Hutton Inquiry Findings, Mugabe, Cheney on Iran, EU coruption

Jan. 25 - Hutton will clear Blair over Kelly death which is to say Blair will not be personally criticized, but Alistair Campbell and Andrew Gilligan are among those who will be. So a BBC reporter can misrepresent Dr. Kelly's statements (who should never have been speaking to the BBC to begin with) and thus violate every ethical standard of journalism to put forward his own point of view and Blair was put on the defensive? And Campbell did wrong . . . how? By standing up for the truth. No chastisement can be harsh enough for that crime.

And journalists complain that people don't watch the news or read the papers. Maybe because they don't trust big media? Hmm?

Mugabe flown to South Africa because he collapsed. Money quote:

"We were ordered not to give any details of the president's illness in case it brought people out on to the streets," a senior member of the 'Green Bombers', the notorious youth brigade created by Mr Mugabe, told The Telegraph.

Paul claims he's trying to resolve issues with his video card (or something like that) but I say he's been sacrificing chickens again. Good work! Today Mugabe, tomorrow . . . oh, kind of a big field there. I vote for Arafat, but I'll let Paul decide.

Dick Cheney is taking a hard line on Iran's Council of Guardians.

"Democracies do not breed the anger and the radicalism that drag down whole societies or export violence," he said. "Terrorists do not find fertile recruiting grounds in societies where young people have the right to guide their own destinies and to choose their own leaders."

Ineptitude in the EU?:

The report, by the parliament's budgetary control committee, notes that "no Commissioner has so far accepted political responsibility" for the fiasco at Eurostat, from which at least £3.5 million disappeared in slush funds and fictitious contracts, although some have admitted mistakes. Much of the fraud took place before the current commission took office in late 1999, but MEPs are furious that dubious contracts ran on, unchecked, until at least 2002.

Ever wonder where the UN learned its bookkeeping methodology? And these poor commissioners might receive a vote of censure! Oh, the humanity!

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Dallaire testifies

Jan. 20 - The testimony of Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire at the trials of 4 officers accused of orchestrating genocide during the Rwandan massacres of 1994 for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda is grim and horrifying in its starkness.

Read both articles.

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Euro-terror news

Jan. 14 - Instapundit has a partial round-up of "Euro-terror news" and some links to terror activity in Thailand which seems to be of an Islamist nature.

Little Green Footballs links to a piece in The Observer Terror cells regroup - and now their target is Europe which has a summary of some key arrests in Europe, the emergence of groups in Eastern Europe, and provides a useful table:

The targets, the death toll and the suspects

Istanbul November 2003, 62 dead
Target: British consulate and bank, synagogues
Suspect: Local Islamic group thought to be linked to al-Qaeda or Abu Musab Zarqawi

Baghdad August-October 2003, 50 dead
Target: Al-Rasheed hotel, UN and Red Cross headquarters.
Suspect: European suicide bombers believed to have been recruited by Mullah Fouad in Syria.

Casablanca May 2003, 41 dead
Target: Jewish community centre and Spanish social club
Suspect: Local Islamic group. The authorities want to interview a Moroccan cleric, Mohammed al-Garbuzi, who is believed to be in Britain.

Riyadh May 2003, 34 dead
Target: Luxury compounds in Saudi capital
Suspect: Swiss arrest an eight-strong 'logistics cell'.

Mombasa November 2002, 16 dead
Target: Israeli tourists at Paradise hotel
Suspect: Kenyan Islamic cell. Some funds allegedly provided by a Somali-born militant living in London, arrested in Milan and 'a part of Zarqawi's cell'.

Little Green Footballs also has information about the Cleveland arrest of Imam Fawaz Mohammed Damrah.

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AIDS in Africa

Jan. 8 - This is odd: Aids in Africa 'overestimated'.

The preliminary report of the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey suggested that HIV has infected about one million adults in the country. Previous estimates put the number at up to three million.

Earlier surveys in Mali, Zambia and South Africa hinted that Aids might not be as widespread as believed, but scientists said the new data provided conclusive evidence. It will allow them to extrapolate the findings across the continent, which would reduce infection estimates by at least a quarter.

A leading western expert on Aids said: "We have the same thing coming from the south of Africa, from the west, from the centre and now from the east."

Smaller numbers don't change the need for immediate efforts to combat the spread of the virus, of course, but I am perplexed that the numbers seem to be so far off.

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Red Sea crash

Jan. 4 - These days it is hard to convince people that accidents can happen, especially when a passenger plane goes down as happened yesterday during a state of high alert. (Red Sea jetliner crash kills 148)

France's deputy transportation minister, Dominique Bussereau, said in Paris that the pilot of flight FSH604 detected problems shortly after takeoff and tried to turn back.

The article states there was no distress call. Would a pilot turn back without notifying the traffic controllers?

Expat Yank remembers the Egypt Air Crash in 1999 and, after quoting from divers who claim the black box is in water too deep in the Red Sea to be recovered, makes the key point:

Given that they don't have the flight recorders, it is curious how quickly they have claimed "technical" problems were the reason. Remember, experts can get intact black boxes from just about anywhere -- just as they've previously fished them out of the North Atlantic.

That's been at the root of my skepticism too, that they were just too quick to deny anything untoward happened.

Even after seven years, there's still a lot of questions about what really happened to TWA Flight 800 which came down over Long Island in 1996. Maybe it's just that once the public's suspicions have been aroused, restoring credibility becomes nearly impossible.

It's a hmm moment, not a full-blown aha although there may be more information forthcoming. I'd just feel more confident if they had given the usual "We are vigorously pursuing the investigation" line.

UPDATE: Aaron Klein isn't happy with the French rush to judgement either. In another story, the crash is now being blamed on a catastrophic power failure although the black box has not yet been recovered.

(World Net Daily and Daily Telegraph links via Jack's Newswatch.)

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