Pope On Theological Rampage

Pope Benedict XVI, apparently fed up with rampant religious tolerance, went on the offensive dissing both Jews and Protestants in just the last five days. As reported in The Guardian the pope revived the Latin Tridentine mass which assails "the blindness of that people" namely the Jews.

Not wasting anytime he then took on the Protestants of the world for essentially not being Catholic. According to The Guardian again:

"It is nevertheless difficult to see how the title of 'Church' could possibly be attributed to [Protestant communities], given that they do not accept the theological notion of the Church in the Catholic sense and that they lack elements considered essential to the Catholic Church."

Last fall the pontiff sought to put the Islamic faith in it's place repeating a 14th century Christian Emperor's contention that Muhammad had brought forth "only evil and inhuman things".

I presume that Hindus, Buddhists, and Mormons may be next on the list.

Whose National Interests?

Forty years ago the U.S.S. Liberty was strafed, bombed and napalmed by Israeli forces in one of the most devastating attacks on the U.S. Navy since WW II. This whole episode has been subject to historical amnesia and what would qualify as outright lies. Now one of the legal counsels of the Naval Court of Inquiry has come forward to expose the cover-up of this disturbing situation as reported here and antiwar.com. Justin Raimondo reports on another episode where Israeli self interest trumped decency. Here there is evidence that to discredit the PLO the Israelis were willing to tolerate an attack by a Palestinian splinter group to further their own interests. I only wish that American politicians of both parties were as vigorous in pursuing policies truly in the interest of this country instead of well financed special interests who wish us to do their dirty work.
As once was said of the British Empire,

"We have no permanent enemies and no permanent friends, only permanent interests."

Perhaps we need to decide what our interests are.

Independence Day Reflections

It would be hard to think of a better way to spend Independence Day than getting together with like-minded folks to demand the impeachment of the Bush-Cheney cabal. I had the opportunity to do just that at the Impeach for Peace gathering in Madison, WI today. Petitions were presented and interesting speakers gave their views. It is fitting on this day to actually review the Declaration of Independence and reflect on its relevancy for today's conditions. In particular I was struck by the following passage:

"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shown , that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing the invariably the same Object, envinces a Design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to to throw off such Government, and provide new guards for their future Security."

It made sense then and makes sense now.

Push Butin

Asia Times Online has a great article about an encounter that probably never happened, here's an excerpt:

"Bush: Vladimir, I don't get what you are driving at. Americans just don't think that way. We're trying to help Muslim countries build democracy so the Middle East can be at peace.

Putin: I don't want to throw cold water on your idea, George, but it doesn't seem to be working out too well in Iraq, or Palestine, or Lebanon, does it?

Bush: Vladimir, I just don't get you at all. If you are so concerned about the Muslims, how come you are making it so hard for us to put sanctions on Iran?

Putin: Did it ever occur to you that you have an insignificant number of Muslims to answer to - and half of them are native-born American blacks who never vote Republican? I have millions of Azeri Shi'ites attending mosques supported by Iran. I don't have the luxury to rap the mullahs on the knuckles and hope they stick their hands back in the pockets. Read what Niccolo Machiavelli had to say on the subject: never inflict a minor injury upon an opponent. Men will avenge themselves against minor injuries, but they can't avenge themselves against major injuries.

Bush: You're not telling me to inflict a major injury on Iran, by any chance, are you, Vladimir?

Putin: If anyone is going to do it, George, it's going to be you - you or the Israelis. I simply can't afford to - at least not for the moment, certainly not until after our presidential elections next March. Maybe you won't have to. Iran is weak. There's still an outside chance that someone reasonable like Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani might replace that lunatic Mahmud Ahmadinejad as president. But there's one thing you can count on: nobody hates the idea of an Iran with nuclear weapons more than we do. Our "near abroad" shares a border with Iran.

Bush: So when push comes to shove, Vladimir, you're going to let me do the dirty work and keep your hands clean?

Putin: Remember, I've got elections six months before you do, and a different kind of succession problem. Your democracy has been around for more than 200 years. We're barely adolescents. I need someone to follow me who's hard and sly enough to prevent Russia from flying apart. We can be tough when we have to be. Or haven't you heard of Chechnya?

Bush: You're not taking into account how tough my problem is - unless I can settle the Iran problem, there's no way I can get US troops out of Iraq without a full-scale war between Shi'ites backed by Iran and Sunnis backed by Saudi Arabia.

Putin: Well, you're on your own there. Don't blame me for that.

Bush: Vladimir, I was hoping we'd come out of this discussion with an understanding of at least one point: Why are you so upset about our putting anti-missile systems into places like the Czech Republic? You know that we can't defend Europe against a Russian missile attack.

Putin: George, it's not just about the missiles. It's about your lily-pad bases in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and elsewhere in our near abroad. It's about fomenting those pointless color revolutions in Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan. You aren't going to get democracy in these places - it's silly presumption. All you will do is foster the centrifugal forces that threaten to tear apart the Russian Federation. Don't you get it, George? We are only three-quarters Russian, and in a generation we might be only half Russian. We haven't recovered from the beating you gave us in the 1980s. Half of adult male deaths in Russia are due to alcoholism. Our women have 13 abortions for every 10 live births. We're fighting for our life. We are not going to let what remains of Russia be torn to pieces.

Bush: Do you think we can find some kind of common ground over Kosovo?

Putin: That's where you are really playing with fire, George. You are proposing to dismember Serbia to add a province to Greater Albania, and you will set a precedent for every breakaway minority that wants to leave Russia. We can't possibly accept this - and I warn you that if you insist on this dangerous and reckless course of action, we will do precisely the same for disputed territories in the near abroad, starting with South Ossetia.

Bush: But Vladimir, how are we going to convince the Muslim world that we can partner up with them for peace if we don't respect the wishes of an overwhelming Muslim majority in Kosovo?

Putin: I hate to put it this way, George, but I think I could teach you a lesson about how to gain influence among Muslims. You aren't particularly popular among Muslims at the moment.

Bush: Okay, you don't have to rub it in. How do you propose to gain influence among Muslims?

Putin: Do you know how many civilians died in Chechnya when we suppressed the rebellion there? No one knows exactly, but the number is around 100,000. We know that half a million Chechens lost their homes. That's half the country. We've been killing Muslims for 300 years. That's why they respect us.

Bush: Vladimir, what you are saying is horrible. The American people will never see the world that way.

Putin: The American people don't have to. They are sitting comfortably in their own continent and think it's a great disaster when a few thousand people are killed in an office building. I'm not suggesting that you go out and explain to your voters that things might be very different in other parts of the world. But I am warning you: we have a tough enough job on our hands. Don't make it harder for us, or you will be sorry."

No Justice Just Us

Cartoon Satire

The Exile's "Get Your Putin On" series continues.....

Russian Sparta?

I'm not sure what say about this found at englishrussia.com.

Politkovskaya Lives On In Print

The writing of murdered Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya continues to resonate even after her death in the fall of 2006. Her most recent work in English ,"A Russian Diary: A Journalist"s Final Account of Life, Corruption, and Death in Putin's Russia" has recently been published and gives an enlightening if not searing account of political life in contemporary Russia.The failure of the political opposition, media concentration, and collapse of independent journalism are disturbing in their implications for Russian society as well as other societies including our own. This release coincides with release in Russia of her book,"Za Shto" or "Why" which is now being promoted by Mikhail Gorbachev, who is part owner of Novaya Gazetta, her former paper.
Posthumously she has recieved several awards including the International Publishers' Association Freedom Prize and has an award pending from the American National Press Club in July. Vladimir Putin on the other hand was recently awarded the less coveted "Closed Oyster" award for "hampering the development of free media", the first non-German to do so.
Americans by and large don't tend to kill journalists unless of course they happen to be Serbians or work for Al-Jazeera.

The Most Far-Out Mission

I love this, the most far out project NASA has embarked upon ever to Pluto, the Kuiper Belt, and beyond. Anything that's to last to the 2020's represents forward thinking.

The Boris Yeltsin Photo Series

It would be hard to find a collection of photos that encapsulate the trajectory of Yeltsin's life better than this.

Do Two Wrongs Make a Right?

Pavel Podvig sheds new insight on the recent Russian initiative for missile defense on the Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces website:

"This potentially opens a possibility to turn two wrongs - the U.S. missile defense and the Russian unreasonably loud opposition to it - into something of a right - a concrete joint U.S.-Russian program that would allow the two countries to establish close contacts between their militaries, which eventually is the only way to dispel all kind of suspicions and misunderstandings.

I was hoping for just this kind of an outcome of the current missile defense debate when I wrote about this issue about two months ago and I'm glad to see that Russia and the United States are getting closer to it. We are not there yet, though - although the Missile Defense Agency was thinking about a radar in the Caucasus, I don't think it would be ready to abandon it's Eastern European plans. But it's a reasonably good start."

The Mystery of Andrei Kozlov

The murder of Andrei Kozlov last September has had a number of unusual aspects including his position as the number two guy at the Central Bank of Russia, his attempts to clear up corrupt practices in Russian banking, his untimely death, and subsequent prosecution and closure of the case in atypical fashion by the Russian authorities. It appears that this scenario things seem to be unraveling. The International Hearld Tribune reports the following:

"Now, however, the authorities in Austria have cast doubt on the quality of the Russian sleuthing in Kozlov's murder, which they linked to a multimillion-dollar money laundering scheme that made use of a bank in Vienna."

Futhermore:

"The New Times, an independent magazine in Moscow that first reported the story, suggested that Kozlov was killed as he tried to halt a money laundering operation run for corrupt officials in the Russian government.

In August, Kozlov had informed an Austrian bank of suspicious transfers from a bank in Russia, according to Hersztera.

As the authorities in both countries were quietly rolling up the suspected money laundering channel, Kozlov on Sept. 1 revoked the license of Diskont Bank, an obscure "pocket bank" that operates discreetly and without visible customers.

The Austrian police have not identified the bank. However, Raiffeisen Zentralbank, one of Central Europe's largest, conceded in a statement that it had received the wire transfers from Diskont Bank. The New Times, citing anonymous Russian Interior Ministry officers, said that $60 million was transferred in the final days of August last year.

After the murder of Kozlov, the Austrian state attorney forwarded evidence - including the information Kozlov had provided about money laundering - to the Russian prosecutor general.

The Austrian state attorney did not receive a response from the Russian authorities, either on the initial money laundering investigation begun by Kozlov or on the possible link to his murder, Hersztera said."

The Exile gets to the pithier possiblities:

"What's strangest in all this is the idea that Kozlov tried to meddle and shut down this scheme. Wasn't he aware that he was probably directly fucking with Putin's pension plan? Does it show that Kozlov was indeed a reformer? Or is that Russia's banking industry has competing clans working and plotting in secrecy against each other, and Kozlov was getting too powerful for his own good? Whatever the case, Frenkel's arrest - the hired killers, witness testimonies that were later retracted, the evidence and the media campaign that automatically assumed his guilt - was all part of grandiose warm-up to a show trial. It was a sick set-up orchestrated at the highest levels of government. As for Frenkel, judging by the media's reaction to this new information, it looks like he's going to hang."

Frenkel of course being the patsy originally arrested as per the International Herald Tribune, Feb 21, 2007:

"VREMYA NOVOSTEI

MORE SUSPECTS EMERGE IN KOZLOV CASE: Aleksei Frenkel, a former banker who stands accused of ordering the killing of Andrei Koslov, the former deputy head of the Russian Central Bank, may not have acted alone. According to information obtained by the newspaper, the Prosecutor General's Office has identified several more people linked to the case, including three accused of laundering tens of millions of dollars stolen from the Central Bank of Turkmenistan. A source from the prosecutor's office said that all suspects had been identified; all were bankers; and all were sure they could not be punished."

The Impending Intrusion of Reality

Much to my amazement "Peak Oil" is now being seriously described in the MSM notably Business Week. In this article Eugene Linden describes what he calls a "mortal threat to the U.S. economy:

" Peak oil refers to the point at which world oil production plateaus before beginning to decline as depletion of the world's remaining reserves offsets ever-increased drilling. Some experts argue that we're already there, and that we won't exceed by much the daily production high of 84.5 million barrels first reached in 2005. If so, global production will bump along near these levels for years before beginning an inexorable decline.

What would that mean? Alternatives are still a decade away from meeting incremental demand for oil. With nothing to fill the gap, global economic growth would slow, stop, and then reverse; international tensions would soar as nations seek access to diminishing supplies, enriching autocratic rulers in unstable oil states; and, unless other sources of energy could be ramped up with extreme haste, the world could plunge into a new Dark Age. Even as faltering economies burned less oil, carbon loading of the atmosphere might accelerate as countries turn to vastly dirtier coal."

Did you hear any of the presidential candidates discuss any of this during the media circus debates for either party? Did Wolff Blitzer touch on this? Cold, dark, and immobile is where we are likely to find ourselves sooner than we think.

Can You Still See Anything?

The folks at ArmsControlWonk have a fascinating piece about recent air borne laser testing which occurred earlier this week above the central U.S. If you were a pilot or passenger in this area and weren't blinded I guess you were lucky.

Where Did the Money Go?

Lost amongst the debate about defunding the war is actual amount and scope of "defense" spending in the U.S. Being involved in the health care aspect of things you sometimes get the impression that runaway health care costs are going to bankrupt the country. I found the above graphic to be particularly sobering as where the money is really going. In a country supposedly concerned about the future of energy it is interesting to see this ranks dead last in government discretionary spending.
DefenseNews.com has interesting news about the international effects of unbridled arms spending throughout the world. The political silence on the part of both "parties" is deafening and an indictment of the American political system. Robert Dreyfuss puts it very clearly as to where the U.S. stands:

"By one count, U.S. defense spending in 2008 will amount to 29 times the combined military spending of all six so-called rogue states: Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria. The United States accounts for almost half -- approximately 48% -- of the entire world's spending on what we like to call "defense." Again, according to the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, U.S. defense spending this year amounts to exactly twice the combined military spending of the next six biggest military powers: China, Russia, the U.K., France, Japan, and Germany."

Secret American Satellites Found by the French

Space.com reports that the French have identified 20 to 30 previously unlisted objects in low Earth orbit believed to belong to the U.S. At issue is the U.S. practice of publishing sensitive data regarding other countries intelligence gathering satellites.

"The published U.S. information excludes sensitive U.S. defense satellites, but regularly publishes data on the orbits of other nations' military hardware....

"We have discussed the Graves results with our American colleagues and highlighted the discrepancies between what we have found and what is published by the U.S. Space Surveillance Network," said one French defense official responsible for the Graves operation. "They told us, 'If we have not published it in our catalogue, then it does not exist.' So I guess we have been tracking objects that do not exist. I can tell you that some of these non-existent objects have solar arrays."

Col. Yves Blin, deputy head of the space division at the French joint defense staff, said France would wait until it had acquired, with the help of the German radar, further information about the 20 to 30 secret satellites in question before beginning serious negotiations with the United States on a common approach for publishing satellite orbit information.

"Right now we do not have enough cards in our hand to begin negotiations," Blin said here at the Graves radar transmitter site June 7. "We need more time to be sure of what we are seeing. At that point we can tell our American friends, 'We have seen some things that you might wish to keep out of the public domain. We will agree to do this if you agree to stop publishing the location of our sensitive satellites."

Putin Outmaneuvers Bush......Surprise?

In a move that some say startled George Bush, Vladimir Putin offered to establish a joint American-Russian anti-missile base in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan is now an independent country and its proximity to Iran would appear to be an ideal location for a missile defense site.
Interestingly while Azerbaijan is an independent country it does have Russian military bases notably at Gabalin . Moskovskaya Gazetta reports that the Azerbaijanis are receptive to the idea as well, no doubt seeing the benefit of having both superpowers relying on their facilities.

Why Will Kosovo Be a Real Flashpoint

Kosovo the spiritual home of the Serbs may be the the real flashpoint of the East and West. Frankly this is a Slavic/Orthodox homeland of which Russia is the historical guardian. WWI started here and destroyed three if not four empires and killed millions.
Even pro American Slavs recognize the potential to worsen American relations in the area.

" - We warned the U.S. against a unilateral resolution of the Kosovo question," said Konstantin Remchukov, an opposition friendly editor-in-chief of the Putin-critical Nezavisimaya Gazeta. "We said that it would irreversibly lead to a broad wave of anti-Americanism in Russian society and accusations of double standards."

" - Everyone agreed that, after such an event, there would be little to keep Transdniestria, South Ossetia and Abkhazia from seceding from Moldova and Georgia," said Irina Yasina, program director of the U.S.-supported Open Russia foundation and a former guest at the George W. Bush White House."

To add to the complications is the potential Turkish role which , given the situation in Iraq, may become even more complex:

"Today, June 5, Turkish NATO forces in Kosovo assume a one-year command of NATO’s Multinational Task Force South (MNTF-S), one of NATO’s five regional commands of Kosovo Force (KFOR), responsible for establishing and maintaining security in the disaffected Serbian province. NATO peacekeepers have been deployed in Kosovo since 1999 under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244.
Turkish Brigadier General Ugur Tarcın will command MNTF-S, which also includes Azerbaijani and Georgian teams. Ankara is to send an additional 300 soldiers to reinforce the contingent. In a collateral “hearts and minds” initiative, a Turkish medical unit within the battalion will also provide health services for Kosovar civilians. Turkey will hand over command of the Task Force to Austria in May 2008. At this year’s transfer ceremony Tarcin said, “We will be putting another stone to ensure and to improve security and stability. I believe that everyone knows how necessary a safe atmosphere is for the reconstruction and development of Kosovo.” It seems most unlikely that Belgrade will be pleased with the deployment, especially given the historic Turkish presence in the province.

Turkey has a longstanding presence in Kosovo, having ruled it for nearly six centuries following the battle of Kosovo in 1389, when Ottoman forces defeated the Serbian army of Prince Lazar. The current deployment suggests that NATO has concluded that Turkey, the sole Muslim member of the alliance, has a unique peacekeeping role to play in Muslim areas of NATO operations; last month Turkey also assumed command of NATO's Kabul Command, part of its Afghan International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), NATO largest ground operation in its history."

With U.S. Russian tensions, U.S. Turkish tensions who knows what will happen? Its likely to be an unpredicted outcome .

Prescription Drug Reform Comes to China

China's former head of its food and drug agency has been sentenced to death after accepting bribes amounting to 6.5 million Yuan from eight companies. During his tenure the Sydney Morning Herald reported the following,

"During his tenure, dozens died in China from bad drugs and food products. In 2004 at least 13 babies died of malnutrition in Anhui province after being fed fake milk powder containing no nutrition.

The safety of China's food has also come under the international spotlight after wheat gluten and rice protein containing toxic scrap was exported to the United States and used in pet food, killing some cats and dogs."

Contrast this with the fate of Lester Crawford, disgraced former deputy and (briefly) head of the FDA. Here are a few concerns that arose during his time,

"His three-year tenure at FDA was marked by increasing criticism and a particularly rocky final 12 months. The painkiller Vioxx was pulled off the market for safety problems, FDA was embarrassed last fall when its British counterparts shut down a supplier of U.S. flu vaccine for tainted shots, and over the summer recalls of malfunctioning heart devices mounted."
His fate:

"In October 2007, Crawford pled guilty to charges that he hid his ownership in stock in food and drug companies that the FDA regulates. He was sentenced earlier this year to three years probation and fined $90,000.

For the past year or so, Crawford has worked at a consulting firm, Policy Directions.

And he's scheduled to appear as a keynote speaker later this year at the FDA Regulatory and Compliance Symposium at Harvard University."

New Missiles New Uniforms

If new missiles weren't enough the Russian military is looking into a fashion overhaul as well according to Pravda. Russian designer Valentin Yudashkin is apparently in the running and if these samples from his website are any indication this could be interesting.

Speaking of Putin...

I couldn't resist what appears to be a promising new strip at The Exile.

Comic Relief

It's good to see complex issues brought to the level of comics as this sample of Ted Rall via EurasiaNet does so well.

The Worst Generation

I'll have to admit that the verdict seems to be in, the Boomer Generation is the the worst. Why not, a group that could have eliminated hypocrisy and corruption elevated it to new heights or lows, personified by our current president-pretender. Why is the War on Drugs now almost indistinguishable from the War on Terror. When even Paul Begala admits he hates the Boomers you know something is up. John Lennon, a detestable Boomer in his own right, said "the dream is over, the dream is dead." And that was in 1970. Vice Magazine has a particularly unflattering portrait of generational icons.

Crazy Russians Suggest Unfettered Growth Not Good

"The world should rethink its emphasis on unfettered economic growth and boost efforts to create environmentally-friendly sources of fuel, a draft statement by oil and gas giant Russia ahead of a G8 summit says.

The statement, drafted by the Russian energy ministry for a meeting of several United Nations energy ministers, urges G8 governments not to let economic growth take precedence over fighting poverty and securing energy supplies.

"The traditional industrial development model, aimed at unrestricted economic growth, requires serious adjustment," the statement, obtained by Reuters, said.

Governments should consider "specific features of the increasingly interdependent world economy, the exhaustibility of world resources and the aggravation of humanitarian problems, nowadays closely linked to energy problems," it said.

The communique, which has not been agreed by the ministers and may be changed, is addressed to leaders of the Group of Eight rich nations, who will meet in Germany next week.

Russia is organising the event with the Paris-based United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). A UNESCO spokeswoman said, however, that only 12 nations from the group's 192 members were sending ministers.

Aside from the Russia, none of the G8 major powers have confirmed they will attend the UNESCO event. The U.N. agency's spokeswoman said the declaration still has to be negotiated with all of the participants at the conference.

The statement makes no mention of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which German Chancellor Angela Merkel hopes to make a cornerstone of the G8 summit she will chair.

But it presses for breakthroughs in developing renewable energy sources including hydrogen, thermonuclear, solar, and biofuels in order to shift energy dependence away from more traditional, polluting fuel sources such as oil.

ADVICE FROM AN ENERGY GIANT

"The international community, in the interests of a prosperous future for all its citizens, should redouble its efforts to develop, implement and disseminate environmentally clean renewable energies as a realistic alternative to traditional forms of energy generation," the statement said.

Russia is the world's second-largest oil exporter and the world's largest gas producer. It is the 27-nation European Union's biggest energy supplier and has often looked warily at EU plans to diversify energy sources.

Russia itself is set to rely on traditional sources of fuel for decades to come, though analysts say energy efficiency measures could help Russia halve its domestic gas consumption, which would be enough to meet a quarter of European gas needs.

The statement calls on the G8 to agree on the "exchange of advanced energy technologies" to boost energy efficiency and to ensure "the stability of the world energy system."

It said G8 leaders should agree on international standards for energy education and a classification system for standards of "energy supply quality."

Ministers from Brazil, Croatia, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Greece, Kuwait, Mongolia, Russia, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, and Uruguay have confirmed they will attend, the UNESCO spokeswoman said. Delegates from the other nations will likely participate, in addition to representatives from the European Commission and other international institutions.

(additional reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov in Moscow)"

From Reuters. The world is getting ahead of us. What a surprise.

Toxic Culture or Does Being American Make You Crazy ?

Adbusters makes a compelling argument that American culture or the American Way of Life actually produces mental illness. Showing that immigrants have a gradually increasing rate of depression in spite of increasing income or because of it has serious implications for our society as a whole.

"In a fascinating study published in 1998 in the Archives of General Psychiatry, William Vega, an American public health researcher at Rutgers University, showed just how psychologically corrosive American culture can become for those who drop into it from the outside.

Vega focussed on recent immigrants from Mexico. When they first arrived in the US, he found, they were much healthier than the Americans they settled among, with half the incidence of psychological dysfunction. But the longer they stayed, the sicker they got. During the first 13 years, their chance of developing a disorder in their lifetime was 18 percent. After 13 years, whatever cul-tural protection their Mexican heritage offered them had worn off, and their rates of depression, anxiety and drug problems had risen to the same level as the general population’s (32 percent).

Among Mexican-Americans born in the US, meanwhile, the rate of those afflictions soared to 49 percent. Mexican men born in the US were five times as likely as recent immigrants to experience a "major depressive episode." Drug misuse among Mexican women born in the US was seven times as high as that of recent immigrants.

Could it be that Mexicans are somehow uniquely vulnerable to this particular American cultural virus? Apparently not. Other studies have both replicated William Vega’s findings and extended them to other ethnic groups and problems, such as domestic violence. Acknowledging that "components of Mexican culture are protective against mental health problems," Vega concludes that "socialization into American culture and society [will] increase susceptibility to psychiatric disorders."

The findings present a puzzle. The Mexican immigrants Vega studied were better adjusted psychologically, even though they fall far below the US average in education and income. But that’s just the point. Income and education lose their meaning in a world of rising mental expectations and reduced life satisfaction. The former are rooted in our consumerist, media-saturated society, while the latter emerge out of the loss of collective family and community life in the face of American individualism. The real puzzle is how a problem so big can draw almost no attention at all."

Another disturbing trend is the increase in mental illness among the general population over time. Does working multiple jobs for ever increasing hours have a negative impact with no improvement in economic uncertainty make you crazy or just more aware of your social surroundings?

"Social epidemiologist Myrna Weissman at Columbia University, along with a lengthy list of collaborators, has explored this question in detail, looking at the US as well as other countries. Reporting in 1992 and 1996 in JAMA – the Journal of the American Medical Association – Weissman and colleagues found that more and more Americans are becoming depressed, they are getting depressed at a younger age, and the severity and frequency of depression is rising.

These results are neither small nor spurious. Each generation born in the twentieth century has suffered more depression than the previous one and since WWII, the overall rate of depression has more than doubled. A more recent study, published in the Archives of General Psychiatry in 2000 and conducted by another team of researchers, showed more than a doubling of depression in women from 1970 to 1992. Psychiatric drug use has skyrocketed as a result. American schoolchildren today are taking four times as many psychiatric meds as all of the rest of the world combined.

What’s going on? The commonly sold narrative is that every instance of the blues, and certainly every case of clinical depression, is the result of some in-born biochemical imbalance – treatable only by serotonin drugs like Prozac. Yet these studies make it clear that something larger is at play. If your brain is indeed out of balance, the source of the trouble may very well reside in your cultural environment, not in your genes.
A recent World Health Organization (WHO) study revealed that the incidence of schizophrenia has increased 45 percent in developing nations since 1985. By far the hardest hit have been women. A separate WHO study of 14 countries showed women have twice the rate of depression as men. In Santiago, Chile, the rate was five times as high for women. (Chinese women, a previous study found, had nine times the rate of neurosis and depressive neurosis as men, and 75percent more schizophrenia.)

The WHO findings reinforce what Myrna Weissman and colleagues reported in a 1992 JAMA report on depression. In most of the countries they studied, people born since 1950 are at a much higher risk for depression than those born earlier. What makes the WHO studies so remarkable, though, is that they focus on developing nations such as India and Egypt, whose populations have seen dramatic improvements in medicine and infrastructure.

This appears as puzzling, at first glance, as the Vega studies on Mexican immigrants. But closer scrutiny solves the mystery. The very changes that have brought improved health and infrastructure in these countries have also led to significant disruptions in cultural practices, social routines, and traditional roles in work and family. To paraphrase David Byrne, These people got what they wanted, but lost what they had.

When we look closely at patterns of mental disorders around the world, one thing becomes clear: rising wealth does not improve mental health. In fact, globalization seems to leave mental degradation in its wake. Canadian psychologist Bruce Alexander has come to the same conclusion.

"Because [our] western free-market society proves the model for globalization," he says, "mass addiction is being globalized, along with the English language, the Internet, and Mickey Mouse."

If the mental environment is so toxic, why aren’t we all sick? For the same reason we’re not all suffering from colds or the flu. People differ biologically and developmentally in their vulnerabilities – which may explain why, in the calculus of a society’s mental health, the impact of toxic culture tends to get overlooked. Mental disorders are considered the problems of individuals. But let’s be clear: the crisis in mental health that we face is a crisis of ecology and culture, not one of brains, biochemistry, and medicine.

The WHO predicts that depression will become one of the most common disabling disorders in the world by 2020, second only to heart disease (it has already reached the number one spot for women). Pretty soon, Mexicans and other immigrants won’t have to come to North America to be exposed to toxic culture, USA. It will come to them. Culture is, after all, America’s greatest export."

Welcome the New Cold War Just Like the Old Cold War

Americans focus on Iraq while the old perils only get worse. Unbeknownst to most the arms race is heating up again. Meanwhile the potential for conflict in the Baltics builds, a problem even becoming noticed by conservative think tanks who only now have begun waking up to the potential disaster brought on by neglect of this country's real interests and needs by the brainless Bush administration. By neglecting to build on the potential of Russian-American relations, perpetuating paranoia with continued NATO expansion, missile defense, and strategic superiority at all costs we bequeath our children a 1950s style future of Armageddon like endings.

World's Oldest Bowling Alley Discovered

In breaking news the RIA/Novosti news agency reports that evidence for the oldest boweling alley has been discovered in Egypt. This would tend to call into question the theory that the ancient Greeks were responsible put forth in this scholarly paper and illustrated as above.

Andrew Bacevich's Loss is America's Loss

Andrew Bacevich became a member of a club nobody ever wants to be in, a parent who lost a son to a senseless war. An important voice against the militarization of American society and a military scholar he has more weight than most in speaking out against the insanity that currently grips our society. TomDispatch has a great sample of his important writing and now a very poingnant and principaled discussion of the war and his son. He never loses sight of what really is at stake.

Levantine Craziness

If you aren't sure what the current crisis in Lebanon is about don't feel bad.If you depend on American MSM you've probably heard that Al-Qaeda has taken over parts of Lebanon with the nefarious help of Syria who some how with the help of Iran also make Iraq the hell on Earth that it currently is.

It seems that things are somewhat more complicated as indicated in the latest from Franklin Lamb in the past weeks Counter Punch. The ugly truth appears that the so-called Al-Qaeda group is an American funded organization. This is not surprising considering that Syria actually imprisoned the "head " of this group on terrorism charges for 3 or 4 years prior to him disapearring into Lebanon. The following is quite informative:

"To understand what is going on with Fatah al-Islam at Nahr el-Bared one would want a brief introduction to Lebanon's amazing, but shadowy 'Welch Club'.

The Club is named for its godfather, David Welch, assistant to Secretary of State Rice who is the point man for the Bush administration and is guided by Eliot Abrams.
Key Lebanese members of the Welch Club (aka: the 'Club') include:

The Lebanese civil war veteran, warlord, feudalist and mercurial Walid Jumblatt of the Druze party( the Progressive Socialist Party or PSP)

Another civil war veteran, warlord, terrorist (Served 11 years in prison for massacres committed against fellow Christians among others) Samir Geagea. Leader of the extremist Phalange party and its Lebanese Forces (LF) the group that conducted the Israel organized massacre at Sabra-Shatilla (although led by Elie Hobeika, once Geagea's mentor, Geagea did not take part in the Sept. 1982 slaughter of 1,700 Palestinian and Lebanese).

The billionaire, Saudi Sheikh and Club president Saad Hariri leader of the Sunni Future Movement (FM).

Over a year ago Hariri's Future Movement started setting up Sunni Islamist terrorist cells (the PSP and LF already had their own militia since the civil war and despite the Taif Accords requiring militia to disarm they are now rearmed and itching for action and trying hard to provoke Hezbollah).

The FM created Sunni Islamist 'terrorist' cells were to serve as a cover for (anti-Hezbollah) Welch Club projects. The plan was that actions of these cells, of which Fatah el-Islam is one, could be blamed on al Qaeda or Syria or anyone but the Club.

To staff the new militias, FM rounded up remnants of previous extremists in the Palestinian Refugee camps that had been subdued, marginalized and diminished during the Syrian occupation of Lebanon. Each fighter got $700 per month, not bad in today's Lebanon.

The first Welch Club funded militia, set up by FM, is known locally as Jund-al-Sham (Soldiers of Sham, where "Sham" in Arabic denotes Syria, Lebanon, Palestine & Jordan) created in Ain-el-Hilwa Palestinian refugee camp near Sidon. This group is also referred to in the Camps as Jund-el-Sitt (Soldiers of the Sitt, where "Sitt" in Sidon, Ain-el-Hilwa and the outskirts pertain to Bahia Hariri, the sister of Rafiq Hariri, aunt of Saad, and Member of Parliament).

The second was Fateh-al-Islam (The name cleverly put together, joining Fateh as in Palestinian and the word Islam as in Qaeda). FM set this Club cell up in Nahr-al-Bared refugee camp north of Tripoli for geographical balance.

Fatah el-Islam had about 400 well paid fighters until three days ago. Today they may have more or fewer plus volunteers. The leaders were provided with ocean view luxury apartments in Tripoli where they stored arms and chilled when not in Nahr-al-Bared. Guess who owns the apartments?

According to members of both Fatah el-Islam and Jund-al-Sham their groups acted on the directive of the Club president, Saad Hariri.
So what went wrong? "Why the bank robbery" and the slaughter at Nahr el-Baled?

According to operatives of Fatah el-Islam, the Bush administration got cold feet with people like Seymour Hirsh snooping around and with the White House post-Iraq discipline in free fall. Moreover, Hezbollah intelligence knew all about the Clubs activities and was in a position to flip the two groups who were supposed to ignite a Sunni ­Shia civil war which Hezbollah vows to prevent.

Things started to go very wrong quickly for the Club last week.
FM "stopped" the payroll of Fateh el-Islam's account at the Hariri family owned back.

Fateh-al-Islam, tried to negotiate at least 'severance pay' with no luck and they felt betrayed. (Remember many of their fighters are easily frustrated teenagers and their pay supports their families). Militia members knocked off the bank which issued their worthless checks. They were doubly angry when they learned FM is claiming in the media a loss much greater than they actually snatched and that the Club is going to stiff the insurance company and actually make a huge profit.

Lebanon's Internal Security Forces (newly recruited to serve the bidding of the Club and the Future Movement) assaulted the apartments of Fatah-al-Islam Tripoli. They didn't have much luck and were forced to call in the Lebanese army.

Within the hour, Fatah-al-Islam retaliated against Lebanese Army posts, checkpoints and unarmed, off-duty Lebanese soldiers in civilian clothing and committed outrageous killings including severing at four heads.

Up to this point Fatah-al-Islam did not retaliate against the Internal Security forces in Tripoli because the ISF is pro-Hariri and some are friends and Fatah al-Islam still hoped to get paid by Hariri. Instead Fatah al Islam went after the Army.

The Seniora cabinet convenes and asks the Lebanese Army to enter the refugee camp and silence (in more ways than one) Fatah-al-Islam. Since entrance into the Camps is forbidden by the 1969 Arab league agreement, the Army refuses after realizing the extent of the conspiracy against it by the Welch Club. The army knows that entering a refugee camp in force will open a front against the Army in all twelve Palestinian refugee camps and tear the army apart along sectarian cracks.

The army feels set up by the Club's Internal Security Forces which did not coordinate with the Lebanese Army, as required by Lebanese law and did not even make them aware of the "inter family operation" the ISF carried out against Fatah-al-Islam safe houses in Tripoli.

Today, tensions are high between the Lebanese army and the Welch Club. Some mention the phrase 'army coup'.

The Club is trying to run Parliament and is prepared to go all the way not to 'lose' Lebanon. It still holds 70 seats in the house of parliament while the Hezbollah led opposition holds 58 seats. It has a dutiful PM in Fouad Siniora.

The club tried to seize control of the presidency and when it failed it marginalized it. Last year it tried to control of the Parliamentary Constitutional Committee, which audits the government's policies, laws and watch dogs their actions. When the Club failed to control it they simply abolished the Constitutional Committee. This key committee no longer exists in Lebanon's government.

The Welch Club's major error was when it attempted to influence the Lebanese Army into disarming the Lebanese Resistance led by Hezbollah. When the Army wisely refused, the Club coordinated with the Bush Administration to pressure Israel to dramatically intensify its retaliation to the capture of the two soldiers by Hezbollah and 'break the rules' regarding the historically more limited response and try to destroy Hezbollah during the July 2006 war.

The Welch Club now considers the Lebanese Army a serious problem. The Bush administration is trying to undermine and marginalize it to eliminate one of the last two obstacles to implementing Israel's agenda in Lebanon.
If the army is weakened, it can not protect _over 70% of the Christians in Lebanon who support General Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement. The F.P.M. is mainly constituted of well educated, middle class and unarmed Lebanese civilians. The only protection they have is the Lebanese Army which aids in maintaining their presence in the political scene. The other type of Christians in Lebanon is the minority, about 15% of Christians associated with Geagea's Lebanese Forces who are purely militia. If the Club can weaken the Army even more than it is, then this Phalange minority will be the only relatively strong force on the Christian scene and become the "army" of the Club.

Another reason the Club wants to weaken the Lebanese Army is that the Army is nationalistic and is a safety valve for Lebanon to ensure the Palestinian right of return to Palestine, Lebanese nationhood and the resistance culture led by Hezbollah, with which is has excellent relations.

For their part, the Welch Club wants to keep some Palestinians in Lebanon for cheap labor, ship others to countries willing to take them (and be paid handsomely to do so by American taxpayers) and allow at most a few thousand to return to Palestine to settle the 'right of return' issue while at the same time signing a May 17th 1983 type treaty with Israel with enriches the Club members and gives Israel Lebanon's water and much of Lebanon's sovereignty.

Long story short, Fatah el-Islam must be silenced at all costs. Their tale, if told, is poison for the Club and its sponsors. We will likely see their attempted destruction in the coming days.

Hezbollah is watching and supporting the Lebanese army."

If you see this on CNN I'll probably fall over from disbelief. This is only one place of many that can't be explained by our usual media sources. Watch this space for further details.

Darfur Weapons Oil and Indignation

It is sometimes difficult to unravel the complexities of world issues and living in a country that likes simple solutions to every problem does not help. A good example is the situation in Darfur. Probably the most coherent description that I've seen was published in Asia Times Online this past week. F. William Engdahl details how what is commonly described as a straight forward case of genocide actually involves Chevron (Condi's old employers), the China National Offshore Oil Corporation, shadowy arms dealers, and the corrupt despot of Chad who has now become a partner in the " war on terrorism".

I was especially intrigued by the role of Victor Bout, a Russian- Tajik arms dealer wanted by Interpol for money laundering but operating comfortably out of Florida and Texas. Interestingly he has made himself useful in Iraq to the Bush Administration as mentioned in this article.

Close But No Cigar

An article about an asteroid that passed within 6.5 lunar distances of Earth that was discovered a month ago.What will we discover next month, presuming there is a next month?

Fleurs de Mal

Its interesting to see how American wars in the last 50 years or so seem to eventually involve drugs in one form or another. The war in Iraq seems to be no exception. Patrick Coburn has an interesting article in CounterPunch
detailing a new and sinister aspect of the war.

"Farmers in southern Iraq have started to grow opium poppies in their fields for the first time, sparking fears that Iraq might become a serious drugs producer along the lines of Afghanistan.

Rice farmers along the Euphrates, to the west of the city of Diwaniya, south of Baghdad, have stopped cultivating rice, for which the area is famous, and are instead planting poppies, Iraqi sources familiar with the area have told The Independent.

The shift to opium cultivation is still in its early stages but there is little the Iraqi government can do about it because rival Shia militias and their surrogates in the security forces control Diwaniya and its neighbourhood. There have been bloody clashes between militiamen, police, Iraqi army and US forces in the city over the past two months.

The shift to opium production is taking place in the well-irrigated land west and south of Diwaniya around the towns of Ash Shamiyah, al Ghammas and Ash Shinafiyah. The farmers are said to be having problems in growing the poppies because of the intense heat and high humidity. It is too dangerous for foreign journalists to visit Diwaniya but the start of opium poppy cultivation is attested by two students from there and a source in Basra familiar with the Iraqi drugs trade.

Drug smugglers have for long used Iraq as a transit point for heroin, produced from opium in laboratories in Afghanistan, being sent through Iran to rich markets in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. Saddam Hussein's security apparatus in Basra was reportedly heavily involved in the illicit trade. Opium poppies have hitherto not been grown in Iraq and the fact that they are being planted is a measure of the violence in southern Iraq. It is unlikely that the farmers' decision was spontaneous and the gangs financing them are said to be "well-equipped with good vehicles and weapons and are well-organised"."

George Bush is a God send for terrorists, criminals, arms dealers, and now opiate traffickers. An equal oppurtunity administration all around.

It May Need a Get Away Hole

The largest American Embassy ever,anywhere is taking shape in Baghdad. If anyone thought we would, out of the goodness of our American souls, just show up like a mysterious stranger in a western movie, free the good people, then vanish into the sunset only to do good deeds elsewhere, they should seriously look at this edifice of imperialism.
My favorite observation comes from Ed Pilkington of the Guardian who notes the following:

"Toby Dodge, an expert on Iraq at Queen Mary, University of London, has just come back from a month spent in Iraq, largely in the Green Zone. He thinks the Americans are unlikely to pull out of Iraq fully until the end of the next presidency at the earliest, and so the new embassy will serve its purpose for several years to come.

"A fortress-style embassy, with a huge staff, will remain in Baghdad until helicopters come to airlift the last man and woman from the roof," he said, adding his own advice to the architects of the building: "Include a large roof."

Media Concentration

Russian reporters walked off the job due to preassure from the government to report the "right" news. Somehow I don't expect to see this becoming an international phenomena, least of all in the U.S.I mean will FOX employees or even news models at CNN ever leave due to news distortion or lies?

U.S. Military Energy Consumption

EnergyBulletin.net has a fascinating review of energy use by the Dept. of Defense. Among the nuggets was the fact that the military "only" accounts for 1% of American energy consumption, however this is still as much as 140 million Nigerians. Read on..

KAH BOOM KAH BOOM continued.....

The ongoing saga of catastrophism gets a new boost at the American Geophysical meeting this week when evidence suggesting a cataclysmic comet or asteroid collision 13000 years ago set fire to the Northern Hemisphere will be presented.

"This comet set off a shock wave that changed Earth profoundly,' said Arizona geophysicist Allen West. 'It was about 2km-3km in diameter and broke up just before impact, setting off a series of explosions, each the equivalent of an atomic bomb blast. The result would have been hell on Earth. Most of the northern hemisphere would have been left on fire.'

The theory is to be outlined at the American Geophysical Union meeting in Acapulco, Mexico. A group of US scientists that include West will report that they have found a layer of microscopic diamonds at 26 different sites in Europe, Canada and America. These are the remains of a giant carbon-rich comet that crashed in pieces on our planet 12,900 years ago, they say. The huge pressures and heat triggered by the fragments crashing to Earth turned the comet's carbon into diamond dust. 'The shock waves and the heat would have been tremendous,' said West. 'It would have set fire to animals' fur and to the clothing worn by men and women. The searing heat would have also set fire to the grasslands of the northern hemisphere. Great grazing animals like the mammoth that had survived the original blast would later have died in their thousands from starvation. Only animals, including humans, that had a wide range of food would have survived the aftermath.'

The scientists point out that archaeological evidence shows that early Stone Age cultures clearly suffered serious setbacks at this time. In particular, American Stone Age hunters, descendants of the hunter-gatherers who had migrated to the continent from Asia, vanished around this time.

These people were some of the fiercest hunters on Earth, men and women who made magnificent stone spearheads which they used to hunt animals including the mammoth. Their disappearance at this time has been a cause of intense debate, with climate change being put forward as a key explanation. Now there is a new idea: the first Americans were killed by a comet.

It was not just America that bore the brunt of the comet crash. At this time, the Earth was emerging from the last Ice Age. The climate was slowly warming, though extensive ice fields still covered higher latitudes. The disintegrating comet would have plunged into these ice sheets, causing widespread melting. These waters would have poured into the Atlantic, disrupting its currents, including the Gulf stream. The long-term effect was a 1,000-year cold spell that hit Europe and Asia.

The comet theory, backed by observational evidence collected by the team, has excited considerable attention from other researchers, following publication of an outline report of the work in Nature

'The magnitude of this discovery is so important,' team member James Kennett, of the University of California, Santa Barbara, told the journal. 'It explains three of the highest-debated controversies of recent decades.'

These are the sudden disappearance of the first Stone Age people of America, the disappearance of mammoths throughout much of Europe and America and the sudden cooling of the planet, an event known as the Younger-Dryas period. Various theories have been put forward to explain these occurrences, but now scientists believe they have found a common cause in a comet crash. However, the idea is still controversial and the theory is bedevilled by problems in obtaining accurate dates for the different events."

Antarctic Melting

A recent report released by NASA refutes the often made argument that global warming does not affect Antarctica and thus doesn't exist.This report suggests an area the size of California underwent unprecedented melting during the Antarctic summer of 2005.While not enough to cause catastrophic ice sliding it tends to add credence to gradual acceleration of climate change, a concept opposed by neo-Luddites, oil companies, and the United States government.

Peace for a Piece

It would appear on the surface that the U.S. is moving towards a withdrawl from Iraq, the Democrats control the House and barely the Senate but moves to defund the war seem to be making progress. The ugly truth would suggest that the facts of "withdrawl" are more complex than the American people and their representitives would care to acknowledge.
The inconvienient fact is that there is no withdrawl strategy because there is no intent to leave. Evidence of this may be seen in the construction of American "megabases".These will require 35,000-50,000 personnel for an indefinite period of time. The bases themselves are located in proximity to refineries and oil fields interestingly. Neither party seems willing to address the real ulterior motives to this fiasco.

Peak Oil an Iranian View

Peak oil is one of those issues that no one wants to talk about because the ramifications are so overwhelming that it actually threatens an entire way of life. Byron King at EnergyBulletin.net has a great article by an Iranian energy expert that transcends national self interest and gives a coherent explanation of what to expect in the future. Its sobering and worth reading.

Spinning Syria

The amount of hypocrisy coming out the Bush administration regarding Syria is truly mind boggling. How a country can be condemned on one hand for supporting "terrorism" and on the other hand be a convenient resource for the provision of torturing services on demand is amazing. It helps if you have a compliant media that overlooks these and other apparent contradictions and creates a citizenry that's still more interested in what might have happened to Anna-Nicole Smith and Brittany's current state of consciousness. Jacob Hornberger puts well,

"But how does something like this happen? Doesn't it almost defy credulity? Why, here you have a regime that the president repeatedly condemns as a state sponsor of terrorism and with whom the U.S. government simply is not going to communicate. Meanwhile, CIA officials, somehow or other, cut a deal with Syrian officials to torture a citizen of Canada on behalf of the U.S. government."

The case of Maher Arar is particularly egregious. In case you hadn't heard he is a Canadian citizen kidnapped in the U.S. and sent to Syria for torture, eventually released,and returned to Canada where the government at least had the decency to apologize and also investigate the RCMP"s role in this sordid affair.Fat chance anything similar will ever occur in the U.S.

Foreign Intelligence Reports Suggest Iran Attack Near

Russian military sources report that American force levels near Iran are growing and that naval deployment is reaching levels not seen since the attack on Iraq.Ealier today I watched a so-called interview with a CNN news model and the current American commander in the Middle East, Admiral William Fallon, in which the news model demanded to know what the U.S. was "going to do" about Iran. To a casual observer it would appear that even a cursory discussion regarding the wisdom of such action was apparently unnecessary.

Dermockracy Russia and America

Old habits die hard and none are more evident than the American habit of either wanting to blame or save the Russians for or from the same problems that they themselves have. A good example would be the the recent concern for Russian democracy shown by this link that my friend Mark at Norwegianity felt compelled to bring to attention.

Now I would not deny that Vladimir Putin has consolidated and centralized power as much as possible, but criticism coming from a country where the ruling party has cleansed, purged, disenfranchised, gerrymandered, and otherwise screwed with the electoral process to the point that no country in their right mind would look to them for guidance rings more than a bit hollow.

One of the recurring themes of this intermittant excercise I call a blog is the bizzaro parallel universe quality of Russian-American relations. It is interesting to think that the largest and most dangerous nuclear powers in the world are both potential economic basket cases on any given day. I probably don't need to go into detail about America's amazing weakness in this area, however this article in the Exile shows an uncanny likeness to what Madeline Albright liked to call the world's "Indispensible Nation" and its citizens on the verge of insolvancy. Nukes apparently don't make the house payments. For further information I highly recommend americanempireproject.com to see what the future probably holds.

Russia America or Both

Uzbek Prison Conditions Improving with Organized Crime's Help

In what I gather would qualify as prison reform, an Uzbek prison warden hiding in Kazakhastan has been murdered on orders of organized crime. The warden, Alihaydar Kulumbetov, according to UZNEWS was known for torture and abuse of prisoners.

"Credit for this goes to the criminal underworld and the international community," Surat Ikramov said. He added that this may sound absurd, but even the criminal underworld is outraged with the level of abuses in Uzbekistan, and those tortures and harassment, which officers of prisons and colonies subject their charges to."