News, Prophecy and other

[Shammu]

Incumbent Declared Winner of Belarus Vote

By YURAS KARMANAU, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 13 minutes ago

MINSK, Belarus - Thousands of protesters thronged the main square of the Belarusian capital on Sunday in defiance of a government ban, refusing to recognize a presidential vote that gave a landslide — and largely expected — victory to the iron-fisted incumbent.

At the opposition demonstration in the capital's main square — the largest in years — protesters chanted "Long Live Belarus!" and the name of the main opposition candidate. Some waved a historic flag that President Alexander Lukashenko had replaced with a Soviet-style design, while others waved European Union flags.

Lukashenko won a third term with 82.6 percent of the vote, compared with 6 percent for Alexander Milinkevich, the main opposition candidate, the Central Election Commission chief said early Monday, citing a nearly complete preliminary count from Sunday's balloting. Turnout was 92.6 percent, the commission said.

"We demand new, honest elections," Milinkevich told the crowd Sunday evening. "This was a complete farce."

Milinkevich called on the crowd, which began thinning under a heavy snow, to return to the square Monday evening — signaling the opposition would try to hold a sustained protest of the sort that brought down long-lived regimes in former Soviet republics including Ukraine and Georgia.

"It will be a peaceful demonstration. We will come out with flowers," Milinkevich said earlier in the day, after voting.

Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus since 1994, had promised to prevent the kind of mass rallies that helped bring opposition leaders to power elsewhere.

The use or threat of force neutralized opposition efforts to protest vote results in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan last year, and a government crackdown in Uzbekistan left hundreds dead.

Despite the government ban, police did not move to disperse the crowd. The gathering was the biggest the opposition had mustered in years, reaching at least 10,000 before it started thinning out, according to AP reporters' estimates.

"The Belarusian mentality is to sit home and watch their stupid state TV," said one protester, who gave only his first name, Ivan, for fear of reprisals. "I came to hear a brave man speak."

People blew horns and shouted "Mi-lin-ke-vich!" — echoing the much larger crowds on Kiev's Independence Square in neighboring Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution, which inspired the Belarus opposition.

"I came here to find out the real results of the election," said Veronika Danilyuk, a 19-year-old student. "I believe that he's the only one who can guarantee freedom and fairness to our country."

The Soviet past is palpable in Belarus. The government makes five-year plans, the main state newspaper has "Soviet" in its title and the state security service is officially called the KGB.

Underlying the election is a struggle for regional influence between Russia and the West, which is seen by Lukashenko's government and its backers in Moscow as a major culprit in the political upheaval in Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan.

Lukashenko accuses the West of plotting a repeat in Belarus, one of the few former Soviet republics still loyal to the Kremlin.

Alexander Kozulin, another opposition candidate, demanded authorities release what he said were hundreds of opposition activists detained during the campaign.

The elections were being overseen by about 400 monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

"These elections will be recognized neither by us nor by democratic countries," Milinkevich told a news conference earlier in the day.

Western countries have forged close ties with the opposition and made no secret of their contempt for the ruler of what Washington calls an outpost of tyranny in Europe. The United States has condemned the campaign as "seriously flawed and tainted."

Lukashenko dismissed international criticism.

"We in Belarus are conducting the election for ourselves," he said. "What is important is that elections take place in accordance with Belarusian legislation. As for sweeping accusations, I've been hearing them for 10 years. I've already gotten used to them."

After announcing the vote results, the elections chief, Lidiya Yermoshina said Milinkevich's criticism of the official tally was "nothing more than a bluff, a desire to save face."

"But one has to know how to lose — especially a man," she said.

The state has mounted a campaign of threats and allegations of violent, foreign-backed overthrow plots that its opponents say is aimed at frightening people and justifying the potential use of force against protesters. Security was tightened Sunday near the square and streets were closed to traffic.

On Thursday, the KGB chief accused the opposition of plotting to seize power with foreign help by detonating bombs and sowing chaos on election day, and warned that protesters could be charged with terrorism.

Since 1994, Lukashenko has silenced foes and maintained his grip on power through votes dismissed as illegitimate by the opposition and Western governments. Four opponents disappeared in 1999-2000.

Many Belarusians nonetheless see the 51-year-old former collective farm manager as having brought stability following the 1991 Soviet collapse. While the landlocked nation, about as big and flat as Kansas, is far from prosperous, the economy is growing and salaries are rising.

Even independent opinion polls suggested Lukashenko would win overwhelmingly.

"Everyone's for him, all my friends," said Stanislava Rodnya, a 78-year-old retiree.

Critics say the economic successes are unsustainable, based largely on cheap Russian energy and heavy-handed state intervention reminiscent of the communist era.

"Milinkevich gives us hope that we will pull ourselves out of this swamp," said Nina Karachinskaya, a 38-year-old hairstylist. "The country must go not into the past but the future, and our future is Europe."

Incumbent Declared Winner of Belarus Vote

[Shammu]

Chavez blasts Bush as "donkey" and "drunkard"
Sun Mar 19, 2006 5:24 PM ET16

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday lobbed a litany of insults at U.S. President George W. Bush ranging from "donkey" to "drunkard" in response to a White House report branding the left-wing leader a demagogue.

Chavez is one of Bush's fiercest critics and has repeatedly accused the U.S. government of seeking to oust him from the presidency of Venezuela, the world's No. 5 oil exporter and a supplier of around 15 percent of U.S. crude imports.

"You are a donkey, Mr. Bush," said Chavez, speaking in English on his weekly Sunday broadcast.

"You're an alcoholic Mr. Danger, or rather, you're a drunkard," Chavez said, referring to Bush by a nickname he frequently uses to describe the U.S. president.

A White House report released last week on pre-emptive force in national security described Chavez as a "demagogue" who uses Venezuela's oil wealth to destabilize democracy in the region.

Washington is increasingly at odds with the former soldier over his close alliance with Cuba and Iran. U.S. officials dismiss his anti-U.S. tirades as rhetoric meant to stir nationalism before presidential elections in December.

Chavez's remarks also came after Venezuela's El Universal newspaper printed an interview with U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela William Brownfield, who reiterated his government's concern over growing ties between Venezuela and Iran.

Tensions between the Washington and Caracas rose in January after Venezuela expelled a U.S. naval attache on espionage charges and the U.S. State Department responded by removing a top Venezuelan diplomat from Washington.

Chavez was elected in 1998 on an anti-poverty platform, and has used billions of dollars in oil revenues to finance development programs for the poor as part of his self-styled socialist revolution.

He won a overwhelming victory in a recall referendum in 2004, but his critics at home and in Washington say he is centralizing power in an increasingly authoritarian system and cracking down on political opponents.

Chavez blasts Bush as "donkey" and "drunkard"

[Shammu]

 Egypt judges take protest to the street
 
Friday 17 March 2006 10:22 PM GMT

Egyptian judges are standing by colleagues summoned for questioning over comments on last year's elections.

A general assembly of the Judges Club, an informal and independent institution, voted that the four judges should not appear before prosecutors to answer allegations that they impugned other judges by speaking openly about election abuses.

They also voted against any concessions to the government on a draft law reorganising the judiciary.

They reaffirmed the judges' position that they will not accept any substantial amendments to the draft judiciary law which they submitted to the government many years ago and which reduces the Justice Ministry's control over the judiciary.

Before the meeting the leaders of the club, dressed in their sashes and other formal wear, stood in silence in the street to press their demand for judicial independence.

Dozens of demonstrators supported them. "Judges, judges, save us from tyranny," some of them chanted.

The outcome of the meeting, attended by about 700 judges, continued a confrontation which worsened last year between the government and many members of the judiciary.

Under Egyptian law, elections must have judicial supervision but independent-minded judges say that in practice they are often unable to control many aspects of the voting process.

Immunity lifted
Monitors and human rights groups say the judges could not prevent some of the many abuses during presidential elections in September 2005 and parliamentary election later in the year.

In some cases judges colluded with the ruling party and security authorities to rig the results, they say.

The four judges, who spoke about the elections on Arabic satellite television channels outside the government's control, have had their immunity lifted so that they can be questioned.

The judges say the aim is to intimidate them because of their public complaints about the election malpractices and their campaign for full judicial independence.

Some judges spoke in favour of expelling colleagues found to have colluded with election rigging but Zakaria Abdel Aziz, the president of the club, persuaded them that this was premature.

Budget reform

The judges are demanding a budget separate from that of the Justice Ministry and an independent system for inspecting their performance. They say the ministry abuses the budget to reward and punish judges for the rulings they make.

The government has prepared its own version of the judiciary law but Abdel Aziz complained on Friday that the club has not yet been allowed to examine it.

But political analysts say that, judging by the outcome of last year's confrontation over elections, the judges unwilling to take a strong stand on principle against the government outnumber those who are willing to do so.

A parallel general assembly of the Journalists Syndicate expressed solidarity with the judges' demands on Friday.

Egypt judges take protest to the street

[Shammu]

France union says strike possible

Sunday 19 March 2006 5:13 PM GMT

A powerful union leader in France has raised a new threat of a general strike to press the government to withdraw a jobs plan that sent at least a half-million people into the streets in weekend protests.

Student and employee unions have given Dominique de Villepin, the prime minister, until Monday night to withdraw the measure, which is designed to increase hiring among the youth but seen by critics as an erosion of workers' rights that will not produce solid jobs.

"If this momentum continues, I think we will quickly get the withdrawal" of the measure, Bernard Thibault, head of the powerful CGT union, said on Sunday on France-Inter radio.

He said a one-day national strike was possible if the government stuck to its guns.

Protesters have urged Jacques Chirac, the president, to block the law, expected to take effect in April. Sixteen universities are on strike over the measure, and dozens of others have been disrupted.

Police said on Sunday that 52 people were injured - 18 of them demonstrators - in violence after the Paris protests a day earlier, with one protester hospitalised with heart problems.

First Jobs Contract
The French work code contains rigorous standards for firing employees. But Villepin hopes to use the measure to lower the 23% unemployment rate among the nation's youths, a figure that rises to about 50% in depressed suburban neighbourhoods where unrest erupted last year, fueled by discrimination and joblessness.

On Saturday night, students protesting against the law clashed with police outside the Sorbonne University.

Police fired tear gas to disperse skirmishing youths at the end of the march in eastern Paris. They turned water cannons on the hundreds of protesters, who then moved across town.

"Liberate the Sorbonne!" youths shouted.

Riot police stormed the Sorbonne a week earlier to dislodge occupying students. The landmark institution in the heart of the Latin Quarter, the student neighbourhood, now stands behind elaborate barricades and has become a symbol of the protests.

Protest organisers have urged Chirac not to sign the law, as he must do for it to take effect.

They have demanded an answer by Monday - when unions plan to meet to decide a course of action.

France union says strike possible

[Shammu]

Cheney Dismisses Suggestions of Shake-Up

By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL, Associated Press Writer 48 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday dismissed suggestions that the Bush White House, hampered by a weak response to Hurricane Katrina and stumbles on policy questions, needs a shake-up.

"I don't think we can pay any attention to that kind of thing," Cheney said on CBS "Face the Nation." "The president has got a job to do. ... He ignores the background noise that's out there in the polls that are taken on a daily basis."

Bush's job approval in March was at 37 percent, which tied for his lowest rating in the AP-Ipsos poll. Senior Republicans and others have said the Bush team may need an infusion of fresh blood and ideas.

Cheney, in a rare Sunday morning television interview, told CBS that he heard similar grumbling 30 years ago when he was chief of staff for President Ford.

"Administrations go through peaks and valleys," he said. "When you're down in the polls you're going to take shots that you don't deserve, and when you're up in the polls you're probably going to get praise you don't deserve."

Asked if he and Bush had a "good cop, bad cop" partnership in which Cheney took the heat for controversial policies, the vice president said: "It may look that way. It's not conscious."

Added Cheney, who has said he will not seek the presidency: "My job is to do what I can to support him and to support the administration. My advice to him is untainted by any concern I might have on how the folks in Iowa look at me in connection with the 2008 Iowa caucuses."

Cheney chuckled when asked if he himself had ever considered resigning amid low poll numbers and suggestions by commentators that he was a liability for the administration.

"It's been a highlight of my career to be a part of this administration," he said. "I've now been elected to a second term, and I'll serve out my term."

To political strategists who say that he should step aside with a year or so remaining in his term to give someone a jump on gaining the Republican nomination for president, Cheney said such a move wouldn't make sense to him. "Nobody has suggested it to me," he said.

Cheney and the White House were criticized for not immediately notifying the national press corps after he accidentally shot a companion while hunting in Texas last month. On Sunday, the vice president said he still thought the situation had been handled appropriately.

Calling the circumstances unusual, the vice president quipped, "It's probably the first time the Secret Service ever had to worry about a protectee shooting somebody else instead of being shot at."

Cheney Dismisses Suggestions of Shake-Up

[Shammu]

Philippines says no witch hunt in coup inquiry

1 hour, 1 minute ago

MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippine military will not go on a witch hunt as it probes the extent of soldiers' involvement in a foiled coup attempt last month, Defense Secretary Avelino Cruz said on Monday.

Nearly 100 army soldiers, mostly members of the elite Scout Ranger regiment, have been investigated in connection with the alleged conspiracy by rogue troops and communist rebels to oust President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and set up a junta.

"There will be no whitewash as we assure everyone that there will also be no witch hunt," Cruz told ground troops during a flag-raising ceremony to mark the 109th anniversary of the Philippine Army at a military base in Manila.

"There must be no sacred cows in our organization but there must also be no sacrificial lambs."

Cruz, a corporate lawyer and Arroyo's legal adviser before his appointment as defense chief in August 2004, said the army must be firm and fair in cleansing its ranks to ensure that justice is served and discipline is preserved.

On Saturday, the head of the 67,000-member ground forces, Lieutenant-General Hermogenes Esperon, said 15 officers of an elite unit would face court martial for four violations of the military's Articles of War.

Among those to be court-martialled was Brigadier-General Danilo Lim, the U.S.-trained commander of the First Scout Ranger Regiment, who is accused of planning to lead soldiers to join a February 24 street protest calling for Arroyo to step down.

The Philippine Navy was conducting a parallel inquiry into the possible participation of the Marines Corps in the alleged plot and a five-hour stand-off at its headquarters on February 26.

NO AMNESTY

Cruz said the defense establishment would oppose any move by politicians to grant amnesty to soldiers who violated their oath to defend the constitution and adhere to the chain of command.

The Philippines, fighting communist and Muslim insurgencies, is Washington's closest security partner in southeast Asia. But its military has long been a source of political and economic turmoil, with at least a dozen coup attempts since 1986.

Participants in past coup attempts have been treated lightly, including push-ups for troops who repeatedly challenged President Corazon Aquino during her 1986-92 term, reflecting fears that harsh punishment might encourage more splits in the military.

Last month's alleged conspiracy prompted Arroyo to declare emergency rule, which lasted for a week. Intelligence officials have linked some opposition senators, religious leaders and members of previous governments to the plot.

The justice department has filed charges against a leftist lawmaker and an army lieutenant for plotting to overthrow Arroyo. About 14 others are being investigated for rebellion, including five leftist members of the lower house of Congress and four retired soldiers. A group of 50 members of the communist party is also undergoing a separate probe for a similar offence.

Cruz said imposing discipline and insulating troops from any partisan politics would prevent them from taking part in possible military interventions in the future.

"Never again should the soldier be used to advance the self-serving agenda of anyone," he said.

Philippines says no witch hunt in coup inquiry

[Shammu]

School Fires Scientist for Stem Cell Fraud

1 minutes ago

SEOUL, South Korea - Disgraced cloning scientist Hwang Woo-suk was fired Monday as professor of Seoul National University over his stem cell fraud, news reports said.


The university made the decision at a meeting of its disciplinary committee, South Korea's Yonhap news agency and cable channel YTN said.

School Fires Scientist for Stem Cell Fraud

[Shammu]

Dutch furious at Italian minister's Nazi jibe

Sat Mar 18, 2:00 PM ET

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The Dutch government is furious after an Italian minister this week branded the country's euthanasia laws as akin to the policies of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, according to Dutch news agency ANP.

Dutch Prime Minister Balkenende is expected to raise the matter with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi next week at a European summit, ANP said.

"This is scandalous and unacceptable... it is not the way to get along in Europe," Balkenende said on Friday.

Italian Parliamentary Relations Minister Carlo Giovanardi told a radio program on Thursday that Nazi thinking was re-emerging in Europe through Dutch euthanasia laws and a debate on the killing of children with deformities.

He has refused to apologize.

In 2001, the Netherlands became the first country to legalize adult euthanasia. The number of cases is not known as not all doctors report them, but the government estimates there are several thousand each year.

Doctors must obey strict rules -- patients must face a future of unbearable suffering and make a voluntary request to die; doctor and patient must be convinced there is no other solution; a second doctor must be consulted and life ended in a medically appropriate way.

The government recently set up a commission to regulate the practice of ending the lives of "seriously suffering" newborn babies, a move critics say could allow more euthanasia.

Euthanasia of newborns and late abortions remain illegal, but the commission is likely to recommend that doctors who follow certain rules are not charged in concrete cases.

Ministers want the commission to work on the basis of criteria similar to current unofficial rules -- allowing euthanasia or late abortion if the baby had no chance of survival and was suffering unbearably, if the doctor consulted at least one other, the parents agreed and the life was ended in the correct medical way.

Dutch media estimate about the lives of 15 to 20 disabled newborns are terminated each year.

Three years ago Berlusconi was himself in trouble for telling a German politician who was haranguing him during his debut at the European Parliament he should play a Nazi concentration camp guard in a film.

Dutch furious at Italian minister's Nazi jibe

[airIam2worship]

Chavez blasts Bush as "donkey" and "drunkard"
Sun Mar 19, 2006 5:24 PM ET16

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday lobbed a litany of insults at U.S. President George W. Bush ranging from "donkey" to "drunkard" in response to a White House report branding the left-wing leader a demagogue.

Chavez is one of Bush's fiercest critics and has repeatedly accused the U.S. government of seeking to oust him from the presidency of Venezuela, the world's No. 5 oil exporter and a supplier of around 15 percent of U.S. crude imports.

"You are a donkey, Mr. Bush," said Chavez, speaking in English on his weekly Sunday broadcast.

"You're an alcoholic Mr. Danger, or rather, you're a drunkard," Chavez said, referring to Bush by a nickname he frequently uses to describe the U.S. president.

A White House report released last week on pre-emptive force in national security described Chavez as a "demagogue" who uses Venezuela's oil wealth to destabilize democracy in the region.

Washington is increasingly at odds with the former soldier over his close alliance with Cuba and Iran. U.S. officials dismiss his anti-U.S. tirades as rhetoric meant to stir nationalism before presidential elections in December.

Chavez's remarks also came after Venezuela's El Universal newspaper printed an interview with U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela William Brownfield, who reiterated his government's concern over growing ties between Venezuela and Iran.

Tensions between the Washington and Caracas rose in January after Venezuela expelled a U.S. naval attache on espionage charges and the U.S. State Department responded by removing a top Venezuelan diplomat from Washington.

Chavez was elected in 1998 on an anti-poverty platform, and has used billions of dollars in oil revenues to finance development programs for the poor as part of his self-styled socialist revolution.

He won a overwhelming victory in a recall referendum in 2004, but his critics at home and in Washington say he is centralizing power in an increasingly authoritarian system and cracking down on political opponents.

Chavez blasts Bush as "donkey" and "drunkard"

DW, I just couldn't keep this Scripture out of my mind:

A good discription of Mr. Chavez. Or perhaps some advice he should take.

 Pr 17:28 Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding

[Soldier4Christ]

DW, I just couldn't keep this Scripture out of my mind:

A good discription of Mr. Chavez. Or perhaps some advice he should take.

 Pr 17:28 Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding

That is fitting for a lot of people in public offices today.

[Soldier4Christ]

This is another one that comes to my mind.


1Jo 2:18  Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.

[airIam2worship]

Amen PR.

[airIam2worship]

This is another one that comes to my mind.


1Jo 2:18  Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.

YEP. God knows who they are and where they live.

[Soldier4Christ]

YEP. God knows who they are and where they live.

..... and the latter part of that won't be for long.

[airIam2worship]

they may not think it's important now, but their address is about to change, they'll be moving south, waaaaaayy south.