This is an Open Thread: Well lay on the grass And let the hours pass
Gates: NATO survival at stake in Afghanistan
U.S. defense chief warns disputes could split NATO into ‘two-tier’ alliance
MUNICH, Germany – Survival of the NATO alliance, a cornerstone of American security policy for decades, is at stake in the debate over how the United States and Europe should share the burden of fighting Islamic extremism in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday.“We must not – we cannot – become a two-tiered alliance of those willing to fight and those who are not,” Gates told the Munich Conference on Security Policy, where Afghanistan was a central topic.
USA
Obama Gets Convincing Wins in 3 States
Senator Barack Obama won decisive victories over Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in Washington, Louisiana and Nebraska on Saturday, giving him an impressive sweep going into a month when the Democratic nominating contests are expected to favor him.
The successes come just as Mr. Obama is building a strong advantage over Mrs. Clinton in raising money, providing important fuel for the nominating contests ahead. Still, the results were expected to do little to settle the muddle in the delegate race that resulted after the wave of contests last Tuesday in which the two candidates split up states from coast to coast.In Republican contests on Saturday, Mike Huckabee won in Kansas, an embarrassing setback for Senator John McCain as he tries to rally the party around him as the nominee.
Proposal in Texas for a Public-Private Toll Road System Raises an Outcry
ROBSTOWN, Tex. – Leon Little’s farm here near Corpus Christi would not be seized for Texas’s proposed $184-billion-plus superhighway project for 5 or 10 years, if ever.
But Mr. Little was alarmed enough to show up Wednesday night with hundreds of his South Texas coastal neighbors to do what the Texas Department of Transportation has been urging: “Go ahead, don’t hold back.”Don’t worry. Texans have gotten the message, swamping hearings and town meetings across the state to grill and often excoriate agency officials about a colossal traffic makeover known as the Trans-Texas Corridor, a public-private partnership unrivaled in the state’s – or probably any state’s – history, that would stretch well into the century and, if completed in full, end up costing around $200 billion.
Middle East
Diary of an Insurgent In Retreat
Al-Qaeda in Iraq Figure Lists Woes
BAGHDAD, Feb. 9 — On Nov. 3, U.S. soldiers raided a safe house of the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq near the northern city of Balad. Not a single combatant was captured, but inside the house they found something valuable: a diary and will written in neat Arabic script.“I am Abu Tariq, Emir of al-Layin and al-Mashadah Sector,” it began.
Over 16 pages, the al-Qaeda in Iraq leader detailed the organization’s demise in his sector. He once had 600 men, but now his force was down to 20 or fewer, he wrote. They had lost weapons and allies. Abu Tariq focused his anger in particular on the Sunni fighters and tribesmen who have turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq and joined the U.S.-backed Sunni Sahwa, or “Awakening,” forces.
Gaza rockets injure two Israelis
Israel has threatened to retaliate after two brothers were seriously injured in a rocket attack by Palestinian militants in Gaza.The rocket, which landed in the town of Sderot, was one of around a dozen fired into southern Israel on Saturday.
During the day, Israeli planes attacked Palestinian positions thought to be used as rocket launch sites, wounding two people.
In another air strike, a Palestinian militant was killed.
The two Israeli brothers, aged eight and 19, were injured as a rocket landed yards away from where their family was running to seek shelter after warning sirens rang out to announce the attack, Israeli media reported.
Europe
KGB defector fears he will be next Alexander Litvinenko
OLEG GORDIEVSKY, the former KGB officer who spied for Britain, fears he could be murdered by Russians in this country.Gordievsky says he has become increasingly worried about his safety since the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, a former FSB agent, in London 15 months ago. Worsening relations between Britain and Russia have given him further concerns.
“Until five years ago I felt very safe living here,” said Gordievsky, who escaped to Britain from the Soviet Union in 1985. “But not now. They will kill me here. If they try to kill me, it will be in Britain.”
Gordievsky, speaking on Desert Island Discs today on Radio 4, adds: “I now feel they [the Russians] can find some way to damage me.”
Fire rips through London’s Camden market
LONDON – A major fire broke out late Saturday at London’s famous Camden market, ripping through one of the city’s top tourist draws and a nearby celebrity hangout, fire officials and witnesses said.Flames from the blaze sent bright red cinders and huge plumes of smoke into the night sky. Fire officials said the blaze was brought under control more than three hours after it was reported. There were no casualties reported.
The fire spread quickly across the market and surrounding buildings, consuming part of the Hawley Arms, a famous pub that has attracted celebrities including singer Amy Winehouse, rocker Peter Doherty and model Kate Moss.
Latin America
Residents protest Peru tourism expansion
LIMA, Peru – Residents near Peru’s southern highland tourist destinations are fighting two government proposals to expand private development around Machu Picchu and other historical sites, including the ancient Inca capital of Cuzco.Protesters, who burned tires and blocked roads around Cuzco last week, are threatening more unrest if Congress does not reject the two proposed laws, said Hugo Gonzales, president of the department of Cuzco where Machu Picchu is located, on Saturday.
PeruRail suspended the only train service to Machu Picchu on Thursday after protesters closed roads and blocked access to public transportation. Tourists were transported out of the affected areas in police vehicles.
Barbados begins to revisit its past
Centuries of slavery have been little memorialized. Few residents want to be reminded of it, but activists try.
ST. PHILIP, BARBADOS — The dining room of the Sunbury Plantation great house, its varnished mahogany table glittering with china, crystal, candles and silver, looks to be awaiting a banquet to celebrate a man of letters who has sailed in from the English mainland.In the cellar of the stately 300-year-old home, hand-tooled leather saddles, wrought iron carriages, horseshoes and buggy whips speak to yesteryears of wealthy white planters being squired about the island.
What isn’t preserved at Sunbury, the most popular tourist site in this former British colony, is the underbelly of its history. There is no trace of the gnarled black hands that cooked the feasts and polished the silver, drove the traps to cotillions and on social calls and worked the plantation.
Asia
Indian Discontent Fuels Malaysia’s Rising Tensions
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – Malaysian Indian Casket, a shop on the outskirts of this modern and cosmopolitan city, sells coffins in all sizes: standard coffins clutter the entrance, child-size boxes are stacked high on the shelves and extra-large models, those for the tallest of the deceased, are stored in the back.
But there is no variety in the ethnic background of the clientele.“All the customers are Indian,” said Aru Maniam, a shop salesman.
In death as in life, Malaysians are divided by ethnicity. The country’s main ethnic groups – Malays, Chinese and Indians – have their own political parties, schools, newspapers and, in the case of Malays, a separate Islamic legal system.
India Begins Probe Into Illegal Kidney Transplants
Feb. 10 (Bloomberg) — Indian investigators began a probe into an illegal kidney transplant ring after its suspected leader was arrested in Nepal and extradited to New Delhi.Central Bureau of Investigation officers escorted Amit Kumar back to the Indian capital from Kathmandu, the agency said in a statement posted on its Web site. The Nepal police arrested Kumar on Feb. 7 on instructions from Interpol, it said.
“The Nepalese authorities have extended exceptional cooperation in the deportation of this fugitive criminal,” the statement said.
Kumar told Nepali police he had not done anything illegal and paid donors $631 to $2,523, according a Times of India report.
“I did not force anyone to donate their kidney,” he was quoted as saying. “The transplants were done with donors’ consent. Therefore it was not a crime.”
Africa
Talks to focus on two key proposals
Two distinct proposals that could shape the future of Kenya and resolve the political crisis that has convulsed the country will be at the centre of the Kenya National Dialogue and Reconciliation process beginning Monday.One proposal before the committee calls for a strong ODM opposition in Parliament; the other favours the president-prime minister type of government contained in the Bomas draft constitution.
Mugabe election prospects weaken as rifts appear
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, who only days ago looked assured of re-election next month as a result of splits in the opposition, now has to contend with a growing mutiny within his own ranks.Analysts who had regarded Mugabe as a shoo-in at national polls on March 29 are revising their forecasts after he was confronted this week by a challenge from within his party and some of his top allies were defeated in primaries.
“The divisions within Zanu-PF are now coming out in the open,” said Harare-based political commentator Takura Zhangazha.
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The AP story doesn’t really make it clear what the problem is. The BBC story is a little better.
Both stories miss noting that the Inca sites in Cuzco (Sachsaywaman is just one of them) and in the Sacred Valley (Pisak, Ollantaytambo, Machu Picchu, etc) are just that, sacred. And the Neoliberal government (President Alan Garcia is a US alley and neoliberal) has certain ideas about “privatization” (read: giveaways) that suggest to people in Cuzco that the sacred sites might be sold, rented, developed, and defiled. There is huge, national pride about these Incan sites. Peruvians generally want the sites to be preserved. And they want the benefits from tourism to be disbursed rather than controlled by large corporations. That’s the context of the protests.
I should add that a few years ago a beer commercial was being made in Machu Picchu. The camera was on a boom. The camera fell and chipped the Inkahuatana, the most important part of the sacred site. The outrage that arose from this was fierce. And it continues. The beer incident is precisely what Peruvians don’t want to revisit. Link.
Is all for personal freedom when it comes to allowing people to kill themselves by smoking. Huckleberry is all for clean air, as long as it is not at odds with big-tobacco.
Timmeh, the cowardly shit, passes on asking if that personal freedom extends to women and how they should care for their blastocysts.
I shouldn’t; but I just shut it off, in obvious disgust, with meaning.
For some reason this does not ring true for me. If I wanted to make someone believe that my surge was working or that the sunni sahwa was effective, what better way than to “find” a nice well written concise diary on the failure of my enemy & the reasons for that failure.
In the beginning there were 600 & now the numbers are down to 20. Pretty soon they will be in their “final throes”.
This is like finding the intact passports of the 911 hijackers in the debris of the trade center.