MONDAY’S GAMES AND FROLICS

Boston Massacre 3 dead.
Kabul, Afghanistan – 24 dead.
Mogadishu, Somalia – 38 dead.
Combined all-star team in Iraq – 61 dead, 271 wounded.

The major leagues are tough and the Boston Marathon just doesn’t have what it takes to make the Big Time. However, our prayers and well-wishing thoughts go out to all the victims and their families and especially to Michelle Obama and her two kids, Sasha and Malia, as they busy themselves grieving as proxies for all America.
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OUR THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS GO OUT TO [BLAH, BLAH, BLAH]

Very shortly after the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers, aggressive comedians started to tell jokes about what had just happened. Their detractors groaned and and objected: “Too soon, too soon.” But was it too soon? Did we have to have a period of healing? I’m on the side of the comedians. It is never too soon. Nothing is better proof to the enemy of our so-called resilience than that we meet them so quickly and that we can stun them with our tough-minded responses.

Resilience can be shown in lots of ways. In my own feeble way it is via my strong objection to the saccharine sweetness of the Kenyan’s reassurance that we will get the evils-doers, make no mistake about that. In the meanwhile, he solemnly declared, our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and their families.

HOGWASH! Sickening hogwash. The word “will” can mean “resolve” or it can be used as a prediction. The president is either ignorant of the difference or chose to run roughshod over it. At best, he could have meant “We are resolved as a people to catch the freaks who blasted away at the Boston Marathon.” He did not have the guts to say that. No, indeed, he preferred “We WILL get the bad guys,” in the strongest sense of the term “will.” I coulld tolerate this standard obfuscation by the president had he not tagged on “…our prayers go out to all….” MINE DON’T. Millions of others join me. We don’t pray to a false SKYKING. We think that does more harm than good. Right or wrong, we deserve not to be ignored. When he is not mawkishly on parade, the president likes to proclaim there is plenty of room in a democracy for pluralistic values that include atheism. Every previous president was equally hypocritical. They are all false dogs.

The post-blast parade of VIPs straining to show they are the VIPS assaulted our intelligence and patience. Amazing to me is that Charles Schumer, the senator most passionate about being included in every photo shoot, was not there. Even he, for once, knew when to back off. A ton of others took their turns at the microphones to invoke God’s goodness. Other senators, other senators’ ex-sisters-in-law’s cousins, governors, et al, took a shot at the camera. Or course, forewarned is forearmed , so you can bet those cousins informed their ex-sisters-in-law that they were scheduled to have their three minutes of fame at whatever time they did manage to grab.

Range

Hwasong 5 – 300 KM (apx 186 miles). Cannot reach Japan.

Hwasong 6 – 500 KM (about 310 miles)

Musudan – 3000 KM (10 x Hwasong 5′s 186 miles range – you do the math.)

Taepodong 1 – 2,500 KM Cannot reach Hawaii or Guam.

Taepodong 2 – 6,700 KM Could threaten northern Australia and Alaska. Cannot reach U.S. mainland.

Then, too, there is the new KN-08. Untested. Japanese press [Asahi Shimbun] says its accuracy is very suspect. The real reason North Korea has moved much of its military firepower to the east coast is not to have a better shot at South Korea but to ensure its missiles would not fall on its own soil.

North Korea’s longest range missiles could reach China and India but the Koreans are already getting on the nerves of their supposed allies, the Chinese, and Kim Jong Un is not so stupid as to want to antagonize them further by pointing out that China, too, is within range.

And let us not forget, there is no good reason to think any of these missiles work. They haven’t bee tested. You don’t go to war with weapons that don’t fire.

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From The Wall St. Journal- TEL AVIV—Israeli jets struck the Gaza Strip late Tuesday and early Wednesday for the first time since a week of fighting with Hamas in November, in retaliation for what Israel called the renewal of rocket and mortar attacks by Palestinian militants in the territory.

Israel Air Force targeted two “extensive terror sites” in the northern Gaza Strip, the military said.

A rocket attack on Tuesday marked just the third time Gaza militants have launched strikes into Israel since that truce, Israeli officials said.

The Israeli army said in a statement that the military wouldn’t allow Israeli citizens to be subjected to the continuing rocket fire that existed before the fighting in November.

The Gaza strikes appear to be part of the spillover effect from an outbreak of clashes by Palestinians in the West Bank against Israeli security forces to protest the Tuesday death of Palestinian prisoner Maysara Abu Hamdieh in Israeli custody. A previously unknown group claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s rocket fire into Israel, saying it was in solidarity with Mr. Abu Hamdieh.

Ofir Gendelman, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a statement on Twitter that Mr. Abu Hamdieh died of esophageal cancer, and that he had been sentenced to life in prison for planning the bombing of an Israeli cafe at the height of the Palestinian uprising more than 10 years ago.

News of the death touched off violent clashes between Palestinian inmates and Israeli prison guards, and fighting in the city of Hebron. Mr. Abu Hamdieh’s funeral is scheduled for Wednesday, raising the prospect of more violence.

Unrest has been on the rise in the West Bank in recent months. In February, the death of a Palestinian prisoner in Israeli custody sparked a mass funeral, rock throwing, and firebomb attacks on Israeli soldiers.

Also on Tuesday, the Israeli military fired into Syria on Tuesday after a mortar shell landed on its side of the frontier in the Golan Heights region. The incident came after Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon visited the strategic plateau Tuesday and warned that Israel would respond to any attack from Syria.

[SG: Children will pay with fire.]

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MA2hk_CIZeo

In truth, if a giant tsunami washed over this bit of land smaller than Connecticut, nobody would notice or care. The Cypriots themselves would be dead and less than indifferent. Cyprus is a member of the European Union and that accounts for the interest its vacillating fortunes create. Angela Merkel is that kind of Guy.

What is really interesting about Cyprus is just this: it is a destination country for men and women who are subjected to forced labor and forced prostitution; trafficking victims in Cyprus originate from Russia, Moldova, Ukraine, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Belarus, the Philippines, Morocco, China, Vietnam, Uzbekistan, Greece, the United Kingdom, Colombia and the Dominican Republic; sex trafficking occurs within commercial sex industry outlets in Cyprus, including cabarets, bars, pubs, and massage parlors disguised as private apartments. The CIA reports that “the government failed to demonstrate evidence of increasing efforts to address human trafficking over the previous reporting period; trafficking-related complicity significantly hampered the government’s anti-trafficking efforts though the government took some initial steps to address it; very few prosecutions resulted in traffickers being held accountable; the government made few improvements in the protection of victims; it did not ensure procedures for the safe repatriation of foreign victims; a nationwide campaign to specifically address demand within Cyprus has yet to be implemented (2011)” Apart from all this fun and games, Cyprus is duller than dishwater.

For the record, the population is 1,138,071 (as of last July), the people are mainly Greek and their favorite cult religion is Greek Orthodox (78%) distantly trailed by Muslims with an 18% showing.

If you have a summer home in Connecticut, stay put. Winter home? Autumn? Spring? Do likewise.

22 March 2013
Today’s top story

France: Sarkozy comeback dream in tatters after corruption charge
Agence France-Presse. Nicolas Sarkozy’s hopes of a political comeback lay in tatters Friday after the former French president was charged in connection with a criminal probe into illegal party financing.

More news

Global: FIFA anti-graft adviser stays as key proposals rejected
Bloomberg Businessweek

Indonesia: KPK arrests West Java judge for allegedly taking bribe in corruption case
Jakarta Globe

Spain: Spain ruling party moneyman refuses graft testimony
Agence France-Presse

US: Bell corruption mistrial declared on counts that remained
Bloomberg

Zimbabwe: Anti-Corruption Commission under fire
All Africa

Blogs and opinion

China: Wang Qishan has one crucial advantage for fighting corruption
The Economist

Mali: Corruption pieces in the Mali puzzle: context, military, crime, and peacekeepers
Think Africa Press

“MAKE no mistake about it,” said a senior Israeli official preparing for the arrival on March 20th of Barack Obama on a three-day visit. “Iran will be front and centre of the discussions between the president and Mr Netanyahu.” The dangers to the region from the bloody Syrian civil war and the need to revive the comatose peace process with the Palestinians were also high on the agenda during five hours of talks between Mr Obama and Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister. But, in different ways, Iran loomed over both those issues too.

Without the money (about $10 billion so far), weapons and expertise that Iran is pouring into Syria in an effort to prop up its strategically vital ally, Bashar Assad, the regime in Damascus might have fallen already. Iran also finances and controls Hizbullah, the Shia militia-cum-political party that runs southern Lebanon and now has an arsenal of around 60,000 mainly Iranian-supplied missiles aimed at Israel. According to Israeli intelligence sources, Hizbullah is also working to forge militias loyal to the regime in Syria into a 100,000-strong irregular army to fight alongside Mr Assad’s conventional forces.

A growing worry for Israeli military commanders is that, as a quid pro quo for Iranian help, Mr Assad is trying to get sophisticated Russian weapons into Hizbullah’s hands for use against Israel in the event of another war in Lebanon. These include mobile SA-17 ground-to-air missiles and the Yakhont, a supersonic anti-ship cruise missile with a range of up to 300km. Israeli jets destroyed a convoy taking SA-17s to Lebanon in late January. They will take similar action again if they need to, but help from America would be appreciated. Just before Mr Obama’s arrival, a senior military official mused: “Maybe it would be better if Israel doesn’t do it [alone]…these missiles are not just a problem for Israel. Who has the biggest navy in the Mediterranean?”

As for the peace process with the Palestinians, a clear link exists with Mr Obama’s ability to cast himself in the mould of his predecessors as an utterly reliable guarantor of Israel’s ultimate security. Some Israelis, egged on by the president’s domestic opponents, have questioned his support. The frosty personal relationship between Mr Obama and Mr Netanyahu has also been a hindrance (the former aloof, the latter prickly and close to rooting for Mitt Romney in November’s presidential election).

When Bill Clinton, a former president, delivered home truths to Israel about the need to engage with the Palestinians, he succeeded because most Israelis trusted that he would always be there for them. The carefully constructed language of Mr Obama’s speech to Israeli university students on March 21st (as The Economist went to press) suggests that this is something he now understands. His visit alone has improved Israeli perceptions of Mr Obama, buoyed further by gratitude for the American-financed Iron Dome missile-defence system that did so well during last year’s conflict with Hamas in Gaza.

Although differences remain between the two men on how to deal with the threat from Iran’s nuclear programme, they have narrowed. At a joint press conference, Mr Netanyahu declared himself “absolutely convinced” that Mr Obama was determined to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran. For his part, Mr Obama indicated that he understood why Israel might feel more urgently than America the need for military action—perhaps a warning to Tehran that he would not hold Israel back. Mr Netanyahu has consistently argued that Iran must be prevented from having the capability to build a nuclear weapon. But until recently Mr Obama had talked only about stopping Iran from having such a device, as if he were prepared to allow Iran to assemble the pieces so long as it did not actually choose to make a bomb. Israel’s position is that, because of the existential threat posed by a nuclear Iran, it cannot risk allowing such a “breakout” capability.

Mr Netanyahu sees thwarting Iran’s nuclear ambitions as the overriding task of his government. He has often seemed frustrated by the Americans’ insistence on giving sanctions and diplomacy more time to work. A further source of tension has been Israel’s concern that—given its inferior military resources compared with America’s if it came to inflicting serious damage on Iranian nuclear facilities—it would have to strike before Iran entered what the previous defence minister, Ehud Barak, called a “zone of immunity” (probably when it has installed enough centrifuges to produce a bomb at Fordow, a uranium-enrichment plant that is buried under a mountain).

Mr Netanyahu made a strongly worded speech at the United Nations last September (complete with a cartoon bomb as a prop) declaring that he would not allow Iran to acquire enough 20% enriched uranium—about 240kg—to move quickly to make a single nuclear weapon. He expected that to be early this summer.

Several things have since changed to bring Israeli and American positions closer together. Iran has been careful to stay well below the 240kg mark by tactically diverting about 40% of its stockpile of medium-enriched fuel into oxide form for a research reactor in Tehran. Yet at the same time it has been introducing a new generation of centrifuges that can enrich four to five times as fast as the old ones.

Consequently, Israel feels able to stay its hand for a bit longer (moreover, Mr Barak’s successor, Moshe Ya’alon, a former head of the army, is a sceptic about the zone-of-immunity concept). Meanwhile America has become more worried about the risk of Iran being able to sprint to a bomb in between inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog. This week Mr Obama declared: “There is not a lot of daylight between our countries’ assessment of where Iran is right now.” Mr Netanyahu agreed, saying that Iran was about a year from being able to make a nuclear weapon. Whatever time is left, he added, Israel and America now “have a common assessment on the schedules, on intelligence; we don’t have any argument about it.”

Mr Obama has not given Mr Netanyahu what he would most like—an ultimatum to Iran that it must reach a deal on halting enrichment within months or face military action. But he has told him that America is now closer to the threshold for taking such a step; and that he is not prepared to allow diplomatic negotiations to run beyond this year without a big change in Iran’s attitude. The two allies may not quite be in lockstep, but they are now marching in time. That is quite an achievement for Mr Netanyahu, but one for which Mr Obama will want something in return—above all a new attempt to negotiate a two-state solution with the Palestinians.

If we must have a catchphrase for NY’s cops, it ought to be this: OUR WORST. I have argued for years that police everywhere are, institutionally, a disaster. Now and then we are glad for their interventions but on the whole they do more harm than good and, it may even be maintained, that they exist for the purpose of making ordinary people miserable. Outlandish as that sounds, there is some evidence for it.

We all know the horror stories concerning police brutality but few of us know how systemic it is and most of us would be reluctant to do away with police altogether because we have no grasp of what alternatives there can be. Philosopher Robert Nozick, arguing on the basis of libertarian principles, once upon a time, proposed neighborhood security teams in lieu of government-sponsored police. On its face, this proposal seems to leave lot to be desired but, while Nozick himself never elaborated, there are ways to make it practical. That is not my concern in this essay. I want to document our decline into a police state, a frightful state that foolish champions of police fail to fully appreciate. I am not going to explore the depth of police corruption nor even the extent of police brutality. These matters have been investigated hundreds of times, and more fully than I can hope to emulate. Reports have been issued dozens of times and to some extent they do good. The most famous is the Knapp Commission Report on Corruption. For starters, but by no means finishers, take a look at the laconic article about the Knapp Commission in Wikipedia.

Far less publicized than corruption and overt instances of brutality, is the militarization of police forces everywhere. This has been an insidious encroachment into our lives for decades beginning in the 1960s when Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates first conceived the idea of the SWAT team in response to the Watts riots and a few mass shooting incidents for which he thought the police were unprepared.

Gates’ idea quickly grew popular in law enforcement circles, particularly in cities worried about rioting and domestic terrorism. From Gates’ lone team in LA, the number of SWAT teams in the U.S. grew to 500 by 1975. By 1982, nearly 60 percent of American cities with 50,000 or more people had a SWAT team. By 1995, nearly 90 percent of cities with 50,000 or more people had a SWAT team. According to Peter Kraska, a criminologist at Eastern Kentucky University, the total number of SWAT raids in America jumped from just a few hundred per year in the 1970s, to a few thousand by the early 1980s, to around 50,000 by the mid-2000s.

Police no longer reserve SWAT teams and paramilitary tactics for events that present an immediate threat to the public. They now use them mostly as an investigative tool in drug cases, creating violent confrontations with people suspected of nonviolent, consensual crimes. In 1988, Congress created the Byrne grant program, which gives money to local police departments and prosecutors for a number of different criminal justice purposes. A large portion of Byrne grant money over the years has been earmarked for anti-drug policing. Competition among police agencies for the pool of cash has made anti-drug policing a high priority. And once there was federal cash available for drug busts, drug raids became more common. Politicians love the Byrne grant program. Congressmen get to put out press releases announcing the new half-million dollar grant they’ve just secured for the hometown police department. Everyone gets to look tough on crime. The old lady on the street is thrilled because, through it all, “the nice officer on the beat” stops to help her cross the busy intersection. (Three miles away, her son is being harassed by a cop wearing dark glasses. Her son’s crime? Dirty license plate and being disrespectful.)

Roving bands of drug cops are often entirely funded with asset forfeiture, and usually don’t report to any single police agency. Lack of real accountability has produced catastrophic results, like the mass drug raid debacles in Tulia and Hearne, Texas, in the late 1990s. In Hearne, for example, police raids were nothing else than a crackdown on black Americans because black Americans were black Americans. It remains one of the great scandals of criminal “justice” in America. Dozens of African Americans were rounded up in para-military drug sweeps and dozens of others were harassed and injured as “collateral, unintended damage.” The ACLU got nowhere in seeking a court order to prevent the Task Force and local law enforcement from conducting drug “sweeps” targeting African-American residents in Hearne and the unlawful arrest, detention, and prosecution of residents based solely on their race.

During the Clinton years, Congress passed what’s now known as the “1033 Program,” which formalized and streamlined the Reagan administration’s directive to the Pentagon to share surplus military gear with domestic police agencies. Since then, millions of pieces of military equipment designed for use on a battlefield have been transferred to local SWAT teams — machine guns, tanks, armored personnel carriers, helicopters, bayonets, and weapons that shoot .50-caliber ammunition. Clinton also created the “Troops to Cops” program, which offered grants to police departments who hired soldiers returning from battle, contributing even further to the militarization of the police force.

The ACLU is, for now, not trying to do more than gather information about the extent of militarization but its efforts are being blocked. In 2009, Maryland passed a SWAT transparency law. It requires every police agency in the state with a SWAT team to provide data twice per year on the number of times the SWAT team is deployed, the reason for the deployment, whether any shots were fired, and whether the raid resulted in criminal charges. The effort to get the law passed was led by Cheye Calvo, the mayor of Berwyn Heights, Md., who was the victim of a highly publicized mistaken raid on his home in which a Prince George’s County SWAT team shot and killed his two black Labradors. The bill puts no restrictions on SWAT teams or how they’re used. Its only purpose is transparency. Still, it was vigorously opposed by every police agency in the state. The National Sheriffs Association and the National Association of Chiefs of Police do not respond to requests for data. Why should they? As Stalin asked about the Pope, “How many divisions does he command?” That question may also be put to the ACLU.

The great champion of civil rights, Barack Obama, has expanded the Byrne and Community-Oriented Policing Services program (COPS) by giving them $1.55 billion, a 250 percent increase over its 2008 budget under Bush. (For that much money, Obama can inveigle me into wearing a good pair of storm trooper boots, good for kicking doors down.)

ACLU spokesperson Kara Dansky, senior counsel at the ACLU’s Center for Justice, is only seeking information. Once it gets the information, Dansky said the organization will analyze the figures and recommend policies to minimize the effects of police militarization on civil liberties. “We’re also concerned that these tactics are disproportionately used against poor people, and in communities of color,” Dansky said. “SWAT is really only part of it. The effects of militarization also happen beyond and outside of just an increase in SWAT deployments.”

“I wish the ACLU success,” abused mayor Cheye Calvo said. “And I suspect that once they force the police agencies to cooperate, they’ll find that this problem is even more dramatic and pronounced than most people know. But then the question is, now what? Even if you can show that people are being victimized and terrorized by these tactics — and to no good end — if no one cares, then what does it matter?”

Yes, now what? So far as I am concerned, the first step to end police viciousness does not like with the ACLU but with the public’s quitting the nonsense of thinking the police are our friends. And if nobody cares, as Calvo suspects, what does it all matter? We get the treatment we deserve and beg for.

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A solid lead for this article was provided by Dr. Ted Drange.

In an instant, an entire Chadian squad of rangers was cut down with alarming precision by elephant poachers who were skilled at killing more than just animals. Crouching in the bush, the poachers fired from a triangle of different spots, concealed and deadly accurate. Out here, among the spent bullet shells and the freshly dug graves, the cost of protecting wildlife is painfully clear. As ivory poaching becomes more militarized, with rebel groups and even government armies slaughtering thousands of elephants across Africa to cash in on record-high ivory prices, a horrible mismatch is shaping up. Wildlife rangers — who tend to be older, maybe a bit slower and incredibly knowledgeable about their environment and the ways of animals, but less so about infantry tactics — are wading into the bush to confront hardened soldiers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/01/world/africa/central-africas-wildlife-rangers-face-deadly-risks.html?ref=ivory

GARAMBA NATIONAL PARK, Democratic Republic of Congo — In 30 years of fighting poachers, Paul Onyango had never seen anything like this. Twenty-two dead elephants, including several very young ones, clumped together on the open savanna, many killed by a single bullet to the top of the head. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/04/world/africa/africas-elephants-are-being-slaughtered-in-poaching-frenzy.html?ref=africa

Only 44% of American women approve of drone strikes but 40% don’t give a hoot or holler whether they endanger civilian lives. Their concern is whether such strikes will lead to retaliation and/or damage America’s reputation.

Men love drone strikes – only 21% disapprove and 11% are bored out of their minds by the subject.

Democrats are much more likely than Republicans to express concern over whether drone attacks endanger civilian lives. Nearly two-thirds (65%) of Democrats and 53% of independents say they are very concerned about whether U.S. drone strikes endanger the lives of innocent civilians, compared with just 37% of Republicans. So? What else is new?

PEW did a scientifically sound survey of 1000 adults to obtain these results.

This passes for the best political film of 2012. Was there any in the field of nominees that was better? Only if you have a mature mind. You may have heard of Abraham Lincoln. There was a movie about him, too.

Hilton Botha, the chief investigator in the alleged murder of Reeva Steenkamp, the glamorous girlfriend of Oscar Pistorius, is himself facing an attempted murder charge stemming from an incident in 2011. Apparently nobody informed the prosecutor in the Oscar case. The police commissioner has now belatedly replaced the investigator with South Africa’s most senior detective. Given the notoriety surrounding the case, we must wonder what took so long. The commissioner says the case has the “utmost importance and significance.” You betcha, Chief, given that Oscar is the most famous person in the land whose name is not Nelson Mandela.

To heap prejudice upon prejudice, consider that Mr. Botha, the now former investigator, was also the chief investigator in an Oscar Pistorius assault case back in 2009. Is it possible there are only two cops in all South Africa, perhaps the most crime-ridden country in the world? The prosecutors, who are curiously hot to get Oscar, say it doesn’t make sense that he would have shot four bullets through a closed door without asking, “Who’s in that bathroom?” That’s true enough but neither does it make sense that if he wanted to kill the glamour queen he would not have opened the door to make sure his shots didn’t miss by a country mile.

Oscar says he called for an ambulance when he discovered it was Reeva bleeding badly. Botha admits he forgot to check the phone records! Botha also failed to wear standard protective footwear when investigating the scene, thus contaminating the evidence. His crazy reply was that the investigation was in a preliminary phase.

The judge in the case has ruled that Oscar is not a flight risk and has released him on low bond. Why any bond, judge, if he is not a flight risk? And how could a man who balances himself on two weird-looking prostheses be a flight risk? Where would he go if he took off? Perhaps this is a case of the left leg not knowing what the right leg is doing.

So if anybody tells you a person must be born an American citizen to be President, tell him he wrong. If your guy can trot out a birth certificate that shows he was born prior to 1776 and was a Kenyan back then but became a citizen in, say, 1789, he as eligible as Barack Obama.

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ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — In a desert standoff deep in the Sahara, the Algerian army ringed a natural gas complex where Islamist militants hunkered down with dozens of hostages Wednesday night after a rare attack that appeared to be the first violent shock wave from the French intervention in Mali.
A militant group that claimed responsibility said 41 foreigners, including seven Americans, were being held after the assault on one of oil-rich Algeria’s energy facilities, 800 miles from the capital of Algiers and 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) from the coast. Two foreigners were killed.
The group claiming responsibility said the attack was in revenge for Algeria’s support of France’s military operation against al-Qaida-linked rebels in neighboring Mali. The U.S. defense secretary called it a “terrorist act.”
The militants appeared to have no escape, with troops surrounding the complex and army helicopters clattering overhead.
The group — called Katibat Moulathamine or the Masked Brigade — phoned a Mauritanian news outlet to say one of its affiliates had carried out the operation at the Ain Amenas gas field, and that France should end its intervention in Mali to ensure the safety of the hostages.
BP, the Norwegian company Statoil and the Algerian state oil company Sonatrach, operate the gas field. A Japanese company, JGC Corp, provides services for the facility as well.
In Rome, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta declared that the U.S. “will take all necessary and proper steps” to deal with the attack in Algeria. He would not detail what such steps might be but condemned the action as “terrorist attack” and likened it to al-Qaida activities in Pakistan, Afghanistan and in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.
Algeria’s top security official, Interior Minister Daho Ould Kabila, said that “security forces have surrounded the area and cornered the terrorists, who are in one wing of the complex’s living quarters.”
He said one Briton and one Algerian were killed in the attack, while a Norwegian and two other Britons were among the six wounded.
“We reject all negotiations with the group, which is holding some 20 hostages from several nationalities,” Kabila said on national television, raising the specter of a possible armed assault to try to free the hostages.
The head of a catering company working on the base told the French Journal de Dimanche that helicopters were flying over the complex and the army waited outside. There were even reports of clashes between the two sides and a member of the militant group told the Mauritanian news outlet the Islamists had already repelled one assault by Algerian soldiers late Wednesday night.
It was not immediately possible to account for the discrepancies in the number of reported hostages. Their identities also were not clear, but Ireland announced that they included a 36-year-old married Irish man. Japan, Britain and the U.S. said their citizens were taken. A Norwegian woman said her husband called her saying that he had been taken hostage.
Hundreds of Algerians work at the plant and were also captured in the attack, but the Algerian state news agency reported they were gradually released unharmed Wednesday.
The Algerian minister said it seemed the militants were hoping to negotiate their departure from the area — a notion he rejected. He also dismissed theories that the militants had come from Libya, a mere 60 miles (100 kilometers) away, or from Mali, more than 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) away.
Kabila said the roughly 20 well armed gunmen were from Algeria itself, operating under orders from Moktar Belmoktar, al-Qaida’s strongman in the Sahara.
In Washington, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland confirmed that “U.S. citizens were among the hostages.”
The caller to the Nouakchott Information Agency, which often carries announcements from extremist groups, said the kidnapping was carried out by “Those Who Signed in Blood,” a group created to attack countries participating in the offensive against Islamist groups in Mali.
The Masked Brigade was formed by Belmoktar, a one-eyed Algerian who recently declared he was leaving the terror network’s Algerian branch, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, to create his own group. He said at the time he would still maintain ties with the central organization based in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The name of his group could be a reference to the nomadic Tuareg inhabitants of the Sahara, known for masking their faces with blue veils.
A close associate of Belmoktar blamed the West for France’s recent air and ground intervention against Islamist fighters in Mali.
“It’s the United Nations that gave the green light to this intervention and all Western countries are now going to pay a price. We are now globalizing our conflict,” Oumar Ould Hamaha told The Associated Press by telephone Wednesday night from an undisclosed location.
French President Francois Hollande launched the surprise operation in Mali, a former French colony in West Africa, on Friday, hoping to stop the al-Qaida-linked and other Islamist extremists whom he believes pose a danger to the world.
Further kidnappings could well be on the horizon, warned Sajjan Gohel, the international security director for the Asia-Pacific Foundation.
“The chances are that this may not be a one-off event, that there could be other attempts in Africa — especially north and western Africa — to directly target foreign interests,” he said. “It’s unclear as to what fate these individuals may meet, whether these terrorists are going to want a ransom or whether they’ll utilize this for propaganda purposes.”
Wednesday’s attack in Algeria began with an ambush on a bus carrying employees from the massive gas plant to the nearby airport but the attackers were driven off, according to the Algerian government, which said three vehicles of heavily armed men were involved.
“After their failed attempt, the terrorist group headed to the complex’s living quarters and took a number of workers with foreign nationalities hostage,” the government said in a statement.
Attacks on oil-rich Algeria’s hydrocarbon facilities are very rare, despite decades of fighting an Islamist insurgency, mostly in northern Algeria.
In the last several years, however, al-Qaida’s influence in the poorly patrolled desert of southern Algeria and northern Mali and Niger has grown and the group operates smuggling and kidnapping networks throughout the area. Militant groups that seized control of a vast section of northern Mali last year already hold seven French hostages as well as four Algerian diplomats.
Prime Minister David Cameron’s office said “several British nationals” were involved, while Japanese news agencies, citing unnamed government officials, said there are three Japanese hostages.
“I want to say this is unforgivable,” said Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was traveling from Vietnam to Thailand on Thursday as part of a Southeast Asian tour.
“Our first priority is to protect their lives,” Abe said of the hostages. Japanese and U.S. officials were meeting in Tokyo to cooperate in resolving the crisis, and Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera called for close exchange of information between the two governments.
Late Wednesday, Statoil said five employees —four Norwegians and a Canadian — were safe at an Algerian military camp and two of them had suffered minor injuries. It said 12 employees were unaccounted for.
The Norwegian newspaper Bergens Tidende said a 55-year-old Norwegian working on the site called his wife to say he had been abducted.
Algeria had long warned against any military intervention against the rebels in northern Mali, fearing the violence could spill over its own long and porous border. Though its position softened slightly after Hollande visited Algiers in December, Algerian authorities remain skeptical about the operation and worried about its consequences on the region.
Algeria, Africa’s biggest country, has been an ally of the U.S. and France in fighting terrorism for years. But its relationship with France has been fraught with lingering resentment over colonialism and the bloody war for independence that left Algeria a free country 50 years ago.
Algeria’s strong security forces have struggled for years against Islamist extremists, and have in recent years managed to nearly snuff out violence by al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb around its home base in northern Algeria. In the meantime, AQIM moved its focus southward.
AQIM has made tens of millions of dollars off kidnapping in the region, abducting Algerian businessmen or politicians, and sometimes foreigners, for ransom.
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Paul Schemm reported from Rabat, Morocco. Associated Press writers Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo, Rukmini Callimachi in Bamako, Mali, Bradley Klapper in Washington, Jill Lawless in London, Elaine Ganely in Paris, Jan Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, Shawn Pogatchnik in Dublin and Elaine Kurtenbach in Tokyo contributed to this report.

A recovery effort is currently underway to clean up a massive oil slick caused by the explosion of the oil rig Deep Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico last week. The leaking well is gushing more than 1,000 barrels of oil a day into the gulf and has already created a slick covering about 28,600 square miles. The U.S. Coast Guard and oil giant BP — which had the rig under contract — are trying to contain the slick before it reaches the coast of Louisiana. But after the recovery workers remove the oil from the water, what do they do with it?

It’s largely a matter of speed. As we all learn in science class, oil and water don’t mix, and oil will float at the surface. After an oil spill at sea, recovery workers will attempt to contain the slick with booms and remove it with floating skimmers. Given how quickly oil can spread in rough seas, though, this is an extremely difficult process, and only 10 to 15 percent is typically recovered in major maritime spills.

Once oil waste is recovered, it is classified by type. The quality of the waste depends largely on how long the oil has been exposed to sediment and debris in the water. If it is recovered quickly, the oil can be separated from the water and reprocessed. Although it probably won’t be sold on the open market, this oil can be burned to power oil refineries, power, stations, cement plants, or brick kilns.

Oil that’s been in the water too long is typically rendered unusable by salt, sediment, and other materials. This includes oil that washes up on shore, which will usually settle into a tar-like substance on the beach. Such oil generally has to be disposed of in landfills, broken down with chemicals, or just incinerated.

While the collection of oil after a spill typically gets more attention, the disposal of the oil can be just as critical to mitigating environmental damage. Failure to probably segregate oil waste by type at the spill site can lead to thousands of gallons of reusable oil being wasted. Improper disposal or incineration can spread contamination further.

BP has not yet decided on a disposal method for the oil from the Deep Horizon spill, but with more than 35,000 gallons of crude recovered so far, it’s a pretty big mess to clean up.

Here is a list of the best Civil War movies. Culled from over one thousand pretenders.

1. GLORY – stars Matthew Broderick and Denzel Washington. Great and horrifying battle scenes. From this movie, you really learn why war is hell.

2.THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE – Everyone has read the book; now see the movie. All about courage and cowardice.

3. GONE WITH THE WIND – The epic of epics. You can’t argue with it. You might as well say you read Hamlet and didn’t like it. Visually stunning and the winner of exactly 35 trillion awards and honors. I’m a fan.

4. An OCCURRENCE AT OWL CREEK BRIDGE – It has no competition in the category of greatest very short movie ever made. A disquisition on time. A work of genius. A philosophical masterpiece. visually stunning. You cannot say enough or too many good things about it.

5. BIRTH OF A NATION - If you feel you must make a ranking of best Civil War movies of all time, leave this one out. It is downright stupid to compare other Civil War films to this one. It is not just that it is in a class by itself but it is a serious contender for greatest movie of all time, regardless of its category. It is not a movie you watch to enjoy; in fact, it is nearly impossible to enjoy it. Viewing this film is part of your education as a human being.

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Oh, and of course, the aforementioned LINCOLN. Best movie of 2012.

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Rebels have grabbed more territory in Mali, inching closer to the capital despite intensive aerial bombardments by French warplanes, French and Malian authorities have said.

The al-Qaeda-linked rebels overran the garrison village of Diabaly in central Mali, France’s defence minister said in Paris on Monday.

Jean-Yves Le Drian said the rebels “took Diabaly after fierce fighting and resistance from the Malian army that couldn’t hold them back”‘.

The Malian military is in disarray and has let many towns fall with barely a shot fired since the insurgency began almost a year ago in the northwest African nation.

French military forces, who began battling in Mali on Friday, widened their aerial bombing campaign against the rebels occupying northern Mali, launching airstrikes for the first time in central Mali to combat the new threat.

Al Jazeera’s correspondent Nazanine Moshiri, reporting from the capital Bamako, said: “There are reports of about 60 fighters being killed thus far while Doctors without Borders say they are very concerned about the lives of civilians in the region.”

The rebels, who come from several nations besides Mali, had been bottled up in the narrow neck of central Mali. But by now sweeping in from the west, they are now only 400km from Bamako, in southern Mali.

Before France sent its forces in on Friday, the closest known spot the rebels were to the capital was 680km away, although they might have infiltrated closer than that.

‘Africanisation’ of conflict

France is urging the “Africanisation” of the conflict, encouraging African nations to send troops to fight the rebels.

There have been promises, but no troops movements have yet been publicly announced.

Early Monday, an intelligence agent confirmed that shots rang out near the Diabaly military camp in what was still nominally government-held territory and that soon after, jets were heard overhead, followed by explosions.

The agent insisted on anonymity because he is not authorised to speak publicly on the matter.

A Malian commander in the nearby town of Niono said the bombardments did not stop the fighters and that they occupied Alatona.

The commander said that on Monday, the rebels succeeded in reaching the north-south road which connects Diabaly to Segou, the administrative capital of central Mali.

Dennis Kucinicg makes a couple of observation. “We’re entering into a brave new world, which involves not only the government apparatus being able to look in massive databases and extract information to try to profile people who might be considered threats to the prevailing status quo. But we also are looking at drones, which are increasingly miniaturized, that will give the governments, at every level, more of an ability to look into people’s private conduct. This is a nightmare.”

The bill that Obama so gladly signed hands him $633 billion to play the game “Commander-in-chief.” China will spend $228 billion, Russia $93.7 billion, the U.K. $57.5 billion, France $50.1 billion, Japan $44.7 billion and Germany $44.4 billion.

The U.S.O. [the U.S. of Obama] spends 4.7% of its GDP making sure we are safe from evil doers, which works out to about $2,141 per person. China spends only 2.1% of its GDP getting ready to kill us and that amounts to 74 bucks per person. Let’s hope China’s forces don’t ride on the backs of hungry soldiers. The Finns spend 1.5% on paranoia (about $702 per person), Sweden 1.2%, Denmark 1.4%, Norway 1.5%, Switzerland 0.8%.

Watch out for a vicious collaborative attack from these enemies of America.

Two of the GREATEST economists. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkRIbUT6u7Q

Over more than six hours of intense questioning by his defence lawyer, David Coombs, Manning, 24, set out for the court what he described as the darkness and absurdity of his first year in captivity. The more he protested the harsh conditions under which he was being held, the more that was taken as evidence that he was a suicide risk, leading to yet more tightening of the restrictions imposed upon him. He was under constant observation, made to go to the toilet in full view of the guards, had all possessions removed from his cell, spent at times only 20 minutes outside his cell and even then was always chained in hand and leg irons. That night guards arrived at his cell and ordered him to strip naked. He was left without any clothes overnight, and the following morning made to stand outside his cell and stand to attention at the brig count, still nude, as officers inspected him.

The humiliating ritual continued for several days, and right until the day he was transferred from Quantico on 20 April 2011 he had his underwear removed every night. The brig authorities later stated that in their view the exceptional depriving of an inmate’s underpants was a necessary precaution, in the light of his ominous comments about using his underwear and flip-flops to harm himself.

He was put on a schedule whereby he would be woken up at 10 o’clock at night and given lights out at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. “My nights blended into my days and my days into nights,” he told the court.

The isolation also got to him. “I’m generally a pretty socially extrovert person, but being for long periods of time by myself I was in a pretty stressed situation. I began to really deteriorate. I was anxious all the time, everything became more insular.”

The guards stopped taking him out of his cell so that he became entirely cut off from human company. “Someone tried to explain to me why, but I was a mess, I was starting to fall apart.” Military police began coming into his cell in a tent in the Kuwaiti desert two or three times a day doing what they called a “shakedown”: searching the cell and tearing it apart in the process. “My world just shrank to Camp Arifjan and then my cage. I remember thinking: I’m going to die. I’m stuck here and I’m going to die in animal cage.”

In a theatrical move, Coombs had placed white tape on the floor of the court room in exactly the dimensions of Manning’s cell throughout the nine months he stayed in Quantico – 6ft by 8ft (180cm by 240cm). The cell contained a toilet that was in the line of vision of the observation booth, and he was not allowed toilet paper. When he needed it, he told the court, he would stand to attention by the front bars of the cell and shout out to the observation guards: “Lance Corporal Detainee Manning requests toilet paper!” He was forbidden from taking exercise in his cell, and given that he was allowed out of the cell for at most one hour a day for the entire nine months at Quantico, he started to be creative about finding a way around the prohibition. “I would practise various dance moves. Dancing wasn’t unauthorised as exercise.”

Okinawa mood getting worse
Crime, Osprey add to anger over pervasive U.S. military bases

By YURI KAGEYAMA
AP
OKINAWA, Okinawa Pref. — For nearly 70 years, Okinawa has gotten more than its share of America’s military — more jets rattling homes, more crimes rattling nerves.

It was the site of a horrific land battle in World War II. It endured 27 years under U.S. administration and continues to host two-thirds of Japan’s U.S. bases.

The 1995 rape of a schoolgirl by two U.S. Marines and a sailor spread rage across the island of about 1.4 million. Now another rape and other crimes allegedly committed by U.S. servicemen have triggered a new wave of anger, though the suspects make up a tiny portion of the 28,000 U.S. service members stationed here.

Some Okinawans get emotional just talking about the stress they feel living in the U.S. military’s shadow.

“Everywhere, everyone who has a daughter is feeling this way,” said Tomoharu Nakasone, a father of four daughters, choking back tears.

Nakasone, who runs an FM radio station, grew up with the bases and thought he was used to the idea, even forgiving a fatal 2009 hit-and-run by a serviceman as a mistake.

But he was outraged by the latest rape — in a parking lot in October — and petrified by a bizarre incident weeks later in which a 13-year-old boy was beaten in his own home while watching TV, allegedly by a U.S. airman.

“Entering someone’s home is simply not normal. It is the lowest of human behavior,” he said.

There has always been a degree of strain between Okinawans and U.S. service members, but it has grown more pronounced in recent months, not only because of crime but because of safety concerns surrounding the MV-22 Osprey, the hybrid aircraft with tilting rotors recently brought to the prefecture.

The U.S. service members, mostly marines and air force personnel, are stationed in Okinawa under a bilateral alliance that is the cornerstone of Japan’s foreign policy.

U.S. Ambassador John Roos and the commander of the U.S. forces in Japan have apologized for the crimes, promised to cooperate with the Japanese police investigations and increased restrictions on the forces.

“We take the relationship with Japan very serious,” U.S. Forces Japan spokesman Lt. Col. David Honchul said. “That’s why these actions have all taken place because we are trying to show the citizens of Japan that we take this serious, and we are going to address this. And it’s also telling our own service members that we take this very seriously.”

After the October rape, an 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew was set for all military personnel in Japan.

The rules were tightened further after a drunken driving accident off base last month. Now U.S. forces in Okinawa are barred from buying or consuming alcohol off base. Even on base, sales of alcohol stop from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m.

Despite the military’s efforts, many Okinawans appear fed up with American service members.

“They are being trained to kill for war. They can’t look at a person as a human being,” said Hiyori Mekaru, a 40-year-old nurse who has lived all her life in Okinawa. “I am angry. I don’t want this kind of future, where we must have our children grow up, learning the names of military planes.”

Ironically, the U.S. military’s influence over Okinawans is evident even in their protests over the bases. They shout at passing cars, “Get out of here!” and “We hate you!” in good vernacular English that is unusual for most Japanese but typical for Okinawans. During one recent rally protesters closed by singing “We Shall Overcome.”

Okinawans got their hopes up about getting rid of the bases in 2009, when the Democratic Party of Japan won control from the conservatives that have ruled the country almost incessantly since the end of World War II.

The first DPJ prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, promised the rest of Japan would share in the burden of hosting American bases. But almost as soon as he made his promise, he stepped down in disgrace.

The Okinawa bases had faded to a nonissue by the time of the general election last Sunday, which was dominated by concerns about economic malaise and the Fukushima nuclear crisis. Japan has had one prime minister after another over the past several years, making any negotiations difficult.

And so the plan to relocate Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, promised after the 1995 rape, to coastal and less densely populated Henoko on another part of Okinawa has gone nowhere.

Yoshikazu Tamaki, a member of the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly, said keeping the bases on an island that makes up less than 0.5 percent of Japan’s territory is “systematic discrimination.”

He said he is disgusted by how Okinawa has been treated by its own government, and suggested that officials in Washington are more sympathetic about Okinawa’s plight than those in Tokyo.

“These are young soldiers here, maybe 18, maybe 20,” he said. “They are waging war every day. They are coming to Okinawa as a military base. The way we feel and the way they feel will never meet.”

Japan must weigh Okinawans’ complaints against its relationship with the U.S. military, which it values all the more as Tokyo quarrels with China over the Senkaku Islands and watches nuclear-armed North Korea test its missile technology, most recently with a rocket launch last week.

Okinawans are angry that Japan approved the Osprey deployment, which began in October, though the government has asked for and received additional assurances of the aircraft’s safety.

Washington says the Osprey is safe and is needed to ensure regional security. Okinawans are concerned about two Osprey crashes earlier this year, in Florida and Morocco, and because Futenma, where the aircraft make nearly daily test flights, is smack in the middle of the crowded residential area of Ginowan.

Honchul said the Osprey is “a very safe and capable aircraft” that has operated on Okinawa Island without incident. Investigations into the two crashes did not find fault with the aircraft, he said.

Okinawans, however, remember how a U.S. helicopter dropped eight years ago into Okinawa International University’s campus, next to Futenma. Crewmen were hurt.

Over the last several months, dozens of people have been gathering daily at a Futenma gate to protest the Osprey. Kazunobu Akamine, who makes and delivers lunches for a living, was among the most boisterous protesters.

He said his son was nearly killed in the 2004 helicopter crash; he had gone to the university to pick up empty lunch boxes. Talking as if World War II were yesterday, he said his grandfather was fatally shot in the head while hiding in the mountains from U.S. soldiers.

Akamine also talked about how proud he was of his father, who supported his family by checking cargo on the U.S. base, but also secretly participated in antibase rallies.

“There are so many people like that in Okinawa,” Akamine said.