And the Billions went WHERE???

Iraq has become a vast financial black hole.

Since the war began in 2003, the Americans have spent around $30 billion of their money – and at least $20 billion of Iraq’s own money – in rebuilding the country. But where has it all gone?  Mark Gregory has followed the money trail from Iraq to Washington via a kebab shop in Jordan.  He discovers that there have been allegations of fraud, mismanagement and corruption on such a gigantic scale that much of the money is now untraceable.

Part 1 audio>  http://switchboard.real.com/player/email.html?PV=6.0.12&&title=documentaryarchive%5F20061109%2D1000%5F40%5Fst&link=http%3A%2F%2Fdownloads.bbc.co.uk%2Frmhttp%2Fdownloadtrial%2Fworldservice%2Fdocumentaryarchive%2Fdocumentaryarchive%5F20061109%2D1000%5F40%5Fst.mp3

Part One: The first year of reconstruction

In the first part of this two-part series, Mark Gregory travels to Iraq to investigate what’s happened to the billions of dollars that has been invested in rebuilding the country since the fall of Saddam Hussein. He uncovers allegations of impropriety in the awarding of contracts in the United States, chaos at the occupation authority that ran post-war Iraq, and that large sums of Iraqi oil money has disappeared without any record of how it was spent. Even the finance ministers in the Kurdish regions claim to have no knowledge of how the reconstruction money has been spent. How did all this happen on America’s watch?  Mark Gregory has followed the money trail from Iraq to Washington via a kebab shop in Jordan.  He discovers that there have been allegations of fraud, mismanagement and corruption on such a gigantic scale that much of the money is now untraceable.

Part 2 audio> http://switchboard.real.com/player/email.html?PV=6.0.12&&title=documentaryarchive%5F20061110%2D1000%5F40%5Fst&link=http%3A%2F%2Fdownloads.bbc.co.uk%2Frmhttp%2Fdownloadtrial%2Fworldservice%2Fdocumentaryarchive%2Fdocumentaryarchive%5F20061110%2D1000%5F40%5Fst.mp3
Part Two: Failure of the US aid programme

In the second part of this two part series, Mark Gregory picks up the money trail at the time the Americans handed power back to the Iraqis in June 2004. The US-led administration, talking shortly before the return of sovereignty, offered a vision of a country in which the lights worked and clean water flowed from the taps. But two-and-a-half years after the handover, many Iraqis say their lives are getting worse despite the vast sums allocated for rebuilding. Mark Gregory explains how profiteering, corruption, bad management and the strength of insurgency have all paid a part in the failure to rebuild Iraq.

My, my– the realities of our “little housing problem”…

……      it’s a bit different when you hear other countries laying it out for you!! This is a friggin’ global crisis!! The BBC broadcast Report is a real eye-openner.

The Trouble with Money

With the world’s economy now threatened by what some believe is the most dangerous crisis since the depression of the 1930s, Michael Robinson looks at the deepening international financial turmoil.

Part 1: Walking Away from Debt

Part 1 audio>   docarchive_20080729-1638.mp3 

Michael Robinson returns to America to examine the aftermath of the sub-prime mortgage disaster that is at the heart of the present crisis.  He finds the cautious optimism of earlier this year has been well and truly dashed. US policymakers have been struggling to avoid a further meltdown of their housing market and a flood of new sub-prime losses hitting an already crippled banking system.
Michael talks to people who have had tough choices to make. He meets disillusioned borrower Karen Trainer who, after choosing to stop paying her mortgage, asks ‘What is the benefit to me of staying in something like this?’ And she is not the only one deciding to cut her losses.  More and more people are simply walking away from their mortgage obligations, effectively handing the debt over to the lender. The greater the number of individuals taking this action, the great the tidal wave of unplanned debt for lenders. Michael also revisits a house that, on his last trip, was on the market at $200,000. On this trip, he finds the price has dropped dramatically to $69,900 and its still on the market.
Part 2: A new initiative

Part2> audio  docarchive_20080806-1115.mp3

Following Michael Robinson’s first report on the collapse of the American housing market, and the growing number of people simply walking away from their mortgage obligations, programme two looks at fresh government plans to avoid further turmoil. He looks into a brand new multi-billion dollar initiative to help America’s hard pressed home owners and compares this current solution to previous government assistance plans once employed to remedy the effects of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Michael again visits Stockton in California, one of the hardest hit areas in whole of the US, and finds out what residents think of the new initiative. The sticking point for many seems to be in the detail. To benefit from the new initiative, borrowers need to swear in writing that their mortgage agreement was based on an honest account of their earnings. Since exaggerating earnings to secure a loan seemed to be common practice a few years ago, many will find it impossible to sign on the dotted line and receive help.

Bush Vows To Help Disaster Victims

This would be funny, if it weren’t so true.

Yes, Bush really loves America.

It is quiet in the Newspaper of the South…

Being from Washington DC, I read northern papers every morning, even though I live here just a ’stones throw’ from Knoxville Tennessee. It makes me shake my head everyday when news is either not reported… or the world can seemingly just pass by the ‘valley’ as if nothing is going on and those within the media make the choices ‘for us’ as to what we should know. Noteably– there has been diverse explinations as to why there is a total blackout regarding the trials of individuals pretaining to the gruesome murders of two local teenagers.  I actually see the father and mother once a week of the young woman who was murdered. The father wears his gun on his hip openly. We all know that he has stated publically that if any of the five defendants get off– they are dead as soon as they hit the street. I know the blackout has some merit as to not wanting a mistrial or anything like that. BUT it’s in the not knowing anything that I feel is wrong. Danger starts in the imagining of whats happening.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/newsom.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channon_Christian

August 11th– Good Morning!

Good Morning Everyone! Hope you have a wonderful week– and be safe in all you do!

                                                            Audio>   aug11th

Events in history for August 11th:

2492 BC – Traditional date of the defeat of Bel by Hayk, progenitor and founder of the Armenian nation.  

480 BC – Greco-Persian Wars: Battle of Artemisium – The Persians achieve a naval victory over the Greeks in an engagement fought near Artemisium, a promontory on the north coast of Euboea. The Greek fleet holds its own against the Persians in three days of fighting but withdraws southward when news comes of the defeat at Thermopylae.  

355 – Claudius Silvanus, accused of treason, proclaims himself Roman Emperor against Constantius II.  

1786 – Captain Francis Light established the British colony of Penang in Malaysia  

1804 – Francis II assumed title of first Emperor of Austria  

1858 – First ascent of the Eiger.  

1898 – Spanish-American War: American troops enter the city of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.  

1918 – World War I – Battle of Amiens ends  

1919 – Constitution of Weimar Republic adopted  

1920 – The Latvia-Bolshevist Russia peace treaty, which relinquished Russia’s authority and pretenses to Latvia, is signed.  

1929 – Babe Ruth becomes the first baseball player to hit 500 home runs in his career with a home run at League Park in Cleveland, Ohio.  

1934 – Federal prison opened at Alcatraz Island.  

1952 – Hussein proclaimed king of Jordan  

1960 – Chad declares independence.  

1965 – Race riots (the Watts riots) begin in Watts area of Los Angeles, California.  

1968 – The last steam passenger train service runs in Britain. A selection of British Rail steam locomotives make the 120-mile journey from Liverpool to Carlisle and returns to Liverpool before having their fires dropped for the last time – this working was known as the Fifteen Guinea Special.  

1972 – Vietnam War: The last United States ground combat unit depart South Vietnam.  

1975 – East Timor: Governor Mário Lemos Pires of Portuguese Timor abandons the capital Dili, following a coup by the Timorese Democratic Union (UDT) and the outbreak of civil war between UDT and Fretilin.  

1999 – The exceptional Salt Lake City Tornado tears through the downtown district of the city, killing one.  

2003 – NATO takes over command of the peacekeeping force in Afghanistan, marking its first major operation outside Europe in its 54-year-history.

2003 – Jemaah Islamiyah leader Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, is arrested in Bangkok, Thailand.

2003 – A heat wave in Paris resulted in temperatures rising to 112°F (44° C), leaving about 144 people dead.

2008 – World champion Abhinav Bindra wins India’s first ever individual gold at the Olympic Games by winning the gold medal at the men’s 10m air rifle event in Beijing. August 11th:
1962 . . Booker T. and the MG’s instrumental song, “Green Onions,” was released.
1963 . . The first annual Richmond Jazz and Blues Festival opens with Rolling Stones
1969 . . Diana Ross invited 350 guests to The Daisy Club in Beverly Hills to see the newest Motown act, The Jackson 5.
1972 . . Elvis and Pricilla Presley filed for divorce after 5 years of marriage.
1973 . . Bill Aucion offered to manager rock band KISS and promised them a record deal, after seeing them play at a New York hotel.
1985 . . Simon LeBon’s (Duran Duran) boat capsized off the English coast during a race. The Royal Navy rescued him after he spent 40 minutes trapped in an underwater air pocket.
1989 . . Three members of L.L. Cool J crew were arrested and charged with raping a 15 year-old girl. The incident took place after a concert when the girl had won a backstage pass on a radio contest.
1999 . . Kiss unveil their star on The Walk Of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard. The band had released over 30 albums to date.
2000 . . Madonna gave birth to a baby boy Rocco Ritchie at The Cedars-Sinai Hospital Beverly Hills.

A Small History lesson for August 11th–

The international distress call, SOS, which replaced CQD (All stations — distress!), was first used by an American ship on this day in 1909. The ocean liner Arapahoe found itself in trouble off Cape Hatteras, NC. The ship’s wireless operator, T. D. Haubner, radioed for help when his ship lost its screw propeller near the ‘Graveyard of the Atlantic’, Diamond Shoals. The call was heard by the United Wireless station at Hatteras.

Contrary to popular opinion, SOS (which has no stops between the letters, the signal being a continuous signal of three dots, three dashes and three dots) is not an acronym for any series of words such as Save Our Ship or Save Our Souls. The original call for distress began with the British CQ, meaning “All Stations”, used by telegraph and cable operators worldwide. The D for ’distress’ was added to CQ by the Marconi company in 1904.

In 1906, at the Berlin Radiotelegraphic Conference, the German’s general inquiry call, SOE, was suggested as an international distress signal. Changing the E to S gave the signal its unmistakeable character, and SOS was officially ratified as the international distress signal in 1908, although it was not officially adopted by the USA until 1912 (prompted by the Titanic tragedy). It is interesting to note that the Titanic’s radio operator sent Marconi’s CQD code six times before using the four-year-old international SOS signal some twenty minutes later … as Marconi waited in NY to make the return trip to England on the ill-fated ship.

Globe Wireless, a Louisiana company, began operation that same year, as rules and regulations following the sinking of the Titanic included the requirement that all ships carry equipment capable of sending and receiving Morse code messages over VHF radio frequencies. On July 12, 1999, Globe Wireless broadcast its last Morse code message to ships, five months after Morse code was no longer an internationally acceptable form of communication for ships at sea. Globe’s was the last service of its kind in North America.

Morse code and its SOS signal began its demise in the 1960s as faster more efficient forms of transmission became available. Today, most ships use mobile phones, fax machines, and e-mail to communicate. The Global Maritime Distress and Safety system, which uses the satellite-based Global Positioning System, is now the internationally accepted manner in which to transmit a ship’s exact location and problem … instantly.

In comparison, SOS and other Morse code transmissions which were the high tech methods of 1909, were “very slow, unreliable … if you’re lucky, you can send 25 words a minute”, stated Globe Wireless Manager Karl Halvorsen. His and other similar companies around the world now provide the instant message services to ships that are used on land.

SOS …—… Morse code is sinking.