IRBIL, Iraq, July 16 -- Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region and the Iraqi government are closer to war than at any time since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, the Kurdish prime minister said Thursday, in a bleak measure of the tension that has risen along what U.S. officials consider the country's most combustible fault line.
In separate interviews, Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani and the region's president, Massoud Barzani, described a stalemate in attempts to resolve long-standing disputes with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's emboldened government. Had it not been for the presence of the U.S. military in northern Iraq, Nechirvan Barzani said, fighting might have started in the most volatile regions.
Exxon, famous for its mockery of alternative energies, is going to invest more than half a billion dollars into oilgae...
By JAD MOUAWAD Published: July 13, 2009
. . .
On Tuesday, Exxon plans to announce an investment of $600 million in producing liquid transportation fuels from algae — organisms in water that range from pond scum to seaweed. The biofuel effort involves a partnership with Synthetic Genomics, a biotechnology company founded by the genomics pioneer J. Craig Venter.
According to the Associated Press, during his visit to Russia Barack Obama found Russian President Medvedev to sound surprisingly similar to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Jul 7, 2009
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says his first meeting with President Barack Obama went "very well."
The former Russian president called the two-hour meeting "substantive, informative and collaborative."
Putin told reporters he and Obama "covered the issues from previous years" and found "many positives" and "many points in common."
Obama also had good things to say about their meeting Tuesday, and said he found Putin's views similar to those of Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev.
This is one of those moments when the only thing one can do is to hope that American president is just very polite or a bit naive. Touching naivety - Abu Rakun would have said. I am wondering how Obama would have characterized Putin's views if he would have been first introduced to Ilya Glazunov.
Lyrebird mimics chainsaw, radio, DJ...
Lyrebird of Australia by David Attenborough - Unseen Footage
PS
This post is an update to The Eternal Russia. If you want to comment, do it there.
Some report about very professional performance of Chinese police and the army during the crisis in Xinjiang, China. This is for example from a blog by the Telegraph reporter.
A note on the performance of the Chinese police during this crisis: from what I’ve seen they have been highly disciplined and professional under extremely challenging circumstances and deserve real praise for this.
. . .
I don’t claim to be an expert in riot control, but I have reported on mass protests in many different cities around the world - in the UK (football riots in London), in Africa (Harare and Lagos), in Pakistan (Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar) and in several cities in India - and I’m happy to say that China’s police have showed far greater professionalism, discipline and restraint than I’ve observed in many of those places.
Another thing that calls attention - China was actively courting media during this crisis. Until now I did not really encounter reports about the Chinese blocking access to Xinjiang for media or deporting foreign reporters. This is in striking contrast to the coverage of the green revolution in Iran.
From the practical point of view, however, the question is really if the latest events, and the overwhelming majority of victims seem to be Han Chinese, will deal a blow to the Chinese policy of resettling Xinjiang and Tibet with thousands of ethnic Chinese. In Tibet Han Chinese account for more than 50% of the population, but the Chinese are reportedly struggling to establish a massive enough core of permanent colonists. Tibet's high altitudes are apparently not a very healthy environment for people who did not grow up there. Many Chinese eventually leave on the grounds of health and climate only to be replaced by new migrants.
This is not the situation in Xinjiang, however, where the ethnic Chinese population is about 50% and its core is stable. The next decade may become crucial in this sense since if the current migratory patterns persist, the fate of Xinjiang will be soon sealed for the foreseeable future, if not forever. Admittedly, such violent uprisings is the only means left to the Uighur nationalists if they want to try to stop the inevitable. Together Xinjiang and Tibet account for roughly 40% of the territory of China. The superpower, now chronically short on land, water and other resources, is in no mood for compromises. These days being a Tibetan or Uighur nationalist is a tough luck.
Every few weeks another video of Vladimir Putin makes rounds in the Russian speaking part of the Internet. Most of these videos are about Vladimir Putin visiting various places around the country, from Russian Academy of Science to industrial complexes, where Vladimir Putin entertains his audiences by treating them all as infantile imbeciles. As a person who grew up under the old Soviet regime I should notice that in these matters Vladimir Putin has by now plainly surpassed all last Soviet leaders starting with Leonid Breznev.
Regardless of how eternal Russia generally is, some aspects of Russia seem sure to happen as eternal as Mother Russia herself is going to be. My own understanding of the Soviets has changed tremendously over the last years, partly because of this stuff. Many aspects of the Soviet Communism I used to consider integral to communism in general until very recently, I view now as part of Russian culture and mentality. You can blame political systems for only that much.
In fact, I was occasionally blogging about Putin before, but the video currently circulated among Russian bloggers will probably relieve me of the need to do so anymore. The video is both short and very illustrative of a weird personality cult around Russian PM, former president and in many respects best described as a post Soviet imitation of Russian Czar without a throne.
The clip is provided with subtitles. I should admit that it's a pretty loose translation as I can't be bothered so much as to waste my time on subscripting YouTube videos. Nevertheless, the video should give one a pretty good idea of what modern Russia is about and what's going on behind the linguistic barriers that most people who don't speak Russian can't cross.
No commentary is necessary, though people unfamiliar with Russia history should be probably provided with a brief explanation regarding two individuals mentioned in the clip. Boris and Gleb are two princes from the early Russian history who gave their lives away without a fight during a fratricide war for the throne of Kievan Rus. Their deaths are a kind of archetypal for the variety of Christianity practiced in Russia which (at least theoretically) extols the virtues of self effacement and sacrifice. Both were canonized and accorded the status of saints.
Those who have patience to translate and subscript more of this stuff are welcome to do it and I will gladly embed these videos into my post. In fact, I was thinking about setting up a separate site with such videos to provide outsiders with an access to this aspect of modern Russia. As for now, you are welcome to enjoy this one.
Vladimir Putin the Art Critic
PS
If you don't see the subtitles, find an upward arrow at the right bottom of the video and try this...
"From now on all canonizations must be first approved by the prime minister office. Saint candidates must provide proof of due diligence in fighting back against martyrdom before receiving probationary miracle licenses."
:D :D Thanx, Bruno
Putin the Canonizer
July 14, 2009
Barack Obama in the Land of Lyrebirds
According to the Associated Press, during his visit to Russia Barack Obama found Russian President Medvedev to sound surprisingly similar to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Jul 7, 2009
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says his first meeting with President Barack Obama went "very well."
The former Russian president called the two-hour meeting "substantive, informative and collaborative."
Putin told reporters he and Obama "covered the issues from previous years" and found "many positives" and "many points in common."
Obama also had good things to say about their meeting Tuesday, and said he found Putin's views similar to those of Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev.
This is one of those moments when the only thing one can do is to hope that American president is just very polite or a bit naive. Touching naivety - Abu Rakun would have said. I am wondering how Obama would have characterized Putin's views if he would have been first introduced to Ilya Glazunov.
Lyrebird mimics chainsaw, radio, DJ...
Lyrebird of Australia by David Attenborough - Unseen Footage
PS
Clarification: Following this post a question came as to what and who lyrebirds can and cannot imitate. Lyrebirds can imitate quite a lot, virtually any sound, but this is not the point. The lyrebird of Youtube is a mythical creature, inspired by the famous chainsaw mimicking lyrebird of David Attenborough. It's more like a synonym for somebody endlessly engaged in intense vocal imitation.
When Mr. Lieberman visited France recently, Mr. Sarkozy declined to meet with him, although he routinely received Ms. Livni, who was foreign minister in the last government.
According to the newspaper Yediot Aharonot, Mr. Sarkozy told Mr. Netanyahu that he should remake his government so that he, Ms. Livni and the defense minister, Ehud Barak, could produce historic breakthroughs for Middle East peace.
He was reported to have said, “I’ve always received Israeli foreign ministers. I met with Tzipi Livni in the Élysée Palace, but with that one I simply can’t meet. I’m telling you, you need to get rid of that man. Get him out of the government and bring in Livni. With her and with Barak you can make history.”
The paper said Mr. Netanyahu replied: “No need to exaggerate. Lieberman is a very nice person, and in private conversations he speaks differently.”
Mr. Sarkozy was reported to have replied, “In private conversations, Jean-Marie Le Pen is also a nice person.”
Mr. Sarkozy is said to have added of Mr. Lieberman, “Sometimes when I hear what he says I have the urge to pull out my hair.” He placed his hands on his head and grabbed his hair.
For one I doubt that Lieberman is a nice person even in private one to one communication. Two, even if he is a privately nice person, still I would like to know how we ended with a foreign minister who by all accounts is a persona non grata virtually everywhere in the world. Three, how long it's going to take them to realize and correct this mistake. This is not to say that I endorse in any way the anti Lieberman hysteria now very fashionable in some circles, but, still, for a country that so loves to complain about being misunderstood and deliberately vilified in the media, that was a very weird choice of FM. When you have a habit of pushing your head into a lion's mouth, don't be surprised if one day you return home without the head.
And on a bit different note...
...The Tripod Fish
The tripod fish is a relatively sedentary fish. It spends much of its adult life standing on the ocean bottom on its fins. The fish stands facing the prevailing current, and hunts by extending its unusually long pectoral fins into the current and waiting for the small crustaceans on which it feeds to simply bump into its fins. The fish grasps its prey in the pectoral fins and directs it toward its mouth.
Analysts are often marveling at the sheer number of Shia clerics imprisoned or under house arrest by what is supposed to be a theocratic state. Outside Iran the concept of political Islam in the Shia world is now so thoroughly discredited by Khomeinism that these days even Hezbollah is no longer talking about Islamic state. As to Iraq, there appears to have been left nobody with any significant standing as a scholar ready to endorse Islamic state or deep involvement in politics in any other way. Ali al-Sistani, probably the most authoritative of all Shia scholars these days, is a staunch quietist.
Shia Islam's perception of political and historical matters was always heavily shaped by themes of tyranny and injustice, so much so that in its most anti political forms it strangely resembles the most extreme of anti Zionist Jewish ultra orthodox groups who reject any version of a Jewish state before the coming of the Messiah. Similarly, the quietist stream in Shia Islam traditionally views tyranny and injustice as inherent to any political system and impossible to overcome until the Mahdi takes the matters under his control. Politics is something that the religion should keep a big distance from lest the religion gets corrupted and contaminated itself. That's why it's a safe bet that many religious Shias, including clerics, have been watching the latest street battles in Tehran with a nagging feeling of "They told us so".
Regardless of how Khomeini has succeeded to sway a significant part of the clergy to adopt his school of political activism, tensions between the two streams were simmering already during Khomeini and broke into open when the Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, nominated Khomeini's successor by nobody else than Khomeini himself, publicly condemned the system and its methods. Some claim that the amendment to Iran's constitution that allowed Khamenei, no great scholar himself, to take over the post of the Supreme Leader came for the lack of cooperation on the part of other Grand Ayatollahs.
Deep Dish - Floating
However, the thing is that as large chunks of the Shia priesthood, unimpressed by the outcome of Khomeini's experiments with political Islam in Iran, were retreating back into political quietism, this did not produce many open revolts the style of Montazeri since the very nature of political quietism is to keep distance from politics. That no comment appears to have come from Iraq's leading Shia clerics on the post election mess in Tehran should not be understood as a sign of approval. It's a sign that by now the quietist stream is back and in a big way.
When it comes to the elections in Iran, regardless of who won them, their aftermath was so massively mismanaged by the system that it can easily mean Iraq surging as a source of religious and moral authority in the Shia world following the destruction of the last remnants of one in Iran. The situation of the quietists, however, is complicated by the fact that, with its moral authority in shambles after the post election fallout and in the face of a massive opposition, in particular, in big cities, the regime in Tehran is now forced to increasingly rely on the remaining two pillars of its power - the security apparatus and religion. It's worth keeping in mind in what terms Montazeri shaped his protest over Khomeini's fatwa calling for execution of Salman Rushdie at the peak of the struggle between the two. "People in the world are getting the idea that our business in Iran is just murdering people," Montazeri said.
This time however, this is no longer about some Indian Muslim expat in the West, but about hundreds of thousands of Shia believers beaten and shot at on the streets of Tehran. And this time it's not about what people in the world may think about Iran, but what the Shia masses themselves may conclude about their religious leaders and the oppression they have to endure in the name of their religion. A velvet divorce between the quietist stream, that by now has become again the mainstream in many parts of the Shia world, and the state in Iran is fast becoming impossible since, even if the religion may be trying to leave the state in peace quietly retreating into the background, the state shows no intention to let go of the religion.
Basically, al-Sistani has made it known that in his view the legitimacy of the Supreme Leader should be confirmed by a majority of believers, it cannot be imposed. However, the ruling clique in Iran seems to be impervious to such subtle suggestions that it should start planning for gradual disengagement of the religion from politics. Instead, one pro-government cleric called for the demonstrators to be executed with another one, or the same one, claiming that the demonstrators are rebelling against God. In some quarters of the high Shia priesthood the anger may be now reaching the boiling point. The regime's intransigence may soon prompt one of the top scholars of the quietist stream to move in and declare the unfortunate experiment over for its failure to deliver. This may start a showdown of religious and scholarly authority between the two streams with various scholars throwing their weight behind one of the two sides.
In some respect the religious underpinnings of the Islamic republic have been lacking for quite a while now. Khamenei's nomination to the Supreme Leader was reportedly greeted with scorn in Qom and elsewhere for the man's lack of appropriate scholarship. About Ahmadinejad it's said that his attempts to incite the most debased and primitive forms of Shia piety are roiling even conservative clerics from the hardcore still supporting the regime - it's not only the quietists who find problem with Ahmadinejad's pretensions to be divinely inspired and his recurring evocations of the Mahdi. The regime in Tehran shouldn't want to get to the point of having to take part in any contest of religious and scholarly credentials since this may reveal how little of those it has left.
PS
For those who don't know, Deep Dish are two Iranians in Washington, USA.
In a 2006 speech entitled “The Collapse of an Empire: Lessons for Modern Russia,” Yegor Gaidar, a deputy prime minister of Russia in the early 1990s, noted that “the timeline of the collapse of the Soviet Union can be traced to Sept. 13, 1985. On this date, Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, the minister of oil of Saudi Arabia, declared that the monarchy had decided to alter its oil policy radically. The Saudis stopped protecting oil prices, and Saudi Arabia quickly regained its share in the world market.
“During the next six months,” added Gaidar, “oil production in Saudi Arabia increased fourfold, while oil prices collapsed by approximately the same amount in real terms. As a result, the Soviet Union lost approximately $20 billion per year, money without which the country simply could not survive.”
For every nation in the world there should be an Ahmadinejad
By Hyung-jin Kim, Associated Press Writer
SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea threatened Wednesday to wipe the United States off the map as Washington and its allies watched for signs the regime will launch a series of missiles in the coming days.
...
...
"If the U.S. imperialists start another war, the army and people of Korea will ... wipe out the aggressors on the globe once and for all," the official Korean Central News Agency said.
Shari Arison on "How to stop worry and start living"
Last updated: June 22, 2009
June 21, 2009
Shari Arison interview on Channel Two is making rounds over the web. This is how Reuters is reporting it:
"For many years I've received messages, you could call them transmissions or messages. I see many things before they happen," Arison said in an interview with Israel's Channel Two broadcast late on Saturday.
"Apparently I got this gift to see ahead of time, not in order to run and buy and sell to make more money but to lead the world elsewhere."
The Israeli-American Arison, along with her brother, inherited billions from her late father Ted Arison, who founded Carnival Corp (CCL.N), the world's biggest cruise ship operator. She is the controlling shareholder in Bank Hapoalim (POLI.TA) and also controls Housing and Construction HUCN.TA, Israel's biggest construction company.
Of course, once again Israeli message is deliberately and maliciously distorted by the international media. What Shari was basically saying is that, when you have such a gift, all you have to do is to use it to pick up a right daddy and then you will no longer have "to run and buy and sell to make more money" for the rest of your life. You will be free to lead the world "elsewhere".
Yeke Yeke (Afro-Acid Remix)
June 22, 2009
Bank Hapoalim shares plunged as stunned investors were voting with their feet betraying deep seated mistrust of the managerial skills of the genies and spirits now in control of Israel's largest bank (Why can't we all just, you know?? get along?)
"There are many people who get messages in this world. With me it works either through a picture, a word or in my sleep, all kinds of ways," Shari said.
"I receive them directly from above," she added, gesturing with her hands.
Spiritually disinclined individuals usually pick their clues from more mundane sources, something the style of Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
The Shari effect (Bank Hapoalim shares this morning)
Some Twitter avatars were changed to green over the last week while the more enthusiastic among Western sympathizers of the green revolution can now be spotted wearing green ribbons and shirts. Green is the traditional color of Islam and yet nobody seems to mind this. I am wondering what's about another iconic symbol of the revolution, I mean shouting Allahu Akbar from rooftops? In the good old days one could hardly end whispering this Allahu Akbar on a street without having a half of the street hitting the ground with the another half running for cover. Now thanks to the opposition demonstrators, Allahu Akbar took on very different connotations as rightly or wrongly it came to be associated with the pro democracy movement in the Muslim world. It's a pity we don't have diplomatic relations with Iran, otherwise I would just love to go demonstrating, proudly wearing a green shirt and shouting Allahu Akbar in front of the Iranian embassy. Just, you know, for the sake of experience...
Edmund Conway, economics editor of The Telegraph newspapers and website, has embarked on the noblest mission possible. On his blog he is writing The Dummies Guide to Dance Music.
Edmund Conway
Since a while I came to suspect a strong connection between economics and compulsive clubbing. While not economist by training, I am frequently puzzled by my own obsession with the gas tax and my ability to spend hours making comparative analysis of the gas and carbon taxes. Clubbing is the only thing in my life that came close to this obsession in terms of intensity.
Guy J - Lunar (Late Night Friday Remix)
Why exactly the things are the way they are I don't know, but I can only be wondering as to what clubs Krugman is celebrating his Nobel in these days. After all, he was one of the stimulus package major proponents. I am sure he is now using his Nobel to stimulate something.
Guy J - Lunar (Original Mix)
In between clubbing and writing his Dummies Guide, Edmund occasionally also writes serious articles such as this Tumbling towards a sovereign debt crisis?. Some people may find this stuff so scary that they can permanently lose ability to party for the rest of their life. This is not strictly necessary as economists are easily capable of designing even more nightmarish scenarios than this one. This is probably another side effect of their incessant clubbing. For pals like these (and me too by the way), even if the whole country goes bust, as long as Digweed is mixing the things up in Bedrock, the British Empire is live and kicking.
2008 Bedrock After Party - John Digweed
June 20, 2009
El Wahrania
Edmund Conway continues his Electronica series. Besides dedicating a whole post to the techno music, Edmund is inviting his readers to ponder the following question: Do we still need Ibiza? He is also making a very poignant observation regarding the use of liquid nitrogen cannons:
Amnesia, which held its opening party on Saturday, was a similar story. Even bigger than Pacha, the club's highlight, to my mind, is its massive liquid nitrogen cannon which occasionally shoots out supercooled gas into the crowd, both cooling the dancefloor immediately and providing the DJ with the ultimate climax for a drop. Whereas Pacha and Space are where you go for house, Amnesia and Privilege tend to be the places to go for trance.
Now regarding this liquid nitrogen cannon I think it's very important for reasons I have already explained here. In fact, I wish that in the past they could have sprayed me with this liquid nitrogen more often as I frequently used to forget to drink enough water during my after-parties. Nevertheless, to answer Edmund's question: I do think we still need Ibiza, even though I have never been there...
:D :D :D
Safian Rouge - El Wahrania (Montes Midnight Mix)
PS
Some Israelis may be pleased to know that Guy J, the author of an impressive track featured in the first section of the post, is Israeli. Never mind that Lunar being mixed like this at Bedrock after-parties means that, as far as the electronic music goes, we are already a superpower.
In southern Lebanon following the 2006 war, Israel’s Defense Forces and the United Nations found several of the underground complexes, which by then had been abandoned by Hezbollah militants. By coincidence or not, these tunnels and underground rooms – some big enough for meetings to be held there – are strikingly similar to those the South Koreans have unearthed under the Demilitarized Zone that separates South from North Korea. Under small, manhole cover-sized entrances hidden under grass and bushes were steel-lined shafts with ladders leading down to big rooms with electricity, ventilation, bathrooms with showers and drainage systems. Some of the tunnels are 40 meters deep and located only 100 meters from the Israeli border. North Korea’s possible involvement in digging these tunnels is however, difficult to ascertain. According to Israeli investigative journalist Ronen Bergman, a senior officer in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, who had defected to the West, revealed that, "thanks to the presence of hundreds of Iranian engineers and technicians, and experts from North Korea who were brought in by Iranian diplomats…Hezbollah succeeded in building a 25-kilometer subterranean strip in South Lebanon."
Beirut sources suggest that it is more likely that Hezbollah has used North Korean designs and blueprints given to them by their Syrian or Iranian allies – both of whom are close to the North Koreans. (Both Iran and Syria have acquired missile technology from North Korea, and what was believed to be a secret nuclear reactor in Syria built with North Korean help was destroyed by the Israeli air force in September 2007.) Either way, North Korean expertise in tunneling has become a valuable commodity for export. And Pyongyang is flexible about the method of payment as long as it helps the international pariah regime.
A poll, commissioned by the Institute for National Security Studies of Tel Aviv University, established that only 20 percent of Israelis believe that a nuclear Iran would try to destroy Israel. Most Israelis, according to the poll, remain unphazed by the nuclear threat.
Asked how a nuclear-armed Iran would affect their lives, 80 percent of respondents said they expected no change. Eleven percent said they would consider emigrating and 9 percent said they would consider relocating inside Israel.
Until now analysts seem to have been in agreement that Iran's rulers are no suicidal bunch eager to incinerate themselves and their country during an exchange of nuclear strikes between Iran and Israel. Some even claimed that Iran's nuclear program is actually designed with the Arabs in mind. Its purpose is deterrence and even not necessarily against Israel. Most Israelis seem to be reasonable enough to avoid succumbing to hysteria.
However, eleven percent who would consider emigrating is a significant number. Of course it's doubtful that even 1 percent will actually do it. Yet, the bomb is now a factor that on some occasions may determine the outcome of personal situations compounded by other considerations. The bomb may have even more impact on immigration, in particular, from the West. In short, even before coming into existence, Iran's nuclear bomb is already taking its toll on the demographic situation within Israel.
That's why I can hardly stress enough a point I was making elsewhere. Regardless of the recent dynamics between the Jewish and Arab birth rates, this is a region where no chances should be taken. And if an opportunity to completely solve the demographic problem for the next 50 years exists, and in this region even 20 years are eternity, then it should be taken advantage of without asking for anybody's opinion.
In an astonishing act of self cannibalism the political establishment in Iran has rigged elections won by one of its own and put dozens of the so called reformists under house arrest. The record turnout followed by violent clashes on the streets means that this time the ruling elite has not only succeeded to antagonize large sections of its power base, but also destroyed the bulk of whatever goodwill it still commanded among the wider population.
No less astonishing is the fact that according to the official results the leading opposition candidate failed to win majority in his home town, while another opposition candidate failed to get even 10% in his town. Come on, gays guys, this is the Middle East. Even if Mousawi were to lose by ratio of 10 to 1, I would have still expected him to win by a landslide in Tabriz. But when the official results are something like 2 to 1, at least the Azeri heartland Mousawi was sure to take by storm. The people who are running Iran these days seem to be no longer capable of even rigging elections properly and, yet, they want to develop nuclear technology. In one word - amateurs.
