Archive for March, 2011
March 4, 2011
The purpose of an Interpol Orange Notice is – To warn police, public entities and other international organizations of dangerous materials, criminal acts or events that pose a potential threat to public safety.
http://www.interpol.int/
LYON, France – INTERPOL has issued a global alert known as an Orange Notice against Colonel Al-Qadhafi and 15 other Libyan nationals, including members of his family and close associates, in a bid to warn member states of the danger posed by the movement of these individuals and their assets, to assist member states in their efforts to enforce sanctions under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1970 (2011), and to support INTERPOL’s assistance to the International Criminal Court investigation into alleged crimes against humanity in Libya.
- Qadhafi, Muammar Mohammed Abu Minyar DATE OF BIRTH: 1942 in Libya
- AL-BAGHDADI, Dr Abdulqader Mohammed DATE OF BIRTH: 01/07/1950
- DORDA, Abu Zayd Umar DATE OF BIRTH: 04/04/1944
- Jabir, Major General Abu Bakr Yunis DATE OF BIRTH: 1952 in Jalo, Libya
- Qadhafi, Aisha Muammar DATE OF BIRTH: 1978. Place of birth: Tripoli, Libya
- Qadhafi, Hannibal Muammar DATE OF BIRTH: 20/09/1975 in Tripoli, Libya
- Qadhafi, Mutassim DATE OF BIRTH: 1976. Place of birth: Tripoli, Libya
- Qadhafi, Saadi DATE OF BIRTH: 25/05/1973. Place of birth: Tripoli, Libya.
- Qadhafi, Saif al-Islam DATE OF BIRTH: 25/06/1972. Place of birth: Tripoli, Libya
- DIBRI Abdulqader Yusef DATE OF BIRTH: 1946- Houn in Libya
- Matuq, Matuq Mohammed DATE OF BIRTH: 1956 in Khoms
- Qadhaf Al-dam, Sayyid Mohammed DATE OF BIRTH: 1948. Place of birth: Sirte, Libya
- Qadhafi, Khamis Muammar DATE OF BIRTH: 1978. Place of birth: Tripoli, Libya
- Qadhafi, Mohammed Muammar DATE OF BIRTH: 1970. Place of birth: Tripoli, Libya
- Qadhafi, Saif al-Arab DATE OF BIRTH: 1982. Place of birth: Tripoli, Libya
- Al-Senussi, Colonel Abdullah DATE OF BIRTH: 1949. Place of birth: Sudan
The Interpol Notice is here.
Tags:Gaddafi and family, International Criminal Court, Interpol, Interpol orange notice, Libya, Muammar al-Gaddafi
Posted in Behaviour, Libya | Comments Off on Interpol orange notice against Gaddafi, family and friends
March 4, 2011
Top down view of Taurus XL carrying OCO: Image via Wikipedia
The US space agency’s (Nasa) attempt to launch its latest Earth observation mission has ended in failure. This is the second straight failure for the Taurus XL rocket, which appears to be connected to the rocket failing to release its payload. The Glory satellite lifted off from California at 0209 local time (1009 GMT), but officials became aware of a problem five minutes into the mission.
The Glory spacecraft was scheduled for launch today Friday, March 4 after technical issues with ground support equipment for the Taurus XL launch vehicle led to the scrub of the original Feb. 23 launch attempt. Those issues were thought to have been resolved. Data from the Glory mission is expected to allow scientists to better understand how the sun and tiny atmospheric particles called aerosols affect Earth’s climate. The Taurus XL also carries the first of NASA’s Educational Launch of Nanosatellite missions. This auxiliary payload contains three small satellites called CubeSats, which were designed and created by university and college students.
From Nasa’s blog:
After Liftoff of Taurus XL Rocket, Fairing Fails to Separate
The Glory spacecraft and Taurus XL rocket lifted off this morning on time at 2:09:43 a.m. PST/5:09:43 a.m. EST.
About six minutes into the launch, a spacecraft contingency was declared by Launch Director Omar Baez. Data indicates the rocket fairing did not separate. More information will be provided at a news briefing later on NASA TV.
Project management for Glory is the responsibility of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The launch management for the mission is the responsibility of NASA’s Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., is the launch service provider to Kennedy of the four-stage Taurus XL rocket and is also builder of the Glory satellite for Goddard.
Tags:aerosol study, Glory, Glory mission fails, NASA, Solar science, Taurus XL
Posted in Science, Solar science, Space | Comments Off on Nasa Glory mission fails again after launch
March 4, 2011
Sir Howard Davies: Image via Wikipedia
Not only did the UK government provide Gaddafi with absolution for all his sins for the sake of weapons deals and oil contracts, they also orchestrated the release of the Lockerbie bomber.
And the LSE was part of the process of providing legitimacy to a bunch of thugs and murderers – of course in return for a suitable remuneration. The LSE Director has now resigned.
BBC:
The director of the London School of Economics has resigned over its links to Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi. Sir Howard Davies said he recognised the university’s reputation had “suffered” and he had to quit. He said the decision to accept £300,000 for research from a foundation run by Col Gaddafi’s son, Saif, “backfired”.
The LSE council has commissioned an independent inquiry into the university’s relationship with Libya and Saif Gaddafi. It will seek to clarify the extent of the LSE’s links with Libya and establish guidelines for future donations.
Lord Woolf, former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales and former chairman of the Council of University College London, has been appointed to carry it out. Sir Howard said he regretted visiting Libya to advise its regime about financial reforms, calling it a “personal error of judgement”. …..
The LSE has already announced it is investigating claims that Saif Gaddafi plagiarised his PhD thesis, which was awarded in 2008. The Libyan leader’s son had studied at the LSE, gaining both an MSc and PhD.
The Guardian:
A leaked US diplomatic cable indicates that the British government was also party to the deal to bring 400 Libyans to Britain for leadership training. The cable, published by WikiLeaks, suggests that other UK universities were involved in similar schemes, though there is no independent confirmation of this.
The university’s reputation has taken a battering over links with the Libyan regime, which include a donation of £1.5m from a charitable foundation run by Saif, who studied at the LSE. On Tuesday, the LSE agreed to put £300,000, equivalent to the cash it has received from the foundation, into a scholarship for north African students. …..
Ashok Kumar, the education officer of the LSE students’ union said : “The recent revelations have shone a light on one part of the relationship between the upper echelons of the LSE and the Gaddafi family, which is deeper and more perverse than we would have ever imagined.
“This issue is damaging the reputation of the school – it should be a place of learning – not at the centre of unscrupulous dealings with Libyan regime.”
Tags:corruption, Libya, London School of Economics, LSE, Muammar al-Gaddafi, Plagiarism, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi plagiarism, Saif al-Islam Muammar Al-Gaddafi
Posted in Corruption, Education, Libya, Politics, UK | Comments Off on LSE head quits over suspect ties to Gaddafi & son
March 3, 2011
Police have tracked down a 19-year-old male high school graduate in the Tohoku region who may have been involved in seeking answers online for questions from entrance examinations held in February at four prominent universities while the tests were in progress, investigative sources said Wednesday.
Police have already established that the same mobile phone was used during the four separate exams at Kyoto and Doshisha universities in Kyoto, and Waseda and Rikkyo universities in Tokyo, the sources said.
An Internet user going by the online name of “aicezuki” sought answers on Yahoo Japan Corp.’s “chiebukuro” (pearls of wisdom) website for questions from entrance exams at Kyoto, Doshisha, Waseda and Rikkyo universities from Feb. 8 to 26.
Icons indicating the questions were posted via mobile phone appear on the posts. The police located the Internet Protocol address of the user who posted the questions under the name “aicezuki” and found a DoCoMo mobile phone was used after linking the IP address to the handset number, the sources said. Investigators suspect the questions were posted online from the test rooms and are examining if any of the test-takers appeared to have copied the answers provided by third parties on the Yahoo site on the answer sheets.
Cases of cheating at entrance exams for Japanese universities are now so numerous that the universities are considering the jamming of mobile signals.
Cell phone jammers have come under the spotlight in the wake of recent cheating incidents during entrance exams at four prominent universities, including Kyoto University. Such jammers transmit radio signals in the 800 MHz frequency band, which is used as the mainstream carrier frequency band for NTT DoCoMo’s and KDDI’s au phones. Products targeting other frequency bands are also available.
Tags:cell phone exam cheating, entrance exam cheating, Japan University exams, mobile phone jamming
Posted in Education, Ethics, Japan | Comments Off on Japanese Universities plan anti-cheating mobile jammers
March 3, 2011
As around 150,000 foreign workers – mainly from the oil industry – gather at the border with Tunisia thousands of them have already been evacuated. China and Turkey were the fastest in getting their evacuations under way followed by Egypt and India and Greece.
- A total of 35,860 Chinese citizens had been evacuated from Libya up to 23:10 Wednesday Beijing time (1510 GMT), according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Among them, 20,745 are already back in China, Vice Foreign Minister Song Tao said.
- Almost 20 per cent of an estimated 18,000 Indians in Libya have been evacuated even as the government received landing clearance for 3 special flights daily from India to Tripoli up to March 12, extending the March 7 time period.
- After several consecutive meetings, Turkish officials decided to evacuate the close to 25,000 Turkish citizens in Libya. The Turkish government launched its largest evacuation operation ever. Close to 7,000 people have been evacuated from Libya via air, sea and land transportation. Several countries with communication problems with the Libyan administration and a lack of logistical means have asked Ankara for support to get their citizens out of the protest-ridden country. Turkey is so far believed to be the most successful country in evacuating its people from Libya.
- Tripoli has given Cairo a green light to carry out 37 evacuation flights for Egyptians caught up in the Libyan uprising. Some 1.5 million Egyptians work in Libya. Thousands have streamed back through the Salloum border crossing on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast into oil-producing eastern Libya. Egypt also plans to send ships to Tunisia to pick up nationals who fled Libya by going west.
- Foreign Affairs Minister Ali Shami thanked on Wednesday Egypt for facilitating the evacuation of Lebanese in Libya through the Egyptian border.
- The last Europeans who want to get out of Libya will be evacuated within days, an EU official said Monday. Only about 500 European Union passport-holders are still waiting to leave and about 1,000 wish to stay.
But in the meantime a Swedish Hercules plane was denied landing permission in Tripoli and had to return empty to Malta. 56 Swedish citizens have left Libya and of the 45 left 41 have indicated that they want to stay.
It is mainly foreign workers trying to get out and there does not seem to be any great number of Libyans trying to “invade Europe” as was feared by the Italians. The oil industry in Libya will suffer from an acute shortage of workers for some time to come.
Tags:Evacuations, foreign workers, Libya, Muammar al-Gaddafi
Posted in Behaviour, Libya, Politics | Comments Off on Mass evacuations of foreign workers from Libya – oil industry will be hard hit
March 3, 2011
Image via Wikipedia
UK MP’s have been, for a long time, using expense claims to pad their incomes and many of these expenses are for generating income for family members as part of their staff. The Telegraph took the lead in exposing the culture of greed among these “servants of society”. Some rules have changed but it is not a culture that will be changed easily.
Now the Telegraph reports that even those MP’s already found to have been cheating on expenses and who had decided not to stand again have now claimed – and received – substantial sums for closing down their operations:
More than 200 MPs claimed the payments of up to £42,732, which they were entitled to use for staff salaries and office costs if they were leaving Parliament, receiving a total of £6.8 million. A large number of employees who would have received the payments were MPs’ relatives hired to run their offices, meaning that the cash would have gone straight into their household income.
- Labour’s Jim Devine, who was convicted last month of false accounting on his expenses, was paid £19,832.
- David Chaytor, who was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment for cheating on his Commons allowances, received £10,089.
- Jacqui Smith, quit as home secretary after putting her husband’s pornographic films on her expenses. He worked as her office manager and would have been entitled to some of the £37,868 she claimed.
- Mark Oaten, the disgraced ex-Liberal Democrat MP for Winchester, claimed £41,518 to wind up his office – four years after announcing he would not stand again after his affair with a male prostitute emerged.
- Several MPs who have now become peers also claimed the winding-up allowance, despite now being entitled to set up new offices just yards away from their former rooms in the House of Commons. Lord Howard, the former Conservative leader, and Lord Boswell, Tory MP for Daventry until May, received £26,590 and £42,708 respectively to wind up their offices having both announced that would not stand again in 2006.
- Lord Reid, the former Labour home secretary was paid £37,157 after announcing that he would not contest his Airdrie & Shotts seat at the election in 2007.
As well as a winding up allowance, departing MPs are also entitled to a “resettlement grant” of up to £64,766, a year’s salary, to allow help them make the “transition” to normal life. The former MPs received a total of £10.3million in “golden parachute” payments.
For parliamentarians, and not just in the UK, serving a party line has long ago replaced the notion of serving constituents’ interests and the allure of becoming a parliamentarian remains the many different ways of generating income that it affords.
Tags:David Chaytor, ethics, expenses fraud, Jacqui Smith, Jim Devine, Lord Boswell, Lord Howard, Lord Reid, Mark Oaten, MP corruption, UK MP expenses
Posted in Corruption, Ethics, Politics, UK | 1 Comment »
March 2, 2011
From Svenska Dagbladet: On 7th February last year two Swedish officers Gunnar Andersson and John Palmlöv and their Afghan interpreter Mohammad Shahab Ayoulay were killed in an exchange of fire in the village of Gurgi Tappeh, about 35 kilometers from the Swedish Afghanistan headquarters in Mazar-i-Sharif. An Afghan man dressed in police uniform opened fire against the Swedes and the two officers, their interpreter and the attacker were all killed.
Capt.John Palmlöv, Lt. Gunnar Andersson, and flags at half mast at Camp Northern Lights. FOTO: FÖRSVARSMAKTEN OCH SCANPIX
On 25 March last year, the Swedish Military said that it could not be ruled out that the Swedish officers and the interpreter had been hit by stray Swedish bullets but that the three were killed in the initial hail of bullets. Despite promises of transparency the military investigation and that of the Stockholm Prosecutors Office have been stamped “Secret”.
But yesterday a TV4 News broadcast showed that their review of the autopsy report and of the military’s confidential report proves beyond all reasonable doubt that it was Swedish ammunition that killed the officers and their interpreter. The autopsy report from the medical centre in Solna and the Armed Forces’ own secret investigation show that there is no evidence that it was the Afghan man’s Russian ammunition which hit the Swedes. From the wounds in the bodies, the shot trajectories show that they must have been fired from a height of 4 metres and could only have come from the Swedish armoured car on the side of the road according to TV 4 News.
A clear case of “friendly fire” and most likely a tragic mistake. But it is not very clear as to why the military and the government and the prosecutor’s office will not reveal or even comment on the results of their investigations. If it was a tragic mistake and caused by panic and some incompetence by one (or more) of the dead officers’ comrades then perhaps the secrecy is just to protect the identity of these soldiers for what has been judged to be a mistake.
But perhaps not. The terms “collateral damage” and “friendly fire” are synonymous – always – with a certain lack of competence. I do not imply that they are unavoidable but just their occurrence is proof of some lack of competence. Sometimes these terms are used to cover-up a level of incompetence which is much higher than it should be. It is quite conceivable that the fault is institutional either in the Swedish Rules of Engagement or in the training of the soldiers or in their management and leadership. The use of confidentiality in this case suggests that the investigations did find some level of institutional incompetence.
There is also the unlikely scenario that the fire was from “friendly guns” but that the shooting was “unfriendly”. Very unlikely of course, but cases of unpopular officers being killed by the “friendly fire” of their soldiers are not unknown. And such cases are usually surrounded by intense secrecy.
Tags:Afghanistan, Friendly fire, Swedish Armed Forces
Posted in Afghanistan, Behaviour, Sweden | Comments Off on Swedish officers were killed by “friendly fire” in Afghanistan
March 1, 2011
The Gaddafi end-game
Even though oil and gas is at stake and this seems to concentrate the minds of some western politicians quite remarkably, any Western military intervention in Libya would be an insult to all those who have given their lives in opposing Gaddafi (and of course such intervention was never thought of in Tunisia and Egypt since they have little oil).
The Libyans need to get rid of Gaddafi themselves and their efforts and their scarifices should not be disparaged and mocked by an Iraq-like military intervention. Creation of a no fly zone or other limited actions to restrict Gaddafi’s potential for bloodshed but which did not involve any form of invasion is the maximum that should be considered.
But there are many shallow and unreliable politicians around in Europe. The Telegraph reports:
David Cameron and other Western leaders are on the brink of ordering military action against Col Muammar Gaddafi amid fears that the Libyan dictator could use chemical weapons against his own people.
The Prime Minister disclosed that he would not rule out “the use of military assets” as Britain “must not tolerate this regime using military forces against its own people”.
Sir John Major backed the stance and made clear that he believes the option of military force should not be removed from the table, if Gaddafi uses chemical weapons, such as mustard gas, on his own people.
But he said that the use of armed force should be “the last resort” and should be backed by overwhelming international support through the United Nations.
Asked if the international community should toughen its stance towards Libya if Gaddafi unleashes chemical weapons against his people, Sir John said: “I think it would and I think it should.”
I have no idea if the mustard gas is real or whether it is just “sexed up” in the style of the WMD stories propagated by a morally bankrupt Tony Blair, but I cannot help thinking of Iraq and the lies we were told then. Military intervention for saving life is justifiable but not when it is done for the sake of destroying non-existent WMD’s or when it is actually just to secure oil resources. How much healthier it would have been in Iraq if the Iraqis had got rid of Saddam themselves without the manipulation of the UN by the Bush/Blair lies and the subsequent massive and bloodthirsty intervention (and where the bloodshed still continues). After the events of the last 2 months and the downfall of Mubarak in Egypt I wonder how long Saddam could have continued before he would have been overthrown.
The use of fears of yet another WMD – in this case mustard gas – to justify an intervention seems like a rerun of Iraq and will carry little credibility without some very clear evidence from an unimpeachable source. David Cameron or bunga bunga Berlusconi or the flighty Sarkozy just do not command that level of trust.
Perhaps Gaddafi should be allowed to join his friends in Belarus and he could recruit a new lot of Ukrainian nurses as well.
Tags:Gaddafi end-game, intervention for oil, intervention for WMD, Libya, mustard gas, WMD
Posted in Libya, Politics | Comments Off on Libyans must be allowed to get rid of Gaddafi themselves
March 1, 2011
In spite of the coldest and snowiest December in 100 years Sweden’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 7.3 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2010 compared to same period last year.
Compared with the third quarter of last year, GDP grew by 1.2 percent, according to StatisticsSweden (SCB). This is the highest Swedish growth ever measured. GDP figures were higher than analysts had anticipated. According to Reuters, they expected on average, a growth of 7.0 per cent annually and 1.0 percent from the last quarter.
During the full year 2010, GDP grew by 5.5 percent from the year before, the largest increase since 1970. In 2009, GDP shrank by 5.3percent. It was household consumption which gave the largest contribution to GDP growth, according to StatisticsSweden.
With the latest GDP figures showing a growth of 7.3%, economic analysts are waxing lyrical:
Annika Winsth, chief economist at Nordea:
The Swedish economy is growing across the board. The recovery continues with positive signals also from the labor market. It means that the Riksbank will most likely continue to raise rates. The labor market is developing well and that the hours worked increases mean that households are well equipped for future interest rate hikes. That you get such a strong figure, a growth of over seven percent, also creates a positive psychological effect and a confidence in the Swedish economy which is important. This is something completely different than when the crisis was at its worst.
SBAB’s chief economist Tomas Pousette:
We knew that growth was strong but did not anticipate anything this strong. We expected a number around 6.5%. The economy is at full speed. But it is still in the vicinity of what the Riksbank has anticipated.
Finance Minister Anders Borg:
In the budget we expected that we would land on 4.8 percent growth for 2010, and now we arrive at 5.5 percent. This is a stronger growth than we expected. There is a real challenge ahead for us to cope with both strong growth and low unemployment without creating imbalances.
Tags:Anders Borg, Gross domestic product, Sveriges Riksbank, Sweden, Swedish tiger economy, Tiger GDP growth
Posted in Economics, Politics, Sweden | Comments Off on Swedish GDP at “tiger” levels
March 1, 2011
The power of the internet and we should not forget that of the shoes!!
zu Googleberg has bowed to the inevitable and has resigned.
German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg has announced his resignation after weeks of criticism over plagiarizing parts of his Ph.D. thesis. ….The University of Bayreuth had already stripped Guttenberg of his law doctorate last week. Guttenberg apologized to the German parliament, and said he had made “grave errors” in his thesis, but insisted he did not intentionally copy it.
Pressure mounted on him to resign, after at least 17,000 academics signed an open letter to the German chancellor on Monday (over 20,000 according to the Updated ticker of Germans signing the open letter here), in which they said the plagiarism scandal made a “mockery” of the academic profession.
In recent days Education Minister Annette Schavan had called Guttenberg’s actions shameful, and parliamentary speaker Norbert Lammert said they were “a nail in the coffin for confidence in democracy.”
Tags:Angela Merkel, Bayreuth University, burnt toast, Germany, Guttenberg plagiarism, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, zu Googleberg
Posted in Corruption, Ethics, Fraud, Germany, Politics | 2 Comments »
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