Chavez shuts down critical news station

Venezuala's president Hugo Chavez shut down Radio Caracas Television today in a move many say is a step towards dictatorship in the oil-rich country. The television station frequently broadcast reports critical of the central government.

Chavez has won numerous referendums in recent years showcasing his widespread support with Venezuala's poor and disenfranchised classes. However, his efforts to nationalize the oil supplies in his country and kick out foreign oil companies has brought the wrath of the U.S. government upon him. Chavez alleges that the brief coup in 2002 during which he was kidnapped was orchestrated by the CIA-- a claim seemingly less outrageous in lieu of Washington's advance knowledge of the coup and U.S. anti-Chavez rhetoric.

Radical Pakistani Mosque Kidnaps Policemen

In the middle of Pakistan's capital city, Islamabad, the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) has been in the news in recent months for its "morality drive," in which they threatened owners of video shops and barbers who offered beard trims, amongst other targets. Now the radicalized coed students at the Red Mosque have kidnapped a number of Pakistani policemen and are holding them inside the holy structure, demanding the release of several students in government custody.

The Red Mosque is now surrounded by thousands of other policemen, but general (now "president") Musharraf has ruled out the use of force. In reality, he has little choice-- the Red Mosque represents the strength of radical Islam in his country and openly attacking that institution will only increase the number of extremist attempts on his life.

Pakistan's northwest border with Afghanistan is largely out of the central government's control as well, and elements of groups similar to the Taleban have set up harsh forms of Islam in those regions, in some cases bombing music cassette stores.

Musharraf has also faced extreme criticism from Pakistan's secular world, after dismissing a Supreme Court high judge who was critical of his administration's policies and storming and shutting down several TV stations airing programs about police and citizen clashes. The general needs legal sanction to continue as both commander-in-chief of the armed forces and the country's president, a position he took by military coup in 1999.

With the twin forces of Islamism and secularism scissoring Musharraf, is this the death knell for the general?

Chinese Foreign Reserves begin redirection

China has vast foreign exchange reserves of around $1.2 trillion dollars, built up after years of intensive dollar buying in order to keep its currency low and its exports cheap on the world market. However, the dollar is widely expected to continue to fall in the future due to the downward pressure of massive U.S. government debt-- and the Chinese are looking to get rid of as many dollars as possible without accelerating that downward trend by flooding the market with USD.

In the latest show of Chinese dollar redirection and investment, the government-sponsored "Investment Company" bought a $3 billion stake in U.S. private equity firm Blackstone.

More on the U.S. dollar and its future slow (or, alternatively, devastatingly fast) devaluation in a future post.

Ancient "space rock" impact caused mass extinction

There is now evidence that an ancient object which exploded over North America was composed of strange materials like

"tiny spheres of glass and carbon, ultra-small specks of diamond - called nanodiamond - and amounts of the rare element iridium"

The explosion occurred about 12,900 years ago at the end of the last Ice Age, and probably caused the extinction of species like the mastodon, sabre tooth tiger, and American camel. It also forced one of the oldest known North American cultures, the Clovis people, to abruptly shift from a centralized agricultural society into dozens of fragmented, hunter-gatherer communities.

Why a rock from space would be composed of nanospheres, nanodiamond and iridium remains unexplained.

Intel tries to kill "One Child per Laptop" U.N. initative

In 2005, MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte and the United Nations together assembled industry, academia and global citizen supporters to produce the world's first "laptop for the poor" which can be also be used as an electronic book.


These green machines are powered by a windup crank and "mesh networking" to allow many laptops to share one internet connection. Many developing countries have already bought thousands of the cheap learning tools for their citizens. As Professor Negroponte notes


"Studies have shown that kids take up computers much more easily in the comfort of warm, well-lit rich country living rooms, but also in the slums and remote areas all around the developing world."


However, the U.N.'s decision to use chip maker AMD as the flash memory card manufacturer has sparked a brutal economic war with their long time rival Intel. Intel has been distributing reports to poor government's with titles like "The short comings of One Child per Laptop" while pushing their alternative, US $200 laptop "Classmates".

As John Negroponte said, shame on Intel.

One Small Step Closer for Korean Unification

For the first time in 50 years, a pair of passenger trains adorned with flowers and flanked by cheering crowds crossed the heavily fortified border between North and South Korea. The two countries are still technically at war, but in recent years many efforts have been made to reunify the peninsula.


South Korea has initiated many of these peace processes, and indeed the south has as much to gain as the north in the end of the detente. South Korea is ranked the second most digitalized country (after Taiwan) and has a thriving high-tech and industrialized economy. North Korea represents a large potential workforce for these firms, and eventually a market for those same goods right next to home. However, it's still doubtful whether North Korea will pursue anything other than symbolic reunification; they have refused to let the cross-border train run regularly, and demanded nearly $80 million dollars in aid from South Korea to allow the event to go through at all.

Many experts speculate that the totalitarian government in power in North Korea recognizes that any contact with the outside world, and particularly prosperous South Korea, could well lead to political challenge of their legitimacy.

Jerry Falwell is Dead: Long Live Jerry Falwell

Conservative evangelist Jerry Falwell died yesterday. Not to spit on the man's grave, but so did 24 people in an attack at a hotel in Pakistan, eight police officers in a roadside bomb in Afghanistan, and one Japanese woman whose severed head was brought in to the police station by her murderer-- her 17 year old son. So in the spirit of the general suffering all around, let's examine this man's life for a second.

One interesting place to start is with President Bush's statement that both he and his wife were "deeply saddened" by Falwell's death, and that he "taught young people to remain true to their convictions and rely upon God's word throughout each stage of their lives." (BBC link)


Just for fun, let's see some famous Falwell quotes as a counterpoint:

FALWELL ON THE 9/11 ATTACKS

"The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad."

ON THE MUSLIM PROPHET MUHAMMAD

"I think Muhammad was a terrorist. I read enough by both Muslims and non-Muslims, [to decide] that he was a violent man, a man of war."



AND FINALLY, THE TELETUBBIES

And specifically his written statement called Parents Alert: Tinky Winky Comes Out of the Closet, where he outs the character Tinky Winky as a homosexual-- "He is purple - the gay-pride colour; and his antenna is shaped like a triangle - the gay-pride symbol."

"As a Christian I feel that role modelling the gay lifestyle is damaging to the moral lives of children."

He'll be sorely missed. Luckily, there are a hundred other rabble rousing, evangelical voter-drive organizers out there to try to put more "Christian" politicians in office (incidentally, while those politicians mock them behind their backs.) However, these aren't your typical "turn the other cheek" Christians, they're the true believers in Christ and his teachings. What teachings, you ask? Why, classics like "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" and "worldwide military and economic warfare are acceptable strategies to protect national interests".


Jerry Falwell is dead. Long live Jerry Falwell.