Utusan Online, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

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BusinessTimes Online, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

100,000t of CPO shipments deferred

Refiners will suffer significant cash-flow problems if they take delivery of the crude palm oil shipments at higher prices agreed earlier, a trader says
INDIAN palm oil importers have asked Malaysian and Indonesian producers to defer up to 100,000 tonnes of crude palm oil meant for August delivery to September and October, Indian traders said today.

India, the second largest vegetable oil buyer in the world, has been defaulting on purchases in the last two to three weeks as a result of plummeting prices and traders warn there may be more defaults or deferments in the days to come.

“Refiners will suffer significant cash-flow problems if they take delivery of the crude palm oil shipments at higher prices agreed earlier especially when current market rates are so much lower,” a leading trader from Mumbai said.

Another Mumbai trader said deferring shipments of palm oil will give Indian refiners more breathing space as prices of the vegetable oil are widely expected to recover in the next few months.
Malaysian crude palm oil futures fell 1.8 per cent by mid-day today to hit a one-year low, despite firmer commodity prices, on talk that Asia buyers will continue to default on cargoes.

Palm oil prices have slid 20.2 per cent this year and have nearly halved from their March peak on a knock-out combination of high stocks, news of defaults from China and India as well as weak commodity markets.

Some traders said deferments were more likely than defaults in the South Asian nation in the coming days as palm oil cargoes could still be locked in while refiners take immediate advantage of cheaper domestic oilseed prices and better crops.

“The festival season is coming up but it will not be such a strain because of the rising domestic soybean crop and cheap prices,” said an Indian trader.

Solvent Extractors’ Association of India President Ashok Sethia earlier told Reuters that soybean output will be 10 million tonnes in 2008, from 9.3 million tonnes in 2007.

India imports almost half of its annual consumption of about 11 million tonnes of vegetable oils in the form of palm oil from Malaysia and Indonesia and soyoil from Brazil and Argentina. - Reuters
 

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Guardian.co.uk, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

This is a tale of US expansion not Russian aggression

The outcome of six grim days of bloodshed in the Caucasus has triggered an outpouring of the most nauseating hypocrisy from western politicians and their captive media. As talking heads thundered against Russian imperialism and brutal disproportionality, US vice-president Dick Cheney, faithfully echoed by Gordon Brown and David Miliband, declared that "Russian aggression must not go unanswered". George Bush denounced Russia for having "invaded a sovereign neighbouring state" and threatening "a democratic government". Such an action, he insisted, "is unacceptable in the 21st century".
Could these by any chance be the leaders of the same governments that in 2003 invaded and occupied - along with Georgia, as luck would have it - the sovereign state of Iraq on a false pretext at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives? Or even the two governments that blocked a ceasefire in the summer of 2006 as Israel pulverised Lebanon's infrastructure and killed more than a thousand civilians in retaliation for the capture or killing of five soldiers?
You'd be hard put to recall after all the fury over Russian aggression that it was actually Georgia that began the war last Thursday with an all-out attack on South Ossetia to "restore constitutional order" - in other words, rule over an area it has never controlled since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Nor, amid the outrage at Russian bombardments, have there been much more than the briefest references to the atrocities committed by Georgian forces against citizens it claims as its own in South Ossetia's capital Tskhinvali. Several hundred civilians were killed there by Georgian troops last week, along with Russian soldiers operating under a 1990s peace agreement: "I saw a Georgian soldier throw a grenade into a basement full of women and children," one Tskhinvali resident, Saramat Tskhovredov, told reporters on Tuesday.
Might it be because Georgia is what Jim Murphy, Britain's minister for Europe, called a "small beautiful democracy". Well it's certainly small and beautiful, but both the current president, Mikheil Saakashvili, and his predecessor came to power in western-backed coups, the most recent prettified as a "Rose revolution". Saakashvili was then initially rubber-stamped into office with 96% of the vote before establishing what the International Crisis Group recently described as an "increasingly authoritarian" government, violently cracking down on opposition dissent and independent media last November. "Democratic" simply seems to mean "pro-western" in these cases.
The long-running dispute over South Ossetia - as well as Abkhazia, the other contested region of Georgia - is the inevitable consequence of the breakup of the Soviet Union. As in the case of Yugoslavia, minorities who were happy enough to live on either side of an internal boundary that made little difference to their lives feel quite differently when they find themselves on the wrong side of an international state border.
Such problems would be hard enough to settle through negotiation in any circumstances. But add in the tireless US promotion of Georgia as a pro-western, anti-Russian forward base in the region, its efforts to bring Georgia into Nato, the routing of a key Caspian oil pipeline through its territory aimed at weakening Russia's control of energy supplies, and the US-sponsored recognition of the independence of Kosovo - whose status Russia had explicitly linked to that of South Ossetia and Abkhazia - and conflict was only a matter of time.
The CIA has in fact been closely involved in Georgia since the Soviet collapse. But under the Bush administration, Georgia has become a fully fledged US satellite. Georgia's forces are armed and trained by the US and Israel. It has the third-largest military contingent in Iraq - hence the US need to airlift 800 of them back to fight the Russians at the weekend. Saakashvili's links with the neoconservatives in Washington are particularly close: the lobbying firm headed by US Republican candidate John McCain's top foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, has been paid nearly $900,000 by the Georgian government since 2004.
But underlying the conflict of the past week has also been the Bush administration's wider, explicit determination to enforce US global hegemony and prevent any regional challenge, particularly from a resurgent Russia. That aim was first spelled out when Cheney was defence secretary under Bush's father, but its full impact has only been felt as Russia has begun to recover from the disintegration of the 1990s.
Over the past decade, Nato's relentless eastward expansion has brought the western military alliance hard up against Russia's borders and deep into former Soviet territory. American military bases have spread across eastern Europe and central Asia, as the US has helped install one anti-Russian client government after another through a series of colour-coded revolutions. Now the Bush administration is preparing to site a missile defence system in eastern Europe transparently targeted at Russia.
By any sensible reckoning, this is not a story of Russian aggression, but of US imperial expansion and ever tighter encirclement of Russia by a potentially hostile power. That a stronger Russia has now used the South Ossetian imbroglio to put a check on that expansion should hardly come as a surprise. What is harder to work out is why Saakashvili launched last week's attack and whether he was given any encouragement by his friends in Washington.
If so, it has spectacularly backfired, at savage human cost. And despite Bush's attempts to talk tough yesterday, the war has also exposed the limits of US power in the region. As long as Georgia proper's independence is respected - best protected by opting for neutrality - that should be no bad thing. Unipolar domination of the world has squeezed the space for genuine self-determination and the return of some counterweight has to be welcome. But the process of adjustment also brings huge dangers. If Georgia had been a member of Nato, this week's conflict would have risked a far sharper escalation. That would be even more obvious in the case of Ukraine - which yesterday gave a warning of the potential for future confrontation when its pro-western president threatened to restrict the movement of Russian ships in and out of their Crimean base in Sevastopol. As great power conflict returns, South Ossetia is likely to be only a taste of things to come
 

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TBR News, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

The Voice of the White House

Washington, D.C., August 14, 2008: “Perceiving an opportunity to make mischief with Russia, the American government, through the State Department, the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy and other groups that are partially, or wholly, supported by the American government, fomented the so-called “Rose Revolution” in the former Soviet state of Georgia with cash and weaponry. Mikhail Saskashvili, a highly unstable Georgian politician, was lobbied into office as the president of Georgia . He is essentially very erratic , given to wide emotional swings that can cause him to act in an often dangerous manner.
Once their picked man was in office, the United States, in conjunction with Israel, (many top Georgian political leaders are Jewish) moved to develop as Georgia as a possible base of military operations against Russia, or most especially, Iran;, (a bete noire of Israel), to secure the vital oil pipelines across that country and to further their policy of containment against Vladimir Putin’s growing strength in Russia.
A Georgia , being armed and trained by both the United States and Israel , was then put forward as an applicant for membership in NATO. As expected both in Washington and Tel Aviv, this enraged the Russians. The Bush people and their allies have been gleefully gathering into the American-controlled NATO fold as many of former Russian areas as they can, to further annoy Russia .
A fake “missile shield” program was instituted in some of these countries whose dual purpose was to allow American attack, not defense, missiles to be stationed on territory very close to Russia but also to further warn Russia against growing too strong militarily or attempting to interdict their own oil and natural gas into countries, under American control, that Russia might have disputes with.
Eventually, with Putin’s upgrading of the Russian military machine, it became obvious to Washington that some kind of a relatively safe military confrontation would be necessary. It was always the public posture of . Saskashvili that he intended to take physical possession of former Georgian territories, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, by force. These provinces had broken away from Georgia when it became independent of Russia in the 1990s and Saskashvili was determined not only to reincorporate them into Georgia again (entirely against the will of their inhabitants) but to punish them for their independence..
At the time of the Russia/Georgia conflict, there were over 2000 US military personnel and special forces in Georgia,, training and equipping Georgian units with American weaponry, over 1000 Israeli troops, mainly intelligence units directed at Iran, over 150 CIA operatives, and many official intelligence surveillance units designed to spy on Russian and Iranian military and civilian radio, satellite and other internal communications. Given the usual poor security chronically evident in such American units, the Russians were early-on well aware of these hostile, but muted, anti-Russian activities.
The savage Georgian artillery and armored vehicle assault on South Ossetia was not unexpected by the Russian military and armored and armored infantry units had been quietly moved into North Ossetia . American attempts to search for a possible Russian military build-up in the area closest to South Ossetia were thwarted by the maintaining of strict radio silence imposed on all Russian military units and unmanned ‘Georgian’ reconnaissance drones, supplied by Israel , trying to conduct surveillance were promptly shot down, over Russian territory, by Russian military aircraft.
In essence, the Russians sat and waited for the attack and when the terrified residents of South Ossetia fled to Russian protection when the unannounced cannonading of civilian areas by the Georgian Army (during which Russian military peacekeepers were killed) was in progress, they entered South Ossetia in totally unexpected force, engaged the Georgians and drove them out of the country. The Georgians assumed that the Russians would halt at the border with Georgia but were horrified when Russian armored units crossed the border in hot pursuit. Initially shouting defiance, a chastened Saskashvili fled into hiding and then, foolishly, declared war on Russia (a fact seldom reported in the American media)
In essence, Russia occupied both South Ossetia and Abkhazia,, at the frantic requests of their occupants and then struck deep into Georgia , driving the Georgian military in headlong flight. Also fleeing were American and Israeli military, diplomatic and intelligence personnel, causing Saskashvili to shout that he was being abandoned.
The Americans, and the Israelis, at the higher levels in the field and in Washington, were well aware of the pending Georgian attacks and did nothing to either support or hinder them, but a possible military confrontation by American and Israeli military units with the Russians was completely impossible, hence the American and Israeli frantic withdrawals.
Once this exiting had been accomplished, but not before, both American and Israel shook their fists at Putin and made loud warning speeches to their constituents but in essence, Putin had trumped Bush’s ace and he and the war party in America had lost disastrous face. The hitherto monolithic image of the United States as a dominant world military force has been so shattered that a realignment of international thinking is quite certain. And though face-savings pacts and agreements have been signed, in the end, the Russians will retain a large number of well-armed and armored peacekeeping forces in the separatist region of South Ossetia and another breakaway region, Abkhazia, and the forces would have a broader mandate in South Ossetia . Further, there is no prohibition against these area petitioning to become a part of Russia . In point of fact, there is every indication that such requests will be made and certainly will be accepted. Then, any attack by Georgia would be a direct attack on Russia and in that event, the consequences would be monumental in nature.
And if the CIA doesn’t give Saskashvili a fatal heart attack, as they have done before in such circumstances, he will recover his wind and again try to attack Russia . But America cannot just write a shattered and militarily helpless Georgia off as an ally, because of the oil situation. An America , starved for oil and now in fierce competition for the world’s remaining supplies, has almost no choice but to try to secure the vital Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline that is routed across Georgian territory.. This pipeline was constructed, at enormous cost, to bypass Russia and deliver oil to western countries. Now, With Russia armed and militant, the security of this pipeline is in serious question and it is this situation, rather than sticking American tongues out at Putin, that will determine the future. And on a lesser note, Israel has been ousted from its premier anti-Iranian base and is making strong representations to Bush to support their return to Georgia again. ”
 

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, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

Georgia: Israel’s home Sweet Home
By Hesham Tillawi, PhD – August 16, 2008

The Israeli Georgian Connection is more than a thousand years old. Most of the Jewish residents of Israel are of the same stock as of the Jews of Georgia. Non should be shocked to discover the depth of Israel’s involvement in the Georgian/Russian conflict. Once examined, the historical blood relation between Israeli Jews and Georgian Jews, it all becomes clear. Let us take a look first at the current relationship after which we will prove the historical connection between them a little later.

“The Israelis should be proud of themselves for the Israeli training and education received by the Georgian soldiers,”

The Jerusalem Post on August 12, 2008 reported: “Georgian Prime Minister Vladimer (Lado) Gurgenidze(Jewish) made a special call to Israel Tuesday morning to receive a blessing from one of the Haredi community’s most important rabbis and spiritual leaders, Rabbi Aharon Leib Steinman.” The Prime Minister of Georgia, principally a nation of Orthodox Christians called Rabbi Steinman saying ‘I’ve heard he is a holy man. I want him to pray for us and our state.’

In addition to the many government officials in Georgia who are ‘Jewish‘ in one way or another is one man in particular, Davit Kezerashvili who holds the position of Defense Minister and who just so happens also to hold Israeli citizenship. Interestingly, his last name happens to be ‘Kezerashvili’ which translates in the Georgian language to ‘child-of-the-Kezer(khazar)’.

Besides the aforementioned men, over a 1000 Israeli military trainers are in Georgia as well as many retired Israeli Generals who have made Georgia home. Lasha Zhvania, Georgia’s former Ambassador to Israel who won election to Georgia’s parliament back on May 21 on the promise to increase Israeli tourism and investments in his country. His mother is Jewish, and in 1988, she brought him to Israel to meet his grandfather, aunts, and other relatives. After that, he returned to Israel every year to get together with relatives dispersed in Kiryat Bialik, Haifa, Nahariya and Netanya. Tens of thousands of Israelis made Georgia their favorite tourists destination. It is clear that the relationship between Georgia and Israel is more than just a political or diplomatic relationship, it seems they also have a Jewish connection and maybe Jewish blood that dates back over 1400 years ago.

Author Arthur Koestler, a Jew himself wrote ‘The evidence adds up to a strong case in favor of those modern historians — whether Austrian, Israeli or Polish — who, independently from each other, have argued that the bulk of modern Jewry is not of Palestinian, but of Caucasian origin. The mainstream of Jewish migrations did not flow from the Mediterranean across France and Germany to the east and then back again. The stream moved in a consistently westerly direction, from the Caucasus through the Ukraine into Poland and thence into Central Europe. When that unprecedented mass-settlement in Poland came into being, there were simply not enough Jews around in the west to account for it; while in the east a whole nation was on the move to new frontiers.” The Caucasus is where the Georgians dwelled and still do. Lets follow this a little deeper to see if we can make a connection between the Jews of Georgia who found themselves on top of Georgia’s political hierarchy with the help of our own CIA and the Jews of Israel who came to Palestine after WWI and II which makes the bulk of Israeli Jews.

Abraham Poliak, an Israeli professor of Medieval Jewish History asked ‘How far we can go in regarding this [Khazar] Jewry as the nucleus of the large Jewish settlement in Eastern Europe? The descendants of this settlement constitute now the large majority of world Jewry.” Austrian historian Kutschera wrote that ‘Eastern European Jews are entirely of Khazarian origin. Even Western Europe Jews who spoke Yiddish or a derivative off such as the Jews of France and Germany had to have came from the Khazar Jews due to the fact that there are no trace of Yiddish in any Western European language.

For those unfamiliar with the term ‘Khazar,’ it was a person from the Khazar Kingdom which occupied the land between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea. Until the 9th century the Khazars were the masters of the land, very rich due to its vast resources, strategic location and its unrealistic taxation (extortion) systems of surrounding kingdoms. The Khazars adopted the Jewish religion after being pressured to adopt a monotheistic religion similar to the Christians in the West or the Muslims in the East, but decided to adopt Judaism in order to remain independent of the other two religions of the time. The Khazar Kingdom enjoyed strength and prosperity which allowed it to increase its size to include the regions north of the Black Sea and the adjoining steppe and forest regions of the Dnieper. The Khazars controlled the southern half of Eastern Europe for a century and a half, and presented a mighty bulwark, blocking the Ural-Caspian gateway from Asia into Europe. During this whole period, they held back the onslaught of the nomadic tribes from the East.

“The collapse of the Hun Empire after Attila’s death left a power-vacuum in Eastern Europe, through which once more, wave after wave of nomadic hordes swept from east to west, prominent among them the Uigurs and Avars. The Khazars during most of this period seemed to be happily occupied with raiding the rich trans-Caucasian regions of Georgia and Armenia, and collecting precious plunder. During the second half of the sixth century they became the dominant force among the tribes north of the Caucasus”

In 965 AD Russ prince Svyatoslav of Kiev, undertook many military campaigns which led to the breaking up of the Khazar Empire. The Khazar state may have survived until the middle of the 12th century where from 965 AD until its destruction went through many periods of war, peace, and alliances with the Arabs, the Russ, the Persians and the Byzantines separately or in conjunction. Many of its subjects adopted either Islam or Christianity and those who decided to keep their faith migrated to Eastern Europe, Russia or migrated to the south as we are told by Persian poet, Khakani (circa 1106-90) who spent most of his life as a civil servant in the Caucasus and had first hand knowledge of the Caucasian tribes. Khakani told us of ‘Devent Khazars’ where Darband being the defile or ‘turnstile’ between the Caucasus and the Black Sea through which the Khazars used to raid Georgia in the old days. Therefore, it is a fact of history that many Khazar Jews went through this passageway to take refuge in Georgia.
It took 800 years for the Khazar Jews to meet again, after going through Russia, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and Palestine before they joined forces, again, with their brethren in Georgia against their old arch enemy, the Russ. What took place on August 8, 2008 in South Ossetia proves two points: first, that the Khazar Jews never forgot the war of 965 AD and their defeat by the Russians and (2) today’s “Jews” in “Israel” have no historical claim to the land of Palestine.

Once again we see Zionism, manifesting itself in the illegal state of “Israel” dragging the World into yet another new conflict between a nuclear armed Russia and a nuclear armed US.

Georgian Minister Temur Yakobashvili said Saturday August 9, 2008 one day after Georgia attacked South Ossetia.
 

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guardian.co.uk, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

Georgia has won the PR war

Whenever, to coin a phrase, a war breaks out in a faraway country of which we know little, I am reminded of a news editor I once worked for. He would go to a wall map showing the location of the paper's correspondents, produce a ruler, and measure the distance of each from the area in question. Regardless of travel links or national boundaries, he decreed that the nearest should go.
It was a bit like that, I imagine, in many media offices when the conflict between Georgia and Russia broke out. Not only was it August, when many reporters are on holiday, it was also the Olympics, and the few still on duty were mostly in Beijing. The Financial Times headline, "Georgia says Russia at war", may have seemed strange, but it summed up the state of Fleet Street's verifiable knowledge as the armies moved into action. In the age of 24-hour news, however, the press cannot hang about waiting for reporters to arrive. Readers want bombs, tanks and death tolls. They need to be told who are the goodies and baddies. News, remember, is part of the entertainment industry.
Into the vacuum stepped the Georgian government. Its president, Mikheil Saakashvili, speaks English, wants to join Nato, sent troops to Iraq, got himself educated at Harvard, cultivates a media-friendly style, and sends Georgian university exam papers to be marked in Britain, though whether he expects to get them back is another matter. He took power in the Rose revolution of 2003-04 and professes to be a democrat. He's clearly an all-round good egg. And he has a PR firm, Aspect Consulting, based in Brussels, London and Paris, which also acts for Exxon Mobil, Kellogg's and Procter and Gamble.
Almost hourly over the five-day war, press releases landed on foreign news desks. "Russia continues to attack civilian population." The capital Tblisi was "intensively" bombed. A downed Russian plane turned out to be "nuclear". European "energy supplies" were threatened as Russia dropped bombs near oil pipelines. A "humanitarian wheat shipment" was blocked. Later, "invading Russian forces" began "the occupation of Georgia". Saakashvili's government filed allegations of ethnic cleansing to The Hague. Note the use of terms that trigger western media interest: civilian victims, nuclear, humanitarian, occupation, ethnic cleansing.
It would be unfair to accuse the British press of accepting the Georgian PR uncritically. Most papers dutifully reported that a Georgian attack in the breakaway province of South Ossetia, where most people want to join Russia, started the conflict. But casual readers might have struggled to understand that. The Mail's headline announced: "'1,500 die' as the Russian tanks roll in". Only in the last paragraph of the story did it become clear that the Georgians, not the Russians, were alleged to have killed 1,500.
Russia's behaviour, newspapers implied, was in a quite different category from Georgia's. In the Sunday Times, Russian tanks went "rampaging" in South Ossetia, while Georgian tanks merely "moved". If Georgian forces had bombarded civilians, it was "reprehensible", the Telegraph allowed. Russia, however, was "offending every canon of international behaviour". An analysis in the same paper avoided any mention of how Georgia provoked the crisis. Saakashvili was "paying the price" for his pro-western foreign policy. A "resurgent Russia" was "itching to flex its muscles and burning with post-imperial hubris". Such comments are illuminated by substituting Britain or America for Russia, and Iraq for Georgia. Try "resurgent Britain ... itching to flex its muscles", etc.
As the conflict went on, press coverage became more balanced, with several commentators noting, to quote the Independent's Mary Dejevsky, that "it is quite hard to argue that there is one law for assisting Albanians in Kosovo and quite another for Russians and Ossetians in Georgia". Increasingly, the press portrayed Saakashvili as a self-regarding fool who blundered into a war he was bound to lose.
But Georgia's actions in South Ossetia went largely unexamined, and it was hard to find, from press accounts, what refugees from the province were fleeing from. Again, the Georgians played the PR game more skilfully. Western correspondents were welcomed into Gori and shown areas apparently bombed by the Russians. Saakashvili held international media phone conferences, got himself on TV news channels and even found time, within hours of war breaking out, to write for the Wall Street Journal. Russia, by contrast, allowed little access to South Ossetia. Its government attempted no comparable media offensive. Though it also has a PR agency, GPlus Europe in Brussels (and Ketchum in Washington), it was not asked to issue press releases. As a source wryly put it, "the press release is not a common tool of the Russian government".
The brief war in the Caucasus was a classic example of the situation outlined in Nick Davies's book Flat Earth News. Most newspapers hadn't a clue what was going on and lacked sufficient resources to find out. So skilfully presented PR was at a premium. Most journalists treated it with at least some scepticism, but it inevitably had an effect. If there was a military war, there was also an information one, and Georgia got the better of it.
 

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Berita Harian, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

Gus Dur dakwa sumpah Saiful tak ikut hukum Islam


KUALA LUMPUR: Bekas Presiden Indonesia, Abdurrahman Wahid atau Gus Dur mendakwa sumpah al-Quran yang dibuat Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan tidak selaras dengan hukum Islam dan tidak pernal diamalkan di mana-mana, termasuk di Indonesia
 

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Utusan Online, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

Elakkan fitnah - Sultan Kedah
 

KUALA NERANG 17 Ogos - Sultan Kedah, Tuanku Abdul Halim Mu'adzam Shah menasihatkan rakyat agar mengelak perbuatan fitnah kerana ia boleh meleraikan perpaduan dan tali persaudaraan yang sedia terjalin.
Baginda bertitah, musuh negara bukan lagi senjata atau tentera luar tetapi anasir-anasir yang memporak-perandakan hubungan silaturahim di kalangan rakyat.
Sehubungan itu, baginda menyeru semua rakyat jelata memastikan perpaduan sesama mereka dipelihara sebaik mungkin kerana ia mudah terlerai berbanding membinanya.
"Beta menyeru agar rakyat sekalian memelihara silaturahim, hormati prinsip perhubungan sesama manusia dan elakkan fitnah-memfitnah," titah baginda.
Sultan Kedah bertitah demikian ketika merasmikan Kompleks Pejabat Daerah dan Tanah Padang Terap sempena sambutan jubli emas pemerintahan baginda di pekarangan kompleks berkenaan di sini hari ini.
Turut berangkat pada majlis itu ialah Sultanah Kedah, Sultanah Haminah Hamidun; Raja Muda Kedah, Tunku Abdul Malik serta puteri Sultan, Datuk Seri Tunku Puteri Intan Safinaz. Hadir sama ialah Menteri Besar Kedah, Datuk Seri Azizan Abdul Razak.
Kompleks pentadbiran baru di Bukit Gedong itu dibina sejak 1 Mac 2006 dan siap pada 15 November tahun lalu dengan kos sebanyak RM3.6 juta baru beroperasi sepenuhnya 13 Ogos lepas.
Dalam pada itu, Sultan Kedah mahu generasi akan datang dibekalkan dengan ilmu secukupnya termasuk fardu ain dan kifayah serta memantapkan akhlak bagi mendepani tanggungjawab terhadap negara.
Baginda turut yakin usaha-usaha membasmi kemiskinan akan dapat dijayakan melalui peningkatan taraf pendidikan di kalangan rakyat.
 

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Utusan Online, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

Herald‘s siar tulisan luar keagamaan
 

PUTRAJAYA 15 Ogos – Menteri di Jabatan Perdana Menteri, Tan Sri Bernard Dompok mengakui makalah mingguan penganut Katolik, Herald‘s telah menyiarkan pelbagai tulisan di luar bidang keagamaan.
Katanya, makalah tersebut dari semasa ke semasa telah menyiarkan tulisan berkaitan isu sosial dan kemiskinan termasuk polisi atau haluan dasar-dasar tertentu.
“Mengenai dakwaan yang menyatakan makalah itu telah menerbitkan rencana politik berkaitan pilihan raya kecil Permatang Pauh, saya belum membaca rencana itu. Oleh itu adalah tidak adil untuk saya memberi komen.
“Memang sebelum ini dari semasa ke semasa makalah tersebut menyiarkan tulisan di luar keagamaan tetapi ia tidak pernah mendapat perhatian kerajaan,” katanya kepada pemberita selepas melancarkan laman web baru Biro Pengaduan Awam (BPA) di sini hari ini
 

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Utusan Online, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

Sumpah bertujuan jatuhkan Anwar - Wan Azizah
 

BUKIT MERTAJAM 16 Ogos - Presiden Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), Datuk Seri Dr. Wan Azizah Wan Ismail berkata, sumpah yang dibuat oleh Mohd. Saiful Bukhari Azlan semata-mata bertujuan menjatuhkan maruah dan karier politik suaminya, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.Katanya, bekas pembantu peribadi kepada Penasihat PKR itu sengaja menimbulkan perkara itu bagi menghalang hasrat suaminya itu daripada memenangi kerusi Parlimen Permatang Pauh pada pilihan raya kecil 26 Ogos ini.
"Sumpah banyak kali pun, tetapi kalau tiada bukti dan doktor dah sah tiada apa-apa, sumpah dia tak boleh dipakai," katanya kepada pemberita di pusat penamaan calon pilihan raya kecil itu di Dewan Aminuddin Baki di Institut Perguruan Tuanku Bainun di sini hari ini.
Beliau turut mendakwa Mohd. Saiful Bukhari tidak mengetahui tujuan sebenarnya dia bersumpah.
Semalam Mohd. Saiful membuat sumpah laknat di Masjid Wilayah Persekutuan di Kuala Lumpur dengan mendakwa Anwar telah meliwat dirinya dalam keadaan paksaan.
 

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Utusan Online, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

Anwar tidak bersalah - Hadi
 

IPOH 16 Ogos - Pas tetap dengan pendirian bahawa Penasihat Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim tidak bersalah dalam kes liwat walaupun bekas pembantu khasnya Mohd. Saiful Bukhari Azlan yang mendakwa diliwat beliau bersumpah laknat (mubahalah) di Masjid Wilayah Persekutuan, Jalan Duta petang semalam. Presidennya, Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang menyifatkan perbuatan Mohd. Saiful itu sebagai politik kotor yang didorong oleh pihak tertentu dan menganggap institusi agama telah juga dipergunakan dalam hubungan itu.
"Itu satu kebodohan terhadap hukum Islam, malangnya melibatkan mereka yang memakai jenama agama. Itu (bersumpah) tidak menepati apa yang dikehendaki dalam hukum Islam.
"Yang ada dalam Islam ialah li'an (iaitu sumpah melibatkan suami isteri)...sumpah dengan kitab suci ini ialah amalan Kristian yang bersumpah dengan Bible.
"Kita orang Islam mestilah li'an. Li'an ialah dalam tuduhan zina suami kepada isteri (tetapi) Anwar dan Saiful ini bukan suami isteri," katanya kepada pemberita ketika diminta mengulas isu sumpah laknat menggunakan al-Quran oleh Mohd. Saiful.
Beliau berkata adalah tidak wajar masyarakat menghukum Anwar berdasarkan tindakan Mohd. Saiful yang 'kebetulan' dibuat sehari sebelum proses penamaan calon Parlimen Permatang Pauh berlangsung.
Menurut beliau, perkembangan terbaru itu tetap tidak akan menjejaskan sokongan dan kepercayaan Pas kepada Anwar, sebaliknya parti itu akan terus membantu Anwar untuk menghadapi pilihan raya kecil itu
 

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Utusan Online, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

Akhbar Melayu perlu lebih kritikal

KUALA LUMPUR 16 Ogos - Akhbar berbahasa Melayu pada hari ini tidak harus sekadar melaporkan berita tetapi membuat analisis yang kritikal dan menyalurkan idea bernas demi kepentingan bangsa.Pengarah Akademi Pengajian Melayu Universiti Malaya (UM), Profesor Madya Datuk Zainal Abidin Borhan berkata, akhbar Melayu perlu berperanan membuka ruang dan suara kepada pemikiran golongan muda, ilmuwan dan negarawan Melayu.
''Akhbar dan pemimpin Melayu tidak harus menggunakan hujah dan ungkapan 'Jangan Bermain Api' untuk menangkis pihak yang mencabar kedudukan Melayu.
''Orang Melayu pada hari ini perlu bijak berhujah untuk mempertahankan hak dan kepentingan bangsa,'' katanya pada Forum Peranan Akhbar Dalam Perjuangan Melindungi Hak Orang Melayu di Akademi Pengajian Melayu UM di sini hari ini.
Forum berkenaan disertai oleh Ketua Pengarang Kumpulan Berita Publishing Sdn. Bhd., Datuk A. Kadir Jasin; Ketua UMNO Bahagian Batu Pahat, Dr. Mohd. Puad Zarkashi; Ketua UMNO Bahagian Sungai Petani, Datuk Mahadzir Mohd. Khir dan Ketua UMNO Bahagian Lumut, Datuk Dr. Zambry Abdul Kadir.
A.Kadir dalam ucapannya berkata, tindakan menggugat hak dan keistimewaan orang Melayu kebelakangan ini adalah satu gerakan yang dirancang dengan teliti oleh pihak tertentu sejak sekian lama.
''Gerakan berkenaan dirancang sejak ideologi seperti globalisasi, liberalisasi dan keterbukaan digunakan dalam masyarakat Malaysia,'' katanya.
Mohd. Puad pula berkata, akhbar Melayu yang dulunya diasaskan daripada gerakan nasionalisme kini hilang identiti ekoran penguasaan parti politik.
''Media Melayu sekarang lebih banyak melaporkan peristiwa daripada menghuraikan hujah,'' katanya.
Mahadzir pula menyifatkan akhbar Melayu kini lebih banyak dilihat mewakili parti dan bukannya masyarakat Melayu.
Dr. Zambry merakamkan penghargaan kepada Utusan Malaysia yang masih meneruskan agenda membela orang kampung walaupun menghadapi ancaman boikot oleh kerajaan negeri Selangor dan Perak.
Sementara itu, Pertubuhan Kebangsaan Wartawan dan Penulis Melayu Malaysia mencadangkan supaya kerajaan menubuhkan lebih banyak institusi memperkasakan Melayu dan Islam demi orang Melayu.
Presiden Penajanya, Dr. Alias Mohamed berkata, institusi sedemikian dapat mencorakkan landskap negara sebagai negara Islam yang tidak dicabar bukan Melayu.
''Hak keistimewaan orang Melayu adalah amanah dan tanggungjawab yang wajib dilindungi dan dipertahankan oleh orang Melayu. Orang Melayu dalam parti politik manapun berhak berbeza pendapat namun dalam soal melindungi dan mempertahankan hak Melayu semuanya wajib bersatu,'' katanya
 

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Utusan Online, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

TKP Imigresen buat laporan terhadap BPR

KUALA LUMPUR 16 Ogos - Timbalan Ketua Pengarah Imigresen (Bahagian Kawalan), Yusof Abu Bakar (gambar) hari ini membuat laporan polis mendakwa beliau dipukul pegawai Badan Pencegah Rasuah (BPR) ketika dalam tahanan reman.Beliau membuat laporan itu di Ibu Pejabat Polis Daerah (IPD) Putrajaya pada pukul 5 petang.
Ketua Jabatan Siasatan Jenayah Kuala Lumpur, Senior Asisten Komisioner II Ku Chin Wah berkata, dalam laporannya Yusof mendakwa dipukul dengan hos getah.
"Beliau mendakwa tapak kakinya dipukul dengan hos getah semasa direman dalam lokap BPR," katanya ketika dihubungi Mingguan Malaysia di sini hari ini.
Jelas beliau, kes itu akan disiasat mengikut Seksyen 323 Kanun Keseksaan atas kesalahan mendatangkan cedera.
Yusof, 54, ditahan BPR bersama iparnya Munir Mohd. Hamid, 59 pada 11 Julai lalu bagi membantu siasatan di bawah Seksyen 11(a) Akta Pencegahan Rasuah 1987 berhubung dakwaan kes rasuah mempercepatkan pengeluaran visa pekerja asing.
Mereka bagaimanapun dibebaskan Mahkamah Majistret Klang dengan ikat jamin pada 18 Julai lalu
 

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Dr. Mahathir Mohamad Blog, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

THE MALAYSIAN BAR COUNCIL

1. Non-Malays and maybe quite a few Malays have strongly criticised my piece on the Bar Council. I am made out to be against free speech, human rights etc.

2. What I was talking was about sensitivity - about the need for people to be sensitive to the feelings of other people. It was not about Islam or its teachings or its history per se. It is about the Malays and the non-Malays in this multiracial, multi religious country and their sensitivities.

3. You may not notice it but I also mentioned the sensitivities of other races in Malaysia.
4. I didn't use language meant to irritate which I could very well do, as good as anybody else.

5. My criticism against the Bar Council is because of its insensitivity and arrogance. I can say a few things about some members of the Bar Council in order to hurt. But I did not. I should really, because the Bar Council was instrumental in persuading the Royal Commission that it was possible I was influenced in the choice of judges by V.K. Linggam and that I should be investigated. It was an exercise in taking me down a peg.

6. Sensitivities of people differ. We don't wear chador in Malaysia but go to the countries where the chador is de rigueur and wear a miniskirt because it is your right. Then you will see what will happen. Even Queen Elizabeth covered up sufficiently when visiting Saudi Arabia. She was sensitive, her royal rights notwithstanding.

7. Other countries have different interpretations of Islam and it is their right. In fact even Christian countries have their sensitivities. Or the levels of their sensitivities may be different.

8. Go to some European countries and you will find condoms on the steps of churches. In others, Christian priests officiate marriages between man and man, woman and woman and they raise families by having sex with other people. It is fine there because it is their interpretation of their rights. But why stop there? Why arrest couples having sex in full view of people in a park? Isn't it their right too? But the people object. They are sensitive to this. What is the difference? You know very well that they do this at home anyway. And you do it too. But I think you also feel it is not right. You would feel offended as your child ask you "What are they doing Papa (or Mama)?" as the case may be.

9. The non-Malays in Malaysia have a lot of sensitive issues too. We cannot touch on them. We would be accused of being racist, being insensitive, provocative and offensive.

10. But supposing we ignore their sensitivities and we talk loudly about them. They would not like it. They may reply in kind, perhaps more insultingly.

11. Then we have to increase our insulting remarks in order to annoy, knowing that what we say would irritate and anger them.

12. The end result must be tension between the races in Malaysia which may lead to violence, continuous violence. Lives may be lost and property destroyed.

13. You can tell relatives of the people killed or owners of the property destroyed that this is okay, this is human rights, this is freedom, this is democracy. Think they will celebrate and offer more of their relatives to be killed so that you can behave insensitively?

14. I may be against the present Government but that does not mean I must forsake all that I believe in.

15. I believe not being able to discuss certain issues is a small price to pay for having stability and peace in this country. It had paid off hansomely. We would not be where we are today if we slug verbally or otherwise, at each other every day.

16. Some countries may be more open than others and still remain stable. Almost all these countries are single ethnic developed countries with the majority of the people atheistic. Still you don't call a black man a nigger but it is okay to call him an SOB (Son of a B***h).

17. But ours is not. Ours is multi-ethnic country where assimilation has not taken place. After hundreds of years you insist on still being what you are. Still for 50 years we managed to remain stable without the kind of conditions imposed by developed countries on new citizens.

18. We were able to do this because we were willing to accept minor restrictions, we are sensitive to the feelings of others.

19. Other newly independent countries attempting to practice even basic democracy have all become very unstable. Their people remained poor and the poor became poorer, despite being single ethnic.

20. If what we want is to be able to provoke people as a matter of right more than our own well-being and that of fellow citizens then be insensitive and have open debates by selected people whose views are already known, who are insensitive to the sensitivities of others but are very sensitive about their rights to be insensitive, whatever the cost to others and the country.

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Dr. Mahathir Mohamad Blog, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

AUKU - AKTA UNIVERSITI DAN KOLEJ UNIVERSITI

1. Saya mengaku yang sayalah orangnya yang telah perkenalkan AUKU (Akta Universiti dan Kolej Universiti) semasa saya menjadi Menteri Pelajaran.

2. Walaupun kita sudah merdeka lebih 15 tahun ketika itu tetapi bilangan kelulusan daripada universiti tidak ramai, terutamanya di kalangan orang Melayu. Jumlah jurutera, doktor perubatan, arkitek dan lain-lain ahli profesional amat kecil dan menyedihkan. Sebaliknya maju mundurnya bangsa dan negara bergantung kepada ketinggian jumlah rakyat yang berilmu. Tidaklah sihat bagi Malaysia jika dari rakyat berbilang kaumnya jumlah Melayu dan bumiputera lain yang berkelulusan universiti sangat berkurangan. Setelah Dasar Ekonomi Baru diperkenalkan maka jumlah penuntut Melayu di tiga buah universiti tempatan sudah bertambah dengan banyaknya. Tetapi kemasukan sahaja tidak akan dapat menambah jumlah Melayu yang berpelajaran tinggi jika ramai yang diterima masuk tidak lulus dan tidak berjaya memperolehi ijazah.

3. Kita terpaksa menerima hakikat bahawa ramai penuntut Melayu dan bumiputra lain yang diterima masuk universiti memiliki kelulusan yang kurang baik daripada penuntut bukan Melayu. Samada mereka mendapat ijazah universiti atau tidak bergantung kepada kegigihan mereka menumpu sepenuh masa untuk menguasai ilmu melalui proses-proses pembelajaran ala universiti.
4. Kita dapati penuntut Melayu amat berminat dengan kegiatan politik. Mereka suka melibatkan diri dengan demontrasi jalanan dan lain-lain aktiviti politik yang memakan masa mereka di universiti. Dengan ini tidak dapat tidak tumpuan mereka kepada penguasaan ilmu tentu kurang. Amatlah merugikan mereka dan masyarakat Melayu jika mereka gagal.

5. Apakah kerana mereka tidak boleh berdemonstrasi dan lain-lain maka mereka akan kurang berpengetahuan dalam bidang politik; mereka akan jadi robot? Tidak juga. Mereka boleh ada forum perbahasan dalaman atau antara universiti, dan mereka boleh mendapat pakar yang tidak punyai kepentingan politik parti untuk memberi syarahan dan sessi soal jawab. Tanpa terlibat secara langsung dengan aktiviti politik berpartian, mereka masih boleh menguasai dan memahami selok belok politik.

6. Kegiatan seperti ini tidak akan memisah mereka daripada menumpukan masa yang mencukupi untuk menguasai ilmu yang menjadi sebab utama mereka berada di universiti.

7. Harus diingat bahawa pembiayaan bagi tiap-tiap penuntut samada yang dapat biasiswa atau tidak datang daripada duit rakyat. Duit itu disalur dengan rela hati oleh mereka kerana kepentingan penuntut dan ilmu yang dituntut oleh mereka, yang akan menjamin masa depan yang cerah bagi mereka. Rakyat yang sanggup wang ini dibelanjakan untuk penuntut sedia berkorban jika korban mereka mendatangkan hasil yang dikehendaki. Tentulah mereka akan kecewa jika wang mereka disalahguna, dihabiskan untuk kegiatan yang lain. Negara juga akan rugi kerana tidak dapat warga yang berilmu. Dan penuntut itu sendiri akan rugi kerana masa depan mungkin tidak cerah seperti yang diharapkan.

8. Pengorbanan yang kita pohon daripada penuntut kita hanya sedikit sahaja. Masa untuk menuntut tidak begitu lama - hanya tiga atau empat tahun sahaja. Setelah lulus tumpukanlah sepenuh masa untuk kegiatan politik atau lain-lain jika ini menjadi minat utama. Pada masa itu kita tidak habiskan wang orang lain. Kita habiskan duit dari titik peluh kita sendiri.

9. Saya percaya orang yang bertanggungjawab dan tahu kenang budi seperti ini akan menjadi manusia dan pemimpin politik yang lebih baik.

10. Tetapi jika kita sanggup habiskan duit orang, kita hampakan harapan orang, sebaliknya kita tidak rela mengguna duit dan masa kita sendiri untuk sesuatu yang kita gemar, maka tidaklah kita dapat berkata yang kita begitu prihatin dan rasa bertanggungjawab terhadap masalah negara kita.

11. Penuntut universiti tentu tidak suka dengar pendapat saya ini. Yang amat marah kerana AUKU ialah penuntut Melayu. Saya rela dimarah oleh siapa sahaja tetapi saya tidak berniat buruk semasa memperkenalkan AUKU. Bagi saya peningkatan kebolehan bangsa saya adalah lebih penting dan utama daripada apa kecaman terhadap diri saya.

12. Jika hari ini penuntut lebih dewasa dan bertanggungjawab batalkan sahaja AUKU.
 

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NST Online, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

ACA to record former Terengganu MB's statement

PUTRAJAYA: The Anti-Corruption Agency is expected to record the statement of former Terengganu menteri besar Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh pertaining to allegations of irregularities in the management of the Monsoon Cup and the Islamic Civilisation theme park project, as highlighted by present Menteri Besar Datuk Ahmad Said.

Sources said the ACA had already taken Ahmad's statement about a week ago.

This was being done to determine whether there were elements of irregularities or corruption in the management of the Monsoon Cup and the Islamic theme park project as claimed, sources said.

Idris, who is also Mara chairman, said yesterday he had nothing to hide and that he would cooperate with the ACA.

He said this at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre when attending the convocation of Universiti Kuala Lumpur students.
Ahmad had earlier said ACA officials took his statement on Aug 10, but he declined to say what it was about.

"I explained to them what they wanted to know. I told them to investigate other matters as well."

"I am open and I want them to take action on the matter."

Ahmad had asked the agency last month to look into allegations of irregularities in the Islamic Civilisation theme-park project and the management of the Monsoon Cup.

He made the call when the ACA began to look into allegedly high maintenance cost of RM1.07 million for state government-owned Proton Perdana cars.

The probe began after reports that the state government had bought 14 Mercedes Benz cars to replace the Perdanas
 

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The Star, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

Nik Aziz: Swearing on Quran not Islamic practice

BUKIT MERTAJAM: PAS spiritual leader Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat said Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan’s move to swear on the Quran over his sodomy allegation was not in keeping with Islamic teachings.
He said there was no requirement in the Quran that called on Muslims to hold the holy book while making a solemn declaration.
"It is normal for Christians to swear on the Holy Bible and it seems that he wanted to follow the Christian way of doing it.
"In Islam, it is enough to say the three holy words – wallahi, wabillahi, watallahi. There is no need to hold the Quran," he said at the Tuanku Bainun Teacher’s Institute here on Saturday for the nomination of the Permatang Pauh by-election.
Nik Aziz said Mohd Saiful’s approach to swear in the name of Allah was however commonly practised by Muslims.
"If he is sincere, he will be the one who knows best. If not, he will be sinful,” he said, adding that Mohd Saiful’s declaration was a personal one between him and God.
Nik Aziz said in Islam, when a person swore on the name of Allah, he was inviting Allah to be a witness.
"This has a very significant meaning. According to Islamic laws, if you swear on Allah’s name and withdraw later, you will have to encounter kafarat (a fine for breaking a rule).
Agreeing with Nik Aziz, PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang said instead of swearing, Saiful should have brought his allegations of sodomy against PKR de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to the Syariah Court.
Speaking to reporters at the sidelines of the PAS muktamar (discussion) in Ipoh on Saturday, Hadi said under Islam, Muslim married couples could take such oaths known as li’an which were related to highly personal issues between husband and wife such as one partner committing zina (illicit sex).
"What allegedly happened between Saiful and Anwar is not something related to a married couple. Instead of taking such an oath, Saiful should have sought justice in the Syariah Court," he said.
Asked whether Saiful's move would cost Anwar votes in the Permatanag Pauh by-election, Abdul Hadi said:
"It can turn out either way. One is that the voters would be outraged by the move and Anwar would get their sympathy.
"Alternatively, they may believe Saiful and reject Anwar,” he said.
DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang said Mohd Saiful’s swearing on the Quran seemed to be politically timed for the by-election.
“It raises more question than answering them," he said.

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The Star, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

SAM alarmed over forest plunder in Sarawak
By STEPHEN THEN

MIRI: The plundering of Sarawak’s forest resources has become so widespread that even protected forests and forest reserves are not spared, said Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM) president S.M. Mohamed Idris.
This is in addition to land clearing in secondary forests or native customary rights land.
These protected forests and forests reserves are being blatantly encroached on and cleared of timber so oil palm plantations and pulpwood estates can be developed, he said.
Mohamed Idris said SAM recently discovered that the Sarawak Forests Department had licensed out some 2.8 million hectares of forested land to 40 plantation concessions.
This meant at least 23% of Sarawak’s land mass was now under department concessions for plantations, he said.
“This is larger than the size of the state of Perak,” he told The Star.
He added that information from environmental impact assessment (EIA) reports on the 40 concessions showed many of them were within protected forests and forest reserves.
He urged the state government to be more transparent in its land development policies.
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Independent News Service, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

 
Russia shows its claws, but is still not grisly bear West sees

By Mary Dejevsky
Friday August 15 2008
As Russian forces started to hand over control of the Georgian town of Gori yesterday, you could detect a note of surprise, even disappointment, in many media reports.
So the all-out Russian invasion of plucky little democratic Georgia might not be going to happen after all. Could it be that the bear was drawing in his claws?
Well, Russia did not have long to worry about losing its reputation as backyard bully.
Within hours, the US envoy to Georgia was spinning a whole new myth to the BBC about how it was only by decisive US intervention -- by which he presumably meant the warplanes laden with humanitarian aid by then ostentatiously parked at Tbilisi airport -- that the mighty erstwhile Red Army had been turned back.
The many Georgians who had counted on more timely and robust assistance from their US protector surely laughed a bitter laugh. But there were signs, with the arrival of the US Secretary of State in Georgia, that this version was gaining hold. The story of this war, it seems, will be that the US faced down a snarling, expansionist Russia, and forced it to limp back to its lair.
This is a travesty. But it is only the latest and most glaring in a series of Western misrepresentations and misreadings of Russian intentions throughout this sorry episode. They began with the repeated references to Russian "aggression" and "invasion", continued through charges of intended "regime change", and culminated in alarmist reports about Russian efforts to bomb the east-west energy pipeline. None of this, not one bit of it, is true.
Take "aggression" and "invasion". Georgia declared itself to be in a state of war with Russia. War, regrettably, is war, and a basic objective is to reduce, or destroy, the enemy's military capability. This is what Russia was doing until it accepted the ceasefire. The positions it took up inside Georgia proper can be seen as defensive, not offensive.
And anyway, how did hostilities begin? Georgia sent troops into South Ossetia. The status of that region -- which declared unilateral independence -- is anomalous. It is inside Georgia's borders, but outside its control.
Dispute
But one reason why the dispute has not been solved is that the "fudge" over independence brought with it a degree of stability. Georgia's action upset that stability. But did anyone describe it as "aggression"?
Trying to explain Russian "aggression", many reports went further, observing a "new" mood of Russian aggressive nationalism. Today's Russia, they reasoned, was uniquely liable to lash out, because energy wealth had fuelled new national ambitions. Where, though, is the evidence that Russian national pride is automatically malign?
If you exclude Chechnya, which Russians have always regarded as part of Russia, then neither Putin, nor Medvedev, had sent troops outside Russian borders before this point.
Far from hankering after a lost empire, Putin used his years as president systematically to fix Russia's post-Soviet borders, signing treaties with every neighbouring country that would agree -- including, last month, China.
Of course, Russia does not like the idea of another Nato member on its borders. But this is not the same as wanting to restore "ex-Soviet space". It reflects Russia's view of its legitimate security interests.
Perhaps the most pernicious assumption over the past week, however, is that Russia wanted to effect "regime-change". Russian officials categorically denied this, insisting that they had no business overthrowing an elected leader. You might scoff, but Russia has done nothing that would contradict this. The Kremlin would probably be delighted if Georgians eventually punished their president for his misguided enterprise, but Russia seems to accept that Georgians decide what happens in Georgia.
Why was it so difficult for outsiders to believe that Moscow wanted precisely what its leaders said they wanted: a return to the situation that had pertained before Georgia's incursion into South Ossetia -- and does it matter that its intentions were so appallingly misread? Yes it does.
If outsiders impute to Moscow motives it does not have, they alienate Russia even further, and make a long-term solution of many international problems more difficult. It is high time we treated Russia's post-Soviet leaders as responsible adults representing a legitimate national interest, rather than assuming the worst. (© Independent News Service)
 

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Russiatoday.com, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

Revealed: the Iraq the Pentagon wants to hide
A U.S. photographer who was removed from Iraq for publishing photos of dead marines says America is deceiving the world about the reality of war there.

For Zoriah Miller, a photojournalist embedded in the Iraq conflict zone, the war is over. The pictures of dead U.S. marines he has published over the years led to his removal from the country. He was forced out of Iraq in what he claims to be America's 'sanitisation' of the war there.

The photographer has recently returned from Iraq and he says the idea of progress being achieved there is deceiving.

“It's kind of an illusion. The U.S. military has been on a campaign in which they are basically buying the trust and safety from their enemies,” Miller says.

Zoriah has taken thousands of photographs in Iraq. Some of them have appeared in top publications. What stirred most controversy were two photos of dead U.S. Marines.

“I could not be at this event, which is something that a lot of soldiers have to live through – bombings and attacks - and not document it. It would be poor journalism. It would be a lie. And it will be a kind of giving in to this sanitisation of the war,” he said.

More than 4,000 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq but, amazingly, there almost no images of them.

After posting the pictures on the web, Zoriah was banned from covering the Marines and eventually had to leave Iraq. Photographers embedded with the U.S. military can publish photos of dead soldiers only after notifying their families.

Zoriah says he followed the rules. Critics claim what he did desecrated the memory of those dead soldiers.

”I completely disagree. I do not think that a photograph of someone’s death is desecrating their memory at all. I think if anything at all, it shows the sacrifice that they made,” Miller says.

Back on American soil, Zoriah says he has received multiple death threats
 

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Russiatoday.com, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

Ossetians collect evidence of Georgian ‘genocide’
South Ossetian residents and local journalists have launched their own investigation into claims of genocide perpetrated by Georgian soldiers. They accuse Georgians of attempting to destroy Ossetian graves and memorials to locals killed in earlier conflicts.

School number five is one of the most significant symbols of the long Georgian-Ossetian conflict.

During the South Ossetian war in the early 1990s, the local cemetery was occupied by Georgians, so the school's football field became a graveyard for Ossetian soldiers.

The latest conflict saw Georgian troops attempting to bomb the piece of Ossetian history, say locals.

Part of the definition of genocide is the destruction of the historical and cultural identity of a people.

"It's a cemetery of Ossetian heroes," said Dmitry Poukhati. The Ossetian, who spoke good English, showed RT's correspondent around the cemetery and pointed out the graves of local soldiers who had given their lives in the defence of Tskhinvali in the 1991-92 war.

A local woman described how one soldier buried at the site had been tortured and burned by Georgians for three days in an industrial oven.

One grave is inscribed with the words, "I am Ossetian." Poukhati explained that these were the hero's final defiant words.

"Georgians were asking him to say he was Georgian. But he said, 'No. I am Ossetian.' So they killed him," said Poukhati
 

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Russiatoday.com, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

War moves from battleground to broadcasting studio

The South Ossetian conflict managed to dominate the airwaves at a time when viewers should have been hooked on the Olympic Games rather than horrified by images of war. Georgia's PR campaign throughout the conflict has been directed towards the West, portraying Russia as the aggressor.

Moscow believes that has led to misleading information frequently appearing in influential international broadcasts.

The Georgian town of Gori became a broadcast battleground, as various media sources reported a Russian attack on the city.
Footage of what the Financial Times called the "ruins" of the city appeared on news networks - which came as a great surprise to Russian cameraman, Aleksandr Zhukov, who recognised his own footage as that of Tskhinvali and not Gori.

"When we arrived the news came that Gori was being shelled. I saw my footage and I said, 'That's not Gori, that's Tskhinvali! Having crawled the length and breadth of Tskhinvali I don't need much to tell,'" he said.
Larry King of CNN invited Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev on air to speak his mind.

"I don't know why it is being presented that Russia invaded Georgia. This is all disinformation and lies ... It's an information war," said Gorbachev.

He was followed by Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili, who waved papers at the camera and accused Gorbachev of being a man "who helped to bring down the KGB kingdom", but who was now "justifying what the KGB people are doing in my country." He went on to belittle the former Soviet leader's award of a Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.

While it may seem Russia has been 'losing the information war,' some major newspapers are beginning to tone down their initial anti-Russian stance.

The Washington Post has called the behaviour of the Georgian president throughout the crisis "erratic and provocative."

"When it comes to apportioning blame for the latest flareup in the Caucasus, there's plenty to go around. The Russians were clearly itching for a fight, but the behaviour of Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili has been erratic and provocative.
The United States may have stoked the conflict by encouraging Saakashvili to believe that he enjoyed American protection, when the West's ability to impose its will in this part of the world is actually quite limited ... It is difficult to explain why Kosovo should have the right to unilaterally declare its independence from Serbia, while the same right should be denied to places such as South Ossetia and Abkhazia."
Source: The Washington Post, 15 August 2008

Meanwhile, The Boston Globe writes that Saakashvilli made a strategic mistake.

”Given how overt the Kremlin's aims are, the fiery nationalist president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, blundered grievously when he responded to small-scale violence from local separatists in South Ossetia by sending Georgian troops to shell and assault the breakaway region's capital city.”
Source: The Boston Globe, 15 August 2008

And in London, The Independent's political commentator Mary Dejevsky chose to remind her readers just how the war began.

“And anyway, how did hostilities begin? Georgia sent troops into South Ossetia. The status of that region - which declared unilateral independence - is anomalous. It is inside Georgia's borders, but outside its control. But one reason why the dispute has not been solved is that the "fudge" over independence brought with it a degree of stability. Georgia's action upset that stability.”
Source: The Independent, 15 August 2008


French daily Le Figaro says the conflict is all about the continuing struggle between the two superpowers - Russia and the US.

"Even the most ardent adversaries of Moscow have no choice but to accept it was Georgian military forces that attacked the separatist pro-Russian province of South Ossetia, bombarding its capital and killing Russian peacekeepers who had been there for 15 years following the UN decision to maintain peace ... From the moment Bush became president he has wanted Russia to be isolated both economically and geographically... He must think there is no difference between yesterday's Soviet Union and today's Russia.

For a moment Putin believed in Bush's friendship and tried to provide some gauge of good will. Wasn't it him who removed Russian military bases from Cuba and Vietnam? Has he not joined the OSCE? And that's despite the disillusion and anger when the US installed military bases in Central Asia, Georgia, the Czech Republic and Poland."
Source: Le Figaro, 15 August 2008
Matthew Maly, an American sociologist and author of 'Russia as it is' says he's surprised by the media bias over events in South Ossetia. In his opinion, a deliberate misinformation campaign was carried out by the United States, a staunch ally of President Saakashvili.

He warns a similar campaign could take place ahead of the U.S. presidential elections in November this year.

“It took us 6 days to finally admit that it was indeed Georgia who attacked Russia. I think this is a big international misinformation operation that could be conducted only from the top. And I think that this is a dress rehearsal for influencing western opinion. Therefore I think that it is possible that in late October it will scare Americans into voting for McCain and abandoning Obama.”
 

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Russiatoday.com, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

Gori not badly damaged – UN aid convoy

A United Nations aid convoy, entering the Georgian town of Gori, says the buildings there do not appear to be badly damaged.
Earlier, Moscow denied reports Russia’s military assaulted the town.

They confirmed Russian troops were maintaining positions around Gori, but insisted this was only to prevent looting and arms smuggling.

The military also says it's lifted a blockade of the town, allowing relief supplies to reach refugees
 

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Russiatoday.com, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

Georgian arms found in breakaway Abkhazia

Abkhazian military officials claim to have found Georgian arms, despite denials from Tbilisi that its troops ever entered the breakaway region. Abkhazia says the military equipment was left behind when Georgian troops withdrew from the region.

Abkhazian soldiers say they found mortars, air defence systems and other weaponry, while they were searching around the disputed Kodori Gorge.

During Russia's peace enforcing operations last week, the head of the Russian peacekeepers said they had found plans for a Georgian invasion of the breakaway region
 

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Russiatoday.com, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

Row escalates over U.S. media bias

The South Ossetian family of a 12 year old American girl have renewed their attack on the U.S. TV network which stopped them from telling their story of Georgian aggression on air. The live interview, which has whipped up a storm over media bias, saw the girl and her aunt describe how Russian soldiers saved them from Georgian attack – only to be bizarrely cut off after just two minutes.

It’s led to concerns over the objectivity of coverage of the crisis, with claims that Americans are not hearing both sides of the story.

And the family of 12 year old Amanda Kokoeva, who was visiting her relatives in South Ossetia, are determined that more people hear their account.

Amanda’s other aunt, who was with her when the war broke out, says that America’s media is shutting off its ears, refusing to acknowledge what she describes as Georgia trying to ‘annihilate [Ossetians] as a people’.

Georgia denies any accusation of genocide. Instead it claims its military campaign was aimed at establishing order over a breakaway region.

This war of words means nothing to Amanda’s cousin Yana.

"We were hiding in our basement until our family decided to risk it and drive to North Ossetia,” she recalls. “Our car came under fire and the tyres were blown out, so we had to walk to Russia. Amanda and I were very frightened."

After crossing the Russian border, Amanda’s family took refuge at their grandma’s cousin’s place in the North Ossetian capital, Vladikavkaz.

"If you were in South Ossetia last week and were bombed by the Georgians, I'm sure you wouldn't want to remain part of Georgia," said Tamara Kokoeva, Amanda's grandmother
 

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Russiatoday.com, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

South Ossetian refugees strive to go home

The reconstruction of the South Ossetian capital is being hindered by mine clearance works, according to Russia's Emergencies Minister Sergey Shoigu, who said it may take weeks to make all the ammunition safe. Meanwhile, refugees continue to return to the area and more than 2,000 are reported to have made their way home in the last 24 hours.

There is currently no water and electricity in the city, but local officials claim that the water supply will be restored within days.

Russia's Emergencies Ministry says it could take over two years to completely rebuild the capital Tskhinvali after the city came under siege from the Georgian military.

More than 1,700 Russian emergency workers are helping civilians recover from the bombardment of the South Ossetian capital.

The scale of devastation in Tskhinvali is enormous, but the focus remains on the rescue and recovery operations.

Sergey Shoigu said that every day 120 tonnes of essential provisions and building materials are being delivered to Tskhinvali. A working bakery has been set-up so that there is some fresh bread in the city.

The injured are being treated at mobile hospitals and a special group of psychologists are driving around the city trying to offer support.

“The key task now is to transfer all refugees from temporary camps in North Ossetia to stationary facilities. We should also have to set up a humanitarian centre in Tskhinvali to hand out aid, to pay compensation for the lost property. We need it so that people can live there in normal conditions, so that they can be provided with food and medical help,” Russia’s Emergencies Minister Sergey Shoigu said.

While the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali is attempting to return to some kind of normality, there are other locations that have also suffered from the Georgian attack. A number of South Ossetian villages were battered by severe strikes – with some of them turning into ghost towns.

Many local people are suffering severe psychological traumas. Some have even lost their ability to speak after all they have been through – witnessing their houses having been bombed and relatives killed.

To watch more about South Ossetians and Russians mourning the dead, please follow the link

Meanwhile, more than 37,000 refugees who have fled the conflict zone, applied for temporary accommodation in Russia. All of them continue to receive humanitarian, medical and psychological help in North Ossetia.

One place which has thrown open its doors is a convent which helped victims of the Beslan siege.

The main flow of refugees has already been relocated to other regions of southern Russia, including Rostov, Stavropol, Krasnodar regions and the republic of Kabardino-Balkaria.

Many refugees are also coming to temporary settlements in different regions of central Russia.

Russian resorts on the Black Sea have also given shelter to more than 300 refugees from South Ossetia. But they say they are ready to take about 2,000 more.

The majority who have already arrived are women and children who've lost their homes, and for many, also relatives in the brief war.

Despite the destruction in South Ossetia, all the refugees say they plan to return home.

Many have been placed under the temporary care of psychologists, with a number being treated for post-traumatic stress.

“We try not to watch news. But passing a TV-set we unintentionally hear a presenter’s voice and then strain to listen to what’s going on in our motherland. We arrived in Anapa in our pajamas. They’ve provided us with all necessary things like nappies for kids, shampoo, detergent and other stuff,” said Yana Papieva, a refugee
 

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BBC News, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

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Boston.com, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

At center of conflict, South Ossetians direct bitterness at Georgia

TSKHINVALI, Georgia - The windows were blown out of the old synagogue here, and the wooden bimah splintered and partly collapsed. Shattered glass covered the floor, and parts of the ornately painted walls were torn off.
But the old building held, and it protected 40 people who took shelter in its spacious basement as the neighborhood above them was reduced to rubble.

"Three days we were here, without water, without bread," said Zemsira Tiblova, 60. "We had 14 children with us."
"Unforgivable," said her husband, Georgi Bestaev. "It was inhuman to bomb us."
The war between Georgia and Russia was centered on this South Ossetian town of about 10,000 people, and it cut a swath of destruction, severely damaging many homes and apartment buildings. Five-story blocks of apartments have gaping holes, with debris blown onto shattered balconies.
In one neighborhood, along Telman Street, house after crumpled house was a scorched shell. The area is about 200 yards from destroyed separatist government buildings in central Tskhinvali, an acknowledged target of Georgian forces.
A school, a library, and a kindergarten were blackened and pockmarked from small-arms fire. And the city was strewn with the ruined armor of both Georgian and Russian forces.
Here in Tskhinvali, residents have no doubt that Georgia started the war with Russia and there is much bitterness about the rain of artillery and rockets that the government of President Mikhail Saakashvili used in its efforts to capture the city.
The Georgian government said much of the destruction of Tskhinvali was caused by a Russian counteroffensive, but that argument carries no weight with residents.
People insist that a terrible barrage struck the city late Aug. 7 and continued into the morning - accounts supported by Western monitors who were also forced into their cellars. Even buildings used by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe were damaged, one severely.
The scale of the destruction is undeniable; some streets summon iconic images of Stalingrad during World War II or Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, much of which was leveled in two wars between Russian and Chechen separatists.
But the number of dead remains in dispute. Mikhail Minsayev, the minister of interior in the separatist South Ossetian government, told reporters that as many as 2,100 people had been killed. As of yesterday, Tskhinvali Regional Hospital had confirmed the deaths of 40 people in the violence. Minsayev said people quickly buried the dead in their yards or took the bodies to North Ossetia in Russia for burial.
During the trip from the Georgian city of Gori and out to the Roki Tunnel that connects with Russia, the revenge taken by some of the inhabitants of South Ossetia was visible in the Georgian fields set on fire and the blackened, abandoned homes in Georgian villages north of Tskhinvali.
Two homes in those Georgian villages were ablaze Saturday.
A United Nations aid convoy entered Gori yesterday, the first time UN officials have reached the city since fighting started a week and a half ago. They said they found extensive signs of looting.
Russian military officials attributed the destruction and looting to marauding South Ossetian militias and said officials are trying to restore order. The Georgian government denied that yesterday.
The headquarters of Russian peacekeepers in Tskhinvali was destroyed. .
Vladimir Ivanov, deputy commander of the Russian peacekeeping force stationed here, said that 15 Russian peacekeepers were killed during the war and that many more were wounded.
The peacekeepers have been in South Ossetia since the early 1990s, when a cease-fire was declared after an earlier conflict. This province of Georgia has since had de facto independence from the central authorities in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital.
Georgian officials accused the Russian peacekeeping force of backing the South Ossetian separatists and failing to rein in their attacks on Georgian villages and territory in Georgia proper.
The war has poisoned people here against a future connection with Georgia though the province remains within Georgia's internationally recognized borders.
"Georgia is finished here; they are never coming back," Bestaev said. "We cannot live without Russia."
 

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Prauda, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

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, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

The Puppet Masters Behind Georgia President Saakashvili
F. William Engdahl – 12 August, 2008

The controversy over the Georgian surprise military attacks on South Ossetia and Abkhazia on 8.8.08 makes a closer look at the controversial Georgian President and his puppet masters important. An examination shows 41 year old Mikhail Saakashvili to be a ruthless and corrupt totalitarian who is tied to not only the US NATO establishment, but also to the Israeli military and intelligence establishment. The famous ‘Rose Revolution of November 2003 that forced the ageing Edouard Shevardnadze from power and swept the then 36 year old US university graduate into power was run and financed by the US State Department, the Soros Foundations, and agencies tied to the Pentagon and US intelligence community.

Mihkail Saakashvili was deliberately placed in power in one of the most sophisticated US regime change operations, using ostensibly private NGOs (Non Governmental Organizations) to create an atmosphere of popular protest against the existing regime of former Soviet Foreign Minister Edouard Shevardnadze, who was no longer useful to Washington when he began to make a deal with Moscow over energy pipelines and privatizations.

Saakashvili was brought to power in a US-engineered coup run on the ground by US-funded NGO’s, in an application of a new method of US destabilization of regimes it considered hostile to its foreign policy agenda. The November 24 2003 Wall Street Journal explicitly credited the toppling of Shevardnadze's regime to the operations of "a raft of non-governmental organizations . . . supported by American and other Western foundations." These NGOs, said the Journal, had "spawned a class of young, English-speaking intellectuals hungry for pro-Western reforms" who were instrumental laying the groundwork for a bloodless coup.
Coup by NGO

But there is more. The NGOs were coordinated by the US Ambassador to Georgia, Richard Miles, who had just arrived in Tbilisi fresh from success in orchestrating the CIA-backed toppling of Slobodan Milosevic in Belgrade, using the same NGOs. Miles, who is believed to be an undercover intelligence specialist, supervised the Saakashvili coup.

It involved US billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Georgia Foundation. It involved the Washington-based Freedom House whose chairman was former CIA chief James Woolsey. It involved generous financing from the US Congress-financed National Endowment for Democracy, an agency created by Ronald Reagan in the 1980’s to “do privately what the CIA used to do,” namely coups against regimes the US Government finds unfriendly.

George Soros’ foundations have been forced to leave numerous eastern European countries including Russia as well as China after the 1989 student Tiananmen Square uprising. Soros is also the financier together with the US State Department of the Human Rights Watch, a US-based and run propaganda arm of the entire NGO apparatus of regime coups such as Georgia and Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution. Some analysts believe Soros is a high-level operative of the US State Department or intelligence services using his private foundations as cover.

The US State Department funded the Georgia Liberty Institute headed by Saakashvili, US approved candidate to succeed the no-longer cooperative Shevardnadze. The Liberty Institute in turn created “Kmara!” which translates “Enough!” According to a BBC report at the time, Kmara! Was organized in spring of 2003 when Saakashvili along with hand-picked Georgia student activists were paid by the Soros Foundation to go to Belgrade to learn from the US-financed Otpor activists that toppled Milosevic. They were trained in Gene Sharp’s “non-violence as a method of warfare” by the Belgrade Center for Nonviolent Resistance.
Saakashvili as mafioso President

Once he was in place in January 2004 as Georgia’s new President, Saakashvili proceeded to pack the regime with his cronies and kinsmen. The death of Zurab Zhvania, his prime minister in February, 2005, remains a mystery. The official version—poisoning by faulty gas heater—was adopted by American FBI investigators within two weeks of the killing. That has never seemed credible to those familiar with Georgia’s gangland slayings, crime, and other manifestations of social decay. Zhvania’s death was followed closely by a functionary of the Premier’s apparat, Georgi Khelashvili, who allegedly shot himself the day after his chief’s demise. The head of Zhvania’s research staff was later found dead as well.

Figures allied with Saakashvili reportedly had a hand in the premier’s death. Russian journalist Marina Perevozkina quoted Gia Khurashvili, a Georgian economist. Prior to the fatal incident, Mr. Khurashvili had published an article in Resonans newspaper opposing the privatization and sale of Georgia’s main gas pipeline. Ten days before the prime minister’s body was found, Khurashvili was attacked and his editor-in-chief—citing pressure from ‘security service’ figures he refused to name—issued him a warning.

The late premier’s position on the pipeline issue was believed the direct reason for the murder of Zhvania. Zhvania’s brother, Georgi, also told Perevozkina that not long before Zhvania’s death he received a warning that someone was preparing to kill his brother. Saakashvili was reportedly livid when the US State Department invited Zhvania to Washington to win a Freedom Medal from the US Government’s National Democratic Institute. Saakashvili tolerates no rivals for power it seems.

Saakashvili, who cleverly marketed himself as “anti-corruption,” appointed several of his family members to lucrative posts in government, giving one of his brothers a position as chief adviser on domestic issues to the Baku-Ceyhan Pipeline project, backed by British Petroleum and other oil multinationals.

Since coming to power in 2004 with US aid, Saakashvili has led a policy of mass-scale arrests, imprisonment, torture and deepened corruption. Saakashvili has presided over the creation of a de facto one-party state, with a dummy opposition occupying a tiny portion of seats in the parliament, and this public servant is building a Ceaucescu-style palace for himself on the outskirts of Tbilisi. According to the magazine, Civil Georgia (Mar. 22, 2004) until 2005, the salaries of Saakashvili and many of his ministers were reportedly paid by the NGO network of New York-based currency speculator Soros—along with the United Nations Development Program.
Israel US military train Georgian military

The current military assault on South Ossetia and Abkhazia, in violation of Saakashvili’s pledge to seek a diplomatic not military solution to the territorial disputes, is backed by US and Israeli military “advisers.” Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported that on August 10, Georgian Minister of Reintegration, Temur Yakobshvili, “praised the Israel Defense Forces for its role in training Georgian troops and said Israel should be proud of its military might, in an interview with Army Radio. ‘Israel should be proud of its military which trained Georgian soldiers,’ Yakobashvili told Army Radio in Hebrew, referring to a private Israeli group Georgia had hired.”

One of the targets of Russian bombs near Tbilisi was, according to IsraelNN.com, “a Georgian military plant in which Israeli experts are upgrading jet fighters for the Georgian military… Russian fighter jets bombed runways inside the plant, located near Tbilisi, where Israeli security firm Elbit is in charge of upgrading Georgian SU-25 jets.”

Israeli Foreign Minister and candidate to succeed ousted Israeli Prime Minister, Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, proclaimed on August 10 that “Israel recognizes Georgia’s territorial integrity,” code for saying it backs Georgia’s attempt to take South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The reported 1,000 Israeli military advisers in Georgia were not alone. On July 15, the Reuters news wire carried the following report: “VAZIANI, Georgia - One thousand U.S. troops began a military training exercise called “Immediate Response 2008,” in Georgia on Tuesday against a backdrop of growing friction between Georgia and neighboring Russia. The two-week exercise was taking place at the Vaziani military base near the capital Tbilisi, which was a Russian air force base until Russian forces withdrew at the start of this decade under a European arms reduction agreement... Georgia has a 2,000-strong contingent supporting the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, and Washington provides training and equipment to the Georgian military. The United States is an ally of Georgia and has irritated Russia by backing Tbilisi’s bid to join the NATO military alliance... “The main purpose of these exercises is to increase the cooperation and partnership between U.S. and Georgian forces,” Brig. Gen. William B. Garrett, commander of the U.S. military’s Southern European Task Force, told reporters.”

With Russia openly backing and training the indigenous military in South Ossetia and Abkhazia to maintain Russian presence in the region, especially since the US-backed pro-NATO Saakashvili regime took power in 2004, the Caucasus is rapidly coming to resemble Spain in the Civil War from 1936-1939 where the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and others poured money and weapons and volunteers into Spain in a devastating war that was a precursor to the Second World War.

In a curious footnote to the actual launch of military fighting on the opening day of the Olympics when Putin, George W. Bush and many world leaders were in Beijing far away, is a report in IsraelNN.com by Gl Ronen, stating that “The Georgian move against South Ossetia was motivated by political considerations having to do with Israel and Iran, according to Nfc. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili decided to assert control over the breakaway region in order to force Israel to reconsider its decision to cut back its support for Georgia's military.”

Ronen added, “Russian and Georgian media reported several days ago that Israel decided to stop its support for Georgia after Moscow made it clear to Jerusalem and Washington that Russia would respond to continued aid for Georgia by selling advanced anti-aircraft systems to Syria and Iran.” Israel plans to get oil and gas from the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline from the Caspian.

Although as of this writing Russian President Medvedev has announced Russia is halting its military response against Georgian targets, the situation is anything but stable. The insistence of Washington in bringing Georgia into its geopolitical sphere and backing an unstable regime around Mikhail Saakashvili may well have been the straw which broke the Russian camel’s patience if not his back.

Whether oil pipeline disputes or Russian challenges to Israel are the proximate trigger for Saakashvili’s dangerous game, it is clear that the volatile Georgian and his puppet masters may have entered a game where no one will be able to control the outcome.
 

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Aljazeera.com, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

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The Star, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

Lance corporal soldiers on despite bleeding left arm 

Way of the warrior: L/Kpl Zamri staying in formation despite needing medical attention yesterday

ALOR STAR: The left sleeve of L/Kpl Zamri Md Soot’s uniform was drenched with blood after another soldier accidentally cut his arm with a bayonet during a marching ceremony.

Despite the pain and heat, L/Kpl Zamri, who sustained a deep cut, stayed in formation for almost two hours until the end of the Regimental Colours Replacement ceremony at Stadium Darul Aman here yesterday.

His blood-soaked sleeve caught the attention of Sultan Abdul Halim Mu’adzam Shah.

The Sultan of Kedah, who is the colonel-in-chief of the Royal Malay Army Regiment, greeted L/Kpl Zamri at the end of the function shortly before the 29-year-old soldier was rushed to the Sultanah Bahiyah Hospital where he was warded for observation.

The Sultan had during the opening speech called on army personnel to remain strong.

Kpt Adis Amzar Hazari regarded L/Kpl Zamri of the Sixth Army Battalion, who suffered a 6cm-long cut on his upper arm, as a courageous soldier.

“An officer who noted the injury asked him to leave and seek treatment. But he refused to do so because he wanted to march till the end of the parade.

“It reflects the fighting spirit in us,” said Kpt Adis Amzar.

Royal Malay Army regiment chairman Lt-Jen Datuk Wira Zulkifeli Mohd Zin said the soldier had shown true grit.

“He refused to leave because he did not want to spoil the marching event. Willingness to make sacrifices reflects a soldier’s spirit,” he said.

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NST Online, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

'Nip crime in the bud, or else'

KUALA LUMPUR: Fraud and other economic crimes in organisations in the country may spiral out of control if measures are not taken now to nip the problem in the bud.

HELP University College Centre for Fraud Management director Akhbar Satar said corruption, money laundering and bribery within organisations, in both private and public sectors, had been rapidly increasing over the years and must be curbed.

"The country's economy, reputation, as well as its stability will be damaged if nothing is done to stop fraud within organisations" said Akhbar.

Speaking at an Economic Crime awareness seminar at the New Straits Times Press (M) Berhad at Balai Berita yesterday, he said HELP had identified ways to eradicate and prevent fraud in organisations.

"The seriousness of economic crime cannot be overstated, as studies conducted by numerous research companies around the world prove how rampant it is," he told some 40 organisational representatives.

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guardian.co.uk, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

Bush is trying to impose a classic colonial status on Iraq

US efforts to force Iraqis to swallow permanent vassal status and give up control of their oil echoes British imperial history

All comments (196)

·          

• Seumas Milne

• The Guardian,

• Thursday June 26 2008

• Article history

Whatever the Iraq war was about, we were assured, it definitely wasn't about oil. Tony Blair called the idea a "conspiracy theory". It was about democracy and dictatorship, weapons of mass destruction and human rights, anything but oil. Donald Rumsfeld, then US defence secretary, insisted the conflict had "literally nothing to do with oil". When Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, wrote last autumn, "Everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil," he was treated as if he were some senile old gent who'd embarrassingly lost the plot.

That argument is going to be a good deal harder to make from next week, when four of the western world's largest oil corporations are due to sign contracts for the renewed exploitation of Iraq's vast reserves. Initially, these are to be two-year deals to boost production in Iraq's largest oilfields. But not only did the four energy giants - BP, Exxon Mobil, Shell and Total - write their own contracts with the Iraqi government, an unheard-of practice: they have also reportedly secured rights of first refusal on the far more lucrative 30-year production contracts expected once a new US-sponsored oil law is passed, allowing a wholesale western takeover. Big Oil is back with a vengeance.

It's a similar story when it comes to the future of the US occupation itself. The last thing on anyone's mind, we were told when the tanks rolled in, was permanent US control, let alone the recolonisation of Iraq. This was about the Iraqis finally getting a chance to run their own affairs in freedom. But five years on, George Bush and Dick Cheney are putting the screws on their Green Zone government to sign a secret deal for indefinite military occupation, which would effectively reduce Iraq to a long-term vassal state.

In April, I was leaked a draft copy of this "strategic framework agreement", intended to replace the existing UN mandate at the end of the year. Details of the document, which came from a source at the heart of the Iraqi government, were published in the Guardian - including indefinite authorisation for the US to "conduct military operations in Iraq and to detain individuals when necessary for imperative reasons of security". Since then, much more has emerged about the accompanying "status of forces agreement" the US administration wants to impose: including more than 50 US military bases, full control of Iraqi airspace, legal immunity for US military and private security firms, and the right to conduct armed operations throughout the country without consulting the Iraqi government.

This goes far beyond other such agreements the US has around the world and would shackle Iraq with a permanent puppet status. Not surprisingly, it has led to uproar in the country and opposition in the US, where congress will be denied a vote on the arrangement because the administration has chosen not to call it a treaty.

But it also evokes powerful memories in Iraq, which has been down this road before. After Britain invaded and occupied Iraq during the first world war, it imposed a strikingly similar treaty on its puppet government in 1930 in preparation for the country's nominal independence. Just as in George Bush's version, Britain awarded itself military bases, the right to conduct military operations, and legal immunity for its forces - though the proposed new US powers and restrictions on Iraqi sovereignty go even further than in the pre-war colonial treaty.

To add to this sense of imperial revival, the four oil companies now preparing to return in triumph to Iraq were the original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company, which Britain gave a free hand in the 1920s to dine off Iraq's wealth in a famously exploitative deal. The Anglo-Iraqi treaty and those bitterly unjust oil concessions dominated Iraqi politics for decades, feeding riots, uprisings and coups until the monarchy was overthrown, the tables turned on the oil companies and the British were finally sent packing by the radical nationalist General Qasim in 1958.

The 50th anniversary of the 1958 revolution appropriately falls next month. But Bush and Cheney seem increasingly determined to force through both their security agreement and the stalled law for the privatisation of Iraq's oil industry before the US election. The signs are that, despite intense Iraqi opposition, a combination of strong-arm tactics, bribery and some watering down of the most extreme US demands may yet secure the full imperial package.

When Bush contradicted Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki earlier this month on the occupation deal and predicted: "If I were a betting man, we'll reach an agreement with the Iraqis," he sounded as if he knew what he was talking about - rather as he did when he explained a couple of weeks ago that he was "confident" Gordon Brown would not after all be cutting British troop numbers in Basra according to any fixed timetable. Meanwhile, Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, is suddenly sounding similarly confident about "progress" on the oil law because "the Americans are very keen".

Perhaps they are all coming to believe the Bush administration propaganda that the surge has succeeded and Iraq is starting to "fix itself" in time for the US election, as the Economist's cover story put it last week. Much is still being made of the decline in US casualties and resistance attacks to 2004 levels, even though the factors behind that drop are widely acknowledged to be contingent and precarious. Given the carnage of the past few days alone - including seven US soldiers killed since the weekend and a Baghdad car bomb that butchered 65 people - as well as this week's withering US Government Accountability Office report on the administration's claims of "progress" in Iraq, any other view would seem perverse.

What is certain is that, if Bush's blueprint for indefinite foreign rule in Iraq and the takeover of its oil is forced down the throats of the Iraqi people, resistance and bloodshed will increase. Of course, it's true that the US and Britain didn't invade Iraq only for its oil. It was a projection of American power in the world's most strategically sensitive region, with oil at its heart, which has brought catastrophe to Iraq and great danger to the Middle East and the wider world. That's why the struggle to restore Iraq's independence matters far beyond its borders - it is a global necessity.

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Utusan Online, August 18, 2008 (16 Syaaban 1429)

Kekalkan semangat juang - Sultan Kedah

ALOR STAR 15 Ogos - Sultan Kedah, Tuanku Abdul Halim Mu'adzam Shah menitahkan warga Rejimen Askar Melayu Diraja (RAMD) mengekalkan semangat juang yang diperturunkan daripada generasi terdahulu bagi memperkasakan lagi pasukan keselamatan itu.

Baginda bertitah, hasrat untuk terus memperkuatkan rejimen berkenaan tidak akan tercapai sekiranya generasi baru tidak menghargai pengorbanan yang telah dicurahkan oleh perwira-perwira bangsa.

Oleh itu, titah baginda, generasi yang ada sekarang perlu menjadikan jasa mereka sebagai satu landasan untuk memburu kecemerlangan yang berkekalan.

"Semangat juang yang telah dipupuk sejak sekian lama dalam rejimen ini semestinya akan menjamin kejayaan dalam mempertahankan negara yang tercinta ini.

"Adalah menjadi harapan beta agar semangat kental yang dimiliki ini akan terus dipertahankan bagi menjadikan RAMD sebuah ketumbukan yang terhebat," titah baginda.

Sultan Kedah bertitah demikian selepas menyempurnakan Istiadat Pertukaran Panji-panji Rejimen, Batalion Keenam RAMD (6 RAMD) di Stadium Darul Aman di sini hari ini.

Turut berangkat ialah Sultanah Kedah, Sultanah Haminah Hamidun. Hadir sama Pengerusi RAMD, Leftenan Jeneral Datuk Wira Zulkifeli Mohd. Zin.

Dalam pada itu, Sultan Kedah yang juga Kolonel Yang Dipertua RAMD bertitah, warga RAMD perlu dibentuk menerusi nilai keperibadian yang luhur dalam melahirkan anggota yang mempunyai semangat juang tinggi.

Pada masa yang sama, titah baginda, mereka perlu mempunyai kekuatan daripada segi mental dan fizikal serta bekalan ilmu pengetahuan yang selaras dengan keperluan semasa.

Baginda percaya bahawa angkatan tentera negara ini mempunyai kekuatan tersendiri meskipun seringkali disajikan dengan propaganda mengenai kehebatan tentera asing.

Sementara itu, majlis istiadat Penganugerahan Pertukaran Panji-Panji baru itu adalah menggantikan panji-panji lama yang kini menjangkau usia 29 tahun bersempena sambutan Jubli Emas Pemerintahan Sultan Kedah.

Batalion 6 RAMD ditubuhkan di Port Dickson pada 1 Mei 1952 melalui kuasa penubuhan Perintah Pembentukan sebelum menjadikan 3 November tahun yang sama sebagai hari rasmi pasukan.

Penganugerahan Panji-Panji Rejimen yang pertama kepada Batalion 6 RAMD telah dilaksanakan pada 27 Oktober 1955 manakala kali kedua pada 3 November 1979 bersempena dengan sambutan Jubli Perak pasukan itu

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Utusan Online, August 15, 2008 (13 Syaaban 1429)

Muhyiddin kecewa
 

KOTA KINABALU 14 Ogos - Naib Presiden UMNO, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin mengulangi rasa kekecewaannya dengan gejala politik wang dalam mesyuarat cawangan sekarang yang disifatkannya semakin membimbangkan.
Beliau yang juga Menteri Perdagangan Antarabangsa dan Industri berkata, amalan buruk yang memalukan itu perlu dihentikan segera kerana boleh merosakkan demokrasi dalam parti.
Beliau terpaksa membuat pendedahan tersebut bukan untuk memburukkan parti sendiri tetapi mahu mereka yang terlibat supaya menghentikannya.
''Biarlah kita bertanding atas dasar setiakawan, rekod kerja yang baik serta akhlak dan moral yang tinggi. Prestasi cemerlang harus dijadikan ukuran, bukan wang ringgit, ini satu perbuatan yang kita mahu elakkan.
''Saya ingatkan ahli parti, perbuatan seperti ini harus dihentikan," katanya.
Beliau berkata demikian pada sidang akhbar selepas merasmikan Seminar dan Dialog Tentang Pelaburan Sabah Dalam Sektor Perkhidmatan, Pembuatan dan Perdagangan di sini hari ini.
Semalam, Pengerusi Lembaga Disiplin UMNO, Tan Sri Tengku Ahmad Rithauddeen Tengku Ismail mendedahkan bahawa pihaknya menerima banyak aduan tentang perbuatan itu.
Sebelum ini, Timbalan Presiden UMNO, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak menegaskan, dua tindakan yang digunakan untuk mencegah perbuatan itu ialah dengan melaporkan kepada Badan Pencegah Rasuah (BPR) atau lembaga disiplin tersebut.

Muhyiddin mengakui turut menerima banyak aduan tentang perbuatan tersebut tetapi menyerahkannya kepada lembaga disiplin berkenaan untuk mengambil tindakan lanjut.
"Memang ada orang yang hantar sendiri pada saya, orang ini tanya apa yang saya akan buat, saya kata kalau ada aduan rasmi, mesti diadukan kepada lembaga disiplin, saya tidak ada kuasa," ujarnya.

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BERNAMA, August 15, 2008 (13 Syaaban 1429)

Daunting Task To Curb Political Corruption
By Noor Hayati Muda

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 15 (Bernama) -- How low would a leader stoop to buy a nomination for a top post in Umno -- RM500 cash or just a mere piece of kain pelekat (Malay sarong) gift to party members?

Sadly, this is among the tactics employed in the ongoing branch meetings, as revealed in reports to the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA).

This goes to show that efforts to curtail the practice have been in vain despite the tightening of the election ethics before the branch meetings kicked off on July 17.

And the situation may worsen when the divisional meetings begin in October unless counter-measures are taken.

For Umno veteran Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Tapa, political corruption in the party would continue to happen as long as party positions and power are perceived as the door to wealth creation.

"In the yesteryears, our struggle was to fight for independence. After we had achieved independence, we strove to develop the country. There were plenty of projects during this period and we cannot deny that many projects went to Umno members.

"But from then on, we developed the perception that if you want to get rich, you must join Umno," he told Bernama.

Abdul Aziz said that after 1978, Umno began to attract corporate figures, who, attracted by the surge in development projects, joined the party in droves.

"Before 1978, Umno members were mainly teachers who fought for the well-being of the Malays. But later, when corporate figures joined the party, the situation changed," he said.

He said the situation in the party worsened when the old guard indulged in money politics to cling on to their positions.

"This is a political gambit. It is difficult to anticipate because anything can happen. Just like the leadership transition, it is not the party tradition but it has become a practice."

Abdul Aziz, 85, did not discount the possibility that Umno might 'sink' if the leaders do not listen to the grouses of the grassroots and transform itself as demanded by members.

"From my observation, the people are worried about Umno. During my visit to Pahang and Terengganu recently, those whom I met expressed their concern, although the emotion has somewhat tapered off.

"This is after Pak Lah (Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi) announced that he will hand over power. Emotions subsided when the people heard that there is going to be a muqabalah (face-to-face interaction) with PAS for the well-being of Muslims, but they are still worried nevertheless," he said.

Abdul Aziz said Umno's survival would also be influenced by the result of the Permatang Pauh parliamentary by-election on Aug 26.

"I think the by-election will be a yardstick. If Anwar wins, what would his vote tally be? If he garners a bigger majority than before, this means that the support for Umno is waning.

"But if the BN (Barisan Nasional) can get more votes than before or, better still, win the contest, there is still hope for Umno," he said, admitting that political corruption had turned the Malays against Umno.

Political analyst Prof Datuk Ibrahim Ahmad Bajunid said the country needed able leaders in every field, not those chosen because of bribery.

"Malaysia is now at the crossroads. After 50 years of independence, we have to deal with challenges which can hinder our progress and leave us lagging behind our neighbours and other developing countries.

"That is why we need leaders of calibre who are chosen in a clean and civilised elections."

Dr Ibrahim who was former Unitar dean of Humanities and Social Science faculty said that as such, national and party leaders must stop bickering for positions, as this could distract them from discharging the responsibilities entrusted upon them.

"Political instability will drive away foreign investors. If this were to happen, how can we generate more wealth for the people? The nation's development will be hindered if the leaders are constantly embroiled in squabbles," he said.

The people increasingly getting tired of the tirades and shenanigans of selfish political leaders.

"It does not matter whether they are from Umno or the opposition, the leaders must continue to serve the people and the country. This is what the citizens want.

"They do not want to see conspiracies, money politics and corruption. They want transparency, a clean and civilised democratic process," he said.

Abdul Aziz and Ibrahim were echoing the sentiments of Umno leaders and members who felt let down by political corruption within the party, but it seems that airing their concerns is just as effective as pouring water over a duck's back.

Money politics and political corruption will continue to surface every time there are party elections.

This is further compounded by the Malay mindset of feeling indebted to their leaders regardless, as stated by former Universiti Malaya dean of Arts and Social Science Faculty Prof Datuk Dr Zainal Kling.

The question is whether the Malays, especially Umno members, will continue to be fooled by leaders who have no compunction about buying votes or choose leaders of calibre who has the interest of the Malays uppermost on their minds.

-- BERNAMA
 

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Malaysian Business Magazine, August 1st - 15th , 2008 ( Syaaban 1429)

U M NO-PAS TALKS A POLITICAL RUSE? 

Is Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's courting of PAS an attempt to consolidate his sagging power? 

THE SUNNEWSPAPER ON JULY 20 REPORTED Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as saying that he had held three meetings with the Pan Malaysia Islamic Party (Pas) to address issues of Muslim and Malay unity.

But the Prime Minister, who professes to practising openness and transparency, brushed aside the Press queries, saying: `There's no need for me to give you the details because you will end up speculating all kinds of things.'

Since Abdullah is not willing to tell the Press details of the meetings, all that's left for us to do is speculate, and speculate we shall.

To set the record straight, we can start by acknowledging that this is neither new nor unexpected. This is not the first time that Umno and Pas leaders have met, and it won't be the last either.

What makes this latest meeting interesting is the fact that it happened at a time when Umno is under pressure and Abdullah's position hangs in the balance.

Some say that he may not last the two years to the middle of 2010 when he has promised to hand over power to his deputy Datuk Seri Mohd Najib Abdul Razak, while others opine that Umno will buckle if he stays on.

Abdullah has to employ all the tricks that he has up his sleeve to survive the mounting challenge against his leadership from within and outside Umno and the Barisan Nasional (BN).

Meeting Pas may send out a strong signal that he^'s still in charge, but more importantly, it is intended to be a subtle warning to the non-Muslims.

There is a growing feeling among Umno members in particular and the Malays in general that Abdullah is giving in too much to the demands of the non-Malays.

Starting with last November^'s Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) protest in Kuala Lumpur, Abdullah is seen as succumbing to such pressure, and, in some cases, at the expense of the Malay majority.

Strange bedfellows?

FOR Pas, which is meeting Abdullah from the position of strength, hearing him out does no harm. If it plays its cards right, it could extract a lot of useful information from the Prime Minister.

Unlike Umno, which suffered a humiliating drubbing at the March 8 polls, Pas was a certain victor. So, it^'s to its advantage to probe the Prime Minister^'s mind and gauge his state of mind.

Today's Pas is vastly different from the Pas that joined Umno in the wake of the 1969 racial riots to form the BN. It's today stronger and more liberal in its leaders and ideological outlook.

It's no longer the party of the ulama, the lebai (traditional religious students) and the rural folk. On many counts, the new breed of Pas leaders are on par or even better than what Umno has to offer. It's this new and friendlier face of the party that should worry Umno.

There is only a faint similarity between the post-1969 national unity government and the post-March 8 polls situation that may draw Umno and Pas closer together, namely, the perceived weakness of the Malays.

The Malays were deemed to be weak in the aftermath of the 1969 general election when the Alliance Party lost badly to Pas, the Gerakan and the DAP, although not as bad as during the March 8 polls.

In 1969, the Alliance Party, the predecessor to the BN, lost only Penang (to Gerakan) and Kelantan and Terengganu to Pas. In the March 8 polls, it lost Kedah, Penang, Perak, Selangor and the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur apart from failing to regain Kelantan.

But the dichotomy in Malay politics became more apparent in the March general election when Malay votes were evenly split between Umno and Pas.

In that sense, the Malay representation in the government today is significantly weaker than in 1969. But unlike in 1969, the Malays generally do not feel a deep sense of threat.

There are several reasons for this. Most of today's Malays grew up with little memory or knowledge of the 1969 riots and the abject poverty of their fore-bearers.

Three decades later and thanks to the partial success of the New Economic Policy, the Malays are better off and more confident of their position.

Most importantly, they have made a deliberate and conscious decision to reject Umno because they felt that the Abdullah Administration had failed to live up to their expectations after being in office for four years.

There is, however, a real concern among the Malays that some aspects of racial

and religious issues are being challenged and questioned, and that a meeting between Umno and Pas could be useful in understanding the extent of this threat. 

Flip-flopping figures

FOR Abdullah, who is facing a crisis of confidence, such a meeting may help to shore up his image among the Malays and Muslims but may further harm his appeal among the non-Malays, especially the business community.

With the economy showing signs of slowing down and the global prospects growing bleaker, questions are mounting concerning Abdullah's ability to see the country through the hard times.

It starts with the lack of a central authority to manage information and create a sense of confidence among the stakeholders.

During the _1997/98 regional financial crisis, the government formed the National Economic Action Council (NEAC) to monitor, recommend and supervise the implementation of policies and programmes aimed at overcoming the crisis.

It was an effective tool in communicating government policies and actions to the people as part and parcel of confidence building.

Not to mention the fact that the best and the brightest people from the public and private sectors were enlisted to assist in the recovery efforts.

Unlike the _1997/98 crisis, which was regional in nature and affected only a handful of the tiger economies, today's crisis is global — sparked by skyrocketing petroleum prices and the sub-prime crisis in the United States of America.

Thus, while the experts are warning of slower economic growth and higher inflation, Abdullah keeps claiming that growth can be kept above 5%.

On July 2, the New Straits Times quoted the Bank Negara Governor, Tan Sri Zeti Akhtar Aziz, as predicting that the economic growth this year could fall to below 5%.

A few days later, Reutersquoted the Prime Minister

as saying that the economy could still expand at the rate of _5% because of strong fundamentals.

On July 18, The Sun newspaper reported the Executive Director of the Malaysian Institute of Economic Research (MIER), Emeritus Prof Dr Mohamed Ariff, as saying that the think-tank had lowered the growth forecast from 5.4% to 4.6%, confirming Zeti's hunch.

Zeti predicted that inflation for the month of June could jump by as much as 6%-7% as a result of the rise in domestic fuel prices compared to 3.8% in May.

This was followed by the Second Finance Minister, Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop, who predicted that the June inflation could have jumped by as much as 7%.

They weren't far off. On July 23, The Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry announced that the June inflation rate had shot up to 7.7%, the highest in 27 years. 

Whither election promises?

THE private sector views are not that encouraging either. The securities monitoring firm, CIMB Research, reported that foreign investors have unloaded Bursa Malaysia quoted shares, causing their prices to sink.

It said shares of companies with large foreign holdings like Malaysian Resources Corporation Bhd, Gamuda Bhd, AirAsia Bhd, Media Prima Bhd, Bursa Malaysia Securities Bhd, Resorts World Bhd, IJM Corporation Bhd, S P Setia Bhd and UM Land Bhd, to name a few, had fallen by as much as _57% during the first half of this year.

In recent days, even the fundamentally strong plantation stocks have taken a beating, suggesting that they too are being abandoned by investors.

A Chinese billionaire, who is a well-known market player, told me that he supported the two-year timetable for the transfer of power from Abdullah to his deputy Mohd Najib. But in the same breath, he warned that the economy could go into a recession due to the lack of confidence in the countermeasures.

Another Chinese Tan Sri who leads a main board construction company estimates that as many as 6o% to 70% of subcontractors have defaulted on their contracts due to a shortage of building materials and escalating cost.

Yet, a major property developer in the Sungai Buloh-Damansara area says demand for newly launched premium property is good, suggesting that investors (and speculators) are seeking shelter in landed property. Double-storey link houses in this project are priced above RM400,o00.

Given these bleak prospects, the Abdullah Government's election promise of a safe, peaceful and bountiful life is but a pipedream for the foreseeable future, and in the meantime, the political outlook has become increasingly clouded and uncertain.

The saddest and the most unfortunate aspect of the current development is the fact that the country is not short of intellectual and financial power to overcome it.

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Russiantoday.com, August 15, 2008 (13 Syaaban 1429)

Ceasefire gives way to PR war

The information war between Russia and Georgia is continuing, even after a ceasefire agreement has stopped the military conflict. On Wednesday evening, Mikhail Saakashvili spread panic in Tbilisi, by claiming that Russian tanks are on the move towards the Georgian capital.

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Russiantoday.com, August 15, 2008 (13 Syaaban 1429)

Ignoring Gori arsenal would have been mad – Russian F

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has criticised media reports on Wednesday which had claimed that Russian tanks were on their way to Tbilisi. Lavrov told a news conference that a Russian convoy driving away from Gori had been on a mission to safeguard weaponry abandoned by the Georgians – and had never been destined for the country’s capital.

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Russiantoday.com, August 15, 2008 (13 Syaaban 1429)

Gori in ruins? You decide

Russia's ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin has dismissed media reports that the Georgian city of Gori is "in ruins." He called the allegations a "disinformation campaign" and pointed to the fact that Russian peacekeepers have in fact performed a humanitarian mission there.

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Russiantoday.com, August 15, 2008 (13 Syaaban 1429)

Georgian spy ring busted - FSB

The Russian security service, the FSB, claims it has uncovered a Georgian spy ring working in various regions of Russian Federation. According to the FSB, the agents were collecting information about military facilities and tried to recruit Russian soldiers to work for them.

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Press TV, August 15, 2008 (13 Syaaban 1429)

Comments : kenapa pentadbiran pa la & khairy membenarkan MTV & rancangan2 amerika/yahudi seperti '24' disiarkan ditanahair tetapi rangkaian televisyen Al Manar & Palestin tidak dibenarkan? 

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CNN.com, August 15, 2008 (13 Syaaban 1429)

Inflation surges to 5.6%

Consumers feel the sting as prices jump again to highest point since 1991 - monthly increase twice what was expected

Oil shoots up on supply drop

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The annual inflation rate surged to 5.6% in July - the highest point in 17 years, the government announced Thursday.The previous month's reading on annual inflation was 5%.The July increase matched the 5.6% level in January 1991, when the Persian Gulf War was raging.

"It's obviously disturbing - it's a bad number," said David Wyss, chief economist for Standard & Poor's.

The report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is the latest sign of economic misery for Americans, on top of mounting job losses and the imploding home market.

On a monthly basis, the Consumer Price Index jumped by 0.8% in July. That is twice the increase that economists had expected.

The biggest culprit in driving up inflation was the cost of energy, which increased by 4% on a monthly basis and 29.3% annually.

The big hits on energy include a 61.1% annual surge in household fuel oil and a 37.9% jump in the price of gasoline.

Monthly food prices increased 0.9% and 8.4% annually. This is one of the largest monthly increases of the year, matching the 0.9% increase in April.

Among the annual food price increases were a 12% jump in the price of cereal and bakery products and a 10.1% increase in fruits and vegetables.

The so-called core CPI, which excludes the volatile food and energy prices, increased to 2.5% annually and 0.3% on a monthly basis in July. Analysts had expected a monthly increase of 0.2%.

Wyss said that while energy prices have dropped dramatically in recent weeks, "this is a number that is going to make the Fed very concerned."

He also said that the weak U.S. dollar was "part of the problem" in driving up the CPI.

Wyss said he does not expect the Federal Open Market Committee, which next meets on Sept. 16, to change the federal funds rate from its current target of 2%.

The price of crude oil slipped 56 cents on Thursday morning to $115.44 a barrel, down from the July 11 record of $147.27.

But Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of the Economic Cycle Research Institute, believes the worst of inflation's sting is over.

Inflation is being driven by food and energy prices, and consumers are pulling back on purchases, Achuthan said. He said this is partly why the price of new vehicles has fallen 0.8% over the last year, while the price of computers and computer equipment has plunged 11.8%.

"Inflation is not going to run away; it's going to be reduced," he said. "The bad news is that this is because we're in a recession.

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PRAUDA, August 15, 2008 (13 Syaaban 1429)

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Press TV, August 15, 2008 (13 Syaaban 1429)

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CNN.com, August 15, 2008 (13 Syaaban 1429)

Gorbachev: Georgia started conflict in S. Ossetia

 (CNN) -- Georgian leaders may be blaming Russia for the conflict raging in South Ossetia, but former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev said Thursday "there is no doubt" that Georgia provoked the clash.

Mikhail Gorbachev told CNN's Larry King that Russia called extra troops into Georgia to stem violence.

Gorbachev told CNN's Larry King that Russia moved additional forces into South Ossetia in response to "devastation" in the South Ossetia city of Tskhinvali.

"This was the use of sophisticated weapons against a small town, against a sleeping people. This was a barbaric assault," said Gorbachev, the last president of the former Soviet Union.

But Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who also appeared on CNN's "Larry King Live" Thursday, said he was "profoundly shocked" that Mikhail Gorbachev would use a television appearance "for basically vindicating lies and deceptions."

Last week, Georgia said it launched an operation into South Ossetia after a cease-fire was broken with artillery fire from Russian separatists that killed 10 people including civilians and peacekeepers. It accused Russia, which also has peacekeepers in the region, of backing the separatists.

Hours later, the Russian news agency Interfax reported that Russian authorities said 10 Russian peacekeepers had been killed and 30 wounded in an attack by Georgians.

"Western television didn't show what happened in Tskhinvali," Gorbachev said. "Only now they're beginning to show some pictures of the destruction. So this looks to me like it was a well-prepared project. And with any outcome, they wanted to put the blame on Russia."

He called Georgia's claims that Russia is attempting to dismantle its democracy "all lies from beginning to end."

Gorbachev also said the United States is jeopardizing its fragile relationship with Russia by backing Georgia. Watch Gorbachev discuss U.S.-Russia relations »

"There is a chance for our two countries to develop a new agenda for cooperation so as to promote both U.S. and Russia interests, and the interests of other countries, and the interests of stability, particularly in the hotspots in different continents," said Gorbachev, who won the Nobel Peace Price in 1990.

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Aljazeera.com, August 15, 2008 (13 Syaaban 1429)

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BBC News, August 15, 2008 (13 Syaaban 1429)

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Utusan Online, August 15, 2008 (13 Syaaban 1429)

Kesal sikap Guan Eng, Khalid

 IPOH 14 Ogos - Dewan Pemuda Pas Pulau Pinang dan Selangor kecewa dengan sikap Ketua Menteri Pulau Pinang, Lim Guan Eng dan Menteri Besar Selangor, Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim yang seolah-olah cuba mengetepikan kepimpinan Pas negeri.

Wakil Dewan Pemuda Pas Pulau Pinang, Mohd. Radzuan Ramli berkata, sikap Guan Eng yang enggan bertemu Pemuda Pas menunjukkan pemimpin itu meminggirkan mereka yang telah menyumbang kemenangan pakatan pembangkang.

Kata beliau, apa yang lebih menyedihkan ialah usaha mereka untuk berjumpa Timbalan Ketua Menteri, Mohammad Fairus Khairuddin tidak mendapat layanan.

''Sebelum ini Guan Eng mengumumkan kerajaan negeri mewujudkan Majlis Silaturrahim Antara Agama dengan beliau sendiri sebagai pengerusinya.

''Tujuan majlis itu untuk menyamaratakan semua agama di Pulau Pinang tetapi malangnya kita tidak dapat jumpa mereka sampai sekarang," katanya semasa membahaskan ucapan dasar Ketua Dewan Pemuda Pas di sini hari ini.

Bagi Dewan Pemuda Pas Selangor, Menteri Besar mereka juga enggan bertemu sejak Mac lalu.

Ketua Penerangannya, Mohd. Sani Hamzah memberitahu, sebaik Khalid menjadi Menteri Besar, beliau sehingga kini tidak melayan permintaan bertemu.

Kata beliau, Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) juga didapati mula 'lupa diri' apabila mendakwa kemenangan pakatan pembangkang di Selangor adalah hasil usaha PKR sendiri.

''Bila ceramah cari Pemuda Pas, kutip sampah cari Pemuda Pas, ada masalah cari Pemuda Pas tetapi bila dah menang dalam membentuk kerajaan mereka mengenepikan Pas.

''Sebelum pilihan raya rintih minta kerusi Dewan Undangan Negeri (DUN) dan Parlimen walaupun mereka tidak mempunyai sokongan akar umbi.

''Sempena sambutan 100 Hari Pemerintahan PKR di Selangor tiada satu pun bendera Pas," katanya.

Ketua Dewan Pemuda Pas Pulau Pinang, Mohamad Hafiz Mohamad Nordin turut menyelar tindakan Guan Eng cuba menukar nama Jalan Masjid Kapitan Keling.

''Golongan yang sering mempertikaikan hak Melayu dan Islam tidak ramai tetapi mereka sering bersuara lantang dan biadap seolah-olah golongan majoriti.

''Ia sama sekali tidak boleh diterima," katanya ketika menyokong usul pada Muktamar Dewan Pemuda Pas di sini hari ini.

Katanya, antara kebiadapan kaum lain terhadap orang Melayu dan Islam termasuk ada kumpulan tertentu yang memfailkan tuntutan mahkamah di London.

Beliau berkata, begitu juga dengan Majlis Peguam yang begitu biadap menganjurkan forum sensitif membincangkan hal berkaitan dengan Islam secara terbuka.

"Siapa dia (Majlis Peguam) nak bincang tentang Islam? Begitu juga dengan kumpulan-kumpulan picisan lain mengapa begitu berani hendak bercakap tentang Islam?

"Tolong hormat kami (orang Melayu) yang merupakan pribumi kepada bumi Malaysia ini," katanya

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 August 14, 2008 (12 Syaaban 1429)

The Arrogant Hypocrisy of the U.S. Government

Is there any government more hypocritical than the U.S. government? Has there ever been? The United States is considering punishing Russia for its military actions in Georgia by cancelling U.S. participation in an annual Russia-NATO naval exercise. Read the full story here. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insists that “the Russians need to stop their military operations as they have apparently said that they will, but those military operations really do now need to stop because calm needs to be restored.”

Well, how about the United States stopping its military operations in Iraq so calm can be restored? The very idea that the U.S. government would seek to lecture Russia about its military actions in Georgia is ludicrous. Has Uncle Sam no shame about the genocide its military has unleashed in Iraq?

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Hornberger’s Blog, August 14, 2008 (12 Syaaban 1429)

Neo-Con Hypocrisy on Georgia and Iraq
by Jacob G. Hornberger

Amidst the death and destruction in Georgia, the neo-conservative reaction here in the United States is a sight to behold.

Aggression, the neo-cons are screaming. The Russians are waging an unprovoked war of aggression, they’re exclaiming. This is unacceptable, they’re declaring. Something must be done, they’re saying.

Oh?

Where were all those terms when the U.S. government attacked Iraq, a country that had never attacked the United States or even threatened to do so? If there was ever a case in which an illegal and immoral war of aggression was waged against another country, it was Iraq.

Yet, what did the neo-cons say about the Iraq invasion and occupation? Oh, it’s not a war of aggression, they said, but rather a war of liberation, of freedom, of democracy-spreading — well, at least once those infamous WMDs failed to materialize.

But all of a sudden Russia attacks Georgia in response to Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s sending of troops into South Ossetia, and all of a sudden the neo-cons experience a gigantic moral awakening in which they see nothing but unlawful, immoral, and arrogant belligerence and aggression.

You see — in the neo-con mind, when the U.S. government attacks countries, that is automatically considered good. When the Russian government attacks countries, that is automatically considered bad.

But let’s give credit where credit is due: Not only did the neo-cons’ poking of hornets’ nests in the Middle East give rise to 9/11 and the war on terrorism, the clever neo-con use of NATO has now helped to poke the Russian hornet’s nest, giving the neo-cons another excuse — “the resurgence of the communist threat” — to take away even more of our freedoms.

Let’s not forget what the purpose of NATO was — to protect Europe from the Soviet communists (who were the former partner of the U.S. government in World War II and to whose control U.S. officials had delivered Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the Baltics).

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, the obvious step would have been to dismantle NATO, given that its mission was now moot. That’s not what U.S. officials did, however. Instead, they kept NATO in existence and then began using it to take a series of provocative actions against Russia, such as proposing the installation of missiles in Eastern Europe.

U.S. officials also sought to have Georgia, which is a former Soviet republic, join NATO, which would have meant more U.S. missiles on Russia’s border.

Now, the neo-cons are claiming that the Russians are behaving ridiculously in objecting to such actions. They are suggesting that it is Russia’s duty to simply obey the U.S. Empire and comply with its directives. After all, they say, the intentions of the U.S. government are entirely peaceful, defensive, and non-threatening. Everyone knows, they say, that the U.S. government doesn’t attack and wage wars of aggression and occupy other countries or engage in regime-change operations through such actions as assassinations, coups, and bribery. The U.S. government is the embodiment of good, they say. Just trust us and obey us, they say to the Russians.

Now, imagine this: Suppose Russia were to enter into an alliance with Mexico, Cuba, and Grenada in which Russia planned to construct military bases and install missiles in those three countries. Ask yourself: Would not the neo-cons go ballistic? Would they not be calling for invading all three countries and implementing regime change?

Of course they would. They would never allow “the communists” to gain a “foothold” in the Western Hemisphere. After all, who has forgotten the violent regime-change operations in Guatemala, Chile, Cuba, Grenada, Nicaragua, and elsewhere during the Cold War?

Fortunately, the neo-cons are not calling for U.S. military intervention to protect the Georgians from Russian aggression. That’s limited to Third World regimes that lack the military to defend themselves, such as when Iraq invaded Kuwait. But Americans ought to be thanking their lucky stars that commitment to principle has never been a strong suit within the neo-con community. Better that the neo-cons limit their punitive actions against Russia to canceling its membership in the G8 than risking war with Russia as part of the U.S. government’s self-appointed role as the world’s international policeman.

Mr. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Hornberger’s Blog Archives

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 August 14, 2008 (12 Syaaban 1429)

Robert Scheer's Columns

Georgia War a Neocon Election Ploy?

By Robert Scheer

Is it possible that this time the October surprise was tried in August, and that the garbage issue of brave little Georgia struggling for its survival from the grasp of the Russian bear was stoked to influence the U.S. presidential election?

Before you dismiss that possibility, consider the role of one Randy Scheunemann, for four years a paid lobbyist for the Georgian government who ended his official lobbying connection only in March, months after he became Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s senior foreign policy adviser.

Previously, Scheunemann was best known as one of the neoconservatives who engineered the war in Iraq when he was a director of the Project for a New American Century. It was Scheunemann who, after working on the McCain 2000 presidential campaign, headed the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which championed the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

There are telltale signs that he played a similar role in the recent Georgia flare-up. How else to explain the folly of his close friend and former employer, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, in ordering an invasion of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, an invasion that clearly was expected to produce a Russian counterreaction? It is inconceivable that Saakashvili would have triggered this dangerous escalation without some assurance from influential Americans he trusted, like Scheunemann, that the United States would have his back. Scheunemann long guided McCain in these matters, even before he was officially running foreign policy for McCain’s presidential campaign.

In 2005, while registered as a paid lobbyist for Georgia, Scheunemann worked with McCain to draft a congressional resolution pushing for Georgia’s membership in NATO. A year later, while still on the Georgian payroll, Scheunemann accompanied McCain on a trip to that country, where they met with Saakashvili and supported his bellicose views toward Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Scheunemann is at the center of the neoconservative cabal that has come to dominate the Republican candidate’s foreign policy stance in a replay of the run-up to the war against Iraq. These folks are always looking for a foreign enemy on which to base a new Cold War, and with the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime, it was Putin’s Russia that came increasingly to fit the bill.

Yes, it sounds diabolical, but that may be the most accurate way to assess the designs of the McCain campaign in matters of war and peace. There is every indication that the candidate’s demonization of Russian leader Putin is an even grander plan than the previous use of Saddam to fuel American militarism with the fearsome enemy that it desperately needs.

McCain gets to look tough with a new Cold War to fight while Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, scrambling to make sense of a more measured foreign policy posture, will seem weak in comparison. Meanwhile, the dire consequences of the Bush legacy that McCain has inherited, from the disaster of Iraq to the economic meltdown, conveniently will be ignored. But the military-industrial complex, which has helped bankroll the neoconservatives, will be provided with an excuse for ramping up a military budget that is already bigger than that of the rest of the world combined.

What is at work here is a neoconservative, self-fulfilling prophecy in which Russia is turned into an enemy that expands its largely reduced military, and Putin is cast as the new Josef Stalin bogeyman, evoking images of the old Soviet Union. McCain has condemned a “revanchist Russia” that should once again be contained. Although Putin has been the enormously popular elected leader of post-Communist Russia, it is assumed that imperialism is always lurking, not only in his DNA but in that of the Russian people.

How convenient to forget that Stalin was a Georgian, and indeed if Russian troops had occupied the threatened Georgian town of Gori they would have found a museum still honoring the local boy, who made good by seizing control of the Russian revolution. Indeed five Russian bombs were allegedly dropped on Gori’s Stalin Square on Tuesday.

It should also be mentioned that the post-Communist Georgians have imperial designs on South Ossetia and Abkhazia. What a stark contradiction that the United States, which championed Kosovo’s independence from Serbia, now is ignoring Georgia’s invasion of its ethnically rebellious provinces.

For McCain to so fervently embrace Scheunemann’s neoconservative line of demonizing Russia in the interest of appearing tough during an election campaign is a reminder that a senator can be old and yet wildly irresponsible.

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 August 14, 2008 (12 Syaaban 1429)

The Lobby Like No Other Wants a War Like No Other

by Michael Scheuer
Having watched John McCain and Barack Obama resolutely pledge their allegiance – and their countrymen's lives and treasure – to the defense of Israel via AIPAC, the media, and personal meetings with Israeli leaders, it is worth asking what could possibly drive these men to so ardently commit America to participation in other people's religious wars. This question is particularly important today as the Bush administration and the Israel-firsters continue to push for an unprovoked U.S. attack on Iran.
Let me say that I harbor no resentment over the actions of Israel's leaders. For more than 60 years, they have knowingly made their country a pariah in the Arab and Islamic worlds, just as the Palestinians have made themselves pariahs in much of the West. This is, of course, the right of both parties, but neither seems to want to face the consequences of their decisions. With demographic realities and increasingly radical, well-armed Arabs making them panicky about Israel's security, Israel's leaders naturally to try to lock down as much U.S. support as possible. Having consciously – if unwisely – put all their eggs in the U.S. basket since the 1973 War, Israel's leaders must do everything possible to protect their relationship with Washington.
The U.S. invasion of Iraq, it seems, was not enough for the Israel-firsters. Now, according to Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a U.S.-launched war on Iran is needed because "the threat that the U.S. and Israel face from the Islamic Republic of Iran is today greater than ever." Though based on the fantasy that Ahmedinejad's tin-pot regime is a threat to the world's only superpower, this is a perfectly commonsense position for Israel and its U.S.-citizen backers in AIPAC to champion. In their view, U.S. wars with Muslims are the ultimate good for Israel. Recall, if you will, the perfectly accurate April 2008, words of Benjamin Netanyahu, likely Israel's next prime minister: "We [Israel] are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the twin towers and the Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq." These wars, Netanyahu said, have "swung American public opinion in our favor." How much more must Netanyahu and AIPAC believe that a U.S. war with Iran would add to this "swing" in Israel's favor?
My own anger falls not on Israel, then, or on Palestine, for that matter; as I have written elsewhere, America would do just fine and would be better off without either or both. It falls rather on the lobbying efforts of AIPAC, that organization's blatant purchasing of fealty from U.S. politicians in both parties, and the media's obsequious parroting of specious canards about "Israel's right to exist" and "the duty of Americans to support an island of democracy in the Middle East."
While few would question the right of AIPAC leaders to lobby U.S. politicians, legally bribe them with campaign contributions, or limit their right to speak as they please in public, not matter how scurrilous or libelous their words, I sometimes wonder if Americans have focused on what AIPAC lobbies for and what its acolytes in politics and the media support.
It is a commonplace to say that lobbying is a pervasive activity in U.S. politics at all levels of government, especially at the federal level. People lobby for tax advantages for business or tax breaks for individuals; for the right to own guns or laws to ban them; for subsidies for agriculture or vouchers for private schools; for universal health care or smaller government. Across this diverse array of lobbyists there are two common threads: (A) None are working to push the United States to participate in other peoples' wars; and (B) All are arguing for things that will – from their perspective – improve America, whether by making it richer, better protected, more competently educated, healthier, freer, etc. The anti-gun lobby, for example, is no less confident than the NRA and its affiliates that they are working for the best interests of Americans. One or the other is wrong, but their activities are shaped by their perception of what is best for America.
It is this last point that separates the lobbyists working for and with AIPAC – most of whom are U.S. citizens – from almost all other U.S.-based lobbyists. AIPAC does not lobby, bribe, and libel to make Americans and America better off. It lobbies solely, forthrightly, and cynically to make Israel richer, better protected, and able to do as it pleases in its relations with Muslim states. AIPAC makes no pretense of doing things meant to benefit America; rather, its members take pride in seeking a goal that runs directly counter to the economic welfare and physical security of almost all other U.S citizens by seeking to keep them involved in a religious war in which no U.S. national interest is at stake.
Now, there are a few other similar anti-American lobbies – those for Armenia, Lebanon, Greece, etc. – but AIPAC is clearly primus inter pares in this dastardly group. And given that every AIPAC success is a net loss for U.S. security and the U.S. Treasury, it seems odd that our so-called political leaders take orders and funds from this fundamentally anti-U.S. organization. Odd or not, however, that is the reality. Senators Obama and McCain have become AIPAC poster boys, each strengthening his support for Israel over the course of the current presidential campaign. Obama's position, in fact, has changed so drastically in a pro-Israel direction that the Illinois senator appears to have no mind of his own on this issue. He has simply and obsequiously adopted the Democrats' traditional abject subservience to their small but powerful pro-Israel constituency.
McCain is an Israel-firster of the deepest hue. Coached by Joe Lieberman – who argues there is a U.S. duty to ensure God's promise to Abraham about Israel is kept – McCain is now considering Republican Congressman Eric Cantor for his running mate. Rep. Cantor, needless to say, is eager to spend American blood and treasure to secure Israel. Speaking in Israel, Cantor pushed the same false assertion that is the staple of U.S. leaders in both parties. "What befalls Jerusalem," Cantor said, "threatens the security of the United States and its allies worldwide. That's because Jerusalem and Israel are Ground Zero in the global battle between tyranny and democracy, radicalism and moderation, terrorism and freedom."
This, of course, is nonsense of a high order, and Lieberman and Cantor know it. Both men are committed to Israel as a religious idea, not because it has anything to do with U.S. security. According to Lieberman, "The rabbis say in the Talmud that a lot of rabbinic law is to put a fence around the Torah so you don't get near to violating it. Well, McCain has a series of very clear-headed policies toward terrorism and Islamic extremism [that put] extra layers behind his support for Israel." He also told a conference of Christians United for Israel that he was pleased they recognized it was America's duty to defend Israel, blithely lying to them that "President Washington and the Founding Fathers" would support America fighting Israel's wars. Cantor, playing to both the Israel-firsters and their U.S. evangelical allies, also has made clear where his primary loyalty lies:
"Jerusalem is not merely the capital of Israel but the spiritual capital of Jews and Christians everywhere. It's the site of the First and Second Temples, which housed the Holy of Holies, and it's the direction in which we Jews face when we pray. This glorious City of David is bound to the Jewish people by an undeniable 3,000-year historical link."
My own view is that if God promised Palestine to the Israelis, God is perfectly capable of keeping that promise, and America is no way committed to expend the lives of its soldier-children in a war over conflicting interpretations of God's word. The Israelis and the Muslims should be perfectly free to fight over whether Yahweh and Abraham or Allah and Mohammed are right, and Americans should be perfectly free to draw the correct conclusion, that the United States does not have a dog in this fight. In addition, there is a genuine constitutional question of church-state separation on this issue. Why should American taxpayers have their earnings and children's lives spent to defend a theocracy in Israel or, for that matter, to protect an Islamic theocracy in Saudi Arabia.? (Imagine the howls of protest and torrents of church-state separation rhetoric from the media and both parties if a congressman introduced a bill calling for the U.S. to designate that an amount equivalent to what's spent to protect Israel and Saudi Arabia be sent to the Vatican – a nation-state like Israel and Saudi Arabia – to improve its defenses against the now well-articulated threat from al-Qaeda and other Islamists.)
Objectively, three realities are clear: (1) U.S. survival is not at stake in the Israeli-Muslim war; (2) the taxes of Americans should not be spent to defend theocratic states; and (3) holy books are insane tools to use as guides for U.S. foreign policy. In America, however, these realities lie unspoken because of the lobbying efforts of AIPAC and the pro-Israel mantras of the politicians it purchases with campaign contributions and promises of media exposure, including McCain and Obama. By their consistent anti-American actions, AIPAC and the U.S. politicians who do its bidding have fully validated the words of the real George Washington – not the figment of Washington painted by Joe Lieberman. "Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence," President Washington wrote in 1796, "the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government."
 

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Press TV, August 14, 2008 (12 Syaaban 1429)

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Press TV, August 14, 2008 (12 Syaaban 1429)

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PRAUDA, August 14, 2008 (12 Syaaban 1429)

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Press TV, August 14, 2008 (12 Syaaban 1429)

Comments :  sekatan2 & blockade ekonomi keatas negara & rakyat Iran adalah untuk melemahkan negara itu sebelum Amerika, Israel & Britain hendak menyerang negara ini di masa depan (seperti Iraq)...inilah cara2 kejam kerajaan2 yang dikuasai oleh yahudi di dunia ini

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Press TV, August 14, 2008 (12 Syaaban 1429)

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Press TV, August 14, 2008 (12 Syaaban 1429)

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Prensa Latina, August 14, 2008 (12 Syaaban 1429)

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The Star, August 14, 2008 (12 Syaaban 1429)

Freehold titles for two Perak schools
By HAH FOONG LIAN

IPOH: The Perak government has awarded freehold titles to two chinese schools.
State Education, Local Government, Housing and Public Transport Committee chairman Nga Kor Ming said the two schools - SM Shing Chung in Sungai Siput and SK Thung Hoon in Tanjung Tualang - had been awarded freehold titles after applying for the land some time ago.
The government had approved the application of 96-year-old SM Shing Chung for a 0.93ha plot of land, he told reporters here on Thursday.
With the additional 0.93ha plot, the largest school in Sungai Siput with an enrolment of some 3,000 students would now be sited on a 4.9ha piece of land, Nga said.
"It is a long awaited news for the school because it had been applying for the land since 1996," Nga said.
He attributed the success of the application to Jalong assemblyman Leong Mee Meng who had worked hard to ensure the state government did not overlook the school's application.
However, he said, the state government was still working out the amount of premium that the school had to pay.
As for the 80-year-old SK Thung Hoon, Nga said the school had been applying for a 1ha plot of land every year but had failed.
"We have also worked out the premium to be RM1,000," he said, adding that Malim Nawar assemblyman Keshvinder Singh and Tronoh assemblyman V. Sivakumar, who is also assembly speaker, had helped to pursue the land application for the school.
Nga also announced that the state had approved the application of St Peter's Church for a 60-year lease on a 0.21ha piece of land while Temple Datuk Kong at Kampung Baru Aulong would be awarded a freehold title for a 0.1ha plot of land
 

Comments :  kerajaan negri perak (yang dikuasai DAP,MB simbolik) sewenang-wenangnya memberi tanah kepada sekolah2 cina,sudahlah berpuluh2 tahun sekolah2 cina enggan menjadi kebangsaan & setia kepada negara sekarang mereka di'hadiahkan' tanah tetap oleh kerajaan Perak

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Utusan Online, August 14, 2008 (12 Syaaban 1429)

Jangan ambil mudah soal Islam

IPOH 13 Ogos – Dewan Pemuda Pas akan bersikap tegas terhadap kerajaan negeri pakatan pembangkang yang mengambil mudah peranan Islam dalam pentadbiran masing-masing.
Ketua Dewan Pemuda Pas, Salahuddin Ayub berkata, kepimpinan di negeri terbabit perlu memperjuangkan hak, nilai serta prinsip Islam yang termaktub dalam undang-undang tubuh negeri berkenaan.
Katanya, Dewan Pemuda Pas pula akan bertindak sebagai pemerhati terhadap pentadbiran kerajaan negeri ke arah mewujudkan urus tadbir yang baik.
‘‘Kita bersedia menegur secara diplomatik dan kita juga bersedia untuk mengambil pendekatan berdepan jika teguran-teguran tidak dilayan,” katanya dalam ucapan dasar pada Muktamar Tahunan Dewan Pemuda Pas Pusat Ke-49 di Stadium Indera Mulia di sini malam ini.
Salahuddin berkata, apa yang dilakukan oleh Dewan Pemuda Pas Selangor wajar dipuji kerana berani menegur beberapa kepincangan kerajaan negeri.
Jelas beliau, teguran berkenaan perlu diberi perhatian serius kerana ia dibuat tanpa mengambilkira soal hukum agama mahupun ketelusan pentadbiran
 

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Utusan Online, August 14, 2008 (12 Syaaban 1429)

Nuridah sedia debat dengan shahrizat mengenai kedudukan wanita Islam
14/08/2008 2:37pm

IPOH 14 Ogos _ Ketua Dewan Muslimat Pas Pusat, Nuridah Mohd. Salleh bersedia mengadakan perdebatan secara terbuka dengan Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil berhubung kedudukan wanita Islam di negara ini jika ada jemputan
untuk berbuat demikian.
Beliau juga bersetuju jika perdebatan itu disiarkan secara langsung asalkan tujuannya adalah untuk kebaikan wanita Islam secara keseluruhannya.
Bercakap kepada pemberita selepas perasmian Muktamar Dewan Muslimat Pas Ke-48 di sini, Nuridah berkata, setakat ini beliau telah dihubungi oleh Naib Ketua Pergerakan Wanita UMNO itu yang menganjurkan mereka bertemu untuk berbincang mengenai kedudukan wanita Islam
di negara ini.
''Bagaimanapun saya meminta supaya beliau memberi jemputan secara hitam putih dan sehingga kini jemputan masih belum diterima,'' katanya.
Ditanya sama ada beliau bersedia jika perbincangan itu dibuat secara terbuka dan disiarkan secara langsung, Nuridah berkata, pihaknya terbuka dan bersedia untuk berbuat demikian.- Utusan
 

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NST Online, August 14, 2008 (12 Syaaban 1429)

Judge orders Raja Petra to remove articles on Shafee

KUALA LUMPUR: Blogger and website editor Raja Petra Raja Kamarudin has been given until Friday to remove three articles on his blog which were considered defamatory of lawyer Datuk Muhammad Shafee Abdullah.

At the same time, Raja Petra was ordered to reveal the source(s) for these articles as well as the identities of those who have posted their comments and messages on the three articles by Saturday.

These injunctions were granted by judge Datuk Tee Ah Sing in chambers at the High Court about 4.30pm yesterday.

Muhammad Shafee had taken out a writ of summons against Raja Petra for defamation over all the three articles posted on his blog at his Malaysia Today website on Aug 6, 7 and 11.

The plaintiff said in a statement that the order granted by the High Court was against the blogger who continuously and maliciously went on a rampage to defame him.
"I have not seen anything more defamatory than what this man has written. None of what he said is true.

"Even someone with a pea-sized brain would realise the preposterousness of the stories Raja Petra had posted on his blog."

He accused Raja Petra of hiding behind his blog.

The blogger was also sued for defamation relating to the publication of comments, posts and statement that had been posted on the blog by visitors and commentators in relation to the three articles.

Further injunctions were also given prohibiting Raja Petra from publishing or causing to be published or continuing to publish the three offending articles or further articles similar in content to the said articles.

The articles were entitled "Shafee Abdullah: Sodomologist Extraordinaire"; "Money, Power and Sex: What Motivates Man", and "The Real Dalang Behind the Anwar Sodomy Allegation".
 

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Dr. Mahathir Mohamad Blog, August 14, 2008 (12 Syaaban 1429)

DEMOKRASI

1. Pengasas-pengasas negara kita Malaysia telah pilih sistem demokrasi untuk politik dan pentadbiran negara kita.

2. Ini bukanlah sistem asli kita. Sistem kita ialah sistem Raja berkuasa mutlak (absolute monarchy). Tetapi oleh kerana Raja tanpa sokongan rakyat begitu lemah sehingga terpaksa serah negeri-negeri mereka kepada British, maka rakyat telah bangun pada 1946 untuk menebus balik negeri-negeri Melayu bersama Raja dan meneruskan peranan politik mereka melalui Demokrasi Berparlimen dan Raja Berperlembagaan.

3. Demokrasi memberi kuasa kepada rakyat untuk mentadbir negara mereka sendiri. Adalah dipercayai rakyat tentu bijak dalam pemilihan pemimpin mereka. Mereka tentu tidak akan pilih orang yang ternampak jelas akan rosakkan negara mereka dan membinasakan mereka.
4. Kematangan orang Melayu dalam selok-belok demokrasi diperlihat pada pemilihan ahli Badan Perundangan Persekutuan (Federal Lagislative Council) pada tahun 1955. Walaupun 80% daripada pengundi adalah orang Melayu dan hanya sebilangan kecil kawasan-kawasan mempunyai majoriti bukan Melayu, pengundi Melayu rela mengundi calon Perikatan bukan Melayu supaya British dapat lihat kesanggupan orang Melayu korban peluang diri mereka dan bekerjasama dengan bukan Melayu. Dengan itu maka berjayalah Persekutuan Tanah Melayu mencapai kemerdekaan pada tahun 1957.

5. Pencapaian Pilihanraya 1955 dan kefahaman demokrasi oleh UMNO telah dicerminkan sebelumnya dalam satu peristiwa yang menyayat hati pada 1951.

6. Di masa orang Melayu mula bergerak dalam bidang politik dan timbul keperluan untuk mengadakan satu pertubuhan bagi mengumpul tenaga mereka, mereka ketandusan pemimpin yang berwibawa. Mereka irihati melihat Indonesia dengan Sukarno-nya, dengan Mohd Hatta-nya, pemimpin-pemimpin yang berkarisma yang disanjung oleh semua rakyat Indonesia, yang terkenal diseluruh dunia.

7. Orang Melayu tidak punyai pemimpin yang begitu hebat. Mereka mencari-cari dengan hati yang berat.

8. Alangkah leganya mereka apabila dapat dikenal pasti seorang orang Melayu yang berkaliber, yang punyai latar belakang perjuangan yang berani.

9. Dato Onn Jaafar adalah orang berprinsip dan tegas. Apabila dia tidak bersetuju dengan sesuatu yang bertentangan dengan prinsipnya dia sanggup berhenti kerja dengan Kerajaan Johor dan membuat kerja sendiri. Dia memang seorang nasionalis. Tidak hairanlah yang dia muncul sebagai pemimpin Melayu yang cemerlang dan layak diterima oleh orang Melayu dari semua negeri-negeri Melayu sebagai pemimpin nasional bangsa Melayu.

10. Dia telah buktikan kebolehannya dengan membentuk pertubuhan politik Melayu yang sah dan pertama di Malaya. Di bawah panduan dan pimpinannya, sistem demokrasi dipilih bagi Pertubuhan Kebangsaan Melayu Bersatu, atau Perkembar yang kemudian lebih terkenal sebagai UMNO (United Malays National Organisation).

11. Dibawah pimpinan Dato Onn, UMNO bersama Raja-Raja menentang Malayan Union ciptaan British sehingga Malayan Union terpaksa digugur.

12. Persekutuan Tanah Melayu yang mengganti Malayan Union dan mengembalikan kedudukan Raja-Raja Melayu sebagai Raja berperlembagaan adalah sumbangan Dato Onn yang amat tinggi nilainya kepada orang Melayu. Semua orang Melayu menyanjung tinggi kejayaan kepimpinan Dato Onn Jaafar.

13. Amat malang sekali putar belit oleh British telah berjaya mempengaruhi pemimpin Melayu yang ulung ini dan dia telah terima saranan British supaya membuka keahlian UMNO kepada semua kaum.

14. Pengaruh Dato Onn memang kuat tetapi tidak mencukupi untuk menukar prinsip dan pemikiran orang Melayu pada masa itu. Walaupun ada pemimpin tinggi UMNO yang bersetuju dengan Dato Onn, tetapi majoriti tidak bersetuju.

15. Persaingan diantara Dato Onn berserta rakan-rakannya dengan pemimpin-pemimpin lain yang diketuai oleh Dato Abdul Razak bin Hussein dilakukan dengan tertib, mengikut semua prinsip-prinsip demokrasi. Tidak ada kempen yang kotor. Masing-masing terdorong dan berpegang teguh kepada kepentingan orang Malayu dan negara Melayu. Tidak ada kepentingan diri yang ditunjukkan, samada oleh Dato Onn atau Dato Abdul Razak Hussein yang tidak bersetuju dengannya.

16. Prinsip demokrasi dipegang kuat oleh kedua-dua pihak. Menganggap penolakan cadangannya sebagai usul tidak percaya maka Dato Onn meletak jawatan.

17. Tetapi kumpulan pimpinan Dato Razak tidak berebut-rebut untuk mengganti Dato Onn sebagai Yang di-Pertua UMNO walaupun ada seorang dua yang berminat. Sebaliknya kerana mengutamakan perjuangan parti untuk Bangsa, Agama dan Tanahair, mereka rela mencari calon daripada luar kumpulan mereka.

18. Yang mereka pilih ialah Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra, yang pernah menyokong Saberkas, satu daripada pengasas UMNO. Tunku tidak terlibat secara langsung dengan penubuhan UMNO atau aktiviti-aktiviti politik UMNO. Namun semangat nasiolisma belau tidak boleh dipertikaikan.

19. Pencalonan Tunku sebagai Yang di-Pertua UMNO mendapat sokongan daripada hampir semua ahli dan pemimpin UMNO. Tidak ada tekanan oleh mana-mana pihak supaya Tunku diterima dan tidak ada apa-apa kempen untuk memburuk dan menolak namanya. Peralihan jawatan daripada Dato Onn kepada Tunku berjalan dengan licin dan tenang. UMNO selamat dan terus mendapat lebih banyak sokongan daripada orang Melayu.

20. Penerimaan Tunku akan jawatan Yang di-Pertua UMNO dan pelepasan jawatan berkenaan oleh Dato Onn bukan kerana keinginan untuk menjadi Ketua Menteri atau Perdana Menteri. Tindakan kedua-dua mereka disebabkan oleh perbezaan pendapat berkenaan dengan cara untuk menjayakan pejuangan, cara mencapai kemerdekaan untuk negara. Kepentingan diri atau cita-cita besar bagi diri sendiri tidak termasuk dalam perhitungan pemimpin besar Melayu ini. Mereka adalah patriot yang sebenar yang sanggup mengamalkan demokrasi walau apa pun akan terjadi pada diri sendiri.

21. Pada tahun 1971 sekali lagi kita ditunjuk pegangan Tunku yang kuat akan prinsip-prinsip demokrasi. Menyedari bahawa sokongan kepadanya sudah berkurangan, Tunku telah tarik diri daripada jawatan Yang di-Pertua UMNO dan sekaligus Perdana Menteri Malaysia. Dengan itu Tun Razak telah dicalon dan dipilih sebagai Yang di Pertua UMNO yang baru. Tunku tidak cuba mengekalkan kedudukannya dengan menghasut, mengugut atau menyogok pemimpin kecil dan besar UMNO serta ahli supaya menghalang Tun Razak daripada mengambilalih jawatannya. Tunku juga tidak cuba sogok Tun Razak dengan janji akan letak jawatan dan menyerahnya kepada Tun dalam masa tertentu.

22. Pemimpin-pemimpin kecil dan besar UMNO dan ahli-ahli UMNO memain peranan yang diharap daripada mereka dalam badan yang mengamalkan demokrasi. Menyedari bahawa Tunku tidak lagi dapat memenuhi kehendak dan hasrat perjuangan Melayu dan UMNO, mereka tidak cuba mengambil kesempatan bagi diri mereka supaya disogok. Sebaliknya mereka rela melepaskan Tunku dan menerima Tun Razak.

23. Jika demokrasi tidak mendatangkan kebaikan, percayalah sebabnya bukan sistem ini tidak baik. Sebabnya ialah oleh kerana mereka yang diberi hak mengundi untuk menentukan nasib negara dengan memilih wakil dan pemimpin yang ikhlas dan jujur tidak menggunakan hak ini dengan bijak. Kerana takut atau kerana utamakan kepentingan semasa diri sendiri, atau kerana sanggup disogok, mereka menggunakan kuasa undi mereka dengan cara yang salah, dengan mengundi dan menyokong calon dan pemimpin yang mereka tahu telah abaikan tanggungjawab dan rosakkan parti.

24. Pucuk pimpinan pula, menyedari akan ketakutan dan keutamaan bagi diri sendiri dan lemahnya semangat juang ahli dan pemimpin kerdil dalam parti tidak segan-segan memperalatkan sifat ini untuk mengekalkan kedudukan dirinya dan konco-konconya.

25. Dengan ini maka demokrasi gagal mendatangkan kebaikan kepada pengamalnya.
 

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Utusan Online, August 14, 2008 (12 Syaaban 1429)

Pelajar UiTM marah - Protes merebak ke Kelantan

MACHANG 13 Ogos – Protes pelajar-pelajar Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) terhadap cadangan Menteri Besar Selangor, Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim untuk membuka ‘ruang’ kepada pelajar bukan bumiputera terus hangat apabila demonstrasi itu menular di Kelantan pula hari ini.

Kira-kira 5,000 pelajar dari kampus cawangan universiti tersebut di sini mengikut jejak langkah rakan-rakan mereka di Shah Alam semalam mengadakan perhimpunan secara aman untuk turut menyatakan kemarahan dan kekecewaan mereka.

Kumpulan pelajar itu diketuai oleh para pemimpin Majlis Perwakilan Pelajar UiTM, Gabungan Pelajar Melayu Semenanjung (GPMS) dan persatuan-persatuan dalaman UiTM yang sebahagian besar memakai pakaian serba hitam.

Mereka berkumpul di hadapan bangunan pentadbiran universiti berkenaan bermula pada pukul 12 tengah hari. Perhimpunan berakhir kira-kira sejam kemudian.

Di samping menyanyikan lagu rasmi UiTM dan lagu-lagu patriotik, mereka turut memakai lilit kepala berwarna putih yang bertulis ‘Hidup Melayu’ serta membawa sepanduk, ‘UiTM Milik Melayu’ dan ‘Ini Hak Kami’.

Perhimpunan itu berakhir selepas Yang Dipertua Majlis Perwakilan Pelajar UiTM Kelantan, Shaik Aznan Md. Eusoff menyerahkan memorandum yang ditandatangani oleh mereka kepada Pengarah kampus tersebut, Prof. Datuk Dr. Hussin @ Mohamed Abd. Rahman.

Shaik Aznan ketika ditemui selepas itu berkata, pihaknya memberi amaran kepada Abdul Khalid supaya jangan cuba menggadaikan hak-hak Melayu yang termaktub dalam perlembagaan negara yang boleh membunuh masa depan anak bangsa.

‘‘Perjuangan yang dilakukan oleh golongan pejuang dan tokoh-tokoh Melayu bagi mendapatkan hak-hak orang Melayu akan menjadi sia-sia jika kami tidak dibela, malah dikhianati oleh mereka yang sebangsa.

‘‘Tindakan beliau itu umpama anak di rumah mati kelaparan, kera di hutan disusukan. Cadangan yang dinyatakan olehnya bagai membunuh bangsa sendiri dan berunsur politik,’’ katanya.

Shaik Aznan berkata, isu pendidikan dan UiTM tidak harus dijadikan bahan politik serta barang untuk diniagakan oleh mana-mana pihak terutama pemimpin Melayu sendiri demi kepentingan peribadi.

Dalam pada itu, Dr. Hussin yang ditemui berkata, reaksi mahasiswa terhadap isu itu sungguh mengejutkan beliau.

‘‘Ia cetusan semangat daripada mahasiswa sendiri yang kecewa dan tertipu dengan permainan politik parti pembangkang. Kami tidak boleh menghalang mereka menunjukkan kemarahan dan kecewa mereka akibat daripada tindakan ahli politik ini.

‘‘Persoalannya, kenapa UiTM diganggu sedangkan di negara ini terdapat sebanyak 22 buah universiti kerajaan, 32 universiti swasta dan beratus institusi pengajian tinggi swasta (IPTS) yang terbuka kepada semua kaum,’’ katanya.

Tambahnya, memorandum tersebut akan diserahkan kepada Perdana Menteri, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi pada Jumaat ini.

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August 13, 2008 (11 Syaaban 1429)

pemudamalaysia.org.my - Editorial 

Dead civilians in South Ossetia. But you will not hear much about it on CNN or Faux News. Because they are too busy reporting ad nauseam about the extramarital shenanigans of CFR darling John Edwards.
In order to find out what's really going on in Georgia, you have to read the international press on the internet. Bush, McCain, and Obama may cast blame on Russia, but reading the international press you get a different perspective.
"Russian officials believe that it was the USA that orchestrated the current conflict. The chairman of the State Duma Committee for Security, Vladimir Vasilyev, believes that the current conflict is South Ossetia is very reminiscent to the wars in Iraq and Kosovo," reports Pravda, the Russian newspaper.
Imagine Canada decided to enter a military and diplomatic alliance with Russia and Canada began arming itself to the teeth with Russian weapons and training with Russian military advisers. Can you guess what the reaction of Bush and the neocons would be?
It doesn't take much imagination.
It appears the CIA has worked behind the scenes for quite a while in Georgia. Back in 1993, for instance, CIA agent Fred Woodruff was assassinated by unknown assailants outside of Tbilisi. "Spokesmen for the State Department and the C.I.A. declined to confirm that Mr. Woodruff was working for the intelligence agency
In the wake of Georgia's much vaunted — by the U.S. corporate media — "revolution," the installed government of autocrat Mikheil Saakashvilli wasted little time imposing "democracy" neocon-style, resulting in violent suppression of opposition political rallies. "Georgia was rocked by opposition rallies for six days last November as protesters occupied central Tbilisi demanding Saakashvili's resignation over allegations of corruption and increasing authoritarianism," reported RIA Novosti. "The Georgian leader responded by sending in riot police to crack down on protesters on November 7. Over 500 people were injured according to Human Rights Watch as police used rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannons to break up the demonstrations." In addition, Saakashvilli's goons used "non-lethal" weapons of the sort developed by the Pentagon (see video).
Last month, Aljazeera reported that "a total of around 1,650 soldiers form the US, Georgia and several other East European countries, have begun exercises on the formerly Russian-controlled Vaziani base, the Georgian defense ministry said."
NowPublic reported on July 17:
US officials insist the long-planned wargames have nothing to do with the recent dispute between Russia and Georgia over the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. But they give Washington a chance to support pro-west Tbilisi at a critical time.
If you believe this, I have a bridge for sale.
In fact, these "long-planned wargames" were so important the State Department packed up and shipped off Condi Rice to Georgia. Her arrival was nicely timed to coincide with "a deadly firefight between Georgian troops and separatists in a Russian-backed breakaway region.... Ahead of Rice's arrival, a senior State Department official who did not want to be identified told reporters that unchecked conflict in the region could lead to catastrophe. The official also said Moscow should realize its Soviet empire is gone."
Israel gets in on the act
Let's not forget America's junior partner in chaos and mass murder, Israel. "In addition to the spy drones, Israel has also been supplying Georgia with infantry weapons and electronics for artillery systems, and has helped upgrade Soviet-designed Su-25 ground attack jets assembled in Georgia, according to Koba Liklikadze, an independent military expert based in Tbilisi. Former Israeli generals also serve as advisers to the Georgian military," reports the International Herald Tribune.
No wonder the horrific photos emerging from South Ossetia have that Lebanon invasion look about them. Israel has over fifty years of experience in invading small countries and has consistently specialized in murdering and tormenting civilians.
It looks like Russia will be obliged to deal with Georgia's treachery on its own. Regrettably, Russia's response will entail even more murder of innocents and wholesale destruction, as this is how government historically deals with threats -- real, imagined, or provocateured

Some people have all let the American mass media define this war in their Zionist terms. Here are the real issues:

1. Putin broke up the Yukos Oil (Russian Jewish) pipeline deal from Northern Iraq to Haifa, supplying the Israeli military and Israel with all the oil they would ever want. This really pissed off Bush and Cheney because Haliburton was to do the entire pipeline and support work. This act of Putin marked the end of US-Russian good feelings.

2. Having lost the old Iranian-Iraqi-Haifa pipeline deal, Israel went to Plan B. Plan B was the Georgian pipeline. Israel began endearing themselves to the Georgians + by extension to the Americans. Israel sent Georgia arms + advisiors, promised to influence the Americans + awaited access to the new Georgian pipeline

3. Putin, ever on top of things, broke up this Israeli deal also.

Link : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrP9n0fKl0o

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Prauda, August 13, 2008 (11 Syaaban 1429)

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Prauda, August 13, 2008 (11 Syaaban 1429)

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Prauda, August 13, 2008 (11 Syaaban 1429)

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The Star, August 13, 2008 (11 Syaaban 1429)

Pow-wow on 12-dam project 

KUCHING: The Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) will bring various stakeholders together next month to discuss the proposed construction of 12 hydroelectric dams in Sarawak.

Commissioner Datuk Dr Denison Jayasooria said the dialogue would provide an opportunity for government agencies and the relevant parties to openly discuss the projects and their implications.

“Various groups and parties have raised concerns over the building of the 12 dams,” he told reporters after a Suhakam dialogue with NGOs and the media in Sarawak here yesterday.

“Some have supported the projects, others have questioned their sustainability and raised concerns over the environment.”

Dr Denison said state agencies, federal ministries, consultants and NGOs representing the affected communities would be invited to participate.

“It will provide an opportunity for people to understand what the government’s planning on this is, as well as the concerns raised by environmentalists, civil society and the indigenous people,” he said.

He said Suhakam’s main concern was the displacement of indigenous communities as a result of the dams.

“Twelve dams means many people will be displaced in the interior, and even heritage sites,” he said.

“It’s going to affect traditional land, livelihood and the sustainable development of the communities, and Suhakam can provide an environment to debate and discuss these issues,” Dr Denison added.

Suhakam will publish its findings based on the discussion, he added.

Fellow commissioner Datuk Dr Michael Yeoh said Suhakam could play an important role – as a bridge between Government, the affected communities, NGOs, and professional consultants and the companies promoting the projects.

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Prauda, August 13, 2008 (11 Syaaban 1429)

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 August 13, 2008 (11 Syaaban 1429)

August 13, 2008, 12:30

Captured map shows Georgia planned to invade Abkhazia

Russian troops have discovered what they believe are plans for an invasion of Abkhazia in a captured Georgian command post vehicle. On Wednesday, Abkhazian armed forces succeeded in pushing Georgian troops out of the Upper Kodori Gorge in anticipation of such an attack.

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NST Online, August 13, 2008 (11 Syaaban 1429)

Perak Umno Youth regards Khalid as DAP's puppet:

Perak Umno Youth regards Selangor Menteri Besar as a puppet to the DAP for suggesting that Universiti Teknologi Mara’s (UiTM) student intake be opened to non-Bumiputeras.

Its chief Zainol Fadzi Paharuddin said the suggestion made by Khalid was actually the voice of the DAP which championed the “Malaysian Malaysia” concept.

“What we have been worried about has happened when such a suggestion had come from a Malay leader without the DAP having to voice it,” he told Bernama here today.

He said this happened because the Malay leaders (in the Pakatan Rakyat) were puppets, like what was happening in Perak, because there were the de facto Menteris Besar behind them.

“Ultimately, the Malays and other Bumiputeras become the victims. The suggestion which sounded more like coming from the DAP was politically motivated and has hurt the feelings of the Malays,” he added.

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CNN Online, August 13, 2008 (11 Syaaban 1429)

Georgia president: Russia 'rampaging' through town

TBILISI, Georgia (CNN) -- Georgia's president accused Russia on Wednesday of violating the terms of a cease-fire deal by attacking and "rampaging" through the Georgian town of Gori.

"As I speak, the Russian tanks are attacking the town of Gori and are rampaging through the town," President Mikheil Saakashvili told a news conference. "There is marauding. There is destruction of buildings."

However journalists in Gori, 15 miles (24km) over the South Ossetian border into Georgia, said they had seen no Russian tanks. Residents there told the journalists they had earlier seen "some" Russian tanks, but not in large numbers.

Comments :  saakashvili a serial liar or serial exxagerator?

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Borneopost Online, August 13, 2008 (11 Syaaban 1429)

Tempers flare as graves exhumed unlawfully
By Gary Adit

KUCHING: Emotions ran high at the Jalan Keretapi Muslim cemetery here yesterday following what was described as the unlawful exhumation of 44 graves by a local contractor as family members gathered en masse to protest the ‘heinous and shameful’ act.

The extremely tense situation also threatened to spiral out of control on several occasions as angry family members bashed up a representative of the Sarawak Islamic Religious Department (Jais), whom they held accountable for the incident, and torched an excavator and other equipment belonging to the contractor.

The incident also drew the attention of various quarters with Assistant Minister in the Chief Minister’s Department (Islamic Affairs) Datuk Daud Abdul Rahman, Sarawak Democratic Action Party (DAP) secretary Chong Chieng Jen, PKR state liaison chief Dominique Ng and Batu Lintang assemblyman Voon Lee Shan all making an appearance to meet and discuss the situation with aggrieved family members.

With many of those at the scene placing the blame on his ministry, Daud soon found himself becoming a target of the angry mob, who hurled foul and abusive language towards him from the moment he arrived.

The assistant minister, however, kept his cool and assured everyone that he would personally look into the matter which he claimed he had no knowledge of.

Police personnel were also present throughout the day to monitor the situation to ensure that further violence did not erupt at the cemetery, which is said to date back to the James Brooke era and where over 300 graves are located.

Word of the exhumation began to spread as early as Monday evening when a family member, whose ancestor is buried at the cemetery, was driving along Jalan Tun Ahmad Zaidi Adruce and noticed that part of the area had been ‘covered’ using plastic sheets.

Taking a closer look, he was horrified to see workers digging up the graves and placing the bones of the men and women who died into separate wooden crates.

He immediately alerted his family and relatives, who then contacted the other families and led to the mass gathering which started around 8am.

Among those present included PBB Batu Lintang Youth chief Kassin Mahruf, whose grandfather’s remains were among those exhumed by the contractor.

Kassin who was later joined by his SUPP counterpart Sih Hua Tong, took a more diplomatic tone to explain the situation, saying it was a result of ‘lack of coordination’.

“There was a definite lack of coordination between the contractor and Lembaga Amanah Kebajikan Masjid Negeri Sarawak (LAKMNS) with the affected families which resulted in today’s episode.

“The two parties should have held more dialogue sessions with us to discuss about the relocation,” he added, referring to the proposed relocation of the site to the Semariang Muslim cemetery.

He said a discussion involving all parties was held last Friday, and that an agreement was reached to postpone any decision regarding the issue until after the up-coming Hari Raya celebration.

Stopping short of saying that the contractor and LAKMNS went back on their word, Kassin pointed out that the issue at hand was sensitive in nature and that the exhumation should not have happened in the first place.

State PKR advisor Wan Zainal Abidin Wan Sanusi meanwhile said the ‘heinous and shameful’ act went beyond the boundaries of politics, race or religion, and demanded an apology from the authorities on behalf of the affected families.

All the claims and accusations from various parties, however, were of not much concern to many of those gathered at the cemetery as some broke into tears at the sight of their ancestors’ remains while others chose to vent their anger and frustration in private.

One of them, 75-year-old Darmi Darma, told reporters that she felt both ‘saddened and shocked’ after learning that the graves belonging to her two late grandmothers were among those affected.

Claiming to be among the first to learn of the incident, the elderly woman went on to say her family had never been contacted by the contractor over the matter and that steps needed to be taken to prevent something similar from recurring.

Another of those affected yesterday was 70-year-old Awang Fauzi Awang Olen who had 10 family members buried at the cemetery.

Comments :  kalau kubur cina, krisitian atau hindu perkara ini tidak pernah berlaku dibawah pemerintahan & pentadbiran ketua menteri sarawak abdul taib...tetapi malanngnya umat Islam & bangsa melayu dipandang remeh & tidak dihormati langsung zaman pentadbiran taib...

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CNN Online, August 13, 2008 (11 Syaaban 1429)

August 12, 2008, 14:45

CNN blamed for using misleading war video

American broadcaster CNN has been accused of using the wrong pictures in their coverage of the conflict in South Ossetia. A Russian cameraman says footage of wrecked tanks and ruined buildings, which was purported to have been filmed in the town of Gori, in fact showed the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali.

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CNN Online, August 13, 2008 (11 Syaaban 1429)

M-16 Barrels

August 12, 2008, 17:41

Revealed: how U.S. funds Georgian arms

The United States has been providing military and technical support to independent Georgia for almost 15 years. During this period, the overall amount of annual aid from Washington has increased by more than several hundred times, and reached its peak in the financial year till 2006.

It has meant that Georgia’s army was well prepared for an attack on South Ossetia. RT offers a brief history of the preparation by the Georgian armed forces for the war.

• 1994: Georgia received $63,000 under the programme of the International Military Education and Training (IMET).

• 1995: Georgia received $85,000 under IMET.

• 1996: Georgia received $302,000 under IMET. It purchased American military equipment for $66.000. Total: $368,000.

• 1997: Georgia received $312,000 under IMET. It purchased American military equipment for $66,000. It received $700,000 under the programme of the Foreign Military Financing (FMF). Total: $1,068,000.

• 1998: Georgia received $416,000 under IMET. It received $5,350,000 under EMF. Total: $5,766,000.

• 1999: Georgia received $394,000 under IMET. It received $7,950,000 under FMF. It purchased American arms for $19,000. It received $9,227,040 under the programme of Additional Defense Expenses (ADE). Total: $17,590,040.

• 2000: Georgia received $409,000 under IMET. It received $3,000,000 under FMF. It purchased American arms for $3,949,000. It received $575,000 under ADE. Total: $7,933,000.

• 2001: Georgia received $481,000 under IMET. It received $4,490,000 under FMF. It purchased American arms for $5,171,000. It received $575,000 under ADE. Total: $10,717,000.

• 2002: Georgia received $889,000 under IMET. It received $55,500,000 under FMF. It purchased American arms for $3,647,000. Total: $60,036,000.

• 29th April 2002: Pentagon announced the beginning of the Programme of Preparation and Equipment for Georgia (PPEG). The programme was implemented upon Georgia’s request for assistance in order to enhance its abilities to fight against terrorism, in the Pankisi Gorge in particular.  The program was planned for 18-20 months. It included special seminars and training as well as supplies of light armaments and other military equipment for the Georgian army. Total budget of the programme was $64,000,000. Also, at least 150 American military experts were sent to Georgia. The Programme of Border Security and Law enforcement, with a budget of $3,200,000, was implemented at the same time.

• 2003: Georgia received $1,184,000 under IMET. It received $6,900,000 under FMF. It purchased American arms for $9,825,000. It received $4,525,054 under ADE. Total: $22,434,054.

• 2004: Georgia received $1,040,000 under IMET. It received $12,000,000 under FMF. It purchased American arms for $7,405,000. It received $2,786,257 under ADE. Total: $23,231,257.

• April 2004: Programme of Preparation and Equipment for Georgia was formally completed. The programme of operation for