The Plain English site
Thursday September 9th 2010
Fight World Hunger

Abbas and Gaza

The Palestinian leader, President Mahmoud Abbas has called for an international investigation headed by the United Nations Security Council into the recent Israeli attack on the six ship flotilla carrying aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip.

He said that there should be a united Arab stand to end the siege of Gaza.? He also called for international protection of the Palestinian people wondering how long the Israeli occupation would continue.

"We are waiting for world justice," he said. "We waited for a long time but we will not despair."

Today, Mr. Abbas will meet special US envoy George Mitchell, who is heading a ranking US delegation to the investment conference.

Mr. Abbas said he would also travel to Washington on June 9 for a meeting with US President Barack Obama.

Noriega jailed

Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, fresh out of a Miami prison where he spent two decades, was sent back behind bars in France on Tuesday to await a new legal battle -- this time on charges he laundered cocaine profits by buying luxury apartments in Paris.

Hours after Noriega arrived in Paris following his extradition from the United States, a judge deemed him a flight risk and dispatched him to La Sante, a grim brick prison in southern Paris. Famous past La Sante inmates include convicted terrorist Carlos the Jackal and Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon.

Noriega lost his first battle on French territory -- he unsuccessfully pressed a judge to send him home to Panama. If convicted in France, he could face another 10 years in prison, a daunting prospect for the 72-year-old. Noriega's French lawyers said they will appeal the decision putting him behind bars and say his detention and transfer are unlawful.

If Noriega had been released in France, even to house arrest, it would have been a victory after a generation in prison. It could also have been an awkward situation for France, where a string of former dictators from Haiti to Africa have settled or bought second homes in the past.

Officials are to set a trial date on May 12 for Noriega, who was deposed after a 1989 U.S. invasion and imprisoned in Florida for drug trafficking. After finishing his U.S. sentence, he was extradited from Miami and sent on a direct flight to Paris, where he was immediately served with an arrest warrant Tuesday.

France already has convicted Noriega and his wife in absentia of laundering some $7 million in cocaine profits through three major French banks and using drug cash to invest in three posh Paris apartments. But France agreed to give him a new trial if he was extradited. Noriega's wife, Felicidad Sieiro de Noriega, is living in Panama and faces no charges there.

In a hearing before Paris judge Jean-Michel Maton, Noriega pleaded to be sent home to Panama, citing his prisoner of war status. "I don't agree with the action against me," he said through a translator.

Noriega spoke little during the hearing and appeared tired. Wearing a white button-up shirt and black jacket, his black hair thinning, he periodically rested his head in one hand during the proceedings.

After the judge denied Noriega's request, he was escorted out a side door of the court by armed guards. Limping, he used a cane.

Yves Leberquier, a lawyer for Noriega, said the former dictator has been partially paralyzed since suffering a mild stroke four years ago.

Another of Noriega's lawyers said his client had seemed resigned to returning behind bars.

"Having been extradited from the U.S., he was not really expecting to be released tonight, even if he hoped for it," Olivier Metzner said.

Noriega's legal team argued that it was illegal to try a former head of state who should have immunity from prosecution.

Other legal objections are that Noriega is considered a prisoner of war, a status Leberquier said French jails aren't ready to accommodate, and that the charges against him are no longer valid because the acts he is accused of happened too long ago, the lawyer said.

Noriega was declared a POW after his 1992 drug conviction by a Miami federal judge. In Miami, Noriega had separate quarters in prison, the right to wear his military uniform and insignia, access to a television and monitoring by international rights groups.

Panama also has an outstanding request for the former dictator's extradition. He was convicted in Panama in absentia and sentenced to 60 years in prison on charges of embezzlement, corruption and murdering opponents.

Panama's foreign minister, Juan Carlos Varela, said Panama respects the U.S. decision to extradite Noriega to France but will still try to get him back to Panama "to serve the sentences handed down by Panamanian courts."

Noriega was Panama's longtime intelligence chief before he took power in 1982. He had been considered a valued CIA asset for years, but as a ruler he joined forces with drug traffickers and was implicated in the death of a political opponent.

Noriega was ousted as Panama's leader and put on trial following a 1989 U.S. military invasion ordered by President George H.W. Bush. Noriega was brought to Miami and was convicted of drug racketeering and related charges in 1992.

He finished serving his term in federal prison outside Miami in 2007, but stayed in prison while France sought his extradition.

Sandra Noriega, one of his three daughters, called Noriega's extradition to France "a violation of his rights as a citizen, and a failing by the (Panamanian) government, which is supposed to protect its citizens."

The in-absentia French conviction, obtained by The Associated Press, says Noriega "knew that (the money) came directly or indirectly from drug trafficking." It said he helped Colombia's Medellin drug cartel by authorizing the transport of cocaine through Panama en route to the United States.

The French indictment says Noriega was born in 1938, although his French lawyers say he was born four years earlier. As a youth he claimed to be older so he could enter a military academy.

------
AP - 28 April 2010 01:03:48 By PIERRE-ANTOINE SOUCHARD
Associated Press writers Katie King and Alfred de Montesquiou in Paris and Juan Zamorano in Panama City contributed to this report.

OLDER ARTICLES

Copenhagen Cool

15,000 delegates and officials, 5,000 journalists and 98 world leaders and 1200 limos will be in Copenhagen this week for the biggest Global Warming Synod of all time.

About 150 private jets will be landing and all the hotels are fully-booked. It will be so crowded that some of the jets will have to fly to Sweden to park and then return later in the week to pick up their passengers.

Celebrities, film stars – even Desmond Tutu will be arriving – all want to do their bit for Global Warming – or to put it more accurately, Anthropogenic* Global Warming (AGW).

But there is a cloud on the horizon – because this is the first conference when  not just the methods but the entire purpose of the climate change agenda is being questioned. Leaked emails showing key scientists conspiring to fix data that undermined their case have boosted the sceptic lobby.

The “deniers” are in town. The AGW Atheists. The Global Warming Mullahs believe that Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is the original sin which must be cast out. The deniers disagree.

The deniers say that CO2 is not pollution and that  higher temperatures cause more CO2  and not the other way around. In fact, the Earth is not alone because other planets are warming just like the Earth and there were higher concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere  prior to the industrial revolution.

Some “truths” are about to be dispelled and much of the pro-AGW propaganda will be exposed.

So what about those icons of AGW, – the fluffy white “endangered” polar bears? The  fact is that the polar bear population has risen from 5,000 in the 1950’s to about 25,000 today. The biggest threat to polar bears was hunting (three hundred killed every year) and not water temperatures. Even if their habitat was in danger from environmental changes, they would probably adapt  – just like their cousin, the brown bear. They would not be photographed looking hungry, floating along on a mini-iceberg. Google: “polar bear iceberg” and you will see how ahead of their time Fox’s Glacier Mints used to be!

So, if it isn’t CO2, what is the biggest contributor to changes in weather patterns? Solar activity has the biggest impact on the global temperature. There are many other factors, among them  the Earth’s orbit, planetary wobble, volcanic activity and even shifts in the Earth’s magnetic field.

The Earth has NOT  been warming over  the last 8-10 years and in fact, may be entering a cooling period. 

This week in Copenhagen, you will notice  less talk of “Man-made” Global Warming and much more discussion on the more general topic of “Climate Change”.  That’s because over 35,000 scientists disagree with the grant-dependent, politically-motivated pseudo-scientists and even some politicians are waking up from their torpor. 

The so-called deniers are not anti-environment, in fact just the opposite.  Hopefully money can now be spent on real environmental problems rather than fictional ones.

AGW is not about the environment, it’s about money, control and big government.

It is also about a decline in journalism and proper reporting. It is almost as if there has been blind acceptance of man-made global warming with very little counter-debate. The only British newspaper which has had the occasional “anti-AGW ” piece is the Daily Telegraph.

The other “proof” of man-made global warming is the other “cold icon” – the glacier. When you see television propaganda on melting glaciers, you usually see a video of the end of a glacier and  blocks of ice breaking off into a melt lake. This is quite normal as all  glaciers are constantly on the move and they usually melt at the front. A glacier is effectively a river of ice. The thing that the media tend not to show is the distance that the glacial valleys extend back up into the mountains. Glaciers can reach for miles with deep ice filling the full width of their valley . The impression normally given is of a single isolated glacier melting away.  Many glaciers are melting but the degree to which the total ice field and associated glaciers are disappearing should be put into perspective. 

Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is a theory and  is an unproven vtheory.  Unfortunately, there have been those who presented AGW as fact, notably, self-publicists such as Al Gore.  Did you know for instance that some of the sequences of melting ice-sheets in his film ” An Inconvenient Truth” were CGI and another sequence was borrowed from the film “The Day After Tomorrow.”

Finally, here are just 15 facts:

1.  In the last eleven years, average annual temperatures have not surpassed those of 1998 

2. Since 1988, average annual temperatures have fallen. 

3. Ocean temperatures have not risen since 2000 when the three thousand  Argo buoys were launched. The buoys even show a slight decrease in ocean temperatures

4. By December 2007 the Arctic ice froze to February levels and  there are now 1 million more sq km of ice than before.

5. The Arctic ice is 20cm thicker than “normal” 

6. All polar bear pods are stable or growing 

7. Mount Kilimanjaro is not melting because of global warming

8. The Antarctic is not “melting”, it is growing in most places, the sloughing off at the edges is normal as the ice mass grows

9. The majority of the Antarctic is 8 degrees below “normal” 

10. The much-publicised  0.7 degree rise in temperatures over the last 100 years has been wiped out by last years below “normal” temperatures 

11. Al Gore’s film has just been declared ”propaganda” in a UK court of law because many of the claims could not be substantiated  

12. One of the scientists who originally thought that CO2 preceded the warming has now found with new data that the CO2 rise follows the warming

13. August 2008 was the first time since 1913 there were no sun spots.

14. The Medieval Warm Period was warmer than the 20th century 

15. Many scientists are now predicting 30 years of cooling.

Most scientists agree that the Earth’s weather patterns are cyclical but several publications, including those that are “warmist” have recently written that the natural cycles of the earth may mask AGW. So, even cold can be explained in terms of AGW!  The fact is that our contribution to the Greenhouse Effect (which is real) cannot even be measured.

 
*Man-made

Leave a Reply