Former Anchorage Resident Now Has Dual Citizenship

I got an email announcing that Jay Dugan[-Brause], who has evolved into Jacob Dugan[-Brause], now has a British passport to go along with his US passport.  He became a British citizen July 12. Jacob and his partner Eugene founded and ran Anchorage's Out North Theater. 

The idea of dual citizenship is difficult for many Americans to get their heads around, including me.  People whose parents were forced out of Nazi Germany, if they meet the right conditions, can get German citizenship.  The benefits include being able to live and work in the European Union (EU) without going through complex work permit paperwork.  My son, after dealing with the Danish bureaucracy while working there for a year has suggested it would be nice to have.

For those of us who think of ourselves as citizens of the world and believe that human beings are human beings wherever they live,  perhaps getting a second citizenship is the first step to living that ideal.

The US State Department says:

The concept of dual nationality means that a person is a citizen of two countries at the same time. Each country has its own citizenship laws based on its own policy.Persons may have dual nationality by automatic operation of different laws rather than by choice. For example, a child born in a foreign country to U.S. citizen parents may be both a U.S. citizen and a citizen of the country of birth.
A U.S. citizen may acquire foreign citizenship by marriage, or a person naturalized as a U.S. citizen may not lose the citizenship of the country of birth.U.S. law does not mention dual nationality or require a person to choose one citizenship or another. Also, a person who is automatically granted another citizenship does not risk losing U.S. citizenship. However, a person who acquires a foreign citizenship by applying for it may lose U.S. citizenship. In order to lose U.S. citizenship, the law requires that the person must apply for the foreign citizenship voluntarily, by free choice, and with the intention to give up U.S. citizenship.
Intent can be shown by the person's statements or conduct.The U.S. Government recognizes that dual nationality exists but does not encourage it as a matter of policy because of the problems it may cause. Claims of other countries on dual national U.S. citizens may conflict with U.S. law, and dual nationality may limit U.S. Government efforts to assist citizens abroad. The country where a dual national is located generally has a stronger claim to that person's allegiance.
However, dual nationals owe allegiance to both the United States and the foreign country. They are required to obey the laws of both countries. Either country has the right to enforce its laws, particularly if the person later travels there.Most U.S. citizens, including dual nationals, must use a U.S. passport to enter and leave the United States. Dual nationals may also be required by the foreign country to use its passport to enter and leave that country. Use of the foreign passport does not endanger U.S. citizenship.Most countries permit a person to renounce or otherwise lose citizenship.
Information on losing foreign citizenship can be obtained from the foreign country's embassy and consulates in the United States. Americans can renounce U.S. citizenship in the proper form at U.S. embassies and consulates abroad.

Looking around the web, I see that some liken dual citizenship to bigamy. I think for some it's more like a Yankee fan also rooting for Boston.  But what if you have dual citizenship with a close ally of your home country?   More and more countries are allowing dual citizenship, though some, like Holland, are pulling back.      
 
Californians elected dual-passport holder Arnold Schwartzenegger (Austria) and but Michele Bachman (Switzerland) decided keeping her Swiss passport wasn't a good idea when she was running for president.

Clearly, it's a very emotional issue for people whether they are for it or against it.  Anyone perceived as leaving 'their group' whether it be a business, a religion, or a country may be perceived by some members of the original group to be a traitor.  I suspect that has more to do with the offended person's issues than those of the person leaving.  And, of course, dual citizenship isn't actually leaving. 

Congratulations to Jacob. 

What City Has More Than A Dozen Bagpipe Factories?

People are constantly saying they'd like to hear some positive news instead of the constant din of negative stories.  But it also seems most people really read the appalling and shocking stories more than the feel good stories.

Here's a bit of news that came via email from a friend.  It's a bit unexpected.  The city of Sialkot, Pakistan is one of the world's biggest exporters of bagpipes.  From CNN:

Sialkot is located in north-east Pakistan, some 125 kilometers from the capital Lahore. Legend has it that the city started making bagpipes during the British Raj, when a Scottish businessman came to town and set up a factory.
More than a century later Sialkot is one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of bagpipes, with more than a dozen bagpipe factories, both big and small. 

The video shows a different side of Pakistan than we normally see.




It seems they also make vintage footballs and basketballs, new soccer balls, musical instruments, and  and even replica US Civil War uniforms. 

"The United States government has never acknowledged any error in detaining Mr. Boumediene, though a federal judge ordered his release, for lack of evidence, in 2008."

IT was James, a thickset American interrogator nicknamed “the Elephant,” who first told Lakhdar Boumediene that investigators were certain of his innocence, that two years of questioning had shown he was no terrorist, but that it did not matter, Mr. Boumediene says.

The interrogations would continue through what ended up being seven years, three months, three weeks and four days at the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. . .  [SCOTT SAYARE, NY Times May 26, 2012]

The United States claims to be a different kind of country.  A democracy that values freedom.  Our government was angry when three young American hikers were arrested in Iran after having crossed the border.  They were arrested in Iran, and it wouldn't be completely irrational for the Iranian government to wonder if they had had any contact with the CIA before entering Iran.  Our government demanded their release.   Boumediene was arrested far from US shores - in Sarajevo where he worked with orphans for the Green Crescent, the Islamic equivalent of the Red Cross.

Our moral high ground has been obliterated by Bush's reaction to 9/11 and the conversion of Guantanamo Bay into a 'terrorist' torture camp.  Despite campaign promises Obama has not closed Guantanamo.

American citizens are responsible for this, because we are a democracy.  We are the Board of Directors, so to speak.  And while in the private sector, such directors have found ways to avoid responsibility for their companies' misdeeds, that moral responsibility does lie squarely on them, and in this case, on us.

I've tried to pick out parts of the story that point to all the times he was declared innocent or that there was no evidence.  The rest of his story you can read in the article.  

The United States government has never acknowledged any error in detaining Mr. Boumediene, though a federal judge ordered his release, for lack of evidence, in 2008. The government did not appeal, a Defense Department spokesman noted, though he declined to answer further questions about Mr. Boumediene’s case. A State Department representative declined to discuss the case as well, except to point to a Justice Department statement announcing Mr. Boumediene’s transfer to France, in 2009. 

President George W. Bush hailed his arrest in a State of the Union address on Jan. 29, 2002.

A human being's life isn't worth anything if he can be used by a politician as a symbol of his prowess.  How many times does this have to happen before we (more than the skeptical 20 or 30%) challenge presidents who do this?  

In time, those accusations disappeared, Mr. Boumediene says, replaced by questions about his work with Muslim aid groups and suggestions that those groups financed Islamic terrorism. According to a classified detainee assessment from April 2008, published by WikiLeaks, investigators believed that he was a member of Al Qaeda and the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria. Those charges, too, later vanished. 

In a landmark case that bears Mr. Boumediene’s name, the Supreme Court in 2008 affirmed the right of Guantánamo detainees to challenge their imprisonment in court.

[T]he government’s sole claim was that Mr. Boumediene had intended to travel to Afghanistan to take up arms against the United States. A federal judge rejected that charge as unsubstantiated, noting that it had come from a single unnamed informer. 

The terms of his release have not been made public or revealed even to him.

If this article is accurate, Boumediene wasn't given an apology nor even told the terms of his release.  He's living in France, but without a passport.

Mr. Boumediene, as an American, I am ashamed at how you were treated and I offer you my sincerest apologies.   I know that isn't much, but it's something.  I understand when law enforcement, at any level, arrest someone because they have some evidence of criminal involvement.  But when they know they've made a mistake, there should be an apology, and in egregious cases like this one, some sort of compensation and assistance.  (The article says that he's getting a monthly stipend but he does not know from whom.  I'd like to think the US government is giving it, but I know that's probably wishful thinking.)

And if anyone reading this has a problem with my apology, I'd just ask how you would react if an Iranian apologized just like this to the three American hikers his country imprisoned. 

And to my American readers, we all have a responsibility for getting the US back on the right track.  If you aren't registered to vote, do it this week.  If you are, get ten others to register.  We also need to let Obama know that we aren't pleased with some of the policies that he has continued from the Bush administration.  I understand he's not dealing with a friendly Congress, but let's let him know that we want him to stand up strong for what he believes.  The majority of the American people don't need to agree with you 100%, Mr. President, they just need to know that your core values are good and that you stand firmly behind them. 

Life Without Government Intervention: Kowloon's Walled City Photos

Ron Paul's supporters have scored a victory in Maine and at the recent Alaska Republican Party convention.  Many of them cite Ayn Rand as their inspiration.  The least government possible sounds good, but here's an example of what it can look like.  

 I spent the 1989-1990 school year teaching at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.  One of the places that always fascinated me in a strange macabre way was the walled city of Kowloon.  When you landed in the Kai Tak airport, it seemed like the wingtips were almost touching the buildings and you could see people through the windows.  Here's a shot from an old photo album where I put two pictures together (pre-photoshop) showing not only the outside facade of the walled city but also a plane coming in for a landing.  I never ventured inside the city.  The stories were of crime and triads (criminal gangs) and worse.  Police, it was said, never ventured inside.  It was a city within a city.  But it was right next to the airport and in the center of town.  And we would go nearby because the best Thai restaurants in Hong Kong - with amazing mango and sticky rice  - were very close to the walled city.

But Canadian photographer Greg Girard and Ian Lamboth did go inside, for five years, learning about it and taking pictures.  This Mailonline article offers some of his photos and some narrative about this city in a city.   Definitely worth a look for people to understand that humans are incredibly adaptable.   The pictures are MUCH better than my old fading snapshot. 

In the highly government controlled Hong Kong, the walled city was an example of life without government.  It was a haven for food processors and all sorts of people who wanted to escape government regulations. 


From the article:  

The area was made up of 300 interconnected high-rise buildings, built without the contributions of a single architect and ungoverned by Hong Kong's health and safety regulations

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2139914/A-rare-insight-Kowloon-Walled-City.html#ixzz1uD4A7ZXl

Both Kai Tak airport and the walled city are now gone.  Today, instead of landing in downtown Kowloon (the mainland side across the harbor from Hong Kong Island), you land out of town on another island in a modern airport and take the train into town.  Thanks J1 for the link.

Blogging Rewards - Connecting With Far Away Reader With a Post

Recent Email:

Hello,

I found your email address on your blog... and I found your blog because I've been searching bird song in Thailand for about two hours and I narrowed my search to trying to order Tony Ball's CD from a company in Holland that won't accept my Thai address and my French bank info... who could blame them. Somewhere in the Tony Ball google search your blog was quoted because you bought volumes one and two -- as it turns out, after actually going out with him as a guide!

I just want volume 1... and it feels like it SHOULD be easy to get since I'm IN Thailand!

I am NOT a birder. . . [She provided some personal information - an American living in Thailand who'd lived in Europe.]

You can't help but notice the birds here -- and I have seen at least one magnificent one that I can't find a picture of on line. But what is driving me crazy is that I am surrounded by their calls all morning and all evening but I can never find the one that's making a distinctive sound -- so I can't match sight and sound.

I don't want to study ALL birds -- I just want to know who's in my neighborhood... and I want to do that by sound.

That seemed simple until I started googling this morning!

Can you please help by sending me contact info for Tony Ball?

(When I go to his site, all that kind of info is in Thai!)

Thanks in advance,

EM

Google makes it possible for EM living in Chiang Mai, Thailand to find me in Anchorage, Alaska to help her get in touch with Tony Ball, back in Chiang Mai.  So I contacted Tony and emailed her back with his email address and a link I made to a post about ten common birds in Chiang Mai. It also let me revisit our wonderful Saturday morning birding with Tony Ball.
I got a second email:  

Greater Racket-Tailed Drongo

Oh I am so SO excited! There he is! Yes, of course Tony Ball is exciting too, but I mean "my" magnificent and heretofore nameless bird is number 2 on your blog list! A Racket-Tailed Drongo! 

And that fat one with the rust-colored wings is a Greater Coucal?

My computer (like me) is old and slow and can't download the latest Flash whatever, so I can't see your video... but because I had the names now, I could go to youtube, and there I found the sound I've been looking for! 

There must be a very large and very lonely Asian Male Koel in the neighborhood because you can hear that mating call on all three "soys".

I love that most of my "mysteries" are already solved AND that I am now able to consult the bird expert directly!

I can't thank you enough!

God willing and the creek don't rise I will be able to "book" Tony for a walk around my neighborhood -- I'll be sure to send you a report on that!

I'll send a separate email to Tony Ball -- I'm really looking forward to meeting him!

Best regards,

Just got an email cc from Tony that she's going to come by and get her CD and they'll plan a birding walk in her neighborhood.   And I love the drongos with those long tails with the feathers at the end.  You can hear them and the koel on the video here.  And it took forever to get that picture of the drongo flying.  Living on the 5th floor surrounded by tree tops helped. 

Pakistani Official Tends Sikh Shoes and Toilets To Atone Muslim Killing Of Sikh

Here's the beginning of the story, you can get the whole thing here.

Image of Golden Temple Amritsar

HASAN ABDAL: Thousands of Indian pilgrims barely registered the man in the orange bandanna and Ray-Ban sunglasses taking their shoes and storing them in wooden cubbyholes before they entered the Sikh shrine in Hasan Abdal.

The unassuming 62-year-old tending to the shoes is a top government lawyer and devout Muslim. At the shrine, he is on an unusual solo quest—taking on menial jobs to atone for the beheading of a Sikh by militants.

Over the past two years, Muhammed Khurshid Khan has traveled to Sikh shrines in Pakistan and India, volunteering to polish shoes, clean bathrooms, cook meals and do other chores. Such service is known as “seva”—selfless service—in Sikhism, and it holds a special place in the faith.

Attacks against Sikhs, Christians and Hindus have spiked in Pakistan in recent years as the Taliban and their allies gained strength. Atrocities by extremists against religious minorities now are so common that they rarely illicit more than routine condemnation by officials, much less collective contrition or shame.

In helping Sikhs, Khan is reaching out to an extremely small minority.
“I have a desire to serve the Sikh community because my community has done them serious harm, and that hurts me,” said Khan, taking a break from his work at the Gurdwara Panja Sahib.

Khan, one of two dozen deputy attorney generals in Pakistan, began his mission in 2010 after militants kidnapped three Sikhs returning from Afghanistan to their homes in Pakistan. The militants demanded some$240 thousand dollars—an amount the families could not afford. Two of the captives were freed in a commando raid, but 30-year-old Jaspal Singh had already been beheaded.

“That news pierced my heart,” said Khan. “How could Muslims do such harm to such a peaceful community?”

 The rest of the story is here.  

This comes from Dawn.com through a friend.  I can't find any other coverage of this, but Wikipedia says:

Dawn is Pakistan's oldest and most widely read English-language newspaper. One of the country's two largest English-language dailies, it is the flagship of the Dawn Group of Newspapers, published by Pakistan Herald Publications, which also owns the Herald, a magazine, the evening paper The Star and Spider, an information technology magazine.

Can Saudi Arabia Rescue Australia's Feral Camels?

I'm  on page 221 of Tim Winton's Dirt Music.  I have about 180 pages to read before tomorrow night's book club meeting.  So I can't write too much now.  This 2001 novel has been growing on me, but let me focus on just one tiny tangent. 

Georgie is having a recurring dream about Mrs. Jubail.  Just brief mentions until we finally get more explanation.  Much of the book comes to us this way - sort of like life comes to us - in brief snatches that don't make much sense at first until it moves from our subconcious to our conscious minds.  We'd also heard that Georgie had worked in Saudi Arabia.  And on page 141 things come together as we learn that in Saudi Arabia she was a nurse and took care of Mrs. Jubail who had a terminal illness.  At one point,

"She asked was it true the Arabs imported camels from [Australia].  Georgie told her of the wild herds in the north that were the legacy of the Afghan traders." 

I took this picture in India, not Australia

Is it true, I wondered.  Well, it sounds basically true, but the Afghans seem to have been camel handlers. 

Southaustraliahistory  tells us:

Without the Afghans much of the development of the outback would have been very difficult if not impossible. Whole communities, towns, mining establishments, pastoral properties and some well known explorations in the interior have been made successful because of their contributions.

With their camels, who received more publicity than their owners, these cameleers opened up the outback, helped with the construction of the Overland Telegraph Line and Railways, erected fences, acted as guides for several major expeditions, and supplied almost every inland mine or station with its goods and services. These 'pilots of the desert' made a vital contribution to Australia.

The Afghans came first in 1838 and the first camels in 1840 as we learn from camelaustralia:

The first camel in Australia was imported from the Canary Islands in 1840 by Horrock. The next major group of 24 camels came out in 1860 for the ill-fated Bourke and Wills expedition. The first time the explorer Giles used camels he travelled 220 miles in 8 days without giving water to the camels. He later went from Bunbury Downs to Queen Victoria Springs (WA), a distance of 325 miles in 17 days and gave one bucket of water to each camel after the twelfth day. . .

An estimated 10,000 to 12,000 camels, imported into Australia between 1860 and 1907, were used as draft and riding animals by people pioneering the dry interior.

Now it's estimated Australia has about 1 million feral camels and in 2010 the country proposed to spend about $19 million (US$19.80 = Aus $19) to cull the wild camels.  But Saudis have come to the rescue:

The Saudi campaign, which calls on the country's rich to airlift the camels to the safety of the Saudi desert, comes after the Australian government announced it would kill 6,000 camels in the Northern Territory next week using marksmen firing from helicopters. [The fact sheet quoted below puts the number at 650,000.]

The animals are viewed as a pest in Australia, but they are revered in the desert nation of Saudi Arabia.

 It's not clear what happened. There were several references to this in January 2010, I couldn't find any later news whether anything happened.  But over a year later, we learn that an Australian entrepreneur is taking on the government's culling plan and wants to turn the camels into a lucrative business.  Arabian Business reports March 30, 2011:

A Queensland businessman plans to take on the Australian government in a bid to redirect a multimillion-dollar camel cull into a plan to exporting camel produce to the Gulf.
Outback entrepreneur Paddy McHugh hopes to persuade Australia to capitalise on its wild camel population to create a lucrative business, selling milk and camels into the Gulf region.
“We want to turn it around from a negative and produce an industry for Australia to export meat and milk to the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait. It’s got huge potential,” he told Arabian Business. . .

The feral animals are often labelled a nuisance, competing with cattle and sheep for food and crushing vegetation. In the Middle East, however, the desert animals are an integral part of life, used for food, drink and racing.
“The potential is huge and I just find it absurd that we want to shoot these animals,” McHugh said. “It’s a waste of phenomenal proportions. We believe there is an industry there that will compliment the Australian cattle and sheep industry and make another great export industry.”
Interest in camel produce is growing due to its reported health benefits. Advocates claim the milk contains up to five times more vitamin C than cow milk, less fat and less lactose while its meat is said to be low in cholesterol and high in protein.

The impact of camels on the environment, particularly during droughts, is apparently significant according to the Australian Department of Sustainability, Envornment, Water, Population and Community  fact sheet (updated March 2012):

In central Australia, serious and widespread negative impacts on vegetation have been recorded where camels occur at densities of more than two animals/km², though damage to highly palatable species occurs at much lower densities. In more arid country near Lake Eyre, significant negative impacts on vegetation have been recorded where camels occur at densities of more than one animals/km². Camels already occur at localised densities more than two animals/km² over much of their current range.
The impact of feral camels on native plants and drinkable water is most pronounced during drought, when areas close to remote waterholes become refuges that are critical to the survival of a range of native animals and plants. Feral camels can quickly degrade these areas during a drought to the point where they may no longer provide any refuge for native plants and animals, perhaps leading to the local extinction of these species. The Action Plan for Australian Marsupials and Monotremes recommends that feral camel numbers be reduced at specific areas to help protect the habitat of threatened animals such as the ampurta (Dasycercus hillieri).
Many water places are sacred sites to Aboriginal people, so the negative impacts of camels on waterholes, rockholes, soaks and springs can be culturally significant. Recent periods of drought have resulted in feral camels entering remote communities in search of water, and extensively damaging water infrastructure such as laundries, bathrooms, bores, taps and tanks.

There are tidbits like this throughout the book.  Just passing comments where I say, "I need to look this up."  I'm sure I'll write more on this book. 

Oil And Gas will "weaken your society in the long run unless they’re used to build schools and a culture of lifelong learning."

It's better to have nothing than to have oil according to a Tom Friedman article sent me by a friend the other day. 

Friedman writes: 

I always tell my friends in Taiwan: “You’re the luckiest people in the world. How did you get so lucky? You have no oil, no iron ore, no forests, no diamonds, no gold, just a few small deposits of coal and natural gas — and because of that you developed the habits and culture of honing your people’s skills, which turns out to be the most valuable and only truly renewable resource in the world today. How did you get so lucky?”

And later he adds this:

As the Bible notes, added Schleicher, “Moses arduously led the Jews for 40 years through the desert — just to bring them to the only country in the Middle East that had no oil. But Moses may have gotten it right, after all. Today, Israel has one of the most innovative economies, and its population enjoys a standard of living most of the oil-rich countries in the region are not able to offer.”

 
Most Alaskans probably wouldn't agree with this, but then most Alaskans arrived after oil was discovered and came, in part at least, because of the benefits of oil - jobs (not that many oil jobs and many who have them commute to Alaska, but the oil revenues pay for lots of State and non-profit jobs, and the oil companies and employees spend money in Alaska);  Permanent Fund Checks;  no state income or sales taxes; etc.

So, why does Friedman make this outrageous claim?

A team from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or O.E.C.D., has just come out with a fascinating little study mapping the correlation between performance on the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, exam — which every two years tests math, science and reading comprehension skills of 15-year-olds in 65 countries — and the total earnings on natural resources as a percentage of G.D.P. for each participating country. In short, how well do your high school kids do on math compared with how much oil you pump or how many diamonds you dig? 

The results indicated that there was a “a significant negative relationship between the money countries extract from national resources and the knowledge and skills of their high school population,” said Andreas Schleicher, who oversees the PISA exams for the O.E.C.D. “This is a global pattern that holds across 65 countries that took part in the latest PISA assessment.” Oil and PISA don’t mix. (See the data map at: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/43/9/49881940.pdf.)

 What are some of the recent oil rich, PISA poor countries he lists?

Qatar	Kazakhstan	Saudi Arabia
Oman	Kuwait	Algeria
Iran	Bahrain	Syria

And the oil poor, PISA rich countries?

Singapore	Finland	South Korea
Hong Kong		Japan

Alaskans, are we doomed?  Not necessarily. 

Canada, Australia and Norway, also countries with high levels of natural resources, still score well on PISA, in large part, argues Schleicher, because all three countries have established deliberate policies of saving and investing these resource rents, and not just consuming them.

We have oil savings, though not nearly as much as Norway.  And while we may spend a lot per child, we have education challenges and I'd say the way we spend our education dollars is often ineffective.

The closing sentences caught my attention too:

In sum, says Schleicher, “knowledge and skills have become the global currency of 21st-century economies, but there is no central bank that prints this currency. Everyone has to decide on their own how much they will print.” Sure, it’s great to have oil, gas and diamonds; they can buy jobs. But they’ll weaken your society in the long run unless they’re used to build schools and a culture of lifelong learning. “The thing that will keep you moving forward,” says Schleicher, is always “what you bring to the table yourself.”

Now, they've paired oil and PISA scores, but that doesn't mean there's a cause and effect relationship.  There are other factors that could be at play.  The high PISA countries are all democracies and the low PISA countries range from absolute monarchies to democratic facade.  

But, the poorer education in resource rich undeveloped countries is not a new observation.  Johann Galtung, in probably the best article I read as a grad student and since, A Structural Theory of Imperialism, foretold this consequence.  The country that had its resources exploited would do worse than the country that exploited it, even if the exploiter were paying a fair price for the resource.  The reason?  The one that explains Friedman's point. 

The exploiting country has to work at a higher level of processing - it has to have the industrial, intellectual, economic, and educational infrastructures - to do the planning, exploring, financing, and processing of the resource.  It's forced to do these things.  The resource country gets its payment without having to do anything except allow the exploiter access to the resource.  It isn't forced to invest in these sorts of infrastructures.  And so it generally doesn't. 

The Galtung article, in my opinion, is brilliant in how it succinctly outlines a model of imperialist interactions which explained much of the world in the late 1960s when it came out.  It can also be used to find ways to break the relationship.  For example, he mapped out the strategy of resource producing countries to band together to demand a fair price for their resources which was precisely what OPEC eventually did.  It can also be used to explain so many of the interactions in the world.  Even though the world has shifted since he wrote it,  the model is so all-encompassing that it is still useful.  But it is very dense - in the sense that it is packed with content and requires are very careful reading.  The article is not for the intellectually timid. 

North Korea's Kim Jong-il Dead

From Thai Visa:

PYONGYANG (BNO NEWS) -- The Supreme Leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-il, died of physical fatigue on early Saturday morning, state-run media announced on Monday afternoon. He was 69 or 70 years old.

The state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim died at around 8.30 a.m. local time on Saturday. It said he died of physical fatigue during a train ride, but gave no other details.

UPDATE 9:10pm - from Reuters:

By David Chance

SEOUL | Mon Dec 19, 2011 12:45am EST

(Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong-il died of a heart attack while on a train trip, state media reported on Monday, sparking immediate concern over who is in control of the reclusive state and its nuclear program.
A tearful television announcer dressed in black said the 69-year old had died on Saturday of physical and mental over-work on his way to give "field guidance."
Kim Jong-un, Kim Jong-il's youngest son, is seen as the leader-in-waiting after he was appointed to senior political and military posts in 2010.
North Korea's official KCNA news agency said the elder Kim died at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday (6:30 p.m. EST on Friday) after "an advanced acute myocardial infarction, complicated with a serious heart shock." Kim had suffered a stroke in 2008, but had appeared to have recovered from that ailment. . . [continue here]

From Wikipedia:

Soviet records show that Kim Jong-il was born in the village of Vyatskoye, near Khabarovsk, in 1941, where his father, Kim Il-sung, commanded the 1st Battalion of the Soviet 88th Brigade, made up of Chinese and Korean exiles. Kim Jong-il's mother, Kim Jong-suk, was Kim Il-sung's first wife. Kim Jong-il's official biography states that he was born in a secret military camp on Baekdu Mountain in Japanese Korea on 16 February 1942. Official biographers claim that his birth at Baekdu Mountain was foretold by a swallow, and heralded by the appearance of a double rainbow over the mountain and a new star in the heavens. In 1945, Kim was three or four years old (depending on his birth year) when World War II ended and Korea regained independence from Japan. His father returned to Pyongyang that September, and in late November Kim returned to Korea via a Soviet ship, landing at Sonbong (선봉군, also Unggi). The family moved into a former Japanese officer's mansion in Pyongyang, with a garden and pool. Kim Jong-il's brother, "Shura" Kim (the first Kim Jong-il, but known by his Russian nickname), drowned there in 1948. Unconfirmed reports suggest that five-year-old Kim Jong-il might have caused the accident. In 1949, his mother died in childbirth. Unconfirmed reports suggest that his mother might have been shot and left to bleed to death.. . [More here.]

And the New York Times weighs in with a lengthy piece.

Meanwhile, in Pakistan . . .

If you listened to the foreign policy debate of the Republican candidates, you might want to read something with real meat.  The source article is by, according to the blurb in the Asian Times, Indian career diplomat Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar whose assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.

The heart of the matter is that the Pakistani citadel has pulled back the bridges leading to it from across the surrounding crocodile-infested moat. This hunkering down is going to be Obama's key problem. Pakistan is boycotting the Bonn Conference II on December 2. This hunkering down should worry the US more than any Pakistani military response to the NATO strike.

The US would know from the Iranian experience that it has no answer for the sort of strategic defiance that an unfriendly nation resolute in its will to resist can put up against an 'enemy' it genuinely considers 'satanic'.

The Pakistani military leadership is traditionally cautious and it is not going to give a military response to the US's provocation. (Indeed, the Taliban are always there to keep bleeding the US and NATO troops.)

This is an Indian talking about US-Pakistani relations. Someone in a position to know a lot more about this sort of thing than most Americans, including most members of Congress and presidential candidates. He's also someone with skin in the game.  It does provide a lot of information to use to help assess other information (or lack of information) you read on this topic.  In discussing the Pakistani response to the NATO air raid which killed 28 Pakistani forces, Bhadrakumar writes:

Exactly what happened in the fateful night of Friday - whether the NATO blundered into a mindless retaliatory (or pre-emptive) act or ventured into a calculated act of high provocation - will remain a mystery. Maybe it is no more important to know, since blood has been drawn and innocence lost, which now becomes the central point.

At any rate, the DDC [Pakistan's Defence Committee of the Cabinet] simply proceeded on the basis that this was a calculated air strike - and by no means an accidental occurrence. Again, the DDC statement implies that in the Pakistan military's estimation, the NATO attack emanated from a US decision. Pakistan lodged a strong protest at the NATO Headquarters in Brussels but that was more for purpose of 'record', while the "operative" part is directed at Washington.

The GHQ in Rawalpindi would have made the assessment within hours of the Salala incident that the US is directly culpable. The GHQ obviously advised the DDC accordingly and recommended the range of measures Pakistan should take by way of what Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani publicly called an "effective response."

The DDC took the following decisions: a) to close NATO's transit routes through Pakistani territory with immediate effect; b) to ask the US to vacate Shamsi airbase within 15 days; c) to "revisit and undertake a complete review" of all "programs, activities and cooperative arrangements" with US, NATO and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), including in "diplomatic, political and intelligence" areas; d) to announce shortly a whole range of further measures apropos Pakistan's future cooperation with US, NATO and ISAF.  [Read it all in the Asian Times.]

It makes me think of the advice Vaclav Havel gives in Power of the Powerless. I wrote about it earlier in the context of TSA.  Here it fits in the relation of one nation to another.  Of course, it's a form of civil disobedience as well.  Just say no.   Those who have power say everyone should fight like they do.  That's because they have all the weapons in that sort of battle.  But disobedience is the main  tool of those without power.  There is immense power in simply refusing to cooperate.  Ask the Occupiers.  Ask the Republicans in Congress. 

Thanks to my friend who alerted me to this article.

First Play, Then Eat - The Vegetable Orchestra

Watch them make and the play their instruments.  They don't show them later eating them unfortunately.  Local foods people - certainly a vegie orchestra should perform at your farmers' markets! A more recent video shows them recording their album - Onionoise.

And on the vegetable orchestra website I found that eating is, indeed, part of the concert experience:

A concert of the Vegetable Orchestra appeals to all the senses. As an encore at the end of the concert and the video performance, the audience is offered fresh vegetable soup.

But I have to mention that hundreds of millions of people (actually more than three times the population of the USA)  around the world are going to bed hungry, even starving. Such orchestras can only exist where there is plenty of food.

La Casa de las Conchas - Manhattan Shorts in Salamanca

Tomás sent me this picture of "the house of the shells" in Salamanca, Spain where he's going to see the Manhattan Short Film Festival Wednesday.  He's a  serious film buff as well as a wickedly good artist/cartoonist.  His blog is listed on the right - Waldo Walkiria.  He's also put up a new website. 

This an idea of a world wide film festival, where everyone sees the same ten films at the same time around the world, along with internet technology, means that Tomás and I will be able to discuss these films even though I live in Alaska and he lives in Spain. I'm interested in finding out which film he votes for as the best and what he thinks about them all.

If anyone else has a photo of your local Manhattan Short Film Festival venue - send it in and let me know which films you liked.

The website doesn't show the different cities well.  When you find the country - or state - the cities are listed on the top.  The brochure we got shows some Alaska locations and dates.  The website shows venues but not dates.  So here are the Alaska ones:

• Matsu folks - it says Strange Bird (venue) online and in the brochure in Palmer on  October 1 and 2 
• Petersburg  is on the brochure for September 29 and online  at the Arts Council at 12 Nordic Drive at 7pm.
• Juneau isn't in the brochure, but online it says it's at the Gold Town Theater Sept. 29, Oct. 1 and 2. 
• Talkeetna and Anchorage - it's already over in these places.  

Then let's chat here about which films you liked and why.

Ten Films - Two Hours - One Week - Around the World - Manhattan Short Film Festival

The films have been narrowed down to ten.  From Peru, Canada, Hungary, Scotland, Australia, USA (2), Egypt, Sweden, and Switzerland.  The shortest one was 8 minutes, the longest 18, but most were right around 10 or 11 minutes.

We were at this Festival in 2008.  My blog post shows that tickets then were $10.  They were only $7.50 this time.   At the first one I was madly writing notes in the dark on a piece of paper so I could remember all I'd seen.  This time there was a fancy program and each film had a whole page. 

The audience gets a card with all the films listed and you can only select one.  They are all tallied and the winner will be announced October 2 on the Film Festival website. 
Each was a story.  These were pretty straightforward story telling.  They were all very good as stories.

They are played around the world in a one week period.  Actually, it looks like a little longer.  From the list in the program, it appears tonight was the first night in any venue. 

Tomás, they are playing in Salamanca Oct. 1 and 2 at Auditorio de la Hospederia del Colegio Fonseca!

Jay and Gene, they'll be in London.

Ropi, even though there's a Hungarian film among the ten finalists, there are no showings in Hungary.  I'm guessing the closest place to see them is in Vienna or Krakow.

Anchorage folks, they're at Out North Saturday at 7pm and Sunday at 4pm.
Palmer folks, you get them next weekend, October 1 and 2.
I just noticed Talkeetna (Sept. 24) and Petersburg (Sept. 29) have showings.

The rest of you can check locations around the world where you can watch these ten films and help chose the winner.  There are lots of venues in Russia and even one in Beijing.

These were good films.  Selecting one as the best is both hard and probably unfair.  The finalists were all good stories.  No artsy stuff in this festival - all very straightforward narratives.

The festival founder, Nicholas Mason introduced, on screen, the show.  Each director also introduced his or her film.  It was unfortunate that they had a beer commercial at the beginning and before the intermission.  I understand the funding isn't easy.  I hope they gave a lot of money to be able to add their own commercial. 

Dogs played significant roles in I Love Luci and in David and Goliath, both of which I liked a lot.  The relationship between Marjory and Tommy is truly sweet.   Perhaps David was so powerful for me is because I know people like David - the real David at the end of the movie.  I didn't see how the title of David and Goliath fit - in the original, they don't become friends in the end.

I found the first film, Incident by a Bank, compelling film making - the film makers recreated a bank robbery they originally witnessed and filmed with a cell phone.  DIK was easily the most fun yet it had a good lesson about communication and assumptions.  And Sexting was a tour de force for Julia Styles - talking pretty much the whole ten minutes full face into the camera. 

There were only two that I were easy to eliminate from consideration when picking 'the best.'   Mak and A Doctor's Job both were in the competition for my vote too.

These are good films.  Different from run-of-the-mill Hollywood stuff.  They show 10 films selected from over 500 submitted from 48 countries. 

There was also a spectacular fabric show at Out North.  I'm going to find out more - but the lace was incredible.  Here's a preview from Beverly Bronner.  The card said Bobbin Lace (Binche Belgium) 120 Cotton.

This isn't normally something I'm into, but when you see anything that is really high quality, it's worth paying attention to.  All the lace was exquisite as were the other fabric creations - scarves, jackets, and other items.  If you are interested in this sort of thing, it is well worth a stop at Out North kittycorner from Costco on Debarr.

After the Default, Do the Chinese Get to Buy NASA?

And how about rich European, Middle Eastern, Asian, and South African hunters putting in an offer to buy the federal lands in Alaska for a private hunting reserve?  Or maybe the oil companies can buy instead of lease the federal oil reserves?



A game of chicken is going on in Congress, but how many of us understand what is really happening and really at stake?  I've been reading online for hours trying to make a list of consequences of a default.

It's not easy.  Financial collapse isn't as visually dramatic as the collapse of the World Trade Center towers.  It happens in slow motion.  And there are lots of different ways it could play out.

I've got lots of notes, but I'm not ready to try to outline what I think is happening.  But I offer a challenge to gain some perspective on our national debt which I found responding to Ropi's comments on an earlier post on the debt limit showdown in Congress.

The CIA has a list of national indebtedness as a percentage of GDP.  I went there to check Ropi's equating the US and Portugal in this area.    Just for the fun of it, can you match the following the rankings and % of GDP from the table to the list of countries below? 

(Smart folks will see that two of the columns are really easy to match.  The third is harder. Those of you who can't understand the table probably should be humble in your opinions about the debt ceiling and solutions for it.)

Rank	Country	% of GDP
1		225.8
9		102.4
19		78.8
34		41.5
37		58.3
45		58.9
65		55.9
113		41.5
116		17.5
123		16.2
132		3.3

HTML Tables

a. USA    b.  China  c.  Germany   d.  Singapore   e.  Iran  
f.  Japan  g.  India   h.  Libya    i.  world   j.   Mexico   k.  Russia


You can check your answers against the CIA chart here.

I think you can see (after checking with the CIA chart) that just looking at the % doesn't tell us what makes a stable economy.  Nor a country we want to emulate.

(And, of course, the CIA numbers can only be estimates.  Countries calculate % of GDP (if they calculate it all) using different criteria and some (many?) don't publish any data, so the CIA has to guess through other means.)

What Bush Couldn't Do in Seven Years, Obama Does in Two - Bin Laden Reported Dead

Just got back from a bike ride and was about to delete my ThaiVisa news feed when I saw the words:

U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to announce on late Sunday evening that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has been killed in Pakistan, nearly 10 years after the devastating attacks of September 11.

The White House confirmed that Obama would hold an unprecedented late-night news conference, but gave no details. All the major news networks in the United States cited sources saying that Bin Laden had been killed.

According to Fox News, Osama bin Laden was killed over a week ago by a U.S. missile in Pakistan. CBS News, NBC News and CNN also said that Bin Laden's body is in possession of the United States.

The cynic in me is wondering how the right, particularly the crazy right, are going to deal with this.  Let's see.  GW made it his mission to find and kill Bin Laden.  The BBC quoted Bush on Dec. 14, 2001:

"We're going to get [Bin Laden] Dead or alive, it doesn't matter to me." 12/14/2001 [32]

But by the time he left office seven years later, he Bin Laden neither captured nor dead.

The Kenyan, Muslim, socialist president (as some on the right like to characterize Barrack Obama) managed to do the deed in a little over two years. 

Nixon's attorney general used to say, "Watch what we do, not what we say."  Good advice then and now.  Bush said.  Obama did.

Clearly this is a huge symbolic event, and symbolism is everything.  But how much actual physical threat was Bin Laden these days?  I don't know.  And how will the symbolism play in the Muslim world?  We'll see.

At least former President GW Bush handled it well:

This momentous achievement marks a victory for America, for people who seek peace around the world, and for all those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001.

World Press Cartoon Awards and Alaska Press Club Honor Blogger Friends**

As I write, a lot of cartoonists and people interested in cartoonists are gathered in Sintra, Portugal for the World Press Cartoon Awards ceremony.   Spanish cartoonist Tomás Serrano is there.*  He hiked the Harding Icefield trail at Exit Glacier last summer and then left a comment on my blog post of that hike.  And so we got together when he came through Anchorage.  He's a really gifted cartoonist and has two children's books and he's up for an award.  I have a link to his website on the right - Waldo Walkiria.  

The World Press Cartoon website says the prizes will be announced today.  And it's already tomorrow in Portugal.  They had too good a time to post the winners on their website. 

Also, last week, after my blogging class, I saw that the Alaska Press Club had its annual conference in the same building at UAA.  I got their schedule and saw they had awards too last week.

Two Alaska cartoonists (and bloggers) - Peter Dunlap-Shohl and Jamie Smith won prizes.  (I like Peter's stuff so much I have links to both his blogs here on the right - Frozen Grin and Off and On:  The Alaska Parkinson's Blog., which won Best Commentary Blog from the Alaska Press Club.   I thought I had Jamie's Ink & Snow linked here but I didn't, so I added it.) 

(Jeanne Devon at Mudflats got second in that category and the Alaska Dispatch's Jamie Woodham's blog The Concerned got third.)





Jamie Smith got best Editorial Cartoon (Large print Small print) for his work at the Fairbanks News Miner.

You can get a pdf with all of the Alaska Press Awards here.


Congratulations to Tomás*, Peter, and Jamie, as well as Jeanne and Scott.

* I know Tomás won something, because he emailed me several weeks ago that he was invited to the award ceremony.  He has to of his cartoons submitted and at the time he didn't know which had won or what it had won.  They're both neat and I'll post them when the word comes in. 


** What's a Friend These Days?
In the age of Facebook, what is a friend?   I was hesitant to put 'friends' in the title.  I would say that a couple of the people named in the post qualify, others I like and/or respect a lot, but I just haven't spent much time with.   Jamie, for instance,  I've only exchanged emails with.  Scott, not even that.   Not exactly friends in the old definition, but probably in the FB sense. 

In case anyone is asking this question: 
Answer:  No, I didn't submit anything to the Alaska Press Club Awards.  I didn't even know they had a category for blogs until I saw the list. 

Have a good weekend!

Why Were We Surprised? Tunisia, Egypt, Libya

Let's see:

The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (Hungarian: 1956-os forradalom) was a spontaneous nationwide revolt against the government of the People's Republic of Hungary and its Soviet-imposed policies, lasting from 23 October until 10 November 1956. . .
The revolt spread quickly across Hungary, and the government fell. Thousands organized into militias, battling the State Security Police (ÁVH) and Soviet troops. Pro-Soviet communists and ÁVH members were often executed or imprisoned, as former prisoners were released and armed. Impromptu councils wrested municipal control from the ruling Hungarian Working People's Party and demanded political changes. The new government formally disbanded the ÁVH, declared its intention to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact and pledged to re-establish free elections. By the end of October, fighting had almost stopped and a sense of normality began to return.
After announcing a willingness to negotiate a withdrawal of Soviet forces, the Politburo changed its mind and moved to crush the revolution. On 4 November, a large Soviet force invaded Budapest and other regions of the country. Hungarian resistance continued until 10 November. Over 2,500 Hungarians and 700 Soviet troops were killed in the conflict, and 200,000 Hungarians fled as refugees.[Wikipedia]

The Prague Spring (Czech: Pražské jaro, Slovak: Pražská jar) was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II. It began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Slovak Alexander Dubček came to power, and continued until 21 August when the Soviet Union and members of its Warsaw Pact allies invaded the country to halt the reforms. [Wikipedia]

The Iranian Revolution (also known as the Islamic Revolution or 1979 Revolution Persian: انقلاب اسلامی, Enghelābe Eslāmi or انقلاب بیست و دو بهمن) refers to events involving the overthrow of Iran's monarchy (Pahlavi dynasty) under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and its replacement with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the revolution.
Demonstrations against the Shah are sometimes said to have begun in January 1978.   However, they actually commenced earlier, in October 1977, developing into a campaign of civil resistance that was partly secular and partly religious. Between August and December 1978 strikes and demonstrations paralyzed the country. The Shah left Iran for exile in mid-January 1979, and in the resulting power vacuum two weeks later Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Tehran to a greeting by several million Iranians. [Wikipedia]

Solidarity was the first non-communist party-controlled trade union in a Warsaw Pact country.  In the 1980s it constituted a broad anti-bureaucratic social movement. The government attempted to destroy the union during the period of martial law in the early 1980s and several years of political repression, but in the end it was forced to start negotiating with the union.
The Round Table Talks between the government and the Solidarity-led opposition led to semi-free elections in 1989. By the end of August a Solidarity-led coalition government was formed and in December 1990 Wałęsa was elected President of Poland. Since then it has become a more traditional, liberal trade union. [Wikipedia]

The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, also known as the Tiananmen Square massacre and the June Fourth Incident (in part to avoid confusion with two prior Tiananmen Square protests), were a series of demonstrations in and near Tiananmen Square in Beijing in the People's Republic of China (PRC) beginning on 15 April 1989. The movement used mainly non-violent methods and can be considered a case of civil resistance. Led mainly by students and intellectuals, the protests occurred in the year that was to see the collapse of a number of communist governments in eastern Europe.The movement lasted seven weeks after Hu's death on 15 April. In early June, the People's Liberation Army moved into the streets of Beijing with troops and tanks and cleared the square with live fire. [Wikipedia]

I'm sure you are getting my drift.   And then the Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet Union dissolved, Romanians got rid of Ceauşescu.   The Ukraine had its Orange Revolution.  Just to name a few. 


Why are we surprised?

Popular demonstrations against dictatorships, whether ultimately successful or not, are not all that uncommon.  We've had a series of  'unimaginable' changes.

So, why are the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions seen as a surprise?

And then, why are we surprised when Libyan rebels get brutally attacked?

A few hypotheses come to mind: 

1.   Our models of power don't handle sudden massive power shifts easily.
2.   Our fear mongers want us to be afraid of Islam, want us to see all Muslims as radical anit-Western fanatics.  And many Americans (and Europeans) are only too glad to oblige them. Fear of outside evil, or foreigners amongst us, unifies a population behind its leaders and stifles opposition.  
3.   Our ignorance of the world outside our borders means we have no clue about what is happening in other countries unless it's an international sporting event.   So we generalize to "the Iranians" or "the Egyptians" rather than recognize all countries have a wide range of political points of view, just as we have. 

These events are unimaginable only to those with less than robust imaginations.

Such change - popular demonstrations against seemingly entrenched powers, some of which succeed* and some of which fail - isn't all that unique.  The right set of conditions have to come together.  Some typical conditions might include:

1. General unrest and unhappiness due to severe long-term restrictions, oppression, and usually widespread corruption in the ruling government.
2. Some event that inflames that unrest and gets people into the streets
3. Effective forms of communication with each other and with the Outside world
4. Some charismatic leaders

Then there's the regime's reaction.  Will they just start shooting or will they show restraint?   I'm not sure what factors play a consistent role.  Perhaps:

1. Support or opposition from outsiders. (Lots of possible combinations and outcomes here.  It could give the rebels courage, restrain the leader, or not.)
2. General cultural norms of the current leaders.  (Does the culture promote dialogue and democratic principles?)
3. Existence of face saving exit strategies for corrupt leaders.  

It's not be easy to predict exactly where and when the next world class revolution  will occur.  Even if we scan the countries with high levels of discontent, knowing when some event will be the catalyst to get people out into the streets is hard.  BUT, we should realize that it is going to happen somewhere and we shouldn't be surprised.

But I guess this calls for some knowledge of history, of other cultures, of world conditions, and a myriad of other things that we don't have time to learn while we keep track of celebrity breakups, what our friends are eating for dinner (as reported every few minutes on Facebook and Twitter),  buy ever bigger televisions and smaller computers.

*'Success' is a relative term. And it maybe be short-lived. Or it may just refer to the overthrow, but may not be a good term to describe the next permanent government.

What Do Peace Corps Volunteers Do? Juneau Returned Volunteers

Some Juneau Returned Peace Corps Volunteers gathered Monday night to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of JFK signing the law that created the Peace Corps.  In these two short videos they tell you what country they served in and what they did.








The first video includes people who went to Ukraine, Thailand, Nepal, Rwanda, and Morocco.












The second video has people who were in Nigeria, Afghanistan, El Salvador, India, Cambodia, Guinnea-Bissau, and Paraguay.

Here's an older post with a few Anchorage and Fairbanks Returned Peace Corps Volunteer pictures and what they've been doing after Peace Corps.

I Have a Friend - Is VK.com Really the Russian Facebook?

I got this email message here at What Do I Know?

whatdoino,

Вадим Блинов has added you as a friend on the website VK.com

You can log in and view your friends` pages using your email and
automatically created password: XXXxxx

VK.com is a website that helps dozens of millions of people find their
old friends, share photos and events and always stay in touch.

To log in, please follow this link:
http://vkontakte.ru/loginxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

You can change your password in Settings.

Attention: If you ignore this invitation, your registration will not be
activated.

Good luck!Best regards,
VK Administration

It turns out VK.com is a Russian version of Facebook.  Here are some comments on a Stream Recorder.com forum in 2009:

I wanted to delete the thread at first, but then realized that it might be useful. Many of my friends really use vkontakte mainly to listen to music. It is absolutely free and they don't have any ads. And you can find almost anything there. Although vkontakte itself doesn't allow to download music, it is pretty easy to download/save HTTP mp3 music streams. You can use many free programs for that or even download such streams with your browser. You can also use Replay Media Catcher that renames and tags songs automatically.

10-13-2009, 08:14 AM

I registered in vkontakte and I like it! I would add that not only music but video could just as easily view and download!

Wikipedia has this article (which they say needs verification):

VKontakte (Russian: ВКонтакте, internationally branded VK) is a Russian social network service popular in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. Because of its design and functionality, VKontakte is often claimed to be a clone of Facebook, accommodating not only a similar concept, but also a comparable business model.^{[citation needed]} However, its incorporation of other features makes it more like YouTube, Pandora, and MySpace rolled into one, with an interface highly reminiscent of Facebook.
As of December 2010^[update], the network has around 102 million users and is the leading site in Europe in terms of user visits, page views, and the amount of data transfers per day. VKontakte is ranked 35 in Alexa's global Top 500 sites and is the third most visited website in Russia.
Since 2007, major Russian companies have been sending job offers via VKontakte. Most of the site's users are university and high school students. However, as the site's popularity increases, more and more people are joining, many of whom are youths of various age groups.
In English, В Контакте or V Kontákte is literally translated as "In Contact", but basically means "In Touch". It can be alternatively translated as "Linked In", which is another mostly business-oriented social network.

There's even an iPhone app:

Chat VK.com

By NOOTEK Co., Ltd.

View More By This Developer Open iTunes to buy and download apps.

The app functionality includes easy access to friends profiles, statuses (online/offline), activities, a simple, fast and powerful messaging system with animated smileys, etc.

App support URL handling + internal browser, cool animated smileys, landscape and portrait orientations, full copy/paste, etc.

App work very easy!
App work very fast!

Now you can receive new messages when app work in background.

Image from iTunes Store

I took it as my blogger responsibility to my readers to check this out, but,

It's clearer and bigger if you double click

using an online translation site, I got this and gave up:

You entered an invalid ID code. Personal identification code must come to the phone as an SMS, if one of your friends sent you an invitation. Personal code: Attention! Send invitations to all the users can not facebook. If you know they do not, you can not register.

The code I got was in Western alphabet, so maybe that was the problem.  Another problem I just noticed was the date of the email which just came today:

Tue, December 15, 2009 4:07 am

What's Happening Outside of Egypt? Sumo Cancelled, 2G Scam, Chinese Gift to Ukraine, and More

While US media are focused on Egypt, what's happening in the rest of the world?  This is just a quick view of online headlines around the world to remind folks that things didn't stop elsewhere.  It's just the media aren't covering them.  Fortunately, the internet makes it easy for us to gather the news ourselves.

I randomly picked countries from different continents and googled "[Country name] news".  Mostly these are the top stories (which in some cases seems to mean the latest) on the page, though I've picked out others near the top if they seemed more interesting. 



Rio Times:

Obama to Visit Brazil in March

By Nestor Bailly, Contributing Reporter
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Early last week it was released that in March, U.S. President Barack Obama will visit Brazil on his first trip to South America. The announcement comes shortly after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s attendance at Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s inauguration, and the trip is widely viewed as a rejuvenation for U.S.-Brazilian relations.

BTW, Brazil is the 5th most populous country in the world with almost 200 million people.



 Radio Netherlands Worldwide:

Dutch Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders strongly opposes Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal’s planned visit to the Palestinian city of Ramallah in the West Bank.

The Freedom Party (PVV), which provides parliamentary support to the Netherlands' right-wing VVD-CDA minority cabinet, regards Jordan as the 'real' Palestinian state. “Its capital is Amman, not Ramallah. So Mr Rosenthal really has no business going there,” Mr Wilders said on Sunday.

Mr Rosenthal begins his tour of the Middle East on Sunday in Amman. In the following days, he will visit Israel and the Palestinian Territories. Ramallah is home to the Palestinian Authority’s headquarters.

On Monday the Dutch foreign minister will first meet Jordan's King Abdullah II and his Jordanian counterpart Nasser Judeh. Mr Wilders says he hopes Mr Rosenthal will raise the issue of a lawsuit brought against him by a Jordanian activist group for allegedly insulting the Prophet Muhammad in his anti-Islam film Fitna.

And this one:

Austrian football star Marc Janko is excited about the prospect of playing Holland in a friendly match in Eindhoven on Wednesday. “I hope to find the net a few times,” the FC Twente hitman told Radio Netherlands Worldwide.
“It’s a special game when you play against the country you choose to live in. To be honest, I know it’s going to be a really difficult game for us. We’re the big underdog and I hope we can compete well against the Netherlands. They’re the vice world champions, so it’s going to be really, really difficult, but I’m looking forward to the game.”

From Romania:

Almost 80 custom officers and workers detained.

04.02.11 | by: Alina Grigoras | in: homenews

They were charged with cigarette smuggling and bribery, the operation including large-scale raids at the border point and addresses of the suspects. Among the people taken into custody there is also a chief-commissar of the Suceava Police.

Seventy-seven border policemen and customs workers were detained at the Siret border crossing point (in the north of the country, at the border with Ukraine) on suspicion of cigarette smuggling and bribery yesterday morning. The officers and prosecutors with the Anti-Corruption Directorate General (DGA) performed parallel searches both at the customs headquarters and at the home addresses of the detained officers and customs workers.

From The Daily Nation in Kenya:

All eyes on Kibaki and Raila as deadline nears

Posted 2 hours ago

All eyes turn to President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga as the one-week window given by House Speaker Kenneth Marende to resolve differences over the nomination of top Judicial, State Law Office and Budget office bosses begins to run out.

On Thursday last week Mr Marende declined to declare unconstitutional President Kibaki’s nominations for Chief Justice, Attorney General, Director of Public Prosecutions and Controller of Budget that have been contested by Mr Odinga. (Read: Speaker holds back, but judge rules list illegal)

...

From Cuba:

Relatives of The Five Appeal for Justice
HAVANA, Cuba (acn) The relatives of the five Cuban antiterrorists unfairly incarcerated in the United States called on all just and honest people from around the world on Thursday to join the struggle for the release of these patriots.
Mothers and wives of these fighters made the call during a meeting with some 300 Latin American youngsters, held at the Julio Antonio Mella International Camp of Caimito municipality, Artemisa province.

Who are The Five you ask?  Here's a bit from Wikipedia:

The Cuban Five, also known as the Miami Five (Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, and René González) are five Cuban intelligence officers convicted in Miami of espionage, conspiracy to commit murder, and other illegal activities in the United States. The Five were in the United States to observe and infiltrate the Cuban-American groups Alpha 66, the F4 Commandos, the Cuban American National Foundation, and Brothers to the Rescue . . .

For their part, Cuba acknowledges that the five men were intelligence agents, but says they were spying on Miami’s Cuban exile community, not the U.S. government. Cuba contends that the men were sent to South Florida in the wake of several terrorist bombings in Havana allegedly masterminded by anti-communist militant Luis Posada Carriles, a former Central Intelligence Agency operative.

Kiev, Ukraine:

Ukraine calls on Russia and United States to continue talks on further reductions of nuclear arsenals

Ukraine calls on the Russian Federation and the United States to continue talks on the further reduction of nuclear armoury, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has said this on the occasion of the coming into force of the Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions between the United States and Russia signed in Prague on April 8, 2010.

Chinese Embassy presents BRDM armed vehicle to Kharkiv region department for crime control

The Embassy of China in Ukraine in consideration of solving a crime, the kidnapping of a Chinese woman, has passed a BRDM light armored vehicle to the department of organized crime control of the Interior Ministry of Ukraine in Kharkiv region, the ministry's press service has reported.

India:

Karunanidhi to sue Swami for linking him to 2G scam

Rejecting charges of his involvement in the 2G spectrum allocation scam, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK chief M Karunanidhi issued a legal notice to Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy, demanding retraction of his 'statement' linking him to the scam within 24 hours.
The DMK patriarch, in his notice to Swamy, dismissed the allegation as "motivated by your personal malice, political rivalry and clamour for cheap publicity."
Karunanidhi's notice issued through counsel P R Raman comes a day after Swamy's plea in a Delhi court for continuance of his private complaint in the case, seeking to claim that it covered a wider canvas of "involvement" of the DMK patriarch.

 If, like me, you have no idea what the 2G scam is, here's what Wikipedia says about it:

The 2G spectrum scam involved officials in the government of India illegally undercharging mobile telephony companies for frequency allocation licenses, which they would use to create 2G subscriptions for cell phones. According to a report submitted by the Comptroller and Auditor General based on money collected from 2G licenses, the loss to the exchequer was 176,379 crore (US$ 38.27 billion). The issuing of the 2G licenses occurred in 2008, but the scam came to public notice when the Indian Income Tax Department investigated political lobbyist Niira Radia and the Supreme Court of India took Subramaniam Swamy's complaints on record

India is the second most populous country in the world with 1.14 billion.


Indonesia:

Religious Related Attack Killing 3 Wounding 5

Posted on Feb 06, 2011

Around one thousand mobsters from Cikeusik village, Pandeglang Regency, Banten Province attack a house belonging to an Ahmadiyya member on Sunday around 10:30 local time.

The attack have caused three Ahmadiyya members died and 5 hospitalized. The mobs also burned one car, push another one off a cliff as well as destroying the house.

The attack was triggered by the exasperation of local resident seeing more and more Ahmadiyya members come to the Umbalan village to settle. The 20 odd policemen who were assigned to secure the area could not do much facing the larger number of mobs.

Mirza Ghulam Ahmad the last Prophet according to Ahmadiyya movement

The Pandeglang Police say that the mob were angry after one of the Ahmadiyya member stabs one of the mobs during a heated argument. This accusation is strongly denied by Mubarik Ahmad a spokesperson for Indonesian Ahmadiyya Congregation.

Alislam has a long page on Ahmadiyya and says:

Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is the leading Islamic organization to categorically reject terrorism in any form. Over a century ago, Ahmad emphatically declared that an aggressive “jihad by the sword” has no place in Islam.

And this one:

Polluters Get Away Free In Indonesia

Posted on Jan 09, 2011

The Indonesian Environmental Group WALHI has urged the Indonesian Government to be firmer and take stronger action against the polluters. The current environmental Law No 32 year 2009 is deemed sufficient however, it’s technical directive No.27/1999 regarding Environmental Impact Analysis Requirement needs to be revised to include heavier sanction against  the offenders.

In 2010 WALHI recorded 75 pollution cases perpetrated by private as well as state owned companies which damaged as much as 65 rivers and 5 coast lines. Out of those pollution cases, only 14 were ever brought to trial.
Palm oil companies are still the biggest polluter with 31 pollution cases which includes rivers silting, followed with coal mining with 19 cases and gold mining with 7 cases. These numbers does not include years of byproduct pollution causes by these activities impacting major rivers.

Indonesia is the 4th most populous country with almost 240 million people.

Japan Times:

Sumo idled over fans' betrayal, long probe

Kyodo News

Japan Sumo Association Chairman Hanaregoma confirmed Sunday that the Spring Grand Sumo Tournament has been canceled due to the match-fixing scandal and that the decision was made because the betrayal of sumo fans was unforgivable.

Hanaregoma said it is impossible to hold the Osaka meet, which would have started March 13, because it would confuse the fans and that he could apologize enough for the scandal.

Police stumbled upon the match-fixing involving 14 people in the sumo world when they found text messages suggesting bouts had been rigged in the course of their investigation last year into sumo players' illicit gambling on baseball.\
Rumors of bout-rigging linked to the underworld have plagued sumo for decades, but nothing has ever been proven.

 So, do you know the 1st and 3rd most populous countries?  They were both mentioned in the news reports above.