Global Traffic Map 2010 The Global Traffic Map depicts voice traffic flows on the world’s largest international calling routes. Accompanying figures and tables provide valuable insight into regional traffic flows, price and revenue trends, top calling destinations, the impact of mobiles on the international voice market, and the scale of Skype.
A new study from Interphone, a study group within the , a segment of the World Health Organization, says there is no increased risk of brain cancer from cell phone use … but then seems to waiver a bit in its position. When it comes to adults, an increased risk of brain cancer is not established…
CS Note: Note this is focused on deterring Israel and is consistent with Turkey's emerging regional grand strategy of rapprochement with its neighbors, in this case Iran and Syria.
Thursday May 13, 2010 by Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies
Turkey has installed Anti-Aircraft Hawk Missiles at a village close to the Syrian border in an attempt to prevent Israeli war jets from violating Turkish Airspace in case of an attack against Iran or Syria.
A Turkish paper reported that Turkey will not allow Israel to use its Airspace to attack Iran, Syria or any other country, and will act against any such violations.
The Anti Aircraft batteries were installed in Kayeel village, south of Turkey and located close to the Syrian b14 Mayorder.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a Turkish military official stated that the batteries are meant to protect Turkey and its Airspace against any violations, including American or Israeli war jets should Israel or the United States decide to attack Iran or Syria.
Turkey Installs Anti-Aircraft Batteries Near Syrian Border
Open video is the idea that the moving image should belong to everyone. This vision requires not only free and open video technologies, but also that viewers are empowered to go beyond just watching—creating, sharing, and engaging in the multimedia public sphere they now inhabit. The Open Video Conference (OVC) is a multi-day summit of thought leaders in business, academia, art, and activism to explore the future of online video. The first Open Video Conference was host to over 800 guests, including 150 workshop leaders, panelists and speakers.
A report by Jonathan Landay and Dion Nissenbaum for McClatchy Newspapers provides important insights into our rapidly diminishing prospects for success in Afghanistan, some direct, others inferential:
First, the direct: the Qandahar operation that General McChrystal began trumpeting in late February is clearly going wobbly before it begins. The promise to demonstrate progress (i.e., to see light at the end of the tunnel) in Afghanistan by this summer is being bow-waved at least into the Fall, during the height of mid-term election season. The scope of the looming operation is also being scaled back, and its goals are being redefined in more ambiguous terms.
. . . . . . .
That the leaders in the United States military believe they can construct a successful strategy based on the premise that outsiders like themselves will be able to manipulate Pashtun leaders like puppets descends into transparent absurdity, when one juxaposes McChrystal’s ambition to the fact, well known among Pashtuns if not Americans, that the United States has contributed directly or indirectly to the murderous horror that has been Afghanistan since 1979.
The American complicity in this horror goes back at least to 1979, when the US National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, established the policy of inflaming Islamic fundamentalists (via the CIA) to destabilize Afghanistan in the hope that the threat of fundamentalist instability on Soviet Union’s vulnerable Central Asian flank would induce the Soviets to invade Afghanistan. Brzezinski’s aim was seduce the Soviets into entrapping themselves in their own Vietnam-like quagmire. The plan worked like a charm, as Brzezinski proudly admitted in a still little appreciated interview in the influential Parisian news magazine, Le Nouvel Observateur (15-21 January 1998, translation
Now, ten years and a lot of stirring later, the details of the script may have changed, but the arrogance of the ignorance shaping the outlook of our leaders has not.
here). When asked if he had any regrets, Brzesinski dismissed the question in a tone that dripped with condescension, “What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?” [see the last two paragraphs of the interview]
It seems like its the same negative reviews coming from the same people who have a seemingly blind support for Israel. Professor Naseer Aruri uses mainstream US, Israeli, and Palestinian sources to analyze whether in fact the United States government has been an honest broker in the Israel-Palestine conflict. According to the mounting evidence, US has in fact NOT been an honest broker, tilting more toward the side of Israel and placing any failure to the peace process on the Palestinians and their representatives. Also according to the documented history, Israel has enjoyed an immunity that is unprecedented in the international arena. For 40 years now, Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza has been uncontested due to the fact that every meaningful international solution to the conflict has been vetoed by the US. US also continues to give over 3 billion dollars in military aid to the Israeli government to continue a very illegal occupation. According to the preambular paragraph of UN Security Council Resolution 242, “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war.” Therefore, Israel's occupation of West Bank and Gaza are illegal by international law. One also should look at Israeli scholars like Tanya Reinhart, Ilan Pape, Simha Flapan, Yosef Gorny, and others to corroborate such information. For human rights abuses that Israeli government commits on Palestinians go to the Israeli human rights organzation B'Tselem and other mainstream human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Once you compare the data to what the book presents and see that its dead on accurate, all the negative reviews on this site will seem ridiculous and show a blind following for Israel right or wrong rather than standing up for the truth regardless of who has it.
The below article by Professor Aruri is an excellent summary of the Palestinian-Israel conflict. It provides yet more information on why the two-state solution is kaput. Had he discussed the water issue, his case would have been even stronger, but this is a nitpick on an excellent analysis that is both clearly and succinctly written.
Phi Beta Iota: The author's bottom line quote and quick link:
Within a few years, Palestinians are likely to constitute a majority in all the territories controlled by Israel today. Already, the prospects of a workable and durable two-state solution have been ruled out. Will the President use the financial resources the US provides Israel as a means of enforcement and pressure? Most likely, no. Finally, if the process fails, will the President be prepared to give a full accounting of why it failed? Again, most likely, no. Perhaps a single state based on the equal protection of the law (as in the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution) could emerge as the only humane alternative to the insufferable status-quo.
Naseer Aruri, is Chancellor Professor (Emeritus) at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. He is the author of
My good friend Marshall Auerback analyzes the currency/debt crisis in in EU, and explains why this creates a situation fundamentally different from that facing nations with sovereign currencies. like Britain, Japan, and United States. It is a distinction that needs to be kept in mind, if the US is have a constructive fiscal policy.
Marshall also concludes that the crisis in the Euro will not be fixed by the recently approved bailout to Greece, because there is a fundamental flaw at the heart of the EU design. His analysis leads to the following conclusion: By establishing a common currency, the individual countries have sacrificed independent monetary policy to a supranational monetary authority. This obviously sacrificed monetary autonomy, but it also paralyzed each country's ability to run counter-cyclical fiscal policies. The only way out of the trap would be (1) to set up a supranational fiscal agency (in effect, with each member giving up de jure fiscal autonomy and placing each country's counter cyclical policy powers under the supreme power of a supranational fiscal agency — in effect reducing each nation's economic sovereignty to a level similar to that held by a state in the United States, or (2) or by getting out of the euro and going back to some arrangement like that of the EU prior to the adoption of the Euro — an arrangement which, readers should remember, led to enormous progress.
Auerback does not examine the political implications of Option 1 (hopefully he devote his prodigious analytical talents to this question in future), but it seems to me that, given the history of nationalism and cultural differences in Europe, Option 1 might lead to political situation somewhat similar to, if not as extreme as, that of Yugoslavia, before it disintegrated in the 1980s. The relatively rich republics of Yugoslavia (Slovenia and Croatia) resented policies that transferred of wealth to the relatively poorer republics, like Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro, or the autonomous region of Kosovo. Once Tito's organizing genius disappeared, the linkages stitching the country together became frayed and eventually snapped as old grievances manifested themselves in newer forms. The same type of evolution could happen to the Europe Union if it underwent a supranational fiscal union, where the rich countries feel they are being unfairly burdened — the beginnings of which are already in evidence.
The great achievement of the EU has been to reduce the probability of violent nationalist conflict among some of its members to a vanishingly small probability while improving the economic lot of its members. Most of this reduction in the propensity toward violence and economic growth took place before the adoption of the Euro. It may be that giving up the Euro is the wiser alternative in the long run, unless someone can synthesize some kind of third option.
CS.
Repeat After Me: the USA Does Not Have a ‘Greece Problem’
