War in Georgia

Well it's taken 3 months since I first wrote of the impending war, but it looks as though the gloves are finally off. Georgia has launched an attack on the breakaway South Ossetia region and as predicted, the Russians aren't going to sit idly by. The nearly century-long game of cat and mouse seems to have finally come to a head and will surely bring a high casualty total and should also make clear who calls the shots in Moscow, Putvedev. While the Russian security council meets in Moscow, with Medvedev supposedly in charge, Vladimir Putin who is in Beijing for the opening of the Olympics has already said that that "aggressive" action by Georgia would incur a "response" from Russia.

Before you laugh this off remember that there are Russian peacekeepers in the region and many Russian passport holders. It would be interesting to listen in if Dubya and Putin cross paths in Beijing today as the US is an unabashed Georgia supporter. The world's attention may be focused on China, but the Russians are watching, perhaps already retaliating. If this is true it would mark the first time Russian troops have taken action on foreign soil since their withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989. Various reports have Russian tanks racing towards the besieged South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali and the Georgians apparently observing a three-hour ceasefire to allow civilians to flee the city. Could be the makings of a full fledged conflict, more news as it comes...

Mauritania and coup-mania

Coup. Yep, the generals have ousted another democratically elected leader, this time in Mauritania. Following the standard procedure coup checklist, troops detained President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, took control of state radio and TV and announced the formation of a "state council" led by the commander of the presidential guard, Gen. Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz. Of course the newly formed junta has assured the public and the world that free and open elections are planned for as soon as possible, meaning most likely never. After all, Mauritanians would expect nothing less after having their first open elections just last year after 40 years of dictatorships since independence from France.

Again, why should we care, it's just Africa, right? Well, Mauritania is a lot bigger than you think, check the map here. Nearly twice the size of former colonial ruler France, it is rich in minerals and perhaps more importantly, it has oil. It's hoped that its off-shore oil reserves may yield millions of barrels of the black gold. Until then though, even the meagre 75,000 bpt output is over eight million dollars a day, not a bad income for a despot. Things haven't gone so well since independence in 1960 for this country and hopes are high that the oil fields can be further developed to bring some prosperity.

The region has been marked by waves of subjugation and domination. Around the 3rd and 4th century, the Berbers began to move in and displaced the Bafour people and the Berbers were in the most part supplanted by the Arabs beginning in the 8th century. The displaced usually moved south, bringing them into conflict with black inhabitants. To this day, these three groups are still vying for control. The Berbers tried to overthrow the power of the Arabs in the Mauritanian 30-year' war of 1644-74 but were unsuccessful, from which point the social structure of the region has been pretty much fixed with the Arab warriors at the top, the Berbers who turned mostly to clericism underneath and the black slaves at the bottom. The rivalries between these groups were easily manipulated by the French who became their colonial rulers beginning in the 1850's, officially becoming a colonial territory in 1904, then part of French West Africa in 1920.

Independence was gained on November 28, 1960, since which time there have been ten coup attempts. A series of dictatorships, coups, transition military governments and "supervised" elections have hindered any chance the independent nation had. The high point for the region came during the Almoravid dynasty when beginning in 1053 they began spreading their religious ways mostly through war. In 1076 they defeated the empire of Ghana. At its peak at the end of the century, the empire stretched over 3000 km north to south, from Spain to Senegal. They haven't had much luck of late, for example they were the hardest hit country by the African locust invasion in 2004, virtually wiping out their crop. Today's problems are more global in scale, mainly food prices and terrorism. As in much of the world, the cost of food has doubled in the past year in Mauritania, this a nation where 40% of the population live on a dollar a day. And yes, the terrorist thing and alleged al-Queda links. The Dakar rally was cancelled this year due to the murder of four French tourists, then gunmen fired on the Israeli embassy in the capital of Nouakchott. Yes, the strong arm of the military had to step in...

It's a shame really as president Abdallahi never really had a chance to implement policies. Severe flooding hit just a few months after he came into power, draining the government's meager resources. This is a nation in which an anti-slavery law was enacted by parliament just last summer, it's been big business there for hundreds of years. It is one of only three Arab nations to have forged ties with Israel and it's now former president was seen as an ally in the "war on terror", with special US forces helping train Mauritanian troops. They were re-admitted to the African Union in April of 2007. This is a big turn around from 1989, when the nation saw race riots or 1993 when the US cut aid as a result of the treatment of the black population and its support for Iraq in the Gulf War. These events came on the heels of its disastrous relationship with the Western Sahara, in which Mauritania did everything wrong in its dealings with the Polisario, Morocco and Spain.

A couple of days after the latest bloodless coup, the whereabouts of the former president are still unknown, with demonstrations both for and against. International condemnation has been trickling in, but the world will mostly have to sit back and watch to see what happens next in this no-luck country.

China+Olympics=What Did You Expect?

With just a couple days until the opening ceremonies in Beijing of the 26th Olympiad, you can't help but get the feeling that the press really want to find something wrong with China´s "coming out party". The last few days have seen a slew of negative headlines: Olympic Sport: Blocking the Internet, Olympic Protests Over Beijing Evictions; Beijing pollution may force new crackdown for Olympics (I like that one, the writer must have got a bonus for getting the reader to link Tibet with pollution!); Olympics: The Violence Has Started Already in Beijing and on Borders. I have just one question for all these finger pointers: really what did you expect when you combine the IOC (International Olympic Committee) with China?

On July 13th, 2001, Beijing beat out rival bids from Osaka, Toronto, Istanbul and Paris in voting to become the host city for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad. Controversy was assured from the get go, as the bids from Toronto and Paris were both considered superior, but as then IOC head Juan Antonio Samuranch was eager for the games to go to China, that's where they went. It was clear that China's human rights record was going to be carefully scrutinized as the EU immediately issued this resolution.

Maybe what was needed was a new Olympic motto, citius, altius, fortius- swifter, higher, stronger- just doesn't seem to fit anymore. Maybe something along the lines of politics, argentum, facinarose -politics, money, scandal. When was the turning point for this once pure sporting event? For years competition was limited to amateurs, but this era ended in 1971 when the IOC allowed athletes to receive compensation for time away from work while training. As well, athletes were permitted to receive sponsorship from national organizations, sports organizations, and private businesses. Of course this still didn't allow western athletes to compete with eastern bloc nations and by 1986 professionals were granted permission to compete, leading to the 1992 "Dream Team" in Barcelona. Or was it the jingoism of the 1936 Berlin games where Hitler wanted to show the world the dominance of the Aryan race only to be humiliated by the achievements of Jesse Owens. Strange to think, but these were also the games where the Olympic torch relay was introduced, Hitler's still causing problems today as the Chinese found out to their surprise.

Few will remember that the Seoul games of 1988 were awarded to an authoritarian regime in 1981. A regime that had killed 500, or as many as 2000, democracy protesters just the year before. South Korea was one of the little dragons economically, but it was still behind culturally and politically. They, like China today, hoped that the games would showcase the Korean economic miracle to the world and legitimize the regime. The crackdown spurred resistance from opposition parties and the sports world contemplated moving the Olympics to another venue as most major cities had been turned into war zones by June 1987. The IOC issued an ultimatum saying that if the riots weren't stopped, the games would be moved. In the end Chun Doo-hwan's government was forced into allowing free elections.

Politics have never been far away from the Olympics. From boycotts to terrorist attacks, nations and groups have tried using the games as a means of furthering their political agendas. The Melbourne games of '56 were boycotted by the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland in protest of the Soviets crushing the Hungarian democracy uprising. While Cambodia, Egypt, Iraq and Lebanon stayed home that same year too, protesting against the Suez crisis. Neither event had anything to do with Australia. Similarly, 20 African nations boycotted the Montreal games in 1976 because the IOC refused to ban New Zealand, something the African nations wanted because the All-Blacks had recently played in apartheid-sponsored South Africa. This was completely unrelated to either Montreal or the Olympics. So why hasn't anyone boycotted the Beijing games over human rights abuses or the Tibetan occupation, issues directly related to the Chinese government. Or how about their support of the government in Sudan and Zimbabwe? Hell, even Dubya will be making the first appearance of an American president at a games held outside the US. There can be only one answer, money.

Since the fall of the Berlin wall, there hasn't been a single Olympic boycott. The 80's saw tons in Moscow and Los Angeles. Those same Los Angeles games in 1984 also showed the world how much money was to be made, it even became the first Olympic games to make money, bringing in $215 million and earning organizing president Peter Ueberroth the Time Man of the Year award. The mayor of Montreal was infamously quoted as saying the Olympics "can no more have a deficit than a man can have a baby". Montreal is still paying the debt left by those games. By the time the Beijing games begin, China will have spent $40 billion on new venues and infrastructure. GE's NBC paid $1.5 billion for the exclusive rights to broadcast the Turin and Beijing games and will more than make that back. The price tag just to become a global Olympic partner is around $70 million for a winter/summer package, then of course there are the actual advertising costs. I'm sure they all got a little worried a few months back when it looked like the torch relay protests were actually going to have an effect on the public.

Frenchman Baron Pierre de Coubertin coined the modern Olympic Creed in 1908, displayed on the scoreboard at opening ceremonies: "The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph, but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well." However, today the first thing we will learn each day from the Olympics will be the medal count. Will China win more gold medal than the US? On the days that this isn't the leading story, it will be that an athlete was caught using illegal substances. Of course athletes used alcohol, strychnine, cocaine and other substances to ease the pain and give them an edge in the past - the famously male, female athletes of the eastern bloc nations weren't natural - but it wasn't until Ben Johnson was caught in the '88 Seoul Olympics that it became clear that almost everyone was doping. One of my favourite SNL skits called for a separate "All Drug Olympics", not really such a bad idea. (By the way, can anybody tell me why I can't watch Hulu outside of the US, I can't see the skit?!)

Once it became clear to the world that the IOC was awarding games based on bribes, they tried to fix things with a few cosmetic changes to the awarding rules. China on the other hand is even bigger than the Olympics, so their change appears far more subtle . Take the Sudan. In 2004 Chinese president HuJintao referred to Chinese aid to Khartoum as "free of political conditionality". Yet since then China pressed for Sudan's acceptance of a UN-AU peacekeeping force and removed Sudan from Beijing's preferred trade-status list. While in Burma, following the violent crackdown against Buddhist monks, China cut arms sales and played a critical role in getting aid workers into the country after the typhoon. Perhaps we won't see voters lining up to elect the next government in Beijing, but it will be interesting to see whether or not the Beijing Olympics will prove to be the coming out party that many countries have enjoyed as hosts, from St. Louis in 1904, to 1964 in Tokyo and Seoul in 1988. For once I agree with Dubya, he should attend the games. There is one things for sure, he won't see any doves being released at these games.

Sex, Lies and The Holy Grail

A lunatic is easily recognized...You can tell him by the liberties he takes with common sense, by his flashes of inspiration, and by the fact that sooner or later he brings up the Templars.
-Umberto Eco Foucault's Pendulum

It was only a matter of time until my cover was blown and I was exposed as the lunatic I am, but if it wasn't for the headline in the Spanish newspaper El Pais, I'm sure I could have kept it secret a bit longer. "Los Templarios Demanden al Papa" (Templars Sue Pope), must click..., reveal the truth, unlock the mystery! Maybe we'll learn the truth about Mary Magdalene or even the location of the Holy Grail. Afraid not...

It seems that a group claiming to be Spanish Templars (La Asociación Orden Soberana del Temple de Cristo - something along the lines of The Association of the Sovereign Order of the Temple of Christ) are simply suing the pope to restore their ancient order. The reason they are suing poor ol' Benedict XVI (B16) is that he is the heir of Pope Benedict V who put the ban on the Templars order way back in 1307. Yawn, but for those of you who haven't read everything to do with the Templars since they first got their hands on the DiVinci Code, the Orders story is truly fascinating, from their birth to gory demise.

Around 1115 a small group of knights banded together for the purpose of escorting pilgrims to the newly won holy lands. In 1118 the group swore an oath to protect the pilgrims and observe the monastic vows of poverty, obedience and chastity and it was their devotion to these ideals that led to their rapid growth and their estabilishment as a military-religious order in 1124 by the Council of the Catholic Church. Generous donations began to flow in and their power and range grew along with the increased wealth. Preceptories (look it up, a word specifically meaning a subordinate house or community of the Knights Templar - basically branches, think banks) were opened in Jerusalem, Antioch, Tripoli, Aragon, Portugal, Hungary, Germany, Sicily and Greece. By 1129 they also were well represented in England, France and Scotland. This created the perfect base for what essentially became the world's first international banking network. So, having been founded on the basis of poverty, they were now into usery, money lending, deposit and withdrawals, just like any bank.

Until the fall of Acre to the muslims in 1291 the order had a purpose, but with the holy lands lost, the purpose of existence seemed to be lost with it. Charges of blasphemy, idolatry and sodomy were brought to Phillip IV (The Fair) in France who, hungry for a share of the Templar wealth informed the pope in 1305. Eventually on September 15th of 1307 Phillip sent sealed instructions for the seizure of all members of the Order and their property throughout France. Once confessions were extracted under torture, the pope issued a command to all Christian princes to arrest Templars on their lands, their wealth confiscated and passed on to the Hospitallers.

That's the short story, but the Templars have given us much more than just modern banking and DaVinci Code spin-offs. The day the order was rounded up and executed, Friday the 13th, 1308, could be the origins of, at the very least has added to, the bad luck image of that day. The final Grand Master Jacques DeMolay lent his name to DeMolay International (or the Order of DeMolay), an organization started in Kansas City in 1919 as an international fraternity for young men. Currently with 17,000 members worldwide, some of it's past and present members include Bill Clinton, Walt Disney, seven US governors, a few men who have been to space and even Mel Blanc.

The Templars first headquarters and home for 75 years was the Temple Mount, believed to be the former location of Solomon's Temple and home to the Ark of the Covenant. Did they find it? No one knows for sure, but it's a good story. How about the Holy Grail? Well, the story seems more realistic in terms of the discovery of and passing down of the knowledge of the bloodline of Christ. Most interesting of all are the stories surrounding their demise and resurrection in far-flung lands. Stories abound that the Templars were tipped off before their arrest and that their treasures were loaded on ships bound for a variety of destinations, from Portugal to Scotland and as far away as the New World. The Scottish case rests with the Battle of Bannockburn, where it is alleged that the Scots, led by Robert the Bruce, were able to defeat the English due to Templar aid. In Portugal the Templars didn't disband, they simply changed their name to the Knights of Christ and we're among the navigators on Columbus' voyage to the Americas. Vasco de Gama was a Knight of Christ. Perhaps they fled east and founded Switzerland. Most far-fetched of all, some believe that the Templars actually beat Columbus to the Americas by a century.

Finally, the legends surrounding the death of that final Grand Master, Jacques DeMolay. Before being burned on an island on the Seine, many have claimed that DeMolay's last words summoned the king of France and the pope to meet him in a tribunal before God before the end of the year. Pope Clement died a month later and King Philip died later that year in a hunting accident. Furthermore, legend tells of three Templars searching the site of his burning and finding only his skull and femurs. Taking these with them, they were allegedly the inspiration for the first Jolly Roger flag of piracy, a symbol also used by the Yale Skull and Bones society as well as the Bohemian Grove.

And what of the Templar treasure? Many say it is hidden within Rosslyn Chapel, near Edinburgh, Scotland with the Grail or even the mummified head of Christ hidden within the Apprentice Pillar. Or, it could lie buried deep underground on a small island off Nova Scotia. Oak Island has been labelled the Money Pit, as many believe that treasure valued over a billion dollars could lie hidden deep underground, protected by an intricate system of booby traps straight out of The Goonies.

That's not even the half of it my friends, it's not hard to see why the Templars are featured in so many books. It seems that the general feeling about the order switched from the 18th century when most writers portrayed them as devil worshippers, praying to idols such as Baphomet, whereas modern writers take a more sympathetic view and convert things such as Baphomet to the Shroud of Turin or even the head of Christ (more legends attached to the Templars). Enough's enough however, go find out more on your own!

And the non-loser is...

Sitting over a couple of beers a few months ago, conversation turned to the US presidential election. Being in a bar in Poland, I was the only North American represented in the discussion and the only one to predict a John McBush victory. My European friends all shared the same viewpoint; the US was ready for change, in need of change and the populace would make the sane decision and vote for Barrack Obama come November. What they didn't, and most people don´t realize is that the winner won't be the man who wins, but the one who doesn't lose.

Flashback to 2004, the electorate is forced to choose between two men; John Kerry, Massachusetts senator, and George W. Bush, the incumbent. The signs are obvious, change is necessary. The war in Iraq is at a low point, John Kerry is a Vietnam war hero, Bush a draft dodger; Kerry is an intellectual, Bush is a ...well, insert your own adjective here. Enter Karl Rove, political master of the black arts. It's the terror, stupid instead of the economy, or the war as he helped Dubya ride a patriotic wave to re-election in 2004. The focus of the campaign was Kerry's flip-flop on a war funding bill and "moral values", two ripe targets for the Christian heartland. Enter the attack on Kerry's service in Vietnam (the infamous swift boat issue) and the gay marriage amendment appearing on the ballot in 11 states.

Fast forward to 2008 and the latest news is the attack style adds of the McBush camp. Why the sudden change from the straight talk express? This year evil once again has a name and it's Steve Schmidt, Rove's protege, who cut his teeth running the 2004 Republican war room and guiding the re-election campaign of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Schmidt was brought in last month to jumpstart the ailing McBush effort. Therefore the latest spat over negative ads really comes as no surprise, victory can only be had by bringing down the man known as "THE ONE" in the McBush camp. Obama will be attacked mercilessly from here on in.


McBush goaded Obama into visiting Iraq, so when Obama went one better and his World Tour '08 made him look like a rock star, enter the Spears/Hilton comparisons. I guess it was hoped by the Republicans he'd make a big mistake, he didn't, so now we hear some manufactured story about not visiting wounded soldiers. Obama's popular in Europe, so I'm sure American TV (read Fox News) will be filled with anti-Europe tirades. Don't forget that Obama's half-black, the race card will be played. That middle name thing will be interesting too, Hussein isn't all that popular in the heartland.

Come October, if nothing else is dug up by then, there will be the replay of the Reverend Wright story, over, and over and over again until TV viewers across the land are convinced that he and Obama are one and the same. If all else fails my friends, power being so addictive that the Republicans won't let it go, there will be a "terrorist" attack. I know, I know, now I've definitely crossed the line into conspiracy theories, but it's one bet I'm willing to make, anything to ensure this:


Remember that the US is not a true democracy. It uses the electoral college and just influencing a few voters to vote one way (or not to vote at all) in a few key states is all that is needed for victory. More on that in a later post...

It's the end of the world as we know it... Part II

Time for a quick update on the impending end of the world. I wrote about the Large Hadron Collider built by CERN a few months back, click here for the post. At the time there wasn't any exact dates given for it's start up, but it seems we finally have a date for ignition, September 10th. The first protons will pumped through the maze of tubing August 9th. Full blast off, and perhaps the end of the world as we know it won't come for a few more months, so relax. Of course those wacky physicists have released a video trying to explain what they're trying to accomplish. The sounds a bit dodgy, but it is educational, so you like it I say!

$50 billion

It wasn't so long ago that $50 billion was considered a lot of money. Well, the world has changed and along with it, so has the value of money. General Motors' net losses since 2005, $51.1 billion; the six largest oil companies combined profits this QUARTER, $51.5 billion; Anheuser-Busch cost InBev $52 billion; the US contribution to fighting AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis over the next 5 years, $50 billion; the portion of the latest war funding bill for Iraq and Afghanistan devoted to new weapon systems, $51.8 billion; the amount Microsoft saved by not buying Yahoo, about $50 billion; Obama's emergency economic stimulus package, $50 billion.

These are just a few of the numbers tossed around in the last month or two. The problem is the loss of perspective, just what is 50 billion? It was the GDP of the United States in 1916 in 1916 dollars. It is the estimated (by some) to be the number of galaxies in the universe (although most say 100 billion). Before the currency devaluation the other day (they lopped 10 zeroes off the Zim dollar in an effort to "fight" inflation), it was the cost of the Sunday Independent newspaper in Zimbabwe dollars. It's a 5 with 10 zeroes following it. That's ten to the power of nine (10^9). To make matters more confusing many languages interpret the word billion differently. In a nutshell, there are what are known as short-scales and long-scales. In countries using the short scale, such as the US and Canada, they use a numeric system where every new term greater than a million is 1000 times the previous term, thus a billion is a thousand millions, a trillion a thousand billions...While in long scale countries such as Spain, every term is a million times larger, thus a billion means a million millions (10^12). A Spaniard would say "mil millones" (a thousand millions) to mean my version of a billion!

In order to truly understand such large numbers, one must take a step back and put them in perspective. Exxon Mobil made over $11 billion this quarter, that's a couple bucks for every man, woman and child on the planet. Mexico's Carlos Slim's $60 billion fortune is large enough to place him in the top ten of national GDP's in Africa (yes, I know, GDP is the measurement for one year while his wealth was amassed over his lifetime), just behind Tunisia and ahead of Kenya. The White House predicts that the budget deficit left to the successor of Dubya for 2009 will be $482 billion, ten times 50 billion! (the figure isn't final as it may not include all costs of the wars or an additional economic stimulus package of, you guessed it, $50 billion) That's over $1600 for every person in the USA. Imagine spending that much more than you made in a year, would your bank keep lending you money? (Just a few hundred billion more until $10 trillion total outstanding public debt) You gotta love those fiscally conservative Republicans.

In Arthur C. Clarke's short story The Nine Billion Names of God, once the task of listing all the names of God is completed, the universe is brought to an end. By pumping up the numbers thrown about to ever greater amounts, our governments, corporations and not least of all, the media, are making the task of counting to the end more and more difficult to complete, thus keeping us occupied. A little over six years ago, the Pentagon estimated the war in Iraq would cost $50 billion in total, a number thrown to the public with little meaning behind it, just a number to hold in our heads. Of course the costs have spiralled out of control, but the numbers seem endless, without any real meaning; is the cost $3 trillion, $1.2 trillion or just $600 billion. Sadly for the public, unlike pi, all these amounts are finite and someone will have to pay the bill.