praag.co.za – Bladsy 1520 – aktueel, aktief, afrikaans! | issn 2409-1804

Radio telescopes and electromagnetic weapons

A group of Russian scientists from Tomsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Moscow have developed a series of unique compact generators capable of producing high-energy pulses of hundreds and even thousands of megawatts.

This compares with the capacity of a major Soviet hydropower station on the Dnieper or an energy unit at a modern nuclear power plant. The new generators are sources of electromagnetic radiation rather than electricity. Their main feature is a capacity to produce enormous power in a matter of nanoseconds. The impulses can be generated with a very high frequency.

Vice President of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) Gennady Mesyats recalled that the first high-current electron accelerators were developed in the U.S.S.R. in the 1960s. Ten years later, Soviet scientists learnt to generate powerful microwave nanosecond pulses. The current generators have no counterparts in the world. In effect, Russian scientists have made a breakthrough in what is called relativist high-precision electronics.

The pulse is primarily of interest for fundamental research. Reporting these results to the RAS Presidium at the beginning of this year, scientists emphasized that sources with super radiation effects can be broadly used in long-range high-resolution impulse-based radiolocation and in studies of non-thermal impact of powerful electromagnetic fields on radio electronic components and different biological species.

Super-powerful pulse generators can test the reliability of radio electronic devices and the immunity of energy facilities to different impacts. They can imitate the interference caused by a lightning and even by a nuclear blast. Their tiny size and unique physical properties make their sphere of application extremely wide.

The electromagnetic pulse (EMP) is a product of a nuclear explosion. It puts out of action even those electronic control systems that have withstood the shockwave and reduces expensive smart weapons to scrap metal. There are different ways of generating electromagnetic pulses – for example, it can be produced by explosion-induced pressure on a magnetic field.

Physicist Andrei Sakharov was the first to propose using this principle in a bomb in the 1950s. Today, records in the size of an induced magnetic field, maximum current and properties of such "radiators" belong to Russian scientists. They surpass foreign counterparts by 10 times. Depending on what facilities the EMP is directed at, the damage radius can be from several hundred meters to kilometers. Without creating a shock wave and inflicting visible damage, it destroys all enemy electronic equipment. Moreover, unlike electronic countermeasures, electromagnetic weapons are capable of damaging radio electronic components even if they are switched off.

At present, the infrastructure and troops of many countries are stuffed with electronic equipment. It will be the main target for electromagnetic weapons. The destructive effect is produced by the high acceleration of the magnetic and electrical components of the EMP. They induce voltage changes ranging from 100 volts to 10,000 volts in circuit networks and terminals of radio electronic equipment. The ensuing massive sparking of cable jackets, their contact to frame and the ground, and breakdowns in connectors put the equipment out of action and lead to fires and explosions. To understand this effect better, it is enough to imagine what will happen to your TV-set if there is a power surge – it will simply melt.

The Americans were the first to use such weapons in combat, for instance in Yugoslavia. Some analysts believe that electromagnetic bombs would have given the United States a vital advantage in the early stages of the war in Iraq. They could have disabled not only Baghdad’s control and communications systems, but also electronic components of missiles, even those located in deep bunkers. But the U.S. command chose not to use electromagnetic bombs for fear that they might disrupt its own radio electronic equipment in the area.

Today, many countries have electromagnetic weapons. Military experts predict a victory in future wars to those who will be ahead in electromagnetic radiation. In many cases, not only the military-industrial complexes but also different civilian organizations, research institutes and universities conduct studies in this field, thereby increasing the threat of radio electronic terrorism. For example, a broadband high-energy and compact wave source is sold without any restrictions. In several fractions of a second, it can burn down all electronic equipment at an electric power station, substation or control tower.

A short intensive pulse can instantly paralyze data bases, financial centers and industrial equipment.

Yuri Zaitsev is an academic adviser at the Academy of Engineering Sciences.

Zimbabwe: Best Performing Stock Market

CNBC and other stock market tabloids are notorious for making simplistic linkages between the stock market and gross domestic product (GDP). They tell us that any event that stimulates GDP growth inevitably drives stock prices up, and any event that hurts GDP growth pushes stocks down.

Since the largest share of GDP is consumption, consumer demand becomes the all-important figure driving growth. When the consumer gets too excited, the Fed must step in to cool them down with interest-rate hikes. When the consumer isn’t spending, Fed interest-rate cuts stimulate demand.

The tragedy currently occurring in Zimbabwe completely contradicts this sort of logic. Zimbabwe is in the middle of an economic disintegration, with GDP declining for the seventh consecutive year, half what it was in 2000. Ever since President Mugabe’s disastrous land-reform campaign (an entire article in itself), the country’s farming, tourism, and gold sectors have collapsed. Unemployment is said to be near 80%.

Yet something odd is happening.

The Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (the ZSE) is the best performing stock exchange in the world, the key Zimbabwe Industrials Index up some 595% since the beginning of the year and 12,000% over twelve months. This jump in share prices is far in excess of increases in consumer prices. While the country is crumbling, the Zimbabwean share speculator is keeping up much better than the typical Zimbabwean on the street.

CNBC logic fails to explain the coincidence of a rising ZSE and collapsing GDP because it entirely ignores the monetary side of the economy. At this point Austrian economics makes its contribution to our story. According to Austrian Business Cycle Theory (ABCT), the peak-trough-peak pattern that economies demonstrate is not their natural state, but one created by excess growth in money supply and credit. New money is not simply parachuted to everyone equally and at the same time — it is sluiced into the economy at certain initial "entry points." From these entry points, a number of initial goods are bought by recipients of new money causing a rise in price for these initial goods relative to other goods.

Because entrepreneurs react to this observed but unjustified change in the structure of prices by investing their capital, misallocation occurs. As money-supply growth continues and prices become more contorted, more and more ventures are undertaken that would not be undertaken in a regime without money-supply growth. When, for whatever the reason, money supply finally contracts, the artificial strength in prices that encouraged unprofitable ventures is removed, prices collapse, and large numbers of ventures go bankrupt. Thus we have the recession part of the business cycle, the simultaneous failure of many firms at the same time.

If, as the Austrian theory states, money enters the economy at certain points, it is likely that a nation’s stock market will become a prime beneficiary of any monetary expansion. Fresh money enters the economy first through banks and other financial entities who may invest it in shares, or lend it to others who buy shares. Thus stock prices rise relative to prices of things like food and clothes and will outperform as long as this monetary process is allowed to continue.

This is what we are seeing in Zimbabwe. With the country suffering from Mugabe’s catastrophic policies, increasingly the only means for the government to fund itself has been money-supply growth. This has only exacerbated the economy’s problems. The flood of new money that authorities have created has caused the existing value of money in circulation to plummet, i.e., the prices of all sorts of goods to explode, some rising more than others.

As prices become more misaligned, basic decision-making abilities of normal Zimbabweans are impaired and the day-to-day functioning of the economy deteriorates. Perversely, all of this has forced the government to issue even more currency to make up for budget shortfalls and to buy support. At last measure, the country’s consumer price index was rising (i.e., the purchasing power of currency declining), at a rate of 1,729% a year.

The ZSE is growing some three times faster than consumer prices. This relative outperformance versus general prices is a result of stocks being a chief entry point for the flood of newly created money. Keep Zimbabwean dollars in your pocket, and they’ve already lost a chunk of their value by the next day. Putting money in the bank, where rates are pithy, is not much better. Investing in government bonds is the equivalent of financial suicide. Converting wealth into foreign currency is difficult; hard currency is scarce, and strict rules limit exchangeability.

As for capital improvements, there is little incentive on the part of companies to invest in their already-losing enterprises since economic prospects look so bleak. Very few havens exist for people to hide their wealth from the evils created by Mugabe’s policies. Like compressed air looking for an exit, money is pouring into shares of ZSE-listed firms like banker Old Mutual, hotel group Meikles Africa, and mobile phone firm Econet Wireless. It is the only place to go. Thus the 12,000% year over year increase in the Zimbabwe Industrials.

Our Zimbabwe example, though extreme, demonstrates how changes in stock prices can be driven by monetary conditions, and not changes in GDP. New money gets spent or invested. In Zimbabwe’s case, because there are no alternatives, it is stocks that are benefiting.

This sort of thinking can be applied to the stock markets in the Western world too. Though western central banks have not been printing nearly as fast as their Zimbabwe counterpart, they do have a long history of increasing the money supply. It forces one to ask how much of the growth in Western stock markets over the preceding twenty-five years has been created by a vastly increasing money supply, and how much is due to actual wealth creation. Perhaps stock prices have increased faster than goods prices for the last twenty-five years because, as in Zimbabwe, Western stock markets have become one of the principal entry points for newly printed currency.

дома и бани

Frankryk se nuwe besems

Fran?ois Fillon

François Fillon is gisteroggend aangewys as president Nicolas Sarkozy se nuwe eerste minister. Hy is 53 jaar oud en ’n voormalige parlementslid vir die Sarthe-streek in Frankryk. Fillon het oorgeneem by Dominique de Villepin, wat die pos 23 maande lank beklee het.

Die keuse het nie as ’n verrassing gekom nie. Fillon is al geruime tyd werksaam as politieke raadgewer vir Sarkozy en het ’n sleutelrol tydens die pas afgelope verkiesingsveldtog gespeel. Sy naam het dadelik die rondte begin doen toe Nicolas Sarkozy, kandidaat vir die regse UMP, op 6 Mei met 53% van die stemme as die nuwe Franse president aangewys is. Sarkozy se voorganger, Jacques Chirac, het die pos twaalf jaar lank beklee.

Fillon se familie is welgesteld. Hy het internasionale politiek studeer en op ’n jong ouderdom aktief by Franse partypolitiek betrokke geraak. Hy staan bekend as ’n uitstekende onderhandelaar. Hy het as minister gedien onder Balladur, Juppe en Raffarin en word as ’n ervare politikus beskou. Daar word verwag dat hy ’n sleutelrol gaan speel in die sosiale en ekonomiese hervormings wat Sarkozy beplan om deur te voer.

Fillon sal Vrydag die name van sy vyftien nuwe kabinetslede bekendmaak. Sarkozy het tydens die verkiesing onderneem om ewe veel mans en vroue aan te stel en om ook sentrististiese en linkse politici te betrek.

Bernard Kouchner

Na alle verwagting gaan Bernard Kouchner die nuwe minister van buitelandse sake word – ’n verstommende keuse. Kouchner, ’n voormalige dokter, sosialistiese minister en stigter van Médecins sans Frontières, is bekend vir sy voorliefde vir die kalklig. Hy is getroud met een van Frankryk se bekendste joernaliste, Christine Ockrent. Hy het homself baie ongewild gemaak deur in 2003 openlik standpunt in te neem ten gunste van die oorlog in Irak. Hy het verder nog altyd ’n pro-Israel-houding ingeneem wat hom die vyandskap van Moslemstate op die hals gehaal het. Hy word vandag nog gespot oor ’n insident wat in Desember 2002 op ’n strand in Mogadisjoe, Somalië, tydens die Verenigde Nasies se mislukte humanitêre sending plaasgevind het. Kouchner het naamlik ’n sak rys by ’n noodlenigingswerker gegryp en oor sy skouer geswaai toe hy ’n TV-span sien aankom.

Daar is baie ongelukkigheid in die UMP oor Sarkozy se vreemde keuse en twyfel bestaan of Kouchner oor die nodige takt beskik om sy nuwe portefeulje suksesvol te hanteer.online casono

Desperate deception

DESPERATE DECEPTION: BRITISH COVERT OPERATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES, 1939-44
Thomas E. Mahl
Brassey’s, 1998, xiv + 256 pgs.

Professor Mahl’s excellent monograph helps clear up a historical mystery. As everyone knows, Americans before Pearl Harbor opposed, in overwhelming numbers, entry into World War II. So much the worse for the American public, say some historians, such as the eminent Thomas Bailey.

Roosevelt saw that the defeat of the Axis was necessary to save the world. Only American entry into the war could secure this goal. The President accordingly had to resort to deception to inveigle America into the conflict. While promising peace, he provokes war. Roosevelt’s policy, it is claimed, was vindicated by the Allied defeat of Germany and Japan in 1945.

Not everyone convinced that isolation from war in 1941 was wrong adopts this bold line. Some historians, such as Dexter Perkins, reluctant to embrace Machiavelli so openly, argue that Roosevelt and the American public were not so far apart as first appears. True, the great majority of the public opposed entry into the war. But the public also favored aid to Britain of a sort that risked war. Roosevelt thus acted to secure what the public "really" wanted.

As Louis D. Rubin, Jr., has expressed this position: "But public opinion was overwhelmingly on the side of Britain; an opinion poll taken in July 1940 indicated that seven out of ten Americans believed a Nazi victory would place the United States in danger, and so were in favor of assistance to the embattled British" (p. 85).

An obvious problem with this interpretation is that it ascribes to the public views that quickly generate tension, if not outright inconsistency. People believed, it is claimed, both that the United States should stay out of the war and that the country should adopt policies liable to produce just the undesired outcome.

Given this tension, would not people be apt to revise their beliefs to restore equilibrium? That is to say, would they not either reject unneutral policies or abandon the resolve to stay out of the war? Certainly, people sometimes hold beliefs that ill comport together, but this problem was glaringly obvious. Were we that stupid?

Mr. Mahl disposes of our problem through a simple stroke. The polls that showed American support for violations of neutrality were rigged by British agents. "British intelligence had `penetrated’ the Gallup organization…. British intelligence officer David Ogilvy later wrote about his days at Gallup: `I could not have had a better boss than Dr. Gallup. His confidence in me was such that I do not recall his ever reading any of the reports I wrote in his name’" (p. 75). By careful manipulation of the questions asked, results could be contrived to order. "In 1940 and 1941, BSC [British Security Coordination] rigged a series of polls…to project the notion that the members of prominent organizations were pro-British, avidly in favor of intervention, and intensely antagonistic toward America First" (p. 77).

Mr. Mahl’s argument seems to me a vital contribution to World War II historiography. Further research is needed, though, to consolidate his thesis. What exactly were the questions asked in the various polls? Had they been phrased differently, would the respondents have answered in a way more consistent with non-intervention?

The balance of evidence suggests strongly that they would have done so. Although a Gallup poll taken August 1940 showed an "astounding figure" of 70 percent in favor of conscription, Congressional mail "overwhelmingly" opposed the draft (p. 83). Further, a poll sponsored by Robert Hutchins, a strong opponent of the war, showed that only 34 percent of the public favored entry into the war, even if Britain was defeated. (Incidentally, one wonders whether polls still are rigged. A careful examination of the polls that showed a rise in popularity for President Clinton whenever a new act of his malfeasance was disclosed seems warranted.)

Professor Mahl offers a comprehensive account of British intelligence activities designed to involve the United States in war. The single most striking example of the effectiveness of the British effort is this. Before the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was established, a presidential directive in July 1941 set up a preliminary group called The Coordinator of Information (COI). Not only was this group, which devised the plans for the OSS, organized at the behest of British Intelligence; its head was a British agent. Colonel Charles Howard "Dick" Ellis, an assistant to the principal British intelligence agent in America, Sir William Stephenson, "actually ran [William] Donovan’s COI office and produced the blueprint for the American OSS" (p. 194).

I cannot describe in detail the vast range of episodes which Mr. Mahl discusses. Rather, I shall confine myself to two additional examples of British influence. The first relates to the crucial US election of November 1940. In order to win the war, Britain needed the support of the United States as a fighting ally. But, if the Republicans ran a strong noninterventionist campaign, not even the machinations of Franklin Roosevelt would suffice to accomplish this. "The first peacetime draft law in American history, Burke-Wadsworth, and the Destroyer Deal would not have received Roosevelt’s endorsement had a genuine opposition candidate stood ready to make it a political issue in the 1940 election" (p. 164).

To secure the British goal, then, the Republican candidate had to be solidly in the interventionist camp. How could this be achieved? Mr. Mahl answers his question by pointing to an anomaly: the unexpected surge of support for Wendell Willkie in the months before the Republican convention, and at the convention itself.

The stampede toward Willkie, the quintessential dark horse candidate, puzzled informed contemporaries. H.L. Mencken "wrote, after watching the nomination: `I am thoroughly convinced that the nomination of Willkie was managed by the Holy Ghost in person’" (p. 156). Our author essays a more down-to-earth explanation. The boom for Willkie was contrived with heavy British support; the banker Thomas W. Lamont played a key role in the endeavor. Whether Mr. Mahl’s account is successful must be left for readers to judge.

In any event, once nominated Willkie enabled the British strategy to proceed apace. Mr. Mahl cites in this connection a telling remark of Walter Lippmann, himself an ally of British intelligence: "Second only to the Battle of Britain, the sudden rise and nomination of Wendell Willkie was the decisive event, perhaps providential, which made it possible to rally the free world when it was almost conquered" (p. 164). Willkie was if anything more interventionist than Roosevelt; non-interventionist voters in 1940 were in effect shut out of the presidential election. The other incident selected for discussion will, I fear, evoke memories of The Starr Report. (May I reiterate what is said elsewhere in these pages: The Mises Review has no connection with that salacious document.) Again the key issue involves the paralysis of isolationist opposition to British plans. Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan, a protégé of the isolationist William Borah, ranked among the foremost non-interventionists during the 1930s. He executed a sudden volte-face in July 1940 and supported the crucial Lend-Lease Bill in March 1941.

Mr. Mahl attributes the change of heart to the influence of Mitzi Sims, Vandenberg’s mistress, who had strong ties to British intelligence, and of another woman, Betty Thorpe Pack ("Cynthia"), also romantically linked with him. Our author admits he cannot prove that Vandenberg’s relationship with those women changed the senator’s views; but his conjecture certainly helps us understand Vandenberg’s otherwise inexplicable behavior.

But is Vandenberg’s change in fact a strange phenomenon that requires special explanation? One might object that it is not: if the interventionist view of the wartime situation is accepted, then Vandenberg’s support for Lend-Lease responded realistically to grave threats to America’s interests. Perhaps, to echo A.J.P. Taylor on Lord Halifax, Vandenberg "heard the call of conscience in the watches of the night." More generally, why need we invoke British intrigues to explain American policy? Once more, will not the national interest suffice?

The imagined rejoinder fails. It begs the question by assuming the correctness of interventionism. No doubt, Lend-Lease was in the national interest-but only if one accepts the interventionist account of that interest. The point at issue is that only a minority of people in the United States held this view before Pearl Harbor. On the isolationist position, Lend-Lease and similar measures did not serve our interests. Why then were these policies instituted? Mr. Mahl’s study gives us indispensable aid in answering this question.

Suid-Afrika nie meer mededingend nie

Kenners het hulle skok uitgespreek oor ’n verslag wat verlede week vrygestel is en wat toon dat Suid-Afrika met twaalf posisies op die kompetisiewêreldranglys gedaal het. Hierdie drastiese daling word aan die bevoordeling van swart werkers voorgeskryf.

Volgens die World Competitiveness Yearbook, wat 55 lande beoordeel op grond van hulle vermoë om ’n gunstige klimaat vir besighede te skep, het Suid-Afrika se posisie van nommer 38 verlede jaar tot nommer 50 hierdie jaar gedaal. Dit verteenwoordig die grootste daling op die lys.

“Dit is skokkend,” het Sello Mosai, uitvoerende bestuurder van kennisontwikkeling by die Suid-Afrikaanse Nasionale Produktiwiteitsinstituut (NPI), gesê. “Enigeen kan slegter doen, maar as daar so ’n groot daling plaasvind, laat dit mens regtig sprakeloos.“ Die NPI het die Switserse Internasionale Instituut vir Bestuursontwikkeling bygestaan om die plaaslike ondersoek uit te voer.

Volgens die verslag word Suid-Afrika laaste geklassifiseer wat diskriminasie in die werksmilieu betref. Mosai meen dit is nie net aan regstellende aksie toe te skryf nie, maar dat diskriminasie oor die hele werkspektrum in die land plaasvind en dat dit ook ouderdom en godsdienstige oortuigings insluit.

Die Suid-Afrikaanse ekonomie se groei is ongeveer 5% per jaar, met goeie resultate wat toerisme en direkte oorsese beleggings betref. Die hoë werksloosheidsyfer, erge misdaad en streng arbeidswetgewing word egter in die verslag as hindernisse vir ekonomiese ontwikkeling bestempel.

“Dit is nie ’n kwessie van Suid-Afrika wat slegter doen nie. Dit is wel ’n geval van ander lande wat beter doen,” aldus Mosai.

Twee derdes van die verslag word gebaseer op ekonomiese statistiek en een derde op meningsopnames onder staatsamptenare en sakelui. Suid-Afrika is een van vyftien lande wat die afgelope paar jaar al swakker vaar.

Oliemaatskappy kan dalk Irak skeur

Det Norske Oljeselskap, oftewel DNO, een van Noorweë se kleiner oliemaatskappye, sal een van die eerste buitelandse spelers wees om Irakkese olie te begin ontgin. Hulle het vandag afgeskop met ‘n klein hoeveelheid olie vanuit Koerdistan se Tawke-olieveld in die noorde van Irak aan die wêreldmark, 35 jaar nadat olieproduksie in die land onder staatsbeheer gebring is. Dié veld is in 2005 ontdek.

Die streek wat omtrent so groot soos Denemarke is, het ‘n reserwepotensiaal van tussen 12 en 45 miljoen vate, het die Koerdiese olieministerie gesê. Dit is gelykstaande aan ‘n derde van Irak se erkende reserwes en die wêreld se vierde grootste bron, volgens die IEA (Internasionale Energie Agentskap).

Die Koerde wat gedurende die laaste paar jaar van Saddam Hoessein se bewind onder beskerming van Amerikaanse vegvliegtuie nie hul soewereiniteit prysgegee het nie, het miljoene uit Saddam gemaak deur olie aan Turkye te smokkel in weerwil van internasionale sankies wat die VN teen Irak afgeroep het.

Toe sanksies opgehef is, moes hulle inderhaas ‘n nuwe manier vind om op te maak vir die verlore inkomste. Een so ‘n manier is om kontrakte te sluit met onafhanklike oliemaatskappye sonder die goedkeuring van Bagdad. Turkye het reeds so ‘n elektrisiteitsooreenkoms met Koerde aangegaan in ‘n ander olieryke gebied.

DNO se vordering word met belangstelling deur groter maatskappye dopgehou wat tot dusver nie kans gesien het vir die afwesigheid van enige juridiese raamwerk in Irak nie. Na wat verwag word sal DNO se deelname spanning skep tussen Koerdiese plaaslike owerhede en die sentrale regering in Bagdad.

Die noorde van Irak is taamlik rustig en vreedsaam in vergelyking met die res van die land en die toekenning van oliekontrakte aan buitelandse maatskappye kan veroorsaak dat die geweld wat reeds elders woed, uitgebrei kan word na die noorde. Indien die Koerdiese owerhede ‘n onafhanklike bron van inkomste gebruik om hul mag te konsolideer kan dit verder beteken dat die eenheid van die Irakkese staat in gedrang kan kom.

DNO sal aangewese wees op padvervoer om die olie te verskeep aangesien Bagdad nog nie toestemming verleen het om die uitvoerpyplyn te gebruik nie. Die uitvoerende beampte, Helge Eide, is nietemin optimisties oor die vooruitsigte omdat sy maatskappy “nooit verwag het” om binne twee jaar op dreef te wees nie.

DNO is of was ook in Mosambiek bedrywig waar hulle in 2004 aangekondig het dat hulle gaseksplorasie in die Sofala-provinsie gaan onderneem. Alhoewel die waarskynlikheid op net 20% geraam is, het woordvoerders aangedui dat hulle hoop om olie ook daar te vind.

‘n Ander Noorweegse speler, Statoil, het ‘n samewerkingsooreenkoms met die Suid-Afrikaanse Sasol gesluit om natuurlike gas na brandstof om te skakel mbv die uiters winsgewende Fischer-Tropsch tegnologie. Noorweë hoop om een van die grootste leweraars van energie aan Europa te word. Tans word Rusland se Gazprom bevoordeel deurdat die oormatige regulering in die EU Noorweegse mededingendheid kortwiek.

кардиганы

Bush doesn’t want detente

In the next few days an unprecedented meeting between US and Iranian officials is expected to take place in Baghdad; both sides have insisted that discussions are limited to Iraq. Could this first official encounter since the Islamic revolution herald detente between Washington and Tehran?

At the moment nothing suggests that is likely, as each country continues to try to mobilise the states of the region. The US vice-president, Dick Cheney, has been touring the Arab world, reiterating Washington’s determination to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, meanwhile, is visiting the UAE, the first by an Iranian leader since independence in 1971 and all the more important because of a serious territorial dispute. Responding to the threatening noises from Cheney, President Ahmadinejad declared: "The US cannot strike Iran. The Iranian people can protect themselves and retaliate."

Although the US administration’s current priority is Iraq, it has not given up on Iran. Silently, stealthily, unseen by cameras, the war on Iran has begun. Many sources confirm that the US has increased its aid to armed movements among the ethnic minorities that make up about 40% of Iran’s population. ABC News reported in April that the US had secretly assisted the Baluchi group Jund al-Islam (Soldiers of Islam), responsible for a recent attack that killed 20 Revolutionary Guards. According to an American Foundation report, US commandos have operated inside Iran since 2004.

President Bush categorised Iran as part of the "axis of evil" in 2002; the following year he said the US "would not tolerate" an Iranian nuclear weapon. It is worth recalling the context in which these statements were made. Tehran had actively helped the US to overthrow the Taliban. At a meeting in Geneva on May 2 2003 between Javad Zaraf, the Iranian ambassador, and Zalmay Khalilzad, Bush’s special envoy to Afghanistan, the Tehran government submitted a proposal for general negotiations on weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and security, and economic cooperation. The Islamic Republic said it was ready to support the Arab peace initiative tabled in 2002 and help to transform Hizbullah into a political party. And in December 2003, Iran became one of the few countries to sign the additional protocol to the non-proliferation treaty, which strengthens the International Atomic Energy Agency’s supervisory powers.

However, the US swept all these overtures aside since its only objective is to overthrow the mullahs. To create the conditions for military intervention, it constantly brandishes "the nuclear threat". In 1995 the director of the US arms control and disarmament agency said Iran could have the bomb by 2003; Clinton’s defence secretary William Perry predicted 2000, a forecast repeated by Israel’s Shimon Peres. Yet last month the IAEA considered that it would be four to six years before Tehran had the capability to produce the bomb.

What is the truth? Since the 1960s, Iran has sought to develop nuclear power in preparation for the post-oil era. Technological developments have made it easier to pass from civil to military applications. Have Tehran’s leaders decided to do so? There is no evidence that they have. Is there a risk that they may? Yes, for obvious reasons.

During the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against Iran, but there was no outcry in the US, whose troops are now deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Two neighbouring countries, Pakistan and Israel, have nuclear weapons. No Iranian leader could fail to be aware of this situation.

So how is Tehran to be prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons, a move that would start a new arms race in an unstable region and deal a fatal blow to the non-proliferation treaty? Contrary to common assumptions, the main obstacle is not Tehran’s determination to enrich uranium. Iran has a right to do so under the non-proliferation treaty but has always said it was prepared to impose voluntary restrictions on that right and to agree to increased IAEA inspections.

The Islamic Republic’s fundamental concern lies elsewhere. Witness the agreement signed in 2004 with France, Britain and Germany, in which Iran agreed to suspend enrichment on the understanding that a long-term agreement would "provide firm commitments on security issues". Washington refused to give any such commitments and Iran resumed its programme.

The EU chose to follow Washington’s lead. The proposals of the five members of the UN security council and Germany in June 2006 contained no guarantee of non-intervention in Iranian affairs. In response, Tehran suggested "that the western parties who want to participate in the negotiation team announce on behalf of their own and other European countries, to set aside the policy of intimidation, pressure and sanctions".

Without such a commitment escalation is inevitable. Ahmadinejad’s election as president in 2005 has not made dialogue any easier, given his taste for provocative statements about the Holocaust and Israel. But Iran is a big country rich in history, and there is more to it than its president. There is much tension within the government, and Ahmadinejad had severe setbacks both in the local elections and in elections to the Assembly of Experts last December. There are substantial challenges, economic and social, and forceful demands for more freedom, especially among women and young people. The only strong card the regime has to win their loyalty is nationalism, a refusal to accept the kind of foreign interference Iran suffered throughout the past century.

Despite the disaster in Iraq, there is no indication that Bush has given up the idea of attacking Iran. The insistence at the weekend by Gordon Brown that there would be no attack on Iran seems unwarranted optimism rather than objective assessment. The idea of an assault against Iran is after all part of the Bushite vision of a "third world war" against "Islamic fascism", an ideological war that can end only in complete victory.

The demonisation of Iran, aggravated by the attitude of its president, is part of this strategy and may well culminate in yet another military venture. That would be a disaster, not only for Iran and the Arab world, but for western, and especially European, relations with the Middle East. Europe’s newest leaders – Nicolas Sarkozy and Brown – would do well to remember that.

укладка Фильчаков

AOB vergader in Shanghai

Nadat die Afrika Ontwikkelingsbank 13 Afrikalande se skuld van ongeveer 50 miljard Rand onlangs afgeskryf het om as voorbeeld te dien vir skenkerlande, het die Bank vir die tweede keer in sy geskiedenis buite die kontinent vergader.

Die Algemene Vergadering sal hierdie week heel simbolies in Sjanghai, China se ekonomiese hoofstad, plaasvind. China is toenemend bedrywig in Afrika en dit sal die eerste keer wees dat die byeenkoms in Asië plaasvind.

‘n Fototentoonstelling van Chinese leiers is prominent by die vergaderplek uitgestal en dien as agtergrond vir die talle hooggeplaastes se persontmoetings. Van Mao tot Hu Jintao se belangrikste oomblikke pryk in swart-en-wit teen die moderne mure.

Die Chinese minister van Buitelandse Sake het benadruk dat dit vir sy land ‘n belangrike gebeurtenis is. Die handelsverkeer tussen Afrika en Asië het gestyg tussen 2001 en 2005 na sowat 700 miljard Rand volgens beskikbare syfers.

Tweeduisend mense word Woensdag en Donderdag by die Algemene Vergadering verwag, waaronder lede van die Spesiale Fonds vir Nigerië. Die byeenkoms volg op die spitsberaad in Beijing in November waar 48 Afrikalande teenwoordig was. China is duidelik daartoe verbind om nie net ekonomies nie, maar ook polities op die vasteland betrokke te raak.

Chinese investering in veral die oliebedryf het aansienlik gestyg en ook handel tussen die twee kontinente het vyfvoudig toegeneem.

Die Afrika Ontwikkelingsbank sien die skuldverligting as ‘n navolgenswaardige stap vir skenkerlande, soos die G-8, omdat dit die 13 lande volgens hulle in staat sal stel om ekonomiese groei aan te moedig. Die lande waarvan die skuld in April afgeskryf is, is naamlik Benin, Burkina Faso, Etihopië, Ghana, Madagaskar, Mali, Mosambiek, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzanië, Uganda en Zambië.

China beskou tans die Afrika-vasteland as ‘n bron van stemme om besluite by die VN te bekragtig, benewens die olie, minerale, hout en landbouprodukte wat die kontinent ook voorsien. Die Asiese reus word daarom dikwels van neo-kolonialisme deur die Weste beskuldig. Dieselfde kritiek is egter afwesig by die meeste Afrikalande.

Een so ‘n geval waar China onder Westerse druk staan, is Soedan, omdat China 60% van die olieproduksie opslurp en die huidige regering daarom teen die VN se verkose strafmaatreëls soos sanksies, beskerm.

China het nietemin toegegee dat Darfoer groot aandag internasionaal geniet. Hulle het ook aangekondig dat ‘n spesiale pos geskep sal word vir ‘n afgevaardigde om voltyds aandag te skenk aan die gebied om sodoende “’n nuwe soort strategiese bondgenootskap te vestig”.

“Die meeste Afrikane beskou die rol wat China speel as positief,” sê Peter Draper van die Institute for International Affairs in Johannesburg, “want hulle het al genoeg lesse gehad van die Weste oor hoe hulle behoort te ontwikkel.”

Die tema van die byeenkoms van die AOB in Sjanghai is trouens “Afrika-Asië, Bondgenote van Ontwikkeling” waar die Afrika-afvaardiging van 53 “inspirasie gaan put uit die voorbeeld van Asië om armoede te verlig”.

Александр Фильчаков

Klaargepraat

Politiek is eintlik maklik. Daar hóéf nie ‘n algehele ineensmelting van die land se strukture te wees nie. ‘n Algemene bloedstorting is nie onafwendbaar nie. Thabo Mbeki kan dit in een oomblik voorkom. Al wat hy hoef te doen is om, hoed in die hand, saggies aan die Afrikaner se deur te gaan klop en vir hom te vra om ‘n deel van die land uit te soek vir ‘n Afrikaner Republiek. Daar kan die Afrikaner doen wat hy wil: Hy kan ‘n welvarende, veilige land bou wat ‘n bate is vir die streek om hom. En die Bantoe kan doen wat hy wil: Hy kan die res van Suid-Afrika na smaak afbreek en ‘n las vir die streek en die wyer internasionale gemeenskap word.

Of Mbeki kan dinge ‘n eie loop laat neem en die uiteinde van dit alles sal wees dat die Afrikaner hom tog in sy eie Republiek sal vestig en die swart regeerders van die Res van die Republiek van Suid-Afrika sal die land tog uiteindelik mugabe. ‘n Afrikaner Republiek is ‘n onafwendbaarheid en by PRAAG hoop ons om dit deur vreedsame maar robuuste verset te bekom deur met veral ekonomiese druk die A.N.K. se gorrel toe te druk. Anders gaan hierdie vryheid deur die loop van die geweer van kom – ‘n nagmerrie-opsie wat ons glad nie voorstaan nie. So, dis die Rand of dis die Roer. Al wat ons moet doen om ons vryheid en veiligheid te vier, is om die regmatigheid van ons saak en die haalbaarheid van ons doelwit te verkoop aan ‘n miljoen mense: Almal van hulle Afrikaners.

Daar is wel ‘n swaksinnige spannetjie Afrikaners wat teen logika, ervaring en die getuienis van hulle eie oë in nog aandring dat ‘n Afrikaner Republiek nie haalbaar of gewens is nie. Vir hulle is die Afrikaner se oorlewing nie in die Roer óf die Rand nie maar, en om ons “R”-rympie voort te sit, in die Rede. Hierdie is die naïewe narre wat nog in die utopie van die Nuwe Suid-Afrika glo. Hulle – mense soos Max du Preez, Tim du Plessis, Antjie Krog en Ton Vosloo– reken ons kan alle rasseklosse uitpluis as ons net met mekaar práát. Hulle het ‘n oordrewe vertroue in onderhandelinge met die Bantoe, nugter alleen weet hoekom, want elke keer wat die Afrikaner dít probeer het, is hy verneuk en verraai en het die son as’t ware sy gebeendere aan die voet van ‘n Aasvoëlkoppie gebleik.

Maar miskien lees hierdie slappols Afrikaners wel die komende uitdelging in hulle private dolosse raak maar, in ‘n eiesoortige interpretasie van die Stockholm Sindroom, is hierdie voorstaanders van onderhandelinge vas oortuig dat hulle die tipiese Afrika bloedfees kan vryspring dat deur net met swartes te praat en hulle kultuur na te doen. As jy praat van “isi-Zulu” in plaas van “Zoeloe” en as jy Madiba-hemde dra, dan is jy mos ‘n Afrikaan? En hoekom sal die swart massas jou harspan dan met ‘n tradisionele wapen inmekaar wil slaan? As hulle passasiers op die Titanic was, sou hierdie arme simpel drommels geredeneer het dat al wat hulle moet doen om hulleself van verdrinking te red, is om ysberge na te boots. Hulle het ‘n oordrewe vertroue in onderhandelinge.

Inderwaarheid durf ons nooit weer met die A.N.K. en hulle kultuurgenote onderhandel nie. Wanneer die tyd kom, sal ons hulle inroep en vir hulle instruksies gee. Ons is, in elke opsig en op elke manier, klaargepraat.

Om die swart revolusioniste van ons tyd in ‘n debat te betrek, is om jou eie posisie te ondergrawe. ‘n Sinvolle debat vereis die vooropstelling van reëls en die Westerling en die Afrika-inboorling kom na die podium met uiteenlopende waardes wat hulle aan riglyne heg. Die Westerling het erg aan logika, ontwikkeling van gedagtes, sinvolheid van gevolgtrekking, nougesetheid in die uiteensetting van feite en ontsag vir die waarheid. Die Bantoe kan nie minder deur enige van dié waardes geroer wees nie. Vir hom is daar net een sinvolle opvatting – sy eie – en dit is sy metode en sy gemeenskapsplig om hierdie standpunt so driftig, ongekompliseerd, luidkeels en aanhoudend uit te blaker dat sy opponent uit pure radeloosheid sal bes gee. Die Westerling sien die debat as ‘n arena waarin ontsag vir ‘n ander se standpunt geld. Die Afrikaan beoordeel sy vertoning volgens die volume en stemtoon van sy aanbieding en die verbetenheid waarmee hy by sy opvattings staan en sy debatsgenoot s’n ignoreer.

‘n Volkekundige en Afrika-spesialis – ‘n professor wat sy naam verswyg wil hê uit vrees vir ‘n ander Afrika-debatsmetode: Die uitwissing van jou teenstander en sy gesin – verduidelik die meganiek van onderhandelinge in die tradisie van Afrika: “Dit is konsensus deur uitmergeling. Dit gaan nie oor die begrip van jou teenstander se opvatting en oor om saam te stem iewers op ‘n kontinuum van redelikheid nie. Wat letterlik gebeur is dat die voorstaanders van verskillende opvattings in ‘n stam mekaar die stryd in onderhandelinge sal aansê. Die oorwinnaar word nie bepaal deur die gehalte of logika van sy argumente nie maar, letterlik, deur wie die langste aanhou. Hierdie indaba kan oor weke strek. Soos wat ‘n onderhandelaar se ondersteuners moedeloos word, dros hulle eenvoudig uit die gesprek uit totdat sy posisie so uitgekalwe is dat hy heeltemal sonder verwyt en heeltemal klakkeloos oorslaan na ‘n ander onderhandelaar se posisie by wie hy dan aansluit. So word die groepe uitgedun totdat net die mees verbete onderhandelaar staande bly. Hy is dan die wenner, ongeag van die inhoud of gehalte van sy standpunt of posisie.”

Vir die Westerling, vir wie tyd deel is van die formule waarvolgens prestasie uitgewerk word, is hierdie styl van onderhandeling ‘n ondeurkruisbare moeras. ‘n Oom van my, onlangs oorlede, was in die tagtigs ingesleep in so ‘n proses. Hy het vir die destydse “administrasieraad” aan die Oos-Rand gewerk. Die gedagte was om algemene bestuur van die swart woongebiede aan die inwoners daarvan te oorhandig. ‘n Skikking rakende verantwoordelikhede, bevoegdhede en pligte moes met die nuwe bestuur uitgetrap word. Die swart raad is verteenwoordig deur ‘n span van twaalf gesiene inwoners onder aanvoering van ‘n bonkige, selfversekerde Venda uit die vakbondbeweging.

My arme oom se lewe het in ‘n nagmerrie verval. Sy opdrag was eenvoudig maar, getrou aan die aard van Westerse instellings, was daar die verwagting dat hierdie beraadslagings afgehandel sou word in ‘n “redelike tyd.” Die Bantoe het geen erg aan rede of tyd nie en die proses wat gevolg het, was die burokratiese weergawe daarvan om soos ‘n brommer in goue stroop te swem. Elke lid van die swart afvaardiging het ‘n lang uitgebreide relaas oor elke item, ongeag hoe beuselagtig, op die agenda. Elkeen van hulle se verklarings moes noukeurig genotuleer word en elkeen van hulle het daarop geregtig gevoel om sy standpunt uit suiwere wispelturigheid ter enige tyd aan te pas of selfs heeltemal mee weg te doen. Waarna dít weer opgeteken moes word. Met die volgende vergadering was dit nou nie net die agenda nie maar die notules wat tot in die uitputtendste besonderheid fyngemaal is, wat natuurlik langer notules vir die volgende vergadering veroorsaak het wat dán weer in fyn besonderheid uitgepraat moes word en… en voor die blanke onderhandelaars se oë het ‘n eenvoudige proses uit beheer uit getol en ‘n kolossale, onontknoopbare kraaines geword.

Hierdie span onderhandelaars het voorts geensins uit een mond gepraat nie en het die forum aangegryp om breedvoerig met mekaar te verskil. Alliansies binne hierdie party is aangegaan en verbreek. Die Administrasieraad se onderhandelaars durf ook geensins ongeduldig met die proses geraak het nie. Die swart span was oorsensitief aangaande protokol en enige pogings om hulle aan te jaag, is as ‘n belediging gesien wat tot ‘n krisis opgekook is.

Na amper twee jaar van hierdie proses, uiteindelik!, is ‘n konsepskikking bereik. ‘n Datum is bepaal waarop hierdie ooreenkoms met ‘n sekere feestelike formaliteit onderteken sou word. Alles was gereed en in plek… behalwe… die oorspronklike span onderhandelaars van die dorpsgebied. Dit was nie hulle wat by die plegtigheid opgedaag het nie. In hulle plek was daar twaalf spiksplinternuwe onderhandelaars. En hulle weier om ‘n ooreenkoms, by die opstel waarvan hulle nie betrek was nie, te onderteken.

Die moderne Westerling het nie pantser teen hierdie slinkse aanwending van tyd as ‘n wapen nie. Die oomblik wat die veelparty onderhandelinge by Kempton Park aan die tirannie van ‘n sperdatum vir afhandeling onderwerp is, het die Meyer-de Klerk stoeispan klaar verloor. Naderhand was hulle so onbehoorlik oorhaastig om tog net om vadersnaam nie van sloerdery beskuldig te word nie, dat hulle die land en veral die Afrikanervolk nie vinnig genoeg verraai kon kry nie.

In die post-verraad era van 1994 af, het proponente van “deelnemende politiek” en ander onderhandelaars en debatteerders geensins beter gevaar nie. Die Bantoe en die Marxis en veral die marxistiese Bantoe, het die polities nuttige vermoë om sy eie propaganda te glo. Hulle onderskryf deesdae, met ‘n gulsige soort pathos, hulle self-ontwerpte geskiedenis as die adel van Afrika – die wêreld! – wat voorheen onderdruk is. Hulle beskou nie net meer die Suid-Afrika wat deur Afrikaner skranderheid gebou is as ‘n ontsaglike meevaller wat wonderbaarlik in hulle skote geval het nie. Nee, al het hulle nie ‘n sweetdruppel gestort, ‘n handboek oopgeblaai, ‘n vouer geliasseer, ‘n rekenaar aangeskakel nie, is die land en die volheid daarvan hulle swaarverdiende oorwinnaarstrofee en weë die arme sot wat met dié opvatting sou stry. Baie blanke redevoerders, ernstige en opregtemense, het met selfvertroue feite, statistieke en logika na ‘n debat met hierdie comrades gebring en is met verleë grinnike daar weg. Selfs Steve Hofmeyr.

Ek beskou meneer Hofmeyr as die beste Afrikaanse demagoog in die land, selfs wanneer hy nie sing nie. Hy het ‘n slag met woorde, ‘n aanvoeling vir ‘n sekere gevoelsgedrewe metrum en ‘n instink vir klem wat van hom ‘n formidabele spreker maak. ‘n Wyle terug het hy, apropos die Pretoria-naamkwessie, homself sterk en doeltreffend op een van sy konserte uitgespreek:

“Jy vernoem ‘n stad na iemand wat iets daar gebou het,” rasper hy, na wat vertel word, in daardie sinkplaat-wat-oor-klippe-gesleep-word stem van hom. “Jy vernoem dit nie na iemand wat daar verbygetrek het met drie bokke en net gestop het om teen ‘n boom te pis nie!”

Hei! Nou luister, hiérdie is taal wat ‘n swart debatteerder teen die bors sal stuit, wat maak dat hy na jou luister en, na dit alles, dat hy respek vir jou sal hê.

Maar sny die toneel na:

SABC televisie-ateljee. Twee spanne debatvoerders gluur rondom ‘n aanbieder na mekaar, reg om mekaar te pak oor dieselfde vraagstuk van Pretoria se naam. In die een hoek: Kallie Kriel van Afriforum en Steve Hofmeyr, albei gewapen tot die tande met feite, lyste, statistieke, uitsprake, aanhalings en wat nog, alles ter verdediging van die naam “Pretoria.” In die ander hoek, ‘n onbekende swart regsgeleerde met die venynige arrogansie van ‘n kaalwangvalk en saam met hom ‘n onbeduidende swart lid van een of ander obskure naamgewingsliggaam van die nuwe regime. Tussen die twee van hulle het hulle nie een soliede, samehangende geskiedkundige of geografiese feit om in hulle slingervelle te laai nie.

Dit was ‘n ongelyke stryd. En die wenners, en nog steeds onbetwiste debatskampioene van Afrika – die swart span! Terwyl Kriel en Hofmeyr ewe beleefd en stemmig, vol ontsag vir protokol, hulle netjiese en intellektueel verantwoordelike argumente aangebied het, het die swartes hulle aangekyk asof hulle iets onwelriekend en giftig is. Met hulle beurt was dit asof hulle die rakke vol breekware in ‘n eksklusiewe winkel omgooi. Hulle het twee punte en net twee punte in die gesprek ingedra: Hulle (die swart mense) was die eerste daar (in die Pretoria omgewing) en daar is meer van hulle (as van Kriel en Hofmeyr se bleek, beleefde soort.)

Daarom mag hulle, kan hulle en sál hulle Tshwane van Pretoria maak. So, voeg hulle by sonder om dit hardop te sê, moer weg! En Kriel en Hofmeyr kry daardie wasige uitdrukking in die oë en daardie verbysterde grinnike van mense wat met harde en onaanvegbare feite oor die streep op die grond getrap het en wat toe aangeveg en verslaan is deur opponente sónder feite, sónder logika en sónder redelikheid.

Steve sou baie beter gedoen het om sy berugte moer te strip en hulle brutaal in die rede te val met: “Luister julle vir my! Stil! Julle het duidelik nie die vaagste benul waarvan julle praat nie, so gee aandag: Iets kan nie ‘n naam kry voordat dit gemaak is nie. En die een wat dit maak, sê wat die naam daarvan is. Óns het Pretoria gebou en terwyl óns dit gebou het, het júlle ‘n entjie daarvandaan ‘n paar takke op mekaar gepak en dit ‘n kraal genoem. Nou ek gee nie om as julle elke takkraal wat julle al ooit gemaak het, van hier tot in Lagos, ‘Tshwane’ noem nie maar ons, omdat óns Pretoria gebou het, sal besluit wat sy naam sál wees en sál bly.

En as julle nie van die naam ‘Pretoria’ hou nie, die goeie nuus vir julle is dat daar nie meer ‘n groepsgebiedewet nie en julle het die volste konstitusionele reg om nie naby die Afrikaner-stad Pretoria te kom nie!” Sy “drie-bokke-en-pis-teen-‘n-boom” toespraak sou soveel meer effektief as al sy beleefde argumente gewees het.

Selfs Eddy von Maltitz, regse politieke osdrywerstok van die Vrystaat, kan by tye te beleefd wees ten koste van ‘n geldige standpunt. Die uitsaaibedryf was nog nooit in die Nuwe Suid-Afrika so opgeblase van selftoegedeelde belangrikheid as tydens die Spitskonferensie op Volhoubare Ontwikkeling wat in 2002 in Johannesburg aangebied is nie. Tim Modise het die A.N.K. se voete gewas met sy radioprogram deur elke oggend ‘n polities geheiligde ateljeegas te hê. Een oggend was dit ‘n swart historikus met ‘n onuitspreekbare naam uit ‘n onbenullige diktatorsdom iewers uit Wes-Afrika. Hy het gerapsodieer oor die Bantoe se plig en geleentheid om “sy eie geskiedenis” te maak en oor te vertel in die utopie van die Nuwe Afrika waar net sensitiewe, skrander, diepsinnige Bantoes in woon sonder ‘n anaal-retentiewe bleeknerf insig.

Von Maltitz bel toe in en vra, o so beleefd, of die waardige gas Keith Richburg se “Out of Ameria” gelees het. Dis ‘n goeie vraag. Richburg se boek gaan na alles oor sy persoonlike ontnugtering as swart Amerikaner wat Afrika geïdealiseer het totdat hy daarheen oorgeplaas is en hy gekonfronteer moes word met, onder andere, die duisende en duisende lyke wat rivieraf dryf uit Rwanda toe dié sensitiewe en diepsinnige Bantoes hulle bure met die grootste uitgelatenheid uitgedelg het.

Modise se ateljeegas sou moes bontstaan om te verduidelik hoe hierdie boek in sy visie van ‘n nuwe Afrika historiografie moontlik geakkommodeer sou kon word. Maar, getrou aan die redenasiestyl van die Bantoe, het die ateljeegas nie eers die ordentlikheid gehad om te bevestig of te ontken of hy die boek gelees het nie. Hy het bloot ‘n rits titels van boeke deur skrywers uit die skool van Afrika nasionalisme afgerammel en gevra of Von Maltitz dít gelees het. En Eddy, baie beleefd en eerlik, val in die strik deur te erken hy het nie. In die tradisie van die Afrikaner stel hy homself onderhewig aan reëls wat hy nie van ander verwag om na te kom nie.

Wat hy moes gedoen het was om in wese te sê: “Hei, luister, jý is die ateljeegas. Ek is nie. Jy is daar sodat ék vir jóú vrae kan vra. As jy vir mý iets wil vra, wag totdat ék die ateljeegas is en dan vra jy vir my net wat jy wil en ek sal die ordentlikheid hê om jou eerlik en volledig te antwoord. Intussen tyd, wees darem net gemanierd genoeg om te antwoord, ja of nee, het jy “Out of America” gelees en indien jy het, wat dink jy daarvan?”

Die beste is om natuurlik nie vir die opponent vrae te vra of antwoorde te verskaf nie. Ons is dikwels te ordentlik vir ons volk se beswil. Die enigste hoop vir ons oorlewing is om onsself in ons eie Republiek te regeer. Ons gaan dit nie deur goeie maniere bekom nie. Jy sê nie asseblief wanneer jy vir iemand skree om uit ‘n brandende huis te hardloop nie. Onderhandelinge met ‘n Bantoe-regering sal enige oplossings net uitstel. Dit het Afriforum, die DA, Vryheidsfront + en ander gelowiges in deelnemende politiek reeds vir ons tot vervelens toe gedemonstreer.

Nee, sê ek. Kom ons laat die Tien Plae op die Nuwe Suid-Afrikaanse regime los en wanneer hulle ons die dag skuifelvoet benader, dán praat ons en ons praat net genoeg om instruksies uit te vaardig. En dan vat ons wat ons s’n is.

игрушки лунтика topcargo отзывы

Iraq murders soar

The US military surge in Iraq, designed to turn around the course of the war, appears to be failing as senior US officers admit they need yet more troops and new figures show a sharp increase in the victims of death squads in Baghdad.

In the first 11 days of this month, there have already been 234 bodies – men murdered by death squads – dumped around the capital, a dramatic rise from the 137 found in the same period of April. Improving security in Baghdad and reducing death-squad activity was described as one of the key aims of the US surge of 25,000 additional troops, the final units of whom are due to arrive next month.

In a further setback, the US military announced yesterday the loss of an entire patrol south of Baghdad, with five soldiers dead and three others missing, after they were ambushed by insurgents in the town of Mahmoudiya.

The new figures emerged as the commander of US forces in northern Iraq, Major General Benjamin Mixon, admitted he did not have enough soldiers to contain the escalating violence in Diyala province, which neighbours Baghdad and has become the focus of the heaviest fighting between largely Sunni insurgent groups and the US army, which has seen casualties increase by 300 per cent. Sixty-one US soldiers have been killed in Diyala this year, compared with 20 in all of last year.

Mixon, interviewed by The Observer earlier this year, has not made a secret of his frustration at the declining situation in Diyala and has already reinforced the area around Baqouba – the centre of the heaviest fighting – with additional troops.

Ironically, the violence in Diyala has been exacerbated by an influx of both Shia and Sunni fighters displaced from Baghdad by the surge and also from Anbar province who have relocated to Diyala to join a series of jihadi and nationalist groups already based there.

Mixon, who was speaking in Tikrit, said: ‘I’m going to need additional forces, to get that situation to a more acceptable level, so the Iraqi security forces will be able in the future to handle that.’ He was also highly critical of Iraqi government in Baghdad, charging that it was riddled with corruption.

Mixon’s request coincided with yet more bad news from Iraq – a draft US government report claiming that between 100,000 and 300,000 barrels a day of Iraq’s declared oil production may have been siphoned off through corruption in the past four years.

Iraqi and American officials have long contended that oil smuggling from fields controlled by Shia militias in the south is costing Iraq billions of dollars – funds that, it is feared, are going to armed groups.

Trees worsen greenhouse effect

A leading expert in Germany has spawned a major scientific debate by claiming that trees put millions of tons of methane into the atmosphere every year exacerbating the greenhouse effect. Amid controversy, Dr Frank Keppler of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry has reaffirmed findings by his team in Mainz, Germany, in January 2006 that they had detected methane exhaled from living plants.

"I am 100 per cent confident that plants emit methane," he told Chemistry World magazine, insisting that as yet unpublished research would confirm his findings once and for all.

Keppler’s unexpected discovery has caused heated debate among biologists and atmospheric chemists. Though bacteria in soil or decaying matter produce methane in anaerobic conditions, there seems to be no reason or mechanism for living plants to emit the gas in an oxygen-rich environment.

The implications of the findings are worrying: on a global scale, Keppler estimated, methane emissions from plants and trees could amount to hundreds of millions of tonnes a year, throwing scientists’ understanding of the greenhouse gas’s sources and sinks way off kilter.

But many researchers have queried the global impact, suggesting that Keppler’s scale-up calculations, based on methane emission per unit of metabolically active mass of plant, were a gross overestimate.

Yet until recently, no published research has questioned Keppler’s central discovery that plants can emit methane in the first place.

Recently, however, rival researchers reported that plants emit virtually no methane whatsoever.

Tom Dueck, of Wageningen University in the Netherlands, says his team’s independent investigations are the first published results to show that plants’ methane emissions are negligible or zero. That means their contribution to the global methane budget, and potentially to climate change, simply isn’t worth worrying about.

The Dutch group did not repeat Keppler’s experiment exactly, Dueck said, "because it was not methodologically sound." Instead, his team boosted the sensitivity of their methane measurements by growing plants in an atmosphere saturated with a heavy carbon isotope, 13C.

If the plants subsequently emitted methane (13CH4), it would be easy to spot above the background of light (12CH4) methane in the air. Photo-acoustic spectroscopy (a laser-based measuring technique) was used to detect the gas.

Dueck said it showed that even a large mass of plants produced negligible methane emissions – at most 0.3 per cent of Keppler’s values.

So if Dueck’s team is correct, where did Keppler go wrong? Dueck suggests that Keppler’s team might have forgotten that gas trapped in plants’ intercellular spaces, and in air pockets in the soil, could diffuse out and be counted as "emitted" by the plant in their experiment.

But Keppler rejects this, saying that this sort of methane desorption could only be partially responsible for the amounts of gas he found.

Indeed, he suggests that Dueck’s use of heavy isotopes may have actually changed the plants’ metabolic preferences, killing off their methane emissions. Dueck counters that no literature reports suggest this might be a problem.

кэк

Pakistan on brink of disaster

Chaos gripped the streets of Karachi yesterday as gun battles left at least 31 people dead and hundreds more injured, threatening a complete breakdown of law and order in Pakistan’s largest and most volatile city.

With plumes of black smoke billowing over the city of 12 million people, there were extraordinary scenes as gunmen on motorbikes pumped bullets into crowds demonstrating against Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf, while police stood by and watched.

In images more reminiscent of Baghdad, bloodstained corpses lay where they had fallen in the streets and bodies piled up in hospital morgues. As the sense of crisis deepened, a crisis meeting between Gen Musharraf and the prime minister, Shaukat Aziz, resolved to send in paramilitary troops to restore order, and to place the army on standby. The men agreed that a state of emergency would be imposed if the first two options failed.

It was the bloodiest escalation of the two-month long saga which began when the president attempted to sack the country’s chief justice in March. The ensuing challenge by lawyers and opposition parties to Gen Musharraf’s eight-year rule has left the president – a key Western ally in the "war on terror" – desperately clinging to power.

Opponents believe he had hoped to create a compliant judiciary ahead of elections which he has promised to hold later this year. But what started as a political confrontation has now lit Karachi’s tinderbox of ethnic rivalry.

Many of the 15,000 police and security forces deployed in the city stood idly by as armed activists from Karachi’s ruling party, Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), a coalition ally of Gen Musharraf, blocked Mr Chaudhry’s exit from the airport and took control of the city’s central district.

The movement’s leader, Altaf Hussain – who lives in self-imposed exile in London – co-ordinated opposition to Mr Chaudhry’s arrival and addressed crowds gathered on the streets of Karachi in a mobile phone call relayed by loudspeakers.

He called on supporters to be peaceful but to show whose city it was. Instead, violence reigned.

Gunmen tore off on motorbikes after brazenly firing AK-47 rifles at opposition supporters. One report described MQM gunmen exchanging gunfire for an hour with activists from the exiled former premier Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party.

Road blocks, including trucks with deflated tires, prevented most of Mr Chaudhry’s supporters from reaching the airport to greet him. But a few dozen lawyers who reached there on foot chanted, "We are with you. Down with Musharraf." Dozens of vehicles and petrol pumps were set alight by the angry mobs.

Inside Mr Chaudhry’s intended destination, Sind’s high court, hundreds of lawyers, some of them bloodied after being beaten up by MQM supporters, milled about chanting slogans and receiving news on their mobile phones about the trouble engulfing them. Outside, MQM activists with pistols tucked into their jeans, blocked the entrance.

Lawyers railed against the government. "This is a shocking attempt by the government to suppress the people," Iqbal Haider, a human rights lawyer and former senator, told The Sunday Telegraph. "Musharraf is making all sorts of mistakes to save himself from sinking."

As fans stirred the humid air, news poured in of unrest spreading to other parts of the country. Convoys of buses, cars and rickshaws festooned with flags of political parties careered through Karachi’s main thoroughfares.

Tension has been simmering in Karachi for the past week, with rumours swirling round that Mr Musharraf had allowed conflicting rallies to go ahead to create the requisite level of disorder to justify the declaration of an emergency. The prelude to violence was familiar to Karachi, where hundreds of people were killed in ethnic violence in the 1990s.

Exacerbating the political furore in Karachi over the sacking of Mr Chaudhry is a decades-old and simmering feud between the MQM, a movement supported by the city’s mohajir population who migrated from India at Partition in 1947, and ethnic Pathans, who were originally from Pakistan’s North West Frontier province.

Opponents of the MQM claim that its actions yesterday were ordered in micro-detail by the movement’s autocratic leader, via telephone, from Edgware in north London.

Altaf Hussain wields great influence from afar over Karachi, a city of 15 million. Amid the chaos and bloodshed, the MQM chief addressed tens of thousands of his followers gathered along one of Karachi’s main streets.

As his speech echoed over its audience, in other parts of the city gunmen from both heavily armed factions took up positions on rooftops and sprayed streets with automatic gunfire. Dozens of wounded were treated in hospitals.

Last night paramilitary troops were preparing to be deployed in the city as the possibility of a curfew being imposed grew.

‘Tsotsi’-akteur is ‘n tsotsi

‘Tsotsi’, Madiba en aktrise

In die film "Tsotsi", wat ’n Oscar gewen het, ontferm die pikareske held hom oor ’n ontvoerde baba. Maar die akteur Presley Chweneyagae wat die rol gespeel het waarin misdadigers uit Soweto in ’n positiewe lig gestel word, is in die werklike lewe minder begaan oor sy eie sewemaande-oue baba.

Die 21-jarige moeder van die kind, Neblungu Somfula, is besig om hom vir onderhoud te dagvaar omdat sy tot dusver net twee paaimente van R500 van die Tsotsi-akteur wat Hollywood verower het, ontvang het.

“Wat kan ek met R500 doen?” vra Somfula. Sy het ’n tweejaarlange verhouding met die Tsotsi-ster gehad wat haar swanger gemaak het terwyl sy ’n graad 11-leerling op die skoolbanke was, nie lank voor hy Los Angeles toe gevlieg het en internasionaal beroemd geraak het nie.

Volgens Somfula was hy die eerste wat geweet het dat sy swanger was, selfs voordat sy ’n swangerskaptoets ondergaan het. Die Tsotsi-ster wou egter gehad het dat sy ’n aborsie ondergaan, iets waarteen sy minnares gekant was.

Intussen het die akteur se ma ’n vaderskaptoets aangevra om te bepaal of hy werklik die vader van die kind is.

Chweneyagae was voorheen in die nuus omdat hy met ’n vervalste Ivoriaanse bestuurderslisensie motor bestuur het. Hy is aan bedrog skuldig bevind en is ’n vonnis van R5000 of ses maande tronkstraf opgelê.

Die ‘Tsotsi’-akteur wou nie met die pers praat nie. Sy agent het bloot gesê dat Chweneyagae hom tans iewers op ’n filmstel bevind.

Afrikaner-eendrag is belangrik

Geagte Gustav,

Ek aanvaar jou verduideliking en verskoning, dankie, dit is belangrik dat ons as ware Afrikaners nie langer mekaar as vyande teiken nie; daar is genoeg werklike vyande.

Ons sal altyd met mekaar oor politieke sake verskil, maar die HNP is altyd oop vir politieke debat. Daarom dat die HNP ook met dr Dan Roodt en ander Afrikaners in Die Afrikaner of persoonlik in debat tree. Die feit is dat ons pyle op die vyand, die ANC en sy meelopers, gerig moet bly.

Daar is feite wat jy sekerlik weet, maar dalk is dit goed om weer mekaar se geheue te verfris.

Die HNP staan 38 jaar in die politieke stryd om die belange van die Afrikaner te beskerm en te bevorder. Die geskiedenis het ook reeds die HNP reg bewys. Daarom dan die slagspreuk, Om reg te wees, is om ’n mag te wees. Oor die 38 jaar was daar maar altyd die Max du Preez’s wat eerder met hulle eie mense swaarde kruis as met die vyand en juis dít, het die vyand die politieke stryd laat wen en is dit diegene wat die politieke mag goedsmoeds aan ons vyande oorhandig het.

Suid-Afrika is aan die verval; ons is die misdaad-mekka van die wêreld en die rede daarvoor is alles politiek. Die toestand kan slegs reggemaak word deur politieke mag. Of dit nou wet en orde, of hospitalisasie, die onderwys, of die gat in die pad is, die regering van die dag is verantwoordelik vir die herstel of instandhouding daarvan. Dit bly politiek.

Daarom is die rol van die HNP belangrik – ook in ons strewe na Afrikaner-eendrag binne die Afrikanerfront (die Blanke volksfront).

Ons het veral twee sake waaroor ons met mekaar kan praat:

1. Hoe laat ons die regime misluk sodat die internasionale wêreld dit duidelik kan sien, en

2. Hoe beweeg ons op die pad na die herwinning van die politieke mag?

Wat die eerste betref, is die mislukking van Sokker 2010 ‘n besliste moontlikheid. As die byeenkoms in 2010 nie hier plaasvind nie, het die ANC misluk. Ons moet die druk hou op FIFA om die byeenkoms elders te reël.

Die herwinning van die politieke mag is meer ingewikkeld, maar daaroor sal die HNP binnekort ‘n DVD beskikbaar hê vir verdere debat.

Onthou die woorde van dr Tobie Muller: “Misluk ons pogings en moet ons ondergaan, dan is dit is elk beter om te sterf as eerlike stryders op die slagveld, as om te versink in ‘n bedwelmende luilekker eentonigheid van niksdoen.” Die tyd is min, maar die HNP probeer steeds om ‘n aandeel te hê aan die redding van ons volk in dit wat hy as belangrik beskou. Ek glo dat dit ook jou siening is en dat jy die stryd volwaardig sal help stry.

Stryd is Lewe!! детектор лжи москва