July 19, 2008
go to "blog" link to http://mazeikabloginternationalnews.blogspot.com/
for archival reports for the months of July and June, 2008Pass this link on to other readers! Breaking stories.....your comments are welcome.... Place this "blog link" into your computer favorites for easy access. =======================================================
Visit our interactive website and new featured listings....at http://www.ocrelocate.com/ Ocean to Mountains Real Estate for all Orange County Tony & Danute Mazeika...... 949 721-3445 pager.... 949 929-9051 cell
Celebrating 21 years and more than 500 successful real estate transactions... Don't miss incredible market opportunities....... Prices are at Year 2002 level... May home sales up significantly ...Positive signs of market recovery are here. Inventory is decreasing. You may qualify for a credit on closing costs and savings on escrow fees...Ask us how...... Don't delay..call us today! 949 721-3445 ================================================================ Please support this unique blog.....Buy your ....Books, Dvds, and CDs on our special link access to Amazon.Com Tony & Danute ===================================================================== Breaking news & commentary
Click on active links for original articles and photos........
Chertoff: European Terrorists Trying to Enter U.S.
Chertoff: European Terrorists Trying to Enter U.S.
Thursday, July 17, 2008 10:40 PM
WASHINGTON - European terrorists are trying to enter the United States with European Union passports, and there is no guarantee officials will catch them every time, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday.
Chertoff's comments on Capitol Hill comes as the country is entering a potentially vulnerable period with the presidential nominating conventions coming up next month; the presidential election in November; and the transition to a new administration in January — all of which may be attractive targets for terrorists.
In his last scheduled appearance before the House Homeland Security Committee, Chertoff said that the more time and space al-Qaida and its allies have to recruit, train, experiment and plan, the more problems the U.S. and Europe will face down the road.
"The terrorists are deliberately focusing on people who have legitimate Western European passports, who don't appear to have records as terrorists," Chertoff told lawmakers. "I have a good degree of confidence we can catch people coming in. But I have to tell you ... there's no guarantee. And they are working very hard to slip by us."
Chertoff and other intelligence officials have delivered similar warnings before, and he offered no new information about specific threats or an imminent attack.
Chertoff reiterated his concern that terrorists could sneak radiological material into the country on small boats or private aircraft. This material could be used to create an explosive device known as a "dirty bomb."
The Homeland Security Department has a strategy to protect against this small boat vulnerability and is testing radiation detection equipment in Seattle and San Diego ports.
Chertoff said that getting out a regulation to prescreen and enhance security of general aviation aircraft coming to the U.S. from overseas is one of his top priorities.
He also said he expects to approve new radiation detection technology this fall.
Responding to a question from Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, Chertoff dismissed any rumor that he is on a list of potential running mates for Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Chertoff quipped that the only list he has for next year is a list of vacations.
Chertoff's term as the country's second Homeland Security Secretary ends when a new administration takes over the White House in January.
http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/terrorists_european_enter/2008/07/17/113933.html?s=al&promo_code=6637-1
================================================================
WASHINGTON - European terrorists are trying to enter the United States with European Union passports, and there is no guarantee officials will catch them every time, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday.
Chertoff's comments on Capitol Hill comes as the country is entering a potentially vulnerable period with the presidential nominating conventions coming up next month; the presidential election in November; and the transition to a new administration in January — all of which may be attractive targets for terrorists.
In his last scheduled appearance before the House Homeland Security Committee, Chertoff said that the more time and space al-Qaida and its allies have to recruit, train, experiment and plan, the more problems the U.S. and Europe will face down the road.
"The terrorists are deliberately focusing on people who have legitimate Western European passports, who don't appear to have records as terrorists," Chertoff told lawmakers. "I have a good degree of confidence we can catch people coming in. But I have to tell you ... there's no guarantee. And they are working very hard to slip by us."
Chertoff and other intelligence officials have delivered similar warnings before, and he offered no new information about specific threats or an imminent attack.
Chertoff reiterated his concern that terrorists could sneak radiological material into the country on small boats or private aircraft. This material could be used to create an explosive device known as a "dirty bomb."
The Homeland Security Department has a strategy to protect against this small boat vulnerability and is testing radiation detection equipment in Seattle and San Diego ports.
Chertoff said that getting out a regulation to prescreen and enhance security of general aviation aircraft coming to the U.S. from overseas is one of his top priorities.
He also said he expects to approve new radiation detection technology this fall.
Responding to a question from Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, Chertoff dismissed any rumor that he is on a list of potential running mates for Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Chertoff quipped that the only list he has for next year is a list of vacations.
Chertoff's term as the country's second Homeland Security Secretary ends when a new administration takes over the White House in January.
http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/terrorists_european_enter/2008/07/17/113933.html?s=al&promo_code=6637-1
================================================================
Another Dam Threat
July 16, 2008 1614 GMT
By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart
At the stroke of midnight July 8, the Denver Water Board closed the road over Dillon Dam in Summit County, Colorado, citing security concerns. The board’s decision, which was implemented without advance notice to local governments and citizens, has not been well-received. It has sparked protests by enraged residents and has even prompted officials from Summit County, three affected towns nearby and the local fire and rescue department to file suit in state district court in a bid to force Denver Water to reopen the road.
The road is one of only a few traversing Summit County, so residents are understandably upset at the inconvenience caused by the closure. Local fire and rescue departments also say closing the road negatively affects emergency response times. This not the first time the road has been closed, however. The road was shut down for a week in January after a report of suspicious activity in the area — activity investigated by authorities and found to be nothing more than two men from Denver filming a music video. The Water Board has spent several million dollars to improve security for the mile-long dam road, and in May it even hired a private security company to conduct 24-hour armed patrols of the dam.
Denver Water has said the decision to close the road was not made in response to a specific threat, and we tend to believe this. With the heat they’ve received over the issue, they surely would have cited evidence of a specific threat to assuage public anger if there had been such information.
But the ruckus raised over the closure of the Dillon Dam road provides a prime opportunity to re-examine the ability of jihadist militants to operate inside the United States, and to look at the types of targets militants might be most likely to select for an attack.
Assessing the Militant Threat
To assess a threat against a potential target like the Dillon Dam, several important tactical realities must be considered. The first is that as long as the ideology of jihadism exists and at least some jihadist militants embrace the philosophy of attacking the “far enemy” — aka the United States — there will be some threat of attacks against targets on U.S. soil. Indeed, there has not been a time since 1990 when some group of jihadists somewhere was not plotting such an attack.
A second tactical reality is that the U.S. government and the American people simply cannot protect every potential target. There are simply far too many of them. While insights gained from al Qaeda’s targeting criteria can help authorities protect select high-value targets, there are just too many potential targets to protect them all. The federal government might instruct state and local authorities to protect every dam, bridge, power plant and mass-transit system in their respective jurisdictions, but the reality on the ground is that there are not nearly enough resources to protect all of these, much less to protect the far more plentiful array of potential soft targets.
Another tactical reality is that simple attacks against soft targets are very easy to conduct and very difficult to detect in advance and thwart. As an attack plan becomes larger and more complex, however, it requires more individuals, more materials and more infrastructure. This means that the bigger the attack plan is, the more difficult it is to conduct and the greater the chances it will be discovered and thwarted.
That said, just because attacks are possible — and indeed likely — and because there are a large number of vulnerable targets does not mean that all the vulnerable targets will be attacked. The capabilities and targeting criteria of militants also must be considered.
Capability
Let’s begin with the capability question first. When considering the capability of militants to strike in the United States, one must recognize that with regard to militant jihadists there are generally three different levels of actors to consider. First, there is the core al Qaeda organization; this is the small vanguard of jihadists led by Osama bin Laden attempting to lead a global rising of the Muslim masses. Second, there are al Qaeda’s regional franchises (such as al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb), which are local or regional jihadist groups that have aligned themselves with al Qaeda, hoping to capitalize on the group’s popular brand name. And third, there are the local, self-motivated grassroots jihadists who think globally and act locally.
All three of these actors have different target selection criteria and different levels of capability. There is currently no al Qaeda franchise in the United States or even in the Western Hemisphere. This means that the main threat of an attack against a target in the United States will come from either the core al Qaeda group, a grassroots organization or a combination of the two, so we will focus our attention on those two actors.
Grassroots actors lack sophisticated terrorist tradecraft in crucial areas like preoperational planning and bomb making. Recent cases such as the July 7, 2005, attacks in London, the failed July 21, 2005, attacks in London, and the June 2007 attacks in London and Glasgow demonstrate the limited abilities of grassroots militants. They can sometimes kill people, but they do not have the ability to conduct large, strategic strikes.
Because of this, grassroots militants will often attempt to reach out for assistance if they desire to undertake a major attack. This is exactly what we saw in the early 1990s in New York. Grassroots operatives there were able to pull off a simple attack like the assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane, but they needed assistance for their bigger, more complex plans. In the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the local cell received assistance in the form of Abdel Basit (aka Ramzi Yousef), who helped them organize, plan their attack and construct a large truck-borne explosive device. In the second 1993 case, the local cell turned to an FBI informant for bomb-making expertise and were apprehended before they could strike.The 2006 plot to bomb a series of airliners in the United Kingdom was likewise a case where a local grassroots cell received assistance from an al Qaeda operational commander but was thwarted before it could carry out its attack — mainly due to the complexity of the plan and the number of people involved.
Thus, without assistance the odds of a successful attack by a grassroots group against a target like a dam are low. Perhaps the greatest threat posed by a grassroots group is that one of its operatives could gain employment as an engineer at a dam — therefore gaining the opportunity to sabotage the equipment controlling the dam from the inside and turning the dam into a weapon against itself. This is similar to the threat posed by insiders at chemical plants. There have also been concerns previously that a savvy cyber-jihadist could assume control of the dam’s equipment via gaps in the information security of the entity running the dam.
As for the al Qaeda core, while the group may theoretically have personnel with the expertise to undertake such an attack, they have been extremely limited in their operational ability since the U.S. response to 9/11. We came under widespread criticism last July when we wrote that the al Qaeda core was a spent force that did not pose a strategic threat to the U.S. homeland, but our assessment holds one year on. Indeed, the vast majority of attacks attributed to the al Qaeda brand name since September 2001 have been conducted by regional franchises like Jemaah Islamiyah, al Qaeda in Iraq or al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, not core al Qaeda. In our assessment, the al Qaeda core might have some ability to attack, but it no longer has the ability to conduct a devastating strategic attack such as 9/11.
The Dam as a Target
It is possible to destroy a dam. Indeed, the British Royal Air Force destroyed German dams during World War II, and aircraft from the United States and its U.N. allies destroyed a North Korean hydroelectric dam during the Korean War. In general, however, dams are very large structures designed and built to withstand powerful forces such as floods and earthquakes. Because of this, it would be very difficult to destroy one with an improvised explosive device, unless the attacker could strike at a strategic location that would cause a leak in the structure (as the British did in their attacks on German dams) or at a location that would allow the water to overtop the dam and erode it — in either case, using the power of the water behind the dam to cause the structure to fail catastrophically.
Even with massive resources, however, it is not easy to destroy a large dam made of earth and rock. For proof, one need only to look at the massive efforts of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in China to unblock the Qingjiang River after it was dammed up by debris following the powerful May 12 earthquake. The PLA has used heavy machinery and massive amounts of explosives in their efforts. One July 2 blast on the Shibangou section of the river reportedly involved 6 tons of strategically placed explosives alone. It is very unlikely that militants would have the ability to carefully place that quantity of explosives on a dam in the United States without being detected.
Obtaining explosives in Western countries is also becoming more difficult in the post-9/11 era. Even the 2006 airliner plot involved small amounts of improvised explosives rather than an attack with a huge device, and the 9/11 attacks involved no explosives at all. The grassroots militants involved in the London and Glasgow attacks in the summer of 2007 also had problems obtaining explosives, and they instead chose to try using improvised (and ill-designed) fuel-air explosive devices in those incidents.
If a militant group planned properly and somehow amassed a sufficient quantity of explosives, it would be possible for it to destroy a dam. But that does not mean a group like al Qaeda would target a dam. Even if the group had the ability to conduct such an attack, it probably would choose to use such a large quantity of explosives to attack a far more symbolic target than a dam in rural Colorado.
While al Qaeda’s Taliban cousins have conducted several unsuccessful attacks against dams in southern Afghanistan, the situation on the ground in Afghanistan is far different than that in the United States. The Taliban in Afghanistan are a large, well-supplied insurgent force that regularly strikes at infrastructure such as roads, bridges and even schools.
Conversely, there is no large jihadist element in the United States. There are only scattered grassroots operatives and perhaps a few transnational al Qaeda-types available to conduct attacks. To our mind, that means that these operatives will want to maximize their efforts and undertake the most meaningful and symbolic attacks possible. Rather than choosing targets based on military utility (like the Taliban in Afghanistan), al Qaeda generally chooses targets in the United States for their potential symbolic value so as to elicit the greatest political or psychological impact, which they then hope will translate into economic impact.
This is not intended as an insult to the people of Colorado, but the Dillon Dam simply does not strike us as the kind of target that will carry the type of symbolic or economic impact al Qaeda would seek in an U.S. attack. Symbolic targets need to be readily recognizable not only by the people who live close to them, but also by people looking at a photo in a Pakistani newspaper. The World Trade Center, the Pentagon, the U.S. Capitol, the United Nations, or even the Library Tower in Los Angeles, the Sears Tower in Chicago, the strip in Las Vegas or the Space Needle in Seattle are highly symbolic targets that would meet these requirements. The Dillon Dam does not. In fact, we are Americans and had not even heard of this specific dam until the reports of the controversy over the road closure emerged.
Does this mean that jihadists will never strike in Denver? Not at all. Lone wolf or grassroots operatives could very well strike there. As seen in past cases in New Jersey, Florida and California, such people normally seek to strike in familiar territory close to where they live, and there might well be jihadists residing in Denver. But again, such a strike by grassroots operatives or lone wolves would likely be a smaller attack aimed at a soft target. We remain skeptical of the idea of al Qaeda dispatching a team from their headquarters in Pakistan to travel to the United States to destroy the Dillon Dam. The Democratic National Convention in Denver, maybe — but not the Dillon Dam.
http://www.stratfor.com/
==================================================
Geopolitical Diary: The Situation on the Afghan-Pakistani Border
July 17, 2008
Media reports about a Western military buildup in Afghanistan along the border with Pakistan have created a considerable stir in the region and beyond about a potential U.S. offensive against jihadists in northwestern Pakistan. This is something we at Stratfor have been predicting for some time. There is definitely a buildup taking place, but we are not quite yet at the point where U.S. forces will be conducting large-scale military operations on Pakistani soil.
Following a large, coordinated Taliban attack on a small military outpost in the eastern province of Nuristan in Afghanistan that killed nine U.S. soldiers July 13, reports have been flying of military activity on the border by both sides. Unconfirmed reports (later denied by both Pakistan and NATO) of U.S. armored vehicles, artillery and troops taking up positions along the border further south in Paktika province, opposite North and South Waziristan, emerged July 15. That night, NATO claims the Afghan National Army and U.S. Special Forces killed some 150 fighters entering Afghanistan from Pakistan and insisted that most were Pakistani. Then, on July 16, Pakistani security forces reportedly engaged Taliban fighters on their side of the border. U.S. forces, meanwhile, abandoned the outpost that was attacked over the weekend, claiming that it was only temporary anyway. The Taliban quickly claimed to have overrun it. A counteroffensive could be in the works.
Though the toll to U.S. forces July 13 was high, much of the subsequent activity — some unconfirmed — is not necessarily out of the ordinary. As Taliban fighters in Afghanistan rest and resupply in Pakistan, NATO and U.S. military activity along the border is hardly abnormal (the United States is heavily involved in the International Security Assistance Force’s Regional Command East, which is responsible for that portion of the border). Furthermore, with Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri still at large (likely somewhere in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) in Pakistan), the White House has renewed interest in securing a capture before inauguration day in 2009.
But ultimately, there is no doubt that activity along that part of the border has been on the rise in the past few months, and it is equally clear that both NATO and the United States are publicly emphasizing the problem.
The extent of the problem is difficult to overstate. Top U.S. military commander in Iraq Gen. David Petraeus has been confirmed as the new head of U.S. Central Command, and as we have argued, his tenure is largely about bringing the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan under control. His challenge extends across the border into Pakistan. Islamabad has never really been able to control the tribal belt. In 2004, the Pakistani army was unable to impose a military solution when under U.S. pressure it entered the Waziristan region of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA); instead, it negotiated several arrangements and left the paramilitary Frontier Corps as a notional presence. However, those arrangements were short-lived, and the situation has deteriorated to the point that Taliban control is not limited to the autonomous tribal belt but has spread to many areas of the NWFP.
For most of the time since the Taliban’s regime in Afghanistan fell in late 2001, Taliban activity was concentrated predominantly in the southern provinces, with very little activity in the eastern parts of the country along the border with Pakistan’s tribal belt. In the last year or so, Taliban forces in Pakistan’s Pashtun areas have been able to undermine the writ of the state (which is already weakened by political strife). The deterioration of the situation in FATA and NWFP has affected the areas west of the border — hence the rise in jihadist activities in eastern Afghanistan in recent months.
In turn, this has led to the growing impatience in Washington, Kabul, and New Delhi over the state of affairs in Pakistan, where paralysis has exacerbated the regional security situation. Stratfor has on several prior occasions discussed the growing U.S. assertiveness to deny the Taliban and al Qaeda the sanctuaries they enjoy in Pakistan. But that goal remains elusive because of tactical realities on the ground — insufficient troops, inhospitable terrain, lack of intelligence capabilities and the strong anti-U.S. sentiment among the natives.
This would explain why until fairly recently the United States mostly relied on precision airstrikes using Predator drones and clandestine operations, which have grown more frequent in recent months. The situation created by Islamabad’s engaging in talks with militants from a position of weakness has forced Washington to take a much more aggressive stance — an example of which was the airstrike that killed 11 Pakistani soldiers manning an outpost toward the northern rim of the FATA. To a great extent, the increase in pressure from the United States is designed to force Islamabad to adopt a more decisive attitude towards the problem.
The incoherence within Pakistan’s political and military circles, however, prevents any success in this regard. This leaves the United States with no choice but to move ahead on the unilateral front. As cross-border ground operations — such as hot-pursuits, interdiction of militant traffic, or hitting targets of opportunity — become the norm it will create a battlefield that doesn’t recognize the Afghan-Pakistani frontier — at least in the FATA. The jihadists are actually hoping for large-scale U.S. military activity on Pakistani soil because they desperately want to broaden the scope of their insurgency from one currently being waged by a religious ideological minority to one of a nationalistic flavor bringing in participation from more mainstream cross-sections of Pakistan.
In the meantime, Petraeus will be massing troops and formulating a strategy. The Pentagon also announced July 16 the potential for additional troops to be surged to Afghanistan this year. This will take time (and the Afghan winter will soon begin to loom), but the tempo, nature and depth of U.S. operations into Pakistan will play an important role in the way the situation escalates. However, it is the definition of a slippery slope, as the United States has neither the troops nor the legal authority to attempt to command the ground in — much less reconstruct — Pakistani territory. While it would almost certainly limit itself to pointed raids and focus on denying the territory as sanctuary for the Taliban, the consequences in terms of nationalist sentiment in Pakistan will be profound. And ultimately, the Pakistani state has the most to lose from such a scenario, as it will be caught between the United States and its own people.
http://www.stratfor.com/
U.S.: French Firm Fined Over Sales To Iran
Media reports about a Western military buildup in Afghanistan along the border with Pakistan have created a considerable stir in the region and beyond about a potential U.S. offensive against jihadists in northwestern Pakistan. This is something we at Stratfor have been predicting for some time. There is definitely a buildup taking place, but we are not quite yet at the point where U.S. forces will be conducting large-scale military operations on Pakistani soil.
Following a large, coordinated Taliban attack on a small military outpost in the eastern province of Nuristan in Afghanistan that killed nine U.S. soldiers July 13, reports have been flying of military activity on the border by both sides. Unconfirmed reports (later denied by both Pakistan and NATO) of U.S. armored vehicles, artillery and troops taking up positions along the border further south in Paktika province, opposite North and South Waziristan, emerged July 15. That night, NATO claims the Afghan National Army and U.S. Special Forces killed some 150 fighters entering Afghanistan from Pakistan and insisted that most were Pakistani. Then, on July 16, Pakistani security forces reportedly engaged Taliban fighters on their side of the border. U.S. forces, meanwhile, abandoned the outpost that was attacked over the weekend, claiming that it was only temporary anyway. The Taliban quickly claimed to have overrun it. A counteroffensive could be in the works.
Though the toll to U.S. forces July 13 was high, much of the subsequent activity — some unconfirmed — is not necessarily out of the ordinary. As Taliban fighters in Afghanistan rest and resupply in Pakistan, NATO and U.S. military activity along the border is hardly abnormal (the United States is heavily involved in the International Security Assistance Force’s Regional Command East, which is responsible for that portion of the border). Furthermore, with Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri still at large (likely somewhere in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) in Pakistan), the White House has renewed interest in securing a capture before inauguration day in 2009.
But ultimately, there is no doubt that activity along that part of the border has been on the rise in the past few months, and it is equally clear that both NATO and the United States are publicly emphasizing the problem.
The extent of the problem is difficult to overstate. Top U.S. military commander in Iraq Gen. David Petraeus has been confirmed as the new head of U.S. Central Command, and as we have argued, his tenure is largely about bringing the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan under control. His challenge extends across the border into Pakistan. Islamabad has never really been able to control the tribal belt. In 2004, the Pakistani army was unable to impose a military solution when under U.S. pressure it entered the Waziristan region of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA); instead, it negotiated several arrangements and left the paramilitary Frontier Corps as a notional presence. However, those arrangements were short-lived, and the situation has deteriorated to the point that Taliban control is not limited to the autonomous tribal belt but has spread to many areas of the NWFP.
For most of the time since the Taliban’s regime in Afghanistan fell in late 2001, Taliban activity was concentrated predominantly in the southern provinces, with very little activity in the eastern parts of the country along the border with Pakistan’s tribal belt. In the last year or so, Taliban forces in Pakistan’s Pashtun areas have been able to undermine the writ of the state (which is already weakened by political strife). The deterioration of the situation in FATA and NWFP has affected the areas west of the border — hence the rise in jihadist activities in eastern Afghanistan in recent months.
In turn, this has led to the growing impatience in Washington, Kabul, and New Delhi over the state of affairs in Pakistan, where paralysis has exacerbated the regional security situation. Stratfor has on several prior occasions discussed the growing U.S. assertiveness to deny the Taliban and al Qaeda the sanctuaries they enjoy in Pakistan. But that goal remains elusive because of tactical realities on the ground — insufficient troops, inhospitable terrain, lack of intelligence capabilities and the strong anti-U.S. sentiment among the natives.
This would explain why until fairly recently the United States mostly relied on precision airstrikes using Predator drones and clandestine operations, which have grown more frequent in recent months. The situation created by Islamabad’s engaging in talks with militants from a position of weakness has forced Washington to take a much more aggressive stance — an example of which was the airstrike that killed 11 Pakistani soldiers manning an outpost toward the northern rim of the FATA. To a great extent, the increase in pressure from the United States is designed to force Islamabad to adopt a more decisive attitude towards the problem.
The incoherence within Pakistan’s political and military circles, however, prevents any success in this regard. This leaves the United States with no choice but to move ahead on the unilateral front. As cross-border ground operations — such as hot-pursuits, interdiction of militant traffic, or hitting targets of opportunity — become the norm it will create a battlefield that doesn’t recognize the Afghan-Pakistani frontier — at least in the FATA. The jihadists are actually hoping for large-scale U.S. military activity on Pakistani soil because they desperately want to broaden the scope of their insurgency from one currently being waged by a religious ideological minority to one of a nationalistic flavor bringing in participation from more mainstream cross-sections of Pakistan.
In the meantime, Petraeus will be massing troops and formulating a strategy. The Pentagon also announced July 16 the potential for additional troops to be surged to Afghanistan this year. This will take time (and the Afghan winter will soon begin to loom), but the tempo, nature and depth of U.S. operations into Pakistan will play an important role in the way the situation escalates. However, it is the definition of a slippery slope, as the United States has neither the troops nor the legal authority to attempt to command the ground in — much less reconstruct — Pakistani territory. While it would almost certainly limit itself to pointed raids and focus on denying the territory as sanctuary for the Taliban, the consequences in terms of nationalist sentiment in Pakistan will be profound. And ultimately, the Pakistani state has the most to lose from such a scenario, as it will be caught between the United States and its own people.
http://www.stratfor.com/
U.S.: French Firm Fined Over Sales To Iran
French firm Cryostar was placed on two years probation by a U.S. judge July 18 and ordered to pay a $500,000 fine for acting as an intermediary in Iran’s purchase of submersible cryogenic pumps for use in oil fields, United Press International reported. Cryostar reportedly bought the pumps from U.S. firm Ebara and sold them to French firm TN in a transaction obscuring their eventual destination.
http://www.stratfor.com/
=============================================================
Comrade Lenin: Alive and Well
Daniel SilvaWednesday, July 09, 2008
The New Russia may have finally embraced free-market capitalism, but Vladimir Lenin, founder of Soviet communism and one of the great murderers of the twentieth century, still casts a long shadow across the Russian landscape. Indeed, when I journeyed to Russia with my family last summer to research my forthcoming novel, Moscow Rules, it seemed Lenin was our constant companion. His statue still looms over the gates of the city that once bore his name, with its arm heroically extended as if poor Vladimir were forever trying to hail a cab. Streets still bear his name, as do squares, schools, parks, and sports clubs. And he still snoozes peacefully in his little rose-colored mausoleum at the edge of Red Square, a waxen figure in a bottle, well-dressed and neatly groomed.
One cannot enter a tourist bazaar without stumbling across all manner of Lenin paraphernalia, including ubiquitous metallic busts of the great man that peer inscrutably from dusty shelves. Sometimes, the head of his accomplice and successor, Joseph Stalin, stands next to him. In one market on the outskirts of Moscow, I saw a fine little statuette of Lenin seated in a chair, clearly thinking deep thoughts. I wondered what weighty matter was he pondering at the moment the artist conceived this iconic image. The annihilation of a village that would not bend to his will? The murder of a rival? Or perhaps he was thinking about killing a few meddlesome shopkeepers who didn’t quite see the wisdom in submitting themselves to “the dictatorship of the proletariat.”
Imagine if the scene were Berlin instead of Moscow. Imagine if, near Brandenburg Gate, there stood a hundred-foot-tall statue of Adolph Hitler with his arm raised in a Nazi salute. Imagine if one could buy a bronze-plated bust of Hitler in a flea market in the Tiergarten. Imagine if one could window shop in the Hilter-Strasse or take lunch at an outdoor café in the Hitler-Platz. Or if one could view Hitler’s body—or his ashes, perhaps—in a sacred tomb at the edge of the Alexanderplatz. Editorial pages, interest groups, and political leaders throughout the civilized world would surely howl with indignation and anger. And rightly so.
Fortunately, the idea of a giant Hitler statue standing in the heart of Berlin is laughable. So why is this not the case in modern Russia? Why are there no howls of righteous indignation from Western shapers of opinion over the display and sale of symbols of a murderous, totalitarian system? And why don’t the leaders of the New Russia remove the statues of Lenin, change the names of the streets and squares that still bear his name, and give his poor old carcass a proper burial?
The silence in many quarters of the West is, sadly, easy to understand. During the Cold War, many of the opinion leaders in Western Europe—the academics, the essayists and novelists, the campaigners for peace and human rights—were too often willing to overlook the Soviet Union’s inexhaustible list of crimes against humanity because they were adherents of Marxist-Leninist bilge themselves. Lenin was to be forgiven his sins because, in their eyes, his cause was just. As for Stalin, yes, he was a monster, but he was also a hero, the man who single-handedly fought Nazi Germany to a stalemate until the American and British could join the fight. Many conveniently overlook the fact that, by agreeing to the infamous Non-Aggression Pact with Hitler in 1939, Stalin was the one who made the Second World War possible in the first place.
The answer to the second part of the question is, in my opinion, far more perilous for Russia’s newly free neighbors and the West. Vladimir Putin, the man now running Russia, is a child of the system Lenin and Stalin created. A former KGB officer and Party member, he surely studied their writings, as a seminarian studies the sacred texts. Moreover, an estimated seventy-five percent of the senior members of his regime also came from the KGB and its successor services. Putin and his cabal surely cannot permit a full and honest exploration of the crimes of the Soviet state, because to do so would discredit the system and the organization—i.e., the KGB—that produced them.
Edward Lucas, a reporter for the Economist, argues in a persuasive new book, The New Cold War, that Putin and his cronies are engaged in a carefully orchestrated effort to “sanitize” the more repulsive elements of Soviet history while honoring its achievements, which is to say, its military might and its empire. In 2005, Putin made his feelings abundantly clear when, in his state of the nation speech, he referred to the collapse of the Soviet Union as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century.” And he even managed to say it with a straight face.
Let us return to Germany for a moment. Let us imagine that Chancellor Angela Merkel was a former officer of the SS rather than a former professor of physical chemistry. And let us imagine she went before her parliament and people and proclaimed the collapse of Nazi-occupied Europe the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century. Such a remark would have produced a furious response from the German press, the German political opposition, and the German people. Germany’s neighbors would have twitched with anxiety. Ambassadors would have been recalled. Editorial writers would have wondered whether the Nazi beast was reawakening.
And imagine, too, that the SS and the Gestapo, under new, benign-sounding names, were still responsible for internal German security. And that they still worked from their old headquarters buildings. That scenario, as preposterous as it sounds, is exactly the situation in Russia today. The FSB, Russia’s Federal Security Service, occupies the KGB’s old headquarters building in Lubyanka Square. Many Russians don’t even bother to call the FSB by its new name. They still refer to it as the KGB.
While researching Moscow Rules, my family and I were invited to visit FSB headquarters. A former KGB colonel with an amiable face and glittering eyes gave us a private tour of the building. It ended in a small, private KGB museum, where we spent several hours, carefully reviewing the organization’s remarkable history. It was a surprisingly honest place, though distinctly lacking in any evidence that the Soviet Union had ever tried to spy on the United States. A particularly telling moment occurred when we paused to examine a photo album of all the KGB’s leaders. There was Vladimir Putin, proudly displayed with all the great murderers and oppressors of the past. Our guide flipped through the pages, giving us highly abbreviated biographies of each chief. “He was shot,” he said of one. “He was shot,” he said of the next. “He was shot, too.” Flipping to the next page, he paused and smiled. “Ah, this one was different,” he said. “He was poisoned.”
The overall message of the museum was unmistakable: the course of Soviet history would have proceeded much differently if the KGB had been running the regime instead of serving has its guardian. Now, nearly two decades after the fall of the Soviet Union, the KGB has finally gotten its wish. Putin and his cabal want their empire back, and they want to be a great power again. And they are using Russia’s newfound oil wealth to achieve those goals. As for taking an honest look into the Russian past, there isn’t time for that. Nor is there any appetite. Lenin once said: “There are no morals in politics; there is only expedience.” Vladimir Putin would surely agree. Perhaps that is why Lenin the murderer still stands at the gates of the city that once bore his name. And why Lenin the murderer still sleeps peacefully in Red Square.
http://www.townhall.com/Common/PrintPage.aspx?g=1e612f73-9230-40e4-b169-b24674eb72cc&t=c
Q: At one point in the story, a Russian journalist named Olga Sukhova describes the political and cultural situation in Russia today. In doing so, she refers several times to the siloviki. Who are the siloviki?
A: It’s a word Russians use to describe the men from the security and intelligence services who are now ruling Russia. In a way, it’s the modern-day equivalent of calling someone a chekist. The siloviki took control of Russia after the chaos of Yeltsin’s presidency and said, in effect, enough is enough. They have a plan. They’re not the least bit interested in democracy. They believe, as Putin has said many times, that the collapse of the Soviet Union was one of the greatest geopolitical disasters in history. They want Russia to be a great country again. An important country. And they want their empire back
============================================
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jul/17/medvedevs-wider-europe/
The Washington Times
Janusz BUGAJSKI: Medvedev's wider Europe
Thursday, July 17, 2008
COMMENTARY:
Despite speculations in European Union capitals about a bright new dawn in Europe-Russia relations following the installation of President Dmitri Medvedev, dark clouds have already gathered. Europe faces an intensified challenge to its integrity, effectiveness and alliances from a Moscow buoyed by its oil wealth and fortified by claims that U.S. leadership is on the decline.
During a recent visit to Berlin, Mr. Medvedev proposed creation of a pan-European security pact that would sideline NATO and undermine U.S. influence in Europe. Mr. Medvedev asserted that "Atlanticism as a sole historical principle has already had its day. NATO has failed to give new purpose to its existence."
In reality, it is not Atlanticism that is effectively over but the post-Cold War era as the West and Russia are embroiled in a new strategic confrontation. Russia is reasserting its global reach by opposing further expansion of the Euro-Atlantic zone and reversing the United States' global role. The Kremlin believes the U.S. has passed its zenith as a global power and Pax Americana is crumbling. This provides an invaluable opportunity for a resurgent Russia to extend its interests in nearby regions, particularly throughout the wider Europe.
Russia's European ambitions were formulated during Vladimir Putin's presidency and will be consolidated under Mr. Medvedev. They revolve around expanding the "Eurasian" zone in which Russia is the dominant political player. "Eurasianism" involves two interconnected strategies: transforming Europe into an appendage of the Russian sphere of influence and debilitating Atlanticism by undercutting Europe's connections with the United States.
Moscow deploys a range of tools to weaken and disarm the West, including divisive diplomacy, political subversion, informational warfare and institutional manipulation. A primary weapon is energy entrapment, whereby Russia pursues a monopolistic position as Europe's energy supplier and converts energy dependence into increasing intergovernmental influence.
The EU occupies a pivotal position in Russia's strategy as it can either strengthen or weaken the Kremlin's approach. A unified EU foreign policy synchronized with Washington that undercuts Russia's aspirations is viewed as a source of threat that needs to be neutralized.
For instance, the EU's democratization agenda is seen as a pernicious ploy to undercut Russia's policy of maintaining pliable governments in neighboring post-Soviet states. Additionally, EU standards for government accountability, business transparency, market competition and environmental protection endanger Russia's economic penetration, which is primarily based on opaque business practices and personal connections.
However, EU institutions or specific member states can also buttress Russia's long-range strategy. This is evident where EU capitals such as Berlin, Paris and Rome have convinced themselves that "common interests" will lead to interdependence but fail to question the policy objectives disguised behind Russia's offer of "strategic partnerships." The absence of a common and realistic EU strategy toward Russia will have several negative consequences.
c First, it will allow Moscow to fracture the EU by bilateralizing or nationalizing relations with member states by providing diplomatic and economic incentives to some capitals and exerting pressure on others. Moscow offers lucrative contracts to German and French business while imposing embargoes and energy blackmail on Poland, the Baltic States and other states that criticize its policies.
c Second, it will increase disputes within the EU concerning the approach of individual states toward Russia. This will undermine the development of common positions on a broader range of foreign and security policies such as NATO deployments and the role of the United States. The Lisbon treaty, badly damaged by the recent Irish vote, will be buried alongside the EU constitution.
c Third, it will restrict further EU and NATO enlargement eastward as a result of an accommodationist approach toward Moscow. This can unsettle the reformist prospects of aspirant states in Eastern Europe and the Black Sea region, including Ukraine and Georgia.
c And fourth, the EU's internal divisions and acquiescence toward Moscow will harm relations with the United States. They could disable the pursuit of a common Western strategy when a new American president will be reaching out to reinvigorate the Alliance.
The most effective and concerted long-range strategy toward Russia necessitates a combination of "practical engagement" with "strategic assertiveness." "Practical engagement" concentrates on the pursuit of cooperative relations where Western and Russian interests can coincide, as in countering international terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
"Strategic assertiveness," as an essential complementary approach, must focus on vital long-range Western security interests where Russia's negative policies need to be effectively countered by the EU and NATO working in tandem to strengthen trans-Atlanticism.
As a primary principle, the Allies must not compromise core interests by forging agreements with Russia that sacrifice one Western security priority to gain Moscow's support in another security area. For instance, NATO enlargement eastward must not be traded for Russia's promised assistance in dealing with Iran and North Korea. This not only undermines Europe's commitment to expand the zone of security and democracy but also allows Russia to implement its Eurasian agenda.
Janusz Bugajski is director of the New European Democracies program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. His forthcoming CSIS monograph is entitled "Expanding Eurasia: Russia's European Ambitions" to be released in the fall of 2008.
====================================================================
Czechs dealing with Russian oil cutback
By Judy Dempsey
Thursday, July 17, 2008
BERLIN: With Russia cutting oil deliveries to the Czech Republic, a strategic decision made by Prague in the early 1990s to reduce its energy dependence on Moscow appears to be paying off.
The Czech Republic was the only former communist country in the region to diversify energy sources immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union, and it seemed unfazed this week by the Russian decision to cut oil deliveries by about 40 percent.
"We are managing quite well," said Tomas Bartovsky, spokesman for the Trade and Industry Ministry. "We have alternative sources of supplies."
Russia, without warning, stopped sending up to 7,000 tons of oil a day via the Druzba, or Friendship, pipeline last week. That pipeline is controlled by the Russian state-owned company, Transneft. Russia sends annually about 5.5 million tons of oil via the Druzba pipeline to the Czech Republic.
The reductions started July 8, when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Czech counterpart, Karl Schwarzenberg, signed an accord to allow the Pentagon to base part of its anti-ballistic missile shield in the Czech Republic.
As soon as the accord was signed, Russia announced it would take retaliatory measures, which it did not specify. Russia and the Czech Republic said this week that the oil reductions were "not political," while the Russian side cited "technical reasons."
But the Czech government as well as energy companies would not say Thursday when full deliveries would be resumed or explain the technical reasons.
"We have been told very little," said Blanka Ruzickova, a spokeswoman for Unipetrol, one of the main Czech traders in oil.
The Czech government moved swiftly to deal with the Russian shortfall. Under an agreement reached in Munich on Wednesday, the Czech Republic will receive about 250,000 tons of crude oil a month until the end of the year via the IKL pipeline, which links the country to Germany.
"This will compensate us for any Russian reductions," Bartovsky of the Trade and Industry Ministry said.
The pipeline to Germany was built in the early 1990s when the Czech government decided that an independent country required alternative energy sources.
"It was a prophetic decision," said Libor Lukasek, who is a director of Mero, a state-owned Czech energy company that buys and sells oil, and who negotiated the deal Wednesday.
"There were a lot of questions asked at the time about the need to have this second pipeline," Lukasek said by telephone. "But now we see its real value."
The Czech government has been eager to play down the Russian oil cut, said Vladimir Handl, a security expert at the Institute for International Relations in Prague. "The missile shield deal has still to be ratified by the Parliament and, besides, Czech-Russian trade and economic ties are now very strong," he said.
Russia has previously used its growing energy might to pressure countries that challenge it. In 2006, it cut gas supplies to Ukraine, whose pro-Western government had been swept into power a year earlier. In 2007, it cut supplies to Belarus. In both cases, Russia said the cutbacks were linked to disputes over gas prices. Full supplies were resumed as soon as both countries accepted higher prices.
http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=14582223
=====================================================================
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-czar18-2008jul18,0,3367742.story
From the Los Angeles Times
From ReutersJuly 17, 2008
Alexei Vladykin / Associated Press
People gather to touch a cross over a mine where the bodies of Czar
Nicholas II and his family were thrown after they had been shot to death
by the Bolsheviks 90-years ago, outside Yekaterinburg, Russia. About
30 000 Russians marched during a religious ceremony from Yekaterinburg
to the mine early Thursday to mark the anniversary. (AP Photo/Alexei Vladykin)
YEKATERINBURG, RUSSIA — Russians' newly found reverence for the last czar comes from a sense of guilt 90 years after his murder by Bolshevik executioners, the self-styled heir to Russia's imperial throne said today.Czar Nicholas II, shot with his family by the Bolsheviks, is ahead of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in a poll by Russia's state television station on who is the greatest Russian.Maria Romanova said the end of Soviet propaganda, which lampooned Nicholas as an exotic failure of history, has allowed Russians to draw their own conclusions about the last czar, who the Russian Orthodox Church declared a holy martyr."Obviously he has become a very revered person," Romanova, known by supporters as Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna, said during a visit to the Urals city of Yekaterinburg where the czar was shot exactly 90 years ago."When they freely read all his diaries before his death and historians tell the truth to people it changes their feelings. Obviously Russians have a feeling of guilt over what they have done."Bolshevik agents killed Nicholas II and his family on the night of July 16, 1918 in a basement in Yekaterinburg. The bodies were set alight, doused in acid and dumped in pits.The Romanov dynasty ruled Russia for 300 years before Nicholas II abdicated in 1917, setting Russia on course for the Bolshevik Revolution, civil war and 70 years of Communist rule.Historians still argue over why Nicholas abdicated. Many believe he was too weak to hold together the Russian empire, which had been fighting World War One against Germany, the Austro-Hungarian empire and the Ottoman empire.Since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, Nicholas II's reputation has soared among many Russians who see him as a symbol of imperial glory and the embodiment of a strong Russia.More than 414,000 people have voted for Nicholas II in the poll for Russia's greatest person, pushing Stalin with 363,000 votes into second place. Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet state, is third.The Soviet Union renamed Yekaterinburg as Sverdlovsk in honour of Yakov Sverdlov, the Bolshevik official who helped organize the killing of the czar's family. Now, though, the city is at the forefront of a revival of the czar's image.A church has been built on the site of the house where they were killed and religious icons of the czar and his family dot the city. Today Romanova unveiled another icon to Nicholas II at the city's mining institute."More and more Russian people who might not be monarchists feel a terrible crime has been committed, not only against the head of state but against children and normal people," she said, speaking of the killing of Nicholas II, his family and servants.Romanova, 54, who was born in Madrid, says she heads the imperial family, but that claim is disputed.She traces her royal lineage back to Nicholas II's uncle - her great-grandfather - who assumed the title of emperor in exile after the deaths of Nicholas and his family. Potential male heirs to the title disqualified themselves by marrying women of lower social standing, Romanova's Web site said.Masha Kozhevnikova, standing outside the institute in the bright sun, missed Romanova's visit but agreed that, as Russia's last imperial leader, Czar Nicholas II was a great man."But I don't agree that he was the greatest ever," the 21-year-old student said. "If he hadn't been murdered he would not have been voted number one."
=======================================
UN Committee Pushes Abortion on Slovakia, Lithuania, Northern Ireland
Alexei Vladykin / Associated Press
People gather to touch a cross over a mine where the bodies of Czar
Nicholas II and his family were thrown after they had been shot to death
by the Bolsheviks 90-years ago, outside Yekaterinburg, Russia. About
30 000 Russians marched during a religious ceremony from Yekaterinburg
to the mine early Thursday to mark the anniversary. (AP Photo/Alexei Vladykin)
YEKATERINBURG, RUSSIA — Russians' newly found reverence for the last czar comes from a sense of guilt 90 years after his murder by Bolshevik executioners, the self-styled heir to Russia's imperial throne said today.Czar Nicholas II, shot with his family by the Bolsheviks, is ahead of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in a poll by Russia's state television station on who is the greatest Russian.Maria Romanova said the end of Soviet propaganda, which lampooned Nicholas as an exotic failure of history, has allowed Russians to draw their own conclusions about the last czar, who the Russian Orthodox Church declared a holy martyr."Obviously he has become a very revered person," Romanova, known by supporters as Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna, said during a visit to the Urals city of Yekaterinburg where the czar was shot exactly 90 years ago."When they freely read all his diaries before his death and historians tell the truth to people it changes their feelings. Obviously Russians have a feeling of guilt over what they have done."Bolshevik agents killed Nicholas II and his family on the night of July 16, 1918 in a basement in Yekaterinburg. The bodies were set alight, doused in acid and dumped in pits.The Romanov dynasty ruled Russia for 300 years before Nicholas II abdicated in 1917, setting Russia on course for the Bolshevik Revolution, civil war and 70 years of Communist rule.Historians still argue over why Nicholas abdicated. Many believe he was too weak to hold together the Russian empire, which had been fighting World War One against Germany, the Austro-Hungarian empire and the Ottoman empire.Since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, Nicholas II's reputation has soared among many Russians who see him as a symbol of imperial glory and the embodiment of a strong Russia.More than 414,000 people have voted for Nicholas II in the poll for Russia's greatest person, pushing Stalin with 363,000 votes into second place. Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet state, is third.The Soviet Union renamed Yekaterinburg as Sverdlovsk in honour of Yakov Sverdlov, the Bolshevik official who helped organize the killing of the czar's family. Now, though, the city is at the forefront of a revival of the czar's image.A church has been built on the site of the house where they were killed and religious icons of the czar and his family dot the city. Today Romanova unveiled another icon to Nicholas II at the city's mining institute."More and more Russian people who might not be monarchists feel a terrible crime has been committed, not only against the head of state but against children and normal people," she said, speaking of the killing of Nicholas II, his family and servants.Romanova, 54, who was born in Madrid, says she heads the imperial family, but that claim is disputed.She traces her royal lineage back to Nicholas II's uncle - her great-grandfather - who assumed the title of emperor in exile after the deaths of Nicholas and his family. Potential male heirs to the title disqualified themselves by marrying women of lower social standing, Romanova's Web site said.Masha Kozhevnikova, standing outside the institute in the bright sun, missed Romanova's visit but agreed that, as Russia's last imperial leader, Czar Nicholas II was a great man."But I don't agree that he was the greatest ever," the 21-year-old student said. "If he hadn't been murdered he would not have been voted number one."
=======================================
UN Committee Pushes Abortion on Slovakia, Lithuania, Northern Ireland
By Samantha Singson
NEW YORK, July 17, 2008 (C-FAM) - At the most recent session of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) meetings in New York, committee members pressed countries on abortion in the guise of talking about maternal mortality, family planning and contraceptive prevalence. Lithuania, Nigeria, Finland, the United Kingdom and Slovakia were all questioned on their abortion laws during their reviews by the committee. While abortion is not mentioned in the treaty, in recent years the CEDAW Committee has questioned more than 60 nations on their abortion legislation. The committee has even gone so far as to create their own "general recommendation" that reads abortion into the text, even though the nations that negotiated the treaty made sure the controversial issue was never mentioned. Delegations often go along with the committees' line of questioning on abortion by providing data and answering queries on the subject during their reviews. During Lithuania's review, committee members pressed the government delegation on access to contraception and on proposed legislation that seeks to defend prenatal life and would pose restrictions on access to abortion. Japanese committee member Yoko Hayashi stated that governmental restrictions on abortion "contradict the full enjoyment of women's reproductive health rights that are protected by CEDAW." The CEDAW document is, however, silent on "reproductive health rights." The United Kingdom was similarly taken to task by the CEDAW committee because of concerns over access to abortion in Northern Ireland. In response to committee queries over whether there was a possibility of changing the abortion legislation, the Irish representative responded that abortion was a matter of criminal law and that no change in legislation could occur in Northern Ireland without consent from all parties. One committee member fired back that the government was not adequately addressing the abortion issue and that not taking action on the matter is "incompatible with obligations under the CEDAW convention." Sylvia Pimentel of Brazil took exception to Slovakia's concordat with the Holy See, particularly on the right of health care workers to conscientiously object to performing or aiding in abortion. Pimentel claimed that it is "discriminatory to refuse to legally provide reproductive health services to women" and that CEDAW state parties "must refrain from obstructing women from pursuing their health goals." While the rulings of the Committee are technically non-binding, abortion activists have brought litigation throughout the world citing CEDAW Committee rulings in support of overturning laws against abortion. Such arguments helped convince the Colombian constitutional court to liberalize that country's restrictions on the practice. Under the topic of non-discrimination, CEDAW committee members questioned states on homosexual rights issues. During Finland's review, committee members questioned legislation that prevented lesbian adoption. Slovakia was questioned on medically assisted reproduction and "discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation" against lesbian women who wanted to undergo the procedure. At the end of the month, official representatives of States parties to CEDAW are scheduled to elect 11 members of the Committee that will serve from January 2009 to December 2012. The CEDAW Committee will next meet again in Geneva in October to review the reports from Bahrain, Belgium, Cameroon, Canada, Ecuador, El Salvador, Kyrgyzstan, Madagascar, Mongolia, Myanmar, Portugal, Slovenia and Uruguay.
URL: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/jul/08071708.html
==============================================================
Pirates release Estonian and ship
Photo: Perry Heimer
TALLINN- The Estonian Foreign Minister announced that the Somali pirates released the crew of the hijacked ship Lehmann Timber.
The crew of the Lehmann Timber, hijacked off the Somalian coast, was released late July 8. One of the hostages was an Estonian citizen.
The ship was in international waters and the company was attempting to put the crew on shore as soon as possible and to give them the necessary assistance.
The Foreign Ministry is ready to give assistance to bring the Estonian citizen home as soon as possible, the ministry spokeswoman said.
There were 15 people on board the hijacked ship, including four Ukrainian citizens, three Russians, four Panamanians and one Estonian - Ardo Kalle.
The Foreign Ministry announced the release of the crew just a few hours after it had refuted a report by the Ukrainian publication Segodnya according to which the pirates released the crew of the Lehmann Timber after being paid the ranson. Sources claim that an unidentified shipping agency helped pay the ransom, as the crews health was in danger.
Although the size of the ransom has not officially been mentioned, Segodya reported that the pirates had demanded 750,000 dollars for the hostages' release.
The pirates seized the Lehmann Timber, sailing under the Gibraltarflag, on May 28. The ship was launched in Chinain April and it was on its maiden voyage to Europe via the Suez Canal and the Strait of Gibraltar.
The problem of piracy in Somalia is long standing and has grown in number since the beginning of this year, with attacks increasing in the last few months. Commonly the ransoms have been paid and the attacks are becoming increasingly well organized.http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/20805/
===========================================================================
Pilots Honoured By Lithuanian Stamp
14 July 2008 -
David Lynch
Tomorrow (15th July), Lithuania celebrates the 75th anniversary of the transatlantic flight performed by two of it's heroes, Steponas Darius and Stasys Girenas. Both men already feature on the Lithuanian 10 Litas note, but now a special stamp has been issued.In 1932 Darius and Girenas flew to Lithuania across the Atlantic. They bought a six-seater Bellnka aeroplane, which they named Lituanica. With donations from American Lithuanians a new motor was fitted into the aeroplane. Lituanica left New York airport on July 15, 1933 at 6:24 a.m. without government authorisation for the projected flight, since it had not been satisfactorily prepared for. The pilots found their bearings by compass and kept a steady course. On the evening of July 16 they flew over Scotland. On the night of July 17 Lituanica reached West Prussia, 115 km north of Berlin, and crashed in a forest near Soldin. The pilots had flown 6,441 km in 35 hrs. 15 min.; there were 650 km left to Kaunas, the temporary capital of Lithuania, which they had wanted to reach without a stop. The bodies were flown to Kaunas.To commemorate both men, Lithuanian Post has issued a “75th Anniversary of the Darius and Girenas Flight” postage stamp.The stamps was designed by the artist Henrikas Ratkevicius and 300,000 are to be printed with a nominal value of 2,90 Lt. Together with the new postage stamp dedicated to the anniversary of the S. Darius and S. Girenas flight, the first day souvenir sheet and first day cover will be issued. The stamps were printed in "Österreichishe Staatsdrukerei GmbH" printing-house in Austria (Vienna).
© Hellmail.co.uk - The Global Postal News Site
http://www.hellmail.co.uk/postalnews/anmviewer.asp?a=708&print=yes
================================================================
Chambers of horror
Tomorrow (15th July), Lithuania celebrates the 75th anniversary of the transatlantic flight performed by two of it's heroes, Steponas Darius and Stasys Girenas. Both men already feature on the Lithuanian 10 Litas note, but now a special stamp has been issued.In 1932 Darius and Girenas flew to Lithuania across the Atlantic. They bought a six-seater Bellnka aeroplane, which they named Lituanica. With donations from American Lithuanians a new motor was fitted into the aeroplane. Lituanica left New York airport on July 15, 1933 at 6:24 a.m. without government authorisation for the projected flight, since it had not been satisfactorily prepared for. The pilots found their bearings by compass and kept a steady course. On the evening of July 16 they flew over Scotland. On the night of July 17 Lituanica reached West Prussia, 115 km north of Berlin, and crashed in a forest near Soldin. The pilots had flown 6,441 km in 35 hrs. 15 min.; there were 650 km left to Kaunas, the temporary capital of Lithuania, which they had wanted to reach without a stop. The bodies were flown to Kaunas.To commemorate both men, Lithuanian Post has issued a “75th Anniversary of the Darius and Girenas Flight” postage stamp.The stamps was designed by the artist Henrikas Ratkevicius and 300,000 are to be printed with a nominal value of 2,90 Lt. Together with the new postage stamp dedicated to the anniversary of the S. Darius and S. Girenas flight, the first day souvenir sheet and first day cover will be issued. The stamps were printed in "Österreichishe Staatsdrukerei GmbH" printing-house in Austria (Vienna).
© Hellmail.co.uk - The Global Postal News Site
http://www.hellmail.co.uk/postalnews/anmviewer.asp?a=708&print=yes
================================================================
Chambers of horror
TANUSHREE PODDER
Vilnius is a beautiful city and the capital of Lithuania. The beauty hides the awfulness of its past.
The memorial : Remembering the past.
When I entered the seemingly innocent looking KGB (the Russian abbreviation for Committee for State Security) Headquarter building in Vilnius, I had no idea what I was letting myself in for. Vilnius is a beautiful city and the capital of Lithuania. Here stands the erstwhile KGB headquarters, now a museum.
Vilnius has a history of violence. This tiny Baltic country was coveted by the Poles, Germans, and Russians due to its strategic location. From the 1200s when the Teutonic Knights tried to conquer Lithuania to the occupation by Germany during World War I and thereafter by Soviets in the 1940s, the country saw many invasions.
The beginning
In the autumn of 1940 the soviets established an NKVD prison with 50 cells in the basement of a building and so began the horror story. From 1940 to 1991, various agencies of the Soviets (NKVD, later KGB) arrested people who resisted the Soviet occupants. These freedom fighters were tortured, killed or deported to Siberia.
The outer walls of the huge building are engraved with hundreds of names of those who died in the dark cells. We saw people placing flowers in memory of the loved ones they had lost. Almost all families had lost a member or more, during those terrible years.
The ground floor of the museum depicts the struggle of Lithuanians for freedom. On display are many black and white photographs of the partisans, their personal belongings as well as original papers that led to their arrest. The exhibition on the first floor displays striking photographs portraying the inhuman working and living conditions of the people sent to the labour camps in Siberia.
Many of those sentenced to death or deportation were women. A large number of priests also suffered for publishing and distributing anti-establishment and revolutionary papers.
Starting from the tiny cells, which were called boxes and didn’t allow a person to sit or lie down, to the execution chamber, we journeyed into the history of Lithuania and the black deeds of KGB.
The hushed group was led through the corridor where cells were used for solitary confinement. This were to break down the prisoners physically and emotionally, and make them confess.
Then there was the horrifying padded cell. The walls were padded and soundproofed, so that they would muffle the cries of the tortured prisoners. A straitjacket, now placed on the wall, was used for those who resisted torture.
A small courtyard with high walls and barbed wires where the prisoners were taken for fresh air and exercise at the back of the building looks like a scene from the German concentration camps.
As we made our way to the underground execution chamber our hearts were heavy with grief. No one spoke except in whispers. Walking back to the street and reality, we heaved a sigh of relief. The thought that not many prisoners had walked out of the building alive, made me utter a silent prayer for their soul.
In the autumn of 1940 the soviets established an NKVD prison with 50 cells in the basement of a building and so began the horror story. From 1940 to 1991, various agencies of the Soviets (NKVD, later KGB) arrested people who resisted the Soviet occupants. These freedom fighters were tortured, killed or deported to Siberia.
The outer walls of the huge building are engraved with hundreds of names of those who died in the dark cells. We saw people placing flowers in memory of the loved ones they had lost. Almost all families had lost a member or more, during those terrible years.
The ground floor of the museum depicts the struggle of Lithuanians for freedom. On display are many black and white photographs of the partisans, their personal belongings as well as original papers that led to their arrest. The exhibition on the first floor displays striking photographs portraying the inhuman working and living conditions of the people sent to the labour camps in Siberia.
Many of those sentenced to death or deportation were women. A large number of priests also suffered for publishing and distributing anti-establishment and revolutionary papers.
Starting from the tiny cells, which were called boxes and didn’t allow a person to sit or lie down, to the execution chamber, we journeyed into the history of Lithuania and the black deeds of KGB.
The hushed group was led through the corridor where cells were used for solitary confinement. This were to break down the prisoners physically and emotionally, and make them confess.
Then there was the horrifying padded cell. The walls were padded and soundproofed, so that they would muffle the cries of the tortured prisoners. A straitjacket, now placed on the wall, was used for those who resisted torture.
A small courtyard with high walls and barbed wires where the prisoners were taken for fresh air and exercise at the back of the building looks like a scene from the German concentration camps.
As we made our way to the underground execution chamber our hearts were heavy with grief. No one spoke except in whispers. Walking back to the street and reality, we heaved a sigh of relief. The thought that not many prisoners had walked out of the building alive, made me utter a silent prayer for their soul.
© Copyright 2000 - 2008 The Hindu
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=2008071550600400.htm&date=2008/07/15/&prd=yw&
======================================================
Lithuania sending additional troops to bolster small Afghan peacekeeping force
2008-07-10 16:07:12 -
VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) - Lithuania's defense ministry said Thursday it was increasing its peacekeeping force for Afghanistan sooner than planned because of the death of one soldier and the withdrawal of three others last month.The ministry said 16 additional troops would mainly be used for improved security for 100 other Lithuanians based in the western Afghanistan province of Gohr. The extra troops were originally planned for the autumn.«Recent events made us move faster. The total number of Lithuanian soldiers will reach 150 within several months,» said Lt. Gen. Valdas Tutkus, the commander of Lithuania's armed forces.Sgt. Arunas Jarmalavicius, 35, was shot and killed last month during a clash with protesters, who were angered because an American sniper in Iraq used a Quran for target practice. Jarmalavicius was the first Lithuanian soldier killed in Afghanistan.Three other soldiers withdrew from service in Afghanistan shortly after the death, and were released from war duty by Defense Minister Juozas Olekas this week.
http://www.pr-inside.com/lithuania-sending-additional-troops-to-r696348.htm
=======================================================================
Lithuania disturbed by Russia's views
Jul 10, 2008Tbt staff in cooperation with BNS
Photo: Dzoja Gunda Barysaite
VILNIUS - President Valdas Adamkus has stressed that Lithuania is becoming increasingly disturbed by Russia's views of the Soviet Union.
"Obviously, there have been different periods in the history of our mutual relationship that dates back centuries. However, we are being increasingly disturbed by Russia's views of the state which it itself pronounced, in the Belovezh accords, a 'geopolitical reality that no longer exists.' I can assure you that nobody in Lithuania is going to deny the input of the Russian nation in the fight against Fascism. Just like the input of any other nation -- the Ukrainians, Belarusians, Kazakhs," Adamkus said when accepting credentials from Russia's new Ambassador Vladimir Chkhikvadze. He urged people not to forget that this, no longer existent country, stood behind crimes against international law and humanity in the Baltic countries, Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, Afghanistan. "I do not think it is the goal of Russia's policy to identify with these crimes," the president said. Adamkus believes it is crucial to learn to talk about the complicated period with accurate precision, without offending and insulting anyone. In the president's words, Lithuania is also looking forward to some solid steps in the field of legal cooperation as well, particularly when it comes to solving dormant cases and combating the instigation of hatred, by way of pickets or by launching cyber attacks.
The ceremony to accredit the ambassador had been scheduled for June 30, however the President's Office postponed it saying that Adamkus's agenda had changed. Unofficial sources then said that the postponement of the meeting between Adamkus and Chkhikvadze was a conscious diplomatic gesture.
The decree of Chkhikvadze, a career diplomat, as ambassador to Lithuania was signed by the then Russian president Vladimir Putin in the beginning of May. Prior to the appointment, Chkhikvadze headed the Russian Foreign Ministry's Security Department since 2005.
http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/20825/
===================================================
Lithuanian Days carry on the tradition
To the Editor: The 94th annual and consecutive Lithuanian Days will be celebrated at the Schuylkill Malll near Frackville Friday and Saturday, Aug. 16 and 17, sponsored by the Knights of Lithuania Anthracite Council 144.President Larry Domalakes and the council have been preparing all year to make this year’s festival the best ever. We invite you to come and see for yourself. We feel it is very important to perpetuate this great part of our own local history since we live in the heart of the anthracite region. The tale of how it all began is very intriguing. It started out with a very ruthless man, Alexander II, czar of Russia. He had great plans and ambition and was powerful enough to conquer Europe. Lithuania was his first target, It didn’t take him long to conquer and ravage the land, reducing the people to slavery, more or less.Then something was happening on the other side of the world. Anthracite coal was first discovered in Kulpmont in 1790 by Isaac Tomlison, a son of a blacksmith. His father was working in Berks County at the time. Wondering what grade of coal it was, Isaac decided to take a sample down to his father who immediately tested the sample. He was amazed that the sample his son brought burned cleaner and at a higher temperature than the Virginia coal he had been using. This was great news for the forgers worldwide. It was great news for Pennsylvania. It meant that we could melt steel faster to build bridges, railroads, ships, etc. The discovery led to the opening of 154 collieries from Trevorton to Delano.The coal companies needed a huge labor force to work in the mines. The first Europeans who came to work in the coal mines were the Irish. They were forced to leave their country due to the great famine that overtook their country. They were glad to work and earn a living here in America. But as time went on, they were subjected to harsh and inhumane treatment by the Reading Railroad companies and they started to rebel. And rebel they did.It was then that the coal barons decided to go to Eastern Europe for some Slavs, knowing that they didn’t understand our language and would be easier to control. The coal companies sent many agents all over Europe to entice the people to come to America. They told them that the streets were marble and the gold was for the picking. The majority that came were Lithuanians, Polish, Ukrainians, Czechs, Russians, Italian and some Spanish. These people had high hopes of coming to America and never realized that they would be put on trains with the windows painted black, destination unknown. They were herded straight to the coal fields to work in the bowels of the earth.Many of the immigrants were well educated but there was no other employment. The coal barons made sure of that because they owned the land and had the power to keep other industries out.The immigrants had families to feed and went to work in the mines. In addition to their long hours of hard labor, they had to buy all of their own equipment to dig the coal. They had to pay for the picks, shovels, dynamite, carbide, dooley caps, props, long hand augurs, carbide and oil for their lamps, hammers and nails. All of these necessities were docked from their wages. Sometimes, they brought no money home at all. And to top it all, they were forced to purchase their merchandise at the Company Store where prices were sky high.The wives and children worked all day long with no let up. They chopped wood and picked coal from the scrap heaps. They scrubbed and washed the clothes by hand with home made soap. They knitted and sewed their own clothes and did all the cooking and baking. They made sure there was hot water warming on the coal stove so the miner could wash up in the wooden tub by the stove each day, especially in the winter. And they even found the time to plan and build their own churches.I call the miners “heroes” because they put their lives on the line each day, not knowing if they would come out alive or dead. They were also responsible for putting our country in high gear by changing it from an agricultural nation to an industrial one. My father was killed in the mines on Feb. 13, 1934, when I was 11 years old, which I will never forget.So what held them together was their strong and devout faith in God. In 1914 the Lithuanian Catholic Priests League created the first Lithuanian Days at Lakewood Park. It was “The Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary,” which is celebrated on Aug. 15. They tried to bring all the Lithuanians together and take time to reflect, relax, and enjoy their friends and neighbors from all the different coal patches.First it started out with a Mass and then the festivities began. All nationalities gathered and celebrated that “Day of Days.” The only day the miners refused to work. There, happiness lingered until the next Lithuanian Days, and today, we feel the same way.
Marion WydraMount Carmel
http://www.zwire.com/
http://www.zwire.com/
Photo: Steve Woods
NEW YORK- Estonian computer criminal, Alexander Suvorov is likely to be extradited to the United States where he is suspected hacking into computer systems and selling stolen information for hefty amounts of money.
The US Secret Service arrested Suvorov, and a young man carrying an Estonian passport, in Frankfurt on Main on March 3 when he was attempting to fly with his girl-friend to Indonesia reports Der Spiegel.
The magazine wrote that the young man was known as Jonny Hell and was believed to belong to the world's biggest gang trading credit card numbers.
His detention has created problems in US-German relations, as US agents are likely to have acted on their own, without informing the German authorities.
According to Der Speigel the US Secret Service had been tracking Suvorov for three years and observed the couple while they were out shopping in central Frankfurt. But he was not arrested in central Frankfurt because this would have affected American-German relations.
A German court must now decide whether Suvorov will be extradited to the United States.
At the time of his arrest, the hacker had not touched German data banks. But he has obtained millions of credit card number in other countries and is said to have caused damages of over 100 million dollars.
If the U.S.’s suspicions are true, it is the biggest and most sensational computer crime of modern times, the publication wrote.
Currently the German court and the man's lawyer have no idea what role Suvorov is playing in this situation, as the U.S. information is highly classified.
The official extradition application only describes a case in which Suvorov hacked into the administration computer of the restaurant chain Dave & Buster and transferred the credit card numbers of the more than 5,000 clients of the chain to Estonia.
Jonny Hell gave the number to one of his accomplices who sold them to the highest bidder on the black market.
According to Der Spiegel Suvorov has denied the accusations.
AFP reported that in addition to Suvorov, Ukrainian Maksim Jastremski and Albert Gonzales, a resident of Miami, were also suspected of working with Suvorov.
The latter two men have been detained. Turkish authorities arrested Jastremski in July 2007 for different breaches of the law and he is currently in prison there. Gonzales was arrested in Miami.
http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/20835/
=========================================================================
Baltics need to raise productivity - World Bank
Jul 04, 2008By Mike Collier
UP THE WORKERS: Gains need to be made in the labor market (Photo: Mike Collier)
BRUSSELS - The countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, including the Baltic States, need to innovate, include all their citizens in the development of their countries, and integrate with the broader global economy if they want to sustain growth, according to a new World Bank report.
Launched in Brussels on July 2, the study with the snappy title: 'Innovation, Inclusion, and Integration: From Transition to Convergence in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union', says productivity growth is “the only viable route to lasting prosperity.”
In order to achieve that growth there needs to be a supportive, competitive business environment, a keen financial sector, good governance, and superior skills and infrastructure, the report says.
A particular challenge is identified as aging populations, which will slow economic growth unless more of the population is brought into the labor force. Resources should be used more efficiently, and pensions and health care systems are reformed to avoid them becoming sources of acute fiscal pressure, the World Bank says.
“When it comes to the importance of competition for restructuring activities in firms, the transition economies are following in the footsteps of developed market economies,” said Pradeep Mitra, the World Bank's Chief Economist for Europe and Central Asia Region, the author of the report. “Their business and financial sectors are maturing as well, relying less on family and informal sources to fund fixed investments.”
According to Mitra, “Boosting productivity requires firms either to innovate, developing knowledge new to the world, or to absorb knowledge, integrating and commercializing knowledge new to the firm but not to the world.”
“Productivity growth,” said Mitra, “is higher in firms when they face stronger pressure from domestic competitors to develop new products and markets; when they are in industries that rely more on external finance in countries with more developed financial sectors; when rules and regulations are more predictable and there is greater confidence in the legal system; when they offer more on-the-job training to their workers; and when the availability of mainline telephone services is higher and the incidence of power outages is lower.”
Of the Baltics, only Estonia merits a special mention in the report. “The Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, and the Slovak Republic,” said Mitra, “have attracted large amounts of foreign direct investment, and participate almost as heavily as developing East Asia in producer-driven global commodity chains, such as those for automotives and information technology and export capital and skilled labor-intensive products. In contrast, most CIS countries export natural resources and unskilled labor-intensive products.”
However, all three Baltic states have issues with demographics and their labor markets.
Said Mitra: “The challenge posed to economic growth by rapidly aging populations... is serious and systemic. Offsetting it requires, first, getting the most out of the existing capital stock and labor force – through all the reforms of the business environment needed for productivity growth. Second, it calls for using all and not just part of a country’s human resources by raising and equalizing the retirement ages for men and women and, where the fiscal situation allows, reducing taxes on labor that make hiring labor expensive. Third, it requires reform of pensions and health care systems, so that fiscal pressures do not crowd out desirable spending on infrastructure and social safety nets and the private investment for productivity growth.”
“Finally,” Mitra added, “international circular migration of labor that is coordinated between sending and receiving countries and respects migrants’ rights can supplement such a policy package. Migration involves complex political, economic, and social factors, and it is for this reason that policy experiments might be needed to improve the frameworks that regulate it.”
http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/20773/
=====================================================
**************************************************************************
Estonian MEP suggests deploying EU police mission to Georgia
18:34, 15. July 2008
BRUSSELS, Jul 15, BNS - A police mission of the European Union could be a tangible contribution to stabilizing the situation in Georgia, a member of the European parliament for Estonia suggests.
Tunne Kelam made the suggestion during the discussion of the results of the recent EU-Russia summit and ongoing preparations for a new partnership agreement in the parliament's foreign affairs committee today.
In the situation where tensions between Russia and Georgia are dangerously escalating and Russian peacekeepers in Abkhazia are totally discredited, the EU should not confine itself to the diplomatic role of intermediary but ensure the bloc's real presence in the conflict area, Kelam said.
In his view, only this would send Russia a clear message that the EU actually cares about Georgia's territorial integrity and does not in fact regard that country as belonging to Russia's sphere of influence.
According to the deputy director-general of the European Commission's External Relations Directorate, Hugues Mingarelli, the real problem is that Moscow views Georgia as its internal affair and tries to keep discussion of the issue to the minimum. The Commission representative underlined that the EU regards Georgia as a neighbour in whose fate it takes an immediate interest.
Mingarelli found that the proposal to send a police mission to Georgia deserves to be considered, Kelam's office reports. The Commission is far from naive in its dealings with Russia, the director said. However, the problem lies not so much in the behaviour of Russia as a partner as in the absence of a common position among EU member states.
Kelam also brought the Russian government's fresh steps to repress civil rights to the committee's attention. He cited a newly-adopted decree that drastically cuts the number of NGOs linked with foreign countries that are entitled to tax benefits.
As Europe was waiting to find out whether Russia's new President Dmitry Medvedev was more liberal than his predecessor Vladimir Putin, the said decree was in Kelam's opinion a significant indicator that pressure on and open hostility towards organizations defending human rights and foreign ones in particular were sharply rising.
Tallinn newsroom, +372 610 8861, sise@bns.ee
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article4164437.ece
From The Sunday Times
June 22, 2008
Tunne Kelam made the suggestion during the discussion of the results of the recent EU-Russia summit and ongoing preparations for a new partnership agreement in the parliament's foreign affairs committee today.
In the situation where tensions between Russia and Georgia are dangerously escalating and Russian peacekeepers in Abkhazia are totally discredited, the EU should not confine itself to the diplomatic role of intermediary but ensure the bloc's real presence in the conflict area, Kelam said.
In his view, only this would send Russia a clear message that the EU actually cares about Georgia's territorial integrity and does not in fact regard that country as belonging to Russia's sphere of influence.
According to the deputy director-general of the European Commission's External Relations Directorate, Hugues Mingarelli, the real problem is that Moscow views Georgia as its internal affair and tries to keep discussion of the issue to the minimum. The Commission representative underlined that the EU regards Georgia as a neighbour in whose fate it takes an immediate interest.
Mingarelli found that the proposal to send a police mission to Georgia deserves to be considered, Kelam's office reports. The Commission is far from naive in its dealings with Russia, the director said. However, the problem lies not so much in the behaviour of Russia as a partner as in the absence of a common position among EU member states.
Kelam also brought the Russian government's fresh steps to repress civil rights to the committee's attention. He cited a newly-adopted decree that drastically cuts the number of NGOs linked with foreign countries that are entitled to tax benefits.
As Europe was waiting to find out whether Russia's new President Dmitry Medvedev was more liberal than his predecessor Vladimir Putin, the said decree was in Kelam's opinion a significant indicator that pressure on and open hostility towards organizations defending human rights and foreign ones in particular were sharply rising.
Tallinn newsroom, +372 610 8861, sise@bns.ee
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article4164437.ece
From The Sunday Times
June 22, 2008
Best of Times, Worst of Times: Hannah
Hannah, 27, is Estonia’s biggest pop star and the country’s tourism ambassador. She recalls a summer day spent hiding from the invading Soviets in her grandparents’ cellar. Only then did she learn the shocking truth about her family’s tragic past
When I was a child, my brother, Jaanus, and I would always get excited about the summer holidays because we knew we were going to stay with our grandparents. We lived in Estonia’s capital, Tallinn, and they had a small summer house near the village of Kabli on a beautiful stretch of the Estonian coastline. It was surrounded by pine forests and close to wonderful beaches where we’d swim and play games for hours. It was idyllic.
Inside the house, my grandmother spent a lot of time in the kitchen pickling and preserving — onions, eels, tomatoes, gherkins, all sorts. We’d get up in the morning to find pots boiling on the stove and vinegars, oils and spices on the table. Meanwhile, Grandfather picked blackberries and wild strawberries for us to have with our porridge.
It was one such holiday. I was 10; my brother was 14. What made it stand out were the constant TV clips of Estonian politicians demanding independence from the Soviet Union, which was finally declared on August 20, 1991. I was still too young to understand the importance of that day in our history, but the following day I was to get a strong sense of what it meant to my grandmother. I was outside with Jaanus when we heard this strange rumbling noise. It was coming from the highway — a few metres away. We ran inside to tell my grandmother, who came to the gate.
Without saying a word, she ushered us back in and bolted the door. She and my grandfather locked windows, closed curtains and put out fires. We asked her what the noise was. She just smiled reassuringly and said we were going to play a game — we were going to pretend nobody was in the house. We followed our grandparents down to the basement. Now the noise was deafening. The walls shook. The furniture rattled.
My grandmother seemed calm, but she knew all too well it was the sound of Soviet tanks, a sound she’d first heard as a girl, living on the Estonian island of Saaremaa. It was June 1940 and Stalin’s Red Army had just invaded. Thousands of Estonians were sent to Siberian labour camps, and for the rest of the second world war Estonia was occupied by either the Russians or the Germans.
When the war ended, Estonians hoped their freedom would return, but in 1949 Stalin instigated a new reign of terror. Fearing a repeat of the deportations in the war, many Estonians tried to escape on ships going to Sweden or Canada. My grandmother, who’d married the year before and had a baby, tried leaving with her husband, but they couldn’t get out on the same ship. She insisted he go first and she’d follow the next day. She never made it. The Red Army were quick to tighten their grip. Dissidents were killed and with new quotas to fill for labour camps, troops went from house to house, often taking entire families.
The day they came to Grandmother’s house, she was out, but she returned to find her parents and her sister had been taken. She fled with her baby into nearby forests. In the middle of the night she reached a lodge where the forester and his wife said the troops had let them stay. She knew she couldn’t take refuge there, but she begged them to take her baby. They agreed, and she escaped back into the forest. But troops tracked her down and she was sent to the island’s prison. There, she was beaten constantly. It’s a miracle she survived. Weeks passed, she was weak and grief-stricken. Then she heard some prisoners were planning an escape. To be caught meant execution, but she knew it might be her only chance of getting out alive.
Amazingly, they all got out and my grandmother went back and got her baby. She escaped deportation, but she never saw her parents and sister again. They perished in the labour camps. As for her husband, he reached Canada, but could never return. Her life was in pieces, but eventually she remarried — to the grandfather I knew — and she then had another child: my father.
Before that day in 1991, she had never spoken to me of her suffering. But as we sat in the basement, she did talk; bit by bit. We remained down there until nightfall, long after the sounds of the tanks had disappeared. There were no phones then, so we couldn’t contact anyone. Only that night, when we watched the news, did we learn that Soviet tanks had rolled into the capital and tried to retake control. Thankfully, they failed, and Estonians kept their freedom. During that period, the other Baltic States, Latvia and Lithuania, also won their independence. And four months later, the USSR was dissolved.
Sadly, my grandparents are no longer with us, but every year I return to the summer house and I think about that day… a day I shall never forget.
To mark the 90th anniversary of the Republic of Estonia, Hannah is singing at St Paul’s, Knightsbridge, London SW1, on July 8. Visit http://www.hannahsite.com/
==================================================================
Just back from a Baltic Sea cruise that provided an interesting perspective on “Green” Europe. Passing through the Kiel canal in northern Germany which shortcuts Denmark by linking North Sea shipping traffic to the Baltic one is immediately struck by the forests of windmills. While Germany hasn’t had an official state religion since the 15th century, the presence of windmills is evidence of the strong union of Green Church and state. Interestingly, this throwback to state religion has also brought a return to the European skyline of yore: horizons peppered with windmills. Yes, the new models are sleeker than the old wood variety, but they are a symbol of how deeply Germany is in the grip of Greens who want a return to a "pre-industrial nirvana." Germany has been operating under a national renewable power standard since 1990 with the goal of forcing 12 percent of electricity generation from wind by 2010 (an RPS model that many U.S. states are adopting).The mandate was supposed to make wind more affordable but the industry is still heavily subsidized to remain viable. (Anybody stateside listening?) And, as in this country, some German Greens have soured on wind power as the windmills have multiplied, eliciting complaints of blocked views and shredded bird populations. The windmills died out as our ship made its way to the Baltic coasts of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. These states have well-developed hydro resources to fill their renewable portfolios. But make no mistake these countries are Al Gore’s nightmare. The Baltics experienced an initial sharp decline in CO2 emissions after independence from Mother Russia in 1991, as they transitioned to more efficient market economies. But now that the free-market and flat taxes are producing galloping 10-percent annual growth rates, their CO2 emission trends have reversed. Estonia’s GHG emissions, for example, are accelerating at 11 percent a year in an economy 60 percent dependent on domestically produced oil shale for its electricity. The country a member of the EU and a Kyoto signatory is now protesting the draconian targets those organizations have set for it. Newly independent from Soviet central planning, the Baltics appear cool to adopting the EU's green vision. Meanwhile, Estonia’s vibrant economy is pulling diesel-powered ships like ours through the Kiel Canal as tourism and industry expand. The Kiel Canal may have been lined with windmills but it was also choked with bumper-to-bumper diesel ship traffic.
Daniel Foty
===========================================================
http://www.azi.md/news?ID=50210
July 17 2008
Daniel Foty
===========================================================
http://www.azi.md/news?ID=50210
July 17 2008
Moldova ranks sixth among CIS and Baltic countries in number of suicides
The average number of suicides in Moldova constitutes 17.25 cases per 100 thousand residents. Such data are given by the Gallup international sociological service, which put Moldova on the sixth place among CIS and Baltic countries in its suicide rating.
According to Gallup, the objective was to clear out, how the religious beliefs influence the number of suicides.
The survey took several years, the data about 65 states were collected and experts came to the conclusion that the more people believe in God, the less suicides are committed.
Estonia proved to be the least religious country, but the most considerable number of suicides is committed in Belarus (21.40 and 36.8 cases respectively).
In Russia there are 36.15 suicides per 100 thousand residents, in Kazakhstan - 29.95, in Latvia - 25.7, in Ukraine - 25.15.
In more religious republics the number of suicides is considerably less: in Armenia - 1.85 cases, in Georgia - 2.25, in Tajikistan - 2.6, in Uzbekistan - 5.55, in Kyrgyzstan - 9.
In the course of the survey it was cleared out that the Kuwait residents are most religious, the annual number of suicides is 1.95. It is followed Philippines 2.1 and Mauritania - 8.15 cases.
According to the WHO data, for the last half-century the number of suicides increased by 60%, alongside with there were 20 people, who attempted to commit a suicide per each, who succeeded in this.
The Gallup Organization is set up by George Gallup in 1935. It is currently a transnational company, which conduct public opinion polls, publishes various books, renders consulting services and makes market surveys. It has its offices in 47 countries, including the countries of the "Big Eight". The yearly turnover of the company is USD200 million.
================================================
Jul 18, 2008In cooperation with the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
NEW YORK-
The United Nations biennial meeting of states began July 16 in New York. The group met to discuss implementing the UN Program of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons Program. Lithuania's Permanent Representative to the UN Dalius Čekuolis chaired the meeting. This meeting will continue until July 18. During the meeting of states, four key topics will be discussed: international cooperation and assistance in solving problems related to small arms; management of stockpiles; illicit arms brokering and marking and identification. The meeting should also project future objectives for the UN small arms process. Since 2004, Lithuania has allotted more than half a million Litas to various disarmament projects in Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. Lithuania funds mine-clearing operations and chairs the Standing Committee on Mine Clearance of the Mine Ban Convention and the international conference of the Protocol on Explosive Remnants of War of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/20878/
No comments:
Post a Comment