Émission de L'Autre Monde du 21 février 2008: Afrique, Moyen-Orient et le Kosovo. Plus de détails sur le refroidissement climatique!

Émission de L'Autre Monde du 21 février 2008: Afrique, Moyen-Orient et le Kosovo. Plus de détails sur le refroidissement climatique!


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L'Autre Monde 21 février 2008
60 min / Radio de l'UQAM, CHOQ FM

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- Tour du monde avec Les Nouvelles Internationales.

- On fait une revue de ce qui se passe en Afrique, au Moyen-Orient et au Kosovo.

- Plus de détail sur le refroidissement climatique!

Tour du monde LNI:

Europeans see what America cannot

At this week's NATO conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, an angry U.S. Secretary of Defence Robert Gates accused some Europeans of not being prepared to "fight and die" in Afghanistan in the battle against the Taliban.

The undiplomatic Gates is quite right. Most Europeans regard the Afghan conflict as a. wrong and immoral; b. America's war; c. all about oil; or d. probably lost.

To many Europeans, the NATO alliance was created to deter the real threat of Soviet aggression, not to supply foot soldiers for George Bush's wars in the Muslim world.

While Gates and the Harper government were pleading for more troops, the commander of the 40,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan, U.S. Gen. Dan McNeill, landed a bombshell. If proper U.S. military counter-insurgency doctrine were followed, McNeill admitted, the U.S. and NATO would need 400,000 troops to defeat Pashtun tribal resistance in Afghanistan.

Anyone remember when Shinseki told Rumsfeld that he'd need at least 300,000 soldiers to properly occupy Iraq, and got laughed out of the room?

In Afghanistan, we have precisely the same hubris in terms of a catastrophic lack of honest military planning.

Without those 400,000 troops, this military misadventure was doomed from the beginning.

Castro quits as Cuba's president

This morning the Mainstream media is falling all over themselves as to why Cuba is still "The Bad Guys" and why the embargo must be maintained and how the mighty nuclear-armed United States is still threatened by tiny little Cuba (about as silly as nuclear-armed Israel being threatened by Gaza).

So, a bit of history the MSM will probably NOT mention, but which goes farther in explaining this strange bullying by the US.

A long time ago, about the time the second Godfather film is set, Cuba was ruled by Fulgencio Batista, a US puppet ruler, not unlike the Shah of Iran, Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, Augusto Pinochet in Chile, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

Like those other rulers, there were rumors that Batista had won office in Cuba through CIA-assisted election fraud. Like those other rulers, Batista oppressed and impoverished his own people in order to allow US Corporations operating in Cuba to make more profits. Batista sold Cuba's agricultural produce at below-market prices to PepsiCo, United Fruit, and other US companies. Batista also extended a welcoming hand to the Mafia, which built hotels and casinos in Havana, which was wide open to every vice imaginable. Anything could be had for the price, nothing was illegal.

The CIA was well-entrenched in Cuba. It made a very convenient base to operate out of for operations in South America (see reference to Chile above). It gave the CIA "deniability" to operate out of Cuba rather than directly out of the US.

This was all very cozy for the mafia and the corporations and the CIA. It was not very well for the people of Cuba who, forbidden to sell their produce at fair market prices, languished in poverty.

Had Batista not so abused his own people, Fidel Castro would have likely remained a farmer his entire life. But, Cuba was a living hell for the Cuban people, and Fidel became the focal point for the inevitable revolution.

So, Batista fell, the members of his government fled to Florida, and Castro came to power. The irony is that he approached the United State about establishing relations. But Castro wanted to sell Cuba's agricultural produce for the going global market price. This did not sit well with US Corporations that had grown wealthy on Batista's "discounts." Castro also wanted to curb some of the more extreme activities at the Havana casinos. The Mafia did not like that at all. They had invested heavily in Havana to have a place where they could do and sell things still illegal in Las Vegas. And the CIA wanted their base of operations back.

So the US, urged on by the corporations, the Mafia, the CIA, and Batista's henchmen (now called the Cuban Exiles) took a hard line. They did not want to be friends with Castro, unless Castro were willing to be the new Batista. Knowing that being a new Batista would result in a new revolution, Castro prudently declined the offer.

The US declared an embargo to starve Cuba into getting rid of Castro and allowing the Batista regime to return. This forced Castro to turn to the USSR for trade relations in what was possibly one of the worst foreign policy blunders the US ever made. That Cuba had broken free of its US puppet was bad enough, but that Cuba was now a soviet satellite just 90 miles from the United States was a major embarrassment.

US Corporations started backing candidates who promised to restore Cuba to its former subservient condition. United Fruit was one of Richard Nixon's largest backers, and Nixon, while vice-President under Eisenhower, started the preparations to try to invade Cuba, assuming that he would complete the plan as President after Eisenhower. Of course, John F. Kennedy beat Nixon in the 1960 election, but the plan went forward anyway. The CIA covertly armed and trained the "Cuban Brigade" made up of former Batista government thugs, then lied to John F. Kennedy by telling him that the Cuban people would rush right down to join an invasion to crush Castro and return Cuba to a Batista-style regime. So, Kennedy approved the invasion plan, yet another foreign policy blunder. (As a side note, a Texas oil company owner by the name of George Herbert Waker Bush was involved with the CIA at that time, recruited by legendary CIA operative Felix Rodriguez. Bush supplied three ships for the operation, named the Barbara, the Houston, and the Zapata, named for his wife, his home town, and his oil company.)

The invasion force landed at the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban people rushed right down to the landing zone and proceeded to stomp the invading force into the sand, sending a clear message to the world that the people of Cuba preferred communist rule by Castro to anything the US had to offer. JFK, incensed that the CIA had lied to him, terminated the operation and fired Allen Dulles, the head of the CIA.

In the end, the United States had to violate its own embargo and ship $5 million worth of badly needed medical supplies to Cuba to secure the release of the captured CIA invasion force.

As a result of the attempted invasion, the USSR sent nuclear missiles to Cuba, both to prevent another invasion and to counter the US missiles that threatened the USSR from Turkey.

The world avoided a nuclear war only when Khrushchev removed the missiles from Cuba, with the explicit understanding that if the US attacked Cuba ever again, the USSR would immediately launch a nuclear strike at the United States. This was a mirror of Kennedy's own doctrine in which he had proclaimed that an attack on any nation in the Americas would be construed as an attack on the US itself.

So, the US, despite positive spin, the reality is that the history of Cuba is the story of one major policy screwup after another, which ended with the US embarrassed before the world. The CIA, the mafia, the Cuban Exiles, and the corporations all have long memories and they know how to hold a grudge. They also know that normal relations with Cuba will allow the story of Cuba's history to be told from Cuba's point of view, and that is something they cannot allow.

So, as Fidel steps down, expect a non-stop Cuba-bashing to dominate the mainstream media news. Pay no attention to what really happened in Cuba. Just know that drinking Cuban rum or smoking a Cuban cigar is a crime punishable in the United States, because Cuba refused to sell that run or those cigars at prices the United States dictated.

Ultimately, it was the US and its puppet Batista that created Castro, and the story is one more black eye in the history of the United States.

Ukraine set to outlaw Nato bases after Russian threats

The Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has promised to pass a law outlawing Nato military bases on his country's territory just a day after Vladimir Putin had threatened to point nuclear missiles at Ukraine if the country joined the alliance.

Looks as though Ukrainian President Yushchenko blinked.

Missile hits dying US spy satellite

I told you they were bullshitting us about the weather.

US declares 1400-mile Pacific sat-shoot exclusion zone

The US military has issued a warning notice barring flights above a large area of the northern Pacific for two and a half hours early on Thursday morning. The stricken spy satellite marked for destruction by US warships will pass over the taped-off area just at this time, indicating that the first shot will take place then.

So far, this is a non-issue for both Hawaii state government, and the major news outlets on Oahu.

Shoot-down of dead satellite could happen tomorrow

Press secretary Geoff Morrell said Tuesday that senior military officers, including the head of the U.S. Strategic Command, are evaluating the situation and will advise Defense Secretary Robert Gates when is the best time to carry it out.

The plan is to fire a missile from a Pacific-based ship that would release a "kenetic kill vehicle," — a nonexplosive device — on a path that would enable it to collide with the satellite, destroying the spacecraft and its components by force of impact alone.

It is looking more and more that this has become a public demonstration that the US military is capable of knocking other countries' satellites out of the sky.

Navy will try to shoot down falling satellite

CNN reported that the cruiser USS Lake Erie was expected to fire the SM-3 missile to demolish the 5,000-pound military spy satellite over the Pacific. Other reports said the attempt would be made northwest of Hawai'i.

Experts Scoff at Sat Shoot-Down Rationale

I am glad to see I was not the only one with concerns.

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/02/fishy-rationale.html

Russia: US Satellite Shot a Weapons Test

Russia said Saturday that U.S. military plans to shoot down a damaged spy satellite may be a veiled test of America's missile defense system.

The Pentagon failed to provide "enough arguments" to back its plan to smash the satellite next week with a missile, Russia's Defense Ministry said in a statement.

This speculation may not be so far off the mark.

Pentagon reveals plans to shoot down spy satellite over Ireland

Pentagon officials have announced plans to shoot down a failing spy satellite orbiting over Ireland with a missile from a US navy warship to prevent debris from showering the Earth.

Oh? Just where do they think the debris is going AFTER they hit it with that missile?

Note to my Irish readers: DUCK!

US 'to shoot down spy satellite'

Pentagon officials are quoted as saying they want to fire a missile from a US Navy ship to destroy satellite "US 193" before it enters the atmosphere.

Okay, two problems with this story.

The first is that this is an admission that the US has high-altitude interception missiles on Navy ships; a violation of the ABM treaty.

More to the point,, the problem with destroying a satellite in orbit, even a decaying one, is that instead of having one large object whizzing around or crashing to Earth, now you have thousands of smaller objects, impossible to track with radar, and for every fragment the explosion brings down to Earth more quickly, a fragment of equal mass will be shoved back up into a high orbit, where it will be a threat to other low Earth orbit satellites.

When you destroy an object on the ground, or even up in the air, gravity sweeps up the debris and brings it down to the ground. But up in orbit, debris from a destroyed satellite continues in new orbits, and if those fragments hit other satellites, they too will shatter into thousands of new fragments, in new orbits, geometrically increasing the hazard. In a worst case scenario, we could see all of the satellites around Earth destroying each other with shrapnel, and creating a barrier of debris through which future spaceflights would have to travel, at great peril.

Whoever is dreaming up this missile idea is not very knowledgeable about orbital mechanics.

Threat as 10-ton satellite set to crash back to Earth

A LARGE American spy satellite has lost power and is expected to crash back to Earth sometime late next month.

The 10-ton satellite’s controllers admit that they do not know where it might come down and they have no way of controlling the return of a vehicle which may contain hazardous materials.

"....may contain hazardous materials"..... or DOES contain hazardous materials?

There's no middle ground here: either it does or it doesn't.

Disabled Spy Satellite Threatens Earth

I don't buy the Hydrazine being the main danger (although it is a dangerous chemical). Many long-duration spy satellites are powered by radioactive decay thermo-electric generators; larger versions of the power supplies used on the Viking Landers and the Apollo ALSEP. If that is the case, and the containment ruptures during re-entry, then there will be a major contamination problem if it comes down on land (18 feet of water provides the same radiation shield as 1 foot of lead, so an ocean landing is less problematic). Given the stated size and weight, this is probably one of the radar imaging satellites.

Defunct Spy Satellite Falling From Orbit

A large U.S. spy satellite has lost power and propulsion and could hit the Earth in late February or March, government officials said Saturday.

Don't suppose that a shuttle could grab it and bring it down, right?

Or is it just cheaper to let it crash, shower radioactive debris over a neighborhood and pay everyone off.

Defunct spy satellite expected to hit Earth the first week of March

It is not known where on Earth the satellite will hit. But officials familiar with the situation say about half of the 5,000-pound spacecraft is expected to survive its blazing descent through the atmosphere and will scatter debris - some of it potentially hazardous - over several hundred miles. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

The satellite is outfitted with thrusters, small engines used to position it in space, that contain the toxic rocket fuel hydrazine. Hydrazine can cause harm to anyone who contacts it.

Hydrazine decomposes at 850C. This is obviously far cooler than the temperatures encountered during an uncontrolled re-entry. Fuel tanks are not designed to survive re-entry intact. So, this hydrazine story is a cover for something else on the satellite that the US does not want anyone to know about.

This reminds me of the story put out the day TWA 800 was shot down, warning residents on Long Island that the plane had been carrying medical samples of disease organisms, and warning against close examination of any debris that washed up on shore.

This was, of course, to prevent anyone from stumbling across remnants of the missile that killed TWA 800. I guess they watched "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and just copied that plot line.

Sarkozy defends Holocaust proposal amid uproar

Oh yes, let us have the public taxpayer funded schools teach children all about the holocaust, so they can grow up and get jobs in ... the holocaust industry.

Folks, we live in the 21st Century. The history of Germany in WW2 is from the middle of the last century, and while it is worth study to the same extent that we would study the early days of spaceflight, the Wright Brothers, or (in the US) the Civil War, the fact is that our FUTURE depends on dealing with the events that are happening today, with the genocides that are happening today, and most important, that children in school be taught science and technology on which the future industry of their nations will be built.

It is time for some people to stop living in the past and join the modern world.

Ritual of Dealing With Demons Undergoes a Revival

The Rev. Andrzej Trojanowski, a soft-spoken Pole, plans to build a "spiritual oasis" that will serve as Europe's only center dedicated to performing exorcisms. With the blessing of the local Catholic archbishop and theological support from the Vatican, the center will aid a growing number of Poles possessed by evil forces or the devil himself, he said.

This must fall under the category of "things you couldn't possibly make up in the 21st century".

Who knows, the Catholic might just trademark the concept, and franchise it, with branches all across Europe, then the rest of the world.

I wonder what they'll call it: "Exorcisms-R-US"?

Japan, China, India Racing For Moon's Riches

Pirated by iTunes, Artist Turns to BitTorrent

Many people that i’d meet at my shows would say that they bought my music on iTunes, yet I’ve never signed any sort of agreement allowing iTunes to host my music, and I’ve certainly never seen a dime of money for my albums hosted there. So I started investigating the numbers from the label, which led me to some shocking revelations about how little the artist and label was getting in comparison to the retailers. When I got around to asking about iTunes, the owner of Sublight Records pleaded with me to “leave it be”. Everyone else made an extraordinary effort to ignore my calls and emails.

When I finally got a hold of the digital distributor (I must note that “digital distributor” is the most pathetic job title I’ve ever heard), I was told that once the files are in the iTunes system, it literally couldn’t be removed or taken down for a year. So, either Apple has created a self-aware doomsday machine that cannot be stopped or reasoned with, or everyone involved is just enjoying the gravy train of ripping off artists like myself and using Apple’s backbone of attorneys as an intimidation factor.

This is very alarming, because we know many artists (my wife included) who have albums at iTunes. WE keep hearing that the albums are being purchased, but somehow we never see any money for it. If Apple/iTunes were ripping off the musicians, that would be a scandal that would bring down the RIAA and justly so.

This does not justify stealing copies of music, but the same policy of honesty must apply to the music distribution companies.

Kosovo:

Kosovo: The US and the EU support a Political Process linked to Organized Crime

Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci is part of a criminal syndicate

Michel Chossudovsky, Globalresearch

(Hashim Thaci, chairman of the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), Prime Minister of the Kosovo provisional government, former KLA leader and known criminal)

The PDK, led by Hashim Thaci, former Kosovan Liberation Army commander, took control of many municipalities after the war. The party has close links with organized crime in the province. (The Observer, 29 October 2000)

Mr. Thaci, nicknamed "the Snake" during his KLA days, is a sharp-suited 32-year-old former rebel commander with poor oratory skills, links to organized crime and a determination to preserve relations between his party and the United States (The Scotsman, 20 October 2000)

Hashim Thaci founded the "Drenica-Group" an underground organization that is estimated to have controlled between 10% and 15% of all criminal activities in Kosovo (smuggling arms, stolen cars, oil, cigarettes and prostitution). Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia

The US, the EU and the UN are supporting a Kosovo government headed by a known criminal, Prime Minister Hashim Thaci.

All three Kosovo Prime Ministers, Ramush Haradinaj, Agim Ceku and Hashim Thaci are war criminals.

Both Haradinaj and Ceku's names are on Interpol lists.

The Kosovo Democratic Party headed by former KLA Commander Hashim Thaci is essentially an outgrowth of the former Kosovo Liberation Army.

US-NATO covert support the KLA, goes back to the mid-1990s. In the year preceding the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia, the KLA was quite openly supported by the Clinton administration.

KLA leader Hashim Thaci was a protégé of Madeleine Albright. He was chosen by Albright to play a key role on Washington's behalf at the 1998 Rambouillet negotiations. .

The links of the KLA to organized crime have been documented by Interpol and the US Congress. The Washington Times in an article published in May 1999 describes the KLA and its links to the Clinton administration as follows:

Some members of the Kosovo Liberation Army [headed by the current Kosovo Prime minister Hashim Thaci] , which has financed its war effort through the sale of heroin, were trained in terrorist camps run by international fugitive Osama bin Laden -- who is wanted in the 1998 bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa that killed 224 persons, including 12 Americans.

The reports also show that the KLA has enlisted Islamic terrorists -- members of the Mujahideen --as soldiers in its ongoing conflict against Serbia, and that many already have been smuggled into Kosovo to join the fight. ....

The KLA members, embraced by the Clinton administration in NATO's 41-day bombing campaign to bring Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to the bargaining table, were trained in secret camps in Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina and elsewhere, according to newly obtained intelligence reports.

The intelligence reports document what is described as a "link" between bin Laden, the fugitive Saudi millionaire, and the KLA --including a common staging area in Tropoje, Albania, a center for Islamic terrorists. The reports said bin Laden's organization, known as al-Qaeda, has both trained and financially supported the KLA. (Washington Times, May 4, 1999, see complete article below)

The evidence amply confirms that the prime minister of Kosovo never severed his links to organized crime.

A known criminal is being protected by the United Nations: He was arrested in Budapest in July 2003 on an Interpol warrant and was immediately released, following a request from the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). This is not an isolated event.

The Western Media: Disinformation concerning the Nature of the Kosovo government

The Kosovo government is tied into organized criminal syndicates involved in narcotics and human trafficking.

The KLA's involvement in drug smuggling as a means of raising funds for weapons is long-standing. Intelligence documents show it has aligned itself with an extensive organized crime network in Albania that smuggles heroin to buyers throughout Western Europe and the United States. Drug agents in five countries believe the cartel is one of the most powerful heroin smuggling organizations in the world.

Russian state TV suggests USA involved in drug-trafficking from Afghanistan

BBC Monitoring, Channel One TV, Moscow

Russian state-controlled Channel One TV has broadcast a report containing allegations that US forces are involved in drug-trafficking from Afghanistan to Europe. It also highlighted the problem of drug abuse in the British army.

Russian state-controlled Channel One TV has broadcast a report containing allegations that US forces are involved in drug-trafficking from Afghanistan to Europe. It also highlighted the problem of drug abuse in the British army.

The accusation that US forces are involved in drug-trafficking came from Geydar Dzhemal, chairman of the Islamic Committee of Russia. "Without the control and connivance on the part of the special services none of these things are possible. For example in Afghanistan, the CIA and the special services are quite brazen. Under the protection of the American army they meet the necessary people. They collect the stuff, go to the Bagram airbase and they hand in a large consignment of narcotics, which is then taken away," he said.

The report went on to say that heroin reached the Balkans via Turkey, which "has been a member of NATO since 1952 and is the USA's closest ally in the region". It said it is "another amazing coincidence" that Kosovo hosts the largest NATO base in Europe. The correspondent added that there is a "secret Interpol post" next to this base. "Here they speak almost openly about Afghan heroin in American planes," he noted.

A man captioned as Marko Nicovic, Interpol employee, explained that 90 per cent of heroin goes through the Albanian mafia, which is now more powerful than the Sicilian mafia. He also alleged that members of this mafia bribe European parliamentarians to support the independence of Kosovo.

The report went on to link high levels of drug crime in Russia with the US invasion of Afghanistan. "Since the Americans unleashed war on the Taleban, Russian crime labs have been working non-stop," the correspondent observed over footage of a drugs raid and packages of drugs being opened.

Aleksandr Mikhaylov, the head of the department of interdepartmental and informational activity at the Russian Drugs Control Agency, was shown saying that the production of narcotics in Afghanistan is getting more professional and that drugs have taken a real stranglehold on the Afghan economy. "The situation today is that narcotics have become a substance used for barter in Afghanistan," he observed.

"For as long as heroin remains the only hard currency in the country and until NATO and its military coalition do not resolve their own issues, the agricultural proclivities here will hardly change," the correspondent concluded.

Independence in the Brave New World Orde:r NATO's Kosovo Colony

Across this last weekend, the Western propaganda machine was working overtime, celebrating the latest NATO miracle: the transformation of Serbian Kosovo into Albanian Kosova. A shameless land grab by the United States, which used the Kosovo problem to install an enormous military base (Camp Bondsteel) on other people's strategically located land, is transformed by the power of the media into an edifying legend of "national liberation".

For the unhappy few who know the complicated truth about Kosovo, the words of Aldous Huxley seem most appropriate: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall drive you mad.

"It is a Mafia society" based on "capture of the state" by criminal elements.

In the authors' definition, Kosovan organized crime "consists of multimillion-Euro organizations with guerrilla experience and espionage expertise." They quote a German intelligence service report of "closest ties between leading political decision makers and the dominant criminal class" and name Ramush Haradinaj, Hashim Thaci and Xhavit Haliti as compromised leaders who are "internally protected by parliamentary immunity and abroad by international law."

It notes "secret CIA detention centers" at Camp Bondsteel and assails American military training for Kosovo (Albanian) police by Dyncorp, authorized by the Pentagon.

The reality of this shameless land-grab is available to all. I have written about it, Binder has written about it, Szamuely has written about it, many Germans have written about it. The Russians, the Greeks, the Rumanians, the Slovaks and many others know about it. But in the Brave New World Order, it does not exist. People don't know.

I leave the last word to Aldous Huxley:

"Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know because we don't want to know."

Secrets of the CIA's Global Sex Slave Industry | Wake Up From Your ...

Secrets of the CIA's Global Sex Slave Industry

This is the story of how the CIA uses "war zones" to garner kids for the sex slave business. You may have heard how the two companies, DynCorp and Halliburton, were caught trafficking in women during the war in Yugoslavia.

Some background on this topic can be found at http://www.prisonplanet.com/
articles/january2006/
010106sexslavescandal.htm

or see the Rep. Cynthia McKinney Grills Rumsfeld On Dyncorp Sex Rings video at http://www.infowars.com/articles/us/
mckinney_grills_rumsfeld.htm

read all three parts
source:
http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=137&contenti

UN Condones Dyncorp Sex Crimes & Sex Slavery

Rees testified in support of Kathryn Bolkovac, a UN police officer who was sacked for exposing the sexual abuse of women and children in Bosnia by her colleagues.

Bolkovac’s former employer DynCorp, an American security firm which supplied staff to the UN, was forced to pay £110,000 in compensation.

The chairman of the British employment tribunal which heard the case described DynCorp as "callous, spiteful and vindictive".

Bolkovac had revealed UN peacekeepers went to nightclubs where young girls were forced to dance naked and have sex with customers, and that UN personnel and international aid workers were linked to prostitution rings in the Balkans. At the time, Rees described it as "the biggest cover-up I have ever seen", adding that she believed 30% of those visiting Bosnia’s brothels were UN personnel, peacekeepers or aid workers.

Russian state TV suggests USA involved in drug-trafficking from Afghanistan

Russian state-controlled Channel One TV has broadcast a report containing allegations that US forces are involved in drug-trafficking from Afghanistan to Europe. It also highlighted the problem of drug abuse in the British army.

Vast oil reserves found in northern Albania

Source: News Kosovo

The Balkans region has proven oil reserves totalling approximately 345 million barrels. Of that, 198 million barrels is located in Albania .

Proven natural gas reserves in the Balkans region add up to approximately 2.7 trillion cubic feet.

The Raw Story | Serbs attack Kosovo border points as tensions mount

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned the United States that Kosovo's independence was "dangerous" for the world but US President George W. Bush insisted the move would bring peace.

Putin has more than a little grasp of history; Bush has absolutely no understanding of history.

And those who do not understand the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. - M. R.

Nato troops called in as mobs torch checkpoints on Kosovan border

The protesters tipped over metal sheds that housed Customs services, sending them sliding down the hillside, before setting fire to the remaining buildings. A local policeman at the scene reported: “We couldn’t do anything, we just moved away as there were only a few of us compared with the group of very angry Serbs.”

We haven't seen anything yet, in terms of the ramifications of Kosovo having declared its independence.

Refroidisement climatique:

The Sun Also Sets

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Back in 1991, before Al Gore first shouted that the Earth was in the balance, the Danish Meteorological Institute released a study using data that went back centuries that showed that global temperatures closely tracked solar cycles.

To many, those data were convincing. Now, Canadian scientists are seeking additional funding for more and better "eyes" with which to observe our sun, which has a bigger impact on Earth's climate than all the tailpipes and smokestacks on our planet combined.

And they're worried about global cooling, not warming.

Kenneth Tapping, a solar researcher and project director for Canada's National Research Council, is among those looking at the sun for evidence of an increase in sunspot activity.

Solar activity fluctuates in an 11-year cycle. But so far in this cycle, the sun has been disturbingly quiet. The lack of increased activity could signal the beginning of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century.

Such an event occurred in the 17th century. The observation of sunspots showed extraordinarily low levels of magnetism on the sun, with little or no 11-year cycle.

This solar hibernation corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715. Frigid winters and cold summers during that period led to massive crop failures, famine and death in Northern Europe.

Tapping reports no change in the sun's magnetic field so far this cycle and warns that if the sun remains quiet for another year or two, it may indicate a repeat of that period of drastic cooling of the Earth, bringing massive snowfall and severe weather to the Northern Hemisphere.

New Arctic Study published in Climate Dynamics, and the work was conducted by Håkan Grudd of Stockholm University's Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology - Published online: 30 January 2008.

Excerpt: "The late-twentieth century is not exceptionally warm in the new Torneträsk record: On decadal-to-century timescales, periods around AD 750, 1000, 1400, and 1750 were all equally warm, or warmer. The warmest summers in this new reconstruction occur in a 200-year period centred on AD 1000. A 'Medieval Warm Period' is supported by other paleoclimate evidence from northern Fennoscandia, although the new tree-ring evidence from Tornetraäsk suggests that this period was much warmer than previously recognised." < > "The new Torneträsk summer temperature reconstruction shows a trend of -0.3°C over the last 1,500 years." Paper available here: & Full Paper (pdf) available here:

So it appears that Arctic ice isn't vanishing after all

If the northern hemisphere's chilliest winter in a long time was bad news for the propagandists of global warming, they also had to face serious questions about some of the most iconic images used to support the claims that the world is hotting up towards disaster.

There was some coverage of the chaos caused in central and southern China by their heaviest snowfalls for decades - but little attention was paid to the snow that last week carpeted Jerusalem, Damascus and Amman, none of them exactly used to Dickensian Christmas card weather.

Similarly, Saudis last month expressed amazement at their heaviest snow for many years, in Afghanistan snow and freezing weather killed 120 people and large parts of the United States and Canada have been swept by unusually fierce blizzards.

This body is committed to warmist orthodoxy and contributes to the work of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Yet its graph of northern hemisphere sea ice area, which shows the ice shrinking from 13,000 million sq km to just 4 million from the start of 2007 to October, also shows it now almost back to 13 million sq km.

A second graph, "Global Ice Area", shows a similar pattern repeated every year since satellite records began in 1979; while a third, "Southern Hemisphere Ice", shows that sea ice has actually expanded in recent years, well above its 30-year mean.

Skeptical Global Warming Scientists To Challenge "Consensus"

Hundreds of scientists, economists, and public policy experts are set to meet in Manhattan next month to discuss the other side of the climate change debate that the establishment media prefers to pretend does not exist.

The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change seeks to "call attention to widespread dissent in the scientific community to the alleged “consensus” that the modern warming is primarily man-made and is a crisis," according to The Heartland Institute.

Russians Brace For The Big Chill

Russians are bracing for temperatures of as low as minus 55 degrees Celsius (minus 67 degrees Fahrenheit) in Siberia as Russia's emergencies ministry warns on Wednesday of its impending dangers in the coming weeks.

Snow, ice pellets pummel Atlantic Canada

Montreal was digging out of some 20 centimetres of the white stuff, an amount that brought the city a record snowfall to date at 262 cm of snow so far this year.

Meanwhile, pockets in northern parts of the Prairie provinces, Nunavut and the Northwest Territories were under a mix of extreme wind chill and blizzard alerts.

And southern parts of Saskatchewan and Manitoba were under blizzard warnings with overnight temperatures expected to feel like the -40s with the wind chill.

Storms threaten Toronto's February record

If you've been boasting to your neighbours that you've never shovelled so much snow in your life, you may be right.

Toronto was poised to shatter the record snowfall for the month of February after yet another snowstorm yesterday blew the city toward a monthly milestone set more than half a century ago.

Venice sea levels plunge to 14-year low

Sea levels in the Italian lagoon city of Venice plunged to a 14-year low this week, beaching some gondolas and exposing the canal-beds of famed waterways.

"But, but, but, Al Gore said the ice caps were melting and we were all gonna drown if we did not pay the carbon tax!!!"

Snowstorm Shuts San Diego Mountain Road

A California mountain highway near the Mexican border is closed because of a surprise snowstorm that stranded as many as 500 motorists.

Snow is being reported in downtown San Diego; the first time snow has fallen on the city since 1967.

Snowfall cuts off Greek villages

Heavy snowfall has left at least 150 villages cut off in Greece and severely disrupted flights to and from Athens.

Afghan gov't faces tough challenges in assisting cold-affected people

Xinhua

A report released by United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) Monday said that the cold weather and winter conditions have claimed the lives of 483 people.

Rare Tokyo snow strands 10,000 at Narita airport

A rare snowfall in Tokyo left nearly 10,000 passengers stranded overnight at Narita airport after about 50 international flights were cancelled, the airport authority said Sunday.

Blah blah blah blah Global Warming blah blah blah blah blah Global Warming blah blah blah blah blah blah blah Global Warming blah blah blah Global Warming blah blah blah blah, and here is your carbon tax bill.

Wheat market gone wild

Like a 100-year flood, spring wheat prices have risen relentlessly all winter, obliterating every record in sight. At the Minneapolis Grain Exchange, wheat fever pushed prices to $19.80 a bushel in trading Friday - nearly triple the record from 1996.

Here is the backside of converting food farmlands to ethanol production.

Veteran Loch Ness Monster Hunter Gives Up

Despite having hundreds of sonar contacts over the years, the trail has since gone cold and Rines believes that Nessie may be dead, a victim of global warming.

Ummm .... sure.