POW page of article clips.
http://pages.prodigy.net/lynnpowmia/naf1.htm
http://www.nationalalliance.org/home1.htm
Tajikistan high court sentences ex-Guantanamo detainees
Bernard Hibbitts at 3:18 PM ET
Photo source or description
[JURIST] The Supreme Court of Tajikistan Friday sentenced two former Guantanamo Bay detainees to 17 years in prison each for serving as mercenaries in Afghanistan. Mukit Vokhidov and Rukhiddin Sharopov crossed to Afghanistan in 2001 as members of the al Qaeda-linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan [CNS backgrounder]; they were captured by US forces operating in the north of the country in November that year and later sent to the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay.
Vokhidov and Sharopov were released by US authorities and returned to Tajikistan in March 2005. The Tajik court also convicted them of illegal border crossing. The Tajik goverment says that some 20 Tajiks are being held at Guantanamo. AP has more. Interfax has additional coverage.
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2007/08/iran-summons-argentina-officials-for.php
Friday, August 17, 2007
Iran summons Argentina officials for fabricating case against Iran in 1994 bombing
Brett Murphy at 2:53 PM ET
Photo source or description
[JURIST] An Iranian court has issued a summons for five Argentinean officials, accusing them of fabricating a case against Iran in the 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish Community Center [Wikipedia backgrounder], Iranian media reported Thursday. The Argentineans were involved in an investigation that implicated Iran as partly responsible for the bombing, which killed 85 and wounded hundreds more. Iran has repeatedly denied involvement and has issued the summons through diplomatic channels.
In March, Interpol [official website] agreed to issue arrest notices [JURIST report] for six men thought to be connected with the bombing. Argentina [JURIST news archive] had initially sought to have a number of high ranking Iranian officials arrested, including former Iran President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani [official website, in Farsi; JURIST report], but Interpol’s Executive Committee [official website] approved notices for only five Iranians, including one for former Intelligence Chief Ali Fallahian, and an additional notice for a Lebanese militant. VOA News has more.
SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2007, Issue No. 81
August 8, 2007
** PALAU RATIFIES THE COMPREHENSIVE TEST BAN TREATY
** NEW MILITARY REGS ON INFORMATION ASSURANCE, COMSEC
** CRS REPORTS ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
PALAU RATIFIES THE COMPREHENSIVE TEST BAN TREATY
On August 1, the Pacific island nation of Palau became the 139th
country to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty that would ban all
nuclear explosions.
Among states that possess nuclear weapons, only France, Russia and the
United Kingdom have ratified the Treaty. To enter into force, the CTBT
Organization explained in an August 7 news release, the Treaty must be
ratified by ten other countries including the United States, China,
Iran, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea, none of which has shown
any eagerness to proceed.
http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2007/08/palau-ctbt.html
The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library last week released
declassified recordings of President Kennedy discussing the debate over
a nuclear test ban in 1963. See the Library news release here:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2007/08/jfk080306.html
Detailed background on the history and status of the nuclear test ban
debate is available from the Congressional Research Service in “Nuclear
Weapons: Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty,” updated July 12, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/RL33548.pdf
NEW MILITARY REGS ON INFORMATION ASSURANCE, COMSEC
A newly updated U.S. Army regulation on information assurance defines
standards and procedures for protecting classified and unclassified
information in automated information systems. See “Information
Assurance,” AR 25-2, August 3, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/ar25-2.pdf
Meanwhile, a new U.S. Navy Instruction establishes policy on monitoring
of Navy communications for internal security purposes. See
“Communications Security (COMSEC) Monitoring of Navy Telecommunications
and Automated Information Systems (AIS),” OPNAV Instruction 2201.3A,
August 2, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/navy/opnavinst/2201_3a.pdf
CRS REPORTS ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Recent reports of the Congressional Research Service on various foreign
affairs topics include the following, obtained by Secrecy News. CRS
does not makes its reports directly available to the public.
“Iraq: Oil and Gas Legislation, Revenue Sharing, and U.S. Policy,”
updated July 25, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL34064.pdf
“Gangs in Central America,” updated August 2, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34112.pdf
“Afro-Latinos in Latin America and Considerations for U.S. Policy,”
updated July 13, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL32713.pdf
“Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America: An Overview and
Selected Issues,” August 2, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RS22701.pdf
“Israeli-Arab Negotiations: Background, Conflicts, and U.S. Policy,”
updated July 9, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33530.pdf
“Turkey’s 2007 Elections: Crisis of Identity and Power,” updated July
11, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL34039.pdf
“The Kaesong North-South Korean Industrial Complex,” July 19, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34093.pdf
“The Proposed South Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA),”
updated July 18, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33435.pdf
“Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia: Political Developments and
Implications for U.S. Interests,” updated July 31, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33453.pdf
“Cyprus: Status of U.N. Negotiations and Related Issues,” updated July
20, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33497.pdf
“Pakistan-U.S. Relations,” updated July 23, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33498.pdf
“Cambodia: Background and U.S. Relations,” updated July 18, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL32986.pdf
“China-U.S. Trade Issues,” updated July 20, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33536.pdf
“China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities —
Background and Issues for Congress,” updated July 20, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33153.pdf
“China/Taiwan: Evolution of the ‘One China’ Policy — Key Statements
from Washington, Beijing, and Taipei,” updated July 9, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL30341.pdf
“U.S. Clothing and Textile Trade with China and the World: Trends Since
the End of Quotas,” July 10, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34106.pdf
“U.S.-Peru Economic Relations and the U.S.-Peru Trade Promotion
Agreement,” July 27, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34108.pdf
“The United Kingdom: Issues for the United States,” updated July 16,
2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33105.pdf
_______________________________________________
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the
Federation of American Scientists.
The Secrecy News Blog is at:
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/
http://russophobe.blogspot.com/2007/08/arap-saga-continues.html
Saturday, August 18, 2007
The Arap Saga Continues
Writing in the American Spectator, journalist and blogger Christopher Orlet blasts the Kremlin over the neo-Soviet weaponization of psychiatry:
At first blush it would seem a typical case of Russian President Vladimir Putin dipping into the Old Bolshevik’s Playbook — just another example of Life imitating Marx. But in today’s Russia, things are seldom what they seem.
Take the case of Larisa Arap. Ms. Arap, 49, is a journalist and, for the past six weeks, an inmate of a psychiatric clinic in the northwestern cities of Murmansk (the world’s largest city north of the Arctic Circle) and Apatiti. On July 5, 2007, Ms. Arap appeared for her annual physical, a requirement for renewing one’s driver’s license. It was during the exam that Dr. Marina Rekish discovered that her patient was the author of a newspaper story titled “Madhouse” that alleged child abuse and other barbarisms at the Murmansk Regional Psychiatric Hospital. Dr. Rekish immediately telephoned police who arrived minutes later —dressed in combat fatigues — and dragged the reporter to the hospital’s psychiatric unit where she has remained under “doctors’ care” ever since.
Both opposition leader and former chess champ Garry Kasparov and the chair of Russia’s Independent Psychiatric Association, Dr. Vladimir Prokudin, charge that Ms. Arap’s confinement is retribution for her investigative piece. The hospital’s chief medical officer Yevgeny Yenin dismissed any link between Arap’s piece and her confinement. He then violated his patient’s privacy rights by revealing that Ms. Arap had been committed once before. (Arap’s husband acknowledged that his wife had been in a psych unit for two weeks in 2004 for stress. It was during this stay that she witnessed the abuses detailed in her story.)
Soon after her arrest a Murmansk judge — acting on the recommendation of local authorities — declared the reporter to be “a danger to herself and others,” a view challenged by an account Arap’s daughter gave to the Chicago Tribune. “One of the doctors asked whether I thought it was normal to write such things,” Taisiya Arap told the Trib. “[The doctor] said, ‘It’s not possible to write such things. It’s forbidden.’” Doctors also told Taisiya Arap that her mother needed “long term treatment and might never leave the clinic,” the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported.
When not investigating allegations of child abuse by medical professionals, Arap is a member of Kasparov’s opposition United Civil Front. Following Arap’s arrest, Kasparov told the Independent
Indeed, Ms. Arap’s detention recalls a time not so long ago when all Soviet dissidents were regarded as being of unsound mind, since “no sane person would declaim against Soviet government and communism,” and paranoia was defined as the obsession with “the struggle for truth and justice.” It was an effective and convenient way of silencing dissidents for institutionalization not only descredited their ideas, it broke them physically and mentally. “Treatment” often involved electric shocks, narcotics, beatings, isolation and torturous and unnecessary medical procedures like spinal taps. Patients were frequently doped into submission for years at a time. Whether this was more humane than summary execution or exile to labor camps in Siberia or Kazakhstan is a matter of debate.
One of those who served time both in a gulag and a mental hospital, Vladimir Bukovsky, told the Tribune that “as far as the current lot in power is concerned using psychiatry for political purposes is a perfectly acceptable way of dealing with opponents...you don’t have to hire a killer.” Such retro behavior is only to be expected, the director of Moscow’s Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations Oleg Panfilov told the Independent. “When there are KGB officers in the government, they restore what there was during the Soviet era: propaganda, censorship, and repression.” (That an organization called the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations is necessary says all one needs to know about freedom of the press in Russia.)
Sadly Ms. Arap’s case is not unique. The Tribune has documented two similar episodes — one of lawyer Marina Trutko, another of businessman Roman Lukin, both recently committed to psychiatric hospitals for human rights activities.
These days it is no easy thing to completely isolate so-called mental patients, and a few officials have been able to meet with Ms. Arap, including Russia’s Human Rights Commissioner Vladimir Lukin, and three members of the Independent Psychiatric Association. The latter examined Arap and pronounced her to be of sound mind, though suffering from the effects of her confinement, maltreatment and her second hunger strike. The psychiatrists called for her immediate release.
Is this a case of a local medical mafia unable to shake its Soviet-era mindset and therefore taking the law into its own hands, or a thuggish government reverting to Stalinist tactics to silence and discredit the opposition? What do you want to bet it is, “All of the Above”? — that anyone can be forcibly detained “if you attack the interests of the local Gazprom, the local military base, or the local medical mafia. Attacking the interests of local bureaucrats is a terrible risk, because they don’t stop at anything to get their own back.”
It’s worthy of note the Russia Profile, the Kremlin’s slavishly insidious propaganda blog, has stated: “Larisa Arap is not a journalist, and in contradiction to what has been widely reported, did not write the article in question. She is an accountant at the Murmansk office of the United Civil Front, and was quoted at length in an article written by a journalist named Ilona Novikova entitled ‘Madhouse’ and published in a special edition of a local opposition newspaper titled ‘Dissenters March.’” This is really pathetic propaganda. Everyone associated with the opposition groups in Russia has a day job because there isn’t enough money to pay them. That doesn’t mean she’s not a journalist, and it’s been made quite clear that Arap was the de facto author of the piece in question, though she was presented as a source by the nominal writer.
Russia Profile also seeks to smear Arap by stating: “It seems that Ms. Arap does have a history of psychiatric problems.” It doesn’t give one single shred of evidence to back up this claim, and the fact that Ms. Arap had “psychiatric problems” at some point in her life has nothing whatsoever to do with whether there were grounds to incarcerate her. Shame on Russia Profile for this unsourced smear, and shame on all those associated with it!
But it’s also worthy of note that not even Russia Profile can completely deny the horror of this situation, though it does it all it can to minimize it. RP itself admits that Russia’s human rights Czar has examined the situation, found the detention totally bogus, and declared: “This woman is a member of the United Civil Front and as such was able to get international attention,” said Savenko. “But there are many other cases that are even more disturbing that have not made it to the public domain. We are on the verge of a wide-scale misuse of psychiatry for non-medical grounds that is reminiscent of Soviet times.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists has written to “President” Putin to demand Arap’s release:
August 14, 2007
His Excellency Vladimir Putin
President of the Russian Federation
The Kremlin
Moscow, Russia
Via Facsimile: 011 7 495 206 5137/206 6277
Your Excellency,
The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply disturbed by the illegal psychiatric confinement in the northern city of Apatity of opposition activist Larisa Arap. Arap’s forced hospitalization on July 5 came soon after the publication of a story she coauthored on the treatment of patients at the Murmansk regional psychiatric hospital in Apatity—the same hospital where she is being held today.
On June 8, the Murmansk edition of the opposition newspaper Marsh Nesoglasnykh (Dissenters’ March)—the organ of the opposition coalition United Civic Front (OGF), led by Garry Kasparov—published Arap’s story. Titled “Durdom” (“Madhouse”), it described how harsh medical practices, such as the use of electroshock therapy, were reportedly used in treating children and adolescents at Apatity.
On July 5, Arap went to a local clinic in Severomorsk to receive the results of a medical checkup she had undergone a month earlier as a requirement to renew her driver’s license. What was intended as a routine doctor’s visit turned into a 40-day nightmare. Her doctor, Marina Rekish, who had issued a certificate for Arap a year earlier, asked her whether she was the author of “Durdom.” When Arap confirmed that she was indeed the author, Rekish told her to wait outside. After some time, the doctor returned with several police officers who detained Arap until an ambulance arrived. Arap was taken to a Murmansk hospital where she was injected with drugs that weakened her, caused her tongue to swell, blurred her vision, and affected her balance, according to relatives who visited her at the hospital.
On July 7, when Arap’s husband, Dmitry, and daughter, Taisiya, were allowed to visit her at the hospital, Arap complained that the medical personnel had tied her to her bed and beat her. To protest the treatment, Arap went on a five-day hunger strike on July 9. Yelena Vasilyeva, chairwoman of the Murmansk branch of OGF and Arap’s trustee, told the Russian press that Arap feared doctors were drugging her meals.
It was not until July 18 that a Murmansk district court officially sanctioned Arap’s hospitalization, meaning her 13-day detention had been illegal. The court upheld an appeal by the hospital holding Arap and ignored entreaties from her relatives and colleagues who pointed out that she was not a danger to herself or people around her.
Despite protests from local and international opposition and human rights activists, authorities continued to hold Arap and medicate her without her diagnosis. Doctors have also refused to give her diagnosis to her family, lawyer, and trustee. On July 26, the 49-year-old Arap was taken to the Murmansk regional psychiatric hospital in Apatity—the place she described in “Durdom.”
The city of Apatity is about 100 miles (161 kilometers) south of Murmansk, and the hospital is outside city limits in a forested area. Mental patients housed there are considered a danger to themselves and those around them. On July 31, during a visit to Arap at Apatity, doctors openly asked Vasilyeva whether her coalition, OGF, was afraid of publishing an article like Arap’s “Durdom.” Arap is still being held at the hospital.
Responding to local and international protests, the Russian Ombudsman for Human Rights Vladimir Lukin commissioned an independent psychiatric evaluation of Arap.
Yesterday, Yuri Savenko, president of the Independent Psychiatric Association, concluded that Arap has been illegally hospitalized, the Interfax news agency reported. “Larisa Arap has been put in a clinic by force, rudely, and without any grounds,” Savenko told Interfax. “This style, which is typical of the Soviet times—to protect the state and not the person—is used by inertia,” Savenko was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, local sources told CPJ that Larisa Arap’s daughter, Taisiya, was fired from her job at a Murmansk bank last week. Her employers told her she had been giving too many interviews about her mother.
Your Excellency, the horrifying method of forcible psychiatric detention as punishment for dissent was a trademark of the Soviet past and has no place in a new, democratic Russia. We call on you to personally intervene in the case of Larisa Arap, who has been living a nightmare because she wrote a story that angered those same hospital authorities “treating” her now. In view of yesterday’s expert conclusion by the Independent Psychiatric Association, we ask that Larisa Arap be immediately released and that a criminal investigation is opened against those responsible for her illegal detention and psychiatric treatment.
Thank you for your attention to this matter. We await your reply.
Sincerely,
Joel Simon
Executive Director
http://russophobe.blogspot.com/2007/08/chicago-tribune-blasts-neo-soviet.html
Monday, August 20, 2007
Chicago Tribune Blasts Neo-Soviet Weaponization of Psychiatry
A devastating editorial from the Chicago Tribune rips the Kremlin a new one over its attempts to re-weaponize psychiatry:
Your Father’s Soviet Union
In the former Soviet Union, psychiatrists invented definitions of mental illness so warped that they came to include people guilty of nothing more than pursuing truth and justice. Dissidents routinely were tossed into psychiatric hospitals and tormented with psychotropic drugs merely because they had publicly disagreed with the government. If you opposed communism, the reasoning went, you had to be insane.
Those and other outrageous practices were routine for decades. But with the Soviet collapse, there was a sense among psychiatrists and watchdog groups in Russia and elsewhere that Russian authorities had halted such flagrant abuse of medicine and psychiatry.
Unfortunately, that may be false. As Tribune foreign correspondent Alex Rodriguez reported last week, Russian authorities are backsliding into Soviet-style repression, using psychiatry to suppress political opponents. “We’re returning to this Soviet scenario when psychiatric institutions are used as punitive instruments,” said Yuri Savenko, president of the Independent Psychiatric Association of Russia. “I call this not even punitive psychiatry but police psychiatry, when the main aim is to protect the state rather than to treat sick people.”
One chilling account: Earlier this summer, Larisa Arap, an activist with former chess champion Garry Kasparov’s movement opposed to Russian President Vladimir Putin, co-wrote an article alleging abusive practices at local psychiatric clinics. When she visited a Murmansk clinic to pick up a routine medical certificate to renew a driver’s license, a doctor called police and had her delivered to a local asylum. The apparent diagnosis: Opposing Putin. “One of the doctors asked whether I thought it was normal to write such things,” Arap’s daughter Taisiya said. “She said, ‘It’s not possible to write such things. It’s forbidden.’” In other words, she must be crazy to write those things.
So now Arap languishes in a psychiatric facility, drugged and woozy.
That’s a troubling throwback to Soviet days. The Soviets started to come clean and allegedly reform the system almost two decades ago. Officials acknowledged that psychiatry had been systematically used in the 1970s to suppress dissidents by declaring them mentally ill and committing them to asylums. It didn’t take much to warrant such treatment.
The government outlawed tossing sane people into mental institutions in 1988. Control of special psychiatric hospitals was handed from the police to health authorities. In 1991, a panel of Soviet scientists and psychiatrists formally apologized for one infamous case of unjustly diagnosing and hospitalizing a dissident who spoke out against Communist Party corruption and a “personality cult” around then-leader Nikita Khrushchev.
The abuses today don’t appear to be as widespread and systematic. But after so many years, why do they persist? One reason is that rule of law in Russia is still fragile. There are few checks and balances to prevent these kinds of things from happening. If a local psychiatrist or judge manages to commit someone for trumped-up reasons, there’s no strong national authority willing to intervene. Courts officials are often corrupt and tend to do the bidding of local and regional authorities.
It’s encouraging that some independent groups, such as Savenko’s, are willing to stand up to authorities and expose abuse. What’s needed now is the kind of unrelenting international scrutiny and pressure that forced reforms in the 1980s. That could come soon. Officials at the American Psychiatric Association say they’re “very concerned” and are examining allegations of abuse, according Dr. Carolyn Robinowitz, president of the American Psychiatric Association. “If this correct, this is absolutely shameful and intolerable,” she says.
If Soviet-style practices return, so must international scorn. Putin has striven over the past few years to “rebrand” Russia as a place that respects a certain amount of freedom of speech. It’s not your father’s Soviet Union, in other words. Except that, more and more, it is.
[I do not understand why China and Russia poison the children?]
http://russophobe.blogspot.com/2007/08/in-resurgent-russia-food-poisoning-runs.html
Monday, August 20, 2007
In “Resurgent” Russia, Food Poisoning Runs Rampant
RIA Novosti reports:
A total of 123 children have fallen ill in a case of mass food poisoning that has hit kindergartens throughout the Stavropol Territory, southern Russia, the local emergencies service said Friday. Since the poisoning outbreak, 44 children aged two to seven have been admitted to hospital along with one adult, while 39 are receiving out-patient treatment. A preliminary probe revealed that a single businessman supplied food to all the kindergartens affected, but it is unclear whether his products were the source of the poisoning.
The incident follows a number of mass food poisoning cases at children’s camps throughout Russia this summer.
In northwest Russia’s Novgorod Region about 120 children and adults were infected with an intestinal bug earlier this week. In late June in the Sverdlovsk Region, in the Urals, about 40 people, including 33 children, were hospitalized with acute intestinal infection. In the same month, dysentery led to the hospitalization of 93 children and two adults at two summer camps in the Moscow Region.
Monday, August 20, 2007
The Horror of Racism on Putin’s Russia Further Revealed
Blogger and journalist Mark MacKinnon documents the horror of racism in Russia first hand:
I still remember him. Tolessa was a young Ethiopian student attending Moscow’s famous People’s Friendship University, and one of the few I could find who would talk to a newspaper reporter about what it was like living as a foreigner - a black foreigner - in a time of rising Russian racism and xenophobia. It was a life of violence and fear that he told me about. He and the other African students on campus were so terrified of Russia’s notorious skinheads that they were afraid to leave their dorm rooms. When they did go out into the city around them, they went in groups.
Even at on-campus cafeteria, Tolessa was nervous and asked to sit at a table in the corner furthest from the windows. In the weeks before he and I had lunch, there had been eight arson attempts and several bomb threats directed at the dormitory where most of the African students were staying. “We stay on the campus and, if we want to go anywhere, we have to organize a group. Maybe in a group they won’t attack us,” he told me. “This group, the skinheads, they are not small in number. In fact, I sometimes feel as though they are half the population of Moscow. People tell us to leave this country, that Russia is only for the Russians.”
Russia for the Russians. It’s a phrase that I hear more and more often. One of my friends - as white as the Russian snow - was punched out for speaking English in Moscow. My wife and I were physically threatened by a group of skinheads on the metro who drunkenly told us “Yankees go home.” The fact that Canada is a separate state was lost on him, so we got off at the next station even though it was nowhere near from our destination.
The Moscow police, Tolessa told me, were open admirers of the “Russia for the Russians” crowd. When an African student who was attacked called for help, the police would just as often join the beating as stop it. It wasn’t just Africans. Anyone from the former Soviet republics of the Caucasus and Central Asia was liable to be targeted as chorniyy, or “black.”
For too long, the Kremlin tolerated and manipulated the ultranationalist crowd, allowing people like Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Dmitry Rogozin to spew hatred because it suited their political aims. If the West was truly worried that a Zhirinovsky or a Rogozin might come to power, it would let up in its calls for more openness and democracy and perhaps come to see someone like Vladimir Putin as a least-bad option. The strategy worked like a charm from a political point of view, but the monsters it created are now out of even the Kremlin’s control. Take the grisly execution video that was first posted on the Russian Internet community livejournal last week.
The killing of two men - one identified in a caption as an ethnic Tajik, the other as a Dagestani - was horrifying and disturbing. One was beheaded, the other shot, while their murderers shouted “Glory to Russia!” and displayed a Nazi flag. The video is titled “Operation of the National-Socialist Party of Russia to arrest and execute two colonists from Dagestan and Tajikistan.”
In a poorly attended press conference back in May, Alexander Brod of the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights warned that, in the past two years alone, the number of skinheads in Russia had risen from 50,000 to 70,000. “Nowadays, they could be found in each regional center, they are emerging even in small towns and villages. In big cities, the attacks happen nearly each day and murders [are committed] weekly,” he said. In other words, the only thing truly remarkable about the livejournal video is that the perpetrators bothered to film it.
http://russophobe.blogspot.com/2007/08/horror-of-racism-on-putins-russia.html
http://russophobe.blogspot.com/2007/08/in-neo-soviet-russia-writing-novels-is.html
Monday, August 20, 2007
In Neo-Soviet Russia, Writing Novels is Once Again a Criminal Offense
Radio Free Europe reports:
Russia’s modern literary history might soon open a new chapter — an author facing libel charges for characterizations contained in a work of fiction. Moscow city prosecutors have already questioned Pavel Astakhov about his novel, “Raider,” and are now deciding whether to open a criminal case. The head of the city police’s main investigative directorate, Ivan Glukhov, initiated the investigation by asking prosecutors to open a criminal case against Astakhov and his publishing company.
According to Glukhov, the novel “contains numerous insulting and libelous deliberations” about the directorate, and defames the reputation of Russian police in general. In his letter to prosecutors, Glukhov acknowledges that the novel is “literary-fictional,” but argues that, because the text refers to a police unit that actually exists, readers are being led to believe that events depicted in the story are true.
‘Recognized Problem’
The author’s lawyer, Mikhail Burmistrov, strongly disagrees. He tells RFE/RL’s Russian Service that the issue of police corruption is nothing new — and is even openly addressed by high-ranking officials in Russia. Therefore, Burmistrov says, his client’s book is simply touching on a recognized problem. “He [Astakhov] is not saying anything new, just highlighting some problems more clearly,” Burmistrov says. “And, what’s most important from a legal perspective, he does not mention a single concrete individual. This is really a work of fiction. And fictional work is that is created by author’s imagination.”
“Raider,” which can be described as a crime thriller, follows a plot centered on mergers and acquisitions among companies. The protagonist, a businessman, bribes officers from the investigative directorate, who raid companies and open criminal cases to his benefit. But in the story, a young lawyer confronts the corruption. The possibility that a criminal case could be opened against Astakhov has surprised many. The genre of crime thrillers is very popular in Russia, and the wrongdoings of law-enforcement agencies are often addressed in works of fiction.
Crackdown On Freedom
Some analysts believe that there are deeper motives behind this case — that it is intended to serve as a warning to authors by holding the threat of prosecution for what they write over their heads. The author of the hugely popular “Day Watch” and “Night Watch” series and arguably the most popular science-fiction writer in Russia today, Sergei Lukyanenko, is among those who feel this way. “Of course this worries me,” he says. “Because it’s easy to cross the line between observing the law, which is an essential part of any civilized country, and abusing the rights of ordinary citizens, abusing freedom of speech, and so on. This is a very difficult thing — and in the struggle to protect these laws it would be easy to overstep the mark and start to limit a person’s right to express himself freely.”
To some commentators, the possible case against Astakhov also represents part of an ongoing crackdown on independence within the country’s legal system. Apart from being a writer, Astakhov is a successful lawyer. And at various times he has represented Russia’s formerly independent television company, NTV — now owned by the state-controlled gas monopoly, Gazprom — and Yukos, against which the government led a politically charged campaign. Some believe that such activities of an independent lawyer may have angered the authorities. Prosecutors are expected to decide within a week whether to move forward with charges against Astakhov.
Thanks to Milford421 for this report:
Discovered in a stolen van in Orange County: a rocket-propelled grenade.CA
RPG Found in Stolen Van in Orange County
Sat, Aug 18, 2007 at 9:53:00 am PST
Discovered in a stolen van in Orange County: a rocket-propelled
grenade.
LAGUNA NIGUEL - A military-style rocket-propelled grenade found in a
customized van was disarmed and hauled off to the Orange County
Sheriff’s headquarters in Santa Ana.
The sheriff’s bomb squad called the Marines’ Explosive Ordnance
Detail from Camp Pendleton to disarm the weapon. Marines detonated
the device found in the recently stolen and recovered 2005 Ford E350
van with three explosives before taking the van from the scene was
declared safe.
Sheriff’s deputies were called to the 24000 block of Via Portola at
about 12:45 p.m. when Ernie Adkins, the van’s owner, found the
grenade stashed in the overhead rack.
Adkins’ reported his van stolen a few weeks ago. Upland police
returned to him.
UPDATE at 8/18/07 12:08:40 pm:
And in an oddly related story, cops in Orlando asked citizens to
turn in guns for bonuses, and received a surface-to-air missile
launcher.
Orlando emptied its bureau drawers and closets Friday of more than
300 unwanted guns — and one surface-to-air missile launcher.
The shoulder-fired weapon showed about 6 p.m. when an Ocoee man
drove to the Florida Citrus Bowl to trade the 4-foot-long launcher
for size-3 Reebok sneakers for his daughter.
“I didn’t know what to do with it, so I brought it here,” explained
the man, who said he found the missile in a shed he tore down last
week. “I took it to three dumps to try to get rid of it, and they
told me to get lost.”
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=26708_RPG_Found_in_Stolen_Van_in_Orange_County&only
To visit Milford421’s group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/under-investigation/
http://www.abc3340.com/news/stories/0807/448383.html
Hot Weather Forces Shutdown of Alabama Nuke Plant
Friday August 17, 2007 4:46pm
Birmingham (AP) - One reactor at a north Alabama nuclear plant remains off line today and two others are operating at reduced power because of the record-breaking heat wave.
The Tennessee Valley Authority said it shut down the Unit 2 reactor at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant and scaled back operations 25 percent at the plant’s other two reactors because of overheated water in the Tennessee River, which is used to cool the plant.
continues..........
http://www.abc3340.com/news/stories/0807/448385.html
Browns Ferry Sends Radioactive Canister to Valley Recycling
Friday August 17, 2007 4:48pm
Decatur (AP) - A 4-ounce can of radioactive material from the Browns Ferry Nuclear plant set off truck-monitor alarms at Tennessee Valley Recycling.
Browns Ferry spokesman Jason Huffine said the radiation level was extremely low and posed no health threat following Tuesday’s incident.
continued........
http://www.abc3340.com/news/stories/0807/448389.html
Trooper Seizes $244,000 in Traffic Stop
Friday August 17, 2007 4:54pm
Tuscaloosa (AP) - A traffic enforcement blitz across Alabama also resulted in the seizure of almost $245,000 in cash.
The money was confiscated yesterday during a traffic stop on Interstate 20/59 in Tuscaloosa County. Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Martha Earnhardt said the driver was cited for impeding traffic. She said the trooper got the driver’s permission to search the vehicle and found the money stashed in a hidden compartment.
The motorist, who was not charged or identified, denied knowing anything about the cash.
continued.............
[AP] ALABAMA - Anniston Depot Reported Stolen Radioactive Devices
“The Anniston Army Depot reported the theft of two telescopes
containing radioactive material days before reporting a small warehouse
fire involving the same material”
http://beta.abc3340.com/news/stories/0807/447123.html
Truck driver shot at East Side store
Thanks to Mark Taylor and Milford421.
Truck driver shot at East Side store
Web Posted: 08/15/2007 11:48 PM CDT
Express-News
An out-of-state truck driver was approached by three people and shot
in the chest when he stopped at an East Side store for a bathroom
break early Wednesday morning, a police report said.
Metin Perezic, 29, was taken to Brooke Army Medical Center and was
in satisfactory condition Wednesday, a hospital official said.
Perezic told police that when he went to use the restroom at 4:30
a.m. in the 3400 block of Interstate 10, he was confronted by three
people who pulled out a gun and demanded money, a police report
said. Perezic took off running, but not before a bullet struck him
in the chest. He managed to get back into his 18-wheeler and head
west on the Interstate 10 access road, where police later found him.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA081607.shooting.EN.3aecc6d3.html
http://aussie_news_views.typepad.com/aussie_news_views/
Aussie News & Views
Index 19 8 2007
Kevin Rudd typical Labor Socialist grub Scores in New York, courtesy of the Australian taxpayer. + VideoRudd’s image tarnished By Glenn MilneNews.com.auAugust 19, 2007 12:00am THE political danger for Kevin Rudd, as he contemplates his moment of New York madness, is that it gives the lie to the persona he has so far successfully sold to...
Publisher: Aussie News posted at Sunday, 19 August 2007 23:28:04
Battle of Long Tan remembered. Australia’s finest “Lest We Forget” +Video
Battle of Long Tan remembered. Presidental Unit Citation. Delta Company 6 Battalion Royal Australian Regiment By virtue of the authority invested in me as the President of the United States and as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the United...
Publisher: Aussie News posted at Sunday, 19 August 2007 22:37:16
Mohammed Alahmad : Murdered in Sydney’s Occupied Territories. +Video
News from Sydney’s Occupied Territories. Did spurned gangster shoot his rival in love?...who knows who cares. Riot Police called to subdue grieving Muslim relatives whilst Police try and preserve crime scene integrity, obviously an alien concept for the followers of...
Publisher: Aussie News posted at Sunday, 19 August 2007 22:33:57
Australians killed by Michael Moore’s Minutemen in Iraq. +Video
Michael Moore’s Minutemen kill two Australians in Iraq. Michael Moore’s hero’s, those Godless savages he describes as Minutemen have struck again, slaughtering 175 Iraqi’s in suicide bombings and injuring 200 others, see story below. Video tells of three Australian security...
Publisher: Aussie News posted at Wednesday, 15 August 2007 23:44:45
Aussie News & Views
“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy; its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” -Winston Churchill
Thanks to Milford421 for this report:
Kids Get Mysterious Rash at Long Island Park
http://www.1010wins.com/pages/825939.php?
contentType=4&contentId=812517
Posted: Saturday, 18 August 2007 8:12AM
Kids Get Mysterious Rash at Long Island Park
KINGS PARK, N.Y. (1010 WINS) — State parks officials say they’re
not sure what caused a mysterious rash that broke out on more than a
dozen children on a trip to a Long Island park.
continued.........it is around the kids eyes, they used binoculars that were supplied by the group?
Thanks to Milford421 for this report:
Identity theft. Mortgage fraud. Money Laundering. Pakistan.”
www.michellemalkin.com
Identity theft. Mortgage fraud. Money Laundering. Pakistan.”
By Michelle Malkin • August 17, 2007 02:00 PM Varifrank highlights
a mortgage fraud story with national security implications:
What began with an identity theft investigation eventually led the
FBI to an alleged mortgage fraud scheme involving subprime lenders
and dozens of homes in Stockton.
The FBI says Iftikhar Ahmad, 36, made millions by buying and selling
more than 100 houses over the past eleven years.
According to a complaint and supporting affidavit filed in federal
court, many of the transactions involved a quick turnaround with a
dramatic price increase.
One example is the sale of a house at 2228 E. Stadium Drive by Ahmad
for $330,000 in March 2006 to one of his three brothers. Ahmad
purchased the property just 18 months earlier for $99,000.
In another series of transactions, a house appreciated in value more
than tenfold over an eight-year period.
Ahmad purchased the home at 327 N. Pilgrim Street in 1997 for
$22,000. Investigators say Ahmad bought and sold the same property
twice before ultimately selling it a third time in 2005 for $236,000.
Many of the mortgages came from subprime lenders and in some cases
the buyers used stolen identities, according to the FBI.
Ahmad also faces money-laundering charges. Here’s the eyebrow-raiser:
Investigators have been unable to determine the exact losses to
lenders, but said bank statements from just one three-year period
showed Ahmad deposited $8.6 million from escrow closings.
The FBI believes Ahmad sent at least $484,000 of the money to his
native Pakistan.
Federal agents searched Ahmad’s home on Barbados Circle in Stockton
and the office of the El Camino Motel on East Mariposa Road, owned
by his family.
Investigators believe at least 14 people engaged in the scheme,
although the complaint names just two other alleged participants.
More: “According to the court documents, the FBI suspects a number
of real estate professionals of possible complicity in the scheme.
Among those questioned or investigated by the FBI are a mortgage
broker, loan officer, escrow officer, notary, and two appraisers.”
Maybe the money went towards Ahmad’s personal enrichment. But maybe
not. We’ve seen several fraud schemes carried out here by jihad
sympathizers. There was the Hezbollah cigarette-smuggling ring aided
by sham marriages between Americans and Middle Eastern operatives.
And there was the nationwide theft ring trafficking in black-market
baby formula to finance terror.
With the feds closing in on Muslim charities operating as jihad
front groups over the past several years (see here for the latest on
the Holy Land Foundation trial), it seems likely operatives would
turn to these kinds of criminal conspiracies to raise quick cash.
Worth keeping an eye on.
Kurds flee homes as Iran shells villages in Iraq - Iraqi Kurdish officials expressed deepening concern yesterday at an upsurge in fierce clashes between Kurdish guerrillas and Iranian forces in the remote border area of north-east Iraq, where Tehran has recently deployed thousands of Revolutionary Guards. The Guardian 8/20/07
When Not to Intervene - Large-scale military intervention is often counterproductive to fighting terrorism. U.S. interventionism has prompted Iran and North Korea to accelerate their nuclear programs to deter attacks against their countries. Meanwhile, the estimated 2 million Iraqis who have fled the killings and sectarian bloodshed can legitimately question how the war has advanced the cause of human rights. WP 8/20/07
Iran government dismisses top cleric’s criticism - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government has shrugged off unprecedented criticism from the head of the judiciary, telling the high-ranking cleric not to interfere, media reported on Sunday. - AFP 8/20/07
Ahmadinejad may visit Iraq: report - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has accepted an invitation to visit neighboring Iraq, Iran’s foreign minister said on Sunday, a move that would be unlikely to be welcomed by the United States. - Reuters 8/20/07
Iranian agents training militias in Iraq: U.S. general - U.S. intelligence reports indicate there are about 50 members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards training Shi’ite militias in how to use mortars and rockets in southern Iraq, a U.S. general said on Sunday - Reuters 8/19/07
Gunmen take 30 hostage in southeast Iran: reports - Gunmen took as many as 30 people hostage in southeast Iran on Sunday after burning vehicles and shooting at passengers, news agencies said, an incident blamed on Sunni Muslim rebels Tehran has previously linked to al Qaeda - Reuters 8/19/07
Iran hangs 30 over ‘US plots’ - Iran has hanged up to 30 people in the past month amid a clampdown prompted by alleged US-backed plots to topple the regime, The Observer can reveal. -The Observer 8/19/07
CNN Explores Religious Fundamentalism - Christiane Amanpour’s work on the documentary series “God’s Warriors” took her directly to intersections of extreme religious and secular thinking. - WP 8/19/07
Iran and Iraq has signed 65 agreements since Saddam fall - He pointed to the completion of a pipeline project which carries 350,000 barrels of oil from the Iraqi port city of Basra to Abadan in southern Iran per day - Mehr 8/19/07
Backlash Over Book on Policy for Israel - “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” is not even in bookstores, but already anxieties have surfaced about the backlash it is stirring, with several institutions backing away from holding events with the authors. - NYT 8/19/07
Amirkhani criticizes officials for neglecting art and culture - “Countries such as Qatar and Dubai are seeking to make history as well as to nurture great talents, while we who possess such an ancient and profound culture and great artistic abilities have fallen short in our capacity to showcase the reality of this treasury to the world.” - Mehr 8/19/07
Featured Video
Dinah Shore Sings An Iranian Love Song
Bam families hope to break world painting record - “The painting, which measures 3,842.9 meters in length, was drawn on a 5000-meter canvas on Thursday and we hope it will be registered in the Guinness World Records,” he added - mehr 8/19/07
Sacked Iran minister warns of energy ‘catastrophe’ - “If we do not find a solution to the energy problem in the next 15 years, the country will face a catastrophe,” Kazem Vaziri Hamaneh was quoted as saying at his farewell ceremony late on Saturday by the ISNA student news agency. - AFP 8/19/07
CLOSE UP ON SHOHREH AGHDASHLOO - Strangely enough it was a hair raiser for me too! It was an out of body experience for me. I have been working for 30 years and I have been to many places, many occasions, events- but this one was incredible! Watching Nativity with 7000 people who believe in spirituality and their energy was incredible! - Parisa Defaie & Darius KADIVAR 8/18/07
[update]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2152282,00.html
Airport bomber’s email to relative said he wanted to die for Allah
· Message from engineer who died from burns
· Phone found in burnt-out Jeep yields new evidence
Vikram Dodd
Monday August 20, 2007
Guardian
Detectives investigating the attempted car bombing of Glasgow airport have recovered a “claim of responsibility” written by Kafeel Ahmed, who died from burns he suffered in the attack, the Guardian has learned. Ahmed, 27, suffered more than 90% burns after he drove a Jeep laden with improvised explosives into the airport terminal, in Britain’s first attempted suicide car bombing.
Evidence recovered pointing to his role in June’s attempted attacks in London and Glasgow includes an email message sent just before the Glasgow attempted bombing, talking of martyrdom; CCTV footage from one of the failed car bombings in London showing a man relatives say is Ahmed, running away; evidence from a computer he used, showing visits to bomb-making websites; and his mobile phone from the smouldering Jeep.
The attack on Glasgow on June 30 came a day after two car bombs failed to go off near a crowded nightclub in the West End of London. On June 30, Ahmed sent a text message to a relative just after 1.30pm which contained a link to an email and a password to access it. Two hours later the engineer, who was born in Bangalore, crashed the Jeep into the terminal. Those who have seen the email regard it as Ahmed claiming responsibility for the attempted attacks on London and the one he was about to stage in Glasgow. According to a source, Ahmed says his actions were carried out in the name of Allah. Ahmed writes that his relative would be shocked to read what he is about to tell him about his involvement in terrorism, praises God, and says he wants martyrdom.
Initial evidence points to the relative opening the email at 4.50pm on the Saturday, 90 minutes after Ahmed had rammed the airport. From the email, the source said, it was clear he was expecting to die.
The flames that engulfed the vehicle were quickly put out, allowing Ahmed’s mobile to be recovered. He is believed to have used the mobile to send either the text message or the email to his relative.
A Whitehall source said it was believed that Ahmed decided to attack Glasgow after fearing police would soon hunt him down, which meant that the planning was rushed. The Guardian understands that police have CCTV images that show Ahmed apparently running away from the scene of the first London attack, and scurrying away from a car the terrorists meant to explode. Relatives shown the images are said to be nearly certain it is him.
Police have also seized his computer and found evidence it had been used to scour websites on the construction of bombs and explosives. Ahmed died at Glasgow Royal Infirmary on August 2.
A member of Ahmed’s medical team said the suspect was in a coma during his entire time in hospital. “This was one of the worst cases of burns I have ever seen,” he said. “It was very traumatic for everyone involved in his care. I was surprised he survived this long.”
The other man in the Jeep, the Iraqi doctor Bilal Abdullah, has been charged with conspiring to set off explosions “of a nature likely to endanger life or cause serious injury”. Two other people have been charged over the attacks. A Jordanian doctor, Mohammed Jamil Asha, is charged with conspiring to cause explosions. Ahmed’s brother, Sabeel Ahmed, 26, is charged with withholding information that could prevent an act of terrorism.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
Russia’s space exploration: its future lies with bold new projects
17/08/2007 17:03 Interview with Nikolai Sevastyanov, a former president of the Energia Space and Rocket Corporation
“Space exploration is no longer just a proud fetish for Russia and other world powers. Venturing out into near-Earth space and using it nowadays is a valuable resource for national development and improvement in the quality of life,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said early this year, defining the role of space research.
Space activities are becoming part of the economic, military and political development of a country.
Nikolai Sevastyanov, a former president of the Energia Space and Rocket Corporation, the flagship company of Russia’s space industry, describes the present state of and future prospects for Russia’s space industry in an exclusive interview with RIA Novosti commentator Andrei Kislyakov.
Question: What characterizes Russian space activities today?
Answer: If we take a look at Russia’s space situation, we will see three distinct programs: a manned program, a program for launch vehicles, and a program for unmanned spacecraft. Current manned systems date from the 1960s. The Soyuz space vehicle, for example, first blasted off in 1967. There were modernizations, of course, but the basic philosophy has remained unchanged - these are all one-off craft.
But the worst thing is that this equipment is manufactured by outdated methods and uses old analogue systems. If we want to keep ahead in manned flights, we should adopt new technologies.
As far as rockets are concerned, the situation is no better. The Soyuz and Proton launch vehicles, our pride, were developed in the 1950s and 1960s. And already today we have to limit payloads orbited by them. The Proton, moreover, poses an environmental risk. As for the Soyuz, it has a problem of cost. The multiple-stage principle on which it is built requires a large number of engines, which account for most of the price. Here, too, we should move to new technologies.
As regards unmanned spacecraft, things have slightly improved in this field since the 2000s, if we refer to communications satellites. Two major programs are currently under way: one is the fully innovatory Yamal program (Nikolai Sevastyanov was one of the developers of this now successfully running program - A. K.) and a program to develop the Express family of upgraded satellites.
But we have practically no Earth observation or remote-sensing satellites. Nor do we have any research satellite in orbit.
In other words, we are exploiting space equipment manufactured with old technologies. And this has a serious impact on the industry’s future. Why? It is not only that we will soon find ourselves non-competitive in performance and cost-benefit characteristics. There is also the problem of personnel. Young workers do not want to produce antiquated models on antiquated equipment. The industry is ageing fast without an injection of fresh blood.
There is another headache. We are lacking a civilian space center of our own. Any country planning to increase its share of the international space market must have its own non-military launching center. Baikonur is, of course, a good facility, but existing legal restrictions stand in the way of investments. Russia and Kazakhstan are on good terms, but there are recurrent bans on Russian rocket launches from Baikonur.
Russia has a space center in the Far East called Svobodny. It could form a good companion to Baikonur, adding to Russia’s capability to launch spacecraft. Investments in new technologies would improve the performance and cost-benefit outlook for space hardware.
Q: What must be done to pursue the three space activities you mentioned?
A: A must is a program based on bold new projects rather than on previous developments. It could provide the occasion not only to retain Russia’s place in the space services market but also to regain its former leadership, attract young people into the industry, and promote related activities.
Last year, the corporation formulated a concept for a manned flight program and set out guidelines for Russia’s space effort till 2050. The corporation’s research council and an Academy of Sciences meeting endorsed them. In 2007, we presented them at academic readings dedicated to the 100th birth anniversary of Sergei Korolyov. The Russian Space Agency, however, has not yet supported them.
The program has four main aspects.
The first deals with a transport system. Today it is of fundamental importance. New developments must be more effective economically than old ones. We have suggested that an integral space transport system be established and, in addition to the Kliper vehicle, a new modern launch rocket developed, also capable of placing satellites in orbit. We have further proposed a space center of our own, as I have said before. The problem of space transport was thus addressed on an integrated basis, not piecemeal.
The second aspect is concerned with the commercial use of near-Earth space. The actual process is already under way. Modern communications satellites offer society exactly a commercially marketable service. This ensures a refund on investments made in communications satellites.
The next stage is Earth observation satellites. In the era of rapid industrial development and exploration of new territories, it is practically impossible to do without remote sensing.
It is also hard to overestimate the role of space navigation. The Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS) is being successfully implemented. To know more about Universe, we must have our own scientific satellites.
I would like to stress particularly the manned part of near-Earth activities, and above all the International Space Station (ISS) as an international space port for at least the Russian segment of the station. Semiconductors and biopreparations are today the rage all over the world. Their manufacture can be successfully organized in orbit, using a high vacuum and the absence of gravity.
The third aspect deals with lunar studies. The program to explore the Moon will have an invigorating effect on our science, industry and education, and help combine fundamental research with hands-on activities in different branches.
But it is also necessary to consider the Moon as a source of minerals. This line has many followers and opponents nowadays, and needs careful examination. This brings to mind the way polar aviation came into being. While in the 1930s it could be described as a fashionable sport, today no one doubts that the polar territories cannot be tapped without such aviation. I believe that space, too, will be a well of new resources.
The fourth aspect features the Martian project we developed last year. I am referring to its manned part.
To sum up, we must today go over to new projects with new technical characteristics to obtain a greater economic effect. We should start with the development of a space transport system and a national space center.
Q: How do you assess Energia’s activities?
A: In 2002-2004, the corporation was in a near-bankrupt state. Its revenue was falling, its losses building up.
In 2005, I was asked to return to the company and pull it out of its deep financial crisis. In the same year the company managed to get back into the black. The corporation made its first earnings: revenue grew by 17% on 2004, and profits by 159 million rubles ($6.18 million). In 2006, revenue rose by 38% and profits amounted to 509 million rubles ($19.77 million). The company was able not only to cover the losses of previous years, but also to form its own funds for innovatory development.
Today we have a marketing development plan. The board of directors last December approved a program for development in 2007 and examined a similar program until 2015. The most important thing is that new initiatives were approved: the Kliper in the manned section, and the Yamal-300 satellite in the unmanned part.
In the past two years our engineers have also drawn up a program for the creation of a space transport system of a new generation, called Kliper.
I hope that Energia will carry on with these projects and make them part of a new innovatory program of Russia’s space exploration.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
© 2005 RIA Novosti
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20070817/72126740.html
http://www.arminfo.info/index.php?show=archive&number=20070804_211800_eng_3225
2007-08-04 21:18:00 Azerbaijani citizen taken captive because of dreaminess
Azerbaijani citizen Anar Aliev was taken captive because of dreaminess. “I was walking along the riverbank. Suddenly I met soldiers. They took me to their place. I am all right. They had a talk with me today. They promised me to inform my relatives that I am here. Maybe, I’ll return with help of the Red
Cross organization. Don’t worry about me. Anar”, says the letter of Anar Maarif oglu Aliev, the resident of Terter town, to his relatives, APA Office in Karabakh reports. Anar Aliev was taken captive on August 2. The Azerbaijani representation of the International Committee of the Red Cross passed the letter to the captive’s brother Elshan Aliev. To note, the representatives of ICRC Office in Nagorno-Karabakh met the Azerbaijani captive on Saturday. The captive’s father Maarif Aliev said that his son had emotional
stress over the past year. “Recently, he liked loneliness. He has reacted to the simplest things nervously and even rebelliously. We learnt about his captivity from the press,” Anar’s father said.
Anar Aliev was born in 1978, has higher education, served in the army. He is not married. On August 2 he was taken captive on the contact line of the Azervaijani and NKR armed forces.
Four in hospital after Taiwanese plane blast in Japan
20/08/2007 09:41 TOKYO, August 20 (RIA Novosti) - Four people were admitted to hospital after the successful evacuation of passengers from a Taiwanese jet that burst into flames on landing on a Japanese island Monday, police and firefighters in Okinawa said.
All 157 passengers and eight crewmembers were evacuated on emergency inflatable chutes, minutes before the China Airlines Boeing 737 exploded.
Local police said one crewmember and one Naha Airport worker were in hospital but the degree of their injuries was not yet clear.
The local fire department said two passengers, a 57-year-old man and a seven-year-old girl, were in hospital suffering shock, but were not injured.
After landing at 10:27 a.m. local time (1:27 a.m. GMT) on Okinawa Island, a popular tourist resort halfway between Taiwan and the Japanese mainland, one of the airliner’s engines caught fire. Investigators cited leaking fuel as a likely cause of the explosion on the plane, which had flown in from Taipei.
Taiwan-based China Airlines has a patchy safety record, with several fatal accidents since the early 1990s.
http://en.rian.ru/world/20070820/72461044.html
http://www.nunatsiaq.com/news/nunavut/70817_414.html
August 17, 2007
It’s official: Nanisivik new port site
Resolute Bay to get new Arctic military training centre
CHRIS WINDEYER
Ending more than a year of speculation, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Aug. 10 that Nanisivik will be home to a deep-water port, while Resolute Bay will be the site of a new Arctic military training centre.
Harper capped a whirlwind tour of Nunavut and the Northwest Territories with quick stops in Resolute Bay and Nanisivik. He also announced plans to re-equip and expand the Canadian Rangers from 4,100 to 5,000 personnel.
“Taken together, the creation of the Canadian Forces Arctic Training Centre, the expansion and modernization of the Canadian Rangers and the development of Port Nanisivik will significantly strengthen Canada’s sovereignty over the Arctic,” Harper said during a stop in Resolute Bay. “These initiatives will also benefit communities throughout the region by creating jobs and opportunities and enhancing the safety and security of the people who live here.”
The total cost of last week’s announcements adds up to $584 million over 20 years.
A government backgrounder put the cost of upgrading the existing dock at Nanisivik at $100 million. Construction would begin in 2010, with the site fully operational by 2015.
“With its sheltered harbour, nearby jet-capable airstrip, and proximity to the Northwest Passage, Nanisivik offers an ideal location for the docking and refuelling facility,” the backgrounder states.
Hugo Clement, owner of Volco Northern Terminal Inc., the company that operates the 14-million-litre fuel tank farm at Nanisivik wondered if the government even needs to spend $100 million to upgrade the port.
“They can use it as is,” he said, though he added he’s unfamiliar with the military’s exact plans for the site.
“[But] that’s a very economic decision for the government to use that place,” Clement said.
The decision to use Nanisivik as the port location is a blow for Iqaluit, which lobbied for years to be the home for a deep-water port. The city had even gone as far as to commission a consultant’s report pegging the cost of building a single-berth dock in the capital at under $50 million.
The Canadian Forces Arctic Training Centre in Resolute Bay will serve as a training base and staging area for southern military and Canadian Rangers. It also gives the forces the ability to conduct patrols in the High Arctic year-round.
With a start-up cost of $4 million, the centre will cost about $2 million per year to run. Twelve military staff, two based in Resolute Bay, will run the centre, which will have capacity for 100 personnel at peak use.
Susan Salluviniq, mayor of Resolute Bay, skipped the prime minister’s announcement because of a prior engagement, but said the training centre is good news for her hamlet of 300 people. Salluviniq said she’s not worried about her community being swamped by soldiers when the centre is fully staffed.
“We get a lot of tourists here,” she said. “It shouldn’t have such a big impact for this community.”
Ottawa also plans to spend $45 million to add 900 Canadian Rangers and upgrade their weapons and uniforms. Many Rangers currently use Lee-Enfield rifles, which have been in production since 1907.
The government backgrounder also said the Rangers will also see an “enhancement of transportation capabilities,” though it didn’t provide any further details.
Harper’s announcement came just weeks after Russia planted a flag on the ocean floor under the North Pole, kicking off what some are calling a land rush to claim sovereignty over the Arctic Ocean. U.S. officials speculate as much as 25 per cent of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas reserves lie under the Arctic.
Russia claims more than half of the Arctic Ocean as an undersea extension of its territory, though Canada, Denmark and the United States dispute this.
But the Reuters news agency reported last week that Russia pledges to observe international law. Russia must make its submission to the United Nations agency governing the Law of the Sea Convention by the end of 2007.