|
News
report says US to produce plutonium 238 for secret missions
The United States reportedly
plans to resume production of plutonium 238, a substance
so radioactive that a speck can cause cancer.
The material, used as a power source,
would primarily be used for secret
national security missions... In the past nuclear
batteries made from plutonium 238 were used to power
satellites, planetary probes and spy devices, it said...
|
Washington - US secretary of defence
Donald Rumsfeld on Sunday rejected allegations of widespread
prisoner abuse at US-run overseas detention facilities.
"The idea that there's any policy of abuse or
policy of torture is false - flat false," he told
the Fox News Sunday television program.
"People have been instructed to treat people humanely,"
Rumsfeld said.
The defence secretary pointed out that in instances
where they have been prisoner abuse has been substantiated
"people have been punished and convicted in a court
martial."
Rumsfeld rejected calls from some US lawmakers, civil
libertarians and others that terror suspects be prosecuted
in the general civilian criminal justice system.
"I'm not a lawyer, but the president and the attorney
general decided after 9/11 that putting terrorists into
the ... criminal justice system as though they were
car thieves or bank robbers or something like that ....
wasn't the way to do it," Rumsfeld said. [...] |
President says U.S. committed to
expanding democracy, freedom worldwide
In remarks commemorating United Nations International
Day in Support of Victims of Torture June 26, President
Bush says freedom from torture is "an inalienable
human right."
In a statement released by the White House the same
day, Bush said the United States "is committed
to building a world where human rights are respected
and protected by the rule of law." He added that
the United States is working to expand democracy worldwide
and "will help others find their own voice, attain
their own freedom, and make their own way."
The president acknowledged that many people throughout
the world are "stand[ing] up for their right to
freedom," but said that too many are "paying
a terrible price for their brave acts of dissent"
by being "detained, arrested, thrown in prison,
and subjected to torture by regimes that fail to understand
that their habits of control will not serve them well
in the long-term." [...] |
Senior politicians are calling
for a full inquiry into the activities of United States
intelligence operatives in Italy, after a Milan judge
issued arrest warrants for 13 CIA agents. The agents
allegedly abducted a suspected Islamic militant and
took him to Egypt for interrogation.
Paolo Cento, a Green party MP who is vice-chairman
of the Justice Committee of the lower house of parliament,
has demanded an explanation of the episode from both
the Italian interior and defence ministers.
"What has emerged from the investigations requires
a political clarification," he said. "We
want to know if US secret agents are free to operate
in Italy, and if that is the case, we want to know how
the government will ensure national sovereignty."
In issuing the warrants, Judge Chiara Nobili took an
unprecedented stand against the US policy of "extraordinary
rendition", popularly known as "outsourcing
torture".
The 13, three of them women and one of them allegedly
a former US consul in Milan, are said to have seized
the Islamic suspected from a street in Milan and flown
him to Egypt. [...]
For many Italians, the behaviour
of the CIA agents betrays a contempt for territorial
boundaries that leaves them near-speechless.
The investigators were able to build up a detailed picture
of the Americans' movements because they took no precautions,
staying at Milan's most expensive hotels for weeks on
end and using Italian cellphones and insecure hotel
landlines for long conversations.
Italian investigators are also
fuming at the casual way the Americans sabotaged their
own investigations. "We supplied them with information
about Abu Omar, then they used the information against
us, undermining our entire operation against his terrorist
network," a senior Italian investigator told The
New York Times. [...]
Guido Salvini, the judge in charge of preliminary investigations
in the case, said the abduction "was illegal because
it violated Italian sovereignty, but it also had a negative
impact on the overall war on terror".
If the CIA had not intervened, he went on, "Abu
Omar might be standing trial in Italy now".
Extraordinary rendition, the American practice of exporting
foreigners suspected of involvement in terrorism to
countries where torture is routine, has been practised
since the mid-1990s, but became frequent after the 11
September attacks. Egypt is the
most common destination, but suspects have also been
sent to Syria, Morocco and Jordan.
The indignation of the Italian authorities
has been further fuelled by emerging evidence of an
attempted cover-up of the abduction by the CIA, which
in 2003 informed Italian anti-terrorism officers that
the Milan imam had fled to Bosnia to evade police investigations.
|
CAIRO - Some 200 demonstrators
gathered outside state security headquarters in Cairo
to protest torture in Egypt,
a practice rights groups have long accused the regime
of using in prison interrogations.
Surrounded by hundreds of riot police wearing helmets
and carrying clubs, protestors chanted anti-regime slogans
at the rally, organised by human rights advocates to
coincide with World Day Against Torture.
The protest grew heated as demonstrators yelled "Down
with (President Hosni) Mubarak" and "Gamal
(Mubarak's son) tell your father all Egyptians hate
him."
Demonstrators also called for Interior Minister Habib
al-Adly, whom they deem responsible for the practice,
to step down.
Some carried banners with pictures of the minister
with the word "Resign," while others read:
"Judge the pashas of torture," using the word
to describe military authorities.
Egypt approved a key electoral reform in May to allow
multi-candidate presidential elections for the first
time, but the move was criticised by opposition as being
too restrictive and voting day was marred by violence.
Prior to the referendum, in a move to clamp down on
opposition, Egyptian police arrested hundreds of members
of the banned but tolerated Islamist group the Muslim
Brotherhood.
Some 1,300 members have since been released, but 300
remain behind bars, group leaders say.
The National Council for Human Rights
led by former UN secretary general Boutros Boutros Ghali
counted nine cases of torture in May and said "regrettable
violations" of the right to life were committed,
which led to "the death of some citizens apparently
as a result of torture." |
Faced with unremitting violence,
the United States is building new detention areas at
Iraqi prisons including the notorious Abu Ghraib.
President George Bush had declared that Abu Ghraib
would be torn down in a symbolic gesture after shocking
pictures emerged of Iraqi inmates being abused and tortured
by American forces.
But the continuing insurgency and rising death toll
has meant that not only can the US not hand over Abu
Ghraib to the new Iraqi government, according to a planned
timetable, but other prisons
including Camp Bucca in the British-controlled south
of the country are being expanded.
The numbers of prisoners being
held by the US in Iraq has reached record levels this
month, with 10,783 in custody, up from 7,837 in January
and 5,435 in June last year. American Iraqi officials
agree there is no sign of the resistance or the prisoners
it produces abating soon. "It's been a challenge"
said Col James Brown, commander of the 18th Military
Police Brigade. "Many of the people we have captured
have not given up the struggle."
President Bush will make a nationwide television address
tomorrow after opinion polls showed increasing numbers
of Americans are disenchanted with the war.
But the Defence Secretary, Donald
Rumsfeld, was forced to admit yesterday that the fighting
could go on for years, adding: "We are not going
to win against the insurgency, the Iraqi people will
win against the insurgency". Mr Rumsfeld
tried to play down reports that the US and Iraqi officials
had been meeting representatives of the Sunni insurgency
to try to forge a peace deal. He insisted such contacts
were "routine".
The decision by American commanders to add to the detention
facilities instead of their planned decommissioning
would be seen as an admission of just how much the situation
is out of control more than two years after invasion.
[...] |
The
tipping point
US public opinion on the Iraq war dips with every
dead soldier, and plummets at the first sniff of defeat |
Gary Younge
The Guardian
Monday June 27, 2005 |
[...] In Malcolm Gladwell's book,
The Tipping Point, he describes the conditions that
are necessary to transform Hush Puppies from the old
school to new cool. "The world of the tipping point
is a place where the unexpected becomes expected, where
radical change is more than a possibility," he
argues. "It is - contrary to all our expectations
- a certainty."
American public opinion appears to be approaching just
such a point in relation to the war in Iraq. The
last fortnight has revealed a growing impatience with
the military misadventure in the Gulf and an irritation
with the White House's persistent denials that anything
is wrong. This has translated into more urgent
and widespread calls to bring the troops home that has
finally percolated up to the political class. This new
phase has put George Bush on the back foot, forcing
him to deliver a major address tomorrow night to rally
public support, which is evidently draining away. He
will tell them that America needs "resolve".
For the White House Iraq has become the latest faith-based
initiative.
A recent Gallup poll revealed that 56% said the war
"wasn't worth it". Meanwhile, for the first
time, a majority say they would be "upset"
if Bush sent more troops, and a new low of 36% say troop
levels should be maintained or increased. An earlier
Washington Post poll showed that two-thirds of the public
believe the US military is bogged down in Iraq while
almost three- quarters think the level of casualties
is unacceptable. The figures match or exceed the previous
high-water mark of public disenchantment. More than
half believe the war has not made them safer and 40%
believe it has striking similarities to the experience
in Vietnam.
Anti-war sentiment had always been part of mainstream
national conversation here. But with the Democratic
party and its presidential candidate having supported
the war, such views remained marginal in the body politic.
Now, as these statistics make
themselves felt in the postbags and phone logs of congressmen,
the notion that not only is the war not going to plan
but that the plan might itself be flawed is finding
expression in the most unlikely places. On June
16, the Republican congressman Walter Jones, the man
largely responsible for introducing freedom fries to
the congressional menu, co-sponsored a bipartisan resolution
persuading the president to set a timetable for troop
withdrawal.
When the secretary of defence, Donald
Rumsfeld, testified before a Senate armed services committee
last week, the Republican senator from South Carolina,
Lindsey Graham, said: "I'm here to tell you sir,
in the most patriotic state that I can imagine, people
are beginning to question. And I don't think it's a
blip on the radar screen. I think we have a chronic
problem on our hands. We will lose this war if we leave
too soon. And what is likely to make us do that? The
public going south. And that is happening."
The critical factor driving this slump, explains Christopher
Gelpi, associate professor of political science at Duke
University who specialises in public attitudes to foreign
policy, is not how many soldiers they lose but whether
the mission for which they have fallen is likely to
be successful. "The most important single fact
is that the public perceive the mission as being destined
for success. The American public
is partly casualty-phobic but it is primarily defeat
phobic. You can muster support for just about any military
operation in the US so long as you can get enough of
the defeat-phobic people on board." [...]
Until earlier this year, the White House had an easy-to-follow
narrative for success on its own terms. When weapons
of mass destruction were not found, it simply changed
the story to fit the absence of facts. The final chapter
then became the democratisation of the Arab world. First
there would be a "handover" of power, then
elections, all leading up to Iraqis regaining control
of their own country. The carnage, in terms of human
life, regional stability and international law, was
dismissed as a price worth paying for the bigger picture.
For a while, a majority of the American public bought
it. But in recent months they have proved reluctant
to wear it.
You can keep spinning just so long before you fall
flat on your face. The administration's
insistence that things are on track and all it must
do is stay the course is beginning to grate.
US efforts to reshape the world through a policy of
pre-emption have been buttressed by an attempt to remould
reality through the power of assertion. Since Vice-President
Dick Cheney claimed that the insurgency was "in
its last throes" 77 American soldiers and about
600 Iraqi civilians have died. His tortured explanation,
late last week, that "if you look at what the dictionary
says about throes, it can still be a violent period",
adds insult to injury.
"We are all capable of believing
things which we know to be untrue," wrote George
Orwell in his essay In Front of Your Nose. "And
then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting
the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually,
it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite
time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a
false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually
on a battlefield." |
Stung by plummeting polls, the
Bush administration is working on a new message about
Iraq. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld road-tested
it on the Sunday talk shows, and President Bush will
flesh it out during a speech Tuesday night. The basic
message, as articulated by Rumsfeld, goes something
like this:
1. "Progress is being made politically and economically"
in Iraq.
2. But the casualties could get worse over the next
six months, and fighting could go on for "five,
six, eight, 12 years."
3. And we have never miscalculated,
erred, or misled you.
It's an ambitious message - a mix of the upbeat, the
downbeat and the defiant.
Whether a restive public buys the message may depend
not on Bush's persuasive powers, but on the news from
the battlefield. And this message arrives at a crucial
juncture, with solid majorities of Americans now saying
that invading Iraq was a mistake (a sharp reversal of
the polls one year ago). At this
point, 91.5 percent of all American military deaths
have occurred since Bush declared on May 1, 2003, that
"major combat" was over.
Worse yet, an administration
known for its message discipline has been plagued lately
by top officials sending contradictory signals. While
Vice President Cheney is insisting that the insurgency
is in its "last throes," military leaders
are telling Congress that the insurgency is at least
as strong as it was six months ago, buoyed by an ongoing
influx of foreign fighters.
Bush, in his speech Tuesday night, will ask Americans
to help him "stay the course" - in essence,
to trust him anew as a war president. But for those
who are increasingly skeptical about the war, trust
may be the biggest hurdle. Only 32 percent of independent
voters now support the war, according to Gallup, and
the big drop in recent months has been fueled not just
by the mounting casualties but by the perception that
Bush and his war planners promised a short and relatively
bloodless conflict.
As evidenced Sunday by Rumsfeld's televised remarks,
however, it's clear that the administration, while seeking
people's trust, does not want to entertain any suggestion
that it made any mistakes in the past, whether intentional
or not.
Rumsfeld told "Fox News Sunday,"
for example, that he had not made optimistic predictions
during the prelude to war. Such a claim, he said, is
"false. ... I have been balanced and measured."
Yet, on Feb. 7, 2003, more than a month
before the war began, he predicted that "it could
last six days, six weeks, I doubt six months."
On Feb. 20, 2003, he told PBS that the Americans "would
be welcomed," as happened in Afghanistan, where
people in the streets were "playing music, cheering,
flying kites." (Seven months later, when a broadcast
journalist asked Rumsfeld about his PBS remarks, he
replied: "Never said that. Never did. ... You're
thinking of somebody else.")
Also Sunday, Rumsfeld told NBC's "Meet the Press"
that any rosy prewar predictions (which he denies were
made) would have been inappropriate. He
said: "Anyone who tries to estimate the end, the
time, the cost, or the casualties in a war is making
a big mistake." Yet it was Cheney, on March
16, 2003, who said "I think it will go relatively
quickly ... weeks rather than months." A month
earlier, Bush budget official Mitchell E. Daniels Jr.
publicly estimated that the war could cost roughly $60
billion. (The current cost is $208 billion.)
Clearly, the administration is seeking a clean slate
on forecasts. Rosy talk is out. The
new message is designed to prepare the public for a
long slog, figuring that Americans will stay the course
if they get the bad news up front. Talk of "progress"
will be tempered by talk about the grim realities of
war. In Rumsfeld's words Sunday, "it's violence,
it's tough, it's terrible."
He recalled that, during the run-up to war, he had
prepared for Bush a list of "15 things that could
go terribly wrong," including oil fields set afire
and mass refugees on the roads. NBC interviewer Tim
Russert then asked whether he had put "a robust
insurgency" on the list. Rumsfeld replied: "I
don't remember if that was on there." [...]
Rumsfeld did seek, at several points, to defend Cheney's
contention that the insurgency is in its last throes.
He told "Fox News Sunday" that "last
throes could be a violent last throes, or a placid and
calm last throes," his way of saying that the insurgency
could burn out quickly or persist for years. He did
say, however, that "I will anticipate that you'll
see an escalation of violence between now and the (next
round of Iraqi) elections" next winter.
In essence, the message is that
America will be fighting in Iraq through the end of
Bush's tenure, and that people should not dwell on what
Rumsfeld calls "the negative day after day, in
the press and on television." (He
didn't address the fact that some of the most negative
reports lately have come from publications such as the
Marine Corps Times, which has written about inadequate
body armor, and recalls of armored vests.) [...] |
THE American general who commanded
allied air forces during the Iraq war appears to have
admitted in a briefing to American and British officers
that coalition aircraft waged a secret air war against
Iraq from the middle of 2002, nine months before the
invasion began.
Addressing a briefing on lessons learnt from the Iraq
war Lieutenant-General Michael Moseley said that in
2002 and early 2003 allied aircraft flew 21,736 sorties,
dropping more than 600 bombs on 391 “carefully
selected targets” before the war officially started.
The nine months of allied raids “laid the foundations”
for the allied victory, Moseley said. They ensured that
allied forces did not have to start the war with a protracted
bombardment of Iraqi positions.
If those raids exceeded the need to maintain security
in the no-fly zones of southern and northern Iraq, they
would leave President George W Bush and Tony Blair vulnerable
to allegations that they had acted illegally.[...]
A leaked memo previously disclosed by The Sunday Times,
detailing a meeting chaired by the prime minister and
attended by Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, Geoff
Hoon, the then defence secretary, and Admiral Sir Michael
Boyce, chief of defence staff, indicated that the US
was carrying out the bombing.
But Moseley’s remarks, and figures for the amount
of bombs dropped in southern Iraq during 2002, indicate
that the RAF was taking as large a part in the bombing
as American aircraft.
Details of the Moseley briefing come amid rising concern
in the US at the war. A new poll shows 60% of Americans
now believe it was a mistake. |
In his first statements since a
landslide election victory on Friday, Iran's new hardline
President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, defended his government's
right to a nuclear programme and said that the country
had "no significant need" for ties with the
United States.
The former mayor of Tehran also sought
to assuage domestic fears that he would crack down on
social and political freedoms, saying in a press conference
that "no extremism will be acceptable in popular
government".
Mr Ahmadinejad's triumph has been greeted with dismay
in Western capitals, which fear a newly confrontational
approach from Tehran after months of tortuous negotiations
over Iran's uranium-enrichment programme, which it claims
is only intended to satisfy domestic energy needs. But
although he was dismissive of American claims that the
election was flawed and illegitimate, Mr Ahmadinejad
was more conciliatory towards Europe, which has led
the nuclear negotiations.
"Preserving national interests and emphasising
the right of the Iranian nation for using peaceful nuclear
technology," said the new President, "we will
continue the talks," adding that they should be
concluded "quickly".
With America however, it appears that Mr Ahmadinejad
is prepared to let relations go into a deep freeze.
His defeated opponent, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, made
improved dialogue with the US a pillar of his election
campaign. But, asked yesterday about Washington's persistent
criticism of poll arrangements, the president-elect
angrily replied: "In the democratic elections in
our country, the people have chosen their president.
Those who defend dictatorships cannot pass judgement
on us." [...] |
The Israeli administration has
warned the international community that the election
of Ahmedinajad will increase the problems in the region
and claimed that Tehran's diplomatic isolation will
increase as well.
The Israeli deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres released
a declaration after the Iranian elections claiming that
the elections cannot be determined as free and fair.
Furthermore, Amos Gilad from the Israel Foreign Ministry,
speaking on Israeli radio, said that the Iranian elections
had terminated the reforms and efforts for change in
Iran. |
First Unocal as a predicate...
The US has a little known entity that can reject the
Chinese interest and intent regarding Unocal on national
security/interest grounds. Remember that the beneficiary
of the current Unocal deal is Chevron (NWO).
What you need to think about first is whether China
wants the NWO to have this entity reject the overture.
If you think about it for a moment, China WANTS the
US to reject it. Why? BY rejecting it the NWO affords
China totally validity in doing what it wants to do:
reject future NWO enmeshment via purchase of Chinese
enterprise! China will broaden the doctrine and of course
will not object to the US broadening it as well. What
is the national security interest is within the pale
of definition by the respective country. What is important
to China is for the US to set up is the principle, which
it will do openly now in rejecting China's interest
in outbidding Chevron.
What if the deal is allowed to go through? China doesn't
mind. Then it will resort to the contention that the
US had the discretion to reject it or not. That it did
not reject it does not limit China from applying it
on a more stringent standard for its own interests.
Conclusion: China has everything to gain and nothing
to lose in pursuing Unocal. It is again a brilliant
Chinese maneuver. What it does is bring up the issue
that the US can if it wants reject it. Thus, China cannot
be faulted from applying the same standard as it deems
best for the interests of its own country.
Now, look at the Iranian elections...
Did the NWO want the extremist candidate to win or
lose?
It wanted Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to win to open the portal
for Israel to attack Iran. [...]
The Unocal analysis shows you that every act of China
is cast with the intent that regardless of the outcome
China improves its position. The Iranian election analysis
shows you that what the NWO wants is not always apparent
from what it says it wants. The
fact that Bush is going to speak live from a military
base announced hours before the election results asking
live television coverage when we all know he has little
to say positive about Iraq means that he is setting
the stage to probably defend an Israeli attack on Iranian
nuclear sites, the probability being near 100% that
Israel will justify a strike on such sites now based
on the Ahmadinejad win and the record of his statements
anti-West and anti-Israel.
So China pursues Unocal with its own agenda and Bush
adds big bucks to the ante by pursuing Iran. Bush says
his strategy will assure that China proves itself the
paper tiger and Bush will have Iran and once having
Iran he will explain that it abates most of all opposition
in Iraq, thus proving important for US troops and US
interests. Bush will further explain that Syria once
Iran "loses it nuclear threat capability"
will also prove of no consequence to US troops and interests
in Iraq. Of course reinterpreted it means the NWO will
move for control of oil in both Iraq and Iran and neutralize
Syria which will mean Bush will complete his mission
as per www.senderberl.com/BMI.pdf.
What are the chances of this unfolding on Tuesday:
50%, which is very high for such an extreme war scenario.
It means Israel must attack, Israel must be somehow
injured to allow US troops in Iraq to move in Iran to
protect Israel. It also serves as an excuse for China
not to intervene against US intervention for "injured"
Israel.
A more important dynamic is what are the chances of
the scenario (or something similar) unfolding in the
foreseeable future? Answer: 80%. The
NWO is arguing that the new Iranian leadership can only
result in making the NWO position in Iraq totally untenable.
Thus, the only conclusion per 9-11 is that it wanted
Ahmadinejad to win because he was the sine qua non for
the NWO to push through for the US and Israel the inevitable
need to quash the nuclear sites and in doing so open
the portal for US troops to enter Iran. This of course
suggests some plan to effectuate a successful response/counterattack
on Israel. [...] |
Granted,
the winds of corruption and shortsightedness still dominate.
More so than at any time in recent memory, high-level
officials are indistinguishable from right-wing lobbyists,
gutting government's ability to regulate corporate power.
This may seem like a weird time for progressives to
feel optimistic, but a confluence of recent events suggests
the faintest breeze of hope in the air.
Granted, the winds of corruption and shortsightedness
still dominate. More so than at any time in recent memory,
high-level officials are indistinguishable from right-wing
lobbyists, gutting government's ability to regulate
corporate power. The Justice Department is throwing
the fight against the tobacco companies; the White House
is busy editing the science out of regulations that
might restrain polluters.
Meanwhile, the administration and
its congressional allies continue the fiscal recklessness
that has been their hallmark since they got here. If
they continue to have their way -- and they recently
added a new slew of regressive tax cuts to their 2006
budget -- it will eventually be impossible for government
to fulfill essential functions, from safety nets to
investment in future technologies. (I know, that's the
point: Starve the beast.)
Given this gale force of business as usual, where's
this hopeful little breeze coming from? In fact, from
a number of places:
* Infighting: There is clearly
more dissension within conservative ranks. It
might be that midterm elections are within sight, and
members of Congress are paying a little more attention
to polls showing their popularity ratings coming in
just above that of Lyme disease. There's been uncharacteristic
pushback from former White House allies on George W.
Bush's domestic (stem-cell research, Social Security
"reform") and foreign agendas (the war in
Iraq).
* Speaking of Social Security, the more people learn
about the president's plan, the less they like it. What's
so notable here is that one of the most sophisticated
and heretofore successful spin machines in the history
of politics has been unable to sell the public on the
benefits of privatization.
* A counter-theme is evolving. As these political
phenomena are unfolding, leading newspapers have been
providing a critically important "back story"
regarding trends in economic inequality and mobility.
A theme -- moving away from risk shifting and back to
risk sharing -- is emerging.
The subject of this theme surfaced in 2004 in a prize-winning
series by Los Angeles Times reporter Peter Gosselin.
As stated in the introduction to the series, the piece
questions "[w]hy so many families report being
financially less secure even as the nation has grown
more prosperous. The answer lies in a quarter-century-long
shift of economic risks from the broad shoulders of
business and government to the backs of working families.
Safety nets that once protected Americans from economic
turbulence -- safeguards like unemployment compensation
and employer loyalty -- have eroded or vanished…
The result is a daunting 'New
Deal' for many working Americans -- one that compels
them to cope, largely on their own, with financial forces
far beyond their control."
And remember, Gosselin wrote this before Bush was offering
future Social Security recipients the chance to play
the stock market with what would otherwise be a guaranteed
pension.
More recently, The New York Times and The Wall Street
Journal both ran series on, among other things, the
sharp increase in income inequality and the lack of
income mobility (including the amazing factoid that
there's more economic mobility in France, Canada, and
Denmark than in the United States).
In other words, while markets are
delivering less equitable outcomes, the rules and norms
that formerly offset those outcomes have eroded.
It just may turn out that the failure to sell Social
Security privatization is the tipping point where enough
people say, "Enough, already" to the risk
shifting that underlies the conservative agenda.
The final hint I have that help may be on the way comes
from the words of someone who not only gets what the
risk-shifters are up to but can talk about it in some
of the most compelling ways I've heard in decades.
Here's the way it looks to Senator Barack Obama, from
a graduation speech he gave a few weeks ago. There are
those, he says, who believe:
" … That the best idea is to give everyone
one big refund on their government -- divvy it up by
individual portions, in the form of tax breaks, hand
it out, and encourage everyone to use their share to
go buy their own health care, their own retirement plan,
their own child care, their own education, and so on.
"In Washington, they call this the 'ownership
society.' But in our past there has been another term
for it: social Darwinism -- every man or woman for him
or herself. It's a tempting idea, because it doesn't
require much thought or ingenuity..." …
"But there is a problem: It won't work. It ignores
our history. It ignores the fact that it's been government
research and investment that made the railways possible
and the Internet possible. It's been the creation of
a massive middle class, through decent wages and benefits
and public schools that allowed us all to prosper. Our
economic dependence depended on individual initiative.
It depended on a belief in the free market; but it has
also depended on our sense of mutual regard for each
other, the idea that everybody has a stake in the country,
that we're all in it together and everybody's got a
shot at opportunity."
Did someone just open the window? Where's that breeze
coming from? |
In the U.S. stock market, the Dow
closed at 10,297.84 on Friday, down 3.2% from the previous
week’s close of 10,623.07. The NASDAQ closed at
2,053.27 on Friday, down 1.8% from 2,090.11 the week
before. The yield on the ten-year U.S. Treasury bond
closed at 3.92, down from 4.08 the previous Friday.
The dollar closed at 0.8263 euros, up 1.5% from its
close on the previous Friday of 0.8142 euros, or 1.2102
dollars to the euro compared to 1.2282 the week before.
Oil closed at 59.84 dollars a barrel up 2.3% from $58.47
on the previous Friday. In terms of euros, a barrel
of oil would cost 49.45 euros compared to 47.61 the
week before, an increase of 3.9%. Gold closed at $441.60
an ounce, up a half percent from $439.50 on the Friday
before. Gold in euros would be 364.90 an ounce on Friday,
up 2% compared to 357.84 a week earlier. Comparing gold
to oil, an ounce of gold on Friday would buy 7.38 barrels
of oil, compared to 7.52 the week before, a rise of
1.9%.
Gold has been rising steadily of late. What has some
observers puzzled is gold’s rise in the face of
the dollar’s rise:
Gold
on the cusp of 2005 peak, more gains seen
By Veronica Brown
LONDON, June 24 (Reuters) - Gold was poised to hit
a new 2005 peak above $445 an ounce on Friday as fund
and trade buyers ignored the traditional link between
bullion and the dollar.
Gold has built steadily this month, with the market
gaining just over seven percent to sit under $4 away
from the March 11 high at $446.70 -- the highest level
seen this year.
The move has been all the more remarkable
given the dollar's strength against the euro, which
would normally tend to make dollar-priced gold more
expensive for non-U.S. investors.
"Can we get through $446.70 - I think we can.
I think we will be testing $450, this will be a short-lived
rally but will push higher still," Barclays Capital
analyst Kamal Naqvi said.
Spot gold moved to $443.40/444.15 per troy ounce
by 1020 GMT from $440.85/441.60 late in New York on
Thursday. The market earlier hit $443.50 -- its highest
since March 17.
"The market has found a great momentum, and
this is providing great potential. An upside correction
in the euro today could take gold even higher,"
MKS Finance analyst Frederic Panizzutti said.
EURO WOES
The euro fell briefly below $1.20 for the first time
in 10 months against the dollar on Friday, buckling
under the weight of expectations of lower interest
rates in the euro zone. It was last at $2.2071.
Already at 2 percent, a cut in euro zone rates would
further bolster the dollar's yield appeal as the Fed
is expected to raise interest rates again next week
to 3.25 percent.
Although a softer euro would normally scare-off foreign
investors, analysts said bullion was merely reflecting
a market feeding off its own momentum.
"I think it's not the start
of a grand new era where gold moves up no matter what
happens," Naqvi said.
"Should we see some sort of approach towards
normality in the euro-zone then it's all over,"
he added.
Analysts also said gold's move higher
was significant against a backdrop of falls in base
metals, with copper futures seeing a five percent
drop on Thursday.
"Despite the weakness in base metals, which
has proved the old adage that seems to have been forgotten
by many of the bulls that the value of an investment
can go down as well as up, gold prices have remained
firm of late, with dips very well bid," HSBC
metals analyst Alan Williamson said in a daily report.
The rise of gold in the face of drops in other metals
and strength in the dollar is not a good sign for the
world economy. High gold prices don’t cause problems,
but they are indicators of problems in the economy.
What are those problems? Geopolitical instability, for
one. With the Neoconservatives still in power in the
United States, who can bet that the United States won’t
invade Iran and Syria, even as they are losing the wars
in Afghanistan and Iraq? They want to win back what
they have just lost with one more reckless throw of
the dice. Second, there is the economic instability
with the twin deficits in the United States budget and
balance of payments. Either new wars or a burst of the
housing bubble can send everything crashing down, and
I think people are sensing this.
Al
Martin has this to say about the housing bubble:
The Federal Reserve pointed out in its study last
Thursday, which Greenspan referred to in his testimony
before the joint economic committee, although he didn’t
refer to it in detail and I could understand why –
that the current speculative
bubble in real estate, even if it were to unwind
in the same manner as all other speculative real estate
bubbles have unwound in this nation, wherein there
was experienced, over a 3-year period, an average
17% decline in median home prices, which is the average
for the unwinding of a speculative bubble and is,
indeed, the decline we saw from the 4th quarter of
1989 to the 2nd quarter of 1991 when the real estate
bubble of the late 80's unwound–even this unwinding,
would, according to the Federal
Reserve, lead to 20 million mortgage defaults in the
nation.
To put this into comparison: the speculative bubble
of the late 80's, when that unwound from `89 to `91,
there were 3.6 million mortgage defaults.
What the Federal Reserve is
now saying is that there would likely be 20 million
mortgage defaults. Because in the unwinding of the
speculative bubble in property from `89 to `91, the
debt-to-equity ratio was still 37% -- meaning the
people had 37% of equity.
Now, the median debt-to-equity ratio of property in
the United States is only 14%, a record low, due to
the $3 trillion that has been taken out of property
equities since 2001 in order to sustain consumer spending.
What the Fed pointed out is that even an unwinding
of this speculative bubble to the extent of the historical
average would wipe out $2 trillion of equity of the
GSE’s: Ginnie Mae, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac,
more specifically.
How would that happen? Because of the enormous amount
of mortgage defaults, which are going to occur in
an unwinding of the speculative bubble because the
debt-to-equity ratio is so low.
What the Fed is saying is that $2 trillion of capital
would be taken out, would essentially evaporate within
the GSE’s. Further, the nation’s commercial
banks and mortgage lenders, which are indirectly guaranteed
by the U.S. Treasury through various pools (FDIC,
FSLIC, FSCL and so on), would potentially be exposed
to a $2 trillion hit, if, and this is only assuming,
if this current speculative bubble in real estate
only unwinds to the extent of the national average
of unwinding of speculative bubbles in property, a
la 1989 to 1991.
This is the scenario as opposed to what others believe,
including the Economic Policy Institute and AlMartinRaw.com.
Remember Fed Governor Susan Beis remarks about a potential
40% loss in the national median home price average
over 5 years when the bubble begins to unwind. A 40%
loss, which is privately calculated by the General
Accounting Office and the Office of the Comptroller
of the Currency and the Federal Housing Administration.
That is what those three institutions actually believe
is going to happen. A 40% decline
over 5 years of the median home price in the United
States would collapse the economy of the United States,
to use Walker’s words.
It would be an unprecedented debacle, and the only
remedies are (and, unfortunately Alan Greenspan, I
think, is the impediment) for the General Accounting
Office, the OCC and the FHA to take action now to
begin to pressure the speculative bubble in real estate
by ending the availability of interest-only mortgages
in what they call hot zones, where there is the greatest
depreciation, in regions like California and Florida.
You know the reason why Alan Greenspan is against
this? According to the Federal Reserve, real estate
hot zones now include 68% of all of the transacted
real estate in the nation. That’s how widespread
the speculative bubble has become.
Thus the Fed is in yet another conundrum of its own
creation. The Fed is literally frightened to go along
with the OCC and other government agencies in imposing
regulation that they know would lead to the collapse
of the speculative bubble. Because they don’t
want to be blamed for the economic consequences of
it.
Think of what a conservative estimate of 20 million
mortgage defaults means, in both human and economic
terms. Then think of the fact that the Bush regime has
taken steps to seal the entrances of the sweatshop before
setting the fire, not only with the new personal bankruptcy
law but also, quietly, they are making it harder for
average people to take money out of the country:
The blogger at Cryptogon
wrote about trying to get some money out of the United
States:
Now, which of the following do you think would involve
the most red-tape?
A. Getting a driver’s licence
B. Buying a gun
C. Setting up a corporation
D. Establishing a daytrading account to trade stocks
and bonds on margin (that is, with money you don’t
have)
E. Having the ability to send your money out of the
U.S. at will
Hmmm?? Any guesses?
E is the correct answer.
Commenting on this is the Deconsumption
blogger, who wrote:
As you may know, I work for a major financial firm,
and the last three years have seen an unprecedented
flurry of regulations being brought down on the industry.
Various reasons are given for these regulations, all
of them nominally being to "protect the public"
or to "prevent crime/terrorism"--and certainly
that is true. But at some point, like Kevin at Cryptogon.com,
you perhaps begin to wonder whether the over-arching
reason is nothing more than simply to establish greater
and greater control over individuals. And if you actually
come to realize that you want to draw the line somewhere
for yourself, you discover you may be too late....
Everyone has probably heard the
term "offshore hedge fund"--these are "investment
accounts" established outside of U.S. tax and
governmental jurisdiction, sort of like hyper-active
versions of the legendary "Swiss bank account".
The amount of money in them is unknown, but without
doubt it is in the hundreds of billions, if not trillions.
And this doesn't even address the actual 'corporate'
money which has gone into overseas investment and
holding companies, ne'er again to return....
This is the money of people
who did pay attention to the direction things were
headed, who did draw the line somewhere. This is the
so-called "smart money". And so maybe this
gives you a little bit of an insight into the future
that they are betting on....
Usually the dominant power in the world is also the
largest lender of money. Never has the dominant power
been by far the world’s largest borrower, but
this is in fact the case now. What this tells me is
not that the rules have changed, but that the United
States will not be the dominant power very soon. That
is why the smart money has already bailed. Once the
crash happens, they will be able to step in and buy
everything at pennies on the dollar. This is why they
are locking the exits and are still spreading cheap
credit around: to make the crash harder, the pain worse
for the average person in the United States.
The United States' super-elite and the corporations
think that they can maintain their position even if
the U.S. economy crashes. Remember that the inhabitants
of the Italian peninsula became much poorer as the Roman
Empire became richer during the imperial period. Rome
had the more heavily urbanized East do what it did best
(trade, make things and be more wealthy and urban) impoverishing
the bulk of the people in Italy, where they fell under
the domination of a very few, super-rich elite (the
Senatorial class). The population in the West then was
assigned to do what it did best: join the Roman legions,
be poor, and be dominated by a soon-to-be feudal elite.
Sound familiar?
Charley Reese has this:
Third
World, Here We Come
Many Americans are living in a state of delusion,
fed by the politicians who keep telling us we're the
greatest, the strongest, the freest, the wealthiest,
etc., etc., and so forth. Actually, we are heading
toward becoming a Third World country.
The difference between a First World country and
a Third World country is this: First World countries
manufacture finished goods and import raw materials;
Third World countries export raw materials and import
manufactured goods.
Why does this account for a difference in standard
of living? It's easy to explain. A skilled machinist
adds more value to a product than someone who flips
a burger with a spatula. Therefore, the machinist
can demand a higher salary. Unfortunately, our manufacturing
base is rapidly diminishing, and the villains are
none other than our own corporate executives, who
are moving production to cheap-labor countries.
The law of supply and demand works this way in regard
to labor. Countries that have a surplus of people
can bid the price of labor way down. India, China
and Central America have a surplus of people. The
alternative in those countries to taking a job with
stingy wages and no benefits is to face no job and
no income.
That was the old way of looking at economics, but
there is a new factor that makes the old economic
theory break down. That new factor is the multinational
corporation. Much of what the U.S. government classifies
as "exports" and "imports" are
really nothing more than intracorporate transfers.
Under the old theory, if, say, all
the bluejeans sold in America were manufactured in
El Salvador, then El Salvador would prosper. After
all, it would be exporting manufactured goods. Unfortunately
for El Salvador, under the new theory all of the bluejean
factories would be owned by American corporations.
Thus, the multinational corporation screws both the
people of El Salvador and the American consumer. The
Salvadoran gets a low wage, and the American consumer
pays an inflated price for a very cheaply produced
garment. The capitalists pocket the profits.
But in the meantime, what happens to the Americans?
Well, as their income is reduced by the loss of high-paying
manufacturing jobs, they will at first take out second
mortgages and max out their credit cards in a vain
attempt to maintain their standards of living. This
will eventually, however, result in bankruptcies and
foreclosures. Interest will eat them alive. Then there
will be a shrinking market for the high-priced goods
no matter where they are manufactured.
Poverty will also affect the services sector. Poor
people can't afford a doctor, a lawyer, an architect,
an interior decorator, life or medical insurance,
a nursing home or a funeral. The idea once touted
by the wet-behind-the-ears gurus in Washington that
we could easily replace manufacturing with services
is false. A consumer economy only works if the consumers
have money to spend, and they can only have money
to spend if they can find jobs that pay a decent wage.
You can see the signs of the gradual impoverishment
of America if you think about what is happening. First,
supermarkets started accepting credit cards; then
fast-food joints did. Many car dealers are now reduced
to "sign and drive" promotions - nothing
down, low monthly payments. What all of that tells
you is that more and more Americans are squeezed for
income.
All of this damage has been done under the guise
of free trade. That is a false label. It's actually
managed trade, and it's designed to facilitate the
off-shoring of American jobs. The evidence of the
failure of this policy is plain, but ignored. It has
produced nothing but huge trade deficits and turned
us into a debtor nation. The amount of U.S. dollars
held by Asian countries is about $1 trillion. We will
eventually be tenants in our own country if we don't
change course.
President George Bush likes to talk about an "ownership
society," but what he and his predecessors are
creating is a "sharecropper's society."
The only consolation Americans will have when everything
goes south is that they will have done it to themselves.
It now is becoming clear that the successor power to
the United States will not be Europe, it will be China.
The U.S. Neocons and the Israeli Likud strategists think
that there is a shot that Israel can be the successor
power if it gets control of oil and more land, but their
pursuit of this most likely will do no more than hasten
the demise of U.S. power by entangling the U.S. in expensive,
losing wars in southwest Asia. Certainly Israel is hedging
their bets by selling advanced weapons systems to China
over the objections of the United States.
Surfing the headlines, I came across this item which
has not generated much commentary:
Chinese
Oil Giant in Takeover Bid for US Corporation
By David Barboza and Andrew Ross
Sorkin
The New York Times
Thursday 23 June 2005
Shanghai - One of China's largest state-controlled
oil companies made a $18.5 billion unsolicited bid
Thursday for Unocal, signaling the first big takeover
battle by a Chinese company for an American corporation.
The bold bid, by the China National Offshore Oil
Corporation (CNOOC), may be a watershed in Chinese
corporate behavior, and it demonstrates the increasing
influence on Asia of Wall Street's bare-knuckled takeover
tactics.
The offer is also the latest symbol of China's growing
economic power and of the soaring ambitions of its
corporate giants, particularly when it comes to the
energy resources it needs desperately to continue
feeding its rapid growth.
CNOOC's bid, which comes two months after Unocal
agreed to be sold to Chevron, the American energy
giant, for $16.4 billion, is expected to incite a
potentially costly bidding war over the California-based
Unocal, a large independent oil company. CNOOC said
its offer represents a premium of about $1.5 billion
over the value of Unocal's deal with Chevron after
a $500 million breakup fee.
Moreover, the effort is likely to provoke a fierce
debate in Washington about the nation's trade policies
with China and the role of the two governments in
the growing trend of deal making between companies
in the countries.
This week, a consortium of investors led by the Haier
Group, one of China's biggest companies, moved to
acquire the Maytag Corporation, the American appliance
maker, for about $1.3 billion, surpassing a bid from
a group of American investors.
Last month, Lenovo, China's largest computer maker,
completed its $1.75 billion deal for I.B.M.'s personal
computer business, creating the world's third-largest
computer maker after Dell and Hewlett-Packard.
After years of attracting billions in foreign investment
and virtually turning itself into the world's largest
factory floor, China appears to be nurturing the growth
of its own corporate giants into beacons of capitalism.
China wants to be a player on the world stage, and
it is eager to have its own energy resources, its
own multinational corporations and its own dazzling
corporate names.
And some of China's biggest companies are now on
the hunt, trying to snap up global treasures.
|
The bubble hasn't burst, but the
air may be leaking out.
Massachusetts may be finally entering a buyer's market
for homes, experts said yesterday after new data showed
the volume of single-family house sales plunged in May
by the largest amount in nearly three years.
About 4,142 single-family homes sold last month, down
11.1 percent compared to the same period last year.
It was the second straight month in which the number
of year-over-year home sales declined in the Bay State,
the Massachusetts Association of Realtors reported.
The decline was the sharpest since August 2002, when
sales drooped 14.1 percent in year-to-year comparisons.
Prices of both homes and condominiums continued to
rise last month - by 6.2 percent for single-family dwellings
and 4.7 percent for condos. The average price for a
home was $359,900 in Massachusetts, while condos were
going for a red-hot average of $279,900, an all-time
record.
But the year-to-year percentage increases in prices
were still only in single-digit figures, something that's
become rare in Massachusetts in recent years.
Maggie Tomkiewicz, president of the Massachusetts Association
of Realtors and owner of M. Macdonald Realty, said the
figures show prices moderating - though she said it's
too soon to tell if that moderation will continue.
Karl Case, a Wellesley College
economist, said "people are really getting spooked''
by media talk of a housing bubble. "People are
getting cautious with their bids. So it's partially
a self-fulfilling prophecy.''
He said continued low interest rates, a low housing
supply and strong demand are keeping the market going.
But sooner or later those dynamics are going to change,
he said.
"I think it's in part the real McCoy,'' he added
of a possible fundamental market shift already underway.
"We're not growing the economy
very strongly. But if you mean, 'Am I anticipating a
big price decline?,' I still don't expect that to happen.
I don't think (a) crash... is likely.'' [...] |
Thousands of low-wage Wal-Mart
workers are on public assistance. Many state lawmakers
say it's time the megastore was forced to provide affordable
employee health insurance. [...]
|
The World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI),
a grouping of NGOs, intellectuals and writers opposed
to the war in Iraq, on Friday accused the United States
of causing more deaths in Iraq than ousted president
Saddam Hussein.
"With two wars and 13 years
of criminal sanctions, the United States have been responsible
for more deaths in Iraq than Saddam Hussein," Larry
Everest, a journalist, told hundreds of anti-war activists
gathered in Istanbul.
Founded in 2003, the WTI is modelled on the 1960s Russell
Tribunal, created by the British philosopher Bertrand
Russell to denounce the war in Vietnam. It has held
about 20 sessions so far in different locations around
the world.
A symbolic verdict was to be handed down on Monday
by the 14 "jurors of conscience" -- including
the militant Indian novelist Arundhati Roy, winner of
the 1997 Booker Prize for "The God of Small Things."
The tribunal has for the past two years been gathering
what it says is evidence that the war launched in March
2003 to oust Saddam was illegal, and it has also been
gathering evidence of exactions allegedly committed
by coalition troops.
Its verdict on Monday after
its final session is expected to condemn both the United
States and Britain. [...]
Some 200 non-governmental organsiations -- including
the environmentalist group Greenpeace, the anti-globalization
ATTAC and Vietnam Veterans Against the War -- as well
as a number of prominent intellectuals such as US linguist
Noam Chomsky and Egyptian sociologist Samir Amin are
involved in the WTI. |
A suicide bomber hid
explosives under watermelons in the back of a pick-up
truck which he drove into a police headquarters in northern
Iraq today,killing five people and wounding eight others,
police and hospital officials said.
The explosion partially destroyed Bab al-Toob police
station in central Mosul, 225 miles north-west of Baghdad.
The blast happened at about 6.30am local time in a
busy shopping district that includes a market.
Policeman Mohammed Hussein Ali, 30, said he witnessed
the attack in which a man driving a pickup truck with
watermelons in the back slammed into the station.
“We didn’t suspect him.
Everyday we see such cars because we’re near a
market,” Ali said.
All the roads were blocked at the time except for one
that leads to the market, he said.
Four policeman and a civilian were killed in the blast,
police Brig. Gen. Saaid al-Gibouri said. |
Israel has apologised for the
spy scandal and has promised it will take steps to ensure
no similar incident happens again.
Prime Minister Helen Clark today said she was pleased
New Zealand and Israel would now be able to resume friendly
diplomatic relations.
The relationship has been frosty since Israel refused
to apologise for what Miss Clark described as "utterly
unacceptable" behaviour surrounding two alleged
Mossad agents, Uriel Zoshe Kelman and Eli Cara, who
were arrested in March 2004 and charged with trying
to fraudulently obtain New Zealand passports.
They were convicted in July last year, then deported
last September after serving two months of their six-month
prison sentences.
Miss Clark imposed diplomatic sanctions pending an
apology from Israel, including delaying approval for
the appointment of a new Israeli ambassador.
In addition, she postponed foreign ministry consultations
and Israeli officials who wanted to visit New Zealand
had to apply for visas.
The strained relationship meant Israeli President Moshe
Katsav was not invited to extend a visit to include
New Zealand when he was in Australia in February. [...]
In a brief letter dated today,
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said Israel attached
great importance to its relationship with New Zealand
and he was pleased to reiterate its desire to continue
to develop and enhance this relationship in the future.
"In this context, we wish to express our regret
for the activities which resulted in the arrest and
conviction of two Israeli citizens in New Zealand on
criminal charges and apologise for the involvement of
Israeli citizens in such activities.
"Israel commits itself
to taking steps to prevent a recurrence of similar incidents
in the future," Mr Shalom said. [...] |
Israel's ambassador to Britain
faces fresh embarrassment after being accused of using
diplomatic influence to secure the early release of
his daughter from a six-year jail sentence for smuggling
cocaine. The appointment last summer of Zvi Heifetz,
48, a Russian-born lawyer and former newspaper tycoon,
was heavily criticised by British-based Jewish groups
who pointed to his lack of diplomatic experience and
relatively poor grasp of English.
His ambassadorship was further disrupted this spring
when he was recalled to Israel to face legal investigators
looking into a money-laundering scandal. No charges
have been brought.
Now it has emerged that his daughter, Lee, 21, was
freed early from jail in Peru, prompting accusations
of favouritism.
Miss Heifetz was convicted of smuggling 4.5kg of cocaine,
with a street value of about £250,000, from Peru
to Holland. While Mr Heifetz was being considered for
the post in London, he asked the Israeli press not to
publicise her conviction, wishing to keep it out of
the public gaze.
His daughter, however, turned herself into something
of a high-profile inmate at the Santa Monica jail in
Lima, the Peruvian capital. In September last year,
10 months into her sentence, she won a beauty contest
after appearing in high heels and a skimpy top.
Photographs which surfaced of her posing in her silver
crown and sash prompted the Israeli press to reveal
details of the conviction for the first time last week.
Miss Heifetz was released two months ago after serving
less than 18 months of her sentence, which was handed
down in May last year and then reduced to three years
in February.
"[Zvi Heifetz] has got a lot of cards stacked
up against him and his daughter is another card,"
said Jerry Lewis, senior vice president of the Board
of Deputies, Britain's influential Jewish association.
"Some say it's time for him to go."
Mr Heifetz, who flew regularly to Peru to visit his
daughter in jail, insisted he would not be driven from
office. "I will not step down," he told The
Sunday Telegraph. "Why should I? No one has asked
me to."
His daughter's release has not only affected her father's
diplomatic career but also damaged the reputation of
the Peruvian president, Alejandro Toledo, whose approval
ratings have plummeted to just 10 per cent. [...] |
Extract from 'By Way of Deception',
Ostrovsky, Victor and Hoy, Claire, St. Martin's Press,
1990
Sayanim are a unique and important part of the Mossad's
operation. Sayanim "assistants" must be 100
percent Jewish. They live abroad, and though they are
not Israeli citizens, many are reached through their
relatives in Israel. An Israeli with a relative in England,
for example, might be asked to write a letter saying
the person bearing the letter represents an organization
whose main goal is to help save Jewish people in the
diaspora. Could the British relative help in any way?
There are thousands of sayanim around the world. In
London alone, there are about 2,000 who are active,
and another 5,000 on the list. They fulfill many different
roles. A car sayan, for example, running a rental agency,
could help the Mossad rent a car without having to complete
the usual documentation. An apartment sayan would find
accommodation without raising suspicions, a bank sayan
could get you money if you needed it in the middle of
the night, a doctor sayan would treat a bullet wound
without reporting it to the police, and so on. The idea
is to have a pool of people available when needed who
can provide services but will keep quiet about them
out of loyalty to the cause. They are paid only costs.
Often the loyalty of sayanim is abused by [MOSSAD agents]
who take advantage of the available help for their own
personal use. There is no way for the sayan to check
this.
One thing you know for sure is that even if a Jewish
person knows it is the Mossad, he might not agree to
work with you, but he won't turn you in. You have at
your disposal a nonrisk recruitment system that actually
gives you a pool of millions of Jewish people to tap
from outside your own borders. It's much easier to operate
with what is available on the spot, and sayanim offer
incredible practical support everywhere. But they are
never put at risk nor are they privy to classified information.
Suppose during an operation a [MOSSAD agent] suddenly
had to come up with an electronics store as a cover.
A call to a sayan in that business could bring 50 television
sets, 200 VCRs, whatever was needed, from his warehouse
to your building, and in next to no time, you'd have
a store with $3 or $4 million worth of stock in it.
Since most Mossad activity is in Europe, it may be
preferable to have a business address in North America.
So, there are address sayanim and telephone sayanim.
If a [MOSSAD agent] has to give out an address or a
phone number, he can use the sayan's. And if the sayan
gets a letter or a phone call, he will know immediately
how to proceed. Some business sayanim have a bank of
20 operators answering phones, typing letters, faxing
messages, all a front for the Mossad. The joke is that
60 percent of the business of those telephone answering
companies in Europe comes from the Mossad. They'd fold
otherwise.
The one problem with the system is that the Mossad
does not seem to care how devastating it could be to
the status of the Jewish people in the Diaspora if it
was known. The you get if you ask is: "So what's
the worst that could happen to those Jews?' they'd all
come to Israel - Great."
[MOSSAD agents] in the stations are in charge of the
sayanim, and most active sayanim will be visited by
a [MOSSAD agent] once every three months or so, which
for the [MOSSAD agent] usually means between two and
four face- to-face meetings a day with sayanim, along
with numerous telephone conversations. The system allows
the Mossad to work with a skeleton staff. That's why,
for example, a KGB station would employ about 100 people,
while a comparable Mossad station would need only six
or seven.
People make the mistake of thinking the Mossad is at
a disadvantage by not having stations in obvious target
countries. The United States, for example, has a station
in Moscow and the Russians have stations in Washington
and New York. But Israel doesn't have a station in Damascus.
They don't understand that the Mossad regards the whole
world outside Israel as a target, including Europe and
the United States. [...]
[There is also something called] "white agents,"
individuals being recruited, either by covert or direct
means, who may or may not know they're working for Israel.
They are always non-Arabs and usually more sophisticated
in technical knowledge. The prejudice in Israel is that
Arabs don't understand technical things. It shows itself
in jokes, like the one about the man selling Arab brains
for $150 a pound and Jewish brains for $2 a pound. Asked
why the Arab brain was so expensive, he says, "Because
it's hardly been used." A widely held perception
of Arabs in Israel.
White agents are usually less risky to deal with than
"black," or Arab, agents. For one thing, Arabs
working abroad are very likely to be subjected to security
by Arab intelligence and if they catch you working with
one as a black agent, they'll want to kill you. The
worst that would happen to a Mossad agent caught working
with a white agent in France is deportation. But the
white agent himself could be charged with treason. You
do everything you can to protect him, but the main danger
is to him. If you're working with an Arab, both of you
are in danger. [...]
Victor Ostrovsky, now living in Canada, hosts a
weekly radio show called Spytalk. |
JERUSALEM -- FORMER soldiers in
the Israeli Defence Force have come forward with claims
of widespread abuses against the Palestinians amid what
they say is a growing climate of "moral corruption".
A group of 300 ex-service personnel gathered together
by the Breaking the Silence group made a series of damaging
allegations about the behaviour of soldiers.
In public testimonies, the troops
alleged the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) routinely carried
out "deterrent gunfire" into Palestinian areas
without a specific target and also used Palestinian
civilians to investigate suspected bombs and as human
shields during arrest operations.
The claims, which are beginning
to filter into the Israeli media, contrast sharply with
government assertions that the Israeli army is a "role
model for the world" because of its particularly
moral behaviour. [...]
However, while allegations of mistreatment made by
Palestinians or human rights groups are dismissed by
many Israelis as hostile, those from Israel's own soldiers,
who undergo three years of mandatory military service,
carry added weight.
What emerges from the testimonies is that far from
being aberrations, abuses of Palestinian civilians are
institutionalised and come from the highest levels of
the army. [...]
Breaking the Silence, which was launched
a year ago, recently released testimonies showing that
the Israeli army in 2001 had killed 15 Palestinian policemen
as revenge for the killing of six soldiers.
Avichay Sharon, an activist in the
group, said the incident reflected a pervasive "moral
corruption" resulting from the occupation of Palestinian
territory. "If it's sergeant at a checkpoint, he
will slap people around," said Mr Sharon.
"If it's an officer, he will give crazy rules
of engagement, if it's a brigadier-general it's giving
rules in which tanks shoot into cities. Even the public
becomes morally corrupt. What has happened here is a
war on civilians, a war on civilian life, a war against
women, children, men, against millions of people."
[...] |
NEW YORK (Reuters)
- The U.S. government on Thursday unveiled recommendations
for building safer skyscrapers based on lessons learned
from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, but
cautioned the new standards were not meant to protect
against another hijacked plane attack.
A three-year probe into the collapse of the World Trade
Center towers that killed 2,749 people produced 30 recommendations
for improved structural integrity, enhanced fire resistance
materials, better evacuation procedures and communications
systems for police and firefighters.
"Our recommendations are for a normal range of
events. We were not measuring how a high-rise building
would withstand an airplane impact," said Dr. Shyam
Sunder, lead investigator for the National Institute
of Standards and Technology's 10,000-page study. "It
is better to keep terrorists away from airplanes and
keep airplanes away from buildings."
The agency recommended fortifying and fireproofing
horizontal beams and trusses in floors and not just
the building's support columns -- something Sunder said
could save lives.
Officials also urged building owners and public officials
to evaluate existing skyscrapers to improve their safety.
Earlier this year, the agency said its probe found
that the World Trade Center fires raged out of control
because critical fireproofing was dislodged at impact
when the hijacked airliners crashed into the towers.
Asked if developers rebuilding at Ground Zero had embraced
the new recommendations, Sunder said agency officials
had one meeting with them and were hopeful leaseholder
Larry Silverstein would seek further consultation once
design plans were finalized.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology,
which is part of the U.S. Commerce Department, cannot
demand builders follow their advice, but can pressure
developers, builders and fire safety professionals to
implement its recommendations and change codes, standards
and practices.
The Freedom Tower centerpiece of the new Trade Center
complex has been sent back to the drawing board due
to police concerns that the building was placed too
close to the street, where car bombs could cause serious
damage.
Daniel Libeskind, who developed the master plan for
site, sought to counter public impatience with the rebuilding
process in an Op-Ed piece in Thursday's New York Times.
Libeskind said the new Freedom Tower plan, expected
in a few weeks, would be "the safest tower in the
world."
"Yes, work has been delayed by security concerns,
but we may make up for this with an expedited construction
schedule and a simpler, more slender design.
"Symbols matter," Libeskind wrote. "The
quality of what we achieve at Ground Zero will, after
all, define the New York skyline and give shape to our
aspirations and dreams." |
The police are watching. And in
Chicago, they're listening, too.
City officials are using new
technology that recognizes the sound of a gunshot within
a two-block radius, pinpoints the source, turns a surveillance
camera toward the shooter and places a 911 call. Officials
can then track the shooter and dispatch officers to
the scene.
Welcome to crime-fighting in the 21st century.
"Instead of just having eyes, you have the advantage
of both eyes and ears," said Bryan Baker, chief
executive officer of Safety Dynamics in Oak Brook, which
makes the systems.
After a successful pilot program,
Chicago officials have installed 30 of the devices alongside
video surveillance cameras in high-crime neighborhoods,
with 12 more on the way, and dozens more to follow,
Baker said.
The system's formal name is Smart Sensor Enabled Neural
Threat Recognition and Identification -- or SENTRI.
And the technology is not just gaining favor in Chicago.
In Los Angeles County, the sheriff's
department plans to deploy 20 units in a pilot test,
and officials in Tijuana, Mexico, recently bought 353
units, Baker said. Police in Philadelphia and San Francisco
are close to launching test programs of their own, and
New Orleans and Atlanta have also made inquiries.
Safety Dynamics also works with the U.S. Army and Navy,
developing projects that could detect a range of sounds
like diesel trucks slowing in an unexpected location
or breaking glass, Baker said. On Tuesday, a military
contractor in Iraq responsible for detecting explosive
devices contacted the company about mounting systems
on vehicles that carry U.S. military personnel.
"They want to put 20 of them on Humvees to be
able to detect gunshots," Baker said. "The
soldiers, they're getting shot at, but they don't know
where the shots are coming from."
In Chicago, police hope the gunshot detection systems
will add momentum to a technology-fueled crackdown on
guns and gang violence. The city in 2004 reduced its
homicide rate to its lowest level since 1965 and police
seized 10,000 guns -- successes that were in large part
credited to a network of "pods," or remote-controlled
cameras that can rotate 360 degrees and feed video directly
to squad-car laptops. The SENTRI systems are an addition
to that network. [...] |
NEW YORK (Reuters)
- Ailing television evangelist Billy Graham, making
what is likely his last crusade, urged
tens of thousands of people on Friday to become born-again
Christians and help cure the world's ills.
|
Spit
on me Billy! |
The 86-year-old man known as "America's Preacher"
spoke in a strong voice and asked the rapt crowd at
Flushing Meadows Corona Park to open their hearts and
minds to the teachings of the Bible.
"The greatest need in the world today is the transformation
of human nature to make us love instead of hate,"
he said in a half-hour sermon. "But Jesus said
it's possible to start life all over again. That's why
he said you must be born again.
"Man's civility is lagging behind his technological
ability. It could mean disaster and catastrophe for
the whole world," he added. "We're all sinners,
everyone of us, and a radical change is needed for all
of us."
Considered the father of American evangelism, the stately
Graham has preached to 210 million people in 185 countries
and written 24 books, many of them bestsellers.
He has been a spiritual adviser to U.S. presidents
since the 1950s. President Bush, a Methodist, has credited
Graham with inspiring him to return to Christianity
and get his life back on track after years of drifting
and excessive drinking. [...]
A native of Charlotte, North Carolina, Graham has long
been popular in rural America. But he is no stranger
to New York even though the city tends to more liberal
views and religious diversity.
His crusade in New York in 1957 is considered by many
to have sparked the modern Christian evangelical movement
and "televangelism."
The 1957 crusade was scheduled for six weeks at Madison
Square Garden but stretched to 16 weeks. More than 2
million people came to hear Graham preach. |
WASHINGTON (Reuters)
- The cover-up is over at the U.S. Justice Department.
After more than three years of being blocked by large
blue drapes, two Art Deco aluminum statues of semi-nude
figures in the building's Great Hall can be seen again.
The "Spirit of Justice" and the "Majesty
of Justice," which loom over the stage in the Great
Hall, were blocked from view by curtains installed by
the department in January 2002, when former Attorney
General John Ashcroft was in office.
The curtains were quietly removed on Friday after a
decision by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Justice
Department spokesman Kevin Madden said.
At one end of the stage is a 1930s-era female statue
representing the "Spirit of Justice." Although
she wears a toga-style garment, one breast is exposed.
At the other end of the stage, a male statue represents
the "Majesty of Justice," and has a cloth
draped by his waist.
When they were covered up, officials working for Ashcroft
-- a devout Christian -- said the move to spend about
$8,000 for curtains to cover the figures were made for
"TV aesthetics."
"The assistant attorney general for administration,
Paul Corts, made a recommendation to remove the drapes
from the Great Hall and the attorney general agreed
with the recommendation," Madden said. |
A light earthquake shook Northern
California Sunday morning.
The 4.8 magnitude quake was centered about eight miles
Southeast of Truckee, California and about 20 miles
Southwest of Reno.
In Reno, Police officers received several calls about
the quake. There were no reports of injuries or damage.
Seismologists say the earthquake was felt as far east
as Sacramento. |
JAKARTA - An intense earthquake
occurred in northeastern Indonesia on the six-month
anniversary of a massive quake and tsunamis in the country,
seismologists said.
There were no initial reports of injuries or damage.
The quake measured 5.8 on the Richter scale and occurred
at 4:20 pm (0820 GMT) 122 kilometres (76 miles) east
of Manado, the capital of North Sulawesi province, the
Indonesian meteorology and geophysics agency said.
Hong Kong's Observatory estimated the quake's intensity
at 5.5 on the Richter scale and placed the epicentre
near the Molucca Sea. [...] |
Many who survived the killer tsunami
waves recall first being smashed by the sheer force,
then sucking in mouthfuls of saltwater, mud and sand
as they gasped for air and struggled to swim.
In at least one case, dirty water taken into the lungs
was likely polluted with bacteria that moved through
the nervous system to the brain, causing paralysis to
parts of the body, according to a report in the June
23 edition of The
New England Journal of Medicine.
The condition has been dubbed "tsunami lung"
by doctors who treated such patients following the Dec.
26 tsunami. [...] |
Six months after the
horror of the Boxing Day disaster, the worst-hit families
are still struggling to survive
Six months after the Indian Ocean tsunami, a survey
by Oxfam has found that the poorest victims have benefited
the least from the massive relief effort.
The charity's study found that aid has tended to go
to businesses and landowners, exacerbating the divide
between rich and poor, with the most needy survivors
likely to spend longer periods in refugee camps, where
it is harder to find work or rebuild lives.
'Desperately poor people have been made poorer still
by the tsunami,' said Barbara Stocking, director of
Oxfam Great Britain. 'The aid effort must now increase
its emphasis on targeting poor people, marginalised
groups and women to ensure they are not excluded from
the reconstruction efforts.'
The report, Targeting Poor People, comes on the eve
of the tsunami's six-month anniversary and shows that
its impact on poor people has been compounded by a reconstruction
effort that has focused on landowners, business people
and the most high-profile cases.
Poor communities were disproportionately affected by
the wave's force because the brick houses of the rich
were more likely to survive, but poorer villages in
remote areas are nevertheless having to wait far longer
to receive help and aid.
The survey also found that the provision of housing
for poor people is presenting difficulties. Before the
tsunami, many of the most marginalised people were not
landowners - but even those who had land are now dispossessed
because vital proofs of ownership have been destroyed.
The unprecedented international response to the Boxing
Day earthquake tragedy meant that the immediate relief
effort was a great success, stopping the outbreak of
disease and providing people with basics such as shelter
and water. But the survey found marginalisation of dalits
- outcasts in India - and specific problems in Sri Lanka,
where aid has gone to businesses and landowners rather
than the landless.
The poverty gap is worst in Aceh, the Indonesian province
which was the most badly affected area and was already
impoverished by conflict before the tsunami hit. Half
a million people in Aceh are now homeless - but Oxfam
found that it is largely the wealthiest survivors who
have been able to start rebuilding their lives.
Another survey by a group of British academics at Action
Aid, who have been monitoring the delivery of aid, has
found that there is little evidence of permanent accommodation
being built for most people.
Oxfam also called for people to have more realistic
expectations about the speed of reconstruction, saying
that the media needed to recognise the scale of devastation.
'The media have a crucial role to play in keeping the
tsunami in the spotlight, applying pressure on everyone
to deliver and exposing problems when they arise. But
they also need to be realistic,' said Stocking.
'While there are problems that need to be resolved
and some things are taking too long, to expect everything
to be rebuilt within six months is unrealistic,' she
added, pointing out that rebuilding all the houses destroyed
by the tsunami would be the equivalent of rebuilding
Birmingham twice over. |
Merchants
of death come in many different guises in Africa. There
is the machete-wielding thug high on drugs and tribal
animosity who hacks people to death for no other reason
than they are different to him. There is the man-child,
old beyond his years, for whom an AK-47 assault rifle
is both a killing machine and a passport to security.
There is the jumpy militiaman at the checkpoint angrily
waving an Uzi machine-pistol and demanding dollars.
There is the policeman on the make cradling his Browning
handgun before concealing it for use later. There is
the mercenary with his rocket- propelled grenade launcher
, ready to fire it at any target provided the money
is right.
And then there is the granddaddy of them all, the dealer
who wears a sharp Savile Row suit, carries a slim briefcase
and uses a Blackberry. He wears a familiar-looking tie
(no doubt regimental); a signet ring graces his left
little finger; he is no stranger to living high on the
hog; he knows politicians and senior financiers by their
Christian names; he lives in London where the world’s
most lucrative arms deals are brokered and then factored;
and he knows his way about the Middle East and Africa
where arms are at a premium. His trade is carried out
with the utmost discretion because it involves millions
of dollars.
What he does is not illegal but it is all big business.
Over the past four years, Britain has sold more than
£1 billion worth of arms to Africa, flogging everything
from handguns through body armour to armoured vehicles
and artillery. Together with sales from the other G8
countries, this amounts to more than 80% of the world’s
arms export sales to some of the world’s poorest
and least effective countries.
In 2003 alone, the G8 countries exported arms worth
$12bn (£6.6bn) to the developing world, and six
of their number – the US, UK, France, Russia,
Germany and Italy – lead the world’s top
10 arms suppliers. The figures were confirmed last week
in a report published by the Control Arms Campaign,
which includes Oxfam, Amnesty International and the
International Action Network on Small Arms. The figures
were produced by the US Congressional Research Service
and refer to the period 1996-2003.
In advance of the Gleneagles summit, this is a source
of huge embarrassment because, according to the report’s
findings, all the G8 countries have been implicated
in “failing to prevent irresponsible arms transfers”.
Canada: There are no figures available for the period
1996-2003, but in 2003 Canada exported $556 million
of conventional weapons, including aircraft, artillery,
armoured vehicles and radar systems, to countries involved
in armed conflict or human rights abuses. These include
Saudi Arabia , the Philippines and Colombia .
France: Conventional arms sales worth $3.2bn. This
includes small arms ammunition and light weapons to
Burma and Sudan, and tear gas to Kenya. The French government
is also criticised for a lack of transparency in weapons
sales, and the report found a loophole which allowed
the sale of “leg-irons, thumb-cuffs, and electric
shock stun weapons which can easily be used as a means
of torture and ill treatment”.
Germany: Sales worth $1.8bn. Although the country has
tough export regulations for arms sales, many German
components are used in weapons systems “that could
easily be used to facilitate human rights violations
or contribute to conflict of internal repression”.
This includes components for military vehicles in Burma.
Italy: Sales worth $2.7bn to customers including Algeria,
Colombia, Eritrea, Indonesia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Nigeria,
Pakistan and Sierra Leone. A loophole in Italian law
permits the unhindered export of “non- military”
weapons, including sporting rifles, pistols and shotguns.
The police in Brazil report that the most frequently
confiscated sidearm is the Italian-made Beretta, which
accounts for 8% of the world’s gun fatalities.
Japan: According to its government, Japan “does
not export any arms whatsoever” but, like Italy,
it produces and exports non- military weapons. Among
the recipients are the Philippines. In 2001, Japan exported
small arms worth $70.3m.
Russia: Sales worth $2.62bn. Customers include Algeria
, Ethiopia and Uganda. Russia has also been in discussions
with Burma, Nigeria and North Korea over upgrading existing
military supplies. Other important markets include Sudan
and Yemen, both of which have “long-standing and
acute human rights problems”.
UK: Sales worth $4.3bn. The government claims to have
“one of the strictest and most transparent arms
export licensing systems of any country”, and
new controls next year will limit international arms
brokering activity. However, there are breaches in the
code, caused by “open licences”, which make
it possible for exporting companies to make multiple
exports without the need for further scrutiny. Moral
anomalies include the sale of 42 BAe Hawk strike aircraft
to India in 2002 at the very time that Tony Blair was
trying to avert a war between India and Pakistan.
US: The world’s leading arms supplier with sales
of $151.9bn. Although US law forbids the export of arms
to countries involved in the gross violation of human
rights, recent customers have included Colombia, Israel,
Nigeria, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia and Sri Lanka,
and in 2003 the US lifted its ban on military assistance
to Rwanda. Four US companies are the world’s leading
arms manufacturers: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop
Grumman and Raytheon.
All this comes at a price that is usually born by those
countries which can least afford to spend lavish sums
of money on arms. According to the report, 20% of the
debts owed by the world’s impoverished countries,
mostly African, come from past arms sales from G8 countries.
However, it is a win-win situation for the firms doing
the deals. All the G8 countries operate some form of
export credit system – in the UK the Export Credit
Guarantee Department underwrites arms sales and pursues
defaulters. The result is overarching misery because
many of the countries suffer from chronic poverty and
disease, and their populations struggle to survive on
a dollar a day per person.
“Each year hundreds of thousands of people are
killed, tortured, raped and displaced through the misuse
of arms,” says Irene Khan, secretary-general of
Amnesty International. “How can G8 commitments
to end poverty and injustice be taken seriously if some
of the very governments are undermining peace and stability
by deliberately approving arms transfers to repressive
regimes, regions of extreme conflict or countries that
can ill afford them?”
To its credit, the UK government consults the Department
for International Development before issuing arms licences,
but this has not prevented arms sales to countries,
such as Saudi Arabia and Colombia, which have dubious
human rights records. Neither does it do anything to
stop the illegitimate sale of arms, a market which only
exists because of the worldwide proliferation of weapons
and the impossibility of bringing illegal arms sales
under control. In this curious netherworld, arms deals
can be worth anything up to $100m, and for the international
arms dealer – or “consultant”, as
he styles himself these days – the rewards can
be worth the effort.
First, he gets his shopping list from the appropriate
minister in the country seeking new weapons . Then he
talks to various arms manufacturers and haggles a price,
usually by asking for a percentage if he is appointed
sole agent. Once everything is in place, he factors
the contract, getting the necessary licences from the
government of the supplying country and finally bribing
officials in the client country to make sure that there
are no last-minute hitches. Everyone gets a slice of
the action but the country purchasing the weapons suddenly
finds that it is one day older and deeper in debt. Even
a $50m deal can ratchet up enormous repayment rates
which quickly become unsustainable.
And because this below-the-counter trade is beyond
regulation, it is difficult to stop. Most weapons start
off as legal devices and are sold as such – governments
need to equip their security forces and there is a legitimate
need for small arms sales of this kind. The trouble
comes when the weapons are moved on, to be sold on the
open market to the highest bidder, either legally or
illegally. At the last count, there were 1250 small-arms
manufacturers operating in 90 countries. With sales
amounting to $4bn a year, the industry attracts unscrupulous
dealers who are impossible to regulate.
“Brokers carry out a wide range of activities
that are instrumental in diverting weapons from legal
to illegal markets, such as arranging a contact between
a shady customer and an unscrupulous supplier, providing
finance and transport,” says Pasi Patokallio,
chair of the UN’s 2005 Biennial Meeting of States
on Small Arms, who last week called for the eradication
of illegal small-arms sales at next month’s G8
summit. “As of now, brokers can act almost entirely
without oversight in much of the world. Controls on
legal and illicit brokering are strongly linked: unless
states regulate the first they are unable to effectively
prevent the second.”
Carried out in the shadows, or openly and legitimately
in the corridors of power, the arms trade has every
reason to be a central issue at the G8 summit . The
leaders sitting down to discuss world poverty have announced
their intention to introduce economic models and adopt
policies which address poverty reduction, but at the
same time five of their number are responsible for producing
89% of the world’s arms transfers. And there is
a link. All the G8 countries give tax breaks to arms
manufacturers and fund research and development –
at the same time, these countries provide money for
aid to developing countries and have wiped out the debts
of 18 countries under the Highly Indebted Poor Countries
initiative.
According to the Control Arms Campaign, the G8 summit
will fail in its duty if its members do not “clean
up their act by enforcing existing laws prohibiting
the export of weapons to states that violate human rights
and international humanitarian law”. What this
means is a new global arms treaty which forces all countries
to abide by the same rules and standards . This is what
the African Union wants. The Control Arms Campaign has
produced undeniable evidence that the problem needs
to be solved, and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has given
backing to the concept, but even before the summit begins
the G8 foreign ministers have failed to reach agreement
on dealing with the arms trade. It is hard to see the
Gleneagles summit reacting positively when the organisation
itself is such a major part of the problem. |
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters)
- The bodies of three young boys missing for two days
were found on Friday in the trunk of an abandoned car
in Camden, New Jersey, police said.
Police said they had no immediate information on how
the children -- Anibal Cruz, 11, Jesstin Pagan, 5, and
Daniel Agosto, 6 -- died or whether they were victims
of foul play.
Police used helicopters, boats and search dogs to comb
the area since the boys disappeared from a backyard
late on Wednesday afternoon.
The mother of one of the boys said earlier she had
been outside with the boys but went inside to check
on food cooking in the kitchen. When she came back outside,
she said, they were gone.
The abandoned car was near where the boys were last
seen, police said.
Family members held a news conference earlier on Friday
pleading for the children's safe return and offering
a $9,000 reward.
The southern New Jersey city of 80,000 people, just
across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, is America's
most crime-ridden city, ranking worst in six categories
of crimes including murders and rapes. It is also one
of the nation's poorest cities, and half its children
live in poverty.
|
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Not all dazzling
fireworks displays will be on Earth this Independence
Day. NASA hopes to shoot off its own celestial sparks
in an audacious mission that will blast a stadium-sized
hole in a comet half the size of Manhattan. It would
give astronomers their first peek at the inside of one
of these heavenly bodies.
If all goes as planned, the Deep Impact spacecraft
will release a wine barrel-sized probe on a suicide
journey, hurtling toward the comet Tempel 1 - about
80 million miles away from Earth at the time of impact.
"It's a bullet trying to hit a second bullet with
a third bullet in the right place at the right time,"
said Rick Grammier, project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena.
Scientists hope the July 4 collision will gouge a crater
in the comet's surface large enough to reveal its pristine
core and perhaps yield cosmic clues to the origin of
the solar system.
NASA's fleet of space-based observatories - including
the Hubble, Spitzer and Chandra telescopes - along with
an army of ground-based telescopes around the world
are expected to record the impact and resulting crater.
The big question is: What kind of fireworks can sky-gazers
expect to see from Earth?
Scientists do not know yet. But if the probe hits the
bull's-eye, the impact could temporarily light up the
comet as much as 40 times brighter than normal, possibly
making it visible to the naked eye in parts of the Western
Hemisphere.
"We're getting closer by the minute," Andrew
Dantzler, the director of NASA's solar system division,
said earlier this month. "I'm looking forward to
a great encounter on the Fourth of July."
If the $333 million mission is successful, Deep Impact
will be the first spacecraft to touch the surface of
a comet. In 2004, NASA's Stardust craft flew within
147 miles of Comet Wild 2 on its way back to Earth carrying
interstellar dust samples.
Scientists say Deep Impact has real science value that
will hopefully answer basic questions about the solar
system's birth.
Comets - frozen balls of dirty ice, rocks and dust
- are leftover building blocks of the solar system after
a cloud of gas and dust condensed to form the sun and
planets 4 1/2 billion years ago. As comets arc around
the sun, their surfaces heat up so that only their frozen
interiors possess original space material.
Very little is known about comets
and even less is known about their primordial cores.
What exactly will happen when Tempel 1 is hit on the
Fourth of July is anybody's guess. Scientists believe
that the impact will form a circular depression that
will eject a cone-shaped plume of debris into space.
But not to worry. NASA guarantees
that its experiment will not significantly change the
comet's orbit nor will the smash-up put the comet or
any remnants of it on a collision course with Earth.
Discovered in 1867, Tempel 1 is a short-period comet,
meaning that it moves around the sun in an elliptical
orbit between Mars and Jupiter and can be sighted every
six or so years.
The Deep Impact spacecraft shares the same name as
a 1998 Hollywood disaster movie about a comet headed
straight for Earth. NASA says that the names for the
space mission and blockbuster movie were arrived at
independentl y around the same time and by pure coincidence.
The spacecraft blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla.,
in mid-January to make its six-month, 268 million-mile
voyage. In March, scientists got a scare when test images
from one of Deep Impact's telescopes were slightly out
of focus. The problem was fixed, and a month later,
Deep Impact took its first picture of Tempel 1 from
40 million miles away, revealing a big snowball of dirty
ice and rock. Last week, scientists processed the first
images of the comet's bright core taken from 20 million
miles away, which should help the probe zero in on its
target.
The real action starts in the early morning of July
3 (Eastern time) when the spacecraft separates, releasing
an 820-pound copper probe called the "impactor"
on a one-way trip straight into the path of the comet.
During the next 22 hours, mission control at Jet Propulsion
Lab in Pasadena will steer both craft toward Tempel
1.
Two hours before the July 4 encounter, the impactor
kicks into autopilot, relying on its self-navigating
software and thrusters for the rest of the journey to
steer toward the sunlit part of the comet's nucleus
so that space and Earth-based telescopes can get the
best view.
Meanwhile, the spacecraft - with its high-resolution
camera ready - will veer out of harm's way some 5,000
miles away, as it stakes out a ringside seat for recording
the collision. The spacecraft will make its closest
fly by minutes after impact, approaching within 310
miles.
The collision is expected to occur around 1:52 a.m.
EDT when the comet, traveling through space at 6 miles
per second, runs over the impactor, which will be shooting
some of the most close-up pictures of Tempel 1 up until
its death.
Grammier has likened it to standing in the middle of
the road and being hit by a semi-truck going 23,000
mph - "you know, just bam!" The energy produced
by the crash will be like detonating nearly 5 tons of
TNT.
The high-speed collision is
expected to excavate a crater that can range anywhere
from the size of a house to a football stadium, and
from two to 14 stories deep. A spew of ice and
dust debris will likely shoot out from the newly formed
hole, possibly revealing a glimpse of the comet's core.
Scientists say if the comet is porous like a sponge,
the impact should produce a stadium-sized crater about
150 feet deep and 650 feet wide. This suggests that
the comet's inside holds some of the pristine material
of the early solar system.
But if the comet is packed like a snowball, the crater
formed would be much smaller. Another scenario is that
the comet is so porous that most of the impactor's energy
is absorbed, creating an even smaller but deep crater.
The mothership has less than 15 minutes to snap images
from the cosmic collision and resulting crater before
it's bombarded with a blizzard of debris. Scientists
expect to receive near real-time data from the impactor
and spacecraft.
"We get one chance," said Michael A'Hearn,
a professor of astronomy at the University of Maryland
and Deep Impact principal investigator. |
Charles Fort (1874-1932) was a
saint of scholarship, a garret-dweller who dedicated
his life to the collection, classification and interpretation
of anomalous events. The typical Fortean event would
be something like the downpour of frogs that concludes
Thomas Anderson's cult movie, MAGNOLIA. It is absurd,
unaccountable and cannot be fitted into the rationalist-scientific
model of the world and how it works.
Fort's remit extended to UFOs - long before they
were so named,
cryptozoology and so-called "paranormal" phenomena
like eleportation and telepathy. His purpose in drawing
attention to the cracks in everyday "reality"
was to expose scientific orthodoxy for the fraud he
believed it was. The scientific establishment's reaction
to the anomalous has always been to disregard it. By
piling up thousands of examples of the weird and peculiar,
Fort aimed to make that attitude of disregard a little
more difficult to sustain.
He was, of course, disregarded himself. He published
four books in his
lifetime, but is only now coming into his own. POLITICS
OF THE IMAGINATION should, if there is any justice in
the world, carry this process forward. Bennett argues
for Fort both as an important thinker and as a writer
of genius. He compares him to Joyce, Kafka, Orwell and
Thomas Mann. The quotations that dot the text bear him
out. They are complex, syntactically challenged, playful,
witty, visionary, astounding. I am a convert. And by
the time I was halfway though the book I was placing
an order on Amazon for Fort's Collected Works.
Bennett himself is a writer in the Fortean vein. His
writing is poetic and difficult. It rages at the boundaries
of what is sayable and thinkable as it argues for a
way of perceiving the world which does not cramp the
imagination the way the scientific paradigm does. Following
Fort, Bennett suggests that imagination is itself a
factor in the creation of the world as we experience
it. Science attempts to reduce the universe to facts
- but in so doing it has to disregard whole swathes
of what actually occurs. The paradigm that Bennett favours
is the Renaissance one - the universe of Hamlet
and King Lear - in which the inner world of the
imagination and the outer world of Nature are not distinct
but continuous, in which thought and emotion reach out
into the realm of matter and mould it into sympathetic
shapes.
This is a remarkable and important book. No-one who
reads it with an open mind is going to emerge unshaken.
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