Bangladeshs five top election officials resigned on Wednesday to pave the way for free and fair polls under a reconstituted election commission, one of the officials said. The five had been at the centre of a row over alleged vote-rigging, which resulted in the cancellation of elections originally scheduled for January 22. According to a report run by the private NTV television channel, the five tendered their resignations during a meeting with President Iajuddin Ahmed.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/01/2007 00:00 ||
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A PLANE-load of prisoners from British jails could be headed Down Under more than 200 years after Britain first sent boats full of convicts to Australia. With the UK on the brink of a jail overcrowding crisis, Prime Minister Tony Blair has vowed "all options" are open to solve the problem - including sending hundreds of expat prisoners home to serve their sentences.
Australia's High Commissioner to the UK Richard Alston made light of the the prospect of convicts again landing on Aussie soil at a recent function. However the crisis is no laughing matter for Home Secretary John Reid. Cells are so full he last week wrote a letter to judges urging them to lock away only the most violent and dangerous criminals. The plea brought Mr Reid under immediate fire but he says he has no choice but to propose an array of radical solutions to the cell shortages.
Suggestions include the "nuclear option" of releasing some prisoners early; sending 11,000 foreign nationals to finish their sentences at home; and creating a waiting list for jail spaces. Other emergency proposals include renting prison ships to house criminals offshore and converting an RAF camp to house prisoners.
The maximum capacity of British jails is 80,716. The number of inmates topped 80,000 for the first time in November. The rapidly bulging prison population has been blamed on the 2003 Justice Act, which was expected to see serious criminals locked up for longer and fewer jailed for minor crimes.
#1
They might prefer putting them on the USS Botany Bay and getting rid of the problem for a few centuries.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
02/01/2007 10:06 Comments ||
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#2
Maybe not so unreasonable after all.
In fact, I have just the place for them.
Johnston Atoll, specifically Johnston Island, in the Pacific, is an isolated island that is owned as an "unincorporated territory" by the United States, though we have considered selling it. It is about one-third of the way from Hawaii to the Marshall Islands.
It is about one square mile in size, having been enlarged through dredging.
It is in the area of both atomic testing, and was the major US chemical weapons storage facility in the pacific, abandoned in 1975. At its peak, it had over a thousand US service personnel living there.
All structures have been removed, but it could be rebuilt as a prison (probably by the US), before transferred for sale to England.
The incentive for the US to do this would be the assumption that England, and maybe one or two other European countries, could transport their "worst of the worst" terrorists there.
Think of it as "Europe's Gitmo".
As we are such a generous people, I imagine that we might even engage in a little more environmentally sensitive island enlargement, building some artificial reefs so that the island would continue to increase in area. Must plan for the future and all that.
#5
Ice Station Zebra, folks, we got plenty of room at Ice Station Zebra.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/01/2007 13:30 Comments ||
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#6
We can't allow your refugees to come to our ice-station populated by our refugees which were caused by your Germans training our insurgents to cleanse our population which was previously their population which police force we trained to destroy your refugees. Wait, is that it? Indeed. Cetainly. Here's the bill.
CARACAS, Venezuela -- The line forms every day after dawn at the Spanish Consulate, hundreds of people seeking papers permitting them to abandon Venezuela for new lives in Spain. They say they are filled with despair at President Hugo Chávez's growing power, and they appear not to be alone. At other consulates in this capital, long lines form daily.
On Wednesday, the National Assembly [voted to] to entrust him with tremendous powers that will allow him to dictate new laws for 18 months to transform the economy, redraw the structure of government and establish a new funding apparatus for Venezuela's huge oil wealth. The new, more radicalized era is enthralling to the president's supporters. To them, Chávez is keeping the promise he has consistently made over eight years in office -- to reorganize Venezuelan society, redistribute its wealth and position the country as an alternative to U.S. capitalist policies.
But the moves -- which opponents say are marked by intolerance and strident ideology -- are prompting some Venezuelans to leave the country and others to prepare for a fight in the last battlegrounds where the opposition has influence. A few are trying, against the tide, to remain apolitical in a country marked by extreme, even outlandish rhetoric.
#3
The Atlas Shrugged principal will always come into play when government oversteps like this.
To see which countries are actually good, one must look at the ones people are approaching, not the ones they are leaving.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
02/01/2007 6:09 Comments ||
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#4
This is like watching a slow-motion train wreck. He's hyped up on oil money, but now that oil's dropped again, I imagine he'll be outspending a LOT here soon. Bad things happen to national economies like that, and QUICKLY.
Posted by: BA ||
02/01/2007 9:46 Comments ||
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#5
A Chavez story from yesterday's The Devil's Excrement:
A bizarre (and live!) tale of indoctrination, hidden behind the infamous "misiones"
This is a really bizarre story. Mision Sucre is one of the "misiones" created by the Government, whose objective is to help those with a high school degree to have access to higher education. I have questioned this program, because the Chavez administration seems to be making the same mistake every Government in the last, at least thirty years has made, to emphasize higher education over lower levels. But that is beside the point.
Last Sunday, at Chavez' Sunday Reality Show, they invited a girl representing "Mision Sure" Knowing how well this shows are staged, I am sure that Mari Quintero must have been one of the better and more articulate students of Mision Sucre. Right before the girl came on Chavez spoke badly of the cooperative program, his brainchild, which clearly is not going well since the President himself is saying it. And then came Mari to show to us and , hopefully, the world, how these misiones are used mainly to indoctrinate, instead of teaching them anything useful or what the programs are supposed to do. This is the exchange between Chavez and Mari, which says it all, as told in El Nacional today:
It was all Mari Quinetro's fault. The girl, representing Mision Sucre, was part of the Sunday program Alo, Presidente, which was held the day before yesterday from Cojedes State. As proof of his relaxed relationship with the people Chavez decided to interview her to know about her specialty. The young woman indicated that her course was on processing and conservation of fishing products.
"Tell me-said Chavez-, what you have learned? How does it work with fish? How long do they last in the belly? The fish is oviparous, no? And then, tell me, what you have learned?, the head of the State asked her.
Quintero, without doubting, responded to him: "Right now they are talking to us about socio-political education, about hegemony, value added and that type of terms"�.
The President, surprised, crossed-examined her: "And about the fish, what you have learned, then"�.
And the girl said to him: "We have not begun to learn about it".
The chief executive insisted on learning how advanced the course was.
The student told him that they began on October 15th.
Chavez wanted to know when the practical aspects would begin. With a smile of irrefutable security, Quintero indicated: "It will have to be tomorrow".
A conversation then followed between the President and the instructor of the young person, Ubaldo Puerta. He informed the speaker that at the beginning of the courses they offer, "a socio-political education related to socialism, the social education of the individual, cooperativism"
But he entered into a contradiction with the student, because while Puerta assured him that that part lasted 15 days, Quintero said that they had been receiving three months of instruction.
Later the Minister for the Popular Economy, Pedro Morejon, took part and he tried to clarify the panorama, but Chavez was implacable. He requested the syllabus which they were following to review it later, and returned to the young girl "Okey (OK, in Spanish), now, Mary, tell me: when they finish the course, what are you going to do".
The student indicated that they would try to form a cooperative, although previously the President had criticized that form of organization.
"Aha, and you already are visualizing some project in which you are going to work ". This only generated an even more startling answer still: "No; but as soon as we begin the practical part, we will see what the cooperative will be about".
It was at that point that Chavez decided to leave it at that. One assumes that Mari Quintero must have immersed herself finally today, in the world of the fish farming.
#7
Expect Chavez to use his new 'by decree' powers to put a stop on citizens from leaving. After all, he has probably read all the juicy parts in Fidel's play book.
Boy, this is going to go over well in the States ...
President Jacques Chirac has demanded that the United States sign both the Kyoto climate protocol and a future agreement that would take effect when that accord ran out in 2012. He welcomed the reference by President George W. Bush in his State of the Union address last week to climate change as a "serious challenge," and acknowledged that local politicians in the United States appeared to endorse emission cuts.
But in an interview, Chirac warned that if Washington did not join a global climate accord, a Europewide carbon tax on imports from nations that have not signed the Kyoto Protocol could be imposed to try to force U.S. compliance. The European Union is the largest export market for U.S. goods.
Conversely, Europe sells a lot of stuff to the U.S., stuff we just might be able to get along without, if you think about it ...
"A carbon tax is inevitable," Chirac said. "If it is European, and I believe it will be European, then it will all the same have a certain influence because it means that all the countries that do not accept the minimum obligations will be obliged to pay."
Trade lawyers have been divided over the legality of a carbon tax, with some saying it would contravene international trade rules. But Chirac said that other European countries would back it. "I believe we will have all of the European Union," he said.
And you won't have a trade treaty to enforce it. And you could kiss Doha goodbye ...
At a time when many Western policymakers consider that the biggest challenge will be to persuade China and India to limit their emissions, Chirac appeared hopeful. "I am less pessimistic than many about emerging countries, notably China," he said. "The problems are so serious that they cannot be managed, especially because of their social consequences.
"But we Euros, we can fail to manage anything!"
One way or another, the problem has to be dealt with. China specialists say that these days a lot of the social problems have at their origin environmental problems."
Chirac repeated his call for the creation of a world environment organization that would centralize about 500 international agreements on the environment and 18 international bodies and departments whose remit is environmental.
Because when you think of centralization, you think of France ...
"The system is not efficient; it's a fragmented system," Chirac said. "We must have a UNOE a UN organization for the environment which would in some sense be the environmental conscience of the world and which would be capable of coordinated action."
Run by French apparatchiks, of course ...
He said such an organization would have the power to impose sanctions on member states and could be modeled on the World Health Organization.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/01/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Let's see: Taxes, or 10 times that much in economic burden. Hmm.
#4
I can think of nothing more polluting than Airbus airliners, especially those widebodies produced in Toulouse. Close behind are millions of high priced BMWs and Mercedes cars.
2006 US trade deficit with Europe: $128.4 billion. Makes me wish the US fires the first volley in a tariff war.
Posted by: ed ||
02/01/2007 1:05 Comments ||
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#5
Note that this is the head of the "conservative" party in France. What a doofus.
#7
"We must have a UNOE a UN organization for the environment which would in some sense be the environmental conscience of the world and which would be capable of coordinated action."
"Conscience"? "Coordinated action"? The UN? ROFLMAO!!!!!
Posted by: Dave D. ||
02/01/2007 5:42 Comments ||
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#8
Translation:
We want to keep our fussy little socialist/regulatory perks, but the regulations and taxes required make our businesses unable to compete with the U.S. and the Pacific Rim, so we'll invent a "crisis" to use as a big stick to smash those nations into a less competitive mode in order to prop up our own economies.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
02/01/2007 6:06 Comments ||
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#9
ed, that's not entirely accurate. The Airbus superjumbo is currently highly emissions friendly. Of course, once they actually fulfill some of the orders and get those birds flying, that's going to change. ;)
But it is fascinating how all of a sudden airliners have been discovered to be emissions monsters at about the same time that Airbus first revealed how badly they are screwing up. Coincidence?
#10
US pollution control standards are higher than the Kyoto protocols. Euros are socialists first, dhimms second, environmentalists third. Chirac should move to Iran to be close to his masters.
#11
Jacques Chirac favors us again with his unique wisdom: Chirac retracts remark on nuclear-armed Iran French President Jacques Chirac has told US and French journalists that a nuclear-armed Iran would not be "very dangerous", but later retracted his comments, according to reports published Thursday. "Having one or perhaps a second bomb a little later, well that's not very dangerous," Chirac said in the interview on Monday to the New York Times, the Paris-based International Herald Tribune and the French weekly Nouvel Observateur. "Where would Iran drop this bomb ? On Israel ?" he asked. "It would not have gone off 200 meters into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed to the ground," Chirac was quoted as saying by the three publications.
The French president called back the journalists to the Elysee Palace on Tuesday and asserted that he was retracting the statement. "I should have paid better attention to what I was saying and understood that perhaps I was on the record," Chirac was quoted by the IHT as saying. "It was an oversimplification...It is a formulation that I am taking back," the Nouvel Observateur quoted him as saying.
Posted by: ed ||
02/01/2007 7:04 Comments ||
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#12
And why do these clowns have a seat on the UN Security Council and not Japan? Just asking.
#15
LOL! Pull the trigger, Shiraq! I double-dog dare ya. I can do without whine and cheese, but can France do w/o US products? I think not, lol!
Posted by: BA ||
02/01/2007 9:51 Comments ||
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#16
Of course, this tax would affect imports from China, too, and since the EU (especially France) is doing all it can to suck up to the Chinese, I don't see this going anywhere. A UN enviro organization, on the other hand, I could see coming about. God save us from EUro mandarins.
There is no proveable human input to the minor global warming that has occurred since about the 1850 end of the Little Ice Age. (Gee after an ice age it got warmer, who'd a thunk it)
#18
Why don't they get it ? The SUN heats up the earth and all the other planets in a cycling fashion. We had been in the cooler part of that cycle, and now we are going into the warmer part. There is not a single thing that can be done within our abilities to avoid that.
We cannot shade the earth. We cannot move the earth. What we can do is sell our shore house while the going price is still high.
#19
And why do these clowns have a seat on the UN Security Council and not Japan? Just asking.
One of the many mistakes arising from treating France as an Allied power in WWII. They spent the war collaborating and sucked back their vampiric empire afterwards. My granddad used to say we should have let the Germans deal with them for a few more years.
Rep. Loretta Sanchez has quit the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, accusing the chairman, Rep. Joe Baca, of telling people she's a "whore." Baca denied the charge.
In an interview with The Politico Wednesday, Sanchez, a California Democrat as is Baca, also cited concerns about whether Baca was properly elected Hispanic Caucus chairman in November and about his general attitude toward female lawmakers. The caucus represents 21 Hispanic Democrats in Congress. "I'm not going to be a part of the CHC as long as Mr. Baca illegally holds the chair I told them no. There's a big rift here," Sanchez said. "You treat the women like shit. I have no use for him."
In a statement to The Politico, Baca said Sanchez "has decided to resign from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), and has chosen to air baseless statements. Let me be clear; her comments are categorically untrue."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/01/2007 10:15 ||
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#2
Whoaa accusations of gender discrimination in a group that claims to fight ethnic discrimination. Damn if she was a lesbian she could go for the Tri-Fecta.
#4
But in Spanish, you don't really get into cursing until you start using expressions like "The big assed, foul-smelling squishy homosexual bastard offspring of a Priest and a dog."
#6
OK, fine. You're a bimbo. Or how about a ditz? Or how about a childish liberal who can't think beyond kindergarten leftism? If you were a whore, you'd starve.
KATHMANDU - Nepal aims to become a federal state after constituent assembly elections this year, a minister said, a move that would help end centuries of central rule and appease regional groups complaining of neglect by Kathmandu. The troubled Himalayan nation will also increase the representation of the ethnic Madhesi people in parliament by giving them more seats after two weeks of violent protests in which nine people died, he said.
Home Minister Krishna Prasad Sitaula said leaders from the poor nations ruling alliance and the former Maoist rebels had agreed in principle to turn Nepal into a federal democracy. The new constitution to be prepared by the constituent assembly to be elected in June will decide about the federal democratic structure, Sitaula told reporters late on Tuesday.
Parliamentary constituencies will be redrawn on the basis of geography and population he said, adding that this could increase the total number of seats in parliament which now stands at 205.
Perfect opportunity for the Maoists to divide and conquer.
This month, the government and the Maoists approved an interim constitution that saw the former rebels join a provisional parliament. But many, including the ethnic people of the Terai region say the new constitution had not given them adequate representation in parliament.
Violent protests across Terai, the fertile lowlands in the south also known as Madhesh, have cast a shadow over a landmark peace deal that declared an end to the decade-old Maoist revolt in which more than 13,000 people were killed. Madhesi activists say they have been discriminated against by the hill-dominated ruling elites who run the mainly mountainous nation, resulting in under-representation in parliament, government, the army and police.
Despite making up nearly 30 percent of Nepals 26 million people, Madhesis, who are ethnically and linguistically closer to neighbouring India than to the Nepalis living in the hills, occupy only about 15 percent of seats in parliament.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/01/2007 00:00 ||
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Most top U.N. officials have defied a request to submit their resignations to make way for new appointees, the world body said on Wednesday, hinting at the obstacles to reform faced by new U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon.
To speed the transition to a new team, Ban early this month sent letters to 58 senior officials asking them to offer their resignations. The officials were based both at the world body's New York headquarters and elsewhere around the world.
Nearly four weeks later, just 20 have done so, U.N. chief spokeswoman Michele Montas acknowledged. The 38 who did not would not be disclosed, she said. ...
Posted by: ed ||
02/01/2007 07:11 ||
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#1
Just send the list to State and ask for their Diplo status to be 'unrecognized'. Then let the NYPD gank their limos for unpaid tickets.
#4
I'm not leaving. Someone has to carry on the important international business and affairs of the U.N. Besides I like the perks and me my extended family and friends can make lots of money.
Posted by: Former and present U.N. Diplo ||
02/01/2007 11:55 Comments ||
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#5
that one's easy. Inform the landlord, the local caterers and the organization that Former UN Diplo is no longer on the payroll, then reassign the secretary and take away his pens and telephone.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
02/01/2007 08:29 ||
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#1
Not true...(BTW, that is a whole lot more sedate and printable than the way I originally wrote it.)
Here's what happened: the canopy actuator system failed. It happens, and especially on a new plane (all the birds at Langley are Batch 1 ships)you can expect the occasional problem. The pilot hit the handle, the system it was attached to didn't work. There is no way to access the actuator system except through the cockpit, so the guys were faced with a problem. The only other way to get it off the plane was to jettison it, which could have caused injury to the pilot and even more damage to the airframe - the jettison system simply severs all the mechanical linkages and the slipstream pretty much does the rest. Just sitting there on the ground means the canopy would have probably only gone a few feet in the air with no way to know if it would land IN the cockpit and injure the pilot, or on top of the plane and ding the airframe and RAM coating. Nobody wanted to cut that canopy, but it was teh only logical choice.
BTW, Lockheed is IIRC paying for the titanium flaws.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
02/01/2007 10:45 Comments ||
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#2
Lockheed Martin's F-22 spokesman, Diamond
Joe Quimby, did not return telephone calls.
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.
A PLANE-load of prisoners from British jails could be headed Down Under more than 200 years after Britain first sent boats full of convicts to Australia. With the UK on the brink of a jail overcrowding crisis, Prime Minister Tony Blair has vowed "all options" are open to solve the problem - including sending hundreds of expat prisoners home to serve their sentences.
CARACAS, Venezuela -- The line forms every day after dawn at the Spanish Consulate, hundreds of people seeking papers permitting them to abandon Venezuela for new lives in Spain. They say they are filled with despair at President Hugo Chávez's growing power, and they appear not to be alone. At other consulates in this capital, long lines form daily.
