German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung has called for a rethink of US military tactics in Afghanistan after US coalition operations caused a spate of civilian casualties. "We need to make sure that in future operations don't take place in this way," Jung told reporters on Monday in Brussels where he was meeting with his EU counterparts. "We don't want the population against us," he said. "We have to prevent that." Jung said the killing of civilians antagonized the local population and jeopardized international efforts to win the "hearts and minds" of ordinary Afghans. "It is precisely the wrong tactic," the Defense Minister said. Jung added that he had raised the issue with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.
"We need to make sure that in future operations don't take place in this way," Jung told reporters on Monday in Brussels where he was meeting with his EU counterparts.
"We don't want the population against us," he said. "We have to prevent that."
Jung said the killing of civilians antagonized the local population and jeopardized international efforts to win the "hearts and minds" of ordinary Afghans.
"It is precisely the wrong tactic," the Defense Minister said. Jung added that he had raised the issue with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.
Farmers in Kenya, Burkina Faso and Senegal used to be able to make ends meet. Today they have trouble selling their goods because of subsidized exports from industrial nations that are sold in Africa at dumping prices. But will the West ever change? Editor's Note: Industrialized nations spend billions to subsidize their high-tech farming industries. Surplus crops often end up being sold at rock-bottom prices in the markets of developing countries, making it impossible for local farmers to sell their products. Even the American food aid being sent to famine-plagued regions creates more suffering than it alleviates, because many governments prefer to wait for handouts than buy up their farmers' harvests. The lack of options is forcing thousands of Africans to risk the life-threatening journey to Europe (more...). It's a big day for a little boy, but it's also a day that will more than likely end on a depressing note. The fishermen know this, but none of them is willing to dampen the boy's enthusiasm on his first day of work.
Farmers in Kenya, Burkina Faso and Senegal used to be able to make ends meet. Today they have trouble selling their goods because of subsidized exports from industrial nations that are sold in Africa at dumping prices. But will the West ever change?
Editor's Note: Industrialized nations spend billions to subsidize their high-tech farming industries. Surplus crops often end up being sold at rock-bottom prices in the markets of developing countries, making it impossible for local farmers to sell their products. Even the American food aid being sent to famine-plagued regions creates more suffering than it alleviates, because many governments prefer to wait for handouts than buy up their farmers' harvests. The lack of options is forcing thousands of Africans to risk the life-threatening journey to Europe (more...).
It's a big day for a little boy, but it's also a day that will more than likely end on a depressing note. The fishermen know this, but none of them is willing to dampen the boy's enthusiasm on his first day of work.
A new report launched today by the international agency, Oxfam shows that on current trends the G8 countries could miss their promise to increase aid by 2010 by a massive $30 billion at a cost of at least five million - mainly children's - lives. The report, "The World is Still Waiting," published a month before the G8 meet in Germany, is the first to calculate how far the world's richest countries could miss the target of giving $50bn annually they set themselves at Gleneagles in 2005. Italy is predicted to be $8.1bn short on its promises, France $7.6bn short and Germany $7bn.
In Afghanistan, an odd, new alliance of Mujahedeen, old communists, and royalists is threatening President Hamid Karzai's leadership. But can the motley crew solve the country's problems? Two children playing on a destroyed car in front of the ruins of a Kabul palace. Such massive security precautions -- just to attend a national holiday parade -- can hardly be a good sign for the country. First, secret police secure the bridge over the Kabul River. Then armored cars, machine guns protruding from their rotating towers, roll into position as sharpshooters fan out in the ruins of the old city center. A Special Forces unit is perched on the roof of the Id-Gah Mosque to keep a watchful eye on the VIP rostrum. Finally, at just past 9 a.m., half a dozen police cars speed into the square, sirens blaring. The day's leading man slips almost unnoticed out of a car in the middle of the motorcade. Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, has arrived. The boulevard between the river and Kabul's bustling Maiwand Street has seen its fair share of celebrations. In 1919, after the Third Anglo-Afghan War, King Amanullah stood here and proclaimed Afghanistan's freedom from Great Britain. Rulers have been crowned here; rebels have marched here; the communists demonstrated here. Today, Kabul's establishment is celebrating the anniversary of the "Islamic Revolution" here. In Afghanistan, the reference is to the overthrow of the Najibullah regime in 1992 and the takeover by the Mujahedeen; the Karzai government elected to name April 28th -- the day the holy warriors triumphed over the communists loyal to Moscow -- as the fledgling democracy's national holiday. Smoking tanks roll past the rostrum, followed by limping war veterans, and the first fighter jets from the Afghan National Army scream through the sky above.
In Afghanistan, an odd, new alliance of Mujahedeen, old communists, and royalists is threatening President Hamid Karzai's leadership. But can the motley crew solve the country's problems?
Two children playing on a destroyed car in front of the ruins of a Kabul palace. Such massive security precautions -- just to attend a national holiday parade -- can hardly be a good sign for the country. First, secret police secure the bridge over the Kabul River. Then armored cars, machine guns protruding from their rotating towers, roll into position as sharpshooters fan out in the ruins of the old city center. A Special Forces unit is perched on the roof of the Id-Gah Mosque to keep a watchful eye on the VIP rostrum.
Finally, at just past 9 a.m., half a dozen police cars speed into the square, sirens blaring. The day's leading man slips almost unnoticed out of a car in the middle of the motorcade. Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, has arrived.
The boulevard between the river and Kabul's bustling Maiwand Street has seen its fair share of celebrations. In 1919, after the Third Anglo-Afghan War, King Amanullah stood here and proclaimed Afghanistan's freedom from Great Britain. Rulers have been crowned here; rebels have marched here; the communists demonstrated here.
Today, Kabul's establishment is celebrating the anniversary of the "Islamic Revolution" here. In Afghanistan, the reference is to the overthrow of the Najibullah regime in 1992 and the takeover by the Mujahedeen; the Karzai government elected to name April 28th -- the day the holy warriors triumphed over the communists loyal to Moscow -- as the fledgling democracy's national holiday. Smoking tanks roll past the rostrum, followed by limping war veterans, and the first fighter jets from the Afghan National Army scream through the sky above.
Even by Iraqi standards Youssufiyah is a violent place. At first sight the well-watered farmland and groves of date palms look attractively green but then you notice the bullet-riddled hulks of cars. Iraqi soldiers and police appear more than usually frightened. The streets of the ramshackle and grimy town conveys a sense of menace. I used to disguise myself with a red-and-white Arab headdress to pass safely though the lethally dangerous area south of Baghdad where three American soldiers are being held captive. I would sit in the back of my car hoping that the small boys selling cigarettes beside the road didn't recognise me as a foreigner. Thousands of American and Iraqi troops were desperately searching these towns and the land round about yesterday in the hope of finding a bunker or secret room where three abducted soldiers are being held. It may already be too late. The Islamic State of Iraq, the group which claimed yesterday to have captured them and to which al-Qa'ida belongs, may already have spirited them out of the area. Here, at 4.44 am on, a US patrol in two vehicles was surprised and overrun by insurgents. The burned bodies of four soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter were found on the road. Three others had disappeared. It was obviously a mistake for a small and isolated detachment to be in an insurgent-controlled area. Such is the fear of roadside bombs that a relieving force took an hour to reach them.
Even by Iraqi standards Youssufiyah is a violent place. At first sight the well-watered farmland and groves of date palms look attractively green but then you notice the bullet-riddled hulks of cars. Iraqi soldiers and police appear more than usually frightened. The streets of the ramshackle and grimy town conveys a sense of menace.
I used to disguise myself with a red-and-white Arab headdress to pass safely though the lethally dangerous area south of Baghdad where three American soldiers are being held captive. I would sit in the back of my car hoping that the small boys selling cigarettes beside the road didn't recognise me as a foreigner.
Thousands of American and Iraqi troops were desperately searching these towns and the land round about yesterday in the hope of finding a bunker or secret room where three abducted soldiers are being held. It may already be too late. The Islamic State of Iraq, the group which claimed yesterday to have captured them and to which al-Qa'ida belongs, may already have spirited them out of the area.
Here, at 4.44 am on, a US patrol in two vehicles was surprised and overrun by insurgents. The burned bodies of four soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter were found on the road. Three others had disappeared. It was obviously a mistake for a small and isolated detachment to be in an insurgent-controlled area. Such is the fear of roadside bombs that a relieving force took an hour to reach them.
Dear media, I was wrong, terribly wrong. Please accept my apology. In my posting about your reports on the recent capturing of U.S. soldiers in Iraqi I alleged:There must be some institutionalized media amnesia with regard to reports on U.S. behavior in foreign countries.That statement was wrong. I defamed the media and I am very sorry for this. At the time of my writing none of your reports I had seen made the obvious connection of the recent capture to an earlier event in the same Iraqi town. Last year U.S. soldiers raped a 14 year old girl in Mahmoudiya and they killed her and her family. The current event was an obvious revenge act but that was not mentioned in your reports. I concluded that the media, not reporting the relation, had a Mahmoudiya Amnesia. That was false and I do apologize for that. Today agencies distribute news that some "al-Qaida" gang confesses they took these prisoners because of that rape. The connection, which explains the motives of the resistance, is now widely and prominently reported on. Down the tenth paragraph of its story on the news release the New York Times writes:The statement went on to cite the American mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and the rape last year of a teenaged girl by American troops near the site where the abduction occurred.
Dear media,
I was wrong, terribly wrong. Please accept my apology.
In my posting about your reports on the recent capturing of U.S. soldiers in Iraqi I alleged:
There must be some institutionalized media amnesia with regard to reports on U.S. behavior in foreign countries.
That statement was wrong. I defamed the media and I am very sorry for this.
At the time of my writing none of your reports I had seen made the obvious connection of the recent capture to an earlier event in the same Iraqi town. Last year U.S. soldiers raped a 14 year old girl in Mahmoudiya and they killed her and her family.
The current event was an obvious revenge act but that was not mentioned in your reports.
I concluded that the media, not reporting the relation, had a Mahmoudiya Amnesia.
That was false and I do apologize for that.
Today agencies distribute news that some "al-Qaida" gang confesses they took these prisoners because of that rape. The connection, which explains the motives of the resistance, is now widely and prominently reported on.
Down the tenth paragraph of its story on the news release the New York Times writes:
The statement went on to cite the American mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and the rape last year of a teenaged girl by American troops near the site where the abduction occurred.
In a written response, Wolfowitz maintained that he acted in good faith in seeking to resolve an obvious conflict of interest. He accused the bank's ethics committee of forcing him to oversee the raise for his longtime companion, Shaha Riza, as compensation for her transfer to a different job. The ethics panel was afraid to confront her, Wolfowitz said, because its members knew she was "extremely angry and upset."The ethics committee told Wolfowitz he could not directly supervise Riza, who also worked at the bank, after he arrived in 2005. He said, however, that the panel declined to oversee her job transfer and compensation, instead ordering him to handle those tasks."Its members did not want to deal with a very angry Ms. Riza, whose career was being damaged as a result of their decision," Wolfowitz said in his response to the investigating committee's report. "It would only be human nature for them to want to steer clear of her."Wolfowitz added that the chairman of the ethics panel thought that "due to my personal relationship with Ms. Riza, I was in the best position to persuade her to take out-placement and thereby achieve the 'pragmatic solution' the committee desired."Wolfowitz effectively blamed Riza for his predicament as well, saying that her "intractable position" in demanding a salary increase as compensation for her career disruption forced him to grant one to pre-empt a lawsuit. He is scheduled to appear before the board this afternoon. The board is expected to begin deliberating on how to respond as soon as tonight. Board members are inclined to issue a resolution expressing a lack of confidence in Wolfowitz's leadership, senior bank officials said.
In a written response, Wolfowitz maintained that he acted in good faith in seeking to resolve an obvious conflict of interest. He accused the bank's ethics committee of forcing him to oversee the raise for his longtime companion, Shaha Riza, as compensation for her transfer to a different job. The ethics panel was afraid to confront her, Wolfowitz said, because its members knew she was "extremely angry and upset."
The ethics committee told Wolfowitz he could not directly supervise Riza, who also worked at the bank, after he arrived in 2005. He said, however, that the panel declined to oversee her job transfer and compensation, instead ordering him to handle those tasks.
"Its members did not want to deal with a very angry Ms. Riza, whose career was being damaged as a result of their decision," Wolfowitz said in his response to the investigating committee's report. "It would only be human nature for them to want to steer clear of her."
Wolfowitz added that the chairman of the ethics panel thought that "due to my personal relationship with Ms. Riza, I was in the best position to persuade her to take out-placement and thereby achieve the 'pragmatic solution' the committee desired."
Wolfowitz effectively blamed Riza for his predicament as well, saying that her "intractable position" in demanding a salary increase as compensation for her career disruption forced him to grant one to pre-empt a lawsuit. He is scheduled to appear before the board this afternoon. The board is expected to begin deliberating on how to respond as soon as tonight. Board members are inclined to issue a resolution expressing a lack of confidence in Wolfowitz's leadership, senior bank officials said.
can you imagine the pillow talk between wolfie and his lover?
' i'm getting that raise, paul, i don't care how..'
'obviously....no one else will face you down, my dusky dragon...'
'oh, wolfie....snarl for me....'
'shaha, my tented temptress, you make me so hot when you scare the ethics committee like that'
'er, paul, why not run your comb under the faucet like normal folks?'
' come here, you corrupt little darling!'
a curtain of propriety falls upon the scene ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
It may or may not be sexism, (just like she may or may not be competent) but what Wolfie's doing sure ain't fair. The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman
Yet as the rush of water that caused the Missouri River to overflow its banks and submerge dozens of towns last week rolled toward St. Louis on Monday, attention was turned to a metropolitan region that since 1993 has seen runaway residential and commercial development in the rivers' flood paths. About 28,000 homes have been built and more than 6,000 acres of commercial and industrial space developed on land that was underwater in 1993, according to research by Nicholas Pinter, a geologist who studies the region at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. Building is happening on flood plains across Missouri, but most of the development is in the St. Louis area, and it is estimated to be worth more than $2.2 billion. Though scientists warn about the danger of such building, the Missouri government has subsidized some of it through tax financing for builders.
Yet as the rush of water that caused the Missouri River to overflow its banks and submerge dozens of towns last week rolled toward St. Louis on Monday, attention was turned to a metropolitan region that since 1993 has seen runaway residential and commercial development in the rivers' flood paths.
About 28,000 homes have been built and more than 6,000 acres of commercial and industrial space developed on land that was underwater in 1993, according to research by Nicholas Pinter, a geologist who studies the region at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.
Building is happening on flood plains across Missouri, but most of the development is in the St. Louis area, and it is estimated to be worth more than $2.2 billion. Though scientists warn about the danger of such building, the Missouri government has subsidized some of it through tax financing for builders.
Once the profit is made, the inhabitants are just victims. The real criminals are the local authorities. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
As to buyers, you'll find that many come from other regions and have no clue. I doubt that locals would invest in these regions (unless they can really buy cheaper and insurance companies are clueless). In France, you see many areas in Southern France (near Nimes for instance) which attract lots of internal migrants from the North, and regularly get flooded - and built. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
People here still remember the floods of 2001 and 2002, so some people will check an area for flood risks before buying a property. And with large parts of the South East at risk from rising sea levels, that's really not a bad thing to do.
But so far as I know it's not part of the official conveyancing procedure. Even though it really should be - another example of something only a government can do, because leaving it to criminal developers to self-regulate might result in one or two minor and unexpected operational exceptions.
SANSHILIUGUNZI VILLAGE, China -- Zhao wanted to sleep. Her husband wanted to watch TV. It was as simple as that.The poor farming couple in Hebei province had no history of quarreling, Zhao said. But on this warm September night, neither would compromise. So Zhao, 34, left the large bed she and her husband shared with their two young sons, walked outside and grabbed a bottle of pesticide from a windowsill. [...] The sense of despair that Zhao felt seems to prevail here in rural China, particularly among women, many of whom shoulder the burdens of domestic life alone. Often, the only escape they see is to take their own lives. The suicide rate for women in China is 25 percent higher than for men, and the rural rate is three times the urban rate. In Western countries, men are at least twice as likely and sometimes four times as likely as women to commit suicide, studies show. But in China, being young, from the countryside and female is an especially lethal combination. Because the women who commit suicide are almost exclusively poor, their desperation is a reminder of the social inequalities that plague China and the difficulties hindering government efforts to raise rural standards of living. Despite the fast-paced modernization of cities, women in the countryside have been left to face what they consider insurmountable obstacles, often stemming from the traditional view that wives play a subservient role in the household.
SANSHILIUGUNZI VILLAGE, China -- Zhao wanted to sleep. Her husband wanted to watch TV. It was as simple as that.
The poor farming couple in Hebei province had no history of quarreling, Zhao said. But on this warm September night, neither would compromise. So Zhao, 34, left the large bed she and her husband shared with their two young sons, walked outside and grabbed a bottle of pesticide from a windowsill.
[...]
The sense of despair that Zhao felt seems to prevail here in rural China, particularly among women, many of whom shoulder the burdens of domestic life alone. Often, the only escape they see is to take their own lives.
The suicide rate for women in China is 25 percent higher than for men, and the rural rate is three times the urban rate. In Western countries, men are at least twice as likely and sometimes four times as likely as women to commit suicide, studies show. But in China, being young, from the countryside and female is an especially lethal combination.
Because the women who commit suicide are almost exclusively poor, their desperation is a reminder of the social inequalities that plague China and the difficulties hindering government efforts to raise rural standards of living. Despite the fast-paced modernization of cities, women in the countryside have been left to face what they consider insurmountable obstacles, often stemming from the traditional view that wives play a subservient role in the household.
