"...While their countrymen suffer through another political crisis and the looming threat of famine, pirates are splashing hundred-dollar bills like play money around the nowhere towns of northern Somalia .
Residents say that the pirates are building houses, buying flashy cell phones and air-conditioned SUVs, gifting friends and relatives with hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars and winning the attention of beautiful women, who seem to be flocking to pirate towns from miles around.
Shopkeepers charge the pirates a premium for food and khat -- a narcotic leaf that Somali men chew religiously -- but the buccaneers don't seem to mind.
'It is true,' said a 28-year-old pirate who identified himself as Jama. 'We are getting very rich.'
Jama, who described himself as a high-ranking member of a group based in Eyl, has earned $375,000 as a pirate, enough to buy a Toyota Land Cruiser and to begin building a six-bedroom house in Garowe, the regional capital, for his family. His biggest payday came last month, when he earned a $92,000 share of a $1.3 million ransom for a Greek ship, the MV Centauri, which was released after 10 weeks with its crew unharmed.
Almost overnight, Jama said, his standing with the fairer sex has improved dramatically.
'Once there was a girl who lived in Garowe,' 100 miles from Eyl, Jama said. 'I loved her. I tried to approach her many times, but she rejected me. But since I became a pirate, she has tried nine times to get with me.
'But I refused, because I'm already married.'"
A pirate with morals -- how touching!
"In Libya, Muammar Qaddafi's daughter announced an 'order of courage' award for al-Zaidi. But would he have had the courage to throw his shoes at Saddam Hussein? The brutal tyrant President Bush removed from power would have had one shoe shoved down al-Zaida's throat, and the other shoved ... well, you get the idea."
"The media are still government-controlled propaganda mouthpieces that put out 'positive' news about the activities of the 'brotherly leader,' Col. Gaddafi. No independent media-outlet exists.
...Few journalists dare to venture beyond the limits set by the regime. Criticising Gaddafi is a taboo that can lead directly to prison because of the prevailing personality cult. The most the local media does is report minor corruption without ever implicating top officials. The plight of the Berber minority and anything to do with Gaddafi ('The Guide of the Revolution') and his family are never mentioned. The press law is very harsh and allows prison sentences of up to two years."
Just try chucking your shoe there, Muntadhar!
"'He hates the American physical occupation as much as he hates the Iranian moral occupation,' Dhirgham said, alluding to the influence of pro-Iranian Shiite clerics in political and social life. 'As for Iran, he considers the regime to be the other side of the American coin.'
...Al-Zeidi may have also been motivated by what a colleague described as a boastful, showoff personality.
'He tried to raise topics to show that nobody is as smart as he is,' said Zanko Ahmed, a Kurdish journalist who attended a journalism training course with al-Zeidi in Lebanon.
Ahmed recalled that al-Zeidi spoke glowingly of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose followers organized protests Monday to demand his release.
'Regrettably, he didn't learn anything from the course in Lebanon, where we were taught ethics of journalism and how to be detached and neutral,' Ahmed said."
Um, yeah. But let's get this straight: He supposedly hates Iran's influence, but then praises Iran ally al-Sadr. Make that the totally in bed with Iran, chilling with the ayatollahs al-Sadr. Al-Zeidi is clearly a camera-whore supertwit.
"So I'm really concerned most of all about timetable. In Israel we are looking at a very tight timetable of at the outside 18 months. And that's when a decision has to be made. And I don't know if Obama is going to act with urgency. Now I think he's learned on the job. He's already much better on Iran than he was eight months ago. He made a statement, I don't know if you remember this, and I guess it was about eight months ago saying that Cuba, Venezuela and Iran are small countries, and the United States negotiated with the Soviet Union, which is a big country. And if we were able to negotiate with the Soviets certainly we can negotiate with these small countries. Which was a very worrying misreading of the differences here and the Soviet Union basically being a rational country and Iran -- we don't know. I won't go so far as to say that Iran is irrational. But we don't know.
And I think he's gotten better. He was in the Middle East, of course, in July, and my understanding from speaking to someone in his circle was that he didn't sleep all week that he was in the Middle East. Didn't sleep. And what they were saying was it wasn't jet lag. That it finally hit home what he has to confront. And apparently he had a very sobering education. Not only in Israel -- what he heard from Arab leaders was apparently no less apocalyptic: that if Iran gets the bomb, then you're going to have a nuclear arms race in the Middle East -- it's already beginning -- a nuclear suitcase floating around to an Iranian proxy, Hezbollah or Hamas, the end of the peace process definitively -- no Arab country will dare defy Iran when it has hegemony in the Middle East. So by every measure a nuclear Iran -- even if they're not crazy enough to launch a nuclear attack against Israel -- it will mean a totally transformed world in ways that I think we haven't even begun considering. So that's what we're looking at."
"Look, I don't know. I really don't know. But I have to believe that when I sit with people whose job it is to know and they say we can set them back five years, say, that's the general figure that you hear. The pessimists say three years; the optimists say 10 years. So let's assume five. I have to go with that. We've been planning this in one form or another since 1993. The guy who actually established Israel's Iranian policy is Yitzhak Rabin. And Rabin in 1993, after the Oslo handshake, gave an interview to Israeli media. And he said, the reason I'm taking a gamble on Arafat is because I want to free us from this obsession that our military strategists have with dealing with the Palestinians, who are not an existential threat to Israel, and I want us to start planning for us to deal with the real long-term existential threat, which is a nuclear Iran. He said this in '93. And everyone was in a state of euphoria about peace with the Palestinians and Rabin was thinking about war with Iran. So if you're asking me, can we do it, Rabin began preparing the Israeli air force in '93. And every Israeli prime minister since Rabin, left, right and center, has adopted the same position. So if we can't do it, after all these years, then I don't know if we have what it takes to survive in the Middle East."
"The moment that the Israeli public came to the conclusion that this is a lunatic regime was about two and a half years ago when Iran sponsored the Holocaust denial conference. If you're facing international sanctions, and you want to prove to the international community that you're reasonable, you wouldn't be organizing a conference of the world's crackpots. And that's what they did. ... I think that Ahmadinejad reasons that the only reason the West supports Israel is because of the Holocaust, and if he can prove that the Holocaust is a Zionist invention, then Israel will lose its support and the destruction of Israel will become a reasonable position in the West."
"Absolutely. There isn't this deep hatred of Israel and the West among Iranians. Even after 30 years of this kind of education. Israel Radio is very popular in Iran. It's wildly popular. And anyone that I've spoken to who's been there says that when you meet people -- and not only among young people in Tehran, but out in rural areas -- there's deep disaffection with the regime. There's 30 percent hidden unemployment today in Iran. So the short answer is yes -- regime change, I think, is inevitable. But here again the question is
timetable. And it's not going to happen on its own in the next 18 months. That's almost certain. And what worries me about an Israeli strike -- which I think as a last resort we're going to have to do -- but what does worry me is what are going to be the repercussions domestically in Iran. And I could see the possibility of a very patriotic and proud people rallying around the regime. Even a detested regime. But it's their country rather than this regime that will have been attacked, and a strike could set back the possibility of regime change. That's a major downside. And along with some other very serious repercussions that we're looking at in Israel: massive Iranian retaliation against Tel Aviv, for example."
"Focusing on the Iranian oil industry. The regime is propping up the Iranian economy primarily through oil revenues. And if you take that away, if you really dig into that, the regime may not be sustainable. And then we could have regime change much sooner. I haven't given up completely on sanctions. I'm close to giving up on the international community. And here I think the challenge for Obama, and this really goes back to what
you were saying about the U.N., I think the challenge for Obama is to sidestep the U.N. and create his equivalent of what we used to call the coalition of the willing. And even in Europe -- Europe is deeply divided about Iran. Merkel is very good, but she has absolutely no support in government or in public opinion. She's basically stymied. France is by far the most assertive on the Iranian threat. And Italy is very good now with Berlusconi. So if you look at Europe, Europe is going to divide on Iran. Eastern Europe for the most part is very good. Poland, Czech Republic. And so we need to rethink the kind of sanctions that
need to be imposed and which countries are likely to adopt those sanctions. If you wait for the U.N., it will never happen.
...There's something so painfully naive about the expectation that some people have that Obama's somehow going to bring -- and people have asked me this, 'Well, Obama will bring the Chinese and the Russians on board because he's more likable.' The Chinese and the Russians will not endanger what they consider their interests because the new American president is likable."
"...So the first issue, then, is this hunger for clean government. And Livni does seem to be clean and decent. What she doesn't have is any security experience. And that's the other big issue of course. And interestingly I think for most Israeli voters the security issue in this election probably won't be Iran. It's going to be much closer to home. It will be Hezbollah and Hamas. Because we could find ourselves literally any day at war again with either of them. We're very close to another war with Hamas. And to go back into Gaza will be really, really sticky. Especially after the cease-fire, because everybody knows that the cease-fire just gave them an opportunity to rearm. And that was just such a stupid move for Israel to do, such a move of weakness. So that's really on people's minds -- who can deal with Gaza and Hezbollah. And you know something of how the Israeli psyche works -- it's one thread at a time and one day at a time. So the people whose job it is to think a little bit more long-term are looking at Iran, most Israelis are looking at Iranian proxies who are sitting right on the border.
So if things are reasonably quiet, then I think Livni will have a chance to promote her good-government agenda. If things are shaky, and as they seem to be heading, I think Netanyahu will win. Netanyahu has one great campaign advantage and that is that before the withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 he was warning that if we pull the army out of Gaza we're going to get Katyushas on the city of Ashkelon, which is about 15 miles away from Gaza. And the Israeli media ridiculed him, and treated him, to some extent, how much of the media here treated Sarah Palin. ... All that Netanyahu has to do is replay some of those headlines and talk shows and then show the footage of the shopping mall in Ashkelon that was devastated by Katyushas. So Netanyahu has strong security credentials. And my gut sense is that he's going to win."
Look at the kids in the front, and the looks on their faces (particularly the kid in the black T-shirt). Here's how I imagine the caption: "Oh, did you bring us food? Did you bring us some medicine or shelter? Did you bring any promises from the Security Council? How about ... wait, you just brought your celebrity? And a camera to follow you around? Yeah, that helps us a lot. Thanks."
You've got the guy covering his face with his hands, the one who's laughing, and a whole host of people completely unconcerned that he was People's "Sexiest Man Alive" or dated J-Lo. You wonder when people like these Congolese refugees, among the 250,000 driven from their homes by fighting and just struggling to live day-to-day (and not catch cholera in one of those lovely camps), just get sick of being the backdrops for "goodwill ambassadors." They just want to finally, for once, see some serious action out of the United Nations, not the latest celebrity to come trot through the mud.
Remember that, despite the detractors, to people still aspiring for the most basic freedoms around the world we still stand for something important.
"Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani said on Saturday that the US president-elect Barack Obama is expected to make strategic changes in the US foreign policy.
Addressing a local seminar, he said that Obama is expected to send correct signals to the regional nations"
"A Tehran Constituency MP at Majlis said here Friday victory of US Democratic Party nominee, Barack Obama, at presidential elections there was the 'No!' response of Americans to warmonger polices pursued by Republicans during their recent tenure at White House.
Mahdi Kouchakzadeh added in an interview with IRNA Political Desk, 'Keeping in mind the points made by Obama during his presidential campaign, it seems as if the Americans are fed up with the warmonger policies pursued by their statesmen during President (George W.) Bush's tenure.'"
"On the US elections, which led to victory of Democrat Senator Barack Obama, Ayatollah Jannati expressed hope that Obama will translate his campaign pledges into action. ... He went on to say that the US is on the fall and Iran is on the rise.
'The world people are with us. According to the Supreme Leader, we echo world people's message. Many world heads of state get happy over our stances and somehow express their appreciation (to Iran),' he concluded."
"Felicitating Obama for his victory , President Ahmadinejad hoped for basic and clear changes in Washington's foreign and domestic policies.
'I hope you will prefer real public interests and justice to the never ending demands of a selfish minority and seize the opportunity to serve people so that you will be remembered with high esteem,' said the Iranian president.
He said, 'Other nations also expect war-oriented policies, occupation, bullying, contempt of nations and imposing discriminatory policies on them to be replaced by advocating justice, respect for human rights, friendship and non-interference in other countries' internal affairs.'"
"Thousands of civilians threw rocks at four United Nations offices in eastern Congo on Monday, venting outrage at the organization's inability to protect them from rebel forces advancing on the provincial capital of Goma.See, this is basically the way U.N. peacekeeping operations go: If you're one of the bad guys, you can pretty much proceed with your nefarious plans unfettered, whether it be Hezbollah rearming in violation of Security Council Resolution 1701, or Bosnian Serbs rounding up Bosniak men and boys to take them off to execution as the U.N. proudly declares Srebrenica a "safe haven," or cutting and running as Rwanda descended into its 100-day genocide.
Peacekeepers opened fire at one downtown office and people may have been injured, a U.N. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.
People in eastern Congo are angry that a 17,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force has been unable to protect them from a rebel attack just 25 miles north of the city. Tens of thousands of civilians have abandoned their homes.
Meanwhile, hundreds of Congolese soldiers pulled back Monday from the front in tanks, jeeps, trucks and on foot in what appeared to be a major retreat of government forces. Soldiers honked their horns angrily as they struggled to push through throngs of refugees pouring onto the main road.
Rebel leader Gen. Laurent Nkunda has threatened to take Goma in defiance of calls from the U.N. Security Council for him to respect a U.N.-brokered January cease-fire."
So goes the title of the grand Russian pooh-bah's latest manly-man adventure:"First we saw him shirtless while fishing.
Then he was pictured at the wheel of a massive racing truck and shooting a tiger in the Siberian forest with a tranquiliser.
He has also appeared operating a train, sailing on a submarine and co-piloting a fighter jet.
Now Vladimir Putin - the world's most manly leader - has released yet another display of his own masculinity: a DVD entitled 'Let's learn judo with Vladimir Putin'.
Today he presented the instructional judo DVD that shows him throwing an opponent to the mat.
'Let's Learn Judo with Vladimir Putin' is the product of collaboration between Putin - a black belt - and former World and Olympic judo champion Yasuhiro Yamashita.
At a nighttime presentation minutes into his 56th birthday, Putin said the title was little more than an 'advertising trick'.
Anyone who watches it 'will be learning not from your humble servant but from real geniuses' of the martial art, he said.
But portions shown on Russian television depicted a black-clad Putin talking about the history and philosophy of judo, as well as a white-robed Putin demonstrating moves against a practice partner."
However, none of the news stories touting this butt-kicking showdown tell where the video can be bought! An Amazon search revealed no matches. No hits on eBay, either. That's a horrible tease.
What really remains to be seen, though, is whether "Let's Learn Judo with Vladimir Putin" can beat "Let's Learn Dancing with Boris Yeltsin":
"Venezuela spent USD 4.4 billion on 12 contracts for Russian weapons from 2006, the Kremlin said.
Venezuela bought fighter aircrafts, tanks and assault rifles from Russia and plans to purchase anti-aircraft systems, armored vehicles and combat aircrafts, as announced last week by the head of Russian Technologies, Serguei Shemezov, close to former president and current primer minister Vladimir Putin."
Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Venezuela's Hombre de Rojo, Hugo Chavez, for a cozy little chat Sunday morning, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency. They vowed greater cooperation in "various fields," aka fighting all things American:"During the telephone conversation, the Iranian president wished the success, development and prosperity of the Venezuelan revolutionary government and its people who are among the harbingers of campaign against imperialism in South America.
'Fortunately, the morale of imperialism has weakened in the world and this calls for collective cooperation of countries such as Iran and Venezuela to create conditions for development coupled with strength,' he said."
"...This government is profoundly repressive and punitive. This is the same government that has recently legally established that Venezuela is of 'public interest' and that everything in the social life of the country and Venezuelans bears a strategic importance. Therefore, whenever dissent or differences arise toward that strategic aspect, punishments, fines and exclusions must be applied. This draft law is no different and clearly indicates so in its Purpose Article by declaring that 'In the Punitive Measures section, the events and actions punished have been expanded to enhance and update the punitive action in relation to telecommunications, information technology and postal services, thus guaranteeing the dissuading nature of those provisions.'
...This government is media obsessed. Any failure caused by its poor performance is attributed to the media. That explains legal restrictions and sometimes even physical and verbal aggressions toward large media, as well as the need for this government to have a media structure unprecedented in the country's history, and develop an extensive and intensive propaganda and publicity scheme."
Ehud Olmert *finally* resigned as Israeli prime minister today, starting the countdown clock for the new Kadima leader, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, as she has 42 days to form a coalition or go to elections. Bottom line: The leader of the major current Kadima partner, Labor, welcomes elections. So does ultra-orthodox Shas, which fears that Livni, who favors a two-state solution with the Palestinians, will divide Jerusalem. And waiting in the wings is Benjamin Netanyahu, who won't take any bunk from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hassan Nasrallah, or any other twerp who wants to obliterate the Jewish state.
China's latest Olympic fakery? Well, these 56 kids bringing the Chinese flag into the opening ceremonies were supposed to represent all of the country's different ethnic minority groups, with traditional costumes. Turns out that all of the kids were of the Han majority."'Fifty-six children from 56 Chinese ethnic groups cluster around the Chinese national flag,' read the ceremony programme.
The vice-President of the Beijing Olympic organising committee, Wang Wei, today refused to be drawn on the issue. 'I think you are being very meticulous,' he told reporters. 'I see nothing wrong exactly with [where] the children are from.' It was perfectly traditional in China for performers to dress up to represent ethnic minorities, he added.
But the incident appears to be the third manipulation to be uncovered during the four-hour-long show created by Oscar-nominated Chinese film director, Zhang Yimou."
Remember how President Bush planned to go to a state-sanctioned church for services last Sunday? Hua Huiqi wanted to attend, but was arrested on the way there. Here are his own words, in a letter penned to Human Rights in China:"At 6 a.m. on August 10, I was on my way to Kuanjie Protestant Church to worship when I was intercepted by police working on religious affairs from Chongwen District. State Security police officer Bai Ying led 7-8 plainclothes officers who beat me and dragged me and my brother Hua Huilin into two separate cars.
The police brought us to their office in the Hong Kong New World Group building and interrogated us. They asked me why I was going to Kuanjie Protestant Church to worship and threatened me, saying, 'You are not allowed to go to Kuanjie Protestant Church because President Bush is going there today. If you [try to] go again, we will break your legs. We brought you here to wait for orders from our superiors. We shall see how they want to deal with you.'
They confiscated my Bible and thereupon began their watch over me. I prayed. After about 4 or 5 hours, when I saw that the people who were watching me had all fallen asleep, I fled. But I'm afraid to go home."
Here's the nutshell: Georgia readily agrees to truce brokered by France. Dmitry Medvedev, like a schoolmarm whapping Georgia on the knuckles, says Tuesday that they've been adequately punished. Now, today, about 50 Russian tanks roll into the Georgian town of Gori, standing guard, according to a BBC reporter, as South Ossetian separatists loot homes and burn them and steal cars. Russia, in true Soviet style, denies any tanks were there, but after video showed otherwise their chief of staff tells the AP that "Russians were looking for Georgian officials to talk to about implementing the EU truce but could not find any."
Gotta highlight this story off Al-Jazeera today: Beijing had set up three "protest zones" for "approved" demonstrations during the Olympics, but the zones are empty. In fact, China appears to be using the zones as bait to get dissidents to come forward to apply for a protest permit, then arrest them. Read on:"Ji Sizun, 55, a self-described grassroots legal activist from Fujian province, appears to be the latest casualty of this system.
He told Al Jazeera on Saturday that he had submitted his protest that day to the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau (PSB).
...'China really wants to show it has concern for human rights,' Ji said. 'I wanted to come to Beijing and try to protest because it is a good opportunity.'
He was told to come back Monday, but by Monday afternoon Ji was unreachable.
His family in Fujian believes he has been detained and will be held until after the Olympics, a source said. They spoke with him briefly on Monday but he only managed to say 'I have some problems,' before the call was cut off.
The PSB refused to comment when contacted by Al Jazeera.
Ji said he was worried after a fellow would-be protester, Tang Xuecheng, from Hunan Province, had called him on August 5 from the PSB saying he had been detained when handing in his application."
This is a great entry for the dissident of the day. From The Independent:"As Tibet protests rippled around the globe yesterday, one of China's most prominent dissidents delivered a powerful rebuke to the head of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, from his jail cell in Beijing No. 2 prison.
'I have a question for Mr Rogge,' wrote He Depu. 'Each time you come to Beijing and see the joyous spectacles here, do you know that just 10 or so kilometres away, Beijing's political prisoners are suffering immensely for the progress of society and the elevation of human civilisation? Tens of thousands of prisoners in Beijing, each holding a bowl half-full of boiled vegetables, are training their eyes upon you. How does this make you feel?'
Mr He took part in the Democracy Wall Movement in 1979, the pro-democracy movement in 1989, and in 1998 helped form the banned China Democracy Party. He was jailed for eight years in 2002 for 'inciting subversion of state power' and his letter passed through many hands before it reached the Human Rights in China group, which has published it."
Lo and behold, another victim of Yahoo conspiring with the Chinese government: Wang Xiaoning, an engineer, posted his opinions against single-party rule on a Yahoo Groups forum that called for democratic reform in China. After Yahoo handed his personal info over to the PRC, Wang was sentenced to 10 years behind bars for "incitement to subvert state power" in 2003. Yahoo has settled with the families of Wang and Shi Tao, but that doesn't bring their loved ones out of prison."Early one Sunday morning in 2002, a phone rings in Yu Ling's Beijing duplex. She's cleaning upstairs; her son is asleep, while downstairs, her husband, Wang Xiaoning, is on the computer. Wang writes about politics, anonymously e-mailing his online e-journals to a group of Yahoo users. He's been having problems with his Yahoo service recently. He thinks it's a technical issue. This is the day he learns he's wrong.
Wang picks up the phone: 'Yes?'
'Are you home?' asks the unfamiliar voice on the other end.
'Yes.'
The line goes dead.
Moments later, government agents swarm through the front door -- 10 of them, some in uniform, some not. They take Wang away. They take his computers and disks. They shove an official notice into Yu's hands, tell her to keep quiet, and leave. This is how it's done in China. This is how the internet police grab you."
Today's dissident is Ding Zilin. Since her only son, Jiang Jielian, was slain by government troops in Tiananmen Square on June 3, 1989, she has been fighting to expose the truth about the massacre. She started the Tiananmen Mothers network in the 1990s, fighting for the release of those still jailed for the protest and laboring to compile a list -- and the stories -- of all those killed in the Tiananmen democracy protests. Despite continued government harassment, Ding was able to confirm 186 Tiananmen deaths by June 2006. She and her husband have also been under house arrest since 2004.
Remember when Yahoo jumped the shark and gave Chinese authorities personal information on an account user, no questions asked? The victim of that shameless move was Shi Tao. As the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre neared back in 2004, journalists were warned in a government memo not to cover any remembrances or protests. Shi, a business reporter at the time, used his personal Yahoo e-mail account to send the memo overseas to a group working for democracy in Asia. After Yahoo essentially turned him over, Shi was sentenced to 10 years behind bars for "illegally providing state secrets to foreign entities."
"Greyhound has scrapped an ad campaign that extolled the relaxing upside of bus travel after one of its passengers was accused of beheading and cannibalizing another traveler.Vince Weiguang Li, who immigrated to Canada from China in 2004, is charged with second-degree murder in the death of 22-year-old carnival worker Tim McLean. He has yet to enter a plea.
Thirty-seven passengers were aboard the Greyhound from Edmonton, Alberta, to Winnipeg, Manitoba, as it traveled at night along a desolate stretch of the TransCanada Highway about 12 miles from Portage La Prairie, Manitoba. Witnesses said Li attacked McLean unprovoked, stabbing him dozens of times.
As horrified passengers fled the bus, Li severed McLean's head, displaying it to some of the passengers outside the bus, witnesses said.
A police officer at the scene reported seeing the attacker hacking off pieces of the victim's body and eating them, according to a police report."
I love my car. Really.
"A QANTAS flight bound for Melbourne was forced to return to Adelaide Airport last night when the landing gear doors failed to close.
The Boeing 767-338 - flight QF692 - was forced to turn around 20 minutes after take-off about 5.40pm and it landed safely back in Adelaide at 6.15pm.
The incident came only three days after a Qantas Boeing 747-400 made an emergency landing in Manila after a gaping hole appeared in its fuselage.
Disgruntled passengers on the Melbourne flight last night told The Advertiser they would refuse to fly with Qantas again following the airline's second mid-air scare since Friday."
"Mr. President Sarkozy, you know that in France, the presence of Barack Obama and what he's done in terms of breaking the barriers in the United States has sort of made a resurgence. The black people in France are very proud and very hopeful for their future. They also live many of them in poor situations and you know you've had your own riots here and protests and disturbances in the [...] city.
At one point, when we were covering those riots, when you were interior ministry, you called the rioters scum. And I am wondering if you feel today when you stand next to someone you so much admire, and who has broken so many barriers that you regret that term or wish you hadn't said it?"
And what does Barack Obama have to do with North African immigrant offspring torching hundreds of cars and killing a guy trying to put out a trash can fire? Nothing!! Apple, meet orange. Orange, meet apple. And cue the response from Sarkozy, who has brought entertainment and smugness where there used to be just utter Chirac smugness:
"I congratulate you, Madame, on your exceptional knowledge of French political life and your contribution to friendship between people. But precisely things change because there were certain things that weren't right and I'm very pleased, Madame, you're speaking in front of Barack about a situation that existed before I was President ...
"I'd like you to appreciate not one single shot was fired by the police in France. The only innocent person was a member of the police. But, since my election, there have been no riots because we have put into place a development plan which is considerable. ... The political adventure of Barack Obama is not just simply reserved for that great country of the United States. ... I don't know if it was to please me, but your question really pleased me. Do come back, thank you."
"His first clash with European authority came in 2001. Returning to the Hilton Hotel in Rome at 3am he got into a brawl with police guarding his room, attacking them with bottles, emptying a fire extinguisher over them and putting three in hospital. He pleaded diplomatic immunity and no action was taken.
Three years later, while a business studies student in Copenhagen, he was chased by police when he drove his Porsche at 90mph through red lights on the Champs-Elysée in Paris, at one point going the wrong way. After police pulled him over they were confronted by his six bodyguards and a fight broke out in which an officer was injured.
The following February Mr Gaddafi was arrested in Paris after allegedly beating up a female companion who had resisted his advances, and damaging the door to her room. Later he changed rooms and was said to have begun destroying furniture before pulling a 9mm Walter PKK semi-automatic handgun on security guards at the Intercontinental Hotel. They succeeded in subduing him. Police questioned but did not detain him and he returned to Copenhagen soon afterwards."
Sure he wasn't a child star??
