"China and Russia Said to Block Creation of Antarctic Marine Reserves
SYDNEY, Australia — International talks in Australia on establishing two marine reserve areas, each larger than Texas, in the waters around Antarctica ended in failure on Friday, with some delegates to the negotiations saying that China and Russia had resisted the proposals.
The United States and New Zealand had jointly proposed the creation of a 500,000-square-mile reserve in the Ross Sea, in the hopes of alleviating pressure on Antarctic species facing the effects of climate change and fishing.
Related: Global Warming Caused ISIS
A second major proposal, from Australia, France and the European Union, would have set up a series of four reserves in the east Antarctic waters, covering about 386,000 square miles.
But neither was approved at the annual meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, which ended Friday in the Australian city of Hobart after two weeks of talks among government officials, scientists and environmentalists from 24 countries and the European Union.
Any one of the commission’s member states can block a major proposal like the creation of a marine reserve. The commission does not make its deliberations public, but several nonvoting delegates from nongovernmental organizations said China and Russia were the only countries to speak against the two proposals.
“The overall political situation, where Russia is in a political confrontation with other countries, mainly Western or NATO countries, overshadows negotiations” at international forums like the marine commission, said Grigory Tsidulko, a Russian member of the nongovernmental organization Antarctic Ocean Alliance, who attended the talks.
Well, we know who to blame for those.
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That's long distance over which to build a pipeline:
"Ukraine, Moscow clinch deal on Russian gas supply" by Raf Casert | Associated Press October 31, 2014
Okay, who farted?
BRUSSELS — Moscow and Kiev clinched a deal Thursday that will guarantee that Russian gas exports flow into Ukraine throughout the winter despite their intense rivalry over the fighting in eastern Ukraine.
In a signing ceremony following protracted negotiations, the two sides promised to get the gas flowing into Ukraine again after a long and bitter dispute over payments.
European Union energy chief Guenther Oettinger said that ‘‘we can guarantee a security of supply over the winter,’’ not only for Ukraine but also for the EU nations closest to the region that stood to suffer should the conflict worsen.
In this age of global warm.... never mind.
Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, announced the ‘‘very important agreement’’ between the two sides.
‘‘There is now no reason for people in Europe to stay cold this winter,’’ he said.
The agreement long hinged on the question of whether Ukraine was in a position to come up with the necessary cash to pay for the gas. ‘‘Yes, they are,’’ a confident Oettinger said. He said the $4.6 billion deal should extend to the spring.
Oettinger said it was ‘‘perhaps first glimmer of a relaxation in the relations between neighbors.’’
Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk of Ukraine said the amount his government would pay for Russian gas would fall in line with global oil prices, which have tumbled in recent weeks....
Being driven down by the Saudis in tandem with the U.S. to punish Russia; however, the price is now dropping so low it is hurting the U.S. shale market! Duh!
President Vladimir Putin of Russia and his Ukrainian counterpart, Petro Poroshenko, agreed this month on the broad outline of a deal, but financial issues, centering on payment guarantees for Moscow, bogged down the talks.
Russia cut off gas supplies to Ukraine in June after disputes over Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March.
Yeah, except it wasn't an annexation. The Crimeans voted to join Russia.
Readers, if the propaganda pre$$ is going to keep repeating lies....
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And my printed Globe missed this next item:
"Evidence indicates Ukraine used cluster bombs on cities" by Andrew Roth | New York Times October 21, 2014
DONETSK, Ukraine — The Ukrainian army appears to have fired cluster munitions on several occasions into the heart of Donetsk, unleashing a weapon banned in much of the world into a rebel-held city with a peacetime population of more than 1 million, according to physical evidence at the scene and interviews with witnesses and victims.
That's a war crime, and the U.S. and Israel have done the same thing.
Sites where rockets fell in the city on Oct. 2 and 5 showed clear signs that cluster munitions had been fired from the direction of army-held territory.
The two attacks wounded at least six people and killed a Swiss employee of the International Red Cross based in Donetsk.
If confirmed, the use of cluster bombs by the pro-Western government could complicate efforts to reunite the country, as residents of the east have grown increasingly bitter over the Ukrainian army’s tactics to oust pro-Russian rebels.
Gee, I can't wonder why they would be bitter.
Further, in a report released late Monday, Human Rights Watch said the rebels have most likely used cluster weapons in the conflict as well, a detail The New York Times could not independently verify.
Meaning they likely did not because HRW and the Times would have proof of it. They didn't shoot down the Malaysian plane, didn't use banned weapons, etc, etc.
The army’s use of cluster munitions, which shower small bombs around a large area, could also add credibility to Moscow’s version of the conflict, which is that the Ukrainian national government is engaged in a punitive war against its own citizens.
Now I know why this was ignored in print.
The two October strikes occurred nearly a month after President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine signed a cease-fire agreement with rebel representatives.
“It’s pretty clear that cluster munitions are being used indiscriminately in populated areas, particularly in attacks in early October in Donetsk city,” Mark Hiznay, senior arms researcher at Human Rights Watch said, in e-mailed comments after the report was completed. “The military logic behind these attacks is not apparent, and these attacks should stop, because they put too many civilians at risk.”
Press officers for the Ukrainian military denied their troops had used cluster weapons during the conflict and said the rocket strikes against Donetsk in early October should be investigated once it was safe to do so.
They also said that rebels in the area had access to powerful rocket systems from Russia that could fire cluster munitions.
However, munition fragments found in and around Donetsk and interviews with witnesses indicate that the cluster bombs that struck on Oct. 2 and 5 were most likely fired by Ukrainian troops stationed southwest of the city, according to Human Rights Watch and a review by the Times.
Human Rights Watch said in its report that cluster weapons have been used against population centers in eastern Ukraine at least 12 times, including the strikes on Donetsk, during the conflict, and possibly many more. The report said that both sides were probably culpable, in attacks that “may amount to war crimes” in a grinding conflict that has claimed at least 3,700 lives, including those of many civilians.
The report, which included incidents uncovered by the Times, said there is “particularly strong evidence” that Ukrainian government troops carried out the two October attacks against Donetsk.
An August cluster-munitions attack on the village of Starobesheve, which was in Ukrainian Army hands, was probably carried out either by pro-Russian rebels or by Russian troops, the report said.
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My printed paper carried this instead:
"Ukraine parliament says 100s died in battle
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — A report by Ukraine's parliament revealed Monday that more than 300 soldiers were killed during a weeks-long battle that marked a crushing setback in the military campaign to root out pro-Russian separatist forces in the east.
The report is the first official confirmation of the scale of a defeat in the city of Ilovaisk that critics of the country's military command have described as the result of disastrous leadership.
One might even say war criminal leadership.
It is believed the ultimate number of servicemen lost may be even greater, and the parliamentary inquiry into the Ilovaisk battle complained that military authorities have failed to cooperate.
"Neither the Defense Ministry nor the General Staff has responded to queries from the investigating committee about losses in the armed forces," the committee said in a statement.
Ukrainian forces mounted an assault on Ilovaisk in early August only to eventually find themselves besieged by heavily armed separatist fighters.
The city and surrounding villages still bears signs of heavy shelling.
A cease-fire deal struck a month ago by Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko, Russian President Vladimir Putin and the rebel leadership is often violated.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Monday "there's a long way to a cease-fire, unfortunately," given the number of people who have been killed since the deal was struck. Europe is seeking full compliance with the cease-fire, clear border controls and local elections in eastern Ukraine in compliance with Ukrainian law, and not under auspices of the rebels.
Speaking in Slovakia, where she met with its prime minister, Robert Fico, Merkel said Ukraine's territorial integrity must be ensured "not just on paper" and that the cease-fire plan has to become effective in all its details.
It's amazing how arbitrary such demands are.
The U.N. estimates more than 300 people have been killed since the cease-fire was announced, and at least 3,660 people have been killed over six months of fighting.
In Ilovaisk city in August, government troops sustained heavy losses of life attempting to flee the area and were easily picked off by rocket and artillery fire as they fled in columns. AP reporters counted more than 30 charred Ukrainian military vehicles on the route out of the city in early September, when the battle had come to a close.
Shades of the highway to Baghdad.
The defense minister in command at the time resigned last week.
Ukraine maintains that rebel forces have been amply supplied with weaponry by Russia and that their military setbacks would not have occurred without Moscow's interference. Russia denies such claims.
The intensity of fighting in the east has abated since late September, when the warring sides agreed on the nominal cease-fire, but shelling continues daily.
On Monday, a powerful explosion shook the largest rebel-controlled city of Donetsk, causing shockwaves that were felt over a radius of several kilometers. Numerous buildings, including the Shakhtar Donetsk football club, were damaged as a result.
The explosion, which occurred at a rubber processing factory used to create components for ammunition, was succeeded by multiple barrages of outgoing rockets fire from the city.
--more--"
UPDATE: Bodies of 286 women discovered, 400 listed missing in east Ukraine
"Pro-Western parties lead in Ukraine poll; President claims victory, but few in pro-Russian east able to cast ballots" by David M. Herszenhorn | New York Times October 27, 2014
KIEV — Pro-Western parties won an overwhelming majority in Ukraine’s Parliament, President Petro O. Poroshenko declared on Sunday, citing exit polls.
The new Ukraine.
How come Scotland didn't do exit polls?
The results, if confirmed by official tallies expected on Monday, would complete a transformation of the government that began in February when the former president, Viktor F. Yanukovych, fled after sustained, bloody street protests over his decision to align more closely with Russia.
The country remains on war footing against pro-Russian separatists in the east.
Expanded power for pro-Western parties is certain to be cheered by the United States and its European allies, which have staked a huge political and financial bet on Ukraine’s ability to emerge from its current crisis as a stable state, and especially to be able to repay its debts.
Making this election result stink.
The United States and European nations are also eager to end the worst violence on the continent since the conflicts in the Balkans in the 1990s, and to resolve the most dangerous dispute between the West and Russia since the Cold War.
I find it odd that they are eager to end the violence and resolve the dispute when they have done more than anyone to cause it.
That, however, will probably hinge as much on President Vladimir Putin of Russia as on Poroshenko, who has promised voters to unshackle his country from the Kremlin’s grip.
An overwhelming pro-Western majority may also pose a challenge for Poroshenko as he tries to convince residents of the embattled east that their interests are also a priority in Kiev. Such skepticism is likely to be heightened because of the inability of so many residents of eastern Ukraine to participate in Sunday’s election.
Then the election is completely illegitimate.
Between the war zone and Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in March, international election observers said as many as 5 million people were unable to cast ballots.
It wasn't annexed, but you get my point.
The exit polls showed Poroshenko’s own coalition party running first in the polls but falling far short of winning a controlling majority on its own. That means he would be forced to form a coalition, probably in partnership with People’s Front, the party led by Prime Minister Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk.
Another U.S. ally.
“It’s crystal clear that we have to reset the Parliament, the government, and to establish the new rules in my country,” Yatsenyuk said after casting his own ballot here in Kiev, the capital. “We strongly believe that the new government, together with the new Parliament and the president, will deliver real changes.”
Heard that one before. Hope they are not for the worse.
Yatsenyuk, standing with his wife, Tereza, and 10-year-old daughter added, “This is a first tremendous and crucial step to make Ukrainian politics, more clear, more transparent, more responsible and more accountable.”
If his party, People’s Front, posts as strong a showing as the exit polls suggest, it would increase the likelihood that Yatsenyuk would remain in the prime minister’s post in a new government. According to the constitution, the government must resign and a new government must be chosen by the Parliament, called the Verkhovna Rada.
One party that is generally regarded as pro-Russian appeared in a position to clear the threshold for forming a faction in the Parliament, according to the exit polls. That party, the Opposition Bloc, includes some of Yanukovych’s former allies with strong ties to the embattled east.
The party could ultimately prove crucial to future negotiations with Putin and to resolving the simmering conflict in the east.
The party is led by Yuri Boiko, a former deputy prime minister and energy minister under Yanukovych. Boiko also has served as energy minister and was head of the Ukrainian national energy company, Naftogaz, from 2002 to 2005, giving him extensive business dealings with Russia.
The Opposition Bloc was also heavily supported by Sergiy V. Liovochkin, a former chief of staff to Poroshenko and one of Ukraine’s wealthiest businessmen. Liovochkin had a falling out with Yanukovych over the response to the protests last fall and attempted to resign.
So that, too, is controlled opposition to make it appear there is some sort of representative democracy regarding this fraud of an election.
To supporters of the uprising in Ukraine, including Yatsenyuk, the vote on Sunday represents the chance to secure a pro-European path, fulfilling ambitions that were thwarted when Yanukovych, under Russian pressure, broke a promise to sign political and trade accords with the European Union last November.
Although a new president, Poroshenko, was elected in May, the membership of the Legislature did not change. As a result, the Parliament still included allies of Yanukovych who had pushed through draconian laws in January aimed at stopping the protests by curtailing rights to free speech and assembly.
To opponents of the protests, the vote was an attempt to seal an illegal overthrow of the government, with the legitimacy of the balloting further clouded by the inability of many residents of the embattled east to participate.
That's right.
International observers said the election was technically well organized in the areas of the country that remained under the control of the Ukrainian government.
Clearly sensitive to this, and to the government’s continuing lack of control in the war zone, Poroshenko did not appear as expected at a polling station in Kiev on Sunday morning. Instead, his wife, Maryna, appeared alone and announced that her husband had made a surprise trip to the east to observe voting there.
Poroshenko visited two polling stations in the city of Kramatorsk, then returned to the capital to cast his vote, his office said.
Yeah, that legitimizes the whole thing.
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UPDATE: Ukraine’s Stunning Election-Results
"Ukraine looks to reform with an eye on Europe" by Peter Leonard | Associated Press October 28, 2014
KIEV — A day after Ukraine’s most ardently pro-European parties pocketed a resounding collective election triumph, thoughts turned Monday to a reform agenda that could bring pain and progress in equal doses.
Is that what they voted for?
Although the outcome of Sunday’s vote is in part the fruit of a surge in anti-Russian sentiment, Moscow says it will recognize the result and it urged Ukraine’s new order to grapple with the country’s most pressing problems.
With 72 percent of the vote counted Monday, the three main Western-leaning parties alone stood to win a combined 54 percent of the vote. Coalition negotiations were already underway.
Parliament is now largely purged of the loyalists of former president Viktor Yanukovych, who sparked months of protests — and eventually his ouster in February — with his decision to deepen ties with Russia instead of the European Union.
That's a blast from the past.
Of the European-minded parties, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s Popular Front had 21.9 percent of the vote, while President Petro Poroshenko’s party had 21.5 percent. A new pro-European party based in western Ukraine was running third with 11 percent.
The Fatherland party of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who has argued strongly for NATO membership and is likely to join a pro-Europe coalition, had 5.7 percent of the vote.
What happened to the Opposition Bloc?
Poroshenko last month laid out an ambitious agenda envisioning significant changes to Ukraine’s police, justice and tax systems, defense sector and health care — all to be completed by 2020.
Among the tougher decisions ahead will be allowing the cost of utilities in the cash-strapped country to float in line with market dictates.
‘‘Ukraine is pregnant with reforms,’’ said political analyst Oleksiy Haran. ‘‘The elections showed that both the government and voters expect structural changes to bring Ukrainians closer to the European Union.’’
Whatever the IMF demands.
Haran said measures to simplify regulations for private enterprise and to attract investment need to be adopted first.
Hopeful business owners in Ukraine complain that if excess red tape doesn’t kill their ventures at birth, corruption does so further down the road. For that reason, initiatives to curb graft and overhaul the justice system should follow suit, Haran said.
Poroshenko has also said he wants to see Ukraine become more self-reliant for its energy needs and farm out more powers to local government.
Except in the east.
Details of the policies to be pursued are one key subject of coalition negotiations.
In a reflection of the crisis in Ukraine, Poland’s defense minister said Monday that his country will move tens of thousands of troops toward its eastern borders in a historic realignment of a military structure built in the Cold War.
Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak said the troops are needed in the east because of the conflict in Ukraine. ‘‘The geopolitical situation has changed; we have the biggest crisis of security since the Cold War and we must draw conclusions from that,’’ he said.
He said that at least three military bases in the east will see their populations increase from the current 30 percent of capacity to almost 90 percent by 2017, and that more military hardware will be moved to those bases as well.
Russia had criticized Ukraine’s election campaign before the vote but Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday that Moscow would recognize its outcome.
“It is very important that in Ukraine, at last, there will be a government that is occupied not with . . . the pulling of Ukraine either to the West or to the East, but with the real problems that are facing the country,’’ Lavrov told Russia’s Life News.
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"Russia defends rebel vote in eastern Ukraine" Associated Press October 30, 2014
MOSCOW — Russia angrily dismissed on Wednesday the EU’s warning that it would not recognize local elections organized by pro-Russia insurgents in eastern Ukraine, saying that the rejection of the vote could derail a fragile cease-fire deal.
Western powers are such assholes these days.
Moscow has pledged to recognize the vote set for Sunday, but President Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine has warned that the elections would violate a cease-fire agreement reached in Minsk last month.
Of course his fraud vote a few days ago is fine.
The EU also warned that it would not recognize the vote, which ‘‘would run counter to the letter and the spirit of the Minsk Protocol and disrupt progress towards finding a sustainable political solution in this framework.’’
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the rebel vote would be in breach of the constitution and national law.
‘‘These ‘elections’ will seriously undermine the Minsk Protocol and Memorandum, which need to be urgently implemented in full,’’ he said in a statement.
The Russian Foreign Ministry responded quickly by saying that the original Minsk agreement foresaw local elections in the rebel-held territories between Oct. 19 and Nov. 3. It said that Poroshenko later set elections in the rebel-controlled areas for Dec. 7 without consulting with them.
This month, Poroshenko signed a law offering autonomy to the areas controlled by the rebels. The Ukrainian Parliament, however, is yet to spell out specifics needed to implement the law and hold the vote. The rebels have been critical of the law, dismissing it as a propaganda gesture.
That seems to be all we are getting from western governments these days.
While the cease-fire helped reduce hostilities in eastern Ukraine, fighting has continued around the main rebel-held city of Donetsk and a few other areas as the warring parties have failed to reach agreement on a control line that would separate them.
Are cluster bombs still being dropped?
The Russian Foreign Ministry warned that the rejection of Sunday’s vote ‘‘could undermine the entire process of peaceful settlement.’’
‘‘The most important thing now is to do everything to support the fragile cease-fire, start economic and humanitarian efforts to rebuild the region and engage in a lasting political dialogue,’’ it said.
Who would have ever thought the Russians would be the reasonable ones?
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Now for the unreasonables:
"At Berlin Wall, Kerry warns against another Cold War" by Matthew Lee | Associated Press October 23, 2014
BERLIN — Surrounded by relics of the Cold War, Secretary of State John F. Kerry and his German counterpart warned Wednesday against a return to the bitter divide between east and west over the current crisis in Ukraine.
Under gloomy skies and a steady rain, Kerry and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited one of the few remaining sections of the Berlin Wall.
Seems ironically appropriate.
They emphasized that western nations do not seek confrontation with Russia and implored Moscow to move quickly to fulfill the terms of an agreement to end the fighting between the government and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine....
Ahead of next month’s 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Kerry and Steinmeier met German high school students about the age that Kerry was when he lived in divided Berlin after World War II while his father was a US diplomat.
I really don't want to go down memory lane here.
On his way to a meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel, Kerry swung by the former Checkpoint Charlie, a crossing point between the American and Soviet sectors of Berlin during the Cold War.
Earlier with Steinmeier, Kerry said he hoped the Ukraine crisis would not spark another Cold War and maintained that the West’s tough stance against Russian intervention in Ukraine was only standing up for peoples’ basic freedoms.
It already has, and I'm tired of western war-monger's and their duplicity.
‘‘These freedoms are still being threatened in too many parts of the world and they are even being threatened right here in Europe,’’ he said.
That's why the EUSraeli empire has to bomb everywhere?
--more--"
What do you mean Kerry couldn't make it home?
"John Kerry’s aging airplane grounded" by Bradley Klapper and Matthew Lee | Associated Press October 17, 2014
VIENNA — The United States might be the mightiest military and economic power in the world, but when it comes to shuttling its top diplomat around the globe, it is beginning to look like a poor orphan.
The endless feeding of tax loot to the war machine, Wall Street, and Israel has even affected the War Department's diplomatic arm?
For the fourth time this year — and the second time in three months — Secretary of State John F. Kerry was forced to fly home commercially when his aging Air Force Boeing 757, known in military parlance as a C-32, was grounded on Thursday with a mechanical problem in Vienna.
He better be careful. Israel is mad at him.
Kerry, heading back to Washington from nuclear talks with senior European and Iranian officials, made light of the situation, telling aides: ‘‘If the hardest thing that happens in a given day is that you have to fly commercial, your life is pretty good.’’
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif chuckled when he learned of Kerry’s predicament. ‘‘So it is not just our planes,’’ Zarif said. Iran has not been able to refurbish its pre-1979 fleet of Boeing aircraft because of heavy US sanctions.
Related: Commercial jet demand lifts Boeing results
Not enough to make sure the SecofState has a decent plane.
Officials say far more than appearance is at stake, particularly in the midst of world crises such as Ebola, the military campaign against Islamic State militants, the crisis in Ukraine, Israeli-Palestinian relations, and the Iran nuclear talks.
Without access to the secure phone links and classified data on his plane, Kerry was effectively out of the loop during the nine-hour flight from Vienna to Washington. Aides said he had to cancel or reschedule calls with world leaders and other members of President Obama’s national security team.
‘‘In the world we live in, we do high-stakes diplomacy via phone and secure phone,’’ said spokeswoman Jen Psaki. ‘‘None of that is possible when any secretary of state is flying on a commercial plane without secure communications.’’
Yet somehow it ends op on Wikileaks.
‘‘Every minute of their day is scheduled,’’ she said. ‘‘There is not a single flight where Secretary Kerry isn’t calling in via secure phone to an interagency meeting or receiving sensitive national security information or reading classified information or briefings.’’
Before his trip, Kerry had logged more than 566,000 plane miles this year, according to the State Department. That is nearly 1,220 hours or more than 50 days in the air.
What is the carbon footprint on all that taxpayer-funded globe-trotting?
Problems with the 1990s-era Air Force fleet that ferry America’s top officials are not new, and secretaries of state have long complained about the aircraft they must fly for business.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton encountered aviation breakdowns when she was in office, including a tire that burst on landing in the United Arab Emirates, leading to an unscheduled overnight stay in Dubai. But she never resorted to flying commercially.
Yet the problems seem to be becoming more frequent and more serious.
Thursday’s incident was the fourth with one of Kerry’s planes this year. Two problems — in Switzerland in January and in Britain in March — were resolved with only minor delays.
--more--"
And just when things get going up....
"It was the second major accident in a week for the commercial space industry, which has been widely promoted in recent years as an alternative to costly government programs. On Tuesday, an unmanned rocket launched by Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., which was carrying cargo to the International Space Station, exploded 15 seconds after launching. SpaceShipTwo and Orbital’s rocket are very different in design and purpose, but both are part of an effort to bring private investment into the space business, until now largely the realm of government agencies like NASA and the military. The list of would-be astronauts includes celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio, Justin Bieber, and Angelina Jolie.....
Good thing they were not on that flight.
A rocket with no astronauts aboard that was to resupply the International Space Station blew up Tuesday night a few seconds after liftoff from Wallops Island, Va. The Orbital Sciences rocket rose a short distance from the launch pad and then exploded in a ball of orange flame....
The U.S. makes nothing but crap these days.
The company behind the dramatic explosion of a rocket being launched on a space station supply mission promises to find the cause of the failure and is warning residents to avoid any potentially hazardous wreckage. Orbital Sciences Corp.’s unmanned Antares rocket blew up just moments after liftoff on the Virginia coast Tuesday. Meanwhile, early Wednesday, the Russian Space Agency launched its own cargo vessel from Kazakhstan, and the spacecraft arrived at the international space station six hours later with 3 tons of food....
What?
It was the third spacewalk in three weeks outside the orbiting lab. This time, it was on the Russian side of the house, and went so well that it wrapped up more than two hours early."
Must have been Gravity."
I guess the Globe didn't get an invitation to the Valdai Club, either.
"Poland’s Sikorski under fire over interview on Ukraine" | Associated Press October 22, 2014
WARSAW — Poland’s former foreign minister, Radek Sikorski, came under fire Tuesday from the prime minister and political opponents over a US magazine interview in which he allegedly said Russia’s president offered Poland the opportunity to jointly carve up Ukraine in 2008.
I'm not believing it!
Sikorski, now the parliamentary speaker, was quoted as saying in Sunday’s issue of Politico Magazine that President Vladimir Putin of Russia ‘‘wanted us to become participants in this partition of Ukraine.’’
He said Putin made the offer to Donald Tusk, then prime minister of Poland, in Moscow in 2008.
Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, described Sikorski’s comments as false.
‘‘First, we don’t know much about the work of this publication,’’ Peskov told Russian news website Gazeta.ru. ‘‘In general, this information seems like a fable.’’
It was a U.S. magazine, right?
In a news conference on Tuesday, Sikorski was vague about whether he made those exact remarks to Politico Magazine, and told journalists to refer to another interview he gave to a Polish media website. He said there that he didn’t hear Putin’s words firsthand, but stressed that they were treated in 2008 as ‘‘surrealistic’’ or a joke.
Later in the day, he held a second news conference where he said his memory had failed him in the interview with Politico Magazine, and that the bilateral meeting between Tusk and Putin didn’t take place in Moscow but at the NATO summit in Bucharest in April 2008.
Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz, who is in the same party as Sikorski, criticized him for dodging reporters’ questions on the issue at the first conference. Political opponents want him fired, saying there is no room in politics for what they called irresponsibility.
Kopacz said she expected Sikorski to directly answer reporters’ questions.
‘‘I will not tolerate this kind of behavior,’’ Kopacz said.
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Also see: September is a Wonderful Time For a World War
Yeah, except it started in Syria not Europe.
NEXT DAY UPDATES:
"Ukraine rebels to hold election, despite criticism" by Nataliya Vasilyeva | Associated Press November 02, 2014
DONETSK, Ukraine — Rebel-held territories in eastern Ukraine prepared Saturday to elect legislators and executives in a vote that has been roundly condemned by the international community but backed by Russia.
Work at some polling stations in the largest separatist-controlled city of Donetsk was disrupted by a sudden intensification of hostilities. Artillery and small-weapons fire could be heard in northern districts of the city near the airport, which has been the focus of heavy fighting for weeks.
Separatist authorities say Sunday’s votes in the Donetsk Peoples Republic and Luhansk Peoples Republic will lend legitimacy to their aspirations for self-determination.
‘‘We have put too much at stake on the altar of the victory, and through this election we are legitimizing our government and thereby separating from Ukraine even further,’’ said rebel election chief Roman Lyagin.
Western governments and the United Nations say the vote violates the terms of a cease-fire agreement, signed by Russia, Ukraine, and rebel leaders in September, that envisioned local elections being held under Ukrainian laws.
The White House has denounced the planned elections as being contrary to Ukraine’s constitution.
Like this government ever cared about constitutions, and what business is it of theirs to even comment? Does anyone criticize our rigged farces?
In a statement, National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said Friday that the United States is warning Russia not to use the results of the voting as a pretext to make military moves into Ukraine.
If that isn't the hypocritical pot hollering kettle!!
The European Union and the United Nations have also criticized the vote, but Russia’s Foreign Ministry has said that the Minsk agreement foresaw local elections in the rebel-held territories between Oct. 19 and Nov. 3.
‘‘There is a chance to use the Nov. 2 vote to bring the situation into the constructive course instead of thoughtless and groundless inciting of confrontation,’’ the ministry said in a statement last week.
Campaigning has been negligible, and there are fears that unrest may break out on the day of the vote.
So what agent provocateurs has the U.S. and Ukraine government deployed?
It is unclear how many people will be able to vote, as rebel officials say they have no access to central Ukrainian electoral rolls. Polling station workers on Friday made final preparations by sticking rebel government labels on voting urns bearing the Ukrainian national emblem.
No established international monitoring group is overseeing the vote, although a collection of European far-right and communist political activists has traveled to the region, offering to act as observers.
Thus they will be whole-heartedly denounced by the propaganda pre$$. Read it here first.
Attitudes toward the election in Donetsk are a mix of fatalism, despair, and enthusiasm.
Tatyana Chaban, chairwoman of an election commission in Donetsk, said she has helped organize Ukrainian votes for the past decade.
‘‘If someone had told me a year ago that I would be working in an independent state, I would never have believed it,’’ Chaban said. ‘‘But since I decided to stay in Donetsk . . . I accepted this government and will now live under its laws.’’
Retiree Vera Dvornikova, who has been living in a basement in Donetsk for three months and has been without heat or electricity for the past month, said she saw no point in voting.
Thank you, pro-U.S. Ukraine government and your cluster bombs.
Btw, that reminds me to note how shallow and superficial are so many of these stories. They don't tell you anything, and all they do is push mind-manipulating imagery at you.
‘‘They want election. What elections, when there are no people left here?’’ Dvornikova said. ‘‘I will not go to vote until they pay me my pension.’’
--more--"
"It isn’t yet legal, for instance, to fly small, camera-toting drones for business purposes. But a farmer might find them useful for monitoring crops, or a realtor for shooting video of an oceanfront estate, says David Merrill, vice president of product at 3D Robotics, a drone-maker in Berkeley. 3D Robotics is betting sales will skyrocket as commercial drone uses are authorized; the company recently attracted the backing of Virgin Group founder Richard Branson. (We did discuss the dangers of being conked on the head by a malfunctioning drone -- which aren’t insignificant.)"
Maybe it was the dirty windows that caused the crash.
Also see: The perils of weak-kneed ecumenism with Russia
Hundreds bid farewell to bishop
Saturday, November 1, 2014
Slow Saturday Special: U.N. Concerned About North Korea
I must say the timing is odd for this when the North is talking peace with Japan and the South and China is making rapprochements with its neighbors.
"EU Confirms North Korea Invite for Rights Visit" Associated Press
A European Union official on Friday confirmed that North Korea has invited the EU's special representative for human rights to visit, which would be a significant step toward resuming a human rights dialogue that Pyongyang broke off in 2003.
On Thursday, a North Korean diplomat to the United Nations told The Associated Press that the invitation to Stavros Lambrinidis had been sent.
"The invite is currently being considered," the EU's foreign affairs spokeswoman, Maja Kocijancic, said in an email. "The two sides will discuss timing and substance of a visit through appropriate diplomatic channels."
The EU has said Lambrinidis recently met with a Pyongyang representative.
Kocijancic also said a team of experts from the union's diplomatic service had been scheduled to visit Pyongyang next week for meetings with authorities, but "new Ebola-related entry restrictions" enacted by the government have postponed it.
See: North Korea to quarantine visitors in light of Ebola
For North Korea to offer any dialogue on human rights, a topic which its government until recently would not discuss, is seen as significant by the international community. But such an offer also has been greeted with skepticism by rights groups and some diplomats.
I think North Korea opening up is significant any time.
North Korea also has offered the possibility of visits by United Nations rights officials, but the North Korea diplomat, Kim Un Chol, said Thursday that those offers would be dropped unless a U.N. resolution on the country removes any reference to the International Criminal Court before Saturday.
When Bliar or Bush are before the bar let me know; otherwise, the while ICC is nothing but a kangaroo court charging poor white Serb, black Africans they double-crossed, and now the Asian token of North Korea.
Come to think of it, are they taking up Israeli war crimes?
Kim treated the EU invitation as a separate issue and said the visit by Lambrinidis is expected next March.
North Korea has been on the defensive since a U.N. commission of inquiry early this year detailed what it said were vast human rights abuses in the impoverished but nuclear-armed country and warned that leader Kim Jong Un could be held accountable.
Were the U.N. not so arbitrary while pushing its political agenda that might mean more.
--more--"
"Try North Korea in court, UN official urges" by Anna Fifield | Washington Post October 29, 2014
TOKYO — The United Nations’ point man on North Korea’s human rights violations called Tuesday for Pyongyang to be referred to the International Criminal Court on charges of crimes against humanity, saying it is time to take actions against the regime ‘‘to a new level.’’
Why now?
The damning report from Marzuki Darusman, the UN’s special rapporteur dealing with North Korea, comes six months after a UN commission of inquiry released a 372-page report detailing brainwashing, torture, starvation, and imprisonment for ‘‘crimes’’ such as questioning the system or trying to escape it, or secret Christianity.
That report contained a litany of human rights abuses and seems to have marked a turning point for North Korea, which now appears genuinely alarmed by the prospect that leader Kim Jong Un and his associates could be called before an international tribunal.
‘‘The international community must seize this unique opportunity and momentum created by the commission of inquiry to help to make a difference in the lives of the people of [North] Korea, including victims, and to ensure accountability of those responsible for serious violations of human rights, including crimes against humanity,’’ Darusman wrote in his report, published Tuesday.
When are they going to take that opportunity against the U.S., U.K., Israel?
However, he noted that North Korea has not accepted any of the commission’s findings. ‘‘This sadly reflects its continued state of denial of the widespread, grave, and systematic human rights violations and crimes against humanity reported by the commission, and the need for fundamental change,’’ he wrote.
Pyongyang has traditionally refused to talk about its well-documented human rights violations, threatening to walk out of nuclear negotiations if the issue were raised. But North Korean diplomats and propagandists, with their trademark colorful language, are now actively engaging critics, apparently alarmed that snowballing international pressure could lead its top officials — including Kim — to be charged with crimes against humanity.
In other words, the North Koreans are acting like Israel.
Unusually, a North Korean delegation attended a panel on its human rights violations at the UN in New York last week, at which Michael Kirby, the Australian judge who led the commission of inquiry, and two North Korean defectors spoke.
Kim Song, the head of the North Korean delegation, called their allegations a product of ‘‘political conspiracy of the United States and hostile forces in their attempt to overthrow our political and social system.’’ North Korean officials videotaped the testimony of the two defectors, in what attendees said was a clear attempt to intimidate them.
We use whatever we can.
Pyongyang released a character assassination video Tuesday titled ‘‘Lie and Truth’’ in which the father of defector Shin Dong Hyuk says his son’s testimony is false. Shin — who was born in a prison camp and lived a life of starvation, hard labor, and torture until he escaped at age 22 — has become one of the most prominent critics of North Korea.
In the video, a man identified as Shin’s father urges Shin to ‘‘come to your senses and return to the embrace of the [Workers’] Party.’’
‘‘The dictator is holding my father hostage,’’ Shin wrote on his Facebook page Tuesday, confirming that the man was indeed his father, whom he had assumed was dead. ‘‘No matter what the dictator does to my father, they cannot cover my eyes; no matter what the dictator does, they can not cover up my mouth,’’ he wrote.
Another North Korean official caused surprise at a UN briefing earlier this month by admitting to the practice of ‘‘reform through labor detention camps,’’ although what he described was a long way from the brutal gulags depicted by escapees such as Shin.
And before Darusman released his report, North Korean officials invited him to visit the country, a change from its previous practice of denying entry to anyone investigating the human rights situation.
Engaging on questions of human rights, even bombastically, appears to be North Korea’s way of trying to tackle the growing chorus of voices calling for its leaders to be put on trial for crimes against humanity, analysts and defectors said.
The calls for North Korea’s senior leaders to go before a tribunal have ‘‘shaken’’ them into discussion, said one Western diplomat who has dealt with Pyongyang, and who spoke on the condition of anonymity. ‘‘They want to remove that risk.’’
I'm not saying North Korean jails are country clubs; I just don't feel qualified to criticize since I am a citizen of the world's worst offender -- the United States of America.
--more--"
What hasn't been much of a concern lately:
"North Korean leader was sidelined by foot surgery, South says" by Choe Sang-Hun | New York Times October 29, 2014
SEOUL — The North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, whose prolonged absence from public view aroused rumors that he was ill or deposed, or both, was recovering from surgery on his left foot, South Korea’s intelligence agency told lawmakers on Tuesday.
*******
Its representatives told lawmakers that Kim, who has appeared to be gaining weight, had undergone surgery for tarsal tunnel syndrome, a painful foot condition caused by the compression of a nerve, according to two lawmakers who briefed reporters on what they were told.
The intelligence agency did not disclose how it had obtained the information, but added that a European expert had operated on Kim, the lawmakers said....
And now they are sending human rights observers.
The lawmakers also quoted intelligence officials as saying that political purges were continuing in the North as Kim asserted his leadership. Recently, 10 party officials were executed by firing squad on charges of corruption, they said.
Interesting punishment. Is it effective?
--more--"
I wasn't concerned I told you that's why he hadn't been seen while the propaganda pre$$ was hoping he was dead.
"EU Confirms North Korea Invite for Rights Visit" Associated Press
A European Union official on Friday confirmed that North Korea has invited the EU's special representative for human rights to visit, which would be a significant step toward resuming a human rights dialogue that Pyongyang broke off in 2003.
On Thursday, a North Korean diplomat to the United Nations told The Associated Press that the invitation to Stavros Lambrinidis had been sent.
"The invite is currently being considered," the EU's foreign affairs spokeswoman, Maja Kocijancic, said in an email. "The two sides will discuss timing and substance of a visit through appropriate diplomatic channels."
The EU has said Lambrinidis recently met with a Pyongyang representative.
Kocijancic also said a team of experts from the union's diplomatic service had been scheduled to visit Pyongyang next week for meetings with authorities, but "new Ebola-related entry restrictions" enacted by the government have postponed it.
See: North Korea to quarantine visitors in light of Ebola
For North Korea to offer any dialogue on human rights, a topic which its government until recently would not discuss, is seen as significant by the international community. But such an offer also has been greeted with skepticism by rights groups and some diplomats.
I think North Korea opening up is significant any time.
North Korea also has offered the possibility of visits by United Nations rights officials, but the North Korea diplomat, Kim Un Chol, said Thursday that those offers would be dropped unless a U.N. resolution on the country removes any reference to the International Criminal Court before Saturday.
When Bliar or Bush are before the bar let me know; otherwise, the while ICC is nothing but a kangaroo court charging poor white Serb, black Africans they double-crossed, and now the Asian token of North Korea.
Come to think of it, are they taking up Israeli war crimes?
Kim treated the EU invitation as a separate issue and said the visit by Lambrinidis is expected next March.
North Korea has been on the defensive since a U.N. commission of inquiry early this year detailed what it said were vast human rights abuses in the impoverished but nuclear-armed country and warned that leader Kim Jong Un could be held accountable.
Were the U.N. not so arbitrary while pushing its political agenda that might mean more.
--more--"
"Try North Korea in court, UN official urges" by Anna Fifield | Washington Post October 29, 2014
TOKYO — The United Nations’ point man on North Korea’s human rights violations called Tuesday for Pyongyang to be referred to the International Criminal Court on charges of crimes against humanity, saying it is time to take actions against the regime ‘‘to a new level.’’
Why now?
The damning report from Marzuki Darusman, the UN’s special rapporteur dealing with North Korea, comes six months after a UN commission of inquiry released a 372-page report detailing brainwashing, torture, starvation, and imprisonment for ‘‘crimes’’ such as questioning the system or trying to escape it, or secret Christianity.
That report contained a litany of human rights abuses and seems to have marked a turning point for North Korea, which now appears genuinely alarmed by the prospect that leader Kim Jong Un and his associates could be called before an international tribunal.
‘‘The international community must seize this unique opportunity and momentum created by the commission of inquiry to help to make a difference in the lives of the people of [North] Korea, including victims, and to ensure accountability of those responsible for serious violations of human rights, including crimes against humanity,’’ Darusman wrote in his report, published Tuesday.
When are they going to take that opportunity against the U.S., U.K., Israel?
However, he noted that North Korea has not accepted any of the commission’s findings. ‘‘This sadly reflects its continued state of denial of the widespread, grave, and systematic human rights violations and crimes against humanity reported by the commission, and the need for fundamental change,’’ he wrote.
Pyongyang has traditionally refused to talk about its well-documented human rights violations, threatening to walk out of nuclear negotiations if the issue were raised. But North Korean diplomats and propagandists, with their trademark colorful language, are now actively engaging critics, apparently alarmed that snowballing international pressure could lead its top officials — including Kim — to be charged with crimes against humanity.
In other words, the North Koreans are acting like Israel.
Unusually, a North Korean delegation attended a panel on its human rights violations at the UN in New York last week, at which Michael Kirby, the Australian judge who led the commission of inquiry, and two North Korean defectors spoke.
Kim Song, the head of the North Korean delegation, called their allegations a product of ‘‘political conspiracy of the United States and hostile forces in their attempt to overthrow our political and social system.’’ North Korean officials videotaped the testimony of the two defectors, in what attendees said was a clear attempt to intimidate them.
We use whatever we can.
Pyongyang released a character assassination video Tuesday titled ‘‘Lie and Truth’’ in which the father of defector Shin Dong Hyuk says his son’s testimony is false. Shin — who was born in a prison camp and lived a life of starvation, hard labor, and torture until he escaped at age 22 — has become one of the most prominent critics of North Korea.
In the video, a man identified as Shin’s father urges Shin to ‘‘come to your senses and return to the embrace of the [Workers’] Party.’’
‘‘The dictator is holding my father hostage,’’ Shin wrote on his Facebook page Tuesday, confirming that the man was indeed his father, whom he had assumed was dead. ‘‘No matter what the dictator does to my father, they cannot cover my eyes; no matter what the dictator does, they can not cover up my mouth,’’ he wrote.
Another North Korean official caused surprise at a UN briefing earlier this month by admitting to the practice of ‘‘reform through labor detention camps,’’ although what he described was a long way from the brutal gulags depicted by escapees such as Shin.
And before Darusman released his report, North Korean officials invited him to visit the country, a change from its previous practice of denying entry to anyone investigating the human rights situation.
Engaging on questions of human rights, even bombastically, appears to be North Korea’s way of trying to tackle the growing chorus of voices calling for its leaders to be put on trial for crimes against humanity, analysts and defectors said.
The calls for North Korea’s senior leaders to go before a tribunal have ‘‘shaken’’ them into discussion, said one Western diplomat who has dealt with Pyongyang, and who spoke on the condition of anonymity. ‘‘They want to remove that risk.’’
I'm not saying North Korean jails are country clubs; I just don't feel qualified to criticize since I am a citizen of the world's worst offender -- the United States of America.
--more--"
What hasn't been much of a concern lately:
"North Korean leader was sidelined by foot surgery, South says" by Choe Sang-Hun | New York Times October 29, 2014
SEOUL — The North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, whose prolonged absence from public view aroused rumors that he was ill or deposed, or both, was recovering from surgery on his left foot, South Korea’s intelligence agency told lawmakers on Tuesday.
*******
Its representatives told lawmakers that Kim, who has appeared to be gaining weight, had undergone surgery for tarsal tunnel syndrome, a painful foot condition caused by the compression of a nerve, according to two lawmakers who briefed reporters on what they were told.
The intelligence agency did not disclose how it had obtained the information, but added that a European expert had operated on Kim, the lawmakers said....
And now they are sending human rights observers.
The lawmakers also quoted intelligence officials as saying that political purges were continuing in the North as Kim asserted his leadership. Recently, 10 party officials were executed by firing squad on charges of corruption, they said.
Interesting punishment. Is it effective?
--more--"
I wasn't concerned I told you that's why he hadn't been seen while the propaganda pre$$ was hoping he was dead.
Slow Saturday Special: Japanese Pussies
Hear them roar!
Hello Kitty’s 40 years of cuteness and cool
"Japan’s recovering crown princess attends banquet" Associated Press October 30, 2014
TOKYO — Japan’s Crown Princess Masako attended a banquet for visiting Dutch royals on Wednesday in her first such appearance since developing a stress-related illness more than a decade ago.
The Imperial Household Agency said Masako accompanied her husband, Crown Prince Naruhito, at an imperial banquet for visiting King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands. Palace officials said it was her first appearance at an imperial banquet since she attended one for the Mexican president in October 2003.
Masako, 50, became ill soon after giving birth to the couple’s daughter, Aiko, now 12, and largely withdrew from official duties. In a sign of her recovery, the royals last year attended the king’s inauguration in the Netherlands, where they have close ties.
The princess smiled as she talked with Foreign Minister Bert Koenders of the Netherlands over French food at the banquet, part of which was shown on television news. About 160 guests, including other royals and political leaders such as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, also attended.
Earlier Wednesday, Masako attended a welcoming ceremony for the king hosted by Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko.
--more--"
Or pu$$ies, as the case may be:
"Wall Street caps a wild October with a rally" by Ken Sweet | Associated Press November 01, 2014
NEW YORK —The US market closed at an all-time high on the last day of the month.
Then all is right with the world.
It is a remarkable turn given the month’s volatility, which at times approached levels from the 2008 financial crisis. Then again, the month has an unfortunate history for unsettling moves, with the stock market crashes of 1929 and 1987 both occurring in October.
This October, the market’s seesaw path was driven by fears that Europe’s economy was slipping into a recession, as well as concerns about plunging oil prices and possible weakness in the US economy. Oh, and don’t forget Ebola. Those anxieties sent the market, for the most part, straight down for two weeks.
The nadir came Oct. 15, when the S&P 500 came with a hair’s breadth of going into a correction. Investors had anticipated such a drop: The last one occurred in late 2011, and historically corrections occur every 18 months or so.
Yeah, it looked like it was on life $upport.
But just after the market came close to a correction, it bounced right back. Strong US corporate earnings were the primary driver of the rebound as well as signs central banks in Japan and Europe were going to do all they could to stop their economies from dragging everyone else down with them.
‘‘I don’t think it’s a surprise that we came close to a correction. We've been expecting one for a while. I think the bigger surprise has been how we rip-roared all the way back up,’’ said Bob Doll, strategist at Nuveen Asset Management.
Maybe not.
US companies have been, for the most part, reporting strong quarterly results the last two weeks. Corporate profits are up 7.3 percent from a year ago, according to FactSet, compared with the 4.5 percent investors had expected at the beginning of the month.
And yet employment still lags.
And any worries about the US economy earlier in the month evaporated as the data rolled in, mostly recently Thursday’s data showing the US economy grew at a 3.5 percent pace last quarter.
Yeah, right, everything is great with the economy (if you are in the 1%).
The gains Friday were driven by the Bank of Japan, which surprised investors by announcing it would increase its bond and asset purchases by $90.7 billion to $181.3 billion, to about $725 billion annually. The announcement came after data showed that the world’s third-largest economy remains in the doldrums, with unemployment ticking up.
It means they will print more money to keep the scheme going. That's all it means.
Japan’s move comes only two days after the Federal Reserve brought an end to its own bond-buying program.
Japanese picking up the slack, huh?
Investors have been hopeful that the European Central Bank might also start buying bonds to stimulate that economy by keeping interest rates low and injecting cash into the financial system. That form of stimulus is called quantitative easing, also known among investors as ‘‘QE.’’
It's exactly what I'm saying it is, and it's a failed policy. The central banks are now left with two options: keep printing money and destroy the $y$tem, or stop printing money and destroy the $y$tem.
‘‘The Japanese central bank has taken the QE baton from the Fed, and equity traders couldn’t be happier,’’ said David Madden, market analyst at IG.
Yeah, forget about Fukushima, the increased taxes, and service cuts. Let's buy up Wall Street bonds instead while increasing militarism.
Japan’s stock market rose 4.8 percent to the highest level since 2007. European stock markets rose broadly following the Bank of Japan’s announcement on hopes the European Central Bank could be tempted to follow Japan’s lead in stepping up stimulus measures. However, few think anything will be announced at the bank’s policy meeting next Thursday.
The Japanese currency weakened dramatically following the Bank of Japan’s announcement.
You print more money, it will be worth less.
The yen slumped 2.6 percent against the dollar to 112 yen. The yen is trading at the lowest level in more than five years. Japanese companies typically like a weak Japanese yen because it makes their exported goods cheaper abroad....
Except we have no money to buy anything anymore.
--more--"
Hello Kitty’s 40 years of cuteness and cool
"Japan’s recovering crown princess attends banquet" Associated Press October 30, 2014
TOKYO — Japan’s Crown Princess Masako attended a banquet for visiting Dutch royals on Wednesday in her first such appearance since developing a stress-related illness more than a decade ago.
The Imperial Household Agency said Masako accompanied her husband, Crown Prince Naruhito, at an imperial banquet for visiting King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands. Palace officials said it was her first appearance at an imperial banquet since she attended one for the Mexican president in October 2003.
Masako, 50, became ill soon after giving birth to the couple’s daughter, Aiko, now 12, and largely withdrew from official duties. In a sign of her recovery, the royals last year attended the king’s inauguration in the Netherlands, where they have close ties.
The princess smiled as she talked with Foreign Minister Bert Koenders of the Netherlands over French food at the banquet, part of which was shown on television news. About 160 guests, including other royals and political leaders such as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, also attended.
Earlier Wednesday, Masako attended a welcoming ceremony for the king hosted by Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko.
--more--"
Or pu$$ies, as the case may be:
"Wall Street caps a wild October with a rally" by Ken Sweet | Associated Press November 01, 2014
NEW YORK —The US market closed at an all-time high on the last day of the month.
Then all is right with the world.
It is a remarkable turn given the month’s volatility, which at times approached levels from the 2008 financial crisis. Then again, the month has an unfortunate history for unsettling moves, with the stock market crashes of 1929 and 1987 both occurring in October.
This October, the market’s seesaw path was driven by fears that Europe’s economy was slipping into a recession, as well as concerns about plunging oil prices and possible weakness in the US economy. Oh, and don’t forget Ebola. Those anxieties sent the market, for the most part, straight down for two weeks.
The nadir came Oct. 15, when the S&P 500 came with a hair’s breadth of going into a correction. Investors had anticipated such a drop: The last one occurred in late 2011, and historically corrections occur every 18 months or so.
Yeah, it looked like it was on life $upport.
But just after the market came close to a correction, it bounced right back. Strong US corporate earnings were the primary driver of the rebound as well as signs central banks in Japan and Europe were going to do all they could to stop their economies from dragging everyone else down with them.
‘‘I don’t think it’s a surprise that we came close to a correction. We've been expecting one for a while. I think the bigger surprise has been how we rip-roared all the way back up,’’ said Bob Doll, strategist at Nuveen Asset Management.
Maybe not.
US companies have been, for the most part, reporting strong quarterly results the last two weeks. Corporate profits are up 7.3 percent from a year ago, according to FactSet, compared with the 4.5 percent investors had expected at the beginning of the month.
And yet employment still lags.
And any worries about the US economy earlier in the month evaporated as the data rolled in, mostly recently Thursday’s data showing the US economy grew at a 3.5 percent pace last quarter.
Yeah, right, everything is great with the economy (if you are in the 1%).
The gains Friday were driven by the Bank of Japan, which surprised investors by announcing it would increase its bond and asset purchases by $90.7 billion to $181.3 billion, to about $725 billion annually. The announcement came after data showed that the world’s third-largest economy remains in the doldrums, with unemployment ticking up.
It means they will print more money to keep the scheme going. That's all it means.
Japan’s move comes only two days after the Federal Reserve brought an end to its own bond-buying program.
Japanese picking up the slack, huh?
Investors have been hopeful that the European Central Bank might also start buying bonds to stimulate that economy by keeping interest rates low and injecting cash into the financial system. That form of stimulus is called quantitative easing, also known among investors as ‘‘QE.’’
It's exactly what I'm saying it is, and it's a failed policy. The central banks are now left with two options: keep printing money and destroy the $y$tem, or stop printing money and destroy the $y$tem.
‘‘The Japanese central bank has taken the QE baton from the Fed, and equity traders couldn’t be happier,’’ said David Madden, market analyst at IG.
Yeah, forget about Fukushima, the increased taxes, and service cuts. Let's buy up Wall Street bonds instead while increasing militarism.
Japan’s stock market rose 4.8 percent to the highest level since 2007. European stock markets rose broadly following the Bank of Japan’s announcement on hopes the European Central Bank could be tempted to follow Japan’s lead in stepping up stimulus measures. However, few think anything will be announced at the bank’s policy meeting next Thursday.
The Japanese currency weakened dramatically following the Bank of Japan’s announcement.
You print more money, it will be worth less.
The yen slumped 2.6 percent against the dollar to 112 yen. The yen is trading at the lowest level in more than five years. Japanese companies typically like a weak Japanese yen because it makes their exported goods cheaper abroad....
Except we have no money to buy anything anymore.
--more--"
Slow Saturday Special: Thailand's Fat Wallets
Ever check those of the U.S. Congre$$, you hypocritical, agenda-pushing, demonizing pos?
"Thai prime minister, an ex-general, is millionaire"
BANGKOK (AP) — Asset disclosures by members of Thailand's military-dominated post-coup Cabinet reveal they are quite well-off, a trait shared with the civilian politicians they accused of corruption.
The National Anti-Corruption Commission on Friday released the asset declarations of the 33 Cabinet ministers, 25 of whom are millionaires in dollar terms.
Allegations of corruption and inappropriately gained wealth have played a major role in the country's fractious politics in the last decade.
In AmeriKa, both parties work for them.
The current government has made fighting corruption a priority, though its critics believe the policy is being wielded mainly as a weapon against its political rivals, particularly those connected to the elected government it ousted.
Thank God AmeriKa doesn't have such fractiou$ politics.
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who as army commander led a May coup d'etat, listed $3.9 million in assets and $20,000 in liabilities. He also reported the transfer of $14.3 million to other family members.
Before his retirement at the end of September, the general received a $43,000 annual salary as army chief.
The richest Cabinet minister is Deputy Prime Minister Pridiyathorn Devekula with $42.3 million of declared assets, mostly stocks, other financial investments and land. He also holds lifetime memberships in five golf clubs. The former Bank of Thailand governor does not have any debts.
Pridiyathorn's fortune is dwarfed by that of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who listed more than $3 billion in assets during his 2001-2006 governments.
In other words, the US-backed prick stole a lot more.
Thaksin was ousted in an earlier military coup after being accused of corruption. He was convicted on a conflict of interest charge in 2008 but fled the country to escape jail.
Did you see how many times they used coup?
--more--"
I don't know about you, but I think the Globe's coverage of Thailand $tinks. Sorry.
I gue$$ it's just greedy Asians, huh?
"Asia finds money brings happiness, according to survey" Associated Press October 31, 2014
SINGAPORE — Emerging Asian nations are finding out what developed ones did years ago: Money — and the stuff it buys — brings happiness.
I was told my whole life it does not -- by those that have it and are accumulating more. Go figure.
And the buying of stuff can provide a high like drugs, gambling, or any other vice used to excess. There is your happine$$. It usually wears off about the time you open the credit card bill.
Levels of self-reported well-being in fast-growing nations like Indonesia, China, and Malaysia now rival those in the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom, according to a Pew Research Center global survey released Friday.
Yeah, agenda-pushing Pew $tinks in more ways than one.
The pollsters asked people in 43 countries to place themselves on a ‘‘ladder of life,’’ with the top rung representing the best possible life and the bottom the worst.
But the data also suggested that there is a limit to how much happiness money can buy. For example, 56 percent of Malaysians rated their life a ‘‘seven’’ or higher on the ladder, significantly more than the 36 percent in Bangladesh, a poor country. Yet the public in Germany, which has far higher gross domestic product per capita than Malaysia, expressed a satisfaction level of 60 percent, just 4 percentage points more than Malaysia.
While wealth is clearly important to happiness, other research has indicated it is far from the only factor.
What? $ince when?
Women tend to be happier than men, for example, and unmarried and middle-aged people tend to report lower levels of well-being than married and younger people, respectively.
--more--"
Would you expect the pre$$ of the 1% to say anything different?
Asian greed must explain this next item because this quality is sure to follow:
"SAT score delay in China, South Korea has students on edge" by Edward Wong and Richard Pérez-Peña | New York Times October 31, 2014
BEIJING — The announcement by administrators of the SAT college entrance test that scores are being withheld for students from China and South Korea who took the exam this month has infuriated many and raised anxiety about what for a number of them is a high-stakes college application process.
The Educational Testing Service, the company that administers the test worldwide, said Wednesday that it was withholding the scores of those who took the test on Oct. 11, at least temporarily, because of suspicions of cheating “based on specific, reliable information.”
Yeah, greed will do that to a per$on.
--more--"
Related: Hong Kong protesters suggest talks with Beijing
Those umbrellas are Made in U.S.A. What a switch, huh?
Politician who called for Hong Kong leader’s resignation is formally penalized
Did that help?
Ex-general admits taking bribes, China says
China doesn't pay cost plus?
Chinese official allegedly hides $33M in bribes
He escaped by a whi$ker and is now on the run:
"SUVs gain new worldwide following; Downsizing, gas efficiency cited" by Dee-Ann Durbin | Associated Press October 28, 2014
DETROIT — Once a hulking symbol of American excess, sport utility vehicles are quickly becoming the world’s favorite way to get around.
It’s a surprising rebirth for a vehicle that was the subject of obituaries when gas prices spiked in 2008. Automakers won back customers by making smaller, more fuel-efficient SUVs that also appealed to newly wealthy buyers in Asia and South America and former skeptics in Europe.
Indian drivers want SUVs to navigate rough roads. In China, they’re a status symbol. European and American baby boomers buy SUVs because they’re easier to climb in and out of. Upwardly mobile Brazilian families like their spaciousness.
Earlier this year, SUVs overtook four-door sedans for the first time as the most popular vehicle for individual buyers in the United States. By 2018, analysts expect China to be the biggest market for SUVs.
‘‘The SUV genie is out of the bottle. They’ve been discovered by enough people that you’ll never put them back,’’ said Karl Brauer, a senior analyst at the car-buying site Kelley Blue Book.
**********
Automakers are finding some surprising converts. France — where environmentalists used to roam the streets slashing SUV tires — is second only to China in the growth of SUVs. Turkey is third.
Shrinking the SUV — and making it more fuel-efficient — was the key to saving it....
The new crop of tiny SUVs is small enough to appeal to buyers in emerging markets but nice enough for downsizing buyers in Europe and North America. That’s good for automakers, who save money by designing one vehicle that suits many different customers.
With smaller size comes better fuel economy, another lure for buyers....
--more--"
‘‘It’s the car everybody wants.’’
"Thai prime minister, an ex-general, is millionaire"
BANGKOK (AP) — Asset disclosures by members of Thailand's military-dominated post-coup Cabinet reveal they are quite well-off, a trait shared with the civilian politicians they accused of corruption.
The National Anti-Corruption Commission on Friday released the asset declarations of the 33 Cabinet ministers, 25 of whom are millionaires in dollar terms.
Allegations of corruption and inappropriately gained wealth have played a major role in the country's fractious politics in the last decade.
In AmeriKa, both parties work for them.
The current government has made fighting corruption a priority, though its critics believe the policy is being wielded mainly as a weapon against its political rivals, particularly those connected to the elected government it ousted.
Thank God AmeriKa doesn't have such fractiou$ politics.
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who as army commander led a May coup d'etat, listed $3.9 million in assets and $20,000 in liabilities. He also reported the transfer of $14.3 million to other family members.
Before his retirement at the end of September, the general received a $43,000 annual salary as army chief.
The richest Cabinet minister is Deputy Prime Minister Pridiyathorn Devekula with $42.3 million of declared assets, mostly stocks, other financial investments and land. He also holds lifetime memberships in five golf clubs. The former Bank of Thailand governor does not have any debts.
Pridiyathorn's fortune is dwarfed by that of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who listed more than $3 billion in assets during his 2001-2006 governments.
In other words, the US-backed prick stole a lot more.
Thaksin was ousted in an earlier military coup after being accused of corruption. He was convicted on a conflict of interest charge in 2008 but fled the country to escape jail.
Did you see how many times they used coup?
--more--"
I don't know about you, but I think the Globe's coverage of Thailand $tinks. Sorry.
I gue$$ it's just greedy Asians, huh?
"Asia finds money brings happiness, according to survey" Associated Press October 31, 2014
SINGAPORE — Emerging Asian nations are finding out what developed ones did years ago: Money — and the stuff it buys — brings happiness.
I was told my whole life it does not -- by those that have it and are accumulating more. Go figure.
And the buying of stuff can provide a high like drugs, gambling, or any other vice used to excess. There is your happine$$. It usually wears off about the time you open the credit card bill.
Levels of self-reported well-being in fast-growing nations like Indonesia, China, and Malaysia now rival those in the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom, according to a Pew Research Center global survey released Friday.
Yeah, agenda-pushing Pew $tinks in more ways than one.
The pollsters asked people in 43 countries to place themselves on a ‘‘ladder of life,’’ with the top rung representing the best possible life and the bottom the worst.
But the data also suggested that there is a limit to how much happiness money can buy. For example, 56 percent of Malaysians rated their life a ‘‘seven’’ or higher on the ladder, significantly more than the 36 percent in Bangladesh, a poor country. Yet the public in Germany, which has far higher gross domestic product per capita than Malaysia, expressed a satisfaction level of 60 percent, just 4 percentage points more than Malaysia.
While wealth is clearly important to happiness, other research has indicated it is far from the only factor.
What? $ince when?
Women tend to be happier than men, for example, and unmarried and middle-aged people tend to report lower levels of well-being than married and younger people, respectively.
--more--"
Would you expect the pre$$ of the 1% to say anything different?
Asian greed must explain this next item because this quality is sure to follow:
"SAT score delay in China, South Korea has students on edge" by Edward Wong and Richard Pérez-Peña | New York Times October 31, 2014
BEIJING — The announcement by administrators of the SAT college entrance test that scores are being withheld for students from China and South Korea who took the exam this month has infuriated many and raised anxiety about what for a number of them is a high-stakes college application process.
The Educational Testing Service, the company that administers the test worldwide, said Wednesday that it was withholding the scores of those who took the test on Oct. 11, at least temporarily, because of suspicions of cheating “based on specific, reliable information.”
Yeah, greed will do that to a per$on.
--more--"
Related: Hong Kong protesters suggest talks with Beijing
Those umbrellas are Made in U.S.A. What a switch, huh?
Politician who called for Hong Kong leader’s resignation is formally penalized
Did that help?
Ex-general admits taking bribes, China says
China doesn't pay cost plus?
Chinese official allegedly hides $33M in bribes
He escaped by a whi$ker and is now on the run:
"SUVs gain new worldwide following; Downsizing, gas efficiency cited" by Dee-Ann Durbin | Associated Press October 28, 2014
DETROIT — Once a hulking symbol of American excess, sport utility vehicles are quickly becoming the world’s favorite way to get around.
It’s a surprising rebirth for a vehicle that was the subject of obituaries when gas prices spiked in 2008. Automakers won back customers by making smaller, more fuel-efficient SUVs that also appealed to newly wealthy buyers in Asia and South America and former skeptics in Europe.
Indian drivers want SUVs to navigate rough roads. In China, they’re a status symbol. European and American baby boomers buy SUVs because they’re easier to climb in and out of. Upwardly mobile Brazilian families like their spaciousness.
Earlier this year, SUVs overtook four-door sedans for the first time as the most popular vehicle for individual buyers in the United States. By 2018, analysts expect China to be the biggest market for SUVs.
‘‘The SUV genie is out of the bottle. They’ve been discovered by enough people that you’ll never put them back,’’ said Karl Brauer, a senior analyst at the car-buying site Kelley Blue Book.
**********
Automakers are finding some surprising converts. France — where environmentalists used to roam the streets slashing SUV tires — is second only to China in the growth of SUVs. Turkey is third.
Shrinking the SUV — and making it more fuel-efficient — was the key to saving it....
The new crop of tiny SUVs is small enough to appeal to buyers in emerging markets but nice enough for downsizing buyers in Europe and North America. That’s good for automakers, who save money by designing one vehicle that suits many different customers.
With smaller size comes better fuel economy, another lure for buyers....
--more--"
‘‘It’s the car everybody wants.’’
Slow Saturday Special: Sri Lankan Landslide
"Shelters fill up after deadly Sri Lanka mudslide" by Bharatha Mallawarachi | Associated Press November 01, 2014
KOSLANDA, Sri Lanka — Sri Lankan authorities had warned of more landslides at a tea plantation where a deadly torrent of mud swept away scores of homes this week, but residents said Friday there was no room left at the shelters and no alternative housing for them to move to.
Disaster relief officials estimate that at least 100 people were killed Wednesday when monsoon rains unleashed a cascade of muddy earth at the Koslanda plantation in Badulla district, about 140 miles east of Colombo. The death toll has yet to be confirmed, and many villagers believe the figure could exceed 200.
I think I know who is responsible and I think the Sri Lankans would agree.
Officials have been releasing conflicting numbers since Wednesday, with initial reports saying more than 250 people may have been buried.
Police on Friday reduced their estimate of the number of dead and missing to 37, saying the number was arrived at after interviewing the plantation management, local officials, and affected families.
Kannusamy Mahendran, 34, whose home was still standing but in the danger zone, said residents have been warned of mudslides several times since 2002. But he said alternative housing has always been the problem.
‘‘Officials come here and ask us to leave, but they don’t tell us where to go,’’ he said, adding that the families are at grave risk if another landslide barrels down the hills.
Mahendran said the government provided housing for only 25 of the 75 families in his neighborhood over the past years, and the rest are now being told to move into nearby schools and temples with the survivors of Wednesday’s slide.
‘‘But we can’t go, [those shelters] are overcrowded,’’ Mahendran said.
Some 1,600 people are currently in the shelters, most of them with homes still standing but vulnerable to more slides, said Rohana Keerthi Dissanayake, a top official in the region.
Local disaster relief official Udaya Kumara urged people in vulnerable areas to come to the camps, and promised to do his utmost to accommodate them.
‘‘We can’t give them the comforts of their homes, but we will give them whatever is possible. They must think that life comes first,’’ he said.
Those whose kin are missing waited in agony as rescue workers using heavy machinery and search dogs searched through the mud Friday.
Authorities said there was no hope of finding survivors, but many relatives say they want to give their loved ones a proper burial.
‘‘They died tragically, but at least I want to give them a dignified funeral,’’ said Sinniah Yogarajah, who lost all five other members of his household — his wife, two sons, daughter-in-law, and his 6-month-old grandchild.
--more--"
"Hundreds feared buried under Sri Lanka mudslide" by Eranga Jayawardena | Associated Press October 30, 2014
KOSLANDA, Sri Lanka — A mudslide triggered by monsoon rains buried scores of workers’ houses at a tea plantation in central Sri Lanka on Wednesday, raising fears that hundreds may have been killed.
In the chaos that followed, there was confusion about the number of dead and missing because government officials reported different figures and later reduced the number of missing by 100 without explanation.
The mudslide struck about 7:30 a.m. and wiped out 120 homes at the Koslanda tea plantation, said Lal Sarath Kumara, an official from the Disaster Management Center. The plantation is in the town of Koslanda in Badulla district about 140 miles east of Colombo.
He said at least 10 people were killed and more than 250 reported missing.
Later Disaster Management Minister Mahinda Amaraweera was quoted by media as saying that more than 100 people had been killed.
Moments later he said that less than 100 people were missing but that they could not be counted as dead.
By late Wednesday the Disaster Management Center’s official numbers were six dead and 150 missing.
Pradeep Kodipppily, a senior official at the center did not explain the changes but said the agency would be able to give the media a clearer picture by Thursday morning.
The scene of the mudslide and witness accounts however suggested the disaster was enormous.
The military mobilized troops to help with the rescue operation as rain continued to fall in the island nation’s central hills.
P. Arumugam, who works as a driver on the plantation, said he rushed there when he heard about the mudslide.
‘‘Everything that I saw yesterday I could not see today — buildings, the temple, and shops had all disappeared. I could only see mud everywhere,’’ he said.
--more--"
"Sri Lanka toll won’t be as high as thought, officials say" New York Times October 31, 2014
NEW DELHI — Disaster management officials said Thursday that fewer people than previously believed were dead or unaccounted for after a landslide at a tea plantation in central Sri Lanka, but that the death toll appeared certain to rise as recovery efforts continued.
Pradeep Kodippili, an official with the Disaster Management Center in Sri Lanka, said three bodies had been recovered so far, not six as officials had said Wednesday.
He also said 192 people were believed to be missing, not 300 as previously stated.
Recovery workers were still searching for the dead through thick mud at the Meeriyabedda tea plantation in the district of Badulla, where about 150 homes were buried Wednesday in a landslide set off by days of monsoon rains.
Udaya Kumara, a Disaster Management Center official in Badulla, said that the center had warned villagers Tuesday night that a landslide was possible, but that the disaster had struck before they were able to leave.
Kodippili said 800 people from neighboring areas had been evacuated to two nearby schools because of the risk that more landslides would occur.
He said hundreds of people had joined the recovery and relief efforts Thursday, including government personnel, aid workers, soldiers, and local volunteers.
--more--"
KOSLANDA, Sri Lanka — Sri Lankan authorities had warned of more landslides at a tea plantation where a deadly torrent of mud swept away scores of homes this week, but residents said Friday there was no room left at the shelters and no alternative housing for them to move to.
Disaster relief officials estimate that at least 100 people were killed Wednesday when monsoon rains unleashed a cascade of muddy earth at the Koslanda plantation in Badulla district, about 140 miles east of Colombo. The death toll has yet to be confirmed, and many villagers believe the figure could exceed 200.
I think I know who is responsible and I think the Sri Lankans would agree.
Officials have been releasing conflicting numbers since Wednesday, with initial reports saying more than 250 people may have been buried.
Police on Friday reduced their estimate of the number of dead and missing to 37, saying the number was arrived at after interviewing the plantation management, local officials, and affected families.
Kannusamy Mahendran, 34, whose home was still standing but in the danger zone, said residents have been warned of mudslides several times since 2002. But he said alternative housing has always been the problem.
‘‘Officials come here and ask us to leave, but they don’t tell us where to go,’’ he said, adding that the families are at grave risk if another landslide barrels down the hills.
Mahendran said the government provided housing for only 25 of the 75 families in his neighborhood over the past years, and the rest are now being told to move into nearby schools and temples with the survivors of Wednesday’s slide.
‘‘But we can’t go, [those shelters] are overcrowded,’’ Mahendran said.
Some 1,600 people are currently in the shelters, most of them with homes still standing but vulnerable to more slides, said Rohana Keerthi Dissanayake, a top official in the region.
Local disaster relief official Udaya Kumara urged people in vulnerable areas to come to the camps, and promised to do his utmost to accommodate them.
‘‘We can’t give them the comforts of their homes, but we will give them whatever is possible. They must think that life comes first,’’ he said.
Those whose kin are missing waited in agony as rescue workers using heavy machinery and search dogs searched through the mud Friday.
Authorities said there was no hope of finding survivors, but many relatives say they want to give their loved ones a proper burial.
‘‘They died tragically, but at least I want to give them a dignified funeral,’’ said Sinniah Yogarajah, who lost all five other members of his household — his wife, two sons, daughter-in-law, and his 6-month-old grandchild.
--more--"
"Hundreds feared buried under Sri Lanka mudslide" by Eranga Jayawardena | Associated Press October 30, 2014
KOSLANDA, Sri Lanka — A mudslide triggered by monsoon rains buried scores of workers’ houses at a tea plantation in central Sri Lanka on Wednesday, raising fears that hundreds may have been killed.
In the chaos that followed, there was confusion about the number of dead and missing because government officials reported different figures and later reduced the number of missing by 100 without explanation.
The mudslide struck about 7:30 a.m. and wiped out 120 homes at the Koslanda tea plantation, said Lal Sarath Kumara, an official from the Disaster Management Center. The plantation is in the town of Koslanda in Badulla district about 140 miles east of Colombo.
He said at least 10 people were killed and more than 250 reported missing.
Later Disaster Management Minister Mahinda Amaraweera was quoted by media as saying that more than 100 people had been killed.
Moments later he said that less than 100 people were missing but that they could not be counted as dead.
By late Wednesday the Disaster Management Center’s official numbers were six dead and 150 missing.
Pradeep Kodipppily, a senior official at the center did not explain the changes but said the agency would be able to give the media a clearer picture by Thursday morning.
The scene of the mudslide and witness accounts however suggested the disaster was enormous.
The military mobilized troops to help with the rescue operation as rain continued to fall in the island nation’s central hills.
P. Arumugam, who works as a driver on the plantation, said he rushed there when he heard about the mudslide.
‘‘Everything that I saw yesterday I could not see today — buildings, the temple, and shops had all disappeared. I could only see mud everywhere,’’ he said.
--more--"
"Sri Lanka toll won’t be as high as thought, officials say" New York Times October 31, 2014
NEW DELHI — Disaster management officials said Thursday that fewer people than previously believed were dead or unaccounted for after a landslide at a tea plantation in central Sri Lanka, but that the death toll appeared certain to rise as recovery efforts continued.
Pradeep Kodippili, an official with the Disaster Management Center in Sri Lanka, said three bodies had been recovered so far, not six as officials had said Wednesday.
He also said 192 people were believed to be missing, not 300 as previously stated.
Recovery workers were still searching for the dead through thick mud at the Meeriyabedda tea plantation in the district of Badulla, where about 150 homes were buried Wednesday in a landslide set off by days of monsoon rains.
Udaya Kumara, a Disaster Management Center official in Badulla, said that the center had warned villagers Tuesday night that a landslide was possible, but that the disaster had struck before they were able to leave.
Kodippili said 800 people from neighboring areas had been evacuated to two nearby schools because of the risk that more landslides would occur.
He said hundreds of people had joined the recovery and relief efforts Thursday, including government personnel, aid workers, soldiers, and local volunteers.
--more--"
Slow Saturday Special: Fascinated With Burkina Faso Story
And the sudden rush of coverage! Must be serious.
"Burkina Faso leader resigns after protests" by Hervé Taoko and Alan Cowell | New York Times November 01, 2014
OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — Blaise Compaoré, president of the poor, landlocked nation Burkina Faso, announced Friday that he had resigned, forced from office by violent street protests and the burning of the Parliament building 27 years after he seized power as an army captain in a coup.
Another stale U.S.-supported dictator?
His place was immediately taken by General Honoré Nabéré Traoré, the chief of staff of Burkina Faso’s armed forces, who said at a news conference that he would “assume, as of this day, the responsibilities of head of state.”
He said he was acting to fill the power vacuum left by the president’s departure and to “save the life of the nation.”
We will see if that is true from world reaction (if there is one).
Even as Compaoré’s resignation was broadcast, there were reports that he was seeking to flee the country in a heavily armed convoy.
The chaotic political demise of Compaoré, 63, who provoked a storm of dissent over manipulations to extend his rule indefinitely, closed the book on one of Africa’s most enduring rulers. He signaled few public regrets as he left.
“For my part, I believe, I have fulfilled my duty, my only concern being the higher interest of the nation,” he said in a resignation statement that called for elections within 90 days.
With a mix of guile, charm, and impunity, Compaoré, a onetime disciple of Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy who was known as “handsome Blaise,” had built himself into a regional power broker. His influence far outweighed the strength of his nation, where more than half the youthful population has known no other leader.
Oh, he was a friend of Khadafy. U.S. must have wanted him out then, maybe.
Events here were closely watched across West Africa and elsewhere, particularly in the handful of countries whose leaders are reported to be considering measures to extend their tenure. Some analysts said events in Burkina Faso, which means “Land of Upright People,” may be taken as a warning of the perils of such action.
Residents reported that a convoy carrying the president was seen leaving the capital, Ouagadougou, and heading south toward Po, near the border with Ghana. Some reports said barricades had been thrown up to stop him.
It was not immediately clear how popular Traoré’s declaration of power would be, since he is was regarded as close to Compaoré. Many protesters had said they favored the former defense minister, retired General Kouame Lougué, to oversee a transition to new elections.
A Yemen-like situation where U.S. eases out longtime ally to be replaced by somewhat fresh face, or was Lougue their man?
The announcement from Compaoré came on the fourth day of turmoil in Ouagadougou, as military commanders met privately and demonstrators urged them to oust the president.
His departure was the culmination of 24 hours of frantic maneuvering. Compaoré declared martial law for a few hours Thursday, then seemed to relent, offering negotiations on a transitional government and rescinding his martial law decree.
At one point, Traoré announced plans to form an interim authority leading to elections in a year’s time.
Overnight, the president said he had “heard the message” from the protesters and understood “the strong desire for change” in this West African nation just below the Sahara.
I wish mine would.
--more--"
"Burkina Faso president declares state of emergency" Associated Press October 31, 2014
OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — Burkina Faso’s leader of nearly three decades declared a state of emergency Thursday, hours after protesters who oppose his bid for another term stormed Parliament and set part of it on fire, marking the greatest threat to his rule since he himself seized power in a coup.
It was not immediately clear where President Blaise Compaore was following the announcement, which also called for an end to the demonstrations. At least one person was killed and several others were wounded earlier in the day amid the melee, authorities said.
In a concession to the opposition, Compaore agreed Thursday to withdraw a bill from consideration in the Parliament that would have allowed him to extend his 27-rule through a fifth term.
Army General Honore Traore, the joint chief of staff, announced that a curfew would be in effect from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. The government and Parliament also have been dissolved, he said.
While demonstrators managed to block the parliamentary vote, the violent opposition unleashed Thursday underscored the threat Compaore now faces as frustrations mount in one of the world’s poorest countries.
I'm getting the feeling my agenda-pushing, intelligence agency mouthpiece didn't approve of these particular protests.
In a sign of the growing unrest, crowds also attacked the homes of government ministers and looted shops in the country’s second-largest city, Bobo Dioulasso, witnesses said.
That definitely attracts the attention of the ruling cla$$ that publishes the papers, and they would want to alert those for whom it is for and of to such occurrences.
--more--"
I expect a Next Day Update tomorrow in my Bo$ton Sunday Globe.
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
It's my world lead today so something must be going on.
"Burkina Faso appoints transitional leader" by Brahima Ouedraogo | Associated Press November 02, 2014
OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — Burkina Faso’s army appointed a military colonel as transitional leader Saturday, after the West African country’s president resigned from 27 years in office amid violent protests against his continued power.
Lieutenant Colonel Isaac Yacouba Zida was unanimously appointed by the army to lead Burkina Faso, the army said. The length of the transition will be determined later, according to a statement issued after senior officers met with the joint chiefs of staff Saturday.
Blaise Compaore resigned Friday when protesters stormed Parliament and set the building ablaze after two days of violent demonstrations against his effort to amend the constitution to stand next year for another term.
His move left the impoverished West African country in a state of uncertainty, and both Joint Chief of Staff General Honore Traore and Zida had made remarks that they were in power.
Compaore, his family, and those close to him had been taken in by Ivory Coast, according to a statement from the office of the country’s president, Alassane Ouattara. It did not elaborate. It said Ouattara was following events closely.
Related: Exhuming This Ivory Coast Post
Was Compaore pushed out?
Earlier Saturday, Zida said the president’s resignation amid violent street protests was an ‘‘insurrection’’ and not a coup, and that Compaore and a top aide were both safe.
‘‘Starting today I will assume all the responsibilities of this transition and of head of state,’’ he said in an announcement carried on radio early Saturday.
Zida was the second in command of the president’s security regiment. Having been in Burkina Faso’s ranks for more than two decades, Zida is close to the president and appreciated by lower ranking soldiers.
Zida called on the international community including the African Union to ‘‘support our people during this difficult ordeal.’’ He had announced that the country’s borders had been closed, a transitional committee had been set up, and the constitution had been suspended.
General Traore, the joint chief of staff, had on Friday told reporters that he would assume the presidency until elections were called, so Lieutenant Colonel Zida’s declaration Saturday caused initial confusion.
During the course of several dramatic hours, Compaore, 63, went from looking likely to jam through Parliament a bill that would let him seek a fifth term, to agreeing to step down next year, to abandoning office immediately.
The quick succession of events took many by surprise, since Compaore had long out-maneuvered his adversaries and has in recent years become an important regional mediator. Burkina Faso hosts French special forces and serves as an important ally of both France and the United States in the fight against Islamic militants in West Africa.
My question is did the U.S. just replace him with a not-so-fresh face like they have done in Yemen and other places where stale dictators needed to go?
The United States called on Burkina Faso’s military to follow ‘‘the constitutionally mandated process for the transfer of power and holding of democratic elections.’’
‘‘We condemn any attempts by the military or other parties to take advantage of the situation for unconstitutional gain and call on all parties to respect the people’s support for the democratic process,’’ State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
U.S. doesn't seem particularly happy, but that is just the official public position and out the other ear it goes. I would have to do a separate investigation that I do not have time for to figure all this out.
Compaore first came to power after the October 1987 coup against then-President Thomas Sankara, Compaore’s longtime friend and political ally who was killed in the power grab.
No doubt here the CIA was somehow involved.
While he was respected on the international stage, critics noted that, under Compaore’s semiauthoritarian rule, the country of 18 million people remained mired in poverty.
That's "our" man!
The landlocked country’s fortunes rise and fall with gold and cotton prices — and adequate rain in a region plagued by drought.
Ah, gold! That is why Burkino Faso is now a big deal.
--more--"
"Burkina Faso leader resigns after protests" by Hervé Taoko and Alan Cowell | New York Times November 01, 2014
OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — Blaise Compaoré, president of the poor, landlocked nation Burkina Faso, announced Friday that he had resigned, forced from office by violent street protests and the burning of the Parliament building 27 years after he seized power as an army captain in a coup.
Another stale U.S.-supported dictator?
His place was immediately taken by General Honoré Nabéré Traoré, the chief of staff of Burkina Faso’s armed forces, who said at a news conference that he would “assume, as of this day, the responsibilities of head of state.”
He said he was acting to fill the power vacuum left by the president’s departure and to “save the life of the nation.”
We will see if that is true from world reaction (if there is one).
Even as Compaoré’s resignation was broadcast, there were reports that he was seeking to flee the country in a heavily armed convoy.
The chaotic political demise of Compaoré, 63, who provoked a storm of dissent over manipulations to extend his rule indefinitely, closed the book on one of Africa’s most enduring rulers. He signaled few public regrets as he left.
“For my part, I believe, I have fulfilled my duty, my only concern being the higher interest of the nation,” he said in a resignation statement that called for elections within 90 days.
With a mix of guile, charm, and impunity, Compaoré, a onetime disciple of Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy who was known as “handsome Blaise,” had built himself into a regional power broker. His influence far outweighed the strength of his nation, where more than half the youthful population has known no other leader.
Oh, he was a friend of Khadafy. U.S. must have wanted him out then, maybe.
Events here were closely watched across West Africa and elsewhere, particularly in the handful of countries whose leaders are reported to be considering measures to extend their tenure. Some analysts said events in Burkina Faso, which means “Land of Upright People,” may be taken as a warning of the perils of such action.
Residents reported that a convoy carrying the president was seen leaving the capital, Ouagadougou, and heading south toward Po, near the border with Ghana. Some reports said barricades had been thrown up to stop him.
It was not immediately clear how popular Traoré’s declaration of power would be, since he is was regarded as close to Compaoré. Many protesters had said they favored the former defense minister, retired General Kouame Lougué, to oversee a transition to new elections.
A Yemen-like situation where U.S. eases out longtime ally to be replaced by somewhat fresh face, or was Lougue their man?
The announcement from Compaoré came on the fourth day of turmoil in Ouagadougou, as military commanders met privately and demonstrators urged them to oust the president.
His departure was the culmination of 24 hours of frantic maneuvering. Compaoré declared martial law for a few hours Thursday, then seemed to relent, offering negotiations on a transitional government and rescinding his martial law decree.
At one point, Traoré announced plans to form an interim authority leading to elections in a year’s time.
Overnight, the president said he had “heard the message” from the protesters and understood “the strong desire for change” in this West African nation just below the Sahara.
I wish mine would.
--more--"
"Burkina Faso president declares state of emergency" Associated Press October 31, 2014
OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — Burkina Faso’s leader of nearly three decades declared a state of emergency Thursday, hours after protesters who oppose his bid for another term stormed Parliament and set part of it on fire, marking the greatest threat to his rule since he himself seized power in a coup.
It was not immediately clear where President Blaise Compaore was following the announcement, which also called for an end to the demonstrations. At least one person was killed and several others were wounded earlier in the day amid the melee, authorities said.
In a concession to the opposition, Compaore agreed Thursday to withdraw a bill from consideration in the Parliament that would have allowed him to extend his 27-rule through a fifth term.
Army General Honore Traore, the joint chief of staff, announced that a curfew would be in effect from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. The government and Parliament also have been dissolved, he said.
While demonstrators managed to block the parliamentary vote, the violent opposition unleashed Thursday underscored the threat Compaore now faces as frustrations mount in one of the world’s poorest countries.
I'm getting the feeling my agenda-pushing, intelligence agency mouthpiece didn't approve of these particular protests.
In a sign of the growing unrest, crowds also attacked the homes of government ministers and looted shops in the country’s second-largest city, Bobo Dioulasso, witnesses said.
That definitely attracts the attention of the ruling cla$$ that publishes the papers, and they would want to alert those for whom it is for and of to such occurrences.
--more--"
I expect a Next Day Update tomorrow in my Bo$ton Sunday Globe.
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
It's my world lead today so something must be going on.
"Burkina Faso appoints transitional leader" by Brahima Ouedraogo | Associated Press November 02, 2014
OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — Burkina Faso’s army appointed a military colonel as transitional leader Saturday, after the West African country’s president resigned from 27 years in office amid violent protests against his continued power.
Lieutenant Colonel Isaac Yacouba Zida was unanimously appointed by the army to lead Burkina Faso, the army said. The length of the transition will be determined later, according to a statement issued after senior officers met with the joint chiefs of staff Saturday.
Blaise Compaore resigned Friday when protesters stormed Parliament and set the building ablaze after two days of violent demonstrations against his effort to amend the constitution to stand next year for another term.
His move left the impoverished West African country in a state of uncertainty, and both Joint Chief of Staff General Honore Traore and Zida had made remarks that they were in power.
Compaore, his family, and those close to him had been taken in by Ivory Coast, according to a statement from the office of the country’s president, Alassane Ouattara. It did not elaborate. It said Ouattara was following events closely.
Related: Exhuming This Ivory Coast Post
Was Compaore pushed out?
Earlier Saturday, Zida said the president’s resignation amid violent street protests was an ‘‘insurrection’’ and not a coup, and that Compaore and a top aide were both safe.
‘‘Starting today I will assume all the responsibilities of this transition and of head of state,’’ he said in an announcement carried on radio early Saturday.
Zida was the second in command of the president’s security regiment. Having been in Burkina Faso’s ranks for more than two decades, Zida is close to the president and appreciated by lower ranking soldiers.
Zida called on the international community including the African Union to ‘‘support our people during this difficult ordeal.’’ He had announced that the country’s borders had been closed, a transitional committee had been set up, and the constitution had been suspended.
General Traore, the joint chief of staff, had on Friday told reporters that he would assume the presidency until elections were called, so Lieutenant Colonel Zida’s declaration Saturday caused initial confusion.
During the course of several dramatic hours, Compaore, 63, went from looking likely to jam through Parliament a bill that would let him seek a fifth term, to agreeing to step down next year, to abandoning office immediately.
The quick succession of events took many by surprise, since Compaore had long out-maneuvered his adversaries and has in recent years become an important regional mediator. Burkina Faso hosts French special forces and serves as an important ally of both France and the United States in the fight against Islamic militants in West Africa.
My question is did the U.S. just replace him with a not-so-fresh face like they have done in Yemen and other places where stale dictators needed to go?
The United States called on Burkina Faso’s military to follow ‘‘the constitutionally mandated process for the transfer of power and holding of democratic elections.’’
‘‘We condemn any attempts by the military or other parties to take advantage of the situation for unconstitutional gain and call on all parties to respect the people’s support for the democratic process,’’ State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
U.S. doesn't seem particularly happy, but that is just the official public position and out the other ear it goes. I would have to do a separate investigation that I do not have time for to figure all this out.
Compaore first came to power after the October 1987 coup against then-President Thomas Sankara, Compaore’s longtime friend and political ally who was killed in the power grab.
No doubt here the CIA was somehow involved.
While he was respected on the international stage, critics noted that, under Compaore’s semiauthoritarian rule, the country of 18 million people remained mired in poverty.
That's "our" man!
The landlocked country’s fortunes rise and fall with gold and cotton prices — and adequate rain in a region plagued by drought.
Ah, gold! That is why Burkino Faso is now a big deal.
--more--"
Slow Saturday Special: Halloween Hangover
I guess I had too much fun last night for next day updates:
"A student who wore a Ku Klux Klan costume to Worcester Technical High School on Friday was ordered to remove part of her outfit, officials said. The student wore a white robe and white hood, according to Jennifer Roy, a spokeswoman for Worcester public schools. Before classes began, the student took photos in the costume. She was asked to remove the hood and not wear the costume for the rest of the day, Roy said in a statement. The school is celebrating spirit week and invited students to wear costumes in the theme of superheros and supervillians, according to the spokeswoman."
Yeah, take off the toga or you will miss the boat like the Globe -- as the good-guys, bad-guys narrative is constantly reinforced with our kids.
So who is going to tell them we are the bad guys?
"French town bans clown suits for Halloween" by Adam Taylor | Washington Post November 01, 2014
WASHINGTON — Clowns are a perennial Halloween costume: Not particularly trendy or inspired, but timelessly creepy and easy to recognize.
This Halloween, however, one town in France has other ideas. In a decree issued Oct. 28, just days before the big day, Pierre Dudieuzere, mayor of Vendargues, a small town near Montpellier, banned all clown costumes for anyone over 13 on Halloween and for a month afterward.
French no fun even though they have a clown for president.
The decree makes clear that the ban is ‘‘absolute’’ on the eve of Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, and that anyone violating it would be arrested and prosecuted.
It's a good thing the French don't have real problems, and when is the next French false flag attack with Muslim in clown outfit?
Dudieuzere’s ban on clown costumes may seem extreme, but it comes from a real concern. Last weekend, according to Agence France Presse, more than a dozen teenagers were arrested while dressed as clowns in the Mediterranean port town of Agde. They were reported to have pistols, knives, and baseball bats.
These teenagers, and others like them, appear to be following the example of trend spread online via social media.
This is about a social as I get, folks. No face, no tweet.
There are countless numbers of clown prank videos on YouTube, produced by people from a variety of countries, some of which have been viewed hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of times.
Such pranks are antisocial but far from rare. Last year, a number of clown sightings in the United Kingdom led to a lot of hype in the tabloid press, and this month, a number of clowns terrorized one Californian city, leading to one arrest.
Now I am starting to laugh!
But in France, the pranks appear to have been particularly menacing. In the town of Bethune, a 19-year-old apprentice butcher was recently given a suspended sentence for using his costume to scare children.
Are you sure it wasn't a haunted house hoax passed of as real plot??
Back in my day, we kids loved clowns (honk, honk, ha, ha)!
And in Montpellier, a man who assaulted a stranger with a metal broom handle while dressed as a clown was sentenced to four months in prison.
Did he get gunned down for it?
--more--"
Woah, scary clown.
Whatever happened to the kind I grew up with? You know, the ones with painted smiles and fake flowers in their hats? The ones that made you laugh doing silly slapstick things? The ones that brought joy, not terror?
So what did I do last night?
Halloween 2014: Scary Jail Cells
"New York City has reached a $2.25 million settlement with the family of a mentally ill, homeless former U.S. Marine who died earlier this year in a 101-degrees Fahrenheit jail cell, the comptroller said Friday.
I think the guilty authorities and officials should pay the cost, not the good taxpayers of the city.
Jerome Murdough, 56, died in a mental observation unit at the Rikers Island jail on Feb. 15, eight days after he was sent to the facility because he couldn't afford to pay $2,500 bail on a trespassing arrest. He was found slumped at the foot of his bed with a pool of vomit and blood on the floor and an internal body temperature of 103 degrees Fahrenheit. Officials said he wasn't checked on for at least four hours. Murdough's mother, Alma, filed initial papers to sue the city for $25 million over her son's death. But Comptroller Scott Stringer said Friday his office took the unusual step of settling the case before a lawsuit was filed after a review of the facts of the case. Murdough had suffered from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, according to his family, and was on psychotropic drugs that experts say make people on them more sensitive to heat. The medical examiner ruled the death was caused by accidental hyperthermia."
Must have scared the Globe to death.
Not only that, they were beating the band yet it's nothing but the sounds of silence from the Globe today as you are blinded to the printed photo showing zombies, superheroes, and hazardous-materials suits that I am unable to find anywhere. How disturbingly "cool."
So cool, in fact, that I am exhausted by the psyop prop to the point where conflating commingling leaves one as numb as the dead:
"Liberia opens one of the country’s largest Ebola treatment centers" by Jonathan Paye-Layleh | Associated Press November 01, 2014
MONROVIA, Liberia — The World Health Organization said this week that the rate of infection in Liberia appears to be falling but warned that the response effort must be kept up or the trend could be reversed.
The international community’s response was late and figures were mostly wrong, Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, told reporters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
But believe them now.
He said he is concerned about the ‘‘huge discrepancy’’ between announcements and the situation on the ground in the Ebola-affected countries.
More than 13,500 people have been sickened by the disease, and nearly 5,000 have died, the World Health Organization said Friday. That toll has about 130 fewer cases than the one released by WHO two days ago, mostly because a number of suspected cases in Guinea were determined not to be Ebola, the agency said.
The outbreak has hit Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea hardest and all three countries have resorted to extraordinary measures to combat it.Sierra Leone has had a state of emergency in place for three months that bans public gatherings.
While the disease is beginning to let up in some of Sierra Leone’s eastern districts, infections are continuing in the capital and surrounding areas....
Nevertheless, the lead is ‘‘the disease is finally on the decline, and the opening of a new treatment center, built out of white plastic sheeting with USAID written across it, is a sign that the Ebola outbreak is finally on the wane.’’
Yeah, thanks, CIA.
--more--"
Related:
"State public health commissioner Cheryl Bartlett said at a news conference that hospitals already receive extra money from the federal government for emergency preparedness, and that her agency has been in discussion with federal regulators about whether some of that money might be redirected to the hospitals in the collaborative."
That's what it is all about at bottom when it comes to my new$paper.
‘‘In his ruling, Maine judge Charles C. LaVerdiere thanked nurse Kaci Hickox for her service in Africa and acknowledged the gravity of restricting someone’s constitutional rights without solid science to back it up. ‘‘The court is fully aware of the misconceptions, misinformation, bad science, and bad information being spread from shore to shore in our country with respect to Ebola,’’ he wrote. ‘‘The court is fully aware that people are acting out of fear and that this fear is not entirely rational.’’
But don't question 9/11, the origins of ISIS, or any of the other agendas of fear being pushed to benefit a certain cho$en few by, quite frankly, a media that specializes in misconceptions, misinformation, bad $cience, and bad information. I know it's a judge saying that, but you get my point. Seeing it where I'm seeing it is the offense.
I think I will continue with my rounds:
"Crowds jeer suspect in killing of Pa. state trooper" by Seamus McGraw | New York Times November 01, 2014
MILFORD, Pa. — The crowd was waiting Friday as Eric M. Frein, the suspect accused of killing a state trooper and wounding another, was brought out the front door of the Pike County Courthouse at the center of this prim village.
Officers leading Frein stopped momentarily, allowing bystanders to get a look at the man who had been the subject of an intense police search since the Sept. 12 ambush outside the nearby state trooper barracks in Blooming Grove.
This is feeling more staged and scripted every day, and the mind-manipulating tyranny had grown tiresome on the town so this narrative needed to be resolved for now.
Many heckled and jeered as Frein was led through the crowd. “You’re not a real soldier,” one man shouted, in reference to his military role-playing. Cheers erupted as Frein was placed in the back of a police cruiser and driven away.
Crowds just showed up, huh?
That's kind of a strange thing right from the start.
How did word get around, and again, I have to remind you that most of what we see and read in the ma$$ media and propaganda pre$$ is false. It's distortions, it's lies, it's totally fake. That is simply where we are these days.
********
Frein, who had bruises on the left side of his face and a gash across his nose, appeared healthy. His appearance seemed to lend credibility to police theories that the self-taught survival enthusiast had been taking refuge in empty cabins and other vacant structures and living on supplies he had hidden in the woods while planning the shootings....
Yup, the official cover story or whatever this is has been validated!
The seven-week, multimillion dollar hunt for Frein ended about 6 p.m. Thursday when a tactical squad for the US Marshals Service stumbled upon Frein at the abandoned Birchwood Pocono Airpark....
Pfffft!
I'm sure Frein is a fine actor.
On Friday morning, Lieutenant Colonel George Bivens of the Pennsylvania State Police said Frein had been surprised while walking across a weed-covered runway not far from an abandoned hangar he had apparently been using as a hide-out.
The thermal-imaging gear never picked him up?
The cut on his nose and several bruises on the left side of his face, Bivens said, were “something that occurred during his flight through the woods.”
He was not armed at the time, Bivens said, though at least one rifle and a handgun were later recovered from the hangar. Frein has been talking with investigators, although Bivens stopped short of describing him as cooperative.
So the fugitive leaves his hideout without taking a weapon? Oh, STINK!
First the CELLPHONE CALL and NOW THIS!! They must be hiring third-rate propagandists these days over nepotistic interests, because this stuff is so rank.
Federal marshals turned Frein over to state troopers who placed him in Dickson’s handcuffs and took him to the barracks in Blooming Grove using the slain trooper’s Ford Crown Victoria.
How poetic.
Within an hour of his arrest, a crowd had begun to gather, and someone had hung a white bedsheet with the words “Way to go PSP!” on the trees not far from where Frein is said to have concealed himself for the ambush....
But don't wear one.
--more--"
Related:
‘‘The position was seen under the previous commissioner as largely ceremonial and stripped of power. Commissioner William Bratton said the job had been highly important during his previous stint as commissioner in the 1990s and remains so. ‘‘That is the most significant position in the New York Police Department outside of commissioner,’’ he said, adding the position would have had expanded duties. Those would have included drawing on Chief Philip Banks III’s experience as chief of community affairs to help rebuild trust with minority communities after the department’s controversy over the practice known as stop and frisk. His decision also comes at a time when the Mayor Bill de Blasio’s relationship with the department is strained over accusations he sided with frequent NYPD critic Al Sharpton after the chokehold death of an unarmed suspect, and his refusal to fire a top aide living with a convicted killer who has often mocked officers as ‘‘pigs.’’
Endorsing death squads wasn't enough (a**hole)?
Halloween 2014: Horror at the White House
Here's the Dersh on that today.
Halloween 2014: Menino Will Haunt Boston
Related:
The last 297 days of a most remarkable life
Menino still managed to fill out his absentee ballot
Former Mayor Thomas M. Menino planned his funeral
At quiet memorials, tearful tributes to Menino
Boston students remember Menino as city’s ‘education mayor’
What I will remember him for:
"The 63-year-old bridge was abruptly closed on Oct. 8, forcing the evacuation of Long Island and the programs housed there, including a homeless shelter and drug rehabilitation programs. Reconstructing the 3,450-foot bridge will cost $80 million, and Melina Schuler, a spokeswoman for Mayor Martin J. Walsh, acknowledged Friday that it is not known where the money will come from. The city’s capital plan includes $35 million for the bridge. “There are no concrete funding sources identified at this time, but we’ll be looking into federal government grant money and exploring all types of options,” Schuler said."
I think that bag is empty, and we can't ask Menino where all the money went as wealth inequality and homelessness soared on his watch, along with other maladies. I said I was going to stop blogging about it, and yet I am still blogging about Bo$ton.
Was about time to bury this post anyway.
"A student who wore a Ku Klux Klan costume to Worcester Technical High School on Friday was ordered to remove part of her outfit, officials said. The student wore a white robe and white hood, according to Jennifer Roy, a spokeswoman for Worcester public schools. Before classes began, the student took photos in the costume. She was asked to remove the hood and not wear the costume for the rest of the day, Roy said in a statement. The school is celebrating spirit week and invited students to wear costumes in the theme of superheros and supervillians, according to the spokeswoman."
Yeah, take off the toga or you will miss the boat like the Globe -- as the good-guys, bad-guys narrative is constantly reinforced with our kids.
So who is going to tell them we are the bad guys?
"French town bans clown suits for Halloween" by Adam Taylor | Washington Post November 01, 2014
WASHINGTON — Clowns are a perennial Halloween costume: Not particularly trendy or inspired, but timelessly creepy and easy to recognize.
This Halloween, however, one town in France has other ideas. In a decree issued Oct. 28, just days before the big day, Pierre Dudieuzere, mayor of Vendargues, a small town near Montpellier, banned all clown costumes for anyone over 13 on Halloween and for a month afterward.
French no fun even though they have a clown for president.
The decree makes clear that the ban is ‘‘absolute’’ on the eve of Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, and that anyone violating it would be arrested and prosecuted.
It's a good thing the French don't have real problems, and when is the next French false flag attack with Muslim in clown outfit?
Dudieuzere’s ban on clown costumes may seem extreme, but it comes from a real concern. Last weekend, according to Agence France Presse, more than a dozen teenagers were arrested while dressed as clowns in the Mediterranean port town of Agde. They were reported to have pistols, knives, and baseball bats.
These teenagers, and others like them, appear to be following the example of trend spread online via social media.
This is about a social as I get, folks. No face, no tweet.
There are countless numbers of clown prank videos on YouTube, produced by people from a variety of countries, some of which have been viewed hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of times.
Such pranks are antisocial but far from rare. Last year, a number of clown sightings in the United Kingdom led to a lot of hype in the tabloid press, and this month, a number of clowns terrorized one Californian city, leading to one arrest.
Now I am starting to laugh!
But in France, the pranks appear to have been particularly menacing. In the town of Bethune, a 19-year-old apprentice butcher was recently given a suspended sentence for using his costume to scare children.
Are you sure it wasn't a haunted house hoax passed of as real plot??
Back in my day, we kids loved clowns (honk, honk, ha, ha)!
And in Montpellier, a man who assaulted a stranger with a metal broom handle while dressed as a clown was sentenced to four months in prison.
Did he get gunned down for it?
--more--"
Woah, scary clown.
Whatever happened to the kind I grew up with? You know, the ones with painted smiles and fake flowers in their hats? The ones that made you laugh doing silly slapstick things? The ones that brought joy, not terror?
So what did I do last night?
Halloween 2014: Scary Jail Cells
"New York City has reached a $2.25 million settlement with the family of a mentally ill, homeless former U.S. Marine who died earlier this year in a 101-degrees Fahrenheit jail cell, the comptroller said Friday.
I think the guilty authorities and officials should pay the cost, not the good taxpayers of the city.
Jerome Murdough, 56, died in a mental observation unit at the Rikers Island jail on Feb. 15, eight days after he was sent to the facility because he couldn't afford to pay $2,500 bail on a trespassing arrest. He was found slumped at the foot of his bed with a pool of vomit and blood on the floor and an internal body temperature of 103 degrees Fahrenheit. Officials said he wasn't checked on for at least four hours. Murdough's mother, Alma, filed initial papers to sue the city for $25 million over her son's death. But Comptroller Scott Stringer said Friday his office took the unusual step of settling the case before a lawsuit was filed after a review of the facts of the case. Murdough had suffered from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, according to his family, and was on psychotropic drugs that experts say make people on them more sensitive to heat. The medical examiner ruled the death was caused by accidental hyperthermia."
Must have scared the Globe to death.
Not only that, they were beating the band yet it's nothing but the sounds of silence from the Globe today as you are blinded to the printed photo showing zombies, superheroes, and hazardous-materials suits that I am unable to find anywhere. How disturbingly "cool."
So cool, in fact, that I am exhausted by the psyop prop to the point where conflating commingling leaves one as numb as the dead:
"Liberia opens one of the country’s largest Ebola treatment centers" by Jonathan Paye-Layleh | Associated Press November 01, 2014
MONROVIA, Liberia — The World Health Organization said this week that the rate of infection in Liberia appears to be falling but warned that the response effort must be kept up or the trend could be reversed.
The international community’s response was late and figures were mostly wrong, Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, told reporters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
But believe them now.
He said he is concerned about the ‘‘huge discrepancy’’ between announcements and the situation on the ground in the Ebola-affected countries.
More than 13,500 people have been sickened by the disease, and nearly 5,000 have died, the World Health Organization said Friday. That toll has about 130 fewer cases than the one released by WHO two days ago, mostly because a number of suspected cases in Guinea were determined not to be Ebola, the agency said.
The outbreak has hit Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea hardest and all three countries have resorted to extraordinary measures to combat it.Sierra Leone has had a state of emergency in place for three months that bans public gatherings.
While the disease is beginning to let up in some of Sierra Leone’s eastern districts, infections are continuing in the capital and surrounding areas....
Nevertheless, the lead is ‘‘the disease is finally on the decline, and the opening of a new treatment center, built out of white plastic sheeting with USAID written across it, is a sign that the Ebola outbreak is finally on the wane.’’
Yeah, thanks, CIA.
--more--"
Related:
"State public health commissioner Cheryl Bartlett said at a news conference that hospitals already receive extra money from the federal government for emergency preparedness, and that her agency has been in discussion with federal regulators about whether some of that money might be redirected to the hospitals in the collaborative."
That's what it is all about at bottom when it comes to my new$paper.
‘‘In his ruling, Maine judge Charles C. LaVerdiere thanked nurse Kaci Hickox for her service in Africa and acknowledged the gravity of restricting someone’s constitutional rights without solid science to back it up. ‘‘The court is fully aware of the misconceptions, misinformation, bad science, and bad information being spread from shore to shore in our country with respect to Ebola,’’ he wrote. ‘‘The court is fully aware that people are acting out of fear and that this fear is not entirely rational.’’
But don't question 9/11, the origins of ISIS, or any of the other agendas of fear being pushed to benefit a certain cho$en few by, quite frankly, a media that specializes in misconceptions, misinformation, bad $cience, and bad information. I know it's a judge saying that, but you get my point. Seeing it where I'm seeing it is the offense.
I think I will continue with my rounds:
"Crowds jeer suspect in killing of Pa. state trooper" by Seamus McGraw | New York Times November 01, 2014
MILFORD, Pa. — The crowd was waiting Friday as Eric M. Frein, the suspect accused of killing a state trooper and wounding another, was brought out the front door of the Pike County Courthouse at the center of this prim village.
Officers leading Frein stopped momentarily, allowing bystanders to get a look at the man who had been the subject of an intense police search since the Sept. 12 ambush outside the nearby state trooper barracks in Blooming Grove.
This is feeling more staged and scripted every day, and the mind-manipulating tyranny had grown tiresome on the town so this narrative needed to be resolved for now.
Many heckled and jeered as Frein was led through the crowd. “You’re not a real soldier,” one man shouted, in reference to his military role-playing. Cheers erupted as Frein was placed in the back of a police cruiser and driven away.
Crowds just showed up, huh?
That's kind of a strange thing right from the start.
How did word get around, and again, I have to remind you that most of what we see and read in the ma$$ media and propaganda pre$$ is false. It's distortions, it's lies, it's totally fake. That is simply where we are these days.
********
Frein, who had bruises on the left side of his face and a gash across his nose, appeared healthy. His appearance seemed to lend credibility to police theories that the self-taught survival enthusiast had been taking refuge in empty cabins and other vacant structures and living on supplies he had hidden in the woods while planning the shootings....
Yup, the official cover story or whatever this is has been validated!
The seven-week, multimillion dollar hunt for Frein ended about 6 p.m. Thursday when a tactical squad for the US Marshals Service stumbled upon Frein at the abandoned Birchwood Pocono Airpark....
Pfffft!
I'm sure Frein is a fine actor.
On Friday morning, Lieutenant Colonel George Bivens of the Pennsylvania State Police said Frein had been surprised while walking across a weed-covered runway not far from an abandoned hangar he had apparently been using as a hide-out.
The thermal-imaging gear never picked him up?
The cut on his nose and several bruises on the left side of his face, Bivens said, were “something that occurred during his flight through the woods.”
He was not armed at the time, Bivens said, though at least one rifle and a handgun were later recovered from the hangar. Frein has been talking with investigators, although Bivens stopped short of describing him as cooperative.
So the fugitive leaves his hideout without taking a weapon? Oh, STINK!
First the CELLPHONE CALL and NOW THIS!! They must be hiring third-rate propagandists these days over nepotistic interests, because this stuff is so rank.
Federal marshals turned Frein over to state troopers who placed him in Dickson’s handcuffs and took him to the barracks in Blooming Grove using the slain trooper’s Ford Crown Victoria.
How poetic.
Within an hour of his arrest, a crowd had begun to gather, and someone had hung a white bedsheet with the words “Way to go PSP!” on the trees not far from where Frein is said to have concealed himself for the ambush....
But don't wear one.
--more--"
Related:
‘‘The position was seen under the previous commissioner as largely ceremonial and stripped of power. Commissioner William Bratton said the job had been highly important during his previous stint as commissioner in the 1990s and remains so. ‘‘That is the most significant position in the New York Police Department outside of commissioner,’’ he said, adding the position would have had expanded duties. Those would have included drawing on Chief Philip Banks III’s experience as chief of community affairs to help rebuild trust with minority communities after the department’s controversy over the practice known as stop and frisk. His decision also comes at a time when the Mayor Bill de Blasio’s relationship with the department is strained over accusations he sided with frequent NYPD critic Al Sharpton after the chokehold death of an unarmed suspect, and his refusal to fire a top aide living with a convicted killer who has often mocked officers as ‘‘pigs.’’
Endorsing death squads wasn't enough (a**hole)?
Halloween 2014: Horror at the White House
Here's the Dersh on that today.
Halloween 2014: Menino Will Haunt Boston
Related:
The last 297 days of a most remarkable life
Menino still managed to fill out his absentee ballot
Former Mayor Thomas M. Menino planned his funeral
At quiet memorials, tearful tributes to Menino
Boston students remember Menino as city’s ‘education mayor’
What I will remember him for:
"The 63-year-old bridge was abruptly closed on Oct. 8, forcing the evacuation of Long Island and the programs housed there, including a homeless shelter and drug rehabilitation programs. Reconstructing the 3,450-foot bridge will cost $80 million, and Melina Schuler, a spokeswoman for Mayor Martin J. Walsh, acknowledged Friday that it is not known where the money will come from. The city’s capital plan includes $35 million for the bridge. “There are no concrete funding sources identified at this time, but we’ll be looking into federal government grant money and exploring all types of options,” Schuler said."
I think that bag is empty, and we can't ask Menino where all the money went as wealth inequality and homelessness soared on his watch, along with other maladies. I said I was going to stop blogging about it, and yet I am still blogging about Bo$ton.
Was about time to bury this post anyway.
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