Mahler's Prodigal Son

On what is reported to be the cusp of Wikileaks releasing some 400,000 pages of documents, it will be recalled all the outrage, especially by the USA, when the last batch of documents were released last July. It seems weren't all that bad or dire - as ArmyTimes reports what US Defence Secretary has now come out and said: "No U.S. intelligence sources or practices were compromised by the posting of secret Afghan war logs by the WikiLeaks website, the Pentagon has concluded, but the military thinks the leaks could still cause significant damage to U.S. security interests. The assessment, outlined in a letter obtained Friday by The Associated Press, suggests that some of the Obama administration's worst fears about the July disclosure of almost 77,000 secret U.S. war reports have so far failed to materialize. Defense Secretary Robert Gates reported these conclusions in an Aug. 16 letter to Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who had requested a ...

Credited to Dave Granlund

A miscellany of reports and commentary on the Middle East - which never seems to move out of the spotlight: Iranian President Amhadinejad's visit to Lebanon underscores just how George W. Bush's vision of a new Middle East has been so thoroughly discredited. Bottom line: "First, Iran is not nearly as isolated as Washington would like; secondly, the Bush Administration efforts to vanquish Tehran and its allies have failed; and, finally, the balance of forces in the region today prompts even U.S.-allied Arab regimes to engage pragmatically with a greatly expanded Iranian regional role. Tony Karon writing on Time Upcoming elections in Bahrain, Jordan, and Egypt are unlikely to change anything in their respective societies. Yet in both Egypt and Jordan in particular, opposition forces connected to the Muslim Brotherhood generally reckon that participation in a rigged system is still better than boycotting, lest any political space is abandoned for the future. The Econ...

Funny isn't it. Whilst serving in whatever senior capacity, top brass in the military or leading politicians are circumspect in going public. But, when they are off the leash, especially in the USA, and start writing their memoirs or appearing on talk-shows, they really unpack! Step up to the plate Hugh Shelton, the top military man during the Clinton and Bush eras. His new book says it straight - between the eye-balls. The Daily Beast reports: "Hugh Shelton was impeccably apolitical while serving as the nation’s top military man under Presidents Clinton and Bush. Now, not so much. He talks to Lloyd Grove about Bill Clinton (good), Donald Rumsfeld (bad), and John McCain (crazy), among others. Among the highlights: • Rumsfeld, according to Shelton, is a power-mad know-it-all who won’t listen to military advice. • McCain is a ranting bully with “a screw loose.” • Gore is a supercilious grandstander who once interrupted an Oval Office meeting to berate Shelton for a m...

FAIR [Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting] highlights who you read - and, in this case, which country.

"After a record 347,420 foreclosure filings and 102,134 bank repossessions in September, the U.S. is on pace to top 1.2 million foreclosures this year, up from about 1 million last year, according to new data from RealtyTrac, which collects and analyzes real estate records from across the country." What is now emerging is that much of the paper-work in relation to foreclosures is simply faulty, if not fraudulent, documentation, or doesn't stack up. And who found all of this out? Two sleuths, Lisa Epstein and Michael Redman, who live in Florida. As McClatchy reports in "How 2 civilian sleuths brought foreclosure problems to light": "More than a year before lenders, law firms and document companies began owning up to widespread paperwork problems with their foreclosure filings, Lisa Epstein and Michael Redman already knew that something was wrong — very wrong." Continue reading, here , to see how the little guys jumped the gun and the repercu...

It is almost an oxymoron to say that it is possible to walk into a store and find the merchandise, especially clothing, to have been manufactured in that country - be that store in London, New York, France or Australia. Garment manufacturers "use" cheap, really cheap, labour to produce goods sold mainly in Western countries, with a whopping mark-up, . France 24 reports on these workers, in this case, in Guatemala: "Textile plants called maquilas are considered to be one of the main driving forces of Guatemala’s economy. But behind the factory doors lies a world of overworked and underpaid workers, with no job security and virtually no rights. A “maquiladora” gave us her account. Guatemala exports more than $1.5 billion (1.08 billion euros) worth of garments every year, mostly to the United States and Europe. There are currently 156 listed maquilas in the country, most of which are Korean-owned. According to the Guatemalan texile and clothes industry commission (VE...