Ukrainian Prime Minister, Viktor Yanukovich has offered Ukrainian voters a free striptease in return for a vote to keep him in office.
The organisers of the striptease said they hoped voters would remember the show when they voted in the ballot box. The ploy seems to be working as he leads his rival Viktor Yushchenko, by a few percent.
| AFGHANISTAN: Dyncorps guards chastised by U.S. State Department October 14th, 2004 |
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Contractor accused of fraud in Iraq
By T. Christian Miller
Los Angeles Times
The company's founder is Michael Battles, who ran for Congress in Rhode Island in 2002. The Federal Election Commission fined Battles for misrepresenting campaign contributions.
Battles is a Fox News Channel commentator.
Custer Battles created a series of "sham companies" registered in foreign countries, the memo said. The companies were then used to create false invoices making it appear they were leasing trucks and other equipment back to Custer Battles.
A currency-exchange operation had cost the company $3,738,592, but the CPA was billed $9,801,550, a markup of 162 percent. In another case, a $2.7 million invoice was based on "forged leases, inflated invoices and duplication."
A lawsuit says Custer Battles billed the CPA for work that was never done, employees who were never hired and equipment that never arrived. It says Custer Battles took at least one and as many as eight forklifts from Iraqi Airways, covered their former markings and billed the CPA for leasing them at thousands of dollars per month.
The suit said that after Robert Isakson complained about Custer Battles practices, he was held at gunpoint by company employees along with his 14-year-old son.
The mess in Iraq can't be overcome until its reality is recognized.
October 8, 2004
We live in Orwellian times, where obvious falsehoods are asserted brazenly as the truth.
The day after the final report of the Iraq Survey Group confirmed that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and no active programs to produce them, Vice President Dick Cheney blithely asserted that the report justified the invasion of Iraq.
No, Mr. Vice President, the report shattered the last forlorn hope that the war was necessary. It established that Iraq posed no threat to the United States before the 2003 invasion or any time in the foreseeable future.
President Bush, on the very day the report was issued, said, "There was a risk, a real risk, that Saddam Hussein would pass weapons or materials or information to terrorist networks."
No, Mr. President, you don't seem to get it. Saddam had no weapons or materials to give. The chemical and biological weapons were destroyed years ago, and Iraq's capacity to develop nuclear weapons was actually deteriorating at the time of the invasion. Not to mention that Saddam had no meaningful ties with terrorists.
On Thursday, Bush dropped the reference to weapons but continued to insist Saddam had knowledge of weapons that could have been given to terrorists. That's knowledge anyone can get off the Internet.
When the United States was gearing up to invade, United Nations arms inspectors were in Iraq. If they had been allowed a few more months to complete their work, they would have discovered what the post-invasion inspectors now report - that Iraq had no stockpiles or active programs involving weapons of mass destruction.
But President Bush insisted the invasion couldn't wait. He described a "grave and immediate threat" from Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. During the futile search for weapons after the invasion, the words changed in an Orwellian rewriting of the justification. "Immediate threat" was downgraded to just a "threat" and then to a "gathering threat." Now it's clear there was no threat, gathering or otherwise.
Similarly, the words about weapons changed. The president and his advisers asserted with absolute certainty that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. When no weapons turned up, they insisted Iraq had weapons programs . When no evidence of programs was found, they spoke of "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities." Orwell must have been grimacing in his grave.
The kindest interpretation of events is that the president was the victim of faulty intelligence - that he did what he thought was right to protect the country on the basis of bad information. The unkindest interpretation is that he deluded himself and the nation by selectively believing only the intelligence that supported a preconceived fixation on invading Iraq.
Either way, the invasion will go down as one of the worst foreign-policy blunders in American history.
THIEVES 'FED DEAD OAP TO GUINEA PIGS'
Oct 12 2004 | |
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Police believe two people spent more than four hours digging up the body of Gladys Hammond, whose son-in-law breeds the animals for medical research.
And last night, there was speculation that fanatics from the Animal Liberation Front may have been responsible and taken the outrage even further.
A source with links to the ALF said: 'There are no lengths that these people will not go to and feeding this poor woman to the guinea pigs is the sort of irony they would like.'
61 YEARS AGO TODAY
Oct 14 1943
An estimated 200 inmates of Sobibor escape the Polish extermination camp after killing 11 SS guards in an uprising. 52 of the fugitives manage to survive.
October 14, 1943 was a warm, sunny day. The Nazis in the camp went about their business as usual.
Acting commander SS Untersturmfuehrer Niemann rode up on his horse and entered the tailor shop. Mundek was ready, holding a new uniform. The German without suspicion, unhooked his belt with its pistol in the holster and causally threw it on the table.
As tailors have done for ages, Mundek patted and turned Niemann at his will. Finally he told him to stand still while he marked the alterations with a crayon. Then the blow fell. The Nazi dropped like a fallen tree, his head split. Shubayev rushed to Sasha's quarters and delivered the first pistol.
Now, there was no turning back.
At 4:l5, Oberscharfuehrer Graetschus arrived at the cobblers' shop to pick up his order. While Yitzhak held the Nazi's leg in a firm grip, pretending to pull the boots, Arcady Wajspaper and Siemion Rosenfeld slipped out from the back room and split the skull of the Nazi with the ax. Then his deputy, the Ukrainian Klatt, entered, calling his boss to the telephone. He too was attacked and killed.
In Lager II, Toivi (Thomas Blatt) standing at attention was informing a SS Untersturmfuehrer that a new leather coat, exactly his size had been set aside for him in the warehouse. The German took the bait and went without hesitation in the direction of the warehouse.
An inmate fetched the coat and held it for the German. The Nazi put his arm into the sleeves and in a split second the scenario changed. Held as if in a straight jacket, he could not move his arms. A strike of the ax by Cybulski and he fell.
The conspirators went out to summon other Nazis and when the miners' carts with food rations were en route to Lager III, SS Unterscharfuehrer Valaster, the driver, was flagged down and told that Wolf urgently needed him. He left to be killed.
Another team readied for a new attack on SS Oberscharfuehrer Beckman. The prisoner Pozycki knocked at his office door asking permission to enter for some job clarification. Permission granted, they entered. Immediately, Pozycki immobilized him by a headlock and he was knifed to death. In the adjoining room, SS Scharfuehrer Valaster's body was lying on the floor.
Unexpectedly, SS Unterscharfuehrer Walter Ryba had wandered into the car garage in the garrison area where he was killed.
In Lager I, a mass of prisoners stood in line for their "coffee" and bread as they did every day.
SS Frederick Gaulich entered the area. The prisoner Leitman immediately asked him to come to the newly built barrack because of some problem with the bunks. The moment Gaulich entered the barrack his fate was sealed; he was killed with an ax.
The first dead German was discovered. "A Ukrainian came running and called to SS Bauer, 'A German is dead!' Bauer did not immediately understand what he meant. But David also who heard him, started to run in the direction of Lager I. Bauer ran after him and shot at him twice."
Sasha, heard the gunfire and understood that something bad had happened. On Sasha's orders, Pozycki blew his whistle for roll call.
Now the news spread like a wildfire.
Sasha (Aleksander Peczerski), jumping up on a table, made a short speech. He told the prisoners that most of the Germans in the camp had been killed. There was no turning back. A terrible war was ravaging the world and each prisoner was part of that struggle. He promised that dead or alive, they would be avenged and so would the tragedy of all humanity. He repeated twice that those prisoners who, by some miracle survive, should forever be a witness to this crime. He ended with a call: "Forward Comrades! Death for the fascist!!!"
The prisoners from various countries, speaking diverse languages, understood. From the midst of the assembled Jews a single, strange and impatient voice was heard: "FORWARD! HURRAH! HURRAH!" In a flash, the entire camp burst with the defiant call.
Thomas Blatt
Thomas Blatt recounted: "The remaining Germans with machine guns now effectively blocked the main gate. People were killed and the front line Jews mostly unarmed fell back, then a new wave of determined fighters pushed again forward towards in a suicidal thrust.
Within minutes, more Jews arrived. Not waiting in line to go through the opening under the hail of fire, they climbed the fence.
Corpses were everywhere. The noise of rifles, exploding mines, grenades and the chatter of machine guns assaulted the ears. The Nazis shot from a distance while in our hands were only primitive knives and hatchets.
We ran through the exploded mine field holes, jumped over a single wire marking the end of the mine fields and we were outside the camp. Now to make it to the woods ahead of us. It was so close. I fell several times, each time thinking I was hit. And each time I got up and ran further...100 yards...50 yards... 20 more yards...and the forest at last. Behind us, blood and ashes. In the grayness of the approaching evening, the towers' machine guns shot their last victims."
-http://www.sobibor.info/revolt.html
Wednesday, October 13, 2004 Posted: 11:29 AM EDT (1529 GMT)
RALEIGH, North Carolina (AP) -- Pfc. Lynndie England, the soldier seen in some of the most notorious photos with naked Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, is a new mother.
The 21-year-old reservist had the baby on Sunday at the post hospital at Fort Bragg, Col. Billy Buckner, public affairs officer for the 18th Airborne Corps, said Wednesday.
The Baltimore Sun said it was a boy, citing an unnamed military source.
England became a focal point of the scandal after the release of photos of her smiling and posing with nude prisoners stacked in a pyramid, pointing and flashing a thumb's up, and holding a detainee on a dog leash.
Attorneys say the child's father is Spc. Charles Graner Jr., England's ex-boyfriend, who is also shown in the prison photographs, including one with a dead body packed in ice in a body bag.
England faces court-martial in January on charges of abusing detainees and committing indecent acts. She faces a prison sentence of up to 38 years, a dishonorable discharge and forfeiture of all pay and allowances if convicted.
By LESLIE MILLER, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - The government agency in charge of airport security spent nearly a half-million dollars on an awards ceremony at a lavish hotel, including $81,000 for plaques and $500 for cheese displays.
Awards were presented to 543 Transportation Security Administration employees and 30 organizations, including a "lifetime achievement award" for one worker with the 2-year-old agency. Almost $200,000 was spent on travel and lodging for attendees.
The investigation by the Homeland Security Department's inspector general, Clark Kent Ervin, also found the TSA gave its senior executives bonuses averaging $16,000, higher than at any other federal government agency.
Ervin also is investigating why the agency's private recruiters worked out of lush resort hotels with golf courses, pools and spas.
The awards banquet, which cost $461,745, was held at the Grand Hyatt, which bills itself as "one of the most magnificent" hotels in the nation's capital.
The event planning company, MarCom Group Inc. of Fairfax, Va., was paid $85,552 for its work and given an additional $81,767 for plaques, $5,196 for official photographs, $1,486 for three balloon arches and $1,509 for signs.
The reception included finger food, coffee and cake that averaged $33 per person. Seven cakes cost a total of $1,850; three cheese displays, $1,500.
The inspector general found that 38 percent "had no individual recommendation and justification for the performance award."
The report also noted that fewer than 3 percent of nonexecutive employees received bonuses in 2003.
| 10/13/2004, 12:33 a.m. PT By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI The Associated Press |
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Secretary of State Bill Bradbury and Attorney General Hardy Myers plan to investigate allegations that a paid canvasser might have destroyed voter registration forms.
"There have been allegations made that someone threw out some voter registration forms that had been submitted to them," Bradbury told The Associated Press.
KGW-TV interviewed Mike Johnson, 20, a canvasser who said he was instructed to only accept Republican registration forms. He told the TV reporter that he "might" destroy forms turned in by Democrats.
Bradbury said the law requires that groups registering voters submit forms no later than five days after they were filled out. He added that canvassers can't turn away a voter because of his or her party affiliation.
| Last Update: 13/10/2004 22:53 | |||
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| CIA: No comment on report 11 Qaida suspects held in Jordan | | ||
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| By Yossi Melman, Haaretz Correspondent, and Haaretz Service | |||
Haaretz has learned from international intelligence sources that the CIA is running a top-secret interrogation facility in Jordan, where detainees considered Al-Qaida's most senior cadre are being held.
They are thought to be at a secret facility belonging to Jordanian intelligence or at a secret base.
Their detention outside the U.S. enables CIA interrogators to apply interrogation methods that are banned by U.S. law.
According to the Human Rights Watch report, the CIA was granted special permission by the U.S. law enforcement authorities to operate "other laws" at the secret facility with regard to interrogation methods.
The 46-page Human Rights Watch report levels harsh criticism at the U.S. administration for using "undisclosed locations" and "disappearing" prisoners.
The report charges that the U.S. thereby is in breach of all international conventions, including the Geneva Convention on prisoners of war, by refusing prisoners access to the Red Cross or their families.
The report contends that American operatives detained Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's children to serve as "hostages" through which to pressure their father into cooperating.
The prisoners were subjected to severe torture, the report states.
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