Isidingo - The Need

ping

2008-03-25T15:12:00.002+08:00

ping

is everyone's puter down?

Whiteman microwaves baby, wife blames devil

2008-03-21T08:37:00.005+08:00

An American "father" is in troubles because he put his little baby in to the microwaves and turned it on for 10 seconds. The white father took his little daughter, slammed her on to the bed, locked her in a safes and then finally microwaved.

His wife blames his horrific actions on "the devil" and like all whitemen who get caughts doing thise terrible terrible things, he says he was insane.

The little baby was severly burned on her skin and will have half her ear amputated. She will also have to have many more operations to fix her skins. Doctors don't know if she could have developmental problem later because they don't know what damages can be inside.

Prosecutors said Mauldin and his wife, Eva, gave several excuses for how Ana was burned, including a sunburn and spilled hot liquid. So this little white girl's mommy and daddy knew what he had done and then lied about it.

What kind of woman would do that to her own child?

Zimbabweans GO HOME!

2008-03-19T13:20:00.003+08:00

Opposition leaders are calling on all Zimbabweans to go home and vote lest incumbent President Robert Mugabe wins yet again.
Millions fled the country amid its economic collapse and are now unable to vote against the president who caused it. If they don't return, Mugabe's chances of staying in power are boosted.
But few are likely to return, having sacrificed too much to get out in the first place.
An estimated 3.5 million have fled Zimbabwe to neighbouring South Africa and other countries, some risking their lives through crocodile-infested waters to make the trip illegally.
Zimbabwe opposition leaders Simba Makoni, a former finance minister, and Morgan Tsvangirai, head of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), would have strong support to oust Mugabe among those who have left.
“Many of you are in the diaspora because you have seen home turn into hell... You have the opportunity to change this,” Makoni urged in a newspaper advertisement carried by South African newspapers over the last few weeks.
“Every vote counts, so please come home and let your voice be heard.”
The country's laws bar citizens from voting outside the country. Analysts say most of the Zimbabweans who left in the last eight years blame Mugabe’s and ZANU-PF for the economic crisis, but many are in no position to make the trip.
Those who are out of the country are sending money back to their families and possibly keeping Mugabe safe from the the simmering tensions and keeping their families alive, fed, clothed and in fuel.
Meanwhile Xhinua reports that Zimbabwe's Industrial Development Corporation has so far managed to repay about US$2.8 million of the US$17.9 million owed to the Chinese Eximbank. The loan was used to fund construction of the SinoZimbabwe Cement Plant in 1997. Under the agreement IDC was supposed to make two payments in March and September of every year loan repayments were due to start in 2006.
The cement company received exchange control exemption from upfront open market sale of 25 percent of its export proceeds to the Reserve Bank in order for the IDC to meet its loan repayment and payment of technical fees to the offshore shareholder.
The Chinese bank restructured the loan two years ago making it lighter for the parastatal to service its loan.
Exim bank advanced the first loan in 1997, while the second one was dispatched to IDC in 2000. IDC holds a 35 percent stake in the cement company with the other 65 percent stake belonging to the Chinese Building and Material Company. Both companies are public entities.

Da whole worldz fulla shit

2008-03-17T00:36:00.002+08:00

Has any of yous noticed in dis whole tibet joke dat yous haven't seen any PLA "crackdown" bloody or uddawise in Tibet. Yep yep yep, da land of da peaceful munks maybe "rocked by riots" n stuff but cheez, its not da poor PLA dat's hurtin dem. Dey's doing it to da Chinese. All dose peeps everyone sez is dead is Chinese peeps being killed by da "non-violent" Tibetans. WTF? And like da whole world's blaming Beijing.
It's like dose dudes are begging for some tanks to come shoot dem down. Dey walkin tru da streets, killin an burnin an rioting like dey was blacks in sout afrika, and everyone sez Beijing must not bring violence to da party. Dat Duh Lie Lama is nuttin but a big bullshitter.
Do dey finks we born yesturday? I mean any one of yous ever try to organize like anything at all yous know how hard it is to get folk away from da telly dese days. Hey! Come out an burn a few shops...Nah, Afghanistan Idol is on da box.
So dis is all organised by da "peesfull" munks who just wanna start shit ahead of da Olympics and none of the news organizations is taking in any fact. Waddever da exiled dudes say, dis has gotta be da unbuyassed trut.
An...waddaya spect Beijing gonna do? Give dem all barley soup and wheat bread an pat em on da liddle bawld heads?
Beijing aint nevva gonna let Tibet go, dey should catch a clue man. Tibet aint nevva gonna be free cos dey gots all da water for China.

Give it up Mashi, or your boy gets it

2008-03-14T20:57:00.002+08:00

I've looked at every baby in Hong Kong, and I know I've found your little mouse.

Hong Kong Flu

2008-03-14T15:51:00.001+08:00

Death toll: 3

Spitzer - american boo hoo

2008-03-11T11:23:00.003+08:00

Why dose yanks so dam baby man? A politishun gets caught wid his dick outta his pocket an ders one big fuckarow about it. Men are men. Dats what dey do. All tru history - an dats why its called HIStory, men have had mistresses, prostitutes, cortiers, harems. Why does the yank peeps think this will be any different? they tink dat once der men gets to politics der dicks drop off? any man dats got into politics is going ta have balls man. he's gonna be full of tistosterone. Just look at Hillary Clinton whaaa ha ha ha a ha ha ha hah ah.
I know a certain Russki Gangsta who has his very own private "Bitch Pack" and no one sees Inky complaining bout that. Maybe she has her own "Fuk-man Ho pack" who knows what goes on behind dose doors.
Oh...dat would be me.

Squaring the Bear

2008-03-11T10:09:00.003+08:00

Cubby Medvedev has stepped into the increasing kitchen heat of Russian politics just at a time when the US prepares for war with Iran, the EU recognises Kosovo, Russia "recognises Abkhazia" oops, I mean at least it lifts the useless sanctions against it. Now the South Ossetians also want recognition. In effect if Russia does to Georgia what the US and EU did to Kosovo... well you can work it out.
But with all the intensity of a southern snake handling preacher, the US and EU are determined to haul Russia into their kind of democracy, still criticising the presidental elections because, from Russia's perspective, the right man won.
Russians did vote for change, not continuity. True, Cubby has promised not to depart from the general policy line taken by Putin. But he represents generational change, as the first Russian leader whose initial political experiences came after communist rule.
Like Obama, he is in his early 40s and once taught law at university.
Unlike Obama, Medvedev does have a lot of high level executive experience. He was presidential chief of staff, first deputy prime minister responsible for national projects - education, agriculture, health care and housing - all departments which have done well under his care.
He is head of Gazprom.
And, when he won, cubby stated bluntly that foreign policy is the responsibility of the president, not the prime minister.
As head of Russia's delegation to last year's World Economic Forum at Davos, he impressed Westerners. He has often made comments that indicate a more liberal tendency to that of Putin.
Medvedev has no past institutional links with Russia's intelligence services, which might work for him in winning over the west, but will mean the hawks in the Kremlin won't like this dose of medicine one little bit. He will have an internal fight on his hands that could distract him from outside politics as he tries to form his cabinet in the boiling pot of the Kremlin where hawks and doves are facing off oveer a number of crucial internal issues.
He has spoken of strengthening the rule of law and reducing state interference in the private sector, wich is something Putin was not willing to do. He preferred to see large capitalist institutions brought under government supervision.
All of this perhaps promises to boost both the development of democracy in Russia and foreign investment.
Cubby's public approval rating, at 80 per cent, is higher than Putin's and something western leaders can only fantasize about.
It would be unwise to underestimate Cubby as Putin's puppet, he knows the law. And there is every possibility that he will use the constitutional provisions to come out of the shadows and strongly assert his own authority. Technically, the president can dismiss the prime minister, so Putin is in a dangerous position.
Whatever private agreement might have been made, the formal structures are not conducive to power-sharing.
All politicians want to be the alpha dog, the unchallenged leader. Just as any real man does, and strong authoratarian and individual leadership is a tradition in Russian politics.
So we can expect to see Medvedev emerge as the dominant player, because of the constitutional powers of the presidency and electoral legitimacy.
The question is, will Putin - and undisputed Alpha Dog - be able to back down or will he try to make a comeback on his own, and what will that do for Russia if the Kremlin in torn in half?

The Teddy Bear

2008-03-09T17:09:00.003+08:00

Putin takes Medvedev to a restaurant and orders a steak. “What about the vegetable?” the waiter asks. Putin looks at Medvedev and says, “The vegetable will have steak, too.

Putin is asked if he will have Medvedev’s portrait in his office.
An angry Putin replies: “I’ll put his hide on the floor instead.”

Putin and Medvedev wake up in the Kremlin in 2023 with a vicious hangover.
Putin says: “Which of us is president and which of us is prime minister today?”
“I don’t remember,” Medvedev replies. “I could be prime minister today.”
“Then go fetch some vodka,” Putin says.

Medvedev asks Putin: 'So what about my new economic plan?'
Putin says: 'What economic plan?'
Medvedev looks confused. 'Well if you don't know about it, how would I?

And the winner is...

2008-03-09T11:39:00.003+08:00

I've trawled the soft underbelly of white society to find the worst killers, torturers, cannibals and rapists, in a bid to discover any known baby rapists. And here he is - Donald "Pee Wee" Gaskins.The SWG described his rape and sodomy of a 2-year-old girl as "the best sex I've ever had". Being the gentleman that he was, he raped her mother first and then hammered in her head before he turned on the tot. Fair enough he was not trying to cure Aids, he just did it for the fun. However, it was not a one-off thing. Gaskins killed up to 90 young people for "recreation" - in fact he couldn't remember how many he killed. He liked torture them and keep them alive as long as possible. Sometimes he would cut off bits of them while they were still alive and cook the meat up and eat it in front of his horrified victims. Sometimes he would force the victims to eat the meat too. He was extecuted in 1991. Yes, you can see how whites should be the uber race.

He also did a number of professional killings too. Heck, he just liked killing.

Doot n wat?

2008-03-08T14:12:00.004+08:00

So we used to like and liked to use da Octopus system yeah? All good. Yous can take dat lil card anywhere and you can get on da MTR and da KRC and da ferry and da 7/11 and Wellcome an Parknrob an all over da place.
Now da lil card is also in da UK an Singabore. Like really ALL OVER DA PLACE. Yous know what I'm saying.
An it's cool dat yous can even load it from da back so yous are like never short of cash. But have yous evah thought dat it can be used to track you?
Yep yep yep, each an every time yous "doot" dose lil computers can prolly track yous. So "dey" can watch...oh, da bunny got off at Central, and den he got off at Shamshipo. Den he bought hisself a diet coke at da 7/11 an a pack of Marlboro, den he went to school... yous get the pitcha?
Link dat to your credit card - cos dat's how you load da Octopus - an man yous can't move widout leaving a liddle electronic trail all over da place.
Tink about it before yous doot.

Collective Punishment and white predators

2008-03-06T09:50:00.011+08:00

It's comforting to be a white. Read some of the recent websites I have trawled from the PC to the racist and there's a good sense of moral righteousness. As a white I'm not a baby rapist or serial rapist or car hijacker. I don't belong to a gang or do drugs or any of those nasty things. I'm careful and educated and decent and moral. I'd add god fearing into it but frankly I'm not.
Just as much as most black folks are not baby rapists and murderers, gang bangers and thieves or rapists and pilferers, how much collective responsibility should we give for these obvious racial differences? Writers to this site would have us believe that it should all be collective punishment. Some blacks rape babies therefore no blacks should ever be in power. Some backs are criminals therefore no blacks deserve to vote. Some blacks take drugs...well you get the picture.
That being the yardstick, the whites don't deserve to be running the world either. We could put together a government of white miscreants.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Robert Pickton. This sophisticated white gentleman is a Canadian sexual predator thought to have killed 60 women, mutilated their bodies and fed their remains to his pigs. He gets my vote for minister of agriculture.
Here's a toast to Australian James Miller - killer of seven women aged 15 to 26. In Australia's worst serial murders, seven women aged 15 to 26, go missing in and around Adelaide over a 51-day period from Christmas 1976. Their skeletal remains are discovered in the Truro district in the Adelaide foothills several years later in what becomes known as The Mass Murders of Truro. James Miller is sentenced to life imprisonment without parole for his part in the murders. Minister of women's affairs, perhaps?
Then there's the sophisticated white gentleman Bevan von Einm, Aussie, who kidnapped a young boy and raped him to death with a beer bottle. He was linked to a club of homosexual child molesters. mmm...he should be running my country. Oh his victim was a teenager, held drugged and bound for 5 days. Youth ministry for sure.

Beverley Alitt, an English state nurse who killed four and injured five helpless children that were in her care in the hospital.

She cold bloodedly injected these children with insulin. She could be the health minister.

Sadistic and evil were the judges words used to describe this SWG, Dennis Rader, the notorious BTK serial killer. Among his multiple victims was an 11 year old little girl that he hanged from the rafters of her home and masturbated as she died. He was known for torturing his victims BTK standing for Bind, torture, kill. He had a few quirks like making one of his victims wear a human-like mask to "pretty her up" while he was torturing her. He liked to strangle his victims to make it up close and personal. I think he'd make a good minister of leisure and cultural services.
One of my personal favourites is Andrea Yates because she illustrates exactly what is wrong with Henry Makow's Stepford Wives ideal. You'll most likely remember her as the woman who one day killed all her children by drowning them in the family bath. The details of his are unclear (meaning i couldn't be bovvered to search for them) but needless to say I reckon she had just "had enough". Now put her into context of the "animals" who throw their babies on to rubbish dumps. She is white, middle class and god fearing, she was not some impoverished single mother unable to raise a child. She was not a crack whore or a victim of rape or abuse. She wasn't a terrified teenager suddenly faced with the burden of raising a child. These are the usual reasons why mums "get rid" of their children. So I'd have to make her the minister of Women's Affairs. I'd have to give her husband a position in the cabinet too because I reckon he would have to be incredibly dense not to figure that something like this was coming down the line. In fact there are quite a few of these Christian white women who bump off their children. We just don't seem to get reports of it.

Up for the Food and Environmental Hygiene job would have to be Andre Chikatilo. He was a serial sexual predator, murderer and cannibal of children in the Soviet Union. He was a good case for white, educated, middle class family man. But he managed to slaughter at least 53 children of both sexes, sometimes biting out their tongues, disemboweling them, sometimes eating parts of them, but always stabbing them in the face repeatedly.

My minister of finance would either be Ken Lay of Enron or John Gotti.

But let's hurry on to the more colourful members of the uber-race. Dean Corll, Elmer Henley and David Brooks Inc, were three white lads. Henly and Brooks were young teens, Corll was older. He liked to kidnap, torture and multilate handsome young teens. Henley and Brooks would help him by bringing his victims to him, including their childhood friends! Corll's toll was 44. Some of the boys he killed were castrated, had their penises chewed and some had been beaten or kicked to death.

Here's a lovely SWG, Albert Fish. He liked to eat children. Here's part of his confession of how he killed a 3 year old toddler. "Next day about 2 P.M., I took tools, a good heavy cat-of-nine tails. Home made. Short handle. Cut one of my belts in half, slit these halves in six strips about 8 inches long. I whipped his bare behind till the blood ran from his legs. I cut off his ears -- nose --slit his mouth from ear to ear. Gouged out his eyes. He was dead then. I stuck the knife in his belly and held my mouth to his body and drank his blood.
"I picked up four old potato sacks and gathered a pile of stones. Then I cut him up. I had a grip with me. I put his nose, ears and a few slices of his belly in the grip. Then I cut him through the middle of his body. Just below the belly button. Then through his legs about 2 inches below his behind. I put this in my grip with a lot of paper. I cut off the head -- feet -- arms-- hands and the legs below the knee. This I put in sacks weighed with stones, tied the ends and threw them into the pools of slimy water you will see all along the road going to North Beach."
Incidentally he picked on black kids because he figured out that the police wouldn't pay too much attention to them. He claimed to have killed over 100 kids.
Here are a trio of SWYW who deserve the Students of the Year award for their little murder of one of their schoolmates.
Melinda Loveless, a lesbian who was upset with Shanda Sharer who she accused of trying to steal her girlfriend.
Laurie Tackett Loveless' friend, Hope Rippey and Toni Lawrence set out one night with the idea of teaching Sharer a lesson. They kidnapped her and over seval hours, beat her, burned her clothes, beat her with a tyre iron, anally assualted her with a the tyre iron, they tried to cut her throat and to strangle her but finally ended up burning her to death. Then they went for breakfast and joked about the way the burned Sharer resembled the sausages they were eating and mimicked the awful deaththroes of a young woman who had been tortured and beaten to the point where she was unable to do anything but react like a twitching piece of meat. What lovely young ladies they are...photos to follow.

doubel head eagle

2008-03-04T02:02:00.000+08:00

Russia... Pooty...Medevil... one chicken two heads

for my own sanity

2008-02-29T16:09:00.000+08:00

this is what I did at work today

“We should carefully says a word; Speaks may drive the others, may hit sinks the others, may appreciate the others, encourages the personal maidservant, may appreciate the others.”

edited

Mashi are you writing to my newspaper?

Putin got lucky

2008-02-26T08:11:00.000+08:00

So here's da deal. You know how da gangsta always likes to say what a wonderful dude Pooty is. Even though some peeps say he is a child molesting crook and stuff like that.

But yous all know dat if yous look at him really close yous can see he's not da hot pants everyone tinks he is. See I gots no room to complain 'bout democracy. Don need it, don want it. And it's cool dat da gangsta and his mates also don need it don want it.

See yous all tink dat da gangsta in chief made all dat money for Russia like some Harry Putter outa nuttin.

In fact Bushi is da one dat give him da money on a plate.

See if Bushi hadn't fought in Iraq ant pisst off da world, den dere would be no oil crisis. All would be normal. But now der is a oil crises and dat's where Russia is making all its cash.

It is also Bushi that decides to fuck over da arms treaty wid the Russkis and dat makes Pooty some hero as he can make all da noise about it.

But lets see what he does in Kosovo, den we can know da real man.

Whos stuff is dat?

2008-02-24T11:12:00.000+08:00

Beijing is being hit up by da Zimbabwe peeps for 42 million for farm equipment. What happened man? Did they break da last lost? Did they lose it? Did dose nasty whites take it wid dem?

I wanna know dis because if dis is our new farm den dats okay but if its not why are we giving dem money for nuttin? yeah okay okay we can afford it. But we also need to be looking after our own peeps, you know what I mean.

Dis sounds like we Uncle Sam... okay maybe Ah Gao. Hucheng Gao inked dis little deal in Harare. Of course da glorious people's republic will be giving over da stuff too...all dat Chinese made farming equipmunt to dose poor african farmers... so dat when our Chinese landlords get dere they will already know how to use dat stuff.

85 trucks of food

2008-02-24T10:28:00.000+08:00

Dear Family and Friends,
Headline news on the propaganda mill one day this week was that three trillion Zimbabwe dollars had been raised for President Mugabe's 84th birthday party. I thought about what you could do with that much money but before I could work it out I had to check in a dictionary just exactly how much a trillion was.

My sources say that a billion is a thousand million and a trillion is a million million. This means that for the President's birthday celebration being held in Beitbridge, there is a pile of money which on paper is a 3 followed by 12 zeroes. Even in Zimbabwe's collapsed state, 3 trillion dollars is a huge amount of money. It didn't take long before my kitchen table was littered with bits of scrap paper covered with handwritten sums.
Why didn't I just use a calculator you might ask. That's simple, there are
too many digits and so this sum had to be done by hand.

The calculations took some time to perform and the results were shocking.
For three trillion dollars I could buy three million kilograms of maize meal at the present Grain Marketing Board price of a million dollars a kg.
This, of course, is assuming that the GMB had any maize meal for sale,which they say they haven't. Allowing half a kg of maize meal per person, 6 million Zimbabweans, half the population of the country, could have had one decent meal with the President's birthday party money. A friend who is far more mathematically minded than me, and had more patience with all those lines of zeroes, worked the figures out a different way. 85 trucks, each holding 35 tonnes of maize, could have been filled with the three trillion dollars of birthday party money.

Moving away from the dollars, I went in search of ingredients usually found at a birthday party. Three major supermarket chains which have outlets all over the country were visited. The cake came first on my list but there was no flour, sugar, margarine, baking powder, milk or eggs in any of the supermarkets. Puddings and sweet treats were next on my list but there was no jelly, instant pudding, custard, biscuits or tarts to buy.
Sandwiches, I thought, they are good for parties but there was no bread or rolls, no
spread, cheese, cold meats or sandwich fillings to buy. What about a hot meal I thought but there was no maize meal, rice, pasta or potatoes and so that idea was also a non starter.

The shopping list and the search for ingredients was a pointless exercise but at least it was easier than trying to understand the latest official inflation figures. In January 2008 inflation was one hundred thousand, five hundred and eighty percent - it is the stuff of hellish nightmares and the reason why we parents can't sleep at night.

Trying to understand three trillion dollars was utterly absurd for an ordinary mum in a collapsed country. Hardest of all though was knowing that half the population of the country could have gone to bed tonight on a full stomach if the birthday party had been sacrificed for the suffering,hungry people of a country whose 84 year old ruler has been in power for almost 28 years.
Until next time, thanks for reading,
love cathy.
Copyright cathy
buckle 23 February 2008.
www.cathybuckle.com My books: "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears" are
available in South Africa from: books@clarkesbooks.co.za and in the UK from:
orders@africabookcentre.com

Kosovo rematch?

2008-02-22T21:01:00.000+08:00

What do you think?

UK Busted!

2008-02-22T15:51:00.000+08:00

After years of denial, Britain has finally admitted that American planes were allowed to land on British territory to refuel during rendition flights in 2002. British Prime Minister David Milliband said this week that "contrary to earlier explicit assurances," the CIA had confirmed using an American-operated airfield on the British Territory of Diego Garcia.
Apparently the CIA "forgot" that they had done this when a few years ago the British public was up in arms over the idea.
How hard can it be to remember where these flights landed? Surely someone must be in charge.
As Tony Blair has stepped out of politics in the UK and gone into running the world, and Dubya's days are numbered, it seems a lot of skeletons will be crawling out of the collective cupboards.
Tomorrow, according to the UK Telegraph, a former SAS soldier will spill the beans on how the SAS detained and interrogated rendered prisoners. If what he says proves to be true it will unmask the Blair government for the lying lap dogs that everyone already knows they are. There is no way on earth Blair could claim he knew nothing if what Ben Griffin said is true.

Although the CIA attributed its earlier denials to a “flawed records search,” the admission could add to the animosity the government here has aroused over its alliance with the United States in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Miliband’s statement prompted protests from members of Parliament of various parties and from British-based human rights groups that have contended for years that Britain was a knowing or unknowing partner in the American use of rendition flights. The term gained much of its notoriety from the American practice after Sept. 11, 2001, of transporting terrorism suspects secretly to other countries for interrogation.
The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, informed British officials of the 2002 flights last week during a visit to London. He issued a statement Thursday to the agency’s staff in Washington saying a fresh review of agency records had shown that the CIA had erred in assuring Britain previously that “there had been no rendition flights involving their soil or airspace” since the Sept. 11 attacks.
Miliband said that he had received a personal apology from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and that she had told him she shared his “deep regret” about the earlier false denials.
Hayden said in his statement, “That information, supplied in good faith, turned out to be wrong.”
He added: “That we found this mistake ourselves, and that we brought it to the attention of the British government, in no way changes or excuses the reality that we were in the wrong. An important part of intelligence work, inherently urgent, complex and uncertain, is to take responsibility for errors and to learn from them.”
Miliband told the House of Commons he was “very sorry indeed” to have to revise the Labor government’s repeated assurances that it knew of no American rendition flights involving British airspace or airfields. The British assurances, in 2005, 2006 and 2007, were given, among others, by Tony Blair, who said in 2005 as prime minister that he was “not prepared to believe” that the Americans had broken faith with Britain over the issue.
“The House and its members will be deeply disappointed at this news, and about its late emergence,” Miliband said.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown, visiting Brussels, Belgium, spoke in similar terms. “It is unfortunate that this was not known, and it was unfortunate it happened without us knowing that it had happened,” he said.

Mongol

2008-02-19T23:40:00.000+08:00

Okay Wolf boys, people of the horse, whatever you like to imagine yourselfs to be thisdays. This is just for you... your mighty GK... in Russian.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=getW8YH3nS0

Movie looks good but pure fantasy, not so? Why are Mongol chicks so hot and you boys so mugly?

We don care bout Africa

2008-02-18T00:16:00.000+08:00

So if it not Aussies telling us off for hunting dolphins n wales, it's da yankees who are telling us off for...forr? For what man?
Da reason we so late on talking 'bout this is cos no one in China even knew da jew had had his lil screaming match bout Darfur. heh heh heee. Da western press was all over da story like flies on shit but at da end of da day all dem merican atletes'll be here looking for gold on baat baat ling baat. An no one in china cares la!
Yous really tink we should give up our money in Sudan? Time to cash your reality check mista Spielburger. Take a look at China itself. We make lil kiddies work in firework factories till deys can no longer stand. One kiddie can put 36,000 fuses in fire crackers in one day. Yeah we make our kiddies pay wid explosive. We send men down mines an let em get kilt. We make our mental peoples work in kilns to make brick and sic dogs on dem when dey try to run away. We take lil ole ladies an put em in prison camps an kil dem too and den sell der kidneys an eyes and even der skin, dude. An you wan da Chinese to care 'bout what's going on in Africa?
CATCH DA CLUE, JEW. WE DON GIVE A FUCK ABOUT AFRICA.
We don care who kilt who der as long as dey gives us da money, and da gold, and da diamonds, and da oil. We don care how dey get kilt. We don care what dey eat or if dey eat. We don care if dey got disease. We don even care if dey got water. We don even care if we care.
What da fuck you wan us to do? You wan us to send troops? We done dat! You wan us to go bomb dem? Don be fucking nuts man. We go bomb someone and den da yankees come bom us. 'sides we got no planes to be doing dat kind a shit.
Trut is dis. China needs all China can get. We still got TB an polio, dude. POLIO. We got no water and now we in shit street 'bout da food too. We got 1.3 billion fucking mouths to feed. We need one motherfucking farm for dat. Africa is dat farm.
So we will do wat we need to do to get what we need to get, and yous can shut up or leave.

We are ready

2008-02-17T17:05:00.000+08:00

Dear Family and Friends,
Now is not the time to give up! This is the rallying call in Zimbabwe and it's getting louder by the day as elections draw ever closer.
This week I met a friend who had been transferred to a town nearly 400km away. We had not seen each other since August last year and those times, just six months ago, seem like they were from another era. It is hard to believe that back in August inflation had just topped one thousand percent and that now it's sixty six thousand percent. It's a percentage so high that none of us can comprehend what it really means. When I last saw my friend in August, a litre of milk was thirty thousand dollars; six months later it's five million dollars! My friend isn't surviving on his salary anymore. He can't afford for his wife and child to live with him and he survives only thanks to the subsidies given him by his parents who have a plot in the rural areas. My friend's entire monthly salary is sufficient to buy him a two litre bottle of cooking oil and one loaf of bread. It costs more than his entire monthly salary to travel the 400km back to the town he once lived in, to see his friends and relations.

As is the norm in Zimbabwe today we talked about plans for survival. The usual question that was uppermost in the conversation was: Wouldn't it be better to leave the country? Go somewhere that has food in the shops, water in the taps, regular electricity and where even a menial job earns enough for you to pay your rent and buy a month's supply of basic foodstuffs.

Despite all the hardships, we agreed that now was not the time to be making decisions and that we must wait till after the elections. Everyone is just trying to hold on until after the elections.
Hope for real change is now less than six weeks away.
It is undoubtedly going to be a gruelling six weeks. Since the Africa Cup of Nations football games ended, so too did the supply of electricity and many residential areas are back to fifteen hour a day power cuts. With these come water cuts and with 66 thousand percent inflation come prices that change at least once a day and businesses that are closed more than they are open.

There is a feeling of real anticipation in the air of Zimbabwe and whether it is a protest vote or a ballot for a new democratic order, we stand ready to rebuild our battered land. Despite all the negatives attached to every aspect of the coming elections, we are ready.
Until next week, thanks for reading,
love cathy.
Copyright cathy buckle 16 Feb 2008
www.cathybuckle.com
My books: "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears" are available in South Africa
from: books@clarkesbooks.co.za and in the UK from: orders@africabookcentre.com
To subscribe/unsubscribe to this newsletter, please write to:cbuckle@mango.zw

Indo-ruso arms co-operation

2008-02-17T16:12:00.000+08:00

Senior officials from the Indian Air Force and the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) will be in Russia today to talk about the fifth generation fighter aircraft that the two countries are planning to design, develop and eventually produce.
The Indian team is led by the Air Force's Assistant Chief of the Air Staff (Plans) Air Vice Marshal N.V. Tyagi, and includes officials from HAL's Aircraft Upgrades Research and Development Centre, Nashik.
Under an intergovernmental agreement signed last October the two countries will jointly design, develop, and manufacture the fifth generation multi-role jet fighter. Work on the aircraft, already under design by Russian aeronautics giant Sukhoi, is to be modelled along the lines of the successful Brahmos missile joint venture. The prototype is expected to take to the skies in 2009 and be commissioned by 2015.
The fighter will be used by both countries, and be sold for export. The Russian version of the plane will have a Russian engine and the Indian version is likely to have a western engine.
The aircraft is likely to be operational around 2015.

Preved, Medved!

2008-02-17T13:19:00.000+08:00

Comparing the run up to Russia's elections to the noise and hoopla of the American brawl, makes them seem much more dignified. This is because there is no urgent need for a "change" in the Kremlin. People in Russia don't want that. They want a steady leadership that will not allow the country to slide into chaos.

However, listening to Dimitry Medvedev speak it seems as if he is desperate to appease the west by making all the right sounds - protection of personal property, freedom of press, protection of personal freedom, tax cuts to stimulate certain areas of growth, an increase in pensions to keep up with inflation. Many of these policies seem out of step with Putin's, and he is at pains to point out that he is not Putin's man.
The heir apparent to Russia's throne, Dimitry Anatolyvitch Medvedev, said on Friday that his programme would include reforming the tax system to support economic growth. He will also work towards making the country's judiciary independent from government control and he promised to further clean up the executive and legislative branches of power.
Speaking in Krasnoyarsk, Medvedev, 42, repeated his earlier promises to protect personal freedoms and an independant media.
In contrast to the more forthright Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, he did not mention the military or Russia's rising military powers.
On the issue of the United States, Medvedev talked about co-operation and did not mention a huge gap between the countries' ideals on issues such as the US missile defence shield, and Kosovo.
Putin, on the other hand, was making his intentions crystal clear.
"We consider that the one-sided support of a declaration of independence by Kosovo is not moral or right," he said at a press briefing on Thursday. "Are you not ashamed in Europe of the double standards you are applying to settle the problem?"
On the missile issue he said; "Who asked the Czechs or the Poles if they want to have these systems on their land. Who asked them? In my understanding these countries are not thrilled about these systems".
Responding to the accusations of a power struggle with Poland he pointed out that Russia has not taken a single action to worsen ties with Poland. “We provide Poland with all of the energy resources it needs, without any limitations, without any cut offs... and we do not plan to cut anything off in the future."
But he did say that Russia had asked the parties of the missile crisis to stop, and no one had taken note. He once agained warned that Russia would repond "appropriately" if the missiles were deployed.
It seems that Dima Anatolyovitch is a much softer, more diplomatic man than Putin. Is this perhaps because of his age, and does he have what it takes to manage a country like Russia?
As he said last month "We need to understand clearly: If we want to become a civilized state, first of all we need to become a lawful one."

Killing dolphins n whales is our business

2008-02-12T11:10:00.000+08:00

Now the Aussies are telling us what to do, wit some US backing of course. Oh boo hoo hoo don't kill da whales, we wuvs them. Yous can't kilt da dolphins, dey's soooo cuuuuuute.
Back off man!
We don go to your home and tell yous what to eat. What makes yous think yous can come to my home an tell me what to eat? Dat's just cultural biggotry man. We don take der animals dat are endagered. So why's CNN doing DOLPHIN SLAUGHTER IN JAPAN, and why's Aussies photographing whaling ships in international waters and making a big fuss about it.
I got some photos dey might like to see, like on how dey slaughter der cows. Cos cows, man, dey're good people. Yous ever spend time wid cows? Dey's got family and emotions and intelligence. Yous think killing a cow is A okay but yous are gonna tell us we can't kill dolphins?
How would yous feel if da Japanese and da Chinese came an screamed an yelled outside your slaughter houses? Yous'd all be like "What the fuck???" "Get the fuck outta Australia man!"
So dat's how I feel.

Eating at the banquet of paranoia

2008-02-09T10:13:00.000+08:00

Just for fun, as business has become almost non-existant this week in Asia, I decided to trawl sites on the net, like Rense and The Ugly Truth and such. It struck me that Americans love to feel threatened. I know not all of them are reading this crap - and believe me it is crap, but those who do all nod along like daisies in chorus to ideas of a "new world order" the jewish, CIA, FBI, communist, banker, feminist, reptilian alien uber government that wants to destory "The American Way of Life".
The mention of one of these people gets Noiks frothing at the mouth. He calls himself Dr Henry Makow. I think he should be "Dr Wacko". Here is a man - and I use the term very loosely - who only ever does it in the missionary position. He believes that homosexuals and feminists are destroying the world and are definitely "out to get" good, wholesome, decent Americans. THEY have emasculated men, he rages. Feminism is a communist cult.
I think he believes this because under communism women were liberated, with the idea of equality for all. In the Soviet Union women had fought alongside men to protect Rodinya against the facists. Many of them died. Today women still serve in the armed forces in key positions and across all disciplines.
The difference here is that Russian men have not allowed themselves to be emasculated. They have not surrendered and slunk off into the corner to whine about it and blame "THEM". They don't mind working with women and welcome them for their ability and competence. Russian men don't fear that women will take their jobs, they get their jobs on their abilities, not through some strange job reservation project.
We know these people frown on equal rights for women and gays, Wakow actually puts up Muslims as being the people to follow. I am not joking.
The writer of the blog Ugly Truth has this to say . . . "He points to the resources the NWO forces have devoted to painting Muslim women as oppressed by their male-dominated societies: ‘Look at all the attention paid to the burkha and headscarf while failing to show the low rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock children in the Middle East.’ he says. ‘They see the success they have achieved in the West by confusing the roles of women and men and are repeating it in the present ‘war on terror’."

Reckless use of a hosepipe???

2008-02-04T14:10:00.000+08:00

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?art_id=vn20080202091033680C139920

SA's Eskom power company has come up with some innovative ways of blaming it power shortages on the people, says IOL. You have to wonder who thought this lot up and why that intelligence was not put to use on working out how to provide MORE power.

I**q is da four letter word

2008-02-03T11:58:00.000+08:00

Innit amazing dat de Amerikans all say dey against da Iraqi war. Dat dey all wanna pull out and stuff. I wonder why dat is. Maybe because deys losing. Maybe because loads of Amerkian boys n girls are getting wounded and kilt. Who knows. It's not becos dey tink it's wrong.
But yous can see now dat dey don really mean it. Dey just wana make all da right noises for da peeps overseas.
If dey did mean it, den folks like Ron Paul and Denis Kunich would be front runners in da political olympics. But deys aren't even close.
Dey whine about da oil prices but check out da companies' profits, dudes. Dat is just wicked.
But let da Russians wanna put up da prices of gas going to like da Ukraine and den der's trouble. Da American support da stuff dey whine about. And dat dey shout about democracy to everyone means dat dey should take more responsibility for what dey vote for.

Let Kenya burn

2008-02-01T14:20:00.000+08:00

Watching the news about Kenya makes me wonder about the past and the future of Africa. I remember when the whites were in control and bright-eyed blacks begged for help to secure a better future for themselves. They pointed to the slums and poverty and unfair laws and said all that would change under their government.
Well, it has not. The biggest slum in Africa is in Kenya, a country that has had independence for a long time. It seems they are no closer to solving their issues than they were under British rule. They have not moved forwards in the way they would if they were run by whites.
Looking at Asia and Africa, Asia has suffered worse wars more recently. It too was used as a chessboard for proxy war by the US. Yet most of it is recovering well. Africa, however has not.
Now a disagreement over polls in Kenya has the country falling apart. The African Union has its hands in its pockets. Sooner or later those affected by this meltdown will come to the west with outstretched hands.
Let them burn, I say. Che was right when he pulled out.
People communist and capitalist died for Africa, and all to no avail. The only thing that could help the continent would be further colonisation. It is patently obvious that it is unnable to get itself out of the mess and will not managed to do that for decades to come.

Romney, McCain debate, other two just watch

2008-02-01T00:41:00.000+08:00

It's almost da mighty SOOPER TOOSDAY when loads of yankees will head to da caucases. Kind of like a stampede by sedated sheeps. So I watches da CNN debate lead by der weepy Andersen Cooper. All da candidates for de GOP were dere. Romney, Huckabee, McCain and Paul. But Romney an McCain got to really take up most of da time wid der lil bitch fights. Let us face it. Cooper can't organise a tea party for school children. Da only man in the whole room talking any sense was the guy wid the funny eyebrows, Ron Paul. But no one talked to him, Cooper kept da focus all on er udda dudes. Looks like da war will just go on.

Kosovo: Russia will retalliate

2008-01-30T12:05:00.000+08:00

This week Washington heads to the United Nations Security Council's debate on Kosovo, with most of Europe alongside it, pressing for independence. What does a little state in Europe have to do with the US? Nothing as usual. But there they are.
Most of the EU is with them on this idea that there should be an Islamic state right in the middle. Because, of course, that is what the world needs - more Islamic states.
What has changed this time from the last Kosovo crisis is that Russia is far more powerful. Also, Serbia has an ally in China, and strangely, South Africa. What does South Africa have to do with this? Only they know.
Serbia has flipped the tables on the EU. For the first time, a European country outside the EU is not clamoring to be let in, but, on the contrary, making demands of its own, insisting Europe continue negotiations over Kosovo until an agreeable solution to all parties is met. They see their neighbours who bowed and scraped to be let in the EU that now have crumbling infrastructure and lower wages than the Serbs do and wonder what all the fuss is about. Basically Serbia doesn't need to export its unemployment to Europe.
They believe, quite rightly, that to use force to separate the 90% ethnic Muslim area from Serbia would destabalise the Balkans. They are not alone in thinking this way as they are supported by Spain, Cyprus, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Greece.
One can only assume that this hacking away at Serbian, and de facto Russian territory is the west's punishment and a further move to strangle Russia. It is only natural that Russia will protect its neighbours and people who are of the same ethnic origin. It has learned in its scraps with Chechnya and its war with Afghanistan, what can happen when you have these broken-down Muslim states along your borders.
Kosovo has ties to the global jihad movement and organised crime. It's a Taleban state waiting to happen. Why, in their wildest dreams, would the UKUS think Serbia and Russia would welcome this?
Not everyone in the US is gagging at the idea too. Former Navy admiral and Joint Chiefs of Staff adviser James Lyons recognises the danger of giving Muslim fundamentalists a launchpad for their attacks in a key strategic area. Its independence, he noted, will lead to a "train wreck" in relations with Russia.
Former U.S. secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger has cautioned against carving Kosovo away from Serbia for the repercussions it would have on future global policy.
All of this has had the effect of driving Serbia into the arms of Russia, and that is just what Moscow wants. Moscow is talking to Belgrade about putting a Russian military base in Serbia. Belgrade wants to sell its oil to Gazprom.
The problem is that the UKUS have promised Kosovo independance. A promise many say should never have been made.
Russia's Kosovo negotiator, Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko, has clearly warned the EU and the US against forcing the issue. Let us not forget what happened to Europe when there was trouble in Serbia before.
"The result of unilateral recognition of independence could be a situation close to a humanitarian catastrophe," he said. This is not a threat, Serb refugees would flow into northern Kosovo and Serbia.
Russia is looking for a chance to flex it's military muscle. Missile tests and Naval drills are all well and good but that is like having a ferrari at your home and only driving it around the garden.
Putin has sent clear signals to the west that Russia is ready too stand again.
How far is the EU and US willing to push this?

Glen Beck, Capitalist facsist

2008-01-29T09:16:00.001+08:00

Glen Beck from CNN sez dat Stalin killed something like 160 million people. Maybe he sez, like da yankees like to do, "he kiled his OWN people". It doesn't matter me. What does matter me is dat he sez dis when he talks of Hillary Clinton's idea of pulling back American bizniz, like she's a commie facist. So his idea is that commies kilt loads of people. I tink da gangsta Tzar Valerie is not shooting his mouth about dis. My question to Mr Beck is how many people has America killed to stay capitalist?
And I aint no commie neither but his words are unfair. When I tink about China, I can see how many people were killed by da commies. But also I did my history and so I know dat many more people died before da commies come in, and loads are being killed now.

US pre war Anthrax attacks were inside job

2008-01-27T14:40:00.001+08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdamOzrfZI0

So who's paying for it?

Gone to the Diaspora

2008-01-27T09:37:00.000+08:00

Dear Family and Friends,
Only once in the last seven days has there been electricity, water and telephone services at the same time and that was for less than two hours one afternoon. In the past week electricity has been off for 18 hours a day, every day, and water cuts last for days at a time. This is now the norm of life as everything is approaching, or has already reached, a state of complete collapse. All attempts at normal day to day functioning are virtually impossible.
This week I had a first hand encounter with the precarious state of Zimbabwe's health delivery system and it made me very aware of why we have the lowest life expectancy in the world. My body had been aching for two days and I was racked with fever: dripping with sweat one minute and shaking with uncontrollable cold the next. I knew I needed help and was fortunate to be able to see a doctor - this is a luxury most Zimbabweans rarely have. The first sign of abnormality came after the blood test when the doctor apologised for not providing a plaster - something so simple but
now unobtainable. It was an insignificant inconvenience. Far worse lay ahead. There are four pharmacies in the town and none had the common drug that had been prescribed to treat malaria. An alternative drug was proposed but none of the hemists had this one either. Malaria: so common, so deadly, no drugs for treatment - this was chilling.
My next stop was the hospital, by now I was weak and disorientated and had only got this far thanks to the help of a friend with a car - another rare luxury unavailable to most. Only four patients occupied beds: few can afford the hundreds of millions of dollars needed per night. The hospital also didn't have the prescribed malaria drug, or the alternative that I needed. Finally a course of injections was made available but only if I could pay cash upfront for the vials so the hospital could immediately try and replace them. How many others before me had been down this road and not been so lucky?
Over the next five days I visited the hospital every morning for another precious injection. For three days and nights the hospital had no running water at all. When the doctor did his rounds, nurses trickled water from a jug over his hands after he had examined each patient. A local farmer had helped and provided a bowser of water but this was being carried in, by the bucket load, to flush toilets, clean human waste, wash dishes and equipment and sponge down patients. The hospital, like the rest of the town, was only getting electricity in the middle of the night; water was being boiled outside on open wood fires. A generator was dealing with emergencies, the cost of running it phenomenal.

Every day I felt so privileged to be receiving treatment from nurses working under such appalling conditions. They have left home without a hot meal or cup of tea in the morning. They will return home to carry water from wells, cook outside on open fires and prepare for another day of much the same. And yet always they were polite, professional, helpful and gentle.
On my last day I asked the nurse when she would have time off - I seemed to have seen her there every day. She told me they were short staffed because so many nurses had gone. "Gone to the Diaspora," she said.
"To Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, South Africa, Botswana - anywhere." I asked the nurse what made her stay and she said it was very hard to go. As hard as it to stay.

Until next time, thanks for reading,
love cathy.
Copyright cathy buckle 26 January 2008 www.cathybuckle.com My books:
"African Tears" and "Beyond Tears" are available in South Africa from:
books@clarkesbooks.co.za and in the UK from:
orders@africabookcentre.com
To subscribe/unsubscribe to this newsletter, please write to:
cbuckle@mango.zw

SA Government shoots itself in the foot

2008-01-26T07:22:00.000+08:00

The gold price is soaring but South Africa's gold mines are in the red because of an uncertain electricity supply. The country's three biggest gold mines and the world's largest platinum mine had to suspend production because of power cuts. The disruption sent the metals to new highs on overseas markets, but left the mines in a shambles and investors fled.

Nato provokes Russia

2008-01-24T19:36:00.000+08:00

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has raised the issue of Nato's expansion in Europe which is aimed at building up its military potential around Russian borders rather than strengthening European security, he said on Wednesday.
Russia has been concerned by Nato's eastward expansion and US plans to deploy missile defense elements in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Lavrov told reporters in Moscow, "We are certain that the geographical expansion of Nato cannot be justified by security concerns."
"But it is clear that Nato is building up its military potential around our borders and its new members continue to increase their defence budgets," he said.
Lavrov said Nato's "open-door" policy was inherited from the Cold War and would only antagonize relations with Russia.
"This policy cannot resolve any security problems," he said.
Nato has backed recent bids by Russia's former Soviet allies, Georgia and Ukraine, to join the alliance, a move that has angered Moscow.
The Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that the country would have to take "appropriate measures" if Ukraine were to join Nato.

Who will bounce the highest?

2008-01-23T09:50:00.000+08:00

It has been on the horizon for a long time. The US cannot afford to tolerate the trade imbalance with China. The only way that seems plausible to stop that is to crash the markets and bring the yuan down. Beijing has refused to do Washington's bidding on this, and rightly so. It needs to keep its own market as stable as possible or slide into social chaos.
The Federal Reserve seems to be panicked with its declaration of the largest cut in two decades causing further panic on Wall Street, and Hong Kong, India, Germany, Brazil and Japan taking a hit. London seemed able to stop the slide after a wild day's trading that flipped between gains and losses, but ended in a gain.
Russia's RTS crashed through the 2,000 mark.
Asia has been badly hit in this crisis alongside the subprime disaster.
It seems Bush's idea of a money toss failed and the Fed's cut caused more panic at first, though things may slow a little today.
Out of all of this financial storm the best result will be seen in the emerging markets which are somewhat immune to Washington's trantrums. Europe and the US, however, will not see too much of a recovery as the market is awash with money, but investors will not be too quick to invest in the slower recovery of economic giants. Rather, those with any sense will see the greater gains to be had in markets in Eastern Europe, South America, Chin, Vietnam, India and Africa. So at the end of the day, the US will lose again.
The fed cut seems to show a sign that the authorities are in panic and whether or not this is true does not matter. The result will matter. Those short-term high risk traders will stampede. The question remains as to who will suffer the greatest losses.
My money is on the US.
This is because other markets are financially sound. They have the depth in industry and growth to support them. America does not. When they put their hands into the basket it will be empty, while other countries, like Ireland and the UAE will still come up with a fist full of opportunities for growth.
It will be interesting to note where the big US players have hidden their funds to wait out the crisis. The soaring gold price would be some indicator.
Bush has taken a terrible gamble. He cannot be sure that the big boys will bring their money back into the US at the end of the day. After all, when the US can offer minimal growth, GEMs can offer double, tripple or up to 10 times that amount. Why would any investor want to ride that tired old horse.
This idea gives Russia a lot of confidence, as it will to China and India. They know the money is waiting, it has been sucked out of the US and once the fear eases it will flood into new markets.
This makes the investor in the line to score and score big.
Industrial giants like Gazprom have taken a hit and are now undervalued. The energy giant has shed around 7% in this crisis. But when it rebounds you can be sure that it will pick up much more than that as investors go after the bouncers.

Bush's ponzi scheme

2008-01-20T18:26:00.000+08:00

It's clear that US President George W Bush no longer cares about the US, if he ever did. His decision to put cash into the economy must have his ecnomists cringing.
How can anyone in their right mind believe that the goverment, who is in debt so badly that it would need each household in the entire country to pay $400,000 right now, would fling money back into the black hole?
For some reason he believes this will stimulate the economy, though just how is unclear. People are meant to spend that money on goods which will then provide jobs. Well, that's the song he's singing. And yes it will provide jobs - in China, India or Qatar. It will do nothing for the average Americans. It might put a few extra bucks into the hands of importers. But once the US$500 is spent what will happen?
How much money can the crippled government toss at the people? How much longer can it fool the people before they wake up to the fact that they have spent their children's future, and in fact their own future.
Bush's last budget was so false it should have been called a "fudgit".
According to the General Accounting Office of the United States, the US government needs US$53 TRILLION to fulfill its obligations. Every business in the captialist worlds has to include future liabilities on its balance. But the US government does not do that.
And the gulliable, stupid US people do not realise it.
On the other side of the world the opposite is happening in China. Chinese don't spend their money, they save it or invest it, and that is worrying Beijing as their economy overheats. Call it the remnants of Communism, but unless the Chinese cut loose and put down the cash they'll be facing higher food prices and rents.
It is also astonishing that sitting with such a large deficit, the goverment does not improve its social services. Although a lot of money is being spent on infrastructure it is lacking in quality and the high accident rate in the coal mines also needs to be addressed.
Meanwhile the fastest growing economy in the world today seems to be Qatar. It seems the balance of power has shifted out of the hands of the west.

Game Over for US

2008-01-19T20:53:00.000+08:00

So da bubble's finally burst for the US. You can tell how bad things are when you walk into like Armani and da only peoples buying is like da gangsta - euro trash, or my homies. It looks like da Americans have finally learned that ya can't be living on credit for all yours life and dat it's a freaking stupid thing to mortgage ya house to pay for the plastic man. It seems dat's what's been happening. Talk about a country sucking up da happy gas.
Now dat China officialy owns America here are a few tings dat should happen.
First off, put your children in school and make em freaking learn ta read and write. A bit of geography, some history and some dress sense would be good too.
Second, ban American idol and execute Simon Scowl, Poora Abdullah and Randy Jackoff in Tienaman scare.
Third, expense accounts have all been cancelled and yous are now gonna work like da brothers to get anywhere.
Fourth, learn to use chopsticks, it's two pieces of wood, how freaking hard can it be?
Fifth, Da screechy Star Spangled Banner is gone. Yous all better learn Arise! All who refuse to be slaves! in Chinese, dudes.
Altogether now Qilái! Búyuàn zuò núlì de rénmen ...

Is this thing on?

2008-01-18T14:27:00.001+08:00

ahem

tap tap tap

can anyone hear me?

The British Council and Litvinenko

2008-01-17T12:47:00.000+08:00

Okay I will tell you what I know and what I think about the whole British Council row.
Firstly, it is possible that this is linked to the Litvinenko death but it is much more than just that. The British seem to be confused by the idea that Russia will not hand over Lugovoi for trial. There is no confusion. Russia's constitution does not allow it to do this. Therefore, Russia cannot hand over anyone for trial in Britain. The second point to this, that I have written before, is why should Russia hand over Lugovoi when Britain does not hand over Boris Berezofsky, wanted for corruption, and Akmad Zakayef, wanted on charges of terrorism. Do they think because they are Britain that they can do one thing and expect Russia to do another?
On to the British Council itself. It has long had problems in Russia, and obviously now the Kremlin is no longer prepared to turn blind eyes. The BC offers English classes to the public which are far more expensive than those of other schools. And yet it is classified as a charity. Being classified as a charity means it pays no income tax. This is hardly fair on all the other English schools that abide by the tax laws. If it does not want to pay the tax then it must fall under the cover of diplomatic missions - for Britain, consulates general. If the BC chooses diplomatic cover then it had no right to operate in St Petersburg of Yekaterinburg.
When Downing Street says that the council is operating legally under international law it is fantasizing. There is a hole in the agreements between the government and council which still has to be closed. This has not happened because of the Litvinenko row. So that is why the foreign affairs ministry of Russia has pointed to Litvinenko as the cause, not because it is any "tit for tat" response.
There is an opinion that the British Council activity “does not fully comply with the Russian government resolution “On the Establishment and Terms of Operation of Foreign Cultural and Information Centers on the Territory of the Russian Federation”,” Chairman of the Federation Council International Affairs Committee Mikhail Margelov said.
For instance, the resolution compels the centres to receive permission from Russian authorities before opening. The Vienna Consular Convention says that all entities enjoying privileges and immunities must respect laws and rules of the host state, he said.
Chairman of the State Duma International Affairs Committee Konstantin Kosachyov said: “The United Kingdom is the only member state of the European Union and, probably, the only foreign partner of Russia, which is trying to thrust its own lifestyle on us and establish the rules, which may be convenient for the UK but have not been discussed and are hardly equally convenient for us,” he said.

Other EU member countries that have their cultural offices in Russia, including Germany, France, Italy and Spain, “are acting in a totally different way. They fully comply with Russian laws and intergovernmental agreements,” Kosachyov said.

“We will insist that the UK must bring the British Council activity in correspondence with international laws, EU traditions and, what is the most important, Russian laws,” he said.
Furthermore it is an open secret that the BC is used as a front for MI6. Not only that but there have been reports of Russian students using the council's tuition being recruited for the British Intelligence services. This is again, not something new and only to be expected under such circumstance.
However, the UK's blatant meddling in the last Russian election in its bid to unseat Putin did not go down well with citizens. It's fanatical acceptance and promotion of "the other Russia" calling it a "democratic opposition movement" was duly noted. The fact that pre-election the British Ambassador Anthony S. Brenton spoke at one of this party's meetings was also duly noted, as was his call to crack down on freedom of expression when young Russians held an anti-facist rally outside his home. The ambassador is supposed to be a diplomat not a political campaigner. How many people in the UK would welcome Russian interference in their elections?
The British media failed to note that about 95% of the members of "the other Russia" are ultranationalists and cranks from the National Bolshevik Party. Its portrayal of Garry Kasparov as "the voice of the citizens" was a joke. The man could not even scrape together enough support to make a run for the presidency.
The constant rumblings against Putin taking a third term are again, complete double standards. When Kazakhstan’s Nursultan Nazarbayev did that, and held deeply flawed elections in May which saw only a single party represented, the American Embassy described it as “a good move for democracy”.
The constant whining about Russian elections being "rigged" is nothing more than lies. Putin enjoys a huge popularity among Russian people and the results of the elections went just the way they said it would. They voted as expected.
It is interesting to note the UK's double standards when it comes to Russia. It will whine about "human rights abuses" in Russia but has no voice when it comes to the suffering of ethnic Russians in Estonia and Latvia.
Britain stands isolated from the rest of the world in this row, as it did in the Litvinenko row. Its childish petulance has distanced it from Europe and is a testimony to its own diplomatic failure to deal with the confident and stronger Russia. When Russia was struggling under the Yeltsin puppet government the UKUS kicked it like a cur and that will not be forgotten so easily by Russia's people or government. The UK bends at the knee to Syria and Iran and even to its own Islamic extremists at home. It harbours Russian criminals.
The reality is that Britian is now paying for its ridiculously hostile policies to Russia and its dog-like devotion to the United States. If Britain was more co-operative with Europe and Russia this kind of thing would not be happening.
Russia has been provoked and humiliated at every turn with Britain. The UK continues to poke the bear, and if you poke the bear you will get the claws. How can the UK be so arrogant as to say that it will continue operating these councils in the face of their illegality?

Western press hysterical as US sinks

2008-01-12T23:51:00.001+08:00

Russia has been taking a beating in the western press yet again with half-baked innuendos and wild speculation that has very little basis in fact. The reason for this is becoming crystal clear as America sinks into a quagmire of debt and consumer confidence in the great mouse house reaches an all-time low.
Unemployment, home foreclosures and soaring fuel costs converged to stifle consumer spending in the States in the fourth quarter. The merchants are worried and their bankers are worried. It seems that despite their best efforts, Americans are learning to save, or perhaps they are being forced to.
Across the Pacific, Russia is booming and so the US lackey media unleash their dogs on Moscow. Gazprom looks at Nigeria for gas, the west trembles, they told us last week. Quite why the west should tremble was not clear as Russia has been a reliable supplier of European gas that was hijacked by the US-backed Ukraine for its own political ends. The fact that Kiev was actually pirating the gas sent to Europe seems to have escaped most western journalists. Oh me, oh my, now Gazprom looks to capitalise on its strengths and instead of any of the blacksuits suggesting it might be because it's one of the most successful companies in the world under its present leadership, it is slated.
Now Gazprom ОАО Газпром, the biggest extractor of natural gas in the world, looks to Ireland for fresh markets, standing poised to gain 15 percent of the booming little country's commercial sector. The US can't have that and once again raise the spectre of cut gas supplies and speculation of dominance through gas control.
Last June, GM&T received a licence from the Irish government to operate in its gas market, most of which is controlled by state gas supplier Bord Gais, with which it would have to compete for market prices.
Gazprom has been an interesting company to watch as it emerged as a global player.
With the acquisition of Sibneft, Gazprom secured oil fields with 133 billion barrels in reserve, which means it only ranks behind (the whole of) Saudi Arabia and also the whole of Iran in oil production.
With a market capitalisation expected to have reached US$1 trillion in 2007, Gazprom is in fact the world's largest corporation.
During the Yeltsin years the bandits like Berezhofsky tried to capitalise on their control of the company that was since plagued by other scandals. It was President Vladimir Putin who cracked down on management and forced it to get its house in order.
It did and now the company owns media and banking along with a whole host of other subsidiaries. The only thing holding it back is its decision not to directly sell shares to foreigners, although we have been promised that this will happen soon.
While Ireland, with a population of 4 million, is small potatoes for Gazprom, it is an extension of the company's expansion plans in Britain.
Gazprom has previously said it wants to take its share of the British market to 10 per cent, or 10 billion cubic metres (bcm) per year, up from the current 4 bcm.
Western analysts are saying Ireland's location at the far end of the European gas supply network from Russia makes it most vulnerable should Gazprom halt supplies. Russian analysts are saying... Russia wants to halt gas supplies as much as Saudi Arabia want to stop selling oil.

Chinese tour Africa

2008-01-08T17:47:00.000+08:00

China's Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi was in South Africa yesterday on the first stop of a four-nation tour through Africa. He encouraged the nations of the resource-rich continent to strengthen their ties with Beijing to boost their development and claim a stake in the global economy.
Mr Yang said African countries dealing with China would benefit in trade and investment.
“If you view development against the backdrop of globalisation, I think there is all the more reason for China and African countries to work better to support each other,” Mr Yang told a press conference in Pretoria.
Yang's tour of Africa is the latest in a number by high ranking officials searching for resources, particularly fuel for their energy-hungry economy. Russia's state-owned energy giant Gazprom has just inked a deal with Nigeria for gas. The growing presence of communist and former communist powers in Africa has rattled the west
Mr Yang met President Thabo Mbeki where the pair made promises to maintain ties and conduct high level talks.
The issue of Sudan was also mentioned and Mr Yang said aftewards that South Africa and China agreed on their approach to the problem.
Mr Yang will also visit the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and Ethiopia.
China, the world’s fourth-largest economy is the second-largest energy user/ Beijing has handed out billions of US dollars in oil-backed loans and other credit to several African nations, with few strings attached, unlike financing from Western banks and international agencies.

Malawi pays HIV positive civil servants extra

2008-01-07T22:38:00.000+08:00

Malawi, with a population of around 13 million people is one of the African countries hardest hit by HIV/Aids. Now Health Minister Marjorie Ngaunje has announced that in a bid to improve the nutrition of civil servants, they will earn an extra 5,000 Malawi Kwacha a month.
She urged those civil servants who are HIV positive to register for the scheme. This would mean an extra US$35 for the civil servants, who usually earn around US$200 a month, Reuters reports.
One has to wonder at the motive behind this move. Is it to identify HIV sufferers by enticing them to give up their anonymity?
Malawi is a buckling under the weight of the pandemic which is killing 10 people an hour, according to official estimates. Surely this money that would go to thousands of civil servants would be better spent in retro viral medicines for those who needed it? Probably not. It is not likely that Malawians are getting the medicines they need, and a boost to nutrition would be one of the ways of promoting health.

Communism vs The World II

2008-01-05T08:40:00.000+08:00

In Communism's ideal the government governs the people and protects them from the greed of the businessmen. In Capitalism's ideal, businessmen and greed rule and the left-over crumbs may fall down to the poverty-stricken below. Communism believes that basically man needs to be protected from this avarice and Capitalism forces it upon him. Communism says "man can be better" and Capitalism says "man's a greedy bugger anyway so let's play to that".
Many western societies today enjoy the benefits of this Communist ideal and indeed so does Hong Kong. No, it's not the form of Maoist doctrine that was used on the mainland China but a very watered-down version of social responsibility in certain areas of its governance, as provided by the British.
Hong Kong is the land of millionaires. Yet it provides for those who cannot provide for themselves with a comprehensive social insurance scheme, free education up to a certain level, and heavily subsidised housing.
Where it does not protect people is in the market place, and this needs to be urgently addressed. There needs to be an enforced minimum wage to stop the exploitation of workers.
Unions need to be organised and recognised and rules set for the process of collective bargaining. This is not happening because of the government's reluctance to interfere in business.
This means that people are working 10 to 12 hours, seven days a week for a pittance while the captains of industry buy private planes for themselves and their friends.
This reluctance to interfere in business is taking its toll on Hongkonger's health too, in that while pollutant spewing factories have been hounded out of the territory there is nothing to stop them springing up across the border and poisoning our air. And I really mean poisoning our air. People with young children are leaving Hong Kong for cleaner air.
This is hurting the territory as there is a huge talent gap in the service industry sector. But I expect it won't be long until that gap is filled by enterprising locals. One thing I really admire about Chinese is their ability to look and learn. There is no doubt that this century will be China's.
What struck me about the differences between the communist system and that of capitalism was my recent trip to India. Tsarval always says to me that when I look at systems I need to see where they started, and where they are now. So India started out colonised and inherited a capitalistic system. Driving through the streets of New Delhi is an amazing experience but at the same time it is horrifying. The streets are filled with stray animals and beggars. This is the detritus of human society. Children are sold into slavery, girls into sexual slavery and marriage where they are passed around from husband to male in laws because of the shortage of men.
There is an interesting parallel here between China's one child policy and India's attempts to curb its rampant population growth. But that deserves a posting all on its own.
It is abundantly clear that the imperialist society of Britain left little in the way of social infrastructure for the Indians, more or less like in South Africa, only with much worse effect. This in turn means no education and the continuation of practices such as the primitive caste system. Under a communist government this caste system would have been destroyed. The inequality between men and women would have been wiped out to a large degree. How much potential and how many lives have been wasted because of the simple greed and arrogance of a capitalist ideal?

Communism vs the World

2008-01-04T10:39:00.000+08:00

There are two kinds of Communism, there is the ideal and then there is the reality. And sadly the two are not the same thing. There is Xtreme Communism and Communism lite, which we call socialism. It is often that people who denigrate Communism only seem to look at the X-Communism and hold up its faults as a reason to fight against the whole system and eradicate it from the earth. But they conveniently forget the follies of capitalism and royalism and turn a blind eye to the misery those two systems have wrought. They also fail to look at communist countries in context of the unbridled interference of capitalist countries, as I pointed out in the Cuban story.
The ideal of communism is equality of all men. Underpinning this is the idea of "to each according to his needs, from each according to his abilities".
This is a noble and worthy ideal which scares many capitalists for the simple reason that they are greedy. They don't like the idea of a janitor earning as much as a doctor. Why? Simply because they want material things, better cars, bigger televisions, they are greedy. They will argue that if the doctor has no better pay than the janitor, no one would aspire to being a doctor. This is simply not true. (I haven't seen any video games out there that allows you to "be the janitor" and for good reason.) And, in fact, I would argue is exactly the opposite of the reality. Few people, when choosing a career, decide on that career based on what they are going to earn. They choose a path that follows their interests.
But for a vast majority of people, not all the paths are open - in the capitalist world where education is for the rich. How can a peasant farmer become an astronaut in a capitalist society? Simple answer is he can't, not unless he's some outrageous genius who gets lucky and gets noticed. So those people who really want to become doctors, who have the dedication and interest and drive to become doctors, will do so in a communist society because they have access to the education. These are the people who will put their patient before their bank balance, and that is the kind of doctor I would prefer to go to. And it is the same for any career. In a communist society people have far more choice becase access to each career path is more accessible. They also have far more choice because they know that whatever career path they choose they will still be able to have wife and children and raise a family, along with getting a reasonable standard of living, healthcare and education.

Russian/Indian missile venture buys new plant

2008-01-02T19:40:00.000+08:00

BrahMos, the Russian Indian joint venture as bought a manufacturing plant in Kerala to double production of its supersonic cruise missiles. The new acquisition will bring its production to 50 a year.
The BrahMos (PJ-10) missile is made by BrahMos Aerospace which was established in 1998 and supplies land and sea missiles to the Indian Army and Navy. It is a derivative of the Russian Yakhont and is made in conjunction with NPO Mashinostroyenia
The Brahmos missile itself has a range of 300km and can carry a conventional warhead with a topweight of 660lbs. It can cruise at ultra-low altitude and at a speed of Mach 2.8 is three times faster than the US Tomahawk. This is what distinguishes it from other cruise missiles. It is unmatched in speed which imparts a greater strike-power. It is highly accurate and has an onboard computer guidance system. It also has stealth capabilities.
While at the moment it only carries conventional warheads it can carry nuclear warheads and will be an intergral part of India's nuclear weapons' delivery system.

Russia's year

2007-12-30T20:33:00.001+08:00

There can be no doubt about it that 2007 was Russia's year. And that is all thanks to President Vladimir Putin.
Time's "Person of the Year" shaped events inside Rodina and shored up his authority with a popularity other leaders can only dream of. Outside her borders he stood up to the hegemony of the United States and United Kingdom, even while being pilloried in the press over the Litvinenko case and being portrayed as a despotic maniac.
Putin kicked off the year by tackling the US in Munich in February, being one of the few credited world leaders to accuse them of attempting to dominate the world. Since then he has revised arms treaties, renewed Russia's long-range nuclear patrols, sent the Russian Navy out into Mediterranean and warned that Moscow might target European cities with its nukes.
Finally Russia has a leader strong enough to stand up to the west - and someone who has the heavy artillery to do so. And it sorely needed a confrontation. What the western media fail to report is the reasons. As mentioned previously, the US-funded Nato is expanding when it should be reducing - there is no longer a threat to Europe and yet Russia is surrounded by a ring of steel. In 2001 the US unilaterally decided to do away with the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Nato states have refused to apply a conventional arms limitation pact and Nato patrols continue to menace Russia's borders. For what?
But the biggest threat to Russia has been the west's insistence that it will deploy the US missile defence system in eastern Europe. This despite Moscow's offer of co-operation with Washington on the shield, an offer that has so far been greeted very coldly. What are we supposed to think? They tell us it is not aimed at us, and then will not let us be a part of it. Luckily Russia has its own missiles that can break through that shield, a few of which Putin had test-fired this year as no uncertain warning to Bush not to tread on Russia.
On other international issues too, Russia stood firm, the most important of these being Iran, refusing to give in to the US's hysteria. After years of apparently fruitless diplomacy on Iran, 2007 ended with Russia making its first deliveries of nuclear fuel needed to power the Islamic state’s first nuclear power station.
The other big issue is Kosovo which has been under UN administration since 1999, when NATO air strikes drove Serbian and Yogoslav security forces from the province. Serbia has offered broad autonomy to Kosovo Albanians along with many elements of statehood, but has insisted on retaining sovereignty over the territory. Kosovo Albanians insist on complete independence. that is just what we don't need, - another Muslim state. Last week, Western members of the UNSC said further negotiation on Kosovo's plan to declare independence would be pointless after talks failed to sway Russia. West's intent to recognize Kosovo is a dangerous precedent for international law and international security. By rejecting further UN talks, Western powers are effectively transferring responsibility for the resolution of the Kosovo problem to the European Union and Nato. What Nato is effectively doing is breaking apart one of Russia's few allies in the region to insert into the area a destabalised region where Muslim extremists and their great friends Al-Qaeda can take hold and cause mischief.
In July, Russia was awarded the 2014 winter Olympic games after an intensive lobbying campaign and the country was overjoyed by its football team’s 11th-hour qualification for the Euro 2008 football competition.
Putin was named Time's Person of the year, with a caveat, naturally...“is a clear-eyed recognition of the world as it is and of the most powerful individuals and forces shaping that world -- for better or for worse,” Time said in a note accompanying its cover story.
Putin won a landslide victory for his party at the polls, despite heavy interference from the West which saw at least one ambassador asked to leave. Again it is interesting to note the uncontrolled bitching from the West even though Russia fulfilled all of their standards on an election.
This year started with intense speculation over whether Putin, 55, would leave office. The business world was nervous. Could we get another Yeltsin? In spring Putin calmed the markets by saying that he would retain influence, and by autumn we knew he would still be there, guiding the ship, the markets relaxed and rebounded.
United Russia's crushing victory at the polls sent a clear message to the west. Russians LIKE Putin, they WANT him to stay on.

Cuba and the struggle for independence

2007-12-27T13:16:00.000+08:00

It was interesting to see the white right racists on AC bashing Castro and Cuba for what is essentially an American-made problem. Naturally when I commented to this effect, those comments were discreetly ignored - nothing should upset the volk, you see, and it just blows their tiny minds that Communism might not be the devil's work.
They, like many others who were brainwashed, cannot accept or understand that all Communism has ever done is to support the downtrodden with the aim of giving them a better share of the economic and social pie. Of course exactly these sentiments sparked the French revolution but because the French didn't call themselves Communists, and the Americans modelled themselves on the French, this little factoid is often forgotten.
Now the results of the French and Russian revolutions were vastly different, of that there can be no doubt. However, how far would the French revolution have got if it had had to suffer the interference of the capitalist governments like America?
Cuba, that little island off the coast of America, is like catnip to the lynx that is the US. It just cannot leave it alone. Author William Blum sums it up very eloquently in his essays on the American empire (Freeing the World to Death). "Cubans often complain about the many hardships imposed upon their life by the US blockade. Defenders of the US policy reply that this is just an excuse for Cuba's own failings, that the hardships are the inevitable result of a socialist economic system. It makes me think of this analogy. Someone is constantly pounding your head with a hammer and you keep getting headaches. You complain to the wielder of the hammer and demand that he stop hitting you. The guy says to you: The headaches are due to the way you live; blaming me is just an excuse you make up to shirt your own responsibility. You then say to him: Well why don't you stop hitting me on the head with your hammer so we can see if the headaches go away?"
Fidel Castro came to power in early 1959 and by March that year the US National Security Council was talking about how to bring him down. It is a testament to the man's tenacity and spirit, and the spirit of those under him, that this has failed. What followed his rise to power has been almost 50 years of error attacks, bombings, full-scale military invasions, sanctions, embargoes, blockades, isolation and assassination.
In 1998 the US state department listed Cuba as being among the nations that "sponsors terrorism". A lovely little cliche that is often swallowed hook line and sinker by the sleepy public. Cuba is bad because it sponsors terrorists. This, according to the State Department is because they "harbour" terrorists. There is a subtle difference between "harbour" and "sponsor". But the US itself is guilty of harbouring Cuban terrorists who have committed hundreds of acts of terror both in the US and in Cuba. Now this is not me calling them terrorists, the United States FBI has labelled these people as such. The Cuban exiles are in fact one of the most prolific and long-running terrorist groups in the world. During 1997 they carried out a spate of hotel bombing in Havana, directed from Miami.
We're shocked by instances of terrorists hijacking vehicles. But when Cuban exiles hijack planes and boats as they have done, at gunpoint, knife point and with the use of physical violence - including at least one murder, the mighty US turns a blind eye.
And because this posting is focused on Cuba I will refrain from mentioning the other myriad terrorists the US harbours.
Now playing by America's own rules regarding the Presidential Decision Directive 39, signed by Bill Clinton in 1995 which gives America the right to take "appropriate measures" against states that harbour terrorists the US wants to punish, and allows them to return suspects by force, surely it is Cuba's right to bomb the US.
Isn't it ironic that the very things the American public were terrified China or the USSR would do to them, their very own agents were doing to the unsuspecting public of Communist countries? A CIA official, who helped direct worldwide sabotage efforts against Cuba, revealed that "there was lots of sugar being sent out from Cuba, and we were putting a lot of contaminants in it."
Then in 1962 a Canadian agricultural technician advising the Cuban government was paid US$5,000 by an American military agent to infect Cuban turkeys with Newcastle disease. Some 8,000 birds subsequently died.
In The Fish Is Red: The Story Behind The Secret War Against Castro, written by Warren Hinckle and William Turner, a participant in the project says that during 1969 and 1970 the US developed techniques that would interfere with the weather and used such techniques over Cuba to cause torrential rains over non-agricultural areas and leave the sugar crops dry. These downpours caused killer flash floods in some areas.
In 1971 the CIA gave Cuban exiles the virus which causes African swine fever. Six weeks later an outbreak of the disease caused the slaughter of half a million pigs to prevent an epidemic. This was the first ever outbreak in the Western hemisphere and termed the most alarming event of the year by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation.
In 1981 it was dengue hemorrhagic fever. This is transmitted by mosquitoes and infected over 300,000 Cubans. Appeals to the US for insecticides fell on deaf ears. This was the first ever outbreak of this disease in the Americas - it usually comes from Southeast Asia. It was reported from the United States that the US army had loosed swarms of specially-bred mosquitoes in Georgia to see if they could be used as weapons in biological warfare. It was also reported by Science magazine that dengue fever was being studied as a potential weapon. But the most damming evidence was the testimony of a Cuban exile in New York in 1984 that in 1980 a ship had travelled from Florida with a "mission to carry some germs to introduce them to Cuba to be used against the Soviets and against the Cuban economy".
As recently as 1996 a Cuban pilot observed an American plane releasing a mist of some substance about seven times. The Cuban asked the American if he was in trouble. He said no. A few months later the first signs of Thrips Palmi, a plant eating insect never before seen in Cuba, showed up. This insect is very resistant to insecticides and severely damages all crops. The Cubans questioned the US on the American pilot's behaviour. The US claimed the pilot had merely "released smoke" to let the Cuban pilot know where he was. This is not an FAA practice. Cuba took the case to the United Nations where it was dropped for technical reasons.

HUMAN RIGHTS

Oh me, oh my, do Cuba's enemies love to bring up the terrible "human rights" record of the island nation. It's interesting to note that during the time of the revolution in Cuba and the subsequent almost 50 years of its rule, there have been the most heinous crimes committed on the American mainland - torture, murder, kidnapping, government-supported death squads, people disappearing. The worst offenders have been Brazil, Argentina, Honduras, Haiti, Chile, Guatemala, Peru, Uruguay, Colombia and Mexico. Cuba has never been charged with any of these. Not even by her worst enemies. Yet on the on the other hand Cuba's education and health care - according to US President Bill Clinton - works better in Cuba than in most other countries in the world. All Cubans, without distinction as to gender, race, political beliefs or religion, have equal access to education, free of charge, at every level of education, including university.Perhaps it would be better if people were starving and dying through lack of care.

THE EMBARGO

The economic, commercial and financial embargo has been in place since February 7, 1962.
It means that US companies and their foreign subsidiaries may not trade with Cuba.
As most medical corporations are owned by US companies, this means that people in Cuba die because they cannot get the right medicine or equipment to save them. Children with cancer die because they cannot get the drugs as US transnationals have bought the pharmaceutical laboratories that formerly had contracts with Cuba.
Even donations do not get through. the Disarm Education Fund, an NGO that was prohibited from sending a donation of medicine to Cuba until two antibiotics were removed from the shipment; the antibiotics in question, Cipro and Doxycyclin, are used, among other things, for treating patients infected with anthrax. The U.S. authorities alleged that the decision was based on reasons of national security.
One of the highest priority targets in the US government's economic war on Cuba has been the food sector. Generating the conditions that lead to hunger and despair qualifies, by virtue of international law, as a crime of genocide and a violation of the Cuban people's right to food.
The blockade measures affect imports of food products destined for the Cuban population, both for direct consumption in the home and social consumption in schools, old age homes, hospitals and day-care centers. They have a direct impact on the people's nutritional levels and consequently on their health.
The prohibitions imposed by the U.S. government on the export of food products to the United States led to 114 million dollars in losses for Cuba in the year 2002 alone.
It's interesting to note that in this issue was brought before the UN in 1992. The vote in favour of dropping the embargo was 59 - those opposed 2, Israel and the US. In 1993 88 were in favour, those opposed 4 - Israel, US, Albania (?) and Paraguay. In 1994, 101 were in favour, two against - Israel, US. In 1995 117 were in favour and 3 were against, US, Israel, Uzbekistan (?).
1996 138 in favour, the same three opposed. 1997 143 in favour the same three opposed. 1998 Uzbekistan changed its mind and joined the 157 in favour of dropping the embargo, only the US and Israel opposed. And people will tell you with a straight face that the US doesn't run the United Nations.

We will never know what Cuba was capable of. Because it was strangled at birth, just as Winston Churchill urged of all Communist nations. Critics of the Cuban government claim that it sees the CIA behind all of its problems. In truth the CIA is behind perhaps half of them. The problem is that the Cuban government can't tell which half.

New GPS system to rival America's

2007-12-27T13:01:00.000+08:00

The rocket that lifted off from Baikonur's cosmodrome on Christmas Day was carrying the final three satellites for Russians military-run GLONASS mapping system that is the rival to America's GPS. Glonass covers most of Russia at the moment and by the end of next year will cover the globe.
Work on Glonass (Global Naviation Satellite System) began in the USSR around the 1970's to maintain direction and navigational services for the Soviet forces. When the economy collapsed in the 1990s the system was shelved and dusted off when current President Vladimir Putin began military spending.
Glonass will be used alongside the US GPS system which can be withheld from civilians at the will of Washington, as was seen in Iraq.
The Russian system will offer alternative satellite navigation systems for those countries that fall outside Washington's ambit of friendship.

Merry Christmas Mr Bush

2007-12-25T20:16:00.000+08:00

The Russian submarine Tula in the northern Barents Sea successfully test-fired a new ballistic missile on Tuesday, hitting a target on the Kamchatka peninsula полуо́стров Камча́тка minutes later, the Russian Ministry of Defence said.
“The launch was carried out from the submarine platform in line with military training. The rocket warhead arrived down range at the designated time,” the ministry said in a statement.
The RSM-54, or Sineva, is a hybrid ballistic missile that in its final stages becomes a modified cruise missile. In this guise, the warhead cannot be targeted by anti-missile systems that rely on a ballistic trajectory for their calculations.
Tuesday’s launch is the second such test-firing of the Sineva in less than a week. The first was fired from the Tula on December 17.
Speaking after the last successful launch, Colonel-General Nikolai Solovtsov, Commander of the Strategic Missile Forces, said Russia could thwart any anti-missile system in the foreseeable future.
“The military hardware now on our weapons, and those that will appear in the next few years, will enable our missiles to outperform any anti-missile system, including future systems,” General Solovtsov said.
The launch was conducted from an underwater position as part of training to test the readiness of the marine strategic nuclear forces
The test missile was also fired from the Tula Ту́ла (K114), one of seven Delfin-class submarines which is capable of carrying 16 intercontinental rockets and torpedoes. The Tula submarine, built in 1987, has been modernized at the Zvyozdochka (Starlet) Engineering Plant in Severodvinsk in the Arkhangelsk Region.

The submarine is equipped with 16 intercontinental RSM-54 missiles and torpedoes. Tula submarines form the mainstay of the strategic nuclear fleet. Seven of the series were built between 1984 and 1992.
The RSM-54 is a three-stage liquid-propellant ballistic missile with a range of 8,300km. The warhead consists of four to ten multiple, independently targeted re-entry vehicles (MIRVs) each rated at 100 kt. The missile uses stellar inertial guidance to provide a circular error probable (CEP) of 500 m. The CEP value is a measure of the accuracy of strike on the target and is the radius of the circle within which half the strikes will impact.

Navy's stocking stuffed with new missile

2007-12-24T19:03:00.000+08:00

Russia's navy will receive a new ICBM next year. According to Deputy Defence Minister Nikolai Makarov, the nuclear submarine Юрий Долгорукий Yuri Dolgoruky, which will carry the Булава Bulava (GRAU 3M30)(RSM-56)(Nato SS-NX-30) missile will be commissioned next year. The Bulava can pierce any anti-missile shield and has been designed for the new Borei-class submarines, the first of which was launched last April. The Borei class subs are intended to replace the Delta III and the Typhoon class boats. The submarine is designed by Rubin Design Bureau and there are 12 planned in total for the Russian Navy.
The Bulava is based on the Topol-M. It is bigger than the original missile intended for the Borei-class subs. At first it was reported this class would carry 12 missiles, but now that has been increased to 16 as of the 2007 START exchange.
The Yrui Dologoruky was launched 15 April, 2007, in Severodvinsk Северодви́нск. She has cost the Navy 40% of its 2007 weapons budget at 5 billion rubles.

Makarov also said a new tank would be comissioned in 2009, but did not give any details. Russia currently has two tanks in development, Omsk tank design bureau's Black Eagle which first when on public display in 2004. It was created in the 1990s.
Meanwhile Uralvagonzavod has been working on the T-95 of which few details are available.
Russia has declared 5,063 tanks in the European area last year and has just suspended participation in the Convention Forces in Europe Treaty which opens the way for it to deploy more forces close to western Europe.

No guarantee Zuma will be president

2007-12-22T01:07:00.000+08:00

According to South African President Thabo Mbeki, there is no guarantee that new elected ANC head Jacob Zuma will get to lead the country.
Despite constant criticism by the white right, Mbeki has overseen the economy's longest period of expansion since the end of World War II, with growth accelerating to a 25-year high of 5.4 per cent last year. Not even the Nationalists could top that.
But this had done little to quell discontent among the workers, who say he has done nothing to relieve the 26 per cent unemployment rate or reduce poverty. Only someone who is truly communist could even out the huge imbalance left by apartheid.
But Zuma heading the ANC does not mean that the government is going to swing left. The ANC is still bound by economic policy as decided by the party and which will be carried out by the party leader.
It still remains to be seen, however whether or not Zuma will beat the corruption charges he is facing. Which-ever way this plays out the hysterical, and hysterical reaction of the former masters of the nation has been hilarious.
From shrieking that the country is doomed to a communist regime, to clapping their hands in glee at the prospect of a complete meltdown between the fractious Xhosa and Zulu nations they have been filling their blogs with doom, gloom and on one side, unmitigated relish at the firm belief that the West gives a fig about South Africa. Of course all these wild scenarios see the mighty whites rise again.
Personally I think the country's fragile peace and tenuous economy had about as much chance as a family friend staying over in Zuma's house - not likely to remain unscrewed.
But looking back at the ANC rule, you can understand how this contest can be celebrated as a resounding success of the party's stewardship of the nation. And this, from me, an ardent anti-ANC journo. In all honesty the country has not descended into the mass chaos predicted. There has not been a prolonged bombing campaign by disaffected whites. Inter tribal conflict has been minimal.
Despite white prediction there are no starving masses in the country. Health care has reached more South Africans than ever before, more South Africans are living in houses, more are getting fresh water.
Again, despite what the white right would have you believe the SA press is as freer now than it was under Nationalist rule.
And generally speaking the rule of law has been followed no matter who is in the dock - though I'm sure Mr Scott-Crosley might have room to disagree. He was convicted of tossing one of his former labourers to the lions - literally. Yes, only in Africa.
The standing joke of One Man, One Vote, One Time, does not apply in South Africa. And in fact it was this sentiment that precipitated Zuma's rise to power in the first place. Mbeki fumbled the pass of power. He should have handed off to someone like Tokyo Sexwale or even Cyril Ramaphosa, but he failed to do that. And in fear that the country was going to go the way of its northern neighbour, the ANC voted him ...O...U...T.

Kicking the American imperialists back to America

2007-12-20T11:17:00.000+08:00

American people are generally very stupid when it comes to the rest of the world. If their foreign policies were not so deadly they would be charming in a Disney kind of way. But let us face the truth here. The average American has little idea about that country's foreign policy and is happy to leave it to the people in power as long as they can carry on with their daily struggle for the dollar. Let us not forget their God-given right (well constitutional right at least) to "pursue happiness".
This makes them the perfect cows for their leaders to milk. A billion dollars for Iraq, a billion dollars for Nato, a billion dollars for Taiwan, a billion dollars for South Korea, a billion dollars for Afghanistan, round and round it goes to end up in Dick Cheyney's pockets. Because the American leaders are in the business of war, or at least armed standoffs.
For years now this didn't cost Americans anything but their hard earned cash, their educations and their medical and social services. But then they were suckered into believing that THOSE were not their rights. There is something fundamentally wrong with a society that believes buying a gaz guzzling, air polluting monster-car is their "right" but having their children taught to read, or looking after someone who has an illness, or putting a roof over a veteran's head is not a "right".
Some of them do the math. Some of them look at America's foreign policy and scratch their heads and wonder why.
The average American does not want to spend years patrolling some foreign hostile country, getting maimed or killed for a bigger reason other than to protect their families. They have been sucker punched into the Iraq war, which had nothing to do with 9/11. And only now they are beginning to wake up to that fact. But the problem is far more pervasive than just Iraq or Afghanistan.
And when it is not a hot issue, when Americans are not being killed but just paying out billions of greenbacks, the American public goes back to it's family and it's get rich or famous quick schemes, and empties its pockets to fund interventions across the globe. In a way, the hollow joke is on them.
The US empire interferes in almost every country in the world in some form or another. And many of its biggest investments are now entirely obsolete. Yes the American voters don't ever seem to ask why they are still ongoing.
Why is America still involved in Nato when it is so clearly against America's national interests? This is an obsolete organisation that continues to expand. It was once believed that Europe needed defending from the Soviet Union. But from whom is the US defending Europe today? And the joke is that Europe has a larger population and a larger gross domestic product than America does. So if anyone needs to be helping anyone, Europe should be helping the US.
We can see, though, the rhetoric used by the US to maintain its military presence in Europe. Whereas before it was there to keep the communists down - whether those were homegrown communists or foreign ones - now it is to "contain Russia".
Why does Russia need to be contained?
Because it refuses to be a US client state. It refuses the Mafia's protection and it refuses to pay the price of that protection. So they will kick it and provoke it until it lashes out and then they will need to "contain it" again.
Similarly misguided is America's continuing defence of South Korea. From whom are they defending this successful Asian powerhouse? The North? The South has more than 40 times the GDP and twice the population of the North. Most South Koreans no longer fear the North and in fact have been subsidising it for years. If the Americans had to leave, in all likelihood the North and South would reunite, and get on with their lives after the heinous suspension of normality after world war II. But no. Condi Rice and crew have their fingers in that pie, stirring and stirring, intimating the North has nuclear weapons when no one has ever confirmed this. The strident whining of the US power elites about this non-issue is carried world wide. North Korea has no expansionist ideas. It can barely keep itself together. What it wants and what is happening despite the US's best efforts, is for an opening up of the economic borders and for its people to join the boom.
Then there's Japan. There's a nation that needs to be firing off interceptor missiles like the lap-dogs of the empire that they are. Again, the joke is on America. Japan is the second ranking economy in the world. It is more than capable of protecting itself, and funding that protection.
American elites like the idea of the US trying to run the world, so Joe average must foot the bill. But there is a hidden danger in this naivete.
Serious armed conflict is unlikely in Asia or Europe, but Washington's promise to defend the Baltic states and Eastern Europe means that all of those nations' squabbles with Russia become America's squabbles too. And Washington's implicit guarantee to Taiwan does the same thing with mainland China. This may offer some deterrent to aggression, however it also ensures American involvement in conflicts that have little relevance to US security.
Moreover, this protectionist attitude of America creates and incentive for irresponsible behaviour by the smaller powers they are protecting. As long as small powers believe Washington will rush to their defence in a conflict with bigger powers - like Russia or mainland China - they are likely to act more aggressively. And this is obvious in Taiwan today, with Chen Shui bian provoking China beyond reasonable lengths.
This in turn affects the internal security of China and Russia who are forced into an arms race on a larger scale than would normally be necessary. This in turn takes finances away from the populations of Russia and China and affects those nations' services to their people. And the resentment and anger continues to grow against the perpetrator of it all - the United States.
It's time a strong Europe and Asia told them to back off, butt out and go home.

New missiles commissioned

2007-12-16T22:23:00.000+08:00

Russia has commissioned three new Topol-M missiles which are capable of breaking through any kind of missile shield.
The Topol-M is dubbed the missile technology for the 21st century.
These new commissions will be part of the mobile launch forces, on the backs of vehicles that can go almost anywhere, and launch at any point in their journey.
The system has been commissioned regardless of whether or not heavy missiles are stood down from from combat alert duty, with some 90 or the 360 launch silos vacated by the RS20s converted to accept Topol.
But it is not only these mobile launchers that give the RVSN the edge.
Through the turmoil of the USSR's collapse, the missile forces have remained a constant but secretive exclusive club for some of the best military minds in the country. The duty officers of the CCP (Central Command Post) are hand picked by the strategic missile forces. Seventy percent of those on CDA are master-rated, or first or second-class specialists. Their training is, and has been, continuous with the SFM holding around 2,000 drills each year.
Because a missile's readiness to obey an order ranges from between 30 seconds to two minutes, communications equipment to relay those orders are top of the range. Its communications channels operate continually both in and outside of the country's borders. It is so effective that if some of the command posts are disabled, the order will be rerouted within seconds to reach a certain number of launchers and they will launch the missiles.
Even in the cowboy days of Yeltsin's rule, every missile was continually monitored like an early-born infant, it's temperature, its seals, and its component parts. Each and every missile is constantly monitored by central command with alarms and shutdown systems in place to prevent infiltration, even from the duty general at central. If he "flips the lid" an attempts to tamper with any missile without complete authorisation, the whole system is replaced. Because of these stringent safety measure it can take an entire day to relieve one missileman.
To this end shifts only change every fourth or fifth day, in accordance with a commitment to privyazany k odnotipnosti.
Russians believed that after 2005 there would be holes in the missile defence system but with the deployment of the Topol M's every year, the outdated missiles are steadily being replaced with new ones, to constantly reinforce the readiness to fend off any attack.
Now that Putin has broken free of the restrictive treaties, the missile forces are able to fully deploy to the best of their ability.

Whites go belly-up in face of hardship

2007-12-16T13:13:00.000+08:00

Unlike some websites, Isidingo publishes all comments from readers as long as they are not useless name-calling or attempts at free advertising.
The same cannot be said of others who tend to weed out comments unless they fit into their preconceived ideas.
Take for example Jan Lamprecht's African Crisis. AC ran a damming report on its own people, that stated at one third of the Afrikaners in South Africa were homeless, unemployable and destitute.
Naturally he blames all of this on South Africa's affirmative actions policies, which supposedly prevent whites from being employed. Of course this is just not true. There are plenty of whites who are employed quite gainfully in South Africa, men and women. But the whining AC would never admit that. They would like you to believe that the people who have not succeeded have failed because of government policy and nothing else.
It's ironic that the chosen volk are suffering this way, under the same circumstances they foisted upon the majority of the population during their rule. But of course, that too, would never be mentioned. Not even from readers' comments.
These are "educated" "multilingual" people who are living in third-world conditions. The article talks about exorbitant rents for shocking accommodation, old folk shivering with no heat in winter and children playing among pigs and chickens.
Well, cry me a river.
Conversely or perhaps perversely, we have the white farmers who are isolated out on their tracts of land - some the size of small countries - whining about how unprotected they are and how they are easy prey for murderous robbers. I can see a few "employment" opportunities right there. Then there is the huge "domestic" labour market. For years white South Africans have employed blacks as servants in their homes, cooking, cleaning, gardening, washing. It's hard to imagine that market has just dried up. But of course we can't expect our multilingual educated volk to do such menial tasks, it's far better that they hang around and look pathetic.
One thing SA is is a land of opportunity for those who remain there. There is nothing to stop these people starting their own businesses, helping their own people. Perhaps they are too educated for that.
It's interesting to note that after world war two there was a huge problem with "poor whites" in South Africa. Now you have to understand that "poor" means "not able to afford a nice house, car and steak for the braai". It doesn't actually mean starving, without water, disease ridden as it does in the rest of the world. So after world war two, with the Nationalists in power, laws were introduced that reserved skilled and managerial jobs for whites only. So even if blacks managed to have the education (let's remember the education for blacks was vastly inferior) they were not allowed to work in various positions. And when blacks and whites were doing equal work, well the whites always took home the fatter pay cheque.
In fact it was right back in 1924 when the Industrial Conciliation Act redefined the term employee to exclude most blacks.
But that wasn't enough for the poor whites, who now had jobs reserved just for them.
In 1952 the Native Labour (Settlement of Disputes) Act (No 48) was changed to exclude all blacks and take away any protection for labour law.
These laws along with land laws that put 80 per cent of South Africans on 20 per cent of the land, ensured a steady supply of cheap labour for the mines.
It was on the backs of these disenfranchised, underpaid blacks that the powerhouse economy of South Africa flourished. This very same economy that the whites will tell you they built.
So all things considered, whites are very lucky in South Africa today. There has not been a complete reversal of fortunes.
What has happened is that the protection that certain people enjoyed under the previous laws is no longer in effect. Business have to have a certain quota of black employees in certain positions. But whites can live where they like, and there are no rules stopping them from opening their own businesses.
This is where the myth of white superiority crunches against the reality of life.
Call me when the first white dies of starvation.

2007-12-14T13:19:00.000+08:00

Vladimir Vladimirovitch's landslide victory in the recent elections has left the west hopping mad. Even their sad little stooge Garry Kasparov was out in the chill air without much to say. And who cares what a former chess master has to say on the matter of international politics anyway?
Well, the western media. They hung on his every utterance, lapping up his anti-Putin sentiment like starving dogs. What they failed to realise was that Kasparov could not even get enough votes to enter the elections. No one in Russia cared about him or wanted to listen to him.

Reach out and snatch someone

2007-12-14T12:53:00.000+08:00

It certainly is lucky that Litvinenko did not die his stage-managed death in America. If that were the case Andrei Lugovoi, the suspect-in-chief, would surely have been kidnapped by American agents and either taken back to the US for trial, or sent to some legal dark hole to rot away in a prison cell without any legal recourse.
This piece of news came to light again in a recent court case in the UK.
The court case involves Stanley Tollman, who used to be a director of Chealski football club. He and his wife are wanted in America for fraud and tax evasion.
Much the same sort of stuff that Boris Berezhofsky is wanted for in Russia. But uncle Boris is able to walk around Londonistan with his terrorist friends without fear because Russia obeys the rules.
Under American law, it is quite okay to kidnap someone from outside the United States and take them back to the US, no American court can refuse to try them on the grounds that their abduction was illegal.
So George Bush Inc has the right to kidnap and imprison anyone on earth he pleases. Not only that, but he also has the right to have them killed, without charge or trial or in fact any legal procedure. And what is more, he has given his "license to kill" to US agents who can assassinate whoever they wish, without even a "by your leave" from Washington.
So it is with a smile that Russia listens to the criticism from Washington about imagined crackdowns on press and personal freedoms. Because in reality, the biggest Tsar of them all, is George Bush, after all, he has the whole world in which to play.

Africa plum ripe for the picking

2007-12-02T18:01:00.001+08:00

Africa, with its wide open spaces, vast mineral and precious stone wealth, tracts of arable land and other resources, has long been a prize for any nation going through a rapid phase of industrialisation. In the 19th century the "Dark Continent" was the target of European powers which explored and colonised it and exploited its resources. So it is unsurprising that the emerging economic giant that is China should see Africa as a plum ripe for the picking by companies in search of raw materials, a nation seeking oil and entrepreneurs looking for new markets.
Centuries ago the migration of Europeans to Africa sparked a leap forward in the continent's technological development, but colonialism ended after a power struggle with the Africans, the effects of which are still being played out today.
Since those colonial powers began withdrawing, the story of the continent has been in many ways an unhappy one with endless wars, droughts, famines, dictators and mounting debts that have proved insurmountable obstacles to building a peaceful and stable continent.Now there is a new wave of settlers heading for Africa's shores - the Chinese.
Whether Africans should put out the welcome mat is an open question.
Unlike some western nations which have tied investment and aid in developing countries to human rights demands and good governance, China's pockets are deep and its cheque book is open. Beijing does not limit its investment calls. In this manner China has become an increasingly important partner in Africa's development.
Lawrence Schlemmer, of Witwatersrand University's business school in Johannesburg, argues that China's attentions are not welcome. "In effect, China is forcing Africa back into the role of raw material suppliers - undermining its textile industry and importing raw cotton instead," Professor Schlemmer told Britain's Sunday Telegraph.
However, there is another issue which some say is more sinister.
As China industrialises, the need for land has become an increasing headache, with developers and farmers coming into confrontation over resources.
Recently Li Ruogu, head of the China Export-Import Bank, identified the problem of millions of peasant farmers being left landless in Chongqing. His solution - organised migration to Africa.
"The bank will give full support to the farmers in terms of capital investment, project development and product-selling channels," he said. "Chongqing is well experienced in agricultural mass production, while in Africa there is plenty of land but food production is unsatisfactory. There is huge room for co-operation on both sides. We have already supported several agricultural projects in Africa, all of which are generating very sound profits."
Chongqing's labour exports have just started, but they will take off once we convince the farmers to become landlords abroad," the media quoted him as saying.
Since then Mr Li's assistants have sought to distance the bank from his remarks, saying he was not speaking in an official capacity and had not exactly used the word "landlord". Mr Li declined to comment.
The reaction to Mr Li's ideas was mixed, with rights activists slating the plan as an underhanded trick to advance China's hegemony, and African farm management experts welcoming the boost the Chinese migration would give to the continent's agriculture production.
Ghanaian economist George Ayittey, who is president of the Free Africa Foundation in Washington and the author of Africa Unchained, is in the sceptical camp. "As an economist, I fully support increasing trade between Africa and China. China's demand for Africa's resources should boost Africa's growth prospects," Dr Ayittey says.
"But China is aggressively pursuing trade deals and policies in Africa that will backfire or blow up in its face in five years or less.
"First, Chinese investments in Africa do not seem to have any moral scruples. China seems willing to sign any trade agreement with just about any rogue and unsavory regime in Africa. The risk here is that, in so doing, China is seen as siding with repressive regimes, not with the people. In the next five years, many such regimes will be kicked out of power and trade deals they have signed abrogated."
He warns that new governments will not honour debts they consider to be abhorrent, and China may stand to lose any money it loans to governments which have little regard for human rights.
"It has become evident to many African observers that, despite the euphonious verbiage about 'co-operation', 'equal terms' and 'altruism', the real intentions of China are threefold. The first is to gain access to Africa's resources; the second is to canvass for African votes at the United Nations in its quest for global hegemony; the third is to seek African land [on which] to dump its surplus population.
"Chinese communes are springing up in Namibia, Zambia, Nigeria and other African countries. The Chinese have succeeded in getting African states to accept large numbers of Chinese experts and workers as part of their investment packages: 28 'Baoding villages' have been set up, each housing up to 2,000 Chinese workers, in various parts of Africa. But the Chinese are going about this in a way that is likely to provoke a violent reaction."
One man who has first-hand dealings with the Chinese communes is Liu Jianjun, who has helped farmers move from the mainland to Africa. He has helped at least 15,800 people from the city of Baoding , in Hebei province , settle in Africa in various sectors. To minimise clashes with locals, Mr Liu chooses places that are away from city violence and tribal conflicts and the villages also employ locals.
"To attract and retain us, they gave extremely good terms, such as charging a symbolic annual fee of US$1 per acre for 99 years," Mr Liu told the Washington Times.
Things were not so good for Li Li, who moved to Zambia in 1994 to support her husband in his African dream. She was a nurse in Beijing and he was a university lecturer. She told People's Daily that they had had to clear the bushveld to set up Johnken Farms. "We had to start from scratch by ourselves," Ms Li says.
And when her husband, Wang Chi, died in 1995, she took over the reins of the operation. Her workforce has doubled to about 200 labourers, and a loan from a Zambian bank allowed the farm to diversify into wheat production. Now Ms Li hopes that Chinese agricultural conglomerates will head to Zambia to tap its vast potential.
Julian Hewitt, a Shanghai-based consultant at The Beijing Axis, doubts that Africa will witness the influx of millions of Chinese in the near future.
"China does have an agricultural policy in place with Africa and much emphasis is placed on transferring agricultural skills to African farmers," Mr Hewitt says. "However, millions of farmers migrating to Africa does seem to be an excessive figure."
He warns that the success of any move into African agriculture will depend on how it is managed. This will include social integration with local communities and the legality of land occupation.
Lawrence McCrystal of Agrifica, a Pretoria-based market intelligence company, sees problems ahead if Beijing aims to merely "export its unemployment problem".
"The effect of the limited Chinese migration to Africa so far has been largely beneficial because of the additional food produced," Dr McCrystal says. "But the scale of it is minute both in terms of Africa and China. What is now envisaged is a completely different scale. Unless it is done within a skills transfer model, it will lead to many problems.
"If the Chinese are successful, the small-scale farmers will be impoverished and will become employees on the Chinese farms. That is typically what happened in the much-maligned European colonial era. Doing it on the scale envisaged will create problems far worse than that ever did. On the other hand, if the Chinese, or a significant proportion of them, fail, all China will be doing is exporting its problem to Africa."
Dr McCrystal is a strong champion of an agricultural development model called the hub and spoke, whereby core commercial farming operations are established as technology and training hubs and small-scale farmers are involved as out-growers or contract producers. The out-growers have access to the central technology and skills from the hub, to improve their farming techniques and access larger markets. If Chinese farmers use this method, Dr McCrystal says, they will be able to take advantage of various existing and new farming businesses across Africa. Within this model, Chinese involvement will be seen as taking place on a mutually beneficial "partnership" basis, rather than as one-sided and exploitative in nature.
Firmly in the pro camp is Anton Scheepers, marketing manager for Agricultural & Industrial Marketing Company in South Africa, who relishes the idea of large numbers of Chinese farmers moving to Africa.
"Africa is not going to develop itself," he says, adding that he views the Chinese as "change agents".
"If they are bringing in their own financing and technology, they are most welcome."
Mr Scheepers, who has the markets for produce but finds it difficult to get orders filled, says the Chinese should not be equated with European farmers who had tried their hand in Africa and then left. And he has no time for the western powers' practice of tying aid and developmental funding to human rights conditions.
"The Chinese don't go through any of that nonsense," he says.
"The west has come and the west has left," he said, "There are empty shells, silos, farms that are left abandoned and just waiting for someone to work them."
He admires the Chinese work ethic and ingenuity, and says the fact that they will come with a ready-made home market will be an added bonus.

The truth about Tibet and the Dalai Lama

2007-11-19T11:43:00.000+08:00

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=PAR20071118&articleId=7355

Witbliz dreams and biltong wishes

2007-11-16T00:06:00.000+08:00

A friend of mine recently returned to South Africa, full of optimism for life in her home country. I warned her about the rampant crime, the rapes, the murders, the sliding services and deteriorating standards, but all to no avail. She was, in fact, so confident that she left the blissful security of Asia's Singapore, ripped her son from his school and bought a house in Johannesburg.
Now she is seeking to leave again, thoroughly disillusioned with life back home.
Now this is a woman who in her professional life has dealt with the tigers of Asia's buisness world. She has taken on the male-dominated world of corporations and finances and survived.
So what was it that sent her reaching for her plane tickets?
The fact that dear old South Africa is murder capital of the world? The fact that Jacob Zuma might become the next president? The rampant rape, theft, car hijacking, murder? The strikes and road rage? Out of control AIDS and drug resistant TB? Nope. It was the saddest of things...the South African man.
Only when one has been away from South Africa for some time can one truly appreciate how pathetic and impotent this thankfully endangered beast is. They firmly believe that the mere accident of their birth endows them with superiority - whether they have it or not. Working for their places in life is a foreign concept. Reminiscent of the worst of Europe's inbred royals they are convinced they are strong, intelligent, intellectual, witty and worthy of the utmost respect. When someone has the backbone to stand up to them, they believe they can be rude and crude and this will send lesser beings fleeing from the impossible brightness of their... well... whiteness.
In reality they are mommy fixated children, unable to cope with the reality of their world.
And oddly enough this is a two way street. South African women are forced into one of three roles, the brainless "poppie" or doll, a daughter to be patronised, or the matriarchal mommy. Never, ever as an equal.
This was brought home to me by accident in an email sent by a secretary to her boss. It should have been a simple query... This journalist wants to speak to you about ...xxx... do you have time? Instead it was worded in such a way that it sounded like a mother addressing a three-year-old. Loosely translated it went something like this: "Oh gosh, perhaps doctor could spare a teensy weensy bit of time for this journalist".
A quick trawl through white South African nationalist websites throws up the rusted relics of the past, incapable of dealing with the reality of the present. They resort to calling blacks "apes" or "monkeys", railing against anyone who might try to engage them in loftier discussions or point out different facts with sexually abusive rants that serve only to show them up for the impotent losers that they are. It's like listening to the death throes of a dodo that doesn't quite understand it's supposed to be extinct. Lots of honking, little sense, and no ability to adapt to a changing world.
They long for things to be the way they were, when they were guaranteed a social leg-up because of the colour of their skin. God forbid they should have to compete with the masses. They still sing the blues about how the west has done them wrong in a repetition of rhetoric, unable to see that this is the cause of their malaise. They're whipped and still whimpering about it being "not fair". It seems they are uncapable of understand that their previous system was "not fair", and that life is not fair. Perhaps it's genetic. Perhaps they don't posses the "move on" or "get over it" gene.
Whatever the reason these old-school South African whites are doomed to failure while they deny the truth. The irony is not lost on those of us who have moved on and gotten over it, for just as they berate blacks for being unable to organise or having no logistics, they are "incapable" of getting themselves out of their own self inflicted dillemas.
Whatever happened to the real men in the world, I wonder. Those strong, men who stepped up to the plate, who owned their own lives instead of whining about circumstances or making excuses for their failures.

Hey Che

2007-10-04T23:22:00.001+08:00

Reviled or revered the name Che stirs up a hornets' nest of emotion. Growing up under the rightwing minority government in South Africa I was taught that Che was something like Satan's brother.
Since then I've learned more about the man and his deeds.
This year markes the 40th anniversary of his capture and execution. Enesto “Che” Guevara met his end a Bolivian jungle where he was attempting to spark a peasant uprising.

Some facts about Mr G:

Born in Argentina in 1928, Guevara became a Marxist after a motorcycle ride through South America opened his eyes to poverty when he was still a medical student.

Guevara witnessed the CIA-backed ouster of reformist President Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954. A year later, he met Fidel Castro in Mexico City and joined his revolutionary movement.

Guevara suffered from asthma but it did not keep him from playing a leading role in the guerrilla war that Castro waged from Cuba's Sierra Maestra mountains against dictator Fulgencio Batista, who fled the country on New Year's Day 1959.

The iconic image of Guevara gazing into the distance with long hair tucked into a black beret was taken in 1960 by Cuban photographer Alberto Korda at a memorial service for victims killed when a freighter loaded with Belgian weapons blew up in Havana's harbour.

Guevara was president of Cuba's central bank for 14 months. He signed all Cuban banknotes with his nickname “Che,” a common Argentine expression meaning “hey.”

Seeking to export revolution to Africa, Guevara joined the guerrilla fighters of Laurent Kabila in the Congo in 1965, but was disappointed with their incompetence and infighting and the short-lived Cuban expedition was a fiasco.

Guevara left for Bolivia in 1966 to start a new guerrilla movement with the idea of creating “two, three, many Vietnams” in Latin America.

He was captured on Oct 8, 1967, and executed the next day by the Bolivian army in a schoolhouse in La Higuera. His hands were severed so they could be used to confirm his identity, and he was buried secretly at an airfield.

Guevara's bones were dug up in 1997, returned to Cuba and placed in a mausoleum in Santa Clara, the site of his biggest military victory.

Putin - The man the west loves to hate

2007-09-26T10:57:00.000+08:00

Where we were

When Vladimir Putin came to power as Prime Minister in 1999, Russia was nothing more than a wild-west, impoverished state run by gangsters.
The misrule of the western supported alcoholic puppet Boris Yeltsin had pushed millions of people into economic misery and early death. Rampant inflation and the 1998 collapse of the rouble had wiped out what few savings remained.
The country was heavily in debt with the IMF. And what's more the nation had been humiliated by NATO's 1999 attack on Yugoslavia which it had been powerless to prevent.

Where we are
Now, a mere eight years later, Russia is enjoying 7% growth and sits on 300 billion GBP in foreign-exchange reserved. Billions are being poured into infrastructure, space and nanotechnology. While America's space venture has faltered, Russia has provided a steady and safe service to the International Space Station. Russian companies are buying up firms all over Europe, America, China and in the Asian tiger economies.
The building industry is on fire. It had a 50% growth last year, so big that it is almost impossible to find concrete to complete projects.
And the ordinary folks? Well, in 2006 Russians bought twice as many cars as India, whose population is five times larger. You see more Russians on holiday in Europe than you do Americans. Cities regarded as post-soviet hell holes now sport night clubs, good restaurants and hotels.

How Putin did it

Yeltsin, through lack of control allowed a small criminal elite of oligarchs to rape the country of its fortunes while the average person starved. Putin has had the worst of these people thrown into jail, or, as in the case of Uncle Boris, unable to get to the lion's share of their money while they hide in exile in the UK or Israel.
The western media has tried to portray Putin as being a throwback to the Soviet era. They love to point out that he is former KGB. They like to show him as cold, arrogant, ruthless and a vain macho-man, or worse, they follow the crazed ranting of people like Litvinenko and suggest he is a pedophile. It seems as if they have never met him, for if they had they would know immediately what kind of man he is.

They would also know that he is typical of the new political class which has governed Russia since his arrival in power. Many of his most senior ministers are highly professional and non-ideological managers of very successful Russian corporations.
The man views himself as a social democrat, combining sensible economic management with social policies which will protect society's vulnerable. And it is working.

While us President George W can weep into his cornflakes about being a hated and derided caricature of all that is wrong with American robber-baron values and arrogance, Putin can ride confidently into the sunset, knowing that like all the best heroes of western movies, he has ridden into town, run out the baddies, cleaned the place and up left it with a brighter future. It is no surprise that he enjoys a 70% approval rating.

Importantly he has also given Russians a country 100% free from America.

It has not all been easy for him, and very surprisingly, given his record, his character and his way of dealing with issues, he has taken a lot of malice from the west which continues to move with unbridled aggression against Russia, then tries to tell Putin "the cold war is over". Is it hell...

Cold War Continues

The west continues to attack Russia for being "Authoritarian" yet climbs into bed with China.

Russia was keen to be an ally of the west in the "war on terror". But when terrorists attack Russian citizens - as happened when 200 children were slaughtered by Chechen separatists in Beslan - the west attacked Putin, put the blame at his door and opined that he should find a political solution.
The west listens to the thieves, murders and embezzlers who have fled the country as if they are some how human-rights activists. These people are thugs who are avoiding justice. Yet each word they utter against Russia or Putin is accepted with unquestioning delight by western media and given as much play as they can get from it.* The west holds up "the rule of law" as being sacred, yet in the Litvinenko case it suddenly wants Russia to ignore its own rule of law to send a suspect to be tried in the UK.
Russia has broken up the Warsaw Pact. But the west has only increased the size of NATO, extending its borders in a ring of steel around the country it insists is its friend. NATO airplanes and missiles are now only a few moments away from St Petersburg.
Look at the reaction to Russia's stance of increasing its price of oil to the Ukraine when the former soviet state had been getting it for a cut rate price but still decided to be anti-Russian. "If you support an anti-Russian president in the Ukraine you will have to pay for it," said Putin. "What do you take us for, a bunch of idiots?"

The west is making a grave error of judgment if it thinks it can crush Russia.

Zimbzbwe burning

2007-09-16T12:40:00.000+08:00

Dear Family and Friends,
Day after day Zimbabwe is on fire. Smoke rises in almost every direction, the wind carries trails of black debris and every evening the sky is smudged with ash. Night after night there is a great orange glow on the horizon and long after the moon and stars are overhead the fires continue to burn unchecked and out of control.
Out on an early morning errand this week I stopped as a Slender Mongoose ran out into the road. We stared at each other for a minute or two and it was a breathtaking sight. The dawn sun highlighted the depth of colour of his rich chestnut fur. The little mammal stood quite still on the tarmac, his black-tipped tail lifted slighted, ready to run. Then as suddenly as it had appeared, the mongoose was gone - running off into the only patch of sunburnt vegetation still left in the nearby grassland. This little African mammal, once a common sight but now rarely seen, is surviving against all odds.
About two hundred metres along the road I passed two men who were carrying sickles and had catapults hanging round their necks. They were accompanied by a pack of hunting dogs who trotted all around them. The intention of their outing was obvious - the sickles to cut grass used to lay lines of fires, the catapults to kill birds, the dogs to catch mice and other small animals that flee from the flames. In an hour or two these men will destroy huge swathes of vegetation,
remove essential habitat for birds and mammals and from the devastation will perhaps get enough meat for one meal. Their activities go unchecked and when they've had enough the men and their dogs head home leaving the fires to burn themselves out, sometimes many kilometres away.
Arriving at my destination I sat across the desk from a smartly dressed woman in her office. As I conducted my business we asked the questions all Zimbabweans are asking each other: have you got water today? Is your electricity on this morning? Have you managed to find bread? All the answers to all the questions were the same from both of us: no! We agreed that things were now 'very hard' in Zimbabwe but to an outsider this would undoubtedly be the understatement of all time. We have got up to find no water in the tap to drink, to bathe or to wash our clothes; we've got no electricity to cook food and no bread, cereal or milk to give to our families for breakfast. Despite it all and against all odds, Zimbabweans are still carrying on: clean, polite, hardworking, dedicated - a credit to a country so close to the edge.
At the end of three days of sixteen hour power cuts this week I finally heard the news that has given Zimbabwe such a lift. Against all the odds and with nothing in their favour, Zimbabwe beat Australia in the 20/20 cricket world cup. Patriotism burns strong, very strong, in our hearts and gives belief that against all odds, we will emerge from these darkest of days.
Until next week, thanks for reading, love cathy.
Copyright cathy buckle. 15 September
2007.
www.cathybuckle.com
My books: "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears" are available in South
Africa from: books@clarkesbooks.co.za and in the UK from:
orders@africabookcentre.com

Lugovoi - lemon in the vodka

2007-07-18T16:52:00.000+08:00

So the whole world waited for Russia to announce its retaliation against the expulsion of its diplomats regarding the Litvinenko case, and ... nothing. What was that? It was a show of having steel in your blood.
But the twist of lemon in the vodka is that someone tried to kill the thief Boris Berezovsky, who naturally blames everything on Vlad Putin. As if Putin, the FSB or anyone related to the Russian govenment would be so stupid as to try to assassinate this man while the whole world watches. Apparently the clumsy would-be killer thought shooting him in a hotel room would be the best option. How convenient for him to have been seen "buying weapons" and to have been caught. How "awful" that he would have a CHILD with him. No doubt a full video confession will soon follow, and if uncle Boris has anything to do with it, there will be a Hollywood movie too.
The fact that the maffia has for years been trying to kill uncle Boris does not seem to have entered into anyone's head. Once again this man is doing all he can to make mischief for Russia and more particularly for Mr Putin.
It would be easy for Putin to kick out some UK diplomats and then the UK would have to respond and Russia would have to respond again and the next thing you know everyone is staring down the barrel of a gun because some stupid prison guard snorted radioactive material.
In this case Russia is being the bigger man.
Alexander Grushko is exactly right when he says Russia is being punished for upholding its constitution. There are 21 Russians living in the UK, some of who have been given citizenship, who are wanted in Russia on different charges, which include murder and terrorism. Indeed, two are directly involved in this case, Boris Berezovsky wanted for embezzeling millions, and the spokesman for Chechen muslim terrorists Akhmed Zakayev. And yet Russia does not go around threatening and trying to bring the world to crisis over this.
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown might think he has scored some points but he has been shown up for being hot headed and unstable. Europe will be making up its own mind. And given the push by the US to put the star wars shield on european territory this could be just what europe needs to decide where to place its trust.
It would seem not likely that Germany, Italy and France will throw their money in with the UK's singular bid to make more out of this case than there is. They are dependant on Russian energy and big deals have been signed with Gazprom and Total.
There are too many big financial deals on the table with Russia for this to be made so serious by Brown. Even for his own country, relations with Russia have been good for a long time.
They hysteria whipped up in the UK by uncle Boris and his PR minions has made it impossible for Lugovoi to have a fair trial. It will be another Lockerbie trial. You can see where this is going when the Guardian newspaper says all the expelled diplomats are "spies" who are also FSB agents. To this we can only say "Doh!". This is like the Kremlin acting surprised to find out that British diplomats also work for MI6.

Things still falling apart in Zimbabwe

2007-07-16T15:28:00.000+08:00

We might not think about Zimbabwe every day. But life is crazy for the ordinary man in the street. Recently Mad Bob Mugabe decided the only way to curb inflation would be to force shops to sell things more cheaply. Of course the shops buckled as they could not buy their goods more cheaply.

Dear Family and Friends,

Shoe polish, dishwashing liquid and light bulbs were the three most plentifulproducts in a major supermarket in my home town by this weekend.

This isn't a little family shop on the corner, its a branch of a national supermarket chain with outlets in most towns and cities around the country. Almost none of the basics of daily life are available a fortnight after enforced price cuts.

Imagine trying to run a home, school or institution with no rice, flour, maize meal, margarine, meat, milk or eggs. No salt, sugar, biscuits, porridge, dried fish, dried beans or powdered milk. No soap, candles or matches - and this at atime when electricity cuts are occurring daily and last for 15 hours at a time.

Behind the great mountains of shoe polish there are other products too but mostly not items in regular use and even their stocks are dwindling fast. These goods stand in long and plaintive lines, side by side along the front of the shelf, remove one and you can see the back wall - a visible echo shouts at you!

Mid week it was announced that the licences of all private abattoirs had been cancelled and that all slaughtering and meat supplies had been taken over by the virtually defunct government owned Cold Storage Commission. In Marondera the CSChas been completely closed for at least the last five years but on Thursday hundreds of people jostled outside their premises. It was mayhem: the first meat in the town for a fortnight. No one questioned what conditions were like inside the buildings which have stood deserted all these years. No one asked if fixtures and fittings had been replaced, if the buildings had been fumigated, if corroded pipes had been changed. No one even asked to see the paperwork proving that the premises had been checked by Health Inspectors or if the buildings had been declared hygienic and fit to handle meat for human consumption.

It was utter chaos and the local department of Health said nothing and did nothing.

Towards the end of the week almost 2000 businessmen around the country had been arrested for not cutting their prices. Most buses and public transport vehicles had stopped operating as fuel supplies ran out and transporters were ordered to charge prices way below their costs.

The government price cutting task force have now announced that medicines are next in line to have prices cut and a cold panic is spreading amongst people on life preserving medicines - as supplies of drugs run down and are not replaced, how will they survive?

Zimbabwe is on a knife edge and everywhere you look there is a potential crisis unfolding. Queues containing many hundreds of people form rapidly as a rumour circulates. Perhaps there is sugar, salt or flour and suddenly people are running to line up at the back of supermarkets, outside locked butchery doors, in alleyways, along pavements.

The lines this week have contained more people than most of us have ever seen before.

Four people standing abreast and then four behind them and so on and the mass goes around the corner, around the block and back on itself again. This is what 80% unemployment looks like, and also the face of the collapse of a country which just seven years ago was a major regional food exporter. Until next week, thanks for reading, love cathy

Copyright cathy buckle 14th July 2007.www.cathybuckle.comMy books: "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears" are available from:orders@africabookcentre.comTo subscribe/unsubscribe to this newsletter, please write to: cbuckle@mango.zw

Putin's big gamble

2007-07-16T14:55:00.000+08:00

Russia has decided to pull out of the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty in an open test to see if the EU will fall with the US on the missile defense shield. There is not much Russia can directly to do the US to stop the shield being placed next to its borders so it seems Putin has decided to "check" the US by trying to scare the shit out of Europe. But that is not all it is about.
The treaty limits the deployment of forces in eastern and central Europe and is very important to arms control in the region. It was signed in 1990 between the Warsaw Pact and Nato, and changed again in 1990.
Putin is also looking to rewrite the rules of play that were written when Russia was weak. Now Russia is strong again and a major player in both European and Asian affairs. Putin wants the new rules to show that.
Putin has warned Bush so many times that the stupid defence shield will start another arms race. Russia is not ready to become part of the enemy Nato and does not want its neighbors to be part of its enemy too. And why should it let them?
Already Putin has tried to nicely show Bush that he is making a big mistake, with the test firing of missiles that can make the defense shield useless. But I suppose when he has friends who have famlies to keep in furs and caviar - like the people in the arms industry, he will stop at nothing and once again, the stupid American people will pay.
Now it will be Europe that will pay too because the treaty is more important to European countries than it is to the US.
There are already problems in the Russian EU relationships and also the relationship with Britain is being troubled by the thief uncle Boris and his people.
But there will be very little change to troop movements and ranks in the area. All that will happen is that the two sides will trust each other even less and there will be fewer PR exercises.
Turning the threat back on to Europe Russia is forcing it to think more carefully about missile defence. The Kremlin was not happy when Europe is backed Bush plans to put anti-missile radar in the Czech Republic. Do they think Russia held the Czechs so closely all this time for friendship? The Americans know full well that those batteries and the interceptor rockets they want to put in Poland will push out of balance the status quo as it is now in Europe - just when people where settling down to trade and mutual friendship. Trust the US jackboot to fall right there.
The gamble for Putin is how the Europeans will act. We know that Bush has done America no favours in Europe with his wars torture renditions. But do the Europeans see that he is threatening Russia or do they think Russia is the threat? If they think the latter they might join the US in this matter.
There are a lot of issues that are bothering Russia at the moment and Europe will not be fooled into thinking this is just about missiles. The EU knows there are also economic issues that need to be brought into the open and discussion. Putin has not put this on the menu yet, but he will wait and see how Brussels reacts before he does. This can be a big push for Russia to gain power and influence at the expense of America, or it can lose badly.

No free pass for Jews

2007-07-10T21:38:00.000+08:00

"To our Christian sisters and brothers I say - do not, out of a sense of guilt for anti-Semitism, give the Jewish people a free pass. Do not confuse anti-Semitism with critique of Israel, and in so doing fail to hold Jews accountable for our choices and our actions, as members of the human community, as individuals, and as a nation state -- especially as a nation state. To make this mistake, to allow yourselves to be - I will use the word - bullied by the threat of the charge of anti-Semitism, is to commit a pernicious fallacy." - Mark Braverman
Dr. Mark Braverman, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace who serves on the Boards of Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, Partners for Peace and the Washington Interfaith Alliance for Middle East Peace.

Bag dad in Lan Kwai Fong

2007-07-08T10:37:00.000+08:00

If you had to ask people what Hongkongers' national sport is, it would be "Shopping". They (and I say they because I've never figured out the art of shopping) LOVE to shop. They go on tours to Japan, to shop, they visit Malaysia to shop, and Dubai to shop. They think one of the greatest tourist attractions of Hong Kong is its shopping. In fact living in Hong Kong is like living in one giant shopping mall.
I think this comes as a result of living in such tiny flats. But I cannot for the life of me see where anyone could put all of the loot from the "shopping".
Nowhere was the spirit of bargain hunting more alive than last week at the launch of a designer (Hindermarch) canvass bag bearing the words "I'm not a plastic bag". It sold for about $120 (US$2.8).
Now, canvass bags are not new in Hong Kong. You can buy them at the local supers and use them instead of plastic bags. It's something that's encouraged as you get a few cents off your shopping. There are designer bags galore in Hong Kong, Coco and Vuitton and all those inbetween.
Fair enough the Hindermarch was a limited edition and had fetched a few extra bob on ebay. But the mentality of shoppers was an exercise in psychology.
First off, the shop was giving out certificates to shoppers the day before the bag went on sale, so that the following day they would know they could get what they were waiting for.
Yet the queues started early and soon potential customers were becoming disgruntled. Not to be unexpected because the weather was hot and wet. But a quick survey of the expectant crowd found that some people didn't even know what they were queuing for!
They were quite prepared to spend the night on the wet, hot and by now considerably dirty street for a US2.8 canvass bag.
Was this an environmental statement? Not bloodly likely. Not judging by the litter left over by the crowd.
How sad are people's lives that they feel the urge to do this. Does it give them elevated status in the eyes of their friends for all of 30 minutes? Or is it just Hongkongers needing to make a few extra bucks.
The company released a few bags early, hoping the crowd would go away.
It didn't, it grew.
One indigant customer complained that she was a VIP shopper and should not have to queue with the hoi poloi.
The following day the situation had worsened, with hundreds of people queuing outside in the strees, causing foot traffic congestion and demanding their "rights" to a darn bag. What? Rights?
One woman even missed her flight to San Francisco so that the customer relations people would "explain to her why she couldn't have a bag".
No doubt she will sue them for the money it cost her to change her ticket.

Curse of the Kursk

2007-07-03T15:10:00.000+08:00

Hey Boys, do you think before Putin goes he will answer the questions about the Kursk? Do you think he will finally admit what everyone knows?

Having a language problem with blogger

2007-06-16T17:30:00.000+08:00

they think I'm Chinese...

American Mythology 101

2007-06-06T22:43:00.000+08:00

MYTH 1:

The US was founded on Christian principles.

TRUTH:
This is incorrect. The Constitution never once mentions a deity, because the Founding Fathers wanted to keep their new country "religion-neutral." Our Founding Fathers were an eclectic collection of Atheists, Deists, Christians, Freemasons and Agnostics.
George Washington, the Father of our country, and John Adams (Second President of the USA) CLEARLY stated in the 1796 Treaty of Tripoli: "The Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian Religion.” G.W. rarely attended church and instead followed a popular 18th century philosophy called Deism—a Star Wars-esque philosophy that believed in a cosmic energy or big-ass universal "Force."
The dictionary says that Deism is "a system of thought advocating natural religion based on human reason rather than revelation," that had nothing to do with Christian principles.
James Madison, original mastermind of our Constitution, was an Atheist to the core who loved skewering Christianity. In 1785 he wrote, "What have been fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.”
Thomas Jefferson, who sat down and authored The Declaration of Independence, rarely missed an opportunity to laugh at Christianity. In a letter to John Adams in 1823, he wrote: "The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus…will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."
More ammo: In 1814, Tommy J. wrote about the Bible's Old and New Testaments, "The whole history of these books is so defective and doubtful -- evidence that parts have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds.”
In fact, it was President Jefferson himself who first wrote (to a Baptist church group in 1802), "The First Amendment has erected a wall of separation between Church and State." Therefore, when Jefferson talked about “Nature’s God,” the “Creator” and “divine Providence ” in the Declaration that he wrote, he was being a hippie and referring to a general cosmic energy-- not the Christian God.
America is not a Christian nation. Period. Our Constitution derived from the post-Christian Enlightenment values of reason and truth...never from the paranoid yammerings of that otherwise compassionate cult leader who *beep* died in the Middle Eastern desert 3000 years ago.

MYTH 2:

US Conservatives tend to be patriotic, ethical Americans; liberals tend to hate America and are immoral.

TRUTH:
Liberals aren't the traitors to America. In fact, conservatives who insist on sending American troops into the Iraqi slaughterhouse to watch some blood-n'-guts "towelhead" ass-kickin' are the traitors. Most of them could care less about our troops, no more than Mao or Stalin cared about the safety of their own soldiers. In the neocons' view, these young boys and girls are expendable test dummies.
They're dying for virtually nothing, so that the hicks in the Bush Admin can make good on their campaign promises to their buddies from the petroleum and infrastructure-rebuilding industries.
By revving up the Arab threat, these MFs can scream "national security" and "freedom" as smokescreens, while getting their hands on a diminishing resource: Middle Eastern fossil fuels, which power everything from your lightbulbs and computer that you leave on all night, to your stupid gas-guzzler pickup truck.
Pro-war conservatives are the traitors to America. With only 29% of the public approving of Bush's policies now, it took a full 5 years for America to finally wake up in bed next to this disgusting fact.
Do liberals hate America? No, in fact they care so much about the USA that they fight so aggressively to make it better. They're not anti-American; they're just anti-stupidity.
Do liberals hate American policies? Sometimes, but only the self-destructive ones that threaten human rights, liberty, democracy, justice, inquiry, excellence and reason-- the values that our country was founded upon. As for conservative moral superiority? Frauds. Think of the child-molesting priests, money-scamming televangelist preachers, Jack Abramoff's friends in the Bush Admin, gay-hating Jesus lovers, the Christians who beat up the professor who opposed intelligent design, human rights violators like Lynndie England and her Abu Ghraib hick officer pals, Tommy "Scandal-icious" Delay, Scooter "Leaky" Libby, the entire K Street Project meant to hire only Republicans, FEMA's Michael "Yer doin' a heckuva job" Brownie, and so on.
Oh and by the way, conservative Red states have a divorce rate 27% higher than the liberal Blue states, the per capita rate of violent crime in Red states is 49 per 100,000 higher than in Blue states, the top 5 states with the highest rates of alcohol abuse are Red states, and the per capita rate of gonorrhea in Red states was 41 per 100,000 higher than in the Blue states. Time to unshelf the antibiotics for our "ethical," "God-fearing" conservative friends with their "traditional family values."

MYTH 3.

The US has a liberal media.

TRUTH:
This is a paranoid Republican myth. Reality check: the US media is a mix of liberal, centrist and conservative voices. Also, the US media is largely owned by 10 corporations who frequently push pro-conservative agendas to the American public.
Evidence:
1. Even Republican Pat Buchanan confessed, "For heaven sakes, we kid about the liberal media, but every Republican on earth does that."
Neo-conservative pundit Bill Kristol also said, "I admit it: the liberal media were never that powerful, and the whole thing was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures."
2. A 2005 study in the Quarterly Journal of Economics found that "coverage by public television and radio is conservative compared to the rest of the mainstream media." Why? Partly because only four major corporate networks control American TV news-- up to 75% of the audience share. The "Big 10" media conglomerates who control the bulk of the entire US media are: AOL Time Warner, Disney, General Electric, News Corporation, Viacom, Vivendi, Sony, Bertelsmann, AT&T and Liberty Media. Yes, we have National Public Radio, but compare its public reach to that of Canada's CBC and the United Kingdom's BBC.
3. Eighty percent of all US newspapers are owned by corporate chains.
4. Liberals are virtually non-existent on talk radio stations nationwide. Rush and Dr. Laura, eat your hearts out.
5. Conservatives are very well accomodated for across FOX News, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times, the New York Post, the American Spectator, the Weekly Standard, the Drudge Report, the National Review, etc. Even so-called "bastions of liberalism," e.g. the NY Times, MSNBC, WashPost and NPR make a concerted effort to be "fair and balanced" by bringing in right-wing views like those of David Brooks, Joe Scarborough, Tucker Carlson, Charles Krauthammer and Cokie Roberts to have their say in these forums, respectively. This is in stark contrast to FOX News' claims to unbiased objectivity, which were easily demolished by Robert Greenwald in 2004.
6. Contrary to what some paranoid Republicans claim, most journalists are centrists, not liberals. A representative sample of 141 US journalists and bureau chiefs were asked in 1998, "On social issues, how would you characterize your political orientation?" Answers: Left 30%, Center 57%, Right 9%, Other 5% . Next question, same sample: "On economic issues, how would you characterize your political orientation? " Answers: Left 11%, Center 64%, Right 19%, Other 5%. Also, look at the total number of think tank citations in major newspapers, radio and TV transcripts: Conservative TTs: 7792, Centrist TTs: 6361, Liberal TTs: 1152. 7. Eric Alterman summarizes a 1999 research study from the academic journal Communications Research: "Four scholars examined the use of the 'liberal media' argument and discovered a fourfold increase in the number of Americans telling pollsters that they discerned a liberal bias in their news. But a review of the media's actual ideological content, collected and coded over a twelve-year period, offered no corroboration whatever for this view."

MYTH 4.

The US doesnt need improvement compared to other countries; it is the greatest country in the world.

TRUTH:
Wrong again. I'll only cite the statistics here.

USA Ranking on Adult Literacy Scale: #9 (#1 Sweden and #2 Norway)- OECD

USA Ranking on Healthcare Quality Index: #37 (#1 France and #2 Italy)- World Health Organization 2003

USA Ranking of Student Reading Ability: #12 (#1 Finland and #2 South Korea)- OECD PISA 2003

USA Ranking of Student Problem Solving Ability: #26 (#1 South Korea and #2 Finland)- OECD PISA 2003

USA Ranking on Student Mathematics Ability: # 24 (#1 Hong Kong and #2 Finland)- OECD PISA 2003

USA Ranking of Student Science Ability: #19 (#1 Finland and #2 Japan)- OECD PISA 2003

USA Ranking on Women's Rights Scale: #17 (#1 Sweden and #2 Norway)- World Economic Forum Report

USA Position on Timeline of Gay Rights Progress: # 6 (1997) (#1 Sweden 1987 and #2 Norway 1993)- Vexen

USA Ranking on Life Expectancy: #29 (#1 Japan and #2 Hong Kong)- UN Human Development Report 2005

USA Ranking on Journalistic Press Freedom Index: #32 (#1 Finland, Iceland, Norway and the Netherlands tied)- Reporters Without Borders 2005

USA Ranking on Political Corruption Index: #17 (#1 Iceland and #2 Finland)- Transparency International 2005

USA Ranking on Quality of Life Survey: #13 (#1 Ireland and #2 Switzerland)- The Economist Magazine ...Wikipedia "Celtic Tiger" if you still have your doubts.

USA Ranking on Environmental Sustainability Index: #45 (#1 Finland and #2 Norway)- Yale University ESI 2005

USA Ranking on Overall Currency Strength: #3 (US Dollar) (#1 UK pound sterling and #2 European Union euro)- FTSE 2006....the dollar is now a liability, so many banks worldwide have planned to switch to euro

USA Ranking on Infant Mortality Rate: #32 (#1 Sweden and #2 Finland)- Save the Children Report 2006

USA Ranking on Human Development Index (GDP, education, etc.): #10 (#1 Norway and #2 Iceland)- UN Human Development Report 2005

USA Ranking on Peacefulness 96# (#1 Norway #2 New Zealand, #3Denmark, #4 Ireland, and #5 Japan.) Economist Intelligence Unit

So much for those "socialist" Europeans and those "backward" Asians, hm? We can do better than this. Miscellany: *Only 18% of Americans own passports and bother to travel outside of the US. * 85% of US soldiers in Iraq believe that they are there to get revenge for 9/11. * New international student enrollment in US grad schools has decreased by 6%, because of xenophobic post-9/11 US visa restrictions, jacked-up tuition fees and better educational opportunities in the EU and Asia. So no, not everyone wants to come here anymore, because it's become a land of incredibly limited opportunity, and we've lowered our educational standards.

MYTH 5:

The US government loves to help other countries.

TRUTH:

This is a myth. The US government tends to be motivated by interests, not humanitarian principles. Denmark gives the most amount of its GDP (1.01%) to developing countries; Norway gives 0.91%; the Netherlands give 0.79% and so on until the end of list, where the USA sits. Yes, America ranks DEAD LAST in foreign aid at a pathetic 0.1% of its GDP, compared to the other 21 nations listed as developed nations. The idea that the US government is a heroic bunch that runs around the world helping the poor and the disempowered is not backed up by the evidence. We have one of the stingiest governments on earth. Most Americans believe the US spends 24% of its budget on aid to poor countries; the actual amount is well under a quarter of 1%. Our country also ranks #5 on asylum-seeker acceptance rates (#1 is Denmark and #2 is Canada). For you self-congratulatory, redneck-inspired conservative *beep* who will start to say, "B-b-b-but you're anti-American! M-m-m-moonbat! G-g-g-god bless the USA!" I answer, "Go *beep* yourself. We can do better." Stop blindly believing everything your president tells you. Come back to us only when you start realizing that the $400 billion your president has allocated to his Roman Empire-style military overstretch could be better spent on correcting the sociopolitical and economic problems in the arenas that I've listed above. For you fellow liberals: Help your reps and senators take back Congress, and stop dithering while the political tides are turning in your favor right now. The conservatives are terrified now; TAKE advantage of that. And don't waste time trying to explain rational things to any homophobic Christians, or hyper-patriotic losers who wave and cheapen our American flag only for a self-esteem buzz, or those testosterone-filled, gullible, culturally-ignorant military recruiter robots who lack even a basic intelligence. THEY CANNOT BE REASONED WITH. They don't understand statistics, elaborate charts, legislative proposals or complicated scientific explanations. Just let them go. Let them go. In the meantime, Americans, stop being SHEEP and get up and do something before some bright and ambitious Chinese, Indian and the European students grow up to be international leaders and make your lazy, self-absorbed kids irrelevant on the world stage. (NOTE: I didn't write this, I copied and pasted it, but I'd sure like to shake the hand of the original author) (so would I)

Chavez puts his foot down

2007-06-03T17:31:00.000+08:00

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has finally moved to against Radio Caracas Television and Globovison. He has not closed them down, he has simply refused to renew the licences of these seditious elements and frankly I'm surprised that it took him so long to silence them.
This is not an issue of free speech as some agencies would have you believe. They can still broadcast, but not on public airwaves. They are able to use cable.
But of course that doesn't stop Human Rights Watch and various journalists' organisations trying to make it an issue of freedom of speech. Their fires were fanned when last week Chavez moved to count these two stations among "enemies of the homeland".
It's interesting to see the spin put on this issue by the multinational foreign press agencies. The one-sided coverage makes Chavez to be a capricious dictator, bent on stifling freedom of speech in his country without any reason. This is just not true.
RCTV was an institution in Venezuela, being the first station to have live from satellite images and having produced Radio Rochela a long running political satire, and a very popular soap opera Por Estas Calles.
But the facts of the issue are that RCTV is controlled by the very rich Marcel Granier, president of the 1BC Group, which controls about 40 radio and TV channels, an outspoken critic of the democratically elected president.
Outspoken is one thing, sedition is another.
Garnier and his cronies have been hit hard by Chavez and his "Bolivarian Revolution", and must see the writing on the wall for their over-the-top lifestyles. Needless to say RCTV was not given to showing anything positive about Chavez.
But during the violence in April, 2002, in which there was an attempted coup against the President, and some well respected American news channels revealed themselves as a biased government lackeys, RCTV stepped well over the line.
Two days before the coup attempt it took its usual programmes off the air and ran 24 hour coverage of the strikes aimed to oust Chavez. For comment they allowed a slew of "commentators" to attack him but did not allow him or the government to respond.
That is not journalism.
Then this media icon ran adverts encouraging people to attend the march on April 11 aimed and once again gave events minute by minute coverage. Just vitally interested in home events? I think not.
Add to that the coverage of the violence in which they ran doctored videos to blame Chavez supporters for the deaths and injuries and you see where suddenly the respected 4th estate becomes a polecat. Doctoring images is forbidden.
On the flip side, when Chavez left the scene for a few days and military rebels claimed a "victory" over the President, Chavistas took to the streets demanding his reinstatement. RCTV didn't cover that.
At National Assembly hearings after the fact Andres Izarra, the RCTV News Director, testified that he had been given orders from his bosses: "Zero pro-Chavez, nothing related to Chavez or his supporters…. The idea was to create a climate of transition and to start to promote the dawn of a new country.” So while the rioting and mayhem was going on, his station ran movies and cartoons.
It's interesting to note that Pedro Carmona - who was installed to replace the democratically elected Chavez - basically destroyed the country's Supreme Court, Constitution and National Assembly. Yet Granier was there among the other media chiefs at the Miraflores palace to pledge support for him.
In what western country would a radio station be allowed to operate that attempted to violently depose the democratically elected president?
But Chavez has allowed RCTV to continue to operate for five years now.
He has not shut the station down so much as declined to let it use public airwaves. It can still broadcast on cable.
Most Venezuelan media are still controlled by the old money and are still anti-Chavez - and they still operate.

Battle at the Kruger

2007-06-01T23:08:00.001+08:00

This is some of the most incredible wildlife footage I've ever seen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM

Litvinenko: Russian should never hand over Lugovoy

2007-05-25T23:13:00.000+08:00

So now the Brits think Lugovoy might have killed the traitor Alexander Litvinenko who died so publicly and gallantly to the treasure of his criminal uncle Boris in what has to be the best stage-managed death of the year. Not even the queen mum died with such design.
So it would seem that Putin is made out to be the bad guy when he refuses to let Lugovoy be extradited to face trial in the UK.
But there is no extradition agreement between Russia and the UK. That is the one thing that keeps uncle Boris sleeping soundly every night.
Now watch the western media turn it on Putin, making him out to be the villain here. Yet for years they have harboured Russia's criminals. Boris is but one.

All in the Family - or what makes nations degenerate?

2007-05-01T09:51:00.000+08:00

It has been a question that has been puzzling me for years, and I'm sure it has been puzzling many other people too. What makes a nation degenerate?
Firstly we would have to define degeneration. Those of you who are 300 fans would surely think that today's dorks and nerds are a complete national degeneration. On the other hand if you are a dork or nerd you would look at Sparta and see a nation of psychopaths. That was all well and good when those psychopathic energies were needed to defend the nation against invaders. But how does that translate into our modern world.
What we expect from people - to be treated with civility and no violence - is almost universal. But it is often not what we get. A case in point would be South Africa where the crime and violence is now a savage epidemic of blood letting.
And there is a parallel between 300 and South Africa. Sure in 300 the violence and child abuse is couched in terms to make them acceptable to the viewer, while if it's happening to you or your loved ones in modern times it presents a much harsher picture. The Spartans were organised as an army and their cause was noble. The criminals in South Africa are organised in smaller gangs, don't wear great uniforms and their cause seems to be revenge. And the revenge is not proportional to the crime that has been committed against them in the past. Let's not make any mistakes about that. The scale and savagery of what is going on now is in no way a reflection of the apartheid era. I am not stupid enough to tell you there was no white on black violence. What I am saying is never on this scale, never with this brutality.
So what then, is the parallel between Sparta and South Africa. Well if you watch the movie carefully you'll see the separation of family. The boys being taken from their parents into an organised military camp where they had to pit their bodies and wits against each other for survival.
Now in South Africa, the apartheid regime did committ and awful mistake/crime that is returning to punish the whites in waves of atrition. It broke up the families of the natives. It made it impossible for family units to stay together, outlawing the ownership of land in the cities, where the jobs were, not allowing blacks to take on skilled labour and thereby assuring a cheap labour source for the mines, also meant, because of the land acts, that this labour source was migrant, removing the fathers from their children and husbands from their wives. Women who could would go into the cities to become live in maids for the whites, thereby leaving the children in the care of older siblings or grandparents. Not being able to have their men with them left them open to abuse and temptation. Just as the men on the mines were open to transient sex from both men and women.
The family unit was well and truly smashed.
Now we all know, thesedays, the effect of a dysfunctional family on a child.
The point is well proven in Freakonomics, where the authors point out that the availability of abortion to single mothers was the single most important factor in decreasing the crime rate in America. Unwanted childrene were no longer being born and were no longer growing up into unwanted adults.
Any child left behind by its parents feels a profound sense of loss. There is no disputing that. So for generations the young native children of South Africa were forced into dysfunctional family situations, no mother figure and no father figure.
What chance did they have?
Added to that the lack of abortion facilities and you will find that there were a number of bastard children born to mothers who were ill equipped to look after them and in many cases treated them very badly. These unwanted mouths to feed would eventually find themselves shunted back to the ancestral family who didn't want them either.
Hence the apartheid regime spawned generations of psychopaths.
Add further into the mix the brutality of the struggle and the violence and crime witnessed by children - no matter who was perpetrating it - and it is no wonder that South Africa faces the problems it does today.
Luckily abortion is now available on a large scale, couples can live together and build a future together. All this means, however, is that in 20 - 30 years we should see a change. For the South Africans who are living with the fear of robbery, rape, torture, hijacking, kidnapping and murder, that does not solve the problem.

Shakmatoy Kasparov Check Mate

2007-04-21T01:53:00.000+08:00

Гарри Вайнштейн is questioned by state security... who would want that job? You know you'd be screwed before you even start. Ah well, nothing a bottle of ginger beer won't end very quickly.
Лидер Объединенного гражданского фронта Гарри Каспаров вызван в Пресненскую районную прокуратуру. Об этом газете "ОГФ" сообщила адвокат Каспарова Каринна Москаленко. Вызов связан с проверкой, которую прокуратура проводит по факту задержания Гарри Каспарова на "Марше несогласных" 14 апреля. Встреча назначена на 20 апреля 15.00.

Напомним, что 20 апреля Гарри Каспаров ответил на вопросы следователей ФСБ. Следователи пытались найти следы экстремизма в деятельности Объединенного гражданского фронта.Однако, как заявил Каспаров, доказать это невозможно, потому что никто из участников "Марша несогласных" не допускал ни призывов к экстремизму, ни экстремистских действий.

Ранее, Гарри Каспаров получил два вызова в следственную службу управления ФСБ России по Москве и Московской области на следующий день после проведения "Маршей несогласных". Первоначально в ФСБ хотели, чтобы Каспаров явился на допрос 19 апреля. Однако он попросил перенести встречу в связи с тем, что именно на этот день был намечен форум оппозиционных сил "Другая Россия", где обсуждались планы по дальнейшему проведению массовых акций.

Как сообщал ранее газета "ОГФ", лидер нацболов Эдуард Лимонов также ответил на вопросы следователей в управлении УФСБ по Москве и Московской области. Как сообщил сам Лимонов, темой беседы было его выступление в эфире "Эха Москвы".

Who won the UK/Iran Row?

2007-04-06T17:30:00.000+08:00

Iran.

Game over for Russia and the temptation of Putin

2007-04-02T02:58:00.000+08:00

Since the revolution, way back in 1917, there has been a divide between Russia and the west that has sometimes yawned so wide it has erupted in war, and other times sparked arms races worth billions of US Dollars. All the while maintaining the idea that the West would, for any excuse, attack Russia, and Russia would, of course, at any excuse attack America.
One only had to look at the wars going on in Asia and Africa to understand from one side or the other, that the enemy was clearly out there and they intended to dominate the world.
From the Russian side, before the fall of the USSR, Nato was the greatest threat, with missiles pointed at all major Russian cities, and Nato countries forming a ring of agression around Russia it was no wonder that the Kremlin sought buffer states to distance itself from the aggressor. The Kemlin often, under various leaders, offered to disband the Warsaw Pact (the countries that stood at arms with Russia) but this was declined, mostly by America who could not afford to lose it's very lucrative arms trade with all the terrified and spellbound nations of the world.
Once the USSR fell, the threat no longer existed.
This "peace" should have brought about huge social payoff. All the money that had been poured into defending everyone from the USSR should have been able to go into education, health care, welfare, better lives for all. The US defence industry should have crumbled.
Yet Nato continued to exist. Added to this was the America Missile Defence Shield - at first thought to protect the "free world" from the USSR. This expensive plan would be sunk if there were no real threat, specially to America.
Luckily Al-Qaeda materialised to fill the shoes of the arch foe, North Korea put its hand up, and Iran joined the club. The game was on again.
With the US-backed destabilisation of Muslim states around Russia - which started with Afghanistan and allowed fundamentalist Muslims to rise to power, gave them weapons and training in terrorism, Russia can see the erosion of its power, and control over lucractive oil states and sources of water and fossil fuels.
This might be offset if only the threat from the west would go away. But it has not. Those states that acted as a buffer to the Soviet Union are now under Nato's flag. Instead of Russia's enemy being disappated, it has simply loomed larger.
To add insult to injury Chekezlovakia has now agreed to host part of the missile defence shield.
This shield is not a threat to Russia in any way because before it even got off the ground the Russian military had the missiles to beat it. But it still poses a huge strategic threat to Russia's allies, China, North Korea and Iran, Cuba.
Russia is now caught between the weapons of europe on its doorstep and the rising power of China to the South, with an aggressive and recalcitrant US to the east. As the noose begins to tighten it seems Putin has taken some hard decisions.
Washington has allowed the Kremlin to see the plans for the missile shield. And suddenly there is an air of change about Red Square. People are talking about being a part of the shield itself.
It's almost as if Russia had a muliple Personality Disorder, not quite sure if it is European or asian. The recent oil troubles with the Euro market could so easily be solved if Russia just turned its back on Europe and built the southern pipeline China has been begging for. It seemed to be doing that when it seized Yukos Oil and its assets. It doesn't need the western market with China's insatiable thirst for oil. Yet instead it has decided to strengthen ties with Europe and a political shift in geography, even one as subtle as "thinking about thinking about joining the missile shield" like a subtle shift in tectonic plates, can cause huge catastrophes where least expected. The last thing Russia needs to do now is isolate China, or in any way show disdain or hostility towards that country.
So Putin walks the fine line of dimplomacy. And yet Russia itself will face a crisis come 2008 when it faces elections with apparentlly no leaders.
Putin is well loved among the locals, with his popularity marks up in the 70's. Yet he has already stood his constitutional two terms. And if he goes for a third he runs the risk of being a lame duck president. It is painfully obvious that he must now step down as President and one can only hope that he retains his tight grip on affairs from behind the curtains, allowing his successor, whoever that might be, to perform as well as he did.
The recent murders of journalists and the Litvinenko debacle have done little to dent his image at home, although the suspicious west will always believe the worst - former KGB = guilty.
This doesn't mean that Putin has nothing to answer for. And perhaps once he is out of the limelight the families of those who died on the Kursk will finally get their answers, just as those who suffered and died at Beslan deserve theirs.

You gutless dogs

2007-03-31T01:39:00.000+08:00

Any hope for Africa got washed down the drain this week as once again the balless "leaders" of the continent failed to rail against the outrageous behaviour of those among them.
First up was the SADC's complete lack of spine, gumption, sense of identity and foresight when they failed to murmur their faintest disapproval of the tyrant president thief of Zimbabwe, Robber Mugabe.
Just days before the conference of Africa's "elite" Mugabe had had his opposition, the elected president Morgan Tsvangirai locked up and beaten within an inch of his life. And the world only knew about Tsvangirai because of his fame. Barely making a blip on international press radar was the death of Gift Tandare and the brutal assault on other MDC party members, along with the constant harassment and beatings of members of the group Women of Zimbabwe or (Woza).
Words can no longer describe the horrors this man visists on his helpless country. But one of the things that gave Zimbabweans any form of hope was that by next year he would have to hold another election, and as he has been the country's only President since its revolution, and he is 83, chances are that he would step down.
But Mugabe is too clever for that. He knows that if he steps down he'll be putting his head into a noose. And well he should. Thousands of people were massacred on his orders. Millions face starvation and beatens and rapes and other forms of torture at the behest of his regime.
So the snake has wrangled another term from his party of frightened little men who do not have what it takes to say "ENOUGH".
After the SADC meeting, where Mugabe was expected to at least be heavily chastised by other African leaders for his flagrant crimes, he says he did not hear a murmur of criticism. That they all got together and agreed it was all the west's fault, and that sanctions against Zimbabwe should be lifted.
These EU and US imposed sanctions affect only Mugabe and his elite by restricting their travel and the flow of their finances.
But the SADC in fact DID call for the lifting of these sanctions.
The swaggering Mugabe told his supporting thugs that he knew about Tsvangirai's beating, and that he approved. "He deserved it," he said.
Can you imagine for just one minute if someone like Tony Blair or George Bush had to say such a thing? They would be impeached before the presses had finished running.
But in Africa, Mugabe is welcomed back to his country by his lackeys.

SA SUCKS RESHUFFLE AND NODDIES

2007-03-28T10:11:00.000+08:00

Not sure about the ins and outs at my favourite white racist website, but I see one of the contributors, Marwinsing had been fired. I thought they had dragged the foul mouthed Knorrig off to the SPCA for some rabies shots at least, as it all seemed too much for Uhuru Guru to deal with people actually debating and talking on his blog. Poor old guy he needed help and gave ops status to The Real Realist, who seemed at first to be a fairly okay kind of person, Marwinsing who also seemed to be fairly okay and the thick-as-camel-pee Knorrig who loves to yap about things he knows nothing about.
It seems the Uhuru Guru went back to his witblitz and boerewors after taking a pounding over his homophobia and using southafricasucks.blogspot.com for his own personal vendetta against gays who in his book are all child molesting criminals responsible for all the crime in South Africa and probably global warming too. To give the old guy his due, he did actually put up the postings of his detractors and as I said, I think he bit off more than he could chew. Blogging, even if you only cut and paste, can sap your time and energy, and being editor/writer/op editor and simple man in the street can be exhausting. On second thoughts maybe he's recovering in one of those happy hospitals where the nice nurses have syringes filled with drugs that make you feel good.
Anyway, with Marwinsing gone (apparently after they "found out something about him" probably that he's Indian or some other such crime) he was jackbooted out. Then Knorrig seemed to be taken off the list too.
I think The Real Realist (yeh right) realised he had too much on his hands as the blog was chugging along at quite a good pace. So Knorrig was reinstated, but with a small "k" for his name. Hmmmmmm some secret message there?
At the end of the day, Once again I am personna non-grata, as TRR's jackboot style of running what used to be a pretty free and open blog, mean that only the noddies (people who nod along in agreement) get their stuff posted. Most of these replies are of course written by TRR himself as can be seen in the style and turn of phrase.
Ultimately what used to be a fairly lively forum for debate (more or less) has been turned into a blocked drain of racism from which the words "LIBERAL, CRAZY, and KAFFIR" are regularly burped. Oh, sorry they have other ways of saying "Kaffir" which they think are oh so clever. Like SOPHISTICATED BLACK GENTLEMAN (even if the perp is eight).
But once again they end up with pie on their faces. Firstly in a crime report about a man who shot and killed a burglar in his home: Oh dear, the police took away the weapon, what to do, what to do, surely this was some evil plot against all white's rights to carry guns and protect themselves. Anyone with any sense would realise that the weapon was now part of the crime scene and that the White shooter would automatically become a murder suspect. This has nothing to do with race, or the change in law. It's basic criminal law. A crime has been comitted -three in fact. One the breaking and entering of the home/ two, the assault, and three the killing of the criminal. They don't take into consideration that the police are only doing their job. That they need to explore all the facets of the case and can't take one man's word just because he is White. Gone are the days when the cops will drag a burglar who had been shot in the back into the house and put a kitchen knife in his hand, then with a nod, wink and tap of the nose, make the man out to be the local hero.
The second instance where their vicious KKK colours show is where according to them, some Danish group wishes to set up rape counselling centres in various townships. Now if there is one thing they hate more than blacks, it's people who would help blacks in any way. These people are lumped together under the dreaded LIBERALS term. We all know that SA is the rape capital of the world, but these white men would rather see nothing done to help the women victims, than let those crazy liberals give them anything. It can well be argued that the rape rate has not increased greatly since the change in government, but merely the reporting of such crime has changed, and the previous regime didn't bother, didn't care to police these areas. Women were not well enough informed of their rights, and with scant policing in townships would often have to see their attackers on the streets because they had little choice of where to go, and the police were too busy protecting the whites from the total onslaught of... er...well just the total onslaught of uppity blacks who might want to use whites only beaches.
As the SA government battles to redress the stupidity of its previous regime the white taxpayer is hurting, make no mistake about it. But what the numpties at WSAS do not grasp is that firstly the infrastructure and services need to be laid on to millions of people simply because the previous regime failed to do this. And secondly the tangled nightmare of SA tax law leaves loopholes for the wealthy whites who can stash their millions overseas, plunder the country of its resources and get away with paying next to nothing in what they should for taxes.
One can tell immediately by the "comments" posted, the intel level of the writers who all nod along together in a constant whine of white angst at losing their advantages of the past. What a pity UG. But, I understand.

IT'S A BOY

2007-03-26T00:40:00.000+08:00

Pang Kod has finally had her baby, a healthy little male, who was born earlier this month.
My pal Sarah and I got up close and personal with Pang Kod when we went for a mahout's training course late last year at the camp in Lampang, Thailand. The experience of working with these intelligent giants will remain with us always.
As far as I know the baby hasn't been named yet, but judging from what I've seen of him, he certainly is drinking well.

White bitchfight joke

2007-03-19T11:43:00.000+08:00

As the racist anti-crime sites from South Africa (there are some that are not racist so we need to make the distinction) tear themselves and each other apart, a new blog has sprung up under the title whitebitchfight. I cannot quite fathom the aim of the blog. At first it I thought it was to highlight the divisions among the white right. But then perhaps it was just a spoof, taking the worst quotes often written in the heat of the moment and later regretted, and highlighting them for the rest of the world.
At the end of the day it seems a bad attempt at following the style of Sasha Cohen's Borat, with a character barely able to speak English putting together a number of meaningless quotes because they are taken out of context.
What a yawn.

Tokyo Sexwale - high flier (wek in progress)

2007-03-19T00:55:00.000+08:00

Mosima Gabriel (Tokyo) Sexwale is living proof of the South African dream.
Trained as a freedom fighter by the Soviet Army he has used his Russian contacts to parlay his business in South Africa into a R1.5billion consortium Mvelephanda Holdings - in only seven years. His empire spans gold, platinum and diamonds on two continents. There is no doubt that the assets were acquired at favourable rates, for Sexwale is a top negotiator and sharp businessman, but there were no government handouts.
He famously once looked at the staff ratio at the head office of Mvela Resources and told his CEO, a white man, that there were too many black staff. “Go and find a white man and employ him, I want diversity in my companies,” he said. http://www.somalilandtimes.net/sl/2005/233/028.shtml

Tokyo, who earned his nickname from his interest in karate, was born born 5 March 1953 ???
In 1977 he was arrested on conspiracy to commit terrorism and sentenced to 15 years on Robben Island. It was there he met his wife, Judy

Mvelephanda. 36% of the company is owned by trusts representing 1,000 former political prisoners, 60,000 former ANC guerilla fighters and their families, impoverished miners and welfare charities.
The remaining equity is owned by Sexwale (35%), management and directors (25%) and an unnamed individual (4%) whose identity has been kept secret. http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/investing-and-markets/article.html?in_article_id=402640&in_page_id=3

"If blacks get hurt, I get hurt. If whites get hurt, that's my wife, and if you harm coloured people, you're looking for my children. Your unity embodies who I am."

BELIEVING IN A JET PLANE

Among the best known is Tokyo Sexwale, the former premier of Gauteng province, now reportedly a billionaire who has acquired three aircraft, including a Lear Jet he bought for his wife on Valentine's Day. Last year alone, black empowerment deals helped create nearly 6,000 millionaires. (August 20, 2006)

San Francisco Chrnoicle
SHADOW OF RAGE
Despite high hopes, South Africa has failed to create a racially blind societyhttp://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/08/20/INGBNKFV2828.DTL

IT SICKENS ME to the pit of my soul when I know that Tokyo Sexwale has 5 Lear Jets , although he swore in 1996 that he'll (as ex-Premier of Gauteng) build 1 million houses!
Knorrig, resident drooling racist on SA Sucks

But no one seems to be able to prove the existence of more than on LearJet in the Sexwale family - the one Tokyo bought for his wife Judy as a Valentine's gift. Knorrig does provide evidence of a Bombardier jet being owned by Sexwale. A two jet family. Hmmm. Let's see if he can find the other three, with some solid evidence.

IT WAS ME A TO ZEE ???

2007-03-18T09:32:00.000+08:00

Just in time to get over the humilliation of scooter's conviction THE GREAT CONFESSION

9/11

The Bali bombings

WTC '93

Daniel Pearl

Plaza Bank .... Wait, WHAT?

Messages from the Mass Media

2007-03-14T09:48:00.000+08:00

One of the most popular shows on telly at the moment is 24 in which Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) plays the consummate hero. It's interesting to note that the viewing public gives it a 9.5 out of 10 score. My friends watch it. My girlfriends all want to have Bauer's babies.
I've seen some of it, and I must admit three things.
1. I saw episodes out of order. Our cable provider seems to run two series of the same production simultaneously with copious reruns during the week, so I could watch episode 2 of the first series on say, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and episode 16 of the second series on Monday, Thursday and Sunday. So it was very confusing.
2. I did enjoy what I was able to follow.
3. Then I started to think about it in context of what was happening in the world, particularly in America.

Americans were hurting from the tragedy of 9/11. They wanted revenge - hence the attack on Afghanistan, the round up of suspects through Pakistan and the eventual war on Iraq. And they needed to believe the cause was right and just.
Then the Abu Grahib story broke. It was shameful and humiliating, dragging Americans down to the level of third world dictators.
Shortly after that I did a story on the prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay. Men held without trial and due process, indefinitely. The basis of the story was that the prisoners were on a hunger strike, and against world medical agreements - to which the US was a signatory, they were being force fed.
Most of the people I spoke to at the time wondered what the big deal was. Allow me to give you an extract of a man's account of force feeding: “About a dozen guards led me from my cell to the medical unit. There they straitjacketed me, tied me to a bed, and sat on my legs so that I would not jerk. The others held my shoulders and my head while a doctor was pushing the feeding tube into my nostril.
The feeding pipe was thick, thicker than my nostril, and would not go in. Blood came gushing out of my nose and tears down my cheeks, but they kept pushing until the cartilages cracked. I guess I would have screamed if I could, but I could not with the pipe in my throat. I could breathe neither in nor out at first; I wheezed like a drowning man -- my lungs felt ready to burst. The doctor also seemed ready to burst into tears, but she kept shoving the pipe farther and farther down. Only when it reached my stomach could I resume breathing, carefully. Then she poured some slop through a funnel into the pipe that would choke me if it came back up. They held me down for another half-hour so that the liquid was absorbed by my stomach and could not be vomited back, and then began to pull the pipe out bit by bit. . . . Grrrr. There had just been time for everything to start healing during the night when they came back in the morning and did it all over again,” Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky wrote in the Washington Post, in an article that brings home the horror institutionalised force feeding. Bukovsky spent nearly 12 years in Soviet prisons where he was regularly force fed after going on a hunger strike.

This was not really what was happening in Gitmo. The pipes they used were smaller. As far as we know noses were not broken. But the general picture is the same, a gross violation of human rights, a torture in its own right, and a violation of medical ethics where doctors are forbidden to perform treatment without a patient's consent.
While doing the story, however, I met a man by the name of Mandouh Habib. He had experienced the loving attention of Gitmo's healers when they force fed him. Before that he had been snatched in Pakistan, rendered through Egypt where he was tortured with electric shocks, beatings and attacked by dogs. He was drugged, and told his wife and children had been raped and murdered. Realising that he was being drugged, he stopped accepting food.
This was Jack Bauer at his best. Doing what had to be done to protect Americans at home. What a hero.
But Habib was never brought to trial. He was never charged. He was and Australian citizen who apparently happened to be on the wrong bus at the wrong time. Today he suffers post traumatic stress and the physical consequences of his torture. No one has apologised or compensated him for his ordeal - but that is another story.
What shows like 24 fail to portray is the realistic consequences of torture. The blood, the vomit, the piss and shit, the broken human beings, many who end up dead, many who are completely innocent, who have nothing to "give" their torturer, those who end up permanently scarred and disabled as a result of torture. That a man hanged by his wrists suffers nerve damage that, depending on the time he spends like that, could be permanent or could result in him losing his hands. A person punched in the kidneys can suffer kidney failure and be on dialysis for the rest of their lives, if they survive.
Jack Bauer and other tough-guy heroes, of course, never tortures the wrong person. And the person they torture always gives them the vital information that allows them to save the day. In the viewers' consciousness the seed is planted that "torture is necessary sometimes, so it's okay".
In fact torture is an extremely unreliable method of extracting information. It assumes the person's guilt, and it assumes they have the information needed.

More often than not torture is used to extract confessions, or as a means of punishment. But any person - even JB himself - would confess to anything, given enough torture.

I don't mind torture as a device in telling the story. But it needs to be done realistically, not portrayed as a means that is justified in the end.

Take a look at some real victims of torture, before and after:

Rights and wrongs

2007-03-13T00:39:00.000+08:00

Mel Gibson has refused to make a movie with Idol star Jennifer Hudson because she's black. Most people would find that disgusting. It would be surprising if he ever worked in showbiz again, and quite rightly so. Only it wasn't Gibson and Hudson that were involved in this scenario. It was Denzyl Washington refusing to do a movie with Julia Roberts because she is white.
Oh, that's okay then. How noble of Washington to insist his leading lady be coloured.
When last did you see a movie where the bad guy is Jewish?
Quite frankly I can't recall one. Why is that?
This is not an anti-Semitic rant. I'm just curious as to why this might be. Come to think of it, when last you saw a homosexual being anything but lovable and sensitive?
Why this has suddenly come to my attention is because recently BBC ran a programme called Don't drop the Baby. It was a really interesting premise. The producers had made robotronic babies that worked more or less like real ones. Then they gave the babies to celebrities to look after for a few days and carefully monitored their progress. I can't even remember the names of the celebrities, but one was a gay couple who wanted a child of their own and had obviously read up on the subject. The other was some model who was not interested in children, didn't know a thing about them and was completely useless at anything other than pouting and painting her nails.
And that was it.
There was no heterosexual couple who wanted a baby. No gay men who didn't want a baby. No single woman with a modicum of common sense. Guess which celebrity came off looking like the best choice of parent.
I am sure that there are plenty of gay men out there in stable relationships that would make great parents, but the BBC chose to slant the programme in favour of the gays.
This coupled with a recent report that some homosexual bodies want to pry their way into home school and private schools to ensure that children are not being taught homophobic attitudes made me wonder where we draw the line.

Surely parents have a choice as to what to teach their children. And given that they are going to the trouble to home school their children this in my view gives them more control over what they choose to teach their children.

Those of you who know me know I have little religious affiliation and even less sexual affiliation except for what I believe is sacred - freedom of choice.

There are certain acts, crimes, that cause harm to the community. These include murder, robbery, rape, child molestation, theft, fraud, etc etc. Then there are other things which some people view as criminal which actually do no harm to the community at all. Things like homosexuality and the following of certain religions, abortion, prostitution and drug taking. That is where freedom of choice comes in.

It was the self-styled satanist Anton La Vey (I think) who first coined the creed of "Do what thy wilt"

But it was actually Jesus Christ Himself who said "Do unto others as you would be done by." And that is the basic tenet of most mainstream religions in the world today.

So where, exactly, does this leave society? Very basically if groups of people do things that other groups of people find unacceptable it would lead to a Balkanisation of social groups. Whereas if we respect individual rights - as long as they do not harm anyone - we can all get along just fine.

This kind of thinking is born out in places like Hong Kong. This is where people do have the luxury of choice. If a Muslim woman wears a veil, no one looks twice. If men hold hands in public, no one cares. People here can wear crosses, and put piggy banks on their desks, put up Christmas trees and sing carols, put up Luna New Year symbols and watch lion dances - and no one cares.

This is the year of the Pig. We have an entire Muslim community here, and there was not one peep out of them. Just as the Chinese don't complain when they celebrate Ramadan.

But in protecting what were previously seen as "minority" group rights, we seem to have gone overboard in being PC, to the detriment of what we would term the mainstream.

If God fearing Christians feel that homosexuality is sinful then they have every right to teach that to their children, just as Muslim parents can teach their children that they need to go to Mecca and slaughter a goat to have their sins forgiven.

Certain religions feel that Christmas should not be celebrated - Christians among them I might add. That's all well and good. No one is FORCING them to celebrate it. But for the rest of us they should just get out of the way.

Just as no one is forcing any woman to have an abortion. It's her choice (well, okay, except in China). It's no one else's business, just as what goes on between two consenting adults is no one else's business.

It has, of late, however, become my business.

You see, I'm a white South African. I cannot say that blacks are murdering thieving incompetent animals because that would make me a racist and I would be accused of hate speech and locked up. Just like Mel Gibson could never get away with saying he didn't want to do a part with Jennifer Hudson because she's black.

Yet the Deputy President of South Africa can sing about how he wants to get his gun and shoot the whites - and that's okay. Washington can say he doesn't want to do a love scene with a white woman, and he is applauded. Why is it okay to be racist if you're non-white? Why is it okay to be anti-Christian but not anti-Jewish?

Is that not a form of bigotry in and of itself?

There is a man by the name of Ernst Zundel who has been sentenced to five years in prison. His heinous crime was not robbery or assault or even drunken driving. No, this terrible criminal actually had the temerity to question the "facts" of the holocaust. Shock and horror. He didn't actually commit the holocaust. He just questioned the facts. He's serving time for this way of thinking. Just as David Hicks appears to be serving time in Guantanamo for supporting 9/11. Not committing it, not planning it, just thinking it was a good idea at the time. In which case half the Muslim world and a few others should also be behind bars.

Isn't it time we stopped paying so much attention to minority rights and started worrying about individual rights?

INKONKONI - THE MEANING

2007-02-26T11:48:00.000+08:00

I often get a lot of ribbing about my handle, Inkonkoni, which is generally a Zulu word used to describe a gnu. Unfortunately is it aslo a Xhosa word used to describe a lesbian.

Why I chose the name:

1) The gnu used to be the symbol of my home province, Natal, as can be seen above, and is currently one of the supporters of the KwaZulu Natal crest.

2) SAS Inkonkoni is the name of the citizen force naval base in Durban with which I have been affiliated. SAS Inkonkoni

3) Furthermore, as I work in a newspaper the word is just too punny to resist - "gnuspaper" get it?

4) As I like unicorns, other mythical horned animals, it was a no brainer.

5) No one else had chosen it on yahoo and my family instantly recognise it.

All of this was before the GNU freeware came along. Now everyone wants GNU.

NO AFRICANS PLEASE

2007-02-22T03:14:00.001+08:00

The South China Morning Post reports that citizens in Guangzhou, are finding the influx of Africans a little too much to bear.
In the traditional Chinese communities - where cooking a good Durban curry can cause wrinkled noses, and the loudest sound is the clattering of mahjong tiles residents have been aghast at the noise and dirt the newcomers are bringing in.
Flat owners are telling estate agencies not to rent their flats out to Africans, saying the foreigners are dirty, noisy and leave the flats in a bad condition.
The Post reports that the Guangzhou government is trying to find a way of dealing with the surging, and often illegal, foreign population which has been blamed for the city's high rate of crime.
Frustrated residents at Xiatan Xil have put up a notice requesting foreigners to make less noise at night to avoid being a nuisance. Residents were quoted as saying Africans liked to play loud music and sing and dance all night.
A security guard at the Jiazhou Cuiting flats said Africans were not welcome to rent there, but the Huanshi East Road was almost entirely overrun by Africans.
Locals complain about foreigners dirty habits, including littering the passageways of the buildings and causing a health hazard.
Peggy Lubanghe, a Cameroonian who came to Guangzhou as a student six years ago and has since settled down in a middle-class neighbourhood with her Congolese businessman husband, told the Post said she did not blame the Chinese for complaining.
Tianxiu is so dirty. I don’t know why they must all converge on Tianxiu,” she said. “It’s not the only building in China. Guangzhou is very big.
"Why must they all go there?
"I condemn this,” she said.
Ms Lubanghe said many Africans who were in Guangzhou illegally banded together for criminal activities, “destroying the reputation of Africans because the Chinese cannot tell one African from another”.
A Guangzhou police spokesman was quoted as saying that if flat owners decided that they wanted to bar the renting of properties to foreigners, there was no law to stop them.
“We won’t tolerate excessive behaviour, like turning people out, but if they don’t want to rent, we can’t do anything,” he said, adding that the cleanliness issue as well as differences in lifestyle were problems for Guangzhou residents. I personally feel that we may have to regulate and control rental housing," the spokesman said. “Landlords must show their ownership documents and tenants have to show their sponsorship certificates in passports.”
He said Guangzhou was more liberal than Shanghai in dealing with foreigners because Shanghai it did not require foreign tenants to report where they were working.
The spokesman said that police would direct their attention to the control of rental housing, which was a source of crime. "It's not just directed at foreigners," he said. "We are targeting all outsiders,” he said.
Mayor Zhang Guangning has said Guangzhou would step up publicity to educate foreigners about mainland laws as well as educate locals on how to deal with foreigners, and place more people with foreign-language skills in communities to help manage the foreigners.
Guangzhou is right across the border from Hong Kong which boasts a multiracial society although Africans are definitely in the minority and hardly seen outside Kowloon's Nathan Road area and the notorious Chung King Mansions where accommodation is cheap and police raids an almost nightly occurrence.

The success of Communism?

2007-02-19T12:00:00.000+08:00

One of my regulars asked me to point out the successes of communism. So here goes:
Growing up in the west we were fed the line of Communism being about equal to murder. Being called a Commie was an insult. The mere sign of the sickle and hammer was enough to get any "decent" person frothing at the mouth.
Why is this, I wondered.
Let us first deal with the ills brought about by Communism. Mostly Communism came into power by violent revolution, an uprising of the underdog against the establishment. Power was taken at the point of an AK-47. The simple reason for this is that those rising up were unable to gain power in any other way. Later it began to assert itself through the ballot box.
Any form of violent uprising requires a period of adjustment afterwards of rebuilding and filling in the vaccuum left by the previous power. Often there is a lack of suitable leadership in all areas of government which leads to a number of disasterous decisions. The constant threat of outside powers (and it was constant and very real) brings about a dictatorship mindset, as was seen during Stalin's era, and then in an attempt to protect the gains the leader has made he tightens his grip over the populace to near strangulation. That is not what communism is about, but it is an understandable reaction given the tactics of destabilisation faced during that time.
This element of fear leaves conditions ripe for corruption and abuses of power, and that is exactly what happened.
And each and every time Communists have come to power, whether by revolution or by ballot they have had to face not only reversing the ills of the previous regime but the constant subversion by the capitalists. The struggle which should have ended with the party gaining power continues indefinitely.
So it is against this kind of backdrop that the successes or failures of communism should be measured.
After WWII Europe, China, Korea, Vietnam and Japan were a mess. Japan and Italy teetered on the brink of Communism but were pulled back by America's Marshall plan which basically said "Stay Capitalist or you won't be getting any aid from us." Which is fair, it's their money and they can choose to spend it however they wish.
What this did, however was to boost Europe and Japan undermine those war ravaged countries (i.e. the Communist countries) who had to make it on their own. Russia had just experienced three devastating wars and a plague. It had also experienced a famine which began with a drought and caused a 20% crop failure and the death of millions. http://www.international.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=3838
Yet out of this chaos it was still able to develop a nuclear weapon, put the first man into space, and industrialise what had been an agrarian feudal society. The great promises of Lenin which at the time had seemed impossible of Land, Peace and Bread, were eventually fulfilled.
Generally speaking the "peasants" were far better off than they had ever been. The literacy rate had turned within a single generation because of the rapid industrialisation. Tribes that had been nomadic and on the edge of survival benefitted from agrarian techniques and education. Medical attention was in the reach of every man, and huge advances in medicine and nutrition were made, one of my personal favourites was the discovery and use of adoptogens.
So while the populace might not have been able to buy blue jeans or listen to The Beatles, they were, for the most part, fed, clothed, educated, employed, housed and at peace.
Prosperity was a distant dream, but the average man in the street was far better off than he had been under the Tsar.
Something that is often forgotten about the Soviet regime was its effect on women's rights in the Islamic states that fell under its control. Women in these regions were also educated, even attending university, female circumcision died out as did honor killings, women were free to walk around unescorted and unveiled. They were allowed to become doctors and were able to recieve proper medical attention. They could work, dance, enjoy an ice cream on a hot day. All these things were taken from the women of Afghanistan by the direct interference of the capitalist world.

When dead is not dead

2007-02-11T13:07:00.000+08:00

“At the site, the execution commander gave the order, “Go!,” and the prisoner was shot to the ground. Either because the executioner was nervous, aimed poorly, or intentionally misfired to keep the organs intact, the prisoner had not yet died, but instead lay convulsing on the ground. We were ordered to take him to the ambulance anyway where urologists Wang Zhifu, Zhao Qingling and Liu Qiyou extracted his kidneys quickly and precisely. When they finished, the prisoner was still breathing and his heart continued to beat. The execution commander asked if they might fire a second shot to finish him off, to which the county court staff replied, “Save that shot. With both kidneys out, there is no way he can survive.” The urologists rushed back to the hospital with the kidneys, the county staff and executioner left the scene, and eventually the paramilitary policemen disappeared as well. We burn surgeons remained inside the ambulance to harvest the skin. We could hear people outside the ambulance, and fearing it was the victim’s family who might force their way inside, we left our job half-done, and the half-dead corpse was thrown in a plastic bag onto the flatbed of the crematorium truck. As we left in the ambulance, we were pelted by stones from behind.”
This was the sworn testimony of Wang Guoqi, a former mainland doctor, given before the subcommittee on international operations and human rights of the US House of Representatives, June 2001.
The testimony shocked the world and was vehemently denied by official sources who claimed that any prisoner who surrendered his organs had done so with consent. Dr Wang was branded a liar.
But recent revelations have added strength to his harrowing account of the execution of a 30-year-old farmer that took place in October 1995.
Professior Chen Zhonghua head of the Tongji Hospital’s Institute of Transplantation, recently admitted that organs used in the thousands of transplants performed on the mainland each year, come from executed prisoners. He stated that the government had been using the organs of prisoners for years to perfect their techniques: “All the organs were acquired free of charge then and nobody ever thought of any personal benefit. On the contrary, we were excited to be part of the lofty drive for a bright future of China’s medical system,” he said.
He also revealed that out of the thousands of transplants that had taken place since 2000 he knew of less than 20 cases in which the donor had given permission.
But perhaps most chilling of all, he asked for a clear definition of the term “brain dead”.
Dr Wang was a specialist in the burn victims unit at the Paramilitary Police Tianjin General Brigade Hospital in Tianjin. According to his testimony his work involved removing skin and corneas from the corpses of over one hundred executed prisoners.
This particular man was not yet dead before his kidneys were removed. In fact he was still alive when Dr Wang attempted to harvest the skin from his torso, something that usually took his team 10 – 20 minutes.
He told writers for German weekly Stern that as he used his scalpel to slice open the man from the hips to the shoulders in order to remove the skin from the torso, blood squirted into the incision. He said the kidneys of the prisoner were whisked away for transplant, one for a party official.
Now it seems, organ transplants, like so many industries on the mainland, are becoming big business. Only, in this industry, the raw materials are human beings. And it seems China has a glut of prisoners on the production line.
With the big transplant hospitals paying out thousands to officials to have dibs on fresh organs the justice system is sidelined. Executions happen when the hospitals are ready, donors culled from the herd of wretched human flotsam viewed as garbage to be recycled.
The implications are the stuff of nightmares.
And as the industry grows along with the potential for bringing in high paying, desperate, overseas patients the potential for abuse multiplies.
China’s justice system is notoriously poor, and along with its appalling human rights record it would seem many of the prisoners are not hardened criminals as many would like to believe.
The prisoner Dr Wang skinned alive was convicted of killing his friend during a fight. This is not something likely to garner the death penalty in a western country. The liberal use of capital punishment concerns human rights activists with some saying the only crime some executed prisoners committed was to belong to the Falun Gong.
In an article last month the Epoch Times revealed that Falun Gong practitioners, detained on the mainland were being tortured to death, their organs destined for transplant. “Informants revealed that doctors of the Drug Rehabilitation Centre in Baiyun District, Guangzhou City openly “directed” thugs who torture Falun Gong practitioners, ”Don't beat them [at the] waist, the kidneys can be used”.”
An insider told The Epoch Times that the doctors and merchants involved in the purchases of Falun Gong practitioners' organs were told that the organs were from Falun Gong practitioners who "developed insanity from the practice and died" or "became evil after practicing and murdered other people, and therefore were sentenced to death and shot by the authorities."
People from all over the world, desperate for a life saving organ transplant find themselves on a long waiting list at home where they hope a donor will become available in time. No such wait in China, if the promises of the China International Organ Transplant are to be believed. According to their website they can provide a kidney within two weeks – although they do not guarantee a perfect match.
On the surface, using the organs of executed prisoners may seem like a logical solution to the problem of organ shortage. But, medical professionals warn, it is open to the potential of abuse on a level not seen since the Nazi death camps.
Briton, Dr David Nicholl, consultant physician and human rights activist, commented “These allegations are akin to what happened at Auschwitz with experimentation on inmates, although the practice in China, if true, could be much more lucrative. At current rates, with at least 3,400 prisoners executed per year according to Amnesty International, this translates into a potential market of over £170 million per year, just for the kidneys
alone, this figure does not include the potential revenues for corneas, pancreas, hearts and livers.”
The Associated Press has reported that the true number of transplants carried out each year is not known, but new regulations in the pipeline will require written permission from the donor for organs to be used.
“It is a complete fabrication, a lie or slander to say that China forcibly takes organs from the people convicted of the death penalty for the purpose of transplanting them,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters last year.
And on the flip side, it may not only be the donors who are suffering. Both Japan and Malaysia have reported several transplant patients dying after they received transplants on the mainland. Their deaths were due to several factors such as infections or their unsuitability as transplant candidates.
The new regulations hope to address that issue. They forbid the buying or selling of organs and demand that written permission is given by the donor. Donors, they say, will have a right to refuse.
In the west the debate rages as a shortage of willing donors means patients in dire need of a transplant are put on a long waiting list and the life saving organ may never materialise.
One solution raised in Kidney International by American physicians is that people be allowed to sell their kidneys for a fair market price. The belief that human beings are owners of their own bodies and therefore should be allowed to sell their own organs – as long as this poses no threat to their lives – is one way to approach the problem.
But until a similar system reaches the mainland activists remain believe the system falls far short of protecting both donors and recipients.
“Given that the Chinese government has steadfastly refused to give precise figures about the number of people executed, in defiance of international treaties,” says Dr Nicholl, “their instance that they have now banned this practice has to be taken with a healthy degree of scepticism given the lack of regulation to date.”

old news

2007-02-11T12:56:00.000+08:00

While George W Bush accounts for the state of the nation there are certain subjects he avoids…such as the on-going detention of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and the force-feeding of hunger strikers. ..speaks to some of those involved…

“About a dozen guards led me from my cell to the medical unit. There they straitjacketed me, tied me to a bed, and sat on my legs so that I would not jerk. The others held my shoulders and my head while a doctor was pushing the feeding tube into my nostril.
The feeding pipe was thick, thicker than my nostril, and would not go in. Blood came gushing out of my nose and tears down my cheeks, but they kept pushing until the cartilages cracked. I guess I would have screamed if I could, but I could not with the pipe in my throat. I could breathe neither in nor out at first; I wheezed like a drowning man -- my lungs felt ready to burst. The doctor also seemed ready to burst into tears, but she kept shoving the pipe farther and farther down. Only when it reached my stomach could I resume breathing, carefully. Then she poured some slop through a funnel into the pipe that would choke me if it came back up. They held me down for another half-hour so that the liquid was absorbed by my stomach and could not be vomited back, and then began to pull the pipe out bit by bit. . . . Grrrr. There had just been time for everything to start healing during the night when they came back in the morning and did it all over again,” Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky wrote in the Washington Post, in an article that brings home the horror institutionalised force feeding. Bukovsky spent nearly 12 years in Soviet prisons where he was regularly force fed after going on a hunger strike.
So he and other activists around the world have been particularly outraged that hunger striking detainees at Guantanamo have been subjected to this controversial procedure. The US military denies that their force feeding of inmates at Guantanamo is anything like the torture described by Bukovsky.
“Force feeding is a misleading term,” insists LTC Jeremy M. Martin, Director of Public Affairs, Joint Task Force Guantanamo Bay. “Detainees are tube fed when required, in a prudent manner by doctors or registered nurses. This feeding is consistent with what occurs in US hospitals or US correctional facilities. Tube feeding is performed humanely. Detainees on hunger strike are treated humanely.
“Detainees are not sedated during tube feeding, are given a mild local anesthetic if requested. Detainees are sitting up-right when tube feeding occurs, and the process lasts 1-2 hours. DoD policy is to preserve life by appropriate, lawful, clinical means.”
But the latest row to hit the military has not been about the humaneness or cruelty of the procedure, rather the ethics of those involved.
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld speaking about the issue to a Pentagon press conference in November 2005, said, “I’m not a doctor and I'm not the kind of a person who would be in a position to approve or disapprove."
He had the political savvy to distance himself from what would turn out to be an international storm of protest and a brewing legal drama. This public washing of hands may seem to make Rumsfeld untouchable for what in some people’s minds amounts to war crimes, but some of his minions are feeling the backlash of judicial and international sentiment.
London solicitors Allen and Overy, who represent some of the detainees at Gitmo, have filed court action in California, asking the judiciary to look into the ethical liability of Captain John S Edmondson, then commander of Guantanamo's hospital,
The procedures are carried out by licensed doctors, which brings them into conflict with the World Medical Association. Whether or not that has any jurisdiction over Captain Edmondson is still being decided by the San Diego courts.
The military's policy of tube feeding prisoners on hunger strike is controversial, and military health care providers are "screened" before deployment to Guantanamo "to ensure that they do not have ethical objections to assisted feeding," Captain Edmondson told Susan Okie, M.D. who wrote about her October visit to Guantanamo in December’s issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
But, according to Nepalese Dr Bhogendra Sharma, (telephone interview) international programme advisor of medical foundation Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture the practice is unethical. “It is the Duty of doctors to respect the autonomy a person has as a patient.” To carry our any sort of procedure, he said, the doctor needed the “informed consent of his patient”.
In his sworn affidavit, seen by the South China Morning Post, Captain Edmondson states “The actual feeding process, both at the detention hospital and on the cell block, is very voluntary. Detainees retain a large measure of control over the administration of the nutrition. Once the feeding tube is inserted (or if it has remained in the detainee) a bag is connected to the tube and the nutrition flow begins. The detainee himself controls the flow of the nutrition so that any discomfort is minimized. . . . The detainees within their cells come voluntarily to the door and hand their naso-gastric tube out to a nurse, who connects the bag of nutrition to the tube and hangs the bag connected to the tube on a hook outside the cell door. … The length of the tube allows the detainee to move about within his cell for the two hours of feeding.”
Dr Sharma is puzzled by this assertion. If detainees were willing to receive nutrition, he wonders, why not just eat instead of going through the discomfort of tube feeding.
He, like many other vocal activists believes this is a form of torture.
“Force feeding is very painful,” he says. “It can be used as a form of coercion.”
The recent trial of Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer in the death during interrogation of Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush, the shocking photographs from Abu Ghraib, affidavits of detainees telling of beatings, sexual assaults and religious pressures and the United States’ history of torture have badly dented America’s image.
So it is perhaps understandable that LTC Martin, is at pains to point out that this is not “force feeding” but rather a medical intervention to save the lives of detainees under the department’s care.
No prisoner has died at Guantanamo Bay. The officers are justifiably proud of this record and aim to keep it that way. Activist UK neurologist David Nicholl (telephone interview) believes it is this very record which is helping to motivate the medical staff to cross the ethical boundaries.
“It’s a face-saving effort,” he says.

On 11 January, Captain Edmondson handed over command of US Naval Hospital Guantanamo Bay to Captain Ronald L Sollock, MC, USN. In a move that raised eyebrows among activists, he was awarded his third Legion of Merit Medal. His new task will be head of the Future Operations Division of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery.
Dr Nicholl wrote a strongly worded letter to Captain Edmondson, calling him out on the ethics of this dispute and pointing out: “I would thus urge you to consider very carefully the consequences of your current actions, which are in direct contravention of internationally agreed legal and ethical standards, that have been ratified by the American
Medical Association, amongst others. I suggest that following these guidelines, you
should stop any further involuntary feeding. In the UK, we stopped force-feeding inmates 100 years ago with the suffragettes as the practice was felt to be barbaric then, it still is.”
The British government faced this exact dilemma during its incarceration of Irish Republican Army members and allowed them to starve to death, he said in his interview
Captain Edmonson replies: “You have a responsibility to base your conclusion on facts. Not on the accusations leveled [sic] in the media and broadcast by defense attorneys who are more interested in publicity than in the rights or health of their clients. In actuality I am not currently force feeding any detainees. I am providing nutritional supplementation on a voluntary basis to detainees who wish to protest their confinement by not taking oral nourishment.”
Yet in his affidavit he mentions prisoners having to be restrained, of them removing their tubes.
One of the greatest problems the media faces in reporting the truth is that the only non-partisan organisation allowed unfettered access to the detainees and facilities at Guantanamo Bay is the Red Cross.
And they, for fear of losing this right, do not make public their reports. “Access to every person in every conflict zone who needs protection or help, everywhere in the world, is our raison d’être. One thing is clear: if parties to a conflict see us leaking what we know to the outside world, the chances of our operating effectively will shrink dramatically But like I say, confidentiality is not what it’s actually about.” ICRC president Jakob Kellenberger says in an article on the ICRC’s website.
The media has been invited to the facility for carefully managed PR tours and many of them decline.
Even the UN special rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak, has not received the access he has requested.
So for now, Guantanamo Bay remains a festering sore on the face of human rights, under the auspices of the country that styles itself as the paragon of such rights.
And Bukovsky’s words ring true. “Think what effect your attitude has on the rest of the world, particularly in the countries where torture is still common, such as Russia, and where its citizens are still trying to combat it. Mr. Putin will be the first to say: "You see, even your vaunted American democracy cannot defend itself without resorting to torture."

Net worth of mainstream media

2007-01-30T18:32:00.000+08:00

The internet has brought us a freedom we've never had before. Not only are people from all over the world able to chat real time on anything they like, news now reaches us literally at the speed of light.
It has also given rise to bloggers, and internet journalists. Whereas traditional media costs a great deal to reach the consumer, in the form of production costs, blogs are free. This means that we have citizen reporters who can give first hand accounts of events as they happen on the ground. There are also people who can give their opinions and feelings about events, raise questions and suspicions. And there certainly is a place for that. There are excellent net journalists out there, like Chris Floyd, Gref Palast and William Blum, unfettered by having to kow tow to advertisers they do great indepth research, cite their sources. I love Floyd's turn of phrase and his ferral opposition to all things Bush.
But there is a flipside to internet writers. Blogging has become very popular, fast paced and entertaining. They're great at sharing their opinions, spreading rumours and gossip. The problems happen when people turn to them for news. These are not journalists. They are laymen with scant regard for ethics and even less regard for publishing law. And at the moment they can say and do more or less what they please until someone who knows better finds them out. The veracity of their writing becomes questionable, sometimes deliberately misleading, especially if their blog is of a crusading nature. The sad thing is that readers get sucked into these blogs and believe that the writer is telling the truth. They don't understand the checking processes that need to go on to produce a story. Furthermore the questionable copy is often picked up and reproduced willy nilly by other crusaders of the same ilk. So metaphors or illustrations become "facts" and the truth is lost.
While most mainstream newspapers make a conscious effort to be unbiased, many bloggers cater to specific interests... such as previously mentioned Henry Makow and his anti-feminism rants, Jan Lamprecht and his racists.
Where does that leave the real internet journalists? It knocks their credibility. It leaves their real and important messages open to question, and means their chances of reaching mainstream readers is minimalised. They are consigned to the "tinfoil hat brigade".
Nowhere was this more evident than in the runup to the Iraq war. The mainstream media which are fed by the big news companies, such as Reuters, Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, along with the regionals Itar TASS, Xinghua and so on. For the most part only local copy is dealt with by reporters working on those newspapers. So a newspaper in Wagga Wagga would have reporters covering stories in Wagga Wagga and take the bulk of its copy from reputable news sources. If those reputable sources don't ask the questions you as a journalist would like answered, there's not much way of getting them.
It takes a special breed of journalist to track down the truth, sift through the mountains of evidence, get the people to talk to them. And it is so easy for them to be marginalised or killed to keep them quiet.
So I really salute men like Floyd, Palast and Blum. And with the cowboys would learn that words carry responsibility.

Women's rights are human rights

2007-01-28T01:07:00.000+08:00

Why is it that in even the most modern of cities, prostitution is still taboo?
Now please, don't get me wrong here. I'm not talking about child prostitution. I'm not talking about human trafficking. I'm talking about a business transaction between two consenting adults.
Why is it wrong? Why do governments feel they have a right to get involved in something like this? Who does it harm?
Don't give me the nonsense that it "harms family life".
The family life is already harmed if a man goes to a prostitute if that is not part of their mutual agreement. The act of going is not causing the harm.
Don't tell me about AIDS and STDs. If it wasn't made into a crime sex workers would be more willing to be tested, could more easily be educated and the rate of disease would actualy drop.
Also, sex workers do perform a social function. There are many people out there who enjoy their company as they are unable to be in a stable and loving relationship. Why should they be denied the physical release and pleasure? Again, who is it hurting?

Oppressors R us

2007-01-18T23:29:00.000+08:00

Somewhere out there is a man, excuse me, he likes to be called Doctor - no, not that sort of doctor - who in his own little way is trying to stop the world and set it in reverse. As far as he's concerned the world's evils can all be attributed to - in varying degrees - feminism, along with the usual communism and satanism, all three of which are the brainchilds of... BANKERS.
Okay okay, I know most of you expected me to say The Bilderberg Group, but no... the BG, Masons, Communists, liberals, feminists, democrats, Pagans, Roscrucians and SPCA are all run by BANKERS.
The man's entitled, like all fundamentalists, to pick his own group of oppressors, but what is fascinating about this phenomenon is that Henry Makow has a website, savethemales.org.ca on which men congregate to whine how women did them wrong. If only them bitches would just git back inna house and make more babies, life would be wonderful again.
Wonderful for whom?
He posts items from girls who are ashamed of their "slutty" pasts, and regret sleeping around. Oddly enough he never has anything of the like from boys. The only inference to be drawn from this is that men can't control themselves.
I had a very similar conversation with a number of Muslim men, about the strict dress codes of Islam, and they admitted that the religion - like most montheistic cultures - puts the onus of sexual control on the woman. Once a woman does not fit into that role, all bets are off. Men have no responsibility whatsoever.
Another thing I find quite strange about this group's musings is that they believe women are to blame for the high divorce rate, and the ruthless goverment helped them do it. The fact that they can get alimony and state help raising children means that they can just toss their mates aside and go it alone.
They don't take into consideration the philandering, the abuse, and utter unfairness of the system they propose. No, women should rejoice in the fact that they will have a man to take care of everything, and all they have to do is worry about keeping HIM happy.
And he's not wrong. If a woman wants nothing else than to raise children and make her husband into a success, she would be truly happy to find a man to protect and care for her and their brood. My grandmother was one such woman, constantly upbeat, whose only major decision of the day was what to make her beloved husband for his dinner. But then he was a Mason, so maybe she doesn't count.
All in all there is a feeling of redundancy about the men - one hates to openly use the word "Losers" who wistfully hearken back to the days when a woman was owned by her father and then by her husband.
Yet none of them see fit to examine men's behaviour over the past ohhhh three or four thousand years, and discover why it is that women feel it unwise to place their faith in a man. Rather they see this from the other side of the one-way mirror - you don't trust me so what chance do we have?
The world is a constantly changing place, and no one doubts that when systems we are comfortable with change radically we go through some stress. Makow is not the only one to blame it all on some huge organised evil, and he won't be the last.

Where Have All the Women Gone

2007-01-13T12:20:00.000+08:00

The latest reports that there are 30 million more men in China (at marriageable age) than women is stark evidence of the sexual inequality that is rampant across the Asian continent. When China, in an effort to rein in its population growth, brought in the infamous one child policy it might have foreseen the dire consequences. While the communists can preach about equality, the truth is, traditionally, boys are more wanted than girls. And so, if a couple was limited to only having one child, they would choose that child to be a boy.
Let's not couch this in euphemisms. That means that some 30 million baby girls have been murdered, either aborted if the technology is available to determine sex before birth, or drowned by the midwife before they take their first breath of air.
In other parts of Asia infant girls have sand or salt poured into their mouths, are buried alive or tossed into latrines.
Now it's payback, with the shortage of wives in Pakistan, India and China reaching crises levels.
One would think that this would bode well for women. Those people eager to push market driven politics would tell you that a rarer commodity is more precious.
Sadly that is not the case.
The lack of wives sees men turn to abduction or human trafficking. Worse still are the horror stories coming out of the Indian subcontinent where women, marrying one man, are forced to sexually service all the males in the family.
You would have a difficult time finding this sort of thing in Beijing, New Delhi or Islamabad. But in rural areas, where women are ranked below water buffalo, the real misery lies.
It will take years to correct this imbalance that has thwarted efforts to bring human rights to women in these places. And it needs to be actively corrected.
To this end authorities are banning the use of pregnancy scans to determine the sex of the fetus. But that is a baby step. While wanting to stop spiraling population growth governments find themselves dealing with old belief systems, and traditions such as that in India where a woman must pay her husband a dowry for the pleasure of marrying him.
Interestingly enough, the children of the One Child Policy in China, known as "Little Emperors" because of the attention lavished on them, are finding it difficult to find employment.
More and more companies are refusing to employ the Little Emperors because they believe they are weak, unable to cope with day to day decision making, lack the competitive edge that children who come from larger families have.
This social upheavel could prove disastrous for these countries that spawn entire generations of people who have grown up being the centre of attention and lacking the knocks and bumps that come from siblings.
Not only that but they treat the other third of their population as goods to be traded.
Perhaps these men will be prevented from finding a mate. And nature, in due course, will be able to set this disaster right.

A good idea gone so very wrong

2006-10-07T16:46:00.000+08:00

There is no doubt about it that White South Africans are feeling the rising tidal wave of crime in that country. In response, several websites have opened to protest this crime and bring it to the attention of the world. Sadly these people don't realise that it's very hard to bring anything in Africa to the attention of the world. The wars, famines, droughts, brutality, misgovernment, natural disasters and outbreaks of diseases seem unrelenting, no matter how much money the west gives, no matter how many peace accords are brokered, pop concerts held, or how many summits are attended. Furthermore on the list of disasters wreaking their havoc in Africa, the rising crime in South Africa is very low on the scale of emergencies.
Now that South Africa is going to host the 2010 soccer world cup, however, there is a window of opportunity for change. Tourism is a large industry in the country and tourists have been murdered, raped and robbed along with the citizens. This is obviously something the South African government does not want publicised as it gears up for a lucrative international event. But these rebel websites are doing their utmost to ensure the world does know, exactly what is going on in the country. That it is not the peaceful paradise Mandela sold it as.
What a great pity, then, that sites like http://www.crimexposouthafrica.org/ run by Niel Watson allows its message boards to be filled with racist comments and empty rehtoric.
When first directed to the site I was pleased to see promises of "freedom of speech" but noticed that the only people given such freedoms were those that propegated racism. Don't get me wrong, it allows publication of letters from blacks, but mostly those that spew hatred and abusive language.
I chalked this up to teething problems. It appeared Watson was a good man, trying to do what was right but had been overwhelmed by the response from South Africans eager to have a voice over the most pressing issue in their lives.
A request for an interview with Watson went unanswered.
The site claims to "moderate" comments, but I have not been able to discover the criteria they use for moderation.
Still as the racism grew and members questioned whether or not this hurt the site's image no effort was made to curb it. One supposes this was under the "freedom of speech" tennet. But on the other hand, my postings were, in fact censored. I was surprised at this because in no way had they been abusive. In the absence of any explanation from the powers that be, I can only assume this was for two reasons:
Firstly, as a journalist I have certain ethic and moral, not to mention legal restraints on what can and cannot be published. It appears - not unexpectedly - that crime expo feels no such restraints or responsibility. They saw fit to publish a picture of a rape victim, without saying the victim had given permission for her picture to be published. One of my emails took them to task for this.
Second, Jackie Selebi's comments that people who complained about the crime in the country were welcome to leave drew the expected outrage - across the world. The point being debated on the site was that Selebi had said he would take resources from previously white areas and deploy them in previously black areas as needed. The general feeling was, of course, that whites seemed to deserve better policing protection than blacks. My email pointing out that protection of the law was something all citizens needed was deemed not fit to publish.
Under the current conditions it's easy to see why these activist sites fail so miserably. If they were more ethical, if they were indeed not racially biased, businesses in South Africa and citizens across the colour divide would be clamouring to support them. Instead the opposite is true, and their credibility is so bad that no one wants to associate with them.
It's de ja vu of the apartheid government.

Haditha: A cowardly attack

2006-06-14T16:23:00.000+08:00

The controversy surrounding the killings at Haditha has raised a storm of protest from around the world. There is no doubt that civillians were killed. There is no doubt that women and children were killed. What is in doubt, is the manner in which they were killed.
The fact is that the only people who can answer that question are the US Marines. No one else was close enough to see what was going on. Journalists could only take pictures of the aftermath.
A few things bother me about Haditha. The first is that people seem to think that this is something out of the ordinary - civillians getting killed. When you deploy an army into a civillian area it usually follows that civillians get killed.
In the press the term "innocent civillians" is used, over and over, as if these were people who were somehow saints. Insurgents don't wear uniforms. So while I admit that obviously the children were not insurgents, after that, it's anyone's guess as to how many insurgents were actually killed by the marines. We don't know that the adults were "innocent" for all we know they could all have been insurgents.
Then there are the half mumbled excuses of the US military brass. Battle fatigue. Combat Stress. And a host of other psychobabble that in itself is an aspersion on the professionalism of the entire marine corps. How that must eat at the morale of these highly trained men and women who, with one stroke of a pen are relegated to the ranks of amateurs.
The question remains as to whether anyone would be prosecuted for this "atrocity". My feeling is that they will, and they probably don't deserve to be.
Marines at the scene say that after the explosion they were fired upon and gave chase, using the methods they had been taught, to clear the houses of hostiles. The facts, even from civillian eye witnesses would seem to bear this out.

Jan Lamprecht spews his racist nonsense

2006-04-25T18:11:00.000+08:00

It had to happen that if you continuously point out the error of foaming at the mouth right wingers, they tend to ban you from their sites. Oh well. All I can do is offer a voice of reason to the spewing of racist half-wit Jan Lamprecht of www.africancrisis.org . Frankly I would be more concerned about his site if he had more than a handful of readers, but he doesn't, thank god for small mercies.
Under his latest:
U.S. makes plans for a hostile China
He finally wakes up to something I've been telling him for ages now. Duh! China might be powerful.
Then he goes on a little mindless rant about the possible power of Japan. He gleefully announces that Japan is sitting there with over 100 million people and the world's second strongest economy. In World War II, Japan invaded China and socked it to them. First of all, Japan invaded China long before WWII. They were provoking China as early as 1931 and war broke out in 1937. And at the time, China was not communist, it was an agrarian society with a very poor military resistance. Things might be a bit different now.
I would not write Japan off so easily. If the Japanese build up their military, and remain friendly to the USA they could be an excellent ally in the region, Lamprecht babbles on.
If only pigs could fly... He forgets about the whole post second world was agreement and plans and oaths never to fight again. It would take them a while to get past that and then get organised.
He has finally noticed, though I've told him this several times, that China is very interested in Africa. Yes, it is pouring billions into Africa, buying up debt, building hospitals and bridges and schools. And more importantly, buying up oil contracts. Just as it does with any oil rich country in the world. And this is where the western world is falling on its behind. Imposing sanctions, getting snotty about leadership (Venezuela and Chavez), letting their companies payoff police in corrupt areas, threatening and cajoling and generally acting like they own the world...The oil will go elsewhere. Already Venezuela is moving its supply away from America. Europe is, excuse the pun, over the barrel with Russian supply. Russian doesn't NEED to supply oil to Europe. China is waiting with an open cheque book. Japan is also waiting with an open cheque book. If Japan can't organise its own oil supply it's not going to be much of a threat.
The Western world and China may yet clash in Africa in this century, Jan hopes. I suppose by that he means the UKUS alliance. Can't see anyone else stepping up to the fight. And what fight? There has to be a reason to go to war and "give us oil" doesn't fly very well in a democracy as it smacks of robbery. Of course history has taught us that the US is not above manufacturing reasons to go to war, so there is always that possibility.
An important subtext of Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to the White House is the growing U.S.-China military competition. There is no competition. China is merely building up its military. It has nothing to do with the US. China's defense spending surges, Okay, let's put this into context here. China has the largest standing army in the world at around 1 million troops. These guys are paid pish. A small pay rise of, say, US$40 for each man, means an increase of US$40 million in military spending. If hey get a whopping 400 dollar increase, it's US$4 billion A MONTH. So multiply that by 12 and you get US48 billion a year. Lions and tigers and bears, Oh MY!
Add into that the day to day costs of housing, food, uniforms etc etc and you can see where a huge portion of the money goes.
The United States' defence budget this year is US$419.3 billion. China's budget is US$29.9 billion dollars.
The other aspect of this is something a lot of western countries fail to understand. China's army is not only a fighting force. It takes on the roll of civil defence in times of floods or famine or other natural disasters, building bridges, helping to evacuate people, putting up sandbags to prevent flooding. In certain times it's even been known to help gather the harvest.
What we are seeing is the Pentagon flooding the area with its military, along with supplying weapons to the renegade Taiwan and causing arms build up between Seoul and Pyongyang. They've signed a nuclear agreement with India, against international protocols, and are now contemplating a nuclear strike against Iran.
The Pentagon is pursuing a strategy of strengthening its forces in the Asia-Pacific region as a hedge against the possible emergence of a hostile China. The Navy is putting a larger proportion of its submarine fleet in the Pacific, plans to add one aircraft carrier battle group in that region and is outfitting strategic missile submarines with nonnuclear cruise missiles. The Air Force has been improving its ability to deploy B-2 stealth bombers from Guam, a U.S. territory in the Pacific; the Marines are shifting some troops to Guam; the Army has talked of moving the headquarters of its I Corps, which focuses on potential conflicts in the Pacific, from Fort Lewis to Japan. The Pentagon has made no secret of its increasing focus on China as a potential threat to stability in Asia and the Pacific, where U.S. alliances with Japan and South Korea have been key underpinnings of the region's economic growth. Lamprecht quotes from a report by AP.
Where is this hostility to the west that everyone keeps talking about? What has China ever done to the west to make them imagine they should be enemies now? If anything it should be the other way around as during the last days of the second world war, western allied soldiers turned their guns on Chinese communist soldiers who had been their allies in downing Japan.
While Lamprecht rubs his hands in glee at the thought of a militarised Japan being sicced on China I wonder if he has the vaguest notion of the atrocities that were committed by the Imperial Japanese army during the second world war. So much is made of the holocaust in Europe but we were never taught of the atrocities committed by the Japanese.
It would be a good idea for Lamprecht to famliarise himself with some world history and current events.

2006-04-06T09:56:00.000+08:00

Two things conspired to really get my hackles up this week. First there was an email from a dear friend of mine, Bill Northern. Bill is a bone fido (boom boom) animal psychic, a wonderful man, gentle as can be. The email was one of those doing the rounds of the web, supposedly written by an airline pilot, Captain John Maniscalco. It laments the events of 911. I could take it apart piece by piece but most of you reading this know the answers. His letter is based around the old idea that America, the innocent friend who just helps out the whole world, was viciously attacked for no good reason.
It got me thinking that perhaps there really are citizens out there who are still this ignorant.
One of my favourite op-ed writers pens his column Global Eye for The Moscow Times. He has a way with language that makes me want to worship at his feet. He is virally anti-American and so I was not surprised when his latest offering went out of its way to point out that Bush is actually not the idiot the world likes to think. In fact, says Floyd, and I would have to agree, he has done just what he set out to do, looted the US government along with his friends at Haliburton and Carlyle, caused untold misery and trouble in the Middle East, also being looted by his cronies, and basically torn a once strong, proud, nation apart.
I sent copies of his column to some friends and family. Oddly enough one sent to someone at MSN was barred because MSN didn't like its contents, as it told me on it's refusal form. I hope that was a glitch, but who knows, perhaps the corporate big brothers of the world now censor what their workers can see.
I mistakenly sent one to a chap I had thought I would not hear from again. We had been very involved in online gaming until one day he suddenly disappeared.

This is Floyd's piece:

Global Eye
Vision Quest
By Chris FloydPublished: March 31, 2006
Once again we must take up the cudgels for President George W. Bush, who is being increasingly maligned for his alleged lack of strategic vision in Iraq. This chorus of petty carping from partisan dead-enders has been exacerbated of late by all the hand-wringing media reports about "civil war" breaking out among the ungrateful beneficiaries of the president's selfless crusade for peace and enlightenment in the Middle East.These charges are, as always, pure bunkum. As we have often noted here before, Bush is pursuing a remarkably effective "win-win" strategy in Iraq, a highly flexible vision that is even now ripening to fruition. The savage militias, ethnic cleansing, mass murder, sectarian hatred and gruesome tortures that are turning Iraq into a howling moonscape of fear and chaos are but precision tools in the artful hands of the Leader, as he patiently crafts the ultimate victory.
The war aims of the Babylonian Conquest have always been obvious to anyone who concentrates on the operational reality of the action, ignoring the ludicrous cornball about democracy and security that Bush dishes out to gull the rubes back home. The reality clearly shows that Bush had three primary objectives in launching the invasion. First and foremost was the transfer of large portions of the national wealth of Iraq -- and the United States -- into the coffers of his political cronies, corporate backers and family members. Second was the frantic acceleration of the long-running, bipartisan militarization of America, which is now almost wholly dependent on war and rumors of war to keep its heavily mortgaged economy afloat. Third was planting a permanent military presence in Iraq to "project dominance" over the strategic oil lands and serve as staging areas for further operations in regime change and political extortion as needed. ("Nice little country you got there, Abdul; too bad if something, like, happened to it -- you savvy? Now howzabout signing that free trade agreement already?")None of these aims have been harmed in the slightest by Iraq's death spiral into civil war. The Bush faction's war profiteering and fraud -- on a scale surpassing anything ever seen in world history -- has fueled a ruthless political machine that, despite its growing unpopularity with the U.S. people, now controls all three branches of government and has overthrown the Constitution, openly declaring that its leader is beyond the reach of "judicial review, congressional oversight or international law," as The Washington Post reported, rather belatedly, this week. Swollen by the swag of aggressive war, the elite interests represented by the Bush regime -- oil, military-related industries and predatory venture capitalists like the Carlyle Group -- have had their already inordinate sway over American society and policy increased by several magnitudes. They will remain ascendant for decades to come, no matter what happens in Iraq, or in any U.S. election.Indeed, the murderous chaos that will inevitably spill across the region, and the world, from the collapse of Iraq will only mean more boffo box office for the fearmongers and warmongers of the Bush faction -- and even greater feasting for their oil barons, already gorged on record-breaking profits after just three years of bloodshed. The whack-a-mole "Long War" gleefully envisioned by the Pentagon will thus be extended indefinitely, bringing more militarization, more draconian "war powers," and further destruction of those pesky civil rights and constitutional liberties that hinder the elites in their exercise of raw power.Civil war also enhances the prospect of permanent U.S. bases. The Sunni minority, once the most vociferous opponents of American occupation, now look -- vainly -- to U.S. forces as their last-ditch protection against the deadly militias of the Shiite majority. The Shiite-led government relies on U.S. military might to prop up its rickety state system. The Kurds (who are busy ethnically cleansing their own enclave, as The Washington Post reports, and imprisoning people for criticizing the corruption of Kurdish leaders, as The New York Times reports) are happy for the Americans to plant vast, minatory fortresses down south to keep the troublesome Arabs in line. And so the permanent bases are being sunk deep into Iraqi soil; the Pentagon has already "authorized or proposed almost $1 billion" for bases in 2005-06, The Associated Press reports.
And if Iraq cracks apart completely -- the "three-state solution" proposed by Leslie Gelb, doyen of that bastion of bipartisan Establishment wisdom, the Council on Foreign Relations -- why, so much the better. It will be much easier to wangle basing agreements, oil deals, insider investments and those all-important arms contracts out of weakened mini-states struggling for survival than from a strong, unified nation looking out for its own interests. As the gates of hell blow open in Iraq, the marvelous adaptability of Bush's strategy becomes apparent. When the promised "cakewalk" did not materialize, Bush shifted to the near-genocidal fury of the Fallujah assault and the systematic tortures of Abu Ghraib. When these tactics failed to quell the resistance, Bush gave the Pentagon the greenlight to arm, infiltrate and manipulate militias and terrorist groups, even to the point of goading them into action, The New Yorker reports. If you can't have cake, then chaos might serve your turn just as well.Civil war looks like a profitable gambit for now -- except for all the pointless suffering, of course. But Bush has never cared about that. A true visionary, he keeps his eyes on the prize, on the only kind of "victory" he has ever sought in Iraq: loot and domination for his ruthless clique. Whatever happens next, they've already won.
Annotations'If You Start Looking at Them as Humans, How Are You Gonna Kill Them?'The Guardian, 29 March, 2006 Fear Up Harsh: The Iraqi Civil War in ContextEmpire Burlesque, March 28, 2006 Opening Statement of Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul WolfowitzHouse Armed Services Committee, Aug. 10, 2004 Testimony on Denying Terrorist Sanctuaries: Wolfowitz, Pace, BrownU.S. Department of Defense, Aug. 10, 2004 Pentagon granted authority to pay, equip foreign forcesLos Angeles Times, Oct. 30, 2004 Seymour Hersh: The Coming WarsThe New Yorker, Jan. 17, 2005 The Salvador OptionNewsweek, Jan. 14, 2005 Leslie Gelb: The Three-State SolutionNew York Times, Nov. 25, 2003 Children of Abraham: Death in the DesertEmpire Burlesque, March 19/27, 2006 Redirecting Bullets in BaghdadNew York Times, March 26, 2006 Bound, Blindfolded and Dead: The Face of Atrocity in BaghdadNew York Times, March 25, 2006 Court Case Challenges Power of PresidentWashington Post, March 26, 2006 Civil War? What Civil War?Salon.com, March 23, 2006 A Government with No Military and No TerritoryTomDispatch.com, March 9, 2006 The Battle for Baghdad 'Has Already Started'The Independent, March 25, 2006 30 Beheaded Bodies Found; Iraqi Death Squads BlamedNew York Times, March 27, 2006 Extended presence of U.S. in Iraq looms largeAssociated Press, March 21, 2006 The Supplemental Pentagon Spending Bill: Eternal Funding for a Never-Ending WarCounterPunch, March 27, 2006 Bush Was Set on Path to War, Memo to British Adviser SaysNew York Times, March 27, 2006 Kurdish Officials Sanction Abductions in KirkukWashington Post, June 15, 2005 US audit finds 'spectacular' waste of funds in IraqChristian Science Monitor, Jan. 27, 2006 Free Press Stumbles in KurdistanLos Angeles Times, March 27, 2006 Death squads operated from inside Iraqi government, officials sayKnight-Ridder, March 12, 2006 What Bush was Told About IraqNational Journal, March 2, 2006 Iraq's death squads: On the brink of civil warThe Independent, Feb. 26, 2006 Cry Havoc: Bush's Own Personal JanjaweedEmpire Burlesque, Aug. 27, 2004 Darkness Visible: The Pentagon Plan to Foment Terrorism is Now in OperationEmpire Burlesque, Jan. 25, 2005 Into the Dark: The Pentagon Plan to Foment TerrorismEmpire Burlesque, Nov. 1, 2002 Requests for Iraqi Base Funding Make Some Wary of Extended StayLos Angeles Times, March 24, 2006 Abizaid says U.S. may want to keep bases in IraqReuters, March 15, 2006 Hillary Clinton, War GoddessAntiwar.com, Jan. 23, 2006 Cost of Rebuilding Shifts to IraqisUSA Today, March 24, 2006 US Has "Black" Torture Chamber in IraqDeep Blade Journal, March 19, 2006 U.S. Plans New Bases in the Middle EastWashington Post, March 22, 2006 How Abu Ghraib Lives OnTime, March 6, 2006 Ring of Fire: The Fallujah InfernoEmpire Burlesque, Nov. 19, 2004 CIA Vet: Proof Bush Deceived America on WarTomPaine.com, Jan. 13, 2006 ....

And this is the reply:

Ok guys Im back now after a little over 8 months of intensive phyiscal conditioning and a rather trying surgery to fix my eye. Yes my vision is back to 20/20 and yes ive gotten my wings back along with my Commission. No I dont approve of this war in Iraq never have never will. However I will not tolerate the Nazi like labeling the United States military has been given. Yes the CIC has made many politcal moves that I as a citizen disapprove of. However I know that in january 2008 Bush will be gone forever and an new administration bent on ending the war and bringing U.S. forces home, excuse me here... so because King Bush gets to abdicate his responsibility for this god-awful mess . . . that's okay? And I'm not happy about the US bringing their forces home. They broke it, they should be forced to fix it, and Bush should become the mayor of Baghdad for life! and further more the U.S. Economy is only strained simply because we spend far to much money on foreigners money and aid given to countries who claim to be allies and are far from it. What? Your country gives less money now than it did when Clinton was around and the economy boomed under him. Of course, he didn't lead you into a US$500 billion war, didn't allow his cronies to loot the US treasury, didn't scare congress into buying huge redundant weapons from countries in which his family has an interest. THESE might just be some of the reasons the economy is in the toilet and average americans are suffering. Money given for medical and disaster relief, Humanitarian aid missions that are seldom returned (were these supposed to be loans? All the other countries who give so generously much more than a very stingy US of A don't seem to expect their money back. There are 18 countries who - when the playing fields are levelled by GDP figures etc - are actually MORE generous than the US but strangely we seldom hear about them wanting their money back.) when nature strikes anywhere within the United States and if on the rare occasion aid is offered its in pitiful amounts no where near the level of aid given by the U.S. Okay this is just so much nonses it makes me want to puke. When you ask countries to help you invade a sovreign state, lying to them that this state poses a threat, and they refuse, and you fling mud at them like some demented child in a sandbox, you need to grow up. You also need to learn a few facts. When your country faced the disaster that was Katrina no less than 95 countries gave help in various form. There are 192 countries in the world, 37 in Asia, 53 in Africa, 15 in micronesia, and so on. It's pretty safe to say that of the countries that could give, all gave, and then some. Iran offered oil, Venezuela helped where the US government and US oil giants did not, and Cuba offered medical help. Do not tell us that when you needed help no one came. So think about this, those of you who are in hong kong....or china....or india.....or sweden or africa. Where were all of you when the world was hanging on a knife's edge during ether of the world wars? Ummmm... Hong Kong was under British rule, and eventually occupied by the Imperial Japanese army. China was ummm occupied by the Imperial Japanese - those same Japanese to whom the US businessmen sold steel. The same Imperial Japanese the Americans listened to when turning their back on China as it bled and pleaded for help. When the true great evil the Nazis raged across europe and the Imperialism of the Japanese ravaged China, where were your countries? Excuse me, but where the hell was yours! South Africa was divided along English and Arikaans lines, with the English joining forces with the allies. India was a British colony and subject to the rule of the crown. Soldiers from India and Nepal were fully engaged in the war effort. I think Sweden was nailed by the Nazis before the average Americn even realised there was a war. I know where my country was and it wasnt bathing in the blood money stolen from murdered jews.ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha... sorry... is that why Ford is being sued for using nazi slave labour? Which countries, exactly, are you talking about here? And might I remind you of a few things. The only reason the US was officially involved in the war was after Pearl Harbour... i.e. when you had been dragged kicking and screaming into the conflict. Secondly, contrary to what Hollywood would have you believe, you did not single handedly win the war - any of them. Thirdly as is your wont, your troops were undisciplined and pretty sodding useless by all accounts, I can't tell you how many times your pilots bombed the allies because they couldn't read a map.
However lets move to modern times, Where were you all when Saddamn Gassed 1 million of his own people? Would that be the gas the US sold to him? And are those chemicals different from the tonnes of napalm the US dropped on Vietnam, or the chemical weapons used in Fallujah? Can you actually prove that the gas came from Saddam? Where was YOUR country when this happened? Or his sadistic sons mutilated and tortured at a whim? As opposed to being tortured and mutilated by your forward thinking commanders? Oh yes I remember! you where imposing economic sanctions and then secretly breaking them when no one was looking. As I recall the US was the barking dog behind the sanctions - and they were lying it seems. Even though no one could find the chemical weapons, your leaders lied and bullied and forced through heinous sanctions that cost around six million people their lives. See, the reference to Nazis isn't that far off. It makes not the slightest difference to the dead whether they died in a concentration camp or through lack of medicine.
Bush isnt my favorite President, I dont approve of his policy neither here or abroad. Iraq and her people have a long hard road ahead Centuries of cultural and tribal differences and hatred have to be over come if a united Iraq is to survive. They were surviving until the US invaded them and bombed them back to the last century. The U.S. is guilty of Two things.Personally I know the US is guilty of several books worth of things. 1. waiting to long to act on removing Saddam. Or supporting him in the first place. 2. Going into Iraq for totally the wrong reason. WMD is a moot point compared to the suffering that has been allowed to go on there. So you think it's a great idea to go in and cause more? The failures in Iraq isnt on our heads its on yours. Wow... let's see... dictator in relatively stable little country under a secular government where women had pretty good rights - bombed to smithereens, a haven for terrorists, under threat from extremists, depleted uranium all over the place, decades of environmental damage...yeah we sure screwed that one up. We have not abandoned Iraq all of you have. We wish you had too, really. Your U.N. its charter was designed to prevent another hitler to ensure another world war would never happen again! Lets face it. by failing to act against Saddam by failing to bring him to justice or even attempting to do so the U.N. has failed in its charter, There is no denying that had Saddam been able to build the armed forces needed he would have become the next hitler or worse yet the next stalin. Yes there is. You have no proof of these allegations. And please don't try to pass this one off as "saving the world". We noticed how you kept very quiet when you thought you had a pipeline deal with the Taleban. We notice how you KNEW Saddam had chemical weapons, you had sold them to him after all. We notice that Saddam's row with Kuwait was over oil and he had no intention of going anywhere else. We noticed that he was just fine when you were helping him in the Iran Iraq war. Whos taste for Genocide would be boundless. Let's count America's tally, shall we? So before pointing the blame at the U.S. for the invasion try taking a long hard look at yourselves and wonder why our international body and why no one else wanted to do a thing to bring a genocidal manic to justice? Possibly because no one wanted to wade in and slaughter women and children to do it. Possibly because those of us with a teeny bit of foresight could have predicted that this would happen. Because we knew, and you should have known, that whoever runs that country will be a tyrant and they really need to sort it out for themselves. Bush isnt my favorite President and I dont approve of his policy, however I can say this. Saddam will not murder another innocent again. Indeed, it's a great pity the same cannot be said about Bush. In 2008 Bush's time will be over (and will he be brought to justice?) and hopefully a candidate with more isolationist views will go into office with a very valuable lesson from all of this. To leave the rest of the world alone and let them handle their own problems. This includes humanitarian issues. Yes, please...please...please do. But as you've been interfering in the affairs of sovreign countries for more than six decades, as you've been bullying and killing and tortuing and bribing and drugging and all those really wicked things that you do on a global scale for such a long time to preserve the "interests" of your fat cat businessmen... I strongly doubt that you will leave us alone.