GOOD MORNING FLINT !
02/04/08
By Terry Bankert
http://attorneybankert.com/
Posted full article first to Flint Talk THEN summarized, for discussion,
http://flinttalk.com/viewtopic.php?p=24061#24061
also posted to: Full article at Goggle blog Good Morning Flint,
http://goodmorningflint.blogspot.com/
with citations. also posted to MLIVE Flint JOURNAL Flint Community blogs, Flint Citizen, Craigs list, Face Book, My Space and . Please circulate and post freely. Do you have suggestions for other sites to post to. Recent BANKERT VLOGG:
#1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnHdn-Ilu0E
Chad President under siege as fighting rages [IW]
Here I am morphing together several current news posts to gain some understanding about this dirty little war.[trb]
The most recent rebellions in Chad began in 2005 in the east, erupting at the same time as Darfur conflict in Sudan. More than 200,000 people have died in five years of fighting between ethnic African tribes and Sudanese government forces and 2.5 million have been driven from their homes. [WP]
The rebels arrived Friday on the capital's outskirts in about 250 pickup trucks mounted with machine guns after a three-day push across the desert from Chad's eastern border with Sudan. They entered the city early Saturday, quickly spreading through the streets.[IHT]
Imagine you are in a small impoverished coutry run by a despot and trigger happy stoned kids with automatic weapons in trucks come screaming by shooting everything in sight and routing an army. This has been the plot line of a hundred good and bad movies and it continues today.[trb]
I bet a lot of big money people are watching this closely.[trb]
The rebel assault may also impact on Chad's position as a major oil exporter since the completion of a $3.7bn pipeline linking its oilfields to terminals on the Atlantic coast, run by US and Malaysian multinationals.[GU]
We seldom think of parts of the world that our feet are not on. Horrible things are happening in or around Chad region that borders the war-ravaged Darfur region of Sudan.How many will die before we notice.[trb]
Rebel forces cut Chad's capital in two yesterday and laid siege to the palace where President Idriss Déby was overseeing a last effort to save his authoritarian 18-year rule.[GU]
Think of machine guns in crowed neighborhoods but now vacant street.[trb]
Hundreds of civilians were injured in a third day of fighting for control of the capital of Chad yesterday as France tried frantically to broker a settlement in its former African colony.[IW]
Militiamen loyal to President Idriss Déby, besieged in his presidential palace in N'Djamena on Saturday, were said to have retaken part of the capital in confused street fighting yesterday. Médecins sans FrontiPres said many hundreds of civilians had been wounded in the crossfire.[IW]
You could almost feel sorry for Deby until information about how bad this French puppet is.[trb]
Deby came to power through a rebel force that seized N'Djamena in 1990.[IHT]
An aide to French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Sudan wanted to crush Deby's regime before the arrival of a European Union peacekeeping force, which is to operate along the volatile border with Darfur.[IHT]
The United Nations must be trying to prop up the oil intrests and save lives.I wonder if we have advisors there.[trb]
Sudan has been accused by the Chad government of arming a column of rebels who drove unopposed 400 miles across the Sahel desert to the capital in 300 "technicals", or armed pick-up trucks, on Thursday. The French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner, said yesterday that the attack was perhaps intended to torpedo EU plans to deploy a force to protect Darfuri refugees on the Chad-Sudan border.[IW]
Bad for the people.[trb]
But the government was evidently caught unprepared by the speed of the rebels' move on the city after several thousand fighters in about 250 vehicles swept across the country in three days. Chad's army chief of staff, Daoud Soumain, was killed defending the capital.[GU]
Chad has been convulsed by civil wars and invasions since independence from France in 1960. The recent discovery of oil has only increased the intensity of the power struggles in the largely desert country, and another Chadian rebel group launched a failed assault on N'Djamena in 2006. [WP
The United Nations Security Council met for emergency consultations on the situation Sunday and planned to meet again Monday to resume work on a presidential statement on Chad. A statement from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said he was "profoundly alarmed" by the fighting in Ndjamena.[IHT]
The assault has forced the European Union to delay the deployment of a 3,700-strong peacekeeping force, dominated by France, to protect hundreds of thousands of Sudanese refugees from Darfur now living in eastern Chad from cross-border raids, and may possibly prevent it taking place at all.[GU]
Rebel leaders, including President Déby's nephew Timane Erdimi, insist that their only motive is to topple a "corrupt and authoritarian" regime.[IW]
In N'Djamena, Koulamallah claimed Deby was trapped at his presidential palace, surrounded by tanks and armored vehicles, and that they controlled the rest of the city after two days of fierce fighting.[IHT]
Idriss Deby came to power in 1990 after toppling Chadian President Hissene Habre - with the help of the French secret service. [BBC]
A shrewd tactician, Mr Deby had been President Habre's chief-of-staff, leading a series of victories over rebel forces in the 1980s and earning a reputation for courage and military prowess[BBC]
French warplanes stationed in Chad helped to defeat an attempt by a coalition of three rebel groups to depose President Déby two years ago. France, which has 1,450 troops in Chad as well as aircraft, has refused to intervene.[IW]
President Sarkozy spoke to President Déby twice on Saturday (his wedding day). He is reported to have offered to fly the Chadian leader out of the country, but he refused. He also discussed the fighting in Chad with Colonel Gaddafi of Libya, one of the official peacemakers appointed by the African Union.[IW]
M. Kouchner pleaded yesterday for a "truce, negotiations and some kind of arrangement" to end the conflict. Diplomatic sources said that a truce might be possible but that President Déby's forces, backed by helicopters and tanks, seemed to be recovering ground. [IW]
Diplomats and analysts in the region worried that the escalating violence could lead to a civil war in Chad and a war between Chad and Sudan. Either possibility would be devastating to a region that was already suffering one of the world’s gravest humanitarian crises, with more than 2.5 million Sudanese and Chadians displaced by the conflict in Darfur and its reverberations in Chad. [TNYT]
The government said an assault by Sudanese forces and Chadian rebels on Adre in eastern Chad, which it called a "declaration of war", had been repulsed. But the rebels insisted last night that their forces had captured the town. Reports from N'Djamena said the rebels in pick-up trucks armed with machineguns and cannons had attempted to besiege the palace in the west of the capital on Saturday. They had been forced back yesterday by militia loyal to the President, supported by tanks.[IW]
The Chadian military struggled to regain control of the capital, Ndjamena, using tanks and helicopter gunships, officials said. Rebels fought back with automatic weapons, truck-mounted machine guns and artillery, witnesses said. French military officials said there was open fighting across the city, and news agency photos showed bodies in the streets.[TNYT]
Foreign residents said fighting resumed before dawn, after a ceasefire overnight. "The city is cut into two – the rebels occupy the west, and the government forces the east," said the Reuters reporter, Moumine Ngarmbassa, in N'Djamena. "People are frightened that this fighting will go on and on."[IW]
French military planes evacuated more than 500 French and other foreign nationals to Gabon on Saturday. Another 400 were awaiting evacuation.[IW]
Deployment of the 3,700 soldiers of Eufor, the European Union peacekeeping force for the Sudan-Chad, border began with a handful of troops last week. The French Defence Minister, Hervé Morin, said yesterday that the arrival of the remaining troops would be postponed until Wednesday.[IW]
President Déby has accused Sudan of arming and inspiring the rebel attack to prevent the deployment of Eufor. Sudan denies any involvement. Timane Erdimi, one of several senior government figures to defect to the rebels, said: "Sudan welcomed us on its soil and looked after our sick. But we took our arms from the Chadian army."[IW]
He packed his government and armed forces with members of his Zagawa clan, which comprised only 1.5% of the country's 10 million-plus population. [BBC]
Critics say his single biggest failure was putting his clan before his country. [BBC]
He has lost the support of most Chadians in part because he made himself and his allies rich from the country's recently acquired oil wealth. Chad is listed by Transparency International as among the most corrupt countries in the world. [GU]
Three years ago Déby changed the constitution to remain in office for a third term, prompting mass desertions from the army.[GU]
Regionally he has been increasingly viewed with mistrust, and he fell out of favour with Chad's former colonial master France over drilling rights in the 1990s. [BBC]
On Sunday evening, the interior minister, Mahamat Bashir, said the capital was "entirely under control."[TNYT]
Chadian Gen. Mahamat Ali Abdallah Nassour alleged that Sudanese troops were involved and called it a "declaration of war" from Sudan. [WP]
"Sudan does not want this force because it would open a window on the genocide in Darfur," Chad's Foreign Minister Amad Allam-Mi said on Radio France Internationale. [WP]
"The savage mercenaries are fleeing, and our forces of defense and security are at their heels," he said on Radio France International. "They tried to attack, but they were pushed back with the last energy, and we put them off-track once again."[TNYT]
This guy will be dead within the week.[trb]
Chadian rebels said Monday they had voluntarily withdrawn from Chad's capital overnight, but it was unclear if they succumbed to the helicopter gunships and tanks deployed by government forces. [WP]
—end---
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Posted here by Terry Bankert 2/3/08 http://attorneybankert.com/
–where did this stuff come from---
[IW]
The Independent World
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/chad-president-under-siege-as-fighting-rages-777693.html
[trb]
Comments of Terry Bankert
http://attorneybankert.com/
[IHT]
International Herlad Tribune
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/02/04/africa/AF-GEN-Chad-Fighting.php
-
[GU]
Guardian Unlimited
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2251816,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront
[BBC]
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7224008.stm
[TNYT]
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/04/world/africa/04chad.html?hp
[WP]
Washingtonpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/04/AR2008020400251.html?hpid=moreheadlines
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Dead civilians and Chad!
Global Warming, its our problem!
GOOD MORNING FLINT !
2/3/08
By Terry Bankert http://attorneybankert.com/
Posted full article first to Flint Talk THEN for discussion summarized, http://flinttalk.com/viewtopic.php?p=24009#24009
also posted to: Full article at
Google blog Good Morning Flint,
http://goodmorningflint.blogspot.com/2008/02/great-grand-children-dying-because-we.html
, additional posts at
,MLIVE Flint JOURNAL Flint Community blogs, Flint Citizen, Craigs list, Face Book, My Space and . Please circulate and post freely. Do you have suggestions for other sites to post to.
Recent BANKERT VLOGG:
Posted is a 3 part #1 6.52 min vlogg
What is mediation?
Also the beginning of the discussion ,what kind of lawyer do you want assisting you in a divorce? Do you want a Gladiator/warrior or a Peacemaker/cab driver?
1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnHdn-Ilu0E
#2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZTVBN6oSXQ
#3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1hAyyPAqM0
ALL POLITICS AND GLOBAL WARMING ARE LOCAL![trb]
Global Warming ..its continuing..your great grandchildren just before their last breath will look at a family album with you in it and say “ The bastards knew and did not do anything about global warming!”[trb]
“We need a new climate change Marshall Plan that will reshape the world’s future economy and redirect investment flows into a sustainable future,”.... [EW]
What is the world saying about Global warming this week?[trb] Australia calls for global action on climate change [PDO]
Officials see climate change opportunities [TC]
Latin American, Caribbean Countries Have Key Role In Tackling Climate Change [EW]
Climate change threatens West's water, world's crops [USAT]
Think about this “ALL POLITICS AND GLOBAL WARMING ARE LOCAL” What can we do? Call our congressman? What will we say?![trb]
Here is what one elected offical is saying.[trb]
Sen. Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego CA, told regional leaders Friday that they are going to have to warm up to the idea of acting locally to combat a global problem.[NCT]
The world is arming itself for the public policy battle to stop or slow down global warming.[trb]
Australia on Thursday called for truly global action by both developed and developing countries to address climate change. [PDO]
Do not kid yourself, global warming is affecting America directly and indirectly.[trb]
The potential that global warming has to dry up water resources in the American West and the food supplies of 1 billion people in the poorest regions of Africa and Asia are the focus of two studies released today. [USAT]
The effects are being felt and soon will be horrible.[trb]
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a 2007 Nobel Prize laureate, has said the impacts of climate change... – including inundation of small island states and densely-populated coastal areas; more intense hurricanes; water shortages; soil erosion; droughts; and the loss of biodiversity – will intensify as time goes by. [EW]
We have too many people on too little space consuming too many resources.[trb]
One of the studies published in the journal Science found that nearly 60% of the changes in river flow, snow pack and winter temperatures in the West over the past 50 years are due to warming caused by human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas. [USAT] When California runs out of water they will raid the great lakes.[trb]
"We're headed for a potential disaster because of the lack of snowpack," says lead author Tim Barnett, a marine research physicist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. "In California, we don't have enough reservoirs, so we rely heavily on the Sierra snowpack for our water."[USAT]
The argument are often technical and go right over our heads. Who do we believe?[trb]
While the carbon market, a mechanism allowing companies to trade emissions credits in order to ensure that mandated caps are met, are helpful, is helpful, it is “clear that the market cannot do the trick alone,” [EW] Lay people try to jump into these technical argument thinking the proglobal warmers are just a bunch of tree hugging liberal.[trb] Barnett says the climate models used in the study were conservative, using only the low end of the temperature changes predicted due to global warming .[USAT]
We will fight this together or we will die together.[trb]
"The world needs all countries to work together and agree on actions to address this common challenge," Penny Wong, Australian Minister for Climate Change and Water, said in a statement at the end of a two-day meeting on energy security and climate change. [PDO]
There is a world wide effort American, excepting AL Gore, seem to have their head in the sand.[trb]
The top United Nations climate change official this week highlighted the crucial role that Latin America and the Caribbean countries – which scientists believe will bear the brunt of the effects of global warming over the coming decades – will play in addressing the problem.[EW]
Already, the changes of the past five decades have meant less snow pack and more rain in the mountains, rivers that run dry by summer, and overall drier summers in the region.[USAT]
And although the West has gone through natural wet and dry cycles in the past, the current water flow trends differ significantly in length and in strength from natural variations in the past, the researchers concluded.[USAT]
The anti global warmers are emboldened by recent snow falls.[trb]
The findings may draw skeptics in light of this winter's phenomenal snow bonanza in the West. For those who say that this season's snowfall is evidence that global warming isn't occurring, Barnett says, "That's only looking at weather; we are looking at climate. You have to look at long-term changes as a rule."[USAT] The people in the west will die of thirst first.[trb]
"Our results are not good news for those living in the western USA," he says, and notes that the changes might make "modifications to the water infrastructure of the western U.S. a virtual necessity."[USAT]
"We need to ensure that this includes a long-term global goal, which would give the world a shared aspiration on climate change, would help to maintain political momentum and would send a clear, long-term signal to the global business community," Wong said. [PDO]
An unregulated business community focused on short term profits will mean our long term death as a species.[trb]
In Africa and Asia, global warming's likely effect on agriculture is even more ominous, as detailed in a separate study led by David Lobell, a senior research scholar at Stanford University, also in California. Lobell and his colleagues found that many of the world's poorest regions could face severe crop losses in the next 20 years because of climate change.[USAT]
The weakest will go first.[trb]
In the study, the researchers focused on 12 areas where most of the world's 1 billion malnourished people reside, including much of Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean and Central and South America.[USAT]
American farmers should plant more wheat.If we are gonna go it should be with coins in our pockets?[trb]
The researchers found that crops in southern parts of Africa and Asia appear to be the most vulnerable to a warmer world: "In Africa, corn, sorghum and wheat will likely be most affected, while in Asia, the crops are wheat, rice, corn, canola, millet," says Lobell.[USAT]
Temperature and rain are the key factors that affect crops. The study authors analyzed 20 climate models and concluded that by 2030, the average temperature in most areas could rise 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, while precipitation in some places — including South Asia, South Africa, Central America and Brazil — could decrease. [USAT]
Wyoming is again on the cutting edge. We all look for change first in Larime then in San Diego.Wyoming the thinking mans state![trb] As the nation's leading exporter of energy, Wyoming is in a unique position to respond to global climate change, a panel of state officials said.[TC]
The meeting, known as Major Economies Meeting on Energy Security and Climate Change (MEM), concluded without reaching any consensus on ways to fight climate change.[PDO]
At least they tried.[trb] The meeting, which brought about 160 representatives from the world's 16 major economies, pledged instead to move forward the Bali Action Plan on climate change. [PDO]
But Wong said the meeting achieved progress, citing the meeting's recognition of the importance of rapid progress in implementing the Bali Action Plan. [PDO]
"I also welcome the MEM's agreement that the task of the MEM is now to give political momentum and support for a successful UN climate change outcome in 2009," she said. [PDO]
We declared war in Bali then melted into confusion.[trb]
"In Bali, the world decided to work together and develop a new global agreement on climate change by 2009. If we are to achieve this, we need to start straight away." [PDO]
Last December, the landmark UN Climate Change Conference in Indonesia ended with 187 countries agreeing to launch a two-year process of formal negotiations on a successor pact to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, on greenhouse gas emissions. [EW]
I wonder if a 5th grader can explain the Kyoto Protocal, ask your friends, make it a super bowl quizz.[trb]
I hear a lot of talk about the 3rd world, just what is George Bush, Dale Kildee, Carl Levin , and Debbie Stabenow doing to save the lives of our great grand children?[trb]
“As part of the initial phase of international climate change negotiations in 2008, there needs to be a focus on designing the mechanisms to support and enable action by developing countries, no least by countries in your region,” Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said at a regional ministerial-level meeting in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. [EW]
This focus will enable these nations to cope with the effects of climate change, as well as “go the extra green mile” when putting cleaner technologies into operation, he Yvo da Boer, added. [EW]
She,Wong, said the MEM started working through a range of complex issues identified in Bali, including a long-term goal, cooperative sectoral actions, innovative technology development and deployment, transfer of existing and innovative technologies.[PDO]
"By making progress in this forum, we have now sent a very clear signal to the world that we are determined to achieve the goals outlined in Bali," she ,Wong,said. [PDO]
LARAMIE CONTINUES TO LEAD THE WORLD![TRB]
During a University of Wyoming symposium on global warming Thursday, representatives of the governor's office as well as several other statewide agencies discussed what Wyoming is and can be doing to address global warming, as well as the challenges ahead.[TC]
The symposium was organized by a faculty group called the Climate Change Committee and coincided with a national movement to discuss environmental problem and solutions.[TC]
Rob Hurless, energy and telecommunications adviser to Gov. Dave Freudenthal, said any discussion of environmental solutions must also take into account economics and energy.[TC]
"If you don't, you're really not capturing the complexity of the problem," Hurless said. "Quick, easy solutions just don't register."[TC]
OH.. OH.. WE ARE GETTING CLOSE TO TALKING ABOUT EMISSIONS AND RESTRICTIONS ON THE CAR INDUSTRY. ITS POLITICALLY INCORRECT FOR FLINTOIDS TO BRING THIS UP.[TRB]
He ,Hurless,said Wyoming can make a difference in pushing for the environmentally friendly use of coal as well as carbon sequestration. [TC]
Not only did Attorney General Jerry Brown ask the San Diego Association of Governments to address global warming recently, Kehoe said it is likely the Legislature will pass a law this year requiring the state's urban regions to incorporate climate-change strategies in their transportation planning.[NCT] HERE IT COMES![TRB]
And she, Kehoe, said that will mean finding ways to curb the amount of driving people do.[NCT]
"It is going to be your job to determine what a sustainable community is going to look like over the next 20 years," Kehoe said at an annual conference in Borrego Springs for San Diego-area mayors, city council members and county supervisors who serve on the association's board.[NCT]
WELL I AM STOPPING HERE NOW MY ECONOMIC INTERESTS ARE ON THE TABLE.[TRB... Back to the 3rd world.[trb]
The Bali Action Plan, reached at the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali, Indonesia last month, emphasizes the willingness of all parties to contribute to a future climate regime in line with their respective capabilities and determines that all parties must report on their measurable and verifiable activities. [PDO]
We could learn from the American indians.[trb]
Gary Collins, Arapaho tribal liaison for the Wyoming governor's office, said American Indians are seeing the effects of global warming, including changes in big game migration and availability.[TC] "People see it right out their front door every day," he,Collins, said.[TC]
As a result, tribal groups have stepped up and become assertive in managing their resources.[TC] "Though we're small, less than 2 percent of the population, we have a significant impact into long-range decision making in our natural resource environment," he said. [TC]
“We need a new climate change Marshall Plan that will reshape the world’s future economy and redirect investment flows into a sustainable future,” Mr. de Boer said, referring to the economic assistance programme that the United States brought to Europe after World War II. [EW]
The Executive Secretary , Yvo da Boer, called for a new financial framework to jump-start green, low-carbon economic growth globally.[EW]
"The majority of the world's 1 billion poor depend on agriculture for their livelihoods," Lobell says. "Unfortunately, agriculture is also the human enterprise most vulnerable to changes in climate. Understanding where these climate threats will be greatest, for what crops and on what time scales, will be central to our efforts at fighting hunger and poverty over the coming decades."[USAT] —end---
JOIN THE FLINT AREA INTERNET MOVEMENT, HERE ARE SUGGESTIONS;
FLINT BLOG CENTRAL
http://www.mlive.com/blogs/flint/index.ssf
FLINT DISCUSSION CENTRAL
http://www.flinttalk.com/viewforum.php?f=2
Posted here by
Terry Bankert 2/3/08 http://attorneybankert.com/
-----where did this stuff come from—
[PDO] Peoples Dailey Online http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/6349787.html With publication started in June 1948 and a current circulation of 3 million, People's Daily is among the most influential and authoritative newspapers in China. According to UNESCO, it takes its place among the world top 10. 2.
[TC] Trib.com Wyomings online news source http://www.trib.com/articles/2008/02/02/news/wyoming/dc1fdbfe65ed690f872573e2007666d1.txt
[EW] EUROPA WORLD Free online newspaper covering International Development http://www.europaworld.org/week331/latin1208.html
[USAT] USA Today http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2008-02-01-water-crops_N.htm?csp=34
[NCT] NCTIMES.COM North County Times, The Californian http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/02/02//news/top_stories/21_19_182_1_08.txt
[trb]
Comments of Terry Bankert http://attorneybankert.com/ 35360
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