South Ossetia Update 8/8 am
Month: August 2008
Live blogging the Georgia / South Ossetia war
The Georgian Messenger is the English language daily that is ‘live blogging’ events from South Ossetia. There latest blog post is pretty interesting.
]]>Georgia’s Rustavi 2 television station, citiing Russian news reports, just announced that Georgian troops have taken Tskhinvali.
Cold War turns hot in South Ossetia / Georgia as troops commence invasion
Well all pretense of negotiated settlements and cease fires has seem to go out the windows.
Georgian troops and South Ossetian forces have engaged in some pretty heavy shelling today that’s left at least 10 Georgian troops dead. The BBC is also reporting that fighters from around the region are gearing up for battle and heading to the scene:
Moscow-based Interfax news agency quoted the head of Russia’s province of North Ossetia, Taimuraz Mamsurov, as saying: “Hundreds of volunteers from North Ossetia are on their way to South Ossetia. We cannot stop them or prevent them from going.”
It also quoted Sergei Bagapsh, the head of Georgia’s other breakaway province of Abkhazia, as saying: “About 1,000 Abkhaz volunteers are leaving for South Ossetia.”
Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, is under attack from many sides, according to published reports.
The London Telegraph is going so far as to call this a full scale invasion by Georgian forces, including photos of troops on the move.
]]>Bin Laden Salim Haman driver to serve 5 years, and then be classified as 'enemy combatant' and held indefinitely.
Ok, so what’s the point?
They had a trial, he was found guilty, but now the Pentagon is saying even after he serves his ‘debt to society’ he will considered an enemy combatant and sent to some place like Guantanamo indefinitely.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said after the verdict Wednesday that Hamdan was now a “convicted war criminal” and that he was “no longer considered an enemy combatant.”
But on Thursday, Whitman said Hamdan’s status would revert to “enemy combatant” when his sentence is completed.
As an enemy combatant, Hamdan can be held indefinitely by the United States, although he would be eligible to appeal to an administrative review board to determine whether his status as an enemy combatant should continue.
So what the hell was the point of the trial????????????????
]]>Who will light the Olympic Cauldron in Beijing?
Yao Ming is out. He carried it yesterday and rules prohibit it from being carried by the same person twice. 110m hurdler Liu Xiang, the first Chinese gold medal winner in track and field and a national hero is a likely choice, but he’s under a tremendous amount of stress already being told to basically win or else. Perhaps we could see one of China’s astronauts, or as some have suggested, a child from the earthquake ravaged Sichuan province. Speculation is rampant with many names being suggested.
Despite media leaks of the opening ceremony, there was no leak of the cauldron lighting ceremony (it was not rehearsed as part of the process) and the actual person is a closely guarded secret. We’ll know in about 12 hours or so…
UPDATE: We now know–6 time medal winner Li Ning
]]>Verizon's FIOS finally coming to Washington DC
Despite being surrounded by some of the first communities in the country to get FIOS, and a relatively dense population core crying out for FIOS to be rolled out in the District proper, Verizon was dragging their feet for the last few years about rolling out the high speed service to DC residents. Well that wait is no more.
The District and Verizon Communications have reached an agreement to bring the company’s FiOS high-speed Internet service to the city.
Eric Richardson, director of D.C. Office of Cable Television, said the agreement requires approval by the mayor’s office and the D.C. Council, a process he said could be completed by the end of the year. Richardson said negotiations took nine months, less time than it has taken the District to work out previous cable franchise agreements.
As FIOS is a tv delivery platform, it often runs afoul of monopolistic cable tv agreements that cities have established with ‘cable’ companies. Whether or not these rollouts are done within the franchise agreements that exist (likely) or the result of total deregulation of the cable / Internet providing rules (ha) is yet to be established, but it doesn’t seem likely Verizon is going in anyplace where they don’t have a few regulatory barriers to entry in place already to prevent competitors.
]]>High School Graduate Donna Dustin Murdered in 1973 + 35th High School Reunion in 2008 = New leads?
There is no statute of limitations on murder, so police will be showing up at the Bowie High School’s Class of 1973 to talk about the night one of their graduates disappeared, only later to be found in a local swamp. Donna Dustin was celebrating her recent graduation when things turned a bit ugly.
The next time Donna was seen, later that day at around 10:30 a.m., she was a corpse, beaten savagely to death off Meyers Station Road near Bowie Race Track, an after-hours hangout for local teens. Her body was found on the Anne Arundel side of the woods.
David Cordle, an investigator with Anne Arundel County’s State’s Attorney’s Office, will speak at the reunion, asking attendees to tell him anything they saw or heard about Donna that Nov. 17.
Reunions, Mr. Cordle said, “bring a lot of people together who normally don’t come together. If you ask (them) the right questions, maybe you’ll get the kind of answers you need.”
I doubt we’ll see someone stand up and confess, but you never know what people have thought or said over the years thinking they were safe and far away from a tragic murder scene. DNA evidence is far more refined than it was 35 years ago.
But here’s an interesting stat on life in the suburbs of the big city. Of the 700 or so graduates, 39 have died.
]]>“Three were murdered, three committed suicide and others died in car crashes, overdosed or died of alcoholism. Three died while waiting for transplants or after getting transplants, three from breast cancer and three from AIDS,” Ms. Nusser said.
Deliveryman arrested in Maryland Mayor Cheye Calvo drug raid case
Police in Maryland have arrested the deliveryman in the SWAT team radio on a Maryland mayor’s house. Police broke down the door of the mayor’s home, shot his dogs, and held the mayor and his wife as ‘persons of interest’ after a 32lb box of pot was intercepted by drug sniffing dogs in transit. Police had no reason to suspect the mayor or his wife (who the package was addressed to) but went ahead with a ‘no knock’ search and seizure (despite not having a warrant for a no knock search).
Half a dozen deliveries were found to be carrying contraband, to a tune of about $3.6 million dollars. Despite this police have yet to exonerate the mayor, calling him ‘likely an innocent bystander’ but not entirely sure.
]]>Olympics Opening Ceremony parade not in alphabetical order, USA right in the middle
UPDATE: Torch / cauldron ablaze in AMAZING lighting ceremony (must see tv tonight). Games underway!
Hints are coming out that the opening ceremony parade will not be in alphabetical order as it has been in the past, but rather in ’stroke count’ order based on the Chinese characters. For example, Australia has 15 strokes to the Chinese character for Australia, and as such, they will be entering toward the end, position 203. Greece will still be first and the host country China will be last, but in between we could see quite a mishmash for people hoping to turn in during the middle or end and find the countries they were hoping for.
For Americans this means you are going to have to tune in about halfway through the opening ceremony parade to catch the US entry. The US will be entering in position 140, right after Syria and right before the Virgin Islands.
So, you really want the whole list? Ok…this will be long…
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Arrests made in the General Mohammad Suleiman assassination
London-based Asharq al-Awsat is reporting several arrests (aka ‘the usual suspects’) in the assassination of Mohammad Suleiman, the Syrian military general with ties to Hizbollah (though Hizbollah spokesman are saying ‘Suleiman who?’). As Syria is struggling to admit that he was actually killed, I think it may be awhile before we hear any official confirmation.
Meanwhile the Tehran Times is saying Israel did it (as if you expected something different)?
Here’s my question of the day. A sniper, on a yacht, with wave action taking him up and down, manages to get off 4 hits on a target? We’re talking Bourne Identity caliber or better (or are the seas perfectly calm down around Tartous?) . NOTE: Initial reports said he was shot in Cairo but now it appears he was shot in Syria in the port city of Tartous.
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