16. juni 2005

Norway 3 - Sweden 2 The most important thing is not winning, it is beating the Swedes. Norway ladies 3 - Sweden ladies 2 We're through to the final in the European Championship for women in England, where it will undoubtedly be a tough game against Germany. It was as exciting as football games get. We were ahead three times, but every time but the last the Swedes equalised. Every one of the five goals were superb. Solveig Gulbrandsen became the big hero by scoring two goals for Norway, and also had the assist to the goal scored by Isabell Herlovsen, the 16-year-old wonder player who became the first to score for Norway in this tournament. Bente Nordby saved several good shots from the Swedes, demonstrating she is the best goalkeeper in the world. The game was great advertising for women's soccer, and a clear answer to all the ridicule from the grumpy men's fans. 10:13:58 PM    comment []  trackback []

Top aide to al-Zarqawi captured Top terrorist captured in Iraq: A top aide to Al-Qaeda frontman Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been captured in Iraq's northern city of Mosul, the US military revealed. Mohammed Khalaf Shakar, also known as Abu Talha, is "Zarqawi's most trusted operations agent in all of Iraq," a military statement said Thursday. "This is a major defeat for the Al-Qaeda's terrorist organisation in Iraq. Zarqawi's leader in Mosul is out of business," said US Air Force Brigadier General Donald Alston. According to the military statement, he surrendered to US and Iraqi forces on Tuesday without a fight in "a quiet neighbourhood in Mosul" after they were led to his whereabouts by "multiple intelligence sources." If I am allowed to be cynical, I seem to recall a lot of "top aides" to Zarqawi being captured earlier. There is little chance of anyone actually knowing the poisition and importance of these people, and the coalition and Iraqi government have every incentive to speak up their importance. However, a bit of searching reveals that Abu Talha is in fact earlier described as Zarqawi's most important aide. Bill Roggio notes: His capture puts the number of known senior al Qaeda in Iraq leaders killed or captured at about 70%, and forces a younger, inexperienced fighter and leader with fewer ties to the organization to take his place. All the better to capture or kill them. Let's hope this pressure makes the anti-Iraqi forces run out of steam, sooner rather than later. 9:03:03 PM    comment []  trackback []

UNSCAM: Volcker report failed to include the two emails Some time ago, a lead investigator for the Volcker Committee, Robert Parton, left in protest. Now Roger L. Simon tells us that it was Parton who discovered the two Cotecna emails (memos) that have just made Kofi Annan's situation worse. The second Volcker interim report simply failed to acknowledge the evidence, instead declaring there was no evidence implicating Annan. Parton subsequently left in protest. Now the documents are made available through the press. If this is correct, it is even more damning for Paul Volcker than it is for Kofi Annan. PS: Fox has the story, and also links the two emails in PDF format so you can see for yourself. Link: Recent UNSCAM coverage. Update: I missed the extra information that Michael Wilson, the man who wrote the memo describing his meeting with Kofi Annan "and entourage" now denies having met with him in 1998. London law firm Schillings issued a statement on behalf of Mr Wilson on Wednesday evening. "Mr Wilson never met or had any discussion with the United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, on the issue of the bid for the UN contract by Cotecna at the Francophone Summit, during the bidding process, or at any time prior to the award of the contract," the statement said. No "cannot recall". He just flatly denies any meeting. As you will recall, in the emailed memo of Dec 4, 1998 (PDF) the same Michael Wilson wrote: We had brief discussions with the SG and his entourage. Their collective advise was that we should respond as best as we could to the Q-and-A session of the 1-12-98 and that we could count on their support. Did Wilson back then lie to his own bosses about a meeting that didn't take place? Or does "we" mean that one of his subordinates (Kojo?) actually did the direct talk with Kofi Annan, so the new statement is technically accurate but misleading? Or is he simply lying now? I cannot see other possibilities here. Update 2: More in this comment to Roger's blog. Mr. Wilson has a very elastic memory. His original testimony to the Volcker commision impied that he had met with Kofi and had discussed the bid. Hours after his testimony he called the commision and claimed that he had misremembered and that he hadn't. He is a family friend of both the father and son. His memo to his company is a far better indication of what happened then his revolving testimoney. The scandal is that Volcker left it out of the interim report in a pathetic attempt to wash Kofi's image. It is! 12:31:00 AM    comment []  trackback []

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