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president van rompuy

bone — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:13:58 GMT

i'm surprised no one created a thread about this.

Quote:

Herman Van Rompuy (Flemish Christian democrat) has been chosen to be the first president of the European Council. The man who, just one year ago unexpectedly and reluctantly became the Prime Minister of Belgium, has now been chosen to take one of the top jobs in Europe. At a dinner meeting in Brussels the leaders of the 27 EU member states picked Belgium's Herman Van Rompuy as president and Catherine Ashton as foreign affairs chief.

The new positions- President of the European Council and Foreign Affairs Chief -were created by the Treaty of Lisbon that only this month was finally ratified by all 27 EU member states. It comes into effect on 1 December 2009. Herman Van Rompuy will take up his post as first president of Europe on January 1, 2010.

Herman Van Rompuy, a soft-spoken, mild-mannered and consistent politician, has managed to realise something that his contemporaries – the flamboyant Guy Verhofstadt (Flemish liberal) and heavy weight Jean-Luc Dehaene (Flemish Christian democrat) never succeeded in doing: get appointed to one of the top positions in the European Union.
And just who is Herman Van Rompuy?

Herman Van Rompuy was born in Etterbeek (Brussels) on October 31, 1947. He got a Bachelor in Philosophy from the Catholic University of Leuven in 1968, followed by a Master’s degree in Applied Economics.

Both of these fields were to have substantial influence on his life: both spiritually and politically.

Married to Geertrui Windels and father of four (Peter, born in 1980; Laura, 1981; Elke, 1983; and Thomas, 1986), Herman Van Rompuy is a man of profound faith. He is well-known for his wisdom, passion for reading and philosophy, and for writing haikus- a Japanese verse form.
A promising professional career

Mr Van Rompuy started his professional career at the National Bank of Belgium in 1972. Before the age of thirty a promising political career started unfolding. He was Vice President of the Flemish Christian democrat (CVP at the time) Youth section from 1973 to 1975. From 1978 he was a member of the National Bureau of the CVP. He worked in ministerial cabinets and became chairman of the Flemish Christian democrat CVP in 1988 (until 1993). He was also Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Budget from September 1993 to July 1999.

After his party’s defeat in the 1999 Belgian general election, he became a member of the Chamber of Deputies. In 2004 he was designated Minister of State. He was Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies from July 2007 to December 2008, when he was asked by King Albert II to take over the job as Prime Minister of the country.
A man of ethics and profound faith
Belga

Herman Van Rompuy is a man of profound faith and a firm believer in Catholic doctrine. He often goes on religious retreats in the Abbey of Affligem (Flemish Brabant) for renew his faith, read and meditate.

From the beginning of his political career Herman Van Rompuy was known as a ‘man of ethics’, a Christian democrat of the ‘old school’. It has sometimes been difficult for him to accept what could be termed as ‘ailments of modern society’ among his fellow Christian democrats. For example, it was hard for him when contemporary and former Prime Minister Wilfried Martens divorced, remarried and started a new family. When CVP chairman Johan Van Hecke started an affair with a journalist of the VRT, it was also difficult for Herman Van Rompuy to condone it.
The Van Rompuy clan is politically engaged
Belga

The 62 year old Herman Van Rompuy comes from a political family. His brother, Eric, is a former Flemish Minister and Flemish MP for the Flemish Christian democrat party. Quite different than his brother, Eric Van Rompuy is a Flemish nationalist. Herman Van Rompuy’s son, Peter, works in the cabinet of Defence Minister Pieter De Crem (also a Flemish Christian Democrat). His sister Tine found her political peace on the left. She was on the European list during the last elections for the extreme left wing PVDA+ party.

In a recent interview Eric Van Rompuy describes his older brother as: “A very mild, humane man who is concerned about others and has a good sense of humour… and who is able to hide his feelings and emotions.”

Herman Van Rompuy is a man who hates to talk about himself and comes out with comments like: “I have had important jobs, but I am not important.” In fact, it seems like Herman Van Rompuy rather likes the more modest, slightly behind the scenes jobs. He played an important behind the scenes role in the formation of more than one of the numerous governments of Flemish Christian democrat Prime Ministers Wilfried Martens and Jean-Luc Dehaene.
And finally: centre stage on the political scene
Belga

It would take until 1988 before Herman Van Rompuy would accept a more high profile job as chairman of his Flemish Christian Democrat party. In 1993 he became Vice-Premier and Minister of Budget Minister (from September 1993 to July 1999). In this position he was instrumental in successfully reducing Belgium’s budget deficit to meet the strict conditions to be eligible to join the Eurozone countries.

In 1994 it looked likely that Herman Van Rompuy would become Belgian Prime Minister because Jean-Luc Dehaene was hotly tipped to become the President of the European Commission. He stood a serious chance but came up against a veto from former British Prime Minister John Major. Herman Van Rompuy heaved a sign of relief that he did not have to take over the post of Prime Minister as Dehaene’s successor.

After the dioxin crisis the CVP went into the opposition. The Flemish Christian democrats were licking there wounds after a sobering defeat at the polls and it looked like Mr Van Rompuy’s career as a minister was over. He kept himself busy with his mandate as member of the Chamber of Deputies and he wrote reflections on his own weblog.

The Flemish Christian democrats need a rejuvenation jumpstart and the CVP became the CD&V. The party’s new child prodigy is Yves Leterme. He takes his party to new victories in the Flemish elections of 2004 and the federal elections of 2007.
Herman to the rescue!

After the overwhelming victory in 2007 Yves Leterme- the man of 800,000 preferential votes- becomes the new federal Prime Minister. Herman Van Rompuy, having reached an advanced age, is given a nice, respectable post: that of Speaker of the Chamber of Representatives- a perfect end of career position.

But things turn out differently than anyone could have expected. The economic crisis, the state reforms, the scandal around the split of Fortis and precipitated sale to a French company cost the once most popular politician in Belgium his job. Belgium was in an impasse with no captain to manoeuvre the country out of a difficult spot.

The former Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt (Flemish liberal) comes back to lead an interim government. But Mr Verhofstadt has European ambitions and is itching to get away from national politics. At the request of King Albert II Herman Van Rompuy becomes Prime Minister.

Under his leadership Belgium has been staying a difficult course, climbing out of the crisis. His government may not be the most energetic we have had in recent decades, but Mr Van Rompuy is navigating his team through the storms with a calm tenacity.
Belga

This apparently did not go unnoticed by his European colleagues.

From the unknown, after less than one year as Prime Minister, Herman Van Rompuy’s name had been coming up in the corridors of the European Institutions.

Early in November already according to several diplomatic sources the mild-mannered Herman Van Rompuy was rumoured to be the “most consensual” figure for the top job in the European Council.

And as it turns out, the rumours were true. A majority of the European Union leaders have agreed on his appointment.

i think he's a good man for the job. he's the type of guy who can completely outrule his own preferences and will do anything to find a compromise between everyone involved. Which is exactly what europe needs.

sucks for belgium though, we finally had a kind of stable government, now it'll have to be done all over again.

and what a careerjump for him. he's always been senator without much ambition to get to the absolute top. Now last year he was the only person in the whole of belgium on who all political parties could agree on to become prime minister. and they had to nag for a serious while before he accepted, he realy didn't want to in the beginning.

now, hardly a year later, he's president of europe, props to him!

If you are in The City of Brotherly Love and don't tip, expect to be arrested.

Blind_Io — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 03:57:07 GMT

http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/...052.html?yhp=1

Quote:

If you’re frustrated by poor service at a restaurant, think twice before you decide to not tip. You may be in for a bit more than just a dirty look from the waiter.

"Nobody, nobody wants to be forced to pay a tip or be arrested for terrible service," Leslie Pope said when her happy hour ended in handcuffs.

Pope and John Wagner were hauled away by police and charged with theft for not paying the mandatory 18 percent gratuity totaling $16 after eating at the Lehigh Pub in Bethlehem, Pa. with six friends.

Pope claimed that they had to wait nearly an hour for their order and that she had to get napkins and silverware for the table herself.

“At this point I became very annoyed because I had already gone up to the bar myself to have my soda refilled because the waitress never came back,” Pope said.

After the $73 bill came, the group paid for food, drinks, and tax but refused to pay the tip. After explaining the bad service to the bartender in charge, Pope claimed he took their money and called police. The couple was handcuffed and placed in the back of a police car.

“I understand that, you know, we didn’t pay the gratuity, but it was a gratuity, it wasn’t something that was required,” said Wagner.

The owner admitted that the group waited unusually long for their food, but said the pub was extremely busy that night. He said managers offered to comp the food, a claim the couple denies ever happened.

“Obviously we would have liked for the patron and the establishment to have worked this out without getting the police involved,” said Deputy Police Commissioner Stuart Bedics.

Police charged them with theft since the gratuity was part of the actual bill. However, it is doubtful that the charges will hold up in front of a judge. The couple is scheduled to appear in court next month.

Service sucks, they don't pay the tip. The management claims that they offered to comp the food (a much larger cost) but still calls to the cops to have them arrested for failure to pay tip.

Hmmm, I smell bullshit from the owner.

Dad kills son for molesting toddler

Koenig — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:13:50 GMT

Dad accused of killing son over sex abuse claim

Quote:

HIGHLAND PARK, Mich. - A 37-year-old father irate over hearing his 15-year-old son had sexual contact with a 3-year-old girl made the teen strip at gunpoint, marched him to a vacant lot and shot him to death despite pleas from the boy and his mother, a relative said.

Michigan authorities filed a first-degree murder charge Wednesday against Jamar Pinkney Sr. in the shooting death Monday of Jamar Pinkney Jr. in the Detroit enclave of Highland Park.

Defense attorney Corbett O'Meara said prosecutors should consider evidence of the father's state of mind over the sex abuse report.
Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad here

"If something were to happen that would cause a reasonable person to lose control of himself, that is something the prosecution would have to take into account," O'Meara said outside Highland Park District Court.

Tensions were high in the courtroom Wednesday as the handcuffed suspect was led into the room for the arraignment, which lasted less than a minute.

"No, No, No," one female relative cried before a police officer escorted her out.

‘Hard to deal with’
Judge Brigette Officer entered a not guilty plea for Pinkney, who's also charged with assault, and ordered him jailed without bond until a preliminary examination Dec. 1.

"This is something that's hard to deal with for all the parties concerned, including the police," police Chief Ted Caldwell said afterward. "Highland Park is a small city. These are people who have been members of the community for years."

Caldwell said the sexual misconduct allegation that led to the confrontation wasn't part of the police investigation.

The shooting happened Monday night in a vacant lot in the once-prosperous city of 16,000, where decay, abandonment, fires and demolition have eaten away at many of the sprawling homes. Highland Park recently exited years of state financial oversight.

Visitors built an impromptu memorial at the shooting site. Two votive candles sat amid 10 stuffed animals, including two white teddy bears with red hearts embroidered with, "I love you."

The boy's mother, Lazette Cherry, told the Detroit Free Press that her son told her he had improper sexual contact with the girl.

"I called and told his father. This isn't something you sweep under the rug," she said.

Cherry said the elder Pinkney arrived at the home with a gun, ordered his son to strip and marched him outside despite her protests.

"He got on his knees and begged, ‘No, Daddy, no,’ and he pulled the trigger," Cherry said.

Cherry did not immediately respond to a phone message Wednesday from The Associated Press seeking comment.

LINK

Dads of the year:

1a. This guy
1b. Drasius Kedys

UK to appoint "Pirate Finder General" - Jack Sparrow still at large.

Blind_Io — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:14:58 GMT

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/19...aked-uk-g.html

Quote:

A source close to the British Labour Government has just given me reliable information about the most radical copyright proposal I've ever seen. Secretary of State Peter Mandelson is planning to introduce changes to the Digital Economy Bill now under debate in Parliament. These changes will give the Secretary of State (Mandelson -- or his successor in the next government) the power to make "secondary legislation" (legislation that is passed without debate) to amend the provisions of Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1988).

What that means is that an unelected official would have the power to do anything without Parliamentary oversight or debate, provided it was done in the name of protecting copyright. Mandelson elaborates on this, giving three reasons for his proposal:

1. The Secretary of State would get the power to create new remedies for online infringements (for example, he could create jail terms for file-sharing, or create a "three-strikes" plan that costs entire families their internet access if any member stands accused of infringement)

2. The Secretary of State would get the power to create procedures to "confer rights" for the purposes of protecting rightsholders from online infringement. (for example, record labels and movie studios can be given investigative and enforcement powers that allow them to compel ISPs, libraries, companies and schools to turn over personal information about Internet users, and to order those companies to disconnect users, remove websites, block URLs, etc)

3. The Secretary of State would get the power to "impose such duties, powers or functions on any person as may be specified in connection with facilitating online infringement" (for example, ISPs could be forced to spy on their users, or to have copyright lawyers examine every piece of user-generated content before it goes live; also, copyright "militias" can be formed with the power to police copyright on the web)

Mandelson is also gunning for sites like YouSendIt and other services that allow you to easily transfer large files back and forth privately (I use YouSendIt to send podcasts back and forth to my sound-editor during production). Like Viacom, he's hoping to force them to turn off any feature that allows users to keep their uploads private, since privacy flags can be used to keep infringing files out of sight of copyright enforcers.

This is as bad as I've ever seen, folks. It's a declaration of war by the entertainment industry and their captured regulators against the principles of free speech, privacy, freedom of assembly, the presumption of innocence, and competition.

This proposal creates the office of Pirate-Finder General, with unlimited power to appoint militias who are above the law, who can pry into every corner of your life, who can disconnect you from your family, job, education and government, who can fine you or put you in jail.
More to follow, I'm sure, once Open Rights Group and other activist organizations get working on this. In the meantime, tell every Briton you know. If we can't stop this, it's beginning of the end for the net in Britain.

Corruption Perceptions Index 2009 by Transparency International

AiR — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:22:45 GMT

It's one of those lists again, strangely enough Norway doesnt even make the top 10 this time. Congratulations go out to our members from New Zealand who can hold their heads a bit higher than the rest of us for a year. If you just want to check out the list TI have made a rather fancy flash-map you can click on or you can get the low-down from the text below.

Index map
List http://www.transparency.org/policy_r...cpi_2009_table

I stole this thing from the BBC

And I stole this from AFP

Quote:

Somalia, Afghanistan shamed in corruption table

BERLIN — Lawless Somalia and war-torn Afghanistan topped a blacklist on Tuesday of the world's most corrupt countries drawn up by the anti-graft watchdog Transparency International. TI's annual corruption index showed how countries devastated by conflict have become overrun by graft with Iraq, Sudan and Myanmar accounting for the three other states in the bottom five of the chart. The Berlin-based organisation said that countries whose infrastructure had been "torn apart" by conflict needed help from outside to prevent a culture of corruption taking root.

"The international community must find efficient ways to help war-torn countries to develop and sustain their own institutions," said TI's head Huguette Labelle. Overall, the 2009 corruption list is "of great concern," the organisation said, with the majority of countries scoring under five in the ranking, which ranges from zero, highly corrupt and 10, which is very clean.

Six years after the US-led invasion and the chaos that followed, Iraq was perceived to be slightly cleaner, with its score rising to 1.5 points from 1.3 points. It also climbed two places in the list. But Afghanistan slid from 1.5 points in 2008 to 1.3 in 2009, giving further ammunition to critics of President Hamid Karzai who has just been re-elected after a vote marred by rampant fraud.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Karzai this week that future financial support from Washington would be linked to steps to tackle graft and said that a culture of "impunity for those who are corrupt" had to end. The Afghan government announced Monday it had formed a major crime unit to tackle corruption, in a move designed to assuage Western concerns about Karzai who is due to be inaugurated for a second term later this week.

The most corrupt nation on Earth remained Somalia, the impoverished and war-torn Horn of Africa state that has been without a functioning government for two decades, notching up a score of 1.1 points.

African countries accounted for half of those in the bottom 20 of the list, including Angola which is now the continent's top oil exporter after emerging from a 27-year civil war. But it was not just countries riven by conflict that saw their ratings slide. Italy, a member of the Group of Seven rich countries came in at 63rd on the list, from 55th last year. Fellow EU member Greece fared even worse, at 71st, slipping from 57th.

Seemingly winning the fight against corruption were Liberia -- whose score improved from 2.4 points to 3.1 points, shooting up 41 places on the list to 97th -- and Gambia, which went from 158 on the list to 106. Other significant improvements were registered by Norway, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Montenegro and Malawi.

The United States inched up from 7.3 points to 7.5 but dropped one place in the rankings to 19th. China's rating was stable at 3.6 points but also fall seven places to 79th. Russia continued to be very low down in the list, coming in at 146th place, although its score edged higher to 2.2 points from 2.1 points.

The five countries seen as least afflicted by corruption were New Zealand, Denmark, Singapore, Sweden -- and Switzerland, the Alpine country seen as a bastion of bank secrecy. New Zealand scored 9.4 points whereas Somalia scored 1.1 points.

The score is based on perceptions of the degree of corruption as seen by business people and country analysts.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...hX-zYNmNvA-Nfw

Jobs 'Saved or Created' in Congressional Districts That Don't Exist

jayhawk — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:05:05 GMT

Just heard this on ABC news. If you are an American, you should be hopping mad right now!

Quote:

Here's a stimulus success story: In Arizona's 9th Congressional District, 30 jobs have been saved or created with just $761,420 in federal stimulus spending. At least that's what the website set up by the Obama Administration to track the $787 billion stimulus says.

There's one problem, though: There is no 9th Congressional District in Arizona; the state has only eight Congressional Districts.

There's no 86th Congressional District in Arizona either, but the government's recovery.gov Web site says $34 million in stimulus money has been spent there.

In fact, Recovery.gov lists hundreds of millions spent and hundreds of jobs created in Congressional districts that don't exist.

In Oklahoma, for example, the site lists more than $19 million in spending -- and 15 jobs created -- on Congressional districts that don't exist. In Iowa, it shows $10.6 million spent – and 39 jobs created -- in non-existent districts.

In Connecticut's 42nd District (which also does not exist), the website claims 25 jobs created with zero stimulus dollars.

The list of spending and job creation in fictional Congressional Districts extends to U.S. territories as well.

$68.3 million spent and 72.2 million spent in the 1st Congressional District of the U.S. Virgin Islands.

$8.4 million spent and 40.3 jobs created in the 99th Congressional District of the U.S. Virgin Islands.

$1.5 million spent and .3 jobs created in the 69th district and $35 million for 142 jobs in the 99th district of the Northern Mariana Islands.

$47.7 million spent and 291 jobs created in Puerto Rico's 99th.

The Recovery.gov Web site was established as part of the stimulus bill "to foster greater accountability and transparency" in the use of the money spent through the stimulus program. The site is a well-funded enterprise; the General Services Administration updated it earlier this year with an $18 million grant.

Source.

This is fail to the power of suck, Government.

Nigeria: Hints of a new chapter

jetsetter — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 03:53:28 GMT

Quote:

Nigeria: Hints of a new chapter
Nov 12th 2009 | ABUJA, KANO AND YENAGOA
From The Economist print edition

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigeria

IN YENAGOA, the capital of Bayelsa state in the Niger Delta, giant billboards in the centre of town proclaim the dawn of a “walking, talking ideology”—Sylvanomics. Some new fad, perhaps, from the IMF or the World Bank? No; the picture of a beaming, youngish-looking man in a jumpsuit and bowler hat shows that this is all about the new state governor, Timipre Sylva.

The man in person enthusiastically explains more in the opulent surroundings of Gloryland, the governor’s mansion. Bayelsa is the first of Nigeria’s 36 states to invite in outside accountants and advisers for a thorough audit of its finances. They are now going over the state’s payroll and procurement policies, as well as the revenues from the federal government, which (as in all states) supply most of Bayelsa’s income. Vitally, the bean-counters will also audit the deeply obscure flows of money that go out again from the state coffers to the Local Government Authorities (LGAs). These are supposed to spend the money on the wretched people who live in deep poverty in the swamps and creeks of the Delta. If waste and corruption are cut out, they should benefit. “Transparency has a direct link to development,” says Mr Sylva.

Nigerians, particularly in other statehouses, are looking on with a mixture of awe and horror at Mr Sylva’s audacity. The statehouses are the biggest source of the corruption and mismanagement in Nigeria’s political system. Some of the governors in the oil-rich Delta command budgets bigger than entire west African countries, yet traditionally, after they have spent most of the money on their own helicopters, limousines and Glorylands, together with gangs of hired thugs at election time, there is little left over for anything fancy like schools or hospitals. Nuhu Ribadu, a former head of Nigeria’s anti-corruption agency, has said of this violent patronage system: “It’s not even corruption. It’s gangsterism. It’s organised crime.”

Not surprisingly then, Bayelsa’s audit is uncovering some impressive anomalies. Just down the road from Gloryland is the self-styled “Transparency House”, where Dimieari Von Kemedi, the head of the state’s new Due Process and e-Governance Bureau, explains what he has uncovered of the state’s “ghost” economic system. Take the payroll, for instance. A new biometric verification exercise, which fingerprints and photographs real employees and matches them against the paper payroll, has already shown up about 4,000 fake workers against 25,000 real ones. A particularly large number of false names were found in the finance department. At the local office of the federal Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), 70 people claimed to work there who didn’t. Another person employed ten members of his family, including his under-age children, in a local education authority. Such are the rewards of political office. In light of his discoveries, Mr Kemedi hopes to reduce the state salary bill by 20%. In 2008, after a preliminary audit, he was able to cut the procurement budget by 24%.

As well as Sylvanomics, other unusually hopeful things are happening in the Delta. As a direct consequence of the corruption and waste now being exposed in Bayelsa and other Delta states, a violent insurgency has wracked the region since 2004. Dozens of heavily armed gangs started attacking the oil industry, sabotaging installations and pipelines and kidnapping foreign oil workers. The militants claimed to be acting on behalf of neglected, disfranchised local communities, whose lands had been polluted by the oil companies and who received almost no money from the rich state governors. The militants were joined by criminals interested merely in a quick return from kidnapping.

Yet over the past three months the militants have been giving up both themselves and their guns in unprecedented numbers. The federal government has promised them an unconditional pardon for past crimes, a small stipend to live on and the promise of retraining in order to “reintegrate” into society. A couple of similar amnesty programmes were tried before, and failed, but this one seems to be working. In Bayelsa alone, by the end of October, more than 6,000 former guerrillas had turned themselves in. In Rivers state, the heart of the insurgency, another 6,000 had given up. Across the whole of the Delta region, the total may exceed 15,000. No one knows for sure how many militants are still in the creeks, but Nigerian officials claim that these numbers mean the end of the insurgency. Their optimism seemed to be justified when the Movement for the Emancipation of the Delta (MEND), the main umbrella group for the insurgents, declared an indefinite ceasefire on October 25th.

Oil-rich, but enfeebled

It is rare to have any reasons to be cheerful about Nigeria, let alone two at once. This is a country where so much money is wasted, greasing the wheels of a corrupt political system, that despite its oil wealth about 70% of people still live on the equivalent of less than $1 a day. This, in turn, makes Nigeria much weaker and less stable than it should be. An American intelligence report from 2005 speculated that Nigeria might be on its way to becoming a failed state, a bigger version of Congo or Somalia.

Such forecasts are all the more worrying because, merely by virtue of its size and its natural resources, Nigeria is Africa’s giant. If the state failed, it would do so on a massive scale. It is the continent’s most populous country, with about 160m people. It vies with Angola as sub-Saharan Africa’s largest oil exporter, mainly to America, and is the eighth-biggest oil exporter in the world, with stated reserves of 38.5 billion barrels. It is Africa’s second-biggest economy, after South Africa, and the leader of the regional Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), accounting for roughly half of its GDP.

Nigeria, together with South Africa, has naturally taken the lead in African diplomacy and politics in recent years. The previous president of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo, worked with South Africa to reform the African Union (AU) in 2000. Nigeria contributed most of the troops to the AU’s first peacekeeping force, in the Darfur region of Sudan, and has sent troops to Burundi and Sierra Leone. Last month it took up a temporary seat on the United Nations Security Council; in a reformed council, Nigerians think their country would be an obvious candidate for a permanent seat.

Yet for all this, while other African countries such as Ghana, Mali, Mozambique and Rwanda have been improving in the past decade, Nigeria has, in many ways, gone backwards. Most obviously, it has been beset by civil strife. At times in the Delta MEND’s insurgency was so intense that it shut in as much as a third of Nigeria’s oil production, pushing up the world price of crude and enfeebling the Nigerian government, which depends on oil for about 80% of its revenues. America worried most about this; it already gets 8.2% of its imported oil from Nigeria, and wants to increase this figure in order to diversify its sources of supply away from the Middle East.

In the mainly Muslim north of the country, the story—gross inequalities of wealth, abuse of power, insurgency—is much the same. After the first post-dictatorship democratic elections in 1999, 12 of the northern Muslim states adopted sharia law, putting an enormous strain on the unity of a Nigerian state that had previously been run only under the secular, civil law bequeathed to it by British colonial rulers. The imposition of sharia was partly inspired by the success of the Iranian revolution in 1979. But it was also a reaction against the perceived corruption of the country’s Western-influenced ruling elites. Sharia was meant to change (or purify) the moral basis of politics among Muslims and raise standards of governance.

In that particular goal it has only partly succeeded. But its introduction has contributed to outbreaks of violent conflict between Muslims and Christians, especially evangelicals, in the middle belt of the country where the two communities rub up against each other, in cities like Kaduna and Jos. Thousands have been killed and injured in sectarian clashes in recent years.

Even worse, those Muslims who feel that sharia has achieved little have been joining more extreme cults and sects. The cults are made up of the same sort of disillusioned, unemployed and ill-educated young men who joined the insurgency in the Delta. Boko Haram (a local Hausa term that means “education is prohibited”) is the most famous of these groups; its followers were involved in a five-day gunfight with the police in July after some of them were arrested. The leader of Boko Haram, Sheikh Muhammad Yusuf, was captured and then shot after a siege of the group’s headquarters in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state.

Ismaila Zango, director of the Centre for Research and Documentation in Kano, says that there are “possibly many other sects” like Boko Haram, particularly in the deeper rural areas: “We only hear about them when they move to the towns.” These sects, Mr Zango explains, argue that the larger society is corrupt and polluted; their response is to “withdraw into themselves”. Thus Boko Haram is another expression of deep dissatisfaction with the way Nigeria is being run. Any conversation in Kano has to be conducted over the noisy chug of a diesel-fuelled generator; lack of electricity means that power cuts can last for more than five hours there, in the north’s biggest and most sophisticated city. “Even the people in the Gaza Strip have electricity,” exclaims Mr Zango.

Terrorism-watchers are also concerned that al-Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist groups from across north Africa may have attached themselves to some of these Islamic sects to mount attacks on the government. There is little real evidence that such links exist. But what is not in dispute is that groups like Boko Haram, or even al-Qaeda, will feed off the anger, bitterness and frustration of young men until something changes in the way Nigeria is governed. The average age of Nigerians is 19, so combustible young men are in bountiful supply. Unemployment, or underemployment, is the norm, so they have little to do.

The easy gains to be made from oil have led to a catastrophic over-reliance on the black stuff to provide the country’s wealth, while successive governments have left the rest of the economy to wither and decay. Even though Nigeria is such a big oil producer, for instance, its few refineries are so old and inefficient that it now has to import the bulk of its petrol and kerosene, a huge extra cost to business. Diesel fuel for all those generators is exorbitantly expensive and can easily nullify any profits. Kano’s textile industry, once the biggest in west Africa, has all but disappeared in the face of cheap Chinese imports.

The silent achiever

Given this catalogue of woe, a breakthrough like the amnesty in the Delta is welcome. Peace there would greatly improve Nigeria’s economic health and international standing. But the government will have to move fast to prove its good faith. If the promises of retraining, counselling, monthly stipends and the like are not fulfilled, the militants say they will simply continue their deadly campaign. Too often in the past the government’s words have not been translated into deeds.

Much rests on the enigmatic figure of the country’s president, Umaru Yar’Adua. Mr Yar’Adua can claim a good deal of credit for the Delta amnesty. He personally invited some of the former rebel leaders to Abuja to persuade them to give up, and he has spoken sympathetically of the plight of the Delta’s citizens. He has promised specific development projects—a new east-west highway, new schools—to try to improve the lot of those living in the region, thus meeting some of MEND’s longstanding demands. He has also created a Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs to try to co-ordinate state and federal spending there. Just possibly this new bureaucratic structure, with presidential impetus behind it, will be able to make a difference.

On corruption and governance too, Mr Yar’Adua has made all the right noises. He was the first Nigerian president to declare all his assets on coming to office: $5m, a paltry sum by Nigerian standards. He has given firm backing to state governors, like Mr Sylva, who want to clean up their financial systems. And the reform movement is rippling through other states, such as Rivers, once the most corrupt in the Delta, and Lagos, farther west. Babatunde Fashola, the governor of Lagos state, has begun to make a modest impression on his chaotic capital city. Remarkably, he has persuaded people to pay their taxes, for they can now see the improvements that their money has brought to the place. Accountability has been restored.

Mr Yar’Adua has also backed the reforming governor of Nigeria’s central bank, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, who took office in June. He has taken tough action to restore confidence in the country’s banks after a big fall in the Nigerian stockmarket, caused mainly by the onset of the world recession, left several of them badly exposed. Mr Sanusi used his powers to dismiss the heads and executive directors of eight banks, just under half of the total of Nigerian-owned banks in the country. Some of those sacked face charges of fraud and share-price manipulation. In the new spirit of transparency, the central bank also named the biggest individual borrowers, who between them owed about $8 billion to the banks. Those publicly shamed included a former vice-president.

All this is shaking up the cosy, craven world of Nigerian business and politics a bit, and confounding the president’s critics. Mr Yar’Adua, a former state governor of Katsina in the far north of the country, was expected to be merely a cipher for the ruling clique around his predecessor, Mr Obasanjo, who handpicked Mr Yar’Adua to succeed him. He was unknown and uncharismatic. The most inspiring slogan that his team could come up with for the 2007 election campaign was “the silent achiever”. So unimpressive and invisible was he in his first year in office that he earned the nickname “Baba Go-slow”. But now, just over halfway through his four-year term, his political adviser, Polycarp Nwite, argues that the president is “careful and thorough, not slow”. Mr Yar’Adua’s supporters argue that this is exactly the approach that Nigeria needs to entrench reforms after decades of high-handed, capricious military rulers. The Delta amnesty, the argument goes, is a vindication of his serious and unfussy style.

Yet Mr Yar’Adua’s modest successes may count for nothing, yet again, if the political system itself is not reformed and the link restored between Nigeria’s politicians and those who are supposed to elect them. As well as the economic failures, the endemic corruption, the religious tensions and the venality of the political class, Nigeria’s record on democracy is appalling. Since 1999, each general election has been worse than the last. Fraud and rigging at the elections in 2007 were so pervasive that some seasoned foreign observers declared them the most awful they had seen anywhere in the world. But on this point, Mr Yar’Adua appears far less exercised.

Reform in jeopardy

Mr Obasanjo introduced a team of technocratic reformers during his second term of office; they made some gains combating corruption and sorting out the public debt. But these men and women were brutally purged as the 2007 elections loomed and needed to be rigged. Their reforms had got too close to the top of the political system.

The ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) ruthlessly deployed both money and violence to hang on to power at the state and federal level in 2007. In the process, it undid many of the gains of the reformers. Not all its candidates were corrupt or incompetent: Mr Sylva is from the PDP. But since Mr Yar’Adua was the principal beneficiary of all the rigging, his position is ticklish. How far is he willing to transplant the qualities of transparency and competitiveness that he is pushing in some areas of public life into the political and electoral system, whose venality has helped him?

The omens do not look good. A commission set up in the wake of the 2007 elections to examine electoral reform made several obvious recommendations. One was the creation of a truly independent electoral commission, with a chairman appointed not by the president but by a National Judicial Council and the Senate. In 2007 INEC was not only incompetent, but was also held to be complicit in fixing the election for the PDP. Yet the government has already rejected even this basic reform, as well as others. The PDP has also failed to hold proper primaries to make the party itself more democratic, something else that was promised after 2007.

Jibrin Ibrahim, a political scientist who sat on the commission, thinks that “the prospects of electoral reform look very bleak”. For many, the elections in 2011 are a last chance for Nigeria to get it right. The anger unleashed by the blatant cheating and thuggery last time sparked isolated incidents of violence, but no general conflagration. In 2011, argues one analyst, people will be readier to stand up for themselves and resist the PDP’s rigging and intimidation. There could be a popular revolt.

So the stakes are high for Mr Yar’Adua. He is, to a large degree, a creature of the system. Yet if he could follow his better instincts and reform the way elections are held, the quiet man of Nigerian politics may just secure himself a place as his country’s most successful leader.

http://www.economist.com/displaystor...ry_id=14843563

I sincerely hope Nigeria can reach its full potential. If the country can do something about its internal problems it will have a bright future.

The Saudi-Iranian Neo Cold War

jetsetter — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 17:13:42 GMT

+ YouTube Video
ERROR: If you can see this, then YouTube is down or you don't have Flash installed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sa%27dah_insurgency

A conflict between the two powers would have interesting consequences.

Man finds shotgun, hands it to police, gets jailed for five years

Plissken — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 14:42:15 GMT

First to turn this into a pro- or anti-gun debate automatically loses, but this is bloody bananas.

http://www.thisissurreytoday.co.uk/n...l/article.html

Quote:

Ex-soldier faces jail for handing in gun
Saturday, November 14, 2009, 12:15

A former soldier who handed a discarded shotgun in to police faces at least five years imprisonment for "doing his duty".

Paul Clarke, 27, was found guilty of possessing a firearm at Guildford Crown Court on Tuesday – after finding the gun and handing it personally to police officers on March 20 this year.

The jury took 20 minutes to make its conviction, and Mr Clarke now faces a minimum of five year's imprisonment for handing in the weapon.

In a statement read out in court, Mr Clarke said: "I didn't think for one moment I would be arrested.

"I thought it was my duty to hand it in and get it off the streets."

The court heard how Mr Clarke was on the balcony of his home in Nailsworth Crescent, Merstham, when he spotted a black bin liner at the bottom of his garden.

In his statement, he said: "I took it indoors and inside found a shorn-off shotgun and two cartridges.

"I didn't know what to do, so the next morning I rang the Chief Superintendent, Adrian Harper, and asked if I could pop in and see him.

"At the police station, I took the gun out of the bag and placed it on the table so it was pointing towards the wall."

Mr Clarke was then arrested immediately for possession of a firearm at Reigate police station, and taken to the cells.

Defending, Lionel Blackman told the jury Mr Clarke's garden backs onto a public green field, and his garden wall is significantly lower than his neighbours.

He also showed jurors a leaflet printed by Surrey Police explaining to citizens what they can do at a police station, which included "reporting found firearms".

Quizzing officer Garnett, who arrested Mr Clarke, he asked: "Are you aware of any notice issued by Surrey Police, or any publicity given to, telling citizens that if they find a firearm the only thing they should do is not touch it, report it by telephone, and not take it into a police station?"

To which, Mr Garnett replied: "No, I don't believe so."

Prosecuting, Brian Stalk, explained to the jury that possession of a firearm was a "strict liability" charge – therefore Mr Clarke's allegedly honest intent was irrelevant.

Just by having the gun in his possession he was guilty of the charge, and has no defence in law against it, he added.

But despite this, Mr Blackman urged members of the jury to consider how they would respond if they found a gun.

He said: "This is a very small case with a very big principle.

"You could be walking to a railway station on the way to work and find a firearm in a bin in the park.

"Is it unreasonable to take it to the police station?"

Paul Clarke will be sentenced on December 11.

Judge Christopher Critchlow said: "This is an unusual case, but in law there is no dispute that Mr Clarke has no defence to this charge.

"The intention of anybody possessing a firearm is irrelevant."

US State dept: Israel is not a tolerant society

nomix — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:32:22 GMT

Haaretz

Quote:

Israel dismally fails the requirements of a tolerant pluralistic society, according to a new report from the U.S. State Department.

Despite boasting religious freedom and protection of all holy sites, Israel falls short in tolerance toward minorities, equal treatment of ethnic groups, openness toward various streams within society, and respect for holy and other sites.

The report.

Worth reading.

The Fall of the Eastern Bloc. 20 years on

vikiradTG2007 — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:59:48 GMT

On Monday, the world will celebrate 20 years since the symbolic moment that heralded the end of Communism in Eastern Europe, the fall of the Berlin Wall. It's been 2 decades in which this whole area has been fighting hard to heal itself from the wounds inflicted by a dark half of a century, by a massive social experiment which failed spectacularly. And, in several parts of this former bloc, the wounds of those 45 years underneath the Iron Curtain's grip are still painfully obvious and no more healed than they were at the time when the regimes were overthrown.

Corruption still rages; bribery is the order of the day. "Freedom" of press just means that all the politicians are arguing and fighting on live TV for all the world to see. Politicians govern countries at their own whim, they don't care about political platforms, they just want to fill their own pockets and the ones of several businessmen allied to them. Public auctions are fixed, even though it is always denied. Deadlines are never obeyed. It's all a huge mess. And over here, this is especially painful since the Romanian people overthrew the Communist rule at the highest cost of any nation in the Eastern Bloc. People gave their lives for freedom... but their sacrifice seems to have been in vain so far.

How do others who live in the former Eastern Bloc feel about the significance of what happened in the autumn and winter of '89? How do people who viewed the events from the outside see all of this? I want to hear your opinions.

Saudi’s to Crucify then Behead Child Rapist

argatoga — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:42:08 GMT

http://in.reuters.com/article/worldN...43639120091103

Quote:

RIYADH (Reuters) - A Saudi court of cassation upheld a ruling to behead and crucify a 22-year-old man convicted of raping five children and leaving one of them to die in the desert, newspapers reported on Tuesday.

The convict was arrested earlier this year after a seven-year old boy helped police in their investigation. The child left in the desert after the rape was three years old, Okaz newspaper said.

International rights groups have accused the kingdom, the birthplace of Islam, of applying draconian justice, beheading murderers, rapists and drug traffickers in public. So far this year about 40 people have been executed in Saudi Arabia.

In Saudi Arabia, crucifixion means tying the body of the convict to wooden beams to be displayed to the public after beheading.

(Reporting by Souhail Karam; editing by Inal Ersan)

More protests in Iran as protestors disrupt Anti-US holiday

Jacobfox — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:50:39 GMT

From the Associated Press via Yahoo News

Quote:

TEHRAN, Iran – Iranian security forces beat anti-government protesters with batons Wednesday on the sidelines of state-sanctioned rallies to mark the 30th anniversary of the U.S. Embassy takeover. The counter-demonstrations were the opposition's first major show of force on Tehran's streets in nearly two months.

The opposition sought to display unity and resolve after relentless crackdowns on their protests following the disputed June presidential election. Though the crowds were far smaller than during last summer's outrage, authorities were ready with the same sweeping measures: dispatching paramilitary units to key locations and disrupting mobile phones, text messaging and Internet access to frustrate protest organizers.

The contrasts in the latest protest wave were stark: people chanting "Death to America" outside the former U.S. Embassy while hundreds of opposition marchers in central Haft-e-Tir Square denounced President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with cries of "Death to the Dictator."

Other opposition protesters marched silently and flashed the V-for-victory sign. Many wore green scarves or wristbands that symbolized the campaign of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, who claims Ahmadinejad stole the election from him through fraud. Mousavi and his allies, including former President Mohammad Khatami, appeared to encourage opposition protesters to return to the streets.

Witnesses told The Associated Press that security forces — mainly paramilitary units and militiamen from the elite Revolutionary Guard — swept through the hundreds of demonstrators at Haft-e-Tir Square, clubbing, kicking and slapping protesters. The witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisals from authorities.

Pro-reform Web sites said police fired into the air to try to clear the square — about half a mile from the annual anti-American gathering outside the former U.S. Embassy. The report could not immediately be independently verified.

The state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported police also used tear gas to disperse protesters in other parts of the city. There was no independent information on injuries or arrests, but state-run Press TV said no one was hurt.

A leading opposition figure, Mahdi Karroubi, fell to the ground after being overcome by tear gas, according to a posting by his son Hossein on Karroubi's Web site. His supporters carried him into his car, which plainclothes government supporters attacked as it drove away, the account said.

Karroubi did not need medical attention, his son said.

Other witnesses — also speaking on condition of anonymity — said about 2,000 students at Tehran University faced off against security forces, but there were no immediate reports of violence.

The opposition movement began as objection to Ahmadinejad's re-election, but it has expanded into a catchall movement for complaints that include the unlimited powers of the ruling clerics, Iran's sinking economy and its international isolation. Their tactics now appear to rely on pinpoint protest strikes to coincide with government-backed events, such as September's anti-Israel day.

The size and scope of Wednesday's protests were difficult to determine — possibly several thousand, according to witnesses. But the total is significantly smaller than the hundreds of thousands who streamed into the streets last summer during the worse domestic unrest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Some opposition groups reported demonstrations in other cities such as Shiraz and Isfahan.

Media restrictions now limit journalists to covering state media and government-approved events, such as the rally outside the former embassy.

Authorities appeared determined to avoid opposition rallies overshadowing the anniversary of the embassy takeover. They had warned protesters days in advance against attempts to disrupt or overshadow the annual gathering outside the former embassy, which was stormed by militants in 1979 in the turbulent months after the Islamic Revolution.

Fifty-two Americans were held hostage for 444 days in a crisis that began a three-decade diplomatic freeze between the two nations.

Security forces fanned out around Tehran at daybreak on Wednesday after opposition leaders refused to call off their appeals for counter demonstrations.

Volunteer militiamen linked to the Revolutionary Guard patrolled the streets on motorcycles — a familiar sight during the summer unrest. Hours after the clashes, police helicopters passed low over Tehran's rooftops.

Outside the former U.S. Embassy, thousands of people waved anti-American banners and signs praising the Islamic Revolution.

The main speaker, hard-line lawmaker Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, denounced the United States as the main enemy of Iran. He did not mention the talks with the West, including the United States, on Iran's nuclear program.

But he labeled opposition leaders as dangerous for the country, saying they claim to support the ideals of the Islamic Revolution but aid Iran's perceived enemies.

In Washington, President Barack Obama noted the anniversary of the takeover of the U.S. Embassy and urged the two countries to move beyond the "path of sustained suspicion, mistrust and confrontation."

The hostage crisis "deeply affected the lives of courageous Americans who were unjustly held hostage, and we owe these Americans and their families our gratitude for their extraordinary service and sacrifice," Obama said in a statement.

Well I think this is another interesting development. It looks like the Green movement's focusing on picketing major state-run events and trying to drum up support through the press. The next step for the government is to simply stop reporting on it, but as usual, they're getting outflanked on new media sites.

For African Immigrants, Bronx Culture Clash Turns Violent

jetsetter — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:17:45 GMT

Quote:

For African Immigrants, Bronx Culture Clash Turns Violent

The storefronts on a stretch of Webster Avenue in the South Bronx tell the story of local shifts as well as any census: a Senegalese-run 99-cent store, an African video store, an African-run fast-food spot, a mosque, several African restaurants.

The owner of Café de C.E.D.E.A.O., named for the coalition of West African nations, envisioned it as a community hub in the Bronx neighborhood of Claremont, where Americans would try his wife’s cassava soup and realize it’s not so foreign after all. But a year in, the owner, Mohammed M. Barrie, said he could count the number of American patrons on one hand.

Meanwhile, he and his customers have been taunted, he said, and his restaurant’s window urinated on. Someone tried to break into a diner’s car. Then there is the bullet hole in the front window, a mark from a gunshot through the window late one night last summer.

“Those people, they don’t respect African people,” said Mr. Barrie, a Sierra Leone native who settled in the United States in 1998. “I pay my bills, I pay my taxes, they still ...” He trailed off.

Down the block, Muhammed Sillah sat in front of the tiny Al Tawba mosque, eyeing the jungle gym across the street and remembering when he used to let his children play outside.

“Spanish kids, American kids — but no African kids,” said Mr. Sillah, a Gambian mechanic raising five children in Claremont. “We’re scared.”

Their fear and frustration are shared by many local West African immigrants, whose fast-growing presence in the neighborhood — and in the city over all — has been accompanied by increasing tensions with the local black American residents.

“They think they’re better than black people,” James Carroll, a retired Army specialist standing in front of a busy convenience store, said of the West African immigrants. “We’re supposed to be one community — we’re supposed to be able to get along — but they don’t give it a chance.”

Some of the tension can be attributed to cultural differences that all immigrants face, though the West Africans in Claremont, as conservative Muslims, have the added challenge of adjusting to a post-9/11 New York. But resentment and mistrust has escalated to actual violence, and, they say, left them feeling under siege.

After reports of nearly two dozen attacks on West African immigrants in the last two years, community leaders reached out to the police, who interviewed 17 Africans in the neighborhood and filed 11 criminal complaints. Two of those were deemed hate crimes, including an attack in June that left a Gambian immigrant hospitalized for eight days. They have made no arrest in either bias case, but a police mobile truck with a video camera now stands outside the mosque.

Claremont straddles the 44th and 42nd Precincts, two of the city’s most dangerous neighborhoods. This year, there have been 319 robberies in the 44th Precinct and 237 assaults in the 42nd. At the Butler Houses, part of a complex of housing projects that loom over the neighborhood, police sirens provide a background soundtrack, and residents of all colors and nationalities caution against walking around at night.

But the West Africans say the attacks on them are calculated. “It’s prejudice,” said Dembo Fofana, who said a beating in June by 10 to 15 men left him with broken ribs and internal bleeding. “It’s because we’re African, and we’re Muslim.”

Mr. Fofana, who came to this country 21 years ago, has not returned to his job at a bakery since the assault. He stays home, recovering, receiving disability checks and caring for his five children.

“There’s a lot of tension,” he said. “Just yesterday, someone said, ‘What would you think if I came to Africa and tried to take your property?’ I told him, ‘Brother, I’m not taking anything from you. I’m just trying to live my life.’ ”

The African population in the Bronx has grown considerably in recent years: the census reported 12,063 sub-Saharan Africans in 1990, while the most recent census estimate was 61,487.

In the community district that includes Claremont, black Americans made up 44 percent of the population, according to 2000 census figures, with 52.9 percent of the area Hispanic. African immigrants were nearly 10 percent of the population, a number likely to be much higher in the 2010 census.

The Africans in Claremont hail mainly from poor, French-speaking countries: Guinea, Mali, Senegal. Like immigrants across New York, many are here illegally, working long hours for little pay. Many work as taxi drivers, convenience-store clerks, fast-food cashiers — jobs that keep them on the street late at night.

But some say the Muslims deliberately hold themselves apart. A 37-year-old American man who gave his name as Dre pointed to the pavement in front of the mosque where the African men, easily identifiable in their beards and skullcaps, gather each afternoon. “If you don’t give praise to Allah, don’t go there,” he said. “It’s just like Afghanistan.”

Kantara Baragi, the imam of the Al Tawba mosque, acknowledges that insularity is part of the problem. “We don’t hang around,” said Mr. Baragi, whose delicate frame nearly disappears inside his long, flowing robes. “We just go to work. We don’t have a relationship with people here. They don’t know us.”

So community leaders organized two meetings this summer with police officials, politicians, community board members and housing association leaders. The goal, Mr. Baragi said, was “to let them know us so they don’t look at us like strangers.”

Zain Abdullah, an assistant professor of religion, race and ethnicity at Temple University in Philadelphia, says it is common for African immigrants to suffer harassment when they settle in traditionally black neighborhoods in big cities, like Detroit, New York and Philadelphia.

“Many African-Americans feel that the influx of Africans coming in represents a kind of invasion,” he said. “Culturally, African-Americans have always imagined themselves as Africans, or at least of African descent, but they might have never encountered Africans from the continent. The actual encounter is shocking.”

Mr. Baragi, the imam, says he tries to accommodate his neighbors. His mosque, which blends in with the other storefronts, does not sound the call to prayer through speakers because “we don’t need to force everyone to hear what we’re doing.”

Instead, five times a day, from the sidewalk or, when it is cold, from behind the front door, a man from Al Tawba sings the call in a voice drowned out by the rumbling traffic.

Down the block at Café de C.E.D.E.A.O., a young man walked in last week wearing a Yankees hat tilted askew, an oversize military-style jacket and baggy pants. He looked like any member of the crowd hanging out in front of the Butler Houses, but Fofana Alhusane’s outfit was calculated, a camouflage to hide his Gambian roots.

“African clothes are dangerous,” he said. “I used to wear them, but I saw a few people get beat up, so now I wear New York clothes.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/ny...agewanted=1&hp

Interesting article. Similar situation in some ways to the experiences of other new immigrants groups coming into contact with a related more established group.

UK politicians want to ban filesharers from the internet at random, no trial needed

AiR — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:29:54 GMT

Freshly out of the worlds number one big brother society comes a bill from a man who likes wearing silly furs, Lord Mandelson (in Swedish, Son of Almond Nut) who want to ban file sharers from the internet without evidence or a trial.

Short story

Quote:

The UK government will take steps that will exclude persistent downloaders of content from connecting to the internet, it confirmed today.

The UK business secretary, Lord [Peter] Mandelson said that the UK would pass legislation to cut off people as a last resort. Before cut off, individuals would receive warnings that their activities had been detected and warned to cease and desist.
Although the government has been contemplating such measures for some months, the legislation is unlikely to come into effect until spring of 2011.

And a general election has to take place in the UK by Spring of next year, meaning that if the UK Labour Party fails to achieve re-election, such legislation may well be thwarted.

Mandelson said he didn't expect "mass suspensions". People will get two warnings and even if they get cut off, they will have the right to appeal.

The proposals have the backing of the major music and film corporations, but face opposition from British ISPs.

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/44457/118/

Long story

Quote:

Lord Mandelson, the business secretary, warned internet users today that the days of "consequence-free" illegal filesharing are over as he unveiled the government's plan for cracking down on online piracy.

Mandelson, speaking at the government's digital creative industries conference, C&binet, confirmed that the internet connections of persistent offenders could be blocked – but only as a last resort – from the summer of 2011.

He added that a "legislate and enforce" strategy was the only way to protect the intellectual property rights of content producers.

The strategy, which will be officially set out in the government's digital economy bill in late November, will involve a staged process of warning notifications with internet suspension as a last resort.

"It must become clear that the days of consequence-free widespread online infringement are over," Mandelson said. "Technical measures will be a last resort and I have no expectation of mass suspensions resulting."

The legislation is expected to come into force in April next year.

The effectiveness of the warning letters to persistent illegal filesharers will be monitored for the first 12 months. If illegal filesharing has not dropped by 70% by April 2011, then cutting off people's internet connections could be introduced three months later, from the summer of that year.

"If we reach the point of suspension for an individual, they will be informed in advance, having previously received two notifications – and will have the opportunity to appeal," Mandelson added. "The British government's view is that taking people's work without due payment is wrong and that, as an economy based on creativity, we cannot sit back and do nothing as this happens."

Mandelson said that the strategy was a "proportionate measure that will give people ample awareness and opportunity to stop breaking the rules". "The threat for persistent individuals is, and has to be, real, or no effective deterrent to breaking the law will be in place," he added.

There would be a "proper route of appeal" for those that do have their internet accounts suspended, Mandelson said. He added that he did not want to see internet service providers "unfairly burdened" by the new system.

"ISPs and rights-holders will share the costs, on the basis of a flat fee that will allow both sides to budget and plan," he said.

The staged roll-out of the strategy will see Ofcom assess the effectiveness of the warning notification system on cutting illegal filesharing, backed by the threat of legal action by rights holders and content companies, in about April 2011.

If the 70% reduction is not achieved the use of technical measures to cut off persistent offenders' web access will be introduced by about July 2011.

Should this system be introduced repeat offenders will be warned they are infringing and then, in a second letter, told that technical measures could be implemented. Further infringement will lead to the offenders' names being put on a "serious infringers list", with ISPs then "obliged to exercise technical measures".

No timetable was given by the government for the speed with which the process can progress from a warning letter to internet suspension.

When infringers are informed that they face having their internet access suspended, they will have 20 working days to appeal to an independent body, to be established by Ofcom. The suspension will not come into force until the appeal has been heard.

If the first appeal is unsuccessful the infringer can lodge a second appeal within 20 working days.

Cutting off illegal filesharers' internet access was originally ruled out in Lord Carter's Digital Britain report released in June.

However, in August Mandelson's department for business innovation and skills launched a consultation document that proposed considering taking a tougher stance, including suspending internet connections.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...rs-connections

My UK friends, it's election time soon. I'll just leave this here.

Should America abolish the two party rule?

jayhawk — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:22:02 GMT

And when I mean rule, I mean how the same two parties have been stealing votes since the 1860's. As in lording over us, as in making American politics black and white, when we all know that nothing in life is ever that.

To oversimplify, I would quite like a system much like Germany's. You get X% of votes, you get X amount of seats. This way we can have representatives of all the political spectrum.
Now, someone who is perhaps close minded and ignorant would like to see their opposites politically banished, but not I. I want to see communists, green partys, religious extremists, pirates all represented. To me, a democracy is the ideas of all of the people, whatever their political leanings might be.

For your information, I am a Libertarian, which is a person all for small government, low taxes and unlimited freedoms.

Romanian presidential election, 2009... well, there are a few ROs around, right?

vikiradTG2007 — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:03:16 GMT

4 weeks to the presidential elections. So far, 5 confirmed candidates (Băsescu-the incumbent, Geoană, Crin Antonescu, Oprescu and Kelemen)... and I don't plan on voting either of these five. If there's an independent with very low odds, I'm planning on voting for that one just not to give my vote to the bigwigs.

Also, there's a referendum to reduce the number of MPs to 300 and the Parliament to a single chamber. It would be a good idea... if it hadn't been launched to cover up the failures of the current regime by giving the sheepish masses something to jump on. It's just a political move by Băsescu himself.

If you've got an opinion on this, post away. I'm looking for a bit of a debate. :)

Chinese pollution in pictures by Lu Guang

AiR — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 18:52:22 GMT

Quote:

[QQ] October 14, 2009, the 30th annual awards ceremony of the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund took place at the Asia Society in New York City. Lu Guang (卢广) from People’s Republic of China won the $30,000 W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography for his documentary project “Pollution in China.”

Lu Guang (卢广), freelancer photographer, started as an amateur photographer in 1980. He was a factory worker, later started his own photo studio and advertising agency. August of 1993 he returned to post-graduate studies at the Central Arts and Design Academy in Beijing (now is the Academy of Arts and Design, Tsinghua University). During graduate school, he studied, traveled all over the country and carved out a career, became the “dark horse” of the photographer circle in Beijing. Skilled at social documentary photography, his insightful, creative and artistic work often focused on “social phenomena and people living at the bottom of society”, attracted the attentions of the national photography circle and the media. Many of his award winning works focused on social issues like, “gold rush in the west”, “drug girl”, “small coal pit”, “HIV village”, “the Grand Canal”, “development of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway” and so on.

Quote:

Fan Jai Zhuang in Anyang City, Henan province, (河南安阳市范家庄) there is only one wall separating this village from the steelmaking furnaces.
The villagers live in this heavily polluted environment where the village is under the iron rain every day. March 24, 2008

Quote:

In the Yellow Sea coastline, countless sewage pipes buried in the beach and even extending into the deep sea. April 28, 2008

Quote:

In Inner Mongolia there were 2 “black dragons” from the Lasengmiao Power Plant (内蒙古拉僧庙发电厂) covering the nearby villages. July 26, 2005

Quote:

Villagers from Kang village in Linfen City, Shanxi Province (山西省临汾市下康村) due to long-term consumption of the polluted water contaminated by industrial waste, there were 50 people who have cancer and cerebral thrombosis. 64-year-old Wang Baosheng got ill since 2003, he has fester all over his body so he cannot go to bed and lying face down on the edge of the bed each day. July 10, 2005

Many more pictures of the Chinese industrial revolution and it's victims on the link below
http://www.chinahush.com/2009/10/21/...tion-in-china/

This is the country that makes all our electronics and many other goods and it will not move a muscle to rectify it's enviromental problems until the western world have done considerable advances. As far as Beijing is concerned, China has 200 years of pollution lag and is entitled to pollute. I can understand their point to some extent, at the same time Chinas immense pollution is a global problem. These pictures show why it's imperative that we in the west must act now, to set an example and make China follow.