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P
I C T U R E O F T H E D
A Y
He sat silent for years,
keeping a secret Americans were dying to hear. Not able
to talk, there were days he cried uncontrollably, days
he pounded his fists on the table like a madman, wondering
if he could have prevented so many people from dying the
morning of Sept. 11, 2001. For years, he tossed and turned,
cursing himself for letting Mohammad Atta and Abdul-azziz
Alomari, two of the alleged 19 hijackers, slip through
his fingers at 5:40 a.m. on 9-11.
There's an old saying that "a moment can change
a lifetime." And the moment that changed U.S. Airways
ticket agent Michael Tuohey's life was when he says he
was face to face with the two purported hijackers, one
being Atta, the man the federal government claims was
the ringleader of the entire operation.
But there are major discrepancies
to the story that have yet to be explained by federal
authorities and are still perplexing to Tuohey.
The following relates the unanswered questions that form
the basis of the government's explanation of what happened
on that day.
Tuohey's brief encounter took place at the U.S. Airways
ticket and baggage check-in at the airport in Portland,
Maine. Working the ticket counter as he did most every
morning for 37 years, he remembered two clean-shaven Arab-looking
businessmen with tickets in hand approaching his workstation,
both looking elegant and wearing suits and ties.
He remembers they were running late for their flight
as they presented prepaid, one-way tickets from Portland
to Boston and then onto Los Angeles on Flight 11. Looking
back, he recalls nothing unusual about the alleged hijackers,
saying both appeared calm, and the younger Alomari acting
happy-go-lucky.
"Not like you'd expect from someone knowing he is
going to die," recalls Tuohey, now retired and living
near Portland. "There are certain things in my job
you are trained to look for that red-flags danger. One
is adult males with a one-way ticket paying in cash.
"If they had paid in cash, we probably would have
run them through security, checked their bags, and they
might have never gotten on the flight," he said.
"I can't tell you how many nights I have seen their
faces in my dreams and how many nights I second-guessed
myself for not stopping them."
Asked why he waited so long to tell
his story, which came to public attention on national
television as well as in an article in The Portland Press-Herald
he added: "No one really ever asked. However, looking
back, I probably wasn't ready to face the public since
I had asked the FBI to keep my name out of the papers.
Thank God they kept their word."
Behind the emotions and the human interest Tuohey's story
evokes, there is an ulterior motive behind those now questioning
him about his encounter with Atta and Alomari. Those now
asking questions are hoping his eyewitness accounts and
recollections help clear up a controversy brewing over
the only airport surveillance photo ever released of Atta
and Alomari.
The government claims the surveillance photo released
in the Portland airport conclusively shows them walking
through the security clearance gate about 100 yards away
from where Tuohey checked the pair's tickets and bags.
Critics, however, contend that
the government altered the photos since they were not
a clear match of other independent mug shots released
of Atta and Alomari.
These same critics claim Atta and Alomari never boarded
the 19-seat airplane. This, they claim, is just another
small piece of the larger 9-11 government conspiracy puzzle.
And now since Tuohey was one of the last to see the alleged
hijackers before the controversial surveillance photos
were taken, his words are being dissected and interpreted,
perhaps misinterpreted, with the obvious goal of trying
to establish if Atta and Alomari actually boarded Flight
11.
"I know about the conspiracy theories and about
the surveillance camera shots released, but all I can
tell you is what I saw. I'll tell you what I told the
FBI agents when I was interviewed on 9-11," said
Tuohey. "I believe the two men in front of me on
9-11 were Atta and Alomari. I have no reason to believe
otherwise. They looked like the same two guys that were
in the mug shots shown to me by the FBI agents the same
morning."
As for details, Tuohey is very precise about the appearance,
demeanor and attitudes of the alleged hijackers even after
four years when memories fade and prior visions become
cloudy.
"You don't forget something like this," he
added. "I remember looking into Atta's eyes like
it was yesterday. He spoke good English, and the other
one never spoke. Looking back, they appeared to have rehearsed
the proper way to act and the proper things to say. Atta
appeared to understand everything I said.
"When I asked how many bags they were checking in,
Atta simply said 'two.' He then asked for a one-stop boarding
pass, which means he wouldn't be again checked at Logan
if I gave it to him," he said.
"It was customary back then to give one-stop boarding
passes on connector flights, but I never did it, because
I figured I worked for U.S. Airways and not for American,
which was their connector flight," Tuohey added.
"When I didn't give it to him, he became noticeably
agitated. But he stopped short of making a scene and hurriedly
left in order to catch his flight."
One of the major inconsistencies between
Tuohey's description of their appearance and the surveillance
photo released was that the two men in the photo were
dressed casually in shirts without suits and ties, and
there was no white shawl over Alomari's head.
"They left my workstation in suits and ties. I didn't
see them take their coats off," recalls Tuohey. "Atta
left carrying a small duffel bag and the other had a very
small bag. I guess they could have
placed the jackets, ties and shawl in Atta's bag.
I just don't know."
Asked if a surveillance camera was posted
by his workstation, he said he was told by the FBI on
9-11 that the video camera had been out of order for several
weeks and no other pictures were available.
"I had worked there a long time
and never knew the cameras were broken until I was told
by the agents," said Tuohey, adding they were installed
by airport officials and not U.S. Airways.
To shed light on Tuohey's vivid recollections, an independent
9-11 researcher, who prefers to remain anonymous due to
prior government harassment, added these important details
after numerous interviews and countless hours of researching
the two hijackers' movements in and around Portland prior
to 9-11:
"Atta and Alomari were conveniently captured on
video cameras at three different locations in Portland
the night before 9-11. Yet none
of the stills taken from those locations, Jetport Gas,
the ATM machine and Wal-Mart, were clear enough, as posted
on the FBI web site, to confirm that they were the same
two men whose FBI mug shots were displayed prominently
on the major networks for weeks along with the other 17
hijackers.
"The Portland Press Herald article that came out
back in October of 2001, the first publication to print
the now famous Atta and Alomari surveillance photo, was
also too fuzzy to make the confirmation that they were
the same two men.
"When I interviewed 'Jerry,' the attendant at Jetport
Gas in early 2002 who saw the hijackers, he told me that
the 'second one could not have been the Alomari the FBI
showed on TV because he was too tall.' He
also told me that 'they spoke such poor English that I
had to give them directions to Wal-Mart three times.'
This clearly contradicts Tuohey's statements that Atta
spoke perfect English.
"The eyewitness quoted in the original Portland
Press Herald article, who put Atta and Alomari on the
19-seater to Logan, was Jane Eisenberg of Cape Elizabeth,
Maine. I interviewed Ms. Eisenberg around the same time
as Jerry, and she told me when asked if she could confirm
if the two men she saw on the 19-seater were the same
two men the FBI was displaying all over the major networks,
'No, I cannot.'
"And remember, it was the FBI who told Tuohey the
camera he worked under every day hadn't worked for some
time. They knew that, but a guy who worked directly under
it every day didn't know?
"Also, a friend of Tuohey's, who
took that flight to Boston, was quoted as saying, he recalled
seeing the two leaving the plane in Boston in suit coats
and ties.
"Like Tuohey mentioned, Alomari also wore a shawl
of some type that is missing in the famous photo. Although
he assumed they must have placed these articles of clothing
in their carry-on bags, his friend on the plane didn't
mention them dressing up again on the flight.
It should be mentioned that the short distance between
Tuohey's workstation and the security check-in, the size
of Alomari's carry-on piece and the fact that they were
running late for the flight, make it very suspicious that
they would first take off their jackets and ties before
boarding. |
The euro closed at 1.2904 dollars
last week which means the dollar is worth .7750 euros,
a rise of 0.4% for the dollar compared to the previous
week's close of .7716 euros to the dollar or 1.2960
dollars to the euro. Gold closed at 428.80 dollars an
ounce, up 0.9% from the previous week's close of $425.00.
Gold in euros closed at 332.30 per ounce, up 1.3% compared
to the previous week's 327.93. Oil closed at $57.27
a barrel, up a full 4.4% for the week compared to March
25th's price of 54.84. Looking at the price of oil in
euros (Bush's nightmare), oil closed at 44.38 euros
a barrel, up 4.9% compared to the previous week's close
of 42.31. As for the gold/oil comparison, last week
saw oil gain ground, closing at 7.49 barrels for an
ounce of gold, down 3.5% from the previous week's 7.75.
In the United States' stock market, the Dow Jones Industrial
Average closed at 10,404.30, down 0.37% from the previous
week's close of 10,442.87, while the NASDAQ closed at
1984.81, down 0.31% from the previous week's 1991.06.
Now that we are one quarter of the way through 2005,
let's look at the quarterly statistics. The big story
was oil, which rose from $43.45 to $57.27 or 31.8% in
the first quarter of 2005. That's after rising 33.6%
in 2004. The euro lost ground against the dollar in
Q1 2005, falling from 1.3540 to 1.2904 dollars (4.9%)
after rising 8% in 2004. Gold went from $437.10 to $428.80
falling 1.9% in dollar terms. In euros, gold went from
332.32 euros an ounce to 332.30, virtually unchanged.
The Dow fell in the first three months of 2005, going
from 10,783 to 10,404, down 3.6%, wiping out all of
its gains from 2004. Similarly, the NASDAQ went from
2175 to 1985, falling 9.6% after rising 8.6% in 2004.
The dollar has gained in 2005, due most likely to interest
rate rises, which threaten to puncture the debt-driven
bubble in the United States. For that reason, there
is not much to celebrate in the recent rise of the dollar.
And, if you look at the last five years, the dollar
has still fallen sharply against the euro and other
currencies. If, for example, we look at the price of
gold in dollars for the past five years, we might think
that the price of gold has been rising sharply. These
charts from Kitco's
web site show that it has, but only in dollars:
What we are seeing, however, is a drop in the dollar,
not a rise in gold, as we can see in the next chart,
comparing gold prices in dollars and euros:
Notice how gold has gone up only 13.8% in euros over
the last five years but 53.3% in dollars. In fact, the
average
price of gold in 1999 dollars for the two hundred year
period 1801-1999 was $435! That is very close to
recent prices. Of course, for those two centuries, the
dollar was a strong currency, which means that if the
price of gold increases sharply, the dollar will be
weakening - not that gold is increasing in value.
The big news last week was the release of March's job
creation numbers for the United States. 110,000 new
jobs were created, half of what most analysts expected.
Weak
jobs report suggests cooler economy
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US economy generated 110,000
jobs in March, the government said in a report sharply
weaker than economists' forecasts and suggesting cooling
economic momentum.
The Labor Department figure was half as strong as
the 220,000 new jobs expected, on average, by Wall
Street economists, and the weakest pace since July.
The unemployment rate fell to 5.2 percent in March
from 5.4 percent in February, the agency said based
on a separate survey that sometimes gives contradictory
signals. The figure was better than the 5.3 percent
expected on Wall Street.
New job creation is seen as one of the best indicators
of economic momentum and the latest report was likely
to shift views about the pace of growth of the world's
largest economy.
John Lonski at Moody's Investors Service said the
report "comes as a surprise and brings attention
to above average risk aversion among businesses."
To make matters worse, the Labor Department revised
downward its estimates for job growth in February
to 243,000 (from 262,000) and in January to 124,000
(from 132,000).
Service sector jobs were up 86,000 but manufacturing
lost 8,000 jobs. Retail employment fell by 10,000
in March. Several industries added jobs in March,
notably construction, health care and mining.
Economists say about 150,000 jobs are needed each
month to absorb new labor market entrants.
The analysts quoted in that article then go on say
that if you average the job creation numbers for the
past six months you get about 175,000 new jobs a month,
more than needed to accommodate new entries. The U.S.
economy, then, is on a steady growth pace of about 3.5
to 4.0% annually, which is a stable, sustainable number.
Why is it so hard to feel confident, then? Part of it
is the rapid rise in oil prices. Of course, there's
also the dire fiscal situation of the United States,
which is running half-trillion budget deficits. The
real wild card, though, is the question of whether or
not the United States is going to invade two or three
more countries, after having botched the last two invasions.
Things don't look good for Iran, Syria and Venezuela,
but they also don't look good for the United States
either, if that country tries to push its military advantage
from such a weak economic position.
What all these things have in common, though, is the
increasing potential for catastrophic changes in direction,
changes that conventional economics is incapable of
foreseeing. Martin
Hutchinson makes the point that the inability of
conventional neo-classical economists to incorporate
non-linear dynamics prevents them from predicting the
economic future with any accuracy:
The
Bear's Lair: Beware of singularities
By Martin Hutchinson
Washington, DC, Mar. 28 (UPI) -- As
the Fed raises interest rates quarter point by quarter
point, the financial environment may seem to be changing
little, but in reality it is becoming increasingly
at risk of singularities, financial tornadoes that
appear from a clear sky and produce economic devastation.
Conventional economics deals primarily with equations
that are linear or exponential. Relationships between
the different components of the economy are held to
be linear, economic growth is held to be exponential,
with the economy increasing in size each year by a
constant or even an increasing rate, depending on
productivity growth, which is supposed to be constant
in the short run albeit possibly increasing in the
long run. Linear and exponential equations have the
great virtue of being relatively easy for economists
to solve; they also tend to behave in smooth ways,
so that if an economy behaves in one way in one year
it will behave in a similar way in the following year;
change is always gradual, and there are no point "singularities"
at which sudden changes occur.
It's an attractive if somewhat sterile picture, no
doubt useful when teaching economics to the less academically
gifted students. It allows simple folk such as the
George W. Bush economic team to make confident predictions
of continued economic progress, halving of the Federal
budget deficit within five years etc., without more
than the usual barrage of politically motivated criticism.
However, it doesn't bear a great deal of resemblance
to reality, and nor should we expect it to.
The reality is more complex, and the complexities
are not simply errors of detail in the standard economic
model, but fundamental flaws in its underlying mathematics.
You only have to read a standard economic textbook
to realize that many of the relationships described
in it, such as the demand curve, the interaction by
which comparative advantage takes effect, and the
interaction between marginal tax rates and economic
output are neither linear nor exponential, but some
quite different relationship -- the standard demand
curve, for example, is fairly close to a hyperbola.
Equations were simplified
to linear and exponential forms by the early econometricians,
who were not particularly good mathematicians and
wished to construct computer models of the economy
using equations they thought they understood.
Even then they got it wrong: the notorious MIT/Club
of Rome model of the world economy constructed in
1971, which purported to prove that whatever policies
were pursued, the world was due for an exploding ecological
crisis within no more than a few decades, wasn't wrong
because of its details, it was wrong through technical
error. The model extrapolated exponential equations
for 30 or 40 years into the future without taking
account of the fact that if you extrapolate exponentials
on a finite digital computer, the errors caused by
rounding to a finite number of digits also increase
exponentially, and after a few dozen iterations explode
the graph off the screen in some random direction
no matter what the underlying reality.
In reality, a significant number of economic equations
appear to be determined not by linear or exponential
equations, but by power series equations, mostly of
the quadratic, cubic or quartic order. This fits economics
in well with physics, chemistry and other "hard"
sciences where such relationships are relatively common.
Although simple quadratic equations are easily solvable,
complex systems with such equations intermingled are
not. The principal difference between such systems
and linear/exponential systems is the existence of
singularities, where a small change in conditions
or a small interval of time produces a large and discontinuous
change in the output, a discontinuity in the "phase
space."
Modern mathematics, in particular "catastrophe
theory" and "chaos theory" have examined
these types of systems in much more detail than was
possible 30 years ago. Discontinuities in the system
do not occur randomly; over large areas of the system
there are no discontinuities, while in other areas
where the equation set is "critical" there
are many discontinuities or even an infinite number
of them.
Turning with relief back to the real world, we can
see that economic crises follow this pattern quite
closely. During some lengthy
periods, there are no crises, and obvious areas of
unsoundness in the system have very little effect,
continuing or even intensifying themselves for years,
without causing the damage that is predicted for them.
During other periods, crises occur with bewildering
rapidity, while institutions that have appeared entirely
stable and well managed suddenly spiral into bankruptcy
with very little warning. Areas of unsoundness that
have persisted for years or even decades, without
apparently leading to any ill effects, suddenly cause
a major financial collapse with large adverse economic
consequences, and often further collapses in areas
only distantly related to the first.
... The "landscape" of the economy thus
correlates pretty closely with the cost and availability
of capital. When capital is cheap, with a bubbly stock
market and low interest rates, frauds almost certainly
proliferate but they do little damage; individual
bankruptcies and exposed frauds do not lead to adverse
economic consequences and the economic ship continues
to sail ahead without difficulty. When real interest
rates are high, on the other hand, the stock market
is low, and capital is expensive, frauds are much
less likely, but unexpected bankruptcies caused by
the high cost of capital happen quite often, and the
adverse effect on investor confidence and the economy
in general from such events is severe.
This is why investors today should beware of singularities.
Short term interest rates are increasing steadily,
and may have to increase faster because even at 2.75
percent the Federal Funds rate remains significantly
below the steadily rising rate of inflation. Banks,
which have covered up an almost infinite quantity
of insane consumer and corporate lending by the profits
from the "carry trade" of borrowing short
term and lending long, are looking at a bleak future.
Either short term rates will overtake long term rates,
in which case the "carry trade" will go
into reverse, wiping out a huge source of profits,
or long term rates will increase enough to prevent
this, in which case banks are looking at huge losses
on their mostly unhedged bond portfolios, particularly
corporate bonds (whose yields can be expected to rise
more that Treasuries) second quality consumer debt
(whose default rates will soar in a period of tighter
money) and mortgage backed securities, whose refinancing
rate will drop to zero, defaults rise and maturity
extend to infinity, as homeowners can no longer refinance
and get into financial difficulty.
These non-linear singularities in our world are much
more likely to be catastrophically bad than to lead
to a greater and more prosperous order. Why is that?
Why does there seem to be nowhere to go but down? To
answer questions like these it may be more useful to
turn away from mainstream economists and analysts and
to consider the analysis of someone normal society would
consider crazy, a poor man in Tennessee suffering from
severe pesticide poisoning who corresponds with the
writer Joe Bageant. Bageant published
some emails from the guy in Counterpunch including
this that seems to speak to the deep karmic fear that
most of us try not to acknowledge:
Meanwhile, the sheer carnage of our terrible national
enterprise is staggering! Yet no one mentions the
back rooms of research facilities filled with mutilated
tortured beings kept alive for study or force-fed
Drano to see how long it takes fifty-percent of them
to die. I am always astonished at how very few people
know what goes on in medical and corporate research
labs, not to mention the meat industry. "For
every action... " It's the nature of reality.
It's physics. There will be a reckoning for the culture
that creates a holocaust of that magnitude. The fact
that there is something terribly wrong with anyone
who does such a thing, and that this same "lack"
will therefore affect EVERYTHING he/she does, eventually
creating magnificently awful problems. Elevating carnage
to cultural protocol is very dangerous. And official
rationalization of it is disastrous. Why isn't someone
talking about these things? We have no examples. We
have no ideals. We have only corruption and self-justifying
silliness in service of capitalism as it runs further
and more terribly amok.
|
US Economic Collapse Approaches |
SOTT |
Last week marked the
three year anniversary of the Signs of the Times page.
Over 1,000 daily analyses of the state of our world
and its apparently inexorable decline. For those readers
that are as yet unaware of the reason for such unwavering
dedication, it can be summed up with the words "wake
up". Our goal is to provide a resource that offers
the internet public the opportunity to See the world
as it is truly is. Of course, this has been as much
a process of awakening for ourselves as it has been
for our readers. The task however, has been far from
easy, and while it appears that we have indeed helped
many individuals to come to a more accurate understanding
of the reality of the world, it seems that much of this
understanding is of an intellectual nature.
The obvious reason for this is that much of the horror
of the world that we present has not touched any of
our readers in a direct way and is therefore to some
extent "unreal". While we strove to present
as explicit a portrait as possible of the US-induced
suffering of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan for example,
at the end of the day it was still only pictures and
words on a page and allowed many people to remain complacent
in the face of such horror. While Iraqis were dying
by the thousands, American and European citizens went
about their daily lives. They still had a roof over
their heads, food on the table, "normal lives"
to live. Indeed, the argument could be made that, if
the world really is ruled by such a group of immoral
despots determined to destroy as much of it as possible,
how is it that the lives of so many Westerners, who
survive by the patronage of said despots, remain more
or less unchanged?
While we take no delight in saying it, it would appear
that all of this is about to change.
The first salvo in the coming economic collapse of
the West, specifically the US, has been fired. A worldwide
trade war has already begun between "developed"
countries that, up until now, have worked together to
exploit poorer nations.
Canada
to Impose 15% Tariff On Wide Range of U.S. Products
Bloomberg
Mar, 31 2005
The European Union and Canada said Thursday they
will impose a 15% tariff on U.S. products starting
May 1 to punish Washington for failing to repeal the
Byrd Amendment, an antidumping law ruled illegal by
the World Trade Organization.
The EU's move would impose the additional duties
on such U.S. products as paper, textiles, machinery
and farm produce. The EU head office said it took
its latest step "in light of the continuing failure
of the United States to bring its legislation in conformity
with its international obligations."
Ottawa will impose the tax on U.S. live swine, cigarettes,
oysters and certain specialty fish starting May 1,
a statement from International Trade Minister Jim
Peterson said. "For the last four years, Canada
and a number of other countries have repeatedly urged
the United States to repeal the Byrd Amendment,"
Mr. Peterson said. "Retaliation is not our preferred
option, but it is a necessary action. International
trade rules must be respected." [...]
Japan,
Mexico Prepare to Follow EU, Canada Sanctions on U.S.
Bloomberg
Apr 1, 2005
"Japan and Mexico are preparing to follow the
European Union and Canada in imposing extra import
duties on U.S. goods after Congress failed to repeal
a law that has handed companies such as Timken Co.
more than $1 billion in tariffs paid by their competitors.
[...]
Add to this the downward spiral of the dollar and the
continued rise in oil prices and the stage is set.
Oil
Hits New Record
Sun
Apr 3, 2005
By Joanne Collins
MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Oil prices raced to a new all-time
peak on Monday, climbing toward $58 a barrel as OPEC
signaled it would discuss a second output rise to
try to quell the market's relentless rally.
"I would have thought prices would struggle
to go much higher. The market fundamentals suggest
lower prices," said Mark Pervan, an analyst with
Daiwa Securities in Melbourne.
"I think they will struggle to get over $60
in the next couple of weeks -- that is a big psychological
barrier."
OPEC President Sheikh Amhad al-Fahd al-Sabah said
on Saturday he would likely start consulting member
producers on Sunday over a 500,000 barrel-per-day
(bpd) increase to group supplies to cool the market.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries
lifted output limits by 500,000 bpd to 27.5 million
bpd in mid-March and left room for a second rise before
a June ministerial meeting if prices failed to ease
below $55.
U.S. oil prices have surged 33 percent this year,
with big-money speculative funds buying heavily on
signs that rapid demand growth in Asia's emerging
economies and the United States would strain world
supply.
Prices have gained more than $3 since Thursday when
top energy derivatives trader Goldman Sachs (GS.N:
Quote, Profile, Research) released a report saying
oil markets might have entered a "super-spike"
period which could eventually drive them toward $105.
Concerns about the adequacy of U.S. gasoline stocks
ahead of the peak summer demand season were also partly
behind last week's price jump after a handful of refiners
had production problems.
If one were to look at these factors in isolation,
one could suggest that all of this is simply the ebb
and flow of international economics and that things
will return to normal in the near future. But when these
events are placed within the broader frame of domestic
and foreign political polices, the picture takes on
a decidedly negative appearance. For example, recently,
the US Senate passed a "tough bankruptcy bill":
Senate
passes tougher bankruptcy bill
Friday,
March 11, 2005
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate
passed legislation Thursday making it easier for banks,
retailers, credit card companies and other creditors
to recoup some money they're owed by many of the 1.5
million people who file for bankruptcy every year.
Eighteen Democrats and the Senate's lone independent
joined Republicans in approving the bill on a 74-25
vote. It goes to the House next month and onto President
Bush, who made it a priority after the GOP increased
its majorities in the election last fall.
"I applaud the strong bipartisan vote in the
Senate to curb abuses of the bankruptcy system,"
Bush said in a statement. "Reforming the system
with this common sense approach, more Americans --
especially lower-income Americans -- will have greater
access to credit."
Lenders had been pushing the legislation for eight
years. They argued too many people with ability to
repay at least a portion of the money they owe were
walking away from all their debts under current law.
"Those who can pay their bills should pay their
bills. That's the American way," said Sen. Orrin
Hatch, R-Utah.
"It will have a real impact
on real people all over this country," said Sen.
Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin.
Over the past two weeks, Republicans knocked down
Democratic attempts to ease the impact of the legislation
on people facing huge debts
they cannot pay, including single parents, the unemployed
and the ill.
Wall Street investment bankers won a provision that
will enable the same firm to work for a company both
before and after it files for bankruptcy. Securities
and Exchange Commission Chairman William Donaldson
opposed the measure; he said it would further undermine
investor confidence already shaken by the Enron, WorldCom
and other corporate scandals.
The bill is the second piece of
pro-business legislation that Congress is acting quickly
on this year. Last month it sent him a bill placing
most large multistate class action lawsuits under
federal court jurisdiction, making it more difficult
for plaintiffs to join together and win multimillion-dollar
judgments in state courts.
Now ask yourself, given the precarious state of the
US economy, (7 trillion in foreign debt) why would Bush
be so eager to pass an 8 year old bill at this precise
time? The likely answer is that the Bush administration
is well aware that, in the very near future, millions
of Americans and their businesses are going to "go
bust" and this bill has been passed to ensure that
the massive debts that the US government has wantonly
accrued over the years get passed on to the American
people. It is only in times of economic collapse (always
manufactured) that the people get to realise just how
indebted they are to their beloved country.
Yet the passing of the bankruptcy bill is not the only
precaution that the US government is taking. In times
of extreme need, where millions of people are out of
work and struggling to feed their families, the chance
of civil insurrection is greatly increased. In an effort
to avoid having to experience events as 'unsavory' as
those that transpired in France at the end of the 18th
century, the Bush administration have been hard at work
putting certain strictures in place that will allow
them to maintain a careful watch on a restless citizenry.
On top of the massive loss of civil liberties that the
Patriot Act entails, all citizens will soon be in direct
communication with their "leaders:"
Texas
Considers Putting RFID Tags in All Cars
Saturday
April 02
"In section 601.507 of Texas HB 2893, the Texas
Legislature is considering replacing all vehicle inspection
stickers with RFID tags. The legislation also makes
provision for the government to use the devices for
insurance enforcement. The bill contains limited privacy
provisions, but does not seem to exclude other law
enforcement usage."
One of the more bizarre pieces of evidence that the
ruling "elite" in Washington are preparing
for a dramatic change is the fact that, for many months
now, leading NeoCons like Frank
Gaffney have been loudly proclaiming the need for
Americans to cut back on their oil consumption, specifically
in their over-sized cars, and embrace a greener way
of life like buying hybrid electric cars. In presenting
his argument, Gaffney makes use of the "evil terrorist"
angle, declaring that reducing oil consumption in the
US will also reduce US dependency on oil-rich terrorist
regimes. In doing so, these leading Neocons find themselves
the unlikely position of sharing a podium with their
ideological opposites such as Liberals and Green Party
members. |
MOSCOW - Russian banks had more interbank loans
and deposits with banks in Germany, France and Italy,
but less in the United States, Britain and Austria in
2004, the Central Bank of Russia reported on its website.
The proportion of Russian bank funds placed with banks
in Germany increased from 2.4% to 7.2%, in France from
1.6% to 3.1% and in Italy from 1.0% to 1.8%.
But the proportion of funds in banks in the United
States decreased from 8.2% to 6.7%, in Britain from
9.0% to 6.6%, in Austria from 6.8% to 6.1% and in other
countries from 18.8% to 14.5%.
The proportion of funds placed in Russian resident
banks was 54.0% last year versus 54.2% the year before.
It had been 37.9% on the first of January 2002 and 41.1%
one year later. |
DETROIT - Ford Motor Co. told employees
this week that it will offer buyout packages to white-collar
employees, with the aim of cutting an estimated 1,000
jobs, the Detroit News reported on Tuesday. [...]
Ford said last month that it expects profits this year
to be at the lower end of its previous forecast. Ford
faces many of the same problems as GM, including rising
health-care costs and falling U.S. market share, factors
that have spurred Standard & Poor's to cut the bond
ratings at both automakers to one step above "junk"
status. |
Palestinians accuse
Sharon over go-ahead for 3,500 homes linking settlements
with capital
Ariel Sharon told the Israeli parliament
yesterday that he would press ahead with the construction
of thousands of homes to link one of the largest Jewish
settlements with Jerusalem, despite US concern that
it would jeopardise the possibility of a viable Palestinian
state.
The Palestinian leadership says the
plan to build 3,500 homes between Maale Adumim and Jerusalem
is another step toward sealing off the city's Arab neighbourhoods
from the rest of the West Bank.
Israel has already accelerated the construction of
an 8 metre high concrete "security barrier",
seized land and expanded other settlements.
Palestinians have accused Mr
Sharon of using the political credit gained overseas
for his unprecedented plan to remove Jewish settlers
from the Gaza strip as a cover to consolidate Israel's
grip on Arab East Jerusalem and prevent it from becoming
the capital of a Palestinian state. Israel claims
the entire city as its capital.
The prime minister, Ahmed Qureia, said he suspected
Mr Sharon was trying to pre-empt negotiations about
the future of the city. This could prove the single
largest obstacle to a peaceful resolution of the conflict,
because the Palestinians insist they will not relinquish
their claim to East Jerusalem.
"Without Jerusalem there will
be no stability, no security and no peace," said
Mr Qureia.
White House spokesman Scott McClennan said "settlement
activity will be a subject that comes up" when
Mr Sharon and George Bush meet next Monday. Asked about
Mr Sharon's plans in the West Bank, Mr McClellan said:
"We oppose the expansion of any settlement activity.
That has been our view and that remains our view."
The Palestinians estimate that
by the time Israel completes its withdrawal from the
Gaza strip in October the wall and barrier through Jerusalem
will separate about 250,000 Arabs living in the city
from the rest of the occupied territories, with severe
social and economic consequences.
"Things are snowballing in East Jerusalem,"
said Hind Khoury, the Palestinian cabinet minister with
responsibility for Jerusalem. "The disengagement
plan has been given a very high profile as the way forward
and the world has embraced that. But if you look at
what else is going on, there is extreme intensification
of settlement expansion, the continuation of the construction
of the wall, the areas that Israel is annexing; it is
creating realities and influencing final status talks."
The construction of thousands of homes
in the three-mile corridor to Maale Adumim would not
only extend Jerusalem deep into the West Bank but would
sever the main link between Palestinian towns to the
south, such as Bethlehem, and those to the north, including
Ramallah.
Israel already effectively views Maale Adumim as part
of Jerusalem by including it within the "greater
Jerusalem" boundary that extends half way across
the West Bank toward Jericho. Last month, the government
announced that the "security barrier" would
enclose Maale Adumim, home to about 30,000 people, and
another large settlement block, Gush Etzion, near Bethlehem,
on the Jerusalem side.
Homes for tens of thousands more Jews are under construction
or planned in these and other settlements ringing Jerusalem.
An eastern bypass is being built alongside the wall
and links the settlements.
While Jewish settlements are drawn ever closer to Israel,
Arabs living in and around Jerusalem are increasingly
cut off from communities on the West Bank to which they
have close ties.
In addition to the obstacles created by construction,
the government plans to prevent most of the city's Arabs
from travelling to towns such as Ramallah and Bethlehem
by requiring them to obtain passes to leave Jerusalem
via any of the 10 gates in the barrier. Almost all Palestinians
living on the West Bank are barred from entering Jerusalem.
"What will be left will
be small isolated [Palestinian] neighbourhoods,"
said Ms Khoury. "I really don't see the prospect
of a capital and two states. Jerusalem has always been
the central city for institutions, for shopping. People
can't see a state without Jerusalem as its capital,
but East Jerusalem is a strangled city."
East Jerusalem accounts for about a third of the Palestinian
economy through trade and employment in tourism, education
and health services. But the barrier and tighter restrictions
on the movement of Palestinians has already diminished
economic ties between Jerusalem and the rest of the
occupied territories.
"It's reduced from a city that was the economic
heart for the Palestinians to a bunch of disconnected
Palestinian enclaves," said Jeff Halper, an Israeli
peace activist who has campaigned for many years against
the government's discriminatory policies in Jerusalem.
Israel is also working with messianic
groups that are buying Arab-owned properties in an attempt
to create a ring of Jewish neighbourhoods around Jerusalem's
old city and its disputed religious sites.
One of the groups, Ateret Cohanim, wants to create
what it calls the "Jerusalem shield" of Jewish
neighbourhoods between the old city and the Arab population.
Another group using similar tactics, Yerushalayim Shelanu
(Jerusalem is Ours), was founded a year ago to "ensure
a united Jerusalem under Israel".
Ateret Cohanim is starting to build a settlement just
inside the barrier called Kidmatzion, meaning "front
line of Zion". Mr Halper said construction
of Jewish homes along the barrier made a nonsense of
the government's claim that the wall can easily be removed
and has no lasting consequences. "Even if they
take the wall away, these settlements will be left to
continue to claim the land for Israel." |
Some 50,000 well known
public figures and church officials in Russia have signed
a petition asking the country’s state prosecution
to ban Jewish groups, the Haaretz newspaper reported
on Monday, quoting information broadcast by Army Radio.
The petition uses quotations from an abridged guide
to Jewish law, the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, to support
its contention that Judaism is
“an extremist and racist ethnicity that hates
non-Jews”.
The signatories - including former army generals,
artists and an unnamed former international chess champion
- argue that this definition of Judaism makes
the activity of Jewish groups illegal, according to
the radio.
A similar petition was signed by 20 Russian lawmakers
about two months ago, the radio said.
Foreign Ministry official Nimrod Barkan warned Sunday
that Russians were effectively getting the message that
anti-Semitism would be tolerated.
“There’s the expansion of the number of
anti-Semitic incidents, including violent incidents
[in Russia]; the enforcement institutions avoid taking
effective steps,” said Barkan, who heads the Diaspora
and religion department in the ministry.
“This sends a message, also to those sitting
on the fence,” he told Army Radio, “that
it’s comfortable and secure to be anti-Semitic
in Russia.” |
A senior rabbi and
Israel's embassy on Tuesday criticized a group of nationalist
State Duma deputies who accused Jews of fomenting ethnic
hatred and called for all Jewish organizations in Russia
to be banned.
The Foreign Ministry expressed regret about the matter
and stressed that the Russian leadership rejects anti-Semitism.
In a petition, dated Jan. 13, some 20 Rodina and Communist
deputies appealed to the prosecutor general to launch
proceedings "on the prohibition in our country
of all religious and ethnic Jewish organizations as
extremist."
Echoing anti-Semitic tracts of the
tsarist era, the petition's authors accused Jews of
working against the interests of the countries where
they live and of monopolizing power worldwide.
"It is possible to say that the entire democratic
world today is under the monetary and political control
of international Judaism, which high-profile bankers
are openly proud of," it says. [...] |
WESLACO, Texas - Investigators
suspect suicide in the death of an embattled judge who
won a third term despite a widely reported FBI raid
of his home and courthouse chambers, authorities said.
The body of State District Judge Ed Aparicio, 46, was
found Monday shortly after a news release was issued
announcing he was resigning to dedicate more time to
his family and to personal family matters that required
immediate attention.
"The demands of my position as judge have unfortunately
taken a toll on my personal life," the judge said.
The release did not elaborate.
Aparicio was found dead in a pool of blood in the den
of his home after he failed to show up for work. All
the doors of the house were locked.
"At this time, it's being investigated
as a suicide," Weslaco police spokesman David Molina
said. He said he wasn't aware of a suicide note being
found.
District Attorney Rene Guerra said he could not comment
on a federal investigation. A telephone call to the
judge's attorney was not immediately returned.
Aparicio's chambers and home had been the target of
an FBI search in January 2004, when an anti-corruption
task force seized dozens of paintings, photos and documents.
Federal prosecutors have declined
to release details of the search or say what prompted
it.
The raid did not stop Hidalgo
County voters from re-electing Aparicio to a third term
in March 2004. The former Houston attorney was
first elected judge in 1997.
Mark Garza, 34, whose 5-year-old son played with Aparicio's
son in a Christian basketball league, said the news
of Aparicio's death came as a shock.
"He was a good man, the way he spoke about his
family, all the time about his kids," he said.
"He hardly missed a basketball game."
Weslaco is a town of about 25,000 people in the southern
tip of Texas near the Mexican border. |
SAN FRANCISCO - The chairman of
one of the entertainment industry's most important congressional
committees says he wants to take the enforcement of
broadcast decency standards into the realm of criminal
prosecution.
Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner III, R-Wis., told cable
industry executives attending the National Cable &
Telecommunications Assn. conference here on Monday that
criminal prosecution would be a more efficient way to
enforce the indecency regulations.
"I'd prefer using the criminal process rather
than the regulatory process," Sensenbrenner told
the executives.
The current system -- in which the FCC fines a licensee
for violating the regulations -- casts too wide a net,
he said, trapping those who are attempting to reign
in smut on TV and those who are not.
"People who are in flagrant disregard should face
a criminal process rather than a regulator process,"
Sensenbrenner said. "That is the way to go. Aim
the cannon specifically at the people committing the
offenses, rather than the blunderbuss approach that
gets the good actors.
"The people who are trying to do the right thing
end up being penalized the same way as the people who
are doing the wrong thing."
It was unclear exactly how he
would go about criminalizing violations of the indecency
statutes. Typically, the Federal Communications
Commission notifies the alleged offender and, if no
settlement is reached, issues a fine.
When asked how he intended to
criminalize the violations, Sensenbrenner repeated his
assertion that it was the best way to penalize people
who violate the statute but avoid "penalizing people
who are not violating the law." [...]
Although cable and satellite TV are not covered by
the indecency statutes, Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska,
chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, and Rep.
Joe Barton, R-Texas, have said they want to bring multichannel
programmers into the legal mix. [...] |
Britain is set for
an unprecedented security test as it heads into the
formal general election campaign.
Ministers and security chiefs are
braced for the threat of a major terrorist atrocity
as election day nears.
Despite the close alliance between America and the
UK, culminating in the coalition in the Iraq war, Britain
has yet to see a terror attack linked to Islamic extremism.
But security chiefs have warned that attacks have been
frustrated and predict fresh attempts over coming weeks
and months.
Meanwhile, the UK on Monday began a five-day international
counter-terrorism exercise with the United States and
Canada.
The exercise, referred to as 'Atlantic Blue' in the
UK, is part of the Home Office's national exercise programme
and has been designed to test simultaneous responses
to internationally linked terrorist incidents.
Ministers have fought hard over recent weeks to persuade
MPs and peers to back new laws to put terrorist suspects
under house arrest.
The government hopes that these new laws, in addition
to a comprehensive security operation underway since
September 11, will be enough to prevent al Qaeda mounting
an attack between now and polling day.
However the government is mindful of the Spanish general
election, during which terrorists linked to the group
staged a series of bomb attacks on rush hour trains
in Madrid.
The recent breakdown in the Northern Ireland peace
process has also heightened fears that the IRA could
return to terrorism following several years in ceasefire |
The U.S. today begins
a five-day exercise, the largest of its kind, simulating
twin terrorist attacks with biological and chemical
weapons on New Jersey and Connecticut and testing the
nation's ability to respond.
At least 10,000 people representing more than 275 government
agencies, private organizations and international bodies
are participating, according to the U.S. Department
of Homeland Security.
The congressionally mandated drill begins with reports
that terrorists have spread a biological agent through
New Jersey's Middlesex and Union Counties -- less than
an hour's drive from New York City -- and have detonated
a chemical weapon in New London, Connecticut. The attacks
trigger a U.S. health crisis.
"We want to be able to work out the kinks and
make the mistakes in the practice field, not in Main
Street USA when the next incident
occurs,'' said Frank Cilluffo, a former homeland
security adviser to President George W. Bush who heads
the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington
University in Washington.
Since the terrorist hijackings of Sept. 11, 2001, the
U.S. has stepped up preparations for possible attacks
using biological, chemical or nuclear weapons. A
report released last week by a presidential commission
on intelligence said U.S. officials underestimated the
progress made by terrorists worldwide in developing
biological weapons.
"There are critical intelligence gaps with regard
to each al-Qaeda unconventional weapons capability --
chemical, biological and nuclear,'' the report said.
Lacking Preparedness
In a December report, the Washington-based Trust for
America's Health, a private advocacy group, said only
six of 50 states are prepared to distribute and administer
vaccines and drugs the federal government stockpiles
for bioterrorist attacks.
This week's drill, the third since 2000, tests whether
a national plan released in January improves coordination
among federal, state and local governments.
In the exercise, government officials rush to provide
medicine, deal with contamination and investigate. In
New Jersey, volunteer victims show up at hospitals with
cards describing their symptoms, and law enforcement
officials recover the vehicle used to disburse the biological
agent. Federal officials deploy the Strategic National
Stockpile, the nation's repository of antibiotics, antidotes,
antitoxins and medical supplies.
At Fort Trumbull State Park in New London, the setting
for the mock chemical weapon strike, urban rescue teams
pull dummies from a giant pile of rubble while other
first responders disinfect volunteer victims.
Unknown Details
The scenario is "plausible but purely fictional,''
according to a Homeland Security fact sheet. Though
participants know about the drill in advance, many details
will emerge as it progresses.
"All the participants know is what has been reported
in the papers, that there is a biological attack in
New Jersey and a chemical attack in Connecticut,'' said
Marc Short, a spokesman for the Homeland Security Department.
``They're not aware of the agents or how they are transmitted.
Nor do they know how quickly these agents can be spread.''
In concurrent exercises, Canadian officials will help
investigate the plot and monitor cross-border traffic
for signs of contagious people while the U.K. copes
with a separate attack.
The Securities Industry Association and the Bond Market
Association will test their emergency notification procedures
and review how the simulated attacks might affect market
operations.
Howard Sprow, director of business-continuity planning
with the securities association, said a drill tomorrow
will activate a sequence of calls among financial firms,
regulators, exchanges and service providers.
Two-Year Cycle
"There are literally dozens of calls that would
take place in a 24-hour period'' after a disaster or
attack, Sprow said. "This is a test to see how
that sequence works. It's not a test of how the market
would respond to any type of event.''
More companies and private groups than ever will be
involved in the program, said Jim Kish, director of
the national exercise program at Homeland Security.
The exercise is called TOPOFF 3, shorthand for Top Officials.
The live exercise completes a two-year cycle of planning
and seminars. Each cycle costs
about $16 million.
A similar drill in 2003 involved the simultaneous release
of pneumonic plague in Chicago and detonation of a radiological
dispersal device, or dirty bomb, in Seattle. The Homeland
Security Department declared that exercise a success
and a "tremendous learning experience.''
Novel Inspired
Among other lessons, it revealed confusion about what
actions agencies should take when the Homeland Security
Advisory System is raised to red, or severe, according
to a report released in December 2003. The exercise
also highlighted problems with coordinating the collection
of data on the released radiation in Seattle.
The report also said the mock attack in Chicago overwhelmed
telephone and fax communication capabilities and showed
how difficult it is to ration limited medication across
a wide area.
The first exercise took place in 2000, inspired in
part by ``The Cobra Event,'' a 1998 novel about a bioterrorism
attack that caught the attention of then-President Bill
Clinton, Kish said. The program was expanded after the
Sept. 11 attacks.
|
In a recent essay
(Are we in World War IV?) Tom Engelhardt of Tomdispatch
commented quite rightly that "World War IV"
has "become a commonplace trope of the imperial
right" of the United States. But
he didn't mention one small matter - the rest of the
US, not to speak of the outside world, hasn't bought
the neo-cons' efforts to justify President George W
Bush's militaristic adventures abroad with crude "we're
in World War IV" agitprop meant to mobilize Americans
in support of the administration's foreign-policy follies.
That's why, in his second term, Bush - first
and foremost a politician concerned about maintaining
domestic support - is talking ever less about waging
a global war and ever more about democratizing the world.
A neo-con global war
America's neo-conservatives have long paid lip service
to the need for democracy in the Middle East, but their
primary emphasis has been on transformation by war,
not politics. You'll remember that, according to America's
right-wing world warriors, we Americans are inextricably
engaged in a planetary struggle against fanatic Muslim
fundamentalists. There will, they assure us, be temporary
setbacks in this total generational conflict, as was
the case during World War II and the Cold War (considered
World War III by neo-cons), but we can win in the end
if we "stay the course" with patriotic fortitude.
Above all, we must not be discouraged by the gory details
of the real, nasty war in Iraq in which we're already
engaged, despite the loss of blood and treasure involved.
Like so many good Soviet citizens
expecting perfect communism in the indeterminate future,
all we have to do is await the New American Century
that will eventually be brought into being by the triumphs
of US arms (and neo-con cheerleading).
Since at least September 11, 2001, the neo-cons have
rambled on ... and on ... about "World War IV".
But no matter how often they've tried to beat the phrase
into our heads, it hasn't become part of the US mindset.
Peace and honest work, not perpetual war and senseless
conflict, still remain our modest ideals - even with
(because of?) the tragedy of the Twin Towers. True,
right before the presidential election, World War IV
surfaced again and again in the media, fed by neo-con
propaganda; and even today it appears here and there,
though as often in criticism as boosterism. Pat Buchanan
and Justin Raimondo have recently used the phrase to
criticize neo-con hysteria in their columns; and in
its Winter 2005 issue, the Wilson Quarterly published
"World War IV", an important article by Andrew
J Bacevich, which turns the neo-cons' argument on its
head by suggesting that it was the US that started a
new world war - a disastrous struggle for control of
Middle Eastern oil reserves - during the administration
of president Jimmy Carter. For Bacevich, it appears,
the neo-cons' cherished verbal icon should not be a
call to arms, but a sad reminder of the hubris of military
overreach.
Try it long
For all the absurdity of their arguments, neo-cons are,
in many ways, men of ideas. But they do not live on
another planet. They know that "World War IV"
or even the milder "global war on terrorism"
are not the first things ordinary Americans have in
their thoughts when they get up in the morning ("Does
anyone still remember the war on terror?" asked
that master of the zeitgeist, Frank Rich of the New
York Times, early in January). This
unwillingness among us mere mortals to see the world
in terms of a universal death struggle, which neo-con
sympathizer Larry Haas, a member of the Committee on
the Present Danger, believes is caused by "our
faith in rationality", upsets some of the Spengler-like
neo-cons, most noticeably their cantankerous dean, Norman
Podhoretz.
In February in Commentary (a magazine he once edited),
Podhoretz offered the world "The war against World
War IV", a follow-up to his portentous and historically
falsifying September 2004 piece, "World War IV:
How it started, what it means, and why we have to win".
In his latest piece, stormin' Norman castigates Americans
right and left - including "isolationists of the
paleo-conservative Right", "Michael Moore
and all the other hard leftists holed up in Hollywood,
the universities, and in the intellectual community
at large", and "liberal internationalists"
- for being "at war" with his Rosemary's baby
"World War IV". Somewhat defensively (for
a rabid warmonger), he assures us that we, the American
people, will, despite the best efforts of the critics,
continue to support Mr Bush, who in turn will not fail
to uphold the "Bush Doctrine", which reflects,
Podhoretz leaves no doubt, his own "brilliant"
World War IV ideas (as admiring fellow neo-pundit William
Safire described them in a New York Times column last
August).
Mr Podhoretz is angry at those who simply cannot accept
his crude Hobbesian view of humanity, so he keeps shouting
at us, but less virulent neo-cons and their allies,
realizing "World War IV" has not caught on,
are thinking up new terms to con Americans into the
neos' agenda of total war.
Foremost among these is "the long war", evoking
- to my mind at least - World War I, "the Great
War" as it was known, which did so much to lead
to the rise of fascism in Europe. (But how many Americans
actually care about World War I?) A Google search reveals
that as early as May 2002, in a Cato Policy Analysis,
"Building leverage in the long war: Ensuring intelligence
community creativity in the fight against terrorism",
James W Harris wrote of a "long war" in describing
post-September 11 world tensions. In June of last year,
John C Wohlstetter, a senior fellow at the Seattle-based
Discovery Institute, proclaimed:
Now George W Bush must rally the nation in the latest
fight to the finish between imperfect civilization
and perfect barbarism, that of free countries versus
mega-death terror from both "WMD states"
and groups like al-Qaeda. The Gipper's [former US
president Ronald Reagan] testamentary gift to us is
what should be our goal in a long war that strategist
Eliot Cohen calls World War IV.
Podhoretz himself mentioned the "long war"
in his September Commentary article. "We are only,"
he noted, "in the very early stages of what promises
to be a very long war." But the real star of the
long-war proponents is Centcom commander General John
Abizaid, about whom pro-Iraqi invasion journalist David
Ignatius wrote a fawning portrait in the Washington
Post in late December. "If there is a modern Imperium
Americanum," Ignatius announced, "Abizaid
is its field general." Playing the role of intrepid
"action" journalist at the forefront of the
global battle lines in "Centcom's turbulent center
of operations", Ignatius breathlessly informs his
readers that
I traveled this month with Abizaid as he visited
Iraq and other areas of his command. Over several
days, I heard him discuss his strategy for what he
calls the "Long War" to contain Islamic
extremism ... Abizaid believes that the Long War is
only in its early stages. Victory will be hard to
measure, he says, because the enemy won't wave a white
flag and surrender one day ... America's enemies in
this Long War, he argues, are what he calls "Salafist
jihadists". That's his term for the Muslim fundamentalists
who use violent tactics to try to re-create what they
imagine was the pure and perfect Islamic government
of the era of the prophet Mohammed, who is sometimes
called the "Salaf".
So now we understand why we're in a long war: to free
ourselves of the salacious Salaf.
If you think it's not long enough,
how about millennium?
Former Central Intelligence Agency director James Woolsey,
an early proponent of "World War IV", is now
turned on by the "long war" idea as well.
In December, in remarks titled "The war for democracy",
he said:
Well, let me share a few thoughts with you this
morning on what I have come to call the Long War of
the 21st Century. I used to call it World War IV,
following my friend Eliot Cohen, who called it that
in an op-ed right after [September 11, 2001] in the
Wall Street Journal. Eliot's point is that the Cold
War was World War III. And this war is going to have
more in common with the Cold War than with either
World War I or II.
But people hear the phrase World War and they think
of Normandy and Iwo Jima and short, intense periods
of principally military combat. I think Eliot's point
is the right one, which is that this war will have
a strong ideological component and will last some
time. So, in order to avoid the association with World
Wars I and II, I started calling it the Long War of
the 21st Century. Now, why do I think it's going to
be long? First of all, it is with three totalitarian
movements coming out of the Middle East.
The three totalitarian movements, Woolsey goes on to
say, are "Middle East Fascists"; "the
Vilayat Faqih, the Rule of the Clerics in Tehran - Khamenei,
Rafsanjani and his colleagues"; and "the Islamists
of al-Qaeda's stripe, underpinned, in many ways, by
the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia".
With all this war-talk from the neo-cons, it's always
reassuring to hear the voices of those who, if our world
warriors had their way, would enthusiastically give
up their lives for the "long war". On December
31, reader Robert S Stelzer wrote a letter to the Denver
Post in which he said the following regarding Ignatius'
paean to Abizaid:
I interpret the article as a propaganda piece to
get the American population used to the idea of a
long war, and then a military draft. Maybe we need
an empire to maintain our standard of living, but
if we have democracy we need an informed electorate.
Despite rare dissident voices like Stelzer's, the reaction
of most Americans to the "long war" jingle
(as to "World War IV") has in essence been
that of a silent majority: nothing. Count on the neo-con
bastion the Weekly Standard (in January) to try to whip
up those silent Americans with a ratcheted-up attack-the-mortal-enemy
battle cry headlined "The Millennium War"
by pundit Austin Bay, a colonel, who noted that "the
global war on terror is the war's dirt-stupid name.
One might as well declare war on exercise as declare
war on terror, for terror is only a tactic used by an
enemy ... In September 2001, I suggested that we call
this hideous conflict the Millennium War, a nom de guerre
that captures both the chronological era and the ideological
dimensions of the conflict."
But Austin B's MW (apologies to the German car maker)
has not sold either, being even less repeated in media
commentaries than the "long war" itself -
which brings us to the Bush administration's current
attitude toward the neo-cons' World War IV branding.
Drop that war! The product no
longer sells!
If there's one thing the sad history of recent years
has amply demonstrated, it's that the Bush White House
is profoundly uninterested in ideas (even the superficial
ones promulgated by the neo-cons). What concerns Dubya
and his entourage is not thought, but power. They pick
up and drop "ideas" at the tip of a hat, abandoning
them when they no longer suit their narrow interests
of the moment. (The ever-changing "justifications"
for the war in Iraq are a perfect illustration of this
attitude.) The Bushies are short-term and savvy tacticians
par excellence, with in essence one long-term plan,
rudimentary but focused: Republican - as they interpret
Abraham Lincoln's party - domination of the United States
for years to come. White House political adviser Karl
Rove's hero, after all, is William McKinley, the 25th
president of the United States, who, some argue, was
responsible for creating Republican control of US politics
for decades.
The current US administration, perhaps more than any
other in history, illustrates George Kennan's observation
that "our actions in the field of foreign affairs
are the convulsive reactions of politicians to an internal
political life dominated by vocal minorities".
Indeed, there is a strong case to be made that the war
in Iraq was begun in essence for domestic consumption
(as White House chief of staff Andrew H Card Jr suggested
to the New York Times in September 2002, when he famously
said of Iraq war planning, "From a marketing point
of view, you don't introduce new products in August").
While all the reasons behind this tragic, idiotic war
- which turned out far worse than the "mission
accomplished" White House ever expected - may never
be fully known, it can be said with a strong degree
of assurance that it was sold to the US public, at least
in part, in order to morph Bush II, not elected by popular
vote and low in the polls early in his presidency, into
a decisive "commander-in-chief" so that his
party would win the upcoming congressional - and then
presidential - elections.
The neo-cons - including, in all fairness, those among
them honest in their unclear convictions - happened
to be around the White House (of course, they made sure
they would be) to provide justification for Bush's military
actions after September 11 with their Darwinian, dog-eat-dog,
"us vs them" view of the world. And so their
"ideas" (made to sound slightly less harsh
than World War IV in the phrase "global war on
terrorism") were cleared by Rove and other Republican
politicos and used for a while by a domestically driven
White House to persuade voters that the invasion of
Iraq was an absolute necessity for the security of the
United States.
But now Americans are feeling increasingly critical
of our Iraqi "catastrophic success". "The
latest polls show that 53% of Americans feel the war
was not worth fighting, 57% say they disapprove of Mr
Bush's handling of Iraq, and 70% think the number of
US casualties is an unacceptable price to have paid,"
reported the Christian Science Monitor, referring to
a Washington Post-ABC News poll. To the Pentagon's great
concern, the military is having difficulties recruiting;
National Guardsmen are angry about excessively long
tours of duty in Iraq; spouses of soldiers complain
about their loved ones being away from home for far
too much time.
So, as their pro-war manifestos become less and less
politically useful to the Bush administration, the neo-cons
are getting a disappointing reward for their Bush-lovin'.
Far from being asked to formulate policy to the extent
that they doubtless would like, they have been relegated
to playing in essence representational roles, reminiscent
of the one performed by the simple-minded gardener named
Chance played by Peter Sellers in the film Being There
- at the United Nations (John Bolton) and at the World
Bank (Paul Wolfowitz), two institutions that no red-blooded
Republican voters will ever care about, except as objects
of hatred.
At the same time, and despite disquieting many foreigners
by the selection of Bolton and Wolfowitz (widely perceived
abroad as undiplomatic unilateralists) to serve in multinational
organizations, Bush appears to have recognized the existence
of anti-American foreign public opinion, which has been
intensely critical of the neo-cons' bellicose views
and US unilateral action in Iraq. The selection of spinmeister
Karen Hughes, a Bush confidante who happened to be born
in Paris (no, not Paris, Texas), as under secretary
for public diplomacy and public affairs at the State
Department suggests that the White House staff has begun
(against its gut instincts) to acknowledge what it dismissed
in Bush's first term - the usefulness of "soft
power" in dealing with other nations. This may
only be from fear of excessively bad news coming from
abroad that could lead to lower opinion polls at home
and thus threaten current Republican hegemony in the
United States, but no matter.
We don't demolish, we democratize!
Few have actually been conned into the neos' war, whatever
ingredient it be flavored with - "IV", "long"
or "millennium". Now the White House, far
from promulgating neo-con World War IV ideas, has been
dropping most references to war as Bush's second term
begins. America's commander-in-chief, still undergoing
an extreme makeover as a man who considers peaceful
negotiations at least an option, is being turned into
an advocate of the politically oppressed in other countries
and so has come up with a new explanation to sell his
dysfunctional foreign "policy": global democratization,
with a focus on the Middle East.
Bush did mention democratization in his first term,
but today it has suddenly become the newest leitmotif
for explaining his misadventures abroad. What, he now
asks the American people, are we doing overseas? And
he responds, we're not demolishing the world - we're
democratizing it! And thanks to our democratizing so
far in the Middle East, including the bombing and invading
of Iraq, the Arab world is like Berlin when the Wall
came down. (Forget about the fact that these two events
took place during different centuries and in very different
parts of the world based on the implementation of very
different US policies.)
And don't you forget, Bush tells us, that we're on
a path to reform our Social Security system, far more
important than the war in Iraq - though Dubya's call
for personal accounts may, in appeal, prove the World
War IV of domestic policy. As for democracy at home,
that can wait.
So, after all the Bush administration has done to ruin
America's moral standing and image overseas - "preemptive"
military strikes that violate simple morality and the
basic rules of war; searching in vain for non-existent
weapons of mass destruction; mindlessly rushing to implement
"regime change" in a far-off Third World country,
an ill-planned effort that could result in the establishment
of an anti-Western theocracy harmful to US interests;
brutally incarcerating "terrorists" with little,
if any, respect for international law; arrogantly bashing
"old Europe" just to show off all-American
Manichean machismo; and insulting millions abroad by
writing off their opinions - Americans are now being
told by Dubya and his gang what we've really been up
to all this time across the oceans: We're democratizing
the Middle East, and with great success thus far!
I don't believe a word of it.
Here's what the military newspaper Stars and Stripes
wrote in 1919:
Propaganda is nothing but a fancy name for publicity,
and who knows the publicity game better than the Yanks?
Why, the Germans make no bones about admitting that
they learned the trick from us. Now the difference
between a Boche and a Yank is just this - that a Boche
is someone who believes everything that's told him
and a Yank is some one who disbelieves everything
that's told him.
|
Tony Blair today fired the starting
gun for a 5 May general election.
He ended months of phoney election campaigning just
as four shock polls showed Labour's commanding lead
faltering.
The Prime Minister headed for Buckingham Palace after
a series of last-minute planning meetings to ask the
Queen formally to dissolve Parliament. [...]
Mr Blair's announcement - planned in detail for more
than a year - was jolted by a series of last-minute
upsets, including a a 24-hour delay because of the death
of the Pope. The unpleasant surprises for ministers
continued with the new opinion polls all pointing to
a markedly reduced majority in a historic third Labour
term in power.
The Government's lead over the Conservatives was put
at two or three points in three surveys. Although this
was a fraction of the nine-point lead that Labour claimed
its private polls were showing, experts said quirks
in the electoral system meant that was enough for Mr
Blair to achieve victory with a Commons majority of
between 70 and 90.
More alarmingly, a survey for
the Financial Times said the Conservatives enjoy a five-point
lead among Britons who claim they are certain to vote.
Coupled with a Times poll predicting a record low turnout
of 56 per cent, the findings cut straight to the heart
of Mr Blair's fears that a low turnout by disillusioned
Labour supporters could deny him a big enough majority
to push ahead with planned reforms. [...] |
Like many African expatriates,
I am sick and tired of the brainless reporting from afar
that characterizes most news reporting on Africa, which
consist primarily of cant dressed as informed comment.
Mostly it is the propaganda press releases of their handlers,
quoting compromised sellouts playing to a gallery. It
is the kind of news White people like to read about Africa:
an affirmation of their own political impotence and compensation
for the lack of political influence the average western
person has in the political affairs in their own countries.
Western people believe they have control of their own
political destiny, if they pretend that Africans are incapable
of political maturity. They are pre-disposed to swallow
anything negative about Africa, and like hogs, gulp down
the shovel loads of swill fed to them by the masters of
discourse.
If you are living in the West, the past few years have
consisted of a trickle diet of news about David Livingstone's
savages in Rhodesia, and their diabolical, sooty tyrant.
Occasionally it would become a spurt, when an uncontaminated
white democratic politician blasts some or other maniacal
incantation they claimed had been inflicted on the hapless
opposition; in what for most of them is deepest, darkest
Africa. Starting a few weeks ago, we have been subjected
to an account of a litany of sins that was being perpetrated
on the defenders of democracy in landlocked Zimbabwe,
in preparation for a farcical election. The story rear
ended reality last Thursday as Zimbabweans peacefully,
and apathetically, discarded the charade of a nation divided
against itself; as it dumped on the rudderless Movement
for Democratic Reform and its policy-free international
campaign. Nevertheless, old habits die hard, and rather
than investigate seriously, the Western News Distribution
Networks continue to publish MDC press releases as if
it were news.
The WOW! factor of other recent chromatic revolutions
in Georgia, The Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan was curiously absent,
as Morgan Tsvangirai grappled with the intricacies of
fermenting revolt in the wake of a superlative number
crunching campaign by the Ruling ZapuPF Government that
targeted the wafer thin majorities in MDC held electorates.
An electoral analysis in the Zimbabwean Herald crunches
the electoral
statistics, and reveals the mechanics of how
the popular vote translated into electoral seats. The
outcome reflects the situation where the ruling party
fought an election, while the opposition merely fought,
for the sake of it, and provided scant indication of their
policy direction in the unlikely event they were to win
the popular vote.
Like many countries, the rural vote is favorably weighted
in Zimbabwe, and has a pronounced "what's in it for me?"
bias. ZapuPF campaigned vigorously on land reform in these
areas, since land reform benefited rural voters most.
The MDC on the other hand preferred to campaign in the
capitals of Europe, whose governments and NGO's were disenfranchised
in a wicked last-minute anti-colonial maneuver by the
Ruling ZapuPF government. They decided that 700 accredited
electoral observers and 500 Journalist were quite enough
for such a small country.
They were gleefully complying with a compact agreed to
by the SADC (Southern Africa Development Community) last
year, to implement Principles and Guidelines for elections.
These guidelines seeks to align the electoral laws of
South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Mauritius,
The Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique and Angola,
in order to minimize foreign interference in their elections.
Zimbabwe is the first of this group to hold general elections
since the compact. With an unbroken tradition of holding
regular elections, it was important that these elections
set an example by being free and fair. Africans were determined
to hobble attempts to interfere, by the self-appointed
western agitators who believed they had the moral capital
to undermine political processes around the globe.
In response to the suggestion that International observers
'lend more credibility' to regional elections; Pumzile
Mlambo-Ngcuka, South African Minister for Minerals and
Energy, who also heads the 68 member SADC observer Mission
said: "I think the SADC countries know what they are
doing, and they don't need anybody chaperoning them on
how to conduct elections,"
Zimbabwe has a well-established routine for national
elections and has had general elections every five years
since liberation. It is the first of the group of SADC
countries to implement the compact by enacting laws establishing
a triumvirate consisting of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission
to Administer Elections, the Delimitation Commission to
mark constituency boundaries, and the Electoral Supervisory
Commission charged with supervising the elections, voter
registration, and the conduct of the elections.
The SADC has provided the recent elections with a clean
bill of Health and is encouraged by its success. A view
endorsed by the African Union, the Iranian Observer team,
the Electoral Commissions Forum (ECF) and the Zimbabwe
Election Support Network (ZESN), a Zimbabwean NGO.
Two unidentified the British
Embassy officials stated after observing the
election: "Voting went on peacefully in all the areas
we visited and it would be unfair to judge the polls otherwise."
It is a contrast to the harangue of the British Foreign
Minister:
"Zimbabwe's 2005 parliamentary elections were fundamentally
flawed…," Mr Straw said.
Most of this will be greeted with incredulity by those
that have been subjected to the unrelenting negative reporting
about Zimbabwe over the past few years. Especially so,
from the White nationalist dissidents accustomed to a
diet of inimical opinion about Africa that is reflexively
regurgitated in the Western Media. They should ask themselves:
does the media distort reality only when it relates
to your pet causes? Can they provide any substantiation
for any of the charges that relate to the recent Zimbabwe
elections? Perhaps not. Perhaps it is just a case of them
not caring enough to take the trouble to do so. Let me
help by examining the charges.
- The lead up to the election was fraught with intimidation
and violence.
This well worn slogan has been revealed as empty rhetoric.
National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) chairman Lovemore
Madhuku circulated a report two weeks ago, to the media
and diplomatic missions in Harare alleging that the
elections could not be free and fair due to widespread
'human Rights Abuses' and 'Violence' perpetrated by
ZapuPF supporters and uniformed officers of the Police
Force in the lead up period. Police convened a Press
Briefing to which Madhuku was invited to present his
evidence of abuses and incidents of violence. When he
did not show, they invited him to present it at his
earliest convenience and pledged to take action against
anyone who was implicated. He
never showed.
- The results obviously undermine the will of the
people.
Such a charge presupposes that the people share the
opposition's hatred for Mugabe. It discounts completely,
the impact that policies and campaigning have on the
outcome of elections. Despite contesting three elections
over the past five years, the MDC is yet to present
any policy documents or platform, aside from its consistent
campaign to demonize Robert Mugabe. It has almost exclusively
indulged itself in soft media coverage from outside
the country. This lack of a political platform has led
to the steady erosion of support, even from those that
despise ZapuPF. MDC insiders said as much in the lead
up to the election. Trevor
Ncube, owner of the Mail & Guardian Media
and strong MDC advocate, expressed the view that:
"Never since independence has Zimbabwe desperately
needed President Robert Mugabe as much as it does now.
The country, the ruling party and the opposition are
all in chaos and only he can get the nation out of this
hole. Zimbabwe faces an acute leadership crisis that
only Mugabe has the capacity to resolve, if he so decides."
Munyaradzi Gwisai, the former MDC MP said that the
MDC would be slaughtered by Zanu-PF in the just ended
poll mainly because most ordinary people were disillusioned
by the MDC's inept leadership (Daily Mirror March 16
2004)
- The vote counts were fraudulent.
This can be divided into three main categories of allegations:
- That 20% of voters were turned away at the
polls.
It has been observed by several observer missions that
many voters were turned away at the polls. The African
Union and the ECF observer missions noted this in their
report, but also observed that it was a failure in voter
education rather than a deliberate attempt to deprive
the opposition of votes. Most were turned away because
they were in the wrong constituency, had no identification,
or had not registered. The suggestion that it the number
affected was 20% is ridiculous, as are most of the unsubstantiated
and wild accusations of the opposition.
- The votes do not tally with the number of
voters.
The opposition seems to base this allegation on a half-hearted
attempt to provide running totals in some constituencies.
When the final totals were certified, it was claimed that
the "numbers do not tally with the number of votes." i.e.
The final tallies were significantly higher than the preliminary
running totals. Well … duh!
It has to be noted that the final totals were not announced
until after the various candidates had certified the results.
The opposition claims that fraud occurred in 31 constituencies.
The SADC observer mission head noted that while the MDC
has made numerous complaints, it has yet
to respond to requests for substantiation.
"We operate on facts. As late as last night (Saturday)
we were still chasing (the MDC for evidence). Unfortunately
up to now it (fraud allegation) has not been backed up.
We urge them to make a formal complaint to ZEC (Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission). Up to the time we were involved
we are happy with the situation,"
- The Electoral registration roll contained the
names of One million dead voters.
The new Delimitation Commission conducted a massive voters
registration drive in May/June of 2004. The Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission conducted an auditing process, and put the
rolls out for public inspection in January of this year.
Mr Theophilus Gambe, of the Electoral Supervisory Commission
issued a statement that the purging of dead voters was
problematic because:
- Voters did not choose the timing of their death.
- The requirement for a death certificate in order
to purge a voter from the roll.
- It was not a problem peculiar to Zimbabwe, but common
across the board in elections.
- The charge of 'millions' was ridiculous, and that
even 'tens of thousands' could not be confirmed. It
was an insignificant, but undetermined number, compatible
with estimates in any election, anywhere.
A study conducted by the Chicago Tribune found that the
voter rolls in six States (New Mexico, Florida, Iowa,
Ohio, Michigan and Minnesota ) had 181,000 dead people
registered as voters.
4. Mugabe appoints 30 members, so the election is
structurally rigged.
Zimbabwe's Parliament is made up of 120 elected members,
10 chiefs chosen by their colleagues, 12 non-constituency
MPs appointed by President Mugabe and eight Provincial
Governors. 18 of these thirty seats are elected, and thereafter
in compliance with the constitution, that reflects the
heterogeneous nature of Zimbabwe society. 12 are appointed
by the ruling party and are could be said to be undemocratically
appointed. Despite this handicap, the MDC has never managed
to win a majority of the remaining 120 seats. The appointment
of 12 non-constituency members is a matter for a constitutional
committee, and is quite irrelevant in the context of this
election.
5. Mugabe was seeking a two-thirds majority in order
to overall the constitution.
Mugabe has publicly stated that does not intend to
overhaul the constitution.
"We can't overhaul the whole Constitution. In my opinion,
it's not proper for Parliament to overhaul the Constitution.
Overhauling the Constitution needs going to the people,"
He said he intends to push through much needed amendments
to regularize the Parliamentary and Presidential elections,
and to re-introduce a Senate, a move, he says, the opposition
supports.
There are notable omissions in the Opposition rhetoric
about the elections. The most notable is the complete
absence of opinion polls to bolster their charges. It
is not alleged that ZapuPF won after opinion polls had
predicted a loss. This is not surprising since the opinion
polls tend to confirm the eventual result. Recent independent
polls prior to the election were predicting a rout for
the opposition.
Dr Kurebwa, a lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe's
department of political and administrative studies released
results
of a survey he conducted.
The survey predicted that Zanu-PF would win at least 72
seats (60 percent of the constituencies) whilst the MDC
was tipped to win 45 seats (37,5 percent of the constituencies).
Mass Public Opinion Institute (MPOI) poll predicted a
65.2 % vote for ZapuPF and a 34% vote for the MDC.
A study
in Aug 2004 conducted jointly by the Institute for Democracy
in South Africa, the Center for Democratic Development
of Ghana and Michigan State University found that Mugabe's
popularity has more than doubled in five years to 46 percent.
"Brian Raftopoulos, head of the department of development
studies at the University of Zimbabwe, says he is not
surprised by the survey's results. He said in an analysis
published Friday, both the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change, whose leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, got an 18-percent
approval rating, and civil rights activists, paid insufficient
attention to constructing an alternative vision of Zimbabwe
to that of the government."
The report is highly critical of the Zimbabwean government;
yet it findings underline the inevitability of the election
results. There are simply no grounds for believing that
the opposition could make electoral inroads given their
lack of organization and political platform.
His domestic popularity, as measured by the opinion poll,
makes Mugabe the most popular domestic leader in Africa,
exceeding the domestic popularity of South Africa's President
Mkbeki.
Just how popular is Robert Mugabe? While the perception
is that of a leader isolated from the international world
and despised by Africans and Europeans alike, the evidence
is that Africans are not buying the relentless demonization
campaign being conducted against him.
A survey by the British-based New African magazine, which
conducted an online international survey to find the 100
Greatest Africans of all time between December 2003 to
August 2004 ranked President Robert Mugabe as the third
greatest African after former South African president
Nelson Mandela and Ghana's founding President Dr Kwame
Nkrumah.
The magazine said, "President Mugabe's high score
was particularly interesting given that in the last four
years a high profile campaign in the (international) media
has painted him in bad light.''
MDC
Pays for Myopia
Despite the obvious desire of the Western
Elite to control socio/political outcomes in former colonies,
they are not all-powerful in the face of the organized
resistance and leadership from the people of former colonies.
Zimbabwe is testament that neo-colonialism is not inevitable,
and can be resisted in an organized manner. It is imperative
that the requirement that the rulers of former colonies
be saints, before the people enjoy the solidarity of progressive
western activist, be discarded, because it is at heart
racist and prejudiced. Mugabe is overwhelmingly well regarded
by Africans, Asians, and South Americans, as the embodiment
of resistance to neo-colonialism; it is time Western progressives
recognize that reality. |
EASTON, Pa. - After the remnants
of Hurricane Ivan filled their little ranch house with
several feet of water, Dale and Charlotte Barr spent
$40,000 to get it back in shape.
They were just about to tackle the last room - the
kitchen - when the Delaware River overflowed its banks
again this weekend.
"We're tired," said Dale Barr on Monday.
"I'm 65 years old. I can't continue to do this
every six months."
Flooding left one person dead
and forced the evacuation of thousands of people in
New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. The New
Jersey Statehouse, located near the banks of the Delaware,
was shut down for the day. [...]
In New Jersey, where about 3,500 people were evacuated,
acting Gov. Richard J. Codey declared a state of emergency,
estimating property damage would approach $30 million.
More than 4,000 homeowners were evacuated in Pennsylvania.
[...] |
The time to be most wary of a tornado
is a spring afternoon in Texas or Oklahoma with thunderstorms
brewing. But twisters do not limit themselves to these
conditions or locations, a new study shows.
"If you're driving in a midnight rain in October
near Lake Michigan, remember that a tornado is not outside
the realm of possibility," says Robert Trapp of
Purdue University.
Trapp and his colleagues studied more than 3,800 tornadoes
in the United States from 1998 to 2000. Many of these
were not of the typical variety that form in Tornado
Alley - the flat, twister-prone region through the central
plain states.
"In the heart of Tornado Alley, twisters most
often develop from relatively small 'cell' storms that
look like blotches on a Doppler radar weather map,"
Trapp said.
The conventional wisdom is that the tornado threat
goes down when the cells merge into 100-mile-long line
storms. But Trapp's team found
this to be wrong, especially beyond the Alley. For example,
about half of Indiana's 20 tornadoes a year come from
line storms.
Nationwide, 79 percent of tornadoes arise out of cells,
whereas 18 percent form from line storms, according
to the study, which was supported by the National Science
Foundation and reported in the February issue of the
journal Weather and Forecasting.
"This implies that we may be overlooking many
tornado-breeding storms in the Midwest and elsewhere,"
Trapp said. [...]
"We're not trying to be alarmist
with these findings," Trapp said. "But we
hope that people will stay alert to tornado risk even
outside the traditional severe storm season." |
MIAMI -- Like last
year, the coming Atlantic hurricane season will be fiercer
than normal, with a heightened probability of a major
hurricane making landfall in the United States, a noted
forecaster said yesterday.
After one of the most destructive hurricane seasons
on record, William M. Gray, a professor at Colorado
State University, said 2005 would see 13 named storms,
of which seven would turn into hurricanes. He predicted
three major hurricanes with winds exceeding 111 miles
per hour.
The long-term average for the Atlantic basin is 9.6
named storms and 5.9 hurricanes, of which 2.3 are intense
hurricanes, per season, which runs from June 1 to Nov.
30.
''All of the information we have collected and analyzed
through March indicates that the 2005 Atlantic hurricane
season will be an active one," Gray said in a statement.
Gray and Philip J. Klotzbach, an atmospheric research
scientist at Colorado State, said they might increase
their predictions for the number of storms in 2005 if
weather conditions continued to point to a lack of significant
conditions in the Pacific for El Nino. The El Nino weather
phenomenon produces a distinct warming of Pacific waters
and tends to suppress storm activity in the Atlantic.
''If the next few months verify our beliefs about the
lack of significant El Nino conditions, it is likely
that we will be raising our forecast numbers in our
coming May 31 and Aug. 5 forecast updates," Klotzbach
said. |
A local seismologist
has predicted an earthquake of magnitude 5.5 will possibly
hit the Korean Peninsula within a few years, following
a 7-magnitude earthquake that hit Fukuoka, Japan on March
20.
An earthquake of magnitude 5.5 is considered relatively
strong, causing minor damage to buildings. Tremors of
magnitude 7 or more often cause serious damage such as
warping railways.
''Previous records have shown that strong earthquakes
in Japan and China have been followed by smaller ones
in Korea in the past,'' Chi Heon-cheol, director of the
Korea Earthquake Research Center at the Korea Institute
of Geoscience and Mineral Resources, told The Korea Times.
Chi mentioned a 5-magnitude quake that hit Hongsong,
South Chungchong Province in 1978, damaging 118 poorly
built buildings and injuring two people.
It was just two years after a strong earthquake of magnitude
7.8 struck Tangshan, northeastern China, obliterating
the city and killing over 240,000 people in 1976.
When Korea was hit by another earthquake of magnitude
4.7 in Yongwol, Kangwon Province in 1996, it was just
one year after a massive earthquake shook Kobe, Japan
in 1995, killing 6310 people. The magnitude of the Kobe
quake was estimated at 7.2.
Chi said the common belief that Korea is earthquake-free
is not really true.
''Records of earthquakes have been found several times
in ancient history books,'' Chi said.
As one example, Chi said Samguksagi, or the History of
the Three Kingdoms, tells of around 100 people dying in
an earthquake that shook Kyongju, North Kyongsang Province,
in 779. [...]
Experts expect a magnitude-7 earthquake off the west
coast of Japan might cause a 3 to 4 meter high tsunami
to hit the South Korean coast.
A one-meter-high tsunami is strong enough to destroy
poorly built wooden constructions located 3 to 5 meters
from the sea. |
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM,
APRIL 4. A 100 years ago today, a powerful earthquake,
estimated to have had a magnitude of 7.8, with its epicentre
near Kangra in Himachal Pradesh claimed over 20,000 lives
and caused extensive damage. Experts worry that some parts
of the Himalayas could be ready for another dangerous
quake.
Roger Bilham of the University of Colorado in the United
States has long argued that a great earthquake is "overdue"
in the Himalayas. There were a dozen examples of regions
across the Himalayas that could rupture and produce an
earthquake with a magnitude over 8, Dr. Bilham said in
a talk at a conference to mark the centenary of the Kangra
earthquake. "Potentially the most dangerous of these
is the so-called Central Himalayan Gap whose rupture in
1505 may have occurred as a 600-km-long rupture, similar
to the tsunamigenic initial phase of the 2004 Sumatra
earthquake," he said. [...]
With greater population density, up to 300,000 lives
could be lost if an earthquake the size of the 1905 Kangra
earthquake was to occur today, warned Harsh K. Gupta,
currently Secretary to the Department of Ocean Development,
in the December 2000 issue of EQ News, a newsletter published
by the Department of Science and Technology. |
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