German weekly in propaganda row over Ossetia conflict
Europe's largest news magazine has been accused of propaganda by one of its own staff, who says it refused to publish pictures showing the devastation left by the Georgian military in South Ossetia. The photographer believes that the liberal German weekly Spiegel made a political decision to ignore the images as part of a pro-American stance on the conflict.

Pavel Kassin has been working for the weekly since 1990 and has never before had any problems getting his photographs published.

Last week, he and his German colleague Uwe Klussman, employed by Spiegel's Moscow bureau, were sent to South Ossetia to report on the aftermath of the war.

On his return, Pavel sent 29 pictures to the magazine's Hamburg HQ - but was shocked to find that none of them appeared in the latest issue released on Monday.

Kassin was so angry he gave an interview to the Russian daily Izvestia.

"Could it be that the most liberal, democratic and independent magazine has gone down the road of ideological one-sided propaganda?" he said. "In my view this is one of the rare cases when Spiegel has taken a pro-American stance."

In the last three issues Spiegel has given extensive coverage to the war in the Caucasus, but only a few articles have dealt with the situation in South Ossetia.

The rest have shown Georgia as a `martyr' suffering from `Russian aggression'. Most images featured ruined houses in the Georgian town of Gori and crushed military ships in the port of Poti.

Meanwhile, the South Ossetian capital Tskhinval, which suffered 12 hours of bombing by the Georgian military, is shown like a city living an ordinary life.

Most photographs were by correspondents of the world's leading news agencies. The weekly has also used several pictures by Russian photographers from Reuters and AP.

This year Spiegel has seen changes in its top management. Its long-time editor-in-chief Stefan Aust was replaced by two new chief editors.

See, while America's auto sales have gone into a nosedive, Russia just surpassed Germany to become the largest automobile market in Europe this year. Russians bought as many cars in the first six months of 2008 as they did in the entire last year, 1.65 million to be exact. The luxury category has posted the biggest growth, adding hundreds of thousands of uber-expesive automobiles to Russia's decrepit roads.  

The West should be seeking to improve cooperation with Russia rather than getting agitated about Moscow's recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, according to veteran Social Democratic politician Egon Bahr.

Bahr was Deputy Minister of the Chancellery under the then German Chancellor Willy Brandt and is acknowledged as playing a major role in Brandt's "Ostpolitik," which sought to normalize relations with Eastern European nations by rapprochement. DW-WORLD.DE spoke to Bahr about how the West should respond to Moscow in the wake of recent events in Georgia. 

 

DW-WORLD.DE: Russia has recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states despite the warnings from the West. Is a new Cold War on the cards?

 

Egon Bahr: No, and there also wasn't any danger of that when Kosovo declared its independence. A fundamental principle of international order is that no state or group of states can split an internationally recognized country, such as Serbia, in that case, and Georgia, in this one. Kosovo has not become a member of the United Nations and neither will Abkhazia. Kosovo is recognized by around 40 nations -- 160 have not done so. The number of countries that recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia is likely to be even lower. In principle, a new state can only become independent when the United Nations recognizes it as such.

Passing along the road to Tkviavi, the lush green fields, bountiful orchards and gentle slopes of the Caucasus foothills give off the air of a sleepy rural paradise. But the scorched earth and burnt-out shells of cars that litter the roadside are clues that all is not right here, and the silence gripping the town that two weeks ago had a population of 1,300 is eerie.

Tkviavi is the closest town inside Georgia "proper" to the border with South Ossetia and its capital, Tskhinvali. Its residents watched as Georgian troops poured up the road three weeks ago in their ill-fated push to regain South Ossetia, and they watched as the army fled, leaving their village undefended. Along with them went the young of the town, scared of counter-attacks. Only the elderly and sick remained.

Then, on 12 August, Russian jets bombed the village, destroying dozens of homes. For a week afterwards, the feared maradyori - marauding gangs of South Ossetians and other irregular militias - surged down the road from Tskhinvali in an orgy of looting, torching and killing.

Europe is increasingly reliant on Russia to supply its oil and natural gas, giving Moscow immense leverage over those European capitals that use its power most.

What follows is a country-by-country breakdown of Russian energy imports provided by the International Energy Agency. The figures represent each country's share of Russian imports in total consumption (percent). They refer to 2006, the latest year available to date.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Germany's close relations with Russia are the main obstacle to signing a major EU-Ukraine treaty at the upcoming EU-Ukraine summit in France, Ukraine diplomats say, warning that failure to seal the deal will signal to Moscow that it can veto EU policy on post-Soviet states.

Independence Square, Kiev - the scene of the 2004 Orange Revolution, when Ukraine broke away from the Russian sphere.

"There are maybe two or three countries who are strong opposers, strong sceptics," Ukrainian deputy foreign minister Konstantin Yeliseyev said in Brussels on Thursday (28 August), commenting on EU reluctance to state clearly that "the future of Ukraine lies in the European Union" in the preamble to the new treaty.

"In this regard, we count very much on the leadership of Germany, which is the engine of EU integration and a very powerful country, we count very much on their courage," he added, saying EU explanations - such as lack of formal consensus among the 27 states or public enlargement fatigue - are "not sincere."

"Some other countries like Belgium are also opposed. But Berlin is the key," another Ukraine official said, with just 12 days left to go before the summit in Evian, France. "They are telling us the chancellory is talking to the foreign ministry and so forth, but no matter what they say, the real problem is Russia."

Gordon Brown is set to usher in a new era of council housing by helping local authorities to buy repossessed and unsold properties. Cash and powers will be made available so that town halls can intervene in the housing market, The Times has learnt.

The measures - which could be announced as soon as Tuesday - will encourage councils and housing associations to offer struggling borrowers financial help in return for a stake in their homes or outright ownership. The number of council homes has plummeted since 1981 from 6.1 million to 2.5 million. Hundreds of millions of pounds of extra cash earmarked for social housing could now be released early to buy up newly built properties.

It is understood that town halls will also be encouraged to emulate Liverpool's local authority, which offers first-time buyers help with deposits in return for a small equity stake. Other options, including a stamp duty holiday, are being held back for further consideration

ROME: Ten dollars a gallon may seem unthinkable to American drivers still smarting from the spike in gas prices to around $4 a gallon. But that was nearly the price that Marco Annarumi faced recently when filling his Jeep on his way home from work.

"It hasn't changed my driving at all -- not a bit -- I just have to work harder," he said with seeming indifference.

High oil prices and high taxes on gas pushed the average price of gasoline to new heights in much of Europe this summer. Yet transportation experts in this laboratory of sky-high fuel prices say that many Europeans, out of necessity, habit or love, have proved surprisingly willing to bear the extra cost of driving. That raises questions as to how effective high prices by themselves can be in achieving the ambitious targets for reducing carbon dioxide emissions that European leaders have committed themselves to meeting.

Gas prices have persuaded some people to drive less. Traffic on the Eurostar train that links London and Paris was up 21 percent in the first three months of 2008. Gas purchases in Italy dropped 10 percent compared with the year before. Sales of gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles have plunged across the continent, just as they have in the United States.

Croatia is a "small country for a big vacation", as the ads tell you. But beyond the marketing and optimistic reports of millions of holidaymakers spending their "big vacation" there, there is less cheerful news, casting an unpleasant shadow over that small tourist paradise on the Adriatic.

This summer Dinko Sakic, the 86-year-old former commander of Jasenovac, the notorious second world war concentration camp, was buried in his Ustashe uniform, the Croatian equivalent of the Nazis. After the war, Sakic emigrated to Argentina but returned after Croatian independence in 1991. He was welcomed back like a celebrity. In his interviews, Sakic repeated that he regretted nothing. What Sakic should have repented was that tens of thousands of inmates in Jasenovac were murdered under his command. He also personally executed two Jewish prisoners. Franjo Tudjman's government showed no will to put Sakic on trial until Israel signalled it was perfectly willing to try him there. So in 1998, Sakic was sentenced to a maximum of 20 years. At his funeral a Dominican priest, Vjekoslav Lasic gave a speech in which he advised Croats to admire Sakic and to take him as an example.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Russia's invasion of Georgia has raised concerns among senior Pentagon officials about long-term U.S.-Russian relations, including future military ties, the top U.S. military official said on Thursday.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also said Russian and U.S. military officials were working carefully to coordinate the movements of their navies in an increasingly crowded Black Sea region to avoid any potential for direct confrontation.

"The message that has come from the Russians is one that is tied to invading another country, invading sovereign territory," Mullen told reporters at a Pentagon briefing.

That "has a lot of us concerned about what it means now, what it means a year from now, what it means long term with our relationship on the military-military side as well as the relationship between our two countries," he added.

Putin Suggests U.S. Role in Georgia Conflict

MOSCOW -- Vladimir V. Putin, Russia's prime minister, mused in a televised interview on Thursday that the United States might have helped provoke the war between Russia and Georgia to benefit one of the candidates in the American presidential election.

(...)

In an interview with CNN in the Black Sea beach resort town of Sochi, Mr. Putin said he suspected that American citizens were in the conflict area supporting Georgia's military action in South Ossetia, which Russia says prompted its offensive. The United States denies such support.

Mr. Putin went on to say he was contemplating another possibility.

"The suspicion would arise that someone in the United States created this conflict on purpose," he told CNN.

He said the purpose was to "stir up the situation and to create an advantage for one of the candidates in the competitive race for the presidency in the United States." He added, "They needed a small victorious war.

He will be dismissed again for being unserious.

Yep:

In Washington, the White House spokeswoman, Dana M. Perino, dismissed Mr. Putin's remarks. "To suggest that the United States orchestrated this on behalf of a political candidate just sounds not rational," she said, according to a transcript.

EU considers sanctions against Russia
Russia's decision to recognise the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia has prompted a strong reaction from the European Union, with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner saying that sanctions and other measures are being considered.

However France, which currently holds EU's rotating presidency, gave no further details on what the sanctions would entail.

Russia tests intercontinental missile in Kamchatka
Russia has successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile. The country's Defence Ministry has reported that it hit the target on the testing ground in the far eastern region of Kamchatka.

The Ministry claims the weapon is capable of bypassing the most advanced missile defence systems.

Although it has been on stand-by for 21 years, the Ministry said the weapon has shown it can effectively hit high-security facilities.

TPM Election Central | Talking Points Memo | Obama's Historic Speech: The Full Text

With profound gratitude and great humility, I accept your nomination for the presidency of the United States.

Orange reaction - and the crowd goes wild...

Daily Kos: Text of Obama's Acceptance Speech

Update by brownsox: I have never seen Barack Obama give a better speech. I have never seen anyone give a better political speech.

Update by MissLaura: A friend reports that CNN didn't even break in over the crowd shots at the ending immediately as would be normal practice. That's a sign something extraordinary happened.

BBC reader reactions (perhaps with some freeping?)

BBC NEWS | Have Your Say | Obama speech: Your views

What an inspiring speech! It as a speech of hope. America is suffering under the yoke of the Bush Admin. It will be a great day for not only America but the world, when he takes the oath of office.

Mr Vassmer

Empty rhetoric...how many times will people honestly believe he will "break US dependence on foreign oil", "Unite the country", "Save Social Security"...etc, he never actually says how he plans to accomplish those goals. How is he going to afford everything he's promising?

Obama and many of his more cult like supporters are going to have a rude awakening when they discover that not everybody is going to become leftist liberals because he talks about "change".

Mike Cuz, Sacramento, United States

Many Israeli settlers would gladly leave their homes in the West Bank, as long as they are compensated financially. The group Bait Echad has been pushing for a planned withdrawal to avoid a repeat of the chaotic scenes in the Gaza Strip.

 Jewish settlement of Har Homa in east Jerusalem. Many settlers want compensation rather than risk being left behind in any eventual Palestinian state. When Benny Raz comes home in the evening and gets out of his car, his neighbors turn their backs on him and disappear into their houses. Ras is wearing a short black jacket and jeans. His head looks like a coarsely modeled sculpture, with his protruding cheekbones and eyes set deeply in their sockets. He is 55, and he says: "I have lost all of my friends here."

Raz, an Israeli, sits down on an old sofa in his living room and lights an Imperial, the cigarette brand favored by Palestinians. His wife enters the room and serves Nescafe with cookies. She says: "Just to make one thing clear, Benni: You don't speak for me."

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 28 (Reuters) - U.S. and Russian envoys exchanged sharp words on Thursday over Iraq and Kosovo at a U.N. Security Council meeting on Georgia, at which Russia found little support for its actions in the Caucasus.
...U.S. Deputy Ambassador Alejandro Wolff told the meeting it was a violation of the U.N. charter for member states to use force against others, or threaten to use it, and suggested that Moscow's claims to be protecting Russian citizens in Georgia's South Ossetia region were a sham.
...Russia's U.N. envoy, Vitaly Churkin, suggested Wolff's statement was hypocritical and referred to the U.S.-led March 2003 invasion of Iraq, which Moscow strongly opposed.
"I would like to ask the distinguished representative of the United States -- weapons of mass destruction. Have you found them yet in Iraq or are you still looking for them?"
...Wolff accused Churkin of making false comparisons. "I'm not a psychologist and I don't know what brought on the free association we heard from Ambassador Churkin," he said.

"There were divisions on the Iraq war," he said. "Those are well known. We thought we had overcome them. Apparently there are still some lingering frustrations. But there is no territorial ambition or desire to dismember Iraq."

Unbelievable...after invading Iraq, Afghanistan and threatening Iran...American politicians know NO shame. Bastards.

inner city press also covered today's sessions

    Kosovo came up again and again in the debate, and then afterwards at the Press stakeout. Churkin said that while NATO had bombed Serbian television, Russia has not bombed Georgian TV, despite its content. (The reference may also have been to Rwanda's Radio Television Milles Collines, the poster child of ethnic hatred media that was also never bombed, but whose officials were later indicted and convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.)

    At the stakeout, Inner City Press asked Amb. Wolff about Churkin's argument, and Wolff called it specious. Inner City Press pointed out that several Security Council resolutions about Kosovo had referred to Serbia's territorial integrity, before that integrity was dismissed earlier this year. Wolff responded that Serbian territorial integrity was surrendered earlier, with Russia's approval, when resolutions were passed calling for the withdrawal of Serbian military forces from Kosovo, and turning over authority in Kosovo to the United Nations. Video here.

    When Inner City Press asked Churkin to respond, he said that it was the UN's administration of Kosovo which made its declaration of independence, and 45 countries' recognition of it, all the more illegal. Video here. And so it goes at the UN and Security Council.

I have not watched it (a bit hard on dialup).

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

An arid country, Israel relies on the waters where Jesus sailed to irrigate its farmland and supply its homes. But now the lake is drying up - and only drastic action will save it

The 2,000-year-old fishing boat of Galilee in which, the story goes, Jesus may have sailed, is one of the most precious ancient treasures in Israel.

The vessel, which draws thousands of tourists to a kibbutz in Ginosar, was discovered by chance in 1986 when the sea level dropped dramatically because of a severe drought.

"This year it is actually worse. I have been here 54 years and I have never seen the water so low, the situation so bad," said Haim Binstock, an expert on the boat in the museum where it is kept. "I don't think the outside world realises just how dangerous the situation is, not just for Israel but for the whole region."

Engineers are constantly coming up with new ways to dispose of greenhouse gases. The latest idea is to hide carbon dioxide exhaust in cement. The method could revolutionize one of the most carbon-intensive industries in the world.

Concrete analysis in a Düsseldorf laboratory: "Lots of things can be tested in an aquarium." Vinod Khosla has a lot of money, and he wants to put it to good use, which explains his Silicon Valley nickname, "Angel Investor." The 53-year-old Indian has already invested $450 million (€290 million) of his personal fortune in new technologies to save mankind and the planet.

A little more than a year ago, Khosla received an e-mail. What it contained, in its 12 lines of text, was exactly the sort of thing this immensely wealthy philanthropist likes to read.

"I have an idea for a sustainable cement," Brent Constantz, a chemistry professor, wrote. His idea was to convert the carbon dioxide emissions from a power plant into cement, thereby rendering the gas harmless.

Italian police are investigating a brutal attack on four Franciscan friars in a monastery in northern Italy.

Italian media are comparing Tuesday's attack, at the San Colombano Belmonte monastery near Turin, to the violence in the story A Clockwork Orange.

Three or four hooded attackers entered the monastery and bound and gagged the friars, the oldest of whom was 86.

One managed to raise the alarm two hours later, when he regained consciousness after being beaten.

Bayer on defensive in bee deaths German authorities look into allegation that RTP maker's pesticide harms environment

Sabine Vollmer, Staff Writer

Bayer CropScience is facing scrutiny because of the effect one of its best-selling pesticides has had on honeybees.

A German prosecutor is investigating Werner Wenning, Bayer's chairman, and Friedrich Berschauer, the head of Bayer CropScience, after critics alleged that they knowingly polluted the environment.

The investigation was triggered by an Aug. 13 complaint filed by German beekeepers and consumer protection advocates, a Coalition against Bayer Dangers spokesman, Philipp Mimkes, said Monday.

The complaint is part of efforts by groups on both sides of the Atlantic to determine how much Bayer CropScience knows about the part that clothianidin may have played in the death of millions of honeybees.

Bayer CropScience, which has its U.S. headquarters in Research Triangle Park, said field studies have shown that bees' exposure to the pesticide is minimal or nonexistent if the chemical is used properly.

Clothianidin and related pesticides generated about $1 billion of Bayer CropScience's $8.6 billion in global sales last year. The coalition is demanding that the company withdraw all of the pesticides.

"We're suspecting that Bayer submitted flawed studies to play down the risks of pesticide residues in treated plants," said Harro Schultze, the coalition's attorney.

Is that the time again?

"klatsch" isn't easy to spell on an iPhone after a couple of glasses of wine ...