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9142. robertjayb - 9/9/2008 7:00:35 PM Is Il ill?
WASHINGTON — (AP) - Intelligence officials are watching signs that North Korea's unpredictable dictator Kim Jong Il may be gravely ill.
Incapacity of the man North Koreans call the "Dear Leader" would have serious implications for the international effort to get North Korea to abandon nuclear weapons.
There was no sign of Kim at a parade and celebration today marking the 60th anniversary of North Korea's founding, and the country's state media was silent about his absence. His last reported public appearance was in mid-August.
9143. concerned - 9/9/2008 11:06:14 PM Looks like another Bush foreign policy success in the offing with NK. 9144. concerned - 9/9/2008 11:08:46 PM Green activists 'are keeping Africa poor'
Hey, they’re just ‘respecting African traditions’, aren’t they? Can’t have dirty capitalists actually making money by exploiting Africa's farmlands, now.
9145. concerned - 9/10/2008 6:04:17 AM Well, in a multipolar world, international institutions are useful to everybody. The Bush (rather, Rumsfeld) doctrine of deliberately breaking them, on the grounds that US interests are better served by direct bilateral relations, and build-em-up and knock-em-down ad-hoc coalitions, is a historical aberration.
You have it backwards. It was Bush who insisted on multilateral negotiations with NK, and Bush also who was careful to follow UN mandates regarding Iraq, as unpopular as admitting that is on the Left.
Clowntoon was much more unilateral than Bush, most particularly in his actions regarding Kosovo where he completely shut the UN out of the decision making process.
So much for your bigotry and ignorance. 9146. alistairconnor - 9/10/2008 5:13:11 PM Looks like another Bush foreign policy success in the offing with NK.
You mean, you think he was poisoned by the CIA?
Sounds like a foreign policy plan to me. 9147. anomie - 9/10/2008 5:59:18 PM I'm quite sure Kosovo was a NATO effort, and I'm not sure the UN was completely shut out either. Your comments are a good example of Republican revision of history, not to mention speaking out of both sides of your mouth - ridiculing the UN while holding hands with it. 9148. jexster - 9/11/2008 3:45:51 PM Pakistan premier backs army chief's rebuke to US
Pakistan's prime minister on Thursday backed a harsh rebuke of the U.S. by the Muslim nation's military chief, a sign of a strain in relations seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks forged the two countries' anti-terror alliance.
Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the powerful but media-shy army leader, said nearly a week after a deadly American-led ground assault in Pakistani territory that Pakistan would defend its sovereignty and that there was no deal to allow foreign forces to operate inside its borders.
He said unilateral actions risked undermining joint efforts to battle Islamic extremism.
"Reckless actions" which kill civilians "only help the militants and further fuel the militancy in the area," he said.
"The sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country will be defended at all cost and no external force is allowed to conduct operations inside Pakistan," he said in the Wednesday statement.
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, in comments reported Thursday by state media and confirmed by his office, said Kayani's words reflected government opinion and policy.
The ground assault last week, and a barrage of suspected U.S. missile strikes in Pakistan in recent days, suggest growing American impatience with Pakistan's progress in eradicating militant safe havens in its semiautonomous tribal regions bordering Afghanistan. 9149. jexster - 9/21/2008 3:40:13 PM German Left Stands up to anti-Muslim Fascists;
Clashes in Cologne
3,000 progressives in Cologne clashed Saturday with far rightwing protesters trying to stop the building of a mosque. There are about 3.3 million Muslims in Germany, about 4 percent of the population. The Jewish population of the US is 2%, so this would be as though American rightwingers tried to stop a synagogue from being built. The far right said they were upholding the 'Western values and Christian traditions' as the heritage of Europe....I am proud of my German cousins for making a stand against this ugly recrudescence of religious bigotry and racism (the mayor of Cologne rightly used the latter word).
blahblahblah
Isn't that where we came in....Cole
Yes Juan but that is before we had socialism in one country. Before all we had was virulent nationalism. Now that we have the means to effect the motive, we can lead our German friends back to greatness Meine Freunde 9150. jexster - 9/22/2008 6:24:36 PM Guess who's coming for cocktails!!!
Russian Naval Squadron Sails for Exercise with Venezuelan Navy
Russian nuclear-powered missile cruiser Pyotr Velikiy (Peter the Great) 9151. jexster - 9/28/2008 3:16:48 AM Sarko Feasts on Uncle Sam's Corpse
MORE FRENCH TREACHERY!
PARIS - In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy says the death knell has rung for freewheeling, U.S.-style capitalism. German's finance minister calls it downright "dangerous." Even the leader of more Wall Street-friendly Britain says financiers need closer watching, maybe on a global scale.
What Europeans call, often with a hint of derision, the "Anglo-Saxon" model of capitalism — with less rules, less government and, for years, more growth — is now being called fatally flawed as the financial crisis strengthens advocates of tighter regulation of banks and financial markets in Europe.
It's a political shift that could recalibrate the economic direction of Europe as it braces and tries to survive the financial aftershocks from the earthquake that has rocked and destroyed financial institutions across the Atlantic.
France's President Nicolas Sarkozy, left, welcomes Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez at the Elysee palace in Paris, Friday, Sept. 26, 2008 9152. Marc-Albert - 9/28/2008 2:34:05 PM "Acts of piracy are on the increase off the shores of Venezuela" warns the Quai D'Orsay. "Therefore, we now advise against yatching inside Venezuelan waters"
Venezuela – Frenchman killed in attack of sailboat
"According to diplomatic sources, this is the 4th attack of this kind against French boaters inside Venezuelan waters since the beginning of the year."
The three most unsafe waters of the World:
Off Somalia
The Strait of Malacca and surrounding waters
Off Venezuela
In Hugo Chavez domnain, crime offshore is only a reflection of what goes on inshore. Caracas - capital of the Bolivarian Republic - is now one the the most dangerous cities in the world.
As would say Jexter: Keep on the good work, Hugo!
9153. Marc-Albert - 9/28/2008 2:40:17 PM Mr Lee said they were sailing through choppy waters about two miles off the coast of Venezuela when he saw a battered, unmarked fishing boat speeding towards them.
As they approached, one of the five men aboard fired a shot at him but he still decided to ram them and try to get away.
It was only after a second shot whistled past his head that....
Shot and stabbed: The hero dog who helped round-the-world couple fight pirates of the Caribbean
9154. Marc-Albert - 9/28/2008 3:09:25 PM Nearly 10 years after the election of Mr Chavez:
Higher homicide rate in Venezuela than in Colombia. A reversal of the situation in 2000.
The government has stopped publishing crime figures, but last year the UN said that per capita there were more deaths from guns than anywhere else in the world.
Airships to tackle Caracas crime
9155. jexster - 9/29/2008 2:01:57 AM Russia Today: Russian Warships Head for Venezuela
9156. jexster - 9/29/2008 2:08:15 AM I am surprised that the slimy judaizer Sarkozy didn't send the Charles de Gaulle to join the Ruskies in Aruba.
Sneak attack
The bastards know Sarah's guarding the Bering Straits 9157. marjoribanks - 9/29/2008 7:28:12 AM John Gray at the Guardian puts it exactly the way I would have:
The fate of empires is very often sealed by the interaction of war and debt. That was true of the British Empire, whose finances deteriorated from the First World War onwards, and of the Soviet Union. Defeat in Afghanistan and the economic burden of trying to respond to Reagan's technically flawed but politically extremely effective Star Wars programme were vital factors in triggering the Soviet collapse. Despite its insistent exceptionalism, America is no different. The Iraq War and the credit bubble have fatally undermined America's economic primacy. The US will continue to be the world's largest economy for a while longer, but it will be the new rising powers that, once the crisis is over, buy up what remains intact in the wreckage of America's financial system.
I can scarcely believe how the American papers are glossing over what has occurred in the last two weeks, instead seizing at obfuscatory words like "bailout." In fact, what we are seeing is the dismantling of the heart of the American capitalist system, and a kind of acknowledgement that the model itself (certainly the model that has run for nigh on 30 years) is broken, and must be replaced.
I read the bare bone outlines of this plan that has been verbally agreed upon, and it feels like my head is going to explode. The landscape it anticipates is totally unrecognizable, inconceivable. The whole high finance apparatus of the US has gone down the drain in the span of a few short weeks. 9158. alistairconnor - 9/29/2008 2:09:35 PM Dr Pangloss (a.k.a. Pseudoerasmus) is still talking about business as usual in the best of all possible worlds. Apparently the US didn't need no stinkin' investment banks after all. 9159. jexster - 9/29/2008 4:47:54 PM I can't believe they don't see the Franco-Russian plot right at our doorstep but then again, the American people fell for Sarah Palin if only for a couple of weeks 9160. marjoribanks - 9/29/2008 6:58:51 PM Dr Pangloss (a.k.a. Pseudoerasmus) is still talking about business as usual in the best of all possible worlds.
Is he now? That's mildly interesting. I suppose his eyes are on the macroeconomic (global) picture, which is fine and dandy but small consolation to the American taxpayer.
Moving back to the nitty-gritty of the real world, I suggest a look at the analyses of NYU's Nouriel Roubini, the brilliant economist who has been consistently (and amazingly presciently) right about this debacle from the first.
You can check the blog here : http://www.rgemonitor.com/blog/roubini/
9161. marjoribanks - 9/29/2008 6:59:46 PM But here are some relevant excerpts from an article he has in today's Guardian. I am fighting the urge to post it in very, very large flashing neon font, because is getting genuinely scary that the media (and public opinion) is just so lost on this:
the claim by the Fed and Treasury that spending $700bn of public money is the best way to recapitalise banks has absolutely no factual basis or justification. It is a total rip-off that will mostly benefit – at a huge expense for the US taxpayer – the common and preferred shareholders and even the unsecured creditors of the banks.
Even the late addition of some conditions is a fig leaf of dubious value, as they are totally vague and fuzzy.
With $700bn of public cash the pockets of reckless bankers and investors have been made fatter under the fake argument that bailing out Wall Street was necessary to rescue Main Street from a severe recession. The rescue could have been achieved with a cheaper and better use of public money.
Indeed, neither does the plan address the need to recapitalise those financial institutions. This could have been done via public injections of preferred shares into these firms; via required matching injections of tier one capital by current shareholders to make sure that such shareholders take first-tier loss; via suspension of dividends payments or via a an unsecured debt-for-equity swap.
All these actions would have implied much lower fiscal costs, and they would have been cheaper and shared the burden of responsibility more equitably.
For example if the private sector had done its fair share, only $350bn of public money would have been required; and of this $350bn, half could have taken the form of purchase of bad assets and the other half should have taken the form of injection of public capital in these financial institutions.
So instead of purchasing (most likely at an excessive price) $700bn of toxic assets, the government could have achieved the same result, or better, by spending only $175bn in the direct purchase of toxic assets.
And even after the government bail-out, banks that have not yet provisioned for such losses and writedowns will be even more undercapitalised than before. So this plan does not even achieve its basic objective.
The treasury plan also does not explicitly include an HOLC-style programme to reduce the debt burden of the distressed household sector. Without such a component, the debt overhang of the household sector will continue to depress consumption spending and will exacerbate the current economic recession.
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