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British soldier detained in Kenya over rape allegation
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Men mined for tin ore in a pit in eastern Congo that is part of a lucrative operation controlled by renegade soldiers. The fighters extort and tax at will.
BISIE, Congo — Deep in the forest, high on a ridge stripped bare of trees and vines, the colonel sat atop his mountain of ore. In track pants and a T-shirt, he needed no uniform to prove he was a soldier, no epaulets to reveal his rank. Everyone here knows that Col. Samy Matumo, commander of a renegade brigade of army troops that controls this mineral-rich territory, is the master of every hilltop as far as the eye can see.
SCRAMBLING FOR HIDDEN WEALTH A hunter discovered tin ore in eastern Congo in 2002, and miners arrived almost overnight. In the battle for control of the mine in Bisie, a militia allied with the government won out.
Columns of men, bent double under 110-pound sacks of tin ore, emerged from the colonel's mine shaft. It had been carved hundreds of feet into the mountain with Iron Age tools powered by human sweat, muscle and bone. Porters carry the ore nearly 30 miles on their backs, a two-day trek through a mud-slicked maze to the nearest road and a world hungry for the laptops and other electronics that tin helps create, each man a link in a long global chain.
On paper, the exploration rights to this mine belong to a consortium of British and South African investors who say they will turn this perilous and exploitative operation into a safe, modern beacon of prosperity for Congo. But in practice, the consortium's workers cannot even set foot on the mountain. Like a mafia, Colonel Matumo and his men extort, tax and appropriate at will, draining this vast operation, worth as much as $80 million a year.
The exploitation of this mountain is emblematic of the failure to right this sprawling African nation after many years of tyranny and war, and of the deadly role the country's immense natural wealth has played in its misery.
Despite a costly effort to unite the nation's many militias into a single national army, plus billions of dollars spent on international peacekeepers and an election in 2006 that brought democracy to Congo for the first time in four decades, the government is unable or unwilling to force these fighters — who wear government army uniforms and collect government paychecks — to leave the mountain.
The ore these fighters control is central to the chaos that plagues Congo, helping to perpetuate a conflict in which as many as five million people have died since the mid-1990s, mostly from hunger and disease. In the latest chapter, fighting between government troops and a renegade general named Laurent Nkunda has forced hundreds of thousands of civilians here in eastern Congo to flee and pushed the nation to the brink of a new regional war.
The proceeds of mines like this one, along with the illegal tributes collected on roads and border crossings controlled by rebel groups, militias and government soldiers, help bankroll virtually every armed group in the region.
No roads lead to Bisie. This hidden town of 10,000 lies about 30 miles down a winding, muddy footpath through dense, equatorial forest. Built entirely for the mine, it is a cloistered world of expropriation and violence that mirrors the broad crisis in Congo.
This is Africa's resource curse: The wealth is unearthed by the poor, controlled by the strong, then sold to a world largely oblivious of its origins.
Under Colonel Matumo, Bisie is a Darwinian place where those with weapons and money leech off a desperate horde.
The chokehold begins far from the mine. At the trailhead, a burly soldier demands 50 cents from each person entering the narrow trail to the mine. A clamoring crowd hands wrinkled bills to the soldier, who opens the wooden gate a crack to let in those with cash.
At the other end of the trail, at the base of the mountain, another crowd forms at the gate into Bisie. Porters exhausted from the two-day trek sprawl on felled trees, waiting for soldiers to inspect their loads and extract another tribute. The price is usually 10 percent of entering merchandise and cash.
The men at the checkpoints describe these payments as taxes. But the people of Bisie do not get much in return. The village is a filthy warren of mud huts. Hundreds of haphazard latrines flood narrow, trash-filled alleyways. Disease courses through the town, carried by water from a river that is used for everything from washing clothes to cleaning ore. Jawbones of slaughtered cows and goats stud the riverbed. When it rains, the river overflows, spreading cholera and dysentery.
In some ways, Bisie is a thriving commercial town. It has makeshift theaters showing bootleg kung fu movies on televisions powered by sputtering generators. Its bars are stocked with Johnnie Walker whiskey and Primus beer, each bottle carried through the jungle. There is no telephone service, but a ham radio system passes messages between the mine and the outside world. It has hotels that double as brothels. There is even a clapboard church.
Who would have thunk it?
Goldman Sachs lays off nearly 3,300 and could post its first quarterly loss since becoming a publicly owned company.
Starbucks comes within a whisker of a money-losing quarter.
General Motors begs Washington for a payday loan, warning it may collapse without it.
KKR, the buccaneer of private equity, is unable to sell shares to public investors.
The federal budget deficit hurtles toward $1 trillion, with serious economists arguing it should go even higher.
Oil-rich Russia scrambles to defend its currency, oil-rich Dubai steps in to rescue its banks and China -- China! -- worries enough about a slowdown that it promises a stimulus package equal to 15 percent of its annual economic output.
Things are so bad that even the Yellowstone Club, Montana's super-exclusive private ski and golf resort, where the price of admission starts at $5 million, has filed for bankruptcy.
With the events of the past few days, it's become clear that even the strongest players, the biggest companies and the richest investors are facing serious financial challenges.
The speed at which things have come unraveled is breathtaking. Only a few months ago inflation was the big worry and some analysts were suggesting that the U.S. economy might avoid a recession. Now, the fear is of deflation and a global depression.
And just when we think we have rescued a company or stabilized a market, an AIG or a Fannie Mae suddenly requires another dose of money and attention.
The election of any new president leads inexorably to heightened expectations of what he can accomplish, but that is particularly true at a time like this, when Americans are desperate for someone who can stanch job losses, put a floor under house prices, prevent foreclosures and restore value to diminished 401(k) retirement accounts. There is extraordinary pressure on Barack Obama -- from the public, the news media, Congress and even from other world leaders -- to move quickly and decisively "fix" the U.S. economy.
Miriam Makeba died this night at Castel Volturno after an anticamorra, anti racists concert in honour of the writer Roberto Saviano, Castel Volturno, Miriam Makeba |
Dear Charles,
I join the train of congratulations to wish you a wonderful birthday and many wonderful and prosperous years ahead.
L.T.
Dear Charles and all, Sometimes they say age is a question of number but we have very often neglected the fact that in our fast paced world today...everything is reducible to number. Oga Charly has added one to whichever number he had before and it is my pleasure as a friend and a member of this forum to wish him HAPPY BIRTHDAY AND MANY RETURNS. I am not given to praises, but praises withheld when they are due is a kind of injustice. Charles has served this community in a way that has actually raised the standard of our communication and relationships in the community and beyond. Through this forum, people have been linked up from many parts of the world. No matter how you think you are getting to receive too much of what is sent, imagine the effort and resilience that goes into making me and you focused on the the real events about us and around us. Oga Charly, if we divide the number of your posts to this forum by the number of your years, i am almost certain that the ratio will show both the mental and physical resources you have put into this among many of your other interesting ventures. I wish you a fulfilling life ahead. It is obvious that your loved ones have contributed immensely and still do contribute to the quality of life you live today. Extend our love and affection to them in the most sincere way and keep the flag flying. It is not for nothing that we call you moderator... you have demonstrated that even though we are in an unfriendly environment like Italy...yet we can...and really yes we can.... History...your birthday and the day the first black man was elected into the white house...is a testimony to the history you can make. Once again...happy birthday and many more years. Ikenna |
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi did it again.
Meeting in Moscow on Thursday, Mr. Berlusconi told Russian President Dmitri Medvedev that President-elect Barack Obama "has all the qualities to get along well with you: he's young, handsome and suntanned, so I think you can develop a good working relationship."
Italy's leading daily, Corriere della Sera, ran a video of the scene.
The leader of the center-left opposition, Walter Veltroni, said Mr. Berlusconi's remarks "seriously damage the image and dignity of our country on the international scene," Corriere della Sera reported. Mr. Veltroni — who has been called the Obama of Italy, except that he lost the election – added that such "cabaret one-liners" showed a "lack of respect" unworthy of a statesman.
He called on Mr. Berlusconi "to offer official apologies."
But Mr. Berlusconi said the remark had been all in fun: "Are there really people who don't understand it was a cute thing to say?" he said, according to Corriere. Adding: "God save us from imbeciles. How can you take such a great compliment negatively?"
Silvio Berlusconi, the idiosyncratic billionaire who has dominated much of Italy's public life since 1994, was elected to a third term as prime minister on April 14, 2008.
Rejecting the sober responsibility of the departing prime minister, Romano Prodi, Italians chose in a moment of national self-doubt a man whose dramas — the clowning and corruption scandals, his rocky relations with his wife and political partners, his growing hairline and ever browner hair — play out very much in public.
Mr. Berlusconi, 71, Italy's third-richest man and owner of media and sports businesses, has survived a number of prosecutions and repeated rejections by voters. But his 2008 campaign was more subdued than his four other runs for national office, a reflection, many experts said, of the deep problems facing Italy, where growth has again dropped nearly to zero.
In this election, his promises were more modest — lowering taxes, cutting government spending and improving the nation's ailing infrastructure — a platform not much different from that of his opponent, Walter Veltroni, the former mayor of Rome and leader of the Democratic Party.
ALREADY AN UGLY JOKE ON OBAMA FROM PRESIDENT BERLUSCONI
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dal Martedi alla Domenica
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Laboratori di scrittura a cura di Lisa Ginzburg
All SaintsFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaAll Saints From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia(Redirected from All Saints Day) Jump to: navigation, search
In terms of Western Christian theology, the feast commemorates all those who have attained the beatific vision in heaven. Specifically, in the Roman Catholic Church, the next day, All Souls' Day, commemorates the departed faithful who have not yet been purified and reached heaven. In terms of Western Christian theology, the feast commemorates all those who have attained the beatific vision in heaven. Specifically, in the Roman Catholic Church, the next day, All Souls' Day, commemorates the departed faithful who have not yet been purified and reached heaven. |
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