
Ameera, Awatef and Amna are the first Saudi waitresses. All three were students at Abdul Latif Jameel Fund for Training and Development majoring in housekeeping. Most of the course was for free for the three.
After graduating with 13 other Saudi women, they were guided by ALJ to the five-star hotel where they were accepted after an interview. They work on shifts of nine hours a day and have a weekly day-off.
Ameera has only completed intermediate school but took several English and computer courses. "I have been looking for a job for seven years. Because I don't have a high school degree it was difficult to find a job. I then heard of ALJ and enrolled in the training program," she said.
"My father passed away when I was very young and my older brother raised me. He and my mom were very supportive and trusted that I would stick to my Islamic values no matter where I worked," said Ameera. "This job is not considered a disgrace. A disgrace is when a family is poor and in need and the girl is a burden to her family," she added.
Ameera stressed that the world should see that Saudi women are not restrained. "We are able to work in various jobs within our Islamic boundaries."
A number of Saudis and even foreigners expressed their admiration to the women's courage in engaging in such a job despite the obstacles they might face.
Awatef graduated from high school and was unable to continue her university studies. "I am more entitled to serve my country than a foreigner," Awatef said with pride. "I accepted the challenge and faced all obstacles."
"We were irritated in the beginning by comments from relatives. Some did not approve of us working as waitresses. We managed to impose ourselves on society. Now we are respected as hard working Saudi women."
Iman, housekeeping supervisor at the five-star hotel, explained that the trio are treated with respect by guests. They have proven to be productive and hard working. "I hope that after a couple of years they will reach the level of professionalism our foreign waitresses have reached," she added.
Iman also pointed out that three other Saudi women have joined the team recently.
Some members of the public lend their support whereas others made it clear that they were against the idea.
Reem Philby, a government employee, said: "A woman should be a constituent member of her society. Abroad, women serve as policewomen, waitresses and sales women without the need to employ foreigners to do the job. The idea of Saudi waitresses might be objected by society but that is not important. It is important that it is accepted in our religion. These women are not doing anything wrong. They are working to make a living."
Abdulrahman Sendi stated: "I do not mind if one day my sister wants to work as a waitress as long as she complies with the religious values. To work is to be dignified. Besides, these days it is very hard to find a job without pulling strings."
Faisal Hassan also encouraged the idea, "There is no shame in doing a decent job. It's better than sitting at home sleeping and watching TV."
Um Muhammad said being a waitress is socially unacceptable. "We, Saudis, are commanded by our customs, more than religious principles. We are still not completely accustomed to Saudi males working as waiters."
Posted by: tipper ||
04/23/2005 10:10:48 AM ||
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#1
"I hope that after a couple of years they will reach the level of professionalism our foreign waitresses have reached"
A couple of years?
She's kidding, right?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/23/2005 10:49 Comments ||
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#2
How do you feel about women running the foreign policy of the United States? Think that they're not up to the job?
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2005 00:00:00 ||
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#1
Senor Chavez is endlessly amusing. I wonder how unhappy this will make his Generals ... and his Colonels. Historically, it's the colonels that are more dangerous to such leaders, as I recall.
#2
These exchange programs often keep good relations going when the elected government is anti-US. That's the case in France, for instance. Chavez doesn't want anything in the way of his dictatorship of the proletariat.
Posted by: too true ||
04/23/2005 6:24 Comments ||
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Ecuador's ousted President Lucio Gutierrez said Friday his removal from office by Congress violated the constitution and that he never abandoned his post. Gutierrez's first public comments in three days came as Ecuador's new government said it would let him leave for political asylum in Brazil but did not say when he could depart. Many outraged Ecuadoreans demanded he be tried for alleged abuse of power and the violent repression of peaceful protests.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2005 00:00:00 ||
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Japan's prime minister apologized Friday for his country's World War II aggression in Asia in a bid to defuse tensions with regional rival China, but a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said the apology needed to be backed up with action after Japanese lawmakers made a controversial visit to a war shrine. Just hours before Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi apologized, a Cabinet minister and more than 80 Japanese lawmakers visited a Tokyo shrine to Japan's war dead. China's Foreign Ministry expressed "strong dissatisfaction over the negative actions of some Japanese politicians" in visiting the Yasukuni Shrine, which also honor's Japan's executed war criminals.
"That President Koizumi expressed this attitude in this arena is welcome. We welcome it," ministry spokesman Kong Quan told reporters at a summit of Asian and African leaders. "But to express it is one aspect. What's of much more importance is the action. You have to make it a reality." He said "60 years of history has caused great harm to China and Asia." Koizumi's expression of "deep remorse" at a summit of Asian and African leaders in Jakarta did not go beyond what Japanese leaders previously have said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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#1
Did not just tons of hired hands demonstrated with "Kill Japs" in China, Kong?
#2
This must be the 10th apology they've made. Now that the Chinese have been given an inch, they're asking for a yard. Still, the Koizumi move may have been the right one - it divides China from the rest of East Asia. As an issue, Japan's WWII military expeditions will now be separated from China's territorial demands.
(found the file at adorablebunnies.com in the user uploads.. it is _NOT_ a work safe site)
(if anyone here can read japanese.. verification on it's authenticity would be great)
#7
Sobiesky, I've got two Seders to prepare for. My comment was based on general info in my head, but I'll try to pull something together for you on Monday, ok?
#9
I know Chinese text books don't refer to the 20 million? dead in the Great Leap Forward or the still continuining persecution of Tibetans. Shit, most Chinese even educated ones don't even know China invaded 50 years ago. They are taught it has always been a part of China.
Enough with Japan having to abase itself over WW2. Japan has been an explempary world citizen since unlike China.
#10
The Japanese do not refer to the Rape of Nanking, an event that is in a class with or beyond anything the Nazis did. Nor the medical experiments done on civilians and allied POWs, unanesthesized. They have put their WWII atrocities in the memory hole. Their effort is nothing compared to the Germans', who have dealt with reality responsibly.
China is not the only country the Japanese brutalized. As long as they pursued isolationism, it didn't make much difference what they did in their schools. But their unacknowledged atrocities will prove an impediment in their ability to work effectively with other east Asian countries in developing security arrangements to contain China.
Having failed to remember the past, they certainly cannot learn from it.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
04/23/2005 7:07 Comments ||
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#11
Mrs D, I am aware of what happened in the Rape of Nanking, I am also well aware what happened in Pakistan during the partition, the Cultural Revolution, PolPot's return to year zero, the Ukrainian Famine, Rwanda and of course what is happening in Darfur today. All of which have body counts higher than Nanking. In the ninteenth century Nanking was the centre of the largest slaughter the world has ever seen. Perhaps fifty million died. Nobody is being asked to apologize for these, so why Japan?
#12
Buried in our own history media hole is the butchery that was Manila.
While the post war academics decried the dropping of the bombs, they all ignored that in the American territory that was then the Phillipines, the Japanese killed as many civilians by bullet, bayonet, and barbed wire as died in either bombings.
On the other hand [here's where the granade pin is pulled], even here in America, over a hundred and forty years after the ACW, people keep rationalizing 'states rights' for the rebellion, even though the conflict saw the resolution of the slavery issue and the enactment of the 13th Admendment. If 140 years later we can not resolve the past, why should the Japanese do so only 60 years later?
#13
phil_b, Japan is less being asked to apologize than to acknowledge. Japan has "apologized" many times. It has also dropped any mention of these incidents into its collective memory hole.
That is why the text book issue is being brought up. They don't have "holocaust" deniers in Japan because few there who acknowledge it happened except as necessary for foreign apologies. The only atrocities that occurred in WWII as far as Japan seems to be concerned were at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Can you name any comparable memorials the Japanese have established for the millions they butchered? Do you really mean to suggest that Japan has internalized what they did the way Germany has?
The problem is we want them to be involved in regional defence in East Asia. Until the Japanese deal openly in their own society with these matters, every country in the region will have second thoughts about inviting the Japanes to help with their defence. It has noting to do with apologies, per se, but with building confidence with neighbors that there will not be a repetition of these events.
GS, I had not noticed that Ameicans have kept discussions of slavery out of textbook discusions of the Civil War. When this starts to happen, I will be equally concerned for the U. S.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
04/23/2005 10:08 Comments ||
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GS, I had not noticed that Ameicans have kept discussions of slavery out of textbook discusions of the Civil War. When this starts to happen, I will be equally concerned for the U. S.
#15
look in Arab textbooks for slavery....might find it in the Koran under "permissible"
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/23/2005 10:44 Comments ||
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#16
Mr Davis, that's because slavery had nothing to do with the civil war, had slaves been 'low paid workers'... the result would have been the same
the north and the south had seperated politically and culturally, both viewed the other poorly.
the great emancipator is on the record as stating that he if he could save the union without freeing slaves he would.. (thus the only reason he did it was to force the issue before the south was ready to win)
#17
dcreeper, your comment seems more pertinent to GS than me, so I'll let him or her respond.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
04/23/2005 11:10 Comments ||
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Apologies are one thing, concealing the events from their own children quite another. Japanese obfuscation blends nicely into the western multi-cult's campaign to portray the Pacific War as yet another example of EVIL AMERICAN aggression, motivated by racism and grasping commercial greed.
If this is not so, how do so many American young people get the idea that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were direct, literal and immediate (and therefore massively disproportionate) retaliation for Pearl Harbor? This figurative statement of justification, "it was revenge for Pearl Harbor",is repeated ad nauseum, and without background, precisely in order to invite that conclusion.
I had a student a few years ago who believed this and included it in a letter to the editor of the Dallas paper, "when the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor, Harry Truman didn't mess around, he nuked them." In this particular case, the bogus conclusion had backfired on the multi-cult histori-liars, since this student actually approved of the alleged sequence of events. I asked the letter-writer about this after the letter came out. He had no idea that the Pearl Harbor attack and the atomic bombings happened 3 years and 9 months apart, that Truman was not President at the time, or that a great deal else had happened in the meantime. How common is this belief? I have no idea, but there is no doubt that multi-cultists encourage it, just as they encourage a belief in the equivalence of the Holocaust and the detention of Japanese-Americans.
The more the Japanese are required to acknowledge reality (and remember that the facts are not disputed), the more difficult it will be for revisionists to present the US as the aggressor, something they are hell-bent on doing.
(Ironically enough, the father of arch-traitor Ramsey Clark, future Supreme Court justice Tom Clark, was the US attorney in charge of rounding up Japanese-Americans on the West Coast.)
#19
On this issue, we have a potentially serious ideological split between the Chicoms and their western comrades, multi-cult educators and the institutional media.
The latter support the Japanese position, perhaps without realizing that it is such, because it advances their rigid policy of demonizing the United States.
The Chinese Reds would probably like to help them but even they do not have the power to erase the collective Chinese memory of Japanese brutality and aggression.
For many years, in fact, the Chinese overlords have done a lot to encourage such memories. They could not have anticipated that American leftists would be so depraved in their ethics, or so convoluted in their thinking, or so ardent in their treason, as to retro-actively white-wash the Japanese militarists of the 1940s.
#20
(Ironically enough, the father of arch-traitor Ramsey Clark, future Supreme Court justice Tom Clark, was the US attorney in charge of rounding up Japanese-Americans on the West Coast.)
Poor choice of words AC, shit breeding true is not irony.
Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul yesterday urged him his Armenian counterpart Vardan Oskanian to respond to goodwill gestures he made at unofficial meetings between the two countries that have no diplomatic relations. "I've met the Armenian foreign minister six times, it's no secret. We have no diplomatic relations but we do have contacts," said Gul. Turkish daily Milliyet yesterday said meetings had been held over the past three years in neutral locations with the aim of establishing a raft of ten confidence-building measures between the two. Relations between Turkey and Armenia have been dogged by, among other events, the mass killings of Armenians during the fall of the Ottoman Empire (the predecessor of modern Turkey) 90 years ago.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2005 00:00:00 ||
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A former Yugoslav army chief wanted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal agreed Friday to surrender to the Netherlands-based court, the Serbian government said. Retired Gen. Nebojsa Pavkovic, wanted for atrocities committed during the 1998-99 Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo, decided to give himself up voluntarily, a Cabinet statement said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2005 00:00:00 ||
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Perhaps you remember Henry Cisneros. He's the former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development who pleaded guilty in 1999 to lying to FBI investigators during his pre-appointment background check about hush payments to a former mistress, on which it also happens he hadn't paid the requisite taxes.
Well, the special counsel report investigating all this still hasn't been made public, thanks largely to procedural roadblocks by Mr. Cisneros's attorneys. And now, all of a sudden, a rash of news stories and editorials are urging Independent Counsel David Barrett to wrap up his investigation forthwith, without releasing his findings.
Then there's the amendment that North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan and co-sponsors John Kerry and Richard Durbin are trying to attach to the latest supplemental war appropriations bill that would de-fund Mr. Barrett immediately. This would have the practical effect of making sure that Mr. Barrett's report never sees the light of day. After 10 long years and $21 million, don't they think taxpayers deserve to see what the special counsel has learned?
We should add that any blame for this delay lies mainly with Mr. Cisneros's lawyers at Williams and Connolly, who have filed more than 190 motions and appeals; one single appeal took some 18 months to deal with. The 400-plus page Barrett report has been largely done since last August, and awaits only a requisite period for review and response by those named in its pages. The only thing threatening a hold-up past June are further defense motions seeking still more delay.
So what don't Democrats want everyone to know? We're told that early on the Barrett probe moved away from Mr. Cisneros and his mistress and focused on an attempted cover-up by the Clinton Administration, especially involving the IRS.
Back in the early '90s Mr. Cisneros was considered the rising savior of the Democratic Party in Texas. "So there were people who wanted to save his political future," a source tells us. To that end, when the IRS began investigating him for tax fraud an extraordinary thing happened: The investigation was taken from the IRS district office that would always handle such an audit and moved to Washington, where it was killed.
"Never in the history of the IRS has a case been pulled out of the regional office and taken directly to Washington," our source continues. This information was originally provided to Mr. Barrett, some years into his investigation, by a whistleblower in the IRS regional office with 30 years of experience.
Using his subpoena power, Mr. Barrett also found that the IRS would not have been able to kill the case on its own. It had to have cooperation from the Justice Department, particularly the Public Integrity and Tax divisions. We're told Mr. Barrett beat back several attempts by Justice to squelch or otherwise limit his investigation, and that a lot of important names from the Clinton era appear in the report. One key figure is likely to be former Clinton Administration IRS Commissioner Peggy Richardson, a prominent Texas Democrat, and a friend of both Mr. Cisneros and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
With Mrs. Clinton likely to run for President in 2008, all of this obviously bears on the character of her potential Administration. (Bill Clinton pardoned Mr. Cisneros in 2001.) But just as important is the rare look the report may provide of how the IRS can be manipulated for political ends. This is the first time the IRS has been investigated with grand jury subpoena power, and it is likely to be revealing.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/23/2005 3:48:41 PM ||
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#1
Wooohoo, MSM, a juicy scandal! Don't be the last in your Tranzi cabal to jump on it! There's plenty of great Sunday Mag featurettes just waiting for you to immerse yourselves and report the truth: the Clinton years were as rotten and corrupt and packed full of double-dealing back-stabbing power-abuse as any ever in the history of the republic. Hurry! Get onboard and get your shots in. Hillary's ass is already cooked by the campaign funding lies and fraudulent reporting. She's toast - get in some shots while you can! Don't be afraid - your readers will eat it up! Don't wait for the WSJ to scoop you, yet again! Get out there and dig! You'll regain some credibility! It'll be like you're journalists, almost, again!
#2
Why would Kerry want to do the dirty work for the Clintons? They weren't very helpful to him during his 2004 run, then you see stuff like this, and it makes you wonder, just a bit.
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced recently that he is worried about the "hard, hard right" of the Republican Party, people whose goal is to turn "the clock back to the 1930s or the 1890s." I've never met one myself. There is no such Republican in the president's Cabinet, none in the Senate, and Schumer is talking nonsense. He wants to conceal the Big Switch that has transformed American politics. Today the Democrats are the party of reactionary liberalism. Republicans are the true progressives.
Yet if Schumer is mostly wrong, he is also unintentionally revealing. He seems to believe that "hard right" Republicans pine for the 1930s — when statesmen like FDR and his disciples dominated the scene. He's right: Many Republicans do admire FDR. Republicans, after all, are his spiritual heirs.
This is serious business. If you agree that President Bush has no automatic right to call himself Lincoln's successor just because they are both "Republicans," then Democrats have no automatic right to FDR's mantle either. The Democrats and Republicans switched roles while no one was looking.
Schumer is a main man for the Dems, architect of a fine new way of holding a knife to the Senate's throat. Democrats threaten to filibuster Bush judicial nominees; one touch of Schumer's magic wand and they can no longer be confirmed by majorities, only landslides. (How many Democratic senators won by landslides?) If Republicans change the rules to disallow such vindictiveness, Democrats promise to throw a fit and bring Senate business to a halt.
The filibuster scheme perfectly epitomizes modern Democrats. Republicans want to move forward, confirm some judges. The Democrats' response: Freeze! Or we talk you to death. Democrats are the Stand Still party. They adore the status quo.
Conservatives won't settle for the status quo. They want this nation to champion justice, humanity, democracy. Democrats want America to tip-toe around the globe minding its own business, upsetting no one, venerating the Earth, etc. Why did Democrats leap to label Afghanistan and Iraq "new Vietnams"? Vietnam was 30-plus years ago! But for Democrats it is always 1974. Things change — but Democrats don't.
Republicans want better schools: Why not try vouchers on a serious scale? Democrats' response: Hands off! Republicans want to knock the chip off the U.N.'s shoulder and retune Social Security so that even the poor can leave assets to their children. Democrats' response: Hands off! Conservatives wonder, why not let the people's representatives in state legislatures determine the nation's abortion policy? Democrats' response: Are you crazy? The smelly masses? Why is it their business?
Today's Democrats dislike democracy on principle, like Russian nobility circa 1905. Should Bush be allowed to pick federal judges merely because Republicans won the presidency, the Senate, the House, the country? No way! And why let the people decide about homosexual marriage when left-wing judges can make the law? Connecticut's governor just signed a law approving civil unions for gays and also stipulating that "marriage" means a man and a woman. Whatever you think of the outcome, this is democracy — Schumerite Democrats should check it out.
At the nation's universities, an occasional conservative wonders whether just maybe racism, sexism and "class-ism" no longer explain every bad thing in the world. Could 30 years of affirmative action be enough? There are tenured professors who can't even remember a world without it. The Democrats' response: Hands off affirmative action!
Many people have noticed that today's political scene is confusing, hard to read — Republicans wanting to save the world, Dems shouting "mind your own business." Republicans worrying about poor people's stake in society, Dems muttering "wake me up when it's over." Republicans sticking up for Israel, left-wing anti-Bush rallies toying with anti-Semitism. It's all terribly confusing, until you notice that you are looking at the picture upside down. Once you understand the Big Switch, everything starts to make sense.
Posted by: tipper ||
04/23/2005 10:03:26 AM ||
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#1
The democrats: party of slavery. Be it indentured servitude, the niggardly repression of the Jim Crow laws, or the pervasive slavery of socialism, the democrats have been and are always at the forefront of repression and the hate and fear of civil liberties for all.
#3
Dems talk of their Party becoming a "War Party" - its what the Commies belabled themselves early in their history. The Failed/Angry Left stand for nothing save POLITICS, POWER, and CONTROL - Dean, Kerry, and Hillary have been wilfully but PC "prepositioned" in case of a new 9-11 or WMD attack that the Dems hope will take out Dubya and the bulk of the US GOP-Right! Dean and Kerry are there TO FAIL, NOT TO WIN, as the Commie, anti-American Clintons are enemies to BOTH the US Left and the US Right, to make sure the US national establishment PC bows or defers to anti-sovereign, extranational OWG and Commie World Order, i.e Govt(s) other than American or in Washington, by the time CHELSEA becomes POTUS!? IFF THE CLINTONS FAIL vv the Left's own 2020 maxima timeline, ITS NUKE WAR - THE ALL-OUT, MUTUALLY DESTROYING KIND! Americans are dealing with SELFISH MANIC POWERCRATS who prefer SOLYENT GREEN to self-reform, freedom, democracy, etc, even their own hallowed SOcialist Utopia!
Vice President Dick Cheney warned Democrats Friday that he will cast the tie-breaking vote to ban filibusters of President Bush's judicial nominees if the Senate deadlocks on the question.
Republicans are moving the Senate toward a final confrontation with Democrats over judicial nominations. Internal GOP polling shows that most Americans don't support Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's plan to ban judicial filibusters - a tactic in which opponents can prevent a vote on a nomination with just 41 votes in the 100-member Senate.snip
Now that Texas judge Priscilla Owen and California judge Janice Rogers Brown have been approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, Frist has two nominees to push forward in a battle that conservatives hope their allies will rally around. "We have now the vehicle. We have two qualified women. They have met every test," said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.
An internal Republican poll showed that Frist's plan to ban judicial filibusters might not be as popular as they had hoped.
Frist, strongly backed by conservatives in and out of the Senate, has threatened to employ a parliamentary tactic - requiring only a majority vote - to change Senate practices on judicial filibusters. Republicans hold 55 seats in the 100-member Senate, and Cheney would be available to break a tie if necessary.
Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada commands a solid block of 45 votes against the proposal, and Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island have publicly stated their opposition as well. A few GOP lawmakers are uncommitted, and Reid said this week that if Frist calls a vote, "it's going to be very close."
GOP polling shows 37 percent support for the GOP plan to deny Democrats the ability to filibuster judicial nominees, while 51 percent oppose, officials said Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Several officials who attended the polling briefing said the survey also contained encouraging news for Republicans. The poll found more than 80 percent of those surveyed believed all judicial nominees deserve a yes-or-no vote.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, noting the survey data has not been made public.snip
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/23/2005 3:43:34 AM ||
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#2
McCain shoudl just go ahead and change parties. He is as sanctimonious an ass as has ever served. in the Senate with an (R) next to his name. He plays on his POW time for sympathy. Sorry John, you F'd up and got shot down. You were brave in captivity, but that doenst excuse your actions now. McCain, if you look at this actual deeds, and the words and actions takean against POW/MIA groups, has been a total tool.
Ditch the ass. Same goes for Chaffee and Snow - RINOs.
#3
but now they have to vote and let everyone know where they really stand...I think this is great. Janice Brown - a black woman - maybe the Kleagle can lead the charge against her? Let's see where the chips fall, but I feel good about this. Quit the f&*king dithering and let's get it on
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/23/2005 13:33 Comments ||
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McCain should just go ahead and change panties.
BY BENNY AVNI - Staff Reporter of the Sun
April 22, 2005
UNITED NATIONS - The next chapter in the United Nations crisis may erupt over U.N. investigator Paul Volcker's membership on the board of one of Canada's biggest companies, Power Corporation, since a past president of the firm, Canadian tycoon Maurice Strong, is now tied to the oil-for-food scandal.
Also, following yesterday's reports of resignations of top investigators on Mr. Volcker's team, Washington officials revisited Secretary-General Annan's assertion that the team's report last month exonerated him. For the first time, the Bush administration hinted that it may cease support of Mr. Annan altogether.
Yesterday, Mr. Strong acknowledged that Tongsun Park, the Korean accused by federal authorities of illegally acting as an Iraqi agent, in 1997 invested in Cordex, a Denver-based company owned by Mr. Strong and his son, Fred. Mr. Strong has voluntarily stepped down from his U.N. position as adviser to Mr. Annan on Korean affairs for the duration of the investigation.
One of the allegations in last Thursday's federal criminal complaint was that in 1997 or 1998, Mr. Park invested $1 million obtained from Saddam Hussein's regime in a Canadian company that was established by the son of a U.N. official, who was a target for bribery. The company later went under, according to the complaint.
In his first public interview since last week's complaint against Mr. Park, Mr. Strong yesterday told Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper that in 1997, Mr. Park invested in Cordex, which counts both Mr. Strong and his son Fred as members of its board. The company went bankrupt two years after Mr. Park's investment.
In the Globe and Mail interview, Mr. Strong did not dispute the assertion that the size of Mr. Park's investment in Cordex was $1 million. He called it "a perfectly normal investment," and added that it had nothing to do with Iraq, or the oil-for-food program. "Whatever I did was perfectly proper," he said.
Mr. Volcker's involvement with the Montreal-based Power Corporation, which in the past he had described as limited to social "salmon-fishing" with board members, could become a source of contention, as Mr. Park's investment in Cordex may link Mr. Strong to the oil-for-food scandal. And according to official documents seen by The New York Sun, at least one other former official of Power Corporation, William Turner, invested in Cordex, a now-bankrupt energy company.
The Volcker committee has failed until now to describe the involvement of Mr. Park in the oil-for-food scandal - in neither of the committee's two extensive interim reports and other publications was Mr. Park mentioned. Nor was Mr. Strong. Separately, Mr. Park was at the center of the 1970s Washington scandal known as Koreagate.
The Volcker-led Independent Inquiry Committee is under renewed scrutiny after yesterday's reports that two of its members resigned their posts recently. The departures of Robert Parton and Miranda Duncan was met by further criticism from congressional opponents of Mr. Annan and, for the first time, indications from the State Department that the Bush administration's support of Mr. Annan is weakening.
The deputy assistant secretary of state responsible for U.N. issues, Mark Lagon, yesterday said that the top Volcker committee investigator, Mr. Parton, and his aide, Ms. Duncan, quit because they thought the Volcker reports were "perhaps a little too charitable" toward Mr. Annan.
"We aren't calling for the resignation of the secretary-general," Mr. Lagon told reporters at the American U.N. mission yesterday. "We haven't made the decision it couldn't happen. It's not ripe," he added.
Yesterday the chairman of the House International Relations Committee, Rep. Henry Hyde, a Republican of Illinois, wrote a letter to Mr. Volcker, urging him to investigate issues that were raised by last week's federal indictments, which until now have not been explored by the Volcker committee.
According to a top researcher at the Heritage Foundation, Nile Gardiner, the Bush administration might drop its support of Mr. Annan in the coming months. "It is looking increasingly likely that the Bush administration may express no confidence in the secretary-general, as the situation continues to deteriorate for Kofi Annan," he told the Sun. Mr. Gardiner yesterday urged Mr. Volcker to resign following Mr. Parton's departure.
Mr. Gardiner said that the investigators' resignations "undermine the credibility" of the committee, and that Mr. Volcker's continued leadership seems "untenable" as a result. The resignations "cast a huge shadow on Mr. Volcker's ability to continue as chairman of the inquiry committee," Mr. Gardiner said.
News of Mr. Volcker's spot on the board of Power Corporation first surfaced soon after the former chairman of the Federal Reserve was nominated by Mr. Annan to head the Independent Inquiry Committee last year.
At that time, a possible conflict of interest involved the Power Corporation's ties to the French bank BNP, which handled oil-for-food accounts, and to the French oil company Total, which also profited from oil-for-food business.
Mr. Volcker said then that he was a member of many boards of directors and that his role at Power would not affect his work. He would "occasionally pursue his avocation of salmon fishing with Canadian friends, sometimes including a Power Corporation executive," the committee said in a statement issued at the time, addressing his involvement with the company.
The U.N. is increasingly relying on Mr. Volcker to investigate the propriety of its employees' dealings regarding oil for food. "Mr. Strong told us that he'd been contacted by them," U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said yesterday, referring to the Volcker committee. He refused to answer questions on possible conflicts of interest.
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When even Volcker is on the Dark Side, it's time to flush the nest. My sincere thanks to the NYSun for this - and the other news outlets who are buying a clue and doing the rooting out and exposure. Finally, the WSJ, NRO, and the blogosphere are getting some help - as the MSM splinters over the juicy sexy greedy power-mad insidious (Got any more good adjectives that will cause the spiderbots to snarf this up?) corruption scandal that is the entire Tranzi / UN agenda.
From the Rantburg Environmental Desk.
ABU DHABI — For the first time, a Gulf Arab country has expressed concern over the construction of a nuclear power plant in Iran. About bloody time. It's their neighborhood.
Kuwait has expressed worry over Iran's nuclear reactor project in the coastal city of Bushehr. Officials said Bushehr could release nuclear waste in the air or water in the northern Gulf that could affect the sheikdom. Notice that worldwide eco- and anti-nuke organizations are silent on the MM's plans for reactors on the shores of the Persian Gulf. Mum's the word.
"It could be a serious environmental catastrophe if operated without observing safety standards," Basel Al Rashed, director of the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, said. Yes, it could, Basel. Blinding statement of the obvious
Al Rashed told parliament's Environment Committee that he has discussed Bushehr with the International Atomic Energy Agency, meant to supervise the Iranian nuclear facility. He said the IAEA was urged to ensure that Bushehr would not become an environmental hazard in the region. IAEA: "We will look seriously into your concerns. Now where are we going for lunch?"
[On Wednesday, the foreign ministers of Iran and Kuwait met in Teheran to discuss cooperation as well as border issues. Reports from Teheran did not mention Bushehr, which was discussed in a meeting by Iranian senior officials in Moscow.] I'm sure that the Kuwaiti's concerns were seriously listened to by the MMs.
Bushehr is located 300 kilometers from Kuwait. Western diplomatic sources said the sheikdom has been briefed by the United States on Bushehr's threat to the environment in the region. "This plant can really ruin your day, with the Black Turbaned Mad Mullahs running the show. Yep, bad situation, all right.
The sources said the testimony to parliament was the first time a Kuwaiti or GCC official expressed concern over Bushehr. The GCC has formally supported the Bushehr project and refrained from responding to Western concerns over Iran's purported nuclear weapons program. The Head-in-the-sand effect. Quite common around those parts.
Al Rashed called on the government and parliament to increase cooperation with the IAEA to "face any future risks," regarding Bushehr. He also urged the sheikdom to accelerate the process of ratifying the Nuclear Safety Convention. That will solve all problems. Make a document, sign it, and go home with a clear conscience.
Russia has been the prime contractor of Bushehr, a $1 billion project. Moscow was expected to complete Bushehr and begin full operations in late 2006. It's your problem now, MMs. Thanks for the cash and the work.
The IAEA has been discussing Iran's nuclear program with other GCC states as well. Diplomatic sources said the Iranian program was discussed during IAEA talks with Saudi Arabia, which has sought to sign an agency protocol that would exempt the kingdom from reporting up to 10 tons of natural uranium or 20 tons of depleted uranium. The protocol would also allow a signator to maintain secrecy of any nuclear facility until six months before operation. Hilarious.
In 2003, Saudi Arabia was said to have issued a position paper that envisioned the acquisition of nuclear weapons. The following year, Riyad was said to have signed an agreement with Pakistan on nuclear cooperation. This neighborhood has a death wish.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/23/2005 1:44:36 PM ||
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Yep, poor neighborhood, dead enders.
Posted by: Huntz Hall ||
04/23/2005 19:42 Comments ||
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It is this reporter's opinion that California's Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has created a firestorm. Recently, in an appearance before a newspaper publishing group, he stated, "Close the borders! Close the borders in California and all across Mexico and the United States. It is unfair to have all those people coming across and to have the borders open the way it is. We in California have to still finish the border. That is the key thing - to have borders and to keep the law. Enforce the law."
The governor's press agent immediately explained that Schwarzenegger has long supported border security and his statement to close the borders did not mean to suggest that the governor - himself an immigrant to the U.S. - advocates an end to LEGAL immigration. His staff further attempted to explain that Schwarzenegger spoke little English when he arrived in the U.S. and often had trouble explaining himself.
It is this reporter's opinion that Arnold knew exactly what he was saying and that at least 80 percent of Californians agree with him. Close the borders until we can sort out who is here, who belongs here, and can put a stop to the 3 million crossing our porous borders every year.
Let's take a look at the Constitution. Article IV, Section IV states: "The United States shall guarantee to every state in the union a republican form of government and shall protect each of them against INVASION." (my emphasis)
The following is added to Article V, Section VII of the California Constitution: "The governor may by all fitting ways, enterprises, and means, resist, exclude, and repel INVASIONS of the territory of the state by all alien persons as shall forceably enter without consent of the United States and pursue and expel such INVADERS." (my emphasis)
There are countless examples. For instance, the Massachusetts State Constitution: "The governor has the power to encounter, repel, resist, expel and pursue all and every such person and persons as shall attempt or enterprise INVASION of the commonwealth." (my emphasis)
The Connecticut Constitution also calls for the governor to "encounter, repel, resist, expel and pursue all and every such person or persons as shall attempt INVASION." (my emphasis)
The same goes for Rhode Island and other states.
The point to be made is that the governors of our states have more power by law than we realize. When Governor Schwarzenegger calls for closing the borders, he can bring to a halt, even as the Minutemen have, the daily invasion of his border with Mexico. The governor is well within his authority when he at long last calls out, "Close the borders!" The governor need not apologize to anybody for carrying out his sworn duty.
Michael Savage has it right: "Borders, Language, Culture!"
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Putnam is an old-tyme reporter - on the job since Murrow's days - and thus he's unafraid to call it like he sees it... and he's right: 80% of US citizens (though he was referring to CA) would support enforcing the law of the land and controlling the borders. Everyone "gets it" regards the economic burden the illegals put on them and the only ones who don't mind are the professional moonbats, those experienced in spending other people's money to assuage their self-imposed guilt trips. Add in the security issue and it solidifies the 80%.
Damnit -- Do it, Ahnold. Create a sensible plan to separate the illegals already here into economic refugees from asshat Mexico / Central America - from the bad guys, the crooks and jihadis and druggies. I'll bet it's not that hard to tell them apart one on one, face to face, when the interviewer is a vet INS or Customs officer.
The plan should put the good guys back to work and on the path to legality - and jettison the bad guys 30 miles out in the Pacific - or on figgin' buses to Tiajuana, at least.
Once closed, enforce the law - use State Guard troops, if you need to, to back up the Border Patrol. Then clean out the wormy whiny types from INS, such as those who're fighting the Minutemen, instead of welcoming them.
Make a common sense plan. There still is common sense in America, it's just less common than once was true. Execute it. Don't apologize for telling the truth. Don't be swayed by the media advisors - they don't know shit about what Joe Avg thinks, as so many polls and elections have proven. C'mon Ahnold - get solid on this. Make CA the model. Do it.
A nice summary of American environmental progress, with statistics, from the founder of Earth Day. Registration required, so I give it uncut.
When I helped organize the first Earth Day on my college campus in 1970, I never dreamed we would be celebrating number 35 yesterday, or that we would come so far in cleaning up our environment.
The improvements have been remarkable. Since 1976, airborne sulfur dioxide has been reduced 72 percent... carbon monoxide 76 percent... automobile tailpipe emissions 95 percent... lead 98 percent -- and microscopic soot particles are about half what they were 20 years ago. About 80 percent of U.S. community water systems had no violations of health-based Environmental Protection Agency standards in 1993. Last year, 95 percent had no violations. For the past five years, our wetlands have increased 26,000 acres a year -- reversing years of decline. We've gone from 500 nesting pairs of bald eagles in 1965 to 7,500 today.
Progress since the "good old days" is even more dramatic. In 1905, average U.S. life expectancy was 47 years; today it's 78. Few homes had electricity; instead, coal and wood fires created clouds of pollution, and the average home generated 5,000 pounds of wood or coal ash yearly. More than 3 million horses worked in American cities -- producing 11 million tons of manure and 9 million gallons of urine annually. Most got left on streets or dumped into rivers. During summers, manure dust was a primary cause of tuberculosis. In New York City alone, crews had to remove 15,000 horse carcasses from streets every year.
The arrival of automobiles changed all that. It also meant we no longer needed vast forage and pasture land for horses, modern farming began increasing production per acre, and we've added a million acres of new U.S. forestland annually since 1910.
All is not rosy, of course. For instance, Alaskan stellar sea lions continue declining, though exact causes are unclear. But overall -- in sharp contrast to gloomy reports from some activist groups and news media -- environmental progress has been steady, not only in the U.S. but Europe, Canada and Australia.
So celebrate. Be thankful. Try to separate our true remaining ecological problems from those that are analyzed incorrectly, exaggerated or simply concocted to promote activist agendas.
Most important, our remaining problems are relatively minor. Truly serious health and environmental problems are in the poorest countries. That's where we should focus our attention.
That's why we should have an annual People Day, when we can resolve to address real, immediate, life-or-death problems that threaten poor nations -- rather than fixate on minor, distant, fashionable and theoretical problems.
The world's impoverished countries have little to celebrate. Two billion of their people still lack electricity. In India, 4 in 10 families -- 150 million households -- have no electric power. In sub-Saharan Africa, it's 9 in 10 families. They are forced to burn wood, animal dung and agricultural waste in unventilated homes -- and live with constant pollution that causes as many as 3 million children to die yearly from respiratory diseases.
And still radical greens use Earth Day to justify demands that the Third World not build hydroelectric projects or coal, gas or nuclear power plants.
Nearly a third of humanity also lacks safe drinking water. Families get water from distant wells, rivers and lakes that often teem with bacteria and pollutants. As Danish environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg notes, for the cost of carrying out the Kyoto climate change treaty for just one year, we could permanently provide sanitation and clean, safe drinking water to everyone on the planet.
Mosquitoes and flies spread malaria, sleeping sickness and other diseases to more than a half billion people annually. Tens of millions are too sick to work, cultivate fields or care for their families for weeks or months on end. Up to 4 million die yearly.
These should be easy diseases to control or even eliminate. But extreme environmentalists, and even WHO and USAID, refuse to support or promote pesticides. They say the chemicals might harm fish or be detected in mother's breast milk.
"African mothers would be overjoyed if that were their biggest worry," says Uganda's Fiona Kobusingye. She may not know modern instruments can detect 1 part per billion -- a single second in 32 years. But she knows she lost her son, two sisters and two nephews to malaria. She knows Americans can afford to worry about detectable DDT in breast milk and pesticide residues on grapes, precisely because we used those chemicals to eradicate malaria, typhus and yellow fever in our country.
"We have to become white, before we can become green," Kenya's James Shikwati observes. Poor nations must first enjoy modern technology, health and prosperity, before they can focus on concerns important to the world's lucky elites.
Obviously, eco-imperialistic Western standards, ideologies and priorities are not the only cause of this monumental human tragedy. War, endemic corruption and horrid political, legal and economic systems are also to blame. We cannot easily fix these latter problems. But we can do something about our own misguided policies. We can rein in the environmental Horsemen of the Third World Apocalypse.
So celebrate our progress. But resolve to help poor nations reach our technological, economic, health and environmental status, so more of their children can live past infancy and enjoy some of the blessings we view as our birthright. Earth Day was originally about our planet and its people. Let's restore that common-sense approach.
Paul K. Driessen is senior policy adviser for the Congress of Racial Equality and the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, and author of "Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death." (www.Eco-Imperialism.com).
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/23/2005 4:34:04 AM ||
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Federal drug enforcement officials have launched a crackdown on operators of "rogue" pharmacies on the internet, arresting more than 20 people. The operators were allegedly involved in smuggling and reselling millions of doses of prescription drugs from India through hundreds of websites.
Good. Maybe the sonsofbitches will quit spamming me until they make bail.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2005 00:00:00 ||
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Lol - Almost word for word what I thought when I saw the headline! That's about 10% of my spam.
Togo's interim head of state vowed presidential elections will go ahead Sunday — and fired his security minister who had called for the ballot to be canceled because of fears of bloodshed. The apparent split within the government comes as tensions have been mounting in this tiny West African nation. There was no immediate response from the generals who wield much of the power here or the late dictator's son, who was expected to win the race.
"The polls will go ahead as planned," interim President Abbas Bonfoh told Radio France International on Friday. Warning of violence and saying the poll would be "suicide," Interior Minister Francois Boko, who is in charge of security, called a press conference to make a public appeal to cancel the vote.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2005 00:00:00 ||
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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.
Japan's prime minister apologized Friday for his country's World War II aggression in Asia in a bid to defuse tensions with regional rival China, but a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said the apology needed to be backed up with action after Japanese lawmakers made a controversial visit to a war shrine. Just hours before Prime Minister 
Turkish Foreign Minister 
A former Yugoslav army chief wanted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal agreed Friday to surrender to the Netherlands-based court, the Serbian government said. Retired Gen. 
