[Iran Press TV Latest] Spain has acquitted a Nigerian man convicted of assault after it was revealed that he was the only black man in a police lineup that ultimately led to his conviction. "A badly assembled identity parade, with a lack of resemblance (between the suspects in the parade) can lead to mistaken identity and consequently an error of justice," the official EFE news agency cited the Supreme Court as saying on Tuesday.
Spain's highest court dropped all charges against Henry Osagiede, who was facing up to 10 years in prison, the report added. Last year, a Madrid court had found Osagiede guilty for attacking one woman and sexually assaulting another in 2005 based on the evidence, including the witness identification.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/05/2009 00:00 ||
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[Al Arabiya Latest] More than 15,000 people have signed an Internet petition calling for the late pop star Michael Jackson to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010.
Started by an American college student, the petition praises Jackson for his commitment to humanitarian causes and calls on the Norwegian Nobel Institute to name the singer as next year's winner. "We the Undersigned, believe Michael Jackson has given of himself completely and selflessly in a lifelong effort to help better global conditions for children, and all of humankind," the petition said. "Michael Jackson has undoubtedly earned the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize," said the petition.
The Web petition has a stated goal of one million signatures and had more than 15,000 supporters on Tuesday. But calls for Jackson, who died from a cardiac arrest on June 25, to get next year's prize are bound to fail -- the rules state that Nobel prizes cannot be awarded posthumously. Oh. Well. In that case, how about Ozzie Osborne?
Posted by: Fred ||
08/05/2009 00:00 ||
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#3
Gotta concur with CF. They've already bestowed it on the likes of Arafat and Jimmah Cahtah. This really would be a step up (not that it is saying much).
#4
There is a commercial going around here advertising a coaster bought from the neverland ranch called the Zipper. If a person was so incline the commercial can be paraphrased as:
"Hey parents! Bring your kids to ride Michael Jackson's Zipper!"
So much for "Global Warming", but wait, this is clear proof of "Climate Change".
MIAMI (AFP) - Weather experts on Wednesday reduced the number of projected hurricanes in the north Atlantic this season to four, two of them major hurricanes with winds above 178 kilometers (111 miles) per hour.
After one of the calmest starts to the hurricane season in a decade, the experts from Colorado State University said the development of an El Nino effect in the Pacific had caused them to scale back their projections for the Atlantic.
The El Nino phenomenon, which involves changes in atmospheric pressure in the southern Pacific, occurs every three to six years, disrupting global weather patterns.
In the Atlantic, El Nino events are associated with decreased levels of hurricane activity, said Philip Klotzbach and William Gray of Colorado State University.
"We continue to call for a below-average Atlantic basin tropical cyclone season in 2009. We also anticipate a below-average probability of United States and Caribbean major hurricane landfall," they said.
They now project that there will be 10 named tropical storms this season, of which four will become hurricanes, and two of those major hurricanes. Their earlier forecast in June had predicted 11 tropical storms and five hurricanes.
"This is the quietest start for more than a decade. The last time a storm didn't form until August 5 was back in 1992," Klotzbach said.
He added, however, that "a quiet start of the season doesn't necessarily mean that the remainder of the season is going to be quiet."
"Obviously people in Florida need to be prepared for the hurricane season as every year. 1992 was a very quiet hurricane season but then hurricane Andrew formed and did... tremendous damage," he said.
Meanwhile, two tropical storms have formed in the Pacific off the coast of Mexico, according to Stormpulse.com, a website that tracks weather patterns. The more powerful of the two, Enrique, was traveling in a northwesterly direction with wind speeds of 120 kilometers (60 miles) per hour. Farther out, a tropical stormed named Felicia also was traveling in a northwesterly direction toward Hawaii with winds of 72 kilometers (45 miles) per hour.
#3
MMSE - Man Made Sunspot Extinction If they're gone it must be our fault. Too many people sun bathing and wearing sun glasses. Maybe tapping all the Solar Energy is depleting the Sun.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/05/2009 14:29 Comments ||
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#5
It would seem to show the weather/climate establishment and their models make accurate predictions.
What that means for global warming, you can decide.
After all GW was predicted to be an uninterrupted steady increase in temperature and related effects, overrding all other cycles, like the ENSO, right?
Posted by: liberal hawk ||
08/05/2009 15:20 Comments ||
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#6
We have AGW predictions dating back from at least the 80's. How accurate have they been in over 20 years? LOL. Do you need to ask?
Of course, the new predictions are all super-improved and stuff. LOL.
#7
"We have AGW predictions dating back from at least the 80's."
I'm still waiting for "The Coming Ice Age" predicted in the 1970's - by some of the same clowns now predicting warming.
Here's a free clue: It'll get warmer. It'll get colder. Just like it has FOR MILLENNIA.
Idiots.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/05/2009 16:32 Comments ||
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#8
The storms are out here in the PACIFIC - its been almost a week of very heavy rains. The good news is it drizzles in-between, and does despite the eyes of the storms being far way.
#9
El Nino is predicted, which IIRC leads to less hurricanes, a drier Northwest, more rain for here in So Cal, TX, OK and the midbelt. Would be welcome
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/05/2009 19:29 Comments ||
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#10
You forgot to mention that it also means more 'Global { Warming | Cooling | Stagnation }! WE ARE ALL DOOMED!' alarmists.
#11
Speak for yourselves. Living in Austin, Texas and having the hottest July on record. And a worse drought since the 50's. I think we had 20 days plus temps of 100 degrees or more. Hit temps 105, 106 etc. August is not looking any better. ( There I'm done whining now, carry on now)
[Al Arabiya Latest] Moroccan King Mohammed VI enjoys high popular support among Moroccans since he took reign ten years ago but was criticized for the job he did fighting poverty and iboosting women's rights, a joint French-Moroccan opinion poll banned in the North African country found Monday.
The French daily Le Monde joined with Moroccan magazines TelQuel and its Arabic version Nichan to survey 1,108 people on the country's 10-year anniversary under the reign of Mohammed VI. The poll showed 91 percent of the Moroccan population surveyed by LMS-CSA, a local subsidiary of the French CSA polling institute, said they had positive feelings about the king. They said during Mohammed VI's reign they felt at least some change in their immediate environment citing improvements in education, health and transportation services.
But when it came to fighting poverty only a third of respondents said the situation has improved over the last ten years since Mohammed VI took reign. Another third did not notice any improvement and a quarter said poverty situation had worsened. On security issues, 49 percent said they felt threatened by terrorism and the rise in crime.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/05/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
The king is always loved, because his ministers exist to misinform, hide things, and otherwise catch the blame for anything going wrong. If the king ever becomes hated, then it's just a matter of time before the ox-cart starts making its way to the guillotine.
It was probably banned because of policy & ministerial answers, not over the personal popularity of the royals.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
08/05/2009 10:55 Comments ||
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#3
The government must urgently review what it wants the defence force to do and the force must then set out clearly what it requires to do its job properly.
That's where it always starts, doesn't it?
The government has to decide what's important -- peacekeeping missions on the continent, border security, maritime interdiction, etc.
Then it has to fund that. The equipment doesn't have to be gold-plated but it has to do the job. The good officers have to be retained. The men and women in the ranks have to be professional. The senior officers have to be above corruption.
A mandatory rule to separate soldiers who are HIV positive wouldn't hurt, either.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/05/2009 12:33 Comments ||
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#4
A major part of the problem is that economic cancer called Zimbabwe that is right next door. If the world could somehow get rid of Mugabe and return that economy to what it once was, the entire region would prosper. Instead, Zimbabwe is like an economic open sore that is set to infect the economies of its neighbors.
The best thing their neighbors could do is probably build a wall around Zimbabwe and treat it like it was a giant lake.
[Iran Press TV Latest] Saudi security forces have arrested five members of the country's Shia minority for commemorating the birth of a revered Shia Imam.
The five identified as Abdullah, Hossein and Jafar Nasser al-Ali along with Hossein al-Hemad and Yousef Mohammad al-Shela were detained in the eastern Al-Ahsa region of the country, Shia online reported on Tuesday.
The men all in their twenties were detained upon the orders of the governor's office for celebrating the birth of Imam Mahdi.
The 12th and last successor of the Prophet of Islam is believed to be the prophesied redeemer, who will bring peace and justice to the world.
Wahhabism, the hard-line interpretation of Islam that has ruled hand in hand with the al-Saud family since the kingdom was founded some eight decades ago, considers the country's Shia minority as infidels.
Shias regularly complain they have been banned from working as officers of the religious police, teaching classes on religion, and a number of other jobs. Outspoken Shia critics have even been jailed.
The kingdom is particularly critical of the minority's practice of celebrating the birthday's of Shia figures and their mourning rituals.
Last year, the country's top cleric Abdul-Aziz al-Shaikh deemed celebrating anniversaries, birthdays or mother's day as against Muslim 'righteousness.'
The Grand Mufti said celebrating such events would make Muslims like followers of other faiths including Jews and Christians.
I wasn't aware that Jews and Christians indulged in the celebration of Imam Mahdi's birthday, although admittedly I do tend to be somewhat oblivious unless invited...
Oh, yeah. Last year we had a big cake and everything. I thought you'd been invited? That was the lamest Rantapalooza ever ...
Posted by: Fred ||
08/05/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
I wasn't aware that Jews and Christians indulged in the celebration of Imam Mahdi's birthday,
Please advise what exactly the word "Indulged" means in the above sentence,
Were they shooting into the air, or at the Imam?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/05/2009 12:42 Comments ||
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#2
well this year we infidels put some candy in a figure made to look like Iman Hussain and then little kids are blindfolded and they hit it with sticks until the candy comes out. We call it Piñata Shia.
Posted by: Lord garth ||
08/05/2009 15:06 Comments ||
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MEXICO CITY - Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya began another wave of travel this week to shore up support for his return to Honduras, meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderón at the presidential palace in Mexico City today.
The visit today with Mexico's conservative president, and renewed diplomatic efforts, could mark a new strategy to distance Zelaya from his leftist ally Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and appeal to more right-leaning bases both in Honduras and beyond.
The new strategy is called, 'desperation' ...
"Many conservatives, not just in Honduras, but conservative elements in the US [and elsewhere], fear that the return of Zelaya is the return of the project of Hugo Chavez, that everyone is doing the bidding of Hugo Chavez," says Christopher Sabatini, the editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly in New York. "If they can take that stain away that is in many ways their best bet."
Except no one's really going to believe them ...
At a ceremony in Mexico City, Zelaya, donning his trademark white cowboy hat, stood with President Calderón -- both leaders reiterating their mutual support for the return of constitutional order to Honduras. Calderón said Tuesday that Mexico has lent its support to Zelaya's reinstatement since the beginning, and "we are prepared to continue giving it more intensely ...," he said.
The emphasis, Calderón says, is to accept the plan presented by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, who has been brokering talks in San Jose. The proposal presented by Mr. Arias, which includes the reinstatement of Zelaya with limited powers and early presidential elections, has been repeatedly rejected by the interim government over the issue of Zelaya's return.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/05/2009 00:00 ||
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[Al Arabiya Latest] The death toll from an outbreak of pneumonic plague in northwest China has risen to three, state media reported Tuesday as authorities maintained a quarantine lockdown on a town of 10,000. The latest victim was a 64-year-old man who died Monday in Ziketan, a remote town in a Tibetan area of Qinghai province where two fatalities had previously been reported, the Global Times said. At least nine other people were infected with the highly virulent disease, mostly relatives of the first fatality, a 32-year-old herdsman, reports said, quoting local health authorities.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/05/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
When the Japanese bombed a city with plague fleas, the residents walled off the area and then burned it to the ground. This was in the middle of the city BTW.
#1
...I've had the pleasure of working with 1 Sqdn RAAF (the F-111 guys) on several occasions, and they are an incredibly sharp and professional team. I'm glad they didn't have to eject - besides losing the plane, the F-111 uses an ejection capsule that has caused more than a few injuries over the years.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
08/05/2009 8:38 Comments ||
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#2
I didn't know it had an arrestor hook.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/05/2009 10:56 Comments ||
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#3
Did they mention how they lost their wheels? I'm assuming it was a gear down failure.
SACRAMENTO In a decision that could dramatically reshape California's criminal justice system, a panel of federal judges Tuesday ordered Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state legislators to find ways to cut the prison population by 40,000, or about one-quarter of all inmates.
The ruling was a stark milestone in the years-long saga of two lawsuits charging that California allows inhumane conditions to fester in its prisons because of severe overcrowding. Law-and-order advocates say such cuts would result in inmates being returned to the streets early or being turned over to cash-strapped counties to jail. The Schwarzenegger administration signaled that it would likely appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The three-judge panel gave the governor and lawmakers 45 days to present a plan to cut the inmate population from about 150,000 to 110,000 over two years. The judges delivered a stern message about conditions that are so poor in some prisons that they violate inmates' constitutional rights.
"The medical and mental health care available to inmates in the California prison system is woefully and constitutionally inadequate, and has been for more than a decade," the judges wrote in a 184-page ruling. "Tragically, California's inmates have long been denied even (a) minimal level of medical and mental health care, with consequences that have been serious, and often fatal. ... A significant number of inmates have died as a result."
The judges described some prisons operating at nearly 300 percent of capacity, with inmates housed in triple bunk beds placed in gymnasiums and day rooms.
"In these overcrowded conditions, inmate-on-inmate violence is almost impossible to prevent, infectious diseases spread more easily, and lockdowns are sometimes the only means by which to maintain control," the judges wrote.
In general, the 33-prison system is at nearly double its capacity. Even under the judicial order, the system would remain overcrowded, at 137.5 percent of capacity.
Matthew Cate, secretary of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, acknowledged that the prisons are severely overcrowded and that conditions in many facilities have been substandard. But the situation has improved dramatically in recent years, he argued, enough so that the federal courts should not be dictating how California runs its correctional system.
#1
Holder was on the news last night talking about unspecified "incarceration alternatives." This is exactly the release plan Barry and Holder want instituted across the nation. These state political prisoners must be freed in order that total urban chaos can be achieved. All laws and enforcement measures must be federalized and centrally controlled to ensure fairness!
#2
Well, if you take away the death penalty, in form or function, you'll eventually fill beyond capacity. The judiciary and legal caste are just moving the death penalty to the broader community where the general citizenry will get no due process or appeal. Remember the state does not exist to provide security in your person, your family, or your property. You'll have to turn to other alternatives to find that.
#3
Judges are likely right. The California prison system is inhumane in many ways.
Then again, prison isn't supposed to be a picnic.
Fact is, we have lots of people in prison who don't need to be there, and we have lots of people on the street who should be locked up. Figuring out who is which is the problem.
A lot of non-violent offenders would do better in work camps. Or send them to Sheriff Joe for a couple months. But they don't need to be in prison long term. At the other end the violent offenders should be held until they're old and gray.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/05/2009 8:25 Comments ||
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#4
So -eh- what are the gun laws in CA like? my guess is that they will be the next target of Zero and friends.
#6
California should immediately (and cheaply) construct Joe Arpaio tent city prisons out in the desert, enough for 100,000 prisoners. By international law, military field conditions do not in any way violate human rights.
#9
California should immediately (and cheaply) construct Joe Arpaio tent city prisons out in the desert
Nice areas out east of Date City before you get to Ogilby.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
08/05/2009 11:40 Comments ||
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#10
Good point, GB, except I don't think Mexico wants them.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/05/2009 12:26 Comments ||
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#11
Give the illegals a free truck ride to the border, (Military style convoy) march them across and shoot them if they return, fixes that problem.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/05/2009 12:37 Comments ||
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#12
A lot of non-violent offenders would do better in work camps.
They'd have to have a filtering mechanism. Many non-violent offenders are like Al Capone - convicted of tax evasion because prosecutors couldn't make anything else stick.
#13
"Tragically, California's inmates have long been denied even (a) minimal level of medical and mental health care, with consequences that have been serious, and often fatal. ... A significant number of inmates have died as a result."
Gee, I thought government-sponsored healthcare was inherently a good thing. At least these folks didn't have to endure the torment of being repeatedly put on hold by their HMO.
Posted by: Matt ||
08/05/2009 17:14 Comments ||
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#14
More on the myth of "non-violent" offenders from NRO:
Shedding this many inmates even though some will end up in county and city lockups will inevitably let some bad criminals get back on the street, where they will commit more crimes. After all, very few people end up in prison without violent records about 60 percent of non-violent offenders have violent offenses on their rap sheets.
#15
Note that the 60% are of people who have been previously been convicted of violent offenses - I'm sure in the remaining 40%, there are plenty of others who were charged but not convicted.
WASHINGTON -- A pair of nuclear-powered Russian attack submarines has been patrolling off the eastern seaboard of the United States in recent days, a rare mission that has raised concerns inside the Pentagon and intelligence agencies about a more assertive stance by the Russian military.
The episode has echoes of the cold war era, when the United States and the Soviet Union regularly parked submarines off each other's coasts to steal military secrets, track the movements of their underwater fleets -- and be poised for war. But the collapse of the Soviet Union all but eliminated the ability of the Russian Navy to operate far from home ports, making the current submarine patrols thousands of miles from Russia more surprising for military officials and defense policy experts.
Did the Russians also deploy a fleet tug and a fleet rescue ship?
"I don't think they've put two first-line nuclear subs off the U.S. coast in about 15 years," said Norman Polmar, a naval historian and submarine warfare expert.
The submarines are of the Akula class, a counterpart to the Los Angeles class attack subs of the United States Navy, and not one of the larger submarines that can launch intercontinental nuclear missiles.
Umm, if they can infiltrate to US coastal waters then they don't NEED intercontinental missiles, do they???
According to Defense Department officials, one of the Russian submarines remained in international waters on Tuesday about 200 miles off the coast of the United States. The location of the second remained unclear. One senior official said the second submarine traveled south in recent days toward Cuba, while another senior official with access to reports on the surveillance mission said it had sailed away in a northerly direction.
President Obama spoke by telephone with President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia on Tuesday, but it was not clear whether the subject of the submarines came up.
The submarine patrols come as Moscow tries to shake off the embarrassment of the latest failed test of the Bulava missile, a long-range weapon that was test fired from a submarine in the Arctic on July 15. The failed missile test was the sixth since 2005, and some experts see Russia's assertiveness elsewhere as a gambit by the military to prove its continued relevance.
"It's the military trying to demonstrate that they are still a player in Russian political and economic matters," Mr. Polmar said.
One of the submarines is the newer Akula II, officials said, which is quieter than the older variant and the most advanced in the Russian fleet. The Akula is capable of carrying torpedoes for attacking other submarines and surface vessels as well as missiles for striking targets on land and at sea.
While the submarines have not taken any provocative action beyond their presence outside territorial waters of the United States, officials expressed wariness over the Kremlin's motivation for ordering such an unusual mission.
The official said the Navy was able to track the submarines as they made their way through international waters off the American coastline. This can be done from aircraft, ships, underwater sensors or other submarines. "We've known where they were, and we're not concerned about our ability to track the subs," the official added. "We're concerned just because they are there."
Once among the world's most powerful forces, the Russian Navy now has very few ships regularly deployed on the open seas.
#2
If left to the USN, it would be highly amusing when the two subs returned home and surfaced, one painted bright pink with green flowers, and the other tagged like a subway car.
#7
I'm proud of the Russians for being able to send multiple subs all the way across the ocean.
But why? Can they put enough gear on these things to make them useful for SigInt while they're in international waters and we know where they are?
Posted by: Mike N. ||
08/05/2009 12:08 Comments ||
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#8
It does seem like a good opportunity for our Navy to pick up some intel on current Russian sub practice, signatures, etc.
If Obama really wanted to rattle them, he'd propose a joint training exercise, our anti-sub units against their two subs, to begin at 0100 EDT tomorrow.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/05/2009 12:24 Comments ||
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#9
It's a delivery mission. The Russians are bringing over pre-printed ballots for the 2010 election.
#10
I have no doubt that if the Russians open a single hatch the US sub shadowing them will sink them before Zero could get involved.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
08/05/2009 15:15 Comments ||
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#11
They will pass through our patrols, past our sonar nets, and lay off our largest city, and listen to our "rock 'n roll" while they conduct missile drills.
#12
ION WAFF > RUSSIA: GEORGIA REARMING FOR NEW AGGRESSION, + TURKEY WARNS AGZ NEW PROVOCATIONS IN THE AEGEAN + THE NEW GREEK-TRURKISH WAR: IT STARTED?.
Turkey claims that Greece has been covertly sneaking in COMMANDOES, ETC. DISGUISED AS "TOURISTS/VISITORS" to Greco-Turkey disputed, TURKEY-CONTROLLED RO ISLAND in the AEGEAN, and repor is planning Milops to forcibly remove the Greel elments.
#13
ION PAKISTANI DEFENCE EOFURMS/WAFF > THINK TANK [RAND}: CHINA NOW BEATS THE US IN SUMULATED TAIWAN AIR WAR, + NINGXIA BIDS TO MUSLIM TRADES HUB. HUI MUSLIM- majority province desires to dev close econ cooperation wid regional Muslim Countries.
* WAFF > {China/Xinjiang] 718 UIGHURS HAVE NOW BEEN ARRESTED AND CHARGED, AND MANY WILL PROBABLY BE SHOT.
#14
OOOOOPSIES, forgor WMF > TAIWAN AND JAPAN'S SOVEREIGN STRATEGIC AIR DEFENSE ARCS INTER-CONNECT IN DEPTH OVER JAPAN-CONTROLLED YONUGUNI ISLAND; + TAIWAN LOSES THE "CENTER LINE" OF THE STRAITS: US DESIRES CLOSER CHINA-TAIWAN AIR FORCE COOPERATION?
HMMMMM, HMMM, INTEWESTING, so IOW, TAIWAN > covertly becomes another HAINAN = GUAM, BUT FOR WHOM? a various Netters argue that TAIWAN IS ACTUALLY A US POSSESSION/TERRITORY SINCE WW2 [Japan formally surr TAIWAN to USA, NOT China].
TAIWAN = OWG-NWO FREE TRADE HUB, OWNED BY EVERYBODY AND NO ONE AT THE SAME TIME???
SRI LANKA? MADAGASCAR? MICHEGAN + CALIFORNIA ala NORTH AMER UNION?
#15
They will pass through our patrols, past our sonar nets, and lay off our largest city, and listen to our "rock 'n roll" while they conduct missile drills.
[The News (Pak) Top Stories] Managing Director Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) Captain Ijaz Haroon Monday conceded that the airlines has technically gone bankrupt.
Responding to questions in the popular Geo News programme "Aaj Kamran Khan Kay Sath", while referring to an article published in newspapers proving with documentary proof that the corporation had gone bankrupt, the MD said, "That's true. I will not try to deny the fact. I concede that PIA has technically gone bankrupt. But all this did not happen in a day or overnight or a month or a year and a half. The airlines had technically gone bankrupt since 2000. The government has been assisting the corporation. In 2001, PIA sustained a loss of Rs13 billion. The government injected money into the corporation so as to bail it out. In 2003 also the government injected money into PIA but halted the practice. As a result, the 'patient is now on the death bed'."
To a question by Kamran Khan that it was misuse of the taxpayers' money and that the corporation should have generated its own revenues, Captain Ijaz Haroon said that whatever had been injected into the airlines by the government was borrowed from banks. PIA had to return this money to the banks from its own revenues with interest, which put additional burden on the corporation and pushed its debt servicing beyond 10 per cent, meaning that if it had to save 8 per cent, it still had to suffer a loss of 2 per cent.
To the question of how long PIA would take to offset a loss of Rs140 billion, the PIA chief asked as to why action was not initiated when the losses accumulated to Rs140 billion, and why the losses were not stopped then. He said had the cycle of losses been disrupted it would have not soared to such a huge amount.
To another query by Kamran Khan that ever since his joining the airlines, its losses jumped three-fold to 39 billion from the previous Rs13 billion while during this period he regularised the services of 6,000 contract workers, Captain Aijaz Haroon refused to accept responsibility for the same and said he was not in a position to answer this question. He said the PIA administration only implemented commitments of the government and the rulings of the courts.
To yet another question as to under which theory he made 20 per cent raise in salaries of the contract employees, allowed them free air travel, medical facilities and pension rights while facing a loss of Rs2 billion according to a quarterly report, he said all those employees whose salaries were raised were members of the CBA and SASA. Their number was over 17,000 and they had not been allowed even annual increment for the last several years.
"I took charge in May 2008. How much has inflation gone up during this period? Airlines across the world have not earned. Where we saved in dollars, we also paid in dollars," he said. Kamran Khan asked that last year the MD negotiated with pilots at the PALPA platform. He is himself an active member of the Pilots' Association and knew that across the world pilots were being sent on forced leave and facilities withdrawn from them. Indian Airlines and the British Airways did so but unlike them he made considerable increase in the emoluments of PIA pilots, Captain Aijaz said they have adopted such a schedule that if a pilot avoids a flight he could not draw additional amount but only the monthly salary.
He denied seeking money from the government even for paying off interest on the loans. To a question as to why 27 planes were being purchased when the airlines was undergoing losses, he said no airline of the region had 50 per cent flat figure of 25 year-old planes. "Our Airbuses were old so we purchased new ones. We have no Alladin's lamp to set everything right overnight. Repair of the old planes cost more. We saved money by purchasing new planes rather than spending it on repairs of the old ones. We have to pay the first installment of $1.47 billion on purchase of new planes in five years. We have to pay Rs3 billion to PSO. On the other hand we are spending Rs11 billion on maintenance of the planes. We have increased earning of PIA."
Captain Haroon posed a counter-question as to why Kamran Khan did not ask about the losses from his predecessors and why he alone was being made answerable. When reminded of his claim while taking charge that he would restore the health of the airlines within a year, Captain Aijaz Haroon said PIA has many wings, they have their own advisers and their consultants are doing their job and could respond to the queries but he has as a whole improved the financial health of the corporation.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/05/2009 00:00 ||
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Petty Officer 1st Class Joseph Ruggieros heroic actions more than five years ago saved lives and earned him the first Purple Heart awarded to a Coast Guardsman since the Vietnam War...
[ADN Kronos] Three men accused of the kidnap and rape of two women in February 2007 have been executed in Hamedan, in western Iran, according to state daily Iran. The daily said the men were hanged in Hamedan prison on Monday.
Chief prosecutor of Hamedan, Akbar Biglari, said one of the hanged men kidnapped a woman with the others when she approached him to ask for information and then raped her.
The husband of the victim reportedly died of a heart attack a week later.
Last Saturday three men were hanged in Isfahan in central Iran, after they were accused of homicide and drug trafficking.
According to human rights groups, around 350 people were executed in Iran in 2008, second only to China.
However there is concern that the number of executions and incidence of torture has risen considerably since the disputed presidential election in June.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/05/2009 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Al Arabiya Latest] More than 15,000 people have signed an Internet petition calling for the late pop star Michael Jackson to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010.
MEXICO CITY - Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya began another wave of travel this week to shore up support for his return to Honduras, meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderón at the presidential palace in Mexico City today.
[Al Arabiya Latest] The death toll from an outbreak of pneumonic plague in northwest China has risen to three, state media reported Tuesday as authorities maintained a quarantine lockdown on a town of 10,000. The latest victim was a 64-year-old man who died Monday in Ziketan, a remote town in a Tibetan area of Qinghai province where two fatalities had previously been reported, the Global Times said. At least nine other people were infected with the highly virulent disease, mostly relatives of the first fatality, a 32-year-old herdsman, reports said, quoting local health authorities.
SACRAMENTO In a decision that could dramatically reshape California's criminal justice system, a panel of federal judges Tuesday ordered Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state legislators to find ways to cut the prison population by 40,000, or about one-quarter of all inmates.
