The full dataset viewer is not available (click to read why). Only showing a preview of the rows.
The dataset generation failed
Error code: DatasetGenerationError
Exception: ArrowInvalid
Message: JSON parse error: Missing a closing quotation mark in string. in row 114
Traceback: Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/packaged_modules/json/json.py", line 153, in _generate_tables
df = pd.read_json(f, dtype_backend="pyarrow")
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 815, in read_json
return json_reader.read()
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 1025, in read
obj = self._get_object_parser(self.data)
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 1051, in _get_object_parser
obj = FrameParser(json, **kwargs).parse()
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 1187, in parse
self._parse()
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 1403, in _parse
ujson_loads(json, precise_float=self.precise_float), dtype=None
ValueError: Trailing data
During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1997, in _prepare_split_single
for _, table in generator:
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/packaged_modules/json/json.py", line 156, in _generate_tables
raise e
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/packaged_modules/json/json.py", line 130, in _generate_tables
pa_table = paj.read_json(
File "pyarrow/_json.pyx", line 308, in pyarrow._json.read_json
File "pyarrow/error.pxi", line 154, in pyarrow.lib.pyarrow_internal_check_status
File "pyarrow/error.pxi", line 91, in pyarrow.lib.check_status
pyarrow.lib.ArrowInvalid: JSON parse error: Missing a closing quotation mark in string. in row 114
The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/src/services/worker/src/worker/job_runners/config/parquet_and_info.py", line 1529, in compute_config_parquet_and_info_response
parquet_operations = convert_to_parquet(builder)
File "/src/services/worker/src/worker/job_runners/config/parquet_and_info.py", line 1154, in convert_to_parquet
builder.download_and_prepare(
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1029, in download_and_prepare
self._download_and_prepare(
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1124, in _download_and_prepare
self._prepare_split(split_generator, **prepare_split_kwargs)
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1884, in _prepare_split
for job_id, done, content in self._prepare_split_single(
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 2040, in _prepare_split_single
raise DatasetGenerationError("An error occurred while generating the dataset") from e
datasets.exceptions.DatasetGenerationError: An error occurred while generating the datasetNeed help to make the dataset viewer work? Make sure to review how to configure the dataset viewer, and open a discussion for direct support.
pred_label
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float64 | wiki_prob
float64 | text
string | source
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|---|---|---|---|---|
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Kenny Slaught Discusses Which US States Are Powered By Hoover Dam
The revolutionary dam was built during the American Great Depression between 1931 and 1936, costing the nation $49 million dollars. The dam was initially called Boulder Dam, but was later dubbed Hoover Dam in honor of the then-President Herbert Hoover, who made significant contributions to the construction of this wonderful project. At 221 meters in height, 379 meters in length, and with more than 35.000 cubic kilometers of total capacity, the structure can generate more than 4,2 billion kWh2 per annum, notes Kenny Slaught.
People who are terminally ill as well as their families are offered support at the Hospice of Santa Barbara. These initiatives concentrate on children who experienced the loss of a relative. Around 20 percent of kids lose a close one before turning 18, and one in 20 loses at least a parent before becoming an adult. The Hospice offers many programs that help people cope and minimize the risks of anxiety, depression and PTSD.
Kenny Slaught Discusses Grief Processing Options For Those Facing Terminal Illness
Those terminally ill and their families struggle with anticipatory grief as the event comes close, Kenny Slaught explains. The devoted staff at Hospice of Santa Barbara help families spend their last days together in peace and talk about their feelings. Dealing with grief straight on can improve communication and bring families closer, which can make the grieving process more bearable.
Read more: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/kenny-slaught-applauds-strength-based-034100397.html
Kenny Slaught Notes Hospice Providing Critical Support Services
The Hospice of Santa Barbara helps those with terminal illness as well as their families through its many free programs. Some of those focus on children who cope with a relative dying, as 20 percent of them lose someone close before 18. One in 20 also loses their caretakers before becoming an adult. Kenny Slaught explains that the Hospice helps those who deal with grief avoid depression, anxiety and even PTSD.
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Carroll Gardens writer praises ‘Messy Lives’
January 31, 2013 BrooklynBookBeat
Carroll Gardens resident and writer Katie Roiphe. Photo by Anna Schori.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle recently featured Carroll Gardens resident and writer Katie Roiphe, who has long been known for her courageous writing, whether in the form of personal essays or cultural and literary criticism. Since the publication of “The Morning After: Fear, Sex and Feminism” in 1994, Roiphe’s work has regularly been described as thought-provoking and bold. Her newest book is no exception.
“In Praise of Messy Lives,” Roiphe’s collection of essays published this past fall, includes a stringent critique of the provincial conventions that shape contemporary culture in America. Roiphe examines several topics, including society’s treatment of single mothers and its obsession with Facebook and Mad Men.
Roiphe does not shy away from assessing her own life. Roiphe is as self-aware as she is critical of popular culture, and her essays include autobiographical snippets that analyze her personal life – a “messy life” – including her divorce and her role as a mother.
Roiphe is introspective even in discussing her own writing. In the introduction to “In Praise of Messy Lives,” she admits, “In life I will go very far out of my way to avoid any possible conflict or argument, so it is a little surprising that in my essays I often seem to pick fights, and to offend or otherwise enrage people.” Roiphe’s newest book promises to be a provocative, absorbing and culturally relevant read.
Katie Roiphe is the author of “The Morning After: Fear, Sex and Feminism” and “Uncommon Arrangements: Seven Portraits of Married Life in London Literary Circles 1910 – 1939,” among other books. She has a Ph.D. in literature from Princeton University and is a professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University. She is a columnist for Slate and her writing has been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Paris Review, and Tin House, among other publications. She lives in Brooklyn with her children.
Daily Bookmark Events Non-fiction
Daily Bookmark: Akilah Hughes’s essay collection takes teen drama beyond the obvious
September 5, 2019 September 4, 2019 Alex Williamson
Previous: Brooklyn Book Briefs: Jan. 30
Next: Three’s a crowd: Brooklynite’s new book illustrates sisterly struggles
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Wednesday books in Brooklyn: Jewelry-making and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy
Events Non-fiction
February 5, 2013 BrooklynBookBeat
According to Brooklyn Eagle, This Wednesday, Feb. 6, DUMBO’s powerHouseArena is hosting a new kind of launch party. More than just a book celebration, this event features a jewelry-making workshop with Rosie Wolfenden and Harriet Vine, the founders of the British jewelry line Tatty Devine.
Wolfenden’s and Vine’s new book, “How to Make Jewelry with Tatty Devine,” offers readers a comprehensive guide on designing and producing their own innovative accessories. The book features unusual jewelry designs, including tape measure rosettes and bow-tie necklaces.
The Tatty Devine styles are quirky and unique and have been worn by some of today’s greatest pop culture icons, including Katy Perry and Kelly Osbourne. The designs are handmade in Tatty Devine’s workshops.
Both Wolfenden and Vine graduated from the Chelsea School of Art and began their careers making and selling wrist cuffs. After founding Tatty Devine, the two opened stores in London and began selling their products in retail stores across the U.S.
The event will begin at 7 p.m. Jewelry-making supplies will be provided with book purchase. powerHouse Arena is located at 37 Main St. in DUMBO.
Will Oldham, the actor who is also known as Bonnie “Prince” Billy, will appear this Wednesday, Feb. 6, at Cobble Hill’s BookCourt, in conversation with his longtime friend and associate, guitarist Alan Licht. Oldham, who has been an influential figure in the spheres of both indie rock and indie cinema, will be celebrating the launch of his new book, titled “Will Oldham on Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy.”
Musician Will Oldham, also known as Bonnie “Prince” Billy, will appear at BookCourt on Wednesday, Feb. 6. Photo by Rich Anderson (from Wikimedia Commons).
With Licht, Oldham will discuss his unique approach and contributions to the music industry. The artist, who is known for his mystery and spontaneity, writes about his experience with other captivating figures, including James Earl Jones and Johnny Cash.
Oldham has described this book as a comprehensive exploration of his artistic career. It features a full discography and an in-depth exploration of his life and his work.
The event will begin at 7 p.m. and will feature a reading, audience Q&A, book signing and panel discussion. BookCourt is located at 163 Court St. in Cobble Hill.
Events History
Brooklyn: The Once and Future City | Book Review
November 6, 2019 November 6, 2019 John B. Manbeck
Previous: Three’s a crowd: Brooklynite’s new book illustrates sisterly struggles
Next: Acclaimed author’s new novel features Justin Bieber-like idol
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« Do you ever straddle double Big-Blind bet? Don’t!
Celebrity poker tournament featured at Caesars »
‘Wynning’ approach to success at Wynn Poker Room
Location really is everything, especially in the world of casino gambling. At Wynn, that means loads of traffic with a Ferrari dealership and a race and sports book in eyesight.
“Wynn has a different vibe to it,” said Joe Vigurs, who at just 32 years old has one of the plum jobs in the poker world – director of operations at a Steve Wynn resort. “I’ve never felt more at home at a property. I can’t explain it in words.”
Before getting to the “Steve Factor,” more on location. Second floor self-parking basically leads you right into the poker room. If that isn’t enough incentive to lure players, there’s not much in the way of wonderfully noisy slot machines to distract train of thought.
“The location is the best of anywhere on the Strip,” said Vigurs, who previously worked at Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods in Connecticut, and Seminole Hard Rock and West Palm Beach Kennel Club in Florida before arriving in Las Vegas at The Venetian and ultimately Wynn. “The Ferrari dealership is an attraction. A lot of people take that tour and then come in the poker room.”
And the traffic is very good and steady.
“Vegas is still the pinnacle of poker,” Vigurs said. “Some would take California, but when you see it (the Strip) on TV you think WSOP. The big name players still play in Vegas.”
Wynn’s room has 26 tables, is open 24 hours daily and holds weekly poker tourneys. The biggest is the Wynn Classic, which guaranteed a $250,000 prize pool with a $500 buy-in.
“Tournaments have grown,” Vigurs said. “For a small buy-in you can build a decent bankroll in one or two day’s time.”
And then there’s that Steve Wynn touch – a part of everything classy in Las Vegas, be it here, his sister Encore property, or formerly owned Mirage or Golden Nugget downtown.
“When Steve speaks to us in our quarterly management meetings, I don’t walk out of there with anything less than chills,” Vigurs said. “It inspires me to improve on what we are doing every day. Our motto we constantly follow here is never be complacent.”
Vigurs first became interested in poker growing up as a child in West Hartford, Conn., where his father taught him stud on the kitchen table with Bicycle chips.
“I always held a deck of cards and played all kinds of games in the house,” he said. “When I went to dealing school at 19, I never thought I would get into poker that far. Being a poker director was overwhelming at first, but now it is very fulfilling to know what I do matters.”
Vigurs believes poker has become more player friendly than in the past and is helping bring more money into the gaming industry.
“Not as cut throat as it used to be,” he said. “The game is enticing more mid-players to play. And, I believe on-line poker will benefit us.”
Would Wynn ever want to host the WSOP?
“I’m not even going to speculate on that one,” Vigurs said. “There’s no doubt all the poker rooms in town benefit during the time WSOP is here. I’m just happy to have had the opportunity at a young age and stuck with it.”
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The Kyrgyz Republic joined ADB in 1994, and ADB’s resident mission in the Kyrgyz Republic was established in April 2000, enhancing ADB’s capacity for policy dialogue, programming, and project implementation. Since joining ADB, the Kyrgyz Republic has received $791.2 million in Asian Development Fund (ADF) loans, $256.1 million in ADF and Japan Fund for Poverty...
The Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) is a group of private, international, non-denominational development agencies working to improve the welfare and prospects of people in the developing world, particularly in Asia and Africa. The AKDN works in over 30 countries around the world and employs over 80,000 people, the majority of whom are based in developing countries.
The Department for International Development (DFID) is the UK Government Department that is responsible for assisting partner countries to promote sustainable development and reduce poverty. The central focus of DFID’s policy, based on the 1997, 2000 and 2005 White Papers on International Development is a commitment to the internationally agreed Millennium Development...
EBRD has worked in the Kyrgyz Republic since 1993 and has provided approximately Euro 200 million in financing 49 projects. In 2005-2006, the Bank has signed 20 projects and provided Euro 37 million of new financing. The Bank also has continued an array of TC projects. In 2007-2008, the Bank expects to maintain a similar level of funding, although this figure could increase if supported...
The European Union (EU) is represented in the Kyrgyz Republic by a Delegation of the European Union which is headed by Ambassador Mrs Chantal Hebberecht.
EU Assistance. The EU has been providing assistance to the Kyrgyz Republic in the implementation of political and economic reforms since the Kyrgyz Republic gained sovereignty in 1991.
Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) manages the EurAsEC Anti-Crisis Fund. EDB is an international financial organization founded by the Presidents of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation in January 2006. It is established to promote economic growth in its member-states, extend trade and economic ties between them and to support integration in Eurasia.
Germany and Kyrgyzstan have interacted in the area of development cooperation since Kyrgyzstan gained its independence. The cooperation with Kyrgyzstan facilitates the implementation of the “Strategy of New Partnership with Central Asian Countries” initiated in 2007 in the context of the German EU Council Presidency, based on the Central Asian Concept of the Federal Ministry for...
The Kyrgyz Republic joined IFC in 1993 and presently holds 0.07% of its equity. IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, is the largest global development institution focused exclusively on the private sector. Working with private enterprises in about 100 countries, we use our capital, expertise, and influence to help eliminate extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity.
The Kyrgyz Republic (Kyrgyzstan) became a member of the International Monetary Fund on May 8, 1992, with an initial quota of SDR 43 million (about US$59 million). In 1995 Kyrgyzstan’s quota was increased to SDR 64.5 million (about US$96 million) and in 1999 to SDR 88.8 million (about US$115 million).
The Kyrgyz Republic accepted the obligations of Article VIII...
Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) as implementing agency of Official Development Assistance (ODA) of the Government of Japan from the time of its establishment (1974) contributes to the socioeconomic development and human resources development for facilitating independent and sustainable development of the developing countries.
The Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) was established under the KOICA Act in 1991 to deliver the task of implementing Korea’s grant aid programs and promoting international cooperation. Its mission is to address global development issues by pursuing global harmony and facilitating the sustainable socio-economic development of our partner countries...
Mercy Corps is a leading global organization powered by the belief that a better world is possible. In disaster, in hardship, in more than 40 countries around the world, we partner to put bold solutions into action — helping people triumph over adversity and build stronger communities from within. Now, and for the future.
Finnish development aid and cooperation in Kyrgyzstan and Central Asia 2014-2017 Finland executes the concept of Wider European Initiative in Kyrgyzstan and Central Asia. Wider European Initiative (WEI) was established in 2008 as framework for Finland's bilateral development aid and cooperation...
the OSCE role as primary instrument for early warning, conflict prevention, crisis management and post-conflict rehabilitation, promote the implementation of OSCE principles and commitments as well as the co-operation of the Kyrgyz Republic within the OSCE framework with special emphasis on the regional context, in all OSCE dimensions, including the economic...
Swiss Cooperation with Kyrgyzstan began in 1993 shortly after Kyrgyzstan became independent and joined the Swiss-led voting group at the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. This special relationship was among the reasons for which Kyrgyzstan became one of the... focal partners for Swiss Cooperation...
The Soros Foundation-Kyrgyzstan (SFK) - an international non-governmental private foundation - aims to create conditions in the Kyrgyz Republic for an open society by supporting the development of public institutions and initiatives in all spheres of public life. An open society means: freedom and diversity of opinion in all spheres of life, development of the rule of law and...
The Turkish International Cooperation and Development Administration (TIKA) under the Office of Prime Minister of Turkey was established in 1992 after collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern European Socialist Alliance with the purpose of providing technical assistance for developing countries and establishing relations with them in areas of economy, trade, technology...
Kyrgyzstan became a full member of the United Nations on March 2, 1992. In accordance with Kyrgyzstan’s request to begin the implementation of projects and programmes in the country, the first bilateral agreements were signed with the UNICEF and UNDP mid-1992. The first UN Resident Coordinator arrived to Kyrgyzstan in February 1993, and the Representative Office of the UN...
Since 1992, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has been providing assistance to the Kyrgyz Republic to help the country achieve substantial progress in the areas of economic growth, democratic governance, health care reform, improvement of basic education, and agricultural development. However, impediments to development remain, including low...
The World Bank is one of the world's largest sources of funding and knowledge for transition and developing countries. Its primary focus is on helping the poorest people and the poorest countries. The Bank's Mission is to fight poverty with passion and professionalism for lasting results. The World Bank was established concurrently with the International Monetary Fund...
Russian Kyrgyz Development Fund was established and operates now in accordance with the Agreement between the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic and the Russian Federation "On Russian Kyrgyz Development Fund" dated November 24, 2014.
KfW Development Bank carries out its work on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Co-operation and Development (BMZ). KfW finances investment and accompanying advisory services in developing and transition countries. In our projects, we work together closely with the organizations of technical cooperation.
The Eurasian Fund for Stabilization and Development (EFSD, before known as the EURASEC Anti-Crisis Fund) is a regional financial arrangement in the amount of US$ 8.5 billion. It was established by Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan in 2009.
EFSD mission is to help member countries ensure...
The services delivered by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH (German federal enterprise for international cooperation) draw on a wealth of regional and technical expertise and tried and tested management know-how. As a federal enterprise, we support the German...
Development partners in Kyrgyz Republic
Click on interested agency for more information about activities and contact details
The Development Partners Coordination Council (DPCC) has been established with the purpose of improving multi-way flow of relevant information among donors, government agencies and civil society institutions. This facilitates networking and broader collaboration within the donor community, a more constructive dialogue and shared vision with the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic on country’s priorities, and serves to strengthen overall aid coordination and management.
01 February 2023 г.
The Electricity Sector in the Kyrgyz Republic to Benefit from Support from the World Bank and the Government of Switzerland
Bishkek, 31 January 2023 – The Ministry of Finance of the Kyrgyz Republic and the World Bank today signed an agreement for an $8 million grant funding provided by the Swiss Government as a contribution to the Electricity Sector Modernization and Sustainability Project led by the World Bank.
The Grant Agreement was signed by Mr. Almaz Baketaev, Minister of Finance of the Kyrgyz Republic, on behalf of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Kyrgyz Republic, and Mr. Naveed Hassan Naqvi, World Bank’s Country Manager for the Kyrgyz Republic, in the presence of the Ambassador of Switzerland to the Kyrg...
Switzerland allocates over USD 9 million to support most vulnerable rural communities in climate change and disaster risks resilience
The Ambassador of Switzerland to the Kyrgyz Republic Olivier Bangerter and the Representative and Country Director of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) Mr. Kojiro Nakai have signed an agreement on the contribution from the Government of Switzerland to the WFP’s Country Strategic Plan for 2023-2027 (CSP). The First Deputy Minister of Emergency Situations of the Kyrgyz Republic Mr. Azamat Mambetov took part in the signing assuring the commitment to support and proactively participate in the implementation.
The Government of Switzerland will allocate over USD 9 million for the WF...
Go to the News section
Reports and studies of development partners
REPORT ON THE RESULT OF A SURVEY ON THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON YOUTH IN KYRGYZSTAN
This report presents the results of a survey conducted among urban and rural youth and adolescents on the impact of COVID-19 on income, work and employment, social protection, education and health, as well as the psychological state of young people. The report looks at the impact of youth challenges and problems caused by the pandemic from a gender and age perspective. In addition, data on vulnerable groups are presented separately, which include young people living with HIV/AIDS, those with limited health opportunities, and children of migrants. The main research tool was a quantitative survey of young people aged 15-29 years. The data collection took place from 3 to 13 June 2020 and covered all regions of the country.
Jobs in the Kyrgyz Republic
Job creation is not keeping pace with the rapidly growing population. Kyrgyz Republic’s potential workforce is growing at about 2 percent per annum – faster than some of its neighbors in Europe and Central Asia. Fertility rates in Kyrgyz Republic have increased since 2000, from 2.4 to 3.2 in 2014. An estimated 50,000 new entrants join the labor market each year. By 2030, the working-age population is expected to reach around 4.6 million persons. Acknowledging the challenging economic and political environment in the Kyrgyz Republic, the report offers realistic policy recommendations for addressing some of the most critical issues to improving jobs outcomes in the short run while noting that some policies will take time to develop and implement.
KYRGYZ REPUBLIC FOURTH AND FIFTH REVIEWS UNDER THE THREE-YEAR ARRANGEMENT UNDER THE EXTENDED CREDIT FACILITY
On December 15, 2017, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) completed the fourth and fifth reviews of the Kyrgyz Republic’s economic performance under the three-year Extended Credit Facility (ECF) arrangement. The Board’s completion of the reviews enables the immediate disbursement of an amount equivalent to SDR 19.028 million (about US$26.9 million). This would bring total disbursements under the arrangement to an amount equivalent to SDR 57.084 million (about US$80.7 million). “The Kyrgyz economy is showing welcoming signs of recovery as the external environment is gradually improving. While significant risks remain, debt and financial sector vulnerabilities have subsided. The authorities are committed to prudent macroeconomic policies and implementation of structural reforms, and see them as essential to promoting higher and more inclusive growth and to increase economic resiliency.
IMF Country Report No. 18/53
KYRGYZ REPUBLIC THIRD REVIEW UNDER THE THREE-YEAR ARRANGEMENT UNDER THE EXTENDED CREDIT FACILITY
On December 14, 2016, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) completed the third review of the Kyrgyz Republic’s economic performance under the threeyear Extended Credit Facility (ECF) arrangement. The Board’s approval enables the immediate disbursement of SDR 9.514 million (about US$12.9 million). This would bring total disbursements under the arrangement to SDR 38.056 million (about US$51.5 million). The ECF arrangement for SDR 66.6 million (about US$92.4 million) was approved on April 8, 2015. “While pressures on the economy are moderating, the near–term outlook remains challenging. A subdued external environment and weak domestic demand are constraining growth prospects. Debt and financial sector vulnerabilities remain elevated.
IMF Country Report No. 17/143
KYRGYZ REPUBLIC SECOND REVIEW UNDER THE THREE-YEAR ARRANGEMENT UNDER THE EXTENDED CREDIT FACILITY
On June 17, 2016, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) completed the second review of the Kyrgyz Republic’s economic performance under the three-year Extended Credit Facility (ECF) arrangement. The Board’s approval enables the immediate disbursement of SDR 9.514 million (about US$13.4 million). This would bring total disbursements under the arrangement to SDR 28.542 million (about US$40.3 million). “The Kyrgyz authorities have been able to maintain their Fund-supported program broadly on track despite persistent external shocks, including lower commodity prices as well as weaker growth and currencies in trading partners.
KYRGYZ REPUBLIC STAFF REPORT FOR THE 2015 ARTICLE IV CONSULTATION AND FIRST REVIEW UNDER THE THREE-YEAR ARRANGEMENT
On December 4, 2015, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) completed the first review of the Kyrgyz Republic’s economic performance under the three-year arrangement under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF). The Board’s approval enables the immediate disbursement of SDR 9.5 million (about US$13.2 million). This would bring total disbursements under the arrangement to SDR 19 million (about US$26.4 million). “The Kyrgyz authorities have managed successfully to keep the program largely on track despite that the economy continues to face adverse external and domestic shocks. The economic slowdown, currency depreciations in the region, and falling gold prices and remittances have reduced economic growth, worsened external and fiscal balances, and weakened debt sustainability. Budgetary slippages linked to the October elections have also weakened the fiscal situation.
Kyrgyz Republic: Request for a Three-Year Arrangement Under the Extended Credit Facility-Staff Report
Performance under the previous Extended Credit Facility (ECF) arrangement, which expired last July, was good. Macroeconomic stability was restored, fiscal consolidation was stronger than planned, monetary policy was enhanced through a new interest rate-based framework, and supervision was strengthened in the financial sector. Nevertheless, the economy is facing challenges: (i) a weak regional economic environment, (ii) some key reforms have yet to be implemented, particularly in PFM and the banking sector, and (iii) a higher public debt due to the materialization of an ambitious investment program. Accession to the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) is expected to take effect in May, and parliamentary elections are slated for late 2015. Program objectives.
Economic Report KR - WB
Medium term growth is expected to moderate to 5 percent, however, a number of risks remain. The
exceptional performance of gold output in 2013 is unlikely to be repeated in 2014. The rest of the economy is
expected to continue expanding at 5–6 percent. A slowdown in the Russian economy, declining gold prices,
and uncertainty created by the recent fluctuations in the exchange rate could adversely affect this outcome.
Economic Report KR - World Bank
IMF POLICY PAPER: REPORT ON FISCAL SAFEGUARDS PILOTS
This paper reports on the results of a pilot exercise on fiscal safeguards conducted by the Fiscal Affairs Department (FAD) during FY2013. The exercise was launched following an independent review of the existing safeguards policy in 2010 in which many Directors encouraged staff to highlight fiscal safeguards risks in cases where a substantial portion of the resources provided by the Fund for balance of payments support is channeled to state treasuries for budget purposes. Pilot fiscal safeguards exercises were conducted for five countries: Antigua and Barbuda, Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, and Kyrgyz Republic.
Go to the section "Reports and studies"
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← The SEC, the ICO and Avoiding the ICU: A Call for Leadership and Action
SEC Regulation A+, ICOs and Small Business Capital Formation: For Whom the Bells Toll? →
Posted on July 30, 2018 by Samuel Guzik
[Originally Published in Crowdfund Insider on November 12, 2017]
Man Proposes and God Disposes
On November 8, at an Annual New York City gathering of securities professionals, SEC Chair Jay Clayton went off script – and in doing so provided what is likely to be the clearest guidance we can expect to receive from the SEC in the very near future on the much debated question: when are “coins” or “tokens” securities – or not?
The consequences of guessing wrong on this one are serious and unforgiving – to both coin “issuers” and investors. There is no margin for error – and the price for those who choose to go it alone – without seasoned securities counsel – will not be insignificant.
Only two days before Jay Clayton’s remarks, in an article I penned on Crowdfund Insider calling for the SEC to provide greater regulatory clarity on the scope of its jurisdiction over ICOs, I mused:
“I obviously cannot speak for the SEC’s new Chair, Jay Clayton. But I can hope to influence thought – and perhaps successfully make the case that, as far as the jurisdiction of the SEC is concerned, we are in the midst of a crisis. And the answer is not simply general pronouncements or stepped up enforcement. What the ICO marketplace needs, at the very least, is detailed, authoritative guidance on some very basic securities issues.”
Two days later, though his remarks were lacking in detail – they were not lacking in substance or impact.
The ICO industry is now doing “damage” assessment – expect to see a great deal of industry head spinning – and pivoting.
Well, the Chair of the SEC just cut right to the chase on Wednesday, bypassing committees and formal rulemaking. His official, scripted remarks provided no new insight. But the repetition of earlier, similar SEC caveats to the ICO markets was in and of itself significant:
The Official Remarks:
Initial Coin Offerings.There is also a distinct lack of information about many online platforms that list and trade virtual coins or tokens offered and sold in Initial Coin Offerings, or ICOs. Through these platforms, individual investors can buy and sell tokens in the secondary market using virtual or fiat currencies. But investors often do not appreciate that ICO insiders and management have access to immediate liquidity, as do larger investors, who may purchase tokens at favorable prices. Trading of tokens on these platforms is susceptible to price manipulation and other fraudulent trading practices.
The Commission recently warned that instruments, such as “tokens,” offered and sold in ICOs may be securities, and those who offer and sell securities in the United States must comply with the federal securities laws. The Commission also cautioned that any person or entity engaging in the activities of an exchange must register as a national securities exchange or operate pursuant to an exemption from such registration. In addition to requiring platforms that are engaging in the activities of an exchange to either register as national securities exchanges or seek an exemption from registration, the Commission will continue to seek clarity for investors on how tokens are listed on these exchanges and the standards for listing; how tokens are valued; and what protections are in place for market integrity and investor protection.
His unscripted remarks were more impactful, as reported by Dave Michaels at the Wall Street Journal. In an article entitled “SEC Chief Fires Warning Shot Against Coin Offerings,” it reported:
“’I have yet to see an ICO that doesn’t have a sufficient number of hallmarks of a security,’ Mr. Clayton said in an unscripted remark delivered in the middle of a speech at the Institute on Securities Regulation in New York Wednesday .
And the conclusion drawn by the Wall Street Journal:
“Mr. Clayton’s remarks suggest firms using the coin offerings, also known as ICOs, to raise cash in the U.S. may need to register the deals with the SEC and provide investors with extensive disclosure documents, depending on how broadly they market them. Startups that once conducted virtually unregulated token sales will likely have to consult lawyers and other gatekeepers to advise them on how to navigate laws and rules overseen by the SEC.”
An article published on CoinList had a different take:
“Implications of SEC registry means teams of attorneys for future ICOs.”
Taking a Page from the SEC’s Israeli Counterpart
Earlier that day we heard from Chair Clayton’s Israeli counterpart, Professor Shmuel Hauser, Chair of the Israel Securities Authority (ISA), from a Fintech conference in Tel Aviv, with his measured assessment of the ICO market:
“We’re going to look at the ICO industry on a case by case basis, not ban it altogether.
But first, we have to decide whether it’s a financial tool that falls under our jurisdiction. If it’s a coin and not a security, it doesn’t fall under our jurisdiction. Maybe we can regulate it through corporate laws, but not necessarily by securities laws.
I’m bothered by the lack of transparency in the ICO industry. I say to the investors – beware! It might be a bubble. And as for us, I say that what is legal now, might be illegal tomorrow.
ICOs are a part of a welcomed evolution in the funding industry. But it needs to be properly managed and regulated.”
Unlike the SEC, however, the Israeli ICA has already formed a special committee to study this area, and its findings and recommendations are expected to be reported by the end of the year – this year.
Though it is too soon to expect any formal rulemaking or interpretive releases in the US, the Commission ought to engage with industry stakeholders on a formal basis – attorneys, computer geeks, game theorists, state regulators and economists, to name a few – whether it be by way of an ad hoc advisory committee or industry roundtable. This area is complex – and practical solutions require multi-disciplinary input.
There is of course the obvious question – when should a token offering be under SEC jurisdiction?
Notwithstanding recent remarks by Chair Clayton, it is not sufficient for issuers to simply “play it safe” and find an available SEC exemption under which to conduct their “crowdsale.” US issuers will require liquid, SEC compliant secondary markets if this market is to grow and thrive under SEC regulation.
On this, tZero, a subsidiary of Overstock.com, may be the first out of the gate – recently approved by the SEC – as a registered Alternative Trading System (ATS), expected to be up and running by mid to late 2018. But to be listed for trading on tZero, your token will have to be a “security” under SEC rules. If it is not, tZero risks being shut down by the SEC as a non-compliant ATS. So unless your token is “clearly” a security, determined in the first instance by tZero, your token may wind up trading in a gray cloud somewhere.
So it is not enough for coin issuers to play it safe and find an available SEC exemption, such as a Regulation A+ offering to the public or Regulation D offering limited to accredited investors. Nor can issuers simply (safely) take the position that their tokens are not securities if they have “utility” – once the issuer launches its network – as many have done thus far.
Absent clear guidance from the SEC, rightly or wrongly, your token may find itself shut out of secondary securities markets.
In the meantime, the only safe route for any US based company seeking to conduct an ICO is to consult seasoned securities attorneys and investment professionals, and plot your best course forward in these uncharted waters.
Samuel S. Guzik, a Senior Contributor to Crowdfund Insider, is a corporate and securities attorney and business advisor with the law firm of Guzik & Associates, with more than 30 years of experience in private practice. Guzik is also former President and Board Chair of the Crowdfunding Professional Association (CfPA) and CfPA Legislative & Regulatory Special Counsel. A nationally recognized authority on the JOBS Act, including Regulation D private placements, investment crowdfunding and Regulation A+, he is and an advisor to legislators, researchers and private businesses, including crowdfunding issuers, service providers and platforms, on matters relating to the JOBS Act. As an advocate for small and medium sized business, he has engaged with major stakeholders in the ongoing post-JOBS Act reform, including legislators, industry advocates and federal and state securities regulators. In 2014, some of his speaking engagements have included leading a Crowdfunding Roundtable in Washington, DC sponsored by the U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy, a panelist at the MIT Sloan School of Business 2014 Crowdfunding Roundtable, and a panelist at a national bar association event which included private practitioners, investor advocates and officials of NASAA. His articles on JOBS Act issues, including two published in the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation, have also served as a basis for post-JOBS Act proposed legislation. Mr. Guzik was also instrumental in the passage of legislation in 2016 calling for the creation of an independent office of small business advocate at the SEC, and was the first person to advocate publicly for this legislation – on the pages of Crowdfund Insider.
This entry was posted in Capital Raising, Corporate Governance, Corporate Law, General, SEC Developments, Security Tokens/ICOs. Bookmark the permalink.
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THE DARK KNIGHT RISES and what comes next...
WARNING: SPOILERS APLENTY!
When it comes to comic book movies for which I have an attachment to the source, I usually try to keep my expectations within reason. I make an effort to avoid spoilers while gobbling up teases, hints and speculation. Regardless of whether or not the advance promotion seems promising, I bear the scars of too many films like GREEN LANTERN and SUPERMAN RETURNS to fall prey to unfettered enthusiasm. Even if it’s a sequel to a movie I enjoyed, I still gird myself for the worst (especially when it comes to tertiary installments).
But with THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, my expectations were… enormous. Through the roof enormous. But let’s face it, aside from the contrarians, whose weren’t? Christopher Nolan’s first two films in his Batman trilogy were exemplary genre storytelling, the first a novel take on an oft-told tale, the second a near-perfect film that transcended its source and elevated the genre. And with this third entrant, we were promised a true anomaly in a superhero adaptation: an ending to the story. All bets were off, nobody was safe, and it was almost certain that the movie wouldn’t close with the Caped Crusader swinging off into the endless night.
It didn’t. And while nobody from the pantheon died (although I feared for Commissioner Gordon and Lucius Fox at a few points), this film brings an epic, satisfying, emotional close to the story of Bruce Wayne’s mission to avenge his parents’ murder, save Gotham City and maybe even find some semblance of inner peace and happiness.
If you’re asking for a qualitative review of the film on its own, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES is not as good as THE DARK KNIGHT, but better than BATMAN BEGINS. Here are a few issues: There are, as always, a few leaps of logic that would seem to be unavoidable when trying to make a realistic film about a man who dresses up like a bat and fights urban crime. Batman spends more time being beaten than he does triumphant (and recovers a little too nicely more than once). There’s a bit of a tendency for speechmaking in the place of dialogue. The technology is a tad over the top this time around (for the first time in one of these films, you kinda can imagine the Justice League existing). And the climactic nuclear bomb threat would feel stale in the hands of a lesser filmmaker.
But that’s the thing: It wasn’t in the hands of a lesser filmmaker. This trilogy was in the supremely capable hands of one of the greatest directors working today, a filmmaker who fits the visionary bill to a natty T. Like Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, the Coen Brothers and Quentin Tarantino, Christopher Nolan has mastered the most important aspects of being a director: Crafting a complete vision (that encompasses every aspect of the process, from story to cinematography, art direction, music, acting, editing, effects... all of it) and then successfully communicating said vision to your collaborative partners, resulting in a creative synthesis that permeates the movie. When this happens, regardless of the genre, budget or original impetus, movies can become art.
“Art,” of course, is subjective, and while I’m sure I’m going to inspire some eye-rolls and sneers with this statement, The DARK KNIGHT trilogy is a work of cinematic art.
I’ve now seen THE DARK KNIGHT RISES twice, and it’s one of those movies that benefits from repeated viewings, particularly if you’re someone who enters the theater with preconceptions, predictions and a heaping of emotional investment. It’s not that the story is hard to follow (Nolan and his screenwriting partners are excellent at making their stories intricate without being impenetrable). But there is a lot of story, a lot of characters and a lot of tension to be taken in all at once. It’s one fast two and three quarter hours.
From the opening sequence—Bane’s carefully planned and executed escape from a CIA plane—it’s obvious that once again, this is going to be one hell of a ride. Nolan’s preference for in-camera effects over CG pays off again and again. The action is shudderingly great and there are hundreds of gorgeous shots in this movie (Batman attacking in the sewers under strobing light springs to mind), none of them superfluous or hollow (unlike Tim Burton’s penchant for staging imagery that looks great in stills, but doesn’t serve the story or the actors at all). Hans Zimmer’s score picks up where he and former collaborator James Newton Howard left off, expanding a melancholy, yet brawny and at times exhilarating musical background to the series.
That the cast is amazing almost goes without saying. Would any of these films have worked as well without the supporting triumvirate of Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman? Sure, the oft-mentioned metaphor of Alfred, Lucius and Jim Gordon being Batman’s heart, brain and soul sounds cheesy when said out loud, but couldn’t be more apt. They serve to both ground and enhance Christian Bale’s alternately laid back and intense performance. And as the man who would be Robin (or Nightwing or Batman II or whatever), Joseph Gordon-Levitt displays earnestness and intelligence that make us believe Bruce would give him the keys to the Batmobile—er, the Tumbler.
Batman & Talia from BATMAN #244
Regarding the most-maligned element of the series, I don’t have much to say about Bale’s bat-growling. Do I love it? No. It can be distracting. But I don’t hate it. Sure, he could’ve dialed it down just a notch, and I can see how it bothers people in the audience who aren’t as invested in the character or the story, but I’m cool with it (and it’s lots of fun to imitate).
But what about Thomas Hardy’s musical lilt as Bane? Now that I loved. It seemed to me at least partly inspired by Javier Bardem’s Anton Chigurh from NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (another piece of bleak yet inspiring art). When I first heard that Bane had been selected as the primary villain for this third film, I was surprised. The comic book version of the character is decidedly over-the-top, and while I assumed that Nolan would dispatch the power-enhancing venom of the comics, cartoons and, ahem, BATMAN & ROBIN, I wondered if the character would be a threatening enough presence.
Silly me. But as good an adversary as Bane is, I whooped with excitement when the true villain was revealed (even if I, and a legion of other Batnerds had already suspected it). While little known in the mainstream, Talia al Ghul has been a major part of the Batman comics since she was introduced in DETECTIVE COMICS #411 in 1971 as the alluring daughter of Ra’s al Ghul (she and Batman even have a son, Damian, who eventually became the fifth Robin). As a young fanboy in the Bronze Era, I was startled by the sensuality of the character and the obvious physical connection she had with Batman, especially as drawn by Neal Adams in some of the best Batman books of all time. Marion Cotillard’s reveal as the mastermind behind the entire plot brings everything into focus, adding depth to the film and the trilogy as a whole.
As for the political context of the movie, I have to believe Nolan when he claims that, aside from tapping into the inescapable issue of financial inequity which places Bruce Wayne—at least temporarily—in the 1%, there’s no agenda behind THE DARK KNIGHT RISES. But I will say that one of my favorite lines in the film is when Bane responds to a stock trader’s claims that there’s nothing to rob at the exchange with, “Then why are you here, brother?”
While over-analytical fanboys had long suspected the true identities of the roles both Cotillard and Joseph Gordon-Levitt were playing, few predicted that Anne Hathaway would be so good as Selina Kyle (never once called the Catwoman in the film). While she perhaps over/underplays some of her more portentous lines, she is utterly believable as the smart, capable, jaded and conflicted anti-hero from the comics (and she does look good in that catsuit). Hell, for once, even the high heels make sense (even if they do—as always—vanish during some of the action scenes).
Once again, Nolan and his screenwriting partners (his brother Jonathan Nolan and David S. Goyer) have done a masterful job of taking various elements from the comics and adapting them to fit the context of this series. There’s enough here to keep the fanboys happy (“I broke you!”) while bowing to the needs of moviemaking for a mainstream audience. I never in a million years would’ve thought you could incorporate both NO MAN’S LAND and KNIGHTFALL (two vast Batman tales) into a movie and make it work. And yet it does.
I did feel that the shifting of Gotham from Chicago to New York (and a few other cities in some shots) was a bit jarring. I loved the usage of the Windy City (do Chicagoans hate that nickname like those of us in NYC hate “the Big Apple?” If so, let me know) in the first two films, it’s a beautiful, distinctive city that’s not been overused enough to beg disbelief (unlike New York subbing for Metropolis in the SUPERMAN movies). I kind of understand the reasoning, from a story perspective. The plot necessitates that the city be completely, physically isolated, and that can only happen on an island (which Chicago is not). But if CG technology can add some more bridges between New Jersey and Manhattan (oh, if only!), then surely it could be employed in some manner to cut Chicago off from landlocked interference.
But the transplanted Gotham is a minor irritant. My only real point of contention with THE DARK KNIGHT RISES is one of scope… Not of this film, this thing’s gargantuan (almost too much so). Rather, the issue is the breadth of the career of the Christopher Nolan Batman. It’s too short.
How long was this Bruce Wayne actually in service as the Batman? In TDKR, it’s mentioned that Batman was in action for “years.” But it’s hard to imagine it was more than two at most. In the last film, when the Joker confronts the mob bosses, he says, “Let’s wind the clocks back a year. These cops and lawyers wouldn’t dare cross any of you,” indicating that Batman’s only had a resounding impact on crime for less than twelve months. It’s reasonable to assume that TDK doesn’t pick up right after the end of BATMAN BEGINS (despite that film’s closing tease of the Joker’s calling card), but it couldn’t have been too long between the first and second film. And then, at the end of THE DARK KNIGHT, Batman disappears (or at least makes his “last reported sighting”) for eight years. So, Batman’s been gone for more than four times longer than he was fighting crime in Gotham City. Harvey Dent’s legacy is greater than Batman’s, and while I guess that was the point, it’s kind of unsatisfying for the geeks.
THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, epic as it is, would’ve carried more weight if there had been a fourth, perhaps less ambitious film between BATMAN BEGINS and THE DARK KNIGHT. Imagine a movie dealing with Batman’s legend growing in Gotham as he takes down street thugs, the mob and even a few C-list comic adversaries like Firefly (who actually was made into a DARK KNIGHT action figure), the serial killer Victor Zsasz (who cameoed in the first film, and reportedly remained at large at the end) or the animal-masked Terrible Trio. One of the few disappointments in the new film is the forced presence of Cillian Murphy as Jonathan Crane / Scarecrow, performing the role of sentencing judge in the lawless Gotham. Couldn’t we have tossed another villain (Black Mask, perhaps?) in that position, even if he were only recognizable to the comics cognoscenti?
Granted, three films was no doubt enough for the filmmaking principals, who spent almost a solid decade in Gotham City. And I’m grateful we have those three movies. This wish for a fourth is pure fanboy fantasy (and probably isn’t an issue with moviegoers who’ve never bought a comic book). But couldn’t the scripts have at least made an attempt to expand the legend of the Batman beyond the adversaries we saw vanquished? I don’t think it would’ve taken anything away from the sacrifice Batman made at the end of THE DARK KNIGHT. It may have even enhanced it.
Still, this is one of a mere handful of minor quibbles I have with this series, hands down the best superhero film franchise of all time. Maybe when TDKR comes out on video, I’ll take a full day and watch all three films, tossing in a handful of episodes of Bruce Timm’s exemplary animated series between the first and second movies to enhance the experience. And at the end, again, there will be tears. Yes, I cried! Both times! I’m not ashamed!
Nolan had to go big or go home with this conclusion, and what’s bigger than recovering from being physically and emotionally broken, saving an anarchic, abandoned Gotham City from a nuclear explosion, bequeathing the Batcave to a worthy successor, and living happily ever after in Italy with the Catwoman?
So, what comes next? First of all, anyone who expects Nolan, Bale or anyone from this franchise to have anything to do with Batman after this point simply hasn’t been paying attention (and any entertainment journalist who asks anyone involved should have their press privileges revoked on the spot). This was a finite story, and while some (perhaps even the actors themselves) may hope that we’d get to see an Anne Hathaway CATWOMAN spinoff or Joseph Gordon-Levitt in whatever mask his character is fated to don, it’s a safe bet that ain’t gonna happen.
Besides, Warner is champing (or chomping, either works) at the bit to get rolling on the long-delayed JUSTICE LEAGUE movie, so whenever they decide to reboot Batman, you can bet it’s going to be a version of the Caped Crusader more in line with the comics. Which is actually the right way to go. Nolan’s films were an unbelievably successful take on the character, creatively, critically and financially. To try to emulate that vision would be a fool’s errand, and even normally short-sighted movie executives surely realize this (Right?).
(A side note: If Warner Bros. had any smarts, they’d go ahead and get to work on JUSTICE LEAGUE as a separate project from the individual superhero films; Different versions of the same characters can co-exist, and it remains to be seen if DC can follow Marvel’s lead in building a successful cinematic DC Universe. Based on the teaser trailer and advance information on next year’s MAN OF STEEL, I don’t have very high hopes for the reboot of my favorite superhero of them all.)
The next Batman (and please, Warner, give us at least six years to let the dust settle over Gotham… the last thing we need is another AMAZING SPIDER-MAN) should be set in a less realistic context, and not just so we can team him up with Superman, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman. It’s not even a case of Batman’s untapped villains being too outlandish for Nolan’s world… he could’ve easily adapted Deadshot, the Penguin, the Riddler, Harley Quinn, the Ventriloquist, Hugo Strange and dozens more B-list bad guys. Heck, even Poison Ivy and Killer Croc could’ve been brought down to earth with chemical or biological explanations for their proclivities. About the only major bat-villains that would’ve seemed impossible to adapt are Man-Bat, Clayface and probably Mr. Freeze. And Calendar Man, just because he’s really stupid.
No, the main reason to go back to the comics is because a movie that truly captures the Batman of the comics still hasn’t been done. As I’ve stated loudly and often, all of the films begat by Tim Burton’s lumbering, hollow 1989 art project were pretty damn lousy. Burton’s two films sacrificed character, story and action for eyebrow furrowing nihilism and bloated production design; Joel Schumacher’s movies were licensing-driven exercises in dayglo camp with a dash of fetishistic homoeroticism. None of them were any good at the time, and to view them in a post-DARK KNIGHT context, they have aged like Burt Ward’s prostate.
The next cinematic Batman should be realistic enough to maintain the character’s unique status as the superhero who could exist, but not so realistic that by the third film, he’s damaged his body and his spirit so much that he needs braces to move. The next Batman should be larger than life, with a wider universe and less armor. Taking nothing away from the breathtaking excitement and existential depth of the DARK KNIGHT trilogy, the next Batman could benefit from being, well, a little more fun.
But whomever it is that takes the bat-reins (might I suggest Warner give Bruce Timm a shot?), I cannot help but feel sorry for them while wishing them all the luck in the world. They have perhaps impossibly enormous shoes to fill.
For an even gushier gush over THE DARK KNIGHT from 2008, go here.
Labels: batman, comics, lover, movies
Bronze Beauties #33: THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
I guess I dropped the ball on this one, as I’ve done a Bronze Beauty entry for pretty much every superhero movie as its come out up til’ THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN. Maybe I just felt, like so many other people, that Marc Webb’s reboot was at best a tad premature, at worst, completely unnecessary. I saw the movie this week, and it was okay, but there was a bit too much “been there, done that” feel to parts of the film.
Still, if you were a superhero comics fan in the 1970s, odds are you were reading Marvel’s THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN. Co-creator Steve Ditko had left the book, turning the artistic reins over to some of the era’s greatest draftsmen, including John Romita, Gil Kane and Ross Andru. When Stan Lee turned the writing chores over to successors as well, Peter Parker went through some major changes. He went to college, suffered the losses of his girlfriend Gwen Stacy and her father, police captain George Stacy, his best pal became a drug addict and then his worst enemy. The comics dealt with social issues, there were some crazy cool villains and Mary Jane Watson came into her own. It was a good time to be following the web-head.
Here are six awesome covers from the era:
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 97 (June 1971) by John Romita
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 100 (Sept. 1971) by John Romita & Frank Giacoia
In this issue, Peter Parker concocts a serum designed to take away his spider abilities, only things don’t go as planned and Spidey grows four extra arms, making him a true human arachnid!
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 112 (Sept. 1972) by John Romita
The most angsty hero of all calls it quits again. I adapted this cover for an illustration accompanying an excerpt from Stan Lee’s biography for COMIC BOOK ARTIST MAGAZINE Vol.2 #1 in 2002.
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 121 (June 1973) by John Romita
(Psst: It was Gwen Stacy!)
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 130 (March 1974) by John Romita
In the 1970s, it was not uncommon for publishers to shoehorn licensed toys into storylines of characters, regardless of whether or not the new accessory made sense. Hence, the Spider-Mobile! Spidey’s urban dune buggie only lasted for a few issues, however, and man, I wish I had a Matchbox or Hot Wheels of this thing!
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 144 (May 1975) by John Romita & Gil Kane
Gwen seemingly came back from the dead in the beginning of a year-long storyline that was one of the most pivotal of Spider-Man’s bronze era (and a huge event for me in 6th grade).
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 186 (Nov. 1978) by Keith Pollard
Notable for the somewhat hyperbolic blurb at the bottom. Few would call the live-action SPIDER-MAN series of the 70s a “sensation.”
Labels: bronze beauties, comics, spider-man
It's All Subjective...
Pops Gustav
Bitten by a radioactive silverfish at the age of five, Karl Heitmueller Jr. (aka Kalli, aka Pops Gustav) gained the power of pop culture hyper-perception. Now as an adult, he writes, draws, and cartoons about comics, movies, television, music, Superman, advertising, design, politics, religion, drinking, and jerks. Sometimes all at once.
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Fortress of Stuff
13th Dimension (4)
archie (14)
Bourdain (1)
bronze beauties (38)
collector's edition (15)
for real (62)
hater (33)
hey kids comics (6)
hooch (8)
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lover (41)
peanuts (10)
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© Karl Heitmueller Jr. / ownership of copyrighted material is not implied. Simple theme. Theme images by hdoddema. Powered by Blogger.
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Cooke, Bartholomew
1784–1797 (1798?)
Music seller
Musical instrument maker: unspecified
Musical instrument seller: piano
Musical instrument seller: unspecified
Musical instrument seller: violin
Music publisher
14 Eustace Street, 1784–86
4 Sackville Street, 1794–98
Also known as Bartlett Cooke.
Listed in the Dublin Directories as a 'professor of music' (1784–86), 'music seller' (1795) and 'musical instrument maker' (from 1796). Advertised in the newspapers as being a 'music shop and publisher' (cited in Kerry). He advertised in the Freeman's Journal on 17 July 1794 the opening of a 'new music shop' at 4 Sackville Street selling pianos, violins and music.
Succeeded in business by George Gough on 30 September 1797 (Pollard).
[Dates differ according to sources: Hogan, Humphries & Smith and McHale give the dates as c. 1794 to 1798 but Pollard gives the dates as before 1794 to 1797. Kerry gives the dates as 1784 to 1798.]
Select Product/Work List:
Published (as listed in Pollard)
Logier, I.B., Sett of Quick and Slow Marches, Troops, &c
'Viotti’s Concerto for the piano forte, Mrs Parker’s new dances, and other', 26 December 1794
Holden, Smollet, Collection of Quick and Slow marches, after 3 February 1795
'Barthelemon’s Harp tutor, Mr Dempsy’s Dances for 1795', 27 February 1795
'Haydn’s Second set of canzonetts', 31 March 1796
'Hooke’s Sonatas, with variations to Irish airs', 7 January 1797
'Dr Stevenson’s Songs and duets', 1 February 1797
Sold (as listed in Pollard)
'Dr Stevenson’s 12 songs, and 7 others'
'Imported piano fortes and "has the last importation" of French music and harps', 16 July 1794
Gough, George
Freeman's Journal, 17 July 1794, p. 1
Dix, E.R. McC., ‘Some Dublin Music Printers and Music Sellers of the Eighteenth Century’, The Irish Book Lover, 18.1 (January/February 1930), 26–28 (p. 28)
Teahan, John, 'A List of Irish Instrument Makers', The Galpin Society Journal, 16 (May 1963), 28–32 (p. 28)
Hogan, Ita Margaret, Anglo-Irish Music 1780–1830 (Cork: Cork University Press, 1966), p. 101
Humphries, Charles and William C. Smith, Music Publishing in the British Isles, from the Beginning until the Middle of the Nineteenth Century; a Dictionary of Engravers, Printers, Publishers, and Music Sellers (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 114
Kerry, Frances P., 'The Music Scene in Dublin During the Late Eighteenth Century (1790–1800)' (unpublished masters thesis, St Patrick's College, Maynooth, 1994), p. 31
Pollard, M., A Dictionary of Members of the Dublin Book Trade 1550–1800: Based on the Records of the Guild of St Luke the Evangelist Dublin (London: Bibliographical Society, 2000), p. 117
McHale, Maria, 'Music', in The Irish Book in English 1800–1891, ed. by James H. Murphy, The Oxford History of the Irish Book, IV (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 595–601 (p. 597)
Boydell, Brian, ‘Cooke, Bartlett', Dublin Music Trade Card Index <http://dublinmusictrade.ie/card-index>
Boydell, Brian, ‘Gough, George’, Dublin Music Trade Card Index <http://dublinmusictrade.ie/card-index>
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5 Stunning Geological Wonders You Need to See in Person
Our planet is home to many stunning geological wonders. Here are the ones worth seeing in person.
Erin De Santiago
Erin De Santiago is a travel and food writer who writes for various publications and her own sites, including her award-winning blog, Our Tasty Travels.
More posts by Erin De Santiago.
12 Apr 2019 • 3 min read
Incredible geological features have formed on this planet as result of water current, natural erosion, volcanic eruptions and meteor crashes. If you’re curious about some of the most striking ones, here’s a look at five stunning geological wonders you need to experience in person.
The Blue Hole, Belize
Credit: Globe Guide Media Inc/Shutterstock
This top dive site in Belize is nearly 1,000 feet across and just over 400 feet deep. Its formation can be traced back to the karstification of limestone. During the last ice age, sudden rising seawaters flooded the cavern, submerging its near perfect sphere. It gained popularity in the diving community thanks to Jacques Cousteau, who came to explore Belize and what lies below the Blue Hole. It’s also part of the Belize Barrier Reef System, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Today, scuba divers flock to the Blue Hole to explore the massive stalagmites and stalactites. If you’re not a diver, you can still experience the beauty of the Blue Hole by booking a tour through either Tropic Air or Maya Island Air. For a really unique experience, you can even take a helicopter over the Blue Hole.
Antelope Canyon, Arizona, United States
Credit: Left_Coast_Photographer/iStock
Located in Arizona, Antelope Canyon is one of the most beautiful canyons you can visit in the world. Its Navajo name is Tsé bighánílíní, which means "the place where water runs through rocks." This slot canyon was created by rock erosion and flash floods from above. The speeding water and sand helped carve out and smooth the edges of this canyon, creating the wider areas seen today.
Antelope Canyon sits on Navajo land, and as such, you can only visit in guided tours, which are limited per day. If you want the more private tour for photographers, you’ll want to book as far ahead as possible, as they do sell out daily.
Grand Prismatic Spring, Wyoming, United States
Credit: Wisanu Boonrawd/Shutterstock
If it’s a rainbow of colors you are after, the Grand Prismatic Spring in Wyoming is hard to beat. The largest hot spring in the United States, Grand Prismatic Spring is known for its eye-catching colors, a rainbow courtesy of the microbial mats around the edges of the water. The chlorophyll to carotenoid ratio of those mats results in the different colors you see above, ultimately displaying shades of red, orange, yellow and blue.
Credit: Barcin/iStock
Located in Western Turkey, Pamukkale is renowned for its travertine terraces and thermal hot springs. The travertine is formed from calcium carbonate sediment that builds up and deposits in the hot springs water. When the calcium dioxide degasses, the gorgeous terraces with flowing water is what’s left. Pamukkale became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988. Combine your visit to Pamukkale with Hierapolis, which is a Greek-Roman spa city.
Chocolate Hills, Philippines
Credit: RastoS/Shutterstock
Located in the Philippines, there are over 1,200 “Chocolate Hills," geological features that get their name from the brown color they turn during dry season. They are rather unique in appearance, and when you see them from the viewing deck, it seems like they never end. The creation of these hills has baffled many geologists who are unsure of how they formed.
One of the commonly accepted theories is that marine limestone that sits on top of hardened clay weathered away for thousands of years, forming the tasty-sounding hills. The Chocolate Hills were added as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2006. For some of the best views, head to Carmen and Sagbayan, both of which have resorts with viewing platforms.
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About Parkinson's
Please join us in making a difference in the lives of those living with Parkinson's disease (PD). Your support of our Team Fox efforts helps The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research in their work to ensure the development of a cure for Parkinson's disease within this lifetime through an aggressively funded research agenda. More than six million people worldwide are living with Parkinson's disease today. Together we can play a part in the fight to eradicate PD, so one day soon, we'll be able to say that Parkinson's disease is truly nobody's disease.
The Fox Foundation
The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research is dedicated to ensuring the development of a cure for Parkinson's disease within this decade through an aggressively funded research agenda.
Enormous progress toward finding a cure has been made on many neurological fronts, and scientists' understanding of the brain and how disease affects it has increased dramatically. The Foundation seeks to hasten progress further by awarding grants that help guarantee that new and innovative research avenues are thoroughly funded and explored.
Actor Michael J. Fox established the Foundation in May 2000 shortly after announcing his retirement from the ABC television show Spin City. In 1998 he publicly disclosed that he had been diagnosed with young-onset Parkinson's disease seven years earlier.
Team Fox is The Michael J. Fox Foundation's grassroots community project raising funds and awareness for Parkinson's research.
What is Parkinson's?
Parkinson's disease is a chronic, progressive disorder of the central nervous system that belongs to a group of conditions called motor system disorders. Parkinson's is the direct result of the loss of cells in a section of the brain called the substantia nigra. Those cells produce dopamine, a chemical messenger responsible for transmitting signals within the brain. Loss of dopamine causes critical nerve cells in the brain, or neurons, to fire out of control, leaving patients unable to direct or control their movement in a normal manner.
Parkinson's disease has been known since ancient times. An English doctor, James Parkinson, first described it extensively in 1817; the thoroughness of his analysis is such that researchers and clinicians are still urged to read his original notes on the condition.
Symptoms of Parkinson's, which often appear gradually yet with increasing severity, may include tremors or trembling; difficulty maintaining balance and gait; rigidity or stiffness of the limbs and trunk; and general slowness of movement (also called bradykinesia). Patients may also eventually have difficulty walking, talking, or completing other simple tasks. Because Parkinson's has a wide range of early symptoms that are similar to other neurological conditions, diagnosis is often difficult unless the clinician has experience in the field.
The course of Parkinson's varies substantially. Some patients have relatively few troublesome symptoms for many years, while others have especially severe cases that leave them with little or no mobility in just a few years.
What causes Parkinson's?
Scientists have not yet found the exact cause of Parkinson's disease. Most believe that it is a combination of genetic and environmental factors, but no definitive data exist.
Who gets Parkinson's?
It is currently impossible to predict who will get Parkinson's disease or to prevent it from occurring. In general, both men and women are affected equally and symptoms first appear, on average, when a patient is older than 50. At least one million people in the United States are estimated to have Parkinson's; many of them, perhaps half, are thought to be undiagnosed.
A subset of Parkinson's called young-onset Parkinson's affects those under age 40. Although the condition is clinically the same, treatment options may differ.
The exact role of heredity in Parkinson's disease is not clear. There are relatively few families in which known genetic mutations cause the disease, but there are many more where the disease somehow "runs in the family." Most cases of Parkinson's are believed to result from a combination of genetic and environmental factors.
What's the status of research into a cure?
Scientists' understanding of how the brain works has greatly increased in recent years, leading many observers to believe that a cure for Parkinson's and similar neurodegenerative diseases may be imminent. Others are more cautious, pointing out that even the most promising therapies will require several years of clinical trials and other studies to ensure safety and effectiveness. There is little doubt, however, that increased research (which can only be achieved through increased funding, both public and private) will hasten the discovery of a cure or therapies that can halt the diseases' progression. It is impossible to estimate when that will happen.
The most controversial research avenue currently being explored is based on so-called embryonic stem cells, which are undifferentiated cells derived from days-old embryos. Most of these embryos are the product of in vitro fertilization efforts. Researchers believe that they may be able to prompt these cells, which can theoretically be manipulated into a building block of any of the body's tissues, to replace those lost during the diseases' progression.
Similarly, there is hope that so-called adult stem cells, which are harvested from bone marrow, may be manipulated to work the same way. Fewer ethical questions surround this sort of research, but some scientists believe that adult stem cells may be more difficult to work with than those from embryos. Either way, the scientific community is nearly unanimous in arguing that their research efforts would be severely hampered if they were not allowed to work on all forms of stem cells.
Human studies of so-called neurotrophic factors are also now under way. In animal studies, this family of proteins has revived dormant brain cells, caused them to produce dopamine, and prompted dramatic improvement of symptoms.
Some scientists are analyzing the potential role of genetic and environmental factors in causing Parkinson's. Significant progress in discovering what causes Parkinson's disease will open an entirely new vein of intensive research into curing the condition.
Find this and more information at www.michaeljfox.org
*The medical information contained in this Web site is for general information purposes only. Expedition Cure has a policy of refraining from advocating, endorsing or promoting any drug therapy, course of treatment, or specific company or institution. Expedition Cure strongly recommends that care and treatment decisions related to Parkinson's disease and any other medical condition be made in consultation with a patient's physician or other qualified medical professionals.
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DERMASPA
MEET YOUR MEDICAL TEAM
Cynthia Kang-Rotondo, MD, FAAD
Dr. Kang-Rotondo graduated from Brown University and Brown University Medical School. She trained in internal medicine at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis and completed her dermatology residency and research fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis. She was on the staff at UT, Memphis prior to moving to Knoxville in 1993. Her interests are general medical dermatology, skin cancer and melanoma screening in adolescents and adults. She is board certified in Dermatology, a member of the American Academy of Dermatology, and a member of the East Tennessee Dermatology Society.
Freddie T. Barron, MD, FACS
Dr. Barron graduated from the University of Memphis and the University of Tennessee School of Medicine. He completed his General Surgery Residency and Plastic Surgery Fellowship at the University of Tennessee Center for the Health Sciences. He served in the United States Air Force for two years as a General Surgeon. Dr Barron has been in the practice of Plastic Surgery and is a Fellow in the American College of Surgeons, a member of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons and a member of the Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons. Dr Barron currently limits his practice to office surgery for Greater Knoxville Dermatology.
LESLIE HELLER, PA-C
Leslie Heller, PA-C is a board-certified Physician Assistant who joined the practice in October 2012. She is a 2007 graduate of Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville and received her undergraduate degree in 2005 from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Leslie chose a career in healthcare because of her fascination with the intricate details of the human body, as well as her passion to serve others. She strives to help patients live a healthy, fulfilling life. Her true love is skin checks to screen for skin cancer and moles. She sees adults, children and infants. She is a Knoxville native and enjoys hiking, boating, traveling, church activities, and cooking. Leslie and her husband have two active sons.
SHONA KNIFLEY, PA-C
Shona D. Knifley, PA-C was born in Madrid, Spain into an Air Force family. She was a member of the TN Air National Guard for over 15 years, serving as a flight medic during Desert Shield/Storm, and achieving the rank of Captain in the Kentucky Army National Guard’s 1204th Aviation Support Battalion as a flight physician’s assistant. Before her career as a Physicians Assistant, she was a firefighter/paramedic for the City of Knoxville for 18 years. She graduated from Tusculum College with a Bachelor of Science Degree and went on to achieve her Masters of Health Science degree from South College in Knoxville. She began her PA career in the trauma/critical care service at the University of Tennessee Hospital until joining Dermatology Specialists team in October of 2010. She sees adults and children, and her passion is the art of botulinum toxin, fillers, and microneedling.
JAMIE ROBERTS, PA-C
Jamie Roberts, PA-C is a NCCPA board certified physician assistant and a member of the American Academy of Physician Assistants, the Society of Dermatology Physician Assistants, and the Tennessee Association of Physician Assistants. She graduated from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 2009 with a Bachelor of Science. She went on to obtain her Masters of Physician Assistant studies from South College in 2012. Jamie practiced in the specialty of allergy, asthma, and immunology for over three years before joining the practice in 2016. Jamie values the cultivation of strong patient relationships and is dedicated to providing the best care for her patients. She enjoys seeing adults, children, and infants. Jamie is a Knoxville, Tennessee native, and is honored to serve her community. In her spare time she enjoys travel and spending time with her husband and two vizslas.
SARAH GUERRETTE, FNP-C
Sarah B. Guerrette, FNP-C is a certified Family Nurse Practitioner and a member of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners. She is a graduate of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga with a Bachelors in Nursing. Sarah worked as a nurse on a medical-surgical floor before returning to school at Lincoln Memorial University for her Masters in Nursing. She worked as a Hospitalist Nurse Practitioner at Tennova North Hospital before joining the practice in June 2018. Sarah was inspired to join the medical field because of her strong desire to serve others. She developed an interest in dermatology after a project in nursing school which involved educating young adults about the dangers of sun exposure. Sarah is passionate about the need for total body exams and education for the prevention of skin cancers. She enjoys connecting with patients of all ages. Sarah is a Knoxville native and enjoys running, baking, and spending time with her family.
REGINA McDANIEL
AMANDA WOLFENBARGER
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Terrorism: Bombings in Argentina
Posted on August 24, 2016 • Filed under: Argentina, Terrorism
INTERMEDIATE/ADVANCED SPANISH VOCABULARY – READ THIS BOOK
jewishvirtuallibrary.org reported in 1992 and 1994, two bombs devastated the Argentinian Jewish community and marked the arrival of Middle Eastern terrorism to South America.
The Israeli Embassy in Argentina’s capital of Buenos Aires was the site of the first explosion – a car bomb – on March 17, 1992. The attack killed 29 people and injured more than 250 others. Among the victims were Israeli diplomats, children, clergy from a church located across the street, and other passersby. The investigation of the case was assigned to Argentina’s Supreme Court and the Chief Justice Ricardo Levene was given the task of investigating and presenting his findings to the court. For over two years, however, the investigation languished and virtually no action was taken, despite the fact that Islamic Jihad had claimed responsibility for the explosion.
It was not until July 18, 1994, that the case received serious attention. On that date, the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) Jewish community center in Buenos Aires was bombed – 85 people were killed and over 100 people were injured. This time, Judge Jose Galeano was assigned to investigate the case but, like Judge Levene, he made little progress.
Later in 1994 came the first of several breakthroughs in the embassy bombing case. Six Lebanese citizens and one Brazilian, arrested for operating a drug cache, were found to be members of Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese terrorist organization. The Argentine government immediately announced that the men were tied to the embassy bombing, however after several days the supposed suspects were released due to a lack of evidence. Read Article
Argentina: Six Syrians arrested with fake Greek Passports
Growing presence of Hezballah in Latin America worries U.S. officials
Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay: Anti-terrorism agents investigate Arabs in tri-border area
Argentina, daughter of Dirty War officer shot
Argentina: Attorney questioning controversial Terrorism Act
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Home » New Year's Day 2016 » DSCN7155
daryl bauer January 6, 2016 Comments Off on DSCN7155
daryl bauer
About daryl bauer
Daryl is a lifelong resident of Nebraska (except for a couple of years spent going to graduate school in South Dakota). He has been employed as a fisheries biologist for the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission for 25 years, and his current tour of duty is as the fisheries outreach program manager. Daryl loves to share his educational knowledge and is an avid multi-species angler. He holds more than 120 Nebraska Master Angler Awards for 14 different species and holds more than 30 In-Fisherman Master Angler Awards for eight different species. He loves to talk fishing and answer questions about fishing in Nebraska, be sure to check out his blog at outdoornebraska.org.
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RICHARDSON FINANCE
Main Street, Ennistymon, Clare, 065-707 2714
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Richardson Finance is an independent and impartial financial and taxation advisory company. It was formed by John Richardson Q.F.A. A.I.T.I. in 2004 and is based in Ennistymon Co Clare. We offer both accountancy and taxation services to our clients, and are also independent brokers offering our clients a wide range of financial services such as insurance, life and pensions and share and investments.
Our aim is to work together with you to help you achieve financial security and independence. As Multi-Agency Intermediaries we will give impartial advice in relation to all financial products in the market place.
We are regulated by the Financial Regulator as a Multi-Agency Intermediary and Mortgage Intermediary, registered in Ireland No. 35316. We are also Registered Taxation Advisors with the Institute of Taxation in Ireland.
John is the founding Director of Richardson Financial Services and is a qualified Financial Advisor, the holder of an Accounting Degree, and a Registered Taxation Consultant. John has 30 years experience in the financial services industry. He was a Senior Taxation Consultant with the worlds largest accountancy firm, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, for 10 years, where he specialised in taxation planning for a large and diverse portfolio of clients. He then emigrated to Australia in 1995 where he worked for the Athens & Taylor Group as a Taxation and Accounting Manager in one of Western Australia’s largest independent accountancy practices. He returned to Ireland in 2004 and set up his own independent firm, Richardson Financial Services in 2004.
Main Street, Ennistymon, Clare, 065-707 2714 - RICHARDSON FINANCE © 2023
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By Dr. Gary K. Busch, 13/9/22
Sep 14, 2022 - 11:46:20 AM
Last week, watching the television news, I received a shock. As I was watching, I saw a gunman attempting to shoot the Vice-President of Argentina, Cristina Fernández. Fortunately, he didn’t succeed but the sight provoked a deep response from me as I have had two of my friends and colleagues assassinated in Argentina and it all came back in a flash to my memory. Moreover, the two Argentines killed were only a small subset of my friends and colleagues assassinated in the course of my political activities. I don’t think I am unique with these cursed memories, but it is a sad coda on what my experiences have been.
In 1964 I was in Vienna for a conference of the International Metalworkers Union. I was with the UAW delegation to the meeting, and, because of my language skills, I was asked to translate for the British delegates to the meeting. Having done so I was then asked to assist two Argentine participants to travel from Vienna to Lisbon and to make sure they arrived safely. The two I was escorting were Augusto Timoteo Vandor, an important Argentine trade unionist and Peronist, and Raphael Valle de Aguirre, a journalist.
Vandor, known as “El Lobo” (the Wolf) was head of the steelworkers’ union, and the strongest force in the national union confederation, CGT, along with CGT Secretary General José Alonso. Vandor and Aguirre were travelling to Estoril to meet with Peron, tying up the logistics of Peron’s surreptitious return to Argentina from his exile in a covert plan known as Operation Return. The plan failed and Vandor and Alonso fell out when Alonso and Vandor contested the post of the head of the CGT. Peron chose to support Alonso against Vandor. With the tacit support of the military and the Peronist faction supporting Alonso it was clear that Vandor was in danger. On 30 June 1969, at his UOM offices in Avellaneda, Vandor was cut down by five bullets and then blown up by a bomb, in what was codenamed Operation Judas.
I had limited contact with Vandor after I left him with Peron in Estoril, but I was active in building support for the Argentine Mechanical Workers' Union (SMATA) belonging to the CGT and led by a close friend of mine, Dirck Henry Kloosterman.
I had spent some time in Buenos Aires with Klosterman as I was preparing a study on working conditions and collective bargaining in Latin America for the IMF and we visited his pioneering workers’ recreational centres that today bears his name, located in the town of Canuelas, the 24 de Febrero hotel in Mar del Plata and the 17 de Octubre inn in Luja¡n (San Luis). These were acquired by the union for the members. He visited us on two occasions in Washington, D.C. He became Vice President for Latin America and the Caribbean of the International Federation of Workers in the Metal Industry (IMF).
He was a prominent leader in the “Peronism Without Peron” movement and angered the ‘National Command’ of the Peronist Armed Forces (FAP) by his activities. He was assassinated at noon on May 22, 1973, when taking his car out of his house at Calle 51 No. 1617, La Plata. There he lived with his wife, children and his father. Kloosterman was killed by four handgun bullets a few meters from his private home. His wife, who was at the door of his home, witnessed the attack. His death had a deep effect on all of his friends and, despite the efforts to continue his policies by Jose Rodriguez, Kloosterman’s death was a blow to Argentine unionism. I was quite upset by his passing, and I dedicated my book on international labour to him.
In 1969 I was in Washington, D.C. and had been assigned to assist an inspiring Kenyan trade unionist, Tom Joseph Odhiambo Mboya, Tom Mboya was a Kenyan trade unionist, educator, Pan-Africanist, author, independence activist, and statesman. He was one of the founding fathers of the Republic of Kenya. He played a key role in the first Kenyan independence political party, the Kenya African National Union (KANU), where he served as its first Secretary-General. He led the Kenyan side at the negotiations for independence at the Lancaster House Conferences. He was important, not only for his skills and achievements, but as a leader of the Luo people in Kenya, the second most powerful faction after the Kikuyu people led by Jomo Kenyatta, who worked together with Kenyatta to build the independent Kenyan nation; he was in opposition to his more radical Luo rival, Oginga Odinga, whom Mboya helped oust as Vice President in 1966.
Tom Mboya was active in promoting good relations with the U.S. and spent some considerable effort to obtain scholarships for Kenyan students. In 1959, Mboya along with the African-American Students Foundation in the United States organized the Airlift Africa project, through which 81 Kenyan students were flown to the U.S. to study at U.S. universities. Barack Obama's father, Barack Obama, Sr., was a friend of Mboya's and a fellow Luo who received a AASF scholarship to study in Hawaii. Mboya was a friend of the Kennedys and the Kennedy Foundation helped fund this program.
I was assigned to help provide some of the background papers on collective bargaining, grievance procedures, representation elections, etc. to Mboya for him as part of his efforts to introduce modern industrial relations systems in Kenya. We met a few times in D.C. to discuss this. He was a very bright and energetic man. I was very impressed.
It was a great shock for me to learn that on July 5, 1969, Mboya, who was then Kenya's Minister of Economic Planning and Development, stepped into Chhani's Pharmacy to buy a bottle of lotion. As he emerged, an assassin opened fire, escaping in the ensuing confusion. Mboya was struck in the chest, blood soaking his suede jacket, and died in an ambulance on the way to Nairobi Hospital. He was only thirty-eight years old. Up to this day, neither the real assassin nor the sponsors of it are known.
During late 1969 a friend and classmate of mine at American University, Gil Fernandes from Cabo Verde, asked me if we could assist the efforts of the anti-colonial political movement, PAIGC (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde), then in armed conflict with the colonial Portuguese Army. The PAIGC was led by Amilcar Lopes da Costa Cabral and were preparing for taking office at the end of Portuguese rule. Gil asked me if I could help arrange a subsidy for the printing of the PAIGC Constitution of Guinea-Bissau and Cabo Verde. The Central Committee of the PAIGC had prepared and accepted the terms of their Constitution and wanted to circulate copies of the proposed national constitution to the people of Guinea-Bissau and Cabo Verde in advance of independence. I was on the Board of the American Committee on Africa and thought I might gather some of our backers to help him. Gil Fernandes, himself, has subsequently had a long career in diplomacy, as Permanent Representative of Guinea-Bissau. to the United Nations, Deputy Permanent Representative of Cape Verde to the UN, Ambassador to the United States and Ambassador to Sweden. I contacted several possible supporters and the UAW. They all paid for the first copies of the Guinea-Bissau-Cabo Verde Constitution, and I helped arrange their discreet delivery to the country.
I was made aware that there would be visit of the PAIGC leader, Amilcar Cabral, to the Washington, D.C. I was asked if I would take him to see the responsible Congressional leaders who dealt with his country as well as some Executive Branch officials. I did so and Cabral was surprised to learn how little was known about his country and how disinterested they were about the last throes of Portuguese colonialism. Cabral was an agricultural engineer, pan-Africanist, intellectual, poet, theoretician, revolutionary, political organizer, nationalist and diplomat, a very impressive and sincere man. He was one of Africa's foremost anti-colonial leaders. He was deeply unimpressed by his reception in Washington and asked me if I could do him one more favour. He wanted to visit the grave of Jack Kennedy in Arlington Cemetery. I took him there and he spent several minutes in quiet, staring at the grave and the flame. He turned to me and said, “Well that was worth the whole trip.”
I only had limited contact with Cabral after that but liaised with Fernandes. I was shocked to learn that on a visit to nearby Guinea (Conakry) on 20 January 1973, a former PAIGC rival, Inocencio Kani, and another PAIGC officer shot and killed Amilcar Cabral. There was widespread belief that they did this with the assistance of the Portuguese Secret Police, PIDE) but it was never proved.
In late 1968 I was invited to lunch by my good friend and colleague, Mariyowanda Nzuwah of, then, Rhodesia. Nzuwah was working with me at the UAW in Washington D.C. Mariyo was a clandestine representative of ZANU in the US and active in support of the party. We did a variety of small projects in support of Rhodesian independence. Our main contact in ZANU was Herbert Wiltshire Pfumaindini Chitepo.
In January 1966 Chitepo moved to Zambia to concentrate on the armed struggle. He toured world capitals canvassing support for ZANU and for the enforcement of total economic sanctions against Rhodesia. He was bright and witty and was very effective and earned for ZANU international recognition and respect. The President of ZANU at the time was Ndabaningi Sithole. Many of the other leaders of ZANU and ZAPU were in Gwelo Prison and inactive. Sithole, like Chitepo was a Manyika-Shona and most of the fighting force was Karanga-Shona. Sithole was sent to detention and Chitepo took over the leadership of ZANU. Chitepo and the military chief, Josiah Tongogara, took on the waging of the armed struggle and planned successful military guerrilla attacks and underground activities in Rhodesia from 1966 onwards. In 1972, he co-ordinated war operations with FRELIMO and opened up the north-eastern region of Zimbabwe as a new and effective war front.
We were asked to assist the liberation movement and Nzuwah and I were encouraged to acquire some printing machines to send to Zambia for both ZANU and ZAPU to use. The UAW bought several Varitype machines in Europe (with the assistance of the German and Swedish labour movements) and we delivered them to Zambia. They could then print their propaganda for the masses. Years later I was visiting in Harare in Dumiso Dabengwa’s office on a different subject and he suddenly looked up and said he recognised me from the Lusaka delivery.
Nzuwah was assisting Chitepo during his visit to Washington, and I was invited to lunch with them. Chitepo was going to speak at Columbia and wanted to be briefed on what were the best topics to speak about. We discussed this and I had several additional discussions with him while he was in the U.S. He thanked us for the printing presses and the three tons of medical supplies we had delivered to ZANU subsequently. I didn’t see or hear from him for a while he was busy fighting the Rhodies.
It was a great shock to me to learn that Chitepo was assassinated on 18 March 1975 in Lusaka, Zambia when a car bomb, placed in his Volkswagen Beetle the night before, exploded. He and Silas Shamiso, one of his bodyguards, were killed instantly. Sadat Kufamadzuba, his other bodyguard, was injured. The explosion sent part of the car onto the roof of his house and uprooted a tree next door. Hours later one of his neighbours died of injuries he sustained in the explosion. ZANU at the time blamed the Rhodesian Security Forces, but others feared that this was a result of an internal battle in ZANU between the Karanga military and the Zezuruu – Manyika forces. Later, it was shown to be the work of Ken Flowers of the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) who planted false documentation at the crime scene.
There are several others who met their early fate as a result of assassinations. Some of these are public and several more deeply buried inside the annals of governments I was unlucky to know many of them. Some of my friends told me I was a ‘jinx’. Well, I didn’t want them dead. I was shocked when it happened. That feeling of shock was recalled by the attempted shooting in Argentina. I’ll bury it all again and hope there isn’t another trigger.
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OPINION: Pakistan’s history is suffering
Pakistan kicked me out. Others were less lucky
By Nicholas Schmidle, Washington Post, February 3, 2008
The police came for me on a cold, rainy Tuesday night last month. They stood in front of my home in Islamabad, four men with hoods pulled over their heads in the driving rain. The senior officer, a tall, clean-shaven man, and I recognized one another from recent protests and demonstrations. Awkwardly, almost apologetically, he handed me a notice ordering my immediate expulsion from Pakistan. Rain spilled off a nearby awning and fell loudly into puddles.
I asked, somewhat obtusely, what this meant. “I am here to take you to the airport,” the officer shrugged. “Tonight.”
The document he’d given me provided no explanation for my expulsion, but I immediately felt that there was some connection to the travels and reporting I had done for a story published two days earlier in the New York Times Magazine, about a dangerous new generation of Taliban in Pakistan. I had spent several months traveling throughout the troubled areas along the border with Afghanistan, including Quetta (in Baluchistan province) and Dera Ismail Khan, Peshawar and Swat (all in the North-West Frontier Province). My visa listed no travel restrictions, and less than a week earlier, President Pervez Musharraf had sat before a roomful of foreign journalists in Islamabad and told them that they could go anywhere they wanted in Pakistan.
The truth, however, is that foreign journalists are barred from almost half the country; in most cases, their visas are restricted to three cities — Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi. In Baluchistan province, which covers 44 percent of Pakistan and where ethnic nationalists are fighting a low-level insurgency, the government requires prior notification and approval if you want to travel anywhere outside the capital of Quetta. Such permission is rarely given. And the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), where the pro-Taliban militants are strong, are completely off-limits. Musharraf’s government says that journalists are kept out for their own security. But meanwhile, two conflicts go unreported in one of the world’s most vital — and misunderstood — countries. [complete article]
This entry was posted in media, Pakistan, war in Pakistan on February 4, 2008 by Paul Woodward.
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Netanyahu calls for pardon of convicted soldier Azaria
Al Jazeera reports: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for a pardon of Elor Azaria, the Israeli soldier found guilty of manslaughter after he shot and killed a wounded Palestinian last year.
“This is a difficult and painful day – first and foremost for Elor, his family, Israel’s soldiers, many citizens and parents of soldiers, among them me … I support granting a pardon to Elor Azaria,” Netanyahu said Wednesday on his Facebook page.
The country’s president, Reuven Rivlin, who has the authority to issue pardons, said he will wait for the legal process to run its course before making a decision.
“In the event that a pardon should be requested, it will be considered by the president in accordance with standard practices and after recommendations from the relevant authorities,” he said in presidential statement.
The remarks were made just hours after Azaria was convicted on Wednesday in the high-profile case that raised questions over rules of engagement towards perceived threats by Palestinians.
A judge read out the court’s decision for more than two hours before announcing the verdict. The 20-year-old soldier could now face a maximum 20 years in prison. [Continue reading…]
The Washington Post reports: David Enoch, a professor in the faculty of law and philosophy at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said that the trial and public debate surrounding it marked a “horrible deterioration in Israeli society.”
“It’s not as if racism or violence against Palestinians is new, but at least in the past there were attempts to be civilized. There was at least some sanity,” Enoch said. “Now, many of those asking for Azaria to be pardoned have not mistaken the facts of the case. They just see an Israeli Jewish soldier shooting a Palestinian terrorist, and they don’t care about anything else.”
Even before the verdict was read, some Israeli leaders, including senior government ministers, called for the soldier to be pardoned.
“He should not sit one day in jail. We expect the defense minister to stick to his promises and initiate an immediate amnesty for Azaria,” read a statement from the far-right Jewish Home party, headed by Education Minister Naftali Bennett. [Continue reading…]
The Associated Press reports: An Israeli advocacy group on Tuesday criticized what it called an “exceptionally low” prosecution rate by the Israeli military in cases of violence committed by soldiers against Palestinians.
The report by Yesh Din, a human rights group that is often critical of the Israeli military, came a day before a military court’s verdict is to be delivered in a high-profile manslaughter case against a soldier.
In its annual report, Yesh Din said the army opened 186 criminal investigations into suspected offenses against Palestinians in 2015, but just four of those investigations yielded indictments. The group said the 2015 figures, based on official army data, were the most recent available.
In the fall of 2015, a wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence erupted, characterized by Palestinian stabbing and car-ramming attacks on Israelis. The report said that of 76 Palestinians killed in clashes with soldiers in the West Bank in 2015, only 21 deaths resulted in investigations.
“The fact that in 55 incidents no criminal investigation was considered necessary raises doubts about the implementation of Israel’s declared policy on investigating civilian fatalities,” the report said. It said the data signaled an “inability and unwillingness” to address unlawful conduct. [Continue reading…]
This entry was posted in Israel, Israel-Palestinian conflict, Israeli occupation, News, Palestine, West Bank on January 4, 2017 by News Sources.
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Heart of Darkness — Gary Garvin
After all, that was only a savage sight while I seemed at one bound to have been transported into some lightless region of subtle horrors, where pure, uncomplicated savagery was a positive relief, being something that had a right to exist—obviously—in the sunshine.
In Heart of Darkness, Marlow, captain of a slight and halting steamer, after many weeks navigating the treacherous Congo has reached his destination deep inside Africa, the inner station of the trading company where chief agent Kurtz presides, Kurtz the emissary of profit and reform, a model of the hopes of Europe, the leader of the native tribes, a genius at acquiring ivory. The subtle horrors are as much the fruit of Kurtz’s efforts as of what lies within the jungle, but also are Marlow’s own black projections on its darkness, not returned. The pure savagery brought to light is Kurtz’s symbolic gesture, heads of native rebels he had cut off and put on stakes, lined before the station house. The heads, however, do not face outward to warn tribesmen from transgression but inward towards the house, where Kurtz can contemplate their gaze.
I kind of picked up the thumbs-up from the kids in Al Hillah. Whenever I get into a photo, I never know what to do with my hands, so I probably have a thumbs-up because it’s just something that automatically happens. Like when you get into a photo you want to smile.
We contemplated her gaze and that gesture, at least for a while, as she faced us, the smiling Army Specialist Sabrina Harman, who aided in the gathering of intelligence at her station, Abu Ghraib, the prison deep inside occupied Iraq. Or rather we saw her in pictures brought to light after years of subtle horrors in a war we thought was going well and whose mission we were sure of, the pictures bringing a clarification, an obviousness, a relief, their own kind of rightness. She does not look at what she smiles over or what she thumbs up but we see them, the pile of grotesquely hooded, naked men, the blackened corpse.
Was it over a decade ago or a century? It is hard to keep track of time in a world that recreates itself afresh every day. Somehow the Abu Ghraib pictures have been washed aside in the stream of things, of other disturbing images that continue to flow past. The distance between our purpose then and our behavior, between our professed ideals and the horror, however, has not been closed and the pictures still haunt me. I have not found a way to explain or discharge them, or come to terms with other lingering subtleties in a world where I do not know where I stand. I have no idea where we’re headed, though the world tells me we are moving forward. I do not know what to with my hands either.
Against all the sharp narratives that have played out the last years, in battlefields imagined on screens and in the world actual, it is to the muddy story about a captain who just goes up a river and back I most often return, a journey that resembles my own. I have only observed the horrors of history, of the present, from a distance, yet they still belong to my world and I have felt their currents, as well as sensed all that lies beneath them, unseen, unknown. Like Marlow, I work for a trading company of sorts—we all do—and my station is modest and my task simple. Like Marlow I have been on a long trek and kept my shoulder to the wheel. I think I am good person, or good enough, and have provided some service, though I know not to make anything of either or rest easy. Like Marlow I keep my distance, like Marlow I do not have any answers, like Marlow I do not forget easily. I have yet to meet face to face, however, anyone with the revelatory power of a Kurtz.
Kurtz’s virtue is that he can front the terrors that lie without and he holds within, face their contradictions, and feel their full effect. This is what redeems Kurtz in Marlow’s eyes against all others in the company who stumble through their corruption without pause. And Kurtz has a voice, though we hear few of his words, most significantly the two that refer to his black vision. Marlow stays detached—he has to—and observes the horror through Kurtz, one step removed, just as Conrad has us observe Marlow, when he does not speak, through the narrator, adding one more frame to the layering of frames. There was a morbid fascination, but Sabrina Harman’s reaction was one of mute disjunction, not approval, a frozen reaction to the horror she witnessed but could not contain. No one framed her, though she was following orders.
I would like at last to be able to look into the heart of things, within, without, and come to an understanding, though I have got no closer over the years and have yet to find a frame. I do not know what I project on the world, nor can separate that from what it returns. And I would like to find a solid voice I can live with, that sustains me and helps me reach out, though still it wavers. Like Marlow I need to keep distance without losing sight so I can find perspective and maintain it. There are times, however, I see myself as Harman, transfixed, stunned and speechless, though without a smile.
The thumbs up—it is our universal gesture now for everything, that graces all we have seen and done, that we sign above where we’ve been and where we are headed, whatever we happen to be doing at the present moment, which, along with an open face and guileless smile, the captured gaze we show the world and that defines us, has replaced the two-fingered sign of benediction, pointing to a another kind of transcendence..
As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.
Donald Rumsfeld. His remark received the status of pop wisdom and circulated widely.
Any life is a mission and every mission has a life, each a journey into the unknown, each a story whose plot charts the trajectory of beliefs and desires against the ground of reality over the course of time. It is the tension between the first and the latter that propels the action and moves us through the telling, leading us to climax, the locus of dreams and nightmares.
Marlow as a boy was fascinated by the mystery of Africa, as was Conrad, who made a similar journey upon which his novel is based, inner Africa then a white, undifferentiated patch on the map, a blank slate that stirred his curiosity. Rumsfeld, our Secretary of Defense, talked about what we know and what we do not know in a press conference to justify the invasion of Iraq based not on the possibility of the presence of weapons of mass destruction but upon the possibility of possibilities unknown, the blank space where he plotted his course and let his imagination sail.
There were no weapons of mass destruction.
What do we know we know?
We live in a culture that believes in itself and in us, in the value of our individual existence and our collective endeavors. We also recognize the necessity of managing material needs for survival and growth, which can lead to compromise and sacrifice. It is difficult to put our ideals and the physical world together. War, when deemed necessary, brings its own realities that unsettle any equation. The temptation is to consider ideals airy and insubstantial, thus suspect, and practical decisions defensible because they are grounded in reality, to favor realists over idealists, though ideals can have concrete manifestation and reality does not make sense without some kind of basis. Nor can concrete action be promoted without abstract justification or even be coherent. Then there are our desires, which do not fit easily with either reality or ideals, but flit fretfully between them.
Conrad’s Belgium, like Europe, was a champion of progress and enlightenment that it wanted to pass on to the peoples of the rest of the world to free them from misery and confusion, though not raise them to its level and give them power over their own lives. It also had a stake in claiming territory in Africa the other European countries were carving up in their dreams of conquest. And Africa had ivory, a symbol of purity, the mystical white growth of the tusks of huge beasts, a substance that is hard but suggestive to the touch and can be carved with delicacy and precision into curved and intricate shapes that endure, that was used to make billiard balls and piano keys and inlays and jewelry and knife handles and figures of saints, which at the time returned enormous profit.
We inherited the ideals of the Enlightenment, which we wish to pass on by example. We also debate our relationship with imperialism, where we struggle with distinctions. Of course there is our need for oil to warm and transport us and create our synthetic products, where we all are more involved than any of us might like to concede. Then there was the attack in New York and the fallen towers, the necessity to protect ourselves from invaders as well as appease whatever vestiges remain of tribal revenge, which shouldn’t be taken lightly. Bin Laden and Afghanistan, however, were soon abandoned, and plans had been made for decades to destabilize the Middle East and gain control of world oil supplies. Rumsfeld made Iraq a priority well before the towers fell, which event provided pretext for the invasion.
Past and present, our world has depended on the transmutation of pliable substances and unsettled values, and it is difficult to find stable ground.
Justification was provided, however, to allow action and keep our ideals intact, based on essential difference. Africans were seen as savages, thus fell outside standards reserved for civilized people. Kurtz himself wrote an eloquent tract for the International Society for the Prevention of Savage Customs. The difference was supported by concrete observation and physical proof, the contrast between skin white and black. For us the difference was that between free people and terrorists who oppress, which the Bush administration used to freely suspend the guidelines of the Geneva Conventions and allow brutal interrogation at Abu Ghraib, this supported by concrete evidence of the violence turned against us by the people of occupied Iraq, though we found no links between Saddam’s regime and Al Qaeda. Instead we brought them in.
Both differences, however, are based not on known knowns, or even known unknowns, but unknown unknowns. Marlow never penetrates the jungle to observe the people and their customs. He does not know the language, nor does Conrad give the natives a voice, except a handful of words they speak in broken English, the last to inform us of Kurtz’s death. Our government listened to no one except Chalabi, the Iraqi exile they wanted to put in power, and knew almost nothing about the Arab people’s beliefs and desires and customs, only just enough to humiliate them. Intelligence gathering had to come later, at Abu Ghraib. In Marlow’s story all we see are shots fired blindly into the jungle and dilapidated outposts at the fringes; in ours we largely saw our mechanized race through the desert, our guided missiles flying through the air, whose cameras showed us their blind destruction, and our command post at Saddam’s Palace, surrounded by tall concrete blast walls that separated it from the rest of Baghdad, from which civilian leaders of the occupation only timorously ventured.
And we saw what we now know we know but still strains belief. In Conrad’s novel Africans are taken from their villages, some set against the others, most forced into labor and chained, starved, beaten, and left to die. In real life Congo Free State, women, men, and children were freely mutilated. Failure to meet production quotas at the rubber plantations was punishable by death, and King Leopold ordered the hands of the guilty be cut off and sent back to Belgium as proof of execution. Natives also saw their children slaughtered, their villages burned. In the some two decades of Leopold’s occupation, the population decreased by an estimated ten million, this caused by murder, abuse, neglect, disease, and drastically fallen birth rates.
During the decade of the war in Iraq and since, civilian deaths from violence runs almost two hundred thousand, most caused by the sectarian violence we unleashed in a country we occupied but could not control, the total still rising. At Abu Ghraib, where thousands were detained, most civilians who posed no threat, prisoners were deprived of food and sleep and warmth; burned, beaten, flooded, and attacked by dogs; hooded with sandbags or forced to wear women’s panties on their heads; made to stand naked separately or huddled into piles; and raped or forced to commit sexual acts with each other or sodomized by a broom handle and a chemical light stick. The pictures we finally saw were part of the process, taken to double their exposure and multiply the humiliation. Specialist Harmon took one of the pictures of the hooded man standing on a box in a shower, loose wires attached to his fingers to make him fear he might be electrocuted if he stepped off, his arms raised high by his sides like wings or like those of another well-known figure, providing us perhaps with the most clarifying image from the war. The corpse she thumbed up had been beaten to death and put in a body bag and packed with ice, waiting to be taken out secretly to cover up his murder. Then there were the Abu Ghraib pictures we did not see because they were not released, along with the unseen torture at Guantanamo Bay and rendition at unknown places.
It is the excess of reality, known knowns, that taxes belief, not any buried secret or flight of ideals. Not seen, not known, not even known they were unknown and stretching belief further, were the horribly obvious ironies that sent our values soaring, that white civilized people savagely brutalized blacks they labeled savage, that our torture was carried out in the very prison Saddam Hussein had created to terrorize his own people, whose freedom and well being had become the final justification for our invasion.
Or that when we entered the heart of darkness we were looking at ourselves..
America stands against and will not tolerate torture.
President Bush to the United Nations, well after the fact.
Exterminate all the brutes.
The note Kurtz scrawled with a shaking hand at the end of the pamphlet he wrote for the International Society for the Prevention of Savage Customs.
Marlow returns to Europe with nothing to sustain him other than the memory of Kurtz, who helped him see more clearly what he didn’t see well before. He is more distant from the world, or rather more aware of his distance. One’s journey to find oneself in the world begins and ends at home, perhaps to realize one has never left it, or that one has no home to return to. But the novel ends without conclusion, without resolution of plot, and Marlow himself reaches no larger understanding.
My challenge, then, is to see if I can pick up where Marlow leaves off. But I feel naive yet at the same time presumptuous for looking at what is so obvious and attempting to explain what should be self-evident, as well as perverse for looking at it again, the obviousness made no less obvious by its magnitude, or no more. And it is difficult to take on the obvious, what offends in its absurd and utter simplicity, with a straight, with any kind of face, and not lapse into sarcasm or ridicule. But there I run the risk of trivializing my opposition without effect, who simply can dismiss me, and alienating anyone else who might listen. Already I’m beginning to lose myself. But there remains the perplexing problem, perhaps not obvious, of why the obvious isn’t obvious.
So I persist and look at the severed head that rests on a pole and stares back at me, and ask the obvious question: Why wasn’t demolishing Abu Ghraib a first priority? Given how efficiently the Bush administration managed our perception of the war with its manipulation of the media, why weren’t we immediately shown the razing of its walls? The images could then have been coupled with those of pulling down Saddam’s statues, which we did see many times. The act would have brought cause and effect together and provided a conclusion that would have at least given the appearance of validity to their justification for the war—saving the Iraqi people from oppression—which might have satisfied the rest of the world and us, at least for a while. Doing so, however, might not have served their real purpose. It is also possible they did not understand the terms of this argument. Another possibility is that we weren’t especially interested in seeing that footage.
Bush did offer to tear down the prison, but Ghazi al-Yawar, the interim Iraqi president, refused because he couldn’t justify the cost. Given Yawar’s tenuous command and our administration’s overwhelming influence, it is impossible to believe he could not have been persuaded otherwise. Also the Abu Ghraib pictures had already been aired, so Bush was only trying to control damage, and his proposal was to build a modern prison in its place, which would have better suited his plan.
I can go no further, if I hold any human value, without stepping back, separating myself, and standing opposed, which is what I did at the time, a decade of total disaffection with our government, of skepticism about government itself. But to stand apart I need a justification to support my foray into interpretation and keep myself intact, and the justification will require creating my own essential difference: I am moral and they were not.
Our leaders were ruthless and corrupt, and acted without conscience, looking only to their own interests—both Bush and Cheney’s roots ran deep in oil—and those of the wealthy few who shared them and stood to profit from the war. Their only motive was to protect those interests and extend their power. There was the risk, however, that by ignoring the ideals of democracy they might undermine their standing in the world and the basis that kept them in power during elections. The only way they could justify their action was to create the difference between free people like themselves, like all of us, against terrorists, not like any of us, but they had no interest in freeing anyone. They needed a prison, and stuck with Abu Ghraib because it was convenient, so they could maintain control and gather necessary intelligence as well as intimidate the people of Iraq through fear. They had to maintain distance from the torture by keeping the details unknown so they would not be implicated or caught in contradiction as long as they could. By the time their hypocrisy was exposed, if that ever happened, it wouldn’t have mattered because by then they would have had control, what was done was done and could not have been reversed, and there was no other power at home or, with the fall of the Soviets, in the rest of the world strong enough to oppose them.
That interpretation to some may smack of glibness and political bias, and often leads to such accusations. It has always been hard to make it stick. Yet there is so much to support it and little that contradicts. Still, it doesn’t account for their behavior. Understandably they rushed to war and did not want to build a broader coalition. Time lost and shared participation might have weakened our support and their grip. What it does not explain is their haste. They likely did not have to worry about losing our support, not after 9/11. The Vietnam syndrome had run its course, and the war in Afghanistan was well received. If they did have to worry, they had created the fear of more attacks on us that would have bolstered our support if it flagged. So they ripped through Iraq, facing little resistance because Saddam had little resistance to offer, destroyed the regime, and planned a quick withdrawal, yet had no strategy for occupation, which makes no sense at all because they ran the risk of losing what brought them to Iraq in the first place, control of its people and their oil. And still left out is the excess of violence at Abu Ghraib, where, by so many counts, most of the intelligence gathered was of little use and often false. Tortured men will tell you whatever you want to hear.
Unless they were worried they might lose resolve themselves, that their justification, their distinction, might lose momentum. There may be a categorical mistake in assuming anyone can act without conscience, however perverse the outward signs. Also a political interpretation rests on the assumption their behavior was rational and they knew what they were doing. There is another way to understand their actions that takes us further into darker places, and I need to make another distinction to go there: I am sane and they are not.
Erich Fromm, in The Heart of Man, explains how our natural aggressive urges, our love of ourselves, and our affection for others, unchecked, can run rampant and grow malignant into necrophilous, narcissistic, and incestuous formations. In the powerful, the three can merge and lead to a syndrome of decay, where destruction becomes an end in itself and source of delight, as we saw in Europe the last century. Leaders need the support of their followers, of us, to build power, and do so by building our attachments to sterile things and hollow abstractions that flatter and melt reserve but do not strain us with difficulty, investing both with meanings they cannot hold, meanings that avoid meanings and deflect troubling questions. Stronger incentive is still needed, however, along with concrete proof, so leaders appeal to our sense of rightness by setting us against those who are not right, less human, or not human at all, and to make the argument conclusive, set us against those who can be readily identified and who are weaker and can be easily disposed of.
The only way the process can work is to remove the difference from reality and keep the unknown unknown so we do not see into hearts of those we oppose even as we attack, or see who we really are and what we are really doing. Otherwise the edifice of destruction loses its foundation and collapses. No wonder the statue of Saddam had to come down first. But it is difficult to maintain the illusion and keep the unknown unknown, yet the only way to support it is to push it further and step up the attack. Perhaps a guilty conscience did come into play, which only would have increased the strain, and with the strain, the necessity to put that voice aside and return more viciously to their argument. Proving superiority not only leads to paranoia and sadism, it depends on them.
And Rumsfeld’s logic of unknown unknowns was a spiraling ascent into paranoia. By controlling all intelligence, bypassing standard channels and having all intelligence run through him, accepting what fit and rejecting what did not yet at the same time removing himself from other intelligence, he was left to his own devices and worst fears. Perhaps he was merely being calculating when he thought he could pass off on us the reports of yellowcake uranium from Niger or the purchase of aluminum tubes made in China—both which might have been used by Saddam to develop nuclear weapons, both reports quickly rejected by the intelligence community worldwide—but his plan depended on weapons of mass destruction, so he bracketed them in unknown unknowns yet acted as if they did exist. He needed Saddam to have active ties with the terrorists, though Saddam had no use whatsoever—they only would have weakened his position—so Rumsfeld left known knowns, Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, behind to chase the phantoms. Saddam’s paranoia has to be factored in, along with his smoke and mirrors, but the only way Rumsfeld’s scheme works is to take them at face value and not try to see past them, assuming he could make that distinction. Meanwhile pending, what might have been the greatest deterrent to the mission and helps explain his haste, was Saddam’s offer, once he saw our forces mass, to bring inspectors in—he was begging—and show he had gotten rid of the weapons of mass destruction for the obvious and convincing reason that he did not want to give the U.S. cause to invade and lose his power.
The racial difference of Conrad’s day had one advantage: positing savagery into color provided obvious identification to clarify the European mission and even open the possibility, however immense the task, of a total solution. Terrorism gave no such advantage, as the only way to identify terrorists from non-terrorists was by their behavior, or, in the absence of such behavior, signs to suspect possible terrorist behavior, and if those could not be found terrorists had to be created. Perhaps there was a racial element involved as well, but then the search spread here at home with the endless surveillance. By keeping the details of Abu Ghraib unknown and propping up the terrorist distinction, the Bush administration allowed the violence to go unchecked, and without definite limits there was no way to complete the mission and close the circle as it was impossible to know when to stop. There is no telling how far the torture might have spread had the pictures not turned up.
One way to interpret their plan for a quick retreat is that, unconsciously, they wanted to escape the terrifying strain of what they envisioned. Or perhaps they wanted to pass the violence off on someone else but instead got stuck. Either way, the evidence points to wholesale destruction as the end result, consciously planned or not.
Somehow, in this context, I have to find high ground to better see and chart a clear course. But if I divest myself of my government I remove myself from power, without even a thought of representation or possible action unless I discover or create a space outside it. To consider myself moral leaves me with a burden that is difficult to bear alone, where it is too easy to stumble, the burden made enormous by the enormity of the abuse I try to face. I will always have to walk stiffly erect on a narrow path. To consider myself sane in the face of monstrous insanity removes me from my own internal debates and narrows the path further, the path already twisted by pursuit of the monsters it created for me, ever present.
But our leaders were somewhat genial men, not charismatic tyrants, who at least feigned humility, and they genuinely wanted our support. And their appeal, however conflicted, was for freedom, not conquest, which might have been sincere. Also they knew they needed us, as we could could topple them in the next election if they fell out of our favor. We love our freedom and want to feel good about ourselves, about our attachments to our reflexive devices and to each other. The fall of the towers might most have upset us when we realized what they did not support and how much they did not support it. Or what upset us was what we didn’t know but lay hidden in our own unknown unknowns, which vexed us even as we fled them. We, so many of us, believe the purpose of government is to turn us loose and set us free. We want to protect our self-interest and the interests of those who freely gather wealth. The market collapse at the end of Bush’s second term did not take us to Wall Street but elsewhere to find causes. And what distinctions do we make? Savagery is not rejected but openly embraced, an appetite fed endlessly on our screens in an unending crescendo of climaxes. A case could be made that we weren’t misled by tyrants, but rather with open hearts shaped the men we elected to represent us, then gave them a free hand.
Irony requires a context, and if none of us, our leaders or the free people of the U.S., saw the irony of Abu Ghraib, it may have been because we did not have one. Either we didn’t want to see the irony or we simply did not understand it.
I need to step back further and make another distinction, but I am running out of room.
I have gone too far, I haven’t gone far enough. Reality is more complicated. Reality is always more complicated, though complexity might have been pursued in order to avoid it. The Iraq invasion rested on decades of pressing concerns along with questionable and ambiguous involvement with allies and enemies alike, themselves questionable and ambiguous, including American covert support of Iraq in its war against Iran where Saddam did use gas, that support not stopped when he used it against Iraqi Kurds. Or perhaps our leaders just got lost in the vast complexity of what they were trying to do. Factoring in incompetence offers some relief. To deny psychological or moral interpretations, however, is to concede values have no influence and that our minds do not come into play. That the Bush administration really believed, that we believed, with all our hearts, that by toppling Saddam’s regime and pulling out we would build allies in the Middle East and restore world order, that the Iraqi people would welcome us with open arms and, left alone, follow our example and build a democracy of free people, that oil would freely flow once more—does not contradict the moral and psychological interpretations, or, if it does, sends us all into chaos, which might be where we are.
Marlow falls silent without finishing his last thought, leaving it in ellipsis, then sits apart from the other men on the deck of the cruising yawl on the Thames where he has told his story, returning to a cross-legged position, his back straight, arms down, and palms out, like a Buddha. Behind him, the brooding gloom of London. Before him, passage to the open sea.
But Marlow ultimately is a practical man, more occupied with managing his life than understanding it. Managing, in fact, is his answer, as, in a version of Freudian sublimation, he believes one should find oneself in one’s work, though he distances himself from the value of the work he performs. Efficiency is the key, and his main criticism of Kurtz is that he lacked restraint, that he couldn’t control the primitive forces inside him, inside all of us, and in nature itself, both forces coming together in Kurtz, corrupting and destroying him.
Freud in his later work, trying to account for the destructive course the world had taken, speculates that guilt from the conflict between our collective conscience and our dark, inner urges caused the malaise, the force of our desires unconsciously working on the guilt and taking a malicious turn.
What has held us back the last century, what have we not openly, freely tried? What does anyone feel guilty about now?
He also debates a death instinct, somehow somewhere inside us, maybe throwing up his hands.
Fromm prefers inside us a lighter, more creative force, which, when corrected by objective knowledge gained from science, might lead us from self-absorption and self-destruction.
What has our creative force brought to light, or our science? What hasn’t been explored by science in the mind, in nature? What hasn’t been diminished in both by the search?
All three, Marlow, Freud, and Fromm, posit some unconscious force, making a thing of the question they are trying to answer and thus avoiding it, leaving it in unknown unknowns that continue to haunt. And they miss what escapes them in their pursuit, what frightens us yet moves us and gives us the terror of hope—
There is nothing in the heart of darkness, except, perhaps, the heart.
I reread Heart of Darkness not looking for answers but a place to linger, and it is the novel where I most feel at home. The meaning of the story, as the narrator tells us, lies not in the core of the plot but outside it, this meaning enveloping it with an indistinct yet present glow, like a halo. It is the glow that draws me and keeps my doubts alive as I wander through a world only dimly perceived and try to navigate the jungle of Conrad’s thoughts, and of ours.
I am human and that matters. It is always the starting point and the point to which all journeys should return.
But I wonder if my best course now is not to sit apart, like Marlow, away from all fears and desires, and rest with the understanding that does not try to understand, the voice that does not speak.
There are moments, however, I am moved by bright visions and red passions, and I hear fresh voices from a distance speaking a strange language, and they come, and they gather, massing, and I join them, and they join me, and I lead them to light, and words come, and I hear a beating in dark places that matches the beating of my heart, faster, faster…
— Gary Garvin
Notes and Selected Readings
It is difficult to know what can be taken for common knowledge when so much still remains disputed and denied, but all factual claims in this essay made have been extensively researched and supported elsewhere. Another irony of the war is that it has taken careful, responsible writers years of painstaking research to discover what happened so quickly and was hidden so long.
Seymour Hersh, in Chain of Command, provides details on the abuse at Abu Ghraib and traces the chain of command involved, as well as reviews other matters touched on, such as the questionable evidence for Saddam’s ties with Al Qaeda and the existence of weapons of mass destruction. He cites a 2003 poll that showed 72% of the American people believed Saddam was personally involved in 9/11. To what extent the poll reflects the effectiveness of the Bush spin on the war or our own desire to make the connection would make an interesting study, though it’s unlikely the two factors could be sorted out.
At least one operative knew Conrad. Hersh describes the clandestine special-access program (SAP) that was created to track down terrorists. Few were aware of it. According to one former intelligence official, “We’re not going to read more people than necessary into our heart of darkness. The rules are ‘Grab whom you must. Do what you want.’”
George Packer, in The Assassin’s Gate, also reviews the events and influences leading up to the war and our subsequent occupation, our isolation and detachment during that time. He cites an early draft of the Defense Planning Guidance, written in in 1992, commissioned by Dick Cheney, then Secretary of Defense, and overseen by Paul Wolfowitz, then undersecretary for policy, which states: “Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival.”
So many of us quickly leap to accept conspiracy theories while others too quickly reject them out of hand. Peter Dale Scott, in The Road to 9/11, carefully and convincingly reviews decades of U.S. covert operations around the world, the questionable ties with allies and enemies alike, including terrorists; the administration’s ties to business; the secret policy decisions; and the hidden efforts to centralize power that led up to and influenced the invasion. The full details are dizzyingly complex and extend across the globe.
Only one example. He reviews U.S. covert policies under CIA Director William Casey and Vice President Bush at the time of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, in the 1980s, policies that continued and had effects later:
(1) to favor Islamist fundamentalists over native Sufi nationalists, (2) to sponsor an “Arab Afghan” foreign legion that from the outset hated the United States almost as much as the USSR, (3) to help them to exploit narcotics as a means to weaken the Soviet army, (4) to help expand the resistance campaign into an international jihadi movement, to attack the Soviet Union itself, and (5) to continue supplying the Islamists after the Soviet withdrawal, allowing them to make war on Afghan moderates.
Note also the view of business:
In 1997 the Wall Street Journal declared: “The Taliban are the players most capable of achieving peace. Moreover, they are crucial to secure the country as a prime transshipment route for the export of Central Asia’s vast oil, gas and other natural resources.”
That Rumsfeld’s behavior approached paranoia has been commonly discussed. I sketch my own interpretation for comparison. Scott develops the idea further in his theory of deep state politics.
The Report of the Constitution Project’s Task Force on Detainee Treatment has only recently been released and can be downloaded at http://detaineetaskforce.org/report/
Our support of Iraq in its war with Iran, in spite of its use of gas, is discussed in two New York Times articles:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/18/world/officers-say-us-aided-iraq-in-war-despite-use-of-gas.html
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/09/15/world/us-says-it-monitored-iraqi-messages-on-gas.html
America stands against and will not tolerate torture. Bush’s full statement on United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, 2004, can be found at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=72674
The Yale Genocide Studies Program reviews the abuses and genocide in the Congo Free State at http://www.cis.yale.edu/gsp/colonial/belgian_congo/
The death toll in Iraq has been tallied and analyzed at Iraq Body Count at http://www.iraqbodycount.org
That the intelligence gathered at Abu Ghraib and other detention centers was unreliable is reviewed extensively, with links to many sources, at http://thinkprogress.org/report/why-enhanced-interrogation-failed/
This Wikipedia page reviews fully, with many sources, why Saddam’s ties with Al-Qaeda were insubstantial: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein_and_al-Qaeda_link_allegations
Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris wrote a long piece on Sabrina Harman, “Exposure,” reviewing her behavior and reactions, in The New Yorker (March 24 2008), the source of the opening quotation.
Edited picture of Rumsfeld from The Huffington Post.
Picture of Sabrina Harman via The New York Times.
Man on a box picture via Wikipedia.
Gary Garvin, recently expelled from California, now lives in Portland, Oregon, where he writes and reflects on a thirty-year career teaching English. His short stories and essays have appeared in TriQuarterly, Web Conjunctions, Fourth Genre, Numéro Cinq, the minnesota review, New Novel Review, Confrontation, The New Review, The Santa Clara Review, The South Carolina Review, The Berkeley Graduate, and The Crescent Review. He is currently at work on a collection of essays and a novel. His architectural models can be found at Under Construction. A catalog of his writing can be found at Fictions.
2017, Essays, NC Magazine, Nonfiction, Vol. VIII, No. 1, January 2017
Numéro Cinq at the Movies | Inga Birgisdóttir’s “Varúð” Introduced by R. W. Gray Sun, Fire & Lightning | Numéro Cinq’s February Issue Preview
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Tag: Detroit
Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who provides the best security of them all..?
In the aftermath of the `underwear’ bomber incident, an increasing clamour of voices insist that the rest of the world should learn airport security from Israel, and El Al, its national airlines.
Their record is impressive, writes Christopher Walker. Global Traveller magazine has named El Al, the “world’s most secure airline” (`Air security: rest of world needs to learn from El Al,’ The First Post, 21 January 2010).
Their deterrents, both seen and unseen, are most effective. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) provide updated specifications of weapons and explosives likely to be used by terrorists and militants. Security staff, often women, trained in psychological techniques begin questioning passengers as they approach the terminal. El Al terminals the world over, are patrolled by plain-clothes agents, fully armed police, and military personnel. Passenger names are checked at passport control with FBI, Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Scotland Yard, Shin Bet (Israel’s domestic security service), Interpol and French Deuxieme Bureau databases. To divert missiles, all aircrafts are fitted with Flight Guard Civil Aviation Missile Protection System. All bags are routinely put in a decompression chamber which simulates on-flight pressure needed to trigger explosives. Sky marshals, armed but often in plain-clothes, travel on flights. All these are routine matters.
As is its pro-Jewish racial profiling.
Human rights campaigners the world over may “object” to it, some may think it “shameless,” others may regard it as “blatant” but, Walker writes, its inclusion ensures “thoroughness.” After all, what is more important? Differential treatment toward some passengers? Or, risking the lives of all?
Absence of the Israeli-kind-of security in Britain’s recent measures, is likely to lead to failure. (Only) No-fly lists. (Only) Cancelling all flights between Britain and Yemen. (Only) Seamlessly tracking and disrupting all terrorist movements. (Only) Introducing full body scanners at all British airports. These are just “not enough,” says Walker. Nothing short of racial and religious profiling, and fitting aircrafts with anti-missile systems?will do.
Delia Lloyd is similarly enthusiastic about Israel, which has “pioneered” and “perfected” aviation security. A full-scale Israelification of US and UK airports is needed, and even though sheer numbers, costs of re-training employees make it daunting, we should start thinking of “moving towards the Israeli model.” (`Airport Security: Is Israel the Answer,’ Politics Daily, 1/08/10).
Not everyone agrees. As a reader comments on Lloyd’s piece: “No, Israel isn’t the answer, Israel is the problem. Why do you think we are the object of attacks? Because we prop up Israel, and behave like Israel.” [TAWNY JONES 5:58 AM, JAN 8, 2010; CHECKED AT 21:26, 24 JANUARY, HAS BEEN REMOVED]
Interestingly enough, the clamor for Israelification began soon after serious doubts and questions surfaced about what actually occurred at Schipol airport in Amsterdam.
But there are questions about other airports too. About private firms who were in charge of security. Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris (2001). Logan airport in Boston (2001). For the underground, as well. The London Underground (2005).
But more on Schipol first. In an earlier column (`Padded Underwear,’ 10 January 2010), I’d written that airport security in Amsterdam is contracted to an Israeli controlled company; the same company which developed the concept of security profiling.
http://www.securityinfowatch.com/files/imagecache/article_main/pictures/apparatus/TSA-millimeter-wave.jpg
http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/V/6/3/Naked-Airport-Security.jpg
Newer information since: it’s called International Consultants on Targeted Security (not `ICTS Europe,’ a different company), and was established in 1982 by former agents of Israel’s internal Shin Bet security service and former El Al airline security agents. It is Netherlands-based and has two subsidiaries (I-SEC, and its daughter company P-I, or Pro-Check International). These provide security services consisting of consultation, instruction, training, inspection and supervision. Links between El Al security and Mossad (Israeli intelligence) are very close, according to Gordon Duff of Veteran Today, with “abundant cross-pollination of senior personnel back and forth.” ICTS’s senior management are all ex-Israeli security officials, many work for El Al security (e.g., retd Major General Amos Lapidot, an ICTS board member, had served as a commander of the Israeli Air Force).
Abdulmutallab’s father had gone to the US embassy in Nigeria, in November. His son, he said, was being influenced by “unidentified extremists,” and was planning to travel to Yemen (incidentally, Nigerian intelligence services are tied to, and trained by, Israel). Intelligence officials, said president Obama, had failed to “connect those dots.”
But being on a terrorist watchlist means (a) not being permitted to board a commercial airline
(b) being put under immediate surveillance. In Abdulmutallab’s case, not even his US visa was withdrawn. Well. Okay. It? could happen. It did. But what about security officers at Schipol? Despite his “age, name, illogical travel route, high-priced ticket purchased at the last minute, his boarding without luggage (only a carry on) and many other signs” they were not suspicious (Haaretz, 10 January 2010). Despite the fact that ICTS is renowned for using security measures “pioneered” in Israel: assessing the threat level of passengers based on name, age, nationality and behaviour during questioning.
The official account gradually began losing credibility. Kurt Haskell (American lawyer, passenger) recalled having seen a wealthy looking Indian man with Abdulmutallab at Schipol, (“an odd pair”). He heard the elder man tell the ticket agent, he doesn’t have a passport, he’s Sudanese, he needs to board the plane. “We do this all the time.” The agent suggested they go and talk to the manager. The next thing he knew, Abdulmutallab was on the same flight, trying to ignite explosives.
At first Dutch security insisted, Abdulmutallab had a passport. Later, it was revised: he did not have to “Go through normal passport checking procedures” but he did undergo “a security interview and check” (But if he did not have a passport, how could they have known that he had a valid US visa?) Haskell says, what is important is the presence of an apparently successful accomplice who can “skirt normal passport boarding procedures in Amsterdam.” Dutch security says there was no Indian man, but it has not released any video footage. “I have no doubt that if the video indicated that my account was wrong… [it] would have already swept over the entire world wide web.” As did video footage of the death of Iranian protestor Neda Agha-Soltan.
Another passenger, Richelle Keepman says, a man with a camcorder had calmly and without interruption filmed the entire incident (“he was standing up [when] we were supposed to be seated”). After the plane landed in Detroit, FBI agents arrived with sniffer dogs, handcuffed a younger Indian man, and took him away. Nothing has since been heard about him, or the person who video-recorded the foiled attempt. Interestingly enough, FBI’s account of what happened has changed 5 times, while Haskell’s remains unchanged.
Richard Reid, shoe bomber (22 December 2001): Reid attempted to board an El Al flight from Schipol to Tel Aviv six months before the attempted shoe bombing. El Al security identified him as a terrorist suspect (one-way ticket, cash payment) but instead of handing him over to Dutch security, they allowed him to board the plane so that his movements during his 5 days in Israel could be monitored by Shin Bet. Six months later, he tried to ignite his shoe on AA flight 63 from Paris to Miami. Israel had not informed British, American, French or any other security agency of their concerns about Reid. He later claimed that El Al had failed to detect the explosives in his shoes.
The name of the security company which allowed him to board the AA flight in Paris? ICTS.
London Bombings (7 July 2005): A series of successive and coordinated bomb attacks on 3 London Underground trains (and a double decker bus) killed 56 people. Calls for a full, independent inquiry dismissed by prime minister Tony Blair, a “ludicrous diversion.”
Security for London’s Underground train network was provided by Verint Systems (Israeli).
9/11 terror attacks (9 September 2001): ICTS sold services to all 3 airports?Logan International (Boston), Washington Dulles International, Newark International (New Jersey)?from which the four hijacked planes operated on 9/11, including security, sometimes through wholly-owned subsidiaries like Huntleigh USA Corporation. As a 9/11 researcher puts it, this means an Israeli company had “automatic inside access to all of the[se] airports…”
Hours before the House version of the first Patriot Act went to a vote, “technical corrections” were inserted making foreign security companies such as ICTS-International immune from lawsuits related to 9/11. The act was signed into law by president Bush on 26 October 2001.
No independent inquiry has been held on 9/11. According to Thomas Kean, chairman of the official 9/11 Commission, it was “set up to fail.” Pentagon, Federal Aviation Administration, and NORAD officials said things “just so far from the truth.”
And, `the Indian man’? Wayne Madsen, an ex-US navy lieutenant turned investigative journalist and blogger, thinks the attempted terrorist attack on the Detroit-bound plane was actually a false flag operation (covert operation, designed to deceive the public). That it was carried out by the “intelligence tripartite grouping of the CIA, Mossad, and India?s Research and Analysis Wing.”
To assume a RAW connection just because the man was Indian, is surely stretching it a bit too far? But then, I remember Israeli prime minister Netanyahu’s words, ?Our ties with India don?t have any limitation??
Published in New Age, 25 January 2010
Author Shahidul AlamPosted on January 25, 2010 Categories Global Issues, Media issues, People, Rahnuma AhmedTags 9/11, Abdulmutallab, airport security, Christopher Walker, CIA, Delia Lloyd, Detroit, El Al, ICTS, Israel, Israelification, Kurt Haskell, London bombings, Mossad, racial profiling, RAW, Richard Reid, Schipol, Shin Bet, Tawny Jones2 Comments on Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who provides the best security of them all..?
It seems that 23 year old Nigerian student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s underwear was padded with more than just a six inch long packet containing nearly 80 grams of a powdery substance known as PETN (chemical pentaerythritol tetranitrate). But I will turn to `deeper’ layers of padding later. First, what is generally known.
Abdulmutallab reportedly used a syringe to inject liquid into the packet which was sewn close to his groin, to set off the PETN, known to be a very powerful explosive belonging to the same chemical family as nitroglycerin. But popping noises, like firecrackers, alerted other passengers of Northwest flight 253 as the plane, which had taken off from Schipol airport in Amsterdam, was in its final descent toward Detroit.
Jasper Schuringa, a fellow passenger, described what happened, “He was holding the object which was on fire and smoke was coming out of it and I really had to pull it out of his hands because he kind of resisted and it was also kind of stuck in his underwear so I really had to rip the whole object out of his pants.” Schuringa grabbed the syringe which had partially melted, shook it to stop it from smoking, and threw it to the floor.
Passengers and crew members subdued Abdulmutallab. Using blankets and fire extinguishers, they put out the fire on his trouser legs, and a wall of the airplane. Had he been successful, the explosive would have blown a hole in the side of the airplane, causing it to crash.
It was 25 December, Christmas 2009.
The White House termed it an “attempted act of terrorism.” Abdulmutallab was soon discovered to have received training in Yemen “visiting various al Qaeda operatives including a notorious radical cleric.” US politicians, media, and experts quickly jumped into the fray calling for an expansion of the war on terror. President Barack Obama obliged by declaring that the US would strike anywhere to prevent another attack. These calls, as Mark LeVine points out, were unnecccesary since the US is already involved in Yemen, supervising attacks on militants there.
He was also discovered to have been a student of University College London, where he had enrolled in September 2005, to graduate with a degree in mechanical engineering in June 2007. Finger-wagging soon ensued: liberal colleges and universities in England were a `breeding ground’ for jihadists, they `groomed’ Islamic radicals etc. etc. ?But no one, of course not, called for a US bomb attack on UK. Or on London. To make the world safer.
On December 29, the US put Abdulmutallab’s underwear on display.
UNDERWEAR AND EXPLOSIVE PACKET
A grim-faced president?leading some analysts to comment, rather admiringly, that Obama was not a man known to “anger easily” ?declared that there had been a deep failure of? national intelligence. That the government had enough information to thwart potential disaster but had failed to “connect those dots” (January 5, 2010). Although no new steps to improve the intelligence or security systems were announced, enhanced airport screening and a review of the US watch-list system was ordered. Dozens of names were added to the US’ 550,000 strong list of `suspected’ terrorists, they would be subjected to extra scrutiny before being allowed to enter the US; those on the 4,000 strong no-fly list were barred from boarding aircraft in or headed for the United States. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was instructed to give full-body, pat-down searches to US bound travellers from Yemen, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and 11 other countries. The transfer of Guantanamo prison detainees was suspended (about half of the near-200 currently detained are from Yemen). The US embassy in Yemen was closed down for several days.
According to the unclassified summary of the review into intelligence failures released by the White House, “The U.S. Government had sufficient information prior to the attempted December 25 attack to have potentially disrupted the AQAP plot?i.e., by identifying Mr. Abdulmutallab as a likely operative of AQAP [al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula] and potentially preventing him from boarding flight 253.” After all, as the review says, Abdulmutallab’s father, had met with US embassy officers on November 18, had expressed his concern that his son may have come under the influence of “unidentified extremists,” and planned to travel to Yemen. And what did those august officials do? They marked his file for a full investigation should he re-apply for a visa after his current one to the US expired in June 2010, and passed on this information to officials in Washington. Meanwhile the latter added his name to 550,000 suspected terrorist list, but not to the no-fly one, which meant no alarms were raised when he bought his one-way ticket to US using cash, checking in without any baggage.
Since the US ruling establishment consistently portrays itself as a hapless victim of irrational violence unleashed upon it by dark, evil and religious forces out there, public discussion in the US soon enough latched on to shrill cries of more security, to what LeVine has termed the “$30 billion underpants.” To a prevention strategy which means new technologies, added law enforcement and security personnel on and off planes, lost revenues for airline companies, more expensive plane tickets. And, of course, inevitably, to an expansion of the `war on terror.’
It turned to talk of X-ray backscatters which reveal chalk etching images, to Millimeter wave screening which reveal fuzzy photo negative images. Amid all the security paranoia and fear-mongering, one did come across traces of humor. A commentator on a blog wrote, “I figure I?ll just show up at the airport naked carrying a vial of Propofol so that I can knock myself out before the colonoscopy.” A CNN political strategist reportedly said on the radio that he’d be willing to allow the TSA to measure his penis before the flight to dispense with full body scans. This might work for white penises, not for `colored’ ones. Iris scannings of transit passengers deemed to be `Aliens’ by the US government are taken and re-taken at US airports. Has been so, post 9/11.
Other paddings have since emerged, hinting at something deeper. At dots that are `not’ meant to be connected.
It seems that Abdulmuttalab boarded the flight to Detroit without a passport. According to Kurt Haskell, a fellow passenger, a lawyer who worked for the US federal government for 6 years, a “wealthy-looking Indian man” accompanied Abdulmuttalab to the counter before boarding, saying that Abdulmuttalab needed to board the plane, that he didn’t have a passport, and was? from Sudan. Haskell remembers the incident because the two of them had looked “strange together,” and remembers Abdulmuttalab as there were very few black men on the flight. Dutch counter-terrorism authorities have dismissed the claim: ?He had a passport and a valid visa for the United States and KLM had clearance on the passenger list to carry him to the US.? It remains to be seen whether FBI refutes the claim. And, as Alexia Parks? writes in The Huffington Post (January 6, 2010), if the plane had exploded over Detroit as planned, we would never have learned what Haskell had to say. ?In response to Park’s piece, this is what a contributor wrote: any passenger coming in on a KLM flight from Nigeria at Schipol usually has to go through US Passport Control, a place where “They interview each passenger individually, and you HAVE to present a passport at the very beginning of the interview. They scan your passport and ask you a bunch of questions, then you go through a metal detector and have any carry-on items scanned.”
I remember having gone all the way to Bangkok four years ago, to get a Mexican visa, of getting my visa but not being allowed to board the flight at Bangkok airport because I didn’t have a Dutch visa, an absolute necessity for Bangladeshis. So what if I was only a transit passenger?
Gordon Duff, senior editor of Veterans Today (an American Military Veterans and Foreign Affairs journal), connects `other’ dots, more sinister ones : (1) The senior Muttalab, back in Nigeria, “ran the national arms industry (DICON) in partnership with Israel, in particular, the Mossad.” Muttalab, though a Muslim, was a close associate of Israel, which runs “everything in Nigeria, from arms production to counter-terrorism.” (2) The two al-Qaeda leaders released by Bush from Guantanamo, although two of the highest ranking known terrorists there, had been “released without a trial.” (3) According to the Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh, security forces had arrested a group of alleged Islamist militants linked to Israeli intelligence (BBC news report, 7 October 2008). (4) CBS News had learnt as early as August 2009 that the CIA had picked up information on a person dubbed “The Nigerian,” suspected of meeting with “terrorist elements” in Yemen. And (5) Airport security in Amsterdam is contracted to an Israeli controlled company which not only has the most sophisticated technologies, but is the one to have developed the concept of security profiling. There is no reason to think that al-Qaeda would be operating in Yemen without American or Saudi help, or, possibly, without direct material assistance from Israel, writes Duff, adding, the game seems to be falling apart.
If larger numbers of people are able to see the game for what it is, it can only mean that we are inching closer to a showdown.
Published in New Age 11 January, 2010
Author Shahidul AlamPosted on January 11, 2010 Categories Global Issues, Media issues, People, Rahnuma AhmedTags Alexia Parks, Ali Abdullah Saleh, Amsterdam, AQAP, Barack Obama, connect those dots, counter-terrorism, Detroit, Islamic radicals, Israel, Jasper Schuringa, jihadists, Mark LeVine, Mossad, Nigeria, no-fly list, Northwest flight 253, PNET, Schipol, The Huffington Post, TSA, UK, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, underwear, US Passport Control, USA, visa, war on terror, Yemen4 Comments on Padded Underwear
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The Global Gadabout
A Frugal Introvert's Guide to Exploring the World Further, Longer, & Cheaper
Home Personal Ponderings Books to Inspire Travel
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Books to Inspire Travel
Personal Ponderings
A good book can transport you to another place and bring it vividly to life. Books also provide great inspiration to travel and see the wonderful locations you’ve read about with your own eyes. Follow the trail of your favorite characters or visit authors’ homes and favorite haunts that settings in their books were based on. Non-fiction memoirs and travelogues can provide a more direct source of destination envy. So whether you’re an armchair traveler or heading out on literary adventures, here are some of my favorite books to inspire travel.
*This post includes one or more affiliate links. I earn a small commission (at no extra cost to you!) if you purchase a product or service through one of these links. Find out more here.*
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
This classic childhood favorite is like a love letter to the red earth of Canada’s beautiful island province. Orphaned Anne Shirley comes to live on P.E.I. and her incredible imagination and hot temper get her into all kinds of “scrapes” in this first of a seven book series. If you travel there, you can actually visit her home, Green Gables, and other iconic places from the novel – some real, some “inspired by”. I may have taken a selfie or two in a braided red wig 😛
No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
Get to know Botswana with this first book in a long series about private detective Precious Ramotswe, the country’s number one (and only…) lady detective. Full of heart, humor, and interesting mysteries, this book also has great descriptions of Botswana and its culture. The author is Scottish but was born in Zimbabwe and lived in Botswana for many years. He knows Africa and really brings it to life.
44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith
Alternatively, try a very different series from the same author all about the lives of the various tenants in the same Edinburgh apartment building. Just as his detective series brings heart and life to Botswana, this series does the same for Edinburgh. The Scottish city is one of my favorites, with its castle on the hill and old-world architecture. It’s also important in the lives of other, more famous authors, such as Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle, and J.K. Rowling. The Writer’s Museum is a great literary site in Edinburgh, which I loved!
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
The first book in the Millenium trilogy follows hacker Lisbeth Salander as she teams up with journalist Mikael Blomkvist to bring a serial rapist and murderer to justice and get revenge on those who have wronged her personally. A good part of the book is set in real places around Stockholm, Sweden. You really get a feel for the city (and also some more rural Sweden) that will make you want to plan a trip to this northern capital. I had so much fun putting on my hooded leather jacket and too much black eye make-up and skulking around Lisbeth’s neighborhood…
Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
This wildly popular romantic novel (first of a trilogy) delves into the world of the obscenely rich families of Singapore. Rachel Cho is a New York professor who travels to Singapore to meet her boyfriend’s family only to discover they are incredibly wealthy and in their eyes, she doesn’t measure up. Singapore is a small country and the book describes it very well. You can visit many of the novel’s settings on a trip to that south Asian island. I may have scanned the edges of the botanical gardens for a glimpse of Tyersall Park, the adjacent estate that serves as the opulent family home in the novel…
Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres
Also sometimes called Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, this is one of my all-time favorite books (skip the movie…). I’m just a big fan of the author’s prose, vocabulary, and distinct character voices. Set during World War II, this book tells the story of a young Greek girl and the two men who fall for her: a local fisherman and a soldier in the occupying Italian army. It’s set on the real island of Kefalonia, where you can visit the gorgeous mountains and beaches described in the novel.
Quentins by Maeve Binchy
Really any of Maeve Binchy’s plethora of heartfelt novels are engrossing slices of Irish life. Quentins is a great starter as it revolves around the Dublin restaurant “Quentins” and those who frequent it. It nicely shows off the country’s capital city and the lives of its inhabitants over the years. Ireland is a beautiful and easy country to travel to, one of my faves, and the more you read from this author, the more you’ll want to visit.
The Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto “Che” Guevara
Argentina, Peru, Chile, Colombia, Venezuela
Before he was a famous revolutionary figure (and t-shirt icon), Che Guevara was a young student traveling around South America on his motorcycle. This book is the diary he kept during that trip and it’s a fascinating read. Argentina is a gorgeous and varied country (Patagonia is my favorite region) and Peru and Chile and totally on my travel bucket list. Experience South America through young Che’s eyes then head out and experience it through your own.
Angels & Demons by Dan Brown
Vatican City & Rome, Italy
This book is tailor-made for travelers to follow in the footsteps of its protagonist, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, as he connects clues in real art and architecture to uncover symbols, root out an ancient secret society, and save lives. This is my favorite of the series but all of the Langdon books make great guides for visiting the museums and historical landmarks of the various cities they are set in.
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
This book is a poetic window into the elegant and terrible world of Geishas. It provokes interest in both this Japanese cultural tradition and the historical city of Kyoto, where the novel is set. Many parts of Kyoto still look as they did hundreds of years ago, though this novel mostly takes place not too long ago in the mid-20th century. I loved venturing into a different world both wandering the streets of Kyoto and reading this novel.
The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
Guernsey Island, UK
Another of my all-time favorite books, this is a fictional account of a real event: the German occupation of Guernsey Island during World War II. This epistolary novel (entirely told through letters/written communication between various characters) follows writer Juliet Ashton as she investigates a story about a reading group that formed in an unusual way and how each of the members dealt with the occupation. It definitely made me put Guernsey on my travel bucket list!
Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
Delft, The Netherlands
This book is a fictionalized version of how Vermeer’s famous painting of the same name came to be. It imagines the subject as one of the real-life painter’s servants, Griet, who has to navigate lower-class life in 17th century Holland while developing her interest in art. It takes place in Delft, where the real Vermeer lived and one of the most picturesque towns I’ve ever been to. The book shows you a window into life hundreds of years ago and Delft looks very much the same today. While the actual painting hangs in a museum in The Hague (also worth a visit!), there is a Vermeer museum in Delft where you can check many of his other works.
Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
Isak Dinesen is the pen-name for Danish Baroness Karen Blixen, who had a coffee plantation in Kenya in the early 20th century. This is an anecdotal account of her life in colonial Africa and the people (and animals) she encountered there. It’s a product of its time but really paints a picture of Kenya that will make you want to visit. My Kenyan safari is still one of my favorite travel experiences.
In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson
Follow the adventures of travel writer Bill Bryson as he journeys around Australia. Reading his descriptions and adventures will make you want to travel to that island continent, even though it has more animals and nature that can kill you than anywhere else in the world… I recently took my own voyage around the vast and varied continent country and lived to tell the tale 🙂
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
The first book in the epic Outlander series will make you want to visit the rugged scenery and old castles of the gorgeous Scottish Highlands. It follows the adventures of a married nurse just after World War II who accidentally travels back in time to just before the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, gets caught up in dangerous plots, and meets a strapping highland warrior, of course. You can wander the highlands, Culloden Moor battleground and gravesites, and the real town of Inverness, all of which I absolutely loved. If you’re also a fan of the TV series based on this book, you can visit many of its filming locations, including Lallybroch.
Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
New Orleans, with its voodoo affiliations and French and jazz culture, is a perfect setting for one of the most classic vampire novels (aside from Dracula, of course). It’s one of my favorite cities in the US and this first book of the multi-book series really brings it to life through the eyes of the vampires Louis and Lestat and their terrifying and seductive activities.
Bath, England
Any of Austen’s novels would be great inspiration for traveling in England (I may have cosplayed at the Jane Austin House Museum in Chawton…) but a big chunk of Persuasion takes place in the historical city of Bath. Anne Elliot is unmarried and getting a bit long in the tooth when fate brings her ex-fiance Mr. Wentworth, an “unsuitable” naval captain who she was persuaded to break up with years ago despite their mutual love, back into her life. Many areas of Bath look very similar to how they did in Austen’s time so you can trace Anne’s footsteps around the city.
Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
San Francisco is another of my favorite American cities and this book is classic San Francisco. It started as a newspaper serial in the 1970s and was adapted into a series of novels about the lives of various people living in the same apartment building. It deals with LGBTQ+ issues at a time when San Fran was a center of gay culture. You really get the feeling of the era from this book and it will make you want to visit that eclectic city.
Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
The popular TV series based on this novel may be set in Monterey, California but the book is actually set in Sydney, Australia. This story of suburban moms, school drama, and secrets that have a huge effect shows a more normal side of life down under, albeit with a nasty underbelly. It’s not a typical “travel inspiration” book due to its darker subject matter and community focus but it draws you in may charm you into putting the beaches and urban comforts of Australia’s biggest city on your travel wish list.
The Lost City of Z by David Grann
Amazon region, South America
This thrilling adventure tale of Amazon exploration is actually non-fiction. The journalist author follows the footsteps of Percy Fawcett, a British explorer who trekked into the jungle in 1925 in search of the title legendary city and never returned. It will peak your adventurous spirit and make you want to explore the wilds of the Amazon for yourself. I spent several days on a riverboat floating down the Amazon river and it still does feel like an expedition (and a city, for that matter) could easily disappear forever…
Atlas Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders by Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras & Ella Morton
For travelers who want to get off the beaten path and see something different, crazy, unique, and may even downright weird, this is the book for you. It outlines over 700 of the strangest and coolest spots around the globe. You will want to travel everywhere after reading this one! I’ve checked off a small percentage of them and the rest are now on my list 🙂
The Little Book of Hygge by Meik Wiking
Denmark is consistently rated one of the happiest countries in the world, if not the happiest. This short little book by the CEO of Denmark’s Happiness Research Institute explains what about Danish life, and the concept of “hygge” (creating a feeling of coziness, comfort, well-being, etc.), might cause this satisfaction. It’s an interesting look into Danish culture and who wouldn’t want to go visit the happiest country in the world? It’s actually where I’m writing this from right now 🙂
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