fufor's unregelmässige news

Pentagon Declares War on Bad News
Source: Army Times, February 28, 2007

"Soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center's Medical Hold Unit say they have been told they will wake up at 6 a.m. every morning and have their rooms ready for inspection at 7 a.m., and that they must not speak to the media," reports Kelly Kennedy. "It is unusual for soldiers to have daily inspections after Basic Training." An officer told the troops that "they must follow their chain of command when asking for help with their medical evaluation paperwork, or when they spot mold, mice or other problems in their quarters." One Walter Reed staffer said some soldiers saw the changes as "a form of punishment" for talking to reporters. The Washington Post ran an exposé on the poor conditions in Walter Reed's Building 18. But "the Pentagon also clamped down on media coverage of any and all Defense Department medical facilities ... saying in an e-mail to spokespeople: 'It will be in most cases not appropriate to engage the media while this review takes place,' referring to an investigation of the problems at Walter Reed." The president of Military Reporters and Editors told Editor & Publisher that the problem is bigger still: "It is becoming a policy in some areas where they are not allowing reporters on the base unless it is an absolutely positively good news story."
http://tinyurl.com/yumdwm

Berkeley-Prof. Richard Muller in der MIT-Technology-Review
über gefälschte Temperaturanstiegsdiagramme (engl.)
http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/13830/
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Prof. Dr. Hans Labohm:"Klimakatastrophenzweifel – eine Einführung":
http://www.novo-magazin.de/86/novo8624.htm
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Prof. Dr. Horst-Joachim Lüdecke (Dipl.-Physiker), HTW Saarbrücken
"Klimawandel und menschgemachtes CO2 - Über den Einfluß
von anthropogenem CO2 auf unser Klima"
http://www.oekologismus.de/wp-content/upload/CO2_Bericht.pdf
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Die naive Annahme, der Mensch sei Schuld am Klimawandel, hält einen teuren und sinnlosen Kyoto-Wahn am Leben....
http://www.liberalismus-portal.de/klimawandel.htm
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Die Kritiker eines von Menschen verursachten Klimawandels werden mehr und nehmen einen immer breiteren Raum im Internet ein. Hier ist einer Auswahl von Links, die das Thema weiter behandeln.
http://www.liberalismus-portal.de/klimawandellinks.htm
(yahoo.group)

Mugabe's support breaking
March 08, 2007
Jan Raath, Harare

ROBERT Mugabe's party is splintering under the impact of Zimbabwe's catastrophic economic crisis and may remove him from office to avert a bloody political meltdown, an influential think tank said yesterday.

Citing widespread unrest within the Government, International Crisis Group said the situation in Harare was "reminiscent of the last stage of Mobutu's reign in the Congo", a reference to the overthrow of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, who fled his country in 1997 after almost three decades of corrupt and violent rule.

"Economic issues, discontent among underpaid police and troops and the increasing willingness of opposition parties and civil society to protest in the streets all increase the risk of sudden major violence," the Brussels-based ICG said.

The think tank said the realisation among the top echelon of Zanu (PF), the ruling party, that the economic crisis was destroying their own business interests, was likely to persuade them to combine to block the President's attempt to extend his rule by two more years after next year, as a first manoeuvre to shift him out of office.

Mr Mugabe, 83, has been in power since independence from Britain in 1980.

The ICG published its report amid growing evidence that the security forces are struggling to prevent public disorder as shortages of food and other essential goods are exacerbated by the breakdown of the civil administration and by rampant inflation.

The currency yesterday passed $Z10,000 to the US dollar, its lowest level so far.

Zimbabwe Online, an independent internet news service that has effectively taken the place of the country's now-banned free daily press, quoted from a leaked memorandum by Augustine Chihuri, the police commissioner, announcing the cancellation of all police leave and ordering all officers to be ready for riot duty.

One of Mr Chihuri's deputies also ordered lists of "able-bodied" officers from stations outside Harare and the second city, Bulawayo, pending their transfer to the two cities, said Zimbabwe Online.

The orders coincided with outbreaks of violence, unprecedented in the past eight years, in one of the most volatile township areas of Harare on Sunday, where anti-government youths took control for several hours, setting up roadblocks of boulders and burning tyres.

Police admitted yesterday that a group of 16 policemen in Budiriro township had been surrounded and outnumbered by a mob and escaped only by firing teargas. They were unable to make any arrests.

For the past two weeks, much of Harare has been under bans on political rallies and demonstrations similar to a state of emergency.

Outspoken remarks by Mr Mugabe during his birthday celebrations last month showed that he sees enemies not only among the opposition, civic and church bodies but also at the heart of Zanu (PF).

But Mr Mugabe continues to manipulate party organs to ensure he gets their support for his plan to delay presidential elections, due next year, until 2010, and so extend his rule by another two years.
http://tinyurl.com/2v6u6d

BUSH SUGGESTS WAR ON ISLAM IS A CONTINUATION OF AMERICAN REVOLUTION
Wednesday, February 21, 2007

AP - President Bush honored the 275th birthday of the nation's first president on Monday, likening George Washington's long struggle that gave birth to a nation to the war on global terrorism. "Today, we're fighting a new war to defend our liberty and our people and our way of life," said Bush, standing in front of Washington's home and above a mostly frozen Potomac River. "And as we work to advance the cause of freedom around the world, we remember that the father of our country believed that the freedoms we secured in our revolution were not meant for Americans alone.". . . "On the field of battle, Washington's forces were facing a mighty empire, and the odds against them were overwhelming. The ragged Continental Army lost more battles than it won, suffered waves of desertions, and stood on the brink of disaster many times. Yet George Washington's calm hand and determination kept the cause of independence and the principles of our Declaration alive," Bush said on a clear but frigid day, speaking to several hundred people. . . "In the end, General Washington understood that the Revolutionary War was a test of wills, and his will was unbreakable," said Bush. "
http://tinyurl.com/2sdr3f

Psychological torture just as bad, study finds
Damage is equal to that from physical abuse, investigators report.
By Alan Zarembo, Times Staff Writer
March 6, 2007

Degrading treatment and psychological manipulation cause as much emotional suffering and long-term mental damage as physical torture, researchers reported Monday.

Psychiatric evaluations of 279 victims of torture and other abuses from the Balkan wars of the 1990s showed that both types of ill treatment led to similarly high rates of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. The victims themselves rated the psychological tactics on par with the physical abuses they suffered.

The study, published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, grew out of questions about how the Bush administration has interpreted international and U.S. laws as they relate to interrogation of suspected terrorists.

The administration has sought to narrow the definition of torture to only the most extreme forms of physical abuse and psychological tactics resulting in severe, long-term harm. It has argued that some measures — banned under international law as cruel, degrading and inhuman — are acceptable.

The government has softened its stance somewhat, but the debate has continued, with human rights advocates suggesting that the U.S. is too lax in defining "severe" mental suffering and in restricting interrogation methods used by the CIA.

The study shows that "there is no such thing as 'Torture Lite,' " said Dr. Steven Miles of the University of Minnesota's Center for Bioethics, who was not involved in the research.

In response to questions about the study, government officials said U.S. interrogators followed national and international laws on treatment of detainees.

"It would not be appropriate for the Department of Justice to speculate about whether a particular hypothetical act might constitute torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment," Erik Ablin, a spokesman there, said in a statement.

In the wake of scandals at U.S. detention centers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, the military rewrote its field manual.

Several interrogation techniques were explicitly banned, including placing sacks over the heads of prisoners, intimidating detainees with military dogs and withholding food and medical care, said Army Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros, a spokesman for the Defense Department.

Some of those techniques were among the tactics addressed in the study.

The researchers, led by Metin Basoglu, a psychiatrist at King's College in London, interviewed 279 people who suffered various forms of ill treatment as the former Yugoslav federation collapsed into war.

The subjects, from Sarajevo and Banja Luka in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Rijeka in Croatia and Belgrade, the Serbian capital, endured clear examples of torture — such as rape, beatings and electrical shocks — as well as a litany of indignities and psychological tactics, including forced nudity, forced standing, cold showers and blindfolding.

The subjects were asked to rank each abuse on a scale of zero to four in terms of the distress it caused.

The worst physical tortures averaged between 3.2 and 3.9. Falling within the same range were several other forms of mistreatment, including isolation, sham executions, death threats and being pelted with urine or feces.

"Nonphysical stressors during captivity were as distressing and traumatic as stressors involving physical pain," Basoglu said.

The interviews were conducted an average of eight years after the mistreatment.

More than 55% of the subjects were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and 17% were clinically depressed. It made no difference whether the abuse was a clear case of physical torture or forms of psychological manipulation.

What mattered most, Basoglu said, was the degree to which the victim felt a loss of control.

The finding supports suggestions by other experts that people trained to endure torture, such as insurgents or prisoners of war, suffer the least long-term damage.
http://tinyurl.com/27y2eu