African National Congress (ANC) leader Jacob Zuma on Friday criticised Western powers for holding back aid to Zimbabwe while President Robert Mugabe was still in power. "This is very unfair to the Zimbabwean people. Because here is Mugabe, he is a factor. He is there. He leads a party that has been in government for over 20 years," Zuma told Reuters in an interview. That's where all the money went. Why send more? How about if he gives some of it back?
Zuma said the creation of a unity government where Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai share power had begun Zimbabwe's stabilisation, but it was only a starting point. "You cannot say it has stabilised but it has entered a phase of stabilisation politically," Zuma said, adding that the unity government agreement, pushed by Southern African leaders "was the only option. There was nothing else." Unless Bob decides to toss Morgan into the clink again or just have him rubbed out.
Western powers, who accuse Mugabe of ruining the country and violating human rights, are reluctant to begin pouring in aid to repair the devastated economy while the veteran leader remains as head of state. It's called "throwing good money after bad."
In the highest-level African criticism of this stance, Zuma said it was wrong to hold back aid. "When there was an election, it is not as if not a single human being voted for Mugabe in Zimbabwe. He had a very big percentage himself. He has a sizeable support." His problem is that the boodle's no longer as sizable. It needs replenished. Perhaps South Africa should do that, rather than us. We've got our own problems.
Western donors have made it clear they will only provide a large aid package to help rebuild the country once economic reforms are in place. Any moves in that direction? Anyone? Bueller?
Much will depend on whether Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai can work together after years of animosity. My guess is "no."
Any new power struggle that divides the new government could undermine efforts to win the confidence of donors and foreign investors. So why should we bother tossing bales of cash at it?
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
".......He is there. He leads a party that has been in government for over 20 years,"
That must certainly be the finest example of "bug vs. feature" that I have ever read.
No mention of the perps religion, whose founder was heavily into this sort of thing.
SIX men accused of being at the centre of a sex ring said to have lured young girls into a world of exploitation and rape have been rounded up by police in a dawn raid. The Advertiser joined the early morning swoop at one property in Clifton, as detectives and uniformed officers paid simultaneous visits to addresses in other parts of Clifton, Broom and Masbrough on Wednesday morning.
The action followed a two-month police investigation into the allegations of four girls, aged between 11 and 14, who claim that they were plucked from the streets of Rotherham and exploited for sex. Wednesday morning's operation resulted in the immediate arrest of five suspects. A sixth man was added to the haul in a later raid on a property in Shirecliffe, Sheffield, and a 20-year-old man, from the Moorgate area of Rotherham, was arrested yesterday (Thursday) afternoon.
None of the seven men, aged between 19 and 29, had been charged in connection with the alleged offences when the Advertiser went to press and all were expected to be released on police bail.
Two more men are still subject of police enquiries as part of the investigation and are expected to be brought in for questioning.
A 25-strong team of officers made their way to suspects' homes in a fleet of unmarked cars after leaving Main Street Police station at around 7am. In an early-morning briefing Det Sgt Dave Walker, who led the operation, said: "We will be looking to gather mobile phones, digital cameras, diaries and camcorders....anything that could potentially provide evidence."
He added: "We will be knocking on doors today, not knocking them down. Many of the properties we will be visiting are family homes and many of the people who live there will be unaware of what's going on."
Following the arrests, officers combed suspects' homes and cars for evidence that could aid their investigation.
A police spokesman said that it was important to maintain a low profile in order to keep the impact and disturbance caused to surrounding communities to a minimum. He added: "Uniformed officers from the Safer Neighbourhood Teams will be issuing leaflets to residents following the raid to reassure them and explain some details of the operation."
#1
None of the seven men, aged between 19 and 29, had been charged in connection with the alleged offences when the Advertiser went to press and all were expected to be released on police bail.
I s'pose if they abscond back home, British girls will be as much safer as if they were jailed... and at less cost and trouble to the government.
"We will be looking to gather mobile phones, digital cameras, diaries and camcorders
This always causes problems for the comrades of bad guys.
A police spokesman said that it was important to maintain a low profile in order to keep the impact and disturbance caused to surrounding communities to a minimum.
One would think the surrounding communities would be grateful to have such bad men removed from their midst, especially if community members had daughters. Clearly the community have other concerns.
#2
English folks I know speak about "grooming", IE targeting young girls through alchol & drug or plain abusive behavior, for personal or lucrative sexual exploitation, this seems to be a staple of the pakistanis in the UK, especially for very young girls from the white underclass which cohabit with them (a very similar process to what is often reported fom french 'hoods, though the perps mostly are black africans & arabs, and IIRC, there was an articel a few years ago in Rb about a similar thing occuring in Germany, the perps being IIRc turks & iranians migrants).
#6
Sorry to be flippant in my last post, 5089 is right, the young girls are sweet-talked into this shit, from a truly nihilistic society, if they are from the the lowest levels of it, the only way is up.
The British government has opened talks on changing the 300-year-old law which bars members of the royal family from succeeding to the throne if they marry Catholics, reports said Friday.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Buckingham Palace have discussed plans to change the rules of succession, which also include giving royal women equal rights, the BBC and several newspapers reported. Brown told the BBC: "There are clearly issues about the exclusion of people from the rights of succession and there are clearly issues that have got to be dealt with. "This is not an easy set of answers. "But I think in the 21st century people do expect discrimination to be removed and they do expect us to be looking at all these issues."
Parliamentary proposals on reforming the 1701 Act of Settlement have been made by lawmaker Evan Harris, from the opposition Liberal Democrats, and were due to be discussed in the House of Commons on Friday. The proposals have support across the British political spectrum but they are unlikely to win ministerial backing at this stage as the government needs to prepare the ground for such a complex undertaking, said the BBC.
An opinion poll for the BBC showed strong public support for reform of the monarchy, with 89 percent saying women should have the same rights of succession as men.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2009 00:00 ||
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In theory, no. In practice under the current Archbishop of Canterbury, hard to say.
It occurs to me that opening the throne to Catholics may lay the groundwork for Rome to consolidate the remnants of believing Christians in Europe. With the apostasy of many Anglican leaders and the very small minority status of Orthodox, a Catholic may be the only prospect for retaining Christianity in the UK.
#8
Does she do ANY studying up before she opens her fat trap?
State Dept. staff prepare briefing packets. The question is, are they deliberately undercutting her or are they simply incompetant?
If it were my staff there would be blood on the walls of the conference room as the result of some 'free and frank discussions' with my subordinates. Their job is to make sure she has the relevant local info. Yeah, she probably should've known this one, but sometimes when you're travelling heavily and going from issue to issue it's hard to keep track. That's what the staff and briefing packets are for. Whether intentionally or not, her staff are messing up big time.
#9
If it were my staff there would be blood on the walls of the conference room as the result of some 'free and frank discussions' with my subordinates.
"We're going to have a frank and earnest discussion. I'm going to be frank and you're going to be earnest."
#10
I'll be Frank and you're f*cked. She knew the backstory, having already visited once. This indicates incompetence, top to bottom.
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/28/2009 20:08 Comments ||
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#11
I think there are almost as many Catholics in the United States as there are Protestants of various denominations _combined_. While the noo-age neo-pagans may emphasize Our Lady of Guadalupe as a peculiar Mexican variant goddess or soemthing like that, HOWEVER the last time I checked _CATHOLICISM_ still regarded her as the same Mother of Jesus that all the other Marys/Marias/whatever. She doesn't "belong" to the Mexicans any more than she "belongs" to America.
Considering how much they lecture us on our need to transcend nationalism, they sure like pee-ing all over anything that actually transcended nationalism in the past.
More than 1,000 people have rallied in the streets of Kyrgyzstan to protest against the government of Kurmanbek Bakiyev, the nation's president, ahead of a July presidential election.
Opposition protesters chanted "Down with Bakiyev" and other anti-government slogans and waved the red and green flags of the opposition parties as they demonstrated in Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital, on Friday.
The demonstrators accused Bakiyev's government of rampant corruption and said the president had failed to implement economic reforms.
"The president has not fulfilled any of his promises ... he must stop political repression immediately," said Ismail Isakov, an opposition leader.
Opposition politicians have said they will particpate in the presidential elections scheduled for July 23, despite believing they will be neither free nor fair.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2009 00:00 ||
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Once as rooted in the Scottish soil as this city's famous castle, the Royal Bank of Scotland ventured far during the era of globalization -- pumping billions of dollars worth of credit overseas as it expanded into markets as diverse as Kazakhstan, China and Rhode Island.
But just as RBS came to symbolize the free flow of credit across borders, the worldwide financial crisis has turned it into a leading example of the reverse: protectionism in the 21st century.
The government took majority control of the venerable bank four months ago after it suffered the worst corporate loss in British history. Authorities promptly issued a fresh directive: RBS, which had been in private hands since 1727, would have to sharply boost lending to British companies and home buyers stung by the global credit crunch -- effectively curtailing lending to its equally hard-hit customers overseas.
As RBS prepares to comply with the government order to pump billions of dollars more into British credit markets, it is retrenching in at least 15 countries, moving to sell off branches from Vietnam to Romania.
In the United States, where RBS operates the nation's 10th largest bank, the company recently sold off 65 subsidiary branches in Indiana and scaled back auto loan operations in Texas, Colorado, Oklahoma and Arizona. This is going to nuke 'emerging markets' around the world.
#1
Ignores why they went into the foreign loan market - maybe because socialist policies and bureaucratic regulation [for regulation sake] at home made return on investment minimum.
#3
RBS bought the largest bank in Western Australia. And rebranded it using the gay theme song, Go West and named it with a rather unfortunate malapropism - BankWest.
In '49, the lessons of the Depression were alive in the minds of the financial institutions and in the law. Pre-derivative and restricted banking era lasted till the 80s. More like 25 years.
#5
More like you had to wait for the 'old' minds to die. People no longer have 'history', it begins when they're born. All that came before never existed and they must relearn the lessons of the elders. Painful isn't it.
#6
The Bankers are after us.... srsly, you can look it up... .. protocols of the Federal Reserve, it's stone cold evidence. I for one am shortnig the shit out of hog brainz.
Send me money you damn fools and I'll send you a program of weirdness.
My money is on the tax dodgers.
The German government is applying pressure on offshore tax havens. It is also taking action against German banks operating in Switzerland, where they maintain accounts for shadowy Liechtenstein foundations. In a time of economic crisis, Berlin needs all the tax euros it can get.
OK DAMMIT, I'm going to use each and every bullshit name you force on me, Stop this "Disapearing Nym shit'
Redneck Jim
Posted by: Pearl Glaitch1611 ||
03/28/2009 19:09 Comments ||
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Since other commenters here aren't losing their nyms it's your own browser settings &/or your anti-virus / anti-spam software that's creating your problems Redneck Jim.
A young couple belonging to different communities who ran away from their homes in Jammu and Kashmir and got married in the capital under the protection of a voluntary women's organisation were attacked in South Delhi on Thursday by the relatives of the girl who were allegedly accompanied by a Jammu and Kashmir police team. The organisation's chairperson was also assaulted.
The girl is a first year graduation student and the boy is a post-graduation student. Fearing persecution at the hands of their parents, the couple fled to the capital and approached the organisation, which later provided them shelter. The two tied the knot on Wednesday. "Around 11 a.m. today [on Thursday], the girl's relatives came along with a Jammu and Kashmir police team and attacked her. She sustained bruises. They also assaulted the organisation's chairperson and she was also injured," said Mary E. John, Director of the Centre for Women's Development Studies (CWDS). The organisation then sought help from the Delhi police, which have agreed to provide adequate security to the couple.
The girl's relatives alleged that she was abducted and that she was a minor.
In a joint statement, the National Federation of Indian Women, the All-India Democratic Women's Association, the Joint Women's Programme, CWDS and the Young Women's Christian Association, besides Leila Seth, Uma Chakravarthy and Githa Hariharan, condemned the persecution of young adults for choosing their own marriage partners and demanded that the State safeguard their rights.
Sudha Sundararaman of AIDWA said the organisations were shocked to learn that two consenting adults from different communities, above the legal age of marriage, were forced to leave their homes to take refuge in Delhi, fearing for their lives. Through the joint statement, they demanded that all protection be provided to the couple under the laws of the land and that a statement under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure stating voluntary consent also be recorded before a magistrate in Delhi, as they got married here.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2009 00:00 ||
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British premier Gordon Brown signaled Thursday he would support ending a six-decade-long gentlemen's agreement under which leadership of the World Bank and IMF has been divided up between Americans and Europeans. Yeah, sure. That's sounds fair. The West makes the money, the guys who didn't can spend it.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
FREEREPUBLIC/TOPIX > UN: "CLIMATE CHANGE" PLAN LIKELY TO SHIFT TRILLIONS TO FORM NEW WORLD ECONOMY.
HMMMMMMM, GUAM > GLOBAL WARMING [Sun] + "EARTH/
LAND CHANGES" + KAMALEN [Space Rocks] + ISLAMIST/MILITANT-TERROR THREAT + "US versus CHINA" in ASIA-PACIFIC...... now comes the UNO!
#5
Thank you, g(r)omgoru. I lost track of the details of Israeli politics as soon as actual parties beyond Labour were formed... somewhere around May 15, 1948, I believe.
Long article with details for those of you who understand such things, and links to the original report. A taste below. Via Drudge.
A vast electronic spying operation has infiltrated computers and has stolen documents from hundreds of government and private offices around the world, including those of the Dalai Lama, Canadian researchers have concluded. In a report to be issued this weekend, the researchers, who have a record of detecting computer espionage, said that the system was being controlled from computers based almost exclusively in China, but that they could not say conclusively that the Chinese government was involved.
The researchers, who are based at the Munk Center for International Studies at the University of Toronto, had been asked by the office of the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader whom China regularly denounces, to examine its computers for signs of malicious software, or malware. Their sleuthing opened a window into a broader operation that, in less than two years, has infiltrated at least 1,295 computers in 103 countries, including many belonging to embassies, foreign ministries and other government offices, as well as the Dalai Lamas Tibetan exile centers in India, Brussels, London and New York. The researchers said they believed that in addition to the spying on the Dalai Lama, the system, which they called GhostNet, was focused on the governments of South Asian and Southeast Asian countries.
Still going strong, the operation continues to invade and monitor more than a dozen new computers a week, the researchers said in their report, Tracking GhostNet: Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network. They said they had found no evidence that United States government offices had been infiltrated, although a NATO computer was monitored by the spies for half a day and computers of the Indian Embassy in Washington were infiltrated.
The malware is remarkable both for its sweep in computer jargon, it has not been merely phishing for random consumers information, but whaling for particular important targets and for its Big Brother-style capacities. It can, for example, turn on the camera and audio-recording functions of an infected computer, enabling monitors to see and hear what goes on in a room. The investigators say they do not know if this facet has been employed.
The electronic spy game has had at least some real-world impact, they said. For example, they said, after an e-mail invitation was sent by the Dalai Lamas office to a foreign diplomat, the Chinese government made a call to the diplomat discouraging a visit. And a woman working for a group making Internet contacts between Tibetan exiles and Chinese citizens was stopped by Chinese intelligence officers on her way back to Tibet, shown transcripts of her online conversations and warned to stop her political activities.
The Toronto researchers said they had notified international law enforcement agencies of the spying operation, which in their view exposed basic shortcomings in the legal structure of cyberspace. The findings are being published in Information Warfare Monitor, an online publication associated with the Munk Center.
The Thai prime minister rejected calls for his resignation by thousands of anti-government protesters who ringed his office for a second day Friday in a boisterous rally.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2009 00:00 ||
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In January 2004, NASA landed two identical robotic rovers named Spirit and Opportunity on the surface of Mars. The twins were primed for a brief 3-month mission to tell us a story of water and possibly life itself in the planet's past.
More than five years later, the dynamic duo are still roving the Red Planet, engaged in a saga of overachievement that has transformed Mars exploration.
"Spirit and Opportunity helped invent a whole new discipline - robotic field science," says Steve Squyres, principal investigator for the Mars Exploration Rover Mission.
"They've taught us how to organize large teams of scientists and engineers to operate robotic rovers on a distant planet. We all had to learn to work together effectively year after year to squeeze the most possible science from the rovers."
#1
ION RIAN > LINK BETWEEN GLOBAL DIMMING AND WARMING BAFFLES SCIENTISTS [espec EURO-Perts].
The bad news is that some Brit Perts say continued GLOBAL DIMMING may kill us all - THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT SWISS PERTS [read, BIKINI TEAM Geezer Dads]SAY "GLOBAL BRIGHTENING" HAS BEGUN AND COULD KILL US ALL.
#2
Phenomenal. The Us aspires to reach out into the heavens, and achieves it, whilst so much of the rest of the world expends its energies mired in retrogressive envy politics and/or fighting on behalf of pernicious superstitious nonsense.
Lets hope Obama et al don't achieve their objectives and make even the US incapable of this sort of enterprise in future.
#6
I ownnd a 1965 Dodge slant 6 straight shift power nothing bought used for $300 that gave me 850.000 miles and was still running, (Smoked and missed, needed a valve job) when I gave it away.(NOT a misprint)
Can't kill a slant 6, damn good engineering there.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
03/28/2009 11:19 Comments ||
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#7
I received very good service from the Chrysler products I owned. They used to have what was called a 'ballast resistor' under the hood. It was always good to have a spare in the glove box. When the ballast resistor went out, your default was leather Cadillacs.
#8
as I recall, my '72 Datsun 510 had a ballast resistor as well. Yep, when it died, the car died
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/28/2009 14:00 Comments ||
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#9
Apparently, it is the will of Allah that the accursed infidels drive Space Roombas all over Mars while His people spend their days here on Earth blowing each other up.
#10
When maintenance is impossible, it's always best to over-engineer. That's why the Rovers are still operating, and why, if they could get enough power from their solar cells, we'd still be hearing from the Pioneer spacecraft. BTW, NONE of these were built by NASA - the equipment was contracted for. Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, and a half-dozen other firms all contributed to their construction.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/28/2009 14:50 Comments ||
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#11
Frankly (can I say that?) the dood with the sponge really helped a lot. Srsly.
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.
African National Congress (ANC) leader Jacob Zuma on Friday criticised Western powers for holding back aid to Zimbabwe while President Robert Mugabe was still in power. "This is very unfair to the Zimbabwean people. Because here is Mugabe, he is a factor. He is there. He leads a party that has been in government for over 20 years," Zuma told Reuters in an interview.
More than 1,000 people have rallied in the streets of Kyrgyzstan to protest against the government of Kurmanbek Bakiyev, the nation's president, ahead of a July presidential election.
