Venezuela and Russia are going to hold

military manuevers near Venezuela.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,457106,00.html

• Venezuela and Russia are going to hold - Backwards typist

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    Monday 29 August 2005

    Last Monday, Christian televangelist Pat Robertson called for the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. While Robertson's remarks were shocking in their utter disregard for global democracy and the rule of law (he eventually apologized), he is by no means the first to beat the drum against Venezuela.

    In fact, his comments were merely a more vitriolic version of what the Bush administration has been saying for some time, with declarations to contain Chavez and the funneling of millions of dollars to opposition groups within the country. The White House even supported a 2002 military coup, before popular uprisings restored Chavez to power. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and now Robertson are all in their own ways trying to build the case that Chavez is a menace, a danger to democracy and a source of instability in the region.

    But I was in Venezuela just this month. And I saw a different reality.

    I attended the 16th World Festival for Youth and Students, which drew more than 15,000 young peace and justice activists from across the globe.

    What I saw, in the enormous city of Caracas and the rural towns of Monagas state, were huge numbers of people who, for the first time in their lives, have free and adequate health care, the opportunity to attend university, access to land grants and work contracts, constitutionally assured rights for women and indigenous people, and free breakfast programs for children. And with all this, a sense of dignity and ownership over their lives.

    Let me show you.

    In a room that smells of Tiger Balm, with rain beating on the roof, a doctor massages the curled hands and feet of a crippled boy while his mother murmurs gentle words. Before the free hospital was built, the boy had no access to regular physical therapy and lived in constant pain.

    An old woman, her eyes gleaming through thick glasses, says that two years ago, when she enrolled in a reading class taught by university volunteers, she practically ate the books in her hunger for words, flying through basic reading and moving on to high school equivalency courses. She plans to attend one of the nation's new free public universities next year. At 76 she dreams of being a lawyer.

    The 22-year-old Osmar, with tight curls and baggy jeans, says that in yesterday's Venezuela he would have been a taxi driver or sold cigarettes on the street, doing work without honor. But he was among the thousand top scorers on a nationwide exam and will soon leave for five years of free medical school in Cuba.

    These individuals, like millions across Venezuela, have experienced tangible, visible change in their lives over the last several years. But while these changes have made Chavez a hero in the eyes of Venezuela's poor majority, they have made him an enemy in the White House.

    It makes Washington's blood boil that Chavez not only denounces its global mandates of fiscal austerity, structural adjustment and radical privatization, but that Venezuela has the resources to successfully enact its own development model.

    Using its oil wealth, Venezuela is constructing one of the truly alternative models of economic growth in today's world. The fourth-largest exporter of petroleum to the United States, Venezuela has shifted production from multinational corporations into the hands of the state, which now harvests the bulk of this liquid gold in order to sembrar el petroleo, sow the oil, and invest billions inwards.

    So while Venezuela sows its oil, Washington is sowing the seeds to unseat Chavez. It is building up the case for invasion, a coup or an assassination. If, for many of us, Robertson's comments were the first we registered of this positioning, it is not the first for Venezuelans, who speak often of being the potential next battleground, overt or covert, in the United States' deceptive and never-ending war on terrorism.

    Let us be wary. Very. For those moving to vilify Chavez are the same people who knowingly lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, who used nonexistent uranium to justify a war in which tens of hundreds of young Americans and countless Iraqis have died.

    Let's also honor the value of freedom, of human dignity and democracy. Let us support Venezuela's right to build its own future.

Venezuela will ship an additional 1,000,000 barrels in the wake of Katrina

Venezuela Embassy, Washington D.C. -- Press Release  -- September 7, 2005: As announced by President Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan national oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) will ship approximately one million barrels of PDVSA-produced gasoline this month directly to the United States in the wake of the horrible devastation and destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina.

This volume is in addition to PDVSA’s normal shipments to the United States.

“Venezuela is privileged to be able to help the United States in this time of need,” said Venezuela's Ambassador to the United States, Bernardo Alvarez Herrera. “We see ourselves as a compassionate people and hope that our efforts will help cope with current market needs of the U.S. for gasoline, and provide some immediate relief to the victims of this horrific natural disaster.”

Four additional shipments of gasoline, totaling over 960,000 barrels, taken from storage and diverted from other customers, will be sent to and distributed by PDVSA’s wholly-owned US subsidiary, CITGO Petroleum Corp (CITGO) and will supplement PDVSA’s previously scheduled shipments to CITGO in September of 1.2 million barrels of petroleum.

Each of the four additional gasoline shipments will be sent from Venezuela to CITGO during the following time frames:

September 14-16, September 23-25, September 28-30 and September 29-October 1.

With shipping time from Venezuela to the US Gulf Coast only four-five days, these shipments from Venezuela will arrive much more quickly than cargoes from Europe, the Middle East or Asia and, hence, will be able to meet US needs that much sooner.

PDVSA is the fifth largest provider of petroleum products in the world and the third largest provider to the United States. During the last year, Venezuela has occasionally been the largest supplier of oil to the United States, surpassing Saudi Arabia, Canada and Mexico. It exports 95% of its hydrocarbons, 57% of which are earmarked for the United States. PDVSA’s oil refining capacity globally is 3.3 million barrels per day.

I do not mean to sound churchy, but I have been brought up that it states in the Bible that Russia (known as another name in Bible, but shows it on a map where Russia is) to be very worried.  When the country Russia comes into play, need to worry about Amargeddon, The End Times.  Not the countries of Iran, North Korea, etc., but Russia.   Yes, I am concerned about Russia.

We never believe a word they say unless it somehow coincides with our own opinions, huh?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,457550,00.html

Because of our economy, United States will be split:  The Pacific area, The South, Atlantic area, etc.  As for Alaska?  Could be Russia's for the taking. 

What is amazing to me about Alaska is Palin.  Palin was not to be our next VP, but it sure shows Russia who she is and how she tries to fight for Alaska.  Of all states, Alaska came out of no where during the election and shows what Alaska has to offer including Palin who will fight for her state against Russia.   

U.S. and Russia to Enter Civilian Nuclear Pact
Bush Reverses Long-Standing Policy, Allows Agreement That May Provide Leverage on Iran

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 8, 2006; A01

President Bush has decided to permit extensive U.S. civilian nuclear cooperation with Russia for the first time, administration officials said yesterday, reversing decades of bipartisan policy in a move that would be worth billions of dollars to Moscow but could provoke an uproar in Congress.

Bush resisted such a move for years, insisting that Russia first stop building a nuclear power station for Iran near the Persian Gulf. But U.S. officials have shifted their view of Russia's collaboration with Iran and concluded that President Vladimir Putin has become a more constructive partner in trying to pressure Tehran to give up any aspirations for nuclear weapons.

The president plans to announce his decision at a meeting with Putin in St. Petersburg next Saturday before the annual summit of leaders from the Group of Eight major industrialized nations, officials said. The statement to be released by the two presidents would agree to start negotiations for the formal agreement required under U.S. law before the United States can engage in civilian nuclear cooperation.

In the administration's view, both sides would benefit. A nuclear cooperation agreement would clear the way for Russia to import and store thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel from U.S.-supplied reactors around the world, a lucrative business so far blocked by Washington. It could be used as an incentive to win more Russian cooperation on Iran. And it would be critical to Bush's plan to spread civilian nuclear energy to power-hungry countries because Russia would provide a place to send the used radioactive material.

At the same time, it could draw significant opposition from across the ideological spectrum, according to analysts who follow the issue. Critics wary of Putin's authoritarian course view it as rewarding Russia even though Moscow refuses to support sanctions against Iran. Others fearful of Russia's record of handling nuclear material see it as a reckless move that endangers the environment.

You will have all the anti-Russian right against it, you will have all the anti-nuclear left against it, and you will have the Russian democracy center concerned about it too, said Matthew Bunn, a nuclear specialist at Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

Since Russia is already a nuclear state, such an agreement, once drafted, presumably would conform to the Atomic Energy Act and therefore would not require congressional approval. Congress could reject it only with majority votes by both houses within 90 legislative days.

Administration officials confirmed the president's decision yesterday only after it was first learned from outside nuclear experts privy to the situation. The officials insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose the agreement before the summit.

The prospect, however, has been hinted at during public speeches in recent days. We certainly will be talking about nuclear energy, Assistant Energy Secretary Karen A. Harbert told a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace event Thursday. We need alternatives to hydrocarbons.

Some specialists said Bush's decision marks a milestone in U.S.-Russian relations, despite tension over Moscow's retreat from democracy and pressure on neighbors. It signals that there's a sea change in the attitude toward Russia, that they're someone we can try to work with on Iran, said Rose Gottemoeller, a former Energy Department official in the Clinton administration who now directs the Carnegie Moscow Center. It bespeaks a certain level of confidence in the Russians by this administration that hasn't been there before.

But others said the deal seems one-sided. Just what exactly are we getting? That's the real mystery, said Henry D. Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. Until now, he noted, the United States has insisted on specific actions by Russia to prevent Iran from developing bombs. We're not getting any of that. We're getting an opportunity to give them money.

Environmentalists have denounced Russia's plans to transform itself into the world's nuclear dump. The country has a history of nuclear accidents and contamination. Its transportation network is antiquated and inadequate for moving vast quantities of radioactive material, critics say. And the country, they add, has not fully secured the nuclear facilities it already has against theft or accidents.

The United States has civilian nuclear cooperation agreements with the European atomic energy agency, along with China, Japan, Taiwan and 20 other countries. Bush recently sealed an agreement with India, which does require congressional approval because of that nation's unsanctioned weapons program.

Russia has sought such an agreement with the United States since the 1990s, when it began thinking about using its vast land mass to store much of the world's spent nuclear fuel. Estimating that it could make as much as $20 billion, Russia enacted a law in 2001 permitting the import, temporary storage and reprocessing of foreign nuclear fuel, despite 90 percent opposition in public opinion polls.

But the plan went nowhere. The United States controls spent fuel from nuclear material it provides, even in foreign countries, and Bunn estimates that as much as 95 percent of the potential world market for Russia was under U.S. jurisdiction. Without a cooperation agreement, none of the material could be sent to Russia, even though allies such as South Korea and Taiwan are eager to ship spent fuel there.

Like President Bill Clinton before him, Bush refused to consider it as long as Russia was helping Iran with its nuclear program. In the summer of 2002, according to Bunn, Bush sent Putin a letter saying an agreement could be reached only if the central problem of assistance to Iran's missile, nuclear and advanced conventional weapons programs was solved.

The concern over the nuclear reactor under construction at Bushehr, however, has faded. Russia agreed to provide all fuel to the facility and take it back once used, meaning it could not be turned into material for nuclear bombs. U.S. officials who once suspected that Russian scientists were secretly behind Iran's weapons program learned that critical assistance to Tehran came from Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan.

The 2002 disclosure that Iran had secret nuclear sites separate from Bushehr shocked both the U.S. and Russian governments and seemed to harden Putin's stance toward Iran. He eventually agreed to refer the issue to the U.N. Security Council and signed on to a package of incentives and penalties recently sent to Tehran. At the same time, he has consistently opposed economic sanctions, military action or even tougher diplomatic language by the council, much to the frustration of U.S. officials.

Opening negotiations for a formal nuclear cooperation agreement could be used as a lever to move Putin further. Talks will inevitably take months, and the review in Congress will extend the process. If during that time Putin resists stronger measures against Iran, analysts said, the deal could unravel or critics on Capitol Hill could try to muster enough opposition to block it. If Putin proves cooperative on Iran, they said, it could ease the way toward final approval.

This was one of the few areas where there was big money involved that you could hold over the Russians, said George Perkovich, an arms-control specialist and vice president of the Carnegie Endowment. It's a handy stick, a handy thing to hold over the Russians.

Bush has an interest in taking the agreement all the way as well. His new Global Nuclear Energy Partnership envisions promoting civilian nuclear power around the world and eventually finding a way to reprocess spent fuel without the danger of leaving behind material that could be used for bombs. Until such technology is developed, Bush needs someplace to store the spent fuel from overseas, and Russia is the only volunteer.

The Russians could make a lot of money importing foreign spent fuel, some of our allies would desperately like to be able to send their fuel to Russia, and maybe we could use the leverage to get other things done, such as getting the Russians to be more forward-leaning on Iran, Bunn said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/07/AR2006070701588.html?sub=new

meaning the recent Putin reelection.....the *dirtiest* in their history.....

http://newsfromrussia.com/news/russia/03-12-2007/102126-kasparov_elections-0

This is/was a good board with some good folks.  PERHAPS she just hadn't seen these posts.....maybe....hope that's the case.

Otherwise, I agree that it's probably time to boycott this board. I have long been aware of the definite bias of the powers that be.  But I still hold out hope for fairness in the long run.   And I was banned on the conservative board for calling someone stupid!!!!  (which I shouldn't have, I admit).

The bottom is starting to drop out of this thing.  I am positive the media (who are angry already about the phony "bias" attack by McCain) will NOT let SP's silence go unnoted. 

up as shiny examples of Moral Magnificance, same as Palin's daughter.

and a vacation day scheduled . . . just in case.

First and foremost, please express my personal appreciation to your husband for his service to this country.  By no means would I EVER  ridicule a military person.  They have served and DIED for the freedom we have and they continue to do so.  I say the war in Iraq is ridiculous and that is my personal opinion.  I think it was wrong from the getgo and I think it is WRONG to put our service men and woman in harm's way with many of them sacrificing their lives needlessly.  There has never been peace in the middle east and there never will be (IMO) all the way back to biblical times.

Bush's "excuse" for the war was to capture or kill bin Laden wasn't it?  So why has that not been done?  Because, again in my opinion, the war is not against terrorism but about the wealthy oil barons.

AND, I pray for you and your husband.  You too are making a great sacrifice and, again, your husband is serving his country and for that he deserves and gets from me the utmost respect whether or not I happen to agree with the politicians who sent him to war.  May he be safe and soon return to you.

CLINTON put a lot of those people in government spots. I think he called it Affirmative Action. 

 I worked for a patent attorney back then and after Clinton got in, half the patent office were, (how can I say it without being branded a racist?) Indian, Pakistani, and a mix of other races. My attorney would be furious when they would return a patent for an error, and he would have to do a 15 page brief on why there was NO error.

Why are all the gas stations and motels now owned, or mostly owned, by other races?  Where does the money come from?

There is a large VRAJ temple (sic) a few miles from my house. No one could afford to buy the property when it went up for sale because they wanted close to $1M for it. People from all over the world come there, yet a white person is not allowed to step 1 foot on their property or they will be arrested.

What's up with that?

responsible for this mess including the last administration as well as this one.  I do not like what President Obama is doing.  This stimulus package is a joke.  It is full of earmarks and pork.  I can smell the bacon being fried in D.C. all the way over here in Indiana. 

I want to see jobs created.  I want more focus on alternative fuels.  I want to tap the resources we have now and create jobs.  I'm tired of giving money to banks.  I'm tired of giving money to people who were irresponsible while harding working people suffer and try to stay afloat because of their bad decisions as well as the bad decisions made by crooks in government. 

I didn't totally agree with the bailout Bush pushed for either, but you know what....I believe Barry Obama voted yes to that.  He was in the senate and therefore I hold the senate responsible for things too.  Bush couldn't do everything himself and there were plenty of dems in congress during the last 4 years that could have stopped a bailout during Bush's term. 

I'm tired of the blaming game.  There are too many people involved to try and blame everyone and it isn't fair to blame just one person since so many were involved. 

I'm generally a middle of the road kind of person and in saying that.....I just do not feel that this stimulus package will stimulate the economy and I don't believe it will create and sustain jobs either. 

I also wish our current administration would take some time and make an effort to stop all of this offshoring as there are many Americans who would benefit from this as well.

as I can remember. DH had a friend who worked for GAO back in the 70s. He told us about it then. It's probably been going on earlier than that. So don't blame just one elected official.

who sat and crunched the numbers and decided that it would be cheaper for their business to take American jobs and outsource them.  Cheaper for who?  If they would think this process out, and do the old school math instead of this fancy new math, they may have come up with a different answer. 

Take for instance transcription: 

Factor in hundreds to thousands of Americans losing their jobs to India, the newest craze in Transcriptionist outsourcing. 

Factor in the loss of revenue from how much each of those transcriptionists can no longer spend and help keep the economy balanced, ESPECIALLY in such a recession now. 

Factor in how little the government is going to issue out to these people who cannot find work so they can at least feed their family while they try to find something comparable to what they were doing.  Factor in the few government grants that people can qualify for because they are now low income.  Compare that to the millions they lost and are no longer contributing to the economy. 

Factor in the cut backs because people have lost their jobs and can no longer afford health care, and now the hospitals can no longer afford the MTSOs and have to bring what work they do have back in-house. 

Factor in now the MTSO that outsourced the work in the first place no longer has work available to outsource, thereby breeching contract, therefore having to pay huge fines, losing contracts left and right, and whoop, there goes another business under. 

Oh who am I kidding, what do they care?  They will just pay themselves a big bonus as they watch the company Titanic sink, and then AHDI and the lawyers will jump in and bail them out using the money that was skimmed from the employees who worked so hard for many years, just like the taxpayers!!??!! Man this country is messed up! 

I try to have decent conversations, but there are others that only want to get everyone fired up. Just keep having decent conversations. They'll go away sooner or later.

BTW, I'm a pub but usually always vote for "the best man". Of course, we all know there are any of those guys left in D.C.