Yesterday's News
In Syria, when Faisal proclaimed himself king, he was quickly dethroned by
French General Henri Gouraud and driven into exile in Europe. France set about
carving up Syria into even smaller pieces. Lebanon was created out of the former
Ottoman vilayet (an administrative division) of Beirut together with Mt.
Lebanon. The reason the French did all this carving and hacking of the former
Ottoman Empire was to divide and rule the Arabs.
"The French policy of setting Syrian political groups off against one another
was seen as the chief factor in Syria’s turbulent history of frequent coups and
political instability following independence in 1946," writes Ted Thornton. C.H.
Jansen points out how the French created a "minority psychosis" in Syria and
Lebanon as a form of "divide and rule," a legacy operational in Lebanon to the
present day (see Jansen’s Militant Islam, Harper and Row, 1979, 104-105).
Between 1925 and 1927, the French killed 6,000 Syrians in their various attempts
to snuff out Syrian nationalism
http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/nimmo02252005/
Tyler Police have confirmed two people outside the Smith County Courthouse have
been killed after dozens of shots were fired starting just before 1:30p.m.
The two killed at the courthouse have now been identified: Maribel Estrada, the
estranged wife of the alleged shooter, David Hernandez Arroyo, and citizen Mark
Wilson. Wilson is licensed to carry a concealed weapon and fired several shots
at Arroyo. Arroyo, however, was wearing a bulletproof vest.
http://www.14wfie.com/Global/story.asp?S=2995937&nav=3w6oWnJQ
Oil Prices Rise Toward $52 on OPEC Fears
Thu Feb 24, 4:13 PM ET
Business - AP
By BRAD FOSS, AP Business Writer
Crude oil futures rose Thursday amid wintry weather in the U.S. Northeast and as
OPEC (news - web sites) leaders signaled their increasing comfort with high
prices.
The latest petroleum supply report from the U.S. government showed rising
inventories of crude oil and gasoline, while stocks of distillate fuel shrank.
...
"If there's any kind of disturbance in the Middle East, you're easily going
to see $60 a barrel," said Carl Larry, an analyst at Barclays Capital in
New York.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050224/ap_on_bi_ge/oil_prices_60
[Released without charge.]
Moazzam Begg, 37, who was released by the Metropolitan Police without charge and
reunited with his wife and four children after three years' imprisonment, also
accuses his American captors of beating two detainees to death at the Bagram air
base near Kabul in Afghanistan. In his first interview since his release, he
told Channel 4 News he "witnessed two people get beaten so badly I believe
it caused their deaths".
...
He visited a second camp in 1998 near Jalalabad, he said, for a day and a half.
Mr Begg claimed it was run by Kurds fighting Saddam Hussein, not by al-Qa'ida.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/story.jsp?story=614556
An Auckland company refused an export licence to send military-style laser
harnesses to Israel's Ministry of Defence may be asked to explain if it has sent
the technical knowledge to make the training equipment.
Customs officials have confirmed to the Herald that they are studying leaked
documents which question whether the company, Oscmar International, has complied
with laws restricting the export of military goods and technology.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10112576
Astronomers have discovered an object that appears to be an invisible galaxy
made almost entirely of dark matter.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_east/4288633.stm
The characteristic corkscrew trail of lightning is seen to brighten as it joins
the ionized trail of Columbia. Experts who checked the San Francisco photo of
amateur astronomer Peter Goldie concluded the time-lapse image of lightning was
caused by a camera wobble! But there is no sign of wobble in the Columbia trail
or in other similar photographs taken by Goldie.
Credit: David Monaghan Productions/HTV West, from the TV program:
ìMegalightning.î*
http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=cc6y424y
A U.S. scientist claims to have thawed out a new life form, which he said raises
questions about possible contemporary life on Mars.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/02/23/bacterium.defrost.reut/index.html
If you've ever had the feeling that some big corporations don't care if you live
or die, you're right -- and there's plenty of evidence to prove it. With federal
enforcement of health and safety laws in a downward spiral, the courts have been
one of the few places people could defend themselves or seek restitution. Yet
the Bush administration is out to change that by limiting lawsuits intended to
punish corporate endangerment of workers and the public in the name of halting
"junk lawsuits."
...
The Ford Pinto scandal of the 1970s demonstrates why weakening corporate
liability is downright dangerous. Ford executives possessed pre-production crash
test results demonstrating the car's gas tank could explode in relatively minor
rear-end collisions. Internal memos revealed that Ford's managers decided
settling civil lawsuits brought by victims' families would be cheaper than
spending $11 per car to fix the problem. They began selling Pintos in 1971 and
allowed dozens of people to die each year.
...
One shouldn't assume that if Bush's agenda prevails, judges and prosecutors
would be drumming their fingers in empty courtrooms. . According to a Public
Citizen study, corporations are 160 times as likely to sue as an average person,
and 69 percent more likely than individual tort plaintiffs to be sanctioned for
filing frivolous claims. Of course Bush's tort reform proposals don't address
"runaway lawsuits" by corporations.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0224-31.htm
[The tenth Ammendment to the Consitution says powers not specifically granted
to the federal government belong either to the States or to the people. I do not
see anything in the Constitution about a Department of Education.]
A bipartisan group representing 50 state legislatures called Wednesday for major
changes in President Bush's landmark education initiative, No Child Left Behind,
which it lambasted as unconstitutional and impractical.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0224-09.htm
During his trip to Germany on Wednesday, the main highlight of George W. Bush's
trip was meant to be a "town hall"-style meeting with average Germans.
But with the German government unwilling to permit a scripted event with
questions approved in advance, the White House has quietly put the event on ice.
Was Bush afraid the event might focus on prickly questions about Iraq and Iran
rather than the rosy future he's been touting in Europe this week?
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0224-08.htm
PETER Costello's closest adviser fears the US is heading for a devastating
financial crash that could ravage Australia's economic growth.
As the Reserve Bank considers raising interest rates at its board meeting next
Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Ken Henry likened the flood of money pouring into
the US to support its budget and current account deficits to the stockmarket's
dotcom bubble of the late 1990s.
Were it suddenly to stop, there would be shockwaves felt throughout the world's
economies.
...
The main cause of concern is the fact the US is running a trade deficit of about
$US600 billion ($760 billion) and a budget deficit of about $US430 billion for
2005.
US imports are almost 50per cent greater than the country's exports, with the
deficit being financed by international central banks and funds managers.
http://finance.news.com.au/story/0,10166,12364649-462,00.html
Mr Grimmer's Peruvian-born wife, Silvia, believed Cuban authorities suspected
them of spying because Australians "are a friend of the US", regularly
denounced by Cuba's dictator of more than 40 years, Fidel Castro.
"The reason (we were jailed) is they wanted to bother people who are not
friends of Cuba," she said.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12353335%255E2702,00.html
Victor F. Ganzi is a member of B.E.N.S. - "Business Executives for National
Security" wherein we learn that "When it came time to evaluate
In-Q-Tel, the CIA's innovative technology development enterprise, Congress
turned to BENS"
In October 2002, B.E.N.S. received a "CIA Agency Seal Medallion" for
its work on the In-Q-Tel program.
In-Q-Tel? It is described as "A new partnership between the CIA and the
‘private sector’(my apostrophes)," making it a classic front for traditional
fascism and other American-style old-fashioned family values
http://www.in-q-tel.org/
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread119094/pg1
Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Europe's No. 2 airline, may seek redress for
cancellations and delays from German authorities who temporarily brought the
Frankfurt area to a standstill yesterday for a visit by U.S. President George W.
Bush, damaging business for local companies.
Lufthansa had to cancel 92 flights, affecting 5,730 passengers, as a consequence
of air traffic restrictions, said spokesman Thomas Jachnow in a telephone
interview. Delays to another 330 flights totaled around 300 hours. Jachnow said
losses went ``well into the millions,'' though he declined to elaborate.
...
Bush's eight-hour trip to Mainz, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of
Frankfurt, for talks with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, led the
authorities to halt river traffic on the Rhine, Europe's busiest waterway,
suspend takeoffs and landings at Frankfurt airport, Europe's second biggest, and
close four motorways for periods of up to four hours. Much of Mainz city center
was cordoned off, damaging business in local stores.
...
Axel Raabe, a spokesman for DFS Deutsche Flugsicherung GmbH, which operates
Germany's air traffic control system, said each minute of delay to a flight
increases costs by around 50 euros ($66).
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000100&sid=a5r.jATeAKnQ
MSN Search Viral Campaign with Fake Blogs
Mediapost has details of the new viral campaign, MSN hopes will help its newly
launched MSN Search gain street cred.
The viral’s main site, www.msnfound.com, collects all the blogs together, along
with pictures of the authors. Each of the authors has a unique shtick.
It's laughable that MSN has to create its own buzz by developing fake blogs and
hoping the word will spread. Even Microsoft evangelist, Robert Scoble, thinks
the campaign stinks.
This site, which probably cost $100,000 (ahh, that's where our towel money went)
has great graphic design. Lots of streaming video.
But it's fake. All of it is actors. No real people. No real point.
Aaaaaaaggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh.
We agree!
http://www.searchenginelowdown.com/2005/02/msn-search-viral-campaign-with-fake.html
The ad features six fictional characters, each with their own Web log. They are
Reggie, a DJ from London; Tad, a surfer from Venice Beach; Karen, a dog breeder
from Sandusky, Ohio; Swing, a hotel concierge from Tokyo; Cy a security guard
and conspiracy theorist from Chicago; and Denise, the owner of the new True
dating service.
http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=27542
Warning from the markets
The New York Times
Friday, February 25, 2005
When a seemingly innocuous remark from the central bank of South Korea makes the
dollar tank, as happened on Tuesday, all is not well with the United States'
position in the world economy.
The dollar has been on a downward trajectory for three years, thanks in part to
the Bush administration's decision to try to use a cheap dollar to shrink the
nation's enormous trade deficit. To be truly effective, however, a weak dollar
must be combined with a lower federal budget deficit - or even a budget surplus,
something the administration clearly hasn't delivered. So predictably, the
weak-dollar ploy hasn't worked. The United States' trade deficit has mushroomed
to record levels, as has the United States' need to borrow from abroad - some $2
billion a day - just to balance its books.
http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2005/02/24/opinion/eddollar.html
Laurie, 42, the CSO of boutique security firm the Bunker, isn't going to mess
with anyone's phone, although he could: With just a few tweaks to the scanning
program his computer is running, Laurie could be crashing cell phones all around
him, cutting a little swath of telecommunications destruction down the deli
aisle. But today Laurie is just gathering data. We are counting how many phones
he can hack using Bluetooth, a wireless protocol for syncing cell phones with
headsets, computers, and other devices.
We review the results of the expedition in a nearby pub. In the 17 minutes we
wandered around, Laurie's computer picked up signals from 39 phones. He peers at
his monitor for a while. "It takes only 15 seconds to suck down somebody's
address book, so we could have had a lot of those," he says at last.
"And at least five of these phones were vulnerable to an attack."
...
Laurie, whose laptop is now packed with information from vulnerable cell phones
in the Shepherd's Bush, has become infamous in Britain for conducting a similar
experiment in the House of Parliament, where he had the opportunity (which he
didn't take) to copy the address books and calendars of several prominent
politicians. That excursion resulted in a mandate that all Bluetooth devices be
turned off in the House of Parliament.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/phreakers.html
A toxic component of rocket fuel has been found in breast milk of women in 18
states and store-bought milk from various locations around the country
Updated 3:38 p.m. ET
A toxic component of rocket fuel has been found in breast milk of women in 18
states and store-bought milk from various locations around the country.
The chemical, perchlorate, can impede adult metabolism and cause retardation in
fetuses, among other things. It leaches into groundwater from various military
facilities.
Previous studies have found perchlorate in drinking water, on lettuce, and in
cows milk.
The new research, announced this week, suggests perchlorate is a bigger problem
than thought, scientists said.
http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/050224_rocket_fuel.html
http://www.livescience.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display.php?pic=050224_perchlorate_map_02.jpg&cap=States+with+perchlorate+contamination+in+drinking+water.+Credit%3A+Environmental+Working+Group
[What is life without the freedom to live it the way you want to? People in
persistent vegetatives states are still alive.]
Tony Blair faced down a rebellion over new anti-terror laws today and said lives
were more important than civil liberties.
The Prime Minister declared: "There is no greater civil liberty than to
live free from terrorist attack. It would be the gravest dereliction of duty to
wait until we suffered a terrorist outrage here, and only then act."
...
Control orders range from banning a suspect from using a telephone to curbing
their travel. The most controversial powers, being kept in reserve, could see
suspects held without trial in their homes or in Government accommodation.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/16847543?version=1
Federal agencies have been put on notice that National Institute of Standards
and Technology officials plan to phase out a widely used cryptographic hash
function known as SHA-1 in favor of larger and stronger hash functions such as
SHA-256 and SHA-512
http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2005/0207/web-hash-02-07-05.asp
The separatist Republic of Texas group, which largely dissolved after an
abortive uprising in the Davis Mountains left several of its leaders dead or in
prison in 1997, has reformed, and is again pushing its message that Texas should
be a free and independent nation, 1200 WOAI news reported today.
From a newly established 'capitol' in the east Texas town of Overton, Daniel
Miller, President of the Republic of Texas Interim Government, says a desire to
be free, combined with ballooning concerns over rising taxes and property
rights, will convince more Texans to support a 'referendum' on whether Texas
should become an independent nation.
...
"Texas independence is not some fringe movement, nor is it
reactionary," Miller says. "We are simply living out trends that are
happening around the world. If you look at the past twenty years there have been
in excess of thirty nations which have been formed. There is a trend worldwide
toward independence and decontrol, and we think it's high time that the trend
came to Texas.
http://www.woai.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=64188ADC-5D4B-417E-A31B-9BB84D2E8B43
[Read this. The US gave 100 surface to air missiles to nicaraguan rebels and has
never got them back. All they have to do is get them across mexico and they
could walk into the US with the missiles slung over their shoulders.
Also note we are building a $60M embassy in Nicaragua. Why? Nicaragua is a tiny
backwater country in Cnetral America.]
One of the men convicted of selling a SAM-7 surface-to-air missile in Nicaragua,
Jorge Ivan Pineda, said he was paid $1,000 by the CIA to buy the weapon and that
the whole thing was planned at a meeting in the US embassy in the presence of
the US ambassador Barbara Moore on Dec. 23 2004. The head of the Nicaragua Army,
Gen. Javier Carrion, said he believes there could be an international campaign
to discredit his institution.
...
These two men went by the names of "Cascabel" and "Arandu"
and were the ones who obtained the weapon, which had never been in possession of
the Nicaragua Army but was one of 100 SAM-7 missiles that the US government had
given to the contras to fight against the Sandinista government in the 1980s.
These weapons have never been recovered and apparently are still in the
possession of ex-contra fighters in the northern mountains of Nicaragua.
...
It is assumed that Washington is discontented with Moore for failing to unite
the anti-Sandinista forces in Nicaragua and is concerned that she would be
unable to avoid a Sandinista victory in the 2006 general elections. Meanwhile on
Feb. 17, President Enrique Bolaños made a speech outside the site where a new
$59.2 million mega US embassy is under construction.
http://www.nicanet.org/hotline.php#topic1
I've been thinking about the problem, and the associated problem of being
constantly surveilled by corporate America and the fascist Bush Regime.
http://www.unknownnews.org/050301a-gm.html
Students are beginning to take the looming threat seriously as they consider
ways of making themselves "draft resistant" as they gear up for conscientious
objector status, establishing advance proof that they will qualify.
http://www.iconoclast-texas.com/News/08news05.htm
O'Connor Kelly joined DoubleClick in February 2000, when the company was being
threatened with legal action by the Federal Trade Commission and 10 state
attorneys general over its practices related to obtaining, using and selling
information about computer users.
DoubleClick eventually satisfied the FTC and the attorneys general by agreeing,
in part, to create a privacy-compliance division, which O'Connor Kelly ran for
two years.
"It's impossible to tell whether she genuinely wanted to improve
DoubleClick's practices, or if she was simply providing the PR makeover that the
company's officers so obviously wanted," said Jason Catlett, president of
Junkbusters, a consumer privacy information service.
Privacy advocates who previously worked with O'Connor Kelly at DoubleClick say
they are cautiously optimistic about her appointment.
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,58586,00.html
[Yet another good idea.]
The Department of Homeland Security has named Claria, an adware maker that
online publishers once dubbed a "parasite," to a federal privacy
advisory board.
An executive from Claria, formerly called Gator, will be one of 20 members of
the committee, the department said Wednesday.
http://www.newstarget.com/003641.html
The World Council of Churches has asked its 342-member denominations to consider
divesting from companies that profit from Israeli occupation of the Palestinian
territories.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0222-27.htm
Dismissed or otherwise disposed of 600 whistleblower disclosures where civil
servants have reported waste, fraud, threats to public safety and violations of
law. Bloch has yet to announce a single case where he has ordered an
investigation into the employee’s charges. Bloch says that 100 disclosures are
still pending;
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=483
Reusable spaceplanes that propel ticket-holding passengers to the edge of space
are slowly becoming reality.
Among several firms literally hammering away at this prospect is Rocketplane
Limited, Inc., an Oklahoma corporation. The company is eager to make space
travel as safe, convenient, and routine as air transportation, with work ramping
up on their Rocketplane XP design.
...
The fuselage of the Rocketplane XP is a modified Lear 25 series using the same
General Electric CJ-610 turbojet engines found on the standard business jet
configuration. Those powerful engines are used for takeoff and then shut down
after rocket engine ignition
http://www.rense.com/general63/ssps.htm
[This obviously deliberate. They stubbornly refuse to take even minimal security
steps to pretect the people who will actually have these passports even though
even their own people are saying they shoudl it. This is 100% deliberate and
intended to screw you over.]
Despite widespread criticism from security experts that a proposed high-tech
upgrade to Americans' passports actually introduces new security risks, the
government is declining to encrypt data on new high-tech e-passports, according
to proposed new rules published last week.
In response to this outside criticism and some public questioning by one of its
own contractors, the State Department delayed its rollout of the chip-equipped
passports and hired additional companies to provide prototypes.
Other countries are also wrangling with the issue, as the United States is
requiring all 27 countries whose citizens do not need visas to visit America to
begin issuing e-passports by October.
So far only Belgium has started production, and it is likely the deadline, which
was originally October 2004, will be pushed back another year.
The new passports will include a radio frequency identification tag, a chip that
will store all the information on the data page of the passport, including name,
date and place of birth, and a digitized version of the photo passport,
according to the proposal in the Federal Register.
...
Schneier, who just renewed his passport to make sure he will not have an
unencrypted passport for another 10 years, says he has yet to hear a good
argument as to why the government is requiring remotely readable chips instead
of a contact chip -- which could hold the same information but would not be
skimmable.
"A contact chip would be so much safer," Schneier said. "The only
reason I can think of is the government wants surreptitious access. I'm running
out of other explanations. I'd love to hear one."
http://www.rense.com/general63/noen.htm
The quest for a new form of green energy has taken a significant step with the
purchase of a 25,000-acre sheep farm in the Australian outback. The huge
alternative energy project isn't driven by manure, but by a 1-kilometer-high
thermal power station called the Solar Tower.
http://www.rense.com/general63/sspsd.htm
Having been thwarted repeatedly in its effort to open Alaska's Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to drilling for oil, the Bush Administration and its
Congressional leadership have come up with a plan for a sneak attack on the
issue.
Rather than holding a straightforward vote on the Senate floor, where strong
public opposition halted drilling in the past few years, House and Senate
members are quietly planning instead to attach the drilling measure to upcoming
budget legislation, where it would be all but impossible to stop (budget bills
are exempt from filibuster or extended debate)
http://www.rense.com/general63/drill.htm
A team of Canadian researchers believes it has unravelled the mystery of how
hepatitis C evades the human immune system to cause chronic disease in about
three-quarters of the people who become infected.
Their discovery provides a bright ending to the personal tragedy of the
hepatitis C patient whose blood they studied, a man who became infected through
a medical error in a hospital clinic.
http://www.rense.com/general63/ccna.htm
When undercover investigators made their way onto Chinese fur farms recently,
they found that many animals are still alive and struggling desperately when
workers flip them onto their backs or hang them up by their legs or tails to
skin them. When workers on these farms begin to cut the skin and fur from an
animal's leg, the free limbs kick and writhe. Workers stomp on the necks and
heads of animals who struggle too hard to allow a clean cut. When the fur is
finally peeled off over the animals' heads, their naked, bloody bodies are
thrown onto a pile of those who have gone before them. Some are still alive,
breathing in ragged gasps and blinking slowly. Some of the animals' hearts are
still beating five to 10 minutes after they are skinned. One investigator
recorded a skinned raccoon dog on the heap of carcasses who had enough strength
to lift his bloodied head and stare into the camera.
...
Mother animals, who are driven crazy from rough handling and intense confinement
and have nowhere to hide while giving birth, often kill their babies after
delivering litters. Disease and injuries are widespread, and animals suffering
from anxiety-induced psychosis chew on their own limbs and throw themselves
repeatedly against the cage bars.
http://www.rense.com/general63/baby.htm
http://www.furisdead.com/feat/ChineseFurFarms/
Nearly 1 million baby seals will be clubbed or shot to death in Canada in just
three years. Shockingly, the hunt is subsidized by the Canadian government!
Every winter, Northwest Atlantic harp seals migrate to Eastern Canada to give
birth and mate. Following their birth in late winter, mothers leave in search of
mates, while the pups remain helpless and vulnerable on the ice until they can
swim and catch their own food. It's during this time when they are most
vulnerable that they are mercilessly slaughtered for their pelts!
http://www.rense.com/general63/baby.htm
Both chambers of the Republican-controlled Virginia General Assembly yesterday
approved a measure that would deny illegal aliens access to state and local
public benefits, including Medicaid.
http://washingtontimes.com/metro/20050222-104341-3112r.htm
As is often the case with AP's coverage of news having to do with Israel,
there's a serious omission in its reporting on the Russia-Israel connection even
when it involves oil and the United States.
The day after the State of the Union Address, two Interpol fugitives attended
the "National Prayer Breakfast" held in Washington DC. The day before
that, these fugitives from the law were the guests of honor at an hour-long
meeting of the International Relations Committee on Capitol Hill, invited by
ranking Democrat Tom Lantos (Calif.)
You would think it would be hot news when wanted men being hunted by European
police suddenly pop up in the US particularly on Capitol Hill and at events
attended by the US president.
...
As the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz explains: "In recent years Russian
authorities began investigating [Yukos], its managers and major stockholders,
many of whom are of Jewish origin. The probes caused several of the managers to
flee to Israel, and resulted in Khodorkovski's [Yukos CEO] arrest and a Kremlin
attack on Yukos."
The fact is that Israel is an important factor in the ongoing, nation-shaking
power struggle now going on in Russia. Yet AP virtually never reports this
connection. For example, a few months ago in a typical AP story on this power
struggle, "Report: Russia again charges Berezovsky," [4] Moscow AP
Bureau Chief Judith Ingram makes no mention anywhere that Berezovsky is an
Israeli citizen, or of his many connections to Israel.
...
"Berezovsky boasts that he caused the war in Chechnya," Avnery
reports, "in which tens of thousands have been killed and a whole country
devastated. He was interested in the mineral resources and a prospective
pipeline there. In order to achieve this he put an end to the peace agreement
that gave the country some kind of independence. The oligarchs dismissed and
destroyed Alexander Lebed, the popular general who engineered the agreement, and
the war has been going on since then.
"In the end," Avnery writes, "there was a reaction: Vladimir
Putin, the taciturn and tough ex-KGB operative, assumed power, took control of
the media, put one of the oligarchs (Mikhail Khodorkovsky) in prison, caused the
others to flee (Berezovsky is in England, Vladimir Gusinsky is in Israel,
another, Mikhail Chernoy, is assumed to be hiding here.)
http://www.counterpunch.org/weir02172005.html
French General Henri Gouraud and driven into exile in Europe. France set about
carving up Syria into even smaller pieces. Lebanon was created out of the former
Ottoman vilayet (an administrative division) of Beirut together with Mt.
Lebanon. The reason the French did all this carving and hacking of the former
Ottoman Empire was to divide and rule the Arabs.
"The French policy of setting Syrian political groups off against one another
was seen as the chief factor in Syria’s turbulent history of frequent coups and
political instability following independence in 1946," writes Ted Thornton. C.H.
Jansen points out how the French created a "minority psychosis" in Syria and
Lebanon as a form of "divide and rule," a legacy operational in Lebanon to the
present day (see Jansen’s Militant Islam, Harper and Row, 1979, 104-105).
Between 1925 and 1927, the French killed 6,000 Syrians in their various attempts
to snuff out Syrian nationalism
http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/nimmo02252005/
Tyler Police have confirmed two people outside the Smith County Courthouse have
been killed after dozens of shots were fired starting just before 1:30p.m.
The two killed at the courthouse have now been identified: Maribel Estrada, the
estranged wife of the alleged shooter, David Hernandez Arroyo, and citizen Mark
Wilson. Wilson is licensed to carry a concealed weapon and fired several shots
at Arroyo. Arroyo, however, was wearing a bulletproof vest.
http://www.14wfie.com/Global/story.asp?S=2995937&nav=3w6oWnJQ
Oil Prices Rise Toward $52 on OPEC Fears
Thu Feb 24, 4:13 PM ET
Business - AP
By BRAD FOSS, AP Business Writer
Crude oil futures rose Thursday amid wintry weather in the U.S. Northeast and as
OPEC (news - web sites) leaders signaled their increasing comfort with high
prices.
The latest petroleum supply report from the U.S. government showed rising
inventories of crude oil and gasoline, while stocks of distillate fuel shrank.
...
"If there's any kind of disturbance in the Middle East, you're easily going
to see $60 a barrel," said Carl Larry, an analyst at Barclays Capital in
New York.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050224/ap_on_bi_ge/oil_prices_60
[Released without charge.]
Moazzam Begg, 37, who was released by the Metropolitan Police without charge and
reunited with his wife and four children after three years' imprisonment, also
accuses his American captors of beating two detainees to death at the Bagram air
base near Kabul in Afghanistan. In his first interview since his release, he
told Channel 4 News he "witnessed two people get beaten so badly I believe
it caused their deaths".
...
He visited a second camp in 1998 near Jalalabad, he said, for a day and a half.
Mr Begg claimed it was run by Kurds fighting Saddam Hussein, not by al-Qa'ida.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/story.jsp?story=614556
An Auckland company refused an export licence to send military-style laser
harnesses to Israel's Ministry of Defence may be asked to explain if it has sent
the technical knowledge to make the training equipment.
Customs officials have confirmed to the Herald that they are studying leaked
documents which question whether the company, Oscmar International, has complied
with laws restricting the export of military goods and technology.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10112576
Astronomers have discovered an object that appears to be an invisible galaxy
made almost entirely of dark matter.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_east/4288633.stm
The characteristic corkscrew trail of lightning is seen to brighten as it joins
the ionized trail of Columbia. Experts who checked the San Francisco photo of
amateur astronomer Peter Goldie concluded the time-lapse image of lightning was
caused by a camera wobble! But there is no sign of wobble in the Columbia trail
or in other similar photographs taken by Goldie.
Credit: David Monaghan Productions/HTV West, from the TV program:
ìMegalightning.î*
http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=cc6y424y
A U.S. scientist claims to have thawed out a new life form, which he said raises
questions about possible contemporary life on Mars.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/02/23/bacterium.defrost.reut/index.html
If you've ever had the feeling that some big corporations don't care if you live
or die, you're right -- and there's plenty of evidence to prove it. With federal
enforcement of health and safety laws in a downward spiral, the courts have been
one of the few places people could defend themselves or seek restitution. Yet
the Bush administration is out to change that by limiting lawsuits intended to
punish corporate endangerment of workers and the public in the name of halting
"junk lawsuits."
...
The Ford Pinto scandal of the 1970s demonstrates why weakening corporate
liability is downright dangerous. Ford executives possessed pre-production crash
test results demonstrating the car's gas tank could explode in relatively minor
rear-end collisions. Internal memos revealed that Ford's managers decided
settling civil lawsuits brought by victims' families would be cheaper than
spending $11 per car to fix the problem. They began selling Pintos in 1971 and
allowed dozens of people to die each year.
...
One shouldn't assume that if Bush's agenda prevails, judges and prosecutors
would be drumming their fingers in empty courtrooms. . According to a Public
Citizen study, corporations are 160 times as likely to sue as an average person,
and 69 percent more likely than individual tort plaintiffs to be sanctioned for
filing frivolous claims. Of course Bush's tort reform proposals don't address
"runaway lawsuits" by corporations.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0224-31.htm
[The tenth Ammendment to the Consitution says powers not specifically granted
to the federal government belong either to the States or to the people. I do not
see anything in the Constitution about a Department of Education.]
A bipartisan group representing 50 state legislatures called Wednesday for major
changes in President Bush's landmark education initiative, No Child Left Behind,
which it lambasted as unconstitutional and impractical.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0224-09.htm
During his trip to Germany on Wednesday, the main highlight of George W. Bush's
trip was meant to be a "town hall"-style meeting with average Germans.
But with the German government unwilling to permit a scripted event with
questions approved in advance, the White House has quietly put the event on ice.
Was Bush afraid the event might focus on prickly questions about Iraq and Iran
rather than the rosy future he's been touting in Europe this week?
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0224-08.htm
PETER Costello's closest adviser fears the US is heading for a devastating
financial crash that could ravage Australia's economic growth.
As the Reserve Bank considers raising interest rates at its board meeting next
Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Ken Henry likened the flood of money pouring into
the US to support its budget and current account deficits to the stockmarket's
dotcom bubble of the late 1990s.
Were it suddenly to stop, there would be shockwaves felt throughout the world's
economies.
...
The main cause of concern is the fact the US is running a trade deficit of about
$US600 billion ($760 billion) and a budget deficit of about $US430 billion for
2005.
US imports are almost 50per cent greater than the country's exports, with the
deficit being financed by international central banks and funds managers.
http://finance.news.com.au/story/0,10166,12364649-462,00.html
Mr Grimmer's Peruvian-born wife, Silvia, believed Cuban authorities suspected
them of spying because Australians "are a friend of the US", regularly
denounced by Cuba's dictator of more than 40 years, Fidel Castro.
"The reason (we were jailed) is they wanted to bother people who are not
friends of Cuba," she said.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12353335%255E2702,00.html
Victor F. Ganzi is a member of B.E.N.S. - "Business Executives for National
Security" wherein we learn that "When it came time to evaluate
In-Q-Tel, the CIA's innovative technology development enterprise, Congress
turned to BENS"
In October 2002, B.E.N.S. received a "CIA Agency Seal Medallion" for
its work on the In-Q-Tel program.
In-Q-Tel? It is described as "A new partnership between the CIA and the
‘private sector’(my apostrophes)," making it a classic front for traditional
fascism and other American-style old-fashioned family values
http://www.in-q-tel.org/
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread119094/pg1
Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Europe's No. 2 airline, may seek redress for
cancellations and delays from German authorities who temporarily brought the
Frankfurt area to a standstill yesterday for a visit by U.S. President George W.
Bush, damaging business for local companies.
Lufthansa had to cancel 92 flights, affecting 5,730 passengers, as a consequence
of air traffic restrictions, said spokesman Thomas Jachnow in a telephone
interview. Delays to another 330 flights totaled around 300 hours. Jachnow said
losses went ``well into the millions,'' though he declined to elaborate.
...
Bush's eight-hour trip to Mainz, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of
Frankfurt, for talks with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, led the
authorities to halt river traffic on the Rhine, Europe's busiest waterway,
suspend takeoffs and landings at Frankfurt airport, Europe's second biggest, and
close four motorways for periods of up to four hours. Much of Mainz city center
was cordoned off, damaging business in local stores.
...
Axel Raabe, a spokesman for DFS Deutsche Flugsicherung GmbH, which operates
Germany's air traffic control system, said each minute of delay to a flight
increases costs by around 50 euros ($66).
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000100&sid=a5r.jATeAKnQ
MSN Search Viral Campaign with Fake Blogs
Mediapost has details of the new viral campaign, MSN hopes will help its newly
launched MSN Search gain street cred.
The viral’s main site, www.msnfound.com, collects all the blogs together, along
with pictures of the authors. Each of the authors has a unique shtick.
It's laughable that MSN has to create its own buzz by developing fake blogs and
hoping the word will spread. Even Microsoft evangelist, Robert Scoble, thinks
the campaign stinks.
This site, which probably cost $100,000 (ahh, that's where our towel money went)
has great graphic design. Lots of streaming video.
But it's fake. All of it is actors. No real people. No real point.
Aaaaaaaggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh.
We agree!
http://www.searchenginelowdown.com/2005/02/msn-search-viral-campaign-with-fake.html
The ad features six fictional characters, each with their own Web log. They are
Reggie, a DJ from London; Tad, a surfer from Venice Beach; Karen, a dog breeder
from Sandusky, Ohio; Swing, a hotel concierge from Tokyo; Cy a security guard
and conspiracy theorist from Chicago; and Denise, the owner of the new True
dating service.
http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=27542
Warning from the markets
The New York Times
Friday, February 25, 2005
When a seemingly innocuous remark from the central bank of South Korea makes the
dollar tank, as happened on Tuesday, all is not well with the United States'
position in the world economy.
The dollar has been on a downward trajectory for three years, thanks in part to
the Bush administration's decision to try to use a cheap dollar to shrink the
nation's enormous trade deficit. To be truly effective, however, a weak dollar
must be combined with a lower federal budget deficit - or even a budget surplus,
something the administration clearly hasn't delivered. So predictably, the
weak-dollar ploy hasn't worked. The United States' trade deficit has mushroomed
to record levels, as has the United States' need to borrow from abroad - some $2
billion a day - just to balance its books.
http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2005/02/24/opinion/eddollar.html
Laurie, 42, the CSO of boutique security firm the Bunker, isn't going to mess
with anyone's phone, although he could: With just a few tweaks to the scanning
program his computer is running, Laurie could be crashing cell phones all around
him, cutting a little swath of telecommunications destruction down the deli
aisle. But today Laurie is just gathering data. We are counting how many phones
he can hack using Bluetooth, a wireless protocol for syncing cell phones with
headsets, computers, and other devices.
We review the results of the expedition in a nearby pub. In the 17 minutes we
wandered around, Laurie's computer picked up signals from 39 phones. He peers at
his monitor for a while. "It takes only 15 seconds to suck down somebody's
address book, so we could have had a lot of those," he says at last.
"And at least five of these phones were vulnerable to an attack."
...
Laurie, whose laptop is now packed with information from vulnerable cell phones
in the Shepherd's Bush, has become infamous in Britain for conducting a similar
experiment in the House of Parliament, where he had the opportunity (which he
didn't take) to copy the address books and calendars of several prominent
politicians. That excursion resulted in a mandate that all Bluetooth devices be
turned off in the House of Parliament.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/phreakers.html
A toxic component of rocket fuel has been found in breast milk of women in 18
states and store-bought milk from various locations around the country
Updated 3:38 p.m. ET
A toxic component of rocket fuel has been found in breast milk of women in 18
states and store-bought milk from various locations around the country.
The chemical, perchlorate, can impede adult metabolism and cause retardation in
fetuses, among other things. It leaches into groundwater from various military
facilities.
Previous studies have found perchlorate in drinking water, on lettuce, and in
cows milk.
The new research, announced this week, suggests perchlorate is a bigger problem
than thought, scientists said.
http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/050224_rocket_fuel.html
http://www.livescience.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display.php?pic=050224_perchlorate_map_02.jpg&cap=States+with+perchlorate+contamination+in+drinking+water.+Credit%3A+Environmental+Working+Group
[What is life without the freedom to live it the way you want to? People in
persistent vegetatives states are still alive.]
Tony Blair faced down a rebellion over new anti-terror laws today and said lives
were more important than civil liberties.
The Prime Minister declared: "There is no greater civil liberty than to
live free from terrorist attack. It would be the gravest dereliction of duty to
wait until we suffered a terrorist outrage here, and only then act."
...
Control orders range from banning a suspect from using a telephone to curbing
their travel. The most controversial powers, being kept in reserve, could see
suspects held without trial in their homes or in Government accommodation.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/16847543?version=1
Federal agencies have been put on notice that National Institute of Standards
and Technology officials plan to phase out a widely used cryptographic hash
function known as SHA-1 in favor of larger and stronger hash functions such as
SHA-256 and SHA-512
http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2005/0207/web-hash-02-07-05.asp
The separatist Republic of Texas group, which largely dissolved after an
abortive uprising in the Davis Mountains left several of its leaders dead or in
prison in 1997, has reformed, and is again pushing its message that Texas should
be a free and independent nation, 1200 WOAI news reported today.
From a newly established 'capitol' in the east Texas town of Overton, Daniel
Miller, President of the Republic of Texas Interim Government, says a desire to
be free, combined with ballooning concerns over rising taxes and property
rights, will convince more Texans to support a 'referendum' on whether Texas
should become an independent nation.
...
"Texas independence is not some fringe movement, nor is it
reactionary," Miller says. "We are simply living out trends that are
happening around the world. If you look at the past twenty years there have been
in excess of thirty nations which have been formed. There is a trend worldwide
toward independence and decontrol, and we think it's high time that the trend
came to Texas.
http://www.woai.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=64188ADC-5D4B-417E-A31B-9BB84D2E8B43
[Read this. The US gave 100 surface to air missiles to nicaraguan rebels and has
never got them back. All they have to do is get them across mexico and they
could walk into the US with the missiles slung over their shoulders.
Also note we are building a $60M embassy in Nicaragua. Why? Nicaragua is a tiny
backwater country in Cnetral America.]
One of the men convicted of selling a SAM-7 surface-to-air missile in Nicaragua,
Jorge Ivan Pineda, said he was paid $1,000 by the CIA to buy the weapon and that
the whole thing was planned at a meeting in the US embassy in the presence of
the US ambassador Barbara Moore on Dec. 23 2004. The head of the Nicaragua Army,
Gen. Javier Carrion, said he believes there could be an international campaign
to discredit his institution.
...
These two men went by the names of "Cascabel" and "Arandu"
and were the ones who obtained the weapon, which had never been in possession of
the Nicaragua Army but was one of 100 SAM-7 missiles that the US government had
given to the contras to fight against the Sandinista government in the 1980s.
These weapons have never been recovered and apparently are still in the
possession of ex-contra fighters in the northern mountains of Nicaragua.
...
It is assumed that Washington is discontented with Moore for failing to unite
the anti-Sandinista forces in Nicaragua and is concerned that she would be
unable to avoid a Sandinista victory in the 2006 general elections. Meanwhile on
Feb. 17, President Enrique Bolaños made a speech outside the site where a new
$59.2 million mega US embassy is under construction.
http://www.nicanet.org/hotline.php#topic1
I've been thinking about the problem, and the associated problem of being
constantly surveilled by corporate America and the fascist Bush Regime.
http://www.unknownnews.org/050301a-gm.html
Students are beginning to take the looming threat seriously as they consider
ways of making themselves "draft resistant" as they gear up for conscientious
objector status, establishing advance proof that they will qualify.
http://www.iconoclast-texas.com/News/08news05.htm
O'Connor Kelly joined DoubleClick in February 2000, when the company was being
threatened with legal action by the Federal Trade Commission and 10 state
attorneys general over its practices related to obtaining, using and selling
information about computer users.
DoubleClick eventually satisfied the FTC and the attorneys general by agreeing,
in part, to create a privacy-compliance division, which O'Connor Kelly ran for
two years.
"It's impossible to tell whether she genuinely wanted to improve
DoubleClick's practices, or if she was simply providing the PR makeover that the
company's officers so obviously wanted," said Jason Catlett, president of
Junkbusters, a consumer privacy information service.
Privacy advocates who previously worked with O'Connor Kelly at DoubleClick say
they are cautiously optimistic about her appointment.
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,58586,00.html
[Yet another good idea.]
The Department of Homeland Security has named Claria, an adware maker that
online publishers once dubbed a "parasite," to a federal privacy
advisory board.
An executive from Claria, formerly called Gator, will be one of 20 members of
the committee, the department said Wednesday.
http://www.newstarget.com/003641.html
The World Council of Churches has asked its 342-member denominations to consider
divesting from companies that profit from Israeli occupation of the Palestinian
territories.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0222-27.htm
Dismissed or otherwise disposed of 600 whistleblower disclosures where civil
servants have reported waste, fraud, threats to public safety and violations of
law. Bloch has yet to announce a single case where he has ordered an
investigation into the employee’s charges. Bloch says that 100 disclosures are
still pending;
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=483
Reusable spaceplanes that propel ticket-holding passengers to the edge of space
are slowly becoming reality.
Among several firms literally hammering away at this prospect is Rocketplane
Limited, Inc., an Oklahoma corporation. The company is eager to make space
travel as safe, convenient, and routine as air transportation, with work ramping
up on their Rocketplane XP design.
...
The fuselage of the Rocketplane XP is a modified Lear 25 series using the same
General Electric CJ-610 turbojet engines found on the standard business jet
configuration. Those powerful engines are used for takeoff and then shut down
after rocket engine ignition
http://www.rense.com/general63/ssps.htm
[This obviously deliberate. They stubbornly refuse to take even minimal security
steps to pretect the people who will actually have these passports even though
even their own people are saying they shoudl it. This is 100% deliberate and
intended to screw you over.]
Despite widespread criticism from security experts that a proposed high-tech
upgrade to Americans' passports actually introduces new security risks, the
government is declining to encrypt data on new high-tech e-passports, according
to proposed new rules published last week.
In response to this outside criticism and some public questioning by one of its
own contractors, the State Department delayed its rollout of the chip-equipped
passports and hired additional companies to provide prototypes.
Other countries are also wrangling with the issue, as the United States is
requiring all 27 countries whose citizens do not need visas to visit America to
begin issuing e-passports by October.
So far only Belgium has started production, and it is likely the deadline, which
was originally October 2004, will be pushed back another year.
The new passports will include a radio frequency identification tag, a chip that
will store all the information on the data page of the passport, including name,
date and place of birth, and a digitized version of the photo passport,
according to the proposal in the Federal Register.
...
Schneier, who just renewed his passport to make sure he will not have an
unencrypted passport for another 10 years, says he has yet to hear a good
argument as to why the government is requiring remotely readable chips instead
of a contact chip -- which could hold the same information but would not be
skimmable.
"A contact chip would be so much safer," Schneier said. "The only
reason I can think of is the government wants surreptitious access. I'm running
out of other explanations. I'd love to hear one."
http://www.rense.com/general63/noen.htm
The quest for a new form of green energy has taken a significant step with the
purchase of a 25,000-acre sheep farm in the Australian outback. The huge
alternative energy project isn't driven by manure, but by a 1-kilometer-high
thermal power station called the Solar Tower.
http://www.rense.com/general63/sspsd.htm
Having been thwarted repeatedly in its effort to open Alaska's Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to drilling for oil, the Bush Administration and its
Congressional leadership have come up with a plan for a sneak attack on the
issue.
Rather than holding a straightforward vote on the Senate floor, where strong
public opposition halted drilling in the past few years, House and Senate
members are quietly planning instead to attach the drilling measure to upcoming
budget legislation, where it would be all but impossible to stop (budget bills
are exempt from filibuster or extended debate)
http://www.rense.com/general63/drill.htm
A team of Canadian researchers believes it has unravelled the mystery of how
hepatitis C evades the human immune system to cause chronic disease in about
three-quarters of the people who become infected.
Their discovery provides a bright ending to the personal tragedy of the
hepatitis C patient whose blood they studied, a man who became infected through
a medical error in a hospital clinic.
http://www.rense.com/general63/ccna.htm
When undercover investigators made their way onto Chinese fur farms recently,
they found that many animals are still alive and struggling desperately when
workers flip them onto their backs or hang them up by their legs or tails to
skin them. When workers on these farms begin to cut the skin and fur from an
animal's leg, the free limbs kick and writhe. Workers stomp on the necks and
heads of animals who struggle too hard to allow a clean cut. When the fur is
finally peeled off over the animals' heads, their naked, bloody bodies are
thrown onto a pile of those who have gone before them. Some are still alive,
breathing in ragged gasps and blinking slowly. Some of the animals' hearts are
still beating five to 10 minutes after they are skinned. One investigator
recorded a skinned raccoon dog on the heap of carcasses who had enough strength
to lift his bloodied head and stare into the camera.
...
Mother animals, who are driven crazy from rough handling and intense confinement
and have nowhere to hide while giving birth, often kill their babies after
delivering litters. Disease and injuries are widespread, and animals suffering
from anxiety-induced psychosis chew on their own limbs and throw themselves
repeatedly against the cage bars.
http://www.rense.com/general63/baby.htm
http://www.furisdead.com/feat/ChineseFurFarms/
Nearly 1 million baby seals will be clubbed or shot to death in Canada in just
three years. Shockingly, the hunt is subsidized by the Canadian government!
Every winter, Northwest Atlantic harp seals migrate to Eastern Canada to give
birth and mate. Following their birth in late winter, mothers leave in search of
mates, while the pups remain helpless and vulnerable on the ice until they can
swim and catch their own food. It's during this time when they are most
vulnerable that they are mercilessly slaughtered for their pelts!
http://www.rense.com/general63/baby.htm
Both chambers of the Republican-controlled Virginia General Assembly yesterday
approved a measure that would deny illegal aliens access to state and local
public benefits, including Medicaid.
http://washingtontimes.com/metro/20050222-104341-3112r.htm
As is often the case with AP's coverage of news having to do with Israel,
there's a serious omission in its reporting on the Russia-Israel connection even
when it involves oil and the United States.
The day after the State of the Union Address, two Interpol fugitives attended
the "National Prayer Breakfast" held in Washington DC. The day before
that, these fugitives from the law were the guests of honor at an hour-long
meeting of the International Relations Committee on Capitol Hill, invited by
ranking Democrat Tom Lantos (Calif.)
You would think it would be hot news when wanted men being hunted by European
police suddenly pop up in the US particularly on Capitol Hill and at events
attended by the US president.
...
As the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz explains: "In recent years Russian
authorities began investigating [Yukos], its managers and major stockholders,
many of whom are of Jewish origin. The probes caused several of the managers to
flee to Israel, and resulted in Khodorkovski's [Yukos CEO] arrest and a Kremlin
attack on Yukos."
The fact is that Israel is an important factor in the ongoing, nation-shaking
power struggle now going on in Russia. Yet AP virtually never reports this
connection. For example, a few months ago in a typical AP story on this power
struggle, "Report: Russia again charges Berezovsky," [4] Moscow AP
Bureau Chief Judith Ingram makes no mention anywhere that Berezovsky is an
Israeli citizen, or of his many connections to Israel.
...
"Berezovsky boasts that he caused the war in Chechnya," Avnery
reports, "in which tens of thousands have been killed and a whole country
devastated. He was interested in the mineral resources and a prospective
pipeline there. In order to achieve this he put an end to the peace agreement
that gave the country some kind of independence. The oligarchs dismissed and
destroyed Alexander Lebed, the popular general who engineered the agreement, and
the war has been going on since then.
"In the end," Avnery writes, "there was a reaction: Vladimir
Putin, the taciturn and tough ex-KGB operative, assumed power, took control of
the media, put one of the oligarchs (Mikhail Khodorkovsky) in prison, caused the
others to flee (Berezovsky is in England, Vladimir Gusinsky is in Israel,
another, Mikhail Chernoy, is assumed to be hiding here.)
http://www.counterpunch.org/weir02172005.html
posted by abu nakba at 2/25/2005 02:42:00 PM
1 Comments:
I found the above on another post.
Thought it would be of interest.
See ya,
Tom
MidAddle Adware
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