We knew that despite protestations from the Government that British companies are supporting the regime, as are French and American companies. So it’s no surprise that Chevron and Total are part of a consortium with the junta and that Halliburton was involved in the construction of the gas pipline which was built with forced labour.It seems that the EU arms embargo on Burma has been compromised by India by their selling of European made military helicopters to the junta. Russia, China and Ukraine have also been arming the regime supplying it with everything from small arms to surface-to-air missiles. Israel too is playing a role in keeping the junta armed so that it can slaughter defenceless monks. Israel and Burma have developed a military pact.

All of which perhaps makes it clearer why the West has done little to pressure the Burmese government. Don’t want to interrupt those income streams, after all.

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It’s called the Bhut Jolokia, and measures out at 1 million Scoville heat units, nearly twice as hot as the former champ, the Red Savina habanero.

(For comparison, the lowly jalapeno only manages a puny 5,000-10,000 Scovilles.)

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Craig Murray’s book Murder in Samarkand is now available in the U.S., under the title of Dirty Diplomacy.

Great subtitle:

The Rough-and-Tumble Adventures of a Scotch-Drinking, Skirt-Chasing, Dictator-Busting and Thoroughly Unrepentant Ambassador Stuck on the Frontline of the War Against Terror.

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 The third quarter’s total surpasses 24,000, which is a record. ‘It’s working its way to the Westside,’ an agent says.

The Westside is the pricey part of Los Angeles. Default notices (which precede foreclosures) rose to 72,571 statewide, also a record. That means lots more foreclosures are coming.

[most  of a foreclosure agent's listings] were in the San Fernando Valley and South Los Angeles, but about 10% of her listings are now in a more affluent part of town.

We moved from the San Fernando Valley in January. There were few if any foreclosures then. A recent check on a foreclosure site showed hundreds of current foreclosures in the area we lived in. While the Valley is certainly less affluent than the Westside, home prices there are still at least $500,000.

So what you have is a solidly middle-class area that is getting hammered by the subprime debacle. How much longer until the Valley resembles parts of San Bernardino, which got whacked hard first, with abandoned homes, thickets of For Sale signs, overgrown front yards and swimming pools full of algae?

Real homes. Real people. Dreams and plans shattered. And we’re still just on the leading edge of the mortgage resets that are triggering foreclosures.

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Time: Iran war drumbeat grows louder

“It looks like a slow-motion train wreck,” said Barbara Slavin, author of a new book, Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S. and the Twisted Path to Confrontation. “Neither side is willing to back down and the chances for conflict are growing over the nuclear program and Iran’s support for U.S. adversaries in the Middle East.”

Moon of Alabama suggests that since Iranian supreme leader Khamenei and former president Khatami are now openly criticizing Ahmedinjad, perhaps the Iranian power elite will simply replace him, thus defusing the crisis, at least temporarily.

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