Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya said efforts to speed up land redistribution were part of President Thabo Mbeki's "apex priorities", announced in his State of the Nation speech. More attention would be paid to supporting the beneficiaries of restituted and redistributed land, to ensure it was productive.
The government intends acquiring 5-million hectares of land next year in an effort to have 30 percent of agricultural land in the hands of black farmers by 2014, according to Agriculture Minister Lulu Xingwana. She told a press briefing in Cape Town on Thursday that currently black farmers owned 4.7 percent of farmland. "We are saying that if we acquire five million next year we will be on target."
This would go to about 10 000 black farmers.
Xingwana said she thought this target was realistic and that strategies previously used were being reviewed. "We also need financial resources. The willing buyer, willing seller principle is not working. The public works minister is tabling the expropriation act, so we hope that with all these we can fast-track the process."
Xingwana said regulation of foreign land-ownership was a certainty. "At this point in time we definitely agree that we have to regulate foreign land-ownership. We will look at the options and international best practices." She hoped that half of the outstanding land claims would be settled by the end of this year. These were mostly rural claims held up by disagreements between tribal chiefs over where boundaries lay, and white farmers disputing the validity of claims.
Expropriation would be used to settle claims not finalised by the end of 2008, Xingwana said.
Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya said efforts to speed up land redistribution were part of President Thabo Mbeki's "apex priorities", announced in his State of the Nation speech. More attention would be paid to supporting the beneficiaries of restituted and redistributed land, to ensure it was productive.
#3
Xingwana said regulation of white foreign land-ownership was a certainty. "At this point in time we definitely agree that we have to regulate white foreign land-ownership.
#6
"I have given my life to try to bring unto them the advantages which our civilisation must offer, but I have become well aware that we must retain this status; white, the superior, and they the inferior; for whenever a white man seeks to live among them as their equal, they will either destroy him or devour him, and they will destroy all his work; and so for any existing relationship or for any benefit to this people let white men from anywhere in the world who would come to help Africa remember that you must continually retain this status; you the master, and they the inferior, like children that you would help or teach. Never fraternise with them as equals, never accept them as your social equals ; or they will devour you; they will destroy you."- Dr. Albert Schweitzer, winner of the 1952 Nobel Prize for peace, in his 1961 book, From My African Notebook.
#7
I think the whites don't need to worry about being treated as equals by the blacks in South Africa. Though the ones who remain will become that or deceased.
Posted by: Large Phusons8918 ||
02/17/2008 20:25 Comments ||
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They learned nothgin from Zimbabwe. Then again, true believer collectivists in the mold of the Mandelas never do seem capable of comprehending events that run counter to their doctrine (communism). Its as if they are such congitivie shock that their minds shut down in denial.
U.N. peacekeepers trying to enforce a ceasefire signed last month have clashed with Tutsi rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Nations said on Saturday. One rebel was wounded in the incident on Friday and several were arrested by the South African peacekeepers, a spokesman for the U.N. mission in Congo (MONUC) said.
Congo's government, Tutsi insurgents loyal to renegade General Laurent Nkunda and Mai Mai militia signed a ceasefire on Jan. 23 aimed at ending more than a decade of violence in eastern North and South Kivu provinces.
The peacekeepers were investigating a shooting in the town of Tongo, 65 km (40 miles) northeast of the North Kivu provincial capital Goma, when they came across a group of Nkunda fighters escorting a prisoner. "Not only did they not stop, but they opened fire on the blue helmets, who returned fire. It was self-defence and within the rules of engagement," MONUC spokesman Kemal Saiki said.
A U.N. patrol later found two bodies, one of them of a small boy, apparently the victims of an earlier shooting by Nkunda's rebels, Saiki said.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/17/2008 00:00 ||
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Britain's overstretched Armed Forces are to send as many as 1,000 troops to the Balkans in a move that will see the military's last remaining reserve unit deployed on operations. The imminent departure of the 1st Bn Welsh Guards to Kosovo has been ordered in response to fears that the newly formed independent state could slide into "ethnic cleansing". But last night MPs and former military chiefs described the move as "irresponsible" and "demented", accusing the Ministry of Defence of being "bankrupt".
At the same time, the perception with regard to Kosovo is correct: it could easily blow up. Now it would be helpful if the French, Italians, Spanish, Poles and Romanians each put a thousand troops into Kosovo, and let the Brits take care of Afghanistan (for example). But that doesn't seem to be happening.
The deployment - part of Britain's commitment to the Nato-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) - takes place at a time of growing pressure on the military. It will mean that more than 14,000 British troops are on overseas operations, a figure last equalled at the end of the Iraq War in May 2003.
The Army is currently 3,800 men under strength, virtually every infantry battalion is undermanned and one in 14 serving soldiers is not fit for active service. In the next few weeks thousands of Paras from 16 Air Assault Brigade will fly out to Helmand in southern Afghanistan for the start of a widely anticipated Taliban "spring offensive". Sources have also indicated that despite the troop shortages, the British Task Force in Helmand might need to be reinforced before the summer in order to hold on to the strategic town of Musa Qala, which was taken from the Taliban in December.
#2
It certainly seems like the most wasteful parts of British history keep repeating themselves. Once again, the British military is "a thin red line of heroes, led by fools."
Their officers are quitting in job lots and I don't blame them. They see themselves risking their lives for a country whose NuLabour government is so anxious to be subsumed in the EU at any price that they refuse to allow the people a vote on the matter.
They have lesser pay, lesser kit, and much less moral support than their American (or even Aussie) cousins, and they realize this is deliberate and reflects the Labour government's valuation of them.
There are some interesting theories as to why Britain would rather fund illegal aliens than their own military. I'll leave finding them as an exercise for the reader.
MOSCOW (AP) - Russia said Saturday that U.S. military plans to shoot down a damaged spy satellite may be a veiled test of America's missile defense system.
The Pentagon failed to provide "enough arguments" to back its plan to smash the satellite next week with a missile, Russia's Defense Ministry said in a statement. "There is an impression that the United States is trying to use the accident with its satellite to test its national anti-missile defense system's capability to destroy other countries' satellites," the ministry said.
Something you guys can't do.
The Bush administration says the operation is not a test of a program to kill other nations' orbiting communications and intelligence capabilities. U.S. diplomats around the world have been instructed to inform governments that it is meant to protect people from 1,000 pounds of toxic fuel on the bus-sized satellite hurtling toward Earth.
The diplomats were told to distinguish the upcoming attempt from last year's test by China of a missile specifically designed to take out satellites, which was criticized by the United States and other countries.
Known by its military designation US 193, the satellite was launched in December 2006. It lost power and its central computer failed almost immediately afterward, leaving it uncontrollable. It carried a sophisticated and secret imaging sensor. Left alone, the satellite would likely hit Earth during the first week of March. About half of the 5,000-pound spacecraft would probably survive its blazing descent through the atmosphere and would scatter debris over several hundred miles.
Military and administration officials said the satellite is carrying fuel called hydrazine that could injure or kill people who are near it when it hits the ground.
The operation to shoot down the dead satellite could happen as soon as next week.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/17/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Yes. It is a de facto test in the sense that we are planning to hit the satellite at a higher than normal altitude.
But note that these ABM weapons are operational (say what you want about W, he was serious about BMD), have already been tested considerably and we plan to fire 2 or 3 shots to make sure we do the job. And Kimmie should not get any ideas because there are plenty more interceptors out there.
#3
The US should tell the Ruskies to go straight to hell, and by the way, watch like everyone else, the proper way to shoot a satellite down without leaving the mess behind, such as the 'People's Missile' did! The Red Dragon needs to know, along with the honey bear, the Eagle can 'claw eyes out' in space too!!
Putty didn't seem to give a crap when the Chicoms haphazardly shot their own bird up, so he should just sit back and STFU!!
#4
Sheesh! The Rooshuns actually believe the stuff in Pravda. I'm surprised they don't claim it is a shot at a UFO mothership.
That's what 70 years of commie censorship gets you: a readership as gullible as sheep.
#5
Weapons test? Well, yeah, it is. And your point would be what, Ivan?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/17/2008 8:40 Comments ||
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Let's see, you scrub together enough parts and fuel to have an ancient aircraft buzz our carrier group. We whack a sat without a shrug. Your lower primate ego's showing again. Zip it up.
#7
GUAM K57 RADIO > DETACHMENT-5/DET-5 SQUADRON TO TRACK SATELLITE IF IT NEARS GUAM; + TOPIX > AEGIS WARSHIP [Hawaii] ON STANDBY FOR SATELLITE SHOOTDOWN.
As a MADONNA fan, I'm just gonna say its more appropriate and symbolic than they can possibly realize at this time.
AoS note: put posts in the proper category. This is Japan, not Lurid Crime Tales.
Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara says the Japanese have lost their national pride, and only an outside provocation like a North Korean missile launch can shake them out of their complacency.
Ishihara, an unrepentant nationalist who heads the world's largest metropolis, has warned that Japan could become a US or Chinese colony if its people do not act to protect themselves. "Japanese no longer have the image of Japan as a national identity," the 75-year-old governor told AFP in an interview. "At the most, they think of their town, their family, their company. That is why Japanese are unable to change Japan on their own. If North Korea launches a missile, the Japanese would instantly change," he said.
North Korea in 1998 fired a missile over Japan's main island, although Ishihara has in the past belittled Pyongyang's ability to pose a serious military threat.
Ishihara, who was easily elected last year to a third term, is a darling of Japanese nationalists. His comments came amid growing tension over the presence of US troops in Japan, following the arrest in Okinawa of a US Marine on suspicion of raping a 14-year-old girl. He has a point there but it is not our fault that the Americans who gang-raped a 12 year old Okinawan girl back in the 90s got just 6 years each from the disgracefully lenient Japanese court.
Ishihara, speaking before the Marine's arrest, said the Japanese were reluctant to try to change the US-Japan alliance even if they were "dissatisfied" with it. "At the same time they do not desire a Japan with a strong military either. Because of that odd contradictory sentiment, Japan is gradually becoming colonised," he said.
Japan has been officially pacifist since World War II and hosts more than 40,000 US troops on its soil under a security alliance. Okinawa, which was under US control from 1945 to 1972, is home to more than half the troops, and their presence causes frequent friction with local residents.
Ishihara, an independent who has been supported by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, has said he recalls as a child disliking US forces stationed in Japan after World War II. Not nearly as much as elderly Chinese and Filipinos recall disliking the Japanese occupiers.
He told AFP he hoped Japan would gain military strength and free itself from dependence on the United States, although it was not yet ready to do so. "It will become possible to no longer have the bases when Japan has sufficient armaments," he said. This is why the Chinese do not want Americans to leave Japan. Long memories in that part of the world.
Ishihara delights in making provocative statements, and has used derogatory terms for Tokyo's Chinese and Korean residents. Who no doubt don't like him either.
A well-regarded novelist, he stormed onto the political stage in 1989 by co-authoring "The Japan that Can Say No," which accused leaders of the then booming economy of weakness in their dealings with Washington. Another consequence of long memory. Iwo Jima, A-bomb, Hiroshima, etc.
"I am the last person to say no," he said. "If we do unwise things, Japan might also become the sixth star on China's flag. China is extremely passionate about expanding its territory."
Ishihara has won support for his strong-arm policies, including forcing polluting vehicles out of Tokyo to improve air quality. Having been to Tokyo, I think the fish markets would have been a better choice for expulsion.
He is now passionately championing Tokyo's bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics, eight years after this year's Beijing Olympics seen as showcasing China's rise onto the world stage. Tokyo hosted the Olympics in 1964 in the first Games in Asia, which were seen as a symbol of Japan's dramatic rebirth from the devastation of World War II.
Despite his bid to woo support from other countries, Ishihara refuses to apologise for Japan's wartime aggression. "Has France apologised for its invasion of Indochina? Has the Netherlands for Indonesia?" he asked. The lack of enslaved "comfort women" in French and Dutch garrisons may have something to do with this.
"Because Japan waged the Second World War, every colony controlled by white people became independent." The people of the Phillipines (who routinely use the term "Japs" to this day, even in print), are singularly ungrateful for this "deliverance." He also neglects to mention what became of Japan's own colonies of Korea, Formosa, Southern Sakhalin, and Manchukuo after the war.
He said his view was reinforced when he met Gamel Abdel Nasser and Sukarno, the late leaders of Egypt and Indonesia. "They both told me: 'You know why we were both able to be independent? It's because of the war you Japanese made.'" That's what he gets for taking the word of dictators. Egypt had been independent since 1922. Sukarno and the other Indonesian independence activists collaborated with the Japanese occupiers, from whom they could never have been independent without the allies' successful counter-offensive. The US grant of independence to the Phillipines had been passed in 1936, with the effective date of July 4, 1946 being scheduled in the original act and duly honored in spite of wartime disruptions.
Finally, I will re-consider my attitude toward Japanese nationalists when the last survivors of the Bataan Death March and the Rape of Nanking and the last former "comfort woman" have passed from this world, not a minute sooner.
#1
There is some inherent blockage between US and Japanese culture that limits or prevents intermingling, even though when it does happen it is hugely successful, as a rule. And this is puzzling.
Because of Japan's impressive economic strength, Japanese language studies should be widespread, especially in the western US, but it isn't. In Japan, while English is the language of business, it is seen as almost an amusement, a skill for the businessman to demonstrate his wit.
At the same time, the Japanese tourist will flock to Hawaii in huge numbers, but the furthest inland popular site Japanese will visit in large numbers in the US is the Grand Canyon. And it is just a "dash in, dash out" visit, then back to the coast.
And US tourists have the same problem visiting Japan. It is a strange and alien place to most Americans, even with US franchises scattered about. There are no large US colonies in Japan, as there are no large Japanese colonies in the US.
The few who live permanently in the other country integrate and disappear.
Japanese culture is strongly oriented to cohesion based on a firm belief that Japan is singular and exceptional. Their language, while showing some relationship to Mongolian and also to some Polynesian, is quite different from other SE Asian tongues. Ignoring the Ainu, which they do quite throroughly, the Children of the Sun see themselves as racially distinct from their neighbors and while they absorbed elements of Chinese (Buddhism) and western (science & math) culture they pride themselves in integrating it into something native.
There are no large American colonies in Japan in good part because the Japanese do not encourage any such colony. Where would Americans fit in the very structured hierarchical system of relationships there?
And there are no large Japanese colonies here because anyone who wishes to advance in Japanese corporations or politics cannot afford to be away from Japan more than a certain limited time.
At least, those were my experiences doing business with Japanese firms a while ago. Nothing I've seen or read since suggests that has changed among the adults, although the cell phone thumb generation is a little (but not fundamentally) different, I think.
#3
Note that Buddhism (as opposed to Chinese Buddhist culture) isn't Chinese. It originated in India, in present day Bihar state.
It was the Indian Emperor Ashoka who sent Buddhist missionaries to present day China, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Burma.
Posted by: john frum ||
02/17/2008 12:41 Comments ||
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Indeed, John - Gautama was Indian and Buddhism is one of the many gifts of India to the world. However IIUC Japan adopted it via China and in particular the Japanese found the Ch'an (Zen) and Pure Land schools amenable to their aesthetics and culture.
#5
Here om Guam. a majority of Chin emigres I'd conversed with have no qualms about any US departure = redux from Japan. They broadly acknowledge that mainland China is BACKWARD + TECH INFERIOR/DEFICIENT TO BOTH THE USA + JAPAN. ITO CHINA NEEDS ALL THE TECH INNOVATION THEY CAN GET + SEE JAPAN AS A MAJOR SOURCE, ARE GENER WILING TO PUT WW2, etc IN THE PAST. OTOH, they view intensive = new Chin influence in Japan as good for relations and for China.
THE QUESTION THEN, AT LEAST FOR THE TIME BEING, IS WHETHER MAINSTREAM JAPANESE CAN ACCEPT [large numbers] CHINESE ENIGRES + CHIN-FOREIGN-OWNED MNC'S IN THEIR COUNTRY???
#6
As said before on RB and the Net > iff the USA is truly concenred about a LT Chicom strategic threat to Amer + Asia-Pacific vv Communist China IRONY > A NUCLEARIZED ANTI-CHIN NORTH KOREA CAN WORK TO THE ADVANTAGE OF THE US-WEST. DOES THE USA = US INTEL-STATE BELIEVE THAT THE NK NORCOMS/KORCOMS ARE WILLING TO MOVE OR MADE TO MOVE TOWARDS DEMOCAPITALISM + [EURO-model] DEMOSOCIALISM???
Perhaps some pork protestors and video logging of attendees?
The annual payback dinner by defense contractors who benefit from earmarks by Democratic Rep. John Murtha, chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, will be held Feb. 27 at the Ritz-Carlton Pentagon City in Virginia, across the Potomac from Washington.
Murtha, a close adviser of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is one of the leading earmarkers in Congress. The earmark recipients will be paying the $1,500 a person admission to "An Evening with Jack and Joyce Murtha."
Although the dinner is timed to coincide with the anniversary of Murtha's first special election to Congress in 1974, invitations for it were mailed just before the annual deadline for earmark applications.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/17/2008 05:40 ||
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Anyone who does "business" with this swine ought to get kneecapped economic way.
#2
Gosh, as usual I thought one thing and typed another that should say; Anyone who does "business" with this swine ought to get kneecapped in an economic way.
You can't use much pork if you are run out of business.
#6
Concurrent Technologies Corporation CTC with its headquarters in Johnstown, PA is one of the principal recipients of Murtha's largesse. In fact, I think upwards of 90% of their business comes through earmarks. Further, having had the misfortune to deal with them in the business world, I know first hand that their quality is schlock. If it were not for earmarks, they would be bankrupt within two years.
Harold Ickes, a top adviser to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign who voted to strip Michigan and Florida of their delegates last year, now is arguing against the very penalty he helped pass.
In a conference call Saturday, the longtime Democratic Party member contended the DNC should reconsider its tough sanctions on the two states, which held early contests in violation of party rules. He said millions of voters in Michigan and Florida would be otherwise disenfranchised before acknowledging moments later that he had favored the sanctions.
Ickes explained that his different position essentially is due to the different hats he wears as both a DNC member and a Clinton adviser in charge of delegate counting. Clinton won the primary vote in Michigan and Florida, and now she wants those votes to count.
"There's been no change," Ickes said. "I wasn't acting as an agent for Mrs. Clinton. We stripped them of all their delegates in order to prevent campaigns to campaign in those states. ...Those were the rules, and we thought we had an obligation to enforce them."
Clinton won after all the Democratic candidates agreed not to campaign in either states because they violated the party rules. Clinton, who flew into Florida on primary-eve but did not hold a public rally, tried to argue that Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois had violated the pledge by airing a national ad campaign that also showed on Florida television stations.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/17/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Will we ever be rid of the Clintons and their little helpers?
#3
Harold Ickes, a top adviser to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign who voted to strip Michigan and Florida of their delegates last year, now is arguing against the very penalty he helped pass.
No surprise from the people who tried to change the method of counting votes after the 2000 election that they had no problem with when it worked to get their man in 1992 and 1996. It's never been about fairness or justice or truth. It's always been about POWER.
#4
No, we will never be rid of the Clintons and their little helpers. Ickes father was a key member of FDR's Brain Trust. They go back to Philip Freneau and will always be with us, for good and ill.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/17/2008 12:43 Comments ||
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#6
If you look up "hypocrit" in the dictionary Harold Ickes picture is there.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
02/17/2008 16:57 Comments ||
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#7
I don't know anything about the current Harold Ickes, but don't tar all the Ickes with the same brush. A lot of Rantburgers have no use for FDR and his brain trust. Don't forget that these people understood the threat presented by Hitler before a lot of conservatives did. Youngest Daughter and I just read Harold Ickes's response to the America Firsters in 1940 or so; and he made sense. What he said against the Nazis then bears repeating today:
...What is convulsing the world today is not merely another old-fashioned war. It is a counterrevolution against our ideas and ideals, against our sense of justice and our human values.
Three system today compete for world domination. Communism, Fascism, and democracy are struggling for social-economic world control. As the conflict sharpens it becomes clear that the other two, fascism and communism, are merging into one. They have one common goal, the destruction of democracy.
This is why this war is not an ordinary war. It is not a conflict for markets or territories. It is a desperate struggle for the possession of the souls of men.
#8
try and do a similar defense of Sid Blumenthal, Mom
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/17/2008 20:45 Comments ||
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#9
Frank: You have me there. Who's Sid Blumenthal?
I don't know all of the brain trust names.
I quoted this speech because #3 daughter and I read it and it made sense. We're supplementing the school curriculum here. Her history teacher seems to have good sense, but the textbook has some gaps and errors.
Somebody on the 'Burg said elsewhere, in an article about JFK under "Opinion" today, that JFK wouldn't find a home with today's democrats. I don't think FDR would, either.
In discussing FDR with my daughter earlier this evening, we compared FDR's alphabet soup program with AFDC. FDR didn't make the family irrelevant; his programs created jobs that kept families together. I remember my passionately New Deal great-aunt ranting in exasperation over the 1960s AFDC programs--"They're paying people to breed!"
I will go google Sid Blumenthal and learn something.
A surge of newly registered voters in Rhode Island could play a major role in the state's March 4 presidential primary, which looms as an important vote in the close Democratic race between Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
In the last year, more than 43,000 new voters registered in Rhode Island, including about 21,000 who signed up in the four months before the Feb. 2 deadline, according to a Providence Journal analysis. That's compared to about 12,400 new voters who registered in the four months before the 2004 state presidential primary cycle. About 6,800 of the voters who registered in the last four months are Democrats, 1,900 are Republicans and 12,000 are independents, who can vote in either party's primary.
The new voters this year are also young voters. About 20,000 are between the ages of 18 and 29, the Journal reported.
Rhode Island's spike in young voter registration is being seen around the country, said John Della Volpe, director of polling at the Institute of Politics at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Della Volpe said the Sept. 11 terror attacks explains some of the surge. "Before that, young people didn't think their votes mattered; they thought all politicians were the same," Della Volpe said. "Now, politics is about major, life-and-death issues, the war, globalization and climate change."
Rhode Island holds its primary the same day as Vermont, Ohio and Texas. New voters have never been the foundation of a victory in Rhode Island's presidential primary, which usually comes after the nominees of both parties have been largely settled.
Clinton has held a steady lead in state polls, but neither candidate is taking anything for granted. Both Clinton and Obama are advertising on local TV and preparing robust voter turnout efforts.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/17/2008 00:00 ||
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"over 123% of our eligible voters are registered"
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/17/2008 5:22 Comments ||
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A surge of newly registered voters in Rhode Island = corruption
Barack Obama hit back at rival Hillary Clinton on Saturday as she prepared to join him in Wisconsin, which stages the next Democratic presidential battle in three days. Obama, a first-term Illinois senator, has beaten Clinton in the last eight contests and gained the upper hand in their duel to become their party's White House nominee in November's election.
Obama has spent four days in Wisconsin since his last round of victories last Tuesday and has a slight lead in opinion polls in the state. Clinton has focused on March 4 votes in Ohio and Texas, hoping victories there will revive her hopes.
Obama launched another advertisement on Saturday responding to Clinton's recent attacks. The New York senator has criticized him as providing more talk than action, and aired two ads in Wisconsin this week attacking his refusal to debate in the state and his health care and retirement plans. "After 18 debates, with two more coming, Hillary says Barack Obama is ducking debates? It's the same old politics," an announcer says in Obama's new ad. The two are scheduled to debate next week in Texas and the next week in Ohio. "The question is not who has got the policies," Obama said at a rally in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. "The question is who can get them done, who can bring people together."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/17/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Anyone betting Obama will be walking on water and raising the dead before November?
Posted by: regular joe ||
02/17/2008 8:18 Comments ||
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Valentines Day cartoon in Wisconsin State Journal:
"From Wisconsin"
Hillary gets a small bouquet of roses; Obama is up to his elbows in roses and heart shaped chocolate boxes.
LAHORE: Pakistani peacekeeping troops have been assigned to train and reintegrate armed forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a press release issued by the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) said on Saturday.
According to the release, a 13-week Training Task Force programme is meant to reorganise the disbanded battalions and provide permanent security basis for consolidation of peace in turbulent areas. The release says that a passing out parade of three newly trained battalions was held recently at Labreizi Training Academy Congo. The Pakistani peacekeepers ever since their induction into the UN Mission in Congo three years ago have strived to secure peace in the country riddled with decades of violence, the release added.
Posted by: john frum ||
02/17/2008 09:20 ||
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Few Americans have heard of credit default swaps, arcane financial instruments invented by Wall Street about a decade ago. But if the economy keeps slowing, credit default swaps, like subprime mortgages, may become a household term.
Credit default swaps form a large but obscure market that will be put to its first big test as a looming economic downturn strains companies finances. Like a homeowners policy that insures against a flood or fire, these instruments are intended to cover losses to banks and bondholders when companies fail to pay their debts.
The market for these securities is enormous. Since 2000, it has ballooned from $900 billion to more than $45.5 trillion roughly twice the size of the entire United States stock market.
No one knows how troubled the credit swaps market is, because, like the now-distressed market for subprime mortgage securities, it is unregulated. But because swaps have proliferated so rapidly, experts say that a hiccup in this market could set off a chain reaction of losses at financial institutions, making it even harder for borrowers to get loans that grease economic activity.
It is entirely possible that this market can withstand a big jump in corporate defaults, if it comes. But an inkling of trouble emerged in a recent report from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a federal banking regulator. It warned that a significant increase in trading in swaps during the third quarter of last year put a strain on processing systems used by banks to handle these trades and make sure they match up.
And last week, the American International Group said that it had incorrectly valued some of the swaps it had written and that sharp declines in some of these instruments had translated to $3.6 billion more in losses than the company had previously estimated. Its stock dropped 12 percent on the news but edged up in the days after.
A.I.G. says it expects to file its year-end financial statements on time by the end of this month with appropriate valuations.
Placing accurate values on these contracts is just one of the uncertainties facing the big banks, insurance companies and hedge funds that create and trade these instruments.
In a credit default swap, two parties enter a private contract in which the buyer of protection agrees to pay the seller premiums over a set period of time; the seller pays only if a particular credit crisis occurs, like a default. These instruments can be sold, on either end of the contract, by the insurer or the insured.
But during the credit market upheaval in August, 14 percent of trades in these contracts were unconfirmed, meaning one of the parties in the resale transaction was unidentified in trade documents and remained unknown 30 days later. In December, that number stood at 13 percent. Because these trades are unregulated, there is no requirement that all parties to a contract be told when it is sold.
As investors who have purchased such swaps try to cash them in, they may have trouble tracking down who is supposed to pay their claims.
This is just a giant insurance industry that is underregulated and not very well reserved for and does not have very good standards as a result, said Michael A. J. Farrell, chief executive of Annaly Capital Management in New York. I think unregulated markets that overshadow, in terms of size, the regulated ones are a real question mark.
Because these contracts are sold and resold among financial institutions, an original buyer may not know that a new, potentially weaker entity has taken over the obligation to pay a claim.
In late 2005, at the urging of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, market participants agreed to advise their trading partners in a swap when they assigned contracts to others. But it is unclear how closely participants adhere to this practice.
It would be as if homeowners, facing losses after a hurricane, could not identify the insurance companies to pay on their claims. Or, if they could, they discovered that their insurer had transferred the policy to another company that could not cover the claim...
pt 1 - HT to My Pet Jawa. Let's make this cretin's life/career exposed to sunlight, the great disinfectant! I'm not gonna snark cuz it will be too acidic Augustine Romero, director of Tucson Unified School District's ethnic-studies department, is nothing if not candid about his program.
Traditional history and civics courses, Romero argues, have "been highly ineffective to children of color." He has a better way.
That better way, as presented to students in Romero's increasingly influential program, is, effectively, revolution. Or, if that "R-word" strikes you as too edgy, resistance - a resistance against history and civics as traditionally taught, which Romero considers the product of "ultraconservatives."
"With the ultraconservative orientation, people want to believe that if you offer a naive, simplistic, color-blind orientation, that's the only truth.
"We transcend indoctrination because we offer multiple perspectives. It's a higher level of thinking."
If Romero's words sound politically anchored, they should. Romero happily acknowledges that he and all his instructors are "progressives," and he is contemptuous of teachers who resist admitting that all history instruction is political.
"Our teachers are left-leaning. They are progressives. They're going to have things (in their courses) that conservatives are not going to like," he told me.
"Their concern is that it's not their political orientation. To sit here and say teachers don't walk into the classroom with a political orientation, that's the furthest (thing) from the truth."
Romero is a confident man. Not unlike that self-assured aide-de-camp of Fidel Castro, Ché Guevara, whose romantic portrait has been hung in Romero's ethnic-studies classrooms.
Ché, too, believed the world was divided between progressives and ultraconservative reactionaries, many of whom he imprisoned and shot.
In one of Romero's TUSD classrooms, in fact, a video posted for a time on the Internet Web site YouTube showed at least four separate posters of the beret-capped Ché decorating the classroom walls. And a poster of Pancho Villa. And, yes, one poster of the godfather of the revolution himself, Fidel. RTWT
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/17/2008 18:57 ||
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Hey guy, 10 million of your 'blood' are in this country illegally because the "Oppressive Man and his Culture"(tm) offer more than any of the one's owned and operated by your 'blood'. Intelligent creatures would tend to emulate that which works rather than the one that has been one major failure after another, of delivering the goods to the people, that you champion.
#2
apparently, this is part 3 of a story on same in the AZ Republic. The hyperlink doesn't show pts 1 and 2, even if you register, saving you the frustration :-)
Perhaps a question or two to Senator McCain are in order? Where do you stand, Senator??
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/17/2008 20:10 Comments ||
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Your graphic summs up any snark I might have offered.
Toshiba Corp is planning to stop production of equipment compatible with the HD DVD format for high-definition video, allowing the competing Blu-Ray camp a free run, public broadcaster NHK reported on Saturday.
Toshiba is expected to suffer losses amounting to tens of billions of yen (quntupilloons of Zimbabwean dollars) (hundreds of millions of dollars) to scrap production of HD DVD players and recorders and other steps to exit the business, Japan's NHK said on its website. No one at Toshiba could be reached for comment.
The format war between the Toshiba-backed HD DVD and Sony Corp's Blu-Ray, often compared to the Betamax-VHS battle in the 1980s, has slowed the development of what is expected to be a multibillion dollar high-definition DVD industry. Toshiba was dealt a blow on Friday when Wal-Mart Stores Inc said it would abandon the HD DVD format, becoming the latest in a series of top retailers and movie studios to rally behind Blu-ray technology for high definition DVDs.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/17/2008 00:00 ||
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You know after they sold US sub secrets to the Soviets I just cant help but smile on my face. It's just too bad that a bunch of consumers ended up wasting money and it delayed the adoptions of BluRay.
#2
It's also sticking it to MicroBorg which has tied its Red Ring of Death Xbox to HD [and expensive add on] in its war with Sony's PS3 integrated Blu-Ray player.
Just today, I was looking at a flash memory advert in the paper. 2GB for $13. A year ago a 2GB thumb drive cost well over $100.
A Blu-Ray disk holds about 50GB of data.
Currently available thumb drives or flash cards include 64GB, which are the new standard. The cards are about 2" by 1" in size. And because no high speed spin is needed, such cards are a lot more durable and take less storage space. The larger size even has room for data redundancy in case of an error.
They are brand new, so still prohibitively expensive. But for how long? And they have much more possibility for data expansion. Maybe 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, a terabyte or more.
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.
Britain's overstretched Armed Forces are to send as many as 1,000 troops to the Balkans in a move that will see the military's last remaining reserve unit deployed on operations. The imminent departure of the 1st Bn Welsh Guards to Kosovo has been ordered in response to fears that the newly formed independent state could slide into "ethnic cleansing". But last night MPs and former military chiefs described the move as "irresponsible" and "demented", accusing the Ministry of Defence of being "bankrupt".
Harold Ickes, a top adviser to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign who voted to strip Michigan and Florida of their delegates last year, now is arguing against the very penalty he helped pass.
A surge of newly registered voters in Rhode Island could play a major role in the state's March 4 presidential primary, which looms as an important vote in the close Democratic race between Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Barack Obama hit back at rival Hillary Clinton on Saturday as she prepared to join him in Wisconsin, which stages the next Democratic presidential battle in three days. Obama, a first-term Illinois senator, has beaten Clinton in the last eight contests and gained the upper hand in their duel to become their party's White House nominee in November's election.
Toshiba Corp is planning to stop production of equipment compatible with the HD DVD format for high-definition video, allowing the competing Blu-Ray camp a free run, public broadcaster NHK reported on Saturday.
