Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Lou Dobbs home to "birthers" and white supremacists
http://www.zennie62.com - After years of ducking complaints about his occasionally offensive coverage, Lou Dobbs, host of CNN's Lou Dobbs show, may finally see either the end of his days of pretty much getting away with whatever crap he puts out, or the end of his show altogether.
Obama "Beer Summit" , Crowley Press Conference
http://zennie2005.blogspot.com/2009/0... - http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/a... - President Barack Obama held a "Beer Summit" today, as some have called it, with Harvard Professor Henry Lewis Gates, Jr., Cambridge Police Sergeant Officer James Crowley, and Vice President Joe Biden, bring an end to an unfortunate but necessary event in American Cultural history, and starting a new chapter in American race relations.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Don't go Gordon, all is forgiven!
An interesting piece in the Times this morning from William Rees-Mogg reminds us that Justice Secretary Jack Straw is to introduce an amendment which allows life peers to resign from the House of Lords (it was also reported in the FT a few weeks ago). This would allow Lord Mandelson to resign his peerage, stand for the Commons at the next election (Hilary Armstrong's seat in North-West Durham?) and therefore qualify for the Labour leadership should Gordon Brown stand down after the election.Far fetched? Maybe so, but it's mouth-watering for the Euro-integrationists in Brussels.
He is after all strongly pro-Lisbon and strongly pro-euro - far more so than Brown. Back in December, shortly after Mandy's third-time-lucky-reappearance on the British political scene, EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso let slip that Britain was "closer than ever" to joining the Euro and that the "people who matter in Britain" were thinking about joining the single currency. (Clue: he wasn't talking about those plebs the great British public).
In separate (but worringly related) news, a new YouGov poll for the Sunday Times shows opposition to the idea of President Blair remains strong.
Voters were asked:
"The Government is backing Tony Blair to be president of the European Union. What is your view of this?"
24% agreed with the statement, "I agree with it and I think it will be good for Britain"
54% agreed with the statement, "I don't agree with it - it will mainly be of benefit to Tony Blair."
19% said they didn't know.
The bad news is that, while we might still have a choice over who runs our country (no thanks, Mandy) we haven't got the slightest influence over who will become the first all-powerful EU President if Ireland votes 'yes' and the Lisbon Treaty comes into force.
It won't even matter much if it's Gordon Brown, David Cameron or Peter Mandelson representing us in October's Council (when the nominations are set to be made), since even our own Prime Minister won't have a veto over the preferred candidate (Blair or whoever becomes President will be nominated by a qualified majority vote).
As we've argued before, the only way to stop political has-beens from bagging the most high-profile and best-paid job in Europe is to put a stop to the Lisbon Treaty, so the daft job never sees the light of day in the first place.
Food Insecurity Remains a Challenge for Cyclone Survivors
It’s already 2.30 in the afternoon, but 38-year old San San and her seven-member family still haven’t eaten their first meal of the day.
“I’m still looking for someone who will lend me some rice,” said the painfully thin woman, standing outside her makeshift hut in the village of Thagyar-hin-o in Dedaye Township.
The mother of five said that her family’s struggle to find enough food for even a single meal a day began earlier this year, when aid groups stopped distributing food in her village.
Before Cyclone Nargis struck the Irrawaddy delta in May 2008, San San’s husband and eldest son always managed to earn enough money to feed the family. Now, however, her son is only one breadwinner, and his meager income is not nearly enough to make ends meet.
There are thousands of families like San San’s living in cyclone-devastated areas of Burma’s Rangoon and Irrawaddy divisions, all living from hand to mouth and forced to skip at least one meal a day.
According to humanitarian agencies, the vast majority of cyclone survivors have yet to rebuild their lives more than one year after the disaster. For most, food security remains a pressing problem.
Nearly 140,000 people were killed and over two million more were left destitute when the category-four storm struck Rangoon and the Irrawaddy delta in the first week of May last year.
“People are not likely to overcome food insecurity as long as their livelihoods are not back to normal,” said an official from Action Contre La Faim (ACF), an international nongovernmental organization assisting cyclone-affected people.
For the majority of cyclone survivors, he said, the key to food security is more assistance for the agriculture and small-scale livestock sectors of the local economy—a view that is shared by many in the aid community.
“Most of those who face food insecurity are landless people and day laborers, because there are very few job opportunities in both the agricultural and fishery sectors for them since the cyclone,” said an official from the United Nations World Food Program (WFP).
“So we should all have our focus mainly on the restoration of their livelihoods, which would help them to fight food insecurity in the long term on their own,” the WFP official added.
According to the Rapid Food Security Assessment (RFSA), released by the WFP earlier this year, food insecurity remains a serious concern in worst-hit areas such as the southern and western parts of the Irrawaddy delta.
The assessment also says that 51 percent of households in Laputta and Bogalay townships have been relying on food distribution, while just 25 percent said they have recovered. The vast majority—83 percent of sampled households—reported that they are now in debt for buying rice.
In an effort to address such food insecurity to some extent, humanitarian agencies have run food-for-work and cash-for-work programs in the worst-hit areas. Those programs mainly target poor households, female-headed households and landless laborers.
Though such programs may help targeted families in the short-term, there is still a desperate need for more international assistance in the long-term recovery effort, experts say.
According to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, a three-year recovery plan remains severely under-funded. So far, just US $100 million has been pledged by the international community, out of the $691 million that is needed.
irrawaddy
“I’m still looking for someone who will lend me some rice,” said the painfully thin woman, standing outside her makeshift hut in the village of Thagyar-hin-o in Dedaye Township.
The mother of five said that her family’s struggle to find enough food for even a single meal a day began earlier this year, when aid groups stopped distributing food in her village.
Before Cyclone Nargis struck the Irrawaddy delta in May 2008, San San’s husband and eldest son always managed to earn enough money to feed the family. Now, however, her son is only one breadwinner, and his meager income is not nearly enough to make ends meet.
There are thousands of families like San San’s living in cyclone-devastated areas of Burma’s Rangoon and Irrawaddy divisions, all living from hand to mouth and forced to skip at least one meal a day.
According to humanitarian agencies, the vast majority of cyclone survivors have yet to rebuild their lives more than one year after the disaster. For most, food security remains a pressing problem.
Nearly 140,000 people were killed and over two million more were left destitute when the category-four storm struck Rangoon and the Irrawaddy delta in the first week of May last year.
“People are not likely to overcome food insecurity as long as their livelihoods are not back to normal,” said an official from Action Contre La Faim (ACF), an international nongovernmental organization assisting cyclone-affected people.
For the majority of cyclone survivors, he said, the key to food security is more assistance for the agriculture and small-scale livestock sectors of the local economy—a view that is shared by many in the aid community.
“Most of those who face food insecurity are landless people and day laborers, because there are very few job opportunities in both the agricultural and fishery sectors for them since the cyclone,” said an official from the United Nations World Food Program (WFP).
“So we should all have our focus mainly on the restoration of their livelihoods, which would help them to fight food insecurity in the long term on their own,” the WFP official added.
According to the Rapid Food Security Assessment (RFSA), released by the WFP earlier this year, food insecurity remains a serious concern in worst-hit areas such as the southern and western parts of the Irrawaddy delta.
The assessment also says that 51 percent of households in Laputta and Bogalay townships have been relying on food distribution, while just 25 percent said they have recovered. The vast majority—83 percent of sampled households—reported that they are now in debt for buying rice.
In an effort to address such food insecurity to some extent, humanitarian agencies have run food-for-work and cash-for-work programs in the worst-hit areas. Those programs mainly target poor households, female-headed households and landless laborers.
Though such programs may help targeted families in the short-term, there is still a desperate need for more international assistance in the long-term recovery effort, experts say.
According to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, a three-year recovery plan remains severely under-funded. So far, just US $100 million has been pledged by the international community, out of the $691 million that is needed.
irrawaddy
Suu Kyi’s Trial Gives Rare Glimpse into Burma’s Judicial System
BANGKOK — A political trial in Burma that could prolong its pro-democracy icon’s isolation by five more years has opened a rare window for the international community to judge the quality of justice in the military-ruled country.
Many foreign envoys based in Rangoon, the former capital, have eagerly grabbed this chance. They have shown up in numbers when given access to the largely secret trial of Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, being held in a decrepit courtroom inside the notorious Insein Prison in northern Rangoon.
Last Friday marked the latest in this diplomatic show of force, when foreign envoys packed the rear of the court to mirror the unprecedented international attention this bizarre trial has drawn since it began in early May.
"There were about 20 to 25 diplomats in the court. They were Europe, the US, China, South Korea and other Asian countries," a European diplomat who attended the trial on July 31 said in a telephone interview from Rangoon. "They were mostly of the ambassadorial rank."
It was a number as large as that present on the third day of the trial in late May. At the time, some 30 diplomats were given the nod by the junta, otherwise known to be secretive and paranoid, to get a rare glimpse of Suu Kyi’s battle with Burma’s justice system.
And this time, too, the 64-year-old Suu Kyi used the occasion to openly engage with the diplomatic corps, a practice that has been denied to her during the 14 years she has been kept under house arrest in her lakeside home in Rangoon.
"She appeared relaxed, confident and dignified when she thanked the diplomats for coming and showing interest in the trial," the diplomat revealed. "There was also a surreal moment when she was laughing and joking with her legal team as they waited for the judges to enter."
When they did, the two judges presiding over this case had a brief announcement: the verdict, due that day, will not be given. Judgment day was postponed until August 11, since the judges "needed more time to explore the details of the case."
Suu Kyi appeared relaxed in court that day, wearing a pale pink blouse and a dark purple traditional Burmese longyi. "Sorry for the inconvenience," she reportedly told some diplomats after the judges delayed their verdict. "You may want to come back on August 11."
Yet, Suu Kyi’s lawyers do not expect this delay in the verdict to change the outcome in the trial, where the widely popular opposition leader has been charged for violating the terms of her house arrest when a U.S. citizen showed up as an uninvited guest in her house and spent two nights in early May.
"She was not optimistic from the beginning. She is ready to face the worst," Nyan Win, one of Suu Kyi’s lawyers, told IPS from Rangoon.
Such pessimism stems from the manner in which the trial was conducted. "This trial was not a free and fair one; not a public hearing," Nyan Win noted. "That was our main worry, this lack of openness, which is practiced in our country for all political cases."
Closed trials have been common under the current military regime, indicative of its oppressive rule. The victims have been pro-democracy activists, who make up the majority of the over 2,100 political prisoners presently languishing in Burmese jails. And verdicts have been severely harsh, with some sentenced to over 100 years in prison.
These trials follow a familiar pattern aimed at trampling any hint of "fairness" and "justice" in the courtroom. "In all politically motivated cases, military intelligence people usually sit in the trial and monitor the court process, actions of judges, lawyers and other judicial staff openly," says Aung Htoo, general secretary of the Burma Lawyers’ Council, a network of Burmese lawyers operating from the Thai-Burmese border.
"By holding trials in the compound of the prisons, the authorities (implicitly) threaten all relevant persons in a proceeding," Aung Htoo wrote in an e-mail interview. "They (military intelligence) even intercept private meetings held between the defence lawyers and the accused."
"Many times, they (military intelligence) send judgments, already written prematurely, to the judges only to read," he revealed.
"The judiciary has been used as an instrument to crush down the political opponents and human rights activists."
This court culture is now under scrutiny after the junta slapped Suu Kyi with a legal case—the first political trial she has been subjected to since being placed under house arrest for the first time in July 1989.
"There has never been a [more] high-profile case than this one. It has drawn so much international attention and international pressure," says Soe Aung, the spokesman for the Forum for Democracy in Burma, a network of Burmese political activists living in exile. "It is not usual for diplomats to attend such cases."
"The Burmese regime is feeling the heat both inside and outside the country due to all the attention on this trial," Soe Aung added. "Prolonging the trial process by postponing the verdict till mid-August is one of the signs that they (the regime) are worried about growing international pressure."
As the world wait for the judgment, the speculation among the diplomatic community about Suu Kyi’s fate, indicates that she may be declared guilty by court.
"Western diplomats say she will get a three year sentence out of the maximum five years," an informed source in Rangoon told IPS. "They say she will be first kept in Insein Prison and then moved back to her house."
Asian diplomats, particularly from Southeast Asia, have another view, the diplomatic source added.
"They say her sentence will be commuted to house arrest without much delay because the (Burmese government) wants to look good ahead of the UN General Assembly coming up in late September."
irrawaddy
Many foreign envoys based in Rangoon, the former capital, have eagerly grabbed this chance. They have shown up in numbers when given access to the largely secret trial of Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, being held in a decrepit courtroom inside the notorious Insein Prison in northern Rangoon.
Last Friday marked the latest in this diplomatic show of force, when foreign envoys packed the rear of the court to mirror the unprecedented international attention this bizarre trial has drawn since it began in early May.
"There were about 20 to 25 diplomats in the court. They were Europe, the US, China, South Korea and other Asian countries," a European diplomat who attended the trial on July 31 said in a telephone interview from Rangoon. "They were mostly of the ambassadorial rank."
It was a number as large as that present on the third day of the trial in late May. At the time, some 30 diplomats were given the nod by the junta, otherwise known to be secretive and paranoid, to get a rare glimpse of Suu Kyi’s battle with Burma’s justice system.
And this time, too, the 64-year-old Suu Kyi used the occasion to openly engage with the diplomatic corps, a practice that has been denied to her during the 14 years she has been kept under house arrest in her lakeside home in Rangoon.
"She appeared relaxed, confident and dignified when she thanked the diplomats for coming and showing interest in the trial," the diplomat revealed. "There was also a surreal moment when she was laughing and joking with her legal team as they waited for the judges to enter."
When they did, the two judges presiding over this case had a brief announcement: the verdict, due that day, will not be given. Judgment day was postponed until August 11, since the judges "needed more time to explore the details of the case."
Suu Kyi appeared relaxed in court that day, wearing a pale pink blouse and a dark purple traditional Burmese longyi. "Sorry for the inconvenience," she reportedly told some diplomats after the judges delayed their verdict. "You may want to come back on August 11."
Yet, Suu Kyi’s lawyers do not expect this delay in the verdict to change the outcome in the trial, where the widely popular opposition leader has been charged for violating the terms of her house arrest when a U.S. citizen showed up as an uninvited guest in her house and spent two nights in early May.
"She was not optimistic from the beginning. She is ready to face the worst," Nyan Win, one of Suu Kyi’s lawyers, told IPS from Rangoon.
Such pessimism stems from the manner in which the trial was conducted. "This trial was not a free and fair one; not a public hearing," Nyan Win noted. "That was our main worry, this lack of openness, which is practiced in our country for all political cases."
Closed trials have been common under the current military regime, indicative of its oppressive rule. The victims have been pro-democracy activists, who make up the majority of the over 2,100 political prisoners presently languishing in Burmese jails. And verdicts have been severely harsh, with some sentenced to over 100 years in prison.
These trials follow a familiar pattern aimed at trampling any hint of "fairness" and "justice" in the courtroom. "In all politically motivated cases, military intelligence people usually sit in the trial and monitor the court process, actions of judges, lawyers and other judicial staff openly," says Aung Htoo, general secretary of the Burma Lawyers’ Council, a network of Burmese lawyers operating from the Thai-Burmese border.
"By holding trials in the compound of the prisons, the authorities (implicitly) threaten all relevant persons in a proceeding," Aung Htoo wrote in an e-mail interview. "They (military intelligence) even intercept private meetings held between the defence lawyers and the accused."
"Many times, they (military intelligence) send judgments, already written prematurely, to the judges only to read," he revealed.
"The judiciary has been used as an instrument to crush down the political opponents and human rights activists."
This court culture is now under scrutiny after the junta slapped Suu Kyi with a legal case—the first political trial she has been subjected to since being placed under house arrest for the first time in July 1989.
"There has never been a [more] high-profile case than this one. It has drawn so much international attention and international pressure," says Soe Aung, the spokesman for the Forum for Democracy in Burma, a network of Burmese political activists living in exile. "It is not usual for diplomats to attend such cases."
"The Burmese regime is feeling the heat both inside and outside the country due to all the attention on this trial," Soe Aung added. "Prolonging the trial process by postponing the verdict till mid-August is one of the signs that they (the regime) are worried about growing international pressure."
As the world wait for the judgment, the speculation among the diplomatic community about Suu Kyi’s fate, indicates that she may be declared guilty by court.
"Western diplomats say she will get a three year sentence out of the maximum five years," an informed source in Rangoon told IPS. "They say she will be first kept in Insein Prison and then moved back to her house."
Asian diplomats, particularly from Southeast Asia, have another view, the diplomatic source added.
"They say her sentence will be commuted to house arrest without much delay because the (Burmese government) wants to look good ahead of the UN General Assembly coming up in late September."
irrawaddy
Sunday, August 2, 2009
BERLUSCONI, SICILY FIRST, THEN THE REST
(AGI) - Rome, 31 July. This is very good news for the future of Sicily, Friday the government approved a plan to invest EUR4.3 billion in economic development in Sicily.
The government starts with Sicily and its Regional Plan (PAR). If other regions present their Plans in time, the government will discuss them already this summer, said Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi to the Interdepartmental Committee for Economic Planning (CIPE). Berlusconi announced that talks with Apulia have already started. ''The CIPE has approved the Sicilian PAR. Sicily was the first region to present the Plan. Other regions have presented it later or haven't presented it at all'' explained Italian Economy Minster Giulio Tremonti after the CIPE meeting.
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as Sicily is the key to everything” - Goethe
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