Two hours ago, a new era in space travel began when, for the first time, a commercial space launch took place. The Falcon 9 carrier and the attached Dragon capsule are intended to provide the International Space Station ISS with all goods needed and then return safely to earth. On later flights, the Dragon capsule should carry astronauts as well. One single mission is expected to last about two days, two orbits before landing included. This comes at a time when the U.S. national space shuttle program is expected to end.
Yesterday, U.S. President Obama unexpectedly appeared in Afghanistan where he held an encouraging speech in front of U.S. troops. One year after his announcement of an increase in U.S. military presence, he said that Afghanistan had become more safe and that U.S. troops controlled more Afghan regions than before such that a handing-over of power to the Afghan security forces had already come in sight.
UPDATE from Dec. 6, 2010:
German Troops in Afghanistan as Evaluated by the Afghan People
The following polls have been carried out in Afghanistan and published by German National TV Channel 1 (ARD). They are showing a significant drop of trust into German military presence as seen by Afghan civilians:
"Your estimation of the German Federal Republic ?" The 2007 poll showed an overwhelming positive estimation of Germany of 75% that turned into a mere 46% in the December 2010 poll.
"Do you consider any attack on foreign troops to be justified ?" While in January 2010 an overwhelming 87% said "no" to this option with only 2% answering "yes", the December 2010 poll showed only 57% "no" votes in comparison with 39% "yes" votes.
Increasing mistrust into German military presence in Afghanistan
Personal Remark by Ulysses: As Obama stated in his speech at Bagram Airbase, the alliance of nations cooperating with the U.S. in Afghanistan (ISAF) has risen to 49 members (*). Unfortunately, this fact doesn't necessarily imply an improved military efficiency in the fight against their common enemy, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Indeed, we are now being confronted with an increasing mistrust of the Afghan people into all ISAF operations and even more into the presence of any foreign troops in Afghanistan.
(*) = This passage at the beginning of Obama's speech was not recorded because of technical reasons (restriction to 15 min. of duration).
The Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt (الزاوية الإسلامية في المصر), representing the most powerful opposition group in Egypt's General Elections, is now launching their candidates. As the Brotherhood is officially forbidden and, therefore, excluded from the elections, their members are acting as "independent" candidates who, nevertheless, don't hide their real origin. An interesting feature by Al-Jazeera [Nov. 26, 2010].
Another video: Two days before the 2010 General Elections, a spokesman of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt describes the situation of Egypt's most powerful opposition group. Its all about how to resist the dictatorship of President Mubarak's National Democratic Party that is expected to sweep parliament with the help of ruling power and secret police, ignoring, both, the basic rules of democracy and the outcome of earlier lawsuits on election fraud [Nov. 26, 2010].
UPDATE after General Elections: Outcome of the first round of elections in Egypt. "Independent" candidates related to the Muslim Brotherhood lost all their seats in parliament. As the Brotherhood is known to enjoy broad public support in Egypt, the elections should be considered as rigged. Al-Jazeera report from December 1, 2010.
موقع ويكيــــليكس يعتزم نشر وثائـــــق جديدة يقول إنها أكبر سبع مرات من الوثائق السابقة
الـسفـيـر الأمريكــي في بغداد يقول إن نشر وثائق سرية جديدة أمرسيئ للغاية
Wikileaks announced its decision to publish a new set of documents that should include seven times more documents than those earlier published.
U.S. ambassador in Baghdad is considering the latest Wikileaks publication as extremely serious.
Yesterday, November 26, and in its feature "Behind the News", the Arabic channel of Al-Jazeera broadcast a discussion including two correspondents from Washington and Beirut on the impact which latest publications by Wikileaks, expected to come this weekend, might have on diplomatic relations between the U.S. and their international partners like Russia and China. Above all, regional relations have been discussed that are considered to be extremely difficult. As to the Iraqi subject, for instance, U.S. relations with Turkey and Iraqi Kurds might be affected. The same problem might arise for the negotiations between Israel and Palestine, now being pushed forward by the Obama administration at a very critical state.
The British daily "The Guardian" which is among the few papers of international repute that got an exclusive taste of Wikileaks' upcoming release, already wrote about an expected publication of secret cables from U.S. diplomats in their November 27 edition.
To get an idea of the range of subjects Wikileaks is dealing with, here a screenshot of Wikileaks' table of contents extracted from an earlier release, dating back to October 22, 2010. Click to the image and load the attached pdf file !
UPDATE from December 2, 2010: Further news from the WikiLeaks release of U.S. diplomatic cables. This time it's about Russia. Different U.S. sources hold Russia as a Mafia state where organised criminals and parts of the government are working "hand in hand".
UPDATE from December 3, 2010:
ويكيليكس و المخطط الحرب ضد الايران من العربية السعودية
The famous Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout has been surprisingly extradited from Thailand to the U.S.A. on behalf of the Thai government.
After two years in a Bangkok prison, he is now facing charges of supporting terrorism by selling all kinds of arms to Africa, Central Asia and Central America. It is namely his arms delivery to the Latin American rebels of FARC organization that makes him wanted by U.S. authorities. He had been captured by Thai troops under the guidance of U.S. specialists in March 2008.
Despite accusations against the Thai prime minister made by Bout's wife Ala and angry comments from the Russian government, Viktor Bout has already been flewn out on a U.S. military plane and accompanied by several U.S. agents. Nevertheless, it seems that some Thai laws have been "bended" in this case.
By the way, it's the same Viktor Bout that served as a model for the 2005 motion picture "Master of War" or "El Señor de la Guerra", starring Nicholas Cage as the main character.
[Source: RUSSIA TODAY TV, Spanish service]
UPDATE, November 18, 2010: [Source: Al-Jazeera TV, English service]
President Karzai recently urged the reduction of foreign troops in his country. As well, he demanded that foreign units should refrain from military activity at night. Source: Al-Jazeera.
Yesterday, a huge blast hit the center of Karachi, Pakistan's most important center of commerce and industry. An enormous crater has been formed by the detonation of a truck loaded with about 1.000 kilograms of explosives. This happened on a police compound housing a crime investigation unit of the Pakistani anti-terror squad. The building itself has been totally ruined and about one square kilometer of the town has been affected as well. Even in distant houses lots of windows have been knocked out by an enormous wave of pressure. The incident left at least 15 dead and 100 wounded, most of the victims being security personnel.
U.S. President Obama's speech at the end of the actual G20 Summit in Seoul has two crucial points: How to restore U.S. trade balance and urging China to allow their currency being driven by the laws of the market. In fact, there are dark clouds in the sky when it comes to the relation between western markets and eastern expansion.
In his 481-page memoirs "Points of Decision", former U.S. president George Bush jun. now justifies the use of a special torture called "waterboarding" when it comes to harvest information from detained suspects of terrorism. Seen in the frame of widespread international mistrust against the U.S. way of dealing with that matter and of fruitless efforts by the Obama administration to imme- diately close the detainee camp at Guantánamo, such stances are not really helpful to restore U.S. credibility in the world. But what else did you expect from the Bush league ?
Today, 70 persons died in two different bomb explosions in Peshawar province in north-western Pakistan while about 120 were injured. UN secretary general Ban Ki Mun expressed his concern about these attacks that had two mosques as their targets. Similar attacks in the past have been related either to the Taliban or Al-Qaeda. As more and more "foreign mercenaries" are closing the ranks of the Taliban, it is difficult to decide from the outside which element of Islamic resistance is now dominating each operation of the Taliban forces. Arabic source
Another Arabic source is analyzing the position and performance of Al-Qaeda in Pakistan in the frame of regional political relations and tensions in Central Asia: طالبان و القاعدة في باكستان شكلت طالبان باكستان ما يشبه درعا لكل من القاعدة وطالبان أفغانستان ووفرت لهما ملاذا آمنا رغم كل الضربات التي كالتها لها أميركا بنفسها أو من خلال الضغط على الجيش الباكستاني لتنفيذ عمليات عسكرية في منطقة وزيرستان والمناطق الحدودية. لكن ما لعب لمصلحة طالبان والقاعدة معا هو أن باكستان تدرك أنه ليس من مصلحتها القضاء على طالبان أفغانستان والقاعدة نهائيا، لكون ذلك يصب في نهاية المطاف لصالح الهند والأحزاب والأفغانية الموالية لها. كما أن إسلام آباد لا تثق بالنوايا الأميركية، خاصة وأنها سمحت سابقا للتحالف الشمالي الموالي لإيران والهند بالسيطرة على كابول وفرض رؤيته الخاصة، وقامت راهنا باستقبال رئيس الوزراء الهندي مانموهان سنغ في البيت الأبيض قبل إعلان الرئيس الأميركي باراك أوباما لإستراتيجيته الجديدة في أفغانستان
أوباما و سنغ
Obama backing permanent membership of Pakistan's arch-enemy India in UNO Security Council (Nov.2010)
The same day, it was published by the Arabic service of Al-Jazeera that the crash of a UPS cargo plane in Dubai on September 3 has to be related to Al-Qaeda because Bin Laden's organization took over responsibility for bombing that plane in a video recently found on the internet. Now, the United Arab Emirates UAE will review the possibility that a bomb caused the UPS plane to crash in Dubai although no proof has emerged so far. Read more !
Earlier information on "UPS explosive parcels" is available on another blogspot of mine (=> look at further news of the day).
Latest news (November 9, 2010): Now, the Jemenite government decided to hunt down Awalaki (picture below) who is seen as one spiritual leader of Al-Qaeda terrorists in Jemen, deemed to be responsible for building and mailing parcel bombs.
Just minutes ago, CNN prejected that U.S. Republicans are going to win over the House of Representatives on Capitol Hill in the 2010 Midterm Elections. Such elections in the middle of a presidential term are putting about one third of the House's seats at stake. At the same time, there are new senators to be voted to the second chamber of Congress. In addition, some states are voting for new governors this night.
Bad luck for President Obama whose healthcare program and economy stimulus plan are being rejected by the Republicans and their pacemakers, the Tea Party Movement, their common neoliberal position being: "Too much involvement of state endangers freedom of individual enterprise."
Yet, distribution of seats in the Senate is still undecided at this time. Maybe, the majority in Senate held by Obama's Democratic Party will turn out to remain solid.
It's time for the U.S. Midterm Elections, and President Obama finds himself in an akward position. Even though he has reached a compromise in his healthcare reform and brought initiatives on their way to stop the financial crisis, he is steadily losing voters, due to increasing unemployment that is above all hitting his Afro- American supporters. Even the "American Dream" seems to be damaged for those who are desperately looking for a job in one of the most developed countries in the world.
But jobs did not simply vanish; instead, they have gone abroad to all those people who are willing "to work more for less". That effect of globalization could be predicted and handled if it had not been accelerated by an unexpected global financial crisis and by national development in China and India where an own infrastructure of highly skilled workers and employees came into being. It's a CNN feature that makes us understand what has happened in the U.S. and what might influence European economy as well sooner or later. Four CEOs, representing powerful U.S. companies like Coca Cola, IBM, the world's greatest Aluminium smelter Alcoa and Google, tell us what has happened in the frame of an unrestricted globalization.
Another feature, produced by AL-Jazeera, is dealing with Obama's Federal Stimulus Act that was intended to boost small enterprises in areas characterized by high unemployment. Here, it seems that government stimulus helped in some cases while others are doomed because the stimulus plan ended too early for them after the U.S. Congress showed itself unwilling to extend that program.
Further News of the Day:
As both, the U.S.A. and the European Union, are on the alert because of explosive parcels from Jemen reaching their countries via UPS cargo planes, the Jemenite government now decided to investigate that affair. On October 30, the Jemenite president declared that the residence of one suspect has been besieged by Jemenite security forces (picture 1 below). The UPS office in Sanaa, capital of Jemen, has been closed (picture 2 below). In the meantime, the German government decided to stop all passenger and cargo flights from Jemen and ordered to search every item that has already arrived. Latest news from November 1st have it that a 22-year-old woman and who had been arrested as a suspect the day before has been released only some time later. Jemenite efforts are now concentrated on hunting Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri (picture 3 below), regarded as "Al-Qaeda's senior bombmaker" in Jemen while he is still at large in an area of the country that is difficult to be controlled by regular security forces.
Al-Jazeera gains access to nearly 400.000 Wikileaks' files forming part of the biggest military leak in history. Those files, covering the 2004-2009 war period in Iraq, reveal 1.300 recent cases of abuse and torture of Iraqi prisoners. Obviously, U.S. military authorities of the Bush era ordered troops not to intervene in cases of prisoner abuse by Iraqi forces. The documents show that Iraqi forces sodomised and electrocuted prisoners. According to Amnesty International, no Iraqi personnel have been jailed for abusing prisoners.
U.S. units reporting probable detainee abuse by Iraqi police or army (2006/2009) [Names of civilians and military units have been omitted]:
US shooting Iraqi civilists
Wikileaks now revealed the facts: Hundreds of unarmed civilians have been shot at different checkpoints in Iraq. Al-Jazeera is citing the up-to-now secret U.S. documents.
UPDATE, 25 Oct. 2010: Wikileaks: Prime Minister Maliki abused power
Report on harassment of business owner and family by local Iraqi authorities
Names of civilians and military units involved in this case have been omitted by Wikileaks.
Barack Obama - Iraqi Memories
In January 2006, Barack Obama, then Senator of Illinois, made a short visit to Baghdad. Here, an excerpt of what Obama wrote about that trip in his book "The Audacity of Hope". I think this might be an adequate add to the Wikileak documents we are just facing:
"And now, three years later [after the toppling of Saddam Hussein] - as the number of American deaths passed two thousand and the number of wounded passed sixteen thousand; after $250 billion in direct spending and hundreds of billions more in future years to pay off the resulting debt and care for disabled veterans; after two Iraqi national elections, one Iraqi constitutional referendum, and tens of thousands of Iraqi deaths; after watching anti-American sentiment rise to record levels around the world and Afghanistan begin to slip back into chaos - I was flying into Baghdad as a member of the Senate, partially responsible for trying to figure out just what to do with this mess. ..........
That night, our delegation accompanied Ambassador Khalilzad for dinner at the home of Iraqi interim President Jalal Talabani. ... where we were greeted by the president and several members of the Iraqi interim government. They were all heavyset men, most in their fifties or sixties, with broad smiles but eyes that betrayed no emotion. I recognized only one of the ministers - Mr. Ahmed Chalabi, the Western- educated Shi'ite who, as a leader of the exile group the Iraqi National Congress, had reportedly fed U.S. intelligence agencies and Bush policy makers some of the prewar information on which the decision to invade was made - information for which Chalabi's group had received millions of dollars, and that had turned out to be bogus. Since then Chalabi had fallen out with his U.S. patrons; there were reports that he had steered U.S. classified information to the Iranians, and that Jordan still had a warrant out for his arrest after he'd been convicted in absentia on thirty-one charges of embezzlement, theft, misuse of depositor funds, and currency speculation. But he appeared to have landed on his feet; immaculately dressed, accompanied by his grown daughter, he was now the interim government's acting oil minister.
I didn't speak much to Chalabi during dinner. Instead I was seated next to the former interim finance minister. He seemed impressive, speaking knowledgeably about Iraq's economy, its need to improve transparency and strengthen its legal framework to attract foreign investment. At the end of the evening, I mentioned my favorable impression to one of the embassy staff. "He's smart, no doubt about it," the staffer said . "Of course, he's also one of the leaders of the SCIRI Party. They control the Ministry of the Interior, which controls the police. And the police, well ... there have been problems with militia infiltration. Accusations that they're grabbing Sunni leaders, bodies found the next morning, that kind of thing ..." The staffer's voice trailed off, and he shrugged. "We work with what we have."
I had difficulty sleeping that night ... ..........
The following morning, we took a Black Hawk to the Marine base in Fallujah, out in the arid, western portion of Iraq called Anbar Province. Some of the fiercest fighting against the insurgency had taken place in Sunni-dominated Anbar, and the atmosphere in the camp was considerably grimmer than in the Green Zone; just the previous day, five Marines on patrol had been killed by roadside bombs or small-arms fire. The troops here looked rawer as well, most of them in their early twenties, many still with pimples and the unformed bodies of teenagers. The general in charge of the camp had arranged a briefing, and we listened as the camp's senior officers explained the dilemma facing U.S. forces: With improved capabilities, they were arresting more and more insurgent leaders each day, but like street gangs back in Chikago, for every insurgent they arrested, there seemed to be two ready to take his place. Economics, and not just politics, seemed to be feeding the insurgency - the central government had been neglecting Anbar, and male unemployment hovered around 70 percent. "For two or three dollars, you can pay some kid to plant a bomb," one of the officers said. "That's a lot of money out here." ..... "
ATTENTION: For recent information on AFGHANISTAN, like BAGS OF MONEY from IRAN and about KARZAI'S DEAL with TALIBAN members and Afghan WARLORDS, please, refer to another blog of mine Afghanistan and Iraq - The Beginning of the End that contains further information adds about both countries.
While 4 million Afghan citizens took part in the September 2010 general elections, 1,3 million votes have had to be cancelled because of election fraud in 2.500 of 17.000 polling stations. Fraud was accomplished by allegedly 10% of the 2.500 candidates who then bought lots and lots of fake identity cards, manufactured in Pakistani backyard workshops and distributed on the black market in Afghanistan weeks before the elections took place. Those fake cards, intended to push up the candidates' ballot, have been sorted out and further investigation has been started.
In the frame of a constant deterioration of security in Afghanistan, President Karzai finds himself under increased pressure.
On one hand, he is forced to hold direct talks with the Taliban without renouncing to the essential demands of the occupying powers. On the other hand, even his own son is considering to leave the country for a better life abroad.
Now, Karzai claims to have met with certain unnamed Taliban leaders and that informal talks have taken place. Earlier meetings of that kind have already taken place and have been approved by the U.S. as long as their basic demands, to be met with in advance of any further negotiations, are being transmitted to the Taliban: "Give up fighting! Deliver your weapons! Renounce to Al-Qaeda and the insurgency! Abide by the laws!" (Original soundtrack U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.)
Naturally, those are demands the Taliban are unwilling to fulfill as their own adage can be put like this: "Official talks with the Afghan government not before all foreign troops have left the country!"
The situation given like this, it may be asked with whom Karzai and his peace envoys are really holding talks. Sure, it cannot be the militant Taliban leaders engaged in their daily fighting with Afghan national and NATO troops and who are recently supposed to be rather on the winning side. Accordingly, such Taliban units and their leaders are now officially denying that any talks whatsoever have taken place with the Afghan government under the leadership of president Karzai.
Such, it seems that other "third parties" like some always hostile tribal leaders, "Afghan highwaymen" or independent drug merchants are willing to come to terms with their government when finding themselves "between the front lines" or at the margin of the Afghan society. Thus, earlier talks, secretly held in a luxurious Maldive Islands' resort, would have turned out adequate to give those guys a glance at Allah's Paradise, so brightly described in the Holy Koran, and make them reliable allies of Karzai's alliance for a splendid future of Afghanistan.
If this turned out to be true, it might only underline the tragic situation president Karzai finds himself in and would explain the desolate expression he recently carries on his face.
Karzai: Really touched father or just another talented actor on the stage ?
While NATO supply lines from Pakistan to Afghanistan are breaking down because of local insurgents regularly torching truck convoys, one question becomes more and more important: Who is really in control of the frontier region between both countries ? Now, the Arabic channel of Al-Jazeera dealt with that subject in one of their features "Behind the News" [Al-Jazeera, Arabic Channel, October 7, 2010].
It seems that a network of local Islamists can be seen behind all those operations endangering NATO supplies. They have named themselves the "Network for the Splendid Belief's Rescue".
The essential features of that organization are as follows:
- The network examines the leaders of the Mujahidin.
- It cares for their sons by "enlightening their belief" in their daily actions
- All of its operations are restricted to the North of Waziristan.
- The network is providing a striking force of 3.000 to 4.000 men.
- It is in control of the tribal areas.
- The network is connected with Al-Qaeda and Pakistan's national security service.
- It is responsible for most specific operations.
- The network's essential aim is to launch attacks at the U.S. in Waziristan.
In their feature, Al-Jazeera separately questioned Abdussalam Daif, the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, and Marvin Weinbaum, a former U.S. diplomate in Afghanistan, both live from Kabul and Washington.
Further news of the day:
مقتل 15 شخصا بينهم حاكم ولاية قندوز في تفجير بولاية تاخار شمال أفغانستان
In Afghanistan, the governor of Kunduz province was killed together with 14 others in an attack launched by the Taliban. A sergeant of the German troup contingent equally lost his life.
We recently heard that U.S. General Petraeus had asked the German government to increase their troup contingent in Afghanistan. As the full number of 5.000 soldiers, agreed by German parliament (Bundestag) to support the North Atlantic Alliance in Afghanistan, has not been reached by now, the U.S. request will most probably be dealt with by German Defence Minister zu Guttenberg who could sent some additional troops without delay.
Update, October 9, 2010: While I'm working on my newsblog, another 30 NATO fuel trucks bound for Afghanistan have been set on fire by the above mentioned Pakistani insurgents (first picture above and video below).
Within the last few days, two audio messages from Bin Laden have been received. They are dealing with subjects like the climate catastrophe and missing help from the Arabic nations for Pakistani victims of the recent flood disaster. As to the second message, critisizing half-hearted aiding efforts in Pakistan, an Australian anti-terror specialist describes it as "hypocritical". International media therefore interpret both messages as a mere trial to attract a new brand of Al-Qaeda followers.
Those are the first messages from Bin Laden since March 2010 when death penalty was to be executed on Khalid Sheikh Muhammed, the man behind the attacks of September 11, 2001. It is estimated that both letters are inspired by Al-Qaeda's No.2, Ayman Zawahiri.
Further information is available from Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya
ابن لادن ينتقد جهود الإغاثة في باكستان عبر رسالة صوتية جديدة
Today, president Correa of Ecuador became the target of an attempted coup d'état carried out by several armed men. The shooting took place in front of a police hospital in the northern part of Quito. Correa was saved by special forces and the coup was put down leaving three persons dead.
A majority of Latin-American leaders condemned the coup directed against Ecuador's elected president Correa. Venezuela's foreign minister Maduro and Argentine's president Cristina Fernández were among the first voices to be heard. This is a very important incident as Ecuador makes part of a new Latin-American Alliance founded between nations that are ruled by socialist governments.
On September 29, foreign media reported that Kim Jong-Il, the leader of North Korea, had introduced his son Kim Jong-Un as his successor. The day before, the North Korean news agency had already mentioned Kim Jong-Un on their website as a vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission after a reorganization of that commission. International media reported that Kim Jong-Un had been declared a general of the North Korean armed forces.
Kim Jong-Il's son became known to insiders while he attended the International School of Berne, Switzerland, (ISB) during the 1990s (1993 or 1994). At that time, he called himself Chol Pak. Kim Jong-Un arrived together with Kwang Chung, another North Korean and probably his bodyguard at that time. [Source: Memories of a former classmate at ISB.]
The Black Comment Sounds a bit like the James Bond film "Die Another Day" that dealt with a couple of terrorists, the corrupted son of a high-ranking North Korean general and his friend and bodyguard, both eager to change the world order. By the way, the Royal Charity World Premiere of "Die Another Day" was held on November 18, 2002, at London's Royal Albert Hall, in the presence of Bond's "employer" Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip of England, if that was to imply any secret meaning ...
It cannot be excluded that son Kim Jong Un later became a demanding playboy while living in the West. At least, same thing was said about his father, Kim Jong Il, during the days of his youth [fake photo but credible fact !].
Referring to the presumptuous propaganda of North Korean TV, here is a fake report on the latest project of Dear Leader Kim Jong Il: Bringing the moon to North Korea.
Latest news from "el comandante" Fidel Castro: Castro delivers a speech on the disastrous global effects of a nuclear war. He directs himself at an assembly of Japanese peace activists among which a survivor of the Hiroshima bomb tells Castro about her own nuclear nightmare. The speech was broadcast by CUBAVISION TV on September 23, 2010. According to Cuba's national daily "Diario Granma" it had been recorded two days before, on Tuesday September 21, when Castro met with 600 members of the Japanese "Peace Crusade" (Crucero por la Paz).
Mrs. Watanabe tells Castro how she and her family experienced the Hiroshima bomb. Staying in the rear part of their house at the time of the explosion she was able to survive. Her father, just back from his nightshift at Hiroshima, could even watch the plane that dropped the bomb. It circled over their heads.
In his speech, Fidel Castro is citing a Western scientist who predicted a global climate disaster even if only 100 of the existing 25.000 nuclear arms were going off. This could happen in the frame of a regional nuclear conflict, between, lets say, India and Pakistan. The bombings of one single hour might therefore result in some kind of "nuclear winter" characterized by very low temperatures and the total absence of sunlight. Thus, the nourishment for about one billion people could not be produced any longer. He asks himself how many people really knew about those consequences that were awaiting them after such regional conflict.
It should be remembered that Castro only recently reappeared on the political stage and in uniform on September 3 when he warned the international community about a nuclear war that might be triggered off as a consequence of the actual conflict between Iran and the West.
Obviously, Castro is having some difficulties while speaking. But it is not his brain that doesn't function normally as he speaks rather fluently and rarely looks at his notes. Disturbing pauses in his speech are only related to the time needed for translation. It even seems that Castro is getting more vigorous during his speech, increasing his speed until he "overtakes" his highly skilled translator. I remember having heard that Fidel Castro, in his best years, rarely spoke for less than three hours. This time it was only one single hour, still too long for a well-educated European politician, acquainted to restrict himself to one quarter of an hour whatever the subject might be. Let's say, one more time "el comandante Fidel" convinced us of being alive and unwilling to die.
The BBC video of September 3, when Castro unexpectedly appeared to hold a speech at the University of Havana, showed Cuban students who expressed much sympathy for their 84 years old leader despite all those problems that are actually haunting the people of Cuba. This was not a "last waving of the flag" as we know it from East Germany's organized youth being confronted with their stiffly acting leader Erich Honecker at the state's 40th anniversary in 1989 when Honecker was just 77 years old. This was quite different !
