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29. desember 2002
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Venezuela
 The general strike in Venezuela continues, and at least the US press is no longer totally ignoring it. It seems, however, quite often to naively accept Chavez' claims that the situation is normalising. Good thing we have Miguel at The Devil's Excrement giving us the facts from the streets of Venezuela every day. As he points out, this is a general strike not just an "oil strike." Of course, to Americans, the oil is what matters.
Miguel also has some warning words to Brasil, which seems to strangely intervene on Chavez' side by shipping oil to Venezuela (pretty backwards, eh?). Read Miguel's piece first, and then read the quite balanced version from BBC News, arguably the world's best overall news source. It again confirms how good his blog is.
(And yes, I stole the picture from Miguel's blog. I am sure he doesn't mind.)
3:11:47 PM 
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Weltlicher Blasphemy
Somebody had accessed by blog through google and translated it into German. I hope it made some sense. My limited German knowledge suggested that it was vaguely readable, with some oddities. For one, "ex-pats" is not, I am quite sure, "exklaps"
It also gave some unpleasant association for me to see the expression "the republican domination" translated into "die republikanische Herrschaft." Or perhaps it was very fitting after all?
1:48:42 PM
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British newspaper says Bush will attack Iraq on February 21st
The British tabloid The Sunday Express claims that Bush had told Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon on the phone that the US will launch an attack on Iraq February 21st, at midnight. The newspaper claims British defence chiefs confirms this.
A few caveats, here. The Sunday Express is perhaps marginally more credible than the National Enquirer. Now, what is the chance of Bush giving such information to Sharon this early, and Sharon passing it on to some British tabloid? In fact, it would perhaps be credible that the US leaked this as deliberate misinformation. However, if they want their misinformation believed by somebody, I doubt they'd choose the Sunday Express. So chances are best the tabloid just made this up. The paper also stated that an attack on Iraq would mean as many as 110,000 Iraqi refugees coming to Britain. Just if you doubted how far out to lunch this rag is.
1:21:22 PM
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Saudis will allow US to use airspace and bases against Iraq
In a somewhat surprising u-turn, Saudi Arabia has now said it will allow the US forces to use Saudi bases and airspace in a war against Iraq.
The US administration has always seemed very confident that this would happen. Either they have better intelligence on Saudi affairs than I would normally suspect, or they have used pretty heavy persuasion techniques on the 'key ally.'
11:15:16 AM
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© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.01.03; 04:01:49.
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