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Karl Rove Vacations in Yalta with Georgian President Saakashvili

Posted by Jeff from Dailykos

It's a bit premature but Thom Hartmann today was talking about this on air - along with the LA Times article. DailyKos asks if this is the October Surprise.

40 votes | 2 comments

Why was Cheney's guy in Georgia before the war?

Posted by Jeff from Latimesblogs.latimes

The LA Times posted a blog entry today asking why Dick Cheney's top aide was in Georgia before it invaded South Ossetia. Separately, the blogosphere is buzzing over Karl Rove's "vacation" to Yalta in which he appeared on a panel with Georgian President Saakashvili before the war.

Personally, I was struck by the photos of Putin and Bush at the Olympics Opening Ceremony, seemingly relaxed, as Russian troops invaded Georgia. However, contrarian reports of their demeanor exist.

40 votes | Post comment »

Arrests Made in Alleged Obama Assassination Plot

Posted by theangryindian from TruthDig

A possible plot to kill Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama during his acceptance speech Thursday at the Democratic National Convention was foiled in Denver on Monday night when at least three suspects were arrested, authorities reported.

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More to Reuter's report on Lees v FEER case

Posted by singaporenews from

Reuters reported yesterday that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong upped the stakes of the defamation suit with the Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER) by seeking to find a higher defamatory meaning to the words published in its interview with Dr Chee Soon Juan.

1 votes | Post comment »

Rights groups bemoan lack of Beijing protests

Posted by Jeff from MSNBC

The Beijing Olympics have left the world's human rights groups frustrated and angry - convinced that China has been let off the hook for serious abuses, and adamant that future hosts like Russia must be held to a higher standard. Cheek, co-founder of a group of athletes known as Team Darfur, had his visa revoked by Chinese authorities hours before he was to embark for Beijing. Team Darfur athletes who are in Beijing have acceded to International Olympic Committee curbs on political comment, resulting in what Cheek called "massive suppression of any voice that the government doesn't want heard."

65 votes | 4 comments

Hacker Uncovers Chinese Olympic Fraud

Posted by Jeff from Yro.slashdot

A new chapter in the ongoing controversy surrounding China's women's gymnastics team opened today, as search engine hacker stryde.hax found surviving copies of official registration documents issued by China's General Administration of Sport of China. The incriminating documents, expunged by censors from the official site and from Google's document cache, still appear in the document translation cache of Chinese search giant Baidu, here (1) and here (2), showing the age of one of China's gold medal winning gymnasts to be 14 instead of 16, the minimum age for competition presented on her government-issued passport. Now that official government documentation is available, how long will the IOC be able to keep a lid on this scandal?

65 votes | 3 comments

Musharraf says he's stepping down

Posted by Jeff from MSNBC

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf announced his resignation Monday to avoid impeachment charges, nearly nine years after the key U.S. ally in its campaign against terrorism took power in a coup.

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Russia destroys key Georgian bridge

Posted by vishal98 from Feeds.feedburner

Link to Black Sea, all east-west transit routes effectively severed.

1 votes | Post comment »

IDF vets who trained Georgia troops say war with Russia is no surp

Posted by theangryindian from Angryindian.blogspot

For the past few days, since fighting broke out in the Caucasus, 24-year-old L. from central Israel has been trying to phone the group of Georgian combat soldiers he had been training in Georgia up to a few months ago.

25 votes | Post comment »

US begins flying Georgian troops home from Iraq

Posted by Jeff from Huffington Post

The U.S. military began flying 2,000 Georgian troops home from Iraq on Sunday, military officials said, after the Georgians recalled the soldiers following the outbreak of fighting with Russia in the breakaway province of South Ossetia. The decision was a timely payback for the former Soviet republic that has been a staunch U.S. supporter and agreed to send troops to Iraq as part of the U.S.-led coalition. Georgia was the third-largest contributor of coalition forces after the U.S. and Britain, and most of its troops were stationed near the Iranian border in southeastern Iraq.

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Will Russia get away with it?

Posted by Jeff from Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Not that I ever agree with Bill Kristol - but I am glad he highlighted what I saw as one of the most pathetic aspects of Bush's Russia diplomacy failures. Georgia is the Republic with the third highest number of troops in Iraq - after Britain (2,000). So, while they are fighting Bush's war in Iraq, they lack 2,000 men at home to defend themselves against dictator Putin. Bush has failed to address Russia's democratic collapse throughout his entire term. It's one of his greatest failures.

40 votes | 4 comments

More than 'Shaft': Hayes was goldmine of influence

Posted by okami from Yahoo News!

Isaac Hayes' theme song for the 1971 movie "Shaft" not only became one of pop music's iconic songs, but also the defining work of Hayes' career. Yet the "Theme from Shaft" was just a snippet of the groundbreaking music for which Hayes - who died Sunday at age 65 - was responsible.

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