THE FLASHLIGHT, August 23-29, 2008

THE FLASHLIGHT
August 23 – 29, 2008
No Peace without Justice, no Justice without the Facts
Mary K. Matossian, Editor
mary@matossian.net, Apt. 9-M

US Politics: The Democrats’ Big Week

CNN 8-22. Obama chose Sen. Joe Biden as running mate. He has a working class origin and much foreign policy experience.

NYTimes 8-23 Most of McCain’s money is in his wife’s name. They own seven houses. He is one of the richest men in the Senate.

PBS 8-26. The Democratic keynote speaker, Mark Warner, was a former businessman, founder of Nextel mobile phones. He did not attack McCain or Republicans in general, for he is running for a Virginia Senate seat and must appeal to moderates of both parties.

CNN 8-26-28, Hilary Clinton in a fighting speech supported Obama, raised the issues of equal pay for women for equal work. Bill Clinton also gave a rousing speech. Sen. John Kerry rejoiced that Democrats now have enough money to fight back hard against slurs against their candidates. Sen. Biden also gave a rousing speech.
Obama’ spoke to an audience of c. 70,000 saying, “This election is not about me: it is about you.”
NYTimes 8-29. Commentator Patrick Healy said that the goals of Obama’s speech were to connect the promise of “change” to specific proposals, and to show that he could fight his opponent.

US Economy

NY Times 8-25. It was reported that new technology is making it possible to extract natural gas from shale beds scattered over North America. Of fossil fuels, the one that produces the least amount of emissions that cause global warming is natural gas.

The Middle East

Haaretz, Tel Aviv. 8-24. Israel promised to release 199 Palestinian prisoners to President Abbas in the West Bank.
Haaretz 8-26. Peace Now, an Israeli human rights organization, reported that during this year so far, 2,600 units have been built on the West Bank, nearly half of which are east of the line of separation. Sec. of State Condelezza Rice called for an end to West Bank construction.

IPS (International Press Service, in Google News). According to Peace Now, this year Israel has published tenders for the construction 1,761 illegal housing units for Israeli settlers in occupied east Jerusalem. This is contrary to Israel’s promise not to do so at the Annapolis peace conference in 2007. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Mun has stressed repeatedly that West Bank settlement construction is contrary to international law.

Iran

Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenai said that scientific advancement is essential for the health, wealth, and strength of the nation.

Humor
Contributed by Sylvia Kuran.

War does not determine who is right.
War determines who is left.

Contributed by Parker Robinson

Bill Gates:
'If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has,we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.' In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating: If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all bedriving cars with the following characteristics:: 1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash........Twice a day. 2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car. 3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason.You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this. 4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn wouldcause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run ononly five percent of the roads. 6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single 'This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation' warning light. 7. The airbag system would ask 'Are you sure?' before deploying. 8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna. 9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operatein the same manner as the old car. 10. You'd have to press the 'Start' button to turn the engine off.____________________________________________________________

THE FLASHLIGHT, August 16-22, 2008

THE FLASHLIGHT
August 16-22, 2008
No Peace without Justice, no Justice without the Facts
Mary K. Matossian, Editor
mary@matossian.net, 9-M

Transcaucasia
CNN 8-15. Georgia signed truce with Russia. Widespread destruction in Tskhinvali, capital of South Ossetia. NYTimes 8-16. Russian signed truce with Georgia.

Iran

Tehran Times 8-18. Iran successfully launched its first communication satellite.

Turkey/Armenia

An-Nahar 8-17. In response to an invitation from the President of Armenia, Serzh Sarkisyan, to come for a visit, Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul said Turkey is “no enemy” to Armenia and that he is considering the invitation.
[Armenia proclaimed its independence from the defunct Soviet Union in 1991. In 1993, after Armenia seized some land in Azerbaijan that was heavily populated by Armenians, Turkey closed its border with Armenia.]

Syria/Lebanon

` An-Nahar 8-22. Lebanon decided to re-establish diplomatic ties with Syria.

Israel/Palestine

Haaretz 8-17. In exchange for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers, Israel released 200 Palestinian prisoners to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.


Israel/Lebanon

An-Nahar 8-20. In the event of a Hizbollah seizure of power in Lebanon, Israel threatened to hit all of Lebanon, including civilian targets everywhere.
An-Nahar 8-22. Hizbollah to Israel: Expect big surprises soon.

Pakistan

PBS 8-19. Musharraf resigned as President of Pakistan.

Health

Google News, Robert Johnson Foundation, 8-20. Since 1992, US adult obesity rates increased in all 50 states. In 28 states 25% of the adult population was obese. The highest rates for adults, over 30% obese, were in Mississippi, Alabama, and West Virginia. The adult obesity rate in California was 23.1%.

THE FLASHLIGHT, August 9-15

THE FLASHLIGHT
August 9 – 15, 2008
No Peace without Justice, No Justice without the Facts
Mary K. Matossian, Editor
The Sequoias 9-M
mary@matossian.net

Transcaucasia [Lands just south of the Caucasus Range]
Events
NYTimes 8-8 – 8-9. Georgian troops, attempting to re-assert Georgian authority over a break-way region, South Ossetia, attacked the local capital, Tshinvali, killing and wounding some and causing c. 30,000, mostly women and children, to flee north into Russian held territory. Russian armored troops responded promptly by moving into South Ossetia, while Russian bombers flew over the Georgian Republic. There appeared to be a threat of full-scale war, as Russian troops moved also into another breakaway region, Abkhazia, which is located on the eastern shore of the Black Sea and is also claimed by Georgia.
8-11. After the Georgian government offered a cease-fire, Russian armored troop assaulted central Georgia, attacking Gori and bombing Tbilisi, the Georgian capital. The Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, told US Secretary of State, Condolezza Rice that the US backed, democratically elected, President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, “must go.” US Ambassador to the UN Khalilzad said that the Russian demand was “completely unacceptable.” About 170 Americans were evacuated from Tbilisi to the Armenian Republic to the south.
8-12. The Russians ordered a halt to military operations in Georgia. The Georgians report continued Russian maneuvers and attacks, however.
Agence France Presse 8-12. The British Petroleum Company (BP) shut one of its pipelines, that which runs from Baku through Georgia to the Black Sea. BP also closed the second longest pipeline in the region from Baku via Tbilisi to Ceyhan, Turkey. Instead BP sent supplies by railroad from Baku to the Georgian port of Batumi on the Black Sea.
The Russians agreed to a truce. But on 8-13 CNN reported that alien irregulars were looting and killing Georgian villagers.
NYTimes, Guardian 8-14. The Russians occupied Gori, sent troops in Poti (Georian port). US sent troops to oversee humanitarian air cargo mission, said Russians sabotaged Georgian airfields and other military infrastructures.
NYTimes 8-15. Human Rights watch confirmed 44 deaths, 293 wounded in Ossetia. Confirms Ossetians attacked Georgian villages.
Russia enraged by US-Polish deal, signed after 18 months delay on 8-14, to set up anti-missile defense system in Poland. White House claimed it is oriented to “rogue” nations like Iran.

The Transcaucasian Background

Wikipedia et al. The Georgian Republic, like the other independent states to the west and south of Russia, was once a subject territory of the Tsars and then the Soviet Union. Its population is fiercely nationalistic and unusually well educated. Blessed with a mild climate, it has long been a center producing high quality wine, fruits, vegetables and flowers. The Georgians belong to an independent national Christian Church founded in the early fourth century A.D. Their independent language, Kartvelian, is not a member of the Indo-European or Semitic families.
In the early nineteenth century the Georgians welcomed annexation by tsarist Russia, another Christian state, which drove out the Muslim Persians.
After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Georgians began to receive military, political, and economic aid from the United States. Georgia became a democracy and embraced a free market policy. President Saakashvili took office in January 2004.
But when the Soviet Union collapsed and Georgia obtained its independence (1991-1992) two of its ethnic minority groups, the Ossetians and the Abhazians, resentful of Georgian dominance, proclaimed their own independence.
South Ossetia is a small region in the south Caucasus, just south of the border between Russia and Georgia. Another small region, North Ossetia, is located immediately to the north inside Russian territory. In South Ossetia, two-thirds of the population are Ossetians, (c. 70,000 persons) and most of rest, Georgians.
The Ossetians speak an Indo-European language which is part of the Iranian (Persian) language group. Their homeland is the Ukrainian steppe, south of the Don River. They became Christians in the early middle ages and belong to the Eastern Orthodox Church. But in the 13th century they were pushed south by the Mongols. Russia has long been friendly toward them.
The Abkhazians (c. 95,000) occupy territory on the eastern shore of the Black Sea and through which an oil pipeline passes to Abkhazian held Sukhumi. Their language belongs to the North Caucasian language group, which is neither Indo-European nor Semitic. Some are Christians, some, Muslims. They are also allies of the Russians.

Geopolitical Context

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the Tsarist Russian Empire expanded to the west, south, and east. The most powerful states in Europe, especially Austria and after 1871, Germany, sought to build a dam of buffer states against further Russian expansion The European powers regarded these lands as a “cordon sanitaire” – a quarantine line of neutral buffer states.
In the period between World War I and II the east European nationalities gained independence, but Communist Russia retained control of the Caucasus Mountains and Transcaucasia. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan asserted their independence. The discovery of large oil deposits around the Caspian Sea made Georgia geopolitically significant as a transit territory for oil pipelines to the Black Sea.
The US has invested heavily in the Georgian Republic. As long as Georgia remained neutral or friendly toward Russia this caused no trouble. But Georgia’s recent attack of South Ossetia was an anti-Russian move. The US can do little to stop the Russians from crushing border states like Georgia if they attack lands inside the Russian sphere of influence. Moreover, the US has an interest in working with Russia to deal with Iran’s nuclear energy program et al.

Israel

An-Nahar 8-13. Ehud Barak, Israeli Defense Minister, says that the US is opposed to any Israeli attack on Iran. The US has said such an attack would be against US interests. Barak said Israel would still keep all its options open. [“barak” means “blessed”]

Iraq

Az-Zaman 8-13. Tensions are rising in oil-rich Kirkuk province as the Kurds, Sunnis et al. prepare for a long struggle.

Pakistan
NYTimes 8-14. Musharraf expected to resign in a few days.

US Politics
NY Times 8-8. John Edwards, former candidate for President, admitted an affair with a campaign worker in 2006.
NY Times 8-13. The GAO (Government Accounting Office), the investigative arm of Congress, reported that between 1998 and 2005 two out of three corporations paid no federal income tax. The basic corporate tax rate is 35%, but corporations can and do subtract deductions, write-offs, operating losses, and tax credits. Thus, their actual tax payments are much lower.

Washington Post 8-13. Mark D. Warner, former Governor of Virginia, will give the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

US Economy

NY Times 8-10. The US cannot solve its energy crisis by digging for more oil. It uses one fourth of the world’s oil, but has less than 3% of the world’s oil resources.

PBS 8-12. The price of oil fell to $113 a barrel, a 23% decline since the July high.

PBS 8-8, When Google, the leading search engine on the Internet, went public with its stock in 2004, its shareholders became multi-millionaires and its two founders, multi-billionaires. It is now the most popular employer in the US economy. Its current new projects include giving the public free access to all library books and journals; enabling children to teach themselves how to use a computer; and mapping the whole world from above and from street level.

THE FLASHLIGHT, August 2-8, 2008

THE FLASHLIGHT
No Peace without Justice, No Politics without the Facts
August 2-8, 2008
Mary K. Matossian, Editor
mary@matossian.net

US Economy

BBC 8-1. Unemployment is up to 5.7%. General Motors reported a $15.5 billion loss for the second quarter, mainly on account of the collapse in the market for SUVs and trucks.

PBS 8-4. Oil prices are below $120 a barrel because US drivers are reducing their consumption. 8-5. The Dow Jones index went up 331 points in a day. But the housing slump is expected to continue into 2009, and the credit crunch is expected to linger for 6-8 months.

US Politics

CNN 8-6. The Obama campaign claims McCain is ignorant of computers and the Internet, hence out of touch.
CNN 8-5. Ron Suskind, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, has published a new book, The Way of the World, in which he claims that the White House ordered the CIA to plant false evidence in order to provoke the Iraq War. He also claims that before the war Bush knew that there were no WMD’s in Iraq.
Vice President Cheney is being urged not to attend the Republican Convention.
Obama wants to levy an excess profits tax on Big Oil; McCain wants to give Big Oil 4 billion in tax breaks.
Tom Daschel says that McCain voted with President Bush 90% of the time.

US Crime

BBC 8-1. Army scientist Dr. Bruce Ivins, a prime suspect in the anthrax case seven years ago, feeling severely depressed, killed himself by an overdose of painkillers. CNN 8-6. He was afraid that the Army was about to discontinue the search for an anthrax vaccine, a project on which he was working. According to the FBI report Ivins had a history of paranoia and alcoholism. He was solely responsible for the crime. Crucial evidence came from analysis of the DNA of the anthrax strain to which Ivins had exclusive access.

NYT 8-8. A military panel sentenced Bin Laden’s driver to a short term (5 years, 6 months), of which only 5 months remain, instead of the 30 years sought by the prosecution.

Turkey

Turkish Daily News 8-4. The Turkish Government claims that the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) was responsible for the bombing in Istanbul 7-27, which killed 17 and wounded 154 persons.

China

BBC 8-4. China is the worst polluter on earth. In particular, particulate matter from industries in South China is blown north over Beijing, which has a population of 17.4 million. Many people suffer from bronchial spasms, nausea, and vomiting.

Iraq

Az-Zaman 8-5. US casualties in Iraq were the lowest last July since the 2003 invasion. But neither the US nor the Iraq government are reporting Iraqi casualties. Az-Zaman has no statistics for such casualties, but it claims that they have risen sharply.

Pakistan
BBC 8-7. Leaders of the two main opposition parties, Arif Ali Zarda and Nawaz Sharif, threaten Musharraf with impeachment. It would take a two-thirds majority of Parliament. They wish to restore to their seats the judges which Musharraf fired during his period of emergency rule.

Obituary
BBC 8-3. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Nobel Prize winning writer, died at 89. He described conditions in the Soviet prison camps.

THE FLASHLIGHT, July 26 - August 1, 2008

THE FLASHLIGHT
July 26 – August 1, 2008
No Peace without Justice, No Justice without the Facts
Mary K. Matossian, Editor
Email: mary@matossian.net
The Sequoias, Apt. 9-M
Turkey

Turkish Daily News. 7-29. Two explosions on 7-27 in a working class neighborhood on the European side of Istanbul caused 17 deaths, of which five were children, and many wounded. This was the deadliest attack in Turkey since 2003.

New York Times 7-31. A Turkish court by a one-vote margin ruled that the AKP (Justice and Development Party) had acted constitutionally, but the court cut its public financing in half.

Israel

NYTimes 7-31. Prime Minister Olmert resigned as of the coming September election. Haaretz 7-31. While still in office he will continue to seek a peace deal with the Palestinians. Reuters 7-31. Tzipi Livni, Foreign Minister, expressed hope for a peace deal and called on all parties who seek peace to unite under the leadership of the Kadima Party. Livni is a strong candidate to be the next Prime Minister. Bloomberg 8-1. On the other hand, a new poll shows that Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the right wing LIkud Party, would lead Livini in parliament seats by 33 to 20 if the election was held today.

Iraq

CBS and BBC 7-28. In Baghdad, three women concealing bombs under their robes entered a crowd of religious pilgrims and detonated themselves. There were over 50 dead and about 300 wounded. In Kirkuk another bomber attacked Kurdish demonstrators.

United States: Politics

Washington Post 1-29. Virginia Governor Timothy Kaine has had “very serious” talks with Obama about joining the Democratic ticket. Senators Evan Bayh and Joe Biden are other possibilities. The final announcement is expected in mid-August.

CNN 7-29. Sen. Ted Stevens, 84, of Alaska has been indicted by a grand jury for failing to declare gifts worth a quarter of a million dollars, supposedly in exchange for favors.
WashPost 7-30. Stevens is up for reelection and faces stiff opposition from four other Republicans in the primary and possibly the Democratic mayor of Anchorage in the final.

Washington Post 7-30. Neither Obama’s trip abroad, nor McCain’s attacks on him at home, made any significant difference in the polls overall.

NYTimes 7-31. John D. Bates, a Federal District Judge, has rejected the claim for absolute immunity for executive branch employees from appearing before Congressional committees. Harriet MIers and Josh Bolton are both already in contempt of Congress.
The ruling is being appealed, and even if the accused appear before Congress, they can claim executive privilege for refusing to testify.

US Economy

BBC 7-28. The US national deficit is a record $482 billion plus $80 billion in military expenditures.

US Education

United Press International 7-26. A US study has found that
girls have closed the gender gap in math performance.

Humor
Contribution from a Sequoia resident, Anita Van der Tak:
Statistics are like a bikini: what they reveal is fascinating; what they conceal is vital.