re nkunda in the DRC

Uruguay’s military commander Gen. Jorge Rosales, whose nation has troops among the U.N. peacekeeping troops in Congo, told reporters this week that the rebels were backed by Rwandan tanks and artillery, and there was a “high probability that troops from Rwanda are operating in the area.”
Congo Quagmire Finally Grabs the World’s Attention, time

there have been reports of rwandan troop activity inside the congo for some time now
from oct 10th – Congo gives UN council ‘proof’ of Rwanda incursion

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 10 (Reuters) – Democratic Republic of Congo on Friday gave the U.N. Security Council nearly three dozen photographs which it said supported its accusation that Rwandan government soldiers invaded and attacked eastern Congo this week.
Rwanda has denied making an incursion into Congolese territory but U.N. peacekeepers in Congo, known as MONUC, are investigating the allegation that Rwandan army troops crossed into North Kivu province to help insurgents led by renegade Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda.
The 34 photographs, obtained by Reuters, showed weapons Congo says it recovered at the site of the attack, along with ammunition, Rwandan money, a Rwandan military medical insurance card, a military satchel labeled “RWANDA DEFENCE FORCES” and other items.
In addition to the photographs, Congo’s U.N. Ambassador Atoki Ileka sent a letter to Chinese Ambassador Zhang Yesui, the president of the Security Council this month, reiterating Kinshasa’s fear that Rwanda may be planning a major attack and asking the council to pass a resolution condemning Rwanda.

some of those pix were published @ inner city press
but rosales’ allegations that nkunda now has tanks is very interesting. what type of tanks? from where? from whom? any relation to the earlier shipments of tanks from the ukraine that went through the port of mombasa?

Posted by: b real | Nov 2 2008 17:34 utc | 4

TM,
some years ago I remember looking at the real estate section of the Irish times and could hardly find a listing under €400,000. I wondered when that bubble was gonna burst…
There was a time when you started seeing ads posted in the Irish pubs here in Germany summoning the expat laborers back home to work in Ireland. Now they are back to doing the wild-geese things.
Tangerine: reminds me of another Yeats poem…
The Wild Swans at Coole

Posted by: ralphieboy | Nov 2 2008 17:58 utc | 6

Scientific Apartheid
Not content with invading the Muslim countries of the world bombing, murdering and raping the locals including the sodomisation of teen aged boys by amerikan troops, so as to steal Islamic nations resources, USuk agencies are now actively preventing Islamic students from accessing higher education. I guess they figure that if they can keep the Muslims in the dark ages (their view) the people will be unable to prevent their subjugation by whitey. AFAIK that seems to be the thrust behind the opposition to Iran obtaining advanced knowledge of nuclear physics, but I wasn’t aware that prohibition had now extended to all Muslim science students. Apparently it has. At least in england.
That snivelling arse-licker of the english labour party, the guardian Has published a story claiming that hundreds of terrorists are trying to infiltrate english laboratories in order to learn the secrets of germ warfare.

” Dozens of suspected terrorists have attempted to infiltrate Britain’s top laboratories in order to develop weapons of mass destruction, such as biological and nuclear devices, during the past year.
The security services, MI5 and MI6, have intercepted up to 100 potential terrorists posing as postgraduate students who they believe tried accessing laboratories to gain the materials and expertise needed to create chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons, the government has confirmed.

Now leave aside the obvious point that this notorious al Quaeda network that probably never existed in reality certainly doesn’t exists today and study what is really being said.
(That) “up to 100 potential terrorists posing as postgraduate students who they believe tried accessing laboratories. . .
Hmm posing as postgraduate students huh!
So those fucking evil freedom opposing pricks are recruiting kids off the streets of Karachi and Beirut to learn how to blow shit up again eh? Yet the article goes on to say “Extensive background checks from the security services, using a new vetting scheme, have led to the rejection of overseas students who were believed to be intent on developing weapons of mass destruction.”
How come it doesn’t say that these posers were rejected because after a simple check we discovered their prior qualifications were fraudulent? Those posers.
Probably because these hundreds of applicants from Islamic (sorry terrorist) countries were in fact genuine graduates. Hmm so the gwot is really going that badly? That old Osama can round up hundreds of the brightest minds from the best academic institutions in Pakistan and the ME and tell them to study science for years, even though they really prefer theology, not only study surpass ‘genuine’ scientists and win places in the best post graduate science programs in the west? Or is it more likely that in fact one of the most evil, and destructive policies of the UN sponsored agreements on combating terror, the requirement that all signatory nations require tertiary institutions to ‘vet’ all overseas students from suspect (eg Islamic) countries now means that students from Islamic countries are gonna be denied access to advanced education?
This article, which reeks of an intelligence services plant from some bottom feeding oxbridge graduate employed by the guardian on secondment from MI5, goes even further into the realms of intelligence fantasy when it tries to raise the spectre of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction once again.

Rihab Taha, dubbed ‘Dr Germ’, who worked on Saddam Hussein’s biological weapons programme, studied for her PhD in plant toxins at East Anglia University’s School of Biological Sciences in Norwich.

Obviously as far as english intelligence is concerned collective amnesia has overtaken it’s readership. The lies and plants about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction remain, but the proof that these stories were a complete fabrication evidenced by the fruitless search for ‘secret laboratories’ after the illegal invasion of Iraq, has been forgotten.
I could go on ripping this deceitful piece of garbage to shreds but frankly it is too easy.
What is more important is that citizens of those countries whose tertiary institutions are adopting this educational apartheid, do everything in their power to halt this attack on academic freedom. The increasing reliance of universities and other research institutions on defence contract funding was always going to leave tertiary education open to this sort of manipulation but this racist exclusionary policy is going to be a far bigger disaster than any attempt to silence those opposed to zionism ever could.
Imagine if these pricks actually succeeded in stopping Islamic countries from engaging in research? It is worth noting that medical research has been one of the prime targets for this exclusion policy. How much more pissed off are all the Islamic people gonna become? Justifiably pissed off, even more justifiably angry than they were before.
Already academic journals which were once freely available for anyone who paid to read have become restricted and that means the countries effected by this will have to set up their own study centres independent of western involvement. How much harder would it be to discover if one of the ME universities was researching WMD then?
During the crusades of the middle ages, Arab universities made the sort of advances in physical science and mathematics that western (european) countries couldn’t even consider (going through the dark ages, as they were). From a purely selfish point of view, do we really want to live in a world where some discovery which could aid all humanity is kept locked away from us because it is the ‘work of heathens’?

Posted by: Debs is dead | Nov 2 2008 20:40 utc | 8

did
excellent work
your anger is true

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 2 2008 21:13 utc | 10

Type Pad Type Pad Type Pad Type Pad Type Pad Type Pad Type Pad Type Pad Type Pad Type Pad Type Pad Type Pad Type Pad Type Pad Type Pad Type Pad Type Pad Type Pad Last call for alcohol! for your
US presidential campaign poster collections.

Posted by: Tiny Tim | Nov 2 2008 21:47 utc | 12

turning the screws on Iran financially. And with a name like Levy, it further stamps the usual Jewish propaganda of the “jew behind the curtain”
It’s all going to end very badly for lots of people.

Posted by: shanks | Nov 3 2008 1:33 utc | 14

Effectiveness of AIG’s $143 Billion Rescue Questioned
snippiness…

A number of financial experts now fear that the federal government’s $143 billion attempt to rescue troubled insurance giant American International Group may not work, and some argue that company shareholders and taxpayers would have been better served by a bankruptcy filing.
The Treasury Department leapt to keep AIG from going bankrupt on Sept. 16, and in the past seven weeks, AIG has drawn down $90 billion in federal bailout loans. But some key AIG players argue that bankruptcy would have offered more structure and greater protections during a time of intense market volatility.
Echoing some other experts, Ann Rutledge, a credit derivatives expert and founding principal of R&R Consulting, said she is not sure how badly the financial system would have been rocked if the government had let AIG file for bankruptcy protection. But she fears that the government is papering over the problem with a quick fix that was not well planned.

And it’s hard to reconcile these two paragraphs in my mind, which is probably why they didn’t print them next to one another in the final copy:

(Ann)Rutledge warns that because there has been no public disclosure of AIG’s payments to counterparties, it is impossible to know whether the pricing it is using now is proper.

and:

But David Schiff of Schiff’s Insurance Observer said he could not see how bankruptcy would have been a better solution.
“The point isn’t to save AIG; it’s to save the U.S. financial system. I think they were afraid to find out who else goes under if you let AIG fail,” he said. “But right now, no one knows if this is going to work.”

Somebody should explain the relationship between transparency and investor confidence to Mr. Schiff. A bankruptcy would have been a public disclosure and been dealt with. Papering over problems and blithely hinting that “it’s pretty bad right now” doesn’t do much to encourage people to stay in your market. I suspect Mr. Schiff is aware of this relationship and the insolvency of U.S. financial institutions isn’t being avoided as actively as some might suggest.

Posted by: Monolycus | Nov 3 2008 3:55 utc | 16

in the previous OT i pointed out a brief from the intelligence service indian ocean newsletter which stated that MONUC is pretty sure that someone in uganda is at least one of the third parties arming the rebels in the congo
radio katwe in uganda says it’s museveni’s step-brother, general salim saleh, through saracen uganda ltd. saleh has previously been implicated by the u.n. in arming the conflict in the congo (working w/ museveni family friend victor bout). saracen was a subsidiary of executive outcomes until the latter dissolved.
in the recent letters to radio katwe, one anon writes

I wanted to let readers know that, recently I visited Luwero -Nakasongola and found a lot of recruits in Nakasongola base. There are more than 30000 that are being trained or have finished their training and some of these army men are the one being taken to DRC to fight with General Nkunda. It is a grand scheme. This base is about 300 arces and the Americans are the one training. They even have an airfield. Equipments are moved at night to different places.

also of note is that there were demolition exercises in nakasongola throughout the summer, destroying caches of weapons w/ explosives. reportedly, some of the weapons & explosive charges disappeared, believed to be smuggled off the base.

Posted by: b real | Nov 3 2008 6:13 utc | 18

so close to THIS or THAT time in amerika. proud architects behind the scenes all handshakes and smiles.
our players sure have made the game interesting. new world? let’s start a “revolution” and make up a deed. natives in the way? kill them. chinese immigrants want payment for their labor on the railroad? kill them. southern gents think their economic engine is better than the industrial behemoth growing in the north? kill them, soak the ground.
we insult our ancestors by glossing over their crimes. Leonard Peltier is still in prison for a reason.
but who really gives a shit in this country about political prisoners, or torture, or a blatant day time flouting of Syrian sovereignty? there’s long hours to work and football games to watch and kids to raise.
pay close enough attention to what’s happening and you run the risk of hating a lot of people for not being willing to do the same.
*
an obama volunteer hitting the street on a rainy sunday night had no problem entering my porch, then living room, because the campaign has the resources to know i’ve supported democrats. she was just making sure i knew where to go on tuesday.
this boomer-age woman meant well as she asked me how old my son was. i said he’s not old enough to realize his future has been sold out to the parasites on wall street.
i think she was too tired to process the concerns i awkwardly expressed because i got empty stares when i said things like “i don’t think he can stop the wars even if he wants to.”
*
it’s hard for me to moderate my response in the inevitable conversation when it comes up, especially with all the good-intentioned, underpaid folks in the non-profit community.
i understand the need to believe in the calming, articulate, self assured stylings of an adept politician, granted the clearance of possibility with the insurance policy of a self-proclaimed zionist biden, making ominous gestures toward some future crisis and unpopular decisions and the need for “donor support.” whatever that means.
i could be more of an asshole and add to their load by making my case for extreme skepticism, to put it lightly, but what exactly will that accomplish?
i explore the terrain where persuasion or like-minded tendencies may lurk, but the rest will think what they’re told to think.
while tina fey playing sarah starts t-shirting for 2012.

Posted by: Lizard | Nov 3 2008 7:23 utc | 20

“Americans can’t work overseas except through proxy partnership with some local firm skimming the lion’s share off the top” Lol what cereal box did that idea come off of? Liberty Belle Wheaties?
I’m not gonna waste energy hunting down stats and will just rely on personal experience working in all sorts of jobs in all sorts of places and I have to say that I never noticed any which didn’t have amerikan workers.
Of course I wasn’t talking about employment upthread anyhow I was talking about educational opportunities for post graduate students, which last time I looked weren’t great paying anyhow. But for the sake of argument lets look at the work amerikans do in other countries.
What ‘proxy partnership’ is blackwater getting ripped off by in Iraq? Has old Maliki turned the tables on the burglars and is he now in control of all the resources being stolen from under Iraqi noses by USuk oil companies, or maybe his militia has demanded an eighty twenty split with blackwater on all security contracts let eh? I don’t think so.
All of the piss weak attempts to divert from the real issue that young graduates who happen to be islamic access to post graduate studies, reveals some sort of atrophied thinking where people don’t seem able to accept that their society is doing the wrong thing by a substantial section of the world’s population. Why?
Because those Islamic societies didn’t go gangbusters geting all of their mineral and energy resources outta the ground and used up as fast as possible. So now that thriftiness is rewarded by a mob of brainwashed on pap TV amerikans invading, killing raping and maiming while they grab alla the mineral and energy resources and piss it up against a wall as quick as possible.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Nov 3 2008 11:50 utc | 22

No transcript, so I couldn’t follow it, but hoping it’s good, here is a BBC interview with Eric Hobsbawm.

Is the intellectual opinion of capitalism changing? British Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, “arguably our greatest living historian” according to the New York Review, discusses the current economic crisis and the problems with a free market economy.

14 minutes long.

Posted by: Alamet | Nov 3 2008 18:22 utc | 24

If Italy and Greece have quality education systems now it is because they moved under the umbrella of another empire as the older ones withered away. Neither country can trace it’s present tertiary education back to their earlier ones in an unbroken lineage.
I agree the separation of religion from education is vital if original thought is to be encouraged, although I suspect that the reasons for it’s occurrence in Europe were more mundane than aspirational. That is, as scientific discovery (the chronometer for example) aided the expansion of empire, simple greed persuaded the ruling elite to silence theological opposition.
Islam’s resistance to structured capitalism particularly the usury based capitalism of much western economics, is both a boon and a curse.
On the one hand Islamic countries until recently avoided the worst excesses of state sponsored mega capitalism, but on the other hand without the carrot of increased power and wealth, Islamic societies’ rulers saw no advantage in allowing, much less encouraging unbridled education, research and with those two, original thought.
@ ralphieboy I would enjoy this debate at almost any other time and place but not now in this thread. I have no doubt that your original post was made in the interests of robust debate but I find it indicative of the head in the sand attitude of people who live in the west that apart from some much appreciated nods of agreement, debate on this by no means minor issue has been around perceived flaws in Islamic society neatly avoiding any further examination of this obscene strategy to ‘keep the natives ignorant’. In the case of the other poster’s twaddle, attempting to blame Islamic society for it’s repression.
Some Islamic societies have made great progress in establishing sound tertiary education infrastructure.
Pakistan and Indonesia who have both invested heavily in tertiary education, and are beginning to reap the rewards but like most other so-called developing nations many islamic countries elected to send students overseas, this has been a great gift to the students themselves and the universities which accepted those students. Despite a handful of exceptions, most students from Islamic societies have made a positive contribution to their homeland and the society they studied in. Although the ME Islamic states are beginning to emulate the Indonesian and Pakistani models they have a long way to go.
It has been programs such as the post world war 2 Colombo plan for students from commonwealth countries to study in other commonwealth countries which created the modern global university culture where both academics and students originating from virtually every corner of the planet meet and exchange ideas.
That is the worst aspect of this USuk created plan to regulate the access of students from Islamic societies to all the universities of the world. Everyone will lose out. As I discussed upthread one of the worst of the hundreds of really bad strategies pushed through the UN in the immediate aftermath of 911 was a requirement that all nations screen overseas students studying in ‘sensitive areas’. That can mean any subject really and the plan should have faded into disuse, as people came to terms with the reality of gwot, yet it hasn’t.
Every time some deputy to the assistant under-secretary of state turns up here in NZ to haggle over NZ’s access to amerikan markets (in the land of the free, ‘free trade’ is a one way valve if you’re a primary producer -prolly why so many african states are perpetually bankrupt – but that’s another story) this goddamn screening of overseas students issue seems to rear it’s head. NZ gets promised relaxation on it produce exports if we screw down two things one is all the anti-terra bullshit, and the other is the last hope of amerikan capitalism, the iniquitous intellectual property construct which amerika has forced upon everyone since Clinton’s draconian Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
There is no doubt that the impetus behind restricting the access of islamic students to higher education is bigger than just arms proliferation paranoia, although preventing resource rich states from being able to defend themselves is a major part of the amerikan empire’s strategy for world domination.
As long as the Islamic states that are rich in energy and mineral resources lack the technological capability to develop themselves they become slaves to USuk corporations. The gulf states sinking under the weight of ugly high rise blocks and awash with top of the range chain retailers are the models that the empire wants to replicate on a much bigger scale in Iraq and Iran.
Of course those countries will also forgo the power to control development, leaving the empire to call the shots
The efforts of whitey to regulate unwhites access to scientific study gives an indication of the obstacles many fine Islamic scientists have faced over the centuries. After all I doubt this is the first time that such restrictions have been put on Islamic students.
I suspect that up there in the north ordinary peeps are removed from the day to day horrors caused by centuries of whitey’s colonial imperialism. Sure the societies are far more multicultural than they were, but that is a sort of counter strategy where big chunks of the population get to pretend that they are the victims of empire. I can’t be the only MoA-ite horrified that reporting on the immigration status of Obama’s aunt is the source of discomfort for Obama’s candidacy rather than an indictment of those in amerikan society who seek to deport her.
amerika barely considers the effects of colonialism on that country’s first people because the massive ethnic cleansing which reached it’s peak during the 19th century railroad building boom, left indigenous people a tiny fraction of that country’s population. Much of that fraction are kept safely outta sight in concentration camps aka ‘indian’ reservations.
In the southern parts of Australia where the bulk of the white people huddle, the few indigenous people they meet are generally those who have been excluded from their own culture’s society for the misbehaviour associated with addiction, a great many white australians consider the indigenous population to be a mob of drunks who brought their obvious misery upon themselves.
That sort of escapist attitude is more difficult here in NZ but it does occur in parts of the south island where Tangata Whenua are only a tiny faction of the community.
However in the most populous parts of NZ the first people, the Maori population, are seen everywhere. They have succeeded in virtually every field of endeavour, indigenous and those introduced by the colonial culture, the evidence of those crushed by colonial imperialism can be seen everywhere too.
A substantial proportion of Tangata Whenua have lost their original cultural mores, and haven’t acquired any replacement. Poverty and it’s symptoms, violence, addiction and child abuse are endemic in some communities. Assholes continue to argue for a ‘quick fix’ ie law and order, throw them all in prison etc. That absorbs nearly all the resources which should be devoted to preventing violence addiction and infanticide from occurring in the first place. This is an ancient conundrum exacerbated by prejudice.
Whatever rewards eventually accrue for surviving Tangata Whenua, the cost will have been much too high.
Most/many Islamic countries have been subjected to colonial imperialism of varying degree for more than a thousand years, since the crusaders first began their murdering and pillage. Who can blame those nations for wanting to maintain some sort of a handle on the rate of integration into the socio-political infrastructure of empire?
This nefarious ruse to force Islamic states to conform to instructions, or to be left behind is as stupid as it is inhuman. As we have seen countless times in the past, the Islamic states will refuse to bow under to the demands.
Even if the of this exclusion result isn’t outright conflict, it is in no-one’s best interests that the one to one interaction between the academically smartest brains on both sides be curtailed.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Nov 3 2008 21:11 utc | 26

People here may have read about the Israeli spy ring busted last weekend by the Lebanese army. The story is acquiring some interesting twists. The first link was found via Roads to Iraq
Members of Israeli spy ring ‘related to 9/11 hijacker’

Two men arrested for running an Israeli spy ring in the Bekaa Valley are relatives of a suicide hijacker who piloted a plane in the September 11, 2001, attacks, a security source told The Daily Star on Sunday. The Lebanese Army announced on Saturday that it had arrested two people suspected of involvement with a spy network that gathered information for Israel’s intelligence services.
(…)
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the source said the men are relatives of Ziad Jarrah, the Lebanese who helped commandeer United Airlines Flight 93 before it crashed into a Pennsylvania field on September 11, 2001, killing everyone on board. Jarrah’s family is from the town of Al-Marej in the Bekaa Valley, where the arrests took place.
(…)

And earlier, Arab Monitor supplied a bit of background:

(…)
Regarding this argument, it is worth reminding that in June 2006, about a month before the latest Israeli military offensive against Lebanon, the Lebanese Justice Ministry made a first attempt to crack down on a network of agents recruited by the Mossad and suspected of being responsible for a series of assassinations carried out in Lebanon in the previous years. Charles Rizk, then Lebanese Justice Minister, was approached by the Ambassadors of the USA and France, who warned him not to proceed with the investigations because vital Western security interests were at stake. When the war broke out, shortly afterwards, the argument was burried.

Posted by: Alamet | Nov 3 2008 23:34 utc | 28

ralphieboy I suspect we are both looking at this too simplistically. Firstly I’ve always been fairly cynical about the true amount of power held by many of the ME monarchs particularly those of the Gulf States. They certainly appear to have little insight into the aspirations of their subjects and most of their efforts have seemed to me, to be invested in maintaining power, frequently implementing policies designed to disadvantage their subjects precisely because they imagine an educated population is a restive one. Doing as USuk demands is another key to a long reign.
Generalisation about ‘Islamic nations’ is too easy although lumping Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain et al is reasonable, throwing Syria, Libya or Egypt in to the same pool is clearly wrong. Most Arab states’ leadership reflects the population’s distaste for Israel but beyond that issue opinion from the people and their rulers is across the spectrum.
In addition I just don’t know if University of Libya, University of Damascus, or Cairo University are the quality education institutions they are widely claimed to be, but they may well be.
If building a world class university was just a question of resources of “hire[ing] some world-class professors “ I don’t doubt that several of the wealthier ME states would have attempted just that.
We shouldn’t forget that the types of study these post graduate students have been denied access to aren’t teaching classes which could be given at any lecture hall. Chances are the research will be undertaken hand in hand with corporate R&D and in that case these students from Islamic societies are in exactly the same boat as my friends here in NZ were as soon as they completed their masters degrees. They had studied at universities here which were doing some world regarded research. One or two of the universities here were capable of giving them pretty much as good a science degree as any of the famous northern universities, but the range of research is a function of population as well as access to innovative industries.
One of my friends had always topped the whole country in the three public examinations kiwis used to have to sit, and once he realised he had no interest in agricultural science or the medical research that had become a natural extension of being one of the first fully funded public health systems he knew that he was going to be moving hemispheres.
He was a physicist which meant his decision was essentially between Cambridge or Princeton, he wasn’t a rich bloke, this was scholarship stuff.
That was a long time ago but if anything the situation has worsened. Nowadays NZ does bugger-all medical research, even surgical research is heavily dependent on pharmaceutical corporation support. That disappeared with the introduction of Pharma,c a government instituted central drug buying authority which is tasked with delivering value for money . eg no ‘miracle drugs’ that charge $100’s of thousands more for a small gain in efficacy.
Agricultural research also had a major setback during the late 90’s. Genetic engineering. It isn’t impossible to get a GE research project approved in NZ but it is difficult, a situation that will remain in force until the issues around GE have been satisfactorily resolved. NZ likes to imagine it has a reputation for high quality naturally farmed produce and genetic engineering could destroy that reputation.
So on reflection it is quite unfair to see this scientific apartheid as being even partially the result of Islamic States’ attitude towards higher education. However this situation that Islamic graduate students now find themselves in should be salutary for the rest of the world. To be considered a bit like the rethink european countries dependent on Russian natural gas had after vlad the retailer turned off the tap for a short time.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Nov 4 2008 3:21 utc | 30

and
inner city press reports

Inner City Press’ question to [UN Peacekeeping chief Alain] Le Roy about whether the Uruguayan contingent, as reported, fled from the front lines was answered by MONUC chief Alan Doss. He said that the Congolese army caused the problem, by taking up positions just behind the Uruguayans and firing rockets. That the Uruguayans left the cross-fire was a decision made, Doss said, by an Indian battalion commander.

if they were indeed caught in a crossfire near the border, then the tanks that rosales attributed to nkunda were probably rwandan

Posted by: b real | Nov 4 2008 5:22 utc | 32

Too soon to celebrate really cause no matter what happens there’s still a couple more months of the man the world loves to hate but The Independent has in typical english snark fashion put together a collection of photos of shrub in his most cringingly awful moments

Posted by: Debs is dead | Nov 4 2008 19:19 utc | 34

reuters: Colombian army chief resigns after killings probe

BOGOTA (Reuters) – Colombia’s top army commander resigned on Tuesday after a probe tied soldiers to the disappearance of young men whose bodies were later reported as combat deaths in a scandal rocking the U.S.-backed military.
The case broke at a sensitive time for President Alvaro Uribe, a Washington ally whose multibillion-dollar U.S. aid package and proposed U.S. trade pact will likely come under tougher scrutiny whoever wins the race for the White House.
Gen. Mario Montoya (pic, on right, nibbling on gloved finger) stepped down days after Uribe purged 27 officers and soldiers from his army and the United Nations urged Colombia to stop security forces from killing civilians to inflate the guerrilla body count in the country’s waning conflict.

i posted some background material on general mario montoya uribe’s role in killing civilians in an earlier thread here

Posted by: b real | Nov 4 2008 21:59 utc | 36

and Zimbabwe is like a Japanese tea garden compared to the Congo

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Nov 4 2008 23:14 utc | 38

Air strikes kill dozens of wedding guests

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — Dozens of Afghan civilians are dead and dozens more are wounded after a series of air strikes aimed at Taliban fighters fell short of their target and exploded in the middle of a wedding party in a mountainous region north of Kandahar city, tribal elders and wedding guests told The Globe and Mail on Tuesday.
Survivors of the attacks, which occurred in the village of Wech Baghtu in the district of Shah Wali Kowt on Monday evening, said the majority of the dead and injured were women – the bombs struck while male and female wedding guests were segregated, as is customary in Kandahar province.
They said the bodies of at least 36 women have been identified, and hundreds more men and women have been injured. Local leaders have yet to establish a firm casualty count because many of the victims remain buried beneath rubble, said Abdul Hakim Khan, a tribal elder from the district.
…
It was not immediately clear which international forces were responsible for the air strikes.
A Canadian military source denied that Canada, which has responsibility for Kandahar province, had any involvement. “Task Force Kandahar has not been in any significant military engagement in Shah Vali Kowt in the last two days,” the source said.
The sparsely populated mountainous region surrounding the village is a known Taliban stronghold. In the past the area has been a target of various anti-insurgent special operations.

Posted by: b | Nov 5 2008 7:02 utc | 40

This story from Colombia will undoubtedly get lost in the post-election shuffle, but would merit attention. In particular, comments from persons with
direct knowledge of Colombian realities would be appreciated. We have, in the past, had such comments.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Nov 5 2008 11:43 utc | 42

Quake in Pakistan Kills at Least 215
Massive waves a mystery at Maine harbor

Tsunami-like waves may not be as rare on the East Coast as most people think. Jensenius referenced a 2002 article in the International Journal of the Tsunami Society that called the threat of tsunami and tsunami-like waves generated in the Atlantic Ocean “very real despite a general impression to the contrary.”
The article said such waves appear “in most cases to be the result of slumping or landsliding associated with earthquakes or with wave action associated with strong storms.”
Explosive decompression of underwater methane could also be a factor.
Jensenius said he is trying to gather information on the waves that hit Boothbay Harbor, adding that he has asked local businesses such as banks whether the event might have been recorded on security videos.

Must admit, following Obama v. Son of Cain triumph, find the many uses of “tsunami” and “tidal wave” evocative. (“Landslide” used politically doesn’t count, used since 19th c.. “Perfect storm” somehow was avoided, perhaps no longer iconic. And “epicenter” searched with Obama gets almost nothing recent, a formerly good word gathering strength.)
But yes, am pleased Obama was chosen. Always prefer Simon Legree’s sister Sam.

Posted by: plushtown | Nov 5 2008 19:19 utc | 44

Oil ‘to shoot back through $100’

The oil price will shoot back through $100 a barrel as soon as economic conditions return to normal, and will break through $200 threshold by 2030, say officials at the International Energy Agency.
The world energy watchdog is certain the “era of cheap oil” is over, according to research due to out next week. Indeed last year it had predicted the oil price would reach $108 in 2030 so has more than doubled its long-term price target.
(snip)

IEA had been oblivious to oil production constraints until very recently. They must have discovered blogs in the last few months or so, I guess.

Posted by: Alamet | Nov 6 2008 21:31 utc | 46

Well, surprise surprise. Elections over, now we can let the real story of the August war in Georgia come out. Bernhard’s analysis from 10 weeks ago now being reported in the NYT.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/world/europe/07georgia.html?hp

Posted by: Maxcrat | Nov 7 2008 7:50 utc | 48

mahmood mamdani on thursday’s democracy now

mamdani: There was a movement, a youth movement, to elect Obama. Will that movement dissolve itself? Will that movement build itself now around the objectives for which it organized? Will America recognize, as I believe South Africa has after the election of Mandela, that the election of Mandela was not change, but an opportunity to change? And whether that opportunity is realized and transformed into a program of social justice within the country and peace abroad will depend on the movement that pushes Obama and gives him the opportunity to respond to it.
juan gonzalez: One of the big changes that surprised many people when Bush came into office was that he had opposed this whole idea of the United States getting involved in interventions for nation-building, and then he actually became a prime component—proponent of regime change around the world, basically following a lot of what the Clinton administration had tried to do, this humanitarian intervention, spreading democracy. Do you fear that there might be some [indications] of Obama in this direction? You’ve written about Darfur, this whole pressure for, quote, “humanitarian” intervention that actually becomes a new form of imperialism.
mamdani: Well, look, the lesson of Bush is that when a candidate steps from the arena of electoral politics to the presidency of the US, the kinds of interests and pressures that now come to bear on the candidate are different, larger. And the context within which the president now operates is different. There are anxieties about the particular kinds of people who gathered around Obama, especially as regards foreign policy and particularly as regards Africa. Some of the liberal humanitarian interventionists, the most vocal of them, what I call Democratic neocons, like [John] Prendergast, for example, are huge Obama fans and are there around him.
amy goodman: Let me play for you a quote of the person closest to him, and that’s Joe Biden, right, his vice president. Last month, in the presidential debate, Gwen Ifill asked Joe Biden about his reputation as an interventionist and his support for sending US troops to Darfur.

sen. joe biden: I don’t have a stomach for genocide when it comes to Darfur. We can now impose a no-fly zone; it’s within our capacity. We can lead NATO if we’re willing to take a hard stand. We can. I’ve been in those camps in Chad. I’ve seen the suffering. Thousands and tens of thousands of people have died and are dying. We should rally the world to act, and we should demonstrate it by our own movement to provide the helicopters to get those 21,000 forces of the African Union in there now to stop this genocide.

goodman: That’s the Vice President-elect Joe Biden. Professor Mahmood Mamdani?
mamdani: Well, I read the verbatim account of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on which Joe Biden sits, grilling Andrew Natsios, Bush’s representative to Sudan. And Andrew Natsios was basically saying there is no genocide in Darfur. And they forced him, literally, compelled him, to simply use that word, “genocide.”
I think you’re right that this particular vice president is enamored with wanting to show US power in a humanitarian way. And what’s worrying about it is, of course, that we know—we know that mortalities in Darfur declined dramatically from early 2005. We know that the Save Darfur campaign and its figures on mortality—400,000—are simply not true; they do not reflect the reality at all. We know that the US, when it promised in 2006 to give $50 million for the African Union troops, did not give a single dollar. We know that there is a huge gulf between war talk and actual practice on the ground. I think this is one of the things Obama will have to confront, and one hopes that Biden, like other vice presidents, will simply be one small voice in the administration that’s coming.

sudan tribune: INTERVIEW: US activists call on Obama to lead ‘peace surge’ in Darfur

November 6, 2008 (WASHINGTON) — Three leading Darfur advocacy organizations today called on President-elect Obama to lead an international effort for a peace agreement to end the war in Darfur, calling the proposed programme a “peace surge.”
In a joint letter issued by the Save Darfur Coalition, ENOUGH Project, and Genocide Intervention Network, activists laid out an agenda for US policy on Sudan, seeking to influence the new president.
…
The activist organizations are calling for continuing the International Criminal Court investigation in Darfur, enhancing economic sanctions against Sudan through coordination with US allies, expanding the arms embargo against Sudan, accelerating deployment of peacekeepers and banning offensive military flights in Darfur.
The letter also includes practical suggestions for ensuring that the next president has a robust diplomatic team for Sudan, and it recommends tasking the U.S. Defense Department with exploring direct ways to make ongoing civilian protection efforts more effective.
Sudan Tribune interviewed one of the authors of the letter, John Prendergast, co-chair of the ENOUGH Project and a former Clinton administration official, to learn more about the activists’ agenda.
…
Sudan Tribune: Obama and his team have spoken favorably of a no-fly zone in Darfur. If there is a no-fly zone, isn’t there potential for escalation of conflict with Sudan?
Prendergast: I think that a no-fly zone is one of these things that should only be deployed if necessary, after we’ve begun a process of dealing with these guys in a more serious way, with multilateral leverage, and if that doesn’t work you go to the next level.
The no-fly zone would entail, most likely, the capacity to bomb individual planes in the Sudanese airfields that have carried out offensive operations. In other words, if there’s an offensive bombing or military attack of a civilian target, then that plane would then be shot at. Probably destroyed on the tarmac.
Yes, it would not be a simple thing because it would be an act of war and the Sudanese would potentially respond by cutting off all airspace for humanitarian flights. And then we’d have to be prepared to do much more than that, than what we had done just bombing one plane. So it should only be employed if there is a commitment to doing much more in case the Sudanese reaction is destructive towards humanitarian operations.
ST: How influential do you think the activist movement will be on the next administration?
Prendergast: Both candidates in the run-up to the election were responsive and sensitive to the concerns of the Sudan advocates and pledged to do much more than the current administration did on Sudan. I believe that there is a bipartisan commitment in capital hill and within the Obama camp to really make this concept of “Never Again” more meaningful than it has been.
Actually I think that congress will help drive the new administration’s concerns and interests in this in a positive way. Because nobody’s going to play politics with this—they’re going to really focus on the importance of a bipartisan, forward-leading, solutions-oriented policy.

mamdani: Darfur, ICC and the new humanitarian order: How the ICC’s “responsibility to protect” is being turned into an assertion of neocolonial domination

The year 2003 saw the unfolding of two counterinsurgencies. One was in Iraq, and it grew out of foreign invasion. The other was in Darfur, and it grew as a response to an internal insurgency. The former involved a liberation war against a foreign occupation; the latter, a civil war in an independent state. True, if you were an Iraqi or a Darfuri, there was little difference between the brutality of the violence unleashed in either instance. Yet much energy has been invested in how to define the brutality in each instance: whether as counterinsurgency or as genocide. We have the astonishing spectacle of the state that has perpetrated extreme violence in Iraq, the United States, branding an adversary state, Sudan, as one that has perpetrated genocidal violence in Darfur. Even more astonishing, we have a citizens’ movement in America calling for a humanitarian intervention in Darfur while keeping mum about the violence in Iraq.
The emphasis on big powers as the protectors of rights internationally is increasingly being twinned with an emphasis on big powers as enforcers of justice internationally. This much is clear from a critical look at the short history of the International Criminal Court. The ICC was set up by treaty in Rome in 1998 to try the world’s most heinous crimes: mass murder and other systematic abuses. The relationship between the ICC and successive US administrations is instructive: it began with Washington criticizing the ICC and then turning it into a useful tool. The effort has been bipartisan: the first attempts to weaken the ICC and to create US exemptions from an emerging regime of international justice were made by leading Democrats during the Clinton Administration.
…
The Bush Administration’s next move was accommodation, made possible by the kind of pragmatism practiced by the ICC’s leadership. The fact of mutual accommodation between the world’s only superpower and an international institution struggling to find its feet on the ground is clear if we take into account the four countries where the ICC has launched its investigations: Sudan, Uganda, Central African Republic and Congo. All are places where the United States has no major objection to the course chartered by ICC investigations. Its name notwithstanding, the ICC is rapidly turning into a Western court to try African crimes against humanity. It has targeted governments that are US adversaries and ignored actions the United States doesn’t oppose, like those of Uganda and Rwanda in eastern Congo, effectively conferring impunity on them.

and finally, the sudanese taunter himself

The Sudanese president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir lashed out at Western countries and accused them of trying to topple his regime during the last 20 years.
…
“Money and ruling is not in the hands of US, France & UK. They are all underneath my shoes” he said angrily.
Al-Bashir also told his people not to worry about a pending arrest warrant against him by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
…
“Do not worry too much about what Ocampo says. He is too weak to do anything because his decisions are made by his masters in US, France & UK” Al-Bashir said.
The embattled president challenged any country to confront them and vowed to defeat them.
“Whoever wants to fight us can go ahead and lick his elbow” Al-Bashir said.
–US, France & UK “underneath my shoes” says Sudan president, sudan tribune

Posted by: b real | Nov 8 2008 6:16 utc | 50