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Late Breaking News: Russian tanks and troops surged into Georgia's breakaway South Ossetia province to repel a Georgian offensive

GEORGIA CALLS FOR OSSETIA CEASE FIRE

Georgia says it has ordered a cease fire in South Ossetia and offered to hold peace talks with Moscow.
But Russia denied that exchanges of fire had stopped, and continued to bomb targets near Georgia's capital Tbilisi, including the airport, reports said, details.


Frightening report, above, from RussiaToday TV News

CHRONOLOGY  OF SEVERAL
DECADE OF CONFLICT

Georgian forces pulled out of the breakaway South Ossetia region on Sunday after three days of fighting and Russian troops took most of the capital.

Here a chronology of past years in South Ossetia:

Timeline of Recent Events >>

 

More information below

NOTE: The oil in the Caspian basin is estimated to be worth over US $12 trillion. The sudden collapse of the USSR and subsequent opening of the region has led to a scramble by Western oil companies to get oil deals and also has led to border disputes like the one going on now. In 1998 Dick Cheney commented that "I can't think of a time when we've had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian."

Essay blogged about this issue, here.

Western Concern Grows Over Oil, Gas Pipes
Through Georgia

While Georgia doesn't produce oil itself, it's a waypoint for a new pipeline to export oil and gas from Azerbaijan, started in 2007 and controlled by the West. The previous pipeline was under Russian control. Because of the major cities it travels through it's called the BTC pipeline (Baku-Tbilis-Ceyhan). Once the oil and gass crossed Turkey to the Mediterranean it goes to Western countries and a spur planned to go through Lebanon to Israel.

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Details

FBI Declares Anthrax Case Over

A military bio-weapons scientist who killed himself last week was the sole person responsible for the deadly anthrax attacks in 2001, new FBI papers allege.

First five years of investigation spent on one other suspect who sued FBI and won over $5 million in lawsuit. All evidence now released one week after the suicide of Bruce Ivins is circumstantial and many questions remain, details.

Three weeks before Ivins' suicide testimony by a private citizen seeking a restraining order described scientist as homicidal. Audio tape of that court testimony, here.  

The threats messages sent with the anthrax attack, an ABC TV news story after attack, articles in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, and implications made by President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, Senator Lieberman and others (including president candidate Senator John McCain) pointed to the anthrax as being linked to Iraq and Muslim terrorist, details.

Story in the New York Daily News says in the immediate aftermath of the 2001 anthrax attacks, White House officials repeatedly pressed FBI Director Robert Mueller to prove it was a second-wave assault by Al Qaeda,even though that was quickly ruled out, details.

In the 2002 State of the Union Address President Bush again linked Iraq to developing anthrax, Sec. of State Colin Powell presented it as one of the reasons for war to the United Nations, details.

FBI summary of the case

Dead Scientist's Lawyer Rebuts FBI Anthrax Allegations

Pulitzer-prize winning author says CIA forged letter to promote war

Shortly after the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the failure to find any WMD's, the CIA, under White House orders, forged a letter falsely linking Iraq to Al Qaeda , author Ron Suskind declares.


Bush, Cheney, CIA director and White House Chief of Staff at start of Iraq War

One of the specific claims in the forged CIA letter, passed onto and released by British intelligence, was the infamous sixteen words in President Bush's State of the Union Address just prior to the Iraq War: QUOTE: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa," END QUOTE FROM STATE OF UNION ADDRESS.

This false claim that is also behind the so-called: "CIA Leak Case," the exposure of CIA agent Valerie Plame and the attempt to discredit her ex-ambassador husband, Joe Wilson who challenged this false claim of Iraq getting uranium from Africa.

The forged CIA letter (called by some"The Italian Letter") also claimed that Mohammed Atta, the al-Qaeda mastermind of 9/11 was trained in Baghdad.

The forged CIA letter was pretended to be written by the former head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, who had become a CIA paid informant, and the forged CIA letter was first released by Ayad Allawi, another Iraqi on the CIA payroll, details.

This story was first printed in the London Sunday Telegraph December 14, 2003,  click here to see photo of article.

Summary of this new book, by Ron Suskind, here. 

The White House, former director of the CIA and now these ex-CIA agents who exposed this story all now deny writing the letter, details

The book also says that both British and U.S. intelligence was well-aware there were no WMD's in Iraq, details.

Ron Suskind: The Forged Iraqi Letter: Evidence

First Gitmo Detainee Convicted, Light Sentence, No Release

This was the Bush administration's third attempt to try Salim Hamdan, who won a Supreme Court victory that scrapped the first version of the Guantanamo court system in 2006.  This case is predicted to also wind up back in the Supreme Court, details.

Questions remain despite conviction

Flaws seen in Bush-designed military tribunals

Former driver for Osama bin Laden was sentenced by a military jury Thursday to 5 1/2 years in prison for supporting terrorism

Detainee given credit for pretrial incarceration and eligible for release in five months, details.

But prisoner has been declared an enemy combatant by the military in a separate proceeding, and the Pentagon and White House has said it can hold such combatants until the campaign against  the Global War on Terrorism is deemed over, details.

The military says only 80 of the detainees at Guantánamo will face war crimes charges. At present, about 265 detainees are being held there. The remaining 2/3 will continue indefinite detention without trial, details.


This Week's Top Election Stories & Events
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For more interactive state-by-state information, check out USA Today's Electoral-Vote-Tracker

Iraqi Kurds reject its plans for power-sharing in Kirkuk

Issues of oil and power-sharing stall in Iraqi parliament

Iraqi Kurds believe they should control oil-rich Kirkuk, which has a Kurdish majority but which lies outside their semi-autonomous northern enclave.
The city's ethnic Arabs and Turkmen say it should be under the control of the central government.

Iraqi parliament failure to reach agreement may hinder elections

This years election in 18 provinces, strongly promoted by U.S. and U.N. officials, may be put off due to deadlock, details.


Flag of Kurd's "Semi-Autonomous Region."

Russia, Georgia Conflict Explodes

Long-feared war in former Soviet state appears to be under way.


1. Battle for the separatists' capital of Tskhinvali in full force,

2. Comprehensive Up-to-Date

3. Russia calls halt to fighting??



Videos, Photos, & Background from the BBC



Other Prime Time Issues





Former Pentagon leading neocon advocate of War in Iraq linked to deal for Kurdish Oil

(reported in Wall Street Journal July 29th))


Kurd plans for their own international oil deals: background info


 

Purported al-Qaeda operative Is Ordered Held Without Bail


Mug shot from FBI poster


Prior to detention in U.S. secret prison


At her appearance last week in U.S. court.

Pakistani Woman Faces Assault Charges

Aafia Siddiqui, a U.S.-educated Pakistani woman suspected of links to al-Qaeda appeared in federal court in New York this week on charges of attempting to kill American military officers and FBI agents last month, in Afghanistan, details

According to Afghan authorities Ms. Siddiqui was discovered and arrested three weeks ago with her 12-year old son and was suspected of planning a suicide bombing and was carrying anti-American and anti-Zionist literature, details.

Ms. Siddiqui vanished in Karachi with her three children five years ago, on 30 March 2003.

Both the Pakistan government and the FBI publicly denied having anything to do with her disappearance for five years, although an arrest of a woman in Pakistan was reported in the local news. details

U.S. case against Pakistani doubted overseas

Afghan police and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan  have cast doubts on the accuracy of the American story, details

Some believe she is "The Gray Lady of Bagram,"  Prisoner 650, reputed to be held and tortured at the U.S. prison in Afghanistan for four years, details.

Muslim Students' YouTube Appeal to Help Her

 

 

 
 

 
The UK Guardian says the ceremony that opened Olympic games outdid all of its predecessors in numbers, color, noise and expense, showing off a powerful China, here

Extensive review of opening ceremony from The Australian

Spectators awed as the 29th modern Olympic Games begin, a truly spectacular opening ceremony watched by millions around the globe, the BBC reports here

Ecstatic China gets its Olympic moment, declares International Herald Tribune, here.
People's Daily:China's night of joy, pride as Olympics ceremony captures world.

Summer Olympics Open With A Bang In Beijing, audio and photos from National Public Radio, here.

Economic Issues in the News
Fannie Mae unveils loss of $2.3bn, Freddie Mac failing
European View of Economic Crisis

Less than a month after a near unlimited guarantee of stock purchases and loan guarantees by the U.S. government, and transfer of private bank debt to the government, the latest losses at Fannie Mae- which came in at more than three times analysts' estimates - followed a $2.2bn loss for the first three months of the year.

Both government sponsored firms own, or guarantee, nearly half of the nation's mortgage debt and as mortgage guarantors, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, must pay out when people default on their loans.

When U.S. property prices collapsed and defaults rose, financial institutions around the world found themselves holding billions of dollars' worth of toxic debt. They stopped lending to each other and the credit crunch began.

European economic growth expected to be weakened. Many fear inflation, higher prices, demand for increased wages.  There are questions and disagreements on how to deal with the problem.

The former Fed chairman calls for a new way to deal with the crisis
Confessions of a risk manager

 

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