9 May 2008
News and Comments - 05/09/08
Posted by Roy Bischoff under: General; What's News .
My memory’s not as sharp as it used to be. Also, my memory’s not as sharp as it used to be.
15 Comments so far...
Cameron Says:
9 May 2008 at 6:16 am.
Putin signals he intends to stay in charge of Russia
By LYNN BERRY, Associated Press Writer Thu May 8, 2:59 PM ET
MOSCOW - When Boris Yeltsin left the Kremlin eight years ago, he gave Vladimir Putin the pen he had used to sign important documents and decrees, a gesture symbolizing the transfer of power to Russia’s new president. When Putin left the Kremlin, he took the pen with him. Putin, who became prime minister Thursday, has signaled that he intends to remain Russia’s principal leader, at least in the short term — and possibly much longer. He is keeping the trappings of his presidency and many of its powers as well.
It was not always meant to be this way. Putin initially said he intended to hand the full powers of the presidency to his chosen successor and step aside. But as the time drew near, he clearly changed his mind as infighting between rival Kremlin factions spilled into the open, threatening to undermine political stability.
Veterans of the secret services have come to dominate the government under Putin, a 55-year-old former KGB officer. These powerful figures, known as the “siloviki,” have been given leading roles in major businesses — including oil companies and aircraft and automobile manufacturers — that Putin has brought back under state control.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080508/ap_on_re_eu/russia_putin
Cameron Says:
9 May 2008 at 9:48 am.
I am horrified by that government. I thought yesterday that they would probably keep the food and not even help the suffering, just write them off as lost and keep it for the capitol city. There will probably be more death from starvation and disease than the cyclone itself.
UN halts aid to Myanmar after junta seizes supplies
YANGON, Myanmar - Myanmar’s junta seized U.N. aid shipments headed for hungry and homeless survivors of last week’s devastating cyclone, prompting the world body to suspend further help on Friday.
The U.N. said the aid included 38 tons of high-energy biscuits and arrived in Myanmar on Friday The WFP’s regional director, Tony Banbury, directly appealed to Myanmar’s military leaders in an interview with Associated Press Television News.
“Please, this food is going to people who need it very much. You and I, we have the same interests,” Banbury said. “Those victims — those 1 million or more people — who need this assistance are not part of a political dialogue. They need this humanitarian assistance. Please release it.”
on two flights from Bangladesh and the United Arab Emirates.
“All of the food aid and equipment that we managed to get in has been confiscated,” U.N. World Food Program spokesman Paul Risley said. “For the time being, we have no choice but to end further efforts to bring critical needed food aid into Myanmar at this time.”
Myanmar’s government acknowledged taking control of the shipments and said it plans to distribute the aid itself to the affected areas.
In a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press, government spokesman Ye Htut said the junta had clearly stated what it would do and denied the action amounted to a seizure.
“I would like to know which person or organization (made these) these baseless accusations,” he said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080509/ap_on_re_as/myanmar_cyclone
Cameron Says:
9 May 2008 at 9:50 am.
Oil prices eclipse $126 a barrel before US driving season as investors flee the dollar
Oil prices surpassed a record $126 per barrel Friday on the eve of the U.S. driving season as a weakening dollar drove investors to snap up commodities.
Light, sweet crude for June delivery rose $2.51 to a new record of $126.20 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by the afternoon in Europe.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080509/oil_prices.html?.v=19
Cameron Says:
9 May 2008 at 9:52 am.
Nuclear missiles parade across Red Square
Nuclear missiles and tanks paraded Friday across Red Square for the first time since the Soviet era but new President Dmitry Medvedev warned other nations against “irresponsible ambitions” that he said could start wars.
Marching bands and 8,000 troops goose-stepped across the square, followed by a huge display of heavy weapons including Topol-M ballistic missiles and T-90 tanks, and a fly-by of warplanes.
Reviewing his first parade as commander in chief, Medvedev warned against “irresponsible ambitions” that he said could spark war across entire continents.
In an apparent attack on US foreign policy and Western backing for Kosovo’s independence, Medvedev also criticised “intentions to intrude in the affairs of other states and especially redraw borders.”
Alongside the new president was his mentor and now prime minister, Vladimir Putin, standing under bright sunshine in a tribune in front of Lenin’s Mausoleum, the Soviet holy of holies that was screened off by a giant hoarding inscribed with May 9, 1945.
The show of strength on the 63rd anniversary of victory against Nazi Germany symbolised Moscow’s growing boldness following eight years of rule by Putin, whose hawkish policies have set Russia at loggerheads with Western capitals.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080509113625.2fytcrew&show_article=1
Cameron Says:
9 May 2008 at 9:56 am.
Hezbollah routs pro-government gunmen; controls Beirut
By Tom Perry
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah took control of the Muslim part of Beirut on Friday, tightening its grip on the city in a major blow to the U.S.-backed government.
Security sources said at least 11 people had been killed and 30 wounded in three days of battles between pro-government gunmen and fighters loyal to Hezbollah, a Shi’ite political movement with a powerful guerrilla army.
The European Union, Germany and France urged calm and a peaceful resolution. Syria said the issue was an internal Lebanese affair while Iran blamed “the adventurist interferences” of the United States and Israel for the violence.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080509/wl_nm/lebanon_conflict_dc_34;_ylt=AmXR3v.sE78gu4Ye7lw0BTIE1vAI
Mac Says:
9 May 2008 at 10:04 am.
Things feel as if the world is going a little crazy right now. What a way to head into the weekend. Thanks for posting all this Cameron. Now make it all go away.
Sharon Anderson Says:
9 May 2008 at 10:59 am.
That’s simple, Mac. See the little red box with the x on the top corner of your desktop? Just click on it.
Jesse Says:
9 May 2008 at 11:27 am.
lol
I’M not sure which news story is worse. Heavy news day today.
CindyL. Says:
9 May 2008 at 12:19 pm.
I read that Myanmar let in another shipment and that we will send more tomorrow but they are going to distribute. I guess we have to do that even though most of the food probably won’t be given to the people who need it most. They lost their crop that was about to be harvested so the junta probably decided to keep a lot of it for themselves and their buddies.
Benjamin Says:
9 May 2008 at 12:30 pm.
I’m posting the whole article because OPEC makes me sick and I want all of you sick too. I looked at a lot of news and only Drudge is making a major news story about the 126 a barrel oil. We don’t want to scare the investors. Sheesh!
A Gulf in Giving: Oil-Rich States Starve the World Food Program
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his top lieutenants on Monday are convening the first meeting of the U.N.’s Task Force on the Global Food Crisis. Ban says it will “study the root causes of the crisis,” and propose solutions for “coordinated global action” at a summit of world leaders in June.
Ban might want to consider convincing the oil-rich nations of the Middle East to provide more than the near-invisible amount of money they currently give to the World Food Program (WFP), the U.N.’s food-giving arm, which is charged with alleviating the food crisis.
WFP internal documents show that the major oil producing nations of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) gives almost nothing to the food organization, even as skyrocketing oil prices and swollen oil revenues contribute to the very crisis that the U.N. claims could soon add 100 million more people to the world’s starving masses.
The overwhelming bulk of the burden in feeding the world’s starving poor remains with the United States and a small group of other predominately Western nations, a situation that the WFP has done little so far to change, even as it has asked for another $775 million in donations to ease the crisis.
Donor listings on WFP’s website show that this year, as in every year since 1999, the U.S. is far and away the biggest aid provider to WFP. Since 2001, U.S. donations to the food agency have averaged more than $1.16 billion annually — or more than five times as much as the next biggest donor, the European Commission.
Click here to see WFP’s donor lists from 2001 to 2007.
This year, the U.S. had contributed $362.7 million to WFP just through May 4, according to the website. That figure does not include another $250 million above the planned yearly contribution that was promised by President George W. Bush in the wake of WFP’s April warning that a “silent tsunami” of rising food costs would add dramatically to the world population living in hunger. Nor does it include another $770 million in food aid that President Bush has asked Congress to provide as soon as possible.
On the other hand, Saudi Arabia, with oil revenues last year of $164 billion, does not even appear on the website donor list for 2008.
Click here to see the 2008 donor list.
And while Canada, Australia, Western Europe and Japan have hastened to pony up an additional $260 million in aid since WFP’s latest appeal, the world organization told FOX News, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the international oil cartel, tossed in a grand total of $1.5 million in addition to the $50,000 it had previously donated.
The OPEC total amounts to roughly one minute and 10 seconds worth of the organization’s estimated $674 billion in annual oil revenues in 2007 — revenues that will be vastly exceeded in 2008 with the continuing spiral in world oil prices.
The only other major oil exporter who made the WFP list of 2008 donors was the United Arab Emirates, which kicked in $50,000. UAE oil revenues in 2007 were $63 billion.
By contrast, the poverty-stricken African republic of Burkina Faso is listed as donating more than $600,000, and Bangladesh, perennial home of many of the world’s hungriest people, is listed as donating nearly $5.8 million.
George Russell is executive editor of FOX News.
Stumpy Says:
9 May 2008 at 1:16 pm.
Dear Joy
So is the elephant with the bad memory y’all? Yer way a apologizin fer forgettin to put up a blog and the little funny sayin I look forward to with my mornin coffee? Do ya have any idea what I had to do fer intertainment with my coffee? I HAD TA READ THE NEWS! It ruint my day.
Sincerely blowin a raspberry
Stumpy
Carrie Says:
9 May 2008 at 1:40 pm.
Stumpy you are funnier than the elephant.
Matt Says:
9 May 2008 at 1:57 pm.
The environmentalist issues will play us right into the hands of the globalists and make the food and oil problem worse. We haven’t been given any choices. Obama and McCain are both internationalists who will trash the constitution.
McCain planning climate change tour
POSTED May 9, 2:15 PM
Sen. John McCain really does want to tempt the Republican base. …
We’ve gotten our hands on an advanced transcript of this weekend’s “The Chris Matthews Show” on NBC and the British Broadcasting Corporation’s Katty Kay offered this nugget during the show’s “Tell Me Something I Don’t Know” segment:
“John McCain is going to be doing more of these themed tours of America, and one of them is going to be on energy and global climate change. It could get him into trouble with Republicans, of course, and with the base, who don’t think there is much climate change going on, but it is something that he’s very passionate about and he’s going to be talking about it.”
http://www.examiner.com/blogs-73-Yeas_and_Nays~y2008m5d9-McCain-planning-climate-change-tour
T. Fan Says:
9 May 2008 at 4:39 pm.
Any politician as deeply involved in the global warming movement as McCain is then they are neck deep in the new world order. Period. Like Stumpy says, do your homework and I’m not talking conspiracy theories, I mean hard documented facts.
Concerned American Says:
9 May 2008 at 10:35 pm.
Federal regulators close Arkansas bank ANB Financial
Friday May 9, 8:45 pm ET
ANB Financial banks closed by federal regulators over ‘unsafe and unsound’ practices
BENTONVILLE, Ark. (AP) — Federal regulators says they’ve closed ANB Financial National Association banks after discovering “unsafe and unsound” business practices there.
David Barr, a spokesman for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. says many customers served by the bank’s nine locations had accounts under $100,000, which will be fully insured by the government. Barr says customers can continue to write checks and draw money from ATMs through the weekend.
Barr says Pulaski Bank and Trust Co. agreed to assume control over ANB Financial’s bank locations, which will be open Monday.
As of Jan. 31, federal regulators say ANB Financial had about $2.1 billion in assets and $1.8 billion in total deposits.
It was the third closure this year of an FDIC-insured bank. Douglass National Bank, a Missouri bank with $58.5 million in assets, was shut in January; another Missouri institution with assets of $18.7 million, Hume Bank, was shut down in March.
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