marcosolo, 28. Februar 2004 um 17:29:36 MEZ

spiegel online - Gerüchte um Bin-Laden-Verhaftung

Die neue Offensive auf der Jagd nach Osama Bin Laden hat eine Flut neuer Gerüchte hervorgerufen. Während iranische Quellen melden, der Terroristen-Führer sei schon seit langem in Gewahrsam, steht die Ergreifung einer britischen Zeitung zufolge unmittelbar bevor. Die Amerikaner werden nicht müde, zu dementieren. Teheran/Wana - So widersprach das US-Verteidigungsministerium am Samstag auch dem iranischen Medienbericht, wonach Bin Laden bereits gefasst worden sein soll. Die iranische Nachrichtenagentur Irna bezog sich dabei auf eine Meldung des staatlichen Rundfunks, der wiederum eine "sehr verlässliche Quelle" zitierte. Auch Pakistans Außenminister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri sagte, er könne den Inhalt der Meldung nicht bestätigen.

Der Sprecher der US- Armee in Afghanistan, Bryan Hilferty gab sich allerdings zuversichtlich, dass die amerikanisch geführten Koalitionsstreitkräfte den Muslimextremisten auf die Spur zu kommen. Verbesserte Geheimdiensterkenntnisse und zunehmend bessere Taktiken der Bodentruppen könnten dazu beitragen, sagte Hilferty am Samstag vor Journalisten in Kabul. Mit der Zeit hätte die Zahl der Hinweise aus der Bevölkerung zugenommen. Dies sei der Schlüssel im Kampf gegen den Terrorismus. Gleichzeitig bestätigte Hilferty, dass die Militäroffensive an der Grenze zu Pakistan gegen Kämpfer der El Kaida und des gestürzten Taliban-Regimes weitergehe.

Hintergrund der Gerüchte ist die derzeitige Offensive der Terroristenjäger. US-Truppen in Afghanistan und pakistanische Soldaten gehen derzeit in einer abgestimmten Operation gegen al-Qaida-Mitglieder und Angehörige der radikal-islamischen Taliban im Grenzgebiet beider Länder vor. Am Samstag töteten pakistanische Soldaten dabei mindestens elf Menschen beim Beschuss eines Lieferwagens, in dem sie radikale Moslems vermuteten.

Die Soldaten hatten das Auto in der pakistanischen Region Süd-Waziristan beschossen, kurz nachdem eines ihrer Militärlager angegriffen worden sei, sagte ein Militärsprecher. Ein Armeelager sei mit Granaten und ein Kontrollposten von zwei oder drei Autos heraus beschossen worden. Es sei nicht auszuschließen, dass in dem folgenden Kreuzfeuer auch Zivilisten getötet worden seien. Nach Armeeangaben wurden 16 Menschen festgenommen. Ein Geheimdienstvertreter sagte Reuters, erste Ermittlungsergebnisse deuteten darauf hin, dass die Getöteten keine Extremisten seien. Zeugen berichteten, unter den Toten seien fünf Angehörige eines lokalen Stammes und sechs Afghanen.

Vor wenigen Tagen hatte eine britische Zeitung bereits gemeldet, Bin Ladens Versteck in Pakistan sei weiträumig umstellt, seine Festnahme nur eine Frage der Zeit. Der iranische Journalist, der für die Rundfunkmeldung verantwortlich ist, sagte, der Sender habe schon vor einem Jahr die Festnahme Bin Ladens gemeldet. Aus einer neuen Quelle habe er am Freitag die Bestätigung erhalten, dass der al-Qaida-Chef bereits "vor langer Zeit" festgenommen worden sei. "Das kann ein Monat sein, das kann ein Jahr sein, aber er ist festgenommen worden".

Er weigerte sich indes, seinen Informanten zu nennen oder zu sagen, woher dieser über die Festnahme Bin Ladens Bescheid weiß. "Meine Quelle hat es gesagt, und er weiß es", erklärte er lediglich und fügte hinzu, die US-Regierung halte die Information zurück, um zum passenden Zeitpunkt der Kampagne von Präsident George W. Bush für seine Wiederwahl damit einen Schub zu geben. In den USA finden am 2. November Präsidentenwahlen statt.

 

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marcosolo, 27. Februar 2004 um 22:12:58 MEZ

Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae - new Enron, Worldcom or Swissair?

Oversight Past Due

By Molly Ivins, AlterNet February 26, 2004

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have gone and gotten themselves in big trouble. For those of you who do not follow the business pages, I only wish we were talking about pregnant teen-agers. Fannie and Freddie are the two government-sponsored mortgage companies that help most of us buy homes. Trouble is, they've run themselves into big-time debt - they've doubled the amount they owe in just the last five years. When I say big-time, try $2 trillion. And guess who's on the hook if these things go under? Congratulations, taxpayers.

This week, Alan Greenspan, the Great Pooh-Bah of the financial world, opined in his usual Delphic style before the Senate Banking Committee, "To fend off possible future systemic difficulties, which we assess as likely if the expansion continues unabated, preventive actions are required sooner rather than later." The Wall Street Journal helpfully translates this as, "Act quickly." Hard to tell with Greenspan: I yield to the Journal's long experience in Greenspan translation, but it could also mean, "Push the panic button now!"

What we have here is the same thing that happened after the famous S&L deregulation in the 1980s - privatized profit and socialized risk. You may recall that little adventure in deregulation - the universal panacea according to the right - cost the taxpayers half a trillion dollars.

Fannie and Freddie were created by Congress as private companies to encourage home ownership and - in theory, on paper - the taxpayers aren't responsible if they go bust ... but they're literally too big to fail. Unfortunately, the markets have always assumed Fannie and Freddie's debt was guaranteed by the U.S. government. Should they go under and the government not pay, it would be as though the United States government were defaulting on a sort of low-level debt. All that would do is cause financial collapse and chaos and probably worldwide depression, but try not to think about it too long.

On the other hand, the people responsible for all this have already been thinking about it too long. For over a year now, Fannie and Freddie's pickle has been obvious, and the experts on the financial pages have been writing, "Do something," for ages.

The fiscal irresponsibility of this so-called CEO-administration is a source of constant wonder. This potential financial crisis is racing toward us like a tidal wave, gaining strength as it comes. Are they actually going to stand there like Alfred E. Neuman, saying, "What, me worry?"

Of course, the conservatives think the thing to do is privatize the companies, and the liberals think the thing to do is regulate them. I don't see where privatizing gets us any further. Oh, to be sure, in the long run, market discipline would work like a charm, but one reason I'm a Keynesian is the old boy's observation, "In the long run, we'll all be dead." And dead broke, too, if these things default.

Seems to me Fannie and Freddie's mess is the perfect argument for government regulation, and not just of the two giant mortgage companies. These GSE's (gobbledygook for "government-sponsored entities") have been hedging their debt risks through hedge funds, which are in turn almost entirely unregulated. Greenspan warns that Fannie and Freddie's debt could soon be larger than the federal government's. Think about it. Remember what happened when one large hedge fund, Long-Term Capital Management, started to go under? Ooops.

You know, when a bleeding heart liberal like me has to sit around lecturing a Republican administration on fiscal responsibility, we're in a sorry pass. I watch the entire corporate and financial structure of this country running around raising money like crazy for the re-election of George W. Bush, and I am reminded once more that capitalism will destroy itself if you let it.

Congress has already failed in its oversight responsibilities by letting the companies get into this mess. The Center for Responsive Politics reports Fannie and Freddie contributed $6.5 million to federal campaigns in 2002. Fannie has hired 14 lobbying firms, and Freddie 26. They spent $9.7 million on lobbying in the first six months of last year. According to Ralph Nader (always a reliable source in these matters, no matter what his political judgment), "The board of directors on staff of Fannie and Freddie have always been populated by former officials and political activists from both the Republican and Democratic parties who are given huge pay packages."

The Bushies want to put regulation of the GSEs in the Treasury Department and abolish the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, the independent agency whose sole responsibility is monitoring the GSEs. Moving regulation to Treasury would make the GSEs even more political and even more apparently creatures of government. In typical Republican fashion, the small agency now handling the job has been starved for funds.

This is the great Gingrich ploy - don't give a regulatory agency enough money to do its job, and then when things come unstuck, announce that regulation doesn't work.

Molly Ivins is a nationally syndicated columnist.

 

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marcosolo, 25. Februar 2004 um 20:48:23 MEZ

BorowitzReport Archives - BUSH EXPLAINS GAP IN MILITARY RECORD; SAYS HE THOUGHT MISSION WAS ACCOMPLISHED

President Blames Faulty Intel

President Bush came out swinging against his critics today, explaining that he briefly left the National Guard in 1972 because, in his words, "I thought the mission was accomplished."

Charles "Whiffy" Wiffington, a frat brother of Mr. Bush's at the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity at Yale, confirms Mr. Bush's version of events: "George was definitely under the impression that major combat operations in Vietnam were over."

Mr. Wiffington, an avid golfer and former Halliburton executive, told reporters, "I remember him showing up at the DKE frat house in his flight suit saying, 'Mission accomplished.' None of us had any idea what the devil he was talking about."

After two days of what Mr. Wiffington described as "a truly bodacious kegger," Mr. Bush happened to turn on the television and saw a news report indicating that the Vietnam War was very much still underway.

"Yikes!" Mr. Wiffington recalled the President saying. "I better get out of here!"

The President, who then quickly returned to the National Guard, today blamed his decision to leave on "faulty intelligence."

"I was watching 'Monday Night Football' in a bar and someone told me that the Vietnam War was over," Mr. Bush explained. "As it turned out, I guess he was pulling my leg."

Hoping to put a punctuation mark on the controversy, Mr. Bush said, "The important thing is, the Iraqi people are free of the tyranny of Saddam Hussein."

Elsewhere, NASA announced today that the planet Mars may be capable of supporting wildly expensive space missions.

 

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