Making memories of STALIN’s grandson, ALLILUYEV JOSEPH died on November 02nd, 2008 in Moscow

Soviet National Anthem. Soviet Army Parade

 Occasion of the Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution

Joseph Alliluyev  : 1945 – 2008 

Joseph Alliluyev died on November 2, 2008. 

He was a Russian cardiologist and the grandson of Joseph Stalin.

Joseph was the son of Stalin’s daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva and the only grandchild to know Stalin. He was either 7 or 8 when Stalin died in 1953. Joseph Alliluyev, the son of Joseph Stalin�s daughter Svetlana and her first husband Grigory Morozov, has died in Moscow.
      
      Svetlana Alliluyeva and Grigory Morozov, a Jewish fellow student of hers, got married in 1944 and gave birth to Joseph Alliluyev in 1945. Later the marriage was unofficially dissolved by the order of Joseph Stalin. In 1949 Svetlana married Yuri Zhdanov (son of Stalin’s right-hand-man, Andrei Zhdanov), who adopted her first son.
      
      A graduate of a medical institute, Joseph Alliluyev worked as a cardiologist. More than 150 of his articles and treatises on heart diseases have been published. At the same time he rejected to write memoirs and hardly gave any interviews.
      
      He was the only one of Stalin’s grandchildren, who managed to have communicated with his grandfather. His relations with his mother were quite complicated. In 1967 she left the Soviet Union, then returned in the early 1980s, but soon left for America again and stopped maintaining relations with her children. Although he kept a low profile he did take part in a television interview on Russian Channel One. He spoke about his relationship with his mother and how she fled to the United States.

 

Fifty-five years have passed since the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Praised for making the Soviet Union one of the two world’s superpowers and cursed for political purges which killed millions, Stalin remains one of the most controversial figures of the 20th century.

RUSSIA REMEMBER STALINE’S PURGE

It’s been 70 years since the show trials of leading Communists took place in Moscow. Joseph Stalin’s assault on old the Bolsheviks and oppositionists was one of the most notorious episodes of the Great Purge of the 1930s.

Joseh grandaunt  Nadezhda Sergeyevna Alliluyeva (1901–1932)

STALINE FAMILY

Nadezhda Sergeyevna Alliluyeva

Russian:   Надежда Сергеевна Аллилуева -(1901 – November 9, 1932)

She was the second wife of Joseph Stalin.Nadezhda was the youngest child of revolutionary Sergei Alliluyev and his wife Olga, of German and Georgian ancestry. She first met Stalin as a child when her father, Sergei Alliluyev, sheltered him after one of his escapes from Siberian exile in 1911. After the revolution, Nadezhda worked as a confidential code clerk in Lenin’s office. She eschewed fancy dress, make-up and other trappings that she felt un-befitting of a proper Bolshevik.

The couple married in 1919, when Stalin was already a 41 year old widower and father of one son born to his first wife, who died of typhus years earlier. Nadezhda and Joseph had two children together: Vasily, born in 1921, became a figher pilot (C.O. of 32 GIAP) at Stalingrad and Svetlana, their daughter, was born in 1926. According to her close friend, Polina Molotov, the marriage was strained, and the two constantly fought.

LAND OF OPPORTUNITY

(ALLILUYEVA, ANNA; SERGEI ALLILUYEV; DAVID TUTAEV (TRANS.)

The Alliluyev Memoirs:

Recollections of Svetlana Stalina’s Maternal Aunt Anna Alliluyeva and Her Grandfather Sergei Alliluyev

New York, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1968. (ISBN: 0399100121) Hard Cover, with dust jacket, 8.5″ (21.5 cm) Tall. Ex-Library, Exlibrary markings. Square with tight binding and hinges, bright pages. Very light dampstain on contents page; last few pages are slightly rippled. Edge rubbing on cloth over boards. DJ has general shelfwear; in new mylar sleeve. 222 pp. Recollections of Joseph Stalin’s sister-in-law and father-in-law covering the years before and during the Russian Revolution. Intimate views of Stalin, Lenin and other notable figures of the era.

Russian TV reports death of Josef Alliluyev, the grandson of Josef Stalin

MOSCOW 

Russian state television is reporting the death of Josef Alliluyev, a grandson of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

No cause of death has been given.Alliluyev was 62 or 63 and was the first child of Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana.Born in 1945, he was the only grandchild of Stalin’s to have known his famous grandfather. Stalin died in March 1953, when Alliluyev was 7 or 8 years old.

Alliluyev was a cardiologist in Moscow and kept a low profile.In announcing his death, Channel One television on Sunday broadcast a portion of a rare interview with him in which he described his strained relations with his mother, who fled the Soviet Union in 1967 and now lives in the United States.
021356 nov 08GMT

DAILY NEW AND ECONOMIC REVIEW TO WERI channel

Alliluyev worked as a cardiologist, and published over 150 papers on heart disease.He kept a low profile throughout his life, never giving interviews.Svetlana Alliluyeva, aged 82, Stalin’s only daughter, defected to the United States in 1967 and has U.S. citizenship.

Angelina Jolie invite us to Give Refugees a Hand

THOUSANDS IN EASTERN CONGO NEED YOUR HELP TODAY

United States Killer Tornadoes of 2008

HURRICANE and CYCLONE

The sage of Africa nation “Nanan Houphouet” has addressed and reviewed national and international news

Félix Houphouët-Boigny (Dia Houphouet was born on 18 October 1905 to N’Gokro (Yamoussoukro) according to the official biography – died on 7 December 1993), nicknamed the “wise” or even “Nanan Boigny” or “Nanan Houphouet” is the “father” of the independence of Côte d’Ivoire. Successively traditional leader, doctor, farmer, union leader, MP Ivorian France, the French minister, president of the Ivorian National Assembly, mayor of Abidjan, Ivorian Prime Minister and first president of Cote d’Ivoire from 1960 to 1993 , Félix Houphouët-Boigny takes a leading role in the process of decolonization of Africa and dominates until the end of his life, the politics of his homeland.

Timeline: Ivory Coast
A chronology of key events

“Our fight is not over it will never be finished. The real battle remains, is the struggle for peace”
Felix Houphouet Boigny

Mr. Félix Houphouët-Boigny, President of the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire, Sponsor Awards, signs the Golden Book of UNESCO

UN deploys

• 2004 March - Deadly clashes during crackdown on opposition rally against President Gbagbo in Abidjan.First contingent of UN peacekeeping force deployed.
• 2004 May - UN report says March’s opposition rally was used as pretext for planned operation by security forces. Report says more than 120 people were killed and alleges summary executions, torture.
• 2004 November – Ivorian air force attacks rebels; French forces enter the fray after nine of their soldiers are killed in an air strike. Violent anti-French protests ensue. UN imposes arms embargo.
• 2004 December – Parliament passes reforms envisaged under the 2003 peace accord, including abolishing the need for a president to have Ivorian parents.
• 2005 April - After talks in South Africa the government and rebels declare an “immediate and final end” to hostilities.
• 2005 June – Massacres in western town of Duekoue: President Gbagbo says more than 100 people were killed, but contradicts widely-held view that ethnic rifts lay behind violence.

Poll called off

• 2005 October – Planned elections are shelved as President Gbagbo invokes a law which he says allows him to stay in power. The UN extends his mandate for a further year.
• 2005 December – Economist Charles Konan Banny is nominated as prime minister by mediators. He is expected to disarm militias and rebels and to organise elections due in October 2006.
• 2006 January – Violent street demonstrations by supporters of President Gbagbo over what they see as UN interference in internal affairs.
• 2006 February – Main political rivals meet on Ivorian soil for the first time since the 2002 rebellion. They agree to meet again to iron out differences.
• 2006 June – Militias loyal to President Gbagbo miss disarmament deadlines.
• 2006 September – Political, rebel leaders say they’ve failed to make any breakthrough on the main issues standing in the way of elections – principally voter registration and disarmament.
• Government resigns over a scandal involving the dumping of toxic waste in Abidjan. Fumes from the waste kill three people and make many more ill.
• 2006 November – UN Security Council resolution extends the transitional government’s mandate for another year.
• 2007 March – Government and New Forces rebels sign a power-sharing peace deal, mediated by Burkina Faso. Under the deal, New Forces leader Guillaume Soro is named as prime minister.
• 2007 April - President Gbagbo declares “the war is over” between his government and northern rebels, as the two sides move to dismantle the military buffer zone. Within days aid workers report an increase in violence.
• 2007 May – Militia begin to disarm.
• 2007 June – Prime minister Soro survives a rocket attack on his plane.
• 2007 October – UN Security Council votes to maintain sanctions for another year.
• 2007 December – Rebel, government soldiers pull back from front-line positions as part of process to reunite country.
• 2008 January – UN renews mandate of 8,000 peacekeepers for six months to ensure polls are held by mid-year.
• 2008 January - Ten people are arrested and charged for plotting a coup in December 2007. Their alleged ring-leader, Sergeant Ibrahim Coulibaly, denies the charges.
• 2008 April – President Gbagbo cancels custom duties after a second day of violent protests against rising food costs.
• Date of long-awaited presidential elections put back from June to the end of November.
• 2008 May – Former rebels who still control the northern half of the country begin disarming.
• 2008 July – Ivory Coast complains that a 2004 UN arms embargo is crippling efforts to cut illegal fishing.
• The government increases diesel prices by 44% and petrol by 29% in response to rising world oil prices.
• 2008 August – The government halves ministerial salaries and those of state company managers to pay for a 10% fuel-price cut. Transport workers call off a threatened strike.
• 2008 October – Voter registration for the November parliamentary elections is suspended amid uncertainty about the validity of identity cards – one of the issues that sparked the 2002 rebellion. Local media say elections are likely to be postponed until early 2009.

The UN extends its arms embargo and sanctions on Ivory Coast’s diamond trade for another year, promising to review the embargo once the country holds a presidential election. 

March 2007: Leaders agree to peace at Burkina Faso talks

• 2007: Peace plan for Ivory Coast agreed
• 2007: Rebel leader ‘is new Ivorian PM’

Anti-French violence followed military hostilities in late 2004

• 2004: France’s Ivorian quagmire
• Q&A Ivory Coast Crisis

Gazprom is losing Europe

 

 

European gas consumers are frantically looking for an alternative to Russian natural gas. At the same time, Russian energy giant Gazprom is doing its best to control all gas supplies from the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Towards this end, Gazprom signed an agreement with Azerbaijan on June 29 to purchase all of its export gas in order to prevent the U.S. and Europe-advocated Nabucco project from succeeding.

The same day, Poland signed a contract on gas supplies with a rival of Gazprom, Qatargas.

Azerbaijani gas

During Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s blitz visit to Baku on June 29, Gazprom coordinated the acquisition of 500 million cubic meters of natural gas annually from the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (Socar) beginning on January 1, 2010.

Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said it was a small amount, but “well begun is half done.”

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said his country would produce 27 billion cu m (bcm) of natural gas in 2009 and planned to increase production to 30 bcm next year. This means that Azerbaijan’s deliveries to Russia will grow, too. At present, the country supplies the bulk of its natural gas to Turkey and Georgia.

Russia has rich hydrocarbon resources, and so it is more important to it that Gazprom has been added to the list of priority buyers of Azerbaijani gas from the second phase of the Shah Deniz deposit, which is expected to yield 16 bcm annually.

The second phase of the deposit will come on stream only in 2014, but the European Union considers it the main supplier of the Nabucco gas pipeline, which it plans to build across Turkey, bypassing Russia.

According to unofficial information, Russia is prepared to buy Azerbaijani gas at a record high price, $350 per 1,000 cu m. Therefore, other potential buyers of the Shah Deniz gas will have to offer a higher price to Socar to outbid Gazprom.

Until recently, Azerbaijan was the only post-Soviet country from which Russia did not buy natural gas.

On the other hand, the profitability of such contracts is questionable. According to Gazprom’s management, Azerbaijani gas will be supplied to south Russian regions, so that comparable amounts of Russian gas could be redirected to Europe. But Russia is unlikely to increase its gas supplies to Europe soon because of plummeting demand. Therefore, the deal will have no commercial effect at best.

 

Early this year, Gazprom said it would buy Turkmen gas for $300 per 1,000 cu m, but then it stopped collecting it because of falling demand and prices in Europe, provoking an explosion at the Turkmen pipeline and a subsequent conflict between the two countries.

Azerbaijan, which doesn’t like to keep all its eggs in one basket, also has a gas supply contract with Europe. However, the signing of an intergovernmental agreement on the Nabucco project has been postponed.

Poland makes a deal with Qatar

On the same day, June 29, Polish oil and gas monopoly PGNiG signed an agreement with Qatargas on the annual supply of 1 million metric tons of liquefied natural gas, LNG, which is equivalent to 1.5 bcm of natural gas, from 2014 to 2034. PGNiG is to build a regasification terminal in time for these deliveries.

At present, Poland consumes 13.7 billion cubic meters of gas annually, out of which 7 bcm is supplied by Gazprom, according to the International Energy Agency. Therefore, the deal with Qatar, which may reduce Russian gas supplies by 20%, is Poland’s first step toward lowering its dependence on Russian gas.

However, Gazprom is itself to blame for the appearance of a rival company, Qatargas, in Europe. It was because of its efforts to maintain its monopoly position in the European market and to purchase all gas produced in the CIS that Europeans started searching for ways to diversify gas routes.

Gazprom: Looking to sponsor the 2012 Games

Russian gas giant bids to be Olympics sponsor

Michael Joseph Jackson the Exception

Throughout his four-decade career, Michael Jackson has been awarded numerous honors including the World Music Award’s Best-Selling Pop Male Artist of the Millennium, American Music Award’s Artist of the Century Award and the Bambi Award’s Pop Artist of the Millennium Award. He is a double-inductee of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (once as a member of The Jackson 5 in 1997, and as a solo artist in 2001) and an inductee of the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Raymone Bain, Jackson’s PR, claims that Jackson has sold over 750 million units worldwide.

I’LL BE THERE

From 1988 to 2005, Jackson lived on his Neverland Ranch property, on which he built an amusement park and private zoo for economically disadvantaged and terminally ill children. His frequently held sleepover parties received disparaging media coverage after it was revealed that children frequently shared his bed or bedroom. These first came to light when he was accused of child sexual abuse in 1993. His sleepover parties were brought into the spotlight again in 2003 during the TV documentary Living with Michael Jackson. This resulted in Jackson being tried, and later acquitted, of more child molestation allegations and several other charges in 2005.

Every culture has its own idols, and it would be erroneous to expect, for example, the average American popular culture consumer to be familiar with Russia’s Alla Pugacheva (Dima Bilan doesn’t count), or the average Russian to have heard of Johnny Cash. But Michael Jackson’s fame truly knew no borders.

It was January 20th, 2009, and a group of journalists from around the world, about half of them Americans, gathered in front of a giant television screen in one of Harvard University buildings to watch the much anticipated ceremony – President Barack Obama’s inauguration. We watched the guests of honor filing in their seats on the podium in front of the Capitol, and commented on who was who.

Then CNN showed an Aftican-American lady, wearing an ostentatious grey hat with a bow, enter the scene, and a rumble went through our small crowd. “Who’s this?” I asked. It was a mistake. My friends gave me an astonished look. “How can you not know Aretha Franklin, the queen of soul?”

I didn’t. In the next couple of days the fact that I hadn’t known the great singer and a “household name” triggered an interesting discussion among the group of Nieman Fellows – mid-career journalists who come to Harvard for a year of study. How does popularity spread in the modern, globalized world? What is the power of American popular culture around the world, and why does one expect anyone coming from any corner of the world to know American celebrities? Why did I know, say, Ella Fitzgerald and didn’t know Aretha Franklin? How do you measure popularity? We started exchanging E-mails about pop icons from our own countries, wondering if the others have heard of them.

The discussion led me to conduct utterly unscientific, but nonetheless interesting research, and to a half-joking conclusion that suddenly came to mind on Friday, when the news of Michael Jackson’s death made headlines in Russia and everywhere else. In the modern world, one can measure popularity in Jacksons. What is one Jackson?

I started running Google searches in various languages (except Russian) and Yandex searches in Russian (Yandex is the Russian speaking world’s most popular search engine) for a group of popular singers who came to mind: Americans Ella Fitzerald, Frank Sinatra and Aretha Franklin; France’s Edith Piaf, the Russian pop diva Alla Pugacheva and a great mid-20th century folk singer Lidia Ruslanova, and, for comparison, Cape Verdian performer Cesaria Evora, whose popular acclaim has spread far beyond the Portuguese-speaking community. A friend suggested adding A. R. Rahman, who was all the rage in India and many other countries, with sizable Indian communities (that was before the Oscar, which brought him more international fame).

Leading my sample group was Michael Jackson, with the late January figure of 37,900,000 pages Google found in English (today the number grew to 56,100,000) and, for comparison, 3,000,000 Yandex pages in Russian (today – 5,000,000).

Pugacheva, on the other hand, produced 101,000 Google pages in English, and a staggering 4,000,000 Yandex search results in Russian. Using this unscientific (but nonetheless telling method), one can conclude that Pugacheva is more popular in the Russian-speaking world than Michael Jackson, and virtually unknown in the French or Portuguese-speaking worlds, where the search produced just 3,000 results each.

Thus, Jackson could easily be taken as a reference value, and this was the case in each of the language groups I sampled. If you take the number of pages in one language group – say French pages mentioning Piaf—divide it by the number of French pages mentioning Michael Jackson, and multiply by 100 to avoid too many decimals, you’d come up with a 5.7 Jackson rating in French. In Russian, Piaf’s Jackson rating is 12.1, which theoretically entails that Piaf is more popular in Russia than in her native France.

Here is the table I made – with late January figures.

	English (Google)	Russian (Yandex)	French (Google)	Portuguese  (Google)
Michael Jackson	37,900,000	3,000,000	14,900,000	13,500,000
Aretha Franklin	3,440,000	65,000	605,000	217,000
Franklin/Jackson	9.0	2.0	4.0	1.6
Ella Fitzgerald	3,380,000	16,000	361,000	205,000
Fitzgerald/Jackson	8.9	0.5	2.4	1.0
Frank Sinatra	9,610,000	520,000	336,000	588,000
Sinatra/Jackson	25.0	17.3	2.3	4.4
Alla Pugacheva	101,000	4,000,000	3,270	2,930
Pugacheva/Jackson	0.3	133	0	0
Lidia Ruslanova	3,570	79,000	111	9
Ruslanova/Jackson	0.1	2.6	0	0
Edith Piaf	1,770,000	363,000	845,000	446,000
Piaf/Jackson	4.7	12.1	5.7	3.3
Césaria Évora	354,000	210,000	395,000	133,000
Evora/Jackson	0.9	7	2.7	1.0
A.R. Rahman	3,110,000	197,000	320,000	204,000
Rahman/Jackson	8.2	6.6	2.1	1.5

Does this mean that Ruslanova, with 0.1 Jacksons in English, 0 Jacksons in French and in Portuguese, and just 2.6 Jacksons in her native Russian, is a less well-known figure than, say, Franklin or Jackson himself? Of course not. It simply means that she lived in the pre-Internet age, and her genre, which although extremely popular at the time, was still short of modern show business in terms of promotional activities.

Most likely, my table makes no sense whatsoever. But it does serve as a reminder of Michael Jackson’s tremendous ability to penetrate the global popular culture, the hearts and minds of audiences around the world. And a reminder of how unevenly (and often unfairly) fame is distributed in the globalized world, where information supposedly knows no borders. But Jackson was an exception.

Perhaps a real scientist would come up with a better way to measure popularity in Jacksons.

The unauthorized interview of michael jackson 1983!!!(1of3)

The tribute continues throughout the world

MAKING MEMORIES OF MICHAEL JOSEPH JACKSON

( 29 August 1958 -25 June 2009)

Around the world, tributes have continued to flock to salute the memory of the star. In music festival Glastonbury (west England), artists and audience spontaneously resumed his greatest hits like “Billie Jean” and “Thriller.”
On the “boulevard de la gloire” in Hollywood, many fans still paraded around its star. Several of them were part of their anger against the doctors, in particular, guilty for them to have pushed Michael Jackson to death.

Sudan ready for biofuels

The Sudanese government has unveiled the country’s first biofuel plant, joining other African countries like Egypt in the fight against global warming.

The plant located about 250 kilometres from the capital city, Khartoum, aims to produce 200 million litres of ethanol from sugar cane within the next two years.

Reports said the second project, worth US$150 million, will carry out research into the production of ethanol from rice straw. “Such cellulosic ethanol fuel produced using non-food plant sources, including agricultural waste such as the stalks and leaves of crops can also reduce the polluting practice of burning agricultural waste,” the report said.

A researcher at the Sudan-based Agricultural Research Corporation, Eltayeb Mohamed Abdelgadir said in Egypt, burning agricultural waste such as rice straw has produced thick smoke across the country, causing record levels of nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide.

Mr Abdelgadir said the biofuels projects are a good example of South–South cooperation which will lead to the transfer of technology and knowledge between developing countries, the development of scientific human resources and promote knowledge-based economic development.

“Sudan is well-suited for biofuel production because of its vast, uncultivated land and low agricultural and labour costs which will provide new income for farmers and an alternative source of energy for Africa,” Mr Abdelgadir added.

Morocco has announced an economic growth forecast of 5.3 percent in 2009 and another 2.4 percent for 2010

Morocco expects 5.3% economic growth in 2009, though saying the figures would also depend on the results of the agricultural season in 2009.

According to a release issued in Rabat by the High Commissariat for Planning (ACP), which cited non-farm activities in 2009 the economy will experience an increase of 2.3 percent, the lowest in the last decade.

The statement said that the growth of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will be maintained by internal demand, which despite its slowdown, will grow 5.9 percent in 2009, compared to 10 percent increase the previous year.

It further stated that in 2010 it is anticipated that domestic demand is set at 3.1 percent and contribution to economic growth will go from 6.7 points in 2009 to 3.4 in 2010.

The ACP noted that the expected improvement of 0.6 percent of world trade is reflected in the foreign demand led to Morocco, where it expects it to grow in 2010 by 2 percent, compared with the fall of 7 percent that will be seen for 2009.

Also calculated in the same way is the income from tourism and remittances from Moroccans abroad in 2010 which will appreciate, with an 18 and 15 percent respectively.

The Moroccan government earlier this month set aside $37.3 million to reduce the impact of the global economic crisis on the country’s tourism sector. The funding is expected to promote Morocco as a tourist destination and develop tourist air links in the country.

WORLD BANK approves $3.5 million climate change fund for Liberia

The World Bank has approved US$3.5 million for Liberia for its Costal Defense programme which will target three cities including Monrovia, the capital City of Liberia and two other major cities in the country, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) communiqué has said.

According to the EPA communiqué, the fund is also targeted to reduce the impact of climate change and build capacity for Liberians on the magnitude of funds needed to tackle climate change.

Addressing the inter ministerial dialogue meeting, EPA acting director, Jerome Nyenkan, said discussions will focus on the impacts of climate change on the key sector of agriculture approaches for more efficient energy uses and ways in which forests can be used to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions causing the global warning.

He said the dialogue will also raise awareness about important international climate talks that are currently underway that could have implications for national policies.

He said climate change is steering up serious issue which makes it very challenging and needs to be looked at keenly in Liberia before it is too late. “At this programme, we must try to solve the threat of climate change in Liberia and globally,” he said.

Liberia like the rest of the world continues to experience climate related problems, which continue to devastate human lives through destructions of infrastructure and experiencing a number of water-born diseases.

10,000 Nigerian girls held captive as sex slaves in Morocco and Libya

More than 10, 000 Nigerian girls held captive as sex slaves in Morocco and Libya are to be repatriated, the House of Representatives Committee on Diaspora has revealed in a statement.

The girls reportedly from Edo State, the southern part of the country, aged between 13 and 17, had been held captive by sex slave traders, the statement said.

According to the Committee statement, it is currently working with relevant authorities and Non-Governmental Organisations to ensure the safe return of the young girls.

The committee said it would further stage an aggressive campaign to educate parents and girls on the dangers of prostitution, especially for young girls in remote areas. “We are going to be working with you and the committee will try to tackle this matter. We are going to sensitise people in the states,” the statement said.

The local NGOs have also expressed concern on the situation of young girls saying a number of them were taken as sex slaves from Nigeria en route to Europe before they were trapped in Morocco and Libya.

Some of the girls are reportedly pregnant and infected with various diseases including HIV/AIDS and had been sent to jail in the two countries while others are now at the mercy of their slave masters according to reports.

The Libyan and Moroccan authorities are reportedly fed up with the presence of the girls, putting them in jail time and again. The girls are also living at a high risk as they could be eliminated or subjected to different inhuman treatment by the host nations according to reports.

In colombia, FARC rebels strike back

Tumaco, Colombia – “Phoenix” had been jobless for months in this bustling town on Colombia’s southern Pacific coast when he accepted a job, which paid $16 a day, working in a cocaine lab along with 24 others.

But when they were taken to where they were supposed to work, it turned out to be a training camp of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), flush with 75 new recruits. “We were told we were now rebels,” says Phoenix, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“Phoenix,” who escaped three months later, says he never wanted to be a member of Colombia’s largest rebel army, but during his time as a guerrilla, he got a glimpse of the FARC’s plan to regroup after a year of devastating setbacks.

After what he described as a month and a half of grueling training and indoctrination, he was handed an automatic rifle, grenades, and munitions. But he used his training to escape and turn himself in. And though many of his fellow recruits seemed as miserable as he was, he says he thinks many will stay on for lack of better options.

Recruitment and indoctrination are two pillars of the FARC’s Plan Rebirth, launched to breathe new life into the 45-year-old rebel group after a series of serious blows to its command, morale, and finances.

The leftist rebels have suffered seven years of sustained military pressure under conservative President Álvaro Uribe that has seen top leaders killed, mid-level cadres captured, and the dramatic rescue of its top hostages. Hundreds of foot soldiers have deserted, and the FARC’s command and control structure was disrupted.

But with a new leader and leaner ranks, the FARC seems to be retaking the offensive. In early May, the FARC attacked government forces from a variety of different areas of the country, killing at least two dozen soldiers and police officers. In a single day, in fact, the FARC launched attacks in at least four areas, killing six servicemen. Since the start of the year, government forces have clashed with rebels 488 times.

“It’s like a poker game: They’ve lost a few hands and lost a lot of chips, but they still have enough to keep playing,” says Luis Eduardo Celis, an analyst with the Corporacion Nuevo Arco Iris, a security think tank in Bogotá.

The latest hand is being dealt by the FARC’s new leader, Alfonso Cano, who took charge last year after the death – from natural causes – of founding leader Manuel Marulanda.

“In 2009, we must force ourselves to retake the initiative,” Mr. Cano said in a communiqué published in January.

Throughout its history, the FARC have managed to adapt and reinvent themselves, proving resilient to military and political pressures.

The FARC was created by fighters who survived a 1964 Army attack on a small peasant self-­defense force in the mountains of central Colombia. Defining themselves as Marxist-Leninists, FARC members vow to defend the rural poor against the ruling oligarchies.

They have gone from a ragtag band of rebels to a potent army that became a real threat to the state. They have negotiated with four presidents of Colombia, survived paramilitary offensives, and seen their coffers fill with ransom money and proceeds from drugs.

Today, they are Latin America’s largest and longest-running leftist insurgency.

But it’s an insurgency of dwindling numbers. From a peak of an estimated 18,000 fighters in 2002, the FARC now is believed to have only 9,000. The ranks have diminished through combat casualties, captures, and desertions.

As a government strategy, encouraging desertions by offering leniency, protection, and vocational training has been at least as effective as military offensives against the FARC. Last year, 2,940 FARC fighters deserted. By the end of April of this year, there had been 544 desertions.

To make up for the lost fighters, the FARC are luring young unemployed men like “Phoenix.” And part of Plan Rebirth, according to computer files seized by the government that lay out the new strategy, includes reinforcing political indoctrination to deter desertions.

Phoenix describes the FARC unit where he was sent as “well organized.” He says the unit’s commanders seemed convinced that the FARC is fighting for the poor and that they would take power one day.

Another part of the FARC plan is to use land mines and snipers to strike at Army units while avoiding direct combat. Phoenix says the troops were ordered to avoid engaging government forces directly. “We would watch silently as the patrol boats came up the rivers, but we were told not to attack because that could bring an air response,” he says.

Part of the task his unit had was to extend control over the lowlands of Nariño Province, a major corridor for cocaine shipments headed to the United States. “We were told to prepare for a territorial fight,” he says, principally to control the cocaine routes, another part of the new FARC strategy.

“We were told to plant bombs to divert military attention from where the drugs would pass,” he says.

The drug trade remains an important source of financing for the FARC, whose involvement goes from “taxing” production and transport to direct involvement in the processing and shipping of drugs.

At the same time, the FARC continues to seek a “prisoner swap” of its hostages in exchange for jailed rebels.

Following a peak of more than 50 politicians and service members that the FARC considered “swappable” hostages, there have been escapes, rescues, and unilateral releases that have left the rebels with 22 remaining police and Army officers to use as bargaining chips.

In March, Mr. Uribe said that if the guerrillas truly want peace, he would be willing to sit down to talks with the FARC, but only if they did not carry out any “terrorist activity” for four months.

That idea went out the window after rebel ambushes last month.

“The FARC is not close to defeat,” says Markus Schultze-Kraft, Latin America program director for the International Crisis Group, “and under Alfonso Cano is having some success in adapting to the changed strategic scenario and regaining internal cohesion.”

Moscow threw its 16-year campaign for World Trade Organisation membership into doubt

Vladimir Putin said Russia would only join as part of a trade bloc with Kazakhstan and Belarus.

Mr Putin, Russia’s prime minister, said in a joint statement that negotiations for all three countries would begin anew on the basis of the customs zone.

“Our priority remains WTO entry, we confirm this, but already as a customs union and not as separate countries.”

The turnround could add another significant delay to Russia’s entry into the 153-member global trade body just as the European Union had said accession was near after more than a decade of stop-start negotiations. Russia is the largest country outside the trading body.

The WTO said it had not received any notification from Russia or its partners of their wish to change the basis of membership talks.

There are no precedents for negotiating the simultaneous WTO accession of all members of a customs union. It would be within the rules, trade officials say, but the three countries would have to agree a common negotiating position in advance and decide who would speak for the customs union.

“The three countries referred to are at very different stages in accession negotiations. It is difficult to see how the negotiation process can be harmonised,” said one EU source. One person close to another large western WTO member said: “We are in deep shock. It looks like they are trying to brake the process.”

Mr Putin’s announcement that Russia was scrapping talks as an individual nation came days after senior EU and US trade officials held top-level talks at the St Petersburg investment forum in which Russian officials said they were committed to ironing out differences to ensure Russia’s soonest possible entry.

Catherine Ashton, EU trade commissioner, had said Russia and the EU had agreed its WTO accession should be completed by the end of the year. Russia’s accession had long been dogged by issues over EU objections to import duties on timber and cars, while talks with the US had stalled after Russia’s war with Georgia last year.

Mr Putin was speaking after the three former Soviet states agreed to create a long-planned customs zone by January 1 2010.

Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, said the creation of the customs union did not mean Russia was rejecting membership of the WTO “even though the process dragged out and in recent years was more like a feast of promises”.

Igor Shuvalov, the first deputy prime minister, said joining the WTO as a customs zone would speed the process up rather than slow it down.

The EU trade commission said the EU wanted to probe the comments before drawing conclusions, but a spokesman added that during the talks in St Petersburg “the Russian side said it was committed to WTO accession by the end of the year”.

“But should the basic parameters of these negotiations be changed this would create a new situation,” he said.

Sergei Markov, a member of the ruling United Russia party, said that Russia had grown tired of the repeated delays on accession talks which he said were being caused by politicking by Russia’s western partners

By Catherine Belton in Moscow and Frances Williams in Geneva

Making Memories of David Carradine

David Carradine, Star of Kung Fu ,dies at 72

December 8, 1936 – June 3, 2009

Carradine was married five times and had two daughters, Calista Miranda and Kansas. of his first four marriages ended in divorce. On December 26, 2004, he married Annie at the seaside Malibu home of his friend, Michael Madsen. The ceremony was performed by his attorney and his wife’s longtime friend, Vicki Roberts. The marriage lasted until Carradine died.

 

Final fight in Kung Fu: The Movie between David Carradine and Brandon Lee.

 John Arthur Carradine was an American actor, best known for his work in the 1970s television series Kung Fu and more recently in the movie Kill Bill. He appeared in more than 100 feature films and was nominated four times for a Golden Globe Award.

Air France Flight 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris

 

Air France Jet Missing Over Atlantic Ocean 1, June 2009

An Air France jet carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris lost contact with air traffic controllers over the Atlantic Ocean, an Air France official said Monday. Brazil immediately began a search mission off its northeastern coast.

Air France Flight 447, an Airbus A330, was carrying 216 passengers and 12 crew members, company spokeswoman Brigitte Barrand said.

The plane disappeared about 186 miles (300 kilometers) northeast of the coastal Brazilian city of Natal, near the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, an air force spokesman said. Brazil’s air force said a search began Monday morning near Fernando de Noronha, he added, speaking on condition of anonymity in keeping with Air Force policy.

An official with the French government’s transport agency said contact with the plane was lost at 0220 GMT Monday (10:20 p.m. EDT Sunday). The official was not authorized to be named according to agency policy.

Barrand said the airline installed an information center at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport for the families of those aboard.

“Air France regrets to announce that it is without news from Air France flight 447 flying from Rio to Paris,” she said. “Air France shares the emotion and worry of the families concerned.”

The flight was scheduled to arrive in Paris at 0915 GMT (5:15 a.m. EDT), according to the airport.

Airbus declined to comment until more details emerge.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy expressed his “extreme worry” and sent the junior minister for transport, Dominique Bussereau, and Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo to Charles de Gaulle airport to monitor the situation.

Associated Press reporters Emma Vandore, Laurent Lemel and Laurent Pirot reported from Paris.
SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP)

what happend with the air france plane sunday afternoon? nobody knows it.. and we will never found out. ____________________________ ****************************** ********* Air France flight 447…

GAZA -UN starts investigation into human rights violations

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GAZA, June 2  -

A UN investigative team began work in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday to examine claims of human rights violations that are alleged to have occurred during a three-week military offensive by Israeli troops on Gaza in January. The investigative team visited a UN office in Gaza that came under attack during the offensive, met a family, which lost dozens of family members and have also been given documentary evidence of the events in the enclave. The group is working under Hamas-controlled security forces, which has barred journalists from the investigative process. The delegation, which consists of 14 legal experts, is headed by a South African, Richard Goldstone, the former chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. The group is expected to remain in the Gaza Strip until Friday, and then continue their investigation in southern Israel, where Palestinian militants fired mortar rounds on border towns. Israeli authorities have refused to cooperate with the UN investigators. The Israeli Army earlier carried out an investigation into some of the more controversial events in the assault on Gaza, including strikes on a UN office, a hospital and residential areas, targeting of medical personnel and the death of hundreds of civilians, as well as claims the Israeli military used artillery shells containing white phosphorus. The Israeli military said that there was “a very small number of incidents” that could have been considered reconnaissance or operational errors. At least 1,300 Palestinians were killed many of them civilians, during the three-week offensive and some 5,000 people were injured.

RUSSIAN VICTORY DAY Announcement

9 MAY

In the Eastern Bloc, the day of victory over Nazi Germany was celebrated on May 9, ostensibly because when the German Instrument of Surrender actually entered into force (May 8, 1945 at 23:01 CET), it was already May 9 by Moscow Time. Some post-Soviet countries, most notably The Russian Federation, have continued the tradition.

Countries that celebrate the May 9 Victory Day

 Armenia

Azerbaijan

Belarus

Georgia

Kazakhstan

Kyrgyzstan

Moldova

Russia

Tajikistan

Turkmenistan

Ukraine

Uzbekistan,

(UZ) Ubekistan, in 1999 President Islam Karimov redefined the May 9 celebration as “Memorial/Remembrance Day” (Xotira va Qadirlash Kuni), as a commemoration of those who suffered in the war against fascism during World War II and who sacrificed their lives for the freedom of the country.

Russophone population in Baltic states continues to celebrate the May 9 en masse, sometimes with controversy, see Bronze Soldier of Tallinn.

 

In the Russian Federation and some former USSR countries, Victory Day  marks the capitulation of Nazi Germany to the Soviet Union in the Second World War (also known as the Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Union and some post-Soviet states). This surrender document was signed late in the evening on May 8, 1945 (May 9 by Moscow Time), following the original capitulation Germany agreed earlier to the joint Allied forces on the Western Front. The Soviet government announced the victory early on May 9 after the signing ceremony in Berlin. However, only since 1965 the Victory Day has been a holiday.

 

 

History of the VICTORY

Two separate capitulation events took place at the time. First, the capitulation to the Allied nations in Reims was signed on May 7, 1945, effective 23:01 CET May 8. This date is commonly referred to as the V-E Day (Victory in Europe Day) in most western European countries. The other World War II victory day, the V-J day (Victory in Japan Day) is commemorated in August, and is of considerably lesser significance in Europe.

However, the Soviet Union’s only representative in Reims was General Ivan Susloparov, the Military Liaison Mission Commander. General Susloparov’s scope of authority was not entirely clear, and he had no means of immediate contact with the Kremlin, but nevertheless decided to sign for the Soviet side. Susloparov was caught off guard; he had no instructions from Moscow. But if he did not sign, he risked a German surrender without Soviet participation. However, he noted that it could be replaced with a new version in the future. Joseph Stalin was later displeased by these events, believing that the German surrender should have been accepted only by the envoy of the USSR Supreme command and signed only in Berlin and insisted the Reims protocol be considered preliminary, with the main ceremony to be held in Berlin, where Marshal Zhukov was at the time, as the latter recounts in his memoirs:

“

Today, in Reims, Germans signed the preliminary act on an unconditional surrender. The main contribution, however, was done by Soviet people and not by the Allies, therefore the capitulation must be signed in front of the Supreme Command of all countries of the anti-Hitler coalition, and not only in front of the Supreme Command of Allied Forces. Moreover, I disagree that the surrender was not signed in Berlin, which was the center of Nazi aggression. We agreed with the Allies to consider the Reims protocol as preliminary. Stalin

”

 

Therefore, another ceremony was organized in a surviving manor in the outskirts of Berlin late on May 8, when it was already May 9 in Moscow due to the difference in time zones. Field-Marshal Wilhelm Keitel submitted the capitulation of the Wehrmacht to the Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov in the Red Army headquarters in Berlin-Karlshorst. To commemorate the victory in the war, the ceremonial Moscow Victory Parade was held in the Soviet capital on June 24, 1945.

 

  

 

Celebration

During the Soviet Union’s existence, the May 9 Victory Day was celebrated throughout the USSR and in the countries of the Eastern Bloc. It became an official Soviet holiday in 1965.

After the fall of the communism in Central and Eastern Europe, most former USSR countries, retained the celebration as a national holiday. Traditionally, ceremonial military parades are held on the day, such as the one in Moscow on the Red Square.

AFP PHOTO / NTV